A Heeb in Paris

Ok - am being gagged. There was an incident that I can't discuss so instead here are some pictures of the past days... Voila Paris! These photos are by Tomas, my long time friend, but I will take credit for the insiration.

I will go into a little detail -- my days here have been incredibly busy, this a.m. is the first quiet moment. Tomas is here being "freelance" so we have been sipping espesso in our pajamas carrying around our laptops. He has a show this Friday for his photo series on totoblog.fr. The digital revolution has made him a star.

I have been at a conference in Versailles pour "La Vie Juive Culturelle" similar to the Limmud conference in England. It was cute, but nothng special, what is always interesting to see is how 80 percent of French Jews have Sephardic/North Arabic backgrounds... so basically, they are dark, well-dressed, and damn good looking. I went to a belly dancing workshop and danced with women my mother's age. I also gave a few presentations in French and the love of the debate is very much alive here, and folks are not concerned about challenging you directly or being less then polite.

Following the conference, its been bleary eyed meetings with meetings with people in the French media (hot!) and other such types. Frazzle haired smoking journalists, well dressed djs and tv-personalities and my petit ambassador, Steve. A guy who did his Phd on Lenny Bruce. An interesting cast of characters, and our conversations center around Jewish culture in New York, Paris, Heeb Magazine - and all the while, je parle francais, ou j'ai essaye de le faire.

My nights have been courtesy of Tomas, his boyfriend of Southern Romance fame, Nico and another cast of characters. Michele, "l'italiano" is here from Italy/Berlin, this is our fourth rendez-vous point this year (Jerusalem, Berlin, New York and now Paris) so he's been cooking us risotto. Other characters in our little spectacles are the Franco-Brit Meital, Claire, Juliette (the real French coquette), David and his new girlfriend Ann and our friend Behrooz from Tehran. The parties involve food, wine, wine, wine, wine and then something that involves dancing, undressing or being ridiculous until 5 am. A nice contrast to my more serious, culture-infused mornings.

The downside as of now, aside from how bloody expensive France is, is that it has been raining. But even walking in the rain in Paris, is exceptionelle.

I have a meeting in a private cafe of the Figaro building and then a meeting with editors from another pub tomorrow morning. Last night Tomas' parents made a delicious dinner for us that involved first a pastis, then red, then white then back to red for the incredible cheese platter dessert.