{"id":78676,"date":"2014-10-28T16:48:03","date_gmt":"2014-10-28T20:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=78676"},"modified":"2014-10-28T17:55:15","modified_gmt":"2014-10-28T21:55:15","slug":"palpable-disappointment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/28\/palpable-disappointment\/","title":{"rendered":"Palpable Disappointment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Or, the hazards of wearing a <\/em>Paris Review shirt.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Paris-Review-T-Shirt-Ad\"<\/a>

Vintage Paris Review<\/em> advertisement.<\/p><\/div>\n

While I was shopping for milk, I felt a hand tap my shoulder. It was a lady of perhaps sixty, wearing arty jewelry. \u201cExcuse me,\u201d she said. \u201cI was just wondering \u2026 are you from \u2026 Paris?\u201d She said the last word with an exaggerated French accent: Par-ee<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I stared at her blankly for a moment. She, in turn, was staring at my breasts. I looked down and realized that I was wearing a Paris Review<\/em>\u00a0T-shirt, the dark blue 2013 version that\u2019s modeled on a design from early in the magazine\u2019s life. THE PARIS REVIEW<\/small>, it says, along with an image of the hadada ibis in its Frisian bonnet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, no,\u201d I said apologetically. \u201cNo. I\u2019m from here.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is not, of course, an uncommon error; as names go, The Paris Review<\/em>\u2014which denotes a magazine based in New York, one that publishes zero reviews\u2014is among the most misleading out there. I can\u2019t think of another title that\u2019s quite so dishonest. To paraphrase Mary McMarthy\u2019s remark about Lillian Hellman, every word here is a lie, including The<\/em>. (Okay, maybe not The<\/em>.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was prepared to explain that the American founders had indeed started the magazine in Paris in 1953; that they\u2019d moved to New York in 1973; that upon George Plimpton\u2019s death they\u2019d relocated operations from his Seventy-second Street apartment to an office. I was not going to say\u2014but was thinking\u2014that in any case,\u00a0in my experience, Parisians don\u2019t tend to advertise their Parisian-ness on their clothing. Or maybe they do; as I\u2019ve stated, I\u2019m not one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As is so often the case, the clarification resulted in palpable disappointment.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh,\u201d said the woman. \u201cI was going to ask you about baguettes.\u201d She indicated the bakery section.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can!\u201d I said. \u201cI think I\u2019ve tried all the breads here, and some are way better than others.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s okay. Thanks.\u201d And she walked away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Or, the hazards of wearing a Paris Review shirt. While I was shopping for milk, I felt a hand tap my shoulder. It was a lady of perhaps sixty, wearing arty jewelry. \u201cExcuse me,\u201d she said. \u201cI was just wondering \u2026 are you from \u2026 Paris?\u201d She said the last word with an exaggerated French […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[15835,15834,12091,270,6664,13024],"class_list":["post-78676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-baguettes","tag-disappointment","tag-groceries","tag-paris","tag-shopping","tag-t-shirts"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Hazards of Wearing a Paris Review Shirt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on palpable disappointment.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/28\/palpable-disappointment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Palpable Disappointment by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"October 28, 2014 \u2013 Or, the hazards of wearing a Paris Review shirt. 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