Quick update

The best-laid plans of mouses and blogging seem to have gone awry for the summer.

I've posted a little over on And So Forth, where I've also started to weakly Twitter since I realized I wasn't going to be crowing out all of the great posts I had imagined for the summer.

My husband is flying in from France today and my daughters will be opening their two musicals this week and next, so times will be even busier. But I did want to say hi to my blogging buddies.

I will return!

Let us out!

A few summer flowers being held prisoner in a tiny village in Aveyron.

My thoughts are many miles away

Between a two-day trip to Paris next week for work and my departure for the USA in less than three weeks, my mind is racing over a lot of ground besides the fetching Aveyron countryside and weird parts of Rodez.

And in looking over my last months of blogging, I am surprised how many posts haven't dealt with Aveyron at all. Since la rentrée, I've spilt a lot of virtual ink about Albi, Paris, Montpellier, Paris again, Toulouse, encore Paris...

Soon I will be writing from even farther afield, reviving And So Forth to blog all summer from Olympia, Washington.

Is my mind elsewhere? Possibly.

Is this my last written post for France Profonde before next September? Could be.

See you on Wordless Wednesday! And if you're bored on Sunday, you can create an image of yourself like my new avatar here.

Taking a closer look

One of the joys of digital photography in general, and photo blogging in particular, is getting the chance -- and taking the time -- to look more closely at sights that have caught my attention.

Rushing off to a professional engagement in Rodez on Thursday, I noticed this striking green gate and made a mental note to take a shot of it on the way back from the appointment. And rushing back to catch my bus, I allowed myself no more than 15 seconds to take the photo.

I had barely even looked at the object in my objective -- I was just struck by its color, which is not that common in the area's exterior decoration.

But examining it at home on my computer screen, I saw so much more: the overflowing plant that prooves what a green spring we're having; the contrast between the old stone on the right and the rather less attractive material used to cover the building; the fact that the gate doesn't seem to be attached right -- or at all.

It reminded me of Aveyron: green, full of contrasts, and a little off-kilter.

The Undisputed Truth

Poor smiling face.

You got left out of last weekend's smiling faces fest because nobody has bothered to deck your window out with red paint.

But as a consolation prize, you can help me reveal the answer to the trivia question embedded in that blog post:

"Who made the song "Smiling Faces Sometimes" a hit?"

In asking that question I was, of course, confronted with the fact that a lot of my readers are too young to remember that song. Never mind. If you had your transistor radio turned on every night in your room in 1971, you know it. So I'm talking to you. Can you dig it?

Originally recorded by The Temptations, the song became a number 3 pop chart hit in 1971 re-recorded by the little-known "psychadelic soul" act "The Undisputed Truth."

Despite the veracity of their name, The Undisputed Truth never made it back into the Top 4O. In a strange twist of fate, they were the ones who first recorded "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" in 1972. Their recording of the song hit a modest #62, but it was re-recorded shortly thereafter by guess who: The Temptations. That version reached number one on the pop charts and is considered an all-time soul music classic.

One of my commenters mentioned that "Smiling Faces Sometimes" used to scare her when she was a kid. She may get scared even now if she watches this:

Live in Paris; Read More?

In my ever-active mind, I have been bemoaning the fact that I don't read nearly as much as I used to. I was a huge reader in my pre-motherhood days, and even when my kids were small I managed to get through quite a few books since reading was about my only personal hobby.

Now between work, the house, cooking, driving my kids all over the place and yes, of course, the computer, the only time I find to read is right before going to sleep -- and if you're a busy parent, you know how long that lasts.

This year I have had the chance to go to Paris a few times for work, and was impressed by how many people I saw reading in the metro and RER. As you can see above, there are even poems posted in the trains just in case you don't have anything to read on you -- how Parisian!

When I'm in Olympia for the summer, even though there's no subway, I often see people carrying around books in order to devour a few pages if they find themselves with nothing constructive to do. And I've realized that here in Aveyron, I never see people dragging books around to read on the bus, in cafés, or in doctors' waiting rooms. I wonder why that is?

I'm not saying people don't read here. Au contraire! The main local bookstore does a booming business, as a recent article in Télérama points out:

La Maison du livre,avec son fonds sans défaut (30 000 titres) et ses conseils avisés, dégage un chiffre d’affaires annuel de 3,5 millions d’euros, qui, rapporté aux 272 000 habitants du dépar­te­ment, en fait une des librairies les plus dynamiques de France.

But reading seems to remain a private activity here, carried out in the
confines of readers' homes.

What's the "reading in public" situation where you live?