I’m a new arrival to Los Angeles, so I asked K— if he could recommend a good coffee shop in which to while away the day. I needed a quiet place so I could finally finish this tedious Milan Kundera novel I’ve been torturing myself with for the past two days. He suggested a place called the Insomnia Café: "You’ll like it. Writers go there." A dubious recommendation, I know, but since I don’t know the city, I figured I’d give it a try. After all, I’m just trying to slog through to the ending of Immortality (the twin ironies of the book’s title and the café’s name have not escaped me) so I can finally move on to something more interesting, like the phone book or software instruction manuals
And K— was right! Café Insomnia was full to bursting with writerly types. There was the obvious sort: the young, earnest would-be novelists no doubt conjuring Fausts of our time or at least titles meant to populate the "urban fiction" tables at our local Barnes & Noble; next came the older, less hip — but don’t tell them that! — and by definition less attractive writers of screenplays and situation comedies; and finally a still older, yet strangely compelling woman writing a deliciously naughty upstairs/downstairs sort of affair. Of course this is all speculation on my part based solely on the fact that it was two on Monday afternoon and all present were nursing coffee drinks and staring at laptop computers or three-inch high stacks of paper covered with double-spaced type. For all I know, the young Goethe at the table to the right of mine could have been Johnson from accounting crunching his numbers remotely. I ordered a latte and a slice of chocolate cake, and pulled a manuscript of my own from my bag along with Immortality, which made me wince in embarrassment and shove it quickly back into the bag, but not before catching a glimpse of Kundera’s jacket photo and realizing that none of the people in this café, save perhaps myself only, would become famous for their writing. Truth be told, they just weren’t ugly enough. This being Los Angeles, everyone else present was moderately attractive in a bland, non-offensive way. Nevertheless, who was I to deprive them of their dreams?
We have a place like the Insomnia Café back in Williamsburg: the L Café. But people tend to range from hot to hideous in Brooklyn, so you’re more likely to run into some up and coming Lermontov there rather than in sun-kissed L.A. Another difference between the two hangouts is that the L tends to host a more diverse stable of artistes, including writers, performance artists, painters, musicians, comic-book illustrators, yarn-sculptors, even stand-up comics. Here at the Insomnia, there are just solitary units conferring only with their muse. In Brooklyn it’s all about artists in conference. The L Café isn’t a place to work, rather to discuss your work, the work you intend to do, or the work you have no intention of taking on but are more than happy to go on about.
"How’s your project progressing?"
"Oh, it’s reached a very interesting stage."
"That’s cool."
"And how about that project of yours?"
"Oh, there’s been some interest, but I might do something else."
"Cool."
My strategy borrows something from both coasts. Frankly, I’m a bit embarrassed when writing in public but sometimes one must get out of the apartment. Usually I’ll go to a quasi-popular coffee house, pull out an obvious manuscript, which proves that I’m a writer, but I’ll also drag out a book, which proves that I’m a writer that reads, a distinction not to be taken for granted. But the ms. remains untouched and I only pretend to read the book while I check out some writer girl at work. One might label this a fetish but I prefer to see it as another way of indulging my ennui.
Now at the Insomnia Café, even these solitary souls alone in their labor, must admit, if only to their therapists, that they’re partly there to be seen and validated as writers. I’ll even go so far as to speculate that they’re getting no real work done themselves because they’re too busy flitting between seeing other writers and being seen themselves. They have to be sure that you recognize their vocation. To get lost in commerce with the muse would mean never knowing what the Gogol at the next table thought of you and, this being a room full of mildly attractive nerds, missing a rare opportunity to get laid.
The interior of the Insomnia Café is strangely similar to that of the L Café, so it was easy enough to get comfortable there and get my brood on. Even the restroom was located in exactly the same coordinates as the one in Williamsburg. The one difference though was that the Insomnia’s potty had a chair in it, a rather grandiose armchair in the Louis XIV style, if faded. The walls were layered with the usual commentary: "Kill all faggots," "If love kills, then I love you all," and "Sex is a lie." Standing before the filthy toilet with my fly undone, it struck me as a perfect opportunity to leave the lodestone encumbering the start of my summer vacation behind for some other luckless writer and, just as Kundera left a copy of his Life Is Elsewhere — which I have no problem admitting was pretty good — for his friend Professor Avenarius to read before they met at a café of their own, I deposited my copy of Immortality on the seat of the inappropriately extravagant chair for the next voyeur to pretend to read as he watched the toilet’s occupant do her stuff.
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