Why, hello!
Hope you had a grand Christmas. Glad you stopped in. Take a seat while I gently brush the cookie crumbs off your face. Please help yourself to a cup of coffee or tea and some buttermilk pancakes with scrambled eggs, cheddar, ham and green onions.
The last week of December is a funny, in-between kind of place. We’re saying goodbye to the old year while gearing up for the new. Pictured above is Vincent van Gogh’s favorite café in Arles, France. He immortalized it in his oil painting, “Café Terrace at Night,” (aka, “The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum”).
In a letter to his sister, Van Gogh mentions how pleased he is to do a night painting without the use of black. The golden light from the lantern illuminates the terrace, facade, sidewalk and paving stones. This was the first time he used a starry background in a painting.
When I first read Cynthia Rylant’s beautifully crafted collection of vignettes more than 10 years ago, I didn’t realize there was a real Café Van Gogh. All I knew was that I wanted to visit the cafe she had created in Flowers, Kansas, for hers was a place of magic and miracles — an obligatory stop for anyone searching for a reason to believe.
Jama's Alphabet Soup 