“What stops you killing yourself when you’re intoxicated out of your mind is the thought that once you’re dead you won’t be able to drink any more.” – Marguerite Duras
The Vodka Gimlet is a pretty, light green thing for the holiday season. Alone again at one of my favorite haunts. Christmas music plays – the songs always so sad for some reason. Contemplative and filled with longing – for what? For faith, for Christ, for human failings. A lost childhood, a lost lover, a lost way.
The bartender sets up, rubbing a lime around the rim of a chilled martini glass. He shakes the drink in the silver mixer – fresh lime juice and Ketel One – chilling it into its own winter wonderland – mottled citrus green perfection, dappled with slivers of ice. It is a glorious entity, the cocktail – and to the regal horn revelry of ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ I raise my glass, saluting the season and the reason. The heart – warm and incomprehendingly satiated at last – sends up a murmur of thanks and joy as the trumpets peel. Let us adore him indeed.
{‘FireWater’ is a project from 2009 that has gone unposted until now.}
[See also Scene 1: Bourbon Street, New Orleans
Scene 2: College Ave, Ithaca, NY
Scene 3: Union Square, San Francisco
Scene 4: Boston & Provincetown
Scene 5: Braddock Park, Boston, MA
Scene 6: Times Square, New York
Scene 7: Tapas & Tinis, Ogunquit, Maine
and Scene 8: Hollywood Brown Derby, Albany, NY.]
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