No Grinch this year

For more years than I can remember, at this time of year someone within earshot would say, “Christmas carols so soon? It’s the day after Thanksgiving and the carols have started. Far too early.” That always struck me as a little Grinch-like. This year, however, no one has uttered those words. Instead, there seems an almost universal haste to bring on the holiday season.

Our favorite nursery and hardware store reports their stock of wreaths, garlands, lights, candles and festive decorations is nearly sold out. Drive through neighborhoods after dark and more houses than usual seem festooned. And while many of us are staying away from retail shops for health and safety reasons, seasonal shopping is at a brisk pace online as witnessed by the UPS, FedEx, Prime and USPS trucks out and about.

We should not be surprised at ourselves this year. As we enter the 10th month of mask-wearing, social distancing and cabin hibernation, we are looking for the comfort of those seasonal traditions that were commonplace before the pandemic.

Across cultures worldwide, regardless of their religions, rituals bring meaning to ordinary time and action. They lift us out of the commonplace by changing what we see, hear, taste and smell. In short, rituals of whatever kind link the present with the past, whether it is our tribe’s, family’s, community’s or our very own. And we seem to need them most when the world around us seems dark and possibly even dangerous.

For centuries and in many cultures the winter solstice (which occurs this month) has been seen as a significant time and has been marked by festivals and rituals. It marked the symbolic death and rebirth of the sun. The seasonal significance of the winter solstice is in the reversal of the gradual lengthening of nights and shortening of days.

With the pandemic death toll in our country now approaching 280,000, we are truly in a very dark time. And while the promise of effective vaccines offers a light ahead, as does the solstice promise the return of the sun, we seek some comfort in rituals of this season and trust they will bolster our hope for better times.

So this year, whatever festival we observe, we are likely to do so more thoughtfully and with greater intensity. As much as we may trust in science, we also take comfort in our rituals.

Hybrid ha-ha

Dual platform comedy show

On more than one level, Mike Koutrobis knows the strange reality of entertainment in the Covid era. Most Sundays he’s on the sidelines of New England Patriots home games, doing various jobs, from camera assistant to holding a sound dish, for whatever network is broadcasting the game. Right now, the stands are largely empty as fans watch the action safely from home.

“They pump in crowd noise. It’s an illusion,” he said. “It’s weird, but amazing to be there.”

The veteran comedian found a similarly novel way to share his act. For an upcoming show at Zinger’s in Milford, he’ll share the stage with Kelly MacFarland, as a live audience of a dozen or more people watches along with a virtual crowd. The latter will face Koutrobis from two giant flat screens in the back of the room.

“I’m literally looking at the Zoom crowds as if they’re in the audience,” he said, likening the experience to watching the opening credits of The Brady Bunch. Hecklers aren’t a problem, but crowd work isn’t impossible. “You can go, ‘Hey, left corner with a weird couch.’ … You can use it in your act, and it feels like you’re interacting with them.”

How to talk about the virus is “a million-dollar question,” he said. Comics are obliged to say something about it, but the truth is people come to comedy shows to escape that. It’s a high-wire act.

“I think the big phrase is making people feel OK that they’re not the only ones going through it — here’s how to think about it in another way,” he said.

Still, the pandemic gave Koutrobis plenty of new material.

“One of my first jokes is not even a joke,” he said. “I said, people lost a lot — jobs, family and friends. I’ve lost something very dear to my heart, and that’s the ability to button my pants since April.”

On the other hand, Koutrobis’s act has always focused on relationships, evolving from dating to marriage and parenthood. The quarantine simply added another wrinkle.

“I’m 50 years old with an 18-month-old kid, and I’m stuck in the house, so I’ve got a lot of that to go off,” he said. “I don’t care how much you love somebody, if you’re stuck in the same place, you gotta learn to adjust. So I have jokes showing my frustration but also how we’re making it work.”

Koutrobis was one of the first comics to work after quarantine ended in May, playing the kickoff drive-in show at Tupelo Music Hall in Derry, an experience he described as “disconnected. … I didn’t feel the flow like I usually do when I’m doing it every weekend.”

Later, shows got more comfortable.

“I was able to hook up with Amherst Country Club, and I found a couple of breweries,” he said. “People brought lawn chairs and I set up a portable stage; that way, people can sit as far away as possible. It started becoming … I’ll never say normal, but almost normal. We had enough people in the room or in the grass to at least feel like a crowd was there.”

He’s had his share of surreal moments, however, like one show done at a Milford retirement home as a favor.

“It really was only like 12 people, all sitting in a huge room, 15 feet away from each other,” he said. “I’m at the front on the stage, but because of the place I was in I had to wear my mask. So I’m telling jokes to senior citizens who can barely hear in the first place, with a muffled mask on.”

That’s not to say Koutrobis wouldn’t do it again.

“These are the things we’ve had to adjust to,” he said. “It’s a lot, but I can’t not perform. So I kind of take what I can.”

Mike Koutrobis & Kelly MacFarland
When: Friday, Dec. 4, 8 p.m.
Where: Zinger’s, 29 Mont Vernon St., Milford
Tickets: Live $20 and Zoom $10 at tinyurl.com/yy8sjsdn

Featured photo: Mike Koutrobis. Courtesy photo.

Happiest Season (PG-13) & Superintelligence (PG)

Happiest Season (PG-13)

Hulu offers a solid bit of Christmas content in the streaming-service-holiday-movie competition with Happiest Season, a sweet, genuinely fun and ultimately emotionally rich holiday love story.

Abby (Kristen Stewart) hasn’t gotten too jazzed about Christmas since losing her parents at age 19 but when her girlfriend Harper (Mackenzie Davis) invites her home to her parents’ house for Christmas, Abby is genuinely excited. She even buys an engagement ring and plans to ask Harper to marry her, possibly Christmas morning, possibly even going real old-school and asking Harper’s dad for his blessing.

This would come as a surprise to Ted (Victor Garber), Harper’s dad, who doesn’t know Harper and Abby are together or even that Harper is gay. Harper has told her family, including mom Tipper (Mary Steenburgen), that Abby is her (straight) roommate who just needs a place to go for the holidays. Abby is horrified to hear all of this, particularly as she hears it in the car when the couple is practically at the parents’ house, but she decides to go along with it for Harper’s sake.

She quickly realizes that Harper’s fear of coming out to her parents is only part of the family tension. Harper is hyper-competitive with her oldest sister, Sloane (Alison Brie), a mom of two kids who runs a business with her husband, Eric (Burl Moseley), but who is constantly catching shade from her parents about giving up a career as a lawyer. Harper’s middle sister, Jane (Mary Holland), is perpetually overlooked and underestimated. Tipper is freaking out about her extremely fancy and involved Christmas Eve party — even more so this year because Ted is running for mayor and hoping to impress a big donor (Ana Gasteyer). What exactly Tipper’s and Ted’s damage is that has caused them to pit their children against each other and make them feel like big life issues are better kept quiet (even before Ted started running for mayor) the movie never says. But basically, this family is high-strung.

I usually do not love this kind of movie, the The Family Stone-ish type family-gets-together-for-holidays story, because they usually push the limits of how normal humans act to such a degree that I find it somewhat unwatchable. I always find myself thinking “hey, grown adults, you can leave this horrible situation, or not come at all, or get a hotel room and come for the meals but leave in between.” Here, the movie makes most of the crazy behavior make sense, at least within the logic of the movie — the secrets the sisters keep from each other, Harper’s paralyzing fear of her parents, Abby’s hurt reaction to Harper’s behavior but reluctance to give up on Harper. (Maybe not the parents. I’ve read some criticism of this movie which is essentially “what is with these parents?” and there really is no sense-making reason for people who end up where these people end up to act this way in 2020 but I guess you just have to accept certain elements of extreme character stasis followed by sudden growth for this kind of story, just as you have just sort of go with the idea that Harper deeply loves Abby but would put her through all this.) There are very “holiday movie” moments — these movies seem to always feature a fight involving a Christmas tree — but there is some very recognizable human emotion happening, particularly with Abby. The movie doesn’t turn Abby into a doormat or let Harper off the hook (at least not entirely) for the way she treats her, while still giving us the happy beats you need in a movie like this.

I realize I am very late to this party but Kristen Stewart is great — she’s good with the emotional stuff and even better in the comedy moments (a scene where she briefly has to interact with Sloane’s kids called to mind her excellent “Duolingo for Talking to Kids” Saturday Night Live commercial skit). She and Davis have solid chemistry (though not quite as good as Stewart and Aubrey Plaza, who shows up as Harper’s first girlfriend and is a delight). Steenburgen, Garber, Brie and Holland are good supporting players, offering their own moments that fill in whole sides of their characters with just a look or a line reading. Other standout supporting actors include Daniel Levy as a friend of Abby’s and even a brief scene with Timothy Simons as a security guard.

With genuine romance, actual humor and a lot of solid family stuff, Happiest Season is a holiday treat. B

Rated PG-13 for some language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Clea DuVall with a screenplay by Clea DuVall & Mary Holland, Happiest Season is an hour and 42 minutes long and distributed by TriStar. It is available on Hulu.

Superintelligence (PG)

An A.I. picks an average human to teach it about humanity so it can decide whether or not to “Clorox wipe the entire planet and let it start over” in Superintelligence, the best of these Ben Falcone-directed, Melissa McCarthy-starring comedies.

And that’s not a backhanded dig. While not quite as sharp or as bold as McCarthy’s best work, Superintelligence is light and fun and with just the right amount of smart.

What started as a Teddy Ruxpin-ish stuffed animal thing that taught kids to read has somehow morphed into a sentient intelligence that is in, as Carol Peters (McCarthy) quickly learns, everything from computers and phones to her rice cooker and alarm clock. Super Intelligence, as it calls itself, sounds like James Corden to Carol, because of her James Corden fandom (and because Corden does most of its vocal work here), and briefly Octavia Spencer to Dennis (Brian Tyree Henry), her best friend who works at Microsoft and is the person Carol tells after she “meets” the Super Intelligence. It tells her about its recent sudden sentience and its “meh” take on humans. Its dilemma: Should it help humans fix our problems or enslave us or just get rid of us altogether. It has decided to watch Carol to try to figure out what makes humans tick and, to see her response to a variety of situations, it gives her things — a fancy car (that it controls), a fancy new house, a bunch of money and a foundation that she can use to give money to good causes.

Perhaps most importantly, it gives her a push to find George (Bobby Cannavale), her ex-boyfriend, and try to put things right with him. They were apparently very much in love but Carol had what sounds like a career/life crisis and decided to change everything — focusing on doing good in the world and leaving George in the process. We quickly see that he hasn’t ever gotten over her and she very much still loves him but George happens to be just days away from moving to Ireland as part of a year-long teaching fellowship. Super Intelligence nevertheless pushes her to ask him out on a date and patch things up — whatever that means for their future, if there even is A Future.

Meanwhile, Dennis contacts the government even though Super Intelligence told his Microsoft team to back off (but with a “lighthearted” reference to War Games, so you can see why Dennis may not want to listen). The U.S. and the international community work together to find a way to “trap” Super Intelligence before it can “play a game” with the world. Thusly do we also meet the FBI agents (Ben Falcone, Sam Richardson) who spend time tracking Carol’s interaction with Super Intelligence and the U.S. president (Jean Smart), who feels like one of those Shmillary Shminton movie presidents that showed up in films in, like, 2017 and 2018.

This movie plays to all McCarthy’s strengths: believably conveying empathy, physical comedy, doing “regular person in a crazy situation” (as in Spy), being believably awkward and charming at the same time. She is generally someone I just enjoy watching, almost regardless of the quality of the material she’s given, but here she’s got good material — good, if maybe not the “great” of Spy or The Heat.

The movie is also just a solid comedy overall — broad but with strong bits (a job interview scene early in the movie featuring Jessica St. Clair and Karan Soni is almost completely irrelevant to the movie but is also just goofy fun). I also like what the movie does with George. He isn’t a tough guy or a pushover or a performative do-gooder or a fantasy boyfriend. He seems like, at least for a broad comedy, something approaching a normal human — one who has certain life ambitions, who still loves his ex but who was hurt by her and yet still hasn’t let that make him a jerk. He seems like, I don’t know, an adult. Carol also seems like an adult. I mention that because maturity often feels like a goal and not a pre-existing condition in a movie like this and it was just nice to see.

Superintelligence probably isn’t the smartest comedy I’ll watch all year but, as a bit of fun entertainment during a holiday weekend, it was absolutely satisfying. B

Rated PG for some suggestive material, language and thematic elements, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Ben Falcone and written by Steven Mallory, Superintellegence is an hour and 46 minutes long and distributed by New Line Cinema. It is available on HBO Max.

Featured Photo: The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special

In the kitchen with Carrie Williams

Carrie Williams of Contoocook is the owner and chef of the Flannel Tavern (345 Suncook Valley Road, Chichester, 406-1196, flanneltavern.com), a casual eatery on Route 28 that opened in April and offers scratch-made comfort foods. The menu features everything from burgers and sandwiches to appetizers, fresh salads, and plated entrees, like fish and chips, baked haddock, chicken fingers, lasagna rolls and macaroni and cheese. Beer and wine selections include both domestic and local options, with craft cocktails also available. Williams, who worked as a caterer for more than a decade, said the restaurant’s concept is based on many different types of comfort foods she grew up eating.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

I would be lost withoaut aluminum foil, and then obviously a chef’s knife. I have one that I use all the time, with an orange handle.

What would you have for your last meal?

Prime rib and mashed potatoes.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

I would have to say the Lakehouse Tavern in Hopkinton. They are really good. A lot of times, I’ll get The Bird Man, which is a huge sandwich.

What celebrity would you like to see eating at your restaurant?

Someone I’ve always wanted to meet is Van Morrison. We listen to him in the kitchen all the time.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

The chicken bacon ranch sandwich. It [has] chicken tenders with mozzarella sticks, bacon and our homemade buttermilk ranch on a kaiser roll. It’s our No. 1 sandwich.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?

What I’m seeing across the board, especially with so many restaurants that have been closing, is that people are more going back to home-cooked meals and things that are just really comforting during such a stressful time.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

Thanksgiving dinner is one of my favorite things to put on. It’s always been a big deal in my family. We do turkey, boiled onions, sweet potatoes, my grandma’s cranberry relish and an apple sausage stuffing.

Carrie’s coconut cream pie
From the kitchen of Carrie Williams of the Flannel Tavern in Chichester
9-inch pie shell, baked and set aside
1 cup shredded coconut, toasted to golden brown (1 to 2 minutes at 450 degrees)
3 cups heavy whipping cream
½ cup flour
¾ cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
Add heavy whipping cream, flour, sugar and eggs to a saucepan, turning on to medium heat and stirring constantly until thickened. Remove from heat and add ¾ cup of the toasted coconut and vanilla. Add mixture from cream, flour, sugar and eggs to the pie shell and cool for two hours. Top with whipped cream and the last ¼ cup of coconut.

Featured Photo: Carrie Williams

Coffee and community

McLaughlin’s Country Market opens in Concord

While looking for a commercial property to start his own coffee roastery, David McLaughlin came across a vacant storefront in East Concord — the old Quality Cash Market, which closed more than two years ago. In July, he and partner Tiffani McIntosh decided to check out the space and see what they could do with it.

“One of our biggest visions … was that it needed to be a place for the locals, in a comfortable, neighborhood setting,” McIntosh said.

McLaughlin’s Country Market, which opened on Nov. 17, features fresh coffees roasted onsite, in addition to groceries, beer and wine, and a diverse selection of locally made products — and coming soon, a Nadeau’s sub shop. McLaughlin is a longtime friend of franchise owner Jeremy Nadeau, who has five other locations in the state.

McIntosh said the market has already had a tremendous amount of support.

“Even before we opened, people had been coming to the door and asking us when we are opening and what’s going to be here, so we’ve been developing relationships for two months,” she said.

Freshly roasted in house under the name Second Love Coffee, the coffees at the market are part of a passion project for McLaughlin. With varying flavors and degrees of sweetness and acidity, each blend is available for self-serve pouring, or you can get any of them as small batches of bean or ground coffee for home use, prepared fresh on the Java Master roaster in real time.

“You can generate all kinds of flavors out of one bean, just by roasting it differently,” said McLaughlin, who has been home-roasting on and off for several years and gets his green coffee beans from Colombia and Costa Rica. “The Java Master is nice because you can roast one to six pounds at a time, so you could come in and say, ‘Can I get three pounds of this bean,’ and then have it roasted while you’re waiting, or [you could] pick it up the next day.”

While McLaughlin’s doesn’t have a butcher shop like its predecessor, a variety of pre-packaged sliced meats are for sale out of the market’s grocery area, as well as basic items like milk, eggs, bread, cheeses, produce, snacks, sodas and pastries. There is also a special section dedicated to products made in New Hampshire — McIntosh has worked with local purveyors of barbecue sauces, doughnuts, maple syrups, goat milk soaps and other items to stock the shelves with.

You’ll find the new Nadeau’s order counter near the back of the building. While that is expected to be fully operational very soon, according to McIntosh, Nadeau’s in the meantime has provided the market with cold sandwiches for sale and is currently training employees at other shop locations to come work in Concord. She said plans will likely be in the works soon to arrange a joint takeout service of items between Nadeau’s and McLaughlin’s.

“Let’s say you’re out of milk, and you want to pick up a sub for dinner while you’re here. We can collaborate and you can get whatever grocery items you need,” she said.

McLaughlin said he and McIntosh have already seen their fair share of repeat customers in just a short period of time being open.

“It’s definitely more of a little shopping market for the neighborhood versus a lot of transient business coming and going and you might not see them again,” he said.

McLaughlin’s Country Market
Where
: 11 Eastman St., Concord
Hours: Monday through Saturday, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sunday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
More info: Find them on Facebook @mclaughlinscountrymarket or email mclaughlinscountrymarket@gmail.com

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Tooned in

Yellow Submarine, classic cartoons animator visits Manchester

Relive the golden age of Saturday morning cartoons with legendary animator Ron Campbell, who has planned a three-day stop in the Granite State as part of his Beatles Cartoon Art Show Tour.

Campbell will be at Creative Framing Solutions in Manchester from Friday, Dec. 4, through Sunday, Dec. 6, exhibiting and selling around 70 original works of art he has created during his retirement from his 50-year career in television cartoons.

The collection of watercolor and ink cartoon paintings is largely focused on Campbell’s work as an animator for The Beatles’ 1968 animated feature film Yellow Submarine and as director of The Beatles’ Saturday morning cartoon, The Beatles, which aired on ABC from 1965 through 1969.

“You can buy all kinds of Beatles [fandom merchandise], but it’s very rare to be able to get a piece of artwork by one of the people who helped present the [Beatles] cartoons you watched when you were a child,” Campbell said.

In addition to The Beatles paintings, the show will feature paintings inspired by some of the other cartoons Campbell contributed to, which include Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Rugrats, The Smurfs, The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, George of the Jungle, The Yogi Bear Show, Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, Ed, Edd n Eddy and more.

“This isn’t a serious art show; it’s not Picasso or Rembrandt,” Campbell said. “These are bright and colorful paintings that are very fun to look at and bring back a lot of nostalgic memories for people.”

Each person who purchases a painting will receive a certificate of authenticity along with a custom drawing done by Campbell on site.

“I’ll do The Beatles, Fred Flintstone, Scooby-Doo — whatever cartoon character the customer would like,” he said.

Originally from Australia and now residing in Arizona, Campbell has been bringing his Beatles Cartoon Art Show to cities across America for several years now, but has been exhibiting and selling his artwork in some capacity since he retired in 2008. Only when he started meeting his audience in person, he said, did he realize the “enormous impact” that his cartoons had on the American citizens who grew up with them.

“I’ve learned now from my experiences talking to people that those Saturday morning cartoons were some of their happiest memories from their childhood,” he said. “They would rush down the stairs on Saturday morning, screaming, because it was the one time where they had total control of the TV. It was a special, magical time for them.”

Campbell, who turns 81 years old this month, said he “never gets tired of meeting the audience” and has no plans to stop touring. He’s bringing the show to Kennebunk, Maine, next weekend and hopes to return to a more regular tour schedule once Covid restrictions are loosened.

“Sometimes, when I’m just sitting in my chair, I get a bit drowsy and grouchy, but as soon as I know I’m going to be leaving and doing a show, that gets me up and working and planning,” he said. “It keeps me young.”

The Beatles Cartoon Art Show with Ron Campbell
Where
: Creative Framing Solutions, 89 Hanover St., Manchester
When: Friday, Dec. 4, from 4 to 8 p.m.; Saturday, Dec. 5, from noon to 6 p.m., and Sunday, Dec. 6, from noon to 4 p.m.
Cost: Free; RSVPs recommended
More info: Call 320-5988 or visit creativeframingsolutions.com or beatlescartoonartshow.com

Art

Exhibits

• “SLEIGHBELL STUDIO” Exhibit features a curated collection of fine art and crafts affordably priced for holiday gift giving. Twiggs Gallery (254 King St., Boscawen). On view now through Dec. 12. Gallery hours are Thursday and Friday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. Visit twiggsgallery.wordpress.com or call 975-0015.

• “MOMENTS IN NATURE” The New Hampshire Art Association presents oil paintings by BJ Eckardt. Concord Chamber of Commerce Gallery, 49 S. Main St., Concord. On display now through Dec. 17. Visit nhartassociation.org or call 431-4230.

• “UNSEEN LIGHT” The New Hampshire Art Association presents infrared photography by Mark Giuliucci. 2 Pillsbury St., Concord. On display now through Dec. 17. Visit nhartassociation.org or call 431-4230.

• “AN EXTRAPOLATION OF CLOSE OBSERVATION” The New Hampshire Art Association presents prints and paintings by Kate Higley. 2 Pillsbury St., Concord. On display now through Dec. 17. Visit nhartassociation.org or call 431-4230.

• “SMALL WORKS – BIG IMPACT” Creative Ventures Gallery’s annual holiday exhibit featuring small works of art in various media, priced affordably for gift buying. Virtual. On display now through Dec. 31. Visit creativeventuresfineart.com or call 672-2500.

Fairs and markets

VIRTUAL HOLIDAY SHOP The Warner Historical Society presents an online shop at warnerhistorical.org/store featuring hand-painted holiday ornaments, calendars, mugs and drinking glasses, T-shirts, books, jigsaw puzzles and more, plus a holiday raffle. Curbside pickup on Sat., Dec. 5, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sat., Dec. 12, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the Upton Chandler House Museum (10 W. Main St., Warner). Call 456-2437 or email info@warnerhistorical.org.

• “HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS: AN ART SHOW & SALE Features all kinds of art, including oil and watercolor paintings, ceramics, tapestry, woodworking, wearable art, book making and more, created by local artists and artisans. Up now through Dec. 20. In person at the Bates Building (846 Main St., Contoocook; masks required) on a drop-in and by-appointment basis and virtually at shop.twovillagesart.org. Show hours at the Bates Building are Tuesday through Friday from noon to 4 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.Visit twovillagesart.org.

THE CRAFTWORKERS’ GUILD HOLIDAY FAIR Virtual shop features seasonal decor, photography, fine art and prints, cards, gourmet treats, woodworking, fiber and fabric, stained and fused glass, mixed media, jewelry and more by more than 40 juried artisans and craftspeople. Now through Dec. 22, with curbside pickup at the historic Kendall House (3A Meetinghouse Road, Bedford) daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Visit craftworkersguild.org.

Special events

NHAA 80TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY New Hampshire Art Association hosts a silent art auction fundraiser. Bidding runs through Dec. 11. Visit nhartassociation.org or call 431-4230.

PAINT NITE a 21+ event featuring the creation of a “Starstruck Snowman” light-up wine bottle at Chunky’s Cinema Pub (707 Huse Road, Manchester, chunkys.com) on Sat., Dec. 5, 7 p.m. On Sat., Dec. 12, at 7 p.m., Chunky’s Nashua (151 Coliseum Ave.) will feature a “Birch Buddies Wine Bottle With Lights” project. Tickets $37 and $35, respectively (follow link through Chunky’s website to buy).

Featured photo: Ron Campbell. Photo by Alex Lowy Photography.

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