Driving to Milwaukee Via I-94E

Drove in to Milwaukee yesterday, on the second-last day of the Andy Warhol exhibit. Roads were clear of snow and deer, nothing but salt swirls and speed traps to slow down my 2000 Civic. My fellow Madisonian and UW alumnus Michael Feldman was on the radio. WPR. The Ideas Network. Made me regret just a little that I'd sent all my year-end dollars to Planned Parenthood (see previous post). But then, at least I'm a member. Public radio already gets my support at least once every year.

Driving a car is not good for the planet. I mean, petroleum-wise, it beats flying, but that's about all you can say for it except that it's not a bus. Now don't get me wrong: I take the bus to and from work five days every week. I have the good luck (having had the foresight) to live right on three major bus lines. That sounds like a bad place to live, but it's a lovely tree-arched street lined with charming and squalid tall Victorians. Houses, I mean, not the one-time Queen's descendants. But buses, no matter how plush or clean they may be, the stately Van Galder coaches a prime example, are still, well, buses. We really need trains. Nice, high speed trains. With real conductors. And maybe some porters. It's all about jobs, right? And these buses need to originate in Madison, not Columbus. What's with Columbus, anyway? There is so little in Columbus other than the Amtrak station that they actually invested in a Christopher Columbus museum and put a sign out on the main highway that skirts the periphery of town as if passing motorists keen on arriving elsewhere will see the sign and say, "Hey, Hon! Look at that! The Christopher Columbus Museum is here! Wanna stop?" Even though Christopher Columbus didn't come within 1245 nautical miles of Columbus (and that only if the nautical vessel could somehow fly as the crow does, in summer months).

But anyway, I'm driving to Milwaukee on highways so good and clear of traffic on a Saturday morning that I really do need to watch out for the squad cars parked at unlikely angles at unpredictable intervals throughout revenue-hungry, action-hungry Jefferson County. I think the police officers of this county got together at some point and brainstormed appropriate police response to their twofold environmental dilemmas: 1) there's really nothing happening in Jefferson County to warrant police forces or pay for new squad cars and 2) the interstate that passes through the county like the mainline artery taking intellect and money everywhere but the county coffers is almost always shrouded in a pea soup of fog. The answer was double genius. Plant squad cars all along the interstate. The fog will keep motorists from seeing them; the resultant speeding tickets (my son's was nearly $300 two years ago) will pay for nice new squad cars.

Driving from Madison to the Milwaukee Art Museum ("Oh please. Just call me 'MAM.'") is my idea of a really good drive, especially if it's not foggy. Basically, it involves getting on Interstate 94 and driving east until the interstate ends at Lake Michigan, where you park the car and walk into the Calatrava addition to the MAM. As someone with a classically inverted sense of direction, this in itself is sufficient reason for me to buy an annual membership to the MAM. In fact, I buy a double. I am always on the lookout for a good deal, and the double allows me to always bring a friend and seem generous, where in fact I am stingy and just looking for the best deal. Yesterday, for example, I had every intention of bringing my friend Gail, until her husband claimed her, something about remodelling the bathroom. Since the remodel involves a deep soaking tub, I had to relent. Some things can vie with art, and a good bathtub may be one of them.

Oh. Perhaps you've been noticing the occasional red-inked words. These are for Russ and his crew. These represent his voters. I think it's important for him to know how many of my readers are his electors. I may seem to be a loose and wandering intellect, but so are my circles of friends and readers. And a lot of them are wandering around Wisconsin right now. Freezing, but wandering. The smarter ones, of course, like me, are seated in front of their computers, roaming through the sunny fields of intellect, which are looking to me this morning much more like summertime in Provence than the frozen tundra outside the window of my study.

Hmmm. I was going to write about the incredible crowds at the MAM yesterday. I was lucky enough to get there before noon and see the Warhol with only a few tense episodes of elbow-jamming. By the time I wandered back to the stunning spaces of the entryway in search of food, the lines were winding like a snake or a bank run through the foyer, and a peek into the galleries where the Warhol works are hung revealed a packed house, where no one under 6'4" was going to see anything but shoulder blades.

But I'll have to write about the amazing hunger for art in the souls of the wintry housebound another time. My BFF's on the way over for breakfast, and I'm still in my bathrobe and house slippers.