![Gustave Caillebotte. Paris Street, Rainy Day (La Place de l’Europe, temps de pluie). 1877. Oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]](http://blindflaneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day_1877_wiki.jpg "gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day")
![Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]](http://blindflaneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/isle_royale_fog.jpg "Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]")
"Brendan, this is what the world looks like all the time to me. Just a little fog. It’s a fine day for boating on the Great Lakes.” Without missing a stroke he turned to dart a skeptical glance at me. Brendan the Navigator. When we named him I didn’t tell his mother everything the legendary Irish name implied. But I imagined him taking on the role of navigator for me. Growing up with Coastal Survey charts and tales of Great Lakes shipwrecks, he came to know Superior as another home. He never doubted the wisdom of canoeing there with a father who was half blind. ![President George H.W. Bush signs into law the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on July 26, 1990 as Justin Dart looks on. [Source: ucp.org]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/ada_signing_072690_ucp_2.jpg "ada_signing_072690_ucp_2")
![Shepard Fairey’s “Barack Obama/Hope” image went viral during the 2008 election. Then controversy about the image’s source transformed it into the poster child for fair use in the public debate over copyright and free culture. Now FULAB takes “Hope” as its icon [Image source: Wikipedia]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/shepard_fairey_hope_2008.jpg "shepard_fairey_hope_2008")
If there is an emerging genetic underclass, I could run for class president or class clown. Read more in 
The legendary Kiki of Montparnasse posed for Man Ray’s 
I was completely smitten with the idea of Graham Robb’s latest book, Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris, when a reviewer compared the historian’s surprising narrative inventions to “lemon juice squeezed over a platter of oysters.”
Entries Tagged as 'Paris'
Graham Robb ‘s Adventure History of Paris
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April 29, 2010 at 7:30am
by Mark Willis
Giving Thanks: One Reader Is A Miracle
9
November 26, 2009 at 6:00am
by Mark Willis
All the talk about slow food and slow blogging reminds me of this story from the Left Bank. I published it first in September 2007, near the beginning of this blog. It remains one of the most satisfying pieces of new writing that I’ve done here. I was sad the day it dropped off the [...]
Bouquiniste · Ms. Modigliani · Paris · VIe · Ve Add Your Comment
Fashionably Down & Out: In Paris, The Gleaners
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March 12, 2009 at 6:00am
by Mark Willis
Paris is famous for its open-air food markets. But difficult economic times are turning them into giant foraging sites — and not just for the poor. [Source: iStockphoto.com/NPR]
In my mind, NPR’s Eleanor Beardsley has become the Janet Flanner of her times. I imagine New Yorker readers in the 1930s turning to Flanner’s “Letters from Paris” [...]
Paris · surrealist economics Add Your Comment
Something To Savor With A Sip Of Calvados
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March 2, 2009 at 8:19pm
by Mark Willis
“Farming offers many fashionable careers,” says a breathy French actress who sounds like Catherine Deneuve selling the proverbial bath oil. She’s the voice of a new government advertising campaign meant to entice more French youth to toil, fashionably, on the land. The ad campaign was launched at last week’s Paris farm show. You can hear [...]
In Paris, Even Day Care Has Edible Drama
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February 16, 2009 at 7:35pm
by Mark Willis
In my very distant and provincial past, nutrition at the nursery school amounted to Graham crackers and red jello. On feast days it was peanut butter and jelly. Not so in Paris, where preschoolers learn to savor their repast with French flair. According to NPR’s Eleanor Beardsley: “It’s no accident that the French cook and [...]
Edible Dramas · Paris Add Your Comment
An Open Invitation To Dinner In Paris
2
January 12, 2009 at 7:59pm
by Mark Willis
Jim Haynes is an American in Paris with a generous spirit who says, like Tom Paine, that he’s a citizen of the world. He was born in Louisiana, ran a bookstore in Scotland, created a theater company in London, launched a newspaper in Amsterdam and taught media studies in Paris, where he hosts Sunday dinner [...]
Paris · Uncategorized · global citizen Add Your Comment
Forget Wisdom of Markets, Storm the Bastille!
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September 21, 2008 at 6:00am
by Mark Willis
Wait a minute, those barbarians at the gate, they don’t look like Jacobins. They’re wearing Armani suits. They’re investment bankers, tired of toxic debt, demanding a bail out!
About the image: Prise de la Bastille by Jean-Pierre-Louis-Laurent Houel [Source: Wikimedia Commons]
Read Surfacing at Place de la Bastille and Fashionista Street: Selling Short
French history · IVe · Paris Add Your Comment
Where the Mouffe Begins: Delmas
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September 5, 2008 at 8:03pm
by Mark Willis
Alex dropped by Café Mouffe tonight with this photo of the Mouffe’s inspiration, Café Delmas on Place de la Contrascarppe. Many thanks!
Café Mouffe · Imaging Paris · Paris · Ve · blind photographers Add Your Comment
The Concierge: A Vanishing French Institution
0
June 11, 2008 at 8:32pm
by Mark Willis
PRI/The World’s Gerry Hadden reports on a vanishing figure in French life — the concierge: “She — and it’s usually a she — is the person who serves as an apartment building’s messenger, housekeeper, caretaker and more.” Her replacement? The ubiquitous security door with number code. Security doors are cheaper, and they don’t gossip.
French culture · Paris Add Your Comment
Café Mouffe: Rupa and the April Fishes
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May 30, 2008 at 3:00pm
by Mark Willis
Rupa is a doctor in San Francisco as well as a singer-songwriter. Born in SF, she was raised in India and France. As the title of her new CD, eXtraordinary Rendition, suggests, she is a citizen of the world with global concerns. She tells the back story of Une Americaine À Paris in a recent [...]