If you are reading this, you survived 2025. Congratulations! It’s the year 5786 in the Hebrew calendar, 1474 in the Armenian, 2564 in the Buddhist, and 6772 in the Gregorian, just to make your hangover more interesting. We’ll be available to help with a little hair of the dog, some food specials, and Evan Anstey and the Old Ways, joining us Saturday at 8pm. Come on down!
“A World Where News Traveled Slowly”
It could take from Monday to Thursday
and three horses. The ink was unstable,
the characters cramped, the paper tore where it creased.
Stained with the leather and sweat of its journey,
the envelope absorbed each climatic shift,
as well as the salt and grease of the rider
who handed it over with a four-day chance
that by now things were different and while the head
had to listen, the heart could wait.
Semaphore was invented at a time of revolution;
the judgment of swing in a vertical arm.
News traveled letter by letter, along a chain of towers,
each built within telescopic distance of the next.
The clattering mechanics of the six-shutter telegraph
still took three men with all their variables
added to those of light and weather,
to read, record and pass the message on.
Now words are faster, smaller, harder
…we’re almost talking in one another’s arms.
Coded and squeezed, what chance has my voice
to reach your voice unaltered and to leave no trace?
Nets tighten across the sky and the sea bed.
When London made contact with New York,
there were such fireworks, City Hall caught light.
It could have burned to the ground.
–Lavinia Greenlaw
Food Specials (Friday and Saturday only):
Spam Musubi: Spam, Egg, Kimchi, Rice, wrapped in seaweed — $11
Japanese Potato Salad: Potato, Corn, Cucumber, Carrots, Ham, Mayo — $5/$7