Jeanne Koré Salvato

tango and tragedy

tango and tragedy

rench movies are interesting ways of thinking about French culture.  We looked at one recently, Between Two Worlds, with Juliette Binoche. An explicit theme, one that is highly valued (although not always practiced) is one of questioning oneself, se remetre en...
anything for a laugh

anything for a laugh

ot long ago I stumbled upon the French essayist Montaigne, a real meanderer of the mind, if ever there was one.  Even his sense of humor reflects all that wandering. He opines, “My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.” ...
questions à la française

questions à la française

There’s a French expression « se remettre en question. » It’s tricky to translate literally, but if you did, it would come out like this: to re-put yourself in question.  Which does not help a lot! On an on-line forum, a French speaker offered this...
La Seine à la Montaigne

La Seine à la Montaigne

We had a famous Wordsworth professor who would say, “My glance fell upon such and such in a Wordsworth poem,” as his way of opening a lecture.  I would like to borrow his words to say that this morning my glance fell upon a book on my shelf called, How to Live or...
cemetière montparnasse

cemetière montparnasse

I’d like to continue the story of the cemetery at Montparnasse.  I returned the next day with my intrepid Irish friend, who could not believe a puff a wind had closed down the cemetery the day before. Here’s a link to that sad tale. pilgrimage This time, the...