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6 key components to shape your talent strategy
I recently attended a really interesting seminar, led by Alastair Blair of thePotentmix, at the SE Scotland CIPD recruitment group in Edinburgh and wanted to share the following takeaways from that evening. We know that current skill shortages mean finding the talent needed to grow and develop a business requires real recruitment expertise and experience. However, to understand the challenges recruitment faces in the next few years we have to look at the bigger picture - the macroeconomic and social variables and their impact on inhouse and external recruiters.
There are several, interrelated factors which will influence future recruitment markets. These are: demographics; flexible working; millennials; Brexit; technology and the next recession. In addition, Alastair suggested that Google for Jobs (which we wrote about in our blog in August so I'll omit any discussion of that here) is also likely to have a significant effect. Let's look at these in a little more detail.
Read: Google for Jobs
Firstly, the Demographics of the country means that there will be relatively fewer people available to work in the near future. At present, about a third of the UK's workforce is over the age of 50 (c. 10 million people). This group – including many highly skilled professionals – is approaching retirement, which will only exacerbate an already acute skills shortage across many industries. Pension schemes are being rendered unsustainable as additional funds need to be put away each year to manage future liabilities.
"As the pool of available workers ages, businesses will need to ensure they retain their key talent and skills. An easy way to do this is to keep older employees working for longer. That goes against the grain for many recruiters and employers who have traditionally looked to the younger generation to fill their jobs. This engrained ageism needs to change."
The Millennials, on the other side of the generational divide, create other challenges. More and more, professionals (roughly 18-35) are reticent to be part of companies, who in their view, are behaving unethically. If you want to be an employer of choice - you'll need to demonstrate that you share their approach to life. However, some 83% of Millenials want to be entrepreneurs, so clearly money is still a motivation - but of course, this means that they're not going to be available to become a stereotypical employee.
At present, some five million people are self-employed. Businesses like Flexible Working – to be able to hire self-employed people on short-term/part-time contracts to reduce costs. Consequently, the demand for interim workers is increasing across the economy as a whole.
Another reason for the rise of self-employment is that people are seeking to improve their work-life balance. In fact, Alastair pointed out that the vast majority no longer works the traditional 9–5 day; they either work much longer or flexibly in shorter bursts. Moreover, our aging population increasingly requires their (working) offspring to take time off to care for them, further reducing their hours to their employers.
"Mid-career professionals are opting out, discovering they can earn enough to live comfortably but without all the hassle of commuting, office politics, etc. All this further reduces the pool of candidates for 'normal' jobs."
Does anyone really know what's going to happen with Brexit? No, neither did anyone at the seminar. It might go hideously wrong. It might be more successful than perhaps most might expect. For some sectors, the shape of our post-Brexit immigration policy will be vital. But, given the way it's been going, it's anyone's guess. However, we were encouraged not to see it as an isolated event. Accentuate the positive was the message – there will be opportunities as well as problems.
All the above assumes that algorithms and robots don't take people's jobs first. Technology, whether the first industrial revolution's steam engines or the next industrial revolution's AI and blockchain* makes radical change possible. That change includes the possibility that some 10 million jobs might be at risk, but what matters for recruiters is the speed at which this plays out over the next few years. Alastair foresees a big debate about the nature and time of work, not only in relation to flexible working but also the recent focus on the potential benefits of adopting a four-day working week.
A Recession is overdue. Most current "experts" (the same people who missed the last one!) think it's likely to be in 2020 (or sooner if Italy falls apart). The employment market will, of course, be considerably affected. That said, unlike previous recessions, in 2009 the government and business strove manfully to keep people in work. That helped keep unemployment down, but it also contributed to the low productivity we see today: this time it may be that all our defensive ammunition (more QE anyone?) has been used up and the jobs market suffers as a result.
When we look at the bigger picture, it's clear that recruitment is going to become more difficult over the next few years, for all the reasons given above. However, Alastair was at pains to stress that quality recruiters will thrive if they can demonstrate that not only do they understand the background to the market but they also know how best to respond to it and continue to deliver the candidates their clients/employers need. Amen to that!
Douglas Cross, Director, Denholm Associates
Talk to Denholm
We are a search, recruitment and employer brand consultancy that specialises in commercial marketing, sales & digital opportunities. If you'd like to find out more, call us on 0131 554 6191 or email firstname.lastname@example.com.


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This is the vegetable type, not the fruit type. Used for preserves and pies...
75 days. Tender perennial. OP Heirloom. Solanum melanocerasum. Plants grow to 4' tall and get covered with clusters of berries. Berries need to be fully ripe (deep purple/black) and cooked before eating. By themselves they do not taste good, but with sugar and lemon they are transformed into delicious pie filling, jam, sauce, etc. Easy to grow, but can attract the usual nightshade loving pests like flea beetles.
We have a 6 plant minimum for shipping purposes. You can mix and match varieties to meet the minimum.
We ship every Monday and Tuesday, from late March through late May, to the 48 contiguous states. We schedule your shipment to arrive just after the last frost date for your area. We will send an email from our farm (lazyoxfarmyahoo.com) within 24 hours of receiving your order informing you of your shipping date. You are welcome to change the shipping date. Just let us know when you want them.
Our plants are sustainably raised in our own potting mix. We use only organic fertilizers and sprays if needed. We have been growing and selling plants since 1997.
Our plants are shipped in individual 3" deep pots. They are ready to be planted out in your garden.
We package our plants with extreme care so they arrive undamaged at your doorstep. Each plant is tucked into its own padded sleeve. The soil in each pot is covered so it will not spill out. A plant tag identifying the variety is included with each plant.
We will start accepting orders for 2020 in early January. We will start shipping in late March, weather permitting.

subset: commoncrawl


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"Are You Hungry Joe?" Mecca Normal live at the Middle East, Cambridge in 1988, introduced by Billy Ruane
"Are You Hungry Joe?" Mecca Normal live at the Middle East, Cambridge in 1988, introduced by Billy Ruane
Record "Calico Kills the Cat" in 2 days at Yo Yo Studios (a former chicken coop) in Olympia with Calvin Johnson.
NME (New Musical Express) in England lists the "Oh Yes You Can" EP as a single of the week, saying "Oh… what a lovely sparse sound."
David designs his first book cover "Nuclear Empire."
MN tours eastern US using public transit (planes, trains and buses). Sleep one night in a place called the Manson hostel where an urn sits at the base of the bed.
May 13, 1988
Anarchist Switchboard, New York City
A cassette tape of our show exists. Bob Z of Bad Newz punkzine helped us get this show in a small cellar.
Here's a description from Dan Sabater, who became an anarchist in the 9th grade:
"The first spot I stumbled onto was the Anarchist Switchboard located in the basement of 324 East 9th Street between 1st and 2nd. I think it was opened in 1986 by a guy from the Libertarian (aka Anarchist) Book Club. A girl from my high school took me down there. It was a dingy one-room spot with couches, exposed lightbulbs and red concrete walls. I liked it a lot, and gave them my birthday money to help out with the rent. "
MN tours UK with Peter Plate. The first show is with Vi Subversa of Poison Girls. Most of the shows are of a cabaret type, with comedians, dancers and poets which take place in pubs, castle tower, Labour Party club, an opera house and by the wall where the Humpty Dumpty story came from. Tour set up by English ranting poet Nick Toczek.
After the tour Jean stays in Huddersfield doing solo performances, readings and running a writing workshop for women. David takes a trip through Eurpoe before going back to Vancouver.
"Calico Kills the Cat" album is released on K. It is only the third album K has ever released.
Jean's favorite songs on the album: Smile Baby. Ancient Fire.
David's favorite song on the album: One Woman because musically it revolves around two chords. One rises, one falls. The struggle between the two worked perfectly with the lyric content: one person's efforts for change.
Mecca Normal cross America on a K Records tour with Go Team, and Some Velvet Sidewalk.
Joelle is 18 in her parents' house.
Joelle – washing a frying pan.
Her boyfriend is around two corners watching TV.
The frying pan comes out of the water
and flies through the air.
The frying pan flies through the air
And hits the wall.
All the energy of the history of a situation.
Jean organizes 3rd Black Wedge tour that will cover the west and east coasts of America and eastern Canada. The tour includes Sang (bassist Rachel Melas from Toronto and poet sax-player Keith Jafrate from England) and Peter Plate.
"This is quite powerful stuff. Jokers like Bono and Bruce could certainly learn a few lessons from this." – reviewing Calico album in Vicious Hippies from Panda Hell (Portland zine)
"Jean's the one with 'that voice', a completely riveting presence that's only more powerful when backed solely by Lester's guitar. Zero star potential, they'd sound totally incongruous coming out of your radio, but so would Woody Guthrie, so don't worry about it." – Gerard Cosloy (reviewing Calico album in Conflict, New York)
Gerard Cosloy would go on to co-found Matador Records.
Anarchist poster show in Vancouver featuring 30 posters by Jean and David.
Mecca Normal Pacific Northwest tour with Mudhoney and Beat Happening.
Mecca Normal plays music with friends Cyndee and Argon from Seattle that results in the second release on their Smarten Up! record label. The band is called Bright Like Ice. David plays bass in it.
Tour diary: On the return leg of a west coast tour from San Francisco, we drive with Calvin Johnson to play a show in Eugene, Oregon (we listen to Uncle Charley perform one of our songs at soundcheck), after we play we head to play a show in Portland. During the long drive Calvin is pulled over by police and given many tasks to perform. The night ends at Calvin's place in Olympia. So in one day we have travelled in 3 states, covering 640 miles and given 2 shows.
Mecca Normal records and mix "He Didn't Say" and "Forlorn" in Olympia for a second K 7". Jean plays guitar for the first time on a recording.
David takes a full time job working the night shift at a daily newspaper writing photo captions and cropping photos. It is a union position, paying a ton of money — most people who ever get such a job stay there for life. David decides to quit in order to play music.
David designs his first theatre poster.
Jean co-founds weekly poetry series (Vancouver)
"Cardboard Box House of Love" 7" is released on K Records.
Jean moves to Tucson, Arizona.
Jean's video for "20 Years / No Escape" wins the experimental video award at Pima Community College (Tucson, Arizona).
Mecca Normal sign contract with K/Matador Records while in Seattle.
Mecca Normal plays CBGBs in New York with Lubricated Goat.
Mecca Normal plays Seattle with Chumbawamba and Eve Libertine (Ex-Crass)
Mecca Normal plays with Fugazi in Olympia.
Mecca Normal plays with Viva Knieval (Kathleen Hanna's first band) in Olympia.
Jean designs cover for Ottawa band Scarlet Drops 7" (Harriet Records, Boston).
Record "Water Cuts My Hands" album with Calvin and Patrick Maley in Olympia (January).
Jean's favorite songs on the album: 20 Years/No Escape. The Dogs.
David's favorite song on the album: Water Cuts My Hands.
Kathleen Hanna's Bikini Kill fanzine (Olympia) features an interview with Jean headlined: "Mecca Normal: it makes me wanna cry, I am so glad they exist."
Mecca Normal play Evergreen State College with Beat Happening and Bikini Kill.
"The stuff you recorded in Jan. has changed the quality of my life." –postcard to David from Kathleen Hanna
"I Can Hear Me Fine" and "Bright Like Ice" 7"s released on Smarten Up! Jean hand painted every one of the "Bright Like Ice" sleeves.
"Bear with me, I'm going out on a limb here… the Melvins are the most revolutionary, thus under appreciated, band in the world today. (Let's get 'em on a bill with Mecca Normal – now that would be hardcore)."— The Rocket (Seattle)
"To me, Mecca Normal is one of the only true punk bands around, in that way they are totally subversive. Maybe that is why so many of today's young white males and their friends enjoy telling me how much they suck. I can't think of anyone else who writes more powerful songs about what it feels like to be a woman in a world of violence against women." – Jigsaw fanzine by Tobi Vail (Olympia)
"Smith's most telling new refrain: "In my mind my body aches.' This music resonates with feminism's understanding of the body as a locus of political meaning, a knowledge difficult for any woman walking down a city street to escape… I don't know of any other rock 'n' roll so closely attuned to the realities of women's rage." –Village Voice
"Water Cuts My Hands" is a K/Matador co-release. It is only Matador's 11th release. It is also Mecca Normal's first album in the CD format.
Lois Wrote About The Farm
America has named its chickens
two of them are called The Twins
America strings its words together
it is hiding something
The check out girl says she can't
quit smoking
she'd have nothing else to do
America — instigator of the dream
in my mind
my body aches
David designs a benefit poster for Kurdish refugees using a drawing by Jean.
"A very interesting two-piece outfit (Mecca Normal), combining a single heavily distorted electric guitar played at times with karate chops, mike stand and the stage floor and at others doing straight ahead power chords with bitterly intense vocals. They'd make an amazing full band, I think; 'We are a band', they responded when I said so." – Noise (Vancouver)
Tour diary: After playing 3 shows in one day in Portland, Oregon on a Saturday, we can't find a hotel with vacancies so we sleep in the car by a diner.
"This is even sparser and way more chilling than Mecca Normal's last LP."—Crank (Virginia) on "Water Cuts My Hands"
Mecca Normal plays at the 6 day International Pop Underground Convention (Olympia) put on by K Records Calvin Johnson and Candice Pedersen. Jean also performs solo as part of the women only "Revolution Girl Style Now" opening night show. A guy from Rolling Stone stops us in the street to get the correct spelling of our names.
Nirvana sends out newsletter to their fan club members claiming that Kurt will be doing a duet with Jean — "Islands in the Stream"
The Kill Rock Stars label created by Slim Moon releases its first album, a comp containing tracks by Mecca Normal, Bratmobile, Bikini Kill, Kicking Giant and Nirvana among many others. The album cover is designed and hand printed by Tinúviel.
"At the North Shore Surf Club, guitarist David Lester erected a complex one-man wall of sound, while singer-poet Jean Smith dramatically demonstrated her superb range and control, finishing off with a feedback dance (literally) on guitar." – Ira Robbins on the International Pop Underground Convention (Rolling Stone)
Tour diary: 129 miles to Pittsburgh. Tire blow out (probably because of that muffler we ran over back in New York). Jean changes it on the side of the highway.
Sub Pop writes to ask us if we want to release a 7" as part of their SINGLES CLUB series.
Tour diary: After a show in DC we stay at the Pirate House talking with Ian of Nation of Ulysses. It is 3am and Jean asks, "Got any coffee" to a shocked Ian, "You want coffee?". "Just kidding" says Jean.
Tour diary: Meet with Gerard at Matador in New York, who asks us if we want to do another album.
"David Lester could make a fortune giving guitar lessons to Thurston and Lee." – Puncture review of IPU Convention show (Olympia)
Dirk Hugsam — a German fan — sends us a bag of Canadian money and a pack of Roth-Handle cigarettes. He says he wants us to send him what we can of our music. We will tour Eupoe about half a dozen times with Dirk as our manager, driver, booking agent, promoter and dear friend.
Dovetail — Mecca Normal's third album — is released on K. It reaches #5 on Canada's national radio chart. The album includes the song "Throw Silver."
Jean's favorite songs on the album: I love the simple imagery of Cherry Flowers, and it is satisfying to sing. We've recently put it back into the live set; David plays it better than ever and I add some guitar accents.
David's favorite song on the album: Clatter.
I really like the first line of This Machine: "making it anything so it isn't nothing now" — the idea of making things happening, taking action, going forward rather than waiting for things to take place.
Jean named one of 10 people who matter in the world by the SF Weekly in a profile called: "Hard visionary, Mecca Normal's Jean Smith blends fear and clarity into a decidedly unromantic courage."
Jean sings backing vocals on Colours with Vancouver band Superconductor for a Donovan tribute album.
Orange 7" released on Harriet (Boston)
Armchairs Fit Through Doorways 7" EP released on K Records.
Mecca Normal record and mix 17 songs at Yo Yo (Olympia) with Calvin Johnson and Pat Maley. 11 of these songs will become the Dovetail album.
A split SubPop 7" (Singles Club) is released with Mecca Normal and Vancouver's Kreviss.
North Carolina band Blue Green Gods release 7" cover versions of "Water Cuts My Hands" and "Lois Wrote About The Farm."
The first release by Yo Yo Studios contains a Mecca Normal song.
Jean release a solo spoken word/guitar 7" (Kill Rock Stars Wordcore series).
Jean does cover art for New York band Chia Pet 7" (KokoPop).
Tour Diary (west coast): Jean smashes her guitar during a performance in Pomona, CA at Munchies. Our 72 Impala dies when we reach Los Angeles. A really tall guy gives us joke slimy stuff called 'guk' at a radio station we are playing. We do not know why. During our radio performance an earthquake occurs. At a show in San Francisco, a large black man tells us he played "Strong White Male" over and over again on his radio show for an hour. At Jabberjaw (Los Angeles) a guy buys one of everything we have and offers to also buy us an oil change. Our car's radiator keeps boiling over. Jean must drive down hills in neutral with the heater on. On the way home to Vancouver, the car stalls late at night in Bellingham, WA. We wait.
Jean produces a 7" EP by Vancouver band Cub.
Jean flies to Boston to tape ABC's Night Talk with Jane Whitney in a show about Women In Rock. A message comes through that Maury Povich also wants to talk to Jean.
Jean interviewed about riot grrrl and women in rock by USA Today, Seventeen Magazine and LA Times.
there was the soft glow
of a flare sent
Amber fragment
knocking out the sky
Then there was
the darkness
after too much light
Arc fallen
wading through the snow
Find the steel
sunk below
Fire in a half plan
shimmer up the cold
"From The Surface" & "Upside Down Flame" 7" released on (Dionysus, Burbank)
The German guy who sent us a bag of money books us our first tour of Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, France). The German guy's name is Dirk Hugsam. This is his first attempt at booking. He would later go on to found his own successful agency booking bands like godspeed you black emperor
"I wouldn't be in a band if I hadn't heard of Jean. She's shown me through her lyrics that you can be a feminist and still be whoever you want to be. You don't have to lose contact with the world." — Kathleen Hanna (Network, Toronto)
Rose 7" (K Records) released.
Jarred Up:
Jean's favorite song on the album: He Didn't Say: We recorded this with Calvin in Olympia. I made a video on my Fisher Price PXL camera of Dave playing the acoustic part. I loved doing the wild electric part. The song gives a structure to an elementary problem in a relationship: "I never knew what he thought, he didn't say". It's Important. Fan Of Sparks. Narrow
David's favorite songs on the album: Man Thinks Woman. Narrow. Armchairs Fit (through doorways)
Flood Plain:
Jean's favorite song on the album: Waiting For Rudy: we used to stay in an old building in San Francisco, Barbara Manning's place. Downstairs Rudy ran his video and bookstore. He was ancient. The real estate people couldn't touch this valuable property until Rudy died. So much hinged on Rudy's longevity.
David's favorite songs on the album: Waiting For Rudy
Waiting For Rudy — video by Pat Maley (YouTube)
David Lester Becomes a Publisher
David Lester, "In 1993 I started Get To The Point, to publish Jean Smith's first novel "I Can Hear Me Fine". Jean became the editor of Smarten Up! & Get To The Point and we've published a series of chapbooks of poetry, politics and artwork by community activists. One book won a major award, another was selected as one of the top 5 poetry chapbooks in Canada, and one of my book designs was featured in Zines, a large format book published in England."
NY Times phones to set up an interview with Jean.
Sonic Youth calls to ask us to play a show with them in Seattle.
Jean referred to as a "goddess of the underground" on Canadian national radio (CBC's Brave New Waves).
Shows with Spinnanes, Unwound, Tattletale.
Two page feature article in Alternative Press (Cleveland).
"After these hicks where I live beat me up because I dress & act different and think for myself. I put on one of your records and it makes me proud of who I am." – Robert (Oklahoma) in a letter to Mecca Normal
"In Smith's mouth, the line 'He is the thing he hates' (from "Trapped Against") becomes a frightening indictment of gender-based injustice." – Washington City Paper (DC) reviewing "Dovetail"
"Vancouver, Canada's Mecca Normal is an electric guitar and female voice duo. The resulting juxtaposition makes the music seem a little less rock and more like art." – Rebecca Odes reviewing "Dovetail" (SPIN, New York)
"This is an absolutely beautiful and (dare I use the word) enchanting collection." — Option Magazine reviewing "Dovetail" (Los Angeles)
"Mecca Normal is definitely my fave band for year 92. Best show, best LP, best song, best everything." – Quentin (La Rochette, France) in a letter to Mecca Normal
"Seven years on, Mecca Normal have become less vitriolic. Smith sings instead of rants, and David Lester's fretwork is more subtle than slashing. And Dovetail is uncommonly graceful, spare but never primitive. More often then not, though, they sound like no one else." – Jason Anderson (Eye, Toronto)
"Mecca Normal green flowers on a brown background, looking sort of like their first LP cover, art by Jean Smith. Just a beautiful tee shirt, wisely possessed and proudly displayed by lots of local hipsters. One day I was proudly displaying it when I dropped in unplanned on a colloquium being given by my friend Elaheh, an Iranian woman who studies the history of Islamic mathematics. I thought I wasn't dressed for the occasion, but I forgot the 'Mecca' part of Mecca Normal. Elaheh's advisor came up to me after the talk and asked me, over plastic glasses of champagne, 'what does your shirt mean?', with keen interest honed by years of Islamic scholarship. I mumbled something about a rock band, leaving him puzzled. But in his own way, of course, he had gotten into the Swing of Things." –Unknown source
David's West Coast Tour Diary:
Feb 4: Drive to Stanford for a radio interview with Tiffany. Sleep in our clothes at Kevin Thompson's house.
Feb 5: Sold out show with Barbara Manning and Tiger Trap at the Chameleon in San Francisco. So crowed we have to use the bathroom in the Mexican restaurant next door. Play live on KUSF. Eat burgers at Red's Java Hut on the waterfront. Eat pancakes.
Feb 6: Play Kresege College in Santa Cruz. Big slippery stage. Stay the night at Ritchie's damp, cobwebbed, haunted basement. 2am.
Feb 9: Noon hour concert at UCLA. Free sandwiches, pop and chips.
Feb 10: Munchies in Pomona, CA — during "I Walk Alone" a woman in the audience starts harmonizing with Jean.
Feb 11: Irvine (Pietro's Pub, U of C). Play with Nothing Painted Blue (Franklin Bruno does an imitation of David). Sleep at promoters.
Feb 12: Sold out show with Distorted Pony and Morning Champ at Jabberjaw. The power goes out during our set. It is a tough night.
Feb 13: Play Casbah (San Diego). It is President's Weekend so we can't find a motel with any vacancies. Sleep in car, it is cold night. Cross the border and visit Tijuana the next morning.
Feb 18-20: Record 18 songs at Avast Studio in Seattle with Calvin Johnson and Stuart. These recordings will become our next album Flood Plain. Also do a photo session, eat Indian food and Jean sings a duet with Calvin.
"Mecca Normal played at Jabberjaw February 12, and the set, though uneven, was not as weak as the Los Angeles Times said. Its peak, which went unmentioned in that review, was ballad called 'I Walk Alone', which twisted the typical loner creed into a feminist manifesto, a complaint about how women defy the ubiquitous threat of physical violence to keep their personal autonomy. Smith left the mic onstage and jumped to the floor in the middle of the song, stomping through the crowd, still singing while the guitarist continued in front, surprising the folks dozing in the dressing room before leaping back onstage. 'I Walk Alone' she shouted, 'because I can walk wherever I want with whoever I want whenever I fucking want.' The woman beside me was cheering.
It's a delicate task for any rocker to make political statements work. Unlike Bikini Kill singer Kathleen Hanna's didactic lectures on date rape, Smith's gesture flew on the strength of its first-person immediacy. (Individualism is a time-tested rock stance.) So why was Mecca Normal's best moment lost on the Times reviewer? Because Smith's statement addressed an experience – defying fears of rape – specific to women. And the Times reviewer was a man. This is not to say that men don't ever fear for their safety, but that their fear is not as pervasive. This is not to say that a man could never appreciate Mecca Normal; only that, after a life's worth of movies with male leads, it is he, not I, who must be the mental transvestite at a Mecca Normal show, who must stretch his gender imagination to empathize with Jean Smith.
Pop can ask an audience to make this leap across lines of gender, race, religion or sexual preference. Whoever agrees begins a difficult home-study course in identity politics. That leap is the reason rap fans of every colour weren't surprised by the riots last spring; they had felt the anger long before in the music. In this way, the Simi Valley jurors could have heard 'Cop Killer' as a young black male. Clarence Thomas could have heard Sonic Youth's 'Swimsuit Issue' as a secretary. In reality, I appreciate the way feminists like Jean Smith include me, and am confounded by how and why hardcore rap leaves me out." –Sue Cummings (LA Weekly)
"There's such a wide gulf between establishment rock and what Mecca Normal and other bands with the same spirit are doing. Corporate rockers write all these love songs about women, while keeping them absent from any creative role." —Jean interviewed by Ned Raggett (New University, Irvine, CA). 1993
"I've met plenty of people who act like pins were just stuck in their eyeballs at the mere mention of Mecca Normal." –SF Weekly
"Mecca Normal's Jean Smith would be a heroine in any age: her beautiful harsh voice, her uncompromising lyrics, her sheer performing dignity guarantee her that. But until you see her face down a crowd of hypocritical and uninterested punk rockers, you don't know what true heroism is. Smith's music is dissonant, deeply felt, feminist, courageous." – Gina Arnold (San Diego Weekly)
On the International Pop Underground Convention live album, Bratmobile can be heard introducing their set saying Mecca Normal is "my punk rock dream come true."
"Your voice, your lyrics, Dave's guitar have made me cry and hope over and over and over again. You are beautiful, brave and very strong people and you have touched my life tremendously." Cathee (Los Angeles) in a letter to Mecca Normal
Mecca Normal plays a benefit for Rape Relief.
Fly to Europe for another tour with Dirk: "This is a former racecar driver and metal sculptor. He did all the driving, organizing, translating of menus, managing, selling stuff after shows, our tour poster, and everything else." – Jean in Mecca Normal Newsletter
Kaufbeuren, Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Paris (opening band plays one of our songs: Held), Colmar (muffler falls off), Berlin, Nurnburg (with Half Japanese), Regansburg, Munster, Cologne, Stuttgart, Karlsruhle, Hamburg, Groningen, Holland (Vera).
In Europe we learn many new sayings: Talking through the flower. Owls to Athens.
"We demanded to be accepted within what originally was the hardcore scene and now seems to be a punk rock ethic, but a very limited one where it usually is four guys and a very regular sort of instrumentation. You know, I think there are some ideas out there worth exploring that don't fit into that framework, but it's very difficult to take up that decision. I mean, where do you get the energy to create something that is outside of a normal system? And I think that whole concept follows into our lives everywhere. To create a relationship between a man and a woman that isn't totally what is expected or the stereotype of what that situation has to be, I think it's very difficult to be outside of the system of going to work and being an avid consumer." – Jean Smith (interviewed by Bill Meyer in Moe) 1993
"Going to Seattle to open for Fugazi. Our '72 Impala begins to grind metal on metal somewhere deep in the engine. We pull out of line before we get to customs, and call a tow truck. The guy arrives. Cowboy boots, huge belt buckle and mirrored sunglasses. He gets the Impala on the hook and we head back. I'm squeezed between Dave and the driver, asking if the guy knows where we can get a car. Dave is whispering, "You're not going to buy a car off this guy." The driver says he knows just the car. We take the plates off the Impala, and leave it, never to be seen again. An hour later we're back at the border in my new '84 Grand Marquis with cheap stick-on window tinting and a badly peeling roof. At customs, I realize my automatic window only goes down three inches, and my frayed seatbelt has no give. I appear to be totally unwilling to deal with the official, who is peering in through the gap, all else obscured behind pimpishly tinted windows. The customs official says, "You seem very nervous." Which I suppose I was. I said, "That was me with the car that got towed. I just bought this car." He says, "Why are you so determined to get into the US?" "I just don't like to have things like that ruin my plans." We made it to sound check." — Jean
King TV 5 films us playing and interviews Jean. Kurt and Courtney are in the audience. After the show Courtney slaps Calvin Johnson in the face and storms out. Kurt trails after her. We drive Calvin to Olympia, eat at Denny's, sleep at Calvin's new, very cold house.
Play with Fugazi in Vancouver in front of 3,000 people. Someone throws a shoe at Dave.
Photo shoot for Rolling Stone.
"Echo" / "Fan of Sparks" 7" released on Jettison (North Carolina).
"International Hip Swing" comp CD (K Records) released with "Man Thinks Woman" on it.
Jean interviewed by Rolling Stone and Billboard.
"After your French tour I received a lot of letters from people who write: 'Mecca Normal is the best gig I saw in my life, strong and amazing.'" – Quentin (La Rochelle, France)
"I will promote the show to the utmost. There won't be any danger of boring people drinking café au lait, or espresso at this show, there may be people drinking the afore mentioned products, but they won't be boring, I guarantee it. I will work my feet down to mere stubs as I canvas this mighty metropolis letting people know of your arrival." –Sarah, a fan trying to convince us to play in Minnesota. I think we played there once in 20 years.
"For a long time, there were not many women in bands, and even fewer who were speaking aggressively about being a woman in this society," says Jean Smith, the fiery singer-poet in the group Mecca Normal and an inspiration to many Grrrls. "Now young women are getting together to play with other women, rather than being thrown into the whole boy's world sort of thing." – Seventeen Magazine
"Jarred Up" album released in June (K Records). It is a collection of 7" and comp tracks.
He Didn't Say:
I never knew
what he thought
he didn't say
I never knew
what to say.
It's Important:
You smile
walking for the door.
It's important
to look
into the eyes
of the next person you meet.
Don't keep looking back
at me.
She's hurt and wondering why
he hurt her
she's wondering why
this rough carpet
we women lie on
too close to the fire
in the cardboard box house
of love.
"David Lester is usually spazzing in patterns Peter Buck only dreams about." – Sweet Portable You, zine (McLean, VA)
"We don't do what we do to specifically get a reaction. People can get out of it what they like, whether it's a tone or literal ideas; ideas that I hope are evocative. We would like people to see what we're doing, which isn't necessarily part of any establishment way of doing things, and use it as a parallel for their own lives." –Jean Smith (Rocket, Seattle) 1993
"I'm in a band because I have something to say. I don't think of this as a privileged position. I'm 33 myself, I'm not living at home with Mommy and Daddy. This is fuckin' hard work, it's tough to pay rent."–Jean Smith (Rocket, Seattle) 1993
"I don't listen to bands like Mecca Normal everyday and I don't think we should all start adhering to some new weird standard of two-pieces or something." All those rhythm sections would be out of work. "And then there'd be all these bands with four drummers and three bass players. Smith looks over at what was once the stage of the restaurant. "Though that might be interesting." –Jean Smith interviewed by Shawn Connor, 1993 (Rocket, Seattle)
Ray Gun magazine (Los Angeles) runs a one-page feature on Mecca Normal. It is designed by David Carson to subversively look like an exact page out of Rolling Stone. Carson will later include the page in his book "The End of Print", a retrospective of his best designs.
"When asked how long the pair can imagine their productivity lasting, Smith says she sees no limit: 'I'm sure we'll be working together when we're in our eighties. It's that kind of relationship. We understand each other and have a similar desire to inspire other people to do something or feel something.'" – Jean Smith interviewed by Denise Sheppard (Ray Gun Magazine, Los Angeles) 1993
"We pretty much cleared rooms," says Smith, speaking of the band's early performances. "That was our main function. So if that happened we knew we were on the right track." – Jean Smith interviewed by Denise Sheppard (Ray Gun Magazine, Los Angeles) 1993
"Jarred Up" is #1 at radio stations:
CHRY (Toronto, ON)
CKUT (Montreal, PQ)
KUOI (Moscow, ID)
CFRU (Guelph, ON)
KAOS (Olympia, WA)
Mecca Normal is featured in Rolling Stone's Guide to the Coolest music and Artists making it. The page is shared with newcomers Liz Phair and Radiohead.
"Onstage, Lester is a sonic weed whacker throwing off a frenzy of fuzz, while Smith, a dynamo capable of raw power and somber beauty, adapts her limber voice like a wind instrument." – Rolling Stone (New York) 1993
"I don't see us as vying for mainstream attention. This is exactly how I want to live my life. We're not waiting for our lives to begin." – Jean Smith (Rolling Stone) 1993
"I've been more interested in images and evoking emotions through words. I've worked through the idea of being literal and worrying if other people are going to get a message. I have more faith that people will get it. Also, you know, people have a definite opinion on what I'm about, and it comes up relentlessly – 'This woman is an adamant feminist and there's no humour here and this is all vicious and acidic.' People think that already. I don't have to keep reaffirming the essence. It's just the way a period of writing worked out. Once you get a train of thought you keep on exploring it; that's what makes a body of work. The songs were written over a couple of months, and they are similar in some ways." – Jean Smith interviewed by Bill Meyer (Puncture, San Francisco) 1993
"As a woman in a band, you could be one of three variations: singing backup, a sex-bomb front-piece, or something that for the most part is a pleasing thing…. To have women talking about things that are important to them, and coming across passionately and aggressively, is what I've always looked for." – Jean Smith interviewed by Bill Meyer (Puncture, San Francisco) 1993
Jean is invited to appear on the television talk show Jane Whitney (NBC). The theme is "Women In Rock". Jean flies to Boston for the taping.
Jean Smith's first novel "I Can Hear Me Fine" is published (August, 1993) by David's new publishing venture Get To The Point. Distribution by Arsenal Pulp Press. Jean's book contains an index to all nouns in the book — an innovative twist for a work of fiction.
"It's a story about relationships and the dynamics of power in relationships and how repression works and the response to repression." – Jean Smith interviewed by Mark Andrews (Vancouver Sun) 1993
"There isn't a lot of overt stereotyping, I tried to make the characters more fluid. People will create things for themselves, rather than be directed to conclusive character traits. The stereotypes for women are all so carefully defined at this point in history that it's valuable to leave these personalities fairly open-ended." – Jean Smith interviewed by Mark Andrews (Vancouver Sun) 1993
"… a perspective that it is possible to do things outside of what is traditionally acceptable in music or literature. Of not consciously thinking of how you can appeal to a mass market, of trying to be true to yourself." – Jean Smith interviewed by Mark Andrews (Vancouver Sun) 1993
"I don't know if labels are breaking down doors to Barbara Manning and Jean Smith." –Gerard Cosloy interviewed in Billboard (New York) 1993
"Look at the music we do, is anybody really going to consider this a marketable phenomenon? If it ever did come to that, it would be time to do something different." – Jean Smith interviewed in Billboard (New York) 1993
"Female punk rock fans become united by the feminist messages shouted by bands such as Mecca Normal." –USA Today, 1993
"I can't think of anyone else who writes more powerful songs about what it's like to be a woman in a world of violence against women." –LA Weekly (Los Angeles) 1993
"Mecca Normal has inspired a larger movement of feminists in their teens and early 20s who call themselves Riot Grrrls." –NY Times, 1993
"I don't really know of any other rock band so closely attuned to the reality of women's rage." – Village Voice (New York) 1993
"Smith is damn near visionary." – SF Weekly, 1993
Mecca Normal plays Roseland (New York) with Fugazi and Jawbox in front of 4,000 people. Jean gets Ian to go out and buy her a six pack of Rolling Rock.
Waiting For Rudy video completed by Pat Maley of Yo Yo Studios.
"I started reading a lot as a teenager 'cause I was always getting grounded. In high school the only place I was allowed to go was the library, and I just started to read a lot. I got involved in visual arts for a while, but always kept a journal and wrote stories." –Jean Smith interviewed by Andrew Sun, Now (Toronto) 1993
"We aren't, and don't want to be on a major label. As a result we have created a community – a network of friends and people we want to work with – and have tried to build that into something that will sustain various musicians who don't really want to be part of the corporate sphere of the rock world." – Jean Smith interview, Hour (Montreal) 1993
"When we get negative reviews, all it really serves to do is make me more determined to do more of whatever bugs people." –Jean Smith interviewed by Chris Yurkiw, Mirror (Montreal) 1993
"I ended up listening to quite a few bands who were making music in England in the late '70s like the Slits, the Raincoats, Au Pairs, X-Ray Specs and the Poison Girls." –Jean Smith interviewed by Winston Sin, Exclaim (Toronto) 1993
"…then we got together with a bunch of other minimalist musicians and poets and went down to L.A. on a school bus, and that's when we made a stop in Olympia. We traded our first LP with Calvin of Beat Happening and K for their first LP, and stuffed it under the seat of the bus – and it totally melted! But don't tell him that." –Jean Smith interviewed by Winston Sin, Exclaim (Toronto) 1993
"Strong but far from flowery, a wonderful read."—CMJ (New York) review of Jean's book. 1993
"Gritty, blunt and sensitive at once, the book rails against the banal at every turn, developing a strident and important voice." – BC Library Reporter (Vancouver) review of Jean's book.
"…a literary jigsaw puzzle, one that might have been designed by David Lynch and Sylvia Plath." – BC BookWorld (Vancouver) review of Jean's book.
Meryn Cadell (The Sweater) plays one of her favorite songs, Mecca Normal's "Throw Silver" on Peter Gzowski's legendary CBC national radio show "Morningside."
Jean Smith performs solo 2 nights at a benefit for a women's shelter in Seattle. Excene Cervenka also appears. The second night, Jean is backed by Calvin Johnson on guitar.
"Waiting For Rudy" video aired on national TV in Canada.
Flood Plain (K Records) released, September, 1993
Waiting For Rudy
Waiting for Rudy to die
in a microcosm
of America
on a corner
where gas was sold
the pumps were shut down
long ago.
Museum Of Open Windows:
It's a truly
uncivilized nation
that treats medical care
as a commodity to be sold.
Take it
it's yours
"A lot of times I meet people who seem like going to school has taken four years off their life rather than added to it." –Jean Smith interviewed by Kirsty Smith, Discorder (Vancouver) 1993
Jean performs at the Knitting Factory (New York) with Gerard Cosloy on guitar as part of her solo tour to support her novel.
"Mecca Normal makes records I can see myself listening to twenty years from now with no loss of interest." – Terry Dawes reviewing 'Flood Plain' in Planet of The Arts (Vancouver) 1993
"I guess I was 21 or 22 when I met this person who lived around here (East Vancouver). She was so strong politically. It was a very interesting time for me. She was kind of a turning point in my life. Actually, it's Jean Smith from Mecca Normal. I've learned so much and I've taken so much from her. It turned something over in my brain because I could see injustice more clearly. I guess because she's an artist she helped me to start seeing colours differently." –John Mann of Spirit of The West interviewed about the source of his activism (Impact, Vancouver) 1993
Record "Calico Kills the Cat" in 2 days at Yo Yo Studios (a former chicken coop) in Olympia with Calvin Johnson.
NME (New Musical Express) in England lists the "Oh Yes You Can" EP as a single of the week, saying "Oh… what a lovely sparse sound."
David designs his first book cover "Nuclear Empire."
MN tours eastern US using public transit (planes, trains and buses). Sleep one night in a place called the Manson hostel where an urn sits at the base of the bed.
May 13, 1988
Anarchist Switchboard, New York City
A cassette tape of our show exists. Bob Z of Bad Newz punkzine helped us get this show in a small cellar. Here's a description from Dan Sabater, who became an anarchist in the 9th grade:
"The first spot I stumbled onto was the Anarchist Switchboard located in the basement of 324 East 9th Street between 1st and 2nd. I think it was opened in 1986 by a guy from the Libertarian (aka Anarchist) Book Club. A girl from my high school took me down there. It was a dingy one-room spot with couches, exposed lightbulbs and red concrete walls. I liked it a lot, and gave them my birthday money to help out with the rent. "
MN tours UK with Peter Plate. The first show is with Vi Subversa of Poison Girls. Most of the shows are of a cabaret type, with comedians, dancers and poets which take place in pubs, castle tower, Labour Party club, an opera house and by the wall where the Humpty Dumpty story came from. Tour set up by English ranting poet Nick Toczek.
After the tour Jean stays in Huddersfield doing solo performances, readings and running a writing workshop for women. David takes a trip through Europe before going back to Vancouver.


text:
The revolutionary technology, Sensawaft, is still in its infancy and has been designed to be used by as wide a range of gadgets as possible, including manufacturers of aids for disabled people, as well as hands-free mobile phone makers.
However, the first industry to have taken a serious interest is the video games sector. Gamers could carry on using their hands to move their character around the screen and fire weapons, but breathing into a headset could alter the perspective on the screen, allowing the player to zoom in and out.
Sensawaft has been invented by Zyxio, an American company, which said it was in talks with a major video games console manufacturer, about licensing the breath-controlled technology to take video games to another level.
The most likely customer is Microsoft, which owns the X-Box console and which has invested heavily in motion-sensitive technology with its Project Natal.
Celine Vignal, the co-founder of the company, said: "You can move a cursor or character around a screen with as much accuracy as a finger moving a mouse.
"We think the possibilities are endless. It even has potential for the military and factory assembly workers, who need to use both their hands continually, but would benefit from another functionality.
"And with video games, just imagine playing a Harry Potter game, and blowing to cast a spell. It would be great."
Sensawaft is powered by microelectromechanical systems, tiny chips that can be embedded in other devices, such as a video game or hands-free mobile phone headset. Zyxio intends to license the chips to third party manufacturers.
The technology was showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and on the demonstration product, users could breathe into a headset to move a cursor around the screen.
The headset, resembling a Bluetooth hands-free device, contained four small sensors. To move the cursor across the screen, users needed to move their breath from right to left or up and down, as if they were blowing a tiny imaginary ping pong ball across a table.
Gadget experts were fascinated by the technology, but most were dubious that it would take off on mainstream products.
Kat Hannaford, contributing editor to the Gizmodo website, said: "It is certainly intriguing and I can see it has enormous potential.
"But for it to get any traction it needs a major manufacturer to adopt it. And do video gamers really want to be huffing and puffing away into a headset? I am not so sure."


text:
Small Change – A Novel of Parenting and Love
Dear Blog Readers — Today my post is dedicated to a review of a book written by a new friend of mine, Lynn Rodolico, followed by a chat with the author.
Lynn Rodolico's "Small Change" is a tender and eloquent story of a Swedish-American couple who adopt twin babies found in a dumpster. The book tackles many of life's big themes: birth and death, love and marriage, parenting the young and caring for the old, but most of all it is about mothers and children. Rodolico has created a beautifully crafted novel which pulls you imperceptibly into the lives of its characters, page after page until you feel you are with them, joining in daily conversations, sharing their concerns over important questions and partaking in their simple pleasures whether it is eating a meal or watching a child. When I reached the last page, I was sad to say goodbye to the characters I had become attached to.
Following the adoption, the protagonists, Christine and Thomas, move from London to Florence to join Thomas's aging mother in her villa on a hillside above the Renaissance city. There, the couple combines the joy of raising their new children with the pain of watching the slow decline of Thomas's mother, while pursuing an established family passion, helping children in need.
"Small Change" moves from the intellectual and professional pursuit of aiding the needy children of the world to the normal, daily care of healthy, happy children. I realized I was going to love "Small Change" when in its first pages, Rodolico cites one of my favorite children's books "Make Way for Ducklings," by Robert McCloskey and ends with another of my favorite children's books, "Are you my Mother?" by P.D. Eastman.
Lynn Rodolico has an extraordinary eye for detail — her descriptions and conversations are so precise and realistic that the reader feels she must have been there. When she describes Christine's struggle to care for newborn twins, her details of bottles and burping carried me back to the years when it seemed that feeding and burping was all I ever did. Leaky diapers, curdled milk down the backs of shirts, the hunt for the burping towel, it was all so familiar.
It is with the details that Rodolico gracefully weaves together the young and old, the beginning and end of life. Here is the view of Christine arriving at the villa in Florence and seeing her aging mother-in-law: "Perhaps it is the comparison to the smooth-skinned newborn in her arms that accentuates the wrinkles in her mother-in-law's face. Perhaps it is the badly applied make-up, an uneven coat of unnatural pancake color that stops abruptly at the jaw bone, leaving the untouched neck a pallid, vulnerable white." The slow decline of Thomas' mother was so precisely described that I found myself recalling the details of the decline of my husband's grandmother who died in her mid-nineties. When "Small Change's" Anne says to her son, "this tired old husk is just waiting for a strong wind to blow it away," it reminded me of similar conversations.
In contrast, Rodolico describes the exquisite pleasure in watching two-year-old twins:
"They… are wearing similar fairy princess costumes. The starchy tutus are short enough that Elizabeth notes their diapers have been replaced by thick cotton training pants. They each hold a star-shaped wand, and from the way they are swinging it, Elizabeth is either being sprinkled with fairy dust or being knighted."
Here are the twins again: "The children have moved on to sprinkle their joy across the garden, blessing the flowers, a terrified cat, a wrought-iron bench situated beneath a weeping willow tree at the far edge of the courtyard. The girls are carefree and articulate, distilling a trail of babbling nonsense as light-hearted as a Puccini duet."
Rodolico describes the normal shortcomings of children with lovely metaphors: "Anna hasn't inherited her father's ability to carry a tune, but it doesn't stop her from singing. She marches through the lyrics like a woodcutter chopping a tree, hitting every note at exactly the same spot."
Christine does not have it easy. She has lost her parents one after another in difficult circumstances, and has had several miscarriages. She is a highly-talented translator but eager to put aside her career to become a mother. She is deeply in love with her husband but lacks close friends in which she can confide her sadness and her fears.
Rodolico must be a culinary expert. I was astonished at her detailed description of every item of food in the book, moving easily from Swedish — apple pancakes and Pepparkarkor biscuits to Italian ones –tagliatelle al ragu and ribollita, with stops in the English countryside for tea and a picnic in Epping Forest. She manages to tie the food and drink (Glögg in Sweden, Tea in England, Wine in Italy) to culture and traditions of each country. A lovely line in the book is when the charming, blushing British Earl Julian admits to his best friend that he has fallen head over heels for the beautiful Italian-American because "It is the way she poured tea." And, as if just for me, there is even an American mother who brings Christine a plate of chocolate chip cookies.
Rodolico gives such a splendid description of a wedding party at the Villa outside of Florence that she gives F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby" a run for his money. She left me wondering which is better, a luxurious party in West Egg on Long Island or at Villa L'Antica in the hills above Florence: "The villa stands tall and stately inside an ancient fortress wall which is surrounded by far-reaching olive trees. Torches have been positioned along the parapet and have already been lit in anticipation of dusk. Spot lights illuminate the upper limbs of an ancient Cedar of Lebanon and the other secular trees in the garden. In the inner courtyard, a string quartet plays Handel's Water Music…..she (Christine) doesn't want to leave the view, not yet, not with the light shifting dramatically, turning the far hills violet where the sun still shines….All along the Arno Valley, the sun reflects its last rays, charging the pale blue sky with streaks of orange and pink. Across the valley, up in the hills of Fiesole and San Domenico, and Monte Morello, the facade of the Renaissance villas glow warmly with reflected light. …the clink of Baccarat crystal resonates clearly across the garden like an orchestra's cymbals…."
Rodolico unabashedly tackles questions of love–first and foremost a mother's love for her children, but there is also marital love, and the love between a grown child and an aging parent. She touches on questions of secrets and lies, and leaves the reader wondering whether it is appropriate or not to reveal an important secret if it can cause pain to someone we love.
"Small Change" is sprinkled with quotes from Auden, Wordsworth, Rilke, Millay, Keats, and Eliot, with the educated characters sprinkling their conversation with apt quotes. She cites one of my favorite poems, "To His Coy Mistress," by Andrew Marvell:
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day
Throughout the book I found myself relating to Christine, the mother of the twins. Her fight with her husband over traveling to Nepal during her first pregnancy brought back to mind a ferocious fight I had with my own husband who wanted to stop me from going to war-torn Sarajevo when I was pregnant with my first-born. Pope John Paul II resolved that one for us by canceling his plans to visit.
Living in Italy, I find the book rich with details of life here: the mother-in-law's cook Rosa notes every meal served to guests so as not to risk the "brutta figura" of serving the same dish twice. Someone tried to convince me to do that, too, but I know how to cook so few items well that my guests are better off getting the same dishes every time.
"Small Change" has a mission: to help children. The story begins with two newborns found in a dumpster, who would have died if a young doctor hadn't heard a "mewing" noise as she was throwing out her trash. The book focuses on a people who dedicate themselves to helping suffering children all over the globe. Half the profits from "Small Change" will be donated to children's charities.
I took the train to Florence to meet with Lynn Rodolico and learn more about "Small Change". As the "Freccia Rossa" (Red Arrow) train charged north from Rome, I stared at the rolling green hills of Umbria and Tuscany. As I zipped past little towns perched on hills in the distance, I felt the chaos and tension of Rome easing out of me.
Lynn is a tall, elegant woman with long, beautiful fingers and green eyes. She has thick salt-and -pepper hair that frames her face. As we talked throughout the day, I wondered how she could have such flawless skin when she spends so many hours under the Tuscan sun driving a tractor through olive groves.
Lynn lives on the hillside of the Arno valley that looks down on Florence. Standing at the ancient fortress wall surrounding the family Villa, we could see the Cupola of Florence's Duomo in the distance and the town of Fiesole on the other side of the valley. The 15th century villa is surrounded by 64 acres (24 hectares) of olive groves. Lynn and her husband, Antonino, produce oil from the olives which they sell around the globe.
Lynn divides her time between driving her tractor, caring for the olive trees, and writing novels.
Lynn told me that she began writing "Small Change" in February 2012 when she woke one night from a dream with the image: "twins abandoned in the snow." She sat down and began to write—and couldn't stop. The novel was completed in four months. As she explained, "During that period I would regularly be awakened in the night by an image. I couldn't resist being in the company of the characters. It was like a love affair with all these amazing people."
Lynn says it is a book about mothers as much as it is about children. Moreover, it is also a book about love: love between a husband and wife, a girlfriend and boyfriend, a mother and child, a child and its parents. Lynn explained that her intent was to show, "different kinds of love. Love is not always simple or easy. Love is a responsibility. "Small Change" describes the complications of love, not just the fresh glow."
Lynn knows a few things about love. She came to Italy in 1985 to finish writing a novel and met Antonino on her first day in Florence, in a villa similar to the one described as Thomas's mother's house near Fiesole. As Lynn told me, "He didn't speak English and I didn't speak Italian. We didn't speak the same language, but we shared a love of language. We never made the mistake of assuming we understood what the other was saying, and we continue to listen closely to what each other has to say, even though we both speak English and Italian now. "
They share their love of words and a passion for writing, in both languages. Antonino translated Lynn's last book, "Two Seas" into Italian. She said, "He spent nine months of his life, day after day, word after word. I fell in love with him all over again as he was translating "Two Seas". He treated my prose as carefully and as lovingly as he cared for our daughters when they were babies." This summer he will translate "Small Change" into Italian as she works on her next book.
Lynn and Antonino also share a passion for hard, physical labor. Lynn told me that in the harvest season, which can last anywhere from three weeks to two months, she doesn't attempt to write. Work starts at sunrise and the day is long and intense. "It is exhilarating work, and exhausting," she said.
Lynn has provided a detailed account of the work involved in an olive harvest through her protagonist Kate in the novel in "Two Seas," "The harvest is demanding but it is beautiful, too, as long as Kate remembers to pause from time to time, to raise her gaze to the distant hills, to photograph mentally the images as they present themselves. The Arno valley is swept clean of summer's heavy air, the clouds are high, the sun is bright but not hot. Unless it rains, it is a pleasure to be outdoors. Surely, they would have lost the experience of autumn if they hadn't been harvesting, if they had been sitting warm and cozy indoors in front of the fireplace."
As we sit at her kitchen table, following a brief tour of the rooms below their home where they collect the olives and bottle the oil, Lynn tells me, "During the harvest, we even dream of olives. I have even found olives in the cuffs of my pajamas. And naturally, we enjoy our newly pressed olive oil with everything we eat."
At the end of our day together, riding down the small, curving road through the olive trees back to the train station for my return trip to Rome, I felt sad. I wanted to stay longer at Villa Arrigo and drive Lynn's tractor, make olive oil and write. But my responsibilities in Rome were calling me. I will return to Florence, and in the meantime, I will enjoy Lynn's eloquent vision through "Small Change" and "Two Seas."
Here is the Book Trailer:
Trisha is a TV journalist working for AP TV News in Rome. She is married to an Italian and is a Mamma of three.
7 Comments
Laurel Barton2013/07/14
Can't wait to read this, Trisha. My two favorite cultures, Swedish (heritage) Italian (daily immersion), and a beautiful-sounding story. Thanks for the book review and putting it on my radar.
Trisha Thomas2013/07/14
Laurel, you must read "Small Change" — Lynn did such a remarkable job of dipping into different cultures — Swedish and Italian primarily but also British. It is lovely. Thanks to your comment I just took a peek at your charming blog (here's the link followers http://www.gooddayrome.com) and I saw you even quoted me in your funny post on pedicures. Thank you!! Goodluck with the water problem! Sounds like a nightmare.
Laurel Barton2013/07/14
Ordered the book on my Kindle. Will read it on vacation next week in the Dolomiti. Met your colleague Domenico over dinner with mutual friends a couple of months ago. I've been a big fan of yours for long before our move to Italy. Ciao!
Trisha Thomas2013/07/15
Wow, I am thrilled to know that I might have a fan out there!! Domenico is the head of our photo department in Rome and a great photographer himself. All the Rome photo staff have been really generous with me on this blog. The photographers often pass me their "leftover" photos to use on my posts and I am so grateful to them.
Nancy Rockwell2013/07/14
Lovely, lovely . . . it was like taking a vacation in Italy to read your column. The photos, the stories, the image of this couple so in love they learned languages for each other and so in sync they work together at farming, communicating, and loving, is buoyant. Thanks!
Trisha Thomas2013/07/14
Lynn and her husband Nino really seem to be a couple in total harmony. (Yes, I am a tad envious, my own marriage has been a hang-on-to-your-hat roller coaster ride from day one –and now I am coming up on 20 years–but that is another post). Lynn showed me her tractor (the one in the photo) and Nino's slightly bigger tractor. She explained that they usually both work together on their tractors in the olive groves and get quite far apart but if either one hears the motor of the other tractor stop for a bit, they stop their own and walk over to see what the problem might be and how they can help. Whether it is with olive trees or with words, they know how to work together, giving each other space, but also helping each other out, to get a fabulous final product. I think I forgot to mention that Lynn gave me a bottle of their L'Arrigo olive oil and it is delicious!!
Kathleen Botsford2013/07/17
Ordering both books now. Grazie!


text:
An important part of my sabbatical plans during my visit to Scotland involved visits to the Scottish Screen Archive, where I had the opportunity to view a batch of films that I previously had trouble tracking down. The Scottish Screen Archive is part of the National Library of Scotland, and they have holdings that go back about 100 years in the history of cinema. Their specialty, of course, is Scottish film, and so before leaving for Glasgow I reserved time to screen an array of Scottish films that I have read about, but never had the chance to see with my own eyes. All of them, in one way or another, engaged with nihilistic themes. When I arrived at the archive, the clerk, Ann, commented on this aspect of my viewing choices:
"That's what we call 'cinema dreich,'" she told me as she handed me my requested DVDs and videotapes.
"That's a phrase I've never heard," I responded, busily opening up my notebook to write this down. "How do you spell that? What does it mean?"
Ann sort of chuckled and pointed out the window. The weather outside was, as is normal for wintertime Scotland, drizzly, grey and miserable.
"That's dreich!" she laughed. "It's dreary, depressing and cold. That's how we describe weather like that, and it's also how we describe movies like the ones you are interested in."
When later I mentioned this to some of the folks at Glasgow University, they all found it quite funny – using the word "driech" (pronounced DREEK) to describe depressing Scottish movies – but they all also recognized the significance of the label. It is a good way to describe what is clearly a distinct sub-genre of Scottish realist cinema that focuses on desparate characters caught in the grips of alcoholism, poverty and violence. Apparently, The British Film Institute (BFI) film fund was, until recently, headed by a fellow who had a special place in his heart for this kind of movie, and so he developed a reputation for granting funding to an inordinate number of them. This led to a phenomenon that many commentators continue to decry as "miserablist," a complaint based on the notion that such depictions promote a negative image of Scotland; one that can be damaging to tourism. After all, who wants to visit a place that is filled with violent drunks, junkies and poverty? A dreich, miserablist country is not high on most people's lists for a vacation spot!
While it may be the case that Scottish dreich/miserablism is not a great selling point for tourism, and while it may also be true that it is not a wholly accurate depiction of the real nature of the country, I think it is a mistake to condemn it altogether. For someone like myself who has grown sick and tired of the happy-ending, Hollywood-style kind of movie-making, there is something refreshing about the darkness of this kind of Scottish cinema. It offers a counterbalance to the cheery shallowness found in most American movies. Furthermore, I would insist that there is, in fact, a great deal of truth that such films express. As Ann at the Screen Archive pointed out, there is something already there in the Scottish surroundings, in the weather and social conditions and culture, that this sort of filmmaking gives voice to. There is a special sort of nihilism that Scotland is particularly familiar with, and, whether you think it a good thing or a bad thing, it can be sensed in these sorts of films. I would even say that insofar as nihilism is a universal condition of human existence, these treatments say something about humankind as a whole at the same time that they express something about Scotland. A kind of universal truth about the human experience is revealed in these "miserablist" films, unpleasant though it may be.
When I reserved my time at the archive, I imagined I would be viewing movies in a slick theater, with a full-sized screen and a projectionist. This was not, of course, how things were set up. The screening room is more like the AV room in any library, equipped with a small monitor and a combination DVD/VHS machine. The facilities are entirely adequate for research purposes, but their stripped down nature did drain some of my excitement. Where I had imagined a darkened movie theater, there was instead a shaded cubicle sandwiched in between other offices from which phone calls and face-to-face meetings could be overheard. I nevertheless got down to business and for the next three days engaged in a non-stop carnival of Scottish gloom, misery and woe.
As it turns out, about one half of the films that I reserved for viewing, even though they had a miserablist/dreich/nihilistic veneer, ended up on the whole being rather anti-nihilistic in their messages. These non-nihilisitic films – American Cousins, Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, and Ae Fond Kiss – all culminated in happy endings, despite dealing with otherwise unsettling or depressing material. This goes to show that simply because a film deals with issues related to suicide, racism and gang warfare, that does not automatically qualify it as miserablist, driech or nihilistic.
Another surprising discovery was how many of the darkest and most depressing of the films I viewed were categorized by the filmmakers and production companies as comedies, proving that the Scots do black humor like no one else! This reveals another important fact: just because a film is a comedy, that does not make it immune from miserablism or nihilism. A film can be funny and bleak all at once.
Take for instance Scotch Myths (1982), the first film that I viewed. I was not sure what to expect with this one, as it is unclear from the description whether it is a documentary or a comedy. I suppose today we would refer to it as a "mockumentary," as it uses a documentary-like approach in order to make fun of a variety of myths that have come to characterize Scotland since the nineteenth century. The movie follows a group of tourists and their cynical tour guides who tell the story of how Scotland has come to be a place of "crumbling ruins, selling tragedy" that offers "gore and lore in equal balance." Scotch Myths was made before the "miserablist" tradition really gained steam in the 1990s, and it is notable that the criticism it offers of Scotland is that the Scots are overly eager to sell a commercialized image of their culture to the rest of the world.
Overall, the film is a comic, cynical and at times almost hostile parody of Scottish myths. It uses the image of whiskey as a symbol for how Scottish stereotypes have been packaged, sold and used to market the country as a commodity for tourists. "Whiskey distills Scottish history. It contains over 45 incidents in historical history. It is a 26 part TV history of Scotland condensed into a 26 ounce bottle." With this we see Japanese tourists wearing bonnets, drinking whiskey and speaking Gaelic to Scottish guides who don't understand the language; we see cash registers playing little Scottish songs every time someone buys another bottle of liquor; and we see grotesque, somewhat frightening images of red-haired, bearded and toothless Scotsmen in tartan, laughing drunkenly.
The tour guides in the film act out the story of how the current image of Scotland came to be. Robert Burns makes an appearance, as does Sir Walter Scott, who is made fun of for "rediscovering" the tartan regalia of the Highlanders. James Macpherson's Ossian is ridiculed, as are Victoria and Albert's romantic ideas about the Scottish Highlands. The message is that Scottish identity is not authentic and organic, but a mythologized construction that has been manipulated and then reabsorbed by contemporary Scots who have no real connection with the past. Though presented in a comic manner, the film has quite a bleak message: the Scottish people are in fact rootless, without a real history, and spiritually homeless. This is raw nihilism packaged as a weird kind of entertainment that is, at least for me, more unsettling than it is funny. Aristotle claimed that in comedy we laugh down at lowly characters, and that is precisely what seems to be happening in this film; we are encouraged to laugh at the Scots for their eagerness to sell a fake image to the rest of the world.
Nihilism was also pervasive in all of the films I screened in which Peter Mullan played a key role: Dog Altogether (2007), Orphans (1998) and Young Adam (2003). Mullan is nothing short of a celebrity among the Scots that I have met during my visit, so it appears that his bleak worldview does not seem to offend the men and women on the streets. I mentioned in an earlier post that he lives in the same neighborhood as my cousin and that he is a familiar face in the pubs. There is a great sense of admiration that the locals have for him. One of my cousin's friends told me that when she saw Mullan speaking in a thick Glaswegian accent in a recent, international film, it made her feel very proud. Another of their friends told me that when she saw him in a local pub, she fell all over herself telling him how wonderful he is, and he graciously thanked her and bought her a beer. The only vaguely critical comments I have heard about Mullan have come from academics who suggest that he is more bourgeois than he would like the public to believe.
Dog Altogether is a short film (16 minutes) and an almost perfect example of miserablism. It involves a guy (Mullan) who kicks his dog, injuring it so badly that he has to kill it. Afterwards we see him menacing people around his neighborhood, sitting with a dying man in the hospital and then at someone else's graveside. "Everyone is dying," he cries at one point. Finally he is beaten by some shopkeepers that he harassed earlier in the film, after which he seeks refuge at a charity shop where a Christian woman prays for him. The themes here are all existential: the awareness of death, the anguish of existence, and the vain longing for some sort of redemption. This is the film that apparently served as the inspiration for the full-length feature Tyrannosaur (2011).
Young Adam, starring Ewan Mcgreggor, Peter Mullan and Tilda Swinton, represents yet another example of miserablism. The story follows Joe (Mcgreggor) as he works on a barge hauling coal along the canals around Glasgow. The barge is owned by Ella (Swinton) and her husband Les (Mullan). In flashbacks we slowly learn the story of how Joe is implicated in the death of his girlfriend while he is also presently engaging in an affair with Ella. I found the film to be a bit mixed up, with the two threads in the story never seeming to really tie together. The main theme that the film seemed to be playing with had to do with the vain repetition of sexual relationships as a distraction from truly pursuing one's dreams. This is, no doubt, a lesson that a lot of people would benefit from learning, but it is one which none of the film's characters ever seem to take to heart. The film is bleak, bleak, bleak, but not entirely negative if you consider its useful message.
Orphans was the first full-length feature directed by Peter Mullan, and it remains a masterpiece. I love its description as a "Hard as granite drama with humour as black as a Scottish night." It is true that there is humor in this film, but much of it is so dark that it is hard to even see. While Mullan claims that the film is not autobiographical, it nonetheless contains elements, experiences and events from his life in Glasgow that give it a very authentic feeling.
Orphans follows three brothers and their sister as they are preparing for the funeral of their mother. The action focuses on how they all react differently to her death. One son, Thomas (Gary Lewis) refuses to leave the mother's coffin, even when his disabled sister (Rosemarie Stevenson) takes off in her wheelchair and gets lost on the streets. Another son, Michael (Douglas Henshall) gets into a fight, gets stabbed, and stumbles through the streets of Glasgow bleeding while the final brother, John (Stephen McCole) only wants to take revenge on the guy who stabbed his brother. Mullan apparently once stated that each of the brothers represent one aspect of his reaction to his own mother's death, and in fact the film is dedicated to her memory.
Orphans utilizes surrealist elements to supplement the otherwise gritty realism of much of the story. The action is unleashed by the mother's death, and this is symbolized by the eruption of a great storm that whips across the city, threatening to tear the place apart. Here we see how the passing of the mother has not only released a deep well of emotional pain and turmoil amongst her children, but how it has also removed the only real external impediment to their unrestrained bad behavior. Toward the end of the film, a statue of the Virgin Mary gets smashed and the roof of the church where the mother's body is lying gets torn off by the wind, both events seeming to suggest that even religion and God are no real comfort in the face of death. The final scene has the children at their mother's gravesite, finally deciding that they need to go "share a curry" and get out of the cemetery since it is "filled with dead people." The suggestion seems to be that in order to keep on living, you have to care about and be kind to those around you who are also still alive, rather than engaging in old grudges and commitments to promises that don't really matter anymore. There is a great deal of nihilistic bleakness here; although there also seems to be a gesture toward the idea that some comfort may be found in taking care of the ones that you love, even if God is dead and the world is a painful, terrible place otherwise.
Three more films I watched stood in contrast to the ones already discussed insofar as they, to great or lesser degrees, involved positive resolutions and happy endings.
The first of these is American Cousins (2003). In this film, the main character, Roberto (Gerald Lepowski) is a man of Italian heratige who owns a chip shop in Glasgow. Since the death of his father, he was forced to take out a loan in order to complete renovations to the business. Unfortunately, the gangsters that he borrowed money from want to take over the shop.
Roberto's Italian gangster cousins, who have run into trouble back home, come to Glasgow in order to lay low, but when they find that Roberto is in trouble with Scottish thugs, they decide to step in and help him out. They teach Roberto that even though he is a fish-fryer, he is also still Italian by blood, and so a tough guy. As his relative says: "Do you think you can't be a fish-fryer and a tough guy? Remember who you are. You are from a family from a tough place." And so, as the story moves forward, we see Roberto learn to defend his business and succeed in defeating the bad guys, as well as getting the girl he loves, and even obtaining a rare stamp that he has wanted all of his life! He, in fact, gets everything that he ever desired with the help of his Italian cousins.
The two key metaphors in this film are: 1) Fish and chips; and (2) A special grape vine. The fish and chip shop is used to convey the situation of an immigrant who is trying to fit into a new culture. In Scotland, many of the chip shops are run by Italians; it is a common stereotype sort of like the American stereotype of the convenience store run by middle-easterners or asians. In this film the main character, by running a fish and chip shop and trying to fit in with Scottish culture, loses a sense of who he really is and so becomes unsure of himself. He loses his self confidence and it takes a reacquaintance with his Italian roots to reinvigorate his vigor and pride.
The the second key metaphor, a grape vine brought to Scotland by the Italian cousins, is a special hybrid capable of producing fruit in especially cold climates. Here the idea is that the vine taken from Italy has been modified so that it is able to thrive in a place as foreign and cold as Scotland. In the end, this is precisely what happens with the main character. He overcomes all hardships and establishes a hybrib Italian/Scottish restaurant that turns into a success.
At the end of the film, before the epilogue where we see the successful restaurant established, there is a battle scene where Roberto and his cousins survive an explosion by retreating into the unfinished portion of the restaurant that is housed in a neglected church. The imagery here is quite clear. Roberto, by turning back to the Church and his Italian roots ultimately gets everything that he ever wanted and the film ends happily ever after. There is nothing nihilistic or miserablist here. Just a comforting, conservative reaffirmation that life is good when you stick with your own and remember where you came from.
When I asked the clerk, Ann, at the Film Archive for Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself (2002), she said, "More driech." In fact it turns out that despite its title, this is actually one of the more upbeat films of the bunch. After the death of both his father and mother, Wilbur (Jamie Sives) loses the desire to live, and repeatedly tries to kill himself. His brother, Harbour (Adrian Rawlins), who runs a used bookshop in which he also lives, takes Wilbur in so that he can keep an eye on him. Over the course of the film, Harbour falls in love and gets married, but is also diagnosed with terminal cancer. His wife and Wilbur start to carry on an affair behind his back.
The relationship between Wilbur and Harbour's wife, Alice (Shirley Henderson) is the most unsettling part of this film, but it paves the way for the reestablishment of the family unit once Harbour dies. Both Wilbur and Alice love Harbour, and their affair is presented as something out of their control; it is, apparently, true love. Furthermore, Wilbur is depicted as a man that children are naturally attracted to. He works with kids, and Alice's daughter adores him. The irony played out in the film is that Wilbur, who initially is so eager to die, exhibits a child-like youthfulness and becomes more eager to live as his own brother comes closer and closer to death. In the end, the brother who tried to keep Wilbur from killing himself takes his own life and Wilbur takes over as the head of his brother's family.
This film takes place in Glasgow, but it is Wales, not Scotland, that is picked on for its dreariness. One of the characters who once came close to death describes the dying experience as, "dull as dishwater, utter silence. It's like being in Wales." As in the Peter Mullan films discussed above, there is an attitude of atheism in Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, but there is also a sense that life can be worth living if you love and care about the people around you. Unlike in Peter Mullan's films, however, the characters in this film seem to have achieved their goal. The ending is a relatively happy one.
The last of the films I screened was Ken Loach's Ae Fond Kiss (2004), an entertaining but conventional love story about a young Muslim, Pakistani-Scot, Casim (Atta Yaqub), who falls in love with a Catholic, Irish-Scot, Rosin (Eva Birthistle). The film is interesting for its depiction of the specific sorts of culture clashes that occur in Scotland; among them religious frictions between Muslims, Catholics and Protestants. You can predict the issues: the family of the young Pakistani man object to him having a relationship with a white, non-Muslim woman while the Catholic Church objects to the young woman having a relationship with a non-Catholic.
One particularly amusing detail from the film highlights Catholic disapproval of Robbie Burns due to his bawdiness and drunkenness (see my posting on the Burns Night Supper). In fact, the title Ae Fond Kiss comes from one of Robert Burns' love poems. Ironically, the poem itself is about a love that will never be, while the happy ending to this story has the young Pakistani man telling his family, "We're Western, we're not Pakistani," thus breaking with tradition in order to follow his heart. Likewise the young woman leaves her job with a Catholic school to be with her true love. Unlike in American Cousins, in this movie it is a break with family and one's religious legacy that is required in order to find happiness. And yet, in the end, there is nothing at all tragic about the outcome. The main characters easily turn their backs on the past and fall into one another's arms with optimistic hope for the future. No nihilism here!
On my final day at the Archive, a general feeling of sadness descended upon me as I took the train back to downtown Glasgow. Sitting by the window, watching the grey dreariness of the Scottish winter and the spray-painted buildings whizz by, some young toughs bantered back and forth behind me:
"Fuckin' right. He marches up to me, all hard like!"
"So whit did ye dae?"
"Fuckin' looked 'im in the eye. 'Dae ye want a square go, pal?' I said."
"Fuckin' right."
"Yeah. He went all fuckin' Casper on me. Turned around and took off, he did. Fuckin' right."
"For fuck's sake, what did the wee Jessie expect?"
"Wee fuckin' pansy."
The scene on the train echoed the spirit of the miserablist films I had been viewing for the last three days. There was something dreary and depressing – dreich – about it all. There was also a looming sense of violence and threat. And yet, as I sat there, feeling cold, alone and sad, a smile spread across my face, inspired by what struck me as the dangerous, but darkly comic nature of the two young men behind me. The Scottish films I had watched felt just the same; a mixture, in differing degrees, of tragedy and comedy, despair and absurdity. And I like the feeling they produce. It is a substantial feeling, as if I've come through something important. It is a feeling that doesn't distract from the world's realities, but rather attunes one to it's deeper nature. Maybe miserablism is not something that sells huge numbers of tickets or that attracts lots of tourists. Nonetheless it is something that expresses a real aspect of Scotland's – and the world's – Truth.


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New Belgium will finish 2017 "flat to slightly up," which newly appointed CEO Steve Fechheimer considers a victory in a crowded craft beer industry that has slowed to single-digit growth.
"In the context of what's going on out there in the marketplace, I think it is a really good performance," said Fechheimer, who was hired in July following the departure of former CEO Christine Perich nine months earlier.
After selling 958,000 barrels of beer in 2016, the Fort Collins-headquartered company, which also operates a production facility in Asheville, North Carolina, is setting a sales goal of outperforming the industry growth rate in 2018, Fechheimer said.
"This is unfortunately not a craft market that's growing at 10 or 15 percent a year anymore," he said. "We're going to set up a target and a plan to make sure that we do gain share of a craft market that's growing at 2 to 4 [percent]."
Hitting that goal would be another victory for Fechheimer, who is a "big believer in winning." And to win in 2018, Fechheimer, the former chief strategy officer at Beam Suntory, is leaning in on his experience in the spirits industry.
According to Fechheimer, spirits have excelled at building brands, delivering consistent and quality products and investing in personnel to tell those brands' stories. Those are areas where the beer industry can improve, Fechheimer said.
"I think I can help bridge that gap a little," he added.
For New Belgium, that means painting a better picture of the company's history of employee ownership, sustainability and quality products for consumers, Fechheimer said. It's a message he believes resonates with millennial drinkers.
To amplify the message, New Belgium plans to increase its marketing spend in 2018. Fechheimer declined to share the marketing budget but said it would be "a pretty significant jump" from previous years.
"A lot of the incremental spend will go to reinvigorating, if you will, or telling that New Belgium story a little louder, a little more proudly than we've been doing in the past couple of years," he said.
In addition to continuing to invest behind flagship offering Fat Tire Amber Ale, the company also plans to increase its marketing spend on several newer offerings, most notably the Fat Tire line extension, Belgian White, which launched in August. Fechheimer said there's a lot of runaway for that brand in particular, which already has 34,000 off-premise points of distribution. He added that the company expects to secure additional placements as large chain accounts reset their shelves in early 2018.
"There are millions of barrels of Belgian White out there to go get," Fechheimer said.
An increased focus push behind Belgian White doesn't foretell a decrease in focus on the struggling Fat Tire flagship, however. According to market research firm IRI Worldwide, off-premise dollar sales for the original Fat Tire declined 10.4 percent while case sales dipped 12.5 percent during the first 11 months of 2017.
"Flagships across the industry are struggling right now, but I'm a big believer in continuing to invest in Fat Tire and bringing a new set of consumers into that brand and continuing to grow it," Fechheimer said. "And I think the Belgian White innovation actually brings a lot of energy and excitement back to the Fat Tire brand as well and is a new way to bring consumers in."
Other New Belgium core brands fared better this year. Voodoo Ranger IPA dollar sales increased 40.8 percent while case sales increased 39 percent, according to IRI. And the company said sales of Dayblazer surpassed $17.4 million in Nielsen's U.S. grocery and convenience store universe.
Fechheimer said the company will look to build on those successes with the introduction of two new products. In January, the company will attempt to capitalize on the New England-style IPA trend with the release of Voodoo Ranger Juicy Haze, a 7.5 percent unfiltered IPA with tropical fruit aromas and citrus flavors. Then, in March, New Belgium will begin test marketing Mural, a 4.2 percent ABV ale inspired by the Mexican agua fresca tradition, in Colorado, North Carolina, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. Fechheimer believes Mural has the potential to reach new consumers, including female drinkers.
"Frankly, my wife and all of her friends are excited about it, as we've done some sampling," he said.
Meanwhile, New Belgium also plans to offer more "premium" specialty releases in the coming year after investing in a cork-and-cage bottling line. In late October, the company released the first beer off the line, La Folie Grand Reserve: Geisha Sour Ale, a blend of the popular sour beer and Panama Geisha coffee, which carried a retail price of $49.99.
"We are trying to better understand what is the consumer occasion and how do we get the right beer in front of the right consumer at the right purchase moment," Fechheimer said.
In another premium play, New Belgium's "specialty sales team" is focused on gaining on-premise placements in fine-dining restaurants for Sour Saison, a year-round, wood-aged beer that launched in August, Fechheimer said. Currently, the beer has 1,800 points of distribution, and Fechheimer believes the offering has the potential to reclaim some of the volume lost to spirits brands.
"Sour saison in those restaurants has a great role to play," he said, adding that the beer "cuts through some of the noise" on cocktail menus. "That's a way to win in the on-premise and introduce different consumers to New Belgium and what we're doing with our wood-aged beer capabilities here."
Additionally, New Belgium will enter 2018 with an eye on growing its retail presence. To that end, New Belgium's influence on San Francisco's Magnolia Brewing, which it purchased out of bankruptcy in August with former Elysian founder Dick Cantwell and Oud Beersel, will grow in the new year as the company installs a coolship and foeders in order to start a wood beer program, Fechheimer said.
Meanwhile, New Belgium's Asheville production brewery will continue to help build the company's presence on the East Coast. This year, more than 175,000 people visited the brewery, which Fechheimer called "a huge number for a place that is relatively new."
Beyond San Francisco and Asheville, Fechheimer said New Belgium will dig deeper in its home state of Colorado. The company plans to open a long-awaited 10-barrel brewery at Denver's The Source hotel during the second quarter of the year, as well as an outpost at Denver International Airport in July.
Although the company has built a national presence in all 50 states, it's important to maintain a strong presence in its home markets, Fechheimer noted.
"Because we are national, we're going to invest the money and the time and the attention to tell our story in our home state as well as we can," he said.


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It's apples and oranges, I guess, but I have used a 10 inch android device and I just never could like it. I have a Google Nexus I keep mostly as a toy. It's good for a few things but to me the quality of the tablet is just not as good and the refinement of the interface just isn't there. iPads are great for reading and playing touch based games and highlighting works well but as Tony mentioned.... typing on that virtual keyboard is painfully slow. Then again, I gave up even trying to send text messages a long time ago. If you are about and about and you want to bring your Bible and some commentaries and such with you to read... it's great for that.
I got what you were saying about the cellular and maps, Dan. I had to chuckle. The reason for that is that all cellular devices have to have GPS built in. That is what makes the maps work for navigation. I was thinking .. wow... you can get turn by turn directions through the Bible Lands over 2000 years ago... that's awesome! :-)


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yes I do. I mean I want to send scores to be saved on a DB on my server.
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No news is not a fact
You know that feeling when you go to bed at night at a decent hour, tired but satisfied with what you've accomplished, and then wake up the next morning refreshed and ready to actively engage in a full day ahead? Could you describe what that feels like please? Because in our hectic lives, this all sounds like a luxury. Being able to go to sleep early and wake up having adequately rested.
These current times are interesting in many ways – in the fact that revolutionary movements spur to life, that innovations succeed one another faster than you realise, that societies strive to become more open-minded, that politics reveals just how dirty a game it can be, and terrorism overshadows the entire globe. Everything seems to evolve so rapidly that you sleep-in for a few hours more, and wake up feeling you lost an entire year due to all the things that have happened: violent massacres, gruesome juvenile crimes, train accidents, lost airplanes, mass shootings, explosions, financial crises, political elections, the emergence of radical movements, and so much more than you could ever imagine.
We have reached such a point that when we read fewer than five items of news per day, we begin to worry that we missed something. It's that feeling when all of a sudden your heart begins to pump faster and anxiety overwhelms you, because you are almost certain there is something you didn't see or you haven't heard of. It's like the restless calm before the storm; when you know that the next day will definitely contain a shower of news headlines to compensate the fewer ones the day before.
But all of this is exhausting. Not only for people who have to cover the news. But for everyone who reads and listens to it. It is physically and mentally stressful to hear all this negativity span our lives. To constantly add to the stress of contemporary living and to know that things will hardly get any better.
So how do you manage this situation? Probably in the only way you can: with a nap whenever possible. Because you may feel strong and able, but after a while, your organism itself will begin to call on you – through headaches that turn into migraines, upset stomach, and drowsiness – sounding an internal alarm that you need to slow down, rest and maybe even hit pause. The news will happen whether you chase it or not. And unless you have some kind of superpower, there is little you can do to change that.
Also part of Daily Prompt: Struggle