The continuing chronicles of Marina V
The name Marina V should be familiar to regular readers of this column. We’ve been checking in with her periodically, watching as her career develops. It’s been an interesting ride for the Russian-born singer/songwriter, who arrived in our area about a decade ago as a student at Illinois College in Jacksonville. To recap: Marina Verenikina…
Letters to the Editor
We welcome letters. Please include your full name, address, and telephone number. We edit all letters. Send them to Letters, Illinois Times, P.O. Box 5256, Springfield, IL 62705; fax 217-753-3958; e-mail editor@illinoistimes.com. BEATING A DEAD CAT Sometimes there is more to a story than first comes out. The reader who complained in a letter to…
The spirit of giving
Anyone looking for the true spirit of the American people should look directly into the hearts of our country’s children. For example, consider our nation’s response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. While politicians held self-serving press conferences and corporations took out ads to pat themselves on the back for making donations, guess who…
Sgt. Jones
It looked like most other officer-promotion ceremonies: a gathering of friends, family, and fellow officers in Springfield Police Chief Don Kliment’s spacious office, cookies and punch waiting in the conference room to the side. After a brief recap of patrolman Alan Jones’ law-enforcement career, Kliment shook hands with his newest sergeant and invited Jones’ wife…
Nincompoops, old cows, and Christmas past
The alarm blares at 8 on a Saturday morning. I turn off the dreams, roll out of bed, and pull on my long underwear. After adding two more layers, washing my face, and brushing my teeth, I head out the door with a cup of coffee in hand. Following MapQuest directions, I wind down country…
No room at the inn
I’d like to tell you a Christmas story. I’ve got a few of the main elements — a stable, some livestock, three wiseguys, and one devoutly religious couple, desperately seeking shelter on Christmas Eve. The couple is Afaf and Jamal Rashmawy, who just happen to have been born in Bethlehem — specifically in Beit-Suhar, or…
With friends like these…
In the booklet accompanying Swan Lake’s debut is the following epigraph: “Beast Moans is a testament to friendship, eternal and otherwise.” The sentiment is sweet but more than a little scary. Sure, friends can inspire one another to new heights of creativity, but they can also goad one another to new depths of idiocy. Friends…
Christmas Eve 1830
Hannah had just finished the supper dishes and opened her sewing basket to get her knitting when she heard a faint cry from the darkness outside. “Oh, Thomas,” she gasped, “There’s a lost child outside!” She was halfway across the cabin, reaching for her shawl, when her husband grabbed her arm. “Nonsense, woman,” Thomas said…
Father Christmas
Green Christmas bulb. Blue Christmas bulb. Green bulb. Blue bulb. Green bulb. Blue bulb. When I was a boy, my mother — blue bulb — insisted that the tree — green bulb — always be blue spruce and strung — blue bulb — with only two alternating — green bulb — colors. Blue bulb. Green…
Where was Watson?
Losing five state Senate seats, ending up on the wrong end of a veto-proof majority, is bound to be the source of a lot of second-guessing and finger-pointing. But Senate Republican Leader Frank Watson probably did himself no favors by going to Europe for 10 days just a month before the November election. Watson spokeswoman…
The King and I
Christmas 1982. Sarah was 4. Jonah was 2. Jonah was too young for expectations, and I was grateful for that. As for my daughter, Sarah, well, I hadn’t seen her since mid-October. It had been a nice fall day. I’d gotten my monthly check for $329. That and some food stamps were all we had…
Baby Doc
It was 1954. We were young and we were green and we were interns in med school. We were rotated through various assignments to give us experience. This six weeks, we were in south Chicago, around Halstead Street, delivering babies. Babies were coming fast as peas shucked from a pod, but they weren’t as alike…
The better gift
CHRISTMAS PAST — The Christmas tree hangs from a hook screwed into the ceiling; the lowest branch is 2 feet off the floor. It’s a different but logical placement; the house is small, the room is small, and the pile of gifts is too high to fit under a tree placed normally. “Different” is not…
Goodbye, Ms. Yeager
When it comes to requests for 3 a.m. liquor licenses, Ward 7 Ald. Judy Yeager casts a no vote almost before Mayor Tim Davlin even finishes reading the ordinance. As a member of the City Council’s public-affairs committee, Yeager also insists that any ordinance related to a liquor license be placed on the debate agenda,…
A reason to celebrate
My father retired in 1995, and, beginning in 1997, he and my mother began spending their winters in Weslaco, Texas. Our family would celebrate the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays in October before they left for Texas during the first half of November. At Christmas, my brother, sister, and I would get together and celebrate, rotating…
Neo-noir
Film noir is a style of filmmaking that characterized Hollywood detective and murder thrillers in the 1940s and ’50s. The name essentially means “dark cinema,” and its influences are German expressionism and French existentialism. Noir came to life with The Maltese Falcon (1941), and its last great gasp is the classic Touch of Evil (1958).…
The current Situation of Andon T. Davis
Guitarist Andon T. Davis left Springfield for the big city, accomplished much, and still comes back a couple of times a year to visit and perform. Davis, affectionately known around these parts as “Ted” for most of his career, worked his way through the ranks of area bands before joining up with Cats on Holiday,…
A sporting chance
Having solved the Chief Illiniwek problem [see “Solving Chief Illiniwek,” Aug. 18], Yanks Avatar, Tom “Snorts” Sullivan, and Father “Frog” O’Malley have now decided to address the more important University of Illinois sports problem — that the Illini do not win national championships. “National championships,” of course, refers to football and basketball, because other sports…
Giving green this year
Where can one find green-friendly gifts for friends and family this holiday season? Reconciling one’s green values with the urge to shop has never been easy. Most environmental groups today decry Western consumer habits as wasteful and a major cause of ecological degradation in a shrinking world. And many people, environmental issues aside, believe that…
Letters to the Editor
We welcome letters. Please include your full name, address, and telephone number. We edit all letters. Send them to Letters, Illinois Times, P.O. Box 5256, Springfield, IL 62705; fax 217-753-3958; e-mail editor@illinoistimes.com. GOURMET DINING IN CENTRAL ILLINOIS The recent article “Dr. Gonzo comes home” [Larry Crossett, Nov. 30] was an entertaining read. We discovered Jack…
Beyond despair
After six years, Brad Hammond calls the task of winning Springfieldians’ acceptance of St. Louis’ favorite pizza, Imo’s, akin to forcing a square peg into a triangular hole. Hammond, managing partner of the city’s only Imo’s Pizza store, at 751 S. Durkin Drive, says he moved up to Springfield “with the arrogance of believing that…
Keep all rooms comfortable
During winter and summer, it is difficult to keep all the rooms comfortable for my family. They are either too warm or too cool, and it varies throughout the day. What is my best option to fix this? This is a common problem in both one- and two-story homes year-round. In addition to being uncomfortable,…
Stories of sadness and strength
The cover art for Joanna Newsom’s sophomore album, Ys (pronounced ees) depicts the folk chanteuse as a Renaissance peasant with a sickle in one hand and a portrait of a butterfly in the other. The juxtaposition of strength and fragility is a perfect visual metaphor for Newsom’s music, which manages to incorporate both cold grandeur…
Lend a hand
Illinois Times invited local nonprofit organizations to tell our readers what’s on their wish lists for the holidays. The first list ran Nov. 23; see all of them at www.illinoistimes.com. American Legion Post 32 410 S. Fifth St., 217-523-3415 The veterans’ organization is accepting donations for a building on J. David Jones Parkway, near the…
Smoking in the kitchen
With any luck, by the time you read this things will have warmed up a bit. As I write this, however, it’s 17 degrees Fahrenheit, with a wind-chill factor of three below zero. I can see our grill collection outside, covered with snow and ice, sitting forlornly among the tangle of branches that fell during…
It’s tree-repair time again
The sound of tree branches cracking, snapping, and crashing to the ground is definitely something I’d rather not hear again. As daybreak approached on Friday, Dec. 1, it became apparent that our 45-year-old sweet gum tree had been turned into a big stick and that half of our 40-year-old white birch and our neighbor’s 60-year-old…
Banning hunger
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has exciting news for you: Hunger no longer exists in America! Is the federal government saying that the shame of hunger has at long last been eliminated? No. Only the word “hunger” has been eliminated. There are still 35 million Americans — 12 percent of us — who are so…
The jig is up
November 2006 was a month that historians will study in minute detail, day by day and headline by headline, when they attempt to reconstruct the iron chain of misery the United States has been forging for itself since September 2001 — though some will maintain that November 2000, with its still-disputed presidential election, was the…
Enlightened chocolate chips
When Christmas came to town, there were a few things I could count on: Santa (I kept the fantasy going until I was 10), Fritos in my stocking, and my father’s private stash of chocolate-chip cookies. Presented inside a foil-lined department-store gift box that was clad in Christmas-themed paper, the cookies were an annual gift…
Can the governor, like Bush, change his tune?
Now that we finally have President George W. Bush talking about “a new way forward” for the United States in Iraq, it would be good to hear Gov. Rod Blagojevich discuss ways to deal with reality in Illinois. Of course, it took a big loss for the Republicans in the midterm elections to get Bush’s…
People’s Poetry
deathwatchpoem #2 not the stuff of poems camped in this caring hospice two thousand miles from home reading a stupid mystery book while we wait for my brother’s wife to die she already died last night a daughter came too late but the breathing started up again been sixteen hours who knows how many more…
The issues
The next two or three years should serve as a cleansing period for city government, as Springfield, or the courts, settles seemingly never ending legal battle battles, puts the wraps on major capital improvements, fires up its new power plant, and hosts Abe Lincoln’s 200th birthday celebration. In the meantime, the mayor and at least…
Less than clear
A group of students at the University of Illinois at Springfield is raising questions about evidence and key testimony in one of the state’s most gruesome murder cases — that of 23-year-old Decatur beauty Karyn Hearn Slover. Slover’s remains were discovered in Lake Shelbyville in September 1996. Slover had been shot in the head and…
The enduring power of hope
It’s hard to think of a recent film that’s shown a man’s struggle to succeed as honestly and poignantly as The Pursuit of Happyness, the rags-to-riches true-life tale of Chicago investment banker Chris Gardner, does. Gabriele Muccino has taken a compelling story and outstanding cast to direct one of the year’s top motion pictures, an…
