La Coquette

The sickest, me

Yesterday I woke up with a sore throat.  Today it is worse and I am assisting tomorrow on a photo shoot that is outdoors.   I am sitting here with a scarf on and the heater.  It is a measly 50 degrees out!  I am Everything That is Wrong With Americans Today!  (And also, a candyass.)

But this is good, I was in the Wall Street Journal Europe this week in an article about travel/expat blogs. 

Marie Antoinette, The Verdict

No beheading.  No limb from limb tearing.  Except at Cannes, where the film actually got booed.  Ah well, I still loved it. 

Gentry and I arrived half an hour early for the 4:30 pm showing at Forum des Halles yesterday and ended up getting the last good seats in the house. 

As we waited in line, we tried to spot who were Royalists and who were Coppolists.   Gentry was wearing her satin covered Marie Antoinette slippers and jacket with Chantilly lace cuffs and I wore no mascara and my hair was a little pouffy (by accident).  So it was very like seeing the Rocky Horror Picture Show in drag. 

I’m going to start with the bad:  Kirsten mopes and sighs and runs down hallways suffocating in angst, and you just don’t care.  Not caring about Marie Antoinette is bad. 

And it didn’t have to be that way.  Sofia Coppola is the queen of young women’s private moments.  See:  the entire film Lost in Translation.  Woman waking up, woman in bathtub with her daydreams, woman just after she has said goodbye to her husband, woman looking longingly out window.  But.  Eh.  We just don’t feel it here.

And I don’t think it can be blamed on Kirsten.  I think it’s the script.

*Ducking*

The good!  The good!  The eye candy, my god.  The adolescent trippy hues, the party scenes, and the score.  Gentry confirmed that all of the costumes were historically accurate (she was kind of hoping it would be more 2006 stylized and spark some new trends) and there was a delightfully high pug quotient.  There was also a great supporting cast.  Molly Shannon and that woman from Bridget Jones were brilliant as gossipy aunts.  And I loooved the slutty, but good-friend-to-Marie, Duchesse de Polignac.  Especially when she visits Marie at Le Petit Trianon and says, “Ooooh, I lahve the country!”

I personally was a huge fan of the cameos by obscure French fashion people.  There were moments in big party scenes where I just turned to Gentry and said, “That's!” and she answered, “Yeah!”

And the beginning of the film is just terrific.  There's a scene where Marie Antoinette is riding from Austria to France to meet her husband and we see the Dauphin playing swords in the crispy fall leaves with his friends and everyone’s all nervous.  The anticipation is sweet and touching and the opening scenes just rock.   

The main complaint I’m hearing in France?  The film is too American.  I really don’t get that.  Are all movies made by Americans too American?  Is Schindler’s List too American?  I think the people who are saying it’s too American just mean that they would have preferred a film about history more than a young woman’s private life.  If that’s the case, you have to blame Sophia Coppola, not America.

And if you’re blaming Sofia Coppola, you can just pack up and leave, just leave right now!

Ha!  Ha!  I kid!

(No but seriously, if you don’t like Sofia Coppola, you aybemay ontday antway to aysay it erehay.  Psst.  Come closer, closer.  The Sofia Lovers will get you in your sleep and tear you limb from limb.)

La la la!  So!

(No, but seriously, they will get you.  You are in grave danger if you don’t leave right now.)

After the film, I had apéro with lovely young Annabel, who has this theory: if you wait for something long enough, you’re going to like it.

I love this because it totally flies against conventional wisdom to not set your expectations too high. 

I also think it’s true.  For me, no amount of bad dialogue could spoil the way Sofia Coppola films light filtering through trees.  Or carriages trotting by at sunrise.  The way she observes these things, quietly, from afar with no music, and you can just sort of smell dewy grass. 

Bits and bobs

My camera is broken so you’re just going to have to take my word for it, the Jardin du Luxembourg is the most beautiful place on Earth right now. 

*****

I have signed up for Meetic.  It’s strange to be online dating for the first time on foreign soil.  But I have to show you a gem that made me feel better:  It’s a forum (from a few years ago) where French expats talk about dating in New York. 

Après 10 ans d'étude de ce #$ de mot de "date" j'en suis arrivé à la conclusion suivante:
- Date est un verbe et un nom.
- Il n'est pas forcement un préliminaire à une relationship. 
- To Date: "L'acte d'être dans (de vouloir) une relationship elle même"
To go on a date: "Rencard"
Maintenant, on ne peut pas dire à son partenaire:
"I would like to date you"
"Let's go on a date"
(Généralement la réponse est: "I am not looking for a relationship")
Mais après fixe un RDV on peut dire: "It's a date then"

*****

Aren’t windy spring/fall days the best?  Instead of tucking down into my scarf like in winter, I lift my chin to the wind and squint.  Like a Golden Retriever.

*****

I was blog of the semaine this week at Paname Ensemble.  There is a short Q and A with me. 

Avec-culottes

I saw Salmon Rushdie at the gym!

No, no.  I kid.  But that would be awesome. 

Gentry has threatened a boycott if I don’t update my “diary” right this minute. 

I responded that a Gentry-run boycott would probably be pretty interesting as she’d surely invoke some ironic Revolutionary theme--Avec-Culottes perhaps.  (Gentry could school a professor on the finer points of French history).  The way I imagine it, everyone in Gentry’s boycott would be wearing cashmere underpants. 

We will be seeing Marie Antoinette together Wednesday.  She emails:

I hope they show the part where Les Peuples grab the Princess de Polinac when she's on rue Montorgeuil and tear her limb from limb before taking her severed head to the hair dresser to have it recoiffed so they could put it on a stick and shove it up in front of the window of where they were keeping Marie Antoinette in prison.

Oooh, me too. 

Can we talk about Marie Antoinette?

I haven’t even seen this film and it’s totally consuming my life.  I’ve been downloading from the alleged soundtrack, reading the Antonia Fraser biography (which, truth be told, has been sitting on my bookshelf for two years), and entertaining fantasies of lounging in nothing but white ribboned stockings and a frilly fan in a room the palette of Laduree macaroons. 

I am far, far too susceptible to social cues.

Hedi Slimane Shared Air With Me in the Produce Department Last Night at Monoprix

Once upon a time, there was a designer named Hedi Slimane.  He designed for a brand called Dior Homme.  In the year 2006, some might have said he was the most famous living menswear designer in the world.  He was the man whose skinny suits changed the way dandy European men dress today.  He was the man Karl Lagerfeld anointed a genius, the man who designed menswear so enticing, it prompted King Karl to lose the weight of three supermodels, just so he could fit into Dior Homme.   

He was the man whom The New Yorker felt fit to profile, thus telling all the world the secret to Hedi’s famously slender physique.  (Answer?  Baby food.)

Last night, I introduced myself to Hedi Slimane in the grocery store. 

Me: *walking through frozen foods*  La, La, la.

*Hedi Slimane approaches from the wine section.*

Wait.  Is that?  No. Here?  But he sure looks....

A second later, he was close enough to where I could have plucked a hair from his monk man bowl cut and I was sure: I WAS PROXIMATE TO HEDI FUCKING SLIMANE. 

How did I know it was Hedi Slimane?  How could I not know?

He walked past me and I turned on my heels, stalking him at five paces away, all....stalker-like, never taking my eyes away from his low slung black jeans and his black Converse Chucks.  Then, he stopped near the fresh herbs!  He picked up some prepacked snap peas!

And I just knew I had to make my move right then, before I lost my shit in Monoprix and began calling people saying, “I am proximate to Hedi Fucking Slimane,” but with each passing minute becoming too candyassed to do anything about it. 

Me:  Excusez-moi?  Vous etes créateur?

Him:  Oui.

He spoke softly.  He didn’t seem bothered.  His eyes were so blue!  He was so tall!

Okay, I have to say that InStyle magazine writers piss me off, always talking about how good looking the celebrity is like there’s ANYTHING interesting about that AT ALL.  But please understand, Hedi is cute.   

And so was his boyfriend with the shopping cart. 

So then I told him that what he does is magnificent.  Magnifique is the cliché French word that you say if you fucking don’t know French.  And pardon my French, but I fucking know a few more words than magnifique for fuck’s sake.  I pressed on although my heart was beating like a gerbil on speed.  He thanked me, calling me mademoiselle.  He was being sincere.  Encouraged, I told him that I interned at a fashion magazine in Paris.  You know, to build up my credentials.

I have shared the same air with stylists!  I’m just like you!

I think he could tell by my pained, I’m Proximate to Hedi Slimane and May Just Lose My Shit look that I wasn’t the chatty, lingering type.  Nor was I the type that would stroke his hand or snip a lock of his hair.  He could risk a little niceness with me, so he very sweetly said it was vraiment gentil of me to say hello and we wished each other good evenings. 

I proceeded to wander the aisles as if on psychedelic drugs, so pumped from those fifteen seconds with Hedi so that I forgot everything I was supposed to buy.  But I didn’t forget to buy chocolate.  Seemed like a good idea at the time. 

Until. 

Hedi got in my zone of proximity a few minutes later as I was paying for my groceries, but it was almost closing time so he had to go to another register.  He didn’t have to be told to go to another register like so many of the people that had come behind me.  No, he saw the flashing red "X" that signifies a closed register and figured it out all on his own. 

God, I owe you big time for that one.  I think it would have taken years off my life if I had had to tell Hedi Fucking Slimane that the line ended at me while he hypothetically would have stood there, taking in the assortment of indiscipline that was my shopping basket, wondering what kind of fan of his buys Pringles?

The man eats baby food, people. 

(Which is, of course, what made meeting him in a grocery store so very delicious.  I'm pretty sure I saw some solids in that cart.)

Mama's favorite little accessory

If you had asked me 24 hours ago if it was possible for a child to wear too much Petit Bateau I would have said no.  But that was before I saw the 8-year-old girl in a striped shirt, striped skirt, and striped knee socks walking down the rue du Rocher with her mother Sunday afternoon.  The only body parts not covered by stripes were her kneecaps and her hands.

What made this worse?  The stripes were all navy blue and white.  If there had been some variation in color, it could have had a sort of happy Scandinavian, Oilily effect.  But no.

How is the mother going to explain that outfit down the road?  “Chérie, I wanted you to look like a prison escapee?"  or "I thought it might be interesting to watch you give people seizures?”

You could just tell that the mom thought the kid looked adorable; this outfit was no accident. 

Striped knee socks.  Some people are sick I tell you. 

It got me contemplating which kiddie fashion crime is more liable to induce nausea, The Petit Bateau Striped Assault or, on the other end of the spectrum, The Baby Mohawk.  I think the mohawks win.  You know, that unpleasant celebrity aftertaste does it every time. 

I think you should too

Expat artists + gorgeous old church as venue + cocktails + Alex = I will so be there

The IVY art show, Springtime in Paris
Thursday, le 4 Mai
47 Bd de l’Hôpital 75013 
Metro: Saint Marcel/Gare d’Austerlitz
18h to 22h

*press release in English, French, and Spanish

I've got you pegged

Something I really like about my father is that he rarely wears the rose-tinted spectacles of the nostalgic immigrant.  (You know, In the old country this would never happen; America is not fit to wipe the poop from France’s shoes, etc.) 

I like to think he is fair and judicious on both countries weaker points.  Able to see where the faults lie.  Never playing favorites.  Like Judge Judy minus the cantankerous shtick.

Maybe this is because I tend to be simpatico with his rulings. 

Which brings me to the day of my parent's arrival. 

The scene:  Their hotel in the 5th arrondissement.  When my mother and I wedged out of the little metal lift onto their floor, exhausted from lugging suitcases, anxious to wash our hands and collapse on the bed, what we saw was not the haven of a clean hotel room.  We saw a naked mattress, garbage littered around the room, dirty ashtrays, and no maid in sight.  Kind of like my apartment if you were to pop by last Sunday morning.

At that moment, my father appeared on the stairs, took one look at the abandoned maid’s trolley and mess of a room and said, “Did the maid go on a protest?"

I giggled under my breath and said, “Welcome to France!”

And then the three of us laughed.  There may have been a snort involved.   

And then we went downstairs to learn that the front desk had given my parents the wrong key.  That wasn’t their room at all. 

All this to say:  Maybe my Dad’s not like Judge Judy.  (And thank goodness.  Lady drives me crazy.)  Maybe my Dad looks at France and America more like two children that he loves equally.  He just happens to see America a little more often.  France is the away at boarding school.  Possibly in England.

It reminds me of something that happened later in the trip, when I was accused of losing a DVD documentary, my sister’s DVD, my sister who was about to return to the US and wanted it.  We ransacked my apartment, my parents tsk-ing at my alleged disorganization.  Even I was sure I’d lost it.  (Look at the chocolate stains on my sweater!  Have you seen what’s under my bed?  It all adds up!)

I promised my sister if the DVD didn’t surface in a week, I’d buy her a new one.  And then it bobbed up the next day.  In my mother’s suitcase, nestled with her dirty socks. 

So there you have it, France.  You, I, and the good people of Court TV know about objectivity issues with family--they know you too damn well.  Fair or not, they’ve got you pegged.

Yours,

The Fourmont Family Member Who Loses Things (even though it was mostly just this phase I had in junior high school).