I think the archtype of Beat coffee houses was the Cafe Figaro in Greenwich Village. It reminded me of a bit of literature trivia.

There was no live music at the Figaro. Maybe that's whythere were always tables filled with people talking earnestly about life, art, ethics, and theology.

While I was a college student, I workd at a place called the Living Theatre up on the corner of SIxth Avenue and Fourteenth Street but I lived in the VIllage. Through an odd working out of coincidence, I was working with Judith Malina and Julian Beck in a play that was an off-Broadway hit and very highly regarded in the Village. When I joined the company, the play had already been running for several yeas. The Living Theatre was one of the central nodes of what was called the hip scene in New York at that time. Just having a job there transformed me, at least in my own mind, into a real Villager. Hell, I even had a nodding acquintance with Jules Feiffer and went out twice with a waitress from the Figaro.

We'd finish up at the Living Theatre around eleven and then we would head out for a place to talk, drink, meet friends and make new ones - all while remaining cool.

One of my favorite place was the Cafe Figaro on the fabled corner of Bleeker and McDougal. There was always the possibility of incredible conversations. The effect of sitting and listening to Paul Goodman, Alan Ginsburg, Maya Deren, a lot of abstract expressionist painters, Martha Graham dancers and uncounted writers was not lost on this eighteen or nineteen year old New Hampshire boy.

The mention of graffiti and The Figaro in an earlier mesage reminded me of somethng I saw in Figaro in the late '50s. By the pay phone on the wall someone had scrawled "It's better to have flunked your Wasserman than never to have loved at all." For those of you to whom the words "Wasserman Test" mean nothing, you should know that it was the syphlis test of that time.

In the context of the period it was funny and was far more memorable than another graffito scrawled in the same hand just below it. It asked a question that would in a few years become a household word, "Who's afraid of Virginia Wolf?"

I can't say from first hand knowledge that Edward Albee first saw the phrase there and decided to use it as the title of a play je was writing. He had already written The Sandbox and Zoo Story which were, I think, one-acts and was writing every day. His roommate at the time was Paul Goodman so I know that Albee used to spend time at the Figaro and if he ever used the phone he would have seen it for sure.

Even though the play and then the movie, Whose Afraid of Virginia WOlf gererated tremendous interest, I have never seen I have never ever seen a mention of that graffito. Remember, you heard about it first on Mudcat.

Sourdough