Coffee Spew

Sly’s WTDY interview with Ian Murphy

Longtime and often controversial Madison radio personality John “Sly” Sylvester interviewed Ian “Fake David Koch” Murphy on WTDY Friday morning. Murphy has been in Madison for the last week basking in a warm civic welcome for his role in unmasking Governor Scott Walker’s alarmingly chummy ties to the darkest of American corporate interests. We’ve made more than half a dozen family outings to the Capitol in recent weeks. The crowds and the spirit of collective resolve have been life-changing for all of us. In our peregrinations among seas of galvanized protesters we’ve stumbled into meeting both Sly and Murphy on separate occasions. Murphy in a packed Starbucks on the Square last Saturday, and then Sly Thursday afternoon on the Capitol steps when we pulled Augie from Cambridge Middle School at noontime and drove into the city. (Sly that evening was interviewed on Fox’s “O’Reilly Factor” and predicted: “Walker’s done.”) Our photo ops below.

Family photo op with Ian Murphy at Madison’s Starbucks on the Square 3/5/11.

Family photo op with WTDY’s Sly on the steps of the Capitol 3/10/11.

March 12, 2011

David Koch, Ian Murphy, Madison Wisconsin protests, Sly in the Morning, WTDY
Madison 3/10/11

(Photo: Coffee Spew)

March 10, 2011

Madison 3/10/11, Madison Wisconsin protests
Madison 3/5/11

Firefighters begin march down State Street after Saturday afternoon’s labor rally at the Capitol. At the front is Mahlon Mitchell, 13-year veteran with the Madison Fire Department and current president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin. Directly behind Mitchell, Local 311 Pipes & Drums. (Photo: Coffee Spew)

March 6, 2011

Local 311 Pipes & Drums, Madison Wisconsin protests, Mahlon Mitchell, Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin
Madison 3/4/11

(Photo: Coffee Spew)

March 4, 2011

Madison Wisconsin protests
Augie’s Letter to the Cambridge News

The Cambridge News, March 3, 2011 / Letters to the Editor

Dear editor,

I am an eighth-grader at Nikolay Middle School. These past two weeks my view of our administration and teachers has lessened significantly. I imagine you have figured out that I am talking about the local reaction to the protests that are occurring at our State Capitol regarding Governor Scott Walker’s heinous bill attacking unions and collective bargaining.

Our teacher’s union in Cambridge decided that it was best for all of us if they stayed here in our schools. I have talked to some of my teachers and they have told me that the reason they made this decision is because they respect and like the Cambridge administration and wanted to stay here and teach; they told me it was for our education. Well let me tell you, the administration is going to be affected by this bill just like the rest of us. The school administration should be up at the Capitol protesting right along next to our teachers.

On Friday, Feb. 19, I went to school, begrudgingly, as I would’ve much rather been at the Capitol along with the rest of the state. Shortly before lunch it was announced on the loudspeaker that some students at Nikolay Middle School were planning a walkout and that it would not be a good choice. With our own principal away at a conference, we were told, “the issue that has arisen is Madison’s problem, not Cambridge’s,” and “let the adults handle this adult problem.”

I was fuming by the end of this.

We were also told that a “discussion forum” would be held during the second half of our lunch period. I was prepared to express my views in a respectful way, of course, because I respect my peers and authority figures. But we received something much less inclusive than a discussion forum. We instead received a lecture in which we were talked down to and threatened with suspension and even expulsion.

Students are opinionated and engaged. We know what’s happening, so why not encourage us to examine current issues and experience education in the world beyond the classroom?

August McGinnity-Wake

March 2, 2011

Cambridge Wisconsin, Madison Wisconsin protests, Nikolay Middle School, The Cambridge News
Wisconsin’s Walden—Adding Shadows to Paths of Light

The current issue of Wisconsin People & Ideas (Winter 2011) includes my essay on August Derleth’s 1961 Walden West. The book is a portrait of the people and landscape of Sac Prairie, a lightly fictionalized composite of Derleth’s Sauk City hometown and the adjacent village of Prairie du Sac. It’s an evocative literary work that’s never really gotten its due. Here’s a brief passage from my piece:

In Walden West Derleth captures a small-town populace increasingly alienated from a natural world to which their rhythms are still connected. It is a book written by a stubborn, unapologetic regionalist, who, in 1961, seemed out of step with the forward-looking optimism and youthful vigor of John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier. While not outright ignored, Walden West was critically panned upon publication. “These sketches have little distinction, no particular chronology or unifying drama,” sniffed a critic for Kirkus Reviews.

My thanks to the magazine’s editor, Jason Smith, and literary editor, John Lehman. An earlier version of this essay won the Council for Wisconsin Writers Rediscovering Wisconsin Writers Award in 2004.

February 27, 2011

August Derleth, Council for Wisconsin Writers, Jason Smith, John Lehman, Prairie du Sac, Sac Prairie, Sauk City, Walden West, Wisconsin People & Ideas
Madison 2/26/11

(Photo: Coffee Spew)

February 27, 2011

Madison Wisconsin protests
Madison 2/25/11

(Photo: Coffee Spew)

February 25, 2011

Madison Wisconsin protests
Madison 2/19/11

February 21, 2011

Madison Wisconsin protests
Dead on arrival

Today’s mail brought copies of the Elkhorn, Wisconsin Popcorn Press anthology, The Hungry Dead, edited by Popcorn’s founder, Lester Smith. The delightfully disgusting cover was designed by Smith’s daughter, Katheryn. The collection is cool from several perspectives (aside from the fact that my poem “The Last Supper” is included). First, Lester solicited submissions during October via social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook, as well as a sharp website, and then announced the chosen selections on Halloween with a mockup of the book ready for printing. Planning, executing, and printing a book this quickly is a crazy challenge, but the proof is in the blood pudding, as they say. The Hungry Dead is a classy production: sixty-five works of poetry and fiction from eighteen authors, including several well-versed Wisconsinites familiar to us such as John Lehman, Sarah Busse, Michael Kriesel, and Dead editor Lester Smith. The Hungry Dead is available from Popcorn Press and Amazon (you can peek at the contents with Amazon’s Look Inside the Book feature).

December 29, 2010

John Lehman, Lester Smith, Michael Kriesel, Popcorn Press, Sarah Busse, The Hungry Dead