Daily Blague

Reading about Americans buying pieds-à-terre in Paris prompted this declaration to Ms NOLA: "The whole purpose of my blog is to make me so famous that the French welcome me as an honorary Parisian, tax-free." I'm working on it! Two paragraphs a week en bon français may max me out, but I'm working on it!

JR, at L'homme qui marche, feeds these longings with the news that Google Maps now covers Paris. He, however, is not having a great time in the heat, especially given la fête de la musique, an annual nocturnal carnival that, like everything, used to be better. One commenter dismissed it as little more than the occasion for badauderie saoulographique (drunken passers-by making a racket).

Speaking of famous, Jason Kottke was on TV last night. I didn't just happen on it, believe me. Mr Kottke announced it in advance. He was a guest on something called "Attack of the Show" on G4 TV. I had no idea if I even got G4 TV, but it turns out that I do. It will be a long time, however, before I tune in again to a channel devoted to video games. (They're unbelievably grim, as an hour of G4 reminded me.) Mr Kottke was mellow and self-possessed, far less amped by the studio environment than the earlier guests. He even made his host look frantic. I am watching the development of kottke.org with the greatest interest. As it shifts from a technoblog to something broader and more humanistic, as Mr Kottke enters middle age and reflects more frankly and more pertinently than a young person can, the challenge of creating a reader-supported blog deepens richly. And the author happens to be one of the more gifted Web log photographers.