My first full day in France was St Valentine's. Aix was decked out in Yayoi Kusama's charming polka-dotted trees to open the 2013 Marseille/Provence Cultural Festivities. I look forward to seeing more from this festival. I am getting my bearings downtown, and started...

I made it! After several months of reducing my life in the States to zero, I am finally on the positive side of the number line: building my new life in France. Oddly, the biggest hurdle in preparing for the...

Les sanglots longs Des violons De l'automne Blessent mon coeur D'une langueur Monotone.Tout suffocant Et blême, quand Sonne l'heure, Je me souviens Des jours anciens Et je pleureEt je m'en vais Au vent mauvais Qui m'emporte Deçà, delà, Pareil à la Feuille morte.—Paul Verlaine(a mostly Arthur Symons', unsatisfactory translation:The sobbing winds / Of violins /of autumn...

I was in England this July, though not for the Olympics, but to visit family. Other than the charm of the people (and their noticeably better vocabulary), what I liked best was the country's color scheme—everything was either a variation...

Recently back from a month in the South of France. Not wanting to spend too much time in the car, I limited my day trips to visiting places not further than an hour away. We went to the sea to visit...

Introducing kids to the sweet secret of honeysuckle never loses its appeal.No better place to be in the summertime than the South of France. Here's a video with cicadas:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dWa4iAI4BM Cicadas can only sing when the temperature gets above 72 degrees F....

I have started a textile/surface design class at the California School of Professional Fabric Design. We started with a 30-second sketch of a live flower (for me it was a Gerbera Daisy). We then arranged multiples in a close pattern...

Music definitely does something interesting to one's brain. My friend John Loose is a specialist in early music percussion and performed last week, along with the ensemble "Musica Pacifica", playing dance music from the 17th and 18th centuries; composers such...

Managed to catch the partial solar eclipse yesterday—no fog! But no safe viewing glasses so we improvised.