"In the exhilarating case of Madison, it’s important to pursue the frenzy, merge with the frenzy, ingest the frenzy."

"The frenzy beckons along State Street, the central nervous system of the city and the 50,000-strong university, with main quadrangle Bascom Hill at the end opposite the state Capitol. The frenzy churns up and down the streets and boulevards leading up to kickoffs, the multistory bars packed with people and red. It’s present in bits in the breakfast line at the famed Mickie’s Dairy Bar, or the doughnut line at Greenbush, or at State Street Brats, or the Memorial Union Terrace of the main student union. It’s bubbling at the Dane County Farmers’ Market, and it’s roaring at the frat houses near Camp Randall Stadium, where the inspiring sights might include a beer bong on the second floor delivering the nectar to a drinker on the ground. It reaches its peak, though, at the end of the third quarter.... If one seeks bouts of quiet, as unfitting as they can seem, there’s a daydream of a lake (Mendota), the Lakeshore Path, the city’s welcoming capacity for cyclists or the privilege of a lakefront room at the Edgewater Hotel...."

The Washington Post puts Madison first, in "The 10 best college football towns in America" (gift link).

Here's the daydream this morning, video'd by Meade:

 

"There's a little bit of a quicksand feeling."

Althouse enters Lake Mendota for the first time after all these years.

Meade, who's great at instigating variations on old rituals, made the video.

Bison man speaks.

The 65-year-old man who was flipped eight feet in the air by a bison this month at Yellowstone National Park shared his story from his hospital bed. Carl Isom-McDaniel broke his femur in four places, had surgery and is now recovering at a Montana hospital.

“They move faster than… pic.twitter.com/oJnnVrWbzu

— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 21, 2026

My tag for bison is "buffalo." Sorry. I know it's a bison. I searched for "bison" in my tags, but all that came up was "Roy Orbison." Hmm. Good idea for a purple category in the NYT game "Connections." 

ADDED: Back in 2012, we went to Yellowstone, and I wrote a post, with photographs, titled "Buffalo in the Mist." In the comments, I wrote these 2 things:

1. "Driving into Yellowstone, Meade and I had a conversation about whether we preferred to say 'bison'" (the technically correct term) or 'buffalo' (the colloquial american name for the beast). We decided on buffalo. It's more American and it's just a cooler word."

2. Responding to a commenter who warned me: "Careful, Althouse. Though they look gentle, they're still wild animals and should be treated as such." I wrote: "We were on a boardwalk that is about 2 miles long. You can't go any other way (unless you go back). You can't walk on the ground. We were just trying to get back out to the parking lot, and the buffalo was right there. I was scared, but I had to walk past it. There was no other way to go. I am not one of these people who go up to the animals. I'm about photographing the landscapes."

Moonwatch, sunwatch.

Video by Meade.

Sunrise video.

Video by Meade.

A quick look.

"Wow"/"And it's great...."

It often leads to the trivialization of serious subjects...

Writing the previous post and trying to get to Meade's YouTube page, I googled the name of the page, Meadeification, and got this:

Here's more of Meade's trivialization of a serious subject:

The Purple Path.

Video by Meade, at the first sunrise of summer.

Panorama at 5:09 a.m.

Out for the sunrise (and looking at a bird).

Tiny Althouse in the rain/frantic bee in the rose.

Videos by Meade:

"The teams totaled 34 hits, and 14 pitchers combined to throw 444 pitches. It was the fourth game in major league history with at least 29 runs and 11 homers."

I'm reading "Brewers outlast A's 15-14 in 12 innings as teams combine for 11 homers and 34 hits in Las Vegas/Andrew Vaughn had four hits and four RBIs, including a two-run double that tied the score in the ninth inning, and the Milwaukee Brewers outlasted the Athletics 15-14 in 12 innings at Las Vegas Ballpark in a wild game that featured 11 homers" (WaPo).

No, I wasn't watching. That game started at my bedtime — 9 p.m.

I just noticed that there's a team now that's just named the Athletics — no city/state in the name. Just the mascot... and it's the most generic mascot. The Athletics. And they played in Las Vegas last night — "at the site of their Triple-A affiliate, the Las Vegas Aviators." They seem homeless. They're not in Oakland anymore, and their normal home these days is West Sacramento, but not enough of a home to become part of its name. Playing a few games in Las Vegas this week has something to do with Las Vegas being its future home. A new stadium will open in 2028.

But maybe you watched basketball last night. I'd rather watch a random baseball game than an important basketball game, but I did pause the movie I was watching and go downstairs to hear the National Anthem and catch a glimpse of Trump. The NYT says "Mr. Trump smiled and saluted in the face of deafening boos when he briefly appeared on the arena’s video board...." I went back to my movie — "A Complete Unknown," now, finally, on HBO — but I did look up the result this morning. I see Trump ruined everything:

Ooh, that Trump. The Knicks lost. Meanwhile, Bob Dylan won. That's what Joan Baez says to him at the end of the biopic: "You won." He's all "What did I win?" and then he rides off into the sunset on his motorcycle. 

Walking at sunrise, between rainstorms.

Video by Meade:

Sunrise, with fishing.

Meade's morning video:

The sun, rising just now.

Meade captured that. You know, it's not easy, getting out there every morning. Here I was yesterday, running from ticks:

What's this fish (or other beast) near the shore of Lake Mendota at sunrise today?

Video by Meade.

Also this morning:

The prairie's edge at dawn.

Sunrise.

Video by Meade, this morning.

Song of the Wandering Althouse.

Meade used A.I. to animate one of his "Sunrise path" photos from this morning. It's funny to see how I walk in the world according to A.I.

You can listen to the whole Donovan song here. And here's the original Yeats poem, "The Song of Wandering Aengus." I recommend memorizing that and having conversations about it. We did and do.

Sunrise path.

Sunrise video by Meade. After-the-sunrise photo by Meade:

Bonus: "3 Little Birds."