Starbucks was my first choice. Yesterday their in-house baroque music kept me, reading and gently sipping coffee, for two hours. I had intended returning to the Bookend, but the music was too nourishing for me to leave. This morning, the two young Starbucks' women, who opened late, chose a singer / songwriter theme for the in-house music. They did not respond to my request for baroque and / or classical. Clearly, the choice of music was employee, rather than patron, friendly. But they did talk loudly at each other for 30 minutes before a combination of their voluble, unceasing prattle and the singers' lovestruck lives drove me out to the welcoming Bookend coffee shop. Here classical music was played - a wonderful third beginning to my day - before its volume became intermittent and the house changed the music of choice to jazz.
A fax which arrived yesterday from Eduardo Pampinella in Kiel has galvanised such imagination as is possible for my sickly wits, and I have already called Diane at DGM this morning in response.
The DGM website has made a quantum leap from its beginning days, but continues to need constant attention and input. DGM has outstanding ideas waiting to be implemented but Hugh, Big Fourth and Master of The Art Department, doesn't have the time necessary to be the DGM Webmeister. So, I am hoping Eduardo will be able to take this on. The Website is not so much DGM's Window On The World as the world's window on DGM. If we have a website, we take it seriously. Financially, this is silly. Nerds, techies, Web visitors and regular cruisers of cyberspace make up a small proportion of DGM customers. But the Net is a key part of engaging with the future, so we'll go for it.
"We begin by doing nothing.
Then, we move to doing something."
