Stikes, Spares and Globalisation

Bowling alleys are the same the world over. Same lanes, balls, terrible shoes, video games, American pop music, smells and noises of pins going down and balls spitting out of the machine ready for you to pick up to knock down more pins.

I went to "Bowling Sympa" in Paris tonight and this is how I'm now able to make important cultural generalisations of this kind. The words strike and spare are even the same. Except that it's a boule, not a ball and the pins are called quilles (pronounced "key"). I drank a pastis instead of a beer while waiting my turn but we threatened to kick each other's butts (although in French) and double high fived each other for good coups, or shots, as I would have done at home.

I am unashamed to admit that I had a great time bowling as I kind of love any mixed up cultural mishmash experience because that's more or less my life-- I'm an American with British dual citizenship living in Paris...

Although bowling itself is naf and tacky, the last time I did in in California, it was fantastic, since it was with my coworkers who all embraced it ironically but had fun sincerely. Lots of San Francisco hipsters did things ironically. There was even an article about it once in one of the free weekly papers (themselves hotbeds of hipster coolness) that described this attitude with the image: "look, Kyle, I'm bowling. Just like dumb midwesterners. How ironic of me."

The only time I bowled since the coworker party was on a Wii at my cousin's house in the US and believe me, real anything is better than the virtual video game version...

My French friends had a great time, too and it was even their idea. We intended to go to an agressively hip bowling alley/night club on the Champs Elysees (the idea of chic bowling is highly surreal-- it's like Sex and the City meets The Big Lebowski and the Dude developed a thing for Prada) but it was rented out for a chic private bowling party in prada that night. Shocked that anyone else in Paris could possibly be seized with the urge to bowl at 6 pm on a Saturday, we located another bowling alley thanks to another American export, the iPhone. Who knew there was more than one bowling alley in Paris? I was, however, already well aware that there are probably easily about 10 million iPhones in Paris.

Politically incorrect as it may be, I enjoyed this instance of globalisation (I even recognised the brand Brunswick which seems to design the lane and pin placing machines since I remember seeing it in American bowling alleys). I like the side of France that finds tacky American stuff fun, just becuase I do, too. This makes up for other more infuriating apects of life in France, like negativity, French men always thinking they know everything, the administration and no one ever doing any work. So spare me your strikes, France. The next greve will just make me think of bowling...