Horse Racing
Last Sunday I did something I didn’t exactly expect to find in Paris, go to a gigantic horse track to watch some races. I even placed a couple bets and walked away with a grand profit of a whopping 2 euros, not too shabby. I forgot to bring my camera, but suffice it to say it was a cool visual experience. The stands hold 40,000 people. The only problem was the weather, which was cold and windy. Standing outside to watch the race was exciting but physically numbing at the same time. The horse that won for me was Sans Histoire, which just means “Without History.” I bet solely on the name that time. The next time I was foolish enough to look at the horse’s past record and learned that it’s best to just bet by the coolest name. Others took pictures so hopefully I can get some and post them.
As a literary side note I have been traveling back to the South by way of Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree, a winding portrayal of Knoxville with no discernible plot about someone who has decided to become a fisherman on the river. The book features all varieties of low-lifes and delinquents with hilarious dialog and signature McCarthy style writing. McCarthy also wrote The Road, which made Oprah’s vaunted book club and was recently made into a movie I have not seen, but I did read the book. It was a stark and excellent piece of writing, but Suttree has an entirely different (non?)purpose and pleases on many other levels. As a fair warning, the language and actions are exactly what you would imagine for a bunch of beer and whiskey drinking guys hanging out at bars doing relatively little in life by the river.
Sometime soon I may post some pros and cons of living in Paris compared to living in Atlanta, and also on the things that a native Atlantan might come to wish for in this city across the pond.













