We thought Inside Magic had made it to the big time. We were wrong, though.
The Los Angeles Times’ article in today’s edition came across our high-speed teletype machine with a rhythmical, clacking spelling out words we knew: Inside Magic Restroom Café.
Yes. Our humble magic news daily had crossed the streets of broken dreams and spiritual debris to be mentioned in venerable The Los Angeles Times. And we use the term venerable without a full understanding of its true meaning – the publication was identified as “the venerable Los Angeles Times” so we used that description and mixed the words about to avoid claims of plagiarism.
So, we may be illiterate but we don’t steal other people’s editorial copy.
Sure, we were confused by the lead “Inside Magic Restroom Café” but it had our vulnerable (perhaps the opposite of “venerable”) blog name in it so we were good.
We do not have a restroom or café in the vast and very new editorial offices of Inside Magic here in Hollywood but there is a former Taco Bell structure a half-block from our back door called “The Café Café.”
They sell coffee – also known as café in some other language – so it was close enough for us. Technically, that means it could be called “The Coffee Café” or “The Café Coffee” or “The Coffee Coffee.” Intrigue and great espresso all rolled into one decommissioned fast-food structure.
Perhaps the eagle-eyed Los Angeles Times staff saw us go to “The Café Café” to use the restroom restroom and thought it the perfect grabber for today’s edition.
(We realize we have just invited hundreds of very strange search results by using “restroom” twice and “grabber” in a single sentence – but we get .015 of a cent for every 1,200 clicks of ads on our website so we are not above tricking the unwary searchers of weird into a visit now and then).
It turns out the story was not about magic at all. It was about a new restaurant designed to remind diners of eating in a “restroom.”
The two dishes discussed in the article describe more than we would want to know:
“The magic curry rice ($9.95) and the ground pork with rice ($7.95). The reason why is rather crude, but it’s all in good humor. Both dishes come in a toilet-shaped bowl. We’ll leave the rest to your imagination.”
No, thank you.
Our imagination needs nothing left to it. It runs wild across the landscape of our horribly scarred and twisted memories, anxieties and untoward influences where it fetches things we wish it would have left buried.
You eat from toilets while sitting on toilets. The porcelain restroom-themed bowls are all purchased from Japan. The toilets come in two types: standard Western or squat. (At bathrooms in Taiwan and China, the squat toilet is the norm. While Western-style varieties are available in some places, they’re a clear minority.) The food is standard Taiwanese fare. Think stinky tofu, oyster omelets, beef noodle soup and fatty pork over rice.
The Los Angeles Times‘ bottom line: “The concept is potentially gag-inducing if you think about it too much.”
Our brush with fame down the toilet. (That will help us get searches for “toilet brushes” – we’re always thinking).
