Wisconsin People & Ideas – Fall 2016

wisc

people & ideas

nsin the magazine of the wisconsin academy of sciences, arts and letters

Cellular Revision A collaboration between artist Leslie Iwai and cancer researcher Dr. Mark Burkard yields a spectacular new body of work

Cheesehead Lit 101 School for Shrimp $5.00 Vol. 62, No. 4

Fall 2016

Celebrate Wisconsin character with Wisconsin Life, now on Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television wisconsinlife.org

CONTENTS

fall 2016 FEATURES 4 EDITOR’S NOTES Putting the “A” in Academy

6 UPFRONT 6 WisconsinEye provides election coverage and more.

7 UWM’s Anne Basting is named a MacArthur genius.

8 The next Ansel Adams is found in Milwaukee.

9 Our James Watrous Gallery opens its Call for Artists.

10 WISCONSIN TABLE administrative offices/steenbock gallery 1922 university ave. | madison, WI 53726 tel. 608-263-1692 www.wisconsinacademy.org

The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters produces programs and publications that explore, explain, and sustain Wisconsin thought and culture. Our signature publication is Wisconsin People & Ideas, the quarterly magazine of Wisconsin thought and culture; programs include the James Watrous Gallery in Overture Center for the Arts, which showcases contemporary art from Wisconsin; Academy Talks, a series of public lectures and discussion forums; Wisconsin Initiatives, exploring major sustainability issues and solutions; and a Fellows Program, which recognizes accomplished individuals with a lifelong commitment to intellectual discourse and public service. The Wisconsin Academy also supports the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission and many other endeavors that elevate Wisconsin thought and culture.

Annaleigh Wetzel discovers promise (for the farmers) and peril (for the shrimp) at Spring Valley Aquaculture in Newton.

14 PHOTO ESSAY Menomonie artist Amy Fichter’s avian meditation on what we are losing— and what we have lost.

22 READ WISCONSIN UW–Baraboo English professor Marc Seals provides a handy guide for getting to know Wisconsin through its writers.

Wisconsin People & Ideas (ISSN 1558-9633) is the quarterly magazine of the nonprofit Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters. Academy members receive this magazine free of charge.

Visit wisconsinacademy.org/join for information on how to become a member of the Wisconsin Academy.

Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Copyright © 2016 by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters. All rights reserved. Postage is paid at Madison, Wisconsin. Postmaster: Send address changes to mailing address above.

Wisconsin People & Ideas Jason A. Smith, editor Jean Lang, copy editor Jody Clowes, arts editor Casey Varecka, editorial assistant Designed by Huston Design, Madison On the cover: Leslie Iwai & Dr. Mark Burkard, 2016. Photograph by Clint Thayer/Focal Flame Photography.

Study Skins (detail) is from Remnants, a series of large photographic prints by UW–Stout art professor Amy Fichter. Remnants is an elegaic rumination on the threatened and endangered avian species in the Coulee Region of southwest Wisconsin. See page 14 for more.

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fall 2016 FEATURES 28 @ THE WATROUS GALLERY Lynne Harper explores the science behind Middleton artist

Leslie Iwai’s new installation at the James Watrous Gallery, Daughter Cells: Inheritance, Separation & Survival

42 FICTION The second-place winner of our 2016 fiction contest: “Lowlife,”

by Richard Borovsky

50 BOOK REVIEWS 50 Ronnie Hess reviews Wisconsin on the Air: 100 Years of Public

Broadcasting in the State That Invented It, by Jack Mitchell

51 Karla Huston reviews We are traveling through dark at tremendous speeds, by Sarah Sadie

52 Michael Kriesel reviews Impersonations, by Mark Zimmermann

53 POETRY Honorable mention poems from our 2016 poetry contest.

Our gallery, the James Watrous Gallery in Overture Center for the Arts, Madison.

Wisconsin Academy Staff Jane Elder • Executive Director Augusta Brulla • Head Gallery Attendant, James Watrous Gallery Chelsea Chandler • Environmental Initiatives Coordinator Jody Clowes • Director, James Watrous Gallery Aaron Fai • Project Coordinator Angela Johnson • Exhibitions Coordinator, James Watrous Gallery Don Meyer • Business Operations Manager Matt Rezin • Data & Office Systems Coordinator Amanda E. Shilling • Development Director Jason A. Smith • Communications Director and Editor, Wisconsin People & Ideas Officers of the Board Linda Ware • President Tim Size • President-elect Millard Susman • Immediate-past President Diane Nienow • Treasurer James W. Perry • Secretary Richard Burgess • Vice President of Sciences Marianne Lubar • Vice President of Arts Vacant • Vice President of Letters Statewide Board of Directors Leslie D. Alldritt, Washburn John Ashley, Sauk City Patricia Brady, Madison Malcolm Brett, Oregon Frank D. Byrne, Madison Roberta Filicky-Peneski, Sheboygan L. Jane Hamblen, Madison Joseph Heim, La Crosse Tom Luljak, Milwaukee Bernie L. Patterson, Stevens Point Kevin Reilly, Verona Bob Wagner, Mequon Marty Wood, Eau Claire Officers of the Academy Foundation Foundation Founder: Ira Baldwin (1895–1999) Andrew Richards • Foundation President Jack Kussmaul • Foundation Vice President Diane Nienow • Foundation Treasurer David J. Ward • Foundation Secretary

Disembodied attributes, from Darkrooms, Found Forms series, photogram, liquid photo emulsion on window pane from Leslie Iwai’s installation for the James Watrous Gallery, Daughter Cells: Inheritance, Separation & Survival. See page 28 for more.

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Foundation Directors Jane Elder Terry Haller Millard Susman Linda Ware

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NEWS for

MEMBERS New Look in 2017 In an effort to keep Wisconsin People & Ideas fresh and accessible to all our readers, our next issue will have a new look—with the same level of great articles you expect and appreciate. Learn more about the redesign on page 4.

Annual Fall Fund Drive Did you know that membership dues comprise 5% of our annual revenue?

Through the generosity of our members and friends, we receive an additional 38% through fundraising drives to support our programs and operations. Please consider a tax-deductible donation in support of our mission.

Working together, we can make a brighter Wisconsin for all. Visit us online at wisconsinacademy.org/donate to make your gift today.

2016 Open House Mark your calendars for the evening of Wednesday, December 7, for our annual open house. Join us for conversation, wassail, and a toast to a great year of programs. More details will be available soon on our website.

Special Discounts for Members Don’t forget, active Academy members receive a discount on entry fees for our annual writing contests (as well as special prices for ticketed events throughout the year). Send us your best works of fiction and poetry to win a bevy of prizes, including publication in Wisconsin People & Ideas. All contest entries are due on December 1. See wisconsinacademy.org/contests for rules and submission guidelines.

Stay Connected Visit wisconsinacademy.org for event and exhibition information, blog posts, videos of Academy Talks, and other interesting information. If you have comments or questions, call 608-263-1692 or e-mail members@wisconsinacademy.org.

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Luke T. Benson is a Wisconsin-raised illustrator and designer. An alumni of the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, Benson often incorporates people and places from Wisconsin into his work. To see more of his artwork, visit luketbensonart.com.

Amy Fichter is Professor of Life Drawing at UW–Stout and director of the Studio Art program in the School of Art & Design. Her photos have been shown at RayKo Photo Center (San Francisco), Lightbox Photographic Gallery (Astoria, Oregon), and Project Basho (Philadelphia).

Lynne Harper is a writer and curator based in Milwaukee who works with ethnographic historical collections and contemporary global artists. She is currently studying non-Western art at The Sainsbury Research Unit in Norwich, Norfolk (United Kingdom).

Maureen Heaster is a young artist and UW–Stout student looking to make art her career. She is studying Entertainment Design with a concentration in Comics and Sequential Arts. To see more of her artwork, visit maureenheastercomics.tumblr.com.

Ronnie Hess is a journalist and poet who began her broadcasting career at Wisconsin Public Radio. Hess is the author of three poetry chapbooks and two culinary travel guides, and she blogs regularly for MyFrenchLife.org. She lives in Madison.

Karla Huston is the author of A Theory of Lipstick (Main Street Rag, 2013), as well as seven chapbooks of poetry. Huston’s writings have been published widely, including in The Pushcart Prize XXVI: Best of Small Presses (2012). She lives in Appleton.

Michael Kriesel’s poems have appeared in Alaska Quarterly, Antioch Review, Rattle, North American Review, and The Progressive. He’s the winner of North American Review’s 2015 James Hearst Poetry Prize and past president of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.

Marc Seals is Associate Professor of English at UW–Baraboo where he teaches courses in American literature, composition, and film.

Seals is the President of the University of Wisconsin Colleges chapter of the American Association of University Professors.

Stephanie Steinhauer is a Wisconsin native and graduate of the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. Along with illustration, she's interested in knitting, sewing, gardening, embroidery, reading, and dreaming about opening her own shop for local artists and crafters.

Annaleigh Wetzel is a recent graduate of the UW–Madison School of Journalism, and a former editorial assistant for Wisconsin People & Ideas. She now lives in Chicago, where she writes about—and is eating her way through—the city.

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EDITOR’S NOTES

Putting the “A” in Academy Jason A. Smith, editor, Wisconsin People & Ideas In an essay titled “A—for Anachronism?” from the Spring 1954 issue of Wisconsin Academy Review, then-editor Walter E. Scott made his case for how the new magazine could help the Academy remain vital and connected to its members. Scott wrote that even though there are “separate organizations with their journals for ornithologists, archaeologists, ... rural writers, artists, foresters, and dozens of others,” with Wisconsin Academy Review (today’s Wisconsin People & Ideas) the Academy had the unprecedented ability to share “opportunities for encouragement and coordination” in specialty areas across the sciences, arts, and letters.

Perhaps more important, wrote Scott, is that a magazine of this depth and breadth can help us to “better know, appreciate, and publicly recognize the efforts of our colleagues and fellow workers.”

Today the magazine no longer publishes only the research of Academy members (nor do we carry the minutes of Academy Board meetings for that matter). But we are still dedicated to sharing positive stories about—and innovative ideas from—people across the state in order to help elevate our understanding of each other and the quality of life for all. That’s powerful, and something that no other magazine does as well as us.

We have our staff, board, and members to thank for 62 years of steadfast support for the best magazine of contemporary Wisconsin thought and culture. But every issue is comprised of contributions of time and effort by dozens of writers, photographers, illustrators, scientists, interns, and others without whom the magazine wouldn’t exist. They deserve our thanks as well.

It’s these contributions that have allowed the magazine to move from a forty-eight-page, black-and-white member pamphlet to a colorful wonderland that includes fiction and poetry from new and established Wisconsin writers, works from our visual artists and photographers, and essays that explore the latest issues and ideas surrounding science, technology, and our environment. As every page features stories by and about the Wisconsinites making our world a little bit better, the magazine is a fine example of our mission to connect Wisconsin people and ideas for a better world.

But, as Scott notes in his essay, in order to stave off anachronism the magazine and Academy alike must “serve a present-day need.” In my eight years as editor I have been adding sections and refining other elements that help connect readers to concepts we are exploring in our Academy Talks, Environmental Initiatives, and James Watrous Gallery exhibitions. As I did so, I felt increasingly constrained by the layout we were working with.

Soon I realized that the magazine needed a redesign if we were to move forward (it was last redesigned in 2006 as a part of a re-branding for all of our Academy materials).

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So, look for the winter 2017 issue of the magazine to have a new design, one that reflects a bit more contemporary edge and DIY ethos. We will retain the high-quality essays and articles our members love, but the vehicle in which they appear will be a little less formal, and a little more fun. A good way to think of this design transition is that we are making Wisconsin People & Ideas more of a “lifestyle” magazine for lifelong learners in Wisconsin.

The new look will be a more accessible vehicle for exploring the essays, artworks, and stories that shine light on the interconnected nature of Wisconsin. Inside, we’ll have a condensed Table of Contents area and a brief Editor’s Note section. The Upfront section will be recast as Happenings, and will focus more pointedly on emerging ideas, fascinating people, and interesting events found at the intersection of the sciences, arts, and letters.

We will retain the main magazine features—Fellows Forum (articles by Academy Fellows), Interviews, Essays and Photo Essays, @ the Watrous Gallery, Book Reviews, Fiction, and Poetry—and add a couple new ones: Read Wisconsin (essays by and about Wisconsin writers), Wisconsin Table (essays about our shared food culture and heritage), and perhaps even throw in a cartoon now and again.

Another reason for the shift in design is that we must bring into balance the need for serving our current members and reaching out to new ones. We must work harder to share what it is that our members love about the Academy if we are to grow our membership ranks. Indeed, you may have already noticed that we regularly provide complementary copies of Wisconsin People & Ideas at Academy events and the James Watrous Gallery.

Ultimately, I hope the redesign and increased complementary distribution of Wisconsin People & Ideas will provide others interested in our work with more access to the Academy and a better understanding of what we do for the people of Wisconsin. Chock full of positive stories, stunning art, and riveting poetry and fiction, the magazine can convey our organizational values in a way that a brochure, a website, or even a longtime staff member like me can’t always do.

Stories still count. Ideas have meaning beyond the moment.

Art is a language we can all understand. If it is anachronistic to want to bring people together to share these things, then I am definitely old school. And I agree with Walter E. Scott when he concludes his essay with, “If ‘A’ today does stand for Anachronism, … let’s all do our part to make it mean, instead, proudly and worthily—The Academy.”

Questions or comments? E-mail jsmith@wisconsinacademy.org

EVENTS & EXHIBITIONS FROM THE WISCONSIN ACADEMY Lifelong learning opportunities across the sciences, arts, and letters.

TRAVELING EXHIBITION

ACADEMY TALK

The Archive as a River: Paul Vanderbilt and Photography

Raising Creative Kids

On view November 4–23 Foster Gallery, Haas Fine Arts Center, UW–Eau Claire • Eau Claire Developed in partnership with the Wisconsin Historical Society Division of Library–Archives, this James Watrous Gallery traveling exhibition celebrates the work of archivist, photographer, and visionary Paul Vanderbilt (1905–1992).

ACADEMY TALK

Stitching Wartime History: The Case of the French Resistance Sunday, November 6, from 1–4:00 pm The School of Human Ecology, Nancy Nicholas Hall, UW–Madison • Madison Organized by UW-Madison’s Center for Jewish Studies and the School of Human Ecology's Center for Textile and Design with support from the Wisconsin Academy, this talk with historian Mary Lou Roberts explores clothing and the French Resistance during World War II.

Tuesday, February 28, from 7–8:30 pm Wisconsin Studio, 3rd Floor, Overture Center for the Arts • Madison The Wisconsin Academy’s Growing Our Creative Power series of talks continues to explore how specific investments in the knowledge economy and our creative sectors can make a brighter future for Wisconsin. Speaker TBD. @ THE JAMES WATROUS GALLERY

Let's Draw On view February 10–April 9 Reception on Saturday, February 18, from 1–3:00 pm A group show featuring paintings by Emily Belknap, Tony Conrad, Nina Ghanbarzadeh, Lee Mothes, Zach Mory, and Katie Ries, and exploring the history of Let’s Draw, James Shwalbach’s iconic 9XM “School of the Air“ radio series. Presented in partnership with Wisconsin Public Radio.

POETRY READING

ACADEMY TALK

The Entrepreneurial Edge Tuesday, November 15, from 7–8:30 pm Wisconsin Studio, 3rd Floor, Overture Center for the Arts • Madison Join us as George Tzougros of the Wisconsin Arts Board moderates a panel of movers and shakers in Wisconsin's thriving entrepreneurial scene: Tryg Jacobson, co-founder of Jake’s Cafe; Ben Richgruber, executive director of the Eau Claire Regional Arts Center; Gregory St. Fort, executive director of 100state.

Poetry & Pi(e) Tuesday, March 14, from 5:00–6:30 pm Wisconsin Academy Steenbock Offices • Madison Join us for a celebration of everyone‘s favorite mathematical constant, featuring a poetry reading, ice cream, and pie. Space is limited. A registration fee is required for this event, which is presented with support from the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission.

ACADEMY TALK

Creativity & Main Street Wisconsin @ THE JAMES WATROUS GALLERY

Leslie Iwai: Daughter Cells— Inheritance, Separation & Survival On view November 18–January 22 Reception on Friday, December 2, from 5:30–7:30 pm with talks by the artist and cancer researcher Dr. Mark Burkard beginning at 6:30 pm Leslie Iwai’s installation for the James Watrous Gallery is an investigation of family relationships at both the cellular and emotional level: what we inherit, how we separate, and what we choose to retain and pass on.

Special thanks to our members, donors, and the following sponsors and partners for supporting our mission of connecting Wisconsin people and ideas for a better world:

Tuesday, March 28, from 7–8:30 pm MMoCA Lecture Hall • Madison The Wisconsin Academy’s Growing Our Creative Power series of talks continues to explore how specific investments in the knowledge economy and our creative sectors can make a brighter future for Wisconsin. Speaker TBD.

The Great Performance Fund at the Madison Community Foundation The Evjue Foundation The charitable arm of The Capital Times

UPFRONT

Complete Election Coverage and More with WisconsinEye information and context for underIn an era marked by hyperpartisan political standing how and why legislators make discourse and obsessive coverage of the the decisions they do. personalities of the moment, it’s good to For instance, election law has been know that Wisconsinites have an objective much contested in recent years. Between public media resource in WisconsinEye. the confusion surrounding changes to For almost ten years, WisconsinEye voter ID requirements in Wisconsin and has been providing unfiltered access to the allegations of rigged elections by U.S. public policy debate and decision-making. presidential nominee Donald Trump, the Their gavel-to-gavel coverage of the State WisconsinEye team saw an opportunity Legislature, Supreme Court, and Goverfor clarification. They invited Wisconsin nor’s office is completely free of editing, commentary, and analysis, offering viewers online and on television a balanced presentation of what goes on in the State Capitol and beyond.

According to Jon Henkes, WisconsinEye president and CEO, the Madison-based nonprofit excels at “creating a safe place where people can just watch and make their own decisions; they’re not being bombarded with partisan messages or spin, or getting only half of what the real story is.”

Photo credit: WisconsinEye This commitment to spin-free Elections Commission administrator reporting can be seen in the run up to the Michael Haas and League of Wisconsin 2016 elections, when veteran journalist Women Voters executive director Andrea and WisconsinEye senior producer Steven Kaminski to discuss with Walters (see Walters interviewed an incredible 90% of above image) the new photo ID rules the candidates for contested public office. and the security of Wisconsin’s election Producer Claudia Looze notes that while system. Viewers of this episode of NewsWalters talked with mainstream candimakers (as the series is called) learned dates for state and national office, he also that you do indeed need a photo ID to interviewed candidates from Libertarian vote and that our election system is very and Green parties, and even the Pirate and secure in Wisconsin.

Blue Jean parties. “We take everyone seriAccording to the National Conference of ously,” says Looze, noting that “people State Legislatures, only thirty states and don’t get this opportunity in other media.” the District of Columbia broadcast legisAdditionally, many traditional media lative coverage, and many of these do so o u tle ts d o n ’ t al l oc a te re sourc e s to only through state-funded public televicovering press conferences, political sion channels. Although commissioned by conventions, or events relating to public the state, WisconsinEye is unique among officials and campaigns. The Wisconstate public affairs broadcasters because sinEye team believes that conversations it is privately funded and operated. outside of the Capitol can provide crucial 6

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Henkes says that because WisconsinEye receives no state funding, the organization can retain its editorial independence no matter who is in office. “Wisconsin’s approach to this is very special—it is a national model,” says Henkes.

While they may have started out as a kind of “C-Span for Wisconsin,” WisconsinEye today is also producing original documentary content that explores topics of statewide importance.

Increasingly, the WisconsinEye team is working to help people understand the issues that have the greatest social and fiscal impacts on the state. Walters recently completed a twelve-part series on dealing with dementia in Wisconsin that draws on over thirty interviews with people with dementia, their caregivers, physicians, researchers, business leaders, and Health Services Secretary Kitty Rhodes. Many people aren’t aware that “treating someone with dementia can range from $55,000 to $90,000 a year,” says Walters, pointing out how “our population with dementia is expected to double in the coming years.”

While the series on dementia is aimed at Wisconsinites over age fifty, the WisconsinEye team is also working with statewide shareholders to create a peerto-peer documentary that features high schoolers speaking provocatively to each other about opiate addiction.

Whether it is election law, changing demographics, or critical public health and safety issues, WisconsinEye is providing the kind of coverage our citizens and civic leaders need to make informed decisions about our state’s future.

“We feel like we have a role to play in these conversations,” says Henkes.

—Jason A. Smith

UPFRONT

Theater professor Anne Basting has been named a 2016 MacArthur Fellow, making her the first University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee faculty member to earn the esteemed John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s highest honor and the sixth person to earn a fellowship while living in Wisconsin (the most recent was urban farmer Will Allen in 2008).

Basting, 51, was one of 23 new fellows announced by the foundation in September 2016, and each will receive $625,000 to pursue whatever projects they desire. The unrestricted fellowships, colloquially known as “genius“ grants, are awarded to people who have shown “extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.”

Basting’s focus at UWM’s Peck School of the Arts is on community-engaged performance, and she’s an expert on integrating arts into aging services and long-term care. She’s founder of the Creative Trust, an alliance that fosters lifelong learning through the arts, and which supports a Student Artists in Residence program that trains and embeds students with aging services organizations.

Among Basting’s many other projects are TimeSlips Creative Storytelling, The Penelope Project, and the Islands of Milwaukee. [Editor’s Note: We profiled Basting and her work with these projects in our Summer 2014 issue of Wisconsin People & Ideas.] These projects all exhibit the kind of creativity and community involvement to which Basting has devoted her professional career, and which ultimately drew the foundation’s attention.

“While our communities, our nation and our world face both historic and emerging challenges, these 23 extraordinary individuals give us ample reason for hope,” says MacArthur Foundation President Julia Stasch. “They are breaking new ground in areas of public concern, in the arts, and in the sciences, often in unexpected ways. Their creativity, dedication and impact inspire us all.”

Basting learned of the fellowship via phone a few weeks ago when Cecilia Conrad, managing director of the MacArthur Foundation, called and asked if Basting was in a private place where she could talk. Basting explained she was driving her car near Holy Hill.

“She said, ‘I think you need to pull over,’” Basting recalls.

“She told me, and I just burst into tears, and said, ‘Thank you for making me pull over.’”

Photo credit: John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

UWM’s Anne Basting Named MacArthur “Genius“ for 2016

Drawing on a variety of formats and platforms—theater, memoir, narrative, collaborative public performance, and academic research—MacArthur Foundation “genius“ award winner Anne Basting has developed an alternative concept of aging, one that focuses on possibilities as well as challenges. Basting views sustained emotional connections as critical to our lifelong well-being.

Basting sees the fellowship as an award shared by the many people she’s worked with through the years.

“All of my work is collaborative,” says Basting, “and I feel suddenly like I’m standing by myself, and it’s not where I’m comfortable. So, waves of gratitude go to all the people that have ever said yes to agreeing to do a project with me over the years, and, in Milwaukee, that’s a huge network now” News of Basting’s honor spread quickly, and she’s been prominently featured in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, New York Times, and on American Theatre’s website. The MacArthur Foundation also has produced a video and brief history of her work that can be viewed on the MacArthur Foundation website at macfound.org/fellows/956.

—Howie Magner/UWM

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UPFRONT

The Next Ansel Adams Milwaukee photographer Jarob Ortiz selected for NPS Heritage Documentation Program

Photo credit: Casey Paynter

Photographer and Milwaukee native Jarob Ortiz was recently selected as the new photographer for the National Park Service’s Heritage Documentation Program, where he will explore the architectural history of the country. Ortiz, who secured the position after a long, highly publicized search, has a talent for telling stories with photographs that explore life emerging from ruin. His images of the plants and animals that thrive amidst broken timbers and rusting machinery bring beauty and nobility to abandoned locations across America.

Jarob Ortiz’s quest to document the architectual “endangered species” of America began with two gifts: an Olympus OM2 camera from his father and encouragement from a friend.

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Ortiz traces his interest in the technical relationship between camera mechanics, light, and color back to a single image—a color transparency of a burning globe in front of a local industrial area shown to him by a friend. Ortiz’s “eye-opening” introduction to chromatic printing eventually led him to return to Madison Area Technical College to pursue a degree in photography with a focus on large format cameras and films.

The National Park Service favors using techniques of the past, so a job that called for expertise in large-format

UPFRONT

pictures taken with old-style studio cameras (imagine the classic image of the photographer adjusting controls under a hood), was the perfect fit for Ortiz. The ability of large format to capture such detail makes it the format of choice for the grand narratives of Ortiz’s contemporary work, which includes pastoral images of Devil’s Lake and the NicoletChequamegon National Forest.

Even though his new position at the National Park Service is often compared to the job once held by Ansel Adams, who captured the public imagination with his striking photos of the untamed American West, Ortiz’s focus will be the architectural history of the country. His subjects will range from places of great cultural significance, such as Ellis Island (which happens to be the first place that Ortiz will photograph), to farmsteads and other sites that might be overlooked by your average tourist.

Many of the photographs in the Heritage Documentation Program collection will, “provide the information necessary for any future restoration projects and in extreme cases, such as if a site is lost, will offer the only comprehensive record of a place that once was,” Ortiz explains.

The work is part of the NPS’s tradition of using images to make powerful statements about the need to preserve the ephemeral sites that dot the natural landscape, many of which are easily forgotten with time. Ortiz says he is honored to, “be a part of a team with one particular goal [of] preserving our nation’s history and heritage; recording our nation’s most precious architectural and engineering projects as well as some of our most coveted landscapes.”

—Emmett Mottl

Photo credit: Amanda E. Shilling

Left: The Solvay Coke & Gas Company of Milwaukee was opened in 1906. This once-state-of-the-art facility was used to procure coke; a fuel derived from coal. In April 1983 the site was closed due to the diminishing demand for coal fuel, which was ultimately replaced by natural gas.

Demolition of the site has been in the works for years, but, because of high levels of soil contaminants in conjunction with the extensive cleanup mandates established by the EPA, the site has remained untouched for nearly three decades.

James Watrous Gallery Call for Artists Opens January 2017 The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters is issuing a Call for Artists from all over the state to exhibit in the James Watrous Gallery, located in Madison’s Overture Center for the Arts. Wisconsin artists working in all media are encouraged to apply. Artists must be Wisconsin residents at the time of application and exhibition. Students enrolled in degree programs at the time of application are not eligible to apply.

The application window opens on January 17, and all applications must be received online by 5:00 pm on March 17 for consideration.

Jurors for this call are Paul Douglas (Madison), Katie Ries (Green Bay), and Rafael Francisco Salas (Ripon). Artists who are selected for this call will be notified by mid-May 2017. Most shows will be in the form of paired solo exhibitions.

Applications must be submitted through the Wisconsin Academy website at wisconsinacademy.org/callforartists. There is a $20 application fee. Applications must include 8-10 digital images of recent work or links to video-sharing sites; title, date, media, and dimensions for each artwork; a resume; and a brief exhibition proposal.

For more information, visit wisconsinacademy.org/gallery or contact exhibitions coordinator Angela Johnson at 608-265-2500.

Illustration by Stepha

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Shrimp School Learning to Farm Shrimp at Spring Valley Aquaculture

BY ANNALEIGH WETZEL

W

ith the beginning of fall come memories of schooldays: whiffs of freshly sharpened pencils, the ringing of assembly bells, and flurries of young people running through the halls.

At one particular old school in Newton these familiar smells and sounds have been replaced by the scent of brine and the thrum of the water pumps powering a new shrimp farm called Spring Valley Aquaculture.

While aquaculture has been used for thousands of years to grow and harvest fish and plants alike, it has become a burgeoning commercial enterprise in the past fifty or so years. Today aquaculture industries are popping up in cities and rural areas across Wisconsin, but Spring Valley Aquaculture is the first to be housed in an old school.

Russ Albert II, his daughter Stephanie, and girlfriend Connie Jedrzejewski began raising Pacific white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) in Meeme Elementary Charter School back in May of 2016. The

school’s gymnasium is now home to eleven nine-byeighteen-foot saltwater pools that, along with some related water management equipment, circulate roughly 44,000 gallons of water per day. Incubation of the baby shrimp happens in a series of five aerated nursery pools in an adjacent room. Both spaces have been heavily insulated with spray foam in order to maintain a consistent temperature of 93 degrees— perfect for raising Pacific white shrimp.

Native to the eastern Pacific Ocean, Pacific white shrimp can be found in most American stores and restaurants. According to Consumer Reports, almost 94% of the shrimp Americans consume come from abroad, particularly from Asia and Latin America.

About half of this shrimp is raised in outdoor ponds,

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Connie Jedrzejewski (left) feeds the immature Pacific white shrimp (right) at Spring Valley Aquaculture. According to a May 2015 report by Purdue University Extension, the indoor production of Pacific White shrimp can be very profitable if they are grown to sizes of at least “26/30” count before sale. Good and efficient farm management practices are essential to minimize mortality, which can impact a farmer’s bottom line.

man-made streams, or tanks. However, the conditions in which these shrimp are raised vary widely, and the same Consumer Reports study found unacceptable levels of bacteria in 60% of frozen, farm-raised shrimp from abroad. Additionally, these types of shrimp farms can be harmful to the environment by polluting nearby bodies of water with chemicals and antibiotics, wasting huge amounts of water, and potentially damaging the shrimp’s natural breeding habitats, such as red mangrove forests.

Chris Hartleb, co-director of the Northern Aquaculture Demonstration Facility at UW–Stevens Point, notes that aquaculture can be done in a sustainable way that minimizes environmental impact. Spring Valley Aquaculture, for instance, operates what is called a Recirculating Aquaculture System (RAS). This is touted as the most sustainable way to produce shrimp, or engage in any form of aquaculture because of the way it limits water waste.

“In an RAS, the water is in a closed system that recirculates and the only water replacement that you would have is through any water evaporation that would occur. And it’s usually fairly minor. They may only replace 1% to 3% of the water each day because of evaporation. It is a very low consumer of our water resource,” Hartleb explains, adding that “there’s a lot more shrimp in that tank than you would find in the same square footage in the ocean, so you’re producing quite a lot of shrimp or protein in a very small footprint.”

According to Hartleb, the world’s seafood catch has stagnated at around one hundred million metric tons per year, despite new 12

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technology and the drive to reap more fish. This is why so many people are turning to aquaculture to meet consumer demand.

Shrimp farming in Wisconsin, however, is a relatively novel enterprise. Hartleb says there are over 2,500 registered aquaculture farms in the state, but only five of these are shrimp farms. The rest are mostly producing trout or other lake fish for consumption.

As the most-frequently consumed seafood product in the United States, shrimp are very profitable for farmers. Stephanie, Russ, and Connie got the idea to raise shrimp from Russ’s father, who thought that the business could yield a sizeable profit and perhaps revitalize the small town of Newton, which is located just nine miles south of Manitowoc. They found a good fit for their operation when the Kiel school board voted to close Meeme Elementary due to declining enrollment in 2014. The school remained vacant until Russ bought the fourteen-acre property for $275,000 in 2015.

Stephanie, Russ, and Connie are quick to note that their ambitions in some ways outpaced their knowledge about what exactly it takes to operate a thriving shrimp farm, as none of them have specific experience in the area. Stephanie is a recent biology graduate of UW–Oshkosh, Russ owns a hydro excavation company, and Connie is currently a teacher with a background as a naturalist in the Milwaukee Public Schools Outdoor Education Department. Yet the three believe that they have a unique opportunity to breathe new life into the old school and, in the words of Russ Senior, “put Newton back on the map.”

W isconsin T able

The farming process begins when Spring Valley Aquaculture receives the baby shrimp in the post-larval stage, which are shipped overnight from Shrimp Improvement Systems, a leading provider of shrimp varieties that have been selectively bred for desirable traits, such as resistance to disease-causing pathogens.

When the baby shrimp arrive “they’re smaller than a grain of rice with these little eyeballs that stare at you,” Connie says. But, like kindergartners moving from grade to grade, the shrimp transform dramatically over time.

To ensure a high survival rate, the baby shrimp are first placed in an initial nursery pool for roughly one month where they become acclimated to the conditions they will face in the grow out pools. They are then divided by size into different grow out pools where they continue to mature. The shrimp are fed commercially-produced pellets that contain all the essential nutrients for both healthy shrimp and safe human consumption. “[The shrimp] get fed four times a day. Usually at 7:00 am, 12:00 noon, 5:00 pm, and 10:00 pm. And then at some point during the day we test with a probe for dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, salinity, and we do a test for ammonia and nitrate,” describes Stephanie.

Over time, the grow out pools accumulate bacteria that will both enhance levels of ammonia and nitrate in the pool as well as act as supplemental feed for the shrimp. The shrimp progress from juvenile to sub-adults and finally to adults, ready to be sold—fully intact with shells, heads, and tails—to local consumers and restaurants straight from the doorstep of the old school.

“We’ll fish them out of the pool in a Ziplock baggie with ice and out the door you go. You’ll get the freshest possible thing you can get, still flipping around on ice when you walk out of here,” Connie says.

Russ, Stephanie, and Connie aim to harvest and sell the first batch of shrimp to their neighbors and the general public in November or December 2016.

“Like any new business, there is a learning curve. Some of the people in the business say you haven’t learned anything until you’ve killed off a million [shrimp]. We haven’t gotten there yet … but you are constantly learning and researching and looking for the best practice,” Connie says.

Today there are about 90,000 shrimp inside the Spring Valley Aquaculture building. In the quest to make a more sustainable operation and healthier shrimp, Russ, Stephanie, and Connie are currently attempting to introduce natural vegetation such as red mangroves and Chaetomorpha seaweed into the pools as a non-artificial way to maintain the water’s nitrate and nitrite levels.

Connie says that the Spring Valley Aquaculture team is looking forward to cultivating deeper connections with the community.

They say they hope to keep the school’s library, still with shelves of books left behind from the closing, open for public meetings or summer tutoring programs, host field trips for local school kids to visit the farm, and hire a student intern to encourage an interest in aquaculture. Since Spring Valley Aquaculture is still in the midst of its first shrimp harvest, though, these aspirations are, for the moment, second in line to nailing down exactly what it takes to run a successful shrimp farm. ✺

SEPTEMBER 24, 2016– JANUARY 8, 2017 MMOCA.ORG

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r e m na n t s PHOTOGRAPHS BY AMY FICHTER

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Black Tern (Chlidonias niger surinamensis), Holga 120N, Fuji Pro 400H, 2015.

Specimen courtesy of the Milwaukee Public Museum.

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Voice: the breath’s tooth.

Thought: the brain’s bone.

Birdsong: an extension of the beak.

Speech: the antler of the mind.

—Robert Bringhurst, from Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology, by David Abrams

As the animals go, we go.

The photographs in Remnants are of scientific bird specimens from species listed as endangered, threatened, or of special concern in Wisconsin’s Western Coulee and Ridges Ecological Landscape, of which my home county of Dunn is a part. Bird bones and study skins (preserved remains with intact feathers) are collected by naturalists and scientists, often over many years, in order to better understand natural, regional variations (e.g. wingspan, color pattern, bill size) within a particular species.

One intention in creating these photographs was to become more familiar with endangered and threatened species in the place I inhabit, to “become intimate with [my] home region,” as science fiction author Scott Russell Sanders writes in his essay, “Homeplace.” “There is only one world,” Sanders writes, “and we participate in it here and now, in our flesh and our place.”

I fear this world’s demise, with the innocents going first.

These photographs are a contemplation on what we are losing, what will be lost. They are meditations executed with reverence and an intent toward beauty, with hope that our desire for a beautiful world may help us save it.

The actual shooting of the photographs was done with a Holga medium-format film camera. Known as “toy” cameras, Holgas are made with low-cost parts and plastic lenses, which means there is hardly any control for focus, shutter, or aperture. Taking the photos for Remnants was very much a meditation: a slow, observational process, involving careful and repeated measurements to estimate focus and composition.

Shooting this way allowed me to welcome the accidental and unplanned as partners in the creative process. The texture of film made it an ideal medium for representing the physicality of the specimens in front of me.

The Bell Museum of Natural History at the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, the Milwaukee Public Museum, and Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History were all kind enough to allow me to photograph in their collections. I thank them.

—Amy Fichter, 2016

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Skeleton, Worm-eating Warbler (Helmitheros vermivorum), Holga 120N, Ilford Delta Pro 100, 2015.

Specimen courtesy of the Bell Museum of Natural History, University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

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Forster’s Tern (Sterna forsteri), Holga 120N, Fuji Pro 400H. Specimen courtesy of the Milwaukee Public Museum.

Study Skins, Holga 120N, Kodak Ektar 100, 2015.

Specimen courtesy of the Bell Museum of Natural History, University of Minnesota–Twin Cities.

Worm-eating Warbler (Helmitheros vermivorum), Holga 120N, Kodak Ektar 100, 2015.

Specimen courtesy of the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire.

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Nest, Black Tern (Chlidonias niger surinamensis), Holga 120N, Ilford Delta Pro 100, 2015.

Specimen courtesy of the Milwaukee Public Museum.

Skeleton, Blue-headed Vireo (Vireo solitarius), Holga 120N, Kodak T-MAX 100, 2015.

Specimen courtesy of the Bell Museum of Natural History, University of Minnesota–Twin Cities.

Remnant, Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus lineatus), Holga 120N, Ilford Delta Pro 100, 2015.

Specimen courtesy of the Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH 475217).

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Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus), Holga 120N, Kodak Ektar 100, 2015.

Specimen courtesy of the Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH 390916).

Talons, Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus), Holga 120N, Kodak Ektar 100, 2015.

Specimen courtesy of the Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH 390916).

Skull, Upland Sandpiper (Bartramia longicauda), Holga 120N, Kodak Ektar 100, 2015.

Specimen courtesy of the Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH 317850).

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Skeleton, Red-Shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus lineatus), Holga 120N, Ilford Delta Pro 100, 2015.

Specimen courtesy of the Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH 475217).

Nest, Bell’s Vireo (Vireo bellii), Holga 120N, Ilford Delta Pro 100, 2015.

Specimen courtesy of the Milwaukee Public Museum.

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Cheesehead Lit 101

BY MARC SEALS

A

bit more than ten years ago, I packed up my belongings and moved from Florida to the beautiful hills of Baraboo to take a job as a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin– Baraboo/Sauk County.

In my decade as a Cheesehead (which I consider a term of endearment), I have discovered a rich literary tradition here in Wisconsin, one that I think deserves greater fame. While Minnesota has its indie presses and Iowa its premier writers program, Wisconsin is often overlooked by the literary world—even though we have many great writers producing some impressive literature today.

For my Wisconsin Writers Course at Boo–U (known on campus as Cheesehead Lit 101), one of the fundamental tasks of the class is to determine what makes a distinctly Wisconsin author. The consensus in the class seems to be that an author needs two of three traits to be considered a Wisconsin writer: being from Wisconsin, living in Wisconsin, and/or writing about Wisconsin. Thus, naturalist Aldo Leopold, who was born and raised elsewhere, but lived in and wrote about Wisconsin, qualifies. Sauk City’s August Derleth (surely Wisconsin’s most prolific author, with over a hundred books published) hits all three qualifications. While other authors of his generation left their hometowns for New York or Paris, Derleth knew that his hometown was “the microcosm which reflected the macrocosm of the world.”

“Walk on any street,” Derleth writes in Walden West (1961), “pause anywhere, and listen to the pulse, the heartbeat of Sac Prairie, and a thousand Sac Prairies abroad in the dark.” I love

the idea that one can find anything that the world has to offer here in Wisconsin.

Any reader wishing to find a good introduction to more contemporary authors would be well advised to begin by reading Barnstorm: Contemporary Wisconsin Fiction (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005). This collection of fifteen short stories selected by editor Raphael Kadushin presents a useful cross-section of Wisconsin writers. John Hildebrand’s “Touching Bottom” is a poignant portrait of a man dealing with his personal failures. Anthony Bukoski’s “Mission Work” paints a picture of what it was like growing up in a Polish Catholic community in Superior on the shores of that eponymous lake. “The Jewish Hunter,” by Lorrie Moore (who, sadly, left Madison for Vanderbilt University in 2013), paints a very funny—though sometimes insulting—portrait of an East Coast visiting poet looking for love in the “boonies” of rural Wisconsin.

Barnstorm also includes an excerpt from The Short History of a Prince (1991), by Jane Hamilton. If there’s a better writer in Wisconsin than Hamilton, I don’t know who it is. Hamilton, who has lived for several decades on a Wisconsin apple farm about thirty miles southwest of Milwaukee, writes about pain with tenderness and perception. The novel that might serve as proof of Hamilton’s genius is A Map of the World, published in 1994.

Chosen as a 1999 Oprah Book Club selection, A Map of the World

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Jane Hamilton – Rochester

Michael Perry – New Auburn

focuses primarily on Alice, whose life is forever changed when she fails to keep a close eye on the children under her charge.

(These events happen in the first two chapters, so I think the “spoiler” factor is quite low here.) The novel opens: I used to think if you fell from grace it was more likely than not the result of one stupendous error, or else an unfortunate accident. I hadn't learned that it can happen so gradually you don't lose your stomach or hurt yourself in the landing. You don't necessarily sense the motion. I've found it takes at least two and generally three things to alter the course of a life: You slip around the truth once, and then again, and one more time, and there you are, feeling, for a moment, that it was sudden, your arrival at the bottom of the heap.

This is stunningly beautiful prose that serves as a worthy model for Wisconsin’s aspiring authors. Hamilton can also be very funny, which she proved in Laura Rider’s Masterpiece (2010), in which she creates a wonderfully absurd and comical situation between a husband who is sexually insatiable, a wife who has had enough, and a Milwaukee Public Radio host whom the two seduce. Laura Rider’s Masterpiece emerges as a more satirical (and sordid) Wisconsin version of Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac.

The Wisconsin writer that speaks the most to me is Michael Perry. Like Perry, I am a fiftyish male who was raised in a rural setting with a penchant for words. He writes with humor and heart, and he seems like a guy I wish I had as a friend. I particularly enjoyed Perry’s 2006 memoir Truck: A Love Story. Set in New Auburn (about thirty miles north of Eau Claire), this is indeed (as the title indicates) a love story—love for his truck (a 1951 International L-120), a Spanish teacher named Anneliese, and rural Wisconsin.

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Photo credit: Kyle Cassidy

Photo credit: Leslie Brown

Photo credit: Cameron Wittig

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Patrick Rothfuss – Stevens Point

Before reading Truck, I was already familiar with Michael Perry, having read Population: 485 (2007) and many of his “Roughneck Grace” columns in the Wisconsin State Journal (as well as listening to Tent Show Radio, the radio variety show that Perry currently hosts); but Truck is the work that revealed how similar we are emotionally. In Truck, Perry writes, “Here lately I weep more easily. There is a sea change happening in my heart.

Nothing too dramatic. I rarely blubber or sob, but I tend to well up on short notice and in odd—sometimes ridiculous—context.”

Perry says that he’s “homing in on forty.” He continues, “I feel young but pressed for time. I am beginning to get a sense of all I will leave undone in this life. It makes my breath go a little short.

I’m not desperate, just hungry to fill the time I am allowed.” As a middle-aged man living in rural Wisconsin, I can certainly relate.

Another favorite Wisconsin writer is Patrick Rothfuss. Born in Madison, Rothfuss, who looks as if he could play the lead in a Viking saga, is the author of two fantasy novels in a promised trilogy called The Kingkiller Chronicle. The Name of the Wind, published in 2007, sold steadily and reached number eleven on The New York Times best-seller list. The second novel, The Wise Man’s Fear, debuted at number one in 2011.

Rothfuss has enjoyed critical and peer acclaim for his writing.

Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin says, “[The Wise Man’s Fear] was worth the wait. I gulped it down in a day, staying up almost to dawn reading, and I am already itching for the next one. He’s bloody good, this Rothfuss guy.” The Kingkiller Chronicle tells the story of Kvothe, who grows up in a family of nomadic troubadors and, after his family and friends are killed by mysterious forces, develops into a multitalented hero who becomes the stuff of legends. One delightful element of these novels is the way that Wisconsin seems to flavor Rothfuss’s fantasy world. In the opening chapters of the first book, Rothfuss describes the landscape not far from Kvothe’s tavern:

Neil Gaiman – Menomonie

Jennifer Morales – Milwaukee/Viroqua

It was one of those perfect autumn days so common in stories and so rare in the real world. The weather was warm and dry, ideal for ripening a field of wheat or corn. On both sides of the road the trees were changing color. Tall poplars had gone butter yellow while the shrubby sumac encroaching on the road was tinged a violent red. Only the old oaks seemed reluctant to give up the summer, and their leaves remained an even mingling of gold and green.

This description certainly sounds like the countryside of southcentral Wisconsin, where Rothfuss grew up. There are other Midwest parallels—the gritty port city of Tarbean feels like a medieval version of Chicago, and the area around Trebon sounds a lot like Devil’s Lake. I asked Rothfuss about this a few years ago, and he said, “Well, it’s natural that I would be influenced by the geography of Wisconsin. It’s where I grew up. It’s what’s natural to me.

But there are no direct parallels beyond that.”

Though Rothfuss denies direct parallels, his home state seems to bleed through. One caveat about Rothfuss—he writes well, but he takes his time. If you read his first two books, you will join hordes of fans eagerly—and impatiently—awaiting the third.

Personally, I’d rather the last novel (reportedly titled The Doors of Stone) be good, rather than fast.

The most controversial choice for inclusion in the Wisconsin Writers class is British fantasy/science fiction author Neil Gaiman. Gaiman, though born and raised in England, has a home near Menomonie. In 2010, I met Gaiman at the celebration of the upcoming ten-year anniversary of the publication of his epic 2001 novel American Gods; I told Gaiman that my students resisted calling him a Wisconsin writer, and he replied gruffly, “I’ve lived here for eighteen years! How long do I have to live here?”

One of the pivotal scenes in American Gods takes place at the House on the Rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin. The House on the

Photo credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Photo credit: Kyle Cassidy

Photo credit :University of Wisconsin Press

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Edna Ferber – Appleton

Rock is said (in the novel) to be “built by Frank Lloyd Wright's evil twin … Frank Lloyd Wrong.” The protagonist spends much of the novel laying low in Lakeside, a fictional small town in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Lakeside bears a strong resemblance to Gaiman’s adopted hometown of Menomonie. Like Lakeside, Menomonie has a man-made lake (with a tradition of towing a klunker to the middle of it during winter and taking wagers on when it will break through the ice) and a local bar with the word “Buck” in the name. It is fascinating to see how a British transplant views Wisconsin.

An exciting new author on the scene is Jennifer Morales, whose collection of interrelated stories Meet Me Halfway: Milwaukee Stories (2015) was recently named Wisconsin Book of the Year at the National Book Festival. Morales, who lived in Milwaukee for more than twenty years, now makes Viroqua her home. Meet Me Halfway defies genre classification, deftly blending traditions of the short story and the novel. As you read, pay attention carefully, because a minor character in one chapter will be the protagonist of a later chapter.

Morales stories provide glimpses into the sometimesunpleasant realities of urban Wisconsin, where cultures collide.

One character in the books says, “Tell me your address and I’ll tell you your color,” illustrating the startling degree to which Milwaukee is segregated along racial lines. Meet Me Halfway blurs those lines by shifting narrative perspectives, encouraging the reader to empathize with characters of different political views, genders, economic levels, races, ages, and sexual identities. This beautiful book brings much-needed diversity to the canon of Wisconsin literature and will be an exciting new addition to my course on Wisconsin authors.

I should note that I have focused on short stories and novels only because I am primarily a scholar of prose literature. Even so, Wisconsin has a rich and vibrant poetry scene as well. In W I S C O N S I N

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Zona Gale – Portage

Aldo Leopold – Baraboo

my Wisconsin Writers class, I focus on poets such as Lorine Niedecker, August Derleth, Antler, Bruce Dethlefsen, Ronald Wallace, Margaret Rozga, and Chuck Rybak; these poets write about Wisconsin life, nature, and history with an honesty and skill that sets them apart. Wisconsin poetry would be a good topic for a future article—perhaps by someone more qualified than I. Today’s Wisconsin writers truly stand on the shoulders of giants. I spend the first half of the semester guiding my students through their state’s literary history. Three authors in particular stand out: Edna Ferber, Zona Gale, and Aldo Leopold.

Before Edna Ferber became a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and playwright—penning So Big (1924), Show Boat (1926), and Giant (1952)—she was a teenage reporter for her hometown Appleton Daily Crescent, and, later, for the Milwaukee Journal.

Only after Ferber received national attention for her short stories did she move to New York in 1912. Ferber’s stories about the trials and tribulations of divorcée Emma McChesney and her seventeen-year-old son ran from 1911 to 1915 in The American Magazine and Cosmopolitan, two of the most popular magazines of the day.

Portage author Zona Gale wrote the best-selling novel of 1920, Miss Lulu Bett. Yet few people today have heard of this critically acclaimed work that went on to become a Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play and a successful 1921 film released by Paramount Pictures. Gale’s tale of a woman becoming aware of her personhood is especially remarkable in that she composed an alternate ending for the stage adaptation that had her heroine striking out on her own. It was this version of the play that garnered her the Pulitzer Prize, even though the ending was later rewritten again to be more upbeat and compatible with the tastes of 1920s theater-goers.

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Photo credit: Kelly Dwyer

Photo credit: Courtesy of the Aldo Leopold Foundation

Photo credit: Library of Congress, Washington DC; neg. no. LC USZ 62 071231

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Kelly Dwyer – Baraboo

Most Wisconsinites are familiar with naturalist Aldo Leopold, I suspect, but I wonder how many of them have actually read A Sand County Almanac. With this landmark text (published the year after his 1948 death), Leopold helped birth the American conservation movement. Early in his life Leopold wrote poetry, and the literary world lost a fine poet when he went into forestry. Luckily his prose survives and seems to grow in reputation as a landmark text in environmentalism every year. Everyone who has endured long Wisconsin winters will understand when Leopold writes, “One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring.”

Wisconsin can and should take pride in its literary tradition.

There’s a lot more to this state than beer, brats, cheese, and football. In fact, there’s more good writing being produced here than I can keep up with. For instance, I can’t wait for Baraboo author Kelly Dwyer (whom I am proud to call a colleague and friend) to finish her next novel. Author of the acclaimed 1999 novel Self-Portrait with Ghosts, Dwyer sets her next one in a small Wisconsin town with a rich circus history; I’ve read the first few chapters, and this fictive town feels like Baraboo, the birthplace of the Ringling Brothers Circus.

Additionally, there’s a long list of books by Wisconsin authors that I know I must read—Nickolas Butler’s Shotgun Lovesongs (2014), Jane Hamilton’s The Excellent Lombards (2016), Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding (2011), David Rhodes’s Jewelweed (2013), David Wroblewski’s The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (2008), and so much more.

In exploring Wisconsin’s literary history, my students learn that their state is richer and more complex than they ever realized; I suspect that anyone who delves deeply into Wisconsin writers will make a similar discovery. ✺

WHEN NEUROSCIENCE AND PSYCHOLOGY WORK TOGETHER, WE ARE BOUNDLESS. WISC.EDU

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#BOUNDLESSTOGETHER

Cancer researcher Dr. Mark Burkard and artist Leslie Iwai at the Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research, 2016. Photo by Clint Thayer/Focal Flame Photography.

@ T H e J ames W atrous G allery

CELLULAR REVISION The Collaboration Behind Leslie Iwai's Daughter Cells: Inheritance, Separation & Survival

BY LYNNE HARPER

T

he search for the knowable has led to remarkable discovery and innovation in the sciences. At the same time, this unrelenting quest for knowledge has also fostered in many of us a sense of

discomfort with ambiguity—and a detachment from our often-messy internal and external worlds. While both science and art provide us with a way of understanding the world, the latter can help us deal with ambiguity and uncertainty.

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@ T H e J ames W atrous G allery

A cell undergoing klerokinesis, or cytofission. This human cell, which is abnormal in that it has two DNA-containing nuclei (green), is slowly pulling apart into two normal cells, each with one nucleus. The entire image is about 1/10 of a millimeter, about the width of a human hair.

Artists, like scientists, study the structure and behavior of the world through close observation, investigation, and the testing of ideas. From the inventive works of Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci, to the Modernists and their fascination with technology and artistic experiments in the laboratory, we see scientists who use art to give form to concepts and artists who use science to stretch what we see and know about ourselves—and the world around us.

Middleton-based installation artist Leslie Iwai uses close looking to discover repeating themes and narratives in her life and art. In this context of a “discovered narrative,” materials and methods are “welcomed in” by Iwai if they seem to be a good fit for a particular project.

Of her creative process, Iwai says. “You can’t make the work before you make the work.” Where some artists begin with an idea and move toward a specific destination, Iwai moves forward through uncertainty: she simply begins, going where the story takes her and believing that failure occurs only when she is not being true to the story, the materials, or herself.

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Trained in mathematics, chemistry, and architecture, Iwai makes art that explores the underlying design and geometry found within diverse materials, from concrete and steel to feathers, fibers, and wax. For Iwai, process-oriented methods such as welding, casting, sewing, woodworking, crocheting, folding, even melting, all emphasize the handmade quality she considers crucial to the visual elements in her art. The tactile nature of her completed pieces and installations invites observers to find connections between the ideas she expresses and the materials used.

Making associations through research, discussion, meditation, metaphor, and observation, Iwai’s process is a rigorous one. It can’t be rushed. Slowly revealing themselves through her conceptual investigation, these associations shape the development of her work.

There are, however, some overarching themes that influence Iwai and thread through her art: contradiction between appearance and reality is one, as is the notion of communal experience. The elevation of devalued things—spaces, materials, and people—has each played I D E A S

a role in her creative choices. She often approaches dark or difficult topics with a lightness that makes them eminently accessible.

For instance, her 2004 installation in Omaha, Nebraska’s Elmwood Park, titled Sounding Stones, is deceptively simple yet emotionally complex. Employing her knowledge of architectural space and acoustics, Iwai created five permanent, large-scale sculptures that amplify the voices of those who enter them.

Made from concrete and cast in fabric forms, these Sounding Stones resemble giant pillows, appearing soft and light in contrast with their roughly fifteenton weight. As part of her process, Iwai invited the homeless and indigent using the park to participate in decisions about the layout and placement of the Sounding Stones. Each inscribed with a word meant to be said aloud, Iwai’s Sounding Stones expand on the definition of sounding as a means to gauge depth or find evidence, and reflect her desire to provide a voice for those in the park who have none.

After moving to Wisconsin in 2011, Iwai was asked to create an installation

@ T H e J ames W atrous G allery

Leslie Iwai, Daughter Cells: Cytoplasmic bridging (this takes time), medium format photographic series.

at the Monroe Art Center. Her Interstitial Garden, which opened in 2013, explored the difficulty of change and the process of transformation. Most of the work in Interstitial Garden was suspended and featured multiple visual, material, and contextual connections to discover and enjoy depending on how you looked at the “garden.” Iwai said that she wanted people to see transitional space not as something “untended and barren,” but rather as “a rich place of growth.”

After viewing Interstitial Garden, Christie Bartels, a friend and rheumatologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, suggested to Iwai that these emotional spaces have a parallel place in human biology. Bartels noted that the interstitial spaces, or gaps, between brain tissues are more than just empty areas. Instead, they serve important functions in the restorative process of sleep.

An ensuing discussion about the biological as a mirror for the emotional led Bartels to suggest that Iwai might be interested in the work of Dr. Mark Burkard, a colleague of Bartels’ from the UW– Madison School of Medicine and Public Health who was doing some ground-

breaking cancer research. Bartels offered to introduce the two.

Iwai hadn’t heard of Dr. Burkard’s work, but she knew the basics of cellular division. First comes the synthesis phase, when a duplicate copy is made of cell components, including the DNAcontaining chromosomes in the nucleus.

Then comes mitosis, when the two sets of chromosomes are physically separated in opposite directions, even though they are still in one cell. Finally, during cytokinesis, the one cell is cut into two daughter cells, thereby completing the process of mitosis.

In 2012, Dr. Burkard and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center were creating cells that had extra chromosomes by arresting the process of cytokinesis in order to keep both nuclei in the same cell. Binucleate cells often turn cancerous, and the team was hoping they could create and isolate cells that they could use to test particular treatments. Yet the team discovered that 19 out of 21 resulting cell colonies contained cells that had reverted back to normal chromosomal health. This selfrestoration occurred when the abnormal

binucleate cells divided to become normal daughter cells. These daughter cells then carried on the regular cycle of division, creating new colonies of healthy cells containing the normal 23 chromosomal pairs.

This is startling because abnormal cells are not expected to survive. And, if they do, it is thought that any subsequently generated cells will also be abnormal. Perhaps more shocking was Dr. Burkard’s discovery of how abnormal cells managed to divide outside the active mitotic phase. Until this discovery, it was widely believed by scientists that human cell division was possible only within the active mitotic phase.

Dr. Burkard’s discovery suggests that damaged cells have an innate ability to recover, an ability that somehow exists beyond what is considered normal for human cell division. This unique cellular ability needed an equally unique name, so Dr. Burkard and his research team turned to UW–Madison assistant professor of Classics William Brockliss for help. They came up with klerokinesis, which is Greek for “allotted inheritance.”

Iwai was inspired by the new term and the way it “pointed to something

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domestic, something enduring about the cell as a home that one leaves.” She pictured the process as a “type of escape hatch or route that the progeny of a cell would undertake in order to survive an unhealthy domestic space.”

However, as she learned more about the mechanics of how the cell divides, her thinking evolved. “It seems that with the contrasted form and literal multiple hours of construction of this long, slow cytoplasmic bridge, that [the separation] might be something different, something more gentle, a slow going, a long goodbye,” she says.

The more Iwai learned, the more she became fascinated by Dr. Burkard’s discovery—which today goes by the name c y t o f i s s i o n —and the resilient human nature of human cells. Building on the idea of a cell’s apparent bias for recovery, regardless of allotted inheritance, Iwai began developing a new installation that expands upon themes related to cytofission through sculpture, text, drawing, and novel photographic processes.

In Daughter Cells: Inheritance, Separation & Survival, a new installation at the James Watrous Gallery, Iwai attempts to conceptually connect our intimate human narratives to this story of cellular resilience and survival. Work constructed with found architectural elements, blown eggshells, red string, text, crochet, and resin create an enlarged sculptural

CONNECT:

rendering of a cytoskeleton—stretched and morphed during the process of cytofission—and the replicated progeny contained within. Iwai highlights a physical segregation that is belied by mirrored images and the connection of bloodline, reminding us that even in division we maintain our attachments. A photographic series relays this theme, with stark images of two sisters—alike but not identical—connected and yet at the same time divided by their DNA. In composing Daughter Cells, Iwai considers her personal fissions as well. “A clean slate is not what I want,” she says, noting that there’s no such thing when it comes to relationships, no matter what form our separation takes. “We always take something with us—if not by choice, then by inheritance,” she says.

Iwai’s exploration of that which we inherit and that which we choose to take with us, led her to the use of gendered materials. Crochet, embroidery hoops, and sawhorses speak not only to the passage of time but to the domestic and traditional, passed to us from generations before. Inviting us to look closely at what is given, “microscope slides” made of window panes hold fragments of lace and other detritus labeled as attributes.

Matrix of My Mother, a representation of mitochondrial DNA contained within embroidery hoops, neatly suggests maternal links and the biology of inherited traditions. Sawhorses retrieved from

See the exhibition

Daughter Cells: Inheritance, Separation & Survival On view November 18–January 23 Reception on Friday, December 2, from 5–30–7:30 pm, with talks

by Leslie Iwai and Dr. Mark Burkard beginning at 6:30 pm.

Leslie Iwai’s installation for the James Watrous Gallery, Daughter Cells: Inheritance, Separation & Survival, is an investigation of family relationships at both the cellular and emotional level: what we inherit, how we separate, and what we choose to retain and pass on. To accompany Iwai’s installation piece, the gallery will also present a fascinating time-lapse video of cellular division and a series of photomicrographs, courtesy of Dr. Mark Burkard’s lab at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center. This exhibition and all related events are free and open to the public.

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Iwai’s family home are used to create rubbings, which are then transferred and enlarged to become multi-layered Mylar cutouts for Sawhorse Series: my father’s daughter, which adds a paternal reference that visually reminds us of the dual nature of our DNA inheritance.

Compelling us to consider our own inheritance, both chosen and genetic, Iwai includes the written responses from a recent artist residency where she first began exploring these concepts. She asked visitors to share three things that, in an escape, they would take with them.

Objects, attributes, and implements are written on paper resembling chromosomal strands that spill from eggshells stamped Escape. For Daughter Cells, Iwai again invites others to share their stories of survival, separation, and inheritance in an interactive piece titled, Unwinding Narratives.

Ultimately, Daughter Cells: Inheritance, Separation & Survival extends the story of a cell’s recovery, relating it to a drama occurring on many levels. This installation incorporates methods that stamp, weave, signal, and bridge ideas that mimic and explore the scientific narratives that play out on the human stage every day. In doing so, Iwai interrogates our notions of escape—not in the negativity of emergency but as a hopeful disentanglement, a letting go and long goodbye—and examines what we have inherited over time. ✺

@ T H e J ames W atrous G allery

Leslie Iwai, Homespun, human chromosome numbers 3 & 4, single needle felted, local wool.

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Leslie Iwai, Daughter Cells: Interphase (while we slept), medium format photographic series.

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For Hatching Plans (above), Iwai was inspired by the visual images of the nucleus as seen in the photomicrographs of cytofission. She began using the egg as a representation of this cellular structure. While an artist in residence at AIR Serenbe, she began exploring the idea that cytofission may be an “escape hatch” for the cell. She asked participants to consider and type their own escape scenario as well as write on and insert strips of paper into blown out eggs one of each: an object representing you and/or your heritage and family, an implement to aid in your escape and an specific attribute to pass along. After carefully inserting the paper into eggs stamped with escape, the cells were then broken open, unwinding with words used to inspire the work in Daughter Cells.

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Leslie Iwai, Cellular Study, with centrosome and centrioles, ink wash on mylar.

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In Matrix of My Mother, the folded and sewn mylar in suspended embroidery hoops refers to the mitrochondrial DNA and it maternal origins.

Leslie Iwai, Crochet study of cytoskeleton during cytofission, resin encrusted cotton crochet thread

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A sketch (upper left) and completed elements from A House Dividing, a work in progress for the James Watrous Gallery installation. The work features resin-encrusted, crocheted "cytosketelons" that hold and project eggs with words garnered from Hatching Plans. Found window frames with steel panes and other architectural elements create a domestic space for contemplating themes of disconnection and containment.

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Illustration by Maureen Heaster

F iction

2016 Wisconsin People & Ideas

FICTION CONTEST

2

ND PLACE

Lowlife

BY RICHARD BOROVSKY

I

was flappin’ my spats down Fourth Street when a funny feeling came over me—like someone was maybe reading my clock, so I turned left, pushed open a set of doors ten feet high and ducked in.

“Please state your business.”

“S’cuse me?”

“Your business. Please state your business,” the lady at the desk repeated.

“I’m … uh … I’m here to see a friend.”

“We don’t have friends here,” she said, looking me over and frowning like maybe she found a BB in her beans, or a louse in her lasagna.

This was a classy part of town, but I wasn’t ready for that answer. I was lyin’, of course; I wasn’t here to see a friend, but I couldn’t very tell the dame I was on the run. “There are stores and shops here, ain’t there? Along with the apartments?”

“There are,” she said, giving me a disdainful look. “But for members only. So if you’ll please …”

But then I saw an open elevator not far from the desk and I made a run for it. I pressed number 24, the top floor: The Elite Lounge. But just as the elevator doors began to close, I saw ’em.

There they were, pushing their way into the lobby. The whole gang. And talk about an ugly sight! This you wouldn’t want your mother-in-law to see if she showed up on your doorstep with a steamer trunk. There were four of ’em. Budgerigars—budgies for short, but these birds weren’t short. They were all six feet tall if they were an inch, with beaks to match! And sure, they were blue

and yellow and green, but don’t let the pastel colors fool you: these parakeets were goons, button busters, fork-lickers, lowlife scum.

“Please state your business,” I heard the lady at the desk say just as the elevator doors shut and I lifted off. I didn’t like that dame, but wouldn’t want to see what happened to her if she gave those thugs any lip. She was a human being, after all.

–

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But maybe I should start at the beginning. I’m just a regular Joe, you see, tryin’ to make a buck. My name’s Joe, too, and yeah, I work at the Mint here in Philly, but that’s not the point. Maybe if those birds got wind that I work with the big bucks, they might’ve changed their tune. But they never found out. They’re dumb.

They’re keenos, lopsiders. For all they knew I was Vice President of the frickin’ United States.

So I was riding the bus to work one day when a dame plants her katoosh in the seat next to me. It was the only open seat, and I’m blinkin’ pink; I’m one lucky stiff, I’m thinking to myself: this lady’s a looker—blond, blue eyes, all that, a regular Marilyn Monroe. But something was the matter. She had a Kleenex in her hand and she was dabbing at her eyes, and when I looked over,

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she showed me the backside of her ears quicker than you can flick a tick off a taffyapple. Then I heard her sob.

“Lady,” I said. “Is there somethin’ I can do?”

“No. It’s nothing.” But even as she says this, her lower lip and chin are quivering like lambs at a wolf convention. She’s wearing a bright red dress, her perfume’s top shelf, she has a rock on her finger too pricy for public transportation— and anyway, I could tell by the way she talked she was no jingle-brained chippy.

So I decide to shut up and look out the window. Not that there’s much to see; I been riding this route every day for five years now—ever since I lost my licenses, both of them, my driver’s and my P.I.’s.

But then she grabs my hand.

“You’ve got to help me!” she says, standing up and pulling me with her, looking like someone stuck a fork in her toaster. “Pretend you’re with me!” she whispers now. “We’ve got to get off this bus!”

“Wait a minute, lady,” I say. “I gotta get to work. I make big bucks. Find somebody else.”

“No! There’s no time,” she says.

“They’re here! They’re on the bus! Don’t look back! Just come with me!”

Now she’s gorgeous, and maybe someone’s lookin’ to do her hair with a cement mixer, or bake her cake in a blast furnace, so sure, I’m going with her, but the hell if this ex-gumshoe’s not lookin’ back. And when I saw who was on the back seat of that bus, the starch came outta my socks. How’d I miss ’em in the first place? Maybe it was because I was wondering if Patsy Parker would be workin’ the hundred-dollar line with me again that day, and if I’d have the nerve to ask her to the Flyer’s game. Maybe that, or maybe I was still half asleep and maybe a little hung over from the last four Manhattans at the gin mill the night before. But there they were, five of them, sprawled across the big back seat, snoring away. Turp trotters, grillers, palm pinchers, thugs.

“Run!” she says once we’re out on the sidewalk. “They’re getting off!”

And they are. They’re awake and coming down the aisle, all five of them.

I can see their ears, all ten of them, brushing the ceiling of the bus.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Richard Borovsky is an artist whose works have all been produced through lulu. com. A cut-paper artist a s w e l l a s a w r i t e r, many of his pieces m a y b e s e e n at h i s website richardborovsky.com. Borovsky is also a composer whose music has a strong classical influence.

JUDGE'S NOTES

By BJ Hollars: Wild, w a c k y, a n d u t t e r l y entertaining, “Lowlife” turns the hardboiled detective story on its head. Thanks to the author's pitch-perfect voice, readers are left laughing at every innuendo, every joke, every twist and turn the author takes us on along the way. A wondrously fun read.

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“We’ve got to run,” she says again, frantic now, dragging me down the street like a barrel a’ bricks. “We’ve got to get away!”

Now this dame’s not wearin’ a shirt, and she’s not wearin’ pants, and I figure it wouldn’t be appropriate to say, “Keep your dress on!” and it wouldn’t make any sense to say, “Keep your watch on!” so I just say, “Calm down, lady,” and I tell her to follow me, because I know a quiet little joint close by. It’s through an alley and down a set of stairs. You wouldn’t know it was there except for a burnt-out neon sign on a brick wall: Ratso’s Place. So the dame shuts up and follows me down the steps.

Inside, I tell her to plant her patootie on a bar stool while I take a look outside.

I want to make sure those thugs aren’t on our tail like freckles on a Swede, because if they are, there’s a back way out that only the regulars know about. I only take a few steps up so my eyes are at street level and I see ’em: they’re just passing the entrance to the alley, all ears and eyeballs, but they’re headed off down the street.

“Frickin’ bunnies!” I say under my breath as I swing the saloon door open.

And wouldn’t you know it, I see my lady friend’s already getting chummy with Ratso, who’s behind the bar.

“Hey, Joe,” Ratso says to me. “The lady tells me she’s got some rabbits on her tail, and you’re helping her out.” This surprises me. Maybe I read the dame wrong. She’s singin’ like a canary with a megaphone, and makin’ eyes at Ratso, an ugly mug if you ever seen one.

“Yeah,” I say, sliding onto the bar stool next to her. “But we lost ’em. I just saw ’em heading down toward the waterfront, lookin’ like they lost their sister’s silver.”

“What?” Ratso says, lookin’ at me kinda funny. “What d’ya mean by that?

Lost their sister’s silver? I never heard that.”

I just shake my head. Ratso was working the late shift in the rock factory when the brains got passed out. But then he just shrugs and looks at the dame. “So why’s a nice lady like you have nasty characters like that on your tail?” he asks.

She’s about to squawk, but before she does I take her arm and lead her across to a booth. “Ratso’s got a big mouth,” I tell her. “And a big schnozz too, and big

F iction

ears—a big mug, actually—and big feet, and a big butt. So spit straight, cookie.

If you want help, anything that gets said gets said to me. Got that? Now what’ll you have?”

She says she’ll have a Singapore Sling— just what I expected, and I walk over to the bar and order it along with the usual for me. “That dame’s trouble,” Ratso says to me as he’s making the drinks. “She’s a regular sheeney, a gumball. I seen her here before. She was makin’ eyes at Big Joey just a week ago…”

“Joey? Which one?”

“The big one.”

“They’re all big,” I say. “How much you think he weighed?”

“Joey? 275 … 280.”

“And about how tall?”

“6’2” … 6’3” maybe.”

“Are you sure? ‘Cause there’s one mug named Joey that’s maybe 280 but he’s 6’4” if he’s an inch. And there’s another one named Joe who’s pushin’ 305 easy, but he’s 6’2” at most. And there’s another Joey jiggles in at 325 but 6 feet even. And then there’s …”

“This guy’s neck’s bigger than his head,” Ratso says. “He can button his shirt and pull it down over his noggin. I seen it.”

“I seen ’em all do that. What’s his racket?”

“He’s a lowlife bum. A fork-licker, a sashee. I seen him once wit a rabbit.”

I personally know four guys named Big Joey who’re lowlife bums, all between 275 and 325, and all of ’em 6’ to 6’4”, but only one who’s known to rub tails with rabbits. I’m kind of sore at Ratso for not mentioning this right off, but I just take the drinks back to the booth where the dame’s cryin’ again.

“So Ratso says you’re pals with Big Joey,” I say ignoring the waterworks.

“I know a number of gentlemen named Joey,” she says between sobs. “How tall is the one you’re referring to? And how heavy?”

I take a sip of my drink. There’s plenty of Vermouth to take the edge off the coffin varnish Ratso serves. “I’m talkin’ about the Joey who’s known to consort with a certain long-eared, fuzzy type of thug— like the ones who followed us off that bus.

That Joey. And by the way, what’s your name?”

“People call me Jo.” “Oh, yeah? People call me that too,” I say. “So tell me what you were doing in this joint with that lowlife bum.”

“I heard he had business arrangements with … with rabbits. I needed to hire one.”

“Hire one? What’s a classy dame like you want to hire a bunny for? Those rabbits are scum, thumb suckin’ scum.”

She sobs again, but then Ratso calls my name—or maybe it’s her name. We both answer, but he points to me. “Phone call for Joe,” he says.

I tell the dame to stay put and walk over to the bar. Ratso hands me the

There they were, five of them, sprawled across the big back seat, snoring away. Turp trotters, grillers, palm pinchers, thugs. “Run!” she says once we’re out on the sidewalk.

“They’re getting off!” phone. He’s hanging around, so I give him the hairy eyeball and he makes himself scarce.

“Who is it?” I say.

“It’s big Joey,” the bum answers.

“Which one?” I ask.

“I’m six foot even and I weigh 305.”

“Sure you do,” I say. “And I’m the frickin’ Governor of New York. The Big Joey I know who’s 6 foot even weighs in at a good 325, not 305. You wouldn’t be 6’2” would you?”

“No.” “So who are you, really? And how’d you find me here?”

“Like I said, I’m Big Joey. I lost some weight. I just got weighed today. I had a doctor appointment.”

“Oh yeah. A doctor appointment?

What’s a matter witcha?”

“I got bad knees.”

“Bad knees? You wouldn’t get that from jumping would ya? Tryin’ to keep up with your … long-eared associates?”

There’s a long, cold silence on the phone—sounds like I slammed this mug’s fly trap shut. “Listen,” he says. “I’m callin’ you as a courtesy. That dame you’re with is trouble. She’s a regular sheeney, a gumball—just ask Ratso. If you know what’s good forya, steer clear.”

“Or what?” I say. “I’ll be smilin’ at my grandmother? Singin’ in Saint Pete’s choir? Wearin’ cement galoshes?” But the mug hung up. Just then I see a big goon slip out of the phone booth in back and head toward the door. It’s dark in the joint and all I see is his silhouette, but this lug’s dreamin’ if he thinks he’s 305—looks more like 315 to me. People are always lyin’ about their weight.

Back in the booth, I see Jo’s hardly touched her Singapore Sling. “So as you were tellin’ me,” I say as I slide in across from her. “What was your business hirin’ a bunny?”

Her voice is all tremulous now. “It was because of my husband. He’s terrible, Joe. He’s a brute. He’s a monster, Joe. He’s a sadist. A day didn’t pass when he didn’t …”

“He was beatin’ you up?”

“No. Not exactly. But worse. Every day he … Sometimes twice a day … he … Oh, Joe, I can’t bear to say it!”

But I wasn’t going to make her talk. I could see it written all over her face like lipstick on a horse. It made me sick. “So I see,” I said, reaching across for her hand.

“And you wanted to hire a bunny to …”

“Yes,” she answered, but burst into tears. “I tell you Joe, it was in self-defense.

I had to find help! You’ve got to understand, Joe. You’ve got to understand!”

I could tell this doll wasn’t going to finish her Singapore Sling, so I reached over with my free hand, grabbed it and downed it in a gulp.

“So Big Joey hooked you up with a bunny?” I asked.

“Yes, he did.” She’d stopped bawling but her voice got real frail, real meek.

“Yes, he did, but … But that bunny … that awful bunny … he did it to me too!” And at this time the dame completely fell apart.

I shot a glance over to Ratso, who looked like he was trying to listen in. I gave him another hairy eyeball, meaning

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for him to scram, and I held up two fingers. “Two more,” I said, figuring if this doll didn’t want the second Sling, I’d drink it myself. I kinda liked that first one: Gin, and cherry brandy, I think, and something that tasted like Cointreau, and Benedictine, maybe, and pineapple juice, and a little lemon juice—no, make that lime juice, and Grenadine to make it pink, and a dash of bitters, maybe? Kinda makes my mouth water. Kinda made me wish my elbows were as sharp as my eyes, as they say. And then I just let the lady cry.

But by the time Ratso brought the drinks over, I got to thinking: Life’s short, just like midgets.

“You know,” I said quietly, so Ratso couldn’t hear. “I ain’t never told no one about this before, but once, years back when I had a beef with the state of New Jersey, I did a bit in the hoosegow, the slammer, the cooler—you know, the Grey Bar Hotel. That’s when …” I downed my drink in a gulp. “That’s when I met my first bunny. He was my cellmate. He was a big one, he outweighed me by a hundred pounds. He was in for some kinda Easter violation, and at first I didn’t know he was such a bad Joe—his name was Joe too— but then he … then he …”

“Oh no, Joe!” “Yeah. He did it to me.”

“Oh, Joe!” she says, getting a grip on herself again. “You mean … in jail? You were …”

But I can’t hold back any longer. “Yeah!”

I say. “Yeah! Why don’t you just come out and say it? TICKLED! That’s what I was! I WAS TICKLED! And not by just one bunny, but by his big white buddy too!”

“Oh, Joe! Did they use their … their …”

“Their EARS? Yeah, they used their EARS, their FUZZY EARS! The filthy animals!”

“Oh, Joe!” she said. “How fuzzy were they?”

“Oh, God, Jo! They were FUZZY!” “Oh, Joe, don’t say it! The thought of those makes me sick!”

“But I gotta, Jo. I gotta say it. I gotta be a man, Jo! I gotta do it! PUSSY WILLOWS! PUSSY WILLOWS! Their ears were fuzzier than PUSSY WILLOWS!” “Oh, Joe. No more! No more! I think I’m going to regurgitate!”

“But there is more, Jo. There is! You gotta face it too. Because those ears were 46

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FUZZIER than pussy willows! They were as fuzzy as baby … baby …”

“Don’t say it, Joe! Please! For the sake of everything that’s decent and clean, Joe! Don’t say it!

“I gotta say it, Jo. It’s true. I gotta say it!

Those bunny ears were fuzzier than BABY DUCKS!” “NO-O-O-O! NO-OO-O-O-O-O!” She screamed, her hands up to her face like a picture I saw once in a book. But then she was quiet for a moment, and didn’t say a word, until her voice got all hushed:

through a hole in the screen, and I was up all night going after the filthy thing with a baseball bat. This took some time. I heard Jo laughing like a cuckoo on happy gas in the background, but figured Ratso must be putting the moves on her again, but it turns out I figured wrong. Ratso was off in the men’s room ironing his shoelaces, and when I got off the phone, the booth was empty. The drink glasses were knocked over on the table. And there were soft white hairs all over the place. I ran back to the men’s room to puke. When I get back, everyone in the joint’s as pale as your grandma’s caboose, and nobody saw a thing.

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“But … those ears weren’t fuzzier than … than …”

And yeah, I knew what she was thinking: they’re something like ducks, but with shorter necks and all yellow. But I’d never say that to a lady. Not this lady, not any lady. “No,” I said, “not that, not those.”

It takes us both a while to settle down, and I could tell by now she didn’t go in for the giggle water, so I downed her second Singapore Sling and ordered another.

“Easy on the bitters this time, Ratso,” I said. And then I remembered. If I didn’t call my boss at work, my bank account’d be barkin’ like a dead dog, and my landlady doin’ the hammer dance on my front door. So I excused myself and went over to the bar to call the Mint.

I had some explaining to do, but after all my years as a private dick, lying came easy, so I concoct a story about how a butterfly broke into my apartment I D E A S

–_

The phone call came late at night. I hadn’t been sleeping. I was ridin’ the late train to Palookaville, going crazy with thoughts of that jailhouse tickling—in the ribs, on the back of my neck, behind my ears. I was in a cold sweat when the phone rang.

“Joe,” Jo whispered. “They’ve got me!

Five of them. They fell asleep all curled together in a disgusting furry heap, so I snuck in the kitchen to use the phone.”

“They gotta phone in the kitchen?”

“Yes. A white one on the wall.”

“Oh, yeah? I heard about those …

So you say there’s five of them? Five bunnies? Did they …?”

“Oh, yes, Joe! Repeatedly. And they’re going to do it again. They’re not going to stop until I … They want me to … Oh, I just can’t bear to say it!”

“Cool your kidneys, cookie. Take it slow. Start at the beginning.”

Jo sniffed. “Okay, Joe. I’ll try. When I hired that bunny to give my brute of a husband the tickling he deserved, he told me there’d be only a nominal charge for the service. I guess I was so upset and frightened I forgot to ask him just what that nominal charge would be. But my husband and I are well-to-do, Joe; I couldn’t imagine there’d be any problem.

But then when I met the bunny afterward he told me I’d have to pay him with … Oh, Joe, I’m so ashamed! He said I’d have to pay him with … with a song!”

Bunnies are born perverts, I knew that, but I never guessed they’d sink this low.

“He wanted me to sing for him right there in the alley where I met him, but I

F iction

refused, Joe, and I stamped on one of his big back feet and ran off and jumped in a cab before he could hop after me. But he and his associates have been following me around ever since … until they snatched me away from the booth at Ratso’s.”

I knew what I was about to ask then would strike a nerve, and probably make the dame drop a dimple or two, but I had to know. “What was it he wanted you to sing?”

“Oh, Joe! I can’t say it. It’s so perverse!

I’m so ashamed. …” Here she paused for a moment to get up the nerve, sniffled a few times, and went on. “He told me to … to sing. He told me to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star!”

I thought I was going to loose my lunch right there, or my late night snack, maybe, seeing as it was 2:00 am, but I couldn’t: this dame was in the soup up to her crackers and she needed my help.

“So they snatched you up from Ratso’s and now they got you there in their hideout?”

“That’s right, Joe. It’s horrible here.

And they say they won’t let me go unless I sing.”

“That same song?”

“Oh, yes, Joe. But they’ve got three verses written out. Three verses! Oh, I’d rather die, Joe!” “Listen, Jo. Do you have any idea where they’re holding you? Is there anything you can tell me about the joint?”

“Just that there’s something awful here, something ghastly.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yes, Joe. When they got me here and took my blindfold off, I saw them. At first I thought it was a box of rats, Joe, and who can resist a box of rats? But when I went to look more closely, I saw what they really were. They weren’t rats, Joe! They were small! They were …”

“Oh, God, don’t tell me. Puppies?”

“No!” Worse, Joe. Worse than puppies.

Much worse! Oh, so much worse! Oh, Joe, it makes my skin crawl!” And then she stopped. And then she said it: “KITTENS! KITTENS! And they’re right here. A BOX OF KITTENS! And this time I did it. I did regurgitate! A box of kittens, Joe, right here in this dingy little second floor apartment with the elevated train rumbling right by and a bright red and blue neon sign flashing the words Third Street Bar

and Grill right in the window, and all that racket from the drunks downstairs.

And before I fell asleep the bunnies were talking about bringing in T … TE … TED … TEDDY BEARS if I don’t sing! Oh, Joe, I can’t bear it any more!”

That’s all I needed to hear. “Just stay put, Toots,” I said. “Lay low. Me and my boys’ll be there before you can fry a fly’s egg on a hot plate.”

So I call my boys, all four of ’em, (Frisco and Detroit Harry, the twins; and the brothers, Sluggo and Lucinda) and tell ’em to dress for the job. Tickleproof: overcoats, galoshes, gloves, hats,

But I’ve seen plenty in my day: a dame sellin’ flowers in the street, two little kids with mugs and clothes that matched, even a guy with a white face actin’ out stuff without talkin’—so how bad could this be? Just words on paper. And the first part was nothin’ new.

Twinkle, twinkle little star How I wonder what you are.

Up above the world so high Like a diamond in the sky.

Twinkle, twinkle little star How I wonder what you are.

This made me kinda sick, sure, but like I said, I seen a lot a disturbin’ things in my day. But tough as I am, I only got two lines through the next verse.

So I call my boys, all four of ’em, and tell

When the blazing sun is gone,

’em to dress for the job.

Tickleproof: overcoats, galoshes, gloves, hats, sunglasses, and gauze wrapped around their mugs like mummies. sunglasses, and gauze wrapped around their mugs like mummies. And I instruct them to bring the usual: rope, extension cords, and to stop at the barber college and meet me at Third and Washington at half past blue on the button. So like I say, they come prepared, and right on time, and Lucinda, the biggest mug among ’em, knocks in the door to the bunny hutch with one bump of his backside. And there they are: all five of ’em, cottontails, still sleepin’ in a stinkin’ furry heap on the floor like Jo said. So I tell Jo not to watch, and me and the boys we tie ’em up, plug in the clippers and shave ’em clean, ears to tails, every one.

“Your ticklin’ days are over, you bums!”

I tell ’em as we cut the ropes and let ’em loose, looking all thin and pathetic now, with one of ’em still clutching the sheet of paper he had when we busted in.

“Don’t look at that!” Jo says. “Don’t Joe! You’ll never be able to forget!”

When he nothing shines upon …

That’s when my boys told me I kissed the carpet. When he nothing shines upon … That’s what did it; like Jo said, I’ll never forget it. I guess there’s just so much a man can take. But as I was comin’ to, I realize that Sluggo’s lookin’ around the joint, checkin’ it out. Then he made the same mistake Jo made.

“Hey fellas,” he called from the other room. “C’mere! You gotta see this! There’s a box fulla rats in here!”

And like Jo said, who can resist a box a’ rats?

Well, Jo’s screamin’ now. “No, stop!

Stop! Keep away! Sluggo’s wrong. Those aren’t rats!” But it was too late. The boys were already in there. And this I’m sorry about: the younger ones, you see, Sluggo and Lucinda, they’re grown men now, and they’d heard of kittens—hangin’ out on the corner, in the pool hall, on the men’s room wall at the bus station—but they’d never seen the real thing. But I guess when you’re savin’ a damsel in distress, you take a chance getting’ your flappers in the gearbox.

So once they come to, I take Jo over to Patsy Parkers to cool off for a few days, and I’m thinkin’ what’s done is done, right? But, no. The next day when I’m walking down the avenue feelin’ no pain, with a smile on my face and my troubles behind my behind, like they say, that’s when I notice the budgies on my trail. And

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I heard rumors, but who hasn’t? Rumors that parakeets are the upper echelon of all things fuzzy, cuddly, and cute. But I also heard rumors that the pope keeps flapjacks under his hat, so who knows? So I try to lose those birds but I’m havin’ no luck. I jump in a cab but they follow, and like I said, I finally duck into the lobby of a building in a classy neighborhood, take the dame at the front desk for a rocker ride, and head for floor number 24: The Elite Lounge.

But as soon as I step off the elevator, a mug in a suit who’s standin’ there like a side of beef in a sweet shop looks me over and says: “Peddle your pudding elsewhere, chump!”

Now I never heard that expression before, but I caught the drift that I was as welcome there as a grasshopper at an Irish bar mitzvah. So I figured I was in it up to my salt shakers: this goon telling me to beat it and four budgies on my tail.

And then I hear the elevator doors slide open behind me, and the goon in the suit screams along with all the guzzlers at The Elite Lounge whose heads pop around like ping pong balls on a griddle, and before you know it they’re runnin’ for the exits, but the goon’s frozen in his tracks, and then I hear ’em. They’re behind me; I don’t turn around but it’s getting louder and I can’t stand it, I can’t!

It’s all four of ’em together, and I know they ain’t gonna quit! I put my hands on my ears.

“STOP! STOP!” I scream. “STOP IT NOW! STOP YOUR CHEERFUL CHIRPING NOW! OH, GOD! MAKE IT STOP!” But they’re chirpin’ away like a damn glockenspiel or a frickin’ brook, and I can’t tolerate another minute of it, not another minute! It’s worse than tickling! It’s worse than nursery rhymes! It’s even worse than EASTER DECORATIONS! “I’LL DO ANYTHING!” I finally say, “JUST MAKE IT STOP!” And I know I’m singin’ my death warrant when I say this, I know I’m shipping my dreams fourth class to Buffalo, but the cheerful chirping stops, and one of ’em, the biggest one, the chartreuse one steps around in front of me.

“So it’s Joe, eh?” he says, and then he chirps and even whistles a little. “So Joe, we understand you shaved our bunny friends within an inch of their stingers.”

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I never heard that expression before, but figured it meant shaved ’em as short as the whiskers on a soft-boiled egg.

“Yeah, birdbrain,” I said. “Me and my boys gave ’em what they deserved. Their ticklin’ days are through.”

“Well, they stopped by to see us, ya see, and dem bunnies was shiverin’ like icicles on a ten cent wiener, and they asked us for a little favor, see?”

“Wait,” I said. “What was shiverin’? The icicles or the wiener? I don’t get that.”

The big lug turns to his cohorts and has a little conference. “We all heard our

I’m thinkin’ maybe I got lucky, maybe the stars were aligned with my freckles, like they say.

But then this bird comes over and tells me they changed their minds, they got a better song for me to sing, another clappin’ song.

“Yeah! You GOTTA clap!” the budgie says. “You clap or we chirp!”

Meanwhile, the mug in the suit who tried to keep me outta that joint is sittin’ on the floor in his own mess. And then the bird turns on the tape. And I know it’s bye-bye fruitcake and fricassee for me, but what’s a mug gonna do? So I start right in: There was a farmer had a dog, and Bingo was his name-o! B-I-N-G-O! B-I-N-G -O! B-I-N-G-O! And Bingo was his name-o!

Even before I finish the first verse, I see the mug in the suit falls over backwards with his left leg shakin’ and his eyes rolled back in his head, but I kept on singin’.

There was a farmer had a dog, and Bingo was his name-o! (CLAP!) I-N-G-O! (CLAP!) I-N-G-O! (CLAP!) I-N-G-O! And Bingo was his name-o!

And even though everything I ever believed in this lousy world, every decent and clean thing told me to stop, I knew I had to keep on singin’. So I did.

There was a farmer had a dog, and Bingo was his name-o! (CLAP CLAP!) N-G-O! (CLAP CLAP!) N-G-O! (CLAP CLAP!) N-G-O! And Bingo was his name-o!

grandmas say it,” he says. “You got a problem wit dat?”

I did, but pushin’ it would be like tryin’ to dress a dog in last year’s tuxedo, so I shook my head. And then he pulls out a tape recorder from under his feathers, and along with that a piece a paper. And I don’t have to see it. I know what it is: sheet music!

“So what’ll it be, Joe? You listen to our cheerful chirpin’ for the resta your days, or you sing us a little song into dis here tape player so da bunnies can hear it whenever dey want? What’ll it be, huh?”

I get so dizzy I have to flop on one of The Elite Lounge bar stools. I see the words, and, yeah, I heard ’em once before.

“I gotta clap too?” I ask, feelin’ like I fell about as low as a fella can fall, like maybe I’m hired to walk a pack a’ poodle dogs.

I D E A S

But then one of ’em—a big yellow one—whispers somethin’ to the others, and tells me to stop. I’m thinkin’ maybe I got lucky, maybe the stars were aligned with my freckles, like they say. But then this bird comes over and tells me they changed their minds, they got a better song for me to sing, another clappin’ song.

And he wants to know if I know the words to a certain song, and I tell him no, and then, God help us all, he informs me: If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands! (CLAP! CLAP!) If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands! (CLAP! CLAP!) If you’re happy and you know it, your face will surely show it!

If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands! (CLAP! CLAP!)

F iction

And it’s just when I’m startin’ to sing, that I first feel the numbness in the back a’ my neck comin’ on, and smell somethin’ that smells like last Saturday’s shoelaces, but I get through that first verse and the second where I gotta stomp my feet instead of clap my hands. And every time I get to the part where I say “your face will surely show it!” they shout at me that I gotta smile! So I do that, but by this time I’m seein’ double, and after the next verse I don’t clap or stomp but have to sing: “If you’re happy and you know it, SHOUT HOORAY!” But then one of ’em gets another bright idea. And this time they make me dress up for the song because they’re gonna take pictures too. That’s when the numbness moved down my spine—and then nothin’, nothin’ at all.

It was a janitor who discovered us on the floor, the mug in the suit already droolin’ and twitchin’ permanently on his left side, and me out cold lookin’ like I had a plaster a’ Paris transfusion.

e

–_

So I ain’t workin’ at the Mint anymore, and I never been back to Ratso’s. Fact is, I’m a charity case. I got the shakes so bad Patsy Parker has to come over to iron my socks, so bad when I try to brush my teeth I end up with minty smellin’ eyeballs, so bad when I try to call my bookie, I end up sendin’ a sawbuck to “Friends of the Flophouse Flea!”

And things have gone from bad to worse in this town. The budgies and rabbits joined forces and moved in on the mayor’s office. Now the barber college is closed, the frickin’ Easter Bunny’s got his mug on the city bus tokens, and they’re playin’ “Bah, Bah, Black Sheep” in the elevators in City Hall.

At least that’s what they tell me, ‘cause I don’t go outta the house except to the corner pharmacy for my nerves, and down to the next corner to Mickey’s joint for what the pharmacy can’t cure. But I see in the papers, though, that the dame named Jo divorced her rich husband and

moved on to marry the owner of a chain of pet stores! Ratso and Big Joey were right when they collared her as a regular sheeney and a gumball. I shoulda listened.

But, hell, I shoulda listened to my ma when she told me to change my sheets every time I changed my oil. I shoulda listened to my uncle Joe when he told me never to date a woman with more nostrils than ears, and I know I shoulda listened to my old man when he told me never to shoot craps on flypaper.

Yeah, there’s a lot I shoulda listened to, but like I said before, I’m just an ordinary Joe—5’ 10”, 180-185, maybe—just tryin’ to make a buck, or get a couple in the mail once a month; and yeah, I ain’t got much of a stomach for things fuzzy, cuddly or cute, but how about you, wise guy? Sure, life’s tough, just like midgets, but when was the last time a budgerigar danced the bossa nova on your backside? And when was the last time you sang “Here Comes Peter Cottontail,” wearin’ bunny slippers, fuzzy pink pajamas, a tutu and a top hat?

Huh? When was that? Z

Wisconsin writers win cash, prizes, and more in our annual contests.

A picture of lite ra

ry g eni us

Enter your short stories and poems in our writing contests, which are accepting submissions via USPS and online from September 1 to December 1, 2016, and are open to all Wisconsin residents and students age 18 and older. Send in your best writing to win up to $500 and other prizes along with publication in Wisconsin People & Ideas, a slot at the 2017 contest reading at the Wisconsin Book Festival in Madison, even a one-week residency at the lovely Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point.

More info at wisconsinacademy.org/contests

Thanks to our contest sponsors:

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BOOK REVIEWS

Wisconsin on the Air: 100 Years of Public Broadcasting in the State That Invented It

by Jack Mitchell Wisconsin Historical Society Press, $24.99, 240 pages (with 57 b/w photos)

Reviewed by Ronnie Hess In a political season rife with hyperbole, posturing, half-truths, intolerance, and worse, author and UW–Madison Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication Jack Mitchell reminds us that there is a media outlet where intelligent debate and public discussion are still valued. In Mitchell’s Wisconsin on the Air: 100 Years of Public Broadcasting in the State That Invented It, we learn that public broadcasting’s founders sought to cultivate an informed, enlightened citizenry, a sense of community, even a sense of fun through educational broadcasting that was and is today available for free to all.

Full disclosure: I worked for Wisconsin Public Radio from 1971 to 1983. Back then, it was WHA-AM and WERN-FM (the latter an acronym for the Wisconsin Educational Radio Network). Mitchell, a broadcast pioneer who helped develop National Public Radio’s flagship news program, All Things Considered, was my boss from 1976, when he became manager of radio, until I left WPR for a career at CBS News.

One shouldn’t conclude that Mitchell’s Wisconsin on the Air is only for past and present employees of public broadcasting, or just for its audience. The book is actually a must-read for anyone who cares about democracy, even though it may at times seem a trifle involved or deep “in the weeds” of the organization’s complex history.

Mitchell describes how public radio started at UW–Madison in 1917 with federally-licensed experimental “station” 9XM, a project of the Physics Department. It’s first transmission—the sound of a popular tune of the day, “Narcissus”—was emitted from a lab in Science Hall to an off-campus receiver. Officially licensed in 1922 as WHA, 9XM may not be (as the author claims) the oldest continuously broadcasting station in the nation. But perhaps more important, Mitchell argues, is that Wisconsin was the first state to apply a public service philosophy to government-sponsored broadcasting: 9XM was based on the concept that education can improve lives beyond the classroom—the Wisconsin Idea transmitted across the airwaves. In 1967, this Wisconsin tradition found expression in the nation’s Public Broadcasting Act, which established and made available funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and, eventually, the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio.

Mitchell guides readers through a century of development and change, touching on the transition from “educational” to “public”

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broadcasting and exploring that strange new animal, television, and the challenges of highly competitive digital media. There are generous descriptions of decades of radio and TV programming: live broadcasts of Badger athletic events; “School of the Air” lessons for kids (Wisconsin was a national leader in instructional programs) and Bob Homme’s children’s program The Friendly Giant (which transitioned in the 1950s from radio to WHA-TV); Chapter A Day literary readings (begun in 1927 and still popular today); the late Karl Schmidt’s radio drama project, Earplay; extensive news coverage alongside documentaries, such as Wisconsin Public Television’s We the People, Wisconsin, which set a standard for “civic journalism”; and WPT’s more recent efforts in community engagement.

Mitchell explains how hard it was to turn a hodgepodge of regional radio stations featuring the same programming into the Wisconsin Public Radio network, offering two distinct, themebased “channels”: one with classical music and NPR news and another featuring locally-generated “ideas” or “talk” shows. He gives vivid descriptions of extended battles (particularly between UW–Extension and the Educational Communications Board) for dominance, some won, some lost, some simply a draw.

For a public broadcasting station, there is ever present the real threat of diminished federal and state funding, and Mitchell makes no apologies for today’s fundraising drives and underwriting, which, to my mind, have changed and even compromised the nature of non-commercial broadcasting. (According to Mitchell, in 2014 corporate underwriting on WPR generated $2 million in revenue.)

Mitchell concedes that in a world full of choices, some programs might be considered less public service than entertainment. He even raises the question of whether these programs are worthy of taxpayer support. But, in their defense, he comes back to the Wisconsin Idea in public broadcasting, the “very public expression of objectivity, fairness, balance, and context in the search for truth.” It’s hard to argue with that.

BOOK REVIEWS

We are traveling through dark at tremendous speeds: Poems

by Sarah Sadie 40 pages, $15.00, Lit Fest Press

Reviewed by Karla Huston I’m one of those readers who start at the beginning of a volume of poems. I don’t page through, nor do I read the end of the book first. While reading Sarah Sadie’s new collection of poems, however, I found myself drawn to the narrative that scrolls across the bottom of the pages like a cable news ticker, adding additional depth and nuance the poems of We are traveling through dark at tremendous speeds.

Sarah Sadie is the nom de poem used by Sarah Sadie Busse of Middleton. A volume unlike most, this collection features poems and reflections about becoming, about defining and refining the self as (not?) Middle-aged, middle-class, middle-western. Flyover territory. The scrolling ticker at the bottom of the page continues, How can she paint a self-portrait. How can she paint anything but.

I’m changing my name, she tells her husband. What’s changed? he asks.

Sadie refines and redefines the narrator and the notion of poetry through language that seems to draw from the Hélène Cixous essay, “The Laugh of the Medusa,” in which Cixous posits that women’s writing—even language itself—is part of a phallocentric world where women have no access to their own stories.

In short, she has no body, is nobody. Cixous suggests that a woman must “write her self” to find her self. Busse as Sarah Sadie has created a persona that allows her to write as who she may be, may become. I created a space for her to emerge, and then she created me, a disembodied quote tells us at the beginning of chapter 2.

This feeling of otherness is enhanced by the book’s simple black cover with only the title announcing itself, no author name, nothing to name what’s inside, no page numbers. The back cover, the title in mirrored reverse, amplified by the forest of black lines that is the UPC code. Perhaps this is the book she mentions in “Riff on the Definition of Poem” A book is a basket of deaths. Small ones.

A web with no spider (hide her), this is the secret dilation …

Sadie challenges the middle ground of common experience with stylistic choices that disrupt the typical poetry experience.

Her poems are right justified, and section separations do not announce theme or guiding premise, but are part of a continuing narrative. In fact, the entire volume is a continuing narrative. The ticker across the bottom is arranged to not only make its own meaning, but also to enhance what comes before. Sometimes it’s

right to resist the flow, the go go go.

As I read I’m reminded of a book I read in graduate school, Borderlands: La Frontera, by Gloria Anzaldúa, in which the author (this is over-simplification and shaky memory at work here) suggests that for cultures to truly understand one another, we must not simply cross borders but create a space to live within the border. Inside that space is where we find something new, frightening, perhaps; but perhaps wonderful.

Sadie’s poems live in these spaces, grow and thrive inside of what is known and what is newly discovered.

Within the borders of these two black covers is a woman, a poet, a mother, a wife, a teacher, all of her trying to create something meaningful. The narrator is a woman who has stepped across the border, a place in which she can create and/or reside.

… This is the walled garden, the invitation, an intimate penetration.

Let’s not lie or cover over.

It’s sexy as hell, what’s going on here.

—from “Riff on the Definition of a Poem”

In these pages we discover a woman finding her way through or to her new normal, her becoming. These are poems of a domestic exterior life—though Sadie is no domestic diva; she freely admits her frustrations—set against a private interior life rife with questions. Where are we again? How did we get here?

Where is the exit?

To call Sarah Sadie’s book delightful wouldn’t do it justice.

Thoughtful—requiring thought, perhaps. Wise. Or startling (where to start?). Wonderful or full of wonder. You decide, but let words, meaning, the familiar strangeness work their magic.

Start at the start with this volume, and whether you read the poems first, the crawling narrative second or in any order of your choosing, let these poems resonate—which is what good poetry should do. Notice how words and images thread and move in ways both artful and unexpected. Words can be an act of creation. Understand her exhortation: We are far beyond nouns.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Impersonations

by Mark Zimmermann 80 pages, $15, Pebblebrook Press

Reviewed by Michael Kriesel

Milwaukee poet Mark Zimmermann’s first full-length poetry collection, Impersonations, dazzles with a gallery of pithy portraits written in a novel form. Take, for instance, “Osama bin Laden.”

Islam is all.

Man is made in Islam.

And as man is old as sand, so Islam is oasis.

One denies Islam, one is dead— dead, one loses all. Loses all and is damned.

Zimmermann’s poems are lipograms, a form where one or more letters of the alphabet are deliberately excluded from a work. Perhaps the most famous literary lipogram is A Void, a 1969 French novel by Georges Perec in which the letter “e” is never used.

Zimmermann takes the lipogram one step further by composing first-person narratives using only the letters contained in a literary or historical character’s name. Additionally, three of the poems also double as sonnets (all this, while limited to half the alphabet!).

“The form afforded the kind of creative freedom that can come from working with a constraint that guides one into places they’d not otherwise go,” explains Zimmermann, who teaches humanities and writing courses at the Milwaukee School of Engineering.

The 62 character studies found in Impersonations include 1960s LSD guru Timothy Leary, Walt Disney, Sigmund Freud, an Elvis impersonator, John Wayne, Emily Dickinson, Moby Dick, Hannibal Lecter, and Yeti (I confess to Googling some of the book’s historical subjects).

Composing the bin Laden poem only took Zimmermann a few hours over the course of an afternoon. “I probably spent more time worrying that a careless reader would take it as a put-down of Islam at large than I did actually writing the poem,” he says.

Working with a limited vocabulary isn’t new to Zimmermann.

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freelance journalist and editor. As a second and third language user during those years abroad, Zimmerman experienced linguistic limitations similar to the constraints found in a lipogram, which contributed to his attraction to the form.

The math and magic in these poems reminds me of how numerology (the belief and practice surrounding the spiritual significance of numbers) breaks down the letters in a person’s name to just a single number, which represents a certain personality type.

Having written lipograms, I can testify how (after the grunt work of building a word list), phrases assemble themselves independent of author intent, like crystals forming in a supersaturated solution. Besides a certain inevitability of composition, the form’s narrow parameters render a small (400 or so) vocabulary of similar-sounding words. This process of sonic distillation results in a poem with extraordinarily rich sounds.

“While [my poem] ‘Moby Dick’ took fifteen minutes,” Zimmermann explains, “it wasn’t uncommon to spend 25 or 30 hours on a poem.”

These poems are classic portraits—shorthand guides to the souls of their subjects. For “Donald Trump Sr.” Zimmerman recalls how “the terms of the constraint and the emptiness of the man combined to make composition happen quickly,” adding that he felt as if he “found something that was there all along, as opposed to starting from scratch”: A small man’s monotonous lot amounts to a rut on a dull map.

A Trump man’s dollar amount maps a natural surplus.

A small man prompts no plan to add onto unsold land.

A Trump man puts a dollar amount on all land, touts an all-out proposal: Ad Plan Dollar Plan Trumpland.

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POETRY

NEW

Wisconsin poetry

Honorable Mention Poems from our 2016 Poetry Contest

Alligators in the Basement My brother and I conjured a swamp of black water, filled it with saw-toothed specimens, upping the ante of our basement games. Any trek downstairs meant taking the treacherous route—the jump from the fifth stair onto a small castaway table, followed by the precarious placement of the left foot onto the fruit cellar’s metal latch, arms reaching to suspend from the door’s sagging boards, twisting to vault onto the abandoned coal bin, stretching to a ceiling pipe and dangling arm over arm to the adjourning laundry room for a quick breather while standing in the tub of the wringer washer.

From there, we’d swing on clotheslines out over the raging reptile pool with its vicious inhabitants, a dozen mouths perpetually open awaiting a feast of succulent humans, and we’d balance atop a rusty file cabinet filled with rattling bottles left by a previous tenant, then make a leap to Safety Island— the old couch at the far wall where we’d land at last on mildewed upholstery, take a fortifying breath for a catapult to the outbound steps and passageway up through angled cellar doors to the calm backyard.

Except on Monday, laundry day, there was no game.

The great Mother Monster, sister of Loch Ness, took over that day, and all the alligators fled.

—Jeri McCormick, Madison

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Dead Porcupine: No Metaphor I came across a dead porcupine sitting on its belly looking asleep—his only sign of injury a crooked and bloody nose—and thought perhaps I’d get a poem out of it—this corpse I nearly stumbled over in the dark cedar copse. But the world doesn’t always give you poems when you want them. Why should everything be fodder for my words? Neither the dead porcupine nor those still in their trees care a whit about me or my words. They don’t care that I love the cedar scent I pull through my congested sinuses. They don’t care that I have only one good ear, and with it hear waves clattering the limestone cobble, wind snaking its way through the woods. The world is there for itself.

Sometimes a dead porcupine

[as Freud might say—if he were here, still drawing breath, if he could pull himself way from the wind and greenwaterwaves, the cloud-jagged horizon—]

is just a dead porcupine.

—Steve Tomasko, Middleton

Kissing Marilyn Monroe I’m sitting on a park bench noodling lines from a Billy Stayhorn song, Something to Live For, “watching the noon crowds,” when a woman bumps me with her hip.

“How are you,” she asks, and I choke on a high note, “Marilyn.” She smiles the same shy smile she offered at an eating place in Jersey, when I made her laugh with a silly story. “You could kiss me,” she says, and I plant one on each cheek.

“The lips,” she says, and “oh my,” she leans forward, humming a phrase from Besame Mucho, and we kiss slowly, savoring each moment like a first taste of peach brandy, rum cake and hot fudge, or sweet potato pie.

She parts her lips, sighs, smiles. I’m all “oohs” and “ahhs” and we press lips, twirl tongues, nibble with teeth; an embrace announces her breasts. She rubs my ear with her thumb, seats herself on my legs, one arm around my neck, kissing napes, touching the notch that connects collar bones, and the kisses sizzle. We’re posed like Rodin’s models for The Kiss, immortality in marble, lips stuck together, an oxygen concentrator thrumming away in a dark room, moments from a dream lined, written, and delivered.

—Richard Roe, Middleton

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Kindergarten Graduation Mom said, Kiss her hand.

I didn’t want to kiss my teacher; especially not on the bulging green vein of her thin hands.

I think she had red hair. She was kind. She sent a memo home: the boys shouldn’t drop their pants all the way when using the urinal. “Fathers teach zippers to your sons.”

Zippers were beyond her grasp.

I said: No, I’ll just hug her like everyone else when they get their diploma. At home I spoke a language of stolen kisses.

No. Pocałuj jej ręke. Show the Americans that you are not American. Unfortunately

that was abundantly clear. Already I had kissed the face of that girl who was always sucking snot back up into her nose under the table (also full of boogers)

Altar boy, circa 1959 Incense and extinguished candles Scent my small-town Saturday night.

Post-benediction, our priest returns to the rectory.

Stained-glass filters church light into the dusk.

A mourning dove signals daylight’s departure.

We wait at the corner store for the truck from the city.

Sunday’s early edition is dropped on the curb.

Despite the masthead: “Free Press”, dad hands me a quarter.

I carry the bundle into the shop and return with our copy.

We drive toward the farm.

I’m comparing color comics to stained-glass discovering what trouble Dick Tracy is in this week.

—Ed Werstein, Milwaukee

and I stole I stole Legos and I cried and cried so hard on the first day when mom left me and I couldn’t explain the awesomeness of Mark Buttrock’s Ninja Turtle sneakers except in a language no one bothered to listen to, that no one heard.

—Peter Burzynski, Milwaukee

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Cancer is Not Cosmic Justice Cancer is not a ringing bell, a queen of spades. Cancer is not your mother’s hand-me-down, strung like pearls along the lymph nodes, smoky quartz clustered in the caving lung, opals singing their blues in the neurons, a solitaire promise kept by the breast, a little story of family bitterness tucked away in a velvet nook.

Cancer is not what you get.

That guy there: he doesn’t have it.

Look at how he lives on the chemical yellow fats of the land and leaves to the lean the steeplejack’s providence.

He may yet die without it. Still, it seems cancer is everywhere now.

I feel it coming for me, a rattling under the eaves, a sudden mood gathering in the west, in its throat a new sorrow.

It might level my hometown or veer south for the neighbor’s or winter. Nothing I do will force it to decide—eat my chard, act with integrity, chuck it all and sleep on a Turkish beach.

Cancer is not cosmic justice, it is a hawk’s long night in my yard. It is the sticky bits of grouse left there this morning, the torn stomach spilling whole berries.

They glow like tourmalines.

—Cynthia Belmont, Ashland

Her Statement Yesterday morning I’m pretty sure it was yesterday I started walking along the beach toward someone who would meet me at my destination. Where it was or who it was I can’t remember off the top of my head.

I walked that way a hundred times before and knew my feet would take the right path through the woods when the rocks became too high to climb.

Near some bushes that leaned into the path I sat down to tie my shoe. Then I saw wild raspberries growing over my head and ate a few. They tasted so much like lunch that I figured this must be my destination and stayed for a long time eating and waiting.

Then night came and I heard boys shouting laughing and cursing as they climbed the rocks. I could tell they were not for me so I curled up and slept on the overgrown path.

There were rustlings in the woods all around me and once a soft tail or whisker brushed my cheek but no one came to meet me.

In the morning I crawled back out to the beach and sat there on a pile of rocks to watch the sun come up.

I could see its heart beating the shimmer of its giant orange eye. My own eyes beat in time with it and somewhat cried.

Later a woman came and said she would walk me to the street which she did and then I went up and down each one until I found a house that fit the key on the ledge at the top of the door. I came inside and I was here.

And that is everything I know about what happened.

—Georgia Ressmeyer, Sheboygan

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WISCONSIN ACADEMY TALKS wisconsin academy of sciences, arts & letters

Growing Our Creative Power Series Let’s change the conversation about the power of creativity to improve Wisconsin’s economy, educational systems, and quality of life.

Join us for the final three talks in our six-part series exploring how specific investments in the knowledge economy and our creative sectors can make a brighter future for Wisconsin. The first three talks are held in the Wisconsin Studio in Overture Center for the Arts, Madison: • Raising Creative Kids: Arts as a Foundation for Creativity on Tuesday, February 28, 7–8:30 pm • Creativity on Main Street: How Arts Transform Communities on Tuesday, March 28, from 7–8:30 pm • The Art of Discovery: Science and the Creative Process on Tuesday, April 11, 7–8:30 pm Free and open to the public, these talks are part of the Wisconsin Creativity Initiative. Developed by the Wisconsin Academy in partnership with the Wisconsin Arts Board, Arts Wisconsin, and the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, this initiative seeks to examine the elements of a creative economy that make the most sense for Wisconsin, and the ways we can harness these elements to make our communities and our state stronger.

JAMES WATROUS GALLERY wisconsin academy of sciences, arts & letters

Let’s Draw On view February 10, 2016 – April 9, 2017 Reception on Saturday, February 18, 1–3:00 pm, with a special drawing workshop and talks by the artists

Can visual art be taught through radio? The producers of WHA’s Let’s Draw program thought so. Let’s Draw’s pioneering on-air lessons brought art education to rural Wisconsin schoolchildren from 1936 to 1970. Presented in partnership with Wisconsin Public Radio, this James Watrous Gallery exhibition combines a look at Let’s Draw with the work of six Wisconsin artists with diverse approaches to drawing: Emily Belknap, Tony Conrad, Nina Ghanbarzadeh, Lee Mothes, Zach Mory, and Katie Ries.

Left: James Schwalbach recording a Let’s Draw program at Radio Hall. Courtesy of the University of Wisconsin Archives #S14465.

Visit www.wisconsinacademy.org for more details