Hip-hop heroes
I must admit to being rather ignorant of rap and hip-hop music styles. I’ve heard certain artists and felt the influence of the genre in contemporary music, but overall I’ve not listened deep into the catalogue of this fairly new variety of music. All through the history of popular music the improvisation and musicality of…
Hallelujah harmony
The Springfield Choral Society will give two performances of an authentic Baroque version of Handel’s “Messiah,” with orchestra, at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 14, and Saturday, Dec. 15, at Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Directed by Marion van der Loo, the Choral Society is known for high-quality performances presented in historically correct text settings…
Letters to the Editor 12/13/2012
TOP ELECTION ANALYSESLeave it to one of our hometown columnists to come up with one of the best analyses of the Nov. 6 election I have seen! Jim Krohe’s Dec. 6 commentary (“Crowdsourcing presidential choice”) – with color map – hit the mark with his insight based on having lived there, as we writers are…
Santa time
Your favorite Springfield holiday tradition, the Christmas parade takes to the streets of downtown Springfield at night this year beginning at 5 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 15. See marching units, hear holiday music and see the Jaycees’ light-show float with Santa and Mrs. Claus riding on it under the streetlights and stars. The theme this…
Lindsay’s ‘Little Turtle’ comes back to life
Vachel Lindsay, a lifelong resident of Springfield, internationally renowned poet and author of 20 books of poetry and stories, was born in 1879. Two years before Lindsay’s death in 1931 came the birth of George Colin, now an acclaimed artist who lives in Salisbury. Today the two central Illinois men have their works united in…
Rats!
Imagine being impervious to pain, immune to cancer and darn near immortal. Then imagine, as one scribe once put it, looking like a penis with buck teeth. That is the conundrum of the naked mole-rat, the newest resident of the Henson Robinson Zoo. They are nearly blind, cold-blooded, neither moles nor rats and utterly bizarre,…
Dizolver
The music tandem team of Mark Packenham (bass, backing vocals) and Zac Broaddus (lead guitar, backing vocals) began working together in 2000, spanning a myriad of bands in their journey through the Springfield rock music scene. Pat Pierceall (drums, backing vocals) joined the guys in 2006 in an original group called Digdowndeep, and with a…
Hitchcock too fractured
Much like the bathroom at the Bates Motel where Marion Crane met her untimely death, Sacha Gervasi’s Hitchcock is a bit of a mess. Attempting to tell the story about the making of one of the most notorious films of all time, while psychoanalyzing its director, is an intriguing story on paper. Not so in…
The airline industry’s fee-for-all
Big news, holiday travelers! American Airlines has a new family deal for you. If you and the kids are headed off to grandma’s house, Disney World or wherever, American will make an effort to seat you next to each other. Well, that’s not exactly new or special, since most airlines have long done this. But…
Kids at the margins
They live in hotels, cars or even at campgrounds. When the winter wind blows, they’re the children who don’t have coats. When it’s time to take a quiz, they’re the children who don’t have pencils or paper. Many of them may not even know whether they’ll get to eat dinner on a given night. They…
Go east, young man!
I don’t know about you, but I love to hear people talk about their interesting trips to foreign places. You learn the most interesting things. What fun it would be therefore to sit down with Mike Madigan – a man who, however far he roams, never really leaves the Southwest side of Chicago – and…
Can I get a witness?
There are more questions than answers in the wake of an arbitrator’s decision rescinding the termination of a City Water, Light and Power employee who cut down a relative’s tree on city time last March, then confronted a citizen who complained. Arbitrator Edwin H. Benn in his Dec. 5 order did not explain why he…
rhyming poem # 22
“It’s no poem without rhymes!”Amaiya, neighbor friend, avowed.“I have learned it now in school,Poems rhyme, and that’s the rule!So none of yours in Illinois TimesAre truly verse, it’s not allowed.Muffet, tuffet, Jill and hill,You can rhyme yours if you will!” Amaiya, love, a gift for you:I’ll try to make a rhyme that’s true.I don’t claim…
Historic Christmas
This Saturday, Dec. 15, six downtown historic sites are combining efforts and welcoming visitors to celebrate the holidays, a bit like the hospitable ol’ Fezziwig in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, who threw open his business to host a joyous holiday celebration for Scrooge and much of the town. Visitors will see decorations at some…
Spicy holiday gifts
I’ve said it before: I like giving holiday food gifts that aren’t sweet. Not because I don’t like sweets – or getting them, for that matter. But it’s nice to give something that stands out among the tidal wave of cookies and candies. Giving spice mixtures along with ideas and recipes of how to use…
Home sweet homes
See the brick Italianate governor’s mansion or the Italianate home of the Edwards family or the Greek Revival-style Elijah Iles home or the Georgian-Revival home where the prominent family the Pasfields lived. Six historic houses will be decked out for the holidays in their old-time digs, Dec. 15, between noon and 5 p.m. A half…
The son almost never rises
Two years ago, after dating a wonderful lady for a year, I married her and moved in with her. The problem is her 23-year-old son. He lives with us, has never held a job, doesn’t go to school, and does nothing but eat, sleep and poop. I’ve worked since I was 14, my wife and…
Facts about State senator’s bust for carrying
One of the most fascinating things about the media frenzy surrounding state Sen. Donne Trotter’s arrest last week was that not one of his Democratic 2nd Congressional District opponents immediately jumped in front of the cameras to comment publicly about the matter. They stayed silent even when Trotter, D-Chicago, announced after he was bonded out…
Chiming in
Join the 31st Annual Caroling around the Carillon at Washington Park this Sunday, Dec. 14, starting at 4:30 p.m. The Park District’s new carillonneur, Robin Austin, will be playing the carillon, Damien Kaplan and members of the Springfield High School Choir will be singing holiday carols, and hot cocoa and cookies will be served around…
Nullify the drug war
Thomas Jefferson said a revolution every 20 years would be a good thing. Regardless of what one thinks of that, perhaps a little constitutional crisis every now and then would have its benefits. One such crisis may be brewing now. On Election Day, solid majorities of voters in Colorado and Washington voted to make marijuana…
