Intense Foy Salvages “Unsane”
Steven Soderbergh is our most restless director. He’s done all-star epics (Ocean’s 11), socially relevant dramas (Traffic), Oscar-winning features (“Erin Brockovich), experimental films (“Bubble”) and has even retired from making feature films at the age of 50 only to return to them four years later. He shot his latest, “Unsane,” on an I-Phone over the…
Guilty as charged
It was a senseless murder, committed not for money or love or drugs or even because of bad driving. And Johnny Ray Priester, convicted of first-degree murder, may spend the rest of his life in prison. After 34 continuances, eight days of trial and more than seven hours of deliberations, a Sangamon County jury late…
Home & Garden Makeover Sweepstakes
ENTER TO WINthousands of dollars in merchandise and services from participating businesses! Pick up a copy of the Illinois Times Spring Home & Garden issue on April 12 or check back here for more details on the great prizes available and how you can enter. Winners will be chosen on April 30, 2018. Would your…
Paradise and the Y block
Having recently returned from south of the border, I’ve found that there is a lot we can learn from Mexico. The president wants to build a wall to keep out myriad deviants who would destroy our way of life. Whether a wall is a good idea is a matter of opinion, I suppose – even…
Everybody does better when everybody does better
My father, W.F. “High” Hightower, was a populist. Only, he didn’t know it – didn’t know the word, much less the history or anything about populism’s rich democratic ethos. But he knew about bankers who regularly squeezed small-business families like ours with usurious interest rates. He knew how rough it was for a local business…
Letters to the Editor
WAY TO GOIt seems to me that Illinois Times deserves some public acknowledgement of your recent media sponsorship of All The Way, as well as for Scott Faingold’s excellent March 2 article on All The Way, which was recently performed at the Hoogland Center for the Arts. The vitality of Springfield’s live theater community is…
Editor’s Note 3/22/18
Gov. Bruce Rauner says he’s “humbled” by his near loss to Rep. Jeanne Ives in the Republican primary, and that now he hears Illinois. But it’s not clear what he hears. Does he hear that Illinois did not appreciate the two-year budget shutdown and has no stomach for his war against public employee unions and…
Where to start? Fix the budget process
You could choose any number of marquee dilemmas to illustrate how broken congressional politics has become. Guns, Russian interference, climate change – Americans want progress on all of them and get little from Capitol Hill. But to my mind, nothing illustrates the dire state of our politics better than how we act on the federal…
Broadway on ice
Don’t miss the Springfield Figure Skating Club’s annual “Spotlight on Ice” program where scenes from Broadway shows are performed on an ice skating rink by Springfield area figure skaters. The 2018 “Spotlight on Ice” program features music from Something Rotten, The Chocolate Factory, Sleeping Beauty, Huckleberry Finn, Superheroes and Little Shop of Horrors set to…
Eclectic Art
On Saturday, March 24, take in an art show featuring the artists of ArtHive835, a group of central Illinois-based artists, makers, fine craftsters and a poet. This newish art collective was created in March 2017 following their first art show, which was held at the Inn at 835. The show will feature work by more…
International organist Felix Hell
Enjoy music performed by the Illinois Symphony Orchestra and Felix Hell, one of the world’s most sought-after concert organists, on Saturday, March 24, during the ISO’s “Pipe Dreams” concert at Sangamon Auditorium. The performance will open with Bach’s “Fantasia” and Edward Elgar’s “Fugue” and will include Poulenc’s “Organ concerto” and Saint Saens “Organ symphony.” Prior…
Where computers go to die. And live again.
From the outside, BLH Computers, Inc. looks like a small nondescript storefront business, located in a strip mall on Stevenson Drive in Springfield. If you’ve ever needed to dispose of an outdated computer or old TV, you may have walked in the door and dropped off your unwanted item, happy to get it out of…
The “Quiet Beatle” once made some noise in Illinois
“Whenever you say ‘Beatles’ – that’s the magic word,” said Springfield-based filmmaker and super-Beatle fan Robert Bartel. He would know. His 1999 documentary A Beatle in Benton, Illinois – which details a single fortnight visit to the southern Illinois town in 1963 by 20-year-old George Harrison in order to see his married sister – is…
Ali, adopted son of Illinois
Muhammed Ali died in 2016 at the age of 74. Upon his death, President Barack Obama eulogized him with the observation that, “He stood with King and Mandela; stood up when it was hard; spoke up when others wouldn’t.” In 2005, President George Bush awarded Ali the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of…
NATIONWIDE GUN PROTEST HERE
A nationwide demonstration calling for gun legislation reform will be held at the Lincoln statue in front of the State Capitol this Saturday, March 24, at noon. Begun by student survivors of the Feb. 14 shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the local event is part of a nationwide demonstration called “March for…
Illinois presidents celebrated in bicentennial exhibit
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum will celebrate the Illinois bicentennial with a special exhibit exploring the lives and accomplishments of the four U.S. presidents who called Illinois home. “From Illinois to the White House: Lincoln, Grant, Reagan, Obama” opens Friday, March 23, and run for the remainder of 2018. The exhibit will examine…
Vikander deserves better Raider
“Almost, not quite,” sums up Roar Uthaug’s Tomb Raider, another reboot of a long-dormant property that does its best to rekindle the initial fervor surrounding Lara Croft, the video game character that spawned two Angelina Jolie features. Thanks to a fresh take on her origin as well as a winning turn from Alicia Vikander that…
Mixing it up in March
By now everyone has (hopefully) recovered from the Celtic frenzy of last weekend and is looking forward to a variety of music for our last full weekend of March. Please pay attention now to a Facebook page called Johnny “Slu” Sluzalis Appreciation (thanks Kyle Muskopf) and “appreciate” one of Springfield’s most enduring and endearing musicians,…
Corey Dennison Band
Chattanooga-born, Chicago-based and award-winning blues guitarist Corey Dennison is on a roll in the big-time blues world. After a decade-long run with Carl Weathersby, Dennison created a “dynamic new Chicago sound,” anchored by bandmates Gerry Hundt, Nik Skilnik and Joel Baer, and played hard, including steady gigs at famed Windy City club Kingston Mines. Both…
Flee-bitten
For three months, things were going really well with this man I was dating. He’d introduced me to his daughter. We’d even planned a trip together. And then he just disappeared. I eventually texted him to find out what happened, but he simply texted back, “Really busy, all good.” This isn’t the first time this…
Sauerkraut and sausages with a French accent
In my last IT column (Fermented Foods- March 1), I discussed the benefits of incorporating fermented foods into your dietary regimen and I included instruction on how to make Easy Homemade Sauerkraut. For those of you who rushed out and bought a couple heads of cabbage to try out my recipe, by now your salted…
Tools for battling e-waste
Electronic waste, commonly called e-waste, is a huge issue worldwide. In 2016, 44.7 million metric tones (49.3 million U.S. tons) of e-waste were generated worldwide and only 20 percent was recycled, according to the 2017 Global E-waste Monitor produced by a partnership among the United Nations University, International Telecommunication Union and the International Solid Waste…
