3.19.20 Boulder Weekly

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March

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2020

HANG IN THERE IT ’LL BE OK

Get ready for

BACKCOUNTRY

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news:

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news:

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adventure:

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Testing ability lags and more coronavirus news

by Boulder Weekly Staff

The Foilies: Recognizing the worst in government transparency

by Electronic Frontier Foundation

An excerpt from local adventure-essayist’s forthcoming collection ‘Nature’s Silent Message’

by Scott Stillman

buzz:

Local artistic organizations are taking drastic measures to stay afloat due to cancellations and closures — but it’s not all bad news

by Caitlin Rockett

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feast:

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nibbles:

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The local dining scene will look vastly different one year from now

by Matt Cortina

Canned tomatoes bring flavor to comfort food

by John Lehndorff

UP TO

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arts & culture:

Local voices weigh in on the United Methodist Church’s impending schism over LGBTQ inclusion by Caitlin Rockett

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The Anderson Files: Coronavirus and big change Guest Column: In light of coronavirus, put values into action Boulder County Events: What to do when there’s nothing to do Words: ‘passing laments on the highway of the blessed,’

by Greg Alston Film: ‘Senna’ and ‘Diego Maradona’ will scratch the competitive itch Food/Drink: Food news and what to try this week in Boulder County Beer: Know your brew: Water Astrology: by Rob Brezsny Savage Love: Quickies Cannabis Corner: Social separating with Alice B. Toklas

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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MARCH 19, 2020

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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MARCH 19, 2020

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From the owners of Boulder Weekly stewart sallo and mari nevar

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s the owners of Boulder Weekly, we wanted to reach out to you and share some thoughts about the crisis we find ourselves in, and what you can expect from the Weekly during the weeks ahead.

Let’s begin with the word, “crisis.” There is considerable debate about whether the health risks associated with COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, qualify as a “crisis.”

There are two broad opinions on this subject: 1. Coronavirus represents perhaps the most significant health crisis of our lifetimes, and unless we employ immediate and drastic measures to limit the spread of this disease a significant number of people will perish.

2. This virus is similar in nature to the flu and other viruses in that it is generally not fatal for individuals whose immune systems are healthy; that this situation has been profoundly blown out of proportion, due to its potential for politicization among a government, corporate-dominated culture and mainstream media that habitually deceive the public to achieve self-serving ends; and that the potential financial hardships we are suffering and will continue to suffer are now a far more serious problem than the disease itself.

We are here to tell you two things about these disparate points of view. The first is that both have merit and that it is too soon to know which is correct, or more correct. The second is that it doesn’t matter.

Regardless of which camp you have pitched your tent in, the first of these two approaches to the coronavirus pandemic has been chosen for us. So, whether you believe the word, “crisis,” is an appropriate description of the disease itself, or whether this episode in our lives is a crisis only due to the way it has been handled by the powers that be, we are clearly in a crisis. And it is up to us to address the consequences, as individuals and as a community.

Here’s how we are addressing the issue at the Weekly. First and foremost, as the only inde-

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pendently owned newspaper/media organization in Boulder County, you can continue to count on us to present you with information that is not subject to the kind of deceit that has become so commonplace among those who seek to gather your precious vote and your hardearned dollars. Our only incentive is to illuminate truth and bring about justice. Our coverage of the coronavirus situation this week in the pages that follow are proof of this.

Because so many of our community partners have been forced to close or limit the scale of their businesses, we will be increasing our circulation in some locations and adding some new locations where you can pick up our print edition. Please rest assured that every copy of the Weekly that we place in a newsstand, rack or other location has been handled with the utmost of care by our circulation team, who will be handling the papers they distribute with gloves, and employing any and all possible measures to ensure the purity of our papers.

For those of you who have chosen to selfquarantine — or simply prefer to read the Weekly online — I want to make sure you are aware that we offer a “digital edition,” which enables you to read the Weekly exactly as it appears in print — including the ads — in true page-turning format. We have had this feature for years, and it will certainly come in handy during this period of “social distancing.” Check

MARCH 19, 2020

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it out at BoulderWeekly.com, where you will find a special button at the top of the home page, as well as in several other locations.

The current writers, editors, designers, bookkeepers and account representatives at the Weekly are simply the best we have ever worked with, and their well-being and the safety of their families is of the utmost importance to us. Therefore, we are in the process of transitioning to a fully telecommuting model, which we hope to have implemented by the end of this week. This means that our South Boulder offices will be open only during limited hours, beginning next week. We will, of course, continue to respond to phone calls and emails.

How we react to this crisis will serve to define our community for years to come, as the survival of many small businesses is at stake. Now, more than ever, you have an opportunity as a member of the Boulder County community to “vote with your dollars.”

Please consider the struggle of the wonderful locally owned businesses in our community and patronize them in any way possible. Many local restaurants and cafes are still open for carryout business, and their survival may well depend on your support during this challenging time. The Weekly published a list of these businesses in last week’s edition, and we will continue to update you as the list grows.

Most importantly, and we cannot overemphasize this, try to remain calm and steadfast in your resolve to deal with these challenges sensitively, positively and patiently. It was just six years ago when a flood of biblical proportions threatened our community, and we not only survived that event but came out stronger than ever. The same will be true in this crisis. As difficult as the weeks ahead will be, there is much to look forward to — like the July 10 and 11 Dead & Company shows at Folsom Field — and if we stay together and support each other with a true community spirit we will get through this and grow stronger because of it.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Publisher, Fran Zankowski Circulation Manager, Cal Winn EDITORIAL Editor, Matt Cortina Senior Editor, Angela K. Evans Arts and Culture Editor, Caitlin Rockett Special Editions Editor, Michael J. Casey Adventure Editor, Emma Athena Contributing Writers, Peter Alexander, Dave Anderson, Will Brendza, Rob Brezsny, Paul Danish, Sarah Haas, Jim Hightower, Dave Kirby, John Lehndorff, Rico Moore, Amanda Moutinho, Leland Rucker, Dan Savage, Josh Schlossberg, Alan Sculley, Ryan Syrek, Christi Turner, Betsy Welch, Tom Winter, Gary Zeidner SALES AND MARKETING Retail Sales Manager, Allen Carmichael Account Executives, Matthew Fischer, Sami Wainscott Market Development Manager, Kellie Robinson Advertising Coordinator, Corey Basciano Bookkeeper, Regina Campanella Mrs. Boulder Weekly, Mari Nevar PRODUCTION Art Director, Susan France Senior Graphic Designer, Mark Goodman Graphic Designer, Daisy Bauer CIRCULATION TEAM Dave Hastie, Dan Hill, George LaRoe, Jeffrey Lohrius, Elizabeth Ouslie, Rick Slama Founder/CEO, Stewart Sallo Editor-at-Large, Joel Dyer

March 19, 2020 Volume XXVII, Number 31 As Boulder County's only independently owned newspaper, Boulder Weekly is dedicated to illuminating truth, advancing justice and protecting the First Amendment through ethical, no-holds-barred journalism and thought-provoking opinion writing. Free every Thursday since 1993, the Weekly also offers the county's most comprehensive arts and entertainment coverage. Read the print version, or visit www.boulderweekly.com. Boulder Weekly does not accept unsolicited editorial submissions. If you're interested in writing for the paper, please send queries to: editorial@ boulderweekly.com. Any materials sent to Boulder Weekly become the property of the newspaper.

On coronavirus:

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690 South Lashley Lane, Boulder, CO, 80305 p 303.494.5511 f 303.494.2585 editorial@boulderweekly.com www.boulderweekly.com Boulder Weekly is published every Thursday. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Š 2020 Boulder Weekly, Inc., all rights reserved.

Boulder Weekly

welcomes your correspondence via email (letters@ boulderweekly.com) or the comments section of our website at www.boulderweekly.com. Preference will be given to short letters (under 300 words) that deal with recent stories or local issues, and letters may be edited for style, length and libel. Letters should include your name, address and telephone number for verification. We do not publish anonymous letters or those signed with pseudonyms. Letters become the property of Boulder Weekly and will be published on our website.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Cities most curious about coronavirus in the past week, according to Google Trends data: 5. Cambridge, Massachusetts 4. Ann Arbor, Michigan 3. Lakewood, Ohio 2. Troy, Michigan 1. Boulder, Colorado I

MARCH 19, 2020

nformation on coronavirus, and how our communities are reacting to it, changes by the hour.

Throughout this edition and in the coming weeks, BW will bring you stories about how this pandemic is affecting life in Boulder County (as well as plenty of non-virus stories to keep you sane). But for the latest news and updates on coronavirus cases, testing sites and more, visit bouldercounty.org/families/disease/ covid-19 for local information, and covid19.colorado.gov for statewide info. Lastly, have hope and be kind to one another. We will get through this together.

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Coronavirus and big change

by Dave Anderson

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o more criticism. That was the message of U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams to journalists. He castigated them for their coverage of the White House response to the coronavirus pandemic. He said there should be “no more bickering, no more partisanship, no more criticism or finger-pointing. There’ll be plenty of time for that.”

The Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty tweeted, “Surgeon General admonishes reporters that they should not be holding government officials accountable for their actions.

The real danger to the nation’s health is not to.”

This is after Trump claimed the pandemic was a “hoax” by the Democrats and the media. He has spread lies, misinformation and bullshit during this crisis.

Trump is a clear and present danger to our health. He is also a serious threat to democracy. Masha Gessen writes in The New Yorker: “The biggest gift the pandemic may give Trump is the opportunity to envelop an ever greater number of people in his reality. For the past three years, we have lived in a bifurcated America, where part of the population believes whatever Trump says, even when he lies about the weather, and the other part lives in the tension between observable facts and Trump’s lies. Staying sane in this split-screen reality is hard enough without the existential anxiety induced by a pandemic. Anxiety is ever the autocrat’s friend. Living in a fog where one either doesn’t know whom to believe or finds fact-based reality terrifying, more and more people may heed the clarion call of the conman-in-chief.”

As a Russian émigré who lived under Putin, Gessen knows what she is speaking about from experience.

She says we have to discuss “how we live together in this country, which is 8

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a hard thing for Americans to do.

Our culture prizes individual action and privileges individual survival.”

It starts with Ronald Reagan who is beloved by Republicans whether they are Trump fans or Never Trumpers. Reagan said, “Government is not the solution to our problem.

Government is the problem.” Rightwing strategist and lobbyist Grover Norquist proclaimed, “My goal is to cut government in half in 25 years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

Actually Republicans and conservatives aren’t exactly anti-government.

They fervently support the military industrial complex, harsh law enforcement policies and laws combatting what they consider to be moral breakdown. According to a study by Tufts University psychologists many years ago, the Democrats are the mommy party and the Republicans are the daddy party.

This is a rather sexist and authoritarian view of the family but it is somewhat useful.

David Paul Kuhn, writing in Real Clear Politics in 2010, explained: “...

[T]he daddy party views government as a force for order. Government exists to prevent harm, whether to life or way of life. Washington is to structure politics, not improve society. ...

The mommy party views government as a means to feel safe. Washington provides a freedom from jeopardy to nurture citizens. Government is both safety net and springboard.”

This analysis is a little simplistic.

A more useful narrative involves the rise of “neoliberal” economic policies throughout the world after the 1960s when world capitalism was in crisis.

Right-wingers disagree with 20thcentury political liberalism but are devotees of economic “neoliberalism.”

The big stars of “neoliberalism” are Reagan, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and Chilean MARCH 19, 2020

Trump’s policies seem like neoliberalism on steroids. But he is a leader of a global faux right-wing populism which is quasi-fascist. If he is reelected, we won’t recognize our country. military dictator Augusto Pinochet.

They wanted to remove government restraints on business no matter how much social damage this causes. They advocated for “free” trade, cutting public expenditures for social services, reducing government regulations that diminish profits, including protecting the environment and consumer and workplace safety. They wanted privatization of goods and services.

They replace the concept of “the public good” with “individual responsibility.” But their promotion of rugged individualism only applied to ordinary folk. They fervently favored public subsidies and tax breaks for big business.

The first — and perhaps the purest — example of neoliberalism came in Chile in 1973 after a CIAsupported coup against the popularly elected government of Salvador Allende, who was a democratic socialist.

Neoliberal policies aren’t popular with the working class majority because they make everyday life more nasty and brutish. Reagan and Thatcher were somewhat constrained in carrying out neoliberal policies by opposition parties, labor unions and civil society groups who fought them I

in a democracy. Chile’s General Augusto Pinochet could do what he wanted. A milder neoliberalism was pursued by Democratic presidents Carter and Clinton.

Everything began to change with the global financial crisis of 2008.

“The banks got bailed out! We got sold out!” Occupy Wall Street chanted.

A far right arose with the Tea Party.

Is neoliberalism dead? Trump’s policies seem like neoliberalism on steroids. But he is a leader of a global faux right-wing populism which is quasi-fascist. If he is reelected, we won’t recognize our country.

Socialism has entered the mainstream. Bernie might not become the Democratic nominee, but exit polls after the primaries reveal that a majority of voters support Medicare for All and big, significant change.

The coronavirus pandemic is in its early stages and our gutted and dysfunctional federal government isn’t ready. Climate change is happening faster than the predictions of scientists.

The world economy is stumbling.

It feels like the end times. If we want a better world, we have to fight for it.

This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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f you’ve ever doubted that mental the drama of our human world in a health and physical health are healthier perspective. closely related, you’re probably Help someone who may feel not so doubtful anymore. alone. As immunocompromised and As we learn about more cases high-risk patients are being advised of COVID-19 and all the measures to stay home as much as possible, that are being taken all over the some of us may experience feelings of world, you may find yourself growing loneliness and isolation. Offer to run increasingly anxious. Our mental an errand for someone who is at health and physical health are not higher risk of getting sick. Take this two separate things. time to call a longtime friend, chat Some anxiety is normal, especially outside with your neighbors or send a in times like care package. these. But we It’s in times need to be careful like these that we not to let our have an opportuanxiety get the nity to make ourbetter of us. Our selves most valuor anxiety has an able to others, influence on and that is good underestimate how well everyone around medicine for disyou can cope and adapt. us, especially chiltracting us from We tend to exaggerate the dren. Use converour worries about sations with your ourselves. Times danger of unfamiliar children as an like these also situations. opportunity to offer us all an convey facts and opportunity to set an emotional tone. pause and reflect — alone and Accept anxiety as an integral part together — about how much we of human experience. Try not to value our lives and each other, and overestimate the threat or underestiabout how much we depend on our mate how well you can cope and communities to sustain us and help us adapt. We tend to exaggerate the thrive. This kind of reflection is also danger of unfamiliar situations. an excellent anodyne for our mental In addition to the physical prehealth, especially when it reminds us vention measures you’ve surely to put our values into action. learned by now, there are important If you are more seriously conthings that you can do to support cerned about your own mental health your mental health and ease the anxi- or that of someone close to you, you ety you and your friends and loved can call the Colorado Crisis Services ones likely feel. at 1-844-493-8255 or text “TALK” Stay busy and engaged in the to 38255. necessary activities of life. Make a So, remember to breathe. Focus conscious effort to be present to your on what you can control. Take the immediate tasks and surroundings. recommended steps from public Avoid consuming toxic amounts of health officials. And don’t miss this information about things over which chance to practice active kindness to you have no control. Be physically all.

This opinion column does not necesactive, preferably outside, where the sarily reflect the views of Boulder sounds and sights of the natural world, and the sunshine, can help put Weekly.

Try not to overestimate the threat

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

PUBLIC DOMAIN/CDC

Testing ability lags; Colorado ‘chasing the ghost’

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ov. Jared Polis said Colorado officials are “chasing the ghost” when it comes to identifying who has been infected by coronavirus in the state, in a press conference on Monday, March 16.

People are showing up to testing facilities five to 10 days after they’ve contracted coronavirus, making it difficult to identify cases before they are spread to other members of the community.

And despite the relatively high number of tests given in the state already, more resources are needed to adequately identify those infected and curtail the spread of the virus before it reaches at-risk populations.

“Colorado is ahead of where other states are in testing. That’s one of the reasons we have more positive results — it’s not because the virus is more advanced,” Polis said, before adding, “We are unable to get the supplies we need to scale this up as rapidly as we can.”

Increasing testing capabilities now is critical as

“the surge has not yet happened,” Polis said. Earlier in March, Polis ordered insurance providers to waive co-pays, coinsurance and deductibles for coronavirus tests.

Due to the lack of tests available, local officials are prioritizing who receives them.

“The idea is because testing is limited right now, we’re prioritizing those contact investigations, those who may have been exposed to COVID-19,” said Boulder County Chief Medical Officer Chris Urbina on a March 13 video conference. “Basically folks that are ill, have severe symptoms and don’t have another explained reason to have those illnesses, or have been exposed or traveled to [places where there are] cases.

“Most folks probably aren’t going to be able to get the test right away,” he added. “We’re going to

prioritize tests for those we think are at highest risk.”

Tests are likely to become more available in the next “one to two weeks,” he said.

If you want a coronavirus test and meet the risk factors outlined above, the state recommends you contact your doctor’s office. Visit colorado.gov/cdphe/covid-19-testing for more information.

Life goes on… line IN LIGHT OF STATE AND local restrictions that have clamped down on public gatherings — effectively shuttering or severely limiting restaurants, bars, movie theaters, casinos, events and more — organizations that provide unique community services are taking their operations online.

For instance, a rally planned for March 13 outside Bella Romero Academy was moved to Facebook Live. Participants called on Gov. Jared Polis during the hour-and-a-half rally that featured people giving speeches from their homes and workplaces to suspend Extraction Oil and Gas’ operations near the school. The nonprofit 350 Colorado found students and staff have been subjected to unsafe levels of benzene, a byproduct of fracking operations.

City government meetings and coronavirus updates from local health officials have also been broadcast online in the last week, with public meetings canceled for the next few weeks.

The Boulder Jewish Community Center has posted a catalog of spiritual and cultural workshops and virtual community events on its website. And St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church in Boulder joined several local religious organizations taking their worship services online last Sunday.

As Rev. Mary Kate Réjouis wrote to her community: “Human interaction is life-giving, even when it is virtual.”

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CONFIRMED CASES OF

CORONAVIRUS IN COLORADO AS OF

MARCH 18.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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1,790 PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TESTED SO FAR. MARCH 19, 2020

“For everyone who is taking this seriously, you are a hero.”

— Gov. Jared Polis

TOP TRENDING GOOGLE SEARCHES IN THE PAST WEEK 1. tom hanks corona virus 2. rudy gobert corona virus 3. does tom hanks have corona virus 4. tom hanks has corona virus 5. does tom hanks have the corona virus

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he Ringer,” the first track on Eminem’s 2018 album, Kamikaze, includes a line that piqued Buzzfeed reporter Jason Leopold’s curiosity: the rapper claimed the Secret Service visited him due to some controversial lyrics about Ivanka Trump. To find out if it was true, Leopold filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the federal law that allows anyone to demand access to government records.

After a year of delays, the Secret Service provided Leopold 40 pages about the interview with the real Slim Shady, including a note that he was “exhibiting inappropriate behavior.”

This wasn’t the first time government transparency has intersected with hip-hop. Type “Freedom of Information” into Genius.com (the site formerly known as Rap Genius) and you’ll turn up tracks by Sage Francis and Scroobius Pip using FOIA as lyrical inspiration. The hiphop duo Emanon sampled Joanna Newsom for “Shine Your Light,” in which they declare that due to redactions of FOIA documents, we’re “never gonna see the true history of this nation.” Even George Clinton, whom many rappers cite as inspiration, chanted about “getting funky” with the freedom of information on the track “Maximumisness.”

There’s nothing quite like an envelope of freshly photocopied documents to make a journalist or opengovernment advocate break into song. But there’s also nothing that brings the melody to a recordscratching halt than the government withholding information without due cause.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international nonprofit based in San Francisco that fights to uphold civil liberties in the digital age — work that includes filing hundreds of public records requests each year with a variety of government agencies. In collaboration with the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (of which Boulder Weekly is a member), we also compile “The Foilies,” a list of antiawards that name-and-shame government officials and corporations 12

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Authority had violated the state’s open records law, Haussamen filed a lawsuit. After following the wormhole of the justice system, Haussamen finally received the records in 2019, along with a $60,000 settlement for his trouble — but not before the New Mexico Legislature stepped in and passed a new law granting the Spaceport even more secrecy over its operations.

THE CHOOSE-YOUR-OWN EXEMPTION AWARD: IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT hat’s an agency to do when it can’t identify a FOIA exemption to justify withholding records?

In ICE’s case, it created its own.

As is common practice in immigration court, where there is no discovery process, attorney Jennifer Smith sought the immigration file of a client by filing a FOIA request with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). USCIS told Smith that it had identified 18 records, but instead of producing those records, it mysteriously instructed Smith to request them from ICE. Two years later, ICE finally responded that it was withholding the records to “deny fugitive alien FOIA requesters access to the FOIA process when the records could assist the alien in continuing to evade immigration enforcement efforts.”

While admittedly creative, there is no “fugitive disentitlement” exemption under FOIA. Moreover, this fake exemption countered exactly what immigration attorneys are trying to do: ensure that their clients won’t be considered fugitives.

The ACLU of Colorado sued on Smith’s behalf, and in 2019, won the case.

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recognizing the year’s worst in government transparency

by electonic Frontier Foundation that stymie the public’s right to know.

Now in its sixth year, The Foilies are part of the annual Sunshine Week (March 15-21) festivities, when news and advocacy organizations celebrate and bring attention to state and federal open-records laws that allow us to hold the powerful to account.

And the winners are…

THE TWITTER-ASSIST AWARD: PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP t’s not often that prying documents out of the CIA comes with a little bit of help from the commander in chief. But Buzzfeed reporter Jason Leopold (yeah, he turns up a lot in The Foilies) stumbled into just that kind of luck when Trump tweeted an acknowledgement that he had ended “massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad.”

Leopold requested information on the payments from the CIA. Despite the president’s confirmation that these payments existed, the CIA

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still refused to confirm or deny the records existed, a move known in the legal world as a “Glomar response.”

Leopold went to court and a judge found that because Trump had acknowledged the payments publicly, the CIA had to stop playing secrecy games and hand over the documents.

THE SPACE OPERA AWARD: NEW MEXICO SPACEPORT AUTHORITY n space, no one can hear you scream about thwarted public records requests, but down on Earth, you can take the government to court and make them listen.

That’s what Heath Haussamen, editor and publisher of NMPolitics. net, did after the New Mexico Spaceport Authority in 2017 refused to hand over basic public records related to the private companies that lease real estate at Spaceport America, the much-publicized commercial launchpad just outside Truth or Consequences.

With a New Mexico Attorney General’s Office opinion in hand that determined the Spaceport

THE CATALOG IS OUT OF THE BAG AWARD: SPECIAL SERVICES GROUP n response to a California Public Records Act request for information about surveillance technology, the Irvine Police Department in California provided researchers at MuckRock and Open the Government with a catalog called the “Black Book” from a secretive company called Special Services Group. The catalog advertised a

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range of spy devices that would make Q drool, including cameras that can be concealed in gravestones, vacuum cleaners and baby car seats.

But, as Vice’s Motherboard prepared to publish a story on the documents, Special Services Group stepped out of the shadows to issue sweeping legal threats, arguing that by publishing the documents, researchers were violating everything from federal copyright law to arms control regulations. Vice, MuckRock and Open the Government rightfully resisted the censorship threat, since that’s not how it works. Special Services should have taken its beef to the city’s law firm, which reviewed and then released the documents.

THE SMOKESCREEN AWARD: TEXAS ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS cross the country, parents, educators and lawmakers are fuming about nicotine “vaping” among underage students.

Considering that this is branded as a public health crisis, one would assume schools would be forthcoming with data about vaping incidents on campuses to help inform policymakers.

That’s not what Sarah Rafique, a reporter with ABC 13 Investigates in Houston, found when she filed records requests with more than 1,000 schools across Texas. About 10% of agencies missed the 10-day deadline to respond. One school demanded an (illegal) flat fee of $150 for all requests, while another agency demanded to know the reason for the request before they’d hand over the documents. “It was weird, too, that some districts said they didn’t have any data/information but when I explained I was reaching out to 1,000 districts (and they wouldn’t be singled out, per se) all of a sudden they had numbers to share,” Rafique said in a Twitter thread outlining the most troubling responses to her requests.

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THE BUSIEST GOVERNMENT OFFICE AWARD: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE n response to yet another FOIA request from Buzzfeed reporter Jason Leopold, this time for doc-

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uments relating to the Mueller investigation, the Justice Department claimed it has as many as 19 billion responsive documents.

This would mean the investigation had generated or collected more than 28 million documents each day, weekends included.

Although Mueller’s investigation lasted 22 months, the DOJ told Leopold it would take 2,300 years for it to review and produce the requested records for public disclosure. Leopold tweeted that he is exploring cryogenics as a way to review the records in the 4320s.

THE REPEAT WINNER AWARD: ATLANTA MAYOR’S OFFICE ack in 2018, then-Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed earned a Foilie when he responded to a corruption probe by releasing 1.476 million documents, which he displayed in a 6-foot wall of boxes at a press conference, even though it turned out that many of the documents were entirely blank or fully redacted.

Mayor Reed is no longer in office, but his legacy lives on in Atlanta, where his former press secretary, Jenna Garland, was convicted this year for violating Georgia’s Open Records Act. The New York Times reported that she sought to frustrate journalists’ requests for records by directing city spokespeople to be “as unhelpful as possible,” “drag this out as long as possible” and “provide information in the most confusing format available.”

This is the first time that a public official has been charged or convicted under Georgia’s open records laws — and if recent history is a guide, it may not be the last.

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THE UNNECESSARY FEE AWARD: HORRY COUNTY orry County, South Carolina, is the home of Myrtle Beach and its many dedicated beachgoers — and home to this year’s most unnecessary FOIA fee. The Myrtle Beach Sun News sent out requests to a number of local towns and public entities inquiring about payments made on behalf of public agencies to settle lawsuits in the last five years. Many of the towns in

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Horry County emailed the responsive documents back for free; some charged less than $50, but the county itself asked for $75,500.

When asked why the records cost so much, the county was unable to provide an exact accounting. Although its $75,500 demand is not the most outrageous total to grace the Foilies, Horry County’s response is award-worthy in light of how disproportionate it was compared to other agencies.

THE SURVEILLANCE FOR YOU, PRIVACY FOR US AWARD: RING INC. FF has written a lot about Amazon Ring surveillance doorbells, mostly aided by a torrent of great investigative reporting done by journalists using public records requests. The doorbells may be capturing the movements and conversations of neighbors and pedestrians in neighborhoods all across the United States, but Ring employees really value their privacy.

One researcher, Shreyas Gandlur, turned up an email from Ring to the Joliet City Police Department, asking them to redact the names and email addresses of any Ring employees that may show up in emails released through FOIA. “Ring employees have strong personal privacy interests,” wrote one Ring employee (whose name was redacted).

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THE ABOUT-FACE ON FACE RECOGNITION AWARD: IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT ow hard is it to unmask records on face recognition? The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) discovered the many faces of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when it filed a request for information on the agency’s acquisition and use of face recognition technology.

ICE initially said it had only three redacted records — while failing to search one of its largest directorates, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). After POGO successfully appealed, ICE responded that a query of ERO had been conducted and was being reviewed. Two months later, ICE said the request had been closed.

After POGO reached out to the agency, ICE then contradicted

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“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.”

— James Madison

History of Sunshine Week

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very year around March 16, we celebrate open government, transparency and participatory democracy as part of Sunshine Week. It acknowledges the need for citizens to have access to information about the government in order for our self-governing democracy to work. But why March 16?

The U.S. open records laws date back to 1966, when Congress passed the national Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), acknowledging the public’s right to access all government records (with the exception of certain disclosure provisions). Colorado adopted its own open record laws just three years later in 1969. But the true origins of Sunshine Week are much older than that, dating back to the inking of the Constitution and one Founding Father in particular: James Madison.

As the author of the Bill of Rights, Madison is a key advocate of essential freedoms such as speech, religion, press and the right to peaceful protest and petition the government. In 1986, President Ronald Regan declared March 16 Freedom of Information Day, commemorating Madison’s birthday and writing that the fourth president, “understood the value of information in a democratic society, as well as the importance of its free and open dissemination. He believed that through the interaction of the government and its citizens, facilitated by a free press and open access to information, the government could be most responsive to the people it serves.” In 2005, the American Society of News Editors launched Sunshine Week around March 16 to create national dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. — Angela K. Evans

see FOILIES Page 14

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itself, stating that the appeal was assigned and ERO would be queried.

A follow-up request seeking updated information was met with silence.

Accordingly, POGO has decided to face off with ICE in a different venue — the courtroom — after filing a lawsuit for the records.

THE HARDEST DEPARTMENT TO FOIA AWARD: CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT n 2019, the Chicago Police Department was in the news multiple times for its inability to respond to even the most straightforward public records requests.

After members of CPD raided the wrong home and traumatized a family, the family sought to get the body camera footage of the raid. The family believed that, in addition to showing the mistaken raid, it would also show police misconduct.

Unfortunately, the CPD refused to turn over the footage.

In July, the CPD was forced to turn over documents after 14 months of stalling over a FOIA request for files on officers. After a legal opinion from the Illinois Attorney General, the CPD turned over a spreadsheet with more than 33,000 names dating back to the 1940s.

Does the Chicago Police Department use search warrants? Of course it does, but you wouldn’t know it by its FOIA responses. Also in July, the CPD told Lucy Parsons Labs that it did not have any responsive documents for a request for all executed search warrants. After several months of fighting, the department finally released records about 11,000 search warrants issued over a five-year period.

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THE ANYTHING CAN BE CONFIDENTIAL AWARD: U.S. SUPREME COURT ith the rise of outsourcing, nobid contracts and elected officials seeking to reduce government spending, private businesses and government have never been more intertwined. Whether it be facial recognition technology or algorithms used to determine whether people receive public-assistance benefits, private companies and the technology they build are embedded in government’s daily work.

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Yet in June, the U.S. Supreme Court made it much harder for the public to access records that involve private companies. In the case Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader, the court interpreted a FOIA exemption broadly to allow the government to withhold records that a company considers confidential.

Prior to the Supreme Court’s decision, private information could not be withheld from a FOIA requester unless the government or the business could show that making the information public would harm the business. But under the court’s June decision, the government can withhold any information a business deems private.

Confidential business information under FOIA is thus in the eye of the beholder, a result that will frustrate the public’s ability to understand how the government uses private companies’ products and technologies as part of its duties.

THE RESIGNED TO SECRECY AWARD: OREGON GOV. KATE BROWN regon Gov. Kate Brown came into office with a stated goal of restoring trust after public records showed that her predecessor had ordered officials to delete thousands of his emails from state servers.

One concrete step Brown took to improve transparency: creating a state public records advocate to push for more openness.

The abrupt resignation of Oregon’s newly minted public records advocate, Ginger McCall, in September significantly undercut Brown’s stated commitment to transparency. In her resignation letter to Brown, McCall said that she received “meaningful pressure” from Brown’s office to advocate for the governor’s interest, rather than the public’s interest in having a transparent state government. Brown’s office at first denied McCall’s characterization and later chalked it up to a difference in views on McCall’s position.

McCall released notes of her meetings with Brown’s staffers that reflected an effort to make McCall’s position report directly to the governor’s staff, rather than being an inde-

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$33.58

he maximum hourly rate in Colorado for research and retrieval under the Colorado Opens Records Act (CORA). The first hour is free.

Replacing the previous directive of a “reasonable fee,” in 2014, Colorado capped the rate at $30 an hour, which most entities still charge.

However, the law was passed with a five-year inflation adjustment and, in July 2019, the maximum fee throughout the state increased. It is discretionary and fees can be lower or waived altogether. Additional costs include payment for copying records per page.

For the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act (CCJRA), which governs all records made or maintained by law enforcement agencies like police departments, sheriff’s offices and criminal courts, there is also a $30-an-hour fee, after the first free hour. It can be tricky, however, to obtain these records as the state statute requires a court custodian of records to weigh public and private interest in their decision whether or not to release criminal justice records.

Ten ways to limit what you’ll pay for CORA records

by Jeffrey Roberts, Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition n 1. Check the government entity’s website to make sure it has published a

CORA fee policy, as required by the statute before an entity is permitted to charge for research and retrieval.

n 2. Speak with the records custodian about ways to narrow the scope of

your request.

n 3. Request a fee estimate in advance and, if necessary, an itemized

invoice of the charges. If, for example, the records custodian says it will take 15 hours to process your request, ask for an explanation of what is required to conduct the search.

n 4. Ask an elected official for the government entity to make the request

for you.

n 5. Be as specific as you can to help the custodian find the records you’re

seeking. When requesting emails, list parameters such as date, sender, receiver and terms of search.

n 6. Share the cost with other requesters. Reach out to other individuals,

nonprofits or news organizations that might be interested in the same records.

n 7. Crowdfund the cost of your request using MuckRock.com or a social

media platform.

n 8. Ask for a discretionary fee waiver or reduction if the records are to be

used for a “public purpose” such as journalism, nonprofit activities or academic research.

n 9. Use your smartphone or a portable scanner to copy paper records

rather than pay for copies (although some entities forbid this practice).

n 10. Ask for digital records to be emailed to you at no charge for transmis-

sion rather than getting paper copies.

see FOILIES Page 15

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FOILIES from Page 14

pendent advocate for the public. If there is any doubt, we believe McCall. She has long been a conscientious and honest advocate for the public’s right to know.

THE ENEMY OF THE PRESS AWARD: CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL XAVIER BECERRA btaining data about police misconduct under California’s public records law can be a crime, according to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. That was the upshot of legal threats Becerra’s office made to two investigative reporters in March after they received data on police officer arrests and convictions in the past 10 years in response to a public records request filed with the Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training.

According to a letter from Becerra’s office, the spreadsheet, which detailed officers’ criminal histories, was off-limits to the public and its mere possession by the reporters was a misdemeanor. The reporters didn’t back down and instead “formed an unprecedented collaboration to investigate the list, involving three dozen news outlets across the state.”

Becerra’s legal threats backfired spectacularly, leading to statewide comprehensive reporting about criminal investigations into police officers, including a searchable database.

But Becerra should never have threatened the journalists in the first place, an authoritarian move that conflicts with his efforts these past years to position himself as the counterweight to President Donald Trump.

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THE QUEEN OF ALL FOIA DENIALS: EGYPTIAN MUSEUM OF BERLIN or three years, Cosmo Wenman battled with the Germangovernment-funded Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection (aka, the Egyption Museum of Berlin) over a freedom of information campaign to release the 3D scan of a bust of Queen Nefertiti. The museum denied the request for the

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high-quality scan of the over 3,000-year-old statue, arguing that it would threaten its commercial interests — namely by creating competition in the sale of images or reproductions.

“The organization was treating its scan of Nefertiti like a state secret,” Wenman wrote in Reason.

After a prolonged battle, and temporary access to a very slow computer containing the scan, Wenman was finally given a USB drive with the full 3D image. No word on whether museum visits have declined precipitously.

THE STUPID, DUMB, F**KING IDIOT AWARD FOR POLITICAL INTERFERENCE: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR n 2019, reporters at Roll Call broke the news that the Interior Department had been allowing political officials to intervene in the processing of FOIA requests, either by stalling or potentially blocking the agency from fulfilling the request.

The reporting on this so-called “awareness review process” was based on FOIA documents obtained by Aaron Weiss of the Center for Western Priorities, an environmental organization based in Colorado. Among the scores of examples Weiss obtained was a stalled FOIA request from Buzzfeed’s Jason Leopold for all emails in which Interior press secretary Heather Swift used the terms “fucking,” “idiot,” “stupid” and “dumb.” (Swift had already been caught calling CNN’s René Marsh a “fucking idiot” in an email.)

“If political appointees get to decide what the public gets to see, it completely undermines the letter and spirit of FOIA,” Weiss says.

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The Foilies were compiled by Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Investigative Researcher Dave Maass, Staff Attorneys Aaron Mackey and Saira Hussain, Frank Stanton Fellow Naomi Gilens and Policy Analyst Matthew Guariglia. For more on our work, visit eff.org.

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n March 26, bestselling indieauthor Scott Stillman’s second book, Nature’s Silent Message — a collection of introspective essays about his mostly-solo backpacking adventures across Western U.S. mountain ranges and desert canyons — will be available to readers worldwide. His first book, Wilderness, The Gateway to the Soul, published in 2018, peeled away layers of social conditioning to reveal the timeless wisdom and ancient beauty of the outdoors. In Nature’s Silent Message, he continues his poetic observations of human nature in relation to the brilliance of Mother Nature found in our public lands.

Raised in Fairfield, Ohio, Stillman moved to Boulder in 2003 and has spent the years since exploring remote corners of the land. Along the way he’s worked as a bicycle mechanic, Uber driver, and held both conventional and unconventional jobs in order to fund his travels and stay on the wilderness path. Recording all his journeys with pen and notebook, he writes primarily about our spiritual connection to nature. Below is an excerpt from his forthcoming collection.

• • • •

Death Hollow, Utah

An excerpt from local adventure-essayist’s forthcoming collection

By Scott Stillman

Death Hollow, Utah

Bizarre. Seductive. An ungodly dreamscape frozen in time—Death Hollow is at once grotesque and beautiful, foreboding and alluring, snaking its way through an ever-darkening abyss. Its massive domes are reminiscent of Yosemite, reflecting light and color in a peculiar way that suggests illumination from within.

The gaping crevice tunnels its way through gleaming white sandstone, bound for the Escalante, the Colorado, eventually the Sea of Cortez.

In the desert, the story is always the same: water—finding its way, penetrating its path of least resistance through sand and stone, to the ocean at last.

Nature’s paradox: the thing that shapes the desert is what it lacks the most.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

I’ve walked miles to get here, over slickrock passes and scarped ravines, eventually descending a precipitous path along a 600-foot cliff. The crude trail was created over a hundred years ago, for horses. Horses? Riding a horse here seems implausible, yet somehow they managed a way down this primitive route—from Boulder, Utah, down into the murky depths of Death Hollow, then back up the bleached sandstone to Escalante—the only link connecting Boulder to the outside world. The Mail Route, as they called it, back before the assembly of roads.

Boulder must have been some isolated town. An old telephone line, a single strand of rusty wire, is still anchored to weathered pines, in some places lying on the ground, yet still somehow intact. A message from the not so distant past, of a simpler time, when adventure was a way of life.

The job description of mail carrier has certainly changed since 1909.

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Back then there were many such jobs, jobs that required adventure. Instead of traffic jams, these people navigated rugged landscapes, unpredictable weather, and the general uncertainty of the wild. We’ve civilized ourselves quite well, removing ourselves almost entirely from the natural landscape, all for the modern comforts of civilization. It’s no wonder we’re so restless.

These wild places were a part of us for generations. They’re in our blood.

Just being outside changes everything. Cooking, cleaning, gathering water, setting up and breaking down camp—these activities are not just means to an end, but part of the overall experience. I’m peacefully unhurried. There is no urgency, no race against the clock, so I relax into doing as the experience itself. No more preparing for the moment. Everything is the moment.

I try this at home but fail. There’s always somewhere I’m trying to be, running toward a future that never MARCH 19, 2020

comes. Because I’m too busy preparing, racing toward peace and contentment. Now, peace and contentment consume every waking moment.

• • • • Ominous clouds. Whipping wind. Feelings of radical inclusion, grand indifference. Everything is starkly equal. I could fall from a cliff or be struck by lightning and nothing would change. No ambulances, no sirens, no helicopters. No onlookers, no traffic jams. No story on the evening news. Just the whipping wind. These fallen strands of wire. These ominous clouds.

Grand indifference. I find peace in that. Put in my proper place. No religion, no philosophy, just plain, simple, hard fact. Unobscured reality. A refreshing escape from the everyday illusion of our modern world.

The cold truth is—we don’t matter. No more than a bug, a rock, or a tree matters. In this vast inclusiveness, we are all equal parts. And this is entirely the point, to be part of the shebang. Not to live separate closed-off lives, or to live the longest, or acquire the most, or domesticate the Earth, but to be part of the whole experience. To suggest otherwise is simple delusion.

Wilderness is not some vacation, some fairyland, some place of refuge from the real world. Wilderness is the real world. Earth in its natural state— before we got our filthy hands on it.

In wilderness, we are immersed in truth. It becomes abundantly clear that our pain derives from our false sense of separation. Here, that separation is utterly and completely gone— gone like a bad dream. We’re returned to our natural order and place in the world. No better, no worse, but equal to everything else.

With this grand indifference comes radical inclusion and I feel only love—for the plants and flowers, chipmunks and hummingbirds, snakes and scorpions, seeps and springs, the passing clouds and the rays of sunsee DEATH HOLLOW Page 18

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SCOTT STILLMAN

Adam Sloat Broker/Owner

Your Boulder Real Estate Expert and Music Guy

DEATH HOLLOW from Page 17

ALRIGHT ADAM, WHAT MAKES YOU UNIQUE AS A REALTOR?

light—my kin. Like a long lost brother, I’m welcomed home.

To feel this in our civilized world is nearly impossible. Our feelings of separateness are so prevalent that they’re contagious. Even if we practice yoga, or meditate, or pray—feeling one with the infinite universe for a few blissful uninterrupted moments— our feelings of separateness creep right back in through the back door.

In a world where everyone feels separate, it’s simply too much to overcome. But here I’m surrounded by trees, and they are enlightened! And the rocks—enlightened! Among them, my state of disconnect is the exception, and I’m attuned to broader perspective. Welcomed to a new world.

In attempting to connect us all through electronics, we have succeeded in universal disconnect. The constant alerts that beg every last drop of attention rob us from any connection we had in the first place. We are constantly being whisked away. The moment has been lost. We are all trying to find it. Searching for the only thing we know is truly real.

Now I find myself driving ten hours to Escalante, hiking ten miles into a remote canyon, so that I might finally grasp some reality. This, of course, is insane. But the journey proves worthwhile each time, because here lies reality in all its glory! Free from the constant buzz of civilization, I can finally feel my place in the world. And there is nothing really spiritual about it at all. Just plain simple honest truth.

What we need is a revolution. A

Question: Okay Adam, Realtor man, there are a ton of real estate agents around, I know 3 myself, so why should I hire you?

Answer: Well in that case, you should consider interviewing us all!

Seriously, see who feels like the best fit for you – real estate is a journey and can be quite the involved experience. You want someone you actually like and connect with, someone you feel will represent you best, someone you feel total trust with but that you can also be honest with (and they with you). Why should you hire me?

Well, I’m as unique as the next agent, but I bring strengths like negotiating skills, thinking outside the box, being detailed oriented and a killer communicator that you can trust and depend on. My mom also says I’m a really good guy!

720-466-8212 adam@adamsloat.com www.westwaterrealty.com 18

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ON THE BILL:

paradigm shift.

‘Nature’s Silent Message’ book A breakaway release. Thursday, from technology March 26, scottand a re-connecstillmanblog.com tion with the natural world.

For when we disconnect we reconnect—with the truth of who we are.

Nature will welcome us back, as she always does with open arms. We are part of her as she is of us. Her love is so deep that it overflows our hearts, spreading out into the rest of the world. But don’t take my word for it—I’m just a student. Go see for yourself. Leave your electronics at home, hike down into a remote canyon and sit, listen, wait. You may not feel anything at first, but just keep sitting. Listening. Waiting. Eventually, after a few hours perhaps, a few days, a few weeks, you may start to feel something.

Shhh...

Listen...

It’s in the rocks. The trees. The wind.

Don’t make sense of it. Don’t try to put it into words. Just listen.

Truth is silly, wise, profound. Nature speaks a simple language that gets right to the point. Listen not with your ears, but with your heart. Feel the love grow, then reciprocate.

When you reciprocate the love grows stronger, overflowing with truth. Just keep sitting. Listening.

Waiting. Soon, all feelings of separateness will dissolve, as you rereconnect with the world you were born into. The one deep inside you know is real.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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• • • • • •

A virtue that produces peace

Local artistic organizations are taking drastic measures to stay afloat in the wake of cancellations and closures — but it’s not all bad news

by Caitlin Rockett

T

he emails started coming in on Wednesday, March 11; events canceled and venues closed.

There were more emails on Thursday, and by Friday it was an onslaught — Boulder County seemed to grind to a halt.

Of course it wasn’t just Boulder. The nation — the world, really — was attempting to slow the spread of COVID19 by limiting person-to-person contact, with the Centers for Disease Control first encouraging postponement of gatherings of 250 or more people across the United States. As of this writing, the CDC recommends no gatherings of more than 50 people for the next eight weeks.

(President Trump, in a long-overdue expression of concern, suggested we limit that number to 10 or less.)

For artists and art organizations of all stripes, who often depend on income from live performances or exhibitions, it’s been a bitter pill to swallow as they cut their losses for canceled performances and hunker down in the face of months of social distancing that will make traditional forms of performance virtually BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

impossible.

Organizations around the county quickly accepted federal recommendations to cancel events and shutter venues, but it was a tough decision for those at the top. Many, like Dairy Arts Center executive director Melissa Fathman, are taking drastic measures to protect their employees.

“I started looking at what other cities are doing and decided it’s probably only going to be a matter of time before we’re probably going to have a full countywide lockdown,” Fathman says. “So I looked at the numbers — if we continue to operate with full staff, also cutting expenses significantly — no food and beverage or anything associated with live events — if we continued with that we would have a $250,000 deficit by June 1. The Dairy would cease to exist.”

Fathman is audibly emotional.

“We have such a great team, a dedicated staff,” she says. So she did the only thing she could think of: Fathman will forgo a salary “until it is safe to open the Dairy again to the public,” but continue her work as executive director. Nearly I

Studio to 3 bedroom options FREE WiFi Trails on the doorstep Full kitchens Instacart food delivery Tennis courts

SUMMER IS COMING! HELP IF YOU CAN: If money is stable for you during this time, please consider making a donation to one or more local arts organizations.

the entire staff — roughly 50 employees, full-time, part-time, temporary and contract — have been placed on furlough.

“If we furlough people, it’s like pushing the pause button,” Fathman says.

“They can collect benefits and get health care. They can apply for unemployment.”

The Dairy, for the time being, has a staff of two.

“Someone to pay the bills and someone to watch the building and pick up the mail,” Fathman says.

More than 100 organizations rent space at the Dairy for artistic performances, including Local Theater Company, which was forced to cancel its annual Local Lab. The three-day festival of new American plays employed 28 local professional artists and nine who came to Boulder from New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Atlanta.

“We’re still assessing the loss,” Pesha Rudnick, Local’s founding artistic director, said via email. “It’s significant; upward of $20,000. We made good on see CANCELLATIONS Page 22

MARCH 19, 2020

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paying everyone involved in Lab, but the programmatic and educational loss is immeasurable at this point.”

The LocalWRITES program gave a group of emerging-bilingual and Englishspeaking students at Casey Middle School the chance to produce an original piece of theater, set to premiere at Local Lab. “For our LocalWRITES program, Lab was the culmination of our student writers’ work,” Rudick says. “We’re determined to find a way to present and share their stories.”

Just one mile west of the Dairy, Nick Forster, co-founder of eTown, is also crunching numbers and reconsidering business as usual. The nationally syndicated radio show/multimedia/events production company has a staff of about 10 people, according to Forster.

“About half of our staff will be business as usual in that they’re engineers and videographers and people who are connected to the recording, editing and distribution of the show,” Forster says.

“We have to fill the pipeline with shows that are already in the can, that we’ve recorded over the last few months. I think the other half of the crew is going to be looking into opportunities. We’ll need to create some new products from archival material or remote interviews with artists.”

Forster’s bigger concern are the independent contractors at eTown Hall.

“When we shut down for a month that means house managers, bartenders, lighting designers, security, sound engineers, all of those folks don’t have a MARCH 19, 2020

gig,” he says. “And we were never busy enough that that was the only thing someone did, but it was a significant enough part of people’s income. I’m concerned for them. If you count up our house band and production crew and engineers, that’s probably 20 people.”

Boulder’s Z2 Entertainment, which employs several dozen people at Boulder and Fox theaters, set up a fund last week to provide financial support for event-driven staff — security, productions, bartenders, box office crew — according to CEO Cheryl Ligouri.

“The impact on the venues will be significant since all overhead still needs to be covered when the business is not generating revenue but refunding tickets to canceled shows,” Ligouri said in an email. “I think most people outside the industry don’t understand how expensive it is to operate, maintain and update concert venues. The overhead is tremendous.”

So the news around town isn’t great, but it’s not all bad.

Forster says eTown will consider streaming options to help bring the community together, and he’s working on drumming up small grants for musicians through his philanthropic organization Create Boulder.

Boulder County Alliance for the Arts has also established a musicians relief fund (bouldercountyarts.org/musiciansrelief-fund). Executive director Charlotte LaSasso says that Boulder Arts Week, the annual celebration of all things artistic in Boulder County, is offering workshops, classes and even exhibitions

online (boulderartsweek.org/calendar).

The Dairy is planning an online fundraiser, “a Jerry Lewis-telethon-type thing,” with board member and “gender illusionist” Mrs. Eda Bagel, aka Jeffrey Kash.

“The good side of it is that we’re all still artists and we care about the Dairy and the community, so we’re going to be providing online content in the future,” Fathman says.

If you’ve purchased a ticket to a Dairy event that was canceled, you can donate the cost of your ticket to the Dairy Arts Center or to the presenting artistic organization, like Local Theater Company.

“The community can give to our Local relief fund (on our website), donate to the Denver Actors Fund and/or commit to subscribing to our next season,” Rudnick says. “We’ll be announcing soon and plan to have an exciting line up — with contingency plans — for next year.”

“Maybe this is a good publicity opportunity for theatergoers to understand the cost of the ticket is really important because it doesn’t cover the cost of the venue,” LaSasso says.

“Generosity is a virtue that produces peace. People need to relax a little bit and look out for each other. It makes sense to ask for a refund, but realizing now that asking for a refund is going to have a negative impact on that company you love, that you rely on to keep your spirits up or educate you or whatever your point of connection is. We need to support artists.”

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Changing the rules

Local voices weigh in on the United Methodist Church’s impending schism over LGBTQ inclusion

by Caitlin Rockett

K

aren Oliveto has dedicated her life to the United Methodist Church (UMC) despite the denomination’s stance against same sex marriage and its rules against ordaining LGBTQ members into its clergy.

Oliveto is also he first openly gay bishop to be elected in the UMC, serving both the Rocky Mountain and Yellowstone conferences This dissonance in Oliveto’s life — a place of leadership within a denomination that, at least in its bylaws, claims she has no right to leadership because of her sexuality — is the dissonance of the United Methodist Church at large. After months of discussions — with Methodist clergy from around the world, lawyers and world-renowned mediator Kenneth Feinberg — the UMC will likely split later this year over LGBTQ rights within the denomination.

Oliveto has clearly found a home in the UMC despite her sexuality, ordained as a deacon in 1984 just before the denomination created “a harder line on LGBTQ clergy” in its intensely named Book of Discipline, she says.

“I really began to wrestle with how can I do this?” Oliveto says. “My calling hadn’t changed; the church rules had.”

Though she considered other professional avenues, she says the Methodist church always offered her “a path forward,” and it seemed to uphold her, even when she married a woman in 2014. She was elected as a bishop just two years later.

While Oliveto is happy that so many Methodists want to take a stand for inclusion, she finds it “troubling” that the UMC “can’t figure out a way to live together.”

“The United Methodist Church, the way we do theology has allowed us to have a wide difference of opinion as we engage the Bible, and I think at a time when the United States is so highly polarized, the fact that we can’t bridge the chasm of all that divides us as a church really, really makes me sad.”

She also worries about the echo chambers such a split will create.

“The value I have found as a United Methodist is being in churches where people don’t all think alike,” Oliveto says. “And I know my greatest lessons have come from people who aren’t like me, who don’t think like me, but who expand my understanding of God and what God requires of us to do in the world.

And that’s my concern, that we become too narrowly focused.”

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

One of the nearly 400 churches Oliveto oversees as a bishop is Boulder’s Mountain View Methodist Church, which recently voted to become a member church in the Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN). RMN is a collection of Methodist churches that have voted as individual congregations to support people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, in both marriages and inclusion in clergy.

With church membership across the United States in steady decline, and the congregations aging, there is concern over the business of running churches, says religious historian and CU-Boulder professor Deborah Whitehead.

“It’s also very much about money,” Whitehead says. “If we only have three members and they’re all in their 80s, we can’t survive as a congregation because we’re going to go out of business. And this is a real worry, especially for mainline Protestants who are really aging out there.”

Mountain View pastor Stephanie Kidwell can understand how practicing inclusion could also bolster membership, but becoming a Reconciling Ministry was about making a statement about the congregation’s core values.

“I think we’re moving to a place as a church that we’re not afraid to talk about pressing issues of the day, and that’s where I think we need to be,” Kidwell says. “People are talking about being relevant, but it’s not just about being relevant, it’s being able to talk about controversial and difficult issues.”

Their own choice to be inclusive, regardless of the larger UMC schism, allows Mountain View to focus on other important issues, Kidwell says.

“People think that faithbased means closed-minded,” she says. “And for us to say, no, it’s not about that at all, it’s we are people of faith who want to look at the world through the lens of what would Jesus have us do, how we are supposed to love and be in this world. We have a really active green team here who looks at environmental issues. We have a group of women who look at immigration issues. So we want to continue to grow and let people know that we want to talk about all of those things, not just inclusivity.”

The vote on whether to split the UMC is scheduled for the UMC’s General Conference in May. However, a vote was scheduled for March 18 to determine whether to postpone the conference due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The results of that vote were not available before press time.

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MARCH 19, 2020

3 Locations • Campus • Pearl Street • East Pearl

SUPPORTING COMMUNITY WITH A WARM ATMOSPHERE AND LOCAL COFFEE In order to protect the health of our customers, employees, and community, we have made the difficult decision to cancel all music events at The Laughing Goat for the time being (at least until April 15th, and then we will re-assess).

TO GO SERVICE AT 2 LOCATIONS Pearl Street Open Daily 7am-2pm Baby Goat Open Mon-Sat 7am-2pm Norlin is closed until further notice

For up to date information please check out the Events page at www.thelaughinggoat.com

THELAUGHINGGOAT.COM I

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MARCH 19, 2020

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BOOKS

What to do when there’s ‘nothing’ to do... n ON EARTH WE’RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS — OCEAN VUONG

T

he title of Ocean Vuong’s debut novel gives away the young writer’s ability to craft riveting prose, imbued with emotion and beauty.

Written as a letter to his illiterate mother, the story centers around Little Dog, the son of a Vietnamese refugee and a nameless G.I. It explores the nuances of immigraiton, family, mental health and sexuality through sweeping poetic language.

A coming of age story like no other.

n HOMEGOING — YAA GAYSI

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his is ambitious story-telling at its finest as Gaysi’s writing enraptures the reader in a world of generational stories linked by whispers from the past, symbols of eras gone by.

Starting sometime in the late 18th century, the story follows the family lines of two half-sisters born in West Africa. One marries a British official and remains in Africa, while the other is enslaved and shipped to America. As the novel progresses, each chapter represents another story down their respective generational lines until we reach present day. It’s a captivating read.

n NORMAL PEOPLE — SALLY ROONEY

W

ALBUMS

ike any good setlist, let’s start this one off with a banger. Unlike the warmer sounds he last offered under his alias Against All Logic, Nicholas Jaar goes hard for 2017-2019. After a fairly dreamy opening featuring a sample of Her Royal Flyness Queen Bey, Jaar quickly grows antagonistic with tracks like “If You Can’t Do It Good, Do It Hard” and “Alarm.” Even when he brings the temperature down, he keeps it at a simmer. n HEAVY LIGHT — U.S. GIRLS

eghan Remy has an obsession with truth and vulnerability, which is why M her project U.S. Girls makes such vital

music. Heavy Light is a personal album for Remy, using a deceptively poppy 21st century girl-group sound to explore her own physical abuse, but also institutional abuse. The track “4 American Dollars” is a finger-snapping discourse against vast accumulations of wealth. The track “And Yet It Moves / Y Se Meuve” begins with a question as timeless as it is of the moment: “Nos mienten sobre todo, no?” — They lie to us about everything, don’t they?

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

H

unker down and follow along as amateur sleuth Flavia de Luce must pull herself away from her beloved chemistry lab to clear her father of murder.

Flavia is as endearing as a protagonist can be, even as she torments the housekeeper and plots revenge against her two older and equally quirky sisters. Set in the British countryside of the 1950s, this 2009 murder-mystery is witty, engaging and thoroughly enjoyable. Plus, its the first book in a 10-part series. This is only the beginning.

A

riveting memoir following a young girl as she searches for herself by racing in the 1,000 kilometer Mongolian Derby. Prior-Palmer demands the attention of her readers, torn between digesting the story quickly to find out what happens, and slowly drinking in the profundity of each line. The story starts with Prior-Palmer from her home in the U.K. as she decides to enter the derby ill-equipped and untrained. It then follows her across the Mongolian Steppe on myriad spirited Mongoloian ponies as she seeks to win the race and settle her soul.

SOME OF 2020’s BEST ALBUMS… SO FAR L

n THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE — ALAN BRADLEY

n ROUGH MAGIC — LARA PRIOR-PALMER

e’re not sure what it is about Sally Rooney’s Normal People that makes us care so much about a high school love story, but there it is.

This novel found a way to suck us in and hold us there until we finished, as it brilliantly illuminates modern intimacy, love, family and social class.

n 2017-2019 — AGAINST ALL LOGIC

BY ANGELA K. EVANS

BY CAITLIN ROCKETT

n WE ARE SENT HERE BY HISTORY — SHABAKA & THE ANCESTORS

M

illennial British saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings teamed up with a similarly aged group of South African musicians to create the genre-redefining jazz found on We Are Sent Here by History. “We need to start articulating our utopias, articulating what needs to be burned and what needs to be saved,” Shabaka told The New York Times. The album explores how toxic masculinity begets violence and authoritarianism, but it focuses on how vulnerability and truth can set us free.

n EVERY BAD — PORRIDGE RADIO

O

n the Brighton four-piece’s second album, lead singer Dana Margolin opens with a feeling many of us might be experiencing at this precise moment in virus-panicked time: “I’m bored to death, let’s argue / What is going on with me?” The rest of the album goes on to explore just what might be wrong with Margolin — or any of us, for that matter — vacillating between whispers and screams, fluctuating between emotional extremes.

n THE NEON SKYLINE — ANDY SHAUF

ndy Shauf knows how to take the mundanities of life and mine them for every ounce of humanity. The Neon Skyline A tells the story of a man who goes to his local bar, hears that

his ex is back in town, then watches as she enters the bar. The power of Shauf’s music lies in his ability to find the beauty in lost love, drunken conversations and dive bars.

see TO DO Page 28 I

MARCH 19, 2020

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adiolab reporter Latif Nasser finds one other person in the world who shares his name: Detainee 244 at Guantanamo Bay. Over the course of several years, Radiolab’s Nasser investigated a man the U.S. government claims was one of Osama bin Laden’s top advisors. As is always the case with Radiolab and its side projects, this six-part series is as heart-rending as it is fascinating. npr.org/podcasts —CR

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ans of this show know that technology is just the frame in which hosts PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman hang beautiful snapshots of humanity. Tracing the origins of viral memes, conspiracy theories, deep fakes, dark patterns and whole constellations of Twitter fights leads to captivating storytelling. Check out episode 158, “The Case of the Lost Hit,” where Vogt and Goldman help a listener hunt down a song that’s seemingly lost in the ether — a prime example of this show’s playful brilliance. gimletmedia.com/ shows/reply-all —CR

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ex education in the United States is abysmal, particularly if you’re anything other than cisgendered, heterosexual, non-disabled and monogamous. Queer Sex Ed is a project by Boulder-local Sara Connel to turn sex on its head — to “queer” sex education by not only centering on LGBTQIA folks, but also people with disabilities and others on the margins who find themselves left out of sexual discussions and education. Sara and cohost Jay tackle trans justice and inclusion, consent, BDSM, polyamory, body dysmorphia and so much more with compassion, intelligence and humor. queersexed.org —CR n HEAVYWEIGHT

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

STREAMING CAT BLUES

An endless selection to keep you company

BY MICHAEL J. CASEY

T

FILM

he bad news: the novel coronavirus has disrupted life as we know it, and will for the next couple months. But, you’ve gone to the store, you’ve stocked up for the long haul, you’ve washed your hands and you’re social distancing yourself just like you should. Now, it’s just you and the looming thought of having to stay indoors and watch wall-to-wall COVID-19 coverage.

The good news: Never has there been more access to media, information and entertainment, all from your perfectly selfquarantined home, and all available with the click of a button.

We always say a film festival has a little something for everyone, but a festival can’t hold a candle to some of these services. Even better, most offer free trials, anywhere from 14 to 30 days, which ought to help when the cash flow starts to dry up. Not to mention, watching cinema is a profoundly human activity. It opens you up to new experiences and new people, empathetically connects you with a past long forgotten or misremembered. And it’s much safer than binge-watching Food Network and HGTV. Settle in, you and that couch are about to become very close friends. Enjoy the ride.

n THE CRITERION CHANNEL Specializing in American classics, powerhouse foreign films and independents galore, The Criterion Channel boasts one of the most eclectic libraries around. Start anywhere, really, but make sure to swing by the Directed

by Agnès Varda collection, especially her sensational smash, Cléo From 5 to 7. This year’s Conference on World Affairs was to mark the 25th anniversary of the conference’s signature panel, Ebert Interruptus. Cléo was slated and would have paid tribute to the late great Varda (who died in 2019 at the age of 90).

It also would have been the first time a film from a female director was the subject of Interruptus.

But, alas, it is not to be. That doesn’t mean you can’t love Varda and Cléo on your own. Heck, host your own Cléo Interruptus. Not quite the same as CWA, but it’ll do in a pinch.

Five more to find: The Life and Death of Col. Blimp; Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters; I Walk Alone; A Hard Day’s Night; Wendy and Lucy n KANOPY Public libraries are grand, but you can’t go to one right now. You can visit Kanopy, the library’s online streaming service. It’s spectacular, and it’s completely free to use. Just sign up with your library card and dive into a collection so diverse it’s bonkers. From criminally underseen independent gems (The Miseducation of Cameron Post and Bisbee ’17) to nearly lost noir gems (The Man Who Cheated Himself and Woman on the Run). Watch them all, but make BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

sure to carve out time (you have time) for Mark Cousins’ 15-hour documentary, The Story of Film. It’s like mainlining a collegiate-level history of cinema class.

Five more to find: Bill Cunningham New York; The General; Charade; A Ghost Story; Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present

n HOOPLA Also available through the public library, Hoopla is an excellent resource for audiobooks, e-books, comics and a whole lot more. It also has movies — lots of them. Start with Jafar Panahi’s masterful This Is Not a Film. Focusing on the gaps and intersections of isolation and human interaction, Panahi’s films of the 1990s and 2000s drew ire from the Iranian government. They put the filmmaker under house arrest and banned him from making movies. But abstinence proved impossible for the incarcerated Panahi and This Is Not a Film was his shot across the bow. It will stir your soul, and maybe even your creative juices while spending those days longing for human interaction.

Five more to find: Dial M for Murder, Loving Vincent, A Man Called Ove, The Host, Penguin Highway n RARE FILMM Public domain is the cinema’s greatest double-edged sword. With no controlling interests, these movies can be freely traded at low costs, but no one can truly make any money restoring, preserving and properly releasing them to a home market. Enter rarefilmm.com, the cave of forgotten films. Here’s where you’ll find all those titles they wax rhapsodically about on TrailersFromHell.com — and they’re all free.

Start with Moolaadé, a Senegalese drama from director Ousmane Sembene. It’s the story of an African tribe governed by old men and old traditions. But the women outnumber the men, and they’re a heck of a lot smarter. The time for revolt has come. It’s glorious, comical and incredibly prescient.

Five more to find: They Won’t Believe Me; The Big Sky; Getting Straight; Destry Rides Again; Nausicaa n MUBI Sign up now, and you’ll get three months of Mubi for $1. Not too shabby. And considering that Mubi is a handpicked streaming service with 30 films to choose from (each day, one title expires, and another is added), it’s quite handy if you’re the type to spend more time trying to decide what to watch than watching whatever it is you settle on.

Where to start? The Last Man on Earth, naturally. Adapted from Richard Matheson’s short story, I Am Legend — arguably one of the greatest short stories ever penned — director Sidney Salkow both managed to pull a measured and pitch-perfect performance from Vincent Price while using desolate urban landscapes to create a genuine sense of emptiness and desolation. These scenes were shot in Rome, which only adds significance to modernday viewing.

Five more to find: Rosa Luxemburg; Outrage Coda; The Quiet Earth; Guilty Bystander; The Toxic Avenger I

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LAMENTATION (THE MOURNING OF CHRIST) BY GIOTTO

STAY TUNED FOR SHOW UPDATES AT CERVANTESMASTERPIECE.COM

passing laments on the highway of the blessed by greg alston

lamentations and lust and sometimes we just fight making love for a moment and it doesn’t feel right these children a’ crying these dogs that don’t bark superstition and faith holding hands in the dark and i met you once on the way to success and where you are now i can only guess and me, i don’t know i must still be here waiting for the smoke of ambition to clear or just walking in this mansion of circling dreams with uneven floors and busted out screens and the wolves howling outside like the rains that lash so fiercely against these windowpanes or stuck in the lull lying somewhere between the stillness of nothing and something unseen and i had to get out the air was too thick all these freshly painted regrets were making me sick so i punched my way through these thin gypsum walls and i won’t be there to answer your calls and maybe i never was really, at all an aberration, a spectre a spook in the hall so send me a letter if you know how to write

and i’ll read it like scripture in the dark of the night because somehow i forgot my lines in this play and the costume i wore never fit so much, anyway and these visions, johanna they never made any sense and now they’re torn and they’re twisted like this old wire fence and the farmer’s a memory his cows are all gone and i got drunk last night and i slept past the dawn and i woke to revise these thoughts in my head but perspective had left me over something i’d said and now there’s nothing but the hallowing roar of the lingering spirits that don’t dance anymore and i hear them, maria and how can it be these footsteps they’re always following me and i hid from you once and i might hide again and if you close your eyes we could try to pretend that laughter and love are always to find hiding like children in the back of your mind and this world has no rules just boundaries we define and illusion likes to smile when she crosses those lines and sometimes i can’t breathe sometimes i’m okay rising like the sun turning darkness to day

Greg Alston is a gardener, cook, father and some other things, too.

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BOULDER WEEKLY

Streaming sports

‘Senna’ and ‘Diego Maradona’ will scratch the competitive itch

by Michael J. Casey

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t’s the third Thursday in March, and under normal circumON THE BILL: Stream ‘Senna’ stances, we’d be steeped in March Madness right now. via the Starz app; You’re probably reading this at home. And not ‘Diego because you took the day off to watch a weekend of halfMaradona’ is court heaves, buzzer beaters, 12-5 upsets and Cinderella available on DIRECTV, Kanopy stories come to life. No, you’re at home because that’s where and HBO Now. you should be during a pandemic — as are the players and the coaches, the footballers and the drivers, pitchers and catchers, even free agents looking for a payday.

The wide world of sports has come to a screeching halt, so we turn to movies to recreate the experience, the thrill, the elation of watching something unfold in the present tense. And for that to work, the story must be executed with style. It must make us forget that what we’re seeing has already been fixed in the history books.

For this, we turn to Asif Kapadia, the London-born filmmaker who broke onto the cinematic stage in 2010 with his superb documentary, Senna, about the Brazilian Formula One racing champion, Ayrton Senna.

Composed from ‘SENNA’ COURTESY FILMBUFF archival footage and interviews, Kapadia constructs Senna without commentary or contemporary reflection. Every image situates you between the years of 1960 and 1993, placing you in the mindset of the time, of the fans and of the racers. Kapadia even places you in the car with Senna, racing around corners and crashing into railings.

You don’t have to know a lick about racing to become completely engrossed by Senna. Ditto for soccer and Diego Maradona, Kapadia’s 2019 documentary about the legendary Argentina footballer.

Similar to Senna, Kapadia constructs Maradona from over 500 hours of archival footage, and audio interviews with Maradona himself. And, like Senna, Maradona is an exploration of how one player can elevate and transform the game while simultaneously taking himself down the typical path of destruction.

Using grainy video footage — a thing of beauty — Kapadia constructs Maradona’s matches in images the way Ernest Hemingway recounted bullfighting with words.

Rarely does Kapadia rely on high-angle shots to present the pitch and how the players relate to each other: His interest is Maradona. And Kapadia finds the camera closest to him, often tracking him from the sidelines, Maradona obscured by other players.

But, then, he breaks free — bursting through the group, Maradona barrels down the pitch toward the keeper, his long, curly mane holding desperately to his scalp.

One such shot arrives during the 1986 World Cup quarterfinals. Maradona, decked in Argentina’s blue jersey, trucks his way from one side of the field to the other, splitting defenders left and right, seemingly running through and around every single player on England’s team. Announcer Victor Hugo Morales builds into a fever pitch of screams and adulations, and Maradona scores the game-winning goal.

Watching an accomplished performer is one of life’s greatest pleasures. But to witness genius in action is to feel the tingle of the divine.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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BOULDER WEEKLY

OAK AT FOURTEENTH

TOMATO-BRAISED MEATBALLS AT OAK AT FOURTEENTH. Visit boulderweekly. com/cuisine/restaurant-listings for a full, regularly updated list of Boulder County restaurants offering takeout and delivery services amid coronavirusrelated closures.

TRY THIS WEEK:

ORDERING TAKEOUT/ DELIVERY

1

for the next 30 days due to coronavirus, may we recommend supporting your local dining scene by ordering takeout or delivery services from a local food establishment? OAK at fourteenth has the pictured (and delicious) tomato-braised meatballs with local grits and grana cheese, as well as a crispy fried chicken sandwich, kale salad and much more. Sugarbeet in Longmont has takeout (try the Hazel Dell mushroom risotto); get burgers and plant-based entrees at Lafayette’s Community; or try one of the many Boulder County restaurants that regularly offer takeout and delivery. Supporting local restaurants now is important; it is the difference, for many, between continuing to expand our communal palate and going out of business entirely. If you can’t get out to one of these spots, consider buying a gift card for future use.

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240,000 n The number of restaurant workers in the state of Colorado

BOULDER WEEKLY

WITH RESTAURANTS AND BARS prohibited from offering dine-in services

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n Don’t forget farmers The closure of many restaurants and bars, temporary though it may be for some, will impact local agriculture. Though many may still offer farm stand services and CSAs, the close of dine-in establishments will hurt local growers, as will the necessary delay of the Boulder County Farmers Markets (BCFM) until May 2. BCFM put the importance of supporting local ag well: “Whereas the spread of the novel coronavirus is a reflection of globalization, BCFM markets embody the benefits of localization.

The food at the markets is grown and made by people you know and trust. The vendors’ connections to you strengthens their resolve to act in service to the community and nurture that trust.” Check in with your local farmer to see how you can help.

MARCH 19, 2020

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“There will be a time when we want to celebrate those local small businesses again. When it’s safe, we want to go out, we want to go celebrate in bars and clubs. We want to dine out, we want to celebrate in places we can congregate. … That day is not today, it’s not tomorrow. It’s not likely to be next week or the week after.”

— Gov. Jared Polis I

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n DRINK OF THE WEEK Know your brew: Water The body of beer

Stories and photos

by Michael J. Casey

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ater: it’s what puts the spring in Golden, the snatch in Burton and the sparkle in Pilsen.

It’s the essential ingredient in any beer, and the one most commonly overlooked.

About 90-95% of beer is water. And, historically speaking, where the brewer got that water dictated what kind of beer they produced with it. Take the water in Dublin, Ireland: Drawing on aquifers heavy in bicarbonate, brewers overcame the alkaline hardness of the water by adding roasted barley (which isn’t malted, simply burned) to their grist. The ashy grains balanced the pH to produce delicious dry Irish stout — a fortifying and satisfying ale that is neither hard nor harsh.

The hard water of England and Ireland were crucial to the ales produced. In Burton-on-Trent, the gypsum (calcium sulfate) present in the well water gave the beers of the region a hard mineral edge, a whiff of sulfur and a bitterness ideal for their iconic pale ales. Colloquially, it became known as the “Burton snatch” (the word has a much different meaning over there). It became so desirable that breweries outside the city began adding salt to their brewing water, a process called “Burtonization,” a precursor to the type of water treatments most brewers perform today.

On the flipside: the soft water of Pilsen in the Czech Republic. With water that contained little-to-no dissolved minerals, brewers were free to use it as a blank canvas to express their pale malts and Saaz hops, creating the city’s signature lager in the process.

The examples go on: Munich, Dortmund, Milwaukee, etc. More often than not, a region’s dominant style was dictated by the water chemistry of the area. The Coors Brewing Company (now Molson Coors) even managed

Ska Brewing’s Malbec Stout to market “Rocky Mountain spring NOWADAYS water” as both an ingredient and a brewers treat their way of life. water to fit the But a lot has changed in the style they’re past century, particularly when it brewing. comes to water chemistry.

Nowadays, most brewers can and do treat their water to whatever level of hardness or softness fits for the style they’re brewing. It’s one of the reasons why so many breweries can pump out English-style ales, Bavarian-style lagers, West Coast IPAs (bright and bitter) and New Englandstyle IPAs (hazy and soft) without missing a beat.

Today, the primary concerns of water in the brewing process have less to do with its regional properties and more to do with its availability. Water to brew, water to clean; water to grow hops and malts, water to cool and package. On average, it takes seven gallons of water to make one gallon of beer. Less efficient breweries use a ratio of 10:1, while the (CUB) Yatala Brewery in Queensland, Australia, has that ratio down to 2:1.

For centuries, water determined where breweries were located and what beers were brewed. Today, that’s up to the brewers. Tomorrow, it will be up to the brewers who find a way to use less.

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rape versus grain? Who cares, Ska Brewing has the best of both in one beverage: Malbec Stout.

Brewed with both Cluster hops and malbec grape must, Malbec Stout is unassumingly delicious. The color is pitch black with a rocky espresso-tinged head. There’s a touch of coffee-like roast on the nose — as if the beer doesn’t want to betray its secrets. Those you’ll find with a sip: dark, roasty malts edging on bitter chocolate with the must coating the lips and gums. The malbec shows up most prominently on the back, outlasting the stout with a hit of dark fruit and a palatecleansing tannic quality.

Wine/beer hybrids aren’t new, but they’re also tricky to pull off. And though Malbec Stout leans a little heavier on ale qualities (using malbec as a supporting player rather than a competing lead), the resulting beverage manages to stand tall.

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

COURTESY OF ARCANA

The local dining scene will look vastly different one year from now, thanks to coronavirus

by Matt Cortina

C

oronavirus, and the legislative and public response to it, is going to put some restaurants out of business. Boulder County restaurateurs, of course, know this, and many have quickly transitioned their businesses to accommodate a mandate that all restaurants and bars in the state close to dine-in services for 30 days.

“For me, it’s less a question of when restaurants will be able to seat guests in their dining rooms, it’s much more a question of what will happen between now and then,” says Arcana co-owner Elliot Toan. “How much will the economy change and what sort of establishments will the community be needing when this time is over?

“To be totally honest, I don’t expect to be back to business as usual for over a year. On top of that, a huge percentage of restaurants will never reopen.”

Some local restaurants, like Arcana, OAK at fourteenth, Corrida, Sugarbeet, Blackbelly, Community, Basta and many more, have started offering take-out and/or delivery services. Others, like Frasca, Flagstaff House, BRU and more have decided to close for the foreseeable future, at least until the 30-day moratorium on dine-in services ends.

Some are offering gift cards at a

discounted rate, others are offering free delivery services. Many have had to lay off part of or all of their staffs. All are trying to grapple with how to survive without regular business in an industry with notoriously thin margins.

“When I saw this situation developing, it was clear there wasn’t going to be any sort of relief on any good timetable for the restaurant industry or our employees,” Toan says. “Immediately we all started thinking about the business and how people are going to have a legitimately hard time.”

Corrida, for instance, has had to furlough 36 of its 40 employees.

Proceeds from its impromptu takeout service will be distributed among the furloughed staff.

Arcana is using this crisis as an opportunity to be stewards in the community. This week, the restaurant announced it would offer its menu items for takeout or free delivery on a sliding scale — there is a suggested amount for dishes, a minimum for others and still others that are completely free. Toan says Arcana is delivering meals to 30 individuals in need for free this week, offset, in part, by other diners choosing to make donations or pay more for their meals.

“We are trusting the community to do good and not take advantage,

and so far the response has been positive and heartwarming,” Toan says.

For the laid-off employees and those who have had hours curtailed, there are a few solutions on the table to help them make ends meet. Restaurant employees who see a reduction in hours can go to coloradoui.gov to try to collect unemployment insurance. Some employers may be eligible for work-share programs, wherein the state could help split costs with employers to retain employees. And, a bill to suspend business income tax has been proposed in the state legislature, which would ostensibly allow employers to pass on savings to staff members.

All small businesses are being impacted by coronavirus — and about 75% of Colorado’s businesses, which employ 10% of the state’s workforce, are independently owned.

Finding novel solutions to keep businesses alive is the challenge for these restaurateurs, and if they can serve their communities while staying afloat, all the better.

“We’ve been trying to adjust quickly,” Toan says. “We picked the path we’re going down now ... and it continues to feel like the right way. We feel lucky to feel like we have a purpose.”

To support local restaurants, visit boulderweekly.com/cuisine/restaurant-listings/ to see a regularly updated list of restaurants now offering takeout and delivery.

n Support food insecure kids

T

housands of kids in Boulder County rely on school meals for adequate nutrition. This week, local school districts are offering free meals for pickup at area schools. For St. Vrain Valley School District pickup spots, visit svvsd. org/coronavirus. For Boulder Valley School District pickup spots and times, visit food.bvsd.org/ programs/emergency-foodprogram. For those in need of food or those who are considering donating food, check out the Emergency Family Assistance Association, Sister Carmen, Community Food Share and OUR Center.

High end quality meats Catering also available

2426 Arapahoe Ave. Boulder 303-443-0596 www.kalitagrill.com BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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n FEAST

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Restaurants will likely get no support from insurance policies

by Matt Cortina

M

Your place for wings From fresh, never frozen, chicken to over 20 different hand-crafted sauces, and a large selection of deep fried sides and desserts, you can always find something to satisfy your hunger at Peckish.

1320 COLLEGE AVE, BOULDER | 720.475.1561 Check out our menu: www.peckishco.com 36

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MARCH 19, 2020

any restaurateurs in Boulder County have long been paying for business interruption insurance, which would pay out in the event their restaurants and bars would have to close due to natural disasters.

This coverage once included pandemics, but after the SARS outbreak in 2003, most insurance companies stripped that coverage from their policies, unless it was specifically negotiated in.

It took many restaurateurs by surprise.

“Most of us independent restaurant owners have been paying our business interruption for decades only to find out yesterday that the insurance industry submitted in 2006 an exclusion to loss from a virus or bacteria,” Frasca co-owner Bobby Stuckey wrote in a statement. “So none of us will receive any help from the insurance companies that we have been paying to. I am asking for Washington D.C. on both sides of the aisle to work swiftly to assist with this. The country may lose a craft and an industry [for] the restaurant worker in the next two months.”

Elliot Toan, co-owner of Arcana, says he learned about the policy changes three weeks ago when I

renewing an insurance plan.

“I spoke to a broker at that time and he said flatly nobody is covered,” Toan says. “So that was a reality that started descending upon me several weeks ago.

We were really kind of in the mindset this is going to be devastation.”

And though there has been talk at the local, state and federal level, as of press time on March 18, no funds have been allocated to help restaurateurs keep their businesses afloat.

“Everything we’ve heard so far from the state is there will not be a bailout, there will not be relief from the state. They directed the Restaurant Association to Donald Trump... we’re not holding out any hope for that.”

Stuckey suggested calling on lawmakers to authorize federal funds to support restaurants. Some city governments across the country — and it is affecting every community in some capacity — are considering providing assistance to laid-off workers. And as the growing season begins, local farmers, too, will be in need of support as primary markets, like restaurants and farmers markets, are suspended.

BOULDER WEEKLY

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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Pantry Treasure

ate on a March evening — Friday the 13th — I went shopping at a Louisville supermarket for some necessities to make it through the virus shutdown. As a part-time culinary anthropologist, I found it fascinating and disturbing which shelves had been emptied, and those left full. I was surprised that the bags of dry beans had been ransacked while the shelves were still full of canned tomato products.

Anybody who has tried to cook dry beans knows what a challenging task it can be. Meanwhile, canned tomatoes in their myriad forms (from crushed, diced and paste to sauce and juice) are the not-so-secret ingredient in a world of favorite dishes.

Canned tomatoes often have a more intense flavor because they are picked and processed when ripe. Low in fat and high in vitamins and other nutrients, canned tomatoes are also exceptionally affordable. Even imported Italian San Marzano tomatoes are relatively inexpensive.

What’s not to love?

Given the current situation, you may need to live without fresh tomatoes for a couple of months. Think of it as eating seasonally. Imagine how tasty those locally grown tomatoes will taste in July.

I know that your pantry shelves may be home to a can or three of the following tomato variations. Here are some ways that they can add flavor to your menus.

Diced Tomatoes: Drain a can (use the juice in a soup) and spread on a cookie sheet and roast at 400 degrees until singed. Add to chili, soups or pizza or make a spread for tomato toast. Simmer diced tomatoes with navy beans to make chili.

Sliced Tomatoes: Roast pork shanks, beef short ribs or other slowcooking meat cuts in oil. Add sliced onions and canned tomatoes and finish roasting. Puree vegetables and dilute with broth to make a rich sauce or soup.

Tomato Puree: Make chicken cacciatore by simmering boneless, skinless chicken thighs in tomato puree with sliced mushrooms, garlic, onions, sage and red wine. Serve with creamy, cheesy polenta or grits.

Crushed Tomatoes: Blend cilantro, crushed tomatoes, red onion, peeled garlic, canned jalapeños, salt and lime juice to make smooth salsa.

Season to taste.

Tomato Paste: Make a thick pizza sauce by adding paste gradually to hot broth with some tomato puree plus olive oil, basil, oregano and garlic. Spread thinly on dough (below).

Fire-Roasted Diced Tomatoes: Varieties are seasoned with chilies, basil or garlic. Cook ground beef, pork, turkey or bison in olive oil, add tomatoes and simmer. Then cook prepared ravioli or tortellini in it.

Tomato Juice: Use juice instead of water or broth to cook rice and grains. It can also be used to make gazpacho (cold tomato soup), shrimp cocktails and bloody marys.

Tomato Sauce: Bring to a simmer, add sautéed peppers and poach eggs in

it, serve over spaghetti.

To make smooth tomato soup, heat two quarts of tomato juice with a half cup of white rice until soft. Puree in blender. Heat in saucepan and add milk or alternative milk to make it creamy, and season to taste. Serve with grilled cheese.

Other tomato variations include sundried tomatoes (also available marinated in oil) for salads, tomato jam to enjoy with cheese, and smoked tomatoes perfect for red kidney bean chili.

SUMMER WILL COME AGAIN Start thinking about starting some seeds and growing tomatoes in your garden or on your patio. Find heirloom tomato seeds at local garden centers and through local seed companies including: BBB Seed in Boulder (bbbseed.com), Botanical Interests in Broomfield (botanicalinterests.com), Amkha Seed in Westminster, and High Ground Gardens in Crestone (highgroundgardens.com), MAKE AN ARTISAN PIZZA This recipe is a variation on the pizza dough recipe used at Boulder’s Pizzeria Locale.

3 1/2 cups flour 1 1/2 cups cold water 2 1/4 teaspoons salt 1 teaspoon dry active yeast Olive oil to coat bowl Mix yeast and water in a bowl.

Add flour and combine until dough starts to form. Sprinkle salt over the dough and fold the dough several times until clumps are gone. On a floured board, fold the dough in half, turn and fold in half again and repeat.

Do this several times and place in plasticcovered bowl to rest for 15 minutes in a warm room. Repeat two more times as the dough gets smoother. Refrigerate covered dough ball for about 18 hours. Cut the dough in quarters, roll them into balls and let rise in covered bowl for about five hours. After that you are ready to stretch out the dough, top with tomatoes and other goodies and bake at 400-plus degrees for about 30 minutes. This recipe should make four 10-inch pizzas.

Canned tomatoes bring flavor to comfort food

WORDS TO CHEW ON “On Sunday mornings I clearly remember the aroma of a rich ragu cooking slowly to be eaten later that day with pasta (rigatoni or ziti), and delicate meatballs, which were always served separately, never on the same plate, and falling off the bone beef or pork ribs that had been stewing in that same ragu for hours.” — Stanley Tucci

by John Lehndorff

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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John Lehndorff will now host his Radio Nibbles show 8:25 a.m. Thursday on KGNU (88.5 FM, 1390 AM, and streaming at kgnu.org) from his home kitchen.

Direct cooking questions to: nibbles@boulderweekly.com.

MARCH 19, 2020

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Stressed Out? Think Massage!

BY ROB BREZSNY ARIES MARCH 21-APRIL 19: Possible crises in the coming

months: 1) Your power spot may be challenged or compromised. 2) Your master plan might unravel. 3) There could be disruptions in your ability to wield your influence. Potential opportunities: 1) You’ll be motivated to find an even more suitable power spot. 2) A revised master plan will coalesce. 3) You’ll be resourceful as you discover novel ways to wield your influence.

TAURUS APRIL 20-MAY 20: Possible crises in the com-

ing months: 1) Your vision of the big picture of your life may dissipate. 2) Old reliable approaches to learning crucial lessons and expanding your mind could lose their effectiveness. Potential opportunities: 1) You’ll be inspired to develop an updated vision of the big picture of your life. 2) Creative new strategies for learning and expanding your mind will invigorate your personal growth.

GEMINI MAY 21-JUNE 20: Possible crises in the com-

ing months: 1) There may be breakdowns in communication with people you care about.

2) Contracts and agreements could fray. 3) Sexual challenges might complicate love.

Potential opportunities: 1) You’ll be inspired to reinvent the ways you communicate and connect. 2) Your willingness to revise agreements and contracts could make them work better for all concerned. 3) Sexual healing will be available.

CANCER JUNE 21-JULY 22: Possible crises in the com-

ing months: 1) Friends and associates could change in ways that are uncomfortable for you. 2) Images and expectations that people have of you may not match your own images and expectations. Potential opportunities: 1) If you’re intelligent and compassionate as you deal with the transformations in your friends and associates, your relationships could be rejuvenated. 2) You might become braver and more forceful in expressing who you are and what you want.

LEO JULY 23-AUG. 22: Possible crises in the com-

ing months: 1) Your job may not suit you as well as you wish. 2) A health issue could demand more of your attention than you’d like. Potential opportunities: 1) You’ll take innovative action to make your job work better for you. 2) In your efforts to solve a specific health issue, you’ll upgrade your entire approach to staying healthy long-term.

VIRGO AUG. 23-SEPT. 22: Possible crises in the com-

ing months: 1) Love may feel confusing or unpredictable. 2) You may come up against a block to your creativity. Potential opportunities: 1) You’ll be energized to generate new understandings about how to ensure that love works well for you. 2) Your frustration with a creative block will motivate you to uncover previously hidden keys to accessing creative inspiration.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

LIBRA SEPT. 23-OCT. 22: Possible crises in the coming

months: 1) You may experience disturbances in your relationships with home and family.

2) You may falter in your ability to maintain a strong foundation. Potential opportunities: 1) Domestic disorder could inspire you to reinvent your approach to home and family, changing your life for the better. 2) Responding to a downturn in your stability and security, you’ll build a much stronger foundation.

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SCORPIO OCT. 23-NOV. 21: Possible crises in the coming

months: 1) There may be carelessness or a lack of skill in the ways you and your associates communicate and cultivate connectivity.

2) You may have problems blending elements that really need to be blended. Potential opportunities: 1) You’ll resolve to communicate and cultivate connectivity with a renewed panache and vigor. 2) You’ll dream up fresh approaches to blending elements that need to be blended.

SAGITTARIUS NOV. 22-DEC. 21: Possible crises in the com-

ing months: 1) Money may be problematic.

2) Your personal integrity might undergo a challenge. 3) You could get lax about translating your noble ideas into practical actions.

Potential opportunities: 1) You’ll find inventive solutions for boosting your wealth. 2) You’ll take steps to ensure your ethical code is impeccable. 3) You’ll renew your commitment to translating your noble ideals into practical action.

CAPRICORN DEC. 22-JAN. 19: Possible predicament during

the coming months: 1) You may have an identity crisis. Who are you, anyway? What do you really want? 2) What are your true intentions?

Potential opportunity: 1) You’ll purge selfdoubts and fuzzy self-images. 2) You’ll rise up with a fierce determination to define yourself with clarity and intensity and creativity.

SUPPORT LOCAL BUSINESS We’re all in this together.

AQUARIUS JAN. 20-FEB. 18: Possible crises in the com-

ing months: 1) You’ll be at risk for botched endings. 2) You may be tempted to avoid solving long-term problems whose time is up.

Potential opportunities: 1) You’ll make sure all endings are as graceful and complete as possible. 2) You’ll dive in and finally resolve long-term problems whose time is up.

PISCES FEB. 19-MARCH 20: Possible crises in the com-

ing months: 1) Due to worries about your self-worth, you may not accept the help and support that are available. 2) Due to worries about your self-worth, you might fail to bravely take advantage of chances to reach a new level of success. Potential opportunities: 1) You’ll take dramatic action to enhance your sense of self-worth, empowering you to welcome the help and support you’re offered and take advantage of chances to reach a new level of success.

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

BY DAN SAVAGE

in front of mirrors) and “pubephilia” (being aroused by pubic hair), but I can’t seem to find one that describes my kink.

—Dirty Talker

DEAR READERS: I live in Seattle, Dear DT: I’m old enough to rememthe U.S. epicenter of the novel coronaviber when people who needed to feel a rus epidemic, with my family. A lot of my strong emotional connection before they readers wrote this week to wish us well. wanted to fuck someone got by without We are fine — scared, but fine — washa word or a pride flag of their very own. ing our hands compulsively and staying They just said, “I’m someone who close to home. I’m going to keep churnneeds to feel a strong emotional coning out the column and recording my podnection before wanting to cast, while being careful to fuck someone.” But now ROMAN ROBINSON maintain a safe social disthey can say, “I’m a tance from the tech-savvy, demisexual,” a five-syllaat-risk youth. I’m hoping ble, vaguely scientificthe column and podcast sounding term that first are welcome distractions. popped up in an online Please take care of yourforum in 2006. selves, take care of the Unfortunately, when somepeople around you and one says, “I’m a demisexwash your damn hands. ual,” the usual response Dear Dan: I’m wondering if you know of a word that describes the fetish of getting off from talking dirty. I’ve searched a lot, and I can’t find a label for this kink or fetish. While googling around, I did learn some new terms, like “katoptronophilia” (being aroused by having sex

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

is, “What’s that?” And then the demisexual has to say, “I’m someone who needs to feel a strong emotional connection before wanting to fuck someone.” So leading with “I’m a demisexual” seems like a waste of time to me. But it does extend the amount of time the speaker gets to talk about him/

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her/themselves… and who doesn’t love talking about themselves?

Anyway, DT, you’re someone who enjoys dirty talk. There isn’t a special term (or pride flag) for you that I could find — I did a little half-hearted googling myself — and I don’t think you need one.

You can get by with “I’m someone who enjoys dirty talk.”

Dear Dan: I used to live in a college town. While there, I hooked up with a gorgeous guy. He had an amazing smile, a nice body, and the most perfect natural dick I’ve ever seen.

(Can we please stop saying “uncut”?

It’s so disgustingly plastic surgery-ish.)

We hooked up a couple times, and he was so much fun. A couple of years later, in another town, he showed up out of the blue at my new job. It was awkward at first, but it got better over the couple of years we worked together. I always wanted to just sneak him into the bathroom and give him another blowjob. He still lives in the same town, and I want to message him to see if he’s up for some more fun. We haven’t spoken in years — and last I heard, he was still not out. I want to message him, but I’m wondering whether there’s a time limit to reconnecting with someone? Fuck, man, he was so hot, and his natural, big, veiny

MARCH 19, 2020

dick was maybe the most perfect cock I’ve ever seen.

—Big Ol’ Dick Dear BOD: Seeing as you haven’t spoken to this man in years, BOD, I’m going to assume you no longer work together. And seeing as you hooked up more than once back in that college town, I’m going to assume he liked your blowjobs. And seeing as there’s a worldwide pandemic on, and seeing as life is short, and seeing as dick is delicious, I’m going to give you the OK to send this guy a message. Social media has made it possible for people to reach out to first loves, exes and old hookups. And so long as the reacher outer is respectful, has reason to believe their message won’t tear open old wounds, and instantly takes “no” for an answer (and no response = no), there’s nothing wrong with reaching out. And while social-distancing protocols will prevent you from sucking that gorgeous natural dick anytime soon, BOD, who doesn’t need something to look forward to right now?

On the Lovecast, love drugs! How therapeutic are they? Listen at savagelovecast.com.

Send emails to mail@savagelove. net, follow Dan on Twitter @ FakeDanSavage and visit ITMFA.org.

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Social separating with Alice B. Toklas

by Paul Danish

T

he 420 festival has been cancelled, you’re 1 teaspoon coriander social distancing until The Virus blows over or These should all be pulverized in a mortar (Use a until the media quits hyperventilating, you’ve small coffee grinder if you have one. Your carpal tunread Boccaccio’s The Decameron — 100 stonels will thank you.) ries told by ten Florentines who were social disOne handful each of: tancing during the Black Death — in English and the stoned dates (She means pitted dates, hippies.) original Renaissance Italian for the third time, and dried figs you’ve played all your old reggae CDs until the laser shelled almonds burned through the discs. peanuts (Or use pistachios.)

What’s a stoner to do?

Chop these and mix ALICE B. TOKLAS PHOTOGRAPHED BY CARL VAN VECHTEN. PHOTO (Other than the obvious, of COURTESY LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. them together. (A food procourse.) cessor works great.)

Well how about making Now we’re getting to some Alice B. Toklas the good part. fudge? Not the brownie mix Pulverize “a bunch” of spiked with weed featured Cannabis sativa (The size in the 1968 film I Love You, of the “bunch” is left gloriAlice B. Toklas. The original ously undefined. It’s the “Hashish Fudge” featured in chef’s call.) fabled The Alice B. Toklas Along with the spices, Cookbook, which was pubdust the cannabis over the lished in 1954. chopped fruit and nuts and (Several dead tree ediknead them all together. tions of the cookbook are In a double boiler, disavailable on Amazon. Apart solve a cup of sugar in “a from hash fudge it has big pat” of butter. (I needed scores of terrific recipes.) to use about half a pound Alice’s hash fudge of butter, maybe more.) doesn’t involve chocolate or Also, instead of pulverflour. It’s a nut, date and fig izing “a bunch” of Cannabis ball that looks somewhat sativa and dusting it over like real hashish — and the chopped fruit and nuts, produces a great high when I dissolved the sugar in “a eaten. I’ve made it a couple of times, and it’s wonderlarge pat,” aka half a pound, of cannabutter. There are ful. a lot of recipes for making cannabutter on the web. It’s Here are the essentials of the recipe, with my pretty easy but it takes time, so if you go this route, annotations in italics: make it in advance.

1 teaspoon black peppercorns Add the butter/sugar to the mix, roll into balls about 1 whole nutmeg (Hmm, could add a nuance to the the size of walnuts. Two pieces are “quite sufficient,” buzz, maybe?) according to Alice.

4 average sticks of cinnamon With today’s high test pots, one piece might be

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“quite sufficient.” Proceed with caution until you know what you’ve created. Don’t end up like the wretched Maureen Dowd.

Then there’s the matter of where to get the cannabis. When the cookbook came out in 1954, the U.S. was deep into reefer madness, so this was an issue.

Alice recommended tracking down some ditch weed.

Instead, use one of Boulder County’s excellent dispensaries, many of whom, mirabile dictu, advertise in Boulder Weekly. There are only so many sacrifices one should be expected to make to the Idol of Authenticity, and ditch weed ain’t one of them. Even the idol would be grossed out.

Also, if you plan to go the pulverized pot route, you might want to let the buds dry in an oven under low heat for a while before pulverizing it. A lot of the THC in flower is in a form of THC that doesn’t become psychoactive until it has been heated. Bailey Rahn at Leafly recommends pre-heating the oven to 245 degrees, and heating the buds for 30-40 minutes, while stirring them every 10 minutes.

Alice didn’t think up the “Hashish Fudge” recipe herself. She got it from a pal of hers named Brion Gysin, variously described as a “writer and avant-garde artist” and a “wiseacre painter.” It’s unclear where he got it, but he was living in Morocco at the time.

Some critics think Toklas may never have made the recipe herself, but it’s hard to believe that a bohemian of her stature wouldn’t have 1) experimented with it, and 2) concluded that further research was necessary.

If the foregoing seems like too much work for home-made edibles, there is always the Brownie mix route. Don’t get me wrong. Brownie mixes prepared with cannabutter are great, but Aunt Alice’s fudge is awesome.

One batch should last you for a couple weeks or more, if stored in the fridge. If it looks like social distancing might drag on past April 20, make a double recipe.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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