Atdtda29: Bureaucrats at play, 806-814

[kelber at mindspring.com]

-----Original Message-----
>From: Paul Nightingale <isread at btinternet.com>

>In the age of scientific time-management not only restaurants have been
>automated (808, 810). 


p. 810:  "... nodding at a plate behind the pure lead-glass and chrome-steel compartments of the Automatik."

On the one hand, the Automat (Horn and Hardart's in the US) is a perfect symbol of alienation: nurturing food displayed behind cold glass and steel, only accessible, vending-machine style, via a coin transaction.

Here's Edward Hopper's image:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HopperAutomat.jpg

On the other hand, Automats were for the shy, the lonely, the less prosperous.  When my mother was an excessively shy little girl whose single mom worked long hours, her mom would give her a quarter so that she could have dinner at the automat -- no need to talk to anyone.  She always had nostalgia for the automat as a source of comfort food: 5-cent plates of macaroni and cheese, baked beans, etc.  As a kid, I particularly loved the hot chocolate:  you put a coin in an ornate, wall-mounted urn (can't remember if the spout was in the shape of a lion, a dragon or a griffin) and held the provided thick ceramic mug under the spout.  More magic there than cold modernity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat


Laura