~ special thanks to l’homme moderne [w] for shipping our rhodia blocs and our cafetiere and coffee tumbler. we have always held the cafetiere in contempt, perhaps because they look too cheap to produce decent coffee. however, upon discovering no coffee machine of any type at chez vidal, we needed to provide our own and made sure to find the cheapest item in barbes, for sure, but this machine proved surprisingly fun and simple to use—certainly simpler than the french press. we’ve run a dozen cups through it in the past 2 days; who would have figured that we would turn on our beloved french press?

the cafetiere could not have arrived too soon, as we just learned this week that coffee produced with the french press is extremely high in ‘cafestol’; we do not know what the fuck that is, but we’ve been assured that it is ‘bad’ for human health.

we feel dirty using the cafetiere; it seems fit only to serve after spending the night amongst apple cores and rotten madelines on the tile floor in a dark tenement behind gare du nord – filled with chain store robusta, heated on a hot plate, and served in a chipped plastic bowl.

maybe we should just invest in a smaller french press, so we aren’t brewing 2 liters at a time, which is the main problem when drinking alone.

~ in honor of jt, who complains as much that we don’t update this site as he carries on about npelosi, green line cafe quote:

“nancy pelosi is kind of cute”
“who?”

~ we aren’t allowed to comment on cafe tableaux [w], but there are some fallacies in a recent comment about their review for double shots espresso bar which deserve a small bit of our attention:

(errors from original post) “Hmm, I frequent this shop quite often and there doesn”t seem to be any books DISPLAYED but many are on some bookshelves along with many other works. WiFi is FREE and I use it for school work quite often but I guess if you stayed more than the 12 seconds you would have found that out. Maybe one should not be so quick to make judgements about books considering we all do have the right of freedom of speech (just like the freedom to write our thoughts online)” –shawn

» thos [w] wasn’t ‘quick’ with his judgment about the ‘drudge manifesto’; he was aware of the politics of drudge before entering the cafe, so there was no judgment about the material being made on the spot. thomas had long known the text to be partisan, kool-aid propaganda.

more importantly, the fact that there is such a thing as ‘freedom of speech’ does not absolve anyone from being judged. the conceptual gap between your whining that drudge should not be judged and your ‘defense’ of free speech is large enough to roll an f-150 through it. nothing is more embarrassing than seeing someone cry about their right to expression by bitching when someone else expresses a contrary view. shawn and drudge have the freedom to say or write whatever they want, and thos has the right to tear their drivel a new one.

in any event, at no time did thos claim that drudge did not have the right to espouse drivel; thos stated that he did not desire to ‘support a cafe that displays…Drudge’. the difference between these positions can not be made more clear.

» when a book is placed in the center of a shelf with its face turned to the room whilst every other book shows only the spine, that qualifies as a ‘prominent display’

» thos looked up double shots online at the time of review; they state that wireless access requires payment.

~ as cafe tableaux [w] continues to frame the cafe experience in a more polished, cultivated manner than that in which it has been discussed in the past, upenn reintroduces us to the base standards which are held by the typical coffee ‘fan’ with whom we share the streets:

“[Penn Current] bought ‘small’ cups of regular coffee from six local coffee shops, cafes, and other stores…”

• starbucks
• cosi
• au bon pain
• bucks county coffee
• wawa
• dunkin donuts

~ until that coffee review site by those sisyphean [w] guys is set up, we’ll just say here that the only male barista at tuscany is an uptight bastard – standing and holding the cap over you as you add soymilk to your coffee, then pouring it himself when you go back for refills. stand down, jackass; we will use all of your soymilk if we choose, then you can go buy more.

~ this past holiday, we saw a glimpse of information regarding the notion that karl rove was the source for the revelation of the identity of cia operative valerie plame. ‘surprisingly’, however, the headlines since that moment have been about a kidnapped little girl, unless you delve into newsweek [w] and countdown [w] and, of course, ted rall [w].

~ “If they gave the award based on presentation, we would have won,” [nyc mayor] Bloomberg said.

too bad they give the award based on merit, substance, and bribery! those guys from the work.group should be heartened.

~ although it provides rich and ample fodder for musings on surface and artifacts, philadelphia has been a punishing drought when our literary motivation seeks to take root. not since the early days of the manhattan project [+] have we felt like such hacks, pirating lines from rabble in the street – this time splicing it w/ the work of other members of the work.group.

~ chain grocery store quote: ‘life is hard, you know. do you think you can work with those olives?’

~ this ‘quote’ was relayed to us by a third party, but as we were mere feet away from the exchange, peeping out pre-3ds brickwork, we feel as though we were there. basically, this is a fictionalized account: ‘order me a raspberry steamer. or strawberry.’

~ laugna beach. sunburn. coffee. ‘east is east.’ parking ticket. broken cd drive. coffee.

~ i owe some old bastard (see 2000.03.19) an apology; it appears that they *do* have a ‘regular’ size at the coffee b**n and t** l**f. sorry, you old bastard.

~ speaking of coffee, the new hobby of visitors to my desk seems to be to spill some on me and my belongings. today mr. rotondi took the opportunity to pour a good 12 ounces of auto drip across my desk. afterwards, however, he mopped it up with his own handkerchief. pretty noble.

~ it was a long freaking day at the angry red office‘. about 15 minutes after my arrival, a german appeared at my desk to ask for instructions on using power point; as i explained, he knocked my still scalding cup of coffee onto my lap. an hour later, my sixth los angeles roommate – another german – appeared at my desk to check up on me; she told me that i look ‘exhausted’, which was true, and that i am ‘killing’ myself, which – this is according to her – is okay at my age. my neck is still killing me from my last bit of sleep that was done quite unfortunately in a seated position. i finally had some ‘arabian pizza’ which had been arousing my curiosity for several weeks; i was sick before getting halfway down the hall between the angry red office and the lounge.

~ food @ sciarc: this was in the vending machine a few days ago, but now it is gone. my biggest fear is that someone ate them, but there is always hope that they are being used as material in a model or a ‘concept’. the packaging troubles me; there are pictures of apples and pineapples, which are not ‘sour’, and pictures of dinosaurs and bears, which are not ‘worms’. i’m going to be sick again.

~
   one of them: what is that, balsamic vinegar?
   me: i don’t know, someone left it on my desk. (i drink)
   one of them: is that coffee?
   me: why would i be drinking coffee from a marinara jar?
   one of them: because you’re saucemaster.
   …..

~ after boycotting a certain coffee chain for 36 hours, i returned this morning, as i found nothing in my quick search – one street – around playa del rey. by the time i got there, the line was out the door, giving me too much time to listen to the old and ornery wastes behind me: ‘they should have two lines, one for fancy *hit and one for a straight pour’, ‘or one line for veterans and one for out of work actors’, ‘how does kuwait have the *ucking nerve?’, ‘everyone thinks this country is a bunch of *ussies’, ‘this is why i never go east of lincoln‘.
   after all their whining about how coffee should be ordered and dispensed, i expected to hear them deliver simple, straightforward orders. one of the old bastards orders a ‘half caf half reg’; the other has to ask for the day’s flavors before he orders a ‘regular’ size, as though there was an ‘irregular’ size.

~ tonight, i entered studio to find someone sprayfixing one of ‘my’ postcards to her foamcore model. sat least she’s doing something.