The delights of special dinners
Some of Springfield’s most exciting and innovative cuisine isn’t found on its restaurants’ regular menus. It’s true that Springfield’s best restaurants’ daily specials for appetizers, entrées or desserts are often composed of locally procured ingredients at the height of their seasonal best. But hands down, the most satisfying way to enjoy their succulent ripeness is…
Magical Moonrise a romantic delight
The problem I’ve had with Wes Anderson’s recent films is that he’s been trying too hard to be Wes Anderson. The quaint, eccentric vibe that made Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums so distinctive and delightful was missing in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited. Sure, the characters in those movies had…
SOLAR SPRINGFIELD
As if biking wasn’t already green enough, Robert LaBonte of Springfield has found a way to make the world’s most popular form of wheeled transit even more Earth-friendly. LaBonte, owner of The Bicycle Doctor, says any electric bikes purchased from his newly-renovated store at 1037 N. Fifth St. in Springfield will receive their first electrical…
Hot happenings
As the undeniable Don Van Vliet performing as Captain Beefheart once said in his song Ice Cream for Crow, “It’s so hot it looks like you got three beaks crow,” and these days I think I know what the inscrutable Captain meant. But despite the nearly unbearable heat, time continues and things go on, including…
Kumbaya around the campfire
Jim Edgar is the closest thing the Illinois Republican Party has to a sage. His long career in elective office made him wise – wise enough anyway to retire from elective office – and he generously dispenses that wisdom from the mountaintop of the University of Illinois’ Institute for Government and Public Affairs. In June,…
A conflicted Spider-Man
By their very nature, reboots invite added scrutiny. So it is that Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man will be compared to its predecessor(s), Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man series which began in 2002 and ended a mere five years ago. Do audiences need a new incarnation of everyone’s favorite web-slinger so soon? I would say no, but…
Grave matters
Illinois State Museum Paul Mickey Science Series returns with a lecture July 11 at the Research and Collections Center on Ash Street. The program features Guy Sternberg from Starhill Forest Arboretum, who is also an Illinois College adjunct professor and ISM adjunct research associate. The public is invited to the free talk. The lecture covers…
Mourning breath
At 19, I married the first man I slept with. He died last year after 23 years of marriage, and within a month, I was in a new relationship with a wonderful man I met online. I’m certainly still grieving, sometimes horribly, but my new man understands, and he’s patient. He appreciates me and insists…
Ricotta Gnocchi
Jordan and Aurora Coffey say that their Ricotta Gnocchi is an ongoing customer favorite, one so popular it’s become a staple that will always be on the menu in some form or other. It’s those seasonal changes and ingredients that enable their luscious and ethereally light gnocchi to be both a much-loved familiar comfort dish,…
No superheroes in sight
While the span from May to Labor Day has become the prevue of big-budget superhero movies and action epics as well as sequels and remakes that have been given a good buff and polish, there are still films being released during this time that feature that rarest of creatures – real-life human beings. What follows…
We need a new WPA
The Labor Department’s estimate of jobs added to the U.S. economy in May was 69,000, a number too low to keep up with population growth. But in an election year, we no longer expect a real response to unemployment from Congress. Most of us expect a governmental train wreck at year’s end, no matter who…
springfield bad-decision poem # 4
O sing our dolorous lamentationO hear ye gods of all creationa city spot, a corner greenis soon no longer to be seenchain saws will rent the dawning calmthe toads and rabbits will be gonethe frisky squirrel the scaly snakeall disappeared and just to makea giant store that we don’t needfor this a thousand trees will…
Hey Congress, what about the ‘Doug Jones Average’?
To report on how our economy is doing, media outlets keep a constant eye on the Dow Jones Average. But they’re like cats watching the wrong mousehole, for the great majority of Americans have between zero and next-to-nothing in the stock market. The economic measure that matters most to most folks is the Doug Jones…
Letters to the Editor 07/05/12
CELEBRATE FREEDOMAs we celebrate Independence Day, we should also remember that not all Americans were free until 89 years after 1776, when Union soldiers sailed into Galveston, Texas, to announce the end of the Civil War and enforce President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, issued 2 1/2 years earlier. That act freed the last of our…
Group forms to give voice to small businesses
A group of organizations and business owners in Illinois have banded together to create a united voice about health care reform for small businesses. The Small Business Health Care Consortium, or SBHCC, formed in March 2011, with the goal of advocating for Gov. Pat Quinn to issue an executive order creating a pro-consumer, pro-small business…
FINS FINISHED
If you’ve ever seen the BBC’s wonderful 11-part documentary titled “Earth,” you’ll no doubt recall the incredible power that great white sharks exhibit when hunting seals. The sharks practically explode out of the water, their terrifying serration of teeth slicing through their helpless prey. But while that awesome display of raw power may make the…
Closing in on Rep. Derrick Smith
Finally, a little bit of good news. In stark contrast to the glacially paced House Committee on Investigations, the panel charged with deciding indicted state Rep. Derrick Smith’s punishment looks like it will move forward with much more deliberate speed. The Investigations Committee took two months to decide that there was enough evidence against Smith,…
SMTD sees change ahead
Janice Smith of Springfield says the public bus system is her lifeline. She rides buses all over Springfield to work, to shop and to visit friends – in short, everywhere. She’s on a bus almost every day of her life, except on Sundays, when the buses don’t run where she needs to go. “On Sundays,…
Summer movies
Ah summer…the days are long, picnics are taken, the drive-ins are packed and superheroes, aliens and animated films take over the multiplex. As the saying goes, “You’ve got to make hay while the sun is shining,” and the Hollywood movie studios know this is the prime time to fill their coffers. They know families are…
Garbage in, garbage out, garbage everywhere
This time, things are different, says Springfield public works director Mark Mahoney. It doesn’t take many brain cells to figure out that the city’s method for collecting trash is, politely put, silly. No fewer than four garbage haulers drive pavement-chewing trucks up and down pothole-pocked streets collecting recyclables and throwaways each week. That’s as many…
John Paul Keith
A 2011 performer at the Bedrock 66 Live! concert series and a favorite among Springfield roots rock fans, John Paul Keith returns to the capital city for a big stage slot at the American Music Show. Keith tours constantly with several weeks in Europe on the books for September, consistently laying down guitar boogie-woogie and…
Capital cuisine
Downtown sizzles the weekend after the Fourth of July and not just from the heat. The popular two-day festival, Taste of Downtown, runs Friday and Saturday, featuring the cuisine of over 20 city restaurants. Bite into scrumptious jerk pork tacos, meatloaf cupcakes, blackened salmon sliders, Caitie Girl’s horseshoe tributes, Cannolis, turkey cranberry cream cheese pretzel…
Creative kin
An intriguing new exhibit opens at the Springfield Art Association on Thursday, July 12 that spans generations. It’s in the Genes celebrates the work of 26 central Illinois creative families and others from across the country, by presenting multiple family members’ works. For example, Kansas artist Wes Dewey has work in the show (“Look of…
Ghost writer
Local songwriter, guitarist and singer, Tom Irwin, performs a one-night show outside at Theatre in the Park, Kelso Hollow in Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site, on Saturday, July 7, at 8 p.m. Sangamon Songs, the name of Irwin’s latest CD and this program, includes stories and songs inspired by the 1893-94 journal of 16-year-old…
Federal auditors visit Jerome
U.S. Department of Justice auditors spent two days in Jerome last week reviewing how the village has handled federal Drug Enforcement Administration grants. The auditors declined to identify themselves. “I’m not at liberty to say,” one of the two auditors told a reporter who asked what agency employed him. However, several sources, including Mayor Harry…
