To me I do like Paris, I like Paris like I like Albariño or prawns, Woody Allen movies, see Rafa Nadal play at Roland Garros or those Rolls- Royces I've never driven. I like Paris for that worn-out transcript of things that are hopelessly good and reliable.. Those few things that save us from the unbearable lightness and uncertainty of this life. Paris is one of them.
Not everything is subjective and you don't have to be afraid of the “mainstream”, How not to fear a battalion of Japanese shooting the Mona Lisa. If La Gioconda is there and they shoot her, it's for a reason., mainly because many others have done it before and not everyone can be wrong. We cannot be original and transgressive all the time and it is not always advisable or “cool” to escape from the herd.. Sometimes you have to surrender to the tyranny of beauty. And if, I also like Kathmandu and even Benares or Bangkok, and I recognize that Berlin is deliciously underground and ecological with all those open fields and cranes scattered throughout the center. But in the end we always return to Paris to get lost with a stupid face on its boulevards and to ask about the Eiffel Tower and the Moulin Rouge with a horrible accent.
We always return to Paris to get lost with stupid faces on its boulevards and ask about the Eiffel Tower.
The first time I went to Paris was with my parents., They had already warned me that I was going to love it. But me as a stubborn teenager, He turned his face as he passed Notre Dame and mumbled something incoherently about Amsterdam and London.. Obviously our parents are always right and know what is best for us.. And when the time came to choose a destination to do the cafre for a year, I already knew who would be at the top of my list..
Because we can't know more than Cortazar, and Scott Fitzgerald and Henry Miller and Jim Morrison and because they couldn't all be wrong. We have to be more humble. Ernesto already warned us that this city was a party, and some today still insist on not paying attention to that man with a mustache and shorts who could kill elephants with his fists. We should enter Paris with respect and veneration like a church. We must discover ourselves and let the Seine drag our stupid prejudices and carry them away, far, beyond the Pont des Arts.
Parisians may be unfriendly, and sometimes they may even tell you to be quiet on the subway.
Parisians may be unfriendly, and it is even possible that sometimes they tell you to shut up on the subway and that when you ask them for directions they just stare at you like a strange insect making those characteristic movements with their nostrils before starting the stampede.. But Paris does not belong to them and they know it, Paris is ours. Like some kind of Noah's Ark that had been built to safeguard all the splendor and delicacy of the world when all this is over. In Paris there are Parisians to counteract so much beauty.
Paris is not a cold city, face and soulless, etc.. Strolling through the streets and catch Stendhal syndrome as one who grabs a cold comes absolutely free. Part of the charm of this city lies in those cold and miserable bites that gives you February while you relames to looking into the brasseries and then go to eat greasy fried potatoes at any kebab.
We all suspect that falling in love in Paris is really falling in love.. We have seen it in the movies and we laugh enviously and enough, But deep in our hearts we know that our loves are pale and boring, full of silent dinners and trips to Ikea and that everything would have been completely different if we had met in Paris, and we would have heard the crunching noise of a baguette crushed against our chest while we passionately kissed our girlfriend on any bridge. We know it but we pretend not to know it and when we watch Casablanca we laugh. One, We laugh but if Bogart had stayed in Paris he wouldn't have ended up in bed with that policeman.
If Bogart had stayed in Paris he wouldn't have ended up bedridden with that police officer
I have lived in Paris for a year and I have seen the Seine full of sand beaches while the Batoumuches crowded with tourists were lost in the current, I have seen President Lula dance with his minister Gilberto Gil on a stage in the Plaza de la Bastille, I have eaten crepes prepared in fourteen different ways, I have been able to glimpse between its streets, Istanbul, Rabat, New Delhi and Kinshasa. I have seen sunsets from the Bout Chaumont park that seemed manipulated with photoshop, with an incandescent sun like a ripe peach. I have danced (although briefly) a tango at the Quai d'Orsay, I spit from the Eiffel Tower and I calculated how long it took to get to the bottom. I have sneaked onto the subway a total of seventeen times, four have caught me.
I have looked for Jim Morrison's grave among sad tombstones like everyone else. Now I know the difference between poison and poisson, I ate poisson, I have drunk poison. I have heard an African say to a Russian and a Pakistani in the middle of Nightlife, go back to your country, France is for the French and for the Africans. I have smelled cheeses in their markets that would resurrect a dead person. Ahora se that “Want to sleep with me?"It was a bit of a stupid question.", It was almost never “Ce soir”. I came out through a sewer in Tolbiac after having attended a rave party in its catacombs with my face bruised from lack of oxygen. I have seen a Parisian smile.
I came out through a sewer in Tolbiac after attending a rave party in its catacombs
I heard a jazz concert in the middle of Rue Mouffetard with a one-eyed trumpeter who had nothing to envy of John Coltraine; I thought I saw Marlon Brando crying between the pillars under Stalingrad station; I have heard pop, rock, rap, dub step, reggae, men, acid jazz, and trash metal on the docks of the Saint Martin canal on the day of the Fête de la Musique; They have asked me for a coffee in twenty different languages; I have ridden a bicycle through the Luxembourg Gardens; I have said forty times "no", merci beacoup” while smiling at the Hindus who try to sell you keychains at the foot of the Montmatre steps. I have seen how it once became dark at 4 and 17 minutes, I have collected the CAF like any other ragged Erasmus.
I have seen a Maasai in a loincloth on the streets of Belleville, I have felt the weight of winter like a frozen blanket. I have gone to “La Poste” forty times to complain about my gas bill. I dreamed that I slept in the belly of the city. There I have become more tolerant, more curious and the soles of my shoes have started to tingle. Not a single day did I stop being amazed by so much beauty, so much so that sometimes I had to sit on any bench in the Tuileries because I thought I would get dizzy.. Not a single day did I stop feeling privileged to be able to live there..
Don't be afraid, she's probably already forgotten what you wrote about her and doesn't hold a grudge against you.
Xavier, Daniel, I invite you to come upstairs with me the Notre Dame Cathedral stairs, Do not be afraid, you can leave Amelie's merry-go-round aside, and cover your ears so as not to hear the sound of the accordions. Even when you reach the top, you make a gesture of displeasure and look away from the Pompidou.”esebloquecuadradocon todossusandamios” Nothing happens. But as you look down and contemplate the spectacle, I only ask that you greet Paris as it deserves., and soak up this last refuge from the meanness and pain of the world. Don't be afraid, she's probably already forgotten what you wrote about her and doesn't hold a grudge against you.. She is like that, like a generous and condescending mother, always ready to forgive your affronts with a smile, a shining smile with a thousand blue roofs.
