MAY 25, 2012 5:04PM

Back to the Garden

 

pasta1 

 We’re still here, at Walker’s Restaurant.

Oh, the building is gone. As are most of our neighbors. Tucked back across Irving Park Road, you’ll find traces of the Selig Polyscope Corporation—a 200-acre movie studio and lot. Traces of the studio stillRead full post »

MAY 22, 2012 1:31PM

NATO Chicago Summit --- What if?


 index
 
He thinks, “ She’s out of my league.” She thinks. Can’t somebody else take on the global war machine? And where they hell is a bathroom?”

 Read full post »

MAY 19, 2012 12:26PM

NATO, Nurses & Sundaes


 

 mccarthy_600 

At the giant United Nurses Rally on a sparkling warm spring afternoon, next to the Picasso sculpture in the middle of downtown Chicago, "Patti" made sure to thank some cops.

 Read full post »

Editor’s Pick
MAY 17, 2012 10:39AM

Chicago NATO Clowns, Couch & Cyber Attack

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As NATO related scenes fan out from the downtown area into Chicago neighborhoods, the arrest count is 12 people and one couch. Then there are the clowns.

 * * * * * * * * * *

In the checkout line of The Crafty Beaver Home Improvement StoreRead full post »

MAY 16, 2012 7:51PM

Studs Terkel's 100 Birthday

 

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May 16th is the 100th anniversery of the birth of Studs Terkel.

And Studs? 

 He's still here . . . . .

 -----------------------------------------------

Reposted  from 2008.  

 -------------------------------------------------

 This man IS Chica… Read full post »

Editor’s Pick
MAY 15, 2012 9:48AM

At NATO Chicago's First Protest


 
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 Headquarters: Obama for President Campaign
  
“You guys know President Obama isn’t up there, right?”

The protestor gave me a look. Rolled his eyes. Kept walking.

 

We were in the lobby of the giant complex in downtown Chicago that hoRead full post »

Editor’s Pick
MAY 8, 2012 8:00AM

Writing for Free

Biff and his new wife Blythe in the Starbucks line. If he turned around and saw me, he’d bring up the “writing for free” thing. Because that’s what he always does. So I put my head down and try not to breathe.

 

It doesn't work.

 Read full post »

MAY 3, 2012 9:30AM

Pete Seeger Turns 93


 
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Studs Terkel would tell the story of the time the two scraggly musicians fresh off the road, passing through Chicago, had no where to stay. So he brought them home. His lovely wife Ida gave the OK. That night those two musicians, Woody Guthrie and PeteRead full post »
MAY 1, 2012 11:25AM

A Mary Todd Lincoln Mystery

 

  jenny

You shake your head no and tell me paintings don’t talk?

Ask an artist. Paintings talk, of course they do; you just have to be listening extra hardRead full post »

APRIL 27, 2012 2:41PM

Chicago Welcomes NATO?

 

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Full dress military. American soldiers. Armed with beanbag guns. Come Monday, they will begin patrolling the streets of a designated “Red Zone” that encompasses a large chunk of downtown Chicago.

 

Wait. “Bean Bag guns?” Did someone really say &ldquRead full post »

APRIL 24, 2012 12:57PM

Raspberry Pi. A World Changer

 

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How did I not know about something this world changing? Raspberry Pi. A computer the size of a credit card. Cost? $25.00. Or $35.00. Take your pick. Either way, for the moment you can only get one. The demand is just too big. Exactly how large that/Read full post »

APRIL 19, 2012 6:34PM

Levon Helm ---That First Time


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Levon Helm died today. He was 71.

And everything just seems to end so soon.

 

You can read the chronology of his life elsewhere. It’s a story worthRead full post »

Editor’s Pick
APRIL 17, 2012 3:09PM

Gallup: 17% of the WORLD Underemployed


On April 17, 2012, a cool, green spring day in Chicago, Gallup announced that 17% of the entire world was underemployed.

 

Michael pulled the news up on his phone while he wasRead full post »

APRIL 16, 2012 11:33AM

Sex Ed Field Trip

IMAG1882

 

The picture is the parking lot out front of “The

Pleasure Chest.”

 When “The Pleasure Chest” moved their Chicago store to our neighborhood a few years ago, the brigades of young mothers pushing $1,000 strollers were not amused.

 

Then there were thRead full post »

APRIL 10, 2012 7:07PM

Nanci Koschman's Foolish Heart


 “ We have a dead body. This is not a whodunit. We know who done it. There’s a known offender and yet no charges.”  Judge Michael P. Toomin. April 6, 2012.

 The factsRead full post »

APRIL 3, 2012 11:02AM

Grace in the Skies


ima

Picture her in the cockpit of the twin engine Cessna, six miles out from the sunset you see here. Door County Wisconsin. She is 80 years old. Her husband, piloting the plane, is 81. He suffers a medical emergency. He’s unconscious. And this 80 year oldRead full post »

MARCH 26, 2012 5:24PM

General Grant & the Women


 

 
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General U.S. Grant and the two smiling women in the photograph taken one hundred years after the American Civil War came to a close. What’s the connection here?

 In the recently released “Grant’s Final Victory,” Charles Flood tells the com

Read full post »
MARCH 20, 2012 11:08AM

Yo Yo Ma & Renee Fleming Drop By

 

 iLVmages

Lakeview High School. Chicago, IL 

 There was about to be a moment. One of those tiny moments one never forgets.

 

I was out for a head-clearing walk after spending some hours producing some unusually muddy writing. Thinking about how I really didn’t need

Read full post »
MARCH 11, 2012 6:13PM

Those Dirty People

 

 GoldCabrini

On a warm, windy March afternoon, Keisha is wrestling an overstuffed laundry bag almost as big as she is down to the bus stop on Chicago Avenue. It’s Sunday. Reduced

Read full post »
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MARCH 5, 2012 11:20PM

No G8 Summit For Chicago!

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 The back lights in the family room of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s house were dim as we walked our dog around the block tonight in the first warm winds of spring.Read full post »
FEBRUARY 29, 2012 2:26PM

Welcome Back "The Chicagoan!"

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  Last time? It was a magazine. This time? Right now? It’s more like a cultural fountain, bubbling over with the waters of innovation in a way that could quench anybody’s artistic thirst.

The resurrection of the long forgotten “Chicagoan.” This time,Read full post »

FEBRUARY 23, 2012 11:58AM

Hemingway's House For Sale

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Ernest Hemingway's boyhood home in Oak Park Illinois is for sale. Asking price $525,000. Lots of people from Oak Park  commute to the city for work. What if one of them was Hemingway? Today? 
  
Under gunmetal grey skies. Snow coming. Hemingway mistedRead full post »
FEBRUARY 22, 2012 12:45PM

David Axelrod Makes a Decision

 

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 David Axelrod had a decision to make. I watched him think it over.

 

The Chief Political Strategist of the President of the United States was on the elevator in the old Prudential Building overlooking beautiful Millennium Park in Chicago, coming down from the securiRead full post »

FEBRUARY 16, 2012 12:10PM

Beneath Political Corruption

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Measuring public corruption is useful. As is looking out your window. And if the Mayor of Chicago were to look out the window of his home at around 7:30 on any given morning, he’d see Cassie. She walks by my house too.

 

The common thread runningRead full post »

FEBRUARY 11, 2012 8:04AM

"Three and a Half Virgins" A Review

 

  three

 “My name is Jimmy Hendricks and I’m a recovering idiot.”

 

As the central character in John Blumenthal’s Three and a Half Virgins, Jimmy introduces himself to others he encounters by anticipating the obvious: “Jimmy Hendricks. No relatio… Read full post »