What about a teakettle? What if the spout opened and closed when the steam came out, so it would become a mouth, and it could whistle pretty melodies, or do Shakespeare, or just crack up with me? I could invent a teakettle that reads in Dad's voice, so I could fall asleep, or maybe a set of kettles that sings the chorus of "Yellow Submarine," which is a song by the Beatles, who I love, because entomology is one of my raisons d'être, which is a French expression that I know.

--Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer

The minute I stepped out of the Grand Army Plaza station in Park Slope, I knew I wasn't in Manhattan anymore.

Unlike the almost claustrophobic crowd of buildings and people I'd become accustomed to in Midtown, Park Slope looked more like a scene out of a movie: high, ornate brownstones with the bare cleanliness of suburbia, bare-branched trees lining the streets at careful, intermittent intervals. I jumped when a car whizzed past me at the intersection; as much as Manhattan drivers seemed kosher with running you over on the crosswalk, they usually can't build up too much speed in between the ubiquitous stop lights. But here, where the streets were practically empty, the traffic clearly flowed better.

For my first destination, I decided to pick somewhere easy, by which I mean, still standing and operating. After doing some research, I found out about a little café in Park Slope called Ozzie's, which was considered one of Brooklyn's literary hotspots and was frequented by quite a few authors who live in the area.

I'd originally been worried about getting lost—I have an awful sense of direction—but finding it wasn't a problem at all. The café was straight down the road after one right turn, at the corner of Lincoln Place and Seventh Avenue. The area was set up like the center of a small town, with modest one-story boutiques nestled beside slightly taller neighbors. I was almost surprised to come across the sign so easily; I'd gotten used to getting lost amongst rows of hole-in-the-wall eating counters shoved between neon-lit mega-chain stores, where if you couldn't squeeze into this one, there was another one just down the block with all the same things.


Ozzie's had all the charm of an old-school diner and bookstore café. In a way, it's what some people might call dingy, but the effect was deliberate. Though it looked a little bit rundown, the immediate impression was that of quaintness. Pictures lined the walls, some framed, some not. Some looked hand drawn—more like mementoes kept for personal value rather than prints or imitations of avant garde art. Customers were constantly incoming, but there was also no lack of people filling the seats; most of them seemed to know they would be staying here for quite a long time, many with laptops and Blackberries, newspapers and novels in hand. They filled the small space easily, but miraculously, it didn’t seem cramped.

Across from the counter, the wall was filled with shelves full of teacup sets and mugs. It's an eclectic combination of what looked like hand-painted fine china and New York memorabilia, as well as a whole row dedicated to mugs with the Ozzie's logo printed on the side.


I sat down, cup of fresh green tea in hand—not loose leaves, unfortunately, but it smelled good—and glanced furtively around. Ever since I walked in the door, I'd been trying to nonchalantly scout out the other customers to see if there might be anyone I recognized from pictures. Wouldn't it be a great coincidence if Jonathan Safran Foer were sitting in the café right as I was writing about him?

Foer, the breakout author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, graduated from Princeton in 1999, by which time he had already drafted his debut novel, Everything is Illuminated. While in college, he studied under Joyce Carol Oates, who became his mentor and helped propel him to his eventual fame. He has won several writing awards in addition to being published in various newspapers and magazines, sometimes with short columns as well as short stories.

As a writer, Foer has garnered both serious praise and disgusted criticism. A lot of major critics have been big fans of his work, sometimes to the point of Obama-like fanaticism, but just as many view his writing as pretentious and his poetic stream-of-consciousness prose a little too gimmicky. While many readers love the depth he manages to achieve, others condemn his overuse of a sort of textbook unconventionality. Or, you know, they just kind of hate him.

I first heard of Foer during freshmen year of college, when several classmates talked about reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close over the summer and loving it at a small group orientation meeting. I'd tucked the recommendation into the back of my mind at the time, but after that, he kept popping up over and over again everywhere I looked, and every time, I heard only good things.

Well, all right then, I thought. I can take a hint.

The following summer, I picked it up myself. Even though I didn't get to finish it, I do remember that I liked what I read. It's quirky, and the subject is certainly a relevant one—the protagonist of the story is Oskar Schell, a young boy who loses his father in the 9/11 and begins combing through New York for the answer to a puzzle that he thinks his father left him. Armed with a key, he searches tirelessly for the lock it opens, trying to discover what exactly happened and dealing with his father's gaping absence.

I'd learned that Foer sometimes worked at Ozzie's. Interviews with him also repeatedly mentioned the place, so I figured it had to be true. And after looking around, it did seem like a place writers would enjoy.


I opened my laptop, ready to do some work of my own. Unfortunately, I'd chosen a seat that was nowhere near the outlet, which I desperately needed, if the glaring red X-ed out battery in the corner of my screen was any indication, but this was the only spot open.

In a stroke of incredible good luck, the couple who were occupying the seat right next to the powerboard leave, and I immediately, if awkwardly, began shifting my stuff over. Once I was finally comfortably ensconced at the bench table, looking out into the street, I started to write.

Immediately, I could see why creative types liked it here. The counter was a comfortable height (unlike, say, the desk and chair ratio in my dorm) that means my shoulders wouldn't be aching from hunching over in an hour or two. Though the space wasn't big, there was something private yet intimate about it that provided the lull of company and the cool comfort of being alone all at once.

The music was quiet, no pop, no rock, just a vaguely happy and steady sort of beat that thrummed softly in the background of your thoughts, lyrics barely comprehensible unless you actually made an effort. It's nothing you would ever sing at karaoke, but that just made it calming instead of a costant distraction.

On the far wall, there were wireless computer stations that you could pay for, but no one was using them. I knew I wouldn't be able to go online here, so I'd come prepared with a window full of already-opened articles to research and study, but surprisingly, I hadn't even glanced at it once. Instead, I had three Word documents open, writing sporadically whenever I got an idea for one of them.

The clientele seemed to be mostly the intellectual sort. A group of friends sitting behind me chatted away about politics while college students a couple of tables away poured over textbooks. The guy next to me had what looked like a novel or senior thesis open, text filling up solid blocks of half-pages and more as I stared guiltily at my own huge stretches of blank white space.


The street view was a nice touch. There was something about being able to look away from your screen and look outside that made things easier. Staring at a white wall wasn't very inspirational, not for anyone. Even though cars lined the street outside the window of the café, people only walked by every couple of minutes, half of them with pets at their heels, some with dogs off their leashes. It was immensely different from the constant stream of activity in Manhattan.

For fans who enjoy smaller coffee shops, the café was a nice place to visit. It's not great or grand, and there weren't autographs by famous authors framed on the walls despite the number of writers who seemed to enjoy working there, but it's definitely a quiet place to soak in the creativity.





Note: There's another Ozzie's on 5th Ave. (officially listed as Ozzie's Coffee III; no word on what happened to Ozzie's II), between Carroll St. and Garfield Pl., which I found out later is the one that Foer actually goes to, but the one on 7th Ave. seems to get better reviews for their coffee.


Directions:

57 7th Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11217
2, 3 or 4, 5 trains to Grand Army Plaza.

249 5th Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11215
R or M trains to Union St.