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 […]

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. […]

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Never Offer Drink To The Guy Who Is Tied-Up

SHOOT THE BLUEBIRD at the ASTOR THEATRE!

The internationally famous “Bluebird” (by Al Emmons) is in place atop the Astor Theatre. On September 8, 2007, from 9 am – midnight, visit the Astor at 1696 N. Astor Street (on the corner of Brady and Astor) to shoot photos of the Bluebird. There will also be a 5 foot tall fairy (outfitted by Kim Huber of Kim’s Costume Shop) and some sort of non-hallucinogenic mushroom. The photo shoot is not quite as easy as it sounds. Drive down. Take a look at Bluebird. Does the photo need to be shot from across the street? How is the photo framed in? Do you use a ladder to get a different angle or shoot from street level? How tight do you shoot the photo? From what angle is the shoot taken? The fairy will be moving about Bluebird. Careful — she has a magic wand. Don’t forget what happened in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Rules: Submit 5 x 7 (or larger) photos of the Bluebird, the mushroom & the fairy, with a max of 5 photos allowed. Application blanks are available at the Brady Street Pharmacy. Entries must be received by September 23, 2007. Judging will be the following week. The judges are John Alley, PJ Boylan and Bob Pecher, all nationally recognized photographers. Winners will be notified by mail and will receive an invitation to an elegant reception during the first week of October to which they may invite their immediate family and friends. Awards will be presented at the reception with food, beverages, and classy music on the Steinway. Fabulous prizes include: 1st prize: $1,000.00! 2nd prize $500 3rd, 4th, and 5th prizes – $200 gift certificates for each of the following restaurants: Bosleys, Emperor of China and Glorioso’s (all on Brady Street.) For more information, call Jim at the Brady Street Pharmacy at 414-272-4384. Good luck!

LET IT BLEED

I Love Cooperation

Green is the new black

“In 60 seconds, you can make toast, water a fichus, take a power nap and, now, save the Earth.” That’s heavy stuff, especially coming from renowned global climate expert Cameron Diaz. She’s teamed up with Al Gore on his latest megalomedia campaign, 60 Seconds to Save the Earth, a contest where young people can submit video shorts meant to “inspire change.” “Because the planet needs a good publicist,” is the tagline, delivered with a big smile by JT’s sometimes main squeeze. Plus the winners earn neat, energy-consuming electronics or even a hybrid SUV! I feel better already. It seems like Al’s back on track to change the course of global environmental decay. His worldwide Live Earth concert was a total bust with its insanely high cost (the citizens of Hamburg, in fact, are stuck with a $1.3 million tab from their event), insulting resource consumption (the private jets for artists alone used enough fuel to fly around the world over nine times), unforgivable lack of focus (no money was raised) and even lackluster ratings. I was also a little worried when the news media outed him for his scandalous personal consumption of energy. It really was pretty lame when he justified his 20-room Nashville estate by bleating that he and Tipper both work from home. It doesn’t count anyway, he added, because they buy “carbon offsets,” paying to have trees planted elsewhere. And the zinc mine on his property continually cited for dumping toxic chemicals into a nearby river and from which he receives about $20,000 a year? Fear not, Green Warriors, the mine was closed in 2003 so he’s all done with that little embarrassment. Just don’t ask him about the shares in Occidental Petroleum he continues to manage for his family. That’s none of your business. And that’s what this is all quickly boiling down to, isn’t it? Celebrities jumping on yet another bandwagon, donning hemp t-shirts and organic cotton jeans to show their solidarity with Mother Earth. The “in” crowd is batting around terms like “carbon offsetting” and “biodiversity” at cocktail parties by chlorinated pools, having arrived in their Escalades. For the rest of us who want to appear socially conscious, there’s the industrious J.C. Piscine Company, also out of Nashville (they make both the Jesus fish and the Darwin fish – clever!). They can’t keep fake hybrid badges that go on the backs of cars on the shelves. The weekly shipping alone could probably supply Africa’s U’wa tribe with electricity for a year. Do I seem bitter? I am, a little. Everything we do as individuals will have negligible overall impact on our climate. Change must come from the big polluters, so it appears we’re pretty much at the mercy of commerce. What can we do while we’re waiting? First, it can’t hurt to familiarize ourselves with some popular terms from the Green Movement. Awareness begins at home, after all, and it’s always nice to be able to understand what the stars are talking about. It’s […]

2007 Short Fiction and Poetry Contest

Intro by Jon Anne Willow It’s possible that only a writer can understand the difficulty of being one. It is not a skill or avocation, but the most primal of callings, an obsession at least as deep-rooted as any felt for love or high ambition. Writing is a cruel muse, leaving you when you need her most, clawing at your back when your thoughts should be turned to other things. Follow her and you may, through a tortuous process, eventually taste the manna of creating something that isn’t truly awful; turn your back and you will surely be left in peace to wade eternally in the tide pool of regret that you did not listen when you had the chance. Just the act of writing consistently takes courage; to actually put your words out there for others, even more: any “writer” who does not know this is either a rank amateur or an imposter. With this belief, VITAL would like to extend our gratitude to everyone who submitted their work to our first Short Fiction and Poetry Contest. Their work was judged blind by talented working professionals who all used the same criteria to score each piece up to 100 total points in different categories. Both first and second place winners in each category are printed here; first place winners will also receive a $50 gift card to Barnes and Noble, whose Mayfair store helped to sponsor this competition. Enjoy. —Jon Anne Willow FICTION WINNER “Confitero” By Anne M. Rice Like savoring a last cigarette before the executioner’s blindfold, I hold the gold cufflink between my fingers, tracing the engraved initials repeatedly with my thumb. The arc of my fingernail revisits the path of the engraver’s pen in lines and curves. Whether I do this to scratch the initials out of existence or because I feel them branding my being, I do not know. I stand motionless – except for this tiny, recurring gesture – in the middle of the bedroom, staring out the leaded glass windows, for what might be hours. Again, I do not know. Time seems almost intractable. Below, the light is reflected on the wet pavement where milky shafts glare up at me. He was in a desperate hurry to leave this evening, choosing to wear the lapis pair – barely securing his French cuffs, grabbing his suit jacket, knocking this offending monogrammed piece onto the Oriental rug near my toe as he flew past, the scent of Kiel’s almond lotion lingering behind him. “Don’t wait up,” he offered, not unkindly, but unnecessarily. I know better than to do that. These evenings have become a part of our routine, even if they are a charade. And I am very clear about how to carry out my role. Early on in this arrangement, I would boast of a busy schedule and a vibrant, separate social life that also kept me out on evenings such as these. And occasionally, I indeed had penciled things in on nights like […]

Take VITAL’s Milwaukee Music Survey

Click here to take the survey. Results will be published in the October issue of VITAL Source, which is our annual Music Issue. There are only 12 questions, so it’ll just take a second. Thanks, as always, for playing. The VITAL Staff

Project Runway at LELA

Cathedral Square Farmer’s Market

Deep in the heart of the concrete jungle, otherwise known as downtown Milwaukee, lies an oasis—a breath of fresh air if you will. It is here that good ‘ol city folk gather on some green amidst the hustle and bustle of the city to enjoy the simpler pleasures in life. Welcome to the Cathedral Square’s Farmers Market, on the corner of Kilbourn and Jefferson Streets. I had the pleasure of visiting the market recently on a ravishing Saturday morning, complete with crystal clear skies and the anticipation one gets when delving into something new. I was not quite sure what to expect. I suppose, after recently visiting Old World Wisconsin, that I half-expected to see women dressed in prairie frocks and crisp linen aprons selling brick oven pies while nearby the men bartered off the family cattle. There were no such sights, of course, after all, this was downtown Milwaukee 2007, but there was certainly no shortage of tantalizing sights to see, feel and my favorite—taste! People come from all over Southeastern Wisconsin to sell their alluring handmade, hand crafted or hand-picked treasures. A pair of Amish friends traveled over 150 miles from Kendall, Wisconsin just to sell their mothers’ baked goodies. Also present was the family who nurtured their hobby of raising honey-bees into a sweet business, Rolling Meadows Honey Farm, offering everything from honey mustard to refreshing honey-lemonade. And the family who runs Lakeview Buffalo Farm. They enticed shoppers with a hearty snack of real Wisconsin cheese and buffalo meat sticks. Perhaps you would enjoy perusing the dozens of elegant pens from The Write Stuff, a father-son venture that turned into quite the talent (The vendor by the way is quite a charming Sophist—in a good way!). Maybe taking home a fragrant bouquet, a basket of fresh veggies, or some gorgeous summer jewels is more your style. Oh, and don’t forget to listen to the music! This time I got to enjoy Repeat Offenders, a cover band that is made up of 3 attorneys, 2 engineers and 1 paralegal (hence the name). Sitting under the shade of a maple tree I watched as children chased blue-gray pigeons while their parents engaged in neighborly conversation. It truly makes you begin to appreciate the simpler things in life. You know, life just tasted a little sweeter that Saturday morning. Stephanie S. Beecher Vital Source Street Team