Chicago MMXII

http://theorganicsister.com/tmi-alert-cloth-toilet-paper/

I actually really like "All I Wanna Do." The beat is tight.

Kr and I are going to see Kaki King at City Winery on Friday night, so no karaoke for us.

Speaking of THIS, I haven't looked in a while, but is Ch. 26.4 still just a logo that reads "What's up with THAT?"

i had to drive out to dekalb today for work and i passed this place, looks pretty awesome:
http://www.starworldsarcade.com/

Fuck you, Sarah Mcblahblah. If we all shit Kleenexes for drying kitty tears 2 squares would be fine, but I've seen how real people shit, and it's not a delicate matter.

Fuckin' Rahm. Glad to see his "editorial" in favor of tearing down Prentice Hospital is nothing but straight up repeating, sometimes verbatim, Northwestern's talking points. Not that Prentice is even close to being my favorite Chicago building, but there was a ton of behind the scenes shadiness that kept the building off the Landmark Commissions for long enough to seal its doom. There are plenty of more significant buildings in this city to save, but this puts such a bad taste in my mouth. Large institution + $$$$ + Rahm's friends + Washington lobbyists = tear down whatever you want. I'm just appalled that, for a city that pays so much lip service to sustainability, no one could be bothered to do a legitimate study for how the building might be adapted instead of just torn down.

I think two-squares-Cheryl was something Matt Drudge manufactured from an off-the-cuff comment, but maybe I'm wrong.

I've done way too much wrangling for some one-night playlets I've directed in the past month. So much back and forth. So, anyway, 'mander: if karaoke happens after 9:30/10, send a note and I'll join.

"All I Wanna Do" reminds me of a summer doing temp work as the secretary in a room full of uncover narcotics cops.

undercover

That sounds pretty fun.

I love Prentice Hospital and anybody who wants to tear it down is a total monster.

Temping in a room full of undercover narcotics cops, I mean. You could have written Narcotics: My Month in the Typing Pool.

My first daughter was born in Prentice and I'm not sure I've thought about it since. The Durham, NC hospital I was born in is long gone, the Tarzana, CA hospital my sister was born in is long gone ... c'est la vie.

There's a great BBC doc about the Beatles childhood homes, and the fight by Yoko, among others, to make John Lennon's childhood home a historic landmark. The issue I guess was that there was absolutely nothing that made Lennon's childhood home special. It was just a mundane post-war house. They even had to bring in anachronistic decorations to Lennon-ize it, because he did absolutely nothing Beatles or even music-related back then during his brief pre-teen tenure. What a lot of the anti- people were complaining about was that preserving Lennon's house meant that there would be further movements to then preserve all the Beatles' various childhood homes, which would cost a lot on the public dime for nothing but even the most generically historic return.

Not saying Prentice doesn't rise to the level of historic, but nothing lasts forever. I can imagine it repurposed as apartments, at least, though.

Well that gets at the crux of my annoyance really, there has never been (and most likely never will be, now) a serious study of ways to adaptively reuse the building. It has always been presented by Northwestern as "we HAVE to tear it down" and no one, outside of historic preservation circles, has been questioning their party line.

Never even heard of Prentice until a week ago, when coworkers started tweeting about it.

My thing with Prentice is that it's so neat looking. It seems like a really sad thing to tear down a weird looking futurebuilding and replace it with a boring rectangle.

Maybe if NW built the new hospital in the shape of a mortal and pestle, I wouldn't be so quick to judge.

http://www.kymodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/LexVillageDrive1465Bondurants.jpg

WBEZ had some good reporting on the issue this morning. I was wondering why they don't just repurpose the existing building but some of the instruments that would go into the proposed research center require very specific construction techniques that the existing building doesn't live up to.

Also kind of interesting to hear people positing on whether Goldberg, the designer, would want the building to be preserved or not. Someone suggested his school of thought was anti-preservationist.

i'm listening to an episode of the "how did this get made?" podcast (comedy podcast about shitty movies) about "sleepaway camp" and they've spent the first 15 minutes trying to figure out who is related to who in the cold open sequence

I was wondering why they don't just repurpose the existing building but some of the instruments that would go into the proposed research center require very specific construction techniques that the existing building doesn't live up to.

Yeah, thi is true and a big problem with the existing building. I really liked the solution Studio Gang came up with, which was to retain the existing Prentice as the "base" for a new tower above. That would solve the issue of providing space for new technologies, while still maintaining the old building. Its just frustrating that solutions like this were never taken seriously.

http://agreenliving.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/8f1a5aa7fcprentice-jeanne-gang-537x370-500x344.jpg

Weird

That's awesomely weird. It looks like four Ikea silverware holders with a building on top of it. I love it.

For those that went to Afghan Whigs Sat. (or back in Aug. for that matter, have that show too), let me know if you'd like a recording - happy to either post to rapidshare or burn some ceedees ...

ME ME MEME MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMMEEMe
me

also i think karaoke is cancelled on friday for various reasons that no one really cares about

I'm probably going to go to this tomorrow https://www.facebook.com/events/522691121092906/

yeah - re-listening to Whigs show now - the break from 'gentleman' -> (snippet of cover of) 'Best of my Love' -> '66' -> (snippet of cover of) 'Little Red Corvette' to admonishment of fan for texting front row is pretty righteous. La Lechera I seem to remember you had some trouble with my Agalloch upload to rapidshare, so totally willing to burn some CDs ... I'm homebound due to being on-call for work this week, but PM me and we can figure out a dropoff ...

I already did!

That Landmarks Commission meeting on Prentice today was complete bullshit and a farce. The Commission (members of which were appointed by Rahm) voted this afternoon 9-0 that Prentice deserves protected landmark status. Those same nine people, two hours later, during the same meeting, voted 8-1 to overturn that previous decision and approve its demolition. Absolute bullshit.

The whole way this was handled just irritates me to no end, particularly Northwestern refusing back down from their absolutely ridiculous claims that it was either "save Prentice or save lives". Sure, the existing hospital probably couldn't be updated to meet today's needs. I'll buy that. But to claim that there was literally no other place in the entire Chicagoland area for Northwestern to build a new state of the art facility is complete bullshit. The empty lot they own across the street from Prentice would've been a good start. I realize the location of Prentice made it more convenient and a more desirable solution for NW, but, c'mon.

Last one, then I'm done. It just frustrates me that NW was able to take this childish fucking attitude of, "well if you won't let us build our research center right here, then we just won't build it at all and put the future of cancer research at risk" and bulldoze their way to what they want. Its just such a disingenuous argument. Cancer research was going to continue one way or another. NW would've moved on and built it somewhere else, given the money they have to throw around. Pretending the entire future of finding a cure for cancer hinged on this single site was a terrible argument and anyone that fell for it should be ashamed of themselves.

That's really something about the vote turn-around! That seems suuuuuper shady.

If I want to feel kind, I'll say that the Commission thought they were throwing the preservationists a bone by saying, "yeah, it deserves to be a landmark, but run along now so the grownups can do what's right".

xpost Man, I would love a recording of August, but also the recent shows. Like I posted earlier, the only reason I didn't go to the latter was because the August show was so exceptional I didn't want anything impeding with my memory.

for those who haven't voted yet, this could be helpful. friend of a fb friend, wish it had been posted before i voted--

http://jendoespolitics.blogspot.com/2012/11/november-2012-election-endorsements.html

No problem, Josh, PM me and I'll either post rapidshare links of the FLACs for ya, or I can burn a few CDs and work out a drop off (would love to chat tunes anyways - you've always had some good posts/threads). I'm in Logan Sq.

I'm going to use that, Julia.

Should I vote for or against electricity aggregation? I forget.

I'm eating a delicious pumpkin "empanada" from the cafe by my work which buys their pastries from Bleebing Hard Bakery. It is delish, but I don't know if I'm OK calling it an empanada.

i am so glad the election is next week, so ready to be done with this shit (until the recount). i'm going to have to vote on election day, haven't had a chance to early vote unfortch.

not too late

only open til 5, won't get home til after 6, and we're leaving early tomorrow morning to downstate

Tell those downstaters how to vote while you are down there.

Huh, apparently Glenn was forced out as owner of Glenn's Diner, which is now owned by "some guy named larry who is an electrician."

Could be worse. Could be the cable guy.

Not 100% certain I should believe that post, but, if true, it's kind of disturbing. What is glenn's without glenn?

xp

Not 100% certain I should believe that post

Yeah, something about it seems a little ... fishy.

Groan

rimshot

You love it.

More details about the Glenn's Diner situation: http://www.centersquarejournal.com/news/exclusive-glenn-leaves-glenns-diner

Seems pretty fucked up and maybe I don't want to eat there anymore?

I've never eaten there, so I guess I won't start now.

One sided story. Would be interesting to see the other guys take.

I've only eaten there once. It was crowded!

Then in April 2009, Jones filed suit against Fahlstrom for undisclosed reasons, which taxed Fahlstrom personally and financially.

Do 1 research, jeez. http://www.state.il.us/court/opinions/appellatecourt/2011/1stdistrict/june/1103318.pdf <-2nd result on Google for "Glenn Fahlstrom lawsuit"

I hope the new restaurant has the amazing all-you-can-eat king crab legs b/c that amazing deal was amazing.

Cook County has shitty electronic court filing, so you'd have to pay for a copy of the papers in the original case.

Background starts on page 2 of the decision. It's not clear clear exactly what the long-running disagreement was about, but perhaps Jones wasn't as silent a partner as he was supposed to be. What we do know:

After fussin' and fightin' one evening, Glenn sold his interest in the restaurant to Jones for $1000, then quickly changed his mind and tore up the agreement he'd just signed. The lawsuit was based on the unenforceability of the agreement, the inadequacy of the $1000 consideration, and Glenn's asking for the whole thing to go to mediation and/or arbitration. Cook County judge said no arbitration, appellate court said yes arbitration.

So I guess the case went through arbitration sometime in 2011, which isn't public, but Glenn is out.