The Ghost in the Machine

If only there were a little less technology.

notes on dining, part II

Today we will discuss how to get the most from your dining experience. It’s a difficult subject to explore, because everybody has different ideas and standards for what creates a positive experience. While there are certain factors—quality of the food, for instance—that are out of your control as a patron, you can maximize what a restaurant has to offer using a few basic principles. While this may sometimes—not always—result in spending more money, it will also, more often than not, dramatically increase your feeling of satisfaction. 

The Art of the Bash: 5 Great Movie Parties

There are plenty of things to love about New York in the summertime: beaches less than 50 minutes away, free outdoor concerts and movies, picnics in parks and piers, Italian ice carts, the refreshing chill of an air-conditioned subway car after ten minutes of suffocating in the station. Then there are the parties — on patios, gardens, rooftops, stoops, blocks, and anywhere else a grill and a cooler could conceivably be squeezed. Something about summer parties always make me nostalgic for warm-weather shindigs of the past, from the Michigan lakeside bonfires where we kept our beers cool by nestling them into the sand at low tide to last summer’s dance party in North Carolina, where guests invented mosquito-inspired moves that allowed us to slap bitten limbs to a nice rhythmic beat. This summer I’ve found myself feeling nostalgic for a summer party even as it’s happening, which is a feeling there should be a word for, if there isn’t already. (German language, I’m looking at you.)

Anyway, all this seasonal reminiscing got me thinking about my favorite parties on film. While there are plenty of movies with epic party scenes, I wouldn’t actually want to be at a lot of them. People are always fighting or throwing up or crying, which is accurate but not that appealing. Some movies, however, bypass the drama to focus on what great parties are all about. Here are five far-from-definitive scenes of parties I’d give my left arm (or at least my left sleeve) to attend. What are your picks?

The Dirt Road Ahead

We’re now older, less good-looking, and more grizzled, but as enthusiastic as ever.

We’ll be taking on Southeast Asia for two and a half months. Zach Bryant and I will be traveling the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Hong Kong and Macau, and possibly others depending on time and visa restrictions.

Readership, fasten your seatbelts — it’ll be a crazy ride. The next few months will have more pictures, more poems, more Adventures in Food and Drink, and more nonsense than before. I might be able to convince Zach to write a story or two on here as well as a guest blogger.

As soon as we figure out how to Twitter from Southeast Asia, we’ll have microblogging of the journey and you can play along at home and save us from bad guys and foreign governments.

Bacuit Bay, Palawan, Philippines; Afternoon, February 8, 2008