I have already rambled on about some of my favorite beers of the year so now it's time to look back at some faves from the cultural front.
2020 started off in a rather lousy way when the news broke that Neil Peart had died.
I immediately felt sad because I have air drummed to Rush songs more times than I can count over the course of the 33+ years that I have been listening to their music. Peart's lyrics were wide-ranging and engaging. They ran the gamut from the fantastical (e.g. – "Xanadu", "Headlong Flight") to the philosophical (e.g. – "Freewill", "The Trees") to the personal & introspective (e.g. – "Time Stand Still", "Faithless"). Listening to Rush was always a great experience because the music was wonderfully melodic with driving drum fills but also because the words were heartfelt and thought provoking. Always something to chew on when the music was over.
Quite aside from any feelings of loss I had for a man I'd only ever "known" from his songs, I felt terrible for his family and friends and was reminded just how cruel Fate can be. He lost his daughter in 1997 to a car accident and then his wife 10 months later to cancer. He retires in 2015 only to be diagnosed with brain cancer a couple of years later.
Peart's death meant that I listened to a lot of Rush over the course of 2020. From all periods of their career but the 80s probably got the most spins. There was a period of a few months when I went from Power Windows to Hold Your Fire to Presto and I closed out the year with Signals getting many plays before Grace Under Pressure got its turn in the rotation. I realize that Rush was done and dusted in 2015 but the world still seemed a poorer place without him this year.
OK. Onto some highlights from 2020. Not a best of list nor a lengthy inventory; more like short(ish) list of things that had a big impact on or just have stuck with me. Since I am on the subject of music, let's start there.
Truth be told, my musical diet this past year did not feature many albums that were new for 2020. But of the handful I did listen to, Fiona Apple's Fetch the Bolt Cutters is the gem of the bunch.
Handmade rhythms skitter and skip along while piano notes reel and career this way and that. Apple's voice keeps everything in relative order with her sometime off-kilter but always impassioned vocals that are usually, but not always, comprised of words.
As for albums of an older vintage that got a goodly amount of spins this year I think Barnstorm deserves mention here.
Barnstorm was also the name of the band featuring Joe Walsh along with Kenny Passarelli and Joe Vitale. The white funk of The James Gang was left behind and you get a more acoustic affair with one of the most beautiful songs ever, "Birdcall Morning", while also featuring some song great rocks songs. There's even some Pete Townshend inspired synthesizers to be had. There is a lot more to Joe Walsh than what you hear on classic rock radio.
Moving onto movies.
With cinemas closed for most of the year, we saw the majority of movies on our TVs and computer screens the past 9 months or so. As with music, I didn't watch very many movies new for 2020 and instead spent more catching up on my to-watch list which I suspect I'll write about another time. But I did pick two new or at least newer flicks, one narrative and one documentary.
Colour Out of Space is based on the 1927 short story by H.P. Lovecraft of the same name and I felt it really got the horror writer right unlike most other cinematic adaptions. It did a splendid job of showing the characters descend into madness instead of being a mere tentacle fest. Plus humanity is portrayed as essentially helpless against cosmic forces it cannot hope to understand. These are the core Lovecraftian themes, to my mind. Beyond the otherworldly limbs and Lovecraft's hideous racism, his work is about the insignificant place of humanity in the universe and how coming to understand just what else is out there leads only to insanity. This movie got Lovecraft right for me.
On the documentary front there was the latest from Werner Herzog.
Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin is Herzog's encomium to his friend Bruce Chatwin, a British traveler and writer, who died in 1989. The director follows some of the same routes his friend took as he examines the man and the nomadic spirit that animated them both. (And still does so for Herzog.) While it is also about the filmmaker, it never lapses into sentimentality. As an added bonus you find profundity in animal remains. Classic Herzog.
Let's continue with television.
Not to be monocultural, but Lovecraft Country was the best English language TV show I watched this year.
That the heroes are black and the villains white is surely a poke in the eye to Lovecraft's horrible racism and its legacy in his work. But looking beyond skin color, you simply have great characters. They are strong and they are weak; they are heroic, they are imperfect. These are not two dimensional figures who exist simply to give a middle finger to Lovecraft. Instead our protagonists are fully-formed and, when they are not fighting cultists just as white investigators in Lovecraft's stories and in Call of Cthulhu games have done for decades, they are experiencing the humanity within one another. This show is a fun, thrilling adventure that also delivers with relatable, compelling characters.
I watch a lot of foreign TV and the show that wasn't in English that really stuck with me this year was Senke Nad Balkanom which I think translates to "Shadow Over the Balkans" but goes by Black Sun.
It's a Serbian show that mainly takes place in Belgrade. It's the late 1920s-1930s and a World War I vet, nicknamed Tane, is now a grizzled police detective who is paired with a younger partner, Pletikosić, who has been schooled in all the latest forensic techniques. Together they solve murders against a backdrop of gangsters smuggling opium, political intrigue, ethnic hatred, et al.
In addition to my amazement that anyone could drink that much slivovitz and be expected to live, it was just a fun and exciting story full of mystery and machination. Plus I enjoyed being immersed in a culture that I know basically nothing about for an hour at a time. And so I learned a little about the Balkans between the wars while being thoroughly entertained.
Books!
No, there's no Lovecraft or Lovecraft-related material here. The two categories here are Doctor Who novels (since I have a podcast dedicated to Doctor Who books) and everything else.
I read only four Doctor Who novels this year, at last count, and The Scarlet Empress by Paul Magrs really stood out.
It's an Eighth Doctor Adventure from 1998 when the show was off the air. It introduced Iris Wildthyme, the knavish Time Lady who has a past with the Doctor. And it also told a playful story that was an absolute joy to read. It was like a fairy tale but one that was inoculated with a dose of magical realism. Stories like this, stories that twist and play with and even deviate from the conventions of Doctor Who are rare and this one is oh so good.
You can listen to the episode of my Doctor Who podcast dedicated to The Scarlet Empresshere.
From the Everything Else category comes A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold.
Although not a native Wisconsinite, he left his mark as a resident of this state and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A Sand County Almanac documents the land and its inhabitants as seen from Leopold's farmhouse near Baraboo, a bit north of Madison. In the book he develops his land ethic and discourses on how we humans can and should relate to nature for the benefit of all.
In a year where most of the pleasures of city life were denied me by the pandemic, I took to my bike and rode out to various local conservation parks to get away from computers and cars and the other trappings of civilization. In this state of mind, Leopold's ideas really resonated within me.
I finished the book I was reading today, Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest - a great tale - and watched another movie from my to-watch list, Walking the Camino. It was wonderful! 2021 starts soon. What to read next? To watch? To listen to?
As 2021 approaches, there are many Best of 2020 lists going
around. A fellow Cheesehead who started a beer blog just this week made sure his first post was a list of his favorites from this year. I too thought I'd take a look
back at some of the best suds I've had in 2020.
I drank many beers that I really enjoyed over the past 12
months. Certain brews, such as Tippy Toboggan, a Roggenbier by Vintage Brewing here in Madison,
would make my list every year. It's just that tasty. I have sung its praises
here previously so, while I drank my fill this year, I excluded it from the
list. Looking back at the beers I drank from 2020, I see many that I've had in
years past. They're good so I return to them. I even had a Sierra Nevada Pale
Ale for the first time in ages.
New Glarus' Coffee Stout, one of, if not the, first of its
kind remained highly tasty in 2020 as did Rocky's Revenge from Tyranena which
is one of the first barrel aged beers I ever had and it remains a favorite. As
a lover of smoked beers, I have to say Karben4's smoked porter, Night Call, is
really great even if it is merely lightly smoked. I could go on in this vein
for a while. But I won't.
Before I get to the list, let me add a few random
observations:
1) The only Madison-area brewery that went out of business
this year (due to Covid) was Rockhound. (To my knowledge, anyway.) I'd been there only a few times but I enjoyed their hefeweizen and thought they had good
food. R.I.P.
2) Sprecher's Maibock and Oktoberfest stand out from those
of other Wisconsin breweries because they have wonderful bready flavors instead
of letting malt sweetness run amok. The new owners don't appear to have changed
things too much out there in Glendale but they have brewed an NEIPA and it looks
like they're continuing Sprecher's move towards being a beverage company as opposed
to a brewery.
3) Breweries in the northern half of Wisconsin get too
little coverage down here in the southern part of the state. While it's to be
expected that they don't dominate beer chatter in the 608, it nevertheless
sometimes feels like there are no indigenous breweries outside of the Milwaukee
and Madison areas. To be fair, some joints up nort have limited or no distribution
here. And I'm ambivalent about this. On one hand, I'd love to have some more boreal
beers available here on Madison shelves. On the other, it's nice to be
presented with something new and different when I travel north.
Now, on with the show.
I have both kinds of beer on my list: pale and dark. We will start
with the former.
On a summer trek to Chicago I picked up Helles by Dovetail
and Metropolitan, Windy City breweries both.
Helles is a fairly rare style these days for Wisconsin
breweries, as far as I can tell. Capital stopped brewing their Bavarian Lager
in 2010, or thereabouts and its replacement, Lake House, just isn't the same to
my taste as it lacks the toasty malt flavor. Wisconsin Brewing Company had one
called Ol' Reliable that went the way of the dodo. I see one from various breweries every so often but they generally taste like the amateur zymurgological experiments of a novice cicerone.
Two of our neighbors to the south each have a Helles that just
oozes melanoidin-y goodness. These are the best Helleses I've had from American
breweries and, if I didn't have to travel to buy them, they'd (mostly) obviate
the need for those Paulaner Lager purchases I make. But, pursuant to #3 above,
they do make for a nice treat when I go to Chicagoland.
Now onto the dark side.
I cannot honestly claim to know much about Czech beer
styles. And beyond a Bohemian or Czech-style pilsner, the Czech Republic, sadly,
doesn't seem to inspire American brewers the way Carmen Miranda's hats do. Reading Evan Rail's descriptions of Czech brews makes me
thirsty but those beers have been very much a mystery to me. This year,
however, I got to sample three different breweries' takes on Tmavé Pivo, or
Czech dark lager.
Now, whether any of these tasted like something I'll find in
Bohemia when I visit, I cannot say. Leos Frank of Lazy Monk Brewing up in
Eau Claire is Czech by birth so I have some reason to believe his brew has a measure
of authenticity. And, truthfully, Next Door and Working Draft's piwos were very
similar to Frank's with highly roasted malt flavors that ranged from coffee and
chocolate to slightly burnt/fuliginous.
As a dark beer lover, this near cornucopia of piwos of a style
new to me was sheer delight.
These brews stood out, not only for their sheer deliciousness,
but also because they are rare or rarish styles. I certainly consumed other
beers that were very delicious, but I have chosen to observe some brevity for this post.
And so that's my list proper. However, I do want to mention
a couple runners up from smaller, lesser known breweries.
Valkyrie's Swan Maiden is a Kölsch-style beer and was really
good. Located up in Dallas, brewmaster Randy Lee still brews on converted dairy
equipment, to the best of my knowledge. When I visited the brewery there were no computers nor
automated grain hoppers. Just Lee dumping sacks of grain into vats before grabbing
a paddle to stir. Homebrewing writ large? Perhaps. But Swan Maiden was a
wonderful beer with a delicate malt flavor and a light fruitiness from the
yeast. Indeed, it was better than most examples of this style from American brewers who have
much larger and more heavily automated facilities. Valkyrie's beers are a great
bonus when I am in the northwest part of the state.
And then we have Saccharifice, a German Pilsner from Parched Eagle here in Madison. Brewmaster Jim Goronson has a small brewhouse in the
basement of the building he rents that must surely qualify as nano. Lacking the
space for extended lagering, Goronson still managed to produce a really good
pils with a light malt touch accented by the fruity flavors of Hüll Melon and
Mandarina Bavaria hops. The fruit taste is not overpowering and there's still
some bitterness to be had.
(My podcasting partner and I interviewed Jim and you can find that episode here.)
There are some of my highlights of 2020. 2021 begins soon and we shall see what it brings. I predict lots of alfresco quaffing welcome in the spring.
It has been many moons since I've had a beer from Wisconsin Brewing Company. I recall having one of their pineapple hefeweizens this past
summer. Or was it in 2019? This whole pandemic situation has really messed with
my mind. That beer, Sandy Cheeks, was fine. A little too much pineapple which
limited me to one glass but not bad. So what else is new with WBC?
As someone who was introduced to microbrews via WBC
brewmaster Kirby Nelson's Mindblock, er, Maibock back in 1991 when he was at
Capital Brewery, looking at their available beer list gives me an odd feeling.
It's a little disconcerting to see so many IPAs. Bleeding Heart was an amber
saison when first released 7 or 8 years ago. Now it's a Belgian Haze IPA which
features a "fruity, complex Belgian ale" that is "attacked with
copious amounts of hops". This description stands in such stark contrast
to Nelson's comments over the years that I've read in interviews. He's always
preferred to eschew extreme beers or ones that have a very lengthy ingredient
list and instead create brews that are balanced, approachable, and however else
you care to put "not extreme/ostentatious" across. His beers were all
about aiding and abetting Gemütlichkeit and now he attacks malt with hops. What
did malt do to deserve such treatment?
Ooh! Dark Something! I liked it back in 2016 when it was first
released. A big rush of dark malty goodness that is now a barrel-aged imperial
stout. Ooh! A Gose! D'oh! It's aged in tequila barrels and is 9%. I'll never
taste any coriander through that agave miasma, if indeed any was added. Uff da.
One area that I think WBC excels in is dark beers. I really
like their porter, Chocolate Lab, and have since Kirby was test brewing it at
Vintage on the west side. Several years ago I heard a modicum of criticism of it, namely
that it wasn't a true robust porter but I've always liked it robust or not. (It
is no longer described as a robust porter, to my knowledge.) They added coffee to it and thusly Porter Joe was born. Again, I really like this beer with its nice balance of coffee and
dark malts. And then there was the original iteration of the aforementioned
Dark Something which was described to me as a porter-doppelbock mish mash, I
think by Kirby himself. If memory serves, a batch of doppelbock didn't go as
planned and it became a stygian ale with rich coffee and dark chocolate
flavors.
Last on the available beer list is Boom Run, a stout which appears to be their
winter seasonal. I first saw it last winter but didn't try it then for reasons
lost in the mists of time. But, knowing how well Kirby and Co. do dark ales, I
gave it a try this winter.
Boom Run's label features red flannel, a log, and a pair of
crossed axes and probably could only have been made more Wisconsin by adding a
blue ox. The lumber industry once ruled the northern half of Wisconsin and our
fair state can (apparently) lay claim to having invented Paul Bunyan. A
"boom" is a barrier in a river that catches logs as they float
downstream. A boom run was, as near as I can tell, a bit of sport for loggers, at least the
ones who worked on the water, in which they would run along the mass of logs trapped
in the clutches of the boom.
As for Boom Run the beer, it is an oatmeal stout which also
has lactose in it despite the WBC website not mentioning it.
It pours a deep, dark reddish brown that was clear as far as
I could tell. The head was tan, though there wasn't much of it to speak of. I
was reminded of dessert when I took a whiff with roasted grains and toffee
coming through.
The dark chocolate and coffee flavors were tasty.
Complementing them were some caramel-like sweetness from the lactose as well as
some herbal hop bitterness. I am not sure what variety of hops were used, but I
liked them immensely. No tropical fruit and no peppery spiciness. Instead, it
had a greener taste with just enough bitterness to act as a foil to the milk
sugar sweetness.
Indeed, the beer as a whole adheres to the Nelsonian Creed
of brewing balanced, approachable beers. The oats and lactose make for a smooth
beer but it's not too heavy on the tongue. Likewise, you can taste the milk
sugar but it's never cloying. No one flavor towers over the others.
While full flavored, it's a moderate 5.6% A.B.V. so this
isn't the heartiest of winter brews but it is quite tasty. Plus the chocolate notes and
lactose lend the beer a nice dessert quality. I don't think I could drink Boom
Run all night but it's nice to slip one in here and there. It certainly sits well
alongside WBC's other dark ales and is further proof that they do them right.
Junk food pairing: It being winter, bust open a seasonal tin
of Chicago mix. The magical combo of caramel and cheese popcorns is a lot like
Boom Run but in snack form. You've got your sweetness along side the savory
with dairy smoothness to boot.
Previously I wrote about some of the music I listened to in high school and remarked that there were two albums that I associated with my senior year quite strongly. The first is Robert Plant's Manic Nirvana and now it's time for the second: The Miracle by Queen.
While I enjoyed Queen's older material and a smattering of their 80s stuff, I honestly cannot remember what inspired me to buy, what was at the time, their latest effort. My best guess is that I'd heard "I Want It All" on Rockline or some such similar program and was suitably impressed. Either that or I just decided to hear what they were up to those days. Regardless, it was one of those albums that was 80s enough to appeal to my friends who listened to Top 40 and 70s enough for me. Or something like that. Consequently it was played as we cruised down the road or were goofing off at someone's house and it became a big part of the soundtrack of my senior year of high school.
What does The Miracle sound like to my now much older ears?
As with Manic Nirvana, listening to The Miracle for the first time in years was like reuniting with an old friend. It may sound hokey but hearing the opening drum beat of "Party" brought back memories. And that beat is pure 80s. But there's also the trademark chorus of Freddie Mercury's multitracked vocals. The Bacchanalia continues on "Khashoggi's Ship", albeit in a more guitar-heavy form. The title track brings a bit of drama to the proceedings with synthesized strings and Mercury's operatic vocals. However, there is a jamming interlude with May soloing over something of a boogie beat courtesy of John Deacon. If Queen can be said to have followed up "We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions", it would be with "I Want It All" with its slashing guitars and anthemic chorus.
The first side closes out with "The Invisible Man". It is one of the most 80s sounding song on the album with its steady drum beat and frenetic bass line. While it features one of my favorite Brian May solos, it also has lots of synthesizer bits tucked in between the words and hovering in the background. Despite the nods to 80s dance music, this is one of my favorite songs on the album and was one that my friends immediately took to.
The second side leans towards the pop music of the day more than does the first. Or, at the very least, seems more derivative. "Breakthru" has a (mostly) great a cappella opening but quickly turns into a very generic 80s pop song with a beat that doesn't like to deviate very much from its computer precision. Oddly enough, the song's chorus is curiously similar to "Boys of Summer" by Don Henley, another observation made only recently instead of 30 years ago when I listened to the album frequently. "Rain Must Fall" is also rather disappointing as it sounds as if Denise Williams' "Let's Hear It For the Boy" was retooled with a Cuban touch. "Scandal" and "My Baby Does Me" are afflicted with 80s synth/drum box mania. On the bright side, "Was It All Worth It" closes the proceedings with trademark Queen pomp and bombast.
I liked side 1 better than side 2 back in high school and my opinion hasn't changed. Back in the day, I was more indifferent towards the likes of "Scandal" and "Rain Must Fall" whereas these songs sound dreadful to my ears today. These should have been b-sides where they can at least be appreciated as fun throwaway instead of the meat of the album. As I recall, Mercury was by 1989 rather thin and gaunt. The rumor was that he had AIDS but he'd not yet publicly admitted so. Despite his ill health, he is in great form here. While some songs are musically of little interest to me, Mercury's singing is always a pleasure to hear.
Both The Miracle and Manic Nirvana have bonus tracks on them, most of which were released as b-sides. Seeing this brought back memories of the bad old days of tracking down singles to get at the non-LP tracks. When in the Chicago area, I frequented Hip Cat Records, which had a large selection of singles, imports, and bootlegs. (It used to be in Wheeling, if memory serves, but has since moved.) I recall their enormous selection of Pink Floyd boots well but it always seemed like they carried relatively few Genesis boots. I think that they usually had multiple copies of From the Mouth of the Monster, though, as it was a recording of a show they did in Chicago. Most of the time, though, I shuffled through Goldmine magazine in search of elusive non-LP tracks. The store that advertised on the back cover always had lots of singles and prominently noted the b-sides. I want to say it was in Louisville, but I can't recall.
This obsession with collecting singles with b-sides eventually became a very expensive one a few years later when it became the norm to issue multiple versions of a single each containing different b-sides. This was a ploy to climb the charts since each copy sold regardless of version contributed to the tallies for the song and was one of the biggest rip-offs ever devised. Don't have enough non-LP material? Throw on a worthless and virtually unlistenable remix. How things have changed. A couple of the major record labels which perpetuated this scam used to send me unsolicited e-mail in an attempt to get me to do their PR work for them.
So there you have it. My little trip back to my senior year of high school. Since Queen stopped touring in 1986, I grabbed a Bob Plant show from 1990 that a couple friends of mine went to. Neither can recall why a third ticket was not obtained for me.
So confess, dear reader. What music were you listening to in 1989-90? Or, if you're too young to have been a music fan at that time, what was the soundtrack to your senior year of high school?
It was a fine Christmas - nice and mellow with no pressure. I gave the Grabby and Piper their gifts, which both involved catnip, so they were really stoned Christmas morning.
Here's the playlist for episode 19, Tis the Season For Some Koselig, of Time Enough At Last, the podcast I do with my pal Old Man Schuck, Stoughton's best cultural commentator on all of Podbean. It was our winter spectacular so there are songs of the season plus a bunch from The Byrds' Younger Than Yesterday, which we reviewed.
A neat bit of history courtesy of the cartographers at the UW. This is an image of a chunk of Madison's Eastmorland neighborhood in 1937 from their Wisconsin Historic Aerial Imagery Finder.
It looks like Leon and Lansing Streets are partially in place (with a block of Dawes too), branching off of Milwaukee Street going south. There's the Voit farm. I believe the house across the street and to the east near the tree line from it is still there. That house in the upper-right, just east of Starkweather Creek is 3453 Milwaukee Street and still there.
Development in the neighborhood was slow until 1950 when homes really started going up like gangbusters. There is still a sidewalk slab at Walter and Milwaukee from what looks like 1951.
Earlier this month the Max Kade Institute hosted an online lecture called "On the Road to Prohibition: The
Temperance Battle and German-American Brewers". Speaking was Jana Weiß, Associate
Professor of History at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, who is here
in Madison working on her next project. She specializes in "the interplay
of technology, race, religion, and human migration in nineteenth- and
twentieth-century America" and she is currently researching the rise of
lager beer here in the United States, a story featuring many German-Americans.
After reading her bio, it was completely unsurprising that
Prof. Weiß began by noting that the lager beer revolution here in the United
States was led by German and German-American brewers in the second half of the
19th century. During this time, many Germans emigrated to the U.S.
and they brought their culture, including a taste for lager beer, with them.
Milwaukee (and Wisconsin generally) took in a large number of German immigrants.
Most of the Beer Barons of the Midwest – Miller, Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz, Busch –
were associated with Milwaukee.
When the temperance movement gaining steam, public health
campaigns started and they labeled beer as unhealthy which completely flummoxed
German immigrants and German-Americans alike. For them bier was food and its
consumption led to Gemütlichkeit, not the broken homes and spousal abuse that
temperance activists like Carrie Nation attributed to demon alcohol.
German and German-American brewers started promoting beer as
being a healthy food and contrasting it with spirits. Beer by German immigrants
in the U.S. initially was Reinheitsgebot compliant. They started using rice and
corn because these adjuncts were cheap. But the presence of these ingredients
was used to promote such bier as more healthy.
The brewers also promoted biergartens and wirtschaften (think pubs) as salutary
alternatives to the saloon. Many Midwestern cities had biergartens in the late
19th century. These bucolic outdoor drinking establishments were family
friendly and centers of community life. Plus, they preserved German-American culture
(dress, food, music, bier). Additionally, biergartens stood in stark contrast
to saloons, traditionally a male space. Wirtschaften had food
and were not simply places to get drunk, unlike saloons.
Prof. Weiß argued that these maneuvers helped to keep the temperance
movement at bay for a time. And then World War I changed everything.
Anti-German sentiment was high. Foes such as the Anti-Saloon
League used the war as a pretext to attack brewers charging that loyalty to
country took precedence over drinking lager beer as a personal freedom. The
brewers had capitalized on German heritage in the late 19th century and
now they could no longer do so. Instead they were forced to say that they were American companies run by Americans. To counter the temperance activists, they had
attacked the distillers so the two interests had much difficulty forming
industry alliances.
Resistance faltered and Prohibition started in January 1920.
I recently learned about this song. Observatory Hill is a part of the University of Wisconsin campus here in Madison. It offers one of the best views in town in addition to being home to two Native American effigy mounds. One of the song's co-writers, Johnny Burke, was a UW alumnus from class of 1927.
My pal Old Man Schuck and I recorded the next episode of our podcast, Time Enough At Last, a few days ago. The centerpiece of the episode is our discussion about The Byrds' Younger Than Yesterday. For a brief overview of their career, check out this BBC Radio documentary from a few years back.
On a recent trip to the liquor store, I made what I think is
my first purchase of a brew by Third Space Brewing in Milwaukee. It looks like
they've been around for about four and a half years and, according to the BeerBaron, Third Space is one of Wisconsin's best breweries. They sure have a lot of IPA's
which just about disqualifies them from being a "best" brewery, for
me, but I did find their winter sour, Cranberry Gose, intriguing. Perhaps it would prove be a pleasant alternative to the heavier beers normally consumed during
this time of year.
Gose is a German ale that uses a lot of wheat and is "traditionally"
flavored with coriander in addition to a mild dose of hops. If your water
source isn't salty, then salt is usually added. The style dates back to the 16th
century and the city of Goslar in north central Germany although it really took
off in Leipzig, some 200 miles to the southeast. Tradition being more mercurial
than we give it credit for, you can either use salt and coriander or not as you please
and still claim your brew is "traditional". From what I've read, neither
was added far back in the beer's history and are instead more recent additions, though I'm not sure when exactly. As the beer's name hints at, Third Space
replaced the coriander with cranberry, though the salt remains.
For my tasting, I used Jeff Alworth's Beer Tasting Tool Kit
which was a gift from last Christmas that I have finally gotten around to
opening.
Cranberry Gose – quelle surprise! – is red. It's a lighter
shade and a bit dull. I thought it had a slight orange tint to it and a hint of haziness. The pour made a small white head that disappeared quickly. It smelled
astringent with a prominent citrus scent from all the lactic acid used to make it sour.
As expected, it had thin body which was made up for in
tartness and sourness. Again, my sources on the Internet tell me that the Gose,
say 50-100 years ago, was really, really sour. Like xenomorph blood sour. Third
Space didn't quite go that far but it is rather acerbic with a nice lemony taste.
The cranberries add a piquant tartness and berry-like flavor.
When I cook, I don't measure salt - I do it by eye. And I have this vision of a brewer at Third Space clutching a big 40# sack of salt and casually pouring the crystals into a kettle and saying at some point, "That should do it." They then reconsider the situation with their eyes darting back and forth between the kettle and the sack. After due consideration, they add just one more pinch. Regardless of how it was done, they got the salt
level just perfect, for my taste. You can tell it's there enhancing the flavors
but it falls just short of tasting particularly saline.
This is a well-carbonated beer. All those bubbles look pretty
running up through a sea of red in your glass. Plus, they make your tongue
tingle as you quaff which makes for a rather dry finish.
No Schaumhaftvermoegen was to be found on my glass.
While I liked this beer, I felt that there was a bit too
much carbonation. You've got your lactic sourness, the tartness of the
cranberries, and then you top it off with a generous portion of CO2 –
an acidic overload. I enjoyed Cranberry Gose but one serving was enough. I do
give Third Space credit for using cranberries, though. Wisconsin grows more
cranberries than any other state in the Union so their use in this beer makes for
a nice regional touch.
For anyone looking for a non-fruited Gose, the only place
around Madison that I know of is Delta Beer Lab. I've not had it but intend to do so. Next Door Brewing has brewed a Gose in the past but I am unsure if they've done so lately.
Junk food pairing: Pair Cranberry Gose with a bag of white cheddar
pork rinds. Let the smooth, creamy cheese dust mellow your tongue after those
blasts of sour.
Today I am hoping for Covid to go away soon and wishing I could travel. The Frau and I were supposed to have spent some time last summer in London but Fate worked against us and it was just not to be. So I recently busted out the City Walk cards a friend lent me for the great metropolis.
There are 50 cards in the deck each showing a walk around some part of London. The descriptions begin with the nearest tube station and then note the highlights to be seen as you stroll around. I think I could spent a month there just wandering around areas referenced in rock songs. Perhaps start off with seeing the hogweed at Kew Gardens before visiting some Muswell hillbillies, joining the rush along the Fulham Road on the way.
Check out this panorama of Madison as seen from the Capitol dome showing the city in the late 1890's courtesy of the cartographers at the UW. Such a shame so many nice buildings were torn down for parking ramps.
While I probably should have watched this in the summer as I got really cold during the winter scenes, this was a fantastic flick. (-33 was a warm day!) Werner Herzog co-directed and co-wrote it. Plus he does the narration. It's a look at life in a small Siberian village where trapping and fishing are how one earns a living/feeds one's family. The focus, however, is on the men who trap during the harsh winters. They're away from family for months on end, out in the taiga working hard everyday with only their loyal hounds and Mother Nature for company. The village may be remote but you still catch sight of a Pokémon shirt.
Folks know that
there are Frank Lloyd Wright buildings scattered around Madison – the Monona Terrace sits on the western shore of Lake Monona and is probably the most prominent. However, there are others such as the Unitarian Meeting House over on the west side as well as various residences including the Lamp House just a couple blocks from the Square. But I recently discovered that
he was responsible for this:
Wright
designed the entrance to Spring Trail Pond in what is now the UW Arboretum in
1926. (Let us not forget that Aldo Leopold helped design the Arboretum and was its first research director.) Furthermore, he designed a wall for the Old Spring Tavern right across
the street around the same time.
The building
was an inn during the last half of the 19th century serving
stagecoaches from Milwaukee that were heading to points west. I presume early corporate titans in Milwaukee wanted to go check out the mines in Mineral Point that they had invested in before heading to Prairie du Chien to see the ore off on its journey down the Mississippi River. Wright's wall was
installed when the Dicksons owned the place. According to Mrs. Dickson, "Frank
Lloyd Wright & his stone mason built the stone wall around the place, Frank
Lloyd as boss, I can still see him with his old brown leather britches, giving
his ideas & council…"
********
As I
noted in my last entry, I began riding my bicycle this summer. A friend of mine
gave it to me a couple years ago but I finally got it tuned up this spring. I had attempted to find a bike shop here on the east side but shops were booked out for weeks as I was not alone in having a bike in need of a tune-up. Instead I found a joint that would come out to me. It
was a pretty slick process. The technician parked his van outside my house, took the bike inside,
and an hour later he emerged with my two-wheeler as good as new.
Until this
past May, I hadn't done much bicycle riding in ages. I rode a lot my senior
year of college and for a few years after graduation but that was 20+ years
ago. Thankfully riding a bicycle is like, well, riding a bicycle. But now I'm riding mainly for pleasure instead of to and from work and friends' apartments. We
live near the Capital City Trail so it's easy to avoid cars
for many journeys.
Heading west
would take me to the isthmus and downtown, areas well traveled. So I decided to see what lay to the
east. The area is relatively new and rather suburban - not really my kind of thing. Much of Madison's far east side off of Milwaukee Street and Cottage Grove Road was farmland until the 60s and 70s. Now it's ranch homes with sporadic storefronts, mainly on Cottage Grove Road. This the land of the car.
What I discovered was the Acewood Conservation Park. The park is on the west side
of a retention pond and a bike path goes right through it. I'm not sure what it was in its former life but there are concrete pads and pipes scattered around the site. It quickly became a
favorite spot to spend time at after work as well as on weekends. In addition
to simply being a beautiful little area, it was really nice to get out of the
house and be somewhere that is devoid of computers and cars and whatnot. I
suppose treks there supplanted my morning ritual of walking down to Starkweather Creek.
I rarely saw people in the woods. Most runners kept to the path, but there were times when a jogger zipped through the trees. If I saw another person, it was usually someone who looked like the cover of a Jethro Tull album from 1971 drinking on the shoreline. No matter. I didn't go there for people watching; instead the wild life was the main attraction.
Red-winged
blackbirds were everywhere as were pairs of mallards and Canada geese. One day
I spied several of these:
When I got home,
I consulted the always handy Birds of Wisconsin Field Guide and
discovered them to be Great Blue Herons.
If I stood
around and watched the water for a spell, I would eventually see something bobbing on the surface, go
under, and then reemerge a few yards away. My initial thought was that I was watching a beaver or a muskrat or some such animal. Before long I realized that I had the wrong class and discovered this to be
a sizeable snapping turtle that called the pond home.
Later on I found that, in addition
to my reptilian friend, there were indeed muskrats living there
as well.
One day I
followed a narrow trail into the woods that led towards the pond. Rounding a corner near the water, I heard a
nasty sounding hiss. A mother goose was sitting on her nest and not at all
thrilled that some human had decided to wander near. So I turned her loose I beat a hasty retreat to
avoid an avian attack.
A couple of
weeks prior to one trek to the pond my Frau reported seeing a brown bird on
our feeder that she'd never seen previously. It was like Mr. Snuffleupagus from
Sesame Street because I would never see it while she would.
Then one day
at the pond I was walking my bike back to the main path when I noticed these two
sitting on a branch right above me.
I again
consulted the trusty Birds of Wisconsin and concluded that these were
Brown-headed Cowbirds, the only parasitic bird in the state. It lays its eggs
in other birds' nests and leaves the child rearing duties to them. Upon
seeing the photos, the Frau ID'd the male as being the the kind of brown bird frequenting
our feeder.
In addition
to the Starkweather and Acewood conservation parks, I discovered another one
not too far from home, Heritage Prairie. As my legs have gotten stronger, I've
been able to bike a bit farther afield and check out some of the more out of
the way parks. Madison has a wonderful urban forest and a really nice park
system. There are parks everywhere you go. Some are traditional ones with
playgrounds while others are just natural areas good for a walk, some quiet
contemplation, and/or watching the animals.
A few weeks ago, I bought Se7en on Blu-ray and
finally got around to watching it recently. Relaxing on my couch, I thoroughly
enjoyed myself as it is one of my favorite movies and I hadn't seen it in
years. The experience also made me deeply miss going to the cinema. If memory
serves, I first saw this film at the Orpheum here in Madison and I dearly hope
to be able to see it on the big screen again because it was quite the
experience. It created such an atmosphere in a darkened theater with the music
building tension and the wonderful cinematography drew me in.
The plot follows Detectives Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and
Mills (Brad Pitt) as they hunt down a serial killer whose work punishes
individuals guilty of (theoretically) committing one of the Seven Deadly Sins. It
takes place over seven days – Somerset's final week on the job before his
retirement. The Blu-ray afforded me the opportunity to view the film's original
opening which I'd long known about but had never seen. It shows Somerset as he
looks over a dilapidated farmhouse. While looking at a wall, he cuts out a
section of the wallpaper with a flower on it before heading out to chat with
the real estate agent who awaits outside. The agent remarks that it's a fixer
upper and Somerset replies that he has no problem with that. He has a funny look on
is face because it's all so "normal".
Somerset is the grizzled veteran while Mills is the
impetuous and impatient half of the duo. Mills has moved to the big city
specifically to take the detective job that Somerset is relinquishing. He is moving
from upstate with his wife, Tracy, who is played by Gwyneth Paltrow. It's
interesting that the city is never identified or given a name. Everything is
"metro". At one point we see a population sign that has no name but
indicates that the city's population is 8,300,000.
Although the theatrical cut is missing the sequence where
Somerset buys the farm, the film still sets up a rural/small city vs urban/big
city dichotomy. He is weighed down with Weltschmerz and is seeking
escape. Cynicism has become his primary defense mechanism having lost faith in
humanity. "I just don't think I can continue to live in a place that
embraces and nurtures apathy as if it was virtue," he says at one point.
Somerset views the city as hell and he is that sign saying "Abandon hope
all ye who enter here". It's raining in many of the exterior scenes but, no matter how much it rains, the apathy and urban decay are never washed away.
The adage Magna civitas, magna solitudo surely
applies to the metropolis of the film. Although we are shown Somerset interacting
with acquaintances such as the guards at the library, we never see him with
family or friends. We hear about a former girlfriend, but she is in the distant
past. At home he is alone. In one scene Somerset notes that women are
instructed to yell "Fire!" instead of "Help!" because
people are so indifferent to the plight of others. The landlord of the building
where the sloth victim was found was completely oblivious to a tenant being
tortured in one of the apartments for a full year. The rent was paid on time so
who cares?
Mills, on the other hand, has come to the big city to do
good. He even explicitly tells Somerset that he cares and he chides his short-timer
of a partner for bemoaning that people don't care yet has lapsed into apathy
himself. "This is all fucked up, it’s a fucking mess. Let’s all go live in
a fucking log cabin," he mocks.
And so the two detectives, one jaded, the other idealistic, navigate
a big city full of crime and decay as they try to apprehend John Doe, a sadistic
killer exacting God's vengeance on those whom he feels have committed grave sins.
Se7en is a great noir with an engulfing murder
mystery at its core. It also presents a drama to us one of the oldest human
conflicts, the young vs. the old. But, beyond these things, I think Se7en
is mainly about evil. I'm honestly not sure that it draws many conclusions
about it, though. Or perhaps I just need to ponder the film further.
Notice how neither the city, the place that nurtures evil
(and apathy too), nor the killer, whom we know only as "John Doe", have
firm identities. On the other hand, Doe's victims have names just as do the cops
who enforce the law and promote some formulation of the good. Is evil in some
way generic or banal while good is something of a rarity whose practitioners
deserve notice?
Maybe.
Or maybe not.
There are at least a couple of instances where cops say
things which wouldn't be out of place coming from Doe. For instance, when Mills
and Somerset investigate the gluttony victim, the idealist who professes to
care about humanity mocks the victim. He quips that the guy's heart must be as
big as a canned ham and ponders how someone that obese could fit through a
doorway. Somerset replies that the guy was a shut-in using a tone that is critical
of Mills, not the victim.
A SWAT team leads the way into the apartment where Theodore "Victor"
Allen, drug dealer and pedophile, lives. It turns out he is one of Doe's
victims too. He is the sloth guy. As Allen's gaunt, withered body lies
motionless on the bed, the SWAT team leader bends over it and whispers
"You got what you deserved" which brings Allen to life in one of the
biggest scares of the whole film. Regardless of whether or not your moral calculus says a hideous year of torture was
merited here, that line could have come straight out of Doe's mouth.
One thing that stood out in 2020 which didn't particularly
do so in 1995 is Mills' use of the words "fag" and
"faggot". In the film we see him get frustrated while studying The
Divine Comedy for clues and he calls Dante a "poetry-writing
faggot". Left on the cutting room floor but now on Blu-ray is part of the
scene where Somerset has dinner with Mills and Tracy. In the sequence, that
square of floral wallpaper falls out of Somerset's jacket pocket as he hangs it
on the back of a chair or drapes it across the back of a couch. Tracy sees it
and remarks that, if David (Mills) saw it, he'd call Somerset a fag.
Back in 1995, this may have simply been a way to get the
audience to view Mills as a good ol' boy, another ploy to contrast him with Somerset.
I recall seeing the word "transsexual" in the film's opening montage
of Doe at work but not "homosexual". Perhaps Mills' use of "fag"
and "faggot" was meant as another parallel with Doe but it could
simply have been a way to describe the character.
The final potential parallel between John Doe and the police has to do with color. First we have the interrogation rooms at the police station.
The soundproofing panels are grey.(And lit from below.) The door is similarly dark as is the table. It is a gloomy scene except for Doe himself who is clad in red, the color of blood symbolizing danger and action. Now recall that there is at least one room (I think there are a few) in Doe's apartment where the walls (and ceiling?) are painted black.
This is not the best picture of the dark walls but it's the best I could find. But take my word for it. It is a dismal place.
Tangentially, we see Mills moving into Somerset's office with the elder detective relinquishing his desk to the new blood. After that scene, we never see them in that office again. I wonder if a scene explaining this was cut.
As the famous finale nears, Mills and Somerset are driving
Doe out into the desert. Conversation naturally ensues with the killer
explaining and justifying his actions. After noting that he picked a lawyer to die,
Doe tells them "I know you both must have been secretly thanking me for
that one." That line applies equally as well to the viewer. Yeah, Doe is evil
and repulsive but can we cut him a little slack for having killed a pedophile?
Did good or evil win in the end? The movie doesn't tell us.
A serial killer lost his life for his crimes but the idealist, the cop who
cares loses his wife, unborn child, and, after exacting his own vengeance, part of his
sanity. Does being good and/or defeating evil necessarily imply making a
sacrifice?
Speaking of the ending, I had totally forgotten about the brief flash of Tracy's face immediately before Mills shoots Doe.
Presumably it's a flashback to her lying in bed. While a simple bit of editing, it's really effective here. Her face is in close-up while the action out in the desert has the camera looking on from quite a distance so there's a sharp contrast in shot sizes. Plus the colors in these few frames are markedly different from most of those in the rest of the film.
Se7en is a noir so it's dark and shadowy and it's also notable for cinematographer Darius Khondji's color scheme of yellows, browns, greys, and drab greens. (He had already demonstrated his skill with this kind of color palette in Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children.) The brilliance of the colors is muted or leached out altogether.
There are no Technicolor reds here. Colors aren't very saturated so the whole film has a sepulchral look to it. This helps to characterize the city as run-down and hopeless, a place where humanity dwells in despair. Contrast this shot with the one of Tracy above.
The more I think about this film, the more I want to see it on the big screen.
I bought another movie on Bu-ray along with Se7en - Annihilaton. Hopefully I'll have some thoughts on that one day.
It was announced today that former mayor of South Bend, Indiana and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is to be Joe Biden's nominee for the U.S. Secretary of Transportation. During his bid for president, he had a big budget infrastructure improvement plan that called "for robust public transportation improvements". Part of that plan was for rail but the article notes "Buttigieg mentions pursuing high-speed rail, but doesn’t lay out how much he’d spend."
President-Elect Biden is a self-professed fan of Amtrak and the infrastructure plan he promoted on the campaign trail had a large rail component.
Biden is still a believer in a coast-to-coast, high-speed rail network, despite seeing Obama‘s ambitious “vision” for a nationwide, high-speed rail network sputter: Florida and Wisconsin rejected federal high-speed rail grants; and California’s high-speed rail program has become a political punching bag and a money pit. Biden’s plan aims to cut travel time between Washington, D.C., and New York City by half, rebuild the Hudson River Tunnel, expand the Northeast Corridor southward, keep plugging away in California and jump-start high-speed rail networks in the Midwest and West.
As the Wisconsin Public Radio podcast Derailed noted, then Wisconsin Secretary of Transportation Frank Busalacchi chatted with Biden in 2008 while the aspiring Vice-Presidential nominee was in Cudahy.
After the meeting, both men headed to a room full of firefighters where Biden was set to give a stump speech in front of a parked fire truck.
During the speech, Biden went off script.
"Frank I promise you," Biden said. "When we get elected, you're going to have passenger rail coming through the Midwest like it never came before. I'm serious. It's coming.”
And two years later, the money for it was on offer. Of course, Scott Walker led the charge to turn down the funding and was highly successful.
Madison once had passenger rail service and I thought that, after Walker and his cronies rejected the funding to extend the Hiawatha line to Madison, I would never live to see it here. But with Biden's election, there may just be an outside slim hope of a chance that Madison may yet have passenger trains connecting it to Milwaukee and Chicago.
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