“Goûtes au vin et à l’amour, tu ne vivras pas toujours!”

Pulling through the gates of Wollersheim Winery on a late summer day, I am immediately struck by an odd sense of dislocation. A moment before, I was driving through a typical Wisconsin landscape, with gently rolling farmland, fine old barns, and herds of indolent Holsteins. But as I park my car near Prairie du Sac and gaze up a steep hillside to an old stone winery and to tiers of grapevines rising above, I feel as though I’m not in Wisconsin anymore.

“Savor wine and love, you won’t live forever.” That’s the motto of the Woller- B Y K ATALIN W OLFF sheim-Coquards, an American-French PHOTOS BY GLENN TRUDEL family that has restored an 1840s win- ery above the Wisconsin River. It wasn’t quite rocket science — but it took the creativity of a UW engineer in space sci- ence, a business school graduate, and a French-born winemaker to succeed.

18 ON WISCONSIN FALL 1999 19 THE CHIRPING OF CRICKETS His powerful build and tanned face business and a shop selling winemaking fills the air. Colorful pots of flowers and arms make him look as if he were born equipment on State Street. perch on the edges of steps and win- to an outdoor life. But back in the 1960s, One day in 1972, Wollersheim heard dowsills. Workers move among the of a long-defunct winery up for sale in grapevines, cutting the great bunches of nearby Prairie du Sac. When he saw the purple grapes that hang heavy on the ne day in 1972, property, he knew he’d found the ideal vines. A genial, thirty-something man place to plant his vineyard. Conventional wisdom at the time wearing dusty trousers tucked into his Wollersheim held that it was just too cold and wet to rubber boots directs them. grow wine grapes in Wisconsin. But this Perhaps it’s because I’ve only heard of a property, situated on a bluff overlooking recently returned from a trip to France, O long-defunct winery the Wisconsin River, was steep enough to but I could swear I’m back in Provence. provide good drainage and air flow, and The crickets, the flowers, the hillside up for sale in nearby it faced south, where it caught the full vineyard, and even the way the man Prairie du Sac. warmth of the midday sun. Surrounding tucks his trousers into his boots — they hills sheltered the property from the all seem so familiar. When he saw the brunt of winter winds, and the Wisconsin I want to sit with a glass of wine in River helped to moderate the tempera- one of the wrought-iron chairs on the property, he knew tures. In effect, it had a micro-climate terrace and take in the scene, just as I sat he’d found the ideal that was milder and drier than the rest of on another terrace overlooking the hills the state. of the Lubéron only a few weeks ago. place to plant his But what made the property truly irresistible was its association with the vineyard. flamboyant Hungarian “Count” Agoston
Haraszthy, a central figure in the history With her vaguely European air, Julie of winemaking in America. he was a lab-bound professor of electrical Wollersheim Coquard ’87 fits right into Haraszthy (who was of “dubious lin- engineering at the UW Space Science my French reverie. She’s slim, and she eage,” according to one source) had fled Center in Madison. He made wine in his wears her thick, dark hair in a long, dra- Hungary after ending up on the losing basement as a hobby, and this pastime matic sweep. I am not surprised when side of a revolution. Hoping to make his eventually expanded into a mail-order she calls to the man working in the vine- fortune, the Count (or “Colonel,” as he yard in French, her voice rising to the sometimes fancied himself) decided that higher register that French women use. Then she switches to English, her voice dropping a bit, and taking on an ami- able, Midwestern accent. She introduces herself as the win- ery’s director of advertising and public relations. Her father is Robert Woller- sheim ’66, MS’67, the founder and pres- ident of the winery, and her husband is the French-born winemaker working in the vineyards, Philippe Coquard. How, I ask her, did a French wine- maker wind up in Wisconsin? I can tell by the way she smiles that I am not the first to ask. “Wine is such a fascinating subject,” Robert Wollersheim tells me as we watch the newly harvested grapes ride down a conveyor belt to the vat where they will Electricial engineering professor Bob Wollersheim left the UW Space Science Center to trans- form his home winemaking hobby into a full-time occupation. His daughter Julie (holding be crushed. “You can never learn enough grandson Nicolas) is the director of advertising and public relations, and she says the national to satisfy you.” trend to buy local farm produce and microbrewery beers helped launch their Wisconsin wines.

20 ON WISCONSIN only bona fide title). Haraszthy met his death with characteristic panache in Nicaragua, where, as legend has it, he slipped from a log while trying to cross a river and was devoured by crocodiles. The count’s successors in Wisconsin had considerably less luck growing grapes than he did in California. After a freeze in 1899 killed the grapevines, the property was converted to growing con- ventional crops, and the oak wine barrels were cut up for firewood. By the time Robert Wollersheim and his wife, JoAnn, bought the property in 1972, it was nearly abandoned. All that was left of the old winery was the 140- year-old building, its cellars, and its lime- stone caves. The Wollersheims had to start from scratch, planting the hillsides with win- ter-hardy, French-American hybrids, In the beginning, the Wollersheims relied upon family and friends to help out with the plant- ing, harvesting, and bottling of the wines. But soon, with the help of a French intern (soon to retrofitting the winery with state-of-the- be son-in-law), the Wollersheim wines began to gain the attention of influential restaurateurs. art equipment imported from Europe, Overall, the winery has increased its production 20 to 25 percent each year for the last decade. and furnishing the underground wine cellars with new oak barrels. The family, what this country needed was some good, found it too hard to remember. (It even- which included Julie, age seven, Steve, European-style wine. He acquired land tually became Sauk City.) five, and Eva, four, moved into the stately overlooking the Wisconsin River in the Had gold not been discovered in mansion adjoining the winery, and Bob’s 1840s and began to plant vineyards and California a few years later, Haraszthy parents, Ed and Clara Wollersheim, build a winery. He also founded the might have stayed in Wisconsin and moved nearby to help out. nearby “Village of Haraszthy,” whose become a household name. Instead, he It took years to establish the vine- name was later changed because people left to follow the gold rush and made his yard and harvest the first crop. Much of mark on California. that time was spent forming the young Haraszthy traveled up and down the vines by training the trunks and shaping state of California (he is remembered as their fruiting zones. Wollersheim needed the first sheriff of San Diego, for exam- to rely upon his family and friends to ple) before settling in Sonoma County help out with planting, harvesting, bot- and returning to winemaking. He is cred- tling, selling wines, and giving tours. ited today with founding the California “There’s a difference between home wine industry and is invariably referred winemaking and commercial winemak- to in promotional material as the “Father ing, but you don’t find that out until you of California Viticulture” (perhaps his start making wine commercially,” he tells me. Wollersheim kept his day job for a few years, commuting to the UW several Wollersheim’s Philippe Coquard was named mornings a week. “Winemaker of the Year,” and his Prairie Fumé was named “Blockbuster Wine of the Even when the first vintage was Year” at the Wineries Unlimited Conference in finally bottled and offered for sale in a Hershey, Pennsylvania, in 1995. The Domaine Reserve has been listed as a “Pick of the retail space on the old winery’s first floor, Month” by Bon Appétit magazine. The Bever- there were problems to face. The new age Testing Institute in Chicago has rated wines from Wisconsin were at first con- both the Dry Riesling and the Prairie Blush as “Best Buys.” The Prairie Blush has also been sidered novelty items — something for named the “highest rated pink of the year” tourists to take home and chuckle about and a “Best Buy” by Wine Enthusiast maga- with their friends. “People didn’t take zine, which has also called Wollersheim Win- ery the “premier blush producer in the U.S.” them seriously,” Julie admits.

FALL 1999 21 The Fruits of the Vine “One of our goals is to A number of special events are held throughout the year, including: demystify wines so Grape Stomp Festival people are not afraid October 2 and 3, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. of doing the wrong Grape stomping and spitting contests, cork tossing, fall foods thing,” says Julie from the grill, and wine tasting Coquard. “We’d like to Ruby Nouveau Tasting help them become November 20, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. The first taste of the new wine more comfortable in made from the year’s harvest buying and ordering wine.” Wollersheim A Vintage Christmas December 2, 5:00–8:30 p.m. A program highlighting wine and Winery’s Web site food for the holidays (www.wollersheim.com) offers a wealth of information on selecting and serving wines, including suggestions on pairing different types Wollersheim’s Ruby Nouveau will also be featured at a Nouveau of wines with different foods. You can also order wines online. Beaujolais party at the UW’s French House, 633 North Frances Street, on November 19, from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. Call the Alliance Française The winery, located on Highway 188 near Prairie du Sac (check at (608) 262-3941 to make a reservation. the Web site for a map), offers tours and wine tastings year-round. Just for the fun and education of it, interested oenophiles can go An outdoor wine garden is open in the summer. The winery’s to work in the vineyards in September for a few days. If you’re phone number is (800) 847-9463. contemplating such an experience, contact the Wollersheim Winery.

But then a funny thing began to hap- Like Julie, he had wanted to be a wine- But he also had another cherished dream: pen. Gradually, the winery’s greatest lia- maker since he was a kid helping his to travel to America to see for himself, as bility — its location — turned into an he puts it, the land of “Harley-David- asset. It had became trendy to buy local sons, hot cars, and the West.” farm produce and microbrewery beers, so Coquard had hoped to intern at one why not wine? Locals were willing to give hilippe of the prestigious wineries in northern a Wisconsin label a try, and they liked Coquard’s California, so his posting to Wisconsin left what they tasted. Influential restaurateurs him somewhat underwhelmed at first. But who had been promoting Wisconsin prod- wines now then he met the daughter of his sponsor. ucts began to feature Wollersheim wines P For his part, Bob Wollersheim was on their menus. The business grew on attract notice far outside immediately impressed with Coquard. word-of-mouth advertising. Wisconsin’s borders . . . Within months of Philippe’s arrival at

the winery, he asked him to stay on as wines from Wollersheim the company’s winemaker. Philippe, who by this time was enchanted by Julie Wollersheim knew from a young and Cedar Creek have Julie, naturally agreed. The pair mar- age that she wanted to join her dad in the ried the next year. business, so she enrolled in the UW- won dozens of medals, As in a fairy tale, everyone in this Madison business school to earn a degree including five double story (except the long-departed count, in marketing. that is) is living happily ever after. Both While she was cracking the books in golds, at national and Bob and JoAnn Wollersheim are still her final year of college, a young wine- active in the winery, and JoAnn tends maker in France was poring over an international wine the winery gardens. atlas, trying to locate a place called competitions. Steve Wollersheim, an architect in Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin, where he was Milwaukee, still helps out occasionally about to be sent on a Future Farmers of and designed an addition in 1995. Eva is America exchange program. the cellar master at Cedar Creek Winery, Philippe Coquard came from a father and uncles in the vineyards, gradu- another Wisconsin winery the company family that had been making wine in the ating with degrees in oenology and wine acquired in 1990. Beaujolais region for hundreds of years. marketing from Macon-Davayé in 1983.

22 ON WISCONSIN The Coquard children — Celine, age eleven, Romain, eight, and Nicolas, two — are learning about winemaking the way generations of their ancestors did — by playing in the vineyards and watching their parents and grandparents at work. They understand wine the way other kids understand Nintendo. “They already know the difference between a Beaujolais and a Riesling,” boasts Philippe, who admits that he would be pleased if some of the children eventually carry on the family’s wine- making tradition.

Watching Philippe at work in the fer- When the Wollersheims bought Count Haraszthy’s defunct winery in 1972, all that was left of mentation room is an education. The the 1840s operation were the sandstone buildings, the cellars, and the limestone caves built newly harvested grapes are crushed into into the hillsides. But the micro-climate of the Wisconsin River never changed, and has proven to be an ideal one for growing grapes. juice, which runs through clear tubing into a gigantic, steel tank at the back of the room. Everything looks very modern from its popular Prairie Fumé, a crisp, attract notice far outside Wisconsin’s bor- and very clean. fruity white, paid for a large addition to the ders. In recent years, wines from Woller- He stands by another tank of fer- winery a couple of years ago. But sales of sheim and Cedar Creek have won dozens menting wine, pours a little from a reds are now increasing three times faster of medals, including five double golds, at spigot, takes a sip to test its progress, than sales of whites. The Domaine national and international competitions. and judiciously swishes it about in his Reserve, a full-bodied red, sells out each Yet for all his success, Philippe mouth for a moment. Then, looking year. (The ’98 vintage, due out in Novem- admits that it took him a while to adjust satisfied, he takes aim at a grate in the ber, was already half pre-sold by late last to the differences between American and floor several feet away, and spits. summer.) Overall, the winery has increased European ways of doing business. Bull’s-eye. Not a drop stains the its annual production by 20 to 25 percent “American thinking tends to be short immaculate floor. each year for the last ten years. term, bottom line. Perhaps that’s because the country has such a short history,” he We walk outside to the terrace and Philippe attributes the growing pref- settle into the wrought-iron chairs I’d says. “Here they put furniture that’s 150 erence for red wine partly to the increas- been eyeing earlier. years old in a museum. In France, we ing sophistication of Americans’ tastes. “European and American winemak- have 150-year-old furniture in our Another factor has been reporting on the ing tend to differ in philosophy,” he tells homes, and we use it. We tend to take a “French paradox” — the surprisingly low me. “American winemaking is very high- longer view.” incidence of heart disease among the tech and businesslike. Most American The “all work and no play” Ameri- winemakers were not brought up in the French, despite their fondness for butter, can ethic has also taken getting used to, business. Their style of wine tends to be cheese, and cream. This has been says Philippe, who still prefers the “work market driven — that is, determined by explained by their consumption of red hard, then play hard” French ethic. what consumers like. wine, which contains substances that “Why be greedy? You won’t be able to European winemakers are closer to lower blood cholesterol. keep it in the end,” he defends. their product. They drink it every day “We’ve carved out our own niche On the other hand, he doubts that he and take personal pride in it, so their with a local style of wine that benefits could do without American efficiency. wines tend to reflect their own individual from the unique flavor imparted by the “The more time passes, the more tastes more. We’re trying to incorporate soil here, as well as from a French American I become and the more French both approaches here by producing touch,” Julie tells me. “Philippe works to Julie becomes. That must be why we’re wines to suit a variety of tastes and bring out the best of each year’s vintage, still so much in love.” income levels.” rather than to standardize the wine too

Historically, Wollersheim Winery has much. That’s where the art comes in.” Katalin Wolff and her son began to research this story sold more white wines than reds. Profits Philippe Coquard’s wines now while practicing their French on vacation in Provence.

FALL 1999 23 T H E

the unfinished adventure of a dictionary maker’s life

Observe Cassidy’s method: recently, he do it better — people, he says, “for whom has been reading Charles Frazier’s Cold the whole panoply of words is alive in Mountain, a book thick with Civil War- front of them” — failing to acknowledge era Appalachian dialect — and thus dot- that it is a rare person who stocks words ted with words, to borrow Cassidy’s like panoply in the pantry. phrase, he “hasn’t met yet.” As he reads, That pantry is full of extraordinary By Michael Penn MA’97 he is distracted by the contours of those words, and among them is a truly intrigu- Photos by Jeff Miller unfamiliar words, and he often finds him- ing collection that rarely crosses into self plunging into one of his dictionaries Cassidy’s everyday vocabulary. These are to trace their etymologies. He ponders. words like paddybass and chizzywink and Frederic Cassidy has He lingers. He stays for dinner, gets to ground itch — words that for their pecu- relationships with words. You know the family. liarity are pearls in the American fabric. Cassidy reads dictionaries — actu- Although they may not sound like prod- and I may think we do, as read- ally reads them, as opposed to flitting ucts of American English, they’re Ameri- ers and as writers, but not like through them in a purpose-driven man- can at their very heart, part of the ner. And whereas the rest of us may have organic vocabulary that most of us learn Cassidy. Ours are tawdry liaisons, one dictionary stuffed away on a remote before we ever learn how to speak “prop- use-’em-and-lose-’em affairs that shelf, he possesses several dozen, a selec- erly.” To understand how people speak tion that barely meets his need to explore — how they really speak, as opposed to have us gallivanting with another the nuance of language. Paging through the artificially stuffy conversation we word before the memory of books such as Anglo-Saxon Poetry and practice at cocktail parties — you need to Trinidad Yoruba, he rummages through listen to these words. the last has faded. We are word flea markets of words, collecting them as Cassidy has spent much of his life gigolos, compared to Cassidy, most people do souvenirs. To him, they doing just that, chasing down the rare whisper secrets about exotic cultures and bits of Americana that hide in backwaters who is the king of lexical remote places. and bayous. He and a small band of fel- “I’m a person who is especially gone low logophiles on UW-Madison’s campus romance. on dictionaries, so I’m not typical,” Cas- are in the middle of an effort to publish sidy admits. He speaks methodically, like the Dictionary of American Regional English, a man trying to choose the perfect wine known as DARE, the most ambitious to go with dinner, and envies those who catalogue of the country’s vernacular

24 ON WISCONSIN ever attempted. Some forty thousand roots of folk society have rendered him a where cultures bump and hatch new nuggets of regional dialect, gathered from cultural icon. William Safire, whose col- ways of talking. all fifty states, have been printed in the umn “On Language” appears in papers “People who study the language and dictionary’s first three volumes, which nationwide, once called him “America’s the way it develops are always discover- contain entries from A through O. When folk laureate.” ing interesting things,” he says. “Say a finished, the dictionary will include five But Cassidy never set out to become word didn’t exist before 1950. Then how volumes and an addendum, a work so an American icon. To begin with, he did you say that feeling? Did that feeling mind-bogglingly huge that it has taken didn’t even start out American. exist in someone’s mind? Did it not exist Cassidy and his team nearly four decades Born in Jamaica to a Canadian at all? Did it have to be invented?” As a to get as far as they have. father and a Jamaican mother, Cassidy professor, he returned to Jamaica to It is Cassidy’s life work, and one that grew up “multilingual,” he says. He research and write a dictionary of the he may not live to see finished. spoke standard British English with his island’s folk language. It was a small- Not that Cassidy, who will turn parents, but delighted in the creole that scale taste of what was to come. ninety-two in October, and who is still at flowed among the native islanders who In the 1960s, as Cassidy approached his desk five days a week, is giving up worked around the house. Dictionaries what for most people would be the pin- just yet. were fixtures in his childhood, and the nacle of his career, a new challenge sur- “Have you ever been working on family Webster’s even served as his high- faced. No one had ever attempted a something that you really want to fin- chair at the dinner table. “The words linguistic effort the scale of an American ish?” he says. “I really want to finish this! came up into me by osmosis,” he says. folk dictionary. The American Dialect Perhaps I will see it through. But I’m not When he wasn’t planted on a dictionary, Society, a group of academics and lan- immortal.” he was browsing one, placing wagers guage buffs, had formed in 1889 largely to publish such a text, but by the sixties, Cassidy may be mortal, but there is little members still hadn’t been able to get the evidence of it. There are concessions to A Dare Guide to the project off the ground. Cassidy, who at age: his hearing is failing him, and he S O U T H UW-Madison was teaching Old English abandons Wisconsin for warmer climates and Anglo-Saxon languages, was during winter. But he is still every bit the Say what? intrigued. In 1963, he wrote a journal bright, imaginative, witty English profes- “I'm as proud as a dog article that laid out just how someone with two tails.” sor who joined UW-Madison’s faculty in might tackle the enormous task of col- 1939. When I arrived to interview him in What’s on the menu: lecting and transcribing the nation’s folk his office in Helen C. White Hall — a egg bread and frog-eye gravy speech. Within months, the society took small nook lined from tile to rafters with Favorite way to spend a day: him up on his plan and made him chief yellowing volumes and pictures of paddybassin’ (walking around, editor. famous dictionary makers — I found him from the Outer Banks of North “We must expect,” Cassidy had writ- redecorating, hardly looking like a man Carolina) ten, “that collecting, to be adequate, must with plans to go anywhere soon. Creatures you may meet: continue for at least five years, and edit- Though the day-to-day operations of chizzywinks ing, though it may begin before the col- DARE are handled by associate editor (mosquitoes, in Florida) lecting is completed, will take another Joan Houston Hall and a capable staff of You know you’re in trouble three or four years.” Now thirty-seven twelve editors and production assistants, if the locals call you: years into his eight-year project, he Cassidy remains DARE’s bedrock. biggity (vain or conceited) chuckles at the estimation. “I was young “Fred,” Hall says, “is an institution.” The and optimistic then.” pages of DARE reflect his passion and his unfailing standards, and he still reads Lexicography is a slow business. Sir every word before it is printed. with his father over the meanings of James Murray devoted thirty-seven Over the years, the identity of Cas- words. years to editing the Oxford English Dictio- sidy and the identity of DARE have At age eleven, Cassidy and his family nary before his death in 1915, and it took become somewhat intertwined. DARE moved to Akron, Ohio, where his gumbo another thirteen years to finish its fifteen has a cult following of writers and lan- of linguistic influences added Midwest- volumes. Editors of a German dictionary guage lovers who cherish it not only for ern peers, a Scottish schoolteacher, and, (among them the Brothers Grimm) spent its scholarly value, but for its sheer origi- down the line, a Parisian woman who 122 years toiling away on their project, nality. And the same could be said of the would become his wife. Each new experi- earning the all-time record for lethargy sentiment toward Cassidy. As chief edi- ence and exotic twang fed a growing fas- among dictionaries and considerably tor, his relentless efforts to uncover the cination with the soft edges of language – stretching the definition of “publication.”

FALL 1999 25 And, it should be noted, the American Dialect Society had taken seventy years just to select DARE’s editor. You can understand the need for precaution; dictionaries aren’t places for sloppiness. They are definitive works, reflecting the ground rules for acceptable communication. You can’t so much as play a game of Scrabble without their adjudicating power. But in DARE’s case, a couple of other factors made Cassidy’s initial projection too hopeful. Most important, no one had accurately sur- mised the vastness of turf to be covered. Folk dictionaries had been done in smaller communities, even in Britain, but never in a place as large and diverse as the United States. Between 1965 and 1970, Cassidy dispatched eighty field workers, most of them graduate students, across the coun- try to gather the linguistic gems of the

A Dare Guide to the NORTHEAST The race to finish DARE is a slow one, full of long days and meticulous attention to detail. Before they are printed, new entries are researched, prepared, and typed onto small paper Say what? slips, which end up on Cassidy’s desk for editorial review. And, after nearly forty years and “He’s got his nose open for her.” forty thousand words, Cassidy still reads every entry with the exacting eye of a perfectionist. (to be in love, in Northern cities) What’s on the menu: dropped eggs (poached) and hasty from what you call someone who’s For each word — including thou- pudding always in someone else’s business (a sands that don’t make it to print — the nebby-nose, in Pennsylvania) to what you staff undertakes a painstakingly exhaus- Favorite way to spend a day: say when someone sneezes (if you’re a tive investigation. They consult dictio- belly-bumping on a double ripper (riding a sled) Southerner, “Scat!”). At the same time, naries, historical documents, and volunteers perused a library of novels, collections of folklore to seek out roots. Creatures you may meet: plays, diaries, letters, and newspaper They look for printed examples that con- pinkwinks (small frogs) and beef clippings. firm what the interviews have told them, critters (large cows) When the collecting was done, edi- and they analyze other quotations for You know you’re in trouble tors had more than two million responses differences in spelling or meaning. It’s if the locals call you: and nine hundred hours of audiotape to meticulous work that can sometimes bufflehead sift through. Not all of the responses will stretch to weeks for a single word. And (stupid, in Pennsylvania) end up in DARE; Cassidy and his staff it’s a process that really can’t be has- first look for the words that demonstrate tened. Like a crossword puzzle, the a regional pattern of use. But when it is answers sometimes come only after long land. Traveling in “word wagons” complete, DARE will contain the defini- and fruitless stretches of head-scratch- (Dodge campers) and carrying boxes of tions, origins, and uses for more than ing. While DARE’s publication process audio tapes, they visited 1,002 communi- sixty thousand words. By comparison, has benefited some from the rapid tech- ties, from rural outposts to inner-city most experts say that there are about two nologies of the information age, the neighborhoods, looking for lifelong resi- hundred thousand standard English grunt work is thought work. And, Hall dents willing to complete the 1,847-ques- words used commonly, and only about notes, “we can’t think any faster.” tion survey the DARE staff had designed one hundred thousand in languages such An example stems from one of Hall’s to elicit localese. They asked everything as French. favorite entries: bobbasheely, a versatile

26 ON WISCONSIN word used in the Gulf States to signify of Maine to have a word — rusticator — few years ago, a psychiatrist asked both a very close friend and the action of that signifies a boarder on summer vaca- DARE’s editors if there were any moving or associating in a friendly man- tion. Those words tell us something regional synonyms for stilts. He was ner. DARE was stumped by the word, confused because some of his patients which an interviewer thought might be kept identifying pictures of stilts as Irish. Later, an editor discovered bob- A Dare Guide to the either tommywalkers or johnnywalkers. Edi- basheely in a Faulkner novel, which MIDWEST tors were able to confirm that those pointed them toward Southern roots. words are perfectly normal synonyms for Exploring the cultures of the area led Say what? stilts in the South, but that’s not where them to a Choctaw dictionary, where “I’m having my head trimmed.” the story ends. they found an entry for itibapishili, signi- (getting a haircut, in parts of The doctor worked with patients fying a brother or twin — bobbasheely’s Wisconsin) suffering from aphasia, and as part of certain ancestor. Not all words lead edi- What’s on the menu: their therapy, he administered a national tors weaving through such rich history, lutefisk and long johns standardized test that asked patients to but a few, says Hall, turn out to be Favorite way to spend a day: identify pictures of common objects such downright thrilling. hooking lunkers as stilts. Since tommywalkers and johnny- In 1985, fifteen years after the word (catching trophy fish) walkers weren’t in the answer key, he had wagons came home, DARE was ready to to mark them as wrong, categorizing Creatures you may meet: share the excitement, or at least three Green Bay flies (mayflies) them as lacking appropriate vocabulary. letters’ worth. Volume I, containing bob- If he administered the test again, after a basheely and some ten thousand similar You know you’re in trouble period of therapy, with the same results, if the locals call you: delights, was a minor sensation among the patients could be labeled as showing hunyak (an Upper Midwestern both scholars and lay readers, who term of derision for unskilled no progress, a diagnosis that might cost bought more than sixteen thousand workers or yokels) them their Medicare coverage. copies, running through five printings of But DARE’s most surprising use is the 903-page tome. A New York Times in tracking down criminals. Cassidy and critic labeled the project “one of the glo- his team aren’t exactly cut from the mold ries of American scholarship,” and about what life may be like in Minnesota of Sam Spade, but they did play a small DARE’s notations began to pop up regu- or Maine. And they also disprove, at role in helping the FBI identify the larly in newspaper columns devoted to least partially, the notion that we live in a Unabomber. After the Unabomber pub- language. Volumes II and III followed to mass culture devoid of variety. The per- lished his lengthy manifesto, the FBI similar praise in 1991 and 1996. vasiveness of McDonald’s and Gap brought in Roger Shuy, a Montana- Many readers love the books for stores aside, DARE’s pages bear out a based linguist, to analyze the text. Using their wonderful oddity. A romp through nation that still harbors many views of DARE and other dictionaries to track DARE’s pages is like a trip to a linguistic reality, one that even today is channeled regional influences of the bomber’s lan- Disneyland, full of strange and exotic by gulfs of experience and culture. And guage, Shuy built a profile of the sounds and shrewd, down-home wit. It as any rusticator will tell you, the com- bomber’s background and experiences is as if Garrison Keillor invented his own mon bond of English often isn’t enough that proved startlingly accurate. “I keep language, where good hunting dogs are to bridge the gap. my three volumes of DARE very handy cold-noses and the local bore is a cold DARE steps in as a cultural Saca- to my desk,” Shuy wrote in a letter to potato. gawea, leading the way through the Cassidy. “I find it invaluable. Needless to DARE contains not only definitions, thicket of strange dialect and custom. say, it would be even more valuable if it but citations, histories, and even maps Physicians, for example, are trained in went beyond the letter O.” that trace where regional words are medical school to treat skin rashes, but That DARE is a masterpiece unfin- used. The result is a book that is part may well be stumped by a case of dew ished is a common complaint. The vol- dictionary, part social history — a sort of poison or ground itch, words commonly umes are used widely by novelists, American travelogue, told in the tongues used in some parts of the country. playwrights, and actors trying to master of its inhabitants. Because DARE knows the lingo, it has the speech mannerisms of a particular Consider the existence in the Min- become a standard desk reference for area of the country, and many grumble nesotan vocabulary (if not in actuality) doctors and lawyers who work in unfa- that DARE so far captures only half the of the wily agropelter, a ferocious beast miliar surroundings. landscape. Reference librarians keep that lives in hollow trees and drops tree One of DARE’s recent queries, for checking to make sure they haven’t limbs on the heads of wandering lumber- example, demonstrates that dialect is received an incomplete set. In fact, jacks. Or the need of longtime residents about more than just a colorful accent. A Continued on page 52

FALL 1999 27 DARE the initial gathering stage was funded by oversees DARE, tossed a life raft, agree- Continued from page 27 the U.S. Office of Education, and sev- ing to fund a development specialist as eral sources, notably the National part of a three-year push to bolster whenever associate editor Hall encoun- Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), DARE’s coffers. David Simon, who had ters a DARE fan, “When is the next vol- the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the successfully raised funds in previous ume going to be out?” is usually the first National Science Foundation, have campaigns for the UW Foundation, was thing she hears. underwritten the long sifting-and-edit- hired, and his efforts have already Second is, “How is Fred doing?” ing process. Those benefactors have enlivened hopes. Not only have contri- These days, Cassidy is careful to look butions from private individuals begun both ways when crossing the street. He to arrive, but the big fish are nibbling watches his step on Madison’s often-icy again. In March, DARE won a new sidewalks. He takes his time, because he A Dare Guide to the $350,000 matching grant from the wants to stick around. FAR WEST NEH, and the Mellon foundation has A few years ago, when Cassidy was come through with some additional in his youthful eighties, he was hit by a Say what? money this year. car while walking home from the gro- “I’ve got a hitch in my git-along.” The money — plus the fact that cery store. The accident, which broke (a sore leg, to those on they’re now working on the downslope of several bones in his leg, left him unable the Western Plains) the alphabet — has brightened the mood to work and none too pleased. “I was What’s on the menu: around DARE’s offices. There is a sense using the crosswalk!” he still testily long boys (submarine sand- that, for the first time, the dictionary has asserts. But the accident also amplified a wiches) and bear claws the momentum of inevitability. “The feel- rumble of concern that has surrounded Favorite way to spend a day: ing is that we’ve come this far, we can’t DARE for years: Will Cassidy make it bullwhacking possibly let it stop now,” says Hall. to see the end? (driving a team of oxen) “We’re like the little engine that could.” “He used to be optimistic about it,” Creatures you may meet: But Cassidy has been burned by Hall says. “But now I think he’s realistic.” kangaroo rats and pocket mice predicting the future before. He’s not Volume IV is scheduled to be pub- (small gopher-like rodents) about to try it again. What matters more lished in 2002, bringing DARE’s march You know you’re in trouble is that when — or even if — DARE is through the alphabet halfway through S. if the locals call you: done, it will be done right. “If we had all If everything stays on course, Volume V gazook (a general disparaging the monetary support we need, we could will arrive just in time for Cassidy’s one label used by Westerners) add a couple more editors and cut off a hundredth birthday, in 2007. That’s couple of years,” he says. “But until we merely a projection, though, a best-case have adequate support — until we’re scenario for a project that hasn’t always been models of patience — in some not limping along — we simply can’t enjoyed the privilege of best cases. cases ignoring their own guidelines to speed it up. Although Cassidy is healthy today, the continue funding DARE. But editors “If we had to speed it up seriously, longer DARE drags on, the more he knew that the money wasn’t endless. we’d make mistakes,” he adds. “And pushes the odds of longevity. In December 1995, the final Mellon that’s one thing we’re passionately seri- To his credit, Cassidy approaches grant expired, leaving precious little fuel ous about.” the subject of his own mortality with for DARE’s engine. There wasn’t money So Cassidy is content to tuck his characteristic wit and resigned patience. to fill two open editor positions, and by reading glasses under his tuft of chalk- “There’s nothing I can do,” Cassidy 1997, the picture was so grim that Cas- white hair, open one of the thick manila says, “but work as long as I can.” sidy could not assure his staff that they files on his desk, and introduce himself to But there is also the complicating would be employed by the year’s end. a word he hasn’t met. He may be in the factor of DARE’s financial health, Hall recalls sending out staff memos with race of his life, but it is a race he’d rather which for much of the last decade has a rolling D-Day — We only have enough lose than hurry. wavered near flatlining. money to pay you through October 27 ... DARE is a project of such daring Hall spent weeks writing grant pro- that it almost certainly never will be posals and seeking out individual bene- Michael Penn MA’97 learned about the color of regional attempted again. It is no cheap venture, factors. Every day was like treading dialect during four years of college in Nashville, costing about $600,000 a year to fund Tennessee. Y’all’s accent ain’t nothing compared to your water, surviving on $20 and $50 checks average Nashvillian. For more information about DARE, research and editorial tasks. That money from fans. Last year, the university’s contact David Simon at (608) 265-9836 or visit has traditionally come from large grants: http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dare/dare.html on the World College of Letters and Science, which Wide Web.

52 ON WISCONSIN the heart’s deepest desire

In the beginning, you fall in love. tended to pray, too. I swayed with them calling. I listened to Blue Mitchell’s It starts in your feet and pretty soon it’s and made little chanting sounds. I had no trumpet solo on Horace Silver’s “Juicy in your chest and then your throat and idea what I was saying, but I loved the Lucy” so many times that I thought he finally you can’t think about anything feeling of being in that hypnotic state. I was related to me, literally — that we Jazz musician else. For me, it was boogie-woogie — think of this as my first jam session. were blood brothers. specifically, “Pine Top’s Boogie,” by the I remember when, a few years later, Life in Racine was generally slow. It Ben Sidran great Chicago pianist Pine Top Smith. I performed an impromptu piano recital got a bit more exciting when my school- looked far and My father, Louis Sidran ’37, had the for my fifth-grade class, and I got a kiss mates discovered anti-Semitism. I don’t record, and by age nine I had it memo- from Miss Pedley, my teacher. I think of have to go into the details, as one can wide to discover rized. I played it over and over again, this as my first paying gig. Years passed, imagine how creatively and thoroughly like some kind of personal litany. and I collected records, one after thirteen-year-old boys can torture one the true meaning I had been playing piano since . . . another. I took the bus downtown to another. But when my best friend said to of his music — well, actually, I don’t remember not me, “You can tell me, is it really true that playing the piano. My earliest memories Jews drink the blood of Christian then found it, “It doesn’t interest me include the instrument, and I would babies?” I knew that I was from some unexpectedly spend hours at the piano, turning the where or what or with other place. And it was jazz, that’s the pages of a comic book with my right place I was from. Its voice whispered to beating, inside hand while my left hand traced a boo- whom you have studied. me of a better life, where all men were brothers, and where having fun was not where it had gie-woogie pattern. Slowly, uncon- I want to know what sciously, I fixed the moves into my only serious business, but also the order always been. motor memory while my mind wan- sustains you from the of the day. The music itself was so warm dered. So even as a small child, jazz was, and comforting, so free and on fire, and for me, the great escape: it spoke to me inside when all else falls the players were so supportive of each of something better, another world, away.” other, and the solos — well, the solos greater than the world I knew in Racine, were like rhetorical flights where no Wisconsin. Years later, when I heard words were necessary. It meant what it — O RIAH MOUNTAIN DREAMER UW Professor George Mosse speak on meant, and even as a young boy, I knew the importance of alienation in the Trudy White’s record shop and traded it would be a dream come true to be able growth of the personal conscience, I the money I made pulling weeds and to speak this language. knew he was talking to me. I am living sweating in my uncle’s auto parts store After my bar mitzvah, I left the proof. I believe that alienation, to a for something by Miles Davis, Horace Jewish temple and planned to never greater or lesser extent, is at the heart of Silver, or the “hottest new group in return. What had the temple given me, I every jazz musician’s story. jazz,” Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross. I reasoned? A few memorized lines to say I went to school, and in general, led would bring the discs home and go into on cue and a sense that the ghetto was a normal life for a Jewish child growing my room, close the door, and get right still alive and well in Wisconsin. How up in an overwhelmingly non-Jewish, next to my little record player, like an could it compare to the call of jazz? At Midwestern community. On Saturdays, I Eskimo huddling around a fire, absorb- age thirteen, I signed on at the temple of by ben sidran ’67 went to temple and stood with the daven- ing the heat that came from New York, bebop, and I’ve spent the last four photos by ing Eastern European refugees and pre- Los Angeles, Chicago. The world was decades among the faithful. brent nicastro ’77

28 ON WISCONSIN FALL 1999 29 tion. It was time to become the informa- three weeks, he could keep time well coming of age tion. Judy (Lutrin Sidran’69) and I enough so that we could play together. My first major stop was UW-Madison in ended up living in Los Angeles, where I When Leo turned five, I wanted him 1961, where I enrolled in the Integrated signed a recording contract with Capitol to have some Jewish experience of his Liberal Studies program and took Records. Then my learning really began own, something he could feel on his pulse courses from the likes of Wilmott Rags- in earnest. I discovered that to find my just as I had felt the spiritual energy of dale, Herbert Howe MA’41, PhD’48, and own voice, I had to first learn how to hear those old men back in Racine. I know Harvey Goldberg ’43, PhD’51 by day — myself. Judy encouraged a move away now that I was also trying to reconnect and from Steve Miller x’67, Boz Scaggs from the noise of L.A., so we headed with my own beginnings. As fate would x’66, and Langdon Street by night. The back to Madison. have it, I happened to wander into the Vietnam War was breathing down my Here, I became the artist that I had Gates of Heaven synagogue in Madison’s neck when I headed to the University of been avoiding since taking the academic James Madison Park on the day that Sussex in Brighton, England, where I fork in the road. Here, I began writing Hannah Rosenthal x’73 was leading her received my PhD in American Studies. I songs in earnest, going on tours with a second Rosh Hashanah service. It was went back to playing, and Steve Miller series of bands, making one record a wonderful, very hamish (down to earth), and his band arrived in London to make year. I also taught at the university for a with a text and an atmosphere that their first record — produced by Glyn year, a course in the Communication Arts nimmed the heart. “The Gods we wor- Johns, the engineer who had recorded department called the Social Aesthetics ship write their names on our faces, be the Beatles. Months after they left, I was of Record Production. I earned my living sure of that,” she said, “and a person will still playing — with Eric Clapton, Peter producing pop and jazz records for other worship something — have no doubt of Frampton, and even one memorable ses- artists, and radio and television programs that either.” What was I worshiping? sion with the Rolling Stones. about jazz for NPR, PBS, and various What was written on my face? And if, as By the time my dissertation had been companies, many of them based overseas. the text said, man is capable of change — published by Holt, Rinehart & Winston I began a schedule of traveling that indeed, obligated to change — was it time (as Black Talk), I consciously decided that has to date kept me away from home for for me to change? And if so, what should it was time to stop studying the informa- thirteen of the past twenty-five years. I be doing that I wasn’t doing? In Hannah’s service, God was not an old man or a removed omniscience, but a I began a schedule of traveling that has to date presence, the sum total of human experi- kept me away from home for thirteen of the ence, the knowable and the ineffable. And there was a kind of simplicity in her past twenty-five years. I was actively presentation that made me comfortable to sit among these people and think these growing, searching, learning, produc- thoughts. In my past, Jewish ritual was ing. But the best production by far just that: the hollow scraping of reeds in the wind. Here, I found in the smallest of was our son, Leo, in 1976. moments the largest of meanings. Now I believe that everyone wants and needs to think these thoughts. Who I was actively growing, searching, learn- are we? Where did we come from? Why ing, producing. But the best production are we here? And, even if there is no ret- by far was our son, Leo, in 1976. ribution or justice on earth, what is the Judy says that Leo, who just gradu- right way for us to walk the path, from ated with the Class of ’99, softened me. the first step to the last? Certainly, I became less interested in What was of particular interest to being “hip” and more open to sitting on me, however, was the music. The service the floor in a pile of Legos and things was full of songs that I found I remem- with wheels. Leo loved music, all kinds of bered from childhood but hadn’t thought music, and it was all around from the of since I was five years old. Children’s moment of his conception. One day, he songs that were so unremarkable that asked if he could play drums with such a they normally would have passed without serious disposition that, for his fourth notice. And yet, in this new context, they birthday, I bought him a small set. Within provoked powerful feelings in me. At the end of the service, I went up white mane and his dapper appearance. It was as close as I’ve ever come to and thanked Hannah and said that I He loved to sail and play golf, and he receiving a dictation from a higher really enjoyed myself. But there was just enjoyed a lot of friends, a lovely wife, and authority. Subsequently, I rarely per- one thing. “No offense,” I said very softly, beautiful kids. All in all, he was on top of formed the song in public. But one day, “but your guitar playing is a little distract- the world, leading what appeared to be Hannah heard me sing it, and as she said, ing. Would it be possible for me to help the best jazz life possible. He wrote this it spoke to her of the same questions with the music?” And with that the path lovely song called “Blue Daniel” back in raised by the Kaddish — a prayer recited branched again. the fifties. It was a simple, wistful in daily synagogue services. So every Year after year, as Leo grew from five melody, and I had considered writing year thereafter, I sang “Life’s A Lesson” to six, and six to seven, and then seven to lyrics to it for a long time. I met Frank in at her High Holy Day services. And year eight, I prepared and played the music for 1973 in L.A., when I hired him to play on after year, the people leaving the Gates of Hannah’s High Holy Day services at the my album, Putting In Time On Planet Earth. Heaven Synagogue said to me, “You Gates of Heaven. The night before, she “What’s it about?” I asked. “You know,” should record this music.” I knew I would come by the house and worry me he said, “like the Blue Danube? It’s just a would have to do it, and after twenty through all the songs. They were so simple waltz.” years of producing records, I knew it — “Avinu Malchenu,” “Oseh Shalom,” Over the years, I kept trying to come would not be easy. “Mode Ani” — that I sometimes lost my up with some words for the melody, but way while playing them. my ideas always seemed too trivial, too Bruce Paulson, a trombone player in inconsequential for the underlying ele- the “Tonight Show” band during Johnny gance and beauty of Frank’s simple little aligning the axis powers Carson’s reign, once told me, “I played theme. Then one night in 1979 I got a There was no chance that anybody at a Johnny’s theme song every night for phone call from L.A. Had I heard about major record label would be interested in twenty years, and I had to read the music Frank? He had come home that day with financing this kind of recording. At the every night. I never could memorize it. I a gun and without explanation, he had same time, I was producing a series of can’t tell you why.” I think I can. It has shot his wife, his child, and then killed jazz records in concert with a Japanese something to do with ritual, and how it himself. company, and I had an active European replaces normal consciousness, for better There was a long silence. I couldn’t distributor from Germany. Whereas the or for worse, with an alternative state. say anything, so I said nothing, and then American record companies were already we said good-bye and hung up. I was sit- deep into their love affair with gangster ting at the piano, so I started playing rap music, the Japanese and the Euro- “Blue Daniel.” And as if from out of peans were still enthusiastic about the life’s a lesson thin air, the following lyrics arrived in jazz and social commentary albums I was Every year, I encouraged Leo to sit next my head: making. I had just started working on the to me on the piano bench so he would music for a film called Hoop Dreams, which pay more attention to the service. And “Life’s a lesson, you can fail it no American label would fund, and I had every year, as his feet got progressively you can set your spirit free or jail it taken it to my foreign partners, who had closer to the floor, he played the music but setting it free is no guarantee it’s been receptive. along with me, improvising on the top of gonna fly when you sail it. So, in the spring of 1990, I called a the piano while I played the bottom. The The object is to ride it, meeting at a nondescript hotel just out- same year his shoes actually touched the But setting it free while you’re sitting side the airport in Minneapolis. We dis- old wooden floor, Hannah asked me to astride it cussed the usual business, and then, at include the song “Life’s A Lesson” in the isn’t easy. the end of the day, I asked Nobu, my service. “It helps me to understand the You can learn a lot by going crazy, partner from Japan, what he thought Kaddish,” she said. “You’ll play it right you can fail it, about an album sung in Hebrew that before we read the prayer for the dead.” you can set your spirit free or jail it. would include famous Jewish jazz musi- “Life’s A Lesson” is a set of lyrics I But setting it free is no guarantee it’s cians performing liturgical music. In his wrote in 1979 to a melody by Frank gonna fly when you sail it. wonderful, reasonable way, he said, “I Rosolino. Frank was a legend in Los And if you feel like you’re in prison think that would be interesting.” I turned Angeles, a wild, happy-go-lucky guy who and no one is coming to talk or to listen, to Vera, the German distributor, and sat in the trombone section of Johnny take it easy, asked how she thought her market would Carson’s “Tonight Show” band right next know that no one ever has it easy, react. “It will be well received,” she said. to my friend Bruce. They called Frank no one ever learns to fly by freezing. The Axis powers had just agreed to help the “Silver Fox” because of his rich, Life’s a lesson you can pass or fail.” finance the Jewish record.

FALL 1999 31 Within weeks, I was in a recording out me. That’s my song.” It was as if to To a man, they were complimentary studio. First, I recorded all the songs become jazz musicians, we had all taken about the music. Likewise, to a man, they with just myself on the keyboards and a fork in the road, and now we wanted to turned it down. Lynette Margulies ’74, who sang at our revisit lost territory. services, on many of the Hebrew vocals. If making this record opened up deep Then, for the next four years, I traveled philosophical questions for me, it also the world with tapes under my arm. I opened up urgently practical ones. I got it “sunday morning” would call up a friend, or perhaps just a finished. I got it paid for. I arranged for But as life would have it, a producer at musician whom I knew had Jewish the Art Institute of Chicago to license the CBS “Sunday Morning” television roots, and make my pitch. Like the call I Marc Chagall’s Praying Jew for the cover. I show got wind of the record, and about made to saxophonist Josh Redman, who saw to it that the record was distributed in me living a normal life in Madison and has an Afro-American father (the avant- Japan and throughout Europe, where the yet traveling the world, playing and garde musician Dewey Redman) and a reviews were very positive, particularly recording so much different music with Jewish mother. “Josh,” I said, “I’m doing one in Japan’s leading music magazine, such a diverse group of artists. They con- an album of Hebrew liturgical music, and Swing Journal, that was virtually ecstatic tacted me, and I agreed to let them follow I’ve got you down for ‘Oseh Shalom.’ about the fact that “Life’s A Lesson” was a me around. They filmed me working with Are you interested?” He laughed and kind of cultural event, the first recording Diana Ross in New York, with the rapper said, “Seriously, what are you planning?” ever to reunite the two streams of Jews Shock G for Hoop Dreams in San Fran- I repeated myself. It took a couple of and jazz. But in the United States, I cisco. They captured me in the control tries, but invariably, it worked. They couldn’t get my phone calls returned. room with Mose Allison, and performing came, they played, and they left with It’s not that I didn’t try. Over my live in Tokyo. And they kept coming back tapes for their mothers. Twenty of Amer- decades as a performer and producer, I to me and seventy-five of my neighbors at ica’s finest Jewish performers played like had come to know most of the men who the Gates of Heaven Synagogue, singing angels on songs they hadn’t heard or ran the business. As the cliché would these little songs and following Hannah’s thought of since they were kids. have it, many of them were Jews, some service. They even focused on this record What was so striking was the simi- quite active in the Jewish community that nobody would release. larity of the stories they told me. “I was and well known for their philanthropy; When the program aired a couple of born Jewish,” Randy Brecker said, “but several had even received the B’nai Brith Sundays after the Jewish High Holy I’m not religious.” “I know,” I reassured humanitarian award for their good deeds. Days in 1994, my phone began to ring and him, “me, too. Just come down and try it, didn’t stop for weeks. People the world and if you don’t like it, we won’t use it.” over wanted to know how they could get He, too, left with a tape for his mother. Up until that time, I had this record. But, of course, they couldn’t. There were some deep, almost primi- I still hadn’t learned the lesson life tive connections being made in the studio lived my professional life was trying to teach me. I wanted so badly every time this music unfolded. I to give my work away, as I had done so included only two songs in English — a by two guiding principles: often in the past, perhaps so that some- song I wrote for my sister called “Face Do not have boxes of CDs body else might be responsible for my Your Fears,” and, of course, “Life’s A failures. But in the United States I Lesson,” which I sang as a duet with in your basement and couldn’t even give this record away. Carole King. The sound of Lynette’s Because I had promised a few of the folks soaring Hebrew filled room after room, avoid the Jewish thing at who called that if they left their names, I’d in city after city, as I traveled the circuit all costs — only to wind send them an album, I did, for me, what documenting our communal jazz child- was a dramatic, last-ditch move. I actually hood. In our day, each one of us had up with boxes of Jewish contacted a factory and manufactured stood as a child in a temple somewhere, CDs in my basement. five hundred copies of the album. Up swaying and hypnotized by the language until that time, I had lived my profes- and the hope that there was justice in the Then I got it. sional life by two guiding principles: Do world, a basic belief that all children not have boxes of CDs in your basement bring with them into this life. As the So originally, I felt confident that one of and avoid the Jewish thing at all costs — word got out in the jazz community that I these gentlemen would see the beauty only to wind up with boxes of Jewish was making this record, I started receiv- and the logic in this recording and at CDs in my basement. Then I got it. ing phone calls from musicians, some least make it available in his home coun- The record sold and sold. More than quite famous, saying things like, “Ben, try to his own people. I sent copies to a twenty-five thousand copies. Out of the you can’t record ‘Avinu Malchenu’ with- dozen of these top recording executives. basement. The record executives were all

32 ON WISCONSIN wrong. But that was only the beginning. — Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelo- I began to play the Jewish music in con- wanting to play nious Monk. His command of the horn is certs all over the world — In the spring of 1999, only days after Leo nonpareil. Several years ago, I asked at Lincoln Center in New York, at the graduated from UW-Madison with a him, “What is it like to be able to play Simon Weisenthal Center in Los Angeles, major in history, he and I went to Min- absolutely anything you can hear? It at the Odeon Theater in Vienna, Austria, neapolis to play a gig. As we often do must be liberating.” He just looked at me on the anniversary of Kristallnacht. And when we travel together, we hired local with those big, sad eyes of his and said, what was even more profound was that bass and horn players to fill out the band. “Oh, playing is no problem. Wanting to Leo played drums with me at all these This time, we were joined by saxophonist play — that’s the problem.” concerts. Sitting with him on stage, play- Irv Williams at a little club called the This reduction of the artistic ing this music that we had played process to a search for desire — the together on the piano bench at the Gates I believe we all want to do desire for desire — is, I think, at the of Heaven for so many years, was an core of jazz. Those who think that extraordinary feeling. It was as if the something important, to be artists are merely flexing some abstract contemporary adage, “Think globally, act or intellectual muscle on a daily basis locally,” had been turned on its head. connected to something are really missing the point. Art is a There seemed to be no end to where greater than ourselves. And transformative process, and the artist is this record was taking me. Until, at last, constantly transforming himself, first of it finally led me to my own end game of jazz training, where you all, and his audience by extension. It’s sorts. My whole life, I had been listening this hunger to experience change — to jazz as if there was some way to are forced to find your own real, physical change — that drives the unravel its message, to penetrate the inef- voice, to accept yourself for artist. If it’s a need to experience fable and parse the mystery at its core. “wholeness” or “completeness,” then it is But perhaps this is the very purpose of what you truly are, to be a wholeness with one’s own potential this music. It speaks in ways that we oth- yourself completely, is a that one feels. It’s as if there is an almost erwise cannot, without all the baggage of genetic unfolding in the human heart of verbs and nouns, and it expresses, as the kind of religious training. this potential, an internal command to great African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim follow this voice. told me, “the heart’s deepest desire.” And And isn’t this similar to the theme Artist’s Quarter. Irv was born in isn’t this what prayer is? The heart of the Jewish High Holy Days — the Arkansas eighty years ago and has lived expressing its deepest desire. Hadn’t belief that man can change, that we can in the Twin Cities for the past fifty. He I been praying all these years? Hadn’t I transform ourselves, and that there is a has wonderful stories about his days on been running toward, rather than away spiritual commandment that we do so? the road with Duke Ellington’s band and from, my own past? It is an act of surrender, of giving oneself nights with Lester Young, but the best It’s well known that jazz is a means to over to something greater, and this, of part of hanging out with Irv is the twinkle transform grief into joy. (The expression course, is what musicians do. John in his eye and the wisdom of his playing. is, “I love the blues, they hurt so nice.”) Coltrane was not the first to say that He acts as if he’s still in his midlife, When the jazz musician plays, he is in fact “music belongs to no one — it passes and he plays with a romantic lyricism transforming himself. During all those through us all.” In the daily attempt to and a calm command that is the signa- long hours he works not just to master the surrender, to transform oneself through ture of the self-realized jazzman. The piece of metal in his hands, but to make confronting a brass tube or a row of sounds that come from his old horn are himself the vessel, to learn to listen to the piano keys or a set of drums, one is as cool as fresh-squeezed juice on a hot voice in his own head, and to sing it to the engaged in learning the heart’s desire, day. In his music, he says only what he world. Marshall McLuhan taught us that as a truth on the pulse, not as an wants to, and he rarely repeats himself. the medium is the message. In jazz, the abstract idea. He makes you play better when you play musician himself is the medium, so his life This is what I was thinking as I with him, because to hear him is to becomes the message. The kind of vessel watched Leo and Irv play together. Or understand that your role in life is not to you become is determined by your heart’s perhaps I was thinking nothing at all. desire. I believe we all want to do some- prove yourself, but to be yourself. thing important, to be connected to some- My favorite example of this axiom is thing greater than ourselves. And jazz something the great saxophonist Phil When people ask Ben Sidran ‘67 how he can live in such training, where you are forced to find Woods told me. He is perhaps the most a small town, he smiles and says, ”The road leads from your own voice, to accept yourself for gifted and thoroughly accomplished sax- New York City to Madison, not the other way around.“ what you truly are, to be yourself com- ophonist of our day, having worked with pletely, is a kind of religious training. many of the great legends of this music FALL 1999 33 HarvestingHarvesting thethe DoubleDouble HelixHelix

BY NIKI DENISON Then read the report in New Scientist Under current U.S. law, most genet- magazine, which maintains that “his ically engineered crops are considered ou’ve just given the baby a bed- results support only one obvious conclu- “substantially equivalent” to conventional time bottle. Feet up at last, you sion: rats hate potatoes.” ones derived from plant breeding and settle down to a snack of Doritos Proponents believe that DNA- don’t need to be labeled. Chances are and a can of soda, and leaf through altered crops can save an overpopulated very good that you’re regularly eating Europe, once a Y major market for a news magazine — only to learn that world from famine and pollution. Oppo- gene-spliced fare, because most American soybeans, you and Little Tyke are now digesting nents say they are the equivalent of wag- processed foods contain soy, canola or now refuses to take genetically engineered foods in the form ing biological warfare on our planet, cottonseed oil, corn, or potatoes — some them, resulting in the sale of conven- of soy formula, corn chips, and carbon- releasing strange new organisms that will of the first crops being converted to tional or “identity- ated corn sweetener. reproduce perpetually and far outlast the genetic acreage on a large scale. preserved” crops If you’re American, your reaction effects of nuclear pollution. Currently, some 25 percent of our (for a higher price) overseas. may very well be, “So what?” But if If you happen to be the cautious corn crop is genetically engineered, and Genetic engineering you’re European, you may instead switch type and you want to avoid gene-spliced next year, all of the U.S. soybean harvest But sift and winnow this: in 1989, consumer accep- to one of several grocery chains that have food, you’ll have to restrict yourself to will be of the modified variety. All of our tryptophan, a dietary supplement manu- tance of genetically modified crops.” But may result in hardy banned genetically modified (GM) prod- buying organic. And forget about eating major food crops are slated to be geneti- factured from genetically engineered bac- public opinion may be poised to shift soybeans and in the ucts from their shelves. out — unless you want to dine in Eng- cally engineered within the next ten years. teria, killed thirty-seven people and here as well. Europeans, shaken by mad cow dis- land, where even some of the fast-food If you have food allergies, you may sickened thousands of others. Although Two baby food manufacturers, Ger- perfect supermarket ease and other dietary scares, are worried chains have removed GM ingredients be dismayed to learn that York Nutri- not everyone agrees on just what tainted ber and Heinz, recently decided to elimi- tomato. But is it safe that the newfangled foods are not safe. from their menus. tional Laboratory in England has found a the supplement, a study published in nate GM components from their Science magazine concluded that it may products. And none other than U.S. Sec- for human health They’re not so sure they want to eat substantial increase in soy allergies in products laced with genetic material from conjunction with the introduction of GM have been a toxic “novel amino acid” retary of Agriculture Dan Glickman sur- and the environment?bacteria and viruses and — coming soon soybeans in that country. created by genetic engineering. prised many observers last spring when to a grocer near you — scorpions, Counter that with the claim of he said, in a speech at Purdue University, “We can’t force these genetically engi- fish, and even humans. (Think of the biotech advocates that genetic engineer- Currently, some 25 percent of neered food products down people’s Flavr-Savr tomato, which has a gene ing is just like traditional plant breeding, our corn crop is genetically throats . . . When it’s all said and done, that was altered to slow the aging and that all the foods whose DNA goes engineered, and next year, all the public opinion poll is just as powerful process and extend shelf life. Another under the geneticist’s knife are tested of the U.S. soybean harvest will a research tool as the test tube.” He com- classic example is the insertion of extensively. be of the modified variety. All of pared the biotechnology craze to the rush antifreeze genes from flounder into toma- our major food crops are slated to embrace nuclear energy and Asian toes to make them frost-resistant.) to be genetically engineered financial markets. “We have a way in this The controversy over the genetic within the next ten years. tweaking of our food supply is threaten- country,” he said, “of latching on to solu- ing to lead to the third tions, pursuing them to the exclusion of World War of trade dis- others, and then watching them some- putes. And it has News stories like this may partly times backfire.” become such an explain why in England and Wales, gene- The Wall Street Journal interprets emotionally charged altered nourishment has been banned Glickman’s change of course as an issue that it’s hard to from school cafeterias and nursing attempt to forestall a European-style separate fact from fiction. homes, and the British Medical Associa- backlash here. The agriculture secretary Go ahead, try it. Visit tion has called for a moratorium on the recently resurrected a biotechnology one of the many Internet commercial planting of transgenics. Fur- advisory committee that includes experts, sites devoted to this issue. ther afield, farmers in India burned test members of the public, and critics, and Read about the Scottish plots planted with Bt cotton because they encouraged companies to voluntarily scientist who fed geneti- believe their livelihoods are threatened label GM food. And the Clinton adminis- cally modified potatoes by corporate biotech. The United States, tration plans to set up twelve regional to rats and claimed that says Professor of Rural Sociology Fred centers to study the safety of bioengi- it damaged their Buttel ’70, MS’72, PhD’75, “is probably neered products. Is all this caution really immune systems. the only country in the world in which necessary? there is such a high degree of farmer and 34 ON WISCONSIN FALL 1999 35 You might not think so after digest- do it is just to give people information ing what Heidi Flewelling Kaeppler and let them decide what to do with it.” MS’87 has to say. An assistant professor Weighing in with the FDA per- of agronomy at the UW who works to spective is Tom Zinnen PhD’85, improve traits in wheat, oats, and barley, who does biotech outreach Kaeppler has full confidence in the test- on campus. He believes the ing that her transgenic crops go through. labeling controversy can She’s not afraid to munch on the grains be attributed to cultural of wheat in her test fields. differences, and says that Kaeppler attributes safety concerns “With genetically “compulsory labels to fear of the unknown and a few vocal modified foods, a lot should be based on cer- groups that get a lot of press. She deals of consumer concern tain criteria and not just with tough breeding problems such as has to do with popular demand.” But crown rust in oats, a worldwide problem, Michael Sussman, the direc- whether or not people and head blight in wheat, which has “lit- tor of the university’s Biotechnol- erally knocked thousands of farmers out feel that they’re being ogy Center, doesn’t have a problem with of business.” With traditional breeding, exposed to them involuntarily.” it. Sussman doesn’t believe there’s much she says, it takes ten to fifteen years to risk in the proteins that have been get a new variety out to the growers, and message with universal approval, just as expressed in the new transfoods so far. within a few years, the resistance breaks they did his call for labeling. “If you don’t But “until we’ve decided what risks we’re down. It’s no wonder that breeders have label the crops,” he says, “then if prob- willing to accept, and until we know turned to gene-splicing to increase the lems arise, you will not detect those prob- what risks there are, having a label weapons in their arsenal. lems. It’s effectively virtually impossible.” makes a lot of sense to me,” he says. “It Kaeppler is testing several different Lydia Zepeda, an associate professor creates a lot of economic problems, but I, genes in oats to give the crop “more sta- in the School of Human Ecology, doesn’t for one, like to know what I’m eating.” ble, long-term resistance. Hopefully we claim to know whether gene-tweaked can stack up a multilayered system of grains, fruits, and vegetables are safe or genes and transgenes so that if one line of not. But one thing her research has Environmental defense breaks, there’s something else taught her is that lay people tend to have Friend or Foe? there to control the pathogen,” she says. different risk perceptions than scientists. Kaeppler adds that the genetic mate- Factors such as their personal health his- So what was it about this new technology rials are tested for safety early in the tories and diets, and whether they have that had government, academia, and development process, before they are children, she says, can make them more industry all competing to get in on the planted in the field, and then again as sensitive to taking risks. ground floor in the early eighties? Brent they approach commercialization. Zepeda helped conduct a study of McCown 65, MS’67, PhD’69, a professor Nonetheless, she says that food recombinant bovine growth hormone, one of horticulture and environmental stud- fears in Europe are “trickling back here of the first bioengineered food products, ies, cites one of the major arguments in and making people wonder. Over here, and a survey revealed that people “over- favor of engineered crops as their ability the majority of people are happy with it whelmingly” wanted labels on their milk. to reduce the need for chemical pesticides and fine and dandy and accepting and “And that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll and herbicides. eating their Cheerios and Corn Flakes act on those labels,” she notes, but her Last year, 71 percent of the GM whether there’s Bt corn in there or not. research showed that when people have a crops planted were those designed to be I have four children, and I’d feed them a choice and feel that they have more con- resistant to herbicides, such as soybeans canful of Quaker oats made out of trol over situations, they tend to perceive altered to resist the herbicide glyphosate, this stuff.” less risk. commonly known as Roundup. This type Still, some people would like the new “With genetically modified foods, a of product, says McCown, “allows one to transfoods to be labeled. Joseph Cum- lot of consumer concern has to do with use less herbicides, because you’re apply- mins PhD’62, an emeritus professor of whether or not people feel that they’re ing the herbicide at the best time to kill genetics at the University of Western being exposed to them involuntarily,” she the weed,” rather than being limited to Ontario, recently traveled to Ireland, says. Zepeda adds that there’s been a lot spraying it at the optimal time to avoid where he spoke about the need to require of opposition by manufacturers to label- injury to crops. that GM food be tested to the same ing, but “frankly, the labels tend to Some environmentalists fear that degree as pharmaceuticals and pesticides. reduce people’s risk perceptions. If they this might actually encourage farmers to Not surprisingly, the Irish greeted this want to calm people’s fears, one way to spray more liberally, however, since they

36 ON WISCONSIN know the crops will not be harmed. The other major purported benefit of “In the first place,” he notes, “the McCown isn’t worried. He counters that GM crops is their potential to help feed companies are not in business to give spraying is unpleasant and that “farmers starving populations. As the Biotech their technology away. Most of the farm- just don’t want to do that — they have a Center’s Mike Sussman sees it, “The pop- ers in the Third World can’t pay for seeds lot of other things to do.” ulation is increasing explosively, and it’s — they’re not even in the commercial But whether farmers actually use very clear that we have to increase world market now for existing seeds.” Introduc- fewer herbicides or not, the popularity of food production dramatically in the next ing genetically engineered materials will Roundup-ready crops may be cause undercut Third World markets, he for concern in the light of a Swedish says, throwing a lot of poor farm- study published in the March 1999 ers into the cities because they Journal of the American Cancer Society. can’t compete. The researchers found a link between glyphosate and non- Hodgkins lymphoma, a type of can- Why the Rush? cer that has shown an alarming 80 Many UW-Madison faculty percent increase in Western coun- believe that some of the transgenic tries since the early 1970s. Due to materials got into the marketplace the rapid rise in the use of without being completely evalu- glyphosate engendered by ated. Or, as Fred Buttel puts it, Roundup-ready crops, the authors “Biotech was really prematurely are calling for further epidemiologi- commercialized. There was a lot of cal studies. money sunk into it in the early 1980s, That’s not to say that there isn’t still “The population is increasing and there came to be enormous pressure plenty of optimism on campus that explosively, and it’s very clear to bring products to market.” biotech can benefit the environment. that we have to increase world Why the big rush? Buttel speculates For example, Associate Scientist Sandra food production dramatically in that it was because the early eighties Austin-Phillips is developing a variety of the next twenty to forty years were characterized by slow growth and alfalfa that will eliminate the need to add in new ways, because most of investment. “Many people felt that the phosphates — which contribute to algae the good land is gone.” economic problems which affected the overgrowth in lakes and streams — to United States, and to some degree much animal feed. Her alfalfa contains an of the rest of the world, had to do with enzyme that releases the plant’s naturally twenty to forty years in new ways, the fact that we had exhausted the poten- occurring phosphate. because most of the good land is gone. tials of postwar technology like automo- Still, some faculty cite a potential We’re simply going to have to design bile production, steel making, petroleum, problem with Bt corn and other Bt crops. crops that can grow on marginal land to the chemical industry, and so on.” Inserting a gene for the soil bacterium Bt reduce the possibility of future famines.” There was a lot of fascination with (Bacillus thuringiensis) into corn gives it Sussman’s own research centers high technology, and anything that had resistance to the European corn borer. around improving the ability of crops to to do with it was viewed very favorably, Because Bt is a naturally occurring soil grow in nutrient-poor soils. He’s working he says. “There was an aura to these organism, it is also approved for direct on genetically engineering plants that technologies that caused people to invest application by organic farmers. require smaller quantities of potassium, in them without necessarily looking into “Everyone agrees that the insects phosphate, and other components of fer- their real potentials very thoroughly.” will overcome this gene for resistance,” tilizer. “Anything we can do to improve Perhaps one legacy of that approach says Bill Tracy, a professor of agronomy, yields while decreasing environmental is a current lawsuit against the FDA by “and the organic growers are upset impacts, we must do,” he asserts. the Alliance for Bio-Integrity. The suit because that’s going to leave [them] with- But critics point out that biotechnol- contends that the agency disregarded out their main form of natural pesticide.” ogy has not yet delivered on its promise some of the findings of its own scientists Margaret Krome MS’89, an advocate for of feeding the hungry. Jack Kloppen- when approving transgenics. sustainable agriculture in Wisconsin, burg, a professor of rural sociology, says, Charles Benbrook PhD’80, an agri- fears that this could put organic farmers “It is the most specious kind of argumen- cultural consultant who has worked for in jeopardy. “Bt is a broad public good, tation to say that the objective of this is to Congress and who formerly served as and it’s being carelessly destroyed in the feed hungry people,” given the current director of the board of agriculture for interest of corporate profits,” she says. social context in which biotechnology is “That is unconscionable.” being developed and deployed. Continued on page 53

FALL 1999 37 Harvest cranberry breeding because they are But he points to safety as a major Continued from page 37 owned by one of the corporations, and it issue. “We don’t want some early prod- the National Academy of Sciences, says, doesn’t stand to make any money by ucts that haven’t been carefully “My reading was that [the FDA scien- releasing them. researched to jeopardize what is going to tists] did not feel that enough attention Some of the heavy-hitters promoting be many decades and centuries of tech- had been paid to certain potential prob- gene-tweaked products include Novartis, nology,” he says. “We’re all aware that in lems, and they just felt that the science DuPont, Zeneca, Dow, and Eli Lilly. But the early stages of any technology there base on which some of these blanket it’s Monsanto that seems to find itself in are often bumps and mistakes.” He com- judgments were made was thin. And I the news — and the target of protests — pares genetic engineering to the develop- think recent developments have shown most often, because the multinational has ment of electricity, saying that a few that they’re right.” people may have been adversely affected For instance, he cites the recent “It is really scientific hubris when it first came out, but that the bene- study that found that pollen from Bt corn to think that we understand fits outweigh the risks. “The ability to manipulate life forms is going to be a was killing monarch butterflies. Ben- all that, because we don’t. brook thinks we can manage the risks hundred-year adventure. We shouldn’t This stuff is just horrendously be too shortsighted,” he cautions. without imperiling the monarch. But he complicated.” echoes the thoughts of many UW faculty But thorny social, economic, and and other observers when he says, “You biological issues remain. been the most aggressive in promoting “I think scientists are naïve if they don’t mess around with the genetic base the new technology. Fritz (Carl) Behr of a food production system as funda- think that it doesn’t matter who benefits ’79, MS’84, PhD’94, who works with Bt and who pays the costs of the adoption of mentally as some of these biotech appli- corn at Monsanto, acknowledges that cations are, without causing some things any technology, including biotechnol- there are very few companies in the ogy,” says consultant Benbrook. And to change. It is really scientific hubris genetic engineering arena. But he points to think that we understand all that, some biotech advocates, he says, don’t out that “the research is so expensive, understand the degree to which the pub- because we don’t. This stuff is just there aren’t many companies that can horrendously complicated.” lic recognizes that when you’re moving afford it. And it’s just getting more and genes across species boundaries, “it’s more expensive because of the scrutiny really different. Scientists can keep “Astounding” that the whole technology is under.” spouting off till hell freezes over that The fast growth of these multina- there’s nothing new in biotechnology, and Consolidation tionals also means that they now have to the public is just going to think that Even UW-Madison faculty who are deal with “how to pay for $15 billion they’re fools or liars,” he says. strong proponents of the biology of trans- worth of seed companies,” says Ben- Benbrook is not too concerned about genic crops deplore one aspect of their brook. They must contend with the impa- the popular estimate that 60 to 70 percent development. Due to a recent trend tience of Wall Street should they have a of our food currently contains bioengi- toward consolidation that Buttel says has relatively low rate of return, he says, and neered components, which he attributes reached “astounding proportions,” the they are under “tremendous pressure to to the small percentage of soy or corn oil future of our food and its production has perform.” Consequently, he and other that proliferates in processed foods. fallen into the hands of a half-dozen or observers say, they must sell a lot of “But if you start putting the Bt gene fewer giant agribusinesses. If they all product at a high profit margin, resulting in tomatoes or apples, or viral genes into pursue the same kinds of technology, in higher prices for farmers. cabbage and squash, or engineering ani- says Buttel, it could decrease genetic What does all this mean for the mals with different types of cholesterol diversity to the point where there may be future of “gene cuisine”? — it’s at that time that the actual foods long-term ecological risk. Mike Sussman believes that the that people consume will be substantially “That’s scary,” says Brent McCown. problems we’re seeing in the first genera- different,” he says. “So it is definitely not “That’s our food. And I think that’s some- tion of transgenic crops can be overcome too late to start to bring consumers into thing that should be more under the as the technology becomes more sophisti- the dialogue about their food supply and purview of the local citizens through cated. He’s excited about the second the food that they will be eating. These elections and government policy, not cor- wave of biotechnology — the value- things are coming. They’re down the porate policy. These are international added dimension that will allow us, for road, but they are coming.” firms, and so they don’t have any alle- example, to get soybean seed to produce giance to any particular country or state.” insulin, so that we could obtain it by eat- After researching this article, Niki Denison decided to As an example, he says he’s unable to ing tofu rather than having to grow it in drastically increase her intake of comfort foods while obtain important genes for his work on vats of bacteria, as we do now. she’s still comfortable about what they contain.

FALL 1999 53 BRENT NICASTRO pedal a huge, mechanisms, and children know that he Rousseaulike painting understands them.” across the stage, subtly The author’s insights into children’s nodding to Henkes’s fears — about the comings of new sib- Young at Heart own practice of lings or the goings of their baby blankets exposing readers to — will soon be translated to a musical the great masters score, in addition to the theatrical stage. — the author is The Wisconsin Youth Kevin Henkes writes books to express ready to approve a Symphony Orchestra children’s feelings — and illustrates them with plan to take the theater adaptation of (WYSO) commis- Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse on the road. sioned composer Caldecott Honor-winning art. “They were very nice about it,” Daron Hagen to Henkes says in a voice that’s humble and bring Henkes’s char- vulnerable — yet exacting. “I really acters to life in the dragged my heels about saying yes. Then tradition of the classic BY SUSAN PIGORSCH ’80 student days. “But I was driven. I think I we came up with a great compromise, children’s symphony always have been.” ure, Kevin Henkes x’83 went to a which was that the Seattle Children’s Peter and the Wolf. The soft-spoken creator of the toga party his freshman year (for a Theatre could perform the first round of “They commis- Caldecott Honor-winning Owen, and of little while). He also paused on his the production. And if I liked it, and gave sioned the music for Lilly’s Purple Plastic S the American Bookseller’s hit pick of way to the library to admire the flamin- it my approval, then it could travel.” Purse for their holiday concert,” says 1997, Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse, in fact gos that unexpectedly flocked to Bascom He liked it! This fall, Lilly’s Purple Henkes. “In November, they’ll play landed his first contract in the summer Hill. And he couldn’t help but notice Plastic Purse, the stage produc- the music while images from the following his freshman year. He went to Madison’s monumental creation — the ented and knew what he wanted — to be about imaginary play — is anything but tion, will travel around the book will be projected behind the New York and sold an illustrated story Statue of Liberty, whose head rose above a children’s book author and illustrator.” lonely. It is crowded among nearly nation, animating the humor, musicians somehow . . . and I will that had begun as a class project, then Lake Mendota’s icy expanse. But none of Greenwillow, which markets about fifty twenty Henkes titles on library shelves the conflict, narrate the story,” he adds shyly. took off the fall semester of his sopho- the Wisconsin Student Association’s wild new titles a year, was looking then as all across America. and the resolutions machi- For someone who writes in the more year to finish it. ways could change how the then-nine- they do now for a new nated by Henkes and his car once his baby and preschooler “All Alone was a teen-year-old would spend his days: voice. mercurial mice. fall asleep, and who dips his young book, but a reading and researching children’s litera- “Kevin does a marvelous watercolor brush into the same very finished ture at the Cooperative Children’s Book job of taking children’s feel- lucky, plastic Imperial Mar- book,” Center (CCBC) in Helen C. White Hall. Tick . . . tock. Tick . . . tock. The mouse is ings and finding a way to garine tub that he has used since “I think it’s amazing that I didn’t running out the clock — and she’s the express them in pictures and he was a boy, such a public appearance partake in it all,” Henkes says of his star of the Seattle Children’s Theatre pro- text,” says Jack Kean, the associate dean — no, performance — is no doubt intimi- duction of Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse. She’s of the School of Educa- dating. But since WYSO plans to pre- stuck in the dark at the top of a pyramid tion, who says he was miere the symphony in Racine, where of stairs — in none other than the “unco- “lucky enough to be pre- Henkes and his four siblings grew up, She guessed that if she didn’t offer the operative chair” — for singing unflatter- sent” while Henkes cre- and where he began to dream of becom- reticent Wisconsinite from Racine a con- ing lyrics about her baby brother, Julius. ated All Alone in his class ing a children’s book author, he had a says tract, the next publishing house he Suddenly, strobe lights flash upon on children’s literature. hard time saying no. Likewise, he had a Susan planned to visit would. So Greenwillow the antics of the defiant mouse, whose “Kevin’s books give hard time saying no to a second perfor- Hirschman, made a good offer, suspecting, but not ears seem to amplify her anger. Why do children a good feeling mance of the work in Madison, since that Henkes’s longtime knowing, that the UW freshman could her parents call Julius the “Baby of the about themselves, is where Henkes realized his dream, met editor at Greenwil- one day create a character as memorable World”? Then all goes black again as the and help validate low Books. “What I as Babar or the Cat in the Hat. And the clock goes tick . . . tock. The scene repeats their feelings.” Why do Lilly’s parents call her new brother, knew back in 1980 company has continued to publish as Lilly broods in numerous petulant “Whether or not Julius, the “Baby of the World”? A stint in when I first met Henkes’s work, created from his home in positions for “what seems like ten years,” every family has an the uncooperative chair provides Henkes’s says the character’s creator. uncooperative chair, every family has main character with nary a clue — while Kevin was that he Madison, for twenty years. Today, All giving readers all the right answers. was immensely tal- Alone — that wistfully quiet first book “Then Lilly says, ‘How much time is some means to encourage young children left?’ Of course, only half a minute has to cooperate,” adds the Illustrations by Kevin Henkes. Copyright © Kevin Henkes (above) took every available UW course that related to passed. It’s very funny,” laughs Henkes. CCBC’s Ginny Moore by Kevin Henkes, from Chester’s Way, children’s literature, warehousing knowledge gleaned from the Depart- It’s so very Lilly. Kruse MA’76. “Kevin 1988; Owen, 1993; Julius, Baby of the ments of Art, Library Science, and Curriculum and Instruction, and the World, 1990; Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse, School of Education. He also met his spouse, artist and alumna Laura Later on, when the personified knows about parenting 1996; and from Chrysanthemum, 1991, Dronzek, in Madison. She created the pictures for their new book, Oh!, Henkes characters of Wendell and Owen all from Greenwillow Books. as well as for the couple’s dining room, shown above.

FALL 1999 39 his wife, had his children, and began to live an otherwise quite ordinary life. For example, the author never men- works of award-winning alumni such as tions Lilly’s crown or cape or boots in Ellen Raskin x’48 and Nancy Ekholm Julius, Baby of the World, even though he Burkert ’54, MS’55 than about turning A Legacy “knew she would have them” — in fact, bed sheets into togas. must have them. In Owen, he shows Mrs. Henkes’s affinity for animals started of Children’s “The snow falls and falls all night. In the Tweezers tottering on flower pots to peer with Bailey Goes Camping. “It was the first Literature over a fence so that the reader knows that book in which I used animals, and they morning everything is white. And everyone Kevin Henkes x’83 could have she’s impossibly nosy. He foreshadows her were a family of rabbits,” Henkes explains. wants to play. Oh!” The scene could take attended Pratt or Parsons School meddling by painting a scene of the fence “I wanted to do another book using ani- place in Henkes’s own back yard, in a of Design in New York. But he on the first page of the book, and repeat- mals, and I ended up choosing mice, graceful, old Madison neighborhood. But chose instead to attend Wisconsin, ing it again on the last. And he uses the because there’s something about them. this time, he will not paint it. The illustra- and to follow in the footsteps of the end papers to demonstrate how much the They are vulnerable creatures in a certain tions for Oh!, a new book that will be luminaries — and UW-Madison whimsical Owen loves his baby blanket — way,” he says. Like kids. And when released this fall, were created by his alumni — in his field. They the one he can’t take to school with him. washed in soft watercolors with delicate spouse, Laura Dronzek ’82, MFA’93. include: Charlotte pen and pencil lines, they take on expres- “I’d seen Laura’s work in Madison, Zolotow x’37, sive qualities that transcend the medium. in murals in the kids’ rooms and in their author of some Still, what holds readers through dining room,” remembers Greenwillow’s sixty-five picture repeated readings are Henkes’s charac- Hirschman. “Oh! was in the file, and we books, including ters, from Bailey and Owen to Chester didn’t have an illustrator [which means “If you have a mouse, jumping for joy, Mr. Rabbit and the and Chrysanthemum. But who could that Henkes was busy writing another three feet up in the air — in a kind of Lovely Present; have predicted the public’s instant infatu- novel for young readers]. Then one day contorted posture — it looks joyful,” Ellen Raskin x’48, ation with Lilly? Kevin said, ‘Why not Laura?’ ” After all, writes Henkes. “But if you try to draw winner of the “Only several other characters have they had collaborated as a pair before, on realistically a human child doing the 1979 Newbery the jacket cover of Henkes’s novel, Sun & same thing, it looks all wrong.” been taken into people’s hearts like that,” Kevin Henkes’s Chrysanthemum feels great about herself in her favorite dress on the first day Medal for The says Hirschman, still awed by Lilly’s suc- Zolotow Spoon, which won Wisconsin’s Elizabeth of school — until the other kids make her feel like a fool. Who knew that Chrysanthemum is too Animals gave this creator of chil- Westing Game; cess. “There’s Madeline, for example, and Burr award for writing. long to write on a nametag, and too hard for the average kid to pronounce? dren’s books the means to express his illustrator Nancy Arthur. Now Kevin is one of the pillars of “We wanted to do a book together, characters — from their highest highs to Ekholm Burkert ’54, MS ’55, best literature. Every night, he and Dronzek appeals to children, and then they the industry, which is unusual because he for our children,” says Henkes, so Oh! is their lowest lows. They freed him from known for her striking Snow White share in the parental pleasure of reading develop it and make it something a is so young” — and thankfully, so young written uncharacteristically for the very his serious, All Alone persona — from the and the Seven three books to each child, one-on-one. parent would want to read, and a child at heart. young. It’s also one of the only books that determined young man whose campus Dwarfs; Six titles and maybe sixty minutes later, would want to see and hear.” Henkes has read out loud to their two experience was more about reading the Arthur Dor- they will have successfully surveyed the Henkes’s ability to set a narrative children, Will and Clara. ros ’72, cre- landscape of their profession — and pace, and to acknowledge that children “I don’t like reading my books that ator of Abuela; observed their children’s reactions to are important people, is at the core of his much,” the author/illustrator confesses. Barbara various authors and art. popularity. But he’s also not afraid to use Perhaps it’s because he enjoys an excuse Lilly Takes Another Lead Monnot “People ask me all the time if my big words in context if the rhythm is to explore the full universe of children’s Joosse ’71, kids have given me lots of new ideas for right, and the words are appropriate. Lilly, the star of Kevin Henkes’s children’s book Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse, author of Raskin books,” Henkes says. “They haven’t, “Oh, pish,” says the mother in will head across the country this fall to light up a number of new venues. Mama, Do You Love Me?; and Avi probably because my books come from Chrysanthemum, when her little mouseling From September 7 to November 7, she’ll take to the stage in Minneapolis for a [Edward Wortis} ’59, MA’62, within. Some of the best people who comes home from school indignant about children’s theater production of her namesake story known for his novels for young write these books for children never had being named after a flower. “Your name is [for tickets, call (612) 874-0400], and then appear at

, readers, such as Nothing But the kids. Yet they treat kids’ feelings with beautiful.” “And precious and priceless and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. from OH! Truth. great respect.” fascinating and winsome,” says her father. November 26 to December 28 [contact (800) For more information about Authors such as Charlotte Zolotow Later on, Chrysanthemum’s mother 444-1324]. In mid-November, Lilly will alight Wisconsin authors and recom- x’37, who has written at least sixty-five says “Oh, pish” again, in reference to the within a Daron Hagen score commissioned by the mended books for youth, contact books and edited works by the likes of taunting schoolmates. “They’re just jeal- Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra. Perfor- the School of Education’s Coopera- Nathaniel Benchley and Louise Fitzhugh ous,” she says. “And envious and mances will be held in Racine and Madison tive Children’s Book Center at for Harper & Row, are not writing to begrudging and discontented and jaun- [call (608) 263-3320]. Meanwhile, Lilly will be www.soemadison.wisc.edu/ccbc/, teach “those little beasts a lesson,” says diced,” says her father. Henkes’s picture stealing the show at the National Center for or call (608) 263-3720. the UW’s expert on children’s literature, books gain strength through his inge- Children’s Illustrated Literature in Abilene, Ginny Moore Kruse. “Somehow inside of nious use of internal repetition. What’s Texas, where she will be featured with other illus- COPYRIGHT © 1999 BY LAURA DRONZEK, FROM BY GREENWILLOW BOOKS. them, somewhere, is a memory from more, as a writer who can illustrate his trations created by Henkes and his spouse, Laura In honor of their young children, Henkes and Dronzek, from October 14 to December 5. Dronzek collaborated on Oh!, a book that cel- childhood.” Again and again, she says, own work, he’s able to gain momentum ebrates the wonder of a perfect winter’s day. they find “that moment, that instant, that without describing every detail.

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