Who goes to Paris thinking they're actually going to be surrounded by prostitution and grime?
How Hipsters Ruined Paris
Maybe he didn't pick the tired title. But the anti-hipster title is only the beginning of the exasperating and then infuriating complaints the author goes on about in this NYT op-ed. The one I really can't swallow is the position that Pigalle, or So-Pi, was better off when it was a wasteland of brothels, strip clubs and general purveyors of sleaze. Thomas Chatterton Williams is actually lamenting the fact that "bobo" cocktail lounges and baby clothing boutiques have replaced happy endings massage parlors in the ninth arrondissement of Paris.
Yeah. Total bummer, dude. Really sucks to be deprived of all those exotic ladies for sale and their aggressive pimps keeping things "authentic" when you're on your way to the bleeding Moulin Rouge. I mean, now how are you going to really be in that fantasy of Paris you've gotten off to since devouring Tropic of Cancer in high school??
What is laughable is his claim that this new intrusion of gentrifiers is somehow less authentic than the strip clubs and pimp shops that are still struggling to stay open... ? Pigalle has not looked like its fin de siècle version for a while, buddy -- a tad more neon lights and human trafficking than can-can dancers and opium dens. Toulouse-Lautrec's clique has long flown the coop and been replaced by a lot of people being exploited, and not in lovely Manet-esque surroundings. (Seriously. Williams actually refers to Dumas, Hugo and Renoir.) It's like complaining that Chicago is lame since Al Capone and his ilk were replaced by baby boomers. Raise your hand if you miss Tommy guns!
I'm going to see his gentrification-fatigue and raise it a notch: aspiring American writers (from Brooklyn, nonetheless) flocking to Paris for inspiration for their novels are ruining Paris. Particularly the kind who show up hoping to relive some Hemingway cliché at the expense of another human being's physical integrity.
Maybe he didn't pick the tired title. But the anti-hipster title is only the beginning of the exasperating and then infuriating complaints the author goes on about in this NYT op-ed. The one I really can't swallow is the position that Pigalle, or So-Pi, was better off when it was a wasteland of brothels, strip clubs and general purveyors of sleaze. Thomas Chatterton Williams is actually lamenting the fact that "bobo" cocktail lounges and baby clothing boutiques have replaced happy endings massage parlors in the ninth arrondissement of Paris.
Yeah. Total bummer, dude. Really sucks to be deprived of all those exotic ladies for sale and their aggressive pimps keeping things "authentic" when you're on your way to the bleeding Moulin Rouge. I mean, now how are you going to really be in that fantasy of Paris you've gotten off to since devouring Tropic of Cancer in high school??
What is laughable is his claim that this new intrusion of gentrifiers is somehow less authentic than the strip clubs and pimp shops that are still struggling to stay open... ? Pigalle has not looked like its fin de siècle version for a while, buddy -- a tad more neon lights and human trafficking than can-can dancers and opium dens. Toulouse-Lautrec's clique has long flown the coop and been replaced by a lot of people being exploited, and not in lovely Manet-esque surroundings. (Seriously. Williams actually refers to Dumas, Hugo and Renoir.) It's like complaining that Chicago is lame since Al Capone and his ilk were replaced by baby boomers. Raise your hand if you miss Tommy guns!
I'm going to see his gentrification-fatigue and raise it a notch: aspiring American writers (from Brooklyn, nonetheless) flocking to Paris for inspiration for their novels are ruining Paris. Particularly the kind who show up hoping to relive some Hemingway cliché at the expense of another human being's physical integrity.
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