Cannibale Café

93, rue Jean Pierre Timbaud, 75011 Paris

Métro: Couronnes

http://www.myspace.com/lecannibalecafe

So I’m realizing that Booze or Lose might be the most short-lived of these “features.” While I find myself happy to describe in excruciating detail everything I eat, I find myself reluctant to tell you about bars I like.  This isn’t because I think I’m too cool or in the know (believe me, it’s never ever because I think I’m too cool or in the know), but mainly because there are only so many ways you can say “well, they have a zinc bar, good lighting, and I suspect that everyone who frequents this place shops only at APC and has better taste in music than I do.”  Basically every bar I like in this town would fit that description, and it’s kind of boring to see that rehashed weekly on a blog.

I will mention the Cannibale Café, however, because it seems to do aforementioned combination quite well.  Plus they have a lot of live music and what they describe as a “copious brunch on Sundays.”  I haven’t been to their copious brunch, but I like that particular adjective when paired with brunch very, very much.  One downside is that their pints of 1664 (totally hip and darling to buy in the US, more or less like PBR over here on this side of the pond) are a whopping 6.50€.  That’s like thirty-seven dollars or so.  Conversion humor!  Always a giggle.  Well, not quite as much as it used to be, as apparently the euro is tanking.  While I know that there are much larger forces at work behind this economic development, I can’t help but suspect (in my own admittedly solipsistic way) that it has something to do with the fact that I’m finally getting paid in euros.  Where was Greece when I was hemorrhaging cash in Europe circa 2008?  Anyway, however you do the math, it’s an expensive beer.  An ex-boyfriend of mine had some kind of theory about what he described as eight-dollar-beer places.  I don’t exactly remember the theory.  I think it was mainly an attempt to talk into frequenting places with sticky floors and bargain pitchers of Coors Light.  But he did nail the price point and the sheer ridiculousness of an eight-dollar beer has stuck with me.

This isn’t a very sunny review.

I do really like this place!

One particularly enjoyable evening at Cannibale recently included a performance by Hold Your Horses, a Franco-American group that is getting a fair amount of internet buzz because of their video for “70 Million.”  Have you seen it yet?

Who am I kidding?  Not only have you already seen it, half of you have probably already integrated it into your Art History 101 syllabus. You are such savvy pedagogues, you 50% of my readership. But anyway, I like this video very much. It’s one of the better things to go viral in the past month or so.

Speaking of going viral, I now bring you a Pettiness Campaign 2010 update. I’m pleased to related that Hold Your Horses has over 10 times as many views as an unnamed other person’s video, which has stalled slightly in its exponential ascent to that peculiar heaven inhabited by Glenn Beck.  B convinced me that there was no way I could possibly continue in my contempt-filled, elitist-expat lifestyle without actually watching some of Mr. Beck’s videos.  I am finding them to be like ill-reasoned, sputtering crack cocaine.  I like it when he gets so worked up that he just starts shooting off a series of random, unrelated nouns. I also kind of lose my shit every single time he turns to the chalkboard.  What an amazing prop!  Depressingly, if success can be defined in quantifiable terms (does late capitalism really teach us any other lesson?), Mr. Beck is more successful than anyone else in the universe.  He also can apparently charge $120 for the privilege of going to a stadium and watching him rant about progressivism and fuck around on his chalkboard on the Jumbotron.  I don’t have any pithy commentary on that little gem of a factoid, as all I could do when I looked up his ticket prices on Ticketmaster was soundlessly open and close my mouth in a piscine gesture of disbelief.

This entry is becoming entirely unrelated to Cannibale Café.  I’ll end it now, before some poor soul seeking a bar recommendation on Google has to slog through another six paragraphs of my bullshit.  Sorry poor soul!  I’d definitely recommend you go to Cannibale!  Just order wine, okay?