Wednesday, March 6, 2019

February 17, 2004

"Bad table manners, Gigi, have ruined more marriages than infidelity"--Gigi

Dreamed of playing with a toy World War I tank with those lozenge-shaped caterpillar treads.

Read the Classics Illustrated comic of The Downfall, Emile Zola's novel of France's disastrous 1870 defeat by Germany.  It's a terrific story.

Went shopping.

Moira hated Paris.  The service was lousy (hotels, etc.) and everything was a ripoff. [When you pay admission to the Louvre they don't give change--like on a bus--and Cabbies yell if your tip isn't big enough.]

Dinner was pork roast.

Saw Vincente Minnelli's Gigi (for the second time). Back in '50s America it was the height of sophistication. Today it seems vaguely unwholesome--maybe it did to some viewers at the time-- especially Maurice Chevalier's "Thank Heaven for Little Girls." ("Without them what would little boys do?") I kept thinking about what Moira said about Paris.  Leslie Caron was cute as a button, and subtler than a present-day equivalent like Britney Spears.

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