Two sumptuous works of poetry sourced the music in the first half of the Minnesota Orchestra’s latest concert, while the music itself became the poetry after intermission. In a program conducted by music director Thomas Søndergård and featuring soprano Julia Bullock, the orchestra delivered a ravishing evening of imagery and dynamism.
Starting out with the relatively obscure “Lamia” Symphonic Poem for Orchestra by Dorothy Howell, based on a John Keats poem, the evening moved to Benjamin Britten’s “Les Illuminations,” Opus 19 bringing Arthur Rimbaud’s extravagant symbolist poetry to life. Then the orchestra performed Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D Major, “Titan.” In its original form, Mahler named the work a Symphonic poem, and the work carried forward that poetic label — ripe with imagery and surprises.
Howell’s “Lamia” was first performed in 1919. The poem inspiring it centers on a serpent who convinces the God Hermes to turn her into a human. In the Minnesota Orchestra’s performance, Howell’s music slithered. The work was full of revelations, from whimsical moments to heroic jaunts, dancing castanets and hallucinatory visions. Following Lamia’s journey from snake to bride to ether, the music was dizzyingly seductive.
Julia Bullock did her own translations for the supertitles of “Les Illuminations,” allowing the audience to follow along on Rimbaud’s outlandish poetry. From mystical cities to Bacchanalian romps, the poetry was vivid and subversive.
“I alone have the key to this savage parade,” Bullock sang numerous times in the song cycle. In the music, Rimbaud’s prose poem lyrics grappled with the artist’s role in making sense of the universe, even at its most surreal.
A Grammy award-winner for her album “Waiting in the Dark,” which she made with her husband, Christian Reif, Bullock demonstrated her majestic voice with the Minnesota Orchestra. Her tone was cozy and enveloping, as she employed use of the space in her body to resonate to the max. Bullock easily handled the moody and dramatic lyrics, and demonstrated her significant range in the work.
After intermission, Søndergård led the orchestra through a formidable presentation of Mahler’s first symphony. The orchestra previously recorded with former director Osmo Vanska in 2019, and before that, were the first orchestra ever to record the First Symphony in 1940, under the direction of Dimitri Mitropoulos.
Brass instruments get some of the showiest moments in the piece, from off-stage playing to dramatic moments where they stood up to play. There was perhaps a stray note here or there coming from the brass section, but their power and showiness made up for it.
The first movement painted a lush pastoral scene, ending in a huge explosion of sound, bursting with speed and momentum. The second movement featured a robust dancing rhythm, similarly wildly flourishing at the end of the movement.
In the third movement, “Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen,” Mahler drew on the children’s tune “Frère Jacques,” which moves around the orchestra as a round. After that, the composer shifted into the sound of an Eastern European folk song. The third movement ended in a hushed whisper, followed by a startling jolt.
Fireworks awaited for the last movement, “Stürmisch bewegt,” as the orchestra shared its tremendous weight and sweeping drama.
Next up
What: Erin Keefe Plays Beethoven
When: 11 a.m. Thursday, March 13, 8 p.m. Friday, March 14
Where: Orchestra Hall, 1111 Nicollet Mall, Mpls.
Tickets: $36-$110
Capsule: Following a tremendous concert with music director Thomas Søndergård and soprano Julia Bullock, the Minnesota Orchestra next features concertmaster Erin Keefe.
Second Sunday Series – Editor’s Note: This is the seventh of 12 columns on AI and work, which will appear the second Sunday of each month, from September through August. Last month’s column described AI tools for resumes and cover letters, while previous columns looked at best practices for companies using AI; tips for using ChatGPT; work opportunities with artificial intelligence; AI use in the hiring process; and an overview of artificial intelligence in general.
Do you ever wish that you could pair up with someone for interview practice, or to give you ideas for answering difficult questions? Maybe you’re anticipating an asynchronous AI video interview in which your completed session will be reviewed by someone later — it would be nice to practice that format before it counts, right?
These are just a few of the ways job candidates are using artificial intelligence (AI) to prepare for interviews. They’re also using AI to help analyze a company’s position in the market, to identify opportunities and challenges a company might be facing, and to learn more about the trends occurring in particular industries.
If you’d like to use AI for your own interview preparation, read on.
Quick review of AI tools related to interviews
This list is short, but it should give you a starting point. While these tools offer enough free features for initial use, you can also pay for upgrades. To access each one, just type the name as given into your browser search bar.
• ChatGPT or Google Gemini –These are general AI tools that can be prompted in numerous ways that relate to interviews. In addition to specific information (“What are current trends for the risk management profession?”), these sites can generate potential interview questions and conduct mock interviews with feedback.
• Google Interview Warmup — This tool asks five basic questions and gives feedback on your responses. It’s simple but sometimes that’s a feature.
• Yoodli — This site operates like a speech coach, helping individuals prepare for interviews, presentations and even awkward conversations. To make best use of the offerings, start with online tutorials.
• HireVue — As a leading vendor to HR departments, HireVue is known for creating the asynchronous, AI-led interviews you might encounter as part of the hiring process. But they offer options for job candidates as well, so it’s worth a look to see what you can learn.
Tips for writing good prompts
When using an AI tool, your success will depend on the request, or “prompt” that you put in. A simple prompt such as “Give me three interview questions” will produce results but they won’t necessarily relate to your field.
Try instead, “You are an interviewer in a medical device company and I am the candidate for a communications job. Ask me three questions including one that is behavioral.” This will take some practice but eventually you will identify the prompts that provide the best practice for you.
What to watch out for
It’s easy to forget that AI tools, whether they’re free or subscription-based, are still AI. By their nature, they will collect and build on anything you share. That’s a warning to keep confidential data and personal information to yourself as you participate in these processes. Just modify your materials and answers to account for AI’s persistent kleptomania and you’ll still gain value without giving away state secrets.
More resources
If you’d like to become more proficient in using artificial intelligence to practice interviewing, try putting “free AI interviewing courses” into your search engine’s browser bar. I did and one of the resources that popped up was for Great Learning. Their web site doesn’t show the free classes easily, but using “Great Learning free courses” in your search engine will yield a list to peruse. This particular site leans to the technical sciences, but there are general courses mixed in, including one for using Google’s Gemini AI tool for interview prep.
As always, this short primer is only a sampling of the AI interviewing tools you might encounter online, and probably an even smaller slice of what will be available just a few months from now. For that reason, my best advice is to not worry about finding the perfect resource at this stage. Just choose something to try and if it works for you, that’s all you need.
Come back next month and we’ll take a look at more AI tools to help candidates build a successful job search process.
A history of aerobiology would normally be a book that would have little interest beyond the science community. But in “Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breath,” Carl Zimmer transforms the topic into something that reads like a combination of detective and horror stories.
Making a classic new again: How this publisher refreshed Jane Austen for her 250th birthday
Zimmer creates a highly relevant and gripping history of the study of the air that spans from Louis Pasteur holding a glass globe on a glacier to scientists racing to fight COVID-19 during the pandemic.
The book shows what a vital role the science of airborne life has played in the fight against COVID, influenza and other diseases. Zimmer also introduces readers to figures little known to the mass public who have played a role in the field’s evolution.
They include William Firth Wells, a pioneer in aerobiology whose work was crucial in understanding how airborne diseases spread, especially during the pandemic.
Zimmer’s book also shows how the work of Wells and other scientists was distorted into something that was used as the basis of biological weapons.
Using the outbreak among a Washington state choir, Zimmer chillingly describes how COVID-19 spread through the air and the frustrating rifts among health officials during the pandemic about addressing to the public that the virus was airborne.
As Zimmer puts it, the pandemic “made the ocean of gases surrounding us visible.” His book is a key guide for understanding that ocean.
LOS ANGELES — The goat had a resigned look in her eyes as the rancher pressed her udder and aimed a stream of milk into a tall cup. Sunrise needled through the misty air. The smell of manure was almost tactile. A foam emerged as the shooting milk churned with a powdery mixture at the cup’s bottom: instant coffee, granulated sugar, cinnamon and a hefty shot of alcohol de caña, an imported cane liquor that is nearly pure alcohol. The froth reached the top of the cup, creating a crown of tan bubbles.
This is how you make a pajarete, a rustic drink from western Mexico. The term comes from the root pájaro, or bird, which is to say, according to ranchers, it gives you a lift. The pajarate (pah-HA-re-teh) is offered like this on early mornings in various agricultural pockets of Southern California. The practice is covert, unlicensed and unregulated, one of those “if you know, you know” social rituals that are common behind closed doors across the state.
In the backyard of a house with livestock pens, Louie Rodriguez, a 44-year-old resident of Ontario, reached over and took his pajarete from the rancher. It was just after 7 a.m., a bit late — spiked goat’s milk is best drunk at the crack of dawn. Rodriguez beamed.
His father first brought him to try the drink at this ranch in Muscoy, an unincorporated semirural community of San Bernardino County where keeping livestock in private homes is legal. Since then, he’s been coming whenever he can, a pajarete convert.
“It tastes like a latte,” Rodriguez said after the morning’s first sip. “A boozy latte.”
From udder to cup
Drinking unpasteurized milk is an old custom in dairy-producing regions of Mexico, especially in the state of Jalisco. Ranchers there refer to fresh milk on its own as leche bronca, or “wild milk.” When spiked with alcohol de caña or tequila, the pajarete is associated with promoting vitality and good health. Some ranchers use it as a basic breakfast before a day on the land.
Along the way, ranchers began adding flavors to their morning milk. Nescafé, crumbled marzipan, cinnamon and powdered chocolate became common. Cane liquor that is produced regionally in Mexico — notoriously high-proof and dirt cheap — is supposed to kill any bad viruses that might be present.
Conveniently, it also gets you drunk.
The custom is a mostly grandfatherly affair, largely male, though some women and families participate. In some cases, pajarete locations morph into full-blown daytime parties, with live banda music, taqueros, beers and other alcohols. Younger drinkers might still be partying from the night before. Unknown numbers of ranch homes in the region offer fresh goat or cow milk like this, from before dawn till the animals tap out (usually by 8 a.m., sometimes earlier).
Webs of agricultural or equestrian zones in pockets of Southern California— a place once covered in farmland— have allowed the pajarete scene to flourish under the radar. (Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
A man and two goats in East Compton. (Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
By 7:30 a.m. in East Compton, the goat’s milk was out but a group still gathered to drink beer and hang. (Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
A pajarete drinker in Muscoy. (Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
Despite code enforcement efforts by county health authorities, pajarete gatherings persist in the region, reflecting the historical neglect of unincorporated areas. (Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
A baby goat jumps from a chair. (Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
A grandfatherly affair, mostly male, the pajarete scene can sometimes morph into full daytime parties. (Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
Some drinkers insist on using their own ceramic cup to make a flamed pajarete. (Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
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Webs of agricultural or equestrian zones in pockets of Southern California— a place once covered in farmland— have allowed the pajarete scene to flourish under the radar. (Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
Health inspectors occasionally issue administrative citations, or law enforcement is drawn due to neighbor complaints, according to records and interviews. But people still gather and the pajaretes flow, from goat udder to cup.
Even with reports of the bird flu virus detected in commercialized raw cow’s milk in California, no such fears have reached the pajarete lovers of Muscoy, where milk is not collected or processed for sale — it’s drunk on the spot. Popular locations spread mostly by word of mouth or social media. Influencers are also glomming onto the trend.
In addition to Muscoy, clandestine pajaretes can be found in almost any community where residents can keep horses, cattle or other livestock on their properties for personal use. The designation is surprisingly common in Los Angeles and the Inland Empire, clustered in areas that exist under webs of agricultural or equestrian zones: East Compton, Jurupa Valley, Perris, Avocado Heights, Sylmar, Chino, Santa Clarita and many more. Most have uniquely layered codes that locals insist give them sufficient gray areas in which to operate.
These areas have also become more Mexicanized in recent decades, pushed by immigrants who’ve worked successfully to build homes and families in Los Angeles. Many naturalized immigrants still long for hints of the motherland back in states like Jalisco, Michoacán, Zacatecas or Sinaloa. Pajarete culture is springing up and down the state too: in Bakersfield, Fresno and Sacramento, plus south of the border in Baja California, around Tijuana and Rosarito.
“It’s good for your health,” said goat owner Victor, 44, while milking one recent morning. He preferred to be identified by first name only, to avoid the attention of authorities.
Victor grew up drinking milk directly from cows back in Jalisco. He eventually migrated, worked various jobs and settled in Muscoy. “Everyone who grew up in Jalisco knows about this. We keep the customs from over there,” Victor said. “This isn’t a business. It’s just about spending time together, as friends, people we know.”
Even so, the Muscoy rancher admitted his fresh milk is not free. A typical pajarete runs about $10, to help maintain and care for the animals. In some locations, signs may indicate “No alcohol for sale” — as in, a guest can make a pajarete mixture with anything laid out on the table. If that includes some liquor laying about, it’s on you.
Giovanni Dominguez, who lives in Fontana, noted that every pajarete serving is customizable. “It depends on how you make it, stronger or lighter. You have to keep coming here to get that right mix,” Dominguez said, adding that his father used to take him for fresh milk in Chino when he was growing up.
“I throw in 1 ½ scoops of the chocolate, half a spoon of the Nescafé, and up to about right here of alcohol,” he said, pointing near the bottom of his cup.
A cow milk pajarete. (Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
“If you go too hard, you’re going to f— your day up. And if you drink two of them, you’re f—,” Dominguez said. “You’re gonna have to go to the restroom.”
Construction worker Juan Ortiz, 24, said he felt connected to pajarete culture because his father is from Jalisco. He visited a separate Muscoy location with his small daughter, who was bundled up in multiple jackets and clearly having a blast as she watched loose kids — as in, goat kids — kicking in the air with asymmetrical exuberance.
“I heard about it from an old-timer here in Muscoy,” Ortiz said. “I started doing it on my own, every other day. I think if you over-put alcohol, it doesn’t taste good.”
Asked about critics who might say that raw milk consumption poses a health risk to him or his child, Ortiz said he disagreed. “It’s natural, you’re watching it. It’s 100% real,” he said. “It’s not from the store where they add … I don’t know what they add.”
Does the alcohol help?
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and most dairy scientists in both Mexico and the United States say that drinking unpasteurized milk exposes consumers to significant risk of infection from listeria, salmonella and E. coli among other pathogens that can get humans seriously sick. That’s why pasteurization was invented, experts note, because so many people were getting sick or dying from drinking milk.
Yet the topic is still controversial. Skepticism of academia and the healthcare industry is reaching new peaks, making pasteurization suspicious to more people on both the left and the right, from wealthy elites steeped in coastal wellness culture to legions of Donald Trump supporters. Though most claims about raw milk’s benefits are debunked or unproven, the president’s new Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime raw milk drinker, is likely to loosen standards, experts said.
Pasteurization is an admittedly vintage food-safety practice, dating to the 1850s, said David Mills, a professor of dairy food science at UC Davis, a leading center of milk studies. Still, it remains the best available way to prevent massive infections with harmful viruses or bacteria that may be present in milk from mammals that are not human, he said. He likened pasteurization to seat belt rules — why wouldn’t you?
“There’s an erroneous belief that there are somehow ‘good bugs’ in raw milk,” Mills said. “It has proposed benefits, and they haven’t been proven. It’s really a risk-reward issue here.”
Mills, like other experts interviewed for this story, said he was unaware of the pajarete phenomenon in Southern California. Upon hearing about the custom, he said: “If you’re going to drink raw milk, the faster you can get it from the cow into your mouth is probably the safer route, if there is such a thing.”
In Mexico, pajaretes with alcohol have been linked to dozens of deaths, but not from unpasteurized milk. Tainted homemade liquor has been blamed. In a string of cases in 2020, at least 47 people across Jalisco died after drinking pajaretes with homemade cane alcohol that was tainted with too much methanol, according to local health authorities.
Despite the tragedy and media uproar, pajarete culture persists in the Mexican countryside. A first-ever national pajarete festival took place in Tlajomulco in 2023 near Guadalajara, with organizers ignoring warnings from public health officials.
As it turns out, a shot of high-proof alcohol can in theory affect pathogens associated with raw milk, since alcohol is an antimicrobial agent, some experts said. “Generally, yes, this would go a long way to reducing microbial contamination,” said Richard Webby, a global expert in host-microbe interactions at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. “Maybe that’s how it developed?”
Or think of crème liqueurs, said Linda Harris, a professor in microbial food safety at UC Davis. One study found alcohol content in crème liqueur helps keep the milk-based liquid safe to consume for extended periods, Harris said. Though warning against a conclusive analogy, she said the pajarete process would suggest a high dose of alcohol could do damage to potentially harmful pathogens — maybe.
“Bottom line, it is complicated, but you wouldn’t sterilize the milk,” Harris said, meaning getting milk to be microbe-free. “And reductions of alcohol-sensitive microbes would take time.”
In Southern California, it’s unclear when the underground pajarete scene began to coalesce, yet locals said the practice really took off during the pandemic shutdowns, when people across L.A. were desperate for clandestine social contact.
“Everyone was in their homes, and we were craving that socialization again,” said Diana Chavez, 30, a resident of Avocado Heights, an unincorporated area of the San Gabriel Valley where livestock ownership is prevalent and immigrant rancho pride is strong.
“It’s your protein shake,” Chavez said. “Some people drink this and they don’t have food until lunch. It’s very filling.”
A jitterbug of glee
For my first pajarete, I mixed cinnamon, sugar Nescafé, and about a shot and a half of alcohol de caña into a cup before a Muscoy rancher added the goat milk straight from the doe.
At first sip, the sheer warmth of the liquid shocked me. It felt as if it had just come out of a microwave. The liquid’s proteins and fats pushed through the intense sweetness of the added sugars and instant coffee. On the other end, the 96-proof alcohol was unforgiving, coating my throat and down the hatch. I went on to visit more than a dozen pajarete locations over nearly a year in multiple communities. At each place, I identified myself as a journalist and took notes.
I’ve never gotten sick from a pajarete in the L.A. area. But it did give me an unusual buzz. The combination of fresh milk, and all its unprocessed nutrients, plus the intense alcohol produced a jitterbug of glee in my tummy that was distinct from beer or wine. Over time, I came to see how most pajarete gatherings are modest, pleasurable affairs, filled with banter with strangers, joking and camaraderie.
Still, not all locals who are aware of pajaretes in agricultural areas support their consumption. Brenay Fonseca, 32, who was born and raised in Muscoy and has “nothing but positive things to say about it,” is a proud product of semirural life in Southern California. She runs an educational farm called Rancho Los Fonseca that promotes awareness and pride in the community’s heritage.
Pajarete drinkers don’t stop and think about the practice from the animal’s perspective, Fonseca said.
“I’ve had goat milk before. Goat milk is actually very healthy. But as far as getting people drunk, I’m not OK with that,” she said. “I think it’s very wrong of people to benefit off a mama’s goat milk like that. The milk belongs to the baby.”
Her farm is dedicated to helping schoolchildren understand that agriculture is central to San Bernardino’s identity. “I get asked all the time if I do pajaretes here, and I don’t do it,” she said. “Do you see that baby right there? That’s her baby. What do you think she’s going to eat?”
‘They hate everything about it’
There’s a growing curiosity in Los Angeles and the broader U.S. of ancestral ferments from Mexico. These include tepache, made of fermented pineapple rinds; tejuino, made of fermented milled corn and lime juice; tuba, of fermented palm sap; or the Korean unfiltered rice wine makgeolli.
The pajarete is not technically a ferment, but its cultural effect is similar: First- or second-generation Mexican Americans search for experiences that make them feel momentarily transported to Mexico’s romantic highlands, around horses and cattle, getting their jeans dirty.
Here, younger pajarete drinkers said, rancho “paisa” culture feels real. “It’s fun, you get faded, and you eat and drink,” Rodriguez said, explaining the appeal. “Because it’s just paisas and ranchitos, so it feels like you’re right in Mexico.”
The culture has generated its own aesthetic flairs. Connoisseurs insist on using their own personalized ceramic mug for their pajarete each time. A bolder showoff may also take a lighter and set the alcohol on fire before shooting the milk into the mug, to make a flamed pajarete.
At one spot in unincorporated East Compton, where “ Compton cowboy” culture is strong, Karla Moreno was holding her milk cup and checking out the penned goats behind oversize sunglasses. She called herself a regular.
“Despite being from Jalisco, I tasted it for the first time here,” said Moreno, who lives in South Gate. “First, I love milk, chocolate, sweet drinks. It’s a good combination with cane alcohol. And I love the buzz it gives you. It’s very different, a regular peda compared to a pajarete. It gives you a good kick.”
She added: “And then it will send you to sleep.”
Places where pajaretes are drawn seem unbowed in their way of life. In the drinking practice, the old-fashioned dogma of American freedom intersects with the do-whatever-you-please jubilance of California Mexican culture. Less rosily, the subculture also reflects the historical neglect of unincorporated communities in the region, where a kind of “ rancho libertarianism” reigns. People here like to be left alone.
In Muscoy, its rise also coincides with a flourishing of street-food vending along State Street, mostly tacos, elotes, maybe pupusas. Vendors there, also facing constant inspections, said they are feeding their families and also serving a local need. Among them is El Lagunero, which offers a rarely seen delicacy from north-central Mexico called cabrito al pastor, or spit-roasted baby goat.
Samuel Brown Vasquez, a gregarious second-generation Chicano organizer who owns horses on his land in Avocado Heights, works to protect the agriculture lifestyle in L.A. County. He said fresh milk pajaretes are a part of that, “like the town square.” Though it is the second-largest urban conglomeration in the country, L.A. has always been “ag” to its core, the activist said. Brown Vasquez argues pajarete consumption should be considered a minor nuisance compared to property and violent crimes in L.A. County.
“Having worked as an investigator, I do find it troubling that they’re allocating resources to this extremely niche community,” Brown Vasquez said of occasional code enforcement efforts in Avocado Heights.
“This has always been a little bit of the Wild West for the county. They hate it, everything about it, and they feel like they can’t control it,” he said. “And they can’t.”
For Robert Robles, participating in the early-morning fresh milk cocktail scene is about preserving a sliver of Mexican culture while still thriving in the United States. A 49-year-old native of Boyle Heights, he eventually moved to a bigger property in the Inland Empire, capturing his stake of the American Dream. He brings his children sometimes for fresh milk in Muscoy and said he will continue to do so.
“There are a lot of kids who want to be more modern, follow society, but look at the beauty of this,” Robles said. “You just got to be willing to accept it and embrace it and not feel ashamed to be a part of this.”
