Jeremiad.

Our first Bible reading of the day, at Meadhouse, was Jeremiah 18, "The Potter and the Clay."

Never mind how it came up in our conversation: What do you make of it?

"Wisconsin isn't actually the center of the universe. A convergence of events has just made it seem that way."

Writes the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

This week alone, President Barack Obama visited the state, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) gave the Republican response to the State of the Union address, and the Green Bay Packers were on the fast track to becoming America's sweethearts.

Wednesday night's "American Idol," spotlighting auditions it conducted in Milwaukee in the summer and fall of 2010, was just icing on the cake....

Performers stood in front of a blue scrim with the "Idol" logo, judges sat at the prow-like front of the [Windhover Hall of the Milwaukee Art Museum] and interviews were conducted in the museum's whalebone white hallways.

A stormy Lake Michigan was a feature throughout and could be seen dramatically changing colors and textures behind the judges....

Jennifer Lopez referred to it as "the ocean."

Hey, we were already planning to go to the Milwaukee Art Museum this weekend. So don't think, when you see my photographs, that we only went there because of "American Idol." We're going there because we're excited about seeing Masterworks of North Carolina Earthenware:

The exhibition explores, among others, work... by Moravian immigrant potters who...  found a home in the North Carolina Moravian missionary settlement. Superior in quality to the pottery the early American colonists were creating, the slip-decorated earthenware, though utilitarian, represented the religious beliefs for which their makers had once been persecuted, and allowed the settlers to maintain a sense of cultural identity in the new world.

I'm a descendant of Moravian refugees from persecution, and maybe the mysterious Meade will tell you why he's interested in the show too.

At the Countertop Café...

... there's plenty to eat.

Clay acorn birdbath...

... with oak leaves.

A still life open thread.

At the Busted Puffball Café...

... you can talk about your broken dreams. I had a beautiful dream of a magic mushroom named Puff. Puff the puffball mushroom. I thought we were going to slice him up into a million little slivers and fry him in butter. But you saw fit to break up old rotten stumps and fling them away into the corner of the yard, without regard to the whereabouts of the puffball, whose magic proved limited to the power to attract hurled stump parts.



Ah, Puff! I wanted knife-sliced slivers, not cudgeled chunks. The puffball will therefore live out its days, uneaten, rotting and freezing in the salvaged iron birdbath, with the clay acorn, the iron bird, and — nearby — the unoccupied teapot birdhouse.

The teapot birdhouse.

At the Acorn Café...

... we've grown a lot over the years. We're oaks now, right?

"As we mix the clay, the clay mixes us."

Clay-stomping (and artist-philosophy) for schoolkids.

"Selling was an intellectual pleasure, an art form" for Josiah Wedgwood.

"No fad was too small. In 1772, when women started bleaching their hands with arsenic to make their skin a fashionable porcelain tone, Wedgwood immediately advertised black teapots: against this background, hands looked even whiter. No cause was too great, either: the company produced emancipation medallions asking, 'Am I not a man and a brother?' that were worn as buttons and bracelets."

Judith Flanders looks at the downfall of a company that what was once was an innovative marketer.

The Watts Towers.

We went to see the Watts Towers, but they were partly covered in scaffolding and the fence doors were locked:



I would have loved to take my fisheye lens inside those structures and look up and see all these things curving in toward the center, but it was not to be. What was the problem? It seems it rained one time or something. But it was still lots of fun to see the fanciful art project:



We heard about the Italian immigrant, Simon Rodia, who devoted all his free time to constructing these things, single-handedly.



I had to stick the camera and my hands through the bars of the fence to get these shots:



There's a lovely community center next to the towers, and they had a nice exhibit of schoolkids' art and showed a perfect 1950s-style documentary on Rodia and his towers. What was 1950s about it? The music (which happened to be the same music used as the "Twilight Zone" theme, but in a different key). The attitude (all about the individualistic vision of the artist and devoid of sentimentality toward the ordinary citizens of his community). Too bad it's not on line. But why don't you drive out to Watts so you can watch it?



I hope you get to see them sometime when you can go inside, but it was worth it just to get this close:



Delightful!



ADDED: Hey! The film is on line. I love YouTube. Watch this now, and let's talk not just about Rodia and his aesthetic, but the aesthetic of the filmmaker:



Thanks to commenter Bearbee for finding that. [Rodia's name is mispronounced "Rodilla" in the film, because someone who assumed it was a Spanish name spelled it phonetically, and then someone who knew it was an Italian name pronounced the Ls.]

And thanks to commenter Bissage for writing this:

(1) Sure, a humble construction worker might have single-handedly created a superb example of non-traditional vernacular architecture and American Naïve art . . . but did he ever knock-up a spacey new-age cokehead star fucker while his wife was dying from cancer?

Did he? Huh? Did he?

*pokes imaginary adversary in the chest*

No! He did not!

(I'll bet that!!! let some air out of his tires. He thinks he’s so big!)

(2) From Wikipedia: Neighborhood children brought pieces of broken glass and pottery to Rodia in hopes they would be added to the project, . . .

Sound familiar?

Kind of like the perpetual art project that is Althouse.

(3) It turns out Mr. Rodia was an Italian immigrant. Well, that explains everything! Anybody who has lived between Boston and Washington D.C. thinks of one thing immediately when they hear the words “Italian immigrant.” Here it is.

Coincidence?

I think not!

What does it take to get a real cup around here?

If I go to a café and sit down with a cup of coffee, I want a real cup, a ceramic cup, not a paper cup. I'm paying $4 for an aesthetic experience and part of it is the feel of the cup, in my hand and on my lips. When I say "for here," I mean in a real cup. It's not hard to understand. Yet time and again, it turns out that they're out of cups. Why is that? They're running a café — invariably a Starbucks — yet they either failed to lay in an adequate supply of cups or they can't — or won't — keep up with the dishwashing.

Today, I ordered a "venti" latte at Starbucks, said "for here," handed over my money and received my change, only to be told that they're out of venti cups. Then size it down to a grande, I say.

I want the real cup more than I want the extra coffee. And I want to teach them a lesson: If you don't have a cup for it, I don't want it.

This led to minutes of confusion as they tried to figure out how to refund the price difference. The line backed up behind me, and I finally got what turned out to be only 33¢. They didn't hide their irritation, but I hid mine.

Until now.

I remember one time some kids had a lemonade stand, and they ran out of cups. They didn't want to lose the sale, so they said "Cup your hands!" That was at least funny. And they were just kids.

Hey, Starbucks! Have some damned cups for the product you charge so much for!

And if you don't have a cup for a customer who says "for here," you can say: I'm sorry, we ran out of cups. How embarrassing. We'd like to apologize by giving it to you in a paper cup for free. And here's a coupon for a free coffee in a real cup next time.

Leaving San Jose.

Either the city has been invaded by giant sci-fi mutant insects or the San Jose Grand Prix continues into Sunday. It's time for me to liberate my car, which has been garaged since my arrival late Thursday night. Not wanting to deal with the Grand Prix reconfigurations of the town, I've been walking and using the light rail... and test driving a Sky. But I want my car back, and I need to get out of San Jose -- get out of California -- and back to the beautiful wasteland of Nevada, where I'll stop over somewhere for the night before making my way tomorrow to a very nice place that should be quite swell.

A few parting shots of San Jose.

The plaza by my hotel (the Fairmont) with a view of the art museum:



A view of my feet at the art museum:



A monumental ceramic sculpture outside the repertory theater:



A peace vigil near San Jose State University:



Think first! Because there's your problem, George Bush. You forgot to think.

Guys, you don't have to wear shorts.

Consider kilts:



Photographed right here in Madison, Wisconsin, where I also saw this three foot high ceramic sculpture of a finger.



No, there's no relationship between the two photographs... except in your mind.

ADDED: What I'm leaving out is a lo-fi video I took of the Prince Myshkins singing about how the Founding Fathers were girlie men. If they email me and tell me to go ahead and upload the video to YouTube and post it, you can be sure I will. "Check out the pleated knee stockings on John Jay... Up jumps John Blair in a puff of powdered hair..." Seriously, email me, guys. That was amusing, but I don't want to violate your copyright.

The ceramicist uses human ashes.

Ash, such as tree ash, is a normal ingredient in the glaze. Why not use human ashes? Have you ever had some ashes -- were you gauche enough to call them cremains? -- and wondered what to do with them? Was it awkward or properly solemn or did you screw it up like the Dude in "The Big Lebowski"? How would you feel about your loved one being reformed into pottery?