Chicago -
By ML Van Valkenburgh
1. Heart of a Dog/Mikhail Bulgakov
Bulgakov was one of the Soviet Union’s most banned writers, but largely because the Soviet leadership had no freaking clue what he was talking about rather than for specific political reasons, though his work was highly politicized. I’m reading it because my boyfriend bought me a copy.
Posted on August 31, 2006
By Steve Rhodes
Michael J. Lewis, the author of American Art and Architecture, among other works, reviewed Timothy Gilfoyle’s Millennium Park: Creating a Chicago Landmark in The New York Times Sunday Book Review last weekend, and when I saw the pull quote, I thought, uh-oh, here we go again.
“Starting from scratch,” the Times stated in boldface, “Chicago has turned a wasteland into America’s most dazzling urban park.”
Lewis’s enthusiasm early in his review also set my teeth gnashing – he’s impressed by the $475 million cost of the park, seemingly oblivious to the contract cronyism and mismanagement that drove the price tag so high, instead oddly comparing the park’s cost favorably to estimates for a World Trade Center memorial. Lewis also describes the park’s construction as swift, when the joke around here was that the park was named for how long it would take to get it built.
Then again, maybe Lewis only has Gilfoyle to go by. Fortunately, Lewis recognizes that something is amiss. By the end of his review, he is questioning Gilfoyle’s account of the way the park was built – and its artistic value – in a way that I haven’t seen done here amidst Chicago’s parochial, prideful press.
If only the Chicago media could put their pompoms away long enough to give the ideas at the conclusion of Lewis’s review an airing here.
Posted on August 7, 2006
1800 West North Avenue
1. The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness To Greatness
Stephen R. Covey
2. How To Win Friends And Influence People
Dale Carnegie
3. One Thing At A Time: 100 Simple Ways To Live Clutter-Free Every Day
Cindy Glovinsky
4. Crucial Conversations: Tools For Talking When Stakes Are High
Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, Stephen R. Covey
5. Self Matters: Creating Your Life From The Inside Out
Phillip C. McGraw, Ph.D. (Dr. Phil)
6. The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People
Stephen R. Covey
7. Unstoppable: 45 Powerful Stories Of Persverance And Triumph From People Just Like You
Cynthia Kersey
Posted on July 27, 2006
By Tim Willette and Natasha Julius
If You Are A Republican:
* It sure is. Every day’s a nice day with a Republican in the White House.
* No, I wasn’t eavesdropping on your conversation, and neither is the White House.
* That’s great news. You know, speaking of operations that are both necessary and turned out well in the end, I hear the situation in Iraq is really looking up.
* Of course they’re foot-longs. Thanks to the latest tax cut passed by the Republican-controlled Congress, I can afford the very best in processed meat foods.
* I’m sorry to hear that. Do you know what else died? Traditional family values, because the Democrats killed them.
Posted on July 1, 2006
By The Beachwood Book Club
A list.
1. The Bible/Unknown. Have you read it? And which version? And the sequels? The Greatest Story Ever Told, but not The Greatest Story Ever Read.
2. Moby Dick/Herman Melville. Call me Ishmael. Maybe I’ll do my laundry now.
3. Encyclopedia Brittanica M-Z/Various. Hey, if you got this far you’ve really accomplished something.
4. A Brief History of Time/Stephen Hawking. You wanted to get it. You really did. This was supposed to be for laymen. But if watches run faster in space, isn’t that just the function of the watches logging artificial time and not real time actually running faster? It just hurts too much to think about. Turn on the baseball game.
5. Dreams From My Father/Barack Obama. Because it’s so unreadable. But you don’t dare admit that to anybody. You just mouth platitudes.
Posted on June 18, 2006
By the Beachwood Language Affairs Desk
“This Trademark Checklist is a handy guide to some of the best known federally registered U.S. trademarks. This list is a sample of the International Trademark Association’s (INTA) list of nearly 3,000 trademarks and service marks with their generic terms.”
747 airplanes and structural parts thereof
Absolut vodka
Academy Awards annual award program
Ajax soap and household cleaner
Atkins Diet food supplements
Balderdash word and board games
Band-Aid adhesive bandages
Black Hawk military helicopter
Blistex medicated lip ointment
Bon Bons ice cream
Books On Tape pre-recorded audio cassette tapes
BOTOX injections for pharmaceutical and cosmetic purposes
Brita water filtering units
Bubble Wrap cellular cushioning packaging material
Budget renting and leasing of motor vehicles
Butterball poultry
Posted on May 31, 2006
By Tim Willette
The World Is Flat – A Brief History of the
Twenty-First Century
by Thomas L. Friedman
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 496 pp.
ISBN: 0374292884
Everyone get global! 2004! Better lot! American
products wanted! Bangalore call center! Indian phone
work! Chinese supply chain! UPS! Free market! India,
China, America! Even Muslim customers use internet!
See! Flattening forces started! Web went economic!
Information business! Big science! Research come home!
Need money now!
Employees own two percent! Another first! Able workers
got down!
University! Computer school! People should go!
Knowledge good! Young really know! Different software!
Still, things take time! Think government! Want
service today! Right, say companies! Million years!
Countries going! Technology put states between jobs!
Best part next! New day! Flat system! Whole world
united! These are the 100 most frequently used words in
this book!
Posted on May 22, 2006
By Steve Rhodes
A group of clergymen in Chicago, appalled at the fruits of planned city rebuilding there, asked,
Could Job have been thinking of Chicago when he wrote:
Here are men that alter their neighbor’s landmark . . . shoulder the poor aside, conspire to oppress the friendless
Reap they the field that is none of theirs, strip they the vineyard wrongfully seized from its owner . . .
A cry goes up from the city streets, where wounded men lie groaning . . .
– from the Introduction to Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961)
The passing last week of Jane Jacobs, whose The Death and Life of Great American Cities exposed the folly of Establishment urban planning while arguing persuasively for the small, sacred triumphs of organic serendipity from which most great neighborhoods spring, spawned an array of commentaries at times grudging and beside the point, or failed to really connect with conditions today parallel to what Jacobs railed against so many years ago and throughout her life.
Posted on May 1, 2006
By Tim Willette
Chicago Sun-Times religion reporter and columnist Cathleen Falsani recently published The God Factor, a collection of interviews with an array of national political, artistic, and cultural figures about their spiritual lives. Among the revelations:
Barack Obama: “Is not shy saying he has ‘a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.'” Also sometimes feels the power of the Holy Spirit when he is speaking.
Mancow Muller: “Am I saved? Yes. Yes.”
Billy Corgan: Perceives everything he does including (his word) “fucking” in spiritual terms.
Dusty Baker: “The dark side has some real power, especially in the world today. Evil’s more accepted and more prevalent.” Actually believes that the mythical Cubs curse derives from the dark side. Says he’s been “delivered” a “bunch of times” and has witnessed an exorcism.
Carlos Zambrano: “Any man who believes in God is a good man.”
Harold Ramis: “Yes, we’re alone in the universe, life is meaningless and death is inevitable, but is that necessarily so depressing?”
All very interesting – and indeed, frightening. But we would have appreciated more commentary reflecting historic Chicago values like doubt, pessimism, and a healthy aversion to bullshit. As a post-script, we’ve provided a short selection from other locals who are not in Falsani’s book, in some cases because they are dead and keeping their experiences in the afterlife to themselves. Remember, if God says He loves you, check it out.
Posted on April 20, 2006
By Natasha Julius
Junior keeps singing his special brand of blues, only stopping to refill his hot little lungs with air. Over the commotion I can make out individual pairs of CD cases knocking against each other. I count at least five different crunching sounds. She could have as many as ten disks lining Junior’s stroller. No wonder he’s howling like a wolf with its paw in a trap.
“Come on, sweetie.” Hot Mama’s starting to get flustered. She bends down and lifts Junior out of the stroller. He sticks his little arms out and pushes her away as if he knows his mom’s no good.
I’ve got a split-second window to get my visual. While Hot Mama turns away, I move around to her side of the bargain bin and take a quick look. There’s a fuzzy yellow blanket covering the bottom of the stroller, but one corner is pulled back. The half-peeled security seal at the edge of a jewel case catches the glow of the overhead lighting as it hits my eye. Hot Mama’s goose is dressed, cooked and basted.
Posted on April 7, 2006
