Conte d'automne

Autumns in Wisconsin, since I've known it, have been dreadfully short. A prolonged alteration between winter days and summer days, with the former zapping the trees' leaves long before they have a chance to turn pretty. This year, though, everything is gorgeously autumnal: golden leaves awash in intensely golden light which both dazzles me and makes me wistful.


I swear I've been working on my dissertation, just haven't used these particular books recently. I discovered these webs after a stint of pleasure reading. I'm floating through Ann Radcliffe's gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho. Radcliffe's melancholy, atmospheric prose is perfect for this time of year. Plus...


Can you imagine a better epigraph? High-pitched yet weirdly obtuse. If you think you can root out something better, you should sit down and start penning neo-gothic prose, a chapbook at the very least. I'm off to climb into the bath, bask in some golden light, and fret over poor Emily...

From the UW Archives: The Finest Stroke in Collegiate Rowing '46-'47

Carl Holtz, circa 1948

Another Potato Chard Gratin

Beet Gratin Afterthoughts

The flash made this look a little freakier, a little less humble than it was. Yet, I can't resist sharing the beet-colored cream oozing out beneath the slices. It's my new favorite beet dish (and an Erk original).

My Perfectly Hardboiled Egg

From the UW Archives: Great Basketball Uniforms

If you were being a good reader below, you focused exclusively on the smooth chests of the 1941 basketball team and not much else. Because I know you're all good readers, I post this 1941 portrait of John Kotz in order to draw your attention to the brilliance of the 1941 basketball uniforms. I love the sheen of the shorts paired with the matte tank. And that the belt matches the terrific socks. If basketball still looked like this, I might take a greater interest in it.

Kenny on the Job

Another great image of Kenneth. Here he's attending a cheese tasting at Fromagination which he wrote about for the Isthmus website. In private, we've been ruthless about the name of this place; however, after a visit to the store, I must admit it's earned my respect. I'm beginning to think that Kenneth and I should occasionally replace our dessert course with a cheese course.



The image comes from dane101.com, an Isthmus competitor. You can, if you must, read their coverage of the tasting here. The reporter is an idiot: what food writer claims that her "stomach is incapable of digesting any sort of blue cheese"!? And that doesn't even begin to deal with her weakness as a writer. My mind is incapable of digesting such foolishness. But look at Kenny: ain't he cute and scrumptious-looking scribbling among all that lovely cheese!?

Kenneth Caricatured

I thought readers not based in Madison might get a kick out of the fact that Kenny's on the cover of Isthmus this week. Here's a proof of the cover image.

From the UW Archives: Chest Hair?

My friend and fellow blogger Chris is currently hiking the Appalachian Trail. Last week, when he hiked through his native Maryland, he took a few well-deserved cushy days during which he stayed at his mother's house while hiking sections of the trail. Doing so enabled him to make some phone calls, one of which I was honored to receive. He'd just found my blog, he expressed enthusiasm for the UW Archive posts, and he noted that none of the male athletes sport any chest hair. Could this be true? Could I-- an avid fan of chest hair-- have celebrated so many smooth-chested fellows? Chris was indignant: were college guys of the early 20th century not plagued with chest hair? I joked that somewhere along the Appalachian Trail there was probably a bird's nest comprised mostly of Chris's chest hair, but... I was quick to express support for Chris's hairy chest and derision for contemporaries who shave and wax their chests.

In the days following our conversation, I searched through all the athletics photos that I could access in the archive and discovered that, with few exceptions, Chris is right.


Shots like this 1923 photo of three-time Big Ten wrestling title-winner Ed Templin are pretty much the standard.


Search and magnify as I might, I can locate nary a chest hair on the entire 1941 Men's basket ball team, which incidentally won that year's Big Ten and NCAA Championships. So much championship and so little hirsuteness: baffling! Are all these guys shaving their chests? Again, this isn't the exception: I searched through numerous shots of teams from a variety of sports.

However, Chris, my friend, you are not entirely alone. A number of boxers sport the chest hair.


Steve Gremban (left) and Dwaine Dickinson (middle) both showing a little fur in March 1949.


NCAA Boxing Champ Dick Murphy is not without chest hair in this 1951 shot.


Gene Rankin (the only boxer in NCAA history to win three titles-- 1939, 1941, 1942-- at the same weight class, 135 lb.) representin' in 1941

Even track star Chuck Fenske (below left) featured a touch of chest hair in 1941.


Fenske and Walter Mehl (above right) both look a little odd-- like they have the heads of middle-aged rather than college-aged men. Maybe it's just the high-waisted shorts, which still look peculiar on men at the moment.


I'm puzzled by the fact that in this February 4, 1940 photo of Fenske with the Wannamaker Mile Trophy, he looks smooth-chested (and more dashing). Am I just projecting hair onto Fenske's chest in the previous image? Are photographers touching up all these photos? Does something about the photographic technology wash out the chest hair? Is this just the difference a year can make in a young man's hair growth? Any thoughts or theories?

A Kenny in the Ear...

is worth a lot.



"It was like Sophie's choice, except with reference works."
--Kenny



"Anyone who's seen Mary Poppins has seen 'a woman taken by the wind.'"
--Kenny, at the end of a long uproarious conversational gambit about the chorus of Fleetwood Mac's Rhiannon ("All your life you've never seen a woman/ Taken by the wind...").

PS - One of the more haunting images I've seen lately.

PPS- I appear to be the only person who voted for "Women's calisthenics" below. In the end, I was overcome by the rhapsody of this woman, who appears in the thrall of being "taken by the wind."