Between Yesterday and Tomorrow

"The N Train" 

“The best thing we ever did, outside of having children, was moving to Wisconsin,” I said last Tuesday as we sat in our son Joshua’s living room in New York. What if we’d taken a different path out of Manhattan 42 years ago, what if Adolph had chosen to teach at Skidmore in Saratoga Springs instead of at UWM? What if, what if, no way of knowing, and it doesn’t matter.
 
We loved living in NYC with its great museums, galleries galore, theater, dance, concerts, poetry venues, parks, public transit, sidewalks perfect for people watchers like me. I’ve spent countless days of my life drawing in Macys, Gimbels, and Central Park, in coffeehouses, buses, and subways. In fact I did a new series of “N” train and “M3” bus drawings this past week.

"More N Train" 

We loved NY but didn’t want to raise our children there. Soot coated our freshly-washed dishes if we left the kitchen window open. Snow drifts were not white. I had to walk thirteen blocks with three babies in a stroller to get to Washington Square Park. I had to trudge with a giant laundry bag and three babies to go to the laundromat, had to pile grocery bags with the kids when shopping. People pushed through crowds on the sidewalks; cars, trucks, buses, and taxis sped through the traffic-filled streets.

"The Third Avenue Bus" 

Small-scale Shorewood seems perfect for people like me. We came home from NY last Thursday, then went to the vegetarian potluck at the Urban Ecology Center and a WAVE benefit at the house next door. Friday: a sustainability committee meeting and the Fitness Center; since then I’ve taken a granddaughter to the Nutcracker, hung out with friends at Schwartz Bookstore, gone to Walgreens, Pick & Save, Beans & Barley, Whole Foods, to the ear doctor with Adolph, had dinner at our kids’ houses, gone to a salon discussion on feminism, and almost every trip was on foot or by bus.

Friends here often mention how lucky they feel to live in Shorewood, where so much is so close at hand, easily accessible without a car, and where there are so many interesting and thoughtful people. American mores have gone askew, more money more power bigger cars houses egos. Maybe life’s meant to be smaller and simpler: more salons where people sit around and discuss issues that matter, more salons and less saloons, more urban farms and gardens and less agribusiness, more creative games and less computer games, more bikes and less cars, more thought about values and less vacant worship of things.
 

Home-based group discussions of the issues that shape our lives should be taking place everywhere in this nation, and on a regular basis. The Sunday Soup and Salad Salon has been meeting once a month for four years, and whether I agree or disagree with the ideas expressed, they force my thoughts to travel in unexpected directions.

About forty people showed up at our post-election salon. Everyone was relieved that the election wasn’t stolen, was euphoric, optimistic, reveled in the sense of solidarity with each other and with the rest of the country. And most believed in Obama’s good intentions. Yet there also was skepticism, “I know you don’t want to hear this, but....” And there were those who wondered, with such a deep divide, how do we heal? Then there’s the question: what next? The base is expanded, energized, excited, expectant, where do we go from here?

An African-American woman noticed an unaccustomed deference from a clerk, and that’s what I was thinking most about afterwards. Especially when a friend said to me that deference, but for all the wrong reasons, is creepy.

Is it? What are right reasons? I suspect most human interactions are plagued by so-called wrong reasons, by hidden agendas, even by agendas hidden from those who’ve written them. People often don’t recognize the “real” reason for their actions. Even the more self-analytical specimens of our species fall short.

Is it creepy if a latent, or even a blatant, racist looks at an African-American with more respect because a black man is our president-elect? Perhaps that racist will begin to realize that we’re all just human beings. What starts as a wrong reason could ultimately become a trigger for positive behavior.

And perhaps the flipside of this is true: perhaps the clerk didn’t treat her with more deference, perhaps she was simply feeling more self-confidence, feeling that more possibilities have opened up. Perhaps she was feeling more pride in being black.
 

Ghosts prowl the earth this week. Those who once fought against injustice have been invoked, wished for, remembered. As for me, I’m thinking of my mother. She fought for civil rights in every way she could, paraded, sat in, boycotted, spoke out. She gave scholarships to African-American children so that her nursery school was always integrated. She died a year before African-Americans were left behind on soggy roofs in New Orleans while whites were saved and five years before this country elected a president who is African-American.

A man who amazed us with his serenity under pressure, with his positive attitude, his brilliance, judgment, eloquence, and humaneness, rose up and wowed the world. I at first thought he should wait four years, then saw he didn’t have to. He knew how to run a campaign, so much so that the people showed up in droves. The GOP couldn’t rig enough machines, couldn’t sufficiently disenfranchise the elderly, the young, the poor, people of color, couldn’t cleanse enough voter rolls, throw away enough ballots, play enough dirty tricks, couldn’t steal this election the way they did in 2000 and 2004.

And on Wednesday, despite corporate media, this was a new country, at least for now, and I could walk the streets of Shorewood to thumbs up, hugs, smiles, to calls of “Aren’t you happy?”

Yes, I am. We’ll never know what the real total would have been without chicanery and glitches.
I always had confidence in the optical scanners we use here. Similar machines caused problems in many states on Tuesday. Some crashed, jammed, or scanned incorrectly. Some voters didn’t realize they had to connect the front and back of the arrow on the paper ballots and instead drew circles around them. We can create computer chips that hold more information than a myriad of human brains; perhaps we can develop a reliable method to vote. I certainly hope one of the first bills before the new congress will be election reform, that we’ll have a nationwide system of voting with a mandated paper trail so we won’t have to live in fear of not being counted.

I do wonder what it’s like to be Obama, to create a landslide so powerful his opponents were buried, then wake up the next morning buried along with them, and us. He has to gather the rubble and rebuild the world, stop the meltdown of the economy and of the icebergs, re-form the health-care system. And he doesn’t seem daunted. Though he’s a moving speaker, he’s not a demagogue. The question now is: though he’s a thinker, a doer, a mover, is he a demigod? That’s what we need.
 

One of France’s three major television networks was in Shorewood last week, at the Alliance Francaise, to put together an election story scheduled to air after the election. The reporters wanted to know how women here feel about the candidates and the possible impact of the results on our corner of the country. So about ten of us became a backdrop: we sat at a table, nibbled cookies, sipped tea, and listened to the interviewees give concise descriptions of Obama. As you’ve probably noticed, there aren’t many McCain supporters in Shorewood, and none showed up.

Afterwards I got to thinking about the impact of the election here even before it has taken place, the plethora of signs, the neighborhood filled with canvassers for Obama, the excitement,
the endless political conversations. Almost everyone I know, even those who have never volunteered before, is working for Obama. 

At the Fitness Center on Saturday, every thread of conversation I picked up was about the election. “Did you vote yet?” “...two hour wait in Milwaukee.” “In Shorewood there’s no wait at all...” “Thank God, it’s almost over,” said someone, but the discussion didn’t stop there. It continued from weight machine to weight machine. Politics and fitness seem to go together. It’s all I’ve overheard for the past several months! At the gym. And at the cafes, the meetings, the grocery stores, in front yards, from passers-by on cell phones.

Yes, there’s relief that we nearing the end of the line, there’s excitement, there’s hope. Then there’s the other strain, the main strain, everywhere I go: “I’m so scared!” People are worried, that’s getting more prevalent. What’s going to happen? What if they steal it again? There’s the sense that we all might be in a sinking boat, togetherness in fear. Then there are those who say it can’t happen when there’s a landslide. This morning I heard a sobering interview of Mark Crispin Miller on DemocracyNow. Read the whole interview, and I’m sure you’ll remember to bring the number, 1-866-OUR-VOTE, to the polls. If any problems arise, use it.
 

Ideas are like amoebas, shape changing with input. And that's how the Shorewood Conservation Committee’s Reusable Bag Campaign developed.

The Conservation Committee was divided into three subcommittees, and I was on the Sustainability Subcommittee. One issue we decided to tackle was toxins in the environment. I had long ago bought educational door-hangers to put on the doorknobs of neighbors who use lawn pesticides. I never did it though. So I suggested we make our own lawn-care door-hangers to distribute in the village.

Someone else suggested we make them two-sided, one side for safe lawn care outdoors, the other for safe cleaning methods indoors. We then all agreed that the door-hanger would be in the shape of a house. And that was our plan when I went to visit our son in New York last December.

When I returned a week later, subcommittee members had met again and instead of mere door-hangers, they planned to distribute reusable shopping bags to every household in Shorewood.  Our inside-outside door-hanger would be an insert in the bags. And subcommittee members were already checking out manufacturers, costs, materials, and possible delivery dates.

Of course we also had to design the bags and figure out how to pay for them and how to distribute them. Many more issues cropped up, with countless meetings and Emails, discussions and disagreements. 

The corner of this project that I know most intimately is the design of the bags. The artwork was my responsibility. I was working with Tammy Bockhorst, who was in charge of putting it all together, an endless project that required new software and extended learning curves.

At first everyone wanted a logo. Someone directed me to show Shorewood between a lake and a river, and she drew ripples to illustrate what to do. Since no one disagreed, I assumed that was my first assignment, and I wasn’t too happy about it! For a few weeks I played around with the idea in my wordrawing style, though someone else had told me not to include writing. Well, I always knew I’m not a logo-type.

Finally Tammy pointed out that that was just one person's suggestion, and I could do whatever I wanted. I decided leaves would make a good logo. So with Tammy's help, we modified an old drawing of mine of mulberry leaves as a prototype.
I figured it wouldn’t be a final logo since mulberries aren't native to Wisconsin. Actually I just researched that on google, and red mulberries with lobed leaves ARE native. However they’re considered invasive.

In any event, we needed a drawing for one side of the bag, and we settled on non-invasive native plants. Since it was winter, and no native plants were in bloom, I drew from photos in catalogues and online. After I'd done a series of flowers,

Tammy mentioned that maybe men wouldn't carry a bag with flowers on it. So I went back to leaves, the leaves of native plants.

The plant I liked most was prairie smoke, which I knew I could never capture with a pen. One day I decided to give it a shot, did a quick drawing, emailed it to Tammy, and that's what ended up on the bag.

The bags finally arrived in Shorewood in June. It turned into a community project: dozens of volunteers collated inserts (our own inserts and twelve from our sponsors), stuffed the collated inserts into 6900 bags, and then delivered them in the pouring rain. And we even had international publicity!
 

As a painter, poet, performer, dancer, my creativity usually begins with getting into the flow. My hands become my eyes and put down the image, my feet listen to the music and decide the moves, the dream part of my brain tells me what to write. It’s basically losing the self to find the self. I have decades of flow behind me; I don’t know what I’ve got ahead!

I’ll have the opportunity to discuss my thoughts on creativity in a presentation at Danceworks, 1661 N Water Street, on Friday, October 17, at 7:30 PM. I’ll also have some of my latest artwork, and some of my oldest artwork, on exhibit there from October 10 to January 8, opening reception October 17, 6:00 to 8:30 PM. Below are a few of the recent drawings I'll include in the show, and some comments about them.

Why do I draw dancers? I'm not a dancer, I just love to dance, even if I make an absolute fool of myself, love to move to music, letting my feet guide me, love feeling energized and free. So when I draw dancers, I'm feeling the movement and energy. And freedom. 

My pen drawings of dancers were done at Danceworks and at UWM performances. In the dark.

I'm a people-person, love to watch, to draw and paint them and to write about their relationships to each other and to the world around them. That's one of the reasons I could sit on the #15 bus all day and not get bored. When I lived in New York, I'd sometimes take the A train to the end of the line and back, drawing what was going on around me.  The two drawings below I did in Milwaukee buses.

And then there are dogs. I've done dozens, no, hundreds, of drawings of dogs. Whenever I visit New York, I try to spend time in Central Park, which swarms with relationships, lovers, parents, nannies, children, dogs, trees, pigeons, and I sit on a bench and draw it all. Like the one below, which I did in Central Park last spring.

It’s Wednesday, 2:45 PM, and the eastern sun gleams through purple New England asters on Atwater Bluff, through fluffy grass-tips on the bluff-top. There’s always beauty around us for those with time to look, or for those who make time, which is what I’m doing.

And now it’s Thursday, I’m here again, drawing asters and wondering why more people don’t come to the bluff and the beach to balance out hectic lives. Tiny Shorewood has no shortage of parkland. It’s a village caught between a lake and a river, between At-water and Esta-brook.

And last week so was I, caught between river and lake bluffs that brim with native plants, and maybe a few invaders. But then, aren’t I an invader, too, as I walk through?

At the bluff near the waterfalls in Estabrook, bikers bike past, eyes on asphalt, fishermen watch the river flow. I hope they also notice that the plants deserve more than a casual look. A wide swath of gray, green, and purple cone flowers, liatris, coreopsis, sneezeweed, and Culver's root predominated last month, along with thistle, which I love though it’s invasive. Last Friday purple, violet, yellow, and white asters and goldenrod had taken their turn.

Of course I can’t fault those fishing for watching water. The reflections are as photogenic as the trees and plants they reflect. As I look around, think about the chaos of nature, how each bend of a branch, the intermixture of flowers on a bluff, the glow of sunshine on a petal, is unexpected, I wonder why anyone would poison the earth to have a million uninterrupted, predictable blades of grass in the front yard.

Three weeks ago Spence Tepper and I videotaped the magic of sun glowing through native plants on the bluff in Big Bay Park. And this morning I received an unbelievable message from Ney Collier:

Dear Suzanne,
For twenty years I have been working on Big Bay Park which is adjacent to Buckley Park. When I started it consisted of a forest of Burdock,  Garlic Mustard, Reed Canary Grass and Canada Thistle all of which are on the DNR's list of invasives.
   
Gradually I removed the invasives by hand, and the native plants such as Nodding Onions, Milkweed, Dwarf Sumac, Cup Plants, Woodland Sunflowers, Zig Zag Goldenrod, New England Asters and many others were able to flourish in all their glory.  With them came butterflies and bees.
   
On Wednesday 27th August and Thursday 28th August three large stands of native plants were mowed down.  The Cup Plants were in full bloom and were being visited by Monarchs and other insects.  People were horrified to see the plants chopped down. In addition pesticides were sprayed.  Spraying pesticides as well as chopping down plants not only removed nectar, but probably killed butterflies.
   
On the warning signs is written "For additional information on this application or any future applications call Village of Whitefish Bay 962 6690." I am trying to mobilize as many people as possible to call:
1.  Village of Whitefish Bay 962 6690 (Call after Labor Day, or you'll just get the police!)
2. Sue Black at 257 7275
3.  DNR at 1 800 847 9367 (This is the hot line number for reporting violations.  Cutting down stands of native sunflowers and spraying them with pesticides is a violation of Lake Michigan, the plants, and the children who play and swim in that area).
Regards,
Ney Collier  
 

Every now and then a bus ride may take an unexpected turn. Or perhaps all bus rides do. Sometimes there’s a conversational hum. You think the bus is full of chattering friends, look around, and everyone’s sitting alone, cell phones pressed to ears.

Sometimes people are actually talking, over the sounds of the street, to visible companions. Strangers meet, discover they’ve both spent time in jail, and a long and fascinating discussion ensues. Too bad I didn’t take notes.

Then there’s the incident I witnessed last week. A large black woman in a wheel chair rolled onto the bus, which meant that a pudgy man, grey beard and baseball cap, had to move out of the handicapped section. Nothing unusual. If you sit at the front of the bus, you have to be ready to give up your seat.

When we got to Wisconsin Avenue, the woman rolled her chair towards the door, and the man popped back instantaneously into his original seat, right opposite me. He muttered something I missed, made a gesture I didn’t see, and the woman lost her cool, really lost it. She suddenly backed her chair to where it had been, and screamed and swore at the man. He had a nasty reply for everything she aimed at him, replies I’d never quote in a blog. Finally she howled, “I’m gonna slap you across the face!”
“You do that, and I’ll press charges.”

What had I missed, what had he said and done?
“Tell that man there what you did,” and she pointed to another onlooker. “Would you do that to your mother? You can’t treat me like that, this isn’t 1864. I’m not a slave, I’m a person, I’m a human being!”

Some of the other passengers snickered; I felt like crying.

“I’m not getting off, I’m staying right here.” Ah hah, then the man would have to change his seat again.

The volley continued, hatred batted back and forth, as I sat unobserved inches from the fray. “There’s nothing wrong with you, you don’t even need that wheelchair.”
“You don’t know what I have, you m... f....!”
 The bus driver got up and left, and returned a few minutes later with a transit official.

“This man has problems,” said the onlooker, who seemed to be a regular rider. After a short discussion, the official escorted the beard-belly-baseball cap off the bus. The bus driver wanted to help the woman in the wheelchair off.
“I’m not getting off here and have that guy harass me!”
“Don’t worry, he’s not coming near you,” and she finally got off at her stop.

“So is the show over?” asked a passenger.
It wasn’t over for the actors in the show, and it wasn’t over for me.
 

On Sunday I glanced at the lake from Atwater Bluff, expecting nothing special. Yet it was spectacular! What made the lake look that way? There were dark streaks, turquoise streaks, and a startling band of white in the distance, probably a mix of mists and cloud reflections.

That's what's so fascinating about life: I never know what I'll find somewhere until I get there, what friends, what strangers, what mists.

I of course have no idea who will show up at Friday night's reception in our gallery. I do know what work is there! Adolph recently moved his BALCONY from the Regent's Board Room at UWM's Chapman Hall to the gallery, and his Oriental Pharmacy Lunch Counter is still there. I just set up a show of dancer drawings that I did last year when Margot Sappington was setting Common People for the Milwaukee Ballet. These drawings aren't yet on our web site, but some earlier dancers are. Our guest artist is Joe Boblick. You can see his work in the MIAD Online Gallery.

As for the Artist Marketplace on Saturday, I'm not yet sure what sculptures, what paintings, what drawings we'll use, don't know if our tent will consent to another fair, don't know if the weather will be fair. What I do know are the details of both events, if all pans out as planned:

FRIDAY, July 25, 7 to 10 PM, reception at Rosenblatt Gallery, work by Adolph & Suzanne Rosenblatt & Joe Boblick, 181 N Broadway, in Milwaukee's Historic Third Ward
SATURDAY, July 26, 10 AM to 5 PM, Fourth Annual Artist Marketplace, in front of the Milwaukee Art Museum, 700 North Art Museum Drive, Milwaukee
 
 

People use a plastic bag, and then what? Into the garbage, into the gutter, into the tree, into the sea. I’ve been thinking a lot about plastic bags recently. China actually banned them! So did San Francisco. And New York is thinking about it. I looked at the Reusable Bag website, which made me think even more about these airy objects that flutter through our lives for minutes or hours, then remain on earth forever.

I’m a member of the Shorewood Conservation Committee, and we, too, want to do something about the bag problem! For the past nine months we’ve been working on a major project: designing, getting sponsors for, and producing reusable bags to distribute to all 6900 households in Shorewood. And now we've finally come to the big moment, the distribution stage. Here's our plea for volunteers:

Awareness of the Shorewood Conservation Committee (the ConCom) is growing in the village and will really go through the roof when all 6900 households receive one of our reusable green bags on July 19th.

We've already collated and paper-clipped together 13 inserts for each of the bags, including one that introduces the ConCom and gives green hints. Now we need volunteers to stuff the bags with the collated inserts and to deliver them. Specifically, we need volunteers for the following:

Bag assembly:
Thursday, July 17th, 9:30 - 5:30, 6:30-8:30 Village Hall
Friday, July 18th, 9 - 5:30, Village Hall
Saturday, July 19th 8am-noon, Village Center North (lower level library)*This is a back-up shift only, please try to make one of the other two days.

Bag Delivery:
Saturday, July 19th, 9-5, Village Center North (lower level library). We hope you'll come early and stay as long as you can! Volunteers will arrive throughout the day.

Please email Kim F.  <kim@forbeck.com> or call her at 332-7024 if you’d like to help.
 

The Great Depression was definitely not the good old days, yet that's when the federal government actually came to the rescue of artists! My friend Susan Quinn has written a book about this, Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art out of Desperate Times, and she's coming to Schwartz on Oakland to talk about it this Thursday, July 10, at 7 PM.

Studs Terkel wrote: "Susan Quinn has gifted us with a key moment in the history of F.D.R.'s New Deal. Especially thrilling and revelatory is the work of the Arts Project of the WPA. Not only were there rakes and shovels, jobs and food for family, there was exhilarating and hopeful theatre, music, and painting, lifting our spirits. They gave us all hope." And here's an excerpt from a Publisher's Weekly starred review: "Quinn (Marie Curie) does a superb job of recounting the rise and fall of the Federal Theatre Project…describes eloquently and artfully a not-so-distant time when a nation bled and great artists rushed as healers into the countryside. " 

Susan is an excellent writer, so come to her book talk and signing:
Thursday, July 10, 7:00 pm
Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop, 4093 N. Oakland Ave., Shorewood, Wisconsin

Several years ago I stood at the top of Atwater Bluff and watched a storm move over the lake, towards me, towards me, and finally above me. Everything I wore was wet with rainwater. I thought it was pure, clean, no need for the washer and dryer, I’d hang my soggy jeans on the line. That’s when I discovered the reek of acid rain.

Since then I haven’t purposely let a storm drench me, no matter how dramatic its entrance into the eastern sky. I do walk or bike to the bluff, especially for spring and summer sunsets, whenever I get the chance. Sometimes I merely admire the scene, sometimes I draw, sometimes I write. And I hope that the only drops falling on me will be eavesdrops.

My purse is filled with pieces of scrap paper, shorthand scribbles legible only to me. Here’s one about two or three weeks old: Two days ago at the verge of sunset, the Atwater Beachscape mesmerized all of us there to celebrate a break in the rains. The pastel pink clouds to the south were so distinct they appeared outlined. The still water, luminous as it reflected the vanishing light from the west, was streaked aqua and pink. And now I’m here again, same time of day, benched on the landing one flight above the sand.
“So many steps, this is absurd,” mutters someone climbing upwards.
“Long way down there,” says a woman peering from the top.
“A lotta stairs.”
“Look at all these steps.”
“It’s a long way down,” a boy’s voice this time.
The light gradually turns dreamlike, but tonight everyone’s looking at the steps.

Here’s a piece of paper that actually has a date, June 25: It’s stunning again tonight, but people as always trudge up and down, attention focused on steps instead of pink-blue sky reflected on pink-blue lake.
“I thought you said you were gonna carry me.”
“Carry you? No. You need an army to carry you!”
The redwing black birds converse in melodic bird chirps. It's hard to imagine what they're saying. Do they, too, love luminosity?
Still water, rippled streaks, colors subtle, alluring, luring me to stay when it’s time to go.
Bird speak, bird cheep, bird trill, tones sweet, getting dark, three-dimensional bird-sounds, gulls add their sour notes. It’s hard for me to leave the birdversation.

I’ve been a shore bird my whole life, writing, drawing, painting, contemplating. So I’ll end with one of my lake poems, written years ago:

THE DARK SIDE

Where the surface is textured
Like treads on a tire
The water is dark,
But where it is calm
There is light,
Where it is calm
There is light,
Perhaps that's why lakes
are streaked.

Where warmth and cold meet
There's traveling heat
Creating wind, gale, breeze.
If there were no cold,
where would warmth go?
If there were no cold,
where would warmth go?
Would there be currents
in lakes, lagoons, seas,
Would there be currents
in me?

The outside opposes,
Or flows with,
the currents beneath,
Affecting the light side
The dark side, the streaks.
What would light fill
If darkness weren't there?
What would light fill
If darkness weren't there?
Would there be currents
in me?

The inside opposes
or flows with
Crosses
or goes with
Exposes or hides.
Unlike the lake
our surface being skin
Makes less transparent
the currents within
The light sides, the dark sides
What do our hides hide?
Why do we live our lives streaked?
 

I was fast-walking along Olive, halfway between Murray and Oakland, when I saw the bus pass by, second time in a week I’d just missed it. Was I doomed to be a bus-misser?

No! I took off down Olive, heavy backpack bouncing. I wished I weren’t such a slow runner. At least the traffic moved slowly, Oakland being an obstacle course. I was a constant half-block behind the bus, couldn’t seem to get any closer. Ah! Red light at Capital, the bus was stuck there. First time in 39 years the interminable light functioned to my advantage, and I actually outran the bus.

That was April 19. And recently I saw a woman in her 80’s hobble along for almost a block and beat the bus to the bus stop. We still have the obstacle course. How long is it now?

I soak up people’s comments as I walk around Shorewood: “Are people in Shorewood very rich? They‘re doing all that work! Who’s paying for it?”

“At least it looks attractive and will last forever.”

“Why are they changing the street lights? What was wrong with the old ones?”

“Are the new lights solar-powered?”

“They should have gotten the road out of the way first, then done the walks.”

I’ve been concerned about the lack of concern for pedestrians, especially the elderly, the confusion in crossing the street and in finding safe pathways. And I’ve wondered about the effect of all this on business-owners.

The strangest part of the project is the four by eight foot (eyeball estimates!) concrete frames that surround the trees, go right to the curb, and are about six inches high! One friend wondered if they’d damage the plows when workers clear the walks in winter. I wondered whether they’d trip up pedestrians, especially when hidden under snow.

But there’s one comment that really sticks with me. Someone said, “I guess they’re not going to allow parking along Oakland.”
“What do you mean?”
“People won’t be able to open their car doors.” And she pointed to the framing around the trees. So now I’ve started looking at the height of car door bottoms.
 

We don’t have to travel between poles these days for polar extremes; we can just stay in one spot almost anywhere on Earth. Certainly this winter was a swinger, with thaws and freezes, and the spring keeps swinging, too. I keep thinking how hard it is to be a farmer. I can’t even get my garden planted.

We spent June 7 in Shorewood. In the morning we stood for an hour under skin-burning sun as we waited for our turn at the Police Department’s annual bike sale. Yet the day was no scorcher. After we bought bikes for two of our grandkids, I gardened, did chores, ran errands, then the phone rang.
“Grandma, are you still taking us to St. Roberts Fair?”
 “Well, there’s a tornado warning, severe storm warning, thunder, lightening, and it’s already raining. Are you sure you want to go?”
“Yes.”
It wasn't raining hard, and the tornado warning sirens were no longer wailing, so I grabbed a couple of ponchos and ran to visit the grandkids and try to change their minds.

At the fair the tents were closed, and fair-goers were gathered in the gym, several of them watching the weather report on TV. Inside the gym were cakes, candies, crafts, and used books, games, and videos; outside was the deluge.

We bought some books, then had a choice: waiting or wading. The children just wanted to get home, so we picked wading, and slogged through the streams on the sidewalks and in the streets. “Grandma, do you think there’ll be a flood?”

And that brings me to Noah. We can’t build arks and float our way out of this one. We may merely bail out our basements today. Bailing ourselves out of the mess humans have created on the planet will require drastic lifestyle changes. Worldwide. We’d better believe it.
 

When I think of a pun, it’s so much fun, that I don’t let go. Following my last post, JUST SAY MOW, which seemed to me quite apropos, for mowing’s cheap to do. Or UWM could get a cow, then I’d call this JUST SAY MOO. Well, I know UWM can’t have a cow. A neighbor of mine once wanted a goat grazing on her grass, and the Village of Shorewood just said no.  

I sent an Email, UWM Sprayed Again, to my Grass Roots list, and poets Susan Firer (Milwaukee Poet Laureate) and Jim Hazard sent this letter to Kate Nelson at UWM. They also plan to edit it to distribute to their neighbors. If some of you have neighbors who spray, perhaps you, too, would like to edit and use it!

Dear Kate Nelson,
I heard on WUWM today UWM bragging about its Green Ethic.  However, the recent spraying of the campus by TruGreen has no place in anyone's Green Ethic. Reliable studies have linked pesticides to a six-fold increase in childhood leukemia (Journal of the National Cancer Institute and American Journal of Public Health), have shown that dogs exposed to lawn pesticides are 4 to 7 times more likely to be diagnosed with bladder cancer (Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association), and have demonstrated the link between long-term exposure to pesticides and neuron damage that triggers Parkinson's disease (UCLA study reported in Chicago Tribune).

This glaring contradiction between public relations statements and university actions is a very serious matter, affecting anyone who sets foot on the campus grounds and the surrounding community.  Its effects extend beyond the immediate locale since the run off of pesticides and fertilizers does great harm to Lake Michigan's water quality and contributed to the dangerous presence of E. coli on area beaches: a strange policy given the information to that effect UWM's Great Lakes Water Institute has researched and published.

I hope the university will reconsider this irresponsible social behavior, change its policy toward harmful lawn treatment chemicals, and assume community leadership in this serious public health matter.
Susan Firer and Jim Hazard
 

One of the advantages to living in Shorewood is our proximity to UWM. This is self-evident, so I won't try to elaborate! There's also a downside to living near the university: when UWM sprays, the whole neighborhood is forced to inhale!

Last Saturday the fumes were so strong I felt nauseous when I tried to bike past, yet people sat in the TruGreen grass right next to the little white signs. They clearly felt that the university sets an example and practices safe lawn care. I called John Krezoski in the Safety and Assurances Dept at UWM (414.229-5265) and left him a message expressing my disappointment.

I'd been told he's the person to call since this is a safety issue. It IS definitely a safety issue, especially when the fumes are sickening and the lawn care company is TruGreen. One place out of many to get additional info on TruGreen is on the Refuse To Use Chemlawn web site. 

The university is worried about people who don't like dandelions. This seems strange to me since Warren Porter, one of the country's top researchers into the effects of pesticides, works at UW-Madison. Here's a quote from his web site: "Subtle Biological Effects of Environmental Contaminants: We have serious concerns about children exposed to low level pesticide mixtures from lawns and in the food, water, and air that passes through their bodies.  Children do not have defensive enzymes at levels present in sexually mature adults. Our 2002 paper showed that a common lawn chemical pesticide mixture can induce abortions and resorptions of fetuses at very low parts per billion concentrations. The greatest effect was at the lowest dose.  Thanks to Richard Dwelle and Dr. James Jaeger, we have an extraordinarily sensitive new means of measuring mouse learning abilities at many levels.  We are currently conducting long term studies to explore the effects of subtle low level pesticide mixture exposures on learning abilities, immune function, hormone levels, and developmental disorders."

Perhaps UW-Milwaukee could use some of the research findings from UW-Madison to educate the public here in Milwaukee. 

Our brother-in-law, Marshall Goldman, may be known as a scholar, but we always think first of his humor! This Friday, May 16, 7 PM, you'll have a chance to hear him in person at Schwartz  Bookshops, 4093 N Oakland Avenue in Shorewood.

Here's an excerpt from Marvin Kalb's review of Marshall's latest book, “Petrostate: Putin, Power, and the New Russia”: "This may be Goldman's best book, and that's saying a lot. Focusing on Putin's Russia with a scholar's commitment to deep and meaningful research and a reporter's eye for detail and color, Goldman has explained why and how Russia has again emerged as a global power.." --Marvin Kalb, former Moscow bureau chief for CBS News.

I asked Marshall to send me something about his book to forward to our list, and here it is: Less than a decade ago,  Russia was effectively bankrupt.  Its banks were closed and its debt worthless.  Then in August 1999 Putin was appointed prime minister.  Now Russia has the world's third largest holding of reserves, its banks are profitable and its GDP has doubled.  No wonder the Russian people credit Putin with this turnaround.  Would Russia be any different today if someone else had been appointed instead?  The answer is yes and no.   Because Russia today is the world's largest producer of petroleum, no matter who would have been appointed prime minister, Russia today would be prosperous.  But Putin did make a difference. In what way?  What are the implications of all this for the European Union and the US and what difference will it make now that Medvedev is the new president?

Hope to see you Friday!
 

Blog titles or poem titles pop into my mind as I write; exhibit or performance titles are more of a challenge. Last Tuesday, Louisa Loveridge-Gallas, Bill Murtaugh, and I brainstormed, trying to find a title for our reading at Schwartz on Oakland on Wednesday, April 30th,  at 7 PM.

We looked for the threads connecting our varied poems: emotions, family, the earth. We eliminated titles like Blood Relations, Father Time and Mother Earth, and then Louisa muttered MUD. Great, I thought, that’s a good blood substitute, though I didn’t want Mud Relations, ah, Mud, Sweat, and Tears. That covers it all, nature, emotions, life. Flowers and frogs peep up from the mud, life creeps out of the mud, life is sweat, life is tears. Mud, Sweat, and Tears, an Evening With Three Poets, hah, then who’s who? Whose name is Mud? Perhaps we’re each all three, for we each wanted to write a book with that title. We’ll have to write it together.

In the meantime we’re reading together on Wednesday, April 30, 7 PM, Schwartz Book Store, 4093 N. Oakland Avenue.
 

Since I'm one of the original members of the Earth Poets, and our twentieth anniversary performances take place this Friday and Saturday, I thought I'd post our press release, and a poem.

Global warming was considered a fringe concept when Jeff Poniewaz founded the Earth Poets in 1988. Now it's 2008, and the fringe has become mainstream. "Green" is the latest buzz word, and it doesn't mean envy. It means harmony, living in harmony with nature. For their 20th Anniversary Performances, four of the original poets, Jeff Poniewaz, Louisa Loveridge-Gallas, Suzanne Rosenblatt, and Harvey Taylor, and the two musician members of the group, Jahmes Finlayson and Holly Haebig, will continue to transform inconvenient truths into conscientious action. The performances will also feature a special guest, activist and poet James Godsil. Scientists say it's not yet too late, so the Earth Poets and Musicians will contemplate how we can slow down the rush towards global warmth!

FRIDAY, APRIL 18,  2008
7 P.M. Interactive Poetry and Music for the Whole Family
8 PM Earth Poets and Musicians
Jahmes Finlayson, Louisa Loveridge-Gallas, Holly Haebig, Jeff Poniewaz, Suzanne Rosenblatt,
Harvey Taylor, and SPECIAL GUEST: James Godsil
URBAN ECOLOGY CENTER
1500 E. Park Place
$5.00 Per Person, $10.00 Per Family, UEC Members Free

SATURDAY, APRIL 19, 2008, 8 P.M.
Jahmes Finlayson, Louisa Loveridge-Gallas, Holly Haebig, Jeff Poniewaz, Suzanne Rosenblatt, Harvey Taylor, and SPECIAL GUEST: James Godsil
THE COFFEE HOUSE
631 N. 19th Street (Just South of Wisconsin Ave)
Donation: $5.00

MUCH OBLIGED
By Suzanne Rosenblatt

What's an artist to do?
He paints, dances, writes,
Maybe he recites,
Composes a sonata, deftly draws a flower
As the mad world succumbs_   
To those greedy for power
He may struggle to get others   
To listen or look
As he tries to make a living   
With his painting, song, or book
Yet he loves what he does   
In his cranny or nook

Should he reimburse the planet for his talents
And work to put the earth back into balance?
Pay rent for his creative space
By trying to make the world a better place?
I'd say yes, we have to do what we can
Have to set up our personal
Repayment plan