these summer afternoons in central texas get the best of me. i brewed myself a fresh cup of coffee made from my dad’s imported coffee blend. he bought it from the triumph cafe off of west anderson and the coffee is from Ban Me Thuat, Vietnam. The coffee, like the description states, is characterized by high acidity, excellent fragance, and a full body. i added some milk to neutralize the acidity and released the concotion into a slender crystal glass of ice.
i placed the coffee on a coaster on my mom’s prized stained darkwood table in our family’s formal living room. i am sitting on a upholstered couch with a perisan rug underneath my feet. there’s a piano across the room, reminding me of the times i would slave over its keys by in grade school. outside the arched windows are a bunch of construction workers attempting to replace my neighbor’s roof in a quiet and timely manner so they can return to their families as soon as possible.
on the table is an art book that features a collection of monet’s paintings that’s juxtaposed with commentary from vanessa potts and dr. claire o’mahony. (from what the google machine tells me, dr. claire o’mahony is a professor at the university of bristol in the united kingdom. how unfortunate that the university at which she works shares a name with a member of the palin clan.) i flipped through the pages, glimpsing at the paintings while skimming through the commentary. apparently mr. claude oscar monet participated in the french state-sponsored art exhibition, the salon. i then thought about what it would be like to attend such a prestigious and formal celebration of art, perhaps even le salon d’automne in belgium. i imagined a large room with servings of hor d’oeurves floating throughout the room while the bourgeoise flaunt their wealth and power around the room. then i would see the artists, the mad(wo)men of the universe attempting to segregate themselves from the world, more specifically the bourgeoise attempting to indulge in the artists’ unconventionality (pain) in an attempt to fulfill their evening’s entertainment requirements in a pseudo attempt to understand “art”.
and i thought to myself, am i just another member of the bourgeoise attempting to drain the unconventionals? or am i truly a madman trying to gravitate to similar people in order to relate? such questions cannot be answered while sitting alone in le salon.
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