These are the words, images, and beers that inspired the GBH Collective this week. Drinking alone just got better, because now you're drinking with all of us.
READ.// "Danae jumped between the attackers and me, hugging me, her back towards them, her hands covering the top of my head. She literally turned herself into a human shield." What reads like a scene from some medieval-style fantasy novel is actually a climax in a book I never thought I'd find interesting. The narrator is Yanis Varoufakis, former finance minister of Greece. In this scene he is out for dinner with his wife Danae and a friend in Athens when they’re attacked by anarchists. What makes his book, Adults in the Room, really worth reading, though, is that he manages to make seemingly dry subjects—like economic policies and national budgets—so riveting that even a numbers hater like me is hooked. Also, it made me, a firm believer in the European idea, see the European Union with different eyes. And he obviously has the most badass wife.
LOOK.// Danish-Icelandic visual artist Ólafur Elíasson is currently holding an exhibition in Zurich's Kunsthaus, for which he created a couple of new pieces. This was the first time I had seen Elíasson's work, and it is mesmerizing. "Escaped Light Landscape" feels like watching a supernova in space; "Symbiotic Seeing" sends the viewer tripping into an artsy, ’90s, after-hours club chill-out zone; and "Algae Window" looks like a portal to another world. Very impressive.
DRINK.// Brasserie BFM’s Le Brut de Bon-Chien
Brasserie BFM, which hails from the French-speaking part of Switzerland, is known for its sours, most of which age very well. Its 2017 Le Brut de Bon-Chien blew my socks off with its excellent balance of sweet and sour and Champagne-like carbonation. I drank it after helping a friend build a cupboard, and it was just the sweet reward you want to treat yourself to after a bit of honest labor.
READ.// "NASCAR and country music, two specifically American pursuits. One a homegrown spectacle of the kind in which this country specializes, and the other, a homegrown folk-art form, product of a hundred different influences, not all of them good ones." Charles Pierce has never hidden his political persuasion, but let him convince you how this election season is about "a search for the genuine," whatever that might mean.
LOOK.// OK. How about the lighter side of politics? In the New York Times, meerkats, ants, and other animals practice their own forms of democracy.
DRINK.// SweetWater Brewing Company’s Hydroponics SoMango Hard Seltzer
This Georgia brewery is going all-in with cannabis-inspired products lately, and its new hard seltzer is no exception. While the fruit flavor may remind you of other boozy waters, the aroma of this "terpene infused" beverage is about as dank as a hard seltzer may ever get.
READ.// "Given the current political climate, it is difficult to imagine a time when speaking out against a leader and their decisions would spark a fire as blazing as the album burnings, boycotts, and banishment that met the Dixie Chicks back on their side of the pond." Writing for American Songwriter, Madeline Crone reminds us of the backlash the country ensemble faced in 2003. Now, 17 years later, the rebellious trio are back louder than ever.
LOOK.// The Dixie Chicks’ new music video, for “Gaslighter,” directed by Seanne Farmer, brings in three minutes and 48 seconds of feisty lyrics, vintage Hollywood clips, military outfits, and bright pink and yellow graphics to let the world know once again, they refuse to shut up and sing. And I, for one, can't stop dancing to this barn-burner ballad.
DRINK.// Gran Ducato's Frambozchella
My boyfriend and I were celebrating his birthday at the Italian restaurant Forza Storico in Atlanta’s Westside Provision District in early January. We spent most of the meal warming up over red wine and fresh pasta. The celebratory night rounded off with a slice of the burnt ricotta pie and a bottle of Frambozchella. It's a tart, refreshing raspberry sour that, when paired with the pie, ushered in a powerful combo of flavors. It has been three months since I've had the Frambozchella, and like the new Dixie Chicks song, I still can't get over the punch it packs.
Curated by The GBH Collective
