vulture hats and visibility

so i'm sitting on the couch at my favorite coffee shop today, grading papers when... in struts a rather rotund chap donning a vulture hat (yes, the very same kind as in the photo here - but don't let the attractive lady distract you from the explicit absurdity). all loungers stopped what they were doing and let their eyes follow this somewhat strange fellow as he made his way to order a coffee. i initially thought he was a hired clown about to perform in the courtyard or at a local party, but when i looked at his face as he walked by, i realized this was probably not the case. instead, i perceived in him an emptiness of sorts. though i think he took some satisfaction in the stares he received, there seemed to be a vortexual vacuity behind his eyes. he walked by me, made his way out the door and sat at the rot iron table by the window. i was sitting next to the glass, so i occasionally observed him during the next hour. i noticed that he made sure to meet the eyes of everyone who glanced his way. i couldn't tell if he was looking for a fight or recognition or both, but he certainly intended to provoke a response. he sat outside for quite a while chain smoking and occasionally falling asleep. i wonder if perhaps the man is normally so invisible to the world that this is his way to reappear, to get the looks, the stares, the attention that he needs to verify his existence. despite the dormant look in his eyes, it seems to me quite an ingenuous attempt.

black ceilings

I spend quite a bit of time at coffee shops and bookstores where wifi is readily available (and free). At a certain coffee chain, if you take the time to observe your surroundings (particularly those above you) you’ll notice vaulted black ceilings. The air ducts and various other vitals are right there overhead, exposed except for their melanin makeup. I have been to this chain many times and to this specific store quite a bit, but I hadn’t really taken note of this anomaly above until very recently. The peculiarity of these darkly painted parts struck me as ingenious and, in fact, quite appropriate in some nebulous way for a generally mellow and congenial java house. As aforementioned, the adust sky-scape doesn’t draw your immediate attention, but should you happen to glance up, there’s a subtle, gothic grandeur about the whole thing – medieval meets Manhattan, or cathedral hooks up with cool house blues. As I ponder it, I realize that I’m truly attracted to the abstract union of these two conceptions. The appeal, I think, has to do with the epic ideal embedded in the one, and the community concept at least latent in the other. When these two meet in real life, the result moves us beyond mere ambiance into the intersection of the sacred and the secular, of the transcendent and the imminent, of the prayer and the party. Despite what the Enlightenment espoused, human is not comprised of separate parts, but rather we embody concentricity on all levels. Community is connected to cosmic and epic dovetails with down to earth kind of like vaulted black ceilings fade into the fellowship found in laidback lounges.