piran café

No, this has nothing to do with McCain-Palin.

Here’s a silver anniversary memento I’m looking forward to: a remastered two-CD 25th anniversary edition of REM’s Murmur, their first full-length release, to be released just in time for the worst shopping season of a generation (or two).

Murmur was actually released in April of 1983, but this year’s November 25 release makes more sense as far I’m concerned since it wasn’t until the fall of ‘83 that I finally listened to the album start to finish. Over and over on my roommate’s headphones in my freshman year dorm room in Athens (Ohio, not Georgia). My brief experimentation with the campus Young Republican Club was already resigned to the dustbin; other more appealing experiments awaited.  And REM has been along for the ride ever since.

The second CD is a live recording from July 9, 1983, at Larry’s Hideaway in Toronto. [Set list here.]

Coincidence being what it is, here’s a live video of Talk About the Passion supposedly taped on November 25, 1983, at the EXO 7 Club in Rouen, France, birthplace of the fictitious Opera Ghost of Phantom of the Opera fame. [The evening's set list via REM Chronicle.]

It was their first time out of North America, their first European stint, and just the seventh gig into the tour. So this was early on, and the growing pains are clearly visible here. Patience, please. The song finally begins about 1:45 in. And it’s a decent recording.

via The Regular Guy

Hotel De La Paix
19, rue du Gros Caillou – 75007 Paris

I liked this place! Located on a pleasant and quiet street in an otherwise fairly lively neighborhood –a couple minute walk from the Parc du Champs de Mars, and perhaps 10 to the Eiffel Tower– it’s about as off-the-beaten-path as you can find in Paris.

Rooms are cozy, free wifi throughout, and an extremely pleasant owner and staff. There are plenty of bars/cafes in the vicinity that won’t break the bank, along with a few wines shops that will. Nearest metro is Ecole Militaire, and you can order a shuttle to De Gaulle Airport at the front desk (17 EUR, about 40 mins).

The hotel’s website is here; for Paris I generally book through venere.com.

I think I’ll definitely return.

Hotel De la Paix – Paris, originally uploaded by pirano.

More organizing – here are a few bottles from a recent trip to Paris, and again seeking thoughts, experiences etc.

- Pierre Charau Chateauneuf du Pape 2004
- Chateau Haut Padarnac Pauillac 2004
- Cheval Noir St. Emilion 2002
- Cuilleron L’Amarybelle St. Joseph 2004

The L’Amarybelle I tried at a shop tasting, it was yummy but young, and needs to chill for at least 4-5 years.

Lest we forget indeed. Today marks the fourth anniversary of a profound day in recent U.S. political history, one that clearly illustrated the adolescent juvenile depths to which debate has sunk in BushLand.

Wisely utilizing his time as Chairman of the House Administration Committee, then-congressman Bob Ney mandated that French fries –you know, those ubiquitous Belgian frites– be officially renamed “freedom fries“ in three dining halls on Washington D.C.’s Capitol Hill as way to punish France for not blindly buying into the blatantly manipulated and patently false faulty intelligence that George W. Bush cited for his reasons to invade Iraq. (As far as anyone knows, French kissing and French ticklers, insofar as their use in Capitol Hill corridors, were not renamed. Freedom ticklers?)

If you don’t remember what’s become of Ney since, the first line of his wiki biography should suffice: 

Robert William “Bob” Ney … is an American politician and federal prisoner from the U.S. state of Ohio.

Last October Ney pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges and on March 1, began serving his 30 month sentence.

But I digress.

House Republicans weren’t trying to set the record straight on the origin of the fry. Few probably actually knew. The renaming though, most certainly had the opposite effect, since gourmets and gourmands in France were more annoyed with the term “French” being wrongly applied to a puffy, greasy diced potato in the first place. At the time, a French embassy spokeswomen made no comment, except to note that French fries are indeed Belgian in origin.

We are at a very serious moment dealing with very serious issues and we are not focusing on the name you give to potatoes.

So serious in times of war, those French.

French-bashing remained de rigueur among the likes of Ann Coulter and her ilk, but things slowly began to change. A little more than two years later, North Carolina Republican Congressman Walter Jones, who initially led the cafeteria purge with Ney, changed his tune and regretted his pettiness when he shifted positions on the war, Jacques Chirac was right, and by August of last year, tempers cooled and cholesterol levels dipped enough so that “French” was quietly returned as the Belgian fried potato’s primary descriptor, and everything new was wrong again.