galant Paris vs naughty Paris

Are you galant or rather naughty ?

Paris galant

A romantic Weekend in Paris... too cliché ? I have what you need to make it overwhelming: the best adresses that make Paris a romantic capital. Fits to all budgets and wishes and is perfect for people, who love Paris and want to discover or rediscover the city.

Ah, Paris.... a sleeping beauty ? Crap ! Paris is desobedient, capricious and still able to surprise us... Of course, you may say that this city refuses face-lifts, but it still follows trends .

 

No matter that if you just spend one night in the capital city 

or if you plan to stay there for longer, Parisians as well as foreigners will find in Paris Galant what they look for. This can add spice to a love escapade. A luxurious hotel for a wonderful night, an old house lost in a garden for an intimate evening, secret boutiques offering naughty underwear, melted chocolate or even exquisite butcher shops, why not ? All extravagance is welcome. 

You can trust the author, who is a real specialist when it comes to

unusual, authentic and romantic places all around the world. Thanks to a lot of illustrations, this little book describes skillfully every destination and gives all the information you might need: addresses, phone numbers, websites and prices. Who could not say that this book is simply perfect for lovers of Paris and those, who would like to enjoy Paris in a different way?

The TOP 5 of addresses of this "romantic bible" :

1) Relais Christine. A charming hotel situated in an old house from the 14th Century. 

2) Le Chacha Club. Located in the quarter of Les Halles, the Chacha Club, a restaurant but also smoking room, bar and dancing hall, proposes all kind of atmospheres. This last born of the Parisian nicghtlife, captivates with its tasty food, the dimned light and the neo-baroque decoration.

3) Bar à chocolat Mauboussin. In this boutique at the Champs-Elysées, chocolate is definitely an aphrodisiac. Drink it or crunch it !....

4) Flûte l'Etoile. Located not too far from the Arc de Triomphe, this extraordinary place dedicated to the tasting of champagne offers you the ultimate experience! A New Yorker Concept that has been brought to Paris for lovers of bubbles.

5) Parfumerie Shiseido. A gorgeous parfumery in the middle of the very important gardens of the Palais Royal. This place, not usual and surprising, yet very creative, offers you an absolute heartbreaking olfactory visit.

Paris galant, 192 pages, Editions Fizzi, 20 €

Paris coquin

... Paris, symbol of love and romanticism à la française, finally got its naughty travel book. A small one, but for enticing discoveries, for sexy, erotic and even taboo addresses... I can't wait to hear of such places from you!!!

The Parisian journalists Diana Béraud and Aurélia Hermange make us visit the most exciting places of the capital city. The variety of addresses in this book reaches from spas, offering special massages for the two of two, to partner-swapping clubs, erotic and sex shops as well as transformism.

Each address is rated with a system of pictograms indicating the degree of libertinism... Watch out, these small drawings are important:

1 pepper = for all

2 peppers = watch out, hot hot !

3 piments = specific addresses for informed and experienced people

For instance, a boutique or a bookstore X would have one pepper. A gay nightclub would have two peppers and a partner-swapping place three.

Le petit livre de Paris coquin, 160 pages, Editions First, 2,90 €

Crispy Addresses Paris (1)

Some crispy addresses in.... PARIS (1)

1 restaurant : Sur un arbre perché

Comfortably installed in a cabin or balancing in a seesaw, let's taste this delicately flavoured cooking. Yes, eating with your friends in a cabin is possible in Paris! It is an expensive restaurant, yet not too expensive considering the quality of the food and the fact that it is a concept restaurant.

Here are some examples of what you can drink (drinks from fair trade) :

fruit juices from Brasil, cafés noisette from Mexico, or traditionnal banana-beers from Ghana,...

.... and eat (in french) :

- Panier de légumes bio parfumés à l'essence d'amandes et mêlée d'alpha salades (22 euros)

- Millefeuille de chèvre frais et son croquant à la quinoa, chutney de figue et abricot à la vanille, poivrons grillés et coulés de tomate

- Dos de filet de dorade royale pêché à l'huile d'olive, risetto de vert à la crème de soja et jeunes pousses de roquette au parmesan (21 euros)

It is creative, fraught with intimacy. Experience the atmosphere and cooking as soon as possible.

A detail that is often relevant for a restaurant : the toilets ! In Sur un arbre perché, you can also enjoy the cabin atmosphere in the toilets. I don't say more....

THE PLUS : The cocooning parenthesis with the massage and relaxation espace... ! Before lunch or dinner or independently from a meal.

Sur un arbre Perché

1 rue du 4 Septembre

Underground : Bourse

Reservation for the Restaurant +33 (0)1 42 96 97 01 (it is better to book for the cabins)

Reservation  for the  traditionnal Shiatsu  +33 (0)6 03 32 90 12

1 club : Le divan du monde

Let me introduce you to a highly famous parisian club from the 19th Century. Incontrovertible for musical events and for international videos. It's a place for diffusion, events and creations dedicated to music, dance, theater and cinema. An auditorium at the ground floor and a "divan japonais" (= japanese couch)  upstairs.

Le divan du monde invites artists who want a long-term programmation, who want to encourage proximity with the audience, the development of a career and a total imersion into a world which is, each time, peculiar to the artist. Eclectic, choc and trendy atmosphere. For those who love shows.

Auditorium : from 7 pm to 11 pm

Divan japonais : from 11 pm to 3 am 

75 rue des Martyrs

Underground : Pigalle

1 bar : Zéro de conduite

"THe" must for "adulescents" (french neologism which means : adults who want to stay teenagers). Cocktails - with childish names like Popeye or Bambi - are to be drunk in baby bottles. One can eat candies, watch cartoons on abig screen or play board games. Lollipops or small drinks can be won during the "minute du Trivial poursuit"... for the ones who answer fast. This small bar (not more than 40 people) is the best place to go back to your childhood. One question remains : should we ask our parents for a permission ?

New : baby's bottles are now to take away. You have the right to keep it. If you come back with it, you will only have to pay for the recharges !

During holidays : party "youpi l'école est finie" (= great, school is over)

Fridays and Saturdays evenings : zapping, Les nuls (french group of comic actors who were very  famous in the ninties), etc

Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays: from 8.30 pm to 1.30 am

Fridays, Saturdays : from 6 pm to 2 am

Sudays : from 9 pm  to 1 am

14 rue Jacob 

Underground : Saint-Germain des Prés

1 cinema : le Latina

The Latina,  a cinema specialized in movies from Latin America, has just been reopened : two rooms completely renewed, gallery, small library,...

Once a month : classic movies

Sundays around 6 pm : "catching up" with recent movies which were not shown long enough in Parisian cinemas 

Late Saturdays : cult movies

Once a month : night with a theme, breakfast included ;-)

20 rue du Temple

Underground : Saint-Germain des Prés

http://www.lenouveaulatina.com

1 bookstore : Shakespeare and Co

At the heart of Paris, rive gauche, the bookstore Shakespeare and Company is a must for english literature. All literature enthusiasts will enjoy the place  : classic books, sometimes very old ones (which remind us of the library in Hogwards) but also the most recent publications. To be short : a nice combination between nostalgia and trend... In the middle of the Quartier latin (for centuries center of Paris' creativity and intelligentsia), this library has also a major role in the english-speaking cultural community. It welcomes many writers, organises readings, workshops and other kind of meetings. One is for sure : Shakespeare and Company is not only a bookstore. It is also a library for english-speaking literature. The first floor is reserved for travellers, knows as "tumbleweeds" who can get free accomodation there in return for a few yours of work per day. 

George Whitman is the legendary owner of Shakespeare and Company. Born in Salem, Massachusetts, he made Paris his home sixty years ago. George is a bibliophilia, wants his guests to read one book per day and thinks that he lives in a novel. This 91 years old man has recently retired but he remains the soul of the bookstore.

A real " wonderland for books"

Shakespeare and Company

3 rue de la Bûcherie

75005 Paris

Tel : 01.43.25.40.93

Underground : Maubert-Mutualité

Opening :

Every day from 10 am to 11 pm

1 show : au Palace

After being close for ten years, le Palace reopens with the goal to be what it used to be : a theater. A famous place which has seen the tops of haute couture (YVSL, Lagerfeld, Kenzo, Mugler...) and of show business (among others Andy Warhol)

Crazy, funny and elegant programming which began with Valérie Lemercier...

8 rue du Faubourg Montmartre

Underground : Pigalle

http://www.theatrelepalace.fr

1 exhibition : David LaChapelle, Musée de la Monnaie

Enough with huge adverts, the famous american photographer LaChapelle is now working for "art". The exhibtion makes us discover installations made of car wrecks in cardboard hanged on walls, all kind of paintings, two excited pigs. Stars are never really far away : Paris Hilton watching herself in a mirror, Naomi Campbell lying on a table. The most famous pictures as well as unknown ones are exhibited. Exclusively and for the first time in Europe, the audience will have the chance to discover the last series of 2008 : Présages d’Innocenc. This series is very innovative because the artist pushes the borders of photography away in order to create paintings where the look can go from the 2D to the 3D. 

A retrospective of 200 pieces, the biggest that has ever been organised in France.

Until May, 31st, 2009

10 euros

(cheap rate : 8 euros)

11 quai de Conti

Underground : Pont neuf

1 encompassing cultural place :

Les Trois Baudets.

On February 10th and after nine months of rebuilding, Les Trois Baudets reopened. It used to be a high place for parisian shows. Now it wants to become a new place for musical audacity and discovery. With two bars, a restaurant and cultural initiatives for all, it won't be a simple diffusion place. The concert hall tries to be what it used to be : a hall where a lot of artists debute and a place for "independant" music (compared to the mainstream commercial music) with workshops (how to write songs), conferences, debates, showcases,.... One should know that many french careers have begun there : Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens, Henri Salvador, Juliette Gréco, Boris Vian, Serge Gainsbourg, etc....

Open from tuesdays to sundays 

54 boulevard de Clichy

http://www.lestroisbaudets.com

Love the megalo-metropolises

MEGALO-METROPOLISES, JE VOUS AIME...

  Through writings, screens, paintings, pictures or even dances, big cities have never stopped inspiring and being celebrated. Last work of art : the movie NY, I love you by the same director as for Paris, je t'aime has been released a few days ago in the States and will be released in a few months in Europe.

Paris, je t'aime

--> French trailer with english subtitles

--> International trailer

Paris, je t'aime is a movie starring an ensemble cast of actors from different countries (mainly French, American and English actors). Among the 21 directors who participated in the project, some are famous actors who worked for the first time as a director, like Gérard Depardieu . Most of these dircetors are worldwide renowned : for instance Joel and Ethan Cohen, Alphonso Cuarón, Walter Salles or Gus Van Sant. The movie premiered at the Cannes Festival on May 18th 2006, opening the section Un Certain Regard.

The movie consists of 18 short movies set in one of the 20 arrondissements of Paris. Initially, 20 short movies were planned, one for each arrondissement but two of them (the XVe and the XIe) were not included in the final movie because they could not be properly integrated to it. 

For those who have not seen the movie, here are some short presentations and links to watch an extract on youtube.

° Quais de Seine = IVe arrondissement

A young man, hanging out with two friends who taunt all women who walk by, strikes up a "friendship" with a young Muslim woman.

° Le Marais = IVe arrondissement

A young male customer (Gaspard Ulliel) finds himself attracted to a young printshop worker and tries to explain him that he believes the man to be his soulmate, not realizing that he speaks little French.

° Tuileries = Ier arrondissement

A comic movie in which an American tourist waiting at the Tuileries station becomes involved in the conflict between a young couple in a middle of a fight.

---> end of the Quais de Seine, followed by the whole extract of Le Marais and the beginning of Les Tuileries

° Bastille = XIIe arrondissement

Prepared to leave his marriage for a much younger lover, a man instead decides to stay with his wife after she revealed a terminal illness - and rediscovers the love he once felt for her.

° Tour Eiffel = IVe arrondissement

A boy tells how his parents, both mime artists meet in prison and fall in love.

° Place des fêtes = XIXe arrondissement

A Nigerian man, dying from a stab wound in the Place des fêtesa asks a woman paramedic for a cup of coffee. It is then revealed that he had fallen in love at first sight with her some time previously. By the time she remembers him, and received the coffee, he is dead.

° Faubourg Saint-Honoré = Xe arrondissement

A struggling actress (Natalie Portman) breaks up with a young blind man on the phone which makes him reflect on the growth and seemingly decline of their relationship.

This film appropriately shows the reality of a city as big and multicultural as Paris : from the Muslim "charmante demoiselle" who goes to the mosque with her grandfather to the black immigrant or the blind, we can approach all kinds of parisian people. Reality is crual, life hard but that's what makes these love stories so beautiful and fragile. Which other city than the city of love itself could be a better place for such a movie? Love is veiled, revealed, dryed out, reinvented or weakened. We rediscover the city of Paris and easily succomb to this love declaration to Paris and to this declaration to love in Paris.

New York, I love you

Trailer 

12 short movies, 5 minutes for each for them. They talk about the beginning of a love story in one of the five boroughs of the Big Apple. Once again, very famous directors (for Europe : Yvan Attal and Fathi Akin) but also movie stars make (for instance, Nathalie Portman, Scarlett johansson, hayden Christensen, Orlando Bloom or Isabelle Adjani) have worked for this project.

Rachel Bilson, Hayden Christensen and Orlando Bloom during the filming...

Cities, I love you

CITIES

You can learn everything about a city by watching its people

The speed they move tells you the cities attitude

fast, they run from life

slow, they observe it

the way they greet you

if they greet you

tells you what they think about man kind

friendly, they have hope

intreverted, their hope is lost

Their Height

tall, there's plenty of good food

with diners on each block

small, too many coffee shops

If the city has bridges

its people want to travel

If it has walls

its people want to stay

If the city has art

its people can find beauty in their city

If the city has sky scrappers

its people want to find beauty from their watch towers

The more people a city has

The more opportunity the city has

The more people a city has

The more ideas the city has

The more people a city has

The more history the city has

The more people a city has

The more war the city has

The more war a city has

The less people the city sees

Don't let the People destroy your City

because the City will destroy your People

The more people a city has

The more love the city has

The more love a city has

The more people the city has

The People produce their Cities

The People make their Cities

The People love their Cities

and the Cities produce their people

and the Cities make their people

and the Cities love their people

John Dohoney

Baudelaire and the modern city

Baudelaire knew and understood Paris very well. The poet's life can only be enlightenend by the fact that he lived in this capital city. The modern life he paints shows how deeply he loved the place.

The poet is an experienced witness of the Parisian atmosphere and his Paris is sometimes not so different from the city that Parisians experience today. His writings being forerunner talk about the first symptoms that face the disturbed people living in our "megalo-metropolises". Their anonymous galbes are lost in a consum mass and an empire of money.

Here is the preface of Petits Poèmes en prose, in which he explains why he chose a poetic prose and the link between this way of writing and the megacity.

" For Arsène Houssaye

(...)  I have a little confession to make to you.  It was as I was thumbing through, for at least the twentieth time, Aloysius Bertrand's famousGaspard de la Nuit (doesn't a book that is known to you, me, and some of our friends have the right to be called "famous"?) that I was struck by the idea of trying something analogous, and of applying to the description of modern life, or rather of a modern and more abstract life, the approach he applied to the painting of life in the past, so strangely picturesque.

Who among us has not, in his more ambitious days, dreamed of the miracle of a poetic and musical prose, without rhythm and without rhyme, supple enough and abrupt enough to adapt itself to lyrical movements of the soul, to the undulations of reverie, to sudden leaps of conscience.

 This obsessive idea owes its birth above all else to the frequenting of enormous cities, to the criss-crossing of their innumerable relations.  Did you yourself, my dear friend, not attempt to translate into song the strident patter of the street-seller of glass, and to express in a lyrical prose all of the distressing suggestions that his cry sends up through the street's highest fogs, to the very garrets?  (....)

Your very affectionnate,

C. B."

The following poems are related by a common aesthetic and by the underlying unity of the place. We will soon come back to this subject. A whole article will be written about the "Paris of Baudelaire" and the "Baudelaire from Paris".