"Piaf means the war, the street urchin, the cabaret, the circus, the other war, the casual adultery, the drinking and melodrama and awe for beauty"

Though I fear the Coco Chanel biopics, I will go see La Vie en Rose based solely on this review. My goodness.

And here's a random story: I first learned of Edith Piaf while reading a Sports Illustrated story about Olga Korbut. I was very little. The exact sentence escapes me now but it was something like "this was her Piaf moment" and I spent the next few weeks searching every dictionary in my home, school and library for the definition of "Piaf." (There was no internet then! I walked to school in driving snow! You punks today!) Finally I discovered this was a person -- a woman -- and I think I bought an album of hers in a used bookstore. Pretty eye-opening for a grade schooler. What with the casual adultery and everything.