Cheez-it Manhattan

One wonders every time one sits down to post, why this image? There is a considerable element of fear involved, and the attendant self-doubt. One questions one's motivation. One wonders if one, in pursuit of some goal that one can never really define and so cannot ever really achieve, one is merely becoming decadent. One has looked at an entire gallery of images and then selected and then pulled one off the screen because, one asserts inwardly, to oneself, it has something unique to communicate. But what if, what if, one thinks in the darkest recesses of one's soul, what if one is simply being clever or coy? What if one is totally washed over in self-reference and no longer searching the true search of the artist ... the search for meaning that connects the moment with eternity, the self with the multitude, the here with the everywhere. Here we have a Manhattan with three glass vases, the boxes of cheez-its facing back forward, and one box of cheez-its in the farthest rank, facing forward, barely visible behind the rest. Does it have meaning, or is it merely formal structure, posing as art? One fears. One doubts. One never knows.

Broadway Manhattan

I have had -- at the very least -- hundreds of Manhattans in my life, but the most memorable one was consumed during the intermission of an off-Broadway musical called The Little Shop of Horrors. I had heard that the show was about a dentist and so thought it might be good, but it turned out to have very little to do with dentistry. Faced with disappointment like this (especially at the theater), I typically dream of Manhattans as a coping mechanism. Apparently the friend who attended the performance with me had a similar experience because as soon as the curtain dropped, signalling intermission, he challenged me to run from the theater lickety split with him, take a left and race four doors to a saloon he had noticed when we approached the theater originally. The further challenge was to make it to the bar, order a Manhattan, drink the Manhattan, pay for the Manhattan and then rush back to the theater and back to our seats before the rise of the second act curtain. This we did with such alacrity that we were actually able to have a genuine and complete (albeit condensed) cocktail conversation in the time allotted, during which we analyzed the successes (few) and failings (many) of the first act. We returned in time and experienced the second act, which was not any better than the first, as I recall. It is the presence of the playbill and the two tickets that brings to mind this story and I am speculating in telling it that despite the title here, "Spamalot", I doubt very much that the show in question would provide much sustenance to any theatergoer partial to spam. It sounds like a weak attempt to be clever. As for the image itself, its success probably owes more to the formal arrangement of the items on view than it does to their actual being.

Chekhov Manhattan

Sometimes to tell a story, simplest is best. Here's a tremendous example. Clearly our unseen protagonist is a person who understands the finer things in life: refreshment for the mind in the works of the great Russian humanist, Chekhov, and refreshment for the body in the form of a well-iced Manhattan. Looking more closely reveals that our hero is no wanton sensualist. The pages of the book have been thumbed practically through to the end. The drink has barely been sipped and, depending on the pour, may well not yet have been sampled at all. And yet the glass still retains much of its icy glaze. What might have been the sequence here? Did our reader, having nearly made his way through an entire howling Chekhovian winter, suddenly feel the chill pass through his shivering bones into his very soul? Having felt that deep chill, portent of death, might our traverser of the steppes have experienced the insistent, insurmountable need to reach out for the spirits and the shaker to construct a liquid shelter to envelope him and spare him the agony of the cutting trans Siberian gales? And now, having prepared his defense, where has he gone? Did the remedy come too late? Or has he merely wandered off to check on some unusual high-pitched emanation from another room. A harmless house sound. A beam or wall stud, creaking against the cold. Will the reader return to finish the drink? Or the drinker return to finish the text? We cannot know. We can only ... imagine.

Optimal Manhattan

This image has always amused me and I'm not exactly sure why. It could be Mr. Peanut who, I can well imagine, would not be averse to tipping a Manhattan (or two!) were he an actual being and not the cartoon image of a peanut. With his top hat, tails and monocle he appears as though he might be quite a fine drinking campanion. Also of interest is the fact that the jar of peanuts has been consumed possibly to the bottom of the label, whereas the Manhattan has not been touched and exhibits the surface tension phenomenon common to most of the images in this series. The apples in the bowl suggest ... what? A nod to good health, I suppose. (I admit that, on occasion, I have had a Manhattan (or two!) and then "chased" it with a fresh apple or some other type of fresh fruit in the hopes that that would somehow offset what the sober man recognizes as the potently poisonous effects of the alcohol that suffuses the refreshment. ) Perhaps that is the deep meaning that lurks behind the surface whimsy of the shot: the cartoon that is the true nature of the debonair mask of the fop (whose essence is ultimately reduceable to the salt, oil and largely indigestible protein of the peanut in the jar), set next to the illusion of a healthy life contained in the bowl of richly blushed but essentially toxic fruit (note the product ID tag barely visible on the surface of the pomme, marking it as the pesticide laced commodity product of world agribusiness), all held together in tenuous balance by the illusion producing intoxicant in the frosted glass. So, potential meaning galore but, in the end, still an amusing, engaging image that may well be not worthy of even this level of exegesis. As a final note I should add that this image has been "optimized" by the basic Windows photo editor software. This has the advantage of making it more easily viewable for a general audience. The tradeoff is that the original "unoptimized" file is much darker and more sinister. I wouldn't go so far as to say it is disturbing, but it does elicit something that this version does not. No matter, this is what I have chosen to post.

Lady Liberty Manhattan

This is quite an interesting shot, I think, for a couple of reasons. First, it is taken from a cell phone. Cell photos can be visually arresting, once their technical limitations are accepted. This one falls into that category, again in my opinion. A second reason I find this interesting is suggested in the title I have given it: Manhattan Towers. The bottles in the background are grouped in such a way that they suggest the Manhattan skyline. There are large and imposing structures of all types -- colorful glass towers mostly, but to the extreme left a reflective silver edifice. This is evidently the creation of an architect and client who are not afraid to challenge both man and god in the realization of their ambitions. Certainly a bold statement! This "Manhattan" of bourbon, wine and cocktail shakers, of course, forms a backdrop to an actual Manhattan, the alcoholic beverage, rising like Lady Liberty from a turquoise-y surface that suggests the waters of New York Harbor. The low angle is also quite interesting, I find, as are the oven knobs and combination salt shaker/peppermill in the extreme background on the right. One could, I imagine, speculate for some time on the meaning of all this. Personally, I am content to enjoy the image for what it is on the surface, another ironic juxtaposition that amuses and fascinates in the manner of all great art, on an indirect sensual, rather than a direct intellectual, level.

Disaster Manhattan?

This is a manhattan in front of a television. I don't recall now what show it was. It looks like it may have been a news show about people in an emergency putting together relief packages, in which case this would be an interesting juxtaposition: a manhattan, which would normally be something a person who is relatively comfortable and well off would consume, and a scene of natural or man made disaster, in which people's needs are much more basic. In fact, people in such dire circumstances probably wouldn't even want a manhattan were one available -- or at the very least they shouldn't drink one until their situation is resolved because it would provide no nourishment and could diminish their ability to think clearly and make the type of decisions that would enable them to survive. Of course this might not be an actual news show but might just be a television drama about people in the midst of misfortune or it might not be a show depicting human misfortune on a large scale at all. In these cases, the juxtaposition is not really as satisfying.

I'll take Manhattan (with spoke)

This is a picture of a Manhattan sitting on a school newspaper called the Spoke. In the background is an article called "Food & Wine" and some apples in a plastic bag. Often when I make a Manhattan I then take a photograph of it. I usually try to place it in an ironic or perhaps sometimes maybe a not-so-ironic context. In this case having it sit on a story called "seniors skip in record numbers". Most high school seniors don't drink manhattans, but if they did they would undoubtedly begin to skip. If enough of them drank a manhattan, the result would soon be record numbers of skipping students.