The Bad Karma Cafe

Our house earned the name “Bad Karma Cafe” years ago, after a number of disasters struck it in rapid succession. The first thing that happened to it was a fire. Then it was struck by lightning. Then a large tree branch fell on it. Any of these events would have been enough to completely demolish a lesser house, but not the Bad Karma Cafe. The house might have had bad vibes, but it also had staying power.

After each incident we were able to patch up the house, more or less, and keep going on with our everyday lives. We even moved out for a few months after the fire while the insurance company sent out contractors to work on the house, but we still kept to our routine. I don’t want to make it sound easy, because it wasn’t. We also had other neighborhood problems — renters who set bonfires in the yard, a crackhouse on our street for three years — yeah, such a nice place. But none of those things managed to completely break us or the house. Perhaps by then we were just numb.

Then in September 2001, an F3 tornado ripped through College Park. We felt sure that it was coming for us. We had just bought a new car on the previous Saturday, and we were sure it was tornado fodder. After all, didn’t we still live in the Bad Karma Cafe on Irwin Alley? Ben had nicknamed our street “Irwin Alley” in homage to Irwin Allen, nicknamed “The Master of Disaster,” a film producer who made many disaster movies during the 1970s. It seemed like a fitting address for the Bad Karma Cafe.

It’s true what they say — a tornado does sound like a freight train. We could see the leading edge of the storm (not the funnel) from our front porch, and raced for the basement to wait it out. Fortunately, the tornado stayed to the west of Route 1, which is just three blocks from our house. We fortunately had no tornado damage, and that was when we knew that the Bad Karma Cafe’s luck had changed.

This week the Bad Karma Cafe is starting on a journey to have a major face-lift, or more exactly, a roof-lift. After 25 years of patching the roof and drywall and other things too numerous to list, we’ve managed to get enough financing to have major renovation work done on the house and really fix its problems. After all, duct tape only goes so far! Currently the house is a one-and-a-half story Cape Cod, but we’re changing the house to a full two-story structure to maximize the space upstairs and allow us some breathing room. I’ll be adding before-and-after photos as well as a running commentary of the process. Stay tuned.

Main Street, Laurel

When you read a novel or watch a movie on TV, a town’s main street is often depicted as a bustling center of activity, the busy heart of town where all the locals shop. Perhaps that is still true for many places, but in the suburban town that I grew up in, we didn’t even have a main street. Instead, we had a highway.

Today I live in College Park. Although College Park does technically have a main street — and the city proclaims it from colorful banners that hang from the streetlamps through the central part of town — that street is U.S. Route 1, a heavily travelled thoroughfare that bisects College Park on its way north towards Baltimore.

Route 1 is traffic congestion central. Crossing this busy strip of asphalt is no easy task for a pedestrian, and the main street that results has more in common with a strip mall that it does with the mild-mannered, pedestrian friendly main street that most people associate with the name.

In contrast, Laurel’s Main Street is the kind of road that you associate with the name. It has restaurants and stores, a church, a post office, and even apartment buildings and homes. The only thing missing on Main Street is a gas station — but for that you need only to drive a few more blocks south or west.

Although it has a variety of stores, Main Street is a curious mixture of past and not-quite-present. That’s because it really isn’t the center of town life anymore — that title goes to our friend, Route 1. Sidelined but not out of the game, Main Street has instead become a haven for art galleries, antique stores, and one-of-a-kind boutiques.

At the western end, Main Street boasts a professional center, built from brick and styled to blend in with the existing local architecture. There, dentists, doctors, and lawyers ply their trades alongside the barbeque restaurant and sandwich store. The professional center’s parking lot is behind the buildings and backs up to the Patuxent River. To the east there’s a railway station which is still in use as a busy commuter hub.

I decided to do my photojournalism class project, which I finished in May, on Laurel’s Main Street. As luck would have it, every weekend when I had time to take photos, it rained. No matter, though, because I like rainy weather photos. There is a timeless nature to rainy days, and the diffuse lighting offers a chance to take pictures without having to worry about which direction the sun is coming from, or whether or not the harsh shadows will lose detail in the photograph. Also, the reflections can be wonderfully artistic additions to an otherwise bland photograph. It’s just a matter of how you use them.

Tech Haiku #2

My second entry into the realm of Tech Haiku actually falls into a category of its own. The subject matter isn’t related to computers in any direct way, nor is it explicitly about science or engineering or things related to those topics.

Because most classical haiku poems are about nature and related topics, the term “Tech Haiku” helps to define the subject a little more. You know if you’re reading a Tech Haiku that somewhere, something computer-like or scientific will show up in the stanzas. No “Ode to a Grecian Urn” here.

Helicopter hovers;
impenetrable traffic.
Commuters turn back.

I’m leaving the topic of what to call this category of haiku open to discussion. It’s not really tech; could we call it “Urban?” Contemporary might be another good candidate, but I think that word has become such a catch-phrase that it really doesn’t mean anything specific. It’s sort of like “nice” or “cool,” both of which are tepid adjectives at best.

An Informal Contest
I’d like to propose a contest to name this new category of haiku. It’s an informal contest — I don’t have any prizes or money to give away, nor can I promise you that you’ll be on your way to fame and fortune if you come up with a great entry. In fact, my main reason for posting this fun contest is to try and garner readership for this post. (Hey, a gal’s gotta try!)

Here is a short list of words that I think could make a good category name for these modern-life haiku. These are haiku that don’t fit into the traditional nature approach and also don’t fulfill the idea of “tech haiku,” either in subject or word choice. Your task is to vote for one of these words as your favorite, or else write in with a word of your own.

• Avant Garde
• Modern
• Urban
• Leading Edge
• Progressive
• Innovative
• Vanguard

If any of these words sound like good candidates, leave a comment and let me know why you like the word and why it would make a good name. Alternatively, let me know why a word should not be used as the new name for this category of haiku. And if you have a better word, by all means post it. I’m looking forward to reading all your comments.