What can you find in this week's Isthmus? Highlights from the latest issue follow:
- Giving: In our annual holiday publication, Sari Judge reveals how to cook the green beans on a George Foreman grill, Josh Wimmer finds the best in vintage television specials, the United Way compiles the big "Wish List" from local charities, and Mrs. Gift provides solutions to thorny holiday quandaries.
- Phil Busse looks at low power FM stations, which provide an alternative to corporate radio broadcasting.
- Joe Tarr reports the latest on Block 100 of State Street and Madison's lakes.
- Jack Craver chides local bars for trying too hard to keep out "a bad element."
- Laurie Stark previews this season's veritable cornucopia of holiday-themed arts and entertainment events.
- Dean Robbins offers a critic's perspective on Willy Street's new sidewalk poetry.
- Jessica Steinhoff talks to Shannon Mason, a.k.a. Pongball, a Madison-based composer of videogame music.
- Dean Robbins says PBS's Woody Allen: A Documentary does the legendary director justice.
- Marjorie Baumgarten writes that the nightmarish thriller Take Shelter is deeply unsettling, and Scott Renshaw is unhappy with the penguin-centric animated sequel Happy Feet Two.
- Andre Darlington sips cocktails at Old Sugar Distillery.
- Close to Home: Andy Moore talks to a new kind of urban homesteader.
- Tell All: No sympathy for the overweight.
