The French Journal

Lonely Planet tours Paris

The travel guide Lonely Planet has a video page, and while it's not rich with items yet, there is the one that heads this post for a three minute swing around the city.

Baseball à la française, and wine in baby bottles

Call this post "links to videos about French marginalia," since there are two brief clips I'm leading you to (and I don't have the skill to embed them in this post).

First up, from Time, is a video about some Frenchmen who have fallen in love with American baseball and who play in a local league. While the game has not yet taken the country by storm, a couple of the players are good enough to have been scouted for play with professional teams in the U.S.

Second, via The Guardian (U.K.), is a story of a Montmartre restaurant with a gimmick: it serves wine in baby bottles. From the tables packed with tourists, it appears the ploy is working, but I'd suggest it's only for those who only like their cabs laced with rubber.

Paris in a day: A video tour

To start off the week, The Daily Mail has provided us with a guided tour of Paris, for those traveling from London who want to see all the big sites in a day. It has the quickest recommendation for the visiting the Louvre that you'll ever hear, and you won't go to any unfamiliar spots, but even aficionados enjoy seeing the highlights now and then, especially if they have been far away from the City of Light for awhile.

Mister France - 2008

Because I have neither time nor pride this morning, here's a video with excerpts of the finale of Mister France contest for 2008. BTW, it's thirteen minutes long.

If you want full-screen, click on the video screen itself, which will take you to SPlanet site. (Not required. It's a matter of how much detail you want.)

Le p'tite couronne and the Life of Animals

This week's video success story in France belongs to a comedy troupe, Le P'tite Couronne, which has created a series of blackout sketches for the web. They have landed a contract to provide material to MCM, a French music video channel. If you don't speak French, don't worry; the above clip of "The Life of Animals, as seen by Men" has no dialogue.

The name is literally "The Little Crown," but I believe "couronne" can also have the sense of a belt of city districts. Not quite "The Little Neighborhood Group," but close.

Rerun: An absolutely fabulous wine truc

As the week sinks slowly into the west, let's share a (blurry) wine tasting in France with Pats and Eddy...

Santé!

Analyzing Sarkozy and France on Charlie Rose

How are things going in France? Charlie Rose get the opinions of Roger Cohen of the International Herald Tribune, Jim Hoagland of The Washington Post, and Elaine Sciolino of The New York Times.

Happy V-Day from The French Journal and a rabbit

Tecktonik

Over at The Christian Science Monitor, of all places, there's a story about Tecktonik, the dance style that started in the streets of Paris and is now sweeping across Europe (to use a hackneyed phrase). "At first glance it looks tribal or even charismatic – arms flail, legs juke." All to the beat of electronic music. To be honest, I am reminded of some of my old disco moves, although I couldn't attempt them now without putting my doctor on alert. What makes this all seem different is that you can view the best practitioners on YouTube in videos like the one that heads this post. For lots more, including music playlists, go over to Teck-Addict.

Visiting Shakespeare & Company on video

I've recently featured articles on the famed Paris bookstore, Shakespeare & Company, but The International Herald Tribune offers a better option -- a two-part video on the store. Part One features shots of the store and its history, and Part Two tells us more about George Whitman, who managed the store for fifty years, and his daughter, who's taking over.