The boys from Smoque picked up a fair amount of press recently, when they announced they were going to be working with Levy Restaurants and offer a barbeque cart inside U.S. Cellular Field during White Sox games. The die-hards have known for years though, that their serious BBQ - especially the slow-smoked brisket - was among the best in town. I have always agreed with them. See video below, smack lips, then head to 3800 N. Pulaski to satisfy resulting hunger. Repeat.
Album review: Christina Aguilera, "Bionic"
Jun. 15, 2010
Christina Aguilera, "Bionic" (RCA)
Rating: 0.5/4
Nothing is less sexy than a coquette trying way too hard to be sexy -- unless perhaps it's a life-size sex-toy robot, which has moved out of the realm of cheesy science fiction (see that enduring 1973 classic, "Westworld") to become a reality in these digital times. But on her fourth proper studio album, former Disney pop machine product and aging '90s teen diva Christina Aguilera plays both roles again and again, while making a predictable shift from the jazz/cabaret pretensions of her last album "Back to Basics" (2006) and the toothless, radio-friendly R&B and dance-pop of earlier discs into toothless, radio-friendly electronica.
Everybody wants to be Lady Gaga these days, doncha know.
The Esquire of Oak Street
Jun. 15, 2010
(photo by Lee Bey)
There is a fringe benefit of our current economic downturn: the Esquire Theater--architect William Pereira's chic, but shuttered movie house on Oak Street--is still standing, even if it has been dark for four years. That's because redevelopment plans for the site, which included demolishing the building have not yet come to fruition.
Who'd want to join WGN's big happy family anyway?
Jun. 15, 2010
One day after Steve Cochran told fans he expects to be ousted from news/talk WGN-AM (720) when his contract expires at the end of the month, the man presumed to be replacing him has decided not to join the Tribune Co.-owned station after all.
Bill Cunningham, the conservative host at WLW-AM in Cincinnati, told the Cincinnati Enquirer's John Kiesewetter Monday that he plans to sign a new contract with his current station "in the next day or two," adding: "I had to resolve in my mind where I wanted to be, and I've decided I want to stay in Cincinnati.‚ In my mind, I'm going to stay in Cincinnati."
This week's mission: One-of-a-kind short F.I.L.M.
Jun. 14, 2010This week we're going to make a one-of-a-kind short film to honor all the one-of-a-kind fathers out there. (Shhh, don't tell them!)
Notes from Psi16 2010: Exploring the future of performance art
Jun. 14, 2010
It’s been years since I saw Jenny Magnus perform a piece called “Robert” – I don’t even know where anymore – maybe Lower Links, maybe Randolph Street Gallery, maybe N.A.M.E. It later became part of a theater piece called “The Willies” but, initially, it was a stand-alone. It was darkly funny in parts, but mostly it was about the fear of commitment and the searing pain of aloneness. It touched and scared me and made my head spin.
In the intervening years, whenever I considered performance art, I came back to that stark and powerful stage moment. When performance works, it doesn’t just leave an impression, but something more like a scar.
I say that now, in part, because I want to make clear that I really do love performance. I wrote about it for the Reader and the Tribune for years, and was a regular at all those long gone performance places (For those interested, there’s a Lower Links Reunion — complete with performances — Sunday, July 11, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Lakeside Inn, 15251 Lakeshore Rd.
Revision Street: Bruce Williams (III)
Jun. 14, 2010Bruce Williams works out of the condo he shares with his wife in Bronzeville—or North Kenwood, Bruce says, “depending on who’s dividing it.”
“That was one of the things that attracted me to programming—you have the freedom to work remotely.” He’d lived in Hyde Park on and off since he was 15—had the same apartment for 14 years before moving to Bronzeville. “Originally, I was looking for another place in Hyde Park. This is not a neighborhood that I ultimately see myself living long-term. If I could have gotten the same thing in Hyde Park I definitely would have.”
My mother was involved in fighting personal oppression. She went to a mixed school, a predominantly white school, and she’s a fighter. Things would arise and she would address them. When I was three my parents divorced. After their divorce, my mother became more of who she was. Very . . . Afrocentric.
A saint in need of a savior: Old St. Laurence parish
Jun. 14, 2010
(photo by Lee Bey)
I took a drive through the western edge of South Shore a couple of days ago.
Until I was 10, my family--father, mother, two sisters, and later grandmother and aunt--lived in a two flat my old man owned in the neighborhood at 7327 S. Kimbark. The landmarks were simple then: James Madison public school at 74th and Dorchester; Mrs Smith's corner store at 74th and Kimbark; and St Laurence Parish, seemingly a world away at 72nd and Dorchester because I wasn't allowed to go north of 73rd St---which only made me sneak and do it anyway. The St. Laurence buildings--a church, school, rectory and parish house that looked as romantic and Old World as the locales I'd see on "I Spy" reruns on Channel 44--had their importance.