ground rule number one in aix
there is no denying the picturesque quality of a city like aix - that's what gives them the right to charge twice as much at the grocery store located on the cour mirabeau versus the one tucked behind the construction and across the autoroute that cuts just across the southwest corner of the rotunde (okay, perhaps its rather the nature of the stores themselves, but explain then the logic of their location). it is a city composed of fountains, of 'places' (like most of france), of hair salons, and of street markets sporadically spaced throughout any given week. keeping this in mind, i am making a proposal which shall be seriously considered each and every time i shell out the 70 centimes for a baguette (why spend the 15 extra centimes on a baguette à l'ancienne - what does that even mean?). despite any lapse of hunger, i will forbid myself to tear off the end of a baguette before i make it back to safety of my apartment, especially in cases where the only buffer between the baguette and the world is the little piece of paper that's scotch-taped around it's circumference only wide enough to fit the width of your hand. the baguette is exposed at two ends - two ways to poison the visual atmosphere in a city that requires by its nature every existence to be in its fullest presence when exposed. so when the people facing the streets sitting in front of the façades of their respective cafés eye you down as you smoothly pass through their vision, the first thing they notice will not and cannot be that little piece of your character that's missing - that piece that you couldn't wait to get home before eating. and when i see you walking out of a boulangerie with a face full of warm baguette between your teeth, i'll glare at you and think: how could you?