The Corona Diaries Vol. 115: I need a new kringle pusher

(Listen to the sound track.)

(late October 2023)

With my adventures up north done for the year, I settled in to enjoy the autumn close to home. The two maple trees down the street regaled me with their gorgeous colors on my walks to and from the bus stop.

Speaking of bus stops, reconstruction of an arterial street near us was finally finished and, in addition to a fancy, new bike path and pleasantly smooth pavement, I got a new bus shelter.

I feel like an aristocrat when I’m inside it on dark, rainy mornings, which are becoming increasingly common, as it has a light. An amenity! A minor one, I grant you, but it’s just weird to me after having spent years and years of chilly, wet autumn dawns waiting for the bus in dark, spartan shelters.

This new public transit Xanadu was situated slightly farther away from the corner than the old one and, as Fate (or a devious streets planner with a wicked sense of humor) would have it, right next to a walnut tree. There was a recent dry morning when I was standing there and one of the fruits fell, coming within an inch of my head. Lesson learned, though I suppose it would have been a good excuse to call in sick had I taken a walnut on the noggin.

"Sorry, Boss, but I cannot work today as a walnut fell on my head and I think I have a concussion."

No doubt my boss would have suffered damage to her eyes from rolling them so much.

Walking out from our driveway one day, I noticed this suggestive mushroom sprouting from the mulch on the north side of our house.

Of course my inner 12 year-old giggled maniacally. I believe this is commonly known as a stinkhorn mushroom and some mycologist endowed it with the highly appropriate botanical name of phallus impudicus which translates as "shameless phallus".

On a recent bike ride I ran across these skeleton flamingos.

Despite being well out of flamingo habitat range, Madison has a thing for them. Well, the yard decorations, anyway. Back in September 1979, some UW students decided to pull a prank and put 1,000+ plastic pink flamingos on Bascom Hill.

The incident became a part of local lore and the plastic pink flamingo became an icon, of sorts, of Madison. And so you occasionally see a yard full of them, there’s a flamingo mural on the side of laundromat in the Tenney-Lapham neighborhood, and the bird features in the annual holiday lights display at Olin Park, amongst other appearances.

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In my spare time, I prepped for Gamehole Con, Madison’s premiere gaming convention as I was to run a few sessions of the Call of Cthulhu role playing game.

One scenario takes place in the 1950’s and begins with the players driving down a county road in a torrential downpour. They seek shelter at an isolated rural diner/gas station and take comfort in its endless supply of cheap coffee but, unbeknownst to them, there’s a nasty alien entity lurking in the woods. Although just a ball of light, it is a mindless, unfeeling devourer of the vital energies that animate living beings. There are some locals at the diner, some of whom are harboring dark secrets.

I tried to make a spooky atmosphere with people sometimes catching a light zipping through the trees from the corners of their eyes. The players eventually run into this refulgent killing machine and hilarity ensues.

The other scenario took place in the small town of Blackwater Creek, MA in 1926. A recent archeological dig had uncovered the resting place of a small fragment of the evil god Shub-Niggurath. This hideous remnant of malevolence infects one of the townsfolk who retreats to a nearby cave. She transmogrifies into a horrific creature from whose body flows enough Shub-Niggurath amniotic fluid to fill a creek. Hilarity ensues.

A couple years ago I started my own tradition of serving kringle to my players. The kringle is a Danish pastry shaped in a ring of sweet-filled dough. Early one morning I walked over to Lane’s Bakery to pick up my order. This involved traversing the lesser used parts of the convention center grounds until you get to an ill-lit gravel street. From there things get brighter but it’s a bit of a spooky walk in the antelucan hours.

It was clear and chilly out but at least this afforded me a good glimpse of Orion. You know it's autumn when you see the hunter in the southern sky.

I bought a highly seasonal pumpkin kringle, no frosting. While I love sweets, I find that, as I've gotten older, I want to taste the dough more, I want my tongue to revel in the delicious results of those Maillard reactions instead of being subjected to a mindless blast of sugar. Frosting only serves to obscure the grainy goodness.

The kringle was wonderful but the trip to Lane’s was bittersweet as the bakery was to close in December after 69 years. It was genuinely sad to hear the news of the impending loss of a Madison institution and this now leaves me without a source of fresh kringle within walking distance of the convention center. The only place I can think of in the area that makes the ringed goodness is a bakery in Stoughton, about 10-12 miles south of Madison.

It's easy enough to find kringle in grocery stores as the Racine Danish Kringles brand is ubiquitous. However, I taste margarine or imitation butter flavoring in their dough. Perhaps I ought to check out some grocery stores I don't usually shop at to see what's on offer. There are surely other brands on supermarket shelves around town.

In addition to running games, I played them as well. A highlight was the Blade Runner role playing game. The movie is an all-time favorite of mine and I was really looking forward to trying it out. I was not disappointed.

I played the role of the chain smoking, grizzled veteran cop. My fellow players and I investigated the “retirement”, a.k.a. – murder, of a replicant, i.e. – a synthetic person. Our sleuthing led us around to various locations in the Los Angeles of the future where we met a slew of suspicious replicants and various human members of the criminal underground.

The game was really well done with nice, high quality supplements.

The dice were funky too with one side having an eye, a recurring motif in the movie, and an origami unicorn, something made by Gaff, one of the cops in the film.

The game had an intriguing storyline, well fleshed out characters, and some genuinely thought-provoking thematic material. Really fun.

In the dealers room someone was selling appropriately themed coffee and I bought a bag of Kraken. Who doesn’t like tentacled sea monsters?

When I wasn't gaming, I was to be found spending time hanging out with friends and BSing. One night someone in my cohort told us that there was a group of well-heeled gamers from (present day) Los Angeles at the con. Apparently they like to game in style as they had brought a butler with them who had catered a particular gaming session with a portable build your own taco bar. A butler at a gaming convention filled with unwashed masses of gamer dorks is as incongruous a pairing as anchovies and ice cream. Plus there was just something intuitively wrong about a group of rich white guys bringing a black butler to the con. The whole idea just had bad 19th century vibes.

When I heard this tale, I realized that I had run into the guy in an elevator. Anyone not clad in a black t-shirt or in costume at a gaming convention sticks out like a priest at a brothel. He must have had a good haberdasher back in L.A. because he was dressed to the nines making me look like a serf in contrast. I had greeted him as I stepped into the elevator and he seemed in good spirits as he flashed a smile. Recalling the encounter, that old TV show Soap popped into my head about that rich white family who employed a wise-cracking black butler.

I hope his employer treats him well and that he was generously compensated as being a non-gamer at a gaming convention is surely like being trapped in one of the circles of Hell.

During another late night BS session, a friend revealed that he was contemplating running the epic Call of Cthulhu scenario Beyond the Mountains of Madness.

It's a sequel to the H.P. Lovecraft novella At the Mountains of Madness which chronicles a 1920s Antarctic expedition that, like everything in Lovecraft's tales, goes horribly wrong. In Beyond, players are sent on another expedition to the icy wastes to try and discover what happened to the first one. No doubt it is a tale of great woe and I fully expect my character to go insane and/or die.

Beyond is a massive scenario that takes days and days to go through but my friend would like to try to condense it into 3-4 long sessions at next year's Gamehole Con. He asked if I and another friend of ours would be anchor players who would commit to all of the lengthy sessions and help out other players as needed to keep the game moving forward.

We did.

And so, if this plan comes to fruition, it will be an epic, chilling adventure next year. Plus it has the added bonus of delaying having to find a bakery near the convention center for a couple years.

I had a blast at Gamehole. Many characters died heinous deaths in the games I ran and the games I played were great fun. Plus I got to hang out with friends deep into a few alcohol-soaked nights where we BSed and those of us who knew my late brother indulged in some warm reminiscing.

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A week or so after the convention I was off to West Chicago to meetup with a couple friends who were to accompany me to the lovely Arcada Theater in nearby St. Charles to see a concert by Martin Barre.

Barre was the guitarist in the progressive rock band Jethro Tull for 40+ years before being unceremoniously booted by band leader Ian Anderson back in 2011 or thereabouts. Since then he has assembled his own group, recorded 5 albums, and performed many a concert. He is currently on the "A Brief History of Tull" tour.

It was a great show! Despite being in his 70’s, Barre had a lively stage presence. Although I couldn't play a guitar if my life depended on it, I regard him as one of the best guitarists ever to come out of the rock world. He always seems to play the right notes, to play what a song needs instead of demanding to be heard strictly as a virtuoso. As a jack of all trades kind of player, he can do big, heavy riffs like "Aqualung" or judiciously add color to an otherwise acoustic song like "Velvet Green".

We got a good overview of Jethro Tull’s catalog with “My God” being a highlight. It opens quietly with some gentle acoustic guitar adorned by piano. But when those big slashing electric guitar chords came thundering in, well, they sent a chill up my spine. The flute solo in the middle was replaced by some of Palladio, a contemporary classical piece by composer Karl Jenkins and it fit seamlessly.

The band's playing was tight, energetic, and everyone seemed to be having fun and this is what live music is all about.

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Before heading back to Madison the next day, I bid my friends farewell and went to see Anatomy of a Fall which was playing at the cinema in St. Charles. I hadn’t seen anything to indicate it was going to open back home so I jumped at the chance to see this French film by Justine Triet that had won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival earlier in the year.

Sandra is a novelist who lives with her husband Samuel in a chalet up in the French Alps along with their son Daniel and his dog, Snoop. As the movie opens, a woman has come to their home to interview Sandra. But while they are chatting, Samuel cranks up some music upstairs where he is remodeling the top floor. Sandra and her interlocutor agree to reschedule the interview for a quieter time.

Daniel and Snoop go for a walk and, upon their return, find Samuel's body lying on the snow in front of the house. Daniel screams prompting Sandra to come out of the house where she sees her husband’s body.

Samuel is pronounced dead at the scene and Sandra is accused of having pushed him out of a window. She hires a lawyer who is also a friend and goes about defending herself as she consoles her traumatized son.

One of the great things about this movie is that it sends you down dead ends and leaves you wondering. It’s a murder mystery, but only just. We don’t see things from the point of view of a detective but rather watch as life continues for Sandra and Daniel. As a courtroom drama unfolds, we learn about Samuel and Sandra’s marriage troubles. The movie left me alternately convinced of Sandra’s innocence and thinking that she may have done it through scenes of her in the throes of grief and ones where she is cold, almost emotionless.

And those courtroom scenes were interesting. I don’t know how true they were to the real French judicial system but they mirrored the scenes in Saint Omer, another French film about a woman put on trial for murder, that I saw back in January.

Prosecutors are apparently given free rein to hector the accused and their witnesses are allowed to be openly hostile to them. And here no one stops Sandra when she answers a question only to go off on tangent filled monologues for minutes at a time. French trials seem to be able to change into free form routines.

I was fed revelations about Sandra and Samuel’s marriage in small bites almost throughout, which was addictive, and pushed me towards thinking she was guilty only to have the movie offer me something else to get me going in the other direction. 

The truth about everything here was elusive whether it be how Samuel died or how strong or weak his marriage to Sandra was. I found myself questioning everything. I loved how the movie, largely through Sandra’s lengthy discourses on the stand, talked about the intricate complexities of marriage as well as those of self-assessment. Samuel’s death gives Sandra cause to reassess her relationship to him as well to reflect on her own feelings, thought, and behaviors.

I adored Anatomy of a Fall. I loved the way it weaved an intense look at a failing marriage into a murder mystery that did its best not to give much in the way of definitive answers.

 

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In preparation for Halloween, my Frau got her costume together. It was of the creepy dead girl in the Japanese horror movie Ring.

Speaking of Halloween, a friend sent me this photo which he swears was taken in Chicago.

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Bonus photo. This is a statue of Dred and Harriet Scott that I saw on a visit to St. Louis several years back. Their bid for freedom began at the Old Courthouse there in 1846, though I suppose it was quite new back then.

Back to Steel Monkey

As I noted a few days ago, I made a trek south to see Martin Barre perform last week. It was the first time I'd seen him play live since Jethro Tull stopped in Madison back in 2004. I met Martin and other Tull folk backstage before that show and he was all smiles and quite friendly. Ian Anderson's wife, Shona, came over and made a joke at my expense and the 3 of us had a good laugh.

Barre was fired, I guess you'd say, from Jethro Tull in 2011 or thereabouts, and he's been pursuing a solo career since. I'll admit to not following it closely, though I did review his Stage Left album back in c.2004 for Green Man Review.

Although I couldn't play a guitar if my life depended on it, I regard Martin Barre as one of the best guitarists ever to come out of the rock world. He always seems to play the right notes, to play what a song needs instead of demanding to be heard strictly as a virtuoso. As a jack of all trades kind of player, he can do big, heavy riffs like "Aqualung" or judiciously add color to a song like "Velvet Green". His playing on Crest of a Knave stands out and adds a steely edge to that album but drives Thick As a Brick more as a part of an instrumental ensemble in a way that keyboards and flute could never manage alone.

Plus, he adapts the sound of his guitar to suit the song. Just listen to the tones he uses on A Passion Play. And how did he get that sound on "Hunting Girl"?

He is currently on the "A Brief History of Tull" tour and I think Barre deserves to play Jethro Tull songs just as much as Ian Anderson. Barre seems extremely proud of his work in Tull and justifiably so. And as the Tull catalogue has been re-released in these fancy box sets, I really think that Barre (and other band members) has been denied due songwriting credits. Maybe I just don't understand the process of crediting composers. But when I was listening to the song "Calafel" from the The Broadsword and the Beast box set from this past summer, I heard some riffing that would be reused 6 or 7 years later in "Part of the Machine". So why wasn't Barre credited on that song?

The concert last week featured highlights from Tull's career spanning 1968-1987. The early, pre-Barre days of Tull were well-represented with the bluesy "Some Day the Sun Won't Shine for You" and the genuine blues of "Cat's Squirrel" which featured the most psychedelic squirrels you'll ever see on the video playing at the back of the stage. Barre took up the flute for Roland Kirk's "Serenade for a Cuckoo", though he remained on two legs throughout the performance.

"Sossity; You're a Woman" followed but the band backtracked and played some tunes from Stand Up. And then they did "Nothing to Say". I don't think this song was ever played live by Tull on the Benefit tour and briefly made an appearance in the setlist in 1995 for a few shows. Benefit has more or less always been represented live by "To Cry You a Song" and "With You There to Help Me" (with an odd performance of "Play in Time" or "Teacher"). I just simply adored "Nothing to Say" that night. A real highlight for me. It has great dynamics and has a slightly darker tone that most Tull songs. But that's Benefit for you.

Singer Dan Crisp also played electric guitar here as on other songs and this added heft to the sound whereas it would have had flute and piano in Tull's hands.

It seems that Crisp and bassist Alan Thomson (donning a fine tartan suit that night) have been with Barre for a while while drummer Terl Bryant is new. I think. Crisp soloed once or twice but his guitar was mainly filling out the band's sound. I was impressed by his singing as he mostly sang like Dan Crisp and threw in some Ian Anderson vocal flights without sounding like a parody or slavish imitation. He did his own thing while still making it sound familiar.

"Nothing to Say" was followed up by "My God" and, when those big slashing chords came in, they sent a chill up my spine. The flute solo was replaced by some of Palladio, a contemporary classical piece by composer Karl Jenkins. It fit perfectly. We got a snippet from Thick As a Brick and "Flight From Lucifer" from A Passion Play. What great songs! So much drama and heightened tension when performed live. A couple ditties from War Child were woven into "Black Satin Dancer" and the first set came to a close.

"Acres Wild" was an early highlight of the second set. It's catchy and fun and has a great folky bent to it that Bryant's drums really propelled. It gained power with only electric guitar for the melody. "Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow" was an unexpected treat and was followed by both versions of "Under Wraps". Perhaps because The Broadsword and the Beast box set came out this year, we got a trio of songs from that album. "Watching Me Watching You" stood out for me. Although there were lots of triggered sounds, including bursts of guitar, the drums were acoustic and Barre once again took up the flute. Not a super drastic rearrangement but it was fresh spin on the song.

"Steel Monkey" from 1987's Crest of a Knave closed out the history lesson and the show ended with an iconic duo from Aqualung: "Locomotive Breath" and "Hymn 43".

There were a couple times when I found myself missing a flute part or a dash of acoustic rhythm guitar but I suspect that these instances were due to the fact that I have been listening to the Tull versions of these song for decades and know them in their original forms inside and out. Barre and Co. rearranged the songs to be more electric guitar oriented and so had more muscular, slightly heavier personas than the originals.

The band's playing was tight, energetic, and everyone seemed to be having fun and this is what live music is all about.

There is now more video from the show on Youtube:

Meeting Martin Barre Once Again

I went to see Martin Barre last week down in Chicagoland. It was my first time seeing him perform since 2004, methinks, and my first solo show of his. He may be in his mid-70s, but he (and the rest of the band) rocked. Unfortunately, I've not found a recording of the show and only this snippet of "Serenade to a Cuckoo" from the concert is on Youtube. (He stood on 2 feet the whole song.)

"My God" is so powerful live - great stuff - and "Nothing to Say" was a real treat. I love me some Benefit.

Jethro Tull, Overture Center for the Arts, Madison, Wisconsin (3 November 2004)

Jethro Tull's performance in my hometown in November was their first here in twenty years and one day. Then they were promoting their new album, Under Wraps, while in 2004 they had no new album to push. Instead they were touring with the promise to play some songs that hadn't been performed live in a long time, if ever. The first set was to feature Tull's acoustic side while the second would see Martin Barre's guitar put to full effect. In addition, it would be my first time in the newly-built Overture Center and nice way to beat my post-election blues.

The show began with "Life Is A Long Song" from an EP released in 1971. Not particularly rare but a good performance nonetheless. After it was finished, Ian Anderson began with his usual stage banter. He commented on the Presidential election the day before and how the new President looks a lot like the old one. This elicited many a boo from the liberal Madison crowd which was loud and boisterous most of the night.

The show continued with the perennial favorite "Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day" from 1974's War Child album. More classics followed, including "Dun Ringill" and most of the acoustic songs from Aqualung. The set featured the second-ever performance of "Slipstream" as well as the live premiere of "I Raise My Glass to You" from Martin Barre's solo album, Stage Left.

While Anderson's antics have mellowed over the years, he still wandered the stage maniacally with phallic flute in hand. This line-up has been together for about ten years and it shows. Musically, they were tight and everyone seemed to be having a good time.

Each band member introduced at least one song and their comments lightened the mood and got the crowd laughing. A woman in the audience yelled "Hey, sexy knickers!" during the introduction to "Up the 'Pool'" which added to the revelry.

Keyboardist Andy Giddings may dislike "The Squeezy Thing" (a.k.a. - the accordion) but his playing on "Eurology" really warmed me up to the song. The highlight of the first set was Aqualung's "Mother Goose." Giddings and Barre added recorder and everyone got a chance to show off during the extended instrumental section. The first set closed with the latest arrangement of "Bouree" from their sophomore album, Stand Up.

As promised, the second set had the amplifiers turned up loud. Bassist Jonathon Noyce donned a University of Wisconsin hoodie and started out by playing the intro to "My Sunday Feeling" before Doane Perry's drums came crashing. "Cross-Eyed Mary" followed and showed the weakness of the set: it was weighted a little too heavily towards songs from Aqualung that have been live staples for most of the band's career. However, I can imagine that it isn't easy for a group that's been around for 36 years to devise a setlist that appeals to a crowd of mostly older fans but younger ones as well. Still, Tull's last two albums, Dot Com and Roots to Branches, are criminally underrated and it was disappointing that the band played nothing from either. Considering the results of the election and the wars on terrorism and in Iraq that were ongoing, I felt that songs such as "Roots to Branches" and "Valley" would have been highly appropriate in addition to being great pieces of music.

This is not to say that I didn't enjoy the second half of the concert. Towards the end, Tull brought out "Farm on the Freeway," a song about the loss of the family farm here in America. Many people in Wisconsin understand the situation all too well and perhaps some folks in the audience knew it first hand. Any political messages aside, the song stands as one of the band's best, with Barre's guitar sounding brash and loud while Anderson spits out plenty of licks from his flute. Hot on its heels came the most intense moment of the night, "My God." Probably Tull's angriest song, it is a classic with piano, flute, and acoustic guitar butting heads with the loud, acerbic electric guitar and drums. A shiver shot down my spine when Barre's electric guitar burst out after the flute solo in the middle of the piece. "My God," like "Farm on the Freeway," explored a political issue, in this case, the tension between the Islamic and Christian worlds today.

Tull brought the set to a close with rousing versions of "Aqualung" and "Wind-Up." The standard encore of "Locomotive Breath" followed. The band played an instrumental version of "Protect and Survive" from 1980's A, while Anderson tossed out balloons that were almost as big as he was into the audience. They were still bouncing around the theater as the band left the stage and the house lights came on. However, saddened one was with the election and the state of the world, it surely brought a smile to see two huge balloons caroming off of the balcony as Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" played softly in the background.

(This was originally published at The Green Man Review back in 2003-08.)  

Stage Left - Martin Barre

Martin Barre will always be remembered as the right-hand of Ian Anderson in Jethro Tull. He had a large role in bringing to life the ideas and sordid cast of Ian Anderson’s characters. In the early 70s, he helped Anderson cry a song and gave us a riff which is now associated with a certain raspy-voiced homeless man. By the mid-70s a couple of Barre’s solo compositions made their way into Tull’s live set and some material into Tull’s studio work. An album comprised completely of his own material didn’t appear until 1994’s A Trick of Memory which was followed-up in 1996 by The Meeting.

And seven years later comes Stage Left. The title refers to Barre’s territory during Tull concerts. Opening the CD booklet, one might think that they’ve inadvertently bought a Steve Howe album. Each of the album’s 14 tracks features a different stringed instrument. Guitars of all sorts, mandolin, and bouzouki are thrown into the mix with a dash of flute. Yes, flute. Although Anderson is famous for his flute playing, Barre had been playing the instrument for some 10 years prior to joining Tull. And, if you caught Tull in concert this year, you probably saw him add some flute to “Fatman.” Joining him are a couple fellow Tullees: Jonathan Noyce on bass and Andrew Giddings on keyboards. Rounding out the band is Darrin Mooney on drums and Simon Burrett who sings on one track.
 
Despite being a mostly instrumental album by a guitarist, Stage Left does not suffer from cluttered arrangements or interminably long solos. None of the songs venture beyond the five minute mark but they’re all fleshed out with just enough twists and solos. Plus Barre throws in a number of acoustic songs which adds a great variety of timbres and moods.

In almost every interview, Barre describes his style as being a mix of blues and rock music. The opening song, “Count the Chickens,” is proof enough. It’s a fun romp with some bone-crunching riffs courtesy of the same Gibson Les Paul Junior used on Aqualung with Giddings’ organ filling in the spaces. Things settle down with “As Told By,” a lovely piece featuring multiple acoustic guitars.

“Favourite Things” features the bouzouki and has a strong Renaissance feel. It, along with the kinetic mandolin workout “D.I.Y,” bookend “After You, After Me” which wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Joe Satriani’s Flying in a Blue Dream. It’s a mid-tempo rocker with a wonderfully expansive melody. The song is dotted with short, mellow passages that add some welcome dynamics. When the main riff returns after each of these sections, it is a bit louder, a bit more forceful so the song builds up gradually throughout.

The album’s title track sounds most like a Jethro Tull song. It has flute on it, for one, but, as is common with Tull, slower acoustic passages are set against louder electric ones. In addition to guitar, Andy Giddings adds some understated yet very effective piano. Noyce’s bass is also great here with subdued parts give a nice, almost jazzy feel to the interludes. If anything, “Stage Left” goes to show that Barre has probably had a bigger hand in arranging Tull’s music than he’s given credit for.

“Winter Snowscape” also appears on the new Jethro Tull Christmas Album. The version here is sans flute giving Barre’s McCollum acoustic full license to paint the scene. The album should have ended with the jovial “I Raise My Glass to You” but, for some reason, vocals were given to “Don’t Say A Word” and it was tagged on to the end. Musically, the song is very much in line with the rest of the album but the vocals just seem so goofy and out of place.

This song aside, there aren’t any bad songs on this album. “A French Connection” may veer towards a sappy diet jazz at times, the song is redeemed once it gets moving again. The playing is uniformly great. Considering that he’s been performing with Noyce and Giddings for nearly eight years, it’s little wonder that their ensemble playing is always right on target.

Does it sound like Tull? Yes and no. Barre’s sound is as loud and brash as it has been since Tull’s Crest of a Knave but he throws in his own classical and blues influences that are normally a bit diluted in Tull’s songs. The arrangements are generally less complex but this isn’t really a bad thing. Without flute and voice, his talents step to the fore and he delivers the goods.

(This was originally published at The Green Man Review back in 2003-04.)