Not long after I started writing short stories in 1977, I realized our teenage daughter, Sarah, was a natural poet. Almost 33 years later, we're both still writing.

Carnegie Mellon University Press published Sarah's first two poetry books. Now she's working on her third book and will read some of her new poems, and some of her old, at a Pantry Benefit at The Coffee House this Friday.

Here are the details and one of her poems.  You can read more of her work on her home page and in a lyrical column written by Crocker Stephenson in the JournalSentinel. 
 

WHERE: The Coffee House: 631 N. 19th St., Milwaukee, (414) 299-9598
WHEN: Friday, Feb. 5, 2010, 8 PM
WHAT: Poetry Pantry Benefit featuring Barbara Chudnow, Sarah Rosenblatt, Karina Schafer, and Sandy Weisto. Admission: $4 donation and two cans of food.

OLD ENOUGH

I had been the age of the woman
pushing the double stroller.
Now, approaching menopause--

(My children old enough
to know better.)

Our dreams, held to the light,
are forgetful, we move through them.

The days relieve themselves on our porch.

The trees are picturesque
but also seethe with an edge
they hadn't had since last winter

Darkness fumbles through our text messages.

Those we buried
are no longer in the loop.

“What’s happening?” The Pick ‘N Save checker wasn’t asking me; she was asking the air as she watched a frantic woman gesticulating on the other side of plate glass.

Everyone in the check-out area migrated towards the front. The woman in the window was trying to get help for someone.
“...fell...”
“...nosebleed.”
“...9-1-1-?”
“...on the way...”

I checked out, grabbed my bags, left, and walked over to see if I could help in any way. A kneeling woman bent forward as blood flowed profusely from her nose onto the snow between the visible portion of sidewalk and her parked car. A Pick ‘N Save employee handed her paper towel.

I identified with her much more than I wanted to. That could easily be me. Winter’s worst curse for senior citizens is ice. But it wasn’t icy, and she wasn’t a senior. How did she injure only her nose? She must have fallen flat on her face, or hit it on something, must have fallen so fast that her hands didn’t involuntarily pop up to protect her.

The ambulance arrived. “Someone told me to lean my head back,” she said. “No, you don’t want to do that,” replied the medical technician, and I wanted to hang around and hear what other advice he offered. But I couldn’t, for he asked for her medical history, which I did not want to overhear. I started to walk away. Then I noticed something lying on the sidewalk: glasses, probably hers. I handed them to the EMT: maybe I was a help after all. I left, shaken, afraid of ice though I didn’t see any.

Two days later as I walked past the spot where the stranger had fallen, I glanced at it to see if they had managed to get rid of all that blood. Yes, they had, not a drop left, just a big indentation in the snow where the blood had been.

The area had been covered with snow when she fell. But what I saw underneath when the snow was cleared made me gasp.

It was the corner of one of those omnipresent concrete frames, and the path from the street lead right into it. I don't know for sure if that's what she fell on. I do know that all the frames along Oakland were covered when the woman was bent over and bleeding, that every driver or passenger stepping out of a car and into snow on Oakland is at risk. In fact one of the friends I mentioned this to said she almost fell. So these frames are not aesthetically pleasing (euphemism!), they make wide sidewalks narrow, prevent car doors from opening, and are dangerous. Perhaps they should be removed?

We may slosh through snow, and grouse
Avoid the blowing wind, by staying in the house
Wish we were down south, to skip winter time
in a climate, where each primate, is an artist of some kind
a scribbler or a fiddler, or a closet singer
a dancer or an actor, or a comic with a zinger
especially when we’re touched by, the Arctic’s icy finger...
So whither shall we flee?
From gallery to gallery
on the 15th of January
I think I’ve got it right, Friday the 15th is Gallery Night!

Again! I’ll sit at a table with our show, Adolph likes the couch in front of his balcony, Eli will be somewhere near his exhibit at the back of Artasia, and Joe Boblick, our guest artist, will host his reception in the revolving gallery.

I first met Joe Boblick about 25 years ago. Adolph was sick, so I taught his class at UWM, and one student’s painting startled me so, I remember it today. The subject was mundane, a kitchen sink (rather than everything but). The subject makes no difference, it’s how it was painted that counts. Joe used a few lines and forms and the white of the paper to create a three-dimensional world. He had a sharp eye for form, relationships, depth, for what’s going on visually. He’s still got that same eye. So slosh over to Rosenblatt Gallery with me to take a look!

ROSENBLATT GALLERY, 181 North Broadway, 2nd floor, 414-220-4292
Joe Boblick, Small Fresco Paintings, Still Life and Portrait
January 15 to February 28, 2010
Opening reception Friday, January 15, 7:00-10:00 PM
 

Funny Face by Joe Boblich

I always get a kick out of the buzz at the Fitness Center right after January 1st. Many more feet on treadmills, many more arms lifting weights than in December. People work out with their resolutions fresh in their minds. Fresh faces, fresh resolutions, and by February most of them have faded.

I’ve never made a New Year’s resolution. It feels like procrastinating. Once I know I have to change my exercise routine, or change my diet, I do it. I see no point in putting it off till a new year comes around. I recognize that when the number of the year changes, people reevaluate their lives. I’d prefer to reevaluate on an ongoing basis and make changes whenever I realize they’re needed. If I can manage it. If, if, if!

There’s a lot that must be done NOW, in our own lives, and in the life of the planet. It’s hard to pinpoint the tipping point, hard to know at what point all that off-putting putting off will turn out to be fatal. Will this trans-fat dose or cigarette puff or cell phone conversation while driving be your last? It definitely won’t be if you skip it altogether!

The young man was seated opposite me near the front of the bus. I knew and liked his parents; I try to avoid their son. He always asks me for money; I always refuse to donate to his alcohol fund.

“Mrs. Rosenblatt, how are you?” he yells across the aisle. He slurs the words.

“Okay. How are you?”

“Mrs. Rosenblatt, I’m lonely. I miss my father.” His father was a special man, generous, warm.

“I miss him too.”

“He was a wonderful man. He said he’d come back, but he hasn’t.” He means come back from the dead. His father died several years ago. “There was only one problem with my father, he liked all the girls I went out with.”

“Better than having him hate all the girls you went out with,” I replied, then turned to look out the window.

A man sitting next to me called across the aisle to him. “Are you on the way to an AA meeting?”

“They’re not there anymore,” came the slurred reply, and they continued the conversation about AA, then coffee houses. Good, I thought, I’m glad he has someone to talk to. I’m sorry it can’t be me. I don’t want to hear him rant against his mother, or his father. He doesn’t want to hear me tell him to get help. Alcohol is not the right medication for mental illness. I got off the bus feeling sad.

Last week an older acquaintance, well, a little older than I am, noticed me as she was about to get off the bus and said, “Oh, hello, let me give you a hug.” She bent over and did just that, then disappeared out the door, and I thought, how sweet of her. I got off the bus feeling glad.

A few days ago the number 15 had to wait as fire engines wailed down Brady Street. The woman seated behind me said to her husband, “Did I leave anything on the stove?” I smiled, for I was asking myself a similar question. Made me wonder how many of the passengers had the same reaction, made me think about how alike we all are.

When we’re in a foreign country sometimes Adolph and I get on a bus, any bus, and take it to the end of the line, get an unplanned view of wherever we are. Every bus ride is an adventure.

When I board the bus on Oakland Avenue, I know what buildings we’ll pass. That’s all I can predict. The sky, the traffic, the people, all make the ride what it is, a conglomeration of unplanned views.
 

I gaze at the lawns as I walk along Jarvis and, hey, the grass isn’t supposed to be this green, this is December 5! It’s time for holiday parties, not garden parties. Holiday parties, that’s what I’m supposed to be contemplating, not blades of grass.

This Friday, December 11th, all three floors at 181 North Broadway should be jumping. There’s an opening reception for a photography show at Rosenblatt Gallery, and there’s the Artasia and Cuvee holiday party. The new show, Five Wise Men, is five different views of the world by five men between the ages of fifty and eighty-two, Art Elkon, Ted Friedman, Keith Knox, Steve Plamann, and Bill Tennessen. There are, as always in Rosenblatt Gallery, sculptures by Adolph, who keeps adding, and occasionally subtracting, pieces in our show and paintings and drawings by me. And in the rear of Artasia there's an exhibit of paintings by Eli Rosenblatt.

Here are more details: ARTASIA, ROSENBLATT GALLERY, & CUVEE
HOLIDAY PARTY at 181 North Broadway, Friday, December 11, 7 PM to midnight. There will be something to drink, something to snack on, maybe something to dance to: live music by Speaker Dust, David J. White & Friends, and music at Cuvee. I hope you can make it!
 

I’m sitting at the cafe in Open Book Co-op, every table full, looking at some of the same faces I used to see at Schwartz Bookshop, in the place Schwartz once was. Never thought I’d see tables, chairs, and coffee-sippers sitting in this spot again, thought I’d see a parking lot. Or a mega-Pick ‘n Save. Still could.

Now a friend walks in, and we pick up where we left off last year when we ran into each other at Sendiks. Except that things have changed since then. Hollywood Video, China Palace, the Mexican incarnation of Jean Pierre’s (was it called Juan Pedro’s?), the Chiropractic Clinic, all are gone. Last time we chatted about the streetscaping, my friend was afraid he’d trip on the concrete frames. This time he said to me, “All that fancy streetscaping, it doesn’t bring in businesses.”

What can I say? Shorewood needs a hardware store. And then we could add a few more beauty, tanning, and nail salons and spas so we can become the beauty capitol of Wisconsin!

Seriously though, I don’t understand the obsession with changing the surface, dying hair, rouging cheeks, tanning as if sun rays (and their indoor equivalent) weren’t lethal, upscaling streets with giant pots and intrusive frames, spraying lawns with toxins to create green carpets. It’s what’s underneath the skin, what forms the core of the village, that counts.

And the core of this village joined together, decided an educated public needs to buy books nearby, and created a bookstore. And it’s the core of Shorewood that makes it a great place to live, not the patterns on the sidewalk, not the upscale slogan (which sounds a little snobby to me), it’s the people.
 

Should I feel guilty about my delight as I survey my garden? My arugula, collards, lettuce, onion greens, hyacinth greens, all are still alive. My puny broccoli plants have fresh florets. And it’s November 23rd! Ironic. I fight for years to increase awareness of global warming’s dangers, then I revel in the extended growing season.

If humans weren’t destroying Earth, would I still write poems? Would the Earth Poets and Musicians still exist? Yes. We love living on this planet, can’t think of a better place, love to poetize and harmonize to Earth’s heartbeat. And that’s what we’ll do at the Miramar Theater, 2844 North Oakland Ave, at an Eco-Extravaganza on Sunday, Nov 29th, at 7 PM.

Global warming is a misnomer. A more accurate name is climate change: extremes and variations, explosion of some species, extinction of many more. Some pundits say that the global economic recession has reduced carbon emissions. Others say we’ve passed the tipping point, and nothing will save us. I imagine we’re located somewhere between the two assessments at this point, and I’ll deserve to tend my little plot of land only if I do what I can to make sure life can survive on it.

WARMING WARNING

Have you heard that earth’s getting warmer?
Soon you will no longer
Long to winter in California
You’ll be happy to winter at home
Though you might want to summer
In Siberia, the Arctic, Antarctica, or Nome

I’ll admit global warming sounds nice
I’m not fond of slipping on ice
Nor shoveling snows
Nor freezing my toes
Nor blowing my nose
Nor layering my clothes
I’d rather repose
In the winter sun’s glow
But, uh oh uh oh uh oh
Global warming, polar melting, oceanic overflow
Global flooding thirst and famine
Perhaps man should reexamine
Whether or not his pleasures are worth
Shaking up the balance of life on earth
Shaking up the balance, shaking up the balance
Is that the way to use our talents?
Shaking up the balance, shaking up the balance
Is that the way to use our talents?

Global warming, polar melting, oceanic overflow
The sea will fall into L.A., San Francisco will sink into the bay
Good-bye Bangladesh, good-bye Cape Cod
Scientists finally agree
The culprit is humanity
This is not the work of God

Copyright, Suzanne Rosenblatt, 2001
 

Does random imply meander, or meander imply randomness? Are events random as we meander through our day?

Like Friday, November 13th. Adolph took a bus to return a pair of shoes, couldn’t find the store, and came back home with the shoes. I biked over two miles to pick up some flyers, the flyers weren’t there, and I came home without them. Adolph and I rushed to the bus stop, arrived long before the number #15 was due, waited, and waited, more and more people waited with us, the bus never came.

The first week in November I cut through the basement of the Shorewood Library, saw my friend Elizabeth was in her office, and stopped by to say hello. At that particular moment she and Susan Kelley were connecting volunteers and seniors for a one-morning lawn clean-up project. The end result: On Saturday, November 7th, almost a dozen volunteers swooped into our yard, raked our leaves, cut down our plants, trimmed our one shrub, put away our rain barrel and hose, did everything that would have taken me days to do in about an hour!

And so it goes. Sometimes we step where we want to, sometimes we just step into it. On Friday the 13th, the missing bus had been in an accident. Luckily the next bus came on time. Going home from the Portrait Gallery reception, just as we got to the bus stop on Buffalo and Water, Josie Osborne walked by and offered us a ride.

Here’s a poem I once wrote which plays around with random meandering:
 

MeAndeRing Around
     And a Ring Around
Me

Women’s issues are men’s issues,
For what touches us touches them,
Which is besides the point,
Though I don’t know what point
I was just trying to think of a title
And women’s issues popped in,
But sounded way too dry,
Until I thought that issue, singular, means children,
Issue, singular, means children,
Women’s issue are men’s issue.
Your issue ish you, and somebody else,
Your issue issue, issue ish you, issue ish you
Issue ish-shoe-ish, shoe-ish, shoe-ish
The first thing you see is the shoe.
That may be how I perceive myself,
Or perhaps that’s how I see you.
Issue shoe-ish issue you wish, issue wish you,
Issue wish you, issue kiss you, issue ka-choo
Do you wish you had a tissue
Issue you wish issue wish you, issue dish you
Do you wish you, had no dish you, had to wash?
Issue wish you, issue kish you, issue mish you
I’d mish you if you went away.

Am I being silly, words willy-nilly
With no hint of what I’m trying to say
Or perhaps you miss the issue, do you miss the issue
The issue I’m dealing with is play,
For play means feeling free
To think in any way
Instead of stepping into footprints already made,
Instead of treading where someone else has played.

Where does it lead? Where does it lead?
Must it lead somewhere?
Must every path have a destination
Isn't it worth the wear on soles
Simply to pass through the scenery?

Is life random
As we run dumb through it
Born with the right-wrong gene line
In the right-wrong place time
Is life random
As we run-dumb-dumb run-dumb-dumb run-dumb-dumb through?
What is it that sticks these words
Into my early morning head?
An extra twinge of randomness
That leads them to my bed?
Will tomorrow tell me what I thought today
Or will randomness take even this away?

It's the times it’s the times it’s the New York Times,
Too much news addles even calm minds.
I'm not in the Balkans nor in Palestine
Nor in a crack house nor a bread line
I'm not a terrorist nor Maoist
Not a couch potato nor Taoist
And I’m very honest, more or less sound of body, sane of mind
Though I am getting older all the time,
Though I am getting older all the time

Where did it go, where did it go?
That’s the issue issue issue
That’s what we’d like to know
Where did it where did it where did it go?

Musing on the past
We can't change what was
Can't change what was
Can merely ask why
So we fiddle with the why's
Fiddle with the why's
To grow wise before we die
We hope the more we fiddle
The less we'll play out of tune.

Copyright: Suzanne Rosenblatt, 1995

 

It’s fascinating to grow old in the early 21st century. When I was young, we didn’t have a refrigerator, we had an icebox, cooled by a chunk of ice delivered to our kitchen. When I picked up the phone receiver, the operator said, “Number please.” We had to wind up our Victrola in order to listen to records (78s). A Model T Ford was stored in our back yard by a friend fighting in World War II. I was 11 when I first saw a television set.

I loved science fiction, Robert Heinlein, Philip Wylie, and other writers who pushed the limits of human imagination. I never thought I’d one day live in a sci fi world.

Now I get on a bus, and everyone’s hooked to iPods and cell phones, talking or texting to people all over the country, all over the planet, yet often with no idea of what’s going on outside the window.

Last Saturday 5200 events in 181 countries took place more or less simultaneously to raise awareness of climate change and get governments to work together to stabilize concentrations of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere at 350 ppm (parts per million). Right now it’s up to 387 ppm. Not safe.

When I was young, even when my children were young, a worldwide mobilization to organize and connect thousands of events on the same day, and even post photos and videos of them all instantaneously, would have been unimaginable. And possibly unnecessary. After all, modern technology allows us to communicate miraculously, to build computers with billions of facts on a chip, to send rockets to outer space, to turn the natural world into an unnatural world, allows us to gradually destroy the whole shebang without even looking out the window. Minuscule human, massive earth, she-bang!
 

I’m already missing the recent past when the temperature and my age sometimes coincided (low seventies). I threw a tarp over collards, arugula, lettuce, and cilantro during the first frost, managed to prolong my garden’s life and thus, perhaps, my personal summer.

October does have its good points. The color of leaves, for one, and Adolph is on a tree-drawing binge. Halloween, for another, when skeletons, pirates, and witches stream down Shorewood streets. Then there’s Gallery Night and Day, the seasonal reminder that the Milwaukee art scene is very much alive. The fall Gallery Night is Halloween’s precursor. People stream down the streets, but don’t have to ring doorbells, don’t have to trick or treat. They walk into the galleries, grab a handful of chips or a few pistachios, and gaze at art.

I used to love being part of the stream and visiting all the shows. Now that we have a gallery, I’m out of the main stream. I’m there, in our gallery on Gallery Night (Friday, October 16), and the stream has to come to me. Here’s a summary of the shows I’m connected with, and links to some of the work:
ERIKS JOHNSON, paintings & drawings
Rosenblatt Gallery featured artist (181 N Broadway, second floor)
ELI ROSENBLATT , paintings
Artasia Gallery (181 N Broadway, first floor)
Cuvee (181 N Broadway, third floor)
Carte Blanche Studios (1024 S 5th)
ADOLPH ROSENBLATT, sculpture
Rosenblatt Gallery (181 N Broadway, second floor)
East Side Library (1910 E North Ave)
SUZANNE ROSENBLATT
Rosenblatt Gallery (181 N Broadway, second floor), paintings & drawings
Riverwest Co-op Cafe (733 E Clarke St), lithos of dancers

Here's Eriks' artist statement: Games of Solitaire” works by Eriks Johnson

I started playing games of Solitaire.  I remember my grandfather playing the same game in the living room of the house I now live in. It was a very comfortable groove to settle into. I liked the rhythm of the cards turning over and the configuration of the stacks of cards at the end of each game. I became interested in how 52 cards organized under four different patterns creating sets of 13 was divided in half by two colors. Or to put it another way, how a set a 13 hierarchical cards was mirrored once in the same color but different suit and then those two units were again mirrored in the next color. I became interested in how there was a quadrant quietly organizing a smaller group of information into a larger manifestation of units. It’s easy to notice a number of things are organized by a quite quadrant. The one’s that caught my eye where my grandmother’s loom weavings, Native American bead work, some plants, my dogs, our bodies. I felt like the cards could be stand ins for genetic material, like strands of DNA, and I was by laws of chance and skill, arranging them.

I wanted to see if I could use the card configurations at the end of each game to dictate a set of variables or constraints, which could be applied to making a painting. In trying to figure this out, I drew the outcomes of over 100 games and recorded my win to lose ratio as well. As of yet I have not been able to devise a system using the formulas I would contrive from these configurations that retains any of the excitement or enjoyment that I get from making drawings or paintings or playing solitaire.  But in the end, I was impressed that I could simplify my variables and still have a diverse outcome.

This subtle recognition came as a relief for me.  It seemed to me that my earlier paintings sometimes suffered from over exertion, like I was putting ten paintings into one. By reducing the materials, limiting the colors, and even the mark making, a new richness is revealed. Even in this low-key approach my Loki nature can express it’s self. In general the use of smaller marks seems to allow the flow of energy to organize the system of the painting. I like the way it feels to make these paintings. To be able to stay close to the canvas and accumulate marks without having to step back as much and get bogged down with contemplative aesthetic decisions. The mark making has the same calming effect as turning the cards in a game of solitaire.    This practice of painting seems sustainable to me for both my energy and resources. There is an added versatility to paired down materials. Like the solitaire, I can take my canvases with me when I go up North. I also have started to use far more recycled or salvaged materials. The synthetic canvas and the latex paint were cast offs that I acquired and are ideally suited for one another. These newer paintings fit into my life well. And I hope they do for others too.
 

Dancing’s in my genes. On my mother’s side. Even at age 85 she wildly improvised to Paul Cebar at Bastille Days. She loved the human body in action, loved the movement and the freedom of dance. And so do I.

I love the movement and the freedom when I dance, when I watch dancers, and when I draw dancers. I almost always draw them from life, at rehearsals or performances, would never want a dancer to pose for me. After all, it’s the motion I’m after.

The element of surprise helps make an artwork come alive, the spontaneous brush stroke or pen stroke that becomes more than merely a mark. When I draw dancers in a darkened theater, my mind has an image of what I want, but I don’t quite know how it gets onto the paper. I know it has to do with getting into the flow, know that if I stared at the paper, tried to get an exact likeness, became picky, perfectionist, or self-conscious, I’d end up with one more drawing for the recycle bin. So my personal element of surprise is the moment the lights come back on, and I see what I’ve done.

Several years ago, when I decided to make lithographs of dancers, the surprise was the weight of the stone I had to draw on. I could not bring one to a dance performance. To get into the artistic flow, I closed my eyes as if I were in a dark theater instead of a print studio, imagined the dancers leaping and whirling, and drew them. Those lithos will be on exhibit at the Riverwest Co-op Café, 733 E Clarke Street, from October 1 to October 30.

Motion intrigues me, whether in dance or in floating clouds or rolling waves or in the beat of words in poems. Motion, light, shadows, reflections, forms and how they combine, humans and their relationship to each other and to their surroundings, these are my motifs and my motives. Oh? Am I writing an artist’s statement? I guess I am! That’s what I like about writing a blog, the freedom to move right through with words, sometimes without a subject or predicate, just a leap, not knowing where I’ll land.

 

“What did you do this summer?” someone asked me last week.
“Why, uh, every day I wrote a things-to-do list, and spent the rest of the day crossing off as much as possible!”

That was true, yet said nothing, so I added, “I danced a lot.”

At this moment summer was yesterday, fall is tomorrow, I’m caught between. It’s the right time to look backward and forward and figure out how the summer disappeared when I feel it should still be here.

Despite a multitude of chores, I did dance: River Rhythms, Skyline Series, Bastille Days, Back Yard BBQ, Sts Peter and Paul, Summerfest, Fiesta Mexicana, Bavarian Inn, Club Timbuktu, Locust Street Days, Center Street Daze, danced to Cebar, Mali Blues, the Rhythm Aces. The garden, farmers markets, the bike trail, the Fitness Center, drawing, writing, political activism, All-City Parade, Open Book Co-op, Conservation Committee, book club, memoir group, gallery night, most important of all, family and friends, and whoosh, there’s no more summer.

So what about all those tomorrows? Let’s face it, they’ll go even faster. Same as in summer, I’ll baby-sit, keep appointments, go to meetings, lobby for health care, for clean energy, for getting out of Afghanistan, write, draw, exhibit, go to salon discussions, read, do crosswords, get exercise, also I’ll try not to fall on the ice, and suddenly I’ll wonder where fall and winter went and say thank goodness it’s spring,
 

The empty Fiji water bottle and probably-empty Stone Creek coffee cup have been in the window since last April. Perhaps that summarizes the dark and hollow heart of Shorewood where Schwartz once was. The bottle is transparent like the plate glass windows: everyone who passes knows there’s nothing there, not even change, not even a FOR LEASE sign. The coffee cup’s opaque. Passers-by have no idea what’s going on under the lid: mold must be gathering, especially if it wasn’t black coffee.

Everyone wonders what’s happening in the head of Roundy's, owner of the emptiness, also owner of the Walgreens building, so I’m told. Rumors abound, well, there’s at least one rumor around, frequently repeated: they want to knock it all down, build a mega-Pick ‘N Save with pharmacy and a mega-parking lot. I wish Roundy's would publicly deny this.

In the meantime we’ve got no bookstore in the village. Keith Schmitz has been working hard to change this, to form a co-op bookstore and cafe. He can’t remove the wart from Schwartz and substitute the mit from Schmitz! But he has succeeded in signing up over 300 members. And he needs more.

Friends tell me they’ve been meaning to join. Now is the hour to make “meaning to” into “done deal.” If he can get enough memberships, he can sign the lease and announce the location!

In the meanwhile, you may be reminded of the good old days. There will be a book sale from September 18th to the 20th at the old Harry W. Schwartz bookstore to raise money for Literacy Services of Wisconsin. That means the Fiji bottle and the Stone Creek coffee cup will soon disappear, if they haven’t already. We still don’t know what will replace them.

SO HERE'S MY UPDATE. It's Tuesday, September 8th, 10:14 PM, and I just received this message:

"North Shore Book Lovers Now Have a Home! Open Book Will be at the Former Harry W. Schwartz location, 4093 N Oakland. We can open our doors November 1st, but only if you sign up as a member NOW! "

So maybe Roundy's has denied the rumor in the best possible way, maybe we do know what will replace the Fiji bottle and the Stone Creek coffee cup!!

It did rain on August 8, soaked the All-City Parade before it even had a chance to float its floats. Luckily the Labor Day Parade was coming up, and now All-City will be in Labor! So come on Monday, Sept. 7th. Dozens of community groups collaborated to create the All-City Parade, to make masks and giant puppets, to meld ideas into an organic concept that will dance and toot and weave through the downtown streets starting at 11 AM.

I wrote a blog about ithe parade last July, A PARADE OF IDEAS, which has links to more information.

Here's the All-City schedule:
11 AM Parade from 4th and Everett to Wisconsin Av. to Milwaukee, south on Milwaukee to Chicago, east on Chicago to Summerfest grounds.
1:30-2 PM pageant, in front of Miller Stage
2-3:30 PM, Parade elements on display near Miller Stage
 

Schwartz flew the coop, now the Coop has to fly: the Open Book Co-op. The time to join is NOW!! Shorewood’s population is educated, most residents still read actual books, many are members of book clubs, yet we no longer have a bookstore in the village, nor a gathering place of readers.

Tuesday, August 25, at 6:30 PM is your chance to meet some of us who have already joined the Co-op, to join yourself (you can also join online), and to listen to two famous cookbook writers. The title is “Mastering the Art of Cookbook Writing.” If you’re like me, you don’t want to master that particular art, might not even want to use a cookbook, but certainly you love to eat. Read below about the two authors, and, like me, I’m sure you’ll look forward to coming!

ALAMELU VAIRADAN

A vibrant personality and wellness guru who specializes in foods using legumes, spice and herbs, Alamelu is slated for an appearance with the James Beard Culinary Experience in New York City. She has been featured on PBS, Discovery Channel and CBS programs, as well as USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and India Today.

LINDA MUTSCHLER

In 2005, after retiring from Wall Street, Linda set out to write Fast Track to Fine Dining. Over the next three years, she tested and retested menus and recipes, using easy-to-find ingredients and providing simple and straightforward directions. For each menu, she developed a detailed timeline so that you, too, can plan and prepare fabulous meals.

The event takes place in Main Hall at North Shore Presbyterian Church at 4948 N. Bartlett Ave., and is accessible through the northeast door.

Please bring your friends with you to spend a very interesting evening and to help get a bookstore started in Shorewood.

Thursday, August 6, was dream-lake afternoon. The water, placid and aglow, was the ideal surface for hundreds of gulls, and an occasional goose, to float, dive, and harmonize. “It sounds as if the gulls are singing!” I exclaimed to my grandsons, as sympathetic vibrations replaced the usual seagull squawks.

The boys were building a village on the narrow sand strip at the foot of the Shorewood Nature Preserve. I sat further from the water, at woods’ edge, drawing and making observations, “Look at that! There’s so much mist on the horizon the motor boats look like helicopters.”

The water rippled instead of waving, barely a breeze, nary a cloud, sky’s light mirrored upward by the lake. Suddenly a wave rolled in, flattened my grandsons’ village, sucked their shoes from the dry sand, attacked my backpack, which till then I’d considered safe. Another wave came, boys laughing as they tried to save their sandy handiwork, then another wave, and then total retreat, barely a breeze, the lake again more mirror than monster. The boys began to rebuild, and I returned to my drawing, though on the alert for renegade waves.

I could draw forever, the boys could build forever. I envisioned several more days spent like this before the weather cools.

The vision ended that evening when I went to the Conservation Committee meeting. Someone mentioned, not for the first time, the problem of human fecal matter in the lake. A runoff pipe is just to the north of Atwater Beach. I said I’d spent the afternoon with my grandsons on the beach at the nature preserve, several hundred yards to the south. “That’s far enough away, isn’t it?”

“No, the water along the shore tests positive more than seventy percent of the time. I would never swim in it,” said someone who knows a lot about water quality.

“Well, they didn’t actually swim, just built castles at the water’s edge.”

“That’s even worse,” he replied. “”That’s where the bacteria get caught and accumulate.”

On Saturday I biked to the Atwater Beach Party to see if people were swimming. They were. And the following day I checked again, walked down the 145 steps and warned a friend whose very young kids were in the water. Ruined her day, didn’t I. We wondered what warnings were posted, walked back up to double check. There was a water quality advisory: For your safety: Swim at your own risk. Don't ingest lake water. Shower after swimming. Wash hands before eating. Do not swim if you are ill. Increased risk of illness may be present Based on recent monitoring for E-coli bacteria.

Today, August 17, the sun shone, yet an opaque grey cloud rested right across the lake from north to south a few yards from the shore, as if the breath-taking sky began just beyond the shoreline!

Here's a poem I wrote twenty-five or thirty years ago. Poet William Harrold said a writer writes about the same themes over and over in his body of work. I'm no exception.

THE CHANGES IN THE LAKE

Each evening she watched the sun
set reflected on the lake
She was drawn by the endlessness of the view
fascinated that such infinite space could be crystallized
On some unknown pinpoint in her head.
Horizon in her eyes in her eyes in her eyes
Horizon crystallizing on a pinpoint in her head
Infinity on a pinpoint, on an unknown pinpoint
On an unknown pinpoint
In her head.

She was drawn by the dreamlike light
Men fishing from the dreamlike shore
Men fishing for salmon in salmon in salmon in
Men finshing for salmon in Michigan
Can't eat can't eat can't eat their catch
Shouldn't eat the P.C.B.'s in the fishes' fat
Can't eat can't eat eat it canned eat it canned
Can't eat can't eat eat it canned eat it canned
Can't eat toxic salmon from the
Changing lake.

She was drawn by the dreamlike light
Men fishing in, children swimming in
Eerie Lake Michigan.
Children swimming in swimming in swimming in
Children swimming in swimming in Michigan
Swimming not swallowing not swallowing Michigan
They're wallowing wallowinng wallowing in Michigan
Wading in swimming in not swallowing Michigan
Not swallowing the water
In the changing lake.

She was drawn by the dreamlike light
Men fishing, children swimming
Couples strolling on
Unreal sand
On chewing gum, sewage scum
Rat turds, dead birds
Candy wrappers, bits of crackers
Butts, bottles, broken pails
Soggy tissues, rusty nails
Apple cores, orange peels
Stray zorries, rods and reels
Toxic fishes, plastic dishes
Chewing gum, sewage scum
Chewing gum, sewage scum
Unreal sand.

No matter what the weather or the light
She could rarely predict how the lake would look
On any given day
The temperature sun clouds winds humidity
Mists pollution currents
Every conceivable factor
Affected its appearance.
She was intrigued by the idea
that the lake has as many faces
As it has moments of existence
As many faces as moments
As many faces as moments
As many faces as moments
And so perhaps did her life
Have as many faces as moments
And so perhaps WAS her life
As infinite as
The changes in the lake.

Copyright registered May, 1995
 

 
The circus parade flowed past. How did it feel to be one of those animals, a natural part of the jungle, yet instead pulled in a cage or clomping on cement down Wisconsin Avenue with hordes of two-legged creatures staring and pointing?

Part of being human is our ability to imagine ourselves in others’ shoes, or others’ hoofs! And another major parade taking place in Milwaukee this summer, on August 8th, will do just that. It’s a parade that will, in a sense, be the opposite of the circus parade: the animals that clomp or dance or trumpet past will be created by, not captured by, humans. You could say it’s the humans who will be caged in their self-made costumes. Aren’t we all?

Artists and non-artists of all ages, races, religions, and ethnicities are working together to create THE ALL-CITY PARADE AND PAGEANT, produced by Milwaukee Public Theatre and Milwaukee Mask and Puppet Theatre . The structure is based loosely on Minneapolis’s annual HEART OF THE BEAST parade; the content was developed through brainstorming sessions that began last April in the Milwaukee area.

I went to one. We sat in a circle and threw around our problems and pleasures, our nightmares and dreams, and the visual images these evoked. The sessions eventually provided the material for the parade’s themes: a close look at greed and all its implications, a look at where we’re heading and why, at problems and solutions. Participants will express all this through the senses, through the arts, visually, musically, in dance, in words.

I went to one of the workshops last month and saw the beginnings of the masks and puppets volunteers are creating.

Some, like the ones above, are the usual size of masks. Others, like the structure below that will one day soon become a squid, are gigantic. I have no idea what the three men in the doorway were working on, but that makes no difference. It will float past me on August 8th!

 

Time is closing in. Perhaps it’s not too late to save the world. In any event, it’s not too late to take part in the parade! A special insert in this week’s SHEPHERD EXPRESS will give you the details, whether you want to participate in, or be an observer of, this spectacular event.
 

Summer seems fleeting and finite, and the list of things to do while our heavy coats hang in the closet seems infinite: parks, parades, fairs, gardening, house repairs, weather-proofing, painting, pruning, exhibits, concerts, chores and culture all in one giant grab-bag.

On Gallery Night, Friday, July 24, there’s a reception at Rosenblatt Gallery for our guest artist, Deidre Prosen (please see Sarah’s lively description of the exhibit at the end of this blog). Adolph’s and my works are also in the gallery, and Eli’s work is on the first floor (Artasia) and on the third floor (Cuvee).

Adolph and I will once again have a tent at Artist Marketplace on Saturday, July 25, 10-5, in front of the Milwaukee Art Museum. Every year we say we’re too old, this is the last time, and then we do it anyway, because we do enjoy talking to friends, passers-by, and Adolph’s ex-students and seeing the local art scene. Here’s our tent from last year.
There are also two projects in the works this summer that I’ll write more about in my next blog. One is the All-City People’s Parade and Pageant on August 8 here in Milwaukee, modeled after the Minneapolis “Heart of the Beast” annual May Day Parade. There are lots of opportunities for your creative participation!

The second project is Keith Schmitz’s plan to start a coop bookstore café, Open Book, in Shorewood now that we no longer have Schwartz Bookshop. It will only succeed with everyone’s support.

 

Our daughter, Sarah, captured the excitement of Deidre Prosen's work in her excellent description of the show:
Deidre Prosen, a Shorewood resident who has shown nationally, will  display her current work at the
Rosenblatt Gallery through September 10. Her figurative paintings are  huge, colorful, and  wildly playful. The unruly and  chaotic unconscious springs to life in every canvas. The underbellies of our  minds surface with fears, grotesque visualizations, fairy tales, and dramas where animals merge and morph.
Some of her paintings are parodies of our  economic times, filled with bankers who aided and abetted
the crisis. Deidre's works have psychological overtones, so it comes as no surprise to this viewer
that Deidre's father is a psychiatrist.

Rosenblatt Gallery, in Milwaukee's Historic Third Ward, has been in  existence since 2007. The gallery houses much of the work  of Adolph  Rosenblatt, professor for 33 years at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and of his wife, Suzanne,  visual artist and poet. Deidre was a student of Adolph's in the 1990s, and there is a kinship between her work and Adolph’s. The artwork of both is expressionistic, loosely rendered, playful, exploding with color and  humor. The opening reception is on Gallery Night, July 24th,  6:00-9:00 PM, 181 North Broadway, above  Artasia.     
   
   
 

 

It’s calming to weed the garden. Anyway, it used to be, before this month’s Second Sunday Soup and Salad Salon! Harvey Taylor, one of my fellow Earth Poets, and Susie Krause led the discussion: foraging in our own back yards. And their contribution to the potluck was a tasty salad made up of about twenty-five different ingredients foraged from their yard.

The next day as I weeded my garden, each time I pulled up lambs’ quarter, plantain, dandelion, curly dock, or Virginia waterleaf, I had to stop and ask myself: should I use this as salad or as mulch between the rows? I’d been craving organic greens, and here was a free feast of them at my fingertips. Yet I hesitated to pull up all those “weeds” and sauté them or throw them into my salad. Finally I grabbed a lambs’ quarter and broke us in gradually, mixed it with the onion and garlic greens and cilantro that come up in spring without my help. In a couple of hours lamb’s quarter became an indiscernible part of a very green and delicious egg-white omelet.

We began the discussion outside, in back yards and alleyways. Harvey mentioned that today’s weeds are not native. Immigrants from Europe intentionally brought them along on the voyage here, for their nutritional value. In fact the word dandelion, Harvey told us, comes from the French dent de lion, lion’s tooth, in deference to the jagged edges of dandelion leaves. In modern French it’s pissenlit (lit means bed)!

I just googled dandelion recipes and got 123,000 results in 0.11 seconds! I knew there are websites full of recipes, but didn’t realize they were quite so popular, given the passionate hatred (of dandelions) I’ve occasionally run into in Shorewood. The greens are particularly healthful and versatile, and expensive if you buy them in the grocery store. Children instinctively pick bouquets of the flowers. Even today.

Here’s Harvey’s outline for the discussion:
‘Full-Spectrum Nutrition,’ for Peggy’s Salon, June 14, ‘09
Susie & Harvey, facilitators…happy to share our ongoing adventures

Gardening background, 35 yrs…….gradual shift from ‘weeding’ to ‘eating’ to:
Foraging….common ’weeds’ have been imported (non-native); dandelions as prime example: nutritional potency, hardiness; other common foragables include lamb’s quarters, violets, plantain, purslane, comfrey (the variety with purple flowers), Virginia waterleaf, hostas; ‘weeds’ jump out of the ground in Spring long before much can be harvested from the garden, & they can be preserved in a dehydrator for winter use
•    Uses: omelets (frittata), salads, soups, infusions (‘elixir’), green smoothies
*   Elixir: put plant materials in gallon-size glass jar, fill with boiling water, add stevia if desired,
for sweetening, infuse all day, strain, drink, excess can be frozen; recycle plant mass in compost
*    Green Smoothies: put plant materials (foraged/garden cultivars/sprouts etc, plus some fruit for flavor)
into blender, add water; see ‘Green For Life’ (book/youtube, below)
*    Camping trips: you’d be surprised what can be added to the oatmeal or soup, after being gathered
on a hike                
•    Sprouting: ‘kitchen gardening’, makes 4-season home food-production a natural; super-nutritious;
doesn’t require fancy equipment; wide-mouth glass jars (or plastic) & any fine mesh (old stockings etc);
wheatgrass can be grown on window-shelves, and added to smoothies
•    Health concerns etc as motivator: Susie’s osteopenia, Harvey’s ‘pre-diabetic’ concerns; self-reliance in economic hard times…resistance to corporate domination…and a very poetic activity (contemplation,
garden- yoga, garden-tai chi)
•    Indispensable Websites: Susun Weed’s Wise Women’s Herbal Ezine: www.susunweed.com
•    Books: Green For Life, Victoria Boutenko (also demos on youtube); Forager’s Harvest, Samuel
Thayer; Common Herbs for Natural Health, Juliette Levy; Sprouts, The Miracle Food, Steve
Meyerowitz; Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver, My Weeds, A Gardener’s Botany,   
Sara Stein; Edible Wild Plants, A Field Guide, Elias & Dykeman; all of Michael Pollan, etc, etc, etc
 

Harvey's poem, below, sums up his full-spectrum experience:
Full-Spectrum Nutrition
By Harvey Taylor
Pole beans are sprouting,
pea vines climb a wire trellis,
we’re picking young kale leaves,
spinach, and mustard greens,
foraging dandelions, violets,
plantain, hostas, and Virginia waterleaf,
cilantro is coming along,
tomato plants are in the ground,
with yellow flowers here and there…

but it’s not only the body
that gets hungry:

the soul has an appetite, too, and
loves to dine on children’s laughter
floating over the fence,
a flurry of apple blossoms
scattering on the breeze, and
a robin suddenly lighting
on the bird-bath rim,
then splashing, and splashing,
and splashing again,
in the afternoon warmth,
after gentle rain