An object for the whiskey man
The dim realization of its price unfolds in slow motion, as if you wonder: is that a currency conversion thing? You recall, once, how in Mexico City you went to a fancy meal, and they used dollar signs all over the place, so single courses cost $250 and the omakase was $2,300. Are we back in Mexico? We are not back in Mexico. We look at the top right corner of the browser, and it says “United States (USD $)”. It really is that much. You’re looking at an aluminum cup that costs $320. It doubles as a fidget toy, kind of. There is a screw in the bottom for some reason, described but not explained.
It looks of this moment, like a starchitect made it. Gehry, maybe. Gensler. You’re in an art museum that makes you feel like a guy (it’s usually a guy) was given a lot of power and did something. A man’s world, totalizing. The art is always more interesting than the building. Art galleries mostly need plain, windowless white rooms to do what they’re doing. You wrapped that in this.
Presumably the cup, given its name, is for whiskey. A $320 whiskey budget can take a person pretty far. The standard for whiskey is not a cup, of course, but a glass, and specifically the Glencairn glass, which you have probably seen before. It is shaped radically differently from this. Drinking from a Glencairn is nice because the flavors get a little more focused into your nose, so you get some more brightness & alcohol heat than if you put your whiskey in, say, a highball glass. Like this one. Glencairns are breakable, yes, but they are also one-twentieth of the price.
The cup is not a product of the divine feminine. It is clearly laser-focused on the whiskey man, a person that is perhaps most ethically personified, in 2024, by one of the only reasonable role models for masculinity on the left, Nick Offerman (no relation). His glass is shaped like the aluminum cup – but it, too, is probably not $230.
The “material & features” tab gives five bullet points about how the thing was made, as if to say “look at me, I’m definitely worth $320,” and nowhere on the page are dimensions or weight mentioned. Can you put an old fashioned in here? Should you?
“This doesn’t like ice cubes. Freeze it.” Okay, so what happens when my bare hand is grabbing aluminum? Wouldn’t that be a profoundly uncomfortable experience? Wouldn’t anyone in the market for this this know that whiskey isn’t supposed to be chilled in the first place?
What is the screw for?
If you own this and have invited me into your home, I feel like I should be warned ahead of time. It is a pure ego play, moving so far away from the idea of “fewer, better things” as to pass into the realm of arepresentational sculpture. You are drinking whiskey out of a $320 cup in front of me on purpose. What are you trying to say? Is it heard?
Things are getting more expensive for many practical reasons up & down the supply chain, but sometimes I think that a lot of things are expensive now solely to prove that we survived the past four years. We need a flex. The cup is a flex. The jawn is a flex. Look here, it says. I made it.