Paris Lit Up

What is the first thing you do when you move to a new city? Well, once settled you look for a comfortable cafe where the waiters know your name. Where Andre brings your usual without you having to rack your mind and apologize twelve times for how long it takes you to formulate a sentence in French. The following is a true account on how Paris rearranged my calendar for me:

It took me six weeks of frowning and grunting at “just not it” until I found Culture Rapide. Too many people, or not enough, the waiters make you feel guilty for existing, or it’s just too expensive. Finding a cafe or a bar that you can call your own, isn’t as easy as one would assume it is. It was a Monday, ironically enough, when my English professor mentioned Paris Lit Up. An open mic event that takes place every Thursday. But 20eme? Isn’t that a bit shady and far? A combination of living in the 7eme and a lazy tendency made the event sound like a one time thing. I braced myself accordingly, ventured out, cringing as I changed three metro lines, as their colors changed from purple to blue, to brown. Tapped at my phone’s broken screen, pretending to be texting because of my abundant social anxiety and the metro stops with foreign names. “I get off at the one that sounded like my ex-roommate’s first name. Perrine, Perrine... Pyrenees” I reminded my hopeless tourist-self. 
 

From the hilly exit of the metro stop, the Eiffel tower stands in the distance souvenir-sized. Down the hill, to your left, there’s towering graffiti with a seemingly poetic message “Il faut se méfier des mots” but you’re still working on your French, so you just nod in a warm recognition at a part of town that feels alive. “Sorry, is this 103 Rue Julien Lacroix?” you ask the handsome man with the man bun and the cigarette. If not, then Paris Lit Up can wait till next week, how often do you run into gorgeous artists? “Yes, are you here for open mic”? Jason introduces himself as the founder of the organization and the event. Poetry and man buns, things are looking up. You sign up to read. And no, it’s not because Jason has piercing eyes and speaks Italian. Okay, maybe a little bit. 

 
Image Credit: Facebook/ParisLitUp

The warmth of the evening is a relief of the January Parisian wind. They announce your name, call you a virgin, and any anxiety you had dissipates with their thundering claps. You read, shaking with stage fright, read some more. A few smiling faces congratulate you during the fifteen minute break between rounds. Ania invites you to go get a drink. Delightfully cheap, a relief of a cappuccino for 7€ near the Invalides, you think as you sip on your rum and coke. Round two keeps exploding with talent. From raw, real and refined poetry that you would have never expected to run into on a random Thursday night, to improvising comedians that shake the place with laughs, to even a few songs in French that remind you that you are still in France. 

Nowadays, Thursdays are when my week begins. Jeudis have become my Lundis, as I look forward to familiar faces, affordable drinks and new pieces. The metro stop with my ex-rommates’s name, the Eiffel tower the size of a souvenir down the hill and the towering graffiti that tells me I have arrive to 103 rue Julien LaCroix. Why Thursday’s Open Mic? Because Parisian hospitality takes on an anglophone tongue at Culture Rapide. Paris Lit Up is a refreshingly warm invitation to come weird, come many.

  
Image Credit: Facebook/ParisLitUp