I opened this café with the best of intentions: to provide a salon par excellence with a focus on good food and live entertainment, a third place to relax and slow down against the rising tide of modernity. A space where one might, after a long day of work, sip a drink, nibble a pastry, or maybe even kick a raunchy can-can. But absolutely not to paint shit.
Please understand that I am in no way attempting to pish posh, or worse, call ballyhoo upon the many wondrous distractions this city has to offer. I’ll have you know that the electric lights of the penny arcade are one of my great pleasures. Window-browsing through our arrondissement’s many fine boutiques? A parsimonious joy. And don’t even get me started on the opium dens. But I’m sorry, the buck stops when a dude in a chore jacket takes out a goddam pastel tray during our nightly cabaret.
Withal, I recognize how the tastes and cultural mores of the audience are subject to change. I myself recall lifting an unwieldy lamp of whale oil upon hearing my favorite brass band’s signature ditty. But times are different now. This is the Belle Epoque, and also, that was a huge fire hazard.
Simply put, it’s not 1859 anymore, guys. This is not your blue period. You are not in your watercolor era. You are just a cheap asshole who is quite adept at depicting this bawdy revue.
Speaking of frivolity, our itemized waybills indicate an alarming new trend: many of you fuckers will sit for hours on end with nary an absinthe drip in sight. Don’t you unimpeachable geniuses know that the service industry is all about turnover? And how about ordering a petit four? Or five?
Last week, I watched a flaneur spend his entire afternoon staring at a blank piece of cardboard. When my manager asked what he was doing, the man responded that he was “Kinda just raw-dogging the Montmartre, waiting for the light to hit.” If anyone knows what the hell this means, please inform me immediately, and I will overlook the meringues you’ve been sneaking in under your bowler caps.
How dare you paint my business in a way that attracts more customers? This windmill-themed restaurant, funded by eight generations of the French aristocracy, was doing great without your brilliant Fauve ass.
And yet, I must admit such reproductions can be affecting: that there is a palpable delight in both eating a ridged tea cookie and, decades later, remembering the simple pleasure of ingesting said buttery sponge. But you oil-based brohemians can’t even bother to arabesque through a routine quadrille, much less shake a leg. And sure, your canvases may be filled, but what of your dance card? Empty, I’ll bet. Now, if only there were a word in 1898 for a group of men who involuntarily choose not to celebrate.
Look, maybe it’s just me, but does anyone else find it a little sad to see the glamor of the night before contorted into commerce and alienation by these mimetic simulacra? After all, a beret on one’s head does not require an additional beret, does it? Which is why you’ll have to excuse me if I am quick to dismiss your post-Impressionistic masterpiece of lithe brushstrokes that perfectly captures the balletic movements of today’s matinee with singular color and grace. Hang it in the Louvre for all I care. For one hundred and thirty years.
As for me, I will be on the dance floor as you breathtakingly portray the very good time I am always clearly having.
Oh, and also, no sculpting. You can shit in the street, but apparently, clay is a major health code violation.
