Saturday, July 31, 2010

My Island

If I had an island, I would name it "Noman". No man is an island entire of itself...

If I had a photography business, I would call it "Yellow Sky". Yellow sky. Interesting choice...You can't see colors, can you?

Friday, July 23, 2010

Shift #10 Behind the Bar

By the way, I made beautiful microfoam today. The beautiful microfoam translated into a beautiful cappuccino for an anonymous customer at LC. Love coffee. Love ballet. Love life.

Belly Button Awareness

Belly button awareness is key to maintaining balance in ballet. In this morning's ballet class, I imagined my belly button being pulled by a thread hanging from the ceiling, then traveling slowly up my spine, past the nape of my neck, all the way through the top of my head. We used this imagery to maintain our balance as we slowly rolled up from a forward cambre on sous-sous (on our toes) back into the upright position. How strange it was to see my belly button hanging above my head, rather like a perverse mistletoe.

In ballet, the line between the imaginary and real, the intangible and tangible, the abstract and concrete is crossed so often that I find myself questioning the relative importance we place on the real, tangible, and concrete. Many concepts like balance are so far above our understanding (ie: difficult to attain) that they are best explored through imagery and visualization of more easily-known concepts like mobilized belly buttons or a docked boat pulling away or moving, tangible energy. Similarly, concepts in physics and math are often only understood through imagery and mappings (to concepts already understood) because they so far exceed the functional limits of human cognizance. It is easy to dismiss the imaginary because of its intangible nature, but the preponderance of imagery and mappings in math, science, literature, dance, and in our very language even just goes to show how heavily we actually rely on it as a tool for understanding the oh-so-important "real world".

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Eat Sleep Breathe

Go to ballet.

Sleep in ballet clothes.

Wake up in ballet clothes.

Go back to ballet.

A more pleasing cycle I can hardly think of! Although the Krebs cycle comes pretty close.

Philly has been blessed with the usual amount of thunderstorms this summer. Normally I would have nothing good to say about thunderstorms, but last night, while the thunder clapped and rumbled and shook the skies and rain pounded heavily on the rooftop, I was caught in a bubble of warm yellow and rose-colored light, doing slow grand plies and cambres to the strains of classical piano music. The juxtaposition of this oasis of warmth against the jarring and frightful sounds-- whose violence, however raging, cannot penetrate my ballet sanctuary-- is sublimely beautiful.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Penniless Picasso

"You good?"

"No...I think I'm wicked."

So responded La Colombe's very own Picasso, a penniless artist who's been a patron of my workplace since its inception 16 years ago. He's a fixture now, the old whiskered face framed by long, scraggly gray hair hanging from a balding dome, never seen without his sketch pads cradled beneath his arm. He walked in today, approaching the bar with a lost, bewildered, half-crazed look in his eyes. After a minute, he ordered a granita, which I poured for him, though his entire appearance screamed "homeless". He just stood there with his sketchpads under his right arm and stared at the granita without taking it, as if he both feared it and was shocked by its existence. Which is why I asked.

"Don't worry, we'll take care of it," said another regular patron of LC, who himself comes anywhere from zero to 15 times a day. He was sitting with two other regulars at the table right in front of the bar. They were clearly enjoying the show-- the crazy man's mischief and my display of naivete. Later, my co-worker informed me of the strange penniless man's history and unusual status at the coffeeshop. Everyone at LC is convinced that he is a Picasso waiting to be discovered. His artwork is purported to be incredible, though I have yet to see it. I wonder why they don't display his artwork at the very cafe where he is fervently revered, the one place where he is actually appreciated. Fame may be something that LC's Penniless Picasso will find six feet under.

One of my customers today was a former classmate at Penn, though he was more of an acquaintance, a friend of a friend.

"So, what are you doing here?" he asked.

"What am I doing here? Serving coffee, smiling at customers."

On the surface, this is exactly what I am doing at La Colombe. But in my mind's eye, I see farther and deeper, where the landscape is bigger and more spacious and crosses oceans and unknown territory. I am here, but I am elsewhere. Ooh, I kind of understand our Penniless Picasso now, that look in his eyes.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Tolstoy on War

"On the 12th of June, the forces of Western Europe crossed the frontier, and the war began, that is, an event took place opposed to human reason and all human nature." ~Tolstoy, War & Peace

Is it strange that I found humor in this statement?

At first glance, it is an anti-war statement. At second glance, not so at all, for when are human reason and nature ever the sole dictators of a decision to be made?

And oh, Natasha! The innocent and pure has been blighted. I guess it was inevitable.

I find myself liking Pierre more and more as the book carries on. A strange thing about this book: In real life, I have a general tendency to like a person when I first meet them and then slowly find out their faults and like them a little or a lot less...or even more despite their faults. In War & Peace, however, I began with a general dislike for most, if not all, of the characters, but by the halfway point (page 687), I find that I love most of them. Minus the scoundrels (stupid, stupid Anatole Kuragin).

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Something I've Always Wondered

The difference between barista and barrister:

barista: Emphasis on the second syllable; comes from the Italian word for "bartender" and means a person that serves espresso-based coffee drinks; does not require an advanced degree.

barrister: Emphasis on the first syllable; comes from Middle English and in the US, is a less commonly used word for "lawyer"; requires an advanced degree...or you can self-study and pass the bar if you're a genius.

In the UK and Canada, however, the profession of legal adviser and advocate remain split, and so the former is called the solicitor (the one who prepares for trial, and takes legal action on behalf of the client), while the other is called the barrister (the one who speaks at the trial, or in fancier language, "pleads at the bar in the high courts"); the barrister is more of a specialist and is called upon to work on a case by the solicitor.

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Cappuccino

Ineffably beautiful morning ballet class, from barre to reverance (the ballet equivalent of saying "from start to finish"). Followed by six hours of making, serving, grinding, and drinking coffee. Can life get any sweeter? Towards the end of my shift, I felt a sudden inclination to say to my co-worker:

"Is it weird that I actually like working here? I really like it."

"Shouldn't everyone like their job?" he replied.

"Yeah..."

"What's your favorite part of the job?"

I pondered the question for a few seconds before deciding that I most enjoyed learning how to make the different types of coffee drinks. Becoming familiar with the different roasts. Learning to make the perfect cup of cappuccino.

During my second shift, I was fortunate enough to work alongside an experienced, long-time employee who had me pull my first shots of espresso, which I used to make my first latte and cappuccino. He taught me a basic design-- the foam separated by arcing lines into three sections. I learned to loosen the brown liquid and use the foam to push it into the desired thin, curved line. My first design was shoddy; my second one was decent!

Of course, there are factors aside from the superficial design that are much more crucial to the actual taste of the cappuccino-- the quality of the steamed milk, the weight of the tamper, the weather outside. A lot of variable elements go into making a simple cup of cappuccino. But then again, I don't think most people would notice these tiny differences, even though they like to pretend to be elite coffee connoisseurs, ordering "wet cappuccinos" and other fancy nonsense.

The customers are kind and/or colorful. There are many who have been coming to La Colombe in Center City regularly for several years-- sometimes over a decade. There are several who treat it like it is their second home and play like they are members of an exclusive club. The employees know their customers inside and out. Above all, one thing is clear: the servers behind the bar are beloved by those they serve, and every day, hour by hour, minute by minute, the tip jar grows steadily fuller and fuller...

At the end of my shift, I made my 3rd cup of cappuccino and proudly showed it to my co-worker before destroying the design with a spoonful of brown sugar and taking a sip. On the way home through Rittenhouse Park, I tried to describe to Sarah the different elements of the morning ballet class that made it so so lovely, but generally failed. For one, I am unable to do justice to Kip's amazing choreography skills; and for another, memory sucks, and sometimes you just gotta be there and accept the fact that often, beautiful hours will fall by the wayside and be forever forgotten. How ephemeral these moments are! And how utterly undependable is human memory.

Ballet fact of the day: In the precipitee step (kick-kick really fast), your feet are supposed to touch the ground. Sometimes, it's hard to tell if Kip is walking or flying.