Man, just read those dope rhymes! I've got that progressive rock flow...
While I was quite disappointed to find Fried Shack closed when we walked into the BP at Northport and Troy Drive, I found a silver lining: two new varieties of salt & vinegar chips. Both came courtesy of Rap Snacks, the self-proclaimed official snack of hip-hop. Each bag had hip-hop star Lil Baby on the front and I had no idea who he is but have since learned that he's a hip-hop artist from Atlanta. (I did, however, recognize the visage of Snoop Dogg on the packaging of other flavors.)
These 2 flavors are of a piece so I am going to review both in one post. They are All In and All In Hot.
The "All In" bit refers to salt & vinegar, BBQ, onion, garlic, and "more" which leads me to believe it's a variation of the "All Dressed" flavor combo from our neighbors to the north which I just now see includes salt & vinegar. This revelation has expanded my chip purview. Are there All Dressed dips that I must now contemplate trying?
First up:
I was a bit disappointed to read the ingredients list and find no vinegar which leads to me wonder how they can get away with this deception. I suppose no one has brought this matter to the attention of the appropriate authorities (who probably are short-staffed and wouldn't look into it) or there was a disclaimer on the bag that I missed.
As it was, the chips had malic and citric acids.
My desk lamp and dark-colored desk all conspired to make these chips appear darker than the light yellow hue they were. A bit thicker than your average chip, they had a patina of orange or red dust. Brown edges were in abundance and the surfaces had some small bubbling. Sticking my nose in the bag and taking a whiff, it found a healthy paprika aroma - a slightly milder one than Jays Hot Stuff chips - along with oil and a bit of sweetness. I noticed lactose on the ingredients list.
These chips had a nice crispy-crunchiness to them which I'd like to taste in chips more often. Paprika and a smoky BBQ taste led the way. Those acids lent a firm tanginess which went well with what I felt was a little extra salt. As in the aroma, there was a noticeable sweetness but it was kept in check by all of the other more savory flavors. I found the onion and garlic to be rather faint.
While I'd vote for a bit less sweetness, Lil Baby's All In were some very tasty chips. The vinegary tang and the paprika were a great combination.
All In Hot had red to the packaging and cayenne pepper to the seasoning mix. Beyond these things, I didn't notice much of a difference when looking at the bag and the ingredients list.
Visually, the difference here from its milder cousin was more red dust. The chips definitely had a redder hue. The aroma was similar too but I caught a faint smokiness as a hint of the vinegar.
That delectable crispy-crunch was present here. The taste was largely the same as well but with some cayenne heat. They seemed less salty too and the garlic taste was bumped up just a bit. As before, no vinegar here - just malic and citric acids.
Ideally, each would be a little less sweet but, in the end, both of these varieties are very tasty. They had nice, firm tangs which I'd love to have been even tangier but so it goes. The combinations of salt & vinegar, BBQ, onion, garlic, cayenne, potato, oil, and whatever else they threw in just worked. Perhaps not a pure salt & vinegar chip but excellent nonetheless.
The Rap Snacks website shows that they have more salt & vinegar goodness on offer so I guess a return trip to that gas station is required.
When I initially saw this beer in a cooler at MoonRidge Brewery up in Cornell, I was puzzled just like William of Baskerville at the death of Adelmo. Why would they be carrying the brews of another brewery and who was this Half Fast Brewing Company anyway? I then looked that the label and saw that the Half Fast Brewing was, just like MoonRidge, veteran owned. Aha!
Half Fast, the business entity, at least, lists their address as being in Spring Valley, Wisconsin which is west of Menomonie. The can indicated that the beer, however, was brewed in Osseo which I presume meant at Northwoods Brewing which had closed just a few months previously. But perhaps just to the public. Maybe they contract brew now. I mean, how can Walter's just disappear again? Have the Gen Zers of Eau Claire and Trempealeau counties have no sense of tradition? Or maybe, just maybe the beer predated the brewery's closure. After all, there was no canned on/best by date to be found.
Having so much Central and Eastern European blood in me, I have a taste for pickle beer which no doubt seems odd to anyone who doesn't know me and of what stock I come from. Heck, it's even strange to me. Still, I bought a can of Half Fast's What's the Big Dill?, a pickle Gose.
Like all kinds of foods do, What's the Big Dill? fell victim to the dark color of my desk and so it looks gold in the photo but it's really a straw hue. It was clear with a smattering of bubbles. My pour produced a big head of loose, white foam. I was quite surprised by the aroma which was sweet and redolent of pineapple, of all things. I also knew that this just couldn't be good. Maybe not horrible because I don't think of a pineapple smell as being indicative of spoilage or any such thing but maybe someone got their flavoring bottles mixed up.
My tongue was greeted by a nice fizziness and the beer had a light body as expected. Then, inexplicably, came the pineapple. How blatantly odd. Thankfully it wasn't sweet, just a full fruity flavor. This was followed by some pickle taste. I spent a couple minutes pondering the tropical fruit flavor here - I suppose it could have come from a hop - and then it occurred to me that it was ostensibly a Gose. Was there any salinity? Of course on my next sip I tasted a bit so I am unsure if it was there all along but my tastebuds got sidetracked by pineapple or if I only tasted salt because I knew it to be a part of the Gose style and was not fully cognizant of this. Was my tongue playing tricks on me?
Regardless, the beer was lacking in the sour department. Pickles implies being pickled in vinegar and I just tasted nothing tangy/sour.
That odd pineapple-pickle combo lingered on the finish before the hops gently laid them to rest with a wave of dryness and a bit of bitterness.
This was one weird beer. It was also just not good. While the light body is par for the Gose course, the flavors, especially the pickle, were very mellow and the whole beer just came across as a watery mess. Where's the tanginess? Why is the dill pickle flavor so paltry? I'll likely try another Half Fast if given the opportunity but this one won't get a repeat.
Junk food pairing: With a paucity of pickle and Half Fast's proximity to Minnesota, pair What's the Big Dill? with a bag of Old Dutch's Spicy Dill Pickle chips to boost the pickle quotient and get a little zip to boot.
I witnessed a cardinal couple going at it with a crow. They were on the power lines out back and they were loud. It was a real shouting match - like an avian episode of Jerry Springer.
Some nice architectural ornamentation in Jefferson Park, Chicago.
It was foggy the other morning.
A look inside Madison's public market at one of their pop-up events.
Chicago River from La Salle Street bridge.
And, finally, here's Willow checking out a moth that had landed on the window screen.
Last weekend I was pleased to discover that my bicycle's tires could still hold air as I inflated them for the first time in many a moon. While I'd taken a ride last summer, I believe, it had been a while since I rode with any sort of frequency and I was looking to get back into the swing of things. My first venture on two wheels of 2026 would be to the Harry Whitehorse International Wood Sculpture Festival over at San Damiano in Monona. I'd attended back in 2024 and now realize that I never wrote about my visit.
Harry Whitehorse was born up in Black River Falls in 1927. He served in the Navy during World War II and settled in the Madison area afterwards. He ran an auto body shop in Monona and pursued his passion for creating art, including wood sculpture.
The festival involves artists from around the globe each being given a ginormous log and transforming it into a sculpture over the course of several days on the shores of Lake Monona. This year they came from such faraway places as Poland, Puerto Rico, Germany, Argentina, Green Bay, and Madison. The theme for 2026 is dancing and I am keen to see what these artists come up with.
Here are some scenes from the opening day of sculpting. Chainsaws were the order of the day as the artists were doing the rough shaping of the logs. The finer, more detailed work would come later.
The sculptors had eye protection but we observers didn't. More than once a breeze off the lake blew the sawdust into my face.
I was surprised to see a face emerging already on this log.
It was a lovely day out with plenty of sun and not too hot. There were craft vendors and food trucks.
As I did back in 2024, I bought some cards by Christopher Sweet, a Ho-Chunk artist from Baraboo.
Here the artist from Germany contemplates how best to discover and uncover the statue in the log.
I was told that this was this fellow's first time sculpting from wood of this size. Until now he'd done only small-scale stuff. Oh, he's from Green Bay.
Some of the sculptures from the 2024 festival were put on display at Olbrich Gardens, Garver Feed Mill, and perhaps elsewhere. I'm not sure if these are permanent displays or not. One of the pieces from a couple years back was on display Saturday at the park.
And here's one that I spied at Garver back in the spring.
I hope that they get put on display around town and become fixtures like Sid Boyum's works are.
After grabbing a bite to eat, I head over to Working Draft Beer to sample their rauch hefeweizen. I also had a small pour (I was biking) of their English summer ale.
It was very tasty and reminded me of the Wainwright Gold I had in the UK last year. And here is that lovely beer which I had with my Sunday roast at The Old Crown in Birmingham. It's an inn that supposedly dates back to 1368 and I had two wonderful meals there in the warm, medievalish atmosphere.
The folks at Working Draft did a really nice job in capturing that light, doughy malt taste that predominated in the beers I had over there. Not a 100% exact match but really gosh darn close. Thank you Clint and company.
Having been refreshed by the power of delicious beer, I met a friend at the garden plot that she co-works with a friend of hers.
Swiss chard, basil, tomatoes, and more. I went home with a bundles of fresh dill. Mmm...
I hope to make a return trip to San Damiano this weekend to see the sculptures in their final form.
Last week I discovered that one of my downstairs neighbors works for Working Draft and I was inspired to stop in over the weekend after a nice bike ride.
It was lovely out on the patio. I was delighted to find that they still had the rauch hefeweizen on tap so you know I ordered that first thing.
It was delicious! More bubble gum and banana than clove, which is my preference. With its light body, it was most refreshing after my first bike ride in ages on a sunny day.
Happy (belated) Midsummer! Yesterday was a busy day as I caught a bus for Chicago early and spent the day down there with my ladyfriend. We attended Theater of the Mind, the interactive art experience co-created by David Byrne and then dined at the home of some friends of hers so I didn't get home until late, hence this belated post.
Today we celebrate the end of slavery in the United States. Juneteenth is a combo name for June 19, 1865 when Union soldiers freed the enslaved people of Texas shortly after the end of our Civil War. It's a federal holiday but not a state holiday here in Wisconsin. Not yet, anyway.
The "offical" Madison Juneteenth celebration will be tomorrow beginning with a parade down Park Street which starts at the Madison Labor Temple and ends at Penn Park where people will whoop it up.
Earlier this morning I submitted a time off request for September as I am going to go see Iron Maiden - for the first time. I am getting excited as it appears they'll be doing some songs from the album that got me into them back in 1989 or so - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.
Former Jethro Tull keyboardist/string arranger Dee Palmer died earlier this week and Ian Anderson penned a tribute which is at Tull's website. I think of all her string arrangements, I like those on Minstrel in the Gallery best so I'll have to fire up the stereo soon.
One of the neat things about the Tull box sets (in addition to the plethora of music pulled from the archives and dusted off) are all of the interviews and behind the scenes details. For decades all we knew was that Dee (née David) had contributed "additional material" to supplement Ian's on Songs From the Wood but for the wonderful box set, she gives details of her contributions, most notably for "Velvet Green".
On the Stormwatch box, in addition to her composition "Elegy", which made it to the album, it features an early take of "Dark Ages" where she gets a writing credit. Plus there's this song which is credited entirely to her.
I saw the trailer for this and it reminded me a lot of The Raid. The plot is fairly simple here: a mute gentleman's daughter is kidnapped and he endeavors to rescue her. He meets up with another fellow who is looking for his wife who was investigating the abductions of children and they team up as they have common cause and both are exceptional martial artists.
And so there are lots of lots of fights that seem to go on for hours. Don't get me wrong, they're fun, at first, but I get lost quickly with all those quick cuts and a bit bored as the fights reach the 10 minute mark. They're just interminable.
One fight scene takes place in a refrigerator factory and our heroes seemingly put down one of the bad guy's henchmen, Ho, who is built like a brick shithouse. Towards the end of the movie Ho quite remarkably regains consciousness and makes his way to the police station where the two heroes are locked in mortal combat with two really bad baddies. Thus we get this five-way conflagration that was chaotic fun until it wasn't.
I knew what I was getting into here and went because I wanted to spend time with my friend. And these types of movies aren't torture. The theater was, I think, the smallest at Point but it was fairly well populated.
Seen at a screening of Backrooms at Flix Brewhouse.
I enjoyed Backrooms quite a bit and intend to watch the web series it is based upon. No doubt it has led to the word "liminal" being added to the vocabularies of millions who missed Exit 8.
The movie's strength was the mystery of the backrooms and all the unheimlichy goodness therein. But I suppose it needed some kind of plot, some kind of hook so that it didn't go too far down the path of Inland Empire obscurity. And so we open with scenes demonstrating that scientists are investigating the titular spaces before we are introduced to Clark, who runs a furniture store, the basement of which has a door to the backrooms. Clark also has a failing marriage but a good relationship with the bottle, the latter much to the chagrin of his therapist.
Clark investigates the backrooms and lures a couple of his employees into helping him. As you can imagine, things go wrong and Clark descends into madness. His therapist, Mary, investigates and discovers the backrooms. She eventually finds her patient and learns that, while he may have been right about the seemingly impossible liminal space he rambled on about in his therapy sessions, he has also lost touch with reality, however weird it truly is. There's a hideously perverted Alice in Wonderland tea party type of scene in which we come to understand that Clark has completely lost it and we also learn the identity of the monster we've only heard and seen brief glimpses of until now.
Mary eventually escapes and is captured by researchers from the Async Research Institute. In a Lovecraftian type of scene ("The Statement of Mary Kline"?), Mary is seated across a table from an Async scientist who offers her some modest explanations to complement her own experiences.
The whole Async angle seemed superfluous to me. It broke the spell a bit. People wandering the (non-Euclidian?) backrooms was spooky and unnerving, their madness when confronted with such an enigma understandable. Clark's explanation of the space as a faulty copy of reality was enough. Knowing that experts are on the case takes the edge off things. Now, if, like in the Southern Reach series, the Async investigations had all ended horribly, that would preserve the mystery, maintain the enigma for me. But their investigations seem to be far-reaching and ongoing.
Still, it should be said that Backrooms kept most of the mystery alive. It, thankfully, didn't have the Async boffin offer a thorough explanation. Creepy, uncanny, some potential non-Euclidian geometry, and descent into madness when confronted with the unknowable, Backrooms has all the trappings of a Lovecraftian tale - it just moves the setting from early 20th century New England to 1990s suburbia.
I'd been meaning to go to a show of hers for a few years after seeing her on a bill at the Red Rooster and other joints around town. She plays blues in an Albert Collins/B.B. King vein - more or less - with forays into something more like blues-inflected rock, perhaps a bit Hendrixy.
Great stuff.
Maybe a week ago I finished reading Absolution.
The first thing I thought upon reading the final words was "I should have re-read the first three books." I think a lot of what happens here is mentioned in the original series but I have forgotten so much as it's been years since I took them in.
Absolution has 3 parts. The first section is called "Dead Town" which describes the fate of an expedition in the Forgotten Coast some 20 years prior to the formation of Area X and serves as a prelude to the horrors to come.
"Dead Town" is as chilling and uncanny as anything in the original Southern Reach books. The carnivorous rabbits made the simple act of mastication into a nightmare and were disturbing enough on their own but then they are slaughtered with ruthless efficiency via flame throwers making for a genuinely horrific scene in which I could almost smell the burning flesh and fur. Just when I thought it was safe to take a breather, we get the scene wherein the Rogue visits the biologists and it was simply disturbing and twisted - diabolical even. I could just see Jeff VanderMeer twirling his moustache and laughing as I realized that there was no going back, that I'd been beset by an uneasiness that I would not, could not shake until days after having finished the book. When that scene was done, I had to stop and think about it. Recover, in a way. I wasn't quite sure what had happened to the expedition in it but it was all bad.
The biologists had reached the white rabbits and did not care or notice that they trampled blackened corpses and living creatures both, weapons slack at their sides like a muscle memory that was amnesia, this onrushing surge toward the Rogue behind his veil of silver. Nor did the living rabbits care if they were trampled.
...
Now the Rogue kept opening his mouth wider and wider and the words came out louder and more brutal above the downpour. Those words could not be extinguished by the rain. Those words rose and permeated and cascaded outward and around the Rogue - even as the first wave of biologists surging against that "fey weaponry" crumpled, fell to their knees, slid down on gurgling mud as if they could evade the fire "that called our names"...except it kept calling and each time the desolation within became more final and complete.
The second section, "The False Daughter", concerns Old Jim, a retired(?) Central operative who is lured back into service for one last job. He is estranged from his daughter and, quite disturbingly, Central casts a younger agent to play the role of his daughter which makes for a weird plunge into Old Jim's psyche. For his part, Old Jim has been sent to the Forgotten Coast to investigate the strange happenings there which are related the expedition from "Dead Town". He is obsessed with finding the Rogue and encounters the Tyrant, an alligator that the biologists let loose nearly 20 years prior to his mission. The Tyrant has grown quite large and seems to have become sentient. The mere potential of the gator still being alive is enough to loosen the veteran agent's grip on reality.
This section ended with a Solaris (the film) vibe for me with Old Jim seeming to return to the "normal" world of the Forgotten Coast but I wasn't convinced. The camera could have pulled back and shown Old Jim at the Village as merely some twisted diorama sitting alone amid alien corn. It reiterated what "Dead Town" revealed to us: whatever alien or intelligence or force is loose in the Forgotten Coast, we humans are unable to divine its purpose or makes sense of its methods.
The book closes with "The First and the Last" which takes place a year after the border that defines Area X has descended. We witness the first expedition into Area X from the point of view of Lowry who drops hundreds, if not thousands of f-bombs. I found his dialogue to be annoying but eventually got used to it.
We know the mission failed and here we get a glimpse of madness settling in and members dying one by one as flesh melts into hazmat suits and other dreadful and bizarre happenings befall the crew.
Absolution was a great read. VanderMeer nails the cosmic horror thing perfectly as people descend into madness before an incomprehensible presence.
Last weekend my ladyfriend and I went to see The Claudettes, Chicago's premier band who does what The Claudettes do. It was the Madison release party for their new album Garage Glamour and the show was sold out. Also there was Hannah, The Leaf Queen, who shared her photos with me. She was seated right up front while I was off to the side and so her pics are better than mine.
Liz Ele is the new drummer having replaced Michael Caskey earlier this spring.
She seemed to be more of a rock drummer and she drove the songs forward with her steady push. She added a controlled manic energy to the music.
It had been a while since I'd seen the band perform and singer Rachel Williams has settled into being the frontwoman. Her performance that night had more energy and, for lack of a better way of saying it, she put on more of a show. When I last saw the band it was shortly after she had joined and she seemed to be reacting to the music onstage then but now she is part of it, as if the beat was emanating from the movement of her lithe figure, her singing tacking a course for the melodies.
The new album really puts her range on full display. There's the pleading of "(You Are My) Whole World", the sultry seduction of "Touch You Back", and my favorite at the moment, the Zack de la Rocha-like delivery on "Don't Give It Up to the Thieves".
Johnny Iguana's piano was as bracing and melodic as ever while Zach Verdoorn effortlessly alternated between bass and electric guitar. Plus I think he sang more that night as well.
A great show.
Also thanks to Rachel for helping me clean up a spilled beer.
Directed by Wisconsinite David Andrew Busse, it portrays colonies of bank swallows who migrate to the shores of Lake Michigan just south of Milwaukee. We witness males on the prowl for mates, the youngins hatching and growing quickly to become fledglings.
Busse was on hand for the screening and he talked about how the idea for the movie developed from observing the birds on walks and wanting to know more and to document what he was witnessing.
Not only was this a fascinating look at an animal that I knew nothing of until watching this, it was really neat to see the birds in action on the full dome of the planetarium. There's much more happening there than just stars in the night sky. (Which are really hoopy, don't get me wrong.)
More recently I was at the planetarium to take in a screening of Sounds of the Oceans.
It's not really a documentary and is more of an immersive experience. We are shown footage of orcas and whales and dolphins as they glide through the ocean waters. Their calls are mixed with music and the combination makes for a relaxing journey beneath the waves.
While there was definitely a New Age vibe to be had, I found it an interesting impressionistic ride. What were the animals' calls about? Were they having a chat or trading insults about the diver with the camera?
The movie ended with suggestions for how to be kinder to the oceans and their inhabitants. Is chilling out your audience to the graceful movements of some ocean life the best way to build empathy for them and to lead folks to action? I don't know. Nonetheless Sounds of the Oceans is a serene getaway from the workaday world that invites viewers to seek kinship with the life beneath the waves.
It was great fun and, truth be told, I was surprised at how old fashioned its comedic attitude was. I know nothing about the history of this play but it felt very old school to me. Its humor was for all ages and there was lots of Watson making faces at the audience and faux mistakes that let the audience know the characters knew they were in a play.
Fun was the watchword instead of grand themes.
Last weekend a friend and I went to the Gamma Ray to see Souled American, a pioneering alt-country band from Chicago. I heard about them briefly on Sound Opinions shortly before seeing that they'd be stopping here in Madison and figured we had to go.
Joe Adducci and Chris Grigoroff were joined by an unknown (to me) guitarist and they proceeded to play some stripped down, country-inflected balladry.
I thought the tunes had strong Townes van Zandt vibes. (It's snowing on Elston. Ha!) They seemed to have a fatalism to them. The music may have been sparsely arranged but the bare bones aesthetic combined with gritty performances for an achingly genuine experience.
I watched Errol Morris' latest documentary, CHAOS: The Manson Murders. It was really neat for me as I knew only the barest of details of the Manson Family and their deadly exploits.
In classic Morris style, the truth behind the Manson madness and the hideous murders is called into question. Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi (who was a resident of Hibbing, MN at the same time as Bob Zimmerman) put forth the idea that Manson wanted to start a race war in his book Helter Skelter: The True Story of The Manson Murders. Here Tom O'Neill's book, which gave the movie its title, calls that into question and throws in CIA involvement along with a mind control conspiracy.
Bugliosi's hypothesis is further brought into question by former Manson follower Bobby Beausoleil who paints a more mundane picture of Manson. It's one of a scorned wanna be musician turned maniac and not a fiend bent on bringing to fruition some crazed apocalyptic vision of interracial strife.
The movie does a good job of giving the details of Manson's life and the sordid, murderous affairs he was involved in. Plus it ponders just how a crazy man who lived on the fringes of society when he wasn't in jail could command a commune and convince his followers to commit those sadistic murders in the summer of 1969.
I also appreciated the use of Manson's music. It fits into the narrative, yes, but it had been a long time coming for me. Guns N' Roses covered one of his songs on their album "The Spaghetti Incident?" and I recall well the uproar that caused. And so it was just interesting for me to finally hear Manson performing his songs at long last.
It looks like I'll be going to Manchester, UK later this year so I've dusted off the book I bought the last time I had plans to do so.
I will walk in Ian Curtis' footsteps, see where the Peterloo Massacre took place and the sites of the Industrial Revolution that inspired Marx & Engels; evensong at Manchester Cathedral and a full English breakfast. Tour Life on Mars filming locations. Will I find a Bakewell tart? A pub that predates Columbus? Have a run in with Manchester United fans?
