Title: The Coffee House, copyleft
About this painting (quoted from Wikimedia Commons)
English: Coffee Houses played an important part in the social life of Robert Hooke. Only coffee and chocolate were served (no alcohol). Here news could be had, conversation, arguments, meetings, card games, wagers made, workmen could be paid, etc. (Hooke would sometimes carry out a scientific experiment in front of a coffee house audience as witnesses.) Hooke is shown writing (bottom left) at a table with people waiting to talk to him.
Rita Greer is a history artist, goldsmith, graphic designer, food scientist and author/writer. On retirement in 2003 Rita began the Robert Hooke project, “to put him back into history.”
According to the Institute of Physics article of Jan. 12, 2012: “Chroniclers of his time called him ‘despicable’, ‘mistrustful’ and ‘jealous’, and a rivalrous Isaac Newton might have had the only surviving portrait of him burnt, but, three centuries on, Robert Hooke is now regarded as one of the great Enlightenment scientists.”
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I spend a large portion of my life in coffee houses too, writing and meeting with other writers, and artists. The friend who inspired the poem today was introduced to me in a coffee house in Olympia, on a dark November night in 2012. It was the kick-off meeting for NaNoWriMo that year.
Irene
I met you in a coffee shop.
Knitters and authors vied for tables
In a dark, polished, coffee-scented room.
Texas wit met Northwest irreverence
And the world was never the same.
A sisterhood built on words
And books
And commonalities.
We met as old ladies, too wise to raise much hell.
We’d have been dangerous
Had Austin met Olympia in the young, wild days.
It must have been divine intent
That our lives converged in the quiet years.
Sisterhood binds and unites us
Because family is more
Than marriage or blood.
Irene © Connie J. Jasperson 2015, All Rights Reserved
Everyone knows–and it has been proven through countless research initiatives–that the original purpose of the Coffee House was to prime the various addicts for creative expression; hence, the consumption of coffee was akin to injections of opium in a different day and the absorption of mind-numbing audio-visual stimuli in the present day. The grim result, as we know, was a plethora of literary, musical, and visual art driven more by caffeine than by Muse!
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…er…grim, indeed!
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I am going to be presumptuous and assume I am the Irene the subject of this wonderful poem. After the last two days I’ve had, knowing that the talented Connie is both friend and family makes them worthwhile. Love you, lady.
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You assume correctly, dear friend! I celebrate our friendship as well as coffee in this post.
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