Coffee houses have been at the center of the public interactions of modern cities and societies. Although nowadays, they are not particularly the places for the discussion of public affairs and the circulation of information (this tends to happen in other mediated spaces), they are still important places to hang out, get drinks and food, and also, connect to the Internet. Of course, they are still very important places to get fresh brewed coffee. In Austin, the city where I am living now, coffee shops (as they are called by the locals) are mostly places for work and study. They are like open offices. The customers who hang out there are mostly students and young telecommuters who do work in their laptop computers while accompanied by a drink on their tables.
There is a variety of coffee shops around the city and each one tries to develop a unique style. Close to the university, one can find places with a very hippy and baroque style such as Spider House, and coffeeshops with a simpler and slick design such as Medicci. Some of them allow certain levels of chat and noise such as JP’s Lava, others are very quite and as silent as a library such as Flightpath. Others are kind of blend between restaurant-cafe-gelateria-bar such as Dolce Vita. A little bit farther and on the east side one can find coffee houses such as Cherrywood and Thunderbird, that are noiser and chattier and regularly have concerts and other events.
It has called my attention since I started to visit these places, that the people who is part of the coffeeshop staff, the people who actually brew the coffee and prepare the espressos, seem to have developed a particular style as well. They form part of a youth culture scene. Last saturday I assisted to an event, mixture of party-concert-exhibit, where the these kind of scene came alive. Several baristas from the different coffeeshops I use to visit where at the party playing music with indie rock bands, selling fanzines, and displaying some public sculptures. They were also giving free beer to the attendees. It turned out that the event was the release of a a fanzine called LiverSpots, and that some of the bands who played were actually pretty well known around town. Some of them such as The Nouns and Halaska have been playing for a while.
I had the chance to talk to some of these organizers, and they where very happy to present their DIY media work. One of them told me they run a zine called Raw Paw that has an open call for contributors. I thought that the world that they are building, their cultural scene, could become an interesting subject of study. Especially, I though it could be a great theme for a documentary. Visually, the scene is very diverse and I am intrigued by the stories that the baristas have to tell.
