Bad Martini Anxiety Dream

Last night I dreamed that one of my supervisors at work, Dr. V, announced she was going to treat the 'team' to a martini at a fancy hotel bar to celebrate finishing a project. I'm not that much into work socializing, but I went along with it, since I'm not the type to turn down a good free martini. I invited Beebo and a couple of other people along, figuring I could get my drink and then wander off to their table hang out with them.

After work, we get to the lounge, which is a large, fancy old-fashioned room like this photo:

(Copley Plaza Oak Bar, Boston)

and I find that, contrary to my expectations, we're not going to sit down in the swank chairs and wait for the cocktail waitress to come around and take our orders. Instead, in one corner of the room there has been set up a long fold-out event table with a bunch of drink fixings set out on it. It's got a couple of 1.75 liter plastic bottles of inexpensive domestic gin and vodka, a couple of lemons, and a jar of small olives, like what you'd find at a drug store's food section. This is where our celebratory martinis are coming from, not from the real bar. And to make matters worse, the mixologist will be Dr. V! One thing I don't really like is an amateur martini, and I have no faith that the doctor can make a competent one.

I'm looking around, trying to figure out if I can just slip over to my friends' table and order a real drink, but Dr. V says "Hey [Foulard], come over here if you want your martini!", and I have to comply. I request my normal gin up with a twist, and look back a moment later to see that a disturbing 'dirty martini' is being made. It's a cocktail glass stuffed with mashed-up bits of olive. "You've got to let it steep" Dr. V says, but I manage to correct her and then get a passable martini of the kind I requested, and eventually I drift over to Beebo & Co.

I think this dream is definitely influenced by my discomfort at work-related events, since they tend to be dreary (with a few exceptions), and my dislike of having to stand in line to get served. Most of the time I'd rather pay more to have a good experience. As far as martinis go, I can make one at home that's as good or better than most places, so I'm very picky.

Foulard loves...

..old European grooming products that haven't changed their packaging since the 1970s. They're usually pretty good, are relatively inexpensive, and give me that "George Lazenby as 007" feeling.

Louie and Michael, the repetitive racers

On this season of The Amazing Race, there are very few contestants that I actually like. Other than 'The Cowboys', my feelings range from indifference to active dislike--which is fine, because I don't care as much about who wins. Two contestants who have been working their way over from neutrality to hostility for me are Michael and Louie, the police detectives from Providence, R.I. In addition to their less-jovial-than-advertised personalities, I have found Michael's limited repertoire of catchphrases extremely grating. Here's a summary:

Louie, as you can see, is not the big talker of the duo. You could play a drinking game based upon waiting for one of Michael's little phrases--as Beebo pointed out, it's like waiting for the expressions 'fairy tale', 'princess' and 'falling in love' on The Bachelor.

Feel the Quality

Double Dutch

A snappy lil' song from the late Malcom McClaren.

Cartoon styles of the decades

I was thinking this morning of how various styles of cartoon art go in and out of style--I'm not talking about things like comic books and comic strips, but the kind of art that gets used for magazine and album covers, and for illustrations in publications like the New York Times. For instance, when I was a kid in the seventies, the art of Seymour Chwast and his imitators was everywhere.

Chwast is still working. It's a style that seemed very clever, but got a little old after too much repetition.

The work of Gary Panter is stuck in my head as firmly identified with the 80s. Panter's background was in the LA punk scene of the late 70s, but he's best known for his work designing for Pee-Wee's Playhouse:

He's also responsible for some well-known album covers:

This is a very Eighties idea of 'hip' and edgy:

The work of Dan Clowes is, to me, very very early nineties, probably because that's when I was really into it. After working on his own comics and commissions for various 'alternative' media,

he was one of the artists (along with Charles Burns) used for the ill-fated "slacker" OK Soda campaign:

Now he's the type of artist you see more regularly in The New Yorker, like Panter and Chwast.


I'm not sure who a recognizably identifiable 2000-2010 cartoonist would be--maybe I wasn't paying attention, or I might need more time to look back to figure it out. My favorite artist now is Michael Kupperman, who has been around a long time. Maybe he's it? What do YOU think?

Homer's four greatest inventions