On December 26, the movie Two Days in Paris is released in Australia. An interview with its director and main actress Julie Delpy also features in the current issue of Yen. I just saw it a few days ago and I thought Australians might want to read what a true French lady thinks about another movie caricaturing us (frankly, we are an easy target - we still think moustache is fashionable). Two days in Paris is clearly not a movie sponsored by some kind of French tourism organization. Yes, this city is a life-size postcard filled with a romantic mood and yes; it smells like a mixed scent of Chanel Number 5 and pain au chocolat. But, apparently, it is also just full of freaks: the French (who else?). As one of those said hot-tempered oh-la-la-ing fellow, I have to say that it is way out of the line. 'Cause believe me, we are not that bad. For an hour and a half, I saw on the silver screen screaming and racist cabdrivers, a fast-food waiter who could not understand and say a word in English (must have been disturbed by the good pronunciation of “cheeseburger” by the American character); and sex-obsessed people who would rather start a conversation with mention of the consequences of bikini waxing on sex lives before any first-name introduction. But God, what a good time I had watching us looking so weird. And I have to say, seeing the pro-Bush, on a Da Vinci Tour Americans in the opening scene make me feel like I was not the worst freak on earth.
Words by Pauline Auzou

“Well why don’t you just F**k off back to NZ then?” I tend to get this quite a bit from Australian people - sometimes I’m homesick okay? Other times I have valid reasons for harping on about home; the young bands that are cropping up there at the moment are some of them.
Holiday With Friends are a Wellington band that recently signed to Lil Chief records (home of The Brunettes). Accordingly, they make pure pop music about things like hot water bottles and use boy/girl melodies and hand-claps and everything.
Moron Says What?!?! is this week supporting Australia’s own wonderful Architecture in Helsinki. These guys and girls make spazzed out party music and are known to cover Paris Hilton’s “stars are blind” on occasion.
As people, The Gladeyes are one of the loveliest bands to ever exist. Musically they are too. “Andy” is the kind of song that makes your guts churn because it is too beautiful.
Although three out of four Songs members are from NZ, they are actually based in Sydney so you should definitely check them out soon. Inspired by bands like the Clean and the Go-Betweens, Songs make music that sounds like holding hands or dancing around your kitchen.

A guy in Wellington spotted this whilst chilling out in his backyard. It's a cloud that looks like a reindeer! For real!

Ever heard the one about the guy who wrote an entire novel by blinking? Well, the guy in question was Jean-Dominique Bauby; the fast living, Man-about-town editor of French Elle who in 1995 (at the cruelly young age of 43) suffered a massive and rare stroke that left his mind intact but his body completely paralized save for some movement in his left eye. Despite being dealt probably the worst card imaginable, Bauby manged to hold onto his spirit. Using eye movements and a blinking code representing letters of the alphabet, the journalist was able to communicate and eventually write an entire novel. Entitled “Le scaphandre et le papillon”, the book took over 200,000 blinks to complete and chronicled, with humour and insight, the everyday events in Jean-Dominiques now very restricted life - including the heartbreaking memories and imaginings of the perfect meals, holidays and interactions he would never have. The Diving Bell and The Butterfly was released in 1997 and sold 150,000 in its first week. Almost poetically, Bauby passed away ten days after its release. Jean-Dominique’s incredible story was recently made into a movie, which is apparently AMAZING and beautifully true to the book. The film will be released here in late December; I suggest you go see it (and read the book) with an open mind and a fist full of tissues.

Described by one reviewer as “the drunken Uncle of the garage rock family”, Atlanta’s Black Lips play music that’s fuzzy, out of time and amazingly awesome.
The band formed in 2000 when its members were just teenagers sharing a love of punk, country and blues - as well as a penchant for incorporating various bodily fluids into their live show. Last time I saw them play not much had changed there, but you can see for yourself when they tour here this month; playing the Meredith festival as well as shows in Sydney and Melbourne. Black lips have also just released their new LP “Good Bad, Not Evil” through Etch N sketch and Vice Records. Those in the know reckon the album’s pretty sweet - plus it also includes a bonus DVD: “Black Lips live in Israel”. Rad.

The other night, some friends and I spent the evening at Flying Fajita Sisters; a new Mexican restaurant On Sydney’s Glebe Pt road. Now, Glebe Pt Road can be a bit of a shitter for new restaurants (it’s not uncommon to see a “for lease” sign disappear, only to re-appear a month later) but I feel sure that FFS will prosper. Not only are the staff absolutely lovely, but the food menu is huge and the drinks list almost bigger, incorporating a good selection of Mexican (who new there was more to it than Corona?), Australian and South American beers; as well as wine, cocktails, homemade sangria and a tequila selection that itself takes up half a page. The reason we were here though was because it was Tuesday; and Tuesday night at Flying Fajita Sisters means $3 tacos and tequila shots- this is a mad bargain anywhere let alone in a city as exy as Sydney. Rest assured, we took full advantage and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. I suggest you do too.

I can’t remember where I first saw Julia De Ville's work but I can remember thinking it was some of the most beautiful jewellery I had ever seen - In a kind of impermanency affirming, plastic-bag-in-the-breeze sort of way. You see, it essentially was not jewellery, but taxidermy; what I was looking at were brooches made from diamond-eyed bird skulls, Hatpins fashioned from tiny mice (their tales dipped in 18kt gold) and other such morbid trinkets that made you second-guess your own taste. It seems Melbourne store FAT share my outraged affection for DeVille, as they've been stocking her collections for a while now and will tomorrow be unveiling another. Entitled “Disce Mori”, the range is inspired by the memento mori jewellery that 17th century widows would create in memory of their husbands (a Latin term, memento mori translates to “remember that you are mortal”). The collection is a mix of costume and dress jewellery including broaches, bracelets and heirloom style rings; all carrying Julia’s signature of gold and silversmithing combined with once-living materials such as petrified wood, hair and taxidermy.
P.S before the complaints flood in, Julia DeVille is not a killer of baby animals- she in fact loves our furry and feathered friends and only ever uses animals that died of natural causes.