Events

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump won their respective Illinois primary elections yesterday. And in other news: Turns out, a strong social safety net leads to lower mortality, and because poor, mostly-white areas in the U.S. voted theirs down to minuscule levels, poor, white people are not doing well. When you vote against your own party in a hot battle with the opposition governor, and the governor wins that battle, that's a career-limiting move. Illinois representative Ken Dunkin (D-Chicago) got...

I drove to a vendor site today because Google Maps told me it would take 18 minutes. (It took 21.) Then I drove around in expanding circles for almost 45 minutes trying to find a parking space, which I finally did almost a kilometer away. I really hate finding out after the fact that the slower form of transportation would have been faster.

First, 7am Friday: Yeah, thanks guy. Wet nose in the ear before my alarm clock goes off. And 7pm Saturday, at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, just before we sang "Elijah:"

One of my apartments is vacant, and can be yours for some time. Here's the Craigslist post (which will be a dead link in a week or so): Sweet full 1BR, 625 sq.ft., jacuzzi tub, open kitchen, parquet floors, closet system. 16th floor of 21-story mid-century high rise, doorman, storage, exercise room, 24-hour laundry. Just steps to lake, Belmont Harbor, bike path; three blocks from St. Joseph hospital. Available now. $1500 The view (all photos from last Tuesday, March 8th): The living room (and a piece of...

Oh, you crazy kids. This is a short list of what happened Saturday afternoon and evening in the area around Wrigley Field: 1:26PM — Dust off the ambulance. We have a female unconscious outside of Sluggers World Class Sports Bar, 3540 N Clark. 2:16PM — Callers at Addison and Halsted report seeing a man with a gun in his pocket. He is the first of many persons who will be described as wearing green clothing. 11:26PM — Recommendation: Don’t drink on the public way. Especially in front of the police...

I really, really like the Original Pronunciation movement started by David and Ben Crystal. Through analysis and performance, they're trying to understand Shakespeare's plays as audiences 400 years ago would have understood them. The Crystals are back in the news with the upcoming publication of the Oxford Dictionary of Original Shakespearean Pronunciation this June. The Atlantic has the story: It’s a book, a guide to Shakespeare’s first folio, that Crystal has been working on for 12 years (on and off...

I'm leaving Harold Washington in a few minutes, now that I've caught up on some reading: Clancy Martin attempted to explain the martyr-like appeal of Ted Cruz. Deeply Trivial, who writes survey questions as part of her job, explained why she doesn't take surveys. Via Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, the University of Arizona outlined some new data linking sunspots, shipwrecks, tree trunks, and hurricanes. Suzy Khimm described the return of the pillory—via Internet, of course—as a tactic of some public...

I have a couple hours to kill in the Loop after having lunch with a friend. I don't really want caffeine or alcohol right now, which rules out the two classes of places to where I would most likely go. Then I remembered: there's a great big library here. And yep, it looks like a library on the inside: shelves full of books, people reading, literary quotes on the walls, free WiFi. OK, that last bit isn't something I remember from the 1980s, but everything else is. They even have a shelf full of phone...

In between four rehearsals and two performances this week (Monday through Sunday), I'm taking tonight off. So while I have a minute or two between helping new developers understand some old code, I'm jotting down this list of things that looked particularly appealing when they came up on RSS feeds: Citylab explores cities that use numbers for both streets and avenues. They also wonder why America hates roundabouts. New Republic reassures Republicans that it's OK to burn down their own party, and...

The Chicago Transit Authority has concluded a deal worth up to $1.4 bn for 850 new rail cars: The CTA’s board Wednesday approved the largest single purchase of rapid transit cars in Chicago history, giving the contract to a Chinese rail manufacturer that has promised to build a final assembly plant on the city’s Far South Side. CTA officials said riders will see several major improvements when the prototype 7000-series cars arrive in late 2019. There will be full-width on-board LED screens capable of...