Streetwalking
A tale of espresso-sized regret.
Ooh, it’s a Monday newsletter! This is Cocktail Charm, a weekly email filled with delicious little things to talk about at parties. In today’s edition: sun sounds, slug lamps, and a healthy dose of human contrition.
How’d our holiday parties go? I spent mine being grateful that we’re still doing coffee cocktails, thanks to the few that a friend mixed up for me at our first New Year’s party (a house fête) and powered me through our second (friend of a friend of a friend books a bar so he can live out his DJ dreams; by 2 am, the set list ends up swerving perilously close to this and we’re thankful that he has a non-sonic day job).
I’m trying something new: for the next few weeks, I’m writing a series on how to talk to people again. I’ve made my New Year’s resolution to remake some of my relationships, and I’m bringing what I learn back here. Every week, you’ll get a mini-essay on how to connect again. On we go!
Revelation, resolution
“Honestly, I can’t wait for you to see this barista,” I told Jacob as we walked up the street last Sunday morning. “He looks like he should be running a streetwear line from behind the counter.”
I’m not quite a regular at this coffee place — it’s a few blocks from the studio I occasionally go to for a cycling class, and so when I leave a workout, I usually stop in, sweaty and spandexed, for something cold to congratulate myself. As far as I could tell, Buddies was run by just one guy, and I kept coming back because I liked him. Actually, I was coming back because I really liked his clothes. There was something I’d eye every time: a hand-patched knit hat embroidered with careful squares, a shruggy tee playfully bleach-dyed and screened, swingy chain necklaces and swoopy-soled sneakers. He dressed like a Stüssy supernova, one whose off hours could be spent maintaining a series of lucrative five-starred Grailed accounts. And he was so nice, I’d always thought to myself when I walked in — big smiles, warm auras, all that.
Even if I wasn’t a regular, I could tell who was. There was the older man who brought his own mug and a slobbery-sweet bulldog, who’d make comments to our barista between flips of the newspaper; there was the black-clad woman who’d just have to nod for her usual before she opened the gothy womenswear store next door. If there was a seat, I’d usually slide in with my latte, pull out a book or my phone, and just listen for a bit. The morning I take Jacob by, we do it together.
“Look who I just found on the New York Times homepage,” Jacob says to me across our living room. It’s now Friday, something like eight a.m., and he’s sprawled on our sofa with his laptop as he waits for work to pick up. He swivels the screen. It’s my barista, who turns out to co-own the coffee shop with his wife, and they’re telling the Times how they got started.
As it turns out, I need the New York Times to tell me my barista’s name (it’s Taylor) and that this is the second version of his coffee shop (the first was more of a cart). The New York Times tells me that that shop once had a counter fashioned from skateboards, which the two sourced on Instagram and sanded down themselves. It tells me the choice wasn’t appropriating any street glory, because pre-coffee, Taylor was actually a PROFESSIONAL SKATEBOARDER.
This article has me mildly distraught.
As the temperature’s gone down and my time inside on the couch has gone up, I’ve been thinking lately of Kurt Vonnegut on going out to buy an envelope, which he talks about in an interview with PBS in 2005:
Usually, I think about that anecdote when I contemplate how our screens distance us from having encounters with other people — order the envelope online, instead of stopping into a store where you can be helped; push some buttons for takeout, instead of walking into the restaurant; like that picture of your friend’s vacation, instead of calling and asking how it was. In this read, though, I’m focused on one line. “[I] ask a woman what kind of dog that is.”
What kind of dog is that. WHAT kind of dog is that. WHAT KIND OF DOG IS THAT? A whole world can come out of a question like that simply for being asked. It’s more open-ended than saying “cute pup!” and moving on. It’s an invitation, and one I could learn from. Because for someone who writes about starting conversations, I don’t really talk to strangers.
Listen, it’s easy to be generous in passing. I nod at people to go ahead of me around a tight sidewalk, because I am a benevolent giver in this harsh and cold world.
I always wave to babies, because I am magnanimous to small creatures, and also have you felt the dopaminergic eruption that comes with one of them waggling their fat fingers back at you???
I have happy but brief exchanges in places like the coffee shop, almost as if to say, yes, of course I am a cheerful, friendly person, so long as the sum total of this blessed interaction is twelve words or less. Hey, how you doing? Great, thanks! Off to read my book.
But I don’t really engage more than that. And learning that my barista was formerly a nonamateur half-piper in the New York Times, of all places — embarrassing! — has made me realize that I don’t want to be nearly so complacent. I don’t want to nod, smile, and move along none the wiser; I want to offer an invitation.
Here’s a new year reminder slash resolution for me, and maybe for you, too: Talk to my dang neighbors, and invite them to answer. Maybe it’ll turn out that my librarian fronts a pop-punk band. Or the super who helps me out with my faucet can tell me everything about birdwatching. Or the kindergartener across the hall is working on his endgame theory. Who knows! Not me, at least until I start saying something, anything, like what kind of dog is that.
Tell me about it
Conversation-starters to take to happy hour, your group chat, or that kindergartener across the hall.
Where do all the Christmas trees go after the holidays? In Berlin, they feed them to the elephants.
Does the sun make noise? A great investigation for a question I never thought to ask of that big beautiful fireball in the sky, courtesy of my onetime colleague Harri. Please don’t miss the subhead:
In space, no one can hear you beam.
Who knew dead people could make all this money? History books and broadcasts are in a serious boom cycle. A history podcast is selling out West End theaters? Streaming numbers are smashing This American Life? Fans are calling themselves Athel Stans???? Turns out we really are thinking about the Roman Empire.
One simple trick to seeming very stylish and mysterious at parties
Tell a stranger you’re getting into slug design this year.
One thing I couldn’t stop talking about at all my holiday soirees
One follow-up question I had
Does anyone NOT Italian-American know what a tartufo is?????
Backtalk
In our last dispatch, I asked about the most niche gift you were giving or getting for the holidays. My dear friend Michelle sent back a sublime answer you really do have to read in full.
I bought my friend and I matching, used-on-screen props from Saw III. (We're watching the entire series together and are like 8 sequels deep currently.) $29 for a fake ice cube that's in 90% of Tobin Bell's scenes in the movie! Amanda touches it at one point! It's the best gift I've ever given myself or another person.
I also gifted Jack an authentic DJ Screw cassette tape that I scrounged for on eBay...and didn't check the return address until weeks after. It was sent by Lorne Raimi. "Ha ha," I said. "Maybe it's Sam Raimi's son!" And then I noticed the return address. Which was Wiltshire Blvd, Santa Monica. And then Googled "Does Sam Raimi have a son?" (Yes.) (His name is Lorne.)
I would like someone to love me so much that they buy me a prop ice cube.
Happy 2025, folks. What kind of dog is that?
Gabriela
Thanks for being a reader of Cocktail Charm! Has this newsletter helped you out at happy hour? Let me know; I’d love to hear it.
:)))))