Out of Place
Just TRY to get a table on a Saturday night in
Paris
Out of
Place
I went to le Marais in the evening; it's the old Jewish area, and now a gay stomping ground. The men in France seemed stereotypically gorgeous and typically French, just like all the ads in Fashions of the Times. Everyone was running around in skin-tight shirts whose sleeves only come down as far as the beginning of the bicep. I kept looking around for the cameras; I was sure Jean-Luc Goddard must be doing a movie somewhere. And everyone seems to smoke.
I visited Les Mots de la Bouche, the gay bookstore on Rue de Sainte Croix de la Bretonnerie. This street, and many others, were not on the map. I don't think it was homophobic, but just really bad cartography. I made a few purchases and literally hunted for dinner. At one restaurant they just spurned my advances for a table for one. Bastards. I suppose if it were 1940 and I was from Dusseldorf and 20,000 of my closest Wehrmacht friends were behind me, they just might have surrendered a table.
I finally found a wonderful restaurant on Rue de Tibourg and had a wonderful meal of a baked vegetable cake in tomato sauce, and a veal fillet in some very unkosher sauce and stuffing, served with a chestnut flan. It was wonderful. It restored my faith in la Republique Francaise. They might be downright rude in Paris (everyone in the country hates Parisians) but you just can't have a bad meal in that town.
Two vicious vicious queens perched in the window seat and commented on every man who walked by. I felt like I was in New York. Turns out they WERE from New York. Hmph. There is no escape. It was like Planet of the Vicious Queens II: Visite a Paris.
I did not realize that it was a gay restaurant until I went to the little hommes room and on a table outside of it, there were numerous pamphlets and free magazines. One was a photo-novel showing the "adventures" of Pierre. He's 22 and just figured out he's gay -- a guy follows him into a train bathroom and does a Lewinsky on him, while his thought bubble says, "THIS is nice." While it is not porn, it does show erections and the proper deployment of a condom, and explores the issues facing men who have recently arrived to their sexualities. It also showed his parents, exgirlfriend, tricks, friends, and potential lovers.
It showed real life, and was government funded. You wouldn't see that in New York, where the mere mention of a girl having two mommies is verboten.
Vive la Republique -- and hide the children if you cannot deal with real life.
I went to le Marais in the evening; it's the old Jewish area, and now a gay stomping ground. The men in France seemed stereotypically gorgeous and typically French, just like all the ads in Fashions of the Times. Everyone was running around in skin-tight shirts whose sleeves only come down as far as the beginning of the bicep. I kept looking around for the cameras; I was sure Jean-Luc Goddard must be doing a movie somewhere. And everyone seems to smoke.
I visited Les Mots de la Bouche, the gay bookstore on Rue de Sainte Croix de la Bretonnerie. This street, and many others, were not on the map. I don't think it was homophobic, but just really bad cartography. I made a few purchases and literally hunted for dinner. At one restaurant they just spurned my advances for a table for one. Bastards. I suppose if it were 1940 and I was from Dusseldorf and 20,000 of my closest Wehrmacht friends were behind me, they just might have surrendered a table.
I finally found a wonderful restaurant on Rue de Tibourg and had a wonderful meal of a baked vegetable cake in tomato sauce, and a veal fillet in some very unkosher sauce and stuffing, served with a chestnut flan. It was wonderful. It restored my faith in la Republique Francaise. They might be downright rude in Paris (everyone in the country hates Parisians) but you just can't have a bad meal in that town.
Two vicious vicious queens perched in the window seat and commented on every man who walked by. I felt like I was in New York. Turns out they WERE from New York. Hmph. There is no escape. It was like Planet of the Vicious Queens II: Visite a Paris.
I did not realize that it was a gay restaurant until I went to the little hommes room and on a table outside of it, there were numerous pamphlets and free magazines. One was a photo-novel showing the "adventures" of Pierre. He's 22 and just figured out he's gay -- a guy follows him into a train bathroom and does a Lewinsky on him, while his thought bubble says, "THIS is nice." While it is not porn, it does show erections and the proper deployment of a condom, and explores the issues facing men who have recently arrived to their sexualities. It also showed his parents, exgirlfriend, tricks, friends, and potential lovers.
It showed real life, and was government funded. You wouldn't see that in New York, where the mere mention of a girl having two mommies is verboten.
Vive la Republique -- and hide the children if you cannot deal with real life.
Posted: Sat - July 10, 1999 at 02:38 AM
Quick Links
Calendar
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
Categories
Archives
XML/RSS Feed
Statistics
Total entries in this blog:
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Jun 20, 2009 07:04 PM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Jun 20, 2009 07:04 PM