What Would Phoebe Do?

-I finished Howard Jacobson's  The Finkler Question . The book has some amazing lines. Such as: Page 190: "As Assistant Curator o...

This reminded me: if I were not writing my dissertation on Jews and intermarriage in 19th C France, it would be on the relationship between...

"La Libre Parole." On microfilm. Not 'fiche, 'film. Then Le Boulanger des Invalides Jocteur. With, for the first time sinc...

-Yes, it's frustrating that women's clothing sizes are meaningless, and that no woman today 'is' a particular size. There...

Sometimes the whole dorm-and-microfiche part of my time in Paris overshadows the beautiful-weather-and-pastry one. Today has been very much ...

"I'm assuming that at least until your blog goes viral, your mother makes up the bulk of your readers." - Prudie . (The quot...

Often, so very often, gay men stand accused of ruining things for women through their imagined machinations in the fashion industry. 'Th...

SOUB, or YPIS, the double/meta version . Summary, for those without the privilege of clicking on the link to Gawker: the site reposted (and ...

People are often asking me how it is to be in Paris, especially now that the weather here is on the perfect side. And I'm always saying,...

Sometimes, I just want to be like, New York Times , enough with the French stuff. Is France really that great ? I mean, congratulations , In...

What are we calling the genre of, outlandish rich-person behavior exposed, with the express purpose of eliciting comments from readers who a...

When meeting new people, two things that typically come up early on are what one does and who, if anyone, is coupled off with you. When I me...

OK, so a lot of bus-stop-waiting later, and I've listened to more of Jason Solomons's " Sounds Jewish " than any podcast o...

There's a "Seinfeld" episode where Kramer and Jerry make a bet about whether Kramer will, as he claims, install "levels...

-After nearly everything I'd requested at the BNF was, for a change (and I mean this sincerely!), not useful, and after I saw a man at t...

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the Amy Chua-fest was about regression to the mean, aka the fact that sometimes kids wit...

By "this" I mean read the academics-who-study-France listserve's Housing Digest. It is, like so many Woody Allen movies, real ...

Whenever there's another round of veil-law discussion re: France, what comes up is whether the Feminist Position is to support the right...

Are you American? In France? Paris, for example? You fall into one of two categories. First possibility: you're in town to see the sight...

-For future reference, let it be known that visiting certain Jewish buildings in Paris is only slightly more complicated than getting on a ...

-I had a little chit-chat with the janitor assigned to my floor, and he agreed to put soap in the container in the bathroom! All you have to...

There was an article a while back in the NYT about how, if you're a black man in the US, dressed however professionally, no one will sit...

Remember "game"? I haven't checked to see if those blogs still exist - no doubt they do - but as I recall, the premise was tha...

-I spent the weekend at a chateau in Normandy, thanks to an invite from Rachel Hills . Whee! Made for a slight change from the dorm . -O...

-The issue , lest there be confusion, is not that Parisians drink their coffee black because they're sophisticated existentialist-types...

While I still have trouble saying the word "fiancé," having grown up with " Seinfeld ," I've now got one of those. A...

-Pff. " Paris's Tiniest Kitchen "? The sink and desk in my dorm room - plus whatever part of a communal kitchen I can claim at...

Brightly-colored food is appetizing. Is it our innate sense that multicolored implies a balanced or high-quality meal, or an aesthetic shape...

The CCOA discussion continues. Withywindle has  more thoughts ; Isabel Archer and Britta promise theirs are forthcoming. I'm waiting! ...

-Attempting to send a text just now to a friend, telling her I'm too tired to go out, my phone seemed to think I wanted to type not ...

Dorm life is much improved in the used-to-be-moldy room. With a bed - finally! - without protruding coils, I slept as well as a college fres...