Rome, Prejudice and LifeGem

I spent this week in Italy, one of my favorite places in the world. I was in Rome shooting the Rome International Film Festival. It's quite a scene on the red carpet, with the attempt at organization being almost as entertaining as the festival itself.

The big names were men (Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Al Pacino) but it was the women on the red carpet that attracted most of the attention.


The low-light of the festival was seeing the zombie-like behavior of the hoards of children reacting to the premiere of High School Musical III. Evidently, many children in Italy (or maybe their parents) drank the same Disney Kool Aid as many American children have.

To see images from the festival, CLICK HERE.

Of course I ate well and enjoyed the fact that the same 1 liter bottle of sparkling water costs half of what it does in Paris. I had 1 full day to walk the city with my camera.


To see some images from my promenade, CLICK HERE.

One reason that I like traveling is that it forces me to become aware of and confront my own prejudices. For example, when I'm in places like Hungary and the Czech Republic, it takes me a couple of days before I realize that even though most of the men there look like the bad guys from 80's American action movies, they're fine and I can relax. And that not ALL the women there are for sale.

In Italy, it takes me a while to accept that people are not actually yelling at each other but that in their culture, screaming and arm waving with 9 inches of separation from another individual is not an act of aggression. I still struggle with the fact that our ears can be genetically the same and yet react in such different ways.

There's much to write about on this subject but I'd be curious to hear about some of your traveling prejudices ... good, bad or ugly.

Just when you thought maybe we as a society are not insane enough, have a look at what this company called LifeGem does. For anywhere from $3,500 up to $20,000, this company will take the carbon from the remaining ashes of a loved one and make a diamond out of it. I wish I was kidding. This is from their website:


What is a LifeGem®?

The LifeGem® is a certified, high-quality diamond created from the carbon of your loved one as a memorial to their unique life, or as a symbol of your personal and precious bond with another.

To learn (laugh) more, go HERE.

A couple of photos of the week:

Young and Happy
When it starts getting cold outside

Obama, Fall, Customer Service & Water Salad

This week I attended a Barack Obama campaign event, held at the home of a long-time Democrats Abroad supporter.

The event was pretty much a cheerleading and organizing session and included a call-in by Democratic Senate candidate from North Carolina Kay Hagan (she's running against Elizabeth Dole).


Not much of substance really happened but what was most notable was the number of people in attendance and the enthusiasm of the group. In a recently-released survey here, 93%(!) of French people said they supported Obama in the upcoming election.

Fall has arrived in full force here ... the leaves are falling, the nights are cold and the big coats and scarves are coming out.


I've been going on morning walks in the Luxembourg Gardens and have been reminded how beautiful it is this time of year - especially how colorful it is (and that includes the characters hanging out there!)


This week also brought another less-expected change ... good customer service. In unprecedented fashion (at least for me), both my new banker and a random insurance guy were ridiculously nice, patient, efficient and even almost fun with me during my dreaded appointments with them this week. My banker, who looks a bit like a French version of one of the nerd characters from the movie "Porky's", took a meeting with me without a previous appointment, typed a letter that I needed from him real-time and made a reasonable attempt to explain French taxes to me. He spent over an hour with me, which was probably more than the cumulative time all my previous bankers had spent with me. The random insurance guy, who I went to for a quote, was hysterical, calling his company "communist" (it's a mutual), responding with "so you don't do anything really" when I told him I was a photographer, and saying "on s'en fout" (meaning, in a very familiar, casual way, "we don't give a damn) about me being covered when I travel in the US. I write a lot of negative stuff about French service in this blog so it's only fair that I mention it when miracles like this week happen.

Speaking of miracles, I may have discovered the latest miracle product. It's called Water Salad and can be described this way:


“Water Salad” is a “meal in a can” and belongs to the “near water” category. It is a light reddish colour, almost transparent and contains tomato extract as both a natural vegetable colorant and as a nutrient. “Water Salad” takes advantage of the marketing value of tomato extract by claiming on the bottle label that lycopene is “reported to control active oxygen.” Madness.

There's really not much I enjoy more than Japanese marketing, products and their commercials, like THIS ONE featuring our beloved governor.

Some photos of the week ...

Jardin Luxembourg
Parc Montsouris
I think he re-animated from the statue but only made it a few steps

NBA in Paris, Nobel Prizes and Chaos

The NBA came to Paris this week and although preseason basketball is not normally a big deal, when the game is played in Paris, it gets more attention.

Celebrities such as Lenny Kravitz, Ahmad Rashad, Darryl Dawkins and several famous French athletes were in attendance. And although the game didn't count for much, it was fun watching Dwyane Wade and Vince Carter up close.

To see some images from the game, CLICK HERE.

The French had a good week on the Nobel prize front. Two French scientist were awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine and another Frenchman won the Nobel Prize for literature. I got to go to the Elysee Palace to photograph the winners meeting with President Sarkozy. They seemed pretty damn happy.

The main thing people keep asking me about here these days is "what the hell is going on the US financial markets?" Anyone have any idea what I can tell them?

Some photos of the week:

Dodger Nomar Garciaparra
Jail for bad leaves?
New form of English?
Things not often seen in supermarket lines

One more week without a posting ... I'll be back next week