1. Catch a Show at Cactus Club
JONATHAN JOSEPH | DIGITAL EDITOR
After a week long recovery post the Brewers’ legendary World Series run and a Halloween weekend full of jubilee: I’m still tired. However, I’ve been pushing through my brain fog in an attempt to end my hobby procrastination and finally start doing the things that I love. I just got back into long-boarding this past weekend, and now my next goal is to catch a concert with some good Milwaukee music. A Rise and Fall of a Dilapidated Home is an indie rock outfit based right here in the 414 and they’re playing Cactus Club this Saturday at 6:30 p.m.
This self proclaimed “stupid indie” band, makes some of the prettiest music coming out of our city right now. Their most recent track “Marionette” is a noisy emotional rock fest that pulls the listener in like a tidal wave. With notes of Braid and Sunny Day Real Estate, the 90s are back with poignance. Frontega (Chicago emo), Yolk (Madison alt-rock) and Mala Mala (Milwaukee post hardcore) are all opening the night. Tickets for the show are available at $10 pre-sale or $15 day of.
2. Play Some Pinball at Up-Down
CHRIS DROSNER | EXECUTIVE EDITOR
I love pinball, but damn it can feel pricey these days. A buck a game has become the standard, and many modern tables accept bills or even credit cards because nobody wants to carry that many quarters around. It’s one of the reasons I’ve lately found myself at Up-Down. Just one 25-cent token is needed to play any of the 14 pinball games. Great specials amplify the value – Thursdays are 10-cent tokens (no limit if you want to take a few bucks’ worth home for a later visit), and 20 tokens are gifted to the first 100 people through the door on Fridays; I arrived around 5:30 last week and got the freebies. Plus, the selection is fantastic. I dropped a lot of tokens into Godzilla and Attack From Mars as usual, but the new Fallout pin might have joined them in my favorites. Be warned, the place is sensory overload – video game and pinball sounds compete with loud music while multiple classic movies and live sports play on the TVs – but for purists there’s no better place to play. 615 E. Brady St.
Celebrate this year’s winners of the Betty Awards!
3. Take a Trip to the Past at the Milwaukee Public Museum
EVAN MUSIL | ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR
After years of hearing about childhood memories, reading thousands of mourning social media comments, and editing stories in this very magazine about the sheer wonder it has conjured, I finally visited the Milwaukee Public Museum – months before it closes for good. The patina of nostalgia can make a dusty place seem magical, so I didn’t expect to be struck with the same kind of love that lifelong Milwaukeeans have for the museum. But man was I charmed. Walking the Streets of Old Milwaukee – mobbed by faux crows to celebrate Halloween – felt like wandering a different world, even if that world’s not exactly what the 1890s would’ve been. The dioramas were lifelike in their expressiveness; perhaps some of those silly faces aren’t natural, but they’re full of personality. I saw Milwaukee history in the first-ever habitat diorama (Team Muskrat for life) and joined the masses in pressing the snake button, for which I was unprepared for how laughably tiny the rattle is. I can see why they’re building a new museum, beyond the archival issues. The space wears its age. But now that I have my own memories made there, I can see why it’s so beloved.
4. Watch Sunshine
ARCHER PARQUETTE | MANAGING EDITOR
Does anyone else have a “To-Watch” list of movies approximately nine million films long that only seems to grow? Well, this weekend I finally checked off one that had been on my list for a long, long time – and I kicked myself for not watching it sooner. Danny Boyle’s 2007 sci-fi film Sunshine is a great time. Well, maybe “great” is not the word – it’s kinda harrowing and tragic and whatnot. The movie follows a group of scientists in 2057 piloting a massive ship toward the sun, with hopes of launching a chemical-laden bomb to restore the dying star before Earth freezes. As you could probably guess, things don’t go as planned, when the ship encounters a distress signal from a previous expedition crew they had assumed were long-dead. A killer cast led by Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne and a pre-Captain America Chris Evans sells this pulse-pounding tale, but what really sets the movie apart is Boyle’s direction, with intense and memorable visuals I’d put up there with the best of space cinema.
