HAPPY BASTILLE DAY

Yesterday at a luncheon of the board of PEN Texas, the state’s branch of the writer’s organization PEN Center USA, one of the members observed that he had seen very little notice of Bastille Day in the restaurants around Dallas. A shame, said another member, a professor of French literature, since the French Revolution was the genesis of many of the freedoms we enjoy today. Then came praise for “La Marseillaise,” maybe the most rousing of all national anthems, as was pretty apparent for anyone watching the World Cup. Then a toast to the French Revolution. All this in Dallas, at Celebration restaurant on Lover’s Lane. Somebody tell me again how we’re a monotone city. Oh yeah–Vive la France!