Reuniting with the Best Beer

Sheets of dust glistening in the harsh desert sun, Coachella 2024 was coming to an end and our lungs were yearning for the cleaner particulate matter of New York. We had just danced with abandon to Taking Back Sunday in the Gobi tent and were trying to find some shade and something to quench our thirst in between sets. Feet and knees aching, we walked toward the beer garden to cool off. I don’t drink as much as I used to, so this might have been my first drink of the entire weekend. The bar, packed with sunburnt bros gripping clear cups, presented an array of beers on tap.

Hmmmm, I’ll have that one, I said, gesturing to the first pilsner tap that caught my eye.

WHAT? WHAT DID YOU SAY? the bartender probably said.

I’LL HAVE THAT ONE.

Sorry, we’re out of that one.

Okay, how about the…uhhh… Timbo Pils then.

Timbo Pils, Timbo Pils, three hypnotic syllables, a drumbeat mantra. Timbo Pils. Timbo Pils.

I carried the Timbo Pils to our table, bracing myself for what would likely turn into the Drinking Day, and took a sip of what was the Best Beer I Ever Had: bright, crisp, full-bodied, the perfect, most satisfying summer beer. They sold out of the Timbo Pils soon after so I wasn’t able to get another. Since then, I’ve learned that it was made by a brewery in Los Angeles called Highland Park and, after several failed attempts, accepted that they don’t ship beyond California. Every few months, I recall the exquisite taste and the clear, euphoric feeling it gave me, and search to see if it’s carried by a New York retailer.

Upon my latest Google search, I read that Threes Brewing was invited by Highland Park to collaborate on a version of the Timbo Pils for Summer of Pils 2025. I immediately went to their website and put two four-packs into my cart. I was about to check out when I saw that the delivery fee was $20. No fucking way. Which Threes Brewing brewery is closer to me? The Gowanus one would require the L to the A, about 53 minutes, while the Greenpoint one would require the L to the G, and take about 45 minutes. I gathered my things and hopped on the L. When I got to Lorimer for the transfer, I walked down the first staircase, through the connecting passageway, up the next staircase, and down the ramp, dodging people rushing the other way. As I turned the station corner, yellow caution tape blocked my path forward. A sign on the wall proclaimed the dreaded news: a shuttle bus would be servicing this line for the weekend. Having lived off the G for years, I knew how unreliable the shuttle bus could be and, regretting not taking the other route, trudged up the steps hoping it wouldn’t take long. I reached the top of the steps and spotted the shuttle bus at the light to my left. I motioned to the driver, and he pointed ahead to the pickup spot.

I had recently picked up a few Oxford Very Short Introductions from Strand, which now carries Oxford Very Short Introductions on a dedicated rack, and had the book on Jung with me. Was my shadow self bridling at the inconvenience of the shuttle bus? Was my No. 2 self entering a state of elevated grace, seeing this as an opportunity to meditate on life and be present? Did I have an MTA complex based on my urban transplant archetype? Was my shuttle bus luck an example of synchronicity? Yes, yes, probably, perhaps, maybe. In any case, I made it to Greenpoint and walked to Threes Brewing where I spotted the Timbo Pils four-packs in a far cooler. The employee who scanned the cans told me that the person who brewed this version of Timbo Pils used to work at Highland Park, so presumably they know the recipe well and I would be getting the gold straight from the source. Is that synchronicity?

Dreams

One thing that amazes me about Jung and Freud (who revered Jung like a chosen son for six years until he petulantly cast Jung out for daring to think for himself) is that they took their dreams so seriously. Dreams, to them, were sacred visions, portals to understanding. Many of their theories, apparently, came from analyzing their own dreams and the dreams of others. It seems like we’ve lost touch with the poetic and spiritual potential of dreams. I love when I have an interesting dream, but I never write them down, and usually forget them.

When I was child, I had two primary recurring dreams. The first involved me running through my neighborhood away from something ominous. I scaled fences, clambered up hills, ducked and dodged, weaved around trees and sheds, and leapt over rocks and piles of wood to elude whatever was chasing me. Eventually, I’d run into the edge of the dream universe, which would be a video game-like wall on a tree-lined hill and I’d wake up soon after. The other dream involved me being unable to run away from something. My legs would be weighed down, like they were stuck in tar.

Lots of running away, lots of dread…hmmmmm…

Anyways, my childhood home regularly appears as a setting in my dreams and, recently, I was boarded up in my teenage bedroom as some armed marauders were trying to raid the house and kill us. I woke up to my right arm numb as a tube of salami.

A Very Good Movie

I knew Eddington would be good because it’s from Ari Aster, the mind behind some of the most potent and unnerving thrillers in recent years: Midsommar and Hereditary.

What I didn’t anticipate was how much of a test of endurance it would be.

I’m a day-of kind of planner and movie theaters are now, ruefully, the domain of week-in-advance planners. When I went to buy day-of tickets for Eddington, the only seats available in the only theater playing the movie at a reasonable time were in the front row. Not all front rows, I learned, are created equally (as a day-of planner, this was not my first front row). This front row was ten feet from the screen and the bottom of the screen was ten feet off the ground.

As I craned my neck to watch the trailers in theater 17 at Regal Union Square, I felt the knotty infrastructure of my neck and upper back straining under the pressure, and I realized that I couldn't see what was happening at the top of the screen as clearly as I wanted. I recalled reading how Ari Aster plants all sorts of “easter eggs” in his films, meaning you get more out of his films the closer you pay attention. Over the next three hours (trailers + the 2hr 25 min run time of Eddington), I slid and slithered, twisted and turned, lent and bent my body to find a comfortable position to go easter egg hunting.

I was not in a state of grace to tolerate the covid-era world-building of the first forty minutes. In my trapezius-stressed state, I found the straight-from-the-comment-sections bickering, minutiae, and virtue signaling tedious. But then Aster’s eerie strangeness seeped through the cavernous streets of this lonely New Mexican town, like fracked gas whispering from an abandoned seam, most acutely in the form of Austin Butler’s no-such-thing-as-a-coincidence babbling. Something essential, something shared, was lost in Eddington, and across the US, and the see-through, bad faith chaos that Aster unleashes into this vacuum is incredible to behold. In what is the film’s hinge point, someone lodges a noise complaint against a fundraiser hosted by the mayor, played by Pedro Pascal, who is the nemesis of Joaquin Phoenix, the sheriff. Katy Perry’s “Fireworks” blares amid a masked gathering of cocktail sippers, the apocalyptic lyrics echoing beyond the property fence into the stark desert valley. The song’s iconic opening lines, which might have even inspired the entire movie: “Do you ever feel like a plastic bag / Drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?”

Incredibly, I found a clip of Ari Aster breaking down this very scene when looking for a trailer to include (it does contain spoilers; nothing major, though).

Speaking of Eddington

I was walking around Ridgewood recently when I came across a low, tan, windowless building that had a DIY bulletin board displaying cut-out posters for old movies that were apparently playing soon. “FOR ALL YOUR CINEMA NEEDS,” a pinned paper declares. “We present: Romantic comedies - Sports movies - Legal thrillers - Technicolor musicals - Action - Observational documentaries - and more!” I could see no clear entrance to the theatre. I took a photo, intending to return at some point to catch a film.

I had forgotten about the place until I flipped through this week’s New Yorker and learned that John Wilson of How to With John Wilson opened the theater back in May with a film critic buddy to revive “the kind of second-run theatre that essentially vanished with the advent of home video and streaming.”

They will soon be screening Eddington for a few weeks if anyone’s interested; it looks cozy!

Porous Beings

Back when I worked for Global Citizen, I wrote about plastic a lot: the scale of plastic pollution worldwide, efforts to reverse the crisis, greenwashing campaigns, etc. I nearly always included some version of…”the air you breathe, the water you drink, and the food you eat is filled with microplastics.” I was reminded of this grim reassurance when reading David Wallace Wells’ distressing recent piece “You Are Contaminated.” Wells is our era’s pre-eminent environmental writer. He has a deep and vast understanding of the latest research and environmental literature, and, thankfully, doesn’t have an editor who stymies his poetic sensibilities.

Here’s one especially beautiful paragraph:

“Humans are porous beings, in ways more fluid than fortress. And though environmental contamination is not new it increasingly plays like a grievous violation: In an age of social atomization, we are growing ever more enamored with the ideal of the independent self and the fantasy of the body as autonomy incarnate. In its maximalist form, at least, each is an illusion. Every time we pant, or press, or swallow, we welcome into not just our delicate biology but into those cherished fables, too, the ecological influence of the exposome.”

Lot Radio as Reality Television

You don’t need to look at Lot Radio sets just like you don’t need to look at the radio; it’s there to make sound. Lot Radio showcases the eclectic taste of mostly local DJs, but it has a fishbowl quality that makes for fun people watching.

The DJ is stuck in a small box with a wide front window that peers onto a yard. There’s a small laptop bolted to the wall that shows the set being livestreamed, with a slight delay. Party and political stickers cover the walls. Most of the time, friends will stop by the booth and sit on the bench along the back wall or dance, sometimes awkwardly, knowing they’re being recorded and both onlookers outside and viewers at home are watching them.

In a recent episode, DJ Tennis, who I’ve seen turn to the side to do lines in another episode, enters the booth with a dad hat, black sunglasses, and an extra large, long sleeve art shirt, as if he woke up from last night’s after-party, Door Dashed a bacon-egg-andcheese, and took an Uber to Greenpoint. Picking up from where he left off a few hours ago, he begins with dense bass, a drumline rushing like river. Soon, another DJ comes in, a guy with a red mustache and satchel, and chats with Tennis after handing him a huge bottle of water. A guy with a mullet, a modelo, and cop shades enters and gets the cold shoulder as Tennis mixes away. Then a woman who looks like Julia Fox’s younger sister is invited in and she nervously sits on the bench. They start dancing, and it’s clear that Julia Fox’s sister is a great dancer. She moves her shoulders and head with genuine rhythm. They probably float in an amorphous friend group that features Tennis every few months as he tours the global circuit. He’s an older minor-celebrity who gives them backstage access.

All of a sudden, the door opens. A woman 20 years younger than Tennis shyly peers in. She knows he’s in there, she must have seen him from outside. But what to do now? She stands awkwardly. Tennis looks over and gives a tight smile and wave. The woman, wearing full make-up, a black tank top and tight jeans, smiles wide and blows a kiss to Tennis. As she passes him, she drags her hand along his arm. Another woman, who may or not be the girl’s mom, wears a mesh going-out shirt and full make-up, like a chaperone in disguise. The first woman stands to the side and composes herself, marveling at the stickers on the wall. When Tennis looks over again, she exhales with relief and waves again, but he says something like “hey, good to see you, just make yourself at home,” and she gently grasps Tennis’ arm as if to remind him of last night’s romance when, in a coke-fueled bender, he invited her to this totally awesome gig he was DJing in Williamsburg. The two women don’t know the first group of acquaintances, and they look uncomfortable standing in the corner next to the laptop livestream. The love-interest starts using her phone, and when DJ Tennis scolds her for having her phone out, she seems to ask him, where’s the bathroom? He points outside and she says oh okay and they leave the box.

This all happens within seven minutes, so it’s a particularly lively episode.

All Youtube sets have a people-watching element—the pick-me crowds at some of the more recent Boiler Room shows, the rail-fish flailing at EDM festivals, the costumed free spiritedness of Book Club Radio, the radical hedonism of Boom Festival, the in-my-kitchen-didn’t-see-you-there vibes of so many pandemic DJs who bought mixing kits with stimulus checks. Watch too closely, and you might lose respect for a press-play DJ who fake mixes (Boris Brescha). But the sweet spot of half-aware reality TV can be entertaining and there are always gems to be found, like this dude in the Lakers jersey below, or just D. Dan ripping cigs and techno.