AlientoyWorkmachine

Not sure when you were last here but Hyperion (started in Ypsi) is what I prefer - granted I haven’t tried their decaf. Madcap (GR) and Higher Ground (TC) both have a spot in our home too (Higher Ground’s half caf blend makes a decent shot, surprisingly). Will have to circle back around to Comet, it’s been awhile and when I first went it didn’t make much impression on me…but I’ve got a toddler, so I don’t get out to local cafe’s all that often since we moved here. The trick with all of them is finding a decaf that is a medium or light roast, so even more reason to scope Newport. My wife and I met at Intelligentsia (original location) back in the day so I’ve been partial to them whenever I’m in the area even though there are so many good options in Chicago.

Do you pull shots from it? How's it go if so? I take a caffeine break usually 2x a year for a good month or sometimes even a few, so I'm always on the lookout for good decaf. My go to so far is Counter Culture's Urcunina Decaf, which I find pulls a pretty nice shot. It's still decaf but the first week isn't quite as dispiriting if I splurge for this one.

It should be possible to bottle them and wait 90 years and sell them as the raw vintage tears of a (sort of) pre apocalyptic landscape.

To think these are going to waste in some display or trunk when they could be put to good use by any number of this forum’s members. @shredwin_206 aren’t they your size?

Pacific Gas and Electric would like a word.

I’m glad it got below freezing for you to test it out! Haha meanwhile I’ve had sub zero windchills the past 10 days or so and am busy layering merino base, and lined denim jackets under a cheap old everlane parka. Still works but maybe not as stylish I’ll admit. But actually today we’re above freezing so I’ll go the same route sans parka.

Oof. To be honest I'd feel almost unkind criticizing this whole thing. It feels entirely desperate. I really hope this dude finds whatever he is looking for but I have my doubts the answer is in ... whatever this whole project is and the mentality that seems to go with it. If you took an ill equipped motorcycle ride for the supposed enjoyment of being unencumbered with the dredges of contemporary society and you didn't film it to sell jeans did you even ride?

I’m generally a 30, and have the 01’s in 31. You can scroll up to see the last photo I posted wearing them - they have room in the top and the waist is the only thing that needed to stretch, but it did need to stretch more than anything else I’ve got - it came up smaller than my 29’s from Warehouse, for instance. The denim does stretch pretty easily. I’m used to having the hips/thighs be too tight for my waist, and while I haven’t tried Resolutes that’s one reason why (last I checked the measurements they put me off). That said, I opted to take my next pair in 32.

Indeed. I avoid this problem by essentially avoiding button down shirts altogether! Exceptions made for dressier settings but then there are no jeans and no type 1s there. @shredwin_206 it’s as good an excuse as any and I’d do it if I did that work.

I declare the real problem is tucking a shirt into jeans. I mean, what are these, trousers? No 47’s here but my 51’s present no such issue. That said, nary a button down shirt has ever been tucked into them (and never, ever will be).

Yea, I think this is very true, and in speaks to the income inequality problem in a lot of ways. But, for my (fortunate) life, I can get better, healthier vegetable dishes way more easily from the local dining options. Better meat dishes too. Better n/a drink options. Better coffee. It’s not something everyone has access to, absolutely - and our family elects to pay for these things instead of other things (we don’t travel much at all, for instance). But when I grew up most restaurants were more or less just pub food (tasty at the right time, but I’d rather not it be my main fare nor would my doctor). @yung_flynn I have complicated feelings about a lot of post-modern canonical works - including Society of the Spectacle - but I do think a lot of it is a useful framework. (For some background I did an MFA years ago, which in most universities is actually sort of like an amateur philosophy grad degree with professors who maybe aren’t the best at interpreting works of philosophy and oh then maybe some art stuff sprinkled in). @Cold Summer a good friend of mine in college wore a robe and pajama pants nearly every day to class. Shoulder length hair he rarely if ever cut, unkempt beard. This could be seen as a statement, and I suppose in some way it was - something along the lines of “fuck the idea of dressing in a way that makes other people comfortable” - but as subversive as it was it was also about convenience, comfort and simplicity for him. The robed dude is one of the most good humans I’ve ever known and to this day devotes his life to advocating for homeless people to get rights and resources in the city of Chicago earning a meager wage doing so - and he could be making a lot more. I’m sure he wears a version of a khaki mid level manager uniform to work now in order to be able to do the work he wants to. I’m not sure people in PJ’s in public should make us uncomfortable - I know the world would be a better place with more of that dude even if everyone were in bathrobes.

Eh - we're all part of a culture (and more) inherently. (see Althusser!) The culture is just different and transcends physical boundaries because of the internet. I think what we're lamenting here is essentially what happens when the world is more connected. There are no whims out of thin air - people are acculturated from the day they are born. None of us on sufu are different, really! I mean - to the outside world we have the wardrobe diversity of these coffee shops - each with their own little local flair if you travel enough. As for the misremembered 90's thing - our generation did the same shit (in the 90's) of the 60's and 70's. I think we should all look at each other a little more generously. I'm around these kids quite often now and they're trying to make sense of a more fucked up landscape than I was - if they like how a Sublime shirt looks who am I to judge. I'm not sure any of them are trying to look like Daria, Kurt, or Claire Daines. They're just taking stuff they like and mashing it with other stuff, so of course it will be a bit different. Any time we cringe at an LFO or Abercrombie resurgence someone else cringes at a denim tuxedo from any time period. I mean, I know that one denim tux is totally, wildly different from another but to the general landscape there's really no difference between some Levi's outlet cheap labor tux and the finest '46 collectible set Sugar Cane wants to make. As I've said before - even with the problems, I'd no more live in any time other than right now. Last I checked here in the U.S., nearly 500 of every 1000 children born died before the age of 5 two centuries ago. To that end, every boring ass brick and window coffee shop reliably has much better coffee than I could get almost anywhere fifteen years ago. Shit was brutal. Do I wish they incorporated more local idiosyncrasies? Do I miss being able to find weird shit? Sure, there are some cultural and lifestyle elements that current western culture has jettisoned and we are worse off for, and we should work hard to recognize and restore them - but there was never a better time in any comprehensive or meaningful way. And at least where I live, there's still plenty of charming and weird shit around but more importantly most kids have a better than 50% chance of getting past kindergarten. On top of that I have better food and coffee more easily available to me than my parents could have dreamed of. Sure, the decor isn't so good. I do enjoy thinking about a world that was not designed to be photographed for Instagram, but like also, a lot of people love that stuff. Sorry if I'm a little blunt, there are weird crossovers between the denim world (which obviously I have affinity for) and a sort nostalgic... a romanticizing of a different life - that has just never in any way I've ever seen really answered the core question of why now isn't a better time to be alive strictly based off of the infant mortality rate alone. I even checked in with my old book friend Mr. Kingsnorth (who I see converted), and while I always appreciate his insight doesn't seem to be answering this now either. (I'll probably forever prefer his pre conversion writings, but hey maybe not, I will keep an open mind). I'm not some sort of techno futurist by any stretch, there is much about a richer life that I perceive as being more accessible in past Western culture, or perhaps present other cultures but as a whole, I think it's sort of folly to think too fondly to the times before. At best, we simply miss what is good and valuable about being here, now. Should I just piss off to tech wear now? 😃

@vlad_III I too am very turned off by that sort of ordering experience but as stated, going thru barnstormer it just wasn’t like that at all. I just like the variations in cut and denim from my FW. I haven’t put in the work on my OAs yet but for me the charm isn’t in some perfect stitch work but to each their own. I got the 03s because a pair of 01s basically landed on my lap, (again, no hype order - I got them raw for Japanese price off someone who mis-sized) and the cut and denim were both some of my favorite from new. Of course time will tell. I'm also not into repros per se, I have no concern about historical accuracy or whatever - I just find that most of my favorites fall under that category these days because the things to appreciate are subtler.

That was quick (well, also took a long time). 03's arrived today. These are 32's. Good bit of play in the waist raw still. Gonna go for maximum shrinkage on these straight away (whenever that is - honestly probably 2025 or even later). Denim seems a touch grayer and a touch more irregular than on my recent 01's. Lovely details in the stitching compared to my 01's, pocket bags are nice too. Last photo are my 01's in size 31 which I love the fit of in general and are completely comfortable now but I really had to stretch the waist out - which happened in about a few hours of wear. 0A's denim seem to stretch pretty forgivingly - can't be sure with the 03's but it feels similar enough to the 01 that I wouldn't be surprised. I've only worn the 01's a handful of times so far too and I think they will fade relatively quickly...but even these I'm not sure will be in regular rotation until next summer or fall. These are more just to show fit, the light isn't good for showing the denim. In general, this patterning feels a notch above a lot of repro's I've encountered - at least for my frame. We'll see how it all wears with time though.

Yea I picked up some 132’s as well! And a pair of De Bonne Facture cords - technically I made all orders last year but it’s a bad start. In the past I’ve been decent about changing habits in the new year (aside from last year, which I’m giving myself a pass on because of some stress I’ve never known before). But this one has been hard to kick. Part of it is that I’ve gotten sort of bored by a lot of contemporary photography and I used to collect photo books a good bit more than I do now. The year before last I allowed myself one pair and stuck to it. What should help is that I set automatic saving contributions to be more a good bit more aggressive (so I will feel more broke) and my wife finally is like “dude, isn’t that enough?” … I was like to be be honest I thought you’d say that like five or six pairs ago. Two or three years ago I had nothing on ice and never had. Now I’ve got something like five pairs waiting in the wings and about as many in the closet getting some wear. It feels a little silly. This doesn’t even touch on jackets…

Almost forgot about these but apparently Barnstormer is now shipping out the preorders, just got notified that Buyee has my pair. Looking forward to seeing them but realistically probably not to wearing them for like...2-3 years.

FWIW, my feelings (I believe) are less about nostalgia and more about what constitutes a good quality of life in the most objective sense that I can get to. I understand romanticizing the past but I unequivocally would rather live today than in any other point in history. The reason is simple, my wife and my son would both be dead (my son on two separate occasions) by now. If I get get cancer from PFAS at age 45 (I hope to god I don’t), well, I will do my best to accept it because it’s better than outliving my family. The story isn’t over but medical advancements have undisputedly been worth the wait. Those aren’t mutually exclusive from having a world where artisans work in slower ways towards something less widely appreciated and affordable. I’m not sure what the answer is, but the capitalist machine that innovates should be able to exist in a society where deep human and communal relationships (the crux of having a good quality of life as demonstrated by the most recent data I can find, and that I find to be true personally) and purposeful work are possible. Funny about Kingsnorth, I read him years back I should take a revisit, he seemed an intellectual descendant of Arne Naess as a lot of those environmental writers sort of are. I always struggle with how to get their message - namely that we ARE nature, so to harm it is to harm self - to break through to a wider audience. I think it’s just going to be disastrous polluted floods in everyone’s backyards or, yes, PFAS from a plant hundreds of miles away in drinking water. The idea of exporting the negatives from industrialization somewhere else will all come crashing down in the end but I think even when that happens people will still hold on to their convenience. And in a way, I get it.

@chicote if you ever do pass through Ann Arbor or Detroit, please do drop a line. We have much we could discuss over a coffee. I am nodding along with the majority of your post. It’s funny, as a photographer and photojournalist myself I’m often considered slow to some peers because I don’t use my camera as a phone. But I still take too many pictures and still use digital (since 2015). What Curtis and his peers did was almost of an entirely different medium at this point, and in many ways I do envy it. I reflect on Lewis Hine a lot as well because to my mind he did some of the most impactful work ever made, and was another one of the first to try to make picture out of social concern. He did so in a way I think would be overlooked today. Still impossible to make a living at it - I was just talking to a writer friend tonight and she was telling me about a photographer she had recently visited (and who I know of because she’s highly renowned as a documentary photographer) and the woman is barely getting by, on food stamps. She’s probably one of the best and most well know American practitioners of the medium.

I don’t recall that but it sounds like me. I am always behind the iPhone times but not by too much (went from a 6 to a 12 a year or two ago). I am still trying to figure out how to live without one without pissing off all my friends and family, and yes, myself too I guess. Ultimately I’ll choose them over a solitary life. But I mean hell, now it’s attached to our car, our TV, our f’n thermostat. I am trying to draw the line somewhere but it only gets worse. It’s been enough of an issue in my current position that I don’t use Twitter and Whatsapp! I am forever envisioning a better way to live and failing at getting there.

This has been an ancillary part of my study this year. It's terrifying shit, honestly. We're never going to recover from it, and we're too young to know the effects from it. If you need another argument for both buying less shit, and only buying natural materials, here we go. https://www.veronicabateskassatly.com/read/was-it-polyester-all-along And try as I might I cannot keep this stuff out of my own house. Convenience is the biggest drug.

@Geeman I've never tried them, but I'm with you - the measurements never made them appealing to me for that same reason.

I don't know exactly how it works, but I generally get kicked to the second to last page of a topic if there aren't something like 5+ posts on the brand new page. It's annoying, but I never cared enough to dig into it. When I get notifications it pretty much never takes me to the post that the notification references. It's always like scroll up or down 5-10 posts to find it.

I already have 2 (different) 900's, and they both see a good bit of use. I'm glad this isn't my size because I wouldn't think twice about it.

The pricing is silly. That said, it’s worth it for how much better I sleep. If I were the investing type I’d definitely keep an eye on N/A companies because they get away huge margins it seems! @rbeck - glad to see the fisheye is alive and well at the hardcore dive shows. All it needs is a dragged shutter and a twist for some light trails.

I know I've seen Guinness Extra over here. I've even had it, though I prefer the original. I'm not sure it was Foreign Extra. I'm with you all on the IPA thing - but I wasn't even much a fan when the boom started. I liked the craft beer movement for what it could offer in stouts, porters and sours, but I rarely drink these days (few times a year?) and if I do, I still go to old favorites - that being a nice red or regular Guinness, actually. The one thing I do appreciate now is that there are plenty of good N/A options available - except the Guinness N/A is one of the sorrier one's I've tried. Everything gets a bit of a pass because it's not got any booze, but there is still a quality spectrum.