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(10/14/10 6:00am)
Patience. It's a virtue the hoards of Sufjan Stevens fans have
learned to embody over the course of his 10 year musical career.
First, it took patience to learn how to pronounce his name
(""soof-ee-yan""). Then it took patience to unearth Stevens'
historical narrative on 2004's Michigan and 2005's
Illinois. Most recently, though, it took a great deal of
patience to sit through Stevens' five year musical hibernation—one
that finally ended last month with his announcement that a new
Stevens album was on its way.
(09/30/10 6:00am)
Choosing a beer is a lot like renting a movie, there are so damn
many and I would like to experience every one, but all I have is
ten bucks and one night. So I shop and I shop until I find a new
beer that looks worthy with the right price and finally I decided
on this friendly looking chap. At home I crack it open and think
and taste and enjoy.
(09/30/10 6:00am)
Choosing a beer is a lot like renting a movie, there are so damn
many and I would like to experience every one, but all I have is
ten bucks and one night. So I shop and I shop until I find a new
beer that looks worthy with the right price and finally I decided
on this friendly looking chap. At home I crack it open and think
and taste and enjoy.
(09/08/10 6:00am)
The animosity between Republican gubernatorial hopefuls Milwaukee
County Executive Scott Walker and former congressman Mark Neumann
is growing fiercer with the approaching primary, with the latest
Walker attack comparing Neumann to Speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives Nancy Pelosi, D-California.
(09/07/10 6:00am)
The birth of a television series begins with a pilot. The show's
creative team puts together one sample episode of the series, shows
that to the network execs, and hopes it gets picked up. That's
basically what this column is today, only you, dear readers, are
the network execs. I hope you relish the power.
(08/26/10 6:00am)
Coffee beers typically boast an extremely rich, thick wallop that
warms drinkers with a high alcohol content. These beers, typically
stouts and porters, can warm the iciest winter night. But coffee
beer in the summer? Chief brewer and co-owner of Furthermore
Brewing Aran Madden thinks so.
(06/10/10 6:00am)
Movie science makes
absolutely no sense. This is a fact of life. In the sanitized labs
of Hollywood, science is sexy, science is quick and science is
terrifying. In reality, it is none of these things: It is
indecorous, slow and about as scary as Biddy Martin's toy poodle.
But you wouldn't get that impression from a movie like ""Splice,""
the new techno-horror flick from director Vincenzo Natali. Nope, in
""Splice,"" science is going to kill us all in very fast, sexy
ways.
(05/04/10 6:00am)
My mother shares a birthday with Jay Leno. When the bartender
announced this during her birthday celebration at the Nitty Gritty
last week, I flew into an instant rage, forgetting the occasion and
proclaiming, ""I wish he were dead!"" to the entire restaurant. Mom
was a tad unsettled by how quickly I could jump to murder, but
frankly, I'm on Team Coco 'til the end.
(04/27/10 6:00am)
When crossing State Street, it's generally a good idea to look
both ways before stepping off the curb. This precaution holds true
not only for buses, taxis and delivery trucks rumbling from Lake
Street to the Capitol, but also for all of the bicyclists weaving
between vehicles. Including the speed-hungry bike messengers and
delivery riders who expertly maneuver around all obstacles.
(04/15/10 6:00am)
After the Camp Randall Hockey Classic, there was a wave of
excitement, harkening to the glory of the sport outdoors in more
expansive arenas. It wasn't the first exhibition of its kind as
Fenway Park, Ralph Wilson Stadium and Wrigley Field have all played
host to similar events.
(04/08/10 6:00am)
It is a match up that simply begs for every clichéd underdog
reference in the book.
(03/23/10 6:00am)
As we are introduced to Raquel, the titular character of ""The
Maid,"" she is sitting alone in the nook of a kitchen, eating in
silence as the family she works for puts the finishing touches on a
birthday celebration. As their stifled laughs echo over the kitchen
counter, Raquel looks up and for a moment stares directly into the
camera, breaking the fourth wall and momentarily sharing with the
audience all of the oddly affectionate animosity she feels for her
employers.
(03/03/10 6:00am)
The state Senate passed legislation Tuesday that seeks to
restrict the resale of tickets outside entertainment and sporting
event venues.
(02/25/10 6:00am)
As a musical artist, naming your album is an important task,
akin to naming your child. This is the first impression the musical
community is going to have of your work, long before they hear the
first set of chords, so it should come as no surprise when many
acts give their LPs flashy titles or names that are more abstract
than a Jackson Pollack painting. It helps give your work a unique
identity right off the bat. Perhaps that's what makes the simple,
declarative nature of It Was Easy, the title of the debut
album from D.C. one-man indie band Title Tracks, ironically stand
out. It's so nondescriptive—and that nondescriptive quality ends up
saying more about the album than any abstract reference ever
could.
(02/25/10 6:00am)
High on Fire give off a very pleasant vibe while not exactly
fitting into the traditional doom metal mold. The trio of San
Francisco musicians formed the band in 1998, and their fifth studio
album, Snakes for the Divine, manages to keep the genre
fresh while attempting to emphasize the ""stoner"" elements. As
always, guitarist/vocalist Matt Pike's shredding skills remain at
the forefront of the album and overshadow most of the other
compositional aspects of this release.
(02/09/10 6:00am)
One Life Stand, the latest album by British
Electropop-ers Hot Chip reveals the same upbeat band as before,
only with less goofiness than on previous releases. Their
electronica sounds more akin to a-ha this time around than to Stars
or Crystal Castles, which is a refreshing change of pace.
(01/20/10 6:00am)
When associated with a successful act, it can be hard to break
out of its shadow and make it on your own. Just ask Conan O'Brien.
Anybody in this scenario is always faced with the
rock-and-a-hard-place dilemma of the need to find a unique style
while making use of the strengths that made past collaborations so
successful.
(12/28/09 6:00am)
Pedro Almodóvar is one of contemporary cinema's most polarized
figures—note that I said ""polarized"" and not ""polarizing."" He's
a two-gear performer: a director working 60 years too late to
flourish in the mythical Hollywood to which he so often alludes and
40 years too late to be an art-house bad boy like the transgressive
European filmmakers to whom he so frequently nods. The last decade
of Almodóvar's 30-year career has been marked by Oscar-friendly
melodramas (2002's underwhelming ""Talk to Her"") and
attention-starved attempts at provocative profundity (2004's
secretly gun-shy ""Bad Education""). I'm no great fan of either of
Almodóvar's two recent modes, so I was quite surprised to find that
his latest film, ""Broken Embraces,"" is 2009's last-gasp
masterpiece.
(12/03/09 6:00am)
Abject poverty. Two pregnancies by the age of 16. A physically
and emotionally violent mother. These are barely half the troubles
Clareece ""Precious"" Jones faces, the titular character of
""Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire."" When touching on
topics such as these, the easy thing for director Lee Daniels to do
would have been to turn ""Precious"" into a hyperbolic tale of
woe—and actually, Daniels does turn much of the film into just
that. But thankfully, once Daniels grounds the film and allows the
powerhouse performances to shine, ""Precious"" offers enough
redemption to make it a film worthy of the buzz it has
gathered.
(11/17/09 6:00am)
This weekend, I will be in the press box at Ryan Field in
Evanston, Ill., watching the Badgers take on Northwestern. Once the
game and the interviews are over, I'll blast out of Illinois and
back to Madison, praying to make it home in time to catch the end
of a game halfway across the country.
