Mon Cahier De Paris

Mon Cahier de Paris is perhaps best described as a chronicle of the author's experiences with this great city. It is not a guidebook, not a history, and not fully a memoir, although it is informed by and contains some features of all. It grew primarily from notebooks he kept over several trips to Paris as a professor-escort on university educational travel programs in the 1970s and 80s, and two periods during which I was fortunate to live and work (as a visiting Professor Associé at the University of Paris, teaching courses on American Urbanism and American film) in the city. During these times he shared Paris with some very special women in his life, formed friendships, had fascinating personal encounters, and made self-discoveries, all while, and in consequence of, coming in thrall of Paris “herself.” Everyone’s Paris memory is sui generis, a product of a unique nexus of personal time in “Paris time.” So this is his Paris, or at least what was his Paris at not only mostly during the occasion of the city’s 200-year anniversary of its Revolution, but also experienced through a time of momentous personal change in his life. He writes, "I could no more return to find Paris as it was in the Bicentennaire as I would be able to spy that forty-nine year-old version of myself waiting for the train on the opposite platform at Metro Gobelins. Only in my notes, souvenirs and the reverie they evoke, and in these pages, do they exist, their pleasures, the tristesse, too, their time and place." Drawing upon the urban history, literature, film and painting about Paris from its founding to then present day, as well as several personal experiences that readers will find both similar and contrasting with their own encounters with the city, Mon Cahier de Paris will inspire one to book a flight, grab a pen and notebook, and head for their favorite Parisian cafe.

FROM THE AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION: The present volume grew out of the development of a writing course I designed for travelers and aspirant travel writers built around what I refer to as “travel journaling,” and is intended for future iterations of that course by myself as well as other teachers and instructors teaching courses about turning travel and living abroad experiences into both personal memoir and professional publication. While it is not intended directly as a “text” or “manual” for travel writing and memoir, it is an adjunct to those purposes, and illustration and a compendium of examples of subjects and styles useful for instructional purposes. Accordingly, since it is derived from the contents of a travel journal itself it is maintained somewhat in the form of a travel journal itself. It intentionally maintains different writing styles and “voices,” with some chapters that are highly personal in tone, others historical or somewhat “academic,” and others illustrative of the writing process. As with all writing it is firstly about the subject, but this book, while it exposes the author’s personal interests and points of view about Paris—it is appropriate here to indicate that he is an “urbanist,” and by training an urban planner—it is also about the experience of that city as a foreigner, and experience that combines the “pre-experience” of literature, film and art (in particular painting) with subsequent direct encounter, as tourist, worker, or temporary resident. This book is perhaps best described as a chronicle of my experience with this great city. It is not a guidebook, not a history, and not fully a memoir, although it is informed by and contains some features of all. It grew primarily from notebooks I kept over several trips to Paris as a professor-escort on university educational travel programs in the 1970s and 80s, and two periods during which I was fortunate to live and work (as a visiting Professor Associé at the University of Paris) in the city. During these times I shared Paris with some very special women in my life, formed friendships, had fascinating personal encounters, and made self-discoveries, all while, and in consequence of, coming in thrall of Paris “herself.” Everyone’s Paris memory is sui generis, a product of a unique nexus of personal time in “Paris time.” So this is my Paris, or at least what was my Paris at not only mostly during the occasion of the city’s 200-year anniversary of its Revolution, but also experienced through a time of momentous personal change in my life. I could no more return to find Paris as it was in the Bicentennaire as I would be able to spy that forty-nine year-old version of myself waiting for the train on the opposite platform at Metro Gobelins. Only in my notes, souvenirs and the reverie they evoke, and in these pages, do they exist, their pleasures, the tristesse, too, their time and place. This book does not purport to be comprehensive about the French, or the Parisians, for which I have neither sufficient nor lengthy experience, and so that is better left to those who have. It is confined in time and geography, if not entirely bounded, by the several rather brief periods I have spent in France, and is (to borrow the sense of their own term) “impressionistic” rather than comprehensive or analytical. So in this book I am looking back, an à la recherche du temps perdu of a minor sort (to borrow from a late Parisian), but through a prism of other times and urban experiences. By way not only of visitation, but also readings, movies, art, Paris has been a recurrent inspiration. Because I am an urbanist, Paris has confirmed for me that cities are far more than physical settlements, but expressions of human hopes and potentialities (sometimes marred by greed and stupidity). Cities are our greatest and most complex human invention, and in exceptional cases, like Paris, a work of art.

James A. Clapp is Emeritus Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at San Diego State University. In addition to his Visiting Professorships at the University of Paris he was a Fulbright Scholar in Hong Kong in 2000 and has lectured at several universities in China on urbanism, planning and media. He is author of over 100 articles, book chapters, reviews, and technical reports on cities and city planning, and his book, New Towns and Urban Policy (Dunellen, 1971) was the main selection of the Library of Urban Affairs Book Club in 1971. His book, The City: A Dictionary of Quotable Thoughts On Cities And Urban Life (Rutgers, 1984) in print for over a decade, has been expanded and translated into Chinese for publication by the Chinese Architectural and Engineering Press in 2010 and was re-issued in a revised and expanded edition in 2014 by Transaction Publishers. His book (with M. Stofflet), California Cityscapes (Universe Books, 1991) deals with the portrayal of the city in art. A book of his aphorisms, Lifelines, writing as Sebastian Gerard, was published in May 2004, and This Urban Life: Writing About Cities for Multiple Media was published in 2005. The Stranger is Me: Travels and Self-Discoveries, a travel memoir, was published in Spring 2007. The American City in the Cinema was published by Transaction Publishers in 2013. His first full-length work of fiction, For Goodness Sake, A Novel of the Afterlife of Suzie Wong, written as Sebastian Gerard, was published in Hong Kong in 2008 and he has scripted the story for production as a feature motion picture. In 2014 it was published in French by GOPE in France under the title A la Poursuite de Suzie Wong. In Spring 2015 his memoir Mon Cahier de Paris: Café Writings 1989 and 1999 will be published as well as his second novel, as Sebastian Gerard, Stumbling Blocks & Stepping Stones. Dr. Clapp has taught on the faculty of the University of California, and was appointed by the French Ministry of Education as a Visiting Professor at the University of Paris VII in 1989 and 1999, where he lectured on both film and American urbanism. He also taught for the Syracuse University Division of International Programs in Hong Kong in 1997 and was a guest lecturer at TongJi University, Shanghai. He has also delivered lectures at Peking and Tsinghua Universities and the Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. In 2008 he was made an “Honorary Professor” of Beijing City University. Articles based on his lectures there have been published in Chinese. He was also Director of the Program for Media and Urban Affairs. As Producer/Writer/Commentator for San Diego Public Radio KPBS-FM from 1987 to 1992, he wrote and/or produced over 100 essays, interviews and documentaries, and created, wrote and hosted its public affairs program, Metropolitan Journal. He has been co-producer and scriptwriter for the Production Center of the Department of Telecommunications and Film for television documentaries in San Diego and Egypt and Israel. In 1990 one of his programs for KPBS-FM received a "Best Investigative Reporting" award from the San Diego Press Club. He is also a freelance magazine and newspaper writer on travel and urban affairs topics, and was the 1991 recipient of the California Chapter of the American Planning Association Journalism Award for his series of articles for the San Diego Union. In 2003 he launched his website, Dragon City Journal, on which he has published over 700 essays and graphics on urbanism, media, travel and other subjects. He founded UrbisMedia Ltd. (chartered in Hong Kong in 2010) upon his retirement from SDSU in 2005 to work collaboratively on projects in media from print and broadcast journalism, publishing, documentary, graphics and film.