Susan’s story “What We Forget” is now available online at Juked. And you can read it here:
http://juked.com/2012/08/whatweforget.asp
Enjoy!
The coffeehouse according to Jean Chardin
The 17th Century French traveler Jean Chardin gave a lively description of the Persian coffeehouse scene: “People engage in conversation, for it is there that news is communicated and where those interested in politics criticize the government in all freedom and without being fearful, since the government does not heed what the people say. Innocent games… resembling checkers, hopscotch, and chess, are played. In addition, mollas, dervishes, and poets take turns telling stories in verse or in prose. The narrations by the mollas and the dervishes are moral lessons, like our sermons, but it is not considered scandalous not to pay attention to them. No one is forced to give up his game or his conversation because of it. A molla will stand up in the middle, or at one end of the qahveh-khaneh, and begin to preach in a loud voice, or a dervish enters all of a sudden, and chastises the assembled on the vanity of the world and its material goods. It often happens that two or three people talk at the same time, one on one side, the other on the opposite, and sometimes one will be a preacher and the other a storyteller.”
It’s a date?
Meet me at the coffeeshop. We can dance like Iggy Pop. (RHCP)
Coffee, a poem by Francis Saltus Saltus
Voluptuous berry! where may mortals find
Nectars divine that can with thee compare,
When, having dined, we sip thy essence rare,
And feel towards wit and repartee inclined?
Thou wert of sneering, cynical Voltaire
The only friend; thy power urged Balzac’s mind
To glorious effort; surely Heaven designed
Thy devotees superior joys to share.
Whene’er I breathe thy fumes, ‘mid Summer stars,
The Orient’s splendent pomps my vision greet.
Damascus with its myriad minarets gleams!
I see thee, smoking, in immense bazars,
Or yet in dim seraglios, at the feet
Of blonde Sultanas, pale with amorous dreams!
More than just a cuppa joe
In eighteenth century London a coffeehouse was not just a place to get some coffee. Every important event that took place in Britain in the eighteenth century occurred in–or at least was discussed ad infinitum in–a coffeehouse. Within those walls, scientific experiments were performed, classic pieces of literature were written, conspiracies were hatched, companies were formed and wars were planned.
