I Will Never Have Paris

A few weeks ago, Ian and I had a conversation where he called into question the bourgeois preoccupation with Paris as a magical city of lights.  The only person I know who really hates Paris is my mother, and that's because she experienced my version of it, on my budget with my absolute paucity of standards.  One Germanophilic American woman I know describes it as "just another big, dirty city," but aside from that, pretty much everyone I know if has good things to say about it - aside from Ian.  Admittedly, Ian hasn't been there, but he's still pretty confident in his debunking of the Parisian mystique.

But tonight, I thought I might be able to challenge his disregard afresh.  We went to "The  Smurfs 2."  Aside from a few early scenes in Manhattan and Smurf Village, the movie takes place in Paris, which nearly by itself already made it worth the ticket for me.  And as the Smurfs arrived in Paris, to rescue Smurfette from the evil Gargamel and his new countersmurf creations, The Naughties, I thought the aerial view of Paris, and the zoom down to the street scene from the tops of some beautiful buildings, including churches, might give me a venue to show Ian that Paris really is pretty good-lookin' after all.  So at that point in the movie, I told him, "You have to admit that those buildings are beautiful."

But the fourth-grade attorney did not concede the point, by any means:
"No I don't.  Cities aren't beautiful."

And, for the first time, Young Daniel chimed in with his own observation about Paris, closely mirroring the perspective of his more outspoken mentor:

"The buildings are a little bit dirty, Daddy."

So it's decided:  Paris isn't just overrated; it's unbeautiful.

(August 5, 2013)