- Non-Erotic Poetry
- People-Watching, 5e Arrondissement
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De la confiance et encore de la confiance et toujours de la confiance...
Streets seem not so much for moving along as for living on. There's a shoulders-back, chin-up vibrancy, a soft sizzle even when elderly or relaxing, encompassed by a tidal free-rangery of children and small dogs. Couples, lingering steps scarcely touching pavement, fortunes made and told told by the enchantment of the other's hand. Sidewalk café staff are majestically unhurried; customers enjoy the wait as part of the ceremony.
Women seem to - how to put it? - price themselves higher, make no attempt to settle for mere equality. Femininity works here. While there is much casual, there is very little shabby and almost no Wholemart sloppy. Men too seem to have fallen off a GQ page. These people could wear a throw rug and make it look sexy.
An implausibly tall, ridiculously handsome man on a low electric scooter. Wearing tails.
Really.
Brilliantly white low sneakers seem very popular for both sexes, but smart dresses are worn as easily with Nikes as well as with leg-stretching, dare-not-ask stilettos. Panache comes with its own trowel.
Plump works, but morbid obesity seems to require a tourist visa.
Young, muscular cops wearing rollerblades.
While not universal, 'Free the Nips' has found serious traction here. Parisian breasts are clearly not meant to be confined, but to move - and to move. Stuff is indeed strutted, for to be young is pure heaven.
Domesticated beards abound. Men don't wear ties any more than they do chez moi, but they seem to have a better grasp of the philosophy of haircuts. Socks seem optional, but I could be convinced that they press their underwear.
The shorter-than-mini skirt seems popular (again? still?) as is does the bare midriff, often with a thin waist chain.
Even little girls are attractively clothed, at the very height of fashion. Yet there is no hint of spooky paedophilia, no embarrassing Little Miss Starshine, merely an acknowledgement of and preparation for the next generation of beautiful, stylish women.
The number of people smoking in public, including well-dressed professionals, seems extraordinary, everywhere. Bicycles are equally everywhere; the number of bicycle helmets much less so.
Cobblestones are a serious thing and how does she manage in those heels?
The civic anthem seems to be sirens. There is a gentle pause at 4 PM - shift change?
To be so well-lived...
- COMMENTS
Norway_170511 months agoI literally HATE Paris and all the propaganda about how romantic a polluted and dirty city with shameful traffic can appear....
It is partly true that many French women are well-groomed and elegant but there are also dozens of out-of-shape housewives and sweaty shopkeepers with little hair combed over their bald skulls... along with petty pickpockets, ill-dressed beggars, drug dealers, over-indulgent wine drinkers, and tourists too fat for a normal chair... Or as Roland Barthes wrote in 1957, we should not expect too much from an industrial city, with unemployment and loneliness...
BUT
the only person in the world who could change my mind is Tarnished Penny with this little gem - poem.... A masterpiece.
ElectricBlue12 months agoLovely observational stuff, TP, with your usual excellent turn of phrase.
EB
EGRI12 months agoGlad you enjoyed Paris. Always fun to visit. Your covert inditement of our international reputation of "morbid obesity seems to require a tourist visa" and our t-shirt obsessed, Wholemart sloppy, in a rush behaviors is reasonably accurate. However, large refrigerators, central A/C and quite a few other amenities makes living in the USA pleasurable as well. Europe certainly has its charms. Your description of the je ne sais quoi of Paris was well done. I enjoyed the recollection of relaxing in a street cafe.
