Last night was a quiet Thursday at my local bar. I got home from work a bit late after trying to take care of all the loose ends in anticipation of my week off. I went online briefly, had to reboot for some anti-virus updates, and read for a bit. As soon as I knew it, it was 9 o’clock already. The rain had let up and it was one of those misty nights where everything stays wet, and a lot of people have their umbrellas up for no good reason. I guess they just have a lower tolerance for moisture, but then how is an umbrella going to help in those circumstances?
Carina is clearly my favorite bartender of all times. I walked up to find her and Paul, their mountain of a doorman, hanging out on the sidewalk in front of the bar. She was wearing her reading glasses and smoking a cigarette. When she finished, we went inside to compare the books we were reading. She’s been reading a mass-market paperback of “Wicked”. I never got involved with any of the Gregory McGuire books, but it looked charming. She also recommended the books of Christopher Moore, and she made them sound very interesting. So many books, so little time!
I had my copy of “Murakami Haruki: The Simulacrum in Contemporary Japanese Culture”. Carina asked me what a Simulacrum was. (College graduates are always asking me these questions. If I don’t like you very much, my answer is “How the HELL should I know?!?”, but I’d never say that to my favorite bartender of all times!)
I confessed that I was only just beginning to figure it out myself. It helps me to use “Simulation” as a mnemonic, and conceptually it involves life in a world of broadcasts and reproductions. Beyond that, it’s difficult for me to say. Our world is drenched in ironic commentary that can only be ‘about’ itself. I used the example of owning/consuming CDs of music instead of being forced to see musicians play. I didn’t delve too deeply, but now that I’ve thought about it a little more, I would say that our primary experience of a phenomenon like music is the playback of a recording, and that every encounter with live musicians is tainted by what we expect from those perfect reproductions. Surely this is in the book somewhere, but: “The Original fails to live up to the Copy”. This process feeds back on itself, and can be taken further, to television talk shows, and celebrity debutantes getting in trouble, or any narrative that describes that process and therefore relies upon it for its existence.
Even if I’m wrong about that - I’m certainly close. What I just said is important in its own right, and is somehow related to what people are talking about when they know what they’re talking about. Did that make sense?
Well I realized that this charming anecdote played right into a thought I’ve been having recently. The challenge of explaining the term ‘simulacrum’ resonated for me. How much would I need to know to claim expertise on a subject like Semiotics, Critical Literary Theory, or Postmodernism? For that matter, what about Greek Mythology, Electrical Power Systems, Computer Programming, or Particle Physics? Couldn’t I just look it up on Wikipedia? Maybe I just have to bide my time, learn something that IS there already until the knowledge I seek comes on line.
Posted in music, ontology, bar-scene, photos, books | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Fri, 26 Oct 2007 18:12:00 GMT
This is still soooo unfinished. I had big plans for the text, and all I’ve achieved so far is a confused mess. I expect to take another stab at it later.
I can’t believe that I was running around on 18th Street at 2:30am on a Saturday night. I had work in the morning, which ideally means leaving my apartment at eight, but more often seven.
I had it in my mind to load up my 35mm SLR and take some long exposures, so I took it off its dusty shelf, carefully vacuumed and cleaned it, put in a roll of film, and then - battery warning. Hmm… those batteries are a bit old, and I don’t see new ones anywhere (they’d be old too, right?). Finding the cable release turned into a major chore. Where have I stashed it? I don’t think I would put it in the boxes with the darkroom stuff. It used to be on my bookshelf right near where I left the camera. Well, I wasn’t happy with the idea of that one shaky tripod hinge moving while I pressed the trigger, so I eventually decided to wing it with the Nikon instead. It’s a good idea, because a) it’s far less conspicuous, and b) you got to see the results in 12 hours. B&W 35mm was going to require a night of developing, and maybe I’d get around to making prints.
Anyway, I got what I wanted - the circus that is 18th St. after last call on a weekend, along with some ghosty motion-blur, and I got it discretely, squeezing the trigger of my camera down at chest level. The Nikon had a tough assignment, and I’ve never tried to use it that way. Most cameras communicate with subtle body language. You have got to know what I mean: the displays are not as important as they seem, the camera has robotic motions, like shutter snap, autofocus servo motors, and film drive. But with a digital camera, most of those are gone, and the one that remains - that autofoucs whir - is subtle indeed. In addition, digital cameras have sound cues. But in this case I didn’t hear any, which is as it should be when discretion counts the most.
People were not going to pay a lot of attention to me anyway, but if they did, I wanted them to see a confused guy, eyeing the crowd as if searching out lost friends. You might notices this fellow in the blue jacket next to the police car: he might be regarding me with suspicion - and the girl next to him with the sideways glance makes me think they figured me out. After all, this was still early. I was still aiming the camera and checking the results on the screen. I put some faith in the camera after that, and there was not a whiff of trouble.
Exposure worked like a charm. I had the settings right to ‘underexpose’, and give me fighting chance of sitting still for the whole shot.
I have included a picture with my finger in the corner, even though it is unprofessional to do so. This was my favorite composition, I took several other shots of this view, and they all failed in one way or another. We have the spirit of the moment right here. People wandering down the middle of the street, discarded jumbo slice roadkill in the foreground, and that great shadow effect from the dominant point-source.
I overestimated my ability to hold the camera flat, but at this point I was probably no longer bothering to check the view panel. So a lot of the pictures are tilted and pointing too high - that’s unfortunate. But, still, I like how the angles worked out in that middle one above. And, look at that motorcycle! It’s like some raptor bird. Almost a dirt bike.
The main theme here is the anarchy of the diffuse crowd. The occasional car trying to plow through the oblivious throng.
Sometimes motion blur is a good thing - such as when you get a solid streak of lights. That thing on the lamp post is supposed to be a high-heeled shoe. There are similar items on other posts: A musical note, a martini glass. I forget what else. It’s like Christmas wreaths or snowflakes, but they stay up all year round.
It’s funny how there are still people being careful about staying on the sidewalk. You can hear the tone of the police officers - apathetic - as they tell people to stay on the sidewalk. I get bored saying the same things over and over again, too.
Posted in DC-roaming, bar-scene, photos | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:32:00 GMT
Well, let’s add Gabrielle Walker’s new book “An Ocean Of Air” to the book basket. I’ve had a paperback galley lying around on my desk at work for several months now - it has debuted in hardback during that time, so I could see what the cover looks like if I felt like it.
Anyway, there was some late night drinking with my bartender friends last night - mainly because they have been experiencing a dearth of customers lately. I don’t know what is causing it. The Reef seems like a perfectly nice place to spend an evening to me. I am careful not to drink too much, and they are careful not to charge me too much. So I guess that makes me an unusual customer. When it is slow, I can usually read a book, but when it is that slow I have no choice but to talk to the staff, who would be too bored otherwise. And, I figure that socializing is the real reason I go - otherwise I can just drink and read at home. Or, just read. But, one side effect of going out is that it keeps me awake. An evening at the bar cannot be compared to some super-productive evening at home reading, writing, playing music, writing computer programs, cleaning the apartment - it has to be compared with an hour or two of television, a snack in the kitchen, checking my daily websites & email, then falling asleep around ten. Because that’s pretty standard.
Today I made good on my promise to fix one of the cash register PCs at the store in Dupont. I didn’t bother to punch in, and it took a little longer than I expected. Mainly because there was more than one problem with it: The PC was fried - it probably just needs a new power supply - and the customer-facing display was garbling the signal to the receipt printer. I didn’t suspect the display at first, because it seemed mere coincidence, but now I’m wondering if the display didn’t power surge through the parallel port. BTW - these are some old PCs. The replacement will have to be temporary. It runs such an early version of DOS, that it won’t run some of the new programs in standalone mode - but we don’t care so much about that.
The new cashiers are not used to me yet. It’s rare that I have to intervene physically - there’s a repair guy for the hard stuff, and I could ask the programmers to do it (not sure how much that costs us, though…). Usually I can
just talk someone through a problem over the phone. One of them has seen me come in to shop, and asked me why she had never seen me working. After working there for so ling, tt makes me giggle to think somebody wouldn’t know the scope of the operation. Six stores, a warehouse, and an office. She was signing a customer up for a frequent-buyer card and explaining why we wanted their email address. I had to chime in with “It’s a newsletter. I’m the one who sends it.” To which I get a “Oh so is that what you do.” Obviously, I do a lot of stuff there. It was a let down to know that the front line didn’t know the reason behind something so simple as an email newsletter. I’ve been looking at the newsletters other stores send out.
Hmmm… I guess I was going to talk about the book, huh?
This afternoon after Olsson’s, I sat in my quiet room enjoying the afternoon light of a fall afternoon, read a few chapters of “Ocean” and dabbled on my synth. Come on now - who doesn’t love physics? I can see it in everything. It is a mental block for me that anyone would lack that way of seeing. Huh? …what? How can that be. There is a place only twenty miles away where no human could survive without a lot of special equipment. It’s closer if you like to climb mountains.
Okay, clearly I’m losing interest in this line of thought. I gotta go see a man about Beer & Bratwurst. And they called it Ockoberfest. Life is short, so I’m going to get in touch with my German heritage. Or childhood memories of Busch Gardens Williamsburg. One of those.
Posted in books, bar-scene, gourmand, olssons | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Sat, 13 Oct 2007 00:42:00 GMT
DISCLAIMER: This has to be the most disorganized post I’ve written so far. I don’t know who wrote it, but they write sort of the way I write, and they wrote about something I wanted to write about. This is a good example of “Everything Is A Draft” I would like to reorganize this entire post, and maybe I will.
Last night was the author event at Wonderland Ballroom for Eric Nuzum’s “The Dead Travel Fast”. It’s a book about vampires. We had it in a bar so there could be vampire movies projected on a screen, drinks that resemble blood, and a fog machine. Oh yeah, and capes. In fact, people were encouraged to dress up as vampires.
I tagged along after work, even though I would rather have gone home and passed out. You see…
Overpopulation Office!
There was some kind of meeting of the top echelon at work. (I use ‘top echelon’ ironically, because that’s something the eccentric computer software uses to refer to the book buyers.) This meant that several people who had come all that way wanted to keep working in our small suite of offices. Well, as you might imagine it is a bit of a stretch to accommodate. But the real problem isn’t finding desks for everybody (it didn’t quite work out, but it was close), it’s that people wander into my office and start having multiple conversations. There is some reapportioning of responsibilities among the group, and that requires a change in practice - something the computer does not support. Something that requires a lot more talking to programmers, listening to lame explanations, and then trying to pass those lame explanations on to people who care even less about why. But I got a classic example of why I don’t want a lot of people here…
I’m sitting at my desk, working on something when the Marketing Director wanders in to ask me a question. It’s a vague question about what can or can’t be modified on the web site. The sort of question that implies the person asking has an idea they wish to implement. Those questions scare me, because I know that an honest answer may ruin everything. And, because we’re talking about trade-offs: effort vs. presentation, choices about how to parcel out responsibility - in short, things that are not my decision. For reasons I don’t understand, we went out to the photocopier in the hallway - I probably was searching for a place to have a technically involved discussion without bothering the others. Our little arrangement works great when we are quietly working at our desks - but if everybody suddenly wants to be part of several different discussions, it falls apart. And, that’s rare enough that we are not going to change it.
So I’m trying to answer questions that connect social and technical aspects of the job, and I realize we are navigating a space of possibility, but I am still trying to elicit the motivation for these questions, which would make it much easier to negotiate. It is at this point that people start walking by and chiming in with suggestions. Part of me wants to say “Shut Up!”, but focus has already shifted to accommodate the new point of view. In the open spaces, what needed to be a concentrated exploration of what this one person in charge wanted, the discussion has degenerated into some kind of free-for-all, where none of these other jokers are going to have to explain how to implement their suggestions.
We’re back to a fundamental fact about me. If you’re not going to put me in charge, then please give me assignments. Don’t pretend I have the power to enforce decisions - tell me what your decisions are. Lead or get the hell out of my way. And coworkers: stop throwing rotten vegetables at me when I’m on stage giving an unprepared presentation. Why don’t you submit your ideas in writing, I don’t think those people down the hall heard your excellent idea.
I Already Feel Like The Vampires Got To Me
After work, I tagged along to Wonderland with Tony. He was supposed to be there at 5, but that didn’t happen. The author event didn’t start until 7, and the bar staff has really taken the lead, so nobody cared. I was wearing my Penguin Classics “Dracula” T-shirt. I expected to stick around and take photos, so I sat around eating a bowl of chili and drinking a pint of Newcastle. I wanted to keep reading “Other Colors” out on the patio, but people kept talking to me. I felt like I had just donated blood. The scene was also not hopping. At quarter ‘till 7, there wasn’t even much of a Tuesday crowd yet, let alone vampire enthusiasts. I grabbed my stuff and left.
Pleasantly, the bartender neglected to charge me for the beer. I walked home reading for part of the way, then passed out.
Posted in bar-scene, olssons, books | 1 comment | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:35:00 GMT
Well, I’ve suffered through another week of routine. I sincerely wish I had something more interesting to say at the moment. Everything is vague dissatisfaction. I don’t want to complain. At least not in an obvious way.
I’m chipping away at the Warsh book bit by bit. It’s very thought provoking, so I stop to think and then realize I’ve only read four pages. At this rate it’s going to take a while, but hopefully I’ll put some serious time in over the next couple days.
I’m running late to meet Troy, Tomoko, and their whole gang downtown at Helix. I knew I’d be stuck at work longer than normal, but I have a good chance of meeting up with them before they leave there.
After that, I’m not sure what’s going to happen. The local bar is always an option - until I run out of money completely. It is still very tempting to look for the world of social interaction I always imagine is there, but I seem only to see through.
Posted in bar-scene, books | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Thu, 27 Sep 2007 22:42:00 GMT
Times Change
I watched “If…” one more time looking for clues to the film. Now I’m more puzzled than ever: There is the conspiracy - The misfit clique that increases its membership through the course of the film - but so many scenes are auxiliary to that main story. Much of the film paints a portrait of the place itself, and the ensemble of characters and how they fit into the hierarchy. Some scenes are very particular - crucial to the narrative, but other scenes are just there for atmosphere - fragments of other stories never fully told.
From what I can gather, the film was quite shocking when it came out. It won acclaim at Venice or Cannes. (Can’t find the reference, I’m afraid…) It was rated X, which seems odd nowadays - there was some brief nudity, but of course the most outrageous part is the school shooting bit at the end.
What gets to me more than anything is the difference between this society and that one. The “hair rebels” as the headmaster calls them (and the phrase “You’re hair is too long - get it cut.” occurs often) are quoting writings on liberty from the age of enlightenment. You get the impression from various more recent school shootings in America that the boys (it’s always boys) thought they were playing a video game - on the other hand, the characters in the movie do engage in more properly modern juvenile delinquency: They steal a motorbike at one point. They cover the walls of their study with magazine photos (I noticed Munch’s “The Scream” in there - way before its recent resurgence of popularity) and are nearly caught drinking from a bottle of vodka.
So maybe I just want there to be an important difference.
Bookstore Carolyn
I went to return the movie and found my friend Carolyn presiding over a dull Saturday evening at the bookstore. She told me about her recent stint working at - gasp - another bookstore, that should remain nameless, but I nearly found a job there last fall. We went on to talk about the propriety of blog writing in company sponsored websites (i.e., the difference between what I write here and what my “Fine Stable of Bloggers” write for the bookstore.) The feedback process is a bit flawed here: Carolyn has heard many more complaints than I have about a certain member of that team. I wasn’t unaware of the problem, but these are people who post their comments off-line. Not only did Carolyn think this particular writer makes the company look bad, but she worries about his career prospects with a visible record of his bad attitude in writing. In my opinion, he won’t have trouble - the system does sometimes reward bad attitudes, and I don’t think he’s burning any bridges that he would care to cross anyway. Sorry to be so vague, but that’s the way it has to be.
I shopped for books, and what do you know? - I found a few I liked. “Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted” by John Geiger, which is a biograph of the beat-poet Brion Gysin.
There’s also one more economics book: “Knowledge & The Wealth of Nations” by David Warsh.
A Man Of The People
I waited for the bus out by the circle, and man did I have to wait. I must’ve just missed one. I started reading the Econ book - Warsh is a journalist who claims not to understand the math, so I could probably recommend it to a lot of people. He noticed that academics were starting to pay a lot more attention to the role of ideas in economic growth, and decided to track that story as most representative of the changes taking place in the academic world of economics. Fascinating!
Some kid snuck up on me while I was reading at the bus stop - he wanted money, but not for the reasons I assumed. He had flyers about the ‘Jena 6’ business, which I can’t even figure out, but he said something about teenagers who were shot by the police in DC. I think I might have heard about that one too. The kid was easy to blow off. Then, his mentor snuck up behind me. (Argh! We just went through this!) I talked a little more at length with the older guy, but I had to claim poverty. He didn’t give up right away - but I had lost interest already. As I stared off into the middle distance, I saw the Saturday night revelers passing by the bus stop on their way to the clubs, and my mind loosed its moorings and started to float above us. It hurts me a little not to know… Not to know what action makes sense in this moment. Will I be hurting or helping? Will I give in sympathy only to be hustled? I often think “I want to help, but this isn’t the way.”
As I sat on the bus that eventually came, I mulled it over in my mind. I’m not blowing them off to go party with the oblivious, but I am blowing them off to go brood over the troubles of the world I can’t figure out how to solve.
I tried to read the econ book, but I kept watching the people who walked by or sat near me on the bus. Two young women sat down opposite me and started talking on their cell phones, so reading was an uphill struggle. As I regarded these two, a smelly homeless guy with a gray beard and a lot of luggage sat down between them. I hope nobody heard my muffled laughter at their discontent. I instinctively buried my face in the book, even if I couldn’t focus on it. Then the bearded gentleman asked me what I was reading.
This my friends, is the state of the world I live in: Scruffy homeless guys are much more likely to talk to me about economics than pretty young (obviously intelligent) women, who I have the audacity to think should be interested. But no matter - I showed him the cover, and told him what I thought it would be like - having only read three pages so far with all the distractions. And this is when my neighbor Mitch sat in the seat next to me. I see him in Dupont Saturday nights sometimes. He collects the discarded bread from Firehook bakery and passes it to the wayward alcoholics in our neighborhood. I doubt the cell phone girls ever do anything like that. Zing!
There are two lives. I guess. Go out among the people and you might seem connected, but you’re not necessarily any less self-absorbed and narcissistic than you were by yourself. And when I see the partygoers stroll down the block in fancy hair, clothes and makeup, I wonder what it’s all for. As if all that togetherness is a sham. And we’re headed in the wrong direction.
Mitch tossed me a loaf of bread from his bag. I didn’t want to deprive the needy, but I was looking to get more bread at the store, and this would save me a trip. I’ll have to remember to see the bread as more than just a gift from my neighbor, but a reminder of what I owe in kindness to the people around me. It was a tasty moment of street theater. A few people would have wondered - “Did I just see somebody toss a loaf of bread from the bus to that guy?”
Against my better judgment, I decided to go visit Asylum, where I know at least the one bartender who appreciates my company. The Saturday night crowd would be too overwhelming for me, so I was sure to have quick drink, say hello and beat a path back home. But it wasn’t quite like that…
Roller Derby Girls
I walked in to a rock band doing their sound-check in the front window. The bass player was working out to a funky riff that got me more than a little interested. Something was different thought - it wasn’t nearly as crowded as it usually is. I heard somebody call my name really loud from the bar. Good old Carina. I ordered strange drinks because I have eclectic tastes, and it keeps my bartender friends guessing. I had some Red Bull because I thought I would be at home getting things done around midnight. It was a plausible assumption.
By coincidence, it was Roller Derby night again. I’d been to Asylum before, but the first time Carina convinced me to visit her there, it was Roller Derby night too. Shall I tell you what it’s like to be in a room with a bunch of amazon women in team uniforms? Maybe I’d rather not. Some of them would definitely rip my head off and eat it after mating. (Wow - did I just say that?)
In other news, remind me never to get the french fries there again. I’ve only got two data points in the series, but that’s enough for me. Two nights I drank moderately, ate the fries and felt like crap later. So it must be the fries. Sometimes a particular vegetable oil will make me ill, so it doesn’t bode well for any of the deep fried menu items.
The crowd got so thin as the night wore on. One of the bands had a group of people show up looking like zombies. They had frighteningly evocative makeup, and Carina let them apply a couple blood-drips on her face and neck. It’s not even Halloween yet!
Late Night Keyboarding On Red Bull Afterglow
The music was cool from time to time, and that kept me around longer than I intended. I had more than enough caffeine to go on, but eventually the french fries crept up on me and I wanted to go lie down. I finished the night at my keyboard listening back to a short segment I had recorded on the sequencer. I had put a lot of thought into the note times, but almost none into the note values, and I decided to listen to that segment repeat while I tweaked one value at a time. In short, I’m getting much better at operating it in real time, and hearing the results of each little experiment right away.
Posted in DC-roaming, bar-scene, film-and-TV, music-synthesis, olssons, books | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Sun, 23 Sep 2007 13:14:00 GMT
Thursday night I was out looking for trouble - and I found some. Some of you may know that there was an anti-war rally at the Capitol yesterday. Well, I didn’t go to that. I was at the Reef, talking to my favorite bartenders, and thought I would run home to see if I could find Tucker’s friends that were staying with us for a few days. It’s complicated - I was going to write a bit about that called “William & Sarah Overdrive”, but I seem to have lost the momentum. This was when I spotted the bus. Some cops told them they could park there for a while. As I stood there listening to their story of living on the bus during their drive across country from Berkley, other cops arrived to tell them that it wasn’t okay to park there. Of course, nobody knew where the driver was.
My views on the war should already be clear to the people that know me, but in many situations, I desire neutrality. I want people to tell their side. I don’t want to be the one to suppress opinions. I want to observe the discussion. I’m not a journalist yet, but with an attitude like that, I could be well on my way.
What I actually liked most about the bus was the dense formulas inscribed upon it. It distinctly reminded me of the flyers people used to pass out at the subway stations fifteen years ago. There were a lot of “Jews for Jesus”, and maybe they were the only ones, but there must have been some independent lunatics involved - the flyers were xeroxed copy of the same texture: Lots of word salad. Little maps and formulas. A designed brochure, although terribly lo-tech.
I don’t want to cast these Berkley bus-riders as lunatics. I basically agree with them. But sometimes the reasoning gets a little out of control. You know, some psychiatrists posit that many mental illnesses are a matter of too much reasoning. It’s a backlash to the presumption of the “sleep of reason”. These guys seemed all right. The bus needs to call attention to itself to get its message across - like a billboard or a used car salesman screaming in a television commercial.
Does it really enhance the conversation? Are things painted on the sides of buses conversation at all?
But some days it’s a hair’s breadth from well meaning activism to nutjob conspiracy theory. Hey… maybe the leaders saw an X-Files episode and said “If we acted the way crazy conspiracy theorists think we do, then no sane person will believe it’s true.” That’s my guess about what’s happening: They made the truth so strange nobody could accept it. Who would believe that such patriotic leaders could be so cynical in the exercise of power. It sounds ridiculous, so it must not be true.
A little reverse psychology anybody?
Posted in bar-scene, DC-roaming, photos | 1 comment | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Mon, 17 Sep 2007 01:42:00 GMT
Where has my mind been lately? Everything seems like a blur, and I look here to see that I haven’t written anything.
Quick notes: Tuesday I spent the evening at my local bar. It was nice bang for the buck - they failed to charge me for all the drinks I ordered, and at one point the owner came in and started inventing new shooters. The “Hello Kitty” was interesting (imagine pink and creamy, but I didn’t have to tell you that, did I?), but it took two versions to get it right. And, two others that I don’t remember all that well. I was walking down the street, nearly to the front door, when Carina the bartender came walking the other direction. “Hey shouldn’t you be at work?”
“I’m just going to get cigarettes for the other bartenders - I’ll be right back.”
Okay. So instead of tagging along - which probably would have been more fun - I went upstairs to the roof deck to drink a beer and write in my notebook. It started out as one of my typically antisocial evenings. It wasn’t crowded, I didn’t see anybody I knew, and the people I did see were happy to talk to each other. I’m an observer most of the time, but I had some thoughts I was trying to flesh out, so that drove me inward.
Eventually, after people started wondering what had happened to her, Carina returned with a whole bunch of snacks (in addition to the cigarettes). I clearly should have invited myself along. Hindsight is 20/20, I guess.
There I go, I’ve already told about the exciting part of the night, but one guy I met before came in and sat down. He’s a Minneapolis transplant, and we had some fun laughing at the behavior of others. It’s enlightening to sit and watch what happens: You see a lot of weird human behavior (maybe something more on that another time). That was about the time that some more hard-core regulars wandered in and recognized me. And, the experimental drink recipes. The rest is largely a blur.
Pretty exciting for a Tuesday. If it had been any more crowded on the roof, I would have spent the evening in their secluded first floor bar - and I would also have gotten more writing done.
Posted in bar-scene | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Thu, 06 Sep 2007 13:03:00 GMT
Last night I met up with Troy and Tomoko at DC9. It’s a popular place to see indie rock bands, but every Friday they have a DJ, and they call it “Revolution Dance Party”. Apparently, music used to come on circular pieces of plastic, and there were ‘players’ that read the information off the plastic as it spun. Our historians are still unclear as to why. (…end mischief)
I’ve been hearing such wonderful things about DC9 - and when I told the gang at Reef I was headed over there, they were jealous: Kim even predicted I would wind up at BCB (ahem… Ben’s Chili Bowl. Where a sign on the wall proclaims that Bill Cosby can eat for free). But DC9 was pretty lame. It didn’t strike me as a particularly cool place to hang out. Also, being August, there were only about five drunk girls dancing. Very pathetic. In addition to some very good music videos for bands I like but had never heard of, they were playing old episodes of “Wonder Woman” on the video screen. I suppose we can tally one for the plus column.
I haven’t seen either Troy or Tomoko since Texas, so I showed off some of the Texas pictures left on my camera. That was probably everything - since I upgraded the memory card, I’ve never run out, and why would I bother deleting anything?
After one drink, we took off in search of food. I was under the impression that all bars were legally obligated to serve food in DC, but the bartenders claimed total ignorance of a menu. This lead us to the aforementioned “BCB”. (Kim’s prophecy was fulfilled!) Mmmm… Chili cheese fries and a Coke. And then, the two of them are complaining they can’t finish and sawing off bits of half-smoke to pile on top of my fries. Pretty good deal. It even prevented me from drinking too much later - I was too queasy for another whiskey!
I closed out the evening back at the Reef. The Friday DJs are good - even though it’s hip-hop, which isn’t exactly my forte. I had a little whiskey, and a lot of water, did some good people watching, met some folks for a change - one bartender’s non-bartender girlfriend, one of the guys from Asylum making his first visit on Carina’s recommendation, who turned out to be pretty cool. We even started conspiring to laugh at the drunks. I suspect Carina worries I’m too much of a loner, and she’s always happy when she sees me making friends. Part of the charm could be that it’s such an awful place to attempt it some nights. It’s so easy to feel like everybody has been infected with some space virus a la Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the truly cool people are struggling to blend in so they don’t get infected too.
Posted in gourmand, bar-scene, photography | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Sun, 19 Aug 2007 00:02:00 GMT
Today begins another ‘staycation’. I’m desperately trying to burn off the excess vacation hours I’ve built up at work. The weather promises to be plenty hot, but not so bad as last week, which was horribly oppressive.
I plan on the usual routine. Read books, watch videos, and find cool places to use my computer.
My apartment is doing a great job of holding in heat. I wish it could do that in the winter. On a summer evening, after the sun goes down and the air cools off, the inside of my apartment continues to get warmer. It must be solar energy, which would be less of a factor in the winter. This latent heating makes it very uncomfortable during the very hours that most people would spend in bars. (If only libraries were open at that time… I’d get more reading done.)
So naturally, after taking another shower, I went over to the Reef for a drink. The first and third floors were reserved for private parties, so I was stuck on the second floor, which I soon noticed was a little warm. I was about ready to call it a night. I even wore long sleeves in fear that I would be too cold(!)
I got downstairs and looked in to see the first floor party was gone. Carina the bartender was across the street smoking a cigarette in front of Asylum. I asked her if the A/C was working on her floor (because otherwise I would just go home and lie down). It was, but she muttered something about having to sweep up a lot of broken glass before she could open up. Must’ve been some party.
I rethought my evening. So far it wasn’t going all that great, but it was still only 9:15, and things were looking up. I went in to Idle Time Books and browsed for a while. I saw many intriguing volumes, none of which I can actually remember. After that, I went to Tryst for an espresso. All I really wanted was to write in my notebook. Coffee was a natural. I wrote out a page of mixed results. Vague ideas. It’s like the disappointment of failing to crack a nut. I’ll be preoccupied with thoughts that seem so paltry the moment I express them. That can’t be all of what I was just thinking.
I could have hung out at Tryst and had more drinks, but across the street was a friend to talk to, and a much quieter bar for writing. So off I went.
But of course, I didn’t get much writing done. Carina saw me with the notebook and asked me about what I write. This is always a hard question to answer: It’s everything and nothing. It’s a feedback process and it’s practice forming words. I write mundane things that happen, I write inspired ideas, and I write a lot of nonsense. If I think I’m writing anything down so it will be there for me later, I’m basically deluding myself - it becomes so hard to find anything specific. Surely I could throw all the old notebooks away - it takes so long to sift through the contents. But chalk it up to serendipity. If I flip to a random page I sometimes find one important thing that challenges whatever I’m thinking about now.
I guess I really like to use real, mundane things that happen to me as a jumping-off point for an intellectual journey. What’s the significance of sitting at a bar drinking water engaged in rambling conversation with the bartender while she wipes off the liquor bottles, disinfects the shelves they sit on, and soaks the little rubber stoppers that discourage the fruit flies from taking miniature sips from the pouring spouts. I get to try my hand at expressing it poetically, and I can use the scenery as a backdrop for something else. What kind of writing is that? Do they have a name for it? It’s mechanical. It belongs in a tool box.
I can’t remember which one of us suggested she was being possessive of her little bar, but she was the one who claimed that it felt like home, and she took pride in making sure it was clean. That gives me a warm feeling inside, and maybe it’s worth communicating.
Consider with me for a minute a solemn subject: The breaking of genres. As a marketing tool, the breaking of genres is sexy stuff. You hear about it nearly every day in the infotainment onslaught. But I say it’s not enough to apply a little skill, smash together two ostensibly different forms, and reap the rewards. I’m always back to my Basho: “Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.”. I have to keep reminding myself to put away imitation. How many more styles can I hope to imitate at this point in my life? What else could I be doing?
I might not have written anything new last night at the bar, but in trying to justify myself, I flipped through the pages of the notebook and tried to characterize the accomplishment - if you can call it that. It was at this point that I remembered something that I’m sure I did write down. And, of course, it couldn’t be found.
People can get upset with you when you see both sides of a double meaning. I’ve been in many conversational turns where my ability to see the sinister side of something made me suddenly less popular. I guess I could have kept my mouth shut instead. You can get a bad reputation that way: For some reason ignorance is more friendly. We should worry about any situation where this is true. Where the official opinion of you is the worst thing you could imagine. Well, I can imagine a lot of horrible things, but I like to think I still have some hope.
For a while, the only people coming into the bar were other employees. It can be a refuge from the busier floors. I got a lot of free drinks that way. “Evan! Can I buy you a shot?” Soon the Grand Marnier, Sambuca, and whatever that other mixed one I didn’t trust was called start piling up. But all the water I drank was like a magic trick - I was still perfectly lucid. We compared notes on last week’s run in with the Hair Puller and various other topics. Soon real customers were wandering in. I want to talk about them behind their backs. That’s what drives most of my writing anyway - I try to temper it by transformation: Some particular person and their foibles get called up to express a greater purpose. And, maybe I learn to see personalities in outline. Carina’s ‘landlord’ came in to visit - we think the drink I didn’t trust might have made him sick. One of the regulars bent my ear about putative meanings of life for a while, testing my patience sorely indeed.
If I’m lucky, I can turn these experiences, shape them into new shapes. The results don’t satisfy me yet. The last few long pieces have been a little too disjointed to make me proud.
Posted in writing-craft, bar-scene | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:59:00 GMT
Last night was a quiet Thursday at my local bar. I got home from work a bit late after trying to take care of all the loose ends in anticipation of my week off. I went online briefly, had to reboot for some anti-virus updates, and read for a bit. As soon as I knew it, it was 9 o’clock already. The rain had let up and it was one of those misty nights where everything stays wet, and a lot of people have their umbrellas up for no good reason. I guess they just have a lower tolerance for moisture, but then how is an umbrella going to help in those circumstances?
