Secrètes de Paris

You can see New York saxophonist Rick Margitza and his band every Tuesday night (for free) at La Fontaine (Rue Grange aux Belles, 10th, M° Colonel Fabien), a cute little wine bar near the Canal St-Martin.

The view from the corner (New Orleans native Jeff Boudreaux on drums).
Can you believe it? Non-smoking during the concerts...not bad.

The bars on the Butte aux Cailles seem to be full all of the time, every day. I went to the Folie en Tête for the first time on Tuesday, and was lucky to find a table. Cozy, decorated with various African arts, old musical instruments, random flyers and posters. Original music (a bit of funky jungle music the night I was there), sometimes live bands play in the back. BEware of the Turkish toilet...

Today at about noon the Place d'Italie began filling up with students, ringleaders with their bullhorns, and idiots with huge sound systems on the back of pick-up trucks that made it impossible for me to get any work done, so I went down to have a look (Pedro needed to pee, actually).

From the ground, here they are gathering at Place d'Italie. Everyone is pretty much standing around while the music plays on the loudspeakers. Some enterprising promoter has tacked Ben Harper concert posters all over every surface, including the trees. If that doesn't give you an indication of the nature of these marches, nothing will!


And here is the trash the march leaves in its wake. Nice to see they're all guaranteeing jobs in the public sanitation sector.

I heard on the news that protesters in one town have been throwing rotten food at the town hall. Next thing you know Villepin will be telling them to throw cake. ;)