guide

September 28, 2007Feature Story News & Politics

2007-08 Fine Arts Guide

Once home to seemingly permanent attractions like Henry Maier, Bo Black and Samson the Gorilla, Milwaukee is a town known for longevity of leadership. So it is in the arts community. Milwaukee Repertory Theater artistic director Joseph Hanreddy begins his 15th season this year, and Debra Loewen starts her 21st as artistic director of Wild Space Dance Company. The late Montgomery Davis served 30 years as artistic director of the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre before stepping down in 2005. But for all the stability on the arts scene, there were an unusually large number of departures announced this past season. David…

July 30, 2007Culture & Style Feature Story

Great Escapes

Routine is something you can definitely get stuck in. Without even realizing it, your daily commute can morph into a little cage secured by a padlock called a job. Add to that kids, e-mail, taxes, low-carb diets, laundry, car pools … and it can feel like you’ve been shackled, fitted with a straitjacket, encased in cement and left to suffocate, overwhelmed by all that responsibility. OK, maybe it doesn’t get quite that bad, but don’t you sometimes long to get away from it all? Any great escape artist will tell you that breaking free from those chafing bonds imprisoning you…

July 2, 2007Feature Story

Top Builders 1999

Vicki Staeger knew she’d chosen the right builder when a young electrician cut a gaping hole in the custom-made, seamless kitchen countertop in the split ranch she and her husband, Alan, were building in Muskego. The house was close to completion, but local building codes demanded an additional outlet under the breakfast bar. When the electrician made an opening in the side of the cabinetry to run wire, his saw went astray, cutting through the sweeping two-level countertop. The workman apologized profusely. The builder, Wolter Bros. of New Berlin, rushed to remedy the mistake, replacing the damaged countertop in just…

May 29, 2007Dining & Drink Feature Story

Beer Crazy

Pabst and Schlitz have left town. Blatz is just a small brand for Miller Brewing, the only big boy left. Yet Milwaukee still proudly calls itself “Beer City.” Few cities have more bars per capita: You can’t walk a couple of blocks anywhere without finding an inviting neon sign. Old drinking buddies like Get Get Gettelman may be gone, but there are still breweries to tour, brewpubs to try, retail shops with great buys, microbrews to discover, and the $3 Pabst tallboy special at the Riverside and Pabst theaters (at that price, I’ll drink anything). So come with us on…

March 13, 2007Feature Story

Hottest Places to Live

Photos by Janica Yoder Trudy and Rich Snyder were ready for the good life. They were ready for a move to the North Shore. They had bought their first home in South Milwaukee 10 years earlier – a 1930s colonial that oozed vintage charm. But after two sons, they found they had outgrown it. So they started shopping. In Shorewood and Whitefish Bay, Trudy relished the cute cafes, the boutiques and bread stores dotting the sidewalks. She imagined loading the kids into their royal blue double stroller and enjoying anew the neighborhoods of her college days. Rich liked the idea…

March 8, 2007Culture & Style Feature Story

Great Adventures

It is one of the most remote areas on God’s paved earth. No motors are allowed and nothing man-made can be built within its pristine borders. The adventures are almost limitless in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Your days can be filled shooting rapids, hiking through virgin forest to thundering waterfalls or snagging bass and walleye from remote lakes almost as fast as you can cast and reel. You may see moose and black bear amid the wild scenery. And at night, you drift off to the serenade of wolf songs, waking each morning to plunge from a bluff…

March 8, 2007Culture & Style Feature Story

Crunch Time

Every January, gazillions of people make a resolution to get off the list of roughly 60 million obese American adults. Others resolve never to join this group whose numbers are unforgivingly tabulated by the National Center for Health Statistics. And so, each New Year comes the annual march of cross-trainer-clad lemmings to a sea of cardiovascular equipment. Luckily for the health club regulars who don’t care for the ensuing overcrowding, America’s annual obsession with health is short-lived, and after a few weeks, the majority of novice exercisers hang up their Nikes and go back to gorging on Big Macs and…

March 8, 2007Feature Story News & Politics

The Right Stuff

In your mailbox? Catalogs of stuff. On the tube and the radio? Stuff for sale. Dinnertime conversation? “Oh, you have that stuff? You should try this stuff.” Weekend plans? Well, there’s stuff in the basement and the garage. Stuff to dust, throw out, polish, tune up, paint, reupholster. When we’re done, well, there’s stuff to play with. That’s your stuff and my stuff. But what about our stuff? All that resplendent stuff in our museums – everlasting, climate-controlled and lovingly displayed. In 1793, the French republicans persuaded the royals to open their Palais du Louvre to all of France, thus…

January 22, 2007Feature Story

Brain Power

Here is the Dalai Lama, his body swathed in red cloth and his head closely shaved, leaning forward eagerly to clasp hands with University of Wisconsin-Madison neuroscientist Richard Davidson. The photo of this moment hangs on the professor’s office wall – just another sign of his fame. Davidson’s work studying the brains of Tibetan monks – specifically, the effects of meditation – first sparked a major wave of media attention about four years ago. He has found that the brain can be trained to reduce stress and is investigating a similar approach to help treat the symptoms of depression, anxiety,…

November 15, 2006Culture & Style Feature Story

Top Doctors 2000

Finding a physician isn’t easy. It’s a matchmaking process that involves linking patients and physicians by such intangibles as trust, honesty or being a good listener. The issue is frustrated by a fundamental question that typically drives physician selection: Is the doctor in the patient’s health plan? Where does quality care come in? Everywhere. It’s a given. “I don’t think people have to worry about the threat of some bumblebum taking care of them,” says cardiologist Dr. Michael Keelan. “There always will be bad apples… but it’s tougher and tougher for people like that to exist. There was a time…