Taboo

The internet cafe is freezing bc the door is broken so it must stay either open or closed. Considering that I would prefer not to sleep here, I guess I am glad that it is open. Jennifer and I had a fantastic lunch at one of the places that the Poiriers recommend in the neighborhood, including the obligatory wine, which means that I slept the rest of the afternoon. I still feel like I am encased in led.

I am used to days like today. We tried to go to an art exhibition, but they would only allow us to enter at 1 PM. I suggested the Orsay or the Louvre as an alternative, but by the time we got to the Louvre, we were so cold a hot chocolate seemed like a good idea. By the time we finished our hot chocolate it was 11:30, not enough time to see the Louvre before lunch. So, instead we went shopping at BHV.

I've been reading Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik. He writes about Paris exactly as I would if he hadn't already done it. Instead of making me want to befriend him, in this case I have decided that I hate him. Last night I read this hilarious section on bay-ash-vay (BHV) and how that couple kissing in front of it in the photo taken by Robert Doisneau are not kissing out of any sort of passion but instead bc they have finally gotten out of the store.

I bought Taboo (in French of course), as I have been lusting for it, and Jennifer bought a beautiful new purse. The morning was finally deemed a sucess. Then there was the magnificant lunch, and that's the end of that little story. Thanks for listening.

Last night I saw some local bands at a small club with Pierre. The first was led by an would-be-very-sexy young thing in a nipply white tank top (no bra of course), army capri pants, and lace-up boots with tiny tiny spike heals. Her eyes were black and her hair platnum blond, and it was impossible to tell which was closer to natural. She performed like a cheerleader and had a drummer, a basist and a guitarist, all boys in tight army fatigues. It was some kind of heavy-metal influence garage band, which I realized when they covered "smells like teen spirit" we have called grunge for the last 15+ years. Her voice was not melotic, but they wrote their songs and some of them were quite catchy.

The second musician was a friend of Pierre's from the slam poetry scene that he is very involved with here. Apparently this guy organizes much of the scene, and Pierre called him its leader. He projected japanese cartoon pornography onto the background and his supporting musicians and apparently sang entirely about sex (of course, I can understand almost nothing of the lyrics, but Pierre kindly translated for me). He sees singing about sex as a political issue -- sex should be more openly part of mainstream society. He himself looked a bit like one of the bad kids on the Simpsons.

On the walk back to the Metro, after the music was finished, we discussed this issue of sex and society. I am not as articulate as I would like to be sometimes, but I don't find most French women particularly sexually empowered. Post feminism has no place in a society where feminism has not yet arrived. In other words, if there are no women in powerful/important positions in the society, how can they use their attractiveness to succeed? Likewise, French women tend to dress very elegantly, of course, but I don't get the sense that they do it for themselves. Gopnik actually discusses this too -- you don't see here the Hunter College (or New College, if you are in San Francisco; Gopnik is from NYC) professors in their sexy black dresses and fishnet stockings. I am still putting these ideas together, but Pierre disagreed with me on this issue entirely. He said he had lots of female friends who are very sexually free, which of course, was not at all what I was trying to talk about. Alas!

Have we already identified what post-post-feminism will be?