New York ... Oz? London? Middle Earth? Home?

Just finished reading Adam Gopnik's Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York. In this memoir-ish essay collection, Gopnik, who writes for The New Yorker (lucky him!), discusses, among other sundry topics: the raising of children in New York; parakeets and psychoanalysis (although, alas, not in the same essay); touch football; jazz; his daughter's imaginary friend Mr. Ravioli; his son's varying preoccupations, ranging from chess to Lord of the Rings figurines; and most of all, the city. (You can read an excerpt from the book over here.] I now feel slightly drugged, as I tend to feel when I've finished a book in essentially one sitting, a bit (pleasantly) inhabited by the author's voice and a bit more in search of my own.

(I am also, quite literally, still a bit drugged, having been fighting off a migraine for several days, a migraine which coincided with the otherwise lovely visit of my good friend H.... more on that to follow).

The time range of Gopnik's book overlaps almost precisely with the first five of my seven years living in the city: from 2000-2005 (He organizes the book by "Thanksgivings" but these chapters often zig zag merrily back and forth across autumns and winters; he briefly mentions "The Gates," which were early 2005, and felt, to me at least, like a moderate closure on this particular span of time). In this way, reading the book was a little bit like reviewing a bit of my own history, and there was much to identify with here. There was also a lot here which certainly does NOT map on to my own experience: during 2000-2005 I was not 1) employed by The New Yorker, 2) a resident of the Upper East Side, or 3) the parent of two small children. The first two are circumstances of privilege and talent; the third is primarily a matter of age and, also, a demographic characteristic which Gopnik notes in the book: the typical New York 10-year delay of having children (when compared with the rest of the country). Gopnik is (I think) aware of the privileged space from which he writes, and I, with a Columbia degree and with temporary (1 year) residency on the Upper West Side, certainly cannot cry "poor me!"-- but it was still, at times, a bit frustrating to read his odes to the joys of raising children in New York.... we left for many good, career-not-child reasons, but if I were in New York and I DID have children, I very likely could not afford to raise them in Manhattan.

That aside, I loved the book. Gopnik captures the spirit of the once-outsider who comes to New York well, jumping off from his memories of a childhood visit:

.....We ate dinner at a restaurant that served a thrilling, exotic mix of blintzes and insults, and that night we slept in my aunt Hannah's apartment at Riverside Drive and 115th Street. A perfect day.

I remember looking out the window of the little maid's room where we had been installed, seeing the lights of the Palisades across the way, and thinking, There! There it is! There's New York, this wonderful city. I'll go live there someday. Even being in New York, the actual place, I found the idea of New York so wonderful that I could only imagine it as some other place, greater than any place that would let me sleep in it-a distant constellation of lights I had not yet been allowed to visit. I had arrived in Oz only to think, Well, you don't live in Oz, do you?

Ever since, New York has existed for me simultaneously as a map to be learned and a place to be aspired to-a city of things and a city of signs, the place I actually am and the place I would like to be even when I am here. As a kid, I grasped that the skyline was a sign that could be, so to speak, relocated to New Jersey-a kind of abstract, receding Vision whose meaning would always be "out of reach," not a concrete thing signifying "here you are." Even when we are established here, New York somehow still seems a place we aspire to. Its life is one thing-streets and hot dogs and brusqueness-and its symbols, the lights across the way, the beckoning skyline, are another. We go on being inspired even when we're most exasperated.

New York is the ultimate mathematical limit, the line you can ALMOST reach, but not quite, it's never really there, and that, of course, is its value.

And there, for the second time in a month, is Riverside Drive in the one-hundred-teens, also prominent in Enchanted... am I missing something? Is Morningside Heights actually some sort of cosmic center?

I appreciated Gopnik's lyrical sense for New York and its absurdity, for life and its fragility, and most especially, his passing on of the loftiest moments of Jewish humor to his son ("Waiter, what's this fly doing in my soup....", etc). This is certainly a major part of my own family's New York heritage. I deplore his eventual turn to rooting for the Yankees (Freudian slip-- I accidentally just typed "rotting"), even though, yes, his son turning to the Yanks in autumn 2001 has great poignancy, and was probably the only time I've ever laid down my own Yankee-hatred.

Early in the book, Gopnik draws humorously on a school production of Peter Pan and the question of children flying to bring out a good deal of parental angst (and meaning). Towards the end of the book, and following the evolution of his son Luke's hobbies, he leans heavily on Tolkien metaphors, which worked well for me, and makes sense, given how heavily the books (thanks to the movies) were running through the zeitgeist of 2001-2003, and beyond. Some might find this stuff cloying, but I dug it just fine.

I'll admit it: before I noticed Gopnik's name (I adored "The Real Thing," which appeared in the New Yorker and was a reading selection when I taught University Writing), I picked this book up on a bookstore shelf because I was drawn to the title and the cover-- Central Park's Children's Gate is not far from the Alice in Wonderland statue, which figured heavily in my own childhood memories...growing up in New Jersey, spending time in the city, but not of it (and still not as hard to impress as Maccabee, who really grew up there), time spent in the city remains extremely vivid, childhood echoes I wrote over with grown-up shoes: playing on the Alice Statue and by Belvedere Castle with our friends the S. family (their daughters are now all mothers, aunts); seeing the Met with friends from junior high; having my parents coax me down the subway stairs when I was scared of the noise the trains made (the truest sign that I was NOT a New York Child).

Reading this book here in Wisconsin evoked both nostalgia and a pleasant sigh of relief. It's not that I'm "done" with New York-- I don't think the city is ever DONE with you. Reading about the city, and those TIMES in the city, is quite pleasant from here--- look, I did that, I lived some of that, now here I am in the proverbial Connecticut (except much, much farther away than Connecticut, to which Gopnik's wife occassionnaly suggests they depart), away from all that possibility and diversity, yes, but also away from the high rents and the imaginary playfriends with assistants and the private school children and, yes, the slight lurking fear of terrorism. The whole human condition, "mortal coil thing," to quote a Whedonism, is still present here in the Midwest, so much of the book's pathos and humor is as true, reading here, as it is anywhere.... and yet, here, I can see sky. I can tell what the weather is, as he notes, by looking outside, not by checking the newspaper.

In short, reading Through the Children's Gate, which was both thoughtful and extremely funny, became emblematic of the gap in the subhead of this blog: I am an expatriate New Yorker, living in Wisconsin. (Perhaps I need to go back one book and read Gopnik as an expatriate New Yorker living in Paris? That's quite an analogical stretch). To my students, New York is the big city they see in movies (we screened Keeping the Faith in my American Judaism class), and when they visited the city as tourists, some of them went to Ground Zero.... as tourists. (Respectful ones, as any Midwestern student would likely be.... my women's studies students asked me if New Yorkers were offended by all of the souvenirs sold near the WTC site). (There's also the philosophical question--- are we all in some way tourists at Ground Zero?--- but i'm not going there this eve, and I think M. Sturken has in one of the books I bought at the AAR, besides).

For good or for ill, far more of the country is like Wisconsin than like New York (and there are a whole vast swath of regional variations to be explored, all of them gradually being over-run by the homogenizing forces of the big box stores.... I think this is part of the appeal of sports loyalty. SOME things must remain local). New York, seen from Wisconsin, remains for me part fairytale--- did I REALLY ever live there??--- and part reality-- oh, yes, I lived there, with plenty of stress and roaches and small living spaces to show for it... Now I need to find ways to read the America in-the-between, in a Midwestern place that is certainly not (just?) the soul-less car and mall culture that New Yorkers always think lurks beyond the Hudson, or that my students mistakenly think I, as a former New Yorker, must see here.

(Below.... the Alice statue and the pond, seen last spring; the campus behind my office building, seen last week)

Go, Pack, Go!

In honor of last weekend's win and Brett Favre's breaking the all-time passing yards record, I bring you..... my long-awaited post about the Green Bay Packers. (What, you haven't been eagerly awaiting it? Obviously your life is far too interesting).

(Alternate post title: "Have Yourself a Very Packers Christmas.")

The thing about the Packers is that they're pretty central to understanding Wisconsinites. They're kind of the life-force of the state, particularly here in Oshkosh, just 45 minutes away from the sainted grounds of Lambeau Field. In this way, Packers fans are a lot like Red Sox Nation: fanatic, kind of kooky, steeped in history, and prone to traveling to away games. Perhaps cold, snowy climates fuel sports fever? Interestingly, just as the BoSox won the first World Series (1903) and lay claim to names like Cy Young and, yes, Babe Ruth, the Packers won SuperBowl I (and SuperBowl II), and lay claim to names like Vince Lombardi and, well, Brett Favre.

And, unlike the BoSox, the Packers are publicly-owned.... the only publicly-owned major sports franchise in the U.S. Score one for the Pack.

The fan base (aka Cheeseheads) is nothing if not devoted. On Sundays, everywhere you go, you see people dressed in the green and gold. Bars are packed; stores are empty. One Sunday I went into the cavernous Best Buy up in Appleton to find it echoing and bare of customers... except for the small group gathered around the game on a widescreen t.v. Even when I went over to the Fox Valley Mall, which was filled with shoppers (mostly women and girls.... football widows), in every store, the workers asked me if I knew the score. When Favre went down with an injury in a big Thursday night game against the Cowboys earlier this season, I swear, I heard a rending of clothing throughout the state (this provided excellent fodder for my lesson on the Book of Job the next day. You can't make this stuff up). Before the last home game, the local papers reported a call for anyone with a shovel to go up to Green Bay and help shovel out Lambeau Field for $8 an hour. That, I think, is the Midwest at its finest--- the image of hordes of folks convering to collectively dig out their stadium--- and I mean that with all due seriousness.

Prior to living in Wisconsin, we were really a one-sport household: if it wasn't baseball, it didn't matter. Upon moving here, we were told that our baseball teams (Red Sox, Mets) would be ok "as long as we didn't mess with the Packers." Since we had no major football loyalties, this wasn't really a problem. I had at times nominally rooted for the Jets, in honor of my dad's heritage, or, while in New England, for the Patriots, but really, I never "got" football. Compared with the finesse and nuance of baseball, it really did just look like a bunch of guys in tight pants crashing into one another. Homoerotic delights aside, it just made no sense, and I could never figure out where the damn first down line was.

Now I've gotten pretty thoroughly swept up in the Pack, and, to a slightly lesser extent, so has M., although the ironies of a vegetarian rooting for a team named after meat packers abound. The fact that they now show you both the direction of the drive and the first down line on t.v. really helps. I'm starting to get the difference between a passing game and a running game (Lesson Number One: the Packers lack the latter, although Ryan Grant (RB) has been doing well lately), to understand why you often punt for a field goal if you haven't converted on the third down; and I've also learned, during the exciting color commentary on last week's game, that Atari Bigby (S) hasn't had a haircut in 11 years (a fact M. took in with great respect). Football can be really exciting, even if I/we still find the penalty system obtuse and at times bizarre.

So, the signs are in.... we really live in the Midwest now. We watch football.

(In any event, it will get us through until about a week before pitchers and catchers report...)

Below, scenes of Packerphilia from around Wisconsin this fall..... the stuff came out in early August and has only multiplied since....



(Seen in Festival Foods when Favre broke the touchdown pass record in September)

Two Words...

Polartec socks. Those are my two words. Bliss. Lands' Ends' "Weatherfield Shoes" also live up to their catalog description, at least so far.

Just a quick note that we're alive and well and it's winter in Wisconsin. The photo above is actually from last week, and it's the second snow that came through (the first was Erev Thanksgiving). This morning I shoveled the fourth snowfall (so far) off the car. Happily last night's snow was light and fluffy, it's very dry and in the teens right now. This weekend's storm ended in ice. Less fun.

Polartec socks.

I have a long backlog of stories and pictures but the semester has been extremely hectic.... it ends in two weeks, so look forward to a plethora of posting over the holidays.

Cedarburg

Life in the land of the Cheeseheads has been a very busy one for both of us. The school year has been off to a very, very busy first two months, as has the community in general. So the adventures have been limited, although we have many pictures and scenes of quotidian life to share.

I'm writing this post from Cedarburg, WI, where we've been staying this weekend, at the lovely Stagecoach Inn, which actually was once a stagecoach inn on routes between Milwaukee and Green Bay. It's our 2-and-9 anniversary this week so a change of scenery seemed in order. Unforunately, I sprained my ankle on Thursday night so we haven't done much walking around, but the town is extremely cute, filled with stores and great architecture. (It is a bit uninspired from a culinary standpoint, although we had some yummy crepes at lunch).

Above is the side of the former wool mill that has been restored and filled with a restaurant, galleries, and shops; below is Cedar Creek itself. When we got out of the car we noticed that it does, indeed, smell sort of like Cedars here.

..... and the Red Sox are doing well in the World Series.

So, life here is generally good, but extraordinarily busy.

Wisconsin Wilderness

Last weekend we went on a lovely hike in High Cliff State Park, which is one of the Wisconsin state parks that is closest to us (it's basically on the other side of Lake Winnebago). Really beautiful--- I can't wait to see what it looks like in about a month when the leaves have turned. Actually, a few leaves are beginning to turn, but I'm told peak here is around early October.

I like water and Maccabee likes trees, so we took a trail that cut through the forest directly next to the lake, where you could hear the water lapping at the banks, then climbed a bit uphill [puff! puff!] to even more green glens, and turned back around.

My favorite thing about this forest was all of the lovely, rich green moss. The recent rainstorms probably contributed to its abundance. Wisconsin is a truly beautiful state.

Then we went over to the picnic area closer to the lake and collapsed in the grass for awhile. Ultimately, since we were right near Appleton and starving, we wound up at our favorite restaurant here, Sai Ram Indian, which has countless delicious vegetarian (and non-vegetarian delights)-- and, oh yes, you can turn anything on the menu into a $14 massive thali.

Enjoy the Ent-ish pictures below....

The Mets at Miller Park

A few weeks ago, we spent a few days in Milwaukee attending every single game the Mets played against the Brewers at Miller Park this year [that would be three games]. A splendid time was had, despite the fact that it was quite a heat wave. We were hoping to see Tom Glavine pitch win number 300 on the first night, but alas, that had to wait until a few days later at Wrigley Field [no, we didn't drive down, but we thought about it], which I'll admit was quite a classy place to do it.

Miller Park is a gorgeous new-ish stadium, and the baseball was great, but what's really important there isn't the baseball. No, it's the sausage. As pictured above, we finally saw the world famous Miller Park sausage race. This event, which takes place before the seventh inning of every game, consists of a noble, valiant contest, pitting .... people in giant sausage costumes against each other, as they race around the infield warning track. The sausages represented are: the hot dog, the bratwurst, the Polish sausage, the Italian sausage, and, the most recent addition, the chorizo. And let me tell you, they take this seriously. During one of the races, they actually disqualified the hot dog for straying outside the track. Really.

At various concession stands, you can indeed purchase the represented sausages. I saw very few people ordering hot dogs-- everyone went for the good stuff instead. I sampled the brats and the polish sausage; the kielbasa was definitely my favorite (I've had a taste for the stuff since my youth, when my dad would cook it for the Superbowl; in Prague, where I spent one summer, it's the common street food). There are also veggie hot dogs at one stand on the field level, and kosher dogs, too. Since it's Wisconsin, they also serve things like fried cheese curds, fish fry, and Midwest airlines chocolate chip cookies. And of course, a lot of beer.

[A digression: I realized the other day that it's now been 10 years since the summer I spent in fair Praha. Time flies!]

And boy, do those sausages get stuffed:



You can watch one of many YouTube videos of the sausage race over here, and you can also read a history of the race and biographies of its esteemed athletes.

Another kooky Miller Park thing is Bernie's dugout, which is this spot in Left Field where the mascot, Bernie Brewer, hangs out and-- again, I am not making this up--- jumps down a big yellow twisty slide if the Brewers hit a home run. We used to see this, along with bits of the sausage race, on tv whenever the Mets visited Milwaukee, and say to ourselves, wow, Wisconsin is one wacky place. We gotta see that someday.

And now, we live here.

Also, can anyone tell us why there is a clock tower on the side of Miller Park?



SAVE THE CLOCK TOWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The most important event of the visit occurred on the last day, when we sat in the fancy seats-- some very good loge seats more of less behind home plate. The walkway behind our seats went right under the press boxes, which had their windows open, and we were literally about 20 feet from Gary Cohen and Ron Darling. So we stood on our chairs like idiots and yelled "Gary!!!!! Ron!!!!!!" From Ron, we got a half-hearted wave; from Gary, M. got a good point and a smile. Ron Darling was, of course, a great pitcher, but it's Gary Cohen who turned us into a shameless fanboy and fangirl. Cohen, an alum of Columbia, is probably one of the smartest, funniest, most intelligent sportscasters ever, and I say this with all due respect for Jerry Remy and many others.

Here they are:



In sum, we really enjoyed Miller Park, the Mets won 2 out of 3, and Milwaukee, what we've seen of it so far, is a fine (if small) city. As always, you can click on the "Curdistan Cam" to link to more images.

As y'all may have noticed, I've been a much less frequent poster as the school year approaches--- tons to do-- but do stay tuned, plenty more is on the way in cyberspace.

A Tale of Two Fan Bases

Actually, this past weekend was also a tale of two cities [and no, there are no spoilers of any kind in this blog post].

Friday was, of course, Harry Day (which I began to think of as Release Day, which means something entirely different in Lois Lowry's The Giver ). Various Oshkosh institutions and businesses sponsored "Harry Potter's Main St. Magic," which entailed various activities nearby. We took an afternoon walk to the library, where the lions on the front steps had wizards hats and you could go in the "old" [read: front] entrance directly into the library's older wing, which was completely decorated and filled with screaming, excited children, as well as musicians and costumed folk. I was most impressed by their recreations of the house seals on each wall, as seen below:



It's not until this week that I realized the Hufflepuff mascot is the Badger; coincidentally, Wisconsin is the "Badger State." Does this mean that all Cheeseheads are de facto Hufflepuffs? I've always wanted to be Ravenclaw, myself, despite my Gryffindor scarf.

Then we walked around Main St., which was supposed to be "Diagon Alley" and where there were some quality signs and window displays:



More pictures, as always, are over in the Wisconsin set.

The actual book pick-up was a bit dissapointing; it wasn't clear where the final countdown was and we didn't quite find it in time for the New Year's-esque celebration [also, most of the people there had kids in tow or were in packs of teens]... I dunno, it's still a bit strange being in a new place sometimes. However,in the end, I had my book, and the next day we were off to Chicago, where we visited my friend H. and, ultimately....



The Kwik-E-Mart!! In honor of the Simpsons movie, several 7-11s have been "transformed" [err, transfigured?] into Kwik-E-Marts. Here was more merchandising, but a fan base of an entirely different sort. We relished our chance to buy some Buzz Cola, passed up the Squishees, and had a grand time with the pink donuts, just like Homer's favorites:



This promotion is obviously quite a windfall; this was seriously the most crowded 7-11 we had ever seen. They had many funny signs and characters:



More pictures are over in the Kwik-E-Mart set.

So, as I said, no spoilers here, but I've finished the Deathly Hallows and seen many fans of assorted series over this weekend....prompting further ruminations on the communal power of fandom, and its ongoing resemblances to religious practice...yet another way in which we are always in dialogue with our stories.

Timberrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A few weeks ago, Maccabee, Epherika, and I attended our first ever Wisconsin Timber Rattlers game. The Timber Rattlers are a single-A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners, and they play in nearby Appleton at a relatively new little field.

I must say, minor league baseball is quite fantastic. Aside from the great seats [see below-- we were right behind home plate], the intimate setting, and the extremely frugal prices, there are countless fun things going on to Keep the People Entertained. Chief among these is The Bratzooka, pictured above-- as promised by other profs on my campus visit, they do, indeed, shoot bratwust [wrapped in foil] out of an air gun at the waiting crowd. My, oh my, Toto, we're really in Wisconsin.

There are also lots of family friendly things, like everyone singing "Happy Birthday" to the birthday kids standing on the home team's dugout, and the kid "inning card holder," a little girl who got to walk around the infield track [with an employee], holding a card that said what inning it was. There was also an [adult] go card race around the track, and various players were designated for various items to be thrown at the crowd if they got a hit; this included, yes, more sausages [mini-ones this time].

It was all very Bull Durham, only Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins did not make appearances.

Speaking of baseball movies, I really want to drive to Iowa because of the following well-known line from Field of Dreams :

Is this heaven?
No ... it's Iowa.

Anyway, I highly recommend minor league baseball, and I highly recommend the Timber Rattlers and their mascot, Fang. Of course I'm still a Red Sox fan at heart, but it's nice to have a local team that I can root for without any conflicts, since it is SINGLE-A, for crying out loud. [Also: the Timber Rattlers have an important Red Sox connection, David Ortiz once played for them. There are Ortiz bobble-head dolls in the gift shop]

It's a cool summer night here in Wisconsin [apparently going down to the 50s], all the windows are open, and Phoebe has been sitting on my arms, refusing to budge, while I write this entry.

Geeks and Wanderers

Yesterday I had two cultural encounters in Oshkosh that might be of interest. Both were pleasantly surprising.

In the early afternoon, I walked over to the Oshkosh Public Library, which is by the way a beautiful building, inside and out, that we have to post some pictures of. Aside from picking up the other half of the first season of Weeds, I had a nice conversation with the library technical director. Jeannie has started a weekly one-on-one computer tutoring program for the older folks in the area, to which she volunteers her time (after work hours) and I may also. But mostly we just discussed geek stuff. Jeannie, who I would vaguely guess is around 40, told me that she's a pretty heavy World of Warcraft player. We joked a bit about novices who wave the mouse in the air expecting it to do something. (Which maybe, post-Wii, it will.) Generally, she seems like a smart, friendly geek whose type it's nice to encounter here outside of the comic book store. So that's good.

On as side note, her last name is McBeth (an Elizabeth offshoot I hadn't heard before) and the library administrator who referred me to her is a Lisa. I know it's a common name-group and two people in the same small organization is just a very minor coincidence, but still, I wonder if we need to start a Wisconsin Elizabeth count.

Later on, with all the windows open, I began to hear a band playing the weekly Waterfest event at the amphitheater a few blocks away. They were not particularly good, but energetic, and covering lots of great 80s rock. I listened to a few songs from the balcony and then decided to walk over for a better view. Then, as I was bummed about missing the 1/2 price early-bird by 20 minutes and too cheap to pay $15 to get in, alone, to a concert I could hear just fine outside the gates, I decided to walk around the downtown area in a radius where I could still hear the music clearly. This led me down the waterfront first just outside the amphitheater itself, which is rather new and nicely developed. The concert, incidentally, was packed, and although I could see plenty of food and drink vendors inside, the only drunk person I encountered was on her way in.

Once I passed that vicinity, and literally just across the tracks (a freight rail route), I found the bad part of town. Not bad in any mega-urban sense that I'm used to, just the obviously low-property values neighborhood with a few rickety-looking houses and one or two Goodwill-type places. The sidewalks were mostly empty, other than a few people sitting on stoops or heading to the concert. On one street, a guy walking on the opposite sidewalk was wearing a wrinkled t-shirt and exercise shorts and looked a bit strung-out.

On the next corner I heard some loud voices and walked over to see a pair of police cars pulled up to a corner house where an obviously domestic dispute was going on. (Interestingly, just one cop per car.) A middle-aged woman was talking to the cops and occasionally shouting at a someone who was probably her daughter, sitting on the stoop. They had an audience of a few curious people across the street. But the mother was not yelling at the cops themselves, she was really more agitated than out of control, and the cops were simply standing there and listening to her. In short, this would have made a very boring episode of Cops, as it was obviously going to be resolved when the woman had her say, and without any violence or car chases.

Then, walking back towards home, I saw Strung-Out Guy walking towards me on the same side of the street. As we passed, I was giving him the usual polite head-nod when he surprised me with a friendly and completely sober "Hello". The New Yorker in me was expecting something else, either bizarre/drunk/angry or a solicitation, but he kept on going. Keep in mind that although this kind of friendliness is typical for the Midwest, I hadn't gotten it from any of the concert-goers I'd passed a few minutes earlier. And sure he was walking aimlessly in a loop around the neighborhood for no apparent reason, but then so was I. So, score one for the vagrant community as well!

Caffeination A La Oshkosh

When I tell people here that I've just moved from New York, they inevitably look at me as if they're expecting me to implode at any minute, as if a New Yorker could not possibly survive here in the Midwest. We first heard it from the rental car lady last March when we came out looking for apartments, "Ohh, that'll be a big change, now."

In many ways, however, the quality of life-- including the quality of retail life within walking distance-- has actually improved. It's true, we do have to drive to the grocery store now. However, in the realm of coffee places nearby, we're talking major amelioration. [Keep in mind that I'm a caffeine addict and that I'm one of those people who likes to work in coffee shops]. In our old neighborhood, the closest coffee shop was a Starbucks down the hill on 181st St. OR another shop, two doors down, which did have great coffee but also had table service-- which can make you feel funny about sitting there forever. Neither had free wi-fi, and the Starbucks was generally mobbed.

Now I have two lovely independent coffee places right here. My favorite of the two, Planet Perk, is pictured above. I first got coffee there when I was here on my campus visit and it's one of the places that sold me on the area. Good lighting, delicious coffee, yummy sandwiches and soups, Kashi cereals and other healthy things, plenty of tables, and a decent background music selection, too--yesterday I was treated to both the Creek Drank the Cradle and Rufus Wainwright. Much happiness ensues here. Planet Perk also has a nice outpost in nearby Neenah. Below is the view from my book:



The other nearby coffee place, which is also excellent, is the New Moon Cafe, which has a somewhat hipper vibe, wine and beer, and often hosts music in the evenings. This is a cafe I could see pretty much transported straight to Brooklyn. It has big comfy couches and is generally lovely.

Oh yeah, and BOTH shops have free wi-fi. How 'bout that.

Further great places abound elsewhere in Oshkosh and in nearby Appleton, where Brewed Awakenings is particularly fantastic [try the artichoke panini!]

It's true, I've moved from a city of 8.-whatever million to a city of 65,000, but a reviving downtown is a reviving downtown, and the coffee is good.

Before the Parade Passes By...

It wakes you up in the morning.

This is what I saw outside our window at 7:30 this morning:



It was very, very loudly playing tape-recorded sounds of train whistles and "all aboard" sounds. Since we actually do live within hearing distance of some train tracks, I thought it was just the loudest freight train ever.

So, evidently our parking lot is either the staging ground or landing point for every local parade-- and they do seem to love parades here in Wisconsin. The other day, I had trouble driving home because the Miss Wisconsin pageant was taking place across the street, and was opening with a parade [really]. This morning, I was feeling anything but patriotic, what with the recent "commuting of sentence" [cough! pardon!] and all.... I'm just not a great big 'ol American these days. However, standing on our balcony I found myself somewhat hypnotized by all of the hullabaloo, so I decided to go out and do some participant observation at the big town Fourth of July Parade.



I appeared to have stumbled into a production of the Music Man, or else onto Main St., USA. People were lined up all over the street, flags waving, etc. The parade opened with bagpipes and firemen and continued with a wide assortment of participants-- local political folk, local businesses, local dance and karate teams, and a whole lot of local military and veterans. There is a widespread culture of participation in the Armed Forces here, and there was a massive show of respect-- people stood for every float of veterans or army folk who went by.

Aside from that civic ritual, the primary purpose of the parade seemed to be to dispense candy to small children. Every group that marched by had buckets of candy, which they threw at the kids lining the parade route. I can see how kids grow up to be proud Americans-- if patriotism=candy, then they'll keep coming back for more.

[I know, I know, this is kind of a cynical post].

My favorite part of the parade by far was the "Precision Briefcase Drill Team" put on by one of the local realty firms. They made me positively giddy:



The local Republican party had an elaborate float:



Evidently the only Republican they could really get behind was.... Eisenhower. Hmmmmmm.

[Actually, the theme of the entire parade was the 1950s-- also telling-- but it's still funny].

A sidenote: we actually drove through Ripon, Wisconsin last week on our way to Minnesota, and there are indeed signs as you enter town proudly proclaiming its place in national history. It's a cute little town. My question is: which GOP is being celebrated? The Party of Lincoln, or its more recent incarnations?

The Democrats were there, too, but, perhaps typically, they couldn't seem to get it together to do anything interesting and just walked with some signs for local candidates.

But enough politics for now. On to ...



That's Miss Oshkosh Centennial, 1953. She appears to have held up pretty well. The current Miss Oshkosh [as well as the current Miss Rural Winnebago] was also present.

There are more pictures of the parade over on flickr in the Wisconsin set. Speaking of pictures, I have tons of photos from the past month or two that are not yet up on flickr, there will be more to come over there in the future, so stay tuned.

I'm not sure how to feel about my morning adventure. On the one hand, it was this strange throwback to small-town Americana. On another hand, it was a celebration of militarism [the biggest hand went to the marines and soldiers in camouflage], which is not my favorite thing [this is an understatement]. There was something very sweet about all of the little families out to enjoy the parade, and something very disturbing, to me at least, about the parade's messages. I wish that I could be proud to be American like I was when I was a little kid, but I just can't. Of course, this all begs the question: what is America, anyway? This goes closer to academic discussions than I'd like to on this blog, so I'll just wish everyone a happy and safe day with family and friends, wherever you may be on the little blue planet today.

A Tale of Two Seasons

Those of you who view my pictures on flickr may remember this picture:



Well, that's the view of Lake Winnebago from last March.

Here's how it looked two weeks ago:



What a difference a few months makes! Prior to moving here, I had only seen Oshkosh in the winter [although I did not experience truly severe winter weather]. The first time we drove over the Fox River on one of the many local bridges, I freaked out because the water was moving . It seemed unnatural to me :-)

Here's another nice view of the lake, also from Menominee Park, which is a really, really nice spot and one of the biggest local parks:

Well, They Were Here First

I've just had my first encounter with Wisconsin's infamous lake flies and learned several interesting things:

1) Lake flies are very easy to kill. Most flies in my experience are very hard to swat; they fly away right before you manage to strike. I've just killed 30 or 40 of these guys, most on the first try, a few on the second try, just a couple requiring more than two attempts. They don't seem to know enough to get out of the way of my hand and its Threatening Tissue Power.

2) Lake flies are very easy to kill, emotionally. Even as a vegetarian I don't usually care about insects, but I try to take them outside when I can, and some (see below) are particularly worthy of my mercy. Not lake flies. Maybe it's their lack of survival instinct; if they don't care, why should I?

3) Most of the tiny stains left on our walls from my brute-force attacks are of the predictable reddish/brown color, but a few are distinctively forest green. A different species? Some different organ emptied out? Perhaps a Vulcan lake fly or two?

4) We need to buy bug spray.

5) Oh yeah, don't open the screen door to let a spider safely out onto the balcony, even if it has just made the coolest, totally invisible, impossible to detect proto-web from the Weeds DVD on the top of my CRT over to the bar holding up our window blinds, about a 45 degree angle upwards for at least 5 feet. At least not at night with lots of lights on inside.

Go West, People

Here's how we really knew we were in Wisconsin: the randomly lettered roads. Wisconsin's many counties have many, many, funny lettered county trunk highways . When we saw this road sign, even though we'd been in Wisconsin for several miles, we really felt that We'd Arrived.

The great westward migration went pretty well-- we arrived last night [Thursday] and are ok but tired, and, also, excited to be here. I cursed at the traffic for almost the entire state of Illinois, and Mr. Paideia drove through some brief but torrential thunderstorms in Pennsylvania, but otherwise the trip was uneventful and generally pleasant. Phoebe was really a good sport; she meowed for the first twenty minutes or so, then settled down, realized she was in for the long haul, and generally went to sleep in her carrier [which had water and a little bed for her], or looked out the window. On the second day we set her up carefully so that she could look out the front seat from between us:



In general, although we took a few pictures from the road, I took a lot of pictures of Phoebe... they're all in this set on flickr.

Funniest signage of the trip: on the marquee of an exterminator's shop, somewhere in the Poconos...."Pest of the Week: Carpenter Ants."

[Funny, of course, as long as you don't have Carpenter Ants]

Despite the traffic that soon ensued, I got very excited when we passed by Gary, Indiana , entered Illinois, and saw the Chicago skyline from afar. When we got closer, I made Mr. Paideia take a picture:



I really do like Chicago, but not its traffic. I think that cities I have encountered mainly as a teenager or adult [Boston, Chicago] are very exciting for me because I feel that I've "learned them" myself.

The Red Roof Inn of Elyria, Ohio was pleasant enough as our midpoint. Phoebe had a blast in the hotel room and tried to claw up the furniture [she was dissuaded from doing so]. It's so interesting traveling with a cat. I think Phoebe has got to be one of the most adaptable little kitties out there.

People in the Midwest seem to be really into fireworks, at least based on all of the billboards we saw advertising their sale. [L, what's up with that?] Abby, if you're reading this, on our way up US-41 in Wisconsin we passed the Mars Cheese Castle and I thought of you [but didn't get the camera out in time for a picture]. We also passed an enormous adult entertainment store smack in the middle of a HUGE farmfield.

I-80 was a good straight road. Very straight. It was really quite beautiful across much of Pennsylvania, entailed much construction in Ohio and Indiana, and then we were on 90, 94, and 41 the rest of the way. Indiana is very, very flat-- flatter than Wisconsin--but looked pretty enough in its own way. On the Ohio turnpike, they're putting in new rest areas west to east and they almost all look like UFOs that have just landed, but they're quite nice.

I think I want to go on a long drive again someday when we don't have the cat and many valuable possessions stuffed into the car, so that we can really take detours and small roads and explore. The car was indeed stuffed:



Note the cheesehead, which was one of our going-away gifts.

Phoebe's thoughts on the trip: "Meow. Meow meow meow. The humans entrapped me in a strange blue cage, then further entrapped me a in a large humming machine that moved. Meow. We went across the George Washington Bridge and I was very upset to leave Manhattan. Meow. At times there appeared to be three humans in front of me, one of whom spoke in a strange, mechanical voice with an Australian accent. Other mysterious voices sang for our entertainment; I found the bass lines too loud. At times the female human being would yell loudly at some unseen foe beyond out big cage. Occasionally the humans would look at me or pour water [wet! meow!] into a small plastic doohicky on my cage. The cage did make for decent sleeping. In the evening I was removed from the cage and permitted to roam around a large space with a large red couch, which I was not permitted to scratch. My arch nemesis, the Small Bit of Cardboard at The End of the Black Wire, has followed me lo this long journey and I have vanquished it. Now I have been removed from the cage for some time. There is strange fuzzy grass upon the floor here, which is pleasant for rolling. The humans sit on the floor with me. There are copious windowsills, so I suppose it will suffice. Meow.

Now we're here on the floor of our [mostly] empty apartment. We arrived last night and are now officially residents of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. More about Wisconsin to follow, of course. We are tired and a bit disorganized-- our stuff arrives tomorrow-- but happy to be here. And, it's 90 degrees outside, so the theme of the "Go Away and Dress Warmly" party, while accurate for winter, does not apply at the moment :-)

And, it's a whole new world of chain restaurants, most of which we just passed, some of which [something called Fagioli] we ate at. Country Kitchen Buffet, Longhorn Steakhouse, Eat 'n Park, Hometown Buffet, Cracker Barrel, White Castle, Texas Roadhouse, and countless, countless others. It's a brave new world out there, folks. [But in the meantime, I'm patronizing our nice little local coffee shop, and today we found excellent thin crust pizza]

Quote of the Day : Elderly Man: Damnit Mona, this isn't the fastest way to Country Kitchen Buffet!
Mona: No, but it's the shortest. I save the most gas that way. [back at the pond the fisherman casts his line and looks back at the car]
Elderly Man: You save the most gas if you take the highway to Country Kitchen Buffet!
--- South Park 710, "Grey Dawn"