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Welcome to Frogsmoke, your daily dose of untold stories, unseen images, and unsung heroes from France, brought to you by Romke Soldaat.

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Archive for 'General'

How many clichés can you cram into one poster?

I stopped counting at fifty, but there are more.

Paris I Love You is available as a 11in x 13in (28×33cm) poster here.

Dada for Jumbos

The meaning behind this picture escapes me completely:

Marcel Duchamp on Wikipedia

Casta forever, a hot baker, and the dark side of fashion

Your Thursday clicks:

Laetitia Casta Then & Now: France's Most Beautiful Woman Returns To The Runway (Huffington Post)
Gontran Cherrier: France’s hottest baker recipe (Times Online)
Yves Saint Laurent celebrations tainted by temper and drug allegations (The Guardian)
French bread spiked with LSD in CIA experiment (Telegraph)
Ethnic Arab 'wrong type' to head discrimination watchdog (France24)
Study shows how downloaders skirt [...]

How to take women more seriously at the workplace

Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard in a faux advertisement on Funny or Die. Forehead Tittaes is the new way to force men to look women in the eyes. Or almost:

Celebrating a cinematic Frogsmoker

If legendary filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard [wiki] holds on for another nine months he will be 80 years old in December. In anticipation a near-1000 page fat biography about the founding member of the Nouvelle Vague comes out this week. In spite of his age Godard hasn't stopped making films yet. And according to the book [...]

A palatial misstep revisited by Amnesty International

You may remember the toe-breaking step climb at the Elysée Palace by French singer Mylène Farmer last week. She was on her way to have a meal with the Sarkozys and Russian president Medvedev. Amnesty International hijacked the event to express their concern with human rights in Russia. Here is their video.

Translation of the captions:
Assassination [...]

Why is this old man so happy?

Shown above is a tiny detail of a giant photo (7210×5663) of the liberation of Paris. Below you can see the same man in the lower right corner. Click to view the full image. It's 24 MB big but worth the download time.

Bad taste coming out of her ears

Detail of an advert for Trax Magazine, the electro magazine that makes you fussy. Created by Y&R in Paris who know what young people like best. Click for more disgusting.

The Elysian split, French tears, and another Polish threat

Your midweek clicks:

Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni 'both having affairs' (Telegraph)
Insults and snubs: French with tears (Times Online)
The Polish wafer threatens France (guardian.co.uk)
Film review: La Rafle confronts wartime stain on French history (guardian.co.uk)
Sacre bleu! Britons challenging French in the kitchen (Yahoo! News)
Le Pen infuriates Algeria by draping France with its flag (The Independent)
Father turned to [...]

French ticklers

Les Moustaches is a (sixties?) group I've never heard of, with no traces on the Intertubes. I also have no idea how they got to that band name.

(Assuming this picture was taken before photoshop was invented the guys on the left and right must be identical twins.)
(Found on LPCover Lover)

Naughty Carla about, er, well, er, you know what

If you think Madame Sarkozy's recent appearance without wearing a bra was naughty think again. Here is Carla in a 1996 TV show named Eurotrash, introducing an international love and sex guide for those who travel a lot. It translates important phrases like "You make me very hot", "Do you like my titties" and "Put [...]

Michelin Man becomes Superhero and Oscar winner

In 1894 French tyre/tire manufacturer Michelin introduced Bibendum, who later became better known as the Michelin Man. Today, Bibendum is one of the world's most recognized trademarks, representing Michelin in over 150 countries.
Here are two versions of the Michelin Man. On the left Bibendum on a poster from 1898, on the right the modern version [...]

Spitting image

There's no denying: 1540 Map Of Paris Totally Looks Like A Horseshoe Crab

Oops! Missed Women's Day…

That was yesterday. My apologies to the Frogsmokerettes who proudly feature in the top left corner of this blog. Here they are. Do you recognize all of them?

Frogsmoke HQ Snowed Under

In the nearly 20 years I've lived in the Languedoc I've never seen so much snow – let alone on the 8th of March! Difficult to imagine that next month the pool will be open…