I fantasize about the cafés in Montparnasse: Le Dôme, La Closerie des Lilas. Back then it was the heart of intellectual and artistic life in Paris and in most of the developed world. Our ideas are constantly intertwined in the democratic World Wide Web. But still I wonder, is the type of intellectual discourse that once thrived in Montparnasse insignificant now?

Warning: before you take in the final performance of Vancouver Opera's La Boheme, some Prozac may be required. It helped me drift back to my own bohemian existence, many moons ago, when I lived in a Parisian garret in St Germain des pres. I had almost no possessions, no telephone -- I also busked on weekends in le Marais, singing gypsy songs and Leonard Cohen ballads.

Its shameful that anyone would give another human a hard time for crying. It's one of hardest things in the world to do. Forgetting the whole gender role kerfuffle, crying is terrifying. It leaves you completely vulnerable to everyone around you, you lose control of your own body and you get boogers. Crying sucks.