Now there’s a plan in Saint Louis to stir tourism with the stick of nostalgia by building a line through the Loop, a popular area of clubs and shops just north of Washington U. The line would end, fittingly, at the Missouri History Museum. More than $20 million in federal funds is available to build this trolley, though there’s been so little movement Washington has threatened to take the money back....
The way I heard it, Rick Kogan had sent a strong message to the barbarians at the gate—his job be damned if they didn’t like it. But when I called Kogan at the Tribune, he didn’t know what I was talking about. He thought he remembered using the word “nutty” to describe some of the memos raining down on the staff of the Tribune from the new owners. But nothing he could imagine them making a fuss about—and in fact no one at the Tribune had said a word to him about it....
Q I’m a young, straight, feminist male, and I’ve been dating my feminist girlfriend monogamously for almost two years. Recently I’ve been coming to terms with the fact that I’m turned on by rape fantasies. Of course, I find the idea of actual rape repugnant, and this is probably, I realize, an important reason why fantasizing about it turns me on. I sent out some feelers with my girlfriend by initiating a conversation about kinks and asking about what types of kinks she would hypothetically be comfortable accommodating....
Q My boyfriend and I have “history.” We dated casually and weren’t ready to stop seeing other people, so we had an open relationship. This phase was awful: lots of fights, a couple minor breakups, and eventually I called it quits, cutting off all contact. A month later, we started talking again and decided to commit for reals. No fucking around this time. This is his first monogamous relationship, and while he claims to miss the variety, he says he wouldn’t trade having me for having it....
Q My boss/CEO lives and works in a different city, but most of her mail arrives at my office because it’s the company’s official address. I routinely open mail and packages addressed to her. Usually they contain documents for me to handle or software for me to install, but today I opened a package with her name on it to find something completely different: a pair of vibrating panties. A Emoticons are never the right answer, ATA....
A squawk rings out from the northeast corner of Belmont and Southport, just across the street from Schubas. Sasha, the resident Australian cockatoo at Bel-Port Liquors, has likely spotted a human and can’t resist a yell. During her three years at the liquor store, she’s become something of a local attraction. Cockatoos sometimes live to be upwards of 60 years old, and Joe Barbari, owner of both the liquor store and Sasha, says that she’ll stay with him as long as he’s living....
At the same time, the lousy economy has cut some of the profits out of recycling. And Chicago is too broke for any new initiatives that don’t yield an immediate financial benefit—which is why, over the last few months, city officials have floated various proposals for revamping and taxing our garbage collection system. Last week, in announcing that the city’s deficit may rise to $300 million in the coming months, budget director Gene Saffold detailed what the cutbacks will look like if unionized workers don’t give up some pay and benefits....
Likewise I missed both of Revolution Brewing‘s medal winners, Working Mom (a strong American brown ale aged in Appleton Estate rum barrels and Woodford Reserve bourbon barrels) and Gravedigger Billy (a wee heavy aged in Woodford Reserve barrels). They took gold and silver, respectively, in the Strong/Double/Imperial Dark Beer category. I feel like I should serve some sort of penance for that. I mean, I started out avoiding almost half the tables in the venue, hoping to forestall the inevitable stout coma, but after the winners were announced late in the first session, what happened?...
friday4 Friday4 Ballrogg, VertexCaveJacuzzi Boys Saturday5 EntombedLionel MarchettiPocahauntedYakuza Sunday6 Jonathan Biss with the Brentano String QuartetLiza MinnelliWarpaint Wednesday9 Golden Filter, The Hundred in the HandsDave Holland QuintetDamien Jurado Ballrogg headlines. 9:30 PM, Elastic, 2830 N. Milwaukee, second floor, 773-772-3616, donation requested. —Peter Margasak Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » JACUZZI BOYS Now that Arizona has pulled ahead of the Sunshine State in the “Who Has, Per Capita, the Stupidest Assholes in the Country?...
Wood took on Easterbrook in the mezuzah case — which I wrote about here ten months ago. The plaintiff, Lynne Bloch (filing with her daughter, Helen, and son, Nathan), complained that in 2004 the Shoreline Towers Condominium Association had forbidden her to put up a mezuzah outside her door, a dictate she could only obey by breaking Jewish law. Bloch challenged the ban in federal court, where a judge granted summary judgment to the condo association....
We try not to double-review things around here, and I pretty much concur with the capsule review Ben Sachs wrote for Rick Alverson’s The Comedy when it screened last fall at Facets Cinematheque. But I was sufficiently curious about this indie effort to take a look when it arrived on DVD, padded out with some (justly) deleted scenes and an unenthusiastic commentary track featuring Alverson and star Tim Heidecker (of the cable comedy show Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!...
Far be it from me to give advice to Mayor Daley. But if he really wants to bring the Olympics to Chicago, I suggest he move the site of the proposed equestrian center out of Lake County. He’s planning to plop a 15,000-seat stadium, as well as stables, riding paths, and a barn, right in the middle of the Lakewood Forest Preserve, paving over 300 acres of marsh, woodland, and cornfields....
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The district, which is primarily responsible for wastewater management, also happens to be a frequent celebrant at cultural and ethnic events across the county. District officials say one way they spread their message of environmentalism is by entering their float into every parade they can, as long as it costs no more than a few hundred bucks. According to Thursday’s report to commissioners, the float will appear in at least 18 this year, including three for Saint Patrick’s Day, two for Mexican Independence day, two for the fall start of school, and one each for Flag Day, the Fourth of July, Columbus Day, and something called Pumpkin Day....
It’s almost two years since I was first bowled over by An Iliad. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Working from Robert Fagles’s translation of THE Iliad—Homer’s epic set during the Trojan War—collaborators Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare built a 90-minute monologue around a figure called the Poet, who’s apparently immortal (he recalls gigs in Babylonia) but otherwise not so lucky (he wears a dirty coat and inhabits what looks like a forgotten corner of the Deep Tunnel)....
Porter’s vindication is not only settled law, it’s settled legendry. But not everyone buys it. Fortunately for Porter, the noisiest of those who don’t is, you might say, the wrong people. James Sotos is an attorney who for years represented Jon Burge, the former Chicago police commander at the center of the torture scandal and now in prison. Sotos holds that Protess and his students botched their investigation of the Porter case, that he’s guilty as sin, and that Alstory Simon, despite confessing to the murders and later pleading guilty to them, is in prison for crimes he didn’t commit....
Bigcolour’s Notes & Bolts single Oh boy. After an especially wet and gross winter, summertime is finally back. And what better way to celebrate its arrival than to pile into a wet and gross DIY space on a Monday night? Now’s your chance: local space-pop four-piece Bigcolour plays Big Forever on Mon 5/6, and it’s one of the best signs of summer I can think of. Bigcolour plays beautifully dreamy, psych-flavored pop, rich with layers of fuzz and warmth....
The history of Second City has been ably chronicled over the years in books by Jeffrey Sweet, Sheldon Patinkin, and others. But given the comedy club’s continued importance—not to mention its 50th anniversary coming up in December—an update was merited. Correctly identifying “a symbiotic actor-audience relationship and ensemble-based satire created through improvisation” as hallmarks of the Second City style, this new tome by Chicago Sun-Times writer Mike Thomas explores the social context, artistic innovation, professional pressures, and personal friendships and feuds that shaped America’s premier satirical cabaret....
According to HoZac Records cofounder Brett Cross, success for a fledgling record label isn’t really obtained as much as it’s realized. “You’ve got to let it happen organically. If you push that shit, you might end up prolapsing your rectum.” Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “It was our Trojan horse,” Cross says of the Smith Westerns. Explore the roots of three other local labels (and give them a listen): »Chocolate Industries: An early education in IDM fuses hip-hop, rock, and soul »Peira: Forget turntables and a mike—how about three bass clarinets and a modular synthesizer?...
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » This week Times columnist Ross Douthat inveighs against the sexual excesses of New York magazine in an interview with New York magazine. We last checked in with Douthat when he was talking about the (optional!) causative relationship between sex and babies, framed by political disagreements between “cultural liberals,” who love the former, and “social conservatives,” who dig the latter....
Now that a judge has affirmed the ruling by the Board of Election Commissioners that Rahm Emanuel is neither an illegal alien nor an undocumented resident, the mayoral campaign can move ahead in earnest. Moseley Braun certainly benefits from the withdrawal of her main African-American rivals, but she remains far behind Emanuel. She now is the likeliest to make it into a runoff with Emanuel. A runoff only happens, though, if no candidate gets a majority on February 22....
