Act One, Scene 1

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Drayton Hall, Georgian-Palladian style plantation house
constructed in 1738 near Charleston, South Carolina

This is the first scene of my play, A Sword Unsheathed, originally written in French and translated into English for publication on the blog. At only eleven lines, it’s the shortest scene in the play. Hopefully these first few lines will pique your interest! The original French is found at the end of the post. (Read in French.) Please read the historical note here.

Voici la première scène de ma pièce, Un sabre dégainé, écrite à l’origine en français et traduite en anglais pour publication sur ce blog. Ayant seulement onze répliques, c’est la scène la plus brève de la pièce. J’espère que ces premières lignes piqueront votre intérêt ! L’original en français se trouve à la fin de l’article. (Lire en français.) Veuillez lire ici la note historique.

SCENE 1

The Characters

BENJAMIN HUGER, plantation owner, about 35 years old
FRANCIS HUGER, his son, about 7 years old
ROBERT, a slave

The year 1777. A cotton and rice plantation, on the veranda of the plantation house. A summer evening at dusk, hot and humid, chirping cicadas. Benjamin is seated on a rocking chair stage left, smoking his pipe. Francis stands downstage right, looking into the distance. Continue reading Act One, Scene 1

“I can’t believe it’s not butter!”

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SPOILER ALERT: This post may contain spoilers for fans of Mad Men who aren’t up to date with the episode that aired on May 12, 2013.

So, I’ve been watching Mad Men pretty religiously since the sixth season debuted on April 7, but I have to be honest: I’m having a tough time getting into this season. There are a few things that are bugging me, but nothing more so than Don Draper‘s affair with his neighbor, Sylvia Rosen. I’m so over that storyline that every time I see Linda Cardellini onscreen now, I just sigh and roll my eyes. Thankfully, though, it seems the tryst may have finally met its long overdue death. There have been a few bright spots for me so far this season, of course: the wake for Roger‘s mother in the season premiere was one. The history nerd that I am, I’m also digging the show’s tangential nods to the events of 1968. It’s given me an opportunity to discuss that turbulent period of US history with Michel: from Tet, to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., to Chicago ’68. But even though Sunday’s episode ended with the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, I found myself talking about a completely different history, a French history … the history of margarine. Continue reading “I can’t believe it’s not butter!”

Enter Stage Left

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Molière in the role of Caesar in Corneille’s “The Death of Pompey,”
by Nicolas Mignard

If you’re a fan of je parle américain, you’ve probably noticed a recent decline in the frequency of my posts. That’s primarily because I’ve been so busy with what has to be my final semester of French language classes. Instead of writing for je parle américain, I’ve been summarizing French news articles, drafting letters to imaginary newspaper editors about the controversies of the day, outlining arguments for oral presentations, synthesizing multipage French documents into concise 100-word summaries without omitting anything essential … oh, and writing a play in French. Continue reading Enter Stage Left

Remem-ber, Remem-ber the 8th of May

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Today is one of four French national holidays during the month of May, including May Day (May 1), Ascension (May 9 this year), and Pentecost Monday (May 20 this year). May is, it seems, the most “holidayed” month of the year for the French. Given that it’s usually the most beautiful month of the year in Paris, that’s just fine with me!

If you’ve ever wondered why May 8 is a holiday here, read on …

(Originally published May 8, 2012)

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May is a month chock full of holidays here in France. Just last week, we celebrated May Day. Since it fell on a Tuesday, lots of French took Monday off as well so they could have a four-day weekend — that’s what the French call faire le pont (“to make the bridge”). This year, May is also the month that brings us such Christian holidays as Ascension on May 17 and Pentecost on May 27. While the latter is no longer a public holiday in France, the former is … but let’s not get into a discussion about laïcité, okay? Instead, I’m writing about today’s holiday:

le 8 mai

A blogger friend of mine noted in a post today that it was “Victory Day” … but no one could tell her exactly which victory it commemorated. Being the history nerd that I am, I passed along the needed…

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Second Breakfast

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The inspiration for this post — believe it or not — was an ultrasound I had yesterday. Don’t worry: It turns out that I’m not pregnant nor do I have an appendicitis or a hernia. What I feared might be a more serious condition was, in fact, just an infection from a ninja spider bite. But that’s a story for another day, because you want to know what in the world that has to do with “second breakfast.” Continue reading Second Breakfast

From a South Carolina Sidewalk to a Paris Museum

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I am absolutely intrigued by Paris’s street art: those sometimes ephemeral, sometimes witty, sometimes political, but always free exhibitions that are found on almost every city block in this Mecca of artists. In fact, this is my third post on je parle américain about street art in as many months because I’m constantly stumbling across new pieces. A few weeks ago, though, I started to ask myself whether this love affair with street art has deeper roots than just my experiences here in Paris. Continue reading From a South Carolina Sidewalk to a Paris Museum

A morning at the Opera

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So, when was the last time you took a school field trip?

For most of us, it’s probably been a while. For me, though, it was just yesterday, and it was pretty cool.

I haven’t written much about my studies this semester, but I will in the near future. In a nutshell, after four semesters of French courses at one school, I’m now enrolled in another one for what should be my final semester of French. My classes are very different this time around. There’s much less grammar and literature and much more written and oral expression. Yesterday, in fact, our grammar professor was absent, so our oral expression professor used that two-hour time slot to take us on a field trip to …

the Paris Opera!  Continue reading A morning at the Opera

Pretty in Pink

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One of the advantages of being a perpetual student is spring break. At my new school, we actually have two spring breaks: one this week and one at the end of April. Not a bad deal, huh? Unfortunately, because of Michel‘s schedule and our lack of disposable income at the moment, there are no exotic spring break excursions on our calendar this year. Two years ago this month, though, I took a weekend jaunt down to a beautiful spot in southwest France, which made me think, “If I can’t travel this time around, I can always remember … <sigh> …

Toulouse
Continue reading Pretty in Pink

The dish ran away with the spoon.

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The dessert spoon: everybody knows what one is and what it’s for. If, after a big meal, you’re served … say … a banana pudding, you need a little spoon to eat it. The same is true here in France, of course: to savor a mousse au chocolat, you need a little spoon … for a crème brûlée, you need a little spoon … for a slice of chocolate cake, you need a little sp …

Hold on, wait just a minute …

Continue reading The dish ran away with the spoon.

That was one FAT Tuesday!

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Last year, I wrote a fairly popular article about Mardi Gras. In it, I talked about the HBO series Treme, my attraction to the city of New Orleans, the history of Mardi Gras celebrations there, and the story of my first attempt at making a New Orleans King Cake. It was really quite informative and pretty entertaining. (In case you missed it, that was a plug for you to go read it. Go ahead … you can get to it from here.) The article got a lot of hits this Mardi Gras season, too, apparently from people searching for the correct way to pronounce “Laissez les bons temps rouler!” — that infamous Cajun expression that absolutely no one says in France … except for Americans!

To be honest, last year’s attempt at making a New Orleans King Cake here in France bore almost no resemblance to the real thing. Since we didn’t have an oven, we had to depend on the local bakery for our brioche, and they just don’t make brioche here in Paris in the form of a ring or crown. On top of that, we couldn’t find colored sugar or the right food colorings at the local supermarket, so we improvised with candied fruit. And in place of the little plastic Baby Jesus, we used a ceramic Virgin Mary, the fève from one of our several galettes des rois from the Epiphany season. The result — as delicious as it most certainly was — looked more like a shrine to Our Lady of Candy Land than a King Cake.

King Cake à la je parle américaine—You have to work with what you've got! © 2012 Michel Denis Pouradier
King Cake à la je parle américaine — You have to work with what you’ve got! © 2012 Michel Denis Pouradier

This year, I tried my hand at it once again, and the result was a much better approximation of the real thing. Continue reading That was one FAT Tuesday!