Re: Qua Vadis, Quassia?

[Rajappa Iyer <rsi@lucent.com>]

[ This is getting a little off-topic, but... ;-) ]

Jason R Mastaler <jason@mastaler.com> writes:

> Justin Sheehy <justin@linus.mitre.org> writes:
> 
> > I probably drink enough coffee to make up for all of you silly
> > tea-drinkers...
> 
> "Tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally coarse 
> in their nervous sensibilities...will always be the favored 
> beverage of the intellectual."
>  
>               Thomas DeQuincey (1775--1859)
>               Confessions of an English Opium Eater 

>From an old article:

[begin excerpt]
Subject:      Re: Public Space (was Re: The Conscience of the Eye)
From:         rosebowl@nwu.edu (Cognito Jones)
Date:         1996/11/15
Message-Id:   <rosebowl-1511962322470001@aragorn177.nuts.nwu.edu>
Newsgroups:   rec.arts.books

In article <56ik2k$r6c@jeeves.usfca.edu>, jennifer@web.usfca.edu
(jennifer) wrote:

>  another obbook: _Communitas_
>  jennifer

Two others - Jane Jacobs, Life & Death of Great Cities (from memory - is
that title right?) has a good discussion of public spaces.

And there is a book called The Great Good Place that deals with the
subject. Includes coffeehouses, and was my first exposure to the Women's
Petition Against Coffee...The book, by Ray Oldenburg, prof of psychology &
contributor to Psychology Today, is about "third places," ie, gathering
places outside home & work. He devotes a chapter to coffee houses, and
refers to the Petition as follows:

 :   One of the most important of coffee house rules was
 :   *not* posted. Women were excluded from the
 :   premises...Scarcely two decades after it first
 :   appeared and emerged as exclusively male [late 1600s
 :   in England], the coffee house became the target of The
 :   Women's Petition Against Coffee....
 :
 :   Until recently the language of the Women's Petition
 :   was considered to be so obscene and vulgar as to
 :   preclude its printing....Five of those ten
 :   paragraphs....made the claim that the "base, black,
 :   thick, nasty bitter stinking, nauseous Puddle water"
 :   causes impotence in the male. Contending that
 :   Englishment were once justly esteemed the "Ablest
 :   Performers" in Christendom, the document proclaimed a
 :   new & deplorable state of affairs as brought about by
 :   coffee:
 :
 :       But to our unspeakable Grief, we find of late a very
 :       sensible *Decay* of that true *Old English Viguor*; our
 :       Gallants being every was so *Frenchified*, that they
 :       are become meer Cock-sparrows, fluttering things that
 :       come *Sa fa*, with a world of Fury, but are not able
 :       to *stand* to it, and in the very first Charge fall
 :       down *flat* before us. Never did Men wear greater
 :       Breeches, or carry less in them of any Mettle
 :       whatsoever.

(The following  excerpt from the "Women's Petition Against Coffee" appears
in Ray, O. & Ksir, C. _Drugs, Society, and Human Behavior,_ fifth edition,
page 216.  The reference is to Meyer, H: Old English coffee houses,
Emmaus, PA, 1954: The Rodale Press.)

"Our Countrymens pallates are become as _Fanatical_ as their Brains; how
else is't possible they should _Apostatize_ from the good old primitive way
of Ale-drinking, to run a _Whoreing_ after such variety of distructive
Foreign Liquors, to trifle away their time, scald their _Chops,_ and spend
their _Money,_ all for a little _base,_ _black,_ _thick,_ _nasty_ _bitter_
stinking,_ _nauseaous_ Puddle water..."

Hope this stirs things up....

CJ
[end excerpt]

;-)
-- 
Rajappa Iyer <rsi@lucent.com>		#include <std_disclaimer.h>
	They also surf who only stand on the waves.