Ten minute tea with Afternoon Tea. Spend ten minutes with Afternoon Tea. In the time it takes to boil one kettle, and let one cup of tea steep, we will have your daily art + music fix covered. Take your afternoon tea break with our Afternoon Tea curators.
Today’s tea + soundtrack + visuals curated by Dan Pallotta.
Massachusetts-based folk singer-songwriter Dan Pallotta is sharing the second single from his upcoming LP, American Pictures, out October 5th.
“Charity Town” connects directly to his career as a philanthropist, where Pallotta is sometimes asked to speak for local community foundations in towns that have lost their major economic drivers.
This track reflects empathetically on the resilience and loss endured by citizens of these towns, who Pallotta describes as “the people left behind when the future has moved on.”
Featuring percussion composed by Pallotta‘s 14-year-old daughter, “Charity Town” is a rousing yet intimate piece of storytelling folk, capturing the reality of the circumstances that have befallen these communities.
Song: John Butler Trio, “Ocean,” Live
I chose this song not just because of the unbelievable guitar proficiency, or the energy of it, or the fireworks display of sound that comes at you when you listen to it, or the way it builds, but also because of the crowd noise. This song makes people happy. Elated, Ecstatic. It takes them to a sonic place they did not think possible, and then takes them somewhere beyond that, and then beyond that, building surprise upon surprise upon surprise. To me, that is the way human beings want to feel about everything in life, from the planet to possibility, to their own potential —they want to be amazed, because amazement is our natural state. But it gets covered over with its dull opposite so often.
Art: Brian Austin, HUMPBACK WHALE CALF II (“Beethoven”)
The whale too speaks to the unfathomable mystery that is life, and the deep and miraculous intelligence that gives rise to it. In general, I love the sea. We have a small boat and spend a lot of time on the Atlantic in the summer. The song, the whale, the boat and the tea —what more could one ask of any moment?
Tea: Arishan Tai Milk Oolong, from Nantou County, Taiwan: Leaves handpicked from the Jin Xuan and Gin Hsuen cultivars grown in the mountains of Nantou County in Taiwan – a region famous for its production of high-quality oolong – produce a floral aroma with a pleasant milky flavour, enhanced by light roasting.
Tea + Me 