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and Simone de Beauvoir at the Café Procope,
circa 1948
[Image Copyright: Yves Manciet]
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Hadley Hemingway, and three unidentified
people at a cafe in Pamplona, Spain, July 1925.
[Photograph in the Ernest Hemingway Photograph
Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library
and Museum, Boston.]
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Laura Wood (from The Thinking Housewife) has a post on "artisanal" pizza, which really rang a bell since I read it just as I came in from my local mall.
I generally hate going to the mall, but there are times when I have no choice. After finishing my errands, I sometimes sit in one of the "coffee shops" and have some coffee while reading a (Vogue) magazine.
My choices are between the "international" Starbucks, or the Canadian alternative Timothy's (or Timothy's World Coffee, as it describes itself, which is a misnomer, since it now caters only to Canadians). Timothy’s has quite good, plain coffee. But there's a long list of dark/medium/light roasts of various exotic names and all those liqueur flavors to choose from, as is now common in coffee chains like Timothy's and Starbucks. Timothy’s interior is distinct, with dark wood furniture and paneling (which looks like cherrywood) and a dark blue color theme. It is easy to recognize from afar, like one can recognize a McDonalds or a Kentucky Fried Chicken (or a Pizza Hut).
Timothy's is the perfect "artisanal" coffee shop. It tries to look intimate, yet it is completely generic and pre-fabricated. One Timothy's is like any other Timothy's.
And a mall is a mall, despite attempts to "humanize" it. Stores in malls, which are all part of larger chains, try to look intimate and unique, but are just spaces behind glass boxes. Timothy's fits right into a mall. About 3/4 of Timothy's coffee shops are in malls or indoor/underground shopping complexes.
Timothy's is always crowded. Some patrons sit for extended periods of time sipping coffee with book in hand. Others type frantically on their keyboards while staring at glaring monitor screens. It's never clear if they are writing the next masterpiece or browsing through their email. Those that come to socialize don’t stay long. What can they talk about, anyway, that would warrant a long conversation while drinking cold coffee (refills are rarely available, unlike local diners or restaurants)? Many simply have their coffee "on the go" opting for a styrofoam cup they can carry and sip from as they rush about.
There was a coffee culture that flourished in Europe from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. There were the Viennese Coffee Houses and the Parisian café society, where a cosmopolitan group of famous artists created and discussed their works. Some revolutions (or revolutionary ideas) even started in coffee houses. Shop owners seemed happy to have these colorful characters around. I doubt any of Timothy’s patrons are working on a literary masterpiece, or planning the logistics of a Cultural Revolution. And what can one imagine or create in the hollows of a city’s underground, far from the bright reality of the outside world? Better to sit, if only briefly, in the hidden depths of an almost friendly coffee shop, and forget one's discontents.
The coffee fetish is strong, and I do admit that I am a reluctant member of that group. But I could put it to good use, and start a whole analysis of coffee in modern culture, like The Thinking Housewife’s periodic pizza reports.