Friday, December 08, 2006

Starbucks is the Cheers of postmodernism!

What a great quote from this fab article in Relevant Magazine :: Where everybody knows your name by Allison Hennessy... in it she talks about the connectedness she feels to the third place in her area:
With the global advent of coffee shops like Starbucks, Caribou and the great local-owned places like the shop around the corner from where I live, 21 century American culture has created a new space for the Cheers crowd.../

/...When I meditate on it—being vulnerable and unashamed in front of my Creator after I have left this temporary body behind—I get a bit melancholy. It’s as if I am nostalgic for something I have not yet experienced. I am teased with it when I go to the coffee shop, when I spend time with the friends I love and trust, when I watch a rerun of Cheers. I think and hope that this nostalgia is the sign of a healthy longing after the unhindered presence of God.

The next time I go to the coffee shop and order a cup of liquid indulgence, I hope that my conversation with the barista, the sense of connectedness I feel and the peace of my third place remind me of the longing that dwells so warmly in my soul.
Makes sense to me.

I'm starting to get that Cheers feeling at the indie near my work :: Coffee Merchant :: and I have to say it feels good. Good in that I have connected... I recognise... and am recognised. Don't think I have Norm status yet... but I am working on it. Had lunch there today... its an oasis of calm from my work. We all need a third place and I like the way Alison has described hers.

Check it out.

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1 comment:

Unknown said...

reminds me of a drama me and colin always talked about doing, dont think it made its way to becoming a sript before he went to training college, it was based on cheers, called, "church, where everybody knows your name"

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