VARIETY
VILLAGE CAFE
Before Mary MacCar–
thy popularized it in the
New
York Post,
the Bistro hadn't even
an obscene scrawl in the men's
toilet. But those who came to sec
what she imagined or pretended
to see, decorated it with the im–
ages of their disappointment. The
defacement was short-lived. The
tourists were bored and left; the
one beer an hour squatters who
were bounced to make room for
them are back. Business goes on
as usual. Everything's as quiet as
a wake-and, in fact, if I had to
tell you what I think the people in
the Bistro are doing, that's what
I'd say, that they're holding a
wake, a wake for the world, which
is to say each man for himself.
The essence and absurdity of the
Village are here- the artists and
their caricatures, manic poets and
spastic painters encouraged by the
management because it's good bus–
iness and because it appeals to
their sadistic sense of humor. An
anthropologist interviewing these
people could find all the ills of
America. Miss MacCarthy only
finds that they "do nothing." Her
generation is used to "the battle
of ideas and standards."-Ah, the
luxury of ideas and standards! The
rhetorical questions they flattered
themselves with! "Who shall own
the machinery of production?"
"What is art?" A decade of char–
ades! The problems dumped into
this generation's lap, which dumps
it in turn into the Bistro, are un–
heard of by our surprised Hecate
County suburbanite.
Marx is
passe,
the bourgeoisie
a lready
epate:
the students here
are from the New School, where
thcy've just becn asked
What is
the meaning of meaning?
Some–
one-he's not here-shouted some–
thing about the machinery of pro–
duction, rattled the workers' ghost–
ly chains, but the others know that
the machinery of production is for
beer and bombs, and they'll take
beer. Art?- The art of self-defense!
God?-Moloch, the juke-box! You
ask who shall run the government?
- Why, the bartenders of course!
Gene, Steve and Ray- who else !
Perfect Machiavellians! Gene as–
signs status. Steve can break your
nose over the bar, and your girl
knows he's a better lay. Ray gives
you your baby formula. Patting a
behind here, squeezing a homo–
sexual's arm there, they breathe
their normality like Sen-Sen in
your face. Every drink you drink
is a toast to them, arteriosclerosis
or uleers for you.
Those seated together at tables
examllle each others' psyches like
monkeys searching for fleas. The
standees are more like the apes
in the experiment. Some psycho–
logist-a less sardonic Gene-is-
