For a Writer, This Is the Most Important Part of a Cafe
It’s all in the sounds
Hemingway knew the worth of a good cafe; his memoir, A Moveable Feast, begins with the chapter:
A Good Cafe on the Place St.-Michel
It was a pleasant cafe, warm and clean and friendly… I entered far into the story and was lost in it.
We writers depend on cafes when we are sick of solitude, when we crave the distraction of people, when we want to sip tea and sink our fork into sponge…
There’s a lovely cafe near me. Well, I hope it’s still lovely…
They grew lavender beneath the windows and in fine weather, I would sit by the lavender and the chink and thump of the kitchen played through the open window like an errant polka. Inside the cafe, soft jazz played from the radio and the notes seemed to structure the very air but did not invade a writer’s mind.
Last time I went there, it had changed hands—and music. Gone was the gentle jazz, replaced by Lionel Richie. And in life, I find there’s wretchedness, and then there’s Richie…
I once visited the historic town of Battle, named after the Battle of Hastings, where in 1066, William defeated Harold to become William I of England…
