C

Ode on a coffee pot

Last week, I broke the glass beaker of our coffee pot. Rather than buy an entirely new setup, I sought a 32 ounce replacement carafe. Now I have four presses and a brand new one that arrived in the mail yesterday.

After this saga, and seeing a slew of "baby presses" in Chinatown last weekend--but no beakers--I accept the fact that coffee presses are expendable.

No one else in my house is worried about the proliferation of coffee presses, the lack of replacement beakers, this metal/plastic/glass thing that served us everyday for years, but I am concerned about all of this, plus landfill space, recycling, and a throw-away economy.

You're right, coffee presses can't hold a candle to my grandmother's coffee pot which sat perking on the wood burning pot-bellied stove. At least, I could plant flowers in it if I broke the handle or hang it on a tree limb as folk art.

Start a business to supply replacement beakers? Not feasible or worth it. Supposedly Bodum does that already and sells them through Amazon.

Coffee press numbers 2 and 3 were duplicates: both my husband and I went out and bought replacements, unknown to the other.

Number 4 was my "just in case purchase", just in case I couldn't find the beaker on the market or online by the time we needed our coffee fix the next morning and couldn't make do with instant coffee or Starbucks.

I didn't find the beaker anywhere in L.A., but supposedly found a replacement on line. I ordered it from Ace Hardware in New York.

Ace sent the wrong item and rather than have me return it, free of charge and with full reimbursement, Kevin, the customer service agent gave it to me. "Just keep it," he said in a toned down but unmistakable East Indian accent.

I didn't want it. I wanted a carafe so I could continue to use my old press. More waste. This one has a three-cup capacity only, no more than a sip to get us started in the morning. More irritation.

Last week, I wrote an ode to my broken coffee press. Yes, the loss was significant. I mused on my/our daily routine of coffee in the pre-dawn hours, how we ordered our lives around this everyday fragile object and had managed to keep it safe for many years. I lamented the loss and treasured the service it had provided. I did not want to replace it, although I had to for the sake of getting over the temporary disruption and irritation.

I thought of Keats' Ode On a Grecian Urn and then how foolish I was to inflate my coffee making fixture to the level of poetry. But I know that the sublime can be found in the mundane:

Ode on a Grecian Urn

John Keats

THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearièd,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'


So, maybe I'll refine my ode, mine it for something worth salvaging. Or maybe I'll consign it to the trash heap. After all, where is the beauty in our lives?

Literary Uprising

Artistic Uprising

ART

14th Annual Holiday Art Exhibit

A body of original artwork by members of the
Culver City Art Group

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Rotunda Room, Veteran’s Memorial Building
4117 Overland Ave., Culver City, CA, 90230

(Overland Avenue and Culver Boulevard in Culver City)

Noon to 6:00 pm


ARTISTS' RECEPTION

Meet the artists!
Refreshments and awards
3:30 pm - 6:00 pm


www.ccartgroup.org


Co-sponsor:
City of Culver City Parks, Recreation and Community Services

Strange Sighting

At a 110 Freeway North off-ramp in L.A....

People don't read blogs

I have been chided. By that person who is responsible for standards.

Not someone who challenged me on a point I made or didn't make in my blog, someone who makes snarky comments.

Yes, this is true. Yesterday, I was told that people don't read blogs. After the conversation, the warden in my head started to work me over about the "grammer" I used in one of my posts. "'Black beans is' ...is not right."

It ain't?

Darn, I am feeling dirty---like I ain't measuring up...with my ISs and my AREs--and I launch into a full-on internal diatribe on "good writers" versus "bad writers" and getting published.

But now, a few hours later, writing this post...that you are not reading...I am hunched over in one helluva big belly laugh.

"It ain't so, people do read blogs."

Dear Mr. Warden...blow-back is good, but not just grammer policing and snarkiness.

As one of my teachers used to say: Write on! I say: Blog on!

Bet da snarkers ain't readin' dis....