Did your child get an A- on her spelling test? Of course that's news.
What does Journatic have to offer the suburbs that they want and don't have now?
On Thursday, CEO Brian Timpone sent me a pdf of the first TribLocal print product with Journatic's stamp on it—the new TribLocal covering Homewood-Flossmoor. You can scroll through the paper minus the ads—which are too few to suit Timpone, though he's hoping for a lot more down the road.
"If you have seen Triblocal before," he wrote, "you'll note the differences in this edition—they are stark. More community news, exclusively hyperlocal (vs. subregional), more public records, etc. The design is different as well."
Then he called and elaborated. "It's more templated—more predictable, more programmed," he said. "There are more stories, and they're all exclusively local versus subregional. The old TribLocals shared content. The Tribune's not doing that any more. Everything in there is about Homewood or Flossmoor. At least that's the intention."
Bring out the miniature violins: my work schedule is such that I yield a lot of digestive real estate to mediocre, boring, or just plain bad food, and revisiting the spots I truly love is a rare pleasure. My burning ardor for Birrieria Zaragoza never flickers, never dims, and there are occasions when I'm simply pining for that roasty good goat. The matter wouldn't be so desperate if Juan and familia would simply relocate to the north side, but at least they're going to get bit closer next week when they open second branch in western suburban Melrose Park.
I grew up visiting Lake Forest nearly every weekend. It’s a beautifully manicured place—Lake Forest public restrooms are cleaner than my bathroom is on a good day. There are wonderful things to experience there—gorgeous forest preserves, palatial houses, the Botanic Garden—but as a Hyde Park kid, all I wanted to do was go to the mall. The mall promised a road to glamor. Abercrombie & Fitch, Limited Too, and Paul Frank were my mecca. But I’ve left my mall days behind and replaced them with a love for Lake Forest rummage sales. And next Saturday, May 5, the First Presbyterian Church of Lake Forest will hold its annual sale—the mother of all rummage sales.
As Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen did a lot of things to irritate Kazakhs, but nothing (ahem) pissed them off more than his crack about their fondness for horse urine wine. That's not just because Kazakhs don't drink equine piddle, but because they do drink a lot of kumis, a fermented yogurt drink made from mare's milk that dates back to antiquity, is prized all over central Asia and Russia, and is pretty much the national drink of Kazakhstan, with deep cultural significance and alleged medical benefits. Chekhov and Tolstoy were big fans.
To kick off Suburbia Week, my intention was to write some sort of definitive history behind my favorite suburban landmark, the Baha'i House of Worship in Wilmette. Except a quick search of the Reader archives lead me to discover that Harold Henderson already wrote it, 25 years ago. I urge you to read Henderson’s article, which provides a fascinating architectural analysis of the structure.
When Henderson wrote his article in 1987, the temple was undergoing rehabilitation and restoration. Whether that process was postponed or not is still unclear, but as the Sun-Times reported this weekend, a $20 million restoration process, which writer Neil Steinberg says took ten years, was just completed. Having visited the site many times in the last decade, the construction was obtrusive and seemingly inexorable—it’s nice to hear that it’s finally over.
All week long on the Bleader, we'll be exploring everything from Arlington Heights to Zion—and who knows, maybe we'll hit up Indiana too—in the hopes of shedding some light on a huge chunk of the metropolitan area.
In case you missed it, you can be nostalgic for nostalgia week, last week's "Variations on a Theme."
The Chicago-area native dished tabloid-style gossip here for almost a decade. Now she's a leader in a fringe right-wing online community spreading a bizarre political conspiracy theory.
The Chicago-area native dished tabloid-style gossip here for almost a decade. Now she's a leader in a fringe right-wing online community spreading a bizarre political conspiracy theory.