Also Observing You

Gene Ammons “Cattin” is up in the ears, swinging his fat, boss, tenor sax.  Heading into the city early for a breakfast meeting.  So far we have an unobstructed path.  The moment of revelation will transpire shortly when we feed into the highway here at the lamb forest tollgate.  No “rocks melting” or lightening bolts being thrown so far.

Heading to France for the first time in a while next month.  I piled in to our local Page One bookstore down in San Li Tun.  It isn’t a Barnes and Noble, but for Beijing it’s still a big deal to have have a few sections of Penguin Classics to cull through.  I was on a mission for things French and I could have stocked up easier on things Russian or certainly things English countryside.  None of what I had in mind was there, so I pulled somewhat randomly.

I found a Balzac novel, “Eugenie Grandet” and fairy tales I hadn’t realized were written by a Frenchmen, Charles Perrault.  To my left now here in the cab is “Jacques the Fatalist” by Denis Diderot.  I can remember going through precisely the same shopping process just about thirty years ago, the first time I ventured over to Paris.  The pickings were broader there in lower Manhattan and I seem to remember getting “Candid” “Dangerous Liaisons”, “Cousin Bette” and L'Assommoir. I have a clear memory of reading it in the attic apartment I stayed in Paris and thinking “I’m here!  She probably saw the same view.”

As I made my purchase there at the counter, I saw Antoine de Saint-Exupéry “The Little Prince” sitting there as well.  I’ve always known of it, but I don’t believe I’ve ever read it for myself or with the kids.  I bought it for my little one, a ritual that will probably not pass beyond this generation.  Books and music will likely all simply be ubiquitous.

Later I headed over to our old-but-gold local bookstore The Bookworm”, which is great for so many things but proved utterly devoid of contributions I could find from the francophone.  I culled through the fiction section once and then again.  In the used section you’re forced to gaze atop people sipping latte’s so I only looked so closely.  I’m sure whoever stocks the shelves could have probably found “The Second Sex” or “Man’s Fate” for me, but I sighed and exhaled a French exhalation of discontent. 

In the back room, a middle aged Asian American woman who was begin deferred to as a “writer” was asking one of the staff questions loudly about whether or not this neighborhood had many foreigners.  It occurred to me that I was something she was not so quietly observing.  This writer was also observing you, ma’am.