What the hell is WisDOT doing in Kenosha?!

 

 

 At least the bathroom is clean.

Smoky treats

I found some tasty, smoky brews at Steve's on Junction Road over the weekend.

Oh no! There goes Chicago!

That poor Brown line train!

Coming Soon: 11 February

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spam, Eggs, Gotländsdricka, and Spam: Visby by Old Irving Brewing Co.

Last month I spent a few days in Chicago attending some performances of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival. And of course a polar vortex descended upon the city as I was driving south and held the city in its icy tendrils as it blew frigid blasts of wind through Chicago's street grid the whole time I was there. My walks to the theaters were quite brisk, I can tell you. Luckily one was only about 3 blocks away. While I was bundled up with all 13' of my Doctor Who scarf, gaggles of young women walked out of smart restaurants on Halsted dressed for a pleasant autumn evening and then observed with a whine, "It's so cold out!"

I returned to Madison on the day the vortex began to lift but not before stopping to meet a cousin for a fine Polish lunch at Opolska Restaurant in Schaumburg. She informed me that right across the street from the restaurant was a Polish grocery store, Deli 4 You. I was pleasantly surprised to see shelves of Polish goodies and bought more sweets than I perhaps should have. And, since it was close, I also went to the local Binny's outpost.

Not surprisingly, there was a decent selection of Polish beers and I bought a couple. Unfortunately, they were both skunk and I have vowed to only buy Polish beer at Polish stores. Well, except for pale lagers as I think that Okacim and its ilk sell alright. But craft brews, nope.

My eyes became strained and I grew bored scanning the shelves for non-IPAs when I saw a label that read "Smoke * Kviek * Spruce Tips * Juniper".

They had me at smoke.

The style was listed as "Gotländsdricka" which was somehow familiar to me. It took me about halfway to Madison to recall that New Glarus had brewed a beer with a similar name. When I finally got home, I looked it up and found that it was Gotlandic, one of their R&D brews from several years back that I recall enjoying.

This brew was called Visby, named after a port on the island of Gotland which is out in the middle of the Baltic Sea east of Sweden. And it was brewed by Old Irving Brewing back in my old neighborhood. I enjoyed their bock, Lifeblood, and was happy to find another of their brews that held appeal for me. Another mark in the beer's favor was diacritical - that umlaut. The ingredient list plus that umlaut surely meant that this was a Nordic style. And Nordic peoples live near the Arctic Circle (most do, anyway) where they must get polar vortices daily so this stuff had to be suitable for winter, if not entirely appropriate.

I think I can count the number of times I've drunk a beer fermented with kviek yeast on one finger so I figured this would be interesting.

My pour produced a nice, big, frothy head of just off-white foam that sat atop a brew that was a slightly hazy gold. For some reason I thought it would be darker. Firstly, I seemed to recall that New Glarus' take on the style was dark and, besides, if this was what the Vikings drank, shouldn't it be Stygian? I mean, wasn't Viking society all dark, grey, and sooty? Didn't these people see The Northman?

Inside I saw a smattering of bubbles.

As expected a sniff revealed a healthy dose of pine. Unexpected, however, was an even healthier dose of pineapple aroma.

"Well, that's kviek for ya," I reasoned.

Taking a sip, I found that it had a medium-light body - not as heavy as I thought it would be - and had a very nice fizziness. That kvieky pineapple was right up front and was accented by a hint of citrus. And there was that resiny/piney flavor. Missing was any smokiness. Even after I let the beer warm I still failed to discern much smoke. As best I could taste, any fuliginous goodness was mellow to begin with and was overshadowed by the resiny one-two punch of spruce tips and juniper.

The pineapple taste lingered on the finish for a spell before being overcome by all that pine flavor which boosted the dryness and let a little bitterness through.

Despite the absence/paucity of smokiness, I really enjoyed this brew. There is just something about how my tongue tasted the pineapple first and then made the shift over to pine that I found intriguing and delicious. Maybe it's because both flavors have "pine". There didn't seem to be a lot of malty sweetness which I appreciated. The grain flavors and what I suspect is a modicum of hops weren't readily tasted and instead seemed to be keeping the more prominent flavors from becoming overwhelming.

Despite a fairly light body, Visby is 6.5% A.B.V. so it definitely helped keep the cold at bay on a recent night as the mercury was taking a dive to below 0.

Junk food pairing: Pair your Visby with a big bag of Crunchy Cheddar Jalapeño Cheetos. The jalapeño adds another sharp taste to complement all that pine. And who doesn't like cheese?

I meet Alesia Miller. She's into mangos too.: Ginger Mango Peach by Soul Brew Kombucha

Having been suitably impressed by Soul Brew's BLM, I returned to the Willy Street Co-op to grab another of their flavors. While scanning the cooler I noticed that they also carried Rude Brew Kombucha, a brand from here in Madison. I knew there was another kombuchaery in town! They're next. Probably.

As I noted previously, the Co-op - at least the northside branch - has three flavors from Soul Brew. I stood there staring at the cooler trying to decide which one to try next when I had the bright idea of just buying both of the flavors I'd not yet had. This time around I chose Ginger Mango Peach because it was the only one of the three that wasn't red/purple. Alesia Miller must be a fan of the mango as this was the second of her brews to feature it.

I thought that BLM was brewed with real fruit and so was surprised to see that there is none here. Instead fruit flavored teas are used. This doesn't mean that, say, dried fruits weren't used in those teas but that vision of fresh fruit bathing in Miller's kombucha with ginger bath balls is just a fantasy.

This tea was a hazy yellow and it looked like there were bits of pulp inside. But since fruit isn't a part of the recipe, what did I see? Speaking of seeing, I saw the SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) inside the bottle and wondered how kombucha brewers get a perfectly portioned bit of SCOBY in every bottle. And why is the glob of fermenting goodness always round?

Lastly, I'll note that there was a fair number of bubbles inside.

A vinegar tang was prominent on the nose while the fruity aromas seemed to be mainly of mango and peach.

Unsurprisingly I got a healthy dose of fizz on my first sip. Not as much as with the BLM but more than other brands of kombucha I've tasted. Beneath that I could taste the herbal goodness of the black and green teas followed by mango, ginger, and peach. My tongue got a little bite of tannin when I swallowed along with lemon, green tea, and a hint of mint.

As with BLM, this stuff should be consumed after warming up a tad. This allows the lemon and mint to come out on the zesty finish and gives the fruity flavors their chance to become more prominent overall. I really enjoyed this kombucha and adored how the herbal tea flavors melded with the fruity ones. Plus the sweetness was nicely restrained.

While I'm on the topic of sweetness, the bottle says "no added sugar" while cane sugar is the fourth ingredient. I mean, the SCOBY needs something to eat, right? So I am unsure what the "no added sugar" is supposed to convey here. Is this stuff highly attenuated with all the sugar getting gobbled up and no sugar is added after fermentation?

Regardless, another winner here from Soul Brew. A nice tang, generally balanced fruit flavors, and just the perfect amount of fizz. Plus the lemon-mint on the finish was icing on the cake. I loved that little zip at the end.

On the Stereo, February 2025

I've been listening to some tunes by Chicago's Horsegirl. They play what I suppose would be called indie rock with its lo-fi aesthetics that are gussied up a bit with some great melodic vocals. Their latest album, Phonetics On and On, came out a few days ago and I find that I really like "Switch Over". It has a vague Pavement vibe and reminds me a bit of "Box Elder".

They play in Madison at the High Noon Saloon on 4 August.

Also from Chicago are Cabeza De Chivo and their tropical psychedelia. I cannot find any studio recordings but check out this live set from the Cactus Club in Milwaukee from last spring.

To complete the Chicago trifecta, there's The Claudettes who should have a new album out soon. Or soonish, anyway. They'll be at the North Street Cabaret on 1 March.

 

 

From a bit farther afield, Tuva, comes the Alash Ensemble. And yes they do that funky Tuvan throat singing. They'll be at The Bur Oak on 29 March.

 

Valerie June has a new album out or coming out soon called Owls, Omens, and Oracles (Look at that serial comma!) and she'll be here in Madison on 30 May which means my Frau and I won't have to go to Iowa to see her.

 

Just listen to her new tune "Joy! Joy!"!

 

Last weekend some friends and I went to see the Faroese superstar Eivør. We weren't particularly familiar with her work but we're suckers for Nordic music and just anything that sounds interesting. It was a great show! I really loved "Enn" which, if I recall correctly means still or yet. The drumming was very powerful live.

 

Opening for Eivør was Sylvaine, a.k.a. a solo project of Kathrine Shepard. For the opening slot it was Shepard alone. Very ethereal music with guitar, lots of triggered sounds, and her wonderful, powerful vocals. Both she and Eivør have amazing sets of pipes.

 

 

 

Also coming to town soon are North Mississippi Allstars on 9 March and Southern Culture on the Skids on 24 May, both shows at the High Noon Saloon.

 

Don't forget to listen to my friend Eric the Driftless Cowboy host Classic Country Corner on 98.7 WMVO on Saturday mornings at 8.

 

And listen to his pal DJ Shotski host Polka Time on that same spot on the radio dial every Saturday and Sunday at 7 P.M.

Supper's Ready (Co-Starring the Delicious Talents of Léane Baril)

This is so hoopy!

Antoine Baril is a Canadian drummer who played with The Musical Box amongst many other bands and he's recorded a cover of "Supper's Ready" by Genesis with his young daughter, Léane, who does a fine Peter Gabriel. And she wears the costumes! The crown of thorns, the flower mask, the face paint, etc.

I love how she raises her arm and sings "Waiting for battle!" (She then looks at the camera and smiles.) Man, "Ikhnaton and Itsacon and Their Band of Merry Men" is one of the best things Genesis ever did. And she is positively menacing with the Magog outfit on. Great editing. Listen to her voice crack singing "He's getting out..." Very Gabrielesque.

Antoine is no slouch either as he seems to be able to play anything. I am happy he included the cello in "Lover's Leap" as I adore it and sometimes miss it in live versions.

What a great performance!

A boreal Rorschach test

The snow and wind made for a Rorschach test on a friend's skylight a couple days ago.

An oasis of flavor: Seven Select Salt & Vinegar Kettle Chips

Just when I think I've tasted every brand of salt & vinegar chips on store shelves in my world, I stumble upon another one.

My most recent sample comes courtesy of 7-Eleven. I found it at the Belvidere Oasis last month when I was driving home from Chicago. To be honest, I am not sure if we have 7-Eleven's here in Madison anymore or not.

Checking the internet...

Well, we do have one. Just one, apparently, and it's on University Avenue. You'd think that I would have known this since my bus goes right by it. My brain was struggling to recall if there was ever one of their convenient stores on Regent or Park Street and it slipped my mind.

Anyway, as I was grabbing the bag, I questioned whether or not I had eaten these before. Was I having a kind of flashback to discovering salt & vinegar chips at the most prominent convenience store in Madison, Kwik Trip? A quick search of the blog revealed no evidence of ever having sampled 7-Eleven's chips and so here we are.

We have had Piper for nearly 12 years and it's only been in the past couple months that she has taken to hopping onto the dining room table and poking around. Sampling people chow is also a recent phenomenon for her and, in this case, she got a lick in before I scolded her for being naughty and shooed her away.

The chips were a medium dark yellow with the occasional brown spot. Oil was the most prominent aroma but I also caught a little spud and a hint of vinegar.

Being kettle chips, they had a mighty big crunch. I tasted salt first. These had a fair bit more than your normal chip, though they weren't quite at a Dead Sea level of salinity. The vinegar too was at an elevated dosage. Much tangier than most salt & vinegar chips and those at the bottom of the bag were at Vitner's strength. Impressive. Beneath it all was some earthy potato flavor. Even when I chewed a mouthful into a paste and let the glob sit on my tongue, I tasted very little spud sweetness.

These were some very tasty chips. They were plenty salty and had a really nice vinegar tang. Stronger than most even if not of Xenomorph blood strength.

Almost forgot. I scanned the shelves for a non-kettle version of these chips but didn't find one.

Quest for Pączki '25

I was reminded that Fat Tuesday approaches as I was grocery shopping last weekend at Woodman's when I saw pączki for sale.

They were from Clyde's Donuts which is in Addison, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago.

Believe you me, I was sorely tempted to buy a box but didn't. I am unfamiliar with Clyde's and, though they may have been made by a Polish baker, I wasn't impressed by the flavor selection. Bavarian Cream? Really? And why do you need to add artificial flavor to a raspberry paczek? Besides, I am fan of the more traditional flavors: prune and rose hip.

The odds of me finding these flavors here in Madison are slim. Maybe prune.

I have heard various people from Poland lament the pączki in these parts as being "Americanized" and little more than a jelly doughnut instead of a proper paczek. Although some of these people have turned their noses up at some less than traditional fillings, I think these folks are referring to the dough. It's just not authentic. But I am unable to figure out what about the dough they're referring to.

Somebody at the Polish Heritage Club here in Madison must be able to explain this to me. Otherwise I'll just have to take a pre-Lent trip to Poland.

So, if you're not going to Poland for Fat Thursday, where can a Madisonian get something almost, but not quite entirely unlike pączki?

Bloom Bake Shop is offering strawberry and Bavarian cream for pickup on Fat Tuesday.

Festival Foods has carried them in the past, including prune, if I recall correctly, but a search at their website came up empty.

I've read that Greenbush Bakery has made them in the past but their website and Facebook page don't mention them.

Ditto for Rolling Pink Bake Shop.

Ditto for Metcalfe's.

The Ugly Apple Cafe makes them as well but they're not open on weekends. However, you can order a batch to pick up at Pasture and Plenty. Unfortunately, they mostly come in fancy flavors: Dark Chocolate Custard, Bourbon Vanilla Bean Custard, Raspberry Rosehip and Brandied Plum. Well, at least there's rose hip and plum, even if the latter is brandied.

Beyond Woodman's, I haven't actively sought any pączki out this year but perhaps I will stop by a bakery or two this weekend to seek out the elusive prune paczek.

Public transit flashback

My R bus didn't show yesterday morning so I instead endeavored to catch an A or F. Standing on the bus platform as cars zipped past gave me flashbacks to my youth in Chicago when I waited for trains on El platforms as traffic on the expressway roared past me and the biting winds tore through my coat and bit the tender, unwrinkled skin of my face.

At least the traffic on University Avenue is quieter than the Kennedy.

The Tipu House

Jethro Tull have released another tune from their forthcoming album, Curious Ruminant, called "The Tipu House". So far, I am enjoying it. Uptempo with the usual catchy flute lines. And is that a mandolin I hear?

Piper's peepers

Poor Piper had to get her peepers checked out recently. Thankfully they're doing alright, unlike Pipey when she's at the vet's office.

As you can tell, I am still getting to know my new phone's camera. Can't AI make it focus on the cat instead of the carrier door? You'd think it was a no-brainer.

Jeff Bezos' minions do kołaczki

I have fallen into the habit of occasionally grabbing lunch at Whole Foods and have noticed kołaczki in the bulk cookie case just across from the pre-made salads. They've tempted me for a couple months now but I've always figured that there's no way Amazon could make good kołaczki and resolutely walked past them with my nose in the air. But I finally gave in to my curiosity last week and bought some as I had neglected to do so when I was at the Deli 4 You in Schaumburg last month. There were apricot and raspberry on offer.

They weren't bad. But they didn't taste like there was any cream cheese in the dough. It tasted very wheaty instead of having that rich, dairy backbone. Still, I am not above eating them even with the limited flavors available.

This brew's got soul and it's super bad

Having finished sampling NessAlla's regular flavors, i.e. - non-mocktail kombuchas, I wasn't sure where to turn next. While I suspect that there is at least one other brand of the tasty tea fermented here in Madison, I did not see it at Woodman's. However, on a stop at the Willy Street Co-op, I noticed Soul Brew in their cooler and remembered seeing their stand at the South Shore Farmers' Market back in 2022. My Frau bought some back then and I recalled finding it tasty.

I am not sure if it was Soul Brew's founder, Alesia Miller, was at the stand that morning or not. Miller is the first black woman in Wisconsin to found a kombuchaery and likely one of the first in the country. She founded Soul Brew in 2019 about a year after making her first batch at home. In an interview from 2022 in Milwaukee's alt-weekly(?), Shepherd Express, Miller said "My initial target was Black and brown people, to help them understand how kombucha can help with issues like diabetes and gut health." Miller's targeting of minority communities was a common theme in the articles I found.

In a profile by a local Milwaukee TV station:

She admits kombucha is sometimes a hard sell in the black community.

"With Soul Brew, I am like how can I mix the worlds, make it delicious, make it approachable and try and educate individuals that would never do it... I think I represent the community in a way that they are able to see somebody that looks like them," Miller says.

Hopefully she had made inroads with black and brown communities but I haven't found any articles where this is addressed. Best of luck to her.

The first Soul Brew flavor I sampled, to review, that is, was BLM - Blackberry Lemon Mango.

I think this is also my first review to feature a photo taken with my new phone. Just look at all those extra megapixels!

The tea was light red and a tad hazy. There were plenty of bubbles inside. A sniff caught a strong tanginess with a nebulous fruitiness just behind. I think my nose also sniffed a bit of tea too.

My first sip revealed some hefty fizz followed by a lovely dose of tanginess. The fruit flavor was rather mild initially but grew as the brew warmed. I tasted mostly blackberry and lemon. This stuff had a real zip to it and my tongue was left with tangy bite marks on it. The lemon really came through on the finish.

This was excellent kombucha! If I had a gripe, it would be that it was just a bit overly fizzy. Still, I appreciated that the sweetness was kept in check even as it warmed to cellar temperature. It occurs to me that Miller takes a different approach from NessAlla. Most of the NessAlla brews I sampled had a sweet taste to them even if they didn't have a lot of added sugars. I think this is because they temper the tang and forego a lot of fizz.

Soul Brew, on the other hand, lets the acetic acid flow and offers bubbles aplenty. This kombucha leaned more towards the tangy and so had a better balance of tea and fruit.

Great tea but I've only seen it at the Co-op and they have only three flavors. Maybe these are all that Soul Brew offers in the bowels of winter.

My gut stirs just thinking about this stuff

I saw this stuff recently:

It inspired repulsion because Hormel chili is rather disgusting yet also a morbid curiosity of just how spicy a big company would dare make their product. Did they really make a niche product? Or is all that hyperbolic imagery on the label disguising that fact that it's not deadly hot and, in fact, aimed at your average consumer of Hormel chili who is perhaps looking for a little variety?

Rhiannon Giddens gets together with Justin Robinson once more

Rhiannon Giddens has reunited with former Carolina Chocolate Drops bandmate Justin Robinson for a new album called What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow that comes out in April. Giddens' website describes it as "an album of North Carolina fiddle and banjo music" and one of the album's songs, "Hook and Line" is out now.

Sounds mighty fine to my ears.

Jethro Tull does Tommy Dorsey?!

Today I learned that Jethro Tull's 1969 otune "Singing All Day" (a Benefit outtake?) uses the melody from "Swingin' On Nothin'", a song by jazz maestro Sy Oliver. Oliver appears on a version by Tommy Dorsey. Now, whether Ian Anderson was familiar with this version or another, I dunno.

 

Is Wisconsin particularly haunted?

I have been catching up on the last few issues of County Highway, "America’s Only Newspaper". As I noted previously, it's a very interesting paper but it generally avoids the Upper Midwest. That changed 3 issues ago with an article about Wisconsin supper clubs by Meaghan Garvey.

Read the opening line:

"It's been said that Wisconsin has more ghosts per square mile than any state in America..."

Who has said this? I have lived in Wisconsin for over 37 years and don't recall ever hearing this claim. Anyone ever heard this?

Regardless, it's a fine way to open a piece.

I appreciate the reference to the Rouse Simmons a couple sentences later, though. The article was illustrated with a few ads including a couple for Lehman's Supper Club and, upon seeing them, I immediately said to myself, "I know that one! I've been there!"

New bus service to the burbs

Madison Metro Transit (or should that be Madison's Metro Transit?) recently announced new bus service to Monona and Verona.

The service to Monona sees routes G and L losing their no stop zones along Monona Drive and Broadway while an hourly route 38 will go through the town's Civic Campus before heading to its eastern terminus, the Dutch Mill Park & Ride. Along the way it will pass by the Aldo Leopold Foundation and the Edna Taylor Conversation Park. Hopefully some folks can take advantage of the new service and go do some hiking and those lovely parks. Unfortunately, the 38 only run during the week so, if I want to take a hike at either of them, I'll still be biking or driving.

On the other hand, I can now take a bus to Viet Hoa to get my tom yum soup paste or grab an ice cream in Paradise or a loaf of Pan de Muerto at Monona Bakery and Eatery.

The new service to Verona is also, sadly, weekday only. The D2 route will continue on to Verona instead of terminating on McKee Road at Maple Grove. The article I have read, which seems to be an edited version of the Wisconsin State Journal one, which is paywalled, says: "Route D2, which currently provides peak hour service in the early morning and late afternoon, will expand to regular daytime service."

But this is not true - just look at the D2 schedule. It runs every 30 minutes all day, not just at peak hours. It would be nice to be able to take the bus to downtown Verona on the weekends but this extension of the D2 is for Epic employees, in the main.

A couple other Madison public transit items.

First, Steven Vance of Streetsblog Chicago took a ride on our BRT and wrote about it: "Taking a ride on Madison’s new (and quick) bus rapid transit line". Overall, he gained a positive view of our BRT system.

Finally, the city has released ridership data showing that it has increased over numbers from late 2023.

Madison screening for Separated

WUD Film down on campus will be screening UW-Madison alumnus Errol Morris' latest movie, Separated, later this month on the 27th as part of a series called "Social Cinema". It documents the first Trump administration's horrible policy of separating migrant families.

New IQ soon!

IQ has announced the release date for their latest album, Dominion. 

I went poking around Youtube for the teaser video and discovered that someone had posted an early mix of the song "No Dominion" a month ago.

It definitely sounds very IQ-y and also like it's missing some guitar overdubs. Between this and the teaser, I am wondering if Mike Holmes had eased back on the really heavy guitar sound. We shall find out on 28 March when the album is released.

SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)

Ooh! There's a documentary coming out next month about Sly and the Family Stone called SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius). Unfortunately, it looks like it won't get a theatrical run and will instead be available only on Hulu. I don't think we have Hulu anymore but will have to check on that. Look for it starting the 13th.

Kernza redux courtesy of Karben4

Later this month Karben4 will introduce a new beer - Wisconsin Kernza® Pub Ale. Kernza is a perennial wheatgrass that is more environmentally friendly than traditional grains used in beer such as barley and wheat. Madison Magazine has a piece on the brew.

The line that caught my eye was "To celebrate Wisconsin’s first barrel of sustainable beer..." I did a double take as I had some tasty beer brewed with Kernza over two years ago courtesy of Scott Manning at Vintage Brewing.

Robin Shepard published an informative piece at Isthmus in December 2022 on Kernza featuring Scottie as well as Bloom Bake Shop. It seems that Scottie and Vintage were responsible for "Wisconsin’s first barrel of sustainable beer".

Having said that, I am keen on trying Karben4's brew.

In the store of the doughnut king

Today I learned that's there is now a purveyor of doughnuts here in Madison called Level 5 Donuts. Madison Magazine reports that they are a pop-up company but will soon have a brick and mortar location. Somewhere on Atwood Avenue, apparently, but the article does not give an address. I look forward to trying one of their vegan doughnuts.

While I do not know what the name means, you bet your sweet ass that a certain King Crimson song was the first thing that came to mind when I saw it on the page. What Crimsony flavors could they offer? Vanilla Barks' Tongues in Chocolate? Eggless and Oreo Black? Latte Kudachai?

Roger Deakins, byways, and me

Earlier this week I made a very chilly walk over to the Athenaeum Center for Thought and Culture to check out the exhibition of Roger Deakins' photography. Deakins is one of the greatest cinematographers ever and has a country ton of classics to his name including Sid and Nancy, The Shawshank Redemption, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Skyfall, Blade Runner 2049 - the list goes on and on.

It was a really neat exhibition as I don't get to see many physical photographs these days, much less those blown up to 20"x30" with a wealth of detail to see. It's just a different experience from looking at a photo on your phone and zooming and repositioning.

I was immediately drawn to a photograph called "Sheepdog and Cow":

The road with the canine and bovine subjects is off to the right with a fence separating it from a field on the left. That's how I would have done it! I often put a path or way off to one side in my photographs such as this one:

I have the same photographic aesthetic as the great Roger Deakins. Ha!

Slipperman sighting?

I went to see a wonderful Brave Space performance a couple weeks back or so and, at one point, I was confronted by the troupe in a tent, of sorts.

As a Genesis fan, I wondered if a slubberdeguillion with squeaky feet had made its home at the Overture Center that afternoon.

Corks! R.I.P. Christopher Benjamin

 

What a decidedly dreadful day!

First it was Bob Uecker and then David Lynch and now Christopher Benjamin, a.k.a. - Henry Gordon Jago.

I am going to bust out some Jago & Litefoot this weekend and revel in his prolix palaver and confounding confabulations.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 120 - Postlude: The bucke verteth!

(Read entry #120.)

 

My brother died early one spring and for reasons I cannot explain this song became associated in my mind with that dreadful day. It's such a lovely, joyous song about blooming meadows and newborn lambs (and farting billy goats) but its contrast with my sadness just hit me in some way so that it never fails to bring memories of my brother flooding back.

Ever since he left us, spring has been about those opposing feelings. The joy of warmer weather and life beginning anew mixing with grief and loss.

Warm milk - R.I.P. David Lynch

First news that Bob Uecker had died appeared and then it wasn't long before word came down that David Lynch had joined him. So many great memories of enjoying his work. I think his films fostered a deep love of the uncanny in me. There's a nice tribute by Brian Tallerico up at rogerebert.com.

As far as I can remember, I first heard of Lynch when I was in college from a friend who was a bit older than me. We were hanging out at his apartment at Johnson and Bassett and he remarked that he was excited for Lynch's new TV show, On the Air, to debut. Upon learning that I was not familiar with Lynch, he went on to extol the virtues of Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, etc.

Another great memory is binge watching Twin Peaks while I was house sitting for a friend out in rural Edgerton. A shiver went down my spine as the Giant intoned, "It's happening again..." I was perplexed yet couldn't help but be intrigued when the horse appeared to Sarah. Surely it was all those scenes in the Black Lodge that gave me such an affinity for the uncanny.

It was freezing outside when the Frau and I went to Chicago to see Inland Empire at The Music Box. If memory serves, it was on Super Bowl Sunday with the Bears playing the Colts. The Kennedy Expressway was as dead as I'd ever seen it and we made great time.

Watching Lost Highway at Cinematheque here in Madison a couple years back was just fantastic. I got to hear the soundtrack as it was meant to be heard for the first time and it was incredibly unnerving.

Tone Madison published a nice article a couple years back that detailed Lynch's affiliation with Tandem Press here in Madison called "The art life of David Lynch in Madison".

I raise my coffee mug to him! Got a light?

Gone! R.I.P. Bob Uecker

A Milwaukee original.

When I heard the news, I immediately recalled listening to a Brewers-Expos game back in the late 90s when Uecker related a lengthy tale about a previous visit by the Expos to County Stadium when their showers failed. 10 glorious minutes of improv.

Phil Collins, pots, and a whisk

This is How you never get older pic.twitter.com/sdJtq4TQpg

— Enezator (@Enezator) January 14, 2025

The Corona Diaries Vol. 120: Mixing memory and desire

(Listen to the prelude.)

(late April 2024)

It wasn’t long after March had given way to April that we got a snowstorm. Nature was not quite ready to breed lilacs out of the dead land.

Since the temperature hovered around freezing, we ended up with a real slushy mess out there. Still, I rather enjoyed it as I love snow and knew that I’d be sweating and uncomfortable in 80+ degree temps soon enough. Besides, I don’t drive to work, so I could let the bus drivers deal with my commute.

Within a week the snow was gone and we had a lovely sunny day for a solar eclipse. While we weren’t in the path of total blackout, Madison would see something like 85% of that refulgent orb in the sky obscured. Some co-workers and I wandered over to the south side of the building to catch a glimpse as it started. I was equipped with a shiny new pair of solar glasses that I had bought last month on my visit to the planetarium. After putting them on and gazing upwards, I felt a bit like I was in Sunshine staring at the sun from that viewing room.

I saw this:

Or rather my phone did. But that is a fair representation of what I was able to see through my glasses.

A co-worker without special spectacles did the old pinhole trick.

It was rather creepy just how dark it got at midday and I can imagine that it was very scary for my ancestors to witness this without friendly astronomers around to explain what was happening. 

Another co-worker who had a much more expensive phone caught this image as close to totality as we got:

Someone remarked that they thought that the birds that would normally be seen on the parking ramp were missing. Perhaps all those Mourning doves decided to lay low as the sun dimmed. I wondered if Piper was reacting to the eclipse. More than likely she was sleeping and hadn’t noticed. Otherwise she was simply annoyed that the big heat source outside the window had been turned down.

********

Just a few days later I was to be found getting set to head down to The Big Easy. The purpose of the trip was ostensibly to visit The National WWII Museum but, as you can imagine, more hijinks ensued.

It was one I had hoped to take with my brother but it never came to fruition. My father was a huge World War II history buff and the apple didn’t fall far from the tree in my brother's case. Although I am fairly well-versed in the history of that conflict – certainly better than most people – the apple fell a bit further afield in my case. I am not able to give precise casualty numbers for both sides at the Battle of Guadalcanal, for example, while my father and brother could. There were many times when I was watching a war movie with my brother and he’d note that the tanks onscreen had not yet been introduced at the time being portrayed.

“There were no Panther tanks when Germany invaded Russia in 1941!” he’d rant before helpfully concluding, “They weren’t introduced until ’43!”

This is the level of history nerdiness that I had to contend with in my fraternal relationship.

I really don’t recall why we never took the trip. There may have been financial reasons or perhaps we were just too lazy to actually organize things. In addition to not visiting the museum, I found a story that my brother had been writing that lay unfinished amongst his things when we were clearing his stuff out of his apartment.

Vita brevis.

After my brother died, I took the adage carpe diem to heart. More to heart, anyway. Do it before it’s too late. Putting something off more than likely means it will never happen.

At some point, I broached the subject of the museum visit with a couple of friends, T and P, whom I got to know through my brother and who are also big World War II buffs. Together they formed a triumvirate of history nerds who could spend hours arguing over the strategy of German General Heinz Guderian during Operation Barbarossa or discourse on the effectiveness (or lack of it) of the Japanese kamikaze pilots. What better people to go to The National WWII Museum with? We hemmed and hawed for a bit but finally decided we’d take the trip this spring. And so plans were laid. P, T, and T’s wife, L, would join me on the Official Memorial Trip for my brother.

L is not particularly interested in World War II history but my brother was her companion on the couch to watch many a tennis tournament.

It was also a trip I'd hope to take with my Frau but her chronic pain issues continued to plague her and hoofin' it around The Big Easy was out of the question, sadly. While I understood her decision, it was still a great disappointment.

********

We were to fly out of O’Hare on a Thursday morning and so the plan was that I’d drive down to T and L’s place in suburban Chicago on Wednesday after work and spend the night as would P. Wednesday evening rolls around, I throw my luggage into my car, say goodbye to my Frau, and I am off. I make a quick stop at my credit union’s drive thru where I get some cash.

The interstate was fairly busy as the stretch between Madison and Janesville gets a lot of use at rush hour. About 10 miles outside of town the podcast I was listening to suddenly stopped. I glanced at my phone and saw that I had an incoming call. The number looked vaguely familiar – I thought that it was my credit union. What could they possibly want? Well, they’d have to wait as I was driving.

I made pretty good time and got to T and L’s place just as dinner was being served. The four of us spent the evening chatting away and P, who has a 3D printer that is never idle, presented me with this hideous Cthulhu dice tower:

Instead of rolling my dice the old-fashioned way and chancing some kind of unnameable carpal tunnel injury that only people who roll a lot of dice get, I just put them in the back of Cthulhu’s head and they tumble down into the tray. I am sure to fail every sanity check.

The next morning we had a little breakfast, gathered our luggage, and called an Uber (or was it a Lyft?) to get us to the airport. L watched the vehicle’s progress on her phone. At one point, it just vanished from the map and the little messages saying our ride was X minutes away stopped. The driver apparently decided that they didn’t want to drive us to the airport after all. The worrying thing is that the app never gave an alert that the driver had bailed on us. Luckily L had been keeping a close eye on the map. So she ordered up a new ride.

With the new Uber just a few minutes away, we start chatting about the upcoming changes in travel rules, e.g. – the requirement to have a Real ID in order to board a plane. I remarked that I had gotten one and pulled my wallet out to show folks my driver’s license bedecked with holograms and other funky mechanisms to prevent ne'er-do-wells from forging fake IDs.

I was quite surprised to find that my license wasn’t in my wallet.

Immediately I looked in my car thinking that I perhaps didn’t put it back in my wallet after my stop at the credit union and that it had fallen into a crack somewhere. My search proved fruitless and then it hit me. I can only imagine the look on my face when it dawned on me that my credit union surely called me yesterday because I had left my ID in the drive-thru teller machine’s scanner.

Oh *$@#!!!!

Missing a plane was not a big deal but missing this trip was unthinkable.

I threw my bags into my car and told my friends that I’d see them later. My brother was no doubt looking up and shaking his head at this point.

To say I was pissed off at myself on the drive home was like saying Chicago had a little fire back in 1871. Still, I somehow managed to either drive at a reasonable speed or just not encounter any state troopers. Getting pulled over without a driver’s license would have only piled Pelion upon Ossa.

My first stop upon getting back to Madison was the credit union where someone kindly returned my driver’s license to me. Not long afterwards I was home and walking in the door where my Frau was quite surprised to see me. I explained what had happened or rather how I had f*cked up. Then I set out on the Internet and scrambled to find another flight. My brother was no doubt laughing at this point.

About 3 hours later my Frau dropped me off at the airport here in Madison. While MSN is nowhere near as large as O’Hare, it was rather busy and fairly hectic, as things go for a small regional airport. The security line was jam packed but soon enough I was on a plane bound for Chicago where I’d catch a flight to New Orleans.

Once at O’Hare, I made my way to opposite end of the terminal with steely-eyed determination. Nothing short of an act of God would prevent me from missing that flight. I texted my friends with an update on my status and, in return, got pictures of them wandering the French Quarter and relaxing at a tavern enjoying refreshing cocktails without me.

“We wandered the French Quarter…”

“…wish you were here…”

My plane touched ground at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport at around 9:30 that night. I grabbed my luggage and stepped outside to find that it wasn’t blazingly hot yet was still much warmer than home. We had an Airbnb across the river from downtown in the Algiers Point neighborhood which made for a moderately lengthy cab ride. Not much to see on the way there in the darkness and the cabbie wasn’t very talkative. I arrived at the house around 10:30.

This was my first Airbnb and I found that it was a nice place.

The decorations were chosen for tourists like us with Mardi Gras colors strewn about, a lot of fleur-de-lis’s, and all the symbols of the city represented including jazz and shrimp.

There was a porch out back that overlooked a small yard while a freeway bridge lingered in the distance although I wasn’t sure which freeway. It was nice to be able enjoy the outdoors in shorts once again. The neighborhood was quiet but it was Thursday. Perhaps all the drunken debauchery would start tomorrow night.

My friends were happy to see me, doubly so because they had had a few drinks and were in a jolly mood. They were attempting to order a pizza but we discovered that there were no pizzerias nearby on this side of the river and the delivery areas of the others in close enough proximity stopped at the shores of the Mighty Mississip.

Oops.

Their munchies went unsated and they learned their lesson: go easy on the Sazeracs unless you absolutely positively have a food source at hand.

And so we sat around outside and chatted in the cool night air. I relayed to them my hastily revamped travel plans and they, in turn, chronicled their strolls about town that day. Also, we talked a bit about tomorrow’s itinerary. We were not far from the Algiers Ferry Terminal so we decided that’s how we’d get across the river and to not hire any taxis. Any taxis with wheels, that is.

My experience with New Orleans until that point consisted solely of driving through it on I10 back in 2002 when a friend and I were on our way to Breaux Bridge, about 2 hours to the west, to attend the crawfish festival there. I knew folks who’d been there, of course, and had heard tell of the fun to be had there. Another friend had attended a conference in New Orleans many years ago and returned to Madison with a black eye, the result of an encounter his face had with one of the city’s sidewalks. While he fessed up to having drank a Hurricane or 3, he noted extenuating circumstances: New Orleans’ sidewalks were in dreadful shape.

I knew the typical northerner kind of stuff: it’s on the Mississippi and has a major port, the New Orleans Saints are the football team, it was part of the Louisiana Purchase. There’s Cajun food and music, jazz, Hurricane Katrina, Bourbon Street, old-timey streetcars – you know, the usual stuff everyone knows.

My goals for the trip were rather simple. Enjoy the company of my friends, honor my brother’s memory by visiting the World War II museum, sample local beer, and eat as much gumbo as humanly possible. It’s what my brother would have wanted.

We awoke the next morning, showered, and were out the door to catch a ferry for downtown. Algiers Point had an odd mix of homes. Not the architecture, necessarily, but rather condition. Our Airbnb had obviously been renovated recentlyish but there were other homes on the block that were in less than ideal shape.

As you can see, the street on our block was pretty rough. So were the sidewalks.

I could now fully grok how my friend had tripped and fallen. They would be fun traversing in the dark. I presumed/hoped that there were no wheelchair users or old folks who used walkers living in the area.

We ran across an empty lot that still had the tile floor and mosaic entryway of the building that had been there.

A disused commercial building sat uneasily next to a church.

But there were also stretches of houses in good condition that made you forget the blighted blocks. For example, there were beautiful homes such as these that I assume are in a French colonial style.

The flora provided a lot of wonderful sights and smells with a lot of trees and bushes that were unfamiliar to me such as this tree with the helix trunk.

I recognized the sight and smell of magnolia trees but we wandered through spots that were sweetly scented and I would bend down to take a whiff of the flowers responsible without any idea what variety they were.

We discovered The Crown and Anchor Pub which had a TARDIS at the entrance.

There was a coffeeshop a block or two away from the pub, Congregation Coffee, and it became our first stop in the morning for the rest of the trip. Well, maybe not our last day in town but definitely the rest.

I got a cup of joe and a couple bags of coffee to take home including their coffee/chicory blend.

On the way out, one of the feline denizens of the neighborhood ambled on by. I tried my best to get it to come to me for some pets but it ignored the Yankee tourist.

We discovered that there is a Louis Armstrong memorial at the ferry terminal. Satchmo has a lock on public transit terminals in this city, it seems.

I felt like I had come full circle having seen his house in Chicago last year on my Bronzeville tour and now here I was in the city of his birth.

Algiers Point was, as far as I could see, a Janus-like place. Dilapidated houses where nature was slowly reclaiming the land stood next to gorgeous homes in excellent repair and with well-manicured yards. Coffeeshops are usually a sign of gentrification and Congregation appeared to draw a typical middle-class crowd. On the other hand, The Crown and Anchor looked to be something of a dive bar.

I wondered how much of the neighborhood’s condition was due to Hurricane Katrina. As it was, Algiers Point seemed to be a mix of working- and middle-class residents and majority white. The owner of the Airbnb had left a note indicating which parts of the neighborhood we ought to avoid at night but I didn’t see any spots on our morning walk which looked particularly sketchy.

We paid our fares, boarded the ferry, and were soon off to the other side of the river.

********

Bonus photo. I may have used this one already but I ran across it recently and it never fails to make me smile. This photo reminds me of my grandmother and all of my great aunts.

 

 (On to the vernal postlude.)