The Importance of Place

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In “A Clean Well-Lighted Place”

What’s your favorite place to hang out? Is it a café, a coffee shop, or a corner bar? Regardless of your libation of choice it is important to have a place that you feel comfortable spending time at. Ernest Hemingway’s short story “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” stresses the importance of having a place to spend your personal time.

“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” is a study of the three stages of life through an existential lens. You’ll get no argument or questions from me regarding that analysis of the story. But Hemingway also presents the reader with an explicit message regarding the importance of having a place one can feel comfortable spending time at that is not his home. One of the characters, an older waiter says, “…there may be someone who needs the café.” This comment follows an exchange between two waiters who agree that drinking a bottle of alcohol at home is not the same as drinking at a café. There is some special quality the cafe can offer that home cannot. The story ends with the older waiter heading home after failing to find a place that that meets his requirements of clean and pleasant.

The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway’s story shows us the importance of these special places in our lives (mine is a local bar). The implication is that sometimes a home away from home, a special place or hang out, is necessary for any number of personal reasons. We may outgrow security blankets but we still look for comfort, and that comfort can come in finding a special place to hang out, to call our own (even if we share it with others).

“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” is an existential study of growing old if you use Hemingway’s iceberg theory. Sometimes you just need forget about what’s under the water and look at the iceberg itself and see what is explicitly conveyed in a story. Whether it is a café, a coffee shop, or a corner bar there is something comforting about having your own place to hang out. When you are drinking that next cup of coffee or pint of stout think about Hemingway’s idea of the importance of a clean and pleasant place.

-K-

“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” from The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway

Hip Flasks and Other Accessories

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A Drinking Man’s EDC

The one hundredth anniversary of the start of Prohibition is in a couple days (January 17th, 1920). Some consider it the starting pistol for our nation sprinting head first and hell bent into the Roaring 20s. In honor of speak easies, bootleg whiskey, hip flasks, and flappers I thought I would share my Drinking Man’s EDC (that’s ‘Every Day Carry” for those of you not in the tactical know).

Drinking Man's EDC #4 (D5300-editj22.82)
“A Drinking Man’s EDC”

As I’ve said before, if you are going to do any serious drinking then you should be serious about drinking. My EDC isn’t anything extraordinary, but it currently addresses my drinking lifestyle. What’s in your Drinking Man’s EDC?

-K-

The Point of “Pointless Drinking”

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Is the Point

Any sort of serious drinking requires some serious thought about drinking. Amy LaVere’s “Pointless Drinking” shows us that drinking without a point is to end up in a world of hurt when you get to the bottom of the bottle. Whether you have a glass in hand or hip flask in pocket be deliberate in both choice of drink and point for drinking.

The narrator of Ms. LaVere’s song stumbles from bar to bar and drink to drink without any point or purpose. Without any point for drinking the narrator has nothing but the thing she doesn’t need (or want) and that is another drink.

Anchors and Anvils Album Cover
Anchors and Anvils by Amy LaVere

So what is LaVere’s eternal barfly, that aged drinker at the end of the bar willing to dispense a bit of 80 proof wisdom, telling us? Is “Pointless Drinking” meant to be some sort of cautionary tale, a prohibitionist’s treatise against the evils of alcohol? No, but there is some sound advice in our narrator’s tale, some choice wisdom that can be gleaned from the bottoms of those empty glasses. It is not alcohol that should be avoided. What should be avoided is poor choices, and alcohol and poor choices (like cheap and Walmart) tend to go together. Have a point to your drinking before the bartender pours that first shot. Make the choice to know what you want from your alcohol and know what you are in for when the bartender makes last call.

I did my share of pointless drinking in years past. I’m older and wiser (more old than wise) nowadays. I make certain there is a point to each pour and pint, but I can’t say it any better that Amy LaVere’s “Pointless Drinking.” Give Anchors and Anvils a listen and you tell me.

-K-

Anchors and Anvils (2007) Amy Lavere.

Authors on Alcohol

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Five Views of Drinking and Alcohol

  • “Civilization begins with distillation.” -William Faulkner-
  • “Good people drink good beer.” -Hunter S. Thompson-
  • “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.” -Dorothy Parker-
Beer and Poetry (Optio-edit)
“Beer and Poetry”
  • “There is no bad whisky.  There are only some whiskeys that aren’t as good as others.” -Raymond Chandler-
  • “The light music of whisky falling into glasses made an agreeable interlude.” -James Joyce-

-K-

 

 

Another Year, Another Round

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Reviewing a Year of Beer

New Year’s Eve is often a time of reflections and resolutions. I am a proponent of self-reflection and self-improvement, but too critical a view of one’s self and unrealistic goals are unhealthy. It’s important to take a long view of the year passes without being too critical of yourself and to set realistic goals for the New Year. I like to spend a moment on New Year’s Eve reviewing my year of beer. Digging through the stratum of bottle caps provides me with a picture of what the previous year was like (it’s a mini archeological dig into my own life).

Stratum #1 (D5300-editj22.78)
“A Year of Beer”

There were days of cheap beer when the check lacked overtime. There were many days of quality craft beers when OT was flush, or maybe I just wanted to reward myself for a Wednesday well done. Some of the caps are from gifts and others are from beers brought back from microbrewery trips. Some of the caps are reminders of special events that called for good beer, like watching episode one of The Mandalorian with my bruva, -J-. The caps reflect the seasons. There are the golden ales of spring and summer, and the stouts of fall and winter. Prufrock may have measured his life in teaspoons, my days are measured with beer caps (and assorted empty whiskey bottles but that’s a different post),

So here’s to the 2019’s year of beer and to another round for 2020. I hope you weren’t too critical of yourself in 2019 and that you have reasonable goals for 2020. There was no better way for me to start 2020 than with “The Champagne of Beers.” Yes, I could have bought a more expensive beer to crack open at midnight (I’ve been banking the OT) but there is no beer that better reflects where I come from, who I am, and what I want for 2020 more than “The High Life.”

-K-

Snow Forts and King of the Hill

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and How The Empire Strikes Back Brought the Two Together

Reviews, criticisms, predictions, and all sort of monologues, dialogues, and ramblings crowd the interweb these days regarding Star Wars. I’m not here to add to the chaff. Nope, I just want to scribble a few lines about the Battle of Hoth and how it inspired a bunch of grade school kids.

I’d ask you to go watch The Empire Strikes Back if you haven’t seen it, but I figure you already have if you’ve read this far. Your view of Star Wars may have changed over the course of last couple/few movies (I know mine has), but you have to acknowledge that the Battle of Hoth scene was, and still is, pretty freakin’ amazing (especially if you saw it for the first time in 1980 like me). I could go into detail about how well the scene was shot, the cinematography, the use of miniatures, and so forth but let’s just agree that pretty freakin’ amazing is a fair and just critical analysis. That Battle of Hoth and Han getting the carbonite nap are the two scenes that I distinctly remember near forty years later. I also remember spending an entire winter playing king of the hill many days after school on a series of snow forts we built on piles of snow the plows pushed to one corner of the school’s playground.

I have been entertained, informed, and inspired by many movies, but only one has given me reason to chuck somebody off a snow fort while making sounds like a tauntaun. Sometimes I think back to that winter of snow forts and king of the hill, and I feel sorry for the Star Wars fans that didn’t have the opportunity to relive the Battle of Hoth.

-K-