after midnight in paris

there has never been a clearer expression of provincialism than americans' obsession with paris, which just seems to redouble every few years. hasn't this gone on long enough? the food! the wine! the angst! the sex! the pseudo-sophistication and clumsily simulated identities! honestly i'm tired of paris in the 20s: fatigued by hemingway and stein, exhausted by picasso, etc. even if these people weren't excruciatingly overrated, there surely could be no point in writing or thinking about them any more, after infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters have worked them through for decades. i'd be more interested in south-eastern north dakota regionalism of the same period, and its influence in alberta.