The Coffee Spoon Addendum

This might be a little risqué, but I thought I would share a few paragraphs of a Swedish news story with you. Incidentally, the original news story is available here: http://www.thelocal.se/9945/20080211/

The Ombudsman's title in Swedish is, apparently, Ombudsmannen mot diskriminering på grund av sexuell läggning. In an attempt to discover where on earth this acronym was pulled from, I consulted my trusty Wikipedia:

The term HomO is used both to refer to the office, currently with a staff of seven, and as the title of its government-appointed acting head, at present HomO Hans Ytterberg. HomO is the officially mandated short form, but is not a true acronym or abbreviation. Instead the word alludes to both homo = homosexual and to traditional Swedish ombudsman abbreviations which do expand into descriptive terms, such as JämO = JämställdhetsOmbudsmannen (Equal Opportunities Ombudsman).

HomO Hans Ytterberg. His official title. Oh, how I miss Sweden.

Menus and Metal Cabinets.

My satchel was nearly bursting with the weight of newly-purchased books. I strained to lift it over my head, to remove my camera. Sure, I realised this made me appear to be a tourist, but that was a misunderstanding under which I could happily labour. It would make me look interesting. A traveller, a nomad, a mystery.

I remembered how it felt, being a traveller. How ordering a beer, in a foreign language, made me feel special, detached, an observer from a faraway land. How my accent immediately pinned me down, made me someone to talk to, made me someone to question, to inspire awe and, perhaps, fear. Being a traveller could be good. Being a traveller could be very good, even in my home town.

I picked up a menu at the counter, and seconds later she was taking my order. "Will that be enough?" she tempted, against my meagre order of mustard and cheese toast. Yes, I decided, it would be.

"Oh, and I can get you some more milk if you want. I tend to make these coffees strong."

She was my kind of baristress. And, I realised, she was a baristress with an American accent.

"So you've come here from the States," I observed daftly, hoping she wasn't Canadian. I'd made that mistake before.

"Yes," she replied with a smile. "I wanted to get as far away from George Bush as possible."

I chuckled with her, realising that she had come more than three months ago, sniggering that however different things might be now, she had really just flown from the master to the lapdog.

"Yes," she smiled again. "I really should have done my research."

Umberto Eco, and a half-finshed coffee.

Over the last few years, the good folk at All Tomorrow's Parties have been spending a presidential-campaign-load of money convincing independent music's most influential bands to reform, and go on small tours playing just one album from start to finish. In only a few weeks the ATP crowd has convinced Low ('Things We Lost In The Fire' - also see this), Sonic Youth ('Daydream Nation'), The Scientists ('Blood Red River'), and Died Pretty ('Doughboy Hollow') to tour Australia. They have also convinced My Bloody Valentine to reform, for the first time in 16 years, and tour the UK. All very good things.

But I've got another plea: rather than get a seminal band to play a seminal album, can we please, please try to convince people to come together just to perform one song?

Exhibit a: Kristin Hersh and Michael Stipe, Your Ghost, 1993.

Sure, we could make it part of a superb bill, wherein Throwing Muses reform to play House Tornado, and Bill Berry rejoins REM to play Document. But please let these two people come together to play this one stunning, beautiful, harrowing song, and please let me be there.

Other candidates: PJ Harvey and Thom Yorke, Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry...

I sit on the fourth floor of a tall, narrow building. My jaundiced, plastic desk quietly enjoys the company of the collections of handwritten notes that surround me. My computer, forlorn and lonely in the corner, whistles to inform me of my incoming mail. My incoming mail, in turn, informs me that there is a new spreadsheet available which incorporates enterprise bargaining arrangements into pay scales which are required in order to accurately complete research grant applications.

And so I sit, only half an hour into my day, staring through my filthy office window.

The clouds are ominous in their approach. Whispers of dark grey filter through waves of puffy white, all moving slowly eastward, skimming over the cranes and cathedrals which make up my office view. And I think, will it begin to rain? Shall I do my shopping, shall I buy my bread and spices, now? Or will I be caught in the downpour?

I stare into the glass, peering for drops of rain. I see them everywhere. In every corner of the window, droplets are forming and moving in all directions. But this is not rain, I think. This is light, reflecting on dust which has formed, congealed, married and bred, and found a loving home on the pane.

And so I stare further. I watch as the people walk, and I look for signs. I look to see them hunching, bending, struggling with cheap umbrellas, or covering their heads with yesterday's newspaper. I see a maintenance worker jogging down the stairs. Could he be running from rain? Or does he just have work to do?

Two girls appear, stage right. They're walking slowly, heads lifted, deep in conversation. They are followed by a large bald man, whose drooping head speaks less about the weather than about his casual, forlorn walk, and his dour expression.

So my window does deceive me. So the rain has not yet come.

I should do my shopping now. But then, I should also get back to work.

While the scientists have their eager machines, so much more can be seen just by watching the people who pass by.

A Comparative Essay, volume 1

Written by Ben Revi

Yes, it's early days, but the Coffee Spoon Auditorium has a second - count them, second - piece. This is the first 'comment' piece. And no, it's not me just pulling out some half-finished undergraduate essay in order to pad up the website and make me feel important. I put my heart and soul (and a good 45 minutes of writing) into creating the hilarious irony that lies underneath the title of this piece of commentary. Yes, it is supposed to be funny, and not in any way offensive.*

We are, of course, still looking for other pieces of writing. Our poetry section is currently bare, and our prose and comment sections are quite lonely. As much as Hen and I will keep spurting things out, we are very interested in hosting other people's writing. So feel free to use us as examples, as well as entertainment.

The article is available as a [.pdf] file here: http://www.coffeespoon.net/csa2.pdf. It is also available to read through the 'comment' section of the Coffee Spoon Auditorium: http://www.coffeespoon.net/

Please feel free to pass any comment about the piece, or its author - although be careful of his fragile emotional state - using the comments section on this here blog, here.

We will return to inane ramblings in the next post. We promise.

Bisous,
Ben.

* The actual humorous effect of this article is yet to be tested under laboratory conditions.

Yesterday morning, my supermarket travails brought me to this:

If Ricky Ponting is already considered one of the finest batsmen in cricketing history, just imagine how he might perform if the bastards at Swisse would stop forcing him to take their miserable tablets.

A welcome note for readers of the Coffee Spoon Auditorium.

If you’re reading this now, it might be that you’re wondering what this little curiosity is in aid of and what the people responsible had in mind. (If you’re not reading this now, you might be enjoying a dry little chuckle at me addressing a sentence to someone who by definition can’t read it, but then of course by definition you can’t.) Hopefully the purpose, and indeed the value, of this exercise will become apparent as it goes on, but I thought that a little piece to introduce the concept, and myself, would be appropriate.

Firstly there is the name, the Coffee Spoon Auditorium. The Coffee Spoon part of it you’ll see here as well, and possibly in print too if we catch up to our own ambitions. There’s always the risk with titles that, as with jokes, song lyrics and metaphors, a lengthy explanation will open up a hole through which the indefinable element that makes it special will escape, so I will attempt brevity. The inspiration is a line from T.S. Eliot’s wonderful poem, ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, which runs, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons”. From the moment I read them I loved those words, less for their intended meaning (which, with this poem, is endlessly debateable), but for their perfectly expressed imagery. Eliot, with nine entirely common, workaday words, was able to evoke in me a pleasure of the most sublime nature.

And this, I have learned, is where I gain most of my pleasures: in the little, often unregarded snippets of the world. It can be a thought well expressed, the sense of achievement (my own or another’s) from a tiny personal victory, the taste of a new idea or a debate settled by a shared conclusion. Some of the best come from strangers, doing the things that only human beings do, like dancing to the background music without noticing or laughing at a joke they overhear at someone else’s table. I am also endlessly fascinated by life’s parade of absurdities, some amusing – official signs resplendent with malapropism, self-defeating self-importance – some mind-shatteringly woeful – sports reports topping news broadcasts while recessions go unnoticed, or an immigration minister suspending a man’s visa and then claiming his exit from the country is suspicious behaviour. I think about these things, turn them over in my mind, and if they won’t leave my head on their own, I’ll grab a friend, buy a cup of coffee and attempt to share the weight of them between us. In extreme cases I’ll go so far as to pin them down on paper. In such a way, I take the events and ideas, big and small, that make up my life, measure them out, and pause a moment to stir them in.

And so we come to the Auditorium, where the more interesting results of this process can be shared. As the name implies, we’re hoping to fit as many people as possible here, all contributing their own voices to the general clamour. In addition we have, appropriately, the Addendum (this thing), where we put the thoughts that don’t fit in the Auditorium but that we hope fit somewhere. You don’t have to read this part to enjoy the rest; think of it as a DVD bonus feature.

So please sample what we’ve written. You might like to grab a coffee to enhance the experience. Or a cup of tea (if that’s more your … well, you know), a glass of wine, a hot chocolate, a G&T, a fruit juice, or even one of those iced frappe drinks the young people are so fond of. Most importantly, we’d like to hear your opinions. You can tell us what you think of the stories. You can tell us what you think of our opinions. You can even tell us what you think of the name.

Make yourself at home.

Henry Nicholls.