Andre Kertesz, Elizabeth and I

So there it stood, squeezed between the city and the sea, narrow and humble, with its eight long marble-topped tables standing on heavy iron legs beneath the mirrors that ran the length of two walls. The leather of the banquettes was split with use and age, and here and there the coils of springs and snuffing had broken through. But still this place seemed extraordinarily luxurious to us.

Kay Boyle and Robert McAlmon, Being Geniuses together

Few independent coffee houses remained in Washington - no more than a couple. All the others belong now to the big chains. I passed today near one of those independent cafes, and it was closed for ever - out of business: the Sirius, near the metro station of Van Ness - UDC.

I was on my way towards the Politics & Prose bookstore, on the Connecticut Avenue. There are only three independent bookstores in DC - all the others belong to Barnes & Noble, Borders, or other chains. Politics & Prose is the largest independent bookstore in the city (and it hosts one of the few independent coffee houses, too: a very bohemian place).

I was looking for the book of Andrei Cherny, The Next Deal - but even they were not having it. I found instead a Polish author, a journalist - I took his book and opened it - and I was not able to stop reading. The title, The Soccer War, is misleading - actually it describes the journalist's experiences in Africa of the sixties, in Congo, in Ghana, etc. - and it's a fabulous book, believe me. It is reportage, diary, memories, imagination, all combined. The period was extremely complex for African countries - and nobody would be able to understand all that happened there, the causes, the mechanisms and so on. There is no political agenda in the book; the author is first of all very honest to his readers. He tells us only what he sees, nothing more. This guy, Kapuscinki is kind of Hemingway and Marquez gathered together under the same skin.