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Before Republicans went looking for answers Tuesday night, some of them went looking for the remote.
When it became clear about midnight that President Barack Obama was safely on the way to re-election, a handful of cranky and inebriated Republican donors wandered about Romney’s election night headquarters, angrily demanding that the giant television screens inside the ballroom be switched from CNN to Fox News, where Republican strategist Karl Rove was making frantic, face-saving pronouncements about how Ohio was not yet lost.
With some of them double-fisting beers and others sipping bourbon, members of Romney’s team blamed several factors that were, in some ways, beyond their control.
"— “Analysis: Why Romney Lost”, CNN.com
"In terms of numbers, the London Games certainly have been the Twitter Olympics, far outpacing both the Beijing and Vancouver Games…
Over the years, Twitter, which did not respond to a request for comment on this story, has become the Olympics’ “cocktail hour,” where both athletes and couch dwellers chatter about the games, said Jason Damata, spokesman for Trendrr, a social media tracker…
“Two or four years ago it wasn’t as common. Four years ago, especially, it was really just people in their houses saying ‘Oh my gosh did you see that dive.’ It was people talking to their social circles,” he said. “As Twitter as a platform has evolved and behavior has evolved, it is happening on both ends. Now there are way more athletes who are on. And there are way more people who are sharing their viewing habits, on Twitter especially."
— CNN, “Welcome to the Twitter Olympics”
(Source: google.com)
2012
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“Don’t take that flask…don’t you know it’s bad luck to take an empty flask?!?!” — Daniel de Oliviera, Chicago bartender
I often aim to be an advocate for great bartenders, even when they’re not behind the bar. I’ve blogged about other instances of superstition & spirituality in drinking culture, but my Chicago homeboy hit me with a nugget I’d never heard of, during my recent jaunt to Tales of the Cocktail. The overproof man wasn’t lying…
…It was shortly after this that Jessold invited me, in his offhand manner, to collaborate on Little Musgrave, redoubling my enthusiasm for his career…
I had the urge to formalise our association (both business and personal) with some token of affection before his departure…There was no particular occasion to excuse such a display of affection, but I thought I could properly present it from both Sheperds. I knew just the shop.
At Regent’s Arcade, I selected a pewter flask to be engraved with Jessold’s initials. I gave my address, and the shopkeeper enquired if I would like it on my account. Unaware that I had one, I enquired what else had been placed on it. A monogrammed cigarette case (priced twelve shillings and sixpence, engraved with the same initials) was the only other item to my name. Miriam too had found her would-be lover worthy of a token…
This delightful coincidence proved once more that duplicity between Miriam (who had yet to remark on Jessold’s impending absence) and me was out of the question…I later showed her the pewter flask.
“Divine,” she said.
“It might make a set with the cigarette case,” I said. She left the room, returning with the item-on-account.
“Our taste is so similar,” she said. Flustered was not in Miriam’s vocabulary.
I kissed her hand.
It was proverbially bad luck to hand over an empty flask, so I topped it off, then filled the case with those filthy Player’s Navy Cut he liked. We handed the set over together at our farewell dinner.
Miriam did not mark Jessold’s departure with any untoward display of emotion.
— Excerpt from Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer, by Wesley Stace
2012
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“A lot of architects design a lot of details,” Taniguchi was saying. “I try to conceal details.” His brand of modernism doesn’t always express its structure; instead, his buildings tend to have a lightness of being, defying the steel, glass, concrete and stone it took to make them. Their exquisite craftsmanship is legendary, and Japanese contractors are proud to oblige him…
Later, ordering drinks before dinner, Taniguchi talked about how different building methods are in America. But he never really answered the question of why such a famous architect at home had taken so long to design outside Japan. “You are psychoanalyzing me,” he said with a slight smile.
Then his cocktail arrived. It was a Manhattan.
— Excerpt from “Red Hot MoMA: New York’s great modern museum is reborn, thanks to $425 million and an unlikely architect named Taniguchi,” by Cathleen McGuigan, Newsweek
(Source: annyas.com)
2012
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Six plus six equals twelve. Perfect for numerology and outstanding for such a symbolic day as one year removed from stepping out to bring discourse to the world of drinking culture.
I hope I’ve brought exciting topics to the table. I hope I’ve mentioned a few things that piqued your interest or intrigued you. I hope I commented on a few current events that were timely. I hope that Mr. DeVoto kept a common thread through every post, and that everything made sense.
I trust that you’ve found a new drinking place, with warm lights and an open door, and that you’ve confidently and comfortably stepped inside. I hope that you’ve used something I’ve posted to stimulate conversation in that drinking place. I hope that I helped to make for a congenial experience. Above all, I hope that you’ll keep returning to my environment of drinking culture, The Congenial Hour. Cheers!
“And now we must be certain it is the right bar. This is one of the most satisfying of all the settings and combinations that life affords…
Quiet and softly lighted, of course, not necessarily tiny but at least small, only a few stools for the solitary, and if banquettes then not violently colored, if booths then not cramped. There is no more fitting place for the slackening of exigency, the withdrawal of necessity…
Time is extensible, no hour must be met, there is no pressure to go anywhere else…” — The Hour: A Cocktail Manifesto, by Bernard DeVoto
**Another trend is developing — cheers to Joshua Lindo of Eye Journey (www.eyejourney.co.uk) for the photograph!**
2012
6:00PM
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“If you are afraid of head-aches — for, as Xenophon says of another kind of Eastern tipple, ‘rack punch is kefalalgez, i.e., “headache-making” — put twice as much water as spirits. I, however, never use it that way for my own private drinking.” — Morgan ODoherty (William Maginn), “Maxims” of ODoherty”, an excerpt used in Punch by David Wondrich
“Proceeding on their way, they arrived at some villages, from which the guides signified that they might procure provisions. In these villages there was plenty of corn, and wine made from dates, and an acidulous drink obtained from them by boiling. As to the dates themselves, such as those we see in Greece were here put aside for the use of the servants; but those which were laid by for their masters, were choice fruit, remarkable for beauty and size; their color was not unlike that of amber; and some of these they dried and preserved as sweetmeats. These were a pleasant accompaniment to drink, but apt to cause headache. Here too the soldiers for the first time tasted the cabbage from the top of the palm-tree, and most of them were agreeably struck both with its external appearance and the peculiarity of its sweetness. But this also was exceedingly apt to give headache. The palm-tree, out of which the cabbage had been taken, soon withered throughout.” — Xenophon, The Anabasis, or Expedition of Cyrus
"Indeed, as far as pleasure goes, I find it better to await desire before I suffer meat or drink to pass my lips, than to have recourse to any of your costly viands, as, for instance, now, when I have chanced on this fine Thasian wine, and sip it without thirst. But indeed, the man who makes frugality, not wealth of worldly goods, his aim, is on the face of it a much more upright person. And why? — the man who is content with what he has will least of all be prone to clutch at what is his neighbour’s."
— Socrates, as recorded by Xenophon in The Symposium
(Source: gutenberg.org)
"Money is ‘fast,’ the Americans are slow. The country is daring, the Americans are timid. The enterprises are bold, the Americans are afraid…Cocktail parties are a safety-valve: crowds of people standing up. They are full of life, they are afraid of life. The radio, the Sunday New York Times, Pullman cars, fill up the voids and empty spaces. And yet, no philosophy of life appears – of life, of enjoyment, of the joining together of the idea and its resolution in an accomplished act. America is young. They do not taste, they do not savor – they drink."
— When The Cathedrals Were White, by Le Corbusier
2011
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Inscription in Cittie of Yorke, an English pub located in Holborn in Central London, said to have the longest bar in Britain.
in vino veritas — “in wine, (there is) truth”
“If my language has a touch of turbulence, do not marvel: partly the wine exalts me; partly that love which ever dwells within my heart of hearts now pricks me forward to use great boldness of speech against his base antagonist.”
— Socrates, from Xenophon, The Symposium
2011
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”We have seen recipes calling for everything from 1:1 to 4:1 ratios, suggesting that the Gimlet’s gin-to-Rose’s issue is at least as tempestuous as the Martini’s never-to-be-settled gin-to-vermouth controversy.”
*Michael Buffer voice*
In this corner, we have the cocktail that has significantly influenced my nightlife over the years, along with my personal style of imbibing. It was present during many nights of my post-undergrad outings, dining at establishments that might give me the sideeye for ordering, “Bacardi O with orange juice, if you please” — this classic cocktail would raise the respect meter a hair. It was present when a bartender in Las Vegas saw on my ID that we were both from Chicago — this cocktail was his gift of kinship. Its delightfully off-putting TWANG upon first taste always made me laugh when I introduced it to a friend, until the second taste warmed their heart enough to make them order a round themselves.
And, in the other corner, we have what appears to be a cocktail with a Hulk-like consistency. A bastardization of the glory of the other. A heavy-handed approximation that is painful to the eyes, and even more painful to the palate. In other words, it’s poor enough to make you READY TO RUMMMMBBBBBBBLLLLLLLLEEEEEE!
For those of you scoring at home, don’t do this to your Gimlet — it’s 2 parts blasphemy and 1/2 part desecration with a dash of profanity. This article discusses the history and preparation of the cocktail, and the main weapon of the offense, Rose’s Lime Juice. In a small dosage, it turns the Gimlet into a sublime cocktail. With a heavy approach, it enables the Gimlet to star in the reboot of The Incredible Hulk. A final plea, for those who you love the most — have mercy.
2011
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A toast amongst friends….make sure yours is just as congenial this weekend.
“I would like to make a toast to lying, stealing, cheating and drinking. If you’re going to lie, lie for a friend. If you’re going to steal, steal a heart. If you’re going to cheat, cheat death. And if you’re going to drink, drink with me.” - - Anonymous
(Source: thisis50.com)
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We are a pious people but a proud one too, aware of a noble lineage and a great inheritance. Let us candidly admit that there are shameful blemishes on the American past, of which by far the worst is rum. Nevertheless we have improved man’s lot and enriched his civilization with rye, bourbon, and the martini cocktail. In all history has any other nation done so much? Not by two-thirds.
…look nearer home, at the Indians….they were an engaging people whose trust we repaid with atrocious cruelties….They evoke both pity and dismay: north of Mexico they never learned to make a fermented beverage, still less a distilled one. Concede that they had ingenuity and by means of it achieved a marvel: they took a couple of wild grasses and bred them up to corn. But what did they do with corn?…They threw the spoiled stuff out for the birds, angrily reproaching their supernaturals, and never knew that the supernaturals had given them a mash.
The Americans got no help from heaven or the saints but they knew what to do with corn.
"— Bernard DeVoto, The Hour: A Cocktail Manifesto
"Money is involved in the time taken up by a business transaction, the time in which things are manufactured. At that time seconds are as precious as gold. As for us, we undertake nothing, we let the country go to rack and ruin; time has no value. Aperitíf time is one of the active moments in French life. On the day that we undertake the construction of new white cathedrals, the thinking capacity acquired around aperitíf glasses will produce living works."
— Le Corbusier, When The Cathedrals Were White
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For if the Zeitgeist was technology, then steel and glass structure was necessarily the appropriate form of modern building for the modern city, especially the modern American city. Since this conclusion was arrived at “rationally,” there was no room for caprice or for “self-expression” in the building art properly practiced.
“Architecture,” Mies would declare over and over in America, “is not a cocktail.”
And even if one sensed the arbitrariness of his way of defining rationality, it was difficult to argue the point in the sight of those walls at IIT, which looked so incontrovertible in their structural logic, largely because they were given form by so unimpeachable an artistic sensibility.
"— Franz Schulze, Mies Van Der Rohe: A Critical Biography
![This research/diagram is about “convivial urban spaces.” In making connections to the conviviality of drinking places, I wanted to show where similar opportunities take place within urban environments, specifically in this particular area of Cincinnati. (What area is it?) Around this site in particular, similar to many residential/mixed use areas, people tend to congregate on street corners, steps, doorways, building portals/gangways, etc. By showing photos of people actually congregating around this site, I was showing my precedent to create the same comfort that made this area convivial for them, which would guide the design of the new spaces.
[Design/Research by ME — see book link for quotations]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnxs26ng0S1ql5cp6o1_500.png)
2011
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This research/diagram is about “convivial urban spaces.” In making connections to the conviviality of drinking places, I wanted to show where similar opportunities take place within urban environments, specifically in this particular area of Cincinnati. (What area is it?) Around this site in particular, similar to many residential/mixed use areas, people tend to congregate on street corners, steps, doorways, building portals/gangways, etc. By showing photos of people actually congregating around this site, I was showing my precedent to create the same comfort that made this area convivial for them, which would guide the design of the new spaces.
[Design/Research by ME — see book link for quotations]
(Source: amazon.com)
