{"id":1412,"date":"2006-08-14T11:35:07","date_gmt":"2006-08-14T19:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2006\/08\/and_in_one_fell_swoop_became_a_walking_ironic_t-shirt.html"},"modified":"2006-08-14T11:35:07","modified_gmt":"2006-08-14T19:35:07","slug":"and_in_one_fell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/08\/and_in_one_fell.html","title":{"rendered":"And In One Fell Swoop Became . . . A Walking Ironic T-Shirt!"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Colonial Williamsburg to . . . Colonial Williamsburg<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It is hereby noted that a cooper — a maker of wooden buckets, tubs, butter churns, and, above all, barrels — came to town a few weeks ago from Williamsburg, Virginia, for purposes of “cross-promotion,” a distinctly modern concept that is nevertheless familiar to Williamsburg’s Colonial citizenry. To honor the upcoming quadrennial celebration of the nearby Jamestown colony, the one-and-thirty-year-old cooper was installed beneath a tent at the South Street Seaport for several days, along with some of his compatriots, to entertain people with knowledge of practices and places obsolete.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

Feeling a pang of homesickness, he doffed his waistcoat and cravat, packed his barrels into a rented van, and, after some brief confusion getting out of downtown Manhattan, drove across the river to a different Williamsburg. (Same name, different namesake: Brooklyn’s Williamsburg was named for Jonathan Williams, who surveyed the area; Virginia’s was named for King William III.)<\/p>\n

The cooper and his wife found a parking spot on Havemeyer Street and stopped at a bagel shop for lunch. The cooper looked up and pointed at a wooden water tower on a rooftop. “That’s cooperage!” he said. “I think they’re beautiful. I suppose to the average New Yorker they’re an eyesore. Kind of archaic.”<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

On Bedford Street, the cooper and his wife went into an apothecary. He surveyed the soap aisle; his wife bought a pack of Spree. Back on the street, they passed a branch of American Apparel and a few coffeehouses, but there was nary a wigmaker or a silversmith in sight.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

The next stop was Mugs Ale House, which, lo and behold, had a decorative barrel in its back room. The cooper offered a critique. Pointing to one stave, he said, “This part here is pretty ugly. You see how the grain is really twisty?”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Colonial Williamsburg to . . . Colonial Williamsburg: It is hereby noted that a cooper — a maker of wooden buckets, tubs, butter churns, and, above all, barrels — came to town a few weeks ago from Williamsburg, Virginia, for purposes of “cross-promotion,” a distinctly modern concept that is nevertheless familiar to Williamsburg’s Colonial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brooklyn","category-channeling_jd_salinger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}