The place I love to be around

My ladyfriend and I have been to Chicago a few times in the past couple months or so. It has been wonderful to once again have a companion with whom to explore the city and all it has to offer. Well, some of what it has to offer, anyway. The cool bits.

Back in June we went to see Theater of the Mind. The lady was already in the city spending time with friends who lived on the far north side so I took the bus from Madison to Union Station where we'd meet as she was going to take Metra downtown. It was grey and cloudy as the bus dropped me off on Jackson Blvd. with the iconic Sears Towers just a couple blocks to the east.

The older I get the less I want to drive and so taking the bus was really nice. When I wasn't watching the scenery, I got some reading in and never had to worry about Chicago traffic. Once I found my ladyfriend, our first stop was our usual Loop lunch spot, Elephant & Castle, a chain of English-themed pub & restaurants. There are two in downtown Chicago and we tend to hit the one on Adams which is half a block from La Salle and on this day this is where our ultimate destination was located. Plus going there gives me a chance to walk by The Rookery where my grandfather worked.

Going in we found that there was soccer, er, football on every TV. Shocking, I know.

Being a beer lover, I wonder about the paucity of beer from the British Isles on the menu. Guinness, London Pride, and Speckled Hen was all, methinks. I don't expect any Black Country Ales or any of the other fine brews I sampled in England last year but those Iron Maiden brews are tasty and available here in the States. The Trooper, at least, is fairly common.

A creature of habit, my ladyfriend ordered the meat pie flight just like always.

The joy on her face when it was placed before her made me so happy to be with that woman. Not just at that table in that restaurant but to be her boyfriend. I adore how little things make her ecstatically mirthful. The lineaments of her face seem to have been permanently altered to give her a smile. I love how upbeat and positive she is, how she always stands at the ready to explore and try something new, even if we eat at the same place beforehand.

We crossed the river on La Salle. There's Marina Towers and behind them stands the former IBM building where my parents met. I think that's the Aqua in the middle in blue. Just across the river was our destination, the Reid Murdoch Building, someplace I don't believe I'd ever been previously.

Theater of the Mind is hard to describe. Interactive performance art? Created by David Byrne, he of Talking Heads fame, and his Frau, Mala Gaonkar, it's a journey to the center of your mind guided by your late pal, David. The ad copy notes that the show was inspired by neuroscience and we learn on our journey that our senses are easily fooled and that memory is not as accurate and encompassing as we sometimes believe it to be. With such imperfect tools, maybe our sense of self, our identities, are houses built on sand.

To begin, our group was ushered into a chamber of (not quite 32) doors. In the middle was a miniature house and our guide opened its roof revealing nametags for us. Once we had all assumed an identity, our guide then chose a seemingly random door and we made our way into the next room. It proved to be a viewing parlor at a funeral home where our friend David's casket sat before us atop a bier which was, in fact, a piano.

Ere long the casket is opened...from the inside. David emerges to greet us. Our David was played by Kelli Simpkins whose mild androgyny seemed a perfect fit for such a performance. Clad in a cream colored suit that gave off strong Stop Making Sense vibes, David reminisced a bit before an introductory speech that prepared us for the rest of the show.

Taking a seat at the piano, David introduced us to the tritone and a weird aural illusion whereby two notes are played that some people hear as ascending while others hear as descending. No wonder this deceptive musical combination was called The Devil's Interval. The parlor had a checkered floor and David demonstrated a simple optical illusion with it before ushering us down a red hallway that looked not wholly unlike the airlock in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I felt a bit of the unheimlich at this point as it was a Dave in that scene too.

(All photos are from the show's website. I think.)

I think the red light was chosen not only as a contrast to the white light we were accustomed to but also to stimulate our night vision for the next room which was the inside of David's cranium. Minus the grey matter. Here we learned about afterimages which not only continued the theme of our senses being imperfect but also stood as a metaphor for our lives, our construKtion of memories. The people we meet, the places we go, and the things we do all leave afterimages when they are over or exit our lives and our brains construct memories from them.

But not every demonstration was about fooling our sense of sight or hearing.

At the night club we sampled what we later learned are called miracle berries. Then we are given lemon wedges and, instead of a big burst of mouth-puckering sour, they tasted sweet. These berries mess with your tastebuds something fierce.

The show moves from your senses to how your brain works and the role memories play. We go backstage and David describes, if memory serves, a job he had that involved watching security cameras. And so we watched a scene on a TV of a street. Every several seconds the screen would change to black very briefly and the scene would return. But something within it had changed. Although we witnessed a few dozen changes, I only caught a handful.

When you enter David's childhood home memory takes center stage. We stepped into a kitchen where everything is huge - the chairs are 10 feet tall plus, the counters tower over you. It's all the perspective of a young child. And then we were led to the attic where David talked a bit about his childhood and then we sat down and donned VR glasses. Although I had used them previously, it was genuinely odd to "inhabit" the body of someone else here.

We thoroughly enjoyed Theater of the Mind. Not only was it fun to wander around a large set and have my senses fooled, but it provided a lot of food for thought. The whole thing was quite Phildickian - as if we were replicants discovering that our memories aren't even ours. I was reminded of the Satanic panic of the 1980s & 90s when thousands of people "remembered" and made claims of ritual abuse (and even blood sacrifice) that were wholly without merit. On a more personal level, I thought of instances when my childhood memories were contradicted by friends and also the many, many times I failed to remember events that my ex-wife brought up in arguments.

For about a year prior to her filing for divorce and for a couple weeks after she did so, my ex-wife reproached me many, many times about incidents that I could rarely, if ever, recall. After countless accusations and loaded questions, I came to the conclusion that her Torquemada-like behavior was a mixture of lies and confabulation, of spite and misremembering.

My lady and I caught the El to Jefferson Park where we took a rideshare ride back north to her friends' place. As we waited, I glanced at the Gale Street Inn across the street, recalling that it had reopened and that I would like to go there sometime to see what's changed. Would the food match my memories of it?

Back at the northern edge of the city, I got to meet my lady's friends for the first time after hearing about them for months. We were treated to dinner before hitting the road for Madison and I had some extremely tasty beef brisket smoked by our host.

Two or three weeks later my ladyfriend and I returned to Chicago. A cousin of mine from the Bay area was in town to celebrate his recent retirement and so there was a shindig at the home of a couple other cousins of mine. In fact, just about everyone there was a cousin except for the significant others of cousins.

Everyone had a nice time. My family liked my new ladyfriend and she liked them. She got a laugh when one of my cousins complained that another had just spoiled the ending of Death of a Salesman. Ha!

Sadly my mother was unable to attend the soiree and finally meet the new woman in my life. However, this was remedied the following weekend as we went down again. This time she'd meet my mother and we would go on a neighborhood tour of North Lawndale with Dilla Thomas.

We arrived at my mother's place with plenty of time to spare and so we went and ate breakfast in Jefferson Park. We sat around and chatted for a long time after we'd paid the bill which I took as a good sign. My mother and ladyfriend got along well.

However, the time came when we had to give up our table and begin a leisurely drive to the west side. Since we had the time to spare, I drove us through the neighborhood where I lived as a kid and my lady got to see the house I grew up in. Looking at it from the street, I thought about being a young child and pictured the kitchen as I did then with everything being so tall a la Theater of the Mind. Just how reliable were my childhood memories?

North Lawndale is a west side neighborhood and the tour bus was to pick us up at the Douglass Park field house. We arrived a tad early and wandered the magnificent field house which was built in the 20s or 30s. It reminded me a lot of the elementary schools I attended in Chicago except that they weren't adorned with reliefs of mermen.

We discovered that the auditorium, which was more like a ballroom, was extremely well air conditioned. Also, that it was gorgeous, despite my inability to get a decent photo.

Thankfully my ladyfriend is a better photographer than me.

Just look at the detail of the ceiling.

What seemed to be a dining area off of the auditorium continued the nautical relief theme.

Not only did the park have a pond, but also a rather sizeable swimming pool.

The basement is an arts center with a large area for folks to practice their painting skills.

Indeed, many had and, looking around, I discovered the park's namesake as there were many portraits of him adorning the walls such as this one.

His wife Anna also got some love.

Before we knew it, the tour's start time was almost upon us so we went outside and took our seats on the bus. Unfortunately the air conditioning was severely compromised and we were in for a sweaty ride.

Dilla explained that the park was originally named after Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas - not wholly opposed to slavery - but was rechristened in honor of Anna and Frederick Douglass - definitely 100% against slavery. He noted that it was the simplest park renaming in Chicago history as it required only the addition of a single S.

The tour began with Dilla noting the Central European and Jewish character of the neighborhood in its early days as the bus stopped in front of an old Turner Hall.

While I've known that Sears was a Chicago company since I was a kid, I'd never been to the old Sears Roebuck campus in North Lawndale which is now, sadly, boarded up.

Across the street was a disused colonnaded pergola that was part of a large garden that the company  built as a place for employees to relax and take a break from the retail grind.

Dilla explained that the famous Sears catalogue and the company's policy of cash on delivery was a boon for black shoppers who often found themselves excluded from stores.

We also got to see the original Sears Tower - not shown.

I didn't know that Allstate insurance started as a subsidiary of Sears until we were parked outside their abandoned headquarters building. 

As we were leaving the Sears campus, Dilla pointed out a warehouse that had been taken over by the Chicago Police Department. It turned out to be the infamous facility where dozens of people were detained and/or tortured under the aegis of former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge. I had heard about this stain on Chicago's history but had never been by the infamous site.

After driving for a bit more we found ourselves outside the Dr. King Legacy Apartments which were on the site of the apartment that Martin Luther King lived at during his time in the city.

It was really neat to see this site where MLK lived in my hometown as it made for a nice bookend to seeing the house he and his family inhabited when they lived in Montgomery, Alabama as well as all of the civil right sites and museums there.

The final stop of the tour was a bit outside of North Lawndale - the Garfield Park Field House with its golden dome.

The façade was stunning.

The place was built in 1928 and was equally gorgeous on the inside. (Though not bigger.)

There were several reliefs on the walls of the entry hall. Not shown are the ones lauding the road building prowess of Illinois. They, perhaps, haven't aged as well as the others considering all of traffic jams and road construction that plague the highways of the Chicago area.

My only gripe about the place was that the air conditioning was down. D'oh. It just wasn't to be a cool tour.

Well, soon enough it was time to jump back on the bus and head back to Douglass Park. It had been another very interesting tour with Dilla full of great architecture as well as enlightening Chicago history whether it be about the park system, commerce, etc. or the darker sides of the city's past such as the torture scandal, redlining, disinvestment, and so on.

We drove back north and I decided that we'd give Gale Street Inn: The Next Generation a try.

The joint seemed a bit more upscale than the version I was used to and I felt a bit underdressed in shorts and a t-shirt. But no one minded. The menu seemed a bit less like a yeoman's steak/ribs/chop house, although those were still options, and it seemed an effort was made to appeal to a more discerning, shall we say, palate with fancy seasonal salad dressings, for example. I do recall that the more workmanlike chopped salad was no longer on the menu. (Or am I misremembering? Damn you David Byrne and your existential uncertainty!) I am not complaining, mind you. I mean, how could I complain with their French onion soup being amongst the best to ever go down my throat?

They did not skimp on the cheese and the broth was quite tasty. I swore I caught a touch of wine in there. Mmm...great stuff!

We dropped my mother off at her place after dinner and hit the Kennedy. I think she and my ladyfriend got along well. I was pleased that their first meeting went smoothly and that we all got to see some sights and get a large dose each of Chicago history.

On the way home we made a quick stop in Schaumburg at Deli 4 You where I grabbed a bag of snacks for my co-workers.

Maple syrup and paprika seemed like an incongruous combination so I went with it. Upon sampling I determined that either they needed less maple flavoring or more paprika or both. Still, I didn't let the unbalanced taste stop me from indulging.

You can't paint the blues without Primer*

It had been a while since I'd seen John Primer perform but didn't realize that the last time I did was way back in 2009. Where does the time go?

There really isn't a bad seat in the house at The North Street Cabaret and I was up front stage left.

Primer is one of few remaining Chicago blues connections to all the greats that had so much influence on rock music. In his 80s now, he came to Chicago in the early 1960s and got his start at the Maxwell Street Market before getting a regular gig at the legendary Theresa's Lounge where he played with Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and on and on.

Just after 8 the band stepped onto the stage. The harp player, Steve Bell, strapped on his ammo belt of harmonicas, drummer Lenny Media took a seat behind his kit, and bassist Melvin Smith strapped on his 5-string. And, of course, Primer grabbed one of his guitars and they started playing the blues.

Speaking of blues, someone needs to write a song for Willow who is at my feet meowing. Something like the "Got No Churu Blues".

The treats are gone, Skippy

And kibble just won't do

That little dish is empty

I've got the no Churu blues

Poor cat.

I just found out that Bell is the son of the legendary Corey Bell. No wonder he was so effin' good. Everyone was great, truth be told. I really loved Media's playing. He knew exactly when to throw in these perfect, short fills. Just wonderful. Sorry I didn't get a good photo of him in action.

The night was a mix of classics such as "Mannish Boy" and "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man" and newer tunes - "Chicago" and "Tough Times" come to mind, the latter having been (co-?)written by his daughter. I am not very familiar with Primer's catalogue and am struggling to recall song names but can tell you that there were more than a couple times when the band just hit a groove and it was absolutely sublime. Primer and Bell traded solos while the rhythm section held things down for them. Simply fantastic.

A woman behind me was dancing and, although the rest of us weren't quite so animated, everyone was having a good time. I even saw a smattering of folks younger than me.

Ooh! They played "Across the Universe" as the opener of the second set. Neat! Also for the second set I sat next to Primer's granddaughter. I chatted with her a little bit and she was such a nice woman. And, improbably, she lives in the Madison area. She told me that she had gone to college and was a poet but that she was looking to go back to school. Best of luck to her.

The show ended with a spirited "Got My Mojo Working" which was awesome.

It was a great night and I see that Primer returns to The North Street Cabaret on 27 February. I plan to be there.

*I stole this from his website.

An ironic name?: Cuda Wianki by Browar Błonie

So here I am once more with a beer from Polish brewery Browar Błonie's Polish folklore series. This one was purchased in Chicago last month - Andy's Deli on Milwaukee Avenue, if I recall correctly.

A wianki is a Polish floral wreath. From my experience, they're worn on your head though I suppose you could hang one on your wall or wear it on another part of your anatomy. This beer's name, Cuda Wianki, translates to something like Miracles of the Wreaths or Miracles and Wreaths. I am not sure what this is supposed to mean so let me look it up...

I see that there's a restaurant in Poland with this name...Oh! Wiktionary says that it is a colloquial expression meaning "something unusual, unique, and overly fancy". Interesting.

The label indicated it was an unfiltered pale lager and I suppose the unfiltered part is uncommon, if not exactly unique or overly fancy. Perhaps the name is meant to be ironic. Speaking of the label, it is gorgeous, abounding with cerulean flowers. The English translations on the bottle don't give away much in the way of details about the ingredients. There's water, barley malt, hops, and yeast. What kind of malt? What kind of hops? Only The Cień knows.

My pour produced a small, white head that consisted of big bubbles like soda pop. It went away quickly and successfully eluded my camera as you can see. The piwo was a hazy gold hue but I was able to see some bubbles inside. It smelled wonderful with a goodly amount of bread along with moderate honeyed sweetness and a touch of hay from the hops. What I'd expect from a Euro pale lager. Maybe something more floral if Polish hops had been used but that didn't seem to be the case.

The first sip revealed a medium-light body without much fizziness. There was a little bit of bread that wasn't accompanied by much in the way of sweetness. The hops took on a herbal aspect on my tongue. Despite the mellow hops flavor and seeming lack of fizz, there was a firm astringency. On the swallow a mild grainy taste was quickly supplanted by the hops which took on a spicy flavor to complement the herbal taste. Not a bitterness bomb, by any means, but the finish had just enough of it to make for a crisp and fairly dry denouement.

Cuda Wianki was OK. I think it needed a more pronounced malt flavor though I did really enjoy the brisk hoppiness. It was a fine brew to refresh me after work and, at 5% A.B.V., it stimulated my appetite.

Junk food paring: Also purchased at Andy's was a bag of Polish snacks that paired perfectly with Cuda Wianki. They were like Gardetto's rye chips but loaded with artificial kielbasa flavor and shaped like biscotti. Ciesz się posiłkiem!

Stay off the Yahara River in early November

The Dave Matthews Band will be in town for a show on 4 November so put those canoes and kayaks away until they're safely out of town.

"The Sarge"??

One of my great uncles worked for Marvin Glass and Associates in Chicago where he started as a model maker for the toy design company before working his way up. The toys I recall the best that the company was responsible for are Simon, Operation, Lite Brite, and Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, though they came up with countless more.

Several years ago a family member alerted me to a book about Marvin Glass in which my great uncle was mentioned. I'd never seen a copy until now.

I've been skimming the book, reading about my great uncle, mostly, but I have learned about many toys I was unfamiliar with as well as that the company was responsible for the arcade game Journey featuring the band whose "Don’t Stop Believin'" was featured in the final scene of The Sopranos. Sadly, I also learned about a mass shooting at their offices in 1976 when a disgruntled designer killed 3 and wounded 2.

The sidebar about my great uncle notes he was known as "The Sarge" for his no nonsense approach to managing the designers.

I had never heard that nickname before but do recall him as being mild-mannered but also not afraid to speak his mind. Plus he always gave me $100 bills at Christmas and, when I was very young, I was allowed into the basement at his house where there were piles of toys that his company had designed and I was allowed to take whatever I wanted.

Since his death I've heard several stories about him and have come to understand him as a very generous person who prioritized family. When I was a young man he told me that it was fine to sow your oats in your 20s but, by 30, I should start moving into a career and, essentially, start being a responsible adult - advice that I followed. Largely, anyway.

GENER-AY-SHUN!

Earlier this week I went down to Chicago to see Pavement. Finally!

I think I got into them a bit after Wowee Zowee was released but it took me 30 years to go see them. Better late than never. They played here in Madison at the Barrymore in 1994 but I don't think they returned after that and instead stuck to Milwaukee and Chicago. So, back in the spring when I saw the announcement that they'd be at The Salt Shed come summer, I figured I'd better go as none of us are getting any younger.

I reserved a parking spot via ParkChirp but the ramp's scanner rejected my code. Oh well. I will never use them again. I parked and then went and grabbed some dinner at a little Mexican place by Halsted and Scott. The chicken quesadillas were tasty.

It was a perfect evening for an outside show with a temp in the mid-70s when I arrived at The Salt Shed. The outdoor area - the Fairgrounds - was a nice spot. There were a few vendors selling food and schwag towards the back while a handful of small sections of bleacher seats lined part of the wall of the Shed for those who preferred a seat without paying a premium to hang with the sophistos on the deck above.

There was a fair amount of space up near the front so I made my way to the bar nearest the stage for a brew. A comely young woman greeted me, "Hello, friend." I felt like I'd been transported back to the 1930s and that she'd tell me Pavement was the bee's knees. Not surprisingly, a sawbuck won't get you a beer at The Salt Shed. I ordered a Della, a Kölsch(-Style Ale) from Old Irving Brewing which was $11. Uff da!

Refreshing libation in hand, I found a spot not too far from the stage for the opening band, Nap Eyes. Hailing from Canada, this group of 20-somethings reminded me a little bit of Pavement here, a tad of Silversun Pickups there. Despite the songs feeling a bit undercooked, they were good overall. For their part, the band seemed thrilled to be opening for Pavement.

I returned to the bar for another tasty treat and grabbed a Pils from Dovetail. It was just swell. Expensive but at least they had good beer on tap. Wandering back from whence I had come, I found that my spot had been filled in so I settled for the nearest opening as close to the front as I could get. About half an hour after Nap Eyes had finished, Pavement stepped onto the stage.

Stephen Malkmus got things going with the two-note chiming of "Grounded" and I got very excited as a 30 year dream was finally being fulfilled. Spiral Stairs was grinning as was Mark Ibold and the pair were in good spirits the entire night while Bob Nastanovich seemed to be gearing up for mischief. Touring keyboardist Rebecca Cole had a smile on her face and looked to be ready for a good time. Steve West had a more serious look but that's drummers for ya. I think in all of the concert videos I've seen, he has looked like he was intensely concentrating.

Not having looked at any setlists, I was curious if they'd avoid Crooked Rain Crooked Rain for the most part but "Gold Soundz" was played early and followed up by a great "Silence Kid" featuring Nastanovich on cowbell. The show touched on all of the band's albums along with some non-album tracks thrown in for good measure. 

When they started "AT & T" I heard a blood curdling scream to my left. Turning to look at the source of the sound, I saw a woman falling onto her companion gripped by elation. I cannot recall the last time I witnessed someone so incredibly thrilled to hear a particular song at a show. Once the tune was done, she yelled "Thank you for playing my favorite song!". "Fight This Generation" was great and afterwards Spiral Stairs looked over at Malkmus and commented that he didn't say "generation" right and proceeded to enunciate it with an exaggerated tone. This prompted a group of women behind me to do the same. They sounded like the woman from Citizen Kane who says "Charlie Kane" at one point in the film. Is it Susan? Was it a New York accent?

While I was hoping to hear "Transport Is Arranged", I did not. But they did play a couple Terror Twilight outtakes - "The Hexx" and "Harness Your Hopes", which were both great. Spiral Stairs got to step out on "Date W/IKEA" and, unexpectedly, "Painted Soldiers", a song I adore. Also unexpected was a slow jam on "Stairway to Heaven". When Malkmus started scratching out the melody, I thought, "Am I hearing what I think I'm hearing?" It was sloppy and different lyrics got thrown in and it was just glorious.

"Unfair" is the song that got me into Pavement and so, when they started playing it, I kind of went bonkers. But, having gone solo, I didn't have anyone to fall onto. It was great! The whole show was great. The band were in good spirits, smiling and goofing around, and the vibe in the audience was fantastic and I should be so lucky to have it at every concert I go to. There was the "AT & T" lover, the women shouting "Generation!", and Nastanovich grabbing a woman just offstage and dancing with her during "We Dance".  Also thousands of people shouting "No big hair!" People just seemed to be having a good time and the whole night just had a great, joyous vibe.

A couple different people recorded the show on video and have put everything up on Youtube.

The Highlanders sowed their seeds where exactly?: Zasiali Górale by Browar Błonie

My introduction to Polish craft brewery Browar Błonie's folklore brews was highly successful. And so when I was at a Polish grocery store in Chicago back in May and saw more of the series I snagged a few of them. At the check out, the Polish lady at the register said in her accented English that these were some very good piwos. That pretty lady has good taste.

This wheat beer's name, Zasiali Górale, apparently translates to "Sowed by Highlanders". Now, when I think of the Polish Highlands, I think of the Carpathian Mountains and gentlemen with big, bushy mustaches, not amber fields of wheat. Perhaps it's a pun or an allusion that is lost on Google Translate and me alike.

The English label only said "Wheat Ale" and I wasn't sure if it was just an ale made from wheat or if it was a Polish take on the hefeweizen with all the funkadelic flavors from the yeast. Going to the brewery's website and finding the description "A light unfiltered top-fermented beer with hints of bananas and cloves" answered that question.

As luck would have it, I had a Weißbier glass to show off this piwo. And as with another recent brew review, the photo here tricksies you. Insted of a gold color, Zasiali Górale is actually of a light yellow hue and hazy. The Weißbier glass proved a nice bit of luck because this beer had lots and lots and lots of bubbles in it and the tall glass meant I could watch them stream upwards like schools of salmon swimming upstream to their spawning destiny. The head was a big dollop of loose, white foam. This was a gorgeous beer.

The aroma smelled of wheat along with a generous dose of bubble gum and a fainter bit of banana. No clove to my nose. There was also a bit of spicy hops to be had as well. All familiar hefeweizen territory.

My first sip revealed a light-medium body with a nice fizziness to it, although I had expected more considering all those bubbles. Like the nose, I tasted wheat and found that bubble gum was the primary flavor from the yeast with a hint of banana lurking underneath. Clove came into my mind but I didn't taste any and my brain didn't just throw some in there simply because the label said so. There was just enough spicy tasting hops for balance but they were not a prominent flavor.

The wheat and bubble gum flavors lingered on the finish until they faded out due, no doubt, to a combination of being washed from my tastebuds and the spicy hops which were not potent, but not impotent either. Just enough for a spicy-green taste to prevail and add a modicum of bitterness.

Zasiali Górale is a fine traditional hefeweizen though I am still flummoxed by the name. The part of Poland that abuts Gremany is near Berlin while the Highlands are separated from Bavaria by whatever Czechoslovakia is these days. I greatly appreciate the bubble gum-banana flavors from the yeast instead of something more clovey.

Junk food pairing: This fine piwo deserves to be paired with fine foods. Grab a bag of rye pretzel crisps and apply a big helping of bacon horseradish dip. You won't regret it.

Some recent & random photos

I witnessed a cardinal couple going at it with a crow. They were on the power lines out back and they were loud. It was a real shouting match - like an avian episode of Jerry Springer.

Some nice architectural ornamentation in Jefferson Park, Chicago.

It was foggy the other morning.

A look inside Madison's public market at one of their pop-up events.

Chicago River from La Salle Street bridge.

And, finally, here's Willow checking out a moth that had landed on the window screen.

Happy Midsummer!

Happy (belated) Midsummer! Yesterday was a busy day as I caught a bus for Chicago early and spent the day down there with my ladyfriend. We attended Theater of the Mind, the interactive art experience co-created by David Byrne and then dined at the home of some friends of hers so I didn't get home until late, hence this belated post.

Still, it was a nice way to spend the solstice.

Happy (mid)summer, everyone!

Jeff VanderMeer is a diabolical villain and other fun things

Last month I finally went to see Ivy Ford at the North Street Cabaret.

Holy cow, can she play a mean guitar!

I'd been meaning to go to a show of hers for a few years after seeing her on a bill at the Red Rooster and other joints around town. She plays blues in an Albert Collins/B.B. King vein - more or less - with forays into something more like blues-inflected rock, perhaps a bit Hendrixy.

Great stuff.

Maybe a week ago I finished reading Absolution.

The first thing I thought upon reading the final words was "I should have re-read the first three books." I think a lot of what happens here is mentioned in the original series but I have forgotten so much as it's been years since I took them in.

Absolution has 3 parts. The first section is called "Dead Town" which describes the fate of an expedition in the Forgotten Coast some 20 years prior to the formation of Area X and serves as a prelude to the horrors to come.

"Dead Town" is as chilling and uncanny as anything in the original Southern Reach books. The carnivorous rabbits made the simple act of mastication into a nightmare and were disturbing enough on their own but then they are slaughtered with ruthless efficiency via flame throwers making for a genuinely horrific scene in which I could almost smell the burning flesh and fur. Just when I thought it was safe to take a breather, we get the scene wherein the Rogue visits the biologists and it was simply disturbing and twisted - diabolical even. I could just see Jeff VanderMeer twirling his moustache and laughing as I realized that there was no going back, that I'd been beset by an uneasiness that I would not, could not shake until days after having finished the book. When that scene was done, I had to stop and think about it. Recover, in a way. I wasn't quite sure what had happened to the expedition in it but it was all bad.

The biologists had reached the white rabbits and did not care or notice that they trampled blackened corpses and living creatures both, weapons slack at their sides like a muscle memory that was amnesia, this onrushing surge toward the Rogue behind his veil of silver. Nor did the living rabbits care if they were trampled.

...

Now the Rogue kept opening his mouth wider and wider and the words came out louder and more brutal above the downpour. Those words could not be extinguished by the rain. Those words rose and permeated and cascaded outward and around the Rogue - even as the first wave of biologists surging against that "fey weaponry" crumpled, fell to their knees, slid down on gurgling mud as if they could evade the fire "that called our names"...except it kept calling and each time the desolation within became more final and complete.

The second section, "The False Daughter", concerns Old Jim, a retired(?) Central operative who is lured back into service for one last job. He is estranged from his daughter and, quite disturbingly, Central casts a younger agent to play the role of his daughter which makes for a weird plunge into Old Jim's psyche. For his part, Old Jim has been sent to the Forgotten Coast to investigate the strange happenings there which are related the expedition from "Dead Town". He is obsessed with finding the Rogue and encounters the Tyrant, an alligator that the biologists let loose nearly 20 years prior to his mission. The Tyrant has grown quite large and seems to have become sentient. The mere potential of the gator still being alive is enough to loosen the veteran agent's grip on reality.

This section ended with a Solaris (the film) vibe for me with Old Jim seeming to return to the "normal" world of the Forgotten Coast but I wasn't convinced. The camera could have pulled back and shown Old Jim at the Village as merely some twisted diorama sitting alone amid alien corn. It reiterated what "Dead Town" revealed to us: whatever alien or intelligence or force is loose in the Forgotten Coast, we humans are unable to divine its purpose or makes sense of its methods.

The book closes with "The First and the Last" which takes place a year after the border that defines Area X has descended. We witness the first expedition into Area X from the point of view of Lowry who drops hundreds, if not thousands of f-bombs. I found his dialogue to be annoying but eventually got used to it.

We know the mission failed and here we get a glimpse of madness settling in and members dying one by one as flesh melts into hazmat suits and other dreadful and bizarre happenings befall the crew.

Absolution was a great read. VanderMeer nails the cosmic horror thing perfectly as people descend into madness before an incomprehensible presence.

Last weekend my ladyfriend and I went to see The Claudettes, Chicago's premier band who does what The Claudettes do. It was the Madison release party for their new album Garage Glamour and the show was sold out. Also there was Hannah, The Leaf Queen, who shared her photos with me. She was seated right up front while I was off to the side and so her pics are better than mine.

Liz Ele is the new drummer having replaced Michael Caskey earlier this spring.

She seemed to be more of a rock drummer and she drove the songs forward with her steady push. She added a controlled manic energy to the music.

It had been a while since I'd seen the band perform and singer Rachel Williams has settled into being the frontwoman. Her performance that night had more energy and, for lack of a better way of saying it, she put on more of a show. When I last saw the band it was shortly after she had joined and she seemed to be reacting to the music onstage then but now she is part of it, as if the beat was emanating from the movement of her lithe figure, her singing tacking a course for the melodies.

The new album really puts her range on full display. There's the pleading of "(You Are My) Whole World", the sultry seduction of "Touch You Back", and my favorite at the moment, the Zack de la Rocha-like delivery on "Don't Give It Up to the Thieves".

Johnny Iguana's piano was as bracing and melodic as ever while Zach Verdoorn effortlessly alternated between bass and electric guitar. Plus I think he sang more that night as well.

A great show.

Also thanks to Rachel for helping me clean up a spilled beer.

I have visited the planetarium a couple times recently. The first was for a screening of Beyond Our Senses: Bank Swallows.

Directed by Wisconsinite David Andrew Busse, it portrays colonies of bank swallows who migrate to the shores of Lake Michigan just south of Milwaukee. We witness males on the prowl for mates, the youngins hatching and growing quickly to become fledglings.

Busse was on hand for the screening and he talked about how the idea for the movie developed from observing the birds on walks and wanting to know more and to document what he was witnessing.

Not only was this a fascinating look at an animal that I knew nothing of until watching this, it was really neat to see the birds in action on the full dome of the planetarium. There's much more happening there than just stars in the night sky. (Which are really hoopy, don't get me wrong.)

More recently I was at the planetarium to take in a screening of Sounds of the Oceans.

It's not really a documentary and is more of an immersive experience. We are shown footage of orcas and whales and dolphins as they glide through the ocean waters. Their calls are mixed with music and the combination makes for a relaxing journey beneath the waves.

While there was definitely a New Age vibe to be had, I found it an interesting impressionistic ride. What were the animals' calls about? Were they having a chat or trading insults about the diver with the camera?

The movie ended with suggestions for how to be kinder to the oceans and their inhabitants. Is chilling out your audience to the graceful movements of some ocean life the best way to build empathy for them and to lead folks to action? I don't know. Nonetheless Sounds of the Oceans is a serene getaway from the workaday world that invites viewers to seek kinship with the life beneath the waves.

My ladyfriend and I went to see Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Comic Mystery last weekend down at the Bartell.

It was great fun and, truth be told, I was surprised at how old fashioned its comedic attitude was. I know nothing about the history of this play but it felt very old school to me. Its humor was for all ages and there was lots of Watson making faces at the audience and faux mistakes that let the audience know the characters knew they were in a play.

Fun was the watchword instead of grand themes.

Last weekend a friend and I went to the Gamma Ray to see Souled American, a pioneering alt-country band from Chicago. I heard about them briefly on Sound Opinions shortly before seeing that they'd be stopping here in Madison and figured we had to go.

Joe Adducci and Chris Grigoroff were joined by an unknown (to me) guitarist and they proceeded to play some stripped down, country-inflected balladry. 

I thought the tunes had strong Townes van Zandt vibes. (It's snowing on Elston. Ha!) They seemed to have a fatalism to them. The music may have been sparsely arranged but the bare bones aesthetic combined with gritty performances for an achingly genuine experience.

I watched Errol Morris' latest documentary, CHAOS: The Manson Murders. It was really neat for me as I knew only the barest of details of the Manson Family and their deadly exploits.

In classic Morris style, the truth behind the Manson madness and the hideous murders is called into question. Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi (who was a resident of Hibbing, MN at the same time as Bob Zimmerman) put forth the idea that Manson wanted to start a race war in his book Helter Skelter: The True Story of The Manson Murders. Here Tom O'Neill's book, which gave the movie its title, calls that into question and throws in CIA involvement along with a mind control conspiracy.

Bugliosi's hypothesis is further brought into question by former Manson follower Bobby Beausoleil who paints a more mundane picture of Manson. It's one of a scorned wanna be musician turned maniac and not a fiend bent on bringing to fruition some crazed apocalyptic vision of interracial strife.

The movie does a good job of giving the details of Manson's life and the sordid, murderous affairs he was involved in. Plus it ponders just how a crazy man who lived on the fringes of society when he wasn't in jail could command a commune and convince his followers to commit those sadistic murders in the summer of 1969.

I also appreciated the use of Manson's music. It fits into the narrative, yes, but it had been a long time coming for me. Guns N' Roses covered one of his songs on their album "The Spaghetti Incident?" and I recall well the uproar that caused. And so it was just interesting for me to finally hear Manson performing his songs at long last.