These days, as you watch Paris burning, you may be thinking of a number of different people – some real, some fictitious – who have wandered its fabled streets. Robespierre. Zola. Piaf. Jean Valjean in Les Misérables. Charles Darnay in A Tale of Two Cities. Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Antoine Doinel in The 400 Blows. Gigi. Coco Chanel.
Me, I think of James. Of two Jameses, in fact – both of them gay men who, born and raised in New Jersey, chose to spend their adult lives and pursue their careers in the City of Lights.
