Beer Here: Wild Buckwheat Red from Sweet Mullets Brewery & Pub Robin Shepard on Friday 01/27/2012 2:00 pm One of the most memorable discoveries to emerge from a full afternoon of tasting at the Isthmus Beer & Cheese Fest last weekend was from one of state's newest breweries -- Sweet Mullets Brewery & Pub, set to open next month in Oconomowoc. Owner and brewmaster Mark Duchow is no stranger to southern Wisconsin beer enthusiasts. >MoreMadison city staff recommend against razing two buildings for State Street Block 100 project Joe Tarr on Friday 01/27/2012 3:26 pm Madison city staff is recommending the Landmarks Commission vote against some aspects of the development proposed for the 100 block of State Street, including the demolition of the Schubert Building, 120 W. Mifflin St., and the Fairchild Building, 122 W. Mifflin St. The staff recommendations, prepared by Amy Scanlon, the city's preservation planner, did not recommend against the plan as a whole, however. >More
Dutch's Auto Service mends cars...and sometimes their owners Attitude adjustment Marcelle Richards on Thursday 01/26/2012 Car troubles? Try a dab of emotional glue. Nan Mortensen and Crystal Rossman fix cars and sometimes tune up people, too. "That's the thing about being women in the automotive industry," says Mortensen. "I think we lend a certain amount of emotional glue to the process. A lot of our customers are women, so there's emotional attachment to their cars. A lot." >MoreFBI probe should worry Walker Corruption will be a major issue in the recall campaign Ruth Conniff on Thursday 01/26/2012 With new arrests every week, the FBI probe of Scott Walker's closest aides and supporters is continually uncovering stories that would be front-page news in any other political era. How strained are things around the governor's mansion, where Walker's own spokesman, Cullen Werwie, now has immunity in the FBI probe? No wonder the governor says he wants to hurry up the recall election. >More
The best of Wisconsin cuisine is served at the Fountain Beautiful state Raphael Kadushin on Thursday 01/26/2012 There is something refreshingly soulful about the Fountain, especially as the chain-ification of State Street continues apace. (And why not an actually decent chain, like maybe a Maoz Vegetarian or Le Pain Quotidien or, if we have to swallow one more cupcake, at least a Sprinkles, which doesn't pile its cakes with mounds of lard-like frosting?) >MoreIsthmus Beer & Cheese Fest 2012: Getting carried away was easy Austin Duerst on Sunday 01/22/2012 1:21 pm, (1) Comment For anyone who has never attended the event, let me just start by saying that the Isthmus Beer & Cheese Fest is like a Renaissance painting come to life, of tables overflowing with an impossible amount of cheese and mead converted into motion picture. It’s also a well-behaved tailgate, with pretzel necklaces, cheesehead hats and a t-shirt that says “I’m a drinker, not a fighter.” For lovers of beer and the fromage, it’s quite simply paradise, a room filled with some of the region’s best samples of each. >More
Galileo Galilei is Madison Opera's second triumph of the season John W. Barker on Friday 01/27/2012 9:38 am Philip Glass's Galileo Galilei has had rather limited circulation around the operatic world, so it was a brave step for Madison Opera to take it up. But the step has paid off, with perhaps the best yet of the company's small, midseason productions in the Overture Center's intimate Playhouse. >More
Glenn Close plays a suffering cross-dresser in Albert Nobbs Masculine feminine Marc Savlov on Thursday 01/26/2012 There's a priceless moment in Albert Nobbs in which an alcoholic physician turns to his hotel's servant, the titular Nobbs, and utters the classic male complaint: "Women." The brief scene is a hoot because, unbeknown to the doctor, the singular Mr. Nobbs is in reality Miss Nobbs, played with permanently repressed panic by a remarkable Glenn Close. >MoreA Dangerous Method looks at the origins of psychoanalysis Freud vs. Jung Kimberley Jones on Thursday 01/26/2012 Hear the words "David Cronenberg" paired with "erotic drama," and you might feel a sudden shudder of unease, thinking back on the Canadian filmmaker's earlier works like Crash or Dead Ringers. This isn't that kind of Cronenberg picture, however. In fact, it's a period piece about the origins of psychoanalysis and the sexual confusions of its progenitors. It's eloquent and handsomely made, if never quite revelatory. >More
Cass McCombs' personal, eccentric folk keeps you guessing Mystery man Scott Gordon on Thursday 01/26/2012 California singer-songwriter Cass McCombs has built up a weird body of online apocrypha, which hobbles that whole process of consulting the Internet to figure out how to appreciate music. Go ahead and dig for context, but you may find yourself grumbling over his slippery answers to interview questions as you stare at a photo of him looking glum in suspenders. He's screwing with people's heads, intentionally or not. >MoreAfter more club violence, disappointment, tightened security Scott Gordon on Thursday 01/26/2012 2:43 pm Just bringing up the subject of violence at hip-hop shows immediately gets you into a mess of generalizations, doesn't it? After all, for every incident like the fight last Tuesday at the High Noon Saloon, during which a gun reportedly went off, there are plenty of positive examples to choose from. >More
Live-blogging the Wisconsin mining bill protests and Gov. Walker's 2012 State of the State Isthmus Staff on Wednesday 01/25/2012 Capitol Square will be busy this week, starting Wednesday as opponents of Assembly Bill 426, better known as the "mining bill," rally at the top of State Street. There's also a "People's State of the State" gathering and, of course, Gov. Scott Walker's official State of the State address in the Assembly chambers. Follow live tweets, aggregated reports, and discussion throughout the day and evening here. >MoreScenes from the 2012 Isthmus Beer & Cheese Fest (slideshow) Eric Tadsen on Monday 01/23/2012 Over two thousand fans of Wisconsin's bounty joined us on Saturday at the Alliant Energy Center's Exhibition Hall for a celebration of some of the stuff that makes living here great! >MoreWisconsin Recall Cam is the country's latest hit reality TV show Linda Falkenstein on Friday 01/20/2012 The placing of a camera in the bleak, bunker-like room of undisclosed location in Madison wherein workers are verifying the signatures on the petitions to recall Governor Scott Walker was probably designed to lend some transparency to what is otherwise a highly protected process. >MoreMORE VIDEO >>
Log in