I Prefer Paris

Greetings from San Francisco

Burning Man Sculpture

I arrived in San Francisco on Thursday for a weekend family get together. The weather is cold, crisp and sunny and I’ve been inhaling the insanely clear air with delight. It’s my nephew’s big birthday and friends and family have flown in from all over the country. It’s been evenings of long and large dinners, fun and chaos.

Yesterday I went for lunch at the Ferry Building, which was recently turned, into a fantastic food market. Most of the food shops and restaurants are Bay area merchants with a wide range of delicious and super quality food products. I tasted my way through the market sampling fresh mushrooms, California olive oil, caviar, home made cookies, and chocolate. I miss authentic Mexican food and had a lunch of delicious fresh tacos stuffed with crispy chicken.

Claes Oldenburg Sculpture

I did some shopping at the new Westfield Shopping Center on Market Street with over 100 stores. The large sprawling stores with a dizzying array of everything and anything were a bit of a culture shock from the petite boutiques of Paris.

I’m off today to see the Brice Marden retrospective at SF Moma and tonight there is a concert in honor of the birthday boy with some top musicians including one of the Neville Brothers.

My Doorman at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel

I am pleased as punch to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I will personally be leading. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour
includes many of the places I have written about including small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.

I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris.


Special Offer for Eye Prefer Paris Tours: Until the end of February, I am offering a 25-euro discount on any tour booking. The regular price is 175 euros (for up to 4 people) and the price will be 150 euros. To receive the discount, please email by clicking the email tab on theleft side above the Google ads and I will send you instructions.

Check it out at www.eyepreferparistours.com

 

Rufus Wainwright: Dedicated to Judy Garland Concert

I went to see the Rufus Wainwright: Dedicated to Judy Garland Concert at the Olympia last night. I had been eagerly awaiting this night, as reviews and word of mouth from the New York concert had been glorious.

As I entered the long hallway entrance to the theater, I realized I had never been to the Olympia. A true music hall, this great stage has had some of the most legendary performers including Piaf, Louis Armstrong, Johnny Hallyday, Liza Minelli, the Beatles and of course Judy Garland. When I arrived in the theater itself, it was almost intimate with only about 30 rows of seats and felt I was on hallowed ground.

The crowd of mostly Brits and Americans was anxiously waiting for Rufus, to the point that some even started clapping at 8:10 for the show to begin. They didn’t have to wait long: The handsome 40 piece orchestra played a rousing and dynamic overture and than out came Rufus. He wore a mustard colored Viktor & Rolf suit with purple grey flecks and rhinestone collar. Festive is the best way to describe the mood and the clothes as he belted out “When Your Smiling”. His rendition of “ Do it Again” in a falsetto was sexy and stirring. I am more a fan of Rufus’s style and charismatic presence than actual voice and although his voice was well suited to the music, some of the songs didn’t work vocally.
Musically and lyrically you could see that these were hard songs to sing and at times it was almost like watching someone who had been dared to do this and seeing if they could pull it off. There were times when he bit off more than he could chew vocally by getting winded and sometimes speaking the lyrics, but he was still a joy to watch with his effortless style. Even in the moments where he had to start over again or forgot the lyrics, he handled it so gracefully and matter of factly, that you laughed and stumbled along with him. I think also it was his love and respect for Judy Garland and the music along with this gallant undertaking that ultimately endeared the audience that later gave him many standing ovations.

Some of the other highlights were second act opening of a lively “That’s Entertainment”, ballads “How Long Has This Been Going On” and “A Foggy Day” which were dreamlike, and an adorable cha cha beat “You Go to My Head”. There were guest appearances by his sister Martha, accompanying him and also doing a solo of a heart wrenching “Stormy Weather” but the real surprise was Lorna Luft, who belted out “After You’ve Gone” in her best Liza/Judy vibrato.

Although I had heard the songs so many times before, I was reminded of just how truly genius the music is of our great composers Harold Arlen, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Noel Coward. Had they and Judy been there last night, they would d have been thrilled that their music and spirit was alive and being well taken care of by Rufus Wainwright.

There is one last concert in London at the Palladium on Feb. 25th.
Tickets

I am pleased as punch to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I will personally be leading. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour
includes many of the places I have written about including small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.

I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris.


Special Offer for Eye Prefer Paris Tours: Until the end of February, I am offering a 25-euro discount on any tour booking. The regular price is 175 euros (for up to 4 people) and the price will be 150 euros. To receive the discount, please email by clicking the email tab on theleft side above the Google ads and I will send you instructions.

Check it out at www.eyepreferparistours.com

 

La Mome: Marion Cotillard as Piaf

I’ve been on a movie going binge lately and went to see La Mome, the new film bio about Edith Piaf. I’ve been anxiously waiting to see this film and advanced word/hype has been very good. To say the film met all my expectations would be putting it mildly.

I can’t praise the performance of Marion Cotillard as Piaf enough. She is one of those rare actors that lights up the screen in every frame she is in. Her big brown sad eyes, full lips and pale milk white skin give her a vulnerability that goes to right to your heart. Every scene she is in is a revelation and even the smallest moments are deeply revealing, as you feel and live everything she is experiencing. I hope she is not forgotten at Oscar time next year, as it would be down right criminal if she didn’t win. The only down side is that she may have set the bar too high and anything she does in the future might be a step down.

I also have to praise the hair, makeup, and costumes for seamlessly having Piaf go from an 18-year-old soigné to a 48-year-old decrepit woman ravaged by cancer, without a false moment or too much prosthetics and overdone makeup.

The story leaps all over the place going from her difficult childhood in a an brothel being raised by caring prostitutes that is a little too romanticized, to her dying in a hospice, to breaking down on a concert stage in New York. The clever editing saves the film from being a standard bio pic. The metamorphosis of Marion Cotillard as Piaf from insecure gamin, to a sultry confident woman, to a crippled morphine addict is remarkable. Performances by Gerard Depardieu as her manager and Sylvie Testud as her close friend possibly lover, are strong. The singing and concert scenes are marvelous and even though I later found out they were dubbed, it never crossed my mind while watching the film.

The acid test was that even though I struggle with understanding French and couldn’t comprehend a lot of the language, I still got everything that was going on and I didn’t feel I missed anything.

La Mome is one of those films that when you leave the theater, your molecules have been changed. A MUST SEE RIGHT NOW film.

La Mome
Starring Marion Cotillard, Gerard Depardieu, and Sylvie Testud

In theaters now in France.
To be released in the U.S. as “La Vie en Rose” on June 8th
Watch the Trailer

I am pleased as punch to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I will personally be leading. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour
includes many of the places I have written about including small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.

I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris.


Special Offer for Eye Prefer Paris Tours: Until the end of February, I am offering a 25-euro discount on any tour booking. The regular price
is 175 euros (for up to 4 people) and the price will be 150 euros. To receive the discount, please email by clicking the email tab on theleft side above the Google ads and I will send you instructions.

Check it out at www.eyepreferparistours.com

 

Be My Valentine with Chocolates, Please!

What better way to celebrate Valentines Day than with a post about chocolate.

Josephine Vannier Chocolat Artisinal, off the Place de Vosges, is an inventive chocolate shop known for their imaginative and whimsical chocolate sculptures. If you still need chocolates for your sweetheart, there are very pretty and unusual heart shaped chocolate boxes with lavender & gold exteriors and also one with an romantic illustration of an 18th century woman.

Other amusing sculptures are the musical instruments, the Eiffel Tower with  gold piping,  and a painters  color palette on a chocolate easel.

There is also a full selection of bars and individual chocolates in traditional ballotins covered with colorful patterns. The taste of the chocolate is smooth and delicious and my personal favorite is the Sel et Poivre(salt & pepper)  bars , a distinctive taste sensation much like chocolate covered pretzels.

Not too slick and pristine like most chocolate shops, Josephine Vannier  looks more like bohemian atelier. The manager Julian is a nice, smiling man who is serious about chocolate, was kind enough to offer me a taste when I brought a Eye Prefer Paris tour client there the other day.

Joséphine Vannier Chocolat Artisanal
4 rue Pas de la Mule, 75003
01 44 54 03 09
Tuesday- Saturday 11AM-1PM, 2:30PM-7PM
Sunday 2:30PM-7PM
Metro: Chemin Vert, Bastille
www.chocolats-vannier.com

Give me the chocolate boot anytime!

I am pleased as punch to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I will personally be leading. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour includes many of the places I have written about including small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.

I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris.

Special Offer for Eye Prefer Paris Tours: Until the end of February, I am offering a 25-euro discount on any tour booking. The regular price is 175 euros (for up to 4 people) and the price will be 150 euros. To receive the discount, please email by clicking the email tab on the left side above the Google ads and I will send you instructions.

Check it out at www.eyepreferparistours.com

 

Viva Maria! Puccini for Beginners and Maria Maggenti

At the last minute the other night, I decided to go see Puccini for Beginners the new romantic comedy by Maria Maggenti.  Just before the movie started, there was an announcement that Maria was doing a Q& A after the movie. Vincent my partner said that he had known Maria very well in New York a long time ago and had lost contact with her.  He said what a wonderful treat it would be to see her. After the movie, Maria, looking all blonde and pretty, asked if anyone had any questions, and Vincent bolted out of his seat and said “Hi Maria, it’s Vincent from New York…” and of course she screamed "Oh, My God! Vincent!…..”, so Vincent ran up to the stage and hugged her. After the Q& A, she asked us to go out with her and her friend Allison to have a glass of wine. We went to Café Beauborg and a glass of wine became dinner and 2 bottles of wine till 12:30AM. I didn’t really know Maria and we couldn’t even figure out if we had ever met before, but we connected immediately and became instant buddies. It turned out to be one of the most fun, engaging and stimulating nights I’ve spent in a long time. Maria is funny, bright, passionate, earthy, and just a joy to be with. She told us juicy insider gossip about the making of the movie and all about Justin Kirk, a major heartthrob of mine. Allison who was also a delight had worked with Maria as writers on “Without a Trace”.

Now about the movie. The romantic comedy genre is one of the toughest to get right and Puccini for Beginners does it with flying colors. The classic boy meets girl, boy loses, girl, boy gets girls back storyline is updated to: girl has girlfriend, loses her, same girl meets a guy who has broken up with girlfriend, then the same girl meets the ex-girlfriend not knowing she’s his ex, and I won’t tell you the rest because I want you to go see it. This is one of those rare sophisticated comedies that has the screwball element that makes you laugh out loud. The mostly New York west village locations romanticize New York in a way I haven’t seen since the Woody Allen movies of the 70”s.

Elizabeth Reaser as Allegra the central character is the perfect combination of smart, funny, flirtatious and neurotic and you can see why everyone falls in love with her. Justin Kirk as the preppy professor and Gretchen Mol as the ditsy glass blower are very appealing as Allegra’s lovers and the rich supporting cast of lovable New York stereotypes is perfect. The writing is razor sharp and the clever lines never stop.  So please run to your local cinema to see Puccini for Beginners because it’s wonderful and to support my friend Maria.

One last note: a girl in the audience during the Q&A was so inspired by the movie that she publicly proclaimed that she wanted to experiment with women for the first time. Viva Maria!

Puccini for Beginners
Written and directed by Maria Maggenti
Starring Elizabeth Reaser, Justin Kirk and Gretchen Mol
In theaters now in France and limited cities in the U.S.- New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles so far.

Maria in front of MK2 Beauborg Theater

I am pleased as punch to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I will personally be leading. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour includes many of the places I have written about including small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.

I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris.

Special Offer for Eye Prefer Paris Tours: Until the end of February, I am offering a 25-euro discount on any tour booking. The regular price is 175 euros (for up to 4 people) and the price will be 150 euros. To receive the discount, please email by clicking the email tab on the left side above the Google ads and I will send you instructions.

Check it out at www.eyepreferparistours.com

 

Nouvelles du monde renversé Show at Palais De Tokio

I went to the opening of the Nouvelles du monde renversé (News From the Upside Down) show at the Palais de Tokio. I’ve heard the openings are fun, glam events with an eclectic crowd and this was true. As I entered the cavernous, raw space lobby, the crowd was buzzing with excitement and everyone looked like their artiest selves. I marveled just as much at the people as the art.

The ambitious and almost overwhelming exhibit is a series of installations in vast rooms by including artists Michel Blazy, Tatiana Trouvé, Joe Coleman,David Noonan,Daniel Dewar & Gregory Gicquel and Peter Coffin amongst others.

The installations overall were stimulating, alive, and rubbed my art soul the right way. There were two standouts: Michael Blazy’s exceptional organic sculptures. I loved that he created a total environment and I felt like I was entering a world I had never seen before of massive creature- like sculptures.

The other was Joe Coleman’s, whose intricate, obsessive paintings depicting everything from innocent Americana to serial killers make you want to stare at them for hours. A combination of cartoon like images and fine painstaking painting, the works have you looking very closely at the incredible craftsmanship. There’s almost a tattoo like quality to them in some ways.

The Palais de Tokio is one of the great art institutions that truly supports and nourishes artists and is one of the few places in the Paris art world that isn’t afraid to take risks. I would put Palais de Tokio at the top of my list if you want to see the lifeblood of young artists.

Nouvelles du monde renversé- till May 6
Palais de Tokio
13 ave. du President Wilson, 75116
Open everyday 12PM till 12AM, except Monday
Metro: Alma Marceau

I am pleased as punch to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I will personally be leading. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour includes many of the places I have written about including small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.

I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris.

Special Offer for Eye Prefer Paris Tours: Until the end of February, I am offering a 25-euro discount on any tour booking. The regular price is 175 euros (for up to 4 people) and the price will be 150 euros. To receive the discount, please email by clicking the email tab on the left side above the Google ads and I will send you instructions.

Check it out at www.eyepreferparistours.com

 

Men’s Fashion Week Paris 2007- Tranoi Show

It was men’s fashion week in Paris last week and I was invited to the Tranoi show by an old New York friend of mine Robert Molnar. Robert Molnar is a very talented and experienced fashion designer who had a successful women’s collection in the 1990’s and is also a top stylist for fashion shoots and movies. I hadn’t seen him in many years and a mutual friend accidentally brought us together for dinner last week. He said he was in Paris showing his new line of men’s clothing at the Tranoi show, a cutting edge, specialty men’s clothing trade show.

The Palais de Bourse, the old Paris stock market, is an exquisite 19th century building with richly detailed frescoed ceilings and is the perfect backdrop for the modern men’s fashion at the Tranoi show. Robert had a small, simply designed booth that showed off his sleek, smartly tailored line of suits, jackets, sweaters, coats, and dress shirts. I loved the minimalist coats and jackets with silver d- rings in luxurious fabrics like wool file and nylon twill. There was a fabulous dark blue iridescent jacket in a frock cut- short in the front- long in the back. The suits in pin striped and black gabardine were classic but had a twist – the backs were cropped short to modernize them and show off your booty a little. The cashmere cable knit sweater in olive green(pictured below) and the violet cashmere vest with attached bondage type suspenders were standouts. The clothes are made in Italy and the craftsmanship and quality shows. The clothes are sold at LA’s trendiest celeb boutique, Fred Segal.

As  I was leaving, I admired a line of amusing hats called John Hats designed by Lola. The styles are classic hats updated with bright colored accents, patterns and trims. Sondheim asks the question “Does anyone still wear a hat? If they are John hats, the answer is emphatically, yes!

I am pleased as punch to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I will personally be leading. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour includes many of the places I have written about including small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.

I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris.

Special Offer for Eye Prefer Paris Tours: Until the end of February, I am offering a 25-euro discount on any tour booking. The regular price is 175 euros (for up to 4 people) and the price will be 150 euros. To receive the discount, please email by clicking the email tab on the left side above the Google ads and I will send you instructions.

Check it out at www.eyepreferparistours.com