Emily in not!Paris

[dhampyresa]

I was watching this review of Emily in Paris and realised I knew Emily lives and where the white guy love interest's restaurant across the street is. Unless I'm mistaken, which is possible since it's been a while since I've been to place de l'Estrapade and its rather distinctive fountain, there is a restaurant there. An Ethiopian restaurant. (Which seems rather in poor taste given how white the show seems to be.)

Not sure where I'm going with this entry. Hmm. I remember when the show/trailers for it were coming out, friends and I talked about how a show about 'naïve American who thought Paris was Like The Movies and is severely disappointed to find it is Not That (a la a soft version of Paris syndrome) who then discovers that the real Paris is diverse and multicultural and has a vibrant indie English stand-up scene[1] and you've not lived until you've had homemade authentic Sechuan noodles in a hole in the wall place next door to a lesbian bar from which you will emerge at 2am to eat a kebab three doors down[2] and holy shit there are cormorants on the Île aux Cygnes whaaaaaat?! [3] and get lost in St Ouen and and just coming to appreciate the real Paris, not the whitewashed nonsense of US media' would be PRETTY DOPE ACTUALLY.

Maybe I just miss my city ;_;

[1] And I'm not saying that just because I'm friend of friends with some people in said scene.
[2] Fuck, I love Le Marais.
[3] True story.

Comments

[sovay]

and just coming to appreciate the real Paris, not the whitewashed nonsense of US media' would be PRETTY DOPE ACTUALLY.

I would watch that show or movie; it would be about the point of visiting a place, not just imagining it. I would also eat those noodles and visit that lesbian bar, are we kidding?

Maybe I just miss my city

I miss cities I don't even live in. Plague sucks, Harry.

*hugs*

(I was in France for about five days in the spring of 1999. It was a high school chorus trip, so mostly what we were doing was singing in cathedrals, but we were based out of Paris and my best memory of the city outside of museums and performances—fair warning that it comes without place-names; I have no idea where in the city we were and I very much doubt that at this distance I could reconstruct it—was the evening that I was supposed to go with some friends to a jazz club, but one of said friends hurt her ankle and couldn't leave the hotel, so instead of going without her we decided to bring her flowers to make her feel better. Except we had to find somewhere that was open to sell us flowers. We kept finding shops just as they closed. We took a group selfie in front of a shuttered florist's just to prove that we'd been looking. And then finally we stumbled across a woman selling flowers in a Métro station; she was packing to go when we descended on her and I bought fifty francs' worth of what I remember as really nice flowers and then we had to drag one friend out of the bookstore and another out of the music store and get ourselves back to the hotel and I presented the bouquet to our ankle-wounded friend in the manner of a proposal, which I believe technically she accepted by taking the flowers and hugging me. The point of the story is that I remember Paris as a good city for being slightly feral in. I believe in its cormorants.)

[yuuago]

The show you propose sounds pretty fun.

(And the description has made me crave Sechuan noodles.)

[kore]

That Real Paris show sounds fantastic!

[lynnenne]

I miss your city, too.