Showing posts with label coffeehouses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coffeehouses. Show all posts

Monday, August 5, 2019

Music as Soul-Stirring and Music as Wallpaper

Speaking of music (as we were last week), Wordplay has had plenty of interesting listening experiences with playlists in public places, including Starbucks. Our official stance on music in public places is that, if it isn’t really, really good, it should at least be unobtrusive. Many places today play whatever they’ve got at such earsplitting volume that whether or not it’s to your taste, it forces itself on your attention. Since people are usually in coffeehouses to read or talk, this doesn’t seem designed for the customer’s comfort, but whatever. Customers only keep Starbucks, Panera, Kroger, and other places in business—no need to worry about what they like and don’t like.

However, it’s not all bad news. Starbucks, in particular, can apparently switch from one playlist to another with ease and occasionally does a good job of mixing it up. It’s been a while since I got really discouraged with one of their playlists, but it did happen recently when they decided to play all Elton John 16 hours a day. It’s not a slam at him to say any playlist does better with variety, and a steady diet of anything can get old quickly. My understanding is that they were commemorating the release of the film biopic of his life, but I would have done this by throwing a few extra songs of his into the mix along with some of those of his contemporaries—just enough to give a flavor of the era.

It’s quite possible, though, for me to hear the same songs many times without really hearing them, because for me, they’re just the background to whatever else I’m doing. Once in a while, I’ll realize that I like a song that I don’t know the name of, or I’ll wonder who the artist is. If you want to identify the song or artist you’re listening to in Starbucks, you can do so with the Starbucks app and Spotify. If you don’t have that, you have to do it the way I do, by typing into Google whatever you can decipher of the lyrics. Most of the time, you’ll find it on the first try, but not always. There is one recent indie pop song by an unknown artist whose plangent melody I really like, but since I only know one partial line, I haven’t been able to track it down. The chorus is either “All I heard was silence” or possibly “All I had were filings,” and the only thing I can come up with is a very different song that isn’t the one I’m looking for.

The other day, I heard a song that’s drifted through Starbucks several times recently, Noel Coward’s “Mad About the Boy,” which is, of course, a classic from the Great American Songbook* (actually, the Great British Songbook; see the note below). This version has a particularly powerful and expressive vocalist, and I became curious to know who it was. I was too late to ask the barista, who could have looked it up while it was playing, and the suggestion I got to check the playlists on Spotify didn’t work because there is apparently a new (and entirely different) song by a newer artist that pops up on playlists in its stead. I spent an hour that morning listening to various versions of the song—not a bad way to while away an hour—before coming across Lena Horne’s version. I’m not certain the one I heard is the same as hers, but the vocal is similarly powerful and almost, one might say, life-changing.

Starbucks is hit and miss with its music, but sometimes they strike gold. Although there is a tremendous variety of music on the playlists, it manages to sound corporate about 75 percent of the time, at least to me. There are exceptions that make you sit up and listen, but otherwise, it’s music as decor—which I guess is exactly what they have in mind. If I wanted to hear opera one minute and “The Streets of Laredo” the next, I guess I’d have to move to San Francisco and hang out at Caffe Trieste, if indeed it’s still there. Many things that once were seem to be fading with the times.

*Although Lena Horne was American, Noel Coward was British. Wordplay regrets the error.

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Scene II: A Tempest

My brother, who lives in a sparsely populated state, once said he'd like the place even better if it had fewer people than it did. That may sound misanthropic, but I can sympathize. Where I live, it's nearly impossible to walk out the door without falling over someone or getting an earful of overheard chatter from people you don't even know. One expects occasional inconveniences such as these as part of the price of living in society, which is why rules of courtesy are necessary. Of course, that only works if people follow them, while my observation is that people seem not to have heard of them. Whose idea was it to do away with the Golden Rule?

People talk about feeling alone in a crowd, but in my experience that would be a rare thing these days; others are all too apt to enter my personal space, whether I'm drinking coffee, reading, walking through the park, or shopping for groceries. If someone isn't blocking my light in the cafe, he's talking too loudly on his cell phone, pulling out in front of me on the street, or failing to keep his dog under control so that I can walk in peace.

Were all of these people raised in a barn? Are they exhibitionists? Are they merely addled? Are they trying out for reality TV? Who told them being obnoxious is a good idea? Am I less forgiving than I used to be? (Any and all of these could possibly be true.)

This afternoon, I was sitting in a corner chair in the coffeehouse, minding my own business, as usual. I had been sitting outside, though it was a shade too cool for that, and I moved indoors when it looked like I could find a seat. I had, unfortunately, forgotten my earplugs, which is a real no-no if you plan to spend any time at all in Starbucks, but I was engrossed in my book, and things seemed to be going fairly well until other people started filling up the corner where I was sitting.

Now, don't get me wrong, I get it that Starbucks is a public place and that they're in business to keep the seats filled. But this particular Starbucks has a number of segregated seating areas, designed, I'm told, to create quiet places for people who want to read or study. I was sitting in a screened-off area near a large table where people usually congregate with books and laptops, but for some reason, everyone who entered that space was incapable of doing so without creating a scene, a not uncommon thing in Starbucks. People in line near the pastry case seemed intent on projecting their voices to the farthest corner; a large woman flounced in front of me, noisily taking the adjacent chair with a bit more ado than was really required; another patron walked back and forth in front of me several times, talking loudly on a cell and (quite unnecessarily) bumping my footrest; someone else camped out in my peripheral vision, apparently to read his text messages--not quite in my space but just close enough to be annoying.

Any one of these would have been irritating by itself; in the aggregate, it was just plain ridiculous. I got up and left.

Well, this story ends a little better than it begins. Rather than going home mad, I decided to take a short drive. I checked out the site of the future branch of the public library on Richmond Road and stopped to get gas. While I was doing that, I noticed some very dark clouds massing in the northwest: really Old Testament, Wrath of God thunderheads. I thought I could get home before they arrived, but since I was on a side of town I rarely visit any more, I drove around for a while, marveling at how little I remembered of the streets, though I used to be out there quite a bit.

Over here lived someone I interviewed when I worked at the newspaper; back there somewhere is a church I've been in, though I couldn't begin to find it now; my brother used to live on that street; I used to know someone who lived down that hill. It was almost as if I'd driven into a time warp, and I wandered around for a while, pleasantly lost. The leafy suburban streets looked both familiar and unfamiliar in the altered light of the approaching storm; it felt a bit like Van Gogh's Starry Night, a little town drowsing under a tumultuous sky. I seemed to be reclaiming something that belonged to me in the process of driving around.

When it started to rain, I was still in the wilds of suburbia. Lightning flashed, thunder rumbled, and small bits of hail hit my windshield. I decided I should be getting home, in case the weather got worse, so I started in that direction. I kept remembering people I'd known who lived in this house or that one--where are they now? The church steeples on Tates Creek Road stood up dramatically against the thunderheads, water was ponding by the side of the road, the wipers could barely keep up with the rain, and I . . . was feeling much better.

A spring thunderstorm doesn't sound calculated to be calming, but somehow it had that effect. Actually, I think it was just catharsis. Just when I was feeling like a thundercloud myself, here came a real one, washing everything clean. When I pulled out onto the road I live on, the changed light (aided, maybe, by my feeling of having revisited the past) made the street look subdued and elegant, like an old black and white photograph. I almost expected to see a Model T drive by.

It was still raining when I pulled into our parking lot, and I still had a little coffee left in my cup, so I sat for a few minutes and read some more of my book until the downpour eased a little. It's ironic that driving around in a thunderstorm could be more relaxing than sitting in a dry, well-lighted coffeehouse, but those are the facts. Sometimes a little solitude is better than a crowd.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Coffeehouse Archetypes

Can architecture and design express an archetype? I'm sure the answer is yes. It's fairly obvious how this works with monumental public buildings like the U.S. Capitol or the New York Public Library, but what about something less ambitious, like a neighborhood coffeehouse?

A coffeehouse I sometimes go to had a redesign this year, so I've had a chance to think about the before and after and the way they come across differently. Before the renovation, the interior was a large L-shaped room with the front counter on the short end of the L and seating all around the walls. Even though students with books and laptops accounted for a lot of the customers, the noise level was high and sometimes rambunctious.

I was told that the renovation would move the counter back and create more room at the front of the store. It did. But somehow, the effect now is of less space than before (to me, at least). Previously, the decor consisted of medium-toned furniture and a few bright wall prints. Now darker tones prevail, and the space is almost separated into rooms by the placement of large pieces of furniture and screens that act as dividers. It's a very boxy arrangement for a cafe.

A barista told me that the design is meant to facilitate studying. I can see how that would work, since the segmented spaces almost have the feel of library carrels and study nooks. What I've noticed, however, is that I tend to feel sequestered if I sit behind one of the screened areas or in the back. For me, one of the pleasures of going to a coffeehouse is the sense of community and being with other people, which the new design tends to dampen a little.

I'm surprised it affects me this way, since I've often wished for a little more quiet than the ear-splitting cacophony I've sometimes encountered there. Maybe the noise level has gone down -- I can't say for sure. But in some respects, being sectioned off with a few other people tends to magnify conversations, fidgeting, and other distractions in your immediate vicinity. Overall, the feeling is a bit blocky, although I'm told a lot of customers like it.

One of the main purposes of a coffeehouse is to foster community and provide a gathering place. Libraries do the same thing, and sometimes bookstores do, too. Many bookstores now try to emulate libraries, with cushy seating and soft lights, and some libraries incorporate cafes, so that they've all come to resemble one another more closely. This may be the first coffeehouse I've seen that has attempted to create a less commercial and more studious vibe. It's a bold design, but I miss the spacious, all-encompassing gathering place it used to be.

I once did some research on library architecture and identified one of its archetypal building blocks as the monk's cell, typified by the many paintings you see of Saint Jerome poring over books in a confined, not to mention cozy, room. A scholar's life is monastic and solitary, and a library usually provides a lot of private space for study. A public gathering place, such as a town square, tends to be open, providing no barrier to conversation and free movement. The archetype there is one of unity. The renovated coffeehouse reveals an attempt to combine both of these purposes.

Maybe I'm zeroing in on this because I've been doing research in the area of individualism and community in society. I don't think one precludes the other, but I can't remember ever being in a room where I felt pulled in opposite directions to the same degree. I think the design was intended to have something for everyone, but I liked it better when the community sense was uppermost. It's now more mazelike and seems to require more maneuvering than I'm usually interested in doing with an iced coffee in hand.

It'll be interesting to see if my feelings about the space change over time, and how the rest of the community embraces the new design.

Friday, March 1, 2013

The New Hysteria

It used to be that going for a walk or spending a couple of hours at Starbucks was a routine undertaking. No more! The best way I know to describe it is to say that there just seem to be a lot more people -- everywhere. It's like the worst-case scenario of how overpopulation might someday force us to live.

Take yesterday, for instance: an ordinary, damp Thursday, the last day of February. I wrapped myself up in coat, hat, scarf, and gloves, and for a change of pace, took a ramble through the neighborhood instead of the park. Since it was mid-afternoon, gray and chilly, I figured I'd have the streets to myself. It's a pleasant neighborhood for walking, bounded on one side by a wooded area and filled with an eclectic group of mid-century homes. There's generally not a lot of traffic, just birds, stately trees, and quiet houses.

But what had gotten into everybody yesterday? As I cut through the hospital's back parking lot and headed up the first hill, there was a whole procession of cars climbing the rise with me. As I turned left onto the next street and descended a gentle knoll, I continued to see traffic, and it only increased the farther I went. I had to look at my watch a couple of times, wondering if I had mistaken the time. Normally, traffic picks up on these back streets at 4:30 or so, and it was well before then. I couldn't imagine what so many people were doing in such a quiet residential area in the middle of the day. It was like a full-fledged passeggiata, but with cars instead of people.

I can't count the number of times I've been walking in the Arboretum lately and had to stop and wait for someone carrying on a loud conversation to go on past. One of the pleasures of walking in the park is to enjoy the birds singing, listen to the wind in the trees, and hear yourself think -- or so it used to be. It wouldn't be so bad if people didn't seem so aggressively determined to share what they have to say. I was recently on the path behind the garden, strolling toward the bridge over the hollow place, when I heard a young woman coming up behind me yelling breathlessly into her phone, "And then, I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!" I had to step off the path, contemplate the trees, and count to thirty until she was out of sight. Another day, I had to sit on a bench and pretend to be tying my shoe while another woman, who seemed determined not to pass me no matter how slowly I walked, carried on an energetic conversation about blood thinners. I sat and soaked up the sun until she disappeared.

Then there's the local Starbucks. I've spent many hours there, studying, reading, or writing, and it used to be that you expected it to be busy only on Saturdays and Sundays. The crowd is usually a combination of regulars, students, and people from the neighborhood, which is a fairly mixed demographic. Lately, however, it has taken on more the frenzied atmosphere of a cocktail party at full tilt rather than the cafe feeling of days past, complete with ear-splitting conversation, immoderate laughter, and people who seem desperate to engage your attention. You almost have the impression that Andy Warhol is going to show up any minute. Or Truman Capote. Someone like that.

I'm not dogging myself. For a middle-aged girl, I've held up pretty well. But when I tussle my MacBook, power cord, and iced coffee into the only available seat to find myself nose to nose with a stranger looking like a slightly creepy version of Michael Fassbender in Jane Eyre, who apparently has nothing to do but send come-hither signals . . . well, I just start to wonder, that's all. You just don't meet Mr. Rochester in Starbucks (or in elevators or concert crowds either; he's a fictional character).

The next time I sat in that corner, I kept noticing a young woman in an adjacent chair, playing with her hair and staring at me. In both cases, it was just too, well, weird, and I had to get up and move.

On another occasion, I had to endure the carrying voice of a local radio personality who had apparently decided to call everyone he knew while waiting for a dinner companion. One of the rules of engagement seems to be that if someone is going to have a loud conversation, they'll have it directly across from me and make eye contact as often as possible. I notice that a number of people besides me still come into Starbucks with books and computers, and I can only surmise that they've been working mightily on their powers of concentration.

I'm not sure what's up with all these noisy, aggressive, in-your-face people, or why there seem to be so many of them. Maybe it's a form of temporary insanity. It's rather like being in a crowd of cawing, competing crows with bad manners and no concept of the indoor voice. I'm hoping the flock will suddenly take to the air and fly north for the summer . . . I believe there are plenty of wide open spaces in the Arctic. In the meantime, there are always ear plugs.