Coffee Kafka

You might already know about my favourite writing exercise to loosen up the sound of the hand: the Coffee Cup Exercise. You can do it preferably in the morning, also preferably at the bakery, and you need a cup of coffee, obviously. Draw your coffee cup and write some words or a sentence to it. The more banal, the better. This way you have done your 2 to 3 minutes of writing and can happily start the rest of your day.

There is reason why the morning drawing involves the coffee cup. I have some back-up references for that: for instance Johann Sebastian Bach who wrote a cantate for coffee: ‘Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht’ (‘Be still, stop chattering’). Or Patti Smith, 'I want to write an aria to coffee.'

Recently, I came upon another reference, which was given to me by artist Silvia Hell who once wrote a thesis on Orson Welles' movie The Trial, 1962. In the movie, Josef K deplores not having had a cup of coffee before engaging with the accusation of crime: 

They entered my room before I was fully awake and I was not present to myself. 

My mistake was - he pours himself the coffee - of having accepted the discussion without having even drunk a coffee.