Coolest place on earth, maybe?

This is the Morningstar76 Coffee Shop in East Grand Rapids Michigan. Pound for pound it is the vibe-iest, most soulful place I have ever been in. This is where I met Drew Nelson, the singer/songwriter. This Saturday the girl working at the counter wrote a note and left it on the counter. It started out like this: "Darling. I walked 2,353 steps just to be with you today." I don't remember the rest, except it ended with "P.S. You look very pretty today." I thought it was pretty cool - like performance art or something -- that she just left that on the counter for customers to read. It certainly made me feel welcome! The pictures don't really do justice to quite how grungy the place is though, and also don't convey the overwhelming fragrance/pall of cigarette smoke that pervades everything. It's like being in a university cafe in France back in the 70's - my yardstick for measuring smokiness!

At your service

Champagne brunch for New Year's? Must be an Episcopal Church!

Style Icon No. 1 in My Book

There simply will never be any one cooler than Keef. Even the guitar in this picture oozes style as much as it does musical sense. If something can, in fact, be said to ooze musical sense. I'm going to try not to think about that too much.

II etait une fois ...

My old blog fizzled because I tried to make it too thoughtful. So, if you are looking for substance, analysis, insights or even coherence, this may not be the place for you. I am mostly creating this as a kind of on-line diary of the things I am currently interested in, working on, pursuing, curious about, or looking for help with. So, having said that, what I want to focus on for now are the following things: guitar, speaking French, style and poetry. Also, one of my new year's resolutions was to leave encouraging comments on other people's blogs, so maybe one of them will come here and be curious about who left those comments. This might give some idea of what I am currently into.