Being and Doing Nothing at a Paris Cafe: part-one of a two-part guest blog by Renate Stendhal

Did you ever have the sacrilegious wish to fly to a famous city--like Paris--and spend your time doing nothing? Nothing, I mean, except sit in a cafe and watch the world go by? Skip the Louvre and a dozen other museums, chuck the sightseeing bus or the bateau mouche, forego the climb up the Eiffel Tower? Not even a walking tour to fulfill your duties as a serious visitor? Has your imagination whispered into your ear that simply sitting in a cafe doing nothing could give you the keys to the city, the people, the whole culture of the place?

Of course, it would have to be a particular cafe, located in the center where you can feel the city's pulse and excitement at any time of the day. Your first thought might lead you to the hotspots, the famous Cafe de Flore or the Deux Magots, both on the Bd St. Germain, but you might soon be annoyed by the nooty waiters who are masters at ignoring you, and by the bands of Germans insisting on nnoisily moving their tables and chairs on the terrace to catch the sun. You might come to resent the rowdy Russian or Ukrainian bus groups and the international youngsters swarming in and out with their backpacks rammed into your head and shoulders.

Your second thought--the famous Cafe La Coupole on Bd. Montparnasse--would be another unfortunate tourist mistake: even though the cafe is open all day, Parisian life at La Coupole starts around midnight.

A cafe not just for tourists, then, but for the locals and the connoisseurs. To shorten the suspense: how about Le Rostand at the interesting juncture of Montparnasse, St. Michel and St. Germain? Full disclosure: the Rostand has been my cafe of choice for over thirty years. It is the place where I went almost daily when I was young, to write about culture and review my amorous adventures, as I reported in my new memoir Kiss Me Again, Paris.

Why Le Rostand?

Here, across from the Luxembourg Gardens, with the Pantheonin view, you have the ideal Parisian cafe: intellectual and down to earth, cultural and culinary (in the sense that bistro food is on the menu all day long and the baguette comes in freshly baked three times a day in the best French baking tradition). Bistro food of decent quality and good coffee brings in the publishers and authors from St. Germain, students from La Sorbonne, bohemians and writers like me, and the little ladies of the quartier who come in for their afternoon tisane--the French lemon-verbena infusion that is indispensible for a cozy neighborhood chat.

So you, the observer, can eat and drink and enjoy French people and French life around the clock. You will notice some national characteristics right away: even without cigarettes, the air seems thick with words, quick, excited repartees, a verbal speed that is hard to follow even after some serious studies at the Alliance Francaise. But you will pick up the essential, as Gertrude Stein did in her 1939 portrait Paris France: France and French people are "peaceful and exciting."

At the same time, you will notice any number of people working, either together or by themselves. The tables are square and big enough to write, spread out books and manuscripts, or unfold a newspaper without hitting your neighbor.

(To be continued).

Renate Stendhal is the award winning author of the photo biography Gertrude Stein: In Words and Pictures. After growing up in Berlin and Hamburg, she lived in Paris for almost two decades, pursuing ballet and underground theatre, translating American women authors, and writing cultural reviews for the German radio and press. She now lives in northern California.

Ms. Stendhal's Kiss Me Again, Paris, a memoir of that time in her life, was published in 2017 by IF SF Publishing. 

The publisher is pleased to announce that Kiss Me Again, Paris has won a 2018 International Book Award in the LGBTQ: Non-Fiction Category.

This is Ms. Stendhal's first guest post for IF SF.