From the archives: It’s been a pleasure

A tribute Dr. Sami Schalk’s exploration of pleasure as activism.

Tone Madison turns 10 years old this year. To mark a decade of our fiercely independent, reader-supported coverage of culture and politics in Madison, we’re revisiting some highlights from our archives. Got a favorite Tone Madison story you think we should include? Let us know by sending an email to editor@tonemadison.com. 

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“Badass bitch.”

—Sami Schalk, at least once per column.

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Editor’s note: Tone Madison published the inaugural edition of a new monthly column, “Pleasure Practices with Sami Schalk”  in December 2020. One year into the COVID–19 pandemic, Schalk found a simple way to extract joy from a chaotic, stressful time—sandwiches. “As a person who lives alone and loves good food, but doesn’t really like to cook, the pandemic has encouraged me to put more care and effort into my meals at home because, well, every meal is at home now,” Schalk wrote.

But, rejecting former Tone Madison contributor John McCracken’s initial suggestion for a column on “Sami’s Sandwiches,” Schalk decided she wanted to write about her work as a pleasure activist, “a person who believes that my pleasure as a fat Black disabled queer woman is political and that pleasure is the point of being alive.” Instead of just a column about sandwiches, Schalk promised a column that would be “weird, cheeky, and heartfelt.”

For this edition of “From the Archives,” we editors at Tone Madison wrote tributes to some of our favorite “Pleasure Practices” columns. Schalk officially put the column to rest in June 2024, completing an enduring and unusual chapter in this publication’s work.

As someone who’s always struggled with winter, you would think that I would have avoided living in places like Chicago, Beijing, and now, Madison. But the problem for me has never been the cold or the snow—get me a hot cup of tea, cozy socks, a lap blanket, a book or a crochet project and I’ll see you in April. The problem is the sun, or lack thereof. I don’t have a Seasonal Affective Disorder diagnosis (what an acronym—”I have SAD”). I prefer to jest that I’m part plant. Schalk’s aptly-timed November 2023 column “Take in the sun” was a reminder of the simple pleasure of a sunny, cold day. After reading it, I started to pull up a chair to my balcony window to take in the morning light with my cup of coffee. It was a reminder that sometimes the pleasure you need to get through a (literally) dark time, is sometimes freely available. You just have to remember to carve out the time to pause and soak it in. —Christina Lieffring, news and politics editor

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In “Mood music and deep listens,” Dr. Sami Schalk brilliantly illustrates the quiet poignancy that can accompany our reactions to music, and how enriching that experience can be. Associative memory, instinctive feeling, and intellectual and emotional responses are produced by forming meaningfully intentional relationships with music. “Mood music” tends to be something most of us knowingly (or unknowingly) engage in to enhance an experience, while “deep listen[ing]” seems to have tragically fallen out of favor. Schalk’s tribute to both underscores not just their vitality, but how music fundamentally shapes people’s lives. And that type of reminder is always important. —Steven Spoerl, music editor

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“It’s onesie season” came about because Sami kept posting on social media about onesies, and had the sense of humor to run with a suggestion that this could be a whole column unto itself.  “Silly AF and a pure fucking delight,” as she wrote in this installment. One thing I miss about Pleasure Practices is that Sami really embraced these sort of playful, seemingly trivial things. These columns set out to make a bigger point—that pleasure can serve as a form of resistance, a way to defiantly assert one’s humanity in a dehumanizing world—but often via a disarming approach. This was really lost on some readers—well, at least some of the more outlandish online gadflies in town—but the column stuck unapologetically to its vulnerable and off-the-wall spirit. —Scott Gordon, publisher

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There are quite a few worthy candidates for my favorite “Pleasure Practices” columns, including one of the very last, about the pleasures of being alone. I have a hard time relating to people, so I’m usually alone. And I’ve gravitated towards unhealthy ways to cope with that reality since the year we couldn’t escape being alone, 2020. Sami’s reframing of routine in that column is genuinely motivational.

But I’m ultimately swayed to highlight Sami’s piece about planting a balcony herb garden, from May 2022. Her columns often expressed the pleasures of cooking certain meals, but this one directly engages with the “meditative pleasure” and feeling of “miraculous accomplishment” of cultivation before all that kitchen preparation and recipe-measuring. The simple act of tending to (plant)life with basil for what will become pesto—I make mine vegan by subbing the parmesan with ground cashews—reminds me of connecting with the habits and hobbies of generations past, when we were less digitally manipulated. And this is especially true considering where I’m from (fertile farmland-country Pennsylvania).

With all our emphasis on heavy political stories and challenging art, there was always a straightforward story or tempering vibe to Sami’s writing. For that, “Pleasure Practices” will be missed. —Grant Phipps, film editor