Paris Werewolves

Invader Museum, 3rd Arrondissement Walking through parts of Paris at times feels like being in an architectural museum. Sometimes you catch glimpses of the city framed through a window, usually when you are supposed to be paying attention to something else. Musée de la Vie Romantique, 9th Arr.   Pavillion de l'Arsenal, 4th Arr. Grand Palais Éphémère, 7th Arr. Église Saint-Eustache, 1st Arr. Palais des Papes, Avignon

Get ready for your close up. Just like the US has spelling bees and England has full-contact cheese rolling, France has la dictée , dictation contests where people transcribe oral passages and get graded for spelling, grammar, and proper verb conjugation. All of these are extremely tricky for those of us new to French. For example, in English, the verb "eat" is spelled and pronounced exactly the same in the sentences "I eat," "you eat," and "they eat." In French, the sentences would use mange , manges , and mangeant , respectively--spelled differently, but pronounced exactly the same. And that's just a basic word. So it heartens me a little to know that these skills are also difficult enough for native French speakers that they can be used to sort out les superieurs from les inferieurs . Competitive dictées are very popular, often attracting thousands of participants and broadcast on television . Contests split into divisions for students ...

Some vendeurs à la sauvette , Quai Jacques Chirac, 7th Arr. I've lived in tourist-dense places pretty much my entire adult life. If you don't work in the hospitality industry, there is no direct upside to having masses of people descend on your city. I can accept that tourism might bring a place some net-positive indirect effects--local tax revenues, construction jobs when attractions and hotels are being built--but I guarantee it's more complicated than the tourism industry and economists generally would have you believe. Just look as San Francisco for an example of how revenues from tourism don't boost investments in infrastructure or local services. But if you are lucky enough to live anywhere that is interesting for its local culture, its natural beauty, or its architectural heritage, tourists are like the hangover you must inevitably endure from enjoying booze. Except, in principle, you can quit drinking booze when the hangovers become too miserable.  Paris' 7t...

The 13th Arr. seems to be the epicenter of Paris street art. There are not only numerous building-scale artworks, but decent quality graffiti abounds. There are also quite a few Invaders (invading, I guess).   Slow down and check out the 13th Arr. This is not just my opinion. The Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau has put together a street art walking tour of the 13th . I've seen most of the large-scale, commissioned works they include in the map, since they center around the apparthotel where we stayed for a month when we first arrived in Paris. But walking around the neighborhood for the first time since then reminded me of how much there is to see in between the major would--which, if you stopped to pay attention to all of it, would make the entire walk daunting. I may do it anyway, if the cold, rainy weather ever relents. I can at least skip the Shepard Fairy wall. It's nice, but he's more of a t-shirt company these days. It seems so familiar that, chances are, you...