Forum / kaffe in katmandu closes after 1 year

• 
  Marcus Speh

  Dec 10, 07:46am

  Two announcements, one glad and one sad, regarding <a href="http://kaffeinkatmandu.tumblr.com">Kaffe in Katmandu</a>, where a wonderful poem by Darryl Price has just been posted: (1) we'll have a Dancing Santa for Christmas; (2) we'll close our doors on 31 December 2011 after a fantastic run of one year with 900 posts by 120 kaffe members, 600 subscribers and more than 33,000 visitors. the site will stay up, of course, since <a href="http://kaffeinkatmandu.tumblr.com/archive">the archives</a> are gorgeous, but there will be no new posts. Thanks to everyone <a href="http://www.fictionaut.com/groups/kaffe-in-katmandu">at Fictionaut</a> where the Kaffe has always found friends and writers!

• 
  Susan Tepper

  Dec 10, 04:59pm

  Ooooooh..... this is sad news! The kaffe has been redolent with spices and exotica, and I will dearly miss it.

• 
  Darryl Price

  Dec 10, 05:02pm

  The Kaffe was perfect. It was alive. It was welcoming. You got to meet the most interesting people there, and hear the most amazing stories. It fueled you in more ways than one. Thanks for inventing it, Marcus. Like all your best work, it becomes part of what makes life bearable and fun.Bravo, my friend!

• 
  Susan Tepper

  Dec 10, 05:07pm

  "If Only I Were a Kitten" by our Poet Pal Darryl Price is so moving and honest and innocent, a poem without guile. Excellent work with a terrific image to accompany it.

  See-- this is what I mean. The kaffe in katmandu will be SO MISSED...

• 
  Matthew Robinson

  Dec 10, 11:09pm

  :(

• 
  Sam Rasnake

  Dec 11, 12:48am

  Will miss its sanctuary.

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Dec 11, 12:51am

  Marcus, like the little guy in the Peirrot costume at Cirque du Soleil, you juggle more projects than most humans seem capable of doing at one time. We are amazed.

  We are all, as we should be, grateful when you hoist us, individually and severally up into the lights as you do so often, featuring bits of our work in your internet show and helping bring our names forward into the wide world.

  I thank you. We thank you. You will be missed, of course, but we also know... you'll be back, if not as before, then in a new iteration, a new voice, a new style.

  Thanks, Marcus.

• 
  Marcus Speh

  Dec 11, 07:11am

  Thank you guys! If you could see me now you's see that I've put my old three-piece suit on just for the occasion of thanking you. Oddly enough, it does also make me look like a penguin from the neck down. Ah...fashion.

  Kaffe in Katmandu has always also been about visual pleasure and mutuality of artists, writers and a cloud of (very) young people who use tumblr obsessively, something that infected and inspired me. After gathering so much momentum, it seems a pity to give it up, but I want to move on.

  Just like with Fictionaut, Kaffe serves as a confirmation that the community concept not just as a warm oven to huddle around when it gets cold out in the market, but as a social media vehicle to writerly success and reader numbers, works well. I'm now waiting for a magazine that goes one step further and doesn't just re-imagine print publications on the web (no matter how fancy looking) but that gives the author some actual power in the form of social media tools, marketing tools: information about who reads what when and why and how to get better with audiences. Almost all web zines have this information (or could have it) and none pass it on or provide a real platform to their authors. Which is a waste, really, if I may say so, and a little sad given that you don't even make money publishing with them...just a thought that I won't follow up on if I can help it (my wife stands behind me with a rolling pin to stop me from starting yet another project)...

• 
  Matt Potter

  Dec 11, 08:17am

  Well, I - who never contributed the Kaffe but always enjoyed its exotica - am sad. But I -as I am sure you know - wish it and its customers well.

• 
  Christopher Allen

  Dec 11, 11:58am

  Ah, this is sad. Thank you, Marcus, for providing the Kaffe. I wish I'd had time to contribute more--but thank you for providing a home for one of my favorite stories. All the best, and I can't wait to see what you're up to next!

• 
  Susan Gibb

  Dec 11, 01:09pm

  Marcus, you've been a lantern in the dark night for all of us, extending a warm glow where we've always been welcome to share in your own shining light.

  Thank you, my friend, for your non-egotistical love of literature and the art of writing.

• 
  Shelagh Power-Chopra

  Dec 11, 04:46pm

  oh, too bad, always such a great stop in the blogosphere––will miss it! Thanks for providing such a great platform.

• 
  Robert Vaughan

  Dec 12, 12:37am

  Marcus, you never cease to amaze and inspire me in countless ways. The Kaffe will be remembered with such reverence. Look forward to your next installment of the Speh legacy.

• 
  David Ackley

  Dec 12, 12:46am

  The Kaffe was that rarest of propositions, different. For all the reasons above and this too, it will be missed. Thanks for making it, Marcus.

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Dec 12, 02:39am

  Kaffe in Katmandu has provided an excellent model for the literary e-zine, not merely in its attractive format and seductive fusion of artistic media, but in showing us the mechanics, the method through which a literary e-zine could grow, expand, and reach a wide, international audience in a relatively short period. It's phenomenal when you think about it.

  Marcus is something of a pioneer and I do hope the lessons of Kaffe in Katmandu aren't wasted. He's shown us the value and the promise of the internet in carrying the cause of literature forward into the new millenium.

  Again, Marcus, bravo and godspeed.

• 
  Linda Simoni-Wastila

  Dec 12, 02:48am

  I will miss the kaffe. I always loved the swirl of color and words, and the little gems that I'd stumble upon when I needed them most.

  I completely understand your need to let it go, but look forward to seeing you again in your next incarnation. Peace, friend...

• 
  W.F. Lantry

  Dec 12, 07:45pm

  "I'm now waiting for a magazine that goes one step further and doesn't just re-imagine print publications on the web (no matter how fancy looking) but that gives the author some actual power in the form of social media tools, marketing tools: information about who reads what when and why and how to get better with audiences. Almost all web zines have this information (or could have it) and none pass it on or provide a real platform to their authors."

  Marcus,

  I'm wondering what this would actually look like? Wordpress as a base (just to avoid constant coding, and it already has hooks built in). Hooks to twitter, tumblr, facebook, something for video. Links to google analytics for authors, to see who's hitting what.

  Ok, all that. Doable in a day, and it would be easy to get a group of contributing editors together. But what else should it have, in an ideal world? I'm not suggesting a new project, just looking for some blue sky ideas... ;)

  Thanks,

  Bill

• 
  Marcus Speh

  Dec 12, 09:13pm

  Dear friends, your responses to the Untergang (demise) of the Kaffe are most gratifying to its founder and maitre d'. I wish the Kaffe existed as a physical space so that we could all shake hands and write into each others' books, that would be neat. There would be a little library and a performance space, of course. You see, I'm not all that virtual (<a href="http://virtualwritersworld.virtualwritersinc.com/?p=223">anymore</a>).

  @Bill You said it (& I suppose you know all of this:)—your hooks (WordPress calls them 'plugins') are all there. You don't need a PhD to install and maintain such a blog (<a href="http://blog.marcusspeh.com">my own blog</a> is a well-maintained WP blog example). The platform is already built for multi-author use — at my school, I run <a href="http://elerner.birkenkrahe.com">a blog with 40+ authors</a>. Additional authors can be added automatically as editors (or different roles). ... It just needs to be done (nobody has really done it yet—though some platforms, like Necessary Fiction, Nervous Breakdown etc are undoubtedly organized along similar lines)—because nobody has treated all publishing authors as full members (which is what Kaffe in Katmandu did). There's fear of losing control over the product, I suppose (I've had that fear even with such a simple place as the Kaffe).

  Next steps — beyond the technology — in my mind would be to attach an outreach community to the publishing platform (where all authors sit and have access to all information concerning them), where new authors can land, readers can sniff the writerly air...and of course, mechanisms of micropayment to make it all worthwhile ... Flattr is best right now, I think.

  So — platform w/analytics (WP+full stats) + community (Fictionaut+Fb+Twitter) + micropayments (Flattr) is what I can think of right now. That's three times more than any other publishing house or small press or ezine offers at the moment...

  Of course, with any such offering must come learning: it is not immediately obvious how to read/use Google Analytics data, which conclusions to draw (if any). <a href="http://blog.marcusspeh.com/?p=4964">I've struggled with that, too</a>.

  But as I said, someone will do it, I'm sure. Matter of time.

• 
  stephen hastings-king

  Dec 12, 10:22pm

  the kaffe has been a lovely project. i've been pleased to been able to play a small-to-vanishingly small part in its evolution(s).

  one thought, though...it seems to me that control is most democratically distributed not when there is none, but rather when it is a deliberative matter...so an editorial collective affair. there should be, i think, some forum for editorial discussions. because i don't think the choice is really control yes/no---it's more what kind of control(s) do we (a pronoun used for reasons that will, i hope, become clear below)want to set up and how are they exercised?

  i've been thinking about this for a while with respect to sound work, and put something up in the atticus books exchange about the occupation..anyway, people were talking about where sound is a more democratic than text because it appears to be so..that seemed to me to basically mis-state the issue, confusing the abstract nature of sound with something that's produced in this culture with more freedom than can be exercised in the arranging of words.

  the democratic aspect of the process(es) of making sound are more for the players than for an audience...say you're using a graphic score and need to decide about syntax before you do a performance--that's a democratic procedure, deciding on the rules that will shape a performance, knowing that they're arbitrary but constrained (by the score, by the people involved with the performance)...for an audience, however, there's nothing in particular that separates sound environments generated by way of this sort of procedure from any other.

  so it rather makes me wonder if a democratic form is even available to spectators, or if spectatorship is a problem. it seems to me that if there is democracy--or structures that take the idea of democracy seriously even---then they are a result of a collective doing and not a collective looking-at. and this would extend to the modes of exercising control themselves.

  so that's a first thinking.

  here's a second one: i think organizing ways to reach beyond the community of writers is the make-or-break question, really. one of the consequences of the shaking-up that we call "new media" has been a scattering of older, centralized forms of distribution, both of physical objects and of their receptions. now the general situation is that of underground music--lots of scenes, lots of interestsing stuff, and audiences almost entirely full of other musicians. all of whom are in more or less the same boat but who nonetheless support each other by showing up to each other's gigs and so on.

  it still seems to me that people like to like what they're told they like to like in the ways they're told they'd like to like it. maybe because it's safer--less possibility of exposing oneself to somehow fucking up if you follow directions. maybe because there's a TON of stuff being produced everywhere all the time and no way to sort through it because they only things at this point--almost---that do the sorting are press releases and we all know what they're full of.

  people seems to want critics to mediate all this stuff for them, to tell them, in voices that are fit to their sense of demographic co-ordinates, what it is that they would like to like and how they might like to go about liking it.

  it doesn't seem a very good solution to make a forum---hypothetically---in which the same writers who make pieces now also review them. because that'd be just another form of press release, yes? on the other hand, maybe there's a way to get around that?

  or maybe there's another question: at this point, who or what stratifies receptions of this community-based series of undergrounds that we all swim about it, going to each others gigs and having often a very good time?

• 
  Jürgen Fauth

  Dec 13, 09:23am

  How important are in-depth stats to you, beyond # of views? I'm sure with a little programming (hi Carson!) we could make our analytics data visible to writers -- I'm just not sure that it's particularly helpful to know where clicks came from, what percentage is from China, and so forth. Personally, it strikes me as more of a distraction -- it's easy to get lost in the data instead of writing. Should stats be a priority?

  Re: micropayments, I'm not sure flattr is catching on in the US. It's a good idea, but adoption seems like a chicken-and-egg problem. I see more flattr buttons on the German web, but I'm not sure that they're actually getting used there, either. Worth researching, though.

• 
  Marcus Speh

  Dec 13, 02:55pm

  1. @Stephen, that's one long thought, most inspiring and difficult (just when I congratulated myself ...I think, too, that the concept of "spectatorship" is being overhauled, as are other concepts that rely on modes of communication, too ("expertise", "relationship" etc.) and the loss of control seems unavoidable.

  I suppose my answer to the challenge would be that I care less about democracy and structures and more about authors getting read and getting to know their audiences (and vice versa). If that's democracy, fine. I'm quite single-minded (call me stupid) in my ambitions.

  2. That second thought is fascinating: "People like to like what they're told they like to like in the ways they're told they'd like to like it" almost demands a a manifesto. In the past, we'd have started a book club. Heard it on the radio this morning: "Get our free guide to the best books this Christmas."

  I'm not sure that writing your own reviews is such a bad idea...the quality of the review is likely to mirror the quality of the work, as always. I'm not sure it'd be everyone's cup of tea, though. I love to talk and write about my work but I often get the impression that many writers don't (check how many don't bother with an "author note" on fictionaut). Why not do away with the illusion of expertise when it comes to art, where expertise is pretty meaningless (compared to, say, engineering) anyway, at least for consumption/use of the products?

  There definitely are issues ahead because production and consumption of literature are so intertwined more (your first point on spectatorship refers)...I've even written <a href="http://pureslush.webs.com/seriouswriteripad.htm">satirical flash</a> about it. But traditional storytelling will still take place at the camp fires, if only in our hearts.

• 
  W.F. Lantry

  Dec 13, 07:13pm

  What I like about the stats idea is quantitative feedback. I've actually written to a couple editors and asked them about their hit count, mostly because I believe we reach far more readers online than we do in print.

  But most editors aren't tech savvy enough to parse those counts to individual stories, or say where the hits are coming from. And then there's another question. Anyone who does lots of readings knows that audiences have unpredictable preferences. I have a poem I don't think is better than some others, but audiences just eat it up. I never could have predicted that preference, but I see it in their responses as they're listening. Wouldn't it be interesting to see that about our stories? Wouldn't that help us focus on readers even more than we already do?

  I also really like the idea of communal contributing editors cross-fertilizing, with themselves and with participatory readers. The technology is finally allowing us entry into the realm Coover envisioned when all this began. There's a lot to be said for that.

  Thanks,

  Bill

• 
  Darryl Price

  Dec 13, 08:15pm

  Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm...where to begin..it's wisest to always keep one's mouth shut of course, but...do you really think knowing what your audience will happily respond to the most will actually help to make you as a writer better at being yourself? I understand the need to fulfill one's potential as a writer, as a human being. I get it, we never stop growing.Good for us.Science anyone? Still body of water=death. Active body of water=life. But will we really use any new found statistics to think about manipulating the audience just simply to have an audience?I know it's a thin line between love and hate, but there's a difference in giving the people what they want and giving the people what they want. One is pandering and the other is some kind of mysterious luck,grace,call it what you will.If we are simply flipping burgers then by all means go for the billions, but if we are offering our hearts and minds in sacrifice to the creative impulse..yeah I know exactly how that sounds, but I also know you know what I mean. Will we use our super duper powers to creatively write for good(art.love,humor) or for evil(more money than God)? To defend or to destroy beauty, truth.To gorge ourselves on superficial fame or also give to the culturally needy with humility and generosity? Maybe you don't give a rat's ass one way or the other. Okay. You're out. Thanks for playing.But somebody's got to make a more elegant move.

• 
  Marcus Speh

  Dec 13, 09:36pm

  I had a message from the Maitre d' of Kaffe in Katmandu about this discussion thread, which I want to share with you:

  «It's exactly this hearty, hysterical brooding over issues and meta issues, this meeting of past, present and future, the sudden fireworks coming out of nowhere, the flipping of book burgers administered by a benevolent, electronically altered Robert Coover, that made the Kaffe in Katmandu so special and that I'm going to miss. Here like at the Kaffe, every discussion has the potential to go off into a murky distance while staying rooted in traditional story tromping. This is Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-like action at a distance: we're here but we're also attending to our own future. Have seen it before many times and here we are again. I love writers communities. They grow all the time into all directions at once.»

• 
  Marcus Speh

  Dec 14, 01:54pm

  i agree that statistics, market, reader information all that is a distraction. but writing is also about getting distracted, isn't it. if you could foresee what kind of distraction flips that creative switch, you'd do that and only that if you could. a surplus of information is never bad: if you don't want to use it or look at it, don't.

  less philosophically though, i think it's worth trying something like this and see if it yields anything or not. first time in history this is even possible! ... it might also feel right to some of the non-paying mags to give something back to the authors.

  as for more data on fictionaut: i don't know. i don't take fictionaut as a journal and it works as it is. if there's improvement energy/time, i am sure some other issues have priority.

  micropayments: never mind if <a href="http://flattr.com">flattr</a> specifically succeeds or not (i earned $10 or so with flattr in the last quarter, which feels good! first money ever earned through writing!) , but i still think that some form of micropayment will work, and when it works, it'll work wonders for authors in particular; then most of the traditional publishers can go home and cry.

  i'm going to get distracted by looking at some stats now (weekly visits at kaffe in katmandu via google analytics): telling me, among other things, that susan tepper's poem was a hit, that the average reader spent more than 4 min on the site (which is valuable: it means that people didn't just to to one post but that they found it interesting enough to browse), and that every second visitor has never been to the site! alright!

  <img src="http://blog.marcusspeh.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Screen-Shot-2011-12-14-at-14.44.08.png" alt="" title="kaffe in katmandu weekly stats" width="700" />

• 
  Marcus Speh

  Dec 14, 02:08pm

  ps. ...stat-wise, this is of course only the tip of the iceberg. i can also deduce from my stats: where my readers come from (mostly US); if they use mobile devices to read and which ones (almost half use iPads); where the referrals come from (about 1/3 via facebook which is why i created a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kaffe-In-Katmandu/224612584276275">facebook page</a> for the kaffe)...and so on. all this becomes more meaningful when one defines (and tracks) marketing events: launch of a contest; a weekly column; you name it.

  <small>[and in case you're wondering why yours truly keeps going on and how he finds any time writing: i teach this stuff for a living & i built a number of the first tools used in this web trade.]</small>

• 
  Diane Becker

  Dec 14, 04:22pm

  Sorry to see this lovely project archived, but look forward to future things. Good to be a tiny molecule of it. Thanks Marcus x

• 
  Meg Tuite

  Dec 14, 04:56pm

  Dear Marcus,
  I will miss the Kaffe!!!! I'm so thankful that I got to be a small part of this amazing venue for writers!
  So many great works in there!!! Hope this gives you more time to write!!! I'm a fan!!

• 
  Bobbi Lurie

  Dec 14, 05:16pm

  I am sorry I did not try harder to find a way to get onto Kaffe in Katmandu. You were very patient with me, Marcus. I haven't read all of these posts in their entirety but I am getting the impression that what you are saying / doing is something I should pay attention to. I thank you for all you've done / are doing.

  I don't know if we can ever know about "audience"--we can't know if someone connected to the work or not.

  What Stephen wrote about sound--

  " sound is a more democratic than text"

  I remember Susie Gablick speaking about this a long time ago. She was referring to visual artists, to the myth of the individual, suffering artist vs. a more inclusive way of expression.

  sorry for the disjointed thoughts.

  I wish you all the best, Marcus.

• 
  Roberto C. Garcia

  Dec 14, 05:17pm

  Oh Marcus. So sorry that the Kaffe is closing it's doors. Can't you have some college students run it for extra credit? You can act like the huffy puffy professors who have their students do such things. "What is this? No, no no. I said metaphysical not existential!!"

  Just a thought. One way to keep it alive AND give something to the youth AND to act (huffy puffy professor roles are in demand) AND keep the wonderfully creative interactive international writing community you've nurtured from a little seedling idea to what it is now (yes, I could conceivably keep going)...

  I will miss all the wonderful people, tumblers and work presented at and connected to Kaffe in Katmandu. Most especially, I will miss you at the helm.

  All the best my friend.

  Kann die Muse sei allezeit mit euch.

• 
  Darryl Price

  Dec 14, 07:49pm

  Exactly. What Roberto said. But getting back to your charts and whatnot. I do find it all very interesting--because it is. But it's power. Knowledge is power.And power has a tendency to..well, you know. Point is-- There is no better wielder that I know of, Marcus. I think that's what all your friends here are trying to say to you. Whatever you do, however you do it, we'll gladly offer up our support. But we'll also question and add our two cents and want to arm wrestle with you from time to time. It's what brothers do.

• 
  J. Mykell Collinz

  Dec 14, 09:57pm

  Marcus, thanks for the example you set with your writing and your use of Internet tools. I'm far behind you but I can still see your bright light guiding the way.

• 
  Berit Ellingsen

  Dec 15, 05:28am

  Sad to hear the warmest and most literary online cafe in the northern hemisphere is closing its doors.

  But very happy for the excellent and kind Maitre d's servings of coffee and words throughout the year.

  Marcus, I can't describe fully how inspiring your writing, generosity, communal and forward thinking and presence has and is.

  But I know you will continue to be that also outside of Kaffe. Wish you the best of luck with all your new projects and stories in the new year. :)

  Hugs,
  Berit

• 
  Michelle Elvy

  Dec 15, 07:13pm

  Missed the Kaffee alltogether, Marcus et al. Would have loved to be there, never got onto tumblr somehow -- was not my year for hanging out in coffee shops I guess! Next year, next project, perhaps.

  Marcus, always wonderful to see what you are up to... now... next...

  Happy Holidays, all!

• 
  Michelle Elvy

  Dec 15, 07:15pm

  Sorry to hear that the Kaffee is closed, Marcus. I followed and watched from here, never made it into the shop! Will await your next project... Krautflash, usw...

  Happy Holidays, all!

• 
  MaryAnne Kolton

  Dec 17, 03:59am

  Marcus, Perhaps you just need a new project? You strike me as the kind of person who gets bored easily and is always itching to create, to build, to move ahead. I look forward to your next brilliant invention . . .Be well and happy.

• 
  W.F. Lantry

  Dec 18, 05:49am

  Marcus,

  So I'm trying to set up an environment, but I'm not finding any prewritten hooks for tumblr in wordpress. Know of any? I'm running atahualpa, if that matters.

  Yes, I could make wordpress the entire sandbox, but I'd just as soon the environment were sprawled all over the net, if you know what I mean.

  Any hints would be helpful...

  Thanks,

  Bill

• 
  Marcus Speh

  Dec 18, 05:41pm

  Bill, I know Atahualpa. I'm using Twenty-Ten for <a href="http://marcusspeh.com">my blog</a> where you can also see the <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tumblr-widget-for-wordpress/">Tumblr Widget plugin</a> that I use. Works fine, is well maintained and all that. I think WordPress is by far the most flexible environment for a multi-user blog/platform and I'm just sitting here applauding you wildly! Good luck and fire away if you think there's any other way in which I can help. Cheers from Berlin!

• 
  Marcus Speh

  Dec 18, 05:42pm

  ps. you can see the Tumblr widget at work in the right hand sidebar: "1000 Shipwrecked Penguins" is automatically imported from <a href="http://speh.tumblr.com">this tumblr blog</a>.

• 
  Ann Bogle

  Dec 20, 09:58pm

  It is exactly like me to make it for last call. Jefferson Hansen interviews me about my stories at Big Bridge, Vernon Frazer and Michael Rothenberg, Eds. Thanks, Marcus, who asked about the link at my Fictionaut page to the audio interview and offered to host it at kaffe in katmandu!

  http://kaffeinkatmandu.tumblr.com/post/14520983386/ann-bogle-kaffe-member-writer-editor-at-mad

• 
  Bill Yarrow

  Dec 22, 05:09am

  The Kaffe was a welcoming and comfortable place. I thank you for that. Your vitality, generosity and curiosity will push you to create other sweet worlds, Marcus.

• 
  Michael J. Solender

  Dec 22, 01:42pm

  How much I enjoyed my k.i.k. I know the creative mind won't allow for too much of a respite and look forward to seeing some new project soon!

• 
  Marcus Speh

  Dec 28, 04:49pm

  It's official: I'm an online writer. <a href="http://northvillereview.com/?p=1575">Northville Review</a> knew it first. Seems to fit in this discussion thread which was so much about online writing and experimenting.

  Thank you to everyone who contributed here...three more days and after original work by <a href="http://kaffeinkatmandu.tumblr.com/post/14806935583/salvation-santa-by-susan-m-gibb-jack-leaves-for">Susan Gibb</a>, <a href="http://kaffeinkatmandu.tumblr.com/post/14858189095/in-memory-of-colby-price-chihuahua-1996-2011">Darryl Price</a>, <a href="http://kaffeinkatmandu.tumblr.com/post/14910034767/music-of-ireland-by-lucien-quincy-senna-you">Lucien Senna</a>, as well as republished stories and poems by Sam Rasnake, Beate Sigriddaughter, Christopher Allen, Carol Novack, Silvia Petter, Ann Bogle, Chris Galvin...and many others—we will close with the story "Another Dream" written by <a href="http://fictionaut.com/users/berit-ellingsen">Berit Ellingsen</a> for Kaffe in Katmandu.

• 
  Susan Tepper

  Dec 28, 05:00pm

  Marcus, you are an online writer. You're also an offline writer. Loved the Northville piece which I just read.

  SO SAD that the beautiful, spicey, exotic, dense, heady kaffe in katmandu is shutting its doors.

  But knowing its maitre d', this is only temporary, something else will surface in its place. And the kaffe ghosts will be there always, sipping the heady blends.

• 
  Marcus Speh

  Dec 28, 05:43pm

  susan, please handcuff me and feed my unworthy body to the dogs if i use the space and time in my life freed up by dropping kaffe in katmandu for another project instead of writing time...that's what friends do ;-)

• 
  Marcus Speh

  Dec 28, 05:44pm

  ....and thanks for having been such a sport and staunch supporter of the kaffe with your wonderful work!!

• You must log in to reply to this thread.