Tag: 251113

Moving on

With new special out, Jay Chanoine readies the next

Six years ago comedian Jay Chanoine released a special and immediately got to work on his next one. It’s a comic’s creed that committing an act to tape is both the way to bury old jokes and incentive to craft new ones. Then the pandemic came, and Chanoine had to start again from scratch when things reopened in late 2021 — in more ways than one.

“Not only was some of that material no longer usable; I had to remember how to do stand-up again,” he said in a recent phone interview. “I ended up building up this body of work.” Chanoinigans, released as an audio album in mid-October and on YouTube on Halloween, is the result.

When Chanoine walked on stage at the Empire Theatre in Portland, Maine, in August 2024, the curveballs were still coming. First, his grandmother died a day before the show, which spurred “a whole new batch of emotions I was not prepared to have.” Beyond that, he’d written a new opening focused on a recent series of hospital visits.

“You’re seeing me at an interesting time in my life,” he told the crowd. “A little over a month ago, I went to see an autism doctor to begin the testing process. And that sentence can only go one of two ways. It’s either I feel like I’ve wasted a ton of money, or that my entire life has been a sham. Good news, guys. I don’t feel like I’ve wasted any money.”

Chanoine began reading DSM-V, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and had a series of eureka moments that made him feel he was cracking a code to his own mystery.

“I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is me I’m reading about,’” he said, adding he quickly discerned a connection between the diagnosis and his comedy.

“You could draw lines from almost every one of those bits that I was about to record,” he said. “‘This is why you have a joke about how you did a bad job growing up and how people think you hate them. How you still love Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers and you come off as abrasive….’ I was like, oh, my God, this is a special about finding out I’m autistic!”

He used the experience as fuel for that night up north.

“I think a lot of times, at least for me, when you have that much emotional abrasiveness kind of swimming around inside your head, you can channel it and just turn it into, ‘This is the thing I need to focus on right now,’” Chanoine said. “Divert that anxious energy into this performance.”

Since making the special, he’s spent a lot of time at the weekly Laugh Attic open mic at Strange Brew Tavern, each time doing five fresh minutes, slowly building a follow-up to Chanoinigans. “I try out new material in this safe environment where people already think they like me,” he said.

He’s looking forward to an extended set at Strange Brew on Nov. 21.

“We’re doing a Friday show, and I get to kind of do all the stuff that they saw me do for the very first time when it was fresh and unpolished and a little clumsy,” he said. “And I get to see it again after it’s been through a little bit of a rock tumbler and shined up.”

Fans can check out the new special on YouTube; Chanoinigans is his best yet. He talks about “coming aut” and having a realization about his New England school days; he may have misheard what sounded like praise for being artistic. “I love to draw, and I had no idea what my teachers were actually saying every time they went, ‘I think you are wicked autistic.’”

So the youngster took the kind words in stride; now, he’s reassessing.

“I’d just be standing there like, ‘Yeah, I guess that drawing is pretty good. It only took me 4,266 pencil strokes to complete it.’ That’s what happens when you start looking back on your life through autism-tinted lenses.”

Jay Chanoine w/ Troy Burdett, Arianna Magee & Ramses Rafael
When: Friday, Nov. 21, 8 p.m.
Where: Strange Brew Tavern, 88 Market St., Manchester
Tickets: $20 at eventbrite.com – 18+

Featured photo: Jay Chanoine. Courtesy photo.

The Music Roundup 25/11/13

• Shredder clinic: Guitar fans have the chance to enjoy a free performance by Gary Hoey as he demos the Fender Tone Master Pro effects pedal and dazzles with frenetic fretwork, part of an event celebrating the brand. It’s followed by a meet and greet with the Ho Ho Hoey guitar hero, who will be back in town next month for his annual Christmas concert at Tupelo Music Hall in Derry. Thursday, Nov. 13, from 5 to 7 p.m. at Manchester Music Mill, 329 Elm St., Manchester, manchestermusicmill.com.

• Parrothead pair: Carrying on Jimmy Buffett’s legacy, Mac MacAnally performs with fellow Coral Reefer Band mate Eric Darken. The last time the 10-time CMA winner and writer of “Old Flame” and “It’s My Job” came to town, the show sold out quickly, but there are some tickets still left for this show. Lately he’s been doing his old bandleader’s poignant song “Bubbles Up.” Friday, Nov. 14, 7:30 p.m., Dana Center, 100 Saint Anselm Drive, Manchester, $65 at anselm.edu.

• Floydian dream: Mary Fahl returns to Concord for an evening of music focused on one of her favorite albums, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, along with other selections from her ethereal catalog. She’s so enamored of the ’70s classic that she released a surround sound version of it, which is quite the listening trip with the right equipment. Saturday, Nov. 15, 7 p.m., BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord, $44 and up at ccanh.com.

• Fitful music: When the Vermont-based Conniption Fits squeeze in an original from one of their many albums, expect a power-pop blend of swagger and finesse belying bandleader and guitarist Stevens Blanchard’s metal kid past. For bar shows, the band plays mostly well-chosen “re-makes” — don’t call them covers — from Foo Fighters, Green Day, Weezer and others. Saturday, Nov. 15, at 8 p.m., Stumble Inn Bar & Grill, 20 Rockingham Road, Londonderry, conniptionfits.com.

• Soothing songs: Jim Brickman’s upcoming concert promises a collection of hits like “Love of My Life,” “Valentine” and “Angel Eyes,” favorites like “The Gift” and “Merry Christmas Beautiful.” Sunday, Nov. 16, at 7 p.m., Nashua Center for the Arts, 201 Main St., Nashua, $54 and up at etix.com.

Twice, by Mitch Albom

(Harper, 305 pages)

When Alfie Logan is 8 years old he learns that he has the supernatural ability to undo the past. By whispering the word “twice,” he can transport himself to any previous moment of time and relive his life from that moment, correcting any mistakes he previously made.

That’s a power that would come in handy, for sure, but it’s one that is also fraught with danger, as we learned from the Back to the Future franchise. But in Mitch Albom’s new novel Twice, this isn’t the world-altering time travel of Dr. Who or Marty McFly. Albom puts the power into a child who is about to lose his mother, but with caveats: Alfie can’t go back to the same moment twice, and he can’t keep anyone from dying when it’s their time.

Albom is the Detroit columnist who parlayed his bestselling memoir Tuesdays With Morrie into a side career of writing heartwarming books. This one, the reader has reason to suspect, will be no different, even though it begins with a jailhouse interrogation of the grown-up Alfie, arrested for suspected gambling fraud and apparently suffering from some terminal illness that will soon end his life. How did someone blessed with the ability to undo mistakes wind up in these circumstances? And what happened to make Alfie estranged from the love of his life, Gianna Rule, a woman Alfie wired $2 million to after winning three straight games of roulette at a Bahamas casino?

These are the questions that Albom bets will sustain readers through a story that requires a monumental suspension of disbelief over its premise: that a superpower of “second chances” can be passed on through families, like a propensity for bunions or brown eyes. Incredibly, it works.

The narrative flips back and forth from the interrogation of Alfie by a cynical detective named LaPorta and what’s written in a black marbled composition notebook, the kind you buy at the Dollar Store. The notebook is titled “For the boss, to be read upon my death,” and it’s a journal of sorts in which Alfie explains the story of his remarkable life to an unidentified boss.

Unable to answer the detective’s questions without sounding like someone who is seriously mentally ill, Alfie offers him the notebook. It takes us back to Alfie’s childhood in Kenya, where his parents were missionaries and he befriended a captive elephant named Lallu and a girl about his own age named Princess. Then came his mother’s death, an event made even more traumatic because he had disobeyed his father’s instruction to stay with her, and his mother died alone. It was then that he discovered his gift, which allowed him to go back to the morning before his mother died — and not to prevent her death, but to at least be present with her, to be a comfort as she died.

The bereaved father and son soon move back to the United States, to Philadelphia, and Alfie begins playing with his gift. “A bad grade on a spelling test? I went back and aced it. A strikeout in a baseball game? I relived the at bat, this time knowing what pitches to expect. If I mouthed off and got punished, I repeated the encounter and kept my mouth shut the second time. Consequently, I rarely paid a price for bad behavior. And unlike most kids, I was never bruised or bloodied for more than a few seconds.”

If this sounds like it’s not a recipe for raising a responsible adult, well, yes, that’s a major plot hole. But because Alfie has a good heart and has suffered trauma, we know he’s a good guy and we are to pull for him, and there’s no way that he actually ripped off a casino, right? Also, as he pursues Gianna Rule as a young adult, even enrolling at Boston University in order to be near her, we accept that he is a good man and not actually a stalker. But as their off-and-on relationship unfolds, it’s increasingly complicated, especially when Alfie’s well-meaning rewinds undo one of their most significant interactions.

The journalist Katherine Lanpher has said that the three most beautiful words in the English language are “What happened next?” That question is the fuel that powers this story; Albom is a gifted and experienced storyteller who knows how to lure his readers to the last page. And the ending of this book does not disappoint. What ultimately happens is wholly unexpected, and the interlocking events that lead to that point fit together nicely, even though the suspension of disbelief is just as necessary on the last page as the first. But if you believe in magic, or want to believe, it totally works.

At one point Alfie writes in his notebook, “There are planks that we walk, and planks that we jump off,” and jumping off seems appropriate for Twice. The book sounds kind of strange, and it is kind of strange, but it’s a lovely feel-good book to kick off the holiday season. B

Featured Photo: Twice, by Mitch Albom

Album Reviews 25/11/13

Mark Sherman, Bop Contest (Mile High Records)

If the class will please turn to the CD review page of the Oct. 16 Hippo, you’ll note that the first jazz-vibraphone bandleader ever featured in this section was Patricia Brennan, who earned the spot by tabling some wildly innovative tuneage, so much so that it didn’t feel much like a jazz-vibraphone record at all, at least not in the way this one does. At 68, Sherman is a confirmed old-school vibes legend, joined here by, among other renowned fixtures, pianist Donald Vega and already immortalized bassist Ron Carter, who always pops up when you most expect it. The basics go like this: mostly renditions of Great American Songbook-adjacent bop-drenched standards, like Johnny Mercer’s “Skylark,” Oliver Nelson’s bustling “111-44” and Cedar Walton’s jog-time ”Bremond’s Blues,” along with a pair of originals (“Love Always Always Love” and the speed-limit-stretching title track). It’s most listenable when one of Joe Magnarelli’s horns takes the spotlight, which shows you how enamored with vibes I am. A

Smoke Fairies, Carried In Sound (Year Seven Records)

My excuse for bringing up this nearly two-year-old album now is that I’d really truly meant to mention it here but it wasn’t the right time (promo people hate it when I review advance albums a few weeks — or sometimes months — early, but tough noogies for them from now on, is what I say), so I filed it in the hopelessly overstuffed George Costanza wallet I call a brain and then, of course, forgot about it. This British female duo are epic in their way, which I discovered after hearing their second album, Blood Speaks, in 2012. That one revealed the pair as Loreena McKennitt stans who also think Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti era was their best; naturally Jack White signed them to a record deal faster than you can say bacon double cheeseburger. This one found them completely independent, not even reliant on White, and it’s a sentient evolutionary step. “2002” reads like a rawboned Enya, the harmonies soaring far above what we’d heard previously, setting the tone for the balance forward. “Vanishing Line” is a witchy exercise in counterpoint; the title track makes terrific use of stun guitar as understated drone; “Perseus” would have fit great on the Lord Of The Rings soundtrack. These two are the bee’s knees, truly. A

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Like every Friday, Nov. 14 will be a day of albums that you can buy, with whatever’s left after you paid $50 for a Spider-Man costume for your third-grader for Halloween trick-or-treating, did you even know this was going on? I know, of course not, anyone who’s young enough to have kids can’t afford them, and besides, we need to start talking about holiday albums, if there are any, let’s go see! Ack, there aren’t any at this writing, and in fact there aren’t many new albums coming out at all in the next few weeks, what’s going on here? This isn’t supposed to be the time of year when I have almost nothing to write about, but this week is an abyss of almost no albums, and it’s your fault! You people had your chance to buy new albums, but you didn’t, except the one from Taylor Whatserface, which you only bought because of all the peer pressure, so now the record companies are mad at you. Why didn’t you people buy any albums this year, aside from the fact that your 8-year-old’s Elphaba dress and witch hat ensemble forced you to finance it in four easy-pay installments of $12.50 at 23 percent interest, how are you people even buying food and whatnot these days? But it’s OK, the two albums I’ll definitely have in my car until all the festive happiness dies on Jan. 2 are old ones, Enya’s Best Of Enya album and Boston Ballet Orchestra’s recording of The Nutcracker, since they always make me feel holiday-y, but until it’s time for me to venture into our bat-filled attic to try and find those albums, I’ll make do with the new album from ’80s New Wave goofballs Cheap Trick! It’s titled All Washed Up, which they definitely aren’t, since they practically invented the formula for writing hard-rock-flavored pop songs, but just to be sure they haven’t suddenly forgotten how to write pop songs I’ll go check out the first tune on this album, “Twelve Gates.” Yup, same as always, it’s genius, evoking a drive at the beach in the 1980s. It’s put together perfectly, because the weird-looking guitarist with the baseball cap could write Billboard-ready hits in his sleep. Seriously, I’ll bet the whole album is awesome, someone tell me if something on there isn’t (and I won’t believe you).

• Blondshell is the stage name of talented Los Angeles singer-songwriter Sabrina Mae Teitelbaum, who first broke out on Soundcloud and was on Jimmy Fallon’s late night show once. She is a nepo baby of course, given that her dad is chairman of the vape company NJOY, but I’ll ease up on that noise since she sounds like she wants to be a cross between Sheryl Crow and Avril Lavigne, going by the tune “T&A” from her forthcoming new album Another Picture. Her lower register sucks, but she does a decent Michelle Branch imitation when her grungy guitars go for the mountaintops.

• Moving on, it’s some sweet sounds from California-based electronic alt-pop band The Neighbourhood, whose new album (((((ultraSOUND))))) is their first in five years. Their new tune “OMG” blends the best parts of Pet Shop Boys and New Order, so if you’re allergic to good music consult your physician before listening.

• And lastly it’s British avant-pop/trip-hop lady FKA Twigs, who’s been in relationships with Robert Pattinson and Shia LaBeouf (both relationships ended for the exact reasons you’re suspecting). Her new full-length EUSEXUA Afterglow features the single “Eusexua,” a shape-shifting EDM/electro-noise stomper with some Kylie Minogue stuff in there; it’s interesting enough.

Featured Photo: Mark Sherman, Bop Contest and Smoke Fairies, Carried In Sound.

Cinnamon Butter Cookies

I picked up my first wooden cookie mold at a flea market. After a little online research I discovered that in Germany and Scandinavia, and in most of the Middle East, cookies made from hand-carved wooden molds are very traditional. You can find hand-carved wooden cookie molds in specialty shops or online. Etsy is a good resource for finding cool ones. A lot of cookie doughs made for molds need to be thoroughly chilled, but this one works straight out of the mixer.

Cinnamon Butter Cookies

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) cold butter
  • 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg, cold
  • 1 glug (probably 1 to 2 teaspoons) vanilla
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon coarse salt
  • 3 cups (400 g) all-purpose flour
  • Vegetable oil and powdered sugar to coat the cookie molds

Preheat your oven to 350°F.

Whisk the cinnamon, baking powder and flour together in a medium mixing bowl, and set aside.

In your stand mixer or with a hand-held electric mixer, beat the butter until it is reasonably fluffy. Add the sugar, and beat the mixture until it is even fluffier.

Mix in the egg, then the vanilla.

Turn the mixer down to its slowest speed, then spoon the flour mixture in, a bit at a time, so you don’t get covered with flour.

Use a small paint brush — preferably one you haven’t actually painted with – to completely coat the inside of your wooden cookie mold with oil, then use another brush to cover the inside surface of the mold with powdered sugar. You will not have to re-oil the mold, but you need to powder it Every. Single. Time you use it.

Pinch off a chunk of dough — you’ll have to play around to see how much fills your mold, but start with a piece about the size of a ping-pong ball — and press it into the mold, making sure you get dough into all the corners and crevices.

Turn the mold over and smack it sharply into the heel of your hand, over a silicone or parchment-lined baking sheet. You might have to smack your hand several times before the cookie falls free. The more sore your hand gets, the more diligent you will be about thoroughly powdering the mold.

These cookies won’t spread, so feel free to arrange as many on the baking sheet as you wish. Bake for approximately 10 minutes, then remove from the oven and cool completely on the baking sheet, before removing the cookies to a plate for serving.

With the holidays approaching, these cookies are good ones to start your pre-season cookie training with. They are buttery, almost like shortbread, and mildly cinnamon-y. They are delicious warm with ice cream, or ice cold from the freezer, with a small glass of sherry.

Featured photo: Dehli Cooler. Photo by John Fladd.

What wine pairs with a brownie?

Clyde’s Dessert and Wine Bar saves the best for first

One of Clyde Bullen’s biggest hurdles to opening his wine and dessert bar, Clyde’s Dessert and Wine Bar in Manchester, was finding a way to classify it.

“We had to go through a couple of bells and whistles with the state,” he said, “because we’re one of the first dessert bars that just specializes in desserts and wine. A year ago we wouldn’t have been allowed to open. The state had to make some changes, because back in the day, to keep people from just opening up a motorcycle club or something, you had to serve entrees to get a liquor license. In the 30 days we’ve been open people have been stoked that they could come in and try our pairings of wines with our desserts.”

Bullen’s new brick and mortar dessert bar marks a change from his successful food trucks.

“We just finished up our 16th year,” Bullen said, “and we have a total of four food trucks that run up and down New England. We specialize in desserts; we call it a mobile dessert bakery. One of the nice features we do on our trucks is you get to choose one of our 13 brownies to make your own brownie sundae. We care more about the brownies than we do the ice cream.”

Bullen said the inspiration for the new physical location for Clyde’s Cupcakes is a particular type of customer.

“Especially dessert lovers who like desserts more than they do the entree or the meal themselves,” he said. “You know, those people who start with desserts first and work their way backward through a meal. And with the brick and mortar, it gives us the opportunity to provide more than we could do in a truck. We couldn’t do crème brûlées or gelatos. This is a chance to serve unique dessert offerings with our wines.”

Bullen used dark chocolate as an example. Extremely dark chocolate has fruity notes, he said, which pair with the fruitiness of wine.

“One of our unique pairings right now is a sauvignon blanc wine paired with a cupcake that we’ve made for 16 years and has a cult following, Chocolate Overdose. It’s a chocolate cupcake filled with chocolate fluff and chocolate buttercream, with a Lindt chocolate brownie on top, chocolate-covered jimmies, and a Ghirardelli chocolate ganache on top. It’s a real moist, decadent cake that pairs really nice with a cabernet sauvignon blanc. Eighty percent of our wines are sweet; some of the best wines are well known for [pairing] with chocolate or chocolate and strawberry. You have your pinot noirs, cabernets, your ports, the ones that have nice robust flavors with them.”

Bullen said it has been important to set a relaxed tone in the new space.

“We’re trying to provide a nice, relaxed atmosphere,” he said. “We are playing records here. We have dominoes. So we’re not asking you to just place your order and bounce. We’ve set it up to make it a cozy spot so that, you know, you can come talk, conversate, and just try different desserts and different pairings. People are enjoying our record collection. Everyone’s just shocked at how cozy and comfortable the place is inside.”

The dessert bar is located in the new Queen City Center on Canal Street in Manchester, next door to Harpoon Brewery.

“Right now we’re following the same hours as Harpoon,” Bullen said. “So we’re open Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and we’re following Harpoon’s hours 1 to 9 [p.m.].

The combination of wine and desserts gives Bullen and his staff a chance to be creative and experiment, he said.

“This weekend we did a nice white wine flight that we paired wonderfully with a lemon trifecta, which was a lemon cupcake, a lemon bar and then lemon gelato.”

Clyde’s Dessert and Wine Bar
Where: 215 Canal St., Manchester
Hours: Wednesday through Sunday, 1 to 9 p.m.
Find them on Instagram @clydescupcakes

Featured photo: Photo courtesy of Clyde’s Cupcakes.

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