It’s Fun to Be A Parisienne: Cafe Conversation

Parisians love to be Parisians. They revel in the cafes smoking cigarettes and extolling the virtues of a national health plan and if they were not French they would be from Texas. Conversation is always required and when you are a Parisian, of a certain sort, you are a combination of key ingredients: They depend entirely on what neighborhood you live in and varies wildly from extreme “Bobo” to  “artistique” to “conservative” to very “Fashion” and more.  The Parisian has evolved from the dial telephone to the iphone.   I remember the beautiful machines that sat mostly on the desks of concierges in the hotels.  These phone were formidable, carrying the weight of French culture on their cradles and dials. Elegant. poised, historic. The phone might be the one thing that has unified us all worldwide but a French phone was the one thing that made Parisians so unique:  Conversations carried out on these marvelous machines were perfectly timed, elegant and demanded that you be to the point;  “Allo”? and “Au Revoir” and all the words in between.  Preserving this sense of conversation, words and the moments in between is still alive and well in the French Cafe, one of the last places where conversation flourishes.  

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