One day Michel Rebillard decided he wanted to know who this famous author Jean-Bernard Pouy really was. He got Pouy's telephone number and called him up. Pouy was so surprised that he organized a Le Poulpe authors' dinner there. He showed me a photograph taken a few years ago. He puffed himself up and posed behind the zinc bar, surrounded by framed newspaper clippings about Le Poulpe.
Reality follows fiction indeed.
Out on the streets of the 11th arrondissement, legions of trendies were heading for Route 66, the Iguana and other hip watering holes near the Bastille. A cloud of dust blew down the street from the immense work site around the corner, where Gabriel Lecouvreur supposedly grew up. But next time I think I'll order steak and fries. David Downie is Wanderlust's Paris correspondent. All rights reserved.