UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

NEW SPECIMENS OLD SPECIMENS THE SCIENTIST MY LOG CONTACT ME
2002-07-07 - 9:02 p.m.

APPRECIATING THE SOUTHWEST

When most people who do not live near here picture Wisconsin, they picture a red barn, some Holstein cows, a blue Harvestore silo, and perhaps a gentle hill. We have some of that but Wisconsin is much, much more. Here, in the east, Wisconsin is also a huge lake, so large and vast that it might as well be a freshwater ocean to a person standing on its shore or up on bluffs above. But much as I love Lake Michigan, my favorite part of the state is the southwest.

The southwest corner is hills like a roller-coaster headed toward the Mississippi. Farms, and some do dot the landscape although there are fewer and fewer all the time, sit, trim and red, next to green fields of corn and hay. Often, the fields of corn and hay form curving stripes down the smaller terraced hillside. Even in a drizzling mist, the pine and other trees on other, larger hillsides look dark but welcoming.

Nor is the place lacking culture. Sure, we have the The House on the Rock but it turns out to be much more interesting than anyone had any reason to expect. (We originally planned to canoe the lower Wisconsin River on Saturday but we had no desire to canoe in the driving rain so we did the indoor tourist things instead. The house itself is strange, if a bit dark, but the collections, well, suffice it to say that I no longer consider Mr. Philately a major league accumulator of collectible junk. Mr. Philately is a rank amateur.

The displays went on for miles�two and a half to be more exact. There were lots and lots of dollhouses and dolls, transportation items ranging from cars to signs, a huge carousel, and, most wonderful of all, elaborate mechanical orchestras. Despite myself, and the need for tuning some of the mechanical orchestras evidenced, they were wonderfully fun. Violins in these things, for example, had four bows, one for each string. Bellows breathed air through saxophones and other wind instruments. Drums played themselves or, in one place, were played by a mechanical Mikado with eyebrows that went up and down as he scowled at his audience.

The American Players Theatre supplied the culture. The American Players Theatre is an outdoor theater that specializes in Shakespeare�s plays. We saw �The Taming of the Shrew.� While I would have preferred that they not try to make it a poor drunk�s dream just to spare our current sensibilities, the acting was inspired and wonderful, the staging imaginative but not intrusive, the stage lighting delightful (when you live in a family of techies, you notice such things), and the language, as always, wonderful. Kat, unlike most teens, loves Shakespeare and deeply appreciated the whole experience out under the stars. The heavy odor of bug repellant arising from the crowd did not dampen the experience in the slightest.

Yes, I love the southwest and I loved the weekend. Kat was delightful (although I suspect that, other than the play, the highlight of her trip was beating Mr. Philately at ping-pong). I�d go back anytime.

LAST YEAR: Grow Up

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