OSMAZOME

Saturday I rubbed elbows with some of Madison’s finest … writers, thankfully. At Dane County Farmers’ Market George Hesselberg was ostensibly helping Matthew Smith sell vegetables. George Zens and his wife, laden with shopping bags, seemed rather giddy over the impending Sustainable Times switch to magazine format. Then, at Food For Thought Festival Bill Lueders sold and signed his new book, Watchdog.

And the book fest hasn’t even begun!

Disclaimer: I have applied for work at Hesselberg’s employer, Wisconsin State Journal; at Lueders’s employer, Isthmus; at REAP, the sponsor of Food For Thought; and I once called Zens offering to do book reviews for his Sustainable Times. All rejected. However, I did once work for an organic farmer at the Dane County Market. I did carelessly let slip to Smith a long time ago that I secretly coveted his wife’s job. I don’t feel real good about that, but she is one of my heroines. She being Susan Lampert Smith, formerly a local columnist.

So fine, I’m a nobody. I must have applied for a hundred jobs in this city over the past decade and while I’ve gotten a few, never the good ones. They warned us in J-School: Make a million as a broadcast student living in LA, but drive a taxi in this town with a degree in print editorial. Journalism grads need to move to a city then find an entry-level reporting job, not the other way around. I got started on that in Illinois before husband’s job brought us back to impenetrable Mad Town in 1998.

Lueders is cute. OK, I said it. Whoop-de-dododo. I’m a nobody with no job unbeholden to any upstanding media conglom so I have the creative license plus copyright of my own work on top of the audacity and threat of slim repercussions as well as the cohones, sassiness and utter depravity to say such things. Apologies to Linda, apparently his wife to whom his book is dedicated, his family, and to my husband, who is a real sweetie and also very handsome and pays fore wireless and pretty much everything else since this town has denied me gainful employment last I looked for it years ago.

Unloading a little baggage before 8 am? Probably why I usually stay in bed until at least 8:30.

As I was saying. From his writing and how long he’s had his jaws clenched around that Isthmus job, you might think Lueders is a snarly bulldog. No no. That would be incorrect, physically speaking. A mere puppy dog. A bit Van Gogh-ish with the clear blue eyes and red hair. Burger – or is it berger – dude of yore. Where’s a copy editor when you need one? And charming. Paul Soglin might disagree there, but to me he was charming.

I’ve dipped into the book and have to say am impressed with his style. It is as they used to say “muscular” prose. I think of black-and-white New Yorker drawings, only more-less Linda Barry. There’s some Peanuts and like with Van Gogh, dimension. Not floral pirouettey stuff I’m guilty of. Lueders’s mastery of the craft is top-notch. But then of course we’re glopping out the cream top from twenty odd years.

Wasn’t goona buy it, nice and well-groomed as he was. But he assured me lots of stuff was new to a (fairly loyal) Isthmus reader like me. And I was out-of-town for five years. Had just dropped a wad at the market and wasn’t even planning to go to Food For Thought. Didn’t know he’d be there. But when the opportunity materialized to shake hands with Hesselberg and Lueders and shoot the breeze with Zens all in one day… how could a nobody like me resist? Once at the book tent, Lueders reeled me in. I reasoned, $15 for a book with fetching cover… yes, the dog on the cover probably really sold me the book, and it is his dog. But the dog didn’t shake my hand so professionally and look so grounded and like a real author who could be my hero.

I see some common themes between Lueders’ writing and my own. Chuckled to see the essay “Why People Hate Madison” similar to my most recent post title. Had to read the turkey killing story (again) of course. His first impressions of Madison, that he is from Milwaukee, all good things to know.

Doug Moe (who I’ve never met but seems more brooding than cute to me) wrote the Forward. Which reminds me that I never finished Surrounded By Reality, Moe’s book I bought at Frugal Muse. I did with that one what I’m doing with Lueders, jumping around on whims. Part of the fun of acquiring books is deciding who to pass them onto. We don’t really have room for a library. Oh hmm, maybe because I’ve never had a real, lucrative, full-time job?

This writing thing: It is always good to know how it would have had to have been done had the need arisen, had a real job required long-term.

Feeling a little sluggish all a sudden. I could view the three DVDs from the video store before I take a leisurely stroll to return them. Or I could go back to bed. Hmmm, instead I think I’ll linger over a big breakfast and my third cup of coffee and meditate on all my choices a spell.