Nestled in the list that enumerates my many flaws is the fact that I really don’t give much of a shit about cars. While 15-year-old me was excited to acquire his driver’s license (New Mexico before the minimum driving age was raised, brah) and couldn’t fathom the gap between wanting to go wherever and actually going wherever (this being New Mexico, “wherever” consisting of Best Buy to drool over the fast Pentium II computers or, later, to the parking lot of a Taco Cabana to hang out and make fun of “riced-out” cars while secretly desiring a Mitsubishi Evolution (in my defense, it was the late 1990s, so Alanis had completely fucked up everyone’s understanding of the word “irony”)), mid-30s me sighs at the car’s use as a social class indicator, loathes driving, and has been ridiculously happy with not having to drive since coming to l’Hexagone. I’ll admit to retaining a fondness for motorcycles (under $20k for a 180mph machine is difficult to argue with), but we’ll eventually return to lunatics-with-big-trucks-small-dicks-and-anger-problems land, and I’m married, so the risk side of the equation is effectively impossible to balance.
Why then, do we go to automobile shows?
Truth be told, I don’t know. I don’t really buy the cars-as-art argument (though I’m self-aware enough to realize that this is because I don’t really like them); they’re certainly interesting pieces of industrial design, and have value as examples of engineering and materials limitations, but I don’t go to a show and dream about owning one (or fantasize about washing the damn thing either). I’ve seen some sexy art deco toasters, and we don’t go to toaster shows now, do we?
(We would probably go to an art deco toaster show, and we’d probably buy a sexy toaster.)
In any case, we went to Concept cars et design automobile this weekend at Les invalides. It wasn’t a huge show, but seeing as we had other things to do (like prepare the Purrito for her trip to Boston this week), that proved to be beneficial as opposed to irksome.
Fezzik In Paris 