“Stay” a Dismal Example of Modern Storytelling
R.J. Cutler’s If I Stay is pitched squarely to teenage girls, of which I am not, who are susceptible to melodramatic plots and doomed love stories. Though I fall firmly out of this demographic, that’s not to say that I couldn’t enjoy or become engaged with a film dealing with a bright young woman on…
Torch Tuesday: Three-part School Supply Drive starting tonight
Tonight is the beginning of a three-part school supply drive from the local hip-hop community .Due to budget issues the district closed three elementary schools in the city and are sending all of those students to Feitshans. With such an influx of low income students at one place the need for supplies is at an…
That’s a wrap
TWO (2) — “The journey not the arrival matters,” wrote poet T.S. Eliot. “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware,” stated philosopher Martin Buber. Anytime I go anywhere, it is unexpected beauty or inspiration that I eagerly anticipate. The fair is large enough there’s sure to be adventure. Unfortunately the day…
“The Giver” Still a Cut Above Rivals
As the old saying goes, timing is everything and Philip Noyce’s adaptation of Lois Lowry’s novel The Giver is suffering from being a bit too late to the party where big screen versions of young adult literature is concerned. This is ironic and unfortunate as the novel, which has become a middle school staple since…
Settlement in Carlock case near
Sangamon County taxpayers will pay $2.575 million to the family of Amon Paul Carlock, an accused pedophile who died in the Sangamon County jail awaiting trial nearly eight years ago, under a settlement offer approved Monday night by the civil liability committee of the Sangamon County Board, which is expected to take a final vote…
Steely Dan sounding fresh
If Walter Becker and Donald Fagen know one thing, it is how to hire musicians. The two-man songwriting brain trust that is Steely Dan has built a legacy on a revolving door of top-flight studio players dating back to the early 1970s, a decade that saw the band dominate airwaves and endure, with the first…
Chuck’s Classic Movie Picks 8/18-8/24
Tuesday – August 19th – One of Clint Eastwood’s most overlooked and underrated films in recent years, Hereafter (2010), airs on FXM at 11:00 pm. Tackling a fractured narrative that tells three different stories simultaneously, all of which converge in the end, the theme that runs through them all is death and the afterlife. Matt Damon stars as a clairvoyant who…
More unhappy news
More on happiness in, and with cities, a topic I touched on in “Land of mope and worry.” Wages and housing alone don’t predict where people want to live very well. Cities like San Francisco, which have hideously high housing costs and awful traffic, nonetheless are always ranked toward the top on most lists of…
Hoffman’s Power on Full Display in
It’s been a rough year where deaths in the world of film are concerned. While we acknowledge their passing and recognize the inherent misfortune that accompanies these events, we only begin to recognize the importance of these losses, from an artistic point of view, when we see them at work. Such is the case with…
Great rock show at Bar None tonight:
Middle Class Fashion Acclaimed St. Louis band Middle Class Fashion describe themselves as “sugar sweet pop with a secret dark side.” The Luzhin Defense The Luzhin Defense (a/k/a the extravagantly talented Rogers brothers of Springfield) modestly describe their output as “an oddly familiar landscape of pop music.” FUCK///MOUNTAIN When Brandon Carnes (owner-operator of…
Yeah, I went there
While the idea behind my You had to be there column is to shine a bitter, vindictive light on a sampling of musical, artistic and other cultural events you probably missed out on in Springfield the previous weekend, it must be acknowledged that some things just don’t ever make their way to town, for a…
Peter Hall
A while back, I edited and wrote chapter introductions to a collection of essays on the influence of Daniel Burnham, the architect-turned-city planner whose 1909 Plan of Chicago gave Chicago its famous downtown lakefront and gave several generations of Springfieldians a reason to visit Illinois’ best and worst city. In that work I quoted from…
Board games
Curses, foiled again• An armed woman entered a store in Oklahoma City and started beating clerk Lein Nguyen, 70, with her gun, demanding money. Police Sgt. Jennifer Wardlow said Nguyen responded by throwing cases of beer at the suspect, who fled empty-handed. (Oklahoma City’s KOCO-TV) • Security officers pursuing three shoplifters at a mall in…
Feds back off of Ford
As you probably know by now, the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago has agreed to drop all felony charges against Illinois state Rep. LaShawn Ford, D-Chicago, and has charged him instead with a simple misdemeanor. The original 17 federal counts of bank fraud and submitting false information to a bank each carried potential sentences of…
Talk of the town
PHOTO BY LAURA KAY COFFEY Thursday, Aug. 21, is the next installment of the entertaining and informative PechaKucha at the Hoogland Center for the Arts. Some of Springfield’s movers-and-shakers take the stage and talk about what they know best, accompanied by PowerPoint presentations they have made. What moves the evening along and provides the challenge…
Tropical treats
Small coconuts make great containers to hold coconut creme brulee. PHOTO BY DAVID HINE Most of my summer desserts focus on seasonal fruits at their succulently flavorful peak: berries, melons, peaches, nectarines and plums bought at farmers markets and roadside stands. But tropical desserts are also appropriate in summer. Here are four favorites including one…
Not a sleeper
PHOTO COURTESY THEATRE IN THE PARK Theatre in the Park at Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site presents the Tony Award-winning musical comedy Pajama Game on Aug. 15-17 and 21-23. Directed by Sean Rose of Jacksonville, the storyline follows the clash between workers and managers at Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory. The production stars Becky Bertram (Petersburg)…
Fair enough
Screamin’ Vatos blaze away at the Miller Lite beer tent on Friday night, August 15 at the Illinois State Fair. The large and looming presence of the Illinois State Fair continues shadowing all our entertainment choices for the upcoming weekend. As the fair winds down on Sunday, live music rules the roost on the grounds…
Installation environments
Contemporary art gallery DEMO Project will host an opening reception Friday, Aug. 15, for the exhibit Communal Paradox by Illinois artist Lauren Turk. “These installation environments tell the story of a journey through communal paradoxes; craving and contentment, lack and overabundance, sorrow and jubilation,” says Turk. She also discusses a specific work that will be…
Mike Miller
As a founder and longtime member of the popular “trop rock” band Boat Drunks, Mike Miller spends his time making music. He retired from the BDs in 2008 after several successful years, then rejoined in 2013 and continues to contribute as singer, guitarist and songwriter. Known as being a popular Jimmy Buffet tribute band, they…
Black and white
Samuel Johnson of Springfield believes he was illegally stopped in November 2013 because of his skin color. Johnson’s stop was ruled improper by a Sangamon County judge in July. PHOTO BY PATRICK YEAGLE Just before midnight on Nov. 4, Samuel Johnson of Springfield was returning home from Bloomington when he saw a police cruiser in…
Going to pot
Growing marijuana is a complex and expensive enterprise. Yet the cost of doing business has not scared off hundreds of entrepreneurs. Sean Norton, of Medicine Man in Denver, cleans grow light covers inside the warehouse where the company grows 20,000 squa PHOTO BY KAI-HUEI YAU/MCT On the surface, the medical marijuana business sounds at least…
Letters to the Editor 8/14/14
Mammoth Dome at the Mammoth Cave National Park rises 192 feet from floor to ceiling. Water dripping through a sinkhole hollowed out the dome, one of the highlights of cave tours. Photo Courtesy the National Park Service MAMMOTH MEMORIESMary Bohlen’s article about Mammoth Cave (“Cool off in Mammoth Cave, the world’s longest,” Aug. 7) reminded…
I’m with stupor
A close friend has a drinking problem. His wife kicked him out, he lost his job, and he’s been a lousy father to their 1-year-old son. He begged to stay with me (his only single friend) and has been sleeping on my couch for months. Despite my lecturing him a thousand times, he’s still going…
Boston plays Springfield
Lead singer Tommy DeCarlo, right, entertains the crowd while Boston founder Tom Scholz, left, sings backup. PHOTO BY BRUCE RUSHTON Those – and there were a substantial number in attendance – who saw Boston at the Illinois State Fair on Tuesday will, I suppose, have one of two reactions. It was really cool! They played…
Springfield’s Night Out
It’s a night for taking back the streets. Springfield joined hundreds of communities around the nation in the National Night Out on Aug. 5. Several neighborhoods in Springfield held block parties, inviting police and fire fighters to meet with families and establish relationships that foster cooperation. Lydia Templin-Collins of the Hawthorne Place Neighborhood Association says…
Shrek
Donkey (Andrew Wheaton), Shrek (Brad Barding) and Fiona (Hannah Siehr). PHOTO BY DONNA LOUNSBERRY ShrekAug. 14-16 and Aug. 21-23, 8 p.m.The Muni, 815 E. Lake Shore Drive, SpringfieldTickets: 793-6864 or online at themuni.org Looking for a place where you can see a wisecracking gingerbread man, an enormous singing dragon, a talking donkey and a diminutive…
How safe is hydraulic fracturing?
During the legislative battle to pass the Illinois hydraulic fracturing bill, safety was the major source of conflict. Over the past year, Illinois Times and major news outlets have reported the divisive testimony in the public hearings for fracking regulations. Here’s some background to better understand why fracking safety has stirred up intense controversy in…
Familiar Expendables 3
Sylvester Stallone as Barney Ross in Expendables 3. Having now sat through three Expendables movies, I can safely say that this is the most predictable franchise in film history. Nothing, and I mean nothing, comes as a surprise in Sylvester Stallone’s series for geriatric action heroes. Each movie’s plot marches lockstep through a pattern that’s…
PARADE LEMONADE
PHOTO BY DAVID CLODFELTER One who worked long hours on the float entered in the State Fair parade by the Coalition of Rainbow Alliances said she was “heartbroken” when rain canceled the parade and the group’s chance to win for the 10th year in a row. But wait. Turns out the judging is done in…
Land of mope and worry
To borrow a phrase, all happy cities are alike; each unhappy city is unhappy in its own way. To learn a bit about what those unhappy ways are, three economists at Harvard and the University of British Columbia sifted through the responses by some 300,000 Americans to a national survey run by the Centers for…
norway poem #1
we climbed a stony path to our snugcottage my granddaughter and meI walked with decorated polestheir tips blunted our hosts’ cottagewas below they raised their shadesto show us they were up we raisedours to show we’d breakfasted andwere ready for the day (the fridgewas stocked with cheeses meats breadsbrown eggs juices even two cans of…
Post office is a money-making operation
One public service that people really like and count on is the post office – which literally delivers for us. Antigovernment ideologues and privatization dogmatists, however, hate the very word “public,” and they’ve long sought to demonize the U.S. Postal Service, undercut its popular support and, finally, dismantle it. Their main line of attack has…
