2003-08 Vital Source Mag – August 2003
Dreaming on Midsummer Nights
By Ken Morgan THE FIRST DECADE: The Unsinkable Molly Brown…Guys and Dolls…Fiddler On The Roof… Brigadoon… Oliver… West Side Story… No, No Nanette… On The Town… South Pacific… Anything Goes… It’s not the oldest youth theater company in America. It’s not the biggest. But there is nothing else quite like it anywhere. Most people would be surprised to discover Manitowoc, Wisconsin is ripe with a thriving art scene. With a population of only 35,000, Manitowoc boasts an unusual level of diversity in both industry and arts. The Rahr-West Museum is a venue for all genres, there are two dinner theaters nearby, and there’s the Masquers Little Theater, now in its 72nd year. A Lyceum Circuit-era theater serves as a venue for both local and touring productions. But it’s the Peter Quince Performance Company that truly stands out. Founded in 1969 by two stage struck youths, the company produces one musical every summer and, for 35 years, has been managed by the local youth involved in the productions. While children as young as seven have worked there, the age requirements — originally 13 to 21, now up to 23 — mean adults have had little to do with the success of the company. It is perhaps America’s only true youth theater. THE SECOND DECADE: Bye Bye Birdie… Oklahoma!… Carousel… Dames at Sea… The Boy Friend… The Pajama Game… Gypsy… Grease… The Wizard Of Oz… Where’s Charlie… “The company adopted its name from a character in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” according to Co-founder Reed Humphrey. “Peter Quince is a carpenter who organized an acting troupe to entertain for royalty. He worked under adverse conditions: none of the cast was professional, there was no rehearsal stage until shortly before the performance, and there were few props. The willingness to seek responsibility for what seems to be an impossible venture is the contagious spirit of Peter Quince and the real magic of theatre.” Stage Trek – Generations. At least one “Quincer” has gone on to act on Broadway, another is now a famous composer and one has even crossed to the other side as a theater critic; however most of the people work there for the love of performing and producing musical theater. Dropping in at rehearsal for the current production of Footloose, the enthusiasm of young people is infectious. Originally, productions took place at local schools. They now enjoy the main stage at the Capitol Civic Center. Technology not available in the 1970s has further improved production values. Shows are now miked. Boom boxes and a synthesizer are used as the cast snaps into the opening production number. The rehearsal hall at the Masonic Temple in Manitowoc trembles as the 20-plus voices of musical youths hit the notes both high and low. Sets and costumes are designed, built and crewed by the members. A full orchestra with brass, woodwind and percussion instruments fills the theater with sound. The local dance schools turn out top-notch choreographers —Milwaukee Ballet principal Amy Fote learned her […]
Aug 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
Bishop Allen
By Jeremy Saperstein Bishop Allen Charm School The Champagne School www.bishopallen.com One of my favorite songs is from a thrift-store record made by a Midwestern high school choir in the mid-70s. The chorus, sounding so sincere that it almost makes my teeth hurt, is a peppy cover of “Kites Are Fun”, full of optimistic voices and youthful enthusiasm. Bishop Allen’s Charm School is sort of like that. Recorded entirely in the apartments of Christian Rudder and Justin Rice (on a single microphone, we’re told), the songs are simple and upbeat and the voices bouncy and ebullient, occasionally slipping into the mannered vocals of that high school choir. It would be easy to dismiss Bishop Allen amongst the horribly serious artistes of the alt-rock world today — the ones who deliver stern messages about our lives and failings — but it would be wrong. The songs on Charm School aren’t as much about particularly weighty topics as they are about pretty girls in sundresses and throwing couches from the roof (“Bishop Allen Drive” ). Even when lyrical expressions of angst or ennui slip in (“Sleeping on the subway in my interview tie/Wander through the rain, sit and wonder why/I haven’t got a plan, I haven’t got a clue/I’ve only got one lonely thing that’s gonna see me through” from “Little Black Ache” ), the surrounding music chases them away. Another favorite is “Busted Heart,” which uses spirited ensemble vocal interplay to soften the blow of lyrics like “Did you ever think, think/A lotta people everyday who will surely drown.”
Aug 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
Vegetarianism as spiritual choice.
By Sanut Gloria Tarrer Humans are individuals. That is, we are an indivisible duality. And although body and spirit are divisible by label, and by energy and matter, they are still one and the same. The body is a vessel for the spirit, which grants the foundation of spiritual development, provided the body receives the essential elements to nurture optimal health. Thus, the healthier the body is, the greater the potential for spiritual growth. The connection between vegetarianism and spirituality is profound. But what does it mean to “be spiritual”? Humans function out of three faculties — mental, emotional and spiritual. Most people primarily utilize the first two faculties. They use their thinking abilities and their feelings to solve problems, find a mate, be employed, etc. A spiritual person functions primarily from their spiritual faculty, actively working to overcome conditioned behavior and habits. For instance, it’s not natural for people to be angry, sad, excited, etc. If it were, all people would share the same emotions about the same event every time. Not everyone is overcome by sadness upon losing a loved one. Not everyone gets angry when confronted or accused. These are programmed responses. Spiritual growth takes place when one learns to ignore these emotional responses. Vitality is essential to spirituality. A major component of spiritual growth is vitality. Vitality is essential to ignoring negative thoughts and emotions. Have you ever noticed that when your vitality is high, you have a sunny outlook on life, greater mental clarity, higher decision-making capacity and feel more disciplined and tolerant? Have you noticed that when your vitality is low, you tend to be more emotional, pessimistic and forgetful? An important key to vitality is the quality of food one consumes. Extensive research has shown that vegetable protein is superior to animal protein. The quality of vegetable protein, i.e. nuts, has a greater chance to be more nutritious, especially in raw form. Vegetable protein is full of enzymes. Science shows us that the more you cook food, the more enzymes it loses. Enzymes act as catalysts for chemical processes in the body that produce energy. And many sources of vegetable protein can be consumed raw. For how many sources of animal protein is this also true? Almost none. And if one consumes animal protein raw, what effect does it have on health? Usually it’s harmful. Also, to believe animal flesh must be consumed in order to sufficiently supply the body with protein is unreasonable. If one looks at protein from a spiritual perspective, unfettered by desires and unbound by taste, one will find that protein is abundantly found in beans, peas, nuts and some whole grains. When one consumes food merely based on taste, it demonstrates a violation of spiritual laws, because the pleasure-seeking desires are in control. The spirit is a force of nature, not nurture. With all that said, one must realize that spiritual development is not something that comes when one eliminates animals from the diet. Eliminating the animalistic behaviors […]
Aug 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
William Parker Violin Trio
By Jeremy Saperstein William Parker Violin Trio Scrapbook ThirstyEar www.thirstyear.com There’s something so right about violinists playing jazz, especially when they can rock it like Billy Bang does on this CD. Evoking styles and songs as disparate as classical, jazz, old-time pop and blues, soundtrack and avant-garde skronk (sometimes all within the same song), the William Parker Violin Trio (Bang on violin, William Parker on bass, Hamid Drake on drums) delivers a solid collection of six songs ranging from the bluesy “Singing Spirits” to the spritely “Urban” to the reverent “Sunday Morning Church.” Bang’s violin freneticism may not be for everyone, but if the idea of a violin trio working in the jazz idiom makes you tingle for that groove, the William Parker violin trio brings it on.
Aug 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
"I know what I want to do for the rest of my life."
By John Hughes What do the Pfister, the Milwaukee Athletic Club, Comet and Fuel Cafes, the Hi-Hat, Sanford’s, Trocedaro, St. Bessie’s, The Social, Sol Fire, Sendik’s and the 300 Club at Miller Park all have in common? You might guess, with a group as wide-ranging as that — nothing. But the answer is Wild Flour Bakery, which bakes wholesale for all of the above. Because of that, they all have Greg and Dolly Mertens, the owners of Wild Flour, in common. You might say Greg and Dolly are the leaven in Milwaukee’s yeast. So much the better for us. During a recent visit to the couple’s beautiful, Mayor’s Design Award-winning bakery on 28th and Lincoln, Dolly shows me with beaming pride the stripped original woodwork in the 80 year old shop, the original laminated bread cases, the original tile floor. She shows me the new, hand-built brick oven, which turns 600 pounds of dough into delectables on slow days, 850 pounds on busy ones. She informs me that there are two other bakeries under the Wild Flour name; one in New Berlin, and one baking pastries and croissants at Grand Avenue Mall. She takes me on a tour of her sparkling kitchen, bustling with hard-working Latinos from the neighborhood, and speaks with strength, conviction, and enthusiasm, her brown eyes bright. “Ten years ago I bought a loaf of bread,” she says. “And when I bit into it, I said to my husband, ‘I know what I want to do for the rest of my life.’ He said, ‘what is that?’ I said, ‘be a baker.’ He just said, ‘I’ll support you.’ He’s a honey.” She smiles with megawatt authenticity and leads me back to the front of the store, where employee Rosa is sweeping with vigor and cheer. “I was the 13th of my parents’ 14 kids,” she continues. “And I was raised on a farm in central Wisconsin. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with my mother. I became an expert dishwasher, I’m great at that. And I learned from my mother the art of sharing. I learned that bread is not so much to feed your belly, but your soul. I learned that when you bake for others, you are sharing not so much food but yourself. And we heal one another through food. So, now I’m doing that, and I love what I do.” Greg is, as Dolly reports, a honey, with an easy smile, gentle voice and approachable spirit. He was one of eight children, but his father died when Greg was 11, and he watched his mother raise the children by herself. He informs me that he decided to marry Dolly when he was 14 and she 13, during the 1950s in rural Wisconsin. The wedding had to wait several years, but they’ve now been married for over three decades. These are people who know the value of hard work and community, pulling together with other “good, honest people” to make something […]
Aug 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
Dark horse running
By Greg Sampson The end of June was all about Howard Dean. On Sunday, June 22, Dean appeared on Meet the Press, where Tim Russert attacked just about everything about him, from his stance on the war in Iraq to his health care policies to his “evolved” position on the death penalty. The following day he was back in Burlington, Vermont to officially declare his candidacy for the Presidency. The tone of his speech was visionary and thoughtful, surprisingly devoid of much of the confrontational rhetoric for which he had made a name for himself in the previous months. Finally, by the end of the week the Dean campaign announced that it had raised $7.5 million in the second quarter, the most by any candidate, the lion’s share coming through donations on the campaign Web site. Suddenly the press was talking about Dean, turning him overnight from a long shot, dark horse candidate to an insurgent contender who was pushing significant political issues and forcing his competitors to pay attention. Politics at its’ most unpredictable. It was politics at its’ most unpredictable. Beyond the money the campaign raised, there was real energy surrounding Dean himself. While many of his vocal supporters were liberal Democratic activists angry about tax cuts, the pre-emptive war in Iraq, and the Bush administration generally, much of Dean’s buzz was fueled by unaffiliated citizens. They are attracted to him in part because he represented a departure from the detached, politics-as-usual formula that has come to represent national campaigns in the past quarter century. In Dean they see a candidate unafraid to not only go after the policies of the Bush administration, but also the inability of Democrats to challenge those policies or come up with a competing vision of how government should work. Young, white and wired: profile of a Deanophile. One of the most compelling characteristics of the Dean campaign has less to do with the candidate himself than with who is watching him. Dean has been successful at courting the unaffiliated, many of them young and on the Internet. They represent a class of people with financial power and an established (not to mention expansive) community base; a heretofore largely untapped “market” for politicians. In the past, they’ve not been big voters. That may be changing. These people go online and talk about Dean. Through mailing lists, weblogs, or via community Web sites, people are contributing to a discussion about Dean, and to grassroots, Web-based activism. In Dean’s case, this has proven significantly more effective than traditional marketing and campaigning techniques for getting his word out. I have to confess, I fit the profile of a Dean supporter almost to a tee. My professional and personal life is tied to the Web. I care about politics in this country, but feel disenfranchised by the detached, insular behavior common amongst politicians, who court special interests and narrow constituencies at the expense of the will of the society they ostensibly serve. I am more likely to […]
Aug 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
Morsels
By Cynthia Vasques It has always amazed me that human beings can consume just about anything that crawls or oozes out of the earth. Who was that first prehistoric homo sapiens who picked up a disgusting snail and said to himself, “Mmmm, yummy- looking?” Or perhaps it was a Cro-Magnon future Frenchman who said the equivalent of “Zoot alors, I’ll eat ‘zis thing!” I had always felt somewhat ill at ease when faced with eating something whose legs were arranged on the plate and whose eyes were staring blankly upward, so I therefore had never experienced the exquisite crunch of soft shell crabs sautéed to perfection until our family moved to Milwaukee, where I became completely obsessive about these seasonal tidbits. My husband, the inveterate fly fisherman, has always been able to eat anything that swims including sea urchin, so I really had never counted on liking soft shells even though he had often tried to foist them upon me. So, it was a great shock to find myself ordering them for the first time at River Lane Inn, a long-established scion of seafood located in Brown Deer. Fran, the effervescent hostess who we have now spent seven years getting to know and adore, encouraged the choice that started my ensuing obsession. Since that first taste of crunchy, delicate shell releasing a burst of juicy flavor, I cannot get enough of these crabby little morsels. We have ordered them several different ways from creative chef JoLinda Klopp of River Lane Inn this season. In four recent visits she featured them Cajun-style, which packed a real wallop! Everyone at the table was wowed by them, but I felt the preparation over-powered their delicate flavor so I opted to have them sautéed them in a lemon beurre-blanc, a more classic way and my particular favorite. We have always counted on both of Jim Marx’ marvelous restaurants for our yearly fix of soft shells, and recently chef Thomas Peschong of Riversite in Mequon obliged us withhis unique talents, presenting us with impeccable soft shells. Thomas has been creating exceptional seafood dishes using only the finest ingredients for nearly 13 years at Riversite, and shows no signs of depleting his treasure chest of ideas. He and owner Jim Marx are responsible for some Milwaukee’s most creative pairings of exotic tastes in food and wine, and host frequent wine-tasting dinners. Next season we will be back in hot pursuit of the succulent softshells and other flavors to pass on to you. This recipe is one of Thomas Peshong’s simple favorites to try with your own frying pan! “Maryland” softshell crabs 6 live jumbo softshell crabs 1/2 cup seasoned flour* Peanut oil or olive oil for frying 1 shallot, peeled and diced 3 Tbsp. lemon juice 3 Tbsp. capers (nonpariels) 3 Tbsp. dry white wine 4 oz. (1 stick) salted butter, chilled and cut into patties salt & pepper Clean the crabs by snipping off the eyes, lifting the back flaps over the bodies and removing […]
Aug 1st, 2003 by Vital Archives
