friday before halloween

a grey and weirdly warm friday...bremner has been playing the concertina and i've been fact-checking an article while eating an amazing lavender-flavoured chocolate bar...no, it doesn't taste like soap. one thing i love about living in Paris is that there is always some kind of food festival, most recently the Salon du Chocolat--which is more or less what you might imagine, including a fashion show of chocolate clothes. (if you're a chocolate type, by the way, you should get to know david...i can vouch that the chocolate macarons he made last weekend were fantastic!)

when i eventually get away from this computer, i'm heading to the china club to see an ex-can-can dancer sing jazz standards (i've only ever seen amazing musicians in their basement bar, so she might be good!)

books on my cafe table this week: michela wrong's book I Didn't Do It For You, about the troubled history & present of Eritrea; a very grim noir novel by yasmina kahdra, La part du mort, set in Algiers; and to cheer me up, a wonderful new poetry manuscript from jennifer k. dick called Juncture.

now i just need to find a pumpkin, to begin celebrating all hallow's eve...

on fridays...marketing, cleaning, writing, and setting up a blog...

there are lovely yellow roses on my desk (courtesy of heather, thank you!), bremner is singing very dark jacques brel songs downstairs--kind of goes with the flemish clouds outside the window. maybe the sky will clear for julien joseph ross' baptism tomorrow at the most elegant church in the city, saint-germain-des-pres (do they play organ music at a baptism?) later on saturday, i'm going to an oberkampf wine loft called o chateau, for a wine-tasting birthday party... but first i'm giving a private walking tour through the lovely baroque mansions of the marais, to work up a decent thirst.

today the dictionary says: "acte: nm (action)...moins de paroles, des actes!" so enough words--for now, i'll go spend an hour in the cafe around the corner.