Reader_July18_2019

This open Window

edited by Jim mitsui

Water tanks top buildings in big cities harbor smoke factories flavor spicy sausage sandwiches making gum snapping sounds Am I missing home?

Never had words for virgin forests the scent of syringa, Idaho honeysuckle cooking wild meat from the Cabinet range An open fire or wood stove heater tracks through me, limitless

I only know love spent years upon the water laden wind lone and solitary way unburdened the buzzin’ sky in live words then This, my home wide open

Host of KRFY “Songs-Voices-Poems” Sundays at 7 on KRFY 88.5 “Every time I travel, the return to Sandpoint makes me wonder why I ever leave. I am especially attentive to the differences in water and wind.”

I think this poem captures the feelings of non-native residents (including me) of Sandpoint and the North Idaho panhandle, truly one of the best small towns and places in the U.S.

Driving home from the airport the other day going the back way through Newport, cruising along, 60 miles an hour, when around a bend, a Model T appears ahead, puttering along about 35 miles an hour.

I cancel the cruise control let my modern hunk of automobile drift down 55, 50, 45, 40 and kinda float back there behind that Model T.

For just a moment I could almost see the horse-drawn carriages, the dirt roads,

I could imagine the loggers taking old growth cedar to the mill, the miners coming home atop the chuck wagon, their greasy faces, their grimy grins, ready to go get drunk after a hard week of work. It is Sunday after all, everyone deserves at least one day off

The Model T putters through Diamond Lake without a care in the world.

All I see from behind is an older gentleman with a flat-brimmed hat and a woman who looks like she’s wearing a bonnet, out for a Sunday drive

At the end of Diamond Lake the Model T finally noses over onto the shoulder and the totem pole of cars stacked behind it all gun it, their modern fuel injection dual overhead cams, four wheel drives, backseat DVD babysitters. We take our speed back up 45,50 55, 60

The last I see of him, he’s still going, heading north, driving right through the goddamn past

Ben Olson is not just the publisher of the Reader, nor is he just a musician or writer. Turns out he’s a poet, and that rarity — a Sandpoint native. This poem reminded me of my first major influence when I signed up to major in Creative Writing at the University of Washington. William Carlos Williams. I was drawn to Williams’ concrete imagery (No ideas but in things). Doc Williams was a pediatrician back in the days when doctors actually made house calls. He kept a yellow legal pad on the seat beside him as he drove, and as a result he’d write about a housewife in her bathrobe coming out to her mailbox to get the morning paper. Or he’d write an imagistic poem about a newspaper tumbling in the wind along the street. Ben’s poem shows us that potential things to write about are right there as we move through the day. We just need to be good observers, and record the story that we have witnessed. What we write about does not need to be sensational, or outrageously funny or tragic. It just needs to be a human event.

Thank god for the white line along the shoulder, the night’s so black I use my high-beams for the first time in months. Leaving Thatcher after my poetry reading, January 13, 40 degrees, 200 miles to stay awake. Crossing the San Carlos Apache Reservation, I note frequent gaudy roadside memorials, crosses, even altars festooned with plastic flowers and Christmas tree garlands. My caffeine eyes even notice the blue & white Keep Arizona Clean signs that say: In Memory of So & So instead of Sponsored by the Lion’s Club. A few ominously advise, Available. Earlier I had been warned, watch out for critters.

The natives believing in freedom for their cattle don’t bother with fences. Highway signs of cow silhouettes – Next 15 Miles, slow me down to 55. I let crazed drivers veer past me at 80 on the two-lane highway; one I guess is heading for the Apache Gold Casino, and later, he proves me right. Since he tail-gated me for so long I mutter he’s going to lose his paycheck. I relive William Stafford’s Traveling Through The Dark, and what we are willing to do for the sake of poetry. In the darkened settlement of Geronimo the stress is relieved by someone’s sense of humor: they’ve outlined an old tow-truck with white Christmas lights, its boom dangling a hook of red lights,

and I think of Tom Hanks and The Polar Express. During this confining drive through foggy darkness, I get practice yawning louder than I need to. Dimming & brightening my headlights, a choreography against blindness with anonymous oncoming traffic. I wonder why they’re out here on a clumsy Tuesday close to midnight, gambling with everyone’s safety, only witnessed by the names of all the lost souls on the multitudes of crosses and memorials along this cemetery that pretends it’s an Arizona highway.

Writers, especially poets, are observers; they’re on the lookout for ideas, situations to write about. My first influence was William Carlos Williams; he was a pediatrician back in the house-call days. So many of his poems were scenes that he saw while driving. He kept a yellow legal pad on the seat beside him and wrote about a woman in her bathrobe coming out to get the morning newspaper in her mailbox, or a newspaper tumbling in the wind next to the road. Just like Ben’s about following a Model T down Highway 2 through Diamond Lake. The value in observing, I believe, is that we go through life more fully, noticing what’s happening around you: people, details, colors, signs…. stories. Just about anyone can put together a poem. Try it some time; it’s satisfying and fun.

the neighbors

I cursed the bastard’s footprints where he’d stood to take a whiz. He left a gut pile in my driveway and a blood trail into his.

Steamy remains spoke clear enough: a sacrificial fawn... untimely shot near five o’clock, two hours before dawn.

Good fences make good neighbors. Good gates require locks. He had them all plus pluck and guts to write “Reverend” on his box.

His church: a brazen fortalice Tucked neatly in the woods. His crew cut congregation: goose stepping sheets and hoods.

They were caught up in their crossfire, camouflage and brandished arms. Benighted dupes of bigotry bent brazen-faced for harm.

My neighborhood of sufferance, my community since birth, reduced to bedeviled weeper, bemired with their curse.

For Christ said, “Love your enemies.” Turn cheeks to rattling sabers. Go plant His seed in rabid glebe and try to love “The Neighbors.”

-Gary Buck

This is a poem by Gary Buck, a longtime Sandpoint local who we wrote about in a previous issue. Buck’s poetry often deals with the uncomfortable themes of racial inequality and intolerance in North Idaho.

By Marcia Pilgeram Reader Food Columnist

The Sandpoint Eater Apples and potatoes for posterity

he asked. “No,” I shook my head and implored, “it’s plenty tangy from the Miracle Whip.”

Grace’s fridge was never without an over-sized jar of Miracle Whip, dolloped and spread generously on the sandwiches and salad she served (you guessed it: I am on Team Mayo).

A couple of weeks ago, I answered a call from a lifelong friend, Dan. He’s more like a brother, really. His mother, Grace, was a mentor who taught me all the life skills a modern girl needed 40 years ago.

Sadly, this past spring, Grace fell and broke a hip, followed by myriad complications. I remained steadfast at her side until the end. Soon thereafter, I returned to Helena, Mont., for her memorial tea. In her honor, I read aloud a Sandpoint Reader column I’d written about her a few years back (“My Saving Grace,” February 4, 2016). Grace often referred to me as the daughter she always wanted and the sister she never had. She was stylish and sophisticated. In today’s terms, she was a food and lifestyle influencer; and, to this day, I still feel her inspiration in my cooking and entertaining style.

Between Grace’s flair and my own mother’s “meat-and-potato” practicality, I had the best of all cookery worlds.

Dan was anxious to find the recipe and carry on the tradition of his mother’s legendary potato salad, prepared every Fourth of July since he could remember. I spent a lot of time in her stateof-the-art ’60s kitchen, carefully prepping ingredients for her favorite dishes, including the potato salad (which is nothing like mine).

“Don’t overcook the potatoes,” I warned Dan, “and be sure to let them chill before cutting them.” Grace liked her potatoes diced into perfect, small, firm cubes. “Do I add vinegar?”

I continued to share, to the best of my recollection, the rest of the ingredients and guesstimated the quantities. Dan was grateful and later reported that the salad tasted just like his mom’s, though he lamented that this recipe — along with many of his other childhood favorites — had never been committed to paper for posterity.

My children have begged me for recipes over the years. During my time in the restaurant business, I created detailed recipes for my kitchen staff (often with pictures of the finished product), but I never seemed to get around to family-sizing portions or instructions. Through this column, I’ve shared a hundred or so favorite recipes with my readers (which includes my

kids, who are thankful for my efforts), and it’s not uncommon for friends and family to request a recipe they’d like to see in an upcoming column.

I love sharing my recipes and feel joyful and honored when someone asks for one. Have you ever asked for a recipe and were turned down? I have and it’s awkward. More than once I’ve heard the mantra, “it’s a family secret.” Now, unless you’re related to Colonel Sanders, I can’t understand that logic.

I’ve come to learn that people who don’t share recipes fall into a few categories: the ones overwhelmed by the thought of actually measuring ingredients and committing them to paper (I tend to fall into this group); cooks who use a lot of prepared mixes and are embarrassed to admit it (though there should be no shame here — I recently visited the Smithsonian Museum of American History and took in an exhibition related to convenience foods); and then there are the people who feel their recipes are extra special, sacred or secret.

Let’s face it, though, the secret isn’t always in the recipe or the ingredients. For years, I watched my mother cut lard into flour, sprinkle on a bit of ice water and roll-out perfect, thin circles of dough; placing one in a waiting pie tin, adding a slightly sweetened bowl of sliced apples, dampening the rim, slapping on a top crust, crimping it, scoring the top and throwing it in the oven. An hour later, the aroma wafted through our kitchen, where we waited for the pie to cool — barely — before we dug in.

It was one of the first recipes my mom wrote down for me shortly after I was married. I labored and struggled with her instructions, throwing away more discs of dough than anyone will ever know. Sometimes, the pie crusts wouldn’t seal and the fruit filling escaped between the edges, filling the bottom of my oven with a charred mess and my kitchen full of thick smoke. I persisted and, somewhere along the way, the dough held its shape — it rolled with ease and sealed at my fingertips.

Having the recipe alone wasn’t enough to master the technique. Only practice would do the trick.

Sometimes, I pull out that most sacred recipe, handwritten in (fading) pencil, on a simple index card. It’s still my favorite pie recipe, which I have shared, eagerly, with every request.

Another standout in my collection of mom’s recipes is for chocolate chip apple cake. I used to make it often, as it was easy to prepare and a good match for my early culinary skills.

Perfect for summer, it stays moist for days and travels well to picnics and potlucks. It was also a favorite with our cowhands, packed in saddlebags, on the fall roundup circuit. Whenever I come across these dog-eared cards in the recipe file box, I’m grateful to my mother for recording this part of our history.

If you haven’t documented your clan’s recipes, there is no better gift or legacy to leave behind. Get a list of family favorites and get busy.

and Chocolate Chip Loaf Cake

I have been making this cake for 40 years and it never fails me. It’s dense and moist and is a great summer (or fall) traveling companion. Take along to picnics and potlucks (also great in sack lunches). Sometimes, I add a cup of pecans.

INGREDIENTS: DIRECTIONS:

•2 cup  our

•1 tsp baking soda

•1 tsp baking powder

•1 tsp cinnamon

•1 cup sugar

•3⁄4 cup oil

•2 large eggs

•2 tsp vanilla

•1 cup chocolate chips

•2 cup tart, diced apples

In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.

Make a well and add oil, eggs and vanilla. Mix well by hand. Batter will be thick.

Stir in apples and chocolate chips (and nuts, if desired).

Pour batter into two 9”x 5” greased loaf pans (or 9”x13” pan). Batter will be thick.

Bake in center of oven at 325 F

‘Stranger Things’: When nostalgia gets old

By Ben Olson Reader Staff

Editor’s Note: This article contains a few spoilers, so read at your own risk.

As I wrapped up the third season of “Stranger Things” last week, I was left feeling as if the nostalgic magic was wearing off a bit from Netflix’s popular show.

Don’t get me wrong, the third season of this monster-fighting epic set firmly within the nerd culture of the 1980s is worth watching — especially if the first two seasons hooked you. But the Duffer Brothers’ slips are showing a bit as they navigate between seemingly-forced product placements and familiar plot ground, as the gang again discovers a monster is killing people and again set out to destroy it. (Kind of like how folks in the “Star Wars” universe have been blowing up planet/moon-sized battle stations since the real-life late’70s/early-’80s.)

This season begins one year after season two, which concluded with a giant monster looming over The Upside Down version of Hawkins High School. Meanwhile, the kids have entered that awkward — hard-to-sympathizewith — phase of puberty, with some love interests driving the plot. Mike and Eleven’s budding relationship is testing Hawkins Police Chief Hopper, who is also battling his own feelings for Joyce, despite their constant bickering. Will laments that the friends’ new love interests are disrupting their once-all-important Dungeons and Dragons play. Max and Lucas explore their own relationship, while Dustin returns from summer camp with — you guessed it — a long-distance love of his own to tell the gang about.

The Starcourt Mall, in all its fabulous ’80s style, is the focal

point of action in Hawkins, Ind., driving mom and pop shops out of business. When some of the kids notice strange (uh-oh!) power fluctuations triggering Will’s awareness of something from The Upside Down world, they also notice some of the town’s residents are showing stranger (double uh-oh!!) signs of odd behavior.

While the first two seasons crafted a supernatural setting beneath Hawkins — in more ways than one — the third season introduced a literal, one-dimensional Soviet underground facility that doesn’t quite convince me.

A few questions rattled around my brain while plodding through season three: It seemed like the crazy events of the first two seasons would have impacted the world of Hawkins a bit more, but it seems as if everything somehow went back to normal and everyone had forgotten the supernatural monsters’ killing rampage. It seems far-fetched that some of the kids weren’t suffering from some form of PTSD or that the townspeople don’t seem to remember or care about the otherworldly

events of previous years. The strangest thing in this season of “Stranger Things” is the overall robust mental health of Hawkinsonians.

As ever, the strength of the show rests on the shoulders of the child actors, who inject so much personality and heart into their performances. Yet, while the audience bathed in the comfortable warmth of nostalgia in the first two seasons, that

Open casting call for ‘The Laramie Project’

By Ben Olson Reader Staff

Cade Prophet Memorial Productions is holding an open casting call for its fall 2019 production of “The Laramie Project.”

Those interested in auditioning for a role in the acclaimed play should plan to attend the casting call set for Monday, July 22 between 4:30-6:30 p.m. at the Sandpoint Library.

“The Laramie Project” is a 2000 work by Moisés Kaufman

and members of the Tectonic Theater Project, which revolves around the reaction to the 1998 murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard. The murder was denounced as a hate crime and brought attention to the lack of hate crime laws in various states.

Directed by Dorothy Prophet and produced by Cade Prophet Memorial Productions, in partnership with the Matthew Shepard Foundation, the play will show at the Heartwood Center in Sandpoint, October 25-27.

bathwater has gone lukewarm in season three. The simple reality: You can’t play off these feelings over and over again. As the show progresses and the children grow into teenagers, the show seems to be off as a result. Nostalgia, by its nature, doesn’t age but the Hawkins kids stubbornly keep getting older.

With the showrunners already committing to a season four, I worry they could fall into the

“The strength of the show rests on the shoulders of the child actors.” Courtesy photo.

trap of milking a show well past its effectiveness — “Wonder Years,” anyone? When does nostalgia and homage turn into parody? How many times can monsters really attack a town before the residents (and the rest of the world) figures out they should probably just move?

Social storm

How Facebook and other social media help and hinder law enforcement, emergency management and people’s lives

By Cameron Rasmusson Reader Staff

Violence erupted July 2 at City Beach. Angry words escalated to physical blows. A baseball bat allegedly crashed down on an unnamed juvenile female victim. After a week of investigation by Sandpoint Police, officers on July 9 arrested 18-year-old Caitlyn Haskins in connection with the beating.

In the days surrounding the arrest, a different kind of aggression unfolded on Sandpoint Local Forum, one of the most popular social media gathering places for discussion of regional issues.

Commentary on the alleged beating became so vitriolic that moderators were forced to close all posts on the topic. One forum moderator, former Ponderay City Councilman Rick Larkin, worried that Haskins’ chance of receiving a fair trial in local courts would be compromised if the posting continued unchecked.

“I’m all for free speech — it’s a wonderful thing — but the right to a fair trial is also a right,” Larkin said.

In some ways, the explosion of social media in the last decade has been a boon for law enforcement and prosecutors. It allows agencies to communicate more easily and efficiently with the public. It opens a window into public opinion. It often provides evidence in individual cases, providing a snapshot of where people were and what they were doing at a given time and place. In a surprising number of cases around the country, it can button up investigations with pictures, video or even self-incriminating statements.

But with every light comes a shadow; and, in the case of social media, the misinformation it can propagate has an acidic effect on the orderly functioning of local government.

It’s not a frivolous concern. Sandpoint Local Forum boasts 6,939 members — an impressive number for a town estimated by

the U.S. Census Bureau last year to have 8,703 residents. Subjects in the heavily trafficked Facebook group range from the cute and inconsequential — funny photos of pets, for instance — to heated, borderline abusive conversations on politics and local issues. Around elections or other occasions, when political and cultural differences are most sensitive, moderation requires a firmer hand than usual.

What reportedly happened at City Beach, however, was a league apart. The viciousness of the alleged crime, the involvement of teenagers, the allegations of bullying and targeted harassment, and the extent of the injuries — court documents indicate the victim required facial reconstruction surgery for a fractured eye socket — fanned the flames of public outrage.

“Several of us moderators had been watching [posts about the attack] really close,” Larkin said. “We banned some people because they were actually making threats. We try to keep within the Facebook rules, because if we don’t, Facebook will shut us down.”

Bonner County Prosecutor Louis Marshall has seen this sort of thing before in his criminal justice career. There’s just something about social media that begets poor impulse control, he said.

“There are many days I get forwarded a screenshot from social media, and I will immediately start shaking me head in disbelief,” he said. “I know there are so many great aspects of it, but I wish people would think a little more before hitting the button to submit — myself included.”

It’s a frustrating reality for Marshall, particularly because local officials often cannot comment on or correct false information related to cases that are being processed.

“Much of the information on social media is simply not true,” he said. “It really is just a bunch of nonsense sometimes, and yet people believe what they read and then spread it further. We can’t respond to rumors on social media, but I will

admit, sometimes it is tempting.”

The spread of bad information is frequently furthered by well-intentioned people who simply don’t have all the facts. Other times, it comes from a more insidious place, Marshall said.

“Sometimes I feel it is purposeful disinformation,” he said. “It certainly hurts the notion of innocent until proven guilty, a bedrock principle in our criminal justice system. It also invades the lives of victims, most of whom don’t wish to have their lives on full display, especially in the middle of the worst thing that has ever happened to them.”

There’s simply no best practice yet identified to correct that problem. In some extraordinary cases, the justice system has taken a hand. In 2018, a jury found Erin Croghan, of Ohio, guilty of inciting a panic through Facebook posts. She was sentenced to 30 days of house arrest and three days in jail for multiple posts suggesting that a local student had been caught with a pellet gun. Prosecutors said she continued to make the posts despite knowing they weren’t true.

While the case earned prosecutors a courtroom win, others questioned the precedent it could set. Jacob Sullum, a nationally syndicated columnist and senior editor at Reason magazine, noted that if the courts are going to jail everyone who spreads misinformation on Facebook, the country is going to need a lot more holding cells.

“This precedent might make people think twice before passing along unsubstantiated rumors, but it also could deter people from questioning the government’s position on any number of issues where the facts are unclear,” he wrote. “Could strongly worded Facebook posts about a controversial police shooting be construed as ‘inducing panic’ by convincing young black men that cops pose a deadly danger to them? What about tweets alleging that the government’s preparations for an impending natural disaster are woefully inadequate?”

Pursuing legal action against a person for Facebook posts is an extreme step by any measure, and one that local prosecutors have never considered. But in the case of the alleged City Beach beating, Larkin worried about potential consequences of unchecked outrage — particularly when people began issuing threats.

“That’s what really started to bother me,” he said. “This was becoming a mob mentality.”

The potential impact of the social media hive mind goes beyond local controversies and threatening speech — the spread of irresponsible statements online may also put lives in danger, especially in instances of natural disasters or other large-scale emergencies.

A 2018 study by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security examined three incidents — the South Napa earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2014, a 2016 Louisiana flood and the 2017 Oroville dam evacuation — in which social media misinformation hampered management efforts in times of crisis.

During the 2016 Louisiana floods, for instance, government and Red Cross workers found the public inundated by misinformation about policies, services and the emergency itself.

“Multiple motives lead people to post false information on social media: some posters seek a particular result, such as closing schools for the day; some desire to get attention with a dramatic post; some are pushing a money-making scam or political agenda; and some innocently repeat bad or outdated information,” the study authors wrote.

Local crises are just as vulnerable to social media misinformation. In 2015, wildfires threatened homes in the greater Sandpoint area. According to Bonner County Emergency Management Director Bob Howard, ensuring accurate information made its way to the public in that instance represented perhaps the most challenging moment of his career.

“It takes a lot of staffing time to make sure the social media messaging we put out is correct information, and we work hard to correct any misinformation,” he said.

It was no small order for an emergency that required evacuations in threatened communities. With homeowners’ properties in danger, anxiety and fear accelerated the spread of misinformation, Howard said.

Ironically, social media proved the best antidote to the problem it helped create. By collaborating with state and federal agencies for accurate, up-to-date information, Howard said he and his team used Facebook to answer questions, issue instructions and correct falsehoods.

“Social media is one of the best ways to get that information out to the community,” he added.

The challenge lies in striking a balance: the tendency for social media to bring out people’s worst impulses versus the tools it gives communities and officials to communicate quickly.

Marshall said the public bears some responsibility to exercise restraint and know when to put down the smartphone. Sandpoint resident Bret Johnson, an English teacher at Lake Pend Oreille Alternative High School, is doing just that. Shaken by the vitriol that unfolded in the alleged City Beach beating case, he wrote the Sandpoint Reader in a letter to the editor that he’s had enough.

“We can marvel at the spectacle,” he wrote, “each of us offering our two cents, criticizing dissenting opinions, basking in the schadenfreude, self-immolating in the white-hot blaze of a screen. I, for one, am taking a much needed break. Facebook, I bid you adieu.”

Dock rock

By Lyndsie Kiebert Reader Staff

Of all the early-2000s country music hits, nothing serves as a better soundtrack to summer days on Lake Pend Oreille than Craig Morgan’s “Redneck Yacht Club.”

The upbeat track paints a picture of boats “strung together like a floating trailer park,” partying all summer long. It’s a common scene along the lake’s various shorelines, and puts words to the unique joys of living simply on the water with friends.

Thom Shepherd co-wrote the song, which appeared on Morgan’s 2005 release “My Kind of Livin’.” Shepherd said that, at the time, country radio was leaning toward a “slicker” sound. No one was finding success with anything as “redneck-y” as “Redneck Yacht Club.”

friends down at the boat dock,’” he said, “but then country [radio] caught up with it.”

An era of fun-loving, hickheavy country music then dawned, paving the way for artists like Blake Shelton and Florida Georgia Line to parlay the redneck stereotype into greenbacks — a trend that has held strong for more than a decade.

Country duo Thom and Coley play the Panida July 19

Thom and Coley with Kelly McGuire

Friday, July 19; meet-and-greet at 7 p.m., music at 8 p.m; $21.35. Panida Theater, 300 N. First Ave., 208-263-9191, tickets at panida.org or at the door. Listen at thomandcoley.com.

Shepherd and his wife, Coley McCabe, have both worked in the songwriting industry and now spend the bulk of their time creating music and playing gigs together as “Thom and Coley.” Shepherd said they’ve been on the road in a motorhome nonstop for three years now, inspiring the title track from their new album, “Shotgun.”

“There’s a line that says, ‘when you’re tired I’ll grab the wheel,’” he said. “It’s true. It feels like we’re always driving.”

The cover for Thom

and

This week’s RLW by Cameron Rasmusson

“We wrote it anyway. I figured, ‘Let’s just write it for our

Thom and Coley will play the Panida Friday, July 19, with

BAND WAGON

friend and Texas trop-rocker Kelly McGuire. Trop-rock, or tropical rock, is a genre combining the classic sounds of country and rock guitar with steel drums and other instruments reminiscent of beach music — think Jimmy Buffet and Kenny Chesney. Thom and Coley cast their genre net far and wide, Shepherd said, and working with trop-rock fits right alongside their old-time country and traditional rock influences.

Above all, though, Thom and Coley are storytellers. It all comes together to create intimate shows — something Shephard said he and McCabe strive for every time they play.

“When people come to see us, it’s like they’re in our living room,” he said. “We want you to feel like you got to know us in the two hours you spent with us.”

A snapshot of notable live music coming up in Sandpoint

Tony Furtado, July 19, Di Luna’s Down North, July 19, The Hive

Tony Furtado’s meticulous, high-speed banjo and guitar work immediately evokes images of rolling through a red-clay country landscape somewhere in the South, but he’s 100% a Westerner: born and raised in Pleasanton, Calif., and living in Portland, Ore., where he’s made a name for himself as a premier Americana roots musician.

His brand of impeccable picking in a hybrid bluegrass/blues/folk/rock style is on full display with the January 2017 album “Cider House Sessions — Live at Reverend Nat’s.” The record features banjo and cello banjo, acoustic and slide guitar, mandolin and octave mandolin, accordion and fiddle — swirled together in a sometimes driven, sometimes dreamy, always-foot tapping whole that might feel Southern, but is really just American.

Names like James Brown, Sam Cooke and Prince come up when people talk about Down North. The Seattle-based four-piece, fronted by Anthony Briscoe, inhabits elements of all three iconic artists with its high-energy, dance-inflected brand of soul punk — swinging from soaring, emotive balladic lines to funky bass-driven psychedelic get-downs (courtesy of Brandon Storms) to power-packed rock numbers that feature the searing electric guitar work of Nick Quiller.

Drummer Conrad Real provides the rhythmic support for Briscoe’s signature stage presence. A ballet-trained dancer, Briscoe infuses every performance with movement and verve that inevitably translates to the audience. If you aren’t dancing at a Down North show, you aren’t listening.

— Zach Hagadone

— Zach Hagadone

With Luke Price on fiddle, 7:30 p.m., $20, 207 Cedar St., 208263-0846, dilunas.com. Call for tickets and reservations.

Doors at 3 p.m., show at 9:30 p.m.; $10-$15; The Hive, 207 N. First Ave., 208-457-2392, tickets at beeswaxsystems.com/thehive. Sample their 2018 album “No Retreat, Volume 1” at downnorth.bandcamp.com.

READ LISTEN

After rereading Herman Wouk’s “War and Remembrance” recently, I was inspired to revisit another essential title in Holocaust literature: “Maus” by Art Spiegelman “Maus” won justified acclaim and a Pulitzer Prize for its elegant artwork, which famously depicts Jews (Germans or not) as mice and Germans (Nazis or not) as cats. What really sticks with me about the book, though, is its deeply personal look at the generational impacts of trauma, as Spiegelman attempts to understand his father’s Holocaust experiences. It’s an honest reflection on both the power and limitations of storytelling.

At just two episodes in, the new podcast “Conspiracyland,” by Yahoo News Chief Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff, has my attention. An exhaustive investigation into the death of DNC staffer Seth Rich and the endless conspiracy theories that sprang up in its wake, “Conspiracyland” hones in on the terrifying ease with which conspiracies spread online. It also captures the grief and anger of a family that finds their dead son weaponized by political interests. I eagerly anticipate episode three.

WATCH

Sex, power and cultural domination collide in “The Handmaiden.” The film is directed by Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook, one of my favorite working directors, as both a taut psychological thriller and a meditation on power structures in the Japanese-occupied Korea of the 1930s. Fair warning: Whether it’s the sex scenes or the occasional bursts of violence, “The Handmaiden” doesn’t leave much to the imagination. If that doesn’t bother you, you’ll find one of the most beautifully-made movies Korea has to offer.

From Northern Idaho News, June 10, 1910

BONNERS FERRY IS A BUSY TOWN

Not in the past seven years has the town of Bonners Ferry shown evident signs of prosperity and activity in business lines as is being exhibited at every turn in that rustling city today. The editor for the News was most agreeably surprised last week on paying a visit to Sandpoint’s neighbor city to note the many improvements which are being carried out. Numerous new cottages of substantial size are being built, old residences are being repainted and remodeled, the streets are being kept clean, sidewalks are repaired. A stranger coming into the town would suspect that he was in the midst of a city that was at the height of a “boom,” but such is not the case with Bonners Ferry. The town has been of steady growth and will undoubtedly be, in a few years, one of the most important business cities in the county. A wealth of rich farming and fruit land as well as timber resources insure this.

In the business portion of the city, a number of fine new business houses are being built, the largest being that of the Enterprise Building association. This building will have a frontage of about 75 feet, behind a two-story brick. The building will be occupied by the Geo. C. Gray Mercantile company, J.B. Brody with a drug store and probably O.F. Howe with a jewelry store. The second story will be used for offices. The W.B. Hawkins Banking Co. are planning on erecting a story cement block building. This building will be erected just across the street from the new brick store building of the Enterprise Co. There is but little talk of the business activities at Bonners Ferry. The citizens of that city are too busy to talk.

Consider the daffodil. And while you’re doing that, I’ll be over here, looking through your stuff.

Corrections: In last week’s paper, we had a couple of flubs. “Cued” was supposed to be “queued,” Hellbound Glory played Utara Brewing Co. Sun. July 14, not the 219 Lounge. Sorry about that. Finally, the Lions Club erroniously identified George Haley as the grand prize winner of their raffle when it was in fact CoOp Country Store, which donated the prize back to the Lions. George Haley is the manager of Co-Op. Finally, in the July 4 issue, we accidentally called Ron Mamajek “Mark.” Funnily enough, Ron’s wife Denise said Mark is her brother’s name. Whew. Time to lay off the beer on deadline night. -BO stymie /STAHY-mee / [verb]

Week of the

1. to hinder, block or thwart.

“The protesters stymied his efforts to make this bill uncontroversial. ”

CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1.Formerly known as the Gold Coast

6.Blooper

11.Artist’s workstand

12.Opposed

15.Comfort

16.In an unfaithful manner (British)

17.Ironic

18.Sparrow hawk

20.Tear

21.Food thickener

23.“Whoopee!”

24.Wash

25.Bog

26.Desire

27.Half of ten

28.Cushions or mats

29.French for “Friend”

30.A heavy wooden pole

31.Act in an o cial capacity

34.A small island

36.Hotel

37.Guns an engine

41.Relocate

42.Immediately

43.Snare

44.Disgorge

45.Voice Over Internet

Protocol

46.Bygone era

47.Consume

48.Kitchen set

51.Cacophony

52.Feelings of joy and pride

54.Surpass

56.Handcu

57.Razz

58.Excrete

59.Not full

DOWN

1.Black Sea republic

2.Flag rope

3.An Old Testament king

4.Between the head and shoulders

5.Away from the wind

6.Loft

7.Grant

8.Be unsuccessful

9.Flipper

10.Etch

13.Splinter

14.Sort

15.Marsh

16.Nationalities

19.Mystic

22.Clear up

24.Freedom

26.Drift

27.Not thin

30.Camber

32.Charge

33.Awkward

34.African antelope

35.Cassock

38.Causing erosion

39.Assortment

40.Go on a buying spree

42.Shakespearean verse

44.Appear

45.Gambas

48.Cut into cubes

49.French for “Head”

50.Test

53.Children’s game

55.Mug

INCREASING FUEL EFFICIENCY

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