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Tuesday, February 9, 2010 |  Madison, WI: 25.0° F  
The Paper
Friday, February 5, 2010 | Vol. 35, No. 6

FEATURED STORY

Master & chef Shinji Muramoto
Restaurateur moves beyond cooking to guide his three fusion restaurants

Shinji Muramoto is standing in the back kitchen of his flagship Restaurant Muramoto, explaining a bit of his restaurant philosophy. "We don't have a walk-in cooler because I want to try to get everything fresh every day," says one of Madison's most notable restaurateurs. "If we have a walk-in cooler, the cooks tend to overstock everything, so I just give them a little space for cooling and freezing." >More

NEWS

No room for hip-hop?
Activist bristles at neighborhood center rejection

When Florenzo Cribbs wanted to start a program teaching kids about hip-hop, he thought the perfect place for it would be his neighborhood center, the Boys and Girls Club Allied Family Center, 4619 Jenewein Rd. >More Latino parents get organized in Madison schools

Esther Gabriela Sanchez lasted exactly one year in her job assisting Latino students at La Follette High School. She loved the job, helping students make sure they understand their second language of English. But she was overwhelmed by the secondary responsibilities she took on: helping parents communicate with the school. >More Preserving Wisconsin, one parcel at a time
The Nature Conservancy turns 50, with mostly positive reviews

Hugh Iltis, now 84, remembers that starting a Wisconsin chapter of the Nature Conservancy was surprisingly difficult. When first approached in the mid-1950s, the embryonic national chapter, strife-ridden and overwhelmed, "discouraged it as much as they could." But in 1960, Iltis and Gene Roark tried again, and the Nature Conservancy of Wisconsin was born. >More

MUSIC

With his partner or solo, Gene Ween stirs strong feelings
Loved and reviled

MTV's favorite couch-potato critics, Beavis and Butt-Head, summed up many people's initial response to Ween in six words: "What the hell is this crap?" >More Madison Songwrites Guild Song Showdown debuts the city's newest songs
The lastest in local music

It's not always easy for a young singer-songwriter who's new in town to find a way into the Madison music scene. Just ask Anna Vogelzang. >More Droids Attack: Must Destroy
(Crustacean)

Droids Attack deftly transcend the sludgy cathartic doom that's grown cliché in heavy metal. The Madison trio of Brad Van, Tony Brungraber and Nate Bush can serve up droning electric guitar growls with the best of them. But they're also skilled at forging energetic riffs that keep their music vital. >More

OPINION & COMMENTARY

Dems don't do the minimum
Wage-bill impasse spotlights party's cowardice and failure to lead

A few weeks back I heard from a Democratic member of the state Senate, who wanted to raise an issue of grave concern (or rather, he wanted me to raise it): his party's failure to pass a nominal increase in the state's minimum wage, even now that Democrats control both legislative houses and the governor's office. We waited 20 years to get the majority, and now we can't pass a minimum wage bill," the senator told me. "It's an embarrassment to me as a Democrat." >More 'I hate Shorewood Hills'
Is the village full of hypocritical liberals?

Dear Tell All: Most of the people I know from Shorewood Hills pride themselves on their liberal principles. The village voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama in 2008, and residents love to brag about their fairy-tale community where everybody gets along. Of course, having a fairy-tale community is relatively easy in an area of mostly expensive single-family homes. >More

AT A GLANCE

ARTS

Segredo is changing lanes
In the land of traditional alleys, a new campus nightspot offers a different kind of bowling

We tend to associate bowling with smoke-filled alleys, cheap beer, snazzy shirts, clownish shoes and soggy bar food. But the times they are a-changing. >More Fresco Opera Theatre repackages the genre
Musical makeover

It ain't your grandparents' opera. Fresco Opera Theatre is opera as if P.T. Barnum had to reinvent it for Lady Gaga: fast, sexy, short and as snarky as possible. Madison's newest performance troupe looks forward to madly combining the fustiest of art forms with children's tea parties, game shows, puppet shows and pro wrestling. >More Shear Genius hairstylists say the dumbest things
Cutting remarks

Shear Genius has a knack for finding the world's least charming hairstylists. The new season features the usual group of crude, arrogant self-promoters, who must create "hot" (read: horrifying) hairdos for a $100,000 prize. They're attended by a mentor who dispenses vapid advice like "make sure it looks like a hairstyle." >More Mass Effect 2 is the first great game of 2010
PC, Xbox 360 (Rated Mature)

Everybody keeps asking me what new game they should play. I finally have a four-star answer in 2010: Mass Effect 2. This is a fun, addicting, epic, cinematic and totally nerdy masterstroke. >More

MOVIES

Bodies pile up in From Paris With Love
City of carnage

When we think of Paris and the movies, we think perhaps of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, of songs by Edith Piaf or Django Reinhardt. Not in From Paris With Love, though -- however the title may fool us. >More Dear John's war romance is a bore
Over there

I don't mean to argue that all romantic figures in the movies should conform to the same ideal -- variety is the spice of life, after all -- but was the world really begging for a leading man in cropped cargo pants? >More
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ARCHIVE

EATS

Wood-fired oven dishes distinguish Las Cazuelas
The whole chamorro

It might be a good idea to stop the revolving door at 15 N. Butler St. with its latest tenant, Las Cazuelas. It's been noted that this is not a spot that's been good to restaurateurs over the years. Yet with a triangle of restaurants clustered around the city's Brayton parking lot -- Las Cazuelas, Bellini's and the Bayou (plus, just a few doors further down Butler, Cafe Costa Rica), this sometimes overlooked area of downtown may have critical mass in terms of a dining destination. Call it TriABray. >More Yogurt, chocolate, beer and cheese
The four major food groups in Madison in February

A Red Mango yogurt store will open in mid-February at 627 State St., the block between Lake and Frances Streets. >More

SPORTS & RECREATION

The Saints come marching in

I happened to be in New Orleans in the summer of 2001 for the jazz funeral of Ernie K-Doe, the Big Easy native whose song "Mother in Law" briefly topped the Billboard charts 40 years earlier. I stood in front of a bank on Canal Street, sweating through my shirt in the mid-July heat, sipping a can of Dixie beer offered by a white-haired gentleman in an immaculate seersucker suit. >More
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