That’s a nice giant coffee pot in Tacoma.

By now it should be pretty obvious that this is simply a temptation I cannot resist.  I immersed myself in the destructive element for a couple hours on a Thursday early morning and found these photos of mostly old and all quirky giant coffee pots and, with a nod to tea drinkers such as myself, tea pots.

After I assembled most of these photos, I found RoadsideArchitecture.com’s coffee pot page.  I had some photos he didn’t, he had some that I didn’t.  He has got a great historical perspective and timeline on some of them.  As I have said before and elsewhere  and say again here and now – RoadsideArchitecture.comis as good as a website can be.

 

I never cared for the taste of coffee.  I could tell you about a childhood incident that might have something to do with this but won’t.

At least now.  I like the smell.  I like the ritual.  I just don’t have a taste for it.

I like tea.  Black tea, milk, occasionally sugar.

English schoolboy tea.  Gabby and Sandy and I went out for tea every morning that we were in the UFW legal office in Salinas.

It should come as no surprise – Gabby had an amazing collection of Red Rose Tea figurines.  Not going there though.  I don’t remember the name of the little tea shop.  It was in an alley, Midtown Lane, running between Main and Monterey, between Gabilan and Alisal. Tea and whole wheat toast with honey.  Gabby brought the honey.  When it closed we starting going to the Honey Bee Coffee Shop on Salinas Street.  The next time I go to Salinas I will take a photo of it.

In 1958 my family was living in Lincoln, Massachusetts.  We drove to New York to put my grandmother onto an ocean liner for France, her last big trip.

I remember the ribbons floating in the air as the ocean liner pulled away.

On that trip we got stuck in a traffic jam.  I had never heard the word before.  Not much call for the word in Lincoln.

On that trip – finally the relevant point, we had high tea at the Palm Court, Plaza Hotel.  Pretty special.  I have been several times since, most memorably with Julia in the summer of 1997.   It was the summer that William Burroughs died, four months after Allen Ginsberg died.

We were staying on the upper westside and she was going to a four-week session at Joffrey Ballet.  One Sunday we walked Central Park south to the Plaza and had tea.

She was only 11 but remembers it well.

 That and the Popover Cafe.

I digressed.  Big news.

But these giant coffee pots – aren’t they something?   Don’t we wish we had one in Berkeley!  I took the photos in to show my friend.  He was reading.

Segal’s classic twin study.  I looked over near his chair.

He was clearly onto something.  Although I respect his intellect, I thought that there had to be a back-story here.  He normally wouldn’t read something like this for its intrinsic interest.   He sensed that I didn’t understand why he would be reading this.

He handed me two glossy photos.  Definitely iconic twins, the Arbus photograph and the Grady twins from The Shining.  And?  “Kubrick denies any influence at all by the Arbus twins.  I don’t buy it.  The novel has two sisters. The  movie, two twins.  And they evoke Arbus.  Pretty clear to me.”

I agreed.  The suggestion is ineveitable.  But he wasn’t done.  He pulled out a folder.

I asked where he got these images.  Gabby.  I should have known.  He asked me if I wanted to see the rest, that maybe I could do a post with them.  I declined.  And am proud of myself for declining.

What did he think of the giant coffee pots?