Happy Birthday, Marcel, July 10th

Yesterday was Proust's birthday and if you're in the Washington, DC, area you may want to celebrate today:

http://www.chaptersliterary.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp?s=storeevents&eventId=325905

http://www.mercantilelibrary.org/groups/proust.php

I would whip up a batch of madeleines, but we are a) on one of our perpetual diets and b) it is too hot to cook.

I know! A drink, a French drink would be just the ticket. Some red wine, perhaps? We've got a bottle of Dubonnet in the fridge that is so old that it must have grown whiskers. No absinthe in this household. Maybe a nice snort of Grand Marnier after dinner. One must really do something.

I found this blog, in which the writer was unable to read Proust. Maybe he has too modern a sensibility, whatever that means.
http://book-loop.blogspot.com/

Last night Marcel was disappointed in the church at Balbec, which was not on the seashore and just didn't measure up. What's an aesthete to do? In my experience, Paris and Venice were two cities that did not disappoint.

I ran across this now defunct blog a while back. Lots of food for thought and interesting observations: http://involuntarymemory.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_archive.html

I'm listening to a French CD: En Rouge Et Noir - Le Train Des Enfoirés - hardly Vinteiul. Oh well, cheers!


Ha