Diddy is a self-proclaimed Francophile: with an album titled “Last Train to Paris” and premium vodka Ciroc attached to his famous name, you’d think he’d be riding around in a striped shirt, by now, baguette in tow. But it’s precisely this French fascination that recently got the hip-hop mogul and his crew into trouble with customs at Nice’s Cote d’Azur airport last week.
Read the rest at The Boombox.
I can just imagine how tickled I would have been at 13 or 14, in full francophile and feminine bloom, to have received a series of biographies of great women in French — and in graphic novel format.
Naïve is a small independent French publisher of books and music, and they’ve come out with this series called “Grands Destins de Femmes.” Subjects include Angela Davis, Dian Fossey, Frida Kahlo, Agatha Christie, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Aung San Suu Kyi and Virginia Woolf.
Take a peek inside the Coco Chanel bio by Bernard Ciccolini and Pascale Frey.
You can get them at Amazon.fr and FNAC.
Now I know what I’ll be doing for the rest of my life… As soon as I get an iPad, that is. Which may now be sooner than I had thought because the Bibliothèque nationale de France has just released Gallica for iPad. And it’s free. The app contains 240,000 books, 880,000 magazines and 470,000 images. Also original musical scores, manuscripts and other goodies. Watch the video, and download the app (French store link).
No iPad? Enjoy the riches on the web.
“C’est beau d’être agriculteur” was the slogan for the 2012 Calendrier des jeunes agriculteurs, created by the French agricultural union “Jeunes Agriculteurs” to promote the métier of farming. We tipped you off to the young farmers’ calendar back in 2009, but didn’t have a picture. Looks like the 2012 version is sold out, but you can still make yourself a note to get one next year, and you can see more pics from the Calendrier Jeunes Agriculteurs 2012 here, though the slideshow doesn’t include all months.
Other calendars we’ve brought you in the past: The From’Girls, promoting French cheese with sexy pinups, the Aubade calendar, featuring those lingerie ads you see in the bus stops in Paris, and the Stade Paris rugby team beefcake calendar. You can get the current versions of them all at these links!
In a city with a worldwide association to cinema, the Champs-Élysées Film Festival will be an annual celebration of film. Open to every kind of cinematic format, the Champs-Elysées Film Festival will allow French audiences to become acquainted with the best in American cinema from the newest trends to the latest film phenomena while showcasing films by both internationally renowned filmmakers as well as industry newcomers.
Open to the public! Festival Pass only 35€ ! Luscious Lambert Wilson is the Président d’honneur, and there’ll be a Donald Sutherland retrospective, plus he’ll be teaching a master class.
Image from the movie Luv, an official selection.
France’s far-right Front National FN is planning to sue Madonna over a video that shows party leader and former presidential candidate Marine Le Pen with a swastika on her forehead.
The extreme right have no problem with free speech when they want to spout hate, now do they? Good job, Madonna.
Read the rest at RFI.
It’s your lucky day, America! California has imported a French chocolatier who used to be high on the food chain (so to speak) at Lenôtre. Now he’s launched Nuubia Chocolat, his own line of gourmet French-style chocolates in the Bay Area. Nuubia Chocolat was voted one of the Top Ten Chocolatiers in North America, and named Chocolatier of the Year in 2011.
That’s all fine and dandy, but what really works for me is the eco aspect. The company uses NO palm oil or palm oil derivatives. (In case you didn’t know, palm oil is in about 50% of the packaged products we use, and it’s driving the orangutan to extinction.)
Nuubia Chocolat’s mission is to “produce exquisite chocolates and protect the planet”:
Because of our connection to the Earth, Nuubia Chocolat’s underlying mission is dedicated to help protect life on this planet and wildlife sanctuaries around the globe. Our Company is driven by “B” Corporation principles, using only GMO-free ingredients, FSC certified papers and packaging, and subscribing to standards that incorporate ethics and transparency into our daily business practices.
If you live in the area, you can visit their store in Pleasanton, where they even offer classes! If not, you can order online. Bon appétit !
In two volumes, now available through the BNF site: The Notebooks of Edgar Degas : a catalogue of the thirty-eight notebooks in the Bibliothèque nationale and other collections
Article about the notebooks (in French): Les carnets de Degas, pour entrer dans les arcanes de sa création artistique | Gallica.
A couple years after his album Préliminaires, featuring some French classics (which we covered here), Iggy Pop is about to release Après, a collection of classic torch songs, ballads and French variété. We just love the way he wraps his destroyed voice around those French songs. Seems somehow appropriate.
Read the complete song selection and more at Rock Cellar Magazine. You can buy the albums at our Amazon store! Après / Préliminaires
Perry Taylor captures the spirit of South West France in his humorous drawings of the locals, their lifestyle, culture, heritage, animals and sports.
If you’re lucky enough to be going to the Jazz in Marciac festival, he’ll have a gallery there (Galerie rue des cinq parts), and he’ll be at other events in the region as well. Visit Perry Taylor Art for all event dates and his online gallery and shop, where you can order original ink drawings or giclée prints on A4 and A3 art paper, signed by the artist!
An 18th-century portrait sold in New York to a British gallery as a “woman in a feathered hat” turns out to actually portray a man dressed as a woman, becoming the earliest known painting of a transvestite. (Read how they figured it out…)
Seems the makers of the 24-episode Japanese animé series, Le Chevalier d’Eon, took a lot of liberties with the Chevalier’s history! And his appearance… Watch the trailer.
We had the pleasure to meet Ms. Kawamura when she was showing her lovely watercolors of Paris in our neighborhood, and thought we’d share her work with you. She lives in Paris and you can reach her through her Contact page.
When confined to his bed, Matisse would sketch on the ceiling by attaching brushes and charcoal to a long pole. As painting became more difficult, he focused intently on the sleek, stylized paper cutouts he had first started experimenting with in the 1930s, using scissors to create the sinewy shapes and swaths of color that he could no longer render directly on canvas.
This is currently being exhibited in Pittsburgh. Read about the work and the exhibit here: Matisse’s The Thousand and One Nights in Pittsburgh – WSJ.com.
The Criterion Collection, a video-distribution company selling “important classic and contemporary films” to film aficionados, just released Belle de Jour on BluRay and enlisted fashion illustrator David Downton to provide art for the cover and interior booklet.
Read the rest and see Downton’s other (sexy!) piece at Criterion Confessions. Buy the Criterion Belle de Jour at the Francophilia Amazon store!
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