Robins Sparks Is Looking For A Place To Call Home
Paris, France ~ I’m at the Web Bar, my Apple Powerbook open atop a granite table. My butt is planted firmly on a green velvet banquet; the hiss of an espresso machine and the steady pounding of a techno beat fill the room. Soft coral light caresses the bottles behind the bar where a very suave, 30-something man pours champagne and red wine for the Euro-hipsters casually posing at the bar. One of the patrons languishes on his elbow, talking into a cell phone, slowly dragging on a cigarette. A baguette protrudes from the backpack on the stool next to him. A girl enters the bar wearing tight black pants, a black leather jacket, and carrying a helmet.
It’s 6 PM and the energy in the room is starting to shift and expand. The young techies are being replaced by older bohemians. In the next room, tables are filled with men and women sipping coffee, wine, beer, and the admirable “coupe de champagne.” The sun streams down through a leaded glass spotlighted stage a man and woman move slowly, acrobatically, in a display of Live Art. Impressionist paintings line the walls. A man with long jet-black hair secured in a ponytail rolls past my table on skates. No one appears to notice. I’m not dressed right — heavy on Cute and too light on Cool in my Sandra Dee cropped pants and baby blue knit sweater. How was I to know that my desperate search for an internet connection would lead me to the Web Bar on the Rue Picardie?
The focal point of the interior is the three-story open courtyard. Along the walls of the top two stories, and open to the cafe below, narrow ledges contain perhaps 20 computers. The chairs consist of upended wooden crates. Earlier, I sipped a double espresso at computer #8 as I attempted to make an internet connection; computer #8 refused to connect. Jean, a 24 year old global computer geek with dark curly hair, was the tech on call. In response to myn obvious frustration, he appeared at my side. I pantomimed the problem. “I see,”? he said in perfect, non-accented, English. “You’re sure you put in the correct password?”
“You are American?” I ask as if I’d just met someone from a distant planet I vaguely remember from my past. Manu tells me he moved from New York 10 years ago with his parents, against his will . But Paris is home to him now and he’s happy here.
“Jean! Pouvez vous m