Boulder Weekly 12.29.22

good taste: Erie’s award-winning 24 Carrot Bistro is worth the hype — and the trip by Colin Wrenn

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EDITORIAL

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Contributing Writers: Dave Anderson, Emma Athena, Will Brendza, Rob Brezsny, Michael J. Casey, Angela K. Evans, Mark Fearer, Kaylee Harter, Nick Hutchinson, Dave Kirby, Ari LeVaux, Adam Perry, Dan Savage, Bart Schaneman, Alan Sculley, Samuel Shaw, Toni Tresca, Gregory Wakeman, Colin Wrenn

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Dec. 29, 2022

Volume XXX, number 20

As Boulder County's only independently owned newspaper, Boulder Weekly is dedicated to illuminating truth, advancing justice and protecting the First Amendment through ethical, no-holds-barred journalism, and thought-provoking opinion writing. Free every Thursday since 1993, the Weekly also offers the county's most comprehensive arts and entertainment coverage. Read the print version, or visit boulderweekly.com. Boulder Weekly does not accept unsolicited editorial submissions. If you're interested in writing for the paper, please send queries to: editorial@boulderweekly.com. Any materials sent to Boulder Weekly become the property of the newspaper.

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Boulder restaurant workers get scrooged over the holidays

by Dave Anderson

The call and response was loud.

“What’s disgusting?”

“Union busting!”

Boulder Weekly

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 We do not publish anonymous letters or those signed with pseudonyms.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

On a chilly Saturday evening on Dec. 17, some 40 boisterous demonstrators outside Ash’Kara restaurant at 1043 Pearl St. in downtown Boulder were polite but angry. e event was hastily organized a er three of the store’s employees had been red. ey had been scrooged over for the holidays. ey just happened to be on a union organizing committee. eir union, Communications Workers of America (CWA), doesn’t think that is a coincidence. e workers say they are organizing because they’re

upset over a phony “Fair Wage Fee,” a lack of job security and overall poor working conditions. David McGuire, one of the employees who was red, says, “I love working at Ash’Kara. My coworkers are kind, interesting, compassionate people. e food we sell is really wonderful, sensitively sourced, and much more interesting than most food to be found in Boulder.”

However, he wants the public to know that when they come to the restaurant, “ ey’re supporting a business that actually helps its employees and doesn’t misrepresent itself as more noble in intention than it is. at’s why our union is important. “

Restaurant workers who interact with the public get

tips. But the kitchen sta do not. Many restaurants around the country have instituted a “Fair Wage Fee” to help out “back-of-the-house” employees. Boulder Reporting Lab recently published an article about these fees at some Boulder restaurants.

McGuire was the longest serving member of the staff at Ash’Kara in Boulder. He says, “Slowly, over the course of the time that I worked there, I watched as the amount of money each member of the team got began to dwindle, despite sales being steady or increasing, staffing cuts, and changes to the menu that increased our check average. The pay for back-of-house was always bad. Despite the claim that the 20% included on every check (the fair wage fee) went towards ‘making sure every member of our team’ was paid fairly, every backof-house staff member took home about $13 an hour after taxes. Some of that money was coming out of the fair wage fee, but did they ever make extra on a busy week? No. The fee was subsidizing the payroll.”

He adds, “A er a while, a few of us noticed that the fee wasn’t going to the front-of-house much either. A short time a er that, I found out that some of the salaried managers were also being paid out of that pool. Not the tips servers earned on top. at would be illegal.”

e CWA has led unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board against Ash’Kara Boulder (and speci cally owner Josh Dinar) for unlawful termination of pro-union employees and for refusing to recognize the union a er a clear majority of employees vocalized support for it.

eir letter to Dinar said they had formed a union and requested that he “voluntarily recognize our

Union and respect our rights to organize and collaborate without retaliation or interference as guaranteed by federal law. We aim to work together with Leadership to address problems and opportunities to create a healthy, honest, productive and pro table work environment we can all be proud of.”

e letter mentioned some changes they would like to see:

• Fair compensation for all employees — including Back-of-House employees — paid not out of the Fair Wage Fee, but by the Restaurant Ownership, and more transparency around everyone’s pay and how it is calculated

• Appropriate cost of living increases commensurate with in ation and changes in our community

• Reasonable sta ng levels

• Health Bene ts for all employees (or the option to opt-in to such bene ts)

• Su cient training for new hires, coaching of existing employees and opportunities for learning and career development at Ash’Kara.”

I reached out to Dinar by phone and email to get his perspective. He told me that he preferred to communicate by email rather than phone. I emailed him a list of pointed questions from the workers.He hasn’t replied at the time of publication.

In the meantime, the three employees were suddenly told they have been re-hired.

CWA attorney Will Reinkin told me the union is glad the three employees have been re-hired, but the CWA isn’t withdrawing its unfair labor practice charge.

e struggle for workplace democracy goes on.

is opinion column does not necessarily re ect the views of Boulder Weekly.

HONORING OUR FIRST RESPONDERS

e Sunshine Canyon Fire was nowhere near as big a disaster as the Marshal Fire, but it could have been. anks to the immediate response of almost a dozen re departments, police departments and rangers — including Boulder County Sheri ’s Dept., Boulder Emergency Squad, Boulder Mountain Fire Department, Four Mile FD, Nederland FD, Longmont FD, Left Hand Canyon FD, SugarLoaf FD and Sunshine Canyon FD — only two homes were totally lost.

I personally witnessed the dedication and heroism of these teams who worked round the clock in shifts to make sure that ying embers that ignited small res as much as a mile a way were quickly put out before they could spread. My home was adjacent to the two homes that were destroyed, and we had more than two acres consumed by re, which was put out around 2 a.m. the day it ignited. is was accomplished by the Longmont FD. Another team showed up with four di erent vehicles from Nederland, Left Hand, Four Mile and Sugarloaf who worked from 2 a.m. until 4 p.m. in shifts to put out remaining brush res that constantly sprang up. Although evacuated for the rst night, on my video cameras I could see teams running toward the

res with hoses over their shoulders or shovels in their hands. e blaze ran up our trees, which towered over these brave souls who risked their lives to save their neighbors and their homes.

As I drove down the mountain,, I was stopped by a ranger and a re department sta who informed me they needed to cross my property in order to save the several dogs and cats at nearby homes. eir owners called in for them to be rescued. I let them know that the north side of my property was already on re and there was a lot of smoke so they needed to be careful. Without hesitating I saw these two women drive past the smoke and ames, determined to save these helpless souls. I stopped at the base of the mountain to talk to the sheri and several minutes later the ranger emerged with her car lled with several dogs and cats and one parakeet in its cage. She handed them o to a police o cer who took them to the pound for safekeeping.

So, during this holiday season, let’s all take some time to re ect on how blessed we are to have such great friends and neighbors serving us as rst responders. ank them when you see them and keep them in your prayers.

Brett Kingstone/Boulder

“I WATCHED AS the amount of money each member of the team got began to dwindle, despite sales being steady or increasing.”

— David McGuire, Ash’Kara employee

In limbo

Adam Sloat was on the third level of a building in downtown Boulder closing a real estate deal with clients. He remembers the wind.

“ e building was just swaying in that crazy wind, even though it was all brick,” he says.

It was Dec. 30, 2021 — the day of the Marshall Fire. Sloat eventually saw smoke to the east — he heard there was a grass re by Foothills and 36. Meanwhile, his wife Dani began to see smoke in their neighborhood in Louisville. She decided to play it safe and take their 10-year-old twins, Grace and Jack, to Sloat’s dad’s house in North Boulder, not knowing there was already an evacuation order at the time.

Once Sloat met his family, he got a call from a neighbor saying the house across the street from theirs was on re.

“Even then, with the winds being so crazy, I was being optimistic: ‘Maybe it’ll be ne. Maybe it’s not going to cross the street,’” he says he thought at the time. “But it did.”

A few days later, Sloat drove back to their neighborhood to con rm what they already knew.

“It was just surreal. Because not only was the neighborhood gone, but everything’s black and charred and covered in white, beautiful snow,” he says. “And we had a beautiful blue Colorado sky, because the snow had passed. I mean, it just didn’t look real.”

Now, Sloat and his family are rebuilding their home from the black-charred rubble. On top of good insurance, they are bene ciaries of the Community Foundation Boulder County’s Wildre Fund, which sent them $5,000 initially after the re, and then $20,000 to help support their rebuilding e orts.

“We’re lucky, even though it’s a very unlucky thing that happened,” Sloat says.

Among recovering Marshall Fire survivors, Sloat’s family is lucky.

Over the last year, the Community Foundation raised $43 million from more than 77,000 donors to support survivors of the Marshall Fire. But for an organization that typically distributes $10 million annually, it has been a herculean task to equitably address the most destructive wild re in the state’s history, which is expected to exceed $2 billion in damage. While there are many success stories, one year after the re the total impacts of

the 10-square-mile burn area and the 15-squaremile smoke-damage area are unknown, causing challenges in distributing funds and confusion in the community surrounding why it took so long to receive funds, or, for some, how they can receive funds at all.

Community assistance

e Community Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization that has granted more than $100 million to local nonpro ts since 1991. Over the last 30 years, the foundation helped distribute seven disaster funds, including relief for COVID, the CalWood Fire and the King Soopers shooting. e foundation is distributing grants from its Wild re Fund to organizations including Boulder County, United Policyholders and Jewish Family Service of Colorado to provide services such as in-

navigators help survivors access money from the Boulder County Wild re Fund.

According to the Community Foundation’s website, the largest chunk of money allocated to support survivors of the re is $20 million for rebuilding e orts. Tatiana Hernandez, the Community Foundation’s CEO, says that dollar amount came from an assumption that 75% of households would rebuild.

Next is $2.5 million to support unmet basic needs like rent or mortgage assistance, childcare, transportation and more. Both pools of money are being distributed by Loveland-based nonpro t Impact Development Fund.

To be eligible for funds from the $20 million allocated for rebuilding, households must provide evidence of a gap between a builder’s quote and insurance coverage, and also apply for a permit to rebuild. If eligible, a household receives a minimum $20,000 and up to nearly $40,000, depending on factors like if they are a single parent, lower income or have dependents. e money is given to a vendor (contractor building the house), not to the household directly.

As of the beginning of December, 144 households have been approved for rebuild funding, and 120 have already gotten that money. So far, $3.4 million has been approved, and $2.8 million has been dispersed. According to the Community Foundation, it is distributing funds at the pace of households choosing to rebuild.

surance navigation, mental health support and crisis counseling. To date, there are 10 organizational grantees with approved funding from the Boulder County Wild re Fund.

In the rst few weeks after the re, the Community Foundation responded by distributing approximately $8 million for immediate needs, including $5.5 million in direct nancial assistance to households damaged or destroyed. at’s where the Sloat family got their $5,000 check, which he called “a godsend.”

In July, the Community Foundation provided $1 million to Boulder County to help establish the Navigating Disaster for Boulder County Program and its recovery navigators to assist residents impacted by the Marshall Fire develop a recovery plan. Denver-based Lutheran Family Services, a partner of the program, helped hire and train the navigators.

Recovery navigators are public-facing workers who interact with families and community members one-on-one to help them access an array of support like mental health services, access to resources from local nonpro ts and referrals to legal and insurance claims advisors. In some cases, the

The underinsured

Deanne Pickel says she and her husband can’t a ord to rebuild, even if they received help from the Community Foundation.

“From day one, I’ve just been so upset with how they’re handling this,” she says. “It’s not fair.”

Pickel, 63, lived in her home in the original old town of Superior with her husband from 1995 until it was destroyed by the re.

“[ e re] was devastating. It was just unbelievable. It was de nitely hard. In a million years, I didn’t think that would ever happen,” she says.

Pickel says she and her husband were underinsured. Rebuilding is out of the question for them because of high building costs and not wanting to take on that much debt at their age. Despite her whole family living in Colorado, she is looking to move out of state where she says she can a ord a home.

Pickle says the amount they could get from the rebuilding fund would only account for a fraction of their rebuild costs.

e average cost to build a home in Colorado is just under $300,000, according to a July 2022 report from Forbes

A year after the Marshall Fire, survivors still struggle to access local funds by Will Matuska

ADAM SLOAT

Pickel did receive $1,500 in early January from the Community Foundation, and $1,000 from the unmet needs fund for their car. She says the recovery navigators were helpful, but she was still frustrated with not receiving more support.

“I’m hoping that $2,500 is not the total amount that our family receives out of $43 million,” says Pickel, who wants to see the money distributed evenly to survivors, regardless of rebuild status.

Hernandez, at the Community Foundation, says the Marshall Fire was a “multi-billion dollar loss — $43 million is a drop in the bucket there.”

Hernandez says the organization draws on experience when developing a strategy for distributing funds.

“If we think back to the oods of 2013, it really took us four to ve years for the community to recover from those costs,” she says. “So as a foundation, we do not rush to get money out immediately because we know the needs change over time.”

But the loss is especially acute for survivors with little or no insurance.

“I think our community is generally severely underinsured,” says Reina Pomeroy, who volunteers on the board of Marshall Together, a grassroots organization focused on preserving community and serving as a communication channel. “Like, to the tune of $200,000 per family.”

Meryl Suissa, who started the Facebook page Marshall Fire Community to help ll families’ gap of lost items and knows “the ins and outs of their lives,” empathizes with the households that were underinsured.

“Do I get it from the family’s point of view? Yes,” Suissa says.“Some families are underinsured upwards of $700,000, and no one is there to make them whole.”

When asked why funds are not being distributed evenly to survivors, Eric Schoenborn, vice president of engagement at the Community Foundation, wrote in an email: “ e Community Foundation has prioritized the needs of individuals and households in its distribution of the Boulder County Wild re Fund while also keeping in mind the impact this event has on the entire community.”

Additionally, the IRS applies “expenditure responsibility” for foundations to see that the grant is spent

only for the purpose for which it is made (rebuilding in this case) and to obtain reports from grantees on how the funds are spent.

Katie Arrington is an assistant recovery manager of the Navigating Disaster program, which manages the recovery navigators, and works with the Community Foundation regularly. She says folks who are underinsured can apply for unmet needs funds, but those are smaller dollar amounts.

She doesn’t mince words about

the outcome: “We will lose them from our community.”

Arrington adds bluntly, “ ere’s not a holistic way to make households whole after a disaster, especially a disaster of this magnitude.”

The ‘lucky ones’

Even homes that survived the re endured varying degrees of smoke damage that necessitated extensive repairs.

“I don’t really want to talk about

smoke damage, because it’s the bane of my existence,” says Arrington.

“Smoke damage is so hard and complicated,” she explains. “And I think we’re just hitting the tip of the iceberg with how many people we have impacted by that because there’s not a hard number. We know how many homes were destroyed and we do not know how many homes had smoke damage impacts.”

Boulder County counted 1,084 homes destroyed by the re and 149

damaged. Bill Hayes, the County’s air quality coordinator, told Boulder Reporting Lab, “ ere are between 13,000 and 14,000 homes in the burn area that were not destroyed. I think it’s safe to say that a large majority of those [homes] su ered a degree of smoke damage ranging from mild to severe.”

Arrington says the County is working on getting a better estimate, but right now “there just is not a good one.”

Boulder Weekly spoke with one survivor whose home was standing after the re, but has been unable to move back in due to smoke damage. e source requested to remain anonymous. We’ll call her Kelly.

When a home has smoke damage, industrial hygienists are hired to measure hazards that might impact the health of occupants. Kelly’s insurance said her home is clean enough to move back in, but she doesn’t agree because “if you go into my house, you’d see ash all over everything.”

“If it was just me, I would probably just go back in,” she says. ”But I have a child who’s been in the emer-

gency room for breathing problems.

It doesn’t feel like a great choice to go back into a home with a lot of small particulates. It doesn’t seem worth it.”

When Kelly hired an independent industrial hygienist to inspect her home, they found toxic chemicals

to recovery navigation or to Boulder County who are struggling with what to do here.”

Part of the challenge is that there is no central body that regulates whether or not a house is safe after smoke damage. Adding to Kelly’s challenges was the amount of time it took to reach the recovery navigators.

She says she rst lled out a form to initiate the recovery navigation process when the program started in July. She was told she would hear back in two weeks, but didn’t hear from them until mid-November when she nally decided to drop by the navigator’s o ce in Louisville in person.

mortgage and rent since Aug. 9. “ en you’re in a tight spot, and I think that’s what a lot of people are dealing with at this point is those types of choices,” she says. “For us, it’s like we either sell the house or we try to gure out how to live with double payments every month. Hopefully they’ll pay out on the policy. I don’t know what the other options are.”

When asked if people are eligible for funds while they wait to hear from insurance, Arrington says, “People are eligible for discussing unmet needs and possible funding while they are in discussions with insurance. However, to access the grant rebuilding funds, the insurance process should mostly be completed.”

behind the drywall and recommended more mitigation than Kelly’s insurance company is willing to do.

Kelly’s combination of smoke damage and insurance woes are not unique to her family. Arrington at the County says they’ve become aware of this issue only in the last month or so, with “a lot of residents coming

e following week, she had an appointment with a navigator. She said she was told to apply for FEMA support, which she had done previously and been denied. She’s not optimistic she’ll get money from anyone.

Meanwhile, Kelly’s insurance is no longer o ering Additional Living Expenses (ALE), which covers some costs if your home is temporarily uninhabitable, forcing her to pay a

While there’s still a backlog of people waiting to hear from the recovery navigators, “ at’s going to be all cleaned up,” Arrington says. “ at should be all squared away by the end of [December] and that really was just a sta ng-to-need ratio [problem].”

When the program started, there were two recovery navigators. Now there are 10 full-time recovery navigators and two on-site program managers.

Kelly, the homeowner with smoke

ADAM SLOAT

damage, says seeking support from the navigators hasn’t been easy, clear or timely. She is grateful for the support of people in the community, but is frustrated and confused with how the funds are being distributed.

Adam Sloat also has frustrations about the time it took the Community Foundation and Navigating Disaster Program to respond to people’s needs.

“I hate that they sat on millions of dollars for months on end, and did not nd a way to get that to people who needed it right away,” he said. “ at was a fucking failure. However, at this point, once they got out their messaging saying, ‘Here’s what we’re doing,’ for us, it went as they said it would go. It took a little bit of time, but they said it would take a little bit of time. And you know, the assistance is great.”

Hernandez says the Community Foundation looks to ll gaps in support available to survivors, and understanding coverage from FEMA, the state, other local organizations and insurance groups takes time to navigate.

Some Marshall Fire survivors only have 12 months of ALE coverage.

Hernandez has “deep concerns” around what happens to households when that coverage runs out. She says it’s something they are trying to nd out how to support, but “at this current moment, there just isn’t enough raised thus far to help support.”

On Dec. 11, the Colorado Division of Insurance requested that insurers extend ALE coverage if their policy had a minimum of 12 months of coverage.

e Community Foundation and Navigating Disaster for Boulder County program are also aware of folks struggling with smoke damage claims. But without accurate data, it is hard to assess how widespread smoke-damage issues are and the best way to allocate funds toward repair.

“We need to have an understanding and good data to be able to make good decisions,” says Hernandez. “And that’s probably been the most challenging for not just this event, but any disaster. Good quality information is the hardest thing to come by.” e Community Foundation is working on adjusting the parameters of what quali es as a rebuild to

support smoke-damaged homes, but haven’t released anything publicly yet.

“[Smoke damage] could be really big, or it could be really little … ere’s just a lot of unknowns here,” says Arrington.

Pomeroy, at Marshall Together, says her neighbor’s home is still standing, but they haven’t moved back in yet. “[Homeowners with smoke damage] do not have nearly the level of support and spotlight that our total loss survivor community does,” says Pomeroy, who lost her own home in the re. “It’s freaking hard.”

Building community

Adam Sloat says he carries guilt because his family was able to rebuild. He admits it’s been a rough year, and the life-changing destruction from the Marshall Fire will stay with him and his family.

“It’s the kind of thing where I don’t know if people ever recover,” he says. “It’s like when somebody loses a parent or family member — do they ever really recover?”

Support owed out of both the community and beyond for survivors of the Marshall Fire — an unprece-

dented response to an unprecedented disaster. By the end of the year, only one rebuilt home destroyed in the Marshall Fire will be ready to be moved into.

In a disaster with complex individual and community challenges, Pomeroy says the Community Foundation stepped up to support survivors.

“I think the community has a lot of opinions about how the foundation should spend their money. I want to give the Community Foundation a lot of grace for the decisions that they’re making and to help us navigate this together because it’s not just one year, it’s three and four years that we’re going to be recovering.”

Hernandez says the foundation will be in partnership until the community has recovered, or the funds run out.

“We all want the same thing,” she says. “We all want people to be stabilized in whatever the next step is for them, whether that’s getting back into their home or moving to a di erent location, whatever it is, whatever it means to re-establish themselves. We all want that.”

’22 in review

Our favorite stuff of the year by Boulder Weekly staff and contributors

We’re suckers for a good year-end list here at Boulder Weekly. And as enthusiastic (some might say obsessive) consumers of culture, there’s no shortage of opinions around the newsroom when it comes to our favorite movies, music, performances and experiences in Boulder County and beyond. So while we’re taking stock of 2022 and looking ahead to the new year, we asked staff and contributors to share their picks for the best of the year that was.

• • • •

Dave Anderson, columnist

Best moment in politics: Democrats take solid control of state government through 2027

That includes every major statewide office. This after the 2020 election when, as The Colorado Sun reports, “Democrats, for the first time since 1936, won control of every major statewide elected office, both chambers of the legislature, both U.S. Senate seats and the balance of the state’s U.S. House delegation.” Hopefully that leads to many progressive victories, like establishing a single-payer health care system.

Favorite Substack: Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from An American.

It is a chronicle of current politics but with a larger perspective. Richardson is a professor of 19th century American history at Boston College. She focuses on the Civil War, Reconstruction, the early Republican Party, the American West and the Plains Indians. She posts almost every day.

Favorite book of the year: Yellow Earth by John Sayles (2020)

John Sayles explores life during a fracking boom through the human impact on a fictional North Dakota small town called Yellow Earth and the neighboring Three Nations reservation. Sayles is best known as an incredible film

director (Matewan, Brother from Another Planet, Lone Star), but he is also a fantastic novelist. I was deeply moved by his 1977 novel Union Dues decades ago.

Emma Athena, contributor and former staff reporter

Favorite Boulder Weekly story: "Top of the Thrift Chain" (Feb. 10) by Emma Athena

Everyone knows the thrifting scene in Boulder is bangin’ — you can score everything from Steve Madden leather boots to like-new Patagonia fleeces among the secondhand racks around town. In reporting this piece, I wanted to look deeply at a trend I'd noticed first during the pandemic: the purchase of clothing and home goods at Boulder and Denver brick-and-mortar thrift stores to be sold, at a markup, using social media accounts, apps and online platforms to customers around the world. The secondhand industry is exploding — currently projected to double in the next five years to reach $77 billion — which raises the question of who thrift stores are poised to serve.

Favorite outdoor adventure: RMNP's Glacier Gorge on a September day

To celebrate the autumn solstice on Sept. 21, my boyfriend and I laced up our running shoes and set out on the seven-mile trail for Glacier Gorge in Rocky Mountain National Park. It's my favorite alpine basin in the world — a granite bowl filled with lakes and wildflowers that sits on the west side of Longs Peak, studded by Pagoda Mountain, Chiefs Head and McHenry's Peaks, and the blocky formation of Arrowhead. We faced terrible weather that day, climbing into a cloud of fog by the time we'd reached the basin, which completely obscured all vistas. Nevertheless, we laughed the entire day, reminding ourselves the sights aren't everything — it's our inner experience that makes the mountains sparkle.

Favorite album: JUNO (2021) by Remi Wolf

My friend Carly introduced me to Remi Wolf the week that her album JUNO came out in the fall of 2021. On first listen, I was repulsed by the eccentric artist's maximalist aesthetic. I initially waved her off as "too much" and "too intense." But something within the album kept pulling me back, and after a few months, I realized I was drawn to her audacious personality. Her lyrics are as shocking and radical as her use of sound, and she walks the walk: unabashedly expressing herself in her unique, counter-culture glory.

Favorite book: Pure Colour by Sheila Heti

Part magical realism, part creation myth, Pure Colour is a slim masterpiece published this year by Canadian novelist-philosopher Sheila Heti. Shortly after reading the novel, I saw the author in conversation with Colorado writer Vauhini Vara (author of The Immortal King Rao) at the Museum of Contemporary Art's Holiday Theater in Denver. The two writers dissected connections between humans, art, history, politics, religion, and other organisms living on Earth. It was a conversation, like Heti's novel, fit for spiritually inclined but non-religious souls — those wondering how to exist in today's disjointed world. According to Heti: “You don’t need answers to have joy. You don’t need answers to have a sense of connection. You don’t need answers to have peace or creativity, or any of those things. Answers are not necessary for any of that. In fact, answers probably get in the way.”

Jezy J. Gray, arts and culture editor

Favorite concert: Waxahatchee at Bluebird and Mabon music festivals

Katie Crutchfield couldn’t seem to stay out of Colorado this year. The indie-roots superstar performing under the name Waxahatchee — whose 2020 Saint Cloud will surely endure as a pandemic-era classic — played twice this year in Boulder County alone. I was lucky enough to

catch her at the Bluebird Music Festival at Macky Auditorium and the Mabon Festival at Planet Bluegrass in Lyons. Both shows bowled me over.

Favorite Boulder Weekly story: “Public access TV is dead. Long live public access TV!” (Nov. 17) by Caitlin Rockett

Wayne’s World is oft-quoted around the BW newsroom. Our frequent references to the headbanging 1992 comedy blockbuster got us wondering: What happened to public access TV in Boulder? Our fearless editor Caitlin Rockett took up this question in our Nov. 17 issue, producing a deeply researched and reported feature exploring the question of whether there is still a place for this curio of the cable era in our digital world.

Favorite movie: Nope

Animal actors, alien abductions and Black film history collide in Jordan Peele’s Nope, the third installment of the acclaimed director’s barn-burning “social horror” trilogy. I keep thinking his movies can’t get any richer or more interesting, but somehow they do. The latest from the actor-comedian-filmmaker is a savvy, psychedelic send-up of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and I can’t stop thinking about Stephen Yeun in his bedazzled Western suit.

Favorite album: God’s Country by Chat Pile

I’ve been obsessed with the Oklahoma City noise rock quartet Chat Pile since their twin 2020 EPs (This Dungeon Earth / Remove Your Skin Please), but even I was unprepared for the onslaught of God’s Country. The band’s unforgettable full-length debut is a grim but thrilling soundtrack to American decline, drawing on heavy traditions from nu-metal to slasher films. Keep an eye out for a Chat Pile feature in February from yours truly, ahead of their two-night stint with Lingua Ignota at the Stanley Hotel.

Favorite TV show: Reservation Dogs

My Okie bias is showing at this point, but it feels wrong to pick anything other than Reservation Dogs as my favorite TV show of the year. The FX series from Seminole/Muscogee filmmaker Sterlin Harjo follows teenagers Bear (D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai), Elora (Devery Jacobs), Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) and Cheese (Lane Factor) in a hilarious and heartbreaking exploration of life on the Muscogee Nation reservation in eastern Oklahoma, as seen through the eyes of a close-knit group of misfits who navigate the pitfalls and possibilities of their restless lives in the rural reaches of the Sooner State.

Bart Schaneman, contributor

Favorite new venue: Washington's in Fort Collins

I caught one of my favorite musicians (see my favorite album entry) here in November, and the experience was exactly what I want when I go out to see live music. Small-ish venue. Great sightlines from both the floor and the balcony. Reasonably priced drinks. And, most importantly, the sound quality was excellent. The kind of venue where I'd go

even if I didn't know the performer. It's that nice.

Favorite album: This Is a Photograph by Kevin Morby

I've been following Kevin Morby's career for years, and with each album he comes closer to perfection. The instrumentation, the songcraft and the lyrics all get better as he matures as a composer and writer. I'm usually a "I like their early stuff better" kind of guy, but not in this case. I caught Morby live on this tour (see my favorite venue entry) and he's also a stellar performer. By that I mean he was knocking roses into the crowd with nunchucks.

Favorite book: Site Fidelity by Claire Boyles

This story collection from Claire Boyles should almost be required reading for anyone moving to northern Colorado. Boyles lives in Loveland, and the stories she sets in this area are well-researched, deftly told and illuminate what it means to live here. As just one example, if you've ever wondered why it says "It Was Sugar Stupid!" in spray paint on the top of the Loveland sugar factory, you might want to read this book.

Trying to explain Daniels’ (directing duo Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan) head-spinning multiverse triumph at face value would be about as useful as cooking a steak with a magnifying glass. The universe is so much bigger than we could possibly fathom. The pair makes this abundantly clear, as Evelyn Wang (played flawlessly by Michelle Yeoh) jumps between infinite versions of herself (martial arts master Evelyn, Hollywood actor Evelyn, hotdog-fingers Evelyn — the usual stuff) in an attempt to resolve the fate of our endless realities. In 140 minutes, I oooh’d, ahhh’d, laughed and anxiously moved around in my seat. But most surprisingly, I got emotional. At the center of a movie whose timeless, intricate plot will be revered for decades, there’s a profoundly relatable story about the ones we love most.

Favorite album: mangalica mink by Blvck Svm

Three of my life's quintessential pleasures are hi-hats, sweeping synthesizers and an unforgettable meal. You can imagine my sheer excitement when I learned Blvck Svm — a budding Chicago-by-way-of-Florida artist — named his debut EP after the Mangalica pig (the Yves Saint Laurent of pork). And like the first bite of an exquisitely marbled cut of Mangalica ham, Blvck Svm's airtight, seven-track project melts in your eardrums upon first listen. Sonically, mangalica mink is soft and simple. These beats transport the listener to narrow alleyways near Shinjuku Station in Tokyo, or a dimly lit, Michelin-starred eatery tucked behind a Lyonnais auberge. The main course is a combination of Svm’s eerie, smooth cadence and lyrical brilliance.

Carter Ferryman, contributor and staff account executive

Favorite movie: Everything Everywhere All at Once by Daniels

The year in lm

Boulder Weekly’s film critic breaks down the best of 2022

by Michael J. Casey

Lydia Tár is broken. Pulled from the podium, kicked out of her Berlin apartment, barred from seeing her daughter, the disgraced conductor returns to her family house on Long Island, pokes around her childhood room — perfectly preserved as if she were eternally 12 — and pulls a long adored VHS from the closet. The program: Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concert Lydia slides the VHS into the player and watches her former mentor lead the New York Philharmonic through a stirring rendition of Tchaikovsky’s fifth symphony. She watches as the music fills the dusty room, minor notes become major and long dormant emotions flood her face as Bernstein turns to the audience and asks, “Didn’t you feel triumphant?”

What an odd question to hurl at Lydia at this particular moment, but Tár’s writer/ producer/director Todd Field is up to something. So are all the other filmmakers on this list of my favorite films of 2022. Even the narratives with straightforward surfaces disguise complex interiors, the kind that reward investigation by asking uncomfortable questions.

No movie in ’22 felt as emblematic of the moment we’re passing through as Tár. Would we feel the same way about the main character’s behavior were she not female and queer? Would she be easier to dismiss if the art she produced was not heartfelt, powerful and meaningful for so many people? And what of the movie’s coda, where Lydia, unmoored in Southeast Asia, might be undergoing a rehabilitation? And would Tár be easier to dismiss if not for the stellar performance from Cate Blanchett? She is to Lydia Tár what Robert de Niro is to Travis Bickle: A crack in the door, a peek through the window, a chance to understand the monsters haunting our world.

Some of these monsters are obvious. Others are superstitious, fabricated long ago to keep the people in line. That’s the monster haunting Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s door in No Bears. Panahi’s movies have always been good, even after the Iranian government banned him from making them and placed him under house arrest in 2010. But No Bears, the movie he finished before being incarcerated for protesting the arrest of another

Iranian filmmaker this past July, is even better. A fine line between reality and fiction populates every one of his movies, but in No Bears, even the reenactments are taut with desperation. And when Panahi reveals his hand, it doesn’t feel like a trick, just a revelation.

Speaking of filmmakers who produced their best work in ’22, Irish writer-director Martin McDonagh turned one of his unpublished plays from decades ago into the funniest and most thoughtful exploration of human bonding of his career: The Banshees of Inisherin Colin Farrell excels as the kind-hearted and dull Pádraic, and Brendan Gleeson is magnificent as Colm, a man who thinks he’s grown tired of his friend’s dullness but is really fed up with his own empty daily existence. Colm comes across as angry at Pádriac, but he’s just angry at himself. So much so that self-mutilation isn’t out of the question. How perfect that this is also the movie that made me laugh the most.

Humor is also part of Bones and All, though you might miss it amid the smattering of other high concepts: lovers on the run meets comingof-age meets a road movie set in the decaying small towns of the Midwest featuring cannibals. They are Lee (Timothée Chalamet) and Maren (Taylor Russel), two beautiful and captivating young actors surrounded by an almost comical level of creepy older men (Mark Rylance, Michael Stuhlbarg and David Gordon Green). Bones and All is about Lee and Maren’s youthful beauty — much in the same way Badlands and Bonnie and Clyde were about their main characters’ youth and beauty — and it’s certainly about the unsettling men haunting the margins, but the movie is simultaneously about a dozen things, resisting each in lieu of the other. The romance is obvious, and the difficulty of traversing family is evident. There are a dozen metaphorical roads to explore. It’s a vegan story, according to Camille DeAngelis, the author

of the source material. Makes sense when you think about it.

Aftersun, the debut feature from Scottish writer-director Charlotte Wells is also a coming-of-age story, but in two parts. The first revolves around Sophie (Frankie Corio), an 11-year-old on holiday in Turkey with her 31-year-old father, Calum (Paul Mescal). This is the summer Sophie had her first kiss, spent time around kids much older than her and

started to see the world as is. Then the narrative jumps to 31-year-old Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall), now a parent of a young child, reflecting on that summer she spent with her father 20 years ago. Through memories and images she recorded on a DVCAM, Sophie searches the home movie for clues of what lurks below the sunny surface. It’s beautiful and heartbreaking and uplifting and sad — everything you want from a quiet story

about a father and a daughter and that one summer vacation way back when.

Speaking of everything: No movie had it all quite like the Tollywood mega-smash RRR (Rise Roar Revolt) from Indian director S.S. Rajamouli. Set in 1920s India, still under British rule, RRR is a war epic, a historical fiction, a musical and one of the best buddy flicks in recent memory. The dance numbers are sensational, the fights are a thrilling combination of wirework, hand-to-hand combat and explosions that look like anime come to life, the villains are cartoonish in their villainy, and the bromance — oh, the bromance! N.T. Rama Rao Jr. as Bheem and Ram Charan Teja as Raju are a pair for the ages. Everything is dialed up to 11, so much so that you might want to enjoy it in two 90-minute sittings.

RRR wasn’t alone in its glorious, super-stuffed excess. It seems like a lot of movies this year embraced maximalist cinema, few of them as successful as Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All At Once, an eye-popping blend of action, multiverse hopscotching, romantic longing, familial disappointment, tax-evasion, talking rocks, raccoon chefs and hot dogs for fingers. It’s bonkers, rambunctious and ridiculously silly. It’s also incredibly heartfelt and honest, the kind of movie that doesn’t use humor and silliness to undercut the seriousness but to underline it. Kwan and Scheinert’s movie smartly focuses on specificity and grasps something universal. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that the whole thing is anchored by three of the year’s best performances: Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Stephanie Hsu. It’s pretty wonderful.

Ditto for Neptune Frost, arguably the most rebellious and revolutionary title on this list of rebellious and revolutionary movies. Written by Saul Williams and directed by Williams and cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman, Neptune Frost celebrates the plurality of society and individuals with an Afrofuturistic story about a band of rebels leading a physical and electronic rebellion in a future that’s either very distant or already here. The costuming and production design alone — a weaving of old-school tech into hair, make-up and clothing — gives Neptune Frost a grounded reality while simulta-

neously commenting on systemic racism and class inequities. And it’s a musical! Some movies never run out of things to say.

But they need not always shout. French filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve’s One Fine Morning is much quieter than other titles on this list. But what it has to say about single parenting, divorce, rekindled romance, navigating elder care, and so much more is as soft as the sun-dappled streets of Paris in late spring. One Fine Morning is Hansen-Løve’s eighth feature in a career that grows stronger with every entry. And her work here with lead actress Léa Seydoux is so harmonious it would be a shame if they didn’t continue to collaborate.

Which brings us conveniently to the end, the movie that feels most collaborative on this list, most egalitarian, the most Socratic: Canadian filmmaker Sarah Polley’s Women Talking. Based on Miriam Towes’ 2018 novel and featuring eight principal actresses (Rooney Mara, Judith Ivey, Michelle McLeod, Kate Hallett, Liv McNeil, Claire Foy, Sheila McCarthy and Jessie Buckley), the film centers on the decision to leave the Mennonite colony these women have called home all their life.

The men of the colony have been drugging and assaulting them in the middle of the night. Seems like a good enough reason to get the hell out of dodge, but many of the women refuse. They have their reasons. Everyone does. So while the men are away — save for one, August (Ben Wishaw) — the women gather to determine if they will leave or stay. Whichever it is, they must do it as one. The drama of the piece lies in these discussions. How much must one reconcile, accept or reject to maintain their own sense of order while accommodating for others?

will mainorder

■

Americana with Mackenzie Rae

6 p.m. Friday, Dec. 30, BOCO Cider, 1501 Lee Hill Drive, Unit 14, Boulder. Free

Mackenzie Rae is a singer-songwriter with roots in South Dakota and western Colorado. She performs throughout the Denver/Boulder area alongside bandmates Todd Redmond (guitar, vocals) and Ryan Parker (bass, vocals). With rich vocals and nuanced instrumentals, they deliver authentic covers and originals spanning Americana, classic country and rock.

■ Burning Bowl Ceremony and New Beginnings Service

11 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 1, Unity of Boulder Spiritual Center, 2855 Folsom St., Boulder. Free, donations accepted

The Burning Bowl ritual is a ceremony in which participants have the opportunity to get rid of negativity by writing down problems, then casting the sheets of paper into a Tibetan fire bowl.

■ New Year’s Eve Eve Contra Dance

7:30-10:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 30, Avalon Ballroom, 6185 Arapahoe Road, Boulder. Tickets: $5-$15

Contra dancing is similar to square dancing, but with simpler patterns and a different configuration. The dance pattern is choreographed so that each pair of dancers dances with the couple next to them, and then progresses on to the next couple in the line. No partner is needed, everyone dances with everyone, and dancers are welcome to dance the role they prefer. This event uses the gender neutral terminology of Larks and Robins for the lead and follow roles.

■

Photographers Gather: Artists Salon (Every Tuesday)

5-8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 3, Mike O’Shays Irish Pub, 512 Main St., Longmont

Stop by Mike O’Shays Irish Pub to join this artists salon, modeled after 1920s Paris cafes, like La Closerie des Lilas, the cafe where writers Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, Man Ray, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald hung out. Come and talk art, show photos, bring stories and inspire each other.

■ Retro Video Game Night

6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 4, Sanitas Brewing Co., 3550 Frontier Ave., Boulder. Free

Come join in for a blast into video game past during Sanitas Brewing’s winter series of Retro Video Game Nights. It’s free to play and games start at 6:30 p.m.

■

Brett Merlin: Things I Wish I Knew Before Attending the Ouray Ice Festival

7 p.m. Neptune Mountaineering, 633 S. Broadway, Boulder. Registration required: neptunemountaineering.com

Every January, hundreds of ice climbers show up to Ouray, Colorado, for the infamous Ouray Ice Festival. The Ice Park is an incredible place to learn to ice climb. However, ice climbing is very different from rock climbing. The pointers in this talk by 30-year veteran climber Brett Merlin will help you navigate your first ice climbing trip to the Ouray Ice Festival and even your first ice climbing outing.

■ Shota Renwick and the Colorado Collective

7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 5, Muse Performance Space, 200 E. South Boulder Road, Lafayette. Tickets: $5-$15

The Colorado Collective is a group of young, up-and-coming musicians exploring the world of improvised music. Each member has either gone to college to study music, or is currently completing a degree in music at institutions across the country.

BECKY KLATT

WIKIMEDIA

ALL EVENTS TAKE PLACE ON SATURDAY, DEC. 31.

★ BOULDER

License No. 1 NYE Party

8 p.m. License No. 1, 2115 13th St., Boulder. Tickets: $25, license1boulderado.com

NYE at Avalon Ballroom

7 p.m. 6185 Arapahoe Road, Boulder. Tickets: $45 in advance, $55 day of

NYE at BOCO Cider with The Basement Blues Project 5:30 p.m. BOCO Cider, 1501 Lee Hill Drive, Unit 14, Boulder. Free

New Year’s Eve with The Goonies at the Velvet Elk Lodge 8 p.m. Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 13th St., Boulder. Tickets: $100

DV8 and Junkyard Social Club

Present: Eternal A New Years Celebration 8 p.m. DV8 Distillery, 2480 49th St., Unit E, Boulder.

New Year’s Eve Meditation Unity of Boulder Spiritual Center, 2855 Folsom St., Boulder. Free

NYE at Avanti Avanti Boulder, 1401 Pearl St., Boulder. Free

Lotus New Year’s Eve — Night 2 9 p.m. Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St., Boulder. Tickets: $35-$150, axs.com

New Year’s Eve with Funkiphino

9 p.m. St Julien Hotel & Spa, 900 Walnut St., Boulder. Tickets: $125$175, eventbrite.com

New Year’s Eve Dance Party

7 p.m. Gold Hill Inn, 401 Main St., Boulder. Tickets: $45, goldhillinn.com

Houndmouth with Wildermiss

9 p.m. Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St., Boulder. Tickets: $35-$40, axs.com

★ DENVER

New Year’s Eve Fireworks

9 p.m. and midnight, 16th Street Mall, Denver

The String Cheese Incident

7:30 p.m. Mission Ballroom, 4242 Wynkoop St., Denver. Tickets: $100$130, axs.com

Resolution New Year’s Eve 2022

7:30 p.m. The Brighton, 3403 Brighton Blvd., Denver. Tickets: $99-$199, resolutiondenver.com

★ LONGMONT

Outworld Brewing’s New Year’s Eve

9 a.m.-9 p.m. Outworld Brewing, 1725 Vista View Drive, Suite B., Longmont. Tickets: $40-$60, eventbrite.com

★ LOUISVILLE

NYE All Hits Silent Disco Party (All Ages)

6:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 31, The Louisville Underground, 640 Main St., Louisville. Free

★ LYONS

Drag Show and Bar Crawl

7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 31, Spirit Hound Distillers, 4196 Ute Highway, Lyons. $10 cover charge for the main event/show at The Diner Bar.

★ NEDERLAND

Gasoline Lollipops

7 p.m. The Caribou Room, 55 Indian Peaks Drive, Nederland. Tickets: $25

by Rob Brezsny

ARIES

MARCH 21-APRIL 19: “My life was the best omelet you could make with a chainsaw,” observed flamboyant author Thomas McGuane. That’s a witty way to encapsulate his tumultuous destiny. There have been a few moments in 2022 when you might have been tempted to invoke a similar metaphor about your own evolving story. But the good news is that your most recent chainsaw-made omelet is finished and ready to eat. I think you’ll find its taste is savory. And I believe it will nourish you for a long time. (Soon it will be time to start your next omelet, maybe without using the chainsaw this time!)

TAURUS

APRIL 20-MAY 20: After meticulous research of 2023’s astrological omens, I have come to a radical conclusion: You should tell the people who care for you that you’d like to be called by new pet names. I think you need to intensify their ability and willingness to view you as a sublime creature worthy of adoration. I don’t necessarily recommend you use old standbys like “cutie,” “honey,” “darling,” or “angel.” I’m more in favor of unique and charismatic versions, something like “Jubilee” or “Zestie” or “Fantasmo” or “Yowie-Wowie.” Have fun coming up with pet names that you are very fond of. The more, the better.

GEMINI

MAY 21-JUNE 20: If I could choose some fun and useful projects for you to master in 2023, they would include the following: 1. Be in constant competition with yourself to outdo past accomplishments. But at the same time, be extra compassionate toward yourself. 2. Borrow and steal other people’s good ideas and use them with even better results than they would use them. 3. Acquire an emerald or two, or wear jewelry that features emeralds. 4. Increase your awareness of and appreciation for birds. 5. Don’t be attracted to folks who aren’t good for you just because they are unusual or interesting. 6. Upgrade your flirting so it’s even more nuanced and amusing, while at the same time you make sure it never violates anyone’s boundaries.

CANCER

JUNE 21-JULY 22: When she was young, Carolyn Forché was a conventional poet focused on family and childhood. But she transformed. Relocating to El Salvador during its civil war, she began to write about political trauma. Next, she lived in Lebanon during its civil war. She witnessed firsthand the tribulations of military violence and the imprisonment of activists. Her creative work increasingly illuminated questions of social justice. At age 72, she is now a renowned human rights advocate. In bringing her to your attention, I don’t mean to suggest that you engage in an equally dramatic self-reinvention. But in 2023, I do recommend drawing on her as an inspirational role model. You will have great potential to discover deeper aspects of your life’s purpose—and enhance your understanding of how to offer your best gifts.

LEO

JULY 23-AUG. 22: Are the characters in Carlos Castañeda’s books on shamanism fictional or real? It doesn’t matter to me. I love the wisdom of his alleged teacher, Don Juan Matus. He said, “Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use.” Don Juan’s advice is perfect for you in the coming nine months, Leo. I hope you will tape a copy of his words on your bathroom mirror and read it at least once a week.

VIRGO

AUG. 23-SEPT. 22: Teacher and author Byron Katie claims, “The voice within is what I’m married to. My lover is the place inside me where an honest yes and no come from.” I happen to know that she has also been married for many years to a writer named Stephen Mitchell. So she has no problem being wed to both Mitchell and her inner voice. In accordance with astrological omens, I invite you to propose marriage to your own inner voice. The coming year will be a fabulous time to deepen your relationship with this crucial source of useful and sacred revelation

LIBRA

SEPT. 23-OCT. 22: Libran philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche offered advice that is perfect for you in 2023. It’s strenuous. It’s demanding and daunting. If you take it to heart, you will have to perform little miracles you may not yet have the confidence to try. But I have faith in you, Libra. That’s why I don’t hesitate to provide you with Nietzsche’s rant: “No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across; but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk!”

SCORPIO

OCT. 23-NOV. 21: How might you transform the effects of the limitations you’ve been dealing with? What could you do to make it work in your favor as 2023 unfolds? I encourage you to think about these question with daring and audacity. The more moxie you summon, the greater your luck will be in making the magic happen. Here’s another riddle to wrestle with: What surrender or sacrifice could you initiate that might lead in unforeseen ways to a plucky breakthrough? I have a sense that’s what will transpire as you weave your way through the coming months in quest of surprising opportunities.

SAGITTARIUS

NOV. 22-DEC. 21: Sagittarian singer Tina Turner confided, “My greatest beauty secret is being happy with myself.” I hope you will experiment with that formula in 2023. I believe the coming months will potentially be a time when you will be happier with yourself than you have ever been before—more at peace with your unique destiny, more accepting of your unripe qualities, more in love with your depths, and more committed to treating yourself with utmost care and respect. Therefore, if Tina Turner is accurate, 2023 will also be a year when your beauty will be ascendant.

CAPRICORN

DEC. 22-JAN. 19: “I’m homesick all the time,” writes author Sarah Addison Allen. “I just don’t know where home is. There’s this promise of happiness out there. I know it. I even feel it sometimes. But it’s like chasing the moon. Just when I think I have it, it disappears into the horizon.” If you have ever felt pangs like hers, Capricorn, I predict they will fade in 2023. That’s because I expect you will clearly identify the feeling of home you want—and thereby make it possible to find and create the place, the land, and the community where you will experience a resounding peace and stability.

AQUARIUS

JAN. 20-FEB. 18: Storyteller Michael Meade tells us, “The ship is always off course. Anybody who sails knows that. Sailing is being off-course and correcting. That gives a sense of what life is about.” I interpret Meade’s words to mean that we are never in a perfect groove heading directly towards our goal. We are constantly deviating from the path we might wish we could follow with unfailing accuracy. That’s not a bug in the system; it’s a feature. And as long as we obsess on the idea that we’re not where we should be, we are distracted from doing our real work. And the real work? The ceaseless corrections. I hope you will regard what I’m saying here as one of your core meditations in 2023, Aquarius.

PISCES

FEB. 19-MARCH 20: A Chinese proverb tells us, “Great souls have wills. Feeble souls have wishes.” I guess that’s true in an abstract way. But in practical terms, most of us are a mix of both great and feeble. We have a modicum of willpower and a bundle of wishes. In 2023, though, you Pisceans could make dramatic moves to strengthen your willpower as you shed wimpy wishes. In my psychic vision of your destiny, I see you feeding metaphorical iron supplements to your resolve and determination.

by Dan Savage

Dear Dan: When I first got engaged to my wife, I tried to ease into a conversation about cuckolding, but it went poorly. I tried to broach the subject by telling her monogamy wasn’t a requirement for me and she got upset. She thought I wanted to have sex with other women. I do not. I reassured her of that fact and dropped the subject, but she still doesn’t believe me. Whenever she’s feeling insecure, she brings up that conversation from five years ago. I do not want to have sex with women other than my wife. I want her to have sex with other men. I want to be her cuckold. I want her to cheat on me. I have seen some married men online who are living the life I dream about. How did they get it? How do I get it? Do I risk raising the subject of monogamy again?

—Difficulties Renegotiating Expectations Around Monogamy

Dear DREAM: I got on Twitter to track down one of the guys living the life you dream about and posting the proof all over his social media accounts. His handle on Twitter is @CyclicCycle, and his wife’s handle is @Miss_On_Top. He managed to get what you want. So, how did he get it? And how can you?

“The short answer: With a lot of communication, literature, podcasts and patience,” said Cycle.

Cycle was never a jealous person. If anything, he was the opposite of jealous. “Even before cuckolding was integrated into my mental lexicon,” Cycle said, “things like other guys hitting on my girlfriend or buying her drinks were huge turn-ons for me.”

Cuckolding wasn’t always a part of his marriage. But when Cycle decided to broach the subject, he was honest and direct — in other words, DREAM, he didn’t make the mistake you did. He didn’t speak about non-monogamy generally, but about his emerging interest in cuckolding specifically.

“Now, it wasn’t a massive stretch to get to cuckolding from our already kinky lifestyle,” said Cycle. “And while I think it helped that we approached the topic more from a kink perspective than

a non-monogamous perspective at first, even then we also didn’t go from zero to 60 in an instant.”

When you look at the social media accounts of guys who are in successful cuckold relationships, you need to remember you’re seeing their most recent posts first. Meaning, you’re seeing where they arrived, DREAM, and not where they started.

You brought up non-monogamy, not cuckolding, and somehow thought your wife would take you from zero to 60, i.e., you thought your wife would hear you say “non-monogamy” and instead of thinking what most people would when their partner broached the subject of non-monogamy (“He wants to fuck other people!”), DREAM, you hoped your wife would either react so positively you felt you could pivot to your non-monogamy-adjacent kink (“I want you to fuck other people!”) or even that she might leap to the opposite of the likeliest conclusion (“He wants me to fuck other people!?!”). And that is 1. not how it works and 2. not how you get what you want.

“I recall discussing with my wife that we could make up our own rules, and build our own a la cart dynamic,” said Cycle, “which made her feel much more comfortable. It also didn’t hurt that chastity was already part of our kink repertoire. We eventually progressed to a more traditional FLR/Cuckolding dynamic, but we allowed it time to develop organically.” (FLR = “female-led relationship.”)

Cycle’s wife had a lot of reservations about opening up their relationship, DREAM, even though they were only opening things up — per Cycle’s desires — on her side. So, they started out slow with a lot of fantasy play and dirty talk before moving on to low-stakes/light-hearted/baby-step “first dates” with other men. Only after they both felt comfortable with the cuckold dynamic in theory did they move on to cuckolding — Cycle’s wife having sex with other men — in actual practice.

Follow Cycle on Twitter @CyclicCycle. Email questions@savagelove.net Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage. Find columns, podcasts, books, merch and more at savage.love.

ROMAN ROBINSON

ON THE MENU: 24 Carrot Bistro, 587 Briggs St., Erie

Striking gold

Erie’s award-winning 24 Carrot Bistro is worth the hype — and the trip by Colin Wrenn

Anyone who read this year’s Best of Boulder East County was sure to have noticed one name showing up time and time again. The restaurant, 24 Carrot Bistro, won for both Best American and Best Service, and placed as the winner for the town of Erie for seven other categories including fine dining, burger, seafood and dessert. The people have spoken, so we went to find out if the place is all it’s cracked up to be.

It is. And then some. But it took a while for this eastside gem to connect with diners.

“We were kind of hidden out here for quite a while,” says co-owner and general manager Bianca Retzloff. The bistro first opened its doors in July 2015, when Retzloff and chef-owner Kevin Kidd decided to embark on a lifelong dream of owning their own place. The pair had met in 2009 while working at Colterra Food and Wine, the sorely missed house of garden-fresh cuisine in Niwot. “That’s where we got a taste for being a destination restaurant,” says Kidd, noting that Colterra helped to provide the blueprint for 24 Carrot Bistro’s decided position on the outskirts. “You know it, you go to it, you seek it out.”

Retzloff says the restaurant’s progress has been tied to the growing community it calls home. Since 2015, Erie’s population has grown from 24,000 to over 32,000, with no sign of slowing down. “I think we

jumped on the Erie bandwagon before there was an Erie bandwagon,” Kidd says with a laugh. As the town swells around it, 24 Carrot Bistro remains a gourmet island unto itself.

Both Retzloff and Kidd are restaurant lifers. Retzloff is a Colorado native with clean eating in her blood. Her dad, Mark Retzloff, co-founded Alfalfa’s Market in 1979 and has since been a pioneer for organic food and natural products across the region. She grew up in an environment where quality ingredients were a given. The food at 24 Carrot Bistro reflects a deep-rooted philosophy where good, largely local components reign supreme. The menu has four large changes with each season, with another four smaller changes usually happening as new ingredients become available mid-season.

“I grew up on a better diet than most people,” says Kidd, a Scituate, Massachusetts, native whose grandfather — a fireman, fisherman and lobsterman — made sure fresh fish constantly graced the plates at Kidd’s family home. To such a degree that it was not uncommon to hear cries and protests of “lobster again?”

Kidd’s culinary career began in high school, where he spent all four years working at The Roadkill Cafe in Cape Cod. “The food was terrible but it taught me about how restaurants were run,” he says. After moving to Boulder to attend the University of Colorado, Kidd launched into the local restaurant scene, working at

local staples Jax Fish House, Carelli’s, Chautauqua and the now-closed Zolo Grill and Full Moon Grill. In 2007, Kidd helped open Colterra from the ground up, acting as chef de cuisine while owner Bradford Heap ran the place as executive chef. After a stint in San Francisco — where Kidd worked at Daniel Patterson’s Coi, Restaurant Gary Danko and Nopa — he returned to Boulder to act as the executive chef at SALT, also owned by Heap, for the first three years it was open.

Kidd was a student of Heap. Heap was a student of Alain Ducasse, having worked for the iconic chef at Le Louis XV in L’Hotel de Paris Monaco. Kidd credits Heap for teaching him much of the classic French technique that underpins 24 Carrot’s menu. Retzloff says Kidd still has “groupies” who have followed his career since his time at Colterra.

Retzloff now gracefully handles the front-of-house, though her knowledge and kitchen experience also runs deep. After attending culinary school at the now-closed Art Institute of Colorado she worked at both Colterra and SALT before spearheading the culinary department when Alfalfa’s reopened in 2012. Kidd became the executive chef at both the Boulder and Louisville locations before he and Retzloff — each fresh off a string of successes in the worlds of fine dining, restaurants and grocery stores — left to open 24 Carrot Bistro.

“We wanted to open a small, intimate restaurant that was the center of the community,” says Retzloff.

During the week, the restaurant serves lunch and dinner, with a not-to-bemissed brunch on Saturday and Sunday. “One of the big things that set us apart is having a chef-owner on site,” Retzloff says. On any given day, Kidd is visible on

the line, putting final hands on plates as they make their way into the dining room.

Dishes like the crispy calamari, with buttermilk, greens, pepperoncini, cherry tomato, basil aioli and romesco, and the warm kale parmesan dip with housemade sweet potato chips have been on the menu since day one. However, most of the menu is renewed with each seasonal makeover. The duck confit is another early staple, though Kidd says the toppings change often. This is the kind of food that would surely make Alice Waters proud, with even the most lavish feasts leaving diners invigorated rather than weighed down.

The cocktail program is also exquisite and in frequent fluctuation, and with most drinks sitting at $12, they seem to have missed the mixologist memo that excellent beverages must break the bank. Drinks like the La Madrina (with tequila, elderflower, lemon vanilla, honey and peppercorn tincture) and the Why Did it Have to Be Snakes (with coconut-washed Japanese whiskey, honey, salt and lavender) exhibit the place’s penchant for both the superb and the tongue-in-cheek.

Fresh meat and produce come from local purveyors including Buckner Family Farm, Forevergreen Farm, Tranquility Ranch, Oxford Gardens, Croft Family Farm and Fox Plot Farm. Even the flower arrangements are local, with ornate displays arriving courtesy of Retzloff’s brother Oliver’s Wild Nectar Farm.

Great food has always been worth a journey, so much so that the Michelin Guide organizes its ratings around whether or not a place is worth a detour (two stars) or a special journey (three stars). Whether folks are coming from near or far, 24 Carrot Bistro should be at the top of any diner’s to-do list.

SUSAN FRANCE

Kanpai!

Ring in the New Year with a taste of modern Japan in the heart of Boulder!

Whether the sun is shining or snow is falling, our little corner of Pearl Street is the perfect place to celebrate the season. Feast alongside the jellyfish, sink into a lounge or take a seat at one of our lively bars.

Prefer the great outdoors? Our fireside patios are the coziest place to savor those mild winter days.

When your own couch is calling, all of your favorites are available for curbside pickup too.

No matter how you choose to dine don’t miss our ever-evolving specials, delicious seasonal cocktails, and latest rare whiskey!

The thickest cocoa

The hot cocoa in my life had never been acceptable. It was always too thin and runny. Too much like liquid, and I didn’t want liquid. I wanted a dense chocolate cloud in which to lose my sense of direction. To my great joy, I finally solved the mystery of how to manifest this vision into reality.

The body of this drinkable soufflé comes from whole eggs. I start by following the example of the Viennese, who famously add egg yolk to their cocoa to create a decadently smooth, glossy brown emulsion. But unlike the Austrians, I don’t neglect the whites. Rather, I beat them stiff, and then whisk them into my cocoa.

Unlike whipped cream and other culinary foams, stiff whites won’t dissolve in heat. Their enduring density comes from the egg white proteins, aligned by the action of the whisk into fiber-like structures that persist in the chocolate-y brew. The egg whites make the cocoa so thick and so puffy it’s like drinking a chocolate cloud as the chocolate cloud drinks you.

On New Year’s Eve, enhance the drinking chocolate with Kahlua. The following morning — New Year’s Day — add some of this puffy cocoa foam to a cup of coffee, where it will float like professionally steamed milk. Without mixing with the coffee, the cocoa will still manage to hitch a ride in each sip. As a pair of stimulants, coffee and chocolate act greater than the sum of the parts, because the theobromine in chocolate and caffeine in coffee are mutually enhancing as you stare piercingly into the blank canvas that is the year to come.

When hot cocoa can be simultaneously so thick and so silky, anything is possible. So be firm with your prin-

ciples, flexible with your expectations, and perfect with your hot cocoa, and you will crush 2023.

Heavenly, earthy, perfect cocoa

Here is my recipe for the thickest, fluffiest and most satisfying hot cocoa on the planet. It’s your shield against the cold dark days to come. And you can make as much as you want, without a prescription.

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup semi sweet chips

1 tablespoon vanilla

2 cups milk

3 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 tablespoons sugar

1 cup heavy cream

Pinch nutmeg (optional)

2 eggs

On low heat, melt the butter. Add the vanilla and chocolate chips, and mix together without letting anything stick or burn. Add the cocoa powder and stir it in, quickly followed by about half of milk to dissolve any lumps and prevent burning. When it’s smooth, add the cream, nutmeg and the rest of the milk. Slowly bring

the cocoa to a simmer, whisking constantly. Separate the eggs, putting the yolks and whites into separate mixing bowls.

As the cocoa heats, gently add a teaspoon of cocoa to the yolks, stirring vigorously. Do this again and again until the temperature rises. This tempers the yolks, making them heat resistant, so we don’t end up with scrambled eggs in our cocoa. Add the hot, tempered yolks to the pot of hot cocoa. Stir it in well. Turn

While the cocoa cools, use a whisk to beat the egg whites stiff.

If you aren’t immunocompromised or otherwise wary of undercooked eggs, you can scoop some of those stiff whites into a cup and pour the cocoa over them, stirring in as much or little as you wish. The bland flavor of the egg whites makes for a fun contrast with the cocoa, and you can eat it with a spoon. Alternatively, let the cocoa cool to room temperature. Fold in the whites and gently reheat, whisking in the whites until perfectly smooth and thick as wet cement. However you serve it, you’ll need a spoon to finish the job.

To float some of this foam on coffee, spoon some into a cup and pour the coffee into it. Then drink your coffee through the cocoa, as you would sip your brew with any nutritious breakfast.

Looking back, looking forward

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The fight to end cannabis prohibition continues to be fought, and won, across the country. Every single year more states hop aboard the legalization train, and the nation creeps closer toward finally descheduling, decriminalizing or maybe even fully legalizing cannabis.

We’re getting there. It’s been a long slog, one that’s been ongoing for generations. But the levy is showing cracks — at this point, you could even say it’s leaking. And with a little luck, it might be on the verge of failure.

The last 12 months moved us significantly closer toward that goal. It also set the board up for even more progress to take place next year. But there are hurdles yet to overcome — some that have always been there, and others that are only now developing.

In November 2022, three more states voted to legalize cannabis. Rhode Island and Missouri will have legal, recreational cannabis come Jan. 1, 2023, and Maryland will come online July 1, 2023. That will bring the grand total number of states with legal recreational cannabis to 22 (not including Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and D.C., all of which have recreationally legalized). Another 10 (plus the Virgin Islands) have decriminalized it, and medical cannabis is now legal in 37 states.

This last year, Kentucky’s Gov. Andy Bashear pardoned all charges for marijuana possession under 8 ounces. Minnesota finally legalized the sale and consumption of edibles. Mississippi legalized medical use (for the second time, now). New Mexico started commercial sales. And Oregon doubled its legal possession amount up to two ounces.

Yes, cannabis made leaps and bounds in 2022. Even our Commander in Chief, President Joe Biden, made big promises to pardon all federal cannabis possession offenders, and demanded Attorney General Xavier Becerra initiate the process of “reviewing” how cannabis was scheduled (Weed Between the Lines, “Tastes like crow,” Oct. 13, 2022).

While there have been no meaningful steps toward accomplishing either of those commitments, things are happening on Capitol Hill. And some of them could be a signal of more progress yet to come in 2023.

Sen. Chuck Schumer made a desperate last-minute attempt to get cannabis banking reform included in the Omnibus appropriations bill. He failed. But Schumer and Sen. Cory Booker’s Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act (CAOA) is still on the floor of the House. Almost no one thinks it will pass, as it will need 60 votes. But still, its mere introduction could add momentum to other cannabis bills on Capitol Hill, according to Randal Meyer, the executive director of the Global Alliance for Cannabis Commerce (GACC). Meyer told MJ Biz Daily the CAOA could have an “uncorking effect” for marijuana legislation.

“It really does increase the chances of something happening,” Meyer said.

Members of Congress are also circulating a letter calling on Biden to endorse de-scheduling marijuana. So far, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Reps. Earl Blumenauer, Dave Joyce, Barbara Lee and Brian Mast have signed it.

Hopefully that goes somewhere. According to the PEW Research Center’s latest polls, 88% of U.S. adults say marijuana should be either medically or recreationally legal. Only 10% of Americans remain strictly opposed to it in any form. That should speak to politicians about their constituents’ opinions on this. (If nothing else, it should tempt them with easily won votes, to take a pro-cannabis stance.)

Still, even with so many Americans in favor of it, education on cannabis as a drug, and as an industry, is going to be extremely important going into 2023, as evidenced by failed local recreational measures in both Colorado Springs and Jefferson County here in Colorado — both shot down by voters in November. And both of which were fought hard by anti-cannabis lobbying organizations (Weed Between the Lines, “Attack of the Lobbyists: SAM,” April 21, 2022).

“Colorado cannabis companies have become significant contributors to the community,” Liz Zukowski, policy and public affairs manager at Native Roots, said in a press release. “We need to better connect with our citizens, so they fully understand the benefits the sector provides to the entire state.”

While the future for cannabis looks good from a political perspective, there are also economic growing pains the industry is learning to cope with. In 2022, for the first time in Colorado’s cannabis industry history, there was a sustained downturn in sales. Back in June, sales were down 11.4% from the previous year, according to CNBC.

That’s no reason for cannabis entrepreneurs to panic. But it is proof that oversaturation and overextension are still possible, even in a booming new industry like cannabis.

2023 is not a midterm election year, which means there may not be as much progress over the next 12 months as there was in the last 12. But without question, we’re closer to an actual, federal end to prohibition than we’ve ever been before. Which is hopeful, no matter how you slice it.

It was another big year for cannabis in Colorado and across the US — what does 2023 hold in store?

Will Brendza