April 29th - Ahh….Paris
Twenty years and twenty kilos ago Paris could be a little dangerous for a single woman like moi
‘Don’t make eye-contact,’ my French friends would warn. ‘Don’t smile’.
I’m invisible now.
It’s a great way to travel.
Lucky to get anyone’s attention, frankly.
It took a while for the old Paris magic to kick in.
On previous, more salubrious visits I’ve cabbed in from the airport or caught the train direct from Calais to the Gare du Nord.
The architecture never failed to score a direct hit, right between the eyes.
An exquisite, elegant, romantic city with turrets and slate roofs and real French windows with balconies.
Wide tree-lined boulevards, art-nouveaux Metro signs, rows of cane chairs outside café after café.
Wow.
Ca me fait a bout de souffle.
This time around, in the city of love, I feel like I came in through the servants’ entrance.
I caught the train in from Charles de Gaulle airport to the Gare de L’Est and waited for the show to begin.
I don’t need to be in Paris. I took three days here - between the rigours of Germany and the ongoing work in England - because I wanted to.
It’s a luxury I can’t afford but I was too close to forgo the pleasure.
Le Bourget, Drancy, the suburban stations rolled past the window of the RER.
No magic happening.
Droves of Naomi Campbells, Macy Grays, Fela Koutis and Kofi Anans got on board.
I seemed to be the only trailer-trash going to town.
I kept my eyes fixed on the window.
Waiting.
The world-wide association of bubble-writers, it seems, has wreaked its usual toneless, boring havoc on one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
The taggers (great concept in AFL: rubbish with a spray-can) hard at it, systematically erasing all traces of individuality in every town, city and hamlet.
From Broady to Clichy, Frankston to Frankfurt, Melbourne to Milan, every available wall, railway siding and rooftop is covered in bubble-writing.
AND IT ALL LOOKS THE SAME.
There is not one trace of individuality on display. No shred of protest.
No-one, it seems, imagines that perhaps copperplate might be an option. Or even hieroglyphics.
Nup.
Just tubular block caps in the dozen colours available at the local equivalent of Bunnings.
Just wanna look like the other bruvvers, init.
Big fan of Banksie , me. The graffiti genius. Love yer work.
But bubble-writers ?
Bor-ring !
I want to apply for an Arts Council grant to initiate a
GLOBAL DAY OF RAMPANT INDIVIDUALITY.
Everyone gets a tin of paint and a roller and is allowed to paint over all the bubble-writing around them.
A day on which we can restore the individuality of each city.
Erase the glum, prosaic, UNIFORMITY of the world-wide bubble-writing scourge.
Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t give a tinker’s that bubble-writers deface property or appear to be engaging in anti-social, anti-private ownership rights.
I care that it’s so TOTALLY LACKING IN IMAGINATION !!!!
Just writing your name ?
What’s THAT about ?
France led the world in freedom, liberty, egalite, democracy. They smashed the monarchy and stood up for the poor in a revolutionary fight to the death. They built monuments to their achievements.
So, the most revolutionary thing you can think of to do today is write your name/number/tag/signature on a wall ?
Sacre bleu, fair suck of the sav, bloody hell !
How DULL AND UNIMAGINATIVE.
Paris rolls past the window of the train and I could be anywhere.
It’s only when I finally lug my case (which just cost me 86 euros in excess to bring back from Germany even though I hadn’t put anything extra in it) unassisted, up three flights of Metro stairs and emerge onto the beautiful Boulevarde Richard Lenoir and gaze towards the Colonne de Juillet flying high above the centre of the Place de la Bastille that the magic finally happens.
I’m in Paris.
And it’s raining.
And it will keep on raining all the time I’m here.
Even after I finally succumb and buy a ‘Paris, Je t’aime’ souvenir umbrella, it keeps raining.
I don’t care.
I’m sitting here with a 2.50 euro bottle of 2006 Bordeaux and thinking about tomorrow, and how I will ride my ‘velib’ bike all over town and drink in the unique gorgeousness that is Paris.