Austin Coffee Houses

One of the things I like about Austin (there aren't many, to be sure) is the large number of non-Starbucks coffee shops and coffee bars throughout the city. The coffee's rarely all that good, but again, it's not Starbucks coffee, so you could do worse. I spent way too much time at four different coffee shops: JP's Java, because it's right on campus, Music Cafe, because it's near my apartment, Halcyon, because it's good for people watching and open late, and Hideout (pictured above), for reasons that I can't entirely explain.

I have a terrible habit of showing up at coffee houses when there's an event of some sort. Last week, there was a gallery opening when I decided to do some work at Music Cafe, so there I was dressed like, well, me, typing away on my laptop while everyone else was in their hyper-trendy best listening to an equally hyper-trendy guy do ironic renditions of 60s country songs. I also frequently forget that Mondays are open-mic poetry nights at Hideout, and end up half-listening to (mostly bad) poetry for an hour because I'm too lazy to get up and leave, and I'm afraid that if I leave during someone's poem they'll take it as a rejection, as though my obviously not paying attention isn't one.

There's no real point to this, other than to say that I obviously have a problem with coffee, and that for some reason, I like the atmosphere of coffee houses, even though there's no one coffee house atmosphere. Anyone in Austin who's been to the four coffee houses I listed above will know that they couldn't be more different from each other: JP's is intellectual to the point of being snobby, filled with faculty and grad students often having heady discussions about whatever it is they're studying; Music Cafe is South Austin chic; Halcyon is all about the Warehouse District nightlife, and being across from several trendy gay clubs, it's all about a very well-dressed nightlife at that; and Hideout is pseudo-Bohemian with its open-mic nights, its underground (though above the shop) improv theater in the back, and it's dirty couches. So I'm not really sure what I mean when I say that I like the "atmosphere" of coffee houses. I just can't think of any better way to explain it.

Rural Post

I love this image from Old Picture of the Day (click for a larger view):

I'm not sure why I love it so much. It could be the details: the mud splatter on the coach, the fact that the coach has a front window (presumably because of the mud spatter; I can't imagine he drives fast enough to get bugs in his teeth), the curious look on the children, the leafless trees, etc. Or it could be that the whole scene reminds me a lot of what my hometown looked like when I was a young child, when many of the roads were still unpaved, and trees like the ones in the picture still dominated the landscape. Granted, the mail man wasn't driving around in a horse and buggy, but the picture still induces a distinct feeling of nostalgia in me, particularly since my hometown doesn't look anything like this picture anymore. You'd be hard pressed to find a dirt road, and the city has become incredibly overdeveloped, so that you have to go out of the city limits to find that many trees of that age in the same place (I'd guess those trees are 50-70 years old; they don't look like old growth).

How I Lost My Accent

It's disappointing to see progressives acting as elitists, and particularly so when dealing with people who should be targets of progressive reform, not progressive mocking, as in this post at Pandagon, for example. Many of the comments focus on the guys accent, with the almost gratuitous references to inbreeding, instead of the guys hate and ignorance.

I once had a pretty heavy southern accent. It still comes out now and then, and my short vowels are forever muddled. If I were ever in a life-or-death situation that required quickly distinguishing between a "pen" and a "pin," I would be screwed. Most of the time, though, my accent is all but completely gone, and has been since I was an undergraduate. The reason for this is pretty simple: once I left home, where pretty much everyone had an accent like mine, I got made fun of for my accent. This was especially true when I was among smarter folks, most of whom were from the Midwest. They associated my accent with ignorance and stupidity, and made this very clear to me.

The first time I realized my accent was "different" came during my second week of college. I was in an Intro to Sociology course with about 50 students, one of whom was Antoine Walker. For basketball fans this a big deal. I was shy, and generally didn't speak up in class, even in high school. However, when the professor asked if there was anyone in the class who thought he or she didn't have an accent, I raised my hand, thinking both that I didn't have an accent, because everyone where I'm from talked just like me, and that a bunch of other people would raise their hands too. Unfortunately, I was wrong on both counts. I was the only one who raised his hand, and when the professor then asked me where I was from, I was forced to speak. I replied simply, "Nashville," but in dialect that word is pronounced "Nayshvull." The entire class burst into laughter at that one word. I was horrified. I was being laughed at in front of 50 peers, one of whom happened to be a basketball player of whom I was a big fan.

From that moment on, I was constantly and deeply conscious of my accent, and when people continued to make fun of it, including faculty and fellow students (particularly in the philosophy department, where being snooty is raised to an art form), I consciously chose to get rid of it. And I did.

And that's a shame, because my accent was part a big part of who I am, because where I'm from was and remains a big part of who I am.

I AM The Superfluous Man!

This could now be a portrait of this blog's author.

When I was 16 or 17, I read Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, because I had to, being of a certain political and literary persuasion, and I loved it. I loved it so much that I went out and read every novel I could find by Turgenev, from the wonderful On the Eve to the somewhat dated Virgin Soil, but it wasn't until college that I discovered his short stories, which I immediately decided were perfect, especially First Love. But it was his story The Diary of a Superfluous Man that had the greatest impact on me. Not only did I love it, but I immediately recognized myself in it -- as did, I imagine, pretty much anyone who has spent entirely too much time in academia. It was this story that was my entry into 19th century Russian literature, which has since dominated my fiction-reading life. From there, I went to Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time, Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground, Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, and of course the apotheosis of the superfluous man genre, Goncharov's Oblomov. I was in heaven: here a superfluous man, there a superfluous man, everywhere a superfluous man man. In other words, in my less confident moments at least, here a me, there a me, everywhere a me me!

Over the last week, I have been laid up with a wickedly obstinate ear infection which decided to merely laugh at the puny prescription ear drops I first tried throwing at it, and thus required much stronger drops and oral antibiotics. Lying in bed, as I've done pretty much constantly since last Tuesday, I've done nothing but think about all of the new projects I'm going to start when I finally have enough energy and get rid of the pain: I'm going to finally get around to writing that paper I've wanted to write, but have been putting off; I'm going to read all of that literature on that philosophical topic I've wanted to read but haven't gotten around to it; I'm going to finally fix those things around the house that I've been meaning to fix since pretty much forever; I'm going to do this, and that, and the other. In other words, my whole life has become making plans for when I'm not just lying in bed making plans. I have finally become Oblomov. I am the superfluous man! There's no denying it anymore. I don't know if this is a good thing.

It also should be noted that it was during this time of mere planning that I started this blog. Perhaps blogging is the ultimate instantiation of superfluity.