Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Le Cafe de L'Enfer













OOOOOOOOOOOOO, it's that time of the year, kiddos. HALLOWEEN time and that means only one thing: Secret Lexicon gets to crank the spook element even more than usual!
And speaking of ghouls, I love the French. Not only are they patron saints of erotic/transgressive anything, but also back in the late 19th to mid 20th century they boasted a HELL-themed cabaret. For those of you who don't already know, "The Cafe from Hell" resided in the notorious Pigalle district (red light district) of Paris. According to the internet and at least two brief magazine bits I've read, a sadly diminutive amount of memory and information has been left behind since the Dark One yanked the Cafe and all it's sexy employees right back down into the nether regions. These photos above and a few more exterior shots are all that seem to be left. No anecdotes! THINK of what must have gone down! This National Geographic article says that, according to so-and-so, whenever visitors entered the Cafe they were greeted by a sly costumed devil who exclaimed "ENTER AND BE DAMNED!" and that a coffee spiked with cognac was apparently called out as a "a seething bumper of molten sin with a dash of brimstone intensifier." This last, no doubt, sounds different in French.
There will be some more delightfully macabre posts soon I hope as the climax of this wonderful cider drinking gourd worshipping trees exploding into flickering firework still-lives season approaches. I'm in a great mood. I would have posted more lately if I weren't too busy DRINKING PUMPKIN BEER AND WATCHING HORROR TRASH AND LISTENING TO METAL BULLSHIT.
October!

(p.s. the bar next door to L'Enfer in the penultimate photo is...Le Ciel. "Heaven." ???)

No comments:

Post a Comment