The strolling 19th-century Parisian flâneur often expressed his ironic observations of the city he loved in paint, prose and poetry. Celebrated flâneurs like Honoré de Balzac, Charles Baudelaire and their 20th-century successors - from André Breton's surrealists to Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialists - have served up brilliant, if sometimes dark, images of the City of Light. Now, following in their august footseps, Berkeley writer and artist L. John Harris channels the historic flâneur with his witty French "lessons" and whimsical illustrations. Whice Café French propose to guide Francophiles on a journey into the cultural, culinary and linguistic codes and canons of the Paris café, the author - with a dash of Dada - chronicles his own discoveries: the cafés he inhabits, the language he learns, the food he eats and the sights he sees in the city he loves. A curious curriculum, Café French will instruct and amuse Paris newcomers and veteran alikes - all who yearn for a taste of the flâneur's creative lifestyle.
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