Letters from Paris: Montmartre and the Digital Cabaret.

It was on the northern slope of the Butte Montmartre on a cobbled street that this enchanted house became a place for sing-alongs and folk songs around the year 1850. In 1875 a painter and caricaturist called Andre Gill painted a sign that had a rabbit jumping out of a saucepan. In French, this painting was called Le Lapin à Gill and so the name soon became changed slightly to the Lapin Agile and then the full name of Cabaret Au Lapin Agile, which is still the same name this cabaret in Paris has today. By the end of the 1800s, there were many writers, poets, artists, sculptors, painters, comedians, musicians and singers that all came together of an evening for fun and laughter, yet influencing each other. – History of the Lapin Agile Cabaret in Paris

In his popular TED Talk A Darwinian Theory of Beauty, Denis Dutton explains how we make beautiful things to impress and influence others.

Homo sapiens – as they were then called, finally – were doubtless finding new ways to amuse and amaze each other by, who knows, telling jokes, storytelling, dancing, or hairstyling. Yes, hairstyling – I insist on that. – Denis Dutton

Twitter, YouTube, Sound Cloud, Tumblr, WordPress, and Instagram are our cabarets. Like the charming French cottage and storied wooden tables at Au Lapin Agile in the shadow of the Sacré-Cœur, they allow us to come together in a digital space, performing, sharing, and lauding our individual talents in an effort to appreciate and be recognized. To influence and be changed. To listen and be heard.

Our Digital Cabarets. What a beautiful thing.