There is a certain image that I think many people have when someone says the words "coffee house." I don't feel that on a whole this is the same image that comes to mind with the words "coffee shop" or "coffee bar." I think that by now Starbucks has become the dominant image evoked by things like "coffee shop" or just "coffee." But, there is still a certain nostalgia associated with "coffee house" that I feel hasn't been accessible to Starbucks.
A coffee house just seems like a place that must be independent, or locally owned, and it must have tables and a menu, and a few unusual drinks that don't just involve different versions of blended sugar. It also needs to be a place where you can gather in a reasonable number and enjoy a mellow atmosphere where the majority of the people come in to stay for some time, not rush in for their caffeine addiction fix and then rush back out again in with their paper and plastic cups.
Last night Boyfriend and I set out for a Coffee House. We wanted a place that was not Starbucks, that hopefully would serve us drinks in porcelain cups (rather than paper), and that we could comfortably sit in for some undetermined amount of time.
It took quite some time. We went into the city armed with a list, and we did not have much success locating the places we were supposed to have encountered. But, in the end, what this did was encourage us to get out of the car and get on foot. Driving in a city is madness, and deciding where to park is far more important. We also have learned to adapt to the concept that walking several blocks, often for hours at a time, is a natural state of being.
We parked on 2nd and Morrison in an underground garage that charges $5 for the entire night (up to 6am). I was in favor of this rather than some of the $4 for the evening places that are exposed to street traffic. Not that my 1998 Acura 2.3CL really poses an exciting target, but I prefer not to take a chance when it's the difference of a dollar. This was a garage that closed its doors for those who did not have a code to get into it past an hour, and had a watchman. So, we left the burdensome car there, and went out on foot.
We started this journey at around 7pm. We did not even come to a destination until 9pm. I want to make this clear from the beginning because this is the difference between living in a suburb and living near or in a city. You just can't look at the idea of walking for two hours around several blocks to find something as an impossible task. And yes, we were walking that entire time. Sometimes we would be standing for the few seconds waiting for the Walk Sign, and even less frequently to stop and read a menu to see if we wanted to stop and eat food at a particular place, but in general, that was spent going around a rather ordinary sized radius of streets in search of an open coffee house.
This lead us to several interesting things. First was finding the legendary Voodoo Donuts, a most unusual donut shop, where we purchased a Voodoo man donut. It's a delicious chocolate iced donut, in the vague shape of a voodoo doll, with a pretzel stabbed through its painted on heart, with a sweet raspberry jam filling. This gave us some extra energy, to continue our search for a coffee place. We did locate two of the three Stumptown, a local chain of coffee shops, places, and while we purchased an 80z coffee for me and a 16oz tea for Boyfriend there, we did not stay. While I pointed out and greatly appreciated the use of stirring spoons, rather than straws or wooden stirrers, I was dismayed at the amount of paper cup waste that seems to be a large part of every Starbucks influenced coffee shop.
I will skip the details of the walking and searching, except to say that we did encounter a man using plastic tubs and the street lamp nearby, and I got to explain "busking" to Boyfriend. I was a little surprised that he hadn't ever encountered the word before, but I suppose if you aren't aware of those who earn their money with street performances in either fiction or reality, the word doesn't come into your vocabulary.
We eventually ended up in the same area we frequently go to when we go into the city, and we were going down a street that we had gone on when a friend of mine had visited us. We had seen a chocolate/coffee place that in my research had been given very good reviews, and walked toward where it was likely to have been. It's called Sweet Masterpieces, and that title can be slightly misleading. Yes, they have a rather impressive selection of delicious chocolate and dessert based foods, but they have a breakfast, lunch, and dinner menu as well.
Our hope, in going in, was that it would be a place we could stay for awhile. When we inquired for their closing time, the server informed us that it was midnight, so we were welcome to stay as long as we'd really like (that would have been three hours, a rather long time to remain in a place these days). We immediately ordered some food and a drink for me. I got an eggplant sandwich, while Boyfriend got an "Aztec Chicken Panini" that seemed very delicious. I was happy with my slightly more bland eggplant/basil creation, as I ordered a Mayan Hot Chocolate, which was flavored primarily by espresso, orange, and chili powder. It had a very pleasantly rich texture, with a taste of orange chocolate, and a spicy finish.
Later, Boyfriend also ordered a peanut butter meringue, which was surprisingly good according to him (meringues really aren't large enough to share, and I was enjoying the end results of my drink by then). I have never been impressed with meringues, but he seemed well pleased by it.
Though we had brought a card game to play, we ended up being far more interested in talking than playing a hand of Squarrels.
Most of our conversation related to a webcomic we are both very fond of, Girl Genius, that is a self-described "gaslamp fantasy" (as opposed to steampunk). We were discussing certain aspects of the comic that led into two significant conversations:
1. Mistresses and Minions (or Leaders and Followers)--My conclusion of examining certain values in both American and Japanese society is that sometimes we put too much value on only one of the two possible choices of being a Leader or Follower. I also feel that in our American society, the roll of the "minion" is vastly underrated and generally misunderstood. I feel that by putting increasing pressure on all people to display what are called "leadership qualities" we impose an increasing amount of psychological discomfort on those who are simply not meant to be leaders.
One of things that we feel has been overlooked by our social values is that "minions" (followers) are not necessarily weak people. I feel that this is how our society attempts to explain the existence of followers: they are merely weak people who are failing to display their leadership abilities. Not everyone is made to be a leader, or even has the capacity for it. Leading necessitates being able to gather a group of disorganized people and motivate them toward a chosen goal, or to create solutions to problems on the fly and convince others to carrying these orders out. There are some people who are simply always going to be better at comprehending an order and coming up with a way to follow through on it.
This is not to say that all people who are natural followers are mindless drones. I brought in the example of Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" in which Ender proves his military prowess by allowing his immediate underlings a certain amount of manoeuvrability and autonomy by presenting each with an end goal, and leaving the execution of the goal to the discretion of each "squad leader." That Ender is their leader is not questioned--they follow his orders, but they in turn give orders to those who give orders and so on. There are levels of minionhood, but it all comes back to the fact that there are those who are meant to lead people, and those who are meant to feel more comfortable with a goal to follow through on.
The psychological discomfort can come from both extremes: in Japan where following and willingness to follow orders is placed on a social pedestal of aspiration, it can be very difficult to accept a compulsion to forge ones own plans and goals. Being a leader in a social situation where leadership is not something that should be sought after, or even something that can be earned through ability alone, can cause someone who is meant to be a "Mistress" into the role of a "minion" and just as a "minion" cannot be a good "mistress" so cannot a "Mistress" be a good "Minion."
2. Vertical Expansion In Place of Horizontal--This is a concept I have been toying with in a vaguely science fiction sort of way, as an alternative radical solution to our ecological situation. I realize that it would be almost impossible to implement during the next 60 or so years, which is the estimated length of time I have left to live, so it's not something that could ever be achieved while I was around to see it. But, I still think that it should be put out there as a solution to be considered.
It's a simple enough concept in generalities. The idea is to stop the sprawl of humanity outwards and focus entirely on going upwards: that is, to build more houses/shops/buildings in general up rather than out. I suggest putting humanity into a relatively small space, as in the manner of a city, and create a world that uses the aerial space rather than land space for habitation and storage of goods and services.
This would be, in fact, not to deal with an ever increasing amount of humanity, but to reclaim a much greater portion of the planet for what we call nature. I would propose a forced removal of humanity from large portions of the planet, to be put into these "human reservations" called "cities" and to have the homes and habitats of humanity destroyed to make way for nature. There would be an emphasis on making room for more ways on sustainable resources, such as the example of forests and trees. Rather than continually cutting down a large forest, lumber would be harvested on a rotation of anywhere from 20 to 30 years. As you can imagine, this would require a large amount of the world to be dedicated to the growth of forest and trees. Hence the necessity of moving humanity out of the space.
Additionally, both food and farming with sustainable practice would require more space so as to avoid the creation of genetic engineering to remake food using potentially lifethreatening practices (such as using a virus in order to introduce a new string of genetic code to "perfect" a tomato). This would also redefine the amount of space allocated for animals, should a sizeable portion of humanity still desire a significant portion of their food to be animal meat.
Ultimately, the goal would be to give back a great deal of the space we have stolen from other creatures on the planet, and to recreate our concept of what we are entitled to as human beings. But, the most crucial point, the sticking point as you might say, is that this cannot be enacted with 8+ billion people. It simply isn't possible. But, this leads back to the theory that I, and many environmental scientists, ascribe to, which is that we are already past the point of being even capable numerically of sustainability. There are simply too much of us on the planet, in sheer numbers, to create a system to function on a level of sustaining this amount. Even if there was no additional growth from now onwards, we couldn't manage.
Simply speaking, something as radical as this vertical over horizontal expansion, would essentially require the human race to be halved, at least. 4 billion might still be too many, and the number might need to be only 2 to 3 billion, or even less if certain practices will not be given up (like private use cars for vast majority of citizen, plastic storage, styrofoam usage, paper wrappings for food in many establishments, etc). But, it is an alternative to consider, if we could bear to accept that humanity may not be the most important aspect of the planet.
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Those were our two driving conversations. Around 11:45pm, we wrapped it up, and left the coffee house. We walked the few blocks back to the car, and talked about trivial things for the ten minutes it takes to drive back to our apartment home. All in all, it was a great evening. It seems strange to think about how radically our concept of living could change, and how much it needs to change, while perpetuating the way we are living just by doing ordinary, daily practices.
But just as I feel that we will NOT come up with a viable way of truly recycling until our trash becomes our most common resource, we will NOT change our way of living until we stare our End in the face and come to grips with the fact that we are going to self-destruct in a meaningful way. Right now, it's too far away. It's not OUR problem. Only a few people have truly begun to panic. When that number is the majority, this is when we will see real change. It may not be in time to save humanity, but I think that we are the only ones who will mourn that fact.
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