Discoveries, Myths, and Mistranslations: Tracing My French Roots
After a nine-month break from blogging, I’m back with surprising findings I uncovered in old family boxes and on the internet while researching my ancestral ties to France.
The Street Art of Belleville: Paris’s Hidden Artistic Neighborhood
Ever since watching the French Netflix movie Lords of Scam (reviewed here), I’ve been curious about the Parisian neighborhood of Belleville. This documentary traces the rise and crash of scammers who conned the EU carbon quota system and pocketed millions before turning on one another. Much of the action unfolds in Belleville,…
George Sand’s 1839 Letter: Tuberculosis, Chopin & Medical Folly
I’ve been reading John Green’s Everything is Tuberculosis, in which Green shows how cultural norms and unscientific assumptions shaped society’s view of tuberculosis and its victims over the centuries. In the 1800s, people thought TB affected the pure of heart, the highly intelligent, the emotionally sensitive, and the artistic. Being…
The Patriot Who Stole the Most Famous Painting in the World
In the recent reports of the Louvre break-in, many accounts mentioned the Louvre’s heretofore most famous heist. In 1911, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, now one of the Louvre’s most prized possessions, was stolen. In an earlier post, I wrote about several aspects of this famous robbery: the Mona Lisa’s…
The 1911 Louvre Heist: Picasso Accused of Stealing Mona Lisa
It’s been a month since thieves broke into the Louvre and absconded with a valuable stash of crown jewels. In many of the early news reports, reference was made to an earlier and equally spectacular heist at the famous museum. On a summer morning in 1911, an employee of the…
Paris Terror Attack: Harrowing Rescue From The Bataclan Theater
Yesterday marked ten years since the worst terrorist attack carried out on French soil. On November 13, 2015, eleven terrorists, backed by the Islamic State (Daesh), entered Paris and carried out a series of coordinated attacks throughout the city. Over the last week, French media has been filled with recaps…
Jacaranda by Gaël Faye, Fiction From Fragments No One Wants to Recall
What happens when one-fifth of a country’s population participates in a genocide? In the case of the Rwandan Civil War, the horror was so widespread that those left staggering in its aftermath were struck dumb, either vowing to forget the past or silent victims of post-traumatic amnesia. In Jacaranda, Gaël…
Guy de Maupassant Chronicles the Treachery and Terror of Conquest
Last month, I picked up a gently used copy of short stories by Guy de Maupassant. I’d put off reading his work for too long and was happy when a friend from my book club chose the classic tale, Boule de Suif, for this quarter’s read. The short collection, titled…
