Bean Affair. What does that mean? Sounds a little like a Mexican restaurant, yes? But it’s a coffee shop in Healdsburg. Does it imply that you should have a romantic affair with your coffee beans? Can I just say, “Yuck?”
Love coffee? Maybe. But I draw the line at a consensual relationship with a bean. At least it’s monogamous, I assume; not Beans Affairs. Bean Affairs? Whatever.
And what about those so-called “pro-lifers”? So, the rest of us are anti-life?
While we’re at it, you know why Toys R Us went belly up, don’t you? Grammar. If the chain were “We are Toys,” they would still be flying high.
Punctuation is also more important than you may think. There’s a huge difference in “Let’s eat, Grandma!” and “Let’s eat Grandma!”
Plank. It’s a coffee shop. Does it mean you must achieve a plank position before ordering? Come to think of it, that would be cool. Or would that be culturally appropriating the exercise community?
Speaking of which, you probably heard about the young woman in Utah who had the gumption (use that word in conversation today; I dare you) to wear a Chinese inspired cheongsam dress to her prom. She made the egregious error of posting a photo on Instagram and then the venom flowed fast and furious centered around the absurd accusation she had no right to wear that dress as she was not of Chinese heritage and was therefore attempting to appropriate a foreign culture.
Listen, I’m fairly liberal, but this is nonsense. In fact, the people of China seemed none too offended. Zhou Yijun, a Hong Kong-based cultural commentator, said: “It’s ridiculous to criticize this as cultural appropriation. From the perspective of a Chinese person, if a foreign woman wears a qipao and thinks she looks pretty, then why shouldn’t she wear it?”
I remember Paul Simon being attacked for appropriating African music when he recorded Graceland. Rubbish. He was inspired by the music, and reached out to some of its top practitioners and together they created an international sound like nothing before. He should be applauded, not lambasted, just as Prom Girl did nothing more than pay tribute to a style and a culture she likes.
Do we go full frontal provincial and erect borders around everything remotely exotic? Sounds like that would play right into our current presidents’ tiny hands.
No mission style architecture unless you were a Spanish missionary? Or if you enjoy … never mind. Forget about eating that Belgian Waffle unless you are from Brussels. Or eating Brussels Sprouts unless you’re a native Belgian. No kilt wearing by anyone but a Scot. Well, maybe that one has legs. Get it?
But I digress.
Words – and especially names – are funny things. And of course if you say something over and over it will lose its meaning. Phrases like “freedom of speech” for example.
Can you imagine naming things these days? The most egregious examples of egregious naming are found, of course, in college bowl game names. Remember the Sugar Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Peach Bowl, Fiesta Bowl and Rose Bowl? Me neither.
They are now, respectively, the Allstate Sugar Bowl, the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, the Capital One Orange Bowl, the Chick Fil-A Peach Bowl (nothing says fast food chicken like “peach”), the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl, and the Northwestern Mutual Rose Bowl. Is it any wonder our kids have trouble with geography?
In the future perhaps we can look forward to the Sherman Williams White House, the Lincoln Mercury Memorial and New York’s world famous Metropolitan Life Museum.
Play the game I play. As I tool around the county I rename shops, restaurants and people. It’s fun and harmless. Plus my brain is fairly spacious (not a lot sticks there) so it has plenty of room for this type of fluff.
Page’s Book Store. I get it. Pizza Guys? Check. Zizi? Check the urban dictionary and it loses its luster. I think.
I have to admit The Flying Goat coffee shop is pretty clever, playing on the legend of a ninth century Ethiopian goat herder named Kaidi. Supposedly he discovered coffee when his goats ate the berries from a coffee shrub and started frolicking like it was 999. You suppose that lead him to a lifelong love of coffee beans? Like a bean affair?
Now there’s an idea for a killer name!
Steven welcomes your comments. You can reach him at [email protected].
