Category Archives: france

Puritan Drinking in France

March 26, 2022 – 11:02 am

Back in 1982 I was driving on the Autoroute du Sud toward Perpignan. I stopped at a Cafe de Relais to a coffee. At the bar several southbound routiers or truck drivers were quaffing afternoon aperitifs. In this case Calvados. Coming from the States I was slightly surprised that the Etat du France sanctioned the […]

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BETTER LUCKY THAN GOOD by Peter Nolan Smith

October 19, 2021 – 3:14 pm

Back in 1990 a greasy nor-easter ruined Columbus Day weekend for New York. I shut my windows for the first time in months and dressed to leave my apartment for breakfast at the Veselka Diner on 2nd Avenue. The shoes and jacket seemed unnaturally heavy after a season of shorts and sandals. Luckily Global Warming […]

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Gerard Depardieu GOING PLACES

August 24, 2021 – 1:40 pm

In 1978 I saw the French road film LES VALSEUSES or GOING PLACES at the St. Mark’s Cinema. The Bernard Blier movie about two thugs blissfully wandering through France was a Gallic counterbalance to the other feature on the double bill EASY RIDER. Gerard Depardieu’s comic talent complimented the late Patrick Dewaeare and I kept […]

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Perpignan 1982

August 1, 2021 – 1:10 am

In the summer of 1982 my college friend Nick Napoli came to Paris. Walter D was DJ for the Rex Club’s final 24-hour marathon of new wave and ethnic bands featuring Toure Kunda and Virgin Prunes. We weren’t straight for any of those hours. The club’s manager Olivier had a family beach home on the […]

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ROCK STANDS TALL by Peter Nolan Smith

June 13, 2021 – 3:42 am

In August 1984 ACTUEL sent a Californian-born photographer and me to cover the Deauville Film Festival. This was my second journalism gig for the esoteric French magazine and I hoped that writing a good article might open the path to another profession than being a doorman at La Balajo. The Deauville Film Festival was not […]

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