Welcome to ‘Sunday life’*. Sunday is time for a little R&R, and I am partial to a nice cocktail, a good read and a few tunes to help me relax.
Today I am indulging with a luscious Golden Martini. This is what I call an ‘adult’ cocktail.
Golden Martini
60ml Vodka (Absolut)
30ml Goldwasser* (Danzinger)
Method: in a cocktail shaker combine the above ingredients, add ice, shake and strain into a Martini glass and watch the gold-flakes flicker in the light.
*Goldwasser is an exquisite root and herbal liquor with small flakes of 22 carat gold suspended in it.
While you are enjoying your Golden Martini, here are a few of my current favourite tunes to discover.
‘Alright,’ by Kendrick Lamar
Kendrick Lamar’s latest music video ‘Alright’ is a musical masterpiece, a visual feast and a poignant political statement.
It’s a totally ‘bad-ass’ piece of art – harrowing and beautiful at once. The music video is a commentary on the US police’s relationship with black America and as such has been called provocative, and it has also been subjected to some misguided criticism.
‘Bitch Better Have My Money,’ by Rihanna
Rihanna’s latest music video has also ruffled feathers. ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’ is arguably not her best work musically, but it’s the video that stirred controversy.
It is explicit and violent, and thus perhaps not surprisingly it features ‘Hannibal’ lead Mads Mikkelsen, as the ‘Accountant’. Some described the video as a reaction to the wall-to-wall coverage of white on black violence in the United States as the video ‘turns the tables’, depicting a violent blood-splattered revenge fantasy being executed by a black woman on a beautiful rich white woman …
‘When I Get My Name in Lights,’ by Bronte Kellam-Pearson and Bobby Fox
Finally, something very, very different. I discovered the jazzy duet of ‘When I Get My Name in Lights’ by Bronte Kellam-Pearson and Bobby Fox completely by accident earlier this week, and I was taken by the beautiful vocals and the arrangement.
After the mayhem and violence of the two previous videos, this will be a nice relaxing viewing.
If you would prefer a quiet read with your Golden Martini, my choice this month is …
Frank O’Hara (1926-1966)
O’Hara was the curator of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, a writer and a poet who became regarded as a leading figure in the ‘New York School,’ an informal group of artists, musicians, poets and writers who drew inspiration from jazz, surrealism, abstract expressionism, action painting and contemporary avant-garde art movements.
My two favourite collections of poems from O’Hara are:
- Lunch Poems (1964); and
- Meditations in an Emergency (1957).
My absolute favourite poem by O’Hara is ‘Having a Coke With You‘.
*’Sunday life’ is a new feature piece which will be published on the first Sunday of each month.
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