I believe in Bilyeu
You know how thrilling it is to discover something new and exciting but, as soon as you mention it to someone, you hear, “Oh yeah, that’s been around for years — where you been?” When I first heard Mark Bilyeu’s new album, First One Free, I couldn’t wait to tell my well-informed music friends all…
Motor City vengeance
A beacon of hope in the rundown Detroit neighborhood where she lives, Evelyn Mercer (Fionnula Flanagan) is brutally murdered when a local convenience store is robbed. The police attribute the robbery to random gang activity, but Evelyn’s four adopted sons have their suspicions about the slaying and begin an investigation on their own. Hothead Bobby…
Fade-out
The Mayor’s Task Force on Race Relations has been disbanded after six years of service. All task force members have been invited to join a new subcommittee of the Community Relations Commission. With the city of Springfield defending itself against two federal race discrimination lawsuits, and the civil service commission embroiled in controversy for rejecting…
Letters to the editor
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 MORE BIG-CAT SIGHTINGS I really enjoyed “The beast of the bluffs” [Scott…
Two weeks to stardom
On a Wednesday afternoon in early July, five teachers huddle in a cluttered second-floor office in the Hoogland Center for the Arts to plan the third and final session of summer theater camp. In a week, the Hoogland will be overrun by dozens of noisy fledging thespians, but on this day, as Jason Goodreau puts…
The mighty John Wayne
Nothing enhances a movie’s image more than unavailability. The High and the Mighty (1954), starring John Wayne, is finally out on DVD after being out of circulation for many years, but it hardly lives up to its reputation as a lost classic. The High and the Mighty is little more than a “soap opera in…
Monkey shines in Rockford
You probably had a sock monkey at some point during your childhood, but did you know that the wiry stuffed toy originated in Rockford, Ill.? The story begins with John Nelson, a Swedish immigrant who invented a sock-knitting machine in 1869. Nelson’s company, Nelson Knitting, along with a later manufacturer, Forest City Knitting, became famous…
PACman
Todd Renfrow, director of City Water, Light & Power, isn’t running for public office or campaigning for any particular issues, but he’s formed a new political-action committee, apparently to raise money for campaigns. Called Springfield Leadership PAC, the organization doesn’t mention Renfrow by name, but its address matches Renfrow’s home address. William O’Rourke, Renfrow’s executive…
Summer in the city
My summer reading has turned to cities, realizing the good that is in them, solving their problems through leadership, and deciding what personal role to play. My books aren’t typical beach reads, not your fun fiction or the means to while away lazy days. I tend to take summer too seriously, using it to catch…
Lizz Wright gets it right
Lizz Wright isn’t the first jazz singer to embrace gospel, blues, folk, and rock, nor is she the first jazz singer to tell interviewers that she’s not really a jazz singer. In fact, the phenomenal success of Norah Jones’ debut, Come Away With Me, shows thatmild heterodoxy has become, if not conventional, at least lucrative.…
Jacqueline Jackson
lakepoem # 3 it’s not that I’m reduced to it here at the cottage but where else would you read herodotus for boys and girls © Jacqueline Jackson 2005
Marjorie Marr-Walter never gave up on a kid
Throughout the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, as Earl Bodine’s Unit 16 school bus crawled down the Old Jacksonville Road toward the Sangamon-Morgan county line, he always stopped at Marjorie and Woodrow Marr’s house to pick up a child, or two, or three. To a casual observer, this stop meant little, but to the children who…
Guess what they’ve fried this year!
Just when I thought it was safe to go back to the Illinois State Fair — the food extravaganza featuring all things fried and served on a stick — comes a new concoction that will surely blow any diet. The deep-fried cheesecake, offered by Michael’s Concessions, is one of several new culinary entries at the…
Exposing Chicago’s underbelly
Chicago Noir isn’t about a newspaper, although after reading it I kept thinking of the old riddle “What’s black and white and red all over?” The stage sets in these stories are as shadowy as the characters, whose twisted psyches take them down paths colored by their victims’ blood. Anyone who has enjoyed film noir…
American Life in Poetry
Every reader of this column has at one time felt the frightening and paralyzing powerlessness of being a small child, unable to find a way to repair the world. Here the California poet, Dan Gerber, steps into memory to capture such a moment. The Rain Poured Down My mother weeping in the dark hallway, in…
Where the sidewalks end
The Bunn Park neighborhood, on Springfield’s southeast side, hasn’t changed much in 30 years: Many roads are unpaved, sidewalks don’t exist in some spots, and thick vegetation grows on empty parcels of land. One might think that this is all done in the name of preserving the historic charm of the community. “I don’t see…
Edible education
Emma Goldman said that she wanted no part of any revolution unless it included dancing. That’s good, but better yet is Alice Waters’ idea that a revolution should be “delicious.” Waters — who is both a fabulous chef and a pioneer leader of America’s sustainable-food movement — believes deeply in the transformative power of having…
Just desserts
Derek Wheeler, a Springfield police officer who pleaded guilty to driving drunk in October 2003, now earns time and a half pay working overtime patrolling for other drunk drivers, according to a sources in legal and law enforcement professions. The irony apparently isn’t lost on Chief Don Kliment, who was inspired by Wheeler’s case to…
