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...