Neighborhood Watch

Meow: At least one of the homes in my neighborhood is guarded by quite an attentive watchcat. Don't be fooled by the placid expression: Those ears are on full alert, eyes on the lookout for the most fleeting and subtle movment.

Happiness,
David

Celebrating Skip Johnson

C.R. "Skip" Johnson died last week. His family and friends gathered to celebrate his life on Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009, at the Johnson Farmstead, where the late artist himself welcomed his tribe to annual Syttende Mai parties. It is a reflection of Skip -- his good humor, his sense of mischief and fun, his affection for life, his creative impulse -- that this gathering was at least as joyful as it was sad. You can't think of Skip -- the extraordinary works of art he crafted from wood (including imaginative furniture but also astonishing flights of sculptural fancy), his fondness for carrying a bottle of beer in his back pocket, his phenomenal aptitude for dancing, his mirth and joie de vivre -- without understanding his friends' and family's instict to rejoice, revel and raise a little hell more than mourn. Skip lived 81 years by the clock but countless more than that by spirit and enthusiasm. Thus, while there were indeed tears shed Saturday, there were also smiles galore, toasts and cheers....

Six Decades in One Evening

Six people in my family marked birthdays ending in zero this year, so we gathered with friends last evening at Westmorland Park to celebrate with for a Decades Party: guacamole, chips, sandwiches, potato salad, fromage du Carr Valley, wild rice salad, strawberries with chocolate & whipped cream, pickled kohlrabi, hummus, veggies, dip, Oberon beer, boxes of Pinot Evil and Banrock Station Chardonnay, champagne, the best home-brewed mead in the history of the universe, ladder golf, disc, futbol, conversation, hijinks and....


The weather was lovely -- warm, bit of a breeze, and the exact proper number of well-sized clouds to offset the blue sky.....


At twilight, the mosquitos came out. So did the citronella tiki torches, and a crescent moon...

Happiness.

First Fridays at MMoCA: Harmonious Wail

Harmonious Wail performed during First Fridays at MMoCA last week, up on the roof of the Overture Center, where the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art sculpture garden is located. It was sunny. There was a light breeze. And the Wail's music (left to right: Sims, Matt, Maggie, Tom)...



Happiness,
David

Bike to Work Week: Why People Ride Their Bikes

It's Bike to Work Week here in Madison. A great time to ask people why they ride the bikes they ride. It's one of my favorite questions to ask. The answers tend to suggest a close relationship between the rider and his or her bike.

During the Bike to Work Week event hosted Tuesday morning by Isthmus (the Madison weekly where I enjoy the privilege of being a staff writer, and which offered coffee, bagels, rolls, fresh fruit to two-wheeled commuters, along with free bike checks courtesy of Williamson Bicycle Works mechanics), I posed the question to several people. Every answer was distinct. Here's Steve Goldstein, explaining why he rides a Klein....



And here's former Ald. Robbie Webber, extolling the virtues of her well-traveled and -accessorized hybrid bike (watch for an amusing cameo appearance by Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz)...



Next, John Rider, Madison's bicycle registration coordinator, introduces his beloved Giant Iguana...



Greg Blake, a product designer for Madison-based Pacific Cycle, explains the appeal of his Mongoose road bike:



My youngest sister, Louisa, is up next, with a testimonial for her Univega Activa Country:



Trisha Crinkley, a certified Physician Assistant at Wildwood Family Clinic and self-proclaimed fair-weather bike commuter, likewise expresses great fondness for her Fuji Touring bike:



And to wrap this up, Brian Conger, outreach coordinator for the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin (organizers of Bike to Work Week) explains how spiffing up his vintage Schwinn Madison has made him the coolest kid on his block:



Bike to Work Week continues through Friday, June 12, with events including Bike Trivia and a final BTWW celebration at Vilas Park. For details, check the listings on Isthmus's website at The Daily Page.

Quelle Fromage!

Tenaya Darlington -- author of Madame Deluxe and Maybe Baby, now a professor of writing and journalism at Pennsylvania's St. Joseph's University, once the features editor (and writer of spectacular cover stories and food columns) for Isthmus -- launched a blog devoted to cheese a couple months ago. I learned of it only last night, and this morning I'm adding it to my list of essential blogs. It's called Madame Fromage, and 'tis faaaaaabulous. Tenaya brings such flavor to her writing that in reading it, you can taste the cheese.

Giant Tulips March on Capitol

They grow 'em pretty darn huge here on the grounds of the state Capitol in Madison. Note how some of them are big enough to dwarf the statue of Hans Christian Heg.....

Breakfast!

I passed this patisserie 25 years ago, somewhere in France or maybe Belgium or Austria or Switzerland. Even if I invited all my friends and neighbors, the contents of this window would make for a dejeuner that is anything but petit.


Bonjour avec happiness!

Dashboard Pear

Sometimes, "because you can" is sufficient rationale to act on a juvenile flight of fancy.

Barking up the Wrong Mushroom

I'm neither mycologist nor arborist. Indeed, when it comes to identifying fungi, my utter inability exceeds my ignorance of tree species. But that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the impressive esthetics of each. Take these mushrooms, growing on a birch up north....


As for trees, there are those who can name a tree based on a brief glance at its bark. Not me. Well, I think I've got the birch down. At least, as a genus. But don't ask me to taxonomize the species....


Beyond the most rudimentary taxonomic identifications, however, I might as well be watching the old Monty Python routine involving the larch (And now, number two, the larch -- the...larch). This might be a larch, for all I know....


...but I just like the look of its bark.

Twilight Frog Opera

There is a small lake up north, near a town with a name that means towering hill and another town with a name that means stop. At twilight, the frogs establish a chorus that is operatic.



The next morning, the operatic twilight frog chorus is replaced by arias of birdsong, and daylight reveals the small lake in greater detail as gusts of wind riffle the water's surface.



The duck is quackless. A decoy.

PT Cruiser Blue

I often walk or bike past this PT Cruiser on the commute to and from work. Reckon it's one of the most beautiful paint colors I've ever seen on a car.

Word Spy Etymologizes Flotsametrics

Paul McFedries' Word Spy site, which tracks and documents the etymologies of neologisms, has a good one this week that relates to the first word in this blog's title. It's flotsametrics, a noun defined as "the use of floating debris to study ocean currents." The listing goes on to list sample citations, including the earliest known usage, by the scientist who coined it, during a 2003 appearance on NPR. If you've read The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman, or have heard of the North Pacific Gyre, this is a word to savor.

Zombie Lit 101

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a big hit for Quirk Books, one of the more intriguing publishers on the contemporary landscape. I'm looking forward to reading Seth Grahame-Smith's collaboration with the late Jane Austen....

I was never all that enthusiastic about Austen's original work, but the addition of zombies to a stuffy novel of manners holds some promise of being better able to hold my interest. Which leads me to wonder whether there's hope for the publishing industry after all. Imagine the possibilities!...

The Zombie in the Rye
The Zombies Karamazov
20,000 Zombies Under the Sea
Around the World in 80 Brains
Far from the Madding Zombies
Gone with the Zombies
The French Lieutenant's Zombie
Tender is the Zombie
A Portrait of the Zombie as a Young Man
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Zombie
Of Zombie Bondage
The Zombie Also Rises
The Sound and the Zombie
The Zombies of Wrath
The Great Zomsbie
I, Zombie
The Heart is a Lonely Zombie
The Naked and the Zombie
The Maltese Zombie
The Old Zombie and the Sea
The Old Man and the Zombie
A Clockwork Zombie
All the King's Zombies
A Connecticut Zombie in King Arthur's Court
A Farewell to Zombies
The Zombie Always Rings Twice
One Flew Over the Zombie's Nest
Alice's Adventures in Zombieland
The Zombie of Oz
Tarzan, the Zombie Man
Tess of the Zombievilles
Zombie of the Baskervilles
Gulliver's Zombies
The Canterbury Zombies
Wuthering Zombies
Of Mice and Zombies
Lady Chatterly's Zombie
The Zombie of Monte Cristo
Brave New Zombie
Aesop's Zombies
A Tale of Two Zombies
Grimm's Zombie Tales
The Adventures of Hucklezombie Finn

Not to mention the potential of Shakespeare's canon...

Romeo and Juliet and Zombies
A Midsummer Night's Zombie
The Merry Zombies of Windsor
A Comedy of Zombies
Twelfth Zombie
The Taming of the Zombie
Two Zombies of Verona
The Zombie of Venice
Much Ado About Zombies

Plus, there are all those titles out there that wouldn't have to be changed at all, such as....

The Way of All Flesh
From Here to Eternity
Naked Lunch

Admit it: You can visualize the narrative for each and every one all of these titles, or at least the ones you've read. At a time when the publishing industry is struggling, and the economy is in a shambles, this could be a means to employ every would-be author in a recovery program to rival FDR's Works Progress Administration.

Brains!

D'oh!

The USPS released the new 44-cent Simpsons stamps today. Don't have a cow, man!

Lake Monona Legs

They ran the annual Lake Monona 20K this morning, 12.4 miles, clockwise, around Lake Monona. This is one of the oldest foot races in Madison, dating to the mid-1970s, maybe the early 1970s -- it used to be on the old Vilas Running Club schedule, somewhere between February's 10-kilometer Freezeroo around Lake Wingra and May's Syttende Mai 20-mile run from Madison to Stoughton. The race has changed organizers at least a couple times over the 30 or so years it's been run, but it's still going. There were 653 finishers today -- 373 men, 280 women. About three-fourths of the way through the race, somewhere between nine miles and the 15-kilometer mark, Joe Kurian had already opened up a lead of several minutes en route to a dominating victory margin of four minutes, 31 seconds. A few minutes after he raced past the site where Harry Whitehorse's Effigy Tree will soon be re-installed as a bronze casting, I turned on the camera to catch the next 20 pairs of legs. In between the tap of footfalls on Lakeland Avenue, I listened to the birds in the trees.

The Ultimate Human?

Just back from seeing Dobet Gnahore's performance tonight at the Wisconsin Union Theater (thank you, David and Cathy!), thinking she may be the most highly evolved human being ever. What. A. Voice. And such amazing physical presence. I went back into the archives to find this clip of her grand entrance at last summer's Fete du Marquette. Sorry about the distance and the instability and the way the clip cuts off (the second clip, following, includes a complete song, if not greater stability and proximity)....




In this second clip, well, I'm at a loss to preface it. I've never seen anyone move like this and still be able to sing.....



I'm agnostic, but I believe some people are touched by God.

Couple'a Guys're Walkin' Their Dogs....

So a bunch of us were out at Picnic Point last month, celebrating the Vernal Equinox with a potluck dinner around the campfire, when I asked if anyone knew any good jokes. I love a well-told joke, and among the lot of us, there were a handful that met with a chorus of laughter. Here's one of 'em, courtesy of it's teller, Leon, to brighten this rainy day....

Beignets at Liliana's

Yum!

Good morning,
David

No Shirt, No Pants, No Hiking

The Associated Press is reporting that citizens of Switzerland's Appenzell canton have voted to impose a fine of 200 Swiss Francs on Alpine hikers clad in nothing more than hiking boots, socks and their base layer of skin. Yep. Apparently, the extreme sport of nude Alpine hiking has become a sufficient problem to merit nipping the practice in the bud.

AP reports that transgressors have numbered in the dozens, and have been mostly German. As someone whose mongrel mix of European heritage includes about one-fourth Kraut extraction myself, I can understand how this might cause alarm. Germans do tend to appreciate fine beer, and an overabundance of Gemutlichkeit can yield a prosperous abundance of pale fleshiness -- especially around the abdominal region (in the case of men), but in more fetching parts of the anatomy among German fraus and frauleins.

Still. given the global economy and the tourism potential, Appenzell may be missing an opportunity to get out ahead of the market and tap into this revenue stream before other, less conservative cantons (or the French, or the Italians) start to designate clothing-optional hiking trails.

Leaving aside esthetic judgements regarding whether nude hiking contributes to or detracts from the Alpine scenery, a story last month in the New York Times suggested some measure of amusement and ambivalence among the Appenzellers.

As someone who hiked quite a lot in the Swiss Alps a quarter century ago (always clothed in at least one layer more than sunscreen and the base birthday layer), I can attest to the fact that hikers -- clothed or unclothed -- are rendered insignificant by the Alps that tower all around. As someone who has the pale skin tone (if not the abundant fleshiness) of one-quarter German extraction, I can also attest first-hand to the sunburn risk of hiking in the Swiss Alps: The higher you go, the less atmosphere there is to filter the sun's radiation. I can remember at least two occasions when my face and forearms were so badly fried that the exposed skin peeled for days after I came back down to the valleys.

But if you're determined to go hike nude in the Alps, it's your skin. Happy yodeling.

Salzburg, early 1994

This would be January or February of 1984. I believe this is the Salzach River. My Eurail Pass had expired by this time, and I was using a ticket from Vienna to Paris that allowed unlimited stops in the space of a month, so long as they were stops along the line from my point of origin to my ultimate destination. I think Salzburg might have been my first stop. I was enchanted. I think my next stop might have been Interlaken, Switzerland, where I found myself so enchanted by the Alps of the Berner Oberland that I stayed, and never used the rail ticket all the way through to Paris.

Kayaking Madison's Skyline

Kayaks afford a perspective shared by waterfowl and muskrats.

Literacy 24/7 Reading List

For four years now, I've enjoyed the great pleasure and privilege to be among the readers participating in Literacy 24/7, the annual benefit for the Madison-based Literacy Network. In the last two years, I've asked people in the audience to jot down the title of the last book they read that they would recommend to friends and neighbors -- and, if they wish, to explain why they'd recommend it. Forthwith, the resulting 2009 reading list.

Oyster, a novel by Janette Turner Hospital, "...an edge-of-destruction millennialist settlement in remote Australia and its psychological & material collapse."

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace, One School at a Time, by Greg Mortensen & David Oliver Relin. (Two people recommended this.)

"I read trashy sci-fi novels. The last good one was Iain Banks' Matter."

Into Africa, by Martin Dugard. "Excellent story of Stanley and Livingstone and the events leading up to, 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume.'"

Brand Hijack, by Alex Wipperfurth. "It seems like an industry book, but I loved getting a look behind the curtain of how things are sold to us, especially when it's obvious something is being sold."

"I know everyone else in the world has read this, but I read it for the first time just a few months ago: A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole."

In Search of Klingsor, by Jorge Volpi. "Terrific literary thriller/quantum physics/WWII mystery."

Dreams from My Father

Nickled and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich. "Author works 3 jobs (waitress, maid in a motel, work in retail, maybe a Wal-Mart."

Happy Reading,
David

Geese off Picnic Point

Among the many waterfowl encountered yesterday while kayaking around Picnic Point to Second Point, these two geese were the most vocal. This is not the most inept video clip I've ever captured, but neither is it the most ept.



Happiness,
David

Kayaking up the Yahara

After an extended stretch of uncooperative weather, my patience reached its limits a few days ago and I finally got the kayak out for its inaugural voyage of the season. Putting in at Olbrich Park, I paddled west along Lake Monona's north shore past Hudson and Yahara Place parks to the middle Yahara, and pointed my bow upstream. The water dynamics appeared vigorous as the river entered the lake, and it took about twice as long as usual to get up to the Tenney lock and dam. The current felt pushier than usual, so I was curious to know what might be going on at the locks. Were they letting more than the average volume of water vent downstream? Arriving at Tenney Park, I found a visual answer: What appeared to be quite a robust volume of water indeed was being released out of Lake Mendota, creating some of the liveliest swirls and eddies I've ever seen below the locks.



In an effort to quantify what I was seeing, I checked the US Geological Survey's data for its East Main Street water gauge. Sure enough, it was showing flows well above average for this time of year. The gauge height is reaing more than six feet -- two above its mean average for this time of year, and one above its median. At more than 430 cubic feet per second, the discharge rate has been at or near the 15-year records set last year, and almost triple the median average for the 15-year period of record. The stream's velocity, too, is running swift at about 1.5 to 1.6 feet per second. Match that with the volume and it's no wonder paddling upstream felt like slow going.

The ride back downsteam was a breeze, and took little effort -- more like sightseeing than kayaking....


The succession of railroad, automobile, bike and pedestrian bridges spanning the middle Yahara make this one of my favoirte places to paddle.


The distinctive way each bridge frames the next never fails to catch my eye...

But kayaking the middle Yahara also affords a waterborne perspective on its banks, and on the neighborhoods that flank it.....

Happiness,
David

Brugge, Belgium, 1983

This is sometime in late October or early November 1983, along one of the canals in Brugge (also known by its French spelling, Bruges). Quite a captivating city, laced with canals, rich in architecture. Like so many European cities, it is old enough to have been built on a pedestrian scale, and remains a fine city to explore on foot.

More Laurels for Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

This morning's edition of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that three members of its staff have won National Headliner Awards. How big is this? Perhaps not as big as the Pulitzer the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel won last year for community reporting. But considering that only one other daily in the last 10 years has won three NHAs, this might be even bigger.

At a time when publishers are struggling, laying off veteran journalists and cutting page counts, the Journal-Sentinel is among that shrinking number of perseverant dailies that are finding ways to uphold the most exemplary tenets of good journalism and engage in that enterprising, investigative strain of reporting that may be discomforting but is essential to the health of our republic and its citizens.

At a time when journalists find themselves listed with lobbyists, attorneys, politicians and car salespeople among the most reviled professions, it is reassuring to see skilled and devoted journalists like Dan Egan, Jan Uebelherr and Dan Bice get their due.

Egan, who has been distinguishing himself on the Journal-Sentinel's Great Lakes beat, was recognized by the NHA judges in the environmental reporting category for his "Great Lakes, Great Peril" series. In my view, Egan's work in reporting issues related to ratification of the Great Lakes Compact and the rising tide of invasive species merits consideration for a Pulitzer and any other award that might be appropriate to bestow. His efforts to render clear and understandable some of the most complex problems confronting the Great Lakes -- and to report these stories in a fair and balanced and thorough manner -- has been that exemplary. So has the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's willingness, at a time when it has been under financial distress, to extend whatever money and time Egan needs to do such fine work.

I missed Uebelherr's series, but there's a link to it on the Journal-Sentinel's website and I look forward to savoring it. And Bice, who took the trophy for Local Interest Column, well, Bice, the Journal-Sentinel's "No Quarter" columnist, is a journalist in the tradition of those great gritty 19th and 20th-century muckrakers who have dedicated themselves to afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted. Bice is the kind of journalist that people unschooled in their civic responsibility to maintain themeselves as informed citizens love to hate. Contemporary journalism needs more columnists and reporters like Bice.

The item in this morning's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel goes on to note that these are but three laurels among a cascade of recent awards that have been bestowed on the paper.

Such awards are secondary, of course, to the work itself. If they are an endorsement or recognition of effort and skill and quality, and reflect well on the employer as well as the person employed, each such award is destined to gather dust or occupy one or two lines in a journalist's c.v. Once an award is announced, it is on to the next assignment. Applause and bravos and congratulations are nevertheless due, along with gratitude from a Madison subscriber who appreciates the delivery each morning of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Berlin 1983

One of the more gratifying rewards of scanning my old European slides into digital format is the opportunity to rediscover images I'd long since forgotten about -- and, in rediscovering them, being transported back to a specific time and place. This is late 1983. The place is Berlin. Photographed through a lo-o-o-ong lens.

Kayak Rolling with Large Barnacle

Canoecopia 2009, Rutabaga's mumblety-somethingth annual paddlesport expo at the Alliant Energy Center's Exhibition Hall, was once again a wondrous weekend of all things kayak and canoe, packed with speakers and exhibitors and movies (I recommend both Terra Antarctica and Eastern Horizons) and pool demonstrations at the nearby Clarion Hotel. In this latter category, perhaps none were more anticipated than the show put on by Kelly Blades and Danny Mongno. Indeed, the line to get in for their noon performance on Saturday was so long that many (including myself) were turned away once the room reached capacity. Undetered, I returned for their Sunday do-over performance. It's easier to gain admission to most Canoecopia programming on Sunday than Saturday: Saturday tends to be the show's peak day for attendance. By Sunday, the crowds thin out a bit.

If their audience was smaller than it had been on Saturday, Blades and Mongno put on no less of a show. Both are accomplished paddlers. They also share an irreverence exemplified in this clip. That's Blades, arranging himself on the deck like a barnacle, while Mongno, in the cockpit, executes a roll. Rolling a kayak is a difficult enough maneuver to perform as it is. The fact that Mongno can pull one off with Blades complicating things is illustrative of Mongno's skill -- and his mindset, which has a default setting of Sure, Why Not?

The Snowshoe Commute Across Lake Monona

The snowshoe commute to work across Lake Monona is one of the great pleasures of winter in Madison. Starting from Olbrich Park, there is a choice of routes. One is to skirt the lake's north shoreline, getting off the lake at Yahara Place Park to cross the Yahara River on the Rutledge Street bridge, and getting back on the lake one block west at Morrison Park for the duration of the trek. The other option is to venture way out toward the middle of the lake to get around the middle Yahara River's mouth (because the flow can make for unpredictable ice). Both routes reconverge near the snowfence that marks the warm-water effluent zone from Madison Gas & Electric's Blount Street generating plant, where the final approach to the commute's conclusion at Monona Terrace affords a perspective of the isthmus skyline that is worth savoring in the silence that comes with stopping for a moment.

The Quality of Caribbean Water

I enjoyed the privilege of vacationing at Maho Bay Camps on St. John in November 2007. One of the first videos I captured during that visit was this one. I had wandered down to the water's edge to see if the water was indeed the impossible color you see on postcards. Turns out that it is. But color is only one of the qualities I observed in these waters. I'm sharing this on a dreary day toward the back edge of winter, for vicarious purposes. If you look close, you'll see a couple pelicans plunge out of the air in their dive for lunch. All due gratitude and much more besides to my friend Darren Bush for recommending the Olympus SW 770 camera.

May blessings displace your burdens.

Matterhorn in Context

My friend Darren Bush's recent visit to Sicily, and the extraordinary photos he has been posting to his blog at http://canoelover.blogspot.com/ are an inspiration to resume scanning my old European slides from the 1980s into digital format. This is an undertaking I began a couple years ago, but abandoned due to the overwhelming number of images I brought back. I'll get back to it as time allows. Meanwhile, here's an image of the Matterhorn from a week I spent in Zermatt in 1985. This might have been taken the day I hiked the rather precarious ridgeline to Hornlihutte, the staging facility from which those who climb the Matterhorn start. I lacked the means and nerve to hire a guide to lead me up its steeps. Instead, I spent my week in Zermatt hiking a different mountain trail every day. Rothorn was a favorite.

Mont-St. Michel, October 1983

An old favorite from when I was wandering around Europe with a big old SLR, taking photos of whatever caught my eye.

Happy Cows May Come from California, but the Cow of Love is from Wisconsin

Valentine's Day ought to be Valentine's Month, n'est-ce pas?

Gimme Yer Tired Yer Poor Yer Huddled Iceboaters and Curious Onlookers

Lady Lib has once again come up for air on Lake Mendota off the UW Memorial Union Terrace.

We Come from France

Or we might be Dutch, given the orange coloring of our cones. Mibs!

A Glorious Winter Day

Walking to work across Lake Monona a couple weeks ago, I came across this snaking path that had been cleared in the snow off the north shore.