Significant Cocktails

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There’s a really great account of the triumphant public debut of the Significant Objects, at The Strand on July 10 over on Electric Literature’s Outlet blog, and maybe we’ll say more on that later.

But today, we need to take a moment to thank some great friends for throwing a rather amazing Significant Cocktails party the following night, to celebrate the book’s release.

This wasn’t just hanging around drinking and yakking and having fun — although there was plenty of that. It was a creative event unto itself: In the spirit of the project, three expert mixologists created new cocktails inspired by … objects.

Contributing writer (and superfriend of the project) Ben Greenman contributed a curious gun-necklace trinket to this effort. The object inspired Martim Smith-Mattsoon to devise the Trinket Gimlet, featuring Beefeater 24 gin, earl grey tapioca pearls, and lime.

Molly Peck, one of the cunning and delightful individuals who purchased a Significant Object or three during the project’s active-sales period, offered up a mysterious bottle-stopper featuring a grinning head that some surmise may be a representation of Dwight Eisenhower. It became the muse of Michael J. Cirino, who concocted what he dubbed the Temporomandibular, including vodka, Bugal Especial, Plymouth Gin, Cointreau, tequila, and Coke.

Finally, project founders Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker came up with a pair of suspiciously similar buggy toys (the true significance of which is a proprietary secret of Significant Objects Enterprises, our shadowy parent company). Lynette Marerro responded with a drink called the Malibu Beach, featuring Goslings Black Seal Rum, lemon, and raspberry shrub.

These brilliant creators of drink were rounded up by Emilie Baltz, who masterminded the evening, along with Allan Chochinov. Chochinov, a longtime friend of the project, made everything happen, under the auspices of the Products of Design MFA program he has created for New York’s School of Visual Arts. The new and highly impressive Products of Design space was, in fact, the venue for the party. Allan and Emilie’s colleagues Kofi Aidoo and Stephanie Pottinger also played crucial roles in making the evening a success.

We offer sincere thanks to all of the above. But there is one more entity to thank, as well: eBay. That’s who sponsored the evening, and we are particularly grateful to Marie Tahir and Dane Howard.

In short, it was quite a night. We got to see some friends again, make lots of new ones, meet in person writers who contributed great stories to the book, and generally spend a few hours feeling like we’d done something worthwhile (and, also, getting drunk). The cocktails were all quite wonderful, but it was really the creative spirit of the night that made it a perfect celebration of the strange and unlikely thing that is Significant Objects.

Please see the slideshow above, and/or this Products of Design post, and this Flickr set, this HiLobrow post, and this post on Emilie Baltz’s site, for more.

Cheers!

 

 

 

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"Significant Objects combines one of the oldest of all media — the near-improvised short story — with the reinvigorated writer-reader relationship afforded by Web 2.0." — The Independent's Couch Surfer. Follow us on Twitter; join us on Facebook.

One thought on “Significant Cocktails”

  1. Another way to test the connection between story and thrift store items would be to open another ebay site, not promote it on a site by telling readers what you are doing, use thrift store items again and novice short story writers.

    Maybe the writers could be from high school communities that need funding with high schoolers writing the short stories.

    Using so called unknown writers is a good way to find out if your hypothesis is correct. Hope you try this test soon.

    Thanks and great site, wonderful book.

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