Since I came of legal drinking age, I've been bringing books to bars. I pair literature with libations at home (whisky, usually, with or without the “e”), so why not do the same at my local watering hole? Trust in some shrill Yelpers to question the practice: “Why are people sitting at bars reading books??? It's not a library...I know Bukowski is cool, but I'm sure he had no part of this kind of debauchery.” Love it or hate it, the recently opened Molasses Books in Bushwick is bringing these two hobbies/passions/addictions closer than ever, offering tipples and tomes under one roof.

Its liquor license is still in the works, but Molasses and fellow newcomer Human Relations (a short trek up Knickerbocker Ave) have advantageous locales. Bars and art pair well in Bushwick, and I think books will, too.

Now, I understand this goes against the grain of bar dynamics. Inhibitions drop as intoxication increases, people start chatting and—sometimes—stuff happens. I engage my mingle-mode at gallery openings, and I'm not totally aloof at bars, either. This is why my preferred joints for focused reading are dives.

Take the now-shuttered Mars Bar. Despite its sticky surfaces and dodgy characters, everyone kept to themselves, hunched over their spirits of choice. While Mars Bar didn't boast a wall of whiskeys, if you ordered a shot of Jack Daniels, you received an overflowing tumbler of it. Since I was going to be there awhile, I could make major progress in brick-sized books, like Neal Stephenson's historical sci-fi behemoth The Baroque Cycle.

I take a cue from Haruki Murakami's everymen (sometimes only dubbedboku, i.e. “I/me” in the masculine sense) who hemorrhage hours in bars. Often, they arrive with an armload of Kinokuniya purchases, like Tengo in1Q84 or the sleuthy narrator of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Nobody questions why they read in bars; it's just second nature. So when I meet friends for dinner in the East Village, I typically hit basement sake saloon Decibel first, ducking into the narrow bar with whatever novel I scored from St. Marks Bookshop down the block. Nursing chilled shochu, I'd study my grammar handouts from the Japan Society and, on occasion, try impressing the female barstaff with just-learned vocabulary.

This is why I avoid reading in Tokyo bars: chatting with barmates affords excellent Japanese conversation practice. Plus my abilities improve after I've had a few. My preference for ultra-tiny Golden Gai dives and immersive fetish bars sorta distract from the prose, anyway.

Lorin Stein, The Paris Review's editor, proudly brings books to bars, though his hangouts have changed after favorites faced renovations. My book-friendly biker bar Lovejoys in Austin, TX, recently tapped its final draft. Lovejoys also attracted tattooed, Bettie Page lookalikes, so I admittedly didmingle there.

While I search for my next haunt, paperback in hand, I ask you: are you a bar reader? Does a particular book entice you toward a bit of boozing? All experiences and inspirations welcome, and the first round's on me.

Image: The Gents Place

Boozing is an awesome anytime activity in Tokyo. 7-Eleven tallboys and your average bar's draft run hundreds of yen cheaper than a cappuccino, and since trains stop running at midnight, nearly all watering holes remain open and packed until dawn. But to cultivate that Cheers-like vibe, in a joint a tenth of the size but with 10,000 times the character...that takes some effort. I spend my time in Golden Gai, a network of narrow alleys whose collective footprint approximates Tompkins Square Park, yet is filled with some 200 unique, tiny-ass bars.

Where to go? The shockingly pink Love and Peace? The jazz-eclectic Dan-SING-Cinema, up a crippling flight of stairs? (Most of these bars stacked two high.) The geek-chic Bar Plastic Model? Be warned: there will be “seat charges,” either a flat fee or hourly rate to sit your ass down and drink. That's because all these joints have regulars—artists, musicians, writers, whatever—who expect their usual seat (of like eight). Bar-hopping in Golden Gai gets expensive quick.

Luckily, I found my Cheers. It's called Darling.

Japanese splatter film posters (Robogeisha and The Machine Girl anyone?)—most of which feature acting by Darling's charming owner Yūya Ishikawa—blanket the cramped space. If Yūya's in the house, then Group Sounds-era crooner Kenji Sawada will be wafting from the stereo. Otherwise, expect jazz or Motörhead, as cutie bartender Ichiko serves a full spread of the harder stuff. To offset that 800-yen seat charge (and dull the booze), Ichiko adds a complimentary snack. One night I swear it was a mini chalupa, likeOrtega-style—I don't know how she made that in Darling's dollhouse-sized kitchen.

The J-Horror world frequents Darling, plus Eiga Hiho journalists like Yoshiki Takahashi (those extra-splattery posters and “Taxi Driver” sake label? All Yoshiki-designed) and noise musicians. If I'm lucky, Tokyo Dolores pole-dance troupe leader Cay Izumi. If I'm luckier, a handful of Mutant Girls Squad actresses.

Last December was Darling's sixth anniversary, coinciding with Yūya-san's birthday and the evidently rare Japanese lunar eclipse. A crowded night of “飲み放題” (“all-you-can-drink”, truly an awesome concept) and debauchery ensued. I'd been frequenting Darling for over a year then, and I never felt closer to home.

If you end up within Golden Gai, I suggest Nagi—a Fist of the North Star-themed ramen joint—as your pre- or post-drinking nosh spot. Nagi's unctuous, garlicky deliciousness is guaranteed to soak up any alcoholic embers. Plus, any woman willing to get near my post-Nagi breath is A-OK in my book.

Images: overhead shot UnmissableTOKYO.com, all Darling photos courtesy the author

It’s five servings a day, it’s the slow-blossoming bloom on a tree, it’s the most colorful part of the grocery store, it’s shaped like stars or circles or cardiods—it’s fruit.

And, according to the New York Times, for people in India, it’s specifically the mango. No other fruit has so many cultural and religious connotations, nor is any other fruit considered as sensual. In a related blog post, Heather Timmons insists that “the mango finds a more exalted, and frequent, place in Hindu mythology that the apple does in Christianity.”

But if India has claimed the mango as its national fruit, then what about the other countries of the world?

For America, regardless of its Puritan roots, it's apples. Johnny Appleseedhas been enshrined in legend here. (He actually was a real person—a devout Swedenborgian in fact.) But my memories are of picking apples at Eckert’s orchard; when I went to college, there were bus trips to go apple-picking in New England. My aunt in California has fruit trees in her backyard, including an apple tree. At home we have an apple peeler and corer for apple pie and apple tarts and apple crisps. George Washington’s cherries and Georgia’s peaches just don’t represent America as perfectly. As mangos are to India, so apples are to America.

Sweden has been co-opted by IKEA, which advertises lingonberry jam and straight-up lingonberries as authentically Swedish. One of my college roommates from Norway couldn’t stop raving about cloudberries, especially with cream. On the other side of the world, rambutans are intertwined with my notions of Malaysia.

My close friend insists that Russia once had the best strawberries, near Chechnya, and the Chechen writer German Sadulaev agrees. In I Am a Chechen! he begins an digression with the unforgettable words, “Once my memory was a strawberry field. Now my memory is a minefield.” From there, he describes how he used to pick strawberries in a field near his home. But, he writes, mines were laid in those fields, many of which exploded when people stepped on them, and “strawberries grow well in fields watered with thick, rich human blood.” On the horizon, as well as in his mind, the strawberry fields have become minefields.

But Russia might have to settle for a different, less bloody fruit. France boasts many delicacies, but I’ve never been able to forget Edouard Levé’s beautiful formulation: “When I look at a strawberry, I think of a tongue, when I lick one, of a kiss.” Since then, I’ve never been able to taste strawberries without being reminded of French kisses.

Israel, for me, will always be the land of oranges. The weather is unforgivably hot and dry, and I can’t count how many shekels I’ve spent on fresh-pressed orange juice at a tiny stall after a thirst-inducing hike across sandy terrain. And I can still remember the small orange trees in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv’s plazas, whitewashed with fungicidal paint. Not figs, not olives, but Jaffa oranges.

What about the rest of the world? I’m waiting for my friend to come back from Japan with akebi. And then I need to start cataloging all the other countries: Nigeria, Ecuador, Sri Lanka, Italy, New Zealand . . .

Are you as pissed as I am about the impending arrival of 100+ 7-Eleven stores and the Big Bite they will chomp out of Manhattan's bodega community? Yesterday, my Black Balloon colleague Jake reminisced on the homely bodega's many high points. I feel you, Jake, but let me just say one thing: if this were actually an invasion of sebun-irebun, the cheery kombini(convenience store) chain owned by Japan's Seven & I Holdings Co....now that might not be so bad.

Just think: spotless, well-lit, one-stop destinations for sustenance, banking, even package shipment and receiving.

I'm heading to Tokyo next month. Most of my money will go toward concert tickets and fetish bars, so I have willingly resigned myself to “dining” at 7-Eleven at least half the time. Meaning a tallboy of Suntory and a transcendent katsu-sando (breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet and sauce on springy, crustless white bread) for 500 yen, or approximately $6. Breakfast—or whatever—of champions.

Of course, to make these 7-Elevens truly authentic, they would need to beam in a Japanese staff. The super-polite kind who will inquire if you want that curry pan microwaved, and who won't get on your ass if you loiter in the store for three hours, soaking up free WiFi and paging through phonebook-sized manga journals with busty gravure idols on the cover. Yeah, not gonna happen.

Then again, “Big Gulp” doesn't exist in the Japanese vernacular—let alone “Big Bite.” So a proper sebun-irebun in the Big Apple? Fuhgettaboutit.

Image: Ragamuffinsoul (Big Gulp) and Wikipedia (katsu-sando), photo-chopped by the author.

7-Eleven, that bastion of finely textured burgers and sweetastic Slurpees, will soon dot the isle of Manhattan like popcorn bits on movie theater seats: in the next five years, 114 of the suckers will be opening. No doubt some will applaud this proliferation, but I weep for the ubiquitous crusty bodega. Like peepshows and subway art before them, bodegas stand in serious danger of becoming safe for visiting relatives. In that dystopian future, you’ll have to shower before rolling into the corner deli on weekday mornings, hungover, your body panging for an egg-and-cheese and sock-juice coffee.

So, fellow wallowers, let us now praise dingy bodegas. As is proper to nostalgia, we’ll do so with a string of anecdotes only tangentially related to bodegas and their signage trumpeting (nonexistent) stores of “organic” and “natural” foods, as well as cold beer and ATMs.

1. A few years back, I was moving into a new place in the nosebleed section of Manhattan, north of half the Bronx. While new roomie and I were schlepping boxes into the lobby, the sweetest orange tabby I’ve ever seen got himself caught in the vestibule. He mewed so incessantly I caved and let him in. As soon as I’d opened the door, he was climbing me like a tree. “Hey fucker, get off me!” I yelped, thinking fleas and other crawling nasties. I discovered that he belonged to the bodega next door, so I tried to take him back. “Here’s your cat.” “Not my cat.” “Hey man, c’mon, just take your cat. People know he’s yours.” “Not my cat.” So we took him to a cat lady, and I took my business to another bodega. Not only did it have a cat to keep rodents away; the owner wasn’t a prick.
2. All those times we needed a loosie, you shady bodegas were there for us in a way that tobacco shops rarely are. Even if it was a Newport.
3. One in the morning in Harlem, and we’re out of liquor and the wine’s running dry. My friend suggests to fresh-in-the-city me that we get some grande Coronas at the corner bodega. I concur. We get there and I make like to open the door, smashing drunkenly, with full walking force, into it: it’s locked. “They closed?” My friend laughs. “No Jake, you gotta order through the window!” “Oh…I doubt that glass is bulletproof.”
4. A guy at this Midtown deli was so goddamn good that he knew what his many weekday regulars wanted and would have it ready for them in the time it took them to approach the counter. Within a week, he'd memorized my $1.75 “special”: butter on a toasted roll plus coffee like a hot milkshake.
5. Or that hypothetical time you needed condoms, like stat, and it was after ten and the pharmacy was closed. 7-Eleven probably carries mainstream brands like Trojan and Durex, but the bodega at the end of your street? It’s going to broaden your horizons. When else is necessity going to be so compelling that you purchase (and use) Rough Riders?

You bodegas are somewhat more salty than sweet, it’s true. But those of us who savor life’s tangier bits will mourn you the way others mourn New York’s pickle vendors.

Image: flickr user zippagraphics

What do New York twentysomethings talk about while sipping glasses of wine and sharing bites of compost cookie? Grocery shopping, of course.

          "I mean, I love how it says something about you if you shop at Trader Joe's," I said.

         "Like, you want to be cool, you want to be fun, you want to wait in line for twenty minutes?"

         "But I get the peanut butter cups. That totally cancels out the line."

         "I'll toast to that." And we clinked glasses for the fourth or fifth time.

         "What about Whole Foods, though?" she asked. "You know there's going to be a new Whole Foods in Brooklyn."

         "Hmm. It's a way to say, I care about my food being organic, I care about it being classy, and I don't care how overpriced it is."

         "You don't shop there, do you?"

         We both cracked up.

         "Okay, I’m not sure about this. Whole Foods is almost too perfect for Brooklyn. There's nothing ironic there."

         "But it’s honest! And it’s natural and organic and pure.”

         “Trader Joe’s is like David Foster Wallace. It’s big and crazy and disjointed and human. And the footnotes are great.”

         “Coming soon! Based on the book! And the movie! And the video game! And the fast-food-chain kiddie-meal toys! Infinite Jest: The Grocery Store!”

         “Isn’t that exactly right, though?”

         “Hmm, yeah, you’re pretty spot-on.”

         “So then what’s the book version of Whole Foods?”

         “Huh, a Whole Book..."  We took long sips of wine.

         “Everything in there is very beautiful. Carefully presented. If it’s there, it’s there to be appreciated and savored.”

         “Ann Patchett?”

         “Oh, I liked Bel Canto, but that’s not it.”

         "Okay, fine, not music. But she's good. She pulls together everything into a tight little book."

         “We've got to think bigger. Whole Foods isn’t Jonathan Franzen, is it?”

         “No, I don't think so. Well, I haven’t read Freedom yet. But yeah, something all-encompassing.”

         Time to pour more wine.

         “Wait." She took a swig and looked at me. "I've got it. Jhumpa Lahiri.”

         “Unaccustomed Earth! That's it! Whole Foods is virtuous and organic and beautiful, and so is Jhumpa Lahiri!”

         “She’s amazing.” My friend pulled her e-reader out of her purse. “Listen to this: ‘He still had the power to stagger her at times—simply the fact that he was breathing, that all his organs were in their proper places, that blood flowed quietly and effectively through his small sturdy limbs. He was her flesh and blood, her mother had told her in the hospital the day Akash was born.’”

         “God, that’s gorgeous.”

         “Yep, we’ve got it.”

         She poured the last of the wine into both glasses.

         “Now what about Gristedes and D’Agostino’s?”

image credit: washingtontimes.com

"I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees," wrote Pablo Neruda. And with Black Balloon's Valentine Haiku Contest, we wanted to do with haikus what Valentines does to your waistline: expand them. We wanted to expand the limitations of a haiku to include the two key elements of Black Balloon's first release, The Recipe Project: food and music. And what Valentines Day would be complete without those two ingredients?

We asked our loyal Twitter and Facebook followers to write us romantic haikus about food and music, and the results were awe-inspiring. Cilantro, stuffed zucchinis, cannolis, cast-iron frying pans: these were only a few of the poetic elements that our intrepid fans used to evoke the hunger of the holiday. Below are the top five entries, and we hope they expand your hearts just as much as your waistlines.

Happy Camper S'mores

Suzanne Lowery

Suzanne Cope

Shannon M. Dunn

Devon Craig Johnson

Thanks to everyone who participated. Winners: enjoy your copies of The Recipe Project, and have a happy Valentines Day!

Could it be opposite day? Jocks are becoming nerds!

James Franco is flunking acting class!

But back in the normal world, Charlotte Bronte is still the most popular of her sisters

Nerds are pleased with the latest Batman trailer

And the masses have replaced planking with avocado-ing

Writers aren't having much luck though, as poet Carl Sanburg's home is being foreclosed

And Maya Angelou calls out Common for being "vulgar and dangerous"

While the writing world experiences a dearth of scathing wit with Christopher Hitchens's death

Similarly, The music world may soon be without the legendary talent of Etta James as well

World leaders have also been in the obits lately, with the deaths of Kim Jong-Il and Vaclav Havel

But there was one bright note this week: Aragorn has started his own indie publishing press!

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