A Good Post Title is Rich in Keywords…

Originally Posted on January 24, 2007 Last Updated on May 2, 2019

A piece of banana blueberry muffin that I dropped the other day is still hanging around as I drop my coat, scarf and empty laptop bag to the ground behind my chair. I don’t mind it so much, or really at all, as I have issues with cleanliness but keeping it sorted at home allows me to enjoy it abroad. The silly cartoonish paintings of goats sorting coffee beans and all drawn with different styles that covers a large pillar that runs across the length of the place gives me the impression that the US will never quite get the idea of a hip European coffeehouse, and the thought doesn’t make me entirely unhappy.

The barista — as they’re calling themselves I guess, I was personally always more happy with “coffee guy” or, were my genitals reversed, “java hoe” I suppose — is an actress who admits that this is her real job to the man ordering ahead of me, but only after he says something to her along the lines of “someday when you get a real job“. People assume that coffee shop girls or Wal*Mart associates don’t have the ellusive “real job” but I’ve always wondered where the line is drawn between having a career and being seen as having just a temporary job. Are construction workers employed in “real jobs”? How about maintenance men? Janitors? A janitor at McDonalds?

I’d be more comfortable in the knowledge that only the hoity rich assume that a job at the Dairy Queen is beneath them and therefore not a real job, but I think we all know that I probably think the same way to a degree and the guy at Dairy Queen most likely isn’t going around bragging about his promising future with the Dilly Bar.

That customer leaves and the barista and I are left alone for a few minutes, before the regular morning guy — bald, chewing but rarely smoking, a cigar, and always on his laptop working diligently away, even when the WiFi is down — he comes rolling in, orders up whatever it is he gets and makes his way to the exact opposite corner that I sit in.

I like this particular corner. All windows to the left and behind, leaving my screen exposed to any passers-by, and staring right into the sculpture of a goat’s ass and giant blue balls. They love goats around here, and presumably celebrate their balls. Okay, I admit it, it’s the goat’s utters. But they are blue. That’s what they call art, my friends.

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Discussion

chad 24 Jan 2007

damnit. it just hit me about something. the way you’ve been writing when you’re at this coffee/work thing. the way it’s, “I’m at this place, here’s a paragraph about what I see, here’s a paragraph or two about insightful meanderings, ending paragraph about one of the things I told you about in this place I’m in continuing or changing what they were doing.”

it’s like my favorite. you know who it’s just like? the almighty sven lindqvist i’m always writing valentine’s letters about.

it’s no more interesting, but he goes to the sahara and tells me a page or so about things he sees there, then throws in some horribly interesting insight and thought-throughfulness, then about the history of gross death that the europeans wreaked on the area and though black heads and tongues set splayed on their own spears, back home the social darwinists and leading other scientific types were typing encycolpedias and medical journals about how stupid you were if you didn’t cross your arms and nod your head knowingly, when you saw the black and white photos of such victory brought home by your older brother whose best friend *lost a limb* while fighting!

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nathan 25 Jan 2007

That sounds interesting. Does he have a blog? heh.

Yeah I’ve realized as of late that this is always what I’ve been best at, writing-wise.

Novels are too much of a commitment, and even short stories with plots and made up characters…well, it’s hard to really come up with something original. I don’t know if originality is a big factor in writing when it comes to plots, or just the way that you write it, if that’s a somewhat original style in a world of everything being derivative in some form or another.

But just sitting around and writing observations and thoughts, that’s not only very doable, but infinitely enjoyable to me. I was thinking it was similar to Bukowski though I guess he writes more poem style things. And I hear he’s an asshole…

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chad 25 Jan 2007

never heard of him, but exactly. and plus, i think this kind of writing better suits the tastes of this a.d.d. generation – as i think we’re starting to be called. i can understand when someone tells me what they’re seeing or thinking, but a freaking story?? how am i supposed to wrap my head around that. well, not really, but really.

i noticed something else when reading your post, too. i was reminded of one of the first convictions i ever came to in life. beauty is in the eye of the beholder – isn’t really it, but *is* it, basically, with *it* being that the creativity of the mind reading the words can be as important as the words the writer wrote. although, this may not be true, really.

i remember that when i read about ‘cars parking’ in a recent post of yours, i so vividly pictured old snow clumped stubbornly on their bumpers. you didn’t need to say that there was old snow clumped stubbornly on their bumpers, you just had to allow me to picture cold weather and cars parking. and i did. and it was great.

when i try to write, i try to cram every single thing in that i want you to picture. i usually don’t get very far. i get overwhelmed.

now, before i continue, i don’t want you thinking that i think that you don’t write in a detailed fashion, every reader here would know that that assertion would be blasphemy. but when you write as you do in these posts, one sentence about something just somehow *is* enough. instead of forcing my analytical mind to read and decipher every detail, i’m allowed to let my creative mind to whip up the setting – which it does quickly and with unwritable detail, but more importantly – with an accompanying feeling of home. i sigh with familiarity and hold to my heart the detail of your adventure. i’m there with you because i get to picture some of what’s there, as opposed to being oppressed by exact reality of what you see.

this is also why i like sven lindqvist. his writing has been described as pared down and bare. so i get to dress it. now, he still gets to conduct the story – i should emphasize. but i feel like i’m playing a part, too, now, and so i’ll go whereever he goes. we go together, we do.

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nathan 25 Jan 2007

Great way to put it. I definitely have had conscious thoughts like “oh, that’d be too much” when describing situations.

I think that mastery is all about eluding to things, or even more, making people picture scenes or draw conclusions that you wanted them to without actually stating it.

For example, if it were my intent to make you think of snow on the back of bumpers in that post you’re referring to, I’d be a master.

It probably wasn’t, though. But we’ll never know.

I also like the TV show Scrubs alot.

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chad 25 Jan 2007

hahahaha me too! i almost cried yesterday when i had to leave for work instead of watch the end of it..

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nathan 25 Jan 2007

Yeah, that’s one of the best parts…the end.

Or at least, how the entire show is so on point funny and then they do the touching wrap up almost perfectly every single time.

I wonder how much of it that “JD” writes…as he is the creator, and he wrote Garden State too I believe.

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