L’Observateur : Rentrée Edition

French Flaming Lips fans waiting for Coldplay. (Photo by Jenny Hart)

My second rentrée has been a little sketchier than the first. We couch-hopped for five days before we finally found a temporary rental near Porte de Clingancourt. The neighborhood is surprisingly Hausmannian and offers a range of culinary delights. We’ll be here until the end of the month.

My last moment of import in Paris last May also happened to be my first-ever functional French conversation. Upon rentrée, I have picked up where I left off, talking the crazy talk of an expat with a learning disability.

(Photo by Jenny Hart)

The day we moved into our temporary flat, The Flaming Lips came through town opening for Coldplay at the Parc des Princes, a soccer stadium that holds 60,000. It was a far cry from the first time I saw them at the Oklahoma University Student Union in 1986. We scored some VIP passes from our pal Steven and got to stand stage right during the show. Steven dedicated “Pompeii AM Gotterdammerung” to me, and I took a bow in front of 40,000 confused French people. Later, Dr. Ellenor Shoemaker and Ms. Jenny Hart breathed on Chris Martin. Everyone left happy.

The world’s oldest person died again.

L’Observateur du Jour

Martini Rosato is one tasty aperitif. If you can find it in the United States, I’d like to hear about it.

I was on my bike in a steady drizzle underneath the arches near the roundabout on the north side of the Louvre when a middle-aged man on a moped pulled up next to me at a red light. He pulled out an iPhone, dialed a number, and then wedged it between the interior padding of his helmet and his ear, shut the visor on his helmet, started talking to someone, and sped off. Allez-y.

There is a French cell phone commercial that has “The W.A.N.D.” by Oklahoma’s Flaming Lips in it. The “characters” seemed to be taking the lyrical content of the song literally, which I thought strange, but not nearly as strange as hearing the Lips in a French TV commercial.

The French call Edinburgh “Edimbourg,” and Scotland “L’Ecosse.”

Three bulbs of garlic cost 1.5 euros at the corner store.

This column is a loose homage to R.U. Steinberg’s Mr. Smarty Pants Knows, which, when read in URL, says: “Mrs. Marty Pants Knows.”