Paris 4

"Great," my reader is thinking, "Jeff thinks we want to see photos of french garbage."

Well, not exactly. This is the remnants of an advertising poster scraped off the side of the metro station - an "affiche". To warn people that work is underway, they add "age" to get "affichage" - the word for the process of putting up an "affiche" - stick it on a plastic arm, and block the area around the poster. The entire process seems to be:

1) Arrive via metro with bucket of glue, broom, & new poster.
2) Put up the "Attention Affichage" signs
3) Tear down the old poster
4) Go off and have a coffee, a beer, or a nap
5) Come back sometime before Bastille Day and put up the new poster (like wallpaper).
6) Take down the "Attention Affichage" signs and head to the next station.

One interesting thing about the poster itself: all posters for food (including Coke) must include one of several different warnings:

1) "Eat least 5 fruits and vegetables every day"
2) "Exercise should be incorported into every day's activities."
3) "Reduce the amount of fat, salt, and sugar you eat every day."

That's it for food warnings; the cigarette warnings are more blunt: "Fumer tue" - Smoking kills.
Le Louvre on a sunny morning.Jardin des Tuileries on a rainy day.
FETE DU CINEMA - Juin 24, 25, 26 was "Fete du Cinema" - you pay full price for the first movie, then "only" 2 euros for any other movie you see during those three days. (The only Coke Zero I bought cost 3.20 euros).

I totally wimped out - I only saw one french film. I rationalized that I was not going to have the time to see any movies once I get home.

I saw "Pirates des Caraibes" (some pretty art direction, but in general, pretty vacuous), "Oceans 13" (Loved it!), "Boulevard de la Mort" (Tarantino's "Death Proof" - LOVED IT!), plus the British film "London to Brighton" (12 year-old runaway skips town with a hooker when her first trick goes very, very wrong) and the french film "Chasons d'Amour" (sweet film about the stages of love told with the actors singing french songs throughout).

The Odeon area of St. Germain was terrific for movies; something like 8 different theaters with 4 (ish) screens each. In each, there is a problem with managing crowds; there isn't enough room to wait before the theater is ready, so you queue up outside. And it's difficult to prevent people from leaving one screening room for the restroom and going to the next session of another film; one theater solved that by having toilettes in each individual screening room. The door by which we entered was blocked by an employee and you exit by a different door directly into the street.

The movies had an advertised starting time, with the note that the movie actually started 20 minutes later. You were supposed to go on time, and then watch 20 minutes of previews and advertisements.

The big theaters had snack guy roaming the aisles with a tray of goodies for sale.

One ad was for the theater "Comedie Francaise - chaque soir depuis 1680". Performances every evening since 1680. Wow.

I saw the American and British films in version originale - original sound with subtitles. Some of the french translations were amusingly...efficient. In "London to Brighton", the bad guy shut someone up by saying something like "shut your fat, slobbering gob you twat". The subtitle was "Arrete"...stop.

LEARNING FRENCH - I've had a hard time with my french - I get about 75% of everything, which is usually enough with movies, but not with text messages. I met the friend of a friend who gave me his mobile number so we could meet for coffee to practice french.

I sent him a text on Sunday and his response was basically "I woke up this morning with a guy in my bed, so that's what I'll be doing today. Happy Sunday." I responded with a salution that I thought began with "Ah, the Parisian life", but apparently I used the wrong number of e's and said something like "Ah, the life of a little girl in Paris". He responded that he was not a "bitch" and to try french with someone else.

Ah, the Parisian life.

OVERHEARD - A group of youngish Americans walking down the street with a bottle of wine. "What year is that shit?"

SEEN - Knowing that L would take exception to my saying so, I told him about seeing a group of 4 14 year-olds in a park, handing around a bottle of wine. "So? Did something about that offend you?" he asks, thinking that I'm objecting to underage drinking. "YES! It was bad wine..."

SOMETHING IN COMMON - The french word "dechirer" - to tear up - can also be used to describe the state of intoxication. I went to a house-cooling** party last Saturday where they served only champagne ... I got a little bit "dechirer".

**The term for house-warming is "pendaison de crémaillère", literally "to hang the cooking pot hook in the fireplace". House-cooling is the opposite - "dependaison de crémaillère."