Pleasures of drinking fancy coffee outdoors among others

Downtown Grand Rapids on Labor Day weekend at 9:30 a.m.

The French have lot of words to describe city lives. Boulevardier is someone who spends time on the avenues looking at others' fashions and behaviors, as well as to be seen by others for one's own public self-expression. Flâneur is someone who takes pleasure in strolling and observing society as it is, as it used to be, and as it is changing into its future form. Wikipedia says both terms are near synonyms of each other. This Saturday morning photo includes school age children, single adults and couples young and middle-age, as well as an occasional retiree. Nominally, they all have a reason to travel to this city block where several tasty retail shops cluster: one for coffee, one for baked goods, and one for butcher's wares. A few yards away is a delicatessen, too. The sidewalk seating, complete with sun shades, invites people to enjoy the sunshine and the company of others they are meeting, have traveled with, or simply enjoy as effervescent background of anonymous fellow citizens.

The demographic profile of the customers who make the effort to attend, probably repeatedly, spend, and consume tasty food and drink is not something that connects all city residents. That is because the price is higher here than other sources of caffeinated hot beverage and sugary baked foods. The city-center location is not very car-friendly. But people on foot or (e)bicycle may view this inconvenience as a positive feature to limit cars and to make the shopping/eating trip into a destination experience instead of functional food gathering exercise. Finally, not all demographic segments consider mingling with fellow eaters to be a good use of time and attention, either due to the nature of using up these precious resources or because other demands rank higher in responsibility, urgency, or accessibility - even if the idea of lining up for barista coffee and freshly baked food were things everybody aspires to.

Leaving aside what might be attract the people in the picture to the products and the experience of lingering on the sidewalk, what might be some of the components that the customers feel when they select a tasty indulgence (out of the ordinary day's habits) and then proceed to dwell long enough to consume some or all their purchase; or they abide long enough to enjoy their time in company of friends or family they have met by plan or by accident there? The possibilities are many, but not endless: any of the following, in isolation or in combination, could enter into the person's decision to travel to the shops, consider the possible purchases before committing to one, and then also deciding to linger awhile in an open seat that might present itself on the sidewalk. One reason could be no reason: simply an impulse to seek out something tasty that the person remembers from an earlier experience. Or maybe the person has a socializing motivation: seeking a "third place" (neither at home, nor at work) to meet someone new or someone they already know. Or maybe there is the lure of hubbub from others for a solitary person to be around others, even if anonymously. The more intense form of this hubbub lure is for people watching, the desire to see what others say and do and how they look. A dissociative motive might be to gain satisfaction by telling oneself that pricey coffee and treats are signs that one belongs to the kind of people who do such things; a sort of amplified self-image to see one's own reflection in the experience there.

Whatever the primary reasons that motivate a person to shop and then to sit down to eat and drink, judging from this picture on a fine summer morning at the end of August, the practice is well established and seems to be in no danger of disappearing.

MUGGL3, SRV GOD, FURSHR (automobile vanity plates)

 Seeing personalized license plates can sometimes stir thoughts while decoding the meaning is finally solved. Many plates are simple affirmations; e.g. Bible verse (MATT3 14), college cheer ("go State" for Michigan State University's collegiate sports teams), or friendly exhortation ("smile"). Others are cryptic of personal incident or reference point, maybe a personal motto or philosophy. The license plate today in the coffee roaster's public parking lot, (MUGGL3), is a reference to the non-magical characters in the world of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Her spelling is "muggle," but often a desired vanity plate substitutes numbers for letters because another person previously laid claim to MUGGLE, for instance.

Spotted in grocery store parking lot, "serve [your lord] God"

Apparently, some combinations of numbers and letters are banned if profanity or another kind of provocation is likely to come from it. But that leaves many ways to arrange the letters and numbers (maximum 7 spaces to fill). And because some themed license plates (college colors and logo such as block 'S' in green for Michigan State University) allow a person to elide the vanity plate word or phrase together with that theme letter, the normal limit of 7 numbers or letters can 'borrow' that initial colored, theme letter. As an example, the resulting plate could read 'S't8is1 for "State is [number] 1 [ranked]." Also in this example is an illustration of 'borrowing' the sound of a letter or number to stand for a word such as "8" for "ate" (instead of the normal "eight"). Another common one is "for" read from the '4' and "to" read from the '2'.

The website for the State of Michigan's office of Secretary of State [for motor vehicles] gives the following advice on Personalized Plates.

Plate may be personalized with up to 6 or 7 characters, depending on plate type. All plate configurations are based on availability and are subject to review by the Michigan Department of State. The department has the authority to decline to issue a configuration, per state law.

• Only use letters A-Z and numbers 0-9 (symbols cannot be processed)
• Spaces are allowed and are counted as characters
• The letter ‘O’ is substituted by the number ‘0’

The details of the personalized plate policy include this paragraph:

 

The Secretary of State will not issue a configuration of either letters, numbers or letters and numbers that carries a connotation that is profane, obscene; a swear word of depicts a swear word; sexually explicit or graphic; excretory-related; used to describe intimate body parts or genitals; used to describe alcohol, alcohol use, drugs, drug culture or drug use; used to describe illegal activities or illegal substances; use to substantially interfere with plate identification for law enforcement purposes; used to disparage or promote or condone hate or violence directed at any type of business, group or persons, a foreign word falling into these categorie, or that conflicts with the regular license plate numbering system.

Phonetic spelling of "for sure!" exclamation.

The obvious words or phrases or chapter-verse citations (Bible), as well as the cryptic combinations of number and letter have given meaning to the authors of them, as well as to their fellow motorists who may notice them while parked, or when stalled in heavy traffic. It is likely that the premium added cost that the state's Department of Motor Vehicles (Secretary of State in the case of Michigan) collects for themed plates and also for vanity plates will continue long into the future as a painless way to increase the state's revenues from creative drivers. Perhaps someone will gain access to their database of current and historical combinations or numbers and letters to produce a more thorough typology of playful plates than the impressions and anecdotes gathered in this article. And if something comparative were possible between states and nations, then even more light would be shone on the relationship of people, their vehicles, and the times they live in.

[Addendum 29 Aug 2024] See also: Detroit Free Press newspaper story, "Michigan has banned more than 26,000 vehicle license plates,"

 https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2024/08/13/michigan-banned-license-plates/74461282007/

*appended with the 606 pages of banned combinations of letters and numbers [26,000+ to date]