the @merican coffee shop - cleo's [Creativity of the Ordinary #3]

the @merican coffee shop - Cleo's

In the shadow of Dunkin Donuts lies a little coffee shop called Cleo's. Nestled in the heart of Highland Park NJ, this quaint little coffee shop qualifies as a certified time-porn portal for the java enthusiast, genericidal anarchist and independent thinker alike. Sporting a panalopy of chachcas and an individual aesthetic all its own this bakery/coffee shop/internet cafe is a far cry from the mindless flock indulgence of repetitive commercialism (I mean how many circular poetry spiral laiden tables bearing the same message do we need to see before we realize that big 'ol green&white is cashing in on making you believe in mass produced originality?)
The random creativity inherent in a place like Cleo's earns itself a place among my collection of @merican coffee shops. Unfortunately, Cleo's does not seem to have regular expressive / performance events in its' schedule. It used to host open mic poetry and others, but the java-vultures (people who hang out w/o contributing or buying) picked the place clean of the economic viability that such events are meant to inspire.

Regardless, we who value expression and creativity, who seek to protect the principles of originality must protect places like Cleo's from falling under the heel of big business. Establishments like Cleo's are the kinds of places that I want to conjure up in my mind when I think of the word "coffee shop," rather than the commercializactive (commercial minded reaction) images of Starbucks appearing. This resistence to the generification of Starbucks/Dunkin Donuts' as the idea of coffee shop, does not really fall under the accepted notion of genericide, but the function is quite similar.

Hence, through this series our mission becomes two fold: (1) protect the integrity of the little establishments by sharing our favorite ones and telling a bit why they are special, and (2) coming up with a term/concept for when an idea merges with mainstream, commercial manifestations of that idea (i.e., coffee shop = Starbucks). Perhaps a starting point would be calling it, "identistream: the automatic mental process of associating or identifying a general idea with an intentional market induced manifestation of that idea."