Past Blogs

I just found out that I am part of a cult. For 39 years I have cherished a paperback children’s book called Who Needs Donuts?. Recently, I discovered that many others share my love of this glorious book. The price of a paperback copy on EBay soared to $700 before the book was republished in 2003, thirty years after its initial publication date. Happily back in print, Donuts is affordable once again.

Who Needs Donuts? was written and illustrated by Mark Alan Stamaty who is the son of two cartoonists and a cartoonist himself. His hyperactive pen and ink drawings first appeared in children’s books but have morphed into political cartoons and social commentary.

Who Needs Donuts? is a splendid love story, the perfect book for Valentines Day. A young boy, Sam, dressed in his cowboy outfit, sets out on his tricycle from his suburban home for the exciting big city (New York) to look for donuts….”not just a few but hundreds and thousands and millions- more donuts than his father and mother could ever buy him”. There he meets Mr. Bikferd, a collector of donuts, Pretzel Annie and the sad old woman who speaks the punch line of the book, “Who needs donuts when you’ve got love?”.

Mr. Stamaty explains the genesis of his delightful tale:

The story behind Who Needs Donuts? began in an all-night coffee shop in New York in 1966. I was in art school (Cooper Union). That coffee shop was one of my favorite places to hang out and watch people, sketchbook always at the ready. So on that particular night, there was an old woman who seemed to be asleep, seated at and kind of draped over the counter near the entrance. After a while, a nicely dressed man in a suit and overcoat came in and asked the waitress for two cups of coffee to go. The waitress asked if he’d like donuts with his coffee. “No, thank you,” he replied. Then, suddenly, the old woman lifted her head, pointed at the ceiling and said “That’s right. Who needs donuts when you’ve got love?”

As soon as I heard that, I wrote it in my sketchbook. When I got back to where I was living, I lettered it out on a piece of paper that I hung on my wall. About 5 years later, I was trying to think of something to write a story about and I looked up at that sign on my wall. I’d always wanted to immortalize that line and the old woman, and here was my chance.

I’ll speak like a true cult follower of Donuts……BUY THIS BOOK!

It will make you happy, no donuts necessary. Click on a picture to enlarge.

Privacy is dead. Although my husband and I both value the concept, we realize that technology has assigned privacy to the trash heap of history. The privacy disclosures that we and our fellow Americans frequently encounter are simply absurd exercises in nostalgia.

Two recent incidents illustrate the lunacy of a privacy statement in today’s world. The other night I commented on the severe weather parts of Europe were experiencing. We were heading to bed with a laptop and a Netflick, and I suggested that we briefly check out the weather situation in the Netherlands. Three minutes later we found hundreds of live web cam feeds from all over the continent. “Eerie” is the only word that describes viewing, in real time, strangers in the pre-dawn darkness cautiously driving down their snowy, canal roadsides.

Two days later we were having dinner when my husband said, “The paths I mowed through our prairie grass last summer look good from the sky.” He had been mapping watersheds with Google Earth and had zoomed in on our small piece of the planet. After viewing the stunning detail of these aerial views, I concurred that our mowed walkways do have a lovely flow.

My only response to our brave, new world is to smile. What else can be done when we are all on Candid Camera twenty-four seven?  “Say cheese,” of course.

My mother always got her facts straight. She was a reference librarian until the age of 72 and could track down answers to her patrons’ most challenging questions. I never second guessed my mother.

Going to the West Allis Post Office with my mom when I was a child was one of my favorite activities. I loved art, and our post office had two wall size murals of bucolic Wisconsin scenes replete with wildflowers. Sixty some years later, I still visit these murals when I am in my old neighborhood.

Mother told me that the murals were painted by the legendary Milwaukee artist, Ruth Grotenrath, as part of the New Deal WPA Arts Project. So it was with much eagerness that I recently brought home a splendid new book from the library entitled, In Celebration, The Life and Art of Ruth Grotenrath by Susan J. Montgomery. Surely, I would learn more about my beloved murals.

The book describes Ruth’s creation of three post office murals done under the WPA-sponsered Treasury Relief Art Project. The post offices were located in Hudson, Wisconsin, Wayzata, Minnesota and Hart, Michigan.

I literally flew to my computer to Google “West Allis Post Office murals”. And there they were: Wisconsin Wildflowers-Spring and Wisconsin Wildflowers-Autumn painted by Frances Foy, a Chicago artist, in 1943 as part of the New Deal.

The murals continue to delight me like the images that permanently stick in our minds from a beloved childhood picture book. And I did get a wonderful bonus from my mother’s mistake: during my search, I chanced upon a listing from the Sun Prairie Historical Society of all the extant post office murals in Wisconsin. Loving New Deal Art, I will now have many pleasurable road trips in the future.

 Click here for the complete list of Wisconsin Post Office murals.

It’s time for dragons.  Forget everything you know about these legendary beasts…that they breathe fire, eat young maidens, smell sulfurous and are slain by gallant knights or virtuous saints (George, for instance).

Chinese New Year began yesterday, and it is the most auspicious year of the twelve year animal cycle. Welcome 4710, The Year of the Dragon.

Asian dragons are the opposite of their European counterparts. These wingless dragons cavort in the skies and are generally benevolent creatures. According to Chinese mythology, dragons metamorphose over 3,000 years from hatchling to mature dragon.

The Chinese have dragons for every occasion, but four have special significance:

• t’ien lung   The celestial dragon, protector of the heavens.
• shen-lung    The spiritual dragon, master of storms and skyborne bringer of rain. Only the emperor could use its image on his robes.
• ti-lung   The dragon of land, stream and river who spends springtime in heaven and autumn in the sea.
• fu ts’ang lung   The treasure dragon, keeper of hoards of precious jewels and metals in the deepest vaults of the earth.

I’ve recently been having my art students draw dragons. We have attempted to follow the directions of Wang Fu, a scholar who lived during the Han dynasty (206 BC – AD 220).

“The Chinese dragon’s head is that of a camel, its eyes are a demon’s, its ears are a cow’s, its horns are the branched antlers of a stag, its neck is a snake’s, its belly is a clam’s. The soles of its feet are a tiger’s, while its claws are an eagle’s and the 117 scales sheathing its long body are those of a carp. Of these scales, 81 are infused with benevolent essence (yang) and 36 with the malign essence (yin).”

The pictures below were created by my second grade students…Happy Year of the Dragon!

What’s 1,000 feet long and takes a 3 month winter nap?

The answer would be a “laker”, the gigantic vessels that are unique to the Great Lakes.

We moved to the lakeshore 16 years ago, and the view of these big iron ore, coal and cargo freighters slowly moving north and south along the shore has been part of our lives ever since.

This Fall my interest in the humongous vessels piqued. Looking out the window one day, I did a double take. A huge boat was much closer to shore than any I had previously seen. It was reminiscent of the surreal day that I looked out of our daughter’s high rise apartment window in Manhattan and found myself at eye level with the Goodyear Blimp floating by.

In a flash, I realized that my knowledge of Great Lakes shipping was virtually nil. Since information is one thing our age does in super abundance, I headed to the computer to become better acquainted with the action in my own front yard.

A bit of searching came up with a site that tracks round the clock locations of the largest commercial vessels on the Lakes. Now, every morning, I check to find out who the day’s visitors will be.

Researching further, I came across some amazing facts:

• Unlike saltwater vessels, lakers are long lived with life expectations of 40 to 50 years…..some keep working even longer. The Wilfred Sykes is 60 and still going strong.
• A laker can undergo a series of name changes in its lifetime. The American Integrity, for example, was christened as the Lewis Wilson Foy which was later changed to the Oglebay Norton before getting its current name.
• A single Great Lakes freighter can carry enough iron ore to produce the steel to build 87,000 automobiles.
• A 1,000 foot long laker can carry 70,000 tons of cargo. 3,000 semis would be required to carry the same cargo.
• Self unloaders enable only one man at the controls to unload an entire vessel.

Yesterday, my ship tracker site showed few boats. The locks at Sault Ste.Marie (the Soo) closed for the winter. I will miss the daily parade. At 16 miles per hour, the lakers are one thing in life that is not hurrying by.

If you have a moment, check out this well narrated video of how to park a 1,000 foot long vessel.