Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Bad News From the Past Wheel of Misfortune
Posted by Cliff Doerksen on Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 9:30 AM
Chicagoland, Visual Art Morning Art: Tacita Dean
Posted by Julia Thiel on Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 8:40 AM
Monday, February 8, 2010
Food Chain, Food & Drink Too New to Review: Prairie Fire, Leo's Coney Island, the Southern, Revolution Brewing Company, and More
Posted by Kate Schmidt on Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 8:29 PM
Prairie Fire, the latest restaurant from Sarah Stegner and George Bumbaris of suburban Prairie Grass Cafe, opened today in the former Powerhouse space at 215 N. Clinton. The extensive, eclectic menu ranges from appetizers like warm baked feta with banana peppers, duck and chicken liver patés, Asian-style shrimp and ahi tuna, and pizzas to 20 entrees including steaks, Greek-influenced dishes, five fish preparations, and a breaded pork schnitzel.
Leo's Coney Island of Chicago, the local outlet of a Detroit mainstay for Coney dogs, breakfast, burgers, and other diner standards, opened soft in Lakeview last week; its official opening is Monday, February 15.
Chef Cary Taylor’s regional-American reworking of Chaise Lounge, the Southern, opened Friday, featuring dishes with a southern twist such as duck cassoulet with black-eyed peas. There’s also a decent selection of cocktails (including mint juleps and Planter’s Punch), bourbons, and southern beers at what’s touted as being a “kickass bar.”
Fashion Fewer Shoes on the North Side
Posted by Heather Kenny on Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 5:15 PM
Two north-side shoe shops recently announced they're closing: City Soles is shuttering its satellite location on Southport due to "economic reasons and the close of commercial credit," said owner Scott Starbuck. And The Dressing Room Shoes in Lincoln Square is saying good-bye as well (although the original Dressing Room, just a few doors down, will remain open). Stop in for half-off on remaining styles.
Crickets, Music When Golden Earring Were Good
Posted by Miles Raymer on Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 5:06 PM
Most people probably only know two Golden Earring songs, tops: the 1973 slab of guitar boogie "Radar Love" and the schlocky 1982 synth-rock hit "Twilight Zone." These Dutch boys actually started out in the early 60s as Golden Earrings (named after a pop standard that the band Gandalf would later reimagine as an amazing hippie-soul number) and spent that decade exploring garage and psychedelic music. During those years they were way weirder and cooler than you'd guess from listening to "Twilight Zone"—according to the band's Wikipedia page their cover of the Byrds' "Eight Miles High" could last as long as 45 minutes.
Their big hit in the Netherlands during that time was "Dong Dong Diki Diki Dong," an enjoyably ditzy piece of psych pop with one of the most embarrassing titles in rock history. My personal jam of the moment, though, is a few years older and comes from a time when the group had a darker garage sound. "Daddy Buy Me a Girl" is a pretty song, filled out with Autoharp and 12-string guitar, but it's got a bite of menace in its aftertaste that I find addictive. Given that it's a song about a broken-hearted rich kid who's been burned by a gold digger, it only makes sense that the band filmed a video where they take a hot chick to the circus:
Politics, Clout City, News The Preckwinkle Onslaught
Posted by Mick Dumke on Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 3:32 PM
Since Toni Preckwinkle won the Democratic nomination for county board president last week, I’ve heard lots of people saying it represents the return of the Washington coalition—a band of independent-minded African-Americans, Latinos, and whites who want to whip local government into shape.
There are a couple of problems with the comparison.
Music, Post No Bills Post No Bills Podcast #5
Posted by Peter Margasak on Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 1:40 PM
- Pit Er Pat
Food Chain, Food & Drink The Beards Anoint Calumet Fisheries
Posted by Mike Sula on Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 12:48 PM
Bravo to the great Calumet Fisheries, which was just given one of the James Beard Foundation's America's Classics Awards honoring "small, regional restaurants, watering holes, shacks, lunch counters, and similar down-home eateries that have carved out a special place on the American culinary landscape."
Following last year's feature on No Reservations, the humble south-side shack's profile has blown up quite a bit. But it wasn't always so.
Free Shit Through 2/18 — Vibrator Giveaway at the Pleasure Chest
Posted by Robyn Chang on Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 12:00 PM
The Sexist Why Superbowl Ads Are So Racist, Sexist, and Homophobic
Posted by Amanda Hess on Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 10:24 AM
Why are Superbowl commercials, hailed for their creativity, often so casually sexist, racist, and homophobic? Credit the watchful eye of the CBS Standards and Practices department, which ensures that Superbowl ads bring in millions of viewers looking to be shocked—without offending their delicate sensibilities.
To achieve this difficult balance, ad makers are forced to play within a very small range of acceptably “outrageous” topics. Since casual sexism, racism, and homophobia are main sources of shock-jock humor—and since these attitudes are too pervasive to inspire true outrage in the average American—companies compete to put the most creative twist on the lazy stereotyping without going too far off the deep end. And so: CBS bans an ad that shows two gay men kissing, but greenlights several commercials that play off “gay” stuff for laughs. It bans an ad that shows a guy’s head up his own ass, but lets fly a commercial that makes fun of those silly, backward South Asians who answer your tech support calls (racism: officially less controversial than asses). Even the advertisement decried as the most “controversial” of the evening—college football superstar Tim Tebow’s antiabortion ad—concluded not with a politically controversial rallying call for life, but with Tebow totally sacking his own mother. That’s gotta sting!
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