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PRINTERS_INK

                                              April 7, 2014

The cafe-bookstore is an idea that now seems
so obvious and over-done it might be hard to
remember that there was a time when it was a
new, innovative business idea.

"Printer's Ink" in Palo Alto was one of
the first (though not quite the first)
coffee house/bookstores I encountered        The first that I remember
in the mid-80s.                              was also in California,
                                             on Highway 1 near San Diego.
This was located in Palo
Alto's secondary main drag,
on a strip between the
El Camino thoroughfare
and the second train station.

                        STATIONED

As it happens, it was close to
where I ended up living in
the Stanford Avenue area--
a residential tongue of Palo
Alto sticking into a corner of
the Stanford Campus.


Hanging around a place like this, you get
glimpses of the lives of the people
working there:
                                                       THERMIDOR
  "I sold a painting!", said the slim asian
   guy with hair down to his waist, who once
   pedantically corrected my pronunciation of
   Cyrillic (St. Cyril, so that's an "s" sound).

   Zak, a small, ordinary-seeming guy who
   became a minor celebrity for his knife
   juggling behind the counter.

   A short-haired blond (bleached) woman
   who I later saw working as a bondage     I guess I had a policy
   model at Bondage-A-Go-Go up in SF.       of not hitting on the
                                            female baristas-- that's
                                            apparently a common
I would not say that this was               obsession for single
a huge social scene for me, it              fellows like I was, but
was more of a faux social                   I managed to avoid
thing, a place I would go                   indulging in that one.
where I could be out on the
scene with my fellow humans
without actually having to
deal with them much.
                                 HANGOUT

Though on the other hand I would
certainly go there with friends
on occasion, and there were
people there I met there who
became aquaintences I'd say hello       E.g. at San Antonio's Nuthouse
to if I saw them around town            across the street, or over on
                                        University avenue;

                                        E.g. at the sleazy 24 hour
                                        diner that used to be on the
                                        main drag....

                                          To get in the doorway
                                          you needed to push
                                          through a solid wall      
                                          of cigarette smoke...
                                          Aging vampire waitresses
                                          would take your order 
                                          and deliver the omelette
                                          with a neat slice of 
                                          plastic-wrapped cheese
                                          melted on top of it 
                                          (sans plastic, though).
                                                                     

                                  This was a Palo Alto of           
                                  another era, far less slick
                                  than the present-day one--
    When I first started
    going to Printer's Ink,       In those days Palo Alto still
    the cafe was located          had some features like Eugene
    inside the bookstore,         Robinson's "CFY Records" and the
    with a smoking section        "House of Faith" recording
    indoors, on one side          studio, hidden in an industrial
    of the counter.               neighborhood just across the
                                  tracks from downtown Palo Alto.
       A civilzation gone
       with the smoke.


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