On the street....that bag, Paris

Jean Paul Gaultier Show.. or my day as a pappa(rat)zi

So what exactly is Kanye West doing in Paris? In addition to being great, he's OBVS here for the couture edition of fashion week. Or mens fashion week or something too schmancy for me. However easy he is to poke fun at, I must admit that he's a smart mofo. Instead of rollin' up to the main entrance where all the other hot messes were arriving, he decided to go 'round the side, resulting in my comrades and I turning around and finding none other than KWest the duke of greatness ferretting into JPG. "Wow, I could have just touched Kanye"

The picture above is courtesy of my stylish friend Kipling, who has a far superior camera to mine. This is Lou Doillon, daughter of Charlotte Gainsbourg. She was such a darling, posing for the papparatsmears and graciously obliging a fan photo, to which I yelled " T'es trop gentille!". Dig the red lips and hair.

Basicsly, me and some expats decided to crash the Jean Paul Gaultier show today. By crash I mean take pictures outside and make fun of ourselves. Kipling and I took it upon ourselves to take many pictures. I took it upon myself to yell profanities and odd things at the well-dressed people. It was kind of awkward when people got out and the paps didn't go ape shit. There were a lot of fake tanned people and a couple bitches who looked like they stumbled out of Jersey (the rich parts). Here's the list of people we recognized:

kylie mynogue, empress of munchkinland
carine roitfield, editor of french vogue
jourdan dunn and chanel iman, recently did a vogue editorial shoot together
lily donaldson, burberry face 2008
catherine deneuve, legendary french actress. doppleganger stars in grey's anatomy private practice
emily blunt, don't you find it so ironikal that you're at paris fashion week (sorta) when your poor same-name character who gets hit by a car in the devil wears prada was pwned by anne hathaway for the coveted opportunity to wipe fictional anna wintour's ass all day?

(Go to my flickr for fotos of many of these fairies)

The paps did go ape shit for kylie and kanye though. We thought something was amiss when we were almost crushed by french dudes yelling "keelie! keelie! s'il vous plaît!". You would think they would have gotten "kanye" right.. the name having obvious french origins and all. But I think the lack of the é confuses them. Or maybe its the many titles kanye has aquired from his surfs and vassals. We also thought that we maybe saw the sartorialist man ("but he's too orange to be the sartorialist guy!). I wanted to take a super meta photo of him, critique his outfit then proceed to e-mail it to him. Lily Donaldson was all late and stressed out with her cockneyed exclaimations that she forgot something as she was stepping out of her horsedrawn carriage limo. She made it though. Did you know that fashion shows are like.. 5 minutes long? It's like a greyhound race except with beautiful, leggy coat hangers.

pâtisserie

Today I finally indulged in a pastry from a honest to goodness pâtisserie on one of the teeny side streets off of Montparnasse. Just the right combination of flaky, buttery sheets of pastry, pear and chocolate. 1.80 euro. Love it. Right afterwards my guilty conscious and I arranged to go jogging three a times a week with a harvard lass in the Tuileries.
*edit in light of recent events, tu sais*
I'm thinking of going on a sartorialist rampage in the spring via telling people I work for the blog.

But that's so... American

Want to know every Parisien's dirty little secret? Well, I'm sure they have many that I have yet to find, but one of them is DEFINITELY Picard. Imagine an entirely white store filled only with Jetson worthy freezers and gourmet frozen foods in neat packages. At first glance it looks like a Pinkberry with large washing machines. That's Picard for you. They have anything you could possibly want meal-wise. The desserts are mouth-watering too.

Isn't it a bit ironic that a people that are willing to go to a boulangerie, butcherie, épicerie and fromagerie everytime they want to make a single meal also frequent possibly the most convenient and americanized food store imagineable? Everyday I see people with those clear snowflake plastic bags with Picard boxes in one hand holding a freshly baked baguette in the other. But whatever. The american in me was estatic to find a Picard just a couple blocks from my home. I bought 5 meals worth of food for ~ 7 euros. Fancy that.

flickr
myspace

la nuit paristech; less naked people

Welcome to the Paris métro. Clean, efficient and right on schedule. On every platform there's an LCD screen with the arrival time of the 1st and 2nd closest train. I spend a lot of time on the métro - he's a good friend of mine. He's an interesting fellow with doors that you must open manually with a lever and folding seats by the doors to save space. I just wish he wouldn't close so early - taxi fees add up and the noctulien (night bus) gives me the heebeejeebs. Each métro line is owned by a different company. Apparently different lines like to go on strike arbitrarily here and there. That will suck a little bit.

Last night was another night to remember. It was my first night out with only french people - specifically awesome grands écoles parisiennes who really know how to party. First stop was another grands écoles party, but this time it was at a club (not a nice one mind you). I have honestly never seen so many people my own age lined up outside or inside a club. The guys were surprisingly rowdy and pushy. What's great about clubs here though is that people actually go, not just nasty ass guidos and skankalicious hoes. People, especially guys, have almost no reservations about dancing their asses off and really having a good time. In true college spirit, paristech handed out cups and condoms to each atendee. Next stop was a friend's appartment, which had lovely wood framework in the ceiling and two GIANT lofted beds. After that, an australian bar where dancing on the tables is normal protocol. We ended the night with a heart healthy meal of fries and I'm not sure what else.

Far from being rude or impolite, I've found french people to be incredibly generous and loyal people. Even though I'm just some rando american student, these girls took me under their wing and really cared about my safety and how much fun I was having. My friend's host mother as well goes wayyy beyond what is required of her and often cooks incredible meals for her and her friends.

As always, see my flickr for more pictures. Until tomorrow my babies.

more naked people. (france's feature leaders)

As always, go to my flickr or facebook for many more pictures. The story behind this picture goes this: for all of you who aren't aware, France has a very different education system. Everyone with a bac, essentially a highschool diploma that you have to pass a test for, can enter University. The creme of the crop, essentially ivy leaguers, must go through rigorous preparation (two more years of prépa usually after high school I believe) to maybe get one of the few coveted spots at the private schools - les grands écoles. This little gem was taken at a party at one such grand école, ENS (Ecole Normale Supérieure). ENS churns out France's future professors and big shots. Although it's very difficult to be accepted to one of these schools, once you are, you're pretty much set. This is pretty sweet I must say - I wish my Columbia degree could give me that much power after I graduated.

The little lady here proceeded to whoopsidentally let her leopard print bra come off and the nice young man spent many a several minutes with his pants down. The mec in the middle is a charming young bloke whom I met that night among a group of frenchies I've been fête-ing with. Although I highly doubt the people sandwiching my innocent young friend were étudiants of ENS, it provided endless entertainment for the huge dance floor, which brought me wayyy back to middle school. The gaggles of french nerds were quite endearing.

In other news, I've been in my mandatorialist intensive french grammar class everyday for three hours. It's great but confuses the heck out of me. I must say my favorite part of this whole language thing is learning slang. Generally counterintuitive but an integral part of spoken french. I've been eating very, VERY well... but I don't think this whole multi-course meal thing is working for my figure. It's pretty awesome being a student here as far as food is concerned - in any given cafeteria you can get a really decent meal for 2.80 euro. It's been a week since my last post.. but that will change! Tiddlebittles everyday (or nearly), I promise! You know you got to get into that whole rhythm thing.

museuming, café-ing, gay clubbing

Chocolate cake from café des poètes - a café featuring candle lit poet readings and curiously fragant tea run by a wonderful couple and their little boy who can recite rimbaud by heart. The cake was absolutely delicious - soaked in chocolate but light as a feather. Parfait! The little boy was the most precocious thing - just like other french children. French children dress and act like mini adults - it's possibly the cutest thing ever.

Today marks the end of an epic orientation - 4 days of museums and free food. Many an encounter I did not expect to see. As always, go to my flickr for many more pictures. The museums were interesting and it was my first time at the louvre. It was vraiment surreal to see pieces like michelangelo sculptures in real life. I have to say the mona lisa (la jaconde) kind of sucks though - there's about a 15 foot radius around the painting, which is itself very small. The rodin museum was great too - the sculptures had an intense sensuality that quite frankly made me mal à l'aise.

On my first night out, I happened upon a gay bar (my first time surprisingly). In Paris the gay bars truly serve that clientèle - there were very few women. There were however a few vultures who had come to take the couple of straighties by surprise. About 1 minute or so after entering said bar, we noticed that there was a clear shower in the room. This shower featured a man in his delicates who proceeded to take a shower. The rest is history... whatever he was doing is DEFINITELY illegal in the states.

Hopefully my next nights en ville won't involve so many publicly naked men.

Paris finally and a free EP download!

Bonjour tout le monde,

It's my second night in Paris and I'm exhausted out of my brain. Right before I left I finished my self-produced EP, "New Romantics", avail for free download at mon site Web tranquil http://alicehumusic.com. The EP is mad revamped from before - new vocals/instrumentals/mixing - the works. Above is the album artwork I did for it. It depicts a good-looking urban outfitters-clad dreamboat guy holding up a boombox for the ladies whilst standing upon a gargantuan crescent moon about to fall on the mountains below. It's basically my fantasy. 'Twas completed at 5 am in the morn.

Also I think I inadvertently made Ezra Koening my EP cover. I mean, doesn't it just scream Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa? For you lazies, click on the image below to download the EP. You can preview it either at the website the image is linked to or at my MySpayce.

Now une petite histoire of my past two days. Let me just say that the flight was nothing short of epic. British Airways really likes treating people like the delicious cattle that they are queues, so much so in fact that every single person has to wait on long, several hundred people-long lines to check their baggage or change a connecting flight. When I arrived, half of my baggage managed to escape me and it was delivered to me this morning.

My host family is très gentille - they're an elderly couple and both professors. Tout va bien. My room is belle - there are two huge bookcases with everything from Sartre to "motorcars of the golden past". All the furniture is old school and just like the rest of Paris, cauched in the city's history. Refer yourself to my flickr for pix. (Blogger is being testy - is there a limit to the number of photos you can put up?) All the differences I expected to encounter I did - smallness of just about everything, formal dining, du fromage and du vin. Luckily my host mother is an excellent cook.

Today was orientation at Reid Hall. It vexed me slightly as to the obstinate usage of English by my Reid Hallmates, but I will be equally as obstinate in speaking le français. Reid Hall is an interesting sort of creature - a labyrinth of tight hallways and small classrooms around a central, very pretty courtyard. Aside from practical matters we learned that indeed pretty young lasses are often approached by french men - especially american women because well.. I don't think I need to explain. Apparently un parisien can tell an american even from behind - by the way we walk and dress. Perhaps also they compare the ratio of ass to torso, which is most likely larger for us américains. Also, it was encumbent upon one of our professors to inform us that French people never smile, even if they're ectastically happy. I wonder what they do instead?

I'm shooting for a story a day to give you a glimpse into my life in Paris. J'espère que ça souffi. Much museuming this week. And fête-ing this weekend.

baisers,

Alice

Urban Dictionary this

Many boys I meet in their collegiate-verging-on-twenty-somethings can name pretty much every indie-riffic band I heard about while interning at The MuseBox, sweating and scowling at wayfarers and cut-offs in Brooklyn and skeptically surfing the blogosphere. They vehemently denounce 'mainstream' music and hoard an impressive number of albums of bands that the average person will never hear about. Meanwhile they will converse with you (briefly) on the street through the din of their impossibly hip headphones.

The music snob.

Yes you know who they are. They are usually boys. They usually live in New York. They don't actually play an instrument. Two chord changes throughout the whole song is genius. Fuck buttons - I'm coming for you. One such music snob boy I know even admitted to being pretentious...and loving it. Needless to say there is good music out there; good music that isn't plagued by the business aspect of the music industry.

But please, before you become a music snob, pick up a guitar and play a chord. Better yet listen to some Beethoven or Chopin. Now there's some damn good music.

P.S. I know I said I would post often and I will. Lack of activity due to wisdom teeth removal post traumatic stress.