Crazy! But a nice piece of writing and a nicely expressed editorial.
Quote:
Many indie New York City cafes now heavily restrict, or ban outright, the use of Kindles, Nooks and iPads. Evidently, too many coffee shops in town have had their ambience wrecked when itinerant word processors with laptops turn the tables into office space. Sure, that phenomenon can be depressing — whether you’re a scornful lady who lunches or the nomadic freelancer who fields glares. And full-dress computers are perhaps too much personal furniture for cafes to accommodate. But banning devices the size of books, like Kindles and iPads, is going too far, and it’s anathema to the character and history of cafes.
Unwholesome things have always happened wherever people drink coffee together. They gossip and complain about powerful jerks; they read, write and scheme about their own comebacks. On the sidelines of those conversations — muttering, silently judging, chiming in — have always been loners who loiter with books and newspapers all day, ready to be recruited into conversation. This might come as hard news to would-be restaurateurs looking only to taste that sweet margin of coffee markup, but loiterers and readers must be part of the cafe equation. People who sit at bars are going to make out and brawl; people who sit in cafes are going to read and talk.
>SNIP!<
As for the fancy tech-unfriendly cafes that shut out writers and readers like infidels in Ottoman times, maybe they should just style themselves as restaurants, with tablecloths, silverware and full service. If you have to bus your own table, history teaches, you’re in a cafe — and you can read and write what you want.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/ma...er=rss&emc=rss