Saturday, May 19, 2012
Mudville Sports Splitsville: White Sox win, Wood walks off
Posted by Ted Cox on 05.19.12 at 11:30 AM
I went to what turned out to be a hotly contested rivalry game between the White Sox and the Cubs, and a retirement party broke out.
The game, a 3-2 Sox victory Friday in the first of a three-game set this weekend at Wrigley Field, was overshadowed by Kerry Wood's final appearance. Wood had already informed the Cubs brass that he wanted to retire, that his body no longer was able to recover quickly enough to make him an effective reliever on a day-to-day basis, but that he didn't want to go out on his last appearance, which ended with him disgustedly tossing his hat and glove into the stands behind the Cubs' dugout. So manager Dale Sveum decided to "give him his day in the sun, so to speak," even though as it turned out Sveum wasn't there for it, as he had been ejected for arguing an umpire's call when the moment came in the eighth inning.
Style Week How I learned to never go out of style
Posted by Mara Shalhoup on 05.19.12 at 09:37 AM
As far as such icons go, this one's elusive—more obscure than an Audrey or Katharine, but no less chic. She was at the height of her visibility from the late 40s to late 60s, which makes evidence of her contributions hard to come by today. You might glimpse her on the A&E Channel, if it were to air the 2001 episode of Biography titled "Jackie Gleason: The Great One," in which she discusses the 13 years she spent as Gleason’s (mostly) live-in girlfriend. (What she doesn’t talk about on the show was how she dressed the rotund comic genius, picking out fabrics for his custom-made Earl Benham suits, his Sulka dress shirts, the Bronzini ties that had to be lengthened four inches for him.) I once spotted her in a creaky record store, on the cover of the Gleason album The Torch With the Blue Flame, which was released by Capitol Records in 1959 (when she was 27) and imparted new meaning, at least for me, to the songs "I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face" and "My Silent Love"—songs she later claimed to have helped him choose. The photo itself was taken a year earlier, in the living room at Gleason’s "Round House" in Peekskill, New York. She had recently moved in.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Do This Shameless SEO Shower the kittens . . . with love! And pet-friendly wipes
Posted by Jerome Ludwig on 05.18.12 at 05:09 PM
Help the Tree House Humane Society cat shelter rescue cuties like them by supporting Tree House's second annual Kitten Shower on Sunday, May 20, 11 AM-2 PM, at the shelter's Bucktown branch (1629 N. Ashland).
Per a Tree House press release:
Paranormal Film Exploring the subconscious with film distributor Brian Block
Posted by Ben Sachs on 05.18.12 at 04:29 PM
For this belated presentation, we can all thank local film collector Brian Block. Block commissioned the new print of Possession currently touring the U.S., and he’s overseeing the distribution singlehandedly under the moniker of the Bleeding Light Film Group (for the sake of full disclosure, I should add that we’ve been acquaintances for several years). I met up with him the other night to discuss his efforts, what drew him to Possession, and why Zulawski remains a major filmmaker. Our conversation follows the jump.
Food Chain Food & Drink One Bite: makdous at Al Bawadi Grill
Posted by Mike Sula on 05.18.12 at 03:52 PM
- Mike Sula
- makdous at Al Bawadi Grill
Bridgeview's Jordanian-Palestinian Al Bawadi Grill is widely, and rightly, praised for its hardwood lump charcoal-grilled meats, sometimes at the expense of other worthy things on its big menu, namely the makdous, stuffed oil-cured baby eggplants. Traditionally these are put up in the fall pickling season, known as mouneh in Lebanon, and eaten months later. At Al Bawadi they're stuffed with crushed walnuts, red pepper, and garlic and served sectioned on the plate, tangy, spicy, and quite meaty themselves, and an ideal pickly counterpoint to the kebabs.
Mudville Media Politics News Joe Ricketts and the freest speech money can buy
Posted by Michael Miner on 05.18.12 at 03:19 PM
Writes reporter Seth Cline:
"Ending Spending Action Fund, the Super PAC funded entirely by Ricketts, has spent more than $1.3 million since 2010 influencing elections, all of it benefitting Republican candidates, according to federal election filings. Like a closer in baseball brought on in the ninth inning to seal a victory, the group's moves have come just days before voters head to the polls, and only once has it failed to ensure victory."
One Democratic victim was Congressman John Spratt of South Carolina, chairman of the House budget committee. "By Election Day," Cline tells us, "Ricketts would dump $187,000 into the race—a game-changing sum in a rural district with no major television markets or newspapers. Spratt lost the race to Republican Mick Mulvaney by 10 points. 'It was like a tidal wave,' Spratt says. 'Suddenly constituents were calling saying they were getting five pieces of mail a day towards the end, on all kinds of topics.'"
The Democrat who won despite Ricketts's money was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, "who spent $26 million on his re-election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a sum not available to most candidates."
Politics News NATO by the numbers
Posted by Rebecca Cohen on 05.18.12 at 02:37 PM
- Crosslers
- Weapons of mass destruction?
761 mph is the speed it takes to break the sound barrier at sea level. If you hear a sonic boom today, it's probably the NORAD jets that have been assigned to patrol the city.
Mudville Sports It's a beautiful day for a ball game indeed
Posted by Ted Cox on 05.18.12 at 01:11 PM
- Ted Cox
- Robin Ventura: The skipper tests his flipper
Fraternization reigned supreme. With the wind wafting out during batting practice, the Cubs' light-hitting Reed Johnson clubbed one to the last row of the left-field bleachers.
"Ah, Reed, do it!" called out Sox outfielder Alex Rios, a former teammate of Johnson's on the Toronto Blue Jays.
"That's my game, baby," Johnson called back as he began trotting around the bases after his turn in the batting cage.
12 O'Clock Track Music 12 O'Clock Track: Sich Mang featuring Benjamin, "(Don't Spill Your Drink) I Got Burberry On"
Posted by Luca Cimarusti on 05.18.12 at 12:00 PM
Food Chain Food & Drink The bitter end of Logan Square Kitchen and other food news bites
Posted by Mike Sula on 05.18.12 at 11:33 AM
- LSK Facebook
- Logan Square Kitchen
Zina Murray announced Logan Square Kitchen's impending demise with an angry rant against the city's "department of dream killers," and then another, giving no hint of her plans just four days earlier.
More food news bites, good and bad:
