Sunrise — 6:37, 7:01, 7:04, 7:09, 7:27.

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Sunrise — 6:55.

The most honored statues on the Wisconsin State Capitol Square came down last night.

Here are the photographs I took just before 6 a.m. this morning:









Here's a news article, "Protesters pull down Forward statue, Col. Hans Christian Heg statue outside State Capitol" (WKOW):

Protesters pulled down the Forward statue that normally stands outside the State Capitol and left it lying in the middle of the road. Demonstrators had been marching around downtown Madison, frustrated after the arrest of a protester earlier in the day. The same group also tore down the Col. Hans Christian Heg statue a short time later. The group then went on to throw the statue into Lake Monona. Heg fought for the Union during the Civil War and was a stark opponent of slavery during that time.

The Hans Christian Heg statue is lying headless in lake Monona. #wkow pic.twitter.com/0grawivgtf

— Michelle Alfini (@MichelleAlf) June 24, 2020

AND: "Madison protesters tear down Capitol statues, attack state Senator from Milwaukee as fury erupts again" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel):

During the melee late Tuesday, Democratic state Sen. Tim Carpenter was assaulted after taking a photo of protesters.

"I don't know what happened ... all I did was stop and take a picture ... and the next thing I'm getting five-six punches, getting kicked in the head," Carpenter told a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter following the assault.

Protesters, chanting for the release of the man who'd been arrested earlier, also broke glass at the Tommy Thompson Center on West Washington Avenue, smashed windows and lights at the state Capitol, and set a small fire at the Dane County jail before police arrived just before 1 a.m.

ALSO: Here's what the man who got arrested did (warning: the "n-word" is in the man's tirade):



And here's what the arrest looked like:

At the Sunbath Café...

... feel free to sprawl out here.

At the Monona Café...

"Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are wedded forever." Moby-Dick.

(Open thread.)

A view of the Lake.

Lake Monona, seen from Olbrich Garden.

This is an open thread. Say what you like!

"That gazebo out in the water looks stupid."

Said Meade, when I asked him what he thought of the plan for a park over John Nolen Drive here in Madison.



I can't reproduce my response verbatim. I'll just say it contained the phrase "It's Frank Lloyd Wright!" about 10 times. The "gazebo" part of the new design is a boathouse Wright conceived long ago and getting that thing built has been a long-time dream of some people here in Madison...



... and I'm one of the dreamers.

It's Frank Lloyd Wright! I don't care if it looks stupid. It's our stupid. It's Frank Lloyd Wright stupid...

Madison police officer fatally shoots a man who was coming at him with a pitchfork.

"Police Chief Mike Koval said.... a neighbor... called 911 around 9 p.m. to report that a man was about chest-deep in the water [of Lake Monona] and acting oddly..."

... seemingly talking to himself and slapping the water. The man then reportedly threw a rock into the window of the residence, Koval said....

Koval said the first officer on the scene was waiting for backup when the intruder approached the doorway from inside the house with a four-pronged pitchfork....

The officer gave numerous orders to the man to stop, which he ignored, Koval said. “The person was aggressing, and the officer was compelled to shoot him,” he said.

UPDATE: "Man fatally shot by Madison police officer struggled with mental illness."

We put in many hours of hard spectating at yesterday's Ironman Wisconsin in Madison.

The swimming began in Lake Monona at 7 a.m. and we biked out there to see what we could:



The paddle boarders had a nice view, and so did the people who got a higher sight line from Monona Terrace:



The swimmers got their bikes up in those ramps and came out the other end onto the street that goes along next to the bike trail that is our usual bike trail, so we biked alongside them — us on the trail and them in the street — until they had to make a sharp turn at Wingra Creek...



... and we went along our way, completing the 20+-mile Capital City trail. Stowing our bikes at home, we set out on foot, walking over towards Lake Mendota to catch the Ironmen and -women in their running phase, up on Observatory looking out toward Picnic Point...



... then down at Library Mall...



... and later, out by the stadium...



What an exerting day in Madison it was for us! My iPhone app counted 6.45 miles of walking on top of that 20+ miles of biking. True, I didn't swim, but I did take a shower.

As close as we get to Philippe Petit in Madison, Wisconsin.

Now, nobody else do that. You won't look as good, and your movie won't be as good, so there's really no point. Officially, I disapprove, but I disapprove more of the local media giving this thing air, especially if it means that in the end we get some stupid fencing or netting blocking the view.

Meanwhile, long ago...

Madison, today.

At the Spring Ice Café...

... you don't need to make sense.

Sharding.

It looks like this close up:



And like this from a distance. That's the shoreline of Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin today:



Though the temperature approached 60° and the lake water was melted, there were piles of distinctive looking ice in one place:



It tinkled like like a pile of glass fragments. Check out the texture:



It's called sharding.

Some perspective on Madison...

... from the Capitol City bike trail, which we rode today for the first time since last fall. The temperature was in the 50s, and by the time we got to this point, it was nice to feel the cool breeze that came across the ice on Lake Monona.

" I was ten years old back in 1970 and clearly remember the loud boom that traveled across Lake Monona and awakened me in the middle of the night."

Another memory of the Sterling Hall bombing, which took place 40 years ago yesterday, from an emailer who would like to keep her name private:

I remember hearing all of my relatives talk about never shopping downtown again because people were being dragged out of their cars, windows were being broken, and tear gas deployed. I believe that East Town Mall also opened that year or soon after so between those two events, Madison's downtown shopping district was obliterated. I don't remember any fiery speeches about how wrong the students or administration was, just a general sense of fear.

Sailboats on Lake Monona, very free and easy...

Easy, like biking the Capital City bike trail...
Silver Madison skyline let me be...




We are leaving — you don't need us...

Wisconsin Ironman Triathlon.

It's today. The Ironmen are right about now getting out of Lake Monona and onto their bikes. The switch to running begins around 12:30 at Monona Terrace, and the final run is around central Madison and (my neighborhood) the near West Side. If you live in Madison, are you getting the hell out of town or holing up at home, or frustrating yourself carrying on your usual activities or getting into the spirit of the day and seting out on foot to observe and cheer the athletes?

Skyline irony.

The Frank Lloyd Wright building revitalized downtown into putting up lots of taller buildings that diminish the impact of the architectural marvel that once dominated the view of Madison as you drive in from the south and look across Lake Monona:

"[T]he very downtown renaissance that it was meant to help induce has now rendered Monona Terrace smaller in proportion -- an irony that is doubled when you consider that the vertical backdrop renders Monona Terrace almost Prairie Style in its low, flat geometry."

The linked article really needs a larger photograph. I should link to a better skyline photograph -- or go take one. For now, here are some pretty cool 360° shots of the Wright building.

UPDATE: I did go take some pictures.

"Kites on Ice."

Yes, I know. I should have taken some photographs of the "Kites on Ice" festival, a nice annual display on Lake Mendota. But I didn't. I guess I'm not as interested in kites as a lot of people. I've never gone over to see the festival, which has been around for seven years now. How photogenic was it, anyway? I'm not seeing any photographs in the press reports -- other than one guy carrying a Sponge Bob kite. Any bloggers out there with photos?

UPDATE: Here are some "Kites" photos. And these photos clear up what had been a mystery for me: why was I hearing fireworks this weekend? I thought it might be some Super Bowl thing, but, no, it was a kite thing. (You know, I can't write Super Bowl without thinking Superb Owl. I'm really not a football person. I'm more of an eccentric words person.)

ANOTHER UPDATE: It's not really all that related -- it's from a year ago, and it's an ice regatta, not kites on ice, and it's Lake Monona, not Lake Mendota -- but here some cool aerial photography. The patterns of snow and bare ice -- made from the wind, I suppose -- are interesting, seen from this perspective. Well, I just wanted you folks to know that we do find things to with all the ice we've got up here in our northern city full of lakes.