Before Brett Paesel’s book was optioned by HBO for a series, it was turned down by 13 different publishers. Lucky for her she was too distracted to be discouraged. “That would have been a blow,” says Paesel, “except that it happened pretty much at the same time that I had Murphy. I don’t think I really felt it.” Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Murphy is the second of Paesel’s two sons, now two and six....
The Enchanters vs. Sprawlburg Springs Costello, who grew up in Florida and moved to Chicago in 1997, says early drafts of The Enchanters were little more than “rants about Orlando.” The decade of revisions turned the material from typical fanzine fodder into a charged satire of the two milieus that shaped him–the punk scene and the culturally bereft exurbs of central Florida. While the story will ring familiar to anyone whose raison d’etre has ever been a seven-inch collection, its real theme is inspiration and evolution: how we become who we are, and the terrible hairstyles we sport along the way....
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » From Radar Online comes the perfect gift suggestion for film aficionados (more likely aficionadesses, but you never can tell … ): “Handbags of Horror,” a mock designer collection of oversize purses that purports to channel assorted screen monsters of the past. At the head of this unruly brood is—what best to call it?—the Chucky, a patchwork of sewn leather gewgaws in bright designer colors, with “carroty tufts” that, according to Radar’s description, have a “deceptive ‘playful’ quality” (like the Child’s Play series itself, no doubt)....
Three pals vie for the “best potato” prize at a county fair, only to be stalked by a sadistic chef seeking a base for chowder. James E. Grote’s adaptation of Toby Speed’s kids’ book offers lessons in teamwork and underdog achievement, and George Howe’s music and lyrics–ranging from disco to a Les Miz-style freedom anthem–give the show mischievous humor (a good poop rhyme is funny at any age). Director Shole Milos’s animated, agile performers take on multiple roles, belt the tunes with aplomb, and pull off some graceful moves considering the challenges of overstuffed potato suits....
What does the Jack Kelley fabrication scandal at USA Today say about the future of white journalism? That’s what Leonard Pitts asked in the Miami Herald recently (quoted in “Undernews,” April 27): “Did USA Today advance a moderately capable journalist because he was white? Did some white editor mentor him out of racial solidarity even though Kelley was unqualified? In light of this fiasco, should we reexamine the de facto affirmative action that gives white men preferential treatment in our newsrooms?...
The key to this Boston duo’s cult success is how they let every fan feel like part of the show. At every stop on tour the Dolls welcome local performers–artists, actors, carnival weirdos, burlesque dancers–the way the Grateful Dead welcomed tapers. Last year’s live DVD, Paradise, will give you some idea what a grand self-sustaining spectacle this has evolved into: fans network online to organize their own performances ahead of time, and they rise to the challenge of the band’s arch theatricality with plenty of their own face paint and drama, incorporating nods to the last eight or nine decades’ worth of sexual subversion and bohemian fashion....
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Brian Dillon at frieze: An established magazine has to “keep reminding your readers of that first flirtatious thrill, even as you settle into something like domestic routine with your faithful subscribers. At which point, in a sense, you’re already sunk: you’ve begun to second-guess your readers’ motives–or worse, to service their whims: their sensible preference for information over style, their taste for gossip, their impatience with illegible typefaces....
Republican presidents reliably provoke spiteful dissent and woe-is-me wallowing from independent-minded musicians, but if the land of indie rock were Middle Earth, Head of Femur would be its hobbits: like Sam and Frodo they seem to feel a duty to keep their chins up, even when everything around them reeks of evil. On their debut CD, Ringodom or Proctor (Greyday Productions), the three expat Nebraskans sound happy-go-lucky without being dipshits about it....
It’s Not the Story, It’s How You Tell It But she stuck with it, and her first instinct turned out to be right. Her article was the most e-mailed story in the paper the day it ran, and the national media descended on A Taste of Heaven for their own take on what Wilgoren had adroitly branded “another skirmish between the childless and the child-centered.” Tribune columnists John Kass and Eric Zorn wrote columns taking owner Dan McCauley’s side and giving their paper credit it didn’t deserve as the place where the story originated....
To the Green Fields and Beyond Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » As the situation in Iraq goes from appalling to abysmal, it’s no surprise to find the war to end all wars turning up onstage with increasing frequency. To the Green Fields Beyond at Writers’ Theatre is the third show here in three months to address the subject, after This Happy Breed at TimeLine and Noble Fool’s Underneath the Lintel, which takes as its theme the doughboys’ refrain “We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here....
Dear Chicago Reader, Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I went online, and I am unwilling to pay 15 bucks a month to tell Cecil he is wrong once, when it is unlikely to occur in my lifetime again. Very truly yours, Alan, I admire your having the guts to write a letter like this and include your institutional affiliation. Hopefully the tenure committee, and for that matter the admissions office, won’t hold it against you....
Two Sundays ago photographer Jayme Kalal and his wife, aerialist Raven Hinojosa, pushed box springs against the windows of their New Orleans hotel room, set a mattress down on the closet floor, plopped down on it, and waited. What would happen when the hotel, packed with a thousand people, had no lights? By evening no elevators worked. They watched TV until the power went out, then they listened to the radio, passing a Walkman back and forth....
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The phrase may sound familiar. Mayor Daley ran for reelection this winter by urging voters to support him and “Keep Chicago Moving Forward.” Then he made the campaign slogan the theme of his budget address in October, arguing that record tax hikes were essential to avoid letting the city stagnate. “We have a choice in this budget,” he said....
When you see dirt in Chicago, you’re probably looking at lead pollution. Thanks to decades of avoidable but profitable use of lead paint and leaded gasoline, this invisible toxin has penetrated the ground everywhere, especially near old houses and areas with heavy traffic. Natural soil contains about 20 parts of lead per million parts of soil. That’s the “background” level, but different jurisdictions have different opinions about how much should be considered safe in practice....
Is there an effective way to get rid of chilblains? I have some boring little ones, located mostly on my right hand, with a couple on the left. The doctor says I possibly have bad circulation, but they will probably go away if I eat properly and avoid sudden changes in temperature. Well, that hasn’t done a thing. Web sites offer such unhelpful advice as “Do not place feet directly on radiators” and suggest leg warmers and thermal underwear....
Every year around this time Cook County clerk David Orr puts out a report on tax increment financing districts. In the past it’s been a computer printout containing data from the hundreds of tax zones throughout the city and county, organized under baffling categories like “equalized valuation,” “frozen valuation,” and “agency distribution percent.” He’d make a couple hundred copies, staple them together, and leave them in a pile on a counter in the county building....
friday8 The SUBMARINE RACES, a local trio featuring ex-Ponys member Ian Adams, Steve Denekas (the Countdown), and Paul John Higgins (Red Eyed Legends), got some buzz this summer with its self-titled debut on In the Red Records, and they followed it up with a seven-inch on local label Shit Sandwich (including a cover of the Minutemen’s “Party With Me Punker”) that proved there was more good stuff where that came from....
If I didn’t know better I might think Azita Youssefi was trying to slough off her old fans. Beginning with Enantiodromia (Drag City, 2003) the former leader of the Scissor Girls started producing a structurally and harmonically complex strain of art-pop that sounded nothing like the screeching post-no-wave of her earlier stuff and quite a bit like the elegant, precise work of Steely Dan–a development that might’ve seemed absurd if she hadn’t pulled it off so well....
Photographer Toni Hafkenscheid says he was “chasing trains” for three weeks before he found just the right spot overlooking an S curve for Train Snaking Through Mountains. Then he waited several hours for a train to appear, knowing that Canadian Pacific’s trademark red would contrast with the surrounding trees and draw the eye in. The resulting image, with its toylike colors and highly restricted area of focus, resembles the miniature scenes in catalogs designed to entice model train enthusiasts....
Chicago’s one of the more cycling-friendly cities in America, from its profusion of park paths and marked bike lanes on major thoroughfares to a host of activist and support organizations to the wide availability of affordable parts. The city’s own transportation department site, which includes a frequently updated map (www.egov.cityofchicago.org/Transportation/bikemap/keymap.html) of marked lanes, is a good place to start planning your routes. For an exhaustive guide to biking, including info on shops, activism, safety, and more, see the well-maintained portal bikechicago....
