The United Harmonica Federation of France

So, I haven't got this 'releasing expectations and ego' thing down to a science yet. And now its like how when Looney Tunes characters run off the cliff, they can keep running in midair until they realize they're running in midair, and then they plunge to the bottom of the canyon. Everything's fine until you realize you're running in midair. Sigh. So, I'm a big ball of insecurity at the moment and to divert my wee, precious, high-maintenance brain, I shall describe to you the single weirdest Saturday afternoon of my life.

I'd read about this place called Le Petit Ney on the internet. It calls itself a 'Cafe Litteraire' and I believed it. The joint hosts writer's workshops every Tuesday night and poetry slams every Friday. In the whirlwind of being in Paris, I forgot about it. Until yesterday. I had a successful writing morning and trip to the market, so decided I was up for an adventure. Going to a literary cafe is exciting yet terrifying. Thrilling to be surrounded by fellow writers, but Oh God, what if they ask me about my work? What if all of them have fabulously successful novels and I am the only one in that disastrous category...aspiring novelist. I'd die.

Le Petit Ney has a calendar of events and yesterday afternoon from 1 pm until 6 pm was listed simply as Harmonicas de France Federation. Now, I have a deep and secret love for accordion music. It is not in the 'Guilty Pleasure' category, like my passion for Kelly Clarkson, however...it is secret. Except that I've just outed myself on the world wide interweb. Ah well. Information Age. Regardless, I felt that, perhaps, harmonica music in a literary cafe in northern Paris might have an accordion-like vibe. I ventured north.

Walking up Boulevard des Barbes, I was one of maybe five other white people. It was interesting. An experience that I have never, ever had in Calgary. Then I turned east into the northern end of Montmartre, a deliciously different experience than the tourist-soaked part. Rue de Ponteau was bustling with fruit markets, artisan cheese shops and wine boutiques. Made a note to return and turned northward again.

The outlying areas and suburbs of Paris are interesting in that they are far more spacious than downtown, and a lot more rundown. You are more likely to see young African men carrying boxed stereos. More house dresses, less couture. And the storefronts are almost blank, such that one can't tell the street address let alone whether the place is closed down completely. Which is why I almost walked right by Le Petit Ney.

And now I will switch to present tense to allow you to immerse yourself in the experience...

I peek in and experience my first moment of doubt. I take a breath and push the door open. Imagine, if you will, the most awkward performance space possible. The bright, white walls make it seem industrial in a 'motel conference room' kind of way. The stage is small and awkward, kind of like something you'd find in an underfunded junior high school. There are too many windows and too many tables making it feel as though you are in a convenience store or cafeteria not a "cafe litteraire".

On the stage, a man is playing. He holds a microphone to his harmonica and rocks back and forth, staring off into the middle distance. A background CD is playing and I'm reminded of the 'samba' beat on the old Casio keyboards. Chicka tssss chicka tssss chicka tsss. The man is playing Van Morrison's 'Moondance'. He is 60-plus, balding with curly grey hair gathered behind him in a ponytail. He wears glasses, bifocals probably, and some kind of windbreaker. His eyes kind of bug out...with emotion or effort, I can't tell which.

The audience, mostly comprised of fellow members of the Harmonica Federation and their wives, averages about 65.4 years old. They look much more like Exhibit A here than aging rockers or jazz men. None have a full head of hair. Most are wearing strange acrylic sweaters with colours and patterns not found in nature and the required pants of the Federation appear to be grey wool slacks. Two out of the three women in the audience wear the kind of glasses that turn into sunglasses when you go outside. They eyeball me with a mixture of interest and suspicion. Perhaps they suspect me of being a groupie.

Curly lurches forward in a bow as we applaud his rendition of Van Morrison's classic. He checks the CD case and points to a track. His follow up hit? 'Feelings.' As in 'nothing more than... feeeeeeelings.' Some of the crowd, and when I say crowd I mean fifteen people in a space that could easily fit sixty, ohhs and ahhs in recognition of the song. A table of chaps chatters amicably, saying, 'D'accord, d'accord.' Curly's wife looks bored. One man, shortish and in his 70s, stands rigidly near his instrument, reading something. A strange-looking man with a shock of white hair and a rose-embroidered satchel picks his nose. I will later discover he is wearing a floor-length black cape.

An older woman comes into the cafe and sits at my table. The space is too bright and too empty for her to be sitting this close, but nothing about this experience has followed any rules of regular Saturday afternoon experience, so I am not surprised. She removes her scarf but not her coat. She looks lonely and a little bit sad, but later in the song, in my peripheral vision, I see her foot moving with the beat of the Casio keyboard back beat.

Sadly, 'Feelings' is the closer. Curly clomps off the stage to a few claps on the back from his compatriots and no one else steps up to the stage. I am extremely disappointed. But my boxed red wine is running low anyhow, so I knock the rest back and prepare to leave. I'm shoving my notebook into my bag when I notice one of the men noodling on his harp. He's wandering through the space between the tables, running up and down a melody. I watch intently, hoping a jam will start up. Curly, seeing me and sensing a captive audience, takes up the largest harmonica I have ever seen in my life – it looks like he's eating a bronto rib from the Flintstones – and begins playing.

The other man, shorter and older than Curly, takes the lead harmonica, sticking with the melody, while Curly becomes the rhythm section. It's an old-fashioned cafe song and Shorty is unbelievable on his solo. Oral dexterity is not something you would think if you saw him. But Curly, that ham, is stealing focus, puffing away at his bronto rib like it was a tuba. The song ends and we burst into applause. They oblige us with another. This time a third player joins in with another bronto rib harp. It's a waltz with Curly's rhythm section oom-pa-pa-ing in the background as Shorty's notes swirl around us. The atmosphere is jubilant and I feel like clapping. The old gal beside me is getting into it, too. At the end of the song, we all say 'Hey!' and clap.

Mr. Serious, the one standing ramrod straight and reading, takes up his instrument and noodles a bit. Another man with a big white beard noodles as well. But nothing comes of it because neither one appears willing to concede the rhythm section. Can't have two soloists, you see. A jam doesn't materialize and then all of a sudden everyone is standing and putting on grey windbreakers. The lady beside me slowly winds her scarf back around her neck and the brief magic ends in a flurry of small talk about next rehearsals and church suppers.