Since I turned sixty, I’ve discovered that everything I know is out of date. That’s why I was cheerfully hoofing it on down to Shakespeare & Co.: I was under the out-of-date impression I could there have SECOND-HAND books at LOWER PRICES. In out-of-date block letters, too.
Well, not at all.
So, I had to go back home with new, expensive books under my arm.
Of itself, vexation is worth a draft beer. But also all this is a pretty fair aller-retour on a frighteningly hot & sunny day for a man sixty years of age plying the limestone jungle that is Paris. Alors, as well, I reminded myself, when the going gets tough, the tough find a shady café.
Cheered by these reflections, I shamble off in a zigzag mode calculated to avoid tourist crushes and, eventually, to bring me to where I might order a démi - “half” of what, exactly?
Did you know that nearly 21 million tourists have passed through Paris just since the first of this year 2015? It seems most of them cluster around Notre Dame, pushing & shoving each other to get a better look at the racy fires-of-hell scene sculpted into the tympan. Tip: Satan has a particularly astonishing member.
Headed east nor’east, the crush wind pushed the bobbing little ship of myself north nor’west. I beached up on what was formerly called rue des Quenoüils, an old spelling for “Quenouille”. Quenouille means “distaff” - a tube or stick used for spinning flax or wool, can serve as a qualifier denoting things about or concerning women.
The café at the bottom of rue des Quenoüils is the shaded eyepiece of a kaleidoscope pointed over les Halles. After the second drink, the rosette of Saint Eustache is those nervous little shards of colored glass that shift around in the sunshine.
And therein was shocking news. Ahh, how mean and sinister these charming streets came to seem in the course of a few beers!
You may know that when it is summer and often hot and sunny, the Paris City Mothers provide a beach to the concitoyens who can’t afford, or have no, vacation. The Tea-Party types are right, you know: once you’ve tasted fruit from the socialistical tree, you never want to stop.
This improbable socialistical beach, Paris Plage, is on the north bank of the Seine, parked summer-long on the cross-town expressway, dominated from above by the new-washed Hôtel de Ville, where la plage has a volleyball court where once evil-doers were hanged. La plus que ça change…
Obviously, this beach thing is really really a super idea. Especially, blocking the cross-town expressway. Why, beneath the happy cries of feckless sunbathers, schmoozers and boozers, I can practically hear the grinding teeth of hardworking, put-upon taxpayers who chose to drive, even in central Paris.
As I passed from that wonderfully refreshing first gulp to serious sipping, a source at the next table, a likely mark, apprised me that it is known that all is not exactly beer & skittles en ce qui concerne this Paris Plage deal.
Indeed, how could it be?
The fact is, this year’s plage has been got on the cheap from debt-distressed, cash-strapped Grecians. For evident reasons, I use the higher-class Grecian formula for “Greek” here.
Looking about me, I saw that it’s all a deal done to reel up a quality strand at fire-sale prices. Wrenched from the historical Grecian polis of Opopopedium, apparently.
Apparently, too, a lawyer expert in counterfeiting has said, having stirred it with an experienced toe, this year’s whited sand, cannot, yes, cannot, have been supplied by Lafarge, the worthy-enough cementmaker. Ash-tray sand grain quality is just out of the reach of the horny industrial hand.
There is more.
I have now personal knowledge, I reflected.
The young German man pictured here lounging on a Grecian beach, was seen in Paris not too terribly long ago. And the kitten, cajoled by an apparently playful albeit complicit Grecian woman, later became a feature of my own Métro stop: a pink shill for stuff debt-crushed Grecians cannot afford:
I showed the photo to the waiter. He agreed with me.
Later, as the sun had fallen from broiling zenith, I was able to continue my tortured way. I ocularly confirmed more cruel news.
In front of the Hôtel de Ville lies the volley ball court of which I have already written. As I passed, I was able to confirm that the court has definitely been sold along with the young Grecians pictured in this snapshot. Debt slavery, indeed!
I decided to catch a cab.
A life & executive coach, Paul “Tracy” Danison has been walking about & gulping espresso in Paris for nearly 30 years, working in industrial communications, consultancy & teaching. He is the author of a style guide for non-native users of English (Editions de l’organisation), which has been called “a tour de force of Gallic drudgery in the Johnsonian tradition”. He has also published poetry in journals such as the “Antigonish Review” and the “Denver Quarterly”. He delights in good lies, his own and those of others and firmly believes that la joie et la bonne humeur are the keys to living long & prospering. Find out more about Paul's Paris walks here.
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