A couple of years ago, I began noticing a disconcerting trend among my college-age students in the hotel and restaurant management school where I teach: they were often wearing a color combination that my generation had always shunned. Since when has wearing black and navy blue together become fashionable? What is this, a color-blind revolution? A not-so-subtle subversion of the fashion rules?

With the Cannes Film Festival nearing its close, the question on most people’s mind is "Who will win a palme d’or, or golden palm leaf?" But I’m wondering if anyone else is obsessing over these fundamental questions: How were Hitler and Mussolini involved in the creation of the festival? And what is the relationship between French cinema and the humble turnip?

A few months ago, David-Nicolas gave me a present he’d picked up in our local bookstore (as you probably know, bookstores are called librairies in French). It was a humble yet pretty 2017 daily planner published by the Jardins de Cocagne, a nation-wide network of market gardeners.