The group had good intentions, but the brightly colored $10 cocktails just weren’t big enough.

They were gathered shoulder to shoulder around a few small wooden tables that, shoved together, formed one long place setting of awkward silences sandwiched between awkward getting-to-know-you-but-I-need-to-have-a-few-more-drinks-before-I’m-ready-to-really-get-to-know-you pleasantries. There were about 12 or 13 twenty/thirtysomethings in all, the girls sharply dressed and the guys wearing sharp attention for the girls. I think they’d gathered here at bāśik as part of some sort of cocktail or bar-hopping tour. My brother-in-law and I watched from a cushioned bench near the entrance, sharing $6 pints of Captain Lawrence Pale Ale and a mutual appreciation of being onlookers, not participants.

bāśik is another newish Williamsburg bar with that specific type of clean, minimalist, industrialized vintage character that area hipster and hipsterettes fawn over. The walls like white-washed jeans, the floors cold cement, the tables candlelit, the beer menu simple, the cocktails obtusely named And How, Love Makes You Feel Ten Feet Tall, longitude / latitude. There’s a wood-paneled patio in the back, like a giant sauna with tables and chairs, and the bar itself is, according to their website, “perhaps the most impressive element… [a] long 19th century butcher block bar, salvaged from an abandoned packaging plant.” Wood and cement. Wood and cement.

More impressive, I think, are the two stark closet-like doors, painted metallic-grey, facing that old butcher block bar. One has “Restroom” neatly painted in black across the top; the other, nothing. Where oh where could it lead? I imagine it’s the entrance to Pandora’s box, a portal to a mind-bending imaginarium of fantastical wonders and shadowy horrors. It may also lead into the mind of John Malkovich, the actor best known for his captivating performances as Bruce Brazos in Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Quentin Turnbull in Jonah Hex. Open at your own risk.

There are, of course, no happy hour specials, but there are, of course, $3 cans of Budweiser.

Once upon a time this space was home to Phoebe’s Cafe, which was favored by area scenesters when I first moved to Williamsburg some 9 years ago. I tried it once on the recommendation of a flaky-cool editor who worked at a hip downtown magazine I was interning for at the time. I also tried the fish sandwich at the nearby White Castle on the corner of Humboldt and Metropolitan once–it was delicious. bāśik tips its hat to its predecessors with the phoebe’s sandwich (oven-roasted squash, eggplant and portobello, naan, sriracha mayo, $8), as part of a modest 13-item menu that also includes mac and cheese ($8), deviled duck egg ($4), and two types of hot dogs ($4 each).

Through the tall looking glass windows on bāśik’s Graham Avenue-facing facade, a view of C-Town, the neighborhood grocery, the “SuperMarkets for Savings”. Here the all-female teenage cashiers snack on potato chips and mini-donuts kept in drawers underneath their registers, carrying on fascinating conversations amongst themselves that tend to start with an impassioned “No, that stupid muthafuckah…” and end with a “… so fuck that bitch” finality. Once in awhile they say “you’re welcome” after thanking them for the attentive services they have kindly provided. C-Town’s piss-yellow lighting illuminates bright futures.

My brother-in-law’s paperback copy of The Way We Die Now, by Charles Willeford, lay on our low wooden table near the cushioned bench at the entrance, in front of the tall glass windows, across from the 19th-century butcher block bar, near the two closet-like doors painted metallic grey on the walls like white-washed jeans. We each choked down a small oatmeal cookie and washed away the blandness with the last of our pints of Captain Lawrence Pale Ale. One of bāśik’s proprietors was introduced to the cocktail group, which was still mired in fits and spurts of awkward silence. Everybody at those tables had good intentions; I can appreciate that. bāśik has good intentions, and I can appreciate that too.

bāśik is located at 323 Graham Avenue, just off the Graham Avenue stop on the L train, between Metropolitan Avenue and Devoe Street. M-W 4p-2a; Thu-Fri 4p-4a; Sat-Sun 12p-4a. 347-889-7597.

Eighty percent of people in the US who have a grandmother or great-grandmother have seen her bring out the Fiesta dinnerware to set the table.

OK, that’s completely untrue, but still….the colorful pottery launched in 1936 and it is still made today in Newell, West Virginia (where you can take a Fiesta factory tour.)

It’s sturdy and homey, and you can find it at lots of flea markets like Renninger’s in Mount Dora, Florida, in addition to retail outlets.

My own grandmother did have a set, so whenever I see a Fiesta plate or butter dish or one of their swoopy, futuristic pitchers, I think of her tidy little house in Winnsboro, Texas.

The dining table would be set for supper with pimiento cheese sandwiches, chilled red onion slices and glasses of sweet tea.

Round Fiesta light green salt and pepper shakers sat in the middle of the table, colorful and nicely designed, but useful….very much like her.

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In the heart of any city, there are times when things take on a quiet aspect, times when a quiet view of a usually busy scene arises. That was the case with this view of Buchanan Street in Glasgow, Scotland, which for me took on a bit of the aspect of an impressionist painting when seen from the steps of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall one winter evening.

This is a time of year when Scots across the world, and all who enjoy Scottish life, history, and culture, take the opportunity to celebrate around Burns Night, the anniversary of the birth of Scottish poet Robert Burns on 25 January. They may do this with the traditional meal of haggis, cock a leekie soup, and cranachan, or with other dishes and festivities suited to their own tastes. Burns wrote a poem famously using haggis as a metaphor for Scottish pride and independence of character, which is why the dish often turns up on Burns night celebrations.

Care to learn a bit more about Robert Burns?
Visit Scotland tells you about Burns Night, past and present
Eddi Reader sings his graceful song of enduring loveJohn Anderson My Jo, and his lively one celebrating good friendship, Willie Stewart
Emily Smith, who is from the same area of southwestern Scotland where Burns lived, has recorded a fresh look at his songs on her album called Adoon Winding Nith

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My decision to move out of New York City this past August came as a surprise to many of my friends and acquaintances and colleagues. Perhaps most of all to me. But even the most die hard New Yorkers I knew were wiling to grant that a plan to quit the city’s cooked pee summer streets for clean country air had a certain logic to it.

But seasons do change, I was reminded, and then what would I do in the dark and dreary winter, when the world would be leached of all color? Then I would pay the price for those mid-day dips in the swimming hole, and afternoon snacks of blueberries picked in my garden, and evening jogs without the risk of bronchitis or heat stroke, and sweater nights on the porch watching the stars.

The price for all of that pleasure would be bleak winter misery.

So it has been a surprise to me that the winter has not been bleak in the least. There have been gray days, of course,  but the winter landscape here in New York’s Taconics has more than compensated.  I am enjoying the bare musculature of the trees, the roll of the corn fields plowed, and the sight of houses that are in the warmer months hidden by leaves.

These are the pleasures of a black and white photograph, a sort of stark pleasure which I suppose I could have guessed I’d have enjoyed, even in summer.  The actual startle has been at how much color I’m finding when I wander, and how much I can appreciate these single instances of color when there aren’t as many gaudy distractions.

In the spirit of Kerry’s quiet winter moment, here are a few of my moments from the Harlem Valley Rail Trail last weekend. Each would be possible in another season, but would I have noticed the green, red and blue, or even the beauty of the shades of gray?

Travel inspiration is often very visual;  for those of us who are “of a certain age,” vacation slide shows hold some appeal even today.

Okay, here’s what a slide is and how it’s made.  Geesh.

That same tendency has moved online. The latest incarnation of what I call “social photography” is the digital display board website called Pinterest.

There are collaborative boards featuring UNESCO World Heritage sites.

There are boards featuring local events like Savannah, Georgia’s St Patrick’s Day bash (click through the screenshot photo above to see the full board.)

There are boards featuring Guatemala.

There are even boards featuring content from here on Perceptive Travel.  Rather meta, I know.

Do you have an interesting Pinterest Board related to your own travels? Tell us about it in the comments!

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