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Exploration vs Consumption: Tourism in Paris Scratch & NY Sin Phoney in Face Flat Minor 365 not-quite prose poems, not-quite memoir snapshots of everyday life |
Walking, like writing, leads from a familiar to an unfamiliar destination. This is exploration. But desirable cities worldwide are now so heavily touristed that their uniqueness and ability to absorb the consumption of their image by tourists has left them a little bit more leeched of their essence with every newly departed busload of adulating shoppers – a strange embarrassment of riches indeed.
Allusions to tourists as locusts, zombies, & pillagers have become common but not misplaced. Many come to see a Paris as documented by the likes of Cartier-Bresson or Robert Doisneau, for instance, and if their experience diverges too much from this vision, expectation is dashed, confusion ensues, & a feeling of being swindled may arise.
Locals complain that their neighborhoods are under siege & then reconstructed as Disneyfied simulacrums where residents are required to play the role of themselves in the movies and photos of the purposeful, yet aimless, tourist. They are end users who violate the slender border between adoration and consumption as they are herded to landmarks by guides who flatter their conventionally stereotypical views, marching through squares to conquer entire swaths of public space.
The “Mona Lisa” is not enough; to adequately squash uneasy self-doubt, they must post selfies with urban icons to prove they’ve been somewhere. This activity is perched on notoriously slender membranes of consciousness, contested zones that neuroscientist Daniel Dennett describes as “qualia” or “the way things seem to us.” This is either manifested as monetized illusion built on branded stereotypes of how to “properly” read a city, supplied by official guides, travel sites, pamphlets, & apps.
OR it manifests itself in the obverse, as an intrepid sense of exploration, because, although it has become increasingly difficult for explorers & dérive-inspired windowshoppers, to negotiate one’s own private discourse with the city, they do not surrender easily as they prefer to give attention [a gift] rather than pay attention [a capitalist exchange] to their surroundings.
FREE Paris Scratch soundtrack while you read: LISTEN HERE.
Allusions to tourists as locusts, zombies, & pillagers have become common but not misplaced. Many come to see a Paris as documented by the likes of Cartier-Bresson or Robert Doisneau, for instance, and if their experience diverges too much from this vision, expectation is dashed, confusion ensues, & a feeling of being swindled may arise.
Locals complain that their neighborhoods are under siege & then reconstructed as Disneyfied simulacrums where residents are required to play the role of themselves in the movies and photos of the purposeful, yet aimless, tourist. They are end users who violate the slender border between adoration and consumption as they are herded to landmarks by guides who flatter their conventionally stereotypical views, marching through squares to conquer entire swaths of public space.
The “Mona Lisa” is not enough; to adequately squash uneasy self-doubt, they must post selfies with urban icons to prove they’ve been somewhere. This activity is perched on notoriously slender membranes of consciousness, contested zones that neuroscientist Daniel Dennett describes as “qualia” or “the way things seem to us.” This is either manifested as monetized illusion built on branded stereotypes of how to “properly” read a city, supplied by official guides, travel sites, pamphlets, & apps.
OR it manifests itself in the obverse, as an intrepid sense of exploration, because, although it has become increasingly difficult for explorers & dérive-inspired windowshoppers, to negotiate one’s own private discourse with the city, they do not surrender easily as they prefer to give attention [a gift] rather than pay attention [a capitalist exchange] to their surroundings.
FREE Paris Scratch soundtrack while you read: LISTEN HERE.
Excerpts from : NY Sin Phoney in Face Flat Minor
155. Knowing Isn’t Everything
Even though she is with him on the ferry she is ignoring all the splendid things he knows – ”each ferry can carry 3500 passengers” – or seems to know especially about boats & how NY seems to work. “They travel at 16 knots or 18 mph; the trip takes about 25 minutes to go 5.2 miles.” He points to the tankers anchored out in the harbor but she did not hear him any more as she fixed her hair so that the wind would not distract her from continuing to read her book on the sunny upper deck. The book is probably interesting enough but she continued reading mostly to get away from him. It is so obvious he doesn’t notice a thing. “The ferry engine is 6500 horsepower or like 40 cars!” But how much ignoring could she actually put between him & her before he’d remind her that they’d been married a really long time.
247. Squirrelly Racism
The couple is from Jersey, you can tell because their shoes are a little like Betty Boop’s shoes: They seem too immense to walk in properly, too white, too brand new. They simply saw the TV commercial & unconsciously climbed into their car, went to the mall to buy these exact his-her matching sports shoes. They are walking more today than they have ever walked in their entire lives from the looks of it. They are walking along the western perimeter of Tompkins Square, unsure of how to negotiate high curbs, kind of fumbling along like a short order cook peeling a hardboiled egg wearing ski mittens. She is holding his flexed arm for dear life with both hands. In these instances, the value of males is temporarily reestablished. At Avenue A they gaze into the wilderness & she turns to him to remark: “Even the squirrels are black around here.” “Yea, better watch your purse, nigger squirrels will mug you for your bag o’ nuts.” & with a frisky return to a time when she was known to say racy things, she says: “I think you better be extra careful yourself.” Winkwink.
358. Lovers & Other Athletes
The gaggle of girls with their awkwardly arrogant gams, name-brand-knock-off heels, insulated by their over-compensated prettiness – snuff-faced souls, you know, looking dead at the world – were trying to get their bearings. The homeless man outside Penn Station sees them coming & says: “Here come the cheerleaders! How about a cheer for Debbie Does Dallas? Hello lovers & other pretty athletes; help a homeless man who appreciate a pretty sight. I’m hungry. I’m homeless. I’m ugly, I’m so ugly I can’t get a girlfriend. I can’t even get a boyfriend. Can’t even get a manikin, a gerbil, a gerbil for a pet. I can’t even get a pet ...” They just scoot by as if he is just there to test their resolve to resisting all external distraction from their mission to do 100 vodka &/or tequila body shots (16+ per gal!) in Times Square & then make their way back to catch the last train back to Jersey.
Excerpts from : Paris Scratch
10. Roi de la Voie King of the Rails
The rough-hewn old man tells his histoire to the young couple holding hands on the Metro. It has indeed been a very long time since anyone had REALLY listened. The excitement stung the vin glow deeper into his cheeks. When the couple reaches their stop, the young man shakes his hand. The young woman allows him to kiss her hand. The benediction has left him no longer a pauper. & no king ever sat taller, nor experienced a smoother ride to the end of the line.
112. Travesti Contre le Scheisse et le Shit Transvestite Agains Shit
The brood of English tourists with their raw necks & generous-fit trainers who had reduced themselves to 1 sole pleasure, taking the piss out of all humanity, are taunting the travestis by throwing centimes at them. It is like a childhood game. The travesti in leopard had tits of a precise & elegant manufacture, the way certain armaments can be awesome & enchanting. But, more importantly, she is a doll of a precise fabrication that combines Cubism, Fluxus, Impressionism, mythology & combustion with a stare that’s like a cigarette burning a hole through polyester. They stand pathetically just far enough away out of the swing of her big grommeted handbag, across the rue clutching whatever manhood they have left & stare & hoot & ridicule, singing “Lola,” wasted blokes arm in arm, war casualties of their own battles. She ultimately loses the grace of boundless patience & turns on them like a dark rabid dog. “Casse toi! Chiens, scheisse, dumm scheisse assholes, scheisekopfen, arsewipes, fuck you, what you looook at idiots?”
121. Sous le Gusto de Down Under Under the Gusto of Down Under
The Aussis in stained shorts & oversized tee shirts so white you wonder how these bachelors do it, have survived Paris & there they sit, slouched in their wobbly chairs in the café, staring at the Gare Du Nord, not all that impressed by the results of their weekend, staring straight ahead but not seeing anything. They’ve done too much but accomplished nothing. None of them has scored like their friends back home had insisted they do. It was 7:45 in the morning & they are waiting for their train, drinking a formidable beer, probably a Grimbergen, served in 1 of those immense glass mugs reserved for the drinking classes of the northern lands. Their half-hearted toast – “Long Live the Aussies & Fuck French Women!” – was met with a kind of beyond exhaustion gusto of those no longer totally convinced of their own invincibility. They held their beers up to where they thought the sun would greet them but did not.
205. Tourisme du Ventriloque Tourism of Ventriloquism
“I’ll show you where Celine lived on rue Norvins,” MEB offered, “where he treated injured members of the resistance; where Cézanne used to wander with Zola; the bars where Satie played piano; where Gainsbourg & Vian got their start; where Toulouse-Lautrec lived in a whorehouse & got the affectionate nickname ‘Mr. Teapot’ because of his short, weird- shaped body & interestingly shaped penis.” & as we walked I saw that the sole of his shoe had come loose at the nose so that as he continued to regale me with stories of malfeasance & clandestine activities it appeared as if his voice was coming from the shoe like he was some kind of a chaussure ventriloquist.
358. Les Gitanes ou les Bankers The Gypsies or the Bankers
We stand in a long line of tourists, on the gravel, waiting to enter the Louvre. Gypsies, a certain kind, swoop down & through the line. They, like prostitutes or secretaries or telephone sales people in other realms of society, are indentured servants & must beg &, if necessary, aggressively, &, if necessary, devise tactics, like devious small-business owners, to convince tourists to part with the money they’ve converted to francs. A dozen Roma in their Old World fabrics distract & then pickpocket, like insurance agents steal from the elderly, like taking candy from a baby. It happens to the “typical” ugly American couple, who were just complaining about everything they had heard you should complain about in Paris but just a little bit louder. I did not come to their assistance. I, like most of those waiting in line, watch as the unhealthy, panic-stricken pickpocketed hopelessly give chase, yelling & screaming “Grab’m! Grab’m!” as the Roma pickpocketers scatter & dissolve into the Paris of just over there. I feel proud they do not ever bother me, thus creating a bond of have-nots vs. haves. I think people just didn’t want to lose their place in line to a lost cause. I hope they get away &, no matter how wrong this may feel, it can also feel right, viewed from another angle.
© photo of author by Foto Sifichi |
bart plantenga is the author of the novel Beer Mystic (2017), short story collection Wiggling Wishbone & novella Spermatagonia: The Isle of Man. His books Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World & Yodel in HiFi + the CD Rough Guide to Yodel have created the misunderstanding that he's 1 of the world’s foremost yodel experts. He’s currently working on the novel Radio Activity Kills with daughter, Paloma. He's also a DJ & has produced Wreck This Mess in NYC, Paris & Amsterdam since 1986. He lives in Amsterdam.
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