True Story.

The other day, meeting a Friendster friend of a good friend's ex-boyfriend over there at the Bastille (that monument in Paris famous for no longer existing), I saw a cop put a gun to somebody's head. At first, I didn't realize he was a policeman and thought I was to be witness to a random shooting. Three plain clothes officers swarmed a slowly moving car carrying three young men; through the open window one cop screaming "Arretez!" pointed his gun an inch from this man's face, who, scared, hunched forward and braced for impact. He was not even the driver, who, in turn, gunned car (an odd turn of phrase in light of the circumstances) into the mess of traffic that is the Bastille roundabout and, at least, the cop was wise enough not to pull the trigger. They gave chase on foot to the moving car (here, those on foot probably had the advantage), but my eyes did not pursue the rest.

I seem to choose to live in places of great mythology. Paris buttressed by a chamber of commerce of Hugo and Hemingway. Before that was Olympia, WA a place either unknown (I interpolated once into a story describing Oly: “Oh, we’re not loved. We’re not even hated. We’re only sweetly ignored.” I no longer remember the origin of the quote.) or considered a nouveau Shangri-La. Before that was L.A., which, though quite a myth to many, I just never got over the idea of it as the place where the freeway (and thus my cross-country voyage) ended. I seem to be forever on the verge of developing cynicism living the reality of a mythical place. Yet I never do.

Besides folks being a bit gaga over the thought of "living in Paris," I'm often asked what's happening in music here. To outsiders, the French music scene is a bit insular (this is a more polite judgement than the popular "insipid"). Actually most of those "outsiders" are ex-pats living in town who've seen too many bad bar bands.

Needless to say, French music isn't American music: it doesn't carry that full-steam ahead produce more than anyone could ever consume value. Though it's no Sweden either. It chugs along quietly, thinking about things, maybe sending out a Gainsbourg, Air or Daft Punk every 20 odd years or so. It also seems to have that same contemporary problem of doing everything in English to "reach a wider market." Luckily, my favorite album of late is by a French woman, from her album "La saison volée." She does do an English song or two, and one in Spanish; but mostly it's in her native tongue. And it's a cuddle and a half.

Françoiz Breut -- La vie devant soi (2005)