The Corona Diaries Vol. 62 - Postlude: The Empire Prairie

The Corona Diaries Vol. 62: The Bird's the Word

(mid-July 2022)

(Listen to this entry's prelude.)

Last autumn I described a venture that my Frau and I took out to Lapacek’s Orchard. With a back seat full of apples, doughnuts, et al we were cruising home down Highway 51 when I noticed one of those brown tourist/point of interest signs on the side of the road. It noted a wild life viewing area somewhere to the west. I made a mental note of this and vowed to check it out one day. Well, that day came earlier this month.

Early one morning I drove out there and followed the sign. It wasn't long before I found myself at the Lapinski-Kitze Prairie. I parked in the smallish clearing at the trailhead and was greeted by the above statue. Signs told the story of how the site had been farmed for decades with the crops having been processed at a cannery in the nearby town. A few years after the cannery closed, the Madison Audubon Society bought the property and began restoring its native prairie. It’s now a sanctuary for several kinds of birds and has trails for those who like to watch our feathered friends. I neglected to bring my binoculars and do not have a particularly long lens for my camera so I was going to be limited in my birdwatching activities. Still, I headed down the trail.

Walking along the edge of a corn field, I scared up what I think was a pheasant but it flew away quickly so I am not sure. Not only was the bird scared, I was too. It was so quiet and peaceful then suddenly it took off about 10 feet in front of me. Continuing up the path I became lost in thought once more as I enjoyed the calm and solitude. Then a squawk startled me back into the world of the mundane as a pair of turkeys, a tom and a hen, took off out of the tall grass and flew away. That primitive part of my brain simply saw big creatures emerge from hiding and I had that fight or flight response going for a second.

While I saw a variety of smaller birds, the only ones I could identify were the red-winged blackbirds which were everywhere.

There were 2 or 3 instances during my walk in which one of them would be perched on a tree or cattail and then fly towards me. It would hover for a few seconds above my head before returning to its perch. After a brief rest, it would repeat the maneuver. At one point there was a whole flock of them circling overhead and I felt a bit like Tippi Hedren in The Birds.

Although I made several attempts to catch one of these guys in flight, only a few of the photos were any good.

I really need to get a nicer telephoto lens because the birds love to congregate off in the fields amongst the flowers.

 

Next time I shall bring my binoculars to get a better view of all the avian activity that I missed.

I later learned that just south of the prairie is the Audubon’s Goose Pond Sanctuary – you’d have thought that driving on Goose Pond Road would have given that away. So I missed the big pond and the observation area which includes a telescope to check out the water fowl. It’s now on my to-do list.

It was still morning when I left the prairie so I had time for another venture. Over the winter I heard about a county park just a few miles east of town - McCarthy Youth & Conservation County Park. As the name implies, it is a place where kids come to learn about nature through various programs. There are also equestrian trails, hiking trails, and whatnot. As with the wildlife viewing area, I put a visit to the park on my to-do list and I was excited to be able to finally check it out.

I parked and started walking to the trailhead. The wildlife greeted me immediately as I noticed a ground squirrel not too far away that was looking around, perhaps assessing how dangerous this human intruder was.

The trail began on the east side of the park and ran alongside a farm for a stretch. A group of cows were out in the field relaxing under a tree as a pair of sandhill cranes looked on at a safe distance when not pecking on the ground for breakfast. 

The park features gentle hills so my walk was a fairly easy one. The sun shone brightly from the cloudless sky and it got distinctly warmer but it never became terribly hot. It seemed like every time I found an interesting plant and went in for a closer look, there were insects doing, er, it.

At one point I was at a crossroads. I could either take the trail around the wooded area or go through the woods. “Shade sounds nice,” I thought to myself and so I entered the woods.

While it was indeed noticeably cooler, I barely made it out alive as the mosquitos were in full force. I can’t complain too much as this was the first time all year that I’d encountered a swarm of them instead of just 1 or 2 stray bloodsuckers.

I emerged from the woods a half pint of blood lighter but was back on an open, sunny, and mosquito-free path. At one point I ran into some wild grapes.

What a gem of a park! The hiking is easy-going and I didn’t have to dodge too much horse poop. Most of the park is far enough away from the road that you don’t hear any cars and an all-too small section runs along the Koshkonong Creek. There’s a nice picnic area up in the woods too. Well, nice if you have some deet. I look forward to returning.

********

Despite having played Dungeons & Dragons for 30+ years now, I have never been a fan of fantasy literature. While I’ve tried at various time to find something in the genre that interested me, I have never succeeded. Granted, I did read Lord of the Rings earlier this year but it’s like a founding text for nerds so I was obligated to get that under my belt. Well, I went ahead and tried another fantasy novel recently: The Iron Dragon’s Daughter by Michael Swanwick.

I think I heard of it a few years ago in an article that described it as not being your typical fantasy novel and figured it might appeal to me. It definitely was not your typical fantasy novel.

It takes place in a fantastical version of the 1990s, it seems, and begins on a Dickensian note. We meet Jane, a girl stuck laboring within the dark, satanic walls of a mechanical dragon factory. Jane eventually escapes and she becomes a vaguely Holden Caulfield type of character who is a bit aloof and full of sardonic quips. She is alienated in various ways and is working through your typical teenage issues of angst, finding one’s place, and so on.

To be sure, The Iron Dragon’s Daughter is not your typical fantasy novel but I didn’t find it particularly engaging or interesting. Maybe I am just too old for stories chronicling the adventures of a sassy teenager.

********

I’ve been to a few concerts lately. I attended my first show at the new Red Rooster on Madison’s southeast side, where The Cash Box Kings, a blues band with members from Chicago and Madison, were playing.

They play Chicago blues – think Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf – along with some old school rock’n’roll and R&B. The band is fronted by singer Oscar Wilson who hails from Chicago’s south side while singer/harmonica player Joe Nosek is a Madisonian. I appreciate how the music has that 1940s/50s feel yet the lyrics address contemporary issues. Wilson bemoans the illegal downloading of his music (and thusly depriving him of income) in “Download Blues”. “Gotta Move Out to the Suburbs” is a lament for his beloved south side neighborhoods that are being gentrified.

The Red Rooster is a nice live music bar that is tucked into an otherwise industrial area. It was formerly the Knuckledown Saloon but has been remodeled and features fine beer, food, and music.

A couple weeks after that I was off to Milwaukee with some friends to see Blue Öyster Cult at Summerfest.

They’ve been around since 1970 or thereabouts so we probably didn’t have many chances to see them perform if we missed this show and so off we went. One of my friends got us free admission and free parking which was bonus.

I thought the show was a blast and sang along to the entirety of “Godzilla”.

With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound

He pulls the spitting high tension wires down

Helpless people on a subway train

Scream bug-eyed as he looks in on them

Both the band and the audience seemed to be having a good time with smiles all around.

Most recently I went down to the La Fête de Marquette here in Madison to see the North Mississippi Allstars. The band hails from Hernando, Mississippi and plays blues/blues rock. The festival is supposed to be a celebration of all things French, including the French diaspora, so I don’t understand why they performed but I cannot complain. Perhaps the focus of the festival has changed without me noticing. 

Whatever the case may be, the show was rockin’ and I had a blast. They’re a bit like the Allman Brothers but with more boogie. This was my first time seeing them although I’ve been a fan for almost 20 years now.

********

Bonus photo. Here’s one of Grabby in the cat tree giving the gimlet eye to the humans.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 62 - Prelude: Rivingtons

 

(Fly on over to entry #62.)

Piwo, Pączki, and Polka(holics)

Many years ago I took a journey to Iowa to bring my father's ashes home. There are several family burial plots at a cemetery down there and some kin ran a headstone business in the town. For the first time I met a cousin of my dad's and he told me a funny story about my parents' wedding. He recalled a brief chat he had with my maternal grandmother at the reception as the band was playing a polka. Approaching her, he asked if she danced the polka and she replied that she did when she was younger but, since her knees had started giving her trouble, she'd stopped. Then someone came up to her and extended the invitation, "Let's dance!" She put up no resistance whatsoever as she was led away to shake her booty, knees be damned!

I'd always known that I have relatives down there in that part of Iowa but I had never met any of them until that day. It's always neat to hear family lore, but it was especially so to hear tales about a side of the family my father never talked about.

My visit and hearing those stories sparked something inside of me - an interest in family heritage and traditions including polka. I wrote something about polka (or the lack thereof) in Madison which caught the attention of an Isthmus reporter, Isthmus being Madison's alt-weekly. Around this time I also got into the music of the Goose Island Ramblers, a Madison band from back in the day that played folk music of all sorts, including polkas. I was investigating my Central and Eastern European roots and ran into folk music that was usually not in English and did not contribute to the birth of rock and roll like the Anglo-Afro songs that spawned many an Alan Lomax compilation.

At some point I encountered The Polkaholics, a polka power trio from Chicago led by guitarist "Dandy Don" Hedeker. The band takes the basic rock formula and apply it to polka which means supercharged polka beats and lots of fuzzy guitar instead of accordion, clarinet, or trumpet. While they play traditional polkas, they also throw in originals and they are usually performed manically, always threatening to career out of control.

In 2009 the band release Wally!, likely the first ever polka-rock concept album, which chronicled the life of Chicago polka legend Walter "Li'l Wally" Jagiello over the course of a dozen songs. The second tune, "Caldwell Woods", describes how Jagiello and his family would take a streetcar to the titular forest preserve on Chicago's northwest side on Sundays to picnic and polka. I spent some time there as a boy and thought it was pretty hoopy to hear the place immortalized in song.

I bought the album and enjoyed it thoroughly. It was a good springboard to investigate Poles in Chicago. On a visit to my mother not long after buying the album, I told her about it and described how the songs celebrated Chicago history. For instance, "Division Street" commemorated the "Polish Broadway", an area on the city's near west (or northwest) side that was heavily Polish back in the day. The song lovingly describes the bars overflowing with polka music and ladies that couldn't dance to it enough.

After I described the lyrics to "Caldwell Woods" to her, my mother revealed that she, her parents, and various aunts & uncles made that same trek north when she was young. She related how the women cooked lunch and fried up pączki while chatting as the men drank beer and often played cards (pinochle). I thought it was incredibly cool to hear a part of my family history reflected in a song - and, quite appropriately, a polka song.

Haunting, Nocturnal Notes

The blackness of the night was punctured by the occasional flash of lightning. A strong storm was rolling through but, as a teenager with headphones on, ensconced in my own little world, I barely registered the peal of thunder in the distance. The spectral voices were building in intensity...

During my junior year of high school I made a concerted attempt to get into the music of Iron Maiden. I undertook the venture with the help of a good friend who was into metal as well as other heavy music like punk and industrial. In small town Wisconsin during the late 1980s, this made him deeply unpopular. For my part, I had long hair, hailed from Chicago, and wore Jethro Tull t-shirts. This did little beyond generate suspicion of me. Ergo, the two outcasts became good friends.

We would coax one another into listening to music that we had no particular affection for and see what happened. This is not to say that we had no common ground in our listening habits, because we did, but there was plenty of room for discovery as well.

My friend managed to inveigle me into giving Iron Maiden a serious listen. I ended up borrowing a copy of their Seventh Son of a Seventh Son album and have no recollection of why it was chosen over, say, Powerslave or The Number of the Beast. At the time, in the summer or fall of 1988, Seventh Son was the latest Maiden album and I had no idea how similar or different it was compared to the Maiden songs with which I had a passing familiarity - "Run to the Hills" and "The Number of the Beast".

While it was still metal, the influence of my beloved progressive rock was obvious. Lyrically it seemed to be a nod towards the concept album with a story, however opaque, about a kid with psychic powers. There were synthesizers adding color to the seething drum beats and the thrashing guitars.

One night I threw the tape in my Walkman and listened to it in bed as I awaited the arms of Morpheus. Outside a bout of nasty weather was brewing and, before long, the first drops of rain began to fall.

The blackness of the night was punctured by the occasional flash of lightning. A strong storm was rolling through but, as a teenager with headphones on, ensconced in my own little world, I barely registered the peal of thunder in the distance. I found myself trying to piece together the story in the lyrics while being thoroughly engrossed in the music with its chugging bass lines and horror film dramatics.

I could hear that the storm had gained in intensity as side 1 ended and I flipped the tape over. Side 2 began with the album's title track, a nearly 10-minute epic. The song opens with a vaguely Wagnerian fanfare as cymbals crash and are joined by guitar and the strains of an otherworldly chorus. Eventually we settle into a skittering drum beat as menacing guitars imbue urgency into every chord.

After a few minutes the song slows and there is a short spoken interlude with minimal instrumentation wherein we learn more about our hero and his preternatural powers. Outside Thor had whipped up a true tempest as thunder howled and fierce gales endlessly rattled the exhaust fan in the bathroom. The neo-Mellotrony chorus returns and guitars churn underneath, like some hideous caged creature just waiting to be loosed. The spectral voices were building in intensity, swelling to a climax as a bolt of lightning split the gloom and the crack of thunder just overhead startled me when suddenly

KERPOW!!

What sounded like a mini-explosion came howling in from the bathroom. Taking off my headphones, I hesitantly went to investigate. There I discovered that the glass shower door had shattered into a million pieces. That was creepy.

I related this strange tale to my mother who, in turn, informed my father. The next day he interrogated me for a few minutes about the singularly odd incident and I think he came away convinced that I had been up to some kind of teenage chicanery despite my repeated protestations.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 61 - Postlude: Fryday Night

The Corona Diaries Vol. 61: Luca Brasi eats the fishes

(mid-July 2002)

This is a mix pack of fancy eggs laid by, I think, heritage varieties of chickens. They’re from a farm about 30 miles north of here. Everything is organic, humane, and pasture-raised. Living that good country life apparently ensure that the shells are thicker than your usual eggs. You’ve gotta give it a little extra when you slap them against the rim of a bowl or pan.

I figured I’d start off with something colorful and cheery as I am sad to report that we had some nasty storms last month and one of our neighbors had a very large tree fall on his house during one of them.

This was a huge tree that I suspect pre-dated the house. In fact, I think it was already rather sizable when they started developing this part of the neighborhood in the late-40s. Mac, the owner was in the house when the tree fell too but, luckily, he escaped physical harm. The tale he tells is that there was a calm in the storm with the wind having died down. And then there was a sudden whoosh and the tree came tumbling and smashed into his abode. Perhaps a small vortex got whipped up rather quickly.

The house is a total loss. I feel terribly as the guy had recently had surgery and was on disability. Although the tree has been removed, there’s been nothing done to the house except for possessions being taken out. I suspect that the owner is haggling with his insurance company.

********

Not a whole lot to report on the cooking front. With the heat, I’ve been grilling dinner which involves throwing hamburger patties together or marinating some chicken breasts. Nothing to write home about, really. Well, I will note that I have become rather partial to a German marinade which is made from dark lager beer, mustard, and a host of spices such as salt, pepper, thyme, dried mustard, garlic powder, et al.

When it gets hot out, it’s perfect weather for ice cream. I went to our local ice cream shop, Chocolate Shoppe, one day with the intention of getting a pint of my Frau’s favorite, lemon meringue. They don’t pre-pack this flavor so you have to ask for it. When my turn came, the girl behind the counter asked, "What can I get for you?"

I replied, "Can I get a quart of lemon meringue?" As I was saying "quart", it was as if my lips started moving in slow motion and a part of my brain did that long, slow "Nooooooo!" realizing that I had not uttered "pint" instead. On the other hand, the Frau was very happy when I got home.

When that had been eaten, I returned and bought a pint of Rhubarb Crisp which was excellent. I rationalized my ice cream gormandizing that week by noting that rhubarb is a vegetable and thusly eating this treat was a fine way to help fulfill that quota of 3 cups of vegetables a day. (My mother would be proud!) Furthermore, the ice cream is made with milk from our favorite local dairy, Sassy Cow, so eating those luscious, creamy spoonfuls was also supporting another fine local, family-owned business. And buying it at one of their ice cream parlors keeps high school kids employed and out of trouble instead of running wild and causing all manner of low-level mayhem.

I won't claim that rhubarb ice cream is unique to Chocolate Shoppe, but it doesn't seem to be particularly common.

Recently the Frau and I partook in the Wisconsin tradition that is the Friday fish fry. All around the state hungry hordes descend on their favorite establishments and say good riddance to the work week with an Old Fashioned cocktail before digging into a plateful of fish, potato, cole slaw, and a slice of bread or roll.

This tradition apparently started during Prohibition when taverns stumbled upon a way to stay afloat without selling alcohol. They would offer fish dinners on Fridays to the masses of Catholics in the state, most of whom were descendants of Polish and southern German immigrants. The 21st Amendment may have ended Prohibition, but it didn't end these ostensibly penitential meals as they are ubiquitous on Friday nights here in the 21st century. It isn't just taverns that offer it but basically every kind of establishment. I mean all kinds. Restaurants from the more plain to the fancy and even non-generic American/ethnic eateries like Chinese, Mexican, and Cajun; churches; VFW outposts - anyplace that has a deep fryer on premises.

Everyone seems to have a different idea of who has the best fish fry in town and sometimes arguments ensue when the topic is broached. Most disagreements result in nothing more than a good-natured ribbing but I’ve witnessed some disputants nearly comes to blows over the matter. It's like a scene from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.

"I said I was impressed with their fish fry, Martha. I'm beside myself with jealousy over their haddock. What do you want me to do, throw up?"

 Here’s the menu presented to us that evening.

I personally prefer bluegill as their flesh has a nice, faint sweetness to it and the overall flavor is gentle but far from bland. Any joint that serves rye bread with their fish fry gets bonus points from me.

Notice the meat raffle. I believe they are mostly a Wisconsin and Minnesota phenomenon. From what I’ve read, meat raffles began in the early 1940s in response to wartime food rationing. People would donate some meat to the raffle in the hope of a big pay day so their entire family could enjoy, say, beef roast to their heart's content.

********

For my most recent bike ride I took a trek downtown and to campus to check on the progress of all of the new construction and get some photographs of scenes that I could pair with older photos of the same spot from back in the day. Plus there were various items of historical interest that I wanted to get pictures of.

I set out after only a single cup of coffee so, when I got to the Capitol Square, I locked up my bike and went to get a cup of joe. Art Fair on the Square was getting going with artists proudly displaying their works and monied aesthetes parading from booth to booth. I stopped in at a coffee shop in the historic Tenney building, built in the Art Deco style in 1930. Many years ago I had a job interview there for the state Supreme Court, I think.

As I waited in line, I found myself standing next on this:

I’d wondered what Berlands was for some time after first encountering it and I found this article online explaining that it was a shoe store.

Today the Capitol Square area is home to upscale restaurants and luxury condos but it used to be the city’s main shopping district for the well-heeled and the hoi polloi alike. When giant malls opened on the perimeter of town in the early 70s, a lot of ordinary, average retail stores abandoned downtown. The area gained a rather shady reputation with strip clubs just off the Square, including one salaciously named The Dangle which undoubtedly sent a couple generations of 12 year-old boys into fits of laughter. And there were working girls, shall we say, plying their trade, especially on King Street, I am told. A friend once related the tale of parking his car there in the mid-80s and being solicited multiple times on his walk to the office.

The last remnant of that red light district, the Rising Sun massage parlor, finally closed a few years ago due to delinquent taxes, I believe.

Here's a then & now of the Square.

 

Just down the street from this scene I had an opportunity for another now & then photoshoot.

I eventually left the Square and headed towards campus. This involved a stroll down State Street where I took photos of some mosaic entryways such as this one.

I presume this refers to Leonard Gay, a local real estate mogul 100 years ago who is known for the Gay Building, Madison’s first skyscraper from 1915 which still stands on the Square today.

My next then & now photo required me to get to the opposite side of Monona Bay and rather than bike it, I took a more direct route along the railroad tracks that go through the bay. I came upon a fisherman just as a reeled in his catch – a bass.

Unsurprisingly, the Bass-O-Matic skit from Saturday Night Live immediately popped into my head.

My ride lasted about 6 hours when it should probably have been half that. Several times I would head off to a certain part of town only to recall that I had forgotten to take a photo of something at where I had just left. And so I was going back and forth to places I’d already been at to get that one last snap that I had forgotten to take previously.

Eventually, though, I tacked a northeastern course for home. My last stop was a homebrew museum dedicated to firefighting in Madison.

Built in 1948, Fire Station No. 8 was decommissioned in 1990 and bought by Mike Fuss, a firefighter here in Madison who loved to collect the memorabilia of his trade and tracking the history of firefighting here. My understanding is that he lives on the 2nd floor and the museum is open by appointment.

The place was quiet when I got there so I just wandered around the building.
 
Personally, I find this display to be a bit creepy.

Out back is an old fire engine. From the 50s? 60s?

I am not sure what this is.

I also found an old emergency call box. I presume these were on street corners and could be used by the public to call the police or fire department.

Contacting the curator for a tour of the museum for a visit is now on my to-do list.

********

Bonus photo! Here’s a mama mallard and her ducklings that I saw on a recent walk down to Starkweather Creek.

Bathed in eternal summer's glow: Last Stand by Short Fuse Brewing Co.

When Jack Frost hits the scene, then 'tis the season for one of my favorite beers, Tippy Toboggan from Vintage Brewing here in Madison. Tippy Toboggan is a Roggenbock, a Roggenbier amped up to bock-like proportions. When we’re in the bowels of winter and my bones are chilled to their very marrow by the coldest of winter nights, I am warmed and rendered mirthful by a glass of this heady brew with its bracing rye spiciness and pleasant mix of banana and clove flavors.

So, I’ve got winter covered but what about the rest of the year? Can’t I enjoy some rye-laced cheer during the warmer months too?

Sadly, Madison-area brewers don’t make a Roggenbier beyond Tippy Toboggan – that I’ve seen, anyway.

On a recent trip down south, however, I discovered that at least one Chicagoland brewery does brew a Roggenbier. Not only is it not a bock but it was available outside of winter.

Ooh la la!

That beer is Last Stand by Short Fuse Brewing Company.

I encountered them for my first and only time (until now) last fall when I grabbed some of their Dark Gourd, a coffee-pumpkin ale that was quite tasty. As with that beer, the Short Fuse website doesn’t so much as mention Last Stand so details are scarce. It looks like it has been brewed in years past and that this year’s batch came out in late summer. So maybe it’s a seasonal…?

Whatever the case, I was pleased as punch to see a Roggerbier on the shelf and quickly snagged a 4-pack of it.

Vigorous my pour was not because I was left with but a small tan head and it dissipated rather quickly. A subsequent pour, however, yielded a much more generous helping of foam which made for a pretty sight. The beer is a deep, dark chestnut that was basically opaque. If there were any bubbles inside doing their thing, I didn’t see them. When decanted properly, this is a fine looking beer. Roggenbiers are brewed with the same kind of yeast as Weissbiers and my preference for those is to have a stronger banana presence than clove. Here banana was all up in my nose when I took a sniff, although there was a little clove as well. A bit of black pepper was in there too which was probably a combination of hops and rye.

On my first sip, I caught a nice, solid fizziness cutting through the beer’s medium body. This was followed by the yeasty flavors starting with banana. Clove was less prominent while there was just a hint of bubble gum. Rye and wheat were layered underneath and some spicy hops brought up the rear. While I found the beer to be somewhat sweet, I suspect all of that banana flavor from the yeast added a little ersatz sweetness.

At the finish, the banana and clove faded, giving way to the spicy hops which did their best to add balance earlier. They only added a moderate bitterness here but I think they teamed up with all the fizz for a rather solid dryness to wipe away any fruity memories.

Last Stand was just great with all of the flavors I expected for a Roggenbier – spicy rye, banana, and some balancing hops – and it comes in at a more weather appropriate 4.5% A.B.V. A nice prelude to Tippy Toboggan season.

Junk food pairing: The subtle yet complex flavors of a Roggenbier cry out to be paired with a food of equal complexity and tastiness. So grab a bag of Slide's Curry Garlic potato chips to go with your Last Stand.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 61 - Prelude: Mrs. O'Leary's Cow

Life Around Me Was a Solemn Dream

(Art by David Welker)

When I was dating a woman back in the mid-90s who was a dedicated Phishhead, she tried to get me into the band. Not with an intense regimen of forced listening to their oeuvre on a daily basis a la the Ludovico Treatment but with more gentle therapy. She'd play their music occasionally and we went to see them together in '94. I abetted her efforts by listening to their stuff of my own volition on the odd occasion.

While I didn't become a huge fan, I did come to the conclusion that Hoist is pretty good little album. But that's as far as I got.

I made getting into Phish a little side project that I returned to now and again even after our relationship ended. Things changed in the fall of 1996 when the band released Billy Breathes.

I still have my copy of the album that I bought back in late '96 or early '97 and I honestly cannot recall what inspired the purchase. Perhaps I'd heard "Free" on the radio or some other tune at a party and was suitably impressed. Whatever the case, I had finally found some Phish that I genuinely loved.

The album is a refinement of Hoist in some ways. Trey Anastasio's guitar retains the fuzziness and more muscular sound from that album, for instance. Billy Breathes opens much like its predecessor too. Each album opens with a couple solid rock tunes before throwing in a slower, more introspective song. ("Waste" even has "if I could" in its lyrics)

There's no thrashgrass here and the mix enhances the emotional resonance of the songs which have largely stepped away from the goofy jamming aesthetic that largely defines their pre-Hoist stuff for me. The second half of the album has a fair amount of acoustic guitar and a beautiful, almost solemn feel.

"Prince Caspian" ends the album on a gorgeous note. The song has always felt a bit somber to me but perhaps that was just how I was feeling when I first heard it. Anastasio's brittle guitar sounds like it's struggling to find its way at the beginning as Mike Gordon's bass wanders melodically between the piano and drums.

The melody is carried along by a mid-tempo rhythm from Jon Fishman as the refrain of "Oh, to be Prince Caspian, afloat upon the waves" is sung with a great sense of yearning and that really hit me back in the late 90s. I really like how the song is layered with Page McConnell's piano bolstering the guitar plus all of those vocal harmonies. And there's that vaguely woodwind sounding synth here that seems to be absent from live versions which is a sprightly contrast to the otherwise gentle flow of the song.

After a raspy chorus of "Oh!" fades, the song slowly disassembles until one final piano note ushers in the band again with the guitar in the lead. All that had come before was just beautiful and this more muscular passage adds a little emotional ambiguity. Was something resolved? Is the narrator confidently moving forward? Or perhaps the tenderness of the preceding few minutes is being washed away...

The Son of Dan's Irresistible Commands: Black Currant 22 by New Glarus Brewing

The impending release of a new fruit beer from New Glarus Brewing is perhaps the most prosaic beer news a Wisconsinite can hear. It has all the novelty of road construction in the summer. When isn’t New Glarus engaged in some kind of alchemickal diabelerie conjuring beer from fruit (and vegetables) and grain?

Back in July, if memory serves, I heard that the venerable brewery to the south was to be unleashing Black Currant 22 come August. On one hand, it sounded interesting as blackcurrant is not an ingredient commonly found in beer, at least here in the States. On the other, the last 2 or 3 New Glarus fruit beer creations have been cloying, syrupy, and basically undrinkable for me. I contemplated not bothering with Black Currant 22 and found myself with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other locked in mortal combat for my liver's soul.

Devil: Yuck! It’s a fruit beer!
Angel: But it’s New Glarus.
Devil: Yuck! It’s a fruit beer!
Angel: But it’s New Glarus.
Devil: Yuck! It’s a fruit beer!
Angel: But it’s New Glarus.
Devil: I want you to go out and kill! Kill! KILL!
Angel: WTF?
Devil: Wait. You’re not David Berkowitz. Sorry.

In this heated battle, it was the angel that proved victorious and so I brought home a 4-pack of the contentious brew.

Blackcurrant berries grow on shrubberies (Ni!) in northern and central Europe and northern Asia, according to Wikipedia. This explains why my past experiences with the fruit were exclusively from Polish jams. As the Black Currant 22 bottles note, the berries are on the tart side and I was hopeful that the tartness would prevail over sweetness here.

Black Currant 22 is a lovely deep purple. (Duh, duh, duh. Duh, duh da-duh!) The foam is purple too but my pour didn't produce much of it and what little there was fizzed away rather quickly. I think it was clear but certainly not translucent. The aroma was pleasantly unexpected. There was the anticipated sharp fruity/berry component but there was also a sour-lemony scent too. Also not expected was a hint of leather. A faint grassy smell rounded things out.

Despite the paucity of foam, the beer had a firm fizziness to it. Blackcurrants are more acidic than their red and white cousins and this stuff proves it with its mighty tang. The body was medium-heavy and I expect that the sweetness I tasted underneath the berry tartness was from the malt. How to describe what blackcurrant berries taste like? The best way I can think of is cranberry plus grape. Yeah, I know someone of a botanical inclination will dismiss this as a puerile description of their true taste but it's the best I've got.

When I swallowed, I found that the tangy fruitiness lingered long after the sweetness faded. I suppose hops may have contributed a little bitterness here but everything on the finish tasted of the fruit to me.

I breathed a sigh of relief after my first sip. This is very tasty stuff and not a cloying fructose bomb as the tart berries and fizz combined to keep the sweetness at bay. The tangy fruit flavor is simply delicious. Plus its purple hue makes for a lovely looking glass.

Junk food pairing: Pair your Black Currant 22 with a bag of Chex Mix Muddy Buddies Brownie Supreme and let the acidic fruitiness tangle with the chocolate goodness of the Chex Mix.

The Paws That Linger

(Photo by Alice Chiche.)

 

More than once I have been described as being a day late and a dollar short. So it was with discovering Canailles.

I first heard them last autumn on a radio show called Accordion Noir that's hosted by one Bruce Triggs, a guy with a severe case of accordionophilia. Every Wednesday night he plays an hour of accordion music (some concertina tunes seep in as well) on CFRO-FM up nort in Vancouver, eh. (For my fellow Madisonians, it seems to be their equivalent of WORT.) When their song came on, I was immediately smitten with its breakneck rhythm and bouncy accordion licks.

Cooooo-roo-koo-koo, coo-roo-koo-koo!

Bruce kindly posts his show’s playlist and I discovered that the band’s name was Canailles. I am not sure which song he played on that particular episode because he would spin other songs by them on the next few subsequent shows and things kind of run together at my age. But I was hooked. And I was happy that I had discovered a new band. You know, one that had come together this century. My joy at having finally fallen for a music group whose members were still alive/did not have grey hair was somewhat lessened when I found out that Canailles was no more.

They were a 7 or 8-piece that played a kinetic mix of bluegrass, Cajun, whatever folk music French Canadians devised up in Quebec, and probably other stuff too. I haven’t been able to find much out about the band as they speak French and what was written about them was mostly in that language which I happen to not speak. In September 2010 they released their first recording, a self-titled EP that began with “Blues des pattes”, which Google translates as "Paw Blues". Perhaps it refers to the poor rabbit caught in a snare on the EP's cover.

Right out of the gate, the ensemble is on fire with a rhythm that cannot help but get your feet moving while a fiddle careers along threatening to lose control with every stroke of the bow. Things settle down just a bit and the instruments provide space for the vocals but, when the time comes, Alice Tougas St-Jak’s accordion whips up a punk rock-like frenzy guaranteed to start an Acadian mosh pit.

The song is only two and a half minutes long but every second is a quantum of musical energy that'll get your ass shakin'.

 

The Corona Diaries Vol. 60 - Postlude: Chemistry

(Go back upstream to entry #60.)

The Corona Diaries Vol. 60: There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this creek

(early July 2022)

(Let your reading be carried astern to the prelude.)

As Tennyson observed, nature is red in tooth and claw. I was reminded of this on a bike ride when I spied a cat chasing a mouse in the middle of the street ahead of me.

The cat did eventually get its prey.

I love to paddle forbidden creeks, and land on arborous coasts.

More recently I had some encounters with nature that were decidedly less bloody. I took a Monday off from work and biked a couple blocks to my local boat rental joint on the shores of Lake Monona and rented a kayak. Despite having lived in the Four Lakes area for decades and just a couple blocks from a creek for several years, I’d never used one before so I figured it would prove to be a fun and interesting adventure. My goal was to paddle up Starkweather Creek and it was the perfect day to do so with the sun shining and the temperature only in the mid-70s.

I put in on the lake and paddled the short distance to the mouth of the creek. At first I was a bit wobbly but, after tacking the small wake of a boat successfully, I felt steady and more confident. There were a couple fellow paddlers out on the creek and an occasional fisherman on the shore, but it was just me and Mother Nature most of the time. I was happy to find that the weed and algae levels were rather low with only 1 fairly short section being choked with vegetation.

Well, that’s not quite true. While there may have been no other people around, I was surrounded by life. The first non-human animals I noticed were all of the ducks.

Close to my bow, strange forms in the water darted hither and thither before me; while thick to the rear flew the inscrutable seagulls.

There’s an especially high concentration of them near the intersection of Starkweather Drive and Dawes Street. I suspect they congregate there because that section of shore has a lot of shade trees on it and there’s a house near the intersection that has several bird feeders out front where I’ve witnessed many a duck gorging itself at the seed smorgasbord as disconsolate birds looked on.

It’s a real mallard gauntlet. They’re on both sides relaxing and preening, they are swimming in front of you and behind, they fly over you – just everywhere.

While no creek critters are exactly enamored of humans, they are definitely more tolerant of us when we are out on the water instead of approaching from the shore. Thusly I was able to get some decent pictures of the ducks including these portraits.

Next I noticed all of the painted turtles sunning themselves on rocks and branches. They’re small and tend to blend into their surroundings well so I only noticed one here and there at first. But, when I looked harder, I discovered that they were all around me.

Consider the subtleness of the creek; how its most painted creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure.

 

When my kayak approached a group of them, most of the turtles would either leap forwards or drop backwards into the safety of the water. But there was always a brave soul or 2 that would stick around and check out the intruder.

 

I like this next photo because you can see how the one on the right retracted its front legs.

 

Before long I was at the spot where the west branch of the creek splits off and heads towards the airport but I kept my course on the east branch. I thought that I’d read that you couldn’t paddle beyond Highway 30 to the north and either had to turn back or portage your kayak. I needn’t have worried as a fallen tree blocked my progress before I got close to the highway so I turned around.

Not knowing how long I’d been out or how burned my legs were getting, I headed down the west branch.

Drifting past more turtles and taking pictures, I noticed a bird in the cattails and took a snap.

I had no idea it had turned out so well until I got home. Consulting my trusty Birds of Wisconsin book at later, I discovered that it was a female red-winged blackbird.

Just ahead on the shore in some poor soul’s backyard a gaggle of Canada geese were lounging, preening, and no doubt popping all over the place, as is their wont.

I paddled another half a mile or so before turning back. With the sun pounding on me, I was getting a bit red. Cruising under the bridges was a nice break from having the sun beating down upon me. Despite the sunburn, I was still having a blast as it was just so pretty out on the water.

I saw the opening maw of hell,

With endless pains and sorrows there;

Which none but the fish there can tell—

Oh, it plunging to despair.

As my kayak slowly drifted around a corner just short of where the west branch meets the east, I was startled to see a great blue heron having lunch. I took one photo and tried to take more but the camera refused. I silently cursed the device as I pushed the button to no avail. A second later I realized that in my haste to get a photograph, I had accidentally switched the camera from take a picture mode to view your pictures mode. Oops!

I moved to set it back but the bird was off like a prom dress around the corner and out of sight. The photo I took was out of focus but you can still see it and its lunch well enough.

The rest of my paddle back to the beach was uneventful. The fishermen I’d seen on the shore were gone, although the bridge that connects the 2 sections of Olbrich Botanical Gardens had several people on it looking down at the water.

I found it to be a bit windier out on the lake than it was earlier and I had to paddle harder to keep from being blown far away from shore. Beaching the kayak, I moved to get out and discovered that I still very much had sea legs. So it took a little extra effort to get them out and stand up without falling over.

Despite my poor legs getting quite a bit more sun than they could handle, I had an absolute blast and look forward to doing another paddle. Perhaps I’ll try to make it out to the airport next time.

********

My latest venture to the movies was with a group of friends to see the 1982 version of The Thing, directed by John Carpenter. It was back in theaters for its 40th anniversary.

While I have seen it many times over the years, I think this was my first on the big screen. When it’s hot out, I try to watch movies & TV shows and read books that take place in colder temps so The Thing’s Antarctic setting really hit the spot on a balmy night. It is a total creepfest and I love every minute of it. You may recall in a previous diary entry that I had read the source material for the film, the novella Frozen Hell earlier this year.

In the opening, an alien spacecraft is seen careering towards Earth. We then cut to some frantic Norwegians in a helicopter chasing a dog across the snowy wastes. They attempt to shoot it but the hound evades their bullets. We eventually learn that the Norwegian researchers found the crashed U.F.O. and had recovered one of its occupants from the ice. Unfortunately for them, the alien wasn't dead, it merely slumbered.

When it awoke, the creature exercised its skill of being able to assume the form of other beings. The dog was actually infected by the alien, hence the attempt to kill it. That having failed, the alien begins to infect the denizens of the American research station.

No matter how many times I’ve seen the movie, the scene where the de facto leader, MacReady, tests his compatriots' blood to determine who is human and who is an alien simulacrum always scares the living crap out of me.

If too long goes by between viewings, I forget who the alien is which makes it all the more scary.

We need more movies that take place in the winter/in cold, godforsaken climes at the theaters in the summer.

********

Bonus photo this time is of the front porch of a house near our favorite ice cream parlor. That poster of Greta Garbo has been there for a while now. No clue who put it there, it’s just been a fixture on that block for as long as I can remember.

(Float

downstream

to

the

postlude.)