SPS: Matt & Alex

Matt showed us examples of his decades of martial arts training. Matt and Alex showed us chinese lion drumming. All were awe-inspired. It was like watching perfect dancing.

SPS: Geof Dorn

Geoff Dorn talked about insurance (the basics) and then taught us the major ways to tie any type of tie. He wasn't lying when he said he's taught more people to tie a tie than anyone in the world!

SPS: Larry Yes

Soul Journey by Larry Yes with his Audience

Fandalism Free MP3 Hosting

For the first in the Special Presentation Series at Legare's, Larry Yes presented his story of coming to be a song writer, how he writes a song, and how to use a four track to record a musical moment. It was awesome and moving. Many joined Larry in recording a vocal and drum jam (we will post soon). Thank you Larry!

Better Living Through Chemistry

Mind and machine merge in the 1822 invention of the espresso machine. The machine age motorcycle of the mind. Is it a coincidence that from the belles lettres age of tea and lace that "Realism" bursts onto the scene at the same time with novelists like Balzac, Dickens, Flaubert, and Zola? Coffee is the lubricating oil of music, art, and other revolutions. The world was asleep and Balzac drank the blackest of coffee he could find and woke up. He saw the world for the first time with all of its many surfaces shining and reflecting into one another. Its darknesses darker, its light, a scintillating patina dancing over all. The City now breathes with life, every stone once a palace and now, a future barricade; each man pushing a cart intertwined by history and economy into the lives of the least and the greatest.
Balzac would rise in the late afternoon like a tide, eat a light dinner, sleep until midnight, and then write and work for fourteen hours. His life, work, passions, and person were all colossal. I don't understand why critics call a man who believed in ghosts, the monarchy, and failed at every business venture a Realist. He reminds me at times of a child who won't go to bed when there is company over for fear that they will miss something. What did it mean when we could not put that book down when we were children? We knew that the book was not going to change over night, it would still be there, we could still continue it but we would rather spend the next day tired than put the book down. Balzac saw the world as a book he couldn't put down and set out to write about the whole thing. For this, he would need to stay awake. He wrote, published, and edited in all the media of his day: newspapers, magazines, books, plays, and an opera.
The history of coffee in the West follows the rise of industrialism. The early machines are still used and made today - things of steam, pistons, and springs that are works of art in themselves, The semi-automatic espresso machine was developed after World War II and the fully automatic espresso machine invented in the 1960s - coincidentally another time of social, political, and artistic revolutions.
I was asked a few weeks ago about how I reconcile work and art. How can we work in a college, write and research in education, teach and also write fiction or produce any art? I began to think about all the ways that my work informs my art and vice-versa. Balzac was in on the multimedia boom of his time, the modern printing press. He was a newpaper, magazine, and book publisher. He was not successful at any of these because he still had a huge foot in the previous century. We see ventures like this all the time today - internet ventures that act like paid subscription libraries in an age of open content. And I love the derision that is directed towards blogging in the "traditional" academic media (Chronicle of Higher Ed and New York Review of Books); they can't stand uncontrolled, non-tenured, non-vetted, non-peer-reviewed amateur scholars daring to publish. They should celebrate the return of the penny pamphlet - it is even cheaper now! The pamphleteers fed the imaginations of Shakespeare and Thomas Paine. Many of the world's greatest ideas came from the chemically-altered imaginations of the self-published. I like blogs because I can start a piece in the third person and end in the first and there is no one here to stop me.

I am no Balzac but his huge embrace of all media and forms of writing, his enormously polymathic output, is an inspiration. So my answer to the question about work and art in the Age of the 60 Hour Work Week is to love the world, live passionately, and be prepared to drink lots of coffee! -- Geoff Cain

Costa Rican Coffee

Legare's Has It!!! Costa Rican Coffee grown by Pedro--the same stuff used exclusively by Olga at Olga's Cafe in Tamarindo, Costa Rica. We're offering it as one of the specialty French Presses, come in, try it, live it.

Costa Rica Update: June 12, 2008; 7:14 p.m.

J.L. here, I can´t read the spanish on this computer to and a new posting, ergo I´m adding a post as a "comment" and will resent such as a post when I get to another terminal, here it is: The expedition to Costa Rica is nearing its end. Thus far I´ve discovered what a star fruit tree looks like, eaten soursop/guananbana as large as my head, met Olga the owner of Olga´s Cafe, got punched in the mouth by my surfboard, went diving at 2 sites that translate as "the tits" and "dangerous" (on one dive using my skills as staying calm while running out of air and using Ellie´s back-up regulator to breath, and on the other dive using my skill of puking while breathing through a respirator since I got massively sea sick between dives and during my second ascent), ate so much passion fruit
that my urine turned painfully acidic, and today took a mountain bike through a local rainforest preserve while dodging grey iguanas that darted across the road. Tomorrow I will attempt to further develop my surfing skills and connect with Olga again in an attempt to procure some coffee from her private source to offer at Legare's--stay tuned regarding a future post on Costa Rican coffee procurement.

June 12, 2008 7:14 PM

J.L. Update.

Jonathan is off to Costa Rica for a bit to inspect various coffee plantations, search for Miracle Fruit and encounter "stuff." Travel updates will be posted as is possible.

Wheat gluten free waffles will continue to be offered on Sunday while J. is away, but the Sunday evening free wine event will be on hold until 6.15.08.

Dinner

Hello!

     Just so everyone knows Jon is making a special dinner tonight.  The menu will be wild boar paired with wild rice.   "It's really wild." said Jon with so much enthusiasm I almost couldn't stand it.  Hope to see you all tonight. 

                                                                                     - E

Pomegranate Sodas Are Back!!!

Yay! Whatever ethnic war was coming between me and my sweet sweet pomegranate soda has finally come to an end. Long live the current occupying republic of where ever the fuck it is. Now I can go back to drinking me some pomegranates.

Here are some fun facts about pomegranates:

pomegranates are not actually vegetables but rather fruit.

The name "pomegranate" derives from Latin pomum ("apple") and granatus ("seeded")

they grow on shrubbery called Pomegranate Trees.

In the global functional food industry, pomegranate is included among a novel category of exotic plant sources called superfruits.

a great online pomegranate resource is called "wikipedia.org".

If you don't know, now you know

Zombies À La Carte

There may be a new tradition forming at Legare’s.  This Saturday night, for the second week in a row, there will be a dinner and movie theme night.  Last week it was The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover paired with a portion of Jon’s amazing black menu.  This week, keeping with the idea of pairing unappetizing movies with food, Legare’s will be showing both 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later.  Per usual, Jon is secretive about the menu he will be serving, however he has been making subtle requests for me to “acquire” items from my job.  Nevertheless I’m sure whatever he prepares will be delicious and as appropriate to the theme of virus infected zombified humans as food possibly can be.  The evening’s events will begin around 7, or whenever they get their act together.   Hope to see you Saturday. 

                                                                                                                     - Erin

Narcissism is the New Black

Legare’s Community Resource Center is starting a narcissist club.  While the meetings are currently scheduled for Mondays, they will most likely take place whenever the opportunity arises. Just in case there is any confusion, here is the Legare’s working definition of narcissism.

Narcissists are an elusive breed, hard to spot, harder to pinpoint, impossible to capture. Even an experienced mental health diagnostician with unmitigated access to the record and to the person examined would find it fiendishly difficult to determine with any degree of certainty whether someone suffers from a full fledged Narcissistic Personality Disorder – or merely possesses narcissistic traits, a narcissistic style, a personality structure ("character"), or a narcissistic "overlay" superimposed on another mental health problem.

Narcissism is regarded by many scholars to be an adaptive strategy ("healthy narcissism"). It is considered pathological in the clinical sense only when it becomes a rigid personality structure replete with a series of primitive defense mechanisms (such as splitting, projection, projective identification, or intellectualization) – and when it leads to dysfunctions in one or more areas of the patient's life.

Pathological narcissism is the art of deception. The narcissist projects a False Self and manages all his social interactions through this concocted fictional construct.

When the narcissist reveals his true colors, it is usually far too late. His victims are unable to separate from him. They are frustrated by this acquired helplessness and angry with themselves for having they failed to see through the narcissist earlier on.

But the narcissist does emit subtle, almost subliminal, signals ("presenting symptoms") even in a first or casual encounter.

These are:

"Haughty" body language – The narcissist adopts a physical posture that implies and exudes an air of superiority, seniority, hidden powers, mysteriousness, amused indifference, etc. Though the narcissist usually maintains sustained and piercing eye contact, he often refrains from physical proximity (he is "territorial").

The narcissist takes part in social interactions – even mere banter – condescendingly, from a position of supremacy and faux "magnanimity and largesse". But he rarely mingles socially and prefers to remain the "observer", or the "lone wolf".

Entitlement markers – The narcissist immediately asks for "special treatment" of some kind. Not to wait his turn, to have a longer or a shorter therapeutic session, to talk directly to authority figures (and not to their assistants or secretaries), to be granted special payment terms, to enjoy custom tailored arrangements - or to get served first.

 

The narcissist is the one who – vocally and demonstratively – demands the undivided attention of the headwaiter in a restaurant, or monopolizes the hostess, or latches on to celebrities in a party. The narcissist reacts with rage and indignantly when denied his wishes and if treated equally with others whom he deems inferior.

Idealization or devaluation – The narcissist instantly idealizes or devalues his interlocutor. This depends on how the narcissist appraises the potential his converser has as a Narcissistic Supply Source. The narcissist flatters, adores, admires and applauds the "target" in an embarrassingly exaggerated and profuse manner – or sulks, abuses, and humiliates her.

Narcissists are polite only in the presence of a potential Supply Source. But they are unable to sustain even perfunctory civility and fast deteriorate to barbs and thinly veiled hostility, to verbal or other violent displays of abuse, rage attacks, or cold detachment.

The "membership" posture – The narcissist always tries to "belong". Yet, at the very same time, he maintains his stance as an outsider. The narcissist seeks to be admired for his ability to integrate and ingratiate himself without investing the efforts commensurate with such an undertaking.

For instance: if the narcissist talks to a psychologist, the narcissist first states emphatically that he never studied psychology. He then proceeds to make seemingly effortless use of obscure professional terms, thus demonstrating that he mastered the discipline all the same, as an autodidact – which proves that he is exceptionally intelligent or introspective.

In general, the narcissist always prefers show-off to substance. One of the most effective methods of exposing a narcissist is by trying to delve deeper. The narcissist is shallow, a pond pretending to be an ocean. He likes to think of himself as a Renaissance man, a Jack-of-all-trades. The narcissist never admits to ignorance in any field – yet, typically, he is ignorant of them all. It is surprisingly easy to penetrate the gloss and the veneer of the narcissist's self-proclaimed omniscience.

Bragging and false autobiography – The narcissist brags incessantly. His speech is peppered with "I", "my", "myself", and "mine". He describes himself as intelligent, or rich, or modest, or intuitive, or creative – but always excessively, implausibly, and extraordinarily so.

The narcissist's biography sounds unusually rich and complex. His achievements – incommensurate with his age, education, or renown. Yet, his actual condition is evidently and demonstrably incompatible with his claims. Very often, the narcissist lies or his fantasies are easily discernible.

Emotion-free language – The narcissist likes to talk about himself and only about himself. He is not interested in others or what they have to say, unless they constitute potential Sources of Supply and in order to obtain said supply. He acts bored, disdainful, even angry, if he feels that they are intruding on his precious time and, thus, abusing him.

In general, the narcissist is very impatient, easily bored, with strong attention deficits – unless and until he is the topic of discussion. One can publicly dissect all aspects of the intimate life of a narcissist without repercussions, providing the discourse is not "emotionally tinted".

If asked to relate directly to his emotions, the narcissist intellectualizes, rationalizes, speaks about himself in the third person and in a detached "scientific" tone or composes a narrative with a fictitious character in it, suspiciously autobiographical.

Seriousness and sense of intrusion and coercion – The narcissist is dead serious about himself. He may possess a subtle, wry, and riotous sense of humor, scathing and cynical, but rarely is he self-deprecating. The narcissist regards himself as being on a constant mission, whose importance is cosmic and whose consequences are global.

The narcissist is easily hurt and insulted (narcissistic injury). He interprets even the most innocuous remarks or acts as belittling, intruding, or coercive. His time is more valuable than others' – therefore, it cannot be wasted on unimportant matters such as mere banter or going out for a walk.

Any suggested help, advice, or concerned inquiry are immediately cast by the narcissist as intentional humiliation, implying that the narcissist is in need of help and counsel and, thus, imperfect and less than omnipotent. Any attempt to set an agenda is, to the narcissist, an intimidating act of enslavement. In this sense, the narcissist is both schizoid and paranoid and often entertains ideas of reference.

These – the lack of empathy, the aloofness, the disdain, the sense of entitlement, the constricted sense of humor, the unequal treatment and the paranoia – render the narcissist a social misfit. The narcissist is able to provoke in his milieu, in his casual acquaintances, even in his psychotherapist, the strongest, most avid and furious hatred and revulsion. To his shock, indignation and consternation, he invariably induces in others unbridled aggression.

He is perceived to be asocial at best and, often, antisocial. This, perhaps, is the strongest presenting symptom. One feels ill at ease in the presence of a narcissist for no apparent reason. No matter how charming, intelligent, thought provoking, outgoing, easy going and social the narcissist is – he fails to secure the sympathy of others, a sympathy he is never ready, willing, or able to reciprocate.   

These ideas are taken from Dr. Sam Vaknin's book Malignant Self Love  http://samvak.tripod.com/narcissismredflags.html

Tomorrow night (Sat. Feb 23rd) Jon will be showing one of his all time favorite films The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover.  He is also talking about preparing a dinner from his black menu.  When I inquired what was on the menu he replied "that is all you need to know" and refuses to elaborate.  Regardless of what he prepares I have no doubt that it will be both extremely fancy and amazingly delicious.  Tomorrow night is also the low-res film festival.  Hopefully more details about that event will be provided soon.  I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow!

                                                                                   - Erin 

Weekly Street Art and Graffiti Forum

Howdy Folks!
I intend to start a weekly street art and graffiti forum Saturdays at Legare's. I will be hosting a preliminary meeting this Saturday at 6 pm. We will be discussing meeting times, format ideas and overall goals of the weekly forum. My ideas are to show highlights from the week in terms of national, international and local street art as well as discuss ideas for collaborative projects around the city. Hope to see you all there!
-Bryce

Grey Gardens

Grey Gardens fever. Catch it! This Thursday at Legare's

This Thursday: Gray Gardens

So you might've heard last Thursday I was MIA for Legare's Movie Night. After I announced Gloria as last week's movie a look of... I would describe it as glassy eyed indifference threatening to spill over into out right hostility came over the audience.
We'll apparently I misread the cultural climate as I can not step outside in this city without someone asking me where I was on Thursday. I had no idea that a) anyone even knew about the existence of film night and b) anyone cared. Now that I'm aware that Film Night is the social event of Thursday I'll be sure to take it more seriously from now on. Let this be my personal Legare-antee that I will never miss any Film Night ever again.

So this week everyone show up for Grey Gardens. It's the classic documentary about two reclusive women who live together in a gothic mansion.

The story was recently the subject of a Broadway Musical.

Directed by the Maysles Brotheres. 1975. 100 min.

Rogue Hackers take on Scientology

Hello Legare's Bloggers!
Over the past week an online hacker group calling themselves "Anonymous" have been attacking the Church of Scientology in an attempt to shut them down. "Anonymous" has gone so far as to shut down the CoS website, mail letters to all followers world wide, and organized rallies outside the 700 Scientology centers around the globe. Of course, Legare's does not support terrorism, but we do support knowledge. "Anonymous" got quite a bit of media coverage in the beginning of the week, but recently less and less has been leaked. Fortunately, Zach is on top of it, and i will attempt to keep all you Legare's readers posted on the newsbreaks.
The following is a link to a Times article which talks about some issues around Scientology:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,972865-1,00.html

These are all the messages that have been leaked to the public, from Anonymous themselves...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCbKv9yiLiQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yozvaMGkDjo
http://youtube.com/watch?v=QubW_LhiqDY
Enjoy
~Zach

This Week's Movie Night Film Is...

So, what's this week's movie?

Uh.. I don't know... GLORIA maybe...

GLORIA? Really GLORIA?

Yeah, that'll be good. Directed by John Travolta and staring Genia Rowlands as the titular GLORIA who goes on a pre- THELMA & LOUISE feminist advancing killing spree. John Cassavettes mostly famous as an actor for playing the husband in ROSEMARY'S BABY but as a director he's an underappreciated genius of American cinema. He's like a home grown, one man french new wave.

This Thursday at 6 pm GLORIA - she's out to beat the mob... at their own game!

1980. color. 123 minutes.

Official Announcement: Legare’s Proprietor, Jonathan Legare, Has Been Elected to the Division/Clinton Business Association Board Of Directors.

At the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Division/Clinton Street Business Association held on 1.22.08, Legare’s Proprietor, Jonathan Legare was unanimously elected to the D/CBA Board Of Directors for a 2 year term. Excellent…

Kopi Luwak in Japan

Regular readers of the Legare's blog might be interested to know that my local coffee shop — Hiro's Coffee — has started carrying Kopi Luwak. They're charging 3,600 yen for 100 grams, which is about $35.00 for about a fifth of a pound. Hiro's is, in fact, a chain, but each outlet has it's own roasting machine and they roast on site. They offer a wide variety of coffees, many of which are fair trade and/or organic coffees. The most interesting thing about Hiro's is that it still operates based on the older model of Japanese coffee shop and it serves no espresso drinks, only vacuum-brewed coffee (it does, however, stock espresso blend).

Thurs 24th of Jan: Legare's Movie Club - Macabe And Mrs. Miller

Dear Sir or Ma'am,





Thursday Legare's Community Resource Center (if you haven't heard of it go to the blog. It's the one you're reading right now) will be screening Robert Altman's classic take of the Western genre: Popeye. Nope, just kidding actually the movie in question is MACABE AND MRS. MILLER. 1971. The film stars Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. Ask your parents.

Q: What's it about?
A: The antics of a mining town. Set in olden times. It was a major influence on THERE WILL BE BLOOD (especially the cinematography) and PT Anderson who called it the best film ever (citation needed).

Q: Is it good?
A: Yes
More Descriptive A: Read this review.

Q: How long is it? Is it in Color? Are there Subtitles?
A: 2 hours. Yes. No.

Q: Why don't you show newer movies?
A: You've already seen 'em.

Q: I'm uncultured. Will it be down to my level?
A: No, it will elevate you to it's level.