La Traviata and the Steampunk Cafe

The title covers the main settings for tonight’s dazzling entertainment. My first opera- of course I understood neither the songs (Italian) nor the subtitles (Bosnian) except for the occasional keyword like love, insanity, and weird. The music was beautiful though and I was reliving it with tuneless humming afterwards until the jazzy beats of the steampunk cafe made me forget how it went. As it was a spur of the moment gatecrashing of my friend’s night out with her cousin's cousin I hadn’t brought my spectacles. I’m told that the heroine was played by three different actresses, one brunette and two blondes but I was struggling with the storyline anyway and had given up trying to distinguish between the soft focus faces. The hero Alfredo was played by a Chinese or perhaps Korean guy and there was a smiley guy standing behind us who might possibly have been his proud big brother videotaping the whole show.

I won’t waste too many words describing this place- the photos speak for themselves. My lord how I dream of having such a place- even just a little room filled with such glorious junk.






Later outside we found an abandoned umbrella which seem positively Providential as my good friend had been pondering the question to buy or not to buy a new brolly all day. On the one hand, she already had one at home, on the other thunder was crashing all around and the poor child was getting a little bedraggled. There was a little soul-searching over the ethics of taking the umbrella from the street- whether it was stealing, or depriving a homeless person from much needed shelter. I, having fairly hoboish instincts myself, saw no problem as the street was empty with no one laying claim and the eternal fire nearby to warm people’s hands. Eventually she was convinced that it was Fate providing her with a slightly broken brolly in her time of need.

The only fly in the ointment is the growing fear that I am becoming an irredeemable Minnie the Moocher. Take today for example- upon discovering that I had only foreign currency on my person the proper thing to do would be to politely refuse dinner and refreshments and survive on gum right? But I am far too weak, so I gobbled up the dolma at the restaurant, and even allowed the Tax Inspector cousin's cousin to pay for the juice at The Cafe of Dreams. As well as the bus fare home. I hang my head in shame. But I'm also singing the waltz from La Traviata inside that same incorrigible head.