Day 42: Seeing the 93-year-old inventor of electric guitar play live is BTS

There are exactly 988,968 words in the English language. None of them can do justice to the experience of seeing Les Paul, the 93-year-old inventor of the electric guitar, in concert (he plays at the Iridium Jazz Club with his trio on Monday nights). I was with my friend C.A., who was transfixed by Les Paul’s genius as much as by his late-night-comic schtick. A couple of out-of-towners jammed  with him onstage as they played bluegrass, folk and jazz standards as “Summertime”, “Tennessee Waltz” and “Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off.” 

Day 21: Trying absinthe for the first time is BTS

Can anyone tell me why I feel a certain irrational affinity for a liqeur that, after 100 long years of being banned in the US, resumes its quest – hypnotic, subversively rapturous – for sensory domination (aside from the fact that Johnny Depp downs a shot of it in “From Hell”)? The search for a shot of absinthe is not for the weak of heart; my friends and I stopped by five bars before finding one in the East Village right by St. Marks Place that carried it. Now I get the illicit charm of this bohemian potion: Forget about the heart. Absinthe makes the loins grow fonder, as Laszlo will tell you.