On Tiki

Eric Felten wrote a huge feature on tiki bars in this weekend's Wall Street Journal in advance of next weekend's Tiki Crawl. He visited a bunch of Bay Area bars and found Forbidden Island to be the magic that it is and bemoans the tiki bars that serve bad drinks. (His diss Trad'r Sam's is wonderful.) Beyond that, he spent a lot of words ruminating about the escapism these bars provided after the last depression, and how in a world with cell phones and casual Fridays we don't take long enough to detach from work to escape at all. That's a good point, say I, blogging through the weekend.