final

I opened my windows and looking out into the grey city I smoked a cigarette. The cars moved with the glacial torpor of an early winter morning, and soon the wind chill made a tourniquet around the tip of my nose and fingers. A suppressed shiver ran up my neck, turning my stomach. The cold was no longer shocking, but its effect was not diminished by its extended presence. I wrapped my jacket tighter around my arms and threw the last drag of my cigarette over the balcony.

I had to sit in front of the heater for a few minutes before going to the kitchen to make coffee, warming myself slowly. I got dressed quickly and went outside with my new shoes, holding my umbrella overhead so as not to bump into fellow pedestrians. The security the umbrella covering my head provided was waning, and I could tell that the nylon cloth attached to some flimsy spokes would no longer protect me from the torrential downpour which was beginning now. It felt more of a burden to carry around this artificial appendage than to keep my hair dry. I threw the umbrella in my bag, and wondered if I should just throw it away, but decided to hold onto it. I ducked into the metro and felt the rain follow me down the stairs, threatening to wet my heels, but I was tucked away and safe inside.

I boarded the train and took a seat on one of the three chairs facing south. Across from and facing me was a man and a woman, both were looking straight ahead, acknowledging each other by ignoring each other.

The stop where I was to transfer came quickly, and I followed a young man out of the train, following him in line with the few other people heading towards the exit. I turned off to the tunnel which led to my next train.

In a dream, I was in a crowded room, it was dark with a few strobe lights going on, and in the background I could hear thumping music, but my ears were muted. I walked towards the light coming through a small window at the top of a wall, through the sea of people, and arrived at nothing; when I got to the window it was 100 meters off the ground. I reached my arm towards it, and felt my fingertips touching something sticky and flexible. I realized I was inside a giant bubble. I held my breath for a few minutes without struggling for breath, hoping to float to the window, but someone knocked me over and the air fell out of my lungs. I could not get up for a moment, but when I did, a handsome climbed out of the crowd and pushed me back to the ground. I lay on the ground crying, and my tears began to fill up the room. I floated to the top on a wave of my own tears, watching the dancers struggling to swim, drowning in a pool of their own vomit and sweat. As I got closer to the top, the window began to grow until it was the size of the stained glass rose at Notre-Dame. Finally, I arrived at the window, which had no glass and I, in my bubble, slipped easily over the edge into complete darkness. I woke up momentarily and fell back asleep to a dreamless night.

I walked to the park this morning to get some fresh air. I was feeling sluggish and tired by the time I got there. I lay down in the grass in the bigger part of the park and watched as the clouds drifted past, some bigger than others, some smaller, some more opaque, some wispy, some clinging onto others, all moving at the same speed. There were people all around me but I spoke to no one; mostly runners and nannies. A man approached me for a lighter, and I let him use mine. On a bench next to me, there were two young men exchanging stories. I listened to their conversation, keeping my gaze fixed on a barren tree in the lot across from me.

I opened the window to another gloomy day. There was a snowstorm in New York, though apparently a mild one my mom told me. It got very cold suddenly, and I was sitting smoking a cigarette on in islet separating two, one-way streets. I saw ashes floating in the air, and a big gust of wind brought more. I tapped my cigarette with my index finger, the ashes remained stagnant. A man walked past me, we made eye contact for a moment. I realized, then, that it was not ash, but snow.

Winter was joyless.   

I got off a bus and made my way up a small alleyway, thinking I would find myself nowhere I had been before, but instead found myself in a familiar public square. It was a Friday, and they were hosting an open air market, the same one I had gone to with my cousin a few months prior. Many parts of the city revealed themselves to me in form of memories, those of family vacations, of art I’ve seen, and of dreams I’ve had. I decided not to go to the museum this time, there were several travel groups outside and I did not want to bother with the noise and distraction.

I ended up finding a cute store which sold used clothes, books, furniture, and had a gallery downstairs. I looked around for a moment, saw some cute things, then left.

Henry James says in his chapter The Velvet Glove, about his young Lord:

It was easy because the presence before him was from moment to moment referring itself back to some recent observation or memory; something caught somewhere, within a few weeks or months, as he had moved about, and that seemed to flutter forth at this stir of the folded leaves of his recent experience very much as gathered, faded flower, placed there for “pressing,” might drop from between the pages of a volume opened at hazard. (The Velvet Glove, 143).

He goes on to criticize the young Lord’s ineptitude and transparency, and his manner of, “having too much imagination,” (143). Like the young Lord, Paris is an open book, with pressed souvenirs falling from between its pages. 

I walked to the backside of the museum to admire the facade, then past the café I had gone to with my cousin, then past the music store where I bought my guitar, then past the tobacco shop where I bought my stamps, then past the fountain where my class once met, then into the metro. Edith Wharton says in her A Backwards Glance, “my thirteen years of Paris life were spent entirely in the rue de Varenne; and all those years rise up to meet me whenever I turn the corner of the street,” (226). This is exactly how I felt walking there. All the bad — all the good, it is not the nature of the memory, but the memory itself which is pleasant, an apparition of a familiarity, a home within itself.

Henry Miller, in Walking Up and Down in China, observes all of the people on 42nd street, “smiling through life with that demented, glazed look in the eyes,” characterizing American optimism as glassy eyed - an evasion of reality, a fake, a color copy, out of touch with reality. Their, “beautiful white teeth,” compared to the beautiful white Haussmannian buildings, while the French are fixing their façades, the Americans are fixing their teeth. Paris does not smile because it makes things run more smoothly, it smiles because it is beauty - “the gnarled stump of an old redwood, solitary and majestic she stands…soft, gemlike, a holy citadel,” (391), but even that is a Paris displays its scars, its past; she wore no braces in her youth, but did get a facelift in her later years - which shows. Paris is every part, “you have forgotten…rain is softly falling, [and] suddenly in the aimless wandering you come to the street through which you have walked time and time again in your sleep and this is the street you are walking through,” (396). 

Every street is forgotten, and yet déjà vu. Every block is unfamiliar, yet familiar all the same. A turn, whether right or left, becomes a straightaway, heading in the same direction from whence it came. Paris’ fine façades are masking the deteriorating interior: courtyards overtaken by vines, paint peeling, time and space reclaiming its property. Miller says it is when we no longer fear life and its inevitable end - when we embrace the vicissitudes of life, the ebb and the flow - that we will find freedom from the hellish torment of life. 

When the tourists came, the city changed. Gone were les parisiennes, replaced by the Germans, the Italians, the Americans, the British, the Chinese, Korean, Mexican, Brazilian, etc. Paris is a private city, then one day it is not. 

Paris in tourism season was like Disneyland. Photography World: Irving Penn’s world of petits métiers, August Sander’s petits observations, Cartier-Bresson’s petits moments. Ennuiland: from a friend’s apartment in Montmartre, I see a line cook standing outside smoking, wearing all white against an all blue building, against an all blue sky. He’s always out there smoking, it seems. Victoireville: The soldiers in the Marais walk with their big guns, big muscles, big boots. Saint-Salope: the whores in Saint Denis stand in the sex shop doorways with their plastic shoes and ill fitted tops.

In a metro tunnel, I encountered one of those six-piece bands with the trumpet case filled with money and C.D.’s. They smiled at me as I passed, and I wondered if they remember the time I stopped and gave them money a few weeks ago. I imagined that they did, or else why would they be smiling at me?

I exited a park, then walked down to the river shore. I took a spiral staircase to the barge, and stopped for a moment to sit on a log. Across the river from me, two men were playing music, a guitar and a trumpet. I sat listening to their music for a moment, then walked towards a green patch on the riverside. An elderly couple walked past me, elbows linked, eyes tracing ground. It was a beautiful day. I watched a boat pass under a bridge, its passengers waving to the people on the shore. I waved back, and the kids started waving faster, more frantically.

I walked towards an open gate, I didn’t enter, but peered in to see what was hidden. Cement brick, parked cars, cobblestone, nothing out of the ordinary. I walked away feeling less discontented. I forged onward, searching for life, finding a prop warehouse, and a hair salon for people with dreadlocks. Five faces with similar expressions and identical hairstyles turned to watch me walk past the window. They all seemed to be wearing yellow, green, and red.

I watched as a large van parked in a tight spot outside my window, the driver’s daughter screaming directions in Russian. He had to ask someone in the hair salon to move his bike, and the man came out and happily did so, waving goodbye as he walked back into the shop to finish his client’s hair. The driver got out of the car and gave his daughter a hug, and the walked down the street smiling, hugging each other from the side.

Paris is a kodak moment.

James says, “if he had imputed to them conditions it was all his own doing: it came from his inveterate habit of abysmal imputation, the snatching of the ell wherever the inch peeped out, without which where would have been the tolerability of life?” (147). It may be that Paris is no more than an inch, but without the rest there is plenty of room for imagination, and imagination, James argues, is the “tolerability of life” - a way to tolerate life, and the part of life which is tolerable.

Fiction is the reality we live in. In order to survive, in order to prosper, in order to live happily, in order to not cripple under the pressing weight of a fear known to all of us as uncertainty, in order to control, in order to educate, in order to escape, we have invented fiction. If nothing exists, fiction does. Death may be a respite, but even then maybe not; it is uncertain what will come of you when your body dies. Nobody has an answer. There are answers posed, however, in fiction. Through analogy and metaphor, everything can be symbolic if it’s true and well written.

I met up with a friend of mine from New York who was in Paris when I first got here. He asked me what I’d been doing in Paris, I told him I had been walking around, getting lost. He said good, and that was exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

I got lost on every walk I took, so predictably so, that I stopped planning actual directions and instead gave myself a time frame and a general area to explore, with the hopes that I might find some landmark, with no intentions or expectations. I was able to rely on the metro system: a station every few blocks or so, a security net in case I get too lost to find my way home. My intuitive sense of direction, which normally guides me in the right direction, went completely astray, every turn I made took me deeper into an unknown area, every desire brought me further from comfort.

I took a walk in Montmartre just a few days ago. I bussed my way to the back of the cathedral - Marie 18 - and climbed up from behind, through the winding streets, past the cathedral, past the Dalí museum, past the cafés and tourists, then down a flight of stairs on a hill, past the cathedral, past a row of restaurants, some souvenir shops, past the funicular station, down the hill leading to Pigalle, then I took the train home. I had gone in search of a sweater but found nothing and instead took a whole roll of film - 36 photos. I did not get lost.

religion in TSAR

Voltaire said of religion, “ce système sublime à l'homme est nécessaire. C'est le sacré lien de la société, le premier fondement de la sainte équité, le frein du scélérat, l'espérance du juste…si dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer,” (Trois Imposteurs, epigraph). 

(This sublime order is necessary to man. It is the sacred thread of society, the cornerstone of holy equity, the criminal’s impediment, the hope of the just…if God did not exist, he would be invented.)

This may be bullshit to the atheist/existentialist. In this modern, secularist society Doris A. Helbig  speaks of, nothing is scared. This can be taken figuratively and literally. 

The Godless are a proud, dogmatic people. They reject systems of oppression and mindless deification, and when they are tired at the end of the day, they turn to their vices, which in turn, turn them. Brett’s god is tragedy — she creates these lovers wherein she can reaffirm her pain. To feel the pain of misfortune is to be a victim, which is to martyr one’s self in the face of a disillusioned reality. 

Atheism is a religion, godlessness being its god — science, which is intended to disprove god has become in itself a religion. 

Spinoza said, “God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things,” meaning he, or the idea of god, exists inherently in everything, and is the mystery in its existence. 

John Lennon said, “I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong.”

“God” is a figment of life — necessary for the well being of man and for the resolution of life. Which religion this god belongs to is null, but the idea exists outside of religion, in all facets of life. 

—

I feel like there is a big misconception when it comes to the idea of religion. Many people use religion as an excuse to disregard human decency, or to shirk the responsibilities of living in a society where responsibilities are currency, however these paradigms are exceptional and rarely seen in godly people. In fact, I think this kind of behavior is significant of a lack of god, in the form of a a lack of appreciation, and a lack of humility.

There is little to be said for those people who do not care about the nature of our world, but instead care only about the nature of their god. They pry into each others’ lives, act victim and play out roles which they believe to have been granted to them by social or communal expectation. The “church society” lives in a bubble, unawares of their self-inflicted damage and ignorance, happily carrying on the routines and rituals of their proxy religion. 

This is neither to condemn those religious people, whose idea of god is treated almost ironically as a being more elevated than themselves, but to suggest that there are differences in the types of religiousness that exist, not just in religion itself. In fact, I would argue to say that all religions are nearly the same in one way or another, being that they all stem from the same universal truths which guide us in our humanity and in our morality.

Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky were held in a debate in an auditorium, whereabouts and when I forget, but it’s on youtube somewhere lost in the internet-web-sea, where they were essentially arguing two separate points which led to the same conclusion: there exists a sense of universal truth which is reached either through external influence or inherent knowledge. 

This idea of god is the one that I am speaking of — a collective consciousness, or a self-less-ness, meaning not that the self does not exist, but that the self is not alone, nor is it ever alone, because even in its moments of complete and utter solitude, it still has itself with whom it can speak. This is all very confusing, I am sure I do not completely understand that which I am trying to convey, but I am grasping at the straws of an idea which will be fully formed with more research and experience. 

I do not wish to ascribe myself a religion, either, because in doing so, I will have lost whatever mystery existed in my own unlabeled religious affiliation. I do not preclude the possibility of god, though I do not think god and God are one in the same. I think organized religion is a crime against free will and liberty. I think religion and faith is a necessary evil. I have not decided if these opinions are firm, and I will further update with any changes. 

Meditation

I suppose since I am posting this after the deadline there is no credit involved, however I feel that I should post regardless because it is the right thing to do.

Before reading this 30 paged article, I had been studying a lot of Buddhist history, ideas, boddhisatvas, etc., for a project on the Bodhidharma. This was not the first exposure I’ve had to buddhism, however I forgot, or something similar to forgetfulness, the benefits and drive for mindfulness which I had become invested in some time ago. Following a stressful 24 hours this was exactly the change/reminder I need(ed) to restart myself into more satisfying/gratifying headspace.

The walk I took was difficult. I was losing my balance, literally and mentally, more often than taking a step I was falling, supporting myself by the walls of my hallway. I recognize the symbolism in this. After some time, I realized that the thoughts I was having were simple, very simple, and soon  resigned to allowing them to pass through without analyzing their context or origin. Then, as I noted each action my mind and body took, I began to recognize that they were ordering themselves into neater/less hectic/more organized patterns. Eventually, I was able to recognize only one at a time, and soon became objective in my recognition and labelling of them. I feel now, even hours after the walk, more sturdy minded and present than I have in a long time. Of course, this I that I speak of must be analyzed, broken down, and eventually filed away, just as my other categorical thoughts have been done, but for now I refer to myself as existing, despite it being the cause of my dukkha. 

Further into the walk I began to experience thoughtless mindfulness, occasionally stopping to recognize a passing memory, but overall feeling much more in touch and aware with the physical reality I was experiencing. In this walking meditation, I realized that my reality is often blurred and/or ignored by thoughts which are analogous to pinched nerves. Meditating in this way is a brain massage; in identifying, locating, labelling the knots, the muscles relax and are work more easily, without hindrances or self-awareness.

This meditation has reminded me and inspired me to continue with this feeling. It is simple, and with effort and practice and time it is easily mastered, and wholly fulfilling.

TSAR #2

While the experience of war is unprecedented, and only by veterans can it be truly understood, it is a universal constant. Chaos, disordered energy, which provides a firm opposition to the cosmos, being that neither is able to exist independently, is at the root of conflict. War is an misplaced outlet for human agression, a competition for supremacy and ultimately evolutionary advantage, a cry for reconciliation, ad infinitum. War is in everything, and everything is in war, There has never been, and likely will never be world peace, and this is the true state of nature. Destructive as it is, war has the regenerative ability to reunite, reevaluate, and rebuild broken structures. Cruel as it is, war is the flame which consumes the phoenix before its rebirth.

I can’t say for sure whether I agree with William Adair’s observations about the allusions to WWI via food related scenography. Thorough and well argued, I don’t hesitate to buy his argument. However, seeing that the novel takes place in post war Europe, mid 1920’s, Hemingway having been a veteran himself, it is not a stretch nor a surprise that Adair was able to identify these hidden allusions to war in the writing, thus posing the question: what does that implicate?

In coupling food with war allusions, Hemingway is drawing a comparison between food and war; its primal nature, its universality. Foods are the raw materials which fuel life on earth, an organic material taken from nature, to provide energy to other organic material. Food is an embodiment of the cycle of life — no food has the intention of being food, and is not called food until it is killed and eaten, just as soldiers are called war casualties when deceased.

A carnivorous entity which feeds on human spirit, and in taking millions of lives and leaving them to rot with the rest of the destroyed, war, too, is a sentient being, with a voracious appetite and violent intent to keep itself alive. It seems counterintuitive, knowing the full extent of it’s damages, that we would have continued to provoke and and honor war. So, either this destructive force is essentially beneficial, even in the face of its deleterious effects, or it is forced upon us, by Mars, or by habit.

Catacombes/Death/Montmartre Cemetery

Tandis que je sois assise dans ma salon, je me trouve orientée vers le soleil. Où que je trouve la << fleur éphémère >>, qui n’a pas de souci, ni peur de mort, d’une beauté universel, je trouve la mort, même hypnotisant. Il faut toujours souvenir la mortalité, sans tomber inconsolable. Ça y est, il est dit, où on peut trouver la vie. Quand la mort ne me fait pas peur, je n'aurai pas d'aucune souci. C'est eux qui vivent encore déjà mort qui me fait peur -- pour qui, j'ai rien que la pitie. Je n'avais jamais aperçu que la zombie est un metaphore depuis aller aux Catacombes. 

En plus, je suis allée à la cimetière de Montmartre pour un après-midi légère, jusqu’à côté de la metro Gaîté. J'y avais écrit le suivant: 

Le train est arrivé comme un vaisseau spatial, le bruit des annonces dès train était 

assourdi par le cabine ci-joint. J'avais imaginé que les gens, en descendant du train, 

seraient habillés aux scaphandres, et marcheraient si lourd et si lent que les 

astronautes. 

C’était ma première impression de la ligne 13. 

Je suis descendu du train à Gaîté. J’ai marché jusque autour du quartier avant que je 

suis allée à la cimetière. C’était calme et tranquille, le visiteur ou visiteuse n’apparaît ni 

souvent, ni jamais. Les arbres étaient libre, en atteint du ciel, sans souci, sans peur de 

mort, d’une beauté universel. 

C’est poétique: entre les tombes il y avait des arbres, des fleurs, et des insects. C’est un 

rappel de la continuité et de la certitude de la vie: que la vie n’est pas faite pour vivre, 

mais pour le sort de la mort, pour continuer la cycle de régénération. Il faut qu’on se 

demande si les arbres sont fait des cadavres, voyant que la terre en est plein.

Est-ce qu’on vit pour mourir, ou meurt pour vivre? La mort m’amène un confort comme 

je promenade entre les chemins étroits, flanqués par les arbres, et les hommes 

disparus. Je continue de marcher, mais je ralentis, promenant d’un rythme soutenu, 

avec prudence de ne pas éclipser l’homme devant moi. La mort n’est pas triste ni 

condamnant pour moi, mais libérant. C’est le terminus, l’atterrissage, l’appareil qui 

rapport la charme de la vie, sans qui nous ne nous comprendrions rien de la préciosité 

dans les moments si ardu et si laborieux. J’attends la mort comme j’attends rentrer à 

New York: avec patient anticipation.

Tandis que j’écris ce pièce sur la mort, j’ai reçu un email dès Uniqlo, un publicité pour 

une robe nouvelle de leur collection d’été. L’amour, la mort, c’est quoi la difference? je 

me demande (au moins phonétiquement, rien). Je vous donne une liste des citations 

dès À Bout de Souffle qui parlent sur ce sujet:

Quelle est votre grande ambition dans la vie?

(et l’homme répond:) Devenir immortel et mourir.

(on peut en lire plus ici)

Ces hommes enterré étaient des humains magnifiques, et puis, à présent, ils sont des 

souvenirs d’une generation passée. 

Une amie m’a demandé de quoi je regretterais si j’aurais dû mourir demain, mais le 

réponse que je l’ai donné n’était pas authentique, et je ne peux pas encore trouver le vrai solution.

La cimetière de Montmartre est belle.

Il y a aussi une sensibilité très bizarre de l’idée de la cimetière. Son facticité la met dans une catégorie comme la reste de Paris: faux. Même que la fine art est appelée l’art plastique en français. Il reste qu’il n’est pas l’incapacité de comprendre (ou prendre soin) de la différence entre vrai et faux, mais une préférence pour la synthétique, et pour la perfection à la clé. 

L’idée de la mort peut souvent inspirer la motivation de faire quelque chose d’importance. Durant la cherche pour la perfection, ou la travaille qui la suite, on trouve quelques leçons et on gagne quelques experiences qui font l’âme. Autrement, s’il il n’est pas la vérité qu’on cherche, on peut voir le version synthétique à la boutique. Ce n’est pas encore le chemin qu’on cherche, mais la destination. De cette façon, on ne cherche plus la vie, l’amour, le voyage, mais la mort, le destin, l’amour. La vie n’est pas le moyen de la mort, la mort est la catalyseur de la vie. 

Aux Catacombes, c'est la même idée sauf que la mort est affichée sur les murs, ayant l'intention de décorer ou de adoucir la mort. La homogénéité de la mort se fait aplanir les niveaux de la société, des structures inventé par les gens avec la pouvoir des armées et la dominance des hommes. Dans la cimetière, les visiteurs font le promenade. Il y a quelques gens âgés, qui pleurent par les morts, mais même pour le vie passante, qui est toujours en train de se terminer, mais pour eux, plus tôt.

C'est ironique que je ne peux pas trouver une fin pour cette expo, mais enfin, il n'y a pas de terminus. La ligne continue jusqu'en retour, en commençant de la route encore.

TSAR pt 1

The Sun Also Rises’ Paris is one of a changing landscape: a Paris which had not previously existed and does not survive today. The book is an expatriate encounter with foreign identity, and with American identity. 

The review written by John Atherton asks whether The Sun Also Rises might be more of a Masquerade to Jake’s Paris, a hidden treasure map, where the gold is buried in the experience of looking. The hyperbolic nature of its characters feeds into the mythos of Paris: La Ville des Lumières, which shine when allumé, and blind even those who know their way around the city by heart. My lived experience is not far from the one in The Sun Also Rises; in Atherton’s itinerary, the reader is the tourist, the characters, then, pseudo-tourists, being neither French nor outside of the story. 

Hemingway’s curt voice leaves nearly all of the story up to the reader’s imagination. Paris is a subjective experience, like a belle esprit whose power allows her the ability to manipulate her victim’s perception, not too unlike Brett.

The idealism in the tense un-sexual relationship of Brett and Jake objectifies the hard-boiled masculinity, a term invented by Jack Doyle to describe the man whose interior is as tough as his exterior. Oddly that F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the symbolism of an egg in his The Great Gatsby, after having been in Hemingway’s company, no doubt. 

Joseph Doyle, an English heavyweight boxer whose career as a boxer ended in 1933, whereupon he travelled to America to pursue a career in Hollywood; his alcoholism and gambling problems bankrupt him and seriously damaged his health and he died in 1978. This commonality between Hemingway and Fitzgerald and boxing and Jack Doyle reveals a little of the easily permeable barriers between social groups. 

This hard-boiled masculinity is basis of his character Jake — undaunted, tight — all adjectives to describe the ideal masculinity of the ideal Hemingway-ian hero. The whole books gives the impression of being hard-boiled, its characters, plot, vicissitudes all pre-planned and under control. The conversation in the book takes on the quality of the vaudeville act Abbott and Costello’s tightly controlled comedic dialogue. 

More later. 

Rousseau

post - work so far on fiction piece

Life in the 17th arrondisement is quite strange. When I first got here, I was living in a run-down bourgeois apartment, in a neighborhood akin to the upper east side. Before the summer came, though the neighborhood was black like the rest of Paris. People were quiet, and eye contact was nonexistent. The change of seasons brought the tourists, and now, on my metro ride to school, I am told to be aware of pick pockets in French, English, Chinese, Italian, and German.

Earlier this evening, a man screamed from nearby on the street, “tu m’en fou! t’es dégoulasse!” A few weeks ago, I was up early, and I heard a man screaming at his girlfriend from the street, “si tu n’me veux pas, je te quitte!” I would not be surprised if it were the same man.

Last night at the market, I was waiting in line at the caisse, and a figure came up very close to me from behind. I heard a grumbling baritone voice, and the man in front of me looked behind me expressionlessly. As far as I could see without turning around, I could see a red and swollen hand, and I could feel this person’s breath on my neck. He was mumbling in French, and I could not really understand what he was saying, so I could not tell if he was talking to me, or to himself. I inched forwards towards the cashier, who was completely unsympathetic to my paranoia, and looked at the man in front of me to gauge the disposition of the man behind me. He made eye contact with me momentarily, but looked away too quickly. This confirmed all of my fears, and I immediately started imagining myself with a knife in my back. I was relieved to find that he did not follow me home, as far as I am aware of.

When wandering, I don’t make my destination often. I’ll resign to walking around until I get hungry, or bored. On these walks, I catapult myself in the direction of some landmark or monument, usually a museum or a park. If I don’t make it within 30 minutes of arriving, I detour to the first alley which presents itself to me. 

In these movements around the city, I find myself walking around the neighborhoods that I have learned about: the Absesses, Pigalle, Montmartre, Quartier Latin. I try to imagine the people and energy of the temps perdu. It is not particularly difficult, not much has changed. 

Walking down the Canal Saint Martin, I watch the tour boats travel through the canal. Built in 1802 by ordain of Napoleon I, the canal runs from the Canal de l’Ourcq to the Seine. The locks are rusty, and some of them spit water where the pressure has forced the gates slightly ajar. The stretch closest to place de la République is very attractive, and when it is warm the banks are occupied by teens and young adults drinking and smoking weed. 

A friend and I once met some kids in a band there, and we sat and played music and talked about music. They invited us to see their friend’s band play, and we agreed. We met them there around 2 am. They were light and heavy, at the same time, and I went home too early.

I walked back from the Canal Saint Martin towards home one evening, around 8. It was warm enough, and I had a second layer. I chased the sunset between the buildings, where the light would flow out from between the boulevards. People walked with their heads down, the sunlight cascading off of their backs, landing everywhere except for directly in front of them. At Chatêlet, I took the train home.

the feast stands still

À l’arrivée de pâques, et le fin de carême, j’ai commencé de penser sur les implications religieux dans le titre A Moveable Feast. Pourquoi Hemingway, un homme qui se semble athée, sans aucun impression d’avoir les tendances religieux, a choisi ce nom si connoté pour sa mémoire, m’intrigue. Il n’y a pas des leçons morales religieux dans son livre, sauf les empreintes de l’ascétisme, suivi par les périodes d’indulgence et de luxe. S’il n’y a pas des leçons si religieux prescrit par Hemingway, il y a beaucoup des traces religieux dans ses actions. Par example, le Bel Esprit, qui était fondé au nom de l’honneur des hommes, est un caractéristique de la fraternité, nommé par la religion abrahamique. Ezra Pound se semble un homme sans religion soi-même, mais son caractère est augmenté par les bons mérites qui sont imprégné par la religion, comme Hemingway.

With the arrival of Easter, and the end of Lent, I began to think about the religious implications in the title A Moveable Feast. Why Hemingway, a man who comes off as atheist, without any impression of religious tendencies or habits, chose this name, which is so heavily connoted for his memoir, intrigues me. There are no religious lessons in his book, save for traces of asceticism, followed by periods of indulgence and luxury. If there are no religious lessons prescribed by Hemingway, there is a religious hue to his actions. For example, the Bel Esprit, which was founded in the name of the honor of men, is a characteristic of the brotherhood which abrahamic religion teaches. Ezra Pound seems a man without religion himself, but his character is augmented by the lessons which are steeped in religion, like Hemingway.

Teju

I’ve gotten into the habit of taking walks in the late afternoon, after I’ve finished with the mundanity of sitting at home doing the same repetitive work. I walked up towards Monceau Park, following my intuitive sense of direction. There, there are runners with their neon shorts and matching neon shoes, imitating the American tendency to make a neon sign for everything.

I thought back to the New York skyline, where energy is radiating from everything. There is a bagel shop on 9th and University, called Bagel Bob’s, where I would get dinner on occasionally, after my allergist appointment. I would sit and eat watching the rain, and the people passing by with their temporary umbrellas. Sometimes when it rained I would take my longest walks — often to Central Park — with the intention of getting wet.

In November, when the weather just started to turn, I would walk up 1st until it disappeared into wasteland, then make a left onto 27th or so, and walk to 3rd, and then right, all the way up to Central Park. I walked past trash cans, overflowing with Subway and Starbucks cups. On trash day, there would be black bags piled high like the Pyramids, excessive waste entombing the concrete below. Often I wonder if trash is a product of New York, or New York a product of trash.

The sound of children’s laughter caught my attention, and there, at the entrance of the park, was a swarm of pre-teen aged children, fettered to their school. One girl walked through the park entrance to be greeted by some friends sitting on a bench to her left. She waved hello, then moved forward towards another group of girls who were smoking. I watched her navigate the sea of pre-teens to her friends, then I watched her sit down with them.

I walked further to the Jaurès stop, where I took the Metro to the Bastille to get some produce for the week. At the market, there were men shouting the prices of their fruits, luring customers in with their low prices and their plentiful fruit displays.

to be continued

Henry Miller

Henry Miller’s mind is Paris’ ancient labyrinthine geography. As Miller decides for himself in the Tropic of Cancer, “I made up my mind that I would hold on to

nothing, that I would expect nothing,” establishing himself as a self-directed buddhist and a bit of a obsessive existentialist. Emily described him as “self-indulgent”, which I took to mean gluttonous, lustful, etc, when in actuality, she had meant it in the sense of indulgent in one’s self, more commonly known as egotism.

At one point, reading something like this would have installed in me confidence in knowing that my own similar thoughts and epiphanies had registered in other people as well, allowing me to breach out of my shyness and verbalize if not put into practice those ideologies. At this point in my life, reading this is not only boring but also a little disheartening, as I ask myself, is this all there is to learn? I know, of course, that there are thousands upon thousands of textbooks and continuous research, entire fields dedicated to finding the truth behind our world and the mysteries within it, yet the more I learn, the more I realize the triviality of information. This is among many reasons why I appreciate Lang so much, as it esteems informed opinion over excess of facts. Facts are false and often skewed by time, however truth is eternal.

Several questions arose in my mind when I was reading the excerpt from Henry Miller’s Walking Up and Down in China. Had Henry Miller just come to this state of understanding when he wrote this excerpt, or had he been harboring them until this point and finally got the drug-induced opportunity to write them? Had he read about the ideas? Did he come up with them himself? Are these realizations simply universal truths that are accessible to everyone, yet accessed by only some?

While reflecting on Henry Miller, I got an urgent craving for Nirvana’s Come As You Are, which makes me wonder if Miller and Nirvana have some kind of latent relationship: perhaps Kurt Cobain’s, “I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not” philosophy, which Miller most definitely would subscribe to were he had been born a century later. In fact, I would rather say Miller is the Kobain of his generation, though I’m sure that’s an offensive statement to some. 

In recent weeks, I have felt a return to a version of myself which was very fondly missed. Perhaps it was the decision to be this person that I made, or the decision to follow the fondness of the heart, rather than the logic of the head, an idea which Miller brushes upon.

The following excerpt, the essay titled “The Sexual Geography of Expatriate Paris”, was a bit shocking and focused more on the sexual aspects of Anaïs Nin’s writing, rather than the emotional aspect of her overt sexuality, seeing her lewdness not as a manifestation symptomatic of her extremely strong interpersonal intuition (Nin was a Pisces sun, and a Libra rising), but as sexual explicitness for the sake of shock and awe. As an Aries, it is understandable that Donald Pizer simply does not understand such fluid boundaries between emotional and sexual desires, but instead sees it as, “a fusing of sexual and artistic expression,” (Pizer, 173). As a Libra rising, Nin’s expression is guided by Venus, and her life-long quest is to have a deep understanding of her ineffable emotions.

I think it is wrong of Pizer to characterize her writing as about her sexuality, but instead about her deep emotional pull towards Miller and his wife June, probably for the same reason anyone else is drawn to Miller, because of his essence of being, which is conveyed in his writing, and which separates him from any other author I’ve read. In my opinion, this ability that Miller has to express not his opinions or his thoughts, but himself, is what constitutes a truly great writer; Miller’s literature is like a horcrux in which he has eternally stored a part of his soul.

I do not wish to relate this to myself because I cannot do so without revealing much more of myself than I wish to right now on this public forum, but I most definitely feel a strong connection with Miller’s realizations, especially those about the future and the past, and those about metaphysical phenomena which are scoffed at by many. I do not consider myself a religious person in the sense that I have learned it to mean, but I know, secretly, am a very religious person as is Miller, and as is Nin. Again, not in the sense that I, or anyone else for that matter, would think it to mean. It is a subjective and florid religion, one with no definition and no gospel, no veda, no scripture, no psalm, though it is expressed in everything and everything is expressed in it.

Henry Miller is fearless.

familiar essay

an untitled paper

Paris is an expensive city, that cannot be contested. New York, however, is no more economical, yet, here in Paris I find myself writing and thinking constantly about money. I had previously seen it as disposable, until I lived without it, and immediately I realized how essential it truly is. Especially in a city like Paris, where nothing is free, and very few things are cheap, it is  crucial to save, yet somehow, inexplicably, money is always spent. It is often said that time is money, though I would argue that time is the inverse of money: the more you have of one, the less you have of the other. You cannot buy time, yet you can buy efficiency, or quality, both of which save time. If money is in surplus, the subject of one’s worrying can ascend from that of consuming for survival, to the survival for consumption. With no money, what does the poor man do with his time but work? He produces: art and artisan. The artist’s hard work is then, ironically, sold posthumously for sums of money that would have provided financial security for him, for the rest of his life, were he not dead; the artisan’s work is sold for revenue that is collected by people who have an excess of money.
We are obliged to spend money, to admire money, to desire money, and cultivate money, and at the end of our lives, we are buried in the ground, in a multi-hundred dollar box, with a multi-hundred dollar rock six feet above us, or we have the option to be incinerated via a multi-hundred dollar procedure and kept in a multi-hundred dollar urn, or scattered by family while on a multi-hundred dollar vacation. Money is omnipotent, money is omniscient, money is omnibenevolent.
Here in Paris, you can survive easily with only a few dollars a day. The Marché Bastille which is open jeudi et dimanche has a few vendors who sell produce for 1 euro a kilo, and dried beans for 3 euros a kilo. Eggs at Carrefour are 0,10 centièmes each (2,40 for a crate of 24 eggs), milk is 1,10 a litre, and coffee is 1,04 or so for a brick of vacuum packed espresso-ground beans. For about 30 euros a week, I can eat well, for 60 euros a week, I can eat like a king. I’ve managed to cut down my spending down incrementally each week, cutting more and more things out of my life that I do not need. I have been a bit stingy, but rightfully so, and it is making me feel more in control of my life. Eventually I will have a surplus of savings which will keep growing until I need it, or decide to spend it on something valuable.
In discussing finances with Amine, I realized that what he was saying about loans does not just apply to corporate investment, but also personal investment. He said that what is screwing up the economy is not the loan itself, but those which are given to buy consumable goods, rather than business investments, because the value of that good depreciates, but with interest the price of that good increases. I asked him why banks couldn’t just stop giving loans like that, he said if they did, the whole system would collapse. It is smart to invest, both time and money, into something that will produce more other things, whatever those things may be.
A large part of my abstractions with money is my relationship with my mother, who is supporting me while I’m here in Paris. Having to deal her pestering texts like, “the thing is I know you're spending money on fun as well and you are entitled to fun and I haven't been a student or in Paris for many years so I do t [sic] know but it just feels like you are burnig [sic] through cash and I didn't think that would be happening,” but with my weekly budget, I would qualify for the SNAP program in NYC, not to mention she is judging based on dollars and I am spending euros, a minor yet important difference. Once again, I am not complaining about the amount of money she is giving me, I am happy with what I have, but her behavior; her favoritism towards her greedy tendencies than to her generous ones, assuming that every time I initiate a conversation, it is because I need money, or threatening to pull the rug from under my feet, and suggesting that I don’t deserve the money that I am getting now. Several times now has she said that she would like to visit me while I am in Paris, “I'm thinking being in Paris with you would be something that I may never get to do again. File under ‘life's too short,’” yet if she can afford to buy a international flight in the height of travel season, why does she say I am reckless with money? Her supporting me has forced me to interact with her, more than I had been before, and now, I think of her involuntarily, I see my money as her money, which it is, but is also not. This change is difficult for me, and she as also given herself permission to text me about whatever, whenever, which is distracting and stressful for me because her whims are often driven by anger and paranoia, and I live my life in peaceful happiness when I am not forced into her world, which recently has been 5 or 6 times a week.
Additionally, I am getting needled for more money by my roommates with this 10 euro a month apartment fund, the government now with their OFII visa fee, my flatmate whose $25 lighter was stolen by a guy I invited over and now asks that I buy her a new one, on top of the already existing expenses of Navigo, books, groceries, etc., and the fact that it is very difficult to find work here, and that my mother is in constant communication with me is stressful. Plus with the school work that I have, and friends, and sleep, I feel like I am being quartered by the horses of money’s long-reaching fingers, with my limbs then to be sold for profit on the black market.

Perhaps I am over simplifying and thus romanticizing the idea of having a money free world, but I imagine that, were we to remove completely the trade of money and instead be returned to a bartering system based on good will and hard work, then the stratification of society would be evened and suffering would be eliminated. The cyclical and self correcting nature of Prana will provide for those who need when they need. Of course this does not happen and humans are natural hoarders, therefore they will collect and desire and gather everything in their vicinity, under the pretense of “I deserve.” Money is used as a means of dehumanizing and codifying many social interactions, and is a political pawn which is used to cultivate more money. I remember as a child my mother would pretend to scan me at the super market, and ask me how much I thought I was worth, as a person. Of course, being a child, I said, “nothing,” because, as I believed then, and I believe now, a human life cannot be quantified, especially not monetarily.

the best author of all time: ford madox

We got lucky getting on the 1 to Bastille, finding a cluster of open seats -- exactly how many seats as there were of us. At the next stop a group of young teenage boys, and one girl, already quite drunk, got on the car. They running in circles around the pole at the center of the car, playing a scaled-down game of tag. One tripped and hit his chin on the chair in front of him. I laughed, more loudly than I had intended to, and he laughed too. Then we all started laughing, and the already high spirit became  even more buoyant. He approached me, with his girlfriend, and said to me, "cette femme ici est la plus belle femme du monde." I nodded, because was certainly nice to hear him say that, and he repeated it again, "elle est la plus belle femme du monde! J'ai raison!" I smiled and said, "j'en suis sûr." He passed us, and began playing on the pole to our left. Another boy came up to me, and said, "est-ce que tu connais l'hyperbolisme?" but not understanding what the context of his saying this was, I thought he had said something along the lines of, "l'hyper Belize," ou n'importe quoi. I asked him to repeat, repète, un fois plus, until he explained to me that, "l'hyperbolisme c'est quand on dit quelque chose pas vrai, un exagération du coup." I understood! It doesn't quite translate, no pun intended, however this anecdote is oddly pertinent this week's prompt.

A friend of mine once told me that I should be weary of anything that seemed great, another friend told me not to be fooled by beauty, another told me that perfection is an illusion, and Sami the security guard says that nothing is special because of what it looks like, but what it does. These have been some of the most valuable lessons I have learned.

The Ford Madox writings were very evidently plein d'hyperbolisme, as is Paris. Often I walk around looking for them, especially now, with fashion mongers rampant in the streets, do I find myself laughing at the hyperbolisme that is real, not just a literary device.

Paris is a confusing city -- one which has and continues to defend itself from invasion, and only now has it become slightly less xenophobic and exclusive, however it still retains some of its pride. I do not know whether this quality in the French is deplorable or admirable, because it is both regressive and rude while being dignified and self confident, the ladder of which I think are qualities that everyone and everything should be, though the French tend to get criticized for this, possibly because they have few things to criticize. 

Lately I have been having tons of fun, though within this expatriate community. What Madox says about the band of expatriates in Paris, and about how Paris will always only be real to the Parisians, strikes a cord of recognition in me. I wonder if this is because I have not made an effort to integrate myself, or if, because, I have not been accepted by the French people and this is not apparent to me because I have been so discreetly rejected that I am not even aware of it, just as I was so discretely fooled by Madox's descriptions that I was not aware I was being fooled. I think this is my biggest fear, but I also think I know most times in my gut when I am being blindsided, or at least I hope.

This is a short post, and I will most likely add more to it as more comes to me. I have not been sleeping too well, for a multiplicity of reasons. I have been craving a restaurant sit-down meal and I have not been able to because of monetary constraints. I feel that I should dine in at least one restaurant before I leave Paris. I have a long time until then, though time goes by faster than I realize.

The extent of Madox's writing style is likely much further reaching than he intends, or potentially it goes exactly as far as he intends. I cannot know, because I feel as though I cannot know Madox's mind. The mystery and misleading nature of his art is ultimately what makes me appreciate and distain it. I am abstracted from it, and by it, and with it, and to it, or maybe I am just tired. 

Parc Monceau

Writing this post has been somewhat difficult because I did not have any epiphanies while walking around Parc Monceau, and consequentially (rather apparently) nothing to write about. I feel that I have not, recently, thought about anything of value. While on the train to Parc Monceau I put in my headphones and tuned out the world.

I've been feeling increasingly detached in Paris, which was, at one point, a utopian city in my mind. This is not to say that Paris is the problem, though, but me. I have stopped walking aimlessly though the city, both from exhaustion but mostly because of this pervasive loneliness I feel creeping into my life. Every relationship brings me further from companionship, every romantic fling brings me further from love. I cannot afford the high prices of coffee and alcohol in the brasseries. The only true luxury I allow myself is the box of cigarettes I buy at the beginning of the week, which has, in recent weeks, become two.

Upon arriving at Parc Monceau, I noticed myself comparing it to Washington Square Park. Kids from the school nearby were on their lunch break, and the park was flooded with them - greeting friends, moving around, talking, playing. How fortunate are they, as children, to be ignorant, and how ironic it is that once they grow to understand and appreciate youth, they will have spent it.

I walked past a man standing against a tree. He stared off into space and as I passed I could feel him watching me though his peripheral vision. I tried not to effect his reverie, and in passing him again later, I noticed he looked a bit disturbed. I sat down in a field later, and the sun rose just to warm the ground I was sitting on. The grass was lit just in a way that reminded me of the beauty of nature, the beauty that reminds me of the ephemerality of everything.

Where life is compared to a walk, the born saunterer Thoreau talks of, who can spend his life in a perpetual pilgrimage, is the man apt to live his life like a walk, where the final destination is inevitable, but its location in time and space is yet to be revealed to him. I talked about this a lot last semester in New York, with people who shared the same pathos for wandering as I. Vis ta vie, elle est courte, aujourd'hui peut être la dernièr, etc., mais je me demande pourquoi je ne suis pas morte encore. 

Je suis quittée de Parc Morceau autour du metro Villiers, et je suis revenue chez moi. J'ai commencé d'écrire ce post, mais je ne pouvais rien écrire. J'ai mangé un sandwich et j'ai fumé une cigarette sur ma balcon.

coming clean - dos passos readings

I had had the expectation that this class would be somewhat of a personal narrative writing class, with the blog posts resembling curated diaries, digressions on the Parisian lifestyle and our own experiences living in Paris in the spring of 2015 and all that. It is just about 95 years after Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast — that which would stand for a centennial anniversary of the lost generation. I am not certain whether the assignments posted on canvas are prompts for the blog posts or for the conversation in class, so in my confusion I have written a hybrid of the two.
I also have to say how I feel uncomfortable in sharing my entire private life with the entire class, and thus, auditing myself poses a difficulty and somewhat of a burden on my creativity and on my desire to write these posts. I like the idea of constructive participation, but as those are true accounts of my life, being judged on my writing takes a new form of familiarity that I wished never to encounter in my adult life. I feel if I were writing fiction this would be different. I would love to be able to account for my semester in Paris by these short narratives, however I feel stifled by the looming threat of literary analysis, and by the general sense of apathy I get from the class. That being said, I wish to participate in this class in more than just presence, and this post will hopefully catapult me back into the mindset I was in at the beginning of the semester.
I have spent the last few weeks reeling with illness. I had never gotten sick in New York, nor in Los Angeles, and I am surprised by my sudden susceptibility to bronchial infection (which I imagine could make a great band name). Normally, my tolerance for these spring bugs is very high but something about Paris, maybe the proximity to other sick people, is what is different. Almost everybody I know has come down with some kind of bronchial illness — probably all the same one — and a few have had other issues. My ulcerative colitis has flared again, and I wonder if it is because of the cigarettes, caffeine, dairy, meat, bread, cold, alcohol, that I have introduced into my diet recently. Fortunately, nothing seems to soothe my IBS so at this point it is more of a meditation on removing stress rather than dietary irritants. 
I also find that there’s another kind of contagion which is much more detrimental to health than infections are, and that is the sense of apathy which I mentioned earlier. The table in my living room only became more and more dirty until last night when I decided that it was time for my life to again be worth something. I feel like my table represents and reflects everything in my life, my laziness, ennui, etc. As Lauryn Hill says, “everything is everything.” 
I have also become empty of music — I want to buy a guitar but I have been spending so much money that I can’t rationalize spending on that too. I figure if I spend very little for a few months then I’ll have saved up enough to buy one, but at that point I don’t see why I don’t just wait until I get back to New York where guitars are cheaper and I have an apartment and more stationary life.
It makes me very sad to know that I, again, will be leaving to make a new life for myself. I feel like I am creating conditions for myself to replicate the instability of living in a split custody household, but instead of household, life — 6 months in New York, 1 month in Los Angeles, 6 months in Paris, 1 month in Los Angeles… ? months in New York and who knows what else. I am restless — attention deficient or impatient, which it is, I am not sure. I have noticed this pattern, however, and I feel like it is a symptom of the anxiety that eats away at me. I went to talk to the councilor that Parsons Paris provided, and he turned out to be a wonderful man, a musician, too, raised in Greece, lived in New York, etc.
I keep getting urges to trip — I feel like I am looking for something in my waking life that my day dreams are not sufficient enough to find. I have been sleeping a lot, too, hoping that I’ll remember some of these revelations or realizations that I have in my dreams so that I can figure out what I am trying to figure out, but I guess since I am so sleep deprived, my mind is being greedy with its lessons. Writing also helps me discover these things, but since I’ve felt the emphasis of this class shift from writing to literary analysis I have lost my desire to write. A lot of my personal disposition tends to be reflective of the educational environment I am in; this was especially so in high school, when I was in class from 7 am to 3 pm every day. 
I need to find a musical community, people with I can play music with and talk with about these things. I feel like artistic communities have the same sensibilities, and are self selecting as a result, so finding one will only be a matter of searching for one.
I have also become very interested in astrology, and, while I am sure I shouldn’t be revealing this, as mine advised me to study astrology and metaphysics in secrecy, I feel a need to share this information. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized how binary people and situations tend to be, and I believe that astrology (as well as many other human behavioral sciences) are true. I am very much a libra, and that is satisfying and enlightening for me. 
I didn’t get a chance to finish the Dos Passos reading, but from what I got through, I recognized a similar trauma as is in Hemingway’s writing. Dos Passos has the same innocent narrative that Hemingway writes, with an unassuming and non-prescriptive voice, for example, when Dos Passos is sequestered by Sheffield into his love-den type living room, there is a definite implication of homosexual tendencies, but Dos Passos plays possum and gets himself out of the situation without prejudice or phobia, and the ambiguity of the situation tells this in itself. He also has this innocence when he is describing the violet-eyed couples that he keeps encountering, where he’ll hope to find friendship but then realizes that he is mentally impotent because of his presence in the military and battle trauma.

I don’t have much else to say, except an apology for being somewhat mentally absent these past few weeks, and for being physically absent in several different places, several times, for whatever it’s worth, and that I want to get more tattoos. 

a walk through a graffitied wonderland

I was already in the Marais area, so I decided to do the walk backwards, starting at the Hotel de Ville, moving towards Rue du Poitou. I was fully engaged with my music, having just had a near to spiritual experience walking through a tattooed alley just behind a boulangerie, when I ran square into Emily and Alex, finishing the same route I was just beginning, and Alex's father, who was very kind and wonderful. They asked if I wanted to join them, but I was on a trajectory already.

I continued down the Rue Vielle du Temple, looking for tags and graffiti I could photograph. The only ones around were too simple for my taste -- having been raised in California, lived in New York, and now Paris -- graffiti has become a form of art that I recognize more easily than any other, and am now more versed in graffiti more than I had realized. That being said, the street art in Paris is less politically charged and more personally expressive than the ones I have seen elsewhere, though generalizations are almost always inexplicably untrue.

This graffiti tells me of a culture whose character is based in seeking to achieve expression of mind and of heart. I see sex, art, sex, stupid, stupid, sex, clever (the clever ones make me smile) sex, sex, stupid. I am looking for one to relate to, whose message is as banal as it is universally true. I find comfort knowing where I stand with others, especially those others who are brave (or dumb) enough to make their mark through such a transient medium; concrete and pigment, these allies are the modern day Lascaux. This makes me wonder if it is human nature to draw on walls, something of an attempt at upward mobility. Perhaps this was Kubrick's intended message, though I wish to never find out.

Walking past the L'As du Falafel, I immediately regretted the sandwich I had just eaten, but c'est la vie. It's true that those sandwiches are the best falafel in the world (no exaggeration). I walked past the Jewish bakery, and gawked at all of the beautiful pastries that I won't let myself eat; maybe when I'm an old lady, I tell myself. I saw a new place that sells strudel like pastries on the corner, which corner I couldn't say, and decided to come back to try one, though for 3,50 the pastries are a bit steep and probably not as good as I imagine they will be. I walked towards Rue du Poitou, momentarily feeling myself disoriented in the Parisian labyrinth. Finally I found my way back to Vieille du Temple and stopped at a café called Boots. It reminded me of home, with independently run magazines and indie music playing in the background. The barista didn't speak French very well, and as I left I noticed her doing language exercises on the counter.

I walked up towards the A.C.P., and noticed an American Apparel across the street. I went in, for old time's stake, and found a scarf that I really wanted to get but not for 55 euros. I considered stealing it, but the censor on it was all too conspicuous, and the employees were boring holes into my back with their eyes. 

(hey David)

I walked onwards, until I saw the end of the street where it opened onto a main road. I found the metro and stopped for a cigarette before heading home. I sat on an ruinous step that reminded me of one of those incredible monuments I see online, and smoked my cigarette. A man walked by asking for money, but did not harass me, as I was having my cigarette. I boarded the train and went home.