--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > > I know that my subject line doesn't mean anything to you, but I'll > explain. First, Le Départ is the first sidewalk cafe that I settled > upon to write in, when I first started coming to Paris for work. And > it's *far* from being a bad writing cafe; au contraire, Pierre. > > It's got that essential quality of a good writing cafe. No, not that it > has Wifi...although it does...obviously, because I'm going to post this > from there. It's that both the waiters and the clientele have artistic > etiquette. > > They might "hurry along" tourists who have lingered too long over too > few drinks, but they'd never even *dream* of "hurrying along" someone > who seems to be sitting at one of their tables creating something. Some > are writing in their paper journals, others on tablet computers, me on > my laptop. But they're all *creating* something, even if that something > is nothing more than a postcard to a distant lover or an Internet post > to an obscure saloon in cyberspace. It's a nice cafe, in that no one > ever fucks with that. > > But to be honest, it doesn't have a lot of phwam! That's a Rama (Fred > Lenz) term for Style, and for doing things with some semblance of Style. > > Le Cafe des Affiches, in which I sat and dashed off a few posts a few > nights ago, had Style. It also seems to be no more. My intuition about > its owners not being happy about the size of its clientele was sadly > prescient. They are pushing up daisies. They are an Ex-Cafe With Style. > > I will miss them. I mean, whoever created that cafe had excellent taste > in poster art. I would have been comfortable with many of the posters > hanging on its walls hanging in my own house. It was a great space, > decorated tastefully and run by wonderful young people, but it seems not > to have been successful. Their doors are shuttered, without even an "En > Vacances" sign to give us hope that they might return. Color me sad. > > And also color me sitting in my second-choice cafe, and thus the color > of "Hey, it may not have been what I had in mind when I set out this > evening, but y'know it's pretty cool, and this cafe has its *own* > distinctive color." > > To be brutally honest, the music is better here than at Le Cafe des > Affiches, too. Sigh. How quickly guys get over their ex's. :-) > > But, now that I'm here (and now), back to that word phwam! That sense of > Style. Since I'm here in Paris, the clearest example I can think of to > illustrate what the Rama guy might have considered Style may best be > presented in a koan (mine, not his): > > Walking your dog in Paris > and letting it crap on the sidewalks > is having no style > > Walking your dog in Paris > and picking up after it > is style > > Salvador Dali > walking his anteater in Paris > was Style
I used to want a pet anteater but they are rather too specialised feeders, as the name implies, and I'd rather have a dog that will eat anything than something that only likes small live insects which would be a pain to source, unless you have a *huge* garden. Salvador's seems to have stopped for a drink though. BTW Paris will be a good place to be on sunday as the Tour de France finishes it's 100th anniversary race on the Champs Elysee. But it might get a tad crowded. And this year they finish at night which should be quite a sight. But if you live there it's quite possible you already know ;-)
