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.