Paris Journal 2009 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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I have fond memories of the
little print shop on rue Fondary, just across from the Nicolas wine shop at
the intersection with avenue Emile Zola.
Several years ago, we were in the same kind of position work-wise that
we are now. That means, we had
copy-edited manuscript to send back to the publisher in New York, but first
we needed to make copies of every page on which Tom had written his
comments/corrections in colored pencil. The young man at the print shop
was very helpful, making sure the machine was set just right so that the
colored pencil remarks would show up on the copies. He then was most helpful in laminating a New York Times review of the
restaurant, Le Beau Violet, that we
wanted to give to the restaurant owner. It is nice to get enthusiastic
service with a smile, and several je
vous en prie’s after our merci’s. The young man was excited to learn that the
thing we were copying was going to be an English writing textbook published
in New York. The next year, to thank him, we
stopped by to give him a copy of the book, The
Norton Sampler. But he’d
closed up shop for the summer vacation. So, I should have remembered
that the shop would be closed when we left the apartment to make copies
yesterday. No matter, I thought. We’ll just go to the copy place we’ve
passed many times on the avenue Emile Zola.
But voila! It, too, was closed
– maybe permanently. The sign posted
in the window directed us to the little shop we’d already been to. So there we were, not knowing
which way to look next. But surely
there were other walk-up copier services around here. Scratching our heads, we headed back up avenue
Emile Zola toward the rue du Commerce.
Mohammed, the manager of Le
Tipaza, was standing out on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette in front of
his restaurant. We exchanged
greetings, and started to go on our way. But I stopped and said to Tom
that we should ask Mohammed. He
doesn’t just work in the neighborhood, I know, because I’ve seen him walking
on other nearby streets from time to time.
He’ll know where the copiers are, I thought. So we went back to ask him, and
he first directed us to the shop on avenue Emile Zola. We explained that it was closed. He then thought of the shop on rue Fondary,
but immediately he remembered that it is closed now. So he scratched his head, and
said there is a little shop with telephone cards, telephone booths, computers,
and a copier up on the rue de la Croix Nivert. As we made our way over there,
Tom said it was probably a shop run by North Africans – people that Mohammed
knows. I think he was right. We found it. It is called “Telephone pas cher (Inexpensive telephone),” and its sign claims
that it is open 7 days a week. The place was narrow. It had probably been a small bar-tabac at some point. Now telephone booths (cabines) were squeezed in all along the right side, and the space
above the bar in the front corner had been glassed in with bullet-proof
glass, except for a slot at the bottom.
The little bar was now the cashier’s station. Past the bar, sit-down computer
work stations were squeezed in on the left side where probably a narrow
stand-up bar had once been. Sitting in
the narrow aisle between the booths and the work stations, near the bar, were
two machines. One was a regular
black-and-white copier, and one was a combination color copier, scanner and
computer printer linked to the work stations. Anyone standing at the copier
obstructs most of what is left of the aisle through the middle. So while we were copying, we often had to
move aside or hug the copier to let customers who’d finished using the
computers or telephones get by. While we made copies, people
came in to buy international phone cards.
It was like a stop-and-go United Nations. People from the far corners of the Earth
who happened to be in Paris were coming in for their phone cards. Some would not bother to even say hello in
French. They’d just immediately start
with broken English, saying “excuse me, international phone card I need
please” or something like that. The copier we were using was
aging. All copiers age quickly, I
noted. Our first 20 or so copies came out
as legible, but he paper was all wavy.
That didn’t bother us too much, but it evidently bothered the machine
because it jammed. A round Pakistani man who’d
been going in and out of the place came up and deftly un-jammed the machine
for us, then set it to use a different paper tray – one that was turned
sideways. That worked well. As soon as he’d set the machine
to working again, he left the place. I
think he is also running some other business nearby. We finally finished doing our
copying in the cramped, hot little place and stood at the glassed-in bar to
pay. We waited for a bit while the
person in front of us was served. I
gazed into the bar, where the wood front had been removed and replaced with
glass. Inside was a fascinating jumble
of little useful objects, like electrical outlet converters so you could plug
your phone charger in here in France, no matter where on the planet your
charger was meant to be used. We gave our stack of copies to
the bespectacled gentleman cashier so he could count them. I didn’t know if we should have counted
them first, but I guess not because he seemed to react as if this were the
way to do things. He tried to get the
attention of the young woman behind us so she could pay for her few pages
from the computer printer without waiting, but she did not look at him. She just stared into space. I think she didn’t speak French, and maybe
she was jet-lagged. Today we’ll have to make more
copies, so I looked on the internet to find a bigger, nearby, real
self-service copy center. I did find
one listed online (Copy-City), and
hopefully it will not be closed for vacation when we arrive. But if it is, Telephone pas cher will be there for us. After copying, we went back to
the apartment and worked more. It was
late when we went to dinner. So we
opted just to go again to the brasserie down on the corner at the Commerce
park. The modernized Commerce
brasserie did not disappoint. We each
ordered fish. My dorade came with a
large portion of spinach. I just added
a little salt and pepper and it was perfect. Tom’s salmon came with a pile
of sautéed zucchini. We shared a plate
of fries, which were excellent. We had
a large bottle of San Pellegrino and a small carafe of chardonnay, plus
dessert. Tom had a good apple tart
with ice cream, and I had a lovely, little, rich dark chocolate fondant
topped by a tiny scoop of violette
ice cream. I had no idea what flavor violette is supposed to be, but it
tasted like black cherry. Our server
said something about the ice cream being cassis. That would be black currant. The entire dinner, tax, tip and
all, added up to 57 euros. The server had recognized us shortly after we
were seated. He came up and joyfully
announced that today they can accept foreign credit cards. Indeed, when it came time to pay, his
machine accepted the card. They must
have just been granted their Visa/Mastercard/Carte Bancaire account within
the past couple days. One of the things that does not
occur to people at the publisher is that when they use the colors red and
gray in making their pencil marks on the copy-edited manuscript, that means
Tom must use another color. Red
pencils are easy to find in a professor’s apartment. So are gray/black ones. But of course, those colors are already
taken, so Tom went out in search of colored pencils the other day. He soon found a very
interesting art supply shop on the avenue Emile Zola. This is how we find and visit small
specialty shops in Paris. It happens
when we have a special need. He bought green pencils for 2
euros each. They’re too soft, and not
cheap, but the color is his very own. |
Saturday, August 1, 2009
The Statue of Liberty at the end of the Allée des
Cygnes on the Seine.
Mosaic near the corner of rue Cevennes on the rue St.
Charles in the 15th arrondissement.
The Esplanade Max Guedj is between the old Grenelle
cemetery and the grand Parc Andre Citroen.
It is a nice, neighborhood gathering spot with a walled garden (above)
and a paved square that features things for kids to do, like the carrousel
below.
An attractive old house on the rue St. Charles has been
converted into luxury apartments. |
