The Corona Diaries Vol. 81 - Prelude: Snowbound

Madison has a new bookstore

Glad to see that Madison has a new bookstore, Lake City Books, just off of the Square. NBC15 has the story.

Madison-native Molly Fish says while opening an independent bookstore wasn’t always the plan, it was however always her dream.

Lake City Books at 107 N. Hamilton St. welcomed readers for the first time during its grand opening April 22 weekend. “The reception was amazing, it exceeded my wildest expectations to be honest,” exclaimed Fish.

One-third of the inventory and space is designated to children’s books and young adult reads. “I wanted to dedicate a really big chunk of the store to kids especially because of the location with the children’s museum, I also wanted to really focus on having a lot of used kids books...and they grow in their reading skills to quickly so I have books at every age of reading skill,” Fish added.

Madison Yards, 20 April 2023

Development at Hill Farms is coming along. Cubicles are setup in the shiny new office building, soon sophistos will be moving into those luxury apartments and shopping at the Whole Foods just a parking ramp away.

Also, they've started on the public plaza.

Property taxes are going up, up, up

The Wisconsin State Journal reports on how home values have skyrocketed (not SpaceX Starship rocketed) recently with the average value of a house here going north of $400,000.

Home values have risen 13.5% since 2022, pushing the average home value in the city to $424,400, according to new city assessment data released Friday.

The Lake Edge neighborhood, just south of me, had the highest jump with the average home value going up 22.8%. Here in Eastmorland, the average value increased by 13.5%. Our house's assessment went up by $42,500.

Uff da!

The article notes that home values on the south side have gone up significantly as well.

The ongoing shift in the city's real estate market is most stark on the South Side. In Burr Oaks and Bram's Addition, the two most affordable neighborhoods in Madison, home values rose 41.5% and 29%, respectively, over the last two years.

"Affordable" also means less white here. I think we're heading for trouble with minorities keen on home ownership being met by the white establishment with "Let them live in apartments".

WFF '23 Finale: Sanctuary

My final movie of the 2023 Wisconsin Film Festival was Sanctuary. Billed as a "psychosexual thrill ride" and a thriller, I expected...Well, I'm not sure what I expected. Maybe something along the lines of Basic Instinct but less Joe Eszterhausy.

It concerns Hal (Christopher Abbott), the scion of the Porterfield family. The patriarch, Hal's father, made his fortune in the hotel business and, having passed on, has left a fortune to Hal as well as control of the family company as he is to assume the position of CEO. The movie implies that some daddy issues have made Hal into the submissive type and he has hired a dominatrix named Rebecca (Margaret Qualley) to help him fulfill his sexual fantasies wherein he is a slave ordered around and, well, dominated, by her.

However, on the cusp of assuming the control of the Porterfield hotel empire, Hal decides to stop using Rebecca's services and dedicate himself to his CEO duties instead of being ordered to clean his bathroom before being allowed to masturbate.

Rebecca doesn't appreciate being relieved of her duties and decides to blackmail Hal by threatening to send footage from their sessions to various people including Hal's family. This goes over like a lead balloon with him, as you might expect.

But this isn't just some BDSM type of relationship a la Secretary. Rebecca and Hal's verbal sparring is the highlight of the movie. At times, Martha and George from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? came to mind with their intensity threatening to career into altercations. When things are set to simmer, they can resemble Walter and Hildy from His Girl Friday, though the humor here is much darker.

Qualley and Abbott deserve heaps of praise for their dueling via words. The timing is great here and they both bring an intensity to their roles that radiates off of the screen. Venomous stares lead to threats both implied and explicit. Violence always seems right around the corner as the pair trade barbs and power dynamics shift.

But it wore on me. There is visceral excitement when these interlocutors enter the ring but the movie eventually became a one trick pony. For one thing, Hal was a pathetic figure for most of the time and that turns me off. He was pitiful and his dumb questions lost their humor value fairly quickly for me. While he eventually sheds his submissiveness for a spell, I got tired of watching him allowing himself to be walked on. Another element was the cinematography. I appreciated that the vast majority of the movie is spent in Hal's suite with only the occasional detour out into the hallway and in an elevator. And while one can certainly do worse than be forced to look at Qualley's pulchritudinous visage, too many shots are closeups of the actors' faces. I found myself wanting the camera to pull back to show us where Hal and Rebecca are in relation to one another in space instead of more shot-reverse shots of their faces. I wished we could have seen them move towards and away from one another more as well as showing us more body language rather than a surfeit of disembodied faces.

Again, Qualley and Abbott gave great performances but I felt let down by the direction and cinematography.

The first Maibocks of spring

  

I bought some Maibock from the Fatherland. Mighty tasty stuff! Bready, not too sweet. Good maltiness for a 50 degree spring day.

WFF '23: The Trial(s)

After a brief respite, I was back at the cinema to see Orson Welles' 1963 The Trial, an adaptation of Franz Kakfa's novel of the same name. I'd seen a rather poor transfer previously on VHS or DVD, likely from the fine folks at Four Star. This is was a 4K copy of a restoration done quite recently.

Preceding it was another The Trial, this one a short by Ryan Perez. It spoofs the Kafka elements as the defendant makes a big to-do about the charges and demands to know what it was that he'd done wrong. Well, the judge tells him. Very funny with some fine cinematography.

Welles' version of the story stars Anthony Perkins as Josef K. He wakes up as a man enters his room who may or may not be a police officer. He won't say. A long take sees Josef get out of bed, plead his case, change clothes, et al as a series of men who may or may not be police officers wander in and out of his room telling him that he's in trouble. And, oddly enough, three of Josef's co-workers cower in an adjacent room, ready to give testimony against him to the men who may or may not be the police.

Edmond Richard's stark black & white cinematography here is simply fantastic. I think most shots were done with a short lens which provided great depth of field. Characters approach the camera from far away and end up right in front of it and are in focus the whole time. The use of these lenses also captures panoramic views of the sets which usually have vast vaulted ceiling and are almost always cluttered with stuff. In some scenes, great shelves hem in characters while framing and support beams create a maze of perpendicular lines for people to navigate. Josef K.'s office is a vast warehouse of typists that must surely have influenced Terry Gilliam.

In addition to the sets almost always being byzantine spaces, the sense of space is crazy here. For instance, Josef goes to visit an artist named Titorelli who resides in what appears to be a dilapidated water tower. Josef leaves by what I suppose you'd call the back door. He opens it only to find that it leads to a records room with shelves lined with files.

I have only hinted at just how wonderfully bizarre the film is. For instance, in the scene where Josef goes to meet Titorelli, he is hounded by a menacing gaggle of pubescent girls as he ascends the stairs of the water tower. He is told to consult with a lawyer named Albert Hastler. Played by Welles himself, Hastler seems to remain in bed most of the time smoking cigars and consorting with his mistress, Leni.

The absurdity of most everything in the tale, including, famously, the trial where Josef K. can't figure out what he's done wrong, the noir-like use of light & shadow, the huge, cathedral-like sets that seem to dwarf the characters, low angled shots, upbeat jazz music undergirding scenes of surreal action and dialogue - everything here conspires to confuse and irk the viewer - to throw us off, to create of sense of unease because nothing seems to quite add up.

I adore The Trial. Welles was a genius and this was a tour de force for Edmond Richard. Perkins was great too. Well, all the acting was. The sets were amazing. It was great to see it on the big screen finally and this restoration looked simply spectacular.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 80 - Postlude: How Animals Survive

(Read entry #80, if you haven't already. If you have, feel free to re-read it because it's pretty hoopy.)

Stay off the tracks

I went to check out the pedestrian path that goes underneath the Wisconsin & Southern railroad embankment on the west side where it runs parallel with Old Middleton Road. It looks fairly old. There is a cornerstone about halfway down that I couldn't get a decent photo of which says 5/41 but that could be when the tunnel simply had some work done on it instead of when it was actually built.

Was the city/railroad trying to be accommodating? Or were there people crossing the tracks frequently?

Must be spooky at night.

 

In the glass tonight

On a recent stop at the Blue Moon Bar & Grill, I noticed a funkadelic cocktail on the menu named after one of my favorite drummers.

Fünf ist fruchtig

I got a chance to taste Working Draft Beer's 5th anniversary brew, Fünf, a pilsner. Having enjoyed their Czech, German, and French takes on the style, I was looking forward to it.

Turns out it was hopped with fruity nouveau hops. This stuff was just too fruity for my taste. I should have known better after the ill omen of a cracked glass.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 80: Ecce, Tannenbaum!

(Watch the prelude.)

(early December 2022)

As we do every Thanksgiving weekend, the Frau and I trekked down to lovely Lombard last month for Chicago TARDIS, a convention dedicated to the British sci-fi TV show, Doctor Who. I believe we’ve been going since 2009. As tradition dictates, we get there late Friday morning and begin by getting our badges. We then attend a seminar or a chat with one of the actors before heading out to lunch.

When we began this routine, there was no Portillo’s in Madison and finding a decent Italian beef was a dicey proposition, at best. Hope came about 10 years ago when a guy opened a sandwich shop whose menu trumpeted the owner's pedigree: he was the scion of a family that had a mini-restaurant empire in Chicago. My hopes were dashed when I ordered an Italian beef there and nearly overdosed on linalool. There was enough basil on that beef to fell a horse. Oh well.

Anyway, our convention routine became a short cruise down Butterfield Road to Portillo's for Italian beef. I think this is how the Frau acquired her taste for it and was, I would argue, the first step in her becoming inculcated with Chicago culture. Well, we now have 2 Portillo’s in Madison but we’ve decided to keep the tradition alive.

 

 

I think I spent the bulk of the weekend in seminars like this listening to people who've written books about the show pontificate and then adding in my 2¢. Most of these sessions were dedicated to talking about individual Doctor Who TV stories.

 

It was fun to talk about which stories and characters we liked and which ones we didn’t and why. I got into a brief but spirited debate with a fellow fan about the virtues of the show being shot on 100% videotape vs. a mix, as they did back in the day, of video and 16mm film. At another one, we argued the finer points of humor in the show and how some things are meant for kids and some are not.

A fun seminar was led by a couple folks from Chicagoland who reminisced about the show being broadcasted by channel 11. This, of course, included the pledge drives and they showed some video of Marty Robinson inveigling viewers to send in their hard-earned lucre. Quite a blast from the past!

Another tradition is meeting my mother for lunch on Saturday while yet another is having breakfast on Sunday with a couple friends who live in West Chicago. I think it is telling that our convention going traditions all seem to revolve around food.

On Friday night we went to the Rock Bottom in the Yorktown Mall complex as we usually do – another food tradition! – and there I took a chance and had a pumpkin bread ale.

I guess I was just in a seasonal mood. It was tasty. Not too sweet and they didn’t overload it with nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, etc.

On Saturday night we stopped in at Lombard’s Noon Whistle Brewing on Roosevelt Road. I find their beer to be hit or miss, honestly, but it’s close to the hotel and hope springs eternal.

I had 3 beers while there in these handy little sampler glasses which I think hold 4 ounces. They’re nice when you want to try a beer. You get enough to make a proper judgement but you’re not committing to a whole pint in case you don’t care for it.

Here are a couple of the samples:

I think the one on the left was a German-style rye beer (Roggenbier) and the beer on the right was a smoked German-style pale lager. Both were thoroughly mediocre. I couldn’t taste much of that wonderful spicy rye flavor and the other brew just had a weak malt taste.

However, on my third try, I scored. Not pictured is the dill pickle sour ale. While it is a complete gimmick and sounds a bit disgusting at first blush, I really enjoyed the stuff. It was light and fizzy, tangy and sour, with a nice savory component of saltiness and a bit of dill. I am not usually inclined to these kinds of beers but this was a stroke of good luck.

We finished things off with a nightcap at Goldfinger Brewing in Downers Grove.

They seem to brew mostly lagers, if not exclusively. The menu noted that they built the brewhouse to accommodate decoction brewing which involves siphoning off a portion of the simmering malt-water mixture, boiling it, and then putting back in with the rest of the proto-beer.

Beloved by German and Czech brewers for giving their beers a fuller, toastier taste, it’s uncommon here. Hence Goldfinger boasting about its use. (Dovetail in Ravenswood does it also.)

I had the Original while my Frau opted for the Vienna lager. The Original is their house pale lager.

This was excellent suds! Light and bready and toasty – just perfect.

It was a great trip. The convention was a hoot, we got to see my mother and some friends, and we ate & drank very well. Maybe next year I can convince my cousin to join us since she just lives up the road apiece.

********

In preparation for winter, I am reading this:

It is a fascinating read. Bernd Heinrich is (or was) a biology professor at the University of Vermont. This book details his experiences with nature mainly in western Maine where he has cabin.

I knew a bit about bears and how they hibernate from that National Geographic presentation I had attended back in January. Plus I was familiar with a few other things that I had picked up on nature walks here in Madison. But most of it was new to me.

I learned how many small animals go into a torpor at night to conserve energy. For example, some types of birds and mice go into a nightly kind of hibernation. They appear to be dead. But, the next day, they begin to shiver, heat up, and seemingly come back to life. The black-capped chickadee gets special attention in the book. Unlike some birds that pack on the pounds during the day to burn at night, these chickadees put on less weight and instead lower their body temperature dramatically at night so as not to drain those precious fat reserves.

One chapter is devoted to turtles. Snapping turtles bury themselves in the muddy bottoms of lakes and ponds. It is weird to think that underneath the ice of my local pond there are turtles slumbering at the bottom. Yet they breathe air! It seems they can also absorb oxygen through their skin.

The chapter on bees was very interesting. They are able to regulate the temperature of their hives very precisely. Also interesting, if completely unexpected, were the several pages Heinrich devoted to his experiments to figure out the bees’ pooping behavior.

“As the hive in winter is always clean of poop (although sometimes littered with corpses), we may see no problem at all, simply because the bees have solved it so well. But how long can they wait? Till spring? Do they die rather than poop?”

A fascinating book, I now look forward to seeking out evidence of animal life come winter.

********

A few days ago, I spent a weekend up in Stevens Point, which is basically smack dab in the middle of the state. It was to be a relaxing weekend visiting a couple friends I've known since college.

It had been a few years since I’d been up in that neck of the woods and their kids had somehow grown up. Their daughter was now in college and had moved out of the house to live in town while their oldest son was a senior in high school with the youngest only a couple years behind.

We celebrated the end of the work week (though one of my friends had to work Saturday morning for a spell) in classic Wisconsin style – with beer. A couple who are friends and neighbors stopped by to join in the fun. In one of the oddest beer-related incidents I’ve ever experienced, we came across this Ezekiel can with tops within tops.

If that wasn’t exciting enough, their eldest son called saying he had locked his keys in his car at Rib Mountain where he was skiing with friends. This necessitated that we men undertake a 30-mile drive north to deliver a spare. It wasn’t bad, really, as it gave us time to chat and catch up on things since the last time I was up that way.

With our mission accomplished, we got back to into town and celebrated a job well done by paying a visit to O'so Brewing at their new brewery.

The new digs were much larger than the old ones but had less of what the Norwegians called koselig, which, to my understanding, is a sense of shared coziness, warmth, and conviviality. The old brewery was also in a bland mall and not exactly bursting with koselig but it was smaller with less of an industrial vibe. While the new one is bigger with more potential for profit from every pint, it’s also like drinking in a warehouse or factory.

I simply prefer something more akin to my living room than a factory-like setting.

Still, I was happy drinking their English mild which was rather tasty. We ended up chatting with owner and head brewer Marc Buttera for a little while. Very nice fellow.

When we called it a night and stepped outside, we found that it was snowing.

The next morning I took a drive around greater Stevens Point. As I noted in a previous entry, this part of the state was home to a lot of Polish immigrants and one sign of this history is the roadside crosses and shrines to be found at various intersections in the area. I found one of each in my travels.

This cross is at the intersection of 2 roads I cannot recall the name of but is fairly close to my friends' place.

This shrine, however, was a bit farther afield.

I eventually went back into town and headed to the Stevens Point Area Co-op in search of some locally made treats. The co-op is also home to Earth-Crust Bakery and has a nice ghost sign out back.

I ended up with some locally roasted coffee from Ruby Coffee Roasters.

I also bought a bottle of rhubarb BBQ sauce from the Stevens Point Sauce Company.

The rhubarb and maple syrup added a nice Wisconsin touch, I figured. I also bought same pastries for the kids as we had a big day ahead of us. For we were to seek out the perfect Christmas tree that afternoon.

Their daughter came home for the occasion. Since I last saw her, she had turned into a very sassy young lady, with an attitude not unlike Holden Caulfield’s. I am surprised she didn’t hurt herself with all of that eye rolling she did. She was in college studying forestry so who better to have on the hunt for the perfect tree, right?

We all piled into the truck and headed out to a local Christmas tree farm. The forestry student had said that it usually took “fucking hours” to find the right tree. I guess my friend is persnickety about his Christmas trees. Out wandering the evergreens, his wife or one of the boys would point out what I felt was a perfectly fine tree only to have the suggestion denied on the grounds of some minor imperfection or other.

Eventually, we found the perfect tree.

Ecce, Tannenbaum!

The tree section was but a part of the larger farm we were at and it also included some animals. The goats were out enjoying the brisk weather.

The owners were part of some kind of Christian fellowship congregation and a barn had been turned into a worship facility of some kind. It was rather rough and on the utilitarian side but was nice enough with plenty of sun and a big, vaulted ceiling.

With the tree (hopefully) securely strapped to the roof of the truck, we were off.

That evening we met up with the neighbor couple once again but this time it was at a bar downtown. Apparently the new mayor has a good sense of humor as I caught this sign at a crosswalk:

This is a reference to Monty Python’s “Ministry of Silly Walks” skit.

After dinner we all returned to the homestead and cozied up in front of the TV to watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. For the scene where the squirrel jumps out of the Christmas tree, my friend retrieved his daughter's first attempt at taxidermy and threw it at me in synch with the movie squirrel jumping at Chevy Chase.

This is what I got.

The next morning I hit the road after filling up on coffee. Although it got rather chilly up north, I was jealous of the snow. They didn’t get a whole lot but it was enough to detract from all of the brown and grey. I hoped that we too would get some in Madison soon.

********

Bonus photo: while we were at Chicago TARDIS, one of my Frau's friends fed the cats and took this lovely photo of Grabby.

 

 

(Watch the highly interesting postlude.)

How the Ottomans influenced Polish cuisine

The Chicago Tribune has a neat article about the influence of the Ottomans (via Turkey) on Polish cuisine.

Poland has had historic connections with Turkey for over 600 years...This connection remains embedded in classic Polish cuisine. Gołabki is like a larger version of dolma, but with a Slavic spin, featuring ground pork. Pierogi supposedly came to Poland in the 14th century with the Tatars, Turkic nomadic tribes from Central Asia...

...But the use of dried fruits, nuts and aromatic spices really illustrates Poland’s past exchanges with Ottoman culture: roasted duck or bacon with plums, hot soups with fresh strawberries or dried prunes with cloves and cinnamon, and baked treats like the poppy seed roll or keks cake with dried fruits and walnuts are just a few examples.

The sap runneth slowly

Ryan Urban reports from up north that this year's maple syrup harvest looks to be mediocre.

Local maple syrup producers are reporting a subpar harvest this spring. 

During the prime collecting weeks in late March and early April, temperatures were either too cold or too warm.

“It never really warmed up and then it got too warm,” said Maynard Hoff, of Maple Creek Sugarbush in the Town of Arland. “We’re going to be down about two-thirds of a crop.”

Na Zdrowie 2023 Edition

I stopped in at Wisconsin Brewing Company yesterday and sampled their latest batch of Grodziskie which they now call Smoke Show instead of Nostrovia.

It was light and smoky and very tasty. Sadly, there was nowhere to get kielbasa and pierogi nearby. This should be an annual. Or at least a seasonal that gets packaged.

Rush: The Comic Book

This Rush comic book is pretty amusing.

They're on dust!: Siete Sea Salt & Vinegar Kettle Cooked Potato Chips

Another new brand for me. Siete Family Foods is based in Austin, Texas and was apparently started by a Mexican-American family. One member, Veronica Garza, had health conditions which prevented her from eating corn, amongst other things. The search for foods that wouldn't trigger her condition eventually led to Siete. Judging by the website, it appears gluten was her enemy.

The About Us section ends with, "Siete Family Foods is a mission-based company, and we're passionate about making and sharing real food, gathering together in authentic community, and advocating for healthier lifestyles among Latino families." When did a heart-warming, human tale become mandatory for company origin stories? What about "We were broke and loved potato chips so we used the trailer home for collateral on a loan for a snack food company."?

I just find these pathos-laden stories at corporate websites to be unconvincing. All the best to Ms. Garza and there may be heaps of truth in that story, but you're pushing carbs drowned in fat. They may be vegan carbs drowned in fat but I just don't see this as advocacy for a healthier lifestyle.

On the other hand, Siete deserves credit in the taste department for making a capsicum-laced salt & vinegar chip. I think I've only encountered one other such chip, Lillie's Q Hot Pepper Vinegar Kettle-Cooked chips. Here, Siete has lightly dusted the potatoes with serrano powder.

Serrano chilies are hotter than the jalapeno but easier on your tongue than a habanero. They have a sharp, sprightly flavor and I tend to think of them as a workhorse chili that labors in the background. Jalapenos get all of the glory in Mexican cuisine but I think serranos are used in a lot of commercial products like salsa.

These chips were thicker than average and I have to wonder if consumers take "kettle cooked" to mean thick as opposed to cooking them with increasing temperatures. They were light in color and had a bubbly, rough surface texture. There appeared to be some skin on the edges as well as an occasional brown spot. Taking a sniff of the bag, I was pleasantly surprised to smell mainly potato as opposed to oil, which is usually the most prominent aroma. Perhaps the avocado oil here lends itself to melding into the olfactory background. The potato had a great earthy scent. Behind the oil was a hint of vinegar.

As expected, a big crunch was to be had. Unlike those red wine vinegar chips I had a couple months back, these did not have a mushiness lurking inside. They were 100% unalloyed crunch. The salt was applied with a light touch and, unfortunately, so was the vinegar. The bag advertises a hint of serrano and so it was. But, as I chowed down more of these, the chili heat slowly built and the pepper's bright taste became more evident.

There is a lot to like here with a nice potato flavor and a gentle sprinkling of serrano dust which rewards the eater the more of these chips they eat. Clever. Sadly, they lack a tang worthy of the salt & vinegar appellation. Otherwise these are an excellent snack.

Siete gets points in my book for keeping it simple as there are no flavorings, natural or otherwise here, beyond the basics. Well, there's some citric acid there but that's as far afield as they go.

Beyond the Horizon - Various Artists

When Charlie Gillett died back in 2010, he left behind a substantial legacy of music journalism, criticism, and promotion. In addition to writing books and magazine articles, Gillett clocked in many years as a DJ. At first it was Anglophone rock & pop music but, starting in the mid-80s, he began introducing audiences to music from around the world.

His Wikipedia biography says that he started spinning what became known as “world music” records in the 1980s on Capitol Radio’s A Foreign Affair program. In the mid-1990s he moved to BBC Radio and hosted various shows until his death with names like Charlie Gillett's World of Music, World on 3, and Sound of the World.

World music is a tricky thing. It’s not a genre but rather more of a musical neighborhood where singers and musicians from around the world can find a home. For me it’s music with non-American/non-English elements, in a nutshell. But this is a very nebulous concept as our cultural influence spreads its tendrils over the whole globe and the mixtures that result can be difficult to categorize.

For instance, I listen to a podcast from Radio Poland called Soundcheck featuring various Polish musicians. It is striking to hear Polish ensembles play jazz that is indistinguishable from that performed here by Americans and pop music that is no different from the stuff Miley Cyrus offers us save for the singing is in Polish.

Does this stuff count as world music? Or would that designation be reserved for the likes of Warsaw Village Band?

Beginning in 2000 and until 2009, Gillett curated the annual release of double CD sets featuring music from around the globe. Here we have the 2008 edition called Beyond the Horizon.

I cannot vouch for what Gillett played on his radio shows but here he presents the listener with pop music, for the most part. There are no Lomax-like field recordings of illiterate villagers who don’t know what the internet is playing songs that have been passed down since time immemorial on handmade instruments. This is slick pop music recorded in a studio with modern technology.

The first disc starts off with a series of upbeat tunes and “Els Nens Sense Memòria” by Almasäla is a highlight. An insistent electronic beat is adorned with flamenco guitar flourishes as singer Paloma Diaz wraps her sensual voice around the Catalan lyrics. A nice mix of new and traditional. “Ngamen” by Justin Adams and Juldeh Camara follows. Adams is a British guitar player whose often bluesy licks sit comfortably next to the Gambian instruments that Camara brings to the table to make for a wonderful melding of styles and sounds. Toumani Diabaté is a Malian virtuoso on the kora, a West African stringed instrument. His “Ismael Drame” is stately and beautiful and made me think of him as the West African Anthony Phillips.

Other highlights of the first disc are Gert Vlok Nel’s “Beautiful in Beaufort-Wes” with its intimate and slightly plaintive feel that brought Townes Van Zandt to mind, though not as doleful as the Texas troubadour. And there’s “Beyond the Horizon (Ofiq Artinda)” by Zulya whose enchanting voice is at the fore here as a simple plucked rhythm slithers along nicely.

The second disc begins with “Sunagaal” by Senegalese hip hop star Awadi. It’s a reminder of just how influential American culture is. He may not be rhyming in English, but the music is just like the hip hop streamed into countless headphones here. Axel Krygier, from Buenos Aires, contributes the intriguing “Dónde Estarás Hermanita”. He throws everything but the kitchen sink on top of a generally laid back beat that is accompanied by some energetic rhythm guitar. Horns give way to a chorus of singers which yields to a short diversion on tubular bells which, in turn, make way for some hectic xylophone.

“Ndeleng Ndeleng” from the legendary Senegalese group Orchestra Baobab features some great drumming which moves the song along as well as wonderful harmony vocals. Brazilian singer Céu sounds soulful and sultry on “Bobagem” with its simple beat and spare instrumentation.

All told, Beyond the Horizon features artists from 28 countries and, while I liked some songs better than others, I thought this was a nice set overall of pop songs from lands whose music does not make the hit parade here in the United States. Gillett penned the liner notes and he gives us a bit about each song written in a very casual way, one music fan to another. A little biographic blurb is followed by a description of the music and then he adds color. One moment he recounts hearing a musician for the first time in a taxi outside of Marrakech and the next he’s giving the briefest of summaries about the political conditions of the homeland of another musician.

It was interesting to me to hear the influence of American pop music on the songs here and to try and tease out what the artists' native cultures added to the mix. But a listener who simply wants a good beat or tempting melody instead of trying teasing out which culture contributed what will find much to love here.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 80 - Prelude: Silly Walk

(Continue to entry #80.)

Herr's Kettle Cooked Boardwalk Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips

The intricacies of running a supermarket are a mystery to me. There are times when I witness the shelves being stocked with fresh goods and then find myself out in the main aisle next to a palette of cans of crushed tomatoes with an inch of dust on them. I will buy a certain tried and true brand for months or even years and then one day it is gone. Nowhere to be found. Well, not on any shelf at my local supermarket but perhaps still available at other stores in town.

Are the managers always on the lookout for aging canned vegetables sitting in some warehouse that can be sold for just a few pennies less? Do my favorite products go missing because of a personal beef between distributor and buyer? Such are the vagaries of the supermarket business, I guess.

But sometimes the winds of the grocery trade are in my favor. Such was the case on a recent shopping trip which saw me slowly wandering aisles and casting inquiring glances at the end caps which held snacks by brands I’d never heard of while others held bags of junk food by familiar brands but of flavors unknown to me.

One end cap held bags aplenty from Herr’s, a brand out of Pennsylvania. While I’d seen their chips around town before, I didn’t recall ever them at my local store nor of ever having run into their salt & vinegar variety. Realizing my luck was in, I eagerly grabbed a bag of them before the winds of Fate changed.

The bag I bought notifies eaters that it had been made with artificial flavors. Looking online for more info, I see many pictures of bags without that warning. Had the formula changed? The ingredients list I find on the net is:

Potatoes, Vegetable Oil (contains one or more of the following: Corn, Cottonseed, Sunflower), Salt, Lactose, Sodium Diacetate, Malted Barley Flour, Citric Acid, and Natural Flavor.

Perhaps this is the old one and I just haven’t stumbled across the new listing with the synthetic ingredients. The need to artificially flavor a salt & vinegar potato chip still eludes me even after all of the sampling I’ve done.

Herr’s sliced these chips thicker than your average potato snack. Poking my nose into the bag and inhaling, I smelled mostly oil but also a little potato. The vinegar became apparent after some up close sniffling. The chips were uniformly lightly colored. That yellowish off white was rarely punctuated with brown except on the edges where it looked like the skin remained.

These had the requisite crunch of a kettle chip and enough salt to fell a horse. I suspect they could double as ice melt for your sidewalk in winter. In addition to satisfying the salt half of salt & vinegar, Herr’s ensured they did the same for the other as these chips had a good, firm tang to them. After some extended sampling, my tongue got numb.

Herr’s did themselves proud here. They are like a thicker version of Vintner’s, the platonic ideal of a salt & vinegar potato chip. Highly recommended for some serious snacking.