It would be foolish to take space in this forum to decry the homogenizing effect on world culture that corporate retailers have. In fact, this entire project is in a sense a repository of the twists, discrepancies, extremes, both positive and negative, that independently owned coffeeshops provide us with. This repository exists to […]

Sometimes in this line of work you drink a cup of blackjo “just because.” It is not the lure of the steamy low lit den with pressed tin ceilings, or the wide open transparency of a corner shop with white walls and stripe-shirted baristi, or even the desperation of the pedestrian in the strange […]

Although it appears to be a pasttime of mine, I do not so frequently get the opportunity to hang out in coffee shops. So when the perhaps weekly chance for me to go sit in a shop alone and do some writing comes up, I usually gravitate toward the more established (at least in […]

Oh the new shop. Actually I don’t know how new. Thos. has been asking me to go here for some time I believe, and I have finally made it, on a rather non-descript early fall evening. With the new shop and the fresh I night I ventured to revisit an old piece […]

Oh, where to begin. . .let’s just start with this place can kiss my honky ass. My significant other has been begging me to go to this stupid coffee shop for months now, and I finally acquiesced, ending the struggle.
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I’ve actually visited this coffeehouse (honestly I had just had a cuppa at Joe’s and was driving around and decided I had to use their restroom) So I bought a Cafe Latte for myself and Cafe Mocha for my mother while waiting for a our drinks to be prepared and after “my relief” I stood […]

As is becoming a little habit of mine I consulted the internet before leaving on a daytrip to Macon (mă' kŏn) to find a place to take a coffee at the end of our familial obligations. Lord, I knew we would need it, and as has become my customary thought when entering into […]

On my return trip to Sweet Java Brown the place was called Gathering Grounds. They appeared to have the same operating hours, but, as I have been privately insulted for making an issue out of coffee shops that close absurdly early, I will not rail too much on the fact that Gathering Grounds closes […]

As an ‘architect’ I regularly struggle with my fluctuating attention to the specificity of designed environments. I realize that every manmade condition is ‘designed,’ and so are many so-called natural settings. The way in which my attentions shift are as follows. Certain conditions exist in such a way that they trumpet the […]

As a lad I grew up at the beach, on a barrier island astride the Atlantic Ocean along Central Florida. All the memories of my childhood are infused at some level with blinding white sun, the smell of salted air, flat topography, and a sense of ease that comes with the slow pace of […]

there have been 2 shops in my short life thus far that, for any appreciable length of time, usurped my home as consistent theatre of operations or sitting parlour. one was the 18th street coffeehouse in santa monica and the other was jittery joe’s at five points in athens.
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the ‘great’ film paura nella città dei morti viventi was filmed in savannah. the film is often ‘lauded’ for its atmospheric quality and of course the tight soundtrack by fabio frizzi. it is a touchstone of fine fin de la décennie (the 70s that is) italian incoherence with a preference for evocative imagery […]

cast of characters:
pop: seasoned world traveler, coffee aesthete, perfectionist
son: uptight prosewriting provocateur
wanda: mountain woman
soulpatch: failed SCAD hack, opportunist, venice beach reject
cashier: current SCAD student
ms. soulpatch (offstage): condescending masculine female
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there is precious little i can walk to in my ‘neighbourhood.’ although i am honored to visit the candler discount mall (as seen in ‘cannibal apocalypse’) on a biweekly basis, the commercial strip from glenwood to memorial on candler has no less than 6 hairbraiding shops, 3 pawn/title loan shops, and one new place […]

A very cold winter dusk in Athens. Downtown, resisting the easy answer of just ducking into Blue Sky, we walk up Lumpkin, past the ‘new’ University buildings with uniform brick stretches and bulbous, orderless stucco columns. The wind whips up Lumpkin all the way from Five Points. Tucked in behind some churchy […]

Some things that are commonplace, and often visually associated with banal and infuriatingly mundane errands for those who do their jobs near it, are capable of arousing delight and mystery in others through their covert locations. It is very easy to be covert in Atlanta. Rule number 1: Locate where you are not visible […]

It is strange being at Java Monkey in the middle of the day. I usually frequent this coffee shop in the evenings, where the sounds of live music and poetry slams resonate through the cafe. Instead, Interpol or some other band is playing on the stereo system overhead. Java Monkey is by far my favorite […]

As far as I can recall, there is not much to say about this coffee shop. The east-side of athens is populated by cheap college apartments, and their respective denizens. This is not the most happenin’ part of the town by any means, but you can’t beat Jittery Joes coffee. This Jittery Joes is basically […]

a creation scene painted on the ceiling. he (adam, joe?) reaches out languidly, recumbent on a flocculent drift of brushstrokes that blow toward the restrooms as if by force of the godhead and the divine finger, er, finger looped through a coffeemug handle. his finger is as limp as the miniscule penis […]

Every so often you encounter a place, that, late in your life, aligns with a place that you have been enjoying in your mind’s restful hours for many years. At this stage you cannot divorce the physical place from the one you believe you had remembered. Were you indeed remembering it, somehow traced […]