I had low expectations for this assignment when I walked into Sufficient Grounds to observe literally anything and everything that happened. After having a miserable time trying to observe a Top Dog, I decided to change my observed site to a coffee shop that I could see right outside the window of my room. My experience at Top Dog, coupled with the fact that I put little thought into my new site, made me more than uncomfortable about observing a coffee shop that was said to be closing down (Oblea 1). However, as time progressed and a collection of indecipherable notes began to pile up on my desk, I discovered that Sufficient Grounds was livelier than I had previously thought. There was also much diversity among the faces in this shop in terms of age, purpose, and even species. At first I had my doubts that I would record anything that would be the least bit interesting to report, but I developed a few useful tips for myself that would help me make Sufficient Grounds somewhat newsworthy.
Tip # 1 Make a good first impression: This isn’t so hard to do; you just have to be inconspicuous by blending in with the environment. I did the exact opposite going to Top Dog. Instead of ordering something, I just walked around looking at posters on the wall, which really annoyed the fry cook. In the case of Sufficient Grounds I bought a banana and then immediately sat in one of the tables to avoid suspicion. I repeated this for the duration of my observations; the result was that I remained on nobody’s bad side.
Tip # 2 Find a Spot Where You Can Observe All or Most of The Site: Here “observe” doesn’t mean see so much as listen. It’s important that you find a place where you can easily hear any potentially interesting conv ersation. For me the faces of people were not as important as what they had to say. My observations prospered under this guideline, as I was able to pick up on a variety of conversations. This was a bit of a problem when there was more than one conversation happening at once, which leads to the next tip…
Tip #3 Try to Pick the More Interesting Conversations: This isn’t going to be possible all the time. Sometimes you will just get some new college students talking about their life in school: what they are taking, what they plan to take, or just their interests. Every now and then, though, there will be people who talk about somewhat intriguing subjects. There was this one group of three people talking about tips on saving money. They sounded like older, more experienced college students and also talked about tricks on how to win big in Las Vegas, which caught my attention. I was later diverted to a conversation by two elderly women. I didn’t pay much attention to them until they started talking about how there should be a new world order dictating that families should only have one child each. This con versation was both intriguing and frightening; I shuddered to think what would happen if either of them were elected president.
The diverse range of topics of discussion, as well as the age of the people in these discussions, revealed Sufficient Grounds to be a center for all kinds of socializing, from the mundane to the extremist kind. It was like listening to an auditory timeline, where in the early years of adulthood people are more concerned with their individual needs and as people grew up their concerns expanded to the needs of society. Listening to conversations in Sufficient Grounds, one could learn about the many different stages of adult life.
Tip #4 Examine the Arrangement of Tables and Where People Sit: This may seem to be on the dull side, and most times it is, but this could lead to some noteworthy conclusions. For example, I noticed that the tables in this shop had a pattern to them in that the more conversational people sat in the center tables while those plugged into their laptops or keeping to themselves in other ways were situated in the tables along the edges, where the windows of the shop looked out onto Sather Lane and Durant Avenue. Socializing radiated from the center of the shop. Similar to a map with a key for population density, a map with a key for “social density” would display the center of Sufficient Grounds as the most “dense” part of the map. It’s easy to guess where the aforementioned wannabe high rollers and wannabe dictators would have been on this map.
Tip #5 Interact With Others in the Shop: Interacting is a good way to find insights into the nature of a coffee shop. I happened to interact with others, but they weren’t human. When I would finish eating my banana I just left the peel in the center of my table, intending to throw it away when I left. While I was taking some notes, some flies started buzzing around my table. I tried shooing them away, but they insisted staying close the banana on the table. So I threw the banana away, and the flies followed after the banana. Although this interaction may be considered degrading, I did notice that the flies flocked to the banana like it was some sort of center for socializing, much like how people would socialize at the center of sufficient grounds. In this case I actually did find an insight by interacting with others, albeit in an unorthodox fashion. I found that there is a socializing aspect common among animals both human and insect sized .
Sufficient Grounds proved to be a place where all kinds of life gathered, young and old, quiet and sociable, human and nonhuman. It may be hard to see at a glance, but Sufficient Grounds can indeed be a site for some notable occurrences, with a bit of creativity on the observer’s part, that is.
Works Cited
Oblea, Erika. "Owner Expects to Sell Sather Lane Coffee Shop." The Daily Californian Online [Berkeley] 11 Sept. 2009: 1-2.
Panzar, Javier. "Businesses Find Ways to Deal with Summer Slump." The Daily Californian Online [Berkeley] 22 June 2009: 1-3.
Much like Walking in the City this post presents a much different view than that of the other posts. It interacts with the reader like Latour does in Circulating Reference as well; the authors both speak directly to the readers at least part of the time. This strategy enhances the connection between the reader and this potentially abstract field observation assignment. If the author of this post just recorded his observations it would be difficult for the reader to grasp anything under the surface of what was observed such as the conversations in the cafe and as Latour describes, the soil in the Amazon rainforest. Something that could have improved this piece, as I saw in some of the other pieces, is detail. Each time the author was about to describe something specific; there was not enough detail and soon the subject changed. As we have seen, details are vital, especially when writing about a field observation in a quasi- field observation format itself. I thought the photographs were interesting as none of them had patrons or employees of Sufficient Grounds in them. I’m not sure if this was a specific choice, but the effect is definitely different from pictures with people in them. Without the people he described in the actual piece, it’s a little harder to picture the scenarios the author described. Taken a little further, I think this piece could some to resemble Latour’s “philosopher vs. scientist” proposed dualism. Also, as more details are added one could perhaps observe more of the movement of people in the café that could be very interesting. I thought the observation on the “social density” was very interesting, something I don’t think I picked up much in my observation.
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