A piercing wind from the north whipped down darkened Dearborn Street, turning noses and fingers to icy lumps and testing the resolve of pedestrians on the opening night of Goodman Theatre’s 46th annual production of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol last weekend. As if current events weren’t already enough to chill the holiday spirit! Dreadful, […]
Category: Columns & Opinion
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Make police pay for their misconduct
When then-Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke killed Laquan McDonald in 2014, the fallout prompted then-Illinois attorney general Lisa Madigan to ask the U.S. Department of Justice to launch an investigation of the police department’s use of force. That investigation, the results of which were released in 2017, found “CPD officers engage in a pattern […]
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Rats have empathy for strangers, but do we?
OK, here we go: I’m writing an op-ed to defend rats. Not a popular stance, I am aware. In my practice as an artist concerned with climate change and biodiversity loss, I suggest that we must move beyond human supremacy if we are to come back into alignment with a world pushed dangerously out of […]
Posted inOn Culture
Navigating a rocky arts and culture recovery
Years ago, when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, which is the business end of the CSO, was undergoing one of its periodic contract negotiating face-offs with its unionized musicians, someone close to the musicians told me something surprising: the administration wouldn’t really mind a strike. If the orchestra doesn’t play, they save money. It’s better […]
Posted inOn Politics
Chicago rats
When my editor, Salem, asked if I’d write a column on rats in Chicago, I said, “Hell, yes!” I immediately created a top-three list of Danny Solis, John Christopher, and William O’Neal. Then I realized—wait! Salem meant rats of the four-legged variety. Which, by the way, I could write a book about, having encountered one, […]
Posted inOn Culture
Maus in wartime
It’s common knowledge in the book business that a well-publicized ban can lead to a short-term spike in sales. Take Art Spiegelman’s two-volume graphic novel Maus for example, which tells the story of his parents’ experience in the Holocaust, as told to him much later by his father. After it was banned by a Tennessee […]
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Editor’s note: rats!
When I was around five years old, my mother and I were standing on Canal Street near what is now called the Ogilvie Transportation Center. I had my back to the street, eyes on my mom. There was a rumbling under the ground and I remember watching the aglet from my shoelace shake a little. […]
Posted inOn Culture
Something about The Lehman Trilogy
Last week, the Tony Award-winning play The Lehman Trilogy opened in a TimeLine Theatre/Broadway in Chicago coproduction at Broadway Playhouse. The play is based on the novel Qualcosa sui Lehman by Stefano Massini, first published in Italy in 2016 and in an English translation by Richard Dixon in 2020. If you’ve never read the bookyou […]
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Editor’s note: we need each other
In late August, the Chicago Sun-Times calculated that more than 13,000 immigrants had arrived in Chicago since August 2022, when Texas governor Greg Abbott started his busing scheme. While our city is navigating the care and feeding of all our people, and not always getting it perfect, we’ve received an influx of even more people […]
Posted inOn Culture
High-wire act
If you were a Bloomie’s Chicago customer at the River North store, you won’t be hugely surprised when you walk into Bally’s new pop-up casino in the 111-year-old Medinah Temple. Bloomingdale’s saved this massive Moorish Revival architectural fantasy (at 600 N. Wabash) from demolition when it opened a store there in 2003, restoring the dome-topped […]
Posted inPress releases
[UPDATED] RICJ Racial Justice Writers’ Room Launches Cohort 2
The Reader Institute for Community Journalism (RICJ), which publishes the Chicago Reader, has launched the second cohort of the Racial Justice Writers’ Room. Six early- to mid-career journalists will work for eight weeks on racial-justice related reporting projects under coordinator Judith McCray. The Racial Justice Writers’ Room is part of RICJ’s Racial Justice Reporting Hub and […]
Posted inOn Culture
The butterfly in your throat
My throat was slit. It was back in the dark ages of the 20th century, but if you take a close look at me you can still see the scar—a fine line running along the base of my neck, from ear to ear. It’s the necklace I can’t take off, the trail of a scalpel. […]
Posted inOn Culture
Oppenheimer‘s Loyola connection
Thanks to Reader reader Anthony Gargiulo Jr., who read this story about Chicago connections to Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer film and pointed out via Twitter another one: former Loyola University (and Northwestern University) chemistry professor Ward V. Evans. Evans was the surprise dissenting vote on the three-man panel that recommended permanent suspension of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s […]
Posted inOn Politics
NU’s Streisand effect
Content note: This column contains mention of hazing and sexual assault. Northwestern University (NU) may not win many, or any, football games this season. But, man, when it comes to cynical acts of duplicity and deceit, they may already be the champs. Oh, where to start with the football hazing scandal that gets more scandalous […]
Posted inPress releases
RICJ Racial Justice Writers’ Room Cohort 2 applications now open
The Reader Institute for Community Journalism (RICJ), publishers of the Chicago Reader, will launch its second cohort program for writers interested in and/or working on stories directly addressing racial justice issues in the first of two three-month sessions. This cohort will be limited to six (6) participants and will last eight weeks. Applications will be […]