Meet my close personal friend, Sophie, who recently joined her jet-set friend on the Cote d'Azur where she is attending and reporting on the Cannes Film Festival.
If you click on her name in the previous paragraph, you'll be directed to her Chicago Sun-Times blog which she keys at the request of noted film critic Roger Ebert [read his own Cannes journal].
Of course, the Riviera is a particularly lovely part of my native France, about which people simply gush, "Location, Location, Location." Human beings are spell bound by the colors, the climate, the beaches, the water, the "picturesque natives," and the glitterati. The Riviera forms the background of many famous films--To Catch a Thief--and novels--Tender is the Night. Even George Simenon could not resist sending his hero, the incomparable Maigret, to noodle out the cause of death of a former French resistance worker in Maigret on the Rivera.
Ah, the Cote d'Azur nights, balmy, gently breezy, the frequent sightings of both the quirkily dramatic and the utterly simple haute couture, dazzling diamonds and moonlight, the food, wine, the tender trembling moments when life seems to hang in balance between the earthly and the sublime-- but perhaps these are subjects for my own future blogs.
Dear friends and fans, I hope you will check Sophie's blog regularly. She is an excellent writer, a keen observer, and a practiced participant at the Cannes film festival with a broad and deep knowledge of films both classic and contemporary. Equally important, she is a young woman for whom I have a deep affection, respect, and admiration. Indeed, I love her very much.
Although she asked me to accompany her on this great adventure, I was unable to comply. For much as I miss my international and Hollywood film friends and know that my presence would be of great service to Sophie, Maman and Papa need me more. Without me, their simple Athens lives would doubtless fall into chaos and that is something that duty no less than affection will not permit. So I must be satisfied with these Chicago Sun-Times images of the Cote d'Azur and my darling Sophie, and the "Sophie Kohn from Cannes blog." Read her first entry, A Market Badge of One's Own [such a clever title], now and return frequently for updates [to her blog & to mine!].
