#aimless ruminations

[weatherfront]

gwenbasil reblogged your photo: Cities (not actually) in miniature: Paris. I have...

know where this OR the ‘wonderful Paris’ sentiment comes from but the few comments...have...

I also don't think it's very helpful to call Paris names and criticize it for smelling-- but I've had pretty much the opposite experience from you, in that I've never actually met anyone bashing Paris in that way! Whereas I do frequently notice it being elevated above other cities. A good friend of mine once seriously argued that Paris and Rome were the only two cities that ever really mattered in the entire history of the world; Midnight in Paris tries to demolish the Golden Age fallacy but seems entirely content to perpetuate the Parisian myth; and, of course, the sheer fact that Paris Syndrome is a thing at all.

Like, of course I'm not saying that there aren't things to do and sights to see in Paris, but I feel like it's most definitely a symptom of a larger problem where we're taught to worship certain centers of Western civilization. On some unnecessary level I... also tend to take it personally because it leads to tons of people feeling discontent with Seoul since it seems so unglamorous and insignificant in comparison... and I just really like Seoul .___.

[weatherfront]

Twister, you know, is a movie about a girl who is chasing the storm that took her father from her. To study it, ostensibly. To dismantle it and to understand it and thus to conquer it; but really, I think some small part of her must believe that her father is still inside that storm.

And she thinks of the stories people tell about all those cows and all those houses that the wind plucked from the ground, gentle enough to set down a carton of eggs unbroken. Despite everything she knows -- science and reason, her own expert opinion -- whenever she sees the dark outstretched finger of a tornado reach down from the distant horizon, she throws all the weight of her pounding heart behind the gas pedal and thinks, is this the one, Dad? Is it you?

An entire carton of eggs, the story goes, all their fragile shells still miraculously whole. Maybe there's a storm above the American sky that hasn't touched down for twenty years. That's my father, she thinks, every time the air goes deathly still. He's coming home. And when the funnel unwinds and parts to let the sunlight through, maybe her father will hit the ground running, his bare feet flying through the corn fields. Wild-eyed above his tangled beard. She wonders if he'll know her. Hey, she'll say as he stumbles to a stop, and she'll open the door of her Jeep to let him in. Hey, Dad. Welcome back.