Flavorpill + absinthe

Two nights ago, I was invited to Santo's Party House to taste Flavorpill's new signature summer drink, Orange Fresh. The star ingredient was Le Tourment Vert absinthe.


When I walked down the stairs from the entrance, a table of samples in test tubes and absinthe booklets was waiting.



The stuff was pretty good and tasted very potent (not necessarily "strong," but very... something. Flavorful (ha)?).

For an hour, the lovely bartenders made a variety of cocktails with Le Tourment Vert and DJs spun. Afterwards was a party called Été D'Amour and featured the Rapture DJs & DJ Dominique. I didn't stick around for the party, but the absinthe tasting alone was worth the walk down to Chinatown. It was lovely to see some familiar faces and enjoy the drinks. "I don't think people realize that this stuff is 100 proof. People are drinking it like it's just a drink," Sascha said at one point. He was right, I began to feel wonky and left. I sauntered into a tree on the way home.

The next morning, I realized that there was a lot more in the booklet than I had thought. It unfolds into a beautifully-designed timeline history of absinthe. The other side features a bunch of different cocktails you can mix with Le Tourment Vert.





For those who weren't at the party, the timeline and recipes can be found here.

Summer in BK

Words cannot express how much my mood changes in the summer. It's partially due to the fact that I have mild S.A.D. (who doesn't?), but I think it's mostly Brooklyn's fault. All of the best times I've had in the past two summers have dealt with Brooklyn-centered activities that took place outside. Last summer, it was the rooftop BBQ my friends had by the water. Here are some highlights from this year so far:

Dinner at River Café with my visiting parents

Walking to an outdoor restaurant after work with my roommate and close friend, Laura

Walking around the park


Seeing The Virgin Suicides this week at McCarren Park Pool (it was part of the L Magazine's Summer Screen, which I recommend checking out before they fill the pool with water again)


This weekend is the famed Siren Festival in Coney Island, along with yet another dodgeball, slip n' slide, food and beer-filled JellyNYC Pool Party featuring Liars, Fuck Buttons and Team Robespierre. See what I mean? Get thee to a nunnery Brooklyn this summer and you'll see what Chuck Welch meant when he said "BK to the fullest."

Coffee shop chalkboard signs

In the past several months, I have been taking photos of chalkboard signs outside of coffee shops. Very specifically: Sweet Farm and El Beit in Williamsburg. These two shops started out being next to each other, and I wasn't sure how each one would do, competition-wise.

After a while, each shop ended up claiming a firm position in my mind because of the stuff on the ever-changing chalkboard signs outside each store. El Beit tended to focus a lot on dreamy imagery like tiled teddy bears, coffee mugs with wings, clouds, etc. Endearingly cute but not in a cloying way. Sweet Farm liked to use puns and a little bit of absurdity that made me laugh. I for some reason can't find any of the El Beit photos and I can't imagine why, but here are some from Sweet Farm:




Much to my dismay, I noticed a few months ago that Sweet Farm was gone and had been converted into something called Penny Licks. I don't know if they have really figured out who they are yet, but for now they tend to focus on pretty writing that makes me want dessert. I guess that's a good strategy for a place that has sweets.


Yesterday, I wondered if maybe El Beit decided to take some of the silliness that Sweet Farm used to use. This is what I saw over the weekend:


I assure you that I am making this whole thing out to be more than it really is (the personality of coffee shops and such). I bet it's just the same guy who does the board each day and he has a fun personality. Ditto the other shops. Oh well, nice to daydream.

Unofficial Olympic Shirt

Some exciting news from my friend Ed in Hong Kong (this Ed). The first product coming out of his side project, SCHOOL is out - the Unofficial Olympic Shirt. As he puts it:

A t-shirt that really embraces the value of the Olympics - UNITY. We haven't paid multi-million dollar sponsorship deal so you won't see rings nor mascots on any of our shirts. Instead we've woven all participating nations into one piece of fabric. 888 of these limited edition shirts were lovingly made with the finest cotton to commemorate the event opening on 08.08.08.

The design is really great: it strings all of the nations into a double helix-style design (a further symbol of us all coming together).



The shirt comes in marshmallow white, cotton candy blue and cotton candy pink.


You can get it for $45, free worldwide shipping, no tax. Pretty amazing, I love the colors, meaning and can't wait for mine. Great stuff, Ed!

Spring/summer 2006 journal

I grabbed this from my bookcase last night; I was bored and wanted to read something. I didn't know until I started reading it that it's my journal from spring /summer 2006.


There is some work in there from my final semester @ Adcenter, stuff I was thinking about, notes from my interview at Naked and other things. It was so fun to read; I scanned a few of the things in there this morning. Here are a few...

When I was brainstorming for this blog! My anonymous commenter will just love that I wrote "richness" on this page.

I didn't write down who said this... hilarious.

Scare yourself once a week; I loved hearing that. I think this was at the planning conference in Miami that year.


It's like opening little time capsules of your thoughts, going through old journals like this. If anybody is inclined to do the same thing (flip through & scan), I'd love to see.

Thank you, Alex!

The beautiful Alex came back this week from a month-long sabbatical in France; she was working on her thesis at our Paris office. This is one of the things she brought back with her:


It says a bunch of things about the origin of my name, what my lucky number, day and perhaps flower are, etc. She said it's a ruler, but I think I'll use it as a book mark. I love this, because I have never been able to pick up any souvenirs with my name on them in places when all my friends did on class trips and things. Thank you, mon ami :)

Stay tuned, I found one of my old journals last night and there are a bunch of neat things in there from a couple years ago.

The Boston Molasses Disaster

I have been to Boston once in my life; it was one of the stops in my "visiting colleges" trip of 1998. While doing some research last week, I was suddenly reminded of one of the strangest stories I've ever heard – the one and only thing I remember from the bus tour I was made to go on while there – the Boston Molasses Disaster.

Nearly 90 years ago – ironically, as I'll explain, one day before the Prohibition – a 50 foot-tall molasses tank exploded, sending 2.3 million gallons of the stuff down the streets of Boston. Imagine a 15 foot-high wave of molasses coming at you at 35 miles per hour. It flooded a few blocks up to waist level, crushed and swept away buildings, ultimately killed 21 people, injured 150 and killed 20 horses (some of the horses had to be shot because of how deep into the molasses they were, unable to move). Here is a shot of the NYTimes headline from the next day:


Apparently there were some structural problems with the tank, and it had been painted brown to camouflage the molasses leaking out. The irony I referenced earlier: this molasses was being fermented to make alcohol. Another theory is that the fermentation increased the pressure inside the tank, causing it to burst. Can you imagine how terrifying this must have been?

Envision a disaster scene with smashed buildings, overturned vehicles, drowned and crushed victims, and terrified survivors running away covered in molasses. Like the modern-day disasters with which we are unfortunately familiar, there was chaos, terror, buildings in ruins, victims to be dug out, trapped survivors to be rescued, rescue workers among the victims, and anguished families rushing to relief centers to find their relatives. It was like any horrible disaster scene, with the addition that everything was covered in smelly sticky brown molasses. [source]

In the end, it took 87,000 man hours to clean up the mess, and Boston Harbor ran brown for 6 months. Apparently all there is to mark the spot is a tiny plaque by a recreational complex. Why this isn't more widely known, I don't know. I was so fascinated by all the details just now that I kept interrupting a meeting to talk about it (sorry Eric).

Soon to be x-posted to House of Naked.