The Reply

Xavier received this message from Sixt regarding his thoughts on their advertising campaign:



Madame, Monsieur,

We would like to thank you for your message and we are sorry that you did not appreciate our advertising campaign.

Our intention, in any case, was certainly not to offend or to anger anyone. Currently on our website www.sixt.fr, we take the defense of women drivers and, as indicated in our agencies, absolutely all of our clients are kings.

The campaign was preliminarily tested and the humor and irony therein were recognized by the grand majority of the people tested. The professional advertising regulation was also consulted.

We would like to offer you a gift of 50 euros, which we hope you will take advantage of. For this purpose, please send us your postal address.

We would be very happy to serve you soon in one of our SIXT agencies.

The SIXT Team

And, in fact, if you go to their website (as they stated) www.sixt.fr, they have now changed their tune and are singing the praises of women drivers (conductrices)...they now say, "Of course SIXT rents cars to women, and even prefers to rent to women!" They then site a German study which showed that women are statistically 3.5 times less likely to be in serious accidents than men. The whole thing is absurd, but it goes to show that, apparently, Xavier wasn't the only one who thought the ad was ridiculous.

Stephen and Martha Stewart

My brother Stephen is an Art Director for Martha Stewart's magazine, Living. (Therefore, I hope you all have subscriptions or, at the minimum, buy it from time to time). Over Mother's Day weekend, Stephen and some others from the magazine went up to Martha's house on the southern coast of Mount Desert Island in Maine (she calls this house "Skylands"). He planted things with her, they went to Home Depot and did yoga.



As luck would have it, Martha (to be read: one of her employees) recently blogged about this weekend trip and posted photos that include Stephen.

You see, this story is not just celebrity gossip so that I can say I am connected to a famous person in some obscure, name-dropping way. No, this is an American fairy-tale story. Stephen grew up loving plants. Stephen also grew up loving Martha Stewart (perhaps a bit to my Dad's chagrin). I remember him being a young adolescent pouring over Martha's gardening tome.



He would thumb through the pages and then he would work with my Mom to plant the garden - to prepare the soil, to select the right perennials to bloom in sequence and throughout the whole summer. Then Stephen went to art school and decided to become a graphic designer. After that, he moved to the big city of dreams, NY NY, peddled his portfolio and got a job at, yes, Martha Stewart Living (despite my grandparents' encouragement to try his luck on Broadway). So, five years later, he is spending his weekends with Martha, planting her gardens, conjuring up what he learned from that big book of gardening of hers. Dreams do come true.

Nice with Marie

Marie, my sister-in-law, proposed a trip to southern France earlier this year and, of course, I was in. So, this weekend we headed first to Nice, to cousin Matao (& fam) and then to aunt Gaby (Entrevaux, below). Here is Matao and his family:







They are warm, delightful people.



When we first arrived, Matao picked us up at the airport and we started driving into Nice. I requested a swim in the Mediterranean. It was 10pm. Matao was definitely up for it. Marie, no. (Matao is a personal trainer in his professional life). So, we stopped along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice (right along the water) for a dive. So, it is warm at this moment in Nice, especially during the day. At night, it feels a bit fresh. Matao and I decided the best approach would be direct plunging. It was the bomb to swim in the current of the night, with the dark sea underneath us and the dark night above.





The next day, Marie and I explored Nice. Nice is such a change from Paris. Buildings pronounce their good cheer in red and yellow facades with mismatched teal and blue wooden shutters.







Marie would stop and tell me what she thought was beautiful. I like her perspective. Marie is a painter. (You can see her paintings here and she is having an exhibition in Paris the month of June - I'll be sure to post details).





When we were done with Nice, cousin Matao and cherubic children came with us to Gaby's house in the mountains. Matao kept us well-entertained. One night, he flaunted la nouvelle collection, including hooded forms and chromatic purity: