Jon Ronson is one of those writers who embodies what creative nonfiction is all about by demonstrating just how strange and wonderful the world can be. A Welsh journalist, documentary filmmaker, radio presenter and nonfiction author, his books include Them: Adventures With Extremists, The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry and most recently Lost At Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries. His book The Men Who Stare At Goats was turned into a movie starring George Clooney.The Jon Ronson interview
May. 10, 2013Jon Ronson is one of those writers who embodies what creative nonfiction is all about by demonstrating just how strange and wonderful the world can be. A Welsh journalist, documentary filmmaker, radio presenter and nonfiction author, his books include Them: Adventures With Extremists, The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry and most recently Lost At Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries. His book The Men Who Stare At Goats was turned into a movie starring George Clooney.
Chicago craft beer week, food truck rally and more
May. 10, 2013
Friday, May 10
Peterson Garden Project second annual Spring Plant and Bake Sale at the Peterson Garden Project Learning Center. This three day event will offer baked goods by local pastry chefs, plus heirloom, organic, and locally grown seedlings specifically selected to grow well in Chicago. The fundraiser will benefit the project's learning programs. Please remembert to BYOBT (Bring Your Own Bags and Trays). Admission FREE, baked goods and seedlings additional, and act as your donation.
Saturday, May 11
Oak Park's inaugural Great Food Truck Rally at the Pilgrim Congregational Church. The church will also have a limited supply of their famous homemade donuts (plain, powdered sugar, and cinnamon sugar) as featured in Saveur magazine. The church building itself, Queen Anne Revival Style and on the National Register of Historic Places, will be open for tours.
Finding your way around Chicago's present
May. 10, 2013
How well did you find your way around the Chicago of the past?
The Washington Hotel was long a landmark at the northeast corner of 92nd Street and Commercial Avenue. The commercial development is another clue, since there weren't many major shopping districts on the far South Side in 1934. The older photo also shows a junction of two streetcar lines, and a grade-separated railroad crossing in the distance. Those features were also rare south of 79th Street.
Bulls, Blackhawks playoff action continues
May. 10, 2013
Stay classy, Chicago fans. Game three of the NBA playoff series tips off at the United Center Friday night.With the Bulls and Heat knotted at a game apiece, most of the attention should be on the series. But antics and injuries off the court are garnering plenty of interest.
The Bulls had two players, Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson, ejected in the enormous 115-78 loss to Miami. As Noah was walking through the exit in the American Airlines Arena, one of the fans bluntly showed her displeasure with the Bulls center. Filomena Tobias flipped off Noah and the image went viral. This is not new. Several years ago the Chicago Sun-Times had a back page photo of a Bears fan doing that to players walking through the tunnel. I remember because it was my son's grade school gym teacher doing the gesture.
The Miami fan story shielded the Bulls from their crushing defeat by LeBron James and the Heat on Wednesday night.
Sickinger brought grassroots theater to Chicago
May. 9, 2013
When Robert Sickinger came to Chicago in the early 1960s, Chicago had great theater. But most of it - think The Goodman Theater - was largely confined to the Loop.
Sickinger, who died Thursday at the age of 86, was hired to be the director of the Hull House Theater, on Chicago’s North side. When he arrived in 1963, the theater was still at the corner of Broadway Street and Belmont Avenue - the building’s an athletic club now.
Donna Marie Schwan was Sickinger’s assistant, and, eventually, his friend.
She said Sickinger, along with Paul Jans, the new executive director of Hull House, were looking to the past to do something new in theater.
“They were basically trying to do something like what Jane Addams originally had in the community. So he went out in the community and had open auditions. I mean, sort of the original ‘Chicago’s Got Talent’.”
Those open auditions not only drew people who wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity or venue in which to perform or sing, they were a pipeline to Chicago’s talented actors.
Drop money in the river, watch it float back
May. 9, 2013
The glitzy towers of downtown Chicago are filled with offices that boast impressive financial returns, but their biggest cash flow may be one they all share: the Chicago River.
A new report commissioned by Friends of the Chicago River and Openlands says each dollar invested in the river provides a 70 percent return.
Can city structure affect social interactions?
May. 9, 2013
"People don’t drink coffee on the South Side," a woman waiting for a drink at a Wicker Park coffee shop said to a barista last year. I was standing near her, waiting for the same barista to finish making my own drink. Her comment was – obviously – incorrect, but it was so bizarre of a sweeping statement that I couldn’t help but chime in.
"What does that even mean?" I began. "I’m pretty certain people drink coffee all over the city, even on the South Side. It’s pretty big. You do realize that, right?"
And then she said, "Well, I just mean coffee culture.