Chicago - A message from the station manager

Chicagoetry: Frontier Day Off

By J.J. Tindall

FRONTIER DAY OFF
Ridin’ into town
For supplies,
The hard prairie smoldering
In the wet August heat.
Saddle and saddle-bags
Are fine;
It’s the handlebars
On the aluminum horse
Which need adjustment, tightening.
Horse enough,
By a smirk
Of the imagination.

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Posted on August 28, 2013

Random Food Report: Rock-Bottom Lobster, Side of CHIPS

Plus: Bad To The Blade Bone

A few columns ago, we introduced Luke Chen’s Chimps In Pants (CHIPS) Theory to help explain why we, with our enormous brains and upright stature, tend to make such dumb decisions about food (and nearly everything else, but we’ll stick with food for now).
The August 26 edition of The New Yorker features a column by James Surowiecki on CHIPS in action: The phenomenon of counter-intuitive pricing on restaurant menus, specifically, for the cost of lobster.
Tell us about it: Earlier this year we reported on the appearance of lobster at fast food restaurants – such as the Quizno’s Lobster & Seafood Salad Sub – driven by the recent surge in lobster harvests and the corresponding drop in prices.
As Surowiecki reports, freshly-caught lobster “is selling for as low as $2.20 a pound.” Yet menu prices at high-end restaurants have not fallen. Lobster seems to resist the usual effect of excess supply in the market. Local Chicago restaurants, for example, still list lobster at a premium:

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Posted on August 26, 2013

Chicagoetry: Death of a Blind Woman’s Cat (Free Sons)

By J.J. Tindall

Death of a Blind Woman’s Cat (Free Sons)
“The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today.” – Inscription on the memorial to the Haymarket Martyrs, Forest Home Cemetery, Forest Park, IL
The silence
of the cool, mid-afternoon
sun
broke only
with the wash
of automobiles

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Posted on August 13, 2013

Random Food Report: KFC Smuggler’s Blues

Plus: Cod Blood Cockle Week

1. Smuggler’s Blues.
If you want to smuggle your pet turtle aboard a plane in a bag of KFC, do not say “There’s no turtle in there, just a hamburger,” when questioned.
On July 29, security officials at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport stopped a passenger passing through X-ray screening when what was supposedly a KFC burger showed “odd protrusions” resembling turtle limbs.
Sure enough, when confronted the traveler admitted attempting to smuggle his beloved reptile aboard.
We suspect he tried to hide the terrapin in the “Spanish roast chicken braised in red sauce” featured on the Chinese KFC menu. Looking closely, the patty on that sandwich does look a bit turtle-shaped. Minus the legs, that is.

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Posted on August 12, 2013

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