Drunks, Slobs, Polluters
Yes, there are downsides to living here, and one of them is, without a doubt, the building I live in. The location's pretty good, most of the neighbors are fine, and being almost on one of the busiest plazas in town, it's remarkably quiet. But every day brings another frustration, it seems. There is, of course, the stove, with its two small, closely-packed electric elements, which only function when you turn on a timer. Making soup a week or two back, I had to keep jumping up and going and re-twisting the dial on the damn thing: it'll only run for an hour at a time. Then there's the plumbing. I insisted on a new toilet (what, didn't I want to sit on a cracked toilet seat?), and it came with

Holy Books
At the moment, there's a photo exhibition at the Pavillion Populaire by a photographer I've never heard of, but who is, apparently, a grand fromage in France. I went and discovered that there's one part that's not

Monday Miettes
You know, I thought that train ticket to Arles, even with the senior discount, was cheap. I'd priced some other trips over the last few months, and it seemed to me they cost more per mile than that. As it turns out, I was right: despite my saying, very clearly and several times, the word

Travels With Jack
Almost exactly a year ago, Jack, an old friend from California and Texas, showed up in Berlin. It was days before I was going to leave, but he was a huge help, having owned a number of bookstores, when it came to packing up my books. The tricks he showed me I am certain made the movers bless him.This year, he again vacationed in Europe, and so he came down here just a little later than a year to the day than he did in Berlin. He had two days, and wanted to spend one in Montpellier, but the next one in a place he was obsessed with: Arles. I had no idea he had a major thing for Vincent van Gogh, but I was about to find out. The first day, he had a

Miettes Porcines
Been laid out by the flu this past week, which may explain some of the gloom of the previous post, although there are also very good reasons to be gloomy, as this video shows. (Nobody who makes a living writing should fail to watch it). Dunno if it's The Pig or not, but mostly I sleep and stay indoors and feel like my brain's filled with cotton.* * *However, I do go out from time to time, and today was the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, something I worked very hard to miss by 48 hours, having been in Berlin until the 7th. I had to content myself with our fair