Profiles

Stacks of coffee-stained books overflow the shelves and onto the floor of Tea & Tattered Pages, a secondhand English language bookstore in the 6th arrondissement. Titles blur together, creating a jumbled atmosphere of “where to begin” or “what to read first” until a single poster in the back of the store becomes legible. Unattended children will be sold as slaves.

Working in the same bookstore seven years ago, Phyllis and Richard immediately clicked. Six months ago, they opened their own English-language bookshop: Berkeley Books of Paris.

Harriet Sternstein—occupational therapist, pastry chef, now canine cook—has just opened France’s first bakery for dogs.

David Edwards’s new experimental space, Le Laboratoire, brings artscience to the center of Paris.

Until recently, 46-year old David Edwards couldn’t escape a nagging feeling of misdirection. Decades of self-reflection, countless trips across the world, several books, and millions of dollars (earnt and spent) later, he has the answer: Artscience.

The merging of two words—art and science. It sounds simple. But only a few nimble geniuses, like Leonardo, have made the leap between the two spheres. Frustrated by this discipline apartheid, Edwards came up with his hybrid concept. And for aspiring “artscientists,” there is only one place to be: Le Laboratoire.

Alan Furst’s ninth historical espionage novel is coming out this month. Once again, his characters have found their way to Paris.

Oh, for a time when your enemy was known and issues were clear and easy to understand. Today, World War II is talked about in such terms. But what was it like when the outcome and players’ sides were not known?

Set in the shadows and confusion of the beginning years of WWII, Alan Furst’s books trace the battle between good and evil through the anonymous, everyday people whose circumstance, if not conviction, enmesh them in war. Seldom the world-weary espionage professional seeking adventure, his characters find their world overrun by competing armies and political whims.

Some people love them, some people hate them. We found an amazing sample of the former in the southern suburbs of Paris.

As I tried to cut a path though the cages without stepping on too many seeds or bird poop, a menacing metallic sound made me cower, my shoulders hunched up to my ears. I froze. “Watch out! She hates women.” At the back of the room, not two meters away, a carrion crow frantically flew back and forth between the ceiling and the tops of two cages. In my hand, the shoebox I had been reluctantly carrying started vibrating and emitting muffled, desperate sounds. The wounded pigeon inside wanted to get out. So did I.

Most people hate pigeons. They defecate on your car, head, and windowsill. They bill and coo pathetically for hours, late at night, scraping the tin roof with their claws. They are ugly and dirty. They want your food when you sit en terrace, and they fly right into your head.

Colin Field came to Paris in pursuit of style and perfection. He discovered a knack of reviving failing bars into oases of comfort and conviviality. He now holds court at the Bar Hemingway.

Mix a perfectionist with a romantic, stir in a natural raconteur, add a lover of drama, top with a magician, and stir well and you will get Colin Field, the head bartender at the Bar Hemingway in the Hotel Ritz. Here he is both the director and star of the carefully orchestrated theater which is the essence of a good hotel bar.

The faces. That’s what Dennis Martin likes most about directing the choir. “I love seeing the different expressions on the singers’ faces,” he says. “A choir is living proof that people are capable of more as a team than individually. Maybe that’s why I’ve always liked directing them.”

Three years ago, Dennis Martin co-founded Hope Gospel Singers, a young adult choir in Paris. Once just a handful of singers, the group now has 45 members, both French and American between the ages of 20 and 30, recruited mostly through the enthusiastic word of mouth of other singers. Every Monday at 7 pm the choir meets for rehearsals in a vast and drafty Baptist church in the 7th arrondissement.

Sometimes, rehearsals slide into friendly and noisy chatter sessions, but Martin’s patience never wears thin: at 51, he claims spending time with sometimes unruly youths “keeps him young.”

Joan Koenig has made a career out of a passion. She is that rare thing: a piper who calls her own tune. Koenig founded her own “alternative music school” in 1986 in reaction to what she saw as the French straitjacketed musical education tradition. She wasn’t deterred by the prospect of confronting the infamous French bureaucracy: “I just opened a bank account and started writing cheques to pay people!” she cheerfully admits with her typical can-do confidence. “Luckily there were three fantastic parents who helped out [establishing the school].”

What Koenig reacted against a little over 20 years ago was her experience of seeing young music students receive only a twenty-minute hands-on lesson a week. It was then it hit home to her that the typical French conservatoire is very different from its American counterpart.