My Man David

Sedaris, Mimi and everyone else are right. Going to the cinema in Paris is the thing to do. The city of light in the dark. Before I left, Mimi told me they were movie mad. And it’s true. Who else would bother to put decorate deep down basements with comic grand gold chandeliers flowering from blue velvet walls surrounding red plush seats? Would screen films for four people? And it is and it isn’t for people. Get the sense that maybe it’s not for human beings but for the films. Like someone who takes a great dress out of closet to sport around the house because it deserves to be worn, the projectionist takes the film from its canister and run the reels whether or not there is an audience. Part of the homage to movies in each street in the petits theaters. Roman Holiday shows at the same time Saved! An afternoon, you choose between Jules et Jim and Coffee and Cigarettes, the Godfather and My Man Godfrey. I saw Mon Homme Godfrey Friday. Got such a kick out of going to the comfortable classic, incongruous somehow in Paris. Yesterday I found Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind hidden in a hole in the wall theater on la rue Mouffetard. In my aimless life where besides a few hours of class and dinners with host family I have nothing need to do, where I can sit for hours reading by the Seine, where I endlessly promenade picking my path street by street from the way light looks or by the buildings and balconies, trying to get lost like this sentence in order to find myself and mysteries of the city (discovered the real Chinatown the other day in the 10th edging the 19th arrondissement – it was bigger than two blocks and I bet les brioches au porc are better), I like a little of the purpose movies lend my life. I flip through the guide, plan my program and set out for the theater. Searching for Eternal Sunshine I delved into streets of le quartier latin I had no other reason to be on. Stumbled into a sign branding a bar that read, “Poetry is an extreme sport.” Tumbled into a cute café for lunch loud from the large sum of Parisians not from one American couple. Then, the feature was fantastic. Great discussion of memory and owning ones past and I liked Jim Carrey for first time. Involved in the film, I am at once removed from France and completely abroad. I laugh twice as much as the other two people in the theater, at the jokes and for the French subtitles’ terse translations. I attempt to regard, listen, read, translate, juxtapose what saw with what heard. And after the scheduled darkness, the disruption of my meandering, I step out into the sunlight, and, this might be my favorite part of the process, there is Paris, still.