Notre Dame + full moon. Right place, meet right time.
Continue reading about Notre Dame + full moon. Right place, meet right time.
When I came to the center yesterday, it was clear that I had rolled in via Vélib’. “Be careful tomorrow with Vélib’,” one instructor warned me, because today’s general strike will make the bicycles extremely valuable. With at least the RER B scheduled to be out of commission, it’s entirely possible that I would have [...]
Continue reading about Are grass’s roots that much more impressive than trees’?
When the Awl complains that this has been a miserable American summer, they’re mostly right, but it hasn’t been exactly a great summer in France, either. Sarkozy has decided to kick off the 2012 presidential campaign extra early by re-burnishing his xenophobic credentials, angling to get the support of the far-right Front National types–the very [...]
Continue reading about Mechanical reproduction of la manif and the Tea Party
This might get a bit weepy or whiny in places, but I promise there’s a bigger point to it. I’m writing this post from Café de Paris, which is more or less exactly what it sounds like, except that it’s in Vilnius. I’ve spent a lot of time here over the two months I’ve been [...]
[I have written a separate post that describes the updates to the Vélib’ system that appeared in Spring 2011 here. Considering the two main changes are pricing options and availability to Americans, I encourage everyone to read this pieces and then read the update to have their excitement renewed (or enhanced).] Using a bicycle in [...]
Continue reading about Vélib’ and generally using a bicycle in Paris
Tonight the polls closed on the first round of the sexennial elections for the 22 regional councils in France.1 In comparison to the US, the regional councils are sort of like state governments, and their primary dossiers involve education, transportation, and land use. Rue89 has conveniently put together a “Regional Elections for Dummies” page, but, [...]
Continue reading about Quick thoughts about the French regional elections
It’s New Year’s resolution time. Last year’s resolution, to get hooked on coffee, was a runaway success to the degree that I’ve quit coffee for a week to see if I’ll sleep better (early reports: yes). The first helper in the process was the Bodum travel French press I bought from Amazon for like $12. [...]
Continue reading about My resolution: See what Radiohead is about
About a year ago, I stumbled upon Merlin Mann’s procrastination hack, the (10+2)*5. Simply put, it posits that one should focus strenuously on tasks for ten minutes, then take a two minute breather, and then return to the tasks. The few times I’ve consciously used it, it’s been rather useful, making the day go by [...]
Continue reading about (10+2)*5 web script for procrastinators
It is hard for a way of life whose priorities are secular, rationalist, materialist and utilitarian to produce a culture adequate to these values. For are not these values inherently anti-cultural? This, to be sure, was always a headache for industrial capitalism, which was never really able to spin a persuasive cultural ideology out of [...]