Paris Skyline
I had heard about, and been curious about, the Paris spoken word scene for a few years, and I knew about the Chat Noir bar’s basement meeting each week. So I finally, finally managed to get there. I thought I was early, but the room was full of a religiously silent and highly diverse audience listening to someone read her poetry when I arrived sometime between 8:30 and 9:00 PM. So I took an unobtrusive stance in a doorway against the back wall and listened.
First at Some Girls open mic
A couple of poems from this woman followed by a stand-up comic, followed by a musician with guitar, mic and song. A bit of a talk from the MC, and I don’t know what else. Suffice it to say that in 15 minutes there, I started itchy really strongly for a return to what feels to me like the more relaxed, and casual and cool feel of the music open mic world I’m used to. I felt at once that although I was delighted with the vast cross-section of spectators – from old and retired to young and not yet active (in the working world) – I just felt like anything I could contribute would still be better in the music open mic scene.
So I left the Chat Noir spoken word evening and headed on over to the Bastille – stopping briefly for a 7 euro-meal of two lamb chops and frites at a North African restaurant at Menilmontant – and I poked my head into the Yellow Mad Monkey open mic on the rue de Lappe to find it looking quite active and full. I said to myself that I would first more casually check out the Some Girls open mic up the street, where I felt I could speak to at least the MC, and have a casual beer, maybe play a song or two and then return to the Yellow Mad Monkey.
Second at Some Girls open mic
Turned out that I was in for a surprise at the Some Girls because not only was the open mic in full swing – and with a different MC than last week – but that I met a couple of women I used to talk to regularly at open mics more than three years ago and whom I had not seen since. Then, surprise, surprise, a musician I had not seen for more than four years turned up and we had a great talk about what had happened in the intervening years.
This was a guy who I had met in Paris at open mics, and then one day met again at the open mic of the Ruby Room in Tokyo!!! So we again spoke about the global village of open mics and their denizens, and we spoke about many other musical things.
A fabulous evening, but it meant not taking part in either the Yellow Mad Monkey open mic or the one at Madame Louis on the Ile St. Louis. To say nothing of the Galway or the Tennessee…. Did I miss any?