At the crossroads
In the first half of the 20th century, Springfield’s South Town, a neighborhood defined by the intersection of 11th Street and South Grand Avenue, was a prominent neighborhood shopping center. Boasting restaurants and stores for fine jewelry and furniture, it was prime commercial real estate. South Town was “a city within a city,” according to…
Quicktakes
DEAD MEN TALKING Sister Helen Prejean, spiritual advisor to death-row prisoners, talks about capital punishment at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 13, in the Kirkland Fine Arts Center, on the campus of Millikin University. Prejean is the author of Dead Man Walking and The Death of Innocents. Before Prejean’s appearance in Decatur, Springfield’s First Church of…
Pull the plug
As an artist exhibiting at the Old Capitol Art Fair, I displayed a print of the Orpheum Theater, which was torn down in 1965. On seeing the print, many people remarked about what a great loss it was that Springfield’s largest and most majestic theater was demolished. In hindsight this is obvious; today, no one…
Letters to the editor
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 HEY, WE WEREN’T THE RUDE ONES I’m the host of Drinking Liberally…
On the Midnight Swinger shift
Ever wonder what it would be like to be a touring comedian, trying to crack people up, night after night, from Tuscaloosa to Tucumcari, Sioux Falls to Niagara Falls, Long Island to Long Beach? For several years David Scott, a.k.a. the Midnight Swinger, has been on the road making a living by making people laugh.…
Harvest time
The local fall theater season promises everything from Greek drama to 1930s madcap comedy to recent Broadway musicals. Cal Pritner, longtime faculty member of the Illinois State University Department of Theatre and founder of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, performs two one-man plays this weekend: Mark Twain: Unlearning Racism is presented at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept.…
Love, indispensable and inadequate
In “Exodus Damage,” one of 14 quietly harrowing tracks on his fifth and finest CD, John Vanderslice sings, “No one ever says a word about/So much that happens in the world.” If this is true, it’s not his fault: Among other subjects, Pixel Revolt addresses the youth of Joan Crawford, the escape of a pet…
American Life in Poetry
In this short poem by Vermont writer Jean L. Connor, an older speaker challenges the perception that people her age have lost their vitality and purpose. Connor compares the life of such a person to an egret fishing. Though the bird stands completely still, it has learned how to live in the world, how to…
Jacqueline Jackson
aroundtownpoem #5 hey here’s an idea to capture more tourist bucks isn’t it generally known the simpsons’ springfield is our own springfield lots of clues why not balance the figures on the old state capitol mall by putting on the other end a modern family group electronically rigged so that visitors walking past will hear…
The disaster that shouldn’t have been
With outrage still building over the excruciatingly inadequate federal response to Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is facing a political storm of its own. The question of how FEMA — the government agency most responsible for containing the damage of such catastrophes — seemed to have abandoned hundreds of thousands of suffering Americans…
What about “unintelligent design”?
“Intelligent design” is the latest buzzword of the right-wing Bible-thumping cultists who keep pushing to Christianize our public schools. The intelligent-design crowd flatly rejects the science of evolution as apostasy, asserting that life on this earth is way too wondrous to have simply evolved. They point to Genesis as proof that a mighty God schemed…
No child unsolicited
Local antiwar groups are focusing attention on a provision of the federal No Child Left Behind Act that requires public schools to provide military recruiters with contact information for juniors and seniors. Schools must comply with the provision, known as Section 9528, or risk losing federal educational funding. Peace groups such as the Conscientious Objection…
Can they make MacArthur Grand again?
The Esquire Theatre was brand new, and several other businesses had located near it on Springfield’s burgeoning southwest side. “South Grand and West Grand District is Rapidly Developing,” read a headline in the Illinois State Journal of Jan. 28, 1938. The greatest excitement surrounded the new Piggly Wiggly store, where Aunt Jemima herself would make…
In theaters this week. . .
The Aristocrats [Not Rated] Who’s who of comedians tells the same dirty joke in its many forms. Parkway Pointe The Brothers Grimm [PG-13] Traveling con artists set up phony hauntings, then offer their services as ghostbusters until a real fairy-tale curse forces them to actually perform. ShowPlace East, ShowPlace West The Cave [PG-13] Claustrophobic, anyone?…
Gilliam’s fairy tales
Terry Gilliam was the least visible member of the comedy troupe Monty Python’s Flying Circus, but he has made the greatest impression in the cinema. In fact, he has reached such a high level as a director that his films can’t be judged by normal standards. His current release, The Brothers Grimm, although not a…
