Two Persons Coffee at Bok
Musings on the Ideal Place to Write
A few weeks ago, the neighborhood paper sent me on assignment to Two Persons Coffee - a shop located in a re-purposed auto-body bay inside the defunct Bok Technical High School. It fast became my go-to coffee house for writing.
I feel that every writer must have a coffee house at which to sit and write, if not a bar. Here, I dream of being a writer while spending lots of time on Facebook and Twitter and checking my Goodreads author page. As summer ends, I’ll return to my full-time job and think about how I’ll sit here next summer or on weekends.
Sometimes this daydream includes being chased out of Two Persons Coffee by angry readers. I imagine having written something meritorious of debate and criticism. An angry lesbian with green hair and thick, zylonite glasses will have ginned-up all of Twitter about microaggressions and lead a torch-and-pitchfork mob to the coffee house to throw things at me and call me a scoundrel.
“Are you CT Liotta?” somebody will ask as I sit and write.
“Yes,” I’ll reply, at which point they’ll throw iced coffee on me while their friend records it on their phone.
At this point I want the daydream to include a healthy boost to sales figures brought on by the video going viral. Instead, my realistic brain takes over and imagines no change to sales and me on the hook for a new shirt. The bump to sales figures will come when somebody discovers my writing five years after I’ve died.
“Are you CT Liotta?” somebody will ask as I sit and write.
“Yes,” I’ll reply, at which point they’ll throw iced coffee on me while their friend records it on their phone.
Back to the woman with green hair. Do I want to piss her off? Of course not. I’d rather piss of an alt-right person. I’m sure I would, if they read books. As it is, they get upset about the flag and the national anthem, while liberal arts people get upset with each other over perceived harmfulness in printed fiction.
I don’t know if I’ll have arrived as a writer when people write angry screeds about me on Twitter, or when sales go up. Either way I’d love to make Two Persons Coffee famous. They have great coffee, and the people who run it work hard and deserve success. Check them out at the old Bok building, off Dudley Street in Philly.
You can find CT Liotta’s current offerings, along with others for your Kindle, at www.rotgutpulp.com
