Dispatches from the road and notes on visual culture. DB Dowd, AKA Professor Red, travels to Paris in search of answers about his youth in a football-crazy Ohio town, named for an erudite 17th century Frenchman. As always, he researches local visual culture, in this case lurid illustrated disasters circa 1900 in Le Petit Journal illustrée. Par for the Spartan Holiday course. Part history, part memoir, part personal essay, French Lesson is richly illustrated, beautifully designed, and a quirky appreciation of one of the world's great cities.