UWP Lecturers Coffee-house Update

[Steven Axelrod]

Congrats, Carole.

We'll think of you everytime we have a cup of something there. It will
indeed by a campus "amenity," one of my favorite words and concepts.

Too bad there won't be hasty pudding to go with the java:

I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel,
My morning incense, and my evening meal--
The sweets of Hasty Pudding. Come, dear bowl,
Glide o'er my palate, and inspire my soul.
The milk beside thee, smoking from the kine,
Its substance mingled, married in with thine,
Shall cool and temper thy superior heat,
And save the pains of blowing while I eat.

--Joel Barlow, "The Hasty Pudding"

Clearly, hasty pudding should be the next big thing.

Cheers,

Steve

On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 4:27 AM, Carole Fabricant <cf7516 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> I've been meaning to send an email out for the past several weeks but have
> been overwhelmed with other stuff.  I still am but did want to take out a
> moment to let you know that (tantara) there WILL be a coffee-house on campus
> starting in the fall quarter.  It will be a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf
> outlet.  Over the past weeks I've been in phone contact with Cheryl Garner,
> the new Director of Dining Services, and she assures me that it's slated to
> open no later than the end of September (though she's hoping for an opening
> earlier, around Sept. 10).  Mind you, my last conversation with her predated
> the latest round of financial threats by our Great Governator (especially
> aimed at matters related to education) following the defeat of his budgetary
> proposals.  But it sounds like the coffee-house is pretty much a done deal
> and that they'll be working on it all summer.
>
> The good news is that it's been relocated to a much better (i.e., larger)
> venue (a building that stands by itself in the Hub) than the one originally
> planned (the cramped space that was once used as the Printing and Repro
> Office), and that it will remain open until late into the evening.  I spoke
> to Ms. Garner about the need for a proper setting and ambience (which
> includes the right kind of seating, lighting, and music).  She told me there
> will be some comfortable (couch-like) seating and that the idea is to
> have two separate 'environments', each with different features -- one for
> undergraduates (wanting a place to study, check out YouTube and play with
> their high-tech gadgets, etc.) and the other for us (ahem) older folks,
> interested in a place to stretch out and indulge our caffeine habit while
> quietly reading a book or conversing with friends and colleagues.  In theory
> that sounds pretty good -- but we're all well aware of the often yawning gap
> between theory and practice so I remain more than a little skeptical about
> how all this will work out. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
>
> I made a few other suggestions -- about the need for EDIBLE pastries and
> sandwiches, for an oven to heat stuff up in, and for the sale of the New
> York Times on a daily basis (having to read a rag sheet like the Riverside
> Enterprise or, these days, even the LA Times doesn't exactly enhance one's
> coffee-house experience).  I also stressed the need for real as well as
> paper cups (definitely more civilized --  and even makes the coffee taste
> better).  If you have any additional suggestions or ideas, do let me know
> and I'll pass them along to Garner.
>
> Not that she'll necessary be responsive to them -- this whole venture is
> being run by corporate and marketing types for whom a coffee-house is simply
> a source of profit (or a place to be closed if unprofitable) and not, as I
> and I hope all of you view it, an essential campus 'institution'
> that functions as a complement and extension of the classroom and lecture
> hall.  So I'm really hoping all of you will make a point of patronizing the
> coffee-house once it opens, even if you don't drink coffee (it will of
> course also offer tea and other beverages), and that you spread the word to
> friends and acquaintances in other departments.  It's absolutely
> mindboggling that a campus of 17,000 students has gone this long without a
> coffee-house (and without much of anything else, as far as I can tell -- no
> pub, no faculty club, the list is endless), and we should do what we can to
> support its existence once it does open.
>
> Just a quick postscript here:  Because the coffee-house is part of a
> corporate chain there's unfortunately no possibility of naming it after
> Lindon, as I'd suggested in my last email.  What planet was I on when I was
> envisioning a coffee-house that would be a unique and individual place, a
> kind of funky venue that would allow for personal touches like that?!  I'm
> hoping (and assuming) that during the past weeks of my sabbatical, members
> of the department have come up with other ways of paying tribute to Lindon's
> memory.
>
> A parting thought:  "Ah, how sweet the coffee tastes,/More delicious than a
> thousand kisses,/Mellower than muscatel wine./Coffee, coffee I must
> have,/And if someone wishes to give me pleasure,/Ah, then pour me out some
> coffee!"  (J.S. Bach, "The Coffee Cantata")
>
> Cheers,
> Carole
>
>
>
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