Mermaid in Paris
The title is a potential problem for Mermaid in Paris, Une Sirène à Paris in the original French, a language with only one word, Sirène, for both Mermaid (half human, half fish, entirely fictional, essentially benign) and Siren (half human, half fish, entirely fictional, essentially malign). Mermaids are sexy and nice; sirens are sexy and not. Mermaids aren’t known for the voices; sirens lure humans to their deaths, often on treacherous rocks, by singing to them. Mythologically, sirens didn’t start out as half fish. They were half bird until the Middle Ages, when, under the influence of the mermaid, they began transitioning. Why does this any of this matter? Because Lula (Marilyn Lima), … Read more