Boulder Weekly 08.29.2024

cold tub time machine

FOOD

Appetizers/Tapas

Asian Fusion

Bagel

Bakery

BBQ

Breakfast/Brunch

Burger

Business Lunch

Catering

Chinese Restaurant

Donuts

Fine Dining Restaurant

Food Truck

Gluten-Free Menu

Ice Cream/Frozen Yogurt

Indian/Nepali Restaurant

Italian Restaurant

Japanese Restaurant

Kid-Friendly Restaurant

Lyons Restaurant

Mexican Restaurant

New Restaurant

Niwot Restaurant

Overall Restaurant

Pancake/Waffle

Pizza

Place to eat outdoors

Place to go on a first date

Restaurant Dessert

Restaurant Service

Sandwich

Seafood

Sushi Restaurant

Take-out

Thai Restaurant

Veggie Burger

Wings

DRINKS

Bar

Beer selection

Cidery

Cocktails

Coffee House

Coffee Roaster

Craft Brewery

Distillery

Happy Hour

Latte/Mocha

Margarita

Teahouse

Wine Selection

CANNABIS

Bargains at a dispensary

Budtender

CBD Products

Edibles

Flower

CELEBRATING

42 years in business!

Medical Marijuana Dispensary

Recreational Marijuana Dispensary

Selection at a dispensary

Wax

HOME & GARDEN

Carpet/Flooring

Electrician

Florist

Furniture Store

Heating, Venting, and Air

Conditioning

Home Builder/Contractor

Home Finishing

Home Improvement

Hydroponic Store

Kitchen Supply Store

Landscaper

Mattress Store

Nursery/Garden Center

Painter

Pest Control

Plumber

Roofing Contractor

ENTERTAINMENT & CULTURE

Art Gallery

Bank/Financial Institution

Festival/Event

Live Jazz Venue

Museum

Music Venue

Non-Profit

Open Mic

Place to Dance

Place to Play Pool

Place to Wi-Fi

Private School

Public School (K-8)

Public School (9-12)

Sports Bar

FITNESS & HEALTH

Acupuncture Clinic

Barber Shop

Chiropractor

Climbing/Parkour Gym

Dance Studio

Day Spa

Dental Care

Golf Course

Gym/Fitness Center

Hair Salon

Hospital

Lasik Services

Martial Arts

Massage

Medical Doctor

Nail Salon

Orthodontist

Physical Therapist

Pilates Studio

Tanning Salon

Urgent Care Center

Veterinary Care

Yoga Studio

RETAIL

Auto Dealer - New

Dealer - Used Auto Service/Repair

Bicycle Shop

Bookstore

Car Wash

Clothing Store - Children’s

Clothing Store - Men’s

Clothing Store - Used

Clothing Store - Women’s

Business Owned/Led by Female CEO

Repair

Cleaner

Shopping Center

Stereo/Electronics

Storage Facility

Tattoo/Piercing Parlor

Tire Shop

Tobacco/Pipe Shop

Toy Store

Courtesy: Vail Resorts

special edition has been delayed, but keep an eye for it in next week’s issue. Find it online at issuu.com/boulderweekly

COMMENTARY

MY SURVIVAL STORY

BY JENN OCHS

I’ve been writing this column for nine months, but I’ve never shared my own story of how I became disabled. At the age of 30, I started to feel tired, my hair started falling out and I became mentally unwell. My husband found me

standing in the closet one morning, mumbling about how I didn’t know what to wear to work. I wore a uniform for my job, but I couldn’t decide between a few work shirts. He called my boss to say that I would not be coming in. I never returned. Later that week, I got my diagnosis: acute myeloid leukemia, also known as AML.

My husband was a traveling salesman and was in another state when I called him with the news. He didn’t even know what leukemia was. I was driving by myself from the doctor’s office to the hospital and I remember yelling, “I have cancer!” He met me at the hospital later that night.

I remember feeling very scared and alone. The nurse at the doctor’s office told me to have my eggs frozen, and I had no clue what she meant. Later I learned that

AUGUST 29, 2024

Volume 32, Number 2

COVER: Image courtesy Portal

PUBLISHER: Francis J. Zankowski

EDITORIAL

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Shay Castle

ARTS EDITOR: Jezy J. Gray

REPORTER: Kaylee Harter

FOOD EDITOR: John Lehndorff

INTERN: John Kowalski

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Arthur Allen, Rob Brezsny, Michael J. Casey, Mark Cathcart, Eliza Fawcett, Dave Gil de Rubio, Jason Gonzales, Rebecca Grapevine, Alexandra Jamieson, Courtney Johnson, Karen Norback, Jenn Ochs, Dan Savage, Toni Tresca, Gregory Wakeman

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MARKET DEVELOPMENT MANAGER: Kellie Robinson

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MRS. BOULDER WEEKLY: Mari Nevar

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CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Erik Wogen

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chemotherapy would prevent me from having children. I was devastated; my husband and I had been trying to start a family.

I was hospitalized for a month, during which time I received chemotherapy to hold the cancer at bay. My oncologist discovered that I carry a specific gene called FLT3, almost guaranteeing that the cancer would return much stronger. The only way to stop it was a bone marrow transplant.

A bone marrow transplant is like changing the oil in a vehicle: You drain all of the old oil and replace it with new. My body was the car; the marrow, oil.

We scheduled it for the spring at Duke University hospital in Durham, North Carolina. In our first consultation, we were told I would be in the hospital for 190

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days and that I could not be around our then two-monthold puppy since I would be immunocompromised. Any germs could kill me.

My husband found a couple who would take the puppy while I was in treatment and return him when I recovered.

While I waited for the procedure, I would have to receive chemotherapy one weekend a month while still living in Charlotte. I was a frequent flier at Mecklenburg Hospital while I waited till spring. My bone marrow transplant was scheduled to be at Duke Medical Hospital, roughly two hours from where we lived. We rented an apartment near the hospital and continued paying for our home in Charlotte.

works show exploded in the night sky.

pital so they could address my lungs. A hole was cut into my throat, a procedure called a tracheotomy, so I could receive nutrients.

As doctors attempted to bring me out of the coma, they couldn’t wake me. They told my family in Kansas and Colorado to prepare to say their final goodbyes.

Eventually, a lessening of my medication did the trick. I woke up to a different reality.

my mother across the country so he could take a break. A year later, he served me with divorce papers.

It has been 11 years. Thanks to lots of therapy, love and support, I have rebuilt my life. I’m in remission and I live independently in my own apartment — something neither me nor my family ever thought possible.

Ultimately, a lung infection required me to stay a month longer than planned: more than 220 days. Upon my release from the hospital, I had to go for daily infusions at the clinic.

As my husband traveled for work and both of our families were out of state, my support network created a schedule so someone would always be with me. I had five different family members stay with me for a week at a time.

Eventually, Duke pronounced me cancer free. We were reunited with our dog and returned to Charlotte.

At the end of that year, my husband and I bought a home, thinking we could have a fresh start.

The next year was an uneventful and happy one.

That summer we traveled to Buffalo, New York, to celebrate the Fourth of July with family and see Dave Matthews Band with friends.

While shopping for tailgate food before the show, I started sweating and my stomach swelled to the size of a basketball. Begrudgingly, I decided that I couldn’t go to the show. The next day, I went to the hospital.

I had relapsed, and the cancer had returned with total organ failure. This is how I found out: A doctor barged into my room and shouted, “The leukemia is back!” He was proud to have solved the mystery that was destroying my life.

I was put on dialysis and watched out my hospital window as the Buffalo fire-

After my organs were stabilized, doctors went to work on the leukemia. Another bone marrow transplant was prescribed. To prepare, I received high dosage chemotherapy daily.

Before every dose, I was required to sign orders authorizing the treatment. It felt like a “cover your ass” move designed more to protect the hospital from lawsuits than it did to preserve my health.

Doctors decided I was too sick to travel back home; instead I went to Roswell Park hospital across town. After two days, I woke up in the middle of the night to use the restroom. I collapsed as soon as I stepped out of bed. The high dosage chemo had poisoned my brain, giving me cerebellar ataxia.

Ataxia attacks your motor skills and balance. I collapsed because all my motor skills and balance had been destroyed. My speech had become unrecognizable.

Doctors told me that the ataxia would wash out of my system within 48 hours, but it never did.

Was the doctor in the wrong? I believe so, but my original diagnosing doctor had gone on a family vacation when I received the high-dosage chemo that led to my collapse. When my husband looked into any potential wrongdoing, the hospital responded by sending a manilla envelope containing all the orders showing my signature. By the time I was well enough to pursue legal action, the statute of limitations had passed.

I was able to have another bone marrow transplant. However, a complication in my lungs baffled the doctors.

I spent a month in a medically induced coma in the intensive care unit of the hos-

My muscles had atrophied, and I lost my ability to swallow. The scar tissue from the tracheotomy would grow together, closing off my esophagus. I had to learn how to do everything all over again, and I became a wheelchair user.

I spent nine months in the hospital; I would spend another year in Buffalo attending weekly doctor appointments, plus speech, occupational and physical therapy.

Eventually my husband and I were able to return to our home, but our lives would never return to normal. We had absolutely no support system: My husband would walk me, my arms around his neck, every day while he worked in his home office on the second floor.

Since I couldn’t swallow, a feeding tube had been surgically inserted in my stomach that delivered all my nutrients. I had horrible palsy, causing my hands to shake and making it impossible for me to feed myself.

I was completely dependent on others. My days consisted of sitting on a sofa all day with my husband feeding me every four hours and taking me to the restroom. Our marriage started to fall apart.

My husband had to be my caregiver and the family breadwinner. He became physically and verbally abusive. Eventually, he shipped me off to live with

And this past weekend, I finally made that Dave Matthews concert. I’ve made something of a habit of going to shows: In the last two summers, I’ve been to seven at Red Rocks, two at Fiddler’s Green and one show each at The Ball Arena and the old barn at Boulder’s Chautauqua. One benefit of being a wheelchair user is being treated like VIP at concerts.

I’m still in a wheelchair; I still rely on a feeding tube, but I’ve learned I’m more capable than I think. I went on to become a fierce disability advocate and the 2023 Ms. Wheelchair Colorado.

Although it is difficult, I wanted to share my story to let people know that this could happen to anyone. Your life can change in ways you never imagined due to circumstances beyond your control; if you can, try to appreciate today.

Jenn Ochs lives in Boulder and enjoys listening to music, podcasts and audiobooks while painting or drawing. She is a disability rights advocate and a graduate from Baylor University in Texas, which is where she realized that Boulder is the best place to live.

The author and her dog, Buster, in 2013 on Blue Ridge Parkway. Courtesy: Jenn Ochs

Jenn Ochs was hospitalized for nine months due to complications from acute myeloid leukemia that would eventually leave her in a wheelchair. Courtesy: Jenn Ochs

ANALYSIS STOP MOTION

Fewer than 1 in 10 adults with disabilities get enough exercise

BY ALEXANDRA JAMIESON THE CONVERSATION

Although wheelchair users, visually impaired people and others with mobility and physical disabilities need consistent exercise, it’s often hard for them to work out. In many cases, they can’t get access to “adaptive” exercise and sports equipment — machines, weights and other devices that have been modified or engineered for ease of use by people with disabilities.

High costs, steep learning curves and limited access constrain their use.

To reach that conclusion, I teamed up with Helara Wijesundara, who like me is a biomedical technologies researcher, to see what’s getting in their way. We published our findings in the Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology Journal in July.

We reviewed more than 40 products and over 20 articles that researchers have published on this topic.

LIMITED ACCESS

There are four kinds of adaptive fitness tools on the market: exercise equipment and accessories, exercise machines, sports equipment and fitness apps. For instance, adaptive rowing machines, treadmills and similar kinds of equipment are easy to use and can help users track their fitness progress. There is little data on how often adaptive exercise machines would be used if they were available in gyms, making gyms reluctant to purchase them. As a result, few gyms have any of these items, and most people can’t afford to buy their own because these

machines can cost as much as $9,000.

Some adaptive exercise equipment doesn’t cost nearly as much. For example, mono ropes, which are ropes attached to a bar that someone with one arm can use for jumping rope, generally cost about $100. Wheelchair tension bands, a portable system where you can attach resistant elastic bands with handles to a wheelchair to perform muscle strengthening workouts, are priced at about $150. Even though they can be easily purchased, these adaptive exercise tools are not found in most gyms.

This research was inspired by a conversation with members of the Movin’ Mavs, the University of Texas at Arlington’s championship-winning wheelchair basketball team. Those athletes said they have to be creative in order to overcome inconveniences at the gym.

For people who do not have training, working out becomes even more difficult without expert guidance. It can be easy to injure oneself without proper form or knowledge of how to use equipment safely, especially for someone with a disability.

Although there are inclusive fitness certifications available, most fitness instructors are not trained to adapt their knowledge to people with disabilities. There have been very few efforts to design digital fitness technology, such as adaptive exercise machines that connect with fitness game apps or virtual group exercise apps for people with disabilities.

MAJOR HEALTH ISSUE

The 13% of Americans who have disabilities are twice as likely to have diabetes, stroke and depression than the general population. This isn’t just because of disparities in access to health care or underlying conditions. It’s also because they get less exercise than they need.

Only about 1 in 4 U.S. adults meet recommended physical activity guidelines, which include getting at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week and engaging in muscle-strengthening activities at least twice a week.

People with disabilities are even less likely to meet those guidelines: Fewer

than 1 in 10 adults with mobility disabilities are getting the recommended amounts of exercise.

Some fear being injured. Others say they don’t know how to work out or are too self-conscious to do it in public space. Most gym exercise machines are not accessible, and asking for help to use them may make some feel uncomfortable.

Getting to and from gyms can be difficult for some people with disabilities, especially for those in rural areas, where gyms are unlikely to have accessible options.

Adaptive fitness solutions have the potential to improve overall physical and mental health, reduce social isolation, prevent disease and drive societal change toward accessibility. Yet, insurance companies will cover the cost of personal adaptive exercise equipment and enrollment in programs only with a doctor’s note.

NEXT STEPS

Researchers still don’t know how people with physical and mobility disabilities are learning about new adaptive exercise tools and gaining access to them.

And despite recent progress in exercise technology, making exercise equipment that’s appropriate for people with physical disabilities remains an afterthought for designers.

That’s why my research team is developing adaptive exercise machines that can be used by people of all abilities, combined with digital fitness technology to guide and track exercise performance. With the help of our team of engineers, researchers, people with disabilities and organizations serving people with disabilities, we will begin our first small pilot study in late 2024 to assess how well these machines work and to gain feedback for further development.

If anyone can use equipment that’s accessible for people with disabilities, it would lower costs, increase demand and justify purchasing them for communal gyms.

Alexandra Jamieson is a research scientist of biomedical technologies at the University of Texas at Arlington. The Conversation is a nonprofit newsroom focused on academics.

Recovering service members participate in wheelchair basketball drills at Joint Base San AntonioRandolph Rambler Fitness Center. Credit: Keith James

Al Hubbard & Bruce Cook

Alexandrea Pangburn

Apitatán

Catie Michel

Daniel Levinson

Dreamscape

K. Vuletich

Kaitlin Ziesmer & John

Van Horn

Kate Fitzpatrick

Kaylee Bender

Lindee Zimmer

Oak Bloak

Mr B Baby

Nico Cathcart

Noelle Miller

Shane Huss Skela

The Designosaur

Victor Escobedo

A CLEAR OBLIGATION

New chancellor wants CU Boulder to better reflect Colorado

BY JASON GONZALES CHALKBEAT COLORADO

Just six weeks into the job, CU Boulder Chancellor Justin Schwartz has jumped in with both feet embracing his school spirit. As he took meetings on Tuesday, he wore a black, gold and white pair of custom Nikes with his initials on them.

While he has embraced representing the state’s flagship institution, he’s taking a slower approach to putting his own stamp on Colorado’s largest university. He said he’s committed to ensuring that CU Boulder’s student body better represents the state, helping more students graduate and furthering diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Schwartz said that before he makes decisions, he asks questions and has

numerous conversations — and that means he’s still evaluating.

“I’m very much in the sort of absorb and learn and ask questions phase,”

Schwartz said.

Schwartz, 59, officially replaced outgoing Chancellor Phil DiStefano, who retired after 15 years in the role, in July. Schwartz was hired in April.

Schwartz is a nuclear engineer who has worked 30 years in higher education and was hired from The Pennsylvania State University, where he worked as executive vice president and provost.

He also spent time as dean of the Penn State College of Engineering, headed a department at North Carolina State University and worked as a faculty member at historically Black college Florida A&M University. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and has a doctorate in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Earlier this week, Schwartz sat down with Chalkbeat Colorado to discuss his short time on campus. Here’s what the new chancellor had to say:

DIVERSE EXPERIENCES

Schwartz credits his childhood for his commitment to ensuring the school represents the state’s range of communities and people. He grew up in a family of col-

lege academics in Evanston, Illinois, which in 1967 became one of the first northern communities in the country to desegregate its public schools.

“The diversity of experiences I had, the diversity of relationships I had, I certainly believe contributed strongly to my success,” he said. “There is no shortage of social science that shows that diverse groups are more successful, right?”

He wants students at CU Boulder to have that same diverse experience when they enter campus to help set them up for success.

“There’s a fundamental responsibility as a state university to represent the diversity of the state. We are the University of Colorado,” he said. “That means that we should be representative of the state. That should be a clear obligation.”

A COMMITMENT TO DEI

CU Boulder isn’t where it should be yet when it comes to representing the state’s share of students of color, Schwartz said. But it’s also not too far behind representing the makeup of the state, especially in recent years.

About 68% of the school’s undergraduate students are white, according to fall 2023 enrollment numbers. That’s compared to about 66% of Coloradans who identify as white.

Meanwhile, 13% of the school’s stu-

dents are Latino, and 2.8% are Black. Comparatively, state demographic data shows 22.5% of Colorado residents are Latino and 4% are Black.

Schwartz said he wants to help students of color feel welcome and safe on campus, which will in turn help attract and retain students.

“If you have cultural success and academic success, whether it’s student, faculty or research success, you have to begin with belonging,” Schwartz said. “And if you don’t feel safe, what do you do? You want to retreat back to your home. So if you don’t feel safe, you don’t have belonging.”

Driven by conservatives, DEI efforts have faced a national backlash, but Schwartz said he is committed to pursuing such programs lawfully.

“I think that should go without saying,” he said, “but in today’s climate, that needs to be said.”

THE VALUE OF LIBERAL ARTS EDUCATION

In a state with almost two jobs for every unemployed person, Colorado lawmakers have pushed to get students career education training, such as in trades and indemand fields.

There’s also a need for workers in science, technology, engineering and math fields. But a liberal arts education is still valuable, Schwartz said.

For instance, during the Iraq War, the United States needed more Arabic speakers. “In 1999 if a university said we’re going to ramp up their Arabic department, people would have said, that’s insane, you’re not training people for a useful job,” he said. “Well, turns out, that would have been the wrong assessment.”

There are also English majors who are leading universities or Wall Street firms, Schwartz noted. The country needs trained thinkers and artists who enrich our lives, and liberal arts helps provide those tools, he believes.

“I will strongly defend the need for large state universities to continue to offer the full spectrum of intellectual opportunities,” he said. “At the same time, I will also fully defend the need for folks going into career paths that don’t require college, because they’re both valuable.”

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering education.

“There is no shortage of social science that shows that diverse groups are more successful,” says CU Boulder’s new chancellor, Justin Schwartz. Courtesy: CU Boulder

WORTH A SHOT?

A new COVID vaccine is available, but you might want to wait to get it

BY ARTHUR ALLEN AND ELIZA FAWCETT, HEALTHBEAT AND REBECCA GRAPEVINE, KFF HEALTH

NEWS

The FDA has approved an updated COVID shot for everyone 6 months old and up, which renews a now-annual quandary for Americans: Get the shot now, with the latest COVID outbreak sweeping the country, or hold it in reserve for the winter wave?

The new vaccine should provide some protection to everyone. But many healthy people who have already been vaccinated or have immunity because they’ve been exposed to COVID enough times may want to wait a few months.

COVID has become commonplace. For some, it’s a minor illness with few symptoms. Others are laid up with fever, cough and fatigue for days or weeks. A much smaller group — mostly older or chronically ill people — suffer hospitalization or death.

It’s important for those in high-risk groups to get vaccinated, but vaccine protection wanes after a few months. Those who run to get the new vaccine may be more likely to fall ill this winter when the next wave hits, said William Schaffner, an infectious disease professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and a spokesperson for the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

On the other hand, by late fall the major variants may have changed, rendering the vaccine less effective, said Peter Marks, the FDA’s top vaccine official, at a briefing Aug. 23. He urged everyone eligible to get immunized, noting that the risk of long COVID is greater in the un- and undervaccinated.

Of course, if last year’s COVID vaccine rollout is any guide, few Americans will heed his advice, even though this summer’s surge has been unusually intense, with levels of the COVID virus in wastewater suggesting infections are as widespread as they were in the winter. The Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention now looks to wastewater as fewer people are reporting test results to health authorities. The wastewater data shows the epidemic is worst in Western and Southern states.

Hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID have trended up, too. But unlike infections, these rates are nowhere near those seen in winter surges, or in summers past. More than 2,000 people died of COVID in July — a high number but a small fraction of the at least 25,700 COVID deaths in July 2020.

Partial immunity built up through vaccines and prior infections deserves credit for this relief. A new study suggests that current variants may be less virulent — in the study, one of the recent variants did not kill mice exposed to it, unlike most earlier COVID variants.

Unlike influenza or traditional cold viruses, COVID seems to thrive outside the cold months, when germy schoolkids, dry air and indoor activities are thought to enable the spread of air- and salivaborne viruses. No one is exactly sure why.

Because viruses evolve as they infect people, the CDC has recommended updated COVID vaccines each year. Last fall’s booster was designed to target the Omicron variant circulating in 2023. This year, mRNA vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer and the proteinbased vaccine from Novavax — which has yet to be approved by the FDA — target a more recent Omicron variant, JN.1.

The FDA determined that the mRNA vaccines strongly protected people from severe disease and death — and would do so even though earlier variants of JN.1 are now being overtaken by others. While the newly formulated vaccines are better targeted at the circulating COVID variants, uninsured and underinsured Americans may have to rush if they

hope to get one for free. A CDC program that provided boosters to 1.5 million people over the last year ran out of money and is ending Aug. 31.

The agency drummed up $62 million in unspent funds to pay state and local health departments to provide the new shots to those not covered by insurance. But “that may not go very far” if the vaccine costs the agency around $86 a dose, as it did last year, said Kelly Moore, CEO of immunize.org, which advocates for vaccination.

Without an access program that provides vaccines to uninsured adults, “we’ll see disparities in health outcomes and disproportionate outbreaks in the working poor, who can ill afford to take off work,” Moore said.

It would be impractical for the vaccinemakers to change the COVID vaccine’s recipe twice every year, and offering the three vaccines during one or two health care visits appears to be the best way to increase uptake of all of them, said Schaffner, who consults for the CDC’s policy-setting Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

At its next meeting, in October, the committee is likely to urge vulnerable

people to get a second dose of the same COVID vaccine in the spring, for protection against the next summer wave, he said.

If you’re in a vulnerable population and waiting to get vaccinated until closer to the holiday season, Schaffner said, it makes sense to wear a mask and avoid big crowds, and to get a test if you think you have COVID. If positive, people in these groups should seek medical attention since the antiviral pill Paxlovid might ameliorate their symptoms and keep them out of the hospital.

The government is focusing its fall vaccine advocacy campaign, which it’s calling “Risk less, live more,” on older people and nursing home residents, said HHS spokesperson Jeff Nesbit.

Not everyone may really need a fall COVID booster, but “it’s not wrong to give people options,” John Moore said. “The 20-year-old athlete is less at risk than the 70-year-old overweight dude. It’s as simple as that.”

KFF Health News correspondent Amy Maxmen contributed to this report. KFF Health News produces in-depth journalism about health issues.

Courtesy: Prefeitura Campinas

GOV’T WATCH

What your local officials are up to this week

BY BOULDER WEEKLY STAFF

BOULDER CITY COUNCIL

On Sept. 5, council will:

• Hold a public hearing for the redevelopment of 2206 Pearl St. into a mixed-use “micro-apartment” community.

The development would include just over 2,000 square feet of commercial space and 45 300-square-foot “efficiency living units.” The proposed development would also have 18 parking garage spaces, 60% less than what is required, but would feature a subsidized carshare vehicle, a transportation fund for residents without a vehicle, bus passes for employees and residents, and new sidewalks on 22nd and Pearl streets, according to the application.

In an April planning board meeting, some board members expressed support for the project and its potential to promote sustainable, car-free living. Others expressed concerns about affordability, with Jorge Boone noting that the development doesn’t alleviate the need for affordable housing in Boulder and expressing concerns that many of the units might be rented by wealthy individuals with a separate primary residence.

• Receive an update on the Rocky Flats Stewardship Council, a regional group

formed in 2006 with a focus on the “post-closure care and management” of the former nuclear weapons plant. The group consists of elected officials from 10 county and municipal governments, three community organizations and an individual community representative.

• Take a final vote on ballot content for the Nov. 5 election, including rules for board and commission members, increasing council and mayor pay, and authorizing council to hold executive sessions. Two citizen petitions related to decommissioning and redeveloping the airport were withdrawn from the ballot, organizers announced this week.

BOULDER COUNTY COMMISSIONERS

During the week of Sept. 2, there will be several 2025 budget work sessions. On Sept. 3 at 9:30 a.m., the session will focus on the general fund and will include a range of departments such as community planning and permitting, housing, human services, parks and open space, and public works. The 1 p.m. session is for appointed department heads and elected officials and will include the assessor’s office, county commissioners, coroner’s office and sheriff’s office.

On Sept. 5, the 9 a.m. session will focus on capital budgets and public health and will include building services, recycling center, road maintenance, transportation, information technology and public health. The 1 p.m. session for the county administrator will include the parks and open space department, community planning and permitting department and the

Office of Sustainability, Climate Action and Resilience.

A town hall on the budgeting process will be held Tuesday, Sept. 24, from 5:30-7 p.m. at Vista Ridge Community Center (2750 Vista Pkwy, Erie). Public comment on the budget will be taken at 1 p.m. Oct. 22 in-person at the Commissioners’ Hearing Room, 3rd floor (1325 Pearl St., Boulder) and virtually. Registration links and meeting details will be available in the commissioners’ twoweek advance agenda.

LAFAYETTE CITY COUNCIL

On Aug. 27, council:

• Got its first look at the 2025 recommended budget. Proposed city spending totals $121.8 million, a 10% decrease from 2024. Revenue is projected to increase 2.5% over last year, to $108.7 million, primarily due to water utility rate increases, offsetting a forecasted loss of revenue from the King Soopers relocation. A switch to an in-house city attorney’s office adds three full-time employees to the city; costs will be offset by a reduction in contracting fees.

• Received an update on plans to wind down the Lafayette Urban Renewal Authority (LURA) due to the October 2024 expiration of the tax increment financing. If district voters approve the creation of a Downtown Development Authority, on ballots this fall, the transition will include code amendments, spending remaining funds, transferring services and agreements, and disposal of LURAowned property.

On Sept. 3, council will:

• Discuss a collaborative regional effort to raise the minimum wage in tandem with Boulder, Longmont, Louisville and the Town of Erie. City staff will share results of community engagement efforts and an economic analysis.

Boulder City Council discussed raising the minimum wage at an Aug. 22 study session; Longmont’s discussion was Aug. 27. Louisville and Erie are scheduled to discuss minimum wage Sept. 10 and 17, respectively.

LOUISVILLE CITY COUNCIL

On Aug. 27, council:

• Met with officials from Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) to discuss safety and security. The presentation focused primarily on fire and evacuation, including lessons learned from the 2021 Marshall Fire.

On Sept. 3, council will:

• Take a preliminary vote on a proposal to implement a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. The measure is similar to Boulder’s 2017 ordinance.

• Discuss and give direction on potential local regulations for psilocybin, including zoning and regulation needed to be ready for state-issued licenses for centers providing psychedelic-assisted therapy. Those licenses will begin Jan. 1, 2025.

LOUISVILLE REVITALIZATION COMMISSION (LRC)

On Aug. 21, the LRC approved up to $650,000 of financial incentives for the relocation of Ironton Distillery from Denver’s RiNo neighborhood to 1303 Empire Road. The project would also include a restaurant, tasting room and event center.

The financial agreement includes cost-sharing for an analysis of the project’s viability, reimbursement for public infrastructure improvements to the site and a rebate on a portion of taxes generated by the business. City staff estimates that the project will bring in $165,000 per year in sales tax revenue.

All agenda items are subject to change. Karen Norback and Mark Cathcart contributed reporting.

Pending a feasibility analysis, Ironton Distillery plans to relocate from Denver to Louisville. Courtesy: Ironton Distillery

BOCO, BRIEFLY

Local news at a glance

BY SHAY CASTLE

LOUISVILLE APPROVES

389-ACRE PROJECT

In a 5-1 vote, Louisville City Council approved redevelopment of a 389-acre site that has been vacant for nearly 20 years, paving the way for a relocation of Avista Adventist Hospital, an industrial and medical research park and more than 500,000 square feet of office space.

Nearly half of the land (45%, or 139 acres) will be set aside for public use, including open space, parks, trails and a public safety facility. A separate agreement will need to be negotiated with Boulder County and developer Sterling Bay for 47 acres to be used for open space and agriculture.

A traffic study estimates that the development will bring an additional 21,285 daily vehicle trips; 75% to/from U.S. 36 and Northwest Parkway that abut the parcel to the east and south.

A previous development plan for the area, known as Redtail Ridge, was approved by city council in September 2021. It was repealed by voters the following year.

Data company StorageTek previously owned 310 acres, which was annexed into Louisville in 1978. ConocoPhillips bought and demolished the roughly 1.6

million-square-foot campus in 2008, petitioning to add an additional 80 acres into city limits. They negotiated plans, approved by council in 2010, to guide future development.

Following the 2022 referendum, the rules governing redevelopment of Redtail Ridge reverted back to the 2010 agreement.

Council member Barbara Hamlington was the sole opponent of the project. Councilman Dietrich Hoefner was absent.

ELDORA UP FOR SALE

Boulder County’s sole ski resort is being put up for sale. Powdr, the Park City, Utah-based owner of Eldora, plans to sell three other U.S. and Canadian properties: Mt. Bachelor in Oregon and SilverStar in British Columbia have yet to be listed. Vermont’s Killington and Pico ski areas already have a buyer.

Operations at Eldora won’t change in the upcoming ’24-25 winter season, a

company official told CPR, which opens Nov. 15. The resort will remain on the Ikon Pass.

Eldora opened in 1962 and has operated continuously except for a closure during the 1986-1987 season. It has 680 acres of skiable area. Its employees voted to unionize earlier this year.

Powdr bought Eldora in 2016, saying at the time that “Colorado’s Front Range is one of the best ski markets in the world.” The company also owns Copper Mountain, which it purchased in 2009.

Powdr invested $10 million into Eldora, including new chairlifts and a 12,000 square-foot-lodge that will open in October. The resort’s ski school and a nonprofit offering adaptive skiing will be housed there.

One-third of Colorado’s ski resorts are owned by just four companies, according to the National Ski Areas Association.

Local investors bought the Vermont ski areas. Eldora is expected to be officially put on the market in coming weeks.

NAROPA PSYCHEDELIC TRAINING OK’D

Naropa has received approval from the state for its Psilocybin Facilitator Training (PFT) program, the Boulder-based university announced recently.

“As a leader in integrating contemplative practices and training with counseling psychology, professional chaplaincy, ecopsychology and other healing disciplines, Naropa is uniquely positioned to provide an in-depth, rigorous education in essential aspects of psychedelic-assisted education and training,” said Naropa President Charles G. Lief in a statement.

The six-month, non-degree training pro-

gram requires 150 hours of study and 40 hours of experiential practice, after which participants become certified facilitators of psychedelic-assisted therapy. The program is credentialed in Colorado and Oregon.

Five licenses, including Naropa’s, have been issued by the state so far for training programs, including to two-Oregon based providers.

IN OTHER NEWS…

• The City of Boulder is asking a judge to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the city’s camping ban after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that local governments can ticket or arrest unhoused people for living in public spaces, regardless of the availability of emergency or temporary shelter. Boulder’s law prohibits the use of blankets or sleeping bags. The filing cites the June decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson, stating that the ruling was an acknowledgement by the Court that “the judiciary is ill-suited to solve homelessness by judicial fiat” and that Colorado courts should defer to its judgement.

• Jury selection started Monday, Aug. 26, in the trial for the King Soopers shooter. The trial is expected to focus on the defendant’s mental capacity; he has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, a defense that is used in fewer than 1% of cases. Read more from CPR: bit.ly/ SoopersTrialBW.

• Colorado joined seven other states in accusing property management firm RealPage of colluding with landlords to raise rents. A bill to ban algorithms like the one RealPage used died in the Colorado Senate earlier this year.

A conceptual rendering of the nearly 400-acre Redtail Ridge development approved by Louisville City Council. Courtesy: Sterling Bay

A view of the Eldora Mountain Resort base area from the lower part of the Cannonball lift. Credit: Kamen G.

Naropa is one of five organizations that have been cleared by the state to start training facilitators of psychedelic-assisted therapy. Courtesy: Naropa University

LITTLE RIPPERS

The best ski deals for Colorado kids

BY COURTNEY JOHNSON

Summer may not be over yet, but we’re already thinking about beautiful Colorado powder. Considered the top skiing destination in North America, the Centennial State sees 12 million visitors annually on its slopes. While skier visitation continues to grow, so does the cost of lift tickets: An Epic Pass costs nearly $400 more in 2023 than it did in 2008, according to reporting from Colorado Sun Thankfully, there are lots of good deals for kids. Some of them expire soon, so you might want to add a ski pass to your back-to-school shopping.

EPIC SCHOOLKIDS SKI PASS

Free for kindergarten to 5th graders, the pass provides four days on the snow at each of five resorts — Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Crested Butte, Keystone and Vail. This also includes a free firsttimer lesson and rental package. Proof of age is required; pass availability ends in early fall.

INDOOR SKI LESSONS

For less than half the price of lessons on the ski hill, indoor ski facilities can help young skiers practice getting used to boots, how to pizza and more advanced skills without the traffic and cold. Shredder in Boulder and Lafayette offers classes, private lessons and camps while Snobahn in Thornton allows for private, semi-private and

package deals. You can even take a lesson alongside your little ripper. Après-ski and hot cocoa can still be enjoyed afterward.

KID’S SKI PASSPORT

Open to shredders grades 3-6, the Kid’s Ski Passport allows four days of skiing at 20 top Colorado resorts including Arapahoe Basin, Copper Mountain, Winter Park and Steamboat. It includes two free junior daily rental packages from Christy Sports. Pass cost is $67, subject to availability.

POWER KIDS PASS

Sometimes finding the pow calls for travel. The Power Kids Pass is free — with the purchase of an adult pass — and offers unlimited skiing with no blackout dates for kids 12 and under at a dozen resorts in the U.S., including Colorado-based Purgatory.

RESORT TICKETS

Children 4 and under ski free at Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Crested Butte Keystone and Vail. Kids 5 and under ski free at Granby Ranch, Kendall Mountain, Loveland, Telluride and Arapahoe Basin. Lift tickets

for kids ages 6-12 are available at lower rates for two or more days of skiing when purchased 48 hours in advance at Telluride. Grab a free lift ticket for children under 6 with an adult pass at Echo Mountain.

Kids 6 and under ski free at Monarch, Aspen Highlands, Aspen, Buttermilk and Snowmass while children ages 7-12 receive a free lift ticket for each day of renting their equipment with a two-night stay. At Sunlight, kids 5 and under ski free and kids 12 and younger can ski free with a lodging package.

Wolf Creek lift tickets for children

begin at $6. A lift ticket for kids 4 and under is just $10 at Steamboat and free at Howelsen Hill in Steamboat. Howelsen Hill also offers Free Ski Sunday for all ages. Book two or more nights of lodging at Keystone and receive one day of free skiing for kids 12 and under. Copper has a similar lodging deal and offers a free kids pass for skiers 15 and under with an adult season pass.

Check resorts for specials when you enroll a child in lessons or a program. They frequently offer free lift tickets or a season pass as an incentive.

Courtesy: Vail Resorts

Courtesy: City of Steamboat Springs

Courtesy: Shredder

MUSIC

FIGHT SONG

Americana legend Lucinda Williams is back on her feet with new memoir and album

BY DAVE GIL DE RUBIO

Lucinda Williams is a survivor.

What else do you call someone who bounced back from a debilitating physical trauma at the age of 67 to reclaim her crown as queen of American roots music?

More than three years since a stroke forced the legendary artist to relearn basic motor skills like walking, Williams is out touring behind her latest album Stories from a Rock and Roll Heart. The Americana mainstay is also promoting her warts-and-all memoir, Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, published last year via Penguin Random House.

“A lot of people told me I should write a book,” Williams, 71, says. “I was always a storyteller when I would perform, and that sort of morphed itself into writing the [memoir]. … It is an extension of what I never had enough time to do on stage, to go into detail about things. Or maybe I didn’t want to go into detail at that time or in that position, being on stage in front of an audience.”

Throughout the more than five-year writing process, the celebrated singersongwriter carried the self-imposed pressure of living up to the writing of her late father, renowned poet Miller Williams, to whom the book is dedicated.

“I wanted it to be well written, with my dad having been a writer. I thought it would have to be like my great American novel or something,” she says. “I always pictured that I was going to go away and get a cabin in the woods or something and write this book. But it didn’t really work out that way. I was at my house like I always was.”

WRITING DOWN THE BONES

Williams says her perfectionist tendencies also dogged her, particularly given the different creative muscles required for writing a book.

“I wasn’t used to the looming deadlines that kept rearing their ugly head,” she says. “I kept wanting to fix and change things. I couldn’t stop editing. [My husband] Tom [Overby] is saying, ‘The book is done, Lu. You can’t keep changing things. It’s coming out. It’s done.’”

‘A GOOD BATCH OF STUFF’

Amid Williams’ intensive and emotional writing process, she stopped long enough to cut her latest album, Stories from a Rock and Roll Heart. The tight 10-song collection features cameos from the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Patti Scialfa, Margo Price and Tommy Stinson.

Courtesy: Penguin Random House

Like her songs, Don’t Tell Anybody is poignant, straightforward and honest. Williams chronicles her journey from a childhood spent in 12 cities and two foreign countries (Chile and Mexico) to the recording of her 1979 debut Ramblin’ On My Mind for storied imprint Folkways Records, and the commercial success achieved as a late bloomer “well into her 40s.”

Williams writes unflinchingly about topics like grappling with her mother’s mental illness. Throughout the book, the reader gets a taste of her family lore and the stops and starts of her career in the famously fickle music industry. Williams says the process proved to be healing.

“It was all sort of therapeutic,” she says. “Writing the book made me miss my mother and my father a lot. As I was going through it, I realized they were really great people. I guess it made me understand them more in a way in terms of what they went through — like in the beginning, when we didn’t have much money and my dad was bouncing from job to job.”

While the stroke left Williams without the ability to play guitar, she figured out a workaround with the help of Overby, guitar-playing road manager Travis Stephens and early punk pioneer Jesse Malin.

“I opened myself up to collaborating on the songs with other people, which I’d never really been open to before,” she says. “It came mostly out of necessity. Since I couldn’t play guitar, Travis, who is a singersongwriter, jumped in and said he could be me on the guitar and just tell him what I had on my mind. I could think of melodies in my head and I could still write lyrics. I had always written songs by myself — just my guitar and me. It was pretty straight ahead. This was a lot more challenging. Tom and Jesse Malin proved to be a huge help.”

With Williams and Overby having coproduced Malin’s 2019 album Sunset Kids, the Queens native proved to be an unexpected but enduring creative partner.

“Jesse is a really good songwriter whose talents I came to appreciate. I just hadn’t been aware of it as much before,” Williams says. “We’d get together at our house and sit around the kitchen table. I think we came up with a good batch of stuff.”

ON THE BILL: An Evening

with Lucinda Williams and Her Band. 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 14, Macky Auditorium, 1595 Pleasant St., Boulder. $60+

Lucinda Williams performs at Macky Auditorium in Boulder on Sept. 14. Credit: Danny Clinch

Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You: A Memoir by Lucinda Williams is out now in hardcover and paperback.

MOTION CAPTURE DANCE

BY TONI

When CU Boulder alum Michelle Bernier attended a campus film screening organized by the Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema as a grad student in 2013, she didn’t know it would choreograph the next decade of her life.

“I remember thinking, ‘What is a dance film?’ I’d been a dancer my whole life — it was what I was going to graduate school for — but I’d never heard of this art form,” Bernier recalls. “I checked out a screening and was totally floored. I literally wrote to the festival, saying, ‘I’m here; I want to volunteer.’”

That enthusiasm led her to work closely with then-executive director David Leserman, eventually taking over the role herself in 2016. Now, as Bernier prepares to lead the 21st annual Sans Souci Festival at the Museum of Boulder from Aug. 30 to Sept. 1, she reflects on the event’s evolution and the organization’s 2023 decision to become a nonprofit.

“We are a slowly evolving organization,” she says. “Our mission has always been to show art and whet the audience’s appetite for the work so that more can be created. Being a nonprofit matched our sense of place in the community, which was both a gathering place and a global force in the field of dance cinema. We want Boulder to remain a hub for dance film.”

UNPACKING THE MOVEMENT

Michelle Ellsworth and Brandi Mathis founded the festival in 2003 while sitting on the porch of a 1967 Marlette mobile home in Boulder’s Sans Souci manufactured housing community. They both enjoyed choreographing dances for the screen, so they worked with the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, CU Boulder’s Department of Theatre & Dance and local artists Ana Baer and Hamel Bloom (Leserman’s stage name) to turn their ideas into a dance film festival.

But as Bernier asked herself a decade ago: What exactly is a dance film? Also known as screendance, this practice is an art form that combines dance and filmmaking to create a visual narrative in which choreography and cinematography play equal roles. Dance films use camera and editing techniques to capture movement in ways that would be impossible in a live setting, while experimenting with space, timing and perspective.

“We are not looking for films that have one or five great dance sequences but are really a narrative film that has nothing to do with dancing,” Bernier says. “We’re also not looking for a record-

ing of a performance. The camera must be a player in the film; it must be a dance that you couldn’t see on a stage.”

Over the years, the festival has screened more than 800 films from around the world and has expanded to international tours in Mexico, Germany and Brazil. Bernier says organizing such a feat is not without its hurdles, particularly when it comes to securing funding for an event many people might not understand.

“Folks do want to come out to an event like this, but ticket prices just don’t support the overhead work of running the festival,” Bernier says. “Also, unlike Boulder Ballet and the Boulder International Film Festival, where people know what to expect right away, when you say ‘dance film’ to someone, they either say, ‘What the heck is that?’ or ‘Oh, yeah, I watch those on TikTok all the time.’ This is not TikTok; that’s not what we’re talking about.”

Bernier says much of her job involves the “delightful challenge” of explaining to people what dance cinema is all about. She says it’s easier now than it was 10 years ago.

“I used to tell people it’s one of Boulder’s best-kept secrets,” Bernie

says. “But last year we sold out two out of three of our premiere showings, so word is getting out there.”

‘ACCESSIBLE TO EVERYONE’

As the Sans Souci Festival prepares for its 21st go-round, Bernier is eager to capitalize on the growing momentum. This year’s event includes virtual reality dance films alongside more traditional video installations and live performances.

“We don’t want this to feel like just another film festival where you sit down, watch a screening and leave,” Bernier explains. “We want it to be a complete sensory experience, where you interact with the installations and the performances to fully immerse yourself in the world of dance film.”

This year’s highlights include Innate Stimulate by first-time filmmaker Megan Roney, created as part of Sans Souci Festival’s Community Dance Film Project and supported by the City of Boulder Arts & Culture. For the virtual reality component, visitors will experience Before We Flew Like Birds, We Flew Like Clouds, a 360-degree video profile of professional speed skater Maurice Hall. The film by KT Niehoff is part of a series of VR installations responding to the question: “What does it feel like to be in your body?”

As Bernier looks toward the future, she hopes the festival will continue to grow and reach new audiences while deepening its roots in Boulder.

“In our culture, we have this idea of epic, disproportionate growth that never ends, which is kind of unhealthy, but I believe that Sans Souci has the potential to reach more people,” Bernier says. “I hope to see Sans Souci evolve into a festival that draws in thousands, not just hundreds. On the artistic side, I would like to see more exploration of the technologies themselves, as well as more VR that pushes the limits of what is possible in dance cinema, while making this art form accessible to everyone.”

ON SCREEN: Sans Souci

Festival of Dance Cinema. Aug. 30 through Sept. 1, Museum of Boulder, 2205 Broadway St. $36 per day

Beast (Bestia) by Iwona Pasińska screens as part of the Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema at the Museum of Boulder.

Courtesy: Sans Souci

Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema celebrates movement with video installations and live performances. Credit: J. Akiyama

Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema returns to Boulder for its 21st year

TRESCA

FIRST FRIDA Y

HOT AND COLD

Portal brings thermaculture to Boulder

BY WILL MATUSKA

All images courtesy: Portal

The first thing that goes are your toes.

But the numbing doesn’t end there. Next up are the fingers and, if you sit in this 45-degree chrome tub long enough, the whole body succumbs.

The only refuge from this prickly assault on your nerves is the opposite sensation: heat within the nearby 200-degree sauna.

Queue the Ethio-jazz, add sweatsoaked strangers and sprinkle in a few ferns and you’ve got Portal, the pop-up thermaculture club located off Sanitas Brewing’s back patio in Boulder.

Although it’s the city’s first iteration of such a club, thermaculture has been gaining traction in the health and wellness community around the country. It’s especially popular in the Midwest,

A one-hour session at Portal is $35, but it’s $20 for firsttimers. One month of unlimited sessions is $99.

where the combination of Scandinavian cultural roots and saunas on the shores of frozen lakes have helped make thermaculture clubs trendy in cities like Minneapolis.

After gaining traction at its temporary location since first opening in January, Portal is planning to move into a TBD brick-and-mortar location twice as big by the end of the year. Will Drescher, one of the company’s founders, said the club’s allure is more than just hot and cold temperature cycles.

“It’s an ancient practice,” he said. “The Scandinavians have been doing it forever. The Indigenous people here have the hot springs culture. It’s a really analogue way for people to connect in a world where people are becoming more and more disconnected.”

‘YOU WANT TO PUT A WHAT IN MY WHERE?’

Drescher’s introduction to thermaculture began behind a strip mall in Minneapolis.

“The cold plunge was a 200-gallon white Grizzly cooler, and the sauna was a horse trailer,” said Drescher, who lived in the city for a decade before moving to Boulder last year.

The DIY setup eventually became a company called Embrace North, which he called a “really low-barrier-to-entry social club.” He became a regular, and it was there that the friendship with Portal’s cofounder Rory MacMurdo took off. The pair decided to start their own business after a trip to the desert.

“We were actually up in Moab, and we were listening to the Khruangbin album Mordechai,” Drescher said. “And we were like, ‘What if we just made Embrace North, but it sounded and looked like this?’ That’s Portal.”

The club built its first pop-up in Boulder, where Drescher saw people who were “pretty open minded and value wellness.” After struggling to find a space in the city’s commercial real estate market, Drescher approached Sanitas Brewing owner Mike Memsic, who had recently gotten into thermaculture and was “down for the cause.”

“It was really hard to find a landlord that really understood what we were doing, especially given that the area didn’t really have a scene,” Drescher said. “A lot of people were like, ‘You want to put a what in my where?’”

HEATING UP

Portal isn’t the only company benefiting from a thermaculture surge.

Located in Longmont, Mountain Mist Spa and Sauna sells saunas and cold baths for residential and commercial customers across the state.

“We’ve sold saunas for 25 years,” said owner Tyler Smith. “We’ve sold more of them in the last five years than we did the 15 before that.”

Smith said the increase in popularity partially came during COVID, but was also boosted by the “health and wellness kick.”

Some studies have found passive heat therapy from saunas can decrease health risks like hypertension and certain respiratory conditions, while improving mental health and sleep. But others say that to understand the longevity of benefits and potential side effects, there should be more long-term data collection, spanning decades.

When it comes to cold plunges, there’s evidence they can help reduce inflammation and muscle soreness, possibly due to the constriction of blood vessels reacting to the low temperatures, according to the Mayo Clinic.

“It’s very much in right now,” said Smith, adding that his company sells hundreds of saunas a year, including one to Coach Prime last year (which Prime endorses in a video on their website).

Sauna prices vary: Smith said their bestsellers hover around $6,000, but custom models can reach up to $50,000.

Due to demand and lowering costs, Mountain Mist has also started a push in the last six months to sell more cold baths, too, which typically run between $7,000 and $9,000.

‘THE GREAT EQUALIZER’

At Portal, up to 16 customers at a time can book one-hour sessions for self-guided cycling between four cold plunges and two Finnish saunas. Plunge temperatures stay near 45 degrees, while wood-fired saunas hover around 200 degrees.

Drescher said just as important as the health and fitness aspects is

simply providing the space for people to connect, something that comes from the club’s social events and the experience of roasting side-by-side in wooden boxes.

“The sauna is kind of like the great equalizer,” he said. “Everyone’s uncomfortable, everyone’s dressed at a certain level, and I think that just leads to breaking down a lot of barriers to connection.”

During a recent Thursday evening inside one of the saunas, it’s quiet with a few

bursts of chatting. The most lively conversation is about what people have seen on the other side of the heat box’s window that faces the Sanitas patio. One woman witnessed a dog repeatedly snag bites out of their owner’s quesadilla. Someone else talked about watching a birthday party for a cat. Compared to other micro-communities, Drescher said Portal is an accessible club for people who “can just show up and be a part of something.”

“Then also if you want to sit in the corner of the sauna and cold plunge and leave, that’s totally cool, too.”

While the company looks to find a permanent location in Boulder before the end of the year, it also has plans to bring the pop-up to Denver, and eventually expand nationwide.

“The grand vision is you can go anywhere and get in a Portal.”

GO WEST

Alex Cox on making his last movie and the re-release of his first

BY MICHAEL J. CASEY

Former CU professor and current filmmaker Alex Cox is gearing up to make his final feature.

“I don’t want it to be my last movie,” Cox says. “It’s just that it very well may be the case. It’s been seven or eight years since I’ve made a film — nearly 10 years since I’ve made a feature. Well, 10 years from now, I’m going to be 80. How likely is it that I will make another film? I don’t know.”

Of course, Jean-Luc Godard was directing into his late 80s, and Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira was 104 when his last feature came out. To that, Cox retorts with a laugh: “That’s a bit excessive, don’t you think?”

Laughter comes easily to Cox. Anyone who has seen his work knows that.

Cox burst onto the film scene 40 years ago with the sci-fi punk rock comedy Repo Man, a movie that continues to enchant and entertain. CU’s International Film Series will host a free 35 mm screening on Sept. 5, just two days after The Criterion Collection releases a newly restored 4K UHD version.

“It looks really good,” Cox says of the new transfer. “It just looks so pretty.”

Pretty might not be the word that first comes to mind about a movie loaded with world-weary repo men and unkempt punks. But Repo Man was shot by “one of the great cinematographers,” Robby Müller, who imbues every scene, every shot, with a loving kind of poetry.

Repo Man was just the beginning. It launched Cox’s career, which currently encompasses a dozen features, some shorts, several books and a stint teaching cinema studies at CU (where he made Bill the Galactic Hero with his students). The movie also kicked off a lifelong collaboration between Cox and several players, many of whom will be in his next, maybe last, movie.

“Sy Richardson, Del Zamora, Zander Schloss,” Cox says, listing off participants.

“The movie is a combination of people I’ve known since Repo Man and people I worked with on Tombstone-Rashomon So it’s like my first film and the last film I made combined.”

THE LAST PICTURE SHOW

Like Tombstone-Rashomon, Cox’s latest endeavor is crowdfunded. What’s different is the attention.

“Normally, if I was doing my last movie, that would end up in Hollywood Reporter and in the Guardian in England,” Cox says. “But because of the basis of the piece, it hasn’t been mentioned anywhere in the mainstream media.”

That basis: the 1842 Russian novel by Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls

“In terms of alternative media and in terms of the public reaction, the response to this has been far better than either of the crowdfunders I did,” he says. “Which really encourages me. Because, although

genre, which he reconfigured into a booklength study in 2020: 10,000 Ways to Die: A Director’s Take on the Italian Western It’s an obsession that extends to location, particularly Almería, Spain, and the nearby Tabernas Desert, where many Italian Westerns were filmed. In 1976, Cox stole a 16 mm Bolex camera from school and went to Spain to photograph the still-standing sets for his short film The Black Hills. Ten years later, he returned to Almería as a full-fledged filmmaker with a cast of musicians for his punk rock homage, Straight to Hell, which he shot using sets constructed for 1971’s The Valdez Horses. That set has since “vanished.”

“Straight to Hell was an adobe town, and it has, over the years, melted back into the earth,” Cox says. “But adjacent to that location is the town [Sergio] Leone built For A Few Dollars More, where we’re shooting.”

Leone built the set as a double for El Paso. In a nice hat tip to the maestro, Cox will use the location as the same West Texas border city for his movie.

Contribute to Alex Cox’s “My Last Movie” Kickstarter at bit.ly/LastMovieBW. Backers will receive periodic updates on the project, among other rewards.

the governments of the U.S. and England are really trying to gee up the population and get them ready for a war with Russia, there’s no support for it at all in the population.”

That’s how Cox came to Dead Souls and Russian literature in the first place. The more “we were being told we should hate the Russians and despise Russian culture,” the more he became interested in what the Russians had produced. So Cox started with Dostoevsky and Tolstoy and found them “quite amazing.” Then came Dead Souls

“It’s so lively, so interesting, the characters are so good,” he says. “This was the thing that you could turn into a Western.”

‘MIRACLE ENOUGH’

Cox is passionate about cinema, but his passion for Westerns, particularly Italian Westerns, goes even deeper. As a graduate student, he wrote a survey of the

“The title is in flux,” Cox says. “I was going to call it Dead Mexicans, and maybe I still will call it Dead Mexicans, but that might give offense to somebody somewhere. So we have an alternative title, which is Government Work.” Cox hopes to have his new and possibly final film done by the middle of next year. Then he’ll “try to get it into some good festival” and see where things go from there.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen,” he says. “You have no idea. Just making the film itself is miracle enough.”

ON SCREEN: Repo Man, with a special introduction from Alex Cox, will screen CU Boulder’s International Film Series at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 5, in Muenzinger Auditorium. The Criterion Collection 4K UHD Blu-ray of Repo Man will be available Sept. 3.

Emilio Estevez (left) and Harry Dean Stanton in Repo Man. Courtesy: The Criterion Collection

“Making the film itself is miracle enough,” says former CU professor and celebrated filmmaker Alex Cox. Courtesy: Alex Cox

FUNNY LADY

How Longmont’s own Kristen Schaal conquered the comedy world

BY GREGORY WAKEMAN

If you don’t recognize Kristen Schaal, you’ll almost certainly know what she sounds like.

Since 2011, the comedian — who was born and raised in Longmont — has voiced the character of Louise Belcher across 14 seasons of the beloved animated series Bob’s Burgers. She’s also lent her unmistakable voice to BoJack Horseman, Gravity Falls, Big Mouth and the Toy Story franchise.

In front of the camera, her comedic performances have included Flight of the Conchords, What We Do in the Shadows, The Last Man on Earth, 30 Rock and The Daily Show

Now Schaal can be seen in My Spy: The Eternal City, reprising her character of Bobbi, tech specialist to CIA agent J.J. (Dave Bautista). The sequel takes the action spy comedy to Italy, where J.J. and Sophie (Chloe Coleman), the teenager who in the predecessor blackmailed J.J. into training her to be a spy, find themselves embroiled in a terrorist plot.

“The movie does a great job of tackling the dynamic between parents and kids at that age,” Schaal, 46, says. “Sophie is transitioning from a child to adult, and it’s really hard for a parent to accept that. The whole movie is really this push and pull between them. I don’t see that a lot in movies. I think it’s really fun.”

FINDING A VOICE

Schaal first became interested in performing through her church. “If ever someone was needed to be on stage or sing in the choir, I did it,” she says. “I remember there was a perfor-

mance of Godspell at a talent show. We did a fashion show that I hosted. Then in high school I would do plays, as well as speech and debate.”

It was at Skyline High School that Schaal met Dee Covington, the education director at the Denver-based Curious Theater Company, who cast her in plays that were “structured around issues affecting the community.” Soon they were touring to other schools as far away as Arizona to put on performances. At the same time, Schaal was also working at the sinceshuttered Showtime Video on Main Street. This meant she was able to take home and learn from as many videos as she wanted.

“I can remember pulling the likes of Eddie Murphy and Roseanne off the shelves. They were all such huge inspirations,” she says. “I knew I wanted to perform, but I still didn’t quite know what I was doing.”

The fateful moment arrived when she was reading poetry in class.

“I remember everyone started laughing at me. But I was being very serious,” she says. “From that moment on, I knew that I should just do comedy.”

After one year at CU Boulder, Schaal transferred and eventually graduated from Northwestern University in Illinois before moving to New York in 2000 at the age of 22 to pursue her comedy career.

“When I got out of college, I was waiting tables for like seven or eight years and doing a whole lot of other jobs,” she recalls. “My goal was to one day have my paycheck be from acting.”

Looking back at this period, Schaal can’t help but wax nostalgic about her dream of becoming a professional comedian and actor.

“That’s what’s sort of fun about the arts. I remember always wanting to have immediate success. But by working towards it, I was able to find my voice and value it even more,” she says. “It’s really tough. It was miserable. Scary. Frustrating. There were so many times where I wished I hadn’t chosen the arts. But at the end of the day, it’s so rewarding.”

‘I HAD TO LEAVE’

Slowly but surely, Schaal began to make an impression. Especially after she was named one of the “Ten Funniest New

Looking for more Longmont lore? Check out Insider:

Yorkers You’ve Never Heard Of” by New York Magazine in September 2005. It was her role as stalker Mel in Flight of the Conchords that really boosted her popularity, and she has consistently appeared in films and TV shows ever since.

Schaal has come a long way from her Front Range beginnings. Reflecting on how her Colorado upbringing shaped her career, she says she had to go elsewhere to make it as a performer.

“Every time I’m home, I look outside at the nature and mountains and giant skies and I can understand why so many people are into hiking and outdoor sports there,” she says. “It’s so wonderful. But it’s the opposite of the performing arts. I feel like it’s changed a lot since I was growing up. But when I was a kid, at least in my surroundings, I had to leave to find people with my interests.”

Still, 24 years after moving to New York, she can’t help but get a little sentimental about her roots.

“I do miss it. I’m always looking at houses in Colorado on Redfin for fun,” she says. “It’s such a lovely place.”

ON SCREEN: My Spy: The Eternal City is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.

Kristen Schaal, Dave Bautista and Chloe Coleman in My Spy: The Eternal City Courtesy: Ginsberg Libby

Known for her roles in Bob’s Burgers, 30 Rock, BoJack Horseman and more, celebrated screen and voice actor Kristen Schaal has come a long way from her Longmont upbringing. Courtesy: Ginsberg Libby

30

– 1

6:30-8:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 29, Abbott & Wallace, 350 Terry St., Longmont.

JY the Whiskey Guy hosts this weekly Geeks Who Drink trivia contest at Abbott & Wallace Distilling in Longmont. Teams of up to six can compete for round-byround and grand prizes — but since the pub kitchen is open until 8 p.m., everybody wins.

LADIES

NIGHT AT

THE LONGMONT AXE HOUSE

5-10 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 29, The Longmont Axe House, 333 1st Ave. $35

Need to relieve some tension? There’s an axe for that. Ladies get $5 off 90-minute lane rentals — plus $1 off beers, ciders or seltzers all night long.

SANS SOUCI FESTIVAL OF DANCE CINEMA 2024 SEASON PREMIERE

Friday, Aug. 30 through Sunday, Sept. 1, Museum of Boulder, 2205 Broadway St. $36

Cinema and movement collide at the Sans Souci Dance Film Festival. Enjoy a red carpet experience with food, drink and more provided at the premiere of the 21st annual event at the Museum of Boulder. Story on p. 19.

30

DANCE PARTY W/ DJ DUNN

6-9 p.m. Friday, Aug. 30, Downtown Longmont, 471 Main St., Longmont. Free

Dance the night away under the direction of DJ Dunn during this Friday-night dance party in historic downtown Longmont. Food and drinks will be available, courtesy of Miss Krissy’s Bistro.

31 – 1

BOULDER ART FESTIVAL

Saturday, Aug. 31 through Sunday, Sept. 1, Pearl Street Mall, 1303 Pearl St., Boulder. Free

Celebrate creativity this Labor Day Weekend during the Boulder Art Festival on Pearl Street. The downtown event features established and emerging artists specializing in pottery, sculpture, jewelry, home decor and more.

31 – 1

LONGMONT SURVIVAL AND PREPPER SHOW

Saturday, Aug. 31 through Sunday, Sept. 1, Boulder County Fairgrounds, 9595 Nelson Road, Longmont. $10

According to a Talker survey, one-third of Americans believe they would be the sole survivor of an apocalypse. Increase your odds — or just enjoy some peoplewatching — with products and presentations from leaders in survival preparedness and off-grid living.

1

SANITAS SUMMER MARKET SERIES

2-7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 1, Sanitas Brewing Company, 3550 Frontier Ave., Boulder. Free

Music, beer and good vibes. Who could ask for more? Socialize with your fellow Boulderites while perusing creations by local makers during this open-air market complete with tacos and libations.

1

BROOMFIELD JEWISH FESTIVAL

1-4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 1, Anthem Community Park, 15663 Sheridan Parkway, Broomfield. Free

Enjoy the sounds of Klezmer music, the tastes of a pop-up kosher deli and the unique discoveries of a Judaica market at the Broomfield Jewish Festival. The event also includes a fun zone for kids with face painting, a petting zoo, inflatables and more.

1

UKULELE JAM

2-4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 1, Bootstrap Brewing, 142 Pratt St., Boulder. Free

This recurring uke jam welcomes people of all ages and experience levels. Come strum along and enjoy some of Bootstrap’s award-winning craft brews. For more on this beloved community event, check out our write-up in Longmont Insider at issuu.com/boulder weekly.

2

NUDE FIGURE DRAWING

1-3 p.m. Monday, Sept. 2, NoBo Art Center, 4929 Broadway #E, Boulder. $80

Swing by the NoBo Art Center in Boulder for its weekly session of facilitated, uninstructed figure drawing with a nude fine arts model. All skill levels and mediums are welcome. The center will provide workhorses, easels and clipboards to share on a first-come, first-served basis.

4

Q IS FOR QUESTIONING

6-8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 4, Broomfield Library and Auditorium, 3 Community Park Road, Broomfield. Free

Learn best practices for affirming the LGBTQ+ youth in your life during this three-part interactive workshop led by licensed clinicians and community members at Broomfield Library. Pizza and drinks provided.

5

ART AND SIP: WATERCOLOR + FALL LEAVES

6:30-8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 5, Longmont Museum, 400 Quail Road. $45

Autumn is right around the corner, and you can capture the colors of the season during this hands-on workshop at the Longmont Museum, with libations and snacks available for purchase from the Atrium Bar. All skill levels welcome.

Want more Boulder County events? Check out the complete listings online by scanning this QR code.

FRI. AUG 30

THE DIRTY TURKEYS

HUCK ‘N PRAY, IN PLAIN AIR

SAT. AUG 31

FALL FEST 2024

BOULDER’S BIGGEST BACK TO SCHOOL PARTY

THU. SEP 5

“CROWD CONTROL” BOILER ROOM

FEAT. GASPY, HAMI B2B ESO, SOLEM, FOUR LIVES B2B EVELATION, LOWERY

FRI. SEP 6

RIVER MANN

CLAY ROSE, VON DISCO

SAT. SEP 7

A HUNDRED DRUMS ABELATION, REDRUM, PINK LEMONADE

WED. SEP 11

GROVE & FRIENDS COYOTE ROSE, HAUSWIVES, TELECINE

THU.

LIVE MUSIC

THURSDAY, AUG. 29

HOWLING COYOTE WITH JOE BOOTH. 6 p.m. BOCO Cider, 1501 Lee Hill Drive, Unit 14, Boulder. Free

POWER OF R. 6 p.m. Bricks on Main, 471 Main St., Longmont. Free

EZRA BELL. 8 p.m. Roots Music Project, 4747 Pearl St., Suite V3A, Boulder. $20

LIONEL YOUNG DUO 8 p.m. Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 13th St., Boulder. Free

MICHAEL MARCAGI 8 p.m. Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St., Boulder. $20

ENTROPIST WITH BURNING SILENCE AND VERTIGO 8 p.m. Globe Hall, 4483 Logan St., Denver. $19

THE DIRTY TURKEYS. 8 p.m. Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St., Boulder. $15 BW PICK OF THE WEEK

SATURDAY, AUG. 31

RAVIN’WOLF. 10 a.m. Longmont Farmers Market, Boulder County Fairgrounds, 9595 Nelson Road, Longmont. Free

MOUNTAIN REVERB 5 p.m. Abbott & Wallace Distilling, 350 Terry St., Suite 120, Longmont. Free

INGRID & JEFF 6 p.m. BOCO Cider, 1501 Lee Hill Drive, Unit 14, Boulder. Free

THE LAST AMERICAN TRIO 6 p.m. Trident Booksellers & Cafe, 940 Pearl St., Boulder. Free

RICK SPRINGFIELD 8:30 p.m. Mission Ballroom, 4242 Wynkoop St., Denver. $90

AIN’T FROM HERE 6 p.m. Bricks on Main, 471 Main St., Longmont. Free

CHANCER’S HOOLEY AND KILT PARTY 6 p.m. Bootstrap Brewing Company, 142 Pratt St., Longmont. Free

MATT FLAHERTY BAND. 9 p.m. Southern Sun, 627 S. Broadway, Boulder. Free

FRIDAY, AUG. 30

HALEY HARKIN WITH RUBEY BEGAY AND GAYATARI 6 p.m. Trident Booksellers & Cafe, 940 Pearl St., Boulder. Free

VUDU SUNSHINE 6 p.m. Bootstrap Brewing Company, 142 Pratt St., Longmont. Free

JACOB LARSON BAND. 7 p.m. Muse Performance Space, 200 E. South Boulder Road, Lafayette. $20

GREGORY ALAN ISAKOV WITH JOSIAH AND THE BONNEVILLES 7:30 p.m. Mission Ballroom, 4242 Wynkoop St., Denver. $73

OHGEESY WITH 310BABII AND YUNG CHOWDER. 8 p.m. Boulder Theater, 2032 13th St. $35

FLAMINGOS IN THE TREE WITH INOHA AND THE ETIQUETTES 8 p.m. Globe Hall, 4483 Logan St., Denver. $29

DAVELLIE 7 p.m. Muse Performance Space, 200 E. South Boulder Road, Lafayette. $20

REZZ WITH HOLLY AND SFAM 7 p.m. Mission Ballroom, 4242 Wynkoop St., Denver. $142

BARBELFISH BALKAN BAND. 7 p.m. Willow Farm, 11898 N. 75th St., Longmont. $25

FLOAT LIKE A BUFFALO. 7 p.m. Courtyard Summer Concert Series, 836 Main St., Louisville. Free

JOE WATERS WITH MAD DOG BLUES 7 p.m. Roots Music Project, 4747 Pearl, Suite V3A, Boulder. $20

THE ROBERT CRAY BAND. 7:30 p.m. Chautauqua Auditorium, 900 Baseline Road, Boulder. $43

CHAIR BOMB WITH ON THE DOT, SONEFFS AND SCORPLINGS 8 p.m. The Stand, 1201 Arapahoe Ave., Boulder. $5

TOMMY NEWPORT WITH STOVETOP GEMINI. 8 p.m. Globe Hall, 4483 Logan St., Denver. $32

LIVE MUSIC

ON THE BILL

Local psych-rock outfit The Dirty Turkeys bring their Western tour to a close with a high-energy finale at The Fox Theatre on Aug. 30, featuring support from Huck ‘n’ Pray and In Plain Air. Check out a Boulder

Weekly profile on the homegrown band in our special Insider issue (issuu.com/boulderweekly) before the show. See listing for details

PHOEBE NIX WITH CANYON COLLECTIVE AND THE CHARLIE BERRY PROJECT 8 p.m. Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 13th St., Boulder. $24

JOHN OSBORNE FARLEY. 9:30 p.m. License #1, 2115 13th St., Boulder. Free

SUNDAY, SEPT. 1

LOCO UKULELE JAM 2 p.m. Bootstrap Brewing Company, 142 Pratt St., Longmont. Free

DENNY DRISCOLL. 3 p.m. Bricks on Main, 471 Main St., Longmont. Free

JD CORDLE WITH CRIS ZAMBRANO 4 p.m. BOCO Cider, 1501 Lee Hill Drive, Unit 14, Boulder. Free

GREGORY ALAN ISAKOV WITH PASSENGER (NIGHT 1) 7 p.m. Red Rocks Park & Amphitheatre, 18300 W. Alameda Parkway, Morrison. $123

PATTON & SITERO (LIVE MUSIC AND SPORTS TRIVIA) 8 p.m. Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 13th St., Boulder. Free

MONDAY, SEPT. 2

TAXI PAINT WITH PAINTED GOYA, KUSH AND MOSS BRAIN 5 p.m. Globe Hall, 4483 Logan St., Denver. $23

GREGORY ALAN ISAKOV WITH PASSENGER (NIGHT 2) 7 p.m. Red Rocks Park & Amphitheatre, 18300 W. Alameda Parkway, Morrison. $123

TUESDAY, SEPT. 3

MIKE COHEN & THE SHAKTI GROOVE. 7 p.m. eTown Hall, 1535 Spruce St., Boulder. $25

GLASS ANIMALS WITH EYEDRESS (NIGHT 1) 7:45 p.m. Red Rocks Park & Amphitheatre, 18300 W. Alameda Parkway, Morrison. $174

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 4

HIGH LONESOME. 6 p.m. Rosalee’s Pizzeria, 461 Main St., Longmont. Free

VIC DILLAHAY WITH DOUG

CARMICHAEL. 7 p.m. Dry Land Distillers, 519 Main St., Longmont. Free

GLASS ANIMALS WITH EYEDRESS (NIGHT 2) 7:45 p.m. Red Rocks Park & Amphitheatre, 18300 W. Alameda Parkway, Morrison. $174

DAVE ABEAR. 8 p.m. Southern Sun, 627 S. Broadway St., Boulder. Free

KYRA GORDON. 8 p.m. Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 13th St., Boulder. Free

JAZZ SUPPER CLUB

LIVE JAZZ • TAPAS • CRAFT COCKTAILS • BEER & WINE

FRIDAY 9/6

THE BIG SWING TRIO

SATURDAY • 9/7

DAVE CORBUS

ASTROLOGY

BY ROB BREZSNY

ARIES (MARCH 21-APRIL 19): Although there are over 7,000 varieties of apples, your grocery store probably offers no more than 15. But you shouldn’t feel deprived. Having 15 alternatives is magnificent. In fact, most of us do better in dealing with a modicum of choices rather than an extravagant abundance. This is true not just about apples but also about most things. I mention this, Aries, because now is an excellent time to pare down your options in regard to all your resources and influences. You will function best if you’re not overwhelmed with possibilities. You will thrive as you experiment with the principle that less is more.

TAURUS (APRIL 20-MAY 20): Taurus comedian Jerry Seinfeld, now 70 years old, has testified, “As a child, the only clear thought I had was ‘get candy.’” I encourage you to be equally single-minded in the near future, Taurus. Not necessarily about candy — but about goodies that appeal to your inner child as well as your inner teenager and inner adult. You are authorized by cosmic forces to go in quest of experiences that tickle your bliss.

GEMINI (MAY 21-JUNE 20): I’m not saying I would refuse to hire a Gemini person to house-sit while I’m on vacation. You folks probably wouldn’t let my houseplants die, allow raccoons to sneak in and steal food, or leave piles of unwashed dishes in the sink. On the other hand, I’m not entirely confident you would take impeccable care of my home in every little way. But wait! Everything I just said does not apply to you now. My analysis of the omens suggests you will have a high aptitude for the domestic arts in the coming weeks. You will be more likely than usual to take good care of my home — and your own home, too. It’s a good time to redecorate and freshen up the vibe.

CANCER (JUNE 21-JULY 22): These days, you are even smarter and more perceptive than usual. The deep intelligence of your higher self is pouring into your conscious awareness with extra intensity. That’s a good thing, right? Yes, mostly. But there may be a downside: You could be hyper-aware of people whose thinking is mediocre and whose discernment is substandard. That could be frustrating, though it also puts you in a good position to correct mistakes those people make. As you wield the healing power of your wisdom, heed these words from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “Misunderstandings and lethargy produce more wrong in the world than deceit and malice do.”

LEO (JULY 23-AUG. 22): Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had an older sister, born under the sign of Leo. Her nickname was Nannerl. During their childhoods, she was as much a musical prodigy as he. Supervised by their father, they toured Europe performing together, playing harpsichord and piano. Nannerl periodically got top billing, and some critics regarded her as the superior talent. But misfortune struck when her parents decided it was unseemly for her, as a woman, to continue her development as a genius. She was forcibly retired so she could learn the arts of housekeeping and prepare for marriage and children. Your assignment in the coming months, Leo, is to rebel against any influence that tempts you to tamp down your gifts and specialties. Assert your sovereignty. Identify what you do best, and do it more and better than you ever have before.

VIRGO (AUG. 23-SEPT. 22): When an infant giraffe leaves its mother’s womb, it falls six feet to the ground. I suspect that when you are reborn sometime soon, Virgo, a milder and more genial jolt will occur. It may even be quite rousing and inspirational — not rudely bumpy at all. By the way, the plunge of the baby giraffe snaps its umbilical cord and stimulates the creature to take its initial breaths — getting it ready to begin its life journey. I suspect your genial jolt will bring comparable benefits.

LIBRA (SEPT. 23-OCT. 22): Many people living in the Napo province of Ecuador enjoy eating a dish called ukuy, which is a Kichwa word for large ants. This is not an exotic meal for them. They may cook the ukuy or simply eat the creatures alive. If you travel to Napo anytime soon, Libra, I urge you to sample the ukuy. According to my reading of the astrological omens, such an experiment is in alignment with the kinds of experiences you Libras should be seeking: outside your usual habits, beyond your typical expectations and in amused rebellion against your customary way of doing things.

SCORPIO (OCT. 23-NOV. 21): The theory of karma suggests that all our actions, good and bad and in-between, send ripples out into the world. These ripples eventually circle back to us, ensuring we experience events that mirror our original actions. If we lie and cheat, we will be lied to and cheated on. If we give generously and speak kindly about other people, we will be the recipient of generosity and kind words. I bring this up, Scorpio, because I believe you will soon harvest a slew of good karma that you have set in motion through your generosity and kindness. It may sometimes seem as if you’re getting more benevolence than you deserve, but in my estimation, it’s all well-earned.

SAGITTARIUS (NOV. 22-DEC. 21): I encourage you to buy yourself fun presents that give you a feisty boost. Why? Because I want you to bring an innovative, starting-fresh spirit into the ripening projects you are working on. Your attitude and approach could become too serious unless you infuse them with the spunky energy of an excitable kid. Gift suggestions: new music that makes you feel wild; new jewelry or clothes that make you feel daring; new tools that raise your confidence and new information that stirs your creativity.

CAPRICORN (DEC. 22-JAN. 19): On a Tuesday in August in 2012 — one full Jupiter cycle ago — a Capricorn friend of mine called in sick to his job as a marketing specialist. He never returned. Instead, after enjoying a week off to relax, he began working to become a dance instructor. After six months, he was teaching novice students. Three years later, he was proficient enough to teach advanced students. Five years later, he was an expert. I am not advising you, Capricorn, to quit your job and launch your own quixotic quest for supremely gratifying work. But if you were ever going to start taking small steps towards that goal, now would be a good time. It’s also a favorable phase to improve the way your current job works for you.

AQUARIUS (JAN. 20-FEB. 18): Three years ago, an Indonesian man celebrated his marriage to a rice cooker, which is a kitchen accessory. Khoirul Anam wore his finest clothes while his new spouse donned a white veil. In photos posted on social media, the happy couple are shown hugging and kissing. Now might also be a favorable time for you to wed your fortunes more closely with a valuable resource — though there’s no need to perform literal nuptials. What material thing helps bring out the best in you? If there is no such thing, now would be a good time to get it.

PISCES (FEB. 19-MARCH 20): For many years, I didn’t earn enough money to pay taxes. I was indigent. Fortunately, social programs provided me with food and some medical care. In recent years, though, I have had a better cash flow. I regularly send the U.S. government a share of my income. I wish they would spend all my tax contributions to help people in need. Alas, just 42% of my taxes pay for acts of kindness to my fellow humans, while 24% goes to funding the biggest military machine on earth. Maybe someday, there will be an option to allocate my tax donations exactly as I want. In this spirit, Pisces, I invite you to take inventory of the gifts and blessings you dole out. Now is a good time to correct any dubious priorities. Take steps to ensure that your generosity is going where it’s most needed and appreciated. What kind of giving makes you feel best?

I am a man. I met a beautiful Nepalese woman at work. The co-worker who introduced us basically told me this woman was unhappily married. We started spending time together, and we have now been seeing each other for almost three years. Everyone on my end knows about her, but only a few close friends of hers know.

Most of her friends, also Nepalese, have told her that white men can’t be trusted, which I can’t really disagree with, given our history as a nation. And they are telling her that having a baby with her husband will improve their relationship. I think that’s the worst possible reason to have a kid, especially when the dude in question is an emotionally abusive POS.

I love this woman. I don’t want to push her to do anything she’s not ready to do, or that she doesn’t want to do. That would make me no better than all the other men she’s had in her life. But I’m starting to feel like this isn’t going to happen.

Am I an idiot to think she’ll ever leave him?

— Leaving Isn’t My Best Option

I’m not sure what your whiteness or your girlfriend’s Nepalese-ness have to do with your question, LIMBO, which is one I get all the time. You’re going to get the same answer everyone else gets: If she was gonna leave him for you, she would’ve already left.

My husband and I are very happy together, but our sex life has never really “clicked.” The sex feels like it should work out: We’re attracted to each other and we have similar sexual fantasies, mostly related to dom/sub stuff. We have never really managed to bring our shared interest in d/s into our bedroom. We played with bondage, but I didn’t find it particularly hot because I know he would never actually hurt me, it all feels like play. Any advice?

— Been Dithering Since Marrying

Finding a very special guest star who not only shares your love of dom/sub stuff but really enjoys playing with couples will take effort, BDSM, but calling in the kink cavalry — outsourcing the domination to someone who might (but

SAVAGE LOVE

BY DAN SAVAGE

wouldn’t) actually hurt you — could help you and your husband find a groove that makes kink feel more possible/plausible when it’s just the two of you.

Straight guy here in his late 40s married to a 40-year-old straight woman. We’ve been married for 16 years and have two young children. Our sex life is not satisfying, and I do not anticipate it will improve, as my wife is not open to much outside of weekly PIV, with one week off every month for her period, always in the same position.

She has given me one of two choices: I accept our sex life as-is or we divorce and move on. I feel satisfied with the other aspects of our marriage, and I don’t want to live separately from my children or break up our family. Is wanting a fulfilling sex life enough to blow everything else up? Should I suck it up for the sake of my family?

— Despairing In Maryland

It’s always the partner who wants more sex or more sexual variety who gets told that asking for more sex or more varied sex risks “blowing everything else up.” But couldn’t the same be said to someone like Mrs. DIM? By refusing to consider adding anything to the rotation, isn’t she risking a blow-up too?

I don’t want anyone having sex under duress to save their marriages, but if my husband was so unhappy with our sex life that he was considering leaving and/ or cheating, I would be motivated to make some changes.

Sadly, DIM, you’re not married to me, and so you face a choice between sucking it up or blowing it up.

Email your question for the column to mailbox@savage.love. Podcasts, columns and more at Savage.Love

SHABU-SHABU POWER

Boulder-born cookbook celebrates the easy togetherness of Asian one-pot dinners

BY JOHN LEHNDORFF

Gathering around a single steaming pot on a dining table may be exactly the kind of meal we all need right now. The communal hot pot entices us to interact.

“Hot pot is a great way to feed a family or to entertain,” says Boulder’s Amy Kimoto-Kahn, author of the freshly updated The Asian Hot Pot Cookbook. “Not only is it a cuisine that brings people together to have conversations, but it’s also a way for the host to not feel like they have to work during the meal.”

Just to be clear, hot pot is not an Instant Pot, the popular pressure cooking device.

“Hot pot cooking in Japanese culture means either dipping vegetables or proteins in hot broth — called shabu-shabu or putting everything in one pot.”

The cookbook includes more than 65 one-pot creations ranging from Vietnamese oxtail hot pot and green vegetables in creamy corn broth to pork wontons in Macanese broth and ribeye shabushabu. Add a salad and a simple fresh dessert, and it makes a meal you can serve on a weeknight or for a party with a little preparation.

“I want it to be adaptable to all kinds of cultures, not just Japanese,” Kimoto-Kahn says, “and appealing to people who follow various diets.”

The Boulder chef, author and food blogger at easypeasyjapaneasy.com is the mother of three kids, ages 11 to 18. She published her debut cookbook, Simply Ramen, in 2016 and has worked as a personal chef to local sports stars like Nolan Arenado of the Colorado Rockies and JaVale McGee of the Denver Nuggets.

As a fourth-generation Japanese American, family gatherings around the hot pot hold special meaning.

“My mom and dad and their families were put in internment camps during World War II,” she says. “In the camps, they grew gardens and cooked for themselves.”

After the war, Kimoto-Kahn’s mother went to the University of Southern California. “My mom and her friends formed their own group, The Dames, who cooked and shared food,” she says.

Kimoto-Kahn credits that extended family with her early culinary education when she was growing up in Orange County. The Dames cookbook now resides at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.

“They taught us how to cook, how to host and how to garnish food with things from the garden so they appeal to the eyes, too,” she says.

HOT POT 101: THE DIPPING BASICS

The name shabu-shabu comes “from the sound that you make when you’re swishing things in broth,” says the Boulder-based chef and author.

rots, mushrooms and green onions, but they must be cut thin to cook quickly in the broth. Kimoto-Kahn uses a mandolin tool for slicing foods paper thin: “It works great on kabocha pumpkin.”

The name shabu-shabu comes, she says, “from the sound that you make when you’re swishing things in broth.”

Long-handled forks are ideal for doing the dipping.

Dips and sauces: Meat, seafood and veggies cooked in broth can be dunked in a variety of savory sauces and dips on the table. Kimoto-Kahn offers multiple recipes for sauces ranging from ponzu to sukiyaki, but a wide selection of bottled condiments is also available at supermarkets and Asian grocers.

In The Asian Hot Pot Cookbook, KimotoKahn provides an illustrated glossary of ingredients. Here are the essentials.

Heat source: “You use a portable burner or hot plate on the table with a heat proof vessel for the simmering broth,” Kimoto-Kahn says. If not, you can bring a one-pot dinner hot to the table with a ladle.

Broth bases: “The broth is the heart of hot pot, so it needs to be good,” she says, whether you make it from scratch or purchase it. The cookbook includes recipes for chicken, beef, pork, vegetable and seafood broths.

Dippables: Hot pot dippers can include meat, seafood and veggies such as car-

TASTE OF THE WEEK: LOVE AND EGGPLANT

The menu at Bucatino Trattoria Romana — opened earlier this year at 1265 S. Public Road in Lafayette — features all the traditional Italian antipasti, pastas and entrees. When I recently visited, eggplant Parmesan was on my mind. Bucatino’s classy melanzane parmigiana offered thin slices of lightly fried, breaded organic eggplant. The tender eggplant was baked with mozzarella and a well-spiced tomato basil sauce and served over penne noodles in a light Alfredo sauce. I mopped it up with house-baked focaccia.

Also recommended is the eatery’s namesake pasta: bucatini. The long, chewy, hollow pasta strands were enveloped in a rich bolognese sauce that paired well with an affordable glass of sangiovese.

The noodle finale: One of the best things about hot pot dinners comes at the end after the dippers have fortified the broth. “You wouldn’t want to waste it, so, traditionally, you put the noodles in at the end and cook them al dente,” she says. “I like udon noodles because they’re a little thicker and soak up the flavor in the broth.”

THE TEACHER BECOMES A STUDENT

Kimoto-Kahn recently started a degree program at Boulder’s Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts that includes weeks of classroom and kitchen instruction, a farm-to-table experience and a bistro externship.

“I’m loving learning new skills,” she says. “I hope to teach cooking classes and someday open a restaurant with everything Japanese: the food, drink, earthenware and cutlery.”

During a recent family vacation in Costa Rica, the chef and author studied the local cuisine. She returned to cook her classmates a Costa Rican feast featuring tostones, chicken with rice, empanadas filled with steak and squash, and scratch-made sauces.

“It took me two days to cook it,” KimotoKahn says proudly, “but I got an A.”

Eggplant parmesan with penne alfredo at Bucatino Trattoria Romana in Lafayette.

Credit: John Lehndorff

Courtesy: Amy Kimoto-Kahn

More than 65 one-pot creations can be found in The Asian Hot Pot Cookbook Courtesy: Amy Kimoto-Kahn

NIBBLES

LOCAL FOOD NEWS: NEW SHOPS FOR COOKS

A new kind of food shopping option has opened in Louisville. Shamrock Foodservice Warehouse, 785 E. South Boulder Road, offers 28,190 square feet of wholesale-priced food and cooking equipment open to restaurant operators and the general public. It offers shopping carts big enough to comfortably fit a family. Many of the cans and spice jars are giant-sized, and there are deals on eight pounds of butter and seven pounds of chewy boba for drinks, but individual packages are also available. Large families and people who love their smokers will appreciate the walk-in cooler full of slabs of various cuts of beef and pork. Also featured are dozens of flavors of Monin syrups, tons of frozen seafood and a wonderland of pots, spatulas and take-out containers.

William Tharp, a former chef who worked at Boulder’s recently shuttered Tundra Restaurant Supply, has launched Front Range Restaurant Supply, 4699 Nautilus Court No.105 in Gunbarrel. Also open to the public, the shop offers restaurant-quality equipment, supplies and cooking tools.

LGBTQ+ DISTILLERY DV8 CLOSES TEMPORARILY

Boulder distillery DV8, one of the city’s few explicitly queer spaces, closed earlier this month. It is unknown if or whether it will reopen, though the venue’s communications describe the closure as temporary.

DV8 first canceled events hosted at the East Boulder venue, via an Aug. 1 social media announcement. “ALL EVENTS THIS WEEKEND ARE NOW CANCELLED. Stay tuned for more updates. Thank you!”

Then, on Aug. 5, a social media post announced a temporary closure: “Hi Friends and Family of DV8. We are going through a transition and will be closed for that duration. We will be shout back out in a few weeks with more information.”

The business’ Facebook page has not been updated since. A Google listing for DV8 says it is temporarily closed.

As early as Aug. 2, organizers of events that were scheduled at DV8 began announcing the venue’s change of plans.

“Emergency venue change!!!!” Blue Dime Cabaret wrote on Instagram. “We’re so sorry to report that our beloved DV8 will no longer be able to host our wacky shows! Stay tuned to this space to hear where Girls Gays & Theys Just Wanna Have Fun will be moving to on August 9th!”

That event relocated to Full Cycle. On Aug. 15, Blue Dime’s organizers posted to Instagram that they were suspending auditions until a new venue could be found for its October and November performances. There are no upcoming events listed on DV8’s website.

In response to emailed questions, operating partner Adam Kroll worte, “As of now, we do not have any new information to share. We will share when we’ve got everything figured out.” — Shay Castle

John Lehndorff hosts Radio Nibbles and Kitchen Table Talk on KGNU. Comments: nibbles@boulderweekly.com

Louisville’s new Shamrock Foodservice Warehouse. Credit: John Lehndorff

Annual sale of used vinyl, cds, equipment, visual art and more.

Saturday, August 31

Buell Media Center Courtyard 2101 Arapahoe Street, Denver, CO 10:00am - 4:00pm

The Deadhead Cyclist may be the most unique book ever written about the Grateful Dead. It focuses on the deeper meaning behind the magical lyrics that have stood the test of time for more than 50 years, inspiring multiple generations, and adding wind to the sails of a timeless movement that has brought a hopeful, lifeaffirming message to troubled times.

Saturday, September 7

KGNU Boulder Studios 4700 Walnut Street, Boulder 10:00am - 4:00pm

Donations accepted at both locations. Call 303-825-5468 to arrange a pickup.

‘BOUND TO FAIL’

CU study reveals BIPOC fears about psilocybin legalization

BY SHAY CASTLE

For almost as long as cannabis has been legal in Colorado, Marty Otañez has been studying it. Not the drug itself, but issues surrounding it, such as the health and safety of workers in the industry and ways to reduce stigma for users.

Otañez is an associate professor of anthropology at CU Denver. One of his latest projects involves conducting hour-long video interviews with people about their experiences with psychedelics.

in U.S. clinical studies in the U.S. are white: 75%, on average, according to Food and Drug Administration data from 2020. Scientific American reported in 2018 that many studies were 80-90% white.

“My study with a focus on BIPOC was designed as a remedy to the problem,” Otañez said.

BW chatted with him about the ongoing study and what he’s learned from 900 hours of talking about shrooms.

What motivated you to do this work?

As I paid attention to Proposition 122 [which legalized the use of some psychedelics for therapeutic purposes] a lot of BIPOC or community voices were ignored or neglected. I specifically started this study to get people of color or low-income people to share stories on a range of topics: use patterns, microdosing, what their concerns are about medicalization or decriminalization.

Of the roughly 90 completed since January 2023, roughly 40% are with Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC). The rest are people who “identify as low income” — meaning they are “unwilling or uninterested” in paying the $1,500 that is the going rate for a psilocybin-assisted therapy session, according to Otañez.

It was important that BIPOC populations be the primary focus, Otañez said, because the vast majority of participants

What concerns did participants have?

They are concerned about corporations over-medicalizing the substances and beginning to patent component parts of plants and fungi that have been used for over 6,000 years. Medicalizing the substances goes against the essence of how these substances are revered by some Indigenous community members.

People [are] feeling that the psychedelic sector is dominated by white people, and it is white people who will benefit while people of color may be unable to

access high-quality, low-cost psilocybinassisted therapy. The social equity initiatives are going to be too late and too little.

Join this study. Visit bit.ly/ShroomStudyBW to learn more.

From the perspective of POC and lowincome people, this sector is bound to fail.

That’s a criticism that’s really tricky, because not all Indigenous people are the same. Some individuals I spoke with are excited about the decriminalization of the sector because of the career opportunities it provides and the increasing normalization of psilocybin as a resource for healing and wellness. Several are engaged as entrepreneurs or are receiving training so they can participate in the sector as a therapist or a trip sitter.

What did you learn about the ways people are using psilocybin?

This is all preliminary, because I’m not done analyzing the data.

People use psilocybin in a safe way. They make sure they’re in the appropriate mindset and in a safe space. They have a trip sitter or friends join them. They prepare water and healthy snacks and a comfort item.

Many participants are microdosing to help with social anxiety and self-diagnosed depression. This medicine is really powerful, because it allows people who need this natural approach to healing to be well and obtain some kind of wellness for themselves.

Then there’s the whole range of how people consume it: dried substances, chocolate bars, tea, capsules. Several people said they eat them in a peanut butter sandwich.

Was there anything that surprised you?

This whole idea of lemon tekking: drinking citrus such as a lemon or soaking the fungi medicine in lemon before eating them. They said it enhances the high and helps with the nausea.

What’s next for the study?

We are recruiting participants until December 2024 or until I reach 100 participants. The study does offer individuals the option to disguise their face and voice or to only record audio.

The videos will be located on the project webpage, which will have a searchable archive. They’re also being rolled out via my Instagram (@otanezmg) and YouTube channel (youtube.com/@ otanezm).

My team and I plan to produce onepage policy briefs for each of the major themes that are emerging in the study: Indigenous/decolonizing perspectives; reasons for use of fungi medicine; dosage; stigmas; harm reduction practices; experiences with cultivation and views about corporatization.

My goal is to also co-author five or more academic papers with study participants. It is commonsensical to me to respect Indigenous knowledge systems and recognize that academic people do not have a monopoly on theoretical ideas.

Undergraduate research assistants Mac Ervin, Madjelyn De Jesus and Toni Yanez assisted with the study and creative work.

Marty Otañez. Courtesy: CU Denver