Sacred Chickens
Menu
SACRED CHICKENS
Wonky Tonk and the High Life Lessons & Lovers by Roy Peak Imagine a life put on hold. You're a musician about to release your third album. You travel to Ecuador for a quick trip and plan on returning to the States just in time for the album release and ensuing tour. (With Justin Townes Earle, no less. R.I.P.) Then the pandemic strikes, gigs are cancelled left and right, and with the current state of political and societal affairs in your home country, you decide that it just may be best for you to stay put indefinitely.
This is what happened to Jasmine Poole, AKA Wonky Tonk. All these months later, and she's still there. Wonky Tonk definitely goes her own unique way, you can hear a little bit of Lucinda Williams, a smattering of Shari Elf, and even some Tywanna Jo Baskette (intended or not) and I'm loving Ms. Wonk for it. (Much like Elf and Baskette, Tonk's songs are witty, heartfelt, quirky, and wholly original.) Tonk rocks hard and tough, she's not afraid to get noisy when the song calls for it, and the contrast between an abled noisy rhythm section and Tonk's high, sweet voice adds even more angst on many of these tunes.
3 Comments
Gardening Priorities by Jarad Johnson I’m currently laying in bed sneezing my brain out after accidentally putting my face in some ragweed yesterday. One of the things I’m really bad at is sitting around. I. Can’t. Stand. It. I always have something to do or a project to complete (or a blog post to write!). But as I’ve been sitting here, seething as I see all the things I need to do, I’ve been thinking about some things. Specifically, what my priorities are. I guess that’s normal for someone my age who graduated from college and is searching for a job. You wonder what is important to you. And I realized that I haven’t really wanted to touch the garden for a few weeks for a few reasons. Firstly, sometimes life gets in the way. When there’s a lot going on around you, I sometimes just don’t want to brave the heat. Secondly, I’ll have to move before the year’s done, and tending a garden that won’t be yours for much longer feels a tad defeatist, although I still try to keep all the weeds at bay, but I certainly wouldn’t plant anything new. Although the garden design part of my brain is begging for some hydrangeas in front of the house. That’ll come in time, in a different house, of course.
Writers Are Kinda Crazy by Jarad Johnson Writers are, as a general rule, a strange bunch. It takes someone who’s at least a little strange to concoct wild fantasies and make up stories. I found myself having a conversation with…myself. Debating with myself about whether or not to include a storyline in a piece I’m writing. I’m not sure if me, myself or I won that argument, but it did make me think about what a writer was. Ooohhhhh, self-reflection, I say to myself, so philosophical you are, young padawan. Shut up, you’re insufferable, I say, also to myself. And so on and so forth.
3 Poems by Ahmad Al- Khatat The Gypsy Prayer
Sometimes I think I am less than more than a human who’s always experiencing the brutality of being vulnerable and pray without being known the gypsy prayer In the house of God, most of the people choose to take advantage of my family Meanwhile, when I am around my sinner friends, they taught me “enough is enough.” I dress the way I dress without any regulations I talk the way I talk without any limitations I walk the way I walk within my boundaries and I’ll die the way I wished with the sufferings Being happy with someone you love could be more of a curse than a gift, as being miserable creates, hides emotions and tears whenever my mind, body, soul slowly bleeds to death. Sabriel Garth Nix by Jarad Johnson I think as readers your tastes in books ebbs and flows, much like the way a river crests in spring and dries out in the summer drought. You can go through, “reading slumps,” where nothing is appealing at all, and you can go through what I refer to as, “Book Mania,” where every story grabs at your attention. I have been in somewhat of a reading slump for most of August (where did August go, by the way? Has time truly lost all meaning? I’m still stuck in July!). Every book I picked up I felt like I had read before. Sometimes, every plot feels redone, and every storyline too familiar to be entertaining. This is when I fall back on old favorites: Tolkien, Harry Potter, and all the other high Fantasy novels that helped tolerate the enormous imbecility that surrounded me in high school.
What It's Like To Walk Past a Cemetery Every Day by Jarad Johnson I am a walker, not a runner. Every day that it’s not raining, I’m out walking up and down the road that I live on. There’s quite a bit of scenery, and thankfully it's mostly trees and peoples yards. The yards in my neighborhood vary greatly. There’s a cute blue house with some pretty standard cottage garden plantings. There’s my house, with still far too much grass (both in the flowerbeds and otherwise) and there’s a few houses which appear to be professionally landscaped, by which I mean, boring. No offense neighbors, but your yards need a little color. I also live in an area where somehow the woods have escaped construction. It’s always nice seeing what random changes pop up there. Of course, there are also people who clearly don’t like to (or are too busy) to work in their yards. And then there are those few yards that I have thrown seeds in, just because I felt sorry for them. I don’t know if the people who lived there wanted cosmos next to their mailbox, but they certainly got it. It looks better, anyway.
Talking to Spiders by Jarad Johnson Spiders, in my opinion, are seriously misunderstood creatures (Me and Hagrid are on the same page). They can be beneficial insects, eating other pests both indoors and outdoors. They can also bite you, which is not so great. But hey! You win some you lose some. C’est la vie and all that crap. They particularly seem to like my front porch. There are whole families out there, and I don’t know whether or not to remove them. On one hand, I’d like to be able to sit out there and drink tea, but I would also feel bad. Who are they hurting? Well, insects, but nothing else.
All I Ever Wanted: A Rock 'n' Roll Memoir Kathy Valentine review by Roy Peak I'd been playing bass for a few years when the Go-Go's first album came out, so after a steady diet of Dee Dee Ramone, Bill Wyman, John Entwistle, and various surf rockers, the bouncy pop energy that Valentine brought to the punky Go-Go tunes was fun and refreshing. Solid, tight with the drums, always in motion, fluid and powerful. Definitely something my young rock & roll brain latched onto. As far as I know, I was the only one in my high school who liked them, as everyone else was into bands like Journey, Styx, and REO Speedwagon. Sigh.
Digging In: Fairy Tale Witches- Part Two by Jarad Johnson Witchcraft and witches are a motif across many literary and cultural themes, so it’s only fitting that they appear in fairy tales as reflections of the culture they come from. Although the fantasy genre has many different variations on the witch, when they pop up in fairy tales, they’re usually up to no good. Baking and eating small children and handing out poison apples. But witches have changed a little over time. Let’s look at some of these stories from long ago and their modern counterparts to see what it tells us about culture and women’s roles and exactly how witches got to be so wicked - at least in the eyes of those who told these stories. (Remember, this is a look into how western culture came to portray witches as evil! It does not reflect the feelings of any of us at sacred chickens about the long history of herb women, witches, or anyone who currently professes paganism or practices holistic medicine.)
Last time we explored how Fairy Tale Witches got to be wicked. The evil witch in the fairy tale reflected how the surrounding culture felt about women, especially women with power or childless women. These conflicted feelings created the monstrous image of the anti-mother, a twisted reflection of the only role women could be conceived of having. The witch motif, like fairy tales themselves, has changed with onset of fairy tale retellings. In understanding the entire perspective of the witch motif, retellings provide a new facet in that area. The retellings this paper will cover are, “When the Clock Strikes,” and, “Snow, Glass Apples.” Each of these stories contain a witch, but unlike the traditional tale, the witch has depth of character and is an overall more rounded out character than she would usually be. Review of Father Brown Season 8 by Julie and Jarad Introduction: Julie got hooked on this series when she had dental surgery last year and passed the obsession onto Jarad – even Morty, that cantankerous old soul, sneaks in a viewing now and then. You may be thinking…hmmm…recommendations from people who are loopy from anesthesia and pain meds. For the record, she went for local anesthesia and laughing gas and she can’t take opioids so she was in about as right a mind as she ever manages on an average day. But it is true that, as you might suspect, the show is along the lines of comfort food. Like your grandmother’s mashed potatoes and mac and cheese (or Mrs. McCarthy’s award winning strawberry scones…you haven’t met her yet, but you should.)
|
Click Photo above to buy ebook or paperback from Amazon.
Here's the link to Barnes and Noble Or order through your favorite independent bookstore! Categories
All
|