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.// "In true John Prine fashion, he began crafting the narrative of life without John Prine, long before he left us." This touching piece by Madeline Crone for American Songwriter digs deeper into "When I Get To Heaven,” the last song on John Prine's last album. Kazoos, grandkids running around, and heavyweight country artists playing along all show up on this track, which tells you more about how to keep on living than how to die.
LOOK.// To accompany your reading, take a gander at this charming animated video for "When I Get To Heaven.” Know that every grunt and gravel in Prine’s voice probably came with a wry smile. It's hard to tell at times if he's laughing at what was happening in the room around him or at the clever lyrics that seemed to fall out of his head at will.
DRINK.// Handsome Johnny
A Handsome Johnny is what John Prine refers to in the chorus of "When I Get To Heaven": a vodka and ginger ale, or more specifically, Smirnoff Vodka and diet ginger ale. I hope to all that is good and holy that John Prine is drinking a tall one and smoking that nine-mile cigarette up in heaven right now. Rest easy, Mr. Prine.
READ.// “Jerry is giving us the blueprint for his coffee-acquiring system, which is that he goes to the deli at night, buys a bunch of individual cups of coffee, comes home, stores them in his fridge, takes them out the next morning, and pours them into a 7-Eleven Big Gulp cup and drinks it through a metal straw.” Dan Ozzi writes about New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz and his, um, unique coffee habit.
LOOK.// Since they can't make hot dogs, the staff of the infamous Chicago hot dog stand The Wiener's Circle are instead "reporting" the news.
DRINK.// Solemn Oath Brewery’s Dank Lloyd Wright Grape Ape IPA
Right when this whole shelter-in-place business started, I headed to my local brewery, Solemn Oath Brewery, to stock up. And then a couple days later, it released Dank Lloyd Wright Grape Ape—a Hazy IPA with juice from Pinot Noir grapes. So I had to head back and pick some up. It's soft, grapey, citrusy, and absolutely worth breaking quarantine to acquire.
READ.// "We are in uncharted waters: the industry has never seen this before, and all signs point to the likelihood that restaurants as we know them aren’t coming back for a while," writes Jonathan Nunn in The Guardian. In his op-ed, he discusses the ways in which restaurants have adapted to lockdown, and ponders what a post-COVID food world might look like. We all know that life simply won't be going “back to normal,” but quite how different everything will be remains uncertain.
LOOK.// Everyone on God's green earth has, at some point, sat next to a wanky businessman on some form of public transport. Hell, some of you might even have *been* a wanky businessman on public transport at some point. Beloved British comedian Bob Mortimer has, over the past several months, created a much-adored character that perfectly encapsulates the sneering foppishness of these foolish Julians: Train Guy. Have a cappachoochoo on me x
DRINK.// Donzoko Brewing Company’s Northern Helles
If there's one thing that this period of isolation has done for me, it's that it's reaffirmed my love of beer after a period of ambivalence. The U.K.'s one-man-band, Donzoko Brewing Company, has played a part in that, with its/his Northern Helles, a gently bready and brightly acidic take on a soft, fluffy Helles. As Mr. Donald Zoko himself might put it, it's banging.
Curated by The GBH Collective
