yoodi's posts with tag: park bench society
 That was what it says in white chalk on the menu board standing on the pavement in front of this café announcing the special package for the day. I felt raindrops fell heavier on my head and was deciding whether to go inside escaping the rain or just continued walking. I peeked inside and saw empty white linen clothed tables decorated with a white lily in a small crystal like vase on top of every table.
I decided to sit on the veranda section of the café protected from the rain by a white colored canopy and chose the farthest side of the table from the sidewalk to avoid the rain. Not really in a hurry to be served I looked across the street watching wet grass on a small park turned shinier from the rain. Overlooking the park my eyes caught a window display of an interior design gallery. It showed a white themed bedroom décor of a massive light colored teakwood bed softened by sheets, down pillows and comforter all in white. My wandering mind then was so quick to build an imaginary setting of its own. One was an illustration of a tropical setting with ocean breeze flowing through an opened window blowing at a white see – through curtain. Inside is a teak paneled floor bedroom in some hidden villa in Canggu, Bali surrounded by rice fields and a view of a small river. Contrary to the tropical setting, other images that popped up from that “all white” window display were clips from TV commercials for either an air condition product or sanitary napkins for women. I couldn’t really help it of coming up with these latter pictures since it was an occupational hazard from working in an ad agency. Commercial for these type of products tend to highlight the whiteness of things to portray freshness and cleanness. Strange that since I walked past this café I felt attacked by this color starting with the white chalked menu list, tablecloth, white lily, canopy and that bedroom décor display. Anyhow, I prefer the tropical picture over the TV commercial ones as it gave me a quick get away window from the damp wet autumn day as it was that day.
The green tropical picturesque was shattered when the waitress came over to take my order. She was wearing an oversize white shirt (again that color) but wrapped thankfully in a black apron with front pockets filled with order book and a pen. I asked for a double espresso to speed up my caffeine intake for the day and asked her to come back later while I browsed the menu. My espresso came and I asked if she could give me a small cut of lime skin to put on my coffee. She came back with two small pieces on a white small plate. I learned this from an old Italian man years ago on how to make an espresso richer in flavor.
I studied the menu and saw lemon cheesecake again which was slightly more expensive than the plain cheesecake, obviously. I was always one that went for the old fashioned way when it came to food and drinks so I started to automatically think of ordering the plain one. The way I run my life was complicated enough and I could use a few basic simple way of living like a plain bagel instead of a cinnamon taste one or a cold beer instead of those colorful designer cocktails.
However, sitting there and staring again at the clean white tablecloth I felt I was entering a comfort zone that was long ago forgotten. So all of a sudden this out of the ordinary thought came over me and I told the waitress to bring me the lemon cheesecake. While waiting for my order I took out my shag tobacco and rolling paper . My finger started to do the art of rolling the thin white paper and making it into a thin cigarrete.
Watching my cigarette burned by a Zippo I started to think is it curiosity for the blended taste of cheese and lemon or is it simply boredom for the ordinary? The “great white attack” somehow already gave me a hugging – like feeling of coziness and now the thought of lemon taste over a traditional delicatessen like cheese charmed my curiosity.
The waitress came back with my cheesecake. I looked at it and it was prettier to look at than the ordinary one with gradient of yellowish color on the white cheese surface. The twist of lemon taste on my tongue felt like a fresh witty surprise over the usual stand alone cheese taste. As I took more bites I felt the fresh sweet taste was arousing some long forgotten senses inside. Savoring the lemon cheese taste, sniffing the aroma of strong espresso mixed with a scent of lime while enjoying the whiteness around me was like slouching in a giant comfortable sofa, it felt like home.
As I sat there absorbing all these, the rain has stopped. It was home but in a different world. It was like going scuba diving in that tropical place, seeing the beauty of the colorful marine lives and an underwater flower garden made of coral reefs. The world separated by open water and an oxygen tank, the deeper you go the more beautiful it was. It was a dangerous playground unless you are an expert diver in the hand of an experience dive master.
I tossed a few bills to pay for everything and left the café. Walking across the small park I kicked some reddish autumn leaves lying on the green carpet of wet grass. Some raindrops still rested on the leaves like teardrops hanging on a pair of sad eyes. Kicking the leaves made the water splashed on my shoes and I carried those teardrops with me as I walked away. Sitting on a wet iron park bench l looked back at the café. I thought about the options, weighing possibilities of living between two worlds. I knew my next stop would be home, the one in my world.
I would miss my lemon cheesecake even when the taste continued to linger on my taste bud. I even knew that I would miss it still as I bite into it the next time. This was like a secret love affair between two characters on two different story frames of the same comic page. Sharing the same space but separated by two different stories. Unification could only be decided by the almighty illustrator.
I then realized that I too wore a white shirt over a pair of washed out jeans that day. Another long forgotten habit of my preferred attire for a simple look which strangely I put on again that rainy autumn day. I continued my walk home and wondering whether my closet would have enough space to hang my white shirts and a diving wetsuit.
Historically city gardens and parks have always been places of urban public spaces. They have been significant in the life of many cities as spaces of social movements. Not to mention in some Western countries these places have a significant socio-political history in the formation of democracy as these open spaces sometimes become the backdrop of public debates on contesting or opposing policies.
In the everyday urban life parks and gardens act as a media for the movement of people and communication of individuals or groups. It is also both a public and private domain where people can perform social interaction in groups or individuals preferring to read a book on a park bench and claiming it as their own private space. The networking of people and communications are local limited to the boundaries and spaces within the groups and the speed of the traveling sounds. Interactions require a physical connection like the whispering of a couple of lover by the garden fountain, the triumph yell of a man to his dog who caught a flying Frisbee or the conversation of two babies on a stroller while their mothers are gossiping about the latest sale on the local market.
Outdoor cafes in the nearby sidewalks are also places of public spaces for interaction and the movement of people. Sitting on the wicker chairs a groups or individuals can form a local networking may that be of two old men playing chess or a leisurely lone brunch and "people watching" over a cup of coffee with toasted rye bread and jam on an orchid decorated white linen table cloth.
Today with the development of wireless technology that permits the transfer of digital data without physical connection like Mobile Phone and Wi-Fi has changed the cultural way of connecting people in a different way. Communications no longer only about the movement of people but also include the movement of data like images, voice, text and sounds.
Public areas in cities now have what they called "hotspots" where people with laptop, PDA and mobile phones with Wi-Fi facility can get internet connection. Communications are now beyond local domain but crossing the global domain. The boundaries of spaces are extended to every spot on the earth and blurring the private and public everyday activities. Home entertainments are now in the form of Walkman and Ipod, fixed line phone as cell phone and desktop computer as PDA or laptop.
I wonder how this new media and its existence in the open public spaces is changing the structure of emotions, feelings, beliefs and perceptions concerning the act of communication and the creation of social links between people. You can see now two people sitting together in a cafe not conversing with each other but instead they are pre-occupied with exchanging text messages or emails with other people through the latest Communicator or PDA Smart Phone. The old men playing chess are now two teenagers playing game via a Bluetooth connection on their cell phone while across the next table a board room presentation has moved its physical presence here with the help of a laptop.
The digital culture alters how social links are established between people. It's funny to watch two young adults of opposite sex sitting close to each other and checking their Friendster account in an internet cafe to find out if they have new friends added to the list when they can actually try to converse with each other and be friends in the real everyday life. In the mean time the privacy of someone reading a book on a park bench can be enhance with music from the use of data portability in an Ipod.
These movement of data also somehow increase people's confidence who would before feel uneasy to sit alone in a cae but who now can spend significant time with their laptop converting one of the Starbucks or Coffee Bean's corner as a working space. These portable digital equipments can also sometime used as an acting props for people to act busy by checking messages or making calls on their cell phones.
While I say it's nice to be able to bring your work outside the office or the enhancement of a cozy private moment of reading a good book while listening to some Bossas on an Ipod this new media for movement of data is altering the everyday practice for social communication that somehow makes people lose sight of their surroundings while trying to keep up with the movement of images, text, and voice.
Another thing that becomes more obsolete a friend of mine mentioned not long ago is that we no longer use hand writing to communicate our thoughts and feelings.
Inspired by an article "From Cafe to Park Bench: Wi-Fi and Technological Overflows in the City" by Adrian Mackenzie, Institute for Cultural Research, Lancaster University
Rainy afternoon, Starbuck Cafe. Sitting outdoor, full ashtray, half empty cup of espresso and can't remember what she's having. All this for the sake of the lack of park benches in the whole freaking city which in turn led to this stupid deep conversation about surrendering to consumerism and get trap in the segmented niche of black and white society for the simple pleasure of just hanging out to have stupid fun.
"living between two lines" she said, I can't really understand what that actually means. Is it because of the lack of private space provided by park benches where you could just sit alone for hours with your thoughts or long walks on the wide clean sidewalk for hours till you return to the same exact spot you started hours ago?. Whatever it is, for sure our beloved city of Jakarta doesn't have either one, park benches or clean nice sidewalk.
Come to think of it, its real pathetic to giving in to consumerism and having to go to a freaking public place where you're either black or white which in most cases means sometimes having to endure "the narcissism and self-conscious 100 percent genuine plastic" behavior just for a smoke and a quiet sit in the bench. What happens to the grey area where you're either black or white and just want to be you without the noise and sight pollution of the discount and new arrivals signs everywhere you go?.
I wonder when can she finds her park bench where she can look within from the outside and just observe ? I don't know the answer to that. In the mean time over at the next few table from ours there is a woman in red open turtle neck sweater sitting by herself and she seems to be using the Starbuck chair as her own private park bench and oblivion to her surrounding.
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