Here’s how it works in the eat.shop universe. We make Kevin Bacon’s world look desolate and empty.
Tyler Doran owns Heir Antiques, the single greatest thing to happen to Providence since, oh let’s go bold, and say, the Talking Heads. Tyler worked at the brilliant gallery/store Obsolete in Los Angeles where he met a woman launching a fledgling guidebook series on local eating and shopping. We’ll call her Kaie, and her series, eat.shop.
Kaie and the eat.shop guides hail from Portland, Oregon. So does Carson Ellis, who lives there with her husband, Colin Meloy, the lead singer of The Decemberists. She illustrates their album covers and sometimes does commercial work. Like when she did the identity for Tyler’s shop, here in Providence.
And Providence is about 40 minutes from Newport where the 50th anniversary of the legendary Folk Festival took place (remember when Bob Dylan went electric?). And guess who was at the Folk Festival: The Decemberists. Oh, and me.
I knew it would get around to me eventually.