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Tree talk

Holiday gifts for the gardener

I love the holiday season: the lights, the carols, the cookies and more. It’s a good antidote to the news, and to the gray and chilly weather. Last summer many gardening necessities sold out as so many people were quarantined at home and took to gardening. So I recommend getting presents now, before everything is sold out. Here are some ideas for presents to gardeners.

Nice pots are good presents, for growing plants on the deck or just for their sheer beauty. For my birthday this year my wife gave me an urn made by Brattleboro, Vermont, potter Stephen Procter. It is 20 inches tall, a foot wide in the middle and tapering to a six-inch neck. His website, stephenprocter.com, shows mostly huge pots, some six feet tall, but he makes smaller things like mine, too. And your garden center will offer a wide variety of nice pots for growing things, too.

We all need hand tools, and sometimes we lose them. So you can always give a weeder to your loved one. The best of these, in my opinion, is the CobraHead weeder with its curved single tine that is great for teasing out roots of grasses and invasive weeds, or for use at planting time to loosen the soil. It’s available locally or from CobraHead.com for about $28 including shipping, and made in America.

Last summer was dry, so watering devices and accessories were hard to buy locally much of the time. One item that is a bit of luxury, for me, is a three-way or four-way splitter for the hose. Look for a good, heavy-duty metal one at your local garden center. Why four-way? One for each hose. No more disconnecting and reconnecting hoses. Price? Around $30. Give a five- or six-foot hose to go with it, to attach to the spigot and the splitter. Under $10.

Another watering device is a watering wand. Dramm is the best because their wands deliver a lot of water in a gentle fashion. I like a 30-inch wand with a built in on-off controller. Around $25.

I like adding height to the garden, and an easy way to do this is with Gardener’s Supply’s “Essex Round Trellis.” It comes in five-foot and seven-foot heights, and I selected the taller one to grow my morning glories next year. Metal, easy to assemble, $60 or $80. It will look good in the garden all winter, too.

Also from Gardener’s Supply I got some metal edging. It comes in a variety of lengths and assembles and installs easily; it’s sold as 12- to 24-foot kits in a variety of metals and finishes for $43 to $80. These bend nicely and create a finished look for a flower bed.

I love gardening books. I realize that the web has a lot of information, but nothing beats a book in my hands as I settle in on a cold and snowy day.

Norwich, Vermont, garden designer Bill Noble came out with a beautifully illustrated book this year, Spirit of Place: The Making of a New England Garden (Timber Press, $35). It is a lovely description of his gardens – and the thought processes that went along with doing this over a long period of time.

I have a few cases of my last book, Organic Gardening (not just) in the Northeast: A Hands-On, Month-by-Month Guide (Bunker Hill Publishing, 2015) collecting dust. It came out at $17.50 in paperback, but I am offering it now at $15 including shipping. It’s a collection of my best articles arranged by month. Send me a check at P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746.

Storey Publications (storey.com) is one of my favorite publishers for garden books, not only because their books are practical and well-written, but because many are in paperback and very affordable. Their Vegetable Gardener’s Bible by Ed Smith ($24.95 in paper) is a classic and a must-have even for experienced gardeners.

New to me this year are these, all looking interesting. Best of all is a great book on soil by Dianne Miessler, Grow Your Soil: Harness the Power of the Soil Food Web to Create Your Best Garden Ever. It explains very well how soils work, what soil test results mean, and how to correct deficiencies. You don’t need to be a scientist to read this one ($16.95 in paperback).

The Gardener’s Weed Book and The Gardener’s Bug Book, both by Barbara Pleasant ($14.95 each) are very useful No color illustrations, but the drawings are fine. It’s written for organic gardeners.

Saving Container Plants by Alice and Brian McGowan is a useful book for all of us in New England that want to winter over tender perennials that we have grown in pots on the deck all summer, but that can’t survive the winter outdoors. A stocking stuffer at $9.95 in paperback.

Lastly, give your loved one a pile of … manure. Farmers and garden centers sell hot-composted or aged manure that is great for the garden. It will improve the soil and nurture soil organisms. Three yards is a small dump truck load, or you can go get a load in a pickup truck.

All my best to you, my readers, in this holiday season. Don’t be naughty, and Santa may bring you what you want.

Featured Photo: Courtesy photo

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.

The Music Roundup 20/12/03

Local music news & events

• Northern south: New Hampshire native April Cushman finds musical inspiration from singer-songwriters like Lori McKenna and James Taylor, covering them in her shows while offering solid originals like “Once Upon a Time,” a charming, anti-Disney song. “I’ve tried really hard to kind of stay on my path,” she said last summer, “to know that my music is telling stories that are true to me.” Thursday, Dec. 3, 6 p.m., Copper Door, 15 Leavy Dr., Bedford, facebook.com/aprilcushmanmusic.

• Rhythm king: When he’s not performing solo — a necessity these days — Kevin Horan does the Don Henley bit, playing drums while fronting the Stone Road Band. On his own, Horan sings and plays guitar, offering a sound that’s often compared to Richie Havens and Dave Matthews. Friday, Dec. 4, 7:30 p.m., To Share Brewing Co., 720 Union St., Manchester, kevinhoranmusic.com.

• Star pupils: A socially distanced outdoor event, the Holiday Stroll features performances from Manchester Community Music School students. Stroll the grounds to the strains of “Silver Bells” and other favorites while safely experiencing the season and enjoying holiday treats. Saturday, Dec. 5, and Sunday, Dec. 6, at 5 p.m., Manchester Community Music School, 2291 Elm St., Manchester. Tickets $25 each and $225 for a block of 10; make reservations at mcmusicschool.com.

• Hold pattern: As Covid cases tick up in the state and country, the Geoff Tate Empire 30^th Anniversary Tour show will be the last at Tupelo Music Hall for the next few months, possibly longer. Venue owner Scott Hayward wrote recently that challenges to both lower-capacity and scheduled events have “all but guaranteed that we will be closed through February of 2021 at least.” Wednesday, Dec. 9, and Thursday, Dec. 10, Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry. Tickets $55 at tupelohall.com.

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

A User’s Guide to Democracy, by Nick Capodice and Hannah McCarthy

A User’s Guide to Democracy, by Nick Capodice and Hannah McCarthy (Celadon, 349 pages)

If there’s anything we can take away from the 2020 election, it’s that everyone’s an expert on American democracy. In their own minds, anyway.

Your third cousin twice removed, the guy who comments on everything you post on Facebook or Twitter, and your father (especially your father) know exactly how this republic is supposed to work, and how we should keep it. This is because for many of us an alarming amount of time has transpired since we last took an American history class, and we weren’t paying that much attention anyway.

Enter Nick Capodice and Hannah McCarthy, hosts of NHPR’s Civics 101 radio show and podcast, who propose to correct this widespread trend of pontification without facts. Their A User’s Guide to Democracy: How America Works may not be the best book for holiday gift giving, as any recipient might perceive it as an insult, but it’s a delightful handbook of everything you used to know and largely forgot, plus a generous serving of interesting trivia about politics and players. An added bonus is that the book is a paperback, as any kind of user’s guide should be so you can highlight without guilt.

A User’s Guide to Democracy is basically a civics class, designed to equally inform and amuse. The authors are aided in this quest by Tom Toro, a cartoonist for the New Yorker, who puts a wry spin on the information. (Example: the cartoon illustrating a section on who can be a U.S. senator — which notes that only 10 Black Americans have served in the Senate — shows a white guy carrying a briefcase confronting a metal detector and melanin detector.)

It begins with an exploration of what the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the government do, how they came to have these powers, and what they actually achieve. (Not as much as you might think. “Of all the bills and resolutions proposed in the House, about 3 to 5 percent become law. And that low percentage has been pretty standard ever since we got on this merry-go-round in 1789,” the authors write.)

From there, they explore federalism and the eternal tug-of-war for power between the federal government and the states. The authors see it as fraught co-parenting and understand that despite its fractious history this is the sort of subject that makes readers’ eyes glaze over. “We know you skimmed this section,” they write at the end of the chapter.

The reward for getting through it, however, is a base of understanding that is useful for exploring the stuff that is most relevant right now: elections and how they work. “The nation’s myriad voting systems and mechanisms are a source of perpetual confusion, fury, and mistakes. Methods vary from town to town, state to state. And then there’s that ‘wait, what?’ known as the electoral college — a last-minute additional to the Constitution that has tormented us ever since.”

Capodice and McCarthy do a fine job of explaining why 270 electoral votes on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December decide the presidential election and why the founders thought this so necessary. (It was essentially because although they believed the people — the ‘people’ being white landowners, of course — should make that choice, they feared America devolving into some sort of “mob-ocracy.”)

“These electors were to be men of high virtue, men who could see the high virtue and moral integrity in a candidate, and cast their vote for him regardless of how the proles voted.”

The authors then escort the reader through an entertaining tour of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and its amendments, and Supreme Court cases they believe everyone should know. The most critical reader will have to hunt hard for anything that smacks of political bias; Capodice and McCarthy may show their hands ever so slightly in their interpretation of Citizens United v. FEC and a few other places, but never worryingly so; the reader emerges with a sense that A User’s Guide to Democracy is a solidly nonpartisan read, a relief.

Even an appendix, in which they offer presidential fun facts, intends to amuse, not enrage, although I suppose supporters of President Donald Trump could perceive bias in the fact that they choose to include about him: “He is the first president since Polk not to have a pet.”

Overall, the book is a fresh take on an old subject, and wildly relevant. It won’t elevate the authors to the ranks of storied historians such as Doris Kearns Goodwin or Jon Meacham, but will appeal to people who don’t even know who Goodwin and Meacham are, which is to say the vast number of Americans who participate in its democracy. Or talk about it from their armchairs, anyway. B

BOOK NOTES
In normal years, a good use of national book prizes is to arm yourself with a bit of knowledge in advance of holiday parties.
This gives you an arsenal of small talk that goes beyond the weather, even if you haven’t read the books in question, since probably no one you will encounter has read them either. If nothing else, you can amuse yourself by conducting a small poll of how many people even know of the existence of the books atop the elite lists, such as the New York Times’ list of the most notable books of the year, or the Booker Prize.
This not being a normal year, you may not have this opportunity, but it’s still good to know what the elites consider the best books of the year, if only to snicker at the lists. Cheryl Strayed did this on Twitter recently, when she noted that her bestseller Wild (Vintage, 336 pages) was left off the Times list in 2012, as was Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (Crown, 422 pages). Given the long legs of those titles, among the most successful books that year, year-end lists deserve our skepticism.
That said, here are the big-name winners announced in November; all work cited here is the paperback version, if available.
The Booker Prize: Douglas Stewart forShuggie Bain, a novel based on the author’s childhood in Glasgow, Scotland, with a mother battling an alcohol addiction (Grove Press, 448 pages).
National Book Award for fiction: Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu (Vintage, 288 pages): “Generic Asian man” discovers secret history of Chinatown and his own family history.
National Book Award for nonfiction: The Dead Are Arising, the Life of Malcom X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne (Liveright, 640 pages): Thirty years of research inform this biography on a controversial civil-rights leader.
The New York Times chooses 100 notable books of the year (making it even more perplexing that they missed Wild and Gone Girl), and they’re not ranked. You can see them all at nytimes.com/interactive/2020/books/notable-books.html but be forewarned: Even if you read a book a week like Bill Gates, this list will make you feel like the most uninformed person on the planet.

Books

Author events

• TY GAGNE Author presents The Last Traverse. Hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Online, via Zoom. Wed., Dec. 9, 7 p.m. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• ALKA JOSHI & SARAH MCCRAW Joshi presents The Henna Artist and McCraw presents The Wrong Kind of Woman. Hosted by Bookery in Manchester. Online. Tues., Dec. 8, 6 p.m. Visit bookerymht.com or call 836-6600.

• THERESA CAPUTO the star of TLC’s Long Island Medium will present “Theresa Caputo: The Experience Live” at the Capitol Center for the Arts (44 S. Main St. Concord, ccanh.com) on Wed., April 7, 7:30 p.m. Tickets start at $39.75 (with option for a VIP Photo Op for an additional $49.95).

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Online. Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. Bookstore based in Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

Writing

• POSTCARD POETRY CONTEST Peterborough Poetry Project seeks submissions of original poems written on picture postcards for an upcoming anthology. Deadline is Dec. 31. Visit peterboroughpoetryproject.org/contests for more information.

• CALL FOR BLACK WRITERS New Hampshire-based theater company and playwright collective New World Theatre announces an open call to Black writers to submit monologues that reflect their personal experience of living while black, to be published in an anthology titled “08:46.” The deadline for submissions is Jan. 1, 2021. Visit newworldtheatre.org/08m46s.

Featured photo: A User’s Guide to Democracy

Album Reviews 20/12/03

Life in a Blender, Satsuma (Telegraph Harp Records)

So here’s this New York long-time quirk-rock guy, David Rauf, leading his band on their million-billionth release, a six-song EP that’s only slightly unpredictable (he’s not doing yelly punk or anything like that nowadays). The Rosetta stone here is anything David Byrne’s ever done (meaning everything), but I found this record to be slightly — I don’t know, comforting. Imagine Electric Six with NRBQ horns and you’re pretty much there, not that Rauf’s voice is Jello-Biafra-level crazy or anything like that, and the lyrics wouldn’t be conducive to that sort of thing anyway. On “Soul Deliverer,” for example, our hero yammers in a disaffected but volatile Byrne-like baritone about how he’s regretting drinking coffee at lunch (or whatever) and swearing to switch to water. But where was I — oh yes, comforting. I mean, I could picture these guys as a musical opening act for a comedian in Vegas, and not one of the unfunny ones like Jimmy Fallon or whatnot. No, I think Doug Stanhope would be a fit. A

Ilsa, Preyer (Relapse Records)

Sludge-doom metal isn’t my cup of tea unless it’s done really well and with some variation in speed, like, with Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality as its sentai. Kyuss is OK, for example, but Candlemass and St. Vitus aren’t, and Sleep is a bit too off-Broadway, if you get my drift. As with any genre, there are tons of others we could cover here, but this Washington, D.C., outfit reads like a tyrannosaur cage-match, relying on crazed, wounded bellowing on the vocal end, and not a lot of imagination with regard to the guitar riffing, which isn’t actually riffing but mostly four-chord mud ringouts (imagine Sunn(((O))) with a purpose in life). The subject matter is pretty dark even for my beloved homies at the Relapse imprint, and I’ll mercifully leave out the particulars in that regard. There are some straight-up black-metal passages that feel more like obligato checklist sign-offs, which isn’t to say there’s nothing at all innovative here, but, well, you know. B

Retro Playlist

As we await our Very Special Covid Christmas, let’s step into the Way-Back Machine and go over a few albums that may have been written about a little unintelligibly the first time around, and no, I don’t mean unintelligibly in the way that most of my stuff is written, I mean reviews that even confused me.

In February 2015 I unwisely took it upon myself to check out stoner band Jeremy Irons & The Ratgang Malibus and their Spirit Knife LP. This resulted in such run-on messes as “Alright, they’ve mostly been doing singles and comps, but what intrigues me is that they’re adamantly indie, using distributors like Carrot Top (local bands, you should really be taking notes if you’re releasing your own stuff) and AEC, all to push bands who are friends with owner Scott Hamilton, who is not the figure skater, in the same manner as no one in this band is the duckling-lipped actor you’re thinking about. Everybody lost? Cool.”

All I was saying there is that this capable-enough Boris-like outfit was using independent distributors. I’d have expounded further on the music, but it was pretty disposable, so I didn’t. Suffice to say that if you love metal, by all means, seek this one out, so that you can listen to it once and promptly forget you ever did so.

I’ve got a million of ’em, I tell ya. That same week, there was O Shudder, by the British quirk-prog crew Dutch Uncles. I actually liked that album, come to think of it, despite its indecisiveness over whether they wanted to rip off Vampire Weekend or Muse. It’s a weird but very good record, not that I probably enticed any of you nice folks by spitting takes like what I said about opening tune “Babymaking”: “…its winding, skeletal beat evoking Spandau Ballet after a marathon Orb listening bender.”

Pitchfork sort of liked them too, but I got over it. Meantime, I promise I’ll try to be less confusing in future. No guarantees, of course.

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

The new CD releases are coming hard and fast, looking for your holiday dollar — you should see all this stuff coming up! Now that we’ve dispensed with the worst Thanksgiving ever, which you mostly spent on the phone, trying to get Grandma to install the right video driver on her 2006 Windows XP computer so it could seize up while you tried to Zoom video her eating cranberry sauce, it’s down to the serious stuff, with the batch of new junk coming out on Dec. 4! For holiday gift-giving, I’d recommend the new White Stripes compilation, The White Stripes Greatest Hits, because it’s not horrible. OK, maybe it is, like, their fanboys will be all like “Why isn’t such-and-so song on here?” But who cares, because “Seven Nation Army” will probably be on there (the final tracklist hasn’t been released yet), and what else do ya need?

• Gahh, aside from the aforementioned greatest hits thing, the new release list is freaking full of live albums, comps, and rich musicians just asking for fans to send them beer money. Just looky there, it’s Arctic Monkeys, with their new album Live At The Royal Albert Hall, a title that also speaks for itself! Remember years ago when I was an Arctic Monkeys hater? You do, right? Well, whatever, if you like them, I can’t do anything about it, so like them all you want, with my Christmas blessings.

• OMG, even hipster-black-metal fraudsters Deafheaven are getting in on the live/comp gravy train, with their live collection, 10 Years Gone! Yes, there’s nothing I’d rather hear than a live version of this band’s typical songs, which always goes like this: blissy Sunn(((O))) part → metallically doomy Boris-or-Cannibal Corpse part → Bathory part. And now you know everything about Deafheaven and can brag about it to your little brother, who will be amazed by your cultural acumen.

• It turns out that not everything is old news and boring box sets or whatever, unfortunately for me! Depressing Icelandic hipster-dingbats Sigur Rós release their new studio album Odin’s Raven Magic this Friday! Now there’s an album title I can love; it sounds like the title of an episode of The Witcher, so it’s got to be cool! I couldn’t wait to hear what dreary hipster slop these crazy kids had cooked up for 2020, so off I went, first to discover that Odin’s Whatever is simply a recording of the band’s 2002 orchestra-accompanied tune, which is set to the Icelandic poem “Hrafnagaldr Óðins.” You guys know that one, right? It’s an anagram that spells “The Hamburglar Did It” sideways. As for the song, it’s just a slow, morose indie-rock joint comprising boring samples and a completely unnecessary orchestra, and it sounds like Vikings mourning an iPhone that got hacked by a bored troll from 4chan. Enjoy!

• Finally we have Tucson-based Tex-Mex-indie stalwarts Calexico, with their new LP, Seasonal Shift! Huh, how do you like that, it’s a holiday album! The first single is called “Hear The Bells,” in which the boy-eez sing about drinking mescal and selling something or other by the side of the road, I don’t know. Sounds like a cross between Everly Brothers and your least-favorite pop band from the 1980s, if that helps any.

Harpoon & Dunkin’

Coffee, doughnuts and beer together at last

Harpoon Brewery and Dunkin’ teamed up last year to bring the beer world the Harpoon Dunkin’ Coffee Porter. I thought it was a nice take on the coffee porter, featuring distinctive notes of roasted coffee and chocolate in a robust, malty package.

I suspect Starbucks fans disagree with me, so I just want to offer that qualifier right off the bat.

If you haven’t noticed, Harpoon and Dunkin’ decided to take things to another level this fall. I, as usual, am months behind, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a Harpoon-Dunkin’ mixed-pack during my pre-Thanksgiving run to the beer store. This was not your run-of-the-mill mixed-pack.

My wife requested pumpkin beer and I wanted a coffee-flavored brew, so the mixed-pack, which featured the Harpoon Dunkin’ Coffee Porter and a Pumpkin Spiced Latte Ale, caught my eye. The deal was sealed when I saw the mixed-pack included a Boston Kreme Stout and a Jelly Donut IPA. This is real.

Between Thanksgiving itself and the day after Thanksgiving, I enjoyed a pour of each one. What I enjoyed most and found most impressive about the entire foursome was that they held true to their pairings. The Coffee Porter truly tastes like the Dunkin’ original coffee blend and the Boston Kreme Stout tastes very much like a Boston Kreme doughnut, and so on.

I made my comment about Starbucks in jest but I suspect whether or not you like any of these Harpoon-Dunkin’ brews depends very much on whether or not you like Dunkin’ from both the doughnut and the coffee perspective. If you aren’t a fan of Dunkin’ coffee, nothing to see here.

I think the Coffee Porter was my favorite; I like the richness of the brew. That said, it’s not too heavy. I enjoyed it Thanksgiving afternoon as we finished up meal prep.

I can’t honestly say that I liked the Jelly Donut IPA, but my wife enjoyed it. I just didn’t think the sugary sweet jelly flavor paired well with the hops, but this legitimately tastes like a jelly doughnut. It’s worth giving it a shot as it may well be the most unique brew you’ve ever tasted.

The Pumpkin Spiced Latte Ale tastes so much like an actual pumpkin spiced latte that sometimes I forgot whether I was drinking a coffee or a beer. It’s sweet and features the combination of pumpkin, cinnamon and sugar you expect from this as a coffee — a tasty, seasonal treat. The pour is more or less the color of pumpkin, more orange-y than I expected.

The Boston Kreme Stout was excellent with notes of sweet chocolate and coffee and a smooth finish. This one was much lighter than expected, and because of that, I think this makes an excellent choice for someone who normally doesn’t like stouts.

A final note is that I feel that mixed-packs make excellent choices for holiday get-togethers, as they provide a variety of options and hopefully something for everyone. Now, I know we’re celebrating in smaller numbers this year so just go ahead and save that sage advice for next year.

Featured Photo: Courtesy photo.

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

New York eats

Sunny Side Up Deli now open in Nashua

A New York-style sandwich shop with a unique New England twist, Sunny Side Up Deli, now open in Nashua, features local and regional breads, vegetables, coffees and other items to complement a full line of Boar’s Head brand premium cold cuts, cheeses, soups and salads. The eatery opened its doors last month in the former space of the Beadles Bead Shop & Boutique on Amherst Street, according to manager Tristan Hoffler.

The Boar’s Head line, founded in New York City more than a century ago, was a must for Sunny Side Up Deli to carry, Hoffler said, due to its quality and connection to The Big Apple. All breakfast and lunch sandwiches are made to order with freshly sliced meats, nothing precut, and served on breads from Tripoli Bakery of Lawrence, Mass. Gluten-free breads, buns and wraps from other purveyors, like LaMarca Bakery of Malden, Mass., are currently being tested.

“Our sandwiches are all perfectly layered … with meat, cheese and veggies,” Hoffler said. “You go to Subway or any other place like that around and you won’t find sandwiches like ours.”

Most of Sunny Side Up Deli’s offerings are named after Nashua area streets or points of interest — the Central Street, for example, is a traditional panini-pressed Reuben with freshly sliced corned beef, melted Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing on rye bread, while the Mine Falls sandwich features turkey, roast beef, capocollo, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onions, sundried tomatoes and a basil mayonnaise.

All of the sandwiches come with a bag of chips, a pickle spear and a small serving of Boar’s Head salad, like coleslaw or tortellini salad. The menu also includes grab-and-go salads, as well as a few breakfast sandwich options that are available all day, like a traditional over-easy egg and cheese sandwich with either bacon, sausage, ham or turkey, and A Better Morning, which features egg, cheese, bacon, peppers and onions on a kaiser roll.

Hot coffee from Wicked Joe of Topsham, Maine, is made fresh daily, and the plan is for Sunny Side Up to eventually expand to iced coffees and espresso drinks.

“[Wicked Joe has] 100 percent organic fair-trade coffee beans,” Hoffler said. “We picked them because we wanted to make sure that our coffee came from a good source.”

The deli has made fresh desserts in house, like cookies and parfaits, and will soon be offering knishes, or Jewish deep-fried potato-filled snack foods that are popular in New York.

Sunny Side Up Deli
Where: 427 Amherst St., Unit 9, Nashua
Hours: Monday through Saturday, 6 a.m. to 4 p.m.
More info: Visit sunnysideupnh.com, find them on Facebook @sunnysideupdelinh or call 417-7145

Featured photo:The Central Street: corned beef, melted Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing on rye. Photo by Matt Ingersoll.

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.

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