Spring 2006 | Illumination: the Undergraduate Journal of Humanities

FEATURING

ARTWORK BY

Directions ∙ David Kempa Of Bombs and Bison ∙ Kathleen Kiefaber Tornar: Winds Teach Women ∙ Ashley Dallman

Matthew Wisniewski Jeffrey Prokash Erin Kaczkowski

illumination art

literature

essays

THE UNDERGRADUATE JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES FALL 2006

The Secret Ritual of the Ancient Elephant Clown Burial acrylic 30” x 24”

Self Portrait acrylic 32” x 48”

Front Cover Watch My Frame as it Slants Westward acrylic 30” x 24”

Lucas John Magalsky These acrylic paintings reference memories of growing up in the country near the rural farming town of Juneau, WI. The forms associated with the three expressionistic works reflect the organic processes of growth and consequent decay, and the colors represent a variety of tensions and anxieties I’ve dealt with socially and personally throughout my childhood. For instance, Self Portrait is an illustration of the tension I have between my childhood and adult life. I worked with a visually arresting blaze orange (a color

representing my past deer hunting obsession) and an incongruous pinkish-red to push for a dominating hue, but as a result neither defied the other for identity and resolve seemed to find themselves in the blend. Maturing with most of my time spent in the woods and out-of-doors, the two other pieces draw on the histories of my interactions with animals, death, and isolation as a child. The works are all process-oriented and memory plays as the catalyst to my reactions with the paint.

Table of

Contents

fall 2006

Literature Tornar: Winds Teach Women . Ashley Elizabeth Dallman Frozen Wake . Heather Lemke Bay of Pigs . Mike Granger Wildlife Photography . Julie Louise Olah Dennison Ferry . Tyler J. Falish Stranger . Gretchen Peck Directions . David Kempa Once You Learn . Rachel Kowarski

. 4. . 5. . 6. . 7. . 8. . 9. . 11 . 17

Essays Of Bombs and Bison: Cultural Community, Ecological Change, and . . 27 Future Opportunities in Southern Wisconsin . Kathleen Kiefaber .

The Art of Small Talk . Lindsay Woodbridge . 34

Wisconsin Idea PEOPLE to People: Lifting As We Climb . Sam Leinweber . 41 From Memory to Hope: a Collaborative Film and Historical Memory Project . . 43 with Santa Anita la Uni贸n, Guatemalan Coffee Cooperative . Beth Geglia .

Xiao Yu Wang Editor-in-Chief Rae Ganci Art Editor Maggie Hilliard Essay Editor Daniel Mutz Poetry Editor Steve Siglinsky Prose Editor Erin Carlman Wisconsin Idea Editor Annika Sargent Layout Editor Naftali Beder Head Copyeditor Kat Pertzborn Publicity Director Layout Assistants MaryJo Fitzgerald, Elizabeth Barth Publicity Assistants Sarah Ackerman, Aurelia Moser Art Reviewers Allyson Hanz, Kate Campbell, Clare Zimmerman, Mary Chen, Jake Naughton Literature Readers Mary Chen, Tim Pian, Craig Foster, Jackie Luskey, Eve Penzer, Marysa LaRowe, Amelia Foster, Jack Garigliano, Sandy Knisely, Tala Oszkay, Caroline Hammargren, Owen Pickford, Catherine Simons, Aaron Greenberg, Adam Slavens, Essay Readers Emily Young, Sarah Horvath, Suzanne Wallace, Owen Pickford Copyeditors Tom Teslik, Kelly Jahnz, Kia Vang, Abby Riese Submissions Editor Anna Zak Webmaster Annika Sargent

WUD-Publications Committee Director Michael Hammerling Advisor Vickie Eiden Emily Auerbach, Rick Brooks, Board of Advisors

Robert Booth Fowler, Ken Frazier, Al Friedman, Jim Jacobson, Jenny Klaila, Quitman Phillips, Mary Rouse, Virginia Sapiro, Kathi Sell, Jeremi Suri, Ron Wallace, Susanne Wofford

SPONSORS

A Very Special Thank You to the

Wisconsin Alumni Association and the Friends of the Library for Sponsoring Prizes for Art, Literature, and Essays.

Dear Readers,

Illumination’s third year of publication has been characterized by a number of firsts—it’s been our first year with the Wisconsin Union, our first stab at publishing semiannually, and our first collaboration with the Wisconsin Book Festival. I have never been more honored or more challenged. It has been my great pleasure to guide Illumination’s departure from infancy, to absorb and expose the sheer magnitude of talent in a campus that never sleeps, to stand once more at new crossroads and, along with an incredible staff, continue to tiptoe down unexplored paths.

Yet in the end it is what has not changed that is most important— new faces on staff harbor the same dedication that makes this journal possible, new material once more sets the same standard of excellence. The advent, too, of exciting new relationships has not displaced the old ones.

I am touched every day by the generosity and enthusiasm of all the people who have contributed to this publication in every way imaginable. In particular, I would like to thank Lee Konrad and Memorial Library, and Eliot Finkelstein, Dave Luke, and the staff at College Library, without whom I would be lost. I would also like to express my heartfelt appreciation for the irreplaceable Annika Sargent and her outstanding layout assistants.

Illumination is a celebration of what is and what can be. It encourages beauty in all its forms; it embraces sheer passion and the freedom it brings. That said, it is you, our readers, who truly complete this journal. I hope that even one of the pieces in the pages to follow moves you as each has moved us.

Yours,

Xiao Yu Wang

The mission of Illumination is to provide the undergraduate student body of the University of Wisconsin-Madison a chance to publish work in the fields of the humanities and to display some of the school’s best talent. As an approachable portal for creative writing, art, and essays, the diverse content in the journal will be a valuable addition to the intellectual community of the University and all the people it affects.

Illumination would like to thank the following people: Lisa Bintrim, Adam Blackbourn, Paula Bonner, Jane Harris Cramer, Niki Denison, Susan Dibbell, Lynn Endicott, Pat Farrel, Eliot Finkelstein, Ken Frazier, Al Friedman, Tom Garver, Ed van Gemert, Peter Gorman, Andrew Gough, Wayne Hayes, Dan Joe, Don Johnson, Natasha Kassulke, Jenny Klaila, Chris Kleinhenz, Lee Konrad, Carrie Kruse, Ron Kuka, Eric Larson, Jean Looze, Dave Luke, Amy Manecke, Yijun Miao, Tom Murray, Casey Nagy, David Null, Pamela O’Donnell, Lis Owens, Eva Payne, Bill Reeder, Brad Sargent, Robin Schmoldt, Atom Smith, Jin Wang, Carey Watters, John Wiley

For submissions or information visit our website at http://illumination.library.wisc.edu

mission

UW-MADISON LIBRARIES OFFICE OF THE PROVOST OFFICE OF THE CHANCELLOR UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS WISCONSIN ALUMNI ASSOCIATION FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY THE WISCONSIN UNION

To enlighten intellectually; to make illustrious or resplendent.

letter from the editor

staff

il . lu . mi . na . tion

Artists Index Libbie Allen 35 Tracey Cirves 18 Nadia El-Assal 9 Kaleen Enke 16 . 22 Celeste Heule 40 Marilynn Johnson 8 . 42 Erin Kaczkowski 33 . 39 Allison Kirby 28 . 29 . 42 Jonathan Kramka 9 . 31 . 49 Erin Louise McNeill 20 Sarah Muehlbauer 45 Jeffrey Prokash 12 . 13 . 14 . 15 . 24 Corinna Ranweiler 19 Kendra Renzoni 4.6 Emily Scheider 20 . 36 . 38 Joanna Schumacher 26 . 30 Brian Spranger 5 Angela Divine Thomas 7 Matthew Wisniewski 10 . 21 Kelsey Zigmund 37

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literature

“A ‘rain of fish’ is a term used to describe the rare occasion when fish fall from the sky after being picked up by an approaching tornado and subsequently dropped onto land.”

tornar: winds teach

women

that

Ashley Elizabeth Dallman

was the day guppies fell out of me bleeding and flew limp as pale pastels onto the ground: these

Kendra Renzoni, Entropy, pastel, mixed media, 9” x 12”

sorts of things happen every day, or so the nurses say to her, as she straddles a lamp and the woman examining her with it—this’ll be over, soon?—sounds like vacuums inhaling marbles and olive green ninja turtle arms that toddlers chew on and chew off: suck in and blow out, as spiral-staircased winds suck up fish from freshwaters and spit them back out, breathless, onto brittle land. some things are just that strong—a fish is a fish is a fish to a wind that plucks shingles from homes with the same arm that steals gills from babies that never got to grow up into teachers—that is, Mothers. my hope that this’ll all blow over in the morning is the length of four carcasses and let me remind you, that’s not very long, not when we’re talking about such little, little things that couldn’t grow because the weather just wouldn’t permit them to do anything but spin. watch how i turn, fall, turn, fall, vuelta and carry on

4

heather lemke

£

frozen wake

frozen wake

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Heather Lemke

“. . .there were men coming after them, and they holding a thing in half of a red sail, and water dripping out of it—it was a dry day, Nora—and leaving a track to the door.”

-J.M Synge, Riders to the Sea When the lake wears its shroud we suffer the burial. Subdued, subordinated—suspended like marionettes on fishing line from the bony fingers of the mind.

We are porcelain dolls drowning beneath the ice, forgotten. Water pressure wrings our bodies, squeezes out last breaths. Bubbles escape glass lips, rise like flags of surrender, hit the ice and shatter. On the surface, no visible sign of struggle, only oblivious figure skaters etching epitaphs into the ice, dull reverberations like shovels scraping the soggy coffin soaking into our ears.

Brian Spranger, Broad Daylight, 35mm photograph 5

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literature

bayof

pigs Mike Granger

Kendra Renzoni, Yon Muskies, paint mixed media, 3’ x 4’

remember when sun trumpeted oven-love baking the waxy buns of techno-kiwi tree buds showering salmon husks across sing-song lawn

down below the window where rocking-horse bathing beauties melted tropic butters into their thick lemondrop shell sliding down a bikini strap far enough to spit out a knotty sparkplug nipple like the bohemian christmas-tree lights like raindrops on cherry trees

all around & their hyacinthine petaled hair dripping down like suitors washing walls & a sickness so sweet you loved the all-american original ape when he breached

the ozone & you up above in your moldy eggplant loft not able to smile with the rubber sucking sounds of imported oils any longer & applying your fatty camouflage face paint left over from early husky years went

by the window & with triceps shaking like moray eels in greased frying pans you watched that alarm clock graft golden threads of spittle in sun’s noontime siesta & bust a busty wedge in bathing beauty number 3’s perfect personal forehead & a red silk & ivory chinese fan explodes into midday blue

up like sun rises the frankenstein child with blood pouring down her face like hotflash mornings & flashlights under fleshy palms & sputtering blood around a lollipop-like tongue she yells a sharp Dick!

into certain silence & you yelled back We made it to the Moon marilyn! shaking your purpled varicose fist like old fashioned leaky rainbow sprinklers & retreating refractory back into your padded helmet

dark & cool & when blue uniforms & polished barrels rolled into your lonely room they found you hanging out the square window

facing in your cock rocketing out & urinating on the sodacan smelling furnace belching bitterroot ginger steam through bent green light

& behind bottles of lotion mushroom on the glass to your left & right we remember you second man to make it to the Moon

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Julie Louise Olah

Girl of the city girl of the sidewalk stiletto click, hot little twitch.

Lay by this large potted plant thick, waxy leaves from the jungle.

Girl! Be from the jungle.

Hike up your skirt show the back of that hot little knee— Oh, God that leg, crook of white smooth where the light slaps and I zoom the lens, filter nothing focus, focus. Set exposure of that perfect pucker milken skin. Optic bliss, sweet intensity of light I inhale onto film— Strip, pain of plastic contrast darkening that succulent joint.

I’ll burn you out protect you in the safe glow of amber-red then rinse you, bathe you chemical clean hang you on a string on the glossy page a city jungle twitching, roaring slice of white light skinned.

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photography

wildlife photography

wildlife

julie louise olah

£

Angela Divine Thomas, Heels, silver gelatin print

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dennison

literature

ferry

Tyler J. Falish

There’s a place I’d rather be, where dust-blown roads are lined with whiskey stills and smoldering chapels and the scent of booze and the Holy Ghost fills my head with peace and sorrow It’s simpler there with me on the left and you on the right and nothing but bare skin between us Let’s leave this broken social code in pieces at our feet empty our pockets of days past something for the birds to eat Paddle out on the dead green river past drunken fishermen casting off abandoned docks past once secret caves silhouettes in limestone walls Keep our eyes on each other and take care not to look up because we know these skies are starless and we fear the dawn is near Let your eyes close and your breath soften and your chest rise and fall as I exhale a Hail Mary I’ll wake you, my love at Dennison Ferry

Marilynn Johnson, Cherry Blossom, acrylic, mixed media, 20” x 30”

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stranger

stranger

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gretchen peck

£

Gretchen Peck

Stranger,

I’ll give you half of it: I’ll feed you the sunrise in rounded teaspoons— Pale yellow and warming to the idea.

Potential for brilliance.

Low-fat milk in cereal bowls, Eyes squinting up at trees with bark like crevassed skin,

their palms on the ceiling.

Stranger,

You’ll have to stay indoors When pale yellow becomes the height of afternoon.

Gritty spaces of heat like caramel Melting on the windowsills.

Lungs expand to receive whatever life may enter there.

You’ll be grateful someday

you weren’t a part of it.

Jonathan Kramka, Nadia El-Assal, Untitled, wood, mirrors, 4’ x 5’ x 10”

Stranger,

Half isn’t so little.

We’ll roll the chilly night air Into fine paper conversations, company, caresses— Smoking the heady experience even as it escapes out the window.

I glance that way—the trees still like arms, alive in the dark; This time in black sleeves, but always

reaching for something higher.

Stranger,

I’ll give you half of it.

You can take your shoes off at the door As long as you remember where you left them.

And tomorrow you can softly watch the sunrise, Taking swallows of coffee as it meets your once-loved lips, Self-administered in rounded teaspoons— the bitter taste you love so well.

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literature Matthew Wisniewski, She’s Scared of Heights, digital photograph

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directions David Kempa

Y

ou, Cynthia Marie Torkelson, are born at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. You are raised in the town of Amherst by Jeffrey and Rebecca Torkelson. Dad is a business lawyer in New York City, so he is rarely home. And Mom has a very busy social life, so she dresses up and goes out whenever Dad has to work late. Mom usually gets a babysitter and asks you to help her take care of your little brother Jeffrey Jr. and your youngest sister Maya. Help the babysitter.

Sometimes Dad hits JJ when he’s been acting up. JJ acts up a lot. When Dad comes home and smells like whiskey, he hits JJ even harder. Take Maya to your room and play quietly when Dad comes home smelling like whiskey.

As you grow up, take care of your little brother and sister as if you are older than you really are. Keep JJ in line when needed. Protect Maya from JJ when needed. Don’t let JJ torture the frogs and salamanders he catches outside. Make him see that torture hurts.

Go to school, but be timid. The girls in school are very nice, possibly because you have nice clothes and lots of pretty dolls. The boys are loud and mean to you.

Enjoy when Dad is home and watches TV with you. When Mom takes you to the mall and buys you clothes and toys. Value this.

The older you get, the more JJ and his friends bother you in school and at home. Become more timid.

Enjoy cooking. Abhor sports. Notice boys.

Realize that you aren’t, and probably never will be, pretty.

Find Jesus in a pamphlet when you are 15. Understand that—when Dad can’t watch TV with you, and Mom can’t take you shopping, and Maya is off doing whatever it is she does when she disappears, and the other kids in class don’t notice you—understand that Jesus is with you and loves you more than anyone else in the world possibly can.

Read the Bible in your spare time. Realize that you have lots of spare time.

ß “The frat brothers who don’t take part in Bolivian Marching Powder wonder why you’re constantly throwing your head back and snorting. Tell them you have a minor case of Tourette’s.”

Meet Robert on a Sunday when you are 16. Attend church with Robert. Kiss 11

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literature Jeff Prokash Wander

oil on panel 3.5” x 5.5”

Robert. Remember that he is your best friend, aside from Jesus. Allow Robert to do more things to you. Acknowledge that you have committed a Sin of the Flesh. Pray for forgiveness. Vow abstinence until marriage. * You, Jeffrey Torkelson, are born in Amherst, Massachusetts to a lawyer and a trophy wife.

The Lawyer slaps you around when he’s home, but he’s usually at work in New York. The Trophy sluts herself up and goes out when the Lawyer is at work.

Spend a lot of time stuck with babysitters who invite their boyfriends over to finger them because they can’t invite their boyfriends over to their own houses because their dads will slap them around if they find out they have boyfriends.

You have an older sister who slaps you around. Feel as if you should be able to slap her around. She, however, is much bigger than you are. You also have a younger sister. You are bigger than she is. Slap her around. Try not to bruise her face. Slap the dog around as well.

Learn that you can get what you want from your parents if you scream loudly enough. This gets you money, a slingshot, video games, and a bike.

This is a valuable discovery.

Excel in basketball and football. Pinch girls.

Become popular in school.

Begin drinking at 14. * You are born as Maya Torkelson to parents named Jeffrey and Rebecca Torkelson. You rarely see your parents, but you understand that they have things to do. You are taken care of by babysitters and your oldest sibling, Cynthia.

12

She protects you from your brother JJ. He tries to hit you when he sees you. Avoid JJ. Spend as much time as you can outside.

When you cannot go outside, spend as much time as you can alone in your room, safe from JJ. Do not talk to your classmates in school.

They do not talk to you, except when they are laughing at you. Enjoy recess, except on rainy days, when you must stay inside with the other children.

Talk only to the teachers.

Jeffrey and Rebecca ask that you not call them Jeffrey and Rebecca. But those are their given names. There are many, many ‘moms’ and ‘dads’ everywhere.

Cynthia approaches you about her new, exciting book when you are 8. She says that Jesus is with you and loves you, even when you are hiding out in the woods. Begin to fear Jesus.

You cannot see him. Begin to avoid Cynthia.

Continue to avoid JJ. Favor the woods to being home. Climb trees. Feel the varying textures of the bark; see the many colors and how they change through seasons. Watch the leaves and twigs on the ground meld into one large, brown-gray carpet.

Listen and feel the wind as it wraps around you. Play in the stream. Learn the different temperatures and water levels of the stream for the different times of year. Capture frogs and set them free. * Get your first lay at 16 during basketball season by some cheerleader that calls herself your girlfriend. Feel embarrassed by your performance and tell the guys at school that she’s a slut. And that her nipples are fucking huge.

Begin smoking weed at 17. You’re caught a month later getting high in the boys’ locker room. The Lawyer, however, is rich and gets you out of trouble.

You have an inflated allowance. Start up on cocaine at 18. Fucking love it.

The Lawyer fills out a few college applications for you, despite your questionable grades and standardized test scores. The Lawyer is rich, however, and you are accepted to Duke University. * Read the Bible. Live at home, unnoticed.

Attend church with Robert. Volunteer, unnoticed. Wonder where Maya is always running off to. Keep your distance from JJ. Accept when Mrs. Hutchins from church offers you a job in her craft shop. Feel the need

£

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david kempa

Tourette’s.

The only thing as important to you as blow is Duke basketball.

Learn one day that other, smarter students will do assignments, write papers, and take exams for you for the right price. This is a valuable discovery.

Sell Ecstasy. Not because you need money, but because dealing in public is a rush, to say the least.

Graduate with amazing grades. Get accepted into business school.

Repeat cycle in business school. This time with more blow.

The Trophy calls to tell you that the sister who used to slap you around has just had a baby.

Scowl vaguely at this.

directions

to help the sick, as well. Get another part-time job at the gift shop in the Massachusetts General Hospital. Dad allows you to use one of his cars to drive to work. Save the money from these jobs as start-up for when Robert graduates from MassBay Community College.

Robert graduates and gets a small office job in New Hampshire.

Marry Robert in a very quiet, subtle, and Christian wedding. Thank Mom and Dad for coming on this most blessed of occasions. Smile at Maya. Try not to think too much that JJ can’t make it. He is attending Duke now, after all.

Make a mental note to pray to Jesus to help Maya and JJ find the way to the Lord.

Become Mrs. Robert Jonathan Morris.

On your Honeymoon, consummate your marriage with the purpose of starting a new life.

Quit your jobs at the craft shop and hospital gift shop.

Move to Franklin, New Hampshire.

Find a church. Make a home. Cook. Shop.

Meet neighbors. Do laundry. Consummate with Robert. Watch Dr. Phil. Hang up clothing.

Scrub everything. * You are 13 when JJ leaves for college and Cynthia marries her fiancé Robert. The wedding ceremony is awkward and the church is stuffy. Notice the smell of deodorant and sweat. Fear the priest’s ominous, rumbling voice reverberating off the old, sanded oak pews.

Be happy that Cynthia is happy. Avoid JJ. Discover Enya.

Feel relieved to have the house to yourself.

Spend even more time outdoors.

In school you are still ignored. Do not assert yourself.

Discover William Wordsworth’s poetry.

Embrace pastoralism. Embrace cyclical life.

Witness seasons changing.

Cynthia is impregnated. Smile at the cycle of life being played out.

Find the book Buddhism, Plain and Simple

by Steve Hagen. Gain a light grasp on the subject. * Join a fraternity freshman year because no one else on campus throws parties.

Sleep with lots of girls. Hope they leave before you wake up. Wake up disappointed.

Fall madly in love with cocaine. Live for ‘the drip.’ The frat brothers who don’t take part in Bolivian Marching Powder wonder why you’re constantly throwing your head back and snorting. Tell them you have a minor case of

* You are 17 when the child named Christina Marie Morris is produced from your sister.

Cynthia corners you indoors to tell you more about Jesus. Explain to her your new interest in Buddhism.

“Buddhists go to Hell,” she says.

Tell her that Jesus wasn’t white.

Regret this later.

Drop out of high school. Move to Hartford, Connecticut and live in a co-op. Blow glass for income. Find others as enthusiastic as you about the environment and the cyclical nature of life. * Attend church. Eat ice cream. Watch Oprah.

Pray.

Robert begins to grow a beard. Jesus had a beard. Enjoy this.

Vote Republican.

At 24, be blessed by the Lord with a healthy girl. Christina Marie Morris, 7 lbs. 7 oz. Mom

Jeff Prokash Three Prisoners

oil on panel 6” x 6”

13

• is at the hospital. She has brought Maya. Dad has a large case to work on in New York. JJ is busy in Miami.

Take time in the hospital to read some

literature

scripture to Maya. Listen as she explains that she is starting to read up on more ‘natural’ religions, Buddhism and other nonsense. Tell her that the only path to Heaven is through Jesus. Beg her.

You do not want her to burn in Hell.

Talk to Dad when he isn’t busy. Talk to Mom every few days. Shop with Mom on occasion.

Send Maya letters. She doesn’t own a phone. Email JJ. He doesn’t answer your calls. Learn, in a curt reply e-mail, that JJ would prefer to go

by Jeff.

E-mail JJ—er, Jeff—weekly about the Lord Jesus Christ and his teachings. * After business school, The Lawyer finds you a six-figure job in New York.

Turn it down.

The Lawyer finds you a six-figure job in Los Angeles.

Turn it down.

The Lawyer finds you a six-figure job in Miami.

Fuck yeah.

Spend lots of time behind a massive, wooden desk in a large office with a view of the beaches. Hire a secretary with an amazing ass.

Fuck her. Go to meetings sometimes, vaguely comprehending what your job is about. Learn that you can drop your own work onto the men and women who work in cubicles.

This is a valuable discovery.

Learn that racquetball is out. Jai-alai is in.

Buy the necessary equipment. Become amazing at jai-alai. The best in the office building.

Sleep with lots of hot, fake, tan women.

Sleep with lots of frail, naturally hot models.

Sleep with hookers, on occasion. Use condoms with the hookers.

One model rarely tries to touch or speak to you after sex. Appreciate this. She looks good on you in public. Enjoy this. Find that you are

Jeff Prokash The Wall

oil on panel 5.5” x 3”

14

never forced to kick her out of your house for saying things like “Do you do/say this to all the women?” or “I’m not that kind of woman.”

She realizes that all women are ‘that kind’ of woman. Value this.

Keep fucking other women. * Go vegan. Go camping. Experience free love. Adopt a stray dog.

You are 28 when Jeffrey calls to say that Rebecca has ovarian cancer. Visit. Tell Rebecca that you love her (as you love Jeffrey as you love turtles as you love birch trees). Acknowledge that this is all a part of cyclical life.

Hike. Take mushrooms. Be all things.

Ignore the letters from Cynthia. Accept her (as you accept hamsters as you accept cacti). * Change Christina’s diapers. Give her pretty dolls. Dress her up nicely. Teach her to use the potty. Warn her against Temptation and Sin. Send her to school.

Christina won’t play with her dolls.

Hear of Mom’s ovarian cancer at 35. Cry. Pray for her health. Explain death to Christina.

You’ve done this before.

Look for answers in scripture.

Send everyone daily e-mails proclaiming Jesus’ love and the path to Heaven. Write Maya with the same message. Maya has given in to Sin. She sends you heathen ‘Mother Earth’ letters full of phrases like ‘matter is energy is matter.’ Receive JJ’s e-mail asking, in so many words, that you stop sending e-mails of faith to his work address. Make a Yahoo address for JJ and send him his new password.

Christina wants to be called Chris now. Tell her this name does not include Jesus’ surname in full. She insists.

Dad calls. Gather Robert and Christina into the minivan. Pray for Mom as Robert speeds toward Massachusetts.

Arrive just after Mom dies. You are 37.

Cry. Make Dad and Maya join your family in a prayer circle.

Dad is quiet and seems empty. Pray that Jesus will fill the void. * You are 30 when Rebecca ‘dies.’

Watch Jeffrey cry over Rebecca’s body in the hospital.

Using his wedding ring, explain cycles to Jeffrey. * Tell the sister who used to slap you around to stop sending you that fucking bible-humping tripe. Receive an e-mail from her with the

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Jeff Prokash Untitled

oil on panel 18” x 10”

directions

subject title ‘JC for JJ.’ It reads: ‘Address: JJTorkels@yahoo.com PW: godluvsjj’.

Read this multiple times, perplexed.

Delete the e-mail.

The Lawyer calls to say that the Trophy has died of ovarian cancer. Vaguely recall being told about this cancer.

Go to the wake.

Stand in the corner. Take a hard pull from your flask. The Trophy is bald from the chemo.

She looks like an Academy Award, bronze and shiny.

The sister who used to slap you around is standing by the Trophy’s coffin. She is now married to some Christian fag with a beard.

Scowl at their creepy, androgynous child. Steer clear.

The sister you used to slap around is speaking with the Lawyer. She now has dreadlocks and a sunburnt nose. She’s probably got something contagious and airborne. Steer clear.

Check that, she probably has weed. Approach the Hippie.

Sit in your rented Audi TT with the windows open and the Hippie next to you. Learn that she made the glass pipe from which you’re smoking.

Appreciate the fine craftsmanship. Ask what else she has been up to.

She says something about the Buddha. Feel your eyes lose focus. Realize that you don’t really care what else she has ‘been up to.’ Realize that you are high.

“Don’t you see,” says the Hippie, “We are the same.” She grabs your leg.

Fear the Hippie that you used to slap around.

Stumble out of the Audi TT and back into the wake. * Take two mushroom caps before re-entering the building.

Realize that you have not yet looked at Rebecca’s body today. Think about consoling Jeffrey.

Sit on a sofa in the entrance-way.

Wonder why JJ (who has been reborn as Jeff) would run from you the way he did. He seems nicer. He is very tan now. Maybe being outdoors has brought him closer to understanding things.

Feel gravity shift as Cynthia Marie pulls you up. Wonder how long you have been sitting on the sofa. Smile at your sister. Robert and Christina stand silently behind her, faces blank and pallid.

Listen to Cynthia preach (as you listen to canyon echoes as you listen to tubas). Touch her

david kempa

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face and watch tears well up in her eyes. She hugs you.

Notice how the brilliant colors of the flowers contrast with the black that everyone is wearing. They begin to swirl and amalgamate.

Ponder this. * Maya’s deep green eyes stare straight ahead.

Realize that she is high on something. Send Robert and Christina to occupy Dad. Drop Maya back onto the love-seat you found her on and tell her not to move. She smiles vacantly at you, then at a box of tissue paper, then at her hand.

Find JJ leaning over Mom’s coffin. His eyes are bloodshot and puffy. Realize that you’ve never seen him cry before. Make him follow you.

Tell JJ that Maya has been using. That you think she is high on smack.

JJ laughs. “Smack?” he says.

Stand next to JJ in front of the loveseat.

Maya is sitting with the box of tissues on her lap. Unused tissue paper lies on the ground where she has let it fall.

Put your hand on JJ’s shoulder as you tell Maya that the two of you are there to help her.

Speak loudly and slowly, because she is using drugs. Feel JJ shrug your hand away.

Maya touches your kneecap. “Sister,” she whispers, smiling.

She reaches for JJ’s kneecap. He backs away.

Read fear and grief on his face.

Hug JJ. Tell him it will be okay. Tell him that the two of you can save Maya with Jesus’ love.

Feel the flask in JJ’s breast pocket.

Take the flask from JJ’s breast pocket.

Watch JJ back away.

Feel Maya pat your leg.

Feel the tears begin to well up.

Wide-eyed, JJ hands you a $50 bill and 15

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literature

rushes out the front door.

Maya yawns, curling up to sleep on the loveseat.

Cry. * A week after the funeral, leave the co-op to live in a self-sufficient community in Wyoming, where you will truly experience nature.

You are reborn as ‘Whisper Shadow’ and given the jobs of ‘Birther’ and ‘Cook.’

You no longer have an age, for cycles are infinite.

Send the one named Cynthia Marie Torkelson a letter telling her all that you have experienced and learned. Tell her that you infinitely embrace her (as you infinitely embrace a potato as you infinitely embrace a boar). Do not contact Jeffrey or Jeff.

Cook. Watch seasons change. Become the

Kaleen Enke This is Not a TV

fabric 18” x 20”

ground. Listen to the stars. Bear a child. Cook.

Speak with the wind. Experience clouds. Bear a child. * Speak to Dad often. Do not speak with JJ. Do not speak with Maya. Pray for them all.

Christina enters high school when you are 39. She wears lots of black. She smells like marijuana cigarettes when she comes home from school. Pray for Christina.

Christina tells you she is a lesbian. You are 41. Understand that homosexuality is a disease.

Send her to a special ‘gay hospital’ in Georgia.

Pray for Christina.

Christina returns home. She is cured.

Rejoice. She no longer wears black. Thank Jesus. She cuts her hair short. She lets you call her Christina. She removes her earrings.

Receive a letter from Maya a few months 16

before Christina leaves for college. She has joined a heathen commune out in Wyoming.

She signs the letter, ‘Whisper Shadow.’ Decide, with Robert, that it is your duty to save Maya and the others. Get in the car. Bring Christina. * Co-workers question your sexuality because you’re 35 and single. Marry the indifferent model.

The sister who used to slap you around dies with her bearded-fag husband and their daughter in a car accident on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Go to the funeral. It beats being around your wife. The Lawyer won’t stop crying. The Hippie is nowhere to be found. The dead sister wasn’t treated well in reconstructive surgery. She looks bloated. Maybe she just got fat. Her daughter has short hair and only one earring. The God-fag still has his beard. Behind sunken eyes, the Lawyer humiliatingly asks if you will keep in touch. Give him your card.

Switch from jai-alai to golf. That’s what men your age do.

While driving home at 8 a.m. after a night out and 10-hour coke binge, hit a dog on a leash held by an 11 year-old girl. Speed off, looking through your rearview mirror. The girl is still staring at her right hand.

Lay off the blow. Not because of the dog incident. Or because you had to switch dealers twice due to nosebleeds. Or because the cartilage in your nose is wearing dangerously thin. Switch to prescription uppers. That’s what men your age do.

The Lawyer’s lawyer calls to inform you that The Lawyer has died. The Hippie is nowhere to be found. Appreciate this. No need for a funeral.

Receive The Lawyer’s inheritance.

Move to a gated community in Boca Raton with a 36-hole golf course against the will of your now-saggy model. She threatens divorce.

Remind her of the pre-nup.

Golf.

Shoot a 71 the day your indifferent model dies. Seven below your handicap. Appreciate this.

One shitty day your tee shot on the twelfth hole hooks left. Towards the forest.

You can’t find your ball among the dead branches and saplings.

Swing your 8-iron at the weeds, frustrated.

It begins to rain.

Take the golf cart back to your condo. Not because you’re out of balls. Or because the rain stiffens your joints. Give up. That’s what men your age do. =

once you learn Rachel Kowarski

A

s I lie here staring at the ceiling, one thought keeps running through my mind: life is kind of like solitaire. A lot of times the right move is obvious. Move the jack that has four cards behind it instead of the one that just came up in the deck. Whenever you see an ace, up to the top it goes. Obvious.

Sometimes though, you have two red jacks staring at you, both with three cards behind them, and only one black queen. What do you do? You guess. Because the “undo” button can only take you back one step; it can’t fix an actual mistake, only a slip of the wrist. And if you don’t move, you’ll just sit there staring at the cards, hoping someone will come along and pick for you. But no one ever does. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that no one chooses right all the time.

If my mother were here, I’m sure she’d tell me that sending a car through a red light straight into my bicycle was just God’s way of getting my attention.

Of course, if I were having a seizure in the middle of a crowded lecture hall my mother would probably say it was God’s way of getting my attention. She’s been saying more and more things like that ever since I told her I wouldn’t be going to services with them on Christmas. Then again, it’s possible she would just fuss with the pillows and occasionally sob over her “precious little baby.”

So what does this have to do with a card game? I wouldn’t even have been at that intersection if I hadn’t decided to get pizza instead of a sandwich at the last minute. As soon as I realized the car coming at me wasn’t going to stop, I tried to pedal out of the way but couldn’t. No undo. So it’s all a very carefully planned metaphor.

Or it could be the fact that I played solitaire on my computer for about two hours before deciding to go get food, and that I’m currently, thanks to modern medicine, high on a plethora of wonderfully happy drugs. Who knows? Maybe it’s a combination of the two that has led me to this new theory. I just need some followers and I can start a religion. The Solitaires: waiting for the four aces of the apocalypse.

Now that’s definitely the drugs talking.

“How you feeling, kid?”

Tearing my eyes from the ceiling, I look over at the man in the next bed. I’m

ß “I just need some followers and I can start a religion. The Solitares: waiting for the four aces of the apocalypse.”

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literature Tracey Cirves Girl with the Butterfly

oil on canvas 60” x 72”

lying flat on my back and have discovered that turning causes a shot of pain in my side. I wince but the pain subsides pretty quickly, so I don’t say anything to the nurse, who has just pulled back the curtain separating the man’s bed and mine.

This nurse, who looks as if she could use some better shoes, or possibly a new pair of feet, is taking his blood pressure.

“I’m all right. Thanks,” I reply, as the nurse puts her equipment away and limps from the room.

“You’ve been out of it for a while. Car accident, right?”

I nod. “I was on my bike.”

“Ouch. They got you on the good painkillers?”

Another nod, this time accompanied by the small smile of the slightly stoned.

“Well,” he continues, “at least you got a good story to tell. Me? Ulcers. Nothing interesting about that.”

I’m feeling tired again so I don’t say anything.

Besides, I’m not really sure how one is supposed to respond to the ulcer patient she’s sharing a recovery room with. Instead I close my eyes and lean back against the pillows. It occurs to me that I could probably make a fortune by inventing a 18

hospital cleaner that has no odor, or smells like a clean but lived-in room.

“So what happened?”

“Guy ran a red light,” I reply.

“They catch him?”

“Yeah. He was on his cell phone. Didn’t even notice he’d run the light until he hit me. Feels pretty bad I guess. He sent a card.” I open my eyes and glance over at the opened envelope and generic sympathy card that I’d found when I’d woken up a little while ago.

My roommate laughs at that. A deep, pitof-your-stomach laugh that shows his dimples.

Then he clutches his belly and groans a little.

I don’t know a lot about ulcers, but from what I’ve learned watching “ER,” and considering he’s had to have surgery for them, they must be pretty bad.

I use his temporary distraction as a chance to look him over. He has a face that’s not quite average but not abnormal either, with a small cleft in his chin and a big nose. I can tell that at one point he was probably quite handsome. His hair is white but he has a lot of it, more than my father has, though this man has about fifteen or twenty years on Dad. But what I notice most are his eyes. They aren’t blue, not exactly. They’re blue and green and a little silver.

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rachel kowarski

tests. He could remember entire school books and repeat them back to you. Never figured out that it was about the learning, not the test or the grade at the end.”

I pause. A part of me thinks that this guy is on better pain killers than I am. But another part can’t help but chew on his words. “Like solitaire,” I mumble.

“What?”

“Even if you play Vegas style, you don’t play because you actually get anything at the end.

You play because…”

“You’re by yourself and have nothing better to do?” he says, raising an eyebrow, clearly mocking me.

“Right,” I say, laughing slightly at my own foolishness.

“Well, I’m not so sure about that. Solitaire’s never really been my game. My nephew tried to show me how to play on a computer, but I thought that was pretty silly. What’s the point without real cards? Gin’s a better game anyhow.

At least you play with someone else.”

“Yes sir,” I say, deciding it’s better just to agree than to try to explain the thought.

“Anyway, I’m sure they’ll find you a room before your folks get here,” he finishes. “Don’t think they allow visitors in the recovery rooms anyway. But I wouldn’t know. You know I’ve been here eight times in nine months and I’ve never been admitted? They kept telling me to eat better and take my meds. And I kept telling them that my stomach’s just decided to speak up about years and years of abuse by coffee and French fries.”

I laugh and then wince again. Damn stitches.

Thirty-seven of them, from where the left pedal of my bike actually pierced my gut and then decided to move around a bit. The nurse who had been there when I’d first woken up earlier today told me it was going to be “one hell of a scar.” Then he’d checked my temperature and frowned. “ER” had also taught me that that was a bad sign. I had a feeling my medication intake

once you learn

When his pain is more under control he speaks again. “How long they gonna keep you here?”

I shrug, then wince, as I seem to have forgotten my dislocated shoulder and the fact that I can’t really shrug while lying on my back.

I think I should start remembering what hurts so this stops happening. “Few days,” I reply. “They want to watch the concussion and check for bleeding and infection, I think. They’re waiting for a room to open up so they can admit me.”

“Concussion? Not wearing a helmet?”

The tone of his voice tells me that he’s got a lecture waiting. “No, I was.”

“Well…all right then. I’m James by the way,” he tells me. “James Geltz.”

“Laura Hayes.”

“Where’re your parents?”

“On their way. For your sake I hope one of us is gone by then.”

“That bad, huh?”

“No,” I admit. “They’re not. I’m just not looking forward to the fussing.”

“I know what you mean.”

“I can hear my mom telling me, ‘This is your second chance, Laura. Don’t you see how lucky you are?’”

“Might have been luckier if the guy had hung up his phone.”

“Or if I hadn’t wanted pizza so bad.”

James tilts his head. “Huh? I’m sorry, I lost you there.”

“Long story. Decided to get pizza instead of something else, got hit by a car.”

“Now don’t you go blaming pizza.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re too young to cut something as wonderful as pizza out of your diet. Wait until you’re my age and you have to eat things like bran cereal. You’ll be glad you didn’t quit eating pizza at your age. Besides, who knows what might have happened if you’d gone for the ‘something else.’ Important choice you made was putting on a helmet, unlike most of the people I see riding around like they’re invincible.”

I hadn’t thought of it like that before.

Sometimes, no matter what you do, that red “X” comes up over the cards and you have to deal again. I shake my head in a feeble attempt to clear it. I have really got to stop thinking about life in relation to card games.

“If you think about it,” James continues, “you can’t ever know if what’s happened to you is the worst thing that could have happened.”

“You think it’s all fate?” I ask.

He scoffs. “Fate’s for those people in school who liked tests. Bobby Jenkins. He loved taking

Corinna Ranweiler Domestic Confusion

digital print 41” x 30”

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was about to go up, if it hadn’t already.

“So,” James continues, “last week I come in and tell my doctor that the pain has gotten worse. They say I should get surgery, I sign some papers, and here I am.”

“Did they fix everything?”

“Don’t know. Haven’t been in here to tell me yet. I expect your arrival threw everyone for a loop.”

I smile a little. “What about your family?” I ask. “Are they waiting for you out there?”

“Nah. My nephew lives in Missouri. I told him not to worry about coming up. No sense in it. I’ll call him when they give me a room.”

We’ve both been dozing for a while when a doctor comes into the room and pulls the curtain between our beds. At first I thought this was going to be a check of my stitches and concussion, but the doctor goes to James’ side of the room. Though he’s speaking softly, I can still make out some of his words.

Just as I’m scooting closer to the edge of the bed to hear more, another doctor and a nurse come in to check me over. The doctor pokes at my stitches and tells the nurse to put some anti-bacterial ointment on them. She shines a flashlight in my eyes, checks the road burn on my arms and legs, and tells me my parents will be here soon. When she finally leaves, she pulls the curtain back and I turn my head to see James staring out into space.

The nurse is following the doctor’s orders and putting ointment on my stitches so I have a moment to decide whether or not to say anything to James. I decide not to. Let him bring it up. It’s none of my business and I don’t even know the guy anyway. When the nurse leaves, I lean back

Erin Louise McNeill Games (2005)

digital print 30” x 32”

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Emily Scheider, Toxicity, photograph print, 6” x 6”

against the pillows. I’m about to drift off when James speaks.

“You hear any of that?”

Now, on the one hand, I could lie. On the other hand, I could pretend I didn’t know perfectly well what he is referring to. Or I could just nod and let him decide what to do with the information.

I nod.

James nods and plays with the edge of his hospital blanket. “Well,” he says, his eyes looking away for the first time in our conversation, “at least now I’ve got an interesting story.”

“There is that,” I reply. We fall into a silence.

I have no idea what to say to this man. Pity and kind words just seem empty. “Are they going to treat it?” I ask eventually.

He nods. “Radiation. Chemo. They think they’ve caught it in time. Gonna hurt like nothing else though. Buddy of mine’s brother had the same thing, said it hurt like the dickens.

I guess I get to see what the rest of this hospital looks like. Well, the oncology wing, at least.”

His voice gets quieter. “Not like I don’t know what stomach pain is like. Bah,” he says, waving a hand at my down-turned eyes and chewed lip, “I’ll be fine. Hell, I bet there’s even a ribbon I get to wear now, if they haven’t run out of colors.”

I’m about to respond when two orderlies with a gurney come into the room, followed by the same nurse who talked about my scar. “We’ve got a room for you,” he says. “Your parents are up there waiting.”

I blink twice and nod. The orderlies help me onto the gurney and wheel me out of the room.

“Take it easy, kid,” I hear James call.

If God was trying to get my attention by running a speeding car into my bike, I guess it didn’t work. Not the way my mother wanted,

once you learn

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rachel kowarski

£

Matthew Wisniewski Rest

digital photograph

anyhow. For the week I was in the hospital, all I heard was how this second chance at life was a blessing and that I should pray and light candles and think about the gift I’d been given. I finally told her that if God had wanted my attention he should have just sent a burning bush instead of an idiot in a BMW. She didn’t find that very funny. Though I think my father may have snickered.

A month later and I’m standing outside the hospital again. I walk through the doors and follow the signs for the oncology department.

At the desk I ask for James Geltz’s room number and then find myself standing outside room 314. Peeking in, I see James staring intently at something on his roll-away table.

I almost laugh out loud when I realize he’s playing solitaire. I make my presence known and stand in the doorway.

“Hey kid,” he says with a grin. “What in the blazes are you doing here?”

“I came to see how you were doing,” I tell him.

“Well isn’t that something? I’m doing fine.

Doctors say I’m responding real good. Now don’t stand out there all day. Come in. You’re looking a lot better than the last time I saw you. Face looks a little less like it was dunked in whitewash.”

I can’t say the same for James. So I don’t say

anything. He looks like he’s lost about twenty pounds. I don’t think he could have afforded to lose ten. His thick white hair is gone and I realize that the reason it had been wavy was the shape of his head and not the hair itself. But his eyes are still that odd color and for some reason I find this comforting. I sit down in a chair next to the bed.

“Gin?” I ask.

“Okay,” he says as he shuffles the deck and deals out the cards. We play in silence for a while.

James beats me three times in a row. During the fourth game I can see that it’s becoming hard for him to concentrate. When he beats me again I throw down my cards in disgust and declare that I’m quitting. James smiles and leans back against his pillows, closing his eyes.

I figure this is my cue to leave, but he speaks before I have a chance to get up.

“So,” he asks, “I take it they let you out of here?”

“Yeah. I only had to stay a week. No infection.

Though I don’t know how there could have been any with the amount of antibiotics they had me on. I swear I ate enough yogurt to sink a ship.”

“Yogurt? Why’d they have you eating yogurt?”

I shift my chair closer to the bed so I can hear him. “Something about putting the good bacteria back in,” I reply. “I wasn’t really listening 21

•

literature Kaleen Enke Voice of 7 Thunders

fabric, mixed media 36” x 30”

when they were explaining it all. Anyway, I got the sling off last week.”

“I heard that nurse telling you you’d have a good scar. He right?”

My mouth twitches into a smile as I raise my shirt slightly to show him the pretty impressive scar I have running across my stomach. It’s still red and slightly raised above the skin.

James’ eyes open and he makes a whistling noise, “Now that’s a beauty,” he says as I pull my shirt back down. “I had my appendix out when I was twenty but my scar’s nothing compared to that.” His face darkens almost imperceptibly.

“Now I have poison in my body nearly all the time, but it doesn’t leave a scar.”

“Yeah,” I reply, not knowing what else to say.

“You know what I miss the most?” he says.

“What?”

“Coffee. I used to sneak it every once in awhile before all this. Doctors told me it would only make the ulcers worse, but I did it anyway.”

He laughs and immediately starts coughing. I glance around the room and see a glass of water sitting on the table next to the bed. Holding the straw to his mouth, I wait until he’s taken a few sips before placing the glass back on the table.

He leans back with a half sigh, half gasp, his 22

chest still heaving slightly.

“I miss my hair,” he says, his voice now only a step above a whisper, his eyes closed. “I knew it would happen, but… my hair was the one thing that made me feel young.”

I bite my bottom lip. I want to respond but the words don’t seem to be able to form. Reaching out, I put my hand over his and squeeze gently. I smile a little when he squeezes back.

When the nurse walks in I quickly pull my hand back and get up from my chair. She tells me that James needs to rest. I nod and grab my coat, walking to the door.

“Thanks for coming, kid,” I hear James murmur in his half-asleep state.

“Take it easy, James,” I reply.

I walk up the flights of stairs and smile at the four nurses and two doctors I pass. It will be the third time I’ve visited James since he started his treatment. I have a new deck of cards in my back pocket, because the last time we played I could barely shuffle his ancient deck. I start to head down the South Wing hallway but the woman at the nurses’ station calls out.

“Oh, Miss?”

I hate it when people call me “Miss.” I walk up to the desk and wait as the woman rustles around in a drawer.

Furrowing my brow, I reach into the envelope and pull out a light blue ribbon twisted into a shape familiar from celebrity suits during awards ceremonies. I chuckle and grab my backpack from the floor next to my bed, pinning the ribbon onto the front. I read the note again before placing it onto my dresser next to the sympathy card I got from the man who hit me with his car. I look up and my eyes skim over the article that’s taped to my mirror, a small side note in the paper saying that Alan Cohen’s license had been revoked for a year and he was to pay a fine of $10,000 dollars for running a red light and hitting a female college student.

I don’t know why I kept it. Vindication, I guess. After glancing at James’ letter once more I rip the article off the mirror, crush it in my hand and toss it into the garbage. I miss the garbage by a couple inches but I decide to pick it up later. I reach for the iPod on my dresser and stick the white headphones into my ears. It takes a few minutes, but I finally settle on a song and spin the volume up to a point that would infuriate my mother. Grabbing my bright red helmet from the top shelf of my dresser, I make my way downstairs and towards the new bike my parents bought for me after they saw the damage to my old one.

It was a nice thought. It’s a nice bike. I haven’t ridden it yet.

I run my hand over the seat and test the brakes before climbing on and starting off. Once out of the parking lot, I turn onto the empty side street. Nodding my head to “Baba O’Reily,” I crank up the gears. I’m not sure where I’m going. The deck of cards in my pocket is digging into my back. =

•

LauraHey kid. Sorry for splitting without letting you know.

My nephew got rather insistent. Don’t worry about me, and quit worrying so much in general, come to think of it. You’re not as pleasant when you worry.

I hope everything works out for you. Thanks seem kind of trivial. Drop me a letter sometime – I won’t have a lot to do without my gin partner. My nephew’s address is at the bottom. (A letter’s like e-mail only you write on paper, in case you didn’t know.)

-James P.S. Periwinkle. What kind of color is periwinkle?

once you learn

“You’re here to see Mr. Geltz, right?” she asks, still searching through the various office supplies and personal items in the drawer.

“Yeah. Is he in treatment right now or something?”

“No. He’s gone.”

This news shouldn’t make my chest tighten the way it does. “When?”

“A couple of days ago.” The woman still hasn’t looked up at me and it’s starting to get irritating.

“I thought they said the treatment was working.” It’s not a question, but it’s not a statement either.

At this she finally looks up. As her eyes go over my face, she starts. “No, no,” she says, “he’s not dead. He was strong enough to move and he’s been moved to another hospital in Missouri.”

“His nephew’s there,” I say, realization calming me. James had talked about his nephew the last time I visited. His brother had died a few years back and his nephew was the closest relative he had.

“Right,” continued the nurse. “Anyway, he left this in case you came back again. We were going to send it to you when we realized you’d been in the hospital before, so since you’re here….” She hands me a small envelope with “Laura” written across the front. “I guess that saves me a stamp.”

I tilt my head and a small smile appears as I realize that James never used my first name.

He always called me “Kid.” It’s weird to see my name scrawled out in small loopy letters and know that he wrote it.

I glance at the nurse who’s gone back to her computer and is obviously done with me.

Slipping the envelope into my back pocket, I make my way out of the hospital and back to the bus stop to go home. While waiting for the bus I turn the deck of cards around in my hand, thinking about the last time I sat with James. He had been having a bad day so I’d played solitaire while he half slept, half watched. Every once in a while I’d think he had drifted off, but then he’d mumble, “Black eight on red nine.” I’d looked up surprised before realizing that he was right.

Once in my room I tear the top of the envelope and pull out a note. It’s written in blue ink on what, upon closer inspection, appears to be one of the paper placemats that patients are given with their food trays.

rachel kowarski

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Jeffrey Prokash Last Judgment oil on canvas 62” x 50”

Drawing inspiration from current social and political situations, I have created a world where young adolescent boys and men are caught up in a struggle against nature.

The male figures in my paintings are the antagonists or aggressors in a developing conflict against themselves and animals that seem to bear little significance.

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essays Joanna Schumacher, Portrait, oil on linen, 4’ x 8’

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bombs and bison:

of

cultural community, ecological change, and future opportunities in southern wisconsin

O

Kathleen Kiefaber

“

ur goal is the protection of the cultural, historic, archaeological and natural resources...the restoration of prairie, native plants and animals, the restoration, remediation and continued protection of the environment...

Land is permanent and stable, a source of spiritual origins and sustaining belief... Through community operation and integrated land use planning, it is possible to preserve, conserve and protect the natural resources… It is possible through a collaborative effort, joint support and mutual assistance to restore the Sauk Prairie.”

– Ho-Chunk Land Use Plan

U.S. Highway 12 carves a path of near-reverse geologic time through the southern half of the State of Wisconsin. Starting in the southern prairie flatlands, advancing towards the un-glaciated hills and plateaus of the western corner of the state, and winding through the time-carved sandstone bluffs of the central state landscape, this road may be seen as a barometer of sorts, the change along its gravel perimeters reflective of both the area’s extensive history as well as its possible future incarnations. Recently the state has moved forward with plans to expand this once two-laned stretch of gravel and pavement into a four-laned strip of whizzing cars and weekday commuters. In a countryside notable for its iconic red barns and the placid cows dotting its pastoral fields, the invasion of asphalt and headlights, automobile motors and merging traffic seems an abrupt shift indeed.

Yet this current change, like the path of the highway itself, is only one adaptation in a long string of changing land uses in the region, a history that reveals an intertwining of human and environment, culture and nature.

Just north of Sauk City lies a particularly interesting stretch of highway. Here, couched between the bluffs of the Devil’s Lake area and the flat prairie lowlands, rests a valley that is neither entirely natural nor entirely human constructed. The future of this site, much like the future of the highway itself, will serve alternately as a harbinger of further development, or a portent of regression to the area’s more natural heritage. On this day in August the sun beams down on the valley, settling into the concrete nooks and crannies of abandoned buildings and the earthy underbelly of the vegetation that threatens to overtake these constructions. The grasses shift lightly in the convective rising of humid air, their leaves—bleached

ß “In Ho-Chunk culture, pollution to land equals pollution to community.

Contaminated groundwater is therefore merely indicative of a deeper pollution, one that traces the social and political wounds of generations past and projects forward into present-day struggles.”

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to a toffee brown—revealing the delicate vein structure that partitions the blades into long vertical strips. This prairie is inaccessible to the general public, cordoned off with high chain link fences and razor wire that glints menacingly in the summer sun. Large metal gates inform visitors that the Badger Army Ammunition Plant is government property—trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

The buildings here stand like monoliths of a bygone era, their towering walls and industrial, pre-fabricated appearance imparting a sense of military efficiency now left abandoned and crumbling in a field of big bluestem and prairie star.

Long before the first concrete foundations here were laid, vegetative foundations of tall grasses and sturdy bur oaks dominated the Badger plant’s skyline. A lateral moraine divides the property into an eastern section of glaciated soils and accompanying savannah ecosystem, and a western section of glacial outwash and rich prairie soils.1 Prairie and oak savannahs flourished here, the deep roots of prairie grasses creating sod several feet deep. Bison thrived in this habitat, the massive herbivores feeding on prairie grasses while songbirds darted in and out of the swaying leaves.

Winnebago Indians (now known as the HoChunk) settled this land, and though they did not leave behind a legacy of concrete, tribe members did alter their environment in other ways.

Intentional burns were frequently implemented here, fire playing a crucial role in establishing and maintaining the open prairie landscape.2 On these cleared expanses the tribes maintained extensive gardens of corn, beans, and other vegetables. Tribe members also used the animal resources of the valley, patrolling the woodlands of the nearby Baraboo hills, and preying upon the prairie fauna—bison, birds, deer, elk. Of all the animals the Winnebago hunted, however, it was the bison—slow-moving, herbivorous, and

Allison Kirby Tri

digitally altered photograph 20” x 15”

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massive—that came to represent the culture both spiritually and materially.

In an ecosystem dominated by grasses, large herbivores of the Sauk Valley played the role of primary consumer. Though more fierce predators—foxes, wolverines, the occasional brown bear or wolf—prowled the grasslands, it was the bison, omnipresent and multifunctional, that inspired the respect of the Winnebago people. Bison were hunted for meat and lard, their hides used in clothing and construction, their bones fashioned into spears and small hand tools. As the bison consumed prairie grasses, transforming organic matter indigestible to humans into flesh and marrow that nourished human bodies, so too did the animal nourish the land from which it came.

Bison chips recycled nutrients back into the sod as the holes left by their narrow hooves worked to aerate prairie root systems. Bison flesh was eaten at tribal gatherings, and the animal was honored through dances, prayers, and ceremonial mounds.3 As the bison assumed spiritual significance within Winnebago culture, so too did they assure a healthy respect for the prairie ecosystem, the animal’s continued health and existence dependent upon a healthy local environment.

Although the Winnebago’s land-friendly practices may have ensured a long tenure here, a force more powerful than nature intervened to cause their removal. By 1837 the United States government had relocated much of the tribe to northern Wisconsin, opening up the valley to local farmers.4 These new residents worked hard at turning the sod, breaking the tight meshwork of roots and organic matter with their shallow, often woefully ineffective plows. Once tilled, however, the soil—rich with the accumulated biotic mass of millennia past—nourished a healthy agricultural community in the Sauk Valley. Farmers grew a number of grass hays, row crops, and small grains such as wheat and alfalfa.5 These crops were crucial components of a growing agricultural system, the grasses and grains in particular working to support a burgeoning dairy industry. As more farms were established in the valley, Holsteins fed nonnative wheat and westernized corn replaced bison as the area’s emblematic herbivore.

With the unemployment of the depression era beginning to plague southern Wisconsin and the arrival of World War II, these small rural communities took a turn towards the industrial. The United States Army purchased Sauk Prairie as ground for a new ammunitions plant. Though construction on the plant

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railroad, 2,300 acres of pasture, 2,000 acres of cropland, and around 1,000 acres of restored prairie, wetland, and shrub environments.10 Though superficially regenerating, the land underneath Badger retains traces of its industrial past. Much of the site is contaminated by lead and dinitrotoluene (a burn rate modifier for propellants). While these non-motile chemicals contaminate only the top layers of soil,11 other chemicals such as carbon tetrachloride have infiltrated the groundwater. A plume of noxious chemicals emanating from the plant now extends to within one-quarter of a mile of Prairie du Sac’s municipal well. Testing of 100 private wells around the Badger site revealed eight contaminated with poisonous compounds, four of them at levels above state groundwater standards.12 Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger (CSWAB) have petitioned the army to clean both the soil within Badger, as well as the contaminated groundwater, citing increased cancer and illness rates for those living in proximity to the plant.

In Ho-Chunk culture, pollution to land equals pollution to community, contaminated groundwater therefore merely indicative of a deeper pollution, one that traces the social and political wounds of generations past and projects forward into present-day struggles. As Native American communities continue to feel the emotional sting of relocation, inhabitants of Sauk County experience the physical sting of unhealthy water. As a site, Badger is emblematic of disrupted land use in southern Wisconsin, an area transformed from a small rural community into one dominated by industrial production, its guiding principles alienated from the concerns of local people. Across the state, small farms have been bought out by large-scale, industrial operations. As this land, once host to a multitude of prairie species and some of the most fertile soil in the country, degenerates into large monocultures of corn and soybeans maintained through the use of harsh chemical pesticides, community identity has also suffered.

Against the overwhelmingly oppositional voice

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provided an income for upwards of 12,000 men, many local residents felt the plant was an intrusion into their small communities. Farmers unfortunate enough to own land on future plant property were bought out for prices far below market rates, and new zoning lines condemned several local schoolhouses, churches, and homes to demolition.6 As workers inundated the site, some commuting from as far as eighty miles away, the nature of the Sauk Valley community also changed. Badger Village, a federal housing project community, was constructed to house the influx of workers, and the adjacent section of U.S. Highway 12 was expanded to become the first section of rural four-lane highway in the state.7 The Badger Army Ammunition facility opened for production in 1942, manufacturing the explosives and propellants that would power the small arms ammunition, cannons, grenades, and small rockets of the U.S. Army.

At peak production the plant staffed 6,600 employees who worked in three shifts to ensure continuous production.8 A veritable plant culture developed, manifested outwardly in the presence of recreation halls and a worker newspaper. Production at the plant stopped shortly after the conclusion of World War II, but the facilities were maintained at the ready for the possibility of a Korean Conflict. It was, however, another conflict in Asia, the Vietnam War, which eventually prompted the plant to resume production.9 Like many other periods in the site’s history, the Badger Plant of the Vietnam era played a contentious role, its actions caught between the industrializing initiatives of the U.S. government, and the local concerns of community members.

As they had objected to the plant’s presence in the 1940s, many citizens objected to the plant in the 1970s. Community members disagreed with Badger’s involvement in the war; they did not appreciate the presence of an institution which actively promoted the killing of other human beings. Students from the nearby University of Wisconsin-Madison banded together with local citizens to stage several protests on the site, but to little avail; the plant remained active until several years after the end of military conflict in southeast Asia, closing down production in 1975 and assuming standby status.

In the three decades since production ended, the Badger Plant has stood largely untouched, its dormant land regenerating from the scars of 150 years of human history staining its surface.

Currently the 7,354-acre site contains over 1,400 buildings, 130 miles of roads, 26 miles of

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of local farmers, the state has recently voted to expand Highway 12, furthering the intrusion of industry into communities desperately trying to maintain a sense of unity against the generic suburbia creeping its way across the state.

Natural areas have all but disappeared from the Baraboo valley, prairies replaced by cornfields, wildlife edged out by encroaching traffic and urban development.

If, as Ho-Chunk religion believes, land health indicates community health, this is a land in need of some healing. As an emblematic site, Badger presents a unique opportunity to remedy the wounds—social, environmental, and political— of previous generations. Michael Mossman, a bird ecologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR), notes, “This place becomes even more rich when you add the human history onto the natural history; more and more, I think of Badger as a place to reconcile all kinds of old wounds.”13 After years of protesting against, or, alternately, ignoring the Badger plant, many locals have rediscovered the site and become involved in organizations promoting environmental initiatives centered on a healthy Badger plant.

If healing must integrate both land and people, the notion of community—scientificallydefined as the assembly of living organisms 30

(human as well as non-human) within a particular area—becomes an important concept.

The study of ecology attempts to understand the relationships between organisms and their environments. This definition encapsulates both biotic factors—humans, wildlife, plant communities, weather—as well as abiotic factors—the effects of human intervention in the landscape. In order for a site to thrive ecologically, it must have the active support of its community agitating for change. Through organizations like CSWAB and the Community Conservation Coalition for the Sauk Prairie (a group pushing for an oversight board to coordinate land use within Badger), citizens have discovered the whole of their voices can be heard over the din of industry. It is these voices that will work to promote a healthy environment within plant property.

Left largely to its own devices, the Badger plant has already begun to manifest its own selfrenewing quality. Ecologically the site is quite valuable. Because of its location between the ancient pre-Cambrian Baraboo Hills and the Wisconsin River valley, it contains one of the largest remaining stands of original hardwood forest in the state.14 Though non-native grasses dominate the plot, the diligent work of the Army Corps of Engineers and numerous conservation

• of bombs and bison

agencies has produced several areas of viable restored tallgrass prairie and oak savannah.15 In a portion of the state once dominated by these ecosystems, southern Wisconsin now supports only one percent of its total vegetation as prairie and less than a quarter of a percent as oak savannah. Several endangered plant species have reestablished a foothold within these restorations, causing conservationists to cite the area as a potential seed bank for prairie restoration projects across the Midwest. Sixteen species of endangered songbirds, among them savannah sparrows, upland sandpipers, and bobolinks, as well as many other threatened bird species, have also settled on the site, the prairie here now functioning as one of the last bastions of songbird habitat within a sea of chemicallytreated cornfields.16 Given the ecological, cultural, and spiritual significance of the Badger Army Ammunition Plant, several organizations have expressed interest in the site for purposes as diverse as a bison reserve, state park, sculpture garden, and large-scale prairie restoration. The Badger Reuse Committee, a Sauk County advisory body, was formed in 2001 to determine appropriate use of the Badger Plant. The group evaluated twentyfive proposals for the site according to nine values the group determined to be important at Badger. As a result of these proceedings, the group has recommended a new plant property divided between lands used for recreational/ cultural use, and lands used for restoration/ agricultural use. Key agencies in this division include the USDA, which operates the Dairy Forage Research Center already located on the site, and the DNR, which will likely manage some portion of the property for conservation and recreational use.17 The Ho-Chunk Nation has requested 3,050 acres, of which 1,500 will be used as a bison reserve, 1,200 as prairie restoration, and 250 as agricultural land.

Of all potential owners, the Ho-Chunk tribe holds perhaps the most significant claim to the land, their ancestors having inhabited the area long before the arrival of the first European settlers. Tribal members hope to transform the plant into a bison reserve, expanding their current herd of bison pastured in Muskego, Wisconsin to a larger herd on the present day plant site.18 The Ho-Chunk Nation envisions this transformation as restorative on a variety of levels. In a population plagued by diabetes and the ill effects of heavily-processed foods, the Ho-Chunk hope the introduction of bison meat will provide a high protein, low-fat, and local alternative to beef.19 Bison meat from the

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Muskego reserve is currently served exclusively at Ho-Chunk ceremonies, but distribution of this meat could be expanded to commercial markets, thereby providing income to the tribe. Raising bison has also proved to be an ecologically stable, even beneficial enterprise. If, as many ecologists have suggested, an ecosystem is only as healthy as its primary consumers, the reintroduction of bison could herald the return of other prairie species as well.

More important than the ecological effects, however, are the social benefits the reintroduction of bison could have on the Ho-Chunk and Sauk Valley communities. Within Ho-Chunk culture, buffalo symbolize a healthy environment and a key link to the natural world. Raising bison on the Sauk Prairie site will not only lead to a healthier Badger environment, but a healthier Ho-Chunk community in general, a community in touch with its ancestral lands and attuned to the ecological concerns of tomorrow.

Other stakeholders also hope to integrate humans and nature, creating sites within Badger that will support agricultural research while maintaining the natural character of the landscape. Agricultural research stations maintained by the USDA are already present on Badger property. These stations conduct research on sustainable agriculture, developing techniques that may be implemented across southern Wisconsin. If these techniques aid in the struggle to revitalize the midwestern family farm, the USDA’s presence on the Badger site would be more than justified, their actions helping to revive the community in which they are located.

The Wisconsin DNR will also play an important role in maintaining community involvement in the site, developing portions of the property into state parkland and recreational areas. Whether through emotional separation or razor wire and no trespassing signs, Badger has remained alienated from public interaction for decades. Allowing visitors to enter the site, witness the swaying prairie grasses firsthand, and feel the trilling of sandpipers reverberate through their ears will help local citizens feel a part of the Badger restoration and help encourage their continued involvement in the site.

The power of community is clearly evident at Badger. Through the transformative work of community organizations, conservationists have earned the backing of local citizens, city councils, town mayors, and even Governor Doyle. It is now clear that any future incarnation of Badger will include prairie restoration, recreational

areas, and land for the Ho-Chunk Nation.

Organizations involved in the site now need only decide how land should be divided between these three interests. Though community members have succeeded in declaring Badger off-limits to big industry and agriculture, restoring the site to an ecologically and socially healthy state will require additional work.

Pollution of the site is an inescapable reality, and though the Army has made some efforts to detoxify soil, environmental organizations will need to continue fighting for clean ground and groundwater in and around Badger. In developing the site as a recreational area, conservationists will need to work at preserving and protecting the species that exist within the delicate balance of the currently undisturbed site, but which may become threatened once again with the intrusion of human footsteps.

And people across southern Wisconsin will need to take Badger as an example, to understand the property as the symbol that it is, and to work to promote environmental initiatives within their own communities. Perhaps with a renewed sense of the human role in ecological change, more Wisconsinites will be inspired to halt the flood of industry (and accompanying environmental degradation) into their state. Let us hope that the Badger plant of 2,050 remains an emblem, but an emblem of successful ecological restoration seen the state over, not an anomaly of regenerating land within some very sick communities. = ________________________________________ Saukprairievision.org.

Ibid.

3 Muscodabison.com.

4 Saukprairievision.org.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 www.badgeraap.org.

12 Ibid.

13 Mayfield, Dave. A Farewell to Arms. OnEarth Magazine, Natural Resources Defense Council. 23 (3): 28.

14 Saukprairievision.org.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid.

17 Badger Reuse Committee. 2001. Badger Army Ammunition Plant Reuse Plan - Final Report, Sauk County Board of Supervisors.

18 Muscodabison.com.

19 Ibid.

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Erin Kaczkowski, Kitchen (2005), oil on canvas, 60” x 48”

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the

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Lindsay Woodbridge

ß “Obligatory questions and obligatory responses: from this point of view, benign small talk rotates to reveal a disconcerting shadow.”

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M

y dad has perfected “shooting the shit” into an art form. When I was younger, I used to turn red with mortification when he would approach strangers and begin a conversation with a friendly “So, where ya from?” As I grew older and wiser, however, I began to appreciate my father’s skill. I realized that shooting the shit, or making small talk, is simply the most socially acceptable method for creating community. The most endearing moments of Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise are the episodes of mindless banter in Jack and Babette’s family, and no matter how ambivalent I feel toward Jack himself, I cannot help but wish I could take a ride in the family station wagon and discuss the definition of “vermin” with Steffie and Denise, or bicker with Heinrich about precipitation. Please do not be put off by my casual tone: the references to my family, the invasion of “I,” the nonchalant cursing. This is a paper on small talk. I am interested in the ways people connect with others by shooting the breeze, but also how these ways are disciplined through this socialization. Additionally, this essay will investigate the ways in which writers employ small talk, incorporating moments of written triviality into otherwise theoretical texts.

Another father figure besides my own, the illustrious Jack Gladney, professor of Hitler studies from Don DeLillo’s White Noise, employs small talk most notably in his struggle to form some sort of connection with his German tutor Howard Dunlop. After many awkward sessions characterized by “strained silences before and after each lesson,”1 Jack finally draws Howard out in a conversation about Howard’s fascination with the weather. In effect, they make small talk about small talk. Howard reveals that after his mother’s death and a subsequent period of disconnectedness, he rediscovered weather as a way to bond with people: “I turned to meteorology for comfort […] I realized weather was something I’d been looking for all my life […] I began to come out of my shell, talk to people on the street. ‘Nice day.’ ‘Looks like rain.’ ‘Hot enough for you?’ Everyone notices the weather.”2 Through the character Howard Dunlop, DeLillo seizes the cliché of small talk about the weather and elevates it into a touching and sad commentary on a lonely man’s life. Just as Howard’s meteorology students eagerly latch onto information about the weather (Howard states that he “saw a hunger in their

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eyes”), Howard latches onto Jack as a conversational partner. His is the most extreme example in the novel of small talk as community building, and his need to converse is so strong that Jack recoils: “I began to suspect I was the only person he ever talked to. I also began to suspect he needed me more than I needed him. A disconcerting and terrible thought.”3 Although Howard is ostensibly Jack’s German teacher, his exposed hunger for any sort of human communication transforms the language lessons to lessons on the frailty of humanity and the pressing human desire for connection.

One of the more comic moments in the book, Jack’s behavior at the Hitler conference, is a direct product of these awkward lessons with Howard Dunlop. Dealing with his secret shame of never having learned German, Jack reveals that he needs the language not for academic pursuits such as reading Mein Kampf in the original language, but so he can bullshit with other academics at conferences. Jack’s main professional triumph during the novel is his speech in German at the opening of the conference at College-on-the-Hill. He reports, “I talked mainly about Hitler’s mother, brother, and dog. His dog’s name was Wolf. This word is the same in English and German.” In fact, Jack constructs a speech centered not on meaning, but on words that will most easily pass from English to German. Choosing simple words that can transcend the language barrier is the ultimate attempt to facilitate small talk, but the results are mixed. Jack observes that “My remarks were necessarily disjointed and odd. I made many references to Wolf, many more to the mother and the brother, a few to shoes and socks, a few to jazz, beer and baseball.”4 Shoes and socks, jazz and baseball, a dog named Wolf: by reducing the facts of Hitler’s life to a mishmash of pidgin German, Professor Gladney employs small talk as a defensive measure to buttress his own reputation in the field. Despite

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Libbie Allen, Through the Bus Window, silver

his extensive preparations with Howard, Jack’s basic knowledge of German does not make the conference much more bearable than usual. He has learned German pronunciation, vocabulary, and mechanics, but not how to truly communicate in the language. His decision to hide in his office while the other scholars “told Hitler jokes and played pinochle,” “produc[ing] their guttural sounds, their words, their heavy metal” illustrates the difference between language and communication, between a canned speech on insignificant subjects and genuine small talk.5 What the other scholars have amassed during their pinochle games in a web of over-told jokes, Hitler gossip, and “the usual sensational rumors about the last days in the Führerbunker,” is community. Jack comments on “how closely they resembled each other despite the wide diversity of national and regional backgrounds,” zeroing in on how “they were cheerful and eager, given to spitting when they laughed, given to outdated dress, homeliness, punctuality.”6 Within their own tiny academic discipline, the Hitler scholars have constructed a small-scale version of the “universal,” an ideal theorized by Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant. Near the end of “Analytic of the Beautiful,” Kant states, “This common sense is assumed without relying on psychological observations, but simply as the necessary condition of the universal communicability of our knowledge.”7 Joined by a mutual interest in one of the most odious figures in modern human history, these academics provide an example of the community-building that is possible when people are united by a common feeling. They do not need to analyze their connection; they prove it with every coherent conversation they have.

Allow me my own moment of small talk here: when I listen to people talk about their experiences at professional conferences, the moments that hold the most significance for them are not the presentations, but the interactions with other attendees. The academic advisor I

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work with recently attended a conference in Las Vegas and spoke glowingly of her opportunity to see a musical with her colleagues after a day of conference sessions. My dad—that old rascal—sometimes reminisces about the latenight motel room gatherings during the annual state high school counselors’ conventions.

These experiences are necessarily built of small talk, which occurred during the intermission or for the duration of a nightcap. The moments of gathering facilitated by small talk are also incredibly localized, confined to small groups of people who already have overtly common professional interests. When Kant writes about theories of common sense and universal feeling, he chooses to employ the “ought,” such as, “The ought in the aesthetical judgment is therefore pronounced in accordance with all the data which are required for judging, and yet is only conditioned.”8 Kant’s “ought” allows him to scoot around the reality that makes it impossible to create concrete theories of the universal. The people I see in my life, the relationships I create myself, find another path around the inherent impossibility of visualizing a universal judgment.

We create “common sense” in small pockets; we set aside Kant’s project of constructing universal meaning through dense, obscure language and 36

instead seek connections with others through moments of small talk, instances of throwaway conversation.

Although it could be easy to put together a paper glorifying the art of bullshitting, poststructuralist philosopher Michel Foucault’s writing complicates any tidy assertions about community-building through small talk. Placed in the context of modern methods of punishment and Foucault’s theory of the ceaseless surveillance provided by the Panopticon, the end result of small talk can be seen as a negative reinforcement of human socialization. Foucault writes, “Place the bodies in a little world of signals of which is attached a single, obligatory response: it is a technique of training, of dressage.”9 An example of this training is apparent in the most basic small talk script. I ask “How are you?” and you respond, “I’m doing well, how are you?” Repeated perhaps dozens of times per day, this simple acknowledgement of another’s existence has become an essentially meaningless interaction, a performance of human beings trained like show horses. Students of a new language learn this simple exchange in one of their first lessons, perhaps as much for its inherent repetition and parroting as for its existence in all languages.

Obligatory questions and obligatory responses: from this point of view, benign small talk rotates to reveal a disconcerting shadow. Writing of the “art of punishment,” Foucault summarizes, “In short, it normalizes.”10 What can be more normalizing than small talk?

Although Jack Gladney’s habit of carrying Mein Kampf when he wants to avoid small talk seems nothing more than comic, perhaps DeLillo’s character uses Hitler’s text to perform a critical resistance against the disciplinary force of small talk. Jack arms himself with Hitler’s diatribe in three episodes in the novel: when Babette’s ex-husband arrives unexpectedly and decides to take the whole household out for dinner, during an awkward conversation with his vaguely threatening daughter Bee before the Christmas meal, and when he goes outside to investigate a stranger who has shown up in the middle of the night.11 In each of these episodes, Jack fashions Mein Kampf into a weapon. This transformation is most overt during the latenight front yard investigation, the third episode.

Jack recalls, “I looked through the window. He was there in the wicker armchair in the wet grass. I opened the inner door and then the storm door. I went outside, the copy of Mein Kampf clutched to my stomach.”12 Most people witnessing a stranger on their property in the middle of the night would approach clutching

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claims that “the decisive points of the narrative alone are emphasized, what lies between is nonexistent; time and place are undefined and call for interpretation; thoughts and feelings remain unexpressed.”16 This manner of constructing narrative, externalizing only some points and leaving much of the work to the reader, is analogous to modern theory. In order for a theoretical piece to have any meaning, the reader must answer the “call for interpretation:” s/he must analyze, apply, and extend. One cannot walk away from an essay by Kant with an unengaged mind in the way one can walk away from a quick conversation with a friend on the street. Conversely, one cannot write a seven-tonine page paper on a couple instances of small talk the way one can on a few selections from the canon of modern literary theory.

Just as there must be some moments in the Old Testament in which the author(s) chose to embark on a small digression, writers of theory are not immune to small talk. In her preface to Bodies that Matter, however, literary critic Judith Butler writes of small talk with a purely disdainful tone. Noting how people sometimes choose to address her with a diminutive form of her first name, Butler notes, “I took it that the addition of ‘Judy’ was an effort to dislodge me from the more formal ‘Judith’ and to recall me to a bodily life that could not be theorized away.”17 According to Butler, the tension between the body and theory became agitated by audience members who enforce the reality of the material body with a nickname, another form of small talk.

the art of small talk

a baseball bat or a hockey stick. However, Jack chooses to tiptoe toward the intruder armed with only Hitler’s words, both a symbol of Jack’s interest in avoiding conversation with strangers and an expression of his academic ego. This incident is reminiscent of the dinner conversation at the beginning of the “airborne toxic event”—the descent of a bizarre chemical cloud that threatens Jack’s town—in which Jack attempts to calm his family by forcefully declaring, “These things happen to poor people who live in exposed areas […] I’m a college professor. Did you ever see a college professor rowing a boat down his own street in one of those TV floods?”13 For Jack, Mein Kampf is a representation of his position in society. Just as he believes this position exempts him from the negative impacts of environmental disasters, he also believes it exempts him from the drudgery of small talk when he so chooses. He conceives of himself as “other,” set apart, a member of a community of elite academics. Theory is his weapon, a theme that is enforced when the silver-haired stranger, Babette’s father Vern, gives Jack a handgun at the conclusion of his surprise visit.

Jack’s attitudes and behavior, his insistence on carrying Mein Kampf, implies a critical difference between small talk and academic theory. Though both are forms of communication, one is insignificant and the other is defined by its mission to take up and discuss large, complex, or fundamentally important issues. I believe it is possible to create an analogy for the relationship of small talk to theory by looking at the two types of prose, Homeric and Biblical, represented in Erich Auerbach’s essay “Odysseus’ Scar.” Addressing the former of those two styles, Auerbach summarizes that it includes “externalized, uniformly illuminated phenomenon […], events taking place in a leisurely fashion and with very little suspense.”14 This description of Homer’s construction of Odysseus’ journey is analogous to small talk. Indeed, there is little suspense involved in “shooting the breeze”: one might go so far as to tell a personal anecdote, but the stakes are not high. Also important is the notion of externalization. Auerbach observes that The Odyssey is constructed of a series of digressions, much like a good bullshitting session.15 Nothing is left in the dark, and neither conversational participant need think very hard about the progression of the interaction.

Opposed to this standard of externalization, Auerbach offers the narrative style of the Old Testament. In this type of text, Auerbach

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Butler uses these uncomfortable moments as an additional opportunity for theorizing, stating, “There was a certain exasperation in the delivery of that final diminutive, a certain patronizing quality which (re)constituted me as an unruly child, one who needed to be brought to task, restored to that bodily being which is, after all, considered to be most real, most pressing, most undeniable.”18 Butler demonstrates an interesting usage of language in this passage through her insistence on labeling “Judy” a diminutive.

“Diminutive” is certainly an appropriate word for this situation, but it signifies having a smaller stature than the original, which has implications of negativity. “Diminutive” is also a very formal word choice, more formal than the also suitable “nickname.” In this way, both Butler’s message and her writing style are critical of the small talk employed by her audience members.

One passage in Kant’s essay offers an additionally rich look at small talk in theory, especially because Kant chooses to incorporate a moment of small talk into his argument rather than spending time to argue against it.

Extrapolating on the judgment of taste, Kant offers us the following: “If anyone asks me if I find that palace beautiful which I see before me, I may answer: I do not like things of that kind which are merely to be stared at. Or I can answer like that Iroquois sachem, who was pleased in Paris by nothing more than by the cook shops.”19 In the first sentence, Kant employs the same conversational, informal “I” that crept into my own introduction. In the second, Kant adopts what one might characterize as a gossipy tone, repeating the tale of one particular Iroquois who made waves in Paris with his peculiar taste. Kant’s use of small talk in “Analytic of the Beautiful” comes in the form of examples, a list of situations supporting his point that the judgment of taste is determined by a disinterested satisfaction. This is not the same kind of small talk that takes place in your average conversation about the weather, nor is it the small talk of Judith “Judy” Butler’s preface.

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I have thus far chipped away at the small talk/ theory dichotomy from both sides, addressing the theory of small talk as well as the small talk of theory. From this investigation, I have reasoned that although the content of small talk is essentially meaningless, the act of bullshitting is critical for building community, for better (the Hitler scholars, sans Jack) or for worse (in a word, Foucault). Meanwhile, theory contains massive meaning trapped in its language, but is on its own incredibly passive. Theory loses its meaning unless well-intentioned readers choose to take it up and extend it, doubtlessly inflicting it with small talk along the way, as I have done here. In terms of a middle ground between pure bullshit and pretentious theoretical talk, I see two possibilities. One option is Karl Marx’s style of theory, which presents abstract ideas such as the “camera obscura” analogy,20 but also criticizes the passivity of most theorists, those “highfalutin and haughty hucksters of ideas” who have thus far interpreted the world, but have failed to change it.21 A second, very different, much more localized opportunity to reach a middle ground is a Union mini-course offered this fall that I could see Jack Gladney’s wife Babette instructing, once “Eating and Drinking: Basic Parameters,” the course she teaches in the novel, wraps up. The Union course, titled “The Art of Small Talk,” was one two-hour session “on the basic conversational skills.” According to the online course catalog, twelve people paid $19.50 each to learn more about “listening, asking questions, using memory-devices to start conversations, and techniques for remembering names.” I find it interesting that the description lists “listening” as the first skill of small talk, but I guess you have been doing that all along. = ________________________________________ DeLillo, Don. 1986. White Noise. New York: Penguin, 54.

DeLillo, 55.

DeLillo, 221.

4 DeLillo, 274.

5 DeLillo, 274.

6 Ibid.

7 Kant, Immanuel. 1951. The Critique of Judgment. New York: Hafner, 76.

8 Kant, 74.

9 Foucault, Michel. 1995. Discipline and Punish. New York: Vintage, 166.

10 Foucault, 183.

11 DeLillo, 57, 95, 244.

12 DeLillo, 244.

13 DeLillo, 114.

14 Auerbach, Erich. 1972. Odysseus’ Scar. Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, ed. David Lodge. London: Longman, 322-323.

15 Auerbach, 317.

16 Auerbach, 323.

17 Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. New York: Routledge, ix.

18 Butler, ix-x.

19 Kant, 38.

20 Marx, Karl. 1978. The German Ideology. The MarxEngels Reader. New York: Norton, 154.

21 Marx, 167, 145.

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Erin Kaczkowski, Pool (2005), oil on canvas, 60” x 48”

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The

Wisconsin

Idea

UW President Charles Van Hise proclaimed that he would “never be content until the beneficient influence of the University reaches every family in the state.” It was in this spirit that Van Hise created the Wisconsin Idea in 1904, a vision that has endured for more than 100 years.

As the world shrinks and the University grows, it becomes increasingly important for the University to maintain its tradition of outreach in Wisconsin, while extending its programs to encompass a larger national and global community. Many UW-Madison undergraduates are rising to the challenge. Illumination is proud to highlight not only those students making a difference in Wisconsin, but also those serving around the country and abroad. Using the University’s incredible resources to extend its borders, these students keep Van Hise’s vision alive.

To learn more about the Wisconsin Idea, visit http://www.wisc.edu/wisconsinidea.

Celeste Heule, Glam Slam, mixed media, 8.5” x 9”

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PEOPLE to people:

lifting as we climb Sam Leinweber

F

or many people, the mention of the “University of WisconsinMadison” brings to mind images of collegiate athletics, doctoral programs, insanely complex research projects, and seas of twentysomething year old students on their way to class. Charles Van Hise hoped that few people’s associations with the University would be limited to ideas such as these. In 1904, Van Hise stated that he would “never be content until the beneficent influence of the university reaches every family in the state.” Van Hise’s aim for the influence of the University of Wisconsin-Madison became the “Wisconsin Idea.”

PEOPLE (Pre-College Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence) is proud to be a part of the effort to fulfill Van Hise’s goals in the Wisconsin Idea. Since 1999, more than 1,200 students from the Wisconsin communities of Madison, Milwaukee, Racine, Waukesha and the Wisconsin nations of Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Lac du Flambeau, Bad River, and Lac Coutre have benefited from the resources and support provided by PEOPLE, a year-round academic program that is committed to improving college access for Wisconsin students of color and/or disadvantaged students. Starting with 66 high school students from Milwaukee Public Schools in 1999, PEOPLE quickly expanded to involve Madison middle school students in 2000. In an effort to reach students at an earlier age, PEOPLE was excited to partner with the Northport and Packer Community Learners Centers to extend its network of support to elementary students via the PEOPLE Prep Program in 2005. There are currently 189 PEOPLE college scholars attending UW-Madison through this pipeline program.

From elementary school through college, PEOPLE focuses on academic success by providing tutoring, enrichment services, and exposure to the UW-Madison campus and its resources. Tutoring focuses on five main subject areas: English, History, Math, Science and Foreign Language. Enrichment opportunities at PEOPLE include workshops that involve several departments at the UW-Madison campus and the School of Education, which allows future teachers the opportunity to work with students from diverse communities and professional development

ß “As members of the University of Wisconsin - Madison student body, PEOPLE scholars are expected to lift others as they strive to achieve excellence for themselves.”

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Marylinn Johnson Lace Hat

acrylic, mixed media 11” x 16”

for existing or tenured teachers. The emphasis of student enrichment opportunities is to develop leadership, strong critical thinking skills and social, cultural and professional development. Another great opportunity that PEOPLE provides is internships in potential college majors and career options. As a result of partnerships that PEOPLE has with various departments at UW-Madison and other organizations, PEOPLE students are able to get in-depth exposure to a wide range of fields and make informed decisions about what they are interested in pursuing.

The program does not direct its students down certain career paths. Rather, it accommodates any dream a student may hold. The lack of a sharp directed approach makes a student’s PEOPLE experience more intrinsically motivated and gives the program a more generous feeling than it would if the aim were to mass-produce certain types of scholars. Governor Harris, a PEOPLE scholar, appreciates the atmosphere of the program, saying, “I have always felt that the staff has my best interest in mind and would do what is necessary to see that I succeed.”

The time spent in PEOPLE, combined with the trust formed by the program’s aim to foster its students’ abilities and skills so that they are prepared to achieve their goals, develops a unique sense of community within the program.

Students are admitted into the program in cohorts, which function as long term support networks. Student cohorts go through the entire program together, which augments the communal atmosphere that is integral to its aim.

Marimar Ney-Martinez, a PEOPLE scholar, feels that the community has been beneficial during her time at UW-Madison: “The relationships I have formed with fellow program members and the networking made available to me through the program has been most beneficial… I felt much more comfortable entering this university knowing I have a large network of friends who have had similar experiences as mine and whom I have known for years. Coming to this campus

created a sense of unity between all of us.”

As a community, PEOPLE operates under the historical philosophy of “Lifting as We Climb,” the motto of the National Association of Colored Women which was founded in 1896

by Harriet Tubman, Frances E.W. Harper, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Margaret Murray Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell. With respect to the idea of “Lifting as We Climb,” scholars are expected to give back to the community, because one of the primary goals of the program is to develop its students’ academic and leadership capacities with the intention of them, in turn, making positive changes within communities.

As members of the University of WisconsinMadison student body, PEOPLE scholars are expected to lift others as they strive to achieve excellence for themselves. Many scholars choose to give back to the PEOPLE program itself, by becoming mentors, tutors, and dorm counselors to younger students. Other scholars utilize the leadership skills developed through PEOPLE to become founders, executive staff, project leaders, and community service organizers in various organizations. PEOPLE scholars are currently active in over 60 organizations benefiting communities both on and off campus, including the National Pan-Hellenic Council, the Multicultural Student Center Advisory Board, Students for Family and Children, Associated Students of Madison, the Multicultural Business Student’s Association, the National Society of Black Engineers, Health Occupations Society of America, Minority Affairs Program in Pharmacy, and Students for Equal Access to Law Schools.

As the PEOPLE Program continues to grow and expand its outreach into diverse Wisconsin communities, it will continually actualize and manifest the Wisconsin Idea as it was set forth

by Charles Van Hise. = For more information about the PEOPLE program, visit http://www.peopleprogram.wisc.edu.

Allison Kirby Cowstar

digital collage 8” x 9”

memory

from

to

hope:

a collaborative film and historical memory project with santa anita la union, guatemalan coffee cooperative

Beth Geglia

T

here is a struggle in Guatemala that can be seen in the streets of the capital city, in the graffiti on the walls and on the banners carried in marches. It is visible in the mainstream newspapers, in the meetings of human rights groups, in orphanages, in communities, and in the way people tell their stories. The struggle is over memory—it is a fight to preserve one version of history against another that would have it erased.Today, many grassroots efforts are being made to preserve the narratives of Guatemalans, who live in a state of upheaval. Ten years after peace accords ended decades of fighting, the perpetrators of a dirty war continue with complete impunity, and people struggle to understand a resistance movement in its aftermath.

The history of Guatemala’s internal conflict is still being written and rewritten by the military, by the courts, and by communities. It is in this context that we understand the community of Santa Anita and this project, a film and historical memory initiative.

The civil war in Guatemala that lasted from 1960 to 1996 is known as the worst in Latin American history. The war was sparked by a CIA-organized coup that overthrew the democratically-elected president in 1954. Four revolutionary guerrilla movements took up arms against the national military over the next 36 years, demanding changes to address the roots of poverty, racism and oppression.

The government response was a counterinsurgency campaign that many have deemed a form of genocide. Two hundred thousand Guatemalans were murdered, tens of thousands more disappeared, and as many as seven hundred communities were massacred. The process of rebuilding lives after the violence is a continuous struggle, as many communities in Guatemala today are newly formed out of internal displacement and resettlement of refugees. Santa Anita la Unión is one of these communities. If you’re a regular fair trade coffee buyer at Madison coffee shops Escape Java or 2 Degrees Coffee Shop, you’ve probably already interacted with the people of Santa Anita without knowing it.

Santa Anita is a coffee cooperative of 32 families that sells coffee to local Madison fair trade roaster Just Coffee, and has stocked the shelves of Madison grocery stores and coffee shops for years. The community is comprised of ex-guerilla combatants

ß “And they say that dignity is nothing more than memory that lives...”

-Anonymous

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from the ORPA (Revolutionary Organization of the Armed People) and former refugees. The people of Santa Anita laid down their arms in 1996 for a piece of land from the government as part of a program to reintegrate mobilized people into the economic life of Guatemala.

Over the last eight years, the people of Santa Anita have been rebuilding their lives and exploring economic alternatives that reflect the values and socially just structures for which they fought during the war. Santa Anita is collectivelyand democratically-run by its workers, which stands in sharp contrast to neighboring private plantations where temporary day laborers are contracted by large landowners for wages that fall below the Guatemalan minimum. Profits from coffee are shared by community members and are allocated to community development projects such as housing, water drainage, electricity, schools, and a community pharmacy.

Despite its achievements, the cooperative finds itself at an impasse, as damage done by Hurricane Stan has severely reduced production. The resulting economic difficulties have affected the cohesion and organization of the cooperative.

Since the fair trade movement emphasizes solidarity and close relationships, Just Coffee has been involved in Santa Anita’s recovery process from the storm, as well as community development projects over the past years. The idea to make a documentary on the community emerged from this relationship. A few years ago, the community identified to Just Coffee the importance of historical documentation.

However, a traditional documentary would not produce the desired outcomes for this project.

The film needed to be done collaboratively with the community to help restore collective memory as a means of moving forward, and to defend the community’s autonomy in representing itself to the outside world. Therefore, a group of seven elected people from Santa Anita are helping record footage for the film. Part of the project has involved training this group in basic camera use and film technique, and collaboration with the Madison team to outline the main aspects of the project to incorporate the community as an integral part of the filming process. The community’s participation in the documentarymaking process has increased its ownership over the recounting of its past, and has aided Madison documentary makers in understanding the intricacies of a history that could not have been understood, nor accurately relayed, without this direct involvement.

Through group interviews, community

members have begun to reflect on their memories of conditions before the war and their motivations for taking up arms. They have also begun to think about the outcomes of their struggle in light of the incompletion of reforms agreed upon in the peace negotiations and the current economic situation of Guatemala. They have opened dialogue on their experiences with the reintegration process, on rebuilding their lives as coffee farmers, on the significance of cooperative and production practices, and on their current difficulties. The connecting thread of the film is a mural-making project for which families in the community have drawn their own representations of their histories and their cooperative. With help from a muralist who organizes projects like this one, community members have organized their own pictures in a mural design that will be painted this winter.

While the mural will serve the community internally as a process by which to reflect on its experiences, the documentary will raise awareness to outsiders on a much broader scale.

Any use of the film will benefit Santa Anita, whether the benefits are financial or through increased understanding of Guatemalan history or of fair trade principles.

This film project, called From Memory to Hope, is supported by a Wisconsin Idea Undergraduate Fellowship. It began this past summer and is ongoing. Students and faculty at the university are hoping to arrange exchanges between Santa Anita and an indigenous community in Chile that has had a parallel experience, and to organize a service-learning trip to the community of Santa Anita. The longterm goal is to accompany the community in a meaningful process of reflection and collective memory-making that would restore important experiences, lessons, and hope for social change in the next generation of Santa Anita, as well as contribute to a bottom-up understanding of Guatemalan history. Another goal of the project is to increase media proficiency, as the people of Santa Anita will now be able to use film to disseminate their messages and document their stories. The mural and documentary currently underway are just the beginning of what other endeavors will hopefully build on in the future. = If you are interested in making a donation to the Santa Anita film and historical memory project or becoming involved yourself, we are always looking for support. You can either contact Beth Geglia at elgeglia@wisc.edu, or come to a Madison Fair Trade Action Alliance meeting to learn more about supporting Santa Anita and other fair trade cooperatives: Wednesdays, 7:00 PM, TITU.

Sarah Muehlbauer

Learning to Play (the Piano) Again video stills

My work is centered on the understanding of time, both how it is experienced and how it’s structured and simulated. I’ve recently moved into video art to record events as they occur in “real” time and to engage my viewer on a more experiential level. The medium also gives me the opportunity to manipulate time structure through editing and present non-linear relationships in various works. In Learning to Play (the Piano) Again, I am concerned with a tangible, human connection to the passage of time. I recorded my mother, Mary Wagner, as she approached a piece of music that lay untouched for many years. Her struggle against the effects of time can be seen through moments of uncertainty in the hands and face accompanied by pauses and missed notes. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata is the featured soundtrack to the event. The desired tempo becomes a rigid structure against which we measure accuracy and attention to discipline. It’s an unfeeling antithesis to the emotional content of the piece that does not leave room for the human condition. It is these types of contrasts that fuel my curiosity and my work.

from memory to hope

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beth geglia

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Contributors

z z

Libbie Allen is a junior studying art with a focus in photography. The photograph Through the Bus Window was taken while riding a bus during a trip in Mexico and is part of her Hallucinations of Mexico series. Going in Circles was taken at the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, WI. She is constantly overwhelmed with the world she lives in. The places she travels to and the people in her life never cease to stimulate and inspire her. The only way she can get a grasp on the beautiful things that occur outside herself is to capture her own experiences through photography and share them with others. eallen1@wisc.edu.

Tracy Cirves is a senior majoring in art. Her concentration is in painting and monotype prints.Most of her work is figurative and is based on representation and abstraction and stems from personal experiences. cirves@wisc.edu.

Ashley Elizabeth Dallman is interested in how various cultures permit or prohibit the silencing of certain experiences. This poem is an exploration of the unspoken. After graduating in spring, she hopes to work with organizations that facilitate a role for literature in community development initiatives. aedallman@wisc.edu.

Kaleen Enke is a senior art major. She enjoys making things, eating things, and doing things.

She is an expert pinochle player and competitive ping-pong player. When graduating from college, Kaleen aspires to become a home economics teacher. kdenke@wisc.edu.

Tyler J. Falish is a junior majoring in marketing and economics. He’s from Green Bay, WI, so yes, he likes the Packers. In his free time, Tyler enjoys attending concerts, spending time with friends, and taking road trips, most often to do something outdoors. He hopes to one day graduate from UW and find a meaningful career and a young lady who thinks writers are sexy. falish@wisc.edu.

Beth Geglia is originally from Washington, D.C., and is studying sociology and Latin American studies at the UW. She works with the Madison Fair Trade Action Alliance and United Students for Fair Trade. elgeglia@wisc.edu. mike granger space for rent.

Celeste Heule has remained active this year with several axes to grind, as well as a few bones to pick. She is unable to watch someone leaning back in a chair without holding her breath, but so far this has not created any major issues in her life. Graduating in spring, Heule plans on taking some sort of storm by storm, but has yet to reveal which one, and/or just how. ctheule@wisc.edu.

Marilynn Johnson is a junior who plans to

double major in art as well as either marketing, journalism or philosophy. The Lace Hat painting was done for an assignment for 2D Art last spring. The patterns on the right are an abstraction of the purple lace hat the woman was actually wearing. The patterns are all inspired by found pieces of lace. The Cherry Blossom painting/collage was done independently over a series of late nights spent listening to “Cherry Blossom Girl” by Air on repeat while cutting up her mother’s decorating magazines. mhjohnson@wisc.edu.

Erin Kaczkowski is interested in her experience/perception of objects in a space and how it can be articulated on a material surface. enkaczkowski@wisc.edu.

David Kempa likes subversive Latin American nations. You nationalize those natural resources, hombres. Nationalize ‘em good. dnkempa@wisc.edu.

Kathleen Kiefaber is a senior studying conservation biology, art history, and environmental studies. She is interested in the intersection of agriculture and the environment and hopes to pursue a graduate degree in creative non-fiction with an emphasis on environmental writing. She currently works as a writer and editor for the Department of Natural Resources Bureau of Parks and Recreation and hopes to be involved in planning for the future of the Badger site. kekiefaber@wisc.edu.

Allison Kirby is a junior studying design and AIS. Her pieces Tri and Pinky are from a series that she made after going to New York for the first time. Cowstar is a spin-off from a fabric pattern she designed for an independent study.

This is her last semester here at UW; she is going to see the world and get some inspiration. akirby@wisc.edu.

Rachel Kowarski: kowarski@wisc.edu.

Jonathan Kramka: See back inside cover. grendelpx@hotmail.com.

Sam Leinweber is a junior PEOPLE scholar who is planning on spending a full five years at UW-Madison. When not working at PEOPLE or attending class, you can probably find Sam with his dog, on his bike, at his computer or at a gym coaching wrestling. sbleinweber@wisc.edu.

Heather Lemke is a native of Wausau, WI, and a senior majoring in Secondary English Education. She now spends more time teaching the basics of poetry and literature to tenth graders at a Madison high school than writing her own pieces, but she hopes to spend her summers drafting again. In the meantime, she’ll continue to re-read Joel Brouwer’s fabulous poetry and share it with her students. hnlemke@wisc.edu.

Lucas John Magalsky is an art and creative writing student from Juneau, WI. His current interests include American Indians, Midwestern hunting practices, and Beatnik literature. He enjoys working with paint and mixed media to recreate images that reflect the diametric relationship of his anxiety and tranquility about the forthcoming Armageddon. He is currently working at System Seminar Consultants as a marketing intern. He has a frighteningly violent aversion to the television set. See inside front cover. magalsky@wisc.edu.

Erin Louise McNeill is a Senior at UWMadison completing her Bachelor of Fine Arts.

Her current work surrounds issues of gender in advertising. McNeill uses a hybrid process of traditional dark room techniques and digital output to reveal startling subliminal messages.

This particular medium is striking because these images are not a construction of the artist but rather a direct imprint and reflection of gender in American advertising. elmcneill@wisc.edu.

Julie Louise Olah grew up in Sauk Prairie, Wisconsin. She is a Junior at UW-Madison and a creative writing major. Julie enjoys painting, ponies, baking, and watching little-known, unappreciated films. Julie hopes to study in England and pursue her master’s in poetry shortly after graduation. olah@wisc.edu.

Sarah Muehlbauer’s work is about time construction. Her work is not about time construction. smmuehlbauer@wisc.edu.

Gretchen Peck is a senior this year, majoring in English with a certificate in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages).

After graduating this spring, she will head west to seek her fortune. She enjoys coffee with whipped cream on it and traveling the world.

She thinks we would all be wise to take the advice of Mr. James Brown, the hardest working man in show business, when he says, “You got to hit it and then quit it. Just hit it and quit it.” gpeck@wisc.edu.

Jeffrey Prokash: See centerfold. prokash@wisc.edu.

Corinna Ranweiler is a double lit. and fine arts major with a focus on drawing. As a junior undergraduate, she is already looking forward to being a super senior. She grew up in the Twin Cities and plans to one day live in Germany. ranweiler@wisc.edu.

Kendra Renzoni is a Fine Arts major and will be graduating in Spring 2007. She attended the UW- Marathon County for three years before transferring to Madison. This is her second year at UW-Madison; her emphasis was on metal junk sculpture and since transferring she has been painting and creating ceramic sculptures. Her work is about changes, transitions, anxieties, courage, and fear. She

often works in layers to convey the multiple layers in everything, every thought, state of being, and in every person. renzoni@wisc.edu.

Emily Scheider is a junior at UW-Madison majoring in Fine Arts, with a concentration on photography and design. In her work, her goal is to bring out the extraordinary in day-to-day objects through careful attention to color and intrinsic detail. escheider@wisc.edu.

Joanna Schumacher has been exploring different tensions, reflections, and ways of handling various ideas and spaces which interest her in numerous ways. jschumacher@wisc.edu.

Brian Spranger is a sophomore majoring in International Studies and French. His interests include travel, languages, literature, the outdoors, and of course, photography. For Brian, photography is a means of capturing that which we miss in our daily lives. His interest in photography has been growing since the age of six, and he hopes one day to combine it with his writing and his travels. bspranger@wisc.edu.

Angela Divine Thomas is in her third year as an art major at the UW-Madison. Over the years, she has explored many mediums, but her favorite is photography. She one day wishes to pursue a career in this field, and continue to use this medium as a form of visual expression. adthomas1@wisc.edu.

Rebecca Washecheck is a senior art history major, particularly interested in decorative arts and architecture. As an artist, she works in digital photography and kiln-formed hot glass.

Upon graduation, she plans to spend a year in France teaching English before she goes to law school to pursue intellectual property law. rwashecheck@wisc.edu.

Matthew Wisniewski is a sophomore at the UW-Madison majoring in Journalism. He took up photography a little over a year ago, following the encouragement and vision of his best friend. Matthew currently takes pictures for the local student newspaper The Daily Cardinal. He hopes to continue his pursuit of photojournalism as a career. mwisniewski@ wisc.edu.

Lindsay Woodbridge is a senior from Pulaski, WI studying English, History, and Enviroånmental Studies. She is especially interested in environmental literature, and is currently working on a senior thesis analyzing literature written in response to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. After graduation, she plans to take a break from school before beginning a masters program in counseling or higher education. Her essay, The Art of Small Talk, was awarded one of the English Department’s Vilas Prizes for excellent essays in the spring of 2006. lmwoodbridge@wisc.edu.

Kelsey Zigmund: zigmund@wisc.edu.

final ß thoughts

I

t seems difficult to imagine the campus without them, but College Library and Memorial Library have only been around for about thirty years and fifty years, respectively. Just think—in the first half of the century, students didn’t have the option to lock themselves in cages or to snuggle overnight in an armchair next to the cold latté machines of the Open Book Café.

Yet since they opened for business, the libraries have quietly served the campus, the community, and the international academic world with peerless grace and ability.

Memorial Library alone houses over three million volumes, spanning topics as different from each other as the adverse effects of food additives, postmodern French literature, and math anxiety (fiction and non-fiction). The Special Collections department alone is worthy of hours of browsing.

College Library, or the undergraduate library, boasts an atmosphere that is entirely different but just as indispensable. GUTS and private tutors alike flock to the comfortable chairs and bustling environment, and the ability to order food to the building is an added attraction. The computers in all the campus libraries, as well as the printing facilities, are an underappreciated service and make it possible for those without such equipment to complete their schoolwork. Additionally, anyone who has ever attempted any kind of research knows the value of the archives, the statistical databases, and the experienced staff.

The images on the back cover reflect the steadfastness of the libraries. More durable than architectural, the buildings themselves exist less to please the eye than to nourish the mind. Because of the relative youth of both libraries, the images emphasize not so much chronology as perspective—the close-up of the back of College Library in the fall (2005) juxtaposed with a stark black-and-white shot of the main entrance (1987), along with the snapshot of Memorial when angle-parking skirted the building juxtaposed with today’s image. These images are meant less for commentary than for contemplation. As students, we can only work hard to live up to the facilities we are so fortunate to have.

Images on back cover compiled and provided by Don Johnson, Dan Joe, and David Null of Memorial Library and the University of Wisconsin Archives. Visit the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections at http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu for more images.

r This journal was designed using Adobe InDesign CS2 on a Macintosh computer. The typefaces Didot and Adobe Janson Pro were used for titles and Janson was used for the main text. Originally designed by Nicholas Kis in 1690, Janson was one of the top choices for fine bookmaking in the 1930s because of its clean design, legibility and attractiveness.

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1 3

1 No Change (2004) oil on canvas 30” x 30”

3 Mask (2005) oil on canavas 36” x 24”

2 Untitled (2004) oil on canvas 24” x 18”

4 Maybe Not (2004) oil on canvas 40” x 30”

4 Jonathan Kramka I am interested in the interactions of restraint, the constant choices and reactions that free or restrict a person. The thoughts and feelings we hold back are a reaction to the things we encounter and deal with in life. Opposing thoughts many times lead to a paradox, a dual nature that flares up or becomes so constant as to fall into routine. While the interruption and the situation are separate, one cannot exist without the other. The literal overlapping of scenes and figures displays an interruption, an imprint that remains whether it’s a reaction or an afterthought that cannot be completely ignored.