Led astray by "The Gift From 93 Million Miles Away"

As someone who spends a lot of time in libraries and archives, I know you can't find everything on the Internet. Nonetheless, I'm surprised I was unable to learn more about a Kellogg's Corn Flakes jingle that I wanted to use as a lead-in to a blog post.

There are a couple of things I remember only if I sing them. One is the correct spelling of encyclopedia. I learned how to spell it by listening to Jiminy Cricket sing the letters on The Original Mickey Mouse Club.



The other is the distance from the Earth to the Sun, something I learned from a Kellogg's Corn Flake television jingle that, as I recall, went (without the music), "It comes to earth each sunny day, from 93 million miles away...sun for Kellogg's Corn Flakes."

I couldn't find that jingle anywhere in any format (text, images, videos). The closest I was able to come was a print ad that talked about the sunlight that made the corn grow as "The gift from 93 million miles away." All I can hope for now is that one of my sharp-eyed regular readers will come to the rescue and assure me my memory isn't a soggy as a day-old bowl of Rice Krispies with milk. If they can find missing commas, mis-spelled words, and mixed metaphors, they can surely find this jingle -- or at least assure me that they, too, remember the distance from the earth to the sun with reference to corn flakes.

While I'm waiting, I thought I'd share with you three Kellogg's television ads that I found during my search for the elusive jingle. All feature Superman as played on television by George Reeves. I seem to recall that I had a pre-teen crush on him, which was soon replace by a crush on David Stollery (a.k.a. Marty in The Original Mickey Mouse Club's "Spin and Marty" series). Of course, I may have made this all up many years later: As I sometimes remind Himself, when it comes to remembering crushes of yesteryear, my memory really can be as soggy as a day-old bowl of Rice Krispies with milk.







As for that idea for a blog post that sent me on this voyage of discovery, it will have to wait for another day. I've frittered away too much time already, letting myself be led astray by Google results and hyperlinks. I need to catch up on my sleep after a long, hectic weekend. And tomorrow morning when I arise, I'll cook McCann's steel cut Irish oatmeal for breakfast, because I never did learn to love Kellogg's cereals despite the best efforts of Superman and all those presumably clever people on Madison Avenue.

Today's funeral service for Kurt Pechmann, a man who spent most of his life creating memorials to other people's lives

Kurt Pechmann was an artist who worked in stone. He did not sculpt marble into statutes of famous men; he worked with granite, carving memorials to police officers killed in the line of duty, members of the armed services, and ordinary and extraordinary people. Sometimes, without calling attention to his gift, he helped to create memorials to people whose graves might otherwise go unmarked.

This evening at his funeral service, speakers described some of the other roles he played in people's lives: husband, father, grandfather, an engaging storyteller, a man with a passion for learning and doing things right, a man who was always upbeat, a man who was greatly respected, and a man who first arrived in Wisconsin as a German prisoner of war.

I first met Kurt Pechmann, founder of Pechmann Memorials in 2004 when I was working on a feature story for The Capital Times about preserving gravestones and cemetery memorials. We met in his office, its wall covered with awards and photographs. After he had answered my questions, the conversation veered off into the kind of storytelling that is the real reward for traveling to interview someone in person rather than relying on the telephone.

Born in Kuhnern, Germany in 1922, the youngest of six children, Kurt Pechmann became an apprentice stonecutter while still a teenager. At 18, he was drafted into the German army. Twice, he marched to the Russian front, where he was hospitalized for frostbite. On November 6, 1943, he was captured by Allied Forces and sent to the United States as a prisoner of war. Eventually, he was sent to Wisconsin, which, as retired history teacher Betty Cowley reported in her book, "Stalag Wisconsin," was home to 38 prisoner of war camps during World War II.

In May 1946, Kurt Pechmann was sent to a prisoner of war camp in France; but in 1948, he escaped and returned to Germany where he married his sweetheart.

In June 1952, he and his wife arrived in the United States, the country whose people he had grown to admire during his previous sojourn. For the next 57 years, in addition to becoming an American citizen and building a successful business, he made generous donations of his time and skills to his community.

The photographs, plaques, and letters of commendation that graced his office wall were on display this evening at the funeral home, along with scrapbooks and a slide show. Among the items on display were photographs of him as a young man in Germany; the plaque commemorating the occasion upon which he was award an honorary Purple Heart (the first POW in American history to be accorded this honor); and the letter from President Ronald Reagan, written at the behest of World War II veteran Akira Toki, thanking him for donating his professional services to the restoration of the Veterans Memorial at Madison's Forest Hill Cemetery, as well as "for making America your home."

A small selection of Kurt Pechmann's awards and photo albums on display at his funeral service (note the stonecutter's tools on the left hand side of the table, near the rear).

Three people spoke at the funeral service, addressing a crowd so large that many people had to sit in an overflow room across from the main seating area. Retired army colonel Cliff Bender, "representing countless Wisconsin Veterans" praised Kurt Pechmann's work on the Wisconsin Korean War Veterans Memorial and the Dane County Veterans Memorial in Monona, calling him "one of my heroes." Pechmann's granddaughter, Molly, shared fond memories of her grandfather and reminded us that "he didn't want us to be upset or hurt" and, fighting back tears, that "this should be a day of celebration."

After introductory prayers and Bible verses, Revered Jerry Amstutz, of Glenwood Moravian Community Church served as the evening's primary storyteller, relating Kurt Pechmann's history and comparing him to the Good Samaritan. "Often people teach louder with their lives than their words," he reminded us.

Prior to the commencement of the service, polka music wafted through the funeral home's speakers, a reminder that Kurt Pechmann "liked to dance polkas with his family." After the final prayer, Reverend Amstutz asked us to stay in our seats for the closing song: Louis Armstrong's rendition of "What a Wonderful World."

John Dillinger and the Little Bohemia Lodge in Wisconsin

If you don't have a ticket to tonight's Madison preview of UW-Madison alumnus Michael Mann's new film, "Public Enemies," starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale? Consider spending a few minutes brushing up on a some Wisconsin history, by watching this short video about Little Bohemia Lodge in Manitowish Waters, scene of the 1934 shoot-out between the Dillinger Gang and the FBI (spoiler alert: before you can watch the vintage footage, you'll have to endure a short Nikon commercial featuring Ashton Kutcher; or perhaps a commercial about fabric softner or something equally enlightening).

John Dillinger

Once you've watched the video, visit the Little Bohemia Lodge website, which has lots of additional information, including the fact that one of the items on the breakfast menu is "Eggs Dillinger - scrambled eggs in a puff pastry with Canadian bacon, a tomato slice and spinach,topped with hollandaise."

Remembering Joel Gersmann...who died too soon

Joel Gersmann hated blogs: He thought they were filled with scurrilous gossip and the inane, meandering thoughts of people who, if they really wanted to write, should be writing serious stuff...like plays, and novels -- or at least articles about his beloved Broom Street Theater.

Joel died four years ago today. Were he still alive, I think he would have changed his mind about blogs -- and he probably would have a Facebook page for the theater if not himself. Once he began to see how useful and effective the Internet could be for disseminating news about Broom Street Theater, as well as locating obscure, out-of-print books and CDs, he would have twisted arms and convinced people to blog on his behalf while he used his mighty intellect to create new plays and finish translating Homer.

But, as I've said before, Joel died too soon. Four years ago, I poured all my grief and energy into writing a tribute to him for the Wisconsin State Journal. Trying to cram everything I felt needed to be said into 1,000 words was a formidable challenge.

The State Journal was consistently generous about giving me plenty of space for feature stories, but occasionally there wasn't quite enough room on the page and some paragraphs had to be cut. In this instance, some of the content of an accompanying sidebar, featuring observations about Joel from a wide range of people he's worked with over the years, also had to be excised. Tonight, for those of you who remember Joel and those of you who are, alas , just being introduced to him now, I'm going to post the original, uncut version of my story, as well as the complete sidebar content -- and since this is a blog on the Internet, I'm going to add some links, too.

Goodbye, Joel (the original version)

Joel Gersmann died too soon. There were many plays he still wanted to write and direct, including “Wisconsin Arts Board: The Musical;” a play based on University of Texas history professor David Oshinsky’s recent book, “Polio: An American Story;” and “The Most Beautiful Jew in the World,” a comedy about fashion designer Ralph Lauren.

Joel spent so much time on the telephone it’s difficult to imagine how he accomplished anything. There were dozens of people who received calls from him every day. He’d call to rant about the death of theater, the state of the union, or a surly actor. He’d call to suggest lunch: He didn’t own a car, so accepting an invitation to dine meant you’d probably also be driving him to the grocery store, the bank, and a beauty supply store selling the inexpensive blond wigs he needed for an upcoming play. Or maybe he’d interrupt your sleep to read you a poem.

“Joel was studying Ancient Greek and he’d call me up at 3 a.m. and read his latest translation of Homer,” says Dickie Swaback, who designed and constructed sets for many Broom Street productions.

Whenever Joel telephoned, there would be music playing in the background. He was passionate about classical music, opera, jazz, and folk music, as well as modern dance. His knowledge of these subjects was encyclopedic. His preferred the new, the offbeat, and just plain weird. He was eagerly awaiting the arrival of a CD by The Suspicious Cheese Lords.

An avid reader, he sometimes fretted that more people knew him for the annual book review essay he wrote for the Isthmus newspaper for 28 years than for his work at Broom Street Theater.

The amount of work he did at and for Broom Street Theater was prodigious, despite all his other interests and activities, including a recent addition: learning Arabic.

During his 36 year tenure as Broom Street’s artistic director, Joel wrote and directed 88 original plays. Additionally, he made and directed 26 adaptations or versions of famous plays for the theater. He also directed four plays for Quixote Productions and was hired to direct a nationally broadcast radio play with a cast that included actor Laurence Luckinbill. This was not an entirely pleasant experience for Joel.

“Luckinbill was one of the people he hated most after that,” remembers Jacques Burdick, a retired theater professor who earned his Ph.D. at UW-Madison. Burdick met Gersmann when Joel enrolled in the masters degree program in theater arts at Adelphi University after spending two years in the U.S. Army.

Burdick, who Joel called “my mentor” (and telephoned every day) says, “Joel went to Madison because I went there and because I knew A.C. Scott who taught Asian theater history in Madison at the time.”

But Burdick influenced more than Joel’s decision to go to Madison. “I can only surmise that something I did at Adelphi set him off -- and I think it was studying Grotowski’s investigations of what it means to be doing theater with next to nothing.”

Grotowski developed a concept he called poor theater. He believed theater could happen without costumes, scenery, or stage lighting: All theater required was a live communion between an actor and an audience in a special place.

“Broom Street’s tradition is about cheap, curtainless theater,” says Rod Clark, who has acted in, written, and directed many plays at Broom Street and currently serves as the chair of its board. Clark met Joel in Madison is 1967 when they were both involved in “the cultural side of the revolution,” whose members resisted the rigidity of the political left.

“We didn’t want to be constrained by what was appropriate,” says Clark.

Two of Joel’s first plays for Broom Street were “Junk Show” and “Junk Show II.” He said he coined the term “junk theater” to describe his work after reading George Orwell’s observations about junk culture.

But his work was constantly changing, evolving. Joel believed his most recent play, “The Ballerina and the Economist,” was vastly different, for instance, from his controversial 1988 production of “Joe, A Life or Angel on the Edge, the story of Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin.” It was more layered with meaning and highly choreographed.

To all of the above, it’s necessary to add that Joel ran the theater: raised money, paid the bills, handled the publicity, made certain the theater building was well-maintained. He lived frugally, but many for many years worked at day jobs in order to keep the theater going.

“You can’t produce theater year after year that people hate,” says Clark.

But Joel was unwilling to compromise.

“I’m not going to throw myself on the railroad tracks and get hysterical,” he said recently. “At 62, I’m just not going to reinvent theater for 21st century yuppies.”

“And the miracle is that the theater survives in the black, ”says Clark. And Broom Street Theater remains the only company in Madison that owns its own building.

“Buying that building was a leap of faith,” says Mary Berryman-Agard, former chair of the Madison Arts Commission. “It was a decision without which there wouldn’t have been a Broom Street Theater today. Joel’s real genius was his administrative skills.”

If you’ve read this far and your favorite Joel story isn’t here, don’t fret. There’s more to come. The Broom Street boys are already speculating who’ll be the first to write and direct “The Joel Gersmann Story” and whether it might make it to the stage before the end of the year.

Sidebar: Remembering Joel

Film director Stuart Gordon, who, in partnership with his wife, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, co-founded Broom Street Theater in 1968, and then left after directing one play:

“Joel was one of the few remaining people in theater who continued to experiment with new forms. He never sold out, or softened his views, or went commercial.”

“Theaters are like children and Joel really saw it through. I was like the traveling salesman who got the farmer’s daughter pregnant and then abandoned her. Joel married her and raised the kids.”

Rob Matsushita, playwright, director, actor, and sometimes gunmaster at Broom Street since 1995:

“Joel was a uniter. I think I learned more from him about human character than theater. He could make people who didn’t get along work together. We united together for a reason: we were angry with Joel. He wanted you to be angry, to fight. Joel believed that if you didn’t fight for something you didn’t really want it.”

Mary Berryman-Agard, arts consultant and former chair of the Madison Arts Commission:

“Joel was a completely non-sentimental person, but he had a fundamentally sweet and tender engagement with the world, all appearances to the contrary aside.”

JoAnn Schmidman, founder (in 1968) of one of the oldest and long lived experimental theaters in the United States, Omaha Magic Theatre:

“Joel was an unheralded genius. He was one of the most giving and caring souls I’ve known.”

Callen Harty, playwright, director, actor at Broom Street since 1983:

“The one thing I think about often is Joel’s mentorship role -- how many lives have been changed because of him.”

Megan Terry, a founding member of New York City’s now legendary Open Theater:

“Joel Gersmann and Joseph Chaiken are two of the geniuses of the American theater, both working at opposite ends of the spectrum.”

Not on hiatus (or even marching to a different drummer)... just too busy to blog

Lunch at the University Club with Molly Eddy, winner of the 2009 Iwanter Prize for interdisciplinary excellence

Molly Eddy, Winner of the 2009 Iwanter Prize

It had been a dark and stormy night and I hadn't slept well. I didn't want to get out of bed. I turned off the alarm clock and hunkered down under my quilt, hoping to give my sub-conscious another stab at writing a lede for a story I had been working on for days.

Then the telephone rang. It was Sidney Iwanter calling from Los Angeles to tell me I had something else to do. He wanted me to attend and blog about a luncheon in honor of Molly Eddy, winner of the 2009 Center for the Humanities Sidney E. Iwanter Prize for outstanding interdisciplinary scholarship for her senior thesis entitled "Spirit and Body: Paradox and Ambiguity in Brigidine Devotion."

The annual Iwanter Prize provides an unrestricted $2,000 award to one graduating senior who demonstrates outstanding humanities-based scholarship of a broad and interdisciplinary nature. It is based on a review of each applicant's senior thesis and overall academic record.

I've never met Sidney, but we attended the same high school. Several years ago, I interviewed him for a story I was writing for the Wisconsin State Journal. Sidney did give me a good quote, but it ended up on the newspaper equivalent of the cutting room floor. Ever since then, he's insisted I owe him. That morning he was calling in his marker.

That's why on Friday, the first day of the three-day 2009 Spring Commencement weekend at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I found myself serving as Sidney's emissary, joining six other people for lunch in the J.R. Commons room at the University Club on State Street.

The other luncheon guests were Molly Eddy; her parents, Barbara Eddy, a retired high school guidance counselor, and Thomas Eddy, who has been a high school biology teacher for 33 years; Sara Guyer, director of the Center for the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the organization that administers and awards the prize; Caroline Levine, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who served on the panel that selected this year's award-winner; and Kirin Narayan, Molly Eddy's senior thesis adviser, an ethnographer and professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I'd met Narayan about 15 years ago, when I interviewed her about her novel, "Love Stars and All That."

Barbara and Thomas Eddy talk with Molly's thesis adviser, Kirin Narayan

As usual, Sidney, who endowed the unrestricted $2,000 award, cannot make it to the lunch. In fact, he admits, he's never made it to the event and he's never met any of the award recipients. That's one of the reasons why he called me at 5 a.m. in the morning to suggest I attend the luncheon and blog about it.

"As a regular reader of your blog, it appears to me that it's time for you to write about something other than food and artwork that looks like cows," he said. He also threw in a heaping does of flattery, reminding me I'm "a blogger of note."

Grilled Mahi-Mahi at the University Club

Sidney says he has always been far more interested in learning more about the brilliant young scholars who win the award than talking about his own checkered academic past. "I wanted to create an award that would have been virtually impossible for me to win no matter how many tutors or years I attended Wisconsin as an undergraduate," he says.

"I wasn't a great student when I was the UW-Madison because I too busy running around escaping tear gas canisters, collecting 1960s radical black light posters from trees and telephone poles – which my mother eventually threw out, just as she threw me out after college – and sneaking my tape recorder into Agriculture Hall to tape Harvey Goldberg's lectures," he explains.

Sidney has read Molly's senior thesis – as well as those of every student who has applied for the Iwanter Prize since its inception in 2001. This year there were a dozen applicants.

According to Sidney, it is the only time of year he ever uses a dictionary on a regular basis: "The rest of the year I just guess the meanings of the words," he avers. He does not, however, play a role in deciding who wins the prize. He cedes that responsibility to a committee of faculty members chosen by the Wisconsin Center for the Humanities.

The Center's website lists the criteria for applying for the Iwanter Prize. Among other things, potential applicants learn, "Theses must be interdisciplinary but need not be interdepartmental. The topic of the winning thesis must reflect a breadth of interests and learning experiences as well as depth in its main area of focus. It should draw from more than one scholarly discipline (for example, history and Italian literature; philosophy and art), but it may do so in a variety of ways."

During the luncheon, I ask questions and takes notes; later, I telephone Sara Guyer and Molly to confirm some details.

Molly Eddy

Although her parents were originally from Iowa, Molly was born and raised in Green Lake, Wisconsin.

Molly says for a long time she wanted to be an archaeologist. Her father remembers that she had "a keen interest in Egyptology and Egyptian myths." During her last year of high school, she took an anthropology course at Ripon College and that persuaded her to change her focus and major in anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Molly's senior thesis explores some aspects of the Congregation of Sisters of St. Brigid (Brigidine Sisters), founded in Ireland in 1807. In order to do the research for her thesis, she used her skills in reading Old and Middle English, Gaelic, and Ancient Greek. She also knows French, Spanish, and "a little Russian."

Saint Brigid of Kildare, says Molly, is one of the three major patron saints of Ireland (along with Patrick and Columba), and one of the most popular. At one time in Ireland, Brigid was the most common name for girls.

Molly's academic interest in Brigid led her to analyze documents about the legends of the saints and how they reflected the struggle for church supremacy in Ireland (whether Kildare or Armagh should become the "ecclesiastical capital") that occurred between the 7th and 9th centuries. She says she approached her subject from three different points of view, studying ecclesiastical records, folklore collected after the Great Famine in Ireland, and modern Brigidine devotions.

"This is exactly what the award was set up to encourage: interdisciplinary excellence," says Sidney.

When Molly began her research, she says, "I was interested in how Brigid was perceived by society and how this perception changed historically." One of the main things she noticed in traditional Brigidine devotions was the important of bodily practice, such as planting crops for a good harvest. Today, this is reflected in the order's focus on work in the world, such as protecting women's rights and encouraging environmentalism – a focus that emphasizes the here and now.

Although her parents were Catholic, Molly's mother says, "She came home at 11 and said, 'I just shouldn't go to Sunday school; it's not my thing.' She wanted to study world religions."

"Molly was always interested in reading," adds her mother. "The local librarians would go to great lengths to get books for her."

In addition to reading books, Molly currently has a job in the Conservation Lab at Memorial Library helping to repair and restore old books and manuscripts. When asked about how she used the Internet to facilitate her own research, Molly acknowledges that it can't be ignored, but says she prefers reading books she can hold in hr hands.

Molly, who will be pursuing her interest in Celtic Studies at New York University this fall as a graduate student, plans to spend most of her summer in Madison, working at the library and pursuing her lessons in Gaelic. Eventually, she says she would like to work with old Irish manuscripts, translating them and making them more accessible to people.

Lest you think this lovely young woman is a bookworm, be advised that she has also studied Tae Kwon Do. She is a black stripe, which she says is a level below a black belt, something she did not aspire to earn because, "I was tired of competition." Besides, she notes that her relatively short height and small hands put her at a disadvantage in competitions.

She wasn't at all reluctant to compete for the Iwanter Prize, however. "Molly is very diligent and worked hard to complete her senior thesis before the May 1st deadline," says Narayan.

Professor Kirin Narayan and Molly Eddy

Note: When I talked to Molly on the telephone, she mentioned that during the course of her research, she had acquired much more information than she needed. I can empathize with that: During the course of writing about the Iwanter Prize, I've acquired much more information than I needed.

Molly may be able to incorporate some of her extra information into a master's thesis. I'm likely to write some more blog posts. Expect to read some posts about the Center for the Humanities, as well as the intriguing story about the events leading up to the creation of the Iwanter Prize. Expect to read them later, however. Right now, I have something else to do…

It's too nice outside: I'm on hiatus

Report from Woodstock: Searching for clues about the missing Dick Tracy Museum

"Hey, Babe! Just checking in to see how you're doing."
"Where are you?"
"I'm sitting at an outdoor café overlooking the scenic Woodstock Square."
"Woodstock? I thought you were in Lake Forest."
"I was, but I'm on my way home and I stopped in Woodstock to do a telephone interview."
"Woodstock, Illinois?"
"Yes."
"So what's there?"
"This is the city where they filmed 'Groundhog Day' and where Orson Welles attended school after he left Madison."
"What school?"
"The Todd School."
"So are you going to take photos and blog about this?"
"It hadn't occurred to me. I was just going to walk over to the Dick Tracy Museum to buy you a postcard…"
"Dick Tracy Museum? What's a Dick Tracy Museum doing in Woodstock?"
"Chester Gould lived here."
"I thought he was from New York."
"Sheesh. Dick Tracy was a Chicago Tribune comic strip."
"Well that doesn't mean he was from Chicago."
"So I'll find out where he was from when I go to the museum."
"Well take lots of photos so you can blog about this."
"OK. I'll take photos, but I may not have time to blog. Are you going to be home when I get back to Madison?"
"Probably. I have to go out to the grocery store though."
"Why?"
"I need to go pinch some fruit in the produce section."
"Dick Tracy would not approve of you stealing apples, Babe. He'd pinch you if he caught you doing that."
"I'm not going to steal fruit; I'm going to pinch fruit. Check out the first definition."
"Do you mean the one about gripping flesh tightly and sharply between finger and thumb?"
"Sounds right."
"And exactly what are you going to pinch?"
"Cantaloupes."
"All men are pigs."
"You already knew that. Go take some photos."

I disconnect and walk around the square to the Old Court House Building. The Dick Tracy Museum is gone. There are no traces of evidence.

I walk a bit farther down the block. It looks as though the Courthouse Grill is no longer in business. La Petite Crêperie is apparently still in business. Across the street I see a sign for the Woodstock Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Maybe they can reassure me that the Dick Tracy Museum wasn't a figment of my imagination.

The receptionist at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry tells me the Dick Tracy Museum closed about two years ago because of lack of funds. I ask her where the collection of art and artifacts from the museum is now. She tells me the family has it. She tells me the family ran the museum and just couldn't afford to continue to do so because there weren't enough admission-paying visitors.

I ask about the Chester Gould connection to Woodstock. She tells me he lived in Woodstock for over 34 years. I wonder why I let Himself keep challenging my facts and memories. OK. Sometimes he's on target – but he misses the rim a lot, too.

The Chamber of Commerce sells postcards. I buy one leftover from the Dick Tracy Museum even though it doesn't show our hero wearing his 2-way wrist radio. I buy one commemorating the filming of "Groundhog Day." Bill Murray is not in the photo. I don't think he's selling vodka in crystal heads either – that's the other guy, isn't it?

I stop in a nearby bakery and find myself more entranced by the horse ride in the hallway than the cookies in the display cases.

A little farther down the street, I spot a gelato shop. I walk in and look at what’s on offer. The woman behind the counter asks me if I want a sample. I decline. I ask for a serving of pink grapefruit sorbetto. She asks me if I want to sample it first. I decline. She asks me if I'm sure. I start to become irritated, and then I realize what she's worried about. "It looks nice and tart, I don't think I need a sample," I tell her. She looks relieved. Someone who didn't know from tart must have complained. I know someone who pinches cantaloupes --- you think I don't know from tart? But I don’t say that aloud.

Sitting at an indoor table, trying to write something witty and memorable (or at least coherent), I realize I should have ordered my tart treat in a dish instead of a cone. It's difficult to write a postcard when one hand is holding a leaky cone. Plus, the lovely mosaics on the top of the table make it difficult to write (my pen wobbles). I finally finish the cone and card and head outside to find a mailbox.

Then I walk over to the scenic Woodstock Square to take some photos. This is a veterans' memorial park and many of the trees are festooned with large yellow ribbons with names on them. I take some photos of the ribbons.

I take some other photos, but I'm not bursting with enthusiasm for this assignment. I've been there and done that a couple of years ago. When I get home, I discover it was in July 2006 – and that time I was on the way home from Lake Forest, too. Just goes to show I don't tell Himself everything. Turns out I also took a photo back then of the signage outside the Dick Tracy Museum, so I have evidence it existed.

Walking through the square, toward the Woodstock Opera House, where Paul Newman once performed, I sight some guys sitting on a park bench. I don't have my 10X zoom lens, so I can't sneak up on them. I ask if I can take some photos. They agree. After I take some photos, they ask me if I want to take some goofy photos, too. Of course I do.



After securing an e-mail address from one of the guys, I shoot some photos of the Opera House, and then walk back to my car.


I wonder if Himself is on the way to the grocery store to pinch cantaloupes. I tell myself this is probably only a bit of imagery he's concocted for the story he's writing. It's all a metaphor. The reality is more raw cauliflower and hummus dip.

I turn the key in the ignition and head for Harvard and Emerald Grove and points north.

It's Tuesday, May 12th. My father would have been 88 today. I haven't forgotten, but perhaps I've been trying not to think about how long he's been gone. It's not easy to drive when you're crying.

This is one of the presses my grandfather kept running

Pressmen at the Wisconsin State Journal building on S. Carroll Street (date and photographer unknown)

When I wrote the previous post, I thought I had enough images to make it work, but Himself noted that it was difficult to see what the old press looked like in the photo on the scanned newspaper page. So I've been looking for a better photograph for several days -- and I found this one in one of my grandmother's albums. It's undated, but judging by my grandfather's appearance (he's the one in the center, wearing bib overalls), my guess would be that it was taken sometime before World War II.

If you can help me pinpoint the date, or identify the other men in the photograph, please contact me.

He kept the presses running and could never have imagined a world without the aroma of fresh ink on newsprint...

The letter from the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware arrived a few days ago, but there's no need for me to respond: The Tribune Company doesn't owe me any money. I received my last check from them a few days before Sam Zell completed his leveraged buyout of the company.

Although this bankruptcy proceeding may presage the beginning of the end for yet another great newspaper, I'm not keening and wailing. I mourned the Tribune's demise decades ago when we started to receive a truncated version of the original here in Madison. The so-called Midwest Edition wasn't worth the time or the money, so I abandoned it.

Even though I was born and raised in Madison, I grew up reading the Chicago Tribune as well as the local newspapers. I read the Tribune because my maternal grandfather subscribed to it. He was a fan of its feisty conservative editor Colonel Robert McCormick. He admired the Colonel's work ethic and stamina, but cautioned me not to be taken in by his bizarre campaign to reform spelling, taking care to point out words that should not be spelled the way they were spelled in the Tribune.

It was in the funny pages section of the Chicago Tribune that I first encountered that dashing, adventurous red-haired reporter, Brenda Starr and her man of mystery, Basil St. John. She became a role model. He became a source of fascination. Looking back, I think it may have been because Basil, like my father, seemed elusive – always being lost and found.

My grandfather preferred reading about the adventures of another redhead: Little Orphan Annie. We both marveled at Dick Tracy's 2-Way Wrist Radio. And it was my grandfather who taught me to look for the annual "Injun Summer" story on the front page of the Tribune's Sunday magazine: It spoke of long ago days and reminded those of us who lived in the Midwest that winter was not far off.

My grandfather spent his entire career in the newspaper business, so I not only grew up reading lots of newspapers, I spent many hours hanging around the Madison Newspapers building on S. Carroll Street, watching the Wisconsin State Journal and The Capital Times being created on a daily basis. On the upper floors of the building, reporters typed copy, made phone calls, smoked, drank coffee, took a nip from the bottle of booze hidden in their desks, and told colorful stories never destined to make it into print.

The press room with its huge, noisy machines and dark, pungent-smelling ink was on the ground floor. This was my grandfather's domain: He was superintendent of the press room. He arrived in Madison on Thanksgiving Day 1918, and during his almost 40-year tenure "Mike" and his team never missed an issue – even though the presses were replaced several times over the decades. He loved newspapers and loved his job – and he couldn't stay retired. When yet another new press was installed in the building on S. Carroll Street in 1961, my grandfather, who was born during the depression years of the late 19th century, when Grover Cleveland was President of the United States, was called back to supervise the process.

During his 91 years on Earth, my grandfather lived through several economic depressions and two world wars; he was witness to extraordinary changes in science and technology and usually embraced them. He watched hundreds of individual newspapers dissolve and merge, but he would never have imagined that the newspaper as an institution would find itself in the throes of death. He could never have imagined a world without newsprint and ink. He could never have imagined a world where the Chicago Tribune found it necessary to file for bankruptcy.

Large rolls of newsprint paper being unloaded in from of the Wisconsin State Journal building at 115 S. Carroll Street, circa 1939 (Wisconsin Historical Image ID: 14535)

I find myself increasingly ambivalent about the fate of newspapers. I love the look, the feel – even the aroma – of a freshly printed newspaper. I can't imagine reading a newspaper on a Kindle. But local newspapers are increasingly filled not with local news, but warmed-over wire service stories and inane syndicated feature stories.

If I want news, I turn on my computer and search the Internet, where I can find local news, as well as news from around the world, great photography, and an extraordinary array of videos. If I want inane stories about vapid celebrities and tedious articles about how to redecorate on the cheap, I'll hang around the dentist's waiting room and read magazines.

If I crave old-fashioned newspapers, I'll have to use some of my frequent flyer miles and head across the pond to London, where I can still spend a Sunday morning in bed with Himself and a basket of chocolate croissants, wading through a variety of newspapers with distinct personalities, clever writing, stunning photography, amusing gossip, the court circular, and the latest rugby scores.

On hiatus from blogging (again)

Too much work, too little time and energy...

Revisiting the Easter Cow on Madison's East Side in order to check out the bovine beauty's 2009 holiday attire

Last year when I visited the Easter Cow, there was snow on the ground and she was wearing an elaborate headdress, not an Easter bonnet. The ambient light was good.

This year, the light wasn't great and her head and horns were bare. In fact, Holstein Parade seemed to be wearing her birthday suit – a sad state of affairs, utterly disappointing. But then I looked down and realized that this year's theme was booties, not bonnets. Check out her stylish footwear.

If you want to read more about this bovine beauty who resides on Madison's East Side, read last year's post. After spending the weekend unplugged, I don't have a lot of time for blogging tonight. I have something else to do…

A short tale about how I was temporarily lured from my hiatus by the Library of Congress and some pugilistic pussy cats

It might look like a cat fight, but this very short video is a piece of history. It was filmed in July 1894 at Thomas Edison's Black Maria studio, and features "amusement entrepreneur" Professor Harry Welton and two furry felines wearing gloves.

This historical oddity is one of 70 videos added to YouTube by the Library of Congress (LOC), which yesterday announced the launch of its own YouTube Channel, while noting that the LOC is "the world's preeminent reservoir of knowledge...the steward of millions of recordings dating from the earliest Edison films to the present."

Discussing the move to YouTube on the LOC blog, the library's communications director, Matt Raymond, writes:

But this is just the beginning. We have made a conscious decision that we’re not just going to upload a bunch of videos and then walk away. As with our popular Flickr pilot project, we intend to keep uploading additional content. We’re modifying some of our work-flows in modest ways to make our content more useful and delivered across platforms with built-in audiences of millions.

Not so incidentally, all of the videos we post on YouTube will also be available at LOC.gov (and many, many more, of course) on American Memory, many of which are newly digitized in much higher resolution by the fine Motion Picture, Broadcast and Recorded Sound conservators in Culpeper, Va.

And that's all I have to say right now. I'm still on hiatus from blogging, but this news was too good to wait. Follow the links in this post and you'll discover a myriad diversions. Meanwhile, I have something else to do...

On hiatus from blogging, but not, alas, on vacation

A lunchtime adventure during which I do not engage in networking with Brazen Careerist author Penelope Trunk

It's raining at a medium windshield wiper pace and I'm running late for lunch with Penelope Trunk. I was going to park in a ramp, but I spot an open space on West Washington Avenue only a block away from my destination; so I take it even though I only have 85 cents in change for the meter and may well end up with a parking ticket.

The wind is so strong it blows my cheap umbrella inside out, so I decide not to risk taking my Nikon D40 with me. Instead, I tell myself if there's an opportunity to take a photo I can rely on the little point and shot Olympus I always carry in my purse. Besides, the Olympus has a 10X zoom, so I can sneak up on my subject from a distance if necessary.

I may have to use that zoom lens because I won't be sitting at the same table as Trunk. I probably won’t even be sitting at a table because my destination is "A Brown Bag Lunch Networking Event" sponsored by Wisconsin Women in Government and it's being held in a conference room. I may also have to use that zoom lens if I'm late and relegated to standing in the back of the room.

There are still quite a few seats available when I arrive at 11:30 a.m. I pick up my nametag and pause to look at the rows of bottled water and platters of cheese and crackers, fresh fruit, vegetables, and sweet desserts sprawled on tables just inside the door to the conference room. I haven't brought a brown bag lunch and there is no one standing at the front of the room about to launch into a lecture, so snarfing some goodies and laying claim to 500 ml. of Aquafina seems like a good idea.

Problem: No silverware, not even a bowl of toothpicks. I'm deft enough to pick up small bits of melon without touching somebody else's nosh, but putting some cheese on a round cracker is a challenge. Someone already tried to dip into the semi-hard cheese ball and there are bits of shattered cracker littered around it. I stick with fruit and baby carrots.

I take a seat on an aisle. It's a habit I developed from all those years of writing on deadline. It also makes it easier to slip out of the room if the speaker is boring. Not that I expect Trunk to be boring: I've been reading her blog too long to believe that.

It's 11:35 a.m. by the time I finally sit down in this room full of women. There's still no action in the front of the room. I turn down the volume on my cell telephone in case Himself decides to call me. I haven't told Himself I'm having lunch with Penelope Trunk because recently he admitted that, "When she writes all of the blood in my veins rushes to the appropriate locations." I call this Priapic Trunk Syndrome. My spellchecker refuses to recognize the "p" word and offers "prosaic" as an alternative.

In the back of the conference room is a collection of shovels from a groundbreaking ceremony. All the shovels have names. Maybe I should take a photo, just in case I need to blog about shovels if Trunk doesn't show up to enlighten us about our careers.

The Arrivals

At about 11:45 a.m., I think I spot Trunk outside the conference room, in the entryway space where the tables with the nametags and copies of her book, "The Brazen Careerist," reside. She's tall, attractive, emanates energy, and has a certain je ne sais quoi presence. I take notes about what she's wearing: black and white pinstripe trousers and a fitted grey jacket. From a distance, she doesn't look quite like the photographs I've seen. Her hair is shorter than I expected.

After she hugs a few women, she enters the conference room and removes not one, but two expensive leather bags from her shoulder and puts them on a chair near the rear of the room. She heads for the tables with food and comes back with a paper plate filled with cucumber slices, cauliflower, watermelon, and crackers. I take notes and think this is all a bit odd. Why isn't she in the front of the room?

About 10 minutes later, the real Penelope Trunk arrives. We'll soon hear her tell us she was running late. The real Penelope Trunk is wearing a black dress and looks more like photos on her Facebook page than the woman in the pinstripe trousers does.

I pull out my camera. The batteries are dead.

The talk

After a brief introduction, Trunk begins speaking. In the beginning, her talk is peppered with too many "ums" and "likes" and I begin to think my seat on the aisle may be put to good use. Soon, however, she picks up speed and the verbal tics vanish. She speaks so rapidly even Himself would find it difficult to interject a bon mot, a good joke, or an inept pick-up line. She's smart, funny, occasionally outrageous, and always entertaining.

I jot down a few notes, not certain whether I'll steal some of her lines, share them with Himself, or lose them in the bottom of my purse. I think I'll probably follow some of her advice, but not heed the admonition to start Twittering.

She talks for half an hour. I take six pages of notes. After she finishes talking, she asks if there are any questions. The first one is from a man: "The guy who came in late is asking the first question," she says as she acknowledges him.

I take three more pages of notes while she answers questions. I learn she has very few friends but an amazing company. I don't learn much about what her company actually does.

Most of the people who've been following Trunk on Twitter and Facebook (where she has hundreds of friends) want to know if she's pregnant; but no one in the audience asks her that question.

The brown bag lunch and networking event ends at 1 p.m. I'm not certain anyone in the conference room did much networking during that 90 minutes. When I leave, Trunk is seated at one of the tables in the entryway, signing copies of her book. Someone else is handling the money.

The aftermath

It's not raining very hard as I walk back to my car. I check the windshield, but there's no parking ticket under the wiper blade. Whew. I check my cell telephone. Himself called just before Trunk arrived in the conference room. Sigh. I'm in no hurry to call him back. I want to ponder what Trunk said before I engage in a conversation about whether or not she's hot.

I stop at the library to drop off some books. I also stop at a grocery store to buy some broccoli for dinner. I stop again to buy some batteries for my camera.

When I arrive home and check Facebook, I discover Trunk has already left a comment (via Twitter) about today's networking event: "Giving a speech. They want to network. I don't want to talk. I want to text my boyfriend. I want to text him to tell him he's my boyfriend." No word about whether or not she's pregnant.

Two hours later, Trunk posts another comment on Facebook (via Twitter): "Now I'm nervous to call him my boyfriend. So I say: "You can't be my boyfriend because it's too many characters to tweet. You have to be D." Several people respond with comments of their own. At 7:50 p.m. Trunk responds, "Wow. No. D is not for dad. I am not pregnant. Negative test: hooray. And D is the first initial of his first name. I am a practical girl."

Mystery resolved. Now, perhaps, we can go back to pondering more important things, such as her observations about résumés: "A résumé is a marketing tool, not a life story. If you have a good life story, you'd have a book about it."

If you missed today's opportunity to meet Trunk in person, get to know her by reading her blog. Then leave some comments – or as she said today, "Join the conversation: Force yourself to put your ideas out there."

She also said, "If you want to be known for your ideas, you must blog." Of course I knew that long before I made her acquaintance.

I'm Singing the Blues, Brother: I went to Woodman's tonight, but failed to get Dan Ackroyd's autograph on a Crystal Head

Dan Ackroyd signing Crystal Head Vodka bottles at Woodman's West

There are many things I'll do for Himself, but buying a bottle of vodka in a crystal bottle shaped like a human skull is not one of them. Firstly, he doesn't drink; so he'd probably keep the silly thing in his cabinet of curiosities, hoping its value would one day outpace inflation. Secondly, if he did decide to take a nip or two, he'd undoubtedly use the ensuing inebriation as yet another excuse for his occasional failure to hit the rim.

There are many things I have done for Himself, including standing in long lines to obtain autographs of famous, semi-famous, and "whatever happened to?" people, despite the fact I do not share his predilection for celebrity signatures. For instance, I went to a Madison Mallards game last summer and stood in line in order to get Himself an autographed photo of Jerry Mather (a.k.a. Beaver Cleaver).

Jerry Mather signing a baseball cap at a Madison Mallard's game in 2008

And I drove to Shorewood to buy him a copy of "The Enchantress of Florence," then stood in line to have the book autographed by Sir Salman Rushdie, who was apparently in the midst of a pissing match with fellow author (and wine columnist), Malcolm Gluck about which man could sign his name the most times in an hour (a.k.a. "My signing rate is rate is bigger than yours."). Sir Salman inscribed the book to Himself, but refused any additional requests for personalization, lest he lose momentum.

But I digress, for this post is not about size, stamina, and/or accuracy. It's about Dan Ackroyd's visit to Woodman's West this evening and why I failed to return home with the Canadian-born Ghostbuster's autograph.

Woodman's is the grocery store you visit when you want 24 rolls of soft, absorbent, first manufactured in Wisconsin 81 years ago, toilet paper at a reasonable price; Mexican Coca-Cola (made with pure cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup); and a pound of Bob's Red Mill almond meal flour (to make that Spiced Cranberry Bundt Cake you read about in Bon Appetit) for several dollars less than you'd pay at Whole Foods. The chic people who shop at Whole Foods do not shop at Woodman's unless they're incognito or in need of late-night munchies.

Woodman's also features a huge liquor store, filled with those small bottles of cheap (but decidedly un-chic) bottles of whiskey. It does not, to the best of my knowledge, host wine and cheese tastings. I never venture into Woodman's liquor store unless I'm looking for some exotic wine or liquor necessary for preparing a chic recipe whilst holding the line on cost.

It was from the decidedly chic Madison Verve weekly newsletter that I learned one of the Blues Brothers would be at Woodman's liquor store today from 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. I marked the date on my calendar, fully intending to battle the traffic in the Woodman's parking lot and to stand in line to secure Ackroyd's autograph for Himself's collection.

Alas, I had something else to do, and I didn't arrive at Woodman's until 6:30 p.m. I soon discovered the line for autographs was "closed;" but I could still purchase a "pre-signed" bottle of Crystal Head Vodka. No, thank you. But I will take some photos – and not with my cell phone, thank you very much.

Ackroyd was seated at a table by the checkout aisles, a minder on one side and a flack on the other. He was wearing shades, a black baseball cap with a Winnipeg Police Service emblem, a dark shirt with a Crystal Head Vodka logo, and a bright blue and white necktie. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and his left hand was ink-stained from the large, felt tip pen he was using to sign crystal skulls.

There were also a lot of bottles of Orangina on the table, but I didn't see him signing any of them. I would have purchased a bottle of Orangina if he'd been willing to autograph it; but I figured that ruse wouldn't work, since he looked as cranky as Himself looks in some photos you'll never see on Facebook or Flickr.

I took a couple of available light photographs, but even with the ASA pushed to 800, it was clear they weren't going to be as good as those shots people were taking on their cell phones. Adopting an unaccustomed air of devil-may-care insouciance, I switched on the flash, shoved closer and took a series of shots, none of which show Ackroyd smiling.

Dan Ackroyd and entourage at Woodman's West (taken in available light)

As I was leaving, Ackroyd was neglecting his public and talking on a cell telephone. It sounded as if he'd had trouble with a rental car, because he kept telling the person on the other end he didn't drop off the car where he was supposed to drop off the car because the engine light was on. If he'd autographed a bottle of Orangina for me, I would have told him he should have checked the gas cap before doing anything rash like dropping a rental car off at the wrong place. The last time my engine light came on, I paid $85 for a diagnostic test to find out that I hadn't screwed my gas cap on tightly enough.

Dan Ackroyd, "...the engine light was on."

Of course, if I'd read my Madison Verve newsletter more carefully, I might still have been able to secure Himself an Ackroyd autograph. When I started looking for links for this blog post, I discovered there was to be a "Private Tasting of Crystal Head with Dan Ackroyd" for Madison Verve subscribers at an "undisclosed location" from 9:30 p.m. until 11:30 p.m. tonight. Oh well, perhaps someone younger and more chic, someone who reads party invitations more carefully, will attend that event and write about it. They'll get the Breakfast Link in Dane101 and I won't even get breakfast in bed.

Note: There are two links to videos in this post. The one for Crystal Head Vodka features an annoying video of Ackroyd and the one for Orangina leads to a decidedly R-rated advertisement about which, according to the London Telegraph, "The [British] Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has received 147 complaints, after the commercial was first screened on August 1 on [television channel] E4 during an episode of "How to Look Good Naked."

On hiatus for a while...

Pink elephant near the Citgo Station and Cheese Chalet in DeForest, Wisconsin

All too soon, these delicious, sunny spring days will lead us into construction season, tornado season, and those dreary April showers. Time to haul out my camera and start using it again, ride my bike, take a day trip to explore Wisconsin. Back to blogging eventually...just not now.

Play with your food (and memorize those decimals): It's Pi Day (and Albert Einstein's birthday, too)

Today is Pi Day. When I was teaching school, the math teachers used to make pies for Pi day. I own a nifty Pi pie plate like this one, but I doubt that I'll have time to use it today.

March 14 has been celebrated as Pi Day for 21 years -- ever since Larry Shaw, a physicist at the San Francisco Exploratorium science exhibition, decided to start it as a "geek holiday". The event has become an international phenomenon, with Pi parties and educational events in many different countries. Pi Day is also Albert Einstein's birthday.

If you're geeky, you may compete to recite as many decimal places for Pi as possible. Lu Chao, a 24-year-old graduate student from China, who took 24 hours and 4 minutes to recite to the 67,890th decimal place of Pi without an error in 2005 is the current world record holder. The guy in this video only managed to get to 115, but it's still impressive:



If you're not into being geeky and no one has baked you a pie for Pi Day, why not indulge in a good pie fight (at least vicariously)?

Trailer for "Public Enemies," directed by University of Wisconsin alumnus Michael Mann

"I like baseball, movies, good clothes, fast cars, and you. What else do you need to know?"

The first official trailer for "Public Enemies," the Michael Mann film, starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger and Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis, is now available, so let the scrutiny begin: Just how many Wisconsin locales can you find in this 2½ minute preview?




If you missed the excitement last year, or you need to refresh your memory about some of the Hollywood action in Madison, Columbus, and other Wisconsin cities, the best sources of information about what transpired when Hollywood moved to Madison for on-location filming are undoubtedly the series of feature stories Kristian Knutsen wrote for the Isthmus Daily Page. Here are some of the best:

"Madison and Wisconsin movie hopefuls inundate Public Enemies extras casting call"

"Film frenzy: Madison and the rest of Wisconsin await the arrival of Public Enemies and Johnny Depp"

"Public Enemies with Christian Bale begins filming outside Wisconsin Capitol in Madison"

Note: Often Internet discoveries are made through serendipitous connections and hyperlinks. My thanks to Greenbush Boy for the blogroll link to Jane Boursaw's Film Gecko blog, which featured a 30-second "preview" on March 3rd, which in turn announced the arrival of the official trailer on March 4th.

The day Bob Dylan didn't arrive on Mifflin Street (July 4, 1969)

There are lots of names listed in my 1969 engagement calendar, but Bob Dylan isn't one of them. I'm pretty sure I wasn't hanging around the Mifflin Street Coop on the 4th of July, but I can't tell you where I was that day -- and I won't tell you who I was with, either.

In any case, this post is about Bob Dylan and features guest appearances by Patrick McGilligan, Paul Soglin, and Jim Hougan -- all of whom subsequently went on to make names for themselves in various fields of endeavor.

The genesis for this post was a status report question Soglin posed on Facebook a couple of weeks ago: "Paul is wondering where the photo can be found of the sign announcing that Bob Dylan is coming to the Mifflin Street Co-op ... or was it John Lennon?" Some discussion ensued, but the question was never answered...at least on Facebook.

The reason it's being answered now is twofold: (1) I spend a lot of time in libraries doing research and sometimes I wander off task, diverted by some tidbit that grabs my attention while I'm wending my way through reels of microfilm; and (2) while Himself doesn't complain about all the time I spend at the library, he has been known to bemoan the fact that it keeps me from blogging.

Last week, I happened across a newspaper report about the day Bob Dylan did not land on Mifflin Street in a helicopter and made a copy, since I thought it might make an interesting blog post. Then, I looked at some other page images on that same reel of microfilm and discovered the one you see at the beginning of this post, the one announcing that Patrick McGilligan, a recent Madison Central High School graduate, would be playing the flighty bridegroom in a production of "An Italian Straw Hat. I made a copy of this page, too. Then I forgot about both of them.

This evening, to make Himself happy without resorting to sorting his socks or feeding him chocolate, I decided to write a blog post: nothing too complicated, nothing requiring an immense about of research. That's when I remembered Bob Dylan and Mifflin Street. Short and sweet, and lots of names that may draw visitors to my blog. Perfect. So without further blather, here's The Capital Times story about Bob Dylan's non-appearance, written by reporter Jim Hougan:

Click on the image to enlarge it in your browser window

Where are they now and what are they doing?

Soglin was elected Madison's mayor in 1973; these days you can find him on Facebook, or read more about him on his blog. After receiving an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship in 1972, Hougan had some exciting adventures; he's written more than a couple of books and you can read more about him on his website. McGilligan doesn't have a blog or a website and he doesn't seem to be on Facebook, either; he's written lots of books, and you can read a bit more about him HERE.

After the snow stops: Five early Twentieth Century photographs of snow from the Library of Congress

Boys cleaning snow off the ice, so that they can ice skate, Washington, D.C., area. (From the National Photo Company Collection at the Library of Congress)

Men loading snow onto wagon, after snow storm, in Washington, D.C. (From the National Photo Company Collection at the Library of Congress).

Piles of snow on Broadway, after storm, New York; building numbers 1204 and 1209 in foreground; Times Building in background. (From Detroit Publishing Company Photograph Collection at the Library of Congress).

Photograph shows a line of horse-drawn wagons hauling in New York City. (From the George Grantham Bain Collection at the Library of Congress).

Group portrait of students around snow-covered school building--the children are standing on the roof, on snow banks, and in snow troughs. (From the Frank and Frances Carpenter collection of the Library of Congress).

Enjoy browsing through hundreds of additional photographs from the Library of Congress: Visit the LOC Flickr photostream.

Film director Werner Herzog's Wisconsin Connections: "Strozsek" and the Dancing Chicken

Himself went to film school. I did not. Ergo, he knows much more about celluloid than I do. But a few days ago, when we were having another one of our surreal conversations about Buñuel, it meandered in an unexpected direction and I discovered Himself did not know about Werner Herzog's Wisconsin connections. I was shocked and appalled – and for a minuscule moment allowed myself to feel a bit smug and superior.

Then Himself mentioned his Edward Albee encounter and I stowed my smugness away, knowing I might want to indulge in it again another day. Besides, I had something else to do: I wanted to track down the Dancing Chicken and share it with Himself…and, as you can see, I found it. At least on video.



There was a brief period in my life during which I contemplated becoming a film critic. It was after the aspiring filmmaker who took me to lunch at the Edgewater scarpered off to Hollywood and before the prolific playwright intimidated me into becoming a theater critic. I took a film history class taught by Russell Merritt, bought passes to numerous local film societies, traveled to Chicago to attend Roger Ebert's class on German filmmakers, and subscribed to The New Yorker so I could read Pauline Kael's reviews.

It didn't take me long to realized I would never have the depth of knowledge necessary to become a great film critic: I simply hadn't watched enough movies and I could never catch up with those brilliant, film-obsessed men and women who'd seen thousands upon thousands of movies, some of which they watched scores of times. So I found something else to do… but not before I saw Werner Herzog's "Stroszek" (1977), a film the prolific playwright once assured me, decades later, was absolutely brilliant.

By that time, when I'd abandoned the silver screen for the stage, all I remembered about "Stroszek" was that it had some Wisconsin connections and an unforgettable Dancing Chicken (that had no connection whatsoever to the Chicken Dance performed at Camp Randall during football season).

One day a couple of years ago, when I simply had to stop writing and engage in some adventure travel, I hopped into my car and headed for the Wisconsin Dells, determined to find the Dancing Chicken. My mission was not a success.


As determined as it has been to reinvent itself, Wisconsin Dells continues to be a sprawling tourist magnet speckled with theme parks and bizarre attractions such as the Torture Museum. It teems with tee shirt shops and gift emporiums offering Indian dolls made in China and is rife with fudge shops and all-you-can-eat buffets. I knew for sure this was where Herzog had discovered the Dancing Chicken. I was wrong.

Defeated but undaunted, I returned home and located a videotaped version of "Stroszek" at my local public library. It didn't reveal the hometown of the Dancing Chicken, but as I watched the movie, it became evident that it was not shot in Wisconsin Dells.

I turned to Roger Ebert for wisdom and he enlightened me. In one of his "Great Movies" essays, he mentions the "Stroszek" Wisconsin connections that resulted from an encounter between Herzog and filmmaker Errol Morris (a UW-Madison alumnus). In Ebert's essay I learned that the Dancing Chicken probably lived closer to Ed Gein's former haunts than it did to Tommy Bartlett's Water Show.

Recently, a Madison newspaper columnist announced that the 2009 Wisconsin Film Festival schedule includes a screening of a new print of "Stroszek." So Himself could, if he wished, possibly enjoy the film on a large screen – although this might require me to stand in line at the box office, just as I did the year the prolific playwright decided I should accompany him to the screening of an obscure foreign film that would be introduced by a protégée of the aspiring filmmaker. Madison really is a small town sometimes.

Then again, perhaps Himself, impatient multi-tasker that he is, would prefer to rent a DVD and watch "Stroszek" at home while noshing on raw cauliflower and hummus, and nattering on about the time he met Werner Herzog in person.

Walker Evans' postcard collection inspires me to wander through a bit of Madison, Wisconsin history

My postcard collection is not an obsession, but the reflection of a habit instilled in me by my parents and grandparents. When they traveled, my grandparents and parents sent postcards with brief messages to friends and relatives. They purchased additional postcards for themselves as souvenirs, substitutes for the photographs they were too busy or ill-equipped to take themselves.

As a child, my first souvenir postcards were of dogs and horses. Photographer Walker Evans apparently preferred "ordinary American subjects such as street scenes and notable architectural buildings," according to Liz Jobey, who reviewed a new book by Jeff L. Rosehheim, "Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard," in today's edition of The Guardian.

As I grew older, I abandoned the sentimental animal photos, and, like Evans, began to focus on notable architectural buildings. From the beginning, however, I apparently shared one collector's trait with him:

Evans started collecting when he was a schoolboy, when his parents took him on road trips that were supposed to be educational, but the first thing he did, he said many years later, was "rush into Woolworths and buy all the postcards".

And that's about all I intended to write. I thought I'd found an opportunity to write a short post alerting you, dear reader, to the review in The Guardian. Alas, the search for an image to accompany this post opened new vistas to explore and I found myself wandering through a bit of local history in search of some answers.

Even without the label, Madisonians will no doubt recognize the location shown on the postcard scan at the top of this post. Some will also recognize it as the Memorial Union Terrace before the arrival of the distinctive Union Terrace metal sunburst chairs (which should not be confused with the current "Terrace Chairs") in the early 1930s. But local history buffs who read carefully, will shake their heads in disbelief at the 1908 date that appears next to the descriptive label. They know the groundbreaking ceremony for the Memorial Union didn't occur until 1925.

Turns out "1908" is a stock number, not a date. But in the course of tracking down the history of the Memorial Union, I discovered a very nice collection of images in the history pages of the Wisconsin Union website.

I also found a black & white photograph of the Memorial Union Terrace sans metal sunburst chairs, dated 1930:

1930 photograph by Melvin E. Diemer - Wisconsin Historical Image ID 3206

And, whilst thinking about postcards again, I remembered a nice "before and after" series photographer Madison guy created, inspired by images from old Madison postcards.

And now, because I have something else to do, I'll reiterate those links embedded in my narrative that you really should have clicked on as you were reading, but probably didn't. Have fun. Leave comments. Send postcards. And come back for another visit.

•Illustrated review of "Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard" by Jeff L Rosenheim from The Guardian

•An illustrated history of the Memorial Union's iconic sunburst chairs

•A collection of images about the history of the Memorial Union, including a scan of a newspaper article about director Stuart Gordon's production of "Peter Pan" (featuring six nude coeds)

•Madison Guy's historic postcard-inspired photographs labeled "Madison 1915"

He doesn't bring me flowers... and he'd better not send any animated tulips from Teleflora

I no longer read Playboy for the articles or watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. It's undoubtedly because I have something else to do, some more rewarding ways to spend my time.

When Alex Haley was contributing memorable interviews with men like Malcolm X to Playboy, it was worth the possible embarrassment of being "caught" reading a magazine full of photos of vapid women wearing little or nothing. But I'm not interested in reading interviews with television actors or being "caught" reading a magazine that continues to objectify women.

The 1984 Apple Super Bowl commercial changed how the Super Bowl telecasts were used as a media advertising platform. But it was so stunning, so memorable, everything that followed paled in comparison.

These days, if I watch the Super Bowl it's because the Green Bay Packers are playing, or someone lures me to a Super Bowl party with the promise of homemade guacamole. Neither the Packers nor the guacamole was on tap this year, so I found other ways to spend my time on Sunday.

As a result, I missed a commercial that's causing quite a kerfuffle. But thanks to YouTube, I can see the offending commercial again and again if I wish. And anything that finds sardonic blogger Greenbush Boy agreeing with Jezebel Intern Margaret Hartmann seems worth investigating.

The focus is on flowers, something Himself has never sent me… and if he ever does decide to send me flowers, he'd better call a local florist, not Teleflora (even if they might give him airline miles for his purchase). You see it's the Super Bowl Teleflora commercial that's the real subject of scorn and disdain, not the animated flowers that play a role in it. Greenbush Boy wrote:

So why in the name of Walter Camp, when advertisers know that at least 40% of all Super Bowl viewers have the double X chromosome, would Teleflora spend zillions of dollars to run an advertisement this blatantly dumbass, misogynistic, and cruel?

This morning, Margaret the Intern wrote:

Every 30 seconds of advertising during last night's Super Bowl cost $3 million, so advertisers really tried to come up with something innovative: hot girls and crude stereotypes about women.

She singled out several ads for their blatant sexism, including ones from GoDaddy.com and Bridgestone Tire (which, she noted also tarnished the reputation of Mr. Potato Head). The third ad on her list merited the most invective:

But the most sexist ad of the night was the Teleflora.com ad, in which a woman gets a box of flowers that starts insulting her because she owns a cat and reads romance novels. The flowers end with the exclamation, “Nobody wants to see you naked.”

Watch it for yourself (and don't expect any nudity):



I might have read these posts, taken note of the controversy, e-mailed a link to the video to a couple of girlfriends who probably didn't watch the Super Bowl either, reminded Himself that Valentine's Day was coming soon and there were other things I wanted more than talking tulips, and then returned my attention to more important things. But when I dropped by Jezebel late this afternoon to find the link I wanted to email to my girlfriends, I discovered Margaret's second post about Teleflora.

While I was reading military history, Margaret was following through on some tips and discovering that, " Though Teleflora claims it was innocently trying to create memorable ads, it's not the first time that the company has used insensitive language in its promotions."

She discovered two more obnoxious Teleflora ads, both of which I'm posting here:





I've been sitting here too long now, trying to come up with a satisfying ending for this post, but it's just not going to happen anytime soon. I've tried to craft something clever or snarky, but I can't. Instead, I keep thinking about the animated flowers I've loved since long before either Playboy or the Super Bowl existed. I want to set them in motion, grab Himself, and dance around the living room with wild abandon – but since neither one of us can dance, I'll have to stop indulging in that romantic fantasy.

You can see those flowers here. You can't stop and smell them, but take a minute to enjoy them anyway. I've already done so...and now I have something else to do.

Another hiatus from blogging (spending too much time researching to write)

"What is more important in a library than anything else—than everything else—is the fact that it exists." - Archibald McLeish

"The richest person in the world - in fact all the riches in the world - couldn't provide you with anything like the endless, incredible loot available at your local library." - Malcolm Forbes

"Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark.... In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still and absorbed." - Germaine Greer

Redheads: "Teased, bullied - and heading for extinction"

Photograph by Jenny Wicks

His face, the sound of his voice, these have faded from memory. Decades later, it is his words that haunt me.

He was closer to my grandfather's age than my father's and he sometimes rode the Hudson Park bus to Madison's Capitol Square. I rode that bus on a daily basis because my junior high school was on Wisconsin Avenue, two blocks from the iconic white granite edifice topped with the gilded bronze statue of a woman most people referred to as "Mrs. Rennebohm."

I'd board the bus, deposit my nickel in the fare box and try not to look around to see if he was there, sitting close to the front, near the driver.

If he was there, I would soon hear him ask, "Do you know what percentage of the people in the world have red hair?"

At first, I tried to ignore him. Confronted by silence, unwilling to be ignored, he would answer his own question: "It's only 2%. So you're a very unusual young lady."

With skin so fair, it freckled easily, I already felt weird. While everyone else in the neighborhood spent hours at B.B. Clarke Beach, soaking up the sun and toasting their skin to a lovely tan, I stayed inside reading.

The only other kid in the neighborhood with red hair was a boy who lived a block away and I was convinced he was weird. The one boy I remember from junior high school who had red hair was definitely weird.

Was it our red hair that made us weird? Or was it a constellation of other factors that made us weird? That mouth full of gleaming metal braces, for instance? Could we change our personalities if we changed our hair color?

Eventually, I learned to answer the man's question, gradually realizing that if I responded with "Only two percent," I wouldn't have to hear the commentary that accompanied his answer to his own question. After a while, my speedy rejoinders must have deprived him of whatever amusement he might have taken in my embarrassment and he ignored me. Even so, I still hear his question in my mind.

It was my college boyfriend who changed my mind about being a redhead when he told me he loved my "Titian locks." The great artist's women did indeed have beautiful red hair, but their décolletage was far more daring than mine, their bodies more voluptuous. But my boyfriend wasn't asking me to compare myself to them; instead he was making me aware of how many artists had found red hair beautiful, assuring me I wasn't weird – at least in his eyes.

Over time, I began to appreciate my hair color. Over time, I discovered other artists who painted beautiful women with flaming red hair. Particularly Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the 19th-century pre-Raphaelites, for whom redheads were the only true beauties,"…transcendent, evoking lust, wealth, godliness."

Over time, I realized my hair color – for better or worse – was an intrinsic part of my identity. I learned to love it even as I learned to cope with the ugly similes it sometimes prompted, the worst of which was "red in the head like the dick of a dog." And the old man's question was certainly not as intrusive or obnoxious as the taunting inquiry about whether I could "prove" I was a natural redhead, a variation of the rude "Does the carpet match the drapes?" query.

Over time, my hair became reddish brown; but I'm still a redhead. Over time, I began to appreciate what I learned during all those hours of solitary reading. Over time, I began to appreciate my lack of fervor and determination to acquire a tan, as my pale face stayed relatively smooth, while the faces of the beach bunnies began to resemble distressed leather handbags.

This morning, I discovered Simon Hattenstone's story in The Guardian about a London gallery exhibit of photographs by Jenny Wicks titled "Root Ginger: A Study of Red Hair." Accompanying the story were 10 extraordinarily beautiful photographs from the exhibit, some definitely unusual-looking, but beautiful nonetheless.

"Ginger" is the British term for that bright orange shade of red hair I had as a child. It is usually pejorative as well as descriptive. It is definitely meant to remind you that your hair color makes you weird.

But, according to Hattenstone, in Britain, "Ginger" isn't just a relatively harmless epithet. He reports that:

Virtually all those photographed by Wicks say they've been bullied or harassed because of their hair; many believe that in a politically correct world this seems like the last acceptable ism. "The G word is an anagram of the N word," says Richard Tyrone Jones.

He also writes that, "In 15th-century Germany, redheads were seen as witches - 45,000 were tortured and murdered. Meanwhile, Egyptians burned gingers alive, and the Greeks reckoned they turned into vampires when they died."

All this makes the queries from the man on the Hudson Park bus seem a bit tame, the "proof" questions merely obnoxious. But it doesn't vanquish them, doesn't still those taunting voices.

A "freaking awsome" commercial from the UK

This video made me smile -- and made me wish I'd been at London's Liverpool Street Station last Thursday to watch the flash mob in action. This event was organized for a commercial; but knowing that doesn't really diminish the fun you'll have watching the video.

Madison has seen some Zombie Lurches around Halloween, but a huge flash mob pillow fight would be a great way to welcome spring. World Pillow Fight Day is April 4, 2009. If you're eager to participate, you may want to check the World Pillow Fight Day website for a list of locations, as well as detailed instructions about "How to Organize a Massive Pillow Fight."

On hiatus again...

Too busy, racing around and working on other projects, to blog.

Obama and Oyamel, or will the next president's dining preferences force me to eat spicy half-smokes instead of crunchy chapulines?

Pollo con mole poblano and sides at Oyamel Cocina Mexicana

Sharing isn't always easy. My friends and I usually have no problem sharing food when we eat at a restaurant. It's a terrific way to sample a variety of menu items without ordering them all for yourself and dealing with the problems of either eating too much or having to smuggle that doggie bag past an overly-vigilant theater usher who truly believes you may try to nosh on cold pommes frites and leftover beef stroganoff during Hamlet's soliloquy.

Sharing the name and location of a new or relatively undiscovered restaurant with excellent food and reasonable prices is a very different matter. Share information about your favorite restaurant or most recent discovery with too many friends and neighbors, or post an effusive comment on Chowhound, and it may become so popular you need to make dinner reservations weeks in advance instead of walking in and being seated immediately.

Even if you chose not to share, there's always the risk a favorable restaurant review may send hordes of nattering nabobs, aspiring foodies, and other annoying folk of the ilk you so assiduously avoid to your favorite dining spot, making it by their presence less tolerable than flying coach.

Even worse than a glowing review is the celebrity connection feature story or gossip item. These bring out the gawkers and stalkers, the aggressive autograph hounds and the Catty Cathys who hope to catch a glimpse of a famous-this-week femme fatale without her makeup. Food becomes an accessory or the price of a ringside seat.

All of which explains the very mixed emotions I felt when I saw the small map captioned "Where to Eat in Washington" accompanying an article in The New York Times Dining and Wine section titled "Chefs Settle Down in 'the Real D.C.'" One of the restaurants on that map was Oyamel, a Mexican restaurant in the Penn Quarter I "discovered" during holiday visit to Washington, D.C. in December 2007.

Oyamel was conveniently located near several theaters and museums I was visiting; its extensive menu offered an exceptional array of tastes and textures; the service was excellent; the food beautifully presented and as exceptional in taste as appearance; and the prices were not unreasonable. There were so many small plates I wanted to try, I dined there twice, ordered too much food, and smuggled some leftovers into the theater, before returning to my self-catering hotel and my full-sized refrigerator.

A view of the bar at Oyamel Cocina Mexicana

With a bit of trepidation, I read Kim Severson's article – glad to see a favorite restaurant garnering much-deserved praise, but concerned about it becoming so popular I wouldn't be able to dine there the next time I visited Washington, D.C. to conduct research at the National Archives and perhaps have lunch or dinner with The Mathematician, the man who long ago taught me there were indeed other things besides meat and potatoes. But Severson didn't mention Oyamel.

After a bit of mousing around (I was reading The New York Times on the Web), I found a second article in the Dining and Wine section that did mention Omayel, albeit briefly. Quelle horreur! Merde! Here was the dread celebrity connection feature: "Rearranging the Tables in Washington: Can Obama's Coattails Reach to Restaurants?"

The mention of Oyamel was near the end of the article, in a paragraph suggesting the restaurant might appeal to President Obama. Rick Bayless, owner of Tompolobampo, one of the soon to be sworn in Commander in Chief's favorite Mexican restaurants in Chicago, is quoted as saying, "They [the Obamas] really enjoy sitting around the table exploring the different flavors."

This is followed by Rutenberg's report that:

José Andrés, one of Washington's most prodigious restauranteurs, said he was hoping one of his Latin American-influences establishments – like Café Atlantico or Oyamel – could become Mr. Obama's Topolobampo. He said he had already checked with Mr. Bayless for a sense of Mr. Obama's dining habits.

Pollo con mole! This is worrisome news. If Obama starts frequenting Oyamel, the Mathematician and I (possibly accompanied by chaperones) may never be able to get a table for two (or four); never have a chance to relive the our glory days of meals prepared tableside at the Rigadoon Room at the Edgewater by ordering Oyamel's "guacamole made before your eyes, with green tomatillo, serrano chile, crumbled queso fresco cheese, and fresh tortilla chips."

When Rick Bayless visited Madison, Wisconsin a few weeks ago to sign copies of his cookbook at Metcalfe's Sentry at Hilldale, there were no available parking places, just determined-looking women in huge SUVs, ready to run over anything and anyone who thwarted their attempt to squeeze into the too-tight spot abandoned by a little old lady in a dented Kia. The Tompolobampa website suggests making reservations two weeks in advance.

Sigh. If Oyamel becomes the new Tompolobampa, the Mathematician and I may have to forgo chapulines and go for half-smokes. Or maybe we'll go to that other restaurant in Washington, D.C. – the one I discovered and refuse to tell you about.

Fit for a President? - Eighteen photos of culinary delights from Oyamel Cocina Mexicana in Washington, D.C.

These photos were taken on December 27th and 29th, 2007 at Oyamel Cocina Mexicana at 401 7th Street, NW in Washington. D.C. They're posted here to supplement the next post (above) about Omaya and Obama.

The photos were taken with an Olympus C-740 Ultra Zoom camera, using only available light. There is more "white noise" on some of the photos than I'd prefer, but given the limitations imposed by my camera and my aesthetic, they're not bad.

The Pictobrower tends to crop the original photos somewhat. If you'd like to view the originals, please visit my Oyamel set on Flickr.

Daily Photograph: Fugu for Madison foodies? The next item on the menu for the former home of Brown's Restaurant on West Gilman Street is "live fish"

When I lived across the street from this small building at 411 West Gilman Street, it was still home to Brown's Restaurant, a good place for home-style breakfast and lunch. The restaurant had been in the neighborhood long before I arrived, though.

According to a note in Catherine Murray's Cooks' Exchange column in the June 17, 2007 Wisconsin State Journal, "Floyd and Lois Brown's first restaurant on State Street opened in 1938. When their lease expired, they built a small restaurant around the corner at 411 W. Gilman St. In 1957, Brown's was purchased by Darrell Cook and Orv Erickson."

In 1974, Brown's closed and Rocky Rococo moved in and began serving the first slices of its deep-dish pizza. Eventually, Rocky Rococo – which has become a franchise operation with more than 40 locations – moved out and many other restaurants have tried to stake a claim to the space. The latest was Yummy Buffet.

When I photographed the building from across the street on Friday afternoon, I noticed the building permit in the currently unoccupied building, so I walked across the street and took a close-up photograph of it and the document below it.

It's not a great photograph, but it does indicate what the next restaurant will be: Fu Gu Restaurant, according to the sketch for the redesign. Note, too, the handwritten annotation at the top of the sketch, indicating that Fu Gu will be a "Fine Dining Seafood Restaurant serving live fish."

Of equal interest (at least from a historian's perspective) are the names of the owners listed on the building permit: "Erickson and Cook c/o Barbara Erickson." According to Murray, "Barbara Erickson, who shared Brown's Goulash recipe June 3, was the daughter of Floyd and Lois Brown." Apparently, despite its many subsequent occupants, 35 years after their restaurant closed, the building is still owned by members of the Brown family.

Food note: Fugu (in contrast to Fu Gu) is the notorious Japanese dish prepared from pufferfish meat. If not properly prepared, pufferfish is lethally poisonous. Is the new restaurant on West Gilman Street planning to serve this notorious dish to Madison foodies? As New York Magazine food critic Adam Platt noted in his recent article about eating fugu:

Among the intrepid TV hosts and iron-stomached bloggers who span the globe looking for horrible things to eat, a potentially deadly blowfish dinner is a badge of honor, the thrill-seeking gastronome’s equivalent to scaling Mount Everest. Anthony Bourdain made a de rigueur fugu stop in Tokyo for his madcap food travel show A Cook’s Tour. In his engaging chronicle The Year of Eating Dangerously, the British food critic Tom Parker Bowles (the son of Prince Charles’s wife, Camilla Parker Bowles) manages to fit his death-defying fugu experience in between a barbecued-rib cook-off in Tennessee and a nutritious helping of boiled dog in South Korea. “A six-pound tiger fugu has enough poison to take out at least 32 healthy adults,” writes the daredevil Englishman with barely suppressed glee.

If you want to read more about fugu while you're waiting to find out if Fu Gu will be serving pufferfish, read Platt's entire, illuminating article about traveling to Tokyo to eat fugu.

Update (4/29/2009): According to a report on the Isthmus Daily Page website, the Fugu Restaurant opened for business this week. Visit the Fugu website for more details and a copy of the menu.

Daily photograph: Pigeons warming themselves at an eternal flame in Chicago's Daley Plaza

While I'm not exactly frightened of pigeons, they do give me the willies. It's probably because I've spent a great deal of time in London, where the pigeons are so aggressive you may as well abandon any plans to have a peaceful spot of lunch in a park. While perhaps not as terrifying as the "flesh crazed pigeons" of Trafalgar Square depicted in a series of photographs I first saw a couple of years ago on the Londonist blog, the lunchtime lurkers are nonetheless intimidating, as well as annoying.

While walking from a CTA stop towards the store formerly known as Marshall Field and Company late Wednesday afternoon, I paused at the Daley Plaza to take some photographs of the iconic Picasso sculpture and the Chicago Christmas tree. The best vantage point for the shots I wanted was very near a passel of pigeons clustered around a flame, the source of which seemed to be embedded in the sidewalk.

After I snapped some photos, I curiously and cautiously ventured a bit closer to the pigeons. That's when I spotted the nearby ground plaque and learned the pigeons were basking in an eternal flame meant to honor "the men and women who have served in our armed forces." It saddened me to see good intentions so poorly executed – to see a memorial desecrated with pigeon droppings and cigarette butts.

Daily Photograph: Chicago Hot Dog sign in Bucktown

Hot dogs? When I was growing up, that meant made-in-Madison Oscar Mayer hot dogs on a soft bun with a little bit of bright yellow French's mustard – except on Tuesdays.

Tuesdays were half-price Coney dog day at local A&W Root Beer stands. Coney dogs were Oscar Mayer hot dogs with chili and onions.

Oscar Mayer hot dogs usually came in packages of 10 wrapped with a bright yellow band. Even when you bought them in bulk at the local butcher, Oscar Mayer hot dogs sported bright yellow bands.

Back in the good old days, when the company was still family-owned, hot dogs were hot dogs. I always assumed they were made of beef, though perhaps they contained pork, too. Today, the Kraft Foods-owned company makes a staggering variety of hot dogs (Light! Fat Free! The Cheesiest!) and many of them contain not only pork, but turkey – and sometimes chicken!

It's been ages since I've eaten a hot dog. Blame it on the friends from Sheboygan who introduced me to bratwurst. Blame it on the terrific brats (served on a not-so-soft roll) from Jacobson's and the old Brathaus on State Street.

Even though Chicago-style hot dogs are now available in Madison, I've never tried one. The idea of green relish and tomatoes on a hot dog does not appeal to me. Madison's former mayor, however, is an aficionado. His blog post about Chicago hot dogs drew more comments than many of his posts about local politics.

All of this hot dog history and lore was racing through my mind as I snapped this photograph of a hot dog sign near the intersection of Damen and North Avenue in Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood. I tried not to think about any aspects of the sign that might lead to sniggering. Instead, I contemplated whether the apparent absence of poppy seeds on the bun meant the sign depicted a poseur, a faux Chicago hot dog rather than the real thing.

It was cold outside. After I took a couple of photos, I was eager to put on my gloves. I didn't take time to haul out a pen and write down the name of the restaurant. I had something else to do: I walked a bit farther down the street and had lunch at Mindy's Hot Chocolate.

Daily photograph: An historic Marshall Field and Company plaque survives on Chicago's State Street

For most of my life, Christmas wasn't Christmas without a trip to the Marshall Field's flagship store on State Street in Chicago. When I was young, my paternal grandmother would take my sister and me to Chicago on the train, so we could all have lunch under the giant Christmas tree in the Walnut Room, then go outside to admire all the beautifully decorated windows with their animated scenes of Santa's workshops or beloved fairy tales.

In recent years, I usually skipped the visit to the Walnut Room, but still joined the throngs of people admiring the windows. Then, I'd go inside to admire the interior architecture, festooned with seasonal finery; stare up at the gorgeous Tiffany ceiling; and do a bit of shopping.

In 2005 disaster struck: Federated Department Stores bought Marshall Field and Company and announced that all Marshall Field's stores would convert to the Macy's name. Protests arose, but Federated callously decided to move ahead with its plan to transform the historic department store where "the customer was always right" into something more prosaic. I haven't been in any former Marshall Field's store since the name change.

Yesterday, I drove to Chicago for the first time in several years: I went to see the Steppenwolf Theatre production of "Dublin Carol," starring William Peterson. Before heading over to Halstead Street, however, I spent some time walking around the Loop, taking photographs with my small, point and shoot Olympus camera.

As I walked by store formerly known as Marshall Field's, I first spotted the plaque on the left, a vestige of the past the corporate goons hadn't eliminated. When I stepped back to take a photo of the plaque, I noticed the juxtaposition of two historic names in retailing: Marshall Field and Company and FAO Schwartz. The latter had undergone its own travails in recent years, but managed to maintain its identity and its flagship store in New York City.

This year, FAO Schwartz opened a branch in the store formerly known as Marshall Field's as part of Macy's ongoing attempts to lure back the diehard Field's fans whose absence has hurt the bottom line. It won't work for me. If I want to visit FAO Schwartz, I'll wait until I'm in Manhattan – or shop online.

Note: If you, too, have fond memories of Marshall Field and Company, you may enjoy visiting Darrid's fan site for the store.

A 2009 New Year's resolution I just may be able to keep

Photograph taken at Madison's Forest Hill Cemetery on New Year's Day 2007

Two years ago, I resolved to do a "photo a day" project. That resolution was abandoned long before the end of the month.

In retrospect, I think I imposed too many rules upon myself, in particular the rule stating the photo had to be taken and posted on the same day. Add to that my penchant for research and my propensity to offer lengthy descriptions of each photo and you have an almost surefire recipe for failure.

Last year I didn't even bother to begin because I was convinced I would fail.

Most of us tend to have a lot of "shoulds" that slow down and otherwise hamper our ability to slog on toward the finish line, to accomplish what we set out to do. Many of these rules need to be abandoned because they're simply not useful and their origins are dubious. Who knows where my "taken and posted the same day" rule came from – or why I decided I must adhere to it?

This year, I'm going to do my best to unshackle myself from dubious rules and unnecessary "should do" lists. I think it will allow me to move ahead, get more things done, and stop engaging in so much self-criticism. Or maybe it won't – but there's no rule that says I have to tell anyone whether or not I keep my New Year's resolutions.

"The Scent of Seduction, with a hint of of flame-broiled meat" - A love song to Ricky's NYC, not Burger King cologne

When other people dream of visiting New York City, they probably envision themselves shopping on Fifth Avenue, ice skating at Rockefeller Center, visiting the Statue of Liberty, or enjoying the view from the top of the Empire State Building. Not me. Long before I first visited Manhattan and saw my first Broadway show, I had three very different cultural icons on the top of my "must see" list: the Plaza Hotel, the Russian Tea Room, and Ricky's.

I was savvy enough to know I'd never be reunited with Cary Grant atop the Empire State Building – especially since it's impossible to be reunited with someone you've never met. But once upon a time, I did yearn to pretend I was Eloise at the Plaza and perhaps catch a glimpse of William F. Buckley while I was sipping Borscht or hot tea in a glass.

"But what about Ricky's?" you may ask. If so, I must assume you're unfamiliar with Ricky's and cannot imagine why it was on my list. If that's the case, you undoubtedly did not read fashion magazines when you were an impressionable teenager and develop a hankering to try some of the rare and unusual goods the buyers' guides always claimed were available at Ricky's in Greenwich Village.

Crowded and cluttered, this drugstore attracted stylish women, drag queens, and wannabes aspiring to one of the two previous categories, all lured by its staggering collection of cosmetics; lotions; hair and bath products; and accessories at bargain prices. Unlike the cosmetics department at Bloomingdale's or Sak's, you'd never be spritzed by desperate hoydens hawking over-priced perfume when you were at Ricky's. It was too cramped for performance art.

It's been many years since I shopped at Ricky's, but I still have a handy travel mirror I bought there. The perishables – the exotic toothpaste, the luxurious shampoo and cuticle cream – are long gone. So too is the Plaza Eloise and I loved, its elegance and history blemished by "a recent $400 million transformation to reflect a new and contemporary spirit." The Russian Tea Room, after undergoing several less than salubrious transformations of its own, is no longer the cultural icon of my youth and the man who created Blackford Oakes has left the party.

Ricky's is still there in Greenwich Village, but it's now a mini retail empire, with additional locations in Long Island, Brooklyn, and – OMG! – South Beach. Has it gone pseudo-chic and pretentiously upscale? Will it spread to malls and try to go mano-a-mano with Sephora? Perhaps.

But then again, perhaps not. After all, its owners seem to have maintained their sense of humor, something rarely found in cookie cutter mall cosmetic emporiums. Ricky's you see, is the exclusive brick and mortar outlet for Flame, the new Burger King fragrance that can't possibly be as insipid as some of the celebrity scents now available at stores everywhere.

While I can't imagine Himself doused with "The scent of seduction" – especially when it's imbued with "a hint of flame-broiled meat" (and I shudder when I try to envision him lounging in front of a fireplace sans anything but a strategically placed dead animal skin), Flame might be just the thing for my hapless male friend who's still looking for love in all the wrong places. Or not.

The Gothamist blog reports that blogger Chomposaurus, made a trip to Ricky's, purchased a container of Flame cologne, put some on his wrists, and sprayed some into the air at his office. The results were horrible. His report is hilarious. Some of the comments he garnered are hilarious, too.

Himself is a funny guy sometimes. I like a man with a sense of humor. I doubt, however, that I'd like any man who was serious about smelling like a Whopper – unless, of course, that man possessed the largest privately owned, contiguous tract of land in the United States. But I doubt that man and I will ever be reunited atop the Empire State Building, because I haven’t met him either. So I'll just keep laughing at Himself's jokes. Or not.

Note: If a visit to New York or Miami is not in the cards right now, but you're nonetheless hungry to sample Flame, you may also purchase it online. Supplies are reportedly limited. Even if you don't want to purchase Flame, you may find its website hilarious. Or maybe just gross.

Admiring the ice and snow sculptures in Harbin, China and yearning for the return of Madison's Kites on Ice Festival

Illuminated ice sculpture at the Harbin, China Ice Festival. Note the Russian architectural influences. Harbin, China's tenth largest city, is renowned for its unique, Russian-influenced architecture, which has earned it the sobriquet "The Oriental St. Petersburg." (Photo from Mail Online)

We've already had record snowfall in Madison this December; but this afternoon, the sidewalks in my neighborhood were snow free, thanks to temperatures that rose to almost 50 degrees. The high temperatures were accompanied by rain, fog, and a great deal of the accumulated snow melted.

Now it's after midnight and the cold temperatures and snow have returned. The sidewalks are already generously dusted with snowflakes. By morning, there will undoubtedly be enough accumulation to require another round of shoveling and plowing. I wonder, however, when Madison's lakes will freeze this year and how long they'll stay that way.

Meanwhile, in Harbin, China, organizers and artists are preparing for the annual Ice Festival, which officially opens on January 5, 2009. Harbin is close to Siberia, so they have fewer reasons than we do to worry about unseasonable weather wreaking havoc on winter festivals, ice skating, and ice boat racing.

The photo at the top of this post is from the London Daily Mail's Mail Online website. I came across their illustrated feature about the festival via some convoluted link route through cyberspace, undertaken while trying to teach Himself the intricacies of blogging. My interest piqued, I searched for additional images and found the slideshow, Flickr photograph, and video that I'm presenting here for your edification and enjoyment.

Photo playlist from Kalena Reyna on IMEEN

The world's largest snow sculpture. Photo by Emma JG. Visit her Flickr photostream for additional information about the construction of the sculpture.

In addition to nighttime scenes, "A Day and Night at the Harbin Ice Festival" shows some of the more ordinary activities that take place in the daytime, as well as offering some glimpses of Harbin.

While Madison is unlikely to have the kind of sustained frigid temperatures necessary to hosting an ice festival similar to Harbins, last winter's brutality had at least one Madisonian wondering aloud why we can't bring back Kites on Ice. I'm still wondering, too; but the only upcoming winter festival of any magnitude in Madison seems to be the DMI Frostiball -- and I've already been there and done that a couple of times. This year, I'd rather go fly a kite.

Madison, Wisconsin restaurants open on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (not all of them Chinese)

There are a surprising number of restaurants open in Madison, Wisconsin on December 24th and 25th -- and not just Chinese restaurants.

I created a list for 2008, checked it twice and posted it here last night. Somewhere along the line, I neglected to put Christmas into the header of that post; so even though Dane 101 linked to it, I'm still worried people may not find the post in time because of the vague header and the fact that it's not longer at the top of the page. Hence, this follow-up post, which will be at the top of the page until I've had my Christmas dinner.

If you're looking for this year's list of Madison restaurants open on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, scroll down the page a bit -- or just click HERE. In addition to the list of restaurants, you find Brandon Walker's "Eating Chinese Food on Christmas," the music video that (with some prompting from Himself) was the original inspiration for this annual list.

"Christmas movies come in four basic varieties: the cuddly, the cloying, the cretinous and the cute."

Whether you remember seeing it in a movie theater, enjoying it uninterrupted on Public Television, or being appalled when you viewed a colorized version, you've probably watched Frank Capra's 1946 film, "It's A Wonderful Life," more than once.

This year, NBC is offering "It's a Wonderful Life" on Christmas Eve, undoubtedly not free from commercial interruption.

Search the Internet and you'll find all sorts of news and views about "It's a Wonderful Life." Many people love this classic film starring Jimmy Stewart, but there are some contrarians and curmudgeons out there too... and perhaps we should pay them some heed.

Consider these observations by Joe Queenan, writing in the Christmas Eve issue of The Guardian:

Christmas movies come in four basic varieties: the cuddly, the cloying, the cretinous and the cute. It's a Wonderful Life, a putatively heartwarming story about a small-time banker with a heart of gold, manages to combine all four elements, as it inexplicably lionises a lunkheaded ninny who risks the financial health of his community by making a series of bad loans to people who are in no position to repay them. Particularly unsuitable for holiday viewing this year, the 1947 Frank Capra classic should really be called It's a Wonderful Subprime Life.

Below is a link to the entire Queenan essay, as well as some other commentary about "It's a Wonderful Life":

Don't get cute: Crank up the schmaltz and mix in a preposterous plot. Joe Queenan on why great Christmas movies give him hives

"In the Year of the Bailout, some of us found our inner George Bailey." Barbara Curtis in the Christian Science Monitor

An interview with Karolyn Grimes, the child star of classic Christmas tear-jerker It's A Wonderful Life. BBC NEWS. Grimes played George and Mary Bailey's six-year old daughter, Zuzu.

"It's a Wonderful Life" in 30 seconds (and re-enacted by bunnies) from angry alien productions

Book vs Movie: The Greatest Gift and It's a Wonderful Life from the Clayton County [Georgia] Library System

The Real Bedford Falls: "Film lovers have often contemplated where the “real” Bedford Falls might be located. The movie hints its location is somewhere in upstate New York. However, the physical similarities between Seneca Falls and Bedford Falls are striking."

FBI Considered "It's A Wonderful Life" Communist Propaganda, a 2006 Wise Bread blog post by Will Chen

"'It’s a Wonderful Life' is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time, of living among bitter, small-minded people." from "Wonderful? Sorry, George, It’s a Pitiful, Dreadful Life" an article by Wendell Jamieson in the December 18, 2008 edition of The New York Times

And if, after all that commentary, you want to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" without interruption, here it is on Google video:

Eating Chinese Food in Madison Redux: The 2008 version, featuring some non-Chinese restaurant alternatives, too

Last year, it started out like this:

Last week, Himself reminded me that not everyone engages in frenzied cookie baking as Christmas approaches. Nor does everyone spend Christmas Eve engaged in frenzied last-minute shopping, followed by caroling and too much eggnog. Nor does everyone eat turkey and ham and alternatives to green bean casserole on Christmas Day.

Some people, said Himself, eat Chinese food on Christmas. Watch this YouTube video:

"Chinese Food on Christmas" by Brandon Walker (download the mp3 or get sheet music HERE)

Of course after I watched the video, I wanted to know more, but I had something else to do. This afternoon, while Himself hunkered down to watch the Packers game on television and the weather outside was so frightful I didn't even consider escaping yet again to Barrique's, I decided to do some research and make some telephone calls that would allow me to put a local spin on the subject of eating Chinese food on Christmas.

The post that resulted from Himself's inspiration and my hard work remains at the all-time top of my Site Meter hits list, but not necessarily because people were searching Google for "Chinese food on Christmas." A lot of the visitors wanted more specific information: They wanted to know what restaurants were open in Madison on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

This year, realizing that not everyone wants to spend Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day eating Chinese food, I've expanded the list of local, Madison-area restaurants that are open on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to include some additional options.

The list is in two parts: The first is a list of Chinese restaurants in the Madison area that are open on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. The second is a list of additional restaurants in Madison also open on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. While I've tried to be thorough, the list is not necessarily exhaustive. Whether you decide to give Chinese food on Christmas a twirl, nosh on Indian food, explore food from another continent at Africana, or opt for a more traditional Christmas meal, call before you rush out into the snowy, cold Wisconsin winter, just to make certain they're open (some may only be serving lunch on the 24th) and that they aren't so busy they can't guarantee you a table. And if you have additions or corrections, please leave a comment.

Part I: Madison-area Chinese restaurants open December 24th and December 25th

A-8 China, 608 University Avenue, 608-250-8888
Open December 24th (but may close earlier than usual)

Asian Kitchen, 449 State Street, 608-255-0571
Open December 24th until midnight; closed December 25th

Chang Jiang, 948 W. Main Street, Sun Prairie, 608-825-9108
Open December 24th and 25th

China Buffet, 3579 E. Washington Avenue, 608-241-9978
Open December 24th and 25th

China Inn, 4702 Cottage Grove Road, 608-222-8829
Open December 24th and 25th

China Kitchen, 6608 Mineral Point Road, 608-826-4432
Open December 24th and 25th

China One Buffet, 518 Grand Canyon Drive, 608-833-5288
Open December 24th and 25th

China Wok Buffet, 6913 University Avenue, 608-826-0333
Open December 24th and 25th

Great China, 617 N. Sherman Avenue, 608-244-9988
Open "regular hours" December 24th and 25th

Hong Kong Cafe, 2 S. Mills Street, 608-259-1668
Open December 24th; closed December 25th

Imperial Garden West, 2039 Allen Boulevard, Middleton, 608-238-6445
Open December 24th; closed December 25th
On December 24th, for $40 you can dine and watch Jodi Cohen perform "Oy and Joy to the World" (tax and tip included). Reservations are required. Visit Cohen's website for additional information.

Oriental Wok, 532 S. Park Street. 608-255-1288
Open December 24th and 25th

P.F. Chang's, 2237 Deming Way, Middleton, 608-831-2488
Open December 24th

World Buffet, 2451 W. Broadway, 608-222-2962
Open December 24th and December 25th (but may close earlier than usual)

Yes Buffet, 3038 S. Fish Hatchery Road, Fitchburg, 608-273-3038
Open December 24th and 25th


Part II: Additional Madison restaurants open on December 24th and December 25th

Africana Restaurant and Lounge, 2701 Atwood Avenue, 608-204-9999
Open December 24th (chef's special 4 course meal); closed December 25th

Admiralty Dining Room, Edgewater Hotel, 666 Wisconsin Avenue, 608-661-6528
Special holiday buffet on December 25th from 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. (reservations recommended)

Avenue Bar, 1128 E. Washington Avenue, 608-257-6877
Open December 24th until 3 p.m. and December 25th from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Concourse Hotel, 1 West Dayton Street, 608-257-6000
Dayton Street Grille open December 25th for a Christmas brunch from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (reservations recommended)

Hilton Madison Monona Terrace, 9 East Wilson Street, 608-255-5100
Capitol Chophouse open December 24th
Olive Lounge open December 24th and 25th (limited menu)

Maharani, 380 W. Washington Avenue, 608-251-9999
Open December 24th and 25th

Sheraton Hotel Madison, 706 John Nolen Drive, 608-251-2300
Harvest Lounge and Heartland Grill
Open December 24th and 25th

Swagat, 707 N. High Point Road, 608-836-9399
Open December 24th and 25th

Taste of India, 2623 Monroe Street, 608-218-9200
Open December 24th and 25th (no buffet offered on either day)