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For better or worse, the local secondhand ecosystem is changing by Emma Athena

Science meets gear reviews, pg. 16

Death is hilarious, pg. 27

Long live Stout Month, pg. 35

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cover:

Resellers and digitization are changing the local secondhand ecosystem—for better or for worse, and for whom? by Emma Athena

news:

Palm oil is the worst—could old bread be the solution? by Michaela Haas, from ‘Reasons to Be Cheerful’

adventure:

Recent partnership between CU, Western Colorado University and Blister takes outdoor gear testing to a technical new level by Will Brendza

13 16 27

art & culture:

BETC’s ‘14 Funerals’ wraps philosophy in comedy by Caitlin Rockett

nibbles:

A Boulder County chef comes back to his senses after COVID corrupted his ability to smell and taste by John Lehndorff

departments 4 19 29 30 31 35 37 38

Writers on the Range: Imagine a great river, flowing free Events: What to do when there’s ‘nothing’ to do . . . Astrology: by Rob Brezsny Film: Rediscovering Gordon Parks with Criterion’s release of ‘The Learning Tree’ Savage Love: Drinking games Beer: The Stout Month story Food and Drink: Proto’s Personal Pesto Pizza @ The Niche Market Weed Between The Lines: Activists in Colorado Springs are still fighting cannabis prohibition 10 years after Colorado ended it—and gaining momentum

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Publisher, Fran Zankowski Circulation Manager, Cal Winn EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief, Caitlin Rockett Senior Editor, Emma Athena News Editor, Will Brendza Food Editor, John Lehndorff Contributing Writers: Peter Alexander, Dave Anderson, Rob Brezsny, Michael J. Casey, Angela K. Evans, Jim Hightower, Jodi Hausen, Karlie Huckels, Dave Kirby, John Lehndorff, Sara McCrea, Rico Moore, Amanda Moutinho, Katie Rhodes, Leland Rucker, Dan Savage, Alan Sculley, Tom Winter, Gary Zeidner SALES AND MARKETING Market Development Manager, Kellie Robinson Account Executives, Matthew Fischer, Carter Ferryman Mrs. Boulder Weekly, Mari Nevar PRODUCTION Art Director, Susan France Senior Graphic Designer, Mark Goodman CIRCULATION TEAM Dave Hastie, Dan Hill, George LaRoe, Jeffrey Lohrius, Elizabeth Ouslie, Rick Slama BUSINESS OFFICE Bookkeeper, Regina Campanella Founder/CEO, Stewart Sallo Editor-at-Large, Joel Dyer

February 10, 2022 Volume XXIX, Number 23 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 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. 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. © 2021 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.

Imagine a great river, flowing free

Lake Powell was ballyhooed by David Brower and the Sierra Club, so much so that Congressional hearings were held, though mostly to denounce the very notion. “Circus atmosphere” is how one observer described the packed hearings. Colorado Republican Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell went all the way over to the House to say, “This is a certifiably nutty idea,” reported Ed Marston in High Country News. It was the Glen Canyon Dam’s heyday as cheap and plentiful electrical energy poured out of its eight hydro turbines. The 5-billion-kilowatt hours of power it produced each year was enough to power 650,000 homes. You could say that the Southwest’s building boom was enabled by cheap electricity that made air conditioning routine. The biggest opponents of plug-pulling 26 years ago were water managers from the Upper Basin states of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. They considered Lake Powell their “savings account” to ensure compli-

by Dave Marston

ome environmental groups and water honchos have sponsored a “Rewilding of Glen Canyon” contest, with the winner getting $4,000 “and counting.” The contest’s goal is to reconnect the Colorado River above and below a dismantled dam, to restore the beauty of a glorious place now submerged by Lake Powell—just 26% full. The usual suspects make up the rewilding sponsors: former Bureau of Reclamation Chief Dan Beard and Richard Ingebretsen’s Glen Canyon Institute. There’s also Clark County, Nevada, Commissioner Tick Segerblom; Save the Colorado’s Gary Wockner; and nature photographer John Fielder. Great Basin Water Network and Living Rivers are co-sponsors. “Rewilding” is hardly a new concept. In 1996, draining FEBRUARY 10, 2022

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ance with the 1922 Colorado River Compact. Other opponents were the 3 million annual visitors to the reservoir, appalled at the mere suggestion of losing southern Utah’s flatwater paradise. Houseboat shares, for example, are passed down generationally like heirlooms. Now, rewilding is back for consideration, and while the contest is fuzzy on details—see rewildingcoloradoriver.org—its goal is crystal clear: How do we pop the cork on the 710-foot-tall concrete and steel structure holding back Lake Powell, the artificial 186-mile-long lake rimmed by sandstone cliffs? As the West faces increasing aridity, rewilding advocates see the Bureau of Reclamation, the agency that built and operates the dam, on its heels. Last year, it shifted water in a game of musical chairs, draining upstream reservoirs in Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico, to shore up Lake Powell. The water shuffle was barely enough as water levels in the reservoir plunged 50 feet. Meanwhile, big technical challenges face the empty-Lake Powell crowd. More than 1,000 dams have been removed throughout the country, and nature seems to start healing the land quickly. But draining Lake Powell with existing water outlets is impossible: The lowest diversions are the so-called “river outlet works” at 3,370 feet of elevation, which is still 237 feet above the canyon floor. To make a river wild, it has to flow fast, at grade. Yet at grade is where the rebar-reinforced, 300-feet base of the dam shoulders hundreds of millions of tons of fine sediments behind it. Drilling this beast would require advanced engineering and construction techniques. Then, releasing water through the hole is akin to popping a giant water balloon without getting a face full of sandy water. Forty years ago, it was a wetter world, says commissioner Tick Segerblom, an ex-river guide and fourth-generation Nevadan. “The dam was nearly overtopped, lost in spring floods, and now it’s nearly drained.” He points to the damage the dam causes as sandbars disappear

in Grand Canyon downstream and silt builds up behind the dam. If there was ever a time to consider this radical rewilding notion, it’s now. A free-flowing Colorado River, says the Glen Canyon Institute, would still be a major tourist attraction, and Segerblom sees Page, Arizona, becoming the gateway to

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a new place called Glen Canyon National Park. Restoring a wonder of nature— why not imagine it? A solution would have pleased David Brower, who regretted not fighting the dam. “Glen Canyon died,” he lamented in a Sierra Club book, “and I was partly responsible for its needless death.”

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

Perhaps this contest cracks the door to rebirth. Dave Marston is publisher of Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, a nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

Way to Go out Green, Your Grace! Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South African anti-apartheid activist winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace, chose earth-friendly water cremation (alkaline hydrolysis) for his body at death. Archbishop Tutu died December 26, 2021. He cared deeply about our planet. The Natural Funeral, Colorado’s holistic funeral home, was the first in the state to offer Water cremation (also known as aquamation) and Body Composting (Natural Reduction). We also offer Green Burial and Reverent Body Care™ (ceremonial washing and anointing of the body at death with essential oils) and Flame Cremation. Contact Karen van Vuuren or any of our staff to find out how to minimize your final footprint.

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CORRECTIONS: In last week’s Anderson Files, Dave Anderson said that the Colorado Foundation for Universal Health Care will be holding a rally at the State Capitol on Saturday Feb. 16. It is actually being held on Wednesday Feb. 16. The recipe in last week’s Nibbles section for the Walnut Brewery’s grilled portobello mushrooms did not specify how much soy sauce to use. The correct amount, for curious readers and chefs, is 1/3 cup of soy sauce. SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT ABOUT NISSI’S Your article on Nissi’s had some errors. Nissi’s was founded by Teresa Taylor in 2005 and Marc Gitlin took it over in 2010. Teresa stayed on and helped him for a year (2011) as Marc asked, until he figured things out. And Nissi’s “years of irrelevance”? Do you mean like being voted “Best Place For Live Music” in Boulder County (Daily Camera) four straight years, as voted by the public? Because of Teresa’s experience of working at Caribou Ranch, she befriended many musical artists who played Nissi’s that rarely played in small clubs. Even the group l

FACE became local celebrities because of Nissi’s. There are so many stories, but I really just wanted to stand up for my wife and set the record straight. T Robert Taylor OCCUPATION CARBON TAXATION This is about using the Boulder occupation tax, a carbon tax, in an equitable way. What is the occupation tax, and what is it used for? NOTE: Calling this “occupation tax” is a nonsense name that means nothing. It is a carbon tax. Note at the bottom of your monthly power bill is the Boulder occupation tax that’s a percentage of your total energy bill. It is a carbon tax. Also note that the format of your bill changed this October when the muni was finally removed from this tax. This tax should be called the Boulder carbon tax, but clarity and transparency are not always the goal. The occupation tax, like the Climate Action Plan (CAP) tax, is a carbon tax. Here are the three carbon taxes that you pay each month and what they collect annually and cumulatively over time. The CAP tax collects about $1.8 million a year and now totals $25.2 million.

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The occupation tax collects over $4 million a year, is not used for carbon reduction, and now totals $36 million. The muni effort collected about $2 million a year and now totals $20 million, but in 2017 we added $4 million, and in 2019 we added $3 million. In total, Boulder has collected $88.2 million in carbon taxes and more than half of that was never used for real carbon reduction. What’s wrong? A carbon tax that’s not used for carbon reduction! What could we do with that $4-$7 million each year that is not used for carbon reduction? Solar incentives, wind source incentives, renewable energy certificates and energy-use reduction. Details can be found in a 20-minute video at tinyurl.com/BoulderClimate2021a Building electrification and electric vehicles must be directly paired with solar or wind sources. Patrick Murphy/Boulder ACTUALLY A CARBON TAX The Marshall fire destroyed more than 1,000 homes, burning them down to their foundations. There has been talk that when these homes are rebuilt, the local building code should require

some degree of rooftop solar and some energy storage, as well as basic energy efficiency measures. In this connection, it is important for policymakers and homeowners to know that the Federal Housing Authority (“FHA”) will insure mortgages, including mortgages which finance new construction, which secure loans for energy efficiency improvements (“Energy Efficient Mortgages”) and more. For new construction, the financing can include “upgrades above the established residential building code for New Construction.” The key language is in the definition of an “Energy Package” which the FHA will cover: “The energy package is the set of improvements agreed to by the Borrower based on recommendations and analysis performed by a qualified home energy rater. The improvements can include energy-saving equipment, and active and passive solar and wind technologies. The energy package can include materials, labor, inspections, and the home energy assessment by a qualified energy rater.” See FHA 4000.1 Single Family Housing Policy Handbook, II.A.8.c (“Energy Efficient Mortgages”). Phil Wardwell/Eerie

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FEBRUARY 10, 2022

JORDAN MURE

Top of the thrift chain

n July 2020 the coronavirus was still snaking its way around the world; in the muggy heat of Charleston, South Carolina, Eloise Heath was packing up her car. Having sold or donated most of her stuff, she left the coast behind with nothing but necessities piled around her trusty Kia Soul. Days later she pulled into Boulder, moved into an apartment with her partner, and dedicated the time outside her newly remote job to searching local thrift stores, hunting for furnishings and special bits that’d make their new apartment home. “I’m a maximalist at heart,” the 30-year-old says. “I love having things around me that, like, spark joy.” Heath dove into the racks at Goodwill, the shelves at Salvation Army, the aisles of Arc—coming from what Heath describes as a scant thrift scene in Charleston, the abundance of secondhand shops in the Boulder-Denver region felt remarkable, all stuffed with pre-owned goods and new inventory hitting the stores daily. “I’ve been thrifting ever since I can remember,” she says, and here in Boulder, the scene is clearly special. After Heath finished

Resellers and digitization are changing the local secondhand ecosystem —for better or for worse, and for whom?

by Emma Athena

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

furnishing her place, she says, “I realized, Wow, there’s so much good I want to share. I was feeling inspired.” Over the next months, Heath would join the ranks of a growing network of secondhand resellers based in Boulder and Denver. The cohort, predominantly young, entrepreneurial women, buy homegoods and clothing at local brick-and-mortar stores, then use Instagram accounts, apps like Poshmark and Nuuly, and online platforms like Facebook Marketplace and ThredUp, to resell the products, at a markup, to customers around the world. They’ve organized their own flea markets together, and many populate other pop-up markets around the region. At this intersection between thrifting’s digital and physical realms, Heath found friends, a source of income, and pride in supporting the secondhand industry—perhaps the most sustainable and affordable way to exercise style in today’s consumerist world. When Heath’s employer in South Carolina eventually invited folks back into the office, she declined to return in favor of growing @ThriftedHomestead, her “eclectic home decor” resale account on Instagram. Now, with more than 7,500 followers and a year of full-time thrifting experience, she’s partnering with resale apps and developed a website to channel her growing business flipping or redistributing Boulder’s used goods. “People come to Boulder to thrift because it is so good. We’re spoiled,” says Sarah Howlett, a thrifting enthusiast and journalist. Last year on Instagram she

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produced a series of Q&A-style interviews with local secondhand purveyors called So you run a thrift store. Rattling off half a dozen names, she says, “We’re supporting a lot of thrift stores here in (and around) town.” It’s prime territory for the resale market, she speculates, because “our, whatever you want to call it—per capita income or household income—is high. There are people that invest in nice things, and I think people in Boulder feel like it’s important to invest in quality things, and they have the disposable income to do that, and so that Patagonia jacket can last through five people because somebody bought it first.” As in other wealthy cities, many objects begin their functional lives in Boulder. An object then trickles down through second-, third-, maybe fourth-hands (the higher the quality, the more hands), slowly making its winding way to a landfill— often a landfill in a foreign country, as the gravity of global mass production and consumption dictates. Thrift stores, as local material recyclers, help us in transferring (and sometimes artificially absolving) the responsibility of object ownership to future hands; once you acquire something, it’s your job to properly dispose of it, or move it along to the next owner. “I pretty much started doing this (reselling) because I care about the environment,” says Karla Torres, @pandulcevintagedenver, a Denver-based vintage reseller specializing in items from the 1930s to ’80s. “It seems like a lot of people are starting to wake up and realize that fast fashion is gonna end up destroying our planet.” Fast fashion could be considered the antithesis of vintage. Its method of design, manufacturing, and marketing replicates trends and uses low-quality materials to bring a high volume of inexpensive styles to the public as quickly as possible. The objects are typically synthetic, or made from petroleum, and aren’t meant to last through multiple owners—85% of fast fashion materials in the U.S. end up in a landfill each year. That’s the equivalent of 80 pounds per person in the U.S., including children, according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates. Ashley Furst, spokesperson for Goodwill of Colorado, has noticed a “kind of a societal shift, I guess, in the way the younger generation shops—they’re very into sustainable fashion, you know, fast fashion isn’t really their thing anymore. I think they’re realizing that they can go to Goodwill, and they can find gently used clothes, shoes, housewares, even electronics, vacuum cleaners and things that they can use that are in good shape.” Not only in Colorado but across the nation, scores of resellers like Heath and Torres are capitalizing on this “societal shift” and the economic wave it’s spurred. According to a 2021 “Resale Trend Report” produced by the online consignment and thrift store ThredUp, one in three consumers care more about wearing sustainable apparel than before the pandemic; and 51% of consumers are more opposed to waste and 60% are more opposed to wasting money than before the pandemic. Overall, today’s $36 billion secondhand market is projected to double in the next five years, reaching $77 billion. In many sustainability conversations, thrift stores have become centered as ways to postpone an objects’ journey to a landfill, but they’re more than simple environmental boons. Most have charitable missions that donate money and support community members in need with clothing or employment programs. Goodwill, for example, has “close to 40 different programs and services that the sales from our retail stores support,” Furst says. Different Salvation Army locations in the metro area offer emergency shelter, casework services, senior citizen clubs, community recreation programs, and much more. According to Howlet, Pig + Pearl Secondhand (formerly Ares) gives out vouchers for people living at the Safehouse Boulder shelter “to come in and get the clothes they need.” She’s watched store workers help folks pick out coats and teach them how to layer smartly for winter. “It’s real action. It’s not just like, ‘Oh yeah, X percent of your sale goes to this or that.’ You can actually see it: your money at work.” Historically, this has been the main purpose of thrift stores: providing a local see THRIFT Page 10 BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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market for affordable necessities (clothes, furniture, kitchenware, art, jewelry, plus electronics, games and books). The concept of thrift stores dates back to the 1800s and grew from impoverished and/or underserved communities seeking more-affordable goods—people scavenged and upcycled scraps, creating jobs for themselves while providing lower-cost options to their clientele. Shopping at today’s thrift stores “feels more and more like shopping in a regular store, and I think any of the local owners would tell you that that’s exactly what they’re going for,” Howlett says: clean, well-lit, organized and easy-to-navigate aisles and shelves—walk into any Boulder County thrift store and likely that’s what you’ll find. What you may also see: a reseller piling objects into a shopping cart, then checking out with dozens of items. COURTESY THRIFTED HOMESTEAD Which has raised the question of who thrift stores are poised to serve—is something lost (and does someone lose something) when resellers constantly comb through thrift store inventories, picking out desirable objects to resell elsewhere? “We get a lot of resellers who come in,” says Naomi Garza, a supervisor at the Arc Thrift Store in Louisville. “Our store is known for having good name brands, and so we have a lot of people who come in and buy clothing that’s in pretty good shape and resell it online for even more. . . . It’s good for [our] business [even if ], of course, they make a profit . . . which is fair, I guess.” Furst at Goodwill of Colorado agrees. “They’re entrepreneurs,” she says. “And like everyone, they’re just trying to find their way, they’re trying to make a living. . . . We want to support the community, and if resellers are part of that, then that’s great. They’re clearly a big part of our shopper base, but not the overwhelming majority.” Howlett, drawing from her So you run a thrift store interviews, has heard this conclusion a number of times. “Store runners don’t mind resellers at all,” she says. “They were like, ‘Hey, resellers, come in, they’re having fun, they’re with a friend, they’re paying the same money out the door as somebody else.’ And I don’t really worry that there’s not enough stuff for people.” And that’s the message from most thrift store employees and resellers: there’s too much stuff to go around—resellers help move products off the store floors and back into the functional world. For if an object stays on the floor too long, it gets punted ever-closer to the landfill. Most thrift stores use colored tag systems to rotate objects through sales, pulling them off the floor if they don’t sell, and then replacing the color cohort with new items. At Goodwill, Furst explains items that don’t sell are relocated to “the bins” in its outlet locations, where people can buy objects in bulk or by the pound; if they don’t sell there, then the objects are transferred to recycling partners before hitting landfills. Altogether, Goodwill of Colorado recycles 64% of the goods that come through its doors—three times the state average. At Arc, Garza explains unsellable items are simply tossed. “When we have no use for it, there’s nothing that we can do. At that point, it gets thrown away,” she says. They have to make room for new inventory: “We put out close to, maybe more than 5,000 items a day.” That first summer of the pandemic, in 2020, donations to thrift stores ballooned in tandem with the number of online resellers. “At one point,” Furst explains, “we almost didn’t have enough room for everything that was being donated.” That year Goodwill of Colorado received more than 2.5 million material donations, which added up to nearly 175 million pounds of donated goods “received or repurposed.” The state’s four dozen stores saw close to 375 million in-store purchases. “With the lockdown, I think we had a lot of people purging,” says Howlett. l

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EMMA ATHENA

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“There were certain times where I would drive by to dotens of thousands nate a couple of the boxes of stuff, and they’d be like, ‘We of items are added to Boulder County’s can’t take any more donations.’” thrift stores on a Due to the sheer volume of thriftable items in the daily basis. When area, “There really is room for everyone,” Heath of @ they don’t sell, the ThriftedHomestead says. “I’ve never been part of a comitems are removed munity that, like, really doesn’t have any drama—there’s and either recycled no negativity. Everyone is so kind, so supportive, like, or trashed. so helpful. And I think that’s been a huge part of the success.” As for resellers’ pricing structures, “People have to take into consideration that what they’re buying is fully curated,” Torres of @pandulcevintagedenver says. Resellers spend hours or days on sourcing missions, and then clean and prepare the items for sale—for this labor and expertise they want to be compensated. “The other thing is that we do a lot of research; every single age-specific or age-based vintage reseller is going to do this extensive research on every single piece . . . we have to put a lot of effort into figuring out what a piece is.” Heath runs her entire Thrifted Homestead operation from her apartment. She uses her living room to organize and prepare her inventory to be photographed. She takes the art off her walls and uses its mounting infrastructure to hang and photograph clothing. The kitchen table turns into a white background for trinkets and jewelry. Her bathroom closet holds inventory; larger furniture items are stored in a small unit attached to her apartment building. The office/workout room doubles as her shipping space and storage for supplies. The washer and dryer, since it’s higher and better for her back, becomes the packing station. “It’s definitely a balance of creating separation of work and home life when you live in a 700-square-foot apartment, but I think I’m getting the hang of it,” she says. Though curated secondhand items may become more expensive than those found in brick-and-mortar stores, Howlett sees the industry’s digitization as lowering certain barriers that exist for people who don’t live in thrift-rich communities. In the thrift world “there are accessibility issues,” she says: work or family care schedules can limit folks to shopping only on the weekends, when selections are more likely to be picked over; geographical constraints can limit people’s access to stores and clothing or objects they resonate with. “Being able to go to a market that’s open 24/7 and buy something, or buy something off somebody’s Instagram. . . that’s one of the many ways that we can broaden people’s access.” Goodwill itself is “slowly jumping into” the e-commerce world with shopgoodwill.com, Furst says, where people can purchase goods directly from them online. For Torres, as motivating as her environmental conscience may be, she also loves history—the stories behind objects, the hands they’ve been through. It’s curious to think about how many objects can trace their origin stories back to Boulder or Denver. “At the end of the day, [as vintage resellers] we are kind of reselling history to a lot of people,” Torres says. “It’s just so cool that all of us have collectively decided that we want to put out stuff that’s preserving history and that’s preserving the environment.” BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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SHUTTERSTCK

Palm oil is the worst—could old bread be the solution?

he beignets, eclairs and tartelettes at Ludovic Gerboin’s bakery in the small village of Moosinning, Germany, glow in vibrant shades of red, blue, green and purple. “In school, we learned that these are taboo colors for baked goods,” the Bretagne-born baker says in his strong French accent. But these colors, produced by microalgae he gets from a lab at the nearby Technical University of Munich (TUM), make his baked goods healthier. “The algae are rich in proteins, antioxidants and vitamin B,” says Thomas Brück, professor of synthetic biotechnology at TUM. “Two slices of algae bread cover your daily need of vitamin B.” These nutritional benefits are a perk, but the most important aspect of Gerboin’s baking is undetectable by design: the tasteless, odorless “yeast oil” he fries his beignets with instead of palm oil. This yeast oil comes from right here in Gerboin’s own bakery. At the end of the day, he roasts his unsold leftover bread, grinds it up and delivers it to TUM, one of Germany’s most innovative universities. There, Brück’s team ferments the stale bread with a special yeast, and within two days, a yellowish oil is dripping steadily out of the lab’s centrifuge. This oil is then sent back to Gerboin, who uses it for baking and frying. “The yeast oil lasts longer than palm oil,” he says. “I can reuse it up to 60 times. I even make my Bavarian cream with it.” More importantly, it is a zero-waste, 100% sustainable solution. “We replace the conventional palm oil monocultures with a truly circular bio-economy without waste,” Brück says. The devastating consequences of the world’s addiction to palm oil are well-documented. Check your cabinets and you will probably find it in half of the consumable products you own: pizza, margarine, peanut butter, detergent,

by Michaela Haas, originally published in ‘Reasons to Be Cheerful’

see NEWS Page 14 BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

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candles, soaps and lotions, though it’s often disguised benignly as “vegetable oil” on the ingredients list. Between 1995 and 2015, palm oil production quadrupled, and is projected to quadruple yet again by 2050. It’s such a lucrative business that 47 million acres of oil palm monocultures have replaced rain forests, destroying the critical habitats of orangutans, elephants, tigers and other threatened species. According to the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), palm-driven land use in Indonesia and Malaysia generates roughly 500 million tons of CO2 equivalent each year — nearly as much as global aviation. The oil is also often contaminated with toxins. But as an ingredient, palm oil is tough to replace. It is cheap, versatile and odorless, which is why hardly any bakery manages to operate without it. “Bread, croissants, beignets—it’s pretty much in every product, even in the chocolate fondant,” Gerboin admits. Especially during holidays, when he bakes for events, he easily uses hundreds of liters of palm oil per week. Ecological alternatives such as coconut oil or certified organic palm oil usually cost more than twice as much, and small village bakers like Gerboin already operate on thin margins. Gerboin still kneads his dough by hand, lets his sourdough rest for 24 hours and spends half the night in the bakehouse. “He can’t compete with the industrial bakery down the road where their ready-made baking mix is done within two hours,” Brück attests after he spent a night baking with Gerboin. “It’s backbreaking work. But it makes you appreciate traditional quality.” Brück and Gerboin had long been friends—their daughters attend the same Montessori school—before they started their partnership to produce a viable ecological alternative to palm oil. After seven years of tinkering, their patented fermentation process now takes only 48 hours to turn 120 kilograms of stale bread into 70 to 75 liters of oil. “That’s where the innovation from my lab joins forces with the creativity of a master baker to produce a high-value product,” Brück says. From the start of his career, Brück, who studied in the U.K. and the U.S., has been looking for ways to use organic waste to replace chemicals and environmentally destructive production processes. For instance, Brück produces carbon fibers from algae for the bodies of cars and airplanes. “Algae grow 10 times faster than most plants and are excellent CO2 sinks,” Brück explains. “The airplanes and cars built from algae carbon already start carbon-negative into their lifecycle.” The oil vats in the pilot facility at TUM resemble the steel caldrons of a brewery. Indeed, the process to produce alcohol is comparable: Brück’s team uses enzymes collected through fermenting bread; these enzymes turn the carbohydrates into sugar. Fermenting the sugar with different types of yeast can transform it into alcohol or fat. For the yeast oil, Brück isolated a particular yeast from Irish shrimp shells that is especially good at producing oil. A simple centrifuge separates the oil from the yeast without any of the toxins that are usually needed for palm oil production. Brück emphasizes that the yeast is natural and not genetically manipulated. “We take waste products—shrimp cells and old bread—to create a new, high-value product. It is truly a circular bio-economy because the fermentation process uses no toxic chemicals and leaves no waste.” The fermentation wastewater is rich in nutrients and used again during the subsequent fermentation round.

A rising alternative

Baked goods are a high-waste product. According to the World Wildlife Fund, 1.7 million tons of baked goods go uneaten annually in Germany alone. The highly perishable quality of them makes this hard to avoid. Before the yeast oil was invented, Gerboin roasted 10% of his unsold bread and reused it as flour. “But the time involved does not make this effort financially viable,” he says. “Therefore most bakeries throw everything away at the end of the day or give it to farmers to feed pigs.” By upcycling some of these baked goods as yeast oil, Brück believes, “We can save at least four million tons of CO2, probably more.” To arrive at this number, he calculates the land and resources needed for international palm oil production. When he adds in the food and organic waste that is burned annually, “16 million tons of CO2 can be saved every year.” Sensing the skepticism

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SHUTTERSTOCK

ACCORDING TO BRÜCK, the odorless yeast oil could also replace palm oil in soaps and lotions. At a current price of 1.40 euros (about USD $1.60) per liter, the process is price-competitive. After a year of upscaling, those costs could come down to 60 U.S. cents per liter.

at these big numbers, he gives a startling example: “In Bavaria alone, 600,000 tons of wheat bran are deemed insufficient for food production every year and are burnt. But we could use it very efficiently to produce yeast oil.” Brück, along with Mahmoud Masri, who studied chemistry in Damascus before he perfected the fermentation of yeast oil, founded the startup Global Sustainable Transformation (GST) with the aim of producing 100,000 liters of yeast oil in 2022. With support from the German government, where Brück is a strategic advisor, they want to make their patented technology more widely available. “For one baker, the investment to build a fermentation facility would be too overwhelming, but for a big enterprise, or if several smaller ones team up, the investment will be amortized within a few years,” Brück believes. According to Brück, the odorless yeast oil could also replace palm oil in soaps and lotions. At a current price of 1.40 euros (about USD $1.60) per liter, the process is price-competitive. After a year of upscaling, those costs could come down to 60 U.S. cents per liter, Brück estimates. Until their new production facility is up and running, the trio is tinkering with other solutions. In addition to his green “alguette” and his tartelettes with algae filling, Gerboin is experimenting with integrating protein-rich insects into his bread and beignets, including baking the world’s first worm beignet. “Chocolate caramel beignet with 10% meal worms,” he says enthusiastically. “I even put insects into the cracknel.” Fair warning to those on New Year’s resolution fitness kicks, however: yeast oil might be climate-friendly, but the baked goods it’s used in are no less caloric than those cooked with palm oil. “Thomas gained at least 10 pounds!” Gerboin teases Brück during our Zoom call, referring to the pallets of donuts he regularly delivered to the university for testing. On the other hand, it offers a perfect excuse: Sure, I’d like to eat healthier, but I need to indulge in those sweets for the planet. This story is part of the SoJo Exchange from the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous reporting about responses to social problems. BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

2425 Canyon • 303-443-2421 • www.christinasluxuries.com Mon-Sat 10-6 FEBRUARY 10, 2022

Engineering gear reviews

A recent partnership between CU, Western Colorado University and Blister takes outdoor gear testing to a technical new level

by Will Brendza

he Gunnison Valley is one of the best places to live in Colorado if you’re inclined to do things outside. There are the Elk Mountains with world class mountain biking trails, hiking and skiing; the Gunnison River and Blue Mesa Reservoir offer all kinds of opportunities for paddle boarding, kayaking, rafting, boating

turning their passion for the outdoors into careers in the outdoor industry. And thanks to a new partnership between the outdoor gear review website Blister, those students won’t just be studying the industry. They’ll actually be contributing to its evolution 16

by answering some gineering questions the outdoor industry faces today. “It’s such a great opportunity for students,” says Jeni Backlock, director of and the partnership

industry. “I’ve always been interested in seeing how

sities to take gear testing and gear reviews to a whole new and far more technical level. “That’s when I presented the idea that we could create this thing—with Blister on the one

MT. CRESTED BUTTE LOOMS over the Gunnison Valley—a perfect backdrop for education in outdoor industry product engineering and business.

industry engineering program,” Ellsworth says. Thus was born Blister Labs. classes in computer science and engineering and get their degree from CU. The classes are smaller, the sports recreation opportunities are plentiful, and students get to utilize resources from two different universities, she says. “If this partnership had existed when I was an undergrad I would have been here in a second,” Backlock says. “I’m able to directly hook my students up with internships and try to link them to careers that I think would be best for them.” Jonathan Ellsworth, a Crested Butte local and founder of Blister, saw the value in that partnership—and in it, a massive opportunity to stomp on the gas pedal of the outdoor FEBRUARY 10, 2022

right about doing a mechanical engineering degree program and [asking about] getting a master’s in the outdoor industry,” Backlock says. “They’re wanting to be in this realm, in this outdoor industry. And so we’re providing them with research opportunities, internship opportunities and [more].” Students will be designing tests around questions that Ellsworth and his team at Blister come up with. From their vantage within the most pressing conundrums facing consumers. hinder the performance of waterproof apparel? l

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WESTERN COLORADO UNIVERSITY

And how do the STUDENTS AT damping properties WCU LEARN about of different skis from the outdoor industry and its high-tech different brands lab equipment to compare when they’re test products in the third-party tested? University’s Rand That’s just where laboratory. they’re getting started. Blacklock explains her students will use high-tech camera systems to examine force dissipation and compare the durability and stiffness of different bike wheels. They’ll be creating brand-new, consumer-friendly ratings for water resistance and breathability in apparel; has no universal standard of measurement. “We’re designing and prototyping and then building [static testing systems] out,” Blacklock says. “So there’s those mechanical and electrical aspects and then also a lot of it’s about data collection and data collection over time and data analytics.” Those data and data analytics will then be merged with the long-form, in-depth, multi-condition-tested, real-world, brutally honest gear reviews with which Blister has seared its name into the industry. Ellsworth sees it as the perfect marriage between data-driven quantitative analysis and human-tested qualitative assessment. Blister will then publish those reports online for conof gear and the larger questions Blister Labs’ results speak to. “For passionate outdoor people literally around the world, I think we’ve got an opportunity to make a very big impact on this global outdoor industry and it’s all going to happen right here in the Gunnison Valley,” Ellsworth says. “That’s really exciting and feels right to me.” Ellsworth notes that this kind of testing has been going on within the outdoor industry for some time—just behind closed doors. Many big brands conduct this kind of high-tech testing internally as they’re designing products. The results, however, aren’t published publicly. Results from Blister Labs’ testing will be public—and they’ll be just as To Ellsworth, that is the most important component of this entire program. “From the Blister side of this, I’m not interested in this being some sort of purely intellectual exercise . . . The result of this is going to be very high-level, independent third party information going out to consumers,” data to help consumers make better educated decisions.” BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

WESTERN COLORADO UNIVERSITY

Blister will be talking about its developments and progress on these tests in a regular “Blister Labs” episode of its hardcore-gear-nerd podcast GEAR:30, which Ellsworth is really looking forward to. He says there’s undoubtedly going to be some good the CU/WCU scientists and the Blister testers when the lab’s results don’t exactly match “I can’t wait for some of these arguments, some of these disagreements,” he says. “If ing forward to making those conversations public because I think we’re now bringing engineering into the realm of [non-technical] people who are actually mountain bikers and skiers.” For her part, Blacklock is thrilled to be spearheading this new venture into outdoor industry engineering and testing. Google the phrase “outdoor industry engineering univerl

other results. This three-way partnership is truly forging a new arena for consumer-facing research. And, for that matter, a new area of academic research. “It’s really about changing the [outdoor] in academia,” she says. “Which is really exciting.” Ellsworth is likewise eager to see where Blister Labs takes them. As a self-described gear-nerd, he’s always craved this level of technical analysis and practical product review—but he didn’t have the lab, the engineers, or the university resources to do it right. Until now. “I’m really excited about the idea that we’re going to bring the discipline of engineering into the everyday conversation of outdoor enthusiasts,” Ellsworth says. “That just seems like a cool thing.”

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

JUST ANNOUNCED MAR 25 ...................................................................................................... YOKE LORE MAR 31 ......................................................................................... HARVE B2B KAEGI APR 1 .................................................................................................. BANSHEE TREE

THU. FEB 10

SAT. FEB 12 105.5 THE COLORADO SOUND PRESENTS

JOSH RITTER SUN. FEB 20

GANO & FRIENDS

THE COLOSOUND, KGNU & GREAT DIVIDE BREWING CO. PRESENT

FEAT. *METHOD*, DJ GANO, HARVE, RYNE B2B RPSM, NØSER B2B TREUTH, DISGRACE

SAM BUSH

FRI. FEB 11

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THE COLO SOUND, ROOSTER, UPSLOPE BREWING & TERRAPIN PRESENT:

PICK & HOWL

KGNU, WESTWORD & PARADISE FOUND PRESENT

ANDY’S BIRTHDAY PARTY

TAYLOR SCOTT BAND

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MON. MAR 7

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MARCHFOURTH

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THE BOULDER FESTIVAL DISCO LINES, HUTTY, JACK MOE

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FOXFEATHER, EMMA ROSE

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GRAHAM GOOD & THE PAINTERS, PHANTOM PHARE, BRANDYWINE AND THE MIGHTY FINES FRI. FEB 25

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GET A GOOD LOOK WORLD TOUR

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RON ARTIS II

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AUGUSTUS

SAT. MAR 12

THE GOOD KIND FISTS OF THE PROLETARIAT

MAR 17 MAR 18 MAR 19 MAR 20 MAR 22

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

................... THE BROTHERS COMATOSE + THE SWEET LILLIES .......................................................................... SIERRA FERRELL ............................................................................. 22 & GOOD 4 U ............................................................. JERRY’S MIDDLE FINGER ....................................................................... INDIGO DE SOUZA

2028 14TH STREET NOW FT. MCDEVITT TACO SUPPLY SUPER HEADY TACOS! 303-786-7030 | OPEN DURING EVENTS

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

E VENTS

EVENTS

Author Talk: Josiah Hesse—‘Runner’s High,’ in conversation with Caitlin Rockett

If your organization is planning an event of any kind, please email the editor at crockett@boulderweekly.com

Opening Reception for ‘The Art of the Postcard: We Are All Artists,’ featuring music by David Tilmon

COURTESY OF FIREHOUSE ART CENTER

6-9 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 11, Firehouse Art Center, 667 Fourth Ave., Longmont. Exhibit Dates: Feb.

Over 100 postcards will cover the walls of the South Gallery at the Firehouse Art Center during Art of the Postcard: We Are All Artists, which opens on February 11. The Art of the Postcard in-person showing of Inverted Syntax’s curated postcard project, one that has been growing since its inception in 2018. The Art of the Postcard is a call to everyone to create and participate in an often overlooked medium—one that vacillates between the outdated notions of high and low art, that blends art and writing, and whose two-sided format requires physical interaction with the object.

Rum Festival 5

4 p.m. Feb. 11-13, 16-19 and 26, Abbott & Wallace Distilling, 350 Terry St., Suite 120, Longmont, abbottandwallace.com The festivities begin with a yacht party Feb. 11. Featuring live music with A Human Named David and Local Dumplings from Shinkyu-No. Watch out for the Leviathan 2022 release—bigger and better than ever. Feb. 12: Love Boat Cocktail Course. $25 includes two drinks and instruction. Feb. 13: Galentines Day Karaoke 6-8 p.m. Feb. 16: Rum University. An exploration of rum’s history and world styles Feb. 17: Treasure Island comedy showcase Feb. 18: music with Shawn Cunnane Feb. 19: Live music with Paul Rabaut Feb. 26: World’s tiniest parade and Mardi Gras party! King cake and New Orleans jazz with James Speiser

Tinder Live with Lane Moore, Valentines Show

KATIA TEMKIN

7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 11, The Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut Street, Boulder. Tickets: $20, thedairy.org Tinder Live! With Lane Moore is the critically acclaimed, totally improvised show where Moore projects her Tinder account onto a screen, whether she swipes right or left, to hilarious and surprisingly kind results.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 16, Boulder Book Store, 1107 Pearl St., Boulder. Tickets: $5, boulderbookstore.net Pot makes exercise fun. The link between performance enhancement and cannabis has been an open secret for many years, so much so that with the wide-sweeping national legalization of cannabis, combining weed and working out has become the hottest new wellness trend. Why, then, is there still a skewed perception around this leafy substance that it only produces the lazy, red-eyed stoner laid out on a couch somewhere, munching on junk food? In Runner’s High, seasoned investigative journalist Josiah Hesse takes readers on a journey through the secret world of stoned athletes, describing astounding, cannabis-inspired physical and mental transformations, just like he experienced.

Winter Bike to Work Day

7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 11, Community Cycles, 2601 Spruce St., Unit B, Boulder Join us—and cyclists around the world—Friday, Feb. 11, to celebrate Winter Bike to Work Day! The annual event encourages seasoned cyclists to brave the elements and ride to work on their bikes. The reward? Free breakfast and camaraderie! Stations are open 7-9 a.m. Breakfast stations will be posted here: communitycycles.org/feb-11-is-winter-bike-to-work-day

DCPA presents ‘In the Upper Room’

Feb. 11-March 13. Denver Center for the Performing Arts, 1101 13th Street, Denver. Tickets: $30-$69, denvercenter.org Meet the Berrys, a multi-generational African American family in the 1970s. Their lives orbit around a strong-willed matriarch whose secrets drive her relatives nuts. Fed up, they each make plans to break away. But by standing their ground, they may lose what has held them together all along.

see EVENTS Page 22

For more event listings, go online at boulderweekly.com/events

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

Dark Star Orchestra

G. Love & The Juice

Sam Bush

The Magic Beans & Big Something

The Wood Brothers

Drive-By Truckers The Band of Heathens / Nicki Bluhm

Hiss Golden Messenger

Fruition Andy Shauf

Dark Star Orchestra

G. Love & The Juice

Sam Bush

The Magic Beans & Big Something

The Wood Brothers

Drive-By Truckers The Band of Heathens / Nicki Bluhm

Hiss Golden Messenger

Fruition Andy Shauf

EVENTS from Page 19 COURTESY OF BOULDER OPERA

‘The New Jew’ (virtual)

7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 14, Boulder JCC, 6007 Oreg Ave., Boulder. Tickets: $24 per household, boulderjcc.org Ever wonder how Israelis perceive American Jews? The New Jew is a four-episode TV documentary series that showcases the cultural

Opera Amore: A Valentine’s Concert

3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 13, Stewart Auditorium, Longmont Museum, 400 Quail Road, Boulder. Tickets: $18-$22 Boulder Opera presents a concert of Italian Opera favorite arias, duets, trios and quartets by Verdi, Puccini, Bellini, Mozart, and more. The program explores different aspects of love, such as love yet to be, dreaming of love, new love, lost love, betrayal, and reconciliation. All in a romantic cafe style setting! Make it a date and enjoy a socially distanced drink while we entertain you at the Steward Auditorium. Featuring soprano Sarah Kochevar, mezzo-soprano Natacha Cóndor, tenor Alexis Haro, and baritone Nnamdi Nwankwo, with Maggie Hinchliffe at the piano.

ican Jewish community, alternative models for living a rich Jewish life, and the rifts in relations between Jewish Americans and Israel. After watching the series at home on your own schedule, join Israeli Emissary Itai Divinsky for an in-person talkback with Rabbi Jamie Korngold (the “Adventure Rabbi”), Jonathan Kochavi, Jewish Identity chair for the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, and Zack Sapinsley, founder of the Boulder Moishe House.

Getting Bo(u)lder: Conversations on Race

3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 12, Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder. Sign up: bit.ly/3HFUiNA Boulder City Council just approved a memorandum to create a Joint Terrorism Task Force between the FBI and Boulder Police Department. Boulder Showing Up for Racial Justice does not support this, as it brings up major concerns about transparency and accountability in policing. Join in a conversation inspired by the incredible Civil Rights era photography of Ernest Withers at the Dairy Arts Center, with music by Denver harpist Annastezhaa on Saturday, Feb.12 at 3 p.m.

Rag’s Consignment Valentine’s Pop Up

11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 12, Rags Consignments Warehouse, 2890 Bluff Street, Boulder Join in the fun on Saturday, Feb. 12 at the Rags warehouse for a Valentine’s pop up! Not only will you be able to shop Rags’ warehouse for gently used women’s clothing, bags, shoes and accessories, but Rags will also be hosting four local vendors: Alchemy Face Bar, DAR Chocolate, Cutie Gems Jewelry, and Luxe Intuition Candles. Attendees can be entered to win a $50 Rags gift card.

Author Talk: Danae Shanti—‘Wise Inside’

6:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 10, Boulder Book Store, 1107 Pearl St., Boulder. Tickets: $5, boulderbookstore.net Everyone has intuitive wisdom. Take a journey with Danae Shanti as she applies the seven easy Wise Inside takes you step-by-step through the Hero Formula, showing you how to apply it in every situation. You, too, can tackle the most confusing problems, the most intimidating challenges, and totally transform your life by applying the Hero Formula and learning to listen to the voice that is “wise inside.” Through humorous and mystical stories that you won’t believe, you can learn alongside angels and celestial guides, confronting childhood wounds and navigating the pandemic.

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

‘Gallathea: A queer love story in the woods’

Feb. 16-20. CU Theatre & Dance, Loft Theatre, University Theatre Building, 261 University of Colorado, Boulder. Tickets: $18, cupresents.org In this timeless Elizabethan romance, two women disguise themselves as men and take to the woods to avoid being Gallathea is a reimagined classic that follows each character’s quest for love and understanding of their own place in the world. see CONCERTS Page 25

For more event listings, go online at boulderweekly. com/events

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SUBMITTING A WILDFIRE INSURANCE CLAIM? YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY HAS AN ADJUSTER. SHOULDN’T YOU?

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FEBRUARY 10, 2022

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EVENTS

CALENDAR from Page 22 JACOB BLICKENSTAFF

CONCERTS February 10

Polo & Pan. 7:30 p.m. Mission Ballroom, 4242 Wynkoop Street, Denver. Tickets: $36.75-$79 Gano & Friends with •METHOD•, DJ Gano, Harve, RYNE B2B RPSM, NØSER B2B Treuth, DISGRACE. 8:30 p.m. Fox Theatre, 1135 13th Street, Boulder. Tickets: $15-$20

February 11

My Blue Sky. 7 p.m. Dickens Opera House, 300 Main St., Longmont. Tickets: $15

The Backseat Lovers. 8 p.m. Ogden Theatre, 935 E. Colfax, Denver. Tickets: $25-$75 Josh Ritter. 8 p.m. Boulder Theater, 2032 14th Street, Boulder. Tickets: $25-$30 Slenderbodies. 9 p.m. Bluebird Theater, 3317 E. Colfax Avenue, Denver. Tickets: $22 Wood Belly + Pixie & The Partygrass Boys. 9 p.m. Fox Theatre, 1135 13th Street, Boulder. Tickets: $18-$20

Donavon Frankenreiter. 8 p.m. Bluebird Theater, 3317 E. Colfax Avenue, Denver. Tickets: $25.75

Andy Frasco & The U.N. with Taylor Scott Band. 8 p.m. Fox Theatre, 1135 13th Street, Boulder. Tickets: $25-$29.50

The Wombats. 8 p.m. Ogden Theatre, 935 E. Colfax, Denver. Tickets: $25.75

Marina: Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land Tour. 8 p.m. Paramount Theatre, 1621 Glenarm Place, Denver. Starting at $46

Caravan Palace. 7 p.m. Fillmore Auditorium, 1510 N. Clarkson Street, Denver. Tickets: $32.50

February 12

Erik Deutsch and Decades. 6 p.m. Caffè Sole, 637R S. Broadway, Boulder. $20 suggested donation Dark Star Orchestra. 7 p.m. Mission Ballroom, 4242 Wynkoop Street, Denver. Tickets: $32-$50 Dream Theater. 8 p.m. Paramount Theatre, 1621 Glenarm Place, Denver. Starting at $39.50 Face Vocal Band. 8 p.m. Dickens Opera House, 300 Main St., Longmont. Tickets: $20-$100

INFO BOX: (From top): The Cactus Blossoms perform at Fox Theatre on Feb. 16. Welsh singer-songwriter Marina visits Paramount Theatre in Denver on Feb. 11. Catch Americana singer-songwriter Josh Ritter at Boulder Theater on Feb. 12. See The Wombats at Ogden Theatre Feb. 14.

February 13

Sullivan King with Phase One, LAYZ. 7 p.m. Mission Ballroom, 4242 Wynkoop Street, Denver. Tickets: $25-$55

The Lil Smokies with special guests Dead Horses and Esther Rose. 9 p.m. Ogden Theatre, 935 E. Colfax, Denver. Tickets:$29-$69

COURTESY ATLANTIC RECORDS

February 14

February 15

DAVID MCCLISTER

Inner Wave. 7 p.m. Larimer Lounge, 2721 Larimer Street, Denver. Tickets: $21

February 16

The Wonder Years. 6 p.m. Ogden Theatre, 935 E. Colfax, Denver. Tickets: $27.50-$32 COURTESY SB MANAGEMENT

Kacey Musgraves. 8 p.m. Ball Arena, 1000 Chopper Circle, Denver. Tickets start at $59.50 Aries. 8 p.m. Bluebird Theater, 3317 E. Colfax Avenue, Denver. Tickets: $27.50 The Cactus Blossoms with The Still Tide. 8 p.m. Fox Theatre, 1135 13th Street, Boulder. Tickets: $20$22.50

For more event listings, go online at boulderweekly.com/events BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

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MICHAEL ENSMINGER

The greatest of all human blessings BETC’s ‘14 Funerals’ wraps philosophy in comedy by Caitlin Rockett

oming back to in-person performance after a nearly twoyear hiatus, the artistic team

to produce a warm play, something big-hearted. So they chose a script about death.

14 Funerals skips grief and goes straight to absurdity by killing 14 people at once–an entire family: the Fitchwoods. Save for one Fitchwood—the last Fitchwood standgo and never knew her extended family in the sleepy town

red state people and blue state people, or country people and city people, or whatever divides you want to point to,” Weitz says. “But the things that these two characters bond over are the challenges with their families, the uncertainties about where their lives are going are—things that we all share.”

enough teeth for me, or enough guts to draw me in on that great mix of laugh-out-loud stuff, rampant silliness, but also a lot of really nuanced exploration of some important things that are happening around us.” Defensive and self-absorbed, Sienna loathes small

ON THE BILL:

14 Funerals

presents

and-mauve funeral home (described as “dated, but not

embody: conservative values, lack of diversity, a dearth of please. But both yearn for more than they have. scab without being didactic, without being overly prescriptive, but really getting at what are the differences between

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

see FUNERALS Page 28

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

MICHAEL ENSMINGER

March 25 - 28, 2022

FUNERALS from Page 27

only comes from deep insecurity. “They really put their stamp on the play,” Weitz says of Davidson and Mori. “By having voices of the characters moving forward, which is, I think, an exciting opportunity for them. other iterations and other places.” 14 Funerals program for new play development, open to playwrights with at least one child 18 years old or younger. The award comes with a child care stipend, a cash reward and a week-long residency that,” Weitz says. “When we picked 14 Funerals with the intention of taking it essentially straight into production.” “It was a really daunting time to try and put on a play after a long time off, and it required cautious in their personal lives outside of rehearsal and things like that,” Weitz says. “We

could have pulled it off without that.” While not masquerading as a philosophical work, 14 Funerals does provide a space

took the lethal hemlock. In the middle of 14 Funerals, Sienna argues that life in a small town offers little in the way of growth, that you can never achieve more than “medium happy” in a small town. “Medium happy is more than most people get,” Millie counters.

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

BY ROB BREZSNY

Call 720.253.4710

ARIES

LIBRA

has been invisible will become visible, at least to you. You will have extra power to peer beneath the surfaces and discern the hidden agendas and study the deeper workings. Your interest in trivia and distractions will dissipate, and you’ll feel intensified yearnings to home in on core truths. Here’s your guiding principle during this time: Favor the interests of the soul over those of the ego. And for inspiration, have fun with this quote by religious scholar Huston Smith: “The Transcendent was my morning meal, we had the Eternal at lunch, and I ate a slice of the Infinite at dinner.”

that I suspect will be useful for you in the coming weeks. They may even be inspirational and motivational. Forman writes, “Sometimes fate or life or whatever you want to call it, leaves a door a little open, and you walk through it. But sometimes it locks the door and you have to find the key, or pick the lock, or knock the damn thing down. And sometimes, it doesn’t even show you the door, and you have to build it yourself.” Are you ready for the challenge, Libra? I think you are. Do whatever you must do to go through the doorways you want and need to go through.

MARCH 21-APRIL 19: You’re slipping into a phase when stuff that

TAURUS

SCORPIO

you don’t love or admire or respect,” declared comedian Mel Brooks. I agree! The joyous release that comes through playful amusement is most likely to unfold when you’re in the presence of influences you are fond of. The good news, Taurus, is that in the coming weeks, you will have a special inclination and knack for hanging around people and influences like that. Therefore, you will have an enhanced capacity for mirth and delight and pleasure. Take full advantage, please! As much as possible, gravitate toward what you love and admire and respect.

her process. “I dream of songs,” she began. “I dream they fall down through the centuries, from my distant ancestors, and come to me. I dream of lullabies and sea shanties and keening cries and rhythms and stories and backbeats.” Scorpio, I would love for you to explore comparable approaches to getting the creative ideas you need to live your best life possible. I would love for you to draw freely from sources beyond your conscious ego—including your ancestors, the people you were in previous incarnations, gods and spirits, heroes and allies, the intelligence of animals, and the wisdom of nature. The coming months will be a favorable time to expand your access. Start boosting the signals now!

APRIL 20-MAY 20: “You cannot have fun with anything that

GEMINI

MAY 21-JUNE 20: “The thing about inspiration is that it takes your mind off everything else,” says Gemini author Vikram Seth. I bring this truth to your attention because I believe you will soon be the beneficiary of steady, strong waves of inspiration. I also predict that these waves will transport you away from minor irritations that are best left alone for now. Be alert and ever-ready to spring into action, my dear, so that as the inspirational surges flow, you will harvest the maximum rewards from their gifts.

CANCER

JUNE 21-JULY 22: The advice that Reb Nachman of Breslov

offered two centuries ago is just right for you now: “Never ask directions from someone who knows the way, or you will never be able to get lost.” In the coming weeks, you will attract tricky but palpable blessings from meandering around without knowing exactly where you are. It’s time for you to find out what you don’t even realize you need to know; to stumble upon quiet little wonders and marvels that will ultimately prove to be guideposts for your holy quests in the future. Yes, I understand that being in unknown territory without a reliable map isn’t usually a pleasure, but I believe it will be for you. PS: Our fellow Cancerian, author Rebecca Solnit, wrote a book entitled A Field Guide to Getting Lost. It might be helpful during your wanderings. Read a summary of it here: tinyurl.com/GuideToGettingLost

LEO

JULY 23-AUG. 22: “You face your greatest opposition when you’re closest to your biggest miracle,” wrote author and filmmaker T. D. Jakes. According to my analysis of upcoming astrological omens, that’s good advice for you. I suspect that the problems you encounter will be among your best and most useful ever. With the right attitude, you will harness the challenges to generate magnificent breakthroughs. And what’s the right attitude? Proceed with the hypothesis that life is now conspiring to bring your soul exactly what your soul needs to express its ripest beauty.

VIRGO

AUG. 23-SEPT. 22: “Always remember this,” said actor Hattie

McDaniel (1893–1952). “There are only 18 inches between a pat on the back and a kick in the rump.” Metaphorically speaking, I believe her advice will be useful for you in the coming days. Lately, you’ve had to deal with too many experiences and influences akin to kicks in the rump. But now that will change. Soon there’ll be a surge of experiences and influences that resemble pats on the back. In my estimation, you have finished paying your dues and making course corrections. Now it’s time for you to receive meaningful appreciation and constructive approval.

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SEPT. 23-OCT. 22: Author Gayle Forman offers a set of truths

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SAGITTARIUS

NOV. 22-DEC. 21: Author Madeleine Thien has lived in Vancouver,

Montreal and Iowa City, and has taught at schools in Hong Kong and Brooklyn. Her father was born and raised in Malaysia and her mother in Hong Kong. She has a rich array of different roots. Not surprisingly, then, she has said, “I like to think of home as a verb, something we keep recreating.” That’s an excellent meditation for you right now, Sagittarius. And it will continue to be worthy of your ruminations for another four months. What’s the next step you could take to feel comfortable and secure and at peace?

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CAPRICORN

DEC. 22-JAN. 19: The fastest animal on earth is the peregrine

falcon, which can reach speeds of 200 miles per hour when it dives from a great height. The seventh-fastest creature is the humble pigeon. Having been clocked at 92.5 miles per hour, the bird outpaces the cheetah, which is the fastest land animal. I propose we make the pigeon your spirit creature for the coming weeks. On the one hand, you may seem mild and modest to casual observers. On the other hand, you will in fact be sleek, quick and agile. Like the pigeon, you will also be highly adaptable, able to thrive in a variety of situations.

AQUARIUS

JAN. 20-FEB. 18: “Self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion,” wrote Aquarian author W. Somerset Maugham. Yes! I agree! And that’s the perfect message for you to hear right now. If you choose to take advantage of the potentials that life is offering you, you will explore and experiment with the mysteries of self-discipline and self-command. You’ll be a trailblazer of discernment and poise. You will indulge in and enjoy the pleasures of self-regulation.

PISCES

FEB. 19-MARCH 20: In 1961, Piscean cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human to orbit the Earth in a spacecraft. As his feat neared its end, Gagarin left the capsule at 20,000 feet above the ground and parachuted the rest of the way. He arrived in a turnip field where a girl and her grandmother were working. They provided him with a horse and cart so he could travel to the nearest telephone and make a call to get picked up and brought back to headquarters. I foresee a metaphorically comparable series of events transpiring in your life, Pisces. Be flexible and adaptable as you adjust to changing conditions with changing strategies. Your exceptional and illustrious activities may require the assistance of humble influences.

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FEBRUARY 10, 2022

ny town is sort of like a fruit tree: Some of the people are good, some of them are bad. Just like the fruit on a tree. No matter if you go or stay, think of it like that until the day you die. Let it be your learning tree. A man is shot in the back. He’s Black, and the man doing the shooting is white. That’s Sheriff Kirky (Dana Elcar), and when everything is said and done, Kirky’ll shoot another Black man in the back. Both victims were unarmed; both posed no threat to Kirky. But gun them down, Kirky did, and in broad daylight with witnesses. How those witnesses react—or don’t—says more than the best writers could muster with a thousand words. Written, produced, directed and scored by Gordon Parks, 1969’s The Learning Tree the multi-hyphenate artist with roots in still photography. In 1963, Life published a two-part feature from Parks, “How it Feels to be Black,” in conjunction with Park’s semi-autobiographical novel, The Learning Tree. CRITERION

feature, and Parks gathered an impressive crew of white and Black talent and headed back to his hometown of Fort Set in the 1920s, The Learning Tree opens with a twister tearing across the Kansas plains. It doesn’t transport Newton (Kyle Johnson) to Oz, just to the shed where he shares the night with Big Mabel (Carole Lamond), a local vamp who doesn’t exactly usher Newt into manhood but does make him the envy of his peers nonetheless. Newton, or Newt to just about everyone, is young. Soon he of his friends, Marcus (Alex Clarke), suffer racism direct and indirect, witness the death of three men, and have to decide the fate of an innocent man—even if his confession causes the creation of a lynch mob. That Parks’ weaves race relations and a potential riot into Newt’s moral quandary speaks as much to the volatility of the Civil Rights era in which the movie was released as it does to the era of oppression in which the story is set. Though The Learning Tree is a landmark in Hollywood and feels meandering at times. But the subtle ways Parks manages to introduce and payoff secondary characters

‘How it feels to be Black’

Rediscovering Gordon Parks with Criterion’s release of ‘The Learning Tree’

by Michael J. Casey ON THE BILL: The Learning Tree, available on Bluray and DVD from The Criterion Collection.

Newt more than once—enriches the tale a posteriori. Johnson and Clarke’s performances are somewhat stiff, but the supporting cast is so rich you wouldn’t mind spending more time with them. From Newt’s mother (Estelle Evans), who speaks softly and in parables until she snaps at Kirky in one of the movie’s funniest moments, to Marcus’ father, Booker Savage (Richard Ward), an illiterate and abusive drunk whose presence feels like stereotype until he is allowed a handful of dialogue. He makes a meal out of nothing more than comments uttered under one’s breath and a pointed remark at Sheriff Kirky. In another movie, Booker might be complacent or two-faced. Here, Those layers are the real strength of The Learning Tree. In one scene, the school principal laments the racism of the teachers but expresses helplessness to change anything. In another, a young white kid runs to congratulate Newt for winning a boxing match but calls him “sambo” when he does. Booker may be an abusive drunk, but he still sets the table with the good plates when his son returns from prison. Good fruit and bad, all are Newt’s learning tree. promises during my lifetime. I had to choose between the knife, the gun, or my talents.” With a bit of luck, Park chose his talents. It wasn’t easy, but he found a way, and in 1989, when the Library of Congress the National Film Registry, The Learning Tree But The Learning Tree an estimated $2 million budget—and in certain corners of cinematic discourse it has fallen out of favor, Shaft makes Criterion’s release of The Learning Tree so welcome: It resurrects Parks’ cachet at a time when of The Learning Tree, Criterion’s set includes two documentaries about Parks making The Learning Tree, a short documentary constructed from Parks’ photography, another documentary directed by Parks, interviews with artists, activists, and scholars about Parks’ legacy, and a booklet containing part of Parks’ Life story, “How it Feels to be Black” and an excerpt from his memoir, A Hungry Heart .

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

BY DAN SAVAGE Dear Dan: I’m a 40-year-old bi guy, and I’m really into drinking cum. I say “drinking” and not “swallowing” because I’m talking about glassfuls. I make and sell videos of me drinking large amounts of cum. Since I don’t have a stable of guys to supply me, I use frozen cum. It used to just be my own that I saved up over time, but I met a guy online a couple years ago that’s into feeding his cum to people like myself. I have some health concerns about it. First, could STIs survive the freezing-and-thawing process? I’ve already had a few glasses of his cum, so the boat has sailed regarding my current “cumbull,” as they’re known in my niche sexual community, but I’m looking at getting more donors. Second question, how much cum is safe to drink? And digest? It does give me an upset stomach, but I can usually handle that. But am I damaging myself by not taking my body’s prompt to throw it up? From the research I’ve done, it seems the zinc in cum is the biggest worry. Just 100 mls or so contains your daily required intake of zinc and too much zinc can have some negative health effects. I’m aiming to drink at least a liter in one video and don’t feel comfortable discussing this with my doctor. Could you contact a doctor for me? —Canadian Cumsumer P.S. I would’ve called into the podcast, but my sister is a listener, and I would rather not share this info with her. Dear CC: Before anyone can jump in the comments and post “FAKE” in all caps, CC enclosed his Twitter handle in a post-post-script, which allowed me to verify that he’s for real. What’s more, a quick scroll through CC’s Twitter revealed that he’s not the only person out there methodically acquiring and chugging enormous amounts of semen. As it turns out, there’s a thriving community of “cumbulls” online who enjoy supplying, and even more cumguzzlers like CC who enjoy imbibing. (Sadly, CC asked me not to publish his Twitter handle, so you’ll just have to trust me: this letter is not a fake.) Now, before I bring in the medical expert you hoped to hear from, CC, I wanna say this to my other readers: Nothing about CC’s kink appeals to me personally—it looks like way too much of a good thing—but CC and his cumbulls aren’t hurting anyone. Indeed, the world would be a better place if it had more Canadians like CC in it and fewer Canadians like those fascist assholes in trucks currently

blocking border crossings. OK! Let’s meet this week’s guest expert! “It seems like there are two questions here,” said Dr. Josh Trebach, an emergency medicine physician and a medical toxicology fellow in New York City. “The mitted infections (STIs), the second is, ‘How much is too much?’ Is it safe to drink large volumes of semen?” Dr. Trebach looked at the medical literature, CC, but found it “extremely lacking” for individuals who freeze, thaw and drink large amounts of semen. Yours is an underserved (except when you’re being overserved) and unrepresented (except on Twitter) population. “But we do know that sexually transmitted infections (STIs) can be transmitted from performing oral sex,” said Dr. Trebach. “This includes syphilis, herpes, gonorrhea, chlamydia and HIV. And while it’s tempting to assume the freezing and thawing process would create a less welcoming environment for STIs, there’s evidence to suggest some STIs survive the freezing process quite well. Gonorrhea can survive temperatures lower than -300 degrees Fahrenheit for over a year. Chlamydia has also been able to survive after being frozen.’’ Now, STIs are not spontaneously generated when semen comes into contact with saliva, of course, nor are they spontaneously generated when someone packs their cum in dry ice and ships it off to a stranger they met on the Internet. “But given the lack of data for those that freeze, thaw, then drink semen, I would encourage anyone doing this to err on the side of caution and assume practically the same risks as performing oral sex,” said Dr. Trebach. “This means knowing the STI status of you and your partner(s) and engaging in appropriate prevention strategies, e.g., PrEP, and frequent STI testing.” So, let’s say your cumbull has been tested and is currently STI-free and in a monogamous relationship with someone who has also been tested. Or tested, STIfree, and supplying his semen to men and women like you is his sole sexual outlet. If that’s the case, CC, you shouldn’t let an exaggerated fear of contracting an STI stop you from pursuing this pleasure. That said, CC, the more cumbulls you add to your herd, the greater your risk for contracting an STI becomes. Obviously. So, for safety’s sake where STIs are concerned, you should stick with your trusted

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supplier, even if that means longer waits between shoots. As for your plan to drink an entire liter of cum in one video… “So, how much is too much?” said Dr. Trebach. “In toxicology, we use a concept called the ‘median lethal dose,’ or ‘LD50,’ to describe how toxic a given substance is. The LD50 is, basically, the quantity of a substance that would kill 50% of people who were exposed to it—or in CC’s case, ingested it. It would be theoretically possible to extrapolate from human or animal data on the lethal dose of each individual ingredient (such as zinc) to come up with the LD50 of semen, but this would be theoretical and imprecise.” And now a little science, a little math, and a little guesswork (from me, not Dr. Trebach): Zinc is a trace element that’s important for our immune systems, metabolic functions, our body’s ability to heal wounds, and the production of important enzymes. Adult males should ingest about 11 milligrams of zinc daily, a single teaspoon of semen contains about 3% of that, and there are 203 teaspoons in a liter. So, if you were to drink an entire liter of semen, CC, you would be ingesting roughly six times your daily recommended allowance of zinc, or 66 milligrams. Assuming you don’t have some other, undiagnosed health condition, that’s probably not enough zinc (or semen) to kill you, but it is enough to make you puke. “My opinion is that if you’re drinking so much of anything that you feel like you’re going to vomit, you should probably cut back, as that may be your body’s way of telling you something is wrong or that there is too much of something present,” said Dr. Trebach. “And continuous irritation to your gastrointestinal tract through direct injury, distension and repeated exposure is not advised.” And even if there might not be enough zinc in a liter of semen to kill you—or enough citric acid or fructose or potassium or cooties—that doesn’t mean it’s safe to quickly ingest a liter of it. “An age-old adage in the world of toxicology is that the dose makes the poison,” said Dr. Trebach. “Even things that may seem benign—water, candy, semen—can be deadly with a high enough dose, and you can have ‘toxic’ effects well below a lethal dose. In one liter of semen there’s enough sodium to surpass the recommended daily intake of sodium, and that’s just not really healthy.” People have actually died from drinking too much water, CC. It’s rare, but FEBRUARY 10, 2022

it happens. And it stands to reason that if a person can die after drinking 3-4 liters of water over the course of a few hours— which, again, has happened—it wouldn’t surprise anyone to learn a person died after drinking an entire liter of semen over 140 seconds, i.e., the maximum length of a video clip posted to Twitter. You say you your kink after hearing your voice on my podcast, CC, and I have to assume you don’t want your sister—or the rest of your hearing from the coroner. I have a lot of mottos, CC, and one of them is, “Moderation in all things—including moderation.” Your kink is not my kink, CC, but your kink is OK, as the saying goes, and your kink is about the consumption of immoderate amounts of semen. But I would advise you, as I have advised many others, to be moderate about how often you’re immoderate. In your case, that means carefully choosing your cumbulls, puking when your body tells you to puke, and cutting back on the semen if your body needs to puke each time you do this. Otherwise, enjoy. who wanted to add a quick disclaimer: He hasn’t examined you or taken a full history and physical, CC, so he doesn’t want you to think this is true medical advice. “And I know talking with a doctor about some of these issues is hard, but I like to think things are getting better. Today’s new doctors are, in my opinion, much more comfortable and open when answering questions about sexual health. Although some questions may be niche, we physicians owe our patients to help them, not make judgments. Please questions with, so they can give you the best possible recommendations.” Follow Dr. Josh Trebach on Twitter @jtrebach. P.S. Good news, everybody! Just as I was wrapping up this column, CC responded to my email asking if he would reconsider and allow me to share his Twitter handle here. And he said yes! So, if there’s anyone out there who still thinks this letter is a fake, go have a look at @zoesixxx on Twitter. Be warned: you’ll never order the chowder again. Email questions@savagelove.net Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage. Find columns, podcasts, books, merch and more at savage.love. l

SUSAN FRANCE

ne morning in March 2021, Paolo Neville woke up, got out of bed, and realized he couldn’t smell the coffee brewing or the eucalyptus in his shower. The executive chef at Lafayette’s 95a Bistro knew he was in trouble. After carefully avoiding infection, he had contracted COVID. “Ironically, I got my positive test result exactly one year to the day after they shut down all the restaurants,” Neville says. What he didn’t imagine at the time was the long and sometimes disgusting path he would travel to partial recovery of his senses. “My taste was never actually gone. I had a fever for eight days, I lost 10 pounds and had symptoms went away except my loss of smell,” he says. Early in the pandemic, people infected with SARS-CoV-2 reported losing their sense of smell, sometimes with no other symptoms. One study from the Mayo Clinic in June 2020 compiled data from 8,438 people with COVID, with 41% reporting smell loss. Another study later that year, from the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences, found that 96% of the 100 people survey had some olfactory dysfunction, with 18% experiencing a total loss of smell. As time wore on, it became clear that some people still hadn’t recovered their sense of smell a year after infection. For most folks, a loss of smell is annoying, but for a chef, cooking without your nose is a career-threatening challenge. “Not being able to smell things pretty much sucks. The kitchen aromas make me feel at home,” he says. Neville began looking for ways to restart his olfactory connections, including suggestions from a Facebook group for people who’ve lost their sense of taste and smell to COVID. “They post various remedies, but none of them really work,” says Neville, who Back in the restaurant kitchen, Neville fell back on his decades of cooking experience and instincts, but sometimes he double checked. something should smell if I cooked a certain way, I’d ask other cooks: ‘Hey! Is this right?’ This past Thanksgiving I in the dining room the diners immediately said: ‘Wow! You smell great!’ I couldn’t smell anything,” Neville says. until mid-July of last year. “It just came on out of the blue. I could taste things properly, but it was immediately followed by this horrible rancid metallic taste. Somebody described it

Scent and sensibility

A Boulder County chef comes back to his senses after COVID corrupted his ability to smell and taste

by John Lehndorff really well as the taste of burnt vomit,” he says. and saw a doctor. “Nothing worked. It took a while before I realized it was from COVID,” he says. With the taste present 24/7, Neville tried things like chewing gum constantly. “It really started to affect my mental health. It faded gradually but then one day it migrated to my nose. Not only could I not smell most things, but now all I could smell was this rancid, sour something,” Neville says. The science is still emerging, but there’s a growing consensus among researchers that smell loss occurs when the coronavirus infects cells that support neurons in the nose, based on research from Harvard Medical School. Neville estimates his ability to smell now is about 50% of what it was pre-COVID, depending on the day. “If someone is roasting a pan of mushrooms, I won’t smell it walking by. I literally need to stick my face in it and take a deep sniff,” he says. About six months after he lost his sense of smell, Neville

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

PAOLO NEVILLE OF LAFAYETTE’S 95A BISTRO struggled with a chef’s wost nightmare when his sense of smell went haywire after a bout of COVID.

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SUSAN FRANCE

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The Stout Month story Return of the Boulder County tradition

by Michael J. Casey

ebruary in Boulder County is usually everybody’s favorite month: Stout Month—a clever marketing ploy that’s become an annual tradition. But the last two years have looked a little different. You won’t see the usual stout month at the Mountain Sun locations this year, but it’s still worth talking about the history of this beloved tradition. It all started in 1994 at the Mountain Sun Pub & Brewery at 1535 Pearl St. Back of operation, and Boulder County was home to only eight breweries. The man behind Mountain Sun’s iconic celebration: Jack Harris, Mountain Sun’s slowdown and needed an event to drive business to the brewery. “He just came up with this genius idea where he was going to brew as much stout as he thought he could handle,” John Fiorilli, director of brewing operations for Mountain Sun since 2009, says. “He was going to buy stout from other breweries. He was going to put all that stout on the stout tap wall and see what happened.” What happened was everybody came in. Harris left Colorado in 1996, but Stout Month remained a Mountain Sun staple. Every February since, the taps fade to black at Mountain Sun and its sister restaurants—Southern Sun in South Boulder (opened in 2002), Vine Street in Denver (opened in 2008), Under the Sun in South Boulder (opened in 2013) and Longs Peak Pub in Longmont (opened 2014). Back in 2020—the last time the Mountain Sun family held a proper Stout Month—no less than 36 house stouts were poured. And those stouts ran the gamut from dry to sweet, malty to hoppy,

smoked to spiced: From Chocolate Dip Stout to Shadow Master Belgian-style Stout; from Ludovico’s Vanilla Cream Stout to Norwegian Wheat Stout; and from Addition Imperial Coffee Stout to NIHILIST Russian Imperial Stout. But what makes Stout Month special is how it extends beyond the walls of the Suns. Exhibit A: Stoked Oak Stout, a masterful blend of various malts (some smoked), pure vanilla extract and toasted oak spirals. The concoction was thought up by Scott Overdorf,

MICHAEL J. CASEY

Stout Month Homebrew Competition in 2007. The win encouraged Overdorf to go pro, brewing for Mountain Sun before leaving to set up his own brewery, Hobart Brewing Co., in Tasmania, Australia. The Stout Month Homebrew Competition ran for nine years and produced a handful of annual staples: 48 Smooth Chai Stout, Coconut Cream Stout and Girl Scout Stout (a refreshing and light mint chocolate stout), to name three. “People always ask, ‘Why stout?’” Fiorilli says. “Stout is the building block for all these

MainStage Brewery is going full throttle with the ambitious goal of tapping 28 stouts from breweries up and down the Front Range. The tradition is alive and well. But back at Mountain Sun, things look a little different. The March 2020 lockdown that shut everyone down kept Mountain Sun closed while its sister pubs pivoted to to-go demic-era restrictions didn’t make anything

And it’s the base concept of Stout Month that caught on with local brewers. For years, Mountain Sun has featured dozens of guest stouts alongside theirs, and this year, other breweries are picking up the torch and keeping the tradition alive by hosting Stout Months of their own. Some will use the month to highlight house favorites, while others are experimenting with adjuncts and barrel aging. Lyon’s

pubs rely on a unique service model that cross-trains staff on front and back of house positions. That works great when everything is up and running, not so much when you’re starting from scratch. But after almost two full years, Mountain Sun is back in operation. As of Feb. 5, Mountain Sun is open from 3-11 p.m. Thursdays

through Saturdays, 3-10 p.m. on Sundays. Those hours will no doubt expand as spring approaches, so check mountainsunpub.com on all the Mountain Sun pubs, including Under the Sun at 627 S. Broadway. At last check, Under the Sun had three imperial stouts pouring: Megatron, NIHILIST and Oatimus Prime. They might still be available by the time you read this, or three new stouts may have taken their spot. That’s always been part of the charm of Stout Month. The stout you shall have, but which one is the adventure . Michael J. Casey is the author of Boulder County Beer, a refreshing history of how brewers like Harris and Fiorilli turned the cities of Boulder, Longmont, and beyond into ground zero for craft beer in the Centennial State.

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FEBRUARY 10, 2022

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

MEALS ON WHEELS

TASTE OF THE WEEK:

Proto’s Personal Pesto Pizza @ The Niche Market

by John Lehndorff

forgiven if they’ve never noticed the cool neighborhood store tucked away at 47th Street and the Diagonal Highway.

housemade quiches and pies are available in the little shop. The most visible sign is for Meals on Wheels cooks more than 275 meals delivered by volunteers to local seniors and those recovering from serious illnesses regardless of age or income. that were offered as fundraiser items for more than 20 years. The strawberry rhubarb, apple, blueberry and especially tart cherry pies are 15% off during the The Market has evolved into the convenience store with a cause serving an unusual 330-unit neighborhood that was shoehorned onto a former semi-industrial triangle of land on the outskirts of town. meals including ham sandwiches, spaghetti and meatballs, roasted chicken and vegetables, ham

Recipe Flashback: The Daily Bread Bakery

The Daily Bread Bakery was a Boulder artisan bread bakery opened in 1994 and eventually acquired by Whole Foods Markets. Frasca Food and Wine now occupies that Peart Street site which had previously been home to Penny Lane coffee house. Then-Daily Bread owner David Berenson shared this recipe for a moist oat coffee cake in the 1990s. Daily Bread Oatmeal Cake 1 cup rolled oats 10 ounces hot water ½ cup softened butter 1 cup sugar 1 cup brown sugar 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

sandwiches and a Mediterranean salad with Greek olives and feta. Featured are pints or quarts of scratch-made vegetable stew, clam chowder, beef barley soup and green chile stew. and pies. and organic products including Rowdy Mermaid Breadworks, and the Pirogue Factory Pirogues. However, it’s not too hip to carry necessities like aspirin, Cool Whip, ice cream, regular hamburger buns, milk, cheese, deli meats and eggs. Shelves are stacked with baked treats like cinnamon rolls lottery tickets.

The topped pre-baked crusts take only 10 minutes to cook in a hot oven and produce that

boasts six locations.

operates the Eat Well Cafe, dishing affordable full

1 teaspoon baking soda For topping: 1 cup softened butter 2 cups brown sugar 7 ounces heavy cream 2 cups walnuts 3 cups shredded unsweetened coconut Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pour hot water over oats and set aside. Cream together butter,

Culinary Calendar

BOULDER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

hiatus, Boulder chefs will celebrate together again at March 3’s Cinechef tasting event at Rembrandt Yard.

a separate bowl. When oats are cool, alternately until well combined. Pour this batter into a buttered springform or other baking pan for 30 minutes or until the middle of the cake is set. Make the topping by creaming butter and sugar in a bowl, adding cream until mixed before combining other ingredients. Spread mixture evenly on top of semi-baked cake and return to the oven for 15 to 20 minutes until lightly browned. l

March 3-6, the event is followed by a nearby showing

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

The recreational holdout

Manitou Springs is the only town in El Paso County that allows recreational cannabis sales—and there, business is booming. About half of the town’s total tax revenue comes from recreational cannabis sales, as its two dispensaries cater to most of El Paso County’s cannabis users. Those two Manitou Springs dispensaries, Emerald Fields and Maggie’s Farm, are

Activists in Colorado Springs are still fighting cannabis prohibition 10 years after Colorado ended it—and gaining momentum

by Will Brendza

mendment 64 passed in Colorado in 2012 and counties were given the opportunity to allow recreational cannabis sales—or not. El Paso County residents approved of recreational cannabis by more than 3,000 votes according to county election data. did not approve of legalization and decided to overrule The People’s vote. Because, as Mayor John Suthers and others have claimed, the Pentagon might local military bases (including the Air Force Academy) if recreational cannabis was allowed in the Springs, gutting the identity and economy of the city. So, of recreational sales (while begrudgingly allowing medical sales) despite voter approval—rejecting tens of millions of dollars in annual tax revenue with it. Soon, though, that could be changing. If a coalition of cannabis activists can successfully get their pro-recreational cannabis measure on the ballot, one of the prohibition’s last “I think that overall our city council is opposed to marijuana,” says Cliff Black, a marjuana attorney and one of the leaders of the group of businesses and community leaders “I think our mayor is opposed to marijuana and based on their own opinions, they decided to circumvent what the voters had voted for.” “I just see the revenues that the city of Colorado Springs is losing,” Black says. “Conservatively, Colorado Springs is losing $10 to $15 million a year in tax revenue. I personally think it’s closer to $20 million.”

most expensive, because they’ve got the market totally cornered). “People can just drive over to Manitou and they can purchase their recreational marijuana and they can bring it back into the city and consume it at their homes here in Colorado Springs. They can go to Pueblo, they can go to Denver, or they can buy from the illegal market,” Black points out. “The fact that we don’t allow it in Colorado Springs is not stopping people from using it—it’s just stopping us from recognizing the tax dollars.” And he points out, Manitou’s dispensaries are only a 10-minute drive from some of Colorado Springs’ military bases. If the Pentagon isn’t worried about Manitou selling recreational cannabis, why would the federal government leave just because Colorado Springs chose to do so as well? “The Pentagon has never moved a base as a result of that,” Black says, referencing a base in San Diego and another in Washington D.C., both cities that allow for recreational cannabis sales. “It’s just not likely that the military is going to spend billions of dollars to move a base because of legal marijuana in Colorado.” for upholding prohibition into serious question. If the military isn’t going anywhere, then there’s no legitimate reason to

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

deny the voters’ decision to allow recreational cannabis throughout El Paso County. That’s why Black, along with several other small business owners, veterans, entrepreneurs and social workers have teamed up. They’ve developed a new ballot initiative that would open up all existing medical marijuana dispensaries in Colorado Springs to also sell recreational cannabis under the same roof. There would be no need to license new stores or open more dispensaries anywhere in the county. Tax revenue collected from recreational sales would go toward funding mental health services, PTSD programs for veterans, and public safety as part of the initiative. And there would be annual citizen’s audits of the funds being generated to ensure that they are being used appropriately. “The voters voted for it back in 2012, 10 years ago and in that 10 year period marijuana has become a lot more socially acceptable,” Black says. “Our polling shows that the citizens still really support having legalized recreational marijuana.” As of Feb. 3, the coalition had formed a petition Once complete, the group will be issued blank petition forms to start collecting signatures. If they can collect 10% of the registered voter signatures on those petitions (somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,500), then the measure will hit the ballot and El Paso County voters will have another chance to have their voices heard—another chance to get some recreational weed. initiative on the ballot. In a press release about this measure, he points out that this would stymie the black market for cannabis while doing some very positive things for the community. support our city’s 80,000 veterans, strengthen our region’s mental health capabilities and enhance public safety,” Foerster said in the statement. “It’s a choice Colorado Springs residents can—and should—make for themselves.” The coalition will have 90 days (roughly until May) to collect the necessary signatures to get this measure approved and placed on November’s ballot. And if they’re successful, Black agrees that there is a good chance that the voters will approve of it—again.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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Articles inside

Film: Rediscovering Gordon Parks with Criterion’s release of ‘The Learning Tree’

Astrology: by Rob Brezsny

Savage Love: Drinking games

Weed Between The Lines: Activists in Colorado Springs are still fighting cannabis prohibition 10 years after Colorado ended it—and gaining momentum