What to See at MFF
Five documentaries from the MFF offerings that prove fact can be stranger – and more engrossing – than fiction. Visit mkefilm.org for showtimes.
And The Thunder Rolls
Portentious clouds gather over McKinley Marina. Photo by Jennifer Brindley Ubl. Before a bad back forced him out of the game, storm chaser Kinney Adams lived through 17 years of close encounters with weather’s wrath. He estimates he’s followed hundreds of supercells and just about everything else beastly that Mother Nature can throw at the midsection of America, including softball-sized hail and a squall that produced 600 lightning strikes in the space of three-and-a-half minutes. After spending every spring since 1995 chasing storms throughout the Great Plains, he knew what he was getting into as he powered up his “Geek…
Bryant’s Cocktail Lounge is Almost Like Therapy
Throwing curveballs at Bryant’s leads to hammering home runs.
A Brief History of Beer Gardens in Milwaukee
The resurgence in beer gardens takes a page out of the history books.
Smells like community spirit
Illustration by Toby Triumph 3 months before the party If you’re not the alpha organizer in your neck of the woods, find out who is, and enlist his or her help. Every block has one, and they’ll feel slighted if they aren’t a central part of the fun. Reach out to Germaine Speth (dpwspecialevents@milwaukee.gov), the point person for permits at the Department of Public Works, or visit city.milwaukee.gov/specialevents.gov to submit an application for a block party permit. Get your neighbors to sign on to the plan. According to Speth, there’s no hard-and-fast quota, but the city wants you to make a…
Blue Skies
Photo by Adam Ryan Morris Congratulations! If you made it through Milwaukee’s brutal winter unscathed, you are a part of history. For you young ’uns, this was likely the coldest winter you’ve ever endured. For all of us, the 52 days with more than a dusting of snowfall was a record (tied with three other brutal seasons). We also somehow made it through 92 straight days of snow on the ground. And remember that stretch of 28 (!) days when the mercury never rose above freezing? Us neither. (Thanks Christian Brothers!) All in all, it was the 10th-coldest winter on…
Milwaukee by Water
Photo by Marge Beaver When the early settlers of Brew Town were cooking up names for our fair city, perhaps feeling the effects of smoking a bit of kinnikinnick, they employed the Ojibwe word omanowakiing, which loosely translates to “gathering place by the water.” (Don’t ask us about how we finally settled upon Milwaukee after starting there.) And for all the years that followed, that’s exactly what we’ve been doing… once the ice shelf melts. Our rundown of water recreation will leave you all wet, in a good way. For our tour of H20 fun, we begin with a newcomer.…
Morning Links for May 21 2014
A quick read of our Morning Links ensures you don’t get left out of the water-cooler talk. The Journal Sentinel is reporting that new bus routes will extend into the ‘burbs in an effort to connect workers with jobs. Good news for job seekers, but we’re still waiting on the widespread introduction of real-time bus tracking. The electorate in six states let their voices be heard in primaries yesterday, with “the establishment” largely winning out, prompting CNN to ask if it’s last call for the Tea Party. WUWM and Milwaukee Public Television hosted a town hall last night to discuss the high…
Bob Reitman
Photo by Kat Schleicher When you went back to hosting “It’s Alright, Ma, It’s Only Music” with your son Bobby Reitman III on WUWM, did it feel like you were going back to your roots? Yeah, full circle. I started out where I am now, WUWM, and I was about to go back to UWM to get a teaching certificate. At the same time, all these albums are coming out and nobody was playing them. All the FM stations in the country were just tax write-offs playing elevator music. It was really an opportune time. And if we were successful…
The Definitive Website for Milwaukee Goes Live
Back in our November issue, we talked with Amanda Seligman, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee history professor who is spearheading the efforts to publish The Encyclopedia of Milwaukee. At the time, she promised a companion Website to go along with the coffee-table book (due to be published in 2017). Although we said the site would go live by the end of 2013, we were wrong. (Blame it on the slow-moving gears of the ivory tower.) But Seligman is a pillar of the academic community, and she’s come through on that promise. As of this month, emke.uwm.edu is live. Although the site is in its infancy,…