AltWeeklies Wire
Carole Travis-Henikoff Moves from Roast Pig to Long Pignew
The independent scholar and gastronomist's first book was a cookbook. Her second is a history of cannibalism.
Chicago Reader |
Mike Sula |
06-16-2008 |
Food+Drink
Ashanti Proves She's Out of Step on 'The Declaration'new
Hip-hop and R & B merged years ago, but Ashanti's still playing catch-up.
Chicago Reader |
Noah Berlatsky |
06-16-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Ashanti, The Declaration
Could Alla be a Mexican Os Mutantes?new
After seven years and $40,000, the Ledezma brothers unveil a masterpiece of Mexican-American psych pop.
Chicago Reader |
Miles Raymer |
06-16-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Why Jim DeRogatis Pleaded the Fifth in the R. Kelly Trialnew
What possible crime could the Chicago Sun-Times music critic have been concealing when he repeatedly -- 15 times in all -- answered questions put to him in court by invoking his constitutional protection against self-incrimination?
Chicago Reader |
Michael Miner |
06-16-2008 |
Music
Tags: journalism, media, Chicago, law, courts, R. Kelly, Fifth Amendment, Jim DeRogatis, reporter's privilege
Will the Hassle of Dealing with MLB Bury a Documentary About a Cubs Superfan?new
Just days before the Cubs season opener in 2005, amateur filmmaker Paul Hoffman premiered his documentary about Ronnie "Woo Woo" Wickers at a gala benefit at the Chicago Historical Society. Hoffman figured it was only a matter of time before Woo Life: One Life Saved by the Game of Baseball found a distributor and brought further attention to a cause near to his heart, the plight of Chicago's homeless. But in fact, in three years' time he'd be sitting on a thousand copies of the film.
Chicago Reader |
Jeff Carroll |
06-16-2008 |
Sports
Chicago's TIF That Keeps On Takingnew
The city has found a way to extend the life of its oldest, fattest tax increment financing district.
Chicago Reader |
Ben Joravsky |
06-10-2008 |
Housing & Development
Chicago's 'Hipster Rap' Scene Attracts the Inevitable Backlashnew
Most criticism of hipster rap only goes clothes deep, and even for relatively philosophical haters like Unkut.com's Robbie Ettelson, the sight of a rapper in anything but baggy jeans and a hoodie seems to trigger homosexual panic.
Chicago Reader |
Miles Raymer |
06-10-2008 |
Music
Libby Fischer Hellmann Explores the Secrets of the Suburbsnew
She sets her whodunits in the land of never-ending lawns.
Chicago Reader |
Patrick Daily |
06-02-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
After the Kids Go to Bed, Steven Sidor Lets the Darkness Innew
His first two books -- Bone Factory and Skin River -- oozed with evil. His latest, The Mirror's Edge, tops them both. It's about two kidnapped boys, likely -- or perhaps not? -- the victims of a spooky children's book illustrator, the son of a practitioner of the black arts.
Chicago Reader |
Jonathan Black |
06-02-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Steven Sidor, The Mirror's Edge
Achy Obejas Uses the Noir Form to Explore Her Cuban Rootsnew
The 18 stories collected in the anthology Havana Noir are nothing if not messy. The Havana reflected in its pages is coldly violent and explosively loving. It's vibrant, brutal, amoral, sordid, romantic, idealistic, pragmatic, and gleefully ambiguous.
Chicago Reader |
Martha Bayne |
06-02-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
The Voyage of Walter Meegonew
Sure, they just moved to LA, but it's their new full-length debut that's really gonna take them places.
Chicago Reader |
Miles Raymer |
06-02-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Voyager, Walter Meego
Books for Cooks: Spring's Best Tomes on Food and Drinknew
Spring food books are sprouting up like sweet peas and stinking onions, and I’ve been indoors, digging into them instead of my own little patch o' dirt. Here's a half dozen of my favorites, in no particular order.
Chicago Reader |
Mike Sula |
06-02-2008 |
Food+Drink
On the Trail of the Delta Tamalenew
Southern food sleuths take on the murky origins of the mother-in-law sandwich.
Chicago Reader |
Mike Sula |
05-19-2008 |
Food+Drink
David Mamet's Redbelt is a Return to Formnew
In a sense, the arc of Mamet's career has been one long journey from Chicago to Hollywood, and his last few movies as a writer-director -- State and Main, Heist and Spartan -- suggested that arc was turning steeply downward. Redbelt emphatically reverses this decline by combining in near-perfect proportion what Mamet loves and hates about Hollywood.
Chicago Reader |
J.R. Jones |
05-19-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: David Mamet, Redbelt
'The Lazarus Project' Takes a Trip Through Time with a True-Crime Twistnew
Reading Aleksandar Hemon's latest novel is kind of like staring at one of those paintings where inside that painting is another painting of the painting you're staring at. And like those surreal paintings, it not only challenges your perception of the subject but brings the creation of the work itself into focus.
Chicago Reader |
Greg Boose |
05-19-2008 |
Fiction
