Katherine Pancol- Les Yeux Jaunes des Crocodiles

The following passage on page 162 rings home - it is me.  If you can't read French ask your editor to translate this book, it's number one of a trilogy and will soon be a film with Julie and Gerard Depardieu.

Whoever does buy it and translate it will cash in, awesome read, great story that takes you away.  Pancol writes about those universal values that make stories unilateral and she is funny.  This passage isn't there to make you laugh, but bang...

Seul l'homme qui coïncide avec lui-même, avec sa trouvé intérieure, est un homme libre.  Il sait qui s'est, il trouve plaisir à exploiter de qu'il est, il ne s'ennuie jamais. Le bonheur qu'il éprouve à vivre en bonne compagnie avec lui-même le rende presque euphorique.

Rue Daguerre Saturday morning

It's Autum, grapes and the first clementine arrive.

 Oysters and

figs and berries abound.

Lobsters aren't cheap, this is Paris.

These must have been from yesterday, cooked, cut and stuffed.

Cèpes and girolle from France?  Maybe.

An espresso in the long shadows.

One of those big crabs

A Saint Piérre?

You know daguerrotype?  One of the first photographic processes?  Yes that derives from the name of Monsieur Louis Daguerre, he was an artist.  I wonder if someone told him he was crazy, don't do that, it's a bad idea, I wonder what he would have answered. Fuck off? Now there is even a Daguerreian Society.

  What would he think if he knew the Parisians would dedicate a street to him and it just turned into one of the best markets in town.

This fish doesn't look to appetizing with his exploded tongue.

Camembert yes.  Miam miam.

Sailboat on the Seine

Look at those locks maddened lovers clip onto these repoussé sculptures.  They probably toss the key in the river and vow passion, heart-splintering, gut-wrenching love. Until death do them part.  Fuck that! Look at that sailboat, how the hell did it get there?

Crazy. Walking across the Pont Alexander to get to the Palais de la Decouverte for an outing with my four year old to push buttons and watch electric fish do their gigs, we saw this two treed sailboat hanging out between the low stone bridges on the Seine.  How did that get there?  Only barges can float under those arches.

oysters and champagne

It's lunch time. A regular saturday lunch after the market. 

the oysters and crustaceans are from the rue Daguerre market.

Our neighbor brought the bubbles.

Noah Lukeman

Today I began Noah Lukeman’s The Plot Thickens.  It has been on my bookshelf for almost a year while I’ve read other books on writing craft.  His book The First Five Pages was the first that I read and had to put down to absorb when I came to the chapter on poetry.  

I needed to find some poetry in English but then life got in the way and a bad writing teacher turned me off to writing all together.  I’m happy I set down the manuscript I’m writing because, after six months when I read the first ninety pages I’d drafted, I realized it was worth continuing.   

Lukeman’s books on craft are gushing wells of information that every writer should keep, consult and peek through.  The Plot Thickens is nothing like I imagined it would be, its full of questions, it is an inquisition.  I needed this book as I know my characters were flat.  Do I really know my characters?  After starting The Plot Thickens, I can say no, I don’t. 

Thanks, Noah Lukeman

How to Become a Parisian

Last night I went for the second time to see Olivier Giraud perform his one man show: How to Become Parisian in One Hour.  Its fucking racist and vulgar, terribly politically incorrect and the audience loves it. Loves his abuse.

The first time I saw it was two years ago, when ticket prices were ten Euro.  It was the last show of the season.  He looked tired but was more passionate, perhaps it was because of the last showing or maybe it was that gorgeous singer that preceded his performance.  Maybe, he's done it too long, without renewing the jokes or maybe he was conscious  of the cameraman.

It is amazing, though, when you leave the theatre and everything he says comes true, from la geule de le garçon to the guy that tries to sell you flowers while you try to attract a waiter's attention.

He says he's going to go on tour.  But where?  If he went to the states and told those racist "jokes" he'd probably get shot walking out of the theatre.

Sacré Bleu by Cristopher Moore

Russ on Mouffetard (l'heuere bleue series)

Oil on canvas - Brooksby 2012

Chirstopher Moore, you did not kill art.  I should know, a painter living in Paris, who specializes on the Parisian Heure Bleue.  I loved your characters, those all to angelic inpressionists whose images are abused by pop culture.  I’ll never use my blues (ultramarine, cobalt, Prussian and cerulean) again without thinking of that bonking muse.