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On Crafting A Surprise
Advance warning for those of you who are only in this for the pretty pictures: I didn't see any reason to take my camera or my phone along on this. Sorry. It's read-only today.Hannah, winningLong-time...
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End O' Month Miettes
Ah, summer in Montpellier! The intense blue sky, the mild breeze wafting by, the confused tourists looking at the maps they picked up in the tourist information center, the sound of cicadas.... Oh,...
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The First Commandment
Tomorrow, Sunday, sometime in the morning, it will be 19 years since I landed at Berlin Tegel Airport looking for the guy whose apartment I was planning to live in for the next six months. He never...
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Little Town, Big Wines
It's always nice to get visitors in mid-summer, and when my old friends from Berlin, Ben and Yuhang, said they were on the way, I was glad to hear it. They'd been at my going-away dinner at Wok Show,...
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The Window Up Above
It really has been far too long since I've posted here, but I have the same old excuse: the book proposal I thought I'd have out of here in June has dragged on and on and, although I'm about to move...
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Barcelona, Part 1: Getting There is Half the Trick
I'd been looking forward to it for a year: I was going to deliver a short talk about the art of Daniel Johnston, and I'd get paid, at least transportation and hotel in Barcelona. When the funding fell...
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Barcelona, Day 2: Seeing God, Etc.
Okay, I lied. This is two days later, and I'm back in The Slum, where it's bit easier to write this stuff. No temptation to go exploring or seek out padrón peppers.I had one thing I just had to do...
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Barcelona, Chapter 3: And In Summary...
So, let me guess: you want to know about the food, right? Thought so. I wish I could be more helpful, but a couple of things stood in the way. First, I was mostly there to write an article, which meant...
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Wait, How'd This Happen?
Back from the market on Tuesday, and I noticed there wasn't a lot in the bag. A nice big romaine lettuce, a couple of ratty (but probably still good-tasting) eggplants, two yellow tomatoes for what...
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Early Fall Miettes
Just a few items here, because I'm in sort of a time crunch.First, I took a couple of American tourists on my famous Languedoc's Greatest Hits tour, the one that hits Sommières, goes between Pic St....
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Other Cities, Other Hills
And so it came to pass that I woke up this morning on a birthday whose number is of no interest except to Beatles fans, and discovered my internal clock feeling very much re-set. Knowing that this can...
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October Tour 2012: The Food
And, as promised yesterday, a few words about food.Because of the last-minute nature of booking this trip, it turned out that the cheapest round-trip to San Francisco was via Barcelona, whose train...
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The Slum's Environs, A Context
My friend D is having a hard time of it over in Texas. She's been writing me from her new place, which she's just moved into, and, since I have no idea where it is, I've taken to calling it the...
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In Which We Stop a Leak and Roast A Turnip
Just to give you an idea how exciting things can get at The Slum, the highlights of the week have been a visit from a plumber and the event I'm going to document below.The plumber thing was odd. One...
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"Starting Now, You Have Lost The Right To Stand."
Sorry for those with delicate sensibilities, but this story starts on the toilet.Two weeks ago this past Sunday, I was seated on mine, and ready to get up. I stood, hit the button in the center of the...
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Last Miettes Of The Year
Generally, when people ask me why I chose Montpellier to live in, my answer is that I wanted to live in France, but not in Paris. They are then amazed: who wouldn't want to live in Paris, for heaven's...
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Another City, No Hills Whatever
Every now and again, it's good to get away. This particular escape I'd been planning for months. I was really disappointed last March when it was announced that Philip Glass' Einstein on the Beach...
View ArticleMini-Miettes, Jan '13
There have been a couple of changes to the list of blogs over there on the right, with some very cool stuff being added. Raymond Sokolov is a name some will recognize as one of America's preeminent...
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Dirty Carrots: Theory and Practice
I'd seen them occasionally in the markets here. Once, during the year when I wasn't tasting anything, I even bought some carrottes de Paris at the covered market up the hill, fascinated by the fact...
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Beach & Béziers
Real good news: after a year off, E & J have fired up their jalopy and are travelling again -- and inviting me along. Or maybe they've been doing it all along and not inviting me, for all I know,...
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