easy chic: a guide to paris street style

It’s no secret that France - or really Paris – is the center of style. When you visit and walk the streets, there is evidence of it at any age or shape. Well-tied scarves.  An understated, personal look. Sleeveless on women over  60. Great shoes on kids.  Timeless and practical, not trendy.  Natural and easy. Confidence. Today’s French style owes much to the inventions of Coco Chanel (read more about her influence here in a previous post).

So because I consider this style the holy grail of my fashion identity, I’m adding the newly-released  “Paris Street Style: A Guide to Effortless Chic” to the other French guides collecting on my bookshelf on subjects ranging from parenting to eating well.

French fashion writers Isabelle Thomas and Frederique Veysset offer richly illustrated sketches and photos in this fashion guide and promise to ” help you cultivate an everyday style of timeless glamour.”

In addition, the book lists a series of fashion faux pas to avoid (no Converse after age 26, it’s reported, is one. Ouch.) and expert advice on getting your effortless chic style on. I’m there.

hobson-jobson

I’m interested in words. Language is fascinating  – its history, progression and influence. I’m curious how certain words came to be and where they came from. The idea that if Dante Aligheri were alive today, we would have a conversation in his little-changed Tuscan Italian is mind-blowing. I’ve read that the Italian greeting “ciao” comes from the word “schiao” – Venetian dialect shortened for “sono vostro schiavo” or “I am your slave.”  “Salve” – a greeting used frequently in Northern Italy where we lived but unfamiliar to most people outside the region - comes from the latin verb “salvere” or to be in good health.

Then there are informal contractions used out of context or awkwardly. I lie awake at night when my Italian PhD student friend  and European business owner-acquaintance use the English word “wanna” in their written correspondence. I haven’t had the heart to confront them, but my insides knot up  to see an inappropriate use of “want to.”  But, somewhere and somehow Euro-English – the official language of the European Union –  has decided that “wanna” is okay – even in formal correspondence. But I digress.

It’s interesting to hear how words have been borrowed and imitated and transformed by foreigners. When I taught Business English in Italy, I heard “chattare” ( an Italian verb rooted in the English Internet word “chat”), along with “stress”, “weekend”, “computer”, “video”, “blog” and “clic.” I would love to collect these words in some sort of index or glossary.

Which brings me to Hobson-Jobson.

“A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms etymological, historical, geographical and discursive. By Colonel Henry Yule and AC Burnell.”

More than 100  years ago Yule and Burnell collected more than 2,000 entries - with notes –  of Indian words borrowed, used and sometimes changed by the English living there. This legendary dictionary of British India was called the Hobson-Jobson, a scholarly but fun glossary published in 1886 - and lists Anglo-Indian words like shampoo  (from the Indian word “champi or head massage), bungalow, pyjama, curry and bangle. The book also – perhaps indirectly - gives us a historical and social snapshot of the relationship between the two countries. The book can be seen as a memoir, BBC News writes, of colonial India.

For example, the Indian word dam is defined as originating from the damri coin that once existed but now means something is worthless (Damri - Dam – Damn). An exceprt from the Hobson-Jobson text reads:

“Damn  is a common enough expression for the infinitesimal in coin, and one has often heard a Briton in India say : ” No, I  won’t give a dumree!” with but a
vague notion what a damri meant, as in Scotland we have heard, ” I won’t
give a plack” though certainly the speaker could not have stated the
value of that ancient coin.”

Word lovers can get their hands on a new edition of the Hobson-Jobson next year launched as part of the Oxford World Classics Series. You can learn more about it here via BBC which is broadcasting a radio program focusing on the ever loved Hobson-Jobson.

words photo credit: National Institutes of Health NIDCD

bookmarked for fall

As we slide into fall and I pull out my warm socks - not for today but a future and cooler California afternoon -  I’ve got an evergrowing list of books I’m looking forward to diving into.

I just finished “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” by Jamie Ford as part of my book club selection. I couldn’t put it down.

 

A debut novel for this author, it’s a story of friendship and young love between a Chinese boy and Japanese girl and the struggle of family and cultural conflict between generations. The story is set in Seattle and recreates the city’s history during WWII, the part it played in the internment of Japanese Americans and how the internment affected its people, city and jazz scene.  I was so moved by the book that immediately after finishing it, I located the author’s email and dropped him a note about how much I loved the book and how wonderful it would be to see as a movie some day. Jamie Ford emailed me right back thanking me for my message and wrote that he is close to selecting a film option, although there is never guarantee for the actual production. He did say, however, that this weekend he would be in Seattle for the opening of a stage adaptation of the novel, so if any readers live in the area, it’s worth checking out!

Next up….

Jess Walter’s “Beautiful Ruins” has been given excellent reviews by both the NY Times and NPR and many literary blogs I read. The book is described as “constantly surprising” as the reader follows the tangled lives of characters aspiring for love and success. The story bounces seamlessly between past and present across a span of 40 years  - from 1960s Italy to Hollywood,  Edinburgh and Idaho. “A dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel”….It’s caught my attention!

As a sort of follow-up to Adam Gopnik’s ”The Table Comes First” that I recently read, I am looking forward to getting a copy of “La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life”. Written by Elaine Sciolino, a former Paris bureau chief for The New York Times, it explores why seduction (the term used broadly – for a person or a baguette) and pleasure is the heart of French life.

Thanks to ciao domenica blog’s never-to-disappoint book recommendations, I am adding to my already full shelf of Edith Wharton books by including Jennie Field’s “The Age of Desire” on this list. The novel imagines Wharton’s illicit affair at age 45 with young journalist Morton Fullerton. I have been drawn to Wharton’s writing since my early 20s because of her social insight, irony, travels and her escape for expat life.

And, last, I am planning to read this season any travel book about Quebec City and the environs where we will be heading next summer when we visit Eastern Canada. Any suggestions, do share!

la bella lingua

One of the best things about being back in Italy was speaking Italian again. Like riding a bicycle, words we haven’t spoken in years were plucked up from somewhere deep down, and we found ourselves effortlessly communicating again in our adopted language at dinner parties, restaurants and other countless conversations with old friends. My Italian isn’t too sophisticated –  I often take the easy road by constructing  sentences around the easier grammar tenses while my husband is much braver – but it was back. Using the formal Lei without a missed beat. Extending long greetings when you say goodbye to someone. Buon Giorno, salve, ciao, ci vediamo, grazie a lei, arriverderci, a  domani!  Getting in a heated argument- which feels even better in Italian - at the best place for a fight, a ticket booth line at an Italian train station. The Italian language is old, complicated, challenging, and different depending where in Italy you are  - but pays off as the most beautiful, expressive and delightful language to speak.

Confirming my love for the Italian language, I just finished “La Bella Lingua” by Dianne Hales.

“Learning a new language is like growing a new head…You see with new eyes, hear with new ears, speak with a new tongue.” – La Bella Lingua

  Right before our trip, I picked this book up at our local bookstore with the intimate knowledge that it’s always a gamble when choosing a novel from the travel section. But this is the real deal.

Ms. Hales has done her homework (and more). The book is a love story to the Italian language, providing anecdotes through her experiences living and traveling in Italy and pursuits in studying the language. Her über thorough research reveals interesting and little known aspects of Italy’s history, literature and culture, and demonstrates how several key Italians and scholarly groups - past and present – have contributed to helping the language develop and survive.  This book has inspired me to search at the local library for “The Divine Comedy” (or “Divina Commedia”)  by Dante Aligheri,  any film by De Sica, and the opera Madama Butterfly (which I was surprised to learn  opened in 1904 at Milan’s La Scala and bombed, then reopened in Brescia,  where we lived for several years, to then triumph in Paris and around the world!) 

Hales makes the point that while a unified Italy is fairly new, the Italian language  - which has served as  the great unifier – is very old. The 14th century dialect of Florence - the language of Dante Aligheri himself – is little changed and what is taught and spoken in Italy today.  English may be the language everyone needs to know, Hales writes, but Italian is the language people want to learn. With only 60 – 63 million native speakers Italian barely eclipses Urdu, Pakistan’s official language for 19th place as a spoken tongue. Yet Italian ranks fourth among the world’s most studied language. (Only four countries other than Italy recognize Italian as an official language.) The soaring popularity of the language is hardly surprising, she writes, with its exported food, fashion, art, architecture, music and culture … and I’ll add, Italian boyfriends.

For lovers of Italian – those of us who have lived or traveled to Italy and keep going back, who are fascinated with Italy’s history and culture and protagonists, and consider ourselves lifelong students of Italian,  ”La Bella Lingua” shares our passion and provides a new perspective and adventure through the world’s most enchanting language.

Next up: My favorite study Italian abroad schools in Italy

wallpaper for posh bookworms

This week’s The New York Times Style Magazine included something in their must-haves section for the home that is sure to get my nose out of a book.

The Bibliothèque pattern is Hermès’s first wallpaper collection and features images of a library of French equestrian books.

I’m not even sure I should be calling it wallpaper. Wallpaper to me is the yellow, orange and green striped pattern of my childhood bedroom.  But I’m having fun thinking of the ways I could hang it. Over a cabinet or buffet table? On a narrow wall? (Naturally it’s not a substitute for real, breathing books).

“Bibliothèque” comes in four colors. Want to take a peek? Go to the Hermes web site.   (Give the site a chance to load.) Then choose one from a virtual bucket of rolls, drag it to the “wall”  and ”hang” it using a virtual brush. No trimming, smoothing corners or sticky paste required.  Then roll with the possibilities for your home. Price on request.

rereading paris to the moon

Today I attended a university-sponsored lecture by The New Yorker staff writer, author, culture commentator and fellow ex-expat Adam Gopnik. From 1995 – 2000 Gopnik lived in Paris with his wife and son. During his time there, he wrote “Paris to the Moon”. I’ve included  him in past posts about favorite authors and books.

 

Mr. Gopnik gave a talk on food and his latest book, “The Table Comes First: Family, France and the Meaning of Food.” 

The book explores the history, evolution and culture of  food. A packed room of foodies gathered near the UC Davis Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science  to hear Gopnik discuss the book and what factors determine taste, like the relationship between taste and frame of mind and taste and social identity, or rather what he calls mouth versus moral taste (what does the organic carrot I’m buying tell you about me?). He suggests we see the irony and have the ability to laugh at ourselves about our tastes – which he easily does -  while at the same time have the confidence to recognize the pleasure and role it provides in our lives. None other than Ms. Margrit Mondavi provided his introduction. While I appreciate his intellectual curiousity on this subject, it’s taking me a bit to finish ”The Table Comes First” so I will reserve my comments until later.

The real reason I wanted to hear Gopnik speak today is because I so enjoyed “Paris to the Moon” and “Through the Children’s Gate”  about his time living abroad in Paris and his repatriation to New York City.

So prior to attending the lecture, I flipped through my old copy of ”Paris to the Moon” to remember exactly why this book and this author have stuck with me for so long (and why all of you expats, ex-expats and lovers of Paris should read Gopnik if you haven’t yet).

“Paris to the Moon” is written in a series of intelligent personal essays, at times knee-slapping hilarious and other times very tender.  (Not an ”Almost French”, “Bringing Up Bébé”  or “Under the Tuscan Sun”.)  In the book, Gopnik describes his experience living abroad  -  the “New York-style” Parisian gym,  the separateness of the expat family unit , Christmas tree shopping, a father/son baseball bedtime story ritual, and a particularly funny exchange between heavily accented American father (Gopnik “as comic immigrant”) and son’s teacher (“with son shuddering at father’s words and father inadvertently shaming the ‘immigrant child’.”)

My favorite “Paris to the Moon” quotes include:

“There are two kinds of travelers. There is the kind who goes to see what there is to see and sees it, and the kind who has an image in his head and goes out to accomplish it. The first visitor has an easier time, but I think the second visitor sees more.”

“It’s true that you can’t run away from yourself. But we were right: you can run away.”

“Family life is by its nature cocooned, and expatriate family life is doubly so.”

“Barney is Bill Clinton for 3 -year -olds.”

“The loneliness of the expatriate is of an odd and complicated kind, for it is inseparable from the feeling of being free, of having escaped.”

And finally a quote by his wife that I’ve repeated since returning home:

“We had a beautiful existence in Paris, but not a full life,” Martha said, summing it up, “and in New York we have a full life and an unbeautiful existence.”

on my bookshelf

In the past year since I’ve started blogging, I’ve posted about my favorite books that will take you places and provided book suggestions to discover Paris expat life of the 1920s. The latter is one of my most widely read posts, thanks to the 2011 published “The Paris Wife” that has brought Hemingway renewed popularity (well deserved, in my opinion) and what appears by my blog statistics to be a mob of readers with an intense interest in his first “Paris Wife” Hadley.

As I take a breath from my fixation on the Lost Generation, and I reluctantly return to the library the completed biographies  “Hemingway’s Boat” , and several on Gerald and Sara Murphy, I  turn my eyes up to the bookshelf to ponder what will next fancy an expat, ex-expat or version of.

My top three picks are:

The Expats by Chris Pavone

The first time this title appeared in The NY Times Book Review, I thought it was an espionage thriller, which really isn’t my thing and I passed.  But then the title reappeared by email from my sister (“read it!” she wrote).  I noticed it was set in curious Luxembourg ( a place our dear friends lived, so I know it without actually having been there) and is much more about the experience of expat life than I originally thought. In this first novel by Pavone, a husband and wife have the opportunity to move to Luxembourg when husband gets a new job. She, a burned out ex-CIA operative who has left her job, finds herself disoriented, embracing a new identity in a community of expat wives and mothers organizing domestic chores and finding ways to entertain themselves.  The plot turns, when wife becomes suspicious of husband and his new hush-hush job and she begins to investigate him. Expat experiences, a fantastic setting and sprinkles of espionage fiction. And with a name like that, what’s there not to love?

Bringing up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman

Being a mother and having had my first child abroad in Europe, this book about an expat American mom raising her kids in France finds its way easily onto my reading list. I posted recently about this book which outlines differences in parenting she sees between France and the States – particularly those areas she believes parents excel with in France. She’s predictably gotten loads of criticism from all sides, but I’m interested in reading the book because of the cultural differences I, too, experienced when abroad,  not necessarily to find the secret french formula to teach my kids manners or sit at the table through dinner (though I imagine many young mothers will be doing the latter as witnessed by the length of the wait list at the library for this book).

I doubt this author will meet the standard set by Adam  Gopnik’s ”Paris to the Moon” about parenting in Paris that shines with his intellect and New Yorker-style wit as he manages to wrap together brilliantly multiple subjects and observations of life and food and kids in Paris. But I look forward to another opportunity to slip in  – unseen –  to a family room in Paris through this book.

Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner

Another first book for this author and reviewed as “very funny” by the New Yorker, today’s essay in The NY Times Book Review by Gary Sernovitz somewhat convincingly draws comparisons and contrasts between this book and Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises.” While the book apparently makes no mention of this, the essay explores the differences between the inner struggles of the lost generation during the 1920s and the generation of today (you see, I couldn’t stay away from Hemingway for too long.)

In what The NY Times Book Review describes  “a precise, reflective and darkly comic voice” and “a revealing study of what it’s like to be a young American abroad”, the main character, an aimless but intelligent and earnest poet, has bluffed his way to Spain and struggles with the idea to live authentically and capture and represent life truthfully (in foreign and native tongue)  “beyond snapshots of localized events”.  “A book soaked in references to art and literature”, it features the American far from home, alienated, in search of meaning…..while making it clear that ”a gulf separates their (referring to Hemingway’s characters in “Sun” and the character in this book) experiences and point of view.” I’m looking forward to reading about a lost generation of today, which could be more lost than ever before.

french parenting lessons

Last week I discovered the Wall Street Journal article “Why French Parents are Superior,” by American expat, journalist and author Pamela Druckerman. It wasn’t more than two paragraphs down when my head began shaking up and down uncontrollably - like a marionette doll at the Luxembourg Gardens – in agreement and recollection from my time abroad.  The article discussed her book released last week,”Bringing up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting.”

Druckerman, raising her children in Paris, describes the French parent’s ability to achieve outcomes so many American parents seem to have such difficulty with. Like teaching our children to sleep through the night, eat and sit nicely at meals (no ginormous bags of pirate booty and pretzels every half hour might just help, dontcha think?), properly and politely greet adults, avoid interrupting and play on their own. The French practices of teaching respect, patience, self-control and delayed gratification – with easy, calm authority (“big eyes” she calls them), and being involved with the family without being obsessive are key points, according to Druckerman, and hard to come by in my parts these days.

Our baby was under a year old when we returned  to the States, yet I still got a small taste of the parenting style in Northern Italy. And I do say Druckerman’s observations are not just a French thing.  I encountered some similar characteristics with many families there. At  birthday parties, children played happily together while parents sat on chairs – not down on the floor  – and enjoyed a glass of wine. Down the hill from our house was a part playground/part outdoor cafe (Awesome Idea. Why has it not caught on here?). Moms chatted and drank coffee – guilt-free- while the children played. At pick-up time at the local Italian preschool, parents were not even allowed in the playground area. The kids were having so much fun together they hardly noticed. Finally, the children knew they were expected to greet adults. As Judith Warner writes this week in  “Why American Kids are Brats” for Time.com, saying hello and goodbye helps them to learn that they aren’t the only ones with feelings.

Parenting styles will come and go. I’ve tried them all. I’ll admit it, after reading one book when I was desperate, I even followed the advice to roar (yes, roar) with my toddler as she melted down - giving voice, I guess, to the temper tantrum. Some experts say feed their ego or they’ll grow up with no confidence. Others say don’t feed their ego – if you do, they won’t be prepared for life’s hard lessons. Be their best friend. Be not their best friend - show who is boss! But the article suggests that amidst helicopter and other kinds of current popular  parenting styles, some core, common sense lessons have gone lost and forgotten – like setting boundaries and teaching manners, good behavior and respect for who’s in control.

Even though she makes the point that French parents aren’t perfect, I imagine this book, like all others on parenting, could ignite a heated debate. But it makes a lot of sense to me. Maybe I’m an example of a new kind of American mom, who went to too many Positive Parenting workshops early in my mom career, and years later, hear myself telling my kids “No means no because I said so!”  Then realizing this is exactly the message I want to send them.

To read more about Pamela Druckerman and her new book,  ”Bringing up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting,” visit http://www.pameladruckerman.com/books/

UPDATE: “Teaching Self-Control, the American Way” is a fantastic NY Times editorial that came out in response to the attention this book has been getting.

m. sasek’s great cities of the world

The other day while my son searched for a book on snakes in the library’s reference section, I popped over to the next aisle to search for books on Europe for his older sister. With an upcoming trip there and her big 8-year-old appetite for information, I wanted to find something fun and imaginative - beyond what the guide books that fill our bookshelves at home offered. I located the section and flipped past a few fact-heavy books on Roman and Renaissance Cities, the stereotypical-hokey Italian food and culture guides, and an atlas, when I came across several large books inserted sideways. In cursive on the binding it read “This is Paris.” Next to it was “This is London”. Then I found it. “This is Venice.” Jackpot.

What a find.  (We plan a day trip to Venice on our trip.) Written by Czech author and illustrator M. Sasek, (1916-1980) his award-winning classic stories on the great cities of the world were first published in the early 1960s and re-issued. In “This is Venice”, he brings young readers the charm of the city with imaginative, playful, really beautiful illustrations and amusing verse with just enough information - and the right kind – for an 8-year-old. Before you know it, you are experiencing the essence of Venice – venetian specialties like glass and lace, gondola specs (eight different kinds of wood are used to build one!), the pigeons, a unique system of house numbering – along with other historical information and tourist attractions. Not one rating or checklist of “must-sees.”  Instead he has captured and shares with children the simple truths and beauty of Venice through his words and keen sensitive eye.

“The water brings scenery to the theatre – melons to the housewives – and tourists to Venice.”

“As much as Venice loves the water, the water loves Venice.”

“The most romantic sight is the Grand Canal at night.”  (or, from experience, early morning – one of my favorite Venetian moments. Ever.)

A 150 page information-filled guide with sleek, laminated pull out maps just can’t – and won’t –  do that.

A true gift for the reader is the back page of explanations corresponding to asterisks found on a few pages in the book. While his story is timely and current, a few changes are inevitable and the publishers, naturally, want to correct outdated information for accuracy. But this is the best stuff. For example:

Page 47. * “Today the pigeons in Piazzo Marco are no longer fed by an official, but you can buy corn at kiosks and feed them yourselves!”

Page 58 * “Today you will no longer see watermelon stands in Venice. However, many vendors sell fruit salad to keep you cool in the summer. And there haven’t been horses at the Lido since the 1980s.”

This is our kind of guide book.

pigeon photo credit and for more information on the This is series: http://www.miroslavsasek.com

alligator pears

In the latest and exceptional book about Ernest Hemingway, “Hemingway’s Boat”, by Paul Hendrickson, I took (rather large) notice of a minor mention because it had to do with my favorite fruit, the Avocado. Hemingway’s name for it was alligator pear and  I love it even more now. 

Hemingway picked his alligator pears fresh off the hillsides near his home in Cuba and often enjoyed it as a first course while fishing in the blue seas off Key West and Cuba on Pilar, his beloved boat.

My favorite ways to eat an Avocado include sliced in a sandwich, dressed with sea salt and olive oil, mixed into salads, and smashed for guacamole. I probably have been caught peeling and devouring it like an apple, too. The book  – which deserves a separate post and is not about Avocados, but a deep, thoughtful, well researched book offering a different look at Hemingway through the incredible, obscure stories of  a few men lucky enough to cross paths with him –  describes how Hemingway ate his alligator pears. Simple & straightforward. (Of course.) But more delicious sounding than any method I’ve tried.

Cut  in half.

Take out seed.

Pour a puddle of vinaigrette dressing inside the seed cavity.

Scoop out the flesh with a spoon or fork.

Enjoy. Mmmmm.

(Salt air, blue seas and a cold beer recommended, but not necessary.)

You can read the NY Times review of recent Hemingway books including  ”Hemingway’s Boat” here.