Mountain Groan
Up in the mountains is where the good coffee grows. It takes time, plenty of effort and in
the end, much sweat. Far from being easy, this black juice of the coffee berry is quite difficult to cultivate. Like
many things we take for granted, we are removed from the process, and do not bother to ask how and where it comes from.
Maybe the supermarket is a magical place. We all know that vegetables are created on the
sloped shelves with plastic grass. We all know that milk comes from plastic bags or cartons. We understand that in
the back, there is someone cutting up slabs of meet delivered by the meat truck. It's simple really, just forage at
your local grocery and you'll be sure to find all your dietary needs.
I think it's natures way to make important things difficult. It keeps us sharp, and gives us
a reason to get up in the morning. The important things like food, shelter and survival, but perhaps here in the
‘western' world we have forgotten. It's left us soft, malnourished, and in need of chemical assistance. Jack is
far from a shining beckon of hope, for he too prays to the God of convenience.
So, up in the mountains where the air is thin, there live and work the people of the
coffee bean. It's a hard life compared to what we ‘enjoy'. It's a life all about surviving, but maybe that is
just the way nature intended it. We're so far removed from the soil and toil in our everyday lives, it truly is
a wonder we aren't all medicated more often.
At the bottom of my cup lays truth. It's the last drop of salvation in a body numbing
earthquake. It's the touch and feel of the earth. It's the memories of a simple time when the only thing that
mattered was staying alive. It's the glimpse of community with nature and the world. It's an empty cup that
brings with it a world of needs and wants. It's the start of another cycle, and maybe... maybe it's just natural.
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No More Stage Fright
Jill is now a theater goer. You know, one of those tres elegant women with large hats, and
long skirts. One of those women that smoke cigarillos through long black holders, that call everyone around them
‘dahling' and have very throaty laughs, tossing their heads back when amused to reveal slender necks roped with
delicate strands of pearls.
Well, maybe not the pearls, nor the hat, nor the cigarillo, neither, but definitely a theater
goer, dahling. And what a marvelous phenomenon, the theater is. Jill had the tremendous fortune to attend ‘Picasso
at the Lapin Agile' at the Bluma Appell Theater on chi-chi Front Street (Thank you, Bitter Bean.) ‘Picasso at the
Lapin Agile' is a tremendously funny play written by Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin, the Jerk with Two Brains.)
And damnit, he's a fine writer.
Do you mean to say that you've never read ‘Cruel Shoes'? Oh, you poor, ignorant monkey.
You are missing one of the high points of surrealist literature. Get thee to the bookstore now and purchase it
immediately. And then save up all your pennies and go to the real live theater so that you can see thespians
spray copious amounts of saliva at each other delivering their lines while you laugh your butt off on some very
comfy seating.
‘Picasso at the Lapin Agile' depicts a meeting between Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso
one fine evening in a café in Paris. It's pure absurdist humour, with very fast paced dialog and more than a few
ribald jokes. When the play is over and you have dried the panties you wet from laughing so hard, you can lift
your pinky finger with the best of them as you partake of some very fine coffee, discuss the wittiest lines of the
play, and debate whether or not Picasso let loose more spit than Einstein.
One of the best things about this particular play is the audience. It's very amusing to see a
full house of upper middle class WASPs peeing themselves at dialogue they would snub in a film, but flock to see on
stage.
Jill was thrilled by her taste of the high life, and can't wait to don a giant hat and sit
pantless in a box seat the next time she attends a play.
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