The Rooftop Bar at Sundance Cinemas Madison opened Monday and got me thinking about which place in the city I'd pick as the best to buy a drink, sit outside and contemplate the meaning of life.

That the weather in Madison is appropriate for this activity only about a dozen days a year does not diminish its importance.

Dan Jenkins, a semi-legendary, cynical and world-weary sportswriter, once wrote a novel titled, "You Gotta Play Hurt." The protagonist is a semi-legendary, cynical and world-weary sportswriter named Jim Tom Pinch.

Early in the novel, Pinch is sitting at an outdoor bar in Europe. He notes he is doing three of his favorite things: "Smoking, drinking, not giving a ... "

I've never been a smoker, but I've always felt that when the warm weather finally arrives in Madison, sitting in the fresh air, having a drink and letting your mind wander is a vital component of mental health.

So where others might search out, say, the right therapist or the right church, I have spent decades searching out the best venue around Madison to get a little sun and a little beer.

The Rooftop Bar at Sundance, celebrating its one-year anniversary this week, is certainly a contender. I was there several times last summer. They had the marvelous Belgian beer, Stella Artois, on tap, and there's a wall that assures the view is of the hills and trees across Midvale Boulevard rather than down to the traffic below.

But the Rooftop Bar doesn't open until 4 p.m., and what if you and your muse have a date at 3?

The presumptive favorite, with history and much else on its side, is the Memorial Union Terrace. Some feel the Union Terrace is the very heart of Madison. In 2001, the Utne Reader ran a story titled "Soul Searching," which sought to identify the "unique spirit" of several cities, including Madison.

The story asked: "Where do you go to find the true heart of your city? In Seattle, many would say Pike's Place Market. In Chicago, Wrigley Field." The story continued: "In Madison, the lakeside beer garden at the University of Wisconsin student union."

It was on the Union Terrace that a young folkie named Bob Dylan, visiting Madison for several months in the spring of 1960, sat strumming guitars with another student named Ron Radosh. Radosh, who became a prominent conservative author, related the story to me years later. At one point Dylan looked out at Lake Mendota and said: "I'm going to be as big a star as Elvis Presley."

Radosh scoffed. "Singing Woody Guthrie songs?"

The Union Terrace is also where Matt Younkle was sitting in 1995 when he began the journey to one of the most significant inventions of the 20th century. Actually, Younkle was standing in line for a beer. The tap was sputtering, the line was long, and the net result was Younkle and a friend invented the TurboTap, which allows beer to pour twice as fast as an ordinary tap.

But, you have to be a Union member to buy a beer there. Once you are no longer a student, there are a variety of options for joining the Union, all involving money. It's not very expensive, but I'm with Groucho Marx in being reluctant to join any club that would have me as a member.

There's another good option at the other end of Langdon Street from the Union. I have been accused of spending a record amount of time on the Edgewater Pier, in back of the Edgewater Hotel, and plead guilty, though not so much lately.

I can remember sitting at a table on the pier in 1991 and sipping champagne with John Roach and Mary Sweeney, old high school friends from Madison Edgewood, shortly after Sweeney returned from the Cannes Film Festival in France. The David Lynch film on which Mary had served as assistant editor, "Wild at Heart," had won the festival 's top prize. Eight years later, Roach and Sweeney walked down the Cannes red carpet together, as co-authors of the screenplay for "The Straight Story," another Lynch film in competition at Cannes.

The Edgewater Pier, however, has never had a bathroom. You have to go into the hotel and take the elevator to the lobby. That is, shall we say, less than ideal -- especially as you get older.

There are many other contenders -- Otto's, on Mineral Point Road, has live music at cocktail hour on its second-floor deck during the summer. At the Coliseum Bar, you can sit on its substantial deck, close your eyes and pretend the roar from the cars on Olin Avenue is instead the surf pounding on the beach at Malibu.

I welcome reader nominations, though feel justified in saying my judgment will be final. You can tell me how to program a computer, or fix the rattle behind the glove box in a car. But I can sit in the sun and do nothing with the best of them.