Your Daily Guide

📚 Imagination Center to Open Friday: The Imagination Center at Reindahl Park, the first new Madison library branch in 26 years, will open Sept. 25 at 1814 Parkside Dr. The north side library will open with a ribbon cutting Friday and events all weekend. [WMTV]

• Madison City Council President Sabrina Madison came on the podcast to talk about how important the Imagination Center is to Madison. And with the Madison Public Library celebrating its 150th anniversary last year, we did a deep dive into all the innovations the library has brought to the city over the years. [WMTV, 🎧 City Cast Madison]

🧑‍🚒 Madison Firefighters Rescue Crane Workers: When their sky crane broke, two construction workers were left stranded 30 feet in the air last Friday at the Old Camden Square construction site. Madison firefighters used their ladder truck to reach the workers and get them down safely. [News 3]

🚨 Madison Police Create New Accountability Department: In 2027, the Madison Police Department will have a new section devoted to police accountability and strengthening community connections, says Police Chief John Patterson. The change won’t add personnel, and the department will dissolve its Community Outreach Section. [WMTV]

🚧 Mid Town Road to Partially Close Wednesday: Mid Town Road between Carns Drive and Waldorf Boulevard will close from Sept. 23 to 30. Eastbound traffic can use the road, but westbound traffic will be diverted onto Mayo Drive. [City of Madison]

🧁 Venezuelan Couple Open East Side Bakery: Gibbor Artisan Bakery has opened at 931 E. Main Street, offering both Vienna-style baked goods and traditional Venezuelan pastries. The bakery is currently only open on Saturdays, but the owners hope to expand hours in October. [🔒WSJ]

'Park People’ Will Satirize Madison’s Protest Culture

We can agree to disagree. But the joke behind Corey Holl’s political satire “The Park People” is that we can’t agree on how to disagree.

Holl is a 24-year-old Monona Grove High graduate who makes short business documentaries and music videos in Madison with his partner David Guenther through their company Cut the Deck Creative. He’s raising money to shoot “Park People” in Madison next summer, and has started a crowdfunding campaign and shot a “proof of concept” short film to show to production companies who want to get involved.

Sitting in the Tenney Park shelter near his home, Holl talked about finding the funny aspects of protest in unfunny political times:

Tell me about “The Park People.”

“The Park People” is a political satire. It's a love letter to Madison, but it's also a satire about Madison, and it's about protesting and about place and finding your people, and then obviously about nature and parks, because I'm a big park person myself. So I'm always in parks, and I feel like I found a lot of solace in it, especially in recent times.

This park shuts down in the corner of the city, and these neighbors, mostly these two hippies, protest its closure right away. And then there’s Katie, who's this listless young adult who's our protagonist. She’s like a lot of young people, kind of doomscrolling, not really sure what to do with this world. She gets involved with these hippies and tries to figure out how to stop this park [closure]. They figure out that, you know, there's a corrupt mayor and there's this big billionaire company that's just gobbling up land and building luxury apartments on it. Things get more and more drastic as they try to stop it.

There’s something about this that really reflects Madison. Different generations of people who may be aligned politically but have very different ideas about action.

I feel like the most politically active are either young or old, just because they're not busy raising a family, they just have more time to think about these things, which was really interesting. I think I've seen that a lot too in promoting this movie. It feels like the people who are the most interested in it are either older, or like, the same age as me, which has been really interesting. That's been kind of a fun parallel between the story and the real world.