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Parisian cafes manage to accommodate everyone from the dandy-the
"flaneur", a word meaning literally one who strolls-to bohemian poets and painters doing their best to escape their landlord's reckoning. A dandy seeks to see and be seen, like my famous evening at this premiere theatre play with my wife Annie.
(See the essay about that hilarious adventure on the link "Annie and me in some funny Parisian
adventures!" to be found on the top of the Paris page).
But it suits the dandy just as well as it does the penniless bohemian to indulge in the habit of holding on to his café table for a long stretch, no matter how long ago he drank his already cold coffee. Almost every café has the paragon of fashion and the scallywag reading Nietzsche or Schoppenhauer, their attention momentarily caught by the smartest of businessman making a brief call for a snatch of coffee and a private word to each other on their way, or by old cronies arguing over politics or "petanque". All to the music of a flipper machine, and the roar of traffic.
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