Pets Gain Membership Rights To Club

La Corona, bar-tabac and onion soup café.

News About the 'Café Metropole Club'

Paris:- Saturday, 13. November 1999:- It appears as if your exclusive 'Club' in Paris is headed for success beyond its wildest projections.

These were, of course, standard-issue 'Internet' projections. As you well know, these are always based on the proven mathematical formula of one times one cubed equals 437 billion.

Some longtime charter members were called out of Paris on pressing business in other parts of the world, but since last Thursday was Armistice Day in Europe, some original charter members brought their husbands, who immediately acquired charter memberships of their own.

The moms of last week, although one less, also produced two new charter members. These were Maryann and Joe Platania, who had never heard of the 'Club' because they never heard of the 'Club's' online magazine, 'Metropole Paris.'

Although only staying in Paris for two days, the Platanias immediately became charter members nevertheless, and on top of it, added a new town to the 'Club's repertory: Rochester, New York.

Nearly all other 'Club' members immediately claimed one-time past residence in this fair city too, adding it to Minnesota, which I think is a state, and Albany, which definitely is a city, though not a big one.

As photo editor of the host magazine, I immediately recognized Rochester as being the home town of 'Kodak,' but despite all the present and past Rochesterians present, nobody could tell me what the word 'Kodak' means.

But - and this is why the 'Club' values its 'virtual' charter members as much as its regular charter members - 'virtual' charter member John McCulloch and 'Metropole Paris' exclusive reporter for Paris, Nevada, cranked up his Internet gizmo and virtually visited Kodak's Web site in Rochester, New York.

John's report:

"George Eastman picked the name out of thin air in 1888. 'K' was a favorite letter of his, and he wanted a short name with two 'K's' in it. He fooled around with other letters until he found the right combination of 'a,' 'd' and 'o' and 'Kodak' was, is the result. He also picked the red and yellow, without realizing they are Spain's national colors."

"We are lucky he didn't pick something metric, like 'Kilodak."

Since a photo of La Corona's 'Tabac' sign coupled with a 'Kodak' sign recently appeared - by pure chance! - in the 'American' feature in issue 4.44, John has added his two toy poodles as 'virtual' charter members, and sent their ID photo. Here they are, above.

'Virtual' charter member David Leslie has also written - on Sunday! - to say that in 'Made in America,' author Bill Bryson tracked down a British patent application made by George Eastman. These required explanations for registering trade and brand names. Eastman wasted no words; it is short, incapable of mispronunciation, it resembles nothing and cannot be associated with anything except the 'Kodak.' He was referring to the camera, which had some other name until then.

The Cafe Metropole Club is proceeding at an obviously stepped-up pace and something slightly exciting happens at it nearly every week. For this reason, I cannot resist continuing the bombast that I have produced in this column for the past several weeks.

For a sketchy account of the 'Club's' fifth meeting, you are requested to hit this link in order to have it before your own eyes.

Since last week, the situation with the 'popular demand' for membership cards - not obligatory! - has changed radically. Yesterday, Friday, 12. November, charter 'virtual' member Dale sent the following message, via the Internet:

"You cannot imagine the excitement of your followers here in the United States when they finally received their membership cards which recognizes their need to have concrete proof of belonging to such a prestigious group as Paris interpole with headquarters next door to the Louvre on veterans day, a day that for World War Two veterans means a decline in clubs they can belong to because of natural attrition rate of 1100 deaths per day causing the Vets clubs to close due to lack of membership and any club such as yours with membership forever is a blessing especially with the side benefits it offers or seems to offer at all establishments other than ATM machines, due to its small size I presume - because my personal card printed out to one by two inches using Paintbrush and bitmap files.