Tiki Tom
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Do young people still dream of running away to Paris and becoming a starving Expat writer? Are they still haunted by the lost generation of the 1920s and the Beat Generation of the 1950s? I know it was one of my fantasies when I was in my twenties. Who wouldn’t want to hang out in cafe’s, surrounded by history and art, while learning French, finding love, and working on the great American novel? I suspect it is one of the quintessential American middle class fantasies about being unique and escaping the rat race. Someone said “Others go into exile. Americans go on vacation.” So, on vacation I went. Spent a lot of time in the city of light, but never lived there and never wrote anything there except postcards. (I still kind of regret that I never actually lived in Paris.) The following article hints that the dream is still alive, even in the 2020s. Is it? Does it matter? Would we lose something if the daydream faded away? Is the fantasy of being a writer/artist more important than actually being successful at it? Vive le fantasme!
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/is-hemingways-paris-lifestyle-still-possible
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/is-hemingways-paris-lifestyle-still-possible