I live in a constant state of unrest while I am here

September 23, 2014 8:58 AM

Do you miss Paris?

By the life coaches comedians Kate Berlant and John Early, makers of John and Kate Plan A Dinner Party and Family Dinner.

posted by Potomac Avenue (17 comments total)

Holy hell this is funny. (The mattress part is a stroke of brilliance.)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:32 AM on September 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

I like to think they overheard the most inane conversation at Starbucks, memorybanked it, and are repeating it verbatim.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:44 AM on September 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

This is funny but hits so close to home as to be unwatchable. I lived in Paris for two years, mostly loved it, but also spent a lot of time "responsible" for very privileged and sheltered American undergraduate students. So this is bringing up a mixture of both positive and negative resonances that will require a Lacanian psychoanalyst to disentangle.*

* for Lacanian values of "disentangle."
posted by LMGM at 9:57 AM on September 23, 2014 [7 favorites]

I'm getting this hot, rising feeling on the back of my neck. My vision is narrowing. My spit tastes tannic and coppery.

I think I need to lie down. I think I'm being poisoned.
posted by The Whelk at 10:15 AM on September 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

The Whelk, can we be best friends?
posted by Poppa Bear at 10:17 AM on September 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Needs trigger warning.
posted by goethean at 10:19 AM on September 23, 2014

Paris me manque.


But that's more to do with the indolent, frequent foie gras, bottle-of-wine-in-the-afternoon lifestyle that I enjoy when I'm over there than anything else. And rum babas.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:21 AM on September 23, 2014

I also miss Paris but mostly for the amazing depth of cheap vintage mennsware ( well and also rum babas)
posted by The Whelk at 10:34 AM on September 23, 2014

sounds like they had a really memorable gap yah
posted by threeants at 10:34 AM on September 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

I saw Kate Berlant do standup. Transcendental.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:43 AM on September 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

I live in a constant state of unrest while I am here

Aw. I used to be that way too. Now I live in Paris.
BAHAHA
um, the scary thing is it's true, I never felt comfortable on the Riviera, and now I live here - Paris. *shrug* *happydance*
posted by fraula at 10:44 AM on September 23, 2014

Same characters vs Santa Monica.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:46 AM on September 23, 2014

When I got back from Paris, all I wanted to do was talk about how amazing it was and how much I loved it and felt inspired by it, but I mostly kept it to myself because is there anything more cliched in the world than talking about how amazing Paris is? You pretty much end up sounding exactly like these people.
posted by lunasol at 11:50 AM on September 23, 2014 [5 favorites]

is there anything more cliched in the world than talking about how amazing Paris is?

Well, you can always complain about how touristy it has become (depuis votre dernière visite, naturellement) if you want to take it up a notch.
posted by malocchio at 12:46 PM on September 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

I am practicing for my next visit:

Ma librairie préférée est maintenant un magasin de vêtements!
Vous ne pouvez plus obtenir une très bonne baguette.
C'était un merveilleux café jusqu'à ce que les Américains l'ont trouvé.
posted by malocchio at 1:05 PM on September 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

They were great, I didn't like them at all. I suspect I didn't like them as much as I would have liked them if I had liked them - which is to say, a lot.

And Paris is great like New York used to be, before Bloomberg priced out all the cool - I mean is there even still a chicken playing tic-tac-toe? I doubt it. In Paris there is still cool and if not a tic-tac-toe playing chicken there is still the deeply particular and perhaps not so remunerative small businesses, like at least I can think of a store that only sells thread of a specific thickness (any color though) and a building (two stories) filled with animal skeletons (from whales to mice) and a store that sells recycled camera parts.
posted by From Bklyn at 12:06 AM on September 24, 2014

Shanghai is the new Paris, fuckers.

*hiptsersplodes*
posted by Doleful Creature at 11:57 AM on September 25, 2014