Paris: Bordel, Bazaar

Post author:Stephen Wendell
Post published:March 26, 2023
Post category:Paris and Environs Stephen’s Notebook

In French, as in English, a “bordel” is a brothel. A “bazar” in French, or “bazaar” in English, is a chaotic marketplace. Both terms are also used in French as slang for a place in disarray, one more so than the other.

Walking in Paris on a bright spring day, I stopped on the curb next to an elderly lady. On the far end of the crosswalk, the little man glowed red. A motorcyclist approached the light. He rode slow in a diagonal across the street and onto the zebra-striped crosswalk, turning toward the lady and myself. We stepped apart as the motorcycle passed between us, onto the sidewalk.

The lady and I looked at each other across the now vacant space.

“C’est interdit, vous savez,” she said to me. “That’s illegal, you know. Paris is a bordel.”

The little man turned green. As we stepped onto the crosswalk, she had a second thought. “No, a bordel is more organized. Paris c’est un bazar !”

Frozen Memory: A True Story

Post author:Stephen Wendell
Post published:February 28, 2023
Post category:Short Stories

I will always remember the sound: The shrill pitch. Anguish. Utter loss. It must be twenty-five years ago now. Still, a shiver runs down my spine, makes the hair stand on the back of my neck, goose pimples raise on my arms. I have to set my jaw to keep the teeth from chattering. Sudden tears cloud the vision.

I was at work one day. It was the afternoon. A workday afternoon like any other. A coworker got a phone call. A preteen boy, his best friend, a gun in the house, a mother’s scream frozen in time.

Preface to Littlelot and the Rescue of Gwenevere

Post author:Stephen Wendell
Post published:January 20, 2023
Post category:Littlelot Previews

Following is the preface to Littlelot and the Rescue of Gwenevere, the first story in the Littlelot series of adventure books for children and the grown-ups who read to them.

A young reader himself, Littlelot feeds his imagination on legends, myths, and classic tales. So inspired, he tells the stories of his games and adventures in this children’s series for ages 6 to 10.

Preface

The valiant knight in shining armor rides a resplendent steed on dangerous adventures. He surmounts overwhelming obstacles, rights terrible wrongs, and rescues the damsel in distress.

That’s what I want to be when I grow up!

Alas, I was born centuries too late. As were you, Young Reader, if such might be your own grown-up ambition. Left to us in our times are stories of those chivalric heroes, models that we may yet apply to our modern lives.

The quintessential tale of noble knights is that of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table as told by Sir Thomas Malory in Le Morte d’Arthur. Reputedly a knight himself, Malory compiled his fifteenth-century rendering from various sources, among them, the Vulgate Cycle, the Prose Tristan, and the Stanzaic Morte Arthur. Each of these drew on earlier works, including Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain and a collection of stories by the French troubadour Chrétien de Troyes. In turn, Malory’s work inspired a profusion of novels, narrative poetry, films, and other forms, collectively known as “Arthurian legend.”

The first story of Littlelot recounts the adventure of the most renowned of all the Round Table knights, Lancelot, and his rescue of Gwenevere, drawn from Book VII of Le Morte d’Arthur. My own retelling differs from Malory’s in length as well as in certain details.

Stephen Wendell
December 14, 2016
Paris, France

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Littlelot
and the Rescue of Gwenevere
Littlelot Book 1

An Arthurian legend with knights and damsels and other action figures.

In his game of make-believe, a boy must make a choice—break his oath to the king or break the heart of the woman who gave him the most meaningful gift.

Available in paperback and e-book wherever you buy books.

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