Performing acts of public philosophy.
Weekend Reading – Drink Your Coffee Like A Man
I consider it a point of pride to drink it hot.
We’re still thinking about Adrienne Rich.
At least they provided caffeine.
“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.” – Leonard Cohen
Coffee Diary – June 26, 2012
Near my sister’s place in Lewes, Delaware is a little breakfast place called Arena’s. They serve breakfast and lunch (the ladies had seafood bisque and I had scrambled eggs and tater tots).
The coffee was serve yourself, but they had several options. A dark to medium roast house blend and its decaffeinated equivalent, a lighter roast from Mexican coffee beans, two options with sugary sounding names, and something called Double Buzz with caffeine added (which sounds like an abomination – I like caffeine, too, but don’t mess with coffee like that).
I went for the lighter roast, which was adequate. I like a place that gives your options of coffee made from different kinds of beans (I love a good grind made from good Sumatran coffee; Sumatran coffee is notably unreliable in quality, but when it’s good, it has a lovely wine-like flavor that I enjoy), but these just weren’t good enough to suggest that the options were anything other than some whitewashing to make average coffee look like it might be good coffee.
Thursday Morning Staff Meeting – Scalia Haunts My Future
Antonin Scalia: A Play in Three ActsCoffee Diary – July 25, 2012
We left for a little trip to Delaware in search of tennis courts, seafood (not for me, I’m vegetarian), and inexpensive dental care. Before heading out, we stopped at Crepes on the Corner.
A ‘coming soon’ sign was pasted on their windows for upwards of eighteen months before they served their first crepe (and their chef immediately injured his hand and they closed again for several days). We had a nutella and strawberry crepe, which was better than usual (their crepes tend to be too thick and bread-y) and the coffee was slightly above average (though below the quality of Capitol Hill’s best coffees). For reading, I just glanced at the Washington Post.
Washington Kastles
So, my lady friend and I went to see the Washington Kastles the other night for their last home game of the season. It’s a tennis league with some baroque rules to make it more relevant as a sort of team sport. That said, it’s still a series of singles and doubles sets and was pretty darn fun.
While no star players were there (Venus Williams and Leander Paes are players and Murphy Jensen is the coach – for those who followed the Jensen brother, Luke and Murphy, from back when they were a top doubles team, yes, he still does that chest bump thing).
The Kastles kept their undefeated streak alive (they were undefeated all last season and have almost succeeded in doing the same this season) in a 21-16 victory, which was closer than it seemed because Bobby Reynolds won the final set 5-0.
The players were well loved (and it wasn’t the famous playing, but rather local heroes) and the crowd was into it. The stadium is right on the water, across from Arena Stages (which I haven’t been to since I saw a retelling of the Devil and Daniel Webster there in 2001) and a nice, intimate venue.
One of the players is a favorite son from the area (a graduate of the University of Virginia, Alexandria) named Treat Huey, who, though he played with one handed fore- and backhands, reminded me of the tricky Frenchman, Fabrice Santoro, in that he loved to play tricky spins on every ball.
One sort of objection to the format. While I enjoy looking at twenty year olds in halter tops (though I’ve reached the point in my life where they never look at me) as much as the next guy, I am just not convinced that cheerleaders are needed at tennis matches.
Coffee Diary – July 24, 2012
My first coffee of the day was at a perky pink diner in Georgetown called Serendipity III that we ate at while waiting for the Thai Embassy to re-open. Everything there was enormous and good, but not so good as the price was high. They spelled ‘coffee’ ‘caffe’ and charged three dollars and twenty-five cents and didn’t do refills. But it was good coffee. This was before walking down to Bridge Street Books. They still have tables set outside with piles of inexpensive books – mostly Dover Press editions. When I was living in a bathroom on Prospect Ave and making $1500 a month, I spent virtually all my disposable income on books at that table. Today, for just twenty-five cents more than my coffee, I picked up a copy of Veblen’s economic classic, Theory of the Leisure Class. Painfully relevant economic insights, though his historical insights… meh. Has the book comparing Veblen’s leisure class to Debord’s spectacle been written yet? Someone ought to get to work on that. And if it has been written, someone needs to send me a complimentary copy.
The second cup was at a Barnes and Noble in Alexandria. An espresso, which was disappointing, as most espressos are. I bought a copy of Asimov’s Science Fiction. I was torn between Asimov’s and sister mag Analog, but Asimov’s had a picture of a dinosaur on the cover and a story called Mating Habits of the Late Cretaceous (which is actually a banal and unrealistic bit of marital realism in the style of Carver, except it’s not really very realistic – the marriage I mean, not the thin sci fi veneer around it), so I was suckered into picking that one.
the coffee philosopher 