Freshly roasted beans

One of my co-workers roasts his own coffee and last weekend he roasted 5 pounds of Rwandan beans. He kindly gave me a bag of them earlier this week.

They are off-gassing or setting or whatever it is they do sitting around after the roasting process has finished. I may brew a pot with some tomorrow.

I noted a few days back that I had made a batch of shrimp creole that had been planned for months. The same goes for my cooking venture yesterday - bigos (Polish hunter's stew).

My desire to make it once again dates back to the fall, I suspect, but was put off for whatever reason - most likely moving and all things divorce. Then a couple months ago I bought kielbasa and diced pork. Shortly after that I pleaded with a co-worker to bargain for some venison. She acquiesced and blessed me with some cube steak which you can see browning here.

Bigos also involves cabbage. Lots of cabbage. Raw and fermented.

It turned out well. Traditionally seasoning is fairly basic and subtle but I try to tweak it for some extra flava. I think more wine would be good, another bay leaf, and more marjoram. Hell, more juniper too! It made for a nice, hearty breakfast on this cool, rainy morning.

It was disappointing when I went to the Great Dane in Fitchburg last year thirsting for a Tri-Pepper Pils only to find they were out. I was to meet my boss and another co-worker there and was clad in my new t-shirt on for my boss' benefit -

Her being "salty" at work had been a joke for 5 or 6 years and I got it in burgundy in honor of Burgundy Tuesday at the office. In turn, she had bought a sweatshirt that said "NOPE", her feisty response to my vacation requests and bids to go home early. My wife had found my shirt in the dryer and assumed it had something to do with her which resulted in a late night spat. Uff da!

My boss and fellow co-worker consoled me as best they could that evening and I vowed to sample a Tri-Pepper next time it was on offer.

Next time arrived this week as we met out the Great Dane once again and, this time, the Tri-Pepper Pils was on tap.

A complex chili flavor melded with a nice biscuity maltiness overlaid with a firm, yet moderate, heat. Tasty stuff!

Song of the day, 2 April 2026

I listened to a podcast about Deep Purple yesterday so here's one of my favorites of theirs. Ritchie Blackmore's pilgrim hat is just classic.

Just Jacques' imagination

Upon starting to read this book I discovered that it is not directed at the layreader, at least not very much. Instead it seems to be a collection of essays by Le Goff culled from various journals aimed at professional historians. And I so came upon many terms that I wasn't familiar with. For example, in "Vestimentary and Alimentary Codes" I came across "vair" as being used on the haute couture in the 12th century romance Erec and Enide along with squirrel, sable, etc. The interwebs say vair refers to the fur of a type of squirrel and so I find that the difference between vair and squirrel fur is lost on me.

This is a minor example, I grant you. But he refers to other writers without offering much in the way of qualifications and will occasionally throw something out there for you and just leave it without definition or much context. For example in the essay "The Repudiation of Pleasure" Le Goff looks at the notion that Western civilization was, as we say these days, sex positive prior to the spread of Christianity and that the Church fathers threw a yoke around the libido. But he notes that Paul Veyne and Michel Foucault maintain that a shift towards the prudish took place before Christianity arrived on the scene and that among pagan Romans existed a notion of "virile puritanism". What was that? I dunno as Le Goff just moves on. And, since Le Goff is French, perhaps he felt no need to introduce a couple fellow French intellectuals to his French audience.

Just as the book is a compendium of essays with no attempt to connect everything together, what I got out of reading it is just as random and disparate.

In 1274 the Pope is organizing the Second Council of Lyon and the preparation is done in units of 6 months - travel times, time to fill out and return questionairres, and so on. Le Goff notes, "Six-month intervals were clearly an important spatial and temporal unit in the contemporary minds." I find this interesting in and of itself but would love to know why. Is there a Biblical justification? Something to do with average travel times between cities?

The writings on Purgatory were quite intriguing and showed how conceptions of it appeared and changed over time. We are told that in the days and weeks after death, God granted permission to some souls to leave Purgatory and return to Earth to "solicit aid from relatives in a brief apparition". Le Goff then notes that it was believed that the color of apparitions of condemned souls indicated how much penance they had done. If the spectral figure is a third to a half white then that means more suffrage is needed.

At least twice Le Goff contrasts an antithesis in the minds of Romans vs. medieval clerics. The Roman imagination, he says, was concerned with urbs vs. rus, that is, the city vs. the countryside. But in the minds of medieval clerics the important contrast was nature vs. culture which is to say that which is wild (e.g. - the ocean and the forests) vs. that which was built, cultivated, and inhabited (cities, villages, etc.)

It took me a bit to grok the distinction. For the Romans both the city and the country were places populated by people but they had their own modes of living. By contrast the minds of medieval clerics saw humanity in one place but not the other. I will note that an early essay explained how the forest took the place of the desert in the European Christian imagination.

But this distinction is tossed out more as trivia and never really justified or fully integrated into much of anything. 

There was a lot of interesting stuff here but the book simply has this scattershot feel to it instead of offering a throughline. I would love to read more about each of the individual topics here at greater length with more examples from the Middle Ages and, because I am not a historian of that time, perhaps analogies to my own era. Some good food for thought but I need something more.

New tunes from the Orient

Ningen Isu! My man-crush on Ken-ichi Suzuki continues.

 Plus something new from The Hu! I'd love to see them live again.

Song of the day, 31 March 2026

UW alum finds The Temple of Jupiter Ammon

I have started listening to The Temple of Jupiter Ammon, an audio drama from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. It came as a surprise to learn that one of the characters, Jim Whitman, was from my alma mater.

"I’m with the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Department of Anthropology."

His dairy and beer intake is unclear at this point.

Perhaps someone involved with the production is also a graduate.

Song of the day, 30 March 2026

The Crucible of Metal

Crucible is known for hosting various kink, burlesque, and other non-live music events, but they also bring in some very interesting bands. Recently Voivod played there and I went with a friend of mine who took very little convincing. He was, after all, the person who introduced them to me back in the early 90s.

It had been a long time since I had been surrounded by so many people donning blue denim jackets covered in patches. While at the bar I ran into a woman who is an acquaintance of mine. I had no idea she was a metalhead. My companion ran into an old buddy of his from high school that used to come to our parties in college. It must have been nearly 35 years since I'd seen him. He proved to be a metal fan of epic proportions and was there with a friend of his and we all stuck together for the show. Well, mostly.

Madison's Flying Fuzz opened.

They were kids in their 20s playing good old school metal. Melodic riffs and headbanging tempos. A lot of fun for us and I think a lot of fun for them too as they seemed to feel like, "Holy crap, we're opening for Voivod!"

Bat from Virigina were next. A bit older, they were more thrash and got the mosh pit going.

Their bass player reminded me of a friend from high school and I had a mild 1980s flashback. (I hope you're well, Jeremy.)

Finally it was time for Voivod.

I am not the biggest fan and only know tunes from Nothingface and Dimension Hatröss but they were awesome! Thrash weaved together with progressive metal as people moshed and bodies were passed. It was glorious!

It was my first time at Crucible and it proved to be a very intimate space for a show. The sound was good and there really wasn't a spot where you couldn't get a good glimpse of the stage. It had been years since I'd been to a metal show and, despite having advanced into middle age, I engaged in some gentle headbanging and threw the occasional fist and devil horns.

The crowd was engaged and excited; with all the moshing and body passing, the energy in the room was fantastic.

Crucible is a nice walk from my place and the beer prices were not bad at all. I hope to have a chance to return soon.

Here's some nice video footage from that night.

Kubrickian

When I read about Kubrickian, I felt that it was right up my Straße. A trio of guys stuck in a mysterious white room (with no black curtains) arguing about the movies of Stanley Kubrick. Having watched Jim Henson's The Cube just a couple months back, it sprang to mind, especially the stuck in a mysterious white room bit.

I also loved the poster which had a distinct 1970s Eastern Bloc look to it, like it was used to promote Zardoz in Poland back in the day.

Here's a shot of the stage a little before the performance began:

It opens with the lights going out and chaos erupting. The characters are scrambling about on the stage shouting at one another as they attempt to formulate a plan to capture someone or something - presumably their jailer - on the fly. It was creepy and I felt like The Crawler from Annihilation was going to make an appearance.

But it didn't.

Instead the lights come up and we see that Chris, the guy in the track suit above, has what appear to be burns on the insides of his arms. He is an outgoing cinephile who loves Kubrick. Howard is catatonic and sits in the corner staring blankly into the distance. Danny is scared and becomes Chris' interlocutor, his antagonist, and then later his fellow performer.

As Chris discourses on the genius of Kubrick, Danny confesses to not remembering much of Kubrick's work despite having seen a film or two of his. Chris seems in denial of their situation with his rapid-fire declarations of love for Eyes Wide Shut, The Shining, etc. and perhaps hides his fear behind smartassery. Danny, on the other hand, is open about his fears and his need for conversation to keep his sanity.

The play's description is of "a haunting and hilarious look at masculinity, creativity, and capitalism" and these two seems at opposite ends of masculine stereotypes. One appears strong and at the ready - after all, Chris did attempt to capture the jailer and has the burns to prove it - while the other is more feminine and expresses vulnerability.

All the while Howard sits in the corner expressionless.

Suddenly a crevice appears in one of the walls that confines them. Chris steps through leaving Danny alone with his silent companion.

But it isn't long before Chris mysteriously reappears. He now has burns or scars on his throat and we learn that he has been rendered mute. Slowly he and Danny learn to communicate via hand gestures and sounds not produced by the larynx. And as they learn new ways to communicate with one another they learn to be friends.

Another opening appears and this time Danny plunges into the dark. Upon his return he too is mute. As the play reaches a denouement, the pair reenact the opening of 2001: A Space Odessey with the newly bonded friends taking on the roles of the apes and using their hands to pound out Also sprach Zarathustra on their chests and thighs. Howard is used as a stand-in for the monolith.

Having apparently passed a test of some kind, the trio are allowed to leave.

As a Kubrick fan, I found Chris' fanboy diatribes to be fun and funny. Danny was a bit too weak, in my opinion, as if he had capitulated long ago and now refuses to fight. Howard seemed wasted as he sat in the corner far too long and was rarely the object of conversation by the other two.

I appreciated the uncanny, existential feeling engendered by starting the play with the characters already in confinement, of limiting our knowledge of their situation to an enigmatic jailer but I felt the dialogue could have been stronger. The characters offered little, if any, contemplation about their situation and not much about their lives before the white room.

By and large, the story tantalized us with ideas but rarely examined them in any depth. There was a fair bit about masculinity but it seemed a jumble rather than a coherent theme. Creativity seemed more well-developed as we witness Chris and Danny work with one another to communicate via creative means. As for capitalism, nothing more than a line here and there about their jobs pre-white room come to mind that actually addressed this.

It seemed to be a play more about a blossoming friendship, the scene where Chris and Danny kiss notwithstanding, than anything in the ad copy.

Lastly, I felt the pacing was off. There was too much down time with the characters laying and sitting around staring into space. When Danny suggests exercises he and Chris run from side to site of the stage for far too long, the activity being rendered inert and boring to watch.

Henson's The Cube had a vaguely similar premise but it kept things moving and articulated social commentary more robustly.

There were definitely some funny lines and the Kubrick references were most pleasing to this fanboy. Maybe not a diamond in the rough but certainly there's a lot more to be done with the premise. Fun but didn't quite live up to its potential.

Piper's cat tree went to an illustrious home

Earlier this month I donated one of Piper's cat trees to Katie Ackley. As I unloaded my car, I was unaware that she was one of Wisconsin's most influential Native American leaders. Congrats Katie!

Song of the day, 28 March 2026

Leftoverture is such a great album. And Kansas put an indelibly American stamp on progressive rock. For all the lies and shit talk about prog lyrics being about hobbits (thanks Jim DeRogatis :/) check this out:

Well, you told me that I was just not the one
And you left me standing out in the cold
It's been a long time and I'm so much better now

That I'm looking back and seeing it all

And for the first time, there's no pain in my life
Been a long hard road that I've gone
We had a good thing
And it made me a man

Did any other prog band sing anything like that, make even a passing reference about maturing into manhood? Great stuff.

You can have Christmas in March in Albuquerque

A friend and I had lunch the other day at Ian's Pizza at Garver. My dining companion ordered breadsticks and we were asked what kind of dipping sauces we wanted. The helpful and friendly counter helper ran through the list of what was on offer: bacon queso, marinara, green chile ranch...

Wait!

Green chile ranch?!

I immediately took her up on that option as it was something of a vestigial reflex from my recent trip...

I grabbed a taxi a bit after midnight at the Albuquerque airport. It had been a long day of travel. A light wouldn't turn off on the plane in Madison which meant we sat on the runway for an hour or more and so I got to O'Hare late and missed my flight which necessitated a long layover. Hours and hours of interminable layover. I wasn't sure I'd be able to catch a flight that night as apparently there was a power outage at the Denver airport and the effects of that were cascading down to O'Hare. But the plane took off a bit after 9, thankfully.

Despite the lateness of the hour, my cab driver offered an important culinary lesson: in Albuquerque you have the choice of green chile, red chile, or both. This last option is called Christmas.

What a wonderful thing! As the trip wore on, I would learn just how significant the chile was to Albuquerque's identity, just how ingrained the humble fruits are in Albuquerque's psyche. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that public schools give kids a day or 2 off at harvest like Chicago students get Casamir Pulaski Day off or kids up north can take a week away from school for gun deer hunting season.

Green chile granola? Yes, I bought some.

While there I learned that the official state cookie is the biscochito. My stepson and his fiancée took me Celina's where they had a variety of flavors on offer including those with chile.

I think the use of lard and anise are the distinguishing features of this cookie. Very tasty!

The duality of chile even went beyond foodstuffs. Got a pain in your back? There's a chile for that.

Methinks a return trip is in order to further investigate the green-red dichotomy.

********

After 4 or 5 days of eating at restaurants, I did some cooking at home. First was a loaf of Polish rye beer bread.

Misshapen, perhaps, but tasty.

In addition to the staff of life, I finally got around to making shrimp creole.

The poor shrimp had been in my freezer since I moved in here back in October. Prior to that, they were in the freezer of my marital residence for a short time. This batch of shrimp creole had been a long time coming.

It turned out well. Nice and chunky with extra Holy Trinity.

I need to grocery shop today and am thinking about what I want to eat in the coming week. If I recall correctly, I have most of the ingredients for bigos, including venison, and just need some cabbage.

The walls are not quite so bare any longer

My living room is getting there. I got some pictures hung yesterday and now Grab and Pipe will be above my couch if/when it arrives.

Oh my sweeties, I miss you both greatly.

And those paintings my friend gave me when I was in Milwaukee last autumn now grace a wall.

Soon I will have a stylin' bachelor pad.

Sunrise, 26 March 2026

Finally!

Something new from The Claudettes: a new version of "Touch You Back" from their forthcoming album Garage Glamour. They'll be here at the North Street Cabaret in June.

New Who

I hear that a couple more "lost" Doctor Who episodes have been found - a couple from The Daleks' Master Plan. The total might get below 90 before I die. Toby Hadoke dresses just like a Doctor Who expert here.

Song of the day, 26 March 2026

Voivod kicked ass last night! It was my first time at Crucible and it is a really nice venue. Great size to see a show, good sound, and the beer wasn't outrageously expensive. Bat and Flying Fuzz were great fun too. I got invited to go see Sepultura in Milwaukee in May!