Russian Sledges

Pope demands "legitimate redistribution" of wealth.

6.00 USD

Wooden Houses

75% cotton 25% linen

Medium weight barkcloth.

1/2 metre (50cm x 110cm , 19" x 43")

If you would like continuous yardage please change the quantity at the checkout.

Parcels are shipped via small packet international airmail from Japan.

Japan Post does not provide tracking numbers for small packet airmail.

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The story of Soylent, a Silicon Valley concoction designed to replace your meals.

[Full Story]

Creative Review reports that modernist designer Massimo Vignelli, creator of the iconic American Airlines logo among many other designs, is very ill and will be spending his last days at home. Vignelli has an interesting last request—he’d like anyone who has been touched or influenced by his work to send him a letter, note, card, etc to the following address:

Massimo Vignelli
130 East 67 Street
New York, New York 10021
USA

image via Helvetica

via Creative Review

The people at Plato Web Design have worked with enough clients to know what they’re really asking for when providing feedback on a project, so they made this handy cheat sheet that allows any designer to quickly interpret client requests…

(via Design Taxi)

Previously… Designers graphically represent awful client feedback [30 pictures]

epicsovereign:

yo im selling this alpine sofa. starting price is 2400 bells inbox me if youre interested

The New Haven commuter line is losing its rolling saloon; once a staple on the nation’s railways, the bar car has essentially disappeared.

Couples visit studios to act out romantic fantasies in what has become a trend in New York, just as it is in China.

Artist Andrea Mastrovito creates delightful collage installations in which hundreds of nature illustrations populate an empty room in a dense paper diorama. He has created two versions of the installation: “The Island of Dr. Mastrovito” (2010) featuring illustrations from 1,100 cut books, and “The Island of Dr. Mastrovito II” (2012) featuring 1,200 cut books. The installations are a play on the H. G. Wells novel The Island of Doctor Moreau:

His starting points for this site-specific work are the two most common forms of home recreation—books and television. The title of his installation refers to H. G. Wells’ famous novel The Island of Doctor Moreau, in which the archetypal “mad” scientist experiments upon animals in order to give them human traits. In this “Island,” the artist substitutes himself for the doctor, trying to instill a new life into that which was once alive in a different way (books from paper, paper from wood, and wood from trees). Mastrovito imagines that the outside fauna take control of the abandoned house and become its proper inhabitants.

photos via Andrea Mastrovito

via Colossal

It's hard for fans of generic American food and family-friendly casual chain restaurants to find a place to discuss their passions, but finally there may be an answer. The new iPhone app WhatsApplebee's gives Applebee's patrons a private place to chat, while keeping out everyone else who isn't current inside one of the chain's thousands of restaurants. The app is entirely unaffiliated with Applebee's itself (though it may want to borrow the idea for the 100,000 tablets it's installing at tables), but developer Mike Lazer-Walker tells us that the app does in fact work nonetheless.

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The routing service Tor is mostly known as a way to make life difficult for the NSA, but a new piece in Beta Boston shines a light on the role the tool has been playing in the fight against domestic violence. Shelters like Transition House in Boston are using Tor and tools like it to help women use basic web services without leaving a digital trail for abusers to pick up on. As abuse cases increasingly involve elements of cyberstalking, that kind of anonymity has become increasingly important in fighting back.

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After a horribly botched explanation of why gay characters couldn't marry in simulation game Tomodachi Life, Nintendo has issued an apology. "We apologize for disappointing many people by failing to include same-sex relationships in Tomodachi Life," says a statement on the company website. Unfortunately for players, it's not going back on its previous decision, saying that "such a significant development change can't be accomplished with a post-ship patch." But it's promised to take fan criticism to heart. "We are committed to advancing our longtime company values of fun and entertainment for everyone," the company says. "We pledge that if we create a next installment in the Tomodachi series, we will strive to design a gameplay...

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Comedian Larry Wilmore, perhaps best known as the Senior Black Correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, will officially take Stephen Colbert's slot on Comedy Central next year. The new show, titled The Minority Report with Larry Wilmore, is set to premiere next January, a month after The Colbert Report wraps for good.

According to The New York Times, the idea for the show came from Stewart himself, in the wake of the Colbert's announced departure for Late Show. Comedy Central president Michele Ganeless said in an interview that The Minority Report will "provide an opportunity for the underrepresented voices out there." Wilmore will be joined by a panel of as-yet unannounced correspondents, who will join him in commenting on the...

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Walk to work (larger)

David Streitfeld, reporting for the NYT:

Amazon has begun discouraging customers from buying books by Malcolm Gladwell, Stephen Colbert, J. D. Salinger and other popular writers, a flexing of its muscle as a battle with a publisher spills into the open.

The Internet retailer, which controls more than a third of the book trade in the United States, is marking many books published by Hachette Book Group as not available for at least two or three weeks.

A Hachette spokeswoman said on Thursday that the publisher was striving to keep Amazon supplied but that the Internet giant was delaying shipments “for reasons of their own.” Hachette is one of the largest New York houses, publishing under the Little, Brown and Grand Central imprints, among many others.

Thank goodness the Obama Department of Justice saw fit to go after the book publishers to protect poor little Amazon.

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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Whiskey is a "slow food". Whiskey consumption is a fast trend. And, herein, lies a problem. (I will fight all y'all for the last bottle of Buffalo Trace.)

The T is great and all -- it gets you where you need to go inexpensively and (occasionally) on time, all while you take in a vivid tapestry of confused tourists, college students, and crazy people. But you know what's even better than riding the MBTA? Drinking at bars! Here are our picks for the choicest watering holes within a 10-minute stroll of each T stop.*

Taste the difference.

For all the high-caliber coffee shops that assert an undying devotion to fair-trade beans and espresso machines that cost more than a car, there's surprisingly little talk of another essential ingredient: milk. It's an odd thing to overlook, considering how large a role it plays in coffee culture. As Blue Bottle's James Freeman recently told Grub, "How coffee tastes is directly related to how the milk tastes," but he also noted that milk is one of his biggest expenses. Fortunately, more and more shops around the nation are turning to small-scale, high-quality dairies as well as testing out serious non-dairy milk alternatives: La Colombe recently introduced hemp milk, Joe Coffee just added almond milk, and Intelligentsia plans to unveil new varieties soon. Learn which American coffee shops take milk seriously, straight ahead.

1. The Shop: Blue Bottle (New York, San Francisco, Oakland)
The Milk: San Francisco and Oakland: St. Benoît's organic, low-pasteurized, pasture-raised Jersey cow's milk; Clover Stornetta Farms's 3.5-percent-fat milk; New York: Battenkill Valley Creamery's farm-fresh milk.
Freeman's willing to splurge on high-class offerings: On the West Coast, he brings in milk from Jersey-based, single-source farm St. Benoît, as well as Clover out of nearby Petaluma, California. His New York shops all use milk from Battenkill Valley Creamery (based in Salem, New York.). Freeman's toying with the idea of producing his own almond milk, too.

2. The Shop: Jack's Stir Brew (New York)
The Milk: Hudson Valley Fresh's rich, 3.9-percent-fat milk.
Cows at upstate dairy Hudson Valley Fresh are fed a diet of healthy grains and hay to produce clean, fresh milk that enhances Jack's signature stir-brewing method. This milk also happens to be certified Kosher.

3. The Shop: Cafe Pedlar (Brooklyn)
The Milk: Ithaca Milk's non-homogenized Jersey cow's milk.
The same company that makes the popular buffalo yogurt offers two different types of milk: sweet, creamy, non-homogenized Jersey cow's milk, and homogenized Holstein cow's milk. Cafe Pedlar offers Ithaca's whole and skim varieties of the former.

4. The Shop: Victory Garden (New York)
The Milk: Housemade mastic- and cardamom-infused goat's milk.
This West Village ice-cream shop actually has excellent coffee: It mixes Irving Farm's house blend with lightly sweetened mastic- and cardamom-infused goat's milk, which owner Sophia Brittan sources from Side Hill Acres in Candor, New York.

5. The Shop: Stumptown (New York, Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles)
The Milks: New York: Hudson Valley Fresh; Portland and Seattle: Sunshine Dairy; Los Angeles: Rockview Farms.
Stumptown's purveyors vary across the country — which is a good thing, because it means everything is local. Sunshine Dairy is a Portland-based company that uses a cold-bowl separation process, which means that milk's only heated at the pasteurization stage. Family-owned Rockview Farms, based in Downey, California, is one of the only dairies in California to own its own cows and process, package, and distribute milk. All Stumptown outposts offer both whole and skim varieties, as well as Pacific's Barista Series almond and soy milks.

6. The Shop: Joe Coffee (New York and Philadelphia)
The Milk: Guida's Dairy's hormone-, pesticide- and antibiotic-free milk.
Besides Connecticut-based purveyor Guida's, the Rubinsteins also provide the option of Organic Valley milk. They've offered Pacific's Barista Series soy milk for a while, and in the beginning of March, they introduced Pacific's almond milk.

7. The Shop: La Colombe (New York and Philadelphia)
The Milks: Organic Valley's ultra-pasteurized, homogenized, pasture-raised milk; Pacific's hemp milk.
All the shops carry Organic Valley milk (whole, skim, and half-and-half): As it turns out, the grocery-store favorite sources from farms all across the country. Up until recently, La Colombe had a strict policy of no non-dairy alternatives, but the owners just introduced a nutty hemp milk.

8. The Shop: Little Collins (New York)
The Milk: Battenkill.
Battenkill — which prides itself on getting the milk from the cows into bottles in less than eight hours — is a popular choice in the city: This new-ish Australian-style coffee shop in midtown offers the whole and 2-percent-fat varieties, and Sweetleaf uses it, too.

9. The Shop: The Marlton Espresso Bar (New York)
The Milks: Battenkill; housemade almond milk.
There's a stylish new coffee bar tucked into the hotel on West 8th Street, with Ferndell Coffee Company beans, Battenkill dairy offerings, and, impressively, housemade almond milk.

10. The Shop: Intelligentsia (Los Angeles, New York, Chicago)
The Milks: New York: Battenkill's special barista milk; Los Angeles: Strauss Family Creamery's organic, non-homogenized, cream-top milk; Chicago: Kilgus Farmstead's 5-percent-fat milk.
No matter which Intelligentsia outpost you're at, you won't ever find skim milk — just whole and 2 percent. Cows at Strauss, based in Marin County, eat the distinctly sweet grasses that grow in the Tomales Bay region, which creates a rich flavor of milk. Even richer is the Kilgus milk in Chicago: all 5-ounce coffee drinks and smaller come with 5-percent-fat milk. Soy milk's available, but the company's developing better non-dairy alternatives.

11. The Shop: Go Get Em Tiger (Los Angeles)
The Milks: Housemade nut milk; Strauss's dairy milks.
At their new-ish coffee shop in Windsor Square, Kyle Glanville and Charles Babinski offer whole milk from Strauss, as well as housemade almond-macadamia milk, which they sweeten with dates.

12. The Shop: Sqirl (Los Angeles)
The Milks: Housemade almond milk; Strauss's dairy milks.
Jessica Koslow's laid-back Silver Lake café makes its own almond milk using nuts from Santa Barbara-based Fat Uncle Farms. It's smooth, slightly sweet, and pretty much perfect inside coffee — a rare feat for almond milk. Straus's barista whole milk is available, too.

13. The Shop: Cognoscenti Coffee (Los Angeles and Culver City)
The Milks: Califia Farms' almond milk; Strauss's dairy milks.
Cognoscenti's almond milk, which comes from California-based Califia Farms, is made from whole blanched (not roasted) almonds. Last year, Califia struck a deal with Whole Foods, so you can find the almond milk in stores nationwide. For dairy offerings, Straus is again the brand of choice.

14. The Shop: Ritual Coffee (San Francisco)
The Milk: Clover Organic Farms' fresh-pasteurized, antibiotic-free milk.
Clover Organic Farms, an offshoot of Clover Stornetta Farms, has won awards for the way it humanely produces dairy products. It's a popular California dairy: Other shops that use it include in Sightglass, Handsome, Verve, and Linea Caffe.

15. The Shop: Houndstooth Coffee (Austin)
The Milk: Mill King Milk's low-temperature pasteurized, non-homogenized milk.
Brothers Sean and Paul Henry stay true to their Texan roots by using Mill King Milk, a family-run business in Waco where the cows ("handpicked" Holsteins, Brown Swiss, and Jerseys) are grass-fed as much as possible.

16. The Shop: Little Goat Bread (Chicago)
The Milk: LaClare Farms' non-homogenized goat's milk; Prairie Farms ' dairy milk.
Stephanie Izard's coffee shop, which is adjacent to Little Goat Diner, offers next-level goat's milk sourced from LaClare Farms in Wisconsin. Wholesome dairy milk from family-owned Prairie Farms in Carlinville, I.L., Almond Breeze vanilla-almond milk, and Sunrich soy milk are also available.

17. The Shop: Heart (Portland)
The Milks: Sunshine Dairy's natural, rBST-free milk; Pixie Retreat's hazelnut milk.
For his nonfat and whole milks, Finland native Wille Yli-Luoma turns to Portland-based Sunshine Dairy. (Coava Brew Bar, Courier Coffee, and Ristretto Roasters all use Sunshine Dairy, too.) Yli-Luoma also offers Oregon hazelnut milk from local company Pixie Retreat: It's made with Oregon hazelnuts, vanilla bean, dates, and a dash of Himalayan pink salt.

18. The Shop: Ultimo Coffee (Philadelphia)
The Milk: Maplehofe Dairy's pasteurized, homogenized Holstein cow's milk.
This Philadelphia-based coffee company sources cow's milk (skim, whole, and half-and-half) from nearby Maplehofe Dairy in Lancaster County. The owners describe it as "sweet, sweet milk."

19. The Shop: Barista Parlor (Nashville)
The Milk: Hatcher Family Dairy's non-homogenized, farm-fresh milk.
This multi-roaster shop serves whole and skim milk from a family that's been in the farming business since 1851 in College Grove, Tennessee. You can even get to know the cows!

20. The Shop: Sump Coffee (Saint Louis)
The Milk: Ozark Mountain Creamery's antibiotic-free, vat-pasteurized milk.
Owner Scott Carey sources whole milk (and only whole milk) from Ozark Mountain Creamery in Mountain Grove, Missouri. It's a small, local, family-owned company that favors a low-temperature vat-pasteurization process and sells milk in classy glass bottles.

21. The Shop: Artifact Coffee (Baltimore)
The Milk: Trickling Springs Creamery's organic milk.
This spin-off of Woodberry Kitchen gets its milk from Trickling Springs Creamery in Chambersburg, P.A., a darling little dairy that only opened in 2001 (so, compared to the others, it's new-ish).

22. The Shop: Counter Culture HQ (Durham)
The Milk: Maple View Farm's hormone- and antibiotic-free milk, with added vitamin D.
Counter Culture training centers around the nation all use different milks sourced from local dairies — like Sparkman's Cream Valley's milk in Atlanta and Battenkill in New York. But in Durham, where the company is based, Maple View Farm in Hillsborough, North Carolina is the dairy of choice.

23. The Shop: Old City Java (Knoxville, Tennessee)
The Milk: Cruze Dairy Farm's cream-top milk.
The oldest coffee shop in the city serves milk from local purveyor Cruze Dairy Farm (also in Knoxville) with its homemade strawberry-Nutella "Pop-Tarts" and Counter Culture coffee. You can find the milk at farmer's markets around the Knoxville area — and definitely take a look at the charming, retro website.

Read more posts by Sierra Tishgart

Filed Under: grub guides, austin, brooklyn, chicago, coffee, coffee shops, los angeles, new york, philadelphia, san francisco

A new mobile app called Monkeyparking allows people in San Francisco with good parking spots to auction them off when they're ready to leave, permitting circling rich people to engage in excitingly dangerous class warfare by bidding on spaces with their phones while they drive. The app's creators defend it as providing an "incentive" to leave your space for others to use. Read the rest

Fox News' "Special Report" took a look at the latest climate-change studies. And even by the network's standards, this segment of grumpy-old-men-punditry was profoundly bizarre, complete with comparisons to rain dancing and Old Testament floods.

Read more...

firehose shared this story from Business Insider.

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William Blake, Moses erecting the Brazen Serpent, ca. 1800-03

New York's Metro-North line was home to the last commuter train bar cars in America, but sadly, for the sophisticated drinker, the remaining four cars will be taken out of service this week. While Amtrak does have dining cars where you can purchase beverages, these were the last cars dedicated purely to the often much needed after-work drink.

The bar cars ran on the New Haven line, catering to the New York-to-Connecticut business commuters, and were definitely a relic from the past. Even today they were outfitted with bright orange and yellow drink holders, "wood" paneling, and wallpaper left over from the 1970s. (They were originally built in 1973.) The Connecticut Department of Transportation decided to take them out of commission because they were not producing enough income, and the commuter rail preferred to use the space for additional seating. 

While the bar cars lacked the sleekness of the new commuter rail trains, they did have a cult following. There was a Twitter and blog dedicated to hunting down the cars. In fact, there is a chance the cars will be revived with the introduction of new train cars. Judd Everhart, the Connecticut Department of Transportation communications director, told PIX11, "We are considering retrofitting six or 10 of them into bar cars and have also asked the manufacturer, Kawasaki, to give us an estimate if we decide to have them make the bar cars. But there is no funding currently in place to do either option.”

If that doesn't work out, there's always the BYOB option. 

This post originally appeared on The Wire. More from our partner site:

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Recently a local street performer, Keytar Bear, was punched in the face (twice!) in Faneuil Hall, a place both deeply connected to our history but often removed from resident’s everyday experience. This incident, which broke his keytar but not his spirit, could’ve been a sad example of a side of Boston too often mistaken for the whole. Community builder Abigail Taylor of Workbar and a group of fans, strangers, and fellow artists have rallied around their neighbor to do the right thing.

Crystal Germond: You started an Indiegogo campaign to raise money for Keytar Bear. What inspired you to help?

Abby Taylor: When I found out he got punched in the face all I could think was, “What? That’s insane! Who would do that?” I was talking with some friends on Twitter and they we’re like, “We should host a fundraiser for Keytar Bear!” I thought, “I can host a fundraiser for Keytar Bear, I’m an events planner.” Honestly, I’ve never met the man under the bear costume. I’ve been speaking with him over the phone and on Facebook. It really bothered me that some people seemed to think, “This is so typical Boston, for someone to punch Keytar Bear in the face.” I don’t think we’re about that, I think we’re as great community of people and we support our artists.

CG: What do you think that’s about, that someone would think this kind of thing is typical of Boston?

AT: It’s a way we’ve been portrayed, that we’re violent ruffians who only like the Bruins and beating people up. It bothers me that one person’s actions in Faneuil Hall painted the town in this light. It’s not true. For that one person there’s a bunch of other people who love Keytar Bear and think he’s great and want to support him.

CG: What’s been the reaction to the fundraiser?

AT: It’s been crazy, I’ve been completely overwhelmed by the show of support. He has a cult status on Twitter so I knew people care about him, but he’s not a technical guy and I don’t think he even realizes how popular he is. I don’t think that before this he knew just how much Boston loves him. And I had no idea it would get as big as it’s gotten!

CG: Yeah, you surpassed your campaign goal in under twenty-four hours! How did you decide how much to raise and what’s the money going to be used for?

AT: Originally the goal was just to buy him another keytar and use the leftover money to pay for his medical bills (I wasn’t sure how much he had or if we had any at all from this experience). I thought $2,500 was a good number to show we cared about Keytar Bear and what he’s doing. With that amount he could also put first and last down on an apartment and really establish himself here as an artist or buy a bunch of t-shirts and have merchandise to sell at shows he does like a real band.

It’s completely surpassed that now, which has been nerve wracking for me! He’s a street performer and off the grid, so it’s really tough to figure out how to give him this money and help him use it in the way he needs it. I had no idea it would be so involved but I’m happy to do it.

CG: Since you’re an event planner will there be an event?

AT: Yes! Originally we were going to hold a fundraiser at Workbar, where I work, but when the Facebook RSVPs got over 500 The Middle East contacted me and said they could hold the capacity and would be happy to donate 60% of the door to Keytar Bear. It’s been so great to have so many people want to get involved and help.

CG: It’s really cool that a neighborhood like Central Square in Cambridge, which many people in Boston only know for bars and rock shows, seems to have joined together as a community around this.

AT: Yeah! Workbar just moved into Central Square recently (the last year) and it’s been amazing- the neighborhood is so closely knit and the community is really strong. I wanted that to be reflected in this, for our community to stick up for the little guy and say, “We support people and want them to do what they love.” We have that entrepreneurial spirit and aren’t just running around Faneuil punching people.

CG: And an artistic spirit! We support our artists.

AT: Exactly.

CG: I’m sure people want to help even more, is there anything people can do if they are inspired by this, beyond giving money?

AT: Definitely! They can donate things to the raffle we’re having at the event, a painting or CDs or whatever. They can also donate their time, like design skills. He is going to be looking for people to help him create his brand. Beyond that, come to the show this Thursday, May 8! Dirty Water Brass Band are friends of his and will be there along with Freezepop, and all the bands are playing for free.

CG: That’s awesome. You know, as someone who didn’t really have any exposure to Keytar Bear it was just inspiring to see someone not just talk about doing something but taking action, and doing it quickly. You’re the catalyst and we need  more of those- we need the artists and the talent and we need the catalysts that connect them with the people that will show up. We need all of those people to make things happen.

AT: Thank you! This is all due to Keytar Bear and his talent, he’s the one that got all the support and he deserves it. But if I hadn’t been in this position I would have never thought I would be capable of doing something and that it wouldn’t be too hard- and it really hasn’t! It took me an hour to set things up. It’s important to me that I was able to do something good for a local artist and I’d like to see more of that, but it’s really about him and our community.

Tickets for Thursday’s Keytar Bear fundraiser at The Middle East are $10- come out and support Keytar Bear and more initiatives like this! For more information visit the Facebook page or follow Abby Twitter @MagneticAbby!

Industrial Arts is where we talk to some of our favorite hospitality professionals about their involvement in the non-culinary, non-mixological arts.

Josey Packard makes brilliant cocktails at Drink, and sings and plays guitar in a local rock band, Chelsea On Fire. She’s married to Jill McDonough, who teaches poetry at UMass Boston.

We chatted with Jill & Josey at two different bars in one evening. We started by talking about music at Audubon.

Jill McDonough: Josey gave me total permission to like pop. I never felt like I had permission before. Josey actually studied pop at Berklee. She’s like, “No, it’s good. There’s a reason you want to listen to it.”

Christine Fernsebner Eslao: Right? Owen Pallett wrote this great essay for Slate about Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” and its efficacious use of syncopation.

JMcD: I want to read that, the way I like to watch men in the street rolling out asphalt. I want to stop and understand process. We do that so rarely—I guess on cooking shows, probably?

CFE: The problem with cooking shows is you don’t get to enjoy the results. It’s hard to connect it with experience.

Brayden C. Burroughs: On “Project Runway”, they show them working, but it’s mainly them shit-talking. I want to sit there and watch them make things, and I want to see what techniques they’re using.

Josey Packard: I was recently given the task to re-learn a song that Chelsea On Fire had written fifteen years ago. I was like, oh, this happens to be the one song that we had a professional video made of, and it’s online—awesome, I’ll get the fingerings on the guitar from the video. There was none of that. There were a lot of close-ups of my face, or walking down the street. I got no useful information from watching the video.

[Chelsea On Fire formed in 1994 after] a brilliant man, who was attending MIT at the time, contacted me as a resource. Even if you are an H.O.T. physics major and expert—

JMcD: Which he was.

JP: Which he was—you don’t have to do your undergrad thesis or project in your field.  He said, my undergraduate project is going to be in music, sorry. And to fulfill that project, he hired Berklee musicians.

JP: He’s now a custom knifemaker.

JMcD: He makes knives for Barbara Lynch. It’s so hot.

JP: [Adam Simha, Amy DiScullio, and I] wrote material together, as a group, until we had enough to play out. Eventually, with and without Adam as a drummer, we came out with three full length CDs plus an EP worth of material. We toured Germany three different times—I mean, full on, with the van and the weeks-long commitment.

JMcD: Squatted housing, because it’s Germany.

JP: Squatted housing. Yeah, that was—

JMcD: Totally hot.

JP: The thing that kind of pissed me off about that whole thing… I went to Berklee as a vocalist; I’m a singer and that’s entirely my focus. So I was quite happy to come up with melodic content for the band and lyrical content for the band. These were all things that I felt good about doing. I wanted to be the singer in the band.

But it turns out that, when I sing, I have really bad jazz hands.

So Adam and Amy recognized this right away, and told me that I was going to be playing guitar in the band, as a way to occupy my hands.

CFE: Were you studying jazz singing?

JP: No!

But when I sing I get, like—

JMcD: She gets into it.

JP: Really into it. It’s corny. It’s not cool.

I started at Berklee as a jazz major, but I quickly morphed into rock. I assumed that we’d be finding a fourth—a person who would play guitar, while I’d be the singer, they were like, nope, we’re going to be a power trio. They talked about it without me.

I told them I didn’t know how to play guitar and they said, that’s fine, we’ll wait. So I had a job that took me almost a year to do, and I did it. I learned how to play guitar.

So, then, after many, many years of playing—we tried for ten solid years—

JMcD: I just want to put this in here so that [Christine] can write it: she needs to find that picture of you from that German squat where you can see my bra. It’s turquoise. Josey’s wearing my bra.

JP: [It was for] a poster. The bra matched the logo on my shirt.

JMcD: When you’re on tour in East Germany, the clothes are everybody’s.

JP: My mouth is almost as big as my bicep.

JMcD: She’s screaming. It’s very sweet.

JP: After years and years of quote-unquote trying to make it, I hit a dry spot, compositionally. After a year of playing the same songs over and over again, we decided to part ways. I didn’t play music for six, maybe seven years.

But then a miracle happened. Adam called me up and said, “I’ve been so-called secretly playing drums in the basement of my house, trying to get my chops back up. Now that I can play again, I asked myself a question: if I was going to play music with somebody, who would that be? And the answer is: you and Amy. So, are you willing? My boy’s in high school now. I would love to do this thing if you’re willing to do it.”

It broke my heart into a thousand pieces. What could your answer be, to that question? Of course.

JMcD: Fuck you, old man. Fuck you.

JP: I’m almost fifty! Get off my lawn.

I’m having quite the renaissance. We’ve relearned old songs we used to play together. We’re writing new songs together. We did have one show together. We’re looking to have another, in a couple months.

Prior to the resurgence of Chelsea On Fire, most music I was getting in my life was listening to the soundtrack of the bar, and subdividing the beat into sixteenth notes. Learning how to shake to that.

JMcD: Everything I know about music I learned in the piano lessons that I hated. I played bassoon for the middle school, junior high school band. In eighth grade I finally got out of it. I hated it. I also hate drama — being in a play and having to do the same thing over and over again. Practice the same fucking thing every day.

JP: It’s incredibly repetitive, practice of any kind.

JMcD: Revision’s not like that [in poetry]. Every time it changes. It gets better. You’re doing it over and over, but every time it’s a little bit different and a little bit better.

JP: Playing the bassoon, or guitar, or singing is a physical skill. It’s an athletic endeavor.

JMcD: Yeah, it was too hard.

BCB: How has your musical background influenced your bartending, or vice versa?

JP (to JMcD): You have an intolerance for repetition in your work. And by work, I don’t mean the things that you write, but the practice of your art. You have a real intolerance for repetitive tasks.

I have not only a tolerance but a propensity to enjoy—

I feel dumb saying it, because to claim an appreciation for repetitive tasks makes me feel fundamentally uncreative as a person.

In practicing the craft of bartending, it is incredibly repetitive. Like, ridiculously so. So, too, in keeping my chops up on guitar, also my vocal chops. Those are really repetitive tasks. You have to do them over and over again, or you will lose that ability.

So, too, with bartending. And I think that’s the true link between the two.

In both cases, you are absolutely required to live one hundred percent in the moment.

You cannot be elsewhere and either bartend or play music. You cannot be thinking about what you want for dinner. You can’t be thinking about how you’re going to get home that night. Or you’ll lose the thread.

That’s the intersection of the Venn diagram.

BCB (to JMcD): You’ve bartended also.

JMcD: Yeah, badly.

I was bartending at Russell House and Misty [Kalkofen] came in. You can probably imagine what it’s like to make a drink while Misty’s watching.

BCB: I have, in fact, made a drink for Misty. I made it up, and she not only guessed every ingredient, but listed exact proportions of them. Not like the ratio, but the measurements.

JP: [Jill] assisted me at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

JMcD: You’re wearing an apron and bringing people their drinks, so you get to hear what Sarah Palin and Alec Baldwin are saying, because you’re invisible. I’ve been to that party as a guest. If you’re wearing an apron, you get to eavesdrop. If you’re wearing a dress, as soon as you stand near them, they’re like, “What do you want, an autograph?”

CFE (to JMcD): You have written many poems about bars, and drinking, and bartenders.

JMcD: Last night, I show up to pick up Josey [from work]. Last call’s 1 am. I try to get there at, like, 12:57. I texted in advance: “I am making last call.” I park in the valet parking spot [that opens up when valet parking ends at 1 am] and I come down and [Josey] makes me my one drink.

I have my computer open. Nobody’s emailing me, so I can actually work on poems.

And because that’s been a part of my writing life for—I don’t know, how long have you been a bartender?

JP: Nine years?

JMcD: People are leaving [Drink] and I’m waiting to go home with her. Or, in the case of the [Josey’s previous workplace] the Alembic, to shut the place down and drink beer and play Yahtzee.

If I deal with all the work that I have to do [earlier in the day], then I have this golden time of—I can write stuff. Lots of times I’m working on revisions but sometimes I’m going to write about what’s happening right now in the bar. Like a Frank O’Hara I-do-this-I-do-that-I-sit-at-the-bar…

The “Breasts Like Martinis” one: we always went to this happy hour at this crazy bar [in San Francisco]. Six oysters and a glass of champagne for ten bucks. There was a bartender who worked [there and also at our corner bar] and we would go hang out with him, and he was the one who told us corny jokes.

It’s like travel: “I went and rode an elephant in Thailand. I’m going to write a poem about that.” Except I’ve never done that. I’ve gone to the corner bar.

I’ve been part of a bar culture. It seems worthy of writing about, if only because there’s no other women there. I’m this weird foreigner in this space, because of who else is there.

JP: Two things about [that corner bar] that made it very special: one is that they had a neon sign outside that said “Since 1924.” When was Prohibition? 1919-1934.

Apparently they opened as a speakeasy. Or something. Or they’re lying.

The other way in which they lied was that they had two bottles of Jameson on the back wall. One of them had a sharpie mark across the label. If they didn’t know you or didn’t like you, and you asked for Irish whiskey, they would give you whiskey out of that sharpie mark bottle.

Who knows what was in that bottle. It was not Jameson. Absolutely not.

But if they knew you, and knew they liked you, and you asked for Jameson, they would reach for the other, unmarked bottle, which—I think—was a bottle of Jameson.

It tasted like Jameson to me.

[Jill & Josey call an Uber, and suddenly we’re at the Drinking Fountain, in JP, with very strong—but limeless—gins & tonics in our hands.]

CFE: If there were a beverage that summed up your work in poetry, or your work in music, what would it be?

JMcD: A boilermaker of Chartreuse and Miller Lite.

Because: high/low.

JP: There’s a hidden inconsistency in the pricing structure at Drink. If you order an old fashioned, you pay twelve bucks for it. If you order a beer, you pay six bucks for it. If you order a shot of Old Overholt whiskey — an old fashioned minus the bitters and sugar — you pay twelve dollars for it. But if you order a boilermaker, you get a shot of whiskey — or whatever it is you want — and a beer, it’s still twelve dollars.

JMcD: Because a boilermaker is a cocktail.

JP: I think the drink that pairs well with my musical life is what I drink at rehearsal, which is a Bud Light.

JMcD: That’s sweet.

JP: That’s the fuel for my musical life.

JMcD: But it’s not a metaphor.

Let it be known across the lands (or at least the shores surrounding the Charles River) that May 8 is now officially known as “Keytar Bear Day” in Cambridge. The designation of such a day is the culmination of what just may be the most bizarre tale of crime, and a community’s ability to come together and show support for a complete stranger in a bear costume that plays a musical instrument from the 1980s.