Darby Strong

Playing point. Delivering the rock.

The Faux Interview

I have been on the Daily Show’s teat, so to speak, for 11 years now. Yeah, I feel special because I have been watching it for a long time. I admit it. It is one of the few things that helps reinforce the reality that millions of people “get it,” which is hard to come by in small town South Carolina. But what intrigues me the most; not even intrigues, but rather, mystifies me, are the interviews.

How in the hell do they get the interviews?

Tonight, Steven Colbair, formerly of The Daily Show, interviewed this robust white guy. In the midst of the interview, he says: “So, you’re a member of the NAACP and of NOW. So, are you an African American, or are you an African American woman?”

The guy is befuddled. HOW do they get past these people. Seriously. How do they schedule the interviews without the gatekeeper figuring out that the interview is full satire? Are the interviewees along for the ride? It doesn’t ever seem to me that they are, but the joke is SOOO good, that I wonder. Once the reveal is made, how does one sustain the masquerade?

We should ask the woman who perfected the Faux Interview, Beth Littleford. Let’s give props where props are due. The first time I ever saw her on The Daily Show, I fell in love with her. This woman is fricking hilarious. Ms. Littleford, if you are reading, how do you get the interview? How?

The Resurgence of Wormwood

“What difference is there between a glass of absinthe and a sunset?”
-Oscar Wilde

Native N’awlins microbiologist, Ted Breaux, has been working on debunking the bad reputation of Absinthe, as well as producing the best tasting, authentic Absinthe made in a century, one molecule at a time. Absinthe, long suspected as the cause of “criminal dementia” due to its key ingredient, bitter leaves of Artemisia absinthium, or Wormwood, may not be so bad after all. Plus, its lovely green hue and anise flavorings are romantically alluring, and help even the most mundane feel artsy and sophisticated.

From Wired:

Breaux begins to prepare it in the traditional French manner, a process as intricate as a tea ceremony. First he decants a couple of ounces into two widemouthed glasses specially made for the drink. A strong licorice aroma wafts across the table. Then he adds 5 or 6 ounces of ice-cold water, letting it trickle through a silver dripper into the glass. “Pour it slowly,” he says. “That’s the secret to making it taste good. If the water’s too warm, it will taste like donkey piss.”
The drink turns milky, and a condensate floats to the top. This is called the louche, a word that’s come to mean “disreputable.” Breaux hands it to me and tells me there’s no need to stir away the louche or add sugar to an absinthe this fine. I take a sip. The flavor is subtle, dry, complex. It makes my tongue feel a little numb. “It’s like an herbal speedball,” he says. “Some of the compounds are excitatory, some are sedative. That’s the real reason artists liked it. Drink two or three glasses and you can feel the effects of the alcohol, but your mind stays clear – you can still work.”

Piano, Man

Atlanta has a Piano man they can call their own. His new masterpiece is Atlanta’s Woodruff Arts Center Campus, an expansion of the High Museum.

Renzo Piano comes from Genoa, Italy, and with him he thankfully brings a simple, yet sophisticated, idea of the city center, or Piazza.

“It’s a place where you feel well. You feel well first because you are in the middle of nature, because you are perfected…you are in the piazza.”

One of the most fascinating features of the High museum’s expansion is the roof, which provides illumination of the museum galleries with natural light by a special roof structure: 1,000 light “scoops” will capture northern light and filter it into the top-floor galleries. The shadow’s created at different times of the day reinforce the idea of art being fluid and never static. Each piece takes on a different look every second of every day, depending upon nature. Cool, huh?

Piano has this down-to-earth, wise air about him. He says things, with this captivating old world Italian accent, like “an architect must catch the little genius of the place. every place has a little genius, or many…” and “Architecture is not just the art of making buildings – it’s an art of telling stories.”

Please keep telling your story, Piano man.