Glora Wachsman

It is a well-known fact that only three good things ever came from Burgundy: Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Glorian Wachsman (seen here walking her dog Nina on Rue des Écoles, in the sixième). Gloria told me, recently playing Toronto's Rex Club, that she is a direct descendedent of La Maison de Valois-Bourgogne and her birth name is Astrid Sophie Victoria Isabelle Chatelle Ines Aveline de Valois. She was born in Beaune in 1987 where sh was baptized at the Collegiate Church of Notre Dame. As a child, she was bouncy, wilful and a rebel in the spirit of the ancient dukes. She ran away from home when she was fourteen, got caught but ran away again at fifteen. She met Francis (Paco) Jones who taught her to play the tenor saxophone and the flute and gave her cocaine. She changed her name to Gloria Wachsman and had their daughter Pica. While playing in clubs, a scout for Dexter Music spotted her and she signed with  the label. Her first album brought some money and some gigs but the second album went platinum. Gloria cleaned up (Paco had overdosed and died by then) and moved with Pica into a nice apartment at Rue Aubriot №6, in the quatrième (her last-name helped). It is conveniently just across from the L'Ecole Française de Yoga where both are permanent members.

A while ago, a lawyer representing a guy with the impressive name of Karl Thomas Robert Maria Franziskus Georg Bahnam von Habsburg, apparently an extremely distant cousin, came to see her and, notwithstanding Salic Law and Agnatic Succession Rules, gave her a stack of documents which Gloria stuffed in a drawer but never bothered to read. One late night, last March, when she came home from playing at the New Morning on Rue des Petites Écuries, in the dixième, Pica (now sixteen) addressed her as Madam la Comtesse and said they own a castle with vineyard near Auxerre. Gloria told her to go back to sleep and went to take a shower.