Matador Community Expert Kat Lapelosa’s recommendations for your first night with Becherovka.I’M SITTING IN THE BASEMENT of a random potraviny (the Czech version of a bodega). Petr, the boy who works in the cafe next to my flat, slides me a shot glass filled with liquid gold.“In Czech Republic,” he begins, “you always look the person directly in the eye when you cheers.
He sells happy things. Pineapples and coconuts.Travelers flop in and out of the break as he recounts the day it swept through the shoreline bars and restaurants. We met him on the beach in a place on the southwest coast of Sri Lanka called Unawatuna. Nine years ago, Upali lost everything to the 2004 tsunami: his guesthouse, his restaurant, his home, his family.
OF COURSE there’s no real intellectual defense of the word “stoked.” But in a quick response to Esquire blogger Stacey Woods’ inclusion of “being stoked” in her list of things we need to leave behind this year, I just wanted to mention a few things about the “state of stoke.”Like all terms that enter the mainstream vernacular, the original meaning gets diluted, co-opted, commodified.
A Quest To Seek The Sublime In The Spiritual by Our SiteSurveys show religious people are happier than the secular. Why is this? Is it — as an atheist friend quipped — that “ignorance is bliss?” Not long ago, that’s what I would have concluded. Like many people of my ilk — cerebral East Coaster, highly skeptical and, yes, latte drinking — I reflexively viewed the religious as less sophisticated.
Southerners talk funny.Pure hogwash. The Southern dialect is soft and beautifully cadenced and makes up the largest accent group in the US. Some of our most popular terms are: y’all, short for “you all;” reckon, which means “to think, imagine, or suppose;” fixin’ to, which lets people know you’re “getting ready to” do something.
![This is what happens when you fall in love with a place [vid]](https://jorgemolder.com/img/mata-2020/3168/image_7ykm2k2w4ZWwz.jpg)
Most of us have been there: hiking up a mountain to a 360-degree view, or kicking back on a white sand beach fronted by sapphire-blue water. You think, “this is the most amazing place in the world.” At least I do. The second thing I think is, “where did I put my camera?”Soon, images of the most incredible place on Earth are streaming onto my memory cards.
5POINT FILM FESTIVAL just released their 2013 teaser (above). While there are some familiar frames of the genre we’re calling “adventure porn,” for me the human expressions quickly overshadow the gnar.And yet, those expressions of pain and victory are tied to it. This selection of moments reminds me that the mindset that pushes us to climb a mountain is the same that challenges us to do anything in life — anything except stand still.
