RDH - Paris Is Great, but It’s Not Quite What I’m in the Market For

Paris Is Great, but It’s Not Quite What I’m in the Market For

May 9, 2007

For men at least, there's a promise that if you can master French culture in the style of Paris, then you will experience the gains promised by those Charles Atlas advertisements in the old comic books: instant success with women. But this sort of transformation isn't exactly available to everyone. What if, for example, you just can't shed your American accent and, worse, you don't like wine?

Paris does promise other delights, of course. It's got a world-class public transportation system, for one thing. But such transportation seems slightly superfluous in a city that looks as if it might have been made for walking if not for the incessant parade of vehicles that limit pedestrians to just a fraction of what Haussmann had in mind. Fortunately, Paris is small enough that it's entirely possible to jog anywhere you might need to go. But no one there seems to jog—at least not along any of the streets and sidewalks—so the would-be jogger risks feeling silly for even entertaining the idea. And I, for one, might worry about getting run over by a car or a scooter.

The food, though—the food's out of this world, to be sure. But it seems to be a little on the limited side—not only in terms of portions but when it's offered. Yes, you can get hamburgers and pizza, but it's not as if you can just pick up the phone and order a couple of sheet pizzas—one pepperoni and the other plain—for your kid's eighth birthday party. And as cosmopolitan as Paris might be, there's surprisingly little variety. You can't expect to waltz into a restaurant and ask for a bacon cheeseburger, much less a mushroom and swiss burger—though you might be able to wrangle one with bleu cheese on it if your French is particularly good.

"If not Paris, what?" That's a good question. I'm stumped. It's hard to imagine a finer city. Maybe Duluth, Minnesota.

You'll have much better luck with the drinks. France has great drinks, and Paris is no exception. But if you're not a fan of wine, and you're not about to trek all the way to the City of Lights just to sip on an overpriced Jack and Coke, you might be left with a decision. And how does one decide what beer is the right beer in such a marvelous place? I'd suggest Kronenbourg, an excellent, highly drinkable beer. And with the money you save by avoiding wine, you might as well shell out a little extra for the 1664 variety, which offers a little more alcohol into the bargain. But don't expect to be able to walk into a Rite-Aid and cart off a thirty-pack of Milwaukee's Best Ice (called "Best Chest" in a way that is intended to conjure an image that might recall a photo that I linked to in my last article), without any fuss or bother (thanks at least in part to the box, which features a sturdy cut-out handle atop its center; stronger beer drinkers would have no problem carrying off two at a time), ten times a day if you want to, and for just pennies a can.* That's 5.9 percent alcohol by volume (significantly higher than the non-ice version of the same beer and, for that matter, four-tenths of a percent higher than today's "Seize"†) in a great-tasting beer that carries the imprimatur of the Miller Brewing Company. And if they're out of that (they never are, but it's nice to consider the options nonetheless), I can get the very same product from Anheuser-Busch, in the form of their own Natural Ice (again, in a convenient thirty-pack). And if the unlimited supply isn't available around the clock—there are some standards of decency, after all, even in America—it's so easy to stock up that anybody'd be a fool to go without or not to see that running out would be your own damn fault.

"But I'm thin and elegant. How can any of these reservations about Paris possibly apply to me?" They probably don't.

Okay, so there's sexy talk, a great transportation system, out-of-this-world cuisine, and fine drinks. Paris probably offers more than that. Oh, yes: the museums. There's a lot of great stuff from a long time ago, lovingly preserved and tastefully presented. One could say the same about the city in general: there's a lot of great stuff from a long time ago, lovingly preserved and tastefully presented. But somehow the whole presentation seems to be a little bit off somehow. Perhaps I'm asking too much, but, though I like the carefully preserved buildings and the sense of history that I get when I'm in Paris, it sort of ruins it for me a little bit that there are all these people racing around revving their motors everywhere. Paris is sort of like a museum that's taken handicap accessibility to the limit. But yes, if you are so inclined, you can sit at a sidewalk café—just like in the movies—and watch all the people drive by. And fortunately, the vehicles—having evolved in a climate of expensive gasoline and nurtured by a taste for models that handle well on pavement yet can adjust to narrow-gauge streets from before the age of the automobile—are kind of French looking, so you can get a sense of a sort of specifically and uniquely Parisian city bustling by as you soak in centuries of grandeur through the very stones under your feet.

*The surprisingly low cost is hard to fathom. Perhaps these "ice" beers are considered loss leaders—a means of initiating the relatively impecunious young into the joys of the smooth, predictable, heat-pasteurized products of two of America's most illustrious corporations. Or it could be that they save costs by capitalizing on the word-of-mouth advertising that's become ever more popular among a young, networked generation of collegiate Americans.

†Short for 1664; Brasseries-Kronenbourg recently reduced the alcohol content of its 1664, from 6.3 percent to 5.5 percent, apparently in a show of corporate commitment to public welfare.