It's Gatsby Hour at the Museum Bar
Get your coat...
I bet you read The Great Gatsby in high school, when it meant absolutely nothing to you…and the green light at the end of the dock was just some weird obsession your English teacher kept harping on, while you slipped notes to your friends or daydreamed about your crush.
As I’ve done with most of the books ruined by English classes, I’ve reread Gatsby a few times since then; always gaining something new relative to each phase of life.
Most recently I picked it up after visiting a friend and stumbling upon a special exhibit on “Gatsby at 100” at the Minnesota Institute of Art—pairing visual pieces from a century ago with passages from the book.
Speaking of pairing, here’s a summery classic cocktail you can sip along with the characters (whether you revisit the book or not):
Gin Rickey
1 lime, quartered
2 oz gin
2-3 tsp sugar (or .75 oz simple syrup)
Club soda
In a shaker (or sturdy pint) muddle lime & sugar into a slurry.
Add gin and swirl.
Pour into a tall collins glass, add ice, and top with soda.
Garnish: lime wheel or wedge.
Upon returning home I picked up The Great Gatsby…and this go-round through the dark jaunty pages proved no different. It’s a surprisingly short read—almost a novella if you wanna get technical—with the flow and flavor of a poem, but crystal clear in what it delivers.
You open the first pages as a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed visitor sidling up to this inaccessible society of seriously scurrilous people, with fuck-you money and not much to do besides drink and complain about the summer heat and each other and solemn values they don’t exhibit.
But somehow you look past that and stick around for the party. Because you’re enchanted by the sensitive and lyrical prose of this jazz-age threnody to the American Dream…even as you witness a level of deadly ennui and casual cruelty that would scarcely be believable—if we weren’t living in an age where bored billionaires are shittifying the world, and the president is throwing a Gatsby-themed party while taking food from the mouths of children and babies.
A century ago, much was different; but the arc and momentum of accumulated wealth was the same…inevitably a crash ensues, at the hands of callous disregard fueled by private grievances. And the whole party turns out to be a glittery sham put on by a gilded hollow man clinging to a dream that has moved on, or maybe never was. At least not as we used to see it…
Okay so I guess this time rereading Gatsby maybe it did hit a little different after all. What about you?
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