swig after swig
the fluid scorches my lips,
grabs my worries,
tosses them across the street
where kids watch me stagger
cuz…

sick, illogical babble
interrupts my thoughts—

staring at this fluid
swishing from

side                to                side

cccccccccccrashing against glass walls

the feeling
of being trapped inside a bottle
when i insist
i feel all right

Poor Ernest Dowson. Of all the Decadents, I think he is the one I feel for the most. Okay, so his death from consumption at the tender age of 32 was mostly brought on by his inability to stay away from the absinthe. And yes, falling in love with an eleven-year-old girl is more than a little controversial by today’s standards, but it’s not as if his relationship with her was ever physical. He had his prostitutes for that. Born in London, Dowson’s father was in the dry-docking business, but young Ernest was more interested in poetry than trade. He led an active and varied social life, and was a member of the Rymers’ Club, frequently contributing to the popular magazines of the day. But his lifestyle could not be supported on the income this offered. After the suicides of both his parents – who were also consumptives – Dowson went into a decline. The writer Robert Sherard (biographer of Oscar Wilde) found Dowson destitute and sick in a London bar, and took him back to his cottage. Within a few weeks Ernest had died.

Ernest Dowson

Sadly, Dowson isn’t that widely known these days, despite his poem Vitae Summa Brevis giving us the phrase ‘days of wine and roses’. This is great shame, because he really did write some of the most evocative, sensuous verse of the period, and doubtlessly would have given us much more if it hadn’t been for the his determination to self-destruct. His most famous poem is probably Non Sum Qualis eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae, supposedly inspired by his unrequited and chaste love for the child waitress, Adelaide Foltinowicz. My favourite, however, is a poem called Absinthia Taetra, a poignant ode to Dowson’s choice poison.

Absinthia Taetra

Green changed to white, emerald to an opal: nothing was changed

The man let the water trickle gently into his glass, and as the green clouded, a mist fell from his mind.

Then he drank opaline.

Memories and terrors beset him. The past tore after him like a panther and through the blackness of the present he saw the luminous tiger eyes of the things to be

But he drank opaline.

And that obscure night of the soul, and the valley of humiliation, through which he stumbled were forgotten. He saw blue vistas of undiscovered countries, high prospects and a quiet, caressing sea. The past shed its perfume over him, to-day held his hand as it were a little child, and to-morrow shone like a white star: nothing was changed.

He drank opaline.

The man had known the obscure night of the soul, and lay even now in the valley of humiliation; and the tiger menace of things to be was red in the skies. But for a little while he had forgotten.

Green changed to white, emerald to an opal: nothing was changed.

There was live music @ Littlefield -- Elk City

Well, drinking absinthe makes me feel young -  like I was back in the old days in Tartu when I was like 16 and having my wildest times ever – and was so much into absinthe that my classmates started to call me Absinthe-Ines. That was hilarious. I actually believed in the whole Dancing with the green fairy thing. I mean, there IS something about absinthe…  But now I find the beverage quite hard to drink . I used to have it with burning sugar – and that is the original way, I believe. But here they had this cocktail with Cointreau and ginger ale or smth. The brand was pretty good, i guess. Managed 2 in the open bar event @ Littlefield, (622 Degraw) Gowanus, Brooklyn.

Mike Baggetta Group

But then Tea Lounge – Mike Baggetta (guitar), Jason Rigby (sax- the guy from HEERNT!!!), Eivind Opsvik (double bass), George Schuller (drums). I found the sidemen for this gig somehow more intriguing than the leader, as players. But the music was pretty deep. I guess having  E. Opsvik in the band already makes the music sound kind of deep. Or it was the green fairy working on me…

The Mad Hatter (absinthe, peach bitters, Lillet Blanc, sweet vermouth)
Found at The Savant Project in Mission Hill

Don’t worry, it won’t make you mad, it will just make you happy.  The bartender made sure that I liked the taste of licorice before beginning to make the drink. I guess people have taken a sip and turned it away. Who are these people? Talk about crazy . . . . .

First, the absinthe is poured over sugar; then the other ingredients are added. The anise flavor is pronounced but not overwhelming. The bartender said they used to garnish it with wormwood. Even without a garnish, this is a cocktail I will order again.

If you are looking for an interesting, balanced cocktail with absinthe, give this one a try.

While the name may be misleading, you may have noticed I don’t do a whole lot about whiskey. Its not that I don’t love it. I do! And just to show you how much, I felt it extremely important to attend the Pittsburgh Whiskey and Fine Spirits Festival this past weekend. A whirlwind of whiskey, rum, gin, tequila, even absinthe.

To get a good representation or the multitude of liquors, My Man and I made a goal of trying 20 liquors within the three hour limit. It seems a little crazy, but trust me, we made good use of the dump buckets. Well, I made a good use of the dump buckets. My Man is a trooper, even through the worst of the bunch.

Here we go..

First off, we started with a classic: Jameson.

So, here we are with some of the highest quality liquors, so I go for the Gold. A good first choice! A turpentine smell, tasting of oak, smoke, tangy and smooth. My Man said it tasted of “salt spray,” to which I agreed. I said it had a vegetal aftertaste. He did not agree.

Next we tried the Feckin Irish Whiskey.

Even though the t-shirt was appreciated (hear that, Jameson?), the whiskey did not live up. While smelling of maple syrup and brown sugar, the mouth did not match. Mostly I tasted wheat and bile. Moving on to Tomatin.

The Tomatin Highland scotch whiskey 15 year ripped my mouth apart. Lemon pith and turpentine. Seriously, it hurt.

Rebel Reserve. Who can resist that name? Smoke and brown sugar and the nose and mouth with flowers and herbs. My Man pointed out it tasted like carnations (ain’t he swell?) and I definitely agree. Not bad, not great. Staying loyal to the fun name.

Moving to a new fine spirit. A love of my life, a component to the favorite mixed drink. Tequila. Patron Reposado. Perhaps one of the finest tequilas I’ve had. It tasted of salt and pepper and fresh grass. Very delicious.

A comparison must be had. A friend recommended the El Mayor as one of the best tequilas he’s ever had. In the interest of tequila fairness, we tried the reposado as well. More salt, pepper and some lemon and lime. It was fine, but really… no comparison.

Yes. I’m a sucker for awesome names. Don’t pretend you aren’t! And the pink hair sells it. The Kraken Spiced Rum: Sweet with hints of vanilla and spice. It was pretty alcoholy. When they said its made to mix, they were right. Much better with coke and pretty enjoyable!

So, the next guy from Philadelphia Distilling promised me an interview, so you don’t get his dashing picture yet. He makes three of wonderful liquors, all in Pennsylvania, and I dutifully tried two. The first? Bluecoat gin!

It deserves an exclamation point! Evergreen, tons of juniper, a splash of citrus and extremely smooth. I’m in love.

The Vieux Carre absinthe. Well, seriously. I’ve only tried about 3 or 4. So here are my not so expert opinions. I tasted citrus, liquorish and.. Kraft Mac & Cheese. Who doesn’t love Mac and Cheese? Pretty good, would have actually liked less water added in (here’s how you prepare absinthe).

Back to the Whiskey Festival basics. Macallan 18.

Subtle peat, grapefruit, milk chocolate and caramel. Lovely and what you would expect out of a quality scotch.

Yes…. Its still going. As far as I can tell, we are on track for 20. And, as there are 10 spirits tried here, I write this blog, so I will break for sleep and write up the rest tomorrow.

Jameson Irish Whiskey Gold

Price: $62.99

Me: B/B+  My Man: B

Feckin Irish Whiskey

Price: $23.99

Me: C-  My Man: F

Tomatin Highland Scotch Whiskey

Price: $62.99

Me: D  My Man: D

Rebel Yell Reserve Bourbon Whiskey

Price: $24.99

Me: C   My Man: C

Patron Reposado Tequila

Price: $49.99

Me: A-  My Man: A

El Mayor Reposado Tequila

Price: $36.49

Me: B-  My Man: C

The Kraken Black Spice Rum

Price: $15.99

Me: B-  My Man: B-

Bluecoat Gin

Price: $26.99

Me: A-  My Man: A

Vieux Carre absinthe

Price: $54.99

Me: B  My Man: C

Macallan Highland Scotch Whiskey

Price: $139.99

Me: B+  My Man: B

“WALTZ INTO MISCHIEF” Photographic print – Mr J Landon 2009

我最近看的一本轻小说的名字 以碎碎念和吐槽为亮点 半个月没更新blog 是因为我正在勤奋的更新twitter 今天终于找到了一个用起来很爽的广告过滤工具 CHROME完美了…
今天重点是帖这个工具
http://ruzanow.ru/extensions/updates.xml
可以基于页面代码过滤 也可以基于URL过滤 很强大 对页面打开速度没什么大的影响
不过不同于PRIVOXY这样前置的软件 它并不能节约流量
但是基于CHROME对页面DIV TD之类页面元素方便的选择功能 这个过滤用起来实在是太爽了
明天有2012看 6.X胖子 不错不错 木哈哈

Woke up this morning feeling like I’d spent the past several days drinking absinthe with Aleister Crowley and followed it up with enough Acid to trip-out a troop of hardy circus clowns.

Am having issues with the world. Would boycott but seems unlikely to actually affect anything, yes? I like my batcave, though.
(Note to self: Invest in hella sexy batgirl costume.)

As I was saying…

The world was too bright and too cold simultaneously, too brash and bold, too dense, humid and sticky with the sense that memory is seeping out of my very pores and contaminating the air I breathe.

It’s the sensuality of spirit. How dare they strip that from my faith? How dare they even try! The necessity of fire, of new passions and the faulty logic that assails me. Long lost, unwilling, insensible things that blossom in the waters of the mind.

The recurring visions cease to be merely recollections and instead invent themselves again in living colour. They drink me — all broth and no substance. Stirred and stirring in the pools of the unconscious.

Do your dreams have a soundtrack?
It always amuses me to wake up and realise that I’ve had the likes of Master of the House running through my head all night long…

“Everything has got a little price,” hey… though lord knows I’m with his wife. Meanwhile, I can think of a great many other things I’d rather be doing all night long.

I stumbled blindly to the bathroom, knees weak and hands shaking. They always shake. Nothing new. Nothing to get worked up about. Just your average day in a possibly not so very average life.
Or maybe we all wake up just exactly where we don’t want to be and trudge back to higher ground? Maybe it’s all just circles within circles. You, me, the Eucalyptus tree… all age old elements of part-time wisdom.

*Assembly required.

+Batteries not included

Off on a tea-break then aren’t we? Waiting to *live* but what is living except feverish deceptions and yearning touch? I force my hand into the morning light and feel every forgotten phrase, each electric, light bulb moment lost. There. Waiting.

Maybe just a little time off for good behaviour? Time served, your Honour.
Call off the night watchman.

I’m not going anywhere.

p.s. the title is also a nod to the fact i’m off to see Tori Amos live on Monday night!!!!!

The Death in the Afternoon, an absinthe cocktail, consists of the rather unlikely combination of absinthe and Champagne, indeed many afficiandos proclaim the heresy of mixing the two. The drink hails from the mid-thirties and takes its name from a book by Ernest Hemingway.

According to “So Red The Nose”, a collection of drinks recipes submitted by prominent 1930s authors, the cocktail was invented by Hemingway himself and he accompanies his recipe with the story of its discovery. The drink was created whilst the author was in the company of three officers on-board the HMS Danae. The four of them had just spent several hours overboard, trying to refloat the fishing boat of a Captain Bra Saunders which had become stuck on a bank during a North-Westerly gale.

On a little historical side-note, the Danae was a light cruiser of the British Navy and was leased to the Polish Navy during World War II. Fans of Hemingway may be interested to note that Captain Willie Adams from his 1937 novel “To Have and Have Not” is thought to have been inspired by Bra Saunders. To have inspired both a cocktail and a Hemingway character surely is some achievement!

Champagne has often been considered a cure for seasickness and so it has been suggested that, during the gale, this is why Hemingway chose this ingredient for this drink. That said, stout and ginger ale have also both been considered potential cures for this ailment and, although I am partial to a drop of ginger, I don’t think that the combination of an anise-flavour spirit and dark beer is quite to my taste.

So does the Death in the Afternoon ruin both the Champagne and the absinthe or do both add up to something grander when mixed?
As with many aspects of drinking and flavour this is a matter of personal discretion. I very much enjoy the cocktail and have shared it with a few friends who find it does work well with other good sparkling wines; however, I would perhaps recommend reserving your bottle of Dom Pérignon, 1952 for another occasion.

a genius literary gift, a sublime vintage typewriter, a stiff drink & a fine moustache... hemingway had it all (note added by editor analiebe)

[Click here for a guide to Booze Revooze and the rating system used]

Yet another Booze Revooze Sneak Peek. Yes, once again the powers that drink sent a film to Yeman before the States.

Ramblings: The Imaginarium Of Terry Gilliam

Final Proof: 3½ Shots

You know how you go to that one bar that’s literally an underground club because it’s in a basement lost somewhere at the bottom of some building and you don’t go there a lot but when you do it’s because it’s the only tavern you know of where you can drink absinthe? You go there, you suckle the green fairy and you lay back and let the phantasms swoon inside you and some of them are dark and others are pleasant but you care more about the fact that you can let go of your mind and let your dreams do the thinking. Sure, sometimes the drink wears off and you feel the stupor laced ennui opium withdrawal but all you need to do is drink more and wait for the wormwood to worm its way back into your wood and set you free. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is kinda like that.

Absinthe

Terry Gilliam is the only man alive who knows how to film our dreams. And when i say “dreams”, i don’t mean all that “pie in the sky, hopes and aspirations” crap; no, i’m talking about the spectacle you see only after you close your eyes. Watching The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is like dreaming with your eyes open, most of the time. It would have been a better film had it stayed in story mode but  (here’s the opium withdrawal part) it strayed into story telling and every writer should know it’s not what you say but what you show.

Gilliam’s Imaginarium is a cocktale (fairytale + cocktail = cocktale; get your minds out of the gutter) about choices. Perhaps a little over simplified into the choice between good and evil, but then it is a cocktale and things tend to be simpler there. Heath Ledger symbolizes what is known in the Tarot as the Hanged Man, a card which represents someone at a crossroads or someone who refuses to choose. Then, reminiscent of Job (thanks Miss D!), there’s good and the Devil making bets on the choices they dole out to us poor humans. What i’m drunk driving at here, is that Gilliam has done more than present us with a pretty picture, but painted an elaborate fable that i’m afraid this simple drinker would need to see more than once to grasp completely.

Technically, especially the ‘mirror’ scenes, the movie is flawless. CGI allows Gilliam to go farther and faster than he ever went in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and The Imaginarium…, while suffering from Munchausen’s syndrome, is a huge visual success.

The actors are amazing as well. Christopher Plummer is totally convincing as Parnassus. Heath Ledger does his normal wonderful job in his role, but it’s a more traditional part than The Joker so he has less to work with. Lily Cole is the revelation of the movie for me, however, and not just because she’s a hot, 21-year-old top model playing a 16-year-old virgin. She portrays the good doctor’s daughter, Valentina (aka “Scrumpy”), with the perfect balance of innocence, rebellion and filial love. And then there’s Tom Waits. Tom is just the coolest, hands down. All other contenders just give up your ghosts ’cause Waits owns the crown. i could freakin’ listen to him read the warning labels on booze bottles for four hours and still not get tired of his voice. God Bless You, Tom (and The Devil, too).

As long as i’m talking about the actors, i’d like to drink a toast to Johnny Depp, who really came up to the bar to help Gilliam after Heath Ledger died, as well as Jude Law and Colin Farrell who did the same. The three actors (according to the Trivia section at IMDB ) “gave all the income they received for this movie to Heath Ledger’s daughter Matilda so that her economic future would be secure.” Another, bigger drink to the three lads.

Buzz Kills (Watch Out for Spoilers)

Sex: 2½ Shots

While there is no nudity (and don’t make me go into another PG-13 rant again), Lily Cole is simply sublime. Ok, she’s no Miss Demeanor but there’s only one of her and she’s mine so forget about it. Speaking of Miss D, though, there are three links to my beloved in this movie:

1. She’s hotter than Lily Cole
2. She has the same birthday as Lily Cole (well, same day, but the years are a little off)
3. She got her sleeve tattoo done by the same artist as Verne Troyer (who plays Percy here and was Mini Me in Austin Powers)

Ok, that’s enough, you’ve even been thinking about Miss Demeanor too long so stop it and let’s get back to how cute Lily Cole is. Like there’s this scene where she rolls her own cigarette with her own mouth and i swear to god, i’d drink scotch and razor blades through an anal I.V. for a month if i could smoke a cigarette rolled off that tongue.

There’s also a ‘topless’ scene where she sits on stage as Eve (and there’s that ‘choice’ theme popping up again), but Gilliam Titty Blocks her with her hair. ['Titty Blocking', for those of you new to Booze Revooze, is when an actress is naked but the director hides her boobs through different miss-directing techniques.] Here’s photo-not-graphic-enough proof:

A Perfect Example of Hair Titty Blocking

Yeah, i can so buy that she’s sixteen.

As for the rest of Lily:

God Bless the Web (and all who surf there).

Drink: 3 Shots

Actually, i was pleasantly surprised here.

A drunken lout in the opening scene falls through the mirror and into a lake of empties before being confronted with a choice. There’s a huge, daunting pyramid with 12 craggy ledges he needs to climb to reach the pinnacle, and a reference to ‘Twelve Steps’ is engraved in the stone. The other choice is Tom Waits telling him there’s free beer in his derby hat bar. Yeah, like you wouldn’t have made the same choice this guy does…

Parnassus drinks regularly from a fifth, looks like gin to me but it could be another white alcohol. He has to go on stage passed out drunk, he wakes up with hangovers and once he looks like he’s on his last legs when he’s pronounced dead—drunk.

Anton (Andrew Garfield), another player in the troupe, drinks out of a fifth as he sadly sits on the banks of the Thames. Heath Ledger’s character (Tony) comes over and joins him. Ahhh, i might even give up a cigarette made with Lily Cole spittle just to sit and have a drink with Heath. Ok, pro’lly not really, but i would give it a serious hard think.

You are missed, Heath.

Rock & Roll: 0 Shots

‘0′ as in n0ne.

Boring Technical Crap

Written by: Terry Gilliam & Charles McKeown

Directed by: Terry Gilliam

Starring

Heath Ledger – Tony

Tom Waits – Mr. Nick

Lily Cole – Valentina

Christopher Plummer – Dr. Parnassus

Verne ‘Mini Me’ Troyer – Percy

Bottom Line

Make the choice: See it. Plus, you’re giving money to Matilda Ledger if you do.

Green fairy. Wot a bizzum.