Free Beef Sunday

Pink TV Arrives at Last

Paris:– Monday, 25. October 2004:– It has been pretty warm here lately. You know, the kind of weather when you take all the stuff out of the winter pockets and put it all back in the summer pockets, put on a sweater and go out and still be too warm.

Luckily this kind of weather happened between the Thursday club report and last night. What we have today is real weather and not that fake 'Indian Summer' stuff, about as substantial as lukewarm soap bubbles.

In fact there's a storm warning tonight, but it's down on the Riviera. There's probably not many people think that the Riviera gets many storm warnings, but there are more of them down there than here. France Météo has no warnings for flat, boring, weather.

Well now, what do we have facing us? I have to rub out "all cloudy' for tomorrow morning and replace it with partly cloudy, which will evolve to mostly clear for tomorrow afternoon. The high will be about 14 degrees, down from 21 on Sunday.

On Wednesday the western half of France will be mostly cloudy and the eastern half will be pretty sunny, but it will only be 13 degrees at the most. Winds will blow towards the clouds at 70 kph. I don't know whether anybody will notice.

By Thursday some of western France will still be cloudy, and half of eastern France will be extra cloudy. In the centre, for some part of the day, it might be a bit sunny. With a high of 14, again, it might be okay to sit outside if it can be out of the wind, which is forecast to be from the south, gusting along at 70 kph, again. There's nothing brilliant about any of this.

Café Life

France's Senat hosted the beef feast put on by the Ile–de–France Butcher's Federations in the Luxembourg garden on Sunday after it was advertised all week long. When I got there all I could see was a big white tent, but when I got around it there were about 300 or 400 hungry Parisians waiting for a taste.

Guests of honor were a Charolaise, a Limousine and a Blonde d'Aquitaine, each weighing about 300 kilos. Blue smoke drifted in the still air against a background of leaves about to change color as 30 beef cooks wandered around while waiting for the president of the Senat.

Overcome by a fainting spell, one excited Parisian received aid from firemen who arrived in a big red truck. When the first ten were let in to the food, all the people near me behind a tape barrier simply slipped under it and jumped the line, unbothered by the few security dudes.

Guys with knives attacked the three beeves while guys with platters hauled it away to some of the cooks, or butchers, who trimmed it, hacking away like it was some sort of slash contest under the open sky on a fall day.

I think there were other food items in the tent to go along with the meat but no free pizza. If not, there was bumpy dinner music in there, but it wasn't raining and I didn't take my share. I didn't know if their fingers were clean, but it was certainly democratic.

Montparnasse artist Matt Rose crawled off the plane from Miami – where he had been promoting his gallery show – last Tuesday and immediately plunged into hustling the Lalande Digital Art Press down at the Porte de Versailles where the just–over FIAC had been amazing the contemporary art–buying public.

Told to take his postcards and buzz off, Matt raced home to his apartment several floors too low to be a penthouse – or a garret – and rolled up his sleeves to begin the drum–roll for the next event, which will feature poet, art critic and editor of the legendary Unmuzzled Ox, Michael Andre, author of seven books of poetry.

Next Friday Michael Andre will be reading from his works and discussing his latest work, Orfreo, the opera about the late American artist Ray Johnson, which was produced last spring in New York. Matt will take part by reading from his own 'Plan B,' a true–love story about the life and sorry times of a crippled day–trader named Von Spatzl.

Billed as the 'Cultural Event of the Fall,' be sure not to miss this free show. It happens on Friday, 29. October, starting at 20:00. At the éof Galerie, 15. Rue Saint–Fiacre, Paris 2. Métro: Bonne Nouvelle. InfoTel.: 01 53 40 72 22.

Announced with some fanfare in Le Parisien this morning and on France–3 TV–news tonight, the arrival at 20:40 of Pink TV – is being fêted tonight in the Chaillot theatre. That's right – France's first homosexual TV program is in a classy theatre.

The date corresponds to the 20th anniversary of pay–TV Canal+ and probably means something to TF1 too, because the two are behind Pink TV. Oddly there is no mention of it in the magazine section or the program listing of my TV–guide.

After scanning Le Parisien's front page, pages two and three, I finally find the mention that Pink TV is availale for 9€ per month from any of the cable and satellite operators.