Archive for category ‘screeds’
Tuesday, June 5th, 2007
it's not ignorant ... it's journalistic! asking questions, that is.
* where were those reputedly gonzo alterra kids? you know, the ones who "make everything more fun" and bring that effusive dedication to latte art? this blog was among the very first to arrive at saturday's que-and-brew (as a public service ...
Posted in screeds, mad coffee jaunts | 10 Comments »
Saturday, June 2nd, 2007
the preamble is like limbo. horrid, dizzy, limb-tearing. that lethal cocktail of exhaustion and the jitters. synthetic evening jitters. waiting. tapping. polishing the drip tray, lining up the regiments of porcelain, holding out for that first ...
and then a torrential, blazing, deceptively casual crush of drink orders and questions about ...
Posted in screeds | No Comments »
Friday, June 1st, 2007
file it under "profound and meaningful differences between an amateur barista and a pro": the thing we've had to practice, leading up to tonight's 150-person bash, is using a hopper. yes, on the grinder.
know how people talk about the changing weight of beans in the hopper changing how the particles ...
Posted in screeds | No Comments »
Thursday, May 24th, 2007
why the elusive, surf-preferring, dreadlocked groove barista lemuel butler is now leaving mysterious, quasi-sensical missives in this blog's comments section we have no idea. it would appear, however, that we're not the only ones who thought turning him into a puppet was a good idea. funny stuff, this.
Posted in video, screeds | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007
what does one do with a neighbor who receives an obviously perishable coffee shipment meant for the person around the corner, but, instead of forwarding the cargo, scrawls "RETURN TO SENDER" on the label? with a monster sharpie? that looks like blood? dried blood? dried blood and espresso? or was ...
Posted in screeds | 2 Comments »
Thursday, May 10th, 2007
first it was "spirit"-ual cuppings. now it's barista-produced puppet shows. the groundbreaking coffee-evangelical ideas that CI readers continue to pull from the ether -- in the last 24 hours alone -- are nothing short of (sob) inspiring. shoulda sent 'em to long beach!
actually, 'twould seem to be more ...
Posted in happening elsewhere, screeds | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007
nate. the finger.
you know you're reading barista magazine, as opposed to, say, wine spectator, when your lede starts like this: "Just when you were wondering where you could find a truly multi-functional professional whipper, iSi North America has your answer ..."
on the other hand, the new, long-awaited stumptown piece was ...
Posted in screeds | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, April 25th, 2007
while we were talking about bubble bath and spooky ways that google connects us, what we were doing was, well ...
-- slurping loudly of no fewer than six origin gems in a very public place, where, as is the cypriot's wont, the descriptors "tomato vine" and "pickled eggplant" were recklessly ...
Posted in screeds | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 18th, 2007
things we say to the blogwife in the bubble bath: "if you put more of that oil in the water, the bubbles would last longer."
blogwife: "well, duh. more oil ... more bubbles."
blog (clearing throat): "not more bubbles. think surfactants! a larger relative amount of bubble-causing protein solution would mean a ...
Posted in screeds | 10 Comments »
Thursday, April 5th, 2007
... in which CI takes a brief but hearty turn as a slobbering fanboy!
truth is, this blog has always been a firmly mediocre latte artist, which, for blogging purposes, necessitated a dramatic foil who was lousier than us! and then we read schomer's light magazine feature.
tilt the cup farther, he ...
Posted in screeds | 8 Comments »
Thursday, March 8th, 2007
perspective-bearing text message from the bush-dwelling blogfather:
your mother and I sitting next to US ambassador at Gaya!
-- and, presumably, swilling premium third-world coffee beverages from the CI-supplied tote-a-spro! nuthin' like a fleeting contribution to this country's north african foreign policy ...
Posted in screeds | No Comments »
Saturday, March 3rd, 2007
one sometimes hopes to effect substantive cultural change by gifting to one's friend a good steaming pitcher, say, and the godfather's words on latte art.
alas:
the next thing solis jake needs: skillz. we're working on it for his birthday. because we just don't know how many diarrheal neutron cloud patterns we ...
Posted in screeds | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007
that's the thing about drip tray drain systems. they whisk away the water and leave all manner of reject solubles in the nether regions of the tray itself, like some thickening reptilian skin that surprises you when you lift the grate, and ... WHOA! full-on swampy caiman pelt.
did this blog ...
Posted in screeds | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007
this town's absurdly vain permutation of an apple-friendly computer establishment enfolded this blog's moribund flat-panel screen into its murky bowels nearly a month ago. a week for the diagnosis ("inverter, sir!"), more than two weeks for the repair ("it's on order, sir!") and a mere two minutes to tell me ...
Posted in screeds | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, December 27th, 2006
grasping for deep internal reasons why we repeatedly slog into indistinct intellectual rows -- take the "coffee-focus -or-barista-focus" kerfuffle -- this blog turns toward g.k. "good koffee" chesterton for sweeping philosophical dot connection:
... if a man would make his world large, he must be always making himself small. Even the ...
Posted in screeds | 3 Comments »
Friday, December 22nd, 2006
this difference between this blog and others ... they'd be more prone to fill the helpless silence with nothingness, whereas we give you reason to hope. also known as: spouting off. also: filler.
to be clear, this blog would never rifle through the blogsister's purse uninvited. the toddling blogdaughter, however, is ...
Posted in screeds | 3 Comments »
Sunday, December 17th, 2006
this blog's LCD screen -- dead as a latte of over-nuked milkfoam and embalming fluid, sweetened with ash paste and sprinkled in bone meal. meaning ... the mac techs hold this blog's fate in their uber-cool, prompt-averse hands.
blogging the befuddling local start-up, the african bush-friendly tote-a-spro and the fundamental responsibility ...
Posted in screeds | No Comments »
Saturday, November 18th, 2006
Posted in screeds | 2 Comments »
Friday, November 17th, 2006
nothing like mindless idle diversions from the eternal fount of inanity that is the bioluminescent cypriot:
find the man hidden in the coffee beans -- within three seconds!
if you did it in three seconds or less ... you are assuredly hyper-developed in the right brain. if it took up to a ...
Posted in screeds, bioluminescent cypriot | 6 Comments »
Monday, November 13th, 2006
reason for pause: the reincarnation of the heartily cupped, mainstream media appreciated, tome-inducing, stellar-as-espresso mesmeralda -- now only the price of a cheap cigar!
indeed, we're stunned there's still some left, particularly given the touching photo of this season's last beleaguered bag. quite selfishly, this blog delayed its own public ...
Posted in screeds | No Comments »
Monday, November 6th, 2006
"you can't show this to the scrutinizing and anonymous public," this blog said to itself. "the adroitness void, 'twould glare like microfoam."
which is, well, true. solis jake has now posted a photocast of last week's barista gig, and this blog is mortally chagrined to discover indelibly captured signs of ham-fisted ...
Posted in screeds | 3 Comments »
Sunday, November 5th, 2006
the tay-AH in platform shoes
it's true. the problem with non-conformists everywhere is that counter-establishmentarianism is nothing without an establishment baseline! this usually results in veiled establishment mimickry in the name of its complete opposite. and indeed, this is the essence of home junkie-ism.
an obvious, contrived set-up for this blog's token ...
Posted in screeds | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, November 1st, 2006
true, candied razor blades are a thing of the past. then again, your vac-packed brick of jack daniels-flavored gourmet coffee particles comes pretty doggone close, in terms of satanic cruelty!
the bursch-head gave us this, just for the holiday we hate most. some thanks, given the lengths we've just gone to ...
Posted in screeds | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, October 31st, 2006
this blog's miserly strategy for warding off trick-or-treaters: "greetings, inky patrons. care ye for a ghoulishly carved fruit of the branch, hand-wrested from yonder mountains and filled to sloshing with espresso blackness?"
by this point, this blog is usually speaking to itself. candy hunters, it would seem, aren't a likely crowd ...
Posted in screeds | No Comments »
Monday, October 30th, 2006
let's pen a strenuous, over-earnest paean to the working barista, shall we?
let's make it all about cracked, dry fingertips and indelible brown oil stains on the lower right side of the jeans buttock. let's marvel at people who stand for eight hours, pulling spot-on espresso shots and making endless conversation ...
Posted in screeds | 2 Comments »
Thursday, October 19th, 2006
we bet that people who work for mecca-proximal establishments don't know the joys of seizing the refrigerator pitcher designated Filtered Water, abdicating its contents into the maw of the isomac's tank and discovering that it had been recently replenished with ... orange juice.
Posted in screeds | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, October 18th, 2006
the intervening silent vacuities, it should be noted, have been filled of Trial by Espresso Machine Innard. meaning, basically, that to know the depths of this blog's flummoxed anguish you pretty much had to be there. will that keep us from attempting strident, curmudgeonly rehash? why, no!
clearly, one of the ...
Posted in screeds | No Comments »
Monday, October 16th, 2006
at long last, this blog's closest inanimate life partner sings again (audio link).
said the blogson: daddee, did you fix the tay-AH?
said the tay-AH fixer: i did. now say, "daddee, you are the fix-it wizard."
said the blogson: daddee, you are the fix-it lizard.
Posted in screeds | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, October 11th, 2006
linda asher, translating czech novelist milan kundera, quoting french novelist marcel proust in the new yorker:
Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer's work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen ...
Posted in screeds | 3 Comments »
Thursday, October 5th, 2006
mystical reflection of the day: there are ALL SORTS of ways a person can, with his body, inadvertently complete random electrical circuits while his arms are ensnared in the innards of an espresso machine and someone innocently approaches the on/off swit...
Posted in screeds | 4 Comments »
