Getting Malled

That was a nothing. I decided there had been far too much heavy lifting in the rest of the Pompidou chapter with name-dropping and philosophies of art and all that, so the brief parkour scene would do better to stick to raw emotional beats.

And that's done!

There was an event at my local cafe. PBS was coming in with a camera crew and they invited all their regulars to come by for free food. I brought my usual kit; iPhone, folding keyboard, collapsing phone stand I found on Thingiverse and printed up on my Ender 3. And I wrote the whole scene in one sitting.

Even got some of the peculiar philosophy of the first core group in there -- the group that named parkour, if I am remembering correctly. 

So in keeping with the "we've done enough Art History 101 for now," the next chapter is shopping at one of the remaining Passages of Paris. I'm still trying to pick which one. These are covered, pedestrian streets lined with shops and, often, highly decorated. Started in the mid 19th century -- more or less with the coming of gas lighting -- as a way for the growing upper-middle class to do their shopping and cafe hopping out of the rain and, even more importantly, out of the mud. They even had a lad stationed at the portal to brush the shit of the less-fancy streets outside off the shopper's boots.

The first shopping centers, like the famed Printemps, turned the economic tide, and Haussmann's bulldozing ran through where too many of the passages had been, too. There were barely a dozen left by the turn of the century.

In any case, this is more emotional-beats conversations; Amelia is picking up on hints from things Penny has said and is prodding her for more detail. Penny is trying to continue the argument about why it was necessary to know what Jonathan Huxley meant by his "lilies spin and spin" clue when it is so obvious the next clue is taking you to Opera Garnier anyhow.

And Jaques is showing up for a parkour rematch (Penny loses again -- I haven't decided what her latest injury should be.)

I might also use the space to talk a bit about dressing Parisian. That's a whole subject I'm not sure about opening up yet but I may need to begin the discussion here even though the bulk of it is happening in Part III. And that is, basically, masks.

The Japan book was all about masks and I don't really want to go there again, but there is some unfinished business. For the Passage sequence, the discussion is about dressing to fit in; on the one hand, being an obvious tourist gets you the wrong kind of attention; gouging by merchants and approaches by scam artists and thieves. And it is also impolite. They aren't Japanese, but the French prefer if everyone at least tries to keep the experience more Paris and less a Disney park.

On the other hand, you will never be mistaken for Parisian. And this is where the discussion starts; Amelia is who she is and feels it is dishonest to try to hide it. Penny is all about wading into the culture she is currently visiting.

Which isn't the same thing as donning a mask. That's something else Amelia, the comic book nerd, is getting into. Her laser-guided question, when she realizes Penny is always conscious that Penny, the archaeology student, is not Athena Fox, the world adventurer, is "Are you a Batman or a Superman?"

A question Penny completely misunderstands. She does eventually find the answer, and it is, really, just a slightly more nuanced version of what she discovered in Japan.

But where the previous "Rodin" chapter was sort of the thematic heart and turning-point of the novel, this could turn into the first clear phrasing of the problem at the heart of the character arc of this novel...