Bostonians Tyler Balliet and Morgan First love wine. Drinking it, talking about it, introducing other people to it. But wine, unfortunately, is often perceived to have an attitude, a culture of snottiness and pretension that puts people off before they even get close to a wine glass. Why swirl it? What's with that obnoxious sucking sound? What the hell is the deal with spitting it out? What about the
confusing vocabulary and snooty descriptors? When did wine become "sassy" or "understated", instead of "delicious"?
[more inside]
posted by MissySedai
on Apr 30, 2013 -
127 comments
Suffice it to say, Persepolis is quite a work. It’s a testament to the power of the graphic novel. The art’s simple linework helps the story feel unpretentious and direct. Persepolis was adapted as a 2007 French animated film, written and directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. Among other honors, it was nominated for an Academy Award. Why would someone want to ban such a book?
posted by Artw
on Mar 16, 2013 -
33 comments
Last school year in Chicago, 29 current and recent students of Harper High School in the Englewood neighborhood were shot. Of those, 8 students died. For one semester (five months) reporters from the NPR show
This American Life interviewed students and staff at Harper. The reporters wanted to know: How do students live with the violence surrounding them? How does the school staff deal with the effects of violence on students? The resulting two episodes of the show answer these questions (and more) in heartbreaking and surprising ways.
Part one here.
Part two here.
posted by Misty_Knightmare
on Feb 22, 2013 -
30 comments
Click that 'hood! is a simple game which tasks you to locate neighborhoods in one of six cities: Chicago, IL; Lexington, KY; Louisville, KY; Oakland, CA; San Francisco, CA; and Seattle, WA. An easy game gives you 20 neighborhoods: A hard game gives you the entire city.
posted by shakespeherian
on Feb 4, 2013 -
43 comments
"It looked like any neighborhood tavern in Chicago. The beer was cold, the bratwursts hot."
"The
Mirage Tavern was a drinking establishment at 731 N. Wells St. in Chicago purchased by the Chicago Sun-Times in 1977 to investigate widespread allegations of official corruption and shakedowns visited on small businesses by city officials. The journalists used hidden cameras to help ensure that city inspectors caught accepting payoffs for ignoring safety hazards were all properly documented."
Thirty-five years ago this week, the Sun-Times began a 25-part series, which documented its work with government watchdog organization
Better Government Association and venerated TV news program
60 Minutes* to capture the shakedowns, shoddy inspections, and graft galore. And now Sun-Times digital editor Marcus Gilmer is reposting every story on the day it ran in 1977
here along with additional reporting and details.
[more inside]
posted by MCMikeNamara
on Jan 9, 2013 -
12 comments
The permanent collection of the (US) National Veterans Art Museum in Chicago contains more than 2,500 pieces of art by 250 artists, all of which can be seen at
NVAM Collection Online. The site includes biographical material on the artists who created the work.
Featured Artwork.
A small selection.
(Via. Images at links in this post may be nsfw, and/or disturbing to some viewers.)
posted by zarq
on Nov 12, 2012 -
1 comment
From the mid 40s to the mid 50s
Coronet Instructional Films were always ready to provide social guidance for teenagers on subjects as diverse as
dating,
popularity,
preparing for being drafted, and
shyness, as well as to children on
following the law,
the value of quietness in school, and
appreciating our parents. They also provided education on topics such as the connection between
attitudes and health,
what kind of people live in America,
how to keep a job,
supervising women workers,
the nature of capitalism, and
the plantation System in Southern life. Inside is an annotated collection of all 86 of the complete Coronet films in the
Prelinger Archives as well as a few more. Its not like you had work to do or anything right?
[more inside]
posted by Blasdelb
on Nov 1, 2012 -
41 comments
For the first time since 1987, Chicago public school teachers will strike. Last year, the city council in Chicago passed a law mandating that 75% of
Chicago Teachers Union members would need to vote to authorize a strike. In June,
CTU announced that they had met that threshold, and that they would strike if negotiations with Chicago Public Schools over job security, evaluations, and a longer school day with no extra pay for teachers, failed. They did, and tonight Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, announced that as of midnight tonight,
public school teachers in Chicago are on strike.
posted by deliciae
on Sep 9, 2012 -
184 comments
What I wrote was unquestionably fiction — was fantasy. Among Others has magic and fairies. But I was writing fantasy about a science fiction reader who had a lot of the same things happen to her that happened to me. It’s set at the end of 1979 and the beginning of 1980, and it’s about a fifteen year old just when I was fifteen, and from a family like mine and in the time and place and context where I was. I was using a lot of my own experience and memories. But this is Mori, not me, and she lives in a world where magic is real. Jo Walton, who as editor for tor.com
revisisted the Hugos 1953-2000, now has one of her own, taking home
the 2012 Best Novel Award for
Among Others. Other winners include
Kij Johnson for her Novella
The Man who Bridged the Mist (excerpt) and io9 regular
Charlie Jane Anders for her novellete
Six Months, Three Days. The Best Graphic Story award went to the webcomic
Digger by
Ursula Vernon. E Lily Yu took home the Bets New Writer award (technically not a Hugo) and was also nominated for her short story
The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees. A couple of TV shows you have heard of also got awards. Links to many of the nominated stories
here.
posted by Artw
on Sep 3, 2012 -
51 comments
Conan O'Brian, at the end of 4 days of broadcasting from Chicago, sends "the nicest, most polite person we know"--Jack McBrayer, who plays the rube Kenneth on 30 Rock--to
The Wiener's Circle, notorious as much for the vulgar insults served up by its hostile staff as for its hot dogs. When things don't go so well for meek Jack,
he calls in some backup.
posted by drlith
on Jun 15, 2012 -
78 comments
"
The fight for same-sex marriage rights in Illinois took an unprecedented turn Thursday as Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez conceded that the state's ban on gay marriage violates the Illinois Constitution, essentially agreeing with a pair of lawsuits her office was expected to oppose. It marks the first time a state has refused to contest a lawsuit questioning the constitutionality of a gay marriage ban. The Illinois attorney general's office, which would be next in line to defend the state's constitution, already had announced plans to file a brief in support of the lawsuits brought by Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois."
posted by nooneyouknow
on Jun 15, 2012 -
79 comments
In 2008 the
late Robert Fitch, author of "
The Assassination of New York", was asked to
foretell an Obama presidency before the Harlem Tenants Association:
If we examine more carefully the interests that Obama represents; if we look at
his core financial supporters; as well as his inmost circle of advisors, we’ll see that they represent the primary activists in the demolition movement and the primary real estate beneficiaries of this transformation of public housing projects into condos and townhouses: the profitable creep of the Central Business District and elite residential neighborhoods southward; and the shifting of the pile of human misery about three miles further into the South Side and the south suburbs... Obama’s political base comes primarily from Chicago FIRE—the finance, insurance and real estate industry. And the wealthiest families—the Pritzkers, the Crowns and the Levins.
posted by ennui.bz
on May 8, 2012 -
41 comments
"I have found something very interesting in the Chicago River on the east side of the Kinzie Bridge. I see swirling water that looks like a giant drain... I would say it looks like the source of the water could be the river itself, and I am hearing reports that fish are swimming in the basement of the [Merchandise] Mart just feet from the swirl! I do not see any emergency crews near this spinning swirl, but I think they may want to take a look. In fact, I think someone should wake up the Mayor!"
Twenty years ago today was the
Great Chicago Flood. About 250,000,000 gallons of the Chicago River found its way--via a
breach caused by construction near the all-but-forgotten tunnels of the
Chicago Tunnel Company--into the basements of Chicago's Loop business district. It even sent
fish up into the
Pedway.
[more inside]
posted by theoddball
on Apr 13, 2012 -
41 comments
