Reliable Dillon
Overnight sensations often experience quick burnout, whereas those who build their careers over long periods enjoy sustained success. Matt Dillon definitely falls into the latter category, despite his start in the former. The title of his debut film, Over the Edge (1979) — in which he plays a troubled teen living in an oppressive desert…
Stolen future
Dear “Earth Talk”: Can you explain what “hormone-disrupting” chemicals are, how they affect our health, and what they have to do with environmental problems? — Tom Rose, Oakland, Calif. Many of the human body’s processes, including reproduction, mental processing, and metabolism, are controlled and regulated by hormones, chemical messengers produced by the endocrine glands. In…
Taxman cometh
Since being profiled by Illinois Times this spring, Dayton Keyes, who spends less than $1 per day on fuel by producing biodiesel from used cooking oil, says he’s lost count of the media interviews he’s done. So it was bound to happen: Officials from the Illinois Department of Revenue contacted Keyes last week and politely…
Purple haze
This week, a little behind schedule, the first fragrant purple flowers have begun to adorn the lavender plants in the master-gardener Herb Demonstration garden. Lavender flowers typically appear in June and July, but the plants in the demonstration garden, located on the Illinois State Fairgrounds, were planted this spring and are therefore flowering later in…
Letters to the Editor
We welcome letters, but please include your full name, address, and daytime telephone number. We edit all letters for libel, length, and clarity. Send letters to Letters, Illinois Times, P.O. Box 5256, Springfield, IL 62705; fax 217-753-3958; e-mail editor@illinoistimes.com. ISN’T SEGREGATION BAD? I’ve been monitoring with great interest the proposal by Allan Woodson, Jim Forstall,…
Juice
What the Sierra Club wants, it usually gets. In the face of coal’s recent resurgence, the Washington, D.C.-based organization, one of the nation’s most influential advocates for the environment, has objected whenever a new coal-fired power plant has been proposed. Here in Illinois, the Sierra Club has held up three such projects in the past…
The checklist
As we pass from one life phase to another, it’s not unusual to make resolutions. Two years ago I passed from work to retirement — and I resolved. It’s time to check up — how’d I do? Resolution 1: Learn to cook. Resolution: accomplished. I think that the recipe is worth passing on, should you,…
Vinyl Static
The Ditty Bops love to ride bikes. Instead of jamming into a cramped van for their 2006 summer tour, the jazzy duo decided to put shoe to pedal and log some miles on a couple of two-wheelers, and they’ll be cruising into Springfield on their way from St. Louis to play a show at the…
Bottle Rockets take off
Our resident jukebox hero, Keith Voegele, former bass player for several Springfield and St. Louis groups and now a member of alt-country icons the Bottle Rockets, recently hit the road again in support of the group’s latest CD, Zoysia. According to the folks at Bloodshot Records, the disk is doing well, and Voegele reports brisk…
A cautionary tale
“They’re breeding the heat out of jalapeños, and it’s all because of poppers,” says Rick Bayless, addressing a group of us attending his seminar on the foods of the Yucatan. Bayless, with two acclaimed restaurants in Chicago, an ongoing PBS cooking show, multiple cookbooks, and a nationally distributed line of salsas and sauces, is regarded…
Fading away
Rod Blagojevich and Judy Baar Topinka don’t agree on much, but their campaigns concurred last week, saying that Blagojevich is leading in the polls. Blagojevich campaign staffers say that their latest poll shows the Democratic governor leading the Republican treasurer 47-31, a seriously large advantage. Topinka’s campaign has Blagojevich ahead 44-37, a far narrower gap.…
The Nuclear Option
At the end of former Vice President Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth, tips are offered to help reduce the threat of global warming: Use florescent light bulbs, drive less, and recycle more. Build new nuclear power plants? Not on the list. And yet, these days, nuclear power increasingly is touted as a safe, clean…
The badder the better
Tilden Hooper was 14 when he started riding wild horses — or at least started trying to. All his friends competed in rodeos, and Tilden figured he could ride bareback broncs, just as his father, Terry, used to do. Problem was, Tilden had failed to inherit his dad’s innate ability to keep his pants pockets…
Subsidizing a criminal
Even when a big corporation is caught red-handed in an illegal scam to steal billions of dollars from taxpayers, the Bush administration still can’t resist blowing a sweet kiss to the thieving giant. The Boeing Co. is this particular giant’s name, and it has been a reliable and generous donor to Bush and his Republican…
Summer Rolls on
Have you tried to host a dinner party lately? Long gone is the no-nonsense process of entertaining, when the only thing that mattered was a wholesome square meal consisting of a meat, a starch, and a vegetable. These days, forget about planning a menu without consulting your guests. The world of the privileged has become…
People’s Poetry
sorrowpoem #1 when your heart is sore and it is hard to swallow try standing at night beneath a linden tree in full bloom you need enough breeze to envelop your body with the tree’s perfume shut your eyes be very still take deep breaths it will help for the moment maybe longer © Jacqueline…
Rule No. 1: Avoid cheap paint
Dear Gene: If we paint our siding, how long can we expect the paint job to last? It is impossible to say how long a given paint job will last, because so many variables are involved, but the question is certainly worth some discussion. Some manufacturers offer long-term warranties on exterior paint — some “lifetime”…
Focused on the essentials
Ophiuchus Butterfly is guitarist/composer Liberty Ellman’s second full-length for Pi Recordings, which is fast becoming one of the most interesting labels on the independent jazz scene. (Though it might seem as if no one cares about jazz anymore — at least no one in the mainstream, or even so-called alternative, media — the musicians remain…
Waiting to exhale
Kris Claypool isn’t interested in making a political statement. She just wants to breathe. Last year, doctors found that Claypool, who stopped smoking six years ago, had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a combination of several lung diseases, after she’d experienced constant shortness of breath and several bouts of pneumonia. As COPD gets worse, patients have…
Remember that ant
Based on the children’s book by John Nickle, The Ant Bully tells the story of a young boy who’s forced to live among the ants he once terrorized and taking the first steps toward maturity by learning how to empathize. Lucas (voice by Zach Tyler) is small for his age, and the neighborhood bully makes…
“Just a tool”
When Springfield Police detectives wanted to question Thomas Munoz in connection with the beating of a Catholic priest, they got a warrant to arrest him for attempted burglary of a church so they could bring him into their offices for questioning. “All’s it is is just a tool,” Detective Rick Dhabalt told an SPD internal…
Modern Families
Stanley discovers that he has a teenage son at the most inopportune time — just as he’s about to undergo sex-change surgery. The title of Transamerica (2005) refers to Stanley’s transsexual status and the film’s road trip across America. Stanley, now known as Bree and played by Felicity Huffman, bails Toby (Kevin Zegers) out of…
