James and I stopped into a corner café to grab a cup of coffee. We had spent most of the day playing soccer and barbecuing at an indoor place that a large group of friends rented. By the time we left, the group had dwindled to five. We still had a refrigerator full of beer that we’d already paid for, but our attendant said that because we had bought it from the facility, we’d have to drink it or leave it. So we drank it. I’m not going to say that I didn’t feel safe as our driver sped through the city, mostly because I wasn’t feeling a whole lot in general. In any case, caffeine was necessary.

We were headed to meet a couple at a bar in one of the hip neighborhoods in the city. I once asked one of my students – an art director for a big ad firm that DJs, writes grafitti and wears funny pants – about the place because I figured she had legitimate hipster street cred.

“Oh yeah, Vila Olimpia,” she said with little enthusiasm. “I don’t go there very often.”

“Really? I was there last week, went to this old house that was converted into a jazz club. It was awesome.”

“Hmm, I bet,” she said with a suppressed eye-roll. “I just always feel like that the place is really fake, you know? It’s like the people there just spend their parents’ money on weird clothes just so they can stand around acting cool. That’s not my thing.”

I wasn’t so sure, but as I’m hardly knowledgeable enough to discuss the finer points of the hipster credo, I let it go.