Pictureland

Day two of crazy, unrelenting wind in Wisconsin.   Up to state road 60 and west about 30 miles, I came to Columbus, home of Louis Sullivan's Farmers and Merchants Bank, the last of his eight, country "jewel box" banks he designed toward the end of  his career.  The Farmer's and Merchants was recently used in Michael Mann's   Public Enemies . as a bank robbed by Dillinger. I wasn't quite as thrilled as I usually am to set my eyes upon a Louis  Sullivan building.   Perhaps because I recently saw the bigger, almost palatial National Farmer's Bank in Owatonna (see post entitled "The Bay, The Riverview and Louis Sullivan Too" to see pictures of the National Farmers), Minnesota.  Perhaps because it was difficult to stand still and take photos in the high wind.   Perhaps because I was practically assaulted by an American flag, while standing across the street  to take the  photo above.   I'm trying not to look at that too symbol...

The Bay Theater, like the downtown oasis of the Black Cat Coffee House, was one of many pleasant surprises in Ashland, Wisconsin.   Ashland sits on the Chequemagon Bay of Lake Superior, on the northern edge of Wisconsin.   Ashland proved to be a much more laid-back base for exploring the region than quaint, hillside Bayfield, about 20 miles north.  Aside from the town itself, we ventured out to the nearby Apostle Islands and then eastward into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for a near-idyllic afternoon in the spectacular Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park. The theater itself, aside from the great marquee and upright, is a pretty generic affair once you get indoors.   Once a single-screen house with a capacity of 650, it's now subdivided.   The lobby, once you step beyond some bold green and black vitriolite in the entryway, is sadly nondescript, as was the small auditorium in which we watched a film.   ...