This toaster is very good

Posted on March 20, 2013

Underline on good.

Steubenville media coverage: Mad

Posted on March 19, 2013

So first I saw this, no really click through and watch the video of women with degrees and important careers openly mourning two boys who premeditatedly raped their classmate because she broke up with their friend:

And I was all:

Then I saw Fox had not censored the name of the victim and I was all:

It could have been merely a sloppy accident, but really it’s the kind of mess you get when you seriously don’t care about how the victim is run through your particular sausage maker. Because your organization is not thinking of how to sensitively treat a story like this in the first place. There is no manual, no set of best practices when you do not care about the outcome for the victim of the crime. If crimes are just salacious grist for the mill of your 24 hour news cycle, you don’t have any second thought that your neglect of the basic shielding, will make the life of a 16 year old crime victim, quite a bit more miserable. She’s already getting death threats and other teens from her school calling her a whore on Twitter. No I won’t link to any of that because I’d need more angry self portraits to put after.

Then I saw this, which did help:

Thanks Comediva

Motor City Death Party

Posted on March 10, 2013

Unlike most of my old friends, I didn’t go to Motor City when they made their great memories there years and years ago. For long time I wasn’t going out, didn’t drink and was in a relationship with someone who had vastly different taste than myself. I still don’t go that much because it’s a bit of a drag to get to and home from on a weeknight when a lot of my friends do go. But all that aside, when Jodi is your bartender it is awesome and I always have a great time when I do go. My dearest old pal Lynne was djing and I couldn’t not go to at least one of the parties for the end of this particular world. I got off the bus at the Williamsburg bridge and missed the first train to Manhattan.

When I got into the bar, Lynne Von Pang had just arrived dressed for the part, to the enth degree.

Lynne played so many amazing records, many that I knew first through her when I went to her apartment as a high school student, when she was in college. It was like she was taking psychic requests from my mind and just playing them for me. I would hear certain songs and say “This is being played for me” and then dance, even if I was the only one.
Alexandra AKA Mighty Aphrodite made these beautiful cupcakes, but the photo I took of her was too bad to use. Instead here’s a sort of compellingly bad pic of me and the awesome Marti Wilkerson, AKA Marti Domination

Then a whole lot of this happened, and I did tip the gorgeous Anna Copa Cabana

And then Jodi joined her on the bar.

I took a tremendous number of bad photos of my friends as I drank more which I will leave on facebook where they can un-tag themselves instead of perpetrating that here in public. But this pic of Lynne, David and Mary who call themselves Team Blackout is pretty funny.

I danced my ass off, and when my date arrived we made out like teenagers, before leaving my phone died and I missed my call to go to an appointment with a friend the next day. Anyway, as with so many other places that have closed in NYC there will be nothing to replace it and we will all have to be content with our memories. Motor City burned it up, and soon it will be gone.

Rollei film backlog: Brooklyn

Posted on March 8, 2013

I haven’t been posting these lately because I’ve processed some of the most boring pictures of Venice ever. I knew those were the breaks with this whole thing, that I would send the film and the check and sometimes end up with a lot of disappointment. This is a roll from Brooklyn a few years back and that’s my friend margaret at another friends birthday picnic in prospect park. I want to say it’s five years ago or more. Anyway she looks cool. Here’s another of her, less successful.

And same picnic, Joren and Dahlia eating chips. Not genius or anything.

I wish this photo had been better somehow but I’m still intrigued by it enough to go back and shoot. I love looking at the latin baseball league play in Red Hook. Plus the food carts are supposed to be awesome.

A nice lady at the Tour de Brooklyn oh so many years ago.

Anyway I’m not super thrilled with these, but they aren’t just un-postable like some of the rest.

Aviation-a drink to make for folks who don’t know they love gin

Posted on February 23, 2013

My friend Julie Keane posted a picture of of an Aviation maybe a year ago and that began the major cocktail craze I’ve been on since then. Of course I’ve always made lovely drinks. And there is nothing more perfect than a gin and tonic in the summer. But I hadn’t been mixing drinks with gin at home. Bourbon, margaritas, mojitos, dark and stormy’s, and actually if I correct myself I was making some nice gin drinks with Aperol and grapefruit. But that picture of an Aviation and the ingredients set me off. And it wasn’t even blue! I bought some Luxardo maraschino liqueur and made one without the creme de violette, and it was delicious, but became determined to do it right. I haven’t let go of this thing since. It is perfect.

If you are unfamiliar with maraschino liqueur, you should get familiar with it because a lot of classic cocktails need it. It is made from both the pits and the flesh of the Marasca cherry, which is why it’s got a strong almond note to the taste. Creme de violette is just what it sounds like, a sweet liqueur made of violet flowers, possibly with other colorants added. There used to be none imported in the US, but now you can find the Rothman & Winter brand everywhere, though that’s about the only brand you can get in the US. Aviations are so popular I don’t even know why I’m posting this.

The original recipe for this drink sounds sour as hell, it’s got a lot of lemon, and very little maraschino or creme de violette to take the edge off that lemon. Here are the proportions I usually end up using, but this time I tried it with a meyer lemon and it was maybe a little sweet, I would back off on Luxardo and creme de violette. So this is how it went last night:

2oz Greenhook Gin (if you want a sweeter drink you can go 1.5oz)
1/2 oz lemon juice (in this case meyer, but that’s just a twist on it)
1/2 oz Luxardo maraschino liqueur
anywhere from 2 barspoons to 1/4 oz of Creme de Violette

The goal is enough of the violet stuff to get the drink blue, but not as purple as here and not gray which it will be if you use too little. I find when I’m making one drink, just under a 1/4 ounce works, or 3 barspoons. There is perhaps a little much in the drink shown here but it’s pretty.

The traditional garnish is a lemon peel. But you often see them with a beautiful red maraschino cherry in them. They look great that way and I love the way that a stem on cherry has a handle to take little bites. However those store bought cherries have a lot of cinnamon in them, and taste kind of like garbage. I actually bought Luxardo’s marasca cherries, which are delicious and black, but do not pretty up this drink. I think the solution will be to make my own stem on cocktail cherries when cherries are in season.

More inexpensive prints, now in slideshows….. wheeeeee

Posted on February 19, 2013

Prints start at $5 depending on the size.

St Louis Cemetery_gallery - Images by Amber Sexton

February prints_gallery - Images by Amber Sexton