I didn’t see Midnight in Paris, so I’m not sure that I have a good template for aspiring-writer-wandering-intoxicated-by-the-streets-of-Paris, but I can certainly try. Sadly, I’m not exactly as free a spirit as I wish, so while I put myself into situations that would insist on a carefree attitude (i.e. going to Paris without confirmed lodgings) I’m actually a bundle of nerves as I sit here quietly in the remarkably clean Toronto airport. I think about those who have gone before me, shed their old lives and attachments, and just allowed Paris to swallow them whole: William Burroughs strung out in the Beat Hotel, Picasso squatting in a friend’s studio in Montmartre, Gertrude Stein musing about buttons in her famous parlor, etc.
But of course, I’m not Gertrude Stein.
I suppose if I look like anyone while cavorting around Paree, it will be that fat but lovable Midwestern tourist in the last scene of Paris, Je T’aime. But that’s okay –– now that I’m a little older and wiser, I’m okay with revealing my own naivete. I wanted to carry along Proust, but had to settle for some reductive text entitled Bohemians in Paris. Clearly I’m also a little better with having pretty transparent aspirations. Then again, if I hadn’t decided to bring this book, I wouldn’t have learned this charming little story…
“Several years later, after Montmartre had moved to Montparnasse, the favorite model of all the painters of the day came to sit for Utrillo. Her name was Alice Prin. Foujita, Kisling, Man Ray and many others had already portrayed this lively and jocular young woman, whose pranks, manners and silhouettes were known to the entire world by now. She came to Utrillo’s door; naturally, he too wanted to do her portrait.
He placed her in front of his easel, asked her to pose and painted for three hours. At the end of the session, ‘Kiki de Monparnasse’ asked if she could look at the portrait.
‘Of course,’ said Utrillo.
He moved away from the canvas. The young woman approached. She started at Utrillo’s drawing, petrified. Suddenly she burst out laughing, in the familiar laugh that was known in every bistro on the left bank. She leaned closer to make sure she wasn’t mistaken. No, she had seen right. It wasn’t her face which filled the canvas, nor her body. There wasn’t a trace of her in the portrait. For three whole hours, Utrillo had been painting a little house in the country.”
Flight numero deux about to board –– au revoir, mes aimes, and pray that the bookstore gives me a cupboard in which to sleep!
Kiki de Montparnasse –– also the namesake of gorgeous lingerie (hint, hint)
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