Solo II

Tuesday, June -, 20-

Ottawa South BH

Overheard:

He was one of the original investors, did you know?

Back when

put some money in

at the time

coffeeshops in Toronto are getting really...

Bye Jennifer

Bye Tim, thank you!

like, the most expensive coffee in the world

huh huh huh huh huh huh ha ha ha ha ha

right?

yeah?

I wasn't

like what happened with wine

people with lots of money who are looking for

Tim Horton's has their customers, they're loyal

a dollar sixty seven for a small why not?

oh yeah and when I travel I look for them, I know what I'm going to get

she might be coming back now because she asked me

I can't stay at my friend's house anymore

welfare

she phoned

well anyway

Impromptu

Tuesday, May -, 200-

Unexpected project meeting, Elgin BH

Discussed tactics and buzz

Photos: time lapses

Overheard:

you’re going to be around

oh yeah, I’m moving

good times, good times

rustle, klink

krinkle, munch

beeeeep beeeep beeeep

I don’t see anyone who looks pregnant, do you?

you’re welcome, bud

The fairest trade of them all...?

Two or more years ago, I clearly recall the since-departed 5th Muse stating her belief that Bridgehead was a fine place for her to be.

Partly because she judged the male patrons cute. More particularly because she'd reasoned that, since they were buying fair trade coffee, they must be possessed of developed social consciences. Therefore, they'd make good dates. Like all idealistic generalizations, this one seemed and seems problematic.

Yet. Yet. How many people patronize Bridgehead because they believe it to support their values? How many - secretly or overtly - hope to meet a suitable partner there, presumably self-screened to share their deeper values? If BH merely marketed beverages and snacks, the well-coiffed, well-dressed lovelorn could as easily line up to suck budget-conscious double-doubles and Ice Caps amid the luridly utilitarian fluorescent and arborite ethos of Tim Horton's.

They do not. Not when I'm there.

So it may be that what BH really sells is simultaneously more important and less concrete - a localized zeitgeist/gestalt/tribal affiliation that appeals to a specific demographic, in search of an atmosphere that will appear to reinforce very specific things about themselves. The team owes it to art and science to observe and explore these phenomena in their puzzling inferential multiplicity.

I must end this journal entry, though, with a salutary warning to myself and Pandora to be cautious about leaping to premature conclusions. It may be best to refer to a long-ago Elgin Street Irregulars weblog posting:

"I wonder whether the Muse is equipped to navigate the unseen pitfalls of her own ideals? And I think to myself that... she's trying. But does she have any reliable maps or guides? The soul is a very large continent..."

Blame it on the clown

Blame it on the clown. Pandora was press-ganged into working peripherally on a clown show. Not just any birthday-party hack in a red nose, but a real circus clown. Certain people and puppies are deathly afraid of clowns, but our intrepid duo is made of sterner stuff than that. We knew what had to be done.

And Pandora's strategy involved areas in which semimythical coyotes hold a certain small expertise. I looked forward to our collaborative activity, if not the clown act. While not afraid of clowns, I'm not wild about about them, either.

A string of abortive emails later, we realized the clown show, fast approaching, had to be addressed, and we weren't going to be able to pull it all together in time to reach that transitory goal. Pandora went solo with something quick and dirty.

Yet the germ of a much larger idea had been seeded. Mulling it over, we began to feel a certain excitement. We realized our chosen subject had not been researched in any but the most desultory way. It fully merited further, deeper, much more elegant exploration. After the clown show was a wrap, of course.

We have since developed and refined our ideas. They have grown, flowered and become our Ultra Cosmic Top SeKrit research project, a landmark effort with far-reaching - nay, life changing - implications for a significant percentage of Ottawa boulevardiers. Days are early, yet. We're devising working hypotheses. We're examining them from every angle. We're setting up methodologies with which to test them stringently and thoroughly. We're in the field now, scrutinizing our subject through the lens of something much like the scientific method. We're gonna need a lot of caffeinated beverages...