Girl Flower (My boss took at look at those and said "Claire, you're such a girly girl," and clearly didn't mean it as a compliment.)
If you’ve been to a White Sox or Blackhawks game anytime in the last ten years or so, you’re most likely familiar with today’s interviewee’s booming voice. Gene Honda is the announcer for those teams as well as the voice of DePaul basketball, the Chicago Marathon, the Big Ten Men’s Basketball Tournament and the NCAA Final Four. Honda has also done voiceover and on-screen work for various media outlets, including Chicago’s WTTW-TV, and “Chicago Works,” the city’s 24-hour information station. He is also an instructor in the city’s After School Matters program, teaching sports broadcasting to teens at Chicago’s Curie High School. Honda is also a University of Illinois alum, who was inducted into the Illini Media Hall of Fame in 2008.
Do you have any pregame rituals before you announce for the Blackhawks or the Sox or any other teams?
Last night I reviewed the TV show Pregnant in Heels for the A.V. Club. As I mention in my review, there was a woman on the show who revealed a plan to eat her placenta after she gave birth to her baby.
I believe that it’s been well-established by this point that eating your placenta is standard practice. January Jones did it; New York magazine did an article on it; Christine on Pregnant In Heels did it. So, basically, it's de rigueur at this point. If you have to ask why, I just feel embarrassed for you.
However, looking at Christine’s face as she choked down her placenta smoothie, I was struck by a problem that afflicts way too many pregnant women: We are growing gross-tasting placentas.
When James Cameron traveled seven miles down to the bottom of the ocean, the Daily Beast predicted some of the amazing creatures he might encounter on his voyage.
Him: Watering indoor plants/lawn
Her: Outdoor plants
Him: Nighttime dog walks
Her: Daytime dog walks
Him: Disposing of dead birds
Her: Killing bugs
Him: Paying bills
Her: Buying wedding presents and remembering to tip hotel maids
Her: Cooking
Him: Sometimes eating said cooking
Her: Buying the family shoes
Him: Buying the family lightbulbs
Him: Hating doing laundry
Her: Hating putting away laundry
Him: Tech troubles
Her: Tech complaining
Him: Drink-getting, coat-taking, dishes
Her: Party execution/stressing
Him: Taking care of cat litter
Her: Squirting cat with a water bottle when it tries to come up the stairs where it’s not supposed to go
Today I chat with the local author of the smash Divergent trilogy, a set of dystopian young adult books set in our very own fair city. Divergent was a New York Times bestseller, while the second book in the series, Insurgent, was released last week. Like me, Roth is a Northwestern graduate and like me, she’ll be appearing on a YA panel at Printer’s Row this summer, so stay tuned for more information about that!
You start your Insurgent tour this summer: how do you typically decide what to read for appearances?
This week is unofficial local Young Adult author week on the blog. On Friday I'll feature an interview with Veronica Roth, the author of the very popular book Divergent and its recent follow-up, Insurgent.
Today though I want to give a shout-out to my friend M. Molly Backes, whose debut YA novel The Princesses of Iowa comes out Tuesday. Don't let the word "princesses" in the title fool you: I heard Molly read from the first chapter a few weekends ago and the book is bitingly funny, raw, real and not at all princessy. If you'd like to meet Molly in person and get a signed copy of your book, StoryStudio will be hosting a book launch party for her next week.
Okay folks, let’s go over something. We all hate flying, unless of course you’re flying first class, in which case, will you marry me? Anyway, it stinks, especially if you’re on a flight that lasts more than a few hours: those impossibly-tiny seats, the zen koan of hell that is the seat-reclining-in-your-face-but-you-also-want-to-recline-YOUR-seat-situation, the movie you don’t really want to watch but will since it’s on but you can’t see it anyway since it looks like it’s in black in white and is two miles ahead of you in the cabin, the snack you’ve resigned yourself to buying but discover that you can’t anyway since somebody ten rows ahead of you ordered the last one. It’s all the worst.
