COVER: Carousel of Happiness photo by Kwong Yee Cheng. Design: Chris Sawyer
PUBLISHER: Francis J. Zankowski
EDITORIAL
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Shay Castle
ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR: Jezy J. Gray
REPORTERS: Kaylee Harter, Will Matuska
FOOD EDITOR: John Lehndorff
INTERN: John Kowalski
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Rob Brezsny, Michael J. Casey, Joshua Davis, Jamie Lammers, Dan Savage, Niko Skievaski, Gabby Vermeire
SALES AND MARKETING
MARKET DEVELOPMENT MANAGER: Kellie Robinson
SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE: Matthew Fischer
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES:
Chris Allred, Holden Hauke
SPECIAL PROJECTS MANAGER: Carter Ferryman
MRS. BOULDER WEEKLY: Mari Nevar
PRODUCTION
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Erik Wogen
GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Chris Sawyer
CIRCULATION
CIRCULATION MANAGER: Cal Winn
CIRCULATION TEAM: Sue Butcher, Ken Rott, Chris Bauer
BUSINESS OFFICE
BOOKKEEPER/ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE: Austen Lopp
FOUNDER / CEO: Stewart Sallo
As Boulder County’s only independently owned newspaper, Boulder Weekly is dedicated to illuminating truth, advancing justice and protecting the First Amendment through ethical, no-holdsbarred journalism and thought-provoking opinion writing. Free every Thursday since 1993, the Weekly also offers the county’s most comprehensive arts and entertainment coverage. Read the print version, or visit boulderweekly.com. Boulder Weekly does not accept unsolicited editorial submissions. If you’re interested in writing for the paper, please send queries to: editorial@boulderweekly.com. Any materials sent to Boulder Weekly become the property of the newspaper.
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LOVE LETTER TO NEDERLAND
A tribute to the community that raised me
BY JAMIE LAMMERS
Technically speaking, I am not a resident of Nederland, nor have I ever been. But in many ways, Nederland is my second home.
I’ve lived in Coal Creek with my parents for my entire life. Initially, my parents sent me to Coal Creek Elementary for my schooling. After a couple of days, they felt the school was not the right fit for me and decided to take me to Nederland Elementary instead.
I can only imagine how nervous my parents must have been for my first
day of preschool. As my mom recalls, I was absolutely distraught as I watched her walk away. Primary teacher Irene Pritsak picked me up and held me, and I settled right down. It was then that my mom knew I would be in safe hands at that school.
I spent the rest of my schooling at Nederland, staying at the elementary school until fifth grade and transitioning into the middle-senior high school from sixth grade all the way through graduation. It’s where I discovered a
love for acting and met my wonderful theater teacher Liz Evans, who has enjoyed a 40-year career in town.
I still have a job in the community, having worked for The Mountain-Ear since the end of April 2019, and I love feeling like I still contribute to the community that raised me.
Since I started working for the paper, I’ve learned more about how the town has developed. I’ve become fascinated by digging into various aspects of its history, particularly certain influential figures. Learning about the people behind the paper I work for, including the first editor Kay Turnbaugh, has been immensely gratifying. I want to be able to pay tribute to the people who have ultimately contributed to how I got here in the first place, including people who have unfortunately passed on.
OPINION
This includes my first bus driver Ralph “Skip” Greene, who deeply cared about the passengers he took to school every day. It includes Sharon Ferguson, who I was fortunate enough to interview for the paper’s companion podcast months before she passed away, and who made plenty of contributions to the town far before she started working at the visitors center. It includes Barbara Lawlor, who dedicated an enormous amount of time to covering as many events in the town as she possibly could for the paper, even as her health was deteriorating. It even includes prominent columnist Liz Caile, who I never had the opportunity to know but who I am still personally connected to because of her partnership with Ralph.
With the celebration of Nederland’s
150th anniversary — the town is two years older than Colorado’s statehood — I find myself drawn even more to its legacy. I hope to uncover more stories from the various musicians who recorded at the legendary Caribou Ranch, the history of which expands far beyond the radius of this small town and into the cultural history of the United States as a country. There are many ways that the reach of Nederland has expanded beyond its border: the celebration of Frozen Dead Guy Days, the Carousel of Happiness and the settling of a steam shovel used in the creation of the Panama Canal.
For now, I’ll put my efforts into exploring the town’s history for Mountain-Ear readers. That’s how I’ll celebrate this anniversary: by preserving the memories I can.
A POETIC ODE TO NED
In Nederland, where mountains rise, And snowflakes dance from winter skies, A town that’s perched on rocky crest, A hidden gem, a place of rest.
The pine trees whisper ancient tales, Of miners’ dreams and rugged trails, Where creeks run clear and wildlife roams,
This mountain town, our cherished home. In summer’s bloom, the wildflowers blaze, A tapestry of vibrant praise, Hiking paths through forest green, Where nature’s touch is always seen. Come winter’s breath, the world turns white, With frosted peaks in morning light, The skiers glide on powdery slopes, Embracing cold with hearts of hope. The town’s alive with music’s sound,
OPINION
In every bar, in every round, From folk to rock, the rhythms blend, In Nederland, where voices mend. Community, a woven thread, In every heart, in words unsaid, We stand as one through thick and thin, In mountains’ arms, we always win. Sustainability’s our creed, In simple ways, we plant the seed, Of living lightly, honoring land, Together here, we make our stand. Though life up here can test the soul, With heavy snows and winds that roll, The beauty of each day’s anew, In Nederland, where skies are blue. So let the seasons come and go, With sunlit days and moonlit glow, For in this town, our spirits soar, In Nederland, forevermore.
— Joshua Davis
brittany howard the wood brothers jamestown revival
bonny light horseman john vincent III pokey lafarge the watson twins darlingside the mother hips sir woman
PROTECTION NEEDED FROM SURVEILLANCE STATE
Flock Safety surveillance systems are currently employed throughout the state in various forms: license plate readers, gunshot locators and video surveillance among them.
Flock is a privately owned mass surveillance system with the potential to pose the most serious threat yet to everyone’s civil liberties, and they are firmly entrenched in Colorado and across the country. Boulder, Erie, Lafayette and Louisville all use their license plate readers.
Current municipal contracts set thresholds with Flock for data retention, sharing and privacy, though those levels can vary widely. For people who are already vulnerable and overpoliced, this creates more opportunities for them to be surveilled and terrified.
It’s easy to believe that all the most stringent precautions are being taken by our local leaders. Even if that is true, it’s not a far leap to a system that easily can be weaponized by a fascist regime. A current contract with Flock might hold them to the tightest citizen protections possible, but any dictator — even for a day — could change that quickly through executive orders or by
empowering sympathetic law enforcement and local officials.
Proactive local or state legislation to permanently prevent Flock from activating any forced facial recognition or biometric data collection would be ideal at this moment to prevent a sudden lurch into an authoritarian surveillance state. It would at least give us the luxury of time to organize against government oppressors.
We should urge our leaders to proactively protect us before it’s too late.
Sam Fogleman, Erie
RODEOS ARE ANIMAL ABUSE
I am writing regarding your piece on gay rodeos in the July 11 Weekly (“Rhinestone cowboys”). Gay or straight, rodeos are animal abuse spectacles.
I don’t want to hear about how rodeo is some sacred Western culture thing — cruelty to animals ought never be considered entertainment. The obvious strap on the “bucking bronco” in your photo shows how it is strapped tightly on the poor animal’s testicals — how ignorantly barbaric!
This is only one facet of the abuse that rodeo animals endure. This is lowlife “entertainment.” Perhaps your
two professor authors ought to focus more on the ethics of rodeo itself rather than trying to enlighten us on the history of gay rodeos.
The Weekly continues to disappoint me in its behind-the-times treatment of animal issues.
— Anonymous, because I don’t want this published and fear rodeo goon reprisals
Editor’s note: We chose to publish this letter against the author’s wishes because they are not identified (so no one is being harmed; we would never publish communications without permission if someone’s name was attached) and because we felt the message of the letter was important to share with readers, so as to present a more complete and nuanced look at rodeos.
PAY TEACHERS MORE, NOT LESS
We were shocked to read that as living expenses continue to rise, the Boulder Valley School District plans to lower the daily wage for substitute teachers from $150 to $125. Being a teacher is one of the most demanding jobs we know of, and being called in as a substitute is perhaps even more difficult.
The going rate for unskilled yard work help in Boulder is $25 an hour, yet the BVSD wants to pay substitute teachers — with all their education, experience and dedication — $16 an hour? Even less, when you consider the preparation time needed to lead a class you’re not familiar with.
We often hear that workers cannot afford to live in Boulder. They certainly can’t on that wage. We are also told we need more and more housing to allow those who best serve us, such as our children’s teachers, to live in the community they serve. What makes much more sense is to raise their salaries to a level that would enable them to live here.
What puzzles us is why this would happen at a time when our property taxes have greatly increased, since a large portion of those taxes are allocated to public schools.
How was this decision made? Was there public comment and discussion? A decision such as this would seem to require input from the community whose taxes are involved. We believe that the Boulder Valley Board of Education needs to have a prompt public hearing on this issue.
— Ellen Stark and Rivvy Neshama, Boulder
TOUGH LITTLE TOWN
Nederland celebrates 150 years
BY KAYLEE HARTER
Folks in Nederland measure their time in winters. It’s a badge of honor, emblematic of their ability to withstand hard times. This year marked the town’s 150th.
“You’re huddled down for nine months, wind is howling and the snow is blowing,” says Jess Ansari, assistant director of the library and president of the historical society. “If you’ve survived your first one, you got a good chance.”
Then summer comes and columbines bloom, hummingbirds buzz about town. Moose roam, chomping on lush greenery and wandering the shores of Barker Reservoir. The hard times don’t last forever, but they remind you of what you can endure — and who you endure it with.
“[There’s] a lot of hardiness. The core of the community are people that are really resilient,” says Robin Svenson, general manager at Train Cars Coffee and Kava in town. “We have a running joke: We hear about hurricane winds where they were like 50 miles per hour. And we’re like, ‘Oh, that’s cute.’ That sort of camaraderie around the resilience it takes to live, to really live, here.”
With a sesquicentennial celebration set for Aug. 1-4, the town is celebrating that sense of community — looking back on its past and setting its sights on what it wants to be in the future.
“We’re making history every day,” Ansari says. “It’s about making good choices in the present so the little ones will have a good future and somewhere healthy and clean to live. [Somewhere] affordable that still has character and is interesting and fun and creative.
“We’re trying to keep it a little bit weird, a little bit gritty, a little bit funky.”
‘HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF’
Of course, the area’s history begins before Nederland was Nederland. Originally inhabited by the Ute and Arapaho, the area served as a trading area for the tribes. At one time, there was an Arapaho circle out on the meadow where the reservoir is now, according to local lore, though Ansari says much of the Native history is “really hard to find.”
Then came the white beaver trappers and their tents in the early 1800s, which Ansari says also has limited recorded history. Later that century, miners came to town “and buildings started popping up everywhere.”
“There’s some possibly inaccurate historical stories about how some of the first silver was found, and they blamed it on one of the tribes, one of the chief’s daughters who hinted that there was a treasure in the mountains,” Ansari said.
“These prospectors kind of got wind and went in and didn’t give up until they found it.”
When a Dutch mining company bought the mine in Caribou after it changed hands several times, miners began to call the area 2,000 feet lower than the mine — at the time known as middle Boulder — Netherlands, Dutch for lowlands. When the town was officially incorporated in 1874, the name Nederland stuck.
Silver mining died down around 1890, but the town saw another mining boom at the turn of century when Tungsten was discovered nearby, valuable for making steel. The town boomed during WWI with a population of around 3,000, compared to its current 1,500 residents.
That era’s history has typically been defined by the miners, but Ansari says she’s more interested in domestic and women’s history during that time: “Stuff would have fallen apart if it wasn’t for
the women.” Some of that history is on display at the Gillaspie House, a small home that belonged to an early 1900s mayor of the town, Dr. Carbon Gillaspie. The home will be open for tours during the sesquicentennial celebration.
“What a hard life these women lived,” Ansari says. “Their clothes are always so pristine, how hard it would have been just to keep it washed and clean. They’re super, super tough ladies. It kind of resonates with the women that are up here today. The women in the mountains are independent, strong.” By 1920, the town dwindled to about 100 or 200 residents, Ansari says. As the population plummeted, it became a stop for tourists.
“On the back of the postcards, it was like, ‘Look at this. We went through this deserted town,’” Ansari says.
The road from Boulder was paved in ’40s, and there was another brief boom during WWII. Then came the ’60s,
Nederland from 1916 to 2019. Credit: NAHS Collection photo blended with photo by Jess Ansari
Local eighth grader Lucy Budde illustrated the town’s sesquicentennial logo (left). Illustration (right) by George Blevins.
Jess Ansari shows off artifacts in the historic Gillaspie House. Credit: Kaylee Harter
NEWS
when hippies and draft dodgers moved where they could “be close enough to cities and resources but far enough away that you can live off the grid, hidden,” Ansari says.
“A lot of fights broke out between the old miners and the hippies,” she says. “And it was not just peace-andlove hippies.”
This was the era of the infamous STP Gang known for wearing bones and fur and “causing a ruckus,” according to Ansari. In a Denver Post article, former Boulder County Undersheriff Kirk Long described the gang as “openly defiant, argumentative and intentionally antagonistic.”
One member of the gang, 19-yearold “Deputy Dawg,” was shot and dumped near abandoned gold mines in 1971. It wasn’t until 26 years later that Renner Forbes, the town’s marshal at the time, confessed to the killing — something that eventually motivated a former gang member known as “Midget Jesse” to attempt a bombing at the sheriff’s office in 2016, some 45 years after the murder.
More positively, that hippie wave also brought artists and musicians to town. The Caribou Ranch music studio, where the likes of John Lennon and Billy Joel recorded, opened in 1971 and remained a destination until it burned down in 1985.
Another colorful moment in Ned’s history came in the late ’70s when a stray female cat named Fred won the mayoral election (more women’s history). Fred couldn’t technically be sworn in, so she served as honorary mayor. As the story goes, Fred’s elec-
tion came after locals were uninspired by the human candidates. Today, she is buried outside of town hall, her grave reading “Fred the Cat Legend of First Street 1972-1989.”
“There was a lot of turmoil with the town trustees and mayors, and there were always recalls going on back in the ’70s and back in the turn-of-thecentury 1900s,” Ansari says. “And today — I think the last attempted recall was just a few years ago.
“The fights are kind of always about the same thing over the last 120 years — land use and where the budget goes. History repeats itself.”
TODAY’S TIME CAPSULE
That political, and sometimes polarized, spirit remains today in Nederland, residents say.
“People are really passionate here,” says Train Car Coffee’s Svenson. “There’s not necessarily always cohesive passions, but there’s people that will really take the reins.”
She says those passions range from wildlife to the future of festivals in the community. Frozen Dead Guy Days, a festival dedicated to a cryogenically frozen Norwegian man whose body rested in Nederland, moved to Estes Park in 2023 after calling Ned home for two decades. (The festival’s namesake rested peacefully in a Tuff shed outside town until it moved to the Stanley Hotel this year.)
The move came after clashes between town leadership, event organizers and residents, ostensibly over concerns like traffic and safety. In its
Robin Svenson reflects on her two decades in town. Credit: Kaylee Harter
Pat Hagberg loves her work at the Carouel of Happiness for the joy it brings others. Credits: Kaylee Harter
runs from Central City through Nederland to Estes Park.
“It’s just this intense blast of people and then it’s like, people are gone,” she says. “By 5:30 this afternoon, it will look totally different around here than it does now.”
final year, the festival drew 20,000 people to the small town. A new festival in homage to the town’s feline mayor, Bizarre Cat Bazaar, began last year.
Strong opinions also surround development. Much like in the rest of Boulder County, it’s a dominant and divisive issue in local politics.
“There’s always controversy when a bigger, boxier-looking building comes up: ‘Well, that’s a step towards kind of becoming Aspen or an anywhere, USA town,” Ansari says.
“It’s trying to find that balance,” of preserving the town’s character while making sure the people who live and work in the community can continue to do so.
It’s also a challenge balancing the needs of business owners and residents amid growing traffic to and through the town.
“Our sales tax revenue goes up, but the infrastructure isn’t really built for it,” says Kyle Busey, owner of local barbeque joint Busey Brews. “I guess it happens with all small towns: make the decision if they’re gonna grow with the change or resist the change. I think that’s where Nederland is at right now.”
In defining Nederland’s eras, Ansari says “now, our history is recreation.”
That recreational day use is one of the biggest changes Svenson has seen in recent years: “bombardment of people just here for the day in the community and how that affects our day-to-day lives on the whole stretch of Peak to Peak,” the highway that
On the plus side, Svenson says, growth has improved the quantity and quality of services like the food pantry, which has a clothing closet and community garden, and mental health services such as Mental Health Partners and Peak to Peak Counseling, as well as options for affordable housing.
But when Svenson thinks back on the most memorable moments from her time in the town, many of them feel painful or too personal to share. She’s lost several friends to fentanyl overdoses in recent years. She remembers a shooting at Eldora Ski Area in 2008 that left general manager Brian Mahon dead after an employee opened fire, and the 2016 bombing attempt. In 2011, NedFest organizer Mike Torpie took his own life in the Safeway parking lot, she recalls as she points to the site from her favorite of the three train cars on the cafe’s grounds.
“I want to say happier things, but the truth of it is, things that stick out are the things we had to be resilient through,” she says as an afternoon storm rolls in. “Those are the places where I really feel we’ve shined as a community.”
Next door, the Carousel of Happiness goes round, with kids and adults alike bobbing in lazy circles atop the hand-carved wooden animals. The passion project of Nederland resident Scott Harrison, the carousel was dreamed up by the young marine in Vietnam, who had a tiny music box given to him by his sister “that he held to his ear to distract
him from the horror of the war going on around him,” according to the carousel’s website. “The music, Chopin’s ‘Tristesse,’ brought him a peaceful image of a carousel in a mountain meadow.”
After rescuing the carousel frame in the late ’80s, Harrison spent the next 26 years carving a cheetah, a peacock, a dragon and a moose dozens of animals — no two alike. The carousel opened on Memorial Day 2010. Pat Hagberg, who has lived in the mountains outside of Nederland for 45 years, works at the carousel and says she loves the job for the cheer it brings people and the stories it brings out of them.
NEWS
“Adults need it more — way more,” she says. “Children, I’m not gonna say they take it for granted, but they’re just happy little beings. Adults, a lot of times, need a little help.”
Tristesse, the name of the song that inspired the carousel, is the French word for sadness, seemingly at odds with the carousel’s very name and purpose. But perhaps that duality is what makes the joy so poignant, just as Nederland’s brutal winters help forge the tight-knit community locals hold so dear.
“The world’s not the happiest place sometimes,” Hagberg says. “Here, I think people find happiness.”
NED 150 CALENDAR OF EVENTS
THURSDAY, AUG. 1
GOLDIE, THE LAST OF THE WILD WEST COWGIRLS
7 p.m. Nederland Mining Museum
FRIDAY, AUG. 2
COMMUNITY POTLUCK & BIRTHDAY CAKE
5-7 p.m. Nederland Presbyterian Church
BARN DANCE
7-9 p.m. N. Jefferson Street / Steam Shovel Lot
SATURDAY, AUG. 3
PANCAKE BREAKFAST
8-11 a.m. Nederland Community Center
STEAM SHOVEL DEMONSTRATIONS
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Steam Shovel Lot
GILLASPIE HOUSE TOURS
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 2 East 4th St.
NEDERLAND 150 PARADE
Noon to 12:30 p.m. Snyder to East Street
HOTDOGS & WATERMELON BBQ
12:30-3 p.m. Calvary Chapel
UGLY TRUCK CONTEST
1-3 p.m. East Street
BLACKSMITHING DEMONSTRATIONS
1-3 p.m. Steam Shovel Lot
PEAK-TO-PEAK RADIO CLUB DEMOS
1-4 p.m. Nederland Visitor’s Center
CHALK ART CONTEST
1-4 p.m. Nathan Lazarus Skate Park
OUTDOOR CONCERT WITH DIGGIN’ DIRT AND THE GUERRILLA FANFARE BRASS BAND
4-7 p.m. East 1st Street
SUNDAY, AUG. 4
COMMUNITY CHURCH SERVICE
10 a.m. Chipeta Park Pavilion
CLASSIC CAR SHOW
1-4 p.m. Caribou Shopping Center
TIME CAPSULE SEALING
3 p.m. Nederland Town Hall
MUSIC
SMILEY FACE SUMMER :)
Amber Bain of The Japanese House embraces her queer joy era
BY JEZY J. GRAY
When the chorus breaks on the bright and sunny new single from The Japanese House, singer-songwriter Amber Bain plants both feet in her own good feelings. She’s on a plane from London to Detroit for a first meeting with an internet love connection, and there’s no room for metaphor when it comes to the exquisite vibes of their blooming romance: “I feel happier,” she sings. “I could be losing my mind / but something’s happening.”
Something was in fact happening. Now the English alt-pop star and the American woman who set her heart aflutter are engaged to be married, having both proposed to each other this past April Fools Day.
“It was really cute — very, very gay. The most lesbian thing in the world,” Bain, 29, says with a breezy chuckle. “Now I’m in my wedding-planning era. It’s crazy. I don’t feel I’m old enough, but I guess I am now.”
You’ll hear the same easy shrug of contentment in the music. A hairpin turn from the melancholic mood board of last year’s In the End It Always Does, the cheekily titled “:)” finds the emerging artist at her most unguarded and optimistic, spinning the raw sugar of young love into a delicate confection of synthesizers and twinkling country-fried guitars that practically weep with joy.
“Contentment isn’t really such a strong pang in the chest as sorrow,” she says. “It’s easier for me to explore things that come from sorrow. It’s hard to find the poignance in happiness, and to write about it in a way that isn’t cheesy. Sometimes you have to kind of embrace the cheesiness of it.”
Boulder Weekly caught up with Bain on a Zoom call ahead of her Aug. 6 performance at Boulder Theater with ethereal New York indie-folk outfit Skullcrusher to talk about this new chapter, her lush sophomore LP and the songs she loves when life is good. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Colorado is excited to welcome you back after your recent shows with Maggie Rogers at Red Rocks.
I loved that. Those shows were probably my favorite of the tour. Well, obviously it’s a great spot. Everyone says that about Red Rocks.
We’re partial to it ourselves. Will this be your first time playing Boulder?
Playing, yes. But when I did the Red Rocks show, I went on a hike in Boulder. So I’ve been there before.
A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS:
Bain is no stranger to big feelings. Since her debut single “Still” crashed onto BBC Radio 1 nearly a decade ago, she has swept critics and listeners away with her gauzy brand of dream-pop wrapped in candid lyrics on yearning and desire. But while her 2019 debut Good at Falling and recent follow-up relish the catharsis of heartache, Bain’s latest offering as The Japanese House is lifted by something lighter.
You and Charli [XCX] worked together on your last album. How did that come about?
Your new single [:)] has gotten a lot of play in the newsroom — perfect summer vibes. It’s you and brat out here.
Smiley Face Summer. I hope so! [laughs]
She’s with my producer George [Daniel of The 1975], and she was kind of in and out of the studio a bit. I asked her to help me out on the track “Friends.” I was kind of struggling with not knowing what to do in the middle eight, and she is really good at putting melodies in the right places. She came in and did some writing on it, which was fun. I got to see her in the studio. It’s weird, because she’s a friend — when I’m with her, I don’t feel like I’m with Charli XCX. But when I’m not with her, I’m like a child. I’m a massive fan. I love brat so much. I would die for brat
I want to circle back to your new song, which exudes happiness in a really direct way. I was talking to Buck Meek of Big Thief earlier this year, and he described the subject as a sort of “taboo” for songwriters. Does it feel that way to you? Does writing happy songs require a different sort of vulnerability than sad ones? I’ve not thought about it that way. This next album I’m writing is a love album. It’s all about falling in love, being in love, different aspects to that. I don’t find it hard to write about. With the song “Smiley Face,” I would find it hard not to write about that. I almost felt like I had to hold back on the happiness of it all. When you feel anything, it’s really
Since launching her music project The Japanese House anonymously in 2015, English singersongwriter Amber Bain has stepped into the spotlight with her aching brand of guitar-driven dream pop. Credit: Carissa Gallo
Charli XCX isn’t the only heavy hitter throwing their weight behind the new Japanese House LP. The album features cameos from Bon Iver, MUNA and longtime collaborator Matt Healy of The 1975.
hard not to utilize that for some sort of creative charge. It’s in some ways innate to put down what you’re feeling in a song — that’s kind of the only way to do it.
Extreme feeling often comes from sadness. It doesn’t necessarily come from happiness, because contentment isn’t really such a strong pang in the chest as sorrow. It’s easier for me to explore things that come from sorrow. It’s hard to find the poignance in happiness, and to write about it in a way that isn’t cheesy. Sometimes you have to kind of embrace the cheesiness of it. But joy doesn’t necessarily equate to cheesiness. Exploring that is interesting to me right now.
Like, you’ll watch a really sad Instagram video about a dog running into the road and getting hit by a car, and you’ll be crying. Then you’ll see another video that’s like, “This dog was sad and then got picked up by this lovely little old woman and now they’re best friends.” And you’ll still be crying, even though it’s happy. There’s still some sort of poignance in happiness.
What music do you listen to when you’re happy?
I love hyper-pop when I’m feeling really ecstatic: AG Cook and Charli XCX. That kind of euphoric, simple chord progression — there’s something kind of addictive about it. There’s also the song “Amamizu” by Masakatsu Takagi, which captures how I feel when I’m in a state of joy. My girlfriend made me this playlist recently, and there’s an artist on it called Sparklet who has a song called “Mykonos, SA.” The production and the melody make me feel like I’m in tune with my own happiness.
People can put a lot of pressure on sophomore albums. Were you feeling that as you began to piece these songs together in the studio?
I wasn’t really even thinking about making an album — I was thinking about my life falling apart. It was much more inward. I obviously care about how well something does and being able to continue doing this while being respected as an artist. But when I’m making it, I genuinely don’t care about any of that stuff. You couldn’t force me to put a song on there I didn’t like just because I thought it might get No. 1. My only goal with this album was to make something I really like. Because the previous one [Good at Falling], I don’t really like as much. It wasn’t really as honest of an expression of myself. I was doing more maths than I was channeling. With [In the End It Always Does], tastes change and there are bits I maybe wouldn’t write now. But I love it
pain into something. I was also working with two of my closest friends, and I felt like I was doing something worthwhile. When you feel really alone and depressed, it’s absolutely integral that you have a task or something you feel is meaningful. It did feel meaningful, and it still does.
I don’t really understand my gender, but I’m OK with not understanding it.”
— AMBER BAIN, THE JAPANESE HOUSE
You’ve said teaming with [queer co-producer] Chloe Kraemer is what set you on the path of your new record. Why was that relationship so important to your creative process?
Let’s get into your most recent album [In the End It Always Does]. Are you sick of talking about it yet?
Not at all. Remarkably, I’m not even sick of listening to it.
because it’s such an exact snapshot of what I was feeling at the time. I’m happy with all the choices I made. It was really therapeutic to make that album whilst going through a breakup. It helped me decide what I needed to do during the most painful time, because I was able to focus all that
“Boyhood” to me feels like the beating heart of the record. Can you tell readers a little about how that song came into the world, and what it’s about?
It was really eye opening to work with someone who understands what I’m singing about. Obviously I always work with George [Daniel], and I always will. I love working with him. But there’s only a degree to which he can understand a gay relationship. A relationship between two women is very different from a straight relationship. To understand that like Chloe does is kind of game changing, because the production — the style, the way that we do it — all kind of all revolves around: “What is the song trying to do? What does it mean?”
There’s a million different ways you can produce a song, and you kind of want it to sound the best for what the song means. She really helps me connect with that side of the music more. We spend a lot of time talking, and that makes you feel so much more creative than EQ-ing a kick drum. Then before you know it, we’re reading poems to each other and I’m writing a song a week, which is rare for me.
It was the last song I finished on the album. The music was around for ages, and the lyrics were sort of gibberish. Often when I write songs, I’ll just write a melody that sounds like words, but it’s not. It’s just kind of like word sounds. [“Boyhood”] was like that for ages, and the music was all done. I had a plane booked to L.A. because I was like, “This album is going to be finished, and then I’m going to stay there for a month and have a holiday.” I was literally in the studio with my suitcases, and I had an hour left until I had to leave for the airport. I was like, “I better get these lyrics down.” I knew the song was going to have something to do with being queer and growing up — how you are shaped by what happens to you and how you feel during your childhood. As a kid, I really wanted to be a boy. I would have chosen to have gender reassignment surgery if that was an option for me. I was so ashamed to be a girl. I hated it.
Obviously that has poured over into my adult life in different ways, but I feel much more confident with myself and who I am. I don’t really understand my gender, but I’m OK with not understanding it. So the lyrics talk about the unlimited pathways you could have had in your childhood, but in the end you just kind of have to accept the one you had. Once you embrace that, it’s much easier to accept yourself.
When I play that song live, it really shines for me because it connects with the audience so much. I have such a queer crowd now. People really become one during that song. Something weird happens, and it’s not really about me anymore. It’s about queer acceptance and joy.
ON THE
BILL:
The Japanese House with Skullcrusher. 8 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 6, Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St. $35
The latest single from The Japanese House, “:)” was released June 18. Courtesy: Dirty Hit
DEAR WHOLE FOODS DADDY
BY GABBY VERMEIRE
WYour burning Boulder questions, asked and answered
e all have questions and need advice, but sometimes the pseudo therapy in the Instagram stories of astrology girlies doesn’t cut it. Or maybe the gate-keeping culture of adventure bros has you fearing the judgment that comes with revealing yourself as a newbie at anything. This advice column exists to hold space for you and your Boulder queries (especially the uncool ones).
What’s the deal with this Portal place?
“What’s the deal?” Who are you, Jerry Seinfeld? The question you should be asking is, “What is Portal a portal to?” Is the city’s new “thermaculture” hangout an alternate version of Boulder where no man feels the need to flex on his brothers and sisters and lives a life of health and wellness for himself alone, where hikes and runs are taken for the joy of it and nary a meal prep is shared on an Instagram story? Or is it a portal to your kitchen floor when you were five years old, when life was carefree and before you ever heard the words “JD Vance” or “brat summer.” Idk, I haven’t been yet, but rumors sug-
gest that saunas and cold plunges are involved, and vibes are predictably horny. Check it out and let me know?
I loved Boulder, but I’m moving to Longmont. How many times is too many to come back to town? Oh buddy, if you’re asking, then you’ve already hit the limit. “How’s ‘Longtucky’?” your Boulder homies ask as you meet them at the Rayback for the third Thursday in a row. Your smile hides a sadness as you pass on the second round, knowing the 20-minute drive on 36 awaits you. As you watch them tipsily mount their bikes, you can’t hear them whisper: “Isn’t it kind of weird that Kevin still goes out in Boulder like, almost every night?”
How do I ask out pretty girls at Trident?
I will reveal to you … psych again! The real secret? Yeah, they wanna be asked out, but probably not by you.
Why is dating so, so bleak here? Like bleaker than bleak?
I’m going to let you in on a secret: The pretty girls at Trident didn’t ask to be born with perfect skin, slender, artful wrists, or effortlessly chic hair falling around their perpetually frowny, pouty lips in a shag style that would look like crap on anyone else. They didn’t ask to be born knowing how to style baggy t-shirts like effortless nymphets, or how to order matcha lattes in a manner casually evoking naïve sexuality and aloofness. That is all to say, the secret is that pretty girls at Trident don’t want to be asked out. Psych! I’ll let you in on a deeper secret: Yes, half the pretty girls don’t want to be asked out and just want to study their Russian lit or whatever. The other half are typing gibberish on their Macbooks, waiting, begging for you to hit on them with the perfect line, which
It’s counter intuitive, isn’t it? Boulder is so fun and hot! Boulderites are so fun and hot! Theoretically, we should be swapping STDs like an Olympic village or a retirement community in Florida. I can’t claim credit for this take, but once during a single-in-Boulder commiseration sesh, a friend dropped some real shit: Everyone dating in Boulder always thinks they can do better, and it’s easier to say “nah” after a mediocre first date than to stick it out to a better second one that leads to many more, a.k.a. normal dating.
Can I aspire to be like the old Boulder ladies, or do I accept that I’ll never be able to retire here?
What a sick trick life plays. We grow up watching the promise of the post-menopausal life of the Boulder Crone™, where every day begins by keeping that shit TIGHT with a Vinyasa Level 2 Flow at the Little Yoga Studio and ends with watering the hydrangeas in a white linen tunic. Then, we’re forced to live in a reality where we (or this columnist at least) have no hope to ever own a house and getting coconut-pilled was
the highlight of our year. Give yourself some grace, child: The Boulder crones never had their brains destroyed by the unnatural THC concentrates that have all but rotted ours, and they never had to date men who say things that begin with, “Actually, Elon did have a point about…”
To answer your question, you may just need to adjust your expectations. At the end of the day, it’s not her $2.5 mil. property on West Pearl that makes the Boulder Crone so timelessly sexy: It’s the smile lines that light up her eyes when she raises the heart rate of the Whole Foods cashier boy 30 years her junior. That is to say, you can get a head start by just skipping the Botox, m’lady.
The pretty girls at Trident may want to be asked out, but probably not by you.
Existing in the context of all that came before you means you can forget about retiring in Boulder. Courtesy: U.S. Senate
MUSIC
FOUND SOUNDS
What’s in Boulder’s headphones?
BY BOULDER WEEKLY STAFF
As we pause for a quick beat between RockyGrass and Folks Fest during another miraculous summer festival season, your fellow sound hounds are back with the latest roundup of the bestselling new vinyl releases from Paradise Found Records and Music (1646 Pearl St.) From bluegrass phenom Billy Strings to soft-rock dreamer Clairo, this is what July sounded like in the People’s Republic of Boulder.
1. JOHNNY BLUE SKIES Passage Du Desir 2. GLASS ANIMALS I Love You So Fucking Much
When I shared Box for Buddy, Box for Star by This Is Lorelai with Colorado Sun arts reporter Parker Yamasaki during our recent time together at the National Critics Institute, she said: “This makes me feel like I’m in high school, in a good way.” The first solo album from Nate Amos — one half of the Brooklyn art-pop duo Water from Your Eyes — is a playful and poignant collection that skips from earworm electro-pop to cozy indie-folk with breezy abandon. It also happens to be one of the best albums of the year.
— Jezy J. Gray, arts and culture editor
For the complete list of top new local vinyl releases, visit bit.ly/FoundSoundsJuly24 .
STAFF PICK
LOVE LANGUAGE
Martin Scorsese goes on a personal voyage in ‘Made in England’
BY MICHAEL J. CASEY
Loving cinema is a one-way street. Oh, I love movies. Hell, I love certain movies more than some of the people in my life. But I realize that adoration isn’t reciprocated. I Know Where I’m Going! doesn’t give a damn about me. A Matter of Life and Death doesn’t even know I exist. Black Narcissus won’t return my calls. But I love them anyway. And I’ll go on loving them until death do us part.
Which makes me wonder what it must be like to be Martin Scorsese. As a young boy growing up in Little Italy, Manhattan, Scorsese fell under the spell of The Red Shoes, The Tales of Hoffmann and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. Broadcast on local TV, these movies transfixed the young cinephile. He loved them so deeply that he internalized them, and when the time came for the watcher to become a maker, those works of unparalleled creativity didn’t just influence him. They fueled his very imagination.
The pageantry of the duel in Colonel Blimp became Jake LaMotta’s title fight in Raging Bull Robert Helpmann’s shifting eyes in Hoffmann possessed the uneasy gaze of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver and Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas The musical core of The Red Shoes became … well, just about everything Scorsese has touched. The
man likes music. The man likes movies. And specifically, the man likes the movies of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.
Directed by David Hinton and featuring Scorsese as guide, Made in England: The Films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger is at once a retrospective of cinema’s greatest collaboration and a love letter from one filmmaker to another.
Under the banner of The Archers, Powell and Pressburger wrote, produced and directed an unequaled string of bonafide classics. That made the British duo popular in the 1940s, but they fell out of favor in the ’50s and ’60s and almost vanished into obscurity. Then came the emergence of the New Hollywood with the likes of Brian De Palma, Francis Ford Coppola and Scorsese, who counted the Archers among their favorite filmmakers. (Coppola even employed Powell at his studio, American Zoetrope.) These days, Greta Gerwig is waving the Archers
flag with more than a few nods to the duo in Barbie
But it’s Scorsese and his long-time collaborator, Oscar-winning editor and Powell’s widow, Thelma Schoonmaker, who work tirelessly to restore the Archers’ films via the Film Foundation and make sure the cinema of Powell and Pressburger has a permanent place in the cinematic curriculum.
For Scorsese, it’s personal. He met and developed a friendship with Powell in the ’70s and ’80s, helping him and his movies get recognition — he even introduced Powell to Schoonmaker. Powell returned the favor by helping Scorsese through some difficult years as an artist and as a person. You sense the adoration immediately in Made in England, but it isn’t until the end of the doc that you realize how deep the love is, how personal the connection. Movies about the movies are often a lot of fun because you get whole careers condensed into a single run-
time. That’s true in Made in England, with Scorsese taking viewers through the Archers’ films chronologically. Then there’s the knowledge Scorsese brings from outside of the frame. The behind-the-scenes stills, the correspondences, the interviews with Powell and Pressburger shot in the ’80s — Hinton breezes through it all without losing the significance. But at the center is Scorsese and his love for these movies and these men. Fitting for two romantics who loved and respected each other as much as Powell and Pressburger did. Few filmmakers wore their emotions on their sleeves as proudly as the Archers. It’s only proper that Made in England follow suit.
ON SCREEN: Made in England: The Films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger opens in limited release Aug. 2.
One of cinema’s greatest collaborations, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger were writers, producers and directors known collectively as the Archers. Courtesy: Film Limited / British Broadcasting Corporation
ODD HAVE MERCY
Barbie-doll melodrama and bubble-gum bullets at the Dairy Arts Center
BY JEZY J. GRAY
Friday nights are freakier at the Dairy Arts Center. For nearly a decade, the nonprofit creative hub has welcomed local weirdos to its weekly screening of underground films you won’t find on Netflix. From arthouse horror to B-movie madness and shades in between, the long-running subversive cinema series known as Friday Night Weird (FNW) is the region’s definitive showcase of all things unhinged.
For our new monthly column, Boulder Weekly sat down for our regular check-in with co-curator and “Queen of the Weird” Shay Wescott for a preview of what’s on deck this month.
COMA
Friday, Aug. 2
Bertrand Bonello, 2022, France, 1:22, NR
Don’t call Coma a COVID film. Wescott says it’s so much more. The latest from French auteur Bertrand Bonello — whose sci-fi drama
The Beast screened as part of FNW’s June lineup — follows an isolated 18-year-old living through unprecedented times (sound familiar?) who finds herself entranced by a mysterious vlogger named Patricia Coma. What follows is a reality-bending swirl of animation, unsettling online uploads and a surreal melodrama starring Barbie dolls.
empathetic standpoint,” Wescott says.
“And if you pay attention, it’s really a love letter from one generation of artists to the next. It’s actually this sort of validation of young people’s anxieties that I think is really lacking from so much of the art we see in the mainstream.”
CRUMB CATCHER
Friday, Aug. 9
MORE WEIRD AND WONDERFUL JAPANESE CINEMA
BY SHAY WESCOTT
HAUSU (Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1977): The definitive weird Japanese movie, Toho Studios asked Obayashi to make the next Jaws and got this instead.
A CULT IS MY PASSPORT (Takashi Nomura, 1967):
If you’re not familiar with Japanese actor Joe Shishido, best known for Branded to Kill, or his cheek implants — yes, you read that correctly — then you need to stop everything you are doing and watch this now.
R100 (Hitoshi Matsumoto, 2013): One of our first, and very underrated in my opinion, FNW screenings!
FEMALE PRISONER SCORPION: JAILHOUSE
41 (Shunya Itō, 1972): This is technically a sequel, but you don’t need to watch the first film in the series at all. This descendent of women’s prison sexploitation movies ditches the more gratuitous tropes of the genre and goes all in on experimental arthouse cinema.
Chris Skotchdopole, 2024, USA, 1:43, NR
Friday Night Weird takes a pause Aug. 16 for the return of the Mimesis Film Festival. Pick up next week’s print edition of Boulder Weekly for a preview of the annual documentary festival by our resident film critic, Michael J. Casey.
The honeymoon is over for Shane and Leah. The newlyweds, played by Rigo Garay and Ella Rae Peck, face the first big stress test of their marriage when a pair of unhinged entrepreneurs make their big pitch through a blackmail plot that sends the young couple’s lives careening into chaos. The directorial debut of Chris Skotchdopole, this home-invasion story is a searing send-up of American life from an emergent new cinematic voice.
THE VOURDALAK
Friday, Aug. 23
Adrien Beau, 2024, France, 1:30, NR
As we’ve established in this column, Wescott is a sucker for a good vampire flick. So if you missed last month’s Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person, you’ll want to mark your calendar for this atmospheric adaptation of a gothic novella by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy that predates Bram Stoker’s Dracula by more than 50 years.
“In a current horror landscape where grief and trauma are possibly becoming played-out tropes, The Vourdalak com-
bines modern metaphorical horror movie themes, retro ’70s-era filmmaking aesthetics, ancient Slovak folklore, and against all odds, effective puppetry, in surprising ways,” Wescott says. “Especially impressive is the fact that this film, which feels like it appeared out of another era or possibly another dimension, is a directorial debut for Beau.”
BLACK TIGHT KILLERS
Friday, Aug. 30
Yasuharu Hasebe, 1966, Japan, 1:26, NR
If you ask Wescott, nobody does strange cinema quite like Japan. To wit: Yasuharu Hasebe’s Black Tight Killers, a candy-coated romp about a flight attendant named Yoriko (Chieko Matsubara) kidnapped by a team of women assassins armed with vinyl records. Her last hope is a photographer (Akira Kobayashi) who faces a gauntlet of go-go dancing ninjas and bullets made of bubble gum. Got it?
“From Godzilla’s sillier period to the arthouse horror of Kwaidan and Hausu, Japanese noir or basically anything Meiko Kaji starred in, there is a lot to love in Japanese genre cinema from the ’60s and ’70s,” she says. “Like many of these films, plot is completely beside the point in Black Tight Killers, but the nonsense of it all makes it that much more fun. It is openly silly and kitsch, but also sexy, violent and irresistibly stylish — kind of like Austin Powers directed by Quentin Tarantino.”
“Less focused on the specifics of the pandemic, it’s really a fever dream interpretation of what it feels like to be alive now, exploring isolation, politics, social media and overall modern anxieties from a darkly comic and unexpectedly
“It’s like watching an episode of Shark Tank in the universe of Funny Games,” Wescott says. “Some might label it a thriller or a horror movie; it’s also a dark comedy about the absurd desperation of the American Dream. Skotchdopole manages to juggle all of these tones throughout the film, but it’s definitely at its best when things start going totally off the rails.”
Black Tight Killers
Courtesy: Nikkatsu
1 – 4
NEDERDAYS
Thurs.-Sun., Aug. 1-4, various locations, Nederland.
Nederland is turning 150, and you’re invited to celebrate with a weekend of festivities.
Show Ned some love with a downtown parade, an old-fashioned barn dance, ugly truck contest, time-capsule sealing and more. See p. 10 for details
2
STREET FAIRE
6-9:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 2, Steinbaugh Pavilion, 824 Front St., Louisville. Free
Friday evenings in Louisville mean good neighbors and good music. Don’t miss a performance from Deborah Stafford & The Night Stalkers during this all-ages community bash at the Steinbaugh Pavilion.
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4
AERIAL DANCE FESTIVAL 2024 SHOWCASE PERFORMANCE
Fri.-Sun., Aug. 2-4, Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder. $26+
Wanna get high? Join Frequent Flyers at Aerial Dance Festival 2024. This showcase performance by the local studio takes place across three nights at the Dairy Arts Center with an audience Q&A portion following each performance.
3
ARTS IN THE PARK
7-9 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 3, Boulder Civic Area, Broadway and Canyon Boulevard. Free
The City of Boulder’s summer showcase continues at the Glen Huntington Bandshell with a soul-stirring performance by the Boulder Opera. Food trucks will be onsite, with beer and wine sales supporting the PLAY Boulder Foundation.
3
SWIFTIE GOAT YOGA
9-10 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 3, The Community Farm, 15000 W. 72nd Ave., Arvada. $13 (kids), $25 (adults)
No baaa-d blood here — just cuddly goats and downward dogs. Join the folks at the Community Farm for a morning yoga sesh with adorable barnyard friends and the songs of Taylor Swift. Bring your own mat and dress for the weather.
3
PEARL STREET MILE
4:30-9:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 3, 1300 Block of Pearl Street, Boulder. Registration: $20-$45
Lace up your running shoes for a criterium multi-lapped course in the heart of Boulder. In addition to the one-mile race circling around the Boulder Courthouse and down the Pearl Street Mall, the event also includes a kids’ 800m dash and the USATF Colorado Championships for Open and Masters athletes.
4
SUMMER OF LUV MUSIC FESTIVAL
3-7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 4, Luvin Arms Animal Sanctuary, 3470 County Road 7, Erie. $15
Live music and animal rescue collide during this summer celebration at Luvin Arms Animal Sanctuary. Bring lawn chairs, picnic blankets and whatever else you might need for a day of fun in the sun featuring headliner Tonky Crank and the Mountain Reverb Band.
4
SUNDAY GRAVEL ADVENTURE RIDES
8-10 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 4, Full Cycle Bikes and Colorado Multisport, 2355 30th St., Boulder. Free
Weekends are better on two wheels. Join the gearheads at Full Cycle & Colorado Multisport for a suite of Sunday group rides designed for cyclists of all experience levels. From beginner to advanced, it’s a great way to make friends and experience the beauty of your backyard in a whole new way.
5
MONDAY BOOZY BINGO
6-8 p.m. Monday, Aug. 5, Parkway Food Hall, 700 Ken Pratt Blvd., Unit 200, Longmont. Free
Head to the newly opened Parkway Food Hall in Longmont for a tipsy night of bingo. Take home prizes and giveaways, and enjoy drink specials like $6 High Noons while you listen for your lucky numbers.
5
DROP-IN WRITERS GROUP
6-7:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 5, Longmont Public Library, 409 4th Ave. Free
Calling all scribes! This weekly creative circle is your chance to connect and work toward achievable goals with fellow writers in a friendly, low-pressure environment at the Longmont Public Library. All experience levels welcome.
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FILMMAKING MEETUP
6-8 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 6, Firehouse Art Center, 667 4th Ave., Longmont. Free
If making movies is your thing, you won’t want to miss this monthly roundtable at the Firehouse Art Center. Whether you’re kneedeep in a project or looking to get started in the craft, this is a great opportunity to learn and network.
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PUBLIC ART WALKING TOUR
5:30-7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 7, 17th and Pearl streets, Boulder. Free
The Flatirons may steal the show, but there’s more beauty to behold on the streets of Boulder if you know where to look. Join reps from the City of Boulder’s Office of Arts and Culture for a 1.5-hour tour featuring 30-ish stops showcasing a variety of sculptures, murals and artful urban design projects.
Want more Boulder County events? Check out the complete listings online by scanning this QR code.
Heartland art-rock storyteller Kevin Morby returns to the Front Range for an opening-slot show with Guster and the Colorado Symphony at Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre. The artist performs in support of his latest releases, This Is a Photograph and its 2023 companion More Photographs, out now via Dead Oceans. Scan the QR code for an interview with Morby before you go. See listing for details
RIVER SPELL 9 p.m. Mountain Sun Pub, 1535 Pearl St., Boulder. Free
ARIES (MARCH 21-APRIL 19): One meaning of the word “palette” is a flat board on which painters place a variety of pigments to apply to their canvas. What would be a metaphorical equivalent to a palette in your life? Maybe it’s a diary or journal where you lay out the feelings and ideas you use to craft your fate. Perhaps it’s an inner sanctuary where you retreat to organize your thoughts and meditate on upcoming decisions. Or it could be a group of allies with whom you commune and collaborate to enhance each other’s destinies. However you define your palette, Aries, I believe the time is right to enlarge its size and increase the range of pigments you can choose from.
TAURUS (APRIL 20-MAY 20): The star that Westerners call Arcturus has a different name for Indigenous Australians: Marpeankurrk. In their part of the world, it begins to rise before dawn in August. For the Boorong people of northwest Victoria, this was once a sign to hunt for the larvae of wood ants, a staple food. I bring this up, Taurus, because heavenly omens are telling me you should be on the lookout for new sources of sustenance and fuel. What’s your metaphorical equivalent of wood ant larvae?
GEMINI (MAY 21-JUNE 20): Seventy percent of the world’s macadamia nuts have a single ancestor: a particular tree in Queensland, Australia. In 1896, two Hawaiian brothers took seeds from this tree and brought them back to their homestead in Oahu. From that small beginning, Hawaiian macadamia nuts came to dominate the world’s production until South Africa took the crown in the 2010s. I foresee you soon having resemblances to that original tree, Gemini. What you launch in the coming weeks and months could have tremendous staying power and reach far beyond its original inspiration.
CANCER (JUNE 21-JULY 22): Ketchup flows at about 0.03 miles per hour. In 35 hours, it could travel about a mile. I think you should move at a similar speed in the coming days. The slower you go, the better you will feel. The more deeply focused you are on each event, and the more you allow the rich details to unfold in their own sweet time, the more successful you will be at the art of living. Your words of power will be incremental, gradual and cumulative.
LEO (JULY 23-AUG. 22): Astrologer Chris Zydel says every sign has superpowers. In honor of your birthday season, I’ll tell you about those she attributes to you Leos. When you are at your best, you are a beacon of “joyful magnetism” who naturally exudes “irrepressible charisma.” You “shine like a thousand suns” and “strut your stuff with unabashed audacity.” All who are lucky enough to be in your sphere benefit from your “radiant spontaneity, bold, dramatic play and whoo-hoo celebration of your creative genius.” I will add that of course you can’t always be a perfect embodiment of all these superpowers. But I suspect you are cruising through a phase when you are the next best thing to perfect.
VIRGO (AUG. 23-SEPT. 22): Virgo-born Friedrich August Kekule (1829-1896) transformed organic chemistry with his crucial discovery of the structure of carbonbased compounds. He had studied the problem for years. But his breakthrough realization didn’t arrive until he had a key dream while dozing. There’s not enough room here to describe it at length, but the image that solved the riddle was a snake biting its own tail. I bring this story to your attention, Virgo, because I suspect you could have practical and revelatory dreams yourself in the coming weeks. Daydream visions, too. Pay attention! What might be your equivalent to a snake biting its own tail?
LIBRA (SEPT. 23-OCT. 22): Please don’t succumb to numbness or apathy in the coming weeks. It’s crucial that you don’t. You should also take extreme measures to avoid boredom and cynicism. At the particular
juncture in your amazing life, you need to feel deeply and care profoundly. You must find ways to be excited about as many things as possible, and you must vividly remember why your magnificent goals are so magnificent. Have you ruminated recently about which influences provide you with the spiritual and emotional riches that sustain you? I encourage you to become even more intimately interwoven with them. It’s time for you to be epic, mythic — even heroic.
SCORPIO (OCT. 23-NOV. 21): Historically, August has brought many outbreaks of empowerment. In August 1920, American women gained the right to vote. In August 1947, India and Pakistan wrested their independence from the British Empire’s long oppression. In August 1789, French revolutionaries issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man, a document that dramatically influenced the development of democracy and liberty in the Western world. In 1994, the United Nations established August 9 as the time to celebrate International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. In 2024, I am officially naming August to be Scorpio Power Spot Month. It will be an excellent time to claim and/or boost your command of the niche that will nurture your authority and confidence for years to come.
SAGITTARIUS (NOV. 22-DEC. 21): August is Save Our Stereotypes Month for you Sagittarians. I hope you will celebrate by rising up strong and bold to defend our precious natural treasures. Remember that without cliches, platitudes, pigeonholes, conventional wisdom and hackneyed ideas, life would be nearly impossible. JUST KIDDING! Everything I just said was a dirty lie. Here’s the truth. August is Scour Away Stereotypes Month for you Sagittarians. Please be an agent of original thinking and fertile freshness. Wage a brazen crusade against cliches, platitudes, pigeonholes, conventional wisdom and hackneyed ideas.
CAPRICORN (DEC. 22-JAN. 19): You’re never too old or wise or jaded to jump up in the air with glee when offered a free gift. I hope you won’t be so bent on maintaining your dignity and composure that you remain poker-faced when given the chance to grab the equivalent of a free gift. I confess I am worried you might be unreceptive to the sweet, rich things coming your way. I’m concerned you might be closed to unexpected possibilities. I will ask you, therefore, to pry open your attitude so you will be alert to the looming blessings, even when they are in disguise.
AQUARIUS (JAN. 20-FEB. 18): A friend of a friend told me this story: One summer day, a guy he knew woke up at 5 a.m., meditated for a while and made breakfast. As he gazed out his kitchen window, enjoying his coffee, he became alarmed. In the distance, at the top of a hill, a brush fire was burning. He called emergency services to alert firefighters. A few minutes later, though, he realized he had made an error. The brush fire was in fact the rising sun lighting up the horizon with its fiery rays. Use this as a teaching story in the coming days, Aquarius. Double-check your initial impressions to make sure they are true. Most importantly, be aware that you may initially respond with worry to events that are actually wonderful or interesting.
PISCES (FEB. 19-MARCH 20): At least a million ships lie at the bottom of the world’s oceans, lakes and rivers. Some crashed because of storms and others due to battles, collisions or human error. A shipwreck hunter named Sean Fisher estimates that those remains hold over $60 billion worth of treasure. Among the most valuable are the old Spanish vessels that sank while carrying gold, silver and other loot plundered from the Americas. If you have the slightest inkling to launch adventures in search of those riches, I predict the coming months will be an excellent time. Alternately, you are likely to generate good fortune for yourself through any version of diving into the depths in quest of wealth in all of its many forms.
SAVAGE LOVE
My partner and I have been together for nearly thirty years. He was never as into sex/romance/intimacy as much as I was, and things got worse after he had a malignant brain tumor removed six years ago. He is now cancer-free. However, he lost all interest in sexual and romantic activity after his tumor was discovered.
I told him I want to be able to satisfy my needs elsewhere on occasion, and he doesn’t want me to. If he doesn’t want sex, that’s fine. But he shouldn’t deny me the right to get my needs met. Am I wrong?
— Wants And Needs The Sex
Anyone who’s been reading my column for more than three months knows what I’m going to say in response to this question: Do what you need to do to stay married and sane.
But before you do that, press the issue with him again, WANTS. Either he’ll give you permission — tacitly or explicitly — to discreetly seek sex elsewhere, or he won’t. In which case, see the above paragraph and pray you don’t get caught.
P.S. I’m going to re-up my call here for people who are getting very serious about someone to initiate a conversation about what you will do, as a couple, if after decades together one of you is done with sex and the other one isn’t.
After over a decade of monogamy, my boyfriend and I started opening things up with threesomes. Our current ground rules are simple: We share a profile on one hookup app, and we only play together. It’s been fun so far but some differences in style/approach are emerging.
He engages men directly and without checking with me first, and he’s gotten into direct flirtations in our feed about him and the other guy. He tells me not to worry, it’s just the initial flirtation, and he always plans to bring me in “at some point.” But I can’t help feeling like a third wheel then.
He insinuates that I’m foreclosing things prematurely when I can’t see the information I want to see right
BY DAN SAVAGE
away. Things are starting to accumulate and turn into resentments. How do we keep this fun?
— Communications Have Amplified Tensions
Asking your boyfriend to run a guy by you before swapping dick pics — if only to make sure this other guy is someone you also wanna fuck — is entirely reasonable. Your boyfriend shouldn’t be writing checks with his dick that your ass may not wanna cash. So long as he brings you in when the chats shift from flirtations to logistics, your boyfriend can tell himself he’s not violating the letter of your agreement. But if you’re reading chats where guys bail after your boyfriend attempts to “bring you in,” CHATS, or messages that make your boyfriend sound like he might be available solo, he’s definitely violating the spirit of your agreement. Your newly opened relationship isn’t going to be a happy one — or a lasting one — if your boyfriend’s online activities leave you feeling hurt and insecure. If he cares about your feelings, he needs to course correct.
That said, CHATS, it’s not uncommon for two people in a newly open relationship to experience this kind of conflict. Now that you two know you have different styles when it comes to making contacts online, you need to work out a compromise.
P.S. A quick message for CHAT’s boyfriend: If you invest a lot of time, energy and dick pics in a guy who isn’t interested in playing with you and your boyfriend, you may find yourself tempted to meet up with that guy solo. Creating temptation doesn’t mean succumbing to temptation, but if temptation is something you’ve had a hard time resisting in the past, you might wanna avoid flirting and stick to logistics.
Email your question for the column to mailbox@savage.love or record your question for the Savage Lovecast at savage.love/askdan. Podcasts, columns and more at Savage.Love
DINING CANCEL CULTURE
Local restaurateurs have reservations about the way you save a table for dinner
BY JOHN LEHNDORFF
If Restaurant Reservations 101 was a freshman class at CU Boulder, our collective final grade as diners would be a C at best. That means many of us get an A: We know how to properly make and cancel a reservation.
Sadly, some of us get an F. We are the no-shows and the folks who cancel five minutes before we’re supposed to be seated. We’re the inconsiderate ones who show up with six diners for a four-top reservation, or make multiple reservations at local restaurants and fail to cancel the ones we don’t need.
Local restaurateurs love their customers and say cancellations and noshows are a normal part of business. But problems with reservations have reportedly only increased since patrons returned after the pandemic.
Did diners forget how to behave?
As the co-owner of one of America’s most celebrated fine dining destinations, Bobby Stuckey is an evangelist for hospitality. His Frasca Food & Wine in Boulder (and local sister eateries) have picked up a bundle of prestigious James Beard and Michelin awards for service, food and wine.
You would think guests at Frasca would know better.
“Even some of our family and friends of Frasca don’t understand how the reservation system works,” Stuckey says.
“We open at 5 p.m. and have only about 18 tables in the restaurant,” he says. “Our guests are usually with us for two to three hours. Everybody can’t be seated at 7 p.m. on a Friday night.”
According to Stuckey, no-calls (not canceling reservations) and no-shows are bad, but last-minute cancellations are almost worse.
“We understand that sometimes there are emergencies or flight delays,” he says. “But when they ask us to hold a table, then guests have responsibilities, too.”
Given the world-class ingredients the eatery uses, the costs can be enormous.
“We order things like fresh whole halibut based on a certain number of expected guests. If 20% of our guests don’t show up, it can go to waste. It’s bad for the environment,” Stuckey says. “At a Michelin-starred restaurant like this, we are booked many weeks ahead. There are not groups of diners waiting at the door for a table.”
For its reservations policy, Frasca takes a $50 credit card deposit — the fee is subtracted from the cost of the meal.
“It’s amazing how many times a nocall or no-show tries to argue to get the deposit back,” he says. “If you have NBA tickets and decide not to show up, you won’t get a refund.”
PARTY OF GHOSTS
Serving strong margaritas and platters of burritos, the Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant has opened locations in Fort Collins, Greeley, Lone Tree and Denver. The Boulder Rio opened in 1989.
While navigating new challenges, the longtime CEO of the Rio eateries, Steve Richter, says some things never change.
“We just know that some people aren’t going to show up, especially on big weekends,” he says. “We know we’re going to have a certain amount of cancellations.”
“Last weekend, we had a party of 35 not show up at the Rio in Lone Tree,” he says. “We were staffed up to handle it, so it was tough on the crew. There were servers sitting and waiting to work.”
According to Richter, the problem in recent years has been diners who use
apps to make multiple reservations at different restaurants all over town.
“For big weekend nights, they all make five reservations. Then, at the last minute, they choose the one they want to go to. We don’t mind that people make multiple reservations, as long as they let us know … even the morning of the same day.”
Richter says that charging a reservation deposit isn’t right for the Rio. “It’s just this funny game you play in the restaurant business, always guessing which people are going to show up and what they will order.”
He notes that the Rio Grande restaurants didn’t take reservations until the early 2000s, but now they are a necessity. “When I’m looking to go out to dinner, I want a reservation so I know I don’t have to worry about it,” he says.
SCREWING THE STAFF
At Farow, Niwot’s award-winning farmto-table restaurant, filling the tables requires a mind-boggling planning algorithm. Lisa Balcom, Farow’s co-owner, describes her daily dance.
“In order not to overbook the restaurant, I look at how many two-tops and four-tops I have,” she says. “A table of two usually takes about an hour and a half [to dine], and a table of four typical-
ly two hours. You have to schedule it so that the servers and the kitchen aren’t overwhelmed.”
Farow reminds diners of their reservation 24 hours in advance. If the staff haven’t gotten a confirmation, they text or call them that day to confirm.
According to Balcom, when diners cancel reservations five minutes before they are supposed to be seated, the repercussions for a small bistro can be enormous.
“My response is: ‘Well, great. I just told five other people they couldn’t come in because I didn’t have a table, when I really did,’” she says. “That screws me over. It screws my team over, too. If they’re not selling food, they’re not making as much money, and I’m not paying my rent.”
WHEN THE MATH AIN’T MATHIN’
Jarred Russell, executive chef at Fruition, says his restaurant has an average of one no-show table on a weeknight and two on weekends.
“When a six-top no-shows, it means we had to turn away six guests,” Russell says. “We told them ‘No.’ Each diner at Fruition spends about $125 per meal or more. That’s a lot of money to lose for a small restaurant. It’s selfish to no-show.”
No-shows and last-minute cancellations are challenges, but two other common diner behaviors frustrate Russell the most.
“Showing up with more people than you put on your reservation is pretty annoying and happens a lot,” he says. “It isn’t as simple as adding a couple more seats. It means pulling together another table we may not have available.”
The other dining faux pas is not letting the restaurant know about any dietary restrictions. Like Stuckey, Russell is an alumnus of Napa’s celebrated French Laundry Restaurant. Meals are carefully and thoughtfully prepared with diners’ preferences and restrictions in mind.
“They show up and say, ‘Oh, I can’t eat red meat, gluten or dairy,’” Russell says. “If we knew, we could have made
Jarred Russell, Executive Chef of Fruition, Denver Credit: Fruition
NIBBLES
this a lot nicer. All they had to do was fill out the profile online. It maybe takes an extra 45 seconds.”
Fruition uses a reservation system that takes a $10 credit card deposit when a table is booked. It is deducted from the bill at the end of the meal.
Another significant challenge facing local restaurants is that most of us will only dine during the Goldilocks hours.
In other countries, dining late into the night is more common.
“It’s really frustrating because around here there is a very, very small window of dining time,” Farow’s Balcom says. “If it’s not between 5 and 7:30 p.m., they won’t come out. You tell them ‘eight o’clock,’ and they look at you like you told them ‘two in the morning.’”
TASTE OF THE WEEK: NEW BREAKFAST OPTION
Louisville’s recently opened Home Cookin’ Cafe, 328 McCaslin Blvd., is one of those rare independent destinations that truly understands breakfast food and service. The family owners have years of experience at the cafe’s original Arvada location.
The menu includes omelets, benedicts, plate-sized pancakes and an unusually wide variety of protein options like burgers, steak, chicken-fried steak, Italian sausage and my choice: crispy corned beef hash and eggs with the cafe’s unique mix of tater tots and roasted spuds.
The location came with a bar you can belly up to for biscuits and gravy or a taco salad with a beer. I’ll be going back for the owner’s homemade pie and the breakfast pizza: Crust topped with sausage gravy eggs, meat, veggies and oven-melted cheeses.
WORDS TO CHEW ON: GETTING BEET
“Beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire; the fire of discontent, not of passion. Beets are deadly serious.”
— From Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
John Lehndorff hosts Radio Nibbles and Kitchen Table Talk on KGNU. Podcasts: kgnu.org/category/radio-nibbles
Breakfast at Home Cookin’ Cafe in Louisville. Credit: John Lehndorff
PSYCHEDELICS: CAN WE CALL IT AN INDUSTRY?
Oregon shows that healing centers will be few, likely serve out-of-towners
BY NIKO SKIEVASKI
There are a lot of mixed feelings about bringing psychedelics into the land of American capitalism. Users often say these medicines can evoke feelings of oneness, unity, love — directionally antithetical to the self-interested, individualistic and profit-oriented nature of capitalism.
Psychedelics have produced profound, life-changing value for many who have had the good fortune of a positive journey, myself included. Clinical trials have shown that some psychedelics, used in combination with therapy, have tremendous healing potential for those suffering from a wide array of mental health conditions.
Where there is value, there is demand. And where there is demand, supply will emerge to meet it. In our society, markets bloom as persistently as mushrooms from a forest floor.
What will the psychedelic industry look like in the years to come? I’ve spent the better part of the last two years trying to come up with a well-
informed hypothesis on the matter.
Starting in 2025, Colorado will allow licensed businesses called healing centers to host clients for a psilocybin journey under the supervision of a facilitator and using psilocybin that was tested by a lab and sourced from cultivators and product manufacturers. All of these businesses and professionals will be licensed. In fact, these license fees will actually need to cover the state’s cost of the program, as no taxes are being levied.
The rules around how all of this will work are being finalized now; applications for these various types of licenses will open by the end of the year. Within this scheme, there are legal commercial opportunities for healing centers, facilitators, cultivators, product manufacturers, labs and various endeavors to support this licensed ecosystem.
On the upside, these businesses will be able to advertise and serve customers who want the peace of mind that everything is above board and within a set of enforced rules. On
the downside, operating within these rules will bring additional costs and overhead that will drive prices higher and eat into margins, compared to the less-regulated personal use space.
The big question is, how big will the market be? Oregon implemented a similar program in 2023. While the state initially neglected to collect basic data on their program, it is estimated that over 3,500 journeys took place across 27 centers in their first year, according to a May 2024 report from Healing Advocacy Fund, a nonprofit organization lobbying for policy reform nationwide.
The average cost of a journey is around $2,500, a price tag that may turn many consumers away or toward personal use. That number of journeys in Oregon is not very large, especially considering that a vast majority of customers are estimated to be from out of state.
If we can extrapolate to Colorado, we might only expect a few dozen healing centers over the next couple years, plus high prices and limited demand for these types of experiences.
Erik Vaughan of Epiphany Mushrooms, who is planning to open a pair of healing centers in Denver and Aspen, suspects most of his business will come from out of state, opting for a destination-appropriate experience.
“We’re going to market primarily in the midwest,” he said, “and support our clients with a virtual 12-week program around their journey.”
Beyond Colorado and Oregon, some 28 states are contemplating a psychedelic initiative according to Psychedelic Alpha’s U.S. Reform Tracker. Psychedelics are actually benefiting from bipartisan support, due largely to their evidence in treating conditions affecting veterans including PTSD, depression and substance use disorder. In fact, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is funding its own research, supporting state programs and advocates for FDA approval of psychedelics.
A legal, regulated market is a step toward psychedelics becoming more available and accessible. However, for these treatment modalities to cross the proverbial chasm into the mainstream, there is still much to be learned about their efficacy, uses and safety. Colorado’s program will be scrutinized in the years to come as other states, health insurance providers and the wider behavioral health community continue to seek novel treatments for conditions of despair.
Niko Skievaski (niko@altheapbc. com) is a Boulder resident and cofounder of Althea PBC, a software company formed in partnership with the CU Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry, seeking to support the regulated rollout of psychedelics in Colorado and beyond. He serves on Denver’s Natural Medicine Work Group and has a background in healthcare technology.
