Two Ways To Be Hungry in the City

People's Daily Paris

Early January the river is rising and so swift the fish are drawn to the surface, making easy work for the cormorants, those gloomy, rain-slicked hunters who feast by the water’s edge. They stand like guards at the Louvre, waiting their chances and getting first dibs ahead of the noisy seagulls who are used to running the show. Who are these dreadful cormorans they cry, they all look like undertakers.

There are many kinds of hunger, it all depends on what time of the day you go down to the river. We’re going into yet another set of restrictions, orders to stay at home three days a week, masks everywhere and so on. But at night ? You can’t stand at the bar but you can walk. The days of the justificatif are long gone, cops presumably have better things to do. In any case, at night there’s a promenade along the river, some innocents out for air, joggers at a furious pace, others in leisurely groups, even in bad weather. And then the solitaries. The pick-up scene is more intense on the Louvre side, la Rive Droite. I got to the river a few hours after night fall to watch a different kind of hunt.