Chair #49

RATTAN CHAIR

—Designed by Adam Tihany for McGuire

I call this the Shrek chair. Something about the back of the chair reminds me of Shrek's ears. And like the friendly green ogre, it is strong on the outside, yet all softhearted on the inside. The chair has those sturdy legs, but then then it goes all soft on us with that circular disk of delicately woven filigree rattan on the back.

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We're sitting at the bar at Sloppy Joe's down in the Florida Keys. Earnest Hemingway is there late tonight nursing a cold Papa Dobles* after wresting all afternoon in the back of a boat with a very angry blue marlin. Hemingway swirls his drink, while thoughts of Carlos Gutierrez, the marlin fisherman he was with all day, slowly blossoms into a character named Santiago in a book called "The Old Man and the Sea."

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*Papa Dobles

Mix two and a half jiggers of white Bacardi, the juice of two fresh limes, the juice of half a grapefruit, and 6 drops of maraschino all into a rusty electric blender.