A few Paris experiences she missed

Drawing on my experience as a starving artist expatriate in Paris for 16 years, I offer these ripostes to Susan Spano’s list of cons in “L.A. May Be Home, but Her Heart Belongs to Paris” [Her World, Oct. 10]:

* Body odor in the Metro: Garlic is a customary aromatic ingredient in French cuisine, so when several gourmets gather together in warm, enclosed spaces, such as the Metro, you know it. (It’s worse in Rome.) The French are frugal, and electricity is expensive, so showers, if daily, are short, or reserved for Friday nights.

* Parisians have never been summer people. When they return from vacation in September, Parisians are ripe for a change. The fashionistas, who are in thrall to Vogue and Elle magazines and the couture collections, buy what the designers tell them is a la mode.

* Pop music is as banal and deafening in America as it is in France. (The French with taste appreciate jazz even more than we Americans.) I agree that the intrusive two-tone screeching police sirens are an auditory abomination. But there’s always the music of Yves Montand or Juliette Greco to soothe your nerves.

Vive la France!

Ginger Moro

Los Angeles