Things FUSAC likes

People ask me for directions all the time. Sometimes I feel like it must be written on my forehead or on my bike helmet "Don't know where you are going? Ask me for directions". Happily I usually can point them in the right direction and don't mind doing so. I find it to be a sort of compliment and it underlines to myself that I live in this beautiful city called Paris. This time though the experience was a bit trying - at first. I was riding my bike back to the office along the Seine. There is a section right by the Eiffel Tower that is a bike path and it is just wide enough for one bike. It is not a sidewalk, but there are always tourists on it and it is kind of a pain to get past them. I ding my bell and they usually step off onto the dirt between the the trees and let me pass. That night I was behind two women. One in silver lamé pants, high heels and a short white furry jacket. I later saw a sparkly necklace too. The other in conservative pants, shoes, long …

We may be originally from America but we like to adopt the best traditions from where ever they come. One of those is the British Christmas Cracker. Make your own Christmas crackers from old books at our workshop at the Book Room on 11 December 2021, 16h. The workshop is open to everyone over 11 years old and will be conducted in English, albeit American English, but come on over for some fun. 3€ per person covers supplies. We'll provide everything including a template you can take home. Sign up at Brbookroom@gmail.com Limited by available space to 8 participants. At Christmas you can make personalized crackers with the contents and designs specially chosen for your family and friends or buy them in a store. Either way they are set on the table as part of the festive decor and are opened when everyone sits down. Each person takes the ends of a cracker and pulls. Or with arms crossed everyone holds their own cracker in their right hand and pulls their neighbor’s cracke…

Célébrer HALLOWEEN in Paris le Octobre 30 au Book Room avec un concours de déguisement et Trick or Treat. 1. Visit the Book Room (42 rue du Chemin Vert 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt, M° Porte de Saint Cloud) in your Halloween costume on 30 October 13-18h to collect your Trick or Treat goodies. 2. Email a photo of you in your costume in front of the Book Room to BRbookroom@gmail.com 3. We will post all the photos on our Instagram @bookroomparis. Be sure to like your photo on Instagram and follow our account because the photo with the most likes will win! Winners get their choice of book from the Halloween book box. Les origines d'Halloween Peu de fêtes américaines ont une origine aussi étrange, aussi paradoxale que celle de Halloween. Halloween ou "All Hallow's Eve" se situe sur le calendrier à la veille de la Toussaint. En France la Toussaint c'est d'abord une tradition hautement religieuse: on pense aux morts, à tous les saints, et l'on effectue une visite au cimetière p…

From the Traveling Note-book of GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. My French Neighbor, The Crayon Papers by Washington Irving, 1825 My French Neighbor I often amuse myself by watching from my window (which, by the bye, is tolerably elevated) the movements of the teeming little world below me; and as I am on sociable terms with the porter and his wife, I gather from them, as they light my fire, or serve my breakfast, anecdotes of all my fellow lodgers. I have been somewhat curious in studying a little antique Frenchman, who occupies one of the jolie chambres à garçon already mentioned. He is one of those superannuated veterans who flourished before the revolution, and have weathered all the storms of Paris, in consequence, very probably, of being fortunately too insignificant to attract attention. He has a small income, which he manages with the skill of a French economist; appropriating so much for his lodgings, so much for his meals; so much for his visits to St. Cloud and Versaill…

French Hollyhocks are not “French” Hollyhocks awaken memories for people just like Proust's Madeleines. My neighbor Kerry in Montana once said to me when she sees hollyhocks she is transported back to the streets of Helena Montana where she grew up. The hollyhocks would grow in every crack and corner and defined summer to her. Charlie from Seattle says "I remember the hollyhocks from the big country garden of my grandmother and the big city of my mother, they have such special memories associated with them." Another Montanan, a cowboy poet named Wally McRae, wrote a poem about his grandmother's “French” hollyhocks. For him hollyhocks bring back the memory of his grandmother's need for beauty in the hard-knock landscape of eastern Montana. It is only as an adult that he realizes how important it is to have beauty and not just a useful food producing garden. In reading his poem I was curious as to why he called them “French” hollyhocks. Are they really French? And so I did som…

Tea is considered a British thing. But tea is the second most widely consumed beverage in the world, 1000 billion (is that a trillion?) cups a year! And tea time is the best example of British "art de vivre". Since the French thrive on "art de vivre" they too have found a love for tea and tea time. Things have changed since the 1980s when my landlady Mme Cahierre made one pot of tea per week, left the single tea bag in it all week and simply diluted and warmed a tiny bit of her brew with hot water each day. Tea consumption has tripled in France in the last 20 years, but it is still small 230g per person per year compared to the British 2.3kg per person. Just look at these lovely spots for tea in Paris. Some of our favorite places for tea in Paris (and beyond) Thé-ritoires in St Germain des Prés, Paris Imagined as a family home where you just drop in, like a house where you set down your bags and stay as long as you want. A place to spend time reading, writing and telling …