By Ella Christoph

Taxis honk and confused minivans hover midintersection. Bikes slide through the streets dodging doors and inflexible drivers. The crowd at the corner builds as commuters come to a halt—“Don’t Walk”—purses and briefcases still swinging. They are sprinters, waiting for the race to start up yet again, and their toes grip the edge of the curb. Tourists slowly line up behind the professionals, soaking up the pause in momentum by craning their necks so their eyes can finally reach past the skyscrapers and remind them the sky is the same as the one back home. Reverse vertigo. Suddenly it feels like forward movement. The jostlers push from behind, commuters who missed the start, arm-linked teens who keep hips close and one elbow out, a weapon against accidental intruders. Sensory overload, too much touching, harsh car metal and harsh car smell way too close. A throng of trajectories head in different directions and at different velocities, but they brush each other, and for a few feet, we all head in the same direction. Speed travelers and slowpokes alike get a rush, taking pleasure in this offering up by the city, imperfect but commanding.

As Mayor Daley heads out of office, much of the positive press surrounding his long tenure points to his efforts to revitalize the city center—from Millennium Park to the South Loop, it’s hard to deny downtown Chicago’s improvement, much of it initiated by him. Chicago risked becoming a large-scale case study for the downfall of the American city center, and it’s not out of place to attribute its recent success as a tourist destination to the mayor who brought The Bean and Museum Campus. But the street-scape of Chicago has a long way to go before becoming a model for the American city. Even the lakefront and Magnificent Mile, Chicago’s crown jewels, are far from the level of accessibility that makes pedestrians—tourists and residents alike—feel at home. Fifty years after Jane Jacobs wrote her groundbreaking analysis of city planning, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” we now know a lot of answers to the previously unasked questions of how to make a city work. And one of those answers is that cars are not the answer. It goes beyond greening the city: in a high-functioning city of any size, fearless and timid explorers alike take pleasure in walks, bikes and public transit rides through their city—not slogging through traffic alone in their cars. Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s biggest gainers:

1
Devin Hester
Welcome back, oh ridiculous one. Loved the improv Lambeau leap.

2
David Cromer
We knew you were a genius. MacArthur may have given you $500K, but we gave you 5,000 words. Read the rest of this entry »

Bakfiets

On a balmy Wednesday morning, bike racks outside the Thompson Center are clogged with cycles. The drum-shaped building is nicknamed the “Tom Tom” by messengers who chill in the plaza while waiting for work. But today a cleaner-cut crowd has pedaled here in suits and skirts for the ThinkBike symposium, “a Dutch boost to Chicago’s bike-ability.” Naturally, the collection of cycles includes elegant Dutch city bikes and hardworking bakfiets (“box bike”) cargo vehicles.

The workshops, sponsored by the Dutch Consulate General and Active Transportation Alliance, bring bike-transportation specialists from the Netherlands together with their Chicago counterparts to brainstorm ways to make our city the Amsterdam of the Midwest. Rather than legalizing pot and prostitution, the goal is to bump our city’s measly one-percent bicycle mode share closer to the utopian standards of Holland, where twenty-seven percent of all trips are made on two wheels, and there are more cycles than citizens. Read the rest of this entry »

By Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Nine-year-old Fatima Santos told the San Francisco Chronicle her opinions about the movie “Toy Story”: “If I had to make a movie like this, I would make it funnier. I would make Mr. Potato Head look funnier than he already does. I would put his hair on his legs, his shoes on his head, and his arms on his face. His eyeballs would be on the place where his arms are.” In the coming week, Aries, I advise you to engage in Fatima’s enlightened style of cockeyed thinking. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you have the power and the mandate to improve pretty much every scenario you’re in by making it less predictable, more rambunctious and just plain funnier. Read the rest of this entry »

In an unassuming building in the West Loop, past a call box, up a few stairs and behind a strangely industrial metal door, lie rooms filled to the brim with boxes upon boxes of small notebooks, varying in color and page style, but each shrink-wrapped package bearing bold words on the cover: Field Notes.

Field Notes started as a partnership between Aaron Draplin, a Portland, Oregon artist, of Draplin Design Co. and Coudal Partners. Coudal Partners began as a traditional creative design and ad agency, but rethought their strategy after businesses started cutting their marketing and advertising budgets.

“We took a step back and tried to figure out if we wanted to chase client-based revenue, or start a couple of businesses on our own,” Michele Seiler, of Field Notes, says.

One such business was Field Notes, which began as an online fixture (fieldnotesbrand.com), selling and shipping packages of simple notebooks, inspired by vintage 1930s and 1940s farmers field notebooks. The cover is a neutral brown, and the book itself is thin, perfect for stowing in a back pocket for whenever needed. Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s biggest gainers:

1
Riccardo Muti
Chicago was all “Love, Italian Style” for the new CSO maestro.

2
Jay Cutler
Bears field general turned the once-mighty Cowboys into tenderfoots. Read the rest of this entry »

By Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Rightwing talk show host Rush Limbaugh is a person whose ideas and attitudes repel me. But in the dream I had last night, I enjoyed hanging out with him. He was affable and humorous. We had several fun adventures together. Here’s how I interpret the dream: It doesn’t necessarily mean that Limbaugh is a better human being than my bias allows me to imagine. Rather, I think I’m becoming more relaxed about people I disagree with. I’m less susceptible to being motivated by hatred. I’m able to maintain a live-and-let-live approach to things that used to knock me off center. You’re now set up for a similar shift, Aries. I hope you take advantage. Read the rest of this entry »

Thousands of screaming girls leaning forward and reach their hand out to touch their idol. They wake up unbearably early, stay up painfully late, spend hours in miserable weather, hoping for the chance—the possibility—they might be able to brush a hand against a hero. The idol changes, but the audience is ageless. The haircuts, the makeup, the clothes are different, but it almost seems as if everyone is in uniform. The particulars may change, but it looks as if everyone got the memo about what to wear—and spent time in front of the mirror. You want to look your best when you meet the person you admire most in the world.

It’s easy to forget what it’s like, later on. But this summer, when Jacinta Gibson and Genesis Galva, rising seniors at Holy Trinity High School, interned at Newcity, we got a weekly reminder of the passion of real fans, not jaded, critical viewers who, minus a few nit-picky details, applaud an artists’ latest work. We’d ask the interns what they had been up to lately, and what they wanted to write about. Every week, we’d get a similar response: Jacinta hung out online with her Twilight friends, and Genesis counted down the weeks or days until the Avenged Sevenfold album came out, and then she listened to it, over and over again. Jacinta wanted to write about Twilight. Genesis wanted to write about rock bands—preferably, Avenged Sevenfold. Read the rest of this entry »

Two hours is all it takes to turn parking spaces into a temporary park. Motivated by both the PARK(ing) Day events in San Francisco, and locally by last year’s parking-meter deal, this is PARK(ing)’s second fourth year of bringing the urban park to the people.

Matt Nardella, principal architect for Moss Design and organizer of the event, says last year’s turnout lead to the growth this year. They are expanding their “oasis,” which is biker and pedestrian friendly.

“Last year we only had three spaces. This year, we’re trying to take as much of the block as possible,” Nardella says. Read the rest of this entry »