Another Episode of "Is It Art, or Isn't It?" / Plus, The Boys Pick #3 on the Favorite Places List!

Tonight, at the edgy new downtown art gallery known as the Lawrence Percolator, is the opening of a new exhibit called "Clouds Are Easy to Love," featuring paintings, music, and poetry about pretty, puffy clouds!

Chip: "Not art! For me, Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is the first and last word on the subject of clouds. "And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils." My God, that's lovely!"

Richard: "Sadly, I'm going to have to side with Chip this time. One expects Larryville art to be a little more subversive, a little more activist. Sure, clouds are pretty. Now let's move on and do something interesting!"

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Today brings us Charlie's East Side, a bit of a surprise choice from Richard, and Jefferson's, no surprise at all, from Chip.

Charlie's East Side:

Richard: "If you can get over the fact that Charlie's serves only 3.2 beer, which is like making love in a canoe, since it's fucking close to water, you might just find yourself having a good time at Charlie's. Located just a few blocks from downtown, it feels like a far cry from the often cynical world of Mass. Street bars. The people of the East Side truly believe that their communal gardens and cooperatively owned grocery stores might one day make a difference, and their naivete is contagious. On any given summer evening, Charlie's might be inhabited by a friendly theologian, a gregarious local farmer, several members of the local EMU theatre troup, a few underage drinkers who deserve their drinks simply for being able to find the place and brave enough to enter it, and Charlie himself, who is usually watching the History Channel at the bar. At one point, Charlie's was known for its Friday afternoon 'taco bar,' but the grill is broken these days. Still, Charlie usually has a few frozen burritos in the fridge and he's happy to microwave one for you if ask real sweetly. Try an evening on Charlie's deck sometime. It will do you good."

Chip: "I was a bit disappointed at the lack of 'tacos.' Otherwise, I didn't hate this place. It's better than the Replay, even though the East Side is full of communists."

Jefferson's:

Chip: "People say I'm nuts when I insist that Jefferson's has the second hottest waitresses in town, after Q's, but I say to those people: "You didn't see the crop that worked there in 05-06." Folks, I could barely eat my chicken wings, I had such a non-stop boner! The food is good here, and it's real food too, not that frou-frou Zen Zero-type 'cuisine' but 'real,' manly food. But this doesn't mean the place isn't sophisticated in its own way. Sometimes they serve orange slices in glasses of beer. That's elegant. It's so cool other bars aren't even doing it yet."

Richard: "Anybody that thinks Jefferson's catfish tastes in any way like any kind of catfish has obviously never been south of Missouri. And anybody who would dare to eat an oyster in land-locked Kansas is crazy as hell! Still, Jefferson's does make a tasty burger: I'll give them that. And there are a few waitresses there that are undeniably fuckable. But I've always found the atmosphere here one of the dullest in town."