The second annual Wisconsin Wars Breakdance competition was held Saturday, August 24 in the former Old Navy space in the Grand Avenue Mall, Downtown Milwaukee. 

Four teams squared off in the semi-finals from Wausau, Eau Claire, Madison and Milwaukee. Eau Claire was last year's winner, defeating the Madison team. Eau Claire returned to the finals this year, which were held after a hip-hop dance intermission, where they faced off against the Milwaukee crew. 

After much bravado, posturing, dancing, breaking and fun, Milwaukee finally won the bragging rights for the state. The Red Bull went flying as both teams celebrated some great breaking.

You can view a gallery of 69 photographs, un-cropped and otherwise unedited, on my photography page. 

Bukowski Revival Birthday Reading. Join us Friday, Aug. 16, for cake and readings of original Bukowski-inspired poems, as well as readings of Bukowski's work, by Molly Snyder, Ed Makowski, Dave Mikolajek, Geo Kiesow and Royal Brevväxling. 

8 p.m. for birthday cake. Readings begin at 9 p.m. 
Uptowner, 1032 E. Center St.

News Release:

THE PFISTER® HOTEL’S ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE STEPHANIE BARENZ CREATES MENTORING PROGRAM FOR LOCAL CHILDREN

Milwaukee, Wis., July 30, 2013 – Stephanie Barenz, Artist in Residence at The Pfister® Hotel, which is owned and operated by Marcus Hotels & Resorts, along with her husband Zachary Weigman, has started a mentoring program called “Our Story Arts.” The program seeks to give a group of Milwaukee children a voice through self-expression in the visual arts and creative writing.

Currently participating in the program are seven 5th to 7th graders from St. Marcus Lutheran School in Milwaukee, where Weigmen is a full-time writing teacher. The students visit and attend classes with Barenz and Weigman in the Stephanie Barenz Gallery at The Pfister on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. They are divided into two groups–Junior Artists-in-Residence and Junior Narrators, modeled after The Pfister’s two arts programs. 

“The mission of ‘Our Story Arts’ is to focus on the needs of the individual, to start a junior art community in Milwaukee, and to tell the story of our city’s children through creative self-expression,” said Barenz.

“My husband envisioned the program as another way to encourage his students to express their goals and dreams. Meanwhile, I had already been teaching art a few hours per month at the school, and saw the program as an opportunity to bring a new dynamic and purpose to my residency,” she added.

Over the past couple months, the students have been working on the theme of identity, and are producing work based on this concept. They have begun to develop their voice through creative writing assignments, video interviews, poetry, brush and ink calligraphy, portraiture, and gesture drawing. Some of their artwork is on display in The Pfister’s gallery. In the future, they will be working to develop their own “zines,” collections of their self-published work, with Pfister Narrator, Molly Snyder, and her husband, Royal Bravväxling, who is a writing instructor at MIAD.

For more information on the latest news and updates from Marcus Hotels & Resorts, please visit:http://media.marcushotels.com.

On June 15th we taught a Dabble class. With over 12 years of blogging experience, Molly was courted by the Dabble folks to host one on the topic and, once she said yes, we added Royal's 13 years teaching experience and ... hey, there was learning. About blogging. And we had serious fun.

Our class was great. The folks who signed up for it were really cool, had lots of ideas and, we think, are well on their ways to posting insightful writing about surviving cancer, books they've read from a teen perspective, instructing and critiquing rehabilitating homes and adding personal and manageable updates to their professional and scholarly websites.

We'll share the great work of these folks once it starts coming out.

Thanks for the wonderful class! 

Recently, we visited Guido Pfister, Christopher Latham Sholes and the former site of The Norman, on Wisconsin Ave. in Downtown Milwaukee, where four people died in a 1991 fire that consumed the iconic apartment building in minutes. 

Much like our Ofrenda, we paid homage to these people and places that impacted Milwaukee, lighting a candle for the dead at the former site of the Norman, bringing flowers and saying a few words at the Pfister family plot. Molly is posting about honoring the memory of Guido to the Pfister narrator's blog.

We often visit Christopher Latham Sholes, sometimes with custard-carrying kids, but this time we brought our new Royal Mercury portable typer. Molly typed out a note to Christopher and we left flowers for our typewriter inventing friend. 

The accompanying photo gallery documents some of our day visiting the dead. (Clicking on a thumbnail will generate a larger image and the gallery can be scrolled through.)

Molly has been selected as the Pfister Hotel's sixth writer-in-residence. Called "the Pfister Narrator," the position involves interviewing hotel guests and publishing their stories on the Pfister blog. 

Molly brought a lot of ideas to the table when she applied for the position, which was previously held by fellow Milwaukeeans, respected writers, poets and friends, Jenna Kashou, Dasha Kelly, Ed Makowski, Stacie Williams and Julie Ferris. 

Look for Molly to team up in numerous ways with the Pfister artist-in-residence, Stephanie Barenz, including on a book project. And look for Molly in the hotel lobby during the next sixth months! 

It's National Poetry Month and Molly's been writing about why it seems people hate poetry. And here's further commentary and a poem for y'all to hate (but I love it).

NOLA Love 2, our second in a series of zines which are essentially love letters to the city of New Orleans, is complete. NOLA Love 2 contains images and pöems by Royal and Molly. The pöems are alternating line collaborations written in two New Orleans neighborhoods on Dec. 25 & 26, 2012. 

We had a previous blog from 2010-2011, but we have decided to start fresh with a new blog on our fresh, new site. However, being a tragically nostalgic type I feel compelled to include the first entry from our original blog. And then to never, ever speak of it again.

"The first time I saw Royal, he stood outside my son's kindergarten classroom with his daughter. He didn't look at me. He seemed aloof. And yet, I felt a swell of curiosity. I spent the next four years occasionally chatting within classrooms filled with tiny chairs or at potlucks in too-bright gymnasiums but it wasn't until 2010 that I finally took a deep breath and stepped smack-dab in the middle of his path, holding a sparkler in each hand with a sign around my neck reading, 'Hola.'"

She loves him
there is no not
she quit the cigs
a house they bought.