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 what i think is really cool
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Greetings!
You know what I think is really cool? I think the free noon writing practice at Cafe la Boheme every Friday is really cool.
Every Friday at noon people gather at tables and just write and read aloud to each other for no other purpose other than to do it. We don't do it to get commentary on our work. There is no discussion of the work. There's an occasional appreciative nod, an occasional sigh or laugh and that's it. We just read. Everybody gets the same amount of feedback: None! It's just for the love of it. That's what I love about it.
I also love that it happens in San Francisco.
I also love it because it's a statement. It's a quiet demonstration of the primacy of the creative act in everyday life.
I also love it because if you write for a living, as I do, you might cherish the opportunity to write just for fun.
I also love it because it's kind of Dada. Somehow. Somehow it's DADA.
Also, I like that it happens every week regardless. It's always there.
I like just about every part of it.
So wouldn't it be great if it were huge?
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what if it went worldwide?
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I also love the possibility that anyone from anywhere in the world who happens to be in San Francisco on a Friday could come to Cafe la Boheme, find a group of writers at a table, join them, and spend an hour writing and reading their writing aloud without judgment or comment, and then leave to go about their day, or back to their hotel, or wherever they're going.
And then they could take this practice back to their city or country and start it in their own cafes, so that when we are traveling, we can drop in on cafes around the world and do the same thing. And then there will grow up a network of such groups in cafes around the world, and the practice will continue all over the world for decades or centuries, and the unbrokenness of the practice will amaze people and give them a sense of continuity and a sense that wherever you are, whatever century you are in, if you are called to be a writer this is something you can do.
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what i'd like to do
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So I'm writing to ask that you come to Cafe la Boheme this Friday, Nov. 26, which is the day after Thanksgiving and a holiday for many people, and let's do the writing practice together.
Let's see how it works with a lot of people. Let's see if there are enough tables. Let's see how long the line gets for coffee. Let's see how the proprietors take it. And then, after we do this dry run with people who have all done it before and know the drill, we will invite people who've never done it before to come. And we'll see how that works.
And then, well, I know this is really short notice, and you probably have things to do, so we'll see who can show up this Friday, and maybe, based on that, we'll schedule a second such get-together, before widening the circle.
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again, the facts:
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Friday, Nov. 26, 2010, 11:45 a.m. Gather at
Cafe la Boheme, 24th Street at Mission (NW quadrant, North side of 24th) San Francisco.
Gather at tables where you see folded pieces of paper.
If folks who haven't done it before come to the table, show them how to do it. Start at noon. Finish at 1.
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why i'm writing to you and where i got your e-mail
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This e-mail is only going out to about 50 people. I'm sending it to you because either you were in on the creation of the Cafe la Boheme writing practice, or you have attended it at least once, or you asked to be on this mailing list, or someone told me you were interested or ... in a few cases, I just thought you might be interested and took the liberty. (If I was wrong, please accept my sincere apology and take the liberty of unsubscribing.) Now, the purpose of this e-mail is to get experienced and/or intensely interested folks there this Friday, and then, after we see who's interested, then the following week I would send e-mails out to a larger, more general list, inviting them to drop in and write with us.
That way, enough experienced folks would be already in on it to make it work if lots of new people show up.
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a little history
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The free Cafe la Boheme writing practice has now gone on continuously every Friday at noon since March 27, 2009. That's 86 weeks. According to my notes from that day, the first participants were Caitlin Meyer, Alice Wu, Roberta Llewellyn, Paula Hendricks and me.
But Alice Wu really started it, whether she realizes it or not.
In January 2009, Alice came to our regular Saturday afternoon writing workshop on 48th Avenue. Alice seemed like a really fun, interesting person and she was thinking of moving out here from New York. We got to be friends, and Alice mentioned this really intriguing writing practice she had witnessed in a cafe in Seattle, hosted by these two guys Jack and Bob -- to whom we owe big thanks, incidentally, and whom I have never met, but whom I want to go find and thank in person! So anyway I thought, hey, we should do that writing practice thing here in SF! I took on the job of looking for the right space, and we checked out a lot of places but Cafe la Boheme was the natural location.
Since March 2009, members of the Portuguese Artists Colony such as Caitlin, Leslie Ingham, Benjamin Wachs and Megan Enright, as well as many folks from the writing workshops such as Cavett Hughes, Eric DeRiel, Melissa Price, Heather Baird Donovan, Donna Reese, Alexandra Jones, Mary Burnham and others have joined us. We hope you will too.
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a piece I wrote at the first one
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I have my notebook from the very first one, so here is something from that. This is totally unedited, just copied out of my Mead 100-page composition book. I think I'd edit some lines but this is just it raw.
3/27/09 La Boheme
The strawberries were tart
They say astringency enhances
The moon's smooth surface they say
Strawberries emerge from a reservoir of acid
Sweetened by memories my hair is tart I
Find the spaces between the strawberries a
Sweeter kind of fruit, I
taste a sugary shadow and
Pronounce it fair, the
Berries I remember were all in
Oregon
it is a
Fact rarely noted how the
hair on the berry
Does not deter the tongue
even
Though a cook might blanch
at what the
Recipe required
The strawberries were a gift
The child appreciated
A family at the beach attempted
Sorting out its basket under a
Summer sun of burning, a
Blanket wet with juice a
Hungry child spilled
The strawberries were tart
No surprise was the reply
Thousands of years, millions of tongues:
The majesty of a field where they grow wild.
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in the year 2060
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One more thing I love about this:
Sometime in the year 2060 on a Friday at noon a writer will sit at a table in the Cafe la Boheme and will realize that it was 50 years ago when she first came there and did the writing practice, and now it's done all over the world, and writers are still gathering at noon, putting their prompts on little pieces of paper, putting the papers in the middle of the table, drawing prompts, setting the timer, writing and then reading aloud around the circle without comment. Isn't that great? she'll say. Isn't that great?
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