slim's nephews

i'm working my way through slim's table, a narrative written by a u of c sociologist in the '90s about time he spent with a group of men who congregated regularly at valois see-your-food cafeteria here on 53rd st. (good book, although it seems to be less about my favorite breakfast joint and more about interpersonal relationships between retired black men. really, is this author the first person to notice that black men care about each other's health and happiness, and have self-respect? also, i sincerely want to know how the middle of a college neighborhood can be repeatedly described as "the fringe of the ghetto.") anyway, recently my blogmate and i been trying to get some studying done, and remembering that we were never very good at sitting at home engrossed in book-learnin', have been trying out local coffee shops as places to read. i would like to invite the slim's table author to come study with us, because times have changed since the musty dusty 1990's.

first stop: borders hyde park at 53rd and lake park, right across the street from the infamous cafeteria, est. 2003, curious to former hyde parkers who remember the neighborhood as only jimmy's woodlawn tap and the co-op, now looking *gasp* yuppie? borders does a booming business in its coffee shop, and i got the only table left in the house. sadly, not much studying got done, as i was sandwiched between a throng of black men in their daily rotation around a chess board and a patchouli-scented circle talking about police brutality and drawing analogies between the self-actualization of black men and sperm swimming to meet the, umm, embryo. (a for effort, but i didn't have it in me to correct the birds and bees...) it was honestly like being in slim's table 2, but the repeat themes of daily gathering place as identity formation and (surprise!) self-development was even funnier in a typically white-bread location.

feeling like perhaps hyde park had gotten too cool for me to study here, i spent the weekend up in lakeview alternating book-learning with christmas shopping (and naturally demanding that my blogmate do the same). slim might have enjoyed meeting his fat white star-trek-watching brothers all gathered at the borders in lakeview engrossed in a loud conversation about their escapades with women in college... except that here the themes were bad flannel as identity formation, and apparent lack of self-respect, because the "escapades" described clearly all involved women who refused to sleep with these guys. (who tells that as bragging rights???)

we learned a lot about our neighbors this weekend. at the belmont library nobody knows how to use inside voices ("i'm LOOKing for a BOOK on alTERnative CHInese GARdening??? no, GARdening??? GGGGGAAARRdening?"), at the coffee shop someone thinks we're law students and wants us to petition for something or another, at duke of perth someone thinks we're accounting students.

i draw the following conclusions:
1) if i want a neighborhood within ten years to overflow with new luxury condo developments featuring granite countertop and hardwood flooring, i should hire someone to write about how ghetto the neighborhood is.
2) we must look young and cute if strangers think we're law or accounting students, which would make us several years younger than we actually are.
3) if i were a sociologist, it would be much easier to get work done.