Dear Everyone,
Not a lot happened last week, but this past week was full of
social engagements with the Wallachs.
Wednesday evening we went with them and a group of their other friends
to Bourbon Street a large
bar/entertainment space in Merrionette Park on the Southside. This is cavernous venue in a strip mall
shopping center with four different stages, and a performance space outdoors as
well. We were there to see a Led Zeppelin tribute band
called Kashmir (after the famous LZ
song Kashmir
for those who did not live through or participate in the 70s). I was surprised
by how familiar I was with much of their music. The musicians were all in their
60s, as well as the audience. I am also
fairly confident in stating that there were probably very few doctors, lawyers,
or investment professionals in the audience.
It’s strange to see that the music of my youth has lived on to be
classified as ‘Golden Oldies’. Who knew it
would have such lasting power? Anyway,
the band had costumes, and sort of looked like LZ. The guitarist had a lot of stringed
instruments (including a Gibson
EDS 1275, for use in Stairway
to Heaven, of course, (Page switches around 6:40), playing the guitar with
a violin
bow, and using a theremin
on Whole
Lotta Love). The guitarist also had
enormous hands! Another thing that I
thought was great was that all of the electronic instruments were cordless
(wireless?), so the guitarist walked into the audience several times during
songs. The bassist/ keyboard player and
drummer were pretty good, but the singer was no Robert Plant, both in looks and
vocal abilities. Cindy thought the sound
tech could have improved the mix so his singing wasn’t so obviously off in some
parts. It was a lot of fun, but I left feeling pretty deaf, and we were
disappointed that they did not play The Immigrant Song (Viking
kitties edition). I found out that
they will have a Talking
Heads cover band this coming Wednesday.
Maybe we’ll go!
Then this Friday, we decided to take the Wallachs to an axe throwing venue in Bolingbrook. The wooden target is about ten feet away, and
you throw the axe in a little steel wire covered range to prevent mishaps. You can throw either one or two handed. What I found amazing is somehow, after a few
throws, your brain automatically figures out how much rotation to give the axe
so it ends blade first, biting into the target (there were plenty of throws
where the handle hit the target instead).
You have to be careful not to impart any horizontal rotation to the axe
when you throw; otherwise it hits the target sideways. They have to replace the center board of the
target every two or three days, because they get so chewed up by the axe that
eventually the axe head won’t stay fixed in the wood and falls out. (We saw them replace the middle board of one
of our targets after we played, a job that took five-to-ten minutes.) We played
a lot of games of individuals and couples.
Afterwards we walked about a block away in the same shopping center to
go to a Bon Chon chicken; Korean style fried
chicken really has the most amazing
crispy skin.
The Hinsdale Spice club gave us some za’atar. Cindy prepared a delicious tomato and pomegranate
salad featuring the spice.
Of recent books the two best were Salt, A World
History, which Nikki was reading in Mexico.
Salt is obviously an important world commodity, and easy access to salt
defined some world empires. This book is
pretty good, with some interesting ancient recipes, but less engaging as it
approached the modern era, where salt became a more industrial, cheap product,
and sourcing it less of a geopolitical problem, and Leech,
which Joey recommended, a super creepy horror novel set in some undefinable apocalyptic
future with horrible parasites.
Love, H
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