4 days ago
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- New York Times
Extra! Extra! Read All About Last Newspaper Hawker in Paris
Among the literary cafes and the chic boutiques of the St.-Germain-des-Prés quartier of Paris, an impish man with a wad of newspapers makes the rounds, his trademark cry of 'Ça y est!' or 'That's it!' echoing down narrow cobblestone streets.
Ali Akbar of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, is a man with a ready smile who has been hawking newspapers for a half-century. Sometimes he spices his offerings with made-up stories. 'Ça y est! The war is over, Putin asks forgiveness!' was one recent pitch that caused grim hilarity.
From the Café de Flore to the Brasserie Lipp, two famed establishments where food and culture are intertwined, Mr. Akbar plies a dying trade in a dwindling commodity. He is considered to be the last newspaper hawker in France.
The profession may have reached its zenith in Paris in 1960, when Jean Seberg was immortalized on film with several newspapers under her arm crying 'New York Herald Tribune!' as she strolled on the Champs-Élysées pursued by Jean-Paul Belmondo.
Nobody in Jean-Luc Godard's classic movie 'Breathless' is buying The Trib except Belmondo, who is unhappy the paper has no horoscope but unhappier still to discover that his charm makes little impression on the beauty and faux American innocence of Seberg, yet another foreigner smitten by Paris and angling to make a buck.
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