Boulder Weekly 7.16.2020

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July

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22,

2020

news:

Colorado sports betting, water projects, fixed Ukrainian ping-pong and COVID... just another day in 2020

by Matt Cortina

New agrivoltaics farm, set for completion in September, can power 300 homes

by Angela K. Evans

buzz:

14

virtual events:

16

How Chautauqua did — and did not — engage with race in its earliest days

by Caitlin Rockett

BMoCA Virtual Studio Tours, Sean Kelly live from Stone Cottage Studios, and more to do when there’s ‘nothing’ to do...

by Boulder Weekly Staff

beer:

27

feast:

29

Boulder’s new outpost for Czech lager

by Michael J. Casey

An ode to baby artichoke

by Matt Cortina

departments 6 11 18

20 21 22 23 25 30

The Anderson Files: The untold story of Mexico’s COVID-19 strikes Guest Column: Will the City of Boulder suppress our right to vote?

News briefs: Oil and gas moratorium extended until 2021 and County officials warn of rising COVID-19 numbers Home viewing: Boulder Environmental Nature Outdoors Film Festival Words: ‘No Language’ by Donnie Hollingsworth Astrology: by Rob Brezsny Film: ‘The Old Guard,’ ‘The Painted Bird’ and ‘Palm Springs’ Savage Love: Unplugged Food/Drink: Food news and what to try this week in Boulder County Cannabis Corner: Golden oldie pot strains from the ’60s

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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JULY 16, 2020

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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

July 16, 2020 Volume XXVII, Number 48 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. © 2020 Boulder Weekly, Inc., all rights reserved.

Boulder Weekly

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

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

The untold story of Mexico’s COVID-19 strikes

by Dave Anderson

L

et me introduce you to Susana Prieto, a hero of the pandemic you haven’t heard about. She is a longtime Mexican labor lawyer and organizer.

One day in April, she aimed her cellphone camera at hundreds of workers who were on strike outside the Mexican factory of a U.S. company that hadn’t shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic.

She was broadcasting the video live on Facebook. She said, “You can see how many people there would be working together, elbow to elbow, without any health regulations. This is why so many workers have died in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.”

The border city of Juárez has 327 “maquiladoras” employing more than 300,000 workers. Maquiladoras are foreign-owned assembly plants in Mexico that import machinery and materials duty-free and export finished products around the world. A large number of the plants are U.S.-owned.

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In March, the Mexican government ordered all “non-essential” businesses to close due to the pandemic.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s order defined “essential” businesses as those that “are directly necessary to address the sanitary emergency (of COVID-19) like work related to the medical, paramedic, administrative fields that support the national health system.”

Most of the factories in Juárez are tied to the U.S. automotive and consumer electronics industries. Only about 20 companies with plants in Juárez are linked to health care generally, according to INDEX Juárez.

Border Industrial Association Executive Director Jerry Pacheco told the El Paso Times, “The [Mexican] federal government is telling production plants to shut down, but it doesn’t have the muscle to shut them down.”

Vicente Hernandez, a labor lawyer who works with Prieto, said a work stoppage is “one of the few ways to get the company to follow the emergency decree.”

For four days, hundreds of workers at several plants belonging to St. Louis-based Electrical Components see THE ANDERSON FILES Page 6

JULY 16, 2020

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Will the City of Boulder suppress our right to vote?

By Alli Fronzaglia, Matt Benjamin and Chelsea Castellano

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an you imagine if President Trump or the Attorney General tried to change the election rules in the middle of an election season? Can you also imagine the anger that would sweep across the country? What’s hard to believe is that scenario is happening right now in Boulder.

The Boulder government has made repeated mistakes regarding our local democratic process this year and has effectively changed the rules in the middle of this election season. First, let’s talk about how this democratic process should have gone.

The City was legally required to give residents accurate guidance about how many signatures were needed to get a petition on the ballot and when those signatures were due to the City. Once campaigns met those requirements by the stated deadline, the City was supposed to verify the signatures and, if enough were valid, they would place the initiatives on the 2020 ballot for the community to vote on. The City repeatedly gave specific guidance on these issues — based on rules that the City itself created, so a reasonable person would presume this guidance to be accurate.

However, the City of Boulder is now (just weeks before the stated deadline and months after thousands of community members have risked their lives to give or gather physical signatures during a pandemic) saying they gave campaigns the wrong information. To add insult to this, they’re saying that even if the campaigns meet all the requirements that the City originally outlined to them the City will not go through the official process to certify the petitions to be on the ballot. Instead, the City Attorney is going to advise the City Clerk’s Office to disregard Boulder voters’ constitutional rights for direct democracy and leave the decision of whether to put the measures on the ballot up to City Council, the very governing body that direct democracy is intended to circumvent. Boulder voters have a constitutional right to bypass elected officials and put measures on the ballot by gathering thousands of signatures. Citizen-led ballot initiatives are a core “check and balance” for our elected officials. In fact, if it weren’t for voter-approved ballot measures, we 6

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wouldn’t have the height limit, Blue Line, Open Space or council term limits. There are times when thousands of Boulder voters know better about what is right for our community than nine council members.

It’s clear that the City will be sued one way or another. The problem is the City has chosen the wrong side to defend.

The City is now stating that they will not defend Boulder voters’ right to direct democracy, which only needs defending because of the City’s errors. Because of these errors, the Bedrooms Are For People and Our Mayor, Our Choice campaigns’ options for getting their measures on the 2020 ballot are limited.

The two campaigns have reluctantly explored the option of bringing a legal case against the City. But instead of forcing them to pursue litigation, which will consume limited City resources during a time of massive budget shortfalls, Council has the power to honor the people’s will now by upholding the democratic process and placing these citizen-led measures on the ballot directly for the November 2020 election.

The issue is not the substance of the two charter amendment petitions, but the functioning of the democratic process itself. Council has the responsibility to uphold the integrity of our government and election systems. The only way they can do that now is by referring the measures that met the original requirements onto the ballot. Placing these petitions on the ballot is not partisan, would not be an endorsement of the measures, and does not guarantee their passage. Proponents and opponents will have until Nov. 3 to make their case to the Boulder electorate.

When thousands of voters try to make their voices heard by signing petitions, will the City Council silence those constituents or fulfill their duty to represent them? Will Council suppress our right to vote or protect democracy?

It may be up to Council to decide the fate of our democracy and these ballot measures, but it is up to you — Boulder residents — to demand that they do so.

Contact the City Council now and insist they preserve your right to vote: bit.ly/2WeYZrW Alli Fronzaglia and Matt Benjamin are organizers for Our Mayor-Our Choice; Chelsea Castellano is an organizer for Bedrooms are For People.

JULY 16, 2020

THE ANDERSON FILES from Page ?

International (ECI) staged protests against the company’s refusal to shut down and demanded they be sent home to quarantine with full pay.

Prieto rallied workers outside the ECI plants. In a call and response (with everyone wearing masks), she asked them what did they produce?

They said harnesses for refrigerators, stoves and washing machines.

“And if you don’t have those things, will the world end?” she asked.

“No!” they responded.

“You all know perfectly well that Electrocomponentes isn’t an ‘essential’ business,” she said. “You know this perfectly! I understand your economic necessity and that you don’t want to lose your job. Are you better dead than fired?”

“No!” they yelled.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration and U.S. businesses were pushing the Mexican government to loosen up the lockdown restrictions. U.S. Under Secretary of Defense Ellen Lord claimed on April 20 that the lockdown was disrupting supply chains for the U.S. defense industry.

Christopher Landau, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, launched a Twitter campaign, writing: “There are risks everywhere, but we don’t all stay at home for fear we are going to get in a car accident... The destruction of the economy is also a health threat.”

In an April 30 New York Times article, Natalie Kitroeff reported: “The Trump administration and major U.S. manufacturers have successfully pressured Mexico to keep factories that supply the United States operating during the coronavirus pandemic, even as outbreaks erupt and waves of cases I

and deaths sweep the companies.”

Kitroeff noted that Ambassador Landau issued a direct threat, saying that if Mexico didn’t respond to the needs of American businesses, it would lose the jobs in the maquiladoras.

“You don’t have ‘workers’ if you close all the companies and they move elsewhere,” Landau wrote on Twitter.

In June, Prieto was arrested in Matamoros on several charges including inciting a riot, threats and coercion. Many labor and human rights activists and organizations have called for her immediate release. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka wrote: “Susana Prieto is a fierce advocate whose tireless advocacy on behalf of workers in Mexico’s maquiladoras has made her a thorn in the side of powerful companies and corrupt officials.

Her arrest on trumped-up charges of ‘inciting riots’ is an outrage. The AFL-CIO calls for her immediate and unconditional release.”

Prosecutors claim the charges have nothing to do with a wave of successful strikes Prieto helped lead in early 2019 at 48 maquiladoras in Matamoros. The workers won 20% pay raises and $1,650 bonuses.

On July 1, Prieto was released from prison but under harsh conditions. She can’t leave her residence in Chihuahua for the next 30 months and can’t continue her advocacy work for maquiladora workers. It is suspicious that Prieto was arrested just before the NAFTA 2.0 trade deal went into effect, which is supposed to protect workers’ rights in Mexico.

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

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his time last year, it wouldn’t have mattered much to Coloradans that Ukrainians were possibly fixing ping-pong matches.

But now that sports betting is legal as of May 1 — with plenty of physical and online sports books ready to take bets — it’s good Colorado had a plan in place to deal with the potential fraud.

Coloradans had been betting on ping-pong more than any other sport; about $6.5 million in bets were made in Colorado on the sport in May alone.

New Jersey, which also allows sports wagering, flagged it first on July 7, and Colorado subsequently shut down betting on some matches.

“It was just a smart move for us to back off and suspend betting so we could protect the consumer,” says Dan Hartman, director of the Colorado Division of Gaming. “We would do that with any sport, not just pingpong or anything else. There has been match-fixing in other kinds of sports around the world for the last umpteen years.”

It was an early test for Colorado regulators — the State had a little more than five months to build a sports betting system from the time voters approved Prop DD in November last year until its launch in May. Through hours upon hours of stakeholder meetings, field trips to states with legalized sports betting,

Cash flows

to help Colorado tremendously. Not all states did that — to their detriment.”

Hartman says there is a vetting process in place to make sure the companies rushing in to offer sports betting are legitimate — operators have to apply for a license and undergo background vetting procedures, even if they partner with an already licensed casino in Colorado.

Within this framework, there is variability for sports books to provide something different from one another and beyond traditional casino offerings. For instance, bets in brick-and-mortar casinos are capped at $100, but online sports books have no limits on wagers. Stevens says Circa can use that as a market advantage — offering “larger action” and wooing professional bettors to its platform.

Recognizing all this potential, sports books were eager to help efforts to pass Prop DD last year — Draft Kings and FanDuel, two of the biggest mobile sports wagering companies in the country, contributed about $1.3 million each to pass the measure, with casino groups that operate in Colorado contributing smaller amounts.

But some have expressed concern about letting out-of-state operators have such a large stake in what looks to become booming business in

Colorado built a sports betting program in less than six months, with tax revenue pegged for water projects. Not even COVID could stop sports books from flooding the market.

by Matt Cortina

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

internal conversations and more, the Division of Gaming created a system that has some safeguards against fraud and problem gambling in place, but that has also ushered in a ton of interest from in-state casinos and out-of-state sports books.

“We certainly didn’t go out and reinvent the wheel,” Hartman says.

Regulators used existing gambling framework to build out the system.

The 33 casinos in Colorado each got a “master license,” Hartman says, to allow sports betting. The license allows them to offer both online and brick-and-mortar betting either through their own companies or by partnering with companies that run I

betting operations. So far the state has issued 25 internet licenses and 19 retail licenses.

Las Vegas-based Circa Sports launched its mobile sports betting operation in Colorado on July 1, the first foray outside Nevada for the company. CEO Derek Stevens says the State of Colorado streamlined the process for getting sports books up and running on its expedited timeline.

“We thought Colorado did a great job in evaluating the industry, a great job evaluating the landscape and setting up a regulatory environment that is really optimal,” Stevens says. “The element of remote registration and remote funding is going JULY 16, 2020

see BETTING Page 11

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BETTING from Page 9

Colorado — although most of the going to be a very good market. It’s concerns have come from out-of-state really hard to tell — we’re going to as well. In March, Al Sharpton sent a have to get into a somewhat normal letter to Gov. Jared Polis asking him world again and then I think it’s safe to reconsider implementing sports to start talking about what the estibetting because of concerns of workmates should be.” ers’ rights.

But the program does have some “In looking at who specifically financial thresholds it needs to meet. benefits from the legislation, it’s diffi- It needs to pay the State back for the cult to understand why the state cost it took to set up the program would want to reward bad behavior,” ($1.7 million), and then it needs to Sharpton wrote. “Out-of-state hedge meet certain targets before money funds with long records of mass fircan be transferred for use in the ings and shady dealings have come Colorado Water Plan ($2.8 million in into the state to capitalize on mobile fiscal year 2020-21, for instance). sports betting and Hartman says based on their he anticipates the state took funding of the track record — in about $96,000 in tax Water Plan from middle-class workers and minorities sports betting revrevenue, which was will be the first to enue to begin in levied off about $25.6 July of next year be negatively million in total wagers. (the start of fiscal impacted. My job is to spot those year 2022). Sara And that’s with pingproblems before Leonard of the pong being the main they occur and to Colorado Water sporting attraction. speak up about Conservation them before it’s Board (CWCB) too late.” says Water Plan All of that projects will have serves as a background for what is funding from other sources until supposed to be the payoff for legalizthen, and because sports betting reveing sports betting in Colorado: nue has not yet been tied to any projmoney to fund implementation of the ects, it won’t cause any extra delay in Colorado Water Plan. implementing the plan.

In May, the State took in about Last year, critics of Prop DD (and $96,000 in tax revenue, which was it passed by only a slim margin) cited levied off of about $25.6 million in a lack of identification of water projtotal wagers. And that’s with pingects as a point of contention. Would pong being the main sporting attracthis additional money, say, be used to tion as COVID-19 has shut down further imperil the Colorado River by most major sports. damming or diverting it more?

But there has been disagreement Leonard says “it is too soon in the about how much revenue taxes from process,” to determine what types of sports betting can generate; early water projects the sports betting reve(hopeful) estimates skyrocketed to nue will fund, or how much the revetens of millions of dollars annually, nue will contribute to the Water Plan. but more realistic targets settle in the But those in the sports and sports $1-$2 million per year range. betting industry are laying the Hartman says he can’t predict a groundwork for post-pandemic boom number right now, particularly with times. The Denver Broncos have the pandemic getting in the way, but already taken the unique step of partthat there’s hope it can be lucrative. nering with three sports books to cre“What we’re seeing right now for ate entertainment and build specially sports betting is that I think it looks branded betting lounges in the team’s and appears to be a pretty robust stadium. You won’t be able to place a market, based on the level of what bet at a counter, but you can open they’re betting on now and the type your phone and place a bet on any of income we have now,” Hartman betting app you choose. After digitalsays. “I think once you get the big ly bouncing around the world, some four sports (NFL, NBA, NHL and of that money will trickle back to MLB) back in and playing somewhat Colorado. We’ll see what happens normally, I think that Colorado is with it then.

In May,

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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Boulder County Commissioners extend oil and gas moratorium until 2021

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oulder County will not consider any new oil and gas development applications until at least 2021.

That’s the result of a vote by the Boulder County Commissioners on July 14 that extended the moratorium set to expire this month through Dec. 31, 2020.

The moratorium will allow staff to review and update the county’s oil and gas regulations in light of the passage of Senate Bill 181 last year, which provided some measure of local control over natural resource extraction.

The new process will include opportunities for further public input throughout the fall — in the virtual public hearing this week, comments from community members widely supported extending the moratorium.

“With the COVID-19 pandemic slowing everything down, we simply need more time to ensure we get our regulations right,” Commissioner Elise Jones said in a statement announcing the moratorium extension.

“Extending our moratorium on new oil and gas development to the year’s end is both responsible and necessary in order to fulfill our duty to our constituents. They deserve the strongest possible protections and a pause on any applications until those are in place.”

Commissioner Deb Gardner cited the fact that the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) hasn’t finished it’s own rulemaking as another reason to extend the moratorium.

“With too much still unknown about what the [COGCC] will do this fall with its new rules and how those might affect our local regulations, it doesn’t make sense to rush finalization of our regulations or lift the moratorium until we know we have the best possible regulations we can put in place,” Commissioner Deb Gardner added.

The moratorium extension comes as several heavily indebted oil and gas producers in the U.S. have filed for bankruptcy in recent weeks.

County health officials warn of rising COVID-19 numbers

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n July 13, Boulder County experienced the highest one-day spike of new COVID-19 cases in a month, prompting health officials to issue a warning to remain mindful of common-sense safety measures.

“These trends are highly concerning,” Carol Helwig, Boulder County Public Health Communicable Disease Control program manager, said.

“We are seeing an explosion of new cases in many of the states around Colorado. If we want to avoid going backwards, every single one of us needs to do what we can: Stay home if you can, and if you must go out, please be very diligent about social distancing, wearing a face covering and washing your hands.”

There were 25 new cases reported on July 13 — until then, cases had plateaued at about 12-13 per day. About 1,540 Boulder County residents have tested positive or are considered probable for COVID-19, according to County data. About seven people have been hospitalized per day over the last two weeks, slightly higher than the rate of hospitalization in weeks prior.

The recent increase in cases is not linked to college students — fewer than 25% of the reported cases were found in that demographic.

“Transmission seems to be limited person-to-person and within the community, but residents have also reported recent travel out-of-state and to Colorado mountain communities during their interviews with our disease investigators,” Emily Payne, Boulder County Public Health data epidemiologist, said.

JULY 16, 2020

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BYRON KOMINEK

Hitting on all cylinders

New agrivoltaics farm, set for completion in September, can power 300 homes

by Angela K. Evans

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ut aren’t all farms solar?,” Lynne Wesenberg asked herself as she and TOP: Jack’s Solar Garden at sunrise her husband, Dave Dell, drove by a sign for a solar farm on North 95th MIDDLE: Dave Dell and Lynne Street one day. It’s a route they often Wesenberg take, having lived in Niwot for decades. Then BOTTOM: From left: Byron they saw an ad in the Left Hand Valley Courier Kominek, owner of Jack’s Solar about Jack’s Solar Garden, the 24-acre plot of Garden; Jonathan Koehn, City of land they often drive by that is being turned Boulder chief sustainability and resilience officer; Jordan into a community solar project. Wesenberg Macknick, lead energy-water-land and Dell became the project’s first subscribanalyst at NREL; Jon Wedel, ers, paying a one-time subscription fee in senior director of commercial services at Namaste Solar; and exchange for discounts on their monthly Xcel Elise Jones, Boulder County bill for the next 10 years.

Commissioner.

“It just seemed like a good thing to do,” Dell says.

“For the environment,” Wesenberg adds.

Community solar is an emerging industry across the nation — a way for renters or homeowners without suitable rooftops or means to install their own panels to engage with renewable energy. (Reports from the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) in Golden estimate that only 22%-27% of residential rooftops can host solar panels.) The idea is simple: a solar array is built near existing infrastructure and renewable energy is fed into the utility grid, replacing fossil fuels and paid for by voluntary subscribers who in turn receive solar credits.

In 2010, Colorado became the first state in the nation to pass shared renewables legislation, which was expanded again in 2019 to allow for larger projects. And although there are dozens of community solar projects around the state, Jack’s is a bit different, owner Byron Kominek says. Named after Kominek’s grandfather, who purchased the property in 1972, Jack’s will be home to 3,200 solar panels producing approximately 1.2 megawatts of power — enough to power 300 Boulder County homes. But it will also have community supported agriculture (CSA), an expansive pollinator habitat and a rigorous research component in partnership with Colorado State University, the University of Arizona and NREL, all open to school and community educational tours.

“We are focused on making this not only a site that’s going to provide clean electricity and food for the surrounding community, but it’s also a really excellent learning opportunity and a research opportunity,” say Jordan Macknick, lead energy-water-land analyst at NREL. He’s been working with Kominek for the past two years to get Jack’s up and running and will be leading the research at the site.

In a study published in the September 2019 issue of Nature Sustainability, Macknick and his colleagues from the universities of Arizona and Maryland explored the benefits of “agrivoltaics,” planting agricultural crops underneath and around solar photovoltaic (PV) infrastructure. They found that when solar arrays are set atop gravel and sand landscapes, it can easily create a “heat island” effect, making the area substantially hotter than it would be otherwise, while also decreasing the productivity of the panels, as they are known to be sensitive to temperature increases. According to an NREL press release about the study, “The co-location of PV and agriculture could offer win-win outcomes across 12

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JULY 16, 2020

BOTTOM TWO PHOTOS BY ANGELA K. EVANS

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

many sectors, increasing crop production, reducing water loss, and improving the efficiency of PV arrays. Adopting such synergistic paths forward can help build resilient food-production and energy-generation systems.”

NREL began researching agrivoltaics about 10 years ago, Macknick says, and now has 25 sites across the country. Some involve native vegetation, others pollinator habitat, pasture grass to support grazing livestock or horticulture crops, but Jack’s is unique in that it will encompass all four types of vegetation at a single site. Additionally, there will be a combination of 6-foot and 8-foot solar panels so researchers can study which height is most efficient. The panels will be on a single-tracking system that will start each morning facing east, follow the sun throughout the day and end facing west, and they will have a uniquely designed gutter system to help direct water to specific locations.

Macknick says that at the project site in Arizona, researchers saw a temperature difference of 9 degrees Celsius under solar panels that had rock and sand ground cover versus those that had vegetation.

“And that led to a 2% greater output during the summer months for that facility, which 2% sounds small but it ends up being a lot if you’ve got a big system like this,” he says. “I don’t think it’ll be as extreme here obviously as it is in Arizona. But we’re expecting to see measurable increases based on the temperature of the panels.”

Increased efficiency is part of what drew Namasté Solar, which is constructing the solar array, to the project, says Jon Wedel, co-owner and senior director of commercial services for the company.

“Our mission statement is to propagate the responsible use of solar energy. [ Jack’s] is above and beyond anything we’ve seen so far,” he says. “On the back end, we’re always concerned about production and making sure that the system is producing and the ramifications of what’s happening here is really just exciting.”

Jack’s has drawn the attention of other community partners as well.

Sprouts City Farms will be managing the CSA, and Audubon of the Rockies has already donated 3,000 perennials, including trees, wildflowers, currants, blackberries, elderberries and raspberries, for the pollinator habitat. Plus, Boulder County has signed on as an anchor tenant, sponsoring about 10% of the grid, or 327 panels, and the City of Boulder is currently in negotiations to sponsor 140 more.

“I really see potential over the next couple of years in terms of what we learn, how that could be applied to existing projects, how we can start linking the idea of solar and food production, how we start thinking about increasing the health of our local soils and supporting local farmers,” Jonathan Koehn, chief sustainability and resilience officer with the City of Boulder, says. “So it really is such a comprehensive win that fits so nicely with our vision as a City and as a County.”

There’s also an equity component to the project: Jack’s is donating 2% of its energy production to low-income households in Boulder County and 30% of the CSA produce will be donated to the community.

Kominek is still looking for a researcher to assist on studying bees at the site, as well as a farm manager with Sprout City Farms to handle the CSA. And he needs more subscribers. Starting at a minimum of four panels, subscriptions are one-time payments and based on energy needs of a household, lasting for five, 10 or 20 years. But with construction currently underway, the solar array is expected to be completed by September. And once it’s up and running, there’s lots of anticipation about how Jack’s will inform future projects in Boulder County and beyond.

“We’re all waiting to see the results of how best to do this,” County Commissioner Elise Jones says. “It’s just hitting on all cylinders on the major values that we have around this, and so the County was really happy to dive in and try to help get liftoff off for this. And we hope to learn so much from it as we work to protect our farmers and support them. Solar farms could be an opportunity to add to their portfolio as we look to transition to clean energy.”

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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COURTESY OF DAN CORSON / HISTORY COLORADO

At left is a photo of Oliver Toussaint Jackson, who was manager at Boulder’s Chautauqua Dining Hall in 1898. He later operated a popular seafood restaurant at 55th and Arapahoe in Boulder. Below is a photo of Jackson’s wait staff setting up the Dining Hall.

Facing our history

How Chautauqua did — and did not — engage with race in its earliest days

By Caitlin Rockett

T

he second season of the Colorado Chautauqua was a success. Good thing, too, as a reporter from the Daily Camera wrote after the sixweek assembly wrapped up in 1899, because two years straight with lost profits would have surely shut the educational program down.

But people were talking about building cottages along the foot of the mountains to better enjoy the Colorado Chautauqua the next summer — some had already leased lots. They’d been inspired and edified by presentations about the newest concepts in pedagogy and archeology, delighted in Shakespearean theater, and had their souls stirred by sermons from renowned ministers.

And there was a bit of whitewashing history in there as well.

George N. Aldredge, a judge from Texas (born in Georgia), gave a lecture called “Plantation Life in the South” on the final Saturday of the assembly. “[Aldredge] declared it to be a mistake that the slaves were brutally treated,” reported the Camera, “that while there were brutal masters and overseers they were the exception, not the rule, and that the masters and slaves loved each other and he doubted if the blacks had been much improved by their emancipation, 14

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JULY 16, 2020

though he believed it wrong for one man to own another and the whole South is glad that slavery has been destroyed.”

Historian Sarah Bell came across this article when she was doing research for her dissertation about how the women’s suffrage movement used Chautauqua assemblies around the country to advance the cause; she would go on to find more examples of racism at the summer educational gatherings. On July 20, Bell will give a virtual presentation for the Colorado Chautauqua’s annual meeting exploring how the assemblies — at Boulder and elsewhere — did and did not engage with race during their heyday at the turn of the century.

“This was happening at the same time you see this push of Jim Crow laws and the rise of the second wave of the Ku Klux Klan,” Bell says of the advent of the Colorado Chautauqua and speeches like the one given by Aldredge. “And a lot of this kind of ‘re-training’ begins, themes like ‘the lost cause’ [emerge as a way] to remember the Confederate South. And so even though there maybe wasn’t exactly that language at the Chautauqua, I saw enough of it [in my research]. It felt like this coded language, this understanding that these white people in the audience, listening to these speakers, … knew what I

ON THE BILL: Race and Chautauqua — featuring Sarah Bell, historian at the Watkins History Museum in Lawrence, Kansas. 6 p.m.

Monday, July 20 via Zoom, chautauqua.com/portfolio/2020annual-meeting-feat-sarah-bell.

The event is free.

they were referring to. That’s where I think it’s important to show how Chautauqua participated in these discussions and even promoted these ideas that were occurring elsewhere in society.”

The first Chautauqua assembly was founded in New York by Methodist minister John Heyl Vincent and businessman Lewis Miller in 1874 as an outgrowth of a popular outdoor Sunday school class Vincent was already teaching. Vincent and Miller believed the model could help ideas, generally of the progressive variety, grow and spread as people listened to and engaged with lectures and discussions. The concept took off and by 1900 there were around 150 “daughter” Chautauquas modeled off the “mother” program. Lectures were the bread and butter of Chautauquas, focusing on either topics of reform (the push to develop kindergarten in the United States began at Chautauqua assemblies, for example) or inspiration.

But the Chautauquas focused primarily on educating and uplifting middle class white Protestants, so much so that Bell says black and Jewish Chautauquas eventually popped up in places like Durham, North Carolina, where the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua later became North Carolina BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

COURTESY OF DAN CORSON / HISTORY COLORADO

Adam Sloat Broker/Owner

Your Boulder Real Estate Expert and Music Guy

Central University, a historically black university still in operation today.

“If there was a need to start a separate one, is that because they weren’t allowed at the main [assemblies]?” Bell says. “You could draw that question out to the suffrage organizations, temperance organizations and clubs. Black women were almost always not allowed to join the main organization so they began their own.”

Dan Corson, a local historian and board member for the Colorado Chautauqua, says there’s no hard evidence he’s ever found that indicates people of color weren’t allowed to participate in Chautauqua assemblies.

“Whether African American citizens came to lectures and musical concerts, whether they participated in the Chautauqua, I don’t know,” Corson says.

“And I don’t think anyone knows and I don’t know if there’s a record.”

It’s been a common refrain in Corson’s historical research on early black residents of Boulder. His search began in 1986 after an architectural survey of the Goss-Grove Neighborhood revealed that a portion of the area, from 19th to 23rd streets on the east, contained homes built by former slaves. The area, known as “The Little Rectangle,” was undesirable as it was prone to flooding, and thus it became “the other side of the tracks” in Boulder — the black neighborhood.

“While researching other efforts to record in a comprehensive fashion a history of the black community in Boulder, I found that none existed,” Corson wrote in a paper in 1996.

“There never was a large African American population in Boulder,” Corson says over the phone recently, “but in the olden days, the first settlers lived anywhere in the community. But it became BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

increasingly segregated,” as the years passed.

Bell suggests that it would be hard for a black participant to feel welcome at a Chautauqua assembly with speakers like Benjamin Tillman making regular rounds on the Chautauqua circuit. Tillman, a senator from South Carolina who went on to become governor, defended lynching and frequently mocked black Americans in his speeches on the Senate floor, even bragging about having helped kill black citizens.

A program for a Colorado Chautauqua assembly encouraged people not to miss a lecture by Tillman, “an enemy of shames, a ventilator of frauds, a friend of reform, and a defender of honesty.” “... he calls a spade a spade and handles his subject without gloves,” the brochure proclaimed. “He should be seen and heard to be appreciated.”

Native Americans were also the subject of relegation at Chautauquas (ironic, at best, since Chautauqua is an Iroquois word), even if it wasn’t explicit, according to Bell, who found a report on a turn-ofthe-century lecture at the Colorado Chautauqua “labeling Native Americans as savages and the white soldiers as these heroic victors.”

All this despite the fact that people of color were sometimes brought to Chautauquas as entertainment. Silvia Pettem researched programs from the Colorado Chautauqua for her book Chautauqua Centennial, and found that, in the language of the day, Chautauqua programs noted that audiences were enthusiastic about “Gospel or Negro,” choral groups, including the Carolinian Jubilee Troupe that performed in 1905 and sang “jubilee and plantation melodies.”

“In another reference,” Pettem writes I

in an email, “one of the Chautauqua Bulletins stated, ‘The selections that Chautauquans liked best were old favorites, Negro spirituals, familiar operatic arias and Sousa marches.’”

Native American entertainment included Canadian poet E. Pauline Johnson, whose father was a Mohawk chief, her mother an English immigrant. Johnson wrote about her mixed-race heritage and became an iconic figure in Canadian literature, and spoke at an early Colorado Chautauqua.

“Civilization has touched her with its finer qualities,” a pamphlet for her Colorado lecture paternalistically complimented. “She is cultivated and brilliant.

Her figure is imposing and sets off the Indian trappings of her rich buckskin garments.”

“Facing our history and ensuring Chautauqua is a diverse and welcoming place for all, are ongoing preoccupations,” Liza Purvis, director of marketing and communication for Colorado Chautauqua, wrote in an email. In May, Colorado Chautauqua faced a deadly piece of its history by hosting a moving memorial stone installation and ceremony for family, friends and supporters of Los Seis de Boulder, six Chicano activists who were killed in two car bombings in 1974, one of which occurred on Chautauqua property.

The intention of Bell’s talk, Purvis says, is to continue the conversation on race relations in the U.S., not to single out the Colorado Chautauqua.

“Boulder was by no means unique with how it engaged with race or didn’t engage with race,” Bell says. “I want people to understand how these systems, these organizations, including Chautauqua, started and who [had] the platform and how these ideas kept getting perpetuated over time.”

JULY 16, 2020

Q&A WITH MYSELF, THE “MUSIC GUY” Question: Hey Adam, why do you use the slogan, ‘Your Realtor and Music Guy,’ that’s a little schlocky, isn’t it?

Answer: It’s just a slogan, chill out, but it brings up the talking points of my previous life in the music & entertainment business. I had quite a unique international career and developed major negotiating and contracting skills.

I was also known as one of the few good guys in a business full of knuckleheads and villains.

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

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What to do when there’s ‘nothing’ to do...

VIRTUAL EVENTS

BY BOULDER WEEKLY STAFF

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

n BMOCA VIRTUAL STUDIO TOURS — San-

dra De Berduccy (July 16) and Thomas “Detour” Evans (July 21).

Noon via Instagram, bmoca.org.

Virtual Studio Tours gives artists a chance to take viewers behind the scenes of their studio practice and chat about their processes and inspirations. The series is moderated

by BMoCA’s community engagement and events coordinator for half an hour on Instagram Live.

The July 16 tour will feature Sandra De Berduccy (Aruma), a Bolivian artist, weaver, specialist in Andean textile techniques and researcher in textiles and new media. The July 21 tour will future Thomas “Detour” Evans, a Denver-based creative whose murals of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Elijah McClain have recently graced public walls in Denver.

n IMPROVING BOULDER CITY GOVERNANCE THROUGH BETTER ELECTORAL SYSTEMS — a

moderated online forum hosted by Boulder County League of Women Voters. 2 p.m. Sunday, July 19, lwvbc.org.

The Boulder County League of Women Voters invites you to attend a forum discussing what citizens want to achieve in Boulder City Council elections and steps to get there. Ensure effective city governance, directly elect the mayor and

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ranked voting are all topics for discussion. Panelists include Rich Lopez, Jan Burton, Celeste Landry and Marcus Ogren. The forum will include time for questions and answers following the panelist presentations.

n CONGRESSMEN ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA) AND JOE NEGUSE (D-CO) —

an online conversation about Rep. Swalwell’s new COURTESY PRESSED PR book, ‘Endgame: Inside the Impeachment of Donald J. Trump,’ hosted by Boulder n SEAN KELLY LIVE FROM Book Store. 7:30 p.m. TuesSTONE COTTAGE STUDIOS. day, July 21, boulderbook7 p.m. Saturday, July 18, store.net. stonecottagestudios.com/ ‘Endgame’ is an inside look seankelly. at the impeachment of Donald Sean Kelly, lead singer Trump from member of the of The Samples, will presHouse Intelligence and Judiciaent an intimate acoustic set ry committees Rep. Eric Swalfrom Stone Cottage Studios in well (D-CA). Swalwell explores Boulder, using state of the art what the impeachment means equipment to bring a highfor our nation’s immediate definition concert experience to future. Our current pandemic music lovers’ homes. The event and racial crises, John Bolton’s will be an innovative livestreaming production, late revelations, and the Russian bounty scandal featuring 1080P, guaranteed to make viewers underscore the book’s theme: President Trump’s feel like they are in the room with Kelly and his inability to put his personal political interests guitar. There will also be a limited number of VIP second to the needs of the American people. The packages where fans can purchase personalized book not only gives readers an in-depth, behind“shout-outs” during the show, and an even more the-scenes look at impeachment, but also how limited opportunity for fans to request a song and it set the stage for this November’s election and have Kelly tell the story around that song during what’s currently at stake. the livestream.

JULY 16, 2020

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

HEAVY

ROTATION Five new tracks for your ears

By Caitlin Rockett

‘FINAL DAYS (BONOBO REMIX),’ MICHAEL KIWANUKA London-based singer/songwriter Michael Kiwanuka’s self-titled 2019 album is full of anxiety and doubt delivered with a bit of sugar via funk and soul. He’s a musical polyglot who blends folk, rock and R&B with traditions from his Ugandan heritage.

Kiwanuka’s music is optimal source material for LAbased-U.K.-born producer Bonobo, aka Simon Green, whose equally omnivorous musical tastes make him a staple on the dance floor and at the after party. For his first remix in three years, Green gives “Final Days” his signature atmospheric touch, keeping the focus on Kiwanuka’s mournful vocals with a beat gentle enough to complement the strings of the original version, yet strong enough to lure you to the middle of the dance floor for a sweatdrenched, pre-COVID heater. “Following the crowd / Coulda been a stronger man,” Kiwanuka laments as Green builds tension. “Plead insanity / I will die in these / Final days on the planet / Here we are, on the ground / Every day, automatic / Here we are, goin’ ‘round and ‘round and ‘round.”

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

‘BREAKTHROUGH,’ DEATH VALLEY GIRLS LA’s Death Valley Girls found this 1971 track

by English prog rockers Atomic Rooster by way of a cover by Nigerian outfit The Funkees (who formed around the same time as Atomic Rooster in the late ’60s). Death Valley Girls give the song a crunchy makeover, swapping Vincent Crane’s original honky-tonk keyboard for Larry Schemel’s grimey guitar, and Nick Graham’s bluesy tenor for Bonnie Bloomgarden’s Cherrie-Currieby-way-of-KathleenHannah alto. It’s a respectful homage that leaves the emphasis on the song’s message to fight for your mind: “An invisible prison encircles my mind / I wait for a vision / I search for a sign / An invisible prison is built around me / There may be a door / but there isn’t a key.”

Whether you read the song as a battle cry for mental health or an anthem for the oppressed, you’re right.

It’s a fight song meant to defend the strongest weapon we possess.

‘IF IT AIN’T ME BABE,’ S.G. GOODMAN Kentucky-native S.G. Goodman’s debut album, Old Time Feeling, is an Americana/ post-punk/indie rock hybrid — a perfect off-road vehicle for navigating tales about life in the rural South. “Southerners should be telling their own stories — that’s important when you’re thinking about this,” she told Rolling Stone in May. “And it’s the rest of the world’s responsibility to actually listen to people from these areas and what they have to say.

And maybe take it upon themselves to dig a little deeper.” While the debut single is a tortured love-lost ballad, the South is still the setting, cotton blooms and cypress knees making cameos as Goodman grapples with watching a love turn cold. A pedal steel helps Goodman mourn, but producer Jim James gives the track a psychedelic edge, with swampy guitars and lonesome chimes.

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‘WHAT MOVES,’ LA PRIEST Sam Eastgate spent a year building an analog drum machine, using dozens of electrical circuits that he also built from scratch. The finished product, christened GENE, creates the foundation of Eastgate’s new album (also dubbed GENE in honor of his creation) as LA Priest. Eastgate has always explored psychedelic sounds, first with his band Late of the Pier and then with his first solo record Inji, but GENE takes that exploration into rockier territory.

When producer Erol Alkan began working with Eastgate on this track, he noticed that the beats per minute on the track were “wildly fluctuating,” as he explained to Dazed. But instead of locking in the BPMs, Alkan worked with what Eastgate’s machine had created. The warped-cassette effect is charming, not distracting.

‘SYMPHONIE PACIFIQUE’ GREG FOAT It would be a gross understatement to call pianist Greg Foat’s new album, Symphonie Pacifique, a jazz album, though jazz is a foundational element. Foat eschews the free-wheeling jam style in favor of narrative and texture — he gives you a lot to hold on to while still thrilling with backdoor progressions and cascading runs.

While the title track features Foat’s nimble fingers painting a musical picture as bright as the Pacific Coast, other tracks, like “Man vs. Machine,” take on a moodier, Kraftwerk-inspired vibe; a drum machine makes an introduction for a drum kit, and Foat’s piano is nowhere to be heard. see EVENTS Page 18

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EVENTS from Page 17

THEATER

MICHAEL ENSMINGER

— presented by The Catamounts.

Wednesday-Sunday, Aug. 8-30, Legacy Ridge Golf Course, 10801 Legacy Ridge Parkway, Westminster, thecatamounts.org/tickets.

T

he Catamounts will launch its 10th season with In The Rough, an immersive comic romp exploring wildness and tameness, privilege and access, and the journey of the old ball and stick from the socially distanced safety of a golf cart. Eight carts a night will travel through legends, stories and the front nine holes of Westminster’s public Legacy Ridge golf course in a summer evening of theater designed for our six-feet-apart times. Tickets are on sale now. For more information about safety protocols, or how to subscribe to The Cats’ entire 10th season, visit thecatamounts.org.

n ‘THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY

SPELLING BEE’ — presented by The Spark. 8 p.m. ThursdaySunday, Aug. 6-9, thesparkcreates.org.

W

inner of the Tony and the Drama Desk Awards for Best Book, ‘The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee’ has charmed audiences across the country with its effortless wit and humor. Featuring a funny and touching script and a vibrant score, this bee is one unforgettable experience. An eclectic group of six mid-pubescents vie for the spelling championship of a lifetime.

While candidly disclosing hilarious and touching stories from their home lives, the tweens spell their way through a series of (potentially made-up) words, hoping never to hear the soul-crushing “ding” of the bell that signals a spelling mistake. Six spellers enter; one speller leaves. The Spark will be offering an outdoor performance with limited seating. Tickets are on sale now.

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E

ven though our minds and wallets have been deeply distracted and impacted by the pandemic/economy/political divisiveness, the need for environmental change and protection has never been greater,” Richard Paradise, founder of the Boulder Environmental / Nature / Outdoors Film Festival (BoulderENOFF), says. “The silver lining is that families are spending more time together in the outdoors, life’s pace has slowed, and there is a greater appreciation of what nature can offer us.”

Paradise is spot on. With the global pandemic brought about by COVID-19, air, earth and sea traffic lessened, and many noted how blue and clear the skies looked. How marine life returned to bays and lagoons long abandoned, and how the absence of a fast-paced consumer-driven world allowed for more time for thought and reflection.

There are downsides: Unemployment is soaring while consumer confidence has cratered. Businesses are barely hanging on, and those in the hospitality industry have had to turn to single-use plastics to comply with health regulations. In three months, long-fought battles to get businesses and consumers away from disposable products evaporated in a snap.

“Climate change has not halted, wildlife habitats are still under great pressures, environmental protection guidelines have been relaxed in the name of ‘opening the economy’ — these are things still worth fighting for,” Paradise says.

Talk about perfect timing for an environmentally themed film festival, and BoulderENOFF returns July 16-23 for a week of movies depicting a world worth fighting for, and those leading the fight.

Nine features and two short packages make up this year’s festival, all of them available July 16 via the festival’s website: boulderenoff. org. Switching from in-person to virtual wasn’t Paradise’s first choice, but the move presented a few hidden benefits, namely a “great number of filmmakers and guest participants.”

ON THE BILL: “One of the advantages of doing the festival virtually, is that BoulderENOFF. July filmmakers have become very used to doing Zoom/online inter16-23. Virtual. views and Q&As for their films, allowing for greater participaboulderenoff.org. tion — without the time commitment of travel and the expense,” Paradise says.

It also makes filmmakers more amenable to producing bonus material to sweeten the deal, and Paradise says most of the movies presented this year will feature pre-recorded Q&As. “So when you rent [Watson] about Paul Watson, the founder of Sea Shepherd, you’re also going to get an interview that I facilitate between him and the director of the movie [Lesley Chilcott].”

It’s a way of creating “that film fest experience.”

Only in its second year, BoulderENOFF is still new, but Paradise sees 2020 as the festival’s “gap year ... a bridge to next year,” and future festivals will most likely contain a virtual theater component. But not at the expense of in-person moviegoing.

“A festival is traditionally a place for gathering,” he says. “Nothing can replace the excitement and exchange of gathering and watching films together.”

Paradise is already champing at the bit to get back to the Dairy Arts Center for BoulderENOFF 2021. Until then, he’ll be making himself comfy on the couch with the rest of us for a week of environmental cinema.

Boulder Environmental Nature Outdoors Film Festival

by Michael J. Casey

n ‘THE ROUGH’

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HOME VIEWING:

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

No Language

by Donnie Hollingsworth For years I’d see Tim free fall from some height while sitting still in the backwoods of his life after his wife died of alcohol poisoning he cut off his heart finger like a Lakota as he told her story I imagined the silhouette of a woman staring out of a window the light is so intense it pushes the edges of her silhouette towards the middle into a thin black line waving like a blade of grass in the wind ...while trembling we still offer our hand we still take the journey • Gifts for any cook • Fun and colorful kitchenware • Specialty foods, local and imported • Gadgets, cookware, and kitchen essentials • Louisville’s one-of-a-kind kitchen shop 728 Main Street • Louisville • 720.484.6825 www.SingingCookStore.com

Tantric Sacred Sexuality Exploration & Education Now Offering: • Virtual Classes • Virtual and In Person Private Coaching For more information: 720-333-7978

www.tantricsacredjourneys.com

off the grid: wireless walls (I still feel the feral freedom of being when I asked about what’s inside (what you taught from a branch bowed down from 56 winters of snow living from the bottom of the world you inherit the dread of things being upside-down forever ...you said “what you see is what you get” an unexpected heart attack while alone You existed. You took breath.

You loved your cabin on the mountain: red gravel and clay silt an old miner’s road that led from your front yard (your best friend: a crow up the unnamed mountain (flies miles above searching for you to a grassy cliff overlooking the 25 corridor where we sat once in remnants of an older cabin--a silver miner only the outline of a foundation remained and it felt like wind and rain were watching each other and that we are all like missing stones ::: dropped into the sea at midnight every day we live and die at the same time as blood runs the border between like dead a man’s river that drips away like trying to see someone approaching through glass when all you can make out is a glare from the inside through the misty panes of the cabin ::: I see footprints ::: in the snow

leading up to the door

Donnie Hollingsworth has lived in many small Rocky Mountain towns, and currently resides in La Junta, Colorado, with his cat and wife.

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BOULDER WEEKLY

BY ROB BREZSNY ARIES

MARCH 21-APRIL 19: “If the time is not ripe, we have

to ripen the time,” wrote Aries educator and activist Dorothy Height. This approach worked well during her 98 years on the planet. Her pioneering advocacy for African American women generated a number of practical improvements in their employment opportunities and civil rights. In accordance with the current astrological omens, Aries, I highly recommend her guiding principle for your use. You now have the power to ripen the time, even if no one else believes the time is ripe.

TAURUS

APRIL 20-MAY 20: “Whatever inspiration is, it’s born

from a continuous ‘I don’t know.’” A wise and talented woman said that: Nobel Prize-winning poet Wisława Szymborska. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, it’s excellent advice for you to embrace during the coming weeks. You’re close to finding and accessing a mother lode of inspiration, and one of the best ways to ensure that happens in an optimal way is to make “I don’t know” your mantra. In other words, be cheerfully devoted to shedding your certainties.

Lose your attachment to the beliefs and theories you tend to overly rely on. Make yourself as empty and clear and spacious as you possibly can.

GEMINI

MAY 21-JUNE 20: Gemini-born author Djuna

Barnes (1892-1982) was a world traveler who wrote in several different genres, ranging from lesbian fiction to essays on boxing to plays that used poetic language. She was experimental and empirical and experiential. On one occasion, she voluntarily submitted to the force-feeding endured by hunger-striking suffragists so she could write about what it was like to be tortured. Another fun fact about Djuna: Every morning, she did up her hair and put her make-up on, then climbed into bed and wrote for many hours. In the coming weeks, Gemini, I recommend you draw inspiration from every aspect of her life — except the torture part, of course. The coming weeks will be a fine time to be versatile, exploratory and committed to expressing yourself purely in whatever ways make you comfortably excited.

CANCER

JUNE 21-JULY 22: As a Cancerian, you have a natural

propensity to study and understand what author Margaret Atwood describes as “echoes and emptiness and shadow.” I believe this aspect of your repertoire will be especially active and available to you in the coming weeks. For best results, regard your attunement to these echoes and emptiness and shadow as an asset, even a precious talent. Use it to discern what’s missing or lost but could be recovered. Invoke it to help you navigate your way through murky or confusing situations. Call on it to help you see important things that are invisible to others.

LEO

JULY 23-AUG. 22: “Time can turn a scab into

a beauty mark,” said actor and screenwriter Nia Vardalos. That’s a rousingly poetic speculation — and more metaphorically true than literally. But I suspect that if it ever might have a useful and meaningful application to an actual human struggle, it will be yours in the coming months. In my view, you are in fact capable of harnessing the magic necessary to transform a wound into a lovely asset. Be bold and imaginative as you carry out this seemingly improbable feat — which is actually not improbable.

VIRGO

AUG. 23-SEPT. 22: Would you like to boost your mental

and physical health in the coming weeks? Try this: Immerse yourself in the understanding that you’re interconnected with everything in the world. Tell yourself stories about how the atoms that compose your body have previously been part of many other things. This isn’t just a poetic metaphor; it’s scientific fact. Now study this passage by science writer Ella Frances Sanders: “The carbon inside you could have

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

existed in any number of creatures or natural disasters before finding you. That particular atom residing somewhere above your left eyebrow? It could well have been a smooth riverbed pebble before deciding to call you home. You are rock and wave and the peeling bark of trees, you are ladybirds and the smell of a garden after the rain.”

LIBRA

SEPT. 23-OCT. 22: It’s a favorable time to celebrate

the fantastic privilege of being alive. Are you willing to believe that? Will you cooperate with my intention to nudge you in the direction of elation and exaltation? Are you open to the possibility that miracles and epiphanies may be at hand for you personally? To help get yourself in the proper mood, read this passage by Libran author Diane Ackerman: “The great affair, the love affair with life, is to live as variously as possible, to groom one’s curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred, climb aboard and gallop over the thick, sunstruck hills every day.”

SCORPIO

OCT. 23-NOV. 21: ”Deciding to remember, and

what to remember, is how we decide who we are,” writes poet Robert Pinsky. That’s useful counsel for you right now, Scorpio. You’re entering a phase when you can substantially reframe your life story so that it serves you better. And one of the smartest ways to do that is to take an inventory of the memories you want to emphasize versus the memories you’d like to minimize. Another good trick is to reinterpret challenging past events so that you can focus on how they strengthened you and mobilized your determination to be true to yourself.

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DEC. 22-JAN. 19: Poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau

said, “There are truths that one can only say after having won the right to say them.” In my estimation, you have recently earned the right to express a fresh batch of scintillating and useful truths. Please do us all a favor and unveil them — preferably with both candor and tact. On behalf of everyone who will benefit from your insights, I’m sending you congratulations for the work you’ve had to do on yourself so as to win them.

AQUARIUS

JAN. 20-FEB. 18: “After you make a fool of yourself

a few hundred times, you learn what works,” testifies musician and singer Gwen Stefani. In my own life, I’ve had to make a fool of myself more than a few hundred times to learn what works. My number is closer to a thousand — and I’m still adding new examples on a regular basis. In the coming weeks, Capricorn, I highly recommend that you try what has served me and Gwen Stefani so well. You’re entering a phase when your foolishness will generate especially useful lessons. Being innocent and wildly open-minded will also be very useful.

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SAGITTARIUS

time in order to act with grandeur,” wrote Sagittarian author and activist Jean Genet. “And dreaming is nursed in darkness.” According to my analysis of your astrological omens, this is an apt description of what has been unfolding for you, Sagittarius — and will continue to play out for you in the next two weeks. If you’re aligned with cosmic rhythms, you have been nursing your dreams in darkness — exploring and cultivating and learning from the raw creative energy that is simmering and ripening in your inner depths. Keep doing this important work, even if there are not yet any productive results. Eventually, it will enable you to “act with grandeur,” as Genet said.

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PISCES

FEB. 19-MARCH 20: “It is better to err on the side

of daring than the side of caution,” wrote author and futurist Alvin Toffler. While I hesitate to declare that idea to be absolutely and always true, I do recommend it to you in the coming weeks. Given the fact that you have recently been expanding possibilities and cultivating breakthroughs, I’d love to see you keep on pushing forward until you climax your momentum. To boost your courage, try to think of a crazy cry of exhilaration you might exclaim as you make your leaps, like “YAHOO!” or “HELL YES!” or

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JULY 16, 2020

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JULY 16, 2020

NETFLIX

his was the weekend we were waiting for: A return to movie theaters in the time of coronavirus.

Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster, Tenet, was going to kick things off; fitting considering that fewer filmmakers are as personally devoted to the theater-going experience as Nolan.

Alas, it is not to be. Tenet has been rolled back to August, as have theater openings. As the summer blockbuster season continues to evaporate, the emphasis turns, once more, to streaming and video on demand.

Take The Old Guard, now streaming on Netflix, for example: In a normal world, it’d be a perfect mid-summer release of an action-packed graphic novel adaptation. The story: A band of immortal soldiers have grown weary of fighting for a world they no longer feel is worth saving. Charlize Theron and KiKi Layne share lead roles as the seenit-all veteran and the doe-eyed recruit, respectively. Directed by Gina PrinceBythewood and written by Greg Rucka IFC FILMS (who also penned the graphic novels), The Old Guard is decent, but the movie’s reliance on excessive gunplay and an impersonal body count leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Yet, it’s the characters that sink this story: Not one has a personality to speak of. Curious considering that half of them have been alive for more than 1,000 years. You’d think they’d pick up a little culture along the way. Not the most scintillating thing you’ll see this summer, but it’ll hold your attention.

Ditto for The Painted Bird, though you might not be happy about it. Adapting Jerzy Kosiński’s 1965 novel of the same name, Czech filmmaker Václav Marhoul tells the horrific story of a young Polish boy trying to survive a world ravaged by WWII. Shot in striking black and white by cinematographer Vladimír Smutný, The Painted Bird is atrocity after atrocity, piled on with such frankness you begin to wonder if Marhoul delights in making the audience cringe. The cruelty here is egalitarian: Soldiers, civilians, men, beast, children, women — one scene depicts female violence so jarring even Lars von Trier would draw HULU pause. Proceed with caution. For rent on all major platforms.

Not a whole lot of laughs in either of those, but you’ll find plenty in Palm Springs, which, coincidentally, also involves the dilemma of immortality and various grisly deaths. But with a little sex. The conceit: Niles (Andy Samberg) is stuck in a Groundhog’s Day-esque time loop at a wedding in Palm Springs, California. No matter what he does or where he goes, he’ll always wake up in the same hotel room with the same cheating girlfriend. But when he inadvertently drags the bride’s sister, Sarah (Cristin Milioti), into the loop with him, things get bonkers. Written by Andy Siara and directed by Max Barbakow, Palm Springs is sweet and funny, and surprisingly original for a derivative high-concept movie. Streaming on Hulu.

For more on new releases to streaming and VOD, tune into Metro Arts on KGNU, Friday at 3 p.m. (88.5 FM, 1390 AM and online at kgnu.org).

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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Dear Dan: My wife asked me to refusing to come in your wife when write to you about our situation. you know that feeling you come inside We’ve been married for 15 years. I her is important to her pleasure is a am 50 years old and my wife is a weirdly literal kind of withholding decade younger. We are a heterosexbehavior — and considering how GGG ual couple with kids. I am a submisyour wife has been, SUBHUB, refusing sive male and I like to play with my to come in her so you can “continue” ass using different sized dildos. I presumably without her isn’t someenormously enjoy being penetrated thing a loving submissive would do. with sex toys. A few years ago I introIt’s something a selfish asshole does. duced the idea of a FLR — female-led Your wife doubtless suspects the relationship — to my wife same thing I do: You ROMAN ROBINSON and she accepted it. We aren’t coming in her are a happy couple! My because you’d rather wife is more on the tradiblow your load in the tional side of sex and I shower. She sees you respect that. We have when you slip out of bed PIV sex twice a week to go cram sex toys in and I try to give her pleayour ass and blow your sure as much as I can. load down the down the Looks like everything is drain instead of finishing OK, right? But recently in her. And if that’s what she complained that I you’re doing — and I’m have stopped ejaculating pretty sure that’s what when we have sex. And you’re doing — then it’s true: When we you’re treating PIV sex engage in vaginal penetration, I no with your wife as foreplay and the time longer ejaculate. I like it this way you spend alone with your ass toys as because I don’t lose my sex drive and the main event. If I were your wife, I can continue. But she doesn’t like it. SUBHUB, I would find that annoying For her my ejaculate is the “cherry on too. And however much you love your top” of the sex and my coming during plugs and dildos, I would hope you sex is important for her pleasure and love your wife more. At any rate, you satisfaction. My wife thinks that I aren’t submissive to your plugs and stopped ejaculating because I develdildos — you’re submissive to your oped the habit of pleasuring myself wife, who isn’t made of silicone and with dildos and butt plugs in the who has needs and feelings that have shower. My wife thinks the toys are to be taken into account. distracting me. Do you think it’s true?

At the very least, SUBHUB, your If that’s the case, what should we do? wife’s pleasure should be your first I love my wife but I also love my butt priority during PIV sex — and it’s not plugs and dildos. like you can’t combine PIV with a little —Spouse Unpleased By butt play. You can always shove one Husband’s Un Blasts of your beloved plugs in your ass

before you have PIV sex with the Dear SUBHUB: You should come wife. And if you didn’t refrain from in your wife. ejaculating every single time you had If your wife is in charge — you PIV, SUBHUB, if it was something you proposed a “female-led relationship” were allowed to once in a while with and she accepted — then she gets to your wife’s permission, she might be give the orders and you’re supposed willing to accommodate your desire to do what she says. (Within reason, every 10th time you have PIV. of course.) So when she says, “Come Listen to Dan and comedian Jay in me,” you should say, “How high up Jurden on the Lovecast! your vaginal canal would you like me Send questions to mail@savto come?” Even if you weren’t in a agelove.net, follow Dan on Twitter @ female-led relationship, SUBHUB, fakedansavage and visit ITMFA.org.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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BOULDER WEEKLY

BOULDER WEEKLY

TRY THIS WEEK:

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It’s Texas-style barbecue served up simply — on a platter — with your choice of sides and sauces. Most meats will sell out by early afternoon, so get there early to have your pick of the menu. We opted for slow smoked pork shoulder, St. Louis ribs and candied pork belly. The ribs have a tremendously textured and smoky-flavored bark with tender meat falling off the bone. The pulled pork shoulder is succulent, almost juicy. But, wow, the candied pork belly is as good as it sounds — slightly sweet, mapletinged bark with unctuous, melty, fatty meat on the inside.

BARBECUE PLATE. Wayne’s Smoke Shack, 406 Center Drive, Superior, 303-554-5319, waynessmokeshack.com

2

1 n Drink this: West Flanders Brewing Co.’s Holy Wit! July 18 is St. Arnoldus Day, the celebration of the 11th-century bishop and a patron saint of Belgium brewers. Back in Arnold’s day, clean drinking water was hard to come by, making many sick. During one epidemic, Arnold, an abbot in Oudenberg, brewed beer (which is boiled and thus free of bacteria) and advised the locals to drink it instead.

They complied, and Arnold saved lives, one pint at a time. To honor the saint, Brussels holds a parade every July. And since you can’t go to Brussels to partake, hoist a glass at Boulder’s West Flanders Brewing Co. Brewmaster Brian Lutz has been championing Flemish ales since the 1990s, and West Flanders pours a couple of his best: the Belgian-style Abbey ale, Angry Monk, and Trippel Lutz. But on a hot, dry July day, nothing quenches the thirst like Holy Wit! Cloudy orange with a soft, sparkling head, the mouth is full of carbonation, sweet orange, spicy coriander and creamy malt. It’s way more refreshing than water and downright life-affirming. The health epidemic may be different, but the advice remains: Don’t drink the water, drink the beer.

BOULDER WEEKLY

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n You want high-end Colorado-grown cider?

You got it. Colorado’s Snowcapped Cider recently released Gold Rush, made from coveted cider apples (Blanc Mollet, Ashmead’s Kernel, English Golden Russet and Dabinett) that were carefully cultivated and grown in 109-year old orchards.

It’s pressed and slow-fermented for a semi-sparkling finish. Said owner Kari Williams, “These apples are not readily available to cider makers, and most orchards in the U.S. do not grow them. If they do, it’s a small amount. The varietals are from France and England, are estate-grown and sourced from one location.” Find Gold Rush and other Snowcapped Cider products at a Boulder County liquor store using the handy tool at snowcappedcider.com/cider-finder.

JULY 16, 2020

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JULY 16, 2020

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Know your brew: Czech lager

rough characteristics — and long lagering times, all of which tend to be cost-prohibitive for small brewers. You could make a lager without them, but then it wouldn’t be the Czech lager.

Lucky for Boulder County drinkers, few brewers are as steeped in European brewing traditions as Brandon Boldt of 4 Noses Brewing Company, Primitive Beer and Wild Provisions Beer Project. And on July 18, Wild Provisions will celebrate its official grand opening with two new Czech-inspired lagers, on tap and in the can.

As Boldt explains, Wild Provisions sources all of its grains from the Czech Republic and uses reverse osmosis water MICHAEL J. CASEY blended with carbon filter municipal water to mimic Pilsen’s soft water. Mashes are decocted, and the wort is boiled for two hours with multiple Saaz additions. All of this takes place at 4 Noses’ brewhouse in Broomfield. Once the wort is ready, it’s trucked up to Wild Provisions fermentation room in Boulder, where it’s put through a heat exchanger, dropping the temperature before it’s released into a coolship, lowering the temperature even more. Unlike the Flemish koelchip (they’re pronounced the same way), Boldt uses this coolship to precipitate out insoluble proteins as a type of pre-fermentation filtration and clarification. It takes two hours. The wort is racked into an open fermentation vessel, which Boldt says allows the lager yeast to express its extra-cleanliness and scrubs the beer of any volatile compounds.

Fermentation takes about seven to 10 days. Then the beer matures in a horizontal lagering tank for another 30 to 40 days before it’s ready for consumption.

The results are a thing of beauty, and starting July 18, you can drink them at a cost substantially less than a plane ticket to the Czech Republic. Na zdraví.

Boulder’s new outpost for brewing’s grand tradition

by Michael J. Casey

T

he beer world is replete with traditions: American IPA, English cask bitters, Belgian abbey ales... But none have the distinction, nor cast a longer shadow than, that of Czech lagers.

As the story goes, ’round about 1840, a citizens’ brewery in Pilsen, Bohemia, recruited a brewer from neighboring Bavaria, Josef Groll, to invent a premium beer they could hang their hat on. Groll accepted, brought Bavarian lager yeast across the border, combined it with the native Saaz (or Žatec) hops, Bohemia’s soft water, and pale malting techniques perfected in England. The result was a sparkling golden beer, crisp and clean, flavorful and tangy, with a refined taste and distinct balance.

They called it Plzeňský Prazdroj, or, in German, pilsner urquell, “pilsner original source.”

It was a watershed moment in brewing and the majority of all beers produced since echo — no matter how faint — Groll’s Pilsner Urquell.

Though the ingredients of Czech lager are simple (pale/Pilsner malt, Saaz hops, lager yeast), the beauty lies in the brewing technique. The barley is floor-malted — less modified than other malts, thus richer and more flavorful — and works better with decoction mashing. This labor-intensive process involves drawing off portions of the mash, boiling it in a separate vessel and then returning it to the mash, raising the overall temperature. Time-consuming, to say the least, but it develops a level of malt character second to none.

Ditto for first wort hopping — which adds hops early in the process and takes the spike off the bitterness and smooths out

Pale or dark?

D

espite the ubiquity of Pilsner Urquell in liquor stores and bars, Czech lagers are difficult to come by unless you visit the source — the neighboring photo of a světlý ležák (pronounced svet leh lay zhak) and a tmavé pivo (pronounced t’ ma veh PEE voh) was taken at the restaurant Zdroj in Český Krumlov.

Though there are a few variants as far as strength and color, most Czech lagers are either pale or dark. Wild Provisions follows suit with Premium Pale Lager (PPL) and Czech Dark Lager (CDL). Made entirely from floor-malted Pilsner malt and Saaz hops, PPL is triple decocted with three separate Saaz additions. CDL is primarily Pilsner malt but with floor-malted Bohemian Dark malt and CaraBohemian, with some dehusked Carafa Special 2 added during the sparge process.

Boldt does this “to reduce pyrolytic flavor contributions but still darken the color and push aromas of bakers chocolate.”

Like the PPL, the CDL is boiled for two hours with three separate Saaz additions before the journey to the coolship, fermenter and maturation tanks.

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JULY 16, 2020

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BOULDER WEEKLY

PHOTOS BY MATT CORTINA

From the field

Baby artichokes from Black Cat Farm are worth the effort

by Matt Cortina

T

here will be a time when you’re wondering if it’s worth the effort. If scrubbing and peeling and cutting farmfresh baby artichokes will yield enough — by the time you’re done, they’re the size of a chestnut — to make a dish. And you’ll probably get stabbed by a thorn on the end of its outer petals more than once.

Trust us: It’s worth it.

The baby artichoke — a smaller artichoke picked from lower on the plant — has advantages over those that grow larger.

They don’t have a choke (the appropriately named fiber above the heart that would gag you if you consumed it), so, after trimming, you can cook the whole bulb. The workload is reversed from a full-sized artichoke:

instead of steaming, then peeling away petals and scraping off meat, you’re trimming first and then munching pieces whole.

Now you may find artichokes at several Boulder County farm stands, but we grabbed some from the Black Cat set-up on Jay Road in North Boulder.

There, baby artichokes go for about $15/ pound — we got more than enough for $7.

Typical of the unique, flavor-forward crops Eric Skokan and team grow on their

Peeling and preparing

Baby artichokes with garlic, pecorino and lemon

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P

repare the baby artichokes for cooking as outlined (right). Boil one cup of water and steam the artichokes for five minutes.

While the artichokes are steaming, chop half a sweet onion, two or three garlic bulbs and sauté over medium heat in a skillet. When the artichokes are done steaming, add them to the sauté pan. Feel free to add in chopped tomato, seasonings, fresh herbs from your garden, whatever calls out to you. Pull the pan off the heat after five minutes or so, dress in a healthy amount of lemon juice and/or olive oil, and sprinkle Parmesan or pecorino cheese on top if you wish. Eat straight off the plate, serve on toasted bread, mix into longnoodle pasta or fold into an omelet.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

many acres in Boulder County, the baby artichokes are good enough to be the focus of whatever dish you put them in. After some minimal cooking, and a hit of lemon juice, the artichokes will taste floral and slightly sweet, and have a pleasantly soft texture.

I

crub the baby artichokes in cold water with a brush to remove any dirt and a natural, thin film that develops on the outer petals. Cut the stem of the artichoke to about a quarter-inch from the heart (at the bottom of the bulb).

Carefully peel away the thorny, tough outer leaves until you’re left with a pale green bulb. Depending on the variety of artichoke, the top of the bulb may be green or purplish-red; either way trim the tops off the artichoke, then halve or quarter the remaining bit, depending on size. If you see any choke (hairy and fibrous), scoop it out.

Throw the artichokes into a bowl with cold water and lemon juice; that’ll help them retain their color, which fades quickly once exposed to oxygen. Then, choose your method of preparation. We’ve got a steamand-sauté method (left) that’s quick and easy, but you can grill or roast them, throw them in a crock pot or pickle them.

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Golden oldie pot strains from the ’60s

By Paul Danish

A

h, those were the days of hippie glory.

And now you can relive them. Sorta.

Adam Pallay, Leafly’s education editor, posted a piece on July 7 about “five classic weed strains from the ’60s you can still find today.”

The strains are all called “landraces,” meaning they carry the name of the places where they were bred, and from which they supposedly get unique properties. The five on Pallay’s ’60s golden oldies list in the order presented were Durban Poison, Afghani, Lamb’s Bread, Acapulco Gold and Thai.

All excellent choices, but the list should start with Acapulco Gold, the first connoisseur’s pot. A pure sativa, Pallay describes it as “an uplifting landrace strain from Mexico” that once was considered “the standard in cannabis production.”

“A lot of this had to do with the plant’s beautiful appearance and its ability to produce an abundance of THC…” over 20%.

“It offers a unique aroma of toffee and you get

a bit of funky cheese in the taste,” he added.

I seem to recall an old article about Acapulco Gold in High Times that suggested the gold color came not from any unique genetics but from not harvesting it until it turned golden brown in the fall.

Afghani should be in second place, I guess, as a representative of the first indicas to make it big in the ’60s marijuana scene.

“Afghani is a broad-leafed strain with dense buds that produces heavy resin perfect for hash production,” Pallay says.

It’s an iconic indica, and it’s possible to get Afghani today, but it’s the hashish that was the real blast from the ’60s. According to legend, it was sometimes collected by workers running through the fields with leather aprons on which the resin from the plants’ buds would stick. Later it would be scraped off and rolled into balls. If that’s not true, it ought to be.

(According to Wikipedia, most of the hash consumed in the 1960s came from Morocco, not Afghanistan.)

As for Lamb’s Bread, I never heard the name in the ’60s, but it was a strain of Jamaican pot, and Jamaican pot definitely had cachet in the ’60s (and its own musical genre, reggae). Pallay says Lamb’s Bread was Bob Marley’s strain of choice.

Thai made its appearance in the U.S. in the late ’60s and early ’70s and was often sold in the form of “Thai Sticks,” which were marijuana colas skewered on bamboo sticks, wrapped with pot leaves, and tied with hemp strings. You pulled out the stick and smoked ’em like a cigar. Chances are they owed their popularity more to American troops in Vietnam than American hippies in Thailand. Pallay says Thai “smells like tropical

fruit with a hint of diesel, and it gives a subtle floral taste on the exhale.”

A perfect choice to use while watching the director’s cut of Apocalypse Now on the hottest night of the summer.

Durban Poison is a pure sativa that, according to Pallay, “offers a bouquet of anise, earthy spiciness and sweetness. Nothing else in the cannabis world is like it.” I never heard of it during the ’60s, but that may be because it didn’t appear in Colorado that often. Or maybe I just wasn’t paying attention. At any rate, it’s become one of my favs now.

I think at least two other venerable strains belong on the list: Panama Red and Maui Wowie.

Panama Red is a pure sativa that appeared about the same time as acapulco Gold. Leafly describes it as “an old-school cannabis classic” that rose to prominence “thanks to its speedy and intense effects, bordering on psychedelic.”

But it had a long flowering period, minimum 11 weeks, which discouraged production. It may have been left off Pallay’s list because it’s so hard to find.

Leafly describes Maui Wowie as “a classic sativa whose tropical flavors and stress-relieving qualities will float you straight to the shores of Hawaii where this strain originally comes from.” It adds that it has sweet pineapple flavors and produces a “high-energy euphoria.”

How high energy?

One reviewer wrote, “Smoked a bowl of this and got inspired enough to clean my entire house. I felt incredibly accomplished and rewarded myself by eating a whole chicken. Most active day I’ve had in a while.”

Maybe Procter & Gamble should include an eighth with every gallon jug of Mr. Clean.

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