Girl-a-Thon the third
For the third year in a row I can, with a true sense of joy, announce another Girl-a-Thon.Once again organizer Gwen Harris has put together an incredible lineup of musicians, guests and sponsors to support this fine fundraiser for the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. Gwen proudly reports GAT made the top…
The short arm of the law
At last, we can all feel safe when we take our credit cards out in public again. In September, a federal judge in San Francisco fined a Taiwanese company $500 million and sentenced its former president and executive vice president to three years in prison for cooking up a global LCD screen price-fixing conspiracy. The…
Springfield will thrive without residency rule
On Nov. 6, the voters in the corporate boundaries of Springfield will have an opportunity to vote on a residency referendum. The choice before them is clear. Do we continue to grow Springfield by using progressive leadership to expand our reach within the region, or do we adopt a regressive policy from our past that…
The Master a challenging look at the displaced
Since its premiere early this month at the Toronto International Film Festival, much of what’s been written about P.T. Anderson’s The Master has focused on the film’s complexity as well as the viewer’s inability to mine all it has to offer in a single viewing. This comes as no surprise as the director’s work is…
Hollywood comes to Petersburg
Everyone wants to be a movie star. That’s why actors who are “discovered” have such popular stories: they are everyday people plucked from everyday life and chosen to ascend the staircase to fame. Central Illinois acting hopefuls have a chance to meet some film and television veterans at a film convention later this month –…
Scold mountain
The guy I’ve sorta been seeing travels around making videos for an extreme sports company but lives two hours away in the mountains. We met through a mutual friend, went to dinner and then had sex. We had a few more dates, and then he got a girlfriend. He contacted me after they broke up.…
Unions not worried by residency referendum
Representatives from two of the most powerful unions representing rank-and-file Springfield municipal employees didn’t sound worried last week at a panel discussion on a proposal to reinstitute a residency requirement for city workers. “If Alderman (Joe) McMenamin (a leading proponent of residency for city workers) wants to come to the table with residency issues, we…
Rockin’ punk-blues
The next WUIS Bedrock 66 Live! Concert features Libertyville native Ike Reilly. You’ll like Ike. From his critically lauded records to his latest solo offering, “Hard Luck Stories” – a more groove-oriented and melodic album than previous recordings – is a combination of corroded rhythm and blues, furious punk-blues, lounge-pop and classic rock, all laced…
Henry Rollins brings a ‘talking show’ to the Hoogland
Henry Rollins is no Abe Lincoln. But that doesn’t stop the 51-year-old punk rock icon, TV personality, author and blogger from incorporating sections of the 16th president’s 1838 speech to the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield as part of “Capitalism,” his current spoken word tour of all 50 state capitals, which touches down at the…
Legislators vow not to take pension
For the past couple of election campaign cycles, this one included, incumbent state legislators have bragged in their campaign ads about cutting their own pay. They didn’t actually cut their own pay. But they did vote several times to take unpaid furlough days. So, it’s almost the same. But lots of non-incumbents have upped the…
Suit & Tie Guy
This mysterious character lives in Chillicothe, Ill. quietly plotting intricate and intense electronic music while blithely being behind the mask of the ubiquitous suit and tie. Along with his personal recorded output (Sacred Earth 2012 is the latest on 1320 Records), Suit & Tie Guy also records other bands (Black Magic Johnson for one) and…
Letters to the Editor 10/04/12
HELL AND VOTINGI am sitting here on a Sunday morning contemplating the words of my bishop. Strong words they were indeed and well worth contemplating. Last week I, along with everyone else, was admonished by Bishop Thomas John Paprocki to contemplate seriously how to vote in the upcoming November election. Himself, having examined both the…
Bold prints
Roger Shimomura, an internationally renowned artist known for his prints, paintings and performance works, talks at the University of Illinois Springfield Oct. 11 at 5:30 p.m. Following the lecture, there will be an exhibit reception from 6:30-8 p.m. in the UIS Visual Arts Gallery. Shimomura’s collection of prints, America Behind Barbed Wire, colors a Pop…
Pitch an off-key effort
Jason Moore’s Pitch Perfect tries very hard to be liked, so much so that it winds up grating on the audience rather than charming it. Set in the world of collegiate a cappella competitions (yes, there is such a thing), the connection to the world of “Glee” is undeniable. Many of the characters are social…
Trash talk
Springfield has long had trouble figuring out how to dispose of things. Leaves, for example. Back in the 1980s, the city council passed a ban on leaf burning in the spring, then formed an 11-member leaf commission (really) to figure out what to do once autumn came. The city’s public works director warned that getting…
speedcomp poem #1
just heard on NPR tahiti trot by shostakovichhe’d been dared to orchestrate in just one hourthe popular tune tea for two did a grand jazzy jobit reminds me of those contests that crop upevery now and then for would-be writers write anovel in one hour or was it one day or one weekI’ve never heard…
A new generation of fruit and vegetable farmers
The age of farmers in this country is top-heavy, with older farmers far outnumbering the younger farmers, particularly that of fruit and vegetable growers. University of Illinois crop sciences professor Rick Weinzierl and co-workers recently received a grant from the Beginning Farmer-Rancher Development Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a three-year project to…
America’s pusillanimous press
Let us now access the state of the free press in this land of … well, of press freedom. The assessment? Pathetic. Not because of any government clampdown, but because of increasing press pusillanimity. In recent years, newspaper reporting had already been severely weakened by drastic cutbacks in newsrooms. But the latest decline comes from…
Mud and money
CORRECTION (10/04/12): An earlier version of this article indicated Republican Congressional candidate Rodney Davis fully supports the budget plan created by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. That is incorrect. While Davis has said he likes parts of the Ryan budget plan, he does not support it in its entirety. We apologize for the mischaracterization. David…
Bones and stones
The Lincoln Orbit Earth Science Society presents the Gem, Mineral and Fossil Show in the Illinois Building at the state fairgrounds this weekend. Enter a world of all things stony and bony. The show features the skulls of Jane the T-Rex and Homer the Triceratops, a traveling exhibit from the Burpee Museum of Natural History,…
Engaging songster
Singer-songwriter William Fitzsimmons, of Jacksonville, will perform Oct. 6 in the Studio Theatre at the University of Illinois Springfield as part of the UIS Kitchen Sink Series. You might have heard Fitzsimmons’ music on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Brothers and Sisters, MTV’s Life of Ryan and Teen Wolf, The CW’s One Tree Hill, ABC Family’s…
