Ça Alors! Learning French Through Comic Books

I’m always on the lookout for a good book to read in French, but it can’t be too hard, too easy – just right s’il vous plait. And it’s even better if it’s actually interesting and fun, which makes finding the right book nearly an impossible task.

At my local French book store, I gravitated to a new section: a large table featuring comic books, or more correctly, ”graphic novels.”

I was lingering over two biographies about American dancer Isadora Duncan (1877-1927). I had just seen the biopic “The Dancer,” about the life of dancer Loie Fuller, who at one point hires Duncan. And I just saw the miniseries “Zelda,” about the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who knew the dancer. Bios about women and the 1920s were in the air.

So I picked up “Isadora,” by Julie Birmant and Clément Oubrerie (2017). Little did I know was how daring and unconventional this dancer was. She was enamored with ancient Greece, and danced in bare feet and a flowing tunic, improvising her way through music by the likes of Wagner and Stravinsky.

Isadora and later her students often went on tour—including
to Pittsburgh on Dec. 18, 1918, invited by The Art Society of Pittsburgh. In 1921, her leftist sympathies took her to the Soviet Union where she founded a school in Moscow, but the government did not support her work as promised. She died as dramatically as she lived, when in 1927 her long flowing scarf became entangled in the wheel of a sports car in the south of France. She is buried in Paris at the Père Lachaise cemetery.

Graphic novels have become seriously popular in France. Starting in the 2000s, nearly every big French publisher started a line of literary comic books. But then this is a country with a long history in quality hardback comic books such as “Babar” and “Tintin.”

What I liked about reading “Isadora” is that much of the writing is dialog, which is one of my weaknesses. How people speak in France is much different than how they write. Comic books are definitely an enjoyable way to learn some phrases I hear in conversation. And now trendy as well. Ça alors! (Well how about that?) One of the many very useful phrases to be found in a French comic book!


Rose Marie Burke, an editor and journalist, writes a blog about her personal insights into life in Paris. After 20 years in the City of Light, she still calls her native Pittsburgh "home." Want to follow this blog? Enter your email address into the “Follow me” box. Or find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Google+.

Paris-Pittsburgh People: Michael Keaton

Michael Keaton in "Birdman"

I recently saw the movie star Michael Keaton – and native Pittsburgher – here in Paris, at the impressive new Paris Philharmonic concert hall.

Keaton was there, figuratively speaking, in a showing of the Oscar-winning film “Birdman” (2014) accompanied by live music. My daughter organized the evening, and I went along without knowing a thing about what I was going to see.

As I exited the nearby Métro, my eyes were stunned as the expansive site unfolded into view. It was more like going to a stadium, the size of PNC Park in Pittsburgh, than to a concert venue.

The new Philharmonic hall in Paris

Inside, I had expected a full symphonic orchestra, but all I saw on stage was a drum kit. My expectations sunk.

The drummer, Antonio Sanchez, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, told us his story and how he got involved in Birdman. The five-time Grammy Award winner who has worked with Chick Corea and was part of the Pat Metheny group happened to bump into Birdman director Alejandro González Iñárritu.

This was no ordinary drummer, but perhaps the world’s greatest living jazz musician. He was touring the world playing in concert with the film. The drums took us inside Birdman’s disturbed mind as he moved around the backstage maze that was the setting for most of the movie.

Drummer Antonio Sanchez

Although Michael Keaton didn’t win one of the Oscars, I think he should have (but won many other awards). He played an aging movie star known for his superhero films, longing to be taken seriously as a stage actor. Eerily, Keaton himself is an aging movie star perhaps best known for “Batman.” (1989)

Keaton is also a hometown acting hero as well. He first appeared on TV in several episodes of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" (1968). Keaton also worked as an actor in Pittsburgh theatre; he played the role of Rick in the Pittsburgh premiere of David Rabe's "Sticks and Bones" with the Pittsburgh Poor Players. Keaton is reportedly an avid Pittsburgh Pirates fan, and has been seen at seen at Steelers and Pirates games as well, but these days called Montana home. (Thanks Wikipedia!)

Michael Keaton, I hope to see you again in Paris, or perhaps at a game in Pittsburgh? For real?

Rose Marie Burke, an editor and journalist, writes a blog about her personal insights into life in Paris. After 20 years in the City of Light, she still calls her native Pittsburgh "home." Want to follow this blog? Enter your email address into the “Follow me” box. Or find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Google+.

My “Secret” French Recipe For Chocolate Cake

Source: Seasaltwithfood.com

Stashed in my suitcase en route to Pittsburgh this week was a tattered and torn French recipe for what I think is the world’s best chocolate cake. And it’s so easy.

The dense layer, somewhere between brownie and lava cake, is called a “Reine de Saba” or a “Queen of Sheba” cake.

The recipe came my way via Eve Bark (merci!), at an orientation session to life in Paris called Bloom Where You're Planted. She not only gave us the recipe, but baked enough cake to give everyone in the audience a bite. Oh la la!

If this cake was any clue, life in Paris was going to be sweet.

For the longest time, I thought the cake was Eve’s invention and my personal secret weapon for dessert, even as France fell in love with le brownie, le muffin, and most recently, le cupcake.

Finally, I thought, I’ll bring this recipe to Pittsburgh – to America!

But in converting the recipe to U.S. measures and in Goggling around this past week, I realized that SOMEONE ELSE brought the Queen of Sheba to America a long time ago.

Julia Child in 1961.

She beat me by 56 years!

Julia included the cake in her book, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” And she featured it on her TV show "The French Chef." See the vintage video here.

You’ll also see the cake in the film “Julie & Julia,” about Julia Child’s foodie experience in Paris, and Julie’s experience following in the master’s foodsteps, er, footsteps.

 
Respectfully speaking, Julia’s cake complicates things. You really don’t need the rum and almond extract, or the chocolate-butter frosting, or the slivered almonds decorating the whole thing.

The cake itself is amazing, and if you must, a dusting of powdered sugar or vanilla ice cream will do the trick. It doesn’t have to be difficult. Eve’s variation, and my variation on hers, is a one-bowl one-layer wonder. So here we go. Done the apron, and get to work:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease and flour one 8-inch or 9-inch cake pan. In a large microwavable bowl, melt 4 ounces of dark chocolate (or semi-sweet chocolate chips) in a microwave on medium power. Whisk in 1 stick of butter (or margarine or canola oil), 2/3 cup plus one tablespoon of sugar, three eggs, one-third cup almonds ground in a food processor, and ½ cup flour. Bake only 20 minutes for a 9-inch cake or 30 min for an 8-inch cake--until barely done. Cool for 10 minutes. Eat warm.

Bon Appetit!

The United States Of Pittsburgh?

Source: http://www.unitedstatesofpittsburgh.com/about/

In a week I’ll be flying home to my native Pittsburgh for a week’s visit. Take me home city roads! They say you can never truly go home again, but I'll try.

Tens of thousands of us Pittsburghers left home in the 1980s, mostly for job reasons in what's called the Pittsburgh diaspora. It’s an almost biblical story of exodus.

One measure of the sheer size of this migration is the reach of The Pittsburgh Steelers. Via SteelerNation, the city is known to have the broadest fan-base of any football team in the U.S. That aside, the Internet and social media have made it easier for ex-yinzers to keep in touch.

Apart from seeing family, of course, I hope to check out some new sites. I especially want to see places with Paris-Pittsburgh connections. Like the birthplace of writer Gertrude Stein, who lived in Paris and cultivated artists like Picasso. And the birthplace of Mary Cassatt, the American Impressionist painter who joined a circle of artists in Paris including the Manets and Berthe Morisot.

I’m also curious to see the up-and-coming neighborhood of Allentown, which was spiraling down when I was growing up. My high school, Hilltop Catholic, now closed, had one of its buildings there. Allentown is also home to magnificent St. George church, recently closed as well.

My favorite neighborhood is under-rated Brookline, just a walk from my parent’s place. There I find authentic and amazing donuts for breakfast, Greek sandwiches for lunch, and Mexican sidewalk tacos for dinner. In between bites, I like to stop at the Carnegie Library branch to grab a book or a DVD.

The good news is that the exodus of of Pittsburgh has stopped. The city’s vibrant culture and affordability is attracting millennials, a new generation of workers who are digging in. The Lost Generation of natives that left Pittsburgh can never go home again to exactly the place we remember, but perhaps to a better place, which has become less blue and more white around the collar.

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Rose Marie Burke, an editor and journalist, writes a blog, http://parispittsburghandmore.blogspot.fr/, about her personal insights into life in Paris. After 20 years in the City of Light, she still calls her native Pittsburgh "home." You can also find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Google+.

Best Books Of The Year

Let’s skip the nominations and just roll out the red carpet for PPM’s best books of the year. All of these books have either a Paris or a Pittsburgh connection—and sometimes both. If there’s a theme running through the selections, it’s about overcoming difficulties as society changes.

PPM's Best Books of the Year!

1. “Hillbilly Elegy,” by J.D. Vance (2016). For insight into the working class “culture in crisis,” this memoir brings it home. It also hit home for me. Vance’s grandmother left Kentucky for better times in Ohio, but the times they were a changin'. Despite chaos at home that nearly ruined him, with his grandmother’s help, Vance became a Marine and went on to graduate from Yale Law School.

2. “Baker Towers,” by Jennifer Haigh (2005). The author, born in Barnesboro, a coal town 85 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, goes back in time to imagine what it must have been like to live in such a town in the 1940s through the 1960s. In Haigh’s book, men have more opportunities than women than the coal mine and the dress factory.

3. “The Paris of Appalachia,” by Brian O’Neill (2009). This Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist writes lovingly about what’s great about Pittsburgh, and what’s terribly wrong. The people are friendly, housing is affordable and commutes fairly short, and there are sports galore. But the city has been strangled from growing into a functional and modern metro area.

4. In the category of best foreign-language book, the award goes to “Berthe Morisot,” by Dominique Bona, a portrait of the French Impressionist painter (1841-1895) who struggled with Manet, Degas, Monet, and Renoir in Paris to develop a new way of painting and seeing. Where’s the Pittsburgh connection? One of Morisot’s friends in Paris was the Pittsburgh-born painter Mary Cassatt.

What are your favorite books of the year?

Rose Marie Burke, an editor and journalist, writes a blog about her personal insights into life in Paris. After 20 years in the City of Light, she still calls her native Pittsburgh "home." Want to follow this blog? Enter your email address into the “Follow me” box. Or find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Google+.

A Christmas Special. Thanks Greg & Donny!

I've left the Christmas preparations to the last minute, which is a grand old Paris and Pittsburgh tradition. So let me share a holiday special from Greg & Donny, who produce a web series based in Johnston, a stone's throw from Pittsburgh. The Special is a send-up of one of our favorite holiday movies, "It's a Wonderful Life." Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Don't Breathe!

Paris veiled in pollution this week

The air has been so polluted this past week in Paris—a 10-year high—that officials restricted car travel, an extreme measure to reduce the toll on human health. Doctors are seeing more children with asthma and bronchial infections. Citizens were warned against exercising outdoors. Worried Parisians donned surgical masks, which offer no real protection.

Meanwhile, one of my brothers emailed me this week about the new U.S. administration, which intends to name a chief in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency who is not really interested in protecting it. My brother worried that Pittsburgh will again merit the nickname the Smoky City. For photos of Pittsburgh when smoke turned day into night, see my post here.

But just how clean is Pittsburgh now, compared to Paris?

I was shocked to find out that Pittsburgh is still one of America’s most polluted—ranking in the top six. The American Lung Association graded Allegheny county with an F for its overall air quality. The reason? Car traffic and industry, especially along the rivers, exactly where Pittsburghers like to play outdoors.

lelysparis.com designer pollution masks

In Paris, people are blaming the French love of diesel fuel, which powers most cars and trucks as well. This love affair is due in part to the government’s lower taxes on diesel, a break meant for the trucking industry. But it’s also due to a weather inversion that has put a lid over the city.

This week, PM10 particulates exceeded 80 micrograms per cubic meter. The EU has set a maximum daily average of 50. PM10 are particulates with a diameter of less than 10 microns, which include the most dangerous ones of less than 2.5 microns, which can penetrate deep into the lungs and the blood system and can cause cancer, according to this report.

In Pittsburgh and Paris, what you can’t see can hurt you. What's a person to do? I just downloaded an app called Plume (developed by Frenchies) that lets me know when it's safe to bike or exercise outdoors, whether the 'Burg or Paris. And I have my eye on on a designer mask that really does work! Sincerely, I hope the way forward is a future of clean fuel that powers our cities and jobs, and allows us to breathe easily.

Rose MarieBurke, an editor and journalist, writes a blog about her personal insights into life in Paris. After 20 years in the City of Light, she still calls her native Pittsburgh "home." Want to follow this blog? Enter your email address into the “Follow me” box. Or find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Google+.