Opinion
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Dishwasher Dialogues Brutality of Correctness
No Reservations
By: - Oct 30th, 2025Much of bartending at Chez Haynes was about words, about the conversation, the ‘craic’ as the Irish say. It was also about theatre. The place was dressed like a stage and there were people coming and going, making their entrances and exits all through the night. With just a comment thrown in here and there, suddenly there was a real entertainment.
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The Demon of the Book
By: - Oct 27th, 2025The Demon of the Book does not dissuade us from learning; on the contrary, it thrives on our love for it. It tempts us to believe that by memorizing scriptures and mastering doctrines, we have mastered the Dao itself. This barrier turns knowledge into a gilded cage.
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Dishwasher Dialogues James Baldwin
Baby I Was Never American
By: - Oct 22nd, 2025Once I went to Leroy’s apartment to get some papers, and there in his living room, I saw ten chapters nailed to the wail, not stapled or in folders; no, he had driven a three-inch nail through the pages of each chapter as if to emphasize the brutality of that era
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Dishwasher Dialogues Anon
Happiness Was the Enemy
By: - Oct 15th, 2025We found a place—Le Paradis Mandarin—behind the Odéon metro station. Five francs, including bread and one Tsingtao beer, and the bottles were bigger than the French ones. Sunday Chinese dinner became a ritual where we solved the world’s problems, including those about art, women, love.
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Dishwasher Dialogues the Switch
Utopia and the Universal Smile
By: - Oct 08th, 2025Greg was gregarious while Rafael was reticent. In the Switch Greg got to tend bar and chat up the clients. Rafael was in the kitchen with the solitude of making salads and washing dishes. The scheme worked before reverting back to usual roles. While not talking much Rafael was better at making cocktails.
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When You Are Feeling Monkish
Things To Do
By: - Oct 08th, 2025Before the world awakens with its noise and expectations, there exists a profound stillness. To be an early riser is to claim this sacred time for yourself. In the pre-dawn quiet, you can experience a solitude that is not lonely, but deeply nourishing.
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Dishwashers Jesus and the Worm
Genghis
By: - Oct 01st, 2025I do recall making Sidecars, Whisky Sours, Brandy Alexanders, Manhattans, Tequila Sunrises, Blue Lagoons, classical Martinis, Gin Fizzes, and there was the artichoke liqueur Fernet Branca, vile stuff, but good for hangovers, and the poetically named feuille morte, made of pastis and grenadine, never liked it myself, and the kirs, champagne with crème de cassis was called kir royal, with white wine simply kir, and with red wine un carabinier.
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Dishwasher Dialogues, Genius of Bread and Books
Under the Mountain
By: - Sep 24th, 2025Bread and books. Two more essentials. Shakespeare and Co. will always be dear to my heart. The first real bookstore to sell my book of poetry. And to host a reading I gave there. George Whitman, the founder, was a dedicated and friendly guy. I remember him as being serious about what he was doing. Creating a place for writers and artists to hang out and do what they do.
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The Dishwasher Dialogues: Paris Highlife in the 1970s
La Carte Orange and Les Toilettes à La Turque
By: - Sep 17th, 2025The carte orange was a subway pass with your picture on it. You renewed it once a month, and it allowed you to travel wherever and as often as you wanted on the metro and buses of Paris. The pass was second class, unless you splurged. In those days the metro had first class carriages too.
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The Dishwasher Dialogues, Fascist Francisco Franco
Chasing Immortality
By: - Sep 10th, 2025Alicia cleaned fancy apartments in the sixteenth arrondissement in Paris. She looked worn out, her face was prematurely lined from years of exhausting work, but when she spoke Spanish, her face lit up. She was always in a good mood. One evening she told me she and her husband were planning a visit to Sevilla to see her relatives, but the real purpose of the trip, she confided, was to buy a plot for herself and her husband in the San Fernando Cemetery.
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Dishwasher Dialogues Cave and Knife
The Godess Astrid
By: - Sep 03rd, 2025Asked about the job opening. She said she was the manageress. She told me her name was Astrid. And yes, she strode. She strode everywhere. That was how she moved through her life. Now she came up to me and said: “Yes, we’re looking for a bartender. Come by the lamp here on the bar, open your mouth.”
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The Three Treasures: The Candle of Life
By: - Sep 01st, 2025Imagine your life as a candle. The wax and the wick of the candle are your Jing, your essence.
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Dishwasher Dialogues, The Beginning
Le Patron de Chez Haynes
By: - Aug 27th, 2025Leroy employed young people as dishwashers, waitresses, and bartenders who were also writers, poets, photographers, painters, and dancers. He was generous and warm-hearted, one of those rare people who somehow hadn’t managed to forget what it meant to be young. In Paris those were years without credit cards; copy machines were rare; even telephones were hard to come by. Chez Haynes was a safe haven. And our dreams of Paris would surely come true.
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Dishwasher Dialogues Back to the Beginning
A Fresh Start
By: - Aug 24th, 2025We started posting Dishwasher Dialogues about two thirds on. That ended last week. By popular demand we are now backtracking to the very beginning. This weekly column from Paris is one of our most read features. Everyone loves Paris.
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The Unseen Hand
Laozi’s Wisdom in an Age of Spectacle
By: - Aug 19th, 2025In the 17th chapter of the Tao Te Ching, Laozi outlines a hierarchy of leadership: “A leader is best when people barely know he exists; not so good when people obey and acclaim him; worst when they despise him.” This timeless wisdom offers a stark and challenging contrast to the political reality of modern America, where leadership has become a spectacle of personality, and one figure, in particular, seems to occupy every moment of the national consciousness.
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Dishwasher Dialogues: Last Call
If You Live Long Enough Life Ends
By: - Aug 17th, 2025I am not sure what old is anymore. Somewhere along the line it feels like we picked up an extra decade on our ancestors; those of us who have been lucky enough to keep our health. ‘Ninety is the new eighty’ sort of thing.
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Berkshire Author Steven Reed Nelson Publishes a Provocative Book
Fire in the Wire: Electricity Empowers Human Evolution Beyond Homo Sapiens
By: - Aug 15th, 2025Western Massachusetts author and entrepreneur, Steven Reed Nelson, is a free range thinker. A graduate of Harvard Law School, and layman in the field of science, he proposes that the term Homo sapiens be replaced by Homo electric. The introduction of electricity some 200 years ago has greatly impacted human evolution.
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Kennedy Center Honorees
A Matter of Taste or Lack Thereof
By: - Aug 13th, 2025Kiss, Sylvester Stallone, Gloria Gaynor, George Strait, and English actor Michael Crawford will receive the Kennedy Center Honors at a Donald Trump-hosted ceremony in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 8. He has hinted that the Kennedy Center should be renamed for him or at least to have co-billing.
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The Dishwasher Dialogues: Museums
The ladies of Wichita
By: - Aug 10th, 2025Then on a Sunday afternoon, you’ll be queuing for the Louvre, and you’ll start chatting with a lady from Wichita, Kansas, and she’ll ask you all sorts of questions. How do you know so much about Paris? Are you a professor or something like that? And I’ll say no I’m a bartender and a painter.
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The Power of Non-Forcing:
Finding Wu Wei in a World That Pushes Back
By: - Aug 05th, 2025In a world that champions the hustle, the grind, and the relentless pursuit of goals, the ancient Daoist concept of Wu Wei can seem paradoxical, if not entirely counterintuitive. Often translated as “non-action” or “non-doing,” it’s easily mistaken for passivity or indolence.
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Dishwasher Dialogues: Switzerland
Christmas in Paris
By: - Aug 03rd, 2025Ever since my boarding school days in Vienna and going on school skiing trips, mountains mean snow and snow means cold. I was cold those four years in Vienna. To this day give me the Mediterranean heat.
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Diswasher Dialogues, Day of the Dead
El Dia de Los Muertos
By: - Jul 27th, 2025This feast of celebrating the dead––and death, of course too––was a good jab into my coddled heart, and a solid fuck-you-and-the-nag-you’re-riding aimed at the grim reaper. After the clients finally left way past closing time, the entire staff, all rather worse for fatigue and drink, sat down for our own special Halloween dinner.
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The Quiet Feast
Finding the Dao in Solitude
By: - Jul 22nd, 2025Laozi reminds us in the Tao Te Ching of the utility of emptiness: “We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.” A life cluttered with noise and perpetual engagement leaves no room for the spirit to reside
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The Dishwasher Dialogues: Rags
But Not Riches
By: - Jul 21st, 2025For an appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival of a play by Greg the set of painted rags was conceived by Rafael. It was cheap and easy to transport. Looking out over a mountain of rags, however, the audience consisted of a single individual. They attributed lack of success to their unflinching artistic integrity.
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The Dao of Push Hands
Cultivating Suppleness and Wisdom
By: - Jul 15th, 2025At its core, push hands is a two-person training drill designed to develop sensitivity, balance, and the ability to neutralize and issue force. Partners maintain continuous contact, typically at the wrists or forearms, and engage in a gentle yet focused exchange.
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