She prolly thinks I been out drinkin' 'n' whorin'

This month I read Friend or Foe by Alistair Horne, Four Past Midnight by Stephen King, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, Heartsnatcher by Boris Vian, Man of Bronze and The Thousand-Headed Man by Kenneth Robeson, Incubus by Ann Arensberg, By-Line: Ernest Hemingway edited by William White, The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons, several magazines and a pile of comic books.

I watched the DVDs of Cube, Dark City, Lewis Black Unleashed, Peter Gabriel: Play: The Videos, The Iron Giant, and 28 Days Later, and had a Ray Harryhausen film festival: H.G. Wells' First Men in the Moon, 20 Million Miles to Earth, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, Jules Verne's Mysterious Island, It Came From Beneath the Sea, and Clash of the Titans.

Printed several copies each of three pictures on the new Olympus P-10 photo printer and sent them to a couple friends and relatives, tucked in some very tardy "Bonne Année" cards.

Played two games of Scrabble and about 50 games of Risk. (Against other humans? Are you kidding?)

Sent about 90 e-mails (hey, that's a lot), several of which were substantive.

Had one phone conversation. Stopped turning on the cellphone, although I still carry it in case I'm caught in a Métro snarl on the way to work and have to phone in.

Re-bagged about 600 comics. This entails taking older or (somewhat) more valuable comics out of cheap poly bags, which encourage decay, and putting them into expensive Mylar bags, with backing boards. This is one of the most stultifying tasks known to Man. Even if you take frequent breaks to read some of the comics.

Ate at McDonald's approximately 24 times. In Paris!

Yes, it's a full life.

Can't get enough of Papa

"There is no use writing anything that has been written before unless you can beat it."
-- Ernest Hemingway, "Monologue to the Maestro," Esquire, October 1935

I'm reading "Byline: Ernest Hemingway: Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades." Once you start to read it, you cannot stop even though you may want to. You have to go on and on, even though you are tired, because the words keep coming and you must follow them. And when you write, you will write like this, even when you do, you will realize the old man has beaten you again.

Older than you look

I just finished reading Friend or Foe by Alistair Horne, the perfect Christmas present for an expat. It's a well-written, broad-brush history of France since Paris was a Roman outpost. Sometimes the brush is a little too broad, the pace a bit too rushed, but that's to be expected in a book that covers so much ground in just 400 pages. It's a fair tradeoff.

I thought I knew at least the broad outline of French history, but it turns out I'd failed to take note of several revolts and revolutions, and one of the wars with the Germans. Those French used to be a feisty bunch, and if they weren't after some of la gloire in foreign lands, they were squabbling amongst themselves ... mounting barricades, trashing the Palais-Royal, or parading around the streets with someone's head on a stick.

And while I knew Paris was old, I didn't really appreciate how old. One of its streets (near the Palais-Royal, in fact) is rue des Mauvais Garçons. Turns out this refers not to the 1995 movie with Martin Lawrence and Will Smith, but to a band of ruffians that were operating in the neighborhood in the 1500s. They'd still recognize a lot of the buildings.

Quote of the day

If anyone can claim they're all right, so can I.
-- "Rachel's Song," James McMurtry

progris riport

The office, where careful planning, single-minded determination and raw talent all combine ... to little result.

Et voila, a mere four months later.....