2017 SUN PRAIRIE CORN FESTIVAL

LET THEM EAT CORN

1953 was the first year Sun Prairie held its corn festival. I can't pinpoint the first year my parents took us but it was pretty early on. I do remember is was after the festival had moved to Angell Park, next to the roar of the track where the midget racecar events are held.

The venue hasn't changed over the years and this year wasn't any different although the days of free corn have long since been replaced. I had hoped to hit the dirt floor of Angell Park earlier during the run of the festival but didn't end up making it until the last few hours of the last day of the event.

The whole eating frenzy is a four-day festival starting on Thursday with a parade and running through to Sunday

when the corn steamers are closed down and the conveyer hoisting the dead husks into a dumpster has stopped moving.

The corn, that was available all during the event when I went as a kid with my parents and then as a teenager when I copped the keys and drove out with friends, was now only available on the last two days and then only from noon till seven.

Still most of the events charm remained with the ears of corn handed out at two bucks an ear or seven dollars for a tote that could be filled with a minimum of a half dozen golden cobs of sweet, sweet corn.

Once you've purchased your ear or tote you get the opportunity to have your corn rolled in huge tubs of salted butter.

Then, your hands glistening with real butter, you make your way to the salt trees in the hopes that your golden treasure won't slip away before those beautiful kernels can make it to your salivating mouth.

Here's a tip: The corn is steamed in the way we always make our corn at home and I think this is the only way to do corn. You take your corn leaving it in the husk and dump it on the middle shelf of your oven that you've cranked up to maximum heat. You don't pre-wet it, you don't open the husk, you just leave it there for twenty minutes. Then with asbestos mitts on both hands you pull the corn out of the oven, strip off the husks and dump the steaming cobs into basket. Keeping the corn in the husk allows the juice and sweetness to stay securely intact without drying out the corn. It always amazed me the number of people in the supermarket who rip off the husks right in the store and then go home with there naked ears and either boil the corn or roast it to a dry and tasteless mush.

The lines for the totes can stretch for blocks but when I finally made it to the fair it was close to six on the last day and the line was only a twenty to twenty-five minute wait.

It was enough to make think twice but after I saw one guy with a baby strapped to his chest go through the line twice and devour every ear they had piled into his cardboard dish I figure I could at least grab a single ear.

I took my ear by its unwrapped husk, rolled and salted it and then since I went by myself I grabbed a space on a concrete pylon big enough for my butt out of the way of most of the other eaters. The pylon was just outside the midget racetrack.

The roar of the racecars overpowered any other sounds. The only thing I could hear was the internal crunch of corn as I bit into it. The one thing I hadn't counted on or remembered was the amount of mud these cars can throw around. Even with a fifteen-foot fence covered with a tarp running the length of the oval I still managed to get pelted with mud balls as the cars skidded around on the other side of the barrier.

Unfortunately, the single ear of corn only wetted my appetite. Since by that time it was close to closing for the concessions a church group with their own tent was hawking a big discount. They were pushing root beer floats for two bucks and cookies a half-dozen for a dollar.

In addition to the races and the corn the other draw has always been the midway.

As a kid I wasn't much interested in the rides especially the ones that spin. I could never understand the thrill of vomiting on a friend or stranger. As an adult the feeling hasn't changed but there's such visual beauty in a midway and that was one of the reasons I wanted to go to the fair in the first place.

Once I finished my corn and root beer float I made my way past the kiddie blow-up jungle and then into the midway

where you could buy for ride tickets if you were so inclined

I would have opted for the games where my chances of actually walking away with something more than a stomachache had better odds.

Although what one is supposed to do with giant purple hippo bets me

And I have to admit that the midway does provide more than one way to torture your stomach and your teeth. There's always enough sugar in candy apples and cotton candy to make a whole segment of the carnival going population enrich all the local dentists.

And what would a festival be without the opportunity to purchase bubble blowing guns, paper umbrellas and the current ubiquitous spinner.

I think I came away having paced myself to a degree that my stomach didn't hate me, my teeth didn't squeak with sugar shock and my eyes got to delight in the beauty of a great Midwest tradition.

















THE GALLERY

Albino Sword Swallower at a Carnival, 1970
Diane Arbus, photographer
Represented by Gagosian Gallery

BEHR'S COLOR OF THE YEAR 2018

IN THE MOMENT

I subscribe to a few blogs and postings. They show up regularly in my email inbox; sometimes it's welcome, sometimes it's annoying. The ones I like most are the ones that limit their posts to one a day because there are a few that hit me two, three or four times a day. I can usually breeze through the ones that show up more than once a day by scanning their usual duplication of information. It easier to hit delete and I can do that pretty quickly unless there's something that really peeks my interest.

Well last week one of these blogs posted a notice that Behr Paint was announcing it's first "Color of the Year" by recreating a home on the floor of Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central Terminal. Well this is the kind of thing I feel compelled to go see. Wave a design carrot in front of me and I'll bite. Here's what Behr had to say about their color choice that got me interested:

"Each year, our team is inspired by what's happening in the world around us and how color comes to life in new ways - in fashion, pop culture, travel, home décor and more. We spend months imagining a palette filled with colors that will reflect what's to come. This year, we were specifically drawn to lifestyle trends of awareness, mindful living and the Danish concept of hygge - the feeling of cozy, comfortable conviviality and well-being."

I had just flown back to New York on the 9th and the post about the event came in on the 10th. I thought this was worth a trip but I wanted to put it off until Sunday thinking it wouldn't be as crowded. Well, it wasn't. It was empty, not only of people but the whole exhibit was gone. Deconstructed after a single day and that day was the 9th, the day after the post introducing the event hit my email. All I saw was a roped off hall so I'm going to have to this one alone.

Behr's color: "In the Moment" T18-15, a restorative blue-green hue honoring nature to create a soothing atmosphere. Versatile and welcoming, this grounding neutral is a serene backdrop to spaces where you unwind and recharge".

I don't want to do a Martha Stewart but once again Behr, I think we were there first.

I've vignetted images from our sweet little Upper West Side apartment to show how we've had this color family on our radar well before you took it on and anointed it your color of the year.

We rented this little gem almost singularly on the fireplace and this beautiful blue-green tile.

We then accessorized it with more blue-green trinkets including a tin alarm clock

We set our Thanksgiving table with vintage "In the Moment" vases, plates on top of blue-green chargers and blue candles that completed our trifecta of blue-green.

Our Pullman kitchen has that sea green tile and we topped it with a row of blue-green matte pottery vases and teapots.

Even our art and pillows draw on that Tiffany blue.

Lets just say, "Behr you were right on with your choice but you could have saved a lot of money and research time if you had just come to us first".




THE GALLERY

Whale Bay, Antarctica, no. 4, 84" x 144", soft pastel on paper, 2016
Zaria Forman, painter
Represented by Winston Wachter Fine Art, Seattle, WA

THREE SUMMER CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF COOL AIR

SEX ON THE SIDEWALK

It was particular hot but clear that Tuesday in early July in Chelsea.. I was walking back from a client meeting on West 22nd Street. It wasn't quite noon. The heat wave was in its fourth day. The heat from the baked sidewalk almost burnt through the soles of my shoes in the mere half block I had walked since leaving my clients brownstone. Walking east in hours before the sun had bent to the west forced me to shade my eyes from the sun as I counted off the lines in the sidewalk. There was a woman coming the other way silhouetted by the sun, a big black woman dressed in eggplant hospital garb. Her heritage allowed her to completely ignore the heat. She almost bounced down the street her cellphone attached to her ear.  You only get that momentary breeze created by the movement of air the air we leave in our wakes and sucked in every degree of cooled air as she passed. In that fleeting second as she passed by I caught a floating speck of her conversation, "I touched myself and oh my god..." and she was past and out of earshot.

SIZZLING SUMMER STYLE

The heat of July did a slow spiral up from the baked subway tracks below. Manhattan tests your metal and grades you by the perspiration stains that darken in the arcs under your arms and make maps of Africa on the back of your cotton long-sleeve dress shirt. He was different.
The heat of the thirty-fourth street station was unable to penetrate his gait. It was crisp yet his appeal went way beyond his walk. It's not uncommon in New York for many of us to wear our personalities through the clothes we chose to pull from our closets on any given day. There are the uniforms of business and the ladies who lunch but the man briskly moving through the waves of heat in the stifling subway was anything but business or lunch meat.
From head to toe he was a mélange, a history of fashion throughout the decades. It all started with his two-toned wingtips in cordovan and white with a hint of multi-colored anklets peeking out over the rims. His bony knees were exposed just under this madras Bermuda short in shades of blood red, deep aquamarine and golden yellow the colors of the earth and sky. He wore a stripped short-sleeve dress shirt neatly pressed and stainless buttoned up to the collar and tied with blue deco bowtie he had tied himself. His glasses were the thick black-rimmed kind a geeky nerd would wear but he capped the whole look off with the current height of fashion - a man bun. He'd hit every decade and every style over the past sixty years and achieved his goal of making all of us walking in the opposite direction melting like ice cubes into the coolest of smiles

SECOND GRADE SCIENCE

The bus from the airport to the subway was packed. Luggage littered the aisles as each of us tugged and pulled our own bags over and around those already seated trying to find an empty seat or claim enough standing space for our feet and our bags away from the heat outside the bus. I was the last on before all the seats at the on the bus were snatched. A family of three: mother, daughter and son were just ahead of me. They scurried into the remaining seats at the very back of the bus where the heat of the air-conditioning system toasted the leather and fought off any touch of freshness. As they tried to adjust there luggage and themselves they'd temporarily used an additional seat for their bags. People continued to squeeze into space that didn't exist as those desperate get on forced out the air between us. We were stuck together in a single mass glued by our own perspiration. Sensing the claustrophobia of the mass the mother pulled their bags to the floor between her feet and moved her daughter over opening up a single space for me to sit. I sat down using my knees as a vice to hold my carry-on from rolling into the person standing in front of me. The bus closed its doors with still another dozen or so travelers left outside having to wait in desert conditions outside for the next bus to come. The mother smiled at me and then tapped her daughter on the shoulder and pointed to a middle-aged woman standing just in front of me. Her daughter, I'm guessing to be around ten years old, got up and offered her seat to the woman. The woman declined saying "Oh thanks dear but I'm going to have to sit for a long flight, standing will do me good right now."
The little girl sat back down and pulled a book out of her backpack, a large size paperback the kind a school would hand out. She began thumbing through until she came to a page she'd earmarked. Her thumb started a journey down the page, her eyes following and her forehead crinkling into a question.
"Mother" not mom or mommy, "How can I figure out how many valence electrons get transferred from a nitrogen atom to a potassium atom when they try to combine?"
Her mother while bouncing her younger child in her lap continued the conversation in the same way my mother would have tried to describe how to tie a shoe to one of my sisters. It was nonchalant and every day, an activity so familiar to them there wasn't a hint of abnormality to it.
The conversation went on until the child with her mother's coaxing was able to figure out the answer for the formation of the compound potassium nitride, the answer being zero valence electrons. Dah. Frightening yet exhilarating. Seems science is safe in the hands of mothers and daughters.

THE GALLERY

Manhattan From the Brooklyn Promenade, 1954
Louis Stettner, photographer
Represented by Benrubi Gallery, NYC

THE WOOLWORTH BUILDING

A PEEK INSIDE CASS GILBERT'S CHATHEDRAL OF COMMERCE

I think ever since I've been in New York there's always been a sign at the entrance to the Woolworth building saying "No Visitors". Being a fan of the building and aware of its beautiful lobby this was very discouraging.

What I recently learned is now there is a tour organization connected to the building offering tours for 30, 60 or 90 minutes costing from $20 to $45 per person, and let me tell you I jumped at the opportunity and it's well worth the expense.

You need to reserve your space on the tour before showing up no walk-ins are allowed and let me tell you anyone trying to walk in is abruptly turned away. The guide has a list and he works it like a bouncer at the Met Gala.
Despite his regimental attitude toward interlopers our guide was engaging, well informed and very very funny.

I only did the 30-minute tour that gets you only into the main lobby but the only thing we missed was the basement vault and walk around the balcony. The lobby is by far the best visual jewel of the building anyway since the upper floors and tower are off limits.
Here's what I learned from our engaging guide. Woolworth was a self-made man, a retail genius and an egomaniac.
He started out with his only retail experience being playing "store" with his younger brother. At 16 he talked his way into a retail job where he was paid nothing and discovered he had no aptitude for selling but learned he was great at display. By 1878 he opened his first "Five and Dime". By 1911 he had 586 stores.

The Woolworth Building was built in a short three years in 1913 at a cost of $13.5 million that he paid for in cash. Translate that into 2017 dollars and you'll see this is no tiny penny. He built it as the tallest building in New York City, a tribute to his ego.

The building was designed by Cass Gilbert and this is the main reason for my fascination with it. Cass Gilbert was a noted architect having designed the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington D.C. and the state capitols of Minnesota, Arkansas and West Virginia.

He also designed a building on West 30th Street that bears his name. It's been turned into a condominium and we were lucky enough to be among the first residents.

It was one of our favorite addresses and let me tell you we've had a few places we've called home in several of the boroughs that make up New York City.

Before the tours became an option I thought that by showing a utility bill with the name of the Woolworth's architect on it that would somehow get me a golden ticket to get inside but that plan never worked out.
So I was very excited about finally getting a chance to at least stand in the lobby of the Woolworth building.

The lobby is a host of mixed messages with architectural details representing its predominately Gothic Revivalism with touches of

Moorish, Medieval, French, English, Italian

and Early Christian styles.

The lobby was originally ringed with a host of retail stores

that faced in servicing the people who worked there.

Shortly after the building opened a German restaurant opened in the basement but with poor timing. Within a few years when World War One broke out the restaurant went the way of Germany and closed.

If you look at the corbels framing the arched staircases you'll see tribute being paid to the people who were important to the construction of the building.

There's Cass Gilbert holding a miniature version of the building

and then there's F.W. himself counting nickels and dimes. Woolworth, a diminutive man in real life, had his visage depicted in a muscle shirt with guns worthy of massive gym rat. Vanity can be cruel.

One of the first tenants of the building was the Irving Trust Company and their basement vault is still intact in the basement of the building although you'll have to pay for one of the longer tours to go down and look at it.

The building also had its own subway station. The platform still exists but the trains no longer stop there.

I'd always thought the stained glass ceiling in the lobby was a Tiffany creation but I was wrong.

The stained glass was designed and built by Heinigke and Bowen

The art of commerce and labor are also highlighted in arched murals appearing at both ends of the lobby

The building today continues to function as an office building on its lower half

while the upper floors are currently being turned into condominiums with the top of the tower being transformed into single penthouse currently on the market for a mere $120 million. Who's ready for a down payment although I'll assume that the eventual purchaser will do a Woolworth and buy it for cash.
THE GALLERY

The Woolworth Building at Night
Photographer unidentified
Available for purchase through shorpy.com