... today a terrorist tumbled in Toulouse ...

... this is Toulouse, a pretty city,

a French city,

historic city,

high-tech aerospace city ...

 

... and this is a market town,

crossroads town,

 an artist's town,

a fashionable town ...

... this is foie gras ville,

cassoulet ville,

magret de canard ville,

also, doner kebab ville ...

... this is vin Minervois country,

University student country,

grenouille rugby country,

Midi-Pyrenees country ...

... and, this is an immigrant's place,

melting-pot place,

a catholic place,

a multi-cultural place ... 

... Toulouse will outlive terrorism ...

... have a tart this Christmas ...

..."Christmas kinda creeps up on ya,"... next time I catch somebody (or myself) saying that, I goin' clap dem! ... in the Jamaican sense this indicates a sharp, non-injurious slap to the headback, others may interpret "clap" as sarcastic applause ... whichever, Christmas is never a secret, in fact, diplomatic cables from the North-Pole wikileak earlier every year ...

... there were already glittering clues at Montmartre intersections a couple of days before St. Nicholas snowed on Paris, making it really seem like Christmas, and chaos (travel) ... bedazzled sidewalks, lit tableaux and animated shop-window displays co-ordinated by teams of marketers or elves, combine in themes of wonder and sophistication ...

... there's a certain egalite in the very concept of public-space adornment, aimed as it is toward every eye, entirely consistent here with the lingering aura of revolution ... this year's effort outside the exclusive Ritz is a statement of elegant minimalism ...

... interestingly enough though, when Christmas approaches most people would rather be at home, even considering those who might have been tempted to stay in France eating Brie-de-Meaux and Raisins de Provence at whim ... and, lest you think a Caribbean Christmas is somehow anachronistic, think again ...

... to do Christmas right you must see it coming, it's extra stressful if it creeps up on ya, as it seems to every year despite all the wiki-warnings ... in the Caribbean, like in France, planned preparation of indulgent food is one way to enhance your own holiday experience, and home is still the best place to eat ...

... since I can only be with some of the people I love this year, these homemade guava tarts will be my offering of best wishes ... to one and all wherever you are ...

... Happy Holidays!

... le geek chic, freak clique ...

... and then there's the France we all know is there ... that passionate place subsumed in a sediment of stereotypes simultaneously endured and embodied ... this is a recreationally varied culture, from eating to painting, ball sports to politics, making wine to making whoopee ... the inevitability that other cultures also claim these characteristics doesn't detract from France's reputation at the top of this scale ...

... not surprisingly, like most everywhere else, the republique is also experiencing a growing demographic phenomenon centered around the cult of technology and the virtual worship of toys and gadgetry ... swelling ranks of increasingly tech-savvy, matrix-minds is producing a movement of men and women who have come to be known, somewhat endearingly, as geeks ... whatever the language ... in France they even have their own TV show called, interestingly enough, "No Life"...














... destination Midi-Pyrennees, the Toulouse Game Show ... there I enter a world that adds overt, fun-loving dimensions to escapism and fantasy ... Sci-Fi meets Halloween at the intersection of Toulouse and Lautrec one might say ...




















... among the de rigeur zombies and aliens, superheroes, Manga and Cosplay afficionados, were some straight-up Wii-the-people, channeling inner drummers while gettin' their Nintendo on ...









... others were there to connect with Kinect, the au courant offering from industry-giant Microsoft, featuring controller-free, sensory interaction with your best friends, via Xbox 360 ...

... on this November weekend, playful geeks of every description came in from the cold to welcome geeks-by-association Peter Williams from "Stargate SG-1", Richard Hatch from "Battlestar Galactica", Shinji Hashimoto, a pre-eminent Japanese game producer ... and the home-grown bad boys from "No Life" ...

... uber-geeks Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and more recently, Sean "Napster" Parker and Time Magazine's Person-of-the-Year Mark "Facebook" Zuckerberg, emerge from these ranks to suggest geek as the new cool, making it monumental folly to overlook this burgeoning bloc of binary brains ...

... more than just the Eiffel tower ...

... for those times when impediments come between you and routine, and when those ducks-in-a row take a hit, effectively reigning-in productivity, it's cool when there follows an upside to the experience ... when that upside brings the eye of Ackeelover Chronicles to the heart of a storied old-time colonial power, it's a cure for the blues and a sure bet for a blog-post or several ...

... serendipity conspired to take me the route traveled by many a vat of rhum, the distillation of toil and capitalism that buttressed links between the West Indies and the Republic of France ... modern Guadeloupe is France down to the last Euro coin and the high-heels, yet the butterfly-shaped island remains characteristically Caribbean at the same time ... construction zones in centre-ville, Point-a-Pitre reflect both realities ...














... initially, when making the segue from an anglophone environment to a francophone one, it's not unusual to notice a different appreciation for style and fashion ... in addition to the aforementioned high-heels, allow me to recognize and pay homage to what I will only identify as "the flirty-factor" to avoid gratuitous overstatement or mis-representation with an unsatisfactory French translation ... ou la la! says it just fine ...

... tropical island colours contrast the shades of grey enveloping Europe at this time of year, and the holiday season adds it's own identifying markers ... when you tek a stock (Jamaican, translates as: - if you look closely) there's always an ATM nearby ...

... ipso facto - by that very fact, if I may be loose with the latin, there are bank head-offices on the other end of those ATMs, in the centres of world trade ... "mon dieu!, World Trade Centres!" ... I'm speaking of places with longstanding infrastructures which serve to exert directive control on economic tides, at the same time as maintaining images so charming we all want to visit ...

... the university town of Toulouse, primary destination of my journey, warrants a blog-post for itself, but also kindly functioned as a picturesque prelude to the main attraction of the realm ...

... Paris ...

... compendiums of the world's great cities, compiled from whatever source, generally feature Paris high on the list ... convergent strands of international culture and pivotal historical moments-in-time mix and melange at this nexus to create arbiters of style and radiate influence on global aesthetics ...

... as cliche has it, spring is peak-time to appreciate this city, what with romance, renewal and rapprochement ... the soul of any place is perhaps at its most unadulterated during the off-season when life generally tends to be more about other things than image maintenance ... still, the face of Paris gleams through the dreary winter-holiday weather, particularly near the famous monuments and magasins ... one of the most prominent stores, Printemps, defiantly or definitively, means spring in French ...

... here, in a premier fashion capital of the world, the setting of royal intrigues, wartime legacy, artistic pinnacles and intellectual dictum, people are still subjects to "the big picture" ... they are governed by the ebb and flow of planetary fortunes, like the people of Gwada, who now add elements of les Caraibes to the French fabric ... the parents of Thierry Henry and Gael Monfils, two of the most recognizable faces in France, hail from these Antilles and have families that are as representative of contemporary France as a bohemian bistrot or boulangerie ...

... while the European Union grapples with economic uncertainty and demographic change, the underground, as always, offers a view of a future unavoidably constructed on the events of the past ... well duh, but it does feel like the stakes are higher these days, if only for the reason that there are more of us now hustling over exponentially diminishing quantities of less ...

... "the king is dead, long live the king" (French saying, translates as: - "... and the band played on" or "life goes on") ...

... the sound within the Metro arteries mixes jaunty (gentile?) accordion classiques de la Seine with every other genre ... the fuzzy-warm scene resembles other distant super-cities but this Pigalle musician fills the tiled acoustics of the subterranean conduit with a reverential wail ... "no woman, no cry"...

... you dun know seh French Culture is reggae culcha too! ...