An Anthropological Account of European Leisure

I arrived in Paris. I needed to do get some work done. So I started walking around looking for a cafe where I could park with my laptop and write. My search became a sort of politico-spiritual odyssey. I guess I could have sat at one of those bistros with those tiny tables facing out into the street (a rare phenomenon in American cities, a friend gently explained to me, due to the awkwardness, or worse, of encounters with the homeless population, many of whom struggle with schizophrenia and other forms of mental illness).