France has more than its share of old crazy laws… here are the weirdest ones.
Source: Fifteen of the most bizarre laws in France – The Local
Category: Culture
Béatrice Dalle is the ultimate femme fatale
If you had to choose one adjective which least suited Béatrice Dalle, you might do worse than “demure”. The actress, who celebrated her 50th birthday recently, may have become an object of desire to rival Bardot or Monroe, but her behaviour has, on occasions, been more reminiscent of a female Oliver Reed (a remarkable achievement, given that Dalle is not a drinker). The woman who has been described as “a walking grenade,” a “one-woman Vietnam”, “the patron saint of the abyss” and “Joan of Arc: the suicide bomber version” has agreed to meet me in the small village of Grignan, just outside Montélimar, where she is playing the lead in Lucrèce Borgia. Given that, in this role, she only kills seven guys nightly, straddling the corpses with an urgency more suggestive of lust than remorse, you might say that she is mellowing.
A History of Big Hair: Catherine Deneuve, Cindy Crawford, and More – Vogue
As bouffant-lovers Baby Jane Holzer and Catherine Deneuve celebrate birthdays this weekend, a look back at women who wouldn’t be tamed.
Source: A History of Big Hair: Catherine Deneuve, Cindy Crawford, and More – Vogue
Mastering the Art of French Dining – Eater
A super-easy, super-helpful guide to the ins and outs of dining etiquette in Paris
The New American In Paris: Writing Code, Not A Novel
Americans have long had a romance going with the City of Light. Today it’s more likely to be rooted in business, technology, according to one young entrepreneur.
Source: The New American In Paris: Writing Code, Not A Novel
“Sanctuary!”
The “Sanctuary!” scene from the classic 1939 version of Victor Hugo’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” starring Charles Laughton as Quasimodo and Maureen O’Hara as Esmeralda.
“Hunchback” was the only movie screened at the very first Cannes Film Festival, as the remainder of the festival was cancelled when Adolf Hitler invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939. The bell-ringing scene was Laughton’s response to impending war. The actor later said he rang the bells actually wanting “to arouse the (real) world, to stop that terrible butchery!”
“It is absurd to speak of Laughton’s Quasimodo as a great performance, as if that were some quantifiable assessment. It is acting at its greatest; it is Laughton at his greatest; it is a cornerstone of this century’s dramatic achievement; it is a yardstick for all acting.”
– SIMON CALLOW, NY Times 1988
Pas De Merde 