Winslet Spins Familiar Wheel
Ford, Hawks, Hitchcock, Scorsese, Eastwood and Spielberg, as well as too many other filmmakers to count, have returned time and again to familiar themes to explore at various points in their careers. It isn’t that they were lazy and simply doing the same old thing, but rather they were examining topics that interested them from…
Editor’s Note 12/14/17
One of the best things about Doug Jones’ win over Roy Moore in Alabama is that it energized the state’s long-dormant Democratic Party and chastened the Republicans. There is nothing like a win to get a political party thinking about the possibility of more wins down the road, and nothing like an atrocious candidate losing…
Where to cut the city budget
The city of Springfield’s pending financial disaster is much more a problem of priorities, and less a problem of revenue. Informal comments already suggest that there is nothing left to cut, but they mean “other than police and fire, there is nothing left to cut.” A review of past budgets shows that in fiscal year…
City of the dead
I’m writing about cemeteries this week. My focus is Springfield’s Oak Ridge Cemetery, world-famous for being the final (one hopes) resting place of Lincoln and his family. But anyone who’s driven in the west suburbs of our great metropolis has probably come across Forest Park in Cook County. This is a town where cemeteries not only occupy scenic…
Poor outcomes
It is possible paint a picture with numbers. The State Journal-Register did it the other day when it used data from the Illinois Report Card, the state’s education data source, to draw before-and-after portraits of 15 area school districts from 2001 and 2016. I was particularly interested in one measure: how much of the enrollment…
Why so many Americans hate Trump’s tax reform
Sam Rayburn of Texas, who was a legendary Speaker of the U.S. House in the 1940s and ’50s, offered this piece of ethical advice for lawmakers who were conflicted over whether to vote for the people or the lobbyists: “Every now and then, a politician ought to do something just because it’s right.” Wow, ethics…
A matter of trusts
Last year, billionaire Democrat JB Pritzker derided Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for not releasing detailed income tax filings. “The question is who his investors are, and whether there are any in China or Russia that are affecting his personal income,” Pritzker said of Trump, adding that the future president was “obfuscating in order to…
Letters to the Editor 12/7/17
COLORADO’S CANNABIS CONUNDRUM While Big Marijuana pours millions into Illinois to legalize marijuana, leftist lawmakers, giddy about a tiny new revenue source to aid their insatiable spending, ignore the unmistakable damage legalization is causing in Colorado. Those nasty facts are hard to escape. Colorado now ranks #1 in the entire nation for marijuana use among…
Editor’s note 12/7/17
Trolls of old were the ones who ate farmers’ goats. Now President Trump takes pride in being regarded as an internet troll, one who sends out provocative messages intended to cause maximum disruption. This week Trump has taken his trolling far beyond Twitter, reversing national monument protection for Bears Ears, endorsing Roy Moore, planning to…
Charlottesville and common-sense gun solutions
My son points the stick like he’s just back from the shooting range. “Pow,” he says, a mischievous glint in his eye. He already knows the family policy his older brother rattles off ambivalently: no gun play. I know what I’ve done, ushering in the romance of taboo, leaving unsatiated that great boy-hunger to play…
43 years of Clara and her Nutcracker
Don’t miss The Nutcracker, the timeless, holiday ballet performed annually by the Springfield Ballet Company. The Nutcracker features a cast of more than 120 SBC dancers, local adult actors, young dancers from the community and professional guest artists. It tells the tale of Clara and her Nutcracker, who journey from a lavish Christmas party to…
Merry and mischief
Don’t miss the 2017 Old Capitol Holiday Walks, held Wednesdays from 5-8 p.m. and Saturdays from 12-6 p.m. through Dec. 20. The walks offer local shopping at downtown’s charming brick-and-mortar stores, pop-up shops and restaurants, plus seasonal activities and attractions for all ages. Kids will enjoy visiting with Santa in the Old State Capitol, dropping…
Jacksonville has a lot going on
Everything old is new again in Jacksonville, even the annual New Year’s Day celebration in the west central Illinois city of nearly 19,000. “I would say it started in the 1970s. It was in the early 1980s when I started doing it, then it slowly progressed, and all of a sudden the other bars recognized…
Destiny’s problem child
I saw this gorgeous girl at the coffeehouse at the mall two months ago. It was totally love at first sight. I keep hanging out there hoping to see her again. Am I nuts, or does love at first sight really exist? – Smitten It’s so special when a man tells a woman he’s deeply in love…
Hometown artist
Bill Crook has been drawing for over 40 years, filling sketchbooks of his pen and ink illustrations that he says, “explore the interests of my heart.” Bill is a native of Springfield and has earned a reputation as an outstanding artist. People easily recognize Bill, often seeing him sketching at a site in Springfield, creating…
Illinois books make the season bright
Books with an Illinois or Springfield connection make great holiday gifts, whether you’re looking for something for children, photographers, cooks, Lincoln buffs or sports enthusiasts. There are books that inspire, instruct and inform. There are ones that tell a story, and ones that take you on a trip back in time. Local book stores and museum…
Gifts to remember
It isn’t always about what you receive or how much money was spent, but about the memories attached to a gift that sometimes ranks it up there with gifts to remember. As the holidays approach it is fun to think back about what gifts might have made a lasting impression, and what gifts we can…
Artists in motion
Last weekend, the Pharmacy Gallery and Art Space presented “Blur,” its most recent show featuring work by its member artists. Several of the items on display seemed to take the show’s title literally, including enlarged and deliberately smeared onstage portraits by Jeff Williams of Pittsburg-via-Springfield band Looming and striking work by Diane Schleyhahn in which…
City officials sued over coal contract
A Springfield couple is suing Mayor Jim Langfelder, corporation counsel Jim Zerkle and two City Water, Light and Power officials, saying they wrongly convinced the city council to approve a 2016 coal contract that is costing ratepayers $5 million a year more than it should. Central in the lawsuit filed Nov. 29 is a report…
Persistent resistance
One month into the second year of Donald Trump’s presidency, resistance efforts in response to various policies of his administration have shown no sign of slowing. This week, Springfield has already seen a well attended, demonstration against the recently passed Senate tax reform bill; a protest in favor of maintaining the FCC’s current Net Neutrality…
Money for nothing
The city of Springfield has secured nearly $2.9 million from developers to pay for road improvements, but most of the money hasn’t been spent. Just two of 10 road projects for which the city has obtained either money or letters of credit from developers since 2000 have been completed. And the city paid the lion’s…
PRESERVATIONIST PELL
Sangamon County Historic Preservation Commission (SCHPC) chair Chuck Pell has received the 2017 Illinois Commission Excellence Award in Leadership from the Illinois Association of Historic Preservation Commissions. “It is extremely gratifying to be recognized by our peers from across the state,” said Pell, a Springfield architect. “I think this award represents what we as a…
THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING
We’ve all done it. Gotten sick. Gone on vacation. Just plain forgot. Perhaps, even, procrastinated for no good reason. And when the piper needs paying, the fortunate among us can simply pony up and pay fines for overdue materials from Lincoln Library. A lot of folks cannot, and so they are on the blacklist, barred…
Franco’s Disaster a tribute to the artist in us all
There’s no question that Tommy Wiseau is a passionate “artist.” It’s not everyone who can say they financed, wrote, directed and starred in their own $6 million movie. There’s also no question that the man is delusional, or, at the very least, sees the world and his role in it through a very unique perspective.…
Music is in season
Now that the weather outside is slowly approaching normal but nowhere near “frightening,” perhaps our holiday season may feel more Midwest than Southwest. Either way it goes (hot, cold, polar or solar), we have good live music happenings going on. On Friday at Craft Beer Bar, the friends, fans and family of John Brillhart gather…
Textbook
Based out of Chicago, this quartet of possible punks (the musical kind) formed in 1998 using “’90s alternative and ’80s punk with a dash of midwestern roots-rock” to create a modern, American rock band worthy of the title. Dave Lysien, who cut his teeth with infamous punk band Not Rebecca, fronts the band, and the…
music poem # 17
music poem # 17 just listened twice-through toglen gould playing the goldbergvariations the pleasure isn’t onlyin the bach (I can hear theserendered superbly by wandalandowska) but in glen gould’sthroaty humming – even singing –while he plays – sometimes with themelody sometimes a counterpointyou hear the soul of bachthrough glen gould’s playingyou hear the soul of glen…
Roast chicken like the royals
The news last week of Prince Harry’s engagement to Meghan Markle was a welcome break in a typically tenuous news cycle. During the interview in which they officially announced their engagement, the couple, clearly smitten with one another, described the culmination of their courtship as a cozy evening at home in their cottage, “just roasting…
