2007-09 Vital Source Mag – September 2007
Chris Abele
‘Chris Abele’ and ‘Argosy’ may draw blank stares from the average Joe or Jane; ask a local arts supporter, though, and you’ll get a knowing nod. Abele is the 41-year-old head of the Argosy Foundation, established by his father John, co-founder of Boston Scientific, in 1997. The foundation moved from Boston to Milwaukee, where Chris was alerady living, in 2003. Since then, he has generously given his own time and money here and nationwide, supporting the work of groups like Planned Parenthood and the Boys and Girls Club and making appearances at political functions around the world. The Argosy Foundation supports the arts, but its broader mission is to improve the human condition through better access to healthcare, education initiatives for children, environmental protection, improving public safety and more. In the interest of full disclosure, Chris Abele is VITAL’s only financial investor to date, having purchased a (very) minority share of the magazine several years ago. Since then he has made himself scarce, letting us do things however we see fit. He says it’s his way of supporting something he believes in strongly – the enduring relevance of a diverse media. How did the arts become a focus for you? The arts have been part of my life as long as I can remember, largely because I was fortunate enough to grow up in a family who provided plenty of opportunities to experience and learn about music, theater, dance and visual art, [and] shared their passion for it. Our family has supported various arts groups for as long as I can remember. My personal involvement started with the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, but has developed into far more here in Milwaukee. What do you hope to achieve with your contributions of money and time in the arts community? For the groups themselves, I hope to encourage them to strive for ambitious goals; one aspect of Milwaukee that I love is a temperament of relative understatement, which can sometimes mistranslate into diminished expectations of just how much we can achieve and how high we can aim. I would love to see a greater level of pride and celebration of some of the great art that does happen here. For the city writ large, I would love to help people realize just how much we have here and foster a more collective understanding that a life without art is a life deeply diminished. Why is it important to foster the arts at the local level? Our foundation supports arts nationally and internationally, but we are headquartered here in Milwaukee and we believe that part of good corporate citizenship is support for the local community. Personally, I think we have a better arts scene than many people outside Milwaukee imagine, and I’m very excited about how much it continues to grow. What do you consider your greatest achievement as an arts supporter? I’m not sure if it’s for me to declare anything in particular a “great achievement” but I feel good […]
Sep 1st, 2007 by Jon Anne Willow
“THE BRAIN is a commodity used to fertilize ideas.” — Elbert Hubbard
The mind is run by the brain through an extraordinarily complex series of bioelectric reactions. Much like local arts groups, the brain does remarkable things with profoundly few resources. The brain runs an individual’s body and arguably everything abstract going on in his/her mind on very little quantifiable physical energy. If, for instance, a waiter (who we’ll refer to here as Mark) decides to become the artistic director of a new theatre company, he can find a space in Bay View and start the Boulevard Theatre. The brain in its near-infinite complexity allows this individual to adjust to the new role. If, years later, this same individual and his theatre company are pushed out of a season-opening production of playwright David Mamet’s very modern and ridiculously acclaimed Glengarry Glen Ross by a larger theatre company, said individual will adapt to the situation (through a dizzying set of neurological interactions) by planning a production of David and Amy Sedaris’ irreverent comedy The Book Of Liz. Leaping from Mamet’s serious and deeply engaging glance into the heart of human motivation to a comedy that briefly involves a person in a Mr. Peanut costume by the side of the road seems a bit nonlinear, and as the process of adaptation took its course The Book of Liz was rescheduled. The new season-opening work finally rendered was Will Eno’s Thom Paine (Based on Nothing), which opened last month. While the Sedaris’ piece is no longer the Boulevard’s replacement for Mamet’s brilliant drama (it may have never, in fact, ever really been intended for this purpose), it remains on the Boulevard’s season schedule this September. The comedy tells the story of a woman living in a fictitious, secluded religious commune who makes the cheese balls for which the commune is so well known by the outside world. Featuring some pretty deft dialogue, Thom Paine is a brilliant fusion of the distinctive comedic voices of both writers. Thus, thanks to the process of adaptation, Milwaukee theatre is host to the comedy AND the drama of both Eno and Mamet. The adaptability offered through the constantly changing architecture of the human brain can produce astonishing versatility within a single individual as well. For instance: say a young man from New Jersey (we’ll call him Jim) gets a job on a fishing boat. He dreams of being a captain of his own boat, so he graduates from high school and goes to the local community college to perfect the math skills he will need for navigation. If, in the process of going to said college, he finds himself in a theatre watching someone onstage and thinks, “I want to do that,” neurological adaptation at a cellular level kicks in, allowing him to travel across the country to Wisconsin and attend UWM’s professional theater training program. Years later he’s a successful actor/playwright/author. This year, Jim DeVita has a tremendous amount going on, thanks to the basic fundamentals of neurologically-fueled human adaptation. The fall arrives as DeVita’s summer season as […]
Sep 1st, 2007 by Russ Bickerstaff
Your papers, please
In August, Lucky and I went to Monterey, California, to visit our dad. We had an amazing time driving the coastal highway through Big Sur, picnicking on a friend’s private beach and cooking like the three of us were still the big Italian family we grew up with. But it wasn’t all just for a lark. My dad’s been sick since last fall, though he didn’t tell us until recently, and all of us are starting to think about the impending “future.” Lucky and I saw my dad in a new light this time: no longer entirely the Pacino-channeling, devastatingly charming, problem-fixing free spirit we grew up with, the man who met us at the door this time was a little too thin, with pure white hair and a big smile that caught me off guard with its open expression of joy at our arrival. In many ways, I like this man better. He’s mortal at last, which probably clears the road for both Lucky and I to look at ourselves and the people we choose in a more realistic way. And even if you’re not into psychoanalysis (sadly, I think it might be a blossoming obsession of my own middle age), it was so nice to be able to really talk to him without the layers of external image that have previously defined him for us. We traveled on relatively short notice, so to save almost $200 per ticket we chose to land in San Jose, then rent a car and drive the 90 minutes to Monterey. For those who’ve never experienced the pleasure of SJC firsthand (though I should note that a renovation is underway), the terminal is the size of a postage stamp and equally useful to air travelers. There’s one bathroom past the secured area – and by that I mean ONE unisex, one-toilet bathroom serving hundreds of people at all times. There’s no place past security to buy water or anything else (and as in airports everywhere, you can’t bring it in with you); there’s one tiny “food court” near the main entrance and it’s a fairly long bus ride to the understaffed rental car building. Needless to say, the security lines were looong, winding the equivalent of several city blocks when we entered the queue to catch our ride back to Milwaukee. We had plenty of time to chat up our fellow travelers, but when the novelty of that wore off after about five minutes, I daringly made eye contact with an attractive black woman in a sharp navy blazer and impossibly well-tailored khakis. She was in a kiosk, positioned under a sign that read “Now You Can Fly Through Airport Security.” The woman was stylishly hawking Clear, a pay service that allows member travelers to expedite airport security checks by whisking through Clear’s own “designated security lane with special benefits,” bypassing the teeming masses and leaving plenty of time to make gratuitous cell phone calls at the gate while waiting for everyone else. […]
Sep 1st, 2007 by Jon Anne Willow
“Human salvation lies in the HANDS of the creatively maladjusted.” — Martin Luther King
Some of the oldest words in human language relate to the hands, suggesting a fundamental linguistic link between the human mind, the human hand and the world in which they exist. Hands, being the fundamental organ of corporeal interface between a human being and the outside world, have much to answer for in this respect. Throughout history hands have built monuments, started wars and saved and ended lives. Many scholars have elected to pin the blame for many of the hand’s indiscretions on the opposable thumb, thus freeing the rest of the hand from any guilt. Actually, any monkey (or chimpanzee for that matter) can oppose a thumb against an index finger. It’s the fact that the human thumb can oppose ANY of the other fingers including the small and ring fingers that make the human hand unique. Clearly, all the fingers can take both blame and credit for getting humanity to where it is today. And many hands have taken great pains to place performances all over greater Milwaukee this season. Hands have put together a new space for In Tandem to perform in as it opens its first comedy at the newly opened Tenth Street Theatre this season. Meanwhile, Milwaukee Shakespeare is still more or less without a central home as it stages a season featuring a couple of rarely performed pieces. It opens with 2 Henry IV (in September) and Cymbeline (in March) at the Broadway Theatre Center and Twelfth Night at the Wilson Center. Many hands have adapted Shakespeare’s work to other stage forms. The Milwaukee Ballet, for instance, performs dance adaptations of two plays by Shakespeare at the Marcus Center: Hamlet in November and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in February. Two months later, completely different hands place an adaptation of a completely different piece by Shakespeare as The Florentine Opera presents Bellini’s Romeo and Juliet.
Sep 1st, 2007 by Russ Bickerstaff
“If only we could pull out our brain and use only our EYES.” — Pablo Picasso
The human eyes are small but wondrous – a pair of infinitely complex sensors that allow us to experience wavelengths of light as fully formed, instantaneous impressions of color, shape and depth. The nerves and cells in the eye are some of the body’s most sensitive, the muscles that allow the eyes to move the most rapid. Even in sleep, when our eyes are closed, their rapid motion allows us to dream. And they are beautiful – shiny and variegated, an object of poetry, curiosity, perhaps even a window into the soul. And never are the eyes put to better use than to witness beauty, to drink in sights previously unseen and thereby engender a deeper understanding that enriches the soul. Test the soul-altering power of your eyes in September by taking in the universe as Villa Terrace presents a collection of Renaissance star charts and maps of the cosmos. The Racine Art Museum, one of the nation’s foremost craft museums, explores the beauty of shoes with Icons of Elegance, the first exhibition in North America to pair the most important shoes of the 1900s with the history of modern design. At the Tory Folliard Gallery, in the first solo Tom Uttech exhibition since his 2004 retrospective, you can see awe-inspiring elements of the natural and the fantastical. Turn your gaze into the past and see how it shaped the present at the Milwaukee Art Museum with Foto, a winter exhibition of radically modern photography from Central and Eastern Europe in the years between World Wars. Squint and you’ll pierce the dark veil of winter to focus on the delicate consequences of cross-cultural communication at MIAD with This Land is Your Land, a diverse group of shows about boundaries, shifts and perspectives. In the spring let your eyes roam over interpretations of the urban landscape we navigate every day with a group show at the Katie Gingrass Gallery featuring work in sculpture, neon and photography, or get a visual sense of the 19th century at the Haggerty Museum of Art with an exhibition of illustrations from Harper’s.
Sep 1st, 2007 by Amy Elliott
Ministry
Al Jourgenson isn’t about to be considered a politically-charged wordsmith on par with Bob Dylan. Still, this hasn’t stopped him from developing an antipathetic and personal relationship with Bush, Cheney and the Holy War on Terror. Starting with 2004’s Houses of the Mole, followed by 2006’s Rio Grande Blood, the Unholy Trinity concludes with The Last Sucker, a venom-drenched and decidedly non-poetic screed against the Decider and his entourage. Anyone who remembers Ministry’s brutal indictment of Bush Sr., Psalm 69’s “N.W.O.,” is as familiar with The Last Sucker’s formula as is needed. Song after song delivers the same jackhammer drum programming and machine-gun riffage that Ministry’s produced for years, delivered with pit-bull vocals and samples of government icons hypnotically chanting sound-bite mantras. Al doesn’t mince words – lyrics like “I got twins and a Stepford wife/I never had to work a day in my life” don’t leave room for interpretation. But where the Ministry of the Bush 41 era sounded fresh in its rage, the Bush 43 edition has gone stale. The repetitive, stock 16-note chug hammers the brain into a numb paste, perhaps so the listener understands how Jourgenson’s head felt after poring through hours and hours of Bush/Cheney sound bites. Maybe then we won’t notice how cliché it is to name a song about the Veep “The Dick Song,” to say nothing about spending six minutes coming up with new ways to say “Dick Cheney/Son of Satan.” The Last Sucker is Ministry’s final recording, allowing Jourgenson to ride off into the sunset along with lame duck Dubya. Judging by the content of this release (including a baffling cover of the Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues” ), it’s possible that, like Bush the Second, his exit is about eight years too late.
Sep 1st, 2007 by DJ Hostettler
Making It Work For Us
Items discussed: long-running local rock & roll bands, bocce ball, “Weird Al” Yankovic Items not discussed: baffling cell phone plans, the inexorable flaking away of my humanity, that episode of Punky Brewster where Cherie gets stuck in an old refrigerator For the past 28 spine-tingling (or coma-inducing, depending on who you ask) installments of SubVersions, the little byline-thingy at the bottom has always read, “Matt Wild is ¼ of the rock & roll band Holy Mary Motor Club.” What hasn’t been stated, however, is exactly how long I’ve represented this not-so-enviable quarter-slice. Some scattered pockets of inactivity notwithstanding (several of which swallow up entire years), H double-MC (as the kids used to call it) has been around for a terrifying 16 years. Initially born out of a shared love for Mad Magazine, “Weird Al” Yankovic and copious amounts of Mr. Pibb, our scrappy little group has gone on to write and record hundreds of songs, release a couple of albums and play cities as far-off and exotic as Alton, Illinois. I was 13 years old when we first started; now, at 29, I can easily say that I’ve been a member of this band longer than I haven’t. One of my fondest band-related memories occurred near the very beginning: on a whim – and high on whatever small-town, 13-year-old dweebs could possibly be high on – we decided to move our equipment from our drummer’s basement to his spacious, bucolic backyard. It was summer (of course) and I recall some vague notion that we were putting on our version of the Beatles’ Abbey Road rooftop concert, except that instead of a city roof there would be a suburban backyard in Mayville, Wisconsin; and instead of a crowd of adoring Londoners, there would be a nearby soccer field filled with puzzled 7-year-olds. As was our custom in those days, we simply thought up a random title, hit “Record” on a barely-working boombox and hoped for the best. Three minutes later, we had unwittingly produced an adolescent masterpiece: a bouncy little ditty called “Bocce Ball.” So enamored were we with our new creation that we shouted for joy and began rolling through the grass, the sounds of which you can still hear on the original, near-fossilized cassette today. All of this is to simply say that at one point in the distant, summer-soaked past, three scrawny, affable kids formed a band and recorded a song called “Bocce Ball.” Nearly 15 years later, one of those kids – now a grown man with a full-time job and a generous dental plan – would catch himself humming that very same song throughout the 2007 Forward Bay View Bocce Fest, where he and his fellow VITAL Source teammates would eventually suffer an ignominious defeat in the third round. For the uninitiated, bocce ball is a relatively simple game: throw a little ball in the grass, then try to roll a heavier ball closer to that first little ball. It’s fun, surprisingly addictive and gives you […]
Sep 1st, 2007 by Matt Wild
