le rock français

In an attempt to stave off my dinner appetite at 4pm, I'm melting frozen blueberries in my mouth. And now I've just eaten half a cowgirl spicy hot chocolate bar.

Do you wonder what french people listen to on their iPods? (ee-puhds?) Since Christie Blatchford didn't trade hers for, say, Le Pen's in her Globe spot a while back, here's my guess:

• Anaïs
  
• Pauline Croze
• M (Mathieu Chedid)
• Arthur H (sings duet with Feist, CB!)

In the golden days you had Trenet, Montand, Aznavour, Salvador...les grands chonsonniers who rattled off stories with vaudevillian flare. "The raving fruitcake Maurice Chevalier" is still a phrase I use from time to time. That and "he donned his lemon carpet slippers" (quite possibly from P.G. Wodehouse, that last one. Or Lolita. Apologies for any copyright infringement). For a lesson in play-by-play emotions made visible, watch a Jacques Brel concert - one where it's just him on a stool in a spotlight. It's theatre!

I'll be in France in 2 weeks, stocking up on tea and baroque sheet music, getting fat (they stay thin by WALKING. I've watched them eat...) and wondering if the new Amélie Nothomb book is a grand jeté from Le petit prince. Not home, indeed.