Saturday, December 15, 2012
Coca Cola and Cupcakes
After hours at Eileen Fisher.
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The best Coke is from Mexico. This is Dara at Sam's Pizzeria holding a bottle of Mexican Coca Cola. (Thanks for agreeing to the photo, Dara.) I'm not a big soda drinker, but when I do indulge in the classic pizza and coke combo, I now prefer Sam's Coke of choice bottled in Mexico using cane sugar instead of corn syrup for sweetness. My mom used to buy six packs of the green glass 6.5 oz. bottles in the '70s and the promise of one gave me all the motivation I needed to mow the lawn. When I tasted the Mexican Coke for the first time recently, a wave of nostalgia washed over me. It was the real thing.
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The Thorne's Market Photo Booth is back in order. The only other one I know of in the area is in Faces right across the street. That thin black and white strip of 4 photos will always be an iconic (refrigerator) art form. They've been usurped by digital cameras which provide immediate (overrated) gratification but I remember when they used to an important part of the dating ritual. How many of us posed with someone on a first or second date and look at the photos now years later and see some combination of hope, fear, and remarkably smooth and tanned skin? If you both agreed to get in the photo booth, it was an early yes vote for the relationship. Or at least assurance that you were at least willing to sit on each others' laps. Usually a good sign. The forced proximity was an alibi for intimacy. I still smell pheromones and photo chemicals when I think about Sandy L. and me in a photo booth after seeing E.T. at the mall. Waiting together for the photo was a sneak preview and a dress rehearsal for our togetherness. It taught us patience and required that we stand there together and ponder what we had just committed to film and to each other, while behind the peely walnut grain papered photo booth wall, the developer, stop bath, and fixer combined, reflecting our own chemistry. Waiting too long. Was it broken? Was it a sign? But then PLUNK. Immortalized x 4 regardless of what was to come.
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Before
After!
The Queen Bee Cupcakery on the 2nd Floor of Thorne's Market is now a reality. But they aren't the only game in town. There's Woodstar of course and The Haymarket to name just two others who openly deal cupcakes. This morning I also kept passing people on the sidewalk eating cupcakes and soon thereafter spotted the SugarBaker's Cupcake Truck parked out in front of Jake's. Cupcakes are a manageable, portable size for enjoying while also engaged in bipedal locomotion and there's something about eating a cupcake in the open air that just feels right.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Assvertising
In Northampton, and probably elsewhere, people will go out in public wearing clothes that were really meant to stay in the environs of the home and one's own family. Perhaps because downtown really can be a very comforting place and people often do feel like they're at home. Main Street is really just the hallway outside their bedroom on the way to the kitchen to get coffee...or a bag of wine.
Sadly, Ultra Gal is folding up their sparkly gown and calling it a day. Who will be FOE's new downstairs neighbor? Maybe they'll move downstairs themselves? The rent must be much more reasonable where they are but that one flight of stairs will deter a huge percentage of the retail "Walking Dead" just as being on a side street does. I wonder which factor is the bigger deterrent to casual customers, the 2nd floor or the side street?
The Chris Gentes view of Henry's Book Store.
The actual Henry's Book Store, opposite view.
Keith, Mick, Pete, Neil, Leonard.
Judy, Carole, Shawn, (Robert &) Patti, Patti.
Musicians write autobiographies but do authors and poets make albums?
Whose album would you like to hear?
Sylvia Plath? John Updike?
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Flyer Frenzy! Things to do of interest and intrigue discovered on selected posters in Northampton.
Smith
College MFAS Dance Event: Everything's all already alright is this
Thursay December 13th at 7PM at Scott Dance Studio in the Gym. This
annual fall performance will feature new works by first year MFA
candidates: Shaina Cantino, Sara Coffin, Safi Harriott and Mat Elder.
It’s always a crowd-pleasing event with limited seating so plan to
arrive early. Tickets: $1.00. Reservations are highly
recommended due to limited seating, to reserve please contact:
gradeventtx@gmail.com.
Amherst Winter Farmers Market every Saturday through March (except 1/19) 10AM-2PM at Amherst Regional Middle School 170 Chestnut Street
Amherst Winter Farmers Market every Saturday through March (except 1/19) 10AM-2PM at Amherst Regional Middle School 170 Chestnut Street
Mike is a reputable, friendly guy and a great drummer. But you need reading glasses to see the phone number on his tear tags so I will save you aspiring skins-men and women the eye strain: 413-348-1841 or MikeMDrums@gmail.com.
This landscaping service exhibits a lot of personality and lists a San Francisco area code. Given that it's time to shovel snow, not mow, I'm not really sure what to say here but thought it was worth sharing if only for its graphic impact.
And another event and gallery worth knowing about: (Click FOE logo for more)
A night of Q&A with Bwana Spoons
FOE hosts their first ever crazy fun experimental Q & A w Bwana SpoonsBwana Spoons: High Party
December 14-January 6. Opening reception Friday, December 14, 6-9pm.
Portland, OR artist and wizard Bwana Spoons leaves his Grass Hut and heads East to visit FOE’s tree house in the happy valley.
We Are Having A Heavenly Time: Columbia Bicycles of Westfield
Salesmen in front of the Hartford offices with Chainless bikes.
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Thursday, July 26, 2012
Copper Blue 20 Years On
Twenty years ago, this album changed my life, literally. In 1991 Bob Mould
visited the Rykodisc offices on Pickering Wharf in Salem, Mass. with a
DAT in his pocket. The twelve of us that comprised the label's East
Coast headquarters gathered around John Hammond's
office with Bob and sat in stunned silence for 45 minutes as we
listened to Sugar's "Copper Blue" from start to finish. I had
spontaneous tears in my eyes as the wrenchingly beautiful opening track
"The Act We Act" dramatically changed octaves halfway through, like
someone making a passionate argument grabbing your shoulders and
pulling you even closer. When it was done, we knew we'd heard a
masterpiece of rock. We felt a sense of purpose as young music lovers
who were amazingly in a job where we would get to take this work of
musical art to the world. It sounds overstated, right? But this was
real. I was 28. "Jaded" wasn't in my vocabulary. For most of 1992 I
quarterbacked a radio promo team that took the album to #1 on the
alternative charts. I accompanied Sugar on the initial dates of their
first tour. Bob, Dave Barbe and Malcolm Travis played loud, hard, and
precisely, and no one who was at those shows doesn't rank them among
their top lifetime concerts. I drove Bob around Los Angeles, San
Francisco, and Seattle visiting the trades and radio stations. HITS,
Album Network, Gavin, KROQ, Live 105. In LA I was overwhelmed and turned
the wheel of the rental car over to Bob who knew the sprawling city I
had never even visited inside out. Ironically, thanks to Bob, I would
become an LA resident a year later. In February of 1993 in San Francisco
I won the Gavin Award for "Independent Label Promotion Director of the
Year" largely based on Copper Blue's epic run. A job offer from Rhino
Records in Santa Monica followed. At 30 I moved to West Hollywood and
kicked off an eight year stretch of life that would be hard to match for
fun, satisfaction, and growth. Now back in Northampton, as I listen to
Copper Blue, it sounds as fresh and new as ever and my eyes still tear
up during The Act We Act. My path with Bob crossed again earlier this
year when he played a solo show at the Iron Horse and we both shook our
(grayer and balder) heads that it was 20 years ago. I still love
finding music lovers that haven't heard Copper Blue and turning them on.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
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