Okay, fuck that shit from yesterday. Today I will taste victory. My task is, frankly, extremely easy, and the chances that I will fail are quite small. This doesn't stop me from taking myself very seriously, speaking in short, tautological sentences in the future tense. I will achieve the highly achievable. I will surmount the not exactly tall. I will have what is out there to be had. In short, it is time for the perfect breakfast.
First step: suit up. None of this melon colored pantaloons with starched button down bullshit, today it's all about the t-shirt and jeans. And there's no way I'm going to wander around Paris for hours deliberating between this or that cafe, trying to decide if I want the one with the good coffee or the one with the good croissant. I'm headed straight to the Marais, where breakfast is as expensive and reliable as a gold plated pickup truck. Most importantly I'm not going to let my silly vegetarianism stand in the way of some delicious ham. Granted, it's pretty hard to pretend you're munching on something soy-based when that something is a slice of sweet bread bread fried in butter and topped with ham and cheese, but damnit I want a croque monsieur.
So I make my way to Place de Thorigny. I find a southeast facing cafe. I crack open my book. I open my ears. And then, slowly, as my mental activity sinks to an absolute minimum I start to feel it: La paix de cafe.
After breakfast I head to one of the secret parks, Parc de Villemin near the Canal St. Martin. I say it's a secret park because it's certainly not one that any guide book would recommend. It's not dirty or expensive or dangerous or tacky or boring; instead Parc de Villemin is the worse thing you can possibly be in Paris: new. I think it only opened a couple years ago, meaning it doesn't have a single statue marking some historic victory or even a fountain dedicated to someone very rich dickhead. Instead it's got all this other extraneous bullshit: light and grass and quiet.
I particularly like the sign that forbids lying on the grass, placed in front what looks like the softest, lushest grass in the whole Île de Paris. French off-limits signs have a way of being ridiculously specific and highly situational. I've seen parks where you can't walk two dogs at the same time, or drink beer while sitting on a park bench talking to a woman.
 |
| Pretty, huh? The canal's not bad either. |
The neighborhood in and around Canal St. Martin isn't half bad, either. Actually it makes me think of a funny mash-up between Venice and Brooklyn, a lazy canal where people who have nothing to do can sip coffee-to-go while they wander in and out of cheese shops and design bookstores. Speaking of which, remember that design bookstore from way back when that I didn't go into? I found it again.
 |
| Oh, Rafik, where are you when I need you? |
 |
| Okay, seriously? |
 |
| Kafka for Kids, only for real |
To cap off my last full day, I go for a walk. A long, long walk, starting with a stroll from Jardin Villemin up to Cité de la Villette. On the way Paris shows my its dark side.
 |
| Un-fucking-acceptable |
 |
| As if Downtown LA were some kind of exotic fashion paradise |
Back inside Parc de la Villette, I decide to grow some balls and actually approach the terrifying metal sphere that is La Géode. But seriously, look at this fucking thing.
 |
| I know, lady, I'm scared too |
 |
| Holy. Fuck. |
We actually have something very similar in New Jersey, an enormous spherical theater called the Omnimax. Housed at the Liberty Science Center, it's one of those giant places you can visit to watch massively expensive movies that fill up your entire field of vision. Usually the subject matter is something that takes advantage of the size of the screen and the sense of optical flow it creates, something with lots of helicopter flights. I remember when I was a kid we went on a space-theamed field trip and the movie was about the Apollo mission. At one point in the movie they showed the sick test the astronauts used to stimulate a sense of nausea in space--basically you stick your head into a giant, spilling paper bag filled with polka-dots and time how long it takes to feel like you're going to vomit. I can only assume they'd never shown this video before. As it turns out, imagery that is specifically designed to get puke out of a trained, adult astronaut is more than likely to have the same effect on a group of ham-and-turkey filled eight-year-olds. We got to go home from that trip early, many parents were never told why.
This is it. Paris is at an end. Man, I'm going to miss this place so much it physically hurts. That people think this city is rude makes no sense to me: I've never been to a nicer place west of Istanbul. You know, I don't even mind that shit closes or that everything is so outrageously expensive because at the end of the day it's the third rule of Paris that really gets to me.
Rule 3: You can't do everything
Oh the parks unvisited, oh the concerts unheard, oh the food uneaten! I guess I'll just have to come back, one day.
No comments:
Post a Comment