Pacific Standard Blog

Babeland Trivia February 12--Update.

2012-01-27T21:38:00.001-05:00

We just wanted to remind y'all that we'll be having our second Babeland trivia night on February 12 at 8 pm. The Babeland crew puts on a great show; expect questions about all things romantic and sexual, as usual. As far as the fancy prizes go, Babeland will give away silver bullet vibrators to those who want them on the top three teams. They'll also hold a free raffle--all you need to do is sign up for their mailing list on the night of the quiz and you'll be entered to win an Orchid G vibrator and lube. Mark your calendars and make it a point to come by!

Haphazard Stance comedy January 17 at 8 pm.

2012-01-13T12:58:00.000-05:00

Haphazard Stance: An Improv Comedy Show

A monthly show where all comedy is made up on the premises. See some of the city's best indie improv teams perform their stuff. Hosted by the improv group The Mondays with special guests TolleHarsh and STEAK.

The Mondays are:
Pete Cestaro
Alessandra Migliaccio
Jesse Neil
Amanda Ratti
Michael Romanos
Brandon Tarzis

TolleHarsh are:
Brentt Harshman
Sarah Tollemache

STEAK are:
Lisa Barracuda
Evan Boshi
David Ebert
Jon Monje

Drinking Liberally Iowa Caucus Watch Party, January 3 at 7:30 pm.

2011-12-30T15:51:00.002-05:00

We've watched the endless string of debates, the rise and fall of half a dozen candidates, and the never-cease-to-amaze feats of the GOP carnival.

Now join fellow liberals to have a beer in hand as a handful of Iowans shape the presidential election. We'll gather at 7:30 pm on January 3 and hang out until victory and concession speeches are done.

Hosted by Drinking Liberally, ACT-Now, Democracy for NYC, and the New Kings Democrats.

Babeland Trivia February 12!

2011-12-30T15:03:00.001-05:00

Here's a quick blurb from our friends at Babeland about their second night of trivia at Pacific Standard:

Sexy Valentine’s Trivia at Pacific Standard
Sunday, February 12, 8pm, Free

This Valentine’s Day test your romance savvy at this popular Park Slope Trivia night designed to satisfy lovebirds and the heartbroken alike. Sex educators will dish out trivia and reward know-it-alls with Babeland prizes. Study up!

Cal basketball at Pacific Standard!

2011-12-27T22:18:00.000-05:00

In the midst of all this run-up to the Holiday Bowl game tomorrow between Cal and Texas, we wanted to remind you that we will be showing most if not all of the Cal basketball games for the rest of the season. The Golden Bears begin Pac-12 play on the 29th at 9 pm against USC. Go Bears!

Special Pacific Standard Hanukkah party with He'Brew and Mile End!

2011-12-15T13:21:00.000-05:00

To celebrate Hanukkah, and the fact that Pacific Standard was named by He'Brew as one of the 150 Chosen Bars of Hanukkah (which means that we'll be carrying at least one He'Brew tap throughout Hanukkah, our own version of the candle that wouldn't go out), we decided it would be fun to bring in food from a great local Jewish delicatessen, Mile End, and do a little party on one of the eight days. To wit: on Wednesday the 21st, we'll feature three different sandwiches from Mile End:

--Smoked meat and mustard on rye
--Salami and pickled veggies on flatbread
--Roasted vegetables with tzatziki on semolina roll

at very good prices (TBA) and a few tasty He'Brew pours. Best of all, we'll be doing a combination special where you can get a He'Brew and a delicious Mile End sandwich together at a discount (the special will depend on which He'Brew beer(s) we're pouring at the time; just ask your bartender). You don't have to be Jewish to enjoy this awesomeness--come by on Wednesday for a last party before any holiday trips you have planned!

Great reading January 12 at 7 pm!

2011-12-07T14:33:00.000-05:00

We have a special book release reading with Chiara Barzini, Catherine Lacey, and Joseph Salvatore on January 12--save the date! These are three amazing writers.

Chiara Barzini's collection of new short fictions, Sister Stop Breathing, (Calamari Press, 2012), has been defined by Gary Shteyngart as "The best thing to come out of Italy since espresso” and Jonathan Ames has described her stories as “kaleidoscopic arrangements of sentences and situations of freakish originality and beauty.” She is a screen and fiction writer living in Rome. Films written by her have been distributed in Italy, Spain, Japan, and Latin America. The most recent one, Into Paradiso premiered at the 67th edition of the Venice Film Festival. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in NOON, Bomb Magazine, Sleepingfish, The Encyclopedia Project, The New Review of Literature, The NY Tyrant as well as The Village Voice, Rolling Stone Italy, Flair, Italian Vanity Fair,and Marie Claire.

Catherine Lacey is a Mississippian living in Brooklyn. She runs a bed and breakfast called 3B to support her writing habit. She's finished a nonfiction book titled We Don't Talk About Things Like That and is working on fiction now. Her words have been in Blackbook, Forklift, Ohio, Time Out New York, Lamination Colony, Trnsfr Magazine and other places.

Joseph Salvatore has published fiction and criticism in The Brooklyn Rail, The Collagist, Dossier Journal, H.O.W. Journal, LIT, New York Tyrant, Open City, Post Road, Salt Hill, Sleeping Fish, Willow Springs, 110 Stories (NYU Press, 2001), Routledge's Encyclopedia of Queer Culture (2003). His debut collection of short stories, To Assume A Pleasing Shape, will be published this month by BOA Editions. He is a frequent fiction reviewer for The New York Times Book Review, a contributing book review editor at The Brooklyn Rail, and an assistant professor at The New School, where he founded their literary journal, LIT, and was awarded the University's Award for Teaching Excellence. He lives in New York.

Iron Santa Challenge 2011/2012!

2011-12-02T10:35:00.000-05:00

--OR, if you're an Iron Santa veteran and happen to already possess all the above things, a selection of cool random items from our cellars (fancy brewery logo glasses, shirts, hats, and so forth).
--AND everlasting glory!

The actual beers will change with our rotating tap selections, but will generally include quaffs like the Sierra Nevada Celebration, Rogue Nitro Stout, Troegs Troegenator, and so on. Starting today, ask your bartender if you're interested in taking the challenge, and they'll provide you with a checklist of beers to drink over the course of an evening. Oh, and pace yourself. We don't want any messes.

Mimsy Storytelling December 6 at 8 pm.

2011-12-01T18:33:00.000-05:00

This month, in our last show until February, we humiliate each other by screening each other's most horrible Facebook photos and forcing each other to explain said photos in story form. Enjoy!

Featuring guests DAVID CRABB and CAMMI CLIMACO of Ask Me Stories!!!

Mimsy is a monthly storytelling show in Brooklyn that works to find new ways to present stories, including our improv-based “backline” form. It's at 8 PM every first Tuesday of the month. And the only house storytelling team in the city.

Featuring:
Ben Lillie
Caitlin Brodnick
Erin Barker
Hanuman Welch
Miguel de Leon
Olivia Henderson
Sarah Jewell

Pacific Standard | December 6 | 8 PM | No cover, no drink minimum

Haphazard Stance comedy returns December 7 at 8 pm.

2011-11-22T18:01:00.000-05:00

Haphazard Stance: An Improv Comedy Show

A monthly show where all comedy is made up on the premises. See some of the city's best indie improv teams perform their stuff. Hosted by the improv group The Mondays with special guests P.I.G. and The Mannequin Room.

The Mondays are:
Pete Cestaro
Alessandra Migliaccio
Jesse Neil
Amanda Ratti
Michael Romanos
Brandon Tarzis

P.I.G. (Pretty Improv Girls) are:
Aileen Clark
Morgan Hill
Kim Kalish
Ali Reed
Kat Ventura

The Mannequin Room are:
Lou Gonzalez
Chrissie Gruebel
Caroline Sweet
Brian Urreta
Megan Venzin

Tongue journal launch November 29 at 7 pm.

2011-11-21T17:20:00.002-05:00

Please join editors and contributors for the launch of Tongue: A Journal of Writing & Art.

Featuring readings of Ewa Chrusciel, Rika Lessor, Sally Wen Mao, Idra Novey, Geoffrey Nutter, and Brian Oliu.

For more information about the magazine visit www.tongueoftheworld.org.

Gelf event tomorrow night at 7:30 pm!

2011-11-16T18:39:00.001-05:00

While the Fountain of Youth has, to our knowledge, not been discovered, man has long tried to imagine a world without death and aging—a quest that has taken in authors and scientists alike. Join Gelf at Pacific Standard on November 17 for an evening with a writer who has imagined a postmortal universe and two researchers who are—if not unlocking the secret to eternal life—at least trying to make aging less unpleasant (and curing some nasty diseases along the way). Our three speakers will Drew Magary, a Varsity Letters alum, Deadspin contributor and author of The Postmortal, a riveting meditation on a world with a cure for death; Aubrey de Grey, a gerontologist and chief science officer of the SENS Foundation, a group that works to promote 'rejuvenation biotechnologies' that could combat aging-related illnesses and, perhaps, aging itself; and Jan Vijg, chair of the genetics department at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and an expert on the human genome's relationship to aging and death. Geeking Out will be held Thursday, November 17th, at 7:30 pm (doors open at 7:00 pm) at Pacific Standard 82 4th Ave (between Bergen St. and St. Marks Pl.) in Brooklyn. There is no admission charge, though your voluntary contribution will help defray the costs for this and other great Gelf events. Drinks will be available. Please spread the word and bring your friends.

New Cocktail of the Month!

2011-11-16T17:11:00.000-05:00

Sorry, folks, due to all kinds of events and madness here, we've been a little late on coming up with the recipe for our new cocktail of the month. But here it is!

The Mike Crab Apple Snapple ($8): Calvados, spiced rum, lemon, topped with cider.

Named in honor of one of our most famous patrons, this is a great fall drink. Come honor him by giving one a try.

New Improv Comedy Show Debuts November 9 at 8 pm!

2011-11-01T15:16:00.000-04:00

Haphazard Stance

An Improv Comedy Show

A monthly show where all comedy is made up on the premises. See some of the city's best indie improv teams perform their stuff. Hosted by the improv group The Mondays with special guests. On November 9, the Mondays will perform with Curtains and Hook Up Henry.

The Mondays are:
Pete Cestaro
Alessandra Migliaccio
Jesse Neil
Amanda Ratti
Michael Romanos
Brandon Tarzis

Curtains are:
Anthony Apruzzese
Molly Bernatsky
Daniel LoPreto
Jenna Marucci
Caitlin Puckett
John Purcell

Hook Up Henry are:
Michael Viso
James Leggaro
Robbi Webb
Robin Levine
Jessica Rionero
Dave Kawalec
Henry Russell Bergstein
Jocelyn Drew

Mimsy Storytelling Tuesday, November 1 at 8 pm.

2011-10-27T09:46:00.000-04:00

Mimsy celebrates Halloween's spooky, weird, strange vibes with what else -- a psychic! Join us as our team tells stories inspired by or directly related to tarot readings from Joshua the Psychic. Who knows, your future might also be in the cards...

Joshua the Psychic was given the highest rating in TimeOut New York's Seers Catalog: http://newyork.timeout.com/things-to-do/this-week-in-new-york/20356/seers-catalog

Mimsy is a team of storytellers working to turn storytelling on its head, showcasing new forms of telling stories and using improv as a springboard for on-the-spot backline storytelling.

Mimsy are:

Ben Lillie
Caitlin Brodnick
Erin Barker
Hanuman Welch
Joe Evans III
Miguel de Leon
Olivia Henderson
Sarah Jewell

Watch the NYC Marathon at Pacific Standard November 6.

2011-10-21T19:00:00.000-04:00

As is our Pacific Standard tradition, on marathon day, Sunday, November 6, we'll be opening early, at 9 am, to host people who want to watch the marathon, which runs right by our bar. You can watch the leaders and the pack pass by out of our big windows. We'll have a barbecue station outside as we usually do. And, finally, we'll have our Marathon Marys for for $7 per pint glass of goodness.

California Beer Night November 11.

2011-10-20T16:05:00.000-04:00

As part of a new concept, Brooklyn Beer Week, Pacific Standard will be doing a California beer night on November 11 starting at 7 pm. We'll have Ballast Point, Green Flash, and Lagunitas on tap all night for $1 off, as well as brewery representatives (hint: if you talk to them, they often buy your beer). More details as they come available.

Awesome poetry reading November 2 at 7 pm.

2011-10-17T17:33:00.000-04:00

Come celebrate the release of S, a chapbook, by drinking some good beer and listening to a great line-up of readers:

TIMOTHY DONNELLY’s THE CLOUD CORPORATION was published last year by Wave Books and in the UK by Picador this fall. His TWENTY-SEVEN PROPS FOR A PRODUCTION OF EINE LEBENSZEIT was published by Grove Press in 2003. He has been poetry editor of Boston Review since 1995. His poems have appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including Fence, Harper’s, The Iowa Review, Jubilat, Lana Turner, The Nation, The New Republic, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and A Public Space. He teaches in the Writing Program of Columbia University’s School of the Arts.

FLORENCIA VARELA’s work has previously appeared in journals such as Diagram, Drunken Boat, Gulf Coast, The Malahat Review, and Washington Square Journal, among others. Her chapbook, OUTSIDE OF SLEEP is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. She currently lives in Brooklyn.

and of course...

SARAH V. SCHWEIG’s poems have appeared in BOMB Magazine, Boston Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Western Humanities Review, and Verse Daily, among others. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia and Columbia University, where her MFA manuscript was the recipient of the David Craig Austin Memorial Award. Her chapbook, S, is available through Dancing Girl Press. She lives in Brooklyn.

Standard Issues storytelling: Firsts, October 25 at 8 pm.

2011-10-17T15:08:00.000-04:00

Standard Issues is happy to present "Firsts." An evening of stories about doing stuff you have never done before. And because its a storytelling show, likely to be stories about doing stuff you have never done before, poorly. It's not a story until someone loses an eye.

with

Peter (I thought turkeys could fly) Aguero
Nelson (you said it wouldn't hurt) Lugo
Eddie (moon landing conspiracy theorist) Gavagan
Joanne (so that is illegal?) Solomon
Brad (apply pressure) Lawrence

and your host: Cyndi (I'm sure it will heal) Freeman

And maybe you, if you are the Mystery Guest that is pulled from the hat.

Cider Week event October 20.

2011-10-10T16:44:00.000-04:00

To celebrate NYC Cider Week, on October 20 starting at 7 pm, we'll be featuring four (maybe even five!) artisanal ciders, which you can consume separately, or, even better, get in a flight of four seven-ounce pours for only $10. We'll also have folks from the cidery on hand to answer all your questions. Cider descriptions:

1. Crispin Hard Apple Cider is naturally fermented using fresh pressed apple juice, not concentrate, from a premium blend of West Coast apples. A classically styled but untraditional hard apple cider. Fruit forward, with a crunchy apple nose and a refreshingly crisp mouth feel.

2. Crispin Honey Crisp Artisanal Reserve is a small-batch hand crafted hard apple cider smoothed with real organic honey for a rich, creamy, full-bodied taste.

3. Crispin The Saint Artisanal Reserve is a uniquely debonair and elegant cider. Naturally fermented using a premium blend of fresh pressed apple juice and Belgian Trappist beer yeasts, The Saint boasts a sweet floral bouquet that develops a yeasty, herbal complexity. The Saint is smoothed with pure organic maple syrup for a silky, sustained mouthfeel that develops complexity on the palate.

4. Crispin Lansdowne Artisanal Reserve is a confident and imposing cider. It is fermented from a premium blend of fresh pressed apple juice using Irish stout ale yeast. It produces a slight hint of butterscotch, balanced by a subtle fruitiness, a slightly dry crisp finish, and a uniquely full and buttery mouthfeel.

October cocktail of the month!

2011-10-10T14:48:00.000-04:00

This month (and don't worry, folks, we've kept our now-famous John Daly on as a permanent menu item) we're featuring a brand new cocktail: the Gail Collins. It's a writerly concoction of whiskey, orange vodka, sweet vermouth, lemon, and sugar, topped with Sprite. You can pick one up at the bar for $8, or for only $7 during happy hours and on cocktail Wednesday. After a couple, you'll be ready to write your own op-ed!

New York Beer Passports on sale!

2011-10-06T17:47:00.000-04:00

Craft Beer Week is over, but we still have some leftover Passports that we're now selling at a big discount. Why do I need a Passport when the week is over, you ask? You silly bird. The Passport entitles you to year-round specials (as in, until September 2012) at a zillion NYC bars. At the very least, it gets you $2 off a draft beer (and often even better deals, like 2 for 1, etc.) at all those zillion places. And we are selling the Passports for only $5. In other words, if you just go to three different bars in the next year and take advantage of the special, it's already worth it. The more you go to, the better deal it becomes. So stop by and ask your bartender for a Passport!

Mimsy Storytelling Tuesday, October 4 at 8 pm.

2011-09-29T13:45:00.000-04:00

Mimsy knows that HEROES come in all shapes and sizes: from Wayne Gretzky, donating his blood for his team, to your pet gerbil Pebbles who was always there for you when your parents grounded you. Join us as we explore stories about HEROES, featuring two special guests, Lisa Kleinman and TJ Del Reno.

Mimsy is a monthly storytelling show in Brooklyn that works to find new ways to present stories, including our improv-based “backline” form. It's at 8 PM every first Tuesday of the month. And the only house storytelling team in the city.

Featuring:

Ben Lillie
Caitlin Brodnick
Erin Barker
Hanuman Welch
Joe Evans III
Miguel de Leon
Olivia Henderson
Sarah Jewell

Brewed Awakening book release party and Wandering Star brewery event November 10.

2011-09-28T00:17:00.000-04:00

Save the date: on Thursday, November 10, we'll be hosting a double event. Josh Bernstein will be talking and reading from his new book about the craft beer revolution, Brewed Awakening. Since nothing goes better with a beer book release than beer, we're partnering with a brewery near and dear to Josh's (and our) heart, Wandering Star. We'll be pouring every beer they currently make, including some new ones. Here's the tentative lineup:

Zingari (a witbier with lemongrass, cardamon, fenugreek, and a touch of coriander)
Mild at Heart
Raindrop Pale Ale
Bash Bish Bocktoberfest (Bash Bish Bock but slightly altered)
Berkshire Hills 01201 (saison)
Butcher's Apron (English IPA)

We'll be offering everything at $1 off all night, and the brewers will be here. All in all, a brain-smashingly good time. More details as they come available.

Top Dogs return for all remaining Cal games!

2011-09-27T19:13:00.000-04:00

After our wildly successful beta test of serving freshly grilled Top Dog hot dogs here at the bar, we've decided to bring them back for every remaining Cal game--and yes, in much greater quantities so we won't sell out so fast.

The deal is a dog and a beer for $12 (excepting beers priced $7 or more). You can also buy dogs separately for $7, and beer separately for whatever price it's listed at (Lagunitas is still available for the low low price of $5 a pint during Cal games).

The dogs are a lovely, juicy, spicy Calabrese and a mouth-wateringly rich lemon chicken. See you soon--the next game is against Oregon on Thursday, October 6 at 9 pm.

Shmaltz Brewing event September 20.

2011-09-08T18:33:00.001-04:00

During Craft Beer Week, on Tuesday, September 20, at 7pm, Pacific Standard and Schmaltz will present "Not Too Drunk to Read," a Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah book release party, reading, and beer pairing. (Bonus: no actual reading is involved--Jeremy Cowan will be reading TO you from his recently released memoir, Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah.) More info about the book here:

http://craftbeerbarmitzvah.com/

Six Shmaltz beers will be on tap and on special (you can buy single pints or get the "Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah" sampler to try all six in 7.5 oz glasses), and we'll also have a free sampling of other beers that pair with the reading. There may also be a special appearance of the "Sammy Davis Jr.,"AKA a black-and-tan made with Genesis Ale! Copies of Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah will be available for purchase, and if you ask nicely, Jeremy will sign one for you. The tentative beer lineup:

--Coney Island Sword Swallower

--Coney Island Albino Python

--Coney Island Human Blockhead

--HE'BREW Genesis Ale

--HE'BREW Bittersweet Lenny's RIPA

--Shmaltz/Ithaca/Capt Lawrence Geektoberfest

Come on by to hear an interesting story and drink some interesting beer!

Mimsy returns September 6 at 8 pm.

2011-08-29T21:09:00.002-04:00

After a summer vacation, Mimsy returns, with a new time slot but the same great show you’ve enjoyed so far. Our topic for September is “First Kisses,” so you know what to expect. And joining us will be Eugene Ashton-Gonzalez of 1,001 Nights and New York Confidential. We hope to see you there!

-----

Mimsy is a monthly storytelling show in Brooklyn that works to find new ways to present stories, including our improv based “backline” form. It's at 8 PM every first Tuesday of the month. And the only house storytelling team in the city.

Featuring:

Ben Lillie
Caitlin Brodnick
Erin Barker
Hanuman Welch
Joe Evans III
Miguel de Leon
Olivia Henderson
Sarah Jewell

Pacific Standard | September 6 | 8 PM | No cover, no drink minimum.

Quiz cancelled this Sunday due to weather.

2011-08-26T16:08:00.001-04:00

Sorry, everyone, because of all the rainy blowy related problems, we figure it's gonna be in nobody's best interest to attend a pub quiz on Sunday, so we'll delay it. We also aren't doing a Labor Day weekend quiz, so we'll see you all on September 11 (yikes, is there any good day to do quiz recently?). If you want to come by at any time during the weekend, though, we'll be open and doing our traditional Pacific Standard inclement weather evacuation center drink-in.

Pacific Standard's Fourth Birthday Spectacular, September 8,

2011-08-18T16:43:00.000-04:00

or, the Jo(h)ns' Dispenser Hop Implosion.

Anyone who went to our third birthday party last year can attest that when Pacific Standard and Sixpoint get together, it gets naaaasty, in a very hoppy, delicious kind of way. In keeping with that tradition, we'll be featuring another amazing selection of Sixpoint beers for our fourth birthday (observed) on Thursday, September 8, including a brand-new mystery beer! Here's the tentative lineup (as you can see we are indeed going to try to implode you by dispensing hops):

On tap:

--Hops of Love (a very rare, hoppy beer from Sixpoint's cellar)
--Old Krusher (a Sixpoint barleywine that's closer to a huge IPA)
--Gemini (a hard-to find double IPA)
--Bengali Tiger (their classic IPA)

and...

--Brand-New Mystery Beer (all we know right now is that's it's gonna be wet-hopped within an inch of its life)

In cask:

--Lil' Frankie's Pale Ale (rarely seen outside of the restaurant for which it is named)
--Autobahn (more hops! and rare to boot!)

What's more, we'll be doing a raffle! For every Sixpoint beer you buy, you'll get a free raffle ticket. At 10 pm, we'll raffle off all kinds of oddities and rarities from our vaults. So drink early and often, and you'll have a good chance of getting a one-of-a-kind collector's item. In short, ladies and gentlemen, start your salivation.

NFL and college football at Pacific Standard!

2011-08-18T16:01:00.000-04:00

As in seasons past, Pacific Standard has DirecTV's NFL package and college packages, so can show basically any televised game during the season, the fact that we only have 2 projection screens (but glorious and large screens) permitting. We do have a West Coast bias, but we get fans from all over the place, so feel free to come by and ask for any game. If you're bringing a large group and/or are wondering if we'll be able to show a game for you, feel free to contact us in advance (e-mail us at pacificstandardbrooklyn --at-- gmail.com or call the bar at 718-858-1951).

More specifically, we've continued our commitment to be the official Cal alumni bar in Brooklyn! We'll show all the Cal games that are on TV, starting with Fresno State just a couple weeks from now, on September 3 at 7 pm. Every dollar you spend during a Cal game increases the amount we donate to scholarships for worthy incoming Cal students, so you can feel philanthropic about your football-related drinking. And we'll continue two well-loved specials during Cal games: Lagunitas pints will all be $1 off for the duration of the game, and right after Cal scores a touchdown, all drinks will be $1 off. Cal is flying under the radar, but (maybe because of that) there's a little ursine whispering in our ear that this could be a surprisingly good year for us. Go Bears!

Standard Issues storytelling: Religion, August 23 at 8 pm.

2011-08-12T12:55:00.000-04:00

This month, Standard Issues has it out with the Big Man! We are having a come to Jesus with Jesus. And maybe Mohammed, Buddha, and L. Ron Hubbard.

Our stellar line up will include:

Peter (The Demon Pope) Aguero
Steve (Building An Arc) Zimmer
Miguel (Walks on Water) De Leon
Jenny (Handing Out Tracts At The Airport) C'est Quoi
Brad (The Ass On The Road To Damascus) Lawrence
and your host
Cyndi (Sister Wife) Freeman

And maybe you, if you are picked out of the hat as our Mystery Guest!

This Show Is Free!

Story Collider August 16 at 8 pm.

2011-08-02T17:20:00.000-04:00

They have secrets for us, in their words and their genes. We play games with them, and they teach us how our hearts function. We fire up the bunsen burner and look through a telescope with them--or just toast a drink at the dinner table while we wonder if we're related. They're everything we are, and everything we desperately don't want to be.

Join The Story Collider for six stories of families and science, August 16th, 8pm at Pacific Standard.

Stories by:

ALLISON DOWNEY, Singer-songwriter, storyteller, and professor
JULIE KRAUT, Writer
NELSON LUGO, Vaudevillian
KELLI PORTERFIELD, Film producer, comedian, and writer
DANA ROSSI, Writer and storyteller
RACHEL WECHT, Actor and improviser

Allison Downey is an award-winning Singer-Songwriter, theater artist, writer and educator. An Associate Professor of Creative Arts Education (former Theatre Professor) at Western Michigan University, Allison just returned from sabbatical in NYC researching storytelling and performing at notable storytelling events including Liar Show, Standard Issues, and The People's Improv Theatre. Allison recently toured with The Moth on the Road Mainstage performances in Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor, Michigan (The Power Center), and taught storytelling through The Moth to high school students in South Bronx, NY. Allison leads workshops and retreats in storytelling, creativity, arts integration, and songwriting. Songs from her latest CD, Across the Sea received numerous awards and international and satellite radio Airplay.

Julie Kraut is a writer living in New York. She is the co-author of Hot Mess and author of Slept Away, both young adult novels.

Nelson Lugo started performing when he was nine and a half years old, after receiving a Harry Blackstone Jr. Magic Kit for Christmas. He sometimes wonders what would have happened differently in his life if he had gotten Lincoln Logs. Fed on a steady diet of comic books, Benny Hill, sci-fi and Abbott & Costello jokes — Nelson combines classic magic with a geeky contemporary twist - old school showmanship peppering with the nerdiest of pop culture references. He is the co-producer of EPIC WIN Burlesque that currently has five shows in August at the NY International Fringe Festival called "Star Debate: Trek vs. Wars".

Kelli Porterfield is a comedian, film producer and writer. Her solo show, "Mirror Mirror On The Wall", plays at The Peoples Improv Theater in NYC and was invited to the North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival in 2011. Kelli studied and performed at The Second City, Improv Olympic and UCB theaters and created and runs the comedy arts program at Pace University. "Old Cats", a film she produced, was an Official Selection of the New York and Sundance Film Festivals and will open in theaters this Fall.

Dana Rossi is the creator and host of The Soundtrack Series--a storytelling series where writers tell the stories they connect with songs from their pasts. Her writing has appeared in NY Press, Time Out NY, and even a website here and there. An essay of hers will appear in Madonna & Me--an anthology of essays about Madonna, which will publish in March 2012.

Rachel Bitney Wecht started acting and improvising at the Brave New Workshop in Minneapolis, MN. After moving to Boston she was cast as a Mainstage performer with the Improv Asylum, where she wrote and performed five shows a week for three years. She recently completed a four month contract with Second City on the Norwegian Spirit cruise ship. Rachel currently resides in New York, where she tells stories and performs improv comedy at The People's Improv Theater. In her spare time she enjoys watching videos of tiny animals, reading romance novels, and playing her ukulele.

$3 pint nights moving to Mondays.

2011-07-23T13:36:00.000-04:00

A quick announcement that we're shifting our $3 pint nights, where we feature a couple drafts for $3 all night, to Mondays instead of Tuesdays. Since we're having more and more events in the back on Tuesdays, this will ensure that all you $3 pint drinkers have the whole bar to stretch out and enjoy your craft beer, instead of being restricted to just the front. So starting this Monday (the 25th) come by any time to get one of the best craft beer deals in New York City, with added space. Cheers!

Wandering Star Brewing event August 17 at 7 pm.

2011-07-23T10:37:00.000-04:00

We're thrilled to have an event on August 17 featuring brand-new beers from a start-up created by some of New York City's leading homebrew, cask ale, and microbrew figures. Here's some info about the brewery, Wandering Star:

Wandering Star is a start-up microbrewery in Pittsfield, western Massachusetts, the largest city in beautiful Berkshire County. The brewery is the joint effort of three transplanted brewers and craft beer enthusiasts who met in New York City's thriving craft beer scene a few years back; Chris Post, owner and founder, ex-assistant brewer at Greenpoint Beer Works (affiliated with the Heartland brewpubs), President Emeritus of The New York City Homebrewers Guild; Alex Hall, Ale Street News columnist, ex-head of the notorious Malted Barley Appreciation Society, Real Ale guru and organizer of scores of cask ale festivals in NYC and beyond; and Chris Cuzme, 2010 President of the Malted Barley Appreciation Society, co-founder of the NYC Degustation Advisory Team, one of the driving forces behind NYC Craft Beer Week.

We'll feature their Raindrop Pale Ale in cask form, as well as their Disqualified Imperial Stout, Mild at Heart mild ale, and their Alpha Pale on draft. If you want to try beer from one of the newest and best-pedigreed breweries to come to New York City, this is your chance. Of course, you'll also have a chance to meet the brewers, and we'll be doing specials on the beers all night. Save the date!

Standard Issues storytelling July 26 at 8 pm.

2011-07-21T09:55:00.000-04:00

Standard Issues celebrates Freedom. It means something different to everyone. For some it is freedom of speech, for some freedom of expression, for some it is the open road, for most of us it is never having to deal again with that person you never should have slept with in the first place.

Come this month and find out what it means to these people:

Jim (Captain America) O'Grady
Rory (Nick Fury) Scholl
Ben (Uncle Sam) Lillie
and Cyndi (The Riveter) Freeman
with
your host
Brad (J. Edgar Hoover) Lawrence

and You! If you are chosen as our mystery guest from the hat.

Special debut authors reading July 21 at 7 pm.

2011-07-13T18:09:00.004-04:00

Please join us for a special summer reading with Ilya Kaminsky and three debut authors: Austin LaGrone, Katie Farris, and Martin Woodside. Event hosted by Jennifer Hope.

Featured Authors

Born in Baton Rouge, Austin LaGrone is the author of Oyster Perpetual, winner of the 2010 Idaho Prize for Poetry (Lost Horse Press, 2011). His poems have appeared in Black Warrior Review, Crazyhorse, Hayden`s Ferry, Indiana Review, Many Mountains Moving, and Willow Springs. He holds degrees from St. John`s College and New York University and teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.

Katie Farris is the author of "boysgirls" (Marick Press, 2011) and co-translator of Polina Barskova's "This Lamentable City" (Tupelo Press, 2009) and Guy Jean's "If I Were Born in Prague" (Argos Books, 2011). Her fictions and translations appear or are forthcoming in Virginia Quarterly Review, Verse, Mid-American Review, Indiana Review and other publications. She holds degrees from UC Berkeley and Brown's MFA in Literary Arts program and is currently an Assistant Professor at San Diego State University.

Martin Woodside is a poet and translator whose work has appeared in numerous literary journals, both in America and Romania, including Brookyn Rail, The Cimarron Review, Guernica, and Poetry International. His chapbook of poems, Stationary Landscapes, came out from Pudding House Press in 2009, and a volume of his Romanian translations, Of Gentle Wolves, is out now from Calypso Editions.

Ilya Kaminsky is the author of "Dancing in Odessa" (Tupelo Press, 2004) and co-editor of "Ecco Anthology of International Poetry" (Harper Collins, 2010). His work has won awards from American Academy of Arts and Letters and Poetry magazine, as well as a Whiting Writing Award and Lannan Fellowship.

Story Collider July 19 at 8 pm.

2011-07-05T23:17:00.000-04:00

Gadgets, gizmos, doodads - we're surrounded by them and immersed in them. They connect us across the world and separate us in the same room, show us new forests and hide the trees, fix our hearts and raise our cholesterol. We invent them, but they reinvent us.

Join us 8pm, July 19th at Pacific Standard for six stories of technology.

Stories by:
...
Justin D'Ambrosio, Theater tech
Nicole Ferraro, Writer and editor
Amy Klein, Journalist, editor of Brain World
Sara Peters, Tech writer and editor
"B", Writer and creator of STFU, Parents
David Smithyman, Comedian

About The Story Collider:
From finding awe in Hubble images to visiting the doctor, science is everywhere in our lives. Whether we wear a white lab coat or haven't seen a test tube since 8th grade, science affects and changes us. We all have a story about science, and at The Story Collider, we want to hear those stories.

---

Justin D'Ambrosio is the head technical director at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, as well as a writer and actor. Most recently, he's performed as a Gryffindor wizard in The Hogwarts Improv Society and as "Justin the tech guy who gets a lot of pussy" in Pangea 3000 Presents Pangea 3000 Performs a Show. He is also both of those things in real life.

Nicole Ferraro is a writer and editor living in New York City. Her creative non-fiction essays have appeared in The New York Times, Our Town, New York Press, Mr. Beller's Neighborhood, and The Frisky. As a self-proclaimed socially anxious weirdo, she typically performs only for her bathroom mirror but has on occasion emerged from her basement apartment to tell her stories at Cornelia Street Cafe, Happy Ending Lounge, and Telephone Bar. By day she is the executive editor of InternetEvolution.com, where she writes a column about the future of the Internet.

Amy Klein has jumped out of a plane, toured Ukraine and busted a cult in Costa Rica -- all for a story. She's been published in The New York Times' Modern Love, ("Looking for a Blessing to Marry" and "My Very Own Cyberstalker"), The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, BBC.com and Hustler (her article, not her pinup) and a number of anthologies. Although she is a Moth Storyslam winner, she is more comfortable behind the computer screen, but is trying to live by the motto "Life Begins at Where Your Comfort Zone Ends."

Originally from New Jersey, Sara Peters now lives in Sunnyside, Queens with her charming, maddening husband. A tech writer whose work focuses on IT security, she is currently editor-in-chief of a Web publication for IT professionals. Sara is also a storyteller and actor. Onstage she's played a Texan housewife, an Oklahoman spinster, an Irish housekeeper, and an English android. She's been a rower, a ballerina, a track runner, a Hula Hoop instructor, and is an occasional and very poor surfer. Her favorite television show is Naruto, which is a Japanese cartoon about a teenage ninja.

STFU, Parents is a submission-based blog that mocks parent overshare on social networking sites. It was created in March 2009 by a lady named B. and is an entertainment destination for thousands of daily readers. It was listed as one of "7 Sites You Should Be Wasting Time on Right Now" by The Huffington Post and has been featured on Salon, MSNBC, The New York Post, The Hairpin and The Guardian. The site serves as a guide for parents on what not to post about their kids as well as a forum for non-parents to vent about their TMI-related frustrations.

Failing to ever fulfill his true potential as an Australian child actor, David Smithyman now lives in Williamsburg and co-hosts and co-produces his own monthly comedy show, We're Nice People, in the Lower East Side (now in it's second year), as well as a monthly variety show in Queens, a fortnightly trivia night in Brooklyn, and an Xbox marathon in his apartment every night of the week. He divides his time between writing jokes, petting animals, and teaching stand-up comedy to teenagers at Gotham Comedy Club.

New Cocktail Menu, Cocktail Night, and Cocktail of the Month!

2011-07-01T13:26:00.001-04:00

Though Pacific Standard is known as a beer bar, we love a good cocktail as much as anyone. Our master mixologist Jon Stan, who honed his craft during his long tenure as a bartender at fancy restaurants, has concocted a new menu of summertime favorites. To wit:

Blueberry Lemonade ($8): Lemon, sugar, blueberry and citrus vodka, topped with soda.
The Carney Lansford ($9): Muddled cucumber, lemon, gin, topped with soda.
Dark and Stormy ($8): Jamaican ginger beer topped with Myers dark rum.
Mike Gallego’s Cup ($8): Pimm’s, lemon, topped with ginger ale.

What's more, we're going to start featuring a cocktail of the month, which will regularly change depending on season and whimsy. For July, it's the Mike Gallego's Cup, a delicious tribute to everyone's favorite tiny second baseman. To encourage you to give it a try, for the next week (through Thursday) it's $2 off if you mention you want the Gallego Special. That's a 25% discount, which is about the same as Gallego's career batting average.

Finally, starting immediately, Wednesdays are Cocktail Nights at Pacific Standard. All our cocktails will be $1 off all night Wednesday night. So come by in your best seersucker and knock a few back.

Standard Issues Storytelling June 28 at 8 pm: Transportation.

2011-06-22T01:45:00.000-04:00

Don't Miss The Sausage Fest!

This month Standard Issues brings you stories that prove you don't need a train to go off the rails.

with:

Jeff (blackbox) Simmermon
Aaron (out of gas) Wolff
Eugene Ashton (The Hitcher) Gonzalas
Joe (Titanic) Evans
Brad (Hindenberg) Lawrence

and your host, Cyndi (your seat becomes a flotation device) Freeman.

This show is free!

Mix CD contest winners!

2011-06-08T14:50:00.000-04:00

We've finally managed to get through the impressive pile of mix CDs we received from you loyal customers, and have come up with a short list of winners, based on the following criteria:

--First and foremost, points were given for great bar songs, that is, songs that were infectiously catchy, fun to listen to in a social setting, and could be enjoyed by a wide range of people.
--Points were taken away for music that was too experimental or brain-destroyingly grating, or music that was too stale or slow and sleep-inducing. (Luckily, there really wasn't much of this--good job, folks.)
--Finally extra points were given for mix CDs that were thoughtfully put together and that held together as a whole CD, rather than just being a collection of songs.

So here is our winner and honorable mentions, with some notes on the CDs, along with the prizes they'll receive:

Winner: Lily Rothman. Her CD was plain ol' the best collection of bar songs in the bunch. There were a lot of great songs we'd never heard before that we look forward to listening to at the bar, as well as some classics that will fill in gaps in our playlist. Every song will have toes tapping. Congratulations! Lily, you get a $20 bar tab, as well as a selection of merchandise from our cellars. Ask a bartender or e-mail us (pacificstandardbrooklyn -at- gmail.com) to set up a time to collect your prize.

Honorable Mention #1: Adam Fedock. This CD gets a "Best Theme" honorable mention because it tickled our A's-loving hearts with its A's lineup of songs. Plus, on their own they're very solid bar standards that will make excellent additions to our playlist. Adam, you get either a $20 tab or a selection of Pacific Standard merchandise (again, ask a bartender or e-mail us at pacificstandardbrooklyn -at- gmail.com to set up a time to collect your prize).

Honorable Mention #2: Sam Neely. This CD gets a "New and Exciting" honorable mention because of the eclectic variety of songs, which kept surprising and pleasing us. Sam, you get either a $20 tab or a selection of Pacific Standard merchandise (again, ask a bartender or e-mail us at pacificstandardbrooklyn -at- gmail.com to set up a time to collect your prize).

This short list of winners excludes many of the other great CDs we got, but we had to make a tough choice. In any case, all the CDs submitted will be imported into our iTunes playlist post-haste so you can hear them while enjoying a microbrew at the bar. Thank you all again for your submissions, and happy listening!

Standard Issues storytelling May 24 at 8 pm.

2011-05-23T16:16:00.002-04:00

This month's Standard Issues features all BTK Performers.

Leslie "Sideshow" Goshko
Rory "The Pope of Ropy Popy" Scholl
Jeff "Cancer Face" Scherer
"Handsome" Brad Lawrence
Alex "Candle In The Wind" Gallafent
Peter "The Jersey Strangler" Aguero
&
Cyndi "BeauTK Cherry Pitz" Freeman

Come early and see ten minutes of sobriety!

Chin Music poetry June 2 at 7 pm.

2011-05-22T19:10:00.000-04:00

Please join us for our upcoming Chin Music season finale featuring three fine poets: Marilyn Nelson, Ross Gay, and James Best. Series curated by Bryan Patrick Miller.

FEATURED POETS

Poet Marilyn Nelson is the author or translator of fourteen books and five chapbooks. Her book The Homeplace won the 1992 Annisfield-Wolf Award and was a finalist for the 1991 National Book Award. The Fields Of Praise: New And Selected Poems won the 1998 Poets' Prize and was a finalist for the 1997 National Book Award, the PEN Winship Award, and the Lenore Marshall Prize. Carver: A Life In Poems won the 2001 Boston Globe/Hornbook Award and the Flora Stieglitz Straus Award, was a finalist for the 2001 National Book Award, a Newbery Honor Book, and a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. Fortune’s Bones was a Coretta Scott King Honor Book and won the Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry. Her young adult book, A Wreath For Emmett Till, won the 2005 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award and was a 2006 Coretta Scott King Honor Book, a 2006 Michael L. Printz Honor Book, and a 2006 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor Book. Nelson is a professor emerita of English at the University of Connecticut; was (2004-2010) founder/director and host of Soul Mountain Retreat, a small non-profit writers' colony; and held the office of Poet Laureate of the State of Connecticut from 2001-2006.

Ross Gay’s books of poems include Against Which (CavanKerry Press, 2006) and Bringing the Shovel Down (University of Pittsburgh Press, January 2011). His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, MARGIE, Ploughshares and many other magazines. He has also, with the artist Kimberly Thomas, collaborated on several artists’ books: The Cold Loop, BRN2HNT and The Bullet. He is an editor with the chapbook press Q Avenue, whose recently published books include Chromosomory by Layli Long Soldier, Amigos by Matthew Dickman, Ad Hoc by Chris Mattingly, and Dolly by Kimberly Thomas and Simone White. Ross Gay is also on the board of directors of the Bloomington Community Orchard.

James Best lives in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife, Valerie, and their terminally ill bonsai, Moonlight Graham. Besides poetry, he writes for television and humor websites. He has poems published or forthcoming in RATTLE, Cold Mountain Review, South Carolina Review, decomP Magazine, Limestone and the anthology, Fire in the Pasture, due out this summer. Also this summer you can see a poem of his on a girl's t-shirt at American Eagle. He knows this calculated maneuver into mainstream fashion will bring him the large audience of tweens every poet craves.

Toni Margarita Plummer book launch June 9 at 7 pm.

2011-05-19T16:59:00.002-04:00

Please join us for a special event, the launch of Pacific Standard neighbor and regular Toni Margarita Plummer’s new book The Bolero of Andi Rowe: Stories (Curbstone). It has already been praised by Sandra Cisneros as "heartfelt stories of girls who ache to live in any other world than the one given them and who disastrously believe falling in love is the only way to get there. American tales for the new millenium." Publishers Weekly appreciated the detail of “Plummer's characters, [who] anchored in a crass present, hanker for a sweeter world of their own imagining,” while Booklist observes that“her poignant stories bring alive one multicultural family yet speak universally.”

Toni Margarita Plummer grew up in South El Monte, California. She attended the University of Notre Dame and the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California. Her first book, The Bolero of Andi Rowe, is a winner of the Miguel Mármol Prize. Toni is a fellow of the Macondo Foundation, an association of socially-engaged writers. An editor at a New York publishing house where she publishes mostly crime fiction and multicultural fiction, Toni lives in Brooklyn.

Mimsy Storytelling Monday, June 13 at 8 pm.

2011-05-19T12:31:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!
We want to thank you all for the incredible support you have given MIMSY
We are so excited to end Season 2 with a bang and have a really new form that we have all fallen in love with.
This will be our last show before we take a little break for the summer.

Our guest is Lydia Catherine!!!

The show's theme is Favorites! and will reflect what we as a team think is hysterical.
We will tell some of our Favorite past or shorter stories, in a brand new way.

We hope you will be there to share with us!

MIMSY was also shouted out in BBC Travel.com! Super Cool!!! http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20110404-new-york-stories/1
Our Moms were all really excited!

After the show we will be having a little party after, with cake and cookies and plenty of huggs!

Love,
mimsy team

A quick note on the mix CD contest.

2011-05-13T16:56:00.000-04:00

To all those of you who submitted mix CDs for our contest, thank you! We're currently working our way through the impressive pile of CDs and hope to have results to you by the end of the month, but bear with us. And of course all of the CDs, winners or not, will be working their merry ways onto our playlist shortly after we announce the results.

The Non-Motivational Speaker Series on Thursday, June 23 at 7:30!

2011-05-09T16:38:00.000-04:00

The Non-Motivational Speaker Series comes to Pacific Standard on Thursday, June 23, at 7:30 p.m.

Get inspired—even if only a smidgen—as three men of modest achievement deconstruct the relatively smooth path to minor success. Joining us will be Matt Timms, guerrilla foodie and organizer of the Chili and Cookie Takedowns; Kyle Petersen, unicycle advocate and Colbert Report "Enemy Within;" and Roy Preston, proprietor of The Little Lebowski apparel shop in Greenwich Village.

Chin Music Thursday, May 19 at 7 pm.

2011-05-06T15:44:00.000-04:00

Please join us for our upcoming Chin Music reading featuring three fine poets: Meena Alexander, Adrianne Kalfopoulou, & Nicole Sealey. Series curated by Bryan Patrick Miller.

FEATURED POETS

Meena Alexander is considered one of the foremost Indian poets of her generation. She has published six volumes of poetry including Illiterate Heart, which won the PEN Open Book Award, Raw Silk and Quickly Changing River. She is the editor of Indian Love Poems. Her memoir Fault Lines was picked as one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of the year. Poetics of Dislocation appeared in the Poets on Poetry Series, University of Michigan Press. Her prose includes two novels, Nampally Road and Manhattan Music. Her awards include those from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and Arts Council of England. She is Distinguished Professor of English at the City University of New York, teaching in the MFA program at Hunter College and the Ph.D. program at the Graduate Center.

Adrianne Kalfopoulou is the author of two collections of poetry, Wild Greens (2002), a Red Hen first book award finalist, and Passion Maps (2009). She has had chapbooks and essays published in a variety of venues including Hotel Amerika, WLT (World Literature Today), Prairie Schooner, and Room magazine where she won the 2009 creative non-fiction prize for "April the Cruelest". She is on the faculty of Hellenic American University in Athens, Greece, and is on the adjunct faculty in the Creative Writing Program at NYU. She is currently involved in research that connects Sylvia Plath's poetry to Ralph Waldo Emerson's philosophy.

Nicole Sealey, born in St. Thomas, U.S.V.I. and raised in Central Florida, is a Cave Canem graduate fellow and Hedgebrook alumna. A finalist for the 2011 Third Coast Poetry Prize, her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming to Callaloo, Harvard Review, The Los Angeles Review and Third Coast, among others.

Mimsy storytelling May 9 at 8 pm.

2011-05-06T15:41:00.000-04:00

This month Mimsy will explore the theme of "caught" -- as in, with your pants down, red-handed, in the act, etc., etc. -- in its signature Mome Rath form.

As usual, our second half will be improvised backline storytelling, a delight for young and old.

We will be joined by special guest ELLENA CHMIELEWSKI of UCB harold team CAPTCHA!

-----

What in god's holy name is Mimsy?

It's a storytelling show in Brooklyn. It's awesome. It's free. It's at 8 PM every second Monday of the month. And the only house storytelling team in the city.

Mimsy is:
Ben Lillie
Caitlin Brodnick
Erin Barker
Hanuman Welch
Joe Evans III
Miguel de Leon
Olivia Henderson
Sarah Jewell

Story Collider: Body Plans, May 18 at 8 pm.

2011-05-02T16:34:00.002-04:00

They come with two legs, with six legs, some long, some skinny, with fins or jaws or antennae. Their extraordinary forms of life can be feared and loved and derided and misunderstood. The most alien bodies can captivate us in awe, and sometimes, the most alien bodies are our own.

Join The Story Collider, May 18th, for six stories about the absurdity, and the grandeur, in our views of life.

Stories by:
...
Scott Bolohan, Writer
Cammi Climaco, Visual artist and Co-host of Ask Me Stories
David Crabb, Actor, writer, and sound designer
David Dickerson, Writer and storyteller
Tracy Rowland, Video Editor
Diana Spechler, Novelist

(Poster design by Lena Groeger. Larger version, and more show info, here: http://storycollider.org/shows/2011-05-18)

----

Scott Bolohan is an internationally published and potential award-winning writer. He writes a regular column with the Chicago Tribune's RedEye and Playboy's The Smoking Jacket. You might also recognize him as Ed Westwick's hands on "Gossip Girl." He still becomes visibly angry when people call apatosaurus 'brontosaurus.'

David Crabb is currently a producer of the storytelling podcast RISK! and co-produces the Ask Me storytelling series with Cammi Climaco. He has been a member of the critically acclaimed Off-Broadway Axis Company since 2001, starring in and developing plays with the company in Paris and Edinburgh. David is a recent Moth StorySLAM winner and his one-peson show "Bad Kid" will open later this year.

Cammi Climaco is a visual artist and co-host of the monthly storytelling variety show Ask Me Stories. She has exhibited her mixed-media sculpture, performances and videos nationally and internationally in both solo and group exhibitions. She has appeared on The Moth, Risk!, and Told!. She teaches at Pratt Institute of Art. Cammi likes science as long as it doesn't touch her.

David Dickerson is a storyteller in the New York area who is a regular on NPR’s “This American Life” and at shows around the city. His book, House of Cards: Love, Faith, and Other Social Expressions, was published in October 2009 by Riverhead. For fun, he also does a regular video blog on YouTube called “Greeting Card Emergency.”

Tracy Rowland is that rare New Yorker who likes to talk. Except she's from New Jersey, which makes her rarer still. She has appeared onstage with The Moth, The Liar Show and the notorious BTK Band. Tracy makes her living as a TV promo writer/editor, and is responsible for that Dateline spot involving 50-year-olds who want to hook up with your teenage daughter. Her mom is so proud.

Diana Spechler is the author of the novels Who By Fire (Harper
Perennial, 2008) and Skinny (Harper Perennial, 2011). She has written for The New York Times, GQ, O Magazine, Esquire, Self, Details.com, the Wall Street Journal online, Nerve, Glimmer Train Stories, Moment, Lilith, and elsewhere. She received her MFA degree from the University of Montana and was a Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University. She teaches writing in New York City.

Bartending robot to visit Pacific Standard on May 3!

2011-04-25T21:43:00.000-04:00

You will not want to miss this event on Tuesday, May 3, starting around 7 pm. A famous bartending robot, created by NYC Resistor, will be installed for a night at Pacific Standard. Essentially, it's a repurposed slot machine that serves you drinks, but it's hard to explain without seeing it in action:

http://www.vimby.com/home/take_on_the_machine_nyc_resistor_2/14/629/

Here's a blurb about it: "Barbot aka Bat Country was created for the Take On The Machine hackerspaces challenge. We appropriated an old Japanese slot machine, replaced all the graphics with references to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, added 12 drink reservoirs and a big handful of electrical components, didn't sleep much for the next 21 days, and ended up with an automatic drink mixing robot. Spin the wheels and take your chances."

The barbot serves a pretty large array of basic mixed drinks, determined by the spin of the slot machine's wheels. You can purchase tokens for the barbot from your bartender (still tip as usual!) for $4, $1 of which will go to NYC Resistor and their ongoing gloriously nerdy projects. Then watch the magic happen.

Chin Music poetry May 5 at 7 pm.

2011-04-25T17:49:00.002-04:00

Chin Music
The Poetry Reading Series at Pacific Standard Bar
Featuring James Richardson, Will Hubbard, & Sally Wen Mao

Thursday, 5 May 2011 @ 7:00 PM

RSVP on Facebook.

Please join us for our upcoming Chin Music reading featuring three fine poets: James Richardson, Will Hubbard, & Sally Wen Mao. Series curated by Bryan Patrick Miller.

FEATURED POETS

James Richardson is the recipient of the 2011 Jackson Poetry Prize. His most recent books are By the Numbers: Poems and Aphorisms (Copper Canyon, 2010), which was a finalist for the National Book Award, Interglacial: New and Selected Poems and Aphorisms, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays. His work appears in The New Yorker, Slate, Paris Review, Yale Review, Great American Prose Poems, Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists, The Pushcart Prize anthology and several recent volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Princeton University.

Will Hubbard grew up in North Carolina and currently lives and works in Brooklyn. His first book, Cursivism, will be released in May 2011 by Ugly Duckling Presse.

Sally Wen Mao is an 826 Valencia Young Author's Scholar and a Kundiman fellow. Her work can be found published or forthcoming in Fourteen Hills, Gulf Coast, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Sycamore Review, and West Branch, among others. Born in Wuhan, China, she has lived in Boston, the Bay Area, Pittsburgh, Amsterdam, and most recently Ithaca, where she is an MFA candidate at Cornell University.

Standard Issues storytelling April 26 at 8 pm.

2011-04-21T20:43:00.000-04:00

Yes folks, this month The Standard Issues takes on the only true friend most of us ever really had. The TV.

Our guests will be:

Becky (The A-Team) Flaum
Erin (Days Of Our Lives) Barker
Steven (The Facts Of Life) Berkowitz
Joanne (The Partridge Family) Solomon
and
Brad (Red Shoe Diaries) Lawrence

with your host Cyndi (Electric Company) Freeman

and the Mystery Guest pulled from the hat. And be sure and check out the Standard Issues podcast too. - http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-standard-issues/id418142815

Chin Music poetry April 21 at 7 pm.

2011-04-13T19:09:00.000-04:00

Chin Music
The Poetry Reading Series at Pacific Standard Bar
Featuring Edward Hirsch, Matthew Zapruder, & Piotr Florczyk

RSVP on Facebook.

Please join us for a special Chin Music celebration to launch the second title from Calypso Editions, Building the Barricade and Other Poems of Anna Swir, with a reading featuring three fine poets: Edward Hirsch, Matthew Zapruder, & Piotr Florczyk. Series curated by Bryan Patrick Miller.

Calypso Editions is an artist-run, cooperative press dedicated to publishing quality literary books of poetry and fiction with a global perspective. Our only criteria is excellence.

FEATURED POETS

Edward Hirsch, a MacArthur Fellow, has recently published The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems, which brings together thirty-five years of poetry from seven previous collections, including For the Sleepwalkers (1981), Wild Gratitude (1986), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Night Parade (1989), Earthly Measures (1994), On Love (1998), Lay Back the Darkness (2003), and Special Orders (2008). He has also written four prose books, including How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (1999), a national bestseller, and Poet’s Choice (2006). He edits the series “The Writer’s World” (Trinity University Press). He has edited Theodore Roethke’s Selected Poems (2005) and co-edited The Making of a Sonnet: A Norton Anthology (2008). He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature. He taught in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston for seventeen years and now serves as president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Matthew Zapruder is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Come On All You Ghosts (Copper Canyon). Currently he works as an editor for Wave Books, and teaches as a member of the core faculty of UCR-Palm Desert's Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing. He lives in San Francisco.

Piotr Florczyk is an American poet and a translator from his native Polish. With Been and Gone (Marick Press, 2009), he introduced the English-speaking audience to Julian Kornhauser (1946-), one of the foremost Polish poets of the Generation of '68. He is also the translator of a collection of poems by Anna Swir (1909-84), Building the Barricade and Other Poems (Calypso Editions, 2011). He is the recipient of the 2007 Anna Akhmatova Fellowship for Younger Translators, holds an MFA from San Diego State University, and has taught at the University of Delaware. Florczyk's work has appeared in Slate, Boston Review, America Magazine, Pleiades, Notre Dame Review, The Southern Review, West Branch, World Literature Today, and a variety of other journals.

Pacific Standard Mix CD Contest deadline extended to May 1.

2011-04-11T00:59:00.002-04:00

We've decided to give you all a little more time to assemble your mix CDs for Pacific Standard's playlist, and possible prizes and accolades. Our weary ears just can't get enough new music from our tasteful customers. The details are repeated below:

Make a mix CD, or several, and bring them in to the Standard. In return, we'll do the following:

--Do our best to work your CD or CDs into our playlist (with some limitations, of course: stuff that is too grating or weird to play at a bar won't make the cut).
--Give you $2 off a beer (this applies just for the first CD you bring).

Also, the top three submissions, as judged by our magnificently sensitive ears, will win prizes. Like bar tabs, t-shirts, pint glasses, and various other merch, depending on what you want.

So drop off your CD or CDs with a bartender, making sure to put your contact info on the CDs. Gentlemen (and ladies), start your burning!

Story Collider April 20 at 8 pm.

2011-04-06T12:14:00.000-04:00

Feynman to Starbuck to quantum mechanics to warp drive -- it can be tough to tell science from science fiction, scientists from characters. At its best, science fiction opens a window onto realities that would be otherwise impossible, while often real science can sound more fanciful than any imagining. (Of course, sometimes people are simply lying.)

Join The Story Collider for six stories of science fiction brought to reality and... science so extraordinary, it feels like fiction. April 20th, 8 p.m., at Pacific Standard.

Stories by:

Ryan Britt, Writer and Science Fiction Blogger
Michele Carlo, Writer/Performer/Native New Yorker.
Colin Dempsey, Singer/Songwriter
David Morgan: Professor of Physics
April Salazar, Writer
Aaron Wolfe, Film Editor, Writer, and Musician

Ryan Britt works for the science fiction and fantasy website Tor.com, where he blogs about all aspects of the genre. His commentary on SF&F has also appeared with the Hugo Award-winning web magazine Clarkesworld. Ryan's other writing has been published with Opium Magazine, Nerve.com,The New Inquiry, Soon Quarterly and elsewhere. He has performed on stage with The Liar Show, The Moth, Stripped Stories, and many others. He has recently returned from the Sirenland Writing Workshop in Positano, Italy.

Michele Carlo is a writer/performer who has lived in four of the five boroughs of NYC and remembers when a slice of pizza cost fifty cents. She has been published in Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood’s Lost & Found: Stories From New York, Chicken Soup for the Latino Soul, and SMITH magazine, and told her stories everywhere a person can tell stories in NYC--including The Moth Mainstage. Her memoir, Fish Out Of Agua: My life on neither side of the (subway) tracks, was published by Citadel Press in August 2010. www.michelecarlo.com

Colin Dempsey is an Irish singer/songwriter, storyteller and writer based in New York. He has performed his unique blend of folk and blues music in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and most recently the US. When not strumming, Colin is cheering audiences with personal tales of growing up in Dublin; he is the former producer and co-host of Comedyland at Astoria’s Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden, and still continues to gab throughout venues in Manhattan. When not telling stories (yes, he does shut up...) he is writing them--you can catch him doing so at Kettle of Fish in the West Village every Wednesday... at the bar. www.colindempsey.com

David Morgan holds a PhD in theoretical high-energy physics from The College of William and Mary. He currently teaches physics and astronomy at Eugene Lang College, a division of The New School. He has been interviewed for several science stories on National Public Radio, and in 2005 he received a commission from the Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Sloan Foundation to write a play called The Osiander Preface. He still can't believe he got away with that one.

April Salazar lives and works in New York City. She has told stories at Moth StorySLAMs, Kevin Geeks Out, and Risk!, and she was one of the 100 guitarists who participated in the world premiere of Glenn Branca's Symphony No. 13 (Hallucination City). She knows several computer languages, but only the dirty words.

Aaron Wolfe lives in Brooklyn and is a film and TV editor, musician, writer, and general trivia whiz. He is a Moth StorySLAM winner and writes a blog at autonomika.tumblr.com where he creates an annotated mixtape about his life. Special skills: accidentally adopting other people's accents, worrying about conversations with barbers, and ordering dim sum.

Mimsy Storytelling Monday, April 11 at 8 pm.

2011-03-31T17:27:00.000-04:00

It’s still a little early, but we’re excited about this (not to mention, we don’t want you to think it’s just an April Fool’s joke). Our April show will be Mimsy’s One Year Anniversary Party! To celebrate, we’ll be sharing our “Origin Stories” about things that have shaped our lives, making us into who we are today, in addition to our backline storytelling. We’ll be joined by the wonderful Samara Doucette and Jonathan Blank of This Is Awkward! Not to mention a whole bunch of snacks for everyone to enjoy.

So please, come and join us on April 11th, 8 PM at Pacific Standard in Brooklyn for an enjoyable evening of stories, snacks, and celebration.

Baseball season is on!

2011-03-31T16:25:00.000-04:00

We have the MLB package as usual, and will be showing all the games we can on our two big projection screens, first-come first-served. We'll also be doing another A's fan special: come in to the bar wearing a piece of A's apparel during an A's game, and you get $2 off Sierra Nevada pints (it will usually be the Pale Ale, but we might occasionally switch it up). A's games are a priority for us, but we're open to showing anything, depending on the folks who come by. Let us all thank whatever deity we worship that we can stop watching NBA games.

Chin Music poetry April 7 at 7 pm.

2011-03-30T00:54:00.000-04:00

Chin Music
The Poetry Reading Series at Pacific Standard
Featuring Suzanne Gardinier, Antony Rowland, & Jeremy Voigt

Thursday, 7 April 2011 @ 7:00 PM

RSVP on Facebook.

Please join us for our upcoming Chin Music reading featuring three fine poets: Suzanne Gardinier, Antony Rowland, & Jeremy Voigt. Series curated by Bryan Patrick Miller.

FEATURED POETS

SG is the author of five books, most recently Iridium & Selected Poems. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Manhattan.

Antony Rowland published his first collection of poetry, The Land of Green Ginger, with Salt Press (UK) in 2008. Since then his work has been included in the Bloodaxe anthology Identity Parade: New British And Irish Poets (2010), and he was invited to record for the national Poetry Archive in 2009 (www.poetryarchive.org.) His writing has also appeared in a Carcanet anthology (New Poetries III (2003)), as well as journals such as PN Review, Critical Quarterly and the Cincinnati Review.

Jeremy Voigt's work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Willow Springs, Washington Square, REED Magazine, Talking River Review, Poet Lore, and RHINO. His chapbook Neither Rising nor Falling was published by Finishing Line Press in fall 2009. He has been featured on Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac, and teaches regularly at the Port Townsend Writer's Conference, Whatcom Community College, and Burlington-Edison High School.

Pacific Standard Bracket-Off Standings After Week 2.

2011-03-28T03:32:00.000-04:00

Drunk Glynn 195
Jordan 181
Jan Penfield 177
Leonard 170
Jake 169
John R. #1 159
Mintus 159
John R. #2 156
Glynn, Other 156
Sober Feldstein 152
Colombo #2 151
Drunk Ray 149
Malcolm 140
Drunk Jon S. 132
Piper 132
Drunk Feldstein 118
Vadim 115
Colombo #1 113
Tyler 109

The only brackets still with possibilities to add points after this crazy tournament are both Glynn's brackets and Colombo #2. Drunk Glynn has clinched the #1 spot; Glynn, Other will win the #2 spot if UConn wins the tournament, and Colombo #2 would be third. In any other scenario, Jordan will win the #2 spot and Jan Penfield will win third. Thanks to all for playing, and see you next year!

Pub Quiz playoffs are coming!

2011-03-23T17:20:00.000-04:00

A heads-up for you quiz folks: quiz will continue as usual every Sunday night at 8 pm through April 17. On April 24, the Season IX playoffs will begin. We’ll include the top 10 teams (the top 2 teams will get a first-round bye). The round of 6 will be May 1, and the final three-team three-for-all will be May 8. We’ll take a week or two off afterwards, to give all of us a well-deserved break. So it's more important than ever to get your team in and earn points in the next few weeks, so you can be one of the lucky 10. Happy answering!

Pacific Standard Bracket-Off Standings After Week 1.

2011-03-21T15:44:00.000-04:00

Jake 163
Jordan 163
Drunk Glynn 159
John R. #1 156
John R. #2 156
Leonard 152
Jan Penfield 147
Mintus 144
Malcolm 131
Drunk Jon S. 129
Piper 129
Glynn, Other 126
Sober Feldstein 121
Drunk Feldstein 115
Colombo #2 111
Drunk Ray 107
Vadim 103
Tyler 100
Colombo #1 92

Standard Issues storytelling March 22 at 8 pm.

2011-03-16T18:36:00.000-04:00

This month the Standard Issues live show takes on Disasters! Calamities! Horrors great and small!

On hand to relive moments when the s@#t hit the fan will be a collection of brilliant story tellers including, but not limited to*:

Jefferson (The Earth Destroying Asteroid)
Jennifer (Global Warming) Glick
Jeff (Titanic the Sequel) Scherer
Ben (Deli Out Of Lox) Lillie
Allison (Ishtar) Downey
Cyndi (Prom) Freeman
and
*our mystery guest pulled from the hat! So, possibly, you.

All this and your host Brad (Was That Shellfish a Little Off?) Lawrence.

The NCAA Tournament.

2011-03-14T18:28:00.000-04:00

As usual, we'll be opening early, at noon, on Thursday to show all the NCAA Tournament games possible. (We always open at noon Friday-Sunday.) We have the package, and can show two different games at a time on our two large projection screens. It'll be first-come, first-served--just ask your bartender if there's a game you're interested in.

In related news, we'll be doing our Pacific Standard bracket challenge. If you want to be involved and possibly gain glorious rewards, ask your bartender for details; they can print you out a bracket.

And one other thing: if you're doing the ESPN Tournament Challenge online contest thingy, join Pacific Standard's group, in addition to any others you may be members of. Go here to sign up:

http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/en/frontpage

Our group name is Pacific Standard, and the password is "gobears". Oh, and to avoid any confusion, this has nothing to do with the bar's own pen and paper tournament pool. It's just for fun.

Mimsy Storytelling Monday, March 14 at 8 pm.

2011-03-11T12:00:00.000-05:00

This month in the first half of our show, Mimsy will explore the topic of bullies. Why are they such jerks? Why don't they pick on someone their own size? What's their problem, man? These questions and more will be answered in our scripted set, in Mimsy's signature Mome Rath form.

In our second half we will be joined by special guest and Moth GrandSLAM winner STEVE ZIMMER, for improvised backline storytelling!

-----

What, pray tell, is Mimsy?

It's a storytelling show in Brooklyn. It's awesome. It's free. It's at 8 PM every second Monday of the month. And the only house storytelling team in the city.

Mimsy is:
Ben Lillie
Caitlin Brodnick
Erin Barker
Hanuman Welch
Joe Evans III
Miguel de Leon
Olivia Henderson
Sarah Jewell

Chin Music poetry March 17 at 7 pm.

2011-03-08T19:02:00.000-05:00

Chin Music
The Poetry Reading Series at Pacific Standard Bar
Featuring Mark Doty, Nicky Beer, & Metta Sáma

RSVP on Facebook.

Please join us for our upcoming Chin Music reading featuring three fine poets: Mark Doty, Nicky Beer, & Metta Sáma. Series curated by Bryan Patrick Miller.

FEATURED POETS

Mark Doty's Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008. His eight books of poems include School of the Arts, Source, and My Alexandria. He has also published four volumes of nonfiction prose: Still Life with Oysters and Lemon, Heaven's Coast, Firebird and Dog Years, which was a New York Times bestseller in 2007. Doty’s poems have appeared in many magazines including The Atlantic Monthly, The London Review of Books, Ploughshares, Poetry, and The New Yorker. Widely anthologized, his poems appear in The Norton Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry and many other collections. Doty's work has been honored by the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Whiting Writers Award, two Lambda Literary Awards, and the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction. He is the only American poet to have received the T.S. Eliot Prize in the U.K., and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim, Ingram Merrill and Lila Wallace/Readers Digest Foundations, and from the National Endowment for the Arts. Doty lives in New York City and on the east end of Long Island.

Nicky Beer is the author of The Diminishing House (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2010). She has received a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, a Tuition Scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, a Discovery/The Nation award, and a Campbell Corner Poetry Prize. She teaches creative writing at the University of Colorado Denver, where she co-edits the journal Copper Nickel. Learn more at www.nickybeer.com.

Metta Sáma is a fiction editor, book reviewer, poet, fiction writer, educator, administrator, & amateur painter and photographer. Her poems and reviews can be found or are upcoming in Crab Orchard Review, Blackbird, Vinyl, The Drunken Boat, Drunken Boat, her circle, among others. Her first poetry collection, South of Here (New Issues 2005), was published under her given name, Lydia Melvin.

Return of the Pacific Standard Mix CD Contest!

2011-03-08T00:37:00.000-05:00

Some of you may remember our 2008 mix CD contest, where we challenged you to improve our bar playlist (and restore the sanity of those of us who have to listen to it 8-12 hours a day, and get terribly bored by hearing the same stuff over and over) by contributing mix CDs. After another couple years of relative playlist stagnation, we've decided to bring it back; thus, Playlist Refresh 2011 is on!

Make a mix CD, or several, and bring them in to the Standard during the month of March. In return, we'll do the following:

--Do our best to work your CD or CDs into our playlist (with some limitations, of course: stuff that is too grating or weird to play at a bar won't make the cut).
--Give you $2 off a beer (this applies just for the first CD you bring).

Also, the top three submissions, as judged by our magnificently sensitive ears, will win prizes. Like bar tabs, t-shirts, pint glasses, and various other merch, depending on what you want.

So drop off your CD or CDs with a bartender, making sure to put your contact info on the CDs. Gentlemen (and ladies), start your burning!

Story Collider: Game Theory, March 16 at 8 pm.

2011-02-23T15:25:00.000-05:00

What is your experience of science? Every month, The Story Collider invites six people to come on stage and tell a true, personal story that answers that question. Some are scientists, most are not.

On March 16, we explore “Game Theory”. The games we win, and the ones we lose; the games we know we’re playing, and those we don’t; the games we design, and those that emerge.

Stories by:

Kevin Allison, storytelling coach
Seth Bisen-Hersh, musical theatre composer and lyricist
Jeff Crouse, artist, programmer
Nick Fortugno, game designer, artist, and teacher.
Heather Sparks, science and culture writer
Hanuman Welch, writer, performer and storyteller.

Kevin Allison is a member of the TV sketch comedy group The State, best known for its series on MTV in the 90s. He is the creator and host of the show RISK!, where people tell true stories they never thought they’d dare to share in public. RISK! has ongoing live shows in New York and Los Angeles and is a popular audio podcast on iTunes. It can be found at www.risk-show.com.

Seth Bisen-Hersh is a prolific, versatile composer/ lyricist and performer. His musicals include What If…?, Love Quirks: a song cycle of unconventional devotion (Don’t Tell Mama), Stanley’s Party (Manhattan Children’s Theatre), More to Love, The Spickner Spin (FringeNYC Audience Favorite Award) and Meaningless Sex (FringeNYC Audience Favorite Award). He also produces 2 annual charity concerts of his work featuring Broadway performers: Broadway Meows, Broadway Can! Finally, he has recently created a web series about his dating woes as a single, straight musical theatre guy. www.sethbh.com

Jeff Crouse’s work playfully comments on the role of technology in our lives. His work takes many forms, including software, web applications, installations, games, and video – mostly as satire and parody. He is currently a freelance programmer and teaches in the Parsons Design and Technology program.

Nick Fortugno is a game designer of digital and real-world games, and a founder of Playmatics, a NYC game development company. Fortugno has been a designer, writer, and project manager on dozens of commercial and serious games, and served as lead designer on the downloadable blockbuster Diner Dash and the award-winning serious game Ayiti: The Cost of Life. Nick teaches game design and interactive narrative design at Parsons The New School of Design. Nick is also a co-founder of the annual Come Out and Play street games festival, and co-creator of the Big Urban Game for Minneapolis/St. Paul in 2003.

Heather Sparks writes about science and culture for a variety of fun and not-so-fun forums including Wired, Seed, BoingBoing, as well as pharmaceutical advertising. She’s currently work shopping a stand-up comedy routine and writing a play about drugs.

Hanuman Welch is a writer, performer, and story teller. He has studied improv and story telling at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater here in New York. He can be seen performing with the backline story telling team, Mimsy, every month at the Pacific Standard in downtown Brooklyn. He enjoys Madmen fan fiction, Ethiopian food, and incorrectly referring to every neighborhood below 14th st as the Lower East Side.

Standard Issues storytelling February 22 at 8 pm.

2011-02-19T16:50:00.000-05:00

Standard Issues presents Birthdays! Tales of realizing your mortality is creeping up to take you in the night. Or lovely surprise parties.

We have an all star cast for this live recording of the PODCAST! And they are:

Lara Blackwood Avery (the furthest from death)

Margot Leitman (born yesterday)

Michelle Carlo (they even have birthdays in the Bronx)

Ophira Eisenberg (but not in Canada. Its a poor nation)

Jeff Simmermon (test tube baby, so more vacuum pressed than born)

Steve Zimmer (parents still deny it ever happened)

& your host, Brad Lawrence (always wearing his birthday suit)

This show is free and you will be able to hear your own peals of laughter on the interwebs.

Chin Music March 3 at 7 pm.

2011-02-17T21:30:00.000-05:00

Chin Music
The Poetry Reading Series at Pacific Standard
Featuring Joshua Beckman, Eric Gamalinda, & Sara Femenella

RSVP on Facebook.

Please join us for our upcoming Chin Music reading featuring three fine poets: Joshua Beckman, Eric Gamalinda, and Sara Femenella. Series curated by Bryan Patrick Miller.

FEATURED POETS

Joshua Beckman was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He is the author of seven books, including Take It (Wave Books, 2009), Shake and two collaborations with Matthew Rohrer: Nice Hat. Thanks. and Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty. He is an editor at Wave Books and has translated numerous works of poetry and prose, including 5 Meters of Poems by Carlos Oquendo de Amat and Poker by Tomaz Salamun, which was a finalist for the PEN America Poetry in Translation Award. He is also the recipient of numerous other awards, including a NYFA fellowship and a Pushcart Prize. He lives in Seattle and New York.

Eric Gamalinda has published two books of poetry in the U.S., one of which, Zero Gravity, won the Alice James Books New York/New England Prize and the Asian American Literary Award. He was born and raised in the Philippines, where he published numerous books of fiction and a collection of poetry and was awarded the Philippine Centennial Literary Prize for a novel. In 2009, he was shortlisted for the 2009 Man Asian Literary Prize. A book of short stories, People Are Strange, will be published by Black Lawrence Press in fall 2011. He is also a playwright and experimental filmmaker; his three-act play, Resurrection, was staged off-Broadway in New York in 2010, and he has received the Cultural Center of the Philippines Independent Film and Video Awards. He was publications director of the Asian American Writers Workshop until 1997, Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Hawaii in Manoa in 1999, and Visiting Scholar at New York University’s Asia Pacific American Studies Program in 2002-03. He currently works for the New York Philharmonic and teaches at Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race.

Sara Femenella's work had been published or is forthcoming in The Denver Quarterly, Pleiades, Dossier, The Normal School and The Saint Ann's Review. She received her MFA from Columbia University and works at Poets & Writers Magazine.

Chin Music poetry returns February 10 at 7 pm.

2011-01-31T16:16:00.000-05:00

Chin Music
The Poetry Reading Series at Pacific Standard Bar
Featuring Polina Barskova, Ilya Kaminsky, and Boris Dralyuk

RSVP on Facebook.

Please join us for a special Chin Music Tolstoy Centennial celebration featuring bilingual readings of poetry and a staged reading in Russian from Tolstoy’s How Much Land Does A Man Need, the inaugural title from Calypso Editions. Featuring Polina Barskova, Ilya Kaminsky, and Boris Dralyuk. Series curated by Bryan Patrick Miller. Special thanks to Melville House.

Calypso Editions is a an artist-run, cooperative press dedicated to publishing quality literary books of poetry and fiction with a global perspective. Our only criteria is excellence.

FEATURED POETS

Polina Barskova, born in 1976, is widely regarded as the most important Russian poet of her generation. Her first book of poems was published when she was still a teenager. After receiving a degree in Russian Literature and Classics from St. Petersburg University, she came to the US where she earned a Ph.D. in Russian Literature from UC Berkeley. Author of seven books of poetry, The Zoo in Winter: Selected Poems is her first collection in English. Barskova teaches at Hampshire College.

Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odessa, former Soviet Union, in 1977, and arrived in the United States in 1993 when his family was granted asylum by the American government. Ilya is the author of Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press, 2004), which won the Whiting Writer's Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Metcalf Award, the Dorset Prize, and was named Best Poetry Book of the Year 2004 by ForeWord Magazine. In 2009, poems from his new manuscript, Deaf Republic, were awarded Poetry's Levinson Prize. Harper Collins published his anthology of 20th century poetry in translation, Ecco Anthology of International Poetry, in 2010. Kaminsky is the Director of the Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute and lives in San Diego, California, with his beautiful wife, Katie Farris.

Boris Dralyuk is completing his PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures at UCLA. His poems, translations, essays, and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in a variety of literary and academic journals, including Poetry International, Zeek, Slavic and East European Journal, and Russian History. He and David Stromberg have recently translated and edited Polina Barskova’s The Zoo in Winter: Selected Poems (Melville House, 2011).

Story Collider February 16 at 8 pm.

2011-01-25T14:32:00.000-05:00

We’re lovable, and we’re terrifying. We’re funny, and we’re sad. We’re science, and we’re art. We’re *head explode*.

Join The Story Collider for six stories of Cognitive Dissonance, February 16th, 8pm at Pacific Standard in Brooklyn.

Stories by:

Tricia Rose Burt, writer, performer, and visual artist
David Carmel, cognitive neuroscientist
Catie Lazarus, writer
Margot Leitman, comedian and writer
Dave Ritz, actor and storyteller
Adam Wade, storyteller, writer, and humanitarian

The Story Collider brings together copy editors, researchers, programmers, and other disreputable types to tell us personal stories about the times when, for good or ill, science happened.

http://storycollider.org/

Speakeasy-E Night Update.

2011-01-23T13:45:00.000-05:00

We're still planning on rolling with our old-school West Coast rap and Speakeasy beers, specials, and giveaways on Wednesday the 26th starting at 7 or so. One change: the Don had to be replaced by the Double Daddy double IPA in what's really just a swap of one hard-to-find big IPA for another. Everything else remains the same; we hope to see you here on Wednesday!

Standard Issues storytelling January 25 at 8 pm.

2011-01-18T19:08:00.000-05:00

And we're back and we're bringin' the heat! Like Starsky and Hutch flying the Hindenberg into the Sun! We are going to bring you stories of various kinds of hotness, so come on down and pretend January is July for a few hours with some of New York's best storytellers.

This month's lineup:

Daisy "The Human Flamethrower" Rosario
Miguel "Life's A Beach" De Leon
Jenna "Vietnamese Monk" Brister
Nisse "Hot Lips" Greenberg
&
Cyndi "Towering Inferno" Freeman

With your host Brad "Gas Fire" Lawrence

And you! Put your name in the hat to be our mystery guest!

Free Admission!

The way it will work on Sunday.

2011-01-17T14:26:00.001-05:00

For those of you interested, we'll be showing the Jets-Steelers game (6:30 Sunday) in its entirety on our front screen. Quiz will start around 8:30 this week (later than usual) so people can get the most game-viewing time possible. During the quiz, teams should gravitate towards the back screen, where we'll be showing the questions, but you will hear the audio for the quiz wherever you sit. Hopefully, Jets/Steelers fans and quiz people can co-habitate. Tell all your friends that we do have quiz, and you can play it from wherever in our bar, but there will be one screen and several screaming people, probably, dedicated to the football game.

Speakeasy-E Night with Rare Beers, Specials, Giveaways, and Old-School Rap!

2011-01-11T01:52:00.000-05:00

As West Coasters and beer lovers, we are obsessed with Speakeasy, a great brewery from San Francisco whose beers you may well have sampled in your time here. We decided it was long overdue for us to have a Speakeasy event, and what better way to do it than by hosting a "Speakeasy-E" night featuring 90s West Coast rap and several rare and interesting Speakeasy beers on tap?

To wit: on Wednesday, January 26, starting at 7 pm, the folks from Speakeasy will be here with lots of old-school hip hop to play, as well as merchandise to give away. For our part, we'll do some nice specials on the five Speakeasy beers we'll feature. Speaking of that, here is the tentative lineup:

--Payback Porter, an American porter with dark imported malts balanced by American hops.
--White Lighting, an American wheat beer.
--The Don, a super-rare 10% ABV West Coast triple IPA. Enough said.
--Tallulah Blonde, a hard-to-find Belgian-ish session ale.
--Big Daddy, a hoppy West Coast IPA, and in cask form to boot for this event.

We hope for your sake that you're all here for this. We know Eric Wright would be.

$15 Sierra Nevada pitchers during playoff games!

2011-01-03T17:20:00.000-05:00

To celebrate the NFL playoffs, we'll be offering pitchers of Sierra Nevada Celebration for $15 (a $5 savings over the usual $20 cost for four pints) while the games are going on. Just tell the bartender you'd like the playoff special. And yes, we'll be showing each and every playoff game here on our two big projection screens. Hope to see you here!

Story Collider January 19 at 8 pm.

2010-12-30T22:27:00.000-05:00

Whether we want to or not, at some point we all get sick, and we have to figure out why. Was that a paper cut or a cat scratch? Heart attack or panic attack? Temporary glitch in the global financial structure, or the imminent collapse of civilization? Only one thing is for sure: chicken soup isn't going to help.

Join The Story Collider for six stories of Pathology. January 19th, 8pm at Pacific Standard in Brooklyn.

Stories by:

Naomi Azar, Clinical Psychology PhD Candidate and yoga instructor
Erin Barker, Writer and editor
Johanna Clearfield, Moth storyteller and wildlife rehabilitator
Jefferson, Pseudonymous NYC-based writer
Seth Lind, host of TOLD
Steve Zimmer, Programmer

The Story Collider brings together consultants, researchers, musicians, and other disreputable types to tell us personal stories about the times when, for good or ill, science happened.

Hosted by Ben Lillie and Brian Wecht

http://storycollider.org/

Details on Standard Issues storytelling tomorrow at 8 pm.

2010-12-27T16:15:00.000-05:00

After you have run away from your family, come join us and drink off that holiday hangover with our cadre of amazing storytellers.

Including!

Greg (Creepy Uncle) Leitman
Luke (Still At The Kids Table) Davin
Jen (What Drinking Problem, Mom?) Demerrit
Jeff (My Old Room Is Now An Office) Simmermon
Cory (It Is A Real Job, Dad) Petit
Alithea (Who Is Sleeping In My Room?) Howes
&
Brad (So Fine, I Shot My F@%*ing Eye Out) Lawrence

with your host

Cyndi (The Reason We Can't Have Anything Nice) Freeman

and our mystery guest, You, if your name gets pulled out of our hat.

Sports reading January 6 at 7:30 pm!

2010-12-21T13:55:00.000-05:00

Gelf's Varsity Letters sports reading series returns on Thursday, January 6, at 7:30 p.m., with an all-NFL night, just before the playoffs begin. At this free monthly event, hosted by Gelf, N. Jeremi Duru, Anthony L. Gargano, and Chad Millman will read from and talk about their work. Duru will explain how the NFL opened up its hiring process for coaches. Gargano will provide an unvarnished look at life in the league. And Millman will trace the rise of the Steelers, even as Pittsburgh was crumbling around them.

Please spread the word to sports fans and book lovers.

More on this month's authors:

•N. Jeremi Duru, an associate professor at Temple University’s law school and author of Advancing the Ball: Race, Reformation, and the Quest for Equal Coaching Opportunity in the NFL

•Anthony L. Gargano, sports broadcaster and author of NFL Unplugged: The Brutal, Brilliant World of Professional Football

•Chad Millman, ESPN writer and co-author of The Ones Who Hit the Hardest: The Steelers, the Cowboys, the '70s, and the Fight for America's Soul

Chin Music poetry December 9 at 7 pm.

2010-12-03T10:32:00.001-05:00

Please join us for a very special Chin Music benefit reading for the Pirogue Collective featuring three fine poets: Breyten Breytenbach, David Hinton, and Emna Zghal. Series curated by Bryan Patrick Miller. Special thanks to Archipelago Books.

Pirogue Collective is a not-for-profit organization supporting artists living and working in Africa through the Imagine Africa publications and the Taalifkat Tudunya Writing Workshops, hosted by the Gorée Institute in Gorée, Senegal.

Sierra Celebration will be $1 off, with half the sales of that beer going toward the cost for one African artist to attend the Taalifkat Tudunya Workshop in January 2011. Donations encouraged.

FEATURED POETS

Breyten Breytenbach is a poet, painter, novelist, memoirist, essayist, and activist. Born in South Africa, he immigrated to Paris in the late '60s and became deeply involved in teh anti-Apartheid movement. Breytenbach's works include All One Horse, Mouroir, Notes from the Middle World, A Season in Paradise, The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist, Dog Heart, The Memory of Birds in Times of Revolution, Lady One, and Voice Over: A Nomadic Conversation with Mahmoud Darwish. His many honors include the Alan Paton Award, the Hertzog Prize, the Max Jacob Prize, and the Mahmoud Darwish Award. Breytenbach is the Executive Director of the Gorée Institute in Senegal.

David Hinton's many translations of classical Chinese poetry have earned wide acclaim for creating compelling contemporary poems that convey the actual texture and density of the originals. He edited and translated Classical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology and translated The Mountain Poems of Meng Hao-jan. He is also the first translator in over a century to translate the four seminal masterworks of Chinese philosophy: Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu, Analects, Mencius. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, numerous fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and both of the major awards given for poetry translation in the United States: the Landon Translation Award, from the Academy of American Poets, and the PEN Translation Award. He is currently a fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers in New York City. He lives in Vermont.

Emna Zghal is a Tunisian-born U.S. based visual artist. Besides her work in painting and printmaking, Zghal works with text using poetry and prose in various languages. Her paintings and artist's books are represented in public collections like the New York Public Library, Yale University, and The Museum for African Art in New York. Zghal has received fellowships and done projects with the Women's Studio Workshop, the Newark Art Museum, the MacDowell Colony, the Weir Farm Trust, and the Cité Internationale Des Arts in Paris. In 2008 she was awarded a Creative Capital grant for a public art project, Dark Turquoise, in collaboration with Michael Rakowitz.

Iron Santa Challenge 2010/2011.

2010-12-01T02:00:00.001-05:00

It's a Pacific Standard tradition that, during the months of December and January, we stage an Iron Santa Challenge to encourage people to try our excellent selection of dark and winter seasonal beers. The challenge: drink a 16-ounce pint (or 12- or 8-ounce pour, depending on how we're serving a given beer) of six different winter beers in one day/night, and win:

--A free Pacific Standard t-shirt!
--OR a Pacific Standard growler, patch, cozy, and pint glass! (Yes, all four! We have a bunch of different varieties of pint glasses, including the new Sixpoint/Pacific Standard mashup pint glass.)
--AND everlasting glory!

The actual beers will change with our rotating tap selections, but will generally include quaffs like the Sierra Nevada Celebration, Goose Island Bourbon County Stout, North Coast Old Rasputin Imperial Stout, and so on. Starting today, December 1, ask your bartender if you're interested in taking the challenge, and they'll provide you with a checklist of beers to drink over the course of an evening. Oh, and pace yourself. We don't want any messes.

Thanksgiving photos

2010-11-30T03:37:00.000-05:00

A fun time was had by all:

Story Collider December 15 at 8 pm.

2010-11-30T00:52:00.000-05:00

You're standing at the front of the room about to start a presentation. Everyone is looking at you; peers, teachers, friends, enemies. And no matter where you are in life -- a high school student with a paper-mache volcano, a researcher about to win the Nobel Prize, or a government adviser with very bad news about climate change -- you always have the same thought: "Damn, I have to pee."

The Story Collider brings together consultants, researchers, musicians, and other disreputable types to tell us personal stories about the times when, for good or ill, science happened.

Stories by:

Eugene Ashton-Gonzalez, Raconteur
Moran Cerf, Neuroscientist
Luke Davin, L'Homme à Tout Faire
Joe Evans III, Musician and Humorist
Susie Tozier, High School Science Teacher
Robin Wachsberger, Production Manager, Singer Songwriter, Improvisor On Sabbatical, and Chronic Doodler

Hosted by Ben Lillie and Brian Wecht

Mimsy Storytelling: Carolled Night, Monday, December 13 at 8 pm.

2010-11-30T00:05:00.003-05:00

Join Mimsy's festive fourth show for a set of improvised storytelling with special guest Kevin Hines, plus four heart-warming stories inspired by music.

For more information on Backline Storytelling and other workshop forms, how to be involved, and more about our house team, visit our website at http://mimsyshow.tumblr.com/ and follow us on Twitter @mimsyshow.

Visit our friends, the Story Collider (http://www.storycollider.org/) and The Standard Issues by Brad and Cyndi, two great free shows also at Pacific Standard!

MIMSY HOUSE TEAM

Erin Barker
Caitlin Brodnick
Miguel de Leon
Joe Evans III
Olivia Henderson
Sarah Jewell
Ben Lillie
Andrew Linderman
Hanuman Welch

Chin Music poetry December 2 at 7 pm.

2010-11-22T22:34:00.000-05:00

Please join us for our upcoming Chin Music reading featuring three fine poets: Ben Lerner, Timothy Donnelly, and Ken Chen. Series curated by Bryan Patrick Miller.

FEATURED POETS

Ben Lerner's most recent book of poetry is Mean Free Path, published by Copper Canyon Press. His first novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, is forthcoming from Coffee House Press. He teaches at Brooklyn College.

Timothy Donnelly is the author of Twenty-seven Props for a Production of Eine Lebenszeit (Grove 2003) and The Cloud Corporation (Wave 2010). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in A Public Space, Harper’s, Iowa Review, jubilat, The Nation, The New Republic, The Paris Review, Washington Square Review and elsewhere. He is poetry editor at Boston Review and teaches in the Writing Program at Columbia University’s School of the Arts.

Ken Chen's debut poetry collection, Juvenilia, won the 2009 Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. His work has been published or recognized in Best American Essays 2006, Best American Essays 2007, and the Boston Review of Books. He is the executive director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

The Pacific Standard Thanksgiving tradition continues...

2010-11-15T17:37:00.000-05:00

As usual, we'll be opening early, at 12 pm, on November 25, Thanksgiving Day, to show the football games and celebrate the holiday. We'll provide free turkey while it lasts; we ask guests who want turkey (or altruistic vegetarians) to bring some side dish (talk to us if you want to coordinate). We'll also have an all-day-and-night happy hour ($1 off almost all drinks). So if you're in town and want to watch some football on our big screens and enjoy some Thanksgiving camaraderie on the cheap, come by anytime.

Chin Music poetry November 18 at 7 pm.

2010-11-12T01:39:00.000-05:00

Please join us for our upcoming Chin Music reading featuring three fine poets: Marina Temkina, M.A. Vizsolyi, and Ben Fama. Series curated by Bryan Patrick Miller.

FEATURED POETS

Marina Temkina was born in Leningrad in 1948 and emigrated to New York City in 1978. She has published four books of poetry in Russian: Chasti chast’ (A Part of A Part), V obratnom napravlenii (In Reverse), Kalancha (Watchtower), and Canto Immigranto. In collaboration with Michel Gerard, she has published two artist's books in France: Observatoire Geomnesique and MoMA Duomo: Twelve Objects from Melencholia and the Broken Obelisk. Marina is also the artist/author behind several multimedia poetry installations. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a Charles H. Revson Fellowship on the Future of New York at Columbia University. Her work has been included in several international anthologies and poetry magazines. She writes on gender, Russian-Jewish identity and immigration with a sense of history lived through and expressed as an intimate experience.

M.A. Vizsolyi grew up in Pennsylvania. His first book of poems, The Lamp with Wings, was selected by Ilya Kaminsky for the National Poetry Series, and is forthcoming in the fall of 2011. His poems have appeared in many journals including Poetry International, 6x6, Slice Magazine, and BOMB. He teaches ice hockey and ice skating lessons in Central Park, and lives in Brooklyn.

Ben Fama is the author of the chapbook Aquarius Rising (Ugly Duckling Presse) and co-author of the chapbook Girl Boy Girl Boy (The Corresponding Society). He is the founding editor of Supermachine Poetry Journal. His work has been featured in GlitterPony, Notnostrums, Poor Claudia, and on the Best American Poetry Blog, among others.

Chin Music November 11 at 7 pm.

2010-11-03T13:34:00.003-04:00

Please join us for our upcoming Chin Music reading featuring three fine poets: Sonia Sanchez, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and Sassy Ross. Series curated by Bryan Patrick Miller.

FEATURED POETS

Poet. Mother. Professor. National and International lecturer on Black Culture and Literature, Women’s Liberation, Peace and Racial Justice. Sponsor of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Board Member of MADRE. Sonia Sanchez is the author of over 16 books including Homecoming, We a BaddDDD People, Love Poems, I’ve Been a Woman, A Sound Investment and Other Stories, Homegirls and Handgrenades, Under a Soprano Sky, Wounded in the House of a Friend (Beacon Press, 1995), Does Your House Have Lions? (Beacon Press, 1997), Like the Singing Coming off the Drums (Beacon Press, 1998), Shake Loose My Skin (Beacon Press, 1999), and most recently, Morning Haiku (Beacon Press, 2010). In addition to being a contributing editor to Black Scholar and The Journal of African Studies, she has edited an anthology, We Be Word Sorcerers: 25 Stories by Black Americans. She is a winner of the American Book Award, the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Humanities, the Langston Hughes Poetry Award, the Robert Frost Medal, the Harper Lee Award, and the Robert Creeley Award. The Sonia Sanchez Literary Review is the first African American Journal that discusses the work of Sonia Sanchez and the Black Arts Movement.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of three books of poetry, MIRACLE FRUIT and AT THE DRIVE-IN VOLCANO and the forthcoming LUCKY FISH (all from Tupelo Press). Awards for her writing include a poetry fellowship from the NEA and the Pushcart Prize. New work appears in American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, and Orion. She is associate professor of English at SUNY-Fredonia.

Sassy Ross writes poems. She lives, for the most part, in Brooklyn.

Election Night on Tuesday.

2010-10-31T17:53:00.000-04:00

Just FYI, we'll have at least one, and possibly both, of our big screens tuned to the election results on Tuesday night (no World Series game or football, so there's minimal competition from sports). Come by if you're so inclined, and drink away what is likely to be a relatively sorrowful evening with our plentiful $3 pints.

Mimsy Storytelling Monday, November 8 at 8 pm.

2010-10-31T15:40:00.000-04:00

Join Mimsy's third show for a set of improvised storytelling, followed by the debut of the "Mome Rath": three stories on the same theme, depression, braided together in the telling. Prepare to be outgrabed.

For more information on Backline Storytelling and other workshop forms, how to be involved, and more about our house team, visit our website at http://mimsyshow.tumblr.com/ and follow us on Twitter @mimsyshow.

Visit our friends, the Story Collider (http://www.storycollider.org/) and The Standard Issues by Brad and Cyndi, two great free shows also at Pacific Standard!

=====

MIMSY HOUSE TEAM

Erin Barker
Caitlin Brodnick
Miguel de Leon
Joe Evans III
Olivia Henderson
Sarah Jewell
Ben Lillie
Andrew Linderman
Hanuman Welch

and special guest Bridget O'Neill!
Bridget is a recovering Photographer turned Writer and Performer.

Story Collider November 17 at 8 pm.

2010-10-28T21:15:00.002-04:00

What do Albert Einstein, Joan of Arc, and Amelia Earhart have in common? In almost every aspect of their lives, they were close to average. Almost every aspect. Join The Story Collider for six stories about math, statistics, and diverging from the mean, 8 PM November 17 at Pacific Standard. The Story Collider brings together animators, researchers, musicians, and other disreputable types to tell us personal stories about the times when, for good or ill, science happened.

Stories by:

Adam Bloom, RAD Developer

Steven Berkowitz, Writer, Storyteller, Propagandist

Becky Ferreira, Writer, Comedian & Raptor

Jennifer Fitzgerald, Consultant

Nisse Greenberg, Math Tutor, Sketch Comedian, Fantasy Basketball Analyst, Storyteller

Ben Lillie, Science Storyteller

Hosted by Ben Lillie and Brian Wecht

http://storycollider.org/

http://facebook.com/thestorycollider

Founder's Breakfast Stout now on tap; Greenport Harbor Leaf Pile mention in Time Out.

2010-10-28T20:05:00.002-04:00

For the first time ever in our bar's history, we've managed to get a keg of Founders' highly sought after Breakfast Stout, which is one of the defining coffee/chocolate stouts in existence. Come in soon while supplies last. Description below:

Founders Breakfast Stout (Grand Rapids, MI; $6/12 oz). This very rare seasonal is the coffee lover's consummate beer. Brewed with an abundance of flaked oats, bitter and imported chocolates, and Sumatra and Kona coffee, it has an intense fresh roasted java nose topped with a cinnamon-colored head. 8.3% ABV.

And we'd also like to remind you we'll be rocking local upstart brewery Greenport Harbor's Leaf Pile pumpkin beer through Halloween and a bit beyond. Time Out just gave it a nice writeup, mentioning us:

http://newyork.timeout.com/eat-drink/bars/437061/the-season%E2%80%99s-best-beers

The 2010 NYC Marathon Here at Pacific Standard.

2010-10-27T19:00:00.002-04:00

On marathon day, Sunday, November 7, we'll be opening early, at 9 am, to host people who want to watch the marathon, which runs right by our bar. You can watch the leaders and the pack pass by out of our big windows. We'll have a barbecue station outside as we usually do. And, finally, we'll have our Marathon Marys for for $7 per pint glass of goodness. The marathon is becoming a Pacific Standard tradition, and should be plenty of fun again this year.

The World Series at Pacific Standard.

2010-10-26T22:02:00.001-04:00

Since a lot of you have been asking about if we'll have the World Series games, which screens we'll have them on, whether there will be sound, etc., here's the deal with each of the possible 7 games:

Wednesday at 8 pm: We'll have the game on in the back with sound (and possibly the front too; it'll be first-come first-served).

Thursday at 8 pm: We'll have the game in the front, with sound, until our Chin Music poetry night is over in the back (it should be over by 9 at the latest). Then we'll have the game in back with sound too.

Saturday at 7 pm: We'll have the game in the back with sound, pending the end of the Cal game, which starts at 3:30 and should be over by then. If the Cal game runs long, we'll have the baseball game in the front with sound until the Cal game is over.

Sunday at 8:20 pm: We'll have the game in the back with sound (and possibly in the front too; see above).

Monday at 8 pm: We'll have the game in the back with sound (and possibly in the front too; see above).

Wednesday at 8 pm: We'll have the game in the back with sound (and possibly in the front too; see above).

Thursday at 8 pm: We'll have the game in the back with sound (and possibly in the front too; see above).

Ninkasi Total Domination returns!

2010-10-25T20:50:00.001-04:00

If you haven't tried Ninkasi yet, get here with all haste. Total Domination is one of the best beers in existence, and we're thrilled to have it back.

Ninkasi Total Domination IPA (Eugene, OR; $11/22 oz). Ninkasi is an amazing but relatively unknown Northwestern brewery. This IPA is hugely hoppy, with a citrus smell and taste. 6.7%.

Chin Music Poetry October 28 at 7 pm.

2010-10-22T19:43:00.000-04:00

Chin Music
The Poetry Reading Series at Pacific Standard Bar
Featuring Rachel Rose, Jericho Brown, Hossannah Asuncion

Please join us for our upcoming Chin Music reading featuring three fine poets: Rachel Rose, Jericho Brown, & Hossannah Asuncion. Series curated by Bryan Patrick Miller.

FEATURED POETS

Rachel Rose (http://www.rachelrose.ca) is a writer whose work has appeared in various journals in Canada, the U.S., New Zealand and Japan, including Poetry, The Malahat Review, and The Best American Poetry, as well as in several anthologies, including Uncharted Lines: Poems from the Journal of the American Medical Association and Between Interruptions: 30 Women Tell the Truth About Motherhood. Her first book, Giving My Body to Science, (McGill/Queen’s University Press) was a finalist for The Gerald Lampert Award, The Pat Lowther Award, and the Grand Prix du Livre de Montreal, and won the Quebec Writers’ Federation A.M. Klein Award. Her second book, Notes on Arrival and Departure, was published by McClelland & Stewart (Random House Canada). She is the poetry and lyric prose mentor at SFU’s The Writer’s Studio and the founder of the “Cross-Border Pollination” reading series.

Jericho Brown worked as the speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans before receiving his PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston. He also holds an MFA from the University of New Orleans and a BA from Dillard University. The recipient of the Whiting Writers Award, the Bunting Fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, and two travel fellowships to the Krakow Poetry Seminar in Poland, Brown teaches creative writing as an Assistant Professor of English at the University of San Diego. His poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, jubilat, New England Review, Oxford American, and several other journals and anthologies. His first book, PLEASE (New Issues), won the 2009 American Book Award.

Hossannah Asuncion grew up near the 710 and 105 in L.A. She currently lives near an F/G in Brooklyn. She is Kundiman fellow and received a 2010 PSA Chapbook National Fellowship. She tumbles at notarie.tumblr.com.

Fabulous new breweries and rare beers.

2010-10-20T17:09:00.001-04:00

We've been meaning to blog about some of the amazing stuff on our taps these days. To wit:

New Breweries

--Firestone Walker, a fantastic Southern California brewery, is finally on draft in New York City, and we've got their Union Jack IPA on tap. This piney West Coast wonder won the gold in the most competitive category at the 2009 Great American Beer Festival, the American-Style IPA category.

http://www.firestonewalker.com/

--For the first time ever, Full Sail, a lovely Oregon microbrewery, is in New York City on draft. We've got their classic northwestern amber ale on tap right now. Full Sail Amber has brought home twelve medals from the World Beer Championships and one gold from the Great American Beer Festival.

http://www.fullsailbrewing.com/

--Barrier Brewing, a one-man operation on Long Island that just started up last year, is now delivering limited quantities of kegs to New York City. We just got their awesome Pale Ale, which packs a lot of pungent punch for a relatively low-alcohol pale. If the beer isn't enough to make you feel warm and fuzzy, you can feel warm and fuzzy for supporting a tiny new NYC-area brewery.

http://www.barrierbrewing.com/Site/HOME.html

New/Rare Beers

--Bear Republic's Ryevalry is here! Ryevalry is a brand-new and limited-release double IPA, brewed with large quantities of American hops and fermented with a Belgian ale yeast to create a bitter, hoppy, and spicy ale.

--We just got some new firkins that made their way across the Atlantic from the home of cask ale, England. Right now we have Ridgeway Bad King John, an English stout with great roasted malt aroma and taste. Ridgeway is one of the most talked-about English breweries, and cask is the way to drink their beer.

In sum, now is a great time to come by; it's one of the best tap selections we've ever had, if we do say so ourselves.

Standard Issues storytelling October 26 at 8 pm.

2010-10-16T22:43:00.000-04:00

The following is a transcript of a conversation between one of the producers and one of the storytellers, earlier today on Facebook:

P: Can't remember if I booked you for this month or next month, and facebook is not letting me access my messages. This month is the 26th and the theme is misunderstandings. Can you do it?

S:i could be lying - but, I am not lying, yes, you did -- but I thought Cyndi said it was "monsters" - are y...ou sure its misunderstandings? Which is fine by me - great theme. do you need my name again?

P: After talking with Cyndi, comes to light that, Yes, she did say that the theme would be Monsters. But I forgot. And I have already told all the performers that the theme is Misunderstandings. So we are going to have to stick with Misunderstandings. Which seems even more appropriate now.

and scene.

Bathing in the professionalism that is this production this month will be:

Tracy "That's Not Mine, Officer" Rowland
Jim "Oh, When Are You Due?" O'Grady
Nelson "I Had The Money Here Somewhere" Lugo
Michelle "I Was Supposed To Declare That?" Carlo
Johanna "I Can Check Myself Out At Anytime" Clearfield
Rachel "I Totally Remember That Conversation" Khona
and
Brad "That's What Communicable Means?" Lawrence

with your host, Cyndi "I Thought The Wedding Was A Play Rehearsal" Freeman

And you, if you are the fabulous Mystery Guest drawn from the hat.

Chin Music poetry Thursday at 7 pm.

2010-10-15T03:14:00.000-04:00

Please join us for our upcoming Chin Music reading featuring three fine poets: Kathleen Graber, Colin Cheney, and Anthony Carelli. Series curated by Bryan Patrick Miller.

FEATURED POETS

Kathleen Graber's second collection, The Eternal City, is a finalist for the 2010 National Book Award. She is an assistant professor of English in the Creative Writing Program at Virginia Commonwealth University. She has recently been a Hodder Fellow in Poetry at Princeton University and an Amy Lowell Travelling Scholar. She is the recipient of fellowships from The New Jersey State Council on the Arts and The Rona Jaffe Foundation. Her poems have appeared recently in AGNI, The Kenyon Review, and The New Yorker.

Colin Cheney’s debut collection of poems, Here Be Monsters (University of Georgia, 2010), was selected for the National Poetry Series. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, Notre Dame Review, Crazyhorse, and Gulf Coast. In 2006, he received a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and his poem, “Lord God Bird,” received a 2010 Pushcart Prize. He lives in Bangkok, Thailand.

Anthony Carelli was born and raised in Poynette, Wisconsin—a no-stoplight village that smells periodically of sauerkraut. He attended University of Wisconsin-Madison and New York University. Currently Anthony works at a savory pie shop in Brooklyn, NY. He has had poems published in a few magazines including Columbia, AGNI, and The New Yorker. His first book, Carnations, will be published by Princeton University Press in spring of 2011.

One in our occasional series

2010-10-10T18:27:00.000-04:00

of Cute Things That Happen at Our Bar: