Je Suis Un Genius, Baby
DEAR GRAYDON CARTER, Let me tell you a story about France. A few years ago, Claude La Badarian found himself in Paris, the foremost city of the good-looking nation of France. Unaware that Paris cabs waited at "stands," Claude, in France, sporting a first-edition gut and an ass you could land a plane on (both developed in motel-locused typhoons of pizza boxes and tariffy bottles during the well-compensated writing of an unproduced film about revenants–still in Spanish "development hell"), spent about two hours in a fierce downpour, attempting, springtime in Parisly, to flag cabs as if he were on Hudson Street. Claude was not only miserable but ridiculous. No cabs stopped, obviously. The drivers of many cabs and many civilian cars blew their French horns as it were, and made gestures (some rude, some possibly intended to be helpful) at the bewildered, miserable, rain-soaked prodigy. All Claude wanted to do, if he did nothing else in his life, was to get to the Gare de Lyon and go to Italy. Finally Claude gave up and staggered a few blocks, entering, finally, a tourist trap called the Café Arc de Triomphe–for some reason filled with midges–it is still there–so are the midges–I am in Paris now, at the George V, waiting for Elizabeth Jagger to come out of the bathroom–where he ignited a cigarette, dragged open his "bicycle bag" and examined his wet, condition-unknown laptop.
"I dont speak French," said Claude, not looking at the waiter, forgetting for the moment that he knew all modern languages.
"I dont speak English!" said the waiter, but, to his credit, not as if it were a