Condomania

Welcome Bjorn, my friend. Welcome to insidemilwaukee and the community blogger section. I hope your smiling face is posted near condomania. I’m just saying that this old lady could use a little help fashion-wise. Raised in a rural Iowa community (pop. 1,000), in my long-gone youth I had a whole rack of taffeta ribbons, a few dresses, and a pair of shoes for school, and another pair for church going. My sister, 13 months younger, got to wear what I outgrew, but she never got around to wearing my tap dance costume made of feed sacks stamped with chickens. I…

By the time you read this, the party will be over, or almost. That said, once a year, each year for the past six, I receive an invitation to attend a private Halloween party in our community room. Sent forth by two gentlemen who live in a glorious unit with a lake view, the invite always causes me to sweat. What to wear? What to wear? The invite practically demands that you come in costume, though I never checked to see if those who decline to dress like fools are turned away by one of the costumed hosts who welcome…

For the past few weeks I’ve been blogging teasers leading up to the selection of the Pfister Hotel’s Narrator gig, but had to wait for the official announcement before posting this… And The Winner Is? EDDIE MAKOWSKI He’ll be narrating the Pfister Blog, beginning in November.

Over the past few weeks, in a democratic effort to select one writer to lead the Narrator series at the Pfister Hotel, I sat with other panelists in both the Rouge Room and the Mirror Room, munching cookies, drinking coffee and thinking, thinking, thinking. I was in good company, side by side with representatives from onmilwaukee.com, Boswell Bookshop, thirdcoastdigest.com, The Business Journal and others who were also thinking, thinking, thinking. Two ladies representing the marketing end of the Marcus hotel folks, April Dart and Cassie Scrima, kept us from rioting over our choices. After all, choices are very personal. Joe…

The Pfister finalists for the position of “Narrator,” listed in alphabetical order are: Jill Drury, Catherine Jones, Ed Makowski, Matthew Prigge, Judith Steininger and Robert Verhein. Fine finalists all. On October 14, the panelists meet again to view the finalists’ video interviews, and read their sample blogs. I’m proud to be a Wisconsinite (go Pack, go Brewers, go Badgers), but even prouder to be a part of a community of dedicated writers. For the past six months, Stacie Williams has been writing the Narrator blog. She’s a fun and lively navigator whose writing sparkles like the opulent ceiling in the…

Sunday. Cloudy with rain. On my desk are 21 submissions for the “Narrator” position at the Pfister Hotel. This is my third round of go-around, pick one, the right one. I’ve completed my first read-thru, trying to give each pitch my complete attention. Listening to Dewey’s nostalgic big band stuff on Frontier Radio helps.  So far I have two piles of submissions and have narrowed my choices to seven. But the instructions to the panel of choosers say we’re to meet soon with our top six selections in tow. More writers will get my no-go, but which ones? Of the…

It’s Saturday, September 24, and artist Dan Houston and an array of helpers are busy setting up his various paintings in our condo Community Room. Houston, by the by, hails from Houston, Texas, and yes, his name was Houston when he moved there more than 30 years ago. He’s a big chap and claims he developed his love of art as a small child, “creating his masterpieces with crayons on brown paper bags…on his mother’s walls.” He went on to attend the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he graduated in 1965 before moving on to graduate…

Here’s a photograph taken by camera whiz Art Elkon at the opening. It’s Francis photographing Shirah Apple. A man and his camera are never far apart… Francis Ford’s photography exhibit opened Friday night, Sept. 16 at the Portrait Society Gallery on floor five of the Marshall Building. Packed to the rafters with smokers and drinkers ogling the work cheek to jowl, by night’s end some were gasping for air in one of the three small galleries where the windows had been thrown open and a fan set up so people wouldn’t expire before the final bottle of red was popped.…

In my Prospect Avenue ‘hood, there is a fine old house formerly owned by a wealthy purveyor of hops. Maybe he got into too much beer, but his baronial place is now a gathering place for people seeking to kick drugs and booze. The unfortunates fortunate to have a place to join in sobriety stream in daily, and in the summertime sit on the sheltered front porch. Friday and Saturday nights are particularly busy. Last night, a Friday, someone with a sax treated the ‘hood to a session focused on practicing scales. Up and down, down and up, around and under. I…

It behooves me to say I don’t like mums. They’re so stiff and formal. Boring, so boring that I don’t get it when folks rush out and lug home pots of them. To me, one mum is one mum too many. A good mum is a dead mum. I never met a mum I liked. Metro Mart, where I go for groceries (forget organic), has pots and pots and pots of them standing sentinel at the store’s entry point, soon to be joined with those staples of fall, gourds and pumpkins, jars of maple syrup, etc., etc. They drive me…