“The Three Arts Club was so amazing that it bordered on magical…. Walking through the halls, you could feel the presence of a creative force.” The Three Arts Club was so amazing that it bordered on magical. Women artists throughout generations called this nurturing and supportive environment home. Walking through the halls, you could feel the presence of a creative force. One could often sit at their window listening to a classical pianist practicing on the grand piano downstairs....
“Sitting above the visitors’ dugout at a Cubs game once, I heard someone in the Pirates’ camp yell at his own teammate: ‘If you had one more eye, you’d be a Cyclops!’” Great article on identifying some of the musical roots of the 60s black culture. I also was very fortunate to play and be part of a “voice” that expressed the sign of the times. This article has a second underlying theme that addresses how creative, talented musicians go unrecognized for all of the years spent “woodshedding....
There’s a secret chamber somewhere in the city, deep in the bowels of a busy restaurant, concealed behind drywall and piping. It’s dark inside, and only the hum of a small humidifier drowns out the knife work of the nearby prep cooks. It’s about the size of a coat closet, a coat closet that smells of aging meat. In the gloom, four large prosciutto-style hams are hanging from the ceiling, along with some chunks of coppa and a grayish dry-cured sausage that the overworked chef who built this room admits “isn’t working out....
Q I’m a 27-year-old gay man. I had a really great first couple of dates with a guy, so for the third date I invited him to stay over. I cooked a nice dinner, we watched a movie, and we had a lovely time in bed together. In the morning, we had another romp. At one point, he was rimming me, and unexpectedly, unintentionally, I farted in his mouth a little....
Q I’m a 21-year-old woman with bi-curious tendencies who’s been in a committed relationship for four years. He’s sweet and kind. We share a lot of interests and get along very well. Thing is, I don’t know if I’m meant to be in a committed relationship. For the past year and a half I’ve been thinking about what things would be like with another man. I also frequently imagine what it might be like to sleep with another girl....
If you were in line for the Fergie show two Sundays ago at the House of Blues, you probably picked up on two things: the excitement of the club-casual crowd and the hum of corporate synergy. None of us had to pay money to get in–a few tickets had been given away to the general public in radio promotions, but the rest had gone to fans who bought Verizon-enabled Motorola phones, downloaded Fergie content through Verizon’s V Cast media marketplace, or won them in contests held by Candie’s and Kohl’s or at brick-and-mortar Verizon outlets....
SHIRLEY COLLINSSweet England(Fledg’ling) Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Jim O’Rourke fans: Were you chagrined when he told the Wire that one of the reasons he’d moved away from Chicago was that people here didn’t know enough about British folk music? Well, here’s your chance to redeem yourself in his eyes! Shirley Collins (who often performed with her older sister, Dolly) was one of the leading lights of the English folk revival of the 1950s....
One hot, sticky summer day, I wiped away the sweat collecting on my forehead and held a large garbage bag open as Evan, who worked with me on our college’s grounds crew, raked a heap of leaves in my direction. We asked readers to submit their least romantic stories for our Valentine’s Day issue. To read the other tales of woe and regret, see the rest of our (almost) romance-free ode to Valentine’s Day....
In March 2010 Nebraska state police made a traffic stop that produced a valuable insight into the movement of heroin out of Chicago to smaller cities around the midwest. Authorities have not disclosed who was pulled over or why. But while no drugs were seized, “the people in the car had information about what was going on in Waterloo,” says federal prosecutor Lisa Williams. Appling indicated that he might be willing to cooperate with additional investigations into heroin distribution in Waterloo....
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I’d like to beat the drum a little for a terrific new book just published by University of California Press, Catherine Benamou’s It’s All True: Orson Welles’s Pan-American Odyssey, which is far and away the definitive book on It’s All True, Welles’s doomed documentary project about Latin America in the 1940s. Maybe the fact that the same publisher is bringing out a book of mine about Welles in a couple of months gives me a special interest in the subject; I should also note that Benamou, who’s been working on her book for well over two decades, is an old friend....
Cyndi Fecher and Brian J. Solem, founders and editors of Graze magazine, are downing: Letherbee Gin After the release party for Graze’s first issue, we needed a good, stiff drink—emphasis on good. Naturally, we headed to Lula Cafe, our kitchen-away-from-home, where we discovered two things: the jade-colored Green Garter cocktail, which is a tango between attractive opposites jalapeno and cucumber, and the gin that makes the Green Garter extra special....
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Being the socially responsible thrashers that they are, they’re turning over all proceeds from the shows to a long list of charities: the Anti-Defamation League, the Make-a-Wish Foundation, Toys for Tots, the Salvation Army, the March of Dimes, the Special Olympics, Unicef, NORML (of course), the Humane Society, the Anti-Cruelty Society, and the Akita Rescue Society of America. (The Kuma that gave the restaurant its name is owner Michael Cain’s Akita....
Saul Loeb/Getty AFP/Getty Images Rahm Emanuel at President Obama’s inauguration Monday President Obama’s inaugural address made me think of Rahm Emanuel’s own inaugural speech, delivered 20 months ago. “Today, more than any other time in our history, more than any other place in our country, the city of Chicago is ready for change,” the new mayor said in May 2011. During the mayoral campaign in 2011, I wrote a story on the subject....
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » So, first of all, I’d like to say you’re welcome to all the taxpayers who haven’t got around to calling me to say thanks. In the property tax appeal game, most lawyers get at least 10 percent of what they save you on your taxes. By killing this TIF, taxpayers will save about $100 million a year. The way I figure, Chicago’s taxpayers owe me at least $10 million — and I don’t take checks....
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Now that it’s over, let’s keep talking about what a bad idea it was. Tomorrow Harvey Young, a professor of theater, performance studies, and African-American studies at Northwestern, presents the lecture “A Racist Love Note: Stereotypes and Caricatures on Early 20th Century Valentine’s Day Cards,” about which the title gives a pretty good idea of the topic. Young, who wrote the book Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory, and the Black Body, discusses greetings cards manufactured for the mainstream—available for purchase, he says, “at the Walgreens and Jewel of their day”—that featured denigrating, racist imagery: “Their caricatures of lazy and dimwitted black people helped to justify segregation....
Afraid of Heights Next week Nathan Williams of Wavves will be releasing a new record, Afraid of Heights (this time around on Mom + Pop) and today’s 12 O’Clock Track is “Demon to Lean On,” the record’s lead-off single. It’s more of his signature slacker-punk, but seems to lean slightly less toward the pop side than 2010’s King of the Beach (which I’ve heard more than one person compare to Blink-182) and more toward 90s grunge....
The 18th annual African/Caribbean International Festival of Life, held in Washington Park (55th and Cottage Grove) from Fri 7/2 through Mon 7/5, features two stages of hip-hop, reggae, soul, gospel, calypso, soca, and more. The festival’s big names play the International Stage, among them R & B songstress Angela Winbush, English-born Barbadian soca artist Alison Hinds, Jamaican dancehall deejay Admiral Bailey, Tobagonian singer Calypso Rose, Gramps Morgan of Morgan Heritage, and reggae star Shaggy, the man responsible for the 1995 hit single “Boombastic,” which has been seared into my brain for 15 years....
Stephin Merritt has been the chief songwriter for plenty of bands over the years—the 6ths, Future Bible Heroes, the Gothic Archies—but he’s done his most enduring work, and earned his reputation as a modern-day Cole Porter, with the Magnetic Fields. The band has existed for more than two decades, and on the new Love at the Bottom of the Sea (Merge), Merritt returns to its electronic foundations—a shift away from the more conventional instrumentation on the band’s three previous albums (all for Nonesuch), though the songs do include elaborate acoustic overdubs....
Plenty of words have been written about Billy Sunday‘s craft cocktails, tonics on tap, and extensive supply of obscure and top-shelf liquors. But early regulars at Billy Sunday were quickly and surreptitiously introduced to “off-menu” items, including house-made Zima and something known as “Guch.” They’re now on the menu under a section titled “Beloveds.” There’s the cleverly titled Shift Drink (Metropolitan Krankshaft Kölsch and an Elijah Craig 12-Year shot, a more upscale version of a PBR and Jamo) and Rainwater, a Barbeito 1995 “Freitas” single-cask madeira....
The Reader’s Choice: Lincoln Karaoke Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » In Korea it’s called a noraebang—a karaoke joint with private rooms where your warbly, off-key racket won’t embarrass you or your friends. Lincoln Karaoke’s corridor of 14 variously sized spaces features thousands of songs in Korean, Chinese, Spanish, and Tagalog as well as almost 4,000 in English. But it’s the extras that pack the place with bachelor, birthday, and graduation parties every weekend....
