A Point of Pot Luck Etiquette

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We’ve long been a great fan of thrift store shopping. We can hardly pass by a Goodwill or a Value Village without popping in for at least a quick look at what’s on the racks. Whether it’s just a hasty rummage for a casual tie or an all-day weekend bargain hunt, there’s nothing we love better than pulling a piece of treasure from a pile of (ahem) non-treasure.

Lately though a strange thing has happened. We’ve been hitting the thrift stores as often as ever, but recently our searches have omitted clothing entirely.

Part of this is because we’ve just about reached the point where every new garment really ought to replace an old one; we’ve simply got enough clothes. Mostly though, it’s because we’re furnishing our living room and have kept a keen eye out for household goods. As always, the trick is to get things out of Goodwill that don’t look like they came out of Goodwill. We’ve picked up a few odds and ends that still had sticker-tags from some pretty high end stores. At this point we’re really just looking for some temporary solutions to make the room feel less empty, so thrift is a great way to do that while spending hardly any cash.

A homemade lasagna is excellent pot luck food.

A homemade lasagna is excellent pot luck food.

That’s all beside the point though. The point of this post is the great idea that a friend put us on to at Goodwill last weekend. It was so simply brilliant that we kicked ourselves pretty hard for not having thought of it before. So clever we thought we’d share it on the blog.

The idea was this: If you see a bowl or a casserole dish or platter that looks nice, buy it. Even if you don’t need it. It’s only a dollar or two. Then the next time you find yourself bringing a dish to a dinner or baby shower or graduation party or whatever kind of event people bring food to, bring your food in a thrifted dish and offer to let the hostess keep it.

In fact, insist that she keep it. It cost less than the cheap piece of disposable plastic you’d get at the grocery store and can be replaced just as easily. There are always plates and bowls at thrift stores. It even saves the hostess quite a bit of trouble. Bringing your own dish either forces the hostess to scrape off the burnt edges of lasagne before the end of the party so that you can take it home clean, or to coordinate with you for its return. A buck spent at Value Village can eliminate these chores and give everyone a little time for an extra glass of wine.

Gifting thrift dishes is a point of etiquette we’re going to adopt immediately, and once the living room is furnished and we start entertaining more some, we hope our guests will do the same.

The Chop Talks a Little More About Art Collecting

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In a previous post we laid out our philosophy concerning art collecting, and featured the first painting we’ve purchased for the house. Basically, that philosophy is that we’d rather keep our walls blank until we can afford to buy genuine work that we’ll truly appreciate, like portrait work that’s either realistic or abstract.

Last month when we posted our Pictures of Jerusalem, there was one image we intentionally omitted from that post. It was this one:

Khader Adnan

This is a piece of street art that we found on a Jerusalem wall outside of Herod’s Gate. Even working in remote areas and missing out on most of the news, we immediately recognized that it was an image of Palestinian political prisoner and hunger striker Khader Adnan. The stencil itself was stunning, and we stood on a fairly crowded street for several minutes studying and contemplating this the same way one would do with a museum piece. We snapped this photo with a cell phone.

For those unfamiliar, Khader Adnan was arrested in his home by Israel on December 17, 2011. The next day he began a hunger strike in prison that eventually became the longest in Palestinian history and lasted for 66 days until an agreement was reached in February and he was released in April. At the time we were there and took this photo, his case had sparked massive attention on the streets, and inspired hundreds of hunger strikes in solidarity by Palestinians throughout Israeli prisons.

[one_half]It wasn’t until we returned home that we realized that this hastily taken snapshot happened to turn out very nicely. We found we were looking at the digital version almost as intently as we stared at that wall in Jerusalem, and we decided that it would be suitable for framing.

We had it printed, chose a frame, and took it over to Fleckenstein gallery on Keswick Avenue to have them put it all together. We’re absolutely thrilled with the results.[/one_half]

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A cell phone pic suitable for framing.

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When we set out to build an art collection, we never imagined that we’d put anything of our own into a frame. After all, we’re not an artist, and most of the pictures we take are just so much digital junk. But trying not to sound pretentious, we love the artistic statement that this makes. The padlock symbolizes Israel’s strict management of the publicity of his case.

In Adnan’s own words: “They banned the media from covering my case, proof that they are afraid of the truth. Even after I ended my hunger strike, as I was being transferred from the hospital in Safad to Ramleh, they did so in a way so that no one could see me. They kidnapped me and pushed me through an inner garage. My appeal was held in the hospital cafeteria! Is Israel that afraid of showing its true face to the world?”

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This is how it looks in our dining room.


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[one_half_last]Keeping this in our home is not meant to be an explicit endorsement of any Palestinian position, or even of Khader Adnan himself. (Although his recent hunger strike was meant to specifically protest Israel’s policy of Administrative Detention, and as such we can say that we personally do support that action and oppose Administrative Detention.) If you ask us, we support Israel… but we also support the Palestinians. We’re certainly not alone in this position, although it is often difficult to articulate. The struggles between Israel and [/one_half_last] Palestine are so muddled because the truth is that both sides are right. And at the same time, both sides are doing wrong.

Khader Adnan is an ideal example of that. Before this he’s spent years in both Israeli and Palestinian prisons, and has had some level of involvement in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Our feeling is that he is someone who grew up Palestinian; who was a teenager in the nineties when tensions were much higher even than they are today. He was likely radicalized to a certain degree as a younger man. Now that he’s on the other side of 30 and has started a family he’s likely become wiser, studying for a masters’ and working as a small entrepreneur, and embracing nonviolent tactics to continue the struggle. While he has been a legitimate convict in the past, this particular detention was purely political in nature. There was no charge against him before his arrest or during his detention.

The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter whether Adnan is a terrorist or a freedom fighter; a violent man or a peaceful one, a genuinely good person or a hateful bastard. Either way, his human rights were violated when he was arrested and imprisoned. When he won that hunger strike, it wasn’t important because he won publicity or a policy change. It was important because he won back his humanity.

In that sense, this photo is not even a piece of political art. It is a portrait of a man who put his life at great risk to simply assert that he is a man, and is entitled to the dignity shared by all men. When we sit at our table and share food with our friends and family, we’ll look at this and think of what it means to be hungry.

Kind of Like Spitting @ Casa Fiesta Tonight

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If you were to walk up to us and say “Hey Chop, who’s your favorite band?” We would say Kind of Like Spitting. If you were to say “No, I mean like, really your favorite, favorite of all time?” We”d look you square in the eye and say without any hesitation “Kind of Like Spitting.”

We had heard Nothing Makes Sense Without It shortly after it was released in 2000 and thought it was a great record. It’s still a great record. Maybe our favorite record. Later that year we saw Ben Barnett perform those songs solo at the Sidebar and we were hooked. At the risk of sounding incredibly corny, it’s like the Minutemen said: “This is Bob Dylan to me.”

KOLS Has been our favorite band ever since. Roommate became their point man locally, and whenever they toured he’d book their Baltimore shows. They were the only band we’d allow to stay at the house. We even made trips to Philly and NYC to catch extra sets. We thought we’d seen the last of them when Ben called it quits in 2006.

We’re going to forgo any in-depth analysis of KOLS’ music or any editorializing about what Portland Oregon was 10 or more years ago and what it is now. We’re going to skip the essay about emotional honesty in indie rock and a point-by-point critique of the scene. And we’re going to spare you the personal stories about all the shit that listening to this band helped us get through (and still helps us get through) and the memories of all the times we’ve seen them play before.

We’re getting a Zipcar and going to DC to watch a broken-up band play a Mexican restaurant on a Monday night. That should tell you all you need to know about how much we love Kind of Like Spitting.

This show is a benefit for the family of Anthony Poynter, who passed away after struggling with cancer in March of this year. The Max Levine Ensemble, Priests, and Michael Cantor also play. There is a $7-$10 suggested donation, with additional donations also being accepted at the show.

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Casa Fiesta is at 4910 Wisconsin Ave. NW in Washington DC, neat Fort Reno Park and the Tenleytown Metro. 6:30 doors, show at 7:30.

The Couch Chronicles, Volume VI

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So we’re trying to win a couch. We’re getting a couch from Pad, and writing a series of blog posts about it, and if we can manage to out-blog the competition then the good people over at Su Casa will give us the couch for free.

It’s not just about the couch though. We ordered several other pieces of furniture from Su Casa as well, and started the Couch Chronicles series to document the whole experience of taking our living room from bare to beautiful. Up until now it’s been all about plans, and the actual room has remained empty. This week we’re happy to announce that the living room finally has something in it.

Do you know what that is? It’s our new rug from Surya. Su Casa offers four full rug catalogs with tens of thousands of choices. The one we chose from the Surya catalog just happened to be marked “quickship” and so it was available for delivery a mere 3 weeks from the time we ordered it. (That delivery, by the way, was free as are all Su Casa and Pad deliveries.)

This is what it looks like in the space. But what it looks like is just the beginning. An ongoing theme in our design process, and one of the reasons we were so attracted to Su Casa in the first place is that we are determined not to cut corners in this room. We mean to live in it for a long time, so we’re looking for a superior level of quality in everything we buy- right down to the rug.

We were being picky. We really wanted a 100% wool rug, but more than that we wanted it to be thick and plush and made by hand. Traveling throughout the Middle East as much as we have, we’ve seen some incredibly fine Persian and Egyptian rugs- some of the finest in the world, and we wanted something like that for our own home. Surya’s rugs are all made in the traditional ways, and that quality shows through in the end product. This video demonstrates the entire process.

We’ve got a rug in our dining room as well. It’s a Mohawk and it’s nice enough, but that one is polypropylene and was machine made. The difference between it and our new rug on the right is night and day. This is the end result of the handmade process seen in the video:

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Needless to say, we’re thrilled with the rug. It really ties the room together. It’s so nice, in fact, that we’d go ahead and qualify it as a luxury item. It certainly feels luxurious enough when you walk across it barefoot.

The most thrilling part though is that there was no luxury price tag attached. All of Su Casa’s rugs are very competitively priced for their quality, and our 5′ x 8′ rug was on sale for only $355, significantly less than what we had budgeted.

Blank Reunion Show @ Ottobar Tomorrow

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We’re pretty much convinced that this whole crummy decade is just the 90’s all over again. At least musically. There are slackers everywhere. WHFS is back on the air. Beavis and Butthead are on Mtv, and just this week we dropped by the Sound Garden and found so much Toad the Wet Sprocket and 4 Non-Blondes in the used bin we thought we were back in middle school.

The 90’s are back with such a vengeance that we even get to see good old fashioned emo music live on stage this weekend. Blank is playing the Ottobar tomorrow. If you’re under 30, you may not know about Blank. We will explain: You know The Desert Boys? Well before that, Ryan Shelkett was in Liars’ Academy. And before that he was in Cross My Heart. And before that he was in Dead Red Sea. And even before that there was Blank. That’s how old you are when you’re over 30. You remember all that like Methuselah or something. So it’s a show where everyone there is hiring a babysitter and taking their wife to listen to the same songs that they listened to when some girl dumped them in 9th grade. Whatever. We’ll probably go to it anyway.

Blank plays Reptilian Records 1995

Blank at Reptilian Records, 1995.

It’s not all nostalgia tomorrow though. Office of Future Plans is one of the best bands around right now. They may be a new-ish band, but they move like old-ish guys careerwise. Their second show ever was the topic of our first blog post, and it took them more than two years to get a record out. Now that it’s out, are they hitting the road to try and sell it? Nah. They’re putting their feet up. This is their last scheduled show until they schedule another one.

We’re especially excited to see the one band on this bill that we’ve never seen before, Murder. They’ve been active enough, we’ve just been out of town or whatever and missed them almost entirely, although their particular brand of spitting and sneering is part of what attracted us to punk rock in the first place. It’s what still keeps us interested into our 30’s. This is a band that says “I feel bad about myself cause I know deep down I’m a shitty person from a shitty place but beer and leather jackets and loud fucking rock makes me feel good again.” That’s not to say that we think they’re shitty people- quite the opposite- but what punk hasn’t felt like that more than a few times?

Their debut EP is the perfect thing when you’re stomping around drunk in a squalid rowhouse after midnight and trying to pick a fight with your neighbors. The neighbors may not deserve it, but someone does.