Sunday, March 02, 2003
Sunday, March 02, 2003 8:03 AM. CAFE ELECTRIQUE
That's espresso with a tot of crystal meth, said to have been the bevvie of choice among the local equivalent of rickshaw boys in 'Nam-era Saigon. Now that would've made for a different sort of Third Place...
"Third Place" comes from THE THIRD PLACE, a book I'm too lazy to google for you this morning. It was published, I seem to recall, slightly pre-Starbuck's, and may even have provided inspiration.
In any case, as several people have now remarked, it's really not about the coffee. And it's evidently a generational issue, largely, as to how much Starbuck's sucks or doesn't. Those old enough to remember the world of North American coffee (or, God help us, UK coffee) prior to Starbuck's are inclined to forgive a great many faux-Murano lampshades.
Number me among them. Aside from making it possible to readily ingest really pretty damn good coffee just about anywhere, Starbuck's also deserves some credit for having inadvertently birthed a back-market of Anti-Starbuck's, everything from hole-in-wall-with-thrift-shop-sofa operations to the indie-coffee equivalents of The Tattered Cover. If Starbuck's wasn't there, these guys wouldn't be either. (And a lot of them don't make as good drinks as Starbuck's, if you get right down to it.)
Starbuck's culture note: On the east side of Vancouver, where fewer rich folks traditionally live, and freak flags are traditionally flown a bit higher, I know of two Starbuck's where the dress code for staff has either been abandoned entirely or so willfully subverted that the home office might be thought to wish it had been. I'm curious: Does this happen elsewhere? When did you last see a Starbuck's barista wearing neither black, khaki, nor green, and where? "Alternative" neighborhood? Could this actually be *policy*?
[William Gibson]
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 2:14:40 PM -
That's espresso with a tot of crystal meth, said to have been the bevvie of choice among the local equivalent of rickshaw boys in 'Nam-era Saigon. Now that would've made for a different sort of Third Place...
"Third Place" comes from THE THIRD PLACE, a book I'm too lazy to google for you this morning. It was published, I seem to recall, slightly pre-Starbuck's, and may even have provided inspiration.
In any case, as several people have now remarked, it's really not about the coffee. And it's evidently a generational issue, largely, as to how much Starbuck's sucks or doesn't. Those old enough to remember the world of North American coffee (or, God help us, UK coffee) prior to Starbuck's are inclined to forgive a great many faux-Murano lampshades.
Number me among them. Aside from making it possible to readily ingest really pretty damn good coffee just about anywhere, Starbuck's also deserves some credit for having inadvertently birthed a back-market of Anti-Starbuck's, everything from hole-in-wall-with-thrift-shop-sofa operations to the indie-coffee equivalents of The Tattered Cover. If Starbuck's wasn't there, these guys wouldn't be either. (And a lot of them don't make as good drinks as Starbuck's, if you get right down to it.)
Starbuck's culture note: On the east side of Vancouver, where fewer rich folks traditionally live, and freak flags are traditionally flown a bit higher, I know of two Starbuck's where the dress code for staff has either been abandoned entirely or so willfully subverted that the home office might be thought to wish it had been. I'm curious: Does this happen elsewhere? When did you last see a Starbuck's barista wearing neither black, khaki, nor green, and where? "Alternative" neighborhood? Could this actually be *policy*?
[William Gibson]
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 2:14:40 PM -
The ever-growing Laurie Garrett saga. Laurie Garrett is the author of The Coming Plague. read her initial email andher response, She got to hobnob with the powerful at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. She sent out a personal email discussing her experience that got out on the WWW. Now, while there are all sorts of ethical aspects of this, in today's world, the expectation is that emails are not private, that aything you write may get out. We are told this all the time. I found her email engrossing. The leaders of the world do come across as real people with their own viewpoints. She may actually have done a nice job describing the powerful without the filters usually placed on journalism. While it may be scary to think that the leaders are not superhuman, I am actually pleased. She showed that some awfully smart people are involved in the world. They are as pessimistic today as they used to be optimistic 3 years ago. You really only try to change things when you think that they need to be changed. I think we are in for some changes. Just as the Consumer Age changed political institutions, so the Information Age will but in ways that will only look obvious in hindsight. [A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog]
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 8:56:09 AM -
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 8:56:09 AM -
Tom Lehrer: Is He Still Alive?. "I don't want to satirise George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporise them." The unsubtle words of legendary musical satirist Tom Lehrer in a new interview for an Australian newspaper. (The interviewer notes: "he quickly adds: 'And that's not funny.'"...several paragraphs later.) The man who gave us "The Vatican Rag" and "The Masochism Tango", not to mention the recently MeFi-ed "The Elements", before being mostly quiet for 30-some years (His last interview I found on the web was with The Onion in '00) sounds off on the sorry state of satire, plus a look at his 'controversial' Australian tour in 1960, and some words about America's space program that a lot of y'all ain't gonna like... [MetaFilter]
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 8:46:42 AM -
- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 8:46:42 AM -
