French people have a reputation for being world champions when it comes to pessimism. Year after year, polls confirm that the French tend to see the glass half empty. Some argue that they’re more pessimistic than they should be, given the relatively high standard of living in France. So what is it that French people are so gloomy about and where does this grim outlook come from? We take a closer look.
Source: Why are the French so pessimistic? – French connections
Check out this trailer from the documentary on Pas de Merde favorite Pauline Croze.
Created by Didier Varrod, the doc will be broadcast for the first time on Youtube on January 8
Understanding Picasso’s art, Gilot’s memoir shows, is inseparable from understanding both his genius and monstrousness.
Early on in their relationship, the painter and writer Françoise Gilot almost left Pablo Picasso. It was 1946, and the pair had gone from Paris to the South of France for the summer. It sounds romantic and likely would have been, if Picasso hadn’t insisted that they stay in the house he had given to the photographer Dora Maar, his partner before Gilot. Maar wasn’t around, but soon after they arrived, Picasso began receiving devoted daily letters from yet another former lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter, which he would read aloud every morning. As if that weren’t enough, the place was overrun with scorpions. Suddenly, Gilot found herself stuck in a “hostile environment,” as she writes in her memoir, Life With Picasso, which was originally published in 1964 and recently rereleased by New York Review Books Continue reading “The Entwined Lives of Françoise Gilot and Pablo Picasso”
Listen to the classical concert: Christmas concert of the Radio France Masters in Chartres Cathedral. Audio streaming or video replay, find it in full on France Musique.
Source: Concert Concert de Noël de la Maîtrise de Radio France in Chartres Cathedral – Listen in replay
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