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How to Make: The Perfect Manhattan

1 oz Whiskey. Or 2. The glass is weird and it’s hard to tell.

Then, bitters. Three drops? Four? It keeps dribbling down the bottle.

Wait, you can’t mix an old fashioned in there. It’s too small.

Fuck.

Manhattan, then. Don’t you have vermouth somewhere?

1 ounce. Use a shot glass this time.

That doesn’t feel right. Pretty sure it should have been bourbon.

Is this dry vermouth? That one is definitely not right.

Who taught you to make a Manhattan?

Was is that bar on your 18th?

No one taught you, but he made it for you once.

To make you feel special.

More whiskey. Use a shot glass his time.

A ceramic spoon of Grand Marnier. To feel special.

Gold flake, maybe.

You don’t feel grand. You don’t feel special.

Stir.

Bitters for color. Moonshine for nothing.

The knowing absence of something.

You don’t feel colors.

You don’t feel anything.

Stir.

You feel too much.

Stir.

Bitters, if we’re being honest.

Stir.

Ice to help it go down. If it melts, you’ve lost the point.

How a drink to remember becomes a drink to forget you.

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Tea & Coffee Company

Coffee Stand, HUB Mall, 112 St NW, Edmonton, AB T6G 2C5

The young woman behind the counter recognized me instantly. We sat beside each other in a modernist theatre class, wherein it took us three weeks to introduce ourselves.

“Have you started classes already?” She asked, pulling back an impressive heap of fire-red ringlets into a messy ponytail.

Alberta is well-known for it’s controlled wildfires, often obscuring country roads with their sun-smothering fumes.

“No,” I replied. “Just here for coffee.”

We both wore crooked septums and crooked eyes. We both wore the look of being somewhere completely elsewhere.

“Ah. Just eager, then.”

Usually, but not now.

I poured three seconds worth of raw sugar (ironically called so for the presence of molasses, rather than being simply the “raw” sugar crystals one might expect) into a large cup of steaming brown mess from their freshest coffee pump and headed to the library.

The danger of writing on coffee is that it’s been done, and done to death. The danger of not writing about coffee may be that you have no excuse to pour another cup and wait for yourself at the bottom. Hands shaking. Ditch the filter.

—–

On the fifth floor of Rutherford North, the existentialists sit and wait. We’re here usually, shouting post-scripts into texts that didn’t care if our species lived or died. The coffee roaster opened in 1954, the coffee stand banner told me. Albert Camus published The Stranger in 1954, this shelf tells me.

iMessage : 1:50 PM

Do you think it means anything?

iMessage : 1:51 PM

No. I’m just eager.

A burnt note pervades the the two of them. They froth only at the edges, and keep you up past your bed-time. You may find yourself cradling them both on cold mornings, Christmas dinners, or second-rate first-dates. They both start out hot, but cool quickly if you forget them. If you’re not careful, you might lose them both in car crashes.

Coffee, Camus, and You: A Guide to Shunning Meaning.

The French Existentialist section is marked in the library as “PQ.” Readers of a linguistic persuasion may chuckle, imagining the initials to denote the Spanish question por que or “why?” Readers of a linguistic and philosophic persuasion may find themselves doubly amused, as they know the question is rather “why not?”

With a nod to French, perhaps the library was working along the lines of penser, or “to think.” Permettre is equally imaginable, as “to permit” may be the grounds by which these writers found their purposes steeped. In either case, permit me to poser (lay down, to posture, to set) some meaning in our two entwined languages. 

Looking to the “Q,” (ignoring the conjugations I admittedly lack) it is crucial to note that Question is a product of the French language, seized by the English, and settled on as if the ground beneath our feet. As is the same with quiet, quasi (almost), and queue. The writers stacked to my left and right have given us the same. Questions followed with quiet, and a life-long wait to die short of “almost.”

If the heat of this coffee is going to last through the rest of this, it might be best to find some bearings. I notice now that the entire section is wedged between two pillars and the bathrooms. Coffee and philosophy have a knack for bringing Nausea out of all of us.

To the East of Camus exist three copies of Eugene Ionesco’s tragic Fragments of a Journal. I took them back to the table, and hoped gravity (from the French grave, meaning “serious”) might press his hopeless self together. I have been trying in vain to stitch him together for years now, but he comes unraveled at the splitting of every curtain. He once wrote that “Shakespeare was the great one before us. His place was between God and despair.” At present, I am between him, the dregs of this cup, and new year of old questions. I could say it feels great, but that is neither ici or là.

Ionesco’s first play was published in 1948. He was 40 years old, and beginning to forge a legacy that would inspire a re-examination of the role of language in modernist theatre. Camus was not yet so strange, and Sartre was busy blowing out the 5 candles on Being and Nothingness’ cake. Where will I be at the coming of such a number? My first book was printed at the age of 23, and exists in fragments far more numerous than three or five. I’m not sure what I am laying down. This cup, for now. It grows as cold as my hands do bold.

Perhaps PQ means porter quarante, or to carry 40.

Perhaps PQ means passer quarante, or to pass 40.

Or perhaps it means to partir quarante–to leave, to depart, or to proceed past 40.

The shelves haven’t yet told me how, but their contents offer a suggestion. 

They suggest we do so with dignity. With the purr of jungle cats and juniper.

They suggest we depart with the emptiness of this cup, smelling richly of the rawest sugars.

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Maui Brewing Co. Coconut Hiwa Porter

To be enjoyed on a windy day. Warmed feet and cool shoulders, your boots steeping in hiking sands. Be sure to drink facing the mountains, or the gusts will blow the sweet brew from your lips (if you are quick, you can catch it, like a cat lapping spilt milk from the floor).

Your Aunt will tell you the same story you hear every time your feet find these sands and every time the wind blows a little harder than usual. You were only a baby. Your Great Grandmother was blown across the beach, one hand on her hat and one arm outstretched.

“I swore she took off!” says your Aunt.

“Flying nun!” adds another.

You laugh because you haven’t heard that one before. 

You can’t taste the coconut, but you can pick up on the mocha. Maybe it’s too windy for the coconut. Like your Great Grandmother, they flew straight off the beach. 

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Credo Coffee

Cafe, 10134 104 St NW, Edmonton, AB T5J 1A7

The temperature jumped from -24 to -7 overnight.

I lost my toothbrush in the snow by the graveyard yesterday, but managed to find it in the morning.

A girl named Emma was transferred between bars owned by the company she worked for, and apologized for not noticing me outside for ten minutes while I waited for our meeting. Her phone had died earlier that morning.

A client walked by on my way to get coffee, and unsure of how to greet me, opted to pass without greeting.

The barista has the same forearm tattoo as my friend–”I love you” written by each member of her family. The baker in the back looked like Jeff Goldblum with an undercut.

The toilet in the men’s bathroom is pointed at the door with an alarming sense of purpose. As if the whole seat will buck you off and into the hallway if you look at it wrong. 

A loud girl from Quebec taught French to a quiet redheaded girl while I attempted to sketch a graveyard and write poetry. When I couldn’t think of anything else to say, I made a list of filler words in all of the languages I know.

The Wee Book Inn has my phone number in case The Plague turns up at either location.

Separately, these facts don't mean anything. They are just stray pieces of day.

Together, they don’t either, but I’m telling you because I love you.

And that doesn’t have to mean anything, either.

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Kiholo Bay Saltwater  71-1890 Queen Ka’ahumanu Hwy, Kailua-Kona, HI

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BRU Coffee + Beer House, 11965 Jasper Ave, Edmonton, AB T5K 0P1

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Pyramid Snow Cap Winter Warmer Ale

Malts: 2-row Pale Barley, Caramel 80L, Chocolate Hops: Nugget, Willamette, East Kent Goldings OG: 17.3° ABV: 7.0% IBU: 47

Sounds of the ocean are cast from the overhead speakers on a flight about to take off over the frozen Albertan prairies. Perhaps to sway us to an ease of wading in water rather than floating seven and a half miles in the sky. We are cradled by womb-like waves in a metal craft soaring speeds between roughly five hundred and fifty and six hundred miles per hour. 

I take note of the items in front of me. One (1) vegan airline cookie. One (1) craft beer. One (1) children’s toy, found below my seat, a modern soldier in plastic, moveable arms, legs, and neck. All served on an equally plastic platter.   

The man beside me pulls out a bible from his sack and begins to read graphite underlined fragments. I unsuccessfully attempt to make my new plastic friend stand next to the cup.

Is that one of those things you take around everywhere you go? he asks, finally bridging this wide silence we have shared for nearly an hour, though we have been seated only an inch apart. 

No. I just found it. This solider will continue to fly in a silver ship. 

I save my cookie for later. Maybe I will enjoy a coffee in Seattle which will happily melt the dairy free oils in nicer tides than a cold, craft brew. 

The liquid is sweet. They call it a Winter Warmer Ale. Odd. It did not warm me. I had put on my socks as my feet were cold, and they still are. But, maybe my heart is warmer. My hands are warmer—wiggling as I write this. My hands are very warm but my feet are very cold. It is fascinating how a beer has done this. It would be beneficial to find a beverage that would warm my cold feet. 

Drunk with altitude, I nod in and out of sleep, each time my eyelids opening to rocky snow caps.

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Liquor Select

Liquor Store, 8924 149 St NW, Edmonton, AB T5R 1B8

As I was describing the flavour profile of American Porters to a disinterested Korean couple, an older man approached. He wore a dark grey suit jacket, fitted jeans, and thick-rimmed black glasses. With a glass in hand, he looked disinterestedly at the beer products in front of him, out across the patrons of the open house, over the kaleidoscopic platters of olives that littered the cloth-covered tables, and finally settled his gaze on me with a sigh and small laugh.

“Isn’t this fantastic?” he asked. “What do you mean?” I replied. “Think of the other liquor shows. The rush, the drunks, the yelling… It’s distasteful. Here, we can actually learn and ask questions. We can form rapport. Isn’t that wonderful? A much more civilized way to sample.” Over his shoulder were thirty or so other patrons, sampling wine and whiskey varietals in preparation for their Christmas dinners and the like. To my left and right were friends from the industry, working their own tricks and thinking of the light at the end of the holiday tunnel. “My name is Jeremy,” the man said as he finished his glass. In Jeremy’s left hand were approximately five ounces of loose cured meats, damp and causing his fingertips to glisten with grease under the fluorescent lighting.

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Denizen Hall Bar, 10311 103 Ave, Edmonton, AB T5J 0Y8

Love will find you If you look

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Blue Plate Diner

Restaurant, 10145 104 St NW, Edmonton, AB T5J 1A7

This Canadians are living of warm. I have the name is Володимир. On short visa, dance on cold, meet many strangers off-ice. Ice everywhere, but different. Ice of coffee, ice of milk. What don't put peanut paste in? All taste.

Small one эрын eat many books. Some strong Pyssian. She has cold and warm at once. Given from her mother? Brother has jaw in big number. Wife has LOOK of skater. But no skate, no one here. Again, many ice. Very funny. They ask if I wish to skate in a weeks days. I wish many things. Things like speak, show. Big life, little bites.

Maybe they see Володимир holds strange words. Not so good with talk they know how to. They wait for me to say more in skates. With much luck, эрын speaks what Володимир does not. Eye language with strong father. He attack plate. But eye like star sky when look at doytch. Too spicy? Smile? Володимир know not. Володимир eat much and drink water beer. Taste holds good with company. Everyone holds easy. Володимир speaks one day. This day, Володимир lets listen.

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Cold Coffee Burnt From Being Reheated in the Electric Kettle at Work

If you have a cough please use a mask and use endure to clean your hands.  If you have a cough and fever Please notify receptionist immediately upon entry. 

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Route 99

Diner, 8820 99 St NW, Edmonton, AB T6E 3V4

If you sit next to the window on a cold evening, you can watch the flutter of the snow through lingering headlights, and it’s chilly. So, the waitress will be sure to keep your coffee cup full so as to keep the liquid warm. With which intimacy would we fill our own mugs, like blowing hot breath into one’s own finger tips to bite the frost. Like this liquid that seems to flow so willingly, we may also empty. There is no waitress, this time, so we open our jaws like new born birds, choking on words and sustaining on verse. My cup more empty now, I pass on her offers to fill. The coffee grows cold and I tire of it. And leave with the last few sips unturned.

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The Common

Lounge, 9910 109 St NW, Edmonton, AB T5K 1H5

They came upon the idea of tracking alcohol intake some time ago. Bars and liquor stores would offer a piece of thin cardboard with your purchase, and encourage you to punch a hole after every three sips.

This was not done for regulation. Simply posterity.

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Have Mercy

Bar, 8232 Gateway Blvd, Edmonton, AB T6E 4B2

There are new words, I swear. 

All along, they were hiding in the bases of glasses and the secret space behind your ear. They were slinking under the lights in bathroom stalls we downed drinks in. There were more brought home last night, along with the sugar packets, and we let them shed their pale dust on the carpet. Beneath their dull exterior were the lights. The patterns. The places we’d run to with clouded feet. I’d write them here, but this shaking dissuades me. These tremors of trepidation.

These words are like nothing else I’ve seen before. There were a few at first, but their bodies in tandem have made writhing dictionaries and colonies. They breed like fruit flies, but live on indefinitely. They take flight from the sweetest things on the counter, and leave serif-prints on the bookshelves. Do we mind? They are insatiably curious, and each have four little eyes, pointed constantly into ours. I asked them if they want to be used. One blinked. Another ruffled it’s curves and showed off its accents. Two looked upon each other with knowing gazes. I resolved to no longer question them. Trust can never built from the premise of needing it.

We’ve been feeding these words coffee and sleep—trying to keep them around for something we have not yet had the courage to dream. I accidentally shared one of them during a phone call I was only half-invested in. I forgot to tell you, I’m sorry. I used it to describe the sun as how I saw it once through your living room window, and one of the bastards must have slipped in while my mind drifted. My brother seemed unfazed, but the words went absolutely wild. They sprung up and ran across the floor, screeching their papery songs and trailing punctuation like kite strings. One muscled your mouse off his wheel to chase after an unreachable participle. The creaking of that circle keeps me company still in quiet hours.

It would seem that a word desires only to be used. Does Edmonton exist if the name lay dead to time? Even if used in bad faith, utterance must precede the being. I speak of the sex spat as something more than skin, and guiltlessly so. Hunger, love, and stargazing existed before we knew them, but that is of no concern here. We found these concepts eventually, like we found words in the loosening of each other’s cupboard doors. Feeling them for scars and finding many, it is possible that they are not new, but have simply been forgotten for too long. They shook their manes of dust, and we swept their trails sweetly. In return, they make sense of the sights we find so inexplicably raw. One of the words overheard us discussing if there were more in this apartment. You sipped Shiraz and tried to count them as they rolled the cork from wall to wall in the apartment. There were too many. We threw books at them to watch them scatter. Cooing as they ducked under cabinets and ceramic pots, eyes still steady with ours. They are goading us. There is no other explanation.

They have forced us to act, and find their counterparts in this void. They are echoes of things we can't wait to say.

Whether it is a language we create, or a feeling to explain it, we cannot ignore these fidgeting strangers in our home. They lounge like old friends, restlessly filling the holes in our memory and the silence of our hands knotted contentedly. They stuff us with sound, and we empty ourselves here. The familiar lines and sticks and patterns and echoes of thoughts kneaded like stone to Spanish leather. Softer assurances than atoms could ever sing alone. A doubling of life—pruned effigies of concepts cast in concrete. They see us eying them with suspicion. Lips curled in curious intent.

They’ve stood straighter since then. They sense their coming purpose. One wraps a loose thread around its head like a bandana and bares its tiny teeth. These words know they must be strong for the fights ahead. Together, we are redefining our terms through the learning of new ones. Ones that taste as strange as their setting. We are crumbling crackers plunging into soup bowls dipped deep into life.

So begins this adventure. With hiking poles and strapped canvas bags, we begin our ascent to the heights of new rhetoric. To this room we’ve both desecrated. Open mouth, proud tongue, humming gifts from the throats that suck nothing but storm clouds. This is why we drink. To recreate the rain-dance these words do on linoleum stage floors. We stay thirsty, grabbing the waitress and asking her to stuff seas into our yawns. But that is the work of the words, and even that is said dubiously. They simply account for where we’ve been and where we want to be.

I've come back to this bathroom six times now. Each time with glass to my lips to forget it's not you. Have you done the same? Perhaps we’ll meet there soon. And spin webs we’ve been so long silent in. Cast nets to seas of all sought and seeking.

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Introduction: Meet The Team

Jar  A

1. A copy of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Intimacy  2. Various trimmings of houseplants 3. Two black pens 4. Filled one third of the way with cold, stale coffee

Jar B

1. Lecture notes, torn and fluffed. 2. An outgoing phone call to a dear friend, long deceased.