The other night (Tuesday, May 15, I believe) storms moved through the area in three directions around us, but managed to miss us entirely. The skyshow, though, was spectacular—an amazing mix of rolling, dark clouds (kind of like the storm in Close Encounters of the Third Kind), a beautiful sunset, and rays of light shining up from horizon to sky -- in the east, directly across from the sunset. I'm sure there are meteorological words for these kinds of clouds and those rays of light, but I'd just forget 'em even if I learned 'em. I'll settle for being in awe of their beauty.
The plum tree outside my office window has been blossoming for the last week, enough that its flowers clogged a downspout last Thursday night. Can't eat the fruit off of it, but it sure is pretty.
Last week, our neighbor's lawn was covered in dandelions. My seven-year-old daughter caught a glimps as we drove past and shouted "Wow! Look at all the flowers! How come we don't have any flowers on our grass?" I started explaining that those "flowers" were actually "weeds," and we really didn't want them on our lawn, but couldn't bring myself to even finish the sentence. Leave it to a seven-year-old to make you question the place of human beings in the ecosystem, deciding which plants (and birds and other animals) are "good ones" and which ones we had the right to exterminate just because they inconvenience us.
Well I tried to be normal, I mowed my lawn, ‘Til considering the dandelion. How it pushed right on from dusk to dawn. How it paid my plans no mind. How the dandelion paid no mind, To the poison Green Machine. It couldn’t be confined inside my lines, Painting yellow on my green.
Dandelion, dandelion, color of the sunshine. Any friend of dandelionís is a friend of mine. Dandelion, dandelion, makes a mighty fine wine. And you do to me and mine, what you do to dandelion.
Sure, I put some weed and feed on the lawn last week. But I have to admit I was more than a little happy to see some dandelions popping up the other day.
Right across the street from the Frederick Douglass historical marker is a restaurant that, any way you look at it, should be one of my regular haunts. I mean, IT'S GOT THE WORD "CHILI" RIGHT IN THE NAME! It advertises burgers and Coney Islands in the window. And—and I just noticed this—it claims to have been open since "1920 B.C."
But even though I've lived in Beaver Dam for almost 18 years, I've never once eaten at Chili John's. For one thing, sandwiched between a couple of really ugly buildings, it doesn't look nearly as cool as it looks in this picture. For another, I'd heard the proprietor was grouchy. And then there's the fact that, for most of those 18 years, smoking was allowed. Finally, it's only open for breakfast and lunch, two meals I all too often skip entirely. Now, it's become almost a perverse point of pride that I've never eaten in there. But that's stupid. Chili John's...you're on my list...
In October of 1856, Frederick Douglass visited downtown Beaver Dam in an effort to raise funds and increase involvement in the Dodge County abolitionist movement. A historical marker now stands on the site, which today is underwhelming to say the least: an empty lot between the local movie theater and the latest iteration of sports bar/nightclub occupies the hideous building on the other side. This Wisconsin Local History Network site contains links to two newspaper accounts of the visit, from opposing sides of the question. Beaver Dam's downtown doesn't have much going for it, so passing by this every day is a reminder that, well, things have changed, and will change yet again.
I suppose it's almost cheating as much to use sunset photos as to use kitten photos. But this was the first really beautiful sunset of the spring, on one of the first really beautiful days of spring, and I couldn't resist. One of the reasons we chose the house we bought last year was because we get to see sunsets like this almost every night from our back porch. I suppose that one could reasonably do a "Sunset a Day" photo project if one wanted to. I don't, but that doesn't mean I won't put more sunset pictures here. (This one was taken on Sunday, May 5.)
OK, so there's no shortage of cute kitten pictures on the internet, and so I guess it's kind of cheating to use cute kitten pictures as part of my Photo a Day project. But these are my kittens; more accurately, they're my children's kittens, and they joined our household on May 4, at the tender age of six weeks. Originally called Chocolate and Butterscotch, as of today (May 7) their names are Oreo and Butterfinger. If the kids change the names again, that'll give me an excuse to post more pictures!
I've lived in Beaver Dam since 1995, but don't recall seeing pelicans on Beaver Dam Lake until 2012. They're back again this year, typically clustered in groups of four or five. I don't often see them in flight, which is why I chose this photo for Day 2 of my "photo a day" project. I took this photo on May 2, when it was a rainy 40 degrees outside. I took it with my 500mm lens, but needed to zoom and crop to make the pelican visible—and it's still hardly visible. That's a shame, because these birds have huge wingspans that are really quite impressive in the rare moments that you get to catch them relatively up close.
I'm trying my hand at photography, and am going to try to take a picture a day and post it here. I'm not looking to generate anything of particular artistic or journalistic merit, just posting things that catch my eye. Here's a closeup of water as it flows through the dam in Beaver Dam. I was struck by a photograph's ability to transcend time and physics; as it flows around one of the vertical beams in the dam, it appears more like a gel than a liquid. I was just reading the other day that, to microbes or bacteria, water actually is more like a gel than a liquid. It's all relative.
Ever since I saw Electric Six a decade ago, they've been one of my favorite bands. My wife and I were cajoled into seeing Junior Senior, who were riding on a minor hit with "Move Your Feet," and were in the opening slot for a band we'd never heard of. Along with most everyone else, I've forgotten all about Junior Senior, but Electric Six blew my mind in a way that can't be unblown.
"Danger! High Voltage" wasn't yet a hit, nor was the song that will define them forever, the goofy "Gay Bar." But the power of those songs was undeniable, even on first listen, and the rest of the band's set was no less powerful—danceable rock and roll driven equally by fuzz guitars and synthesizers, loaded with hooks and sing-along choruses.
Plus, they exhibited a quality all too rare in rock music: They were damned funny. Lead singer Dick Valentine mocked rock star cliches, striking GQ poses and counting the money in his wallet while Johnny Na$hinal (since rechristened "The White Wolf" [but you gotta say it low and guttural, and hold the "o" so it sounds like "white WOOOLF"]) took his guitar solos.
I've seen them a couple of times since then, most recently this March at the High Noon Saloon in Madison, pictured above. And while their albums have been inconsistent, their live performances continue to astound. The lineup has changed a bit, but the core of Valentine, The White WOOLF!, and synth player Tait Nucleus? (yes, the question mark is part of his name, kiddies) has been consistent since 2004, as has the band's dedication to tight, hard-rocking, ass-shaking tunes.
And the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. On paper, Electric Six should be pretty good, but you'd think they'd wear thin after a few listens or shows. Songs like "Dance Commander" and the "Down at McDonnelzzz" (video below) don't exactly carry the weight of deep human insights. So why the hell do I love them almost as much as any so-called "serious" band?
That's a question I've wrestled with for years, being a former professional rock critic and all. And I've determined that the problem isn't with any answer I come up with, it's in the nature of the question, one that suggests that only IMPORTANT ART can have a deep emotional effect on an audience. Even after all these years, that's an assumption I have a hard time shaking, even as I know it to be a false one. (Dominic Taylor deals with the underlying questions well in his essay "Two Considerations for Criticism," in which he reminds us of the importance of asking why and for whom in any critical assessment.)
Electric Six answer Frank Zappa's question "Does humor belong in music?" with a wholehearted "Damned straight it does," but their music, like Zappa's, moves its audience's minds as well as its collective ass. In fact, it's because their music carries such a physical punch that it carries emotional heft. There's nothing cold about Electric Six's approach to either lyrics or music, and on their strongest material (most of which can be heard on the live set Absolute Pleasure, they hit just as hard as Detroit antecedents The Stooges.
