Jim Haynes

If anyone should be named cultural ambassador in Paris, it would be Jim Haynes - without any doubt. But Jim's place in the 14th arrondissement, in a courtyard of 1930s style brick,metal beam and glass artists studios, on 83 rue de la Tombe-Issoire, is more than just an embassy, it is a gallery, a publishing “kitchen”, a meeting place of many nationalities not only limited to American expatriates, but open to people of nationalities from the east, west, north and south. Here liaisons and unions are made, ideas developed, news exchanged, and on his special Sunday evening dinners, plenty of meals cooked by his friends (with his ever helping hand stacking pots and pants and getting the stove ready on time) are consumed in the company of dozens of world citizen accompanied by wine, fruit juices, tea or coffee, from 8 till 11.

Everybody naturally contributes for the expenses of the dinners a reasonable amount which gives one the right to eat a buffet type meal hard to find anywhere else in gay Paris and fill one's craving stomach, and exchange ideas and in the company of like- and open - minded people.

I met Jim in the 1980s after Henry Miller's death, on the behest of the then editor of Stroker magazine, Irving Stettner. I returned a few times and met Xaviera Hollander whose long-time friend ship still lasts, and my first wife in Paris, mother of my first son, Solomon. It was a fun time, Paris in springtime, and the cold war was still on the agenda, but Jim had contacts in Eastern Europe, as well as Germany (the Frankfurter Buchmesse) and Edingburgh, where he had started the first fringe festival.

He seemed to be traveling a lot – his passion – meeting people all over the world, and had just published a very unpretentious book in homage of Henry Miller who had lived nearby on Villa Seurat when he published his Tropic of Cancer in 1934.

Jim Haynes was born in Louisiana, spent his youth in Venezuela, and went to university in Louisiana. He then visited Scotland and attended the University of Edinburgh. In 1962 he organized with John Calder and Sonia Orwell the Writer's Conference and later on the Drama Conference, from where it was only one step towards the creation of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

After a stint in swinging London of the late 1960s, her moved to Amsterdam, and was invited to the University of Paris 8 as a professor of Media Studies and Sexual Politics. He did that for 30 years.

In the meantime he founded the World Government Embassy that never closes due to its success and overwhelming popularity, until he was arrested with a bunch of passports in his bag as he was leaving Munich in 1972 during the Olympics, and had to explain what kind of activity he was into; somehow he talked himself out of customs custody by inviting one of the officers to become a honorary member.

It was in 1973 that Mike and Martine Zwerin invited him to move into 83 rue de la Tombe Issoire. The rest is history.

He seems to be forever young and going, in terrific good spirits, and his place is placarded with quotes and reminders that to stay at home and make some money may be the best way to spend one's life. He seems to have succeeded - successfully!

Visit Jim's website