les trucs

This weekend I took the same trip twice, and got just as lost both times. Getting great at getting lost. But it’s not really a feat at Clignancourt, the entire place is a giant maze. A very interesting, decorated maze but that almost makes it more difficult to find your way because there are so many things to distract you from noticing where you’re going. Funny because it happens in real life too.

There are just so many things in Paris. I think general world-opinion (if that exists) holds the States as the most materialistic, consumerist society and maybe we do use more than we ought to and you can buy nearly anything you can dream up, but it’s not shoved in your face the way it is in Paris. Alright so a flea market is a skewed sample and maybe so is living in the 14th but it still seems that stuff is such a large part of life here. There’s good stuff; interesting stuff and even really beautiful stuff sometimes but you would never even know minimalism existed if you never left Paris.

Even the buildings, not institutes and churches I mean (though they are certainly no exception) but supermarkets and apartment buildings have decorated edges and stone faces rising off them and those fancy curly iron fences. It’s a bit overwhelming.

It’s also very lovely and obviously enticing as Paris is one of the largest tourist destinations in the world, but what does that say about us then? That the Good Life is buying more things and eating nice meals and deserts and seeing these fancy buildings (also shoved in your face, thanks Haussman) Paris is all about fashion and beauty and food … food even feeds the materialist/consumerist mentality. We certainly don’t need the quantity or deliiiciousness of French cuisine.

I mean I love it too, and I love Paris in general, I’m not saying this is a terrible place by any means I just wonder if maybe I love the wrong things? I can’t decide. Or maybe it’s not entirely wrong to be materialistic and like things and food if you can really appreciate them and their beauty, and not take it just to take it? But as Musee Carnavalet shows the real stories are told through the Stuff. So I guess this just means that the generations after us will have lots of stories to tell.