5.08 - 5.24 Paris

Shakespeare and Company:

I am staying on the second floor of this two-story bookstore, spending most of my nights on a short makeshift mattress which serves as a sofa throughout the day, and the usual napping space for a black-haired cat, named simply Kitty.

(Aside: why is it socially acceptable to name cats ‘Kitty’, while dogs always receive more respectable, god-fearing names? Is this a sign of feline inferiority? One supposes it more complicated.)

Of the regularly employed or paid workers, there are two Irishmen: Asheen and Jonathan, an Australian: Jemma, a New Zealander: Rowan, as well as another Gemma (dating Jonathan) and Sylvia – daughter of the owner (George Whitman) and veritable manager of the shop – both Brits.

Of us migrant borders, the numbers, and the people-fleshes filling them, are constantly in flux - having gone as high as six, and as low as three during my stay.

Those of the longest tenure, and with whom I've become closest, are (in order of appearance):


Omar: A mustache-wearing, suspendered San Diegan of Mexican heritage. A would-be will-be playwrite and reader of Wind in the Willows who dreams of one day opening his own bookstore, titled explicitly.

Gabriel: A side-burned Vancouverite living in Montreal who makes bagels, surfs on couches, likes Murakami and lived alone in the woods with a typewriter at a fragile age.

John: A Rhode Island native who's wandering the world. A web-site designing, real-estate selling magician who doesn’t drink. But plays guitar. And likes the ladies.


Carl: The son of a Texas bible-thumping evangelical preacher. A whacky liberal artist angered by authoritarianism. And newly home-ful in a Parisian apartment, as I understand it, and congratulate.

and Sara(h-less): An American Pole (or Polish American, not being sure which label best conveys such multi-nationality) in her gap year, which doesn’t translate so cleanly into French, on her way to Brown University with tips on teachers, exceptionally well-read, and tongued (English, Polish, French and Swahili commandeered ably at her behest).

All of the boarders must help to open up the shop at noon, and close at midnight, working two additional hours at some point during the day (which are scheduled at closing the night before). Working in the store is not incredibly difficult, as with checkout duties being left to the regulars, the main responsibility is simply to stock and organize the shelves. Yet, discounting its relative ease and the ample opportunities which it provides for flirtation with the clientele, if one should ever find oneself looking to re-inforce the fact that mastery is an infinitely unattainable ideal in this universe, then this would certainly be at least one job to look into.


We hide food beneath the benches of the library upstairs, inside drawers and small cubby holes, snacking occassionally outside the shop during the days, though while the shop is open we generally must find food elsewhere. There’s a pretty good sandwich place run by a middle-aged Asian man and woman just around the corner on Saint Jacques where you can get a sandwich for 2E, and I often have one with tuna, hard-boiled egg, lettuce and tomato, as it seems to offer the most for the price. At nights, after closing, we pull a cofee-maker(to boil water), a hotplate and pan, out from under the upstairs sink and make pasta. We mix in some beans, and whatever cheese, tomatoes or other vegetables we may have, and along with a bottle or two of 1.90E to 2.90E wine, we have a generally nice little feast.

Especially compared to Berlin, eating out in Paris, even at the cheaper establishments can quickly become expensive. So, if you're trying to maintain any sort of a budget, you need to find some sort of balance between making your own food, and simply eating sparsely. Yet, even so-balanced, one yearns for some variety: a few times splurging for Indian food, or a couple non-happy hour beers, and a few times going for the better part of a day on just a baguette and some jam.