Personal Yummy #107
Boulaouane…
Primo Levi…
Place Voltaire…
L’Humanité Dimanche…
The above details of an introspective French bartender’s life are all affectionately touched upon in The Waitress Was New, a charming 2005 novella by Dominique Fabre (translated by Jordan Stump), which I purchased from the just-as-charming Three Lives & Company bookshop in New York City’s West Village.
Given that I myself wrote a book about a waitress (The Grill on Murray Avenue: A Story of Innocence), Fabre’s little orange book—lying on a square wooden table amid many other interesting books with colorful covers—ignited my curiosity, Modigliani’s painting of poet Max Jacob appealing to me greatly. It is such an understated cover design, but effective.
Boulaouane is a Moroccan wine.
Primo Levi is an Italian-Jewish writer.
Place Voltaire is a Paris square.
L’Humanité Dimanche is a Sunday magazine insert.
It’s the substance of a lonely worker’s life in Paris.
But because the substance is recognized by him, it is quite profound.
Like the routine process of washing his white shirts on Sunday night and hanging them on his shower rod to dry:
“I like those moments of my life … .”
How wise it is to appreciate the mundane world, those acts and individuals and particularities that grace our everyday—seemingly simple at first, but deeper and more complex than we realize.
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