Naked City - Volume 1 Issue 2 - (Page 15)

>tonic It’s New Year’s Eve, and the party is out of control. I don’t mean that in the sense of “it’s really fun,” although it has its moments. I mean that after about 11:00, we stop having any power to direct nakedcity it. It becomes a force unto itself. My friend Jimmy and his roommates have the kind of apartment that college kids always have in movies, only theirs is in Manhattan, Kan. I don’t know what pushes this party over the edge. It could be the open bar. Their friend Dan bartends, and they’ve spent $125 on mixers alone. So it could have been the sheer amount of liquor. But maybe it really is the absinthe. 15 nakedcitymag.com > volume 1 issue 2 12:00 The ball drops outside. Jimmy’s balcony overlooks it, which is why he has this party. Everybody rushes outside to scream numbers and drink champagne. There are so many people this year, they can’t all get outside. I watch the fireworks through a plate-glass window. There are two brands of genuine absinthe now being legally distributed in the U.S. Most Americans who think they’ve had absinthe have had some awful Czech imitation—a “Bohemian-style absinth” [sic]. These usually bear no resemblance to traditional absinthe. They’re typically devoid of anise and fennel, with excessive amounts of wormwood and artificial coloring mixed in after distillation. The real absinthe ritual involves no fire. A dose of absinthe (1.5 oz.) is poured into a glass. A sugar cube on an absinthe spoon is placed on top of the glass. Four to five ounces of ice-cold water is then dribbled slowly over the cube until it melts. The absinthe starts out chartreuse and clear as a jewel. As the water drips into the absinthe, it “louches” clouds form like cream in coffee, turning it an opaque gray-green. The sugar is optional, but drinking absinthe without the water is just stupid; it’s 124 proof. >continued on page 43 11:20 There’s dancing upstairs by the stereo. Music is playing off a laptop. Without warning, some asshole grabs it and breaks it in half. As he runs with it to a bathroom, the cords rip out. The music stops. A minute later he’s drunkenly hurrying down the stairs, across the floor and out the entrance. No one downstairs realizes they should stop him until it’s too late. In the bathroom, we find the laptop smeared with soap on a pile of laundry in the closet. It’s been thrown in the toilet. No one knows who this yahoo is. absinthe written by > PhilliP andrew longman Absinthe, for those of you who live in a cave or maybe Wellington, is the stuff of romantics. The Green Fairy herself is an extraordinarily strong herbal spirit, distilled with green anise, grand wormwood and fennel. At the turn of the century in Europe and New Orleans, it was the drink of artists, writers and the working class. A favorite of Wilde, Hemingway and Van Gogh. http://nakedcitymag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Naked City - Volume 1 Issue 2

Naked City - Volume 1 Issue 2 Contents Mí Casa - Calling Out The Senseless Make Me Blush - Natural Beauty Tonic - Absinthe Mí Casa - First Mortgage Meal Juiced - Interface-to-Face Uncommon Threads - 9 ½ Hours Muse - Chump Love Noise - Morland & Arbuckle Spin - It Never Came Here: Shortbus Noise - Hip to the Lip Noise - Murder By Death Muse - Remain in Light Street - Bar Beat

Naked City - Volume 1 Issue 2

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