Building for the Renaissance
Until the pandemic, I never associated the word "hope" with the word "construction." But my wanderings around Paris show that people are investing money and time in businesses that are not even allowed to operate now. It's a sign they believe this will all end before...
The Bouquinistes of Paris Talk Their Book
Paris’s riverside booksellers have had to be tough to make it through the 500+ years they’ve been in business. Kings censored or outlawed them multiple times and wars shut them down. They’ve always come back to set up their green-metal stalls along the Seine. The...
At a Snail’s Pace
Originally published in The American Scholar On the evening of March 6, 2020, French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, went to the theater. They saw a performance of Par le Bout du Nez, By the Tip of the Nose, about a French president who has an itch...
The Void at the Eiffel Tower
This month marks what would be, in normal times, the start of the Paris tourist season. The British half-term, the American spring vacation, the German winter break, all happen close to now. Chinese and Japanese tour groups arrive too, as the weather warms and the sun...
Is Paris Half-Full or Half-Empty?
The question of whether Paris is still alive isn’t just a philosophical issue, even in a country that cherishes les philosophes. For almost a year, the most central and touristic parts of the of the city have been largely devoid of people, driven away by lockdowns,...
How My Father Deconstructed Paris
My dad loved everything about Paris, but he especially enjoyed its residents’ daily struggle to get from one place to another. With his little camera – what kind? So many things I wish I’d asked him – and its telephoto function, he’d focus on cyclists, or...
Three Strikes for the French Government
For months, I bragged to my friends in the U.S. that France’s COVID vaccination program would be rapid, efficient and well-run, in keeping with its national health system. Silly me. The vaccination rollout here has been nothing short of a disaster. It’s replete with...
A Christmas Tree Grows in Paris
Dedicated to Harold Roland Swardson, who loved France and all things French. This story starts with clueless expats, but it doesn’t end there. When we moved to France in 1996, we brought all our household effects, including a Christmas-tree stand. It wasn’t exactly...
The Other Other Paris
“Any Paris of the future that is neither a frozen artifact nor an inhabited holding company will perforce involve fear, dirt, sloth, ruin and accident.” -- Luc Sante, "The Other Paris" When we moved to the 17th arrondissement in 2012, a friend who lived in our new...
My Paris Thanksgivings
For one of our first Thanksgivings in Paris, we invited a few French friends over for dinner. We made a few mistakes. One was to assume everyone knew what it was all about. One friend arrived with several bags filled with beautiful presents for the children. When we...