Gumbolicious: A loser’s tale from Louisiana
Untitled Document I was dubious when my husband, Peter, brought it up last spring: “We should enter the Blackpot cook-off!” he said. I’d been lookingforward to Blackpot for a year — it was the cook-offpart I was unsure about. We’d heard about The Blackpot Music Festival last year at a Chicago concert by the Red…
Local theater has plenty for ‘mature audiences’
Springfield has a much healthier theater scene than many small cities this size. Hot on the heels of the recent electrifying production of the David Mamet play Glengarry Glenn Ross (as well as Pump Boys & Dinettes, Thoroughly Modern Millie and War of the Worlds) comes the premiere of the locally-produced play Paint it Red,…
IT Picks
African rites Musicians from Togo, Senegal, Guinea, Ghana, Benin, The Ivory Coast and Mauritania have come together to preserve the arts of West Africa. In an exciting display of ethnic pride, The Song and Dance Ensemble of West Africa will perform oral and musical ritesunique to its people. The sound is a combination of Congolese…
‘Diversity is who I am’
Wesley Robinson-McNeese was taught as a young child to disregard boundaries. He grew up as a member of an East St. Louis church, the same church that later introduced him to a world outside the impoverished city’s streets and instilled in him the drive to make a difference. He entwined his faith and his desire…
Madagascar delivers hearty laughs
They say that if you’re going to steal you should steal from the best and it’s obvious that was the strategy the makers followed in crafting Madagascar: Escape to Africa. While this sequel is a vast improvement over its irritating and cloying predecessor, it’s obviously influenced in no small part by The Lion King, not…
Yes, we did
yes, we did At 10 p.m. on Tuesday night, a downtown Springfield sports bar lowered the volume on the college football matches and pumped the sound of Barack Obama, now president-elect, addressing supporters in the Windy City. Despite the best efforts of one loudmouth who tried his damnedest to drown out Obama’s voice, the small…
Ice dreams
A hockey coach with a little less optimism might see the return of only two veteran players as a season-staller, but not Chris Wyler. In fact, the Springfield Jr. Blues head coach welcomes the change. Last year’s team was more of an “inheritance,” Wyler says, with a 25-man roster that included 12 returning players recruited…
People’s Poetry
Untitled Document friendquote poem #11 we gotmarriedon mynoon houryesterdayseems to beworking outso far © Jacqueline Jackson 2008
People’s Poetry
Untitled Document friendquote poem #11 we gotmarriedon mynoon houryesterdayseems to beworking outso far © Jacqueline Jackson 2008
They did, too
They did, too The electricity felt throughout Springfield, where Obama’s journey began, in the days following his ascent made up for Illinois’ lackluster electoral atmosphere leading up to Nov. 4. By all accounts, turnout spiked in the capital city. Many others, such as Ray Oleszewski and Carolyn Houston, volunteered as first-time election judges just to…
Paint it Red: History made real, brutally honest
David Logan recalls the words of E.L. Rogers, the editor of Springfield’s black newspaper, The Forum, in 1908: “He said, ‘You can either make history, or you can paint it red.’ Make it or make it glaring.” That’s what Logan, an assistant professor at Benedictine University-Springfield College, intends to do with Paint it Red, an…
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. CORONER QUALIFICATIONS In response to last week’s article on the Sangamon County coroner’s race [See “Race to the death,” by Dusty Rhodes, IT,…
Smiling faces of diversity at Obama’s victory rally
As I write this, I have been up all night. My feet are throbbing, my legs feel like they’re made of old recycled tire rubber and my back has seized up so stiff that it hurts to stretch. I just made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich — for breakfast. And I am the…
People’s Poetry
Untitled Document friendquote poem #11 we gotmarriedon mynoon houryesterdayseems to beworking outso far © Jacqueline Jackson 2008
A World Series champ and his phenomenal family
The Werth family doesn’t mind if you call them stupid, as long as it’s the right brand of stupid. “We’re baseball stupid,” dad Dennis Werth says. “That was the only thing I thought you could do in life.” The mindset paid off last week when former Glenwood High School baseball star Jayson Werth provided a…
Hank Paulson’s bailout scandal
“You don’t tell deliberate lies,” explained Britain’s right-wing political icon Margaret Thatcher, “but sometimes you have to be evasive.” If only such honest dishonesty were practiced on this side of the pond. Unfortunately, in the Bush regime, the art of evasiveness has given way to the pervasive use of blunt falsifications — i.e., deliberate lies.…
Songs grown organically make better food
This week we’re working on an assortment of related music here at Now Playing World Headquarters. It just so happens in the next 10 days Springfield plays host to a collection of top-notch, world-class entertainers from the traditional singer-songwriter and bluegrass genres. Maybe I dwell on this style of music too much for some folks’…
Could you confess to a crime you did not commit?
In the summer of 1989, a 19-year-old Waverly woman, Melissa Koontz, disappeared late at night after leaving work on the far west-side of Springfield. What followed was a series of events in which Donald “Goose” Johnston and Danny Pocklington, both mildly retarded, confessed to being present when Koontz was killed. Every major detail Johnston and…
Governor helped the con-con campaign by saying he’s against it
Yet another bizarre year of Illinois politics has been duly capped by Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s recent stated opposition to a constitutional convention. Only in Illinois, perhaps, could voters be shocked into voting “Yes” on the convention referendum because their own governor strongly urged a “No” vote. The big business and big labor opponents of the…
