Midas Touch

While most beer tasters would spend their time looking for just the right stout or brown ale, I have more....eclectic tastes.  That's why, last year while perusing the refrigerated beer cabinets at Campus Fine Wines in Providence, I did not hesitate to buy a $12 four pack of Midas Touch beer (technically "Golden Elixir"), brewed by the Dogfish Head Brewing Company.

"Made from an Ancient Mesopotamian Recipe!"  the label read.  It claimed to have tastes of barley, white Muscat grapes, honey and saffron - the last three of which I had never heard of being in a beer before.  

Well, the result was absolutely delicious.  It might be a stretch to call it beer though, on account of its sweet, fruity taste and extra-smooth consistency.  With an alcohol content of 9%, it lives somewhere in a nether-region between wine, mead, and beer.  It is not overwhelmingly sweet, however - the saffron in there somehow gives it a very subtle-but-important undertone of spice.



And what they say is true:  this beer was designed based on residue found in jars in the tomb of an ancient Mesopotamian King, who was probably the real-life version of the mythical Midas.  In fact, National Geographic did a report on Midas Touch, and its more recent, limited edition, ancient Chinese sibling beer.

Dogfish is crazy brewer based in Delaware with a motto of "off-centered stuff for off-centered people."  They have actual locations in other mid-Atlantic states, but for those of us up here in the Northeast, we have to be happy with finding Midas Touch in liquor stores.  However BLUE - the blues/jazz club on Congress Street in Portland, Maine - just began to feature Midas Touch on tap, which I must say is a heavenly experience.

PS - If you're a brewing junkie and care to know more precisely what goes into this magical libation, there's a list of ingredients with instructions for your own micro/home-brew version of Midas Touch here.

debris libris

I seem to be addicted to blogging.

I have now created another blog for the purpose of posting little scraps of writing that I write or say or think of in the course of a day - things that are interesting or cool or different but don't have much hope of having a life beyond their first utterance.

debris libris

I could probably post to it all by myself, but I would really like to get other minds involved, so if you'd like to contribute (by which I mean post your own interesting, cool, or different snippets of words whenever you feel like), let me know. With enough people and enough posting, this thing could become a big seething pit of inspiration or just plain old good thoughts.

I'm going to add a feed to it on the sidebar of this blog, watch out.

Good day.

Amadou & Mariam

Often when I put something on my Amazon.com wishlist, I have no idea whatsoever what it is - I just found it somewhere and the album cover art looked cool, or the title was clever, or the genre was something I like.

Such as the case with Amadou & Mariam's album Dimanche a Bamako (ahem, cover art), a musical duo from Mali. Up until this week, I had no idea who they really were or what any of their music sounded like.

I then came across one of their songs (Coulybali) on Last.fm here at the store, and immediately fell in love. Amadou & Mariam both sing and play, but most importantly they create. This is not your typical folksy African music, or your standard new-agey pseudo-African filler. They really make fun music, interesting music, that has roots not only in Mali's folk, but in American blues and jazz, Latin music, eastern instruments, and good ol' rock and roll.

Now if the story ended there, it would be pretty damn good, but I fired up Wikipedia discovered a stunning fact about Amadou & Mariam: they are both blind. In fact, they apparently are commonly known as "the blind couple from Mali." They met at Mali's Institute for the Young Blind (who knew that Mali had such a thing?) and from there started to make music.

Their website is terribly fun. If you go to the Radio section, as I now have done, you can sign up and listen to their music interspersed with music that has influenced them. For instance, I just heard my favorite Coulibaly followed by Nina Simone's Sinnerman and now Diana Ross is singing.

PS - Yay Mali! These are not the first musicians from Mali I've come across and liked: Salif Keita is awesome, too. You might know his song Madan which has been remixed and featured in a Buddha Bar album (V, Disc 1) and in Techhouse Dance Parties. Salif Keita is not blind, but he is an albino. AND Malian royalty. His nickname is "the Golden Voice of Africa."

Etsy

Right on the heels of becoming a Threadless crusader, I've found this:

Etsy.com is a very large online middleman for arts and crafts people. It's like eBay, but classier, focusing on storefronts rather than auctions. It's like CafePress, they don't produce anything themselves - their users do all the production - they just maintain the forum in which to sell.

So what you've got here is a big bunch of crafty crafts people who make awesome things out of (usually) their own home. Ah, the internets.

Want original watercolor paintings? They have them. Hand painted porcelain? Got it. How about owl-themed stationery? They seem to have a lot of this.

There's even people selling earrings that look like scissors, for god's sake.

The Etsy people were also smart enough to include what they call the Geolocator: a tool for finding sellers nearby. This makes it oh-so-easy to buy from local artists and craftsmen.

It always gives me a warm feeling inside whenever I support the little guy, and Etsy is this amazing beast made up of thousands of little guys. It is, in my opinion, the perfect place to get one-of-a-kind birthday gifts.

Really, what's with all the owls?

PS - Kadam, if you're reading, this one's for you.

PPS - Can someone tell me what this is about?

Looking for Contributors

In an effort to baloon this nifty little blog of interesting things to sizes unknown, I hereby put out the call for contributors. If there's anyone out there who's listening and would like to join me in posting about interesting, pretty, or cool things, please let me know! Weekly postings, which seems to be my current frequency, would be perfect. Anyone? Anyone? Beuller?

Impending Cocktails

Let's see how many of you read this blog: on this upcoming Monday night, at around 8pm, I will be hosting a cocktail party at my house. Anyone who attends as a result of this blog and mentions it gets a free drink.

You see, the key to the success of this cocktail party is about two pounds of glossy paper called The Ultimate Bar Book by Mittie Hellmich. This little compendium of cocktails is not just a recipe book - oh no - it is a full fledged education in alcohol. Reading it, I feel like I should have filled out a FAFSA to pay off the tuition.

Organized by main ingredient, the Book systematically conquers one major alcoholic establishment after another. Gin, Rum, Tequila, Vodka - they are disected, clarified, and explained in copious detail like exotic butterflies plucked out of the air by an overzealous 19th century encyclopedist.

Every recipe - and there are a lot of them - is accompanied by a snipet of back-story: where the drink originated, its evolution, and tricks for making it perfect. The Book actually has an unusually large collection of old drinks, harkoning back to the turn of the century and the 1920's especially. "Bring these drinks back into vogue!" it cries from its shiny pages.

In addition to information about the liquids themselves, the Book provides accompanying instructions on the subject of equipment, the hardware of drinking. In an easy and friendly way, it provides not only a detailed list of aparati required to mix drinks, but gives a profile mug-shot of the appropriate glass for every single drink.

The Ultimate Bar Book is a license to mix. It empowers any old DIY-obsessed schmo to go absolutely nuts in a pursuit of fine beverages. I am one such schmo, and I intend to offer lavish libations at the altar of DIY this Monday at 8.

Threadless!

If you don't know Threadless t-shirts, then - I'm sorry - you've been living in a cave for the last five years. Otherwise, how could you have missed the adoringly artistic and witty internet-age pheonomenon that is Threadless??

Okay, so maybe you don't know Threadless. Sucks for you. But I, being magnanimous, will explain what you've missed:

Threadless makes t-shirts, but they don't design their t-shirts. Nay, they invite you, "the people", to draw or photoshop something and send it in. Then they take those submissions and post them online, letting "the people" (again) to score them.

Once this is done, they take the cream of the cream of the crop and print 'em up. They don't print many, and they usually only print designs once - so when they're gone, they're gone. (There are some exceptions, for the especially awesome.)

It's brilliant. The people-powered design strategy allows for some really amazing artsits and clever graphic designers to get their stunning work produced, and keeps all the styles right on the button of hip. Plus, with the constant input of new designs and the limited runs, they create an awesome "limited edition" feeling - the shirt you're wearing, aside from being beautiful and/or witty as hell, is one of only a tiny number that exist or will ever exist. It's almost one-of-a-kind.

For whatever reason, Threadless designs now have a certain character, making them all identifiably Threadless. What I mean by this is that most shirts are either a) intelligently chuckle-inducing, b) sublime, or c) downright bizarre. Sometimes, they're a combination of all three. The artsists love to play with words (the Community...ahem...party) and they love to play with visual puns and sneaky easter eggs.

I just bought a bunch of shirts. The prices are reasonable ($15-17, hoodies are more expensive). The shirts themselves are quality, and the concept is - have I mentioned it? - brilliant. So, I strongly suggest you head over and peep the catalog for an overload of awesomeness.