Shakespeare and Company

I don't have any pictures for this because a couple things all happened at once. First, I realized that Alyson was coming into town about six hours earlier than I had convinced myself, so I'm not running up and down the four flights of my hostel just to grab some pictures. I'll do that tomorrow while Aly sleeps off the jetlag.

I went to a reading at Shakespeare and Company, in the Latin Quarter, right across the Seine from the looming Notre Dame. Shakespeare and Company is this infamous bookstore that Hemingway mentions in his memoir "A Moveable Feast" and he used to almost live there. It's where he met Gertrude Stein. It was founded by Sylvia Beach. It's kind of a big deal. But it's still very low-key and a quiet place to read away from the throngs of tourists just across the river. I don't know how they did it.

So the reading was by Ruth Waterman, a symphony conductor who responded to a request to come conduct the Sarajevo symphony after, you know, Sarajevo. She talked about her conversations with the instrumentalists -- the hesitance to call back those memories, and then the flood of recollections -- the small moments, the joyous moments, the fear and constant nightly hail of gunfire. For three months no one slept, then, one by one, they learned to cope. One day, after the war, she and the symphony were given samba lessons and drums. After they got a couple basic rhythms down, they processed through the streets and drew out curious shopkeepers and dancing children.

When the talk was almost over, the organizer came in and told us that afterward there would be a signing, some wine, and a treat. She said this with a glimmer in her eye, and it was clear the author was in on the secret. After the last question was answered, Ms. Waterman played a Mostar folk song on her violin, and taught us an accompanying clap rhythm. Then she got up, and walked out.

She told us to follow. We clapped our way down a set of creaky old back stairs to the promenade in front of Shakespeare and Co. and clapped along with the rest of her performance out front, to the bemusement of passing tourists and street riffraff. Then wine was passed out. Then I bought her book and got it stamped with the official Shakespeare and Co. logo. Then she signed the book.

I asked her if any of the musicians in the symphony suffered from hearing loss after the war, and if that was a challenge in training her group. She said she hadn't ever even thought about it, much less noticed it, or been challenged by it. I thought that was weird!

And then, since S&C closes at 11pm, I read a 50s edition of Hammett's "Goodbye my Lovely" for a while on a theater chair plunked underneath the stairs. Just an incredible, incredible place.