What makes a good burger joint?
Sometimes food, like life, should follow this motto: The simpler, the better. And in the summertime, a grilled hamburger, milkshake, and seat at an outdoor picnic table may be all that’s required for a perfectmeal. When you can enjoy this simple pleasure for less than $5, so much the better. Krekel’s Custard & Hamburgers is…
quick takes 7-22-04
GEORGIA ON HER MIND Like many of the rumors that have circulated about Renatta Frazier — the famously former cop rousted from the Springfield Police Department on the basis of false accusations — the one about her using her settlement check from the city to buy a house in Panther Creek is patently untrue. Frazier…
Movie review
McDiet proves hard to digest Morgan Spurlock is about to embark on a most dangerous adventure. His girlfriend is frightened of the consequences; his doctors warn of the potential hazards. Spurlock’s crazy quest doesn’t involve parachuting or mountain climbing, but the risks may be just as great. Like an athlete readying himself for the big…
What could have been
I never thought Mike Ditka would actually run for the U.S. Senate. But I really, really wanted him to. Hey, I know he might not have been a great senator. He’s too obnoxious, too impatient. But there are plenty of lousy senators, mainly because so many professional politicians don’t have even a hint of spine.…
The love bug
The love affair began at age 12, when his father let him take the family’s 1959 Chevy Impala up and down the driveway. Since then, Mario Ingoglia has been captivated by vintage cars — the ones with the heavy chrome grills, strange fins, and unique body styles. He picked up his first, a 1960 Cadillac…
Transit fix
Richard Fix says he has heard the same complaints since he became managing director of Springfield Mass Transit District 15 years ago. Perhaps that’s why the SMTD manager appeared bored as several local residents pleaded for the extension of citywide bus service at his agency’s monthly board meeting on Tuesday. “It’s nothing new,” said Fix…
Knoepfle 7-22-04
sandalwood poem #11 I offered you ten meadows of fireflies you gave me one box of sandalwood © John Knoepfle 1978, 2004
The price of justice
As a professor in the Legal Studies program at University of Illinois at Springfield, Larry Golden is used to lecturing students about profound philosophical concepts and traditions of the justice system. But as co-founder of the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project, he is getting an eye-opening education himself in what he calls “the real nitty gritty”…
Navel gazing
On a recent Monday evening, 10 women are gathering in Kari Dotson’s dining room. There is much to do this night, and they arrive ready and dressed for business. As Middle Eastern music fills the air, the barefoot, bare-bellied women, adorned in brightly colored gypsy skirts and tops, begin rehearsing a Gypsy kashlimar, one of…
Kerasotes 9/11
Families often fight about what movies to show. But among the members of Springfield’s famous movie-theater clan, the Kerasotes family, Michael Moore’s controversial new movie Fahrenheit 9/11 has produced very different reactions. The biggest-grossing documentary in history, Fahrenheit 9/11 is drawing more customers to movie theaters than most big-budget Hollywood films do. But it still…
Coming together
It all began with a serial burglar. Some two years ago, in midafternoon, an intruder looted jewelry and electronics from Erin Conley’s home on the edge of Lincoln Park. The incident marked the second residential burglary that day on Conley’s block of North Fourth Street. The break-ins led Conley to help initiate a neighborhood-watch program,…
Paging Elvis and other rock & roll fantasies
Did King James I commission Shakespeare to translate the Psalms for the now-famous version of the Bible? A case is made for that transaction in R. Gary Patterson’s new book about rock & roll. If you’re wondering what Shakespeare has to do with rock & roll — or, for that matter, where Faust, Shelley, Hawthorne,…
letters 7-22-04
Letters policy We welcome letters, but please include your full name, address and a daytime telephone number. We edit all letters for libel, length and clarity. Send letters to: Letters, Illinois Times. P.O. Box 5256. Springfield, Illinois 62705. Fax: (217) 753-3958. E-mail: editor@illinoistimes.com FREE FRANK’S LEGACY Francis “Free Frank” McWhorter paid to have the ground…
Grace about town 7-22-04
OK, things are getting a little out of hand here. Not in a bad way, though; on the contrary, things just keep getting better and better. I’m not just talking about My New Boyfriend, also known as MNB — although, of course, he’s in the subtext of everything in my life now. It was a…
Now playing 7-22-04
Hey you! Gently place your shoulder against that rock you’ve been hiding under and give it a shove. We’re out here having fun and would like you to join us. Springfield favorites The Blazers return for a Thursday night visit to the Underground City Tavern. The “other group from East LA” is often likened to…
Sound patrol 7-22-04
A.C. Newman The Slow Wonder (Matador) The problem with the “pop” tag is that it’s essentially meaningless: J.Lo is pop. Elvis Costello is pop. OutKast is pop. Bing Crosby is pop. And A.C. Newman is pop. Of course, a literalist might argue that pop music is popular music, by which standard Newman’s, alas, is disqualified.…
Cooperation makes it easy
Passersby can’t help but notice the vibrantly decorated furniture and vivid display windows. Colors of every shade and objects of every shape draw visitors to the violet building on Sixth Street that once housed a Mel-O-Cream shop. Inside, works of art cover the bright-blue walls; hundreds more fill shelves and counters. Where customers used to…
A stroll in the garden
This year, the Master Gardener Demonstration Garden at the Illinois State Fairgrounds features several changes and additions, including a new landscape design in the Identification Garden, a Shakespeare Garden, and a native-plant research project. Visitors have the opportunity to see what’s new at the garden at “Evening in the Garden,” a special event on Tuesday,…
Goodbye, Glenn
As co-anchor of the WICS-TV (Channel 20) 5 a.m. news show, Sunrise Today, Glenn McEntyre has spent the past couple of years living life on the same schedule as a newborn — slumbering by sunset, awake before dawn, sounding annoyingly cheerful and looking infuriatingly fresh. But that’s appropriate, because McEntyre was just cutting his broadcast-journalism…
