Jake,
I know I’m not in Los Angeles, but since I’m in
a new city (akin to many of the freshmen at UCLA) I was wondering
if you could give me some direction about Birmingham, England. Your
column inspired me to inquire if there are equivalents to Coffee
Bean, the Troubadour and anywhere to get ice cream at 2 a.m.? Help
would be appreciated.
Taking the UK by storm and force if she has to,
Carla Clayman
Carla’s spending her junior year abroad in England, and
logically the first thing to do seems to be replying specifically
to her inquiry. To that extent:
1. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf does have international
locations, but only in Singapore, Malaysia, East Malaysia, Korea,
Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Brunei, Indonesia,
Australia, China and the Philippines. Nothing in Europe.
They’re only in parts of the world that don’t pride
themselves for their coffee. Go figure.
Still, if you must have over-roasted American $5 milkshake
coffee-like beverages, there are plenty of Starbucks locations in
the UK. There are six in Birmingham. There are 184 in London
(compare that to 148 in Manhattan). And there’s even one in
Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare, which
just seems wrong.
2. While the saloon-like feel of the Troubadour is hard to match
as a setting for all your indie rock needs, the Carling Academy
Birmingham should suffice. Although the pictures on the
venue’s Web site make it look more like a Spanish discotheque
than a retrofitted landmark of postmodernism, the upcoming lineup
of acts speaks for itself.
Bloc Party on Oct. 20. (Sorry, I guess you missed that one.) The
Polyphonic Spree on Nov. 2. Modest Mouse on Nov. 19. Kanye West on
Nov. 23. Interpol on Dec. 16. You get the idea.
3. The temperature lows in Birmingham have been hovering in the
high 30s to low 40s this week, with constant rain every day. And
the snow will come soon enough. Why you’d want ice cream at
two o’clock in the morning is beyond me, and I won’t be
responsible for providing you with information that will almost
certainly give you a cold.
But what I think Carla is really getting at in her e-mail,
knowingly or not, is the way in which people associate social
culture with place.
Naturally, we remember events in our lives largely by where they
occur. Thinking back on high school, the physical place first comes
to mind, then my experiences there. The same goes for anywhere else
I’ve been, or anything else I’ve done. First we
visualize location, and only then do we associate it with
experience.
Carla is remembering UCLA and Los Angeles in the same way
I’m sure I will once I leave, or many seniors will a year
from now: as a physical place associated with feelings of
experience.
But when setting changes, so does experience, and time can alter
your memory of the past. This is something I learned during winter
break of my first year at UCLA. Going home and returning to old
hangout spots only reminded me how different they were than what I
perceived their UCLA equivalents to be.
I had associated places in Los Angeles with places from home.
“The Avco is just like the movie theater near my
house!” But going to that movie theater near my house again
was nothing like going to the Avco.
The association of multiple places with the same experience
didn’t hold up, and, in a way, ruined my perception of the
original. The movie theater near my house is no longer just the
movie theater near my house; it’s now the movie theater near
my house that isn’t the Avco. And that’s an unfortunate
distinction.
So while comforting now, it may not be the best idea to seek out
those foreign equivalents for hometown favorites. The new will
inevitably affect the old.
E-mail Tracer any questions you have about anything at
jtracer@media.ucla.edu. He needs you for his columns.