My only disappointment with Molière’s L’Avare (The Miser) was that it doesn’t include a maid. In all the other Molière plays I have seen or read, there is a clever maid who has the funniest lines and helps prevent the daughter of the house from being married off to some older Read More …
Mundolingua is a small museum devoted to a huge subject, namely “language, languages and linguistics.” Topics include definitions, phonetics, vocabulary, grammar, first language acquisition, foreign language learning, language problems, myths and origins, religion, etymology, ethnolinguistics, political linguistics, dead languages, dialects, sociolinguistics, alphabets, invented languages, codes, lies, humor, slang, tongue-twisters, proverbs Read More …
Since the name of this theater means ‘Theatre of the Old Pigeon-House’, I used to think the theater building was just that, an old pigeon-house (dovecote) that somebody decided to re-purpose after a sharp decline in the demand for pigeon meat. Considering the size of the theatre, I thought it Read More …
Le Lucernaire is a “national center for the arts and experimentation” in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, between Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Montparnasse. It includes three theaters, three cinemas, a bookshop, a restaurant, a bar and an art gallery. I first heard of the Lucernaire when I attended a play at the Read More …
The painter Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) had an apartment, studio and garden in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter of the sixth arrondissement in Paris for the last five-and-a-half years of his life, while he was working on the decoration of a chapel at the nearby church of Saint-Suplice. Delacroix was a prolific artist Read More …
I’ve always liked the big Gibert Joseph bookshop on the Boul’ Mich’ (Boulevard Saint Michel) in the Latin Quarter because that’s where I used to buy my books when I was a student in Paris half a century ago. The store is still very much the same now as it Read More …
In 1966 I went to two plays at the Odéon Theater, but didn’t understand much of either one. The first was Partage de Midi by Paul Claudel (1868-1955), the younger brother of the sculptress Camille Claudel. He was the one who committed his sister to an insane asylum, where she Read More …
This monument to the philosopher Auguste Comte (1798-1857), by the sculptor Jean-Antonin Injalbert (1845-1933), is on the Place de la Sorbonne, close to Boulevard Saint Michel in the Latin Quarter of Paris. Comte was the founder of a new science, sociology, which attempted to use the same scientific methods as Read More …