Tuesday, March 25: High-Heeled Gumshoe
A CUP OF JOE
by Melodie Johnson
There is an expression that I detest: “Wake up and smell the roses.” I not only hate it for its inane mediocre sentiment, but for its tone. It insists. It demands. It’s not unlike the Nike ad that snapped, “Just do it.” Another version of this command is, “Wakeup and smell the coffee.” This one really irritates me because I like to wake up and smell the coffee. I just don’t like being told, with all the pious philosophical value of a Happy Face, to do so.
My husband makes me coffee in the morning. Even before I open my eyes I am sniffing the air for that wonderful enveloping scent that is created by hot water drenching beans that have been ground to something that resembles a deep rich loam. I love to sit up in my bed holding my first cup of coffee. (I drink from a mug. Cups are just not hefty enough for me. Coffee is a bold statement. Tea is a nuance.) I love to feel the warmth of the mug in my hands. I try to savior the first swallow because I know this coffee will be the best of the day.
Coffee is succor for writers. Honore Balzac drank over twenty cups a day. (I do not recommend this.) I find that getting up from my desk to make a fresh pot of coffee is a ritual that I need to go through in order to write. In The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler describes Phillip Marlowe making coffee:
“I turned the hot water on and got the coffee-maker down off the shelf. I wet the rod and measured the stuff into the top and by that time the water was steaming. I filled the lower half of the dingus and set it on the flame. I set the upper part on top and gave it a twist so it would bind. The coffee maker was almost ready to bubble. I turned the flame low and watched the water rise. It hung a little at the bottom of the glass tube. I turned the flame up just enough to get it over the hump and then turned it low again quickly. I stirred the coffee and covered it. I set my timer for three minutes. Very methodical guy, Marlowe. Nothing must interfere with his coffee technique. Not even a gun in the hand of a desperate character. The coffee was all down and the air rushed in with its usual fuss and the coffee bubbled and then became quiet. I removed the top of the maker and set it on the drainboard in the socket of the cover. I poured two cups and added a slug to his.”
The beauty of this scene is not only do you see Marlowe fussing in the kitchen, but you glimpse Chandler, the writer, and his connection to the ritual of coffee. The same with Ken Bruen and his character, Jack Taylor, in The Dramatists:
“I made some coffee – had moved up to real coffee – yeah, beans, filters, the whole nine yards. What I like best was the aroma: just let it cook, simmer and allow that smell to bounce off the wall. I never ever tired of the sensations. …When you’ve drunk instant all your life, you are seriously fucked. The real thing is too much; you can’t get your taste around it. Plus it packs one hell of a punch: two cups and you’re off your feet. All my years of caffeine, it was purely to punctuate the hangovers.”
I know coffee is not an American discovery, but like so many things we do we’ve made it our own. We’ve called it Joe and Java and many other names that I can’t remember. (I need another cup.) Diners exist because of this magical brew. They exist in novels and the movies for the PI, the desperate blonde, or the guy on the run, to sit at a counter and stare into a greasy mug of burnt coffee. In The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain, the reader can smell the java brewing in The Four Oaks Café along with the smells of the enchiladas and flapjacks being cooked. I’m sure that Mildred Pierce not only reeked of pies but also of coffee.
Now we’ve stripped away all artifice and we call it caffeine. We go directly to the addiction, the high. No time to linger, to enjoy. Or we’ve Starbucked it to death. Latte Vente. Or Is Vente Latte? (I need more coffee.) Can you imagine Marlowe ordering a Half and Half No Fat Latte? There is a very funny scene in Steve Martin’s L.A. Story where all the Hollywood people are ordering coffee, each wanting it prepared in a special way down to a half decaf, half-half decaf espresso. I love my coffee. I love the jolt. I love the memories it brings me. The memories are borrowed from mystery novels and black and white movies. Take another look at Edward Hopper’s painting, Nighthawks. The only warmth, the only connection between the people in that startling piece of art comes from the two big shining urns in the back of the diner. You can almost smell it: A cup of Joe.
Melodie has actually “composited” two different proverbs for this article, as well as thrown in a little Madison Avenue. This was deliberate on her part for the sake of strengthening her point.
The first proverb is, “Stop and smell the roses.” It means that you should not hurry through life but take your time and enjoy what life has to offer.
The second proverb is, “Wake up and smell the bacon.” It means not to dither in your own head, but to be aware of what is going on around you.
About thirty years ago, one of the coffee companies, I think it was Maxwell House, came up with an ad campaign, “Wake up and smell the coffee” and bacon has been forgotten ever since.
An another note, the expression “Joe” for coffee comes from Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson during World War I. He abolished alcohol on board U.S. ships, so that the strongest beverage available was coffee, and the sailors then started to call it after him. The U.S. Navy is still one of the very few “dry” navies in the world.
Melodie,
I am actually a tea person (it’s the Irish in me, I guess)but there is still the ritual connecting the cup (I loved your statement: “Coffee is a bold statement. Tea is a nuance.” So true.) of tea to the computer desk. I will walk around the house and distract myself with a hundred tiny chores if that cup of tea is not sitting just to the left of the printer. If the tea is there, I’m there!
Naturally, many of my characters drink tea, but you are steering me to the bold. I’m going to introduce a few of them to coffee!
Terrie
The beauty of this scene is not only do you see Marlowe fussing in the kitchen, but you glimpse Chandler, the writer, and his connection to the ritual of coffee.
Melodie, I think you just proved my point from last Thursday’s article where I said a writer’s personality shows up on the page, sharing little bits and pieces of himself with the reader. Great article. I am a coffee junkie and although when out, I enjoy a Cafe Mocha, I usually order a Headbanger just to say the word. (A Headbanger is a coffee of the day with a shot of espresso.)
The very strange band They Might Be Giants have a wonderful line in one of their songs: “Wake up and smell the catfood.” Suggests that the fact you must face is not a pleasant one.
Never heard of the bacon version before.
As for the sober navy, quite recently my wife was learning the song that mourns rum being banned from the British navy: “oh, tonight we’ll merry, merry be, tomorrow we’ll be sober.”
Myself I haven’t had a sip of coffee in twelve years. They are threatening to boot me out of Washington state.
Melodie, I think you just proved my point from last Thursday’s article where I said a writer’s personality shows up on the page …
I don’t see it that way at all.
We have absolutely no evidence that Marlowe’s ritual was Chandler’s ritual. It might have been observed by Chandler being performed by someone else, and struck Chandler as a perfect example of choreographed behavior he could apply to his hero. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched somebody do something and thought, “I can use that.”
My two principle detectives are Roman Catholics. I was raised as a Methodist. Alan Treviscoe is careless in his appearance and Carmine Ferrari is fastidious in his appearance. Treviscoe plays chess passionately and Ferrari is utterly bored by it.
They both love coffee, but not the way I like it. As far as I’m concerned, those two guys drink mud.
Melodie, if you start your day with memories of Marlowe and Chandler, you are suffusing your writing soul with the richest blend of all! (Best, there are a ton of other writers whose essence is just as good and wholesome and potent.) Uh, speaking of the great god caffene, I swill canned pop. I’m a trucker/writer and I need to consume something. Something. Maybe that’s why writers like their beverages…
Terrie,
Welcome to the dark side. (Coffee) I do enjoy a cup of a tea especially at Brown’s Hotel in London.
Jeff,
Maybe you’ll be the writer to make pop the “icon” that coffee has become in books.
Thanks, Melodie! Hadn’t thought of that!
—jeff
I think Marlowe shows a level of fiddliness here that serious coffee tweakers demonstrate (another blog called him a “coffee dandy”), and since Chandler wasn’t really Mr. Research, I’m willing to say he partook in the delectable coffee madness. Oh, how I love it.