By Dan O’Shea

Chicago Craft Beer Week, which is not really a week at all but 10 days (not that we’re complaining), begins Thursday and has either the good fortune or misfortune of overlapping with the NATO summit.
If traffic is too jammed up by protests and NATO-forced road closures to travel, where would you rather be but a bar, where you are able to sample some of the newest and rarest that the craft beer community has to offer?
On the other hand, how easy is it going to be to get to your favorite watering hole in the first place if Chicago becomes fully Occupied?
I don’t follow any political causes ardently enough to actually get off the couch, let alone march down the street and possibly break stuff in their honor, but if there ever would be one I could really get behind it would probably be something like “World Peace Through Inebriation.” Local craft brewers certainly seem prepared to do their part, as CCBW comes at a time when several of them are making big news in their efforts to produce even more of their beer, and make it even easier for us to get it.

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Posted on May 15, 2012

By The Chicago Botanic Garden

“The Model Railroad Garden delights visitors of all ages with the sights and sounds of garden-scale trains traversing bridges and trestles, past miniature scenes of America’s best-loved landmarks and beautiful gardens planted to scale. The 7,500-square-foot exhibition is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily (weather permitting). On Wednesdays, June 2 – August 29, the Model Railroad Garden hours are from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. (weather permitting). Visit http://www.chicagobotanic.org/railroad for more information.

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Posted on May 14, 2012

The Rail Way Comes To Life

“National Train Day is this weekend, May 12 and there are 4 ‘Major Market’ Events being held in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia,” according to TrainTalkTV. “These events are well covered by Amtrak, so I’d like to shine a light on some of the over 130 National Train Day Events being held at other locations around the U.S.”

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Posted on May 9, 2012

By The Beachwood Public Art Committee

Marilyn Monroe is leaving Michigan Avenue and taking her big skirt with her. What’s next for Pioneer Court? We have some ideas.
* A stack of Richard M. Daley’s pension checks. So fat they should just about reach Marilyn’s height.
* Rahm Emanuel in a dress. Billowing like Marilyn from all the sunshine the city council is blowing up his ass.
* A giant parking meter lease. So we can all finally see the fine print for ourselves.

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Posted on May 8, 2012

‘A Dr. Seuss world’

“In the clammy depths of a southern Illinois coal mine lies the largest fossil forest ever discovered, at least 50 times as extensive as the previous contender,” the New York Times reported in its Science section this week.
“Scientists are exploring dripping passages by the light of headlamps, mapping out an ecosystem from 307 million years ago, just before the world’s first great forests were wiped out by global warming. This vast prehistoric landscape may shed new light on climate change today.”
Yada, yada, yada. But what a freak show this – fossil forest – is!

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Posted on May 3, 2012

By ChicagoAlleyTV

We smell reality show.

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Posted on April 25, 2012

They Love Money!

“A 1792-dated copper cent has sold for US$1.15 million, a U.S. auction house said Friday,” AFP reports.
“The experimental coin with a silver center was one of the first ever struck at the United States mint and is one of just 14 known to have survived.
“It was purchased in 1974 for $105,000 and was sold to a dealer representing a group of investors at an auction held in conjunction with the annual Central States Numismatic Society convention being held in a Chicago suburb.”
That suburb would be Schaumburg. There is also an important show this month in Rosemont. Let’s take a look.

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Posted on April 24, 2012

Way Funnier Than Svengoolie

Corresponding for Psycho Babble TV at C2E2.

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Posted on April 23, 2012

Loves Rap And Religion

“Claude Burns (born 1972), better known by his stage name Father Pontifex, is an American Roman Catholic priest and hip hop artist from Evansville, Indiana,” according to his Wikipedia entry.
“He was raised in the Roman Catholic faith, but apparently ‘drifted away’ for a while and began attending a non-denominational Christian youth group.
“Pontifex began rapping at age 17 in 1989 in a rap group called The Agape Crew. He later on felt he was called to be a priest in the Catholic Church, and didn’t rap for a while but kept up with hip hop music and the rest of the scene. Pontifex was ordained in 2002. In 2002 Pontifex was introduced to Dustin Sieber, a producer from Phatmass, a Catholic hip hop record label. Sieber signed Pontifex to the label and had him write and perform a song on a Massmatics mixtape called ‘The Son Still Shines.’
“On August 24, 2011 Father Pontifex released his first studio album Ordained. The album received good reception.”
Loyola journalism student Jordan Muck uploaded this report to YouTube on Monday.

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Posted on April 17, 2012

By J.J. Tindall

Sad Eyed Lady of the Northwoods
Something in the way
she grieved
attached to me like
sin on skin.
Beyond her Mercury mouth
and Venus eyes
was a sadness, a black mass
of blues and lies

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Posted on April 16, 2012