Illustration: Tony Fitzpatrick

By Tony Fitzpatrick

In the canon of American literature of the last century, Nathanael West figures in a couple of times.

“Miss Lonelyhearts” is considered his signature work,  a novel of isolation and animal longing. My favorite has always been “The Day of the Locust,” which ends with Hollywood burning to the ground amidst a savage mob running amok and devouring all who would try and halt it. It was made into a movie starring Donald Sutherland, William Atherton and Karen Black. “The Day of the Locust” has it all: artists, wannabe starlets, midgets, cockfights, cowboys, darkness, hunger and desperation. Read the rest of this entry »

Bike rush hour on Milwaukee, torn up for repaving/Photo: John Greenfield

By John Greenfield

Trust me, my friends, this is the year sustainable transportation blows up in Chicago. Say what you want about Rahm Emanuel’s record on education, crime and privatization. But since he took office in early 2011, joined by forward-thinking Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein and shrewd CTA President Forrest Claypool, the city has embarked on a number of bold projects to encourage walking, biking and transit use. I promise the next three months are going to be a tipping point as we make the move from the car-centric status quo to becoming a healthier, more efficient and more vibrant city. Read the rest of this entry »

By Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): “I’m still learning,” said Michelangelo when he was eighty-seven years old. For now, he’s your patron saint. With his unflagging curiosity as your inspiration, maybe your hunger for new teachings will bloom. You will register the fact that you don’t already know everything there is to know… you have not yet acquired all the skills you were born to master… you’re still in the early stages of exploring whole swaths of experience that will be important to you as you become the person you want to be. Even if you’re not enrolled in a formal school, it’s time to take your education to the next level. Read the rest of this entry »

Chicago Spring Half post-race party/Photo: Zach Freeman

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Breakdown:  Unlike the gusting winds and rain of the 2012 race, this year’s Chicago Spring Half Marathon & 10K (newly christened the Magellan Development Chicago Spring  Half, for shorthand) offered runners a warm spring morning in the mid-seventies with sunny skies and a light breeze. The course remained the same, with both races starting in DuSable Harbor, following the Lakefront Trail out and back and finishing in The Park at Lakeshore East.

And though the nicer weather was a welcome change for runners of this year’s event, it also meant that there were a lot more non-participants enjoying a stroll, run or bike ride on the (unclosed) Lakefront Trail to contend with. Still, mile-markers were clearly placed and volunteers were readily available with plenty of water and Gatorade. The placement of the starting line does make for a more easily manageable start, but it also leads to a bit of confusion as runners pass back through the starting track on their way to the finish line (which is about a third of a mile further).

It’s the post-race party in The Park at Lakeshore East that makes this event worth the price. It also makes it abundantly clear why Magellan Development Group (creators of Lakeshore East) is eager to host this event: it highlights the manicured beauty of their planned community, with runners being granted tickets to a well-stocked “picnic” (featuring eggs, pancakes, sausage and coconut water) in the park amidst the many sponsor booths. Read the rest of this entry »

Illustration: Tony Fitzpatrick

By Tony Fitzpatrick

Driving back from California through the desert, one is always cognizant of the hungry world that surrounds you. The desert may seem still, but beyond what you can see it is teeming with life: coyotes, owls, hawks, vultures and some genuinely scary-ass reptiles, thick western diamondbacks, prairie rattlers, gila monsters and sidewinders.

There are small boars called javelinas—ugly little fuckers who love-you-not. There are roadrunners who tear along the desert until they find a lizard to peck to death and devour. They are psycho-looking sons-of-bitches who remind us that for all of the cute photos of baby seals and shit like that, that nature is around-the-clock murder. Look into the eye of one of these ground-dwelling birds and one sees all of the madness in the world. Read the rest of this entry »

Danny Resner by the decorative spire at Ashland/63rd/Photo: John Greenfield

By John Greenfield

On Saturday, National Train Day, my El-racing brother-in-arms Danny Resner and I tried to write a new chapter in the saga of competitive CTA riding. The rules are simple: you must stop at and/or depart from every station by train, although it’s not necessary to ride every inch of track, and you can only travel by El, bus or shoe leather.

Several people, including Danny and me, have worn the CTA racing crown at various times. In October, ad men Chris Aubin and Garrett Sorrels set the current record for 145 stations: 9:12:39. We hoped to snag the title before the five-month shutdown of the south Red Line for a $425 million track rehab and station enhancement project, which starts this Sunday. Here’s how our day went down:

10am We begin our journey in Wilmette at the Purple Line’s Linden station, a stone’s throw from the Bahá’í temple. Last week a seven-month, $2 million slow-zone-elimination project started on the line north of Howard and we see yellow construction vehicles parked along the track as we roll south. Just before we reach Howard to transfer to the Yellow Line there’s an excruciating twenty-minute delay. Read the rest of this entry »

By  Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the alternate universe created by Marvel comic books, there is a mutant superhero called Squirrel Girl. She has the magic power to summon hordes of cute, furry squirrels. Under her guidance, they swarm all over the bad guy she’s battling and disable him with their thousands of tiny chomps and thrashing tails. She and her rodent allies have defeated such arch-villains as Dr. Doom, Deadpool, Baron Mordo and Ego the Living Planet. Let’s make her your role model for the coming weeks, Aries. The cumulative force of many small things will be the key to your victories. As in Squirrel Girl’s case, your adversaries’ overconfidence may also be a factor. Read the rest of this entry »

Race to Wrigley runners/Photo: Zach Freeman

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Breakdown:  For the eighth straight year, Chicago Cubs Charities organized the Race to Wrigley, a 5K through Wrigleyville that starts at the intersection of Addison and Clark and ends with a brief jaunt through the Wrigley Field ground-level concourse. After being warmed up by WGN’s Dina Bair and Danni Allen (winner of Season 14 of The Biggest Loser), the 3,000 or so timed runners (self-organized into pace groups) took off down a blocked-off Addison.

Organization along the course, including directional information and water stations were heavily attended and clearly marked, with a great deal of fanfare paid to the finish line area in front of Wrigley Field. The pre- and post-race party area in the space between Clark, Waveland and Wrigley Field was less well-organized, with a slow-moving and regrettably unsystematic gear check slowing things up and too many participants crammed into the space after finishing the run. Read the rest of this entry »

By Tony Fitzpatrick

In Tokyo, I took tons and tons of digital shots and I had no earthly fucking idea how to load them onto my computer, because I am a moron. I walked at least five miles a day all over Shinjuku and Shibuya and in the Ginza district. I also spent a little time in one of the parks that are gorgeous in Tokyo, and oddly quiet. Public space is revered in this city because there is so little of it and parks offer respite from the crowds. People are very quiet in the parks and these immaculately manicured places are sanctuary and lend themselves to reading and meditation. The trees are carefully pruned and sculpted and every park is tended to like a giant garden. They are beautiful.

I walked a great deal and saw a lot of Tokyo in a shopping district right by Shibuya. There is a youth culture that is hard to discern the look of; part punk, part slacker, part skate-kid. It is an amalgam of all of these things. I also stumbled onto something Japan really likes–buttons. They are bat-shit for buttons. Read the rest of this entry »

Chicago’s Divvy bike-share vehicles won’t come with helmets.

By John Greenfield

Last summer when I visited Copenhagen, I drank Carlsberg beer with Mikael Colville-Andersen, one of the world’s most influential and controversial bicycle advocates, in his lush back yard while his kids practiced soccer and picked flowers. Colville-Andersen heads the consulting firm Copenhagenize, advising politicians, planners and advocates on ways to copy the success of the bike-friendly Danish capital, but he’s probably better known for his wildly popular photo blog, Copenhagen Cycle Chic.

Among the many topics we discussed was his attitude toward bike helmets. He thinks they’re totally unnecessary for urban commuting, and he believes that promoting helmet use is actually counterproductive for making cycling safer. In northern European bicycle meccas like Copenhagen and Amsterdam, more than a third of all trips are made by bike, almost nobody wears a helmet, and yet injury rates are much lower than in the United States, where lots of people wear helmets. Read the rest of this entry »