The mystery of the "medium" part of Blaine's coffee

[wowbright]

While googling the definition of "glasz" the other day (because I had read it in a fanfic and had never seen the word before, and I'm a professional editor for Pete's sake), I found this great Tumblr meme of the tag glasz. I say "great" because the first entry is a hilarious, if short, diatribe on the author's least favorite Kurt/Blaine fanfic tropes, including the idea "that a medium drip is a specialty drink.  It’s drip coffee.  In a medium cup.  Seriously." (You can see the author's Tumblr page here, but I warn you, it is a spoiler-rich zone.)

But I also was disturbed by the diatribe because I always though the "medium" part of "medium drip" meant "medium roast." And I've been in love with that idea because I hate dark roast, and the fact that a character would specify something other than dark when he orders his coffee just made me so happy.

Am I the only one who thought that? Is the Lima Bean too small of a shop to offer at least one each of a light, medium, dark and French roast on a continual basis? Alternatively, is it too hoity-toity to name its coffees by the degree of roast? Would it instead name them by country of origin? Would it follow the stupid marketing trend of giving coffees totally meaningless names like "Thanksgiving Blend" and "Celebration Blend" and "Summer Roast"?

Please tell me I am not the only one who thought that Blaine drinks nothing but medium-roast drip coffee – well, and maybe a light roast when he's feeling daring. It is such an integral part of my headcanon; I don't think I can ever let that idea go.

(Oh, and if you want to know my least favorite Kurt/Blaine fanfic trope, it's calling Kurt a countertenor in a context unrelated to his singing. Like, he's practicing at Glee rehearsal and gets called a countertenor – awesome; he's in the middle of making out with Blaine and "The countertenor ran his hand slowly down the curly-haired boy's bare stomach and really, really did not want to stop at that &%^*ing waistband" – well, you've just distracted me in what was otherwise a totally hot make-out scene. Just write Kurt and Blaine please, and I will be so so happy.)

Comments

[mimiheart.livejournal.com]

I'm not a coffee drinker. I tend to agree with you, simply because those cups that they're drinking out of don't look like a medium sized cup. At least not at any place where I've seen. Those look like large cups.

Epithets instead of names can be really annoying. Think about it, how often do you think of someone else and think of them as "the blonde boy" vs. "Joe"? Unless you don't know someone's name, most people tend to think of them as their name. (Not always. The waiter, or my wife, or my husband... things like that... yeah.) I get annoyed with countertenor in general. It comes up far more often than necessary. In the Warblers, he's probably singing first tenor, not countertenor. (Depending on the arrangement of the songs, but nothing in those songs really was, "Oh, this is dependent on a female range..." No men's choir that I know of would set themselves up like that. A first tenor's range is pretty high.) In ND, he's singing either alto or tenor in the group numbers, I think. At least with those arrangements. For solos he's singing whatever he damn well pleases. (Usually songs written for mezzos... Mr. Cellophane is for a tenor.) I have yet to hear him sing a song written for a countertenor. This is a show about choirs, not Opera.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

Ooh, you know so much more about singing ranges than I do. All I know is bass, tenor, alto and soprano, because I stopped singing in choirs after middle school and the hymns in church are never written in more than four-part harmony. So all I can educatedly say about Chris Colfer's range is that it's phenomenal. And that I wish they'd take more frequent advantage of the lower part of his range instead of treating him like a one-trick pony. But that's another topic ...

So happy someone else thought it was medium roast!

[mimiheart.livejournal.com]

I'm a cantorial soloist... I sing all the time. He does have an exceptional range. The range that we've heard from him goes from a couple notes below mine... but mine goes a few notes above his. (I have a fairly wide range for a woman.) I could be considered a contralto, but I never call myself that, because I also could be considered a soprano. It depends on what I'm singing. If I'm singing a Cher song, then I'm singing contralto. (Not very often.) I'm singing with two different groups right now. One group I'm singing tenor, one group I'm singing soprano... when pressed, I say I'm transectional. I'd say that applies to CC too. I think they don't use his lower range much because they don't need to. The other guys all have a lower range. Let's show off the guy with a falsetto range! Quick!

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

Okay, now I want to hear you do a duet with Chris Colfer.

[mimiheart.livejournal.com]

LOL! In my dreams!

(Or in my car... Lots of times in my car. Often with the kids joining in. Well... and in my fic, if you count those recordings, but I wouldn't. lol.)

[verdandil.livejournal.com]

Oh... Is it odd that I feel disappointed over the contents of Blaine's coffee order? What has become of me?

And on the subject of Kurt's eyes, since you mentioned cerulean, I've also thought of azure, if you're even in need of another word.

Fun-fact: There is such a bird called "Cerulean Warbler"; I somehow found that hilarious.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

I could be wrong, but I think cerulean has more green in it than azure. I always think of azure as pretty strictly blue. Though I could be wrong. Colors are so subjective.

Okay, now I totally need to go look up the cerulean warbler. My knowledge of colorful birds is limited to purple finches, bluejays, and cardinal cardinals. :)

What about Blaine's coffee order disappoints you? And no, it isn't odd - unless I'm odd, and I like to think I'm just unusual.

[verdandil.livejournal.com]

Aa, indeed, they're not quite the same. Azure is somewhat of a flatter blue in a sense, I'll agree. And just "blue" doesn't quite do justice to Kurt's eyes. We could sit here all day trying to define every one of their nuances.

I don't drink coffee much, but I had it in my mind that "medium" somehow qualified the drink itself, a particular distinction, but no it's just the size of the cup. Awr.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

Well, I've decided that it qualifies the drink itself, because that makes me happy. Just because someone says it on Tumblr doesn't make it true :)

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

Okay, I could not keep myself from looking up and posting about "cerulean warbler." Pretty picture in newest entry.

[lesley-green.livejournal.com]

Of course that's what I thought, too! Fun fact - I drink it black and my Kurt from high school was nonfat hazelnut, two Splenda. We got coffee together most mornings before school, but that shouldn't surprise you.

And I saw the picture; it's really pretty. I thought of cerulean as the color of the oil paint, which if you add white would become sky blue and the color of the screen of old word-processors. Blue screen and white type.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

Wish I had had a Kurt in high school ... Of course, if I had, we wouldn't have gotten coffee in the mornings before school, because I usually woke up about 10 minutes before I had to catch the bus or get into the car to barely make it on time. My first period teacher my senior year didn't count tardies. He just occasionally did pop quizzes and locked you out of the room until the quiz was done if you were late, and you got a zero. I was lucky enough to never be late on those days.

So, I am left wondering what the name is of that color that the sea gets in tropical places (of which I've only seen pictures) where it's kind of sky blue but there's a lovely deep green to it, too. If it's not cerulean, then what is it?

(My word processor was a black screen with white type, but I think I remember what you're talking about.)

[likeasouffle.livejournal.com]

"calling Kurt a countertenor in a context unrelated to his singing"

I agree so hard! This is extremely annoying. But EVEN MORE annoying is referring to Puck as "the Jewish boy," in the same way as what you're talking about. Like, not in a context of who does or does not celebrate Christmas or anything. It's... weird. Relatedly (but not as bad) referring to Blaine as "the shorter boy" when the story hasn't even clarified that he is the shorter boy, you're just supposed to know. Things like that. ALL these things. Annoying.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

Seriously? People call Puck "the Jewish boy"? I don't think I've ever seen that, although I mostly stick to Kurt/Blaine fanfiction, and then Puck is usually a minor character in that. Anyway, for all we know, Blaine, Artie, Mike Chang and Karofsky are all "Jewish boys," too. I actually know a real-life Karofsky who's Jewish, so -- take that, ye writers who refer to Puck as "the Jewish boy."

It's also weird because Puck isn't even religious, so the contexts in which this would come up seem really few. He seemed in the Christmas episode perfectly content to celebrate Christmas and I'd guess he'd be that way about any holiday from any religion as long as it involved some level of bacchanalia.

I could be remembering wrong, but Puck mostly seems to bring up being Jewish when he's trying to use it as a way to connect to people. He uses it as a shortcut since he has a hard time connecting to people on a personal level. He brings it up when he's talking to Rachel, because he feels like that may be the only grounds on which she can respect him. And he used it when he was wooing Mercedes, because he thought she might not like the fact that he wasn't black, but being Jewish - that should be close enough, right?

Wow, I didn't even know I had Puck headcanon. Thanks for bringing it out of me!

[likeasouffle.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen it very much, honestly it may have only been one or two stories, but it stuck with me as a "why would you even do that" example of how not to write.

Hm, I think I agree that Puck isn't very religious, but he did try to have a streak of singing only songs by Jewish artists, so I think it means something to him beyond just using it to make people like him. And he talked about how every year girls at his synagogue show up with nose jobs, which means he still goes. And he said he went to temple with his Nana to pray for Kurt's dad.

I didn't actually know I knew this much about Puck with regard to religion, LOL.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I forgot about the Jewish artists thing. I remembered about him going to synagogue and praying with his Nana (oh, those last four words just make me gush). My headcanon about him not being religious comes from when he was locked in the portapotty for 24 hours and didn't think he'd get out so he finally decided to pray to every god he could think of without discrimination. Of course, I was forgetting the part where he decided it was the God he grew up with who sent him rescue in the form of Lauren Zises (sp?) So maybe he's actually more religious now then he was in S1 or the first part of S2. Which I totally get; people's religious status is rarely stagnant.

My headcanon on Puck gets more and more complex by the minute!

[likeasouffle.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I forgot about that. "God, Allah, Satan, help me!" And then "Are you an angel?"

Based mostly on praying for Burt, I have decided Puck is kind of religious, but also uses it to connect with people, like you said.

And wow, this went off on a tangent, LOL. In conclusion, names are good. People should use them.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

Amen!