Vol VI • Issue 12 • January 2008
2 | Vital Source
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inside Vital
January, 2008 | vol. 6 issue 12 | vitalsourcemag.com
COVERED
A part of the solution 6
AmeriCorps on the front line of community service
>> words by amy elliott >> photos by scott winklebleck
VITAL CULTURE 12 Culture feature Open to interpretation >> by joe white 16 music reviews Anna Kramer and the Lost Cause, Reverend Organdrum, Bullet For My Valentine, Human Bell 14 VITAL CINEMA Charlie Wilson’s War >> russ bickerstaff 18 record releases Radiohead, The Mars Volta, moe., Buzzcocks, Liam Finn, The Kennedys, Joe Jackson and many more! 21 Stages All in a new year >> russ bickerstaff 29 5q Five questions for Pat Graham >> howie goldklang
this month’s cover Scott Winklebleck (left) is a pixel magician for Ricco Photography, referees and photographs The Brewcity Bruisers, recently got married in the mouth of the giant Muskie in Hayward and bikes to work (even in winter). See more of his work at theimagecafe.com. IN FEBRUARY: Max Estes
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New stuff all month long @ vitalsourcemag.com
REVIEWED cinema Juno, Walk Hard >> brian jacobson
stages Bunny Gumbo’s Combat Theatre Insurgent Theatre’s Berserk >> russ bickerstaff
blogs & more gray matter Ted Bobrow covers the 3rd District race for Alder - and more >> ted bobrow
vitalsourcemag.com & myspace.com/vitalsource
30 Subversions Resolution >> mat t wild
NEWS+VIEWS 4 The Editor’s Desk Naked is a state of mind >> jon anne willow 10 at large (formerly commentary) The road goes on forever >> ted bobrow 19 The Funny Page
VITAL LIVING 23 Slightly Crunchy Parent Dear Lakshmi >> lucky tomaszek 24 Vital’s Picks Where VITAL will be in January >> amy elliot t and lindsey huster 28 Chow Baby! Have a heart >> catherine mcgarry
miller
31 The Puzzle Page Plus December crossword answers
Vital Source | 3
Vital source The editor’s desk
>>words by jon anne willow
Naked is a state of mind
2007 was quite a year. It’s a true Milwaukee tends to scare away more advertisers than it attracts. I’ve taken and complete summary, and pretty the liberty of showing, through a sloppy application of Photoshop, that much expresses the one universal she’s actually less naked than if she were wearing a bikini. (See inset) aspect of the passage of the twelve We got almost halfway through the month before the crazies started month period we’ve culturally weighing in, but I guess it was inevitable. The one below is my favorite. agreed spans a calendar cycle. The Needless to say, fisher8624 never wrote back. I’ll leave you with it, as events themselves were for me, well as my response. VS as for you, momentous in ways, predictable in others. Periods of -----Original Message----unbelievable chaos intermingled From: fisher8624@yahoo.com with bouts of monotony and fits of Subject: Your Nude Cover restlessness. And like you, I grew in ways and probably shrank in others. FYI - a whole army of good upright people are taking stacks of your Also like you, I learned a few things magazine with the nude cover and throwing them in the nearest trash and remembered a few I’d forgotten can. STOP SPREADING PORN !!! We do not live in the backwoods (to my detriment) and which, like thousands of other unimaginative of Africa where people run around with nothing on !! Your cover people columnists and bloggers reflecting on the old year and projecting for may have such uncivilized tendencies but most of our society is civilized and hate nudity !!! the new, I will share with you now in list form.
Living on your own terms is better than lots of money. It truly is, -----Original Message----From: Jon Anne Willow unless money alone is how you set the terms. To: ‘fisher8624@yahoo.com’ When you’re happy and you know it, then your face will really show it. Subject: RE: Your Nude Cover People respond to positive vibrations, of course they do. Strangers smile at you, old men chat you up at the hardware store, kids and dogs climb Dear Fisher8624, all over you (but not cats – they’re consistently drawn to whoever doesn’t I am sorry this month’s cover was not to your liking. I assure you like them). Don’t fake it, though. That’s creepy and easy to identify. there were no pornographic intentions, but clearly you’ve made your Speak your mind when you have the chance. I learned this one the assessment already and there’s no need for us to debate whether any hard way, with a now-former dear friend. By the time I was honest objectification or other true affront to your decency occurred. about my fears for her, it was too late. I was already irrelevant. Please do be advised, however, that destroying legally-produced printed Save your change. A lot of people already know this, but I came late material created for public consumption is against the law. This is my to the game. product; I would not walk into your store and set your Bibles on fire: I Naked is a state of mind. This is possibly the most interesting thing I would be arrested for doing so, and your actions are equally illegal. learned this year, when we published last month’s holiday cover featuring Please cease and desist under penalty of law. If you would like to a beautiful young woman clad only in snow and a big red ribbon. Most discuss the matter further with me, please feel free to contact me directly, folks loved the playfulness of it, though a few were concerned that we but only if you are willing to provide your name. It really diminishes the were objectifying women (Incidentally, we’re almost all women over here). credibility of your campaign of righteousness when you hide behind Some mused (including two other publishers – go figure!) that we might the ersatz anonymity of a signatureless email. have done it to sell more ads: a crazy idea, as anything vaguely risqué in Best Regards, Jon Anne Willow Co-Publisher Mehrdad J. Dalamie mjdalamie@vitalsourcemag.com
Music Editor Pete Hamill music@vitalsourcemag.com
Co-Publisher/Editor in Chief Jon Anne Willow jwillow@vitalsourcemag.com
Stages Editor Russ Bickerstaff rbickerstaff@vitalsourcemag.com
Managing Editor Amy C. Elliott aelliott@vitalsourcemag.com
Staff Writers Lucky Tomaszek ltomaszek@vitalsourcemag.com
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Vital Source | 5
part of the solution AmeriCorps on the front lines of community service >> >>
by amy elliot t
I
photos by scot t w inklebleck
n the auditorium of the John C. Cudahy YMCA, the basketball hoop blocks the view of the stage. Kendall tells the lanky teens shooting hoops to go upstairs for a while so Scott can set up his tripods, flashes and umbrellas. This is the only YMCA in the country built specifically to accommodate the arts. Set on 55 acres of wooded land – formerly John C. Cudahy’s farmstead – and home to a “safe place” where teens can study, use computers and play sports and video games, it’s a far cry from the popular image of the Y as a fitness club, a place to play racquetball and run laps on the track. Kendall Hayes, now 20, joined AmeriCorps right out of high school. He’d been working so many hours at the branch’s front desk as part of STEP-UP (a career development program for high school students run by the county’s Private Industry Council) that a friend suggested he might as well earn volunteer hours and collect an education award as a full-fledged AmeriCorps member. Now he’s in his second year of service at the YMCA, where he helps students in the teen program with everything from homework and test preparation to setting up bank accounts and working creatively. “[I try] to get kids to stay active, to get them to expand their horizons and open them up to new things,” he says, “not just coming here to play basketball every day, but getting them to do something artsy, or getting them to go back and help their community.” Right now, Kendall is working on developing an art guild for the teens that would incorporate creative writing, music and visual art. AmeriCorps members can serve a maximum of two terms and qualify for the education award, and when his term is up, Kendall plans to go to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, maybe to study recording arts and psychology.
6 | a part of the solution | Vital Source
“I’m the type of person that likes to do everything, [and] AmeriCorps has offered new possibilities for me … We’ve [done everything from] helping inner city youth to working on Philadelphia Community Farm to disaster relief training,” he says. “[But] going back to school is a whole different section of my life.” Still, he says, “I do wish that I could stay longer. There’re a lot of different opportunities and I don’t feel that I’ve experienced it all. And I’m always willing to lend a helping hand.” Kendall’s commitment to public service is unadorned, stunningly simple. In our interview, he speaks gracefully about what service can do for communities – and what community service gives to those who serve.
The organization
they are volunteering they receive a modest living stipend, and when their term of service is complete, they are granted an education award that may be used to pay back qualified loans or fund further study. Most AmeriCorps programs in the state are part of Serve Wisconsin, a citizen body appointed by the Governor that distributes AmeriCorps funds and engages volunteers in a service. Serve Wisconsin distributed more than $4.5 million in AmeriCorps funds to 18 organizations in 2006-2007, including five in Milwaukee and four statewide. The range of things AmeriCorps members do for the city and the state is vast – and yet they work under the radar, almost invisibly, like you’d never know they’d been there unless you asked. They build and winterize houses and reach out to youth on the street. They teach kids to read and they educate undeserved communities about health resources and social services. Some work at camps and farms; some clean up rivers and trails; others work at desks as administrators and researchers in nonprofit institutions. And hopefully, every year or two, a fresh corps of engaged, active, empowered citizens go into the workforce, the academy and the community as life-long advocates of service and believers in positive change.
In 1993, then-President Bill Clinton established AmeriCorps as the country’s flagship service initiative. It’s often assumed to be a single program, like the domestic version of the PeaceCorps, but AmeriCorps is actually a network of organizations, a bear hug that encompasses four primary programs: AmeriCorps*State and AmeriCorps*National, which provide funding and volunteer resources to statewide and national organizations; the National Civilian Community Corps, a residential program not unlike a public service “army,” whose members are trained and then region- The secret ally dispatched to help with urgent needs like disaster relief, education and the building and “AmeriCorps is one of the USA’s best-kept rehabilitation of low-income housing; and secrets,” says Pat Marcus. She runs the AmeriCorps*VISTA (Volunteers in Service To SPARK Early Literacy program at the Boys America), whose volunteers work in adminis- and Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee, where trative, programmatic and capacity-building 50 part-time AmeriCorps members serve at roles. VISTA has been around since the ‘60s, six different sites. SPARK – Spheres of Proud but was built into AmeriCorps at its inception. Achievement in Reading for Kids – works with Since then, almost a half-million people children from kindergarten through third grade have served. AmeriCorps members tend to engage them in literacy activities in every to be younger, in their teens and twenties, “sphere” of their life – their schools, their famialthough people of all ages are welcome lies and their communities. With their tutors to participate (and do). Members sign on – all AmeriCorps members – kids in SPARK for at least a full year of service and may read books, play games, make crafts and put on complete up to two year-long terms; while plays. SPARK tutors put together family book
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bags with books to borrow and keep, puzzles, stickers, snacks and pencils, and write letters to their kids and send them home with a selfaddressed stamped envelope and a prompt. “I’m a big believer that we all learn on a need-to-know basis,” Marcus says. “And if you get a letter in the mail, you’re going to try and read it … All of the kids are struggling readers and writers, so to just say ‘write a letter back’ is not very helpful, but if you say ‘draw a picture of everyone in your family, and write their names on it,’ that’s still writing.” Critics of AmeriCorps like Libertarian watchdog James Bovard have scandalized the tutoring sessions that go on in many programs like SPARK, charging that “puppet shows” are hardly productive experiences for children in challenged circumstances. But early literacy is a complicated gambit. “There are so many techniques,” Marcus says. “People get doctorate degrees in early literacy.” That’s why it’s so important that SPARK tutors are appropriately trained – and that program directors can use grant money as it suits them. “The real beauty of AmeriCorps is that it’s not federal dollars being imposed on cities and communities; it’s communities saying ‘This is what our need is; this is what we think we can do with the money,” says Marcus. “A lot of federal programs come in and say, ‘This is the model; follow what we say.” She does struggle with the two-year service term limit, which poses difficulties both in terms of growing the program and in developing relationships between tutors and students. “It is a challenge. We’re talking about kids, so to walk in and out of a kid’s life … these bonds happen instantly. I had a potential tutor ask me how you form bonds with the kids. [But] you don’t have to do anything. The kids love the attention. They have an adult fully [focused] on them for 30 minutes at a time, three days a week.” As the program grows, Marcus admits that she will probably move beyond using AmeriCorps members exclusively, which will involve changing the model of the SPARK program somewhat to include longer-serving tutors and more bilingual volunteers. For now, though, her tutors – many of whom are preservice teachers – have their hands on the pulse of early education, and a hand in the continued on page 8
“When I graduated, I used to say, ‘I can’t just leave, I can’t just forget about the people here.’ This is where I was born and raised. I choose to stay here.”
caption here please amy, k thx.
AmeriCorps member Kendall Hayes on site at the John C. Cudahy YMCA.
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Kids in AmeriCorps’ SPARK program read books, play games, make crafts and put on plays. continued from page 7 support and success of kids who might otherwise slip through the system.
Beyond numbers
“I had another job offer at the same time, and it paid a lot more – and she was kind of hinting that I should take it. She called me back in five minutes and said, ‘Forget everything I just said, I sounded just like my mom.’ I think my dad’s jealous – he always wanted to work with kids, he always wanted to be a teacher. And they think it’s a real job. Because it is.” “I come from a small communit y, so working in Milwaukee – my parents are really concerned,” says Ali Henderson, who serves in the Y’s One-on-One mentoring program. “My grandma calls and asks if I’ve been shot yet, wants to know if I’m hanging out in the ‘hood. [My hometown is] not a very racially diverse community, so that’s a shock for them, when I’m one of the only white people at my sites.” “Yeah, I live in an unsafe neighborhood,” says Antoine Mayes, a second-term AmeriCorps member in his first term of service at the YMCA. “It’s a big deal, but at the same time, we’re part of the solution. We’re not part of the problem. I’d rather say that, even if I live in the most horrible part of town.”
At the YMCA, AmeriCorps funding has allowed its programs to “reach populations that our normal YMCA services couldn’t,” says Casey Renn, AmeriCorps Specialist for the YMCA of Metro Milwaukee. “Young people today have been products of white flight and urban sprawl,” says Renn, a young man himself. “We don’t want to live like that anymore. We want to walk down the street and go to the grocery store and have a sidewalk. That’s not too much to ask. I think that’s why AmeriCorps is engaging more people than ever before.” It’s a bright November afternoon at the Downtown YMCA, and we’re having an impromptu panel discussion as four AmeriCorps members placed with the Y in different capacities discuss why they serve, what challenges them and what inspires them to keep working. And while it’s true that a term Lead by example of service takes commitment and fortitude, no one wanted to qualify their position as “I come from a lousy family, a lousy support anything but a regular job, and many found system – you kind of think that you can’t the richness of their experiences and the come up out of that, but being able to show rewards of serving as agents of transforma- young people that they can build a support system themselves, outside of their tion overshadowed the sacrifices. Rob Topinka joined Public Allies, a leader- families, outside of what they come up in ship training program, this fall after graduating – showing them they can build a future – is from college in the spring of 2007. When he always something that I’ve wanted to do.” found out he had been accepted to the pro- Working within the AmeriCorps framework gram, he called his mom to ask her advice. has its challenges. The YMCA AmeriCorps program is funded at the state level on a
8 | a part of the solution | Vital Source
year-to-year basis; each year the YMCA has to reapply for its grant. “We find out in June if we’re funded, and then we start the program on September 1 – that’s a pretty short time to start talking to branches, find out how many members they want, get descriptions out on college campuses, in the newspaper, on the website, on the radio,” Renn says. A major goal for YMCA’s AmeriCorps program is to secure national funding, which would put the organization on a three-year grant cycle. It would improve consistency and recruiting and allow for more long-term planning, expanded programming and more AmeriCorps members. One key indicator of funding is a program’s retention rate, and while the YMCA’s rate is improving – in 2006-2007, they reported a healthy 84% retention, up from 69% the previous year – a crucial component of the program is bringing in members that kids and teens from rough backgrounds can relate to. Sometimes that means taking chances. “Because we work with such diverse groups and in high-risk areas, we sometimes take on members who have risk factors associated with them,” says Renn. “We need to put someone in there that can relate to the teens and know what they’re going through. We can’t put someone in there who just graduated from college and grew up in Mequon. “Sometimes it’s either the best fit ever – [or] those issues affect their service. We appeal to a board at the state level, and [we have to] help our funders understand that. It’s critical. They just see numbers, and we have to get them to understand everything going on behind those numbers.”
A cycle of service A 2004 study of the effect of AmeriCorps service by the Corporation for National and Community Service (AmeriCorps’ parent agency) repor ted “significant positive impacts on members’ connection to community, knowledge about problems facing their community, participation in community-based activities and personal growth through service.” This was especially relevant in situations where youth considered disadvantaged by poverty, race, social circumstances or family relations were engaged in public service and volunteer opportunities;
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CNCS found that such volunteers were far more likely to go to college, ing a massive volunteer recruitment effort. 2008 marks 40 years since discuss politics with their friends and family and feel empowered to King’s assassination, so the CNCS is launching 40 days of service, nonmake changes in their communities. violence and social justice. It’s a perfect example of the organization’s AmeriCorps alumni were more likely to continue to volunteer, and cohesive vision for national service, connecting Americans with the they were more likely to vote; in the 2000 elections, former Ameri- emotional weight of being united in an effort on a day Coretta Scott Corps members reported that they voted at a rate of 72%, compared King famously promoted as “a day on, not a day off.” with the national average of 55%. And AmeriCorps programs are often In the auditorium of the John C. Cudahy YMCA, Kendall and I are considered a “pipeline” to careers in service; according to the same sitting on a folding cafeteria table and finishing our interview – the study, 66% of AmeriCorps alumni chose careers in the public sector kids upstairs are getting squirrelly. When I ask him if there’s anything (as teachers, social workers, public safety officers) or in the non-profit he wants to add before I pack up and turn him over to the photograsector (in philanthropy, the arts, advocacy). pher, he hesitates, then says yes. But perhaps the most promising aspect of service programs like “When I graduated from my high school, a lot of my peers said that AmeriCorps is the chance they offer to set a cycle in motion, a wheel of they were preparing to leave, that they wanted to leave Milwaukee sowing and harvesting, giving and growing, teaching and learning and – there was a lot of violence, and there still is,” he says. “When I graduteaching again. ated, I used to say, ‘I can’t just leave, I can’t just forget about the people The day I spoke with Pat Marcus, she was working on a way for kids in here.’ This is where I was born and raised. I choose to stay here. The the SPARK program to prepare books to send to kids in New Orleans. AmeriCorps program may not help solve everything, but it solves some “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with even kindergartners thing. A part of the problem is solved by being in AmeriCorps.” giving back,” she says. “It might be something I’m not asking our kids He believes that more people would participate in AmeriCorps to donate, because they don’t have the resources, but maybe they can if they knew about the programming it funds and the incentives sticker them, put in bookplates, and know that they’re sending books it involves. to someone less fortunate. Everybody likes to help. They really do. “Once you start – at first it feels like any other regular job,” Kendall And part of what AmeriCorps likes to perpetuate is service learning says. “But over time, as you develop relationships, it doesn’t feel like … so that kids become more aware of their communities.” it at all. I don’t think there’s any other way I can put it – it’s not really Across the country and here in Milwaukee, AmeriCorps members volunteering to me. I don’t feel like I’m giving up my time – I feel like are preparing for Martin Luther King Day on January 21 by coordinat- I’m earning something, too.” VS
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Vital Source | a part of the solution | 9
news + views at large
>>by ted bobrow
The road goes on forever s work on the Marquette interchange reconstruction project nears completion, I find myself impressed by the enormity of the project as well as with the relative lack of inconvenience it’s caused. Sure, there were occasional delays, as well as closed exits and lanes that added minutes to commutes, but overall, the level of congestion and other problems never seemed to exceed tolerable levels. After all, if you choose to live in an urban area, a certain degree of crowding and waiting is part of life. In a way, it’s too bad. Anyone who feels that we are overreliant on the automobile knows that the only time most people will consider alternative options to driving is when there are significant costs associated with cars. In other words: no pain, no gain. Of course, Americans are notoriously attached to their cars. Even skyrocketing gas prices don’t seem to make a dent in our dependence on the automobile. Here in Milwaukee, we are fortunate to have it pretty easy when it comes to getting around. Driving from one side of town to the other rarely seems to take more than twenty minutes. The rush hour traffic reports usually sound like we live in some kind of Pleasantville with clear roads and minimal delays. People who grumble about traffic or the cost of parking clearly haven’t traveled much. Drivers in Chicago, New York and Boston face extreme traffic congestion, as well as expensive parking costs that encourage alternatives. Not surprisingly, all three cities have extensive subway systems. The one place where there is gridlock here in Southeastern Wisconsin is on the road to funding new or expanded mass transit options. The proposed extension of Chicago’s Metra system from its terminus in Kenosha to Racine and Milwaukee, known as the KRM line, gets a lot of support – that is, until the subject of dedicated local funding comes up.
Under pressure The proposed increase in the tax on rental cars to support the KRM didn’t survive the state budget, leaving advocates for the line hoping they can build support for a referendum on a regional sales tax increase. Good luck with that. In addition, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and County Executive Scott Walker are at odds over proposals to improve the local transit system, continuing an impasse that goes back more than ten years and leaves about $100 million in federal funding on the table. Sigh. It’s yet another example of a pressing public issue crying out for leadership and regional cooperation. Which brings us back to the Marquette interchange project and the
10 | at large| Vital Source
The Marquette Interchange as it will look when completed.
efficient, though costly, road construction program. Why is it that road construction barrels on while so many other needs struggle for funds? To adapt a popular bumper sticker, perhaps one day schools will have dedicated funding and road planners will hold bake sales. But that won’t happen anytime soon. With the Marquette project wrapping up, the state has ambitious plans to expand Interstate 94 down to the Illinois border at a cost of nearly $2 billion. The Milwaukee Common Council voted in December to oppose the widening of I-94 from six to eight lanes and called for the savings to fund rail alternatives, including the KRM. While state transportation planners might be forgiven for asking why the Milwaukee legislators are sticking their noses in a project south of the city’s border, it doesn’t take an engineering degree to wonder how expanding transit options could relieve pressure on the highway. Let me go on record as someone who feels the KRM proposal has merit. Using existing rail tracks, the KRM extension would provide commuters in Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee with an affordable and convenient alternative to driving when traveling to Chicago, northern Illinois or within southeastern Wisconsin. And it isn’t only mass transit advocates who favor the KRM. Business groups including the Milwaukee Seven and the Greater Milwaukee Committee argue that the KRM will promote economic development and help connect businesses with potential employees. Julia Taylor, GMC president, takes a long view of the process and is encouraged that support for the KRM appears to be growing. Yet the local funding requirement appears to be a serious obstacle without a simple solution. Some advocates of Milwaukee’s bus riders, many of whom are low income, question why a suburban rail line deserves a local dedicated funding source while the bus system struggles for adequate funding each budget cycle.
news + views
At large news + views Empty alternatives In another transit-related development, renovation of Milwaukee’s downtown Amtrak station was recently completed and a ceremony was held in November christening the terminal as the “Milwaukee Intermodal Station” to reflect the combination of the city’s bus and train station. Much was also made of the station’s capacity to accommodate the KRM line as well as other rail options. The station’s sleek, attractive new glass shell does make for a more inviting destination. But until the additional options are added to fulfill the station’s potential, this renovation amounts to a glass half empty. Most people are probably more concerned with their daily commutes and fluctuations in gas prices than transportation policy issues, and attempts at raising awareness have been feeble. Let’s face it, those ramp lanes giving priority to cars with more than one occupant are a weak attempt to get people to carpool. As long as the cost of driving and parking is relatively low, people will continue getting in their cars at will. The City of Milwaukee set a bad example when it granted Manpower’s request for free parking for its employees in the package of incentives to lure the company’s corporate headquarters downtown.
NEWS + VIEWS
In order for drivers to choose other options, those choices need to exist. Milwaukee’s bus system, as extensive as it is, doesn’t always offer useful options for many commuters. Some employers, including SC Johnson and Quad Graphics, offer bus service to employees who commute. Employers should be provided with tax benefits and other incentives to make these services available to their workers and employees should get benefits for using them. So while we may be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel as far as the Marquette interchange project is concerned, the expansion of I-94 to the south and other road construction projects are just beginning to appear on the horizon. Hopefully, the KRM line and other transit options will press forward, though funding is less certain. People who love cities usually develop an ambivalent relationship with congestion. Crowds and delays are symptoms of a dynamic urban environment. Here in Milwaukee, we crave the benefits of a major metropolitan area, but we also enjoy the conveniences of a small town. Additional growth and extenuating economic circumstances may lead us closer to the point where we are genuinely craving alternatives to the automobile. But for the moment, anyway, it appears we aren’t there yet. VS
Vital Source | at large | 11
Culture Feature Open to interpretation Present Music composes for the Calatrava >>By Joe White
e’ll all have walkie talkies, and I’ll pretty much be like the quarterback,” says Kevin Stalheim. Such a statement might seem unusual coming from a member of a classical music ensemble, but when the ensemble in question is Present Music – a gaggle of adventurous virtuosi who have trained their fans to expect the unpredictable – the imagery seems in character. On January 12, Present Music stages “Art, Architecture and Music” at the Milwaukee Art Museum, using the entire Museum as a canvas for a concert. “We’ve been there for a long time, and we always go in there and do a concert where people sit down,” says Stalheim, who serves as the ensemble’s artistic director. “I thought that someday I’d like to do something where we’re moving around the galleries.” Before the performance, UWM students and professional video artists will display their work in Windhover Hall while models from Fashion Ninja pose around the museum. After a talk between Alex Mincek and MAM chief curator Joe Ketner about the dialogue between art and music, the action will move to Windhover for the world premiere of Mincek’s “Portraits and Repetitions,” as well as “In White” by longtime Present Music collaborator Kamran Ince and “Women at an Exhibition” by Randall Woolf. After the performance, concertgoers will split into groups and disperse to different sections of the Museum for music and recontextualized art. Roughly every 20 minutes, the groups will switch places. “What I’m imagining is people walking around in these groups [in] a very quiet way, in a contemplative way, the way someone might in a cathedral or a library,” says Stalheim. “The music will be happening, but people can feel free to move around.” Afterward, guests can enjoy an after-party with access to the Martin Ramirez exhibition, an impromptu runway show by Fashion Ninja and a presentation by multimedia ensemble donebestdone. While the works of Randall Woolf, Alex Mincek and Kamran Ince comprise the tradi-
12 | culture feature | Vital Source
tional sit-down-and-listen section of the evening, they are anything but stereotypiPresent Music performs music written for artworks, cal “serious” musicians. Those January 12 at MAM. imagining composers of classical music to be crusty, gray and near-death will drew from works in the Museum’s permanent have their prejudices particularly challenged by collection by Yves Klein, Sol Lewitt, Ellsworth Randall Woolf, who played in garage rock bands Kelly and Cy Twombly, among others. in high school and did not have an interest in Kamran Ince was born in Montana in 1960, classical music until college. but spent his formative years in Turkey. He “I do modern classical music – modern in returned to the United States as a student and the sense that it has sounds, ideas, videos and has maintained a highly active career here and other elements that you would be familiar with abroad ever since. in our world, like electric guitar, turntables “He’s one of our favorites,” says Stalheim. and drum machines,” Woolf says. His resume Performed and recorded previously for Presincludes Harvard and Tanglewood (perhaps ent Music, “In White” is a concerto for violin conforming more to the “I don’t own a televi- and chamber ensemble. Ince’s work, with its sion and never smile” stereotype of serious near-repetition, creative tonality and world composers), but his MySpace page includes music influence, is often characterized as “postPJ Harvey and Bubba Sparxx, and his music minimalist.” Ince, however, is known to blow musical raspberries at such labels, creating reflects as wide a range of styles. Woolf wrote “Women at an Exhibition” bold and beautiful work that defies convenon commission from the Akron Symphony tional definition. Orchestra and the Akron Art Museum and With respect to his evening of controlled premiered the work in 2004. The piece incor- chaos, Kevin Stalheim confesses to an even porates recordings of women speaking and broader range of original plans. singing and is played in tandem with a film “I imagined being in the garage and various by John C. Walsh and Mary Harron featuring places, but, believe me, there’s enough going photographs of women. on right now,” he says. “We can do that other “The main influence … is the singer-songwriter stuff another time.” tradition: Joni Mitchell, Ani DiFranco, Carole King, If the unchecked self-indulgence of the girl groups,” he says. Woolf also incorporated his holiday season has dulled the usual twinkle interests in Bach cantatas – choral works featur- in your eye and life now seems a bleak tunnel of cold weather and bad television, drag your ing extended themes – and hip-hop production. Alex Mincek is a New York-based performer drained self to the Milwaukee Art Museum and composer who, like Woolf, is a reputed on January 12 for visual and aural stimulation, sonic swashbuckler with wide-ranging musi- and feed the one body part that you forgot cal interests. about: your soul. VS “For me, the goal is to create contexts in which the listener has the experience of the familiar made unfamiliar and the novel made Present Music stages “Art, Architecture and inevitable,” says Mincek. He describes his Music” at the Milwaukee Art Museum on Janulatest work as a grouping of short movements ary 12, 2008. Tickets are a very affordable $16 in his signature style: extended repetition, wide to $37 and are available by calling 414-271-0711 dynamic variation and complex timbres. or visiting presentmusic.org. Don’t forget Pres “Each movement corresponds to a visual ent Music’s “Three Gets One Free” program for artist and explores one or many aspects of the students, where two paid admissions get the artists’ work as I understand it,” he says. Mincek third friend in at no cost!
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Vital Source | 13
Vital culture cinema
>>by russ bickerstaff
CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR Starring: Tom Hanks, Amy Adams, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julia Roberts, Ned Beatty Directed By: Mike Nichols Written By: Aaron Sorkin Based on the book by: George Crile Universal Pictures Rated R
I
n 1981, Texas Congressman Charles Wilson and CIA case officer Gus Avrakotos substantially increased U.S. aid for Mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan in their fight against the Soviet Union. Houston aristocrat and political activist Joanne Herring was instrumental in helping Wilson raise the funds from the U.S. government. This screen adaptation of the book of the same name stars Tom Hanks as Charles Wilson, Julia Roberts as Joanne Herring and Philip Seymour Hoffman as Gus Avrakotos. In spite of what star power and subject matter may lead you to believe, Charlie Wilson’s War is not a big-budget Hollywood love song for American imperialism; it deals with the delicate complexities of U.S. involvement overseas with a surprising degree of detail. In the effort to tell a concise story, however, finer points of the Soviet-Afghan War have been glossed over, turning the Soviets into evil villains who mercilessly kill innocent civilians. The Soviets were engaged in atrocious activities in Afghanistan in the 1980s, but it’s difficult to see Charles Wilson and his pals as the good guys. While the U.S. was funding freedom fighters in Afghanistan in the ‘80s, it was also
14 | cinema| Vital Source
Tom Hanks as socialite Congressman turned activist arms broker in Charlie Wilson’s War funding Contras in Nicaragua that were at least as vicious and bloodthirsty as the Russian military. The CIA has been involved in questionable covert operations all over the world, and while a full exploration of these wouldn’t fit into the film’s scope, some sort of substantial perspective would have kept it from feeling short-sighted. The production values are just as impressive as one would expect from a big-budget holiday release. The accoutrements of the ‘80s are meticulously reconstructed to the minutest detail – even the cash Avrakotos hands a cafeteria worker in Langley is 1981-appropriate. But the action in the foreground fails to make much of an impression. Despite Julia Roberts’ talent and Tom Hanks’ Tom Hanks-ness, neither seems as captivating on screen as their biographies imply. Thankfully, Philip Seymour Hoffman is shamelessly fun as a CIA pencil pusher. He’s brash and witty, without a hint of the finesse one would expect from a CIA operative. A genius with no need to prove it, humor and anger tumble out of him with neither force nor stress. Early on, Hanks tells him, “You’re no James Bond.” That’s a good thing – it’s much more satisfying to see Avrakotos in a normal day at the office than it would be to see James Bond or Jason Bourne cruising even the most exotic and dangerous locale. He makes even Langley look alluring; it’s too bad his performance is attached to an otherwise dull film. If you could put a character like that in a big budget film that embraced its own fiction and you’d have something remarkable. VS
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Vital Source | 15
Vital culture music reviews Anna Kramer and the Lost Cause The Rustic Contemporary Sounds Of… International Hits • annakramermusic.com On first listen, Anna Kramer and the Lost Cause’s new record, The Rustic Contemporary Sounds of …, might make you think that Anna and her companions are having some sort of identity crisis. Who exactly is Anna Kramer? Is she Jimmy Page or Maybelle Carter? Sleater-Kinney or the Grateful Dead? And more importantly, does she even know? Throughout Anna’s record, she and her band, Atlanta veterans Shannon Mulvaney and Adam Renshaw, attempt, musically, to chart every corner of rock & roll – with varying degrees of skill and execution. There are Rolling Stones-esque moments of illegal-substance fueled blues, three-chord garage-pop songs in the vein of the Detroit Cobras and simple Southern ballads. Anna’s lyrics, though sung in a beautiful and seasoned southern voice on par with Neko Case or Nina Nastasia, are simple and certainly nothing extraordinary. The record is, in general, frustratingly uncertain and scatterbrained. But to write this record off after a quick listen would be tragic, because Anna’s record has an important attribute that’s absent from too much of today’s music: honesty. Anna has a tune and by God, she’s going to play it how she wants – even if the music refuses to fit nicely into a pretty category. It’s this honest refusal to cooperate, mixed with a heartfelt musical uncertainty, that makes Anna’s record such an endearing, sincere and wonderful listen. Does Anna Kramer know who she is? Maybe not; but why should she have to? —Charlie Hosale Reverend Organdrum • Hi-Fi Stereo Yep Roc Records • reverendorgandrum.org The Reverend Horton Heat (specifically, band leader Jim Heath) is pretty much a brand name with the best of ‘em. For over twenty years, the Rev has built quite a church on the strengths of his electrically-charged, vaguely psychotic musical sermons, with admirers in
16 | music reviews | Vital Source
a wide spectrum of music appreciation, from the purists to the curious. Hi-Fi Stereo, a collection of entirely instrumental covers (save “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head”), falls more on the purist end. Though Reverend Organdrum (I’m betting the moniker brainstorming sessions took three seconds, tops) is quite a pairing, with Asleep At The Wheel’s Tim Alexander providing the organ, there is more miss than hit here. While expertly played and arranged, this disc leaves nothing to the listener’s imagination. From song selection to production to performance, nothing even remotely transports the listener. The lack of anything compelling tells me this was done in pure fun, and probably knocked off with little engaged energy. “Experiment in Terror” is worthy, with some nice atmospheric touches; “James Bond Theme” and “Theme to Route 66” are underlined with a bit of cool. But sadly, those are the only highlights worth mentioning (or even remembering). In a career that has been nothing but success — artistically, commercially, and critically — this project can only be heard as a disappointment. —Troy Butero Bullet For My Valentine •Scream Aim Fire Jive/Sony/BMG • sonybmg.com In the 1980s, it was demanded that metalheads swear allegiance to one subgenre and stick with it. Thrashers risked ridicule for owning a Poison album, and hairmetal kids couldn’t fathom the appeal of music so heavy that Aqua Net girls didn’t like it. So it’s amusing to listen to metal in the 21st century and hear Maiden-esque power metal, Sebastian Bach-caliber vocals and death metal growls in one band. Perhaps the emergence of grunge and indie in the 90s convinced the metalheads that they’d better stick together. If that’s the case, then Bullet For My Valentine is tailor-made to appeal to every last one of them, be they clad in denim, leather or spandex. Scream Aim Fire, the band’s second album, is a nonstop barrage of British riffage, music school-bred twin guitar leads, and all-attack-no-decay double-kick percussion, held together with sugary power-pop vocals that could have been lifted from Skid Row’s debut (note: this is not a bad thing, indie rockers, and no, this isn’t irony talking), were it not for the occasional, and unfortunate, dive into cliché Cookie Monster metalcore. It feels like a calculated choice that will definitely sell records, but hearing Matthew Tuck’s voice soar into Rob Halford terrain would have been much more satisfying. Still, while they may be hurting in the originality department, Bullet For My Valentine is a breath of fresh harmony and
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music reviews Vital culture — what’s this? Songwriting? — in a musical climate where headbangers seem content with mindless guitar wankery and tuneless vocals. Take the standout “Hearts Burst Into Fire,” a not-quite power ballad about (get this) life on the road, of all things. The riffage may be all Iron Maiden, but the lyrics are vintage Jovi Crüe. —DJ Hostettler Human Bell • Human Bell Thrill Jockey • myspace.com/humanbell Nathan Bell (Lungfish, Television Hill) and Dave Heumann (Arbouretum, Bonnie “Prince” Billy) could be the musical equivalent of Civil War re-enactors. Their conspired effort, Human Bell, creates an atmosphere akin to that of an organic battlefield – a dirge-y sweep of chaos, simultaneously cold as metal and mellow as a field of grass droning with insects.
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Recorded by Paul Oldham and mixed by John McEntire, the guitar strings sound as though they reverberate into a tin cup while the crash cymbals and brushes fight to be the main percussive attraction. Add lots of meandering fuzz to the steady progression of songs, and they grow and change just by standing still. Bell and Heumann give us a Tortoise-like bite to chew on – a veritable novel for an audience accustomed to short stories. Through wave after wave of this seemingly cathartic sonic expedition, songs alternate between the quiet, such as “Ephaphatha (Be Opened),” swaying in a brassy swaddling of horns, and the forceful, calculated twitchiness of “The Singing Trees.” Human Bell’s self-titled release is a test in endurance, but should be savored for its meditative qualities. The duo lives up to their name (an uncanny combination of the musician’s surnames), their music widely resonating even during their live shows, when two skeleton guitars must manipulate the body of their recorded music. (On their album, Bell and Heumann host guests such as Matt Riley, Michael Turner, Pete Townshend and Ryan Rapsys.) Human Bell encapsulates a quiet beauty that is at once reflective, progressive and sparklingly macabre. —Erin Wolf
Vital Source | music reviews| 17
Vital culture record releases January 1st Radiohead In Rainbows ATO Jim Brickman Valentine Savoy Jazz Kate Nash Made of Bricks Geffen Marah Angels of Destruction! Yep Roc
Van Hunt Popular Capitol
The SteelDrivers s/t Rounder
Matt Costa Unfamiliar Faces Brushfire
Dave Koz Double Feature Blue Note
January 22nd
Dengue Fever Venus On Earth Allegro
The Magnetic Fields Distortion Nonesuch Anne Murray Duets: Friends & Legends EMI Manhattan
Reverend Organdrum Hi-Fi Stereo Yep Roc
Tyler Ramsey A Long Dream About Swimming Across the Sea Echo Mountain
Amanda Shaw Pretty Runs Out Rounder
Roomful of Blues Raisin’ a Ruckus Alligator
January 18th
Ringo Starr Liverpool 8 Capitol / EMI
Natasha Bedingfield Pocket Full of Sunshine Epic
>>by erin wolf
Ben Allison Little Things Run the World Palmetto Biirdie Catherine Avenue Drive-Thru Black Mountain In the Future Jagjaguwar Carla Bruni No Promises Downtown Buzzcocks 30 Cooking Vinyl Cat Power Jukebox Matador
Drive-By Truckers Brighter Than Creation’s Dark New West Liam Finn I’ll Be Lightning Yep Roc The Fleshtones Take a Good Look Yep Roc The Kennedys Better Dreams Appleseed Recordings Patty Larkin Watch the Sky Vanguard Eric Matthews The Imagination Stage Empyrean
January 29th Airbourne Runnin’ Wild Roadrunner Beat Circus Dreamland Cuneiform The Blind Boys of Alabama Down in New Orleans Time Life Sarah Brightman Symphony Angel/EMI Joe Jackson Rain Rykodisc The Mars Volta The Bedlam in Goliath Strummer/Universal Sam Phillips Don’t Do Anything Nonesuch
Protest the Hero Fortress Vagrant Sia Some People Have Real Problems Hear Music Simple Plan s/t Lava/Atlantic Various Artists Stax Sings the Beatles Stax Chris Walla Field Manual Barsuk Bullet For My Valentine Scream Aim Fire Jive
moe. Sticks and Stones Fatboy North Mississippi Allstars Hernando Sounds of the South The Whigs Mission Control ATO/RCA
18 | record releases | Vital Source
Vital culture
funny page news + Views drawing from memory
THINGS THAT ACTUALLY HAPPEN TO ME
get your war on
vital culture
>>by dwellephant
>>by tim edgar
>>by david rees
vital source | funny page | 19
20 | Vital Source
VITALSOURCEMAG.COM
stages Vital culture
>>words By russ bickerstaff
Nicholas McGeegan 1/26/26
Paul Jacobs 1/18
The Dallas Brass 1/25
ALL IN A NEW YEAR This is a big month for actor/chef/playwright/former longshoreman James DeVita; it begins with an opening of his play Arthur, The Boy Who Would Be King on January 11 at Elm Grove’s Sunset Playhouse and ends with his return to The Rep in David Mamet’s Glengarry Glenn Ross on January 30. Renaissance Theatreworks serves up another helping of its ever-popular Red Pepper Jelly and Milwaukee Shakespeare continues its season with a thoroughly romantic
THEATRICAL PREVIEWS NOISES OFF Strollers Theatre of Madison presents Michael Frayn’s dizzying play-within-a-play sex farce January 10 – February 2 at the Bartell Theatre. 608-661-9696 or madstage.com ARTHUR, THE BOY WHO WOULD BE KING Merlin takes Arthur back in time to show him all that he has accomplished as king in a tale written by local actor/playwright James DeVita. At The Sunset Playhouse, January 11 – 27. 262-782-4430 or sunsetplayhouse.com THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK The Madison Repertory Theatre stages a new adaptation of Anne Frank’s tragic story for the 60th anniversary of The Diary’s original publication. January 11 – February 3 at The Playhouse in The Overture Center. 608-256-0029 or madisonrep.org YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU Alice Sycamore falls for a man from a conservative family and brings him home to meet her own kooky brood. The Racine Theatre Guild presents the Moss Hart/George S. Kaufman comedy January 11 – February 3. 262-633-4218 or racinetheatre.org SAY GOODNIGHT, GRACIE The Boulevard Theatre presents a comedy by Ralph Pape about a high school reunion in
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production of Twelfth Night. But the most promising opening of the month just might be Next Act’s production of Faith Healer, featuring a very impressive cast that includes David Cecsarini, Mary MacDonald Kerr and Jonathan Smoots. In other mediums, Danceworks debuts its third annual Wide Sky performance. The last two years have been a success for the project and there’s no telling what to expect from this year’s installment – besides something good.
1976 New York City. Featuring Ericka Wade, Rachel Lau, Tom Dillon, Keith Tamsett and Jason Will. January 16 – February 3. 414-744-5757 or boulevardtheatre.com 8 1/2 x 11: ONE-PAGE PLAYS Insurgent Theatre presents over a dozen extremely short (exactly one-page, hence the title) new works by local playwrights. January 18 – 26 at Darling Hall. insurgenttheatre.org THE PILLOWMAN Madison’s Mercury Players Theatre presents Martin McDonagh’s strange, dystopian play about a writer in a police state whose fiction provokes suspicion when its gruesome content is found to parallel actual events. January 18 – February 2 on the Bartell Theatre’s Evjue Stage. 608-661-9696 or mercuryplayerstheatre.com THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM – 1963 A family from Flint, Michigan travels to Alabama in this comic stage adaptation of the novel by Christopher Paul Curtis. The First Stage Children’s Theatre production runs January 18 – February 15 at the Marcus Center. 414-273-7206 or firststage.org MUSKIE LOVE Back by popular demand, The Madison Repertory Theatre presents a short run of the classic Dave Hudson/Paul Libman musical about love, fishing and Green Bay. Featuring Lee Beker. January 25 – 3 at the Barrymore Theatre. 608-256-0029 or madisonrep.org
TWELFTH NIGHT Milwaukee Shakespeare presents the quintessential romantic comedy at a larger venue, the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center. January 26 – February 3. 262-781-9520 or milwaukeeshakesepeare.com GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS James DeVita returns to the Milwaukee Rep for the first time in over a decade in this classic contemporary drama by David Mamet. The stress and intensity of big-ticket real estate fills the Quadracci Powerhouse Theatre January 30 – March 2. 414-224-9490 or milwaukeerep. com THE BACHELORS Fred Ally and James Kaplan’s final installment in the Guys On Ice trilogy comes via the Milwaukee Rep to the Schauer Center January 30. The story follows two men in Madison who run into the reincarnation of a woman scorned – in this life, a pizza delivery girl. 262-670-0560 or schauercenter.org FAITH HEALER Next Act Theatre presents Jonathan Smoots, David Cescarini and Mary MacDonald Kerr in the Brian Freil drama about an Irish faith healer returning home after many years of travel through Scotland and Wales. January 31 – March 2 at the Off-Broadway Theatre. 414-278-0765 or nextact.org continued on page 22
Vital Source | stages |21
Vital culture Stages MUSIC OF NOTE FROM SENSUALITY TO DREAMS Guest Conductor Edward Gardner joins the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra for a concert including Tchaikovsky’s First, a Prelude by Debussy and Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto. Featuring guest pianist Geoffrey Beagle. January 4 – 5 at the Marcus Center. 414-291-7605 or mso.org GRAFTON CITY BLUES Ages ago, blues legends from all over came to record for Paramount Records in a disused chair factory in Grafton, WI. The Milwaukee Rep’s Stackner Cabaret performs Kevin Ramsey’s tribute to the makeshift studio January 11 – March 9. 414-224-9490 or milwaukeerep.com A SOLDIER’S TALE The Waukesha Civic Theatre welcomes the Waukesha Symphony Orchestra in a performance of the classic by Igor Stravinski. January 12 - 13. 262-547-0708 or waukeshacivictheatre.org ART, ARCHITECTURE AND MUSIC Present Music synthesizes art forms and roves Milwaukee’s enduring collection of visual art, creating pieces inspired by specific works at the Milwaukee Art Museum. January 12. 414-271-0711 or presentmusic.org VIRTUOSO Guest conductor Ludovic Morlot and trombonist Megumi Kanda join the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra for a concert featuring music by Berlioz, David and Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. January 17 at the Marcus Center. 414-291-7605 or mso.org SOUND & STORY Ludovic Morlot joins the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra for a concert featuring Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Berlioz’s Le Corsair Overture Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe and more. January 18 -19 at the Marcus Center. 414-291-7605 or mso.org PAUL JACOBS Wisconsin Lutheran College hosts the young organist in a concert featuring five centuries of organ music. January 18. 414-443-8702 or wlc.edu/arts REGINA CARTER QUINTET
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The Wilson Center welcomes the talented jazz violinist and company, January 18 at the Kuttemperoor Auditorium. 261-781-9520 or wilson-center.com GO WEST, YOUNG MAN Festival City Symphony begins its Symphony Sundays series with a concert of orchestral music inspired by the great American Southwest. Grofe’s Grand Canyon Suite, Copland’s energetic Dances From The Rodeo and Hayman’s Pops Hoedown accompany selections from Richard Rogers’ Oklahoma! January 20 at the Pabst Theatre. 414-286-3663 or festivalcitysymphony.org KAISSA The traditional, African-inspired vocalist comes to Wisconsin Lutheran College January 22. 414-443-8802 or wlc.edu/arts THE DALLAS BRASS The versatile brass sextet plays Dixieland, swing, pops, Broadway and more January 25 at The Schauer Center. 262-670-0560 or schauercenter.org DEEP AND PLAYFUL Famed conductor Nicholas McGeegan joins the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra for a concert of Beethoven’s First, a cartoon-inspired chamber symphony by John Adams and a clarinet concerto by Mozart featuring guest soloist Todd Levy. January 25 - 26 at the Marcus Center. 414-291-7605 or mso.org CHARLOTTE AND THE MUSIC-MAKER The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra presents a children’s concert in which a fictitious young girl learns about the many instruments that make up the orchestra. January 27 at the Marcus Center. 414-291-7605 or mso.org RUSSIA: REBELS ON THE RED CARPET! Jeffrey Siegel presents the next in his Keyboard Conversations series: a concert featuring compositions by Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Strravinsky. January 30 at Wisconsin Lutheran College. 414-443-8802 or wlc.edu/arts
DANCE TALL TALES FROM THE WIDE SKY In its third year, this multi-genre Danceworks project continues to bring fresh air to the local dance scene with a performance experience incorporating stories from Milwaukee’s diverse population into an incredible evening of storytelling and dance. January 25 – 27 at the Danceworks Studio Theatre. 414-277-8480 or danceworks1661.org BALLET FOLKLORICO MEXICO Rich and colorful, the traditional folk dance group comes to the Waukesha Civic Theatre January 26. 262-547-0708 or waukeshacivictheatre.org WINTERDANCES: TIME UWM’s Peck School of the Arts presents a dance tribute to the fourth dimension, featuring work by Simone Ferro, Janet Lilly, André Tyson, Luc Vanier and Darci Brown Wutz. January 31 – February 3. 414-229-4308 or www4.uwm.edu/psoa/calendar/index.cfm
VARIETY THE DANG-ITS The Schauer Center welcomes the country/ bluegrass/Cajun/blues band in a cabaret cocktail concert atmosphere. January 5. 262-670-0560 or schauercenter.org RED PEPPER JELLY III: THE BEST RECIPE Renaissance Theaterworks welcomes back the cast of the first two popular productions of Jelly for an evening of Appalachian poetry, folk songs, Celtic music and more. January 11 – February 3 at the Broadway Theatre Center. 414-291-7800 or r-t-w.com WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY? Popular TV semi-celebs Brad Sherwood and Colin Mochrie play improv games with the audience January 25 and 26 at The Pabst Theatre. 414-286-3663 or pabsttheater.org GIZMO GUYS Besides contemporary legends like The Flying Karamazov Brothers, there aren’t many dedicated juggling acts out there. Wisconsin Lutheran College welcomes Allan Jacobs and Barrett Felker, two rising young juggling stars with impressive credentials. January 27. 414-443-8802 or wlc.edu/arts
Vital Culture
Dear Lakshmi
H
ere are the facts: in 2005, a baby girl with four arms and four legs was born in rural India. There were only about 500 other people living in her village and the news of her birth spread quickly. Her parents named her Lakshmi, after the four-armed Indian goddess of prosperity, and her community regarded her as a reincarnated goddess. At a year old, her parents refused a sum of money offered by a circus to display her in their “oddities” show. At two years old, a doctor heard about her and traveled to her village. He offered to perform a surgery that would relieve her of the extra limbs, and then moved her (and her family) to the hospital where they would stay for two months until she was deemed strong enough for the procedure. In interviews, both her mother and father revealed that they were worried about changing their daughter, but ultimately they were more worried about her long-term health. They consented to the surgery. Since I heard about this baby, just days before her surgery, I have spent a lot of time thinking about her. I’ve even spent a fair amount of time following her progress online. My imagination has traveled to India and back as I’ve pictured the sequence of little Lakshmi’s life. I’ve wondered what it was like to be the village midwife who received Lakshmi from her mother’s womb. The head emerged, and then the shoulders. The chest came into view. The baby’s right arm appeared, and then the left. With the mother continuing to bear down, the baby was born to the umbilicus, and then the legs came. But the baby didn’t stop there, the way they usually do. There was still more torso, and the midwife must have been confused, maybe even panicked as another pair of legs was born, still more torso, and finally two more arms. I would have seen that this baby was special and that my response to this situation would impact not only the baby, but the parents and perhaps the whole village. I would have to decide to revere rather than revile this new being. I can see myself wrapping the baby in a soft cloth and passing the infant to her mother’s arms. Yes, perhaps
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the midwife was the first to declare that India’s most loved Goddess had been reincarnated in this child. I’ve also pictured myself as Lakshmi’s mother. Proud of giving birth to an absolutely beautiful baby. Immensely worried as I unwrapped little Lakshmi and saw the abundance of limbs. Would I have recognized the resident deity in this child? Would I have recognized that my daughter would need medical attention? Imagine being a mother and feeling torn like that, between heavenly perfection and potential incompatibility with terrestrial life. Occasionally, I think of the chronically povertystricken villagers who viewed the birth of this girl as nothing less than a miracle. She brought a great deal of hope to the people of her community; they had plans to build a temple for her, to worship and care for her. Imagine knowing that the Goddess had chosen your village as her new Earthly home. The pride, the honor, the delight – it would be enough to sweep an entire village along on a celebratory wave that could profoundly change the way those 500 people think of themselves. I’ve even imagined being the doctor who made the trip over hundreds of miles to evaluate Lakshmi personally. What was it like to find her? Or, more accurately, to find them? Lakshmi was a set of twins gone very wrong, medically speaking. There were actually two bodies. One complete. One headless, partial. They were joined at the pelvis, fused in the spinal column. The medical term is Ischiopagus Parasitic Twinning. Much harder to pronounce and to understand than “reincarnated deity.” I would wonder if I could save this beautiful girl, lead a team of respected surgeons, perform a procedure that would bring renown to my hospital and increase my standing in the medical world. This is what is known as a win-win situation. Though Lakshmi’s family refused to sell her to the circus when she was a year old, the medicos still managed to make her into a sideshow by widely publicizing her upcoming surgery in the days before the operation. There were interviews and press conferences. Portions of her medical records were released over the news wires, including CT images. Her beautiful, smiling face was splashed across television sets, newspapers and websites all over the world. It was an amazing coincidence (perhaps even a miracle) that she was born on the feast day for her namesake, the Goddess Lakshmi. It seems less coincidental (perhaps even contrived) that her surgery took place almost exactly two years later, again over the festival celebrating India’s most beloved Goddess. In the end, I look over all of the players in this story and I wonder most what Lakshmi herself wanted. Did she want the 27-hour surgery that would allow her to lead a life more like that of the girls in her village? Or would she have chosen a sacred life of prayer and religious study as the embodiment of the Goddess Lakshmi? I know there’s no way to know that now, but it’s a question I come back to again and again. As will she, in time. VS
Vital Source |slightly crunchy parent | 23
Vital’s Picks >> By amy elliott and lindsey huster
Updated all month long at VITALsourcemag.com
The New Loud w/White, Wrench, Conservatory and Fly Neurotic January 4 – Cactus Club
The Rippingtons along with other dance beats. For more information, call 414-482-2069.
We don’t pa r t icu la rly love t he term “shoegaze,” implying as it does a sort of selfinvolved, boring, 20-minute-guitar-fuzz-solo sensibility, but White, Wrench, Conservatory is consistently described (and describe themselves) as a “shoegaze” band. The first give-away that they don’t suck, though, is their band name, which sounds sort of pretentious until you realize that it comes from the board game Clue. They are also photogenic, smile in public and crack jokes in their bio: “We are very polite heavy drinkers who will geek out with you about physics and Gabrielera Genesis. Unless you’re mean.” Also, and this is no small point, their music is very, very good – adventurous, tuneful, catchy, crazy and brave. Fly Neurotic, another experimental local band that’s been kicking around the Up and Under and Riverwest Commons for the past year or so, promises that “you’ll like our live shows better,” so skip the MySpace downloads and come see the trio in all of their jazzy, spacey glory. And then there’s The New Loud, a gaggle of locals who’ve gotten a whole lot of national attention for their fresh take on catchy-but-new, experimental-but-hooklaced post-punk-pop. It’s a strange, exciting program of music and especially worth checking out if you’ve got doubts about the health of our local music scene. 414-897-0663 or cactusclubmilwaukee.com
Gallery Night & Day: Kickin’ It on the Sout’ Side January 18-19 - Citywide It’s big. It’s bad (in a good way). It’s back and better than ever. Well - we suppose that’s for you to decide. Gallery Night and Day is particularly nice in January, when everyone is depressed and shut-in and in need of a good excuse to get outside, get the blood moving and drink a lot. This year, why not hop on down to the south side. You could start at KunzellmanEsser, the city’s only residential art lofts, where sculptor Kevin Morrow will install a regulation bocce ball court for indoor play. Walker’s Point Center for the Arts features The Good, The Bad and the Ugly: Relationships and Love, juried by the mightily-titled ABEA: African-American
08 Artists Beginning to Educate Americans About African-American Art. As the evening winds down, stop by our new home at the Arts Building at 133 W. Pittsburgh Avenue, won’t you? With artists working in many mediums – from watercolor to woodworking, leather-tooling to jewelry-smithing – it’s a one-stop shop, and VITAL is hosting an after-party, with art by Dwellephant, Kristopher Pollard, Gene and Bridget Evans, Jeff Kenney, Erin Landry and VITAL staffers, all set to the soulful grooves of DJ Aaron Soma. If you love us, you’ll show! For a more complete listing of Gallery Night & Day offerings, visit historicthirdward.org/events/ gallerynight.php
The Walkmen with special guests White Rabbits January 18 - Turner Hall Ballroom Take a stroll through the creepy world of
Fourth Annual Bay View Wine Fest January 18-19 – Marian Center for Non-Profits From the vineyards and trellises of France comes Bay View’s Fourth Annual Wine Fest. Whether your poison be red or white, bottled or boxed, come sip, swirl, smell and finally indulge your taste buds with an alcoholic beverage lately believed to be heart-healthy. Located at the Marian Center, the event includes plenty of spirited fun for the 21 and over crowd. With a glass of wine in one hand, use the other to swing dance to the likes of
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vital living
indie-rock with The Walkmen and their special guest, White Rabbits. Both New York City bands add a sundry slice of sound to the ever-expanding spectrum of “indie.” With an anticipated 2008 album and three critically heralded discs to their credit, the dense, multilayered, echo-thick Walkmen have officially grown beyond their roots and everyone has pretty much forgotten about the song in that Saturn commercial. With their debut album Fort Nightly, White Rabbits drench their sound in calypso and color brightly the sometimes dark (or just boring) cloth of indie rock. We dig it. 414-286-3663 or pabsttheater.com
Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares January 18 - Pabst Theatre The Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir, more poetically known as “Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares” (the Mystery of Bulgarian Voices), have moved at least one critic to describe their singing as “the most beautiful music on the planet” (St. Louis Post Dispatch). Dropping jaws around the world since 1951,
members of this ensemble are handpicked anatomist Gunther von Hagens pioneered a from rural farms and villages across Bulgaria remarkable method of corporal preservation and train extensively in the unique musical which involves replacing bodily fluids and tisstructures that give them their ethereal sound. sues with plastic polymers. Deciding to use his It’s been hip to be worldly in the past couple power for good (entertainment) and not evil of decades, and the Voix Bulgares have gar- (science), Von Hagens worked to primp, pose, nered international attention from sources and re-purpose plastinated cadavers to show as disparate (nay, unlikely) as Peter Murphy the myriad, mystifying things our remarkable of Bauhaus, Linda Rondstadt and the United bodies can do. In cities around the world, this Nations. But it’s not because they’re kitschy, exhibition of 20 whole bodies and almost 200 overproduced or in any way unauthentic. “human specimens” has drawn across-the-board What does it really say about them? Everyone sell-out crowds and necessitated midnight loves them, and you will too. 414-286-3663 or openings and 24-hour viewing. It’s almost as pabsttheater.org. though Body Worlds has revived the step-rightup showmanship of an earlier, World’s Fair, P.T. Gunther Von Hagens’ Barnum-ish time in history. This exhibition is Body Worlds 1 a MAJOR boon for the MPM and we guaranJanuary 18 - Public Museum tee it will be the talk of the town for its whole Possibly the most hyped museum exhibition run here, so buy your tickets early – because since King Tut’s golden treasures, Body Worlds whether you find it enlightening, repulsive or comes to Milwaukee surrounded by sensation just plain crazy, you know you want to see it. and controversy and boasting an impressively Call 414-278-2702 or visit mpm.edu. high yuck-quotient. You know the story by now: in the 1970s, fedora-sporting German Martin Luther King., Jr. events
January 20 – MLK Birthday Event, Marcus Center January 21 – MLK Day Breakfast, YMCA January 21 – “Rediscovering Lost Values,” MLK Community Center
Here’s something you might not know, but should: Milwaukee and Atlanta are the only two cities to have celebrated Martin Luther King’s birthday since 1984 – two years before the holiday was official. This year marks 40 years since King’s assassination, and it’s a more crucial time than ever to remember his message, his mission, the progress made since his death and the lengths we still have to go. On January 20, join the MLK Steering Committee for a huge birthday party in two installments at the Marcus Center. Enjoy a wide, vibrant array of cultural entertainments, including Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra Calypso, Trinity Irish Dance Syrenka: The Polish Youth Folk Dance Ensemble at 12:45 and the Chinese Youth Orchestra, the Northside YMCA Gospel Choir, Latino Arts Mariachi Juvenil, and City Ballet Theatre at 2:00 pm. Speakers include Janan Najeeb from the Islamic Society, Dr. Darnell Cole from MATC and Lori Waldon
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New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians: Contextual Portraits from an Insider’s View January 22 – UWM Union Art Gallery
Mardi Gras Indians kick up their heels at the UWM Union Art Gallery from WISN 12. Continue the celebration on the Martin Luther King Day, January 21, with more introspective events at the YMCA, which hosts an MLK Day Breakfast, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, which hosts “Rediscovering Lost Values” at 6:00 pm, with guest speaker Charles N. Clever Jr., a U.S. District Judge. Take a few days to think about where we are and where we’re going. It’s important.
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The UWM Union Art Gallery beats the northern chill with this ethnographic exhibition of photographs by J. Nash Porter, documenting 30 years of the history and tradition of the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans. This Black American folk ritual synthesizes music, street theatre and social hierarchies with colorful and elaborate masks, costumes and dancing. Engaging mostly black men from New Orleans’ inner city, the rite goes back to the mid19th century and began as an assertion of freedom and pride amidst slavery, racism and poverty. Today it is as much spectacle as it is statement of resistance, and the exhibition will ref lect that specifically in the context of the changes in Louisiana of the past three decades. On January 25, guest curator Joyce Marie Jackson will present Resistance Street Theater: the Black Indians of Mardi Gras, a talk about the exhibition and its wider cultural implica-
tions. Jackson is an Associate Professor at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. For more information, call 414-229-6310 or visit aux.uwm.edu/union/events/gallery
The Editors and Hot Hot Heat January 27 – Pabst Theater Wit h t he release of t heir sophomore album, An End has a Start, The Editors have finally given us a good angle to work with! Although the new album takes a more somber tone than debut The Back Door, expect to hear some crowd-pleasers, including “Bones” and “Weight of the World.” With the success of their previous album and a nomination for the Mercury Music Prize, this quartet from the UK is just warming up. At this show they collaborate with Hot Hot Heat, a Canadian band who are currently fanning the f lames of fame with their third release, Happiness LTD. 414-286-3663 or pabsttheater.com
vital living
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Vital culture chow, baby!
>>words + photos by catherine mcgarry miller
Have a heart
S
ave yourself a trip to N’awlins: Take I94 to 68th. Head north one block north and pull into Maxie’s Southern Comfort. With snow piled high as corn in July, Maxie’s is a hot spot that has already been discovered after eight months in business. Executive Chef Joe Muench puts the South in yo’ mouth with every bite of Southern specialty from barbecued shrimp and ribs to fried green tomatoes and succotash to blackened catfish. Is it any different from what you’d have south of the Mason-Dixon? Yes: it’s a whole lot better here.
Maxie’s Southern Comfort 6732 W. Fairview Avenue 414-292-3969 maxies.com
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Muench opened Maxie’s for owners Dan Sidner and Chick Evens as a sister bistro to Evens’ Maxie’s Supper Club in Ithaca, New York. Their broad take on Southern cookery is reflected in the French, Spanish, German and African accents to the cuisine. The atmosphere is warmed with cayennecolored walls, sparkling little chandeliers and red drapes roped together with massive gold tassels. The chef’s diverse culinary education and experience is evident on every plate. A notable special: the large grilled scallops served over sweet potato hash with frisee lettuce and a poached egg that bursts open to enrich the light butter sauce is mighty fine for anybody hankering to “grab a root” (have dinner). The suggested wine pairing is a rich, smoky pinot noir that tangles nicely on the taste buds with the hickory bacon in the hash. Just as enticing are the seared tenderloin filets drenched in a bourbon glaze, with barely steamed fresh spinach and crunchy corn succotash. Though the chef personally eschews fried food, the creamy potato croquettes and the lacey onion rings are evidence that he’s mastered the art. Using them as accents rather than focal points keeps the diner out of the heart attack zone. Slow your pulse even more with a Scarlet O’Hara, a tot of Southern Comfort, cranberry juice and bitters that, like its namesake, is sweet, sassy and surprisingly potent. Chef Muench learned his trade right here in Milwaukee, starting at his grandmother’s table. “How many kids come home to boiled heart for dinner?” he wants to know. “My grandmother lived with us for six years and
it was like Thanksgiving every day. She made bread, applesauce and rhubarb and we ate a lot of unconventional foods like oxtail soup, beef tongue and liver and onions. Coming through the hardships of war, she used everything. That exposure piqued my interest in cooking: helping her, watching her and just eating.” Though Muench has never lived or worked outside the state, family visits to Louisiana gave him a bank of food memories to tap in his current employment. “Southern cooking was always on my radar. Southern has the largest cumulative style – barbecue to game to fish.” Muench tried college but was impatient with the pace. MATC’s culinary arts program gave him the opportunity to work in his field while he was getting his degree. “I could see the rewards of working sooner. A lot of college students don’t have any idea what they’re going to do when they finish. MATC is ACF [American Culinary Federation] accredited, so you’re getting the same degree as if you went to the CIA [Culinary Institute of America] if you apply yourself. All the tools are there. They have a fantastic facility and offer a broad-based European and classical French foundation.” His cooking experience is an eclectic mix of mom & pop shops, fast-paced, high volume chains, the finest of fine dining (The Grenadiers and Sticks and Stones), an exclusive golf club (Big Foot Country Club in Lake Geneva) and a ground-breaking steakhouse (Eddie Martini’s, which he opened). Each brought experiences that would ensure his success at Maxie’s; most importantly, how to balance family and a demanding career. “The key to success,” according to Muench, “is realizing that there is no finish line. You’re only as good as your last meal.” He measures his personal achievements simply, with pride: “With all the ways people fail in this business, to say at the end of the day you love your wife, you haven’t turned to the bottle and haven’t pulled all your hair out.” VS
Vital living
>> words By Howie Goldklang www.establishmentproductions.com
5Q
Pat Graham Define Silent Pictures – what’s its attitude?
Music and media pop and move. We are digital and online. Genres slide into each other, constantly bounding forward. That’s why Pat Graham’s new photography book, Silent Pictures, is so important: it’s an anchor to link us to the past. Silent Pictures is his first book, showcasing underground rock at its finest through the past two decades. The collection features bands as diverse as Modest Mouse, OutKast, Elliot Smith, Fugazi, Thievery Corporation, Built To Spill and The Shins, on the road and backstage, in a mode that is raw, dirty, lonely, triumphant, gritty and real. Graham, a Milwaukee native, spoke to VITAL from his London gallery, 96 Gillespie, to discuss Silent Pictures, being on the road with Modest Mouse and future projects. For more information, visit 96gillespie.com or modestmouse.com/photoblog.
It’s a photography book, plain and simple. It’s about the images, and hopefully it’ll help expose the road life of bands. We put a lot of thought into the editing, assembling the book like a record to balance quiet and explosive moments. We want to grab attention and get people to stop flipping, to really engage them and get them to inspect interesting photos. With digital photos, we flip to quick. With this book, we want you to stop in your tracks.
Describe your evolution as a photographer in the rock music world. I was born in Milwaukee and kicked around a bit. I started shooting photos at Café Voltaire in Milwaukee around age 17 and studied photography at UWM. Soon after school, I moved to Washington DC. I had a friend that was in bands out there. That’s what kickstarted my photography at shows. I really got into the scene. Shot a lot of Fugazi in ‘91-‘92. It was around that time I started touring with Modest Mouse. It was me with the three guys and a van. It was bare bones, man. I’d do merch, drive a lot, move gear in and out of shows; shooting the whole time. I still tour with them regularly and post photos on their tour blog. I’ve also had the good fortune to have work printed in major European and U.S. music publications like Rolling Stone.
What is your greatest accomplishment as an artist? Doing exhibitions with my wife Melanie Standage - it’s the process of setting them up and seeing things on the wall. Our shows “Past Perfect” or “Wildebeest” were fun to do. The book is a great thing to do and have done but there’s something about showcasing the real prints that always exciting. Also, the Experience Music Project in Seattle purchased a number of my prints for their collection which is a great feeling, too.
What’s up in the UK? I founded 96 Gillespie with my wife. It’s a London gallery that features a lot of American artists. It’s a place to start a dialogue between UK and US artists.
Where do you go from here? What’s next? We are constantly programming new exhibitions for the gallery. I am also organizing Polaroids that present life in general around the bands and personal photos too, possibly for another book. We have a big exhibition coming up at Rough Trade East in London. They are one of the last remaining labels/record stores and they are an absolute music institution. They’ll display prints from the book.
Todd wants to know where you’ve been, baby. If you’re not checking out VITAL online, you’re not getting exclusive performance, film and music reviews, interviews, articles, more Picks and our fabulous, giveaway-laden eNews. Also, you’re not hanging out with Todd. But don’t let that stop you.
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>> words by matt wild
Resolution
L
et’s pretend this column is being written during the first yawning hours of 2008, and not during the first snow-spewing, snot-freezing, soul-sucking weeks of December. Let’s also pretend that contrary to all hard-won common sense and cynical sensibility, the simple arrival of a new year can truly bring forgiveness, absolution and a newfound sense of purpose. Finally, let’s pretend that the rather dubious phenomenon known as “The New Year’s Resolution” isn’t just another hollow, self-defeating ritual designed to give lazy monthly columnists something cheap and easy to write about. Instead, let’s pretend that resolutions really do mean something, and that if we sincerely follow through on them, they can make us better people, and maybe even get us laid. For an extra kick, let’s pretend the following resolutions are your own, and not the aforementioned lazy columnist’s, whose only goal for 2008 is to finally relinquish his post as vicepresident of the Mr. Belvedere Fun Club. Here, then, are four things you should do – nay, must do! – in 2008. (Note: I’m keeping these solely Milwaukee-related, and trying to avoid the typical “Quit smoking and drinking so goddamned much” resolutions we’ve all grown so tired of.) 1. quit smoking and drinking so goddamned much Jesus, you’ve been hitting the sauce a little hard lately, haven’t you? Remember that one night you passed out in the back of your bass player’s pickup truck, got covered in nearly an inch-and-a-half of snow, and almost lost two of the fingers on your left hand to frostbite? How about that night after Thanksgiving when you went out to a bar with a video camera and kept sticking the thing in everyone’s face? Christ, you were annoying that night. And what’s up with the copious cigarette consumption? It used to be you only bummed from your friends when you were bored or wasted, but now you’re blowing precious hip-replacement money on a few packs a week. Seriously, if you
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need any more reason to cut down on both of these vices, just remember what happened to you last month: completely loaded, you quickly swung your hand to your mouth, thinking you were holding a cigarette. Unfortunately, you were holding a beer bottle, and your front tooth was smashed to dozens of jagged pieces as a result.
sweeps are reading this, please don’t hurt me.) 4. challenge art kumbalek to a dance-off All right, let’s drop the whole “These are your resolutions” thing (it really wasn’t working that well, anyway) and get to something that I need to do this year: challenge (and hopefully subsequently beat) fellow local columnist Art Kumbalek in a onenight-only, no-holds-barred, mano-a-mano dance competition. In the upcoming weeks, I intend to send Mr. Kumbalek a letter detailing my proposal. Here’s a sample:
2. finally see the brewcity bruisers OK, so the whole roller derby thing initially bugged the living shit out of you. Fake names? Cheerleaders? Endless cover stories? Christ! But hey, like the latter-day Monkees said: that was then, this is now. Your irrational anger has Dear Mr. Kumbalek, subsided, and you’re finally ready to jump aboard the bandwagon before the whole thing falls apart My name is Matt Wild. I write a monthly column for and everyone starts putting together burlesque acts VITAL Source called “Subversions.” Much like your again. Sure, you’re still a little leery of the weird “Art for Art’s Sake,” my work typically resides on pro-wrestling vibe the whole thing gives off, and the mythic and much-sought-after back page, just the downright baffling rules always remind you of opposite the crossword puzzles and nestled snugly that roller derby episode of King of the Hill. (LUCKY: alongside the “massage” ads. I am contacting you See, your blockers stop the other team’s jammers. today, kind sir, to challenge you to a dance-off. The pivots can block, jam, or counter-jam. Only the pivot or jammer can score. HANK: But how do they Why a dance-off? Well, aside from the fact that the score? LUCKY: No one really knows.) But a bevy idea came to me in a dream (creepy, I know), I believe of fishnet-clad roller girls beats a Bucks game any the idea of two back-page-Milwaukee-columnists day, and supporting your local roller skating scene engaged in a heated dancing competition would always does the body good. (Note: if any Bruisers bolster the spirits of Americans both at home and are reading this, please don’t hurt me.) abroad. Oh, and I think it would be kind of funny. 3. see a film at the milwaukee international film festival
This one’s really inexcusable. You, a film major of all things! Sure, you always seem to be broke when this thing rolls around each year, and the prospect of shilling out $12 for yet another film about the unlikely friendship between a quadriplegic deaf girl and a 76-year-old Romanian chimney sweep never seems all that appealing, but hey, at least it’s not the Cleveland International Film Festival (long story). So this coming fall, save your pennies, see a couple of films and hob-knob with the hob-knobbers at one of those swank after-parties. (Note: if any chimney
Details can be hammered out at a later date, though I must stress that should this epic dance-war take place, it would be an exhibition only, and wagering of any kind would be seriously frowned upon. Any proceeds, tips or hush money will be donated to a suitable charity (Habitat for Humanity? Alcoholics Anonymous?). I await your reply with bated breath. What the fock, Matt Wild (Capricorn) VS Matt Wild’s dance moves have been described as both “like Jell-O” and “kind of creepy.”
vitalsourcemag.com
PUZZLE PAGE Vital source CryptoQuip Clues: y = b m=a
The CryptoQuip below is a quote in substitution code, where A could equal R, H could equal P, etc. One way to break the code is to look for repeated letters. E, T, A, O, N and I are the most often used letters. A single letter is usually A or I; OF, IS and IT are common 2-letter words; and THE and AND are common 3-letter words. Good luck!
Across
Crossword
1 Swamp grass 5 Waistcoat 9 Dab 12 Leer 13 Old master impressionist 15 Anthropoid 16 Place for a caffeine addict? 18 Gaming cube 19 Peepers 20 Midshipman 22 S-shaped molding 24 Rolled tea 25 Engineering school 26 Shake up 27 Moray 29 Cypher 30 Word of understanding 31 Affirmative vote 33 Powder 34 Place for an entrepreneur wanna-be? 40 Toboggan 41 Equality 42 School room, for short 43 Capital of Norway
Sudoku
44 Assembled 46 Law degree 47 Smart 48 Soak 50 Vaulted recess 52 Apportion 54 Potbelly 56 Dry, as wine 57 Place for an avid skier? 62 Noah’s creation 63 Doorman 64 Burnett heroine 65 Written materials (Abbr.) 66 Scot. lake 67 Promised land Down 1 Mythical creature 2 Pride 3 Sprite 4 Crusoe author 5 Places for motorized wanderers? 6 Musician Light 7 The March King 8 Poet. contraction 9 Places for the Mad Hatter and his ilk? 10 Each
11 Dentition 13 Soak flax 14 ____ room 17 Fencing sword 21 Coral reef 22 Hawaiian island 23 Places for island folks? 26 Poke 28 Saw 29 W. state (Abbr.) 32 Adder 33 Ripped 35 More afflicted 36 Modern 37 Places for scholars? 38 Strong wind 39 Wane 43 Saffrons 45 Rotation measuring device, for short 47 India state 48 Steeple 49 Kilns 51 Stage 53 Second sight 55 Biz machine inits. 58 Succeeded 59 Young fellow 60 Before (Poet.) 61 Sunburn
December Crossword Answers To solve the Sudoku puzzle, each row, column and box must contain the numbers 1-9.
PUZZLES
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