New Year's Resolutions? More Champagne and Chocolate!

If there is anything I wish for you this New Years,

it is more decadence, more travel, more champagne and chocolate!

Life is too short...

...to not have it all!

On this last day of 2010,

do me the honor of letting me thank every single one of you

for your companionship, your ideas,

your passion, your creativity.

I am grateful beyond words to each and every one for being here.

I have come to love your presence, look forward to your visits, feel lost without your words

and am constantly amazed at the feeling of friendship I feel

toward loved ones I have never met.

As we support one another,

know that I adore you.

And wish you every

happiness

in 2011!

As my French teenage niecelette would say:

<3 <3 <3

Notre Dame Noel~ Missing Paris Day

(Photographs copyright: Kirsten Steen)

 

Someday I'd like to go to Midnight Mass at Notre Dame on Christmas.

I've been told it's spectacular.

The family we normally spend it with,

when in Paris for the holidays,

lives about three hours outside of Paris.

And we've never been inclined to give up that time with them

for anything.

 

I love how Paris dresses herself up pretty during the holidays,

making herself even more inviting.

While I love the holidays, I'm finding myself happy to have them behind us again this year.

I can feel the collective sigh of relief from adults and parents.

Time for quiet family dinners...

 and New Year's Resolutions!

Got any?

'S a Wonderful Life~ Merry Christmas!

Found this old postcard from 1908

sent from one of my ancestors to another.

I love hunting amongst the scrapbook for treasure

picking through photos and postcards looking for clues as to who they were.

I'm on their trail but they don't make it easy!

Wishing you a verry Merry Christmas

to you and yours!

Lunar Eclipse on Winter Solstice

Anyone see the glorious morning lunar eclipse?
I missed it.
Woke up at 3am and it was over.
Moon was gorgeous though!
But if you caught it,
I hope it was spectacular in your area.

Happy Winter Solstice!

(Postcard via The Graphics Fairy)

'That' Time Again in Paris~ Missing Paris Day

I love that time in Paris when all the boulangerie windows

are stacked with the wickedly delicious,

almond-paste filled

Galette des Rois.

Means it's Christmas

as well as marking Epiphany

on January 6th.

I think they are made to be so delicious,

all filled with their decadent frangipane,

so that when you take a bite

an epiphany reminds you, 

 how good life is!

Happy Christmas Week!  

Epiphanies to all!

'Paris: The Luminous Years'' on PBS tonight

As if to answer the question in my last post, a documentary on Paris and its artists (between the years 1905 and 1930) makes its nationwide premiere tonight at 9pm on PBS. The 2-hour documentary, 'Paris: The Luminous Years- Toward the Making of the Modern' by Perry Miller Adato (who has won awards for her documentaries and includes the likes of  Dyland Thomas, Mary Cassatt and Georgia O'Keeffe to mention a few) includes archival footage as well as interviews and never-before-seen photos of the artists and writers of the time. It explores the artists and their relationships as well as how these relationships affected their lives and work.

The film includes words from a stellar line-up of modern art celebrities such as Jean Cocteau, Aaron Copland, Marcel Duchamp, Sylvia Beach, Marc Chagall, Stravinsky and others.

"It's the period from 1905 to 1930 when everybody, almost nearly everyone -- it's just amazing -- who did anything that was important in the arts, in nearly all the arts, was in Paris," explains filmmaker Perry Miller Adato. "Sometimes only for a couple of weeks, sometimes for a couple of months, others for their whole lifetime, but it didn't matter because no matter how short or long it was, it changed their work, and it changed their life."

Tune in tonight for a look at how our favorite city became the inspirational meeting point for the creative minds and souls who inspired each other and then nearly a century of future artists.




(Quote from Monique Marcil's article more of which you can read here.)

Writing Cafe in Paris~ Missing Paris Day

(Photographs copyright: Kirsten Steen)

My last trip to Paris

I think I told you that I spent one particular day writing

in several cafes, churches and the infamous Shakespeare and Co.

trying purposefully to fit them all into one day.

One of the cafes was Le Champ de Mars

just across the park of the same name

which separates the 15th and the 7th arrondissement

and houses the monument-iful Tour Eiffel.

I have yet to walk through this park without being able to take my eyes off the tower. Funny that something so despised by the French in the beginning should become such a national symbol. Like the Golden Gate Bridge and Big Ben, anyone who sees this symbol in a photo or tv clip knows instantly where they are.

The tree-lined alleys are typically hopping with joggers,

le sport of jogging having 'stuck' in France.

On this particular day, I ordered myself a lait chaud

and set about filling longhand pages in my notebook...





...taking notes on the interior of the cafe...

...the people...

...and, as they were preparing for lunch,

the powerful French aromas emanating from the kitchen.

A friend of ours goes to Paris nearly every summer for two months

to study painting under a Montmartre artiste.

I've made a couple of requests regarding certain scenes in the neighborhood

and I think Cafe Le Champ de Mars might make the perfect subject matter!

Paris definitely has that je ne sais quoi

that attracts artistes of every ilk.

What is it, do you think, that inspires such devotion to artistry in this city?

Winter in Paris~Missing Paris Day

(Photograph copyright: Kirsten Steen)

One of the things I have started again,

particularly good for when I am missing Paris or anticipating going,

is to listen to French radio.

This helps me to pick up on French words I have missed, lost

or that need refreshing.

The most trouble I have with the language is hearing it

so this helps to quicken my auditory comprehension

(such as it is).

If you care to join me,

go to

France Culture,

click on the red button on your right

that says "Ecoutez le Direct"

and try to pick out the words you understand.

You can also read the headlines

(with French dictionary handy, of course)

and pick up a few new words that way.

If I close my eyes, I can smell le cafe at my small red table,

taste le pain from my bread basket

and hear the conversation between the couple sitting next to me.

A bientot!

(look it up!)

Top Ten Books of 2010

According to the New York Times Sunday Book Review, Jonathan Franzen's book Freedom heads the year's ten best books. Followed by:

The New Yorker Stories by Ann Beattie

Room by Emma Donoghue

Selected Stories by William Trevor

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet by Jennifer Homans

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Finishing The Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) With Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes by Stephen Sondheim

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson.

What about you? What were your favorite books of the year?