Brewer: Matt Brewing Company
Location: Utica, New York
Type: American Porter
ABV: 5.4%
It was definitely a beer day, denizens. I was considering going with a beer from an old familiar friend of a brewery
BookBin2014: Tricked
First graphic novel of the new year! Alex Robinson’s Tricked initially caught my eye because of its cover. It’s quite appealing to a child of the 80s (it also made me want a companion book emblazoned with a pencil on its cover; awkward cassette tape humor, FTW).
If I were to boil down this novel into one sentence, it would be that this is one of those “strangers suddenly linked by a common experience” stories. We’ve seen quite a few of these types of stories recently; if it works once, it will work hundreds more times, right? I could even argue that Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy could qualify as this type of story, since many of the residents of Pagford really didn’t know each other at all (most especially the ones who were related or married).
The question is, was Robinson’s take on this storyline successful? To qualify, he would need to create characters who are not necessarily likeable but complex enough to pique reader interest, as well as story arcs that join together in believable ways and lead to a captivating conclusion. As to the latter part of these requirements, I feel ambivalent. In some ways, I felt that the ending, while not what one might expect, was more satisfying. Conversely, the failure of meeting fully the expectations of the former requirement meant that the ending lacked the punch that it might have carried, had all the characters been interesting.
I will say, however, that two characters in particular shine: a paranoid schizophrenic who decides to stop taking his medications, and a waitress struggling to overcome body issues ingrained upon her by a string of abusive relationships. Both characters are believable in discomfiting ways. Both characters, for primarily subjective reasons, caused me to engage in a great deal of internal debate regarding their behavior, their choices, and at times their insufferable behavior. It’s a shame that the other characters couldn’t incite this level of response from me, but I applaud Robinson for taking the time to craft these characters so well.
Lest we forget that this is a graphic novel, I should acknowledge that Robinson’s illustrations are somewhat tame but clean and controlled, with the occasional inspired use of space and his monotone palette. Overall, his artwork is enjoyable while in the midst of the novel but not memorable enough to remain with me.
Final Verdict: I like Robinson both as a storyteller and an illustrator, and since my new favorite thing is to search the county library catalog and put holds on books, I’ll have to see if they have anything else of his that I can give a go.
Febrewary: Winter Warmer Ale
Brewer: Lancaster Brewing Company
Location: Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Type: Old Ale
ABV: 8.9%
Oh, denizens, don’t forget your booties, because it’s a cold one out there today!
It’s cold out there every day. Talk about the season of our discontent. It’s the perfect weather for staying indoors, wrapping up in blankets and leopard-print slippers, and sipping a nice winter ale. And what more perfectly named beer than Lancaster’s Winter Warmer Ale?
Truth is, I fell instantly in love with this beer the first time I saw the bottle for two reasons. First, it’s from Lancaster Brewing, which makes some incredibly tasty beers and offers one of the most impressive beer flights I have ever had. Seriously, if you love well-crafted beers and ever find yourself near their brewpub, you have got to go and have a flight. They bring you ample pours of every beer they have on tap. This is typically between 12 and 14 beers. It’s pricier than most flights, but it is worth every single penny.
Second reason? Well, that one should be more than obvious from the photo of the bottle. Yes, that would be a wolf on the label. More importantly, proceeds from this particular beer go to support the work of The Wolf Sanctuary of Pennsylvania. Yes, I’ve been there, ironically on the same day that we went to Lancaster Brewing and I had their awesome beer flight.
I wish I could say that the beer inside the bottle was as awesome as the outside label or the generous deal that Lancaster has with the wolf sanctuary. Pour this dark beauty into a glass and see rivulets of ruby sketch through the mahogany darkness. Very low carbonation but an incredibly intense bouquet of dried figs and currants smacks you right in your olfactory zone.
Take a sip (and I do mean a sip) and you find yourself plunging head-first into a molasses-sweet morass that still succeeds in zinging your tastebuds with hoppy astringency. It’s actually quite a disconcerting experience to drink this beer, as the bitterness bites you up front while the sweetness clings to the back of your palate, building up with every swallow.
It was a struggle to get through even half of this beer. I thought letting it warm a little (yes, I did have this one in the beer fridge rather than in the storage room with most of my other dark beer; I don’t really know why) might help; instead, it merely intensified the sweetness.
I so desperately want to like this beer. I guess I will just have to make donations directly to the wolf sanctuary rather than support them through this brew. That said, I still think that Lancaster is an amazing brewer and I will continue to enjoy several of their other beers. I also hope to make it back to their brewpub again soon, especially if I ever hear that they’ve got their chocolate strawberry stout back on tap. Anyone up for a road trip? 🙂
BookBin2014: The Casual Vacancy
I suppose that notoriety for a particular “thing” does have a bit of a double edge to it. Yes, you have gained fame (and often great financial stability from said fame), but you also have found yourself pigeon-holed by expectations that you forever continue to be/do said famous “thing.”
Such is the case with J.K. Rowling. After spending more than a decade spinning the tales of Harry Potter and his band of friends and foes at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, she was both quite financially set (richer than the bloody Queen!) and quite pigeon-holed. What do you mean, you don’t want to write about Harry’s adventures anymore? What? You want to…write for adults now?
(Okay, some can very validly argue that she was writing for adults also with the Harry Potter books.)
So, after years of being She Who Must Write Harry Potter Fiction, Rowling decided to hang up her invisibility cloak and set to writing different stories about different people in a completely different style. A style meant for grups.
I have to admit, denizens, that I found this highly disorienting. I sort of expected this response, which is why it took me this long to take a stab finally at Rowling’s novel The Casual Vacancy.
From an objective perspective, Rowling’s first foray into writing for adults? Not bad. Quite decent, actually. She’s rather successfully brought her acumen for planning and outlining intricate plot points in clear language to this novel about the idyllic parish of Pagford and many of its residents. She weaves a detailed tale of the many surface and surprising ways that the sudden death of Parish Councillor Barry Fairbrother impacts the town. She assembles an impressive array of characters and how they connect, impact, influence, irritate, offend, betray, belittle, disappoint, inspire…basically, how they interact with each other in realistic, albeit overly negative ways (Rowling’s commentary on our real-life propensities to too often be utter gits to one another?).
Objectively, this is a fascinating character study from a skilled author, even if it is a bit like a slightly more high-brow, slightly more believable literary equivalent of a soap opera. Rowling’s take on The EastEnders?
Subjectively, I have to confess that I found myself often thinking that the writing was far too blue, far too graphic at times
Febrewary: Wailua Wheat
Brewer: Kona Brewing Company
Location: Kailua-Kona, Hawaii
Type: American Pale Wheat Ale
ABV: 5.4%
Today was a reminiscing day, denizens. It’s been like a heat wave the past two days, with temperatures reaching into the mid-50s both days. After nearly two solid weeks of temperatures barely getting out of the single digits and sometimes going into negative numbers? Plus, snow sometimes every other day? I felt like breaking out the sunscreen and the flip-flops.
Instead, I put on the hoodie I bought in Kauai last April and enjoyed the fact that I only had to put on my winter coat to go outside, and not the two coats, two scarves, two sets of gloves, and knit cap that I’ve been wearing every other time I dared to venture outdoors. And this evening, when I finished my workout and came upstairs for dinner? I brought with me this little beauty from my beer fridge.
I wrote about Kona Brewing Company once before, in my review of their KoKo Brown for Darktober. As I said, though, this month wouldn’t be all about dark beers (mostly, but not completely). In my Darktober review, I mentioned a few of Kona’s other beers that I liked. I hadn’t had this particular brew at the time. If I had, I definitely would have raved about it as well.
With a clean layer of foam, white as the caps of cresting waves, and a color as golden as the glow of sunlight starting yet another glorious Maui morning, this beer is nothing like what I expected to enjoy. But dark beers aren’t really par for the course in Hawaii (although they can be found…and they are delicious)…so when in Maui, go with what the locals like, eh?
Right off the bat, I guess I should confess that all my consternation about “fruity beers” is apparently a lie. I only dislike some fruit-flavored beers. Others, though? Others utterly astound me. So it was with Wailua Wheat, which carries with every sniff and every sip a beautiful passion fruit sweetness that is perfectly balanced and never overwhelms. This ale does have a bit of a thin mouth feel in contrast with the bold passion fruit bouquet, but this might also be my mouth balking at the foreign feel of a light beer.
Mingling wonderfully with the beer’s natural wheatiness, the passion fruit is what ultimately makes this beer both delicious and dangerous. You’ve no idea you’ve just downed an entire pint until you pick up your glass for another happy swig, only to discover that you’re staring at the coaster through the distorted emptiness of the glass bottom. It’s a good thing that this isn’t a high-ABV beer, because one could easily make it through an entire six-pack of this ale in one sitting and not even realize it.
Even a dark beer lover like me understands that every beer fan should have a few light go-tos. I would tag Wailua Wheat as a perfect summer afternoon sipper…even if it is the middle of winter and snow and more single-digit temperatures are in the 24-hour forecast. Actually, that’s all the more reason to drink this beer. Forget about the blah. Embrace the aloha.
Febrewary: Sweet Baby Jesus Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter
Hey there, denizens. Remember when I did Darktober? Thirty-one days of dark beer reviews. Pretty flippin’ sweet.
Seems I’ve gone an amassed a bunch of new beers (mostly dark, of course, since that’s how I roll) that I would like to try. Plus, I have a couple of beers that I’ve been aging for a few years and are now at a point where I think it’s time to crack them open, too.
Therefore, I deem this to be the beginning of….Febrewary. Oh yeah. It’s not going to be a daily thing this time, simply because I’d rather keep the workouts to my whole body rather than just my liver. So it will be a kind of semi-regular theme throughout this month. I’m posting this today because…well, I’ve had a frustrating evening thanks to some computer kerfuffling that left me wanting a beer to tame the tantrum.
So let’s kick this off with a brand new purchase I just made this morning during a trip to Total Wine: Sweet Baby Jesus! Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter. As with Darktober, here are the stats on this one:
Brewer: DuClaw Brewing Company
Location: Abingdon, Maryland
Type: American Porter
ABV: 6.5%
Obviously, the reason I picked up the beer in the first place is the name. Seriously, how do you resist picking up a beer named Sweet Baby Jesus!? Plus, it’s a local brewery, and I do try to support them whenever I can. Then I was pretty much sold upon reading that it was a chocolate peanut butter porter. I’ve never had such a thing. I honestly never even considered that such a beer could exist. Besides, just one bottle couldn’t hurt.
I poured this at room temperature, which is how I’ve taken to drinking my dark beers. These types of beers have so many complex layers that you completely miss if you drink them cold. So many smells and flavors that awaken with warmth.
At first, this beer had a bit of a…hinky bouquet. It smelled surprisingly hoppy and not at all chocolatey or peanut buttery. I let it sit for a few minutes, went back and smelled again and was greeted by a glorious dark chocolate nose, with a slight smoky undertone.
Took a sip and I could definitely taste the chocolate, although the taste was nowhere near as delightful as the smell. However, I wouldn’t describe the rest of the flavors as even remotely close to peanut butter. To me, it tasted more like…burnt mash doused in chocolate sauce. It was not the type of flavor that would cause me to proclaim “Sweet Baby Jesus” in a positive way.
The beer left a cloying aftertaste. It’s not even that it tasted overly sweet while drinking it, but something stayed behind with each sip
Flashback Friday: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
You know me, denizens. I lurves me some drag queens. I know, some prefer the term “female impersonator.” Some prefer “gender illusionist.” I take all this into account and I respect it. However, in this particular instance, it’s definitely drag queens. Two, to be precise: Mitzi Del Bra and Felicia Jollygoodfellow, along with their transsexual friend Bernadette Bassenger. Seems they have a gig to perform their drag show in a remote part of Australia, far from their Sydney home base. The only reason that Mitzi would even consider traveling so far and to such a questionable location is because the hotel manager is…special to her. So they pack up their kits (which include lots of makeup, lots of shoes, lots of wigs, and lots of the most elaborate outfits imaginable) into a giant bus they christen…what? Priscilla!
And thus begins The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
This is a relatively bare-bones explanation of this movie’s plot. It’s kind of hard to give more, because if you haven’t seen it, the descriptions aren’t really going to make much sense…and if you have seen it, you’re going to understand completely what I mean with that last statement. I can tell you all the details in the world, but it’s not going to be even remotely close to actually experiencing this movie. Which I highly recommend you do, at least once. Then you too can immediately laugh along whenever you hear someone mention this movie and ping pong or blow-up doll kites or ABBA poo. Or Ralph.
Wait. ABBA. Song break!
//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Gv_6Gz-6Gig
See what I mean?
Me? I’ve seen this movie all the way through more times than I can tally (although I know it’s well into the double digits), and way more than that in bits and bobs whenever I catch it on television. Beyond being hilarious and riotous and strange and delightful, it amuses me to no end that the three leads each have found varying levels of fame playing characters utterly opposite from these lovely ladies: Mitzi later became Agent Smith, the ultimate foil to Keanu “The One” Reeves in The Matrix; Felicity would later forget her drag days along with every thing else as Leonard in Memento; and Bernadette once brought Christopher Reeve’s Superman to his knees as General Zod (back when Superman wasn’t mopey and pewey).
It blows my mind a bit that this movie came out 20 years ago this year. All three actors have gone on to do myriad performances beyond these characters, and still these are the roles I think of first whenever I see them. These are the roles I love them for the most.
I know there’s a musical based on this movie. I haven’t heard any of the music. I kind of don’t want to. The movie amuses me so much in its own right, I don’t really need to see another take on it. Besides, it has to be Australian. In Australia. With Australian actors (and Bernadette Zod). And not terrible fake Australian accents. Call me a purist, but I need my Oz fix, dammit.
As a special treat, I’ve come up with the following bit of PhotoShop fun. I call it Three Spocks in Frocks on a Rock. If you don’t get the pun, you now have another reason why you need to watch this movie. You’re welcome.
Unleashing the Writer: Doppelg
Funny what we find while cleaning.
Seems as though I have let all my e-mail accounts fall into various levels of disarray. I finally have my work account relatively under control (I consider being able to see all my messages in one window without having to scroll as “under control”), so I’ve turned to trying to organize my primary personal account. While tackling my Drafts folder (a far easier task than either the Inbox or Sent folders), I found the following snippet of…I’m not really sure. I remember the inspiration for this piece: a waitress at a restaurant near my office. She honestly looked nothing like my mother minus her hands, which I couldn’t stop staring at as she cleared our dishes. The time stamp on the draft message this was saved in marks this as more than a year old. I’m not sure what I was going to do with this or even if I had planned to write more. It feels both finished and lacking.
Somehow, that seems…exactly right for this particular topic.
A stranger has my mother
BookBin2014: Dark Tide
First, a caveat: This book has two different titles, depending on which side of the pond you find it. In Elizabeth Haynes’s home country of England, the book is known as Revenge of the Tide. Here in the colonies, however, the book is called Dark Tide. Haynes does make note of the fact that the U.S. version of her story went through additional revisions that provided a bit more back story for the main character. Perhaps they changed the title to allow readers the chance to more easily identify the two different versions. I’ll go with that answer for now.
Anyway, I decided that I wanted to continue on the mystery thriller streak that I started with Gone Girl. This book sounded promising from its dust jacket blurb, which describes how protagonist Genevieve Shipley has left behind all the stresses of London to spend a year remodeling a houseboat she purchased in Kent (heh, Shipley…houseboat…clever girl, that Haynes). Part of the stress, however, finds her in her new home when she discovers the body of a former friend/colleague floating outside her bedroom window one night.
Different level of stress from what we’re used to, eh?
From the point of discovery, we begin to learn more of Genevieve’s London life: Of her horrible day job that she wants to leave more than anything, and of the night job she takes to reach her financial goals a bit more quickly. Seems she’s got quite a talent for pole-dancing in her exercise class, so her instructor (a former stripper, of course) sets her up to become the newest dancer at the Barclay, a classy gentleman’s club where the strippers might wear very little, but they never wear clear heels.
Chris Rock hollaback.
Truthfully, this wasn’t a bad novel. Haynes is an able writer and, as a police analyst, she infuses a certain level of professional believability into her writing that grounds it, gives it a bit of much-appreciated heft. I’m still uncertain as to whether I’m ever going to be a true fan of these types of books, but I obviously enjoyed this one enough to finish it (although I didn’t find it to be quite the page turner that I found Gone Girl to be).
Plus, Genevieve is a likeable enough character. Actually, many of Haynes’s characters were likeable (which was a welcome change from the last book). I read a couple of reviews that dubbed Genevieve a “good girl gone bad.” I don’t necessarily think that’s a fair assessment. If anything, I think that Genevieve remains relatively inline with her true self (which isn’t “good” or “bad”…I’d say she’s a decent soul). She’s a bit naive when it comes to certain things, true, but she’s also more than aware of other things, knows how to take care of herself (for the most part) and knows that sometimes you have to take different routes to get to where you want to go. I wouldn’t say she’d “gone bad” at all; she just made allowances that she didn’t properly think through so that she could get what she wanted. This story is just an exaggerated example of how having tunnel-vision focus on a goal can sometimes lead to very bad things.
Final Verdict: Dark Tide is a solid enough mystery that had a satisfying series of revelations and wrap-ups. I don’t foresee purchasing it, but I wouldn’t be averse to reading other novels from Haynes.
Flashback Friday: The Jukebox Network
Sometimes, I look at the artists on my iPod and I realize…I have some truly questionable taste in music. It’s eclectic, to be sure, ranging from classical to country, from rap to death metal (though not a lot of the latter and not enough of the “old school” former).
Why the strange mix of musical tastes? I suppose I could blame part of it on the years that I spent absorbing every music video played by MTV and VH1 (remember the moment you realized you were getting old was when you realized you were watching way more VH1 than MTV?).
However, I can also blame the Jukebox Network(later re-christened “The Box”) for my crazy-mad love affair with a lot of 80s-era rap (as well as my introduction to a pop princess-cum-reality diva and a thorny love affair with a blossoming new metal group).
First, though, what exactly was Jukebox? Well, denizens, there was a time when you couldn’t just go online, look up a particular artist, and spend hours watching every music video, concert performance, and interview they ever made. Used to was, you had to wait patiently for them to become popular enough that one of their videos would make it into heavy rotation on one of the aforementioned music channels. Either that or plunk out money for a VHS of their latest concert or music video collection.
Jukebox, however, was just that: It was the music video equivalent of a jukebox. You waited for the video menu, wrote down the corresponding number to the video you wanted to watch, and then called the Jukebox hotline and paid for your selection. If memory serves correctly, each video cost $2.99. Pretty pricey for the late 80s/early 90s, but worth it if you liked an artist that wasn’t played frequently on MTV.
The great thing about Jukebox was that it played nothing but music videos. No commercials, no special programming, no talking heads. Just videos. It was a national channel, but it played videos popular in your particular location. I happened to live in an area where rap was far more popular than any other genre, which would explain why I grew to love artists like MC Lyte, Salt-N-Pepa, Kool Moe Dee, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Heavy D and the Boyz, EU, Kid ‘N Play, Whodini, Big Daddy Kane…you’ve heard me mention them all many times here. Jukebox was how I got my fix of them all. See, MTV didn’t really play a lot of rap videos in regular rotation. True, they had Yo! MTV Raps, but how does a half hour show compete with 24/7 music video access?
Strangely enough, I can remember the very first video I ever saw on Jukebox. It was one of the stupidest videos by one of the cheesiest groups I’d ever heard:
//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/BaeNelsAOGo
That’s right. They’re Tigra and Bunny and they like the boom. It kind of makes sense that this would be the first video I saw on this channel and that it was always in heavy rotation. If I remember correctly, Jukebox was a Miami-based channel, and so were the girls of L’Trimm.
It wasn’t all about the rap though. Every now and then, a totally unexpected video would jump into the rotation, like the DNA remix of Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner”:
//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/jWMToInrke0
I can remember when it was the most important thing in our universe to be able to sing all the lyrics to this song, whispered to each other during random study hall moments. So weird.
Then there was this video that wouldn’t stop popping into the rotation, irritating me with its poppy perkiness until I finally just surrendered to the infectious beats:
//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/0pyxKqdtrH8
Ah, Paula. Who knew the boatload of crazy she would bring to our world many years later? For a time, though, she truly was forever our girl. Her videos were like kudzu on Jukebox…once one took root, others quickly followed. I can honestly say I wouldn’t have been half as enamored of her as I was had it not been for Jukebox.
For the record, yes, that is Elijah Wood in this video, which was directed by David Fincher. Fincher directed several of Abdul’s videos, including “Cold Hearted,” which was like Flashdance meets Fosse:
//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/o7aShcmEksw
I can remember when this was considered too sexeh for MTV and they would restrict its play until the evening. Sometimes I miss that demure quaintness.
Ironically, Jukebox brought me into the rap scene, and Jukebox carried me right back out with another unexpected music video that kept interrupting the regular rotation:
//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/o1tj2zJ2Wvg
Oh, Axl. You so cray.
I swear, denizens, I’m going to stop that.
The introduction of “Welcome to the Jungle” into Jukebox’s regular rotation was what reminded me that I loved awesome guitarists and androgynously misogynistic lead singers in leather pants and makeup. It wasn’t long before I reverted back to metal and hard rock before the grungy likes of Nirvana and Co. brought that genre to its sha-na-na-na-na-knees-knees. It also wasn’t long after this that someone finally pulled the plug on the Jukebox Network. I read somewhere that MTV bought it and converted it to MTV2. Not sure if that’s true, but sure, let’s go with that.
And there you have it, denizens, a brief history on a dying art form–the music video channel. Now known as YouTube.
