Isthmus: Mar 2-8, 2017 by Isthmus

MARCH 2–8, 2017

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VOL. 42 NO. 9

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MADISON, WISCONSIN

So long, safety net

The state goes after people on unemployment for making honest mistakes

TO D D H U B L E R

AD FR MI EE SS IO N!

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“If music be the food of love, play on...”

MADISON YOUNG PROFESSIONALS

take note!

FEBRUARY 23 – MARCH 12, 2017 GILBERT V. HEMSLEY THEATRE

Twelfth

Night

Join us for the concert & after-party SATURDAY, MARCH 11

byWilliam Shakespeare

concert

directed by

ISTHMUS.COM MARCH 2–8, 2017

David Furumoto

2016–2017

Peak Performance Carl St. Clair, Conductor Tine Thing Helseth, Trumpet

after party

After the concert at Promenade Lounge

tickets

$35 (includes concert, after party and drink ticket)

8:00 PM BUY TICKETS AND LEARN MORE: madisonsymphony.org/club201 #madisonsymphony Sponsors:

CLASSICAL MUSIC

•

FOOD

•

NETWORKING

■ CONTENTS

■ WHAT TO DO

4 SNAPSHOT

DREAMCATCHER

Since 1990, Milele Chikasa Anana has marked the black community’s accomplishments in UMOJA.

6-10 NEWS

POLICY MANUAL

Get (some of) your questions about the Affordable Care Act answered here.

12 OPINION MICHAEL MEULEMANS

MATT ROTHSCHILD

12 OPINION BEFORE JOINING the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign as its executive editor, Matt Rothschild was the longtime editor and publisher of The Progressive magazine. It was there that he met Ed Garvey, whose memorial Rothschild pens this week. Garvey’s life will be celebrated March 4 at the Lussier Family Heritage Center, 1-5 p.m. His family asks that guests bring their memories and funny stories.

NEWS MICHAEL MEULEMANS is a health policy analyst and technical writer. His piece on Obamacare was especially challenging, given the competing plans to repeal and replace the health care program, along with the dearth of details. As our esteemed president so eloquently put it, “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.”

REMEMBERING ED GARVEY

The progressive attorney and activist fought the good fight.

14 COVER STORY

CLAIM DENIED

The state makes it harder to collect unemployment benefits and is going after people for mistakes.

22-29 FOOD & DRINK

CHEFS GONE WILD

Third annual Chef Week means more creative collaborations.

HI, OHIO

The venerable east-side tavern reinvents itself as a Mexican/Colombian street food kitchen.

31 SPORTS

HOOPS HOPES

There are plenty of rivalries on the line at the upcoming WIAA girls’ basketball tourney.

Going There: Who Needs College? Tuesday, March 7, Monona Terrace, 7 pm

Is college a place to intellectually challenge yourself and create a better future? Or is it a rigid place where the politically correct dogma of the elites is imposed? These two vastly different views of higher education will be discussed at this National Public Radio event, hosted by NPR’s Michel Martin and Wisconsin Public Radio. Guests include conservative commentator Charlie Sykes, cartoonist Lynda Barry, Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Burlington) and Raven Software co-founder Brian Raffel.

32 MUSIC

COUNTRY SOUL

Who runs the world?

33 ARTS

Wednesday, March 8, UW Discovery Building, 5:30 pm

Lost Lakes releases an addictive new album.

LOCKED UP

An art installation presents a skewed version of a juvenile detention facility.

34 STAGE

LIVELY AND DEATHLY

Local productions run the gamut.

SARI JUDGE

EMPHASIS SARI JUDGE SAYS people she hasn’t seen in 20 years have recognized her from behind on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue due to the volume of her hair. So she has a vested interest in knowing stylists who can cut curly hair well. She scopes out the local scene for this week’s Emphasis.

Michel Martin

36 SCREENS

BLACK COMEDY/HORROR A visit to the suburbs takes a surprising turn in Get Out.

45 EMPHASIS

Let’s face it: Women and girls have been pioneers and innovators since the beginning of time, often without recognition. So take an evening to celebrate the joys of being a #girlboss at this International Women’s Day event from Girls Inc. of Greater Madison. Enjoy a fancy meal, all-ages networking, science and art-themed activities, and talks by activist Eunique Jones Gibson and local insurance executive Telisa Yancy. Tickets are $50 and available at girlsincmadison.eventbrite.com.

RINGLET CIRCUS

Who knows how to cut curly hair? Here’s a roundup of local stylists.

IN EVERY ISSUE 8 MADISON MATRIX 8 WEEK IN REVIEW 12 THIS MODERN WORLD 13 FEEDBACK 13 OFF THE SQUARE

You betcha Thursday, March 2, Middleton Library, 7 pm

38 ISTHMUS PICKS 46 CLASSIFIEDS 46 P.S. MUELLER 46 CROSSWORD 47 SAVAGE LOVE

PUBLISHER Jeff Haupt ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Craig Bartlett BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Mark Tauscher EDITOR Judith Davidoff NEWS EDITOR Joe Tarr ASSOCIATE EDITOR Michana Buchman FEATURES EDITOR Linda Falkenstein ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Catherine Capellaro STAFF WRITERS Dylan Brogan, Allison Geyer EDITORIAL INTERN Riley Vetterkind CALENDAR EDITOR Bob Koch ART DIRECTOR Carolyn Fath STAFF ARTISTS Todd Hubler, David Michael Miller, Tommy Washbush

ISTHMUS is published weekly by Red Card Media, 100 State Street, Suite 301, Madison, WI 53703 • Edit@isthmus.com • Phone (608) 251-5627 • Fax (608) 251-2165 Periodicals postage paid at Madison, WI (ISSN 1081-4043) • POSTMASTER: Send address changes to 100 State Street, Suite 301, Madison, WI 53703 • © 2017 Red Card Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

Keep an open mind Friday-Saturday, March 3-4, UW Gordon Dining & Event Center

UW student organization Atheists, Humanists and Agnostics hosts its annual Freethought Festival, a celebration of all things secular. Speakers include “Sexplanations” host Lindsay Doe, activists Marie Schaub and Matt Wilbourn, and blogger Greta Christina. Stay late each night for stand-up sets by Bronston Jones and Brian Babylon. Find the schedule at freethoughtfestival.org.

FIND MORE ISTHMUS PICKS ON PAGE 38

MARCH 2–8, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

VIDEOGRAPHER/PHOTOGRAPHER Justin Sprecher CONTRIBUTORS John W. Barker, Kenneth Burns, Dave Cieslewicz, Nathan J. Comp, Aaron R. Conklin, Ruth Conniff, Michael Cummins, Marc Eisen, Erik Gunn, Mike Ivey, Bob Jacobson, Seth Jovaag, Stu Levitan, Bill Lueders, Liz Merfeld, Andy Moore, Bruce Murphy, Kyle Nabilcy, Kate Newton, Jenny Peek, Michael Popke, Steven Potter, Adam Powell, Katie Reiser, Jay Rath, Gwendolyn Rice, Dean Robbins, Robin Shepard, Sandy Tabachnick, Denise Thornton, Candice Wagener, Tom Whitcomb, Rosemary Zurlo-Cuva ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER Todd Hubler ADVERTISING MANAGER Chad Hopper ADVERTISING ASSISTANT Laura Miller ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES Lindsey Bushart, Lauren Isely, Rebecca Jaworski WEB ANALYST Jeri Casper CIRCULATION MANAGER Tim Henrekin MARKETING DIRECTOR Chris Winterhack EVENT DIRECTORS Kathleen Andreoni, Courtney Lovas CONTROLLER Halle Mulford OFFICE MANAGER Julie Butler SYSTEMS MANAGER Thom Jones ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Carla Dawkins

If you live in Madison, you already know how to speak one variety of Midwestern, but Edward McClelland surveys several varieties of the vocab and accent (Inland, Midland North and North Central) in his book How to Speak Midwestern from Belt Publishing, the great chronicler of the Rust Belt. Ask him about “boughten.”

n SNAPSHOT

PRESENTERS: The alumni chapter of Delta Sigma Theta, the Mt. Zion Levites Choir, Judge Everett Mitchell NUMBER OF UMOJA ISSUES: 294 CIRCULATION: 10,000 DEFINITION OF “UMOJA”: Swahili for “unity” ANANA’S FAVORITE COVER ART: “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” by Gilbert Young

Village mother

ISTHMUS.COM MARCH 2–8, 2017

BY JUDITH DAVIDOFF n PHOTOGRAPH BY SARAH MAUGHAN

For most of the night, the woman of honor whispered little more than “thank you” when asked if she wanted to share some thoughts on her life and career. But something shifted as the evening was winding to a close, as if Milele Chikasa Anana realized she had a captive audience and the perfect opportunity to do what she does best: promote the work of African Americans and celebrate their accomplishments. The longtime publisher of UMOJA magazine put more than a few guests on the spot, asking anyone who owned a black business to come forward and say a few words about their work. As one guest noted, “You don’t say no to Ms. Milele.” Anana explains later, “My job — my ministry — is to connect and encourage people to pursue their dreams.” About 140 people gathered Saturday night at the Goodman Community Center to dine on fried catfish, collard greens and sweet potato pie and to celebrate the life and work of Anana, 83, who through UMOJA has tirelessly promoted only positive news about Madison’s black community since 1990 — weddings, school graduations, recognitions, promotions. That’s to counter the mostly negative and one-dimensional, portrayal of African Americans in mainstream media,

says Anana. “Back in the ’80s we were always criminals or athletes. Or what I’d call the ‘super Negro’ — someone with five PhDs.” Outside the dining hall is an exhibit of UMOJA covers, which Anana has used to promote black artists. The magazines have become keepsakes to Edith Hilliard, who has a copy of every single issue. She told dinner guests she recently carted boxes of the magazine to her new condo, despite her son’s protests. “Who could throw out an UMOJA magazine?” she asked. A civil rights activist and black business leader, Anana is also a former city of Madison affirmative action officer and the first African American elected to the Madison school board. She grew up in Tulsa, frustrated with a life constrained by Jim Crow. “You could not go to a public park, public library, let alone eat in a public restaurant,” she recalls. “About three-quarters of life was cut off for you.” She went to college in Alabama, before moving to Roxbury, outside of Boston, where public accommodations were more accessible, but, she says, “You couldn’t get a job. So it was very frustrating again.” She went by Betty at the time, was married and had two kids (she’d eventually have three more and

move to Madison with her then husband, James Latimer, now a professor emeritus at UW-Madison). One day, in 1963, she was pushing a grocery cart, and a man said, “Hey sis, you want to go to the march?” She reported to the designated street corner the next night and headed to the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, led by Martin Luther King Jr. “I got on a bus with strangers. I had no credit card and did not really know where I was going. There was no food on the bus and no schedule.” The bus had to stop at black churches for meals, because restaurants along the way would not serve black diners. “I went to the march with a determination,” she says. “I tell young people today, I knew they were coming and doors had to be open for them.” Anana is slowing down these days, doing dialysis three times a week, but she is legendary for her energy, especially at UMOJA, where she does much of the work herself — taking photos, writing stories and selling ads. Kay Simmons remembers attending the first inauguration of Barack Obama with her: “I had to come back to the hotel and sleep, but she went to everything.” When Anana served as the city’s affir-

mative action officer from 1974 to 1979, she worked with then Police Chief David Couper to increase the number of people of color and women on the force. In 1972, Couper says, there was one black police officer and seven women — the women, however, could not handle a gun and were not eligible for a promotion. “I looked at her as an ally,” he says. “We had a lot of people who were not willing to play on our team. People forget how tough the integration of police and fire [departments] was at that point. She was a good fighter for justice and women’s rights and civil rights.” Anana says Madison still falls short in providing good employment for its black residents. “The biggest problem we have is jobs,” she says. “There are just not opportunities for our young professionals to grow here and seek their potential. Many of them leave.” But, in looking back on a long career, she feels she has made progress in “revolutionizing the way black people are represented” in the local media. “Reporters nowadays try to become more inclusive. Media has advanced in Madison where other institutions haven’t.” n

DO YOU HAVE ASTHMA?

presents

Participate in The Well-Being Study!

THE EDGEWATER 2ND THURSDAY OF THE MONTH Coffee: 7:30 a.m. Presentation and Q&A: 8-9 a.m.

Thursday, March 9th “Rock River Recovery - a.k.a. the Clean Water Act at work”

Mark Riedel - Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources -

SAVE YOUR SEAT | RSVP TODAY: cleanlakesalliance.org/events

$10 Admission FREE parking Coffee, pastries, and fruit provided

($35 donation)

Dane County’s work on construction erosion

w/ Jeremy Balousek Dane County Land & Water Resources Department

If enrolled, participants complete up to 7 lab visits over 10 months. All participants will receive a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) class. Must be 18-65 years old with a current diagnosis of asthma. Participants may receive up to $1185 upon completion of the study. Lab visits will include asthma testing, EEG and MRI studies. If you are interested in participating, please visit go.wisc.edu/asthma to see if you qualify. If you have any questions about the study, please email study staff at wellbeingstudy@bi.wisc.edu or call 608-263-0803.

MARCH 2–8, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

FREE FOR FRIENDS OF CLEAN LAKES

Thank you to our sponsors:

Coming April 13th

The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center is looking for participants for a research study on the impact of health wellness classes on the brain and body.

■ NEWS

Inside track? More questions raised about alder’s role in Olbrich biergarten

Madison’s Parks Division put out a request to developers to propose “placemaking services” at Olbrich Park beach house last May. It mentioned some examples including sports rentals, instructional programs for water sports, and concessions. The public was not asked for input on these services. What the request never mentioned was a biergarten. In fact, it contained a sample agreement stating, “No alcoholic beverages may be sold at the premises.” But on June 22, BKM Group submitted a proposal calling for a biergarten at the park. The Parks Division eventually recommended the proposal, which is now poised to get final approval and a liquor license from the Common Council on March 7. The turn of events perplexes Ald. Marsha Rummel, whose district includes part of Olbrich Park. “How did we get from an RFP that mentions no alcoholic beverages to selecting a biergarten? That has me scratching my head,” says Ald. Rummel. “It also raises the question whether they would have had more applicants if the [RFP] had been written differently.” Rummel asked Knepp about the RFP language via email. Knepp replied that the sample agreement was only meant as an example of what a vendor could expect to sign. “In hindsight, parks staff should have considered using a ‘sample’ agreement that was not taken directly from another user agreement. That ‘sample’ agreement’ had a number of specific terms that were not meant to be requirements on any successful respondent,” wrote Knepp in a Feb. 23 email to city officials.

When Godfrey first heard about a biergarten idea, she thought it was an intriguing concept for Olbrich Park, which has a beach and an underutilized shelter. It is being paired with a watercraft rental service from Rutabaga Paddlesports, the only other business to submit a proposal in response to the RFP, or request for proposal. After hearing concerns about the biergarten from a friend, Godfrey began investigating. Kesting — who works at Epic Systems — is one of BKM Group’s three partners, along with Bare and Travis Mueller. On Nov. 22, 2015, Eskrich introduced Bare — “her good friend” — to parks superintendent Eric Knepp so Bare could discuss an idea for city parks. This began a correspondence between Bare and parks officials. On Beer March 16, Eskrich also forwarded Garden an email about a biergarten concept at Olin-Turville Park to both Bare and her husband. Ald. David Ahrens — who supports the proposal and has part of Olbrich Park in his district — says he was unaware that Eskrich used her city email account to introduce Lake Monona Bare to Knepp.

ISTHMUS.COM MARCH 2–8, 2017

OLBRICH PARK

DAVID MICHAEL MILLER

“I don’t think this was likely to have confused any potential respondent to the point of not engaging.” Still, Godfrey wonders what would have happened if the proposal had been more explicit. “If Great Dane, One Barrel Brewing or whoever was interested in operating a biergarten at Olbrich, the [RFP] suggests that they can’t sell alcohol,” says Godfrey. “Even if this was just sloppiness, bringing alcohol into the park is a pretty big policy change. You’d think they’d be more careful about that language.”

Parking Lot

ke s

Opponents of the proposed biergarten at Olbrich Park are quick to mention that one of the project’s developers — Erik Kesting — is the husband of Ald. Sara Eskrich. Until now, there was zero evidence to suspect the alder had greased the skids for her husband’s business venture. But public documents reveal more than previously reported. In November 2015, Eskrich used her city email account to formally introduce her husband’s future business partner, Mike Bare, to the head of the Parks Division to discuss biergartens. In March, the alder shared information about the city’s interest in biergartens with her husband and Bare. In April, she met with a parks official to talk about biergarten concepts. In June, her husband’s company applied to develop a biergarten at a city park. And in September — despite the city’s request to developers that included language prohibiting alcohol sales — Kesting was recommended to run a biergarten at Olbrich park. Eskrich insists she’s “not done anything improper,” but some are crying foul about the ongoing communication that the alder helped facilitate — and that her family could profit from. These events were enough to convince east-side resident Beth Godfrey, who obtained the documents, that the first-of-its kind city project deserves more scrutiny. “Until the ethical cloud hanging over this project is resolved,” says Godfrey, “continuing to move forward is inappropriate.”

“It establishes a poor record in terms of who has access to inside information. We expect things to be above board and that everybody is treated as equals,” says Ahrens. “I don’t think [the proposal] should be rejected for that reason. It seems rather minor, but it shouldn’t have happened.” Ald. Rebecca Kemble says even the perception of impropriety can have a “corrosive effect on the council.” “Alders serve in the public trust,” says Kemble. “We should avoid any communication or behavior that creates the perception that we are using our power and privileged access to information to financially benefit a friend or family member.”

BY DYLAN BROGAN

New Asphalt

Counte

House Beach aga Rutab orts sp Paddle

Beach

Records also show that Eskrich was involved in discussions with the Parks Division about establishing biergartens in some parks. On April 7, Eskrich met with Claire Oleksiak, parks community services manager, to discuss a biergarten concept at Olin-Turville Park, part of which falls in her district. Both Oleksiak and Eskrich say a biergarten at Olbrich park was not discussed at the meeting. Eventually parks staff determined that a biergarten would not work at Olin-Turville.

When did staff start considering a biergarten at Olbrich? That is not clear. “You know how stars align sometimes?” Oleksiak says. “We did have an RFP that was going to go out for two of our underused facilities [at Olbrich and Marshall parks]. That opportunity [for a permanent biergarten] was possible at those sites.” The BKM Group was founded in June 2016 days before the deadline to submit proposals for Olbrich. The day before the RFP for Olbrich was released, records show Oleksiak and Bare talked on the phone. Oleksiak doesn’t recall what was discussed but says “it’s possible” they talked about the Olbrich RFP. Knepp says he wasn’t aware Kesting was involved in the project before the formal RFP process began. Knepp says he first “heard the name Erik Kesting” when the alder’s husband was listed as the agent for the liquor license application the BKM Group submitted to the Alcohol License Review Committee. Kesting declined to comment for this story. Bare says he and Kesting had been

discussing “investment opportunities for a while.” But Eskrich and Bare say Kesting did not become a partner in the biergarten business until the Parks Division released its RFP for the Olbrich beach house. “I had not discussed the idea, if at all, in any detail, with either [Eskrich or Kesting] right up until the RFP was released,” says Bare. BKM Group’s proposal calls for it to invest at least $62,500 by 2023 to improve the Olbrich beach house. They hope to open in May and would pay an annual fee to the city, starting at $12,350 this year, and increasing to $30,000 by 2023. Eskrich claims that she “very intentionally” distanced herself from her husband’s proposal at Olbrich. She has recused herself from voting on the proposal and filed a state of interest with the city in July 2016. “It’s not appropriate for alders to be voting or involved in something that has a direct financial implication for them. I’ve been approaching it from that perspective from the very beginning,” says Eskrich. “I have not approached any of my [council] colleagues or city staff to talk about the proposal.”

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MARCH 2–8, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

Bare says that his interest in developing a biergarten came about organically and was not facilitated by his friendship with Eskrich. A state lobbyist, he is familiar with biergartens in other parts of the state, including in Milwaukee. “It got me thinking, why doesn’t Madison have biergartens similar to what Milwaukee has?” says Bare. “I asked the question of the parks department and shared some information that I put together with them and started developing this idea.” Bare says concerns about his business partner’s marriage to Eskrich are “a desperate attempt to derail the proposal” by those opposed to the project. “There have been no improprieties whatsoever, and Ald. Eskrich has declared her conflict and recused herself from consideration of the proposal,” says Bare. “To question the integrity and put at risk the reputation of alders, members of the parks commission and city staff is unfortunate and unjustified.” Bare adds that he finds these “conspiracies” troubling and stifling to entrepreneurs who want to do business with the city. When Isthmus tells Godfrey about these remarks, she bursts out laughing. “He should be troubled,” she says, “not by the conspiracies, but by the information that links him to potentially having special insider information about this whole RFP process.” ■

ONE DAY, ONE COMMUNITY MANY WAYS TO SHARE

■ MADISON MATRIX

n WEEK IN REVIEW THURSDAY, FEB. 23

BIG CITY

Madison’s soonto-be-shuttered Oscar Mayer plant gets its first prospective buyer, a national firm that specializes in decommissioning and selling old factories.

WINNING

Dairy producers from south-central Wisconsin submit nearly 500 entries to the United States Championship Cheese Competition, which is basically the Oscars of cheese.

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson declines repeated invitations to attend a town hall meeting in Madison, but several hundred constituents show up anyway. RoJo later says he prefers telephone town halls. But isn’t it more satisfying to be yelled at in person?

C WARD

he family of Tony T Robinson, a 19-year-old biracial man killed by a Madison Police officer in 2015, settles a federal civil rights lawsuit for $3.35 million with the city’s insurer. MPD Chief Mike Koval insists the settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing and says it may have a “chilling” effect on policing.

FRIDAY, FEB. 24 n

LOSING

Gov. Scott Walker’s budget cuts funding for a statewide farm-to-school coordinator, the Wisconsin State Journal reports. We get it. Now that Michelle Obama is out, so are the vegetables.

State Attorney General Brad Schimel files an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to challenge a ruling last month that struck down the Republican-drawn legislative boundaries as unconstitutional. Taxpayers have already spent $2 million defending the GOP’s shenanigans!

Universities list, the university announces. There are currently 87 Badgers volunteering worldwide, spreading the liberal propaganda of kindness and public service. n Former Dane County Assistant District Attorney Bob Jambois files a lawsuit alleging that his former boss, DA Ismael Ozanne, “waged a campaign of retaliation and harassment that forced him to resign,” the Wisconsin State Journal reports. Jambois unsuccessfully challenged Ozanne for DA

SMALL TOWN

Parking Ramp

olice respond shortly P after 2 a.m. to reports of shots fired at the Mobil gas station at 3019 E. Washington Ave. A man wounded by gunshots is later found dead in a crashed car. Police are investigating as a possible homicide. n Incumbent Ed Hughes withdraws from the Madison school board race after announcing that his wife’s cancer has returned. n

UW-Madison ranks first among large schools on the Peace Corps 2017 Top Volunteer-Producing Colleges and

We have a space for you!

... a little more convenient ISTHMUS.COM MARCH 2–8, 2017

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1

TUESDAY, FEB. 28 n

in the August primary election, making things really awkward around the office.

THETHE CENTER FOR PRESENTS CENTER FORTHE THE HUMANITIES HUMANITIES PRESENTS THE CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES PRESENTS THE THE CENTER CENTER FOR FOR THE THE HUMANITIES HUMANITIES PRESENTS PRESENTS

JEDEDIAH PURDY JEDEDIAH PURDY JEDEDIAH PURDY JUSTICE, POWER, AND LANDSCAPE JEDEDIAH PURDY Robinson O. Everett Professor of Law, Duke Law School

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HUMANITIES.WISC.EDU | 608.263.3412 Conrad A. Building Ave. Conrad A. Elvehjem L140,800 800University University Conrad A. Elvehjem ElvehjemBuilding Building L140, L140, 800 University Ave.Ave. FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC HUMANITIES.WISC.EDU | 608.263.3412 FREE OPEN TO TO THE PUBLIC FREEAND AND OPEN THE PUBLIC HUMANITIES.WISC.EDU | 608.263.3412 HUMANITIES.WISC.EDU | 608.263.3412

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Veteran’s exercise study on Pain The Department of Veterans Affairs is conducting a study aimed at understanding brain function of pain and the impact of weight-training exercise in Gulf War (1990- 1991) Veterans with Chronic Muscle and Joint Pain. • We are looking for volunteers to participate in a 16-week exercise study, with follow-ups at 6 and 12 months, conducted at the Madison VA Medical Center and the University of Wisconsin – Madison. • Volunteers for this study may be asked to take part in a 16-week weight-training program with a personal trainer. We will be assessing responses to painful heat stimuli on multiple occasions and while undergoing functional brain imaging scans.

12:30 to 2 PM

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If you wish to participate, please leave your name, phone number and mention “Veteran’s Exercise Study on Pain” at 608-262-2457

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MARCH 2–8, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

• Volunteers who successfully complete the study can earn up to $525 and will be awarded a $300 membership to a gym in their local area. Volunteers will also be eligible for various fitness equipment prizes.

n NEWS

What’s happening with Obamacare? Questions you might have that we might have answers for

ISTHMUS.COM MARCH 2–8, 2017

BY MICHAEL MEULEMANS

If you’re confused about the future of the Affordable Care Act and all the talk about repeal and replacement, join the club. Heck, about one-third of Americans polled by Morning Consult apparently don’t even realize that the Affordable Care Act and Obamacare are the same thing! Sad. At least in Wisconsin, it seems to be working for people. This year a record 242,863 Wisconsin residents enrolled in the program, an increase of 1.6 percent over 2016. Adam VanSpankeren of Covering Wisconsin, which helps clients connect with insurance coverage, including Obamacare, says the “need and demand is still there.” One reason for the plan’s popularity is that pre-existing conditions can no longer be used to deny coverage. “Obamacare has been a blessing for us,” says Tammy Wolfgram, a small business owner near Hartland. Wolfgram was previously denied coverage due to her 11-year-old daughter’s pre-existing condition. Eventually she was able to get coverage, but for a price: a $1,000 monthly premium and large deductibles through Wisconsin’s high-risk pool (HIRSP). Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison) says the GOP budget resolution introduced in January to repeal Obamacare puts at risk nearly 2.5 million state residents who have pre-existing conditions, like the Wolfgram family. Nevertheless, President Donald Trump is determined to dismantle the program. In his first address to Congress Tuesday night, he promised consumers would have greater choice with a plan based on tax credits and expanded health savings accounts — but he made no mention of subsidies to help consumers pay for their insurance. But how will the president and congressional Republicans get on the same page and enact a replacement? For the past six years we have heard a lot about repealing Obamacare, but few details about the replacement. Now, finally, replacement options are being proposed, including one introduced by House leaders on Feb. 17. While Congress’ repeal of Obamacare may occur quickly, it is believed any replacement would be phased in by Republicans over the next few years in the hopes of not disrupting individual coverage. But who knows? Much remains unclear and uncertain. Here are some questions you might have that we tried to get answers to. How many Wisconsin residents with Obamacare are subsidized? Roughly 85 percent of the 239,000 individuals with Obamacare in 2016 had premium subsidies, reducing their coverage costs by $332 monthly on average.

If Obamacare is repealed, what effect will it have on those who get insurance through their employers? If there’s no equivalent replacement matching the number of persons covered, the uninsured will contribute to cases of uncompensated care, such as those that existed pre-Obamacare. The costs incurred by physicians and hospitals will shift to those who do have coverage, spiking those insurance premiums.

DAVID MICHAEL MILLER

How did Obamacare affect insurance premiums in Wisconsin? A study by Citizen Action Wisconsin found that health insurance inflation in Wisconsin averaged 15 percent each year from 2001 to 2013 prior to Obamacare and just 2 percent on average in the four years since. What pieces of Obamacare are likely to be repealed? The individual mandate and premium subsidies. What parts are likely to stay? The pre-existing condition ban and coverage up to age 26 for young adults on their parents’ insurance. Will all current recipients lose coverage if the program is repealed without a replacement? They will lose coverage they have now and may be eligible for individual coverage outside the exchanges, but without premium subsidies. And, according to a new report from Citizen Action of Wisconsin, if the tax subsidies were eliminated, it would add an average of $4,953 in 2018 premiums for Wisconsin residents who used subsidies to purchase insurance through the exchange. Will those with a subsidy to buy insurance through Obamacare have to pay the full cost if the program is repealed? Yes, most likely but it is dependent on what the replacement coverage looks like. Any changes Republicans make would not be effective until January 2018 at the earliest. If the ACA is repealed, Rep. Mark Pocan says four in five working families would lose coverage, and more than

9 million Americans across the country who would receive insurance tax credits would no longer receive that help. It’s been reported that Republicans have 10 replacement plans for Obamacare. Do any of these seem more likely to become law? They all include tax credits to purchase insurance, and many allow insurance to be sold across state lines, which would be a big regulatory change. One new plan, the Patient Freedom Act, released Jan. 24 by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), would allow states the choice of staying with Obamacare or auto-enrolling consumers on high-deductible health plans financed by health savings accounts. Plans proposed by House Speaker Paul Ryan and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price include age-based tax credits to purchase high-deductible health plans that would leave millions more uninsured persons than currently are under Obamacare. The Price and Ryan plans reverse Obamacare’s ban on pre-existing conditions. At this point there’s not a clear betting favorite. Why is it so hard to come up with a replacement plan for Obamacare? Health insurance is an intricate patchwork of components. Obamacare builds on decades of health insurance legislation from Medicare and Medicaid to COBRA and HIPAA. When Obamacare, rather than a single-payer system, was passed, it added complexity. As in the past, any new law is likely to add complexity as well, although Republicans argue that it won’t.

How would the insurance market be affected by a repeal-and-replace strategy that includes a year or two grace period while Republicans come up with a new program? That would leave tremendous uncertainty in the market. It is widely believed this would cause more insurers to withdraw from Obamacare for 2018. On Feb. 14, Humana announced it is withdrawing from the individual marketplace and Obamacare’s public exchanges for 2018. More insurer withdrawals reduces competition and drives premiums to rise at a much higher rate. Those with employer-based coverage could also face higher premiums. If there’s no mandate to have insurance, what effect will this have on the insurance industry? If the individual mandate goes away, fewer young, healthy individuals will buy coverage. These healthy individuals are needed to offset the costs of older, less healthy Americans; higher premiums overall will result. What do Madison insurers think about repealing Obamacare? Phillip Dougherty of Wisconsin Association of Health Plans says that Wisconsin will be okay because it is “well-positioned for proposals targeting consumer choice and affordability,” noting that “Wisconsin has the most competitive health insurance market in the nation.” Has anything, other than Obamacare, been done to drive down the cost of health insurance or health care in general? The 2015 Medicare Access CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) attempts to rein in costs by paying providers based on outcomes rather than individual services and tests. It’s redefining health care reimbursement, according to Chris Queram, president and CEO of the Madison-based Wisconsin Collaboration for Healthcare Quality: “Value is a megatrend and firmly entrenched regardless of what happens with Obamacare.” n Michael Meulemans is a Monona-based health insurance consultant.

MARCH 2017 EXHIBITION

FILM

EXHIBITION

THROUGH APR 2

MAR 3

MAR 5–8

In the Light of Naples: The Art of Francesco de Mura

The Ornithologist (O ORNITÓLOGO)

What Can Art Do?

Chazen Museum of Art 750 University Ave Hours Vary (Closed Mon)

First ever retrospective of Francesco de Mura, the greatest painter of Naples’ Golden Age and one of the last Baroque old masters.

Cinematheque, 4070 Vilas Hall 821 University Ave 7:00 pm – Fri

When his kayak capsizes during an expedition, an ornithologist finds himself stranded in the lush forests of northern Portugal. FREE OPERA

FREE LECTURE

MAR 2

Neoliberalism, Authoritarianism, Fascism: Where Are We and How Did We Get Here? L160 Elvehjem Building 800 University Ave 7:30 pm – Thur

Wendy Brown’s talk is a beginning attempt to map the emergence of contemporary rightwing populism, nationalism and authoritarianism from the ruins of neoliberalism. FREE T H E AT R E

MAR 2–5 & MAR 9–12

Twelfth Night Hemsley Theatre, Vilas Hall 821 University Ave 7:30 pm – Thur–Sat 2:00 pm – Sat & Sun

$10–20

The Turn of the Screw Music Hall 925 Bascom Hill 7:30 pm – Fri & Tue 3:00 pm – Sun

In Benjamin Britten’s operatic adaptation of Henry James’ famous novella, a young governess in 19th century England finds herself in a mortal struggle with ghostly spirits for the souls of two young children in her charge.

March 30–April 6 2017.wifilmfest.org Join us for the largest university-managed film festival in the nation with over 150 films shown at five venues. Preview event and fundraiser on Mar 8. Event tickets are $40-50.

What can art do? Explore this question at this salon-style exhibition of art that promotes social justice or combats violations of human rights. Reception on Mar 8 from 6:00–8:00 pm. FREE CONCERT

General film tickets go on sale Mar 11 at noon. Film tickets are $5-10.

CONCERT

MAR 17–28

DESIGN BY CARLEY CUTA

Interior Architecture Showcase: Six Years of Excellence Ruth Davis Design Gallery School of Human Ecology 1300 Linden Drive Days and Hours Vary

Examples of student course work including sketching, rendering, CAD and 3-D modeling are on display as part of the accreditation review by the Council for Interior Design Accreditation (CIDA). FREE LECTURE

$10–25

MAR 14

F E S T I VA L

MAR 4

14th Annual Wisconsin Flute Festival Concert

MAR 5

Locations Vary Sat – Hours Vary

Wisconsin Union Theater 800 Langdon St 7:30 pm – Sun

The Wisconsin Flute Festival is an educational event for flutists and enthusiasts. Guest flutist Lorna McGhee is the principal flutist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Festival during the day ($25-35) with free evening concert at 5:00 pm.

Gallery 7, 7th Floor Humanities Building 455 N Park St Hours Vary

Solas “Irish-American supergroup” The renowned Irish-American band is on its last tour after 20 years of playing to full halls. Do not miss this concert! $10–29

FREE CONCERT

Detailed Calendar | Parking | Ticketing

Teaching AfricanAmerican Songs & Spirituals with Emery Stephens Morphy Hall, Humanities Building 455 N Park Street 6:30 pm – Tues

Guest artist, baritone Emery Stephen from Wayne State University in Detroit, will guide students in the singing of African-American songs and spirituals. FREE

MAR 30

Susan Stockwell L140 Elvehjem Building 800 University Ave 6:00 pm – Thur

Susan’s work takes many forms from small studies to large scale sculptural installations, drawings and collage. She will give an artist talk about her work and its contemporary context. FREE

MARCH 2–8, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

Shakespeare’s comedy of mistaken love and lost twins gets a tropical twist with a setting in 19th century Hawaii.

MAR 3–7

Wisconsin Film Festival

EXHIBITION

n OPINION

Corporate dragon-slayer Ed Garvey, rock solid in his beliefs, relished a good fight BY MATT ROTHSCHILD Matt Rothschild is the executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

Last Wednesday morning, I was at the airport in Fort Myers, Florida, coming home from vacation, when a good friend texted me three brutal words: “Ed Garvey died.” The news took my knees out. I’d heard that Ed was in the hospital. And I knew he’d been fighting Parkinson’s for a long time. And I’d seen him grow frailer. But I didn’t know his death was imminent. I met Ed 30 years ago, when I was just getting started at The Progressive under the tutelage of legendary editor Erwin Knoll. Erwin and his wife, Doris, would throw annual July 4th celebrations at their house, and Ed and his wife, Betty, would be there. Ed was always in good spirits, with a twinkle in his eye and a story to tell. From afar, I watched with admiration as Ed ran principled campaigns for U.S. Senate and for Wisconsin governor, only to lose to the big money every time. Then in 1989 I had the pleasure of editing a terrific piece he wrote for The Progressive, “It’s Money that Matters,” about how messed up our campaign finance system was. He was surprisingly easy to work with, and didn’t mind the meddling I did with his copy. After that, I’d see him at parties and fundraisers, and I’d hear him on Wisconsin Public Radio, and I’d marvel at his delightful wit. Here’s a favorite story of Betty’s: Their daughter Kathleen, who was raised a Catholic, married conservative Joe McNeil, a Lutheran. Soon after the marriage, Kathleen marched in and told Ed and Betty, “Joe’s decided to convert.” To which Ed responded, “You mean he’s becoming a Democrat?” I admired Ed for his pioneering work representing the NFL Players Association. “He pushed the union philosophy towards issues he called freedom issues,” says DeMaurice Smith, the current executive director of the union, in a sweet

three-minute video in memoriam that the union posted online. “The owners hated Ed not because he was smarter than they were and he was funny. They hated Ed because he challenged their right to ‘own’ men.” I admired Ed for taking on Nestle in the fight against its subsidiary Perrier, which wanted to sop up some of Wisconsin’s water. Nestle lost. He also played a role in the fight against Exxon Mobil’s proposed Crandon mine up north. Exxon Mobil lost. Ed was kind of a corporate dragon-slayer. I also admired Ed for taking on the Wisconsin Department of Corrections for its flagrant use of solitary confinement at the Supermax prison at Boscobel. Ed prevailed here, too, with the help of the ACLU. He told me — with indignation he always had at the ready — that “everyone’s worried about human rights abuses down in Guantanamo when we’ve got them right here in southwest Wisconsin.” I got to know Ed better after he launched Fighting Bob Fest in 2002. It was a brilliant

idea. Excavate and celebrate Wisconsin’s progressive heritage, embodied by Fighting Bob La Follette. Lubricate the event with beer, as Garvey’s friend Jim Hightower liked to say. And then recharge everyone’s batteries for the work ahead. The first year, Ed didn’t know whether anyone would show up in Baraboo, but show up they did, and some years the crowd swelled to over 8,000 people.

THIS MODERN WORLD

Ed was a worrier. Every year, as the event grew closer, he’d worry that we weren’t going to get big-name draws, and he’d fret about the possibility of rain, so he eventually brought Fighting Bob Fest to the Alliant Center for a few years. (Now it’s happily at Breese Stevens, under the auspices of The Progressive and the Cap Times.) The last time I saw Ed was, fittingly, at Fighting Bob Fest last September, where his appearance was met with a standing ovation. Ed was our organizer, our preacher, and sometimes our comedian. He was a happy warrior. On his old website, fightingbob.com, he always hung an old Irish proverb: “Is this a private fight, or can anyone join?” Walt Whitman described himself as “garrulous to the very end.” Garvey was “principled to the very end.” Once when he was asked why he was so steadfast in his beliefs, he responded with characteristic self-deprecation: “I’ve got too many friends for me to sell out.” I tried to call Ed a couple weeks ago. The number I had for him was disconnected. The new number I got for him went to his daughter, I think, who asked me if I wanted to leave a message. I said, “Don’t worry about it,” and didn’t leave my name. I just wanted to see how he was doing. I just wanted to thank him for all he’d done. n

BY TOM TOMORROW

ISTHMUS.COM MARCH 2–8, 2017

Today’s seniors live longer and healthier after retirement, but are they making the best of this gift of time?

Thursdays, Mar. 16 - May 18 Sign up today! Special introductory pricing of $99 (Program Value is $250). Call 608-267-8650 for more information or Email czimmerman@cityofmadison.com

2:30pm - 4pm

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n FEEDBACK

Trouble brewing The proposal to place a beer garden next the Olbrich Park beach house is speeding through city hall (“Brewhaha,” 12/15/2016; see also article on page 6). Neighborhood residents and park users have concerns about noise pollution, pedestrian safety, traffic congestion, parking and shared restroom capacity. Revenues benefit three private investors. The city receives very little in return and could lose money. There has been no adequate cost/ benefit analysis. Madison police and park rangers’ costs will rise. The investors want the city to share the cost of electrical upgrades that are unnecessary for beach usage. The Parks Division recently underestimated the costs of an addition to Central Park by $2 million. What unexpected costs will the taxpayers ultimately pay to have a privately operated beer garden in a public park? Alcohol was banned from Olbrich Park in 2015. Pricey craft beers will be sold only to those able to afford them. Other park users fishing, shooting hoops, throwing Frisbees and playing volleyball will not be able to bring in more affordable beer. When open daily, this public space will be only be available to adults 21 and over, and to minors accompanied by a spouse, legal guardian or parent (no other relatives). Please contact your alderperson ASAP. Common Council votes March 7. Ask them to vote no. Suggest the city have a trial run with a pop-up beer garden traveling between several parks. In Milwaukee, a local brewery

truck travels to county parks. The shared revenue helps maintain parks. Pauline Gilbertson (via email)

Stand up and fight Since Dave Cieslewicz wrote his article belittling the largest nationwide demonstration is U.S. history, a lot has happened (“Nothing’s Happening Here,” 2/2/2017). All across the nation, people are packing congressional town hall meetings. As a result, scheduled Republican town hall meetings are down 84 percent from 2015 because they’re afraid of their own constituents. A White House petition to see Trump’s tax records garnered more signatures than any other White House petition in history. People are getting engaged and getting organized. All of this is a necessary part of reclaiming our democracy and protecting human rights. Cieslewicz argues that this does nothing to advance “liberal” causes. Cieslewicz, like many Democrats, misses the point. These marches, these town hall meetings, these actions aren’t about “expanding the base” or to “win back blue-collar voters” (all his words). They are about average people standing up for human rights, like access to health care, access to education, clean environment and representative government. These actions, the Women’s March in particular, were about drawing a line in the sand, and saying “We will fight.” The battle will be fought on many fronts: the ballot box, the courts and the street.

Share comments with Isthmus via email, edit@isthmus.com, and via Forum.isthmus.com, Facebook and Twitter, or write letters to Isthmus, 100 State St., Suite 301, Madison WI 53703. All comments are subject to editing. The views expressed here are solely those of the contributors. These opinions do not necessarily represent those of Isthmus Publishing Company.

OFF THE SQUARE

BY ALAN TALAGA & JON LYONS

Maybe Cieslewicz and Democratic politicians should be standing with us and work to harness this momentum instead of downplaying its importance. Demonstrations generate momentum and give voice to the voiceless. Resistance is the new normal. Get used to it. Andrew Posselt (via email)

Community effort I much appreciated Elisa Wiseman’s fine cover story on the Odyssey Project, “A Life Worth Living” (2/23/2017). I’ve been a small part of the teaching staff since the program began and have found it to be the most enriching teaching experience of my life. Ave’s story is quite moving — and emblematic of the over 400 students who have made this Odyssey over the last 14 years. In focusing on one student, however, I think we miss a crucial aspect of what makes Odyssey such a unique and uniquely valuable experience. The students, strangers the first night of class and from many cultures and backgrounds, be-

come a community, even an extended family, and the class becomes a sanctuary as well as a place of exploration and learning. Here there is no competition. We learn together and help each other. The goal is for every student who begins the journey to end it together on graduation night in May. The journey doesn’t end there. Their new family will always be there for them. We all leave the classroom each Wednesday night strengthened, renewed and rededicated. No matter what they will go on to do after graduation, they will be forever changed. Marshall Cook (via email)

Pet therapy Many, many thanks to Pat Dillon for her excellent article on Patricia McConnell, “Calling All Survivors,” regarding sexual assault, dogs with issues and how it can all work out. It takes courage to speak up, and I so appreciate her putting herself out there in the light. I was sexually assaulted as a young child, and it left a mark. Many years later, I traveled to New Orleans and brought myself back a stray dog that I named Nola. She came with a bunch of fears, and it was work. As I watched her heal and get strong, I did the same. My heartfelt thanks to Nola and to Patricia. Anne Walker (via email)

Correction The cutline in last week’s opinion column misidentified Mark Pocan as Mike Pocan.

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■ COVER STORY

So long, safety net

The state goes after people on unemployment for making honest mistakes By Joe Tarr ❏ Photography by Sarah Maughan

ISTHMUS.COM MARCH 2–8, 2017

From August 2007 until June 2015, Cynthia Gussert

worked as an office manager and secretary for Springhetti Landscaping and Lawn Care in Neenah, answering phones, paying bills and doing other office tasks. She liked the job, but during the winter months, work ground to a halt and the owner was forced to lay off Gussert, along with most of his employees. Gussert — like thousands of employees laid off seasonally around the state — would file for unemployment benefits to help pay her bills until work picked up again. During those months, Gussert would assist the company’s owner, Dan Springhetti — who attended the same church as her — by writing checks to his snow plowers and keeping the books. It never amounted to more than an hour or two of work in a week. She wasn’t paid for the work until months later, so she didn’t claim it when filing for benefits. The pay for this work was so small that, even if she had reported it, it would not have reduced her benefits. Gussert kept filing for unemployment during these winter months until December 2014, when the state’s Department of Workforce Development sent her a notice accusing her of fraudulently collecting benefits. All told, the department said that Gussert owed more than

$20,000, not including fines that could be as high as 40 percent. She was one of 11 people with the company that the state, after a two-year investigation, accused of conspiring with their employer to defraud taxpayers. Gussert was terrified. “I was a single mom with two kids at home that made $13 an hour,” she says. “I couldn’t think about paying that back; I live paycheck to paycheck, basically.” She was afraid of more than just crippling debt. “If you don’t pay it back, you could end up in jail.” Gussert later appealed and won her case. But she is among a growing number of people in Wisconsin who find themselves scrutinized by the state for the unemployment benefits they receive. In December 2015, the state departments of Justice and Workforce Development announced they were cracking down on unemployment fraud. “It’s shameful to see this safety net, intended to help those going through a period of financial difficulty and vulnerability, ripped off by fraudulent unemployment insurance claims,” Attorney General Brad Schimel said in a press release. “Those who take advantage of the system and steal our hardearned tax dollars should be held accountable and prosecuted for their misconduct.” Worker advocates say that this crackdown is increasingly going after people like Gussert, who find themselves before a judge, facing fines and even criminal charges for honest mistakes or even the mistakes of state workers. Victor Forberger, an attorney who represented Gussert, specializes in unemployment issues and keeps a blog monitoring the state’s new efforts. He says in its crackdown on fraud, the Department of Workforce Development seems to want to prevent anyone from getting benefits. “They’re not trying to stop mistakes; they’re trying to make it worse.”

In 1932, Wisconsin became the first state in the coun-

Keyon Davis was contacted by the state after tripping up on a confusing question on the phone filing system: “It seemed like they were trying to make me seem like I was a criminal.”

➡

MARCH 2–8, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

try to pass an unemployment insurance program. It took four years for the fund to begin paying benefits. On Aug. 17, 1936, Madison resident Neils B. Ruud was issued the first unemployment check, for $15. By then the United States had passed its own unemployment insurance program — modeled after Wisconsin’s and operated in conjunction with individual state programs — as part of the Social Security Act of 1935. In Wisconsin, employers pay different unemployment taxes. There’s a federal tax to cover administrative costs, which is essentially .6 percent. The state charges businesses two rates: a “basic tax,” to cover benefits if any of its employees are laid off, and a “solvency tax,” which covers benefits should an employer go out of business. “A lot of people think it’s a tax on the employees, but that’s not true,” says Jen Bizzotto, a UW-Madison law student who volunteers with the Unemployment Appeals Clinic, which provides free legal aid to workers. “A lot of people think the state is paying it, but that’s not true. It’s the employer that’s paying it.” Each employer pays state taxes on a sliding scale, depending on how big its payroll is, the number of people it has laid off recently and how large the reserve fund is. This tax can be as high as 12 percent of its payroll, for seasonal industries with high turnover, like construction, or as low as zero, for employers with little turnover and a high fund balance. “Like any insurance premium, when someone files a claim,

academy for contemporary dance and choreography

Dance Intensive Dance Camps Weekly Classes Guest Artist Workshops

Summer Dance! Ages 3 to adult Beginner to Advanced/Professional

JUNE 19-24

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Camp Cabofinod?se! What will you

• CAMP available for grades 1st-6th • A fun and safe environment • Full and Part-time schedules • Qualified school age teachers • Nutritious/homemade breakfast, lunch, and snack • Weekly Field Trips, Swimming, and more • Near East Side location To enroll call 251-5432 or email school.age@redcaboosedaycare.org www.campcaboose.org

Summer Program June 19th - August 18th

For children ages 2 1/2 to 6 years Led by highly qualified, trained teachers 8406 Ellington Way Middleton, WI 53562 (608) 827-MCMS www.madisoncommunity montessori.org

For more info: office@madisoncommunitymontessori.org

MSCR Summer Fun! REGISTER TODAY

• MIDDLE SCHOOL U • Based in Madison Explore your interests & develop your passions

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ISTHMUS.COM MARCH 2–8, 2017

Call MSCR 204-3000!

MSCR offers affordable recreation programs for all ages. No membership required.

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Check out a variety of camps for ages 3 - grade 9. Camp Express (for preschoolers), Madtown Adventures, Fascination Station, Soccer, Kids Kamp, Super Center Arts Camp, Mad City Sports Camp & MAD Youth Volunteer Camp and Camp Adventure!

Registration begins March 13 204-3000 or www.mscr.org

Based in Madison Travel Clubs - Outdoor adventures

• IMMERSION CAMPS • Based in Madison Circus, theater, language

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Located in Madison, Verona & Waunakee Weekly theme-based activities

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Saturday, Apr. 29, 1-3 p.m. Rolling admissions throughout the school year, grades 2-8.

Students finishing grades 6-12

Celebrating 50 Years of Excellence in Arts Education

Shell Lake Arts Center PO Box 315, Shell Lake, WI 54871

715-468-2414 • info@shelllakeartscenter.org

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Summer Program June 26 - July 21

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Offering Summer Camps in Visual Arts, Music & Theatre

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Summer fun for everyone at Easter Seals Wisconsin Camps!

ISTHMUS.COM MARCH 2–8, 2017

Build Problem Solving Skills Discover How Things Work Explore Engineering as a Career Option Learn Math and Science while having FUN! Engage in Real World Engineering Problems

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Camp Wawbeek & Respite Camp

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■ COVER STORY

What will you create this summer? BadgerBOTS Robotics and Technology camps for every kid Programming Robotics 3D Printing Minecraft One week day camps for ages 7-14 June 19 - August 25

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Keyon Davis loves his job at TruGreen in Monona where he has worked since April 2015. “My job is to fill up all the lawn trucks and residential trucks and make sure they have what they need,” he says. “I like how I can go at my own pace.” When he was laid off in November 2015, he started collecting unemployment. Davis found the weekly filing process — where people call into an automated phone system or log into a website — confusing. Uncertainty about one question — “Were you able to work full-time and available for full-time work?” — led to his being charged with thousands of dollars in fines. Davis had a part-time job at Ella’s Deli. Because he thought he needed to be available for full-time work if he were to find it, as part of his work search requirements, he was not accepting more hours at Ella’s. “The problem was I was answering ‘yes’ and then it came out differently, because Ella’s was saying, ‘He’s limiting his own work,’” he says. “On my end, I was able and available. But on the end of Ella’s I was basically telling them I wasn’t available.” A few weeks after he’d been receiving benefits, he realized he’d been incorrectly answering the question. He immediately called the state unemployment office. “I wanted to make it clear I didn’t intentionally hide anything from them,” Davis remembers. “I don’t know what went on on their end, but it seems nobody actually did anything to fix the information because it still sat there as an error.” About six weeks later, he got a letter saying he owed more than $2,000. Davis was interviewed by several staff from the Department of Workforce Development. He grew frustrated trying to explain what happened. “It seemed like they were trying to make me seem like I was a criminal,” he remembers. “And that’s not who I am. I gave them all the information that they needed, and they still insisted on trying to make me out to be a bad guy.” The Legislature in fact made that the default approach toward the unemployed, according to attorney Forberger. In a 2015 law, the state changed what it means to “conceal” income while receiving unemployment benefits.

Under the new law, the state no longer has to “prove that a claimant had an intent or design to receive benefits to which the claimant knows he or she was not entitled.” Now, honest mistakes can lead to fines and criminal charges, Forberger says. Tyler Tichenor, a DWD spokesperson, counters that the change was made “to make the definition clearer for claimants so they could better understand what they need to do to file a claim accurately.” John Dipko, another department spokesperson, says the state is making a concerted effort to crack down on fraud and that referrals for prosecution began increasing even before the definition change. “The number of referrals have gone up,” Dipko says. “We’ve been much more aggressive in referring the most egregious cases of fraud for consideration for possible prosecution. The result of this crackdown, the department argues, is that the number of people defrauding the state has dropped. According to the department, the state lost more than $20 million through concealment in 2014, a figure that fell to $8.6 million last year. However, a December 2014 report by the Legislative Audit Bureau found that only 9.5 percent of the overpayments between 2011 and 2014 was the result of people intentionally trying to defraud the state. The rest were due to unintentional mistakes or department errors. Tichenor says that the state has an appeals process for applicants when mistakes happen. “The bottom line is our UI staff is highly trained, professional and committed to ensure benefits are paid to eligible claimants,” he says. “We ascribe to the philosophy of ‘when in doubt, check it out,’ not ‘when it doubt, pay it out.’”

Jacqueline Ingram was also confused by system. Ingram works at the Boys and Girls Club, driving a van to help kids get from school to the center or to field trips. But there are periods when programming lags, during which Ingram has collected unemployment. Like a lot of claimants, she stumbled with this question: “During the week, did you work or did you receive sick pay, bonus pay or commission?” Her confusion eventually led to an $18,000 fine. Bizzotto, who represented her, points out that the question is particularly confusing when you hear it on the state’s automated phone system for making claims. “It’s a compound question and most people hear the commission, sick, bonus pay and think, ‘no, I didn’t earn any of that,’ so they’ll press no,” she says. Bizzotto says administrative law judges and the Labor and Industry Review Commission (or LIRC, which hears unemployment appeals) have complained about the question and asked it to be simplified. “[The DWD has] been saying for over two years now that they’ve been going to change this question,” she says. “I had a hearing in early January, and it still hadn’t changed.” Dipko and Tichenor say that the department has changed the question in the online system, breaking it out into multiple parts. But the phone system — which is in the process of being phased out — is more complicated to tweak. “It’s a 1990s-era phone system that is being retired as usage is being amped up on our online system,” Dipko says. “The majority of claimants are filing online now.”

Ingram was terrified about what might happen if she couldn’t pay back the money the state said she owed. “I got a second job, I was panicking thinking about going to jail, getting taken away from my kids,” she says. “Because at the end of the letter, it said ‘at a later date, we might press criminal charges.’ So, I’m waiting for them to come to my house.” With the help of Bizzotto, Ingram appealed her case and had the amount she owed reduced to about $3,000. But the threat of criminal charges is not an empty one.

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your premium goes up,” Bizzotto says. “We call that the employer’s unemployment tax rate. So the more people you have drawing, the higher your tax rate goes.” Benefits are calculated based on what someone earned in the previous four fiscal quarters. For those who had more than one job, multiple employers could end up covering the benefits. The most someone can get in Wisconsin is $370 a week for 26 weeks. Not every out-of-work person is eligible to collect. People laid off because of downsizing can but those fired for misconduct — for example, showing up drunk or stealing from the register — cannot. But some employees who are fired for poor performance or who quit for good cause can collect. “It always depends, that’s the lawyerly answer,” Bizzotto says. The state has long carved out exceptions for when employees who quit or are fired can receive benefits. But in the 2013-15 budget, Gov. Scott Walker and the Legislature created a new category — substantial fault — for when people can be fired and not collect benefits. And it eliminated eight of 17 exceptions when an employee who quits can collect benefits. It used to be that if a person quit a job in order to relocate with a spouse, he or she could receive benefits. The same was true if a worker had to quit because he or she reached a company’s compulsory retirement age. People in these situations can no longer collect unemployment. Also, if someone has more than one job and quits one of them, they are now ineligible to collect unemployment for the next year if they’re laid off from another job. Says Bizzotto: “You’re penalizing people who work more than one job, and it undermines the entire system of unemployment.” But even if workers do qualify for unemployment, some are finding the system doesn’t always provide the amount they are due.

n COVER STORY

After the state accused Jacqueline Ingram of owing more than $18,000 in unemployment benefits, she feared she’d be arrested and lose her children. “I’m waiting for them to come to my house.”

ISTHMUS.COM MARCH 2–8, 2017

SARAH MAUGHAN

Last August, the Justice Department took a 32-year-old Milwaukee man to court for concealing benefits. The man — who requested his name not be published — works as a construction carpenter. In 2014, the Department of Workforce Development sent him a letter saying that he’d concealed income and owed the state more than $6,000. He had two years to pay the money back and did so in about a year, the man says. Nevertheless, the Justice Department last year filed felony charges against him. Because the Milwaukee County district attorney wouldn’t prosecute the case, the Justice Department filed the charges in Dane County Court before Judge Ellen Berz. The man — who had no criminal record — traveled to Madison for five hearings. He eventually accepted a plea and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge. Although he avoided jail and probation, he now has a record. At his Aug. 26, 2016, hearing, Berz was both confused and exasperated by the case, asking the state’s attorney, Devra Ayala: “If he paid [the money] back before you charged it, why did you charge it if the whole point of charging it was to get the money back?” Ayala responded: “That is a question that I have asked, and I do not have an answer.”

Berz then noted, “Clearly the Attorney General’s office does not have enough work to do on real crime, but they have to search out offenses to charge when everything’s been repaid and the person has shown remorse. Wow. Maybe the Attorney General’s office shouldn’t be funded as well as it is because...they’re obviously searching for prosecutions that experienced prosecutors locally deem not appropriate to charge.” Tichenor, the DWD spokesperson, says that prosecutors make the decision whether to charge cases like these with information provided by DWD. “We do the legwork on our end to make sure we’re referring cases that an assistant attorney general or a district attorney would possibly take up,” he says. “It’s ultimately up to them whether they’re going to prosecute the case.”

Joe Hanauer has a hard time finding qualified people to work for his Madison-based company, Landscape Architecture, which provides a variety of residential landscaping. It can be particularly tough to find people for his snow plowing service. It’s also challenging to find people with a commercial driver’s license. When Hanauer finds skilled employees, he pays them well and contributes to their retirement plans. “These are employees we’re investing in and want to keep.”

But Wisconsin’s crackdown on unemployment benefits is making that tougher. In the past, workers who were laid off from seasonal work — like those who work in construction, landscaping or tourism jobs — didn’t have to do weekly job searches in order to receive benefits. It’s not that Hanauer’s workers — he has eight — mind doing odd jobs in the off-season. But if they find a job that they must quit in the spring when their main employment starts up, they won’t be able to file for benefits the following winter, because they will have quit a job in the past 12 months. And if they keep that job, Hanauer will have lost a skilled worker. Hanauer has been lucky enough to keep his most skilled employers, but did lose two less experienced ones last year because of the new law. Another employee struggled through the winter without filing. “I don’t know how he did it,” Hanauer says. A Nov. 17 public hearing — held at locations around the state — was filled with employers like Hanauer who had similar stories about how the unemployment insurance changes are affecting business and economic development. Hanauer says it’s also a public safety issue. If his trained employees are forced to take other work, they won’t be available during snowstorms.

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“What if on Saturday, before Christmas we get a big snowstorm, and half our lots can’t get plowed,” he says. “That’s a huge economic burden on the retail world.” “When this law was written, we had a really high unemployment rate; right now we don’t,” he adds. “I think 4 percent is considered full employment. Last numbers I saw, Dane County was under 3 percent. We have full employment. Unemployment is not an issue here. What is an issue is finding employees and being able to keep them.”

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Using data from the U.S. Department of Labor, Forberger says he has proof that Wisconsin is denying more people unemployment benefits. In a blog post from last August, he details how the state used to reject about 60 percent of all initial claims because it didn’t believe that applicants qualified. In early 2014, that percentage jumped to 77 percent and has stayed there. One of the ways the state has done this is by making the process much more complicated, increasing the number of questions applicants have to answer each week in order to get benefits, requiring applicants to document at least four job searches per week and requiring applicants to attend job search seminars. “You have to jump through all these different hoops,” he says. “And if you don’t jump through all these different hoops, you get denied benefits.”

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The state is also aggressively moving to get rid of one obstacle in its crackdown on unemployment fraud: the Labor and Industry Review Commission. The commission is an independent agency that reviews decisions of administrative law judges regarding unemployment, worker’s comp and equal rights. Its website states: “The commission’s decisions provide consistency, stability, and integrity to the programs for the employers, employees, insurers, and citizens of the State of Wisconsin.” Forberger notes that the members of the commission “aren’t a bunch of communists. This is a very pro-employer group.” Nevertheless, the commission has been routinely ruling against DWD in its unemployment fraud cases. In the 2017-19 budget, Gov. Scott Walker has proposed getting rid of the LIRC, writing it would “Remove an unnecessary layer of government and save $3,200,000.” Forberger believes the crackdown has another purpose: to drive down unemployment claims so much that there’s no point in collecting unemployment taxes. “If no one can collect unemployment benefits, why should employers pay unemployment taxes?” he asks. Meanwhile, the state has been consistently cutting the unemployment taxes that businesses pay. In his blog, Forberger explains it this way: “Unemployment claims and benefits are at record lows in the state because the state is making it difficult to impossible for claimants to receive benefits and charging the few who collect unemployment benefits with unemployment concealment. Essentially, employers are paying unemployment taxes for a benefit almost no one is using. Pretty soon, folks will start calling for eliminating the unemployment system entirely, as who wants to pay a tax that does nothing?” If that happens, he tells Isthmus: “We’d be the state that creates unemployment insurance and also ends it.” ■

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Topsy-turvy Chefs take the spotlight in unusual ways in this year’s MACN Chef Week BY ERICA KRUG

son’s “meatiest dudes,” chefs Daniel Bonanno of A Pig in a Fur Coat, Dan Fox of Heritage Tavern and Jonny Hunter of Underground Food Collective — all masters of cooked and cured meats. Together they’ll prepare a five-course vegan meal. Miller is excited for Madison-area vegans and vegetarians to have a tasting menu experience (meat eaters are welcome, too). As for Capellaro, “I love the Green Owl and we have great food, but it’s not fine dining,” she says. “I’m excited to see if we can rise to the challenge.” Tickets ($75, wine pairing +$25) are available on the Green Owl Cafe website.

Chef Week is smaller this year than the last two years — but fewer events means less competition and overlap. The 15 events will feature over 30 chefs. Other newcomers besides the Green Owl are Dough Baby Bakery and Lucille. The week kicks off on March 5 with a fundraiser at L’Etoile and Graze for the Double Dollars program, which allows FoodShare recipients to match their FoodShare dollars up to $25 at local farmers’ markets. A ticket includes beer from One Barrel Brewing Co. and small plates from Grampa’s Pizzeria, Dough

Baby Bakery, Heritage Tavern, Banzo, Estrellón, Sushi Muramoto and more. Tickets ($65) and more information are available on the L’Etoile website. There will be more boundary-breaking dinners. Fans of cooking competition shows will recognize the format of the Kosher Chopped event at UW Hillel, on March 6. Chef Jason Kierce of Adamah Neighborhood Table, the kosher restaurant located in Hillel, has invited Laila Borokhim of Layla’s,

CONTINUE D ON PAGE 26

➡

MARCH 2–8, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

Madison’s meat mavens cooking vegan food? Why would they want to do that? The “why” gets to the heart of Chef Week, the flagship event of the Madison Area Chefs Network (MACN), which takes place this year March 5-12. “More chefs are working together on events and pushing each other’s creativity further,” says MACN founding member chef Tory Miller. On March 8 at at the Green Owl Cafe, Madison’s only strictly vegetarian restaurant, new MACN member chef Jennie Capellaro will be joined by what Miller calls three of Madi-

ISTHMUS.COM MARCH 2–8, 2017

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Gilbert Altschul of Grampa’s Pizzeria and Porter, and Nick Johnson (the James Beard award-nominated chef formerly of Restaurant Magnus and more recently 1847 at the Stamm House) to face off in a Choppedstyle competition where each course will include a mystery box of ingredients and all recipes will be prepared following strict kosher guidelines. The winner claims bragging rights and a trophy. Kierce, who isn’t Jewish, had to learn all of the rules from a 275-page book describing how to cook kosher when he took the job as head chef at Adamah, and now he wants to put his fellow cooks to the test. “We have remarkable chefs here in Madison,” Kierce says. “But can they perform the way I have to every day?” Tickets are available on the UW Hillel website. There will be twin tropical takeovers — one by the staff of Lucille at the newly reopened Ohio Tavern and one by the Ohio Tavern folks at Lucille.

In addition, there will be a casual Southern-inspired meal at L’Etoile, which will get rid of the white tablecloths and take on a food hall vibe for the night; a luau with a Hawaiian menu (including poke and poi) at Madison Sourdough Company from Laila Borokhim and Molly Maciejewski of Madison Sourdough; a late-night barbecue at Heritage Tavern; and a bagel sandwich contest (customers purchasing a sandwich are eligible to vote) at Gotham Bagels with chefs from Salvatore’s Tomato Pies, A Pig in a Fur Coat, Grampa’s Pizzeria, Heritage Tavern and Deja Food Group. Patrick Sweeney, co-owner of participating restaurants Merchant and Lucille, says the week is all about celebrating good food and drink and having fun. “We’re all doing serious food, and we care deeply about our craft, but at the end of the day it’s all a celebratory offering,” Sweeney says. See the MACN website, madisonchefs. com, for details on all Chef Week events. ■

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Madison chefs Tory Miller, Kristine Miller and Lisa Jacobson team with area students to prepare breakfast at the winter Dane County Farmers’ Market. Menu: shoyu ramen, a breakfast bahn mi sandwich and a mini-doughnut with spiced sugar. The meal ($12) will benefit REAP Food Group’s Chef in the Classroom programs at Sherman Middle School and East High. 330 W. Mifflin St., 8:30-11 am (or until they sell out).

ISTHMUS.COM MARCH 2–8, 2017

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Take the short drive west on Highway 14 to get a taste of what Arena has to offer. Herbs Spices & More will be preparing three soups (varieties TBD, but at least one will be vegetarian). Arena-area chefs will be also be preparing small plates at this casual, community event. No reservations required. At Herbs Spices & More, 7342 Highway 14 in Arena, 4-7 pm.

Cigar and rum tasting Tuesday, March 7

Maduro, Madison’s only cigar bar, hosts a tasting of six different varieties of rums and La Galera cigars. Rums: Don Pancho eight-year, Don Pancho 18-year, Abuelo 12-year, Barbancourt Five Star, Botran Reserva and Atlantico Reserva. Reservations ($35) at Maduro or on the bar’s Facebook page. At 117 E. Main St., 5-7 pm.

From dive-y to delicious Tacos, tamales and street corn shine at Ohio Tavern BY ALLISON GEYER

RYAN WISNIEWSKI

Old Boy tacos paired with a refreshing paloma.

pickled mushrooms, soy-cooked daikon radish and sweet chili crema. The Ohio also does Mexican street corn, or elote. There are three varieties: a basic version with crema, queso fresco and paprika; the Diablo with chipotle crema and bacon; and the Kona, with crema, pineapple salsa and bacon. Diners can add meat for $1 or extra toppings for a quarter each. Beyond making great food, the Ohio has become a neighborhood hub for activism and entertainment. The bar has played host to a ton of community events and fundraisers, plus there’s live music Tuesdays and Thursdays and the ever-popular karaoke night on Saturdays. Swentzel, a huge Nintendo nerd, has also organized a spring Mario Kart league, set to launch March 6. Here’s hoping people can play with a taco in one hand. n

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Farm in Mineral Point, and the lamb comes from Pinn-Oak Ridge Farm in Delavan. My favorite at the moment is the Old Boy. It comes stuffed with carnitas, rice, kimchi, bacon and charred scallion dressing. The meat, pork shoulder braised in coconut milk and Jarritos Tamarindo soda, is tender and wonderfully flavorful, and I loved what the spicy kimchi added in terms of flavor and texture. In fact, I would have liked a bit more kimchi on my taco. Another standout is the Lost Shepherd, one of two tacos that feature the Ohio’s fantastic lamb barbacoa. The meat has just the right amount of gamey flavor while being perfectly tender. The addition of cabbage, bacon, sweet chili crema and poblano relish keeps the dish interesting. Also fabulous is the Hanso, which employs more of that amazing carnitas pork, plus red cabbage,

MARCH 2–8, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

Despite living in the Atwood neighborhood for the past two years, I never felt compelled to patronize the Ohio Tavern. I love a good dive as much as the next person, but I was already loyal to the Ideal Bar, mainly because it’s 0.2 miles closer to my house and has a good jukebox. I just didn’t have room for the Ohio (or its fabled ghost) in my life. But all that changed when I found out that the tavern had started serving food. And not just any bar food — delicious, creative tacos; perfect, velvety-smooth tamales; tasty little bowls of freshly roasted Mexican street corn. It’s my dream bar menu, and everything costs $4. Oh, and there are palomas (a hip and refreshing alternative to margaritas) on tap. Maybe there’s hope for this world, after all. One of the oldest bars in Madison, the Ohio Tavern was purchased last year by Genna’s owners Kristi Genna and Jack Williams and their longtime employee, Josh Swentzel. The trio has done a fantastic job remodeling the place while staying true to its working-class roots. You can still get a Blatz for $2.50, but now you’re drinking it in a place with very nice lighting. But it’s the food that takes the new Ohio from good to great. The kitchen is run by Tim Williams (no relation to Jack) and his girlfriend, Melissa Mejia. Williams also works as head prep cook at Lucille, and Mejia works as a pastry chef at Merchant. Mejia, who is Colombian, is in charge of the tamales. Her recipe is a hybrid of traditional Mexican and Colombian styles, which means carrots and peas in the filling and corn husks for wrappings. There are two varieties, chicken and lentil. Both come topped with mild, roasted salsa verde. They’re both outstanding and much bigger than I expected. The chicken tamale also comes with queso fresco, but the lentil tamale is vegan (thanks to vegetable shortening in place of lard) — although you could add cheese if you want. While plenty good on their own, Mejia’s tamales are a perfect tabula rasa for trying the Ohio’s arsenal of house-made hot sauces, all created by Williams. There are five in all — plantain poblano, pineapple habanero, three pepper, honey Thai chili and mango reaper. Swentzel says the sauces will soon be available for purchase at the bar and in local stores. Williams also created the Ohio’s taco menu, which features 10 house originals. At $4 a pop, they’re a little on the pricy side, but they’re worth it, and you save a dollar if you order three at once. The ingredients are high-quality and locally sourced — pork, bacon and chicken is from Marr’s Valley View

■ FOOD & DRINK

Whitefish paired with tepary beans Food Sovereignty Symposium and Festival to highlight native foods BY DYLAN BROGAN

American Indian chefs from around the country will converge on the UW-Madison campus March 10-12 for a first-of-its-kind symposium on food sustainability and preservation of indigenous foods. Five chefs will lead the food events: Ben Jacobs of Tocabe in Denver; Karlos Baca of Taste of Native Cuisine in Dunton Hot Springs, Colorado; Tashia Hart and Brian Yazzie from the Sioux Chef in Minneapolis; and Kristina Stanley from Brown Rice and Honey catering in Madison. All will be cooking with and teaching about indigenous foods that formed the original diet of Native Americans. The conference — officially the Food Sovereignty Symposium and Festival — is a collaboration among the Intertribal Agriculture Council, Family Farm Defenders, the Wisconsin Union and UW-Madison. The public is welcome at a handful of related special meals on campus and across the city. Slow Food UW Cafe at The Crossing, 1127 University Ave., will serve its March 8 lunch made with indigenous foods. The “soft opening” for the symposium is a pop-up dinner at Robinia Courtyard on March 9 from 6 to 9 p.m. Smoked whitefish served with tepary bean dip, buffalo and cranberry pemican, roast duck and kanastole (traditional Oneida cornbread) are on the menu (advance tickets $30). A Friday fish fry at The Crossing will feature blue corn-coated whitefish with wild rice and seasonal vegetables (advance tickets $20). On Saturday, a Taste of the Tribes brunch at the Wisconsin Institute of

Brian Yazzie (le ) is chef de cuisine at the Sioux Chef in Minneapolis; Ben Jacobs (right) is chef and coowner of Tocabe in Denver. Both will be cooking at dinners in Madison March 10-12.

ADAM LARKEY

Discovery from 10 am to noon will feature small plates from the participating chefs (advance tickets $25). Other food event info and tickets are available at tinyurl.com/UWfoodsymposiumtix. “The festival is really the celebration of indigenous food,” says Dan Cornelius, a symposium organizer and general manager of the Native Market in Madison. “In addition to the meals and pop-ups our team of native chefs will be working on, we’ve also been reaching out to local restaurants to encourage them to feature indigenous ingredients as part of their menus.” Steenbock’s on Orchard, the Weary Traveler, Gray’s Tied House and select Food

Fight Restaurants are among those that will highlight indigenous foods the week of March 6-12. The conference will feature panel discussions, workshops and presentations on topics ranging from the importance of heritage seeds to how food security influences protest movements like the one near the Standing Rock reservation, in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline. “To me, food sovereignty is about community control over resources and being able to grow enough food to sustain our communities,” says Cornelius. Keynote speakers include Martin Reinhardt, a professor of Native American Stud-

ies at Northern Michigan University and an Anishinaabe Ojibway, who will discuss his “decolonizing the diet” project that studies the health effects of consuming a traditional Indigenous Great Lakes diet. “Seed keeper” and farmer Rowen White from the Mohawk community of Akwesasne will talk about her organic seed cooperative. And Elizabeth Hoover, a professor at Brown and a Mohawk/ Mi’kmaq, will discuss Native American farming and gardening projects nationwide. A full program is at food-sovereignty.com. ■

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...this must be a Belgian Mid-Westy Blond from the Great Dane-Hilldale

This week at Capitol Centre Market

ROBIN SHEPARD

Every few years, the brewers from the Great Dane take a group trip to a country known for beer. This past fall, that excursion took them to Belgium, where Nate Zukas discovered a love for the region’s blond ales. Upon his return, he modeled MidWesty Blond after Westvleteren Blond, a beer that’s somewhat rare in Belgium and almost impossible to get in the U.S. “This beer is all about the yeast, and everything else supports that,” says Zukas. Mid-Westy is made with a Belgian yeast and a straightforward malt bill of pilsner and Maris Otter malts. Zukas uses a light amount of the Australian varietal Summer hops to give the beer sweet hints of peaches and apricots that support the fruitiness of the Belgian yeast. This is a very nice Midwestern, yet distinctively Belgian-inspired, beer. and pairs well with Thai cuisine. Look for an entree with mild, sweet yellow curry sauce and hearty vegetables. The Great Dane serves Mid-Westy in an imperial pint. After taking

it home in a crowler, I prefer sipping it from a chalice or wine glass to show off this beer’s brilliant golden hues and thick head. Serve it very cold to bring out its yeast and fruity tones. Mid-Westy Blond comes in at 6.2 percent ABV. It sells for $5.50/pint and $7.50/crowler. It’s currently available only at the Great Dane’s Hilldale location.

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Monona Bakery and Eatery, 4544 Monona Dr. (608-720-1133), is now operating in the former El Bolillo. Baked goods are available as well as full breakfasts and sandwiches for lunch. Honduran specials include boleadas, Honduran tamales and pupusas.

Athens Gyros, 5440 Willow Rd., Westport (608-220-3340), has built a heated, greenhouse-like shelter for dining next to its temporary food truck. And its brickand-mortar-restaurant, to be called Athens Grill, now has windows and a roof. ■

Progress

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Chili King, 602 S. Park St. (608-4225666), has taken over the space that was briefly Angkor Wat, and before that, Inka Heritage. The menu has an “American style” section, with such familiar dishes as kung pao chicken and pad Thai. The rest of the menu is divided into sections called “famous sauteed,” “dried pot” and “boiled/ casserole.” There’s frog, intestine, kidney and pig’s feet in addition to beef and chicken, but there’s also a dish called “Big Bowl of Cauliflower.”

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n SPORTS

The earliest ending of winter Girls’ high school basketball kicks off March crushed their playoff opponents, and these teams are 1-1 against each other in regular-season play, when both games were decided by one or two points. Playoff matchups don’t get better than this. In a Division 3 sectional semifinal, Edgewood (also plowing through the playoff field) will meet Whitewater at Janesville Craig High School. Tip-off for all of these sectional semifinal games is March 2 at 7 p.m., with the finals — and a trip to Green Bay on the line — on March 4, at various Big Eight schools. See the WIAA website (wiaawi.org) for specific locations and times. This is just the beginning: High school sectionals for boys are March 9 and 11 — most likely with several local teams in the mix — and the WIAA boys’ state tournament comes to the Kohl Center from March 16 to 18. Remember when Madison East advanced to state two years ago for the first time in a quarter-century? That same weekend, the Wisconsin Badgers, despite hitting a rough patch lately, will play in the first and (fingers crossed) second rounds of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. If you’re a hoops fan, there’s no better time to be alive. n

BY MICHAEL POPKE

JOHN HAGEN

Sun Prairie’s Jayda Jansen (left) and East’s Riley Larson will meet again during the sectional semifinals.

Sports’ biggest month — so big that we attach “Madness” to it — is here. It begins with several area high school girls’ teams vying for spots in the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association State Basketball Tournament, March 9-11, at the Resch Center in Green Bay. In Division 1, Middleton overcame a late surge by defending state champion Verona last weekend to advance to the Sectional #3 semifinals against top-seeded Mukwonago. That game will be played at Madison Memorial High School. A pair of Big Eight Conference rivals, Madison East and Sun Prairie, will meet in the other Sectional #3 semifinal at Madison La Follette High School. The Cardinals defeated East twice during the regular season and have breezed through the playoffs, winning by margins of 41 (over Kenosha Indian Trail) and 27 (against Muskego). In Division 2, last year’s state runner-up, Stoughton, has dominated throughout the playoffs, too — beating Baraboo by 32 and Waunakee by 28 — and rides an eight-game winning streak into sectional semifinal action against Badger South Conference rival Monroe at Sun Prairie High School. The Cheesemakers also have

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■ MUSIC

Shimmering debut Lost Lakes releases a masterful and addictive album BY ANDY MOORE

Years in the making, well worth the waiting, Lost Lakes’ self-titled debut album brims with folk-pop songs that are pretty on arrival and downright addictive after several plays. Corey Mathew Hart is one of the Midwest’s most gifted songwriters, and he’s lucky he crossed paths with bassist/vocalist Paul Mitch, who helps take the carefully crafted tunes of Lost Lakes to the next level. Not that they intended it, but I get the feeling Brad Paisley is sitting around waiting for someone to deliver him “Can’t It Wait,” a radio-ready, unimpeachable pop country number with a stadium-shaking chorus. The mix and production values shimmer in the hands of producer Justin Guip (Levon Helm). The Statler Brothers meet Yo La Tengo on “Give Up the Ghost.” The song mingles forgiveness with grudge. Hart’s voice mid-

way through, pleading, pure, sounds as if it might shatter apart just before the song modulates and surges into the second half. Hart is a foxy composer. Guitar chord changes, sometimes mid-measure, are surprising little brush strokes in “Digital Tears.” Monastic and moody, Rusty Lee’s plaintive organ, a tad too under the mix here, is the song’s conscience. And the number finishes with a spooky, mystical round. The collaborators both became fathers while recording this album. The maturity that experience renders is on display in “Cold War.” Mitch sings lead here in a vintage, Decemberist-style cut that begins with guitar and voice only. A military drum pattern falls in line next. A final layer, deep into the song, is Hart’s harmony. His arrival is at once surprising and inevitable. There’s more. The album’s Brad Paisley Bside is the languid, longing “One Horse Town.” The most up-tempo of the package, “Summer

Paul Mitch (le ) and Corey Mathew Hart have become musical soul mates.

AUDRE RAE

Rains,” is Mitch’s second turn singing lead. Simple and punchy, the melody is a Sufjan Stevens-like spin propelled by a cool, tangledup acoustic guitar phrase. On the downside, the paint isn’t quite dry on “Mona Lisa.” “Whiskey River” is a chorus in search of a song, but oh, what a chorus — some of the mightiest music on the record.

“We don’t pretend to play music that people will get up and dance to,” Mitch says. That theory will be tested when the full band plays the hook-heavy “Free Love” at a release party at High Noon on March 9. The soul number is sure to spark ass-wagging. Here’s hoping they let keyboardist Lee off the leash for this one. ■

Prodigy in motion Julian Rhee tackles tough material with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra BY JOHN W. BARKER

Teenage prodigy Julian Rhee delivered an exciting performance as part of an unusual concert by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra on Feb. 24. The evening opened with what is really a chamber work. The Soldier’s Tale. The story of a duel with the devil was originally a script in French by C. F. Ramuz, and it has dazzlingly pointed music by Igor Stravinsky for a septet of violin, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, double bass and percussion (all drawn from the orchestra). The text, in English translation, was reduced to a oneman narration, delivered with theatrical flair by James DeVita. The instrumental work had its rough moments, but the unflappable

ISTHMUS.COM MARCH 2–8, 2017

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violinist Suzanne Beia was outstanding. The main event was a blockbuster, Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D major. The soloist was not some distinguished international visitor, but Rhee, a 16-year-old Milwaukee-area prodigy and winner of an impressive pile of recent awards. Tackling this tiger of a concerto was a bold undertaking, one he brought off with remarkably professional aplomb. His confident mastery of technical demands — even in the fiendish firstmovement cadenza — was notable. Rhee needs experience in his interaction with an orchestra, and he must develop a more consistently assertive tone. But he already bears the mark of an extraordinarily promising young artist. He was, to be sure, aided in playing against a smaller orchestra than is usual in performances of this work. Maestro Andrew Sewell used only

Sixteen-year-old Rhee played Paganini’s Caprice No. 5 for an encore.

20 string players, a modest amount, which allowed the audience to clearly hear the contributions of the wind instruments. As an encore, Rhee went beyond bravery to rashness in playing Paganini’s Caprice No. 5 for solo violin. He has all the notes in place, but will need more time to tame this recklessly virtuosic piece. Still, throughout the concert, the audience went wild with standing ovations. After what might have been a two-work program, the concert continued with a bonus. One could have expected Haydn’s Symphony No. 102 as an opener. But the addition was more than an afterthought. While playing Haydn, Sewell and his orchestra are at their high-spirited best, and they delivered wonderfully. ■

Participants are needed for a study at UW-Madison looking at whether the cautious use of sleep medication reduces depressive symptoms in people with depression and insomnia. To be eligible, you must be currently experiencing depression and insomnia, be 18-65 years old, and have access to regular care with a primary care provider. Participants will receive up to $400 to $450.

Contact Sydney Notermann at (608) 262-0169

■ ART

Help Celebrate Music in

Our Schools Month!

From March 1-31 show off what Music Education means to you with

2 great ways to participate.

BMO HARRIS BANK (STUDENT STAGE) 5-8pm 7447 University Ave @ Parmenter St

SPRING 2017 CARAVAN GYPSY SWING ENSEMBLE / MAR 10 Django-style hot swing originals, Latin jazz, and waltzes

Dayroom, by Simone and Max, reimagines a secure area in the City County Building.

Art in the cooler An installation about juvenile detention is designed to provoke BY JOHN MCLAUGHLIN

5-7pm 7734 Terrace Ave

JOHN CHRISTENSEN ATLAS PROJECT / MAR 24 Unique compositions that unite head and heart

6-11pm 7464 Hubbard Ave

Tenor sax fueled improvisations ranging from intense to introspective

TONY CASTAÑEDA LATIN JAZZ SEXTET / MAY 12 A Madison favorite performing original Mambo and Cha Cha

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To further support the efforts of our area music education programs, Heid Music has created another oppor tunity to bring more music to our schools with our

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Visit Heid Music to help bring more music to your district. Matching donation valid for school districts in Northeastern, Central and South Central Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula.

Thursday, March 9 • 8pm Buy tickets at the Milwaukee Theatre Box Office, by phone at 1-800-745-3000, or online at Ticketmaster.com Convenience fees apply

Supporting School Music for Nearly 70 Years!

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MARCH 2–8, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

If you didn’t realize the second floor of the City County Building housed an active youth detention center, you’re not alone. In a new art installation, Madison-based art duo Simone Doing and Max Puchalsky (professionally known as Simone and Max) are hoping to call attention to the fact that nearly 500 young people, some as young as 10 years old, pass through the space each year. Dayroom I is a room-sized re-creation of Amber Sowards’ Captured, a series of photographs depicting life inside the center that were first exhibited in late 2015 at Madison’s Arts + Literature Laboratory. The installation — which opened at Paoli’s Artisan Gallery on Feb. 24 — is, according to the artists, “an immersive reimagining” of Soward’s photos. Doing and Puchalsky say they were awakened to racial injustices in Dane County after reading the 2012 “Race to Equity” report from the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families. They wanted to create art that illustrated the realities of the criminal justice system. By placing certain visual elements from the photo series (an exercise ball and wall patterning, for example) into the installation, Simone and Max aim to re-create the experience of captivity for their viewers. This atmosphere of confinement is highlighted by the claustrophobic nature of the installation space; the “Cooler” is a 10-by-45-foot windowless room originally used as a refrigerator when the building operated as a creamery. “The room is long and narrow; it echoes,” says Ann Orlowski, Artisan Gallery’s assistant director, noting that the venue purposely chooses sitespecific work for the space. Once inside, visitors hear audio interviews of the detained youth, edited to dis-

guise their voices and add a subtle layer of discomfort. They are also encouraged to pick up a View-Master, the well-known children’s toy, loaded with 3-D slides from Captured. These elements demonstrate the artists’ connection to the op art (short for optical art) movement, which arose in the 1960s, incorporating serial visual patterns and illusions, usually in paintings. Many of the artists were interested in issues of perception: How is it possible for a two-dimensional image to offer the appearance of actual depth or movement? And what does this say about how we see the world? The style faded from the public eye by the end of the decade. While Simone and Max don’t formally identify as optical artists, they adopt elements from the style while addressing social and political issues in their work. “[Op art] seems like a ripe way to engage metaphorically with ideas we care about,” Puchalsky says. “Many sociopolitical issues are difficult to actually see.” The artists say they hope that visitors to Dayroom 1 will feel slightly disoriented, as if they are captive in the small room, and generate empathy for the incarcerated youth. Doing and Puchalsky met in 2005 while attending Verona Area High School. They both attended UW-Madison (Doing earned a bachelor’s in art, and Puchalsky majored in music and political science), and they have worked together numerous times since their 2013 video collaboration, Once Effigy. In addition to a number of Madison installations, their work has been exhibited in Berlin, Istanbul and South Korea, as well as throughout the United States. Both artists speak to the need for art to be connected to what’s happening in the world. “We have an agenda,” says Puchalsky. “We want to end youth incarceration.” ■

CAPITAL BREWERY The Madison Jazz Orchestra 5pm

TOM GULLION QUINTET / APR 7 SIMON AND MAX

Edgewood High School Jazz Combo 5pm Madison Music Foundry Jazz Combo 6pm Middleton High School Jazz Combo The Surreal Books 7pm

n STAGE

Theater in brief From Shakespeare to Dr. Seuss to morticians, local companies take risks BY GWENDOLYN RICE

Seussical Through March 12 in The Playhouse at Overture Center

This homage to Dr. Seuss and some of his most memorable characters, produced by Children’s Theater of Madison, is a magical 70-minute ride that celebrates individuality, creativity, loyalty and letting one’s imagination run wild. Every part of Seussical dazzles — from the whimsical costumes (by Monica Cliff) to the stage and set pieces (by Keith Pitts) that constantly transform, to the crisp choreography that keeps all 17 actors in constant motion. It is a fitting tribute to Theodore Geisel, one of the greatest writers in children’s literature, whose acrobatic wordplay and worlds of relentless invention have been a standard part of bedtime routines for decades. The show begins with a classroom of students waiting to meet their new art teacher, the Cat in the Hat, played with explosive and playful energy by Sherrick Robinson. The Cat, in his signature striped

Twelfth Night Through March 12 at the Gilbert V. Hemsley Theatre

Chinese and Japanese immigrants, American missionaries and the English owners of sugar plantations. The play is filled with traditional Hawaiian music and dancing and some impressive costuming (Brittany Graham, designer). Unfortunately the unusual setting never really works as a framing device for the play itself, and added elements fail to illuminate or even interact with Shakespeare’s text. Many men’s parts are played by women, and ethnicity was not a factor in assigning characters. But this becomes problematic when the main plot device in the play is a woman pretending to be a man and the chosen setting has racial overtones pertaining to class. As the program notes suggest, in the world of Twelfth Night “anything is possible,” but perhaps this production is trying to accomplish too much.

ISTHMUS.COM MARCH 2–8, 2017

This intriguing production from the UWMadison Department of Theatre and Drama/University Theatre mashes up class, race and gender in surprising ways by setting the classic Shakespearean comedy in 19th-century Hawaii. Directed by theater professor David Furumoto, it is intended to be a love letter to his childhood home and a history lesson for audiences about our 50th state. Twelfth Night opens with a shipwreck, separating the siblings Viola and Sebastian, who each assume the other has drowned. Presuming they are alone on the foreign island of Illyria, they each make their way with the help of strangers. In this production, the island is Oahu, and the cast of characters is drawn from native Hawaiians,

hat and red tie, challenges the students to put down their cell phones and explore their imaginations. As the set morphs into many locations, the youngsters are joined onstage by their Seussian (adult) alter egos. The Cat tosses glitter and snow into the audience.

BEAU MEYER

Monkeys form the coolest boy band you’ve ever seen. Fish swim around the stage and are tossed over the balcony. As the kids transition back into their schoolroom world, storylines from their imaginary adventures dovetail with lessons to be carried forward, imbuing this

Morticians in Love Through March 4 at the Bartell Theatre

It’s difficult to understand how Morticians in Love, by Christi Stewart-Brown, fulfills the mission of the Kathie Rasmussen Women’s Theatre (KRASS), and it’s even harder to see how it could be characterized as a farce, or even a comedy. The lifeless story revolves around two horny and socially inept morticians — Lydia (Mary Wallin) and St. John (Bryan Royston) — who must work together after his mortuary is destroyed in a mysterious fire. Lydia and her sexually ambiguous assistant Limer (Rowan Calyx) are initially hesitant to allow another living person into their home/business, but soon the two funeral directors realize they have lots in common: They’re both necrophiliacs who find it dif-

merry musical afternoon with meaning, just as Dr. Seuss does in his books. Each moment of this fantastic production is brimming over with director Brian Cowing’s boundless imagination and executed with precision and passion by the large, talented cast.

JONATHAN RAYMOND POPP

ficult and confusing to have a sexual partner with a pulse. So instead they indulge in group groping with a couple of beautiful corpses (played by Joshua K. Paffel and Issaka Brellenthin). Meanwhile Limer’s obvious love for Lydia remains unrequited until he makes himself the center of his employer’s work. Under three unrelenting florescent lights on the stark white set, there is nowhere for the actors to hide when the threadbare script fails them, and it does, repeatedly. Slow pacing and long scene changes don’t help revive the play, which runs two hours with an intermission, but might have been condensed into a three-minute Saturday Night Live sketch — not a funny one. n To read full reviews, see Isthmus.com/arts.

2017

FIRST L K FEST at the

GO.WISC.EDU/FIRSTLOOKWFF

Wisconsin Film Festival Enthusiasts... Join us for our annual fundraiser: First Look at the Fest Peruse the Film Guide the night before it hits the stands. Watch trailers for WFF 2017 films. Enjoy appetizers and sweets. Purchase tickets* for Festival films! *NOTE: Limit two per screening, public sales start Saturday, March 11 at noon.

The Wisconsin Film Festival is presented by the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Arts Institute in association with the Department of Communication Arts.

MARCH 2–8, 2017 ISTHMUS.COM

WISCONSIN FILM FESTIVAL MARCH 30–APRIL 6, 2017 | 2017.WIFILMFEST.ORG

■ SCREENS

Film events I Am Not Madame Bovary: A fake divorce plot to acquire a second apartment goes awry, and the wronged wife takes on the legal system. UW Union South-Marquee, March 2, 6:30 pm. The Other Son: UW Hillel Israeli Film Festival: Drama about Israeli and Palestinian young men who learn they were switched at birth. Hillel, March 2, 6:30 pm.. Before the Rain: Ethnic and religious divisions simmer during wartime in Macedonia. Central Library, March 2, 6:30 pm. How to Start a Revolution: Documentary on Nobel Peace Prize nominee Gene Sharp, a leading expert on nonviolent revolution. Central Library, March 2, 6:30 pm. Movie Hell: Hosts Anthony Siraguse, Cynthia Marie & Eric Olander “tortured” by film selected by guest. Bos Meadery, March 2, 7 pm. Redline: A hot unsigned band’s frontwoman gets into illegal drag racing. UW Union South-Marquee, March 2 (9:30 pm) and March 4 (11 pm). Moonlight: Academy Award-winning best picture based on story of growing up gay, black and poor in Miami. Pinney Library, March 3, 6:30 pm. UW Union South-Marquee, March 3 (9 pm), March 4 (8:30 pm) and March 5 (6 pm). The Ornithologist: A scientist is stranded in the forests of Portugal. UW Cinematheque, March 3, 7 pm. Goshen: Documentary about active lifestyle of indigenous Tarahumara. Hawthorne Library, March 3, 7 pm. Fences: Denzel Washington’s adaptation of the August Wilson play about an African American family in the 1950s. UW Union South-Marquee, March 3 (6 pm), March 4 (5:30 pm) and March 5 (3 pm). The Thief and the Cobbler: A Moment in Time: Animated film by director Richard Williams (released as Arabian Knight), in the form it was in when the nearly 30-year old project was taken from him. UW Cinematheque, March 4, 7 pm. Mourning in the Cemetery: DVD release & screening of short films by Ben Wydeven, plus music by Joey Broyles & Karen Wheelock. High Noon Saloon, March 5, 1 pm. The Cowboys: UW Cinematheque: A rancher (John Wayne) must train a bunch of greenhorns to get his cattle to market. Chazen Museum of Art, March 5, 2 pm. Fugue: Micro-Wave Cinema: A woman is on an island full of horses and drunks, but how did she get there? UW Cinematheque, March 5, 7 pm. The Wanderers: UW Cinematheque: Adaptation of Richard Price novel about early ’60s Bronx teen gangsters. UW Union South-Marquee, March 6, 7 pm. Military Medicine: Beyond the Battlefield: PBS documentary, plus discussion of veterans issues by Michael Messina (William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital). Central Library, March 7, 6:30 pm. Closet Monster: Free QCinema screening: Coming-of-age story about a teen ready to escape his hometown and rough childhood. OutReach, March 8, 6:30 pm.

ISTHMUS.COM MARCH 2–8, 2017

After Hours: An ordinary word processor has the worst night of his life after he agrees to visit a girl in Soho whom he met that evening at a coffee shop. Bos Meadery, Mar. 8, 7 pm.

Seed: The Untold Story: UW Havens Center Social Cinema: Documentary about the preservation of seed varieties in response to corporate control of stocks. Union South-Marquee Theater, March 8, 7 pm. Newtown: Documentary about the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings. Central Library, March 9, 6:30 pm. Monsoon Wedding: Comedy-drama follows the preparations for an arranged marriage. UW Union South-Marquee, March 9, 7 pm.

Welcome to the suburbs Get Out is a sharp, funny horror flick BY MARJORIE BAUMGARTEN

Jordan Peele (one half of the sadly defunct comedy show Key & Peele) makes an auspicious debut as a writer/director with the horror film Get Out. This movie is more of a psychological thriller than an out-and-out horror spectacle; blood and guts aren’t spilled until the film’s final act, at which point the story’s closely held secrets also come tumbling forth. Not only does this genre exercise deliver the little jolts and inside laughs that keep modern horror fans pleased, Get Out is also one of the smartest, funniest and most socially astute films to come around in a while. The pernicious evil of racism lies at the crux of the movie, and even though escape may be possible, total eradication may require many more sequels (or social intervention). Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) is a young black man and photographer who is accompanying his white girlfriend Rose Armitage (Allison Williams) on a weekend trip to meet her parents, Missy (Catherine Keener) and Dean (Bradley Whitford), for the first time. Chris is a bit worried that Rose hasn’t informed them ahead of time that her boyfriend is black, and once he arrives at their remote country home, the unsettling demeanors of the Armitages’ black servants, Georgina (scene-stealing Betty Gabriel) and Walter (Marcus Henderson), put Chris further on edge. Even though Missy and Dean are good liberals, their attempts to make Chris comfortable stirs in him a sense of little micro-affronts, and the friends and neighbors who attend the Armitages’ strange lawn party further

Daniel Kaluuya plays a photographer who visits his girlfriend’s family.

prod the embers. All this tension is not helping Chris in his desire to quit smoking, but Missy, who is a psychiatrist, offers him help in the form of a hypnotherapy session. (Note: Beware doctors offering free treatments.) Ultimately, all the fears that Peele sets up in the first two acts of Get Out come home to roost in the third. Much of the film’s suspense builds through our observation of Chris trying to decide if he’s justified or overreacting to the little breaches he experiences in this enclave of rich, white privilege. Are the many odd things he witnesses intentional slights, or are they caused by his heightened racial perceptions? This is the delicious dilemma at the heart of the movie, and is part of the social contract that lulls Chris into acquiescence until it’s clear the time has come for revolt. Chris’ best friend, Rod Williams (Lil Rel Howery), with whom he interacts mostly

by phone, is a TSA agent who serves as both the movie’s comic relief and common sense. Rod would be the guy in your row at the movie theater shouting “Get out!” to the characters. On the other hand, scenes with Rose’s brother Jeremy (Landry Jones) seem like they’re cut from another movie. The pre-credits sequence would benefit from better integration into the story, but the sequence’s evocation of the opening of Halloween is a signal to the many other film tributes scattered throughout. In addition to the nods to John Carpenter (of Halloween, The Thing), the palpable uncertainty that marks novels like Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives is evident everywhere. Peele clearly knows his genre formulas, and has a keen sense of how to make them speak to the present. ■

Movie nerd’s dream Streaming service FilmStruck brings classics and arthouse fare to the web BY LAWRENCE GANN

Snobs, cinephiles and aficionados rejoice! Internet video on demand, previously the domain of Stranger Things and South Park, has new and rarefied company in the streaming service FilmStruck. Launched in November 2016, FilmStruck is a movie nerd’s dream house, furnished with shorts and films from Turner Classic Movies’ extensive backlog and a rotating selection of the Criterion Collection (a distribution company focused on artistic and contemporary films and commentaries). Content ranges from storied classics to the downright esoteric. Gorgeous reproductions of Golden Age Hollywood are available alongside Iranian dramas and impressionist animated shorts. Old or new, domestic or abroad, the selection is varied and deep. While critically acclaimed films are certainly not absent from other streaming services (and selections from the Criterion Collection previously made a brief appearance on Hulu), the

Blood Simple

artistic and the unconventional form the bulk of FilmStruck’s catalog. Amazon may have Burn After Reading, but FilmStruck has the Coen brothers’ directorial debut Blood Simple. While you can stream 12 Monkeys on Netflix, FilmStruck has La Jetee, the 1962 French short that inspired it. Plans are priced comparably to other streaming services, starting at $7/month for FilmStruck content only, and moving up to $11/month or $99/year to include the Criterion Collection films. The service is not without its faults, however.

The website appears to be poorly optimized, and the player applet can load slowly or be occasionally unresponsive, even on powerful computers. Dedicated FilmStruck apps are available for most mobile devices, but aren’t fully mature either. And due to the — let’s say choosy — nature of the Criterion Collection, there are counterintuitive omissions. Many auteurs are represented — Akira Kurosawa, the Coen brothers, Paul Thomas Anderson and John Cassavetes — but few full filmographies are represented. Unfortunately, the filmmakers and viewpoints skew heavily male. There was a time when this was a reflection of the industry, but in the age of Kathryn Bigelow, Sofia Coppola and Lone Scherfig (among many others), it’s disappointing. Here’s hoping the curators address that issue soon. In the meantime, FilmStruck is a treasure trove for anyone in search of the serious, the confusing, the audacious or — let’s face it — the pretentious gems of cinema. ■

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WISCONSIN UNION THEATER

N E X T T U E SDAY

SOLAS Mar. 5, 2017

RISE UP & SING!

Erik Wm. Suter in Recital TUESDAY, MARCH 7

Overture Hall

7:30 pm

TICKETS: $20 madisonsymphony.org/suter, Overture Center Box Office, 201 State St., or (608) 258-4141