I met my first Neanderthal in a café in Paris, just across the street from the Jussieu metro stop. It was a wet afternoon in May, and I was sitting on a banquette with my back to the window. The café was smoky and charmless. Near the entrance a couple of students were thumping on a pinball machine called Genesis, which beeped approval every time they scored. The place was packed with people--foreign students, professors, young professionals, French workers, Arabs, Africans, and even a couple of Japanese tourists, all thrown together by the rain. Our coffee had just arrived, and I found that if I tucked my elbow down when raising my cup, I could drink it without poking the ribs of a bearded man sitting at the table next to me, who was deep into an argument.
Above the noise of the pinball game and the din of private ...
