By William C. Triplett

If you’re ever going to feel like you’ve somehow wandered into an absurdist play, I suppose it’s fitting that it happens as it did to me on a cold, drizzly afternoon in Paris last December, in the 14th arrondissement on the Left Bank, where I was traipsing up and down the lovely tree-lined promenade that divides the traffic lanes of Avenue René Coty, in search of Allée Samuel Beckett.