I’ve just returned from a holiday spent cycling through the Haut-Médoc - a peninsula that produces Pauillac wines, a surprising amount of pizza, and in this case, a sweet tan.

I will tell you about it shortly, but first have to get this out of my system, following on the heels of Maîtresse:

Dear Dinaw,

I’m sure you’re a lovely person. Being from Kansas, I’m obliged to offer that, and to apologize in advance for not being nice. That’s how we tumbleweeds roll, especially when addressing anyone from New York.

An added drop of humility can be a good thing.

The question always in the back of my mind - “am I really qualified to say this?” - prevents me from doing things like, say, writing an article that pronounces Paris to be dead, creatively speaking, without appearing to have ever left the boulevard Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

Dinaw, and those who will follow you, I beg: no more Flore, pas des Deux Magots. There’s nothing to see here, please move along.

The scene that you came looking for happened sixty years ago. That moment, and those people, are now dead. Their children - the people who were inspired by and learned to make money off this moment - are now talking, as the elderly do, about how things just aren’t the same. They, too, are nearly dead. Saint-Germain-des-Prés is a retirement community with very expensive coffee. It is not (did you really not know this?) what you were looking for.

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