Renowned Photographer Saves Obscure Writer’s Life in Parisian Café

Letter from Paris

NOT *Le Be Bop Cafe (which surely is long and deservedly gone)

We thought we’d travel in Europe for a month. I was on sabbatical from teaching for the year and had the time. We would lease a car and make our way through six countries. Julia, a teacher and photojournalist, nearly three years after founding her photography school in Los Angeles, would offer one of her travel workshops in Provence during the last week of the month. It would be a memorable vacation.

The month we chose was September 2001.

Before we left Los Angeles, I had decided to send letters from abroad to an email list of friends and colleagues. I would be working on my poetry and a play during the sabbatical year, and the letters would keep the writing gears oiled while distracted from that work. They would provide as well, along with Julia’s photography, a record of our travels. For fun, I decided to create two protagonists for my narratives: Dean, the renowned photographer, and Adler, the obscure writer. Given the tim…