Juggernaut, or, Paris à contrecœur

King Nebuchadnezzar looks at the city of Babylon. akg / North Wind Picture Archive

The Lord said unto Moses,

“Come Forth!”

But he came fifth and was shat on from a dizzy height.

—1950s schoolboy witticism (South Africa)

I asked my neighbor on the plane

What had changed since he was last in Paris. Nothing, he said. Rien du tout.

La tour Eiffel n’avait pas encore de feuilles.

Pinching that line from Paul Morand.

“A sentence is born into this world neither good nor bad.

To establish its character is a question

Of the subtlest possible adjustments,

A process of intuition to which

Exaggeration and force are fatal.”

—a thought nabbed from Rachel Cusk

(for all I know, though,

she may have borrowed it from someone else).

Exaggeration’s a potent word.

It makes me think of “Juggernaut.”

Saturday, January 25, 2025