What I learned on Monday is that it's hard to have a bad day when it starts off with 30 min. of non-stop accordion music. Today I learned that another good way to start your morning is an article smacking down Stanley Fish. Alas, the actual op-ed is behind the Times Select wall (can I throw an aside here and say I do not understand the business model at work... for free, I can read the news and find out (theoretically, at least) what's going on but if I want someone else's opinions of what it all means™, for that I've got to pay? Righteeo, then). But the excerpts in the Slate article are funny enough. Reading the whole thing might well cause one to bust a spleen laughing.
My question, though, is where are these oldschool diners or hash-houses of yore which Fish longs for -- where the help is appropriately servile and the coffee refills are plentiful and quickly appearing? Is he lamenting the loss of the Pan Pan? Thinking fond thoughts of Honey's? Is there some friendly joint somewhere in town with which I'm woefully unfamiliar? He could even be thinking of a place in another city. He's a bigtime professor dude, I'm sure he travels around a bit. More likely, though, he's not negatively comparing Starbucks to any specific place. Rather it's the imagined ideal of a lost paradise. Details and reality just get in the way of blathering fantasies like that.
(p.s.: I am not a crackpot)
It used to be that when you wanted a cup of coffee you ... sat down at a counter, and, in response to a brisk “What’ll you have, dear?” said, “Coffee and a cheese Danish.”
I suppose Stanley's too much of a big shot to say "please."
But none of us has chosen to take over the jobs of those we pay to serve us.
Oh it's so hard to find good help these days!
Hmmm... those quotations were supposed to be in italics. Anyway, you get my gist...
hmmm... looks like html tags don't work in comments.
but, yes, gist gotten. is it wrong that my first reaction was that i wanted to give ol' stan a slap? but i like slate's suggestion that he could maybe learn a thing or two by having to work a couple shifts as a barista. (as long as i don't have to drink any of the lattes he makes)
I still think that for sheer clueless entitlement, Fish's op-ed doesn't hold a candle to Slate's own column about the two idiots who bought a cafe thinking they were going to be "hosting a perpetual dinner party" (their words, not mine) and then were shocked, shocked I tell you, to find out that they actually had to wait on people.
i guess it's a tossup based on how one prefers their whining: "ohimgod, we have to wait on people" vs. "ohmigod, why is no one waiting on me"
"i guess it's a tossup based on how one prefers their whining: "ohimgod, we have to wait on people" vs. "ohmigod, why is no one waiting on me""
This little tossup had me going back and forth for a little while: Oh, of course it's the first. No, duh. Of course it's the second. Wait. Maybe it's the first.
I'm reminded of a cool little book called "Think Twice". The author, Paul Lowrie, provided a bunch of two-item choices like:
Would you rather live (a) high on a mountain with a great view of the valley, or (b) in the valley with a great view of the mountains? Think twice!
or
Do you think you know more about: (a) American history or (b) your family's history? Think twice.
actually I don't have to think twice about either:
1. In the valley. I hate driving on ice, and driving a mountain road on ice would be particularly terrifying. If I lived on a mountain I'd be trapped up there for months every winter. It's a no brainer.
2. American history. I know very little about my family's history.