The return of a favorite to New Salem
Opening this weekend at Theatre in the Park, New Salem’s outdoor amphitheater, is the drama Your Obedient Servant, A. Lincoln. The return of the John Ahart play, which ran for many summers at New Salem, has been a long time coming. Ahart gave producers Pat and Kari Anderson and Dave and Shelly Flickinger the rights…
quick takes 7-1-04
CONVICTION OVERTURNED Students in the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project at University of Illinois at Springfield celebrated a victory last week when the Fifth District Appellate Court set aside the murder conviction of Julie Rea-Harper. She is serving a 65-year prison sentence for the stabbing death of her 10-year-old son, Joel Kirkpatrick. Tommy Lynn Sells, a…
letters 7-1-04
Letters policy We welcome letters, but please include your full name, address and a daytime telephone number. We edit all letters for libel, length and clarity. Send letters to: Letters, Illinois Times. P.O. Box 5256. Springfield, Illinois 62705. Fax: (217) 753-3958. E-mail: editor@illinoistimes.com A DREAM COME TRUE What was just an idea months ago became…
Knoepfle 7-1-04
sandalwood poem #8 the hall mirror be kind to it believe in it it will tell you what I have seen © John Knoepfle 1978, 2004
Dishonoring Lincoln, big-time
“Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth. . . . This process of continual alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, soundtracks, cartoons, photographs — to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political…
Now playing 7-1-04
Hello fellow Americans, ready to celebrate 228 years of independence? Put that bottle rocket where it belongs, and let’s get (fire)cracking. Begin your holiday weekend with a Thursday evening stop at Cecil’s beer garden to experience the uplifting sounds of elevator shoe featuring the stellar vocals of Trina Madonia. You won’t find a more pleasing…
Grace about town 7-1-04
Six months ago, I wrote down my New Year’s resolutions. I figure now is a good time to take some stock and do some reflecting. Not really. I’m not in the mood for anything that deep at the moment. It’s summer, for crying out loud — reflection can wait for the bitter chill of winter.…
Turning over rocks
A Springfield attorney and a statewide trade group have launched independent investigations into safety conditions at Oak Ridge Cemetery. The Illinois Cemetery and Funeral Homes Association responded to an anonymous complaint they received citing a pair of injuries to children at the state’s largest cemetery. In letters to both Mayor Tim Davlin and Oak Ridge…
Behind the eight ball
A crippled Illinois Republican Party is scrambling to fill the vacancy left by U.S. Senate nominee Jack Ryan after the sudden implosion of his candidacy last week. While several replacements for Ryan are under consideration, state Rep. Raymond Poe, a Springfield Republican, says party leaders ideally need to coax a self-financed candidate, with widespread name…
To tell the truth
You might think Jack Ryan was forced out of the U.S. Senate race because the media found out that his ex-wife had alleged that he dragged her to kinky-sex clubs on two continents. Tabloid television programs, right-wing pundits, and Republican insiders from Washington, D.C., emphasized the sex, either to sell their stories or defend Ryan…
A revival — and a reunion
The sign on the door makes it clear: The recently opened Nantucket Grill is not associated with the New England Lobster House, which until February occupied the space on MacArthur Boulevard. But if the sign weren’t there, you might not perceive much of a difference between the old and the new. The interior still features…
Movie review
What makes a hero? A spider with heart Devoting your life to spinning webs any size and catching thieves just like flies can be a major drag. You end up falling behind on your studies and losing your job because you always show up late, and the chance of having a meaningful relationship is remote.…
Born under a cloud of irony
The ironies are flowing thicker than crude oil in Iraq these days. First, the United States surreptitiously turns over nominal control of the country to a government appointed by outsiders — while leaving real power in the hands of U.S. military commanders — and calls it an exercise in democracy. And although the interim prime…
Remembering what it means to be human
No one who reads the remarkable new poems by John Knoepfle can fail to be touched by their penetrating strength. If poems from the sangamon (1985) brought history up out of the Midwest, this one goes back to Knoepfle’s place of Irish ancestry, taking everything American and Irish with him, and us, too. There are…
Remain the same, or reinvent
Patti Smith TrampinÕ (Columbia) Most artists survive by reinventing themselves. The media, always angling for the snappy lead, demand of their subjects new storylines, and the subjects (who, after all, have stuff to sell) usually acquiesce. But Patti Smith, like God and Edith Piaf, is eternal — exactly the same as she was 29 years…
Fired up
Like a lot of little kids, Cecil Taborn Jr. always wanted to be a firefighter. Part of that dream was inspired by his neighbor, David Irwin, a Springfield Fire Department firefighter. Growing up on the East Side, Taborn lived half a block from Irwin, known to everyone as “Wolfman.” So when Taborn had the chance…
