Rainy piece of shit city. But I love it. Winter sucks in Paris. It rains, it's cold, people are cranky. Miserable place. But I'm convinced this is the basis of the entire myth of April in Paris. The winter is so shitty that when the sun breaks out in the spring, lovers walk arm in arm, the flowers bloom, that the city takes on a physical and emotional color that seems a grand divine epiphany given the piece of cold sidewalk shit winter is here. Or like bears coming out of hibernation. But I like the winter too. It's a time for ensconcing oneself in cafes and bars. And I just found an unsecured wireless connection drawn from one of the neighbors near one of my favorite Paris dive-bars. Thank you, folks, for unsecured wireless. Really nice after walking around in the rain yesterday looking for my man, as Lou Reed might have put it in the itchy age of internet hookups.
Meetings this morning for me, but now free time. Humor me with a few reflections on Paris. A lot of us know this city. It's tourist central, after all. I lived here for a few years in the early 90s and so think of it as home, as one who thinks of many places as home. But the faces have changed. I know about a total of eight people here now that I knew in the early 90s. It's a strange sensation knowing a place well from years of walking its streets, exploring it's out-of-the-way neighborhoods in addition to it's mantle pieces of tourism, meeting the freaky people who inhabit any large city, hanging with the musicians and poets and academics and painters and even some of the model and photographer crowd. I came here originally to study philosophy in France with Lyotard and Deleuze (never met Deleuze; met Lyotard but later in the US - a philosophical mistake anyway) but ended up painting professionally when a landlady who owned a gallery discovered my stupid, blotchy paintings, and having some exhibits - a long time ago and another world, this was. I even met Kylie Minogue at one point at an invitation-only exhibit and -- People Magazine readers - had a little romantic interlude. How's that for blogger oomph? That's my little fifteen minutes. Now I'm back to being an academic. No fifteen minutes there. American academics wank because we live in a tiny world. Go Paris.
But... Paris. Don't disdain it. This is a city of power. It's an insecure power. The power is generated from its beauty and its intellect. It's an open place. A place that allows almost everything. Yes, there were the riots and that's a serious blemish on the city's suburbs because it has been ignored for so long. But Parisians will take it up. Americans ignore the bombed out parts of the Bronx and in every American city, and always will, as a natural consequence of capital go-get-'em-ism. Screw that. This is a city that generates intellectual energy and deals with its faults, even when this comes all too late. It's more pragmatic in this sense than American cities that know their faults and don't give a shit.
Yeah, I'm a francophile, despite myself and despite my own love of the tradition I come from found in Jefferson, Madison, Emerson, Thoreau, Peirce, James, and Dewey. I'd love to have some francophobe challenge me on this. Come on. You don't stand a chance. But bring it on, you stupid over-compensating know-nothings (and, yes, I know, you once took a photo of yourself in front of the Notre Dame and had bad service in a restaurant becuase your waiter didn't speak English...).
2 comments:
Here's Franklin (whom I note you do not include in the final paragraph):
"I find [the French] a most amiable nation to live with. [ . . . ] They have some frivolities, but they are harmless. To dress their heads so that a hat cannot be put on them, and then wear their hats under their arms, and to fill their noses with tobacco, may be called follies, perhaps, but they are not vices. They are only the effects of the tyranny of custom. In short, there is nothing wanting in the character of a Frenchman that belongs to that of an agreeable and worthy man. There are only some trifles surplus, or which might be spared."
Glad to hear you're awash in the pleasant sentiments of les temps perdus, Helmut. Drink it up.
Thanks, Barba. Nice thoughts from Franklin. He's a hero and I should have included that funky francophile. Check out Aristotle, if you're interested, in what he says about "trifles." I've always found that curious, though it's an entirely neglected part of Aritotle scholarship. Fits Franklin and the French, but not orthodox Aristotle. But... the orthodox -- never a sign of the right path of virtuous harmony.
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