I wanna have a little café- Unknown from some American journal in the late 1990's
There would be lots and lots of sweet
Pastries, and deep deep coffee that
goes into your heart
In the future that place is gonna be a
little piece of Utopia in NYC
But for now, I just wanna float on
The Dead Sea being empty.
There once was a girl called Anais who presided over a strange little place in the city called El Morocco. She was a girl who quite frequently thought she was alive at the wrong time. The world had become sanitised, cleaned up, but in the cleaning up all the good things had been washed away. The world had suddenly become uncivilised; no one read books, no one was allowed to smoke inside, no one dressed up, not even for the ballet.
Could she have chosen, Anais would have been a chorus girl in the 1950s, a life lived in a flurry of costume changes, silk stockings flying around a dressing room twittering with chatter. She would probably have dated a gangster who was a bit crap, but had those blue eyes that winded her. (He would lose more than he won, but she would not have minded as long as he loved her. Needless to say it would have been an on-off relationship). As it was she found herself in the 21st century, trying to stay on her own course, looking for contentment, for something "classic".
El Morocco had three floors. The ground floor was a café, which purveyed delicious coffees and teas, elaborate old-fashioned pastries and seductive confectionary. The café would buzz with the chatter of the misfits and creative types it attracted, artists, writers, designers, and players. Vacant but beautiful shop girls and boys would spend their breaks there, pouting into mirrors, slating their bosses. It was the kind of place Quentin Crisp would have held court, but to a soundtrack of hypnotic music played passionately by DJs who did not consider record decks to be old fashioned. A courtyard where children and dogs would dance about among paper lanterns during balmy summer months, would be made cosy with fires in Winter. Pretty parasols were provided for rainy day cigarettes (if Anais must comply with the law she must do it her way).
The second floor housed an erotic emporium, Coco de Mer style. It would be full of rare and expensive delights, heavy velvet swags and brown leather Tally-Ho! chairs. Rails of devastating undergarments and high heels would lie in wait for the curious clients to discover. An old haberdashery cabinet would house more elaborate treasures, dark satin blindfolds and soft silken ropes, its surface cleaned fastidiously with an ostrich feather duster. High standards were always important whatever the adventure.
The top floor was a nightclub, which was sometimes given over to film nights or cabaret performances, burlesque queens, strippers, comedians. Anais had high friends in low places and they would gather there at home, conversing, drinking, and laughing. And yet there was a feeling of proper ness, something old fashioned in the striving for meaning and realness, which could not be franchised out, chained or sold to the masses. The dance floor was a sanctuary, as it should be, and above it a huge mirror ball shone out its rays. And underneath the glittering globe Anais would lie with her friends 'lovers, adventurers, and dreamers'.