New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? Since 2004, we’ve been observing the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town. If it’s true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?
For those who are unfamiliar with Extol Magazine: "Celebrating Southern Indiana – and beyond. Find us in print at 500+ locations throughout Southern Indiana and Louisville or online." The magazine is published bimonthly.
A LESSON OF LOSS AND GAIN (a first-person account by Southern Indiana resident Sally Hughes, at Extol Magazine)
IN APRIL 2013, I did something that millions of women have done, seemingly without consequence, but for me it would turn out to be a life-altering decision ...
Nowhere else except France could there be a "Pee in Peace" parliamentary motion to "ban video ads above urinals and toilets."
But there should be such a movement here. After a half-century or more of reducing human beings to little more than consumer drones, we're reaping what we've sown in the form of pervasive societal cluelessness.
Activists in Lille recently demonstrated against advertising, while Grenoble has replaced hundreds of adverts with trees and noticeboards. Could cities remove ads altogether?
On a pavement in the northern French city of Lille, an advertising panel rotated pictures of bargain Aldi prawns and blended scotch whisky, competing for the average three-second attention span of pedestrians. Suddenly a 31-year-old hospital nurse darted across the street, unrolled a mass of white paper and began to cover the ads.
“I’ve been treating sick people in emergency rooms for 11 years, but this is about treating a sick society,” he said, as he reached up with other protesters to tape the paper in place. “When you walk down the street, how can you feel happy if you’re constantly being reminded of what you don’t have? Advertising breaks your spirit, confuses you about what you really need and distracts you from real problems, like the climate emergency.”
Passersby began to gather, some baffled, some nodding. Police officers arrived to move the demonstrators on, but they were already on the move, hurrying down into the metro to cover their key target: digital video screens advertising trainers.
For decades France has had one of the most well-organised anti-advertising movements in the world, ranging from guerrilla protests with spray-cans to high-profile court cases. But now the boom in what is artfully called “digital-out-of-home advertising” – eye-catching video screens dotted across urban areas, from train platforms to shopping centres – has sparked a new spate of French protests, civil disobedience and petitions ...
Last night my pal Blake asked a perfectly legitimate question, which I'll paraphrase to suit this family-oriented publication.
How can the guy who always spoke so persuasively and brilliantly against the robber baron brewing conglomerate AB-InBev and its craft brewery acquisitions -- particularly Goose "Trojan Goose" Island -- now be pouring Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout at the pub where he programs beer?
It's a very good question, and I'm surprised it took a whole week for someone to ask it.
This fact alone hints at part of the answer: It's true that my career in beer goes back a very long way, but when Pints&union debuted in August, 2018, one book closed and another opened. A new beer narrative began, in which I no longer was Reggie Jackson's "straw that stirs the drink," but rather the guy playing rhythm guitar in someone else's band.
And this, my friends, is genuinely relevant in the context of reinventing oneself. Logically speaking, a reinvention without change isn't a reinvention at all.
In the space below you will find the longer explanation of how diplomatic relations were restored between the Beer Socialist (that's me) and the firm of LC Nadorff and Son, purveyor of AB-InBev wares in Floyd County. Since the Rhinegeist keg purchase in April documented below, Pints&union has added Bud Light, Michelob Ultra and Boddington's -- all from Nadorff's book.
I'm not a fan of these beers. Our customers are. Nothing more needs to be said.
When Nadorff's Jason Mott asked me if we'd like to have the only 1/6 barrel of Bourbon County Brand Stout that his wholesale house was allocated, I thought about it long and hard before immediately agreeing to purchase it.
By doing so I was happily patronizing a locally-owned business with deep roots in New Albany. The beer itself always was fine, and so far our customers have approved in spite of a necessarily dear price tag. Do I like where the profits go? No. Do I plan to make it a habit? Beats me; probably not.
But if Nixon went to China, I can be a cussed contrarian without losing sleep.
Ultimately it all has to do with the sole aspect of our lives that stays the same, namely change. I kept one ball in the air for 25 years, then it was finished and I departed, hoping to find some way for an old dog to learn new tricks. Now I'm liberated, if only temporarily. There'll be new orthodoxies, because there always are. The dialectic never ends.
However, my fundamental belief systems remain intact, although maybe ... just maybe ... I'm learning that 85% internal compliance is perfectly impeccable. A guy has to relax every now and then, and play against type.
At least I possess fundamental belief systems, something quite a few Christian fans of Donald Trump might do well to consider while gazing into their mirrors.
I appreciate Blake's question and I hope this has been an adequate answer. Here's the April post mentioned previously.
--- BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Fruited sour dark ale from the Bud Light handlers, or how my acquaintance with LC Nadorff and Son was renewed.
America's three-tier distribution system for beverage alcohol has eroded at the edges in recent years, but it remains largely intact.
The post-Prohibition regulatory model was designed to separate producers (brewers, distillers, vintners) from direct involvement in retail sales by inserting a wholesaler middleman into the transaction.
Nowadays the most obvious exceptions to the three-tier norm are small brewers and winemakers, who are allowed to sell directly to the public from their tap rooms and tasting areas.
In 35 states (including Indiana) some form of self-distribution is allowed. For instance, so far at Pints&union I've purchased directly from the Donum Dei brewery, which is perfectly legal because we're all situated in Indiana. Conversely, to buy from a Louisville brewery would require the beer to be handled by a licensed wholesaler in Indiana.
All this is prelude to today being a momentous and perhaps even an historic occasion, because for the first time since 2002 (or thereabouts) I'll be accepting delivery of a keg of beer for resale at Pints&union via the beer wholesaler known as LC Nadorff and Son.
Therein lies a brief story about the way that one's point of view evolves over time. To begin, I subscribe to the Pour Fool theory of a beer drinker's (and beer vendor's) life.
Why sugarcoat it? Everyone knows my feelings about the matter, and historically, Nadorff as a wholesaler has been what we would call a "Bud House," with a measure of territorial exclusivity for the distribution of Anheuser-Busch brands (and later the merged AB-InBev range).
Start with decades of personal antipathy toward Budweiser, and add into the mix a long tenure at NABC's Pizzeria & Public House devoted to purging mainstream beers from the premises, it's easy to see why there came a point in time roughly two decades ago when there was little interaction between Roger and LC Nadorff.
It wasn't that I ever had anything against Nadorff, because they've always been pleasant people. However, as befits the position of any beer wholesaler in America, Nadorff always occupied the very middle of the chain between a multinational brewing conglomerate and a publican who despised the conglomerate.
When NABC began brewing its own beer, we made the decision to eliminate mass-market beers from the building. As such, Nadorff was taken out of the loop.
But here's the thing.
I might well be included on AB-InBev's "enemies" list, but I'm also a strident supporter of independent local businesses, and while Nadorff's bread and butter always has been the AB-InBev portfolio, it remains a family-owned firm with deep roots in New Albany -- so much so that 120 years ago there was a Nadorff family brewery in town.
Six or seven years ago when NABC did a beer tasting event on behalf of the Carnegie Center museum we were positioned adjacent to Nadorff's table. I began chatting with Jason Mott, a youthful member of the founding family. This was prior to AB-InBev's various "craft" brewery acquisitions, but we had a good conversation and I finally began considering Nadorff in the context of localism.
At this juncture I was full-tilt with trying to sell NABC-brewed beers, and subsequently there was my departure from the company, followed by years in the wilderness contemplating next steps. Resurfacing as Joe's beer director at Pints&union, I was at the pub one morning earlier this year when in walked Jason, accompanied by the area sales rep for Cincinnati's Rhinegeist.
There'd have been a time when Nadorff's contract with AB-InBev might have excluded the presence of an American "craft" brewer like Rhinegeist, but times have changed, and we had yet another delightful talk. These days Nadorff carries beer from a few small Indiana brewers and imported brands as well as Rhinegeist and the AB-InBev acquisitions (Goose Island, Elysian, et al).
I expressed interest in occasional draft visitations with Rhinegeist's brands, which brings me full circle to this afternoon, when Nadorff will drop off a sixth-barrel of Rhinegeist Ruby Paradox, a "fruited sour dark ale."
That's right, fruited sour dark ale from the Bud Light handlers, but the Bud Light handlers are the local New Albany guys, and at this point in my life it's a distinction that matters to me. Whatever the merits and demerits of the three-tier system, the fact remains that at least in Indiana, there aren't many wholesalers like Nadorff still standing.
While it's probably impossible to be a true "underdog" conveying AB-InBev products, in wholesaler terms Nadorff is scrambling like all the rest to find their place in the crazy quilt of the Post-Craft Beer Era.
Owing to the nature of the beer program we're trying to build at Pint&union -- traditionalist, with occasional flights of fancy -- I can't predict how often we'll be pouring Nadorff's portfolio, and yet it's invigorating to renew a local connection.
We need more of that, not less, so cheers to a renewed acquaintance.
This clever video was released five days ago. Very effective, and of course her album this year is quite good. I wish the best in musical futures both to Katie Toupin and Houndmouth. We need more good music, not less.
Katie Toupin is ending the year with a breakup, which she caught on video.
After spending much of 2019 immersed in her solo debut, Magnetic Moves, Toupin is ready to start 2020 without the tagline that seemed to always accompany her over the preceding months: “formerly of Houndmouth.” In the video, which she posted this week, a piece of poster board that reads “Katie Toupin (formerly of Houndmouth)” goes with her everywhere—the grocery store, the tub, while doing kettlebell swings at the gym—as her song “Someone to You” plays. Finally, Toupin has had enough, and she rids herself of the unwanted appellation. By the end of the clip, the singer is beaming while she uses paint and glitter to decorate a much smaller sign that reads, simply, “Katie Toupin.”
“I don’t need that tagline anymore. At this point, it doesn’t have any value,” says Toupin, who left Houndmouth in 2016. “It’s not going to move any more tickets. The fans that wanted to stay with me are already with me. It’s time to move on and just be the person that I am.”
Toupin’s video is a fitting capper to a year when plenty of artists sought to take more active control over how they are viewed by audiences, critics and whoever else comes across them. Sometimes, like Toupin, musicians shaped their public identities in creative ways that entertained—or helped create—fans. Others lashed out on social media when they weren’t perceived as they wanted to be. Either way, pop musicians vocally defining how they want to interact with the world is a fairly new development, and one that runs contrary to the way things have worked in the past. It used to be that musicians made records, went on tour and did press to promote the record or tour. Though some of them had specific images—or reputations, in some cases—to maintain, they rarely engaged directly in a back-and-forth with their audience, or with critics. That sort of thing fell to publicists and managers until the rise of social media. When the president of the United States fulminates on Twitter all day, why shouldn’t musicians talk about what’s important to them?
“We get to have a voice that isn’t filtered, if we decide to,” says Toupin, who teased her video in advance as a “major announcement.”
Madonna sidestepped any filters in June when she objected to a lengthy profile of her in the New York Times Magazine that she felt focused on the wrong things, including her age. She wrote on Instagram that she felt “raped” by the result. And Lana Del Rey didn’t stifle herself in August when she clapped back on Twitter to a largely positive NPR review of her new album Norman Fucking Rockwell!. Writer Ann Powers made reference to “Del Rey’s persona as a bad girl to whom bad things are done,” and at one point called her lyrics “uncooked” when compared with Joni Mitchell’s. Neither observation conformed to the way Del Rey wants to be seen (or, maybe, sees herself), which she made clear in a response: “There’s nothing uncooked about me,” she wrote in part. “To write about me is nothing like it is to be with me. Never had a persona. Never needed one. Never will.”
That’s a bold claim, considering Del Rey made it under the cover of a stage name (she was still going by her given name, Lizzy Grant, on her first album in 2010). In a way, though, it’s all a persona. In a probing 2018 interview with Esquire, Bruce Springsteen talked about how depression can sometimes make him lose track of his sense of identity. From a fan’s perspective, the interviewer replied, “You’re Bruce fucking Springsteen! How do you not know who you are?” Springsteen laughed, and revealed a secret most entertainers don’t talk about: “Bruce fucking Springsteen is a creation” ...
Here's an update about last week's column, which examined the presence of the PURE Initiative as part of the NA-FC Schools' sex education curriculum. My friend Missy Smith did most of the writing.
... “Did you all know that there is an abstinence program taught in health classes at New Albany High School?? I repeat...THERE IS A PURITY CULTURE, SEX SHAMING ABSTINENCE PROGRAM TAUGHT IN HEALTH CLASSES AT NAHS! I received no notice that this would happen. I would have opted ALL the way out of this BS. I am enraged! I have worked very hard to keep this far away from my child so she does not carry any of the trauma that so many of us carried out of our teen years.”
Later she offered a link to the PURE Initiative.
“Update: the group that comes to every school district in Southern Indiana is called the PURE Initiative. Their website is https://connect2pure.com/. One of their “instructors “ is the executive director of Youth for Christ of Southern Indiana, another is affiliated with the local faith based crisis pregnancy centers.”
Missy's letter to the school board was featured in the column. She later wrote this at Facebook:
As the new semester starts I will be moving forward in effort to protect NAFCS students from exposure to this shame inducing rhetoric. Contact me if you would like to help.
It's also worth passing along a comment made by NAC's co-editor, Jeff Gillenwater.
Missy is absolutely correct. PURE in no way represents objective, science based health education. They are a conservative christian group being granted captive student audiences to spread religious dogma, apparently with the approval of NA/FC administrators. As PURE explain themselves, they are an off-shoot of the deceptively named Choices for Women, a local sex and pregnancy “counseling” center that in reality functions as a staunchly anti-choice organization. PURE connects to CFW which in turn connects to other religious right groups like Focus on the Family whose anti-choice, anti-LGBT, and pro-theocracy political activities are well known. Hopefully, a lot more parents join Missy in objecting and bringing a quick end to this public health danger and Constitutional violation.
If you're interested in assisting Missy and don't know here, tell me and I'll pass it along.
I'm turning over a new leaf ... on January 1. Meanwhile it's Festivus.
These stakes jut up from the cute gravel on the north side of Market Street between Pearl and State, where in 2019 Team Gahan spent lots more money than the Horseshoe Foundation donated to them in order to beautify according to the suburban design templates of HWC Engineering.
It's an aesthetic atrocity overall, more reminiscent of Mussolini's fascist Italy than anything belonging in a Midwestern city, but that's a topic for future archaeologists to consider.
THIS is a trip hazard.
There are supposed to be wires attached to the tree, but they're wrapped around the trunk; this is just as well, given that the wires are invisible at night and snag humans (little flags would help, right?), but the remaining untended stakes are just as hazardous.
At least on Terry Middleton's side of the street -- lavished with money he voted to approve as a member of the Redevelopment Commission, which in turn has improved the value of his property -- the trip hazards are quite well lit.
On the south side of Market Street, which was lavished with nothing in terms of "improvement" money in spite of the considerable investments in property made by Steve Resch and Todd Coleman, we're lucky to have one of three ancient street lights lit. For months all three were burned out even as a million bucks landed 100 feet away. Now one works (photo last Friday evening).
That's nice, festive -- and dark.
Meanwhile a tree was planted in front of the Pints&union door, this being the place where customers congregate, enter and exit. To my knowledge neither Resch nor any of us were asked if this made any sense; it merely was done, and people began tripping over the wires and stakes, something that seemingly never occurred to the planners.
Soon the wires were loose and the stakes uprooted, then I watched as successive lawn care contractors watered the tree but did nothing about the stakes and wires even when I mentioned it to them.
... With the growth of the population along with work being done on roads in different sections of the city, overall traffic has increased. Caesar pointed out two types of traffic — commuter and consumer.
Commuter traffic consists of drivers coming to and from work, while consumer traffic is due to people running assorted errands. The latter is affected by and, perhaps, affects the traffic situation the most, Caesar said.
Unlike commutes, trips out on the town can't always be planned out well.
"When you run around picking up different things, you don’t know how long it's going to take," Caesar said. "A lot of times, people don’t want to have to wait at stop lights, and sometimes you can kind of get yourself in a rush.”
In order to trim time off of their trips, Caesar said drivers will cut through residential neighborhoods that wouldn't otherwise see thru traffic, often doing so at dangerous speeds. Solving the situation will be tough, he said.
Speed limits have been lowered in many neighborhoods, but other things like increased police presence, signage, speed bumps and prominent lines marking stop signs could help.
"It’s a sticky wicket to really discourage people from taking all of these cut-throughs around town," Caesar said. "It’s something we need to convince people to not do. Most of the time, you’re not really cutting down time, even though you think you are.”
Did the News and Tribune just get scooped ... again?
The story goes back months -- well, years, actually. Now The Aggregate is reporting that a judge has ruled in favor of plaintiffs who seek nothing more than Mayor Jeff Gahan's compliance with Indiana public records laws.
Then the most recent news. The city's caterwauling should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the Gahan administration's congenital paranoia.
You're advised to click straight through and read the entire piece, highlighted here.
Last Wednesday, the City of New Albany was ordered to pay over $2,000 after it failed to fulfill a public records request.
On November 1st, a trio of Floyd County residents filed a civil lawsuit against the city of New Albany for failing to provide access to public records in violation of the Access to Public Records Act. In a public statement, the plaintiffs claim that, “at its core, it is all about the ideal of open and transparent government.”
snip
The plaintiffs, Floyd County residents Irvin Stumler, Steve Roberts, and Heather Archibald-Peters, claim their rights to access public records were violated when the city of New Albany did not respond to their records requests. Their inquiries, hand-delivered by the plaintiffs to the city on August 28, ranged from legal fees concerning the city of New Albany to revenue data of the River Run Water Park.
snip
On December 10th, Judge Hancock recused himself from the case and the case was given to a special judge. Taking over for Judge Hancock was Judge Vicki Carmichael who presides over Clark County’s 4th Circuit Court.
Shortly afterward on December 18, the waiting game came to an end and the court granted default judgement in the case, meaning that the Court found against the City of New Albany for their failure to adequately respond, despite being granted an extension. As a result, the defendants have been ordered produce the records within 10 days (by December 28th), and are ordered to pay the plaintiffs’ fees in the amount of $162.10 each as well as their attorney fees amounting to $1,642.50.
Even after the city’s extension was granted by the court, they still did not respond to the summons ...
Generally these are short "news and notes" articles, Monday through Friday. One of my goals is to expand postings to Saturday (which we sometimes do now) and Sunday. Ultimately I'd like to theme one or both of these days, but walking before running and all.
I went a bit longer-form on Saturday this week. Here's the link; you'll have to go to the site to read the full text.
Your correspondent and his lovely wife spent time before and after Thanksgiving across the pond: In Zagreb (Croatia), Ljubljana and Lake Bled (Slovenia) and Trieste (Italy). In addition to taking a break from the everyday and enjoying the many sights in this always fascinating corner of Europe, we sought as always to taste just a bit of these faraway locales.
ON THE AVENUES: Truth, lies, music, and a trick of the Christmas tale (2019 Remix).
R.I.P. Miss Nadia (2002-2018)
This column contains bits and pieces published previously in varying forms at various places. Each year, it functions as the blog's unified, omnibus Christmas utterance -- or, if you will, a primal scream. It happens each holiday season.
During an otherwise random conversation about the uncanny tendency of local Democrats to experience tumescence whenever Jeff Gahan spits on the downtrodden, eventually someone looks at me with palpable dismay.
“Roger, you’re such a Grinch.”
My response never varies.
“Thank you very much.”
The roots of my longstanding Yuletide antipathy might be traced to Freudian conceits, Jungian counter-thrusts, references to childhood toilet training habits or the sheer pervasiveness of psychological repression stemming from residency in a nakedly fascistic state like Indiana, but in truth, it’s far simpler.
It goes back to that original, defining moment in every American boy’s life – not when it becomes clear that he’ll die some day without the saving grace of being able to hit a curveball, but the sudden, gut-wrenching discovery that in spite of the shameless propaganda fed to us by adults, who’d assured us that excruciating behavioral self-regulation would be rewarded by a gaudily costumed fat man parking his tricked-out sleigh on the roof and descending the chimney, that nope, in the end, it was nothing more than a shameless ruse.
Then it hits you: Santa Claus doesn’t really exist.
At all.
Our house didn’t even have a chimney, and you’d think this would have made me suspicious, but I was oblivious. When the shameful day of infamy arrived and my school mate chided me -- “c’mon, don’t tell me you still believe in Santa?” -- I did much more than merely shake Santa’s grip, cold turkey, right there on the spot.
I irrevocably disavowed the whole contrived Christmas spectacle, because even at such a tender age, I could see the dominoes falling as the previously sacrosanct Santa myth vaporized in plain sight, because if the grownups could mislead us about Santa, where would it end?
They might also be fibbing about those other edicts demanding compliance and conformity, from the civic foundational edifices of religion, patriotism and obedience, all the way to the commandment forbidding jaywalking.
The worst of it was sitting alone in my room, cross-legged on the cold tile floor, and experiencing the devastating frustration of knowing that I was far too young to properly drink my way through the rampant disappointment.
Santa’s unused cookies and milk were the best I could do, and then, as now, I udderly DETEST milk.
---
In 1991, at the age of 31, I spent Christmas in the city of Košice -- today located in sovereign Slovakia, which then comprised the easternmost lands of Czechoslovakia. It was the mid-point of a six-month stint teaching conversational English to doctors and nurses at the city’s main hospital, an experience made possible by the Cold War’s end.
In 2016, Santa brought the gadget to digitize those
Košice slides from 1991-92. It's ongoing, into 2020.
Upon returning stateside in 1992, there was a brief break, and then I went back into the food and drink business, where I’ve been for the most part ever since.
Grinch or not, the approach of the holiday season in Košice proved fascinating. With no Thanksgiving to serve as mile marker, few signs were evident that Christmas was coming until the eve of St. Nicholas Day (December 6), when children scrubbed and polished their shoes, placing them on windowsills to be filled with candy and chocolate. Presumably, bad children would receive a bundle of twigs bound together for swatting their butts … as it should be.
In Communist times, the regime attempted to persuade the populace that a chap named Grandfather Frost brought these goodies, presumably on behalf of the benevolent leadership. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, back came Christmas trees and caroling in the streets, and while these were familiar to me, decorations didn't even begin to appear until the first part of December. I remarked to my uncomprehending students that they should contrive a holiday like Halloween to mark the true beginning of the shopping season.
Shopping season? It was quite ephemeral. Surely it’s different in 2018, but in 1991, only a few understated window displays were to be seen in shops, and high pressure, guilt-laced sales tactics were nowhere to be found.
However, one necessary seasonal item became ubiquitous during the week preceding Christmas. This was delicious carp, raised and fattened in farm ponds, not river bottoms, and brought to market in street-side barrels and oversized plastic tubs. Some buyers brought their own buckets to take the living fish home for a few days of further bathtub cleansing. Others had their purchase killed, weighed and wrapped on the spot.
Carp is the traditional Slovak meal for Christmas, accompanied by an array of special side dishes, and perhaps some steaming sauerkraut soup. There always was plenty of bottled lager, but the Christmas Eve toast in 1991 was chased with homemade peach brandy from a student’s village nearby: “To peace, health and a good harvest.”
---
Two or three lifetimes later, there was a second chance to be in Europe for Christmas. In 2009, we stayed in a rental apartment in Bamberg, Germany, a mere stone's throw from the Fässla and Spezial breweries. With the requisite open-air Christmas market, mulled wine and naturalistic decorations, Franconia’s version of the Yuletide season was obvious without being garish.
The Grinch in me was shaken, if as yet unbowed.
On Christmas morning, we strolled through the Altstadt’s deserted streets and climbed Altenburg hill to the medieval castle, affording a sweeping view of the valley and Bamberg's dizzying number of church spires. Most businesses were closed, but pleasingly, some food and drink purveyors were open in a city blessedly free of the archaic blue laws still existing in purportedly secular Indiana, which up until 2015 prevented alcohol from being served on Dec. 25 – a purely Christian holiday.
Clouds rolled overhead, and it was a bracing and exhilarating walk. Descending the commanding heights back to our riverside starting point, we passed the city museum in the old town hall astride the Regnitz and saw that the doors were open. Inside was a fine collection of 18th-century porcelain from Meissen, and one of 38 nativity scenes on display in and around Bamberg during the holiday season.
A reconnaissance of Ludwigstrasse's expanse revealed that Bamberg's Chinese restaurant owners are not as ambitious as metro Louisville's, with all three closed for the day. However, at the train station, the bakery and small grocery both were open, and I bought a handful of half-liter Schlenkerla Märzen lagers to accompany the evening's home cooked vegetable soup.
With no close friends in Bamberg, we kept ourselves company, having procured groceries and libations in advance. With bottles of Fässla in support, Christmas evening selections on the telly revealed a diverse Euro holiday tableau.
There was a Basque celebration from Bilbao, with crazy costumes, quasi-operatic tunes and the inexplicable, prehistoric language spoken by the world's first cod fishermen. The whole time, I kept expecting a Muse concert to break out.
We watched a performance in Salzburg of Mozart's The Magic Flute; snippets of a schlocky Bavarian idyll, rather like the Osmonds meeting Lawrence Welk, but in lederhösen and dirndls; and then a Berlin performance by Max Raab and the Hotel Palast Orchestra, a stagy society presence reminiscent of Joel Grey’s role in Cabaret.
Finally came City Lights, the not-so-silent masterpiece by Charlie Chaplin, without dialogue but featuring a musical soundtrack as a concession to new 1931 technology. The Little Tramp falls for a blind flower girl ... and meets a drunken millionaire along the way.
On the 26th, Café Abseits beckoned again, with a fine draft list of regional, seasonal Bockbier. Later, at Spezial, delightful Ochsenbrust in horseradish sauce with a dumpling was accompanied by several of the brewpub’s quintessential smoked lagers.
No, I don’t “do” Christmas ... although on occasion, vague and ambiguous exceptions are allowed.
---
More recently, we've enjoyed the good fortune to be in Munich and Bamberg (2018), and Zagreb, Ljubljana, Lake Bled and Trieste (2019) during their annual Christmas market season.
Whether it's thousands of Bavarians thronging the streets of Munich, or a few dozen Slovenes congregating around the market stalls in Bled, one can't help being impressed by the sense of community on display -- and I'll leave it at that.
---
Through it all, music soothes the heretical breast, just so long as it isn't the pervasive and disgusting same-old-suspect soundtrack heard playing in every public place, beginning the day after Harvest Homecoming and lasting through January.
Each year I make a special effort to listen to a recording of "Ring Christmas Bells." As always, it reminds me of our high school choral director, Michael Neely, who warned us that later in our lives, we'd come to regret taking our singing voices for granted. We scoffed, and of course, he was absolutely right.
Three decades of beer and tobacco have rendered my singing voice moot, and now I’m little more than an interpreter of songs, with the atonal wailings occurring well out of human earshot. Our cats suffer the most.
Imperfect pitch aside, the only Christmas songs I can even tolerate are the ones we sang in choir, and the only other performance I truly enjoy is "Fairytale Of New York" by The Pogues, with a guest appearance by the late, lovely Kirsty McColl.
To repeat, I don't "do" Christmas ... but in spite of myself, the holiday occasionally provides a few pleasant memories -- even if, quoting Chico Marx, some things never change, and “There ain’t no sanity claus.”
Especially in New Gahania.
Recently these lumps of coal are being personally wrapped by the snowman, Gauleiter Duggins, to be thrown through the windows of public housing residents who've inadvertently found themselves residing in the path of our mayoral dullard's petty ambitions.
That's why I won't be ending this year's holiday column on a pleasant note, for peak Scrooge is alive and well and inhabiting Jeff Gahan's well-fed and highly financed body.
For the sake of our city most vulnerable residents, let's hope the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come makes an appearance at Dear Leader's bunker -- although it won't do much good if Mike Hall comes out to greet him.
Until the past two days, all the work had taken place inside. The contractors hired by Todd Coleman to install windows couldn't proceed until interior walls previously erected in front of the windows were torn out. Those are being remodeled, too.
On Friday afternoon workers were peeling away the ancient outdoor covers to reveal the new windows.
Todd told me that on top of the grants made possible by the Horseshoe/Caesar Foundation, he's already spent close to a quarter million of his own dollars remodeling his properties here and on the corner of State and Market. He's also working on the building adjacent to the White House Center, and will tackle the smaller structure at 311 Pearl Street early next year.
Windows also are appearing at Schmitt Furniture.
Then there's the street level sheet metal eyesore across the street from Mesa.
Many regular readers know that my 15 minutes of fame (and about as many loose farthings of "fortune") derive from a quarter-century's tenure as co-owner of the New Albanian Brewing Company's original Pizzeria & Public House -- originally Sportstime Pizza and Rich O's, as they're still referenced colloquially.
NABC's Bank Street Brewhouse project came 17 years into this gig, and it proved to be somewhat less enduring, at least from a financial standpoint. Creatively and artistically, I'll still put BSB up against anyone and anything, rather like a rock band that made critically acclaimed albums but never found enough of an audience to fill stadiums.
But in capitalism, one always is obliged to follow the money, and after ten years at BSB the trail went cold. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote, "so it goes."
Back in the salad days, having brewer extraordinaire David Pierce working in the Bank Street Brewhouse meant a succession of excellent beers, both everyday and seasonal, and of course David had ample assistance from Jared Williamson, Jesse Williams, Josh Hill, Pete Fingerson, Ben Minton and numerous others along the way.
However it was Jesse and Jared who produced the the first Naughty Claus (spiced) Winter Warmer all the way back in November of 2006, working at the original pub brewery on Grant Line Road. Naughty Claus Mach I debuted at the holiday season draft beer fest known as Saturnalia.
NABC’s Saturnalia is our time to emphasize festive draft beers for the holidaze ...
In pre-Christian Rome, Saturnalia was the annual winter solstice celebration coinciding with the feast days for Saturn (the god of sowing and the harvest), Consus (god of the storage bin) and Opa (goddess of plenty).
Many of our contemporary winter holiday traditions derive from Saturnalia’s pagan roots, including the hanging of wreaths and garlands, donations to the needy, prayers for peace, time off work to be enjoyed with family, and of course eating, drinking and merriment.
NABC pays tribute to these ancient pagan origins with Saturnalia. Dozens of special kegs from the USA and around the world – some rare, some seasonal and others just plain festive – will be pouring at our Pizzeria & Public House.
When the doors open at 11:00 a.m. on our new Saturnalia kick-off day, Plaid Friday (November 23), the first wave of sacrificial Saturnalia selections will be tapped in the traditional, ritualistic manner, and the hedonistic pleasures will begin. The remaining kegs will be deployed as the days pass, and the revelry is expected to continue throughout the month of December.
To be perfectly honest, I miss the institution of Saturnalia a great deal. For the general public Gravity Head was the thing, but I persist in thinking that Saturnalia represented my best-ever work as a beer gatherer.
It afforded the opportunity to make a principled point about the pagan traditions we tend to associate with Christmas, as well as providing an excuse to assemble a broader range of seasonal beers than merely "all-hoppy" or "all-heavy." There was a little something in beer for everyone with Saturnalia, and in some as-yet-determined modified format, I'd like to do it again -- maybe with bottles and cans this time next year at Pints&union.
When Bank Street Brewhouse got underway, brewmaster David modified the Naughty Claus recipe, and from 2011 to his departure (circa 2015) it remained the same each year. Josh succeeded David, and now the ale is fashioned by Ben, full-circle, back at the garage brewery from whence it came.
I got a keg from Ben, and it's on tap at Pints&union (starting Friday, December 20 for a very limited engagement).
After a small tasting while engaged in changing the keg, I suspect it has undergone further changes. It tastes good to me, and that's that. These words appeared on a sales sheet I wrote some time around 2012. I'd expect the 2019 version to be in this approximate ballyard.
As Chico Marx once presciently observed, there ain’t no sanity clause, and that’s why restricting one’s choices to either naughty or nice in the sense of holiday largesse is to commit the fallacy of the excluded middle.
In our view, chimneys and voyeurism go together much like Chico’s great uncle Karl and Charles Dickens, author of “A Christmas Carol,” because what is this most materialist of capitalist shopping seasons if not the pretext for a much overdue dialectic?
And then there is the man of the hour himself, Mr. Claus, and he needs his daze off, too, just like the rest of us. NABC’s annual ale in his honor debuted in 2006, and since 2011, the recipe has held fast, as formulated by our director of brewing operations, David Pierce, whose first batch of Christmas ale at the Silo brewpub in 1992 predates the birth of today’s Naughty Claus drinkers of a certain, youthful legal age.
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Naughty Claus
X-mas Spiced Ale
ABV: 8%
IBU: 12
Color: Orange to amber/brown.
Flavor: Medium- to full-bodied. Malty/fruity backdrop, classic Christmas spiced character (ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, orange peel).
Compare to: Great Lakes Christmas Ale, Old Fezziwig.
Description: Quintessential X-mas. Malts include Rahr pale, Castle aromatic and Crisp medium crystal, with Hosey autumn gold and midsummer day honeys. Hops are German Hallertauer Magnum. Sweet and bitter orange peel, fresh ground ginger, Vietnamese cinnamon and West Indies nutmeg are the spices (with dry-gingering in the Brite tanks). NABC’s house Chouffe yeast completes the scene.
Recipe suggestion: Seeing as Naughty Claus shadows the Wassail bowl, it isn’t an easy call, but since turkey and ham with all the trimmings are common Christmas meals, why not start there?
In early December the Courier-Journal's Dhalia Ghabour included Naughty Claus in a list of "12 Days of Christmas Beers."
This Belgian spiced ale, Naughty Claus, carries a swirl of flavor from cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, honey and bitter orange peel. Released on Dec. 18, the beer is a dark golden color with a medium mouthfeel, according to brewer Ben Minton. It's available on tap only at New Albanian Brewing Co. — and limited to eight kegs.
"You'll get an up-front spicy characteristic, sort of gingerbread flavor, but also the back taste of the Belgian yeast that Belgians will have," said manager Sarah Howell. "It's a really great one with pizza and sweet desserts."
"The crest immediately faced some backlash on social media. Some fans simply did not like the look of the logo or felt the redesign was unnecessary, but others were disappointed that the fans didn't play a role in offering ideas for the new crest."
The less said, the better -- and when brevity is needed, who are we going to call? Bluegill, that's who.
"Huge public subsidy of a private soccer team is no problem. A new soccer team logo, though, is a source of outrage. We fail as a society most often because we damn well deserve to."
Louisville City FC scrapped its new logo three days after it was unveiled to the public.
Louisville City Football Club has dropped its new logo three days after it was unveiled to the public at its downtown team store at Fourth Street Live.
In a statement posted to Louisville City's website, team President Brad Estes said Monday's brand rollout — which also included adding the team's nickname, Lou City, to the new crest — "failed" supporters of the club.
"We had the best intentions, but we lost sight of our responsibility to engage you in the process," Estes said in the statement. "We make no excuses; we simply commit to making it right."
To that end, Louisville City has stopped production of merchandise with the new crest and has opened dialogue with supporter group leadership about how to improve its branding and crest, Estes said in the statement ...
The Brexit referendum in 2016 needn't have taken place under the terms by which David Cameron minted the vote, but once it did, the verdict was regarded as binding by a majority of United Kingdom residents. Subsequently the UK's withdrawal from the European Union might have been negotiated in a number of ways -- by either Labour or the Conservatives (Tories).
I've underlined the key passage in this excerpt, which makes the preceding point very clear.
As for the recent election, Labour was split in half by Remainers who were only slightly less appalled with the party's working class base than wealthy London bankers. The Tories succeeded in closing their ranks because Nigel Farage's one-issue Brexit Party saw it could achieve its chief aim by losing, and campaigned accordingly, meaning that finally, Farage triumphed even if he isn't part of the new government.
In short, Jeremy Corbyn's political decapitation means that the "Tony Blair Light" version of centrist Labour can again seize control, differing from the Tories ... how, exactly?
For the last three years, second-referendum campaigners heaped blame on Jeremy Corbyn for his alleged role in “facilitating” Brexit. Yet their determined efforts to torpedo his leadership destroyed any chance of a compromise solution — and made the hardest of hard Brexits inevitable.
... LABOUR'S POLICY
The position set out in Labour’s 2017 manifesto could be summarized as follows: we accept the result of the referendum; it’s not the result we wanted, but people have voted to leave the European Union and we can’t ignore that choice. That doesn’t mean we’re going to give the Tory government a blank check to negotiate any kind of withdrawal deal they like. There are several possible routes out of the EU, some of which would be far more damaging than others. We won’t support a deal that will destroy people’s jobs and living standards, or one that will prepare the ground for a bonfire of social rights and protections.
This was in no way a distinctly “Corbynite” position. Leading figures on the Labour right gave it their firm support in the run-up to the 2017 election: from Tom Watson and Yvette Cooper to Chuka Umunna and Wes Streeting.
The thinking behind it was simple. On grounds of principle, it would have been extremely dubious for politicians to reject the outcome of the referendum altogether. All the major British parties agreed to hold it in the first place, and there were no conditions for a quorum or a supermajority attached before the vote. The turnout was reasonably high, and those who took part voted to leave the EU by a small but decisive margin. Trying to overturn a democratic vote without having made any attempt to honor it would set an ugly precedent for the future.
It might still have been necessary to do so if all possible versions of Brexit were bound to be disastrous, but that simply wasn’t the case. Norway has never belonged to the EU, and there’s no reason to think its citizens are worse off than their neighbors in Sweden or Denmark. A so-called “soft-Brexit” deal would have been a perfectly acceptable framework for Labour to carry out domestic social reforms: a step sideways, not a step backward.
There was also a pragmatic case for Labour’s Brexit platform that could not be ignored or wished away. The Leave/Remain divide cut through the heart of the party’s electoral base. Two-thirds of Labour’s 2015 electorate voted Remain, the rest broke for Leave, but the “Labour Leavers” weren’t spread evenly around the country. Roughly two-thirds of Labour-held constituencies had a pro-Brexit majority in 2016: if all the Labour Leave voters defected to the Conservatives — or just stayed at home on polling day — the party could end up losing dozens of seats. It would be much easier for the Conservatives to win a general election on a hard-line pro-Brexit platform than it would be for Labour to see them off with a clear-cut anti-Brexit stance ...
The New Albany Flow Park has been completed and is open for wintertime use. Following is the Carnegie Center's press release, edited only slightly for much needed fumigation.
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... The Carnegie Center for Art and History is proud to announce the completion of the New Albany Flow Park, a one-of-a-kind skate-able work of art on New Albany’s waterfront, enhancing the Ohio River Greenway. The New Albany Flow Park is a unique and ambitious project that integrates art with healthy living and quality of place initiatives. Carnegie Director Eileen Yanoviak says, “The park is now a destination for locals and tourists alike, highlighting our shared Ohio River history in an unexpected way. It really removes the barriers to arts access, bringing free, interactive arts experiences directly to people in the community.” The concept originated with Carnegie Center curator Daniel Pfalzgraf, a lifelong skateboarding enthusiast. “The New Albany Flow Park is a dream come true that will have a positive impact for many years to come,” says Pfalzgraf. He credits ... the community for the “vision and commitment to bring this intersection of art, history, and physical activity to life.”
“This truly is an authentic park that will add to our growing list of amenities along the New Albany Shoreline, and it would not have been possible without the support of some outstanding organizations” ... ... The $500,000 New Albany Flow Park renovation is possible with support from SoIN Tourism, Develop New Albany, Carnegie Center for Art and History Inc., Humana Foundation, Community Foundation of Southern Indiana, Duke Energy Foundation, Caesars Foundation of Floyd County, and Samtec Cares. In early Spring, a full ribbon cutting and celebration for the New Albany Flow Park will take place, including a memorial for beloved local skater Matt Brewer. Details about the New Albany Flow Park The New Albany Flow Park is a non-traditional public art project that rehabilitated an underutilized and outdated skatepark along New Albany's waterfront into a skate-able and playful work of art. Located between the Amphitheater and the Sherman Minton Bridge, the park has been transformed into interactive, stylized Ohio River scene that celebrates the robust history of the region. Complete with a steamboat and symbols of Ohio River bridges and land- and waterscapes, the design is the result of a collaborative process between the community, the Carnegie Center, and Hunger Skateparks, a nationally-recognized design and build firm based in Bloomington. The design is aesthetically pleasing, historically significant, and functionally interactive as a skate- and playpark. The project provides a diverse community gathering space that integrates art and creativity with healthy living and the ongoing riverfront beautification efforts of the Ohio River Greenway Project. The Ohio River Greenway has been underway since the 1970’s, intending to highlight a multi-community River Heritage. The New Albany Flow Park project and site enhances the recreational and artistic amenities of New Albany and the region, improving quality of life and economic development.
Let’s have a look at faith-based abstinence as a component of health education in New Albany-Floyd County Schools. But first, just a bit of background to explain how the topic came to my attention.
Regular readers will recall that I am a proud member of the 2016-2017 Discover class at Leadership Southern Indiana. For those who are just tuning in, my column of August 25, 2016 told the story of how it came about.
Discover was a first-rate experience, and I’ll be forever grateful that Dr. Daniel Eichenberger not only talked me into it, but also provided sponsorship. I learned quite a lot and made more than a few lasting friends -- like Missy Smith.
My sense is that these two friends of mine, Dan and Missy, are on polar opposite sides of a curriculum controversy, because while we recently were visiting Trieste, Missy posted this on social media.
“Did you all know that there is an abstinence program taught in health classes at New Albany High School?? I repeat...THERE IS A PURITY CULTURE, SEX SHAMING ABSTINENCE PROGRAM TAUGHT IN HEALTH CLASSES AT NAHS! I received no notice that this would happen. I would have opted ALL the way out of this BS. I am enraged! I have worked very hard to keep this far away from my child so she does not carry any of the trauma that so many of us carried out of our teen years.”
“Update: the group that comes to every school district in Southern Indiana is called the PURE Initiative. Their website is https://connect2pure.com/. One of their “instructors “ is the executive director of Youth for Christ of Southern Indiana, another is affiliated with the local faith based crisis pregnancy centers.”
The NA Confidential household understands Missy’s concern. We're in complete harmony with her decision to challenge the school corporation’s decision to incorporate a faith-based approach. We support Missy 100%. Upon returning from vacation and getting my feet back on the ground, I asked her how it was going.
“While the board and administration responded with plans to have opt-out letters mailed to homes, this isn’t good enough. I will be going as far as we need to get this curriculum removed from the school system.”
Missy included the letter she sent to the school board, and it strikes me as fully appropriate that I turn over the remainder of today’s column inches to her for a detailed explanation of her position.
Here it is, lightly edited. When there are updates to provide, I’ll pass them along.
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Esteemed Members of the School Board, My name is Missy Smith. My daughter is a freshman at New Albany High School. She came home today and told me some very concerning things about what she experienced in her health class. She truly thought it was funny, but as an adult with extensive experience with the type of program she described, I am appalled and outraged. My daughter explained that the PURE Initiative volunteers shared disjointed, unclear, and sometimes totally false information with her class, all based around abstinence. First, let me acknowledge that I know a letter was sent home last week that included information on the program that would be visiting her class. My daughter says that when given the sheet, she was told this was an opportunity for parents to opt-out if they were uncomfortable with their children learning about sexuality. As we are a family that communicates freely and openly, and a family that supports evidenced-based learning, she knew we would not oppose her learning about sex and related health topics. In this, she is correct. However, we do STRONGLY oppose any exposure to dangerous purity culture laden rhetoric, a biased curriculum that can attribute to children making unhealthy and potentially life-altering choices. A topic this important and potentially damaging should never be an "opt-out" situation. Parents should have to opt-in to their children attending at least the PURE Initiative section of the module. My husband and I did some very cursory research on the PURE Initiative. As far as we can tell, every "instructor" is closely tied to a conservative Christian organization. For example, one is the executive director of Youth for Christ. This criticism is not coming from a faith-shaming family. I am a deacon in our Baptist church, where we attend multiple times per week. We are, however, against anything that seeks to weaponize faith in an attempt to control children's behaviors. While the PURE website states that data and evidenced based information is used, there is no supporting documentation that this is the case. From the examples my daughter provided today (apparently a video was shown that suggested that having premarital sex indirectly led to a person's child being killed years later in a car accident?), I have serious doubts that this curriculum is reliable, accurate, and unbiased. I have included below links from journals and reputable sources that scratch the surface of the dangers of abstinence-focused curriculum. As you will see in the excerpt below, this focus leads to the very outcomes (unplanned pregnancy and STI) these visitors say they seek to reduce:
The level of abstinence education (no provision, covered, promoted, stressed) was positively correlated with both teen pregnancy rates, indicating that abstinence education in the U.S. does not cause abstinence behavior. To the contrary, teens in states that prescribe more abstinence education are actually more likely to become pregnant.
And:
Teens Deserve More than Abstinence-Only Education Advocates reviewed all available evaluations of state-based abstinence-only programs and found that, of the 10 states with evaluations, few demonstrated any short-term benefits and none demonstrated any lasting, positive impact on young people's attitudes, intentions, or behaviors. A few programs showed mild success at improving attitudes and intentions to abstain. No program was able to demonstrate a positive impact on sexual behavior over time.
And:
Abstinence-Only Sex Ed Is a Failure Two scientific review papers find abstinence-only-until-marriage programs and policies in the United States are ineffective because they do not delay sexual initiation or reduce sexual risk behaviors. According to the researchers, these programs also violate adolescent human rights, withhold medically accurate information, stigmatize or exclude many youth, reinforce harmful gender stereotypes, and undermine public health programs. Both papers are published online in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
At this point, my child has been exposed to this irresponsible curriculum, and feels equipped enough to remain in class, inoculated from the fear tactics that were employed today. I have faith that my daughter has learned enough from our discussions that she knows how to take charge of her emotional safety in this setting. However, I do not know the other girls in the class (and let's be honest, we know that in these programs the impetus and focus is on the girls as gatekeepers), and have grave concerns about the possible damage that may be inflicted upon them. Sexual behavior, made of one's own free will and not under coercion or as a response to trauma, does not cause a person to become broken. However, creating an environment that fails to provide comprehensive information (accurate and unbiased information on contraception and infection prevention) will lead to negative health outcomes. Suggesting that children will be like "crumpled dollar bills" (illustration used in class today) if they have sex will lead to shame, disconnecting children from the community around them based on valid and normal choices. Creating shamed, disconnected human beings causes brokenness, not having sex. Please know that I am aware that our very irresponsible and regressive legislature has created and passed legislation that allows this garbage to be taught in our public schools. I also know that the welcome extended to this group sends a message that the administration supports this teaching. Any student who has this impression will have no choice but to believe, going forward, that their school officials will see them as broken or irresponsible for decisions that they make regarding their sexual health if they do not choose abstinence. These observations will not foster the safe and open environment, especially for girls who may need a non-judgmental place to land and process. As a social worker, I know firsthand that all of our students do not have this safe environment at home, and really need to feel that school officials can offer this to them. Again, I am aware that you may not have the autonomy to refuse the presence of these types of groups in the school, but based on what I heard today and my small bit of research on this specific group, I have grave concerns on the decision to welcome this biased and irresponsible group into the school setting at all. I do plan on sharing my concerns with our legislators. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me with any comments or questions.
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If readers have questions for Missy, send them to me via the usual channels and I'll make sure she sees them.
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