January fog

Something about January in Paris is really heavy. The holidays are over, it's gray, and people generally seem more miffed than usual. Is this in spite, or because of the new non-smoking law in all restaurants and cafes, which miraculously took effect on January 1st?

Whatever the reason, I shall now attempt to perk up the sluggish ambiance with a musical snippet, which I hope will be a hit on the new CD - hope you like it! (Video shot and edited by Gildas Bocle')

Gaudi' and pickle relish

Sometimes you just have to say "What the ----?" and roll with it - like the other day. Was in Barcelona, Spain, in a taxi just after discovering the most beautiful, inspiring building I've ever seen (and it's not even finished!), Antoni Gaudi's Sagrada Familia temple, and suddenly a long-forgotten condiment came to mind: pickle relish. I have absolutely no idea why. I was never particularly fond of pickle relish and barely realized its absence after so many years of living in Europe. But it's true, in all my travels I have yet to see pickle relish in another country. And now here it was, in my brain, popping up every half hour or so for the rest of the day, interfering with (or perhaps embellishing) my visit of this unforgettable city. It then came up so often that it lost all meaning and the syllables became like a foreign language. Picklerelishpicklerelishpicklerelishpickle... Has this happened to you?

On that note - another video, with subtitles due to bustling Paris street noise!

By popular demand...

Here are a couple of photos of me in action - one fun, one slightly psychedelic. They were taken by Alexandre Tome, by the way, and the black and whites in my other posts are by Hermine Cleret. Good stuff.

Off to Barcelona for a 2-day mini-break before the January onslaught!