Sunday | July 06, 2008

DAY FIVE OF MySexLifeInParis

In Paris there are plenty of things going on, plenty of things to do.. it is like adults Disneyland.. if you are not alone and if your priority is not studying French. In this other case you can go back to the Cinematheque and attend to other two round tables: ‘Literature and Cinema’ and ‘Publishing of books in history of the film and history according to the films’. Believe it or not I even understood some of the things that were sad In French and I am willing to share the wealth with you:

- Antonio Tabucchi had his novel Piazza Italia almost finished when he run in a bookstore to the Eisenstein’s ‘Film lessons’ after that he printed his novel and took over the living room and reassembled all the scenes and chapters of his novel according to the Eisenstein’s ideas of movie making.

- Among the French editors the Italian editors were much admired for the pace of their translations and republications of important titles.. until an Italian girl in a room, a translator explained that one of the reasons of the flourishing of their publishing is that the translators are not paid for their work. That was a great piece of information and the present editors agreed that from now on only services of Italian translators will be used.

Florence Delay, a writer, a professor, an actress… she was the most cultured of all, but she spoke so little because: ‘I am not a specialist’. All the other men fighting for the mic just for the love of hearing their voce, and she all tucked in with I am not a specialist though she had plenty to say.
The day before there was an American lady that objected the fact that on a stage they were all men and she got very few applauses for her remark... Probably because the sound of her voice was too emotional and accusatory, but it is truth: on ParisCinema they don’t pay any attention to gender issues.. and that is sad.

Just outside in this beautiful neighborhood there was a fashion show on open air of an African stylist.

And back in the city I went for a coffee. This city loves its coffee shops and that is why it is sort strange to find out that French are not very particular about their coffee, about the taste of it. In fact, you just order coffee with no other specification and you regularly get hot brown water with a little bit spoiled taste. On the other side the Italians really know how to make coffee and are very meticulous about the way their coffee should be
(watch for example this beautiful video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOo36FnSTqQ ) but they drink their coffee in less than 5 seconds and they do it while standing. French don’t stand, in fact the point of these coffee shops is sitting, and sitting as much as you can next to the other charring a very petit table, sometimes a little bit bigger than cup’s plate, but often smaller. So, I suppose it is all for the pleasure of feeling the other. A pleasure that highly depends of the persona of those you get stuck within. Observe my luck.