Robert Doisneau - Giacometti

Giacometti had just gotten up. He was on his way to the cafe to have some coffee and I went with him. The cafe has come to be something of an adjunct to his studio. (James Lord, A Giacometti Portrait)

Yesterday, I was looking desperately for a cup of coffee - and I found a fine coffee bar. Sirius was its name - not far from the Politics & Prose bookstore, in the universe of the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). It remembered me some fine coffee shops from Bucharest, in the old town zone (Covaci, Lipscani, Smardan, some place there).

Sirius had a micro-roaster, emptied coffee sacks were laying behind, some African masks were hanging on the walls, a couple of fine Turkish copper coffee pots were on the shelves and everything was looking amazing. The bartender (or, you could name him the barista, as is usual in DC) said to me that in two weeks they would be out of business.

Later in the day, I was now in Georgetown, where Pennsylvania Avenue joins the M Street - there is in that place one of the finest Washingtonian bookstores, the Bridge Street Books - I found there a small album, The Parisian cafe: A Literary Companion.

It was a discreet salute to Paris, from Georgetown - I thought at my friend Jean.

I took the James Lord's excerpt from the album - I did not find on the web the actual photo - Giacometti in front of an emptied cup of coffee, with a cigarette - so I took another photo, Giacometti in his studio, one fine morning, in need for a cup of coffee, and for a cigarette.

And near the Bridge Street Books there is a small art gallery, displaying contemporary French artists, Oliver de Cayron, Tobiasse, Patrice Breteau, Edouard Pignon. I'll come back to it in the blog some day, as Le Carnet de Voyage of Cayron is fascinating.



(Washington, District of Columbia)