#001 : CAT IN PARIS / COME WITH ME

Originally published: November 17, 2020

Dear readers,

Of all the twenty arrondissements of Paris, the 11th is probably my favorite. 

And the Luna-Park Hotel at 1 Rue Jacquard in the 11th is my very favorite hotel, possibly in the world.

It’s right off the Rue Oberkampf—named for, I believe, an it-boy Bavarian industrialist of some kind. The bar Le Marilyn, so called for the shambolic beauty Monroe (note her visage on the shutters) is right around the corner. 

The men who run the hotel speak English (most Parisians do) and are way nice. They smoke cigarettes and watch soccer on television in the back until you need them.

 Let me show you around.  Here is the lobby:

And here is reception:

After you've handed over your passport for inspection, you get your room key, which is attached to a clunky teardrop-shaped thingie that weighs approximately one kilo.

Let’s go to your room! There is one endless-seeming, looping, twisty staircase. I just love carrying my Samsonite hardshell suitcase up it, on account of my proclivity for compulsive exercise:

Now, we’ve reached your single:

Is there a toilet dans le chambre? NON. You go back to the twisty staircases for that. There's a loo squished between every two levels:

Is there a shower in your room? NON. You share la douche with the people on your floor. The door to the shower-room…folds in and out of the hall—you know, like that of a phone booth.

Are there toiletries in your room—like those by Molton Brown provided by the Bryant Park Hotel in midtown Manhattan (where I sit on a bed typing this first-ever BEAUTYSHAMBLES post today)? NON. There is merely one matchbox-sized no-name bar soap in a paper sleeve. (FACT: I washed my face with bar soap for three years abroad and it still looks pretty good.)

"Cat..." you are thinking. 

Why am I recommending this hotel to you? Well, because I’m fucking Bohemian, darlings. I like exotic shit. And if loving a $49-a-night hotel in one of the dopest, grungy-chic neighborhoods in Paris is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

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What is UP, you hot bitches! Thanks so much for being here!

I was going to start with a standard introduction—an up-to-date “state of affairs” post about my life in New York City in autumn 2020, but guess what?

I just couldn’t.

Fuck covid! I’m not writing about…mask-ne right now—or about restaurant closings, or about hand sanitizer. I don’t need my eyes bleeding out, all over my new-ish rose-gold Macbook Air.

Nor did I feel so inclined to summarize “where I am in life.” All you need to know is that I’m all in on this project  in a way that I haven’t been all in—career-wise—in a minute. Besides, I know you know me already—that’s why you’re here. I don’t have to waste time introducing a thing. Instead, we can dive right in. 

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To start the column right, I’ve brought you to this particular part of Paris—to one of the great beauty-shambolic patches of the world. I’ve only been chasing glamour and chaos my entire life, so I know what I’m talking about.