By Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): The film “The Men Who Stare at Goats” tells the story of the U.S. army’s efforts to harness psychic powers for military purposes. It’s not entirely a work of the imagination. In fact, there’s substantial evidence that such a program actually existed. As the movie begins, a caption on the screen informs viewers that “More of this is true than you would believe.” I suspect there’ll be a comparable situation unfolding in your life in the coming weeks, Aries. As you experience a rather unusual departure from your regularly scheduled reality, fact and fiction may be deeply intertwined. Will you be able to tell them apart? Read the rest of this entry »

Newcity’s Summer Guide is hitting the streets and Summer.Newcity.com
is loaded up with new stories and hundreds—perhaps thousands—of summer event listings. Pick up the print edition this week to see Lilli Carré’s magnificent cover in all its glory.

By Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Weaseling out of things is important to learn,” said cartoon anti-hero Homer Simpson. “It’s what separates us from the animals—except the weasel.” I normally don’t share that sentiment. My standard advice is to face up to challenging situations and take responsibility for the part you played in creating them. But I’m going to rebel against my custom this week and endorse Homer’s approach, Aries. You may be on the verge of getting sucked into a mess that you had virtually no role in creating. Either that, or you’ll be asked to carry out a mission that is irrelevant to your long-term goals. In either case, you have cosmic permission to weasel out. Read the rest of this entry »

George Blakemore/Photo: Colleen Durkin

By Benjamin Rossi

A Google search can say a lot about a person. Most peoples’ names yield, if anything, a professional webpage or a Facebook profile. Type in “George Blakemore+Chicago,” and the search engine dredges up dozens of PDF files, the minutes from public meetings of the Park District, Forest Preserve, Cook County Board Committee meetings and many more going back for years. The minutes often note a few public speakers, along with their occupation—vice president of a union chapter, patient, social worker, professor. Appearing next to George Blakemore’s name: simply “Concerned Citizen.”

Blakemore has turned that generic title into a personal calling card of sorts. He is perhaps Chicago’s most prominent concerned citizen. Anyone who has ever been to a public meeting has seen him and heard him speak. He makes appearances at almost every public meeting held by government agencies on the city, county and state levels within city limits. Not everyone agrees with what he has to say, and some view him as a troublemaker or an annoyance. Others think that he is, in some ways, a model citizen. But few know how he got to be Chicago’s gadfly, or exactly how involved in government he is. Read the rest of this entry »

They’re a dying breed: lurking in bowling alleys and bars, movie theaters and Chuck E. Cheese’s. Immortalized by The Who. Forgotten by almost everyone else.

They are pinball wizards.

Though it’s not exactly something they print on the brochures, Chicago is the birthplace and the capital of pinball and home to some of the world’s best players—including two of the sixty-four competitors at the World Pinball Championships in Sweden May 27-May 29.

Ranked at number 4 and 7 in the world, Zach and Josh Sharpe are something of legacies in the pinball world. Their father, Roger Sharpe, a game designer, testified before a jury in 1976 that pinball was a game of skill, not gambling, paving the way to its legalization. (From the 1940s to 1970s, the game was illegal in many states because machines paid out money, much like slot machines.)

A nook of Zach’s living room is devoted to pinball: there are three games, and a shelf of trophies covers one wall from floor to ceiling. The younger Sharpes each have a copy of a game their father designed, called Cyclops. They point to the artwork: two Cyclops holding a woman, with a mustachioed man on a horse coming to her rescue. Read the rest of this entry »

This Week’s Biggest Gainers:

1
Richard Daley
Outgoing

2
Rahm Emanuel
Incoming Read the rest of this entry »

By  Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Today I received this email: “Dear Chosen One: My name is Boopsky, also known as ‘The Impossible.’ I rule a small kingdom that exists in a secret place—an island with abundant riches and rhinoceros playgrounds. To make a long story short, you have won our ‘naked’ lottery. Please come visit us to claim your prizes. We will carve a statue of you out of butter and strawberry jam. Your funny ways of walking and talking will be imitated by all of our citizens. Then you will be caressed as a monarch on a pile of TVs and sung songs to by our reincarnation chorus. Can’t wait to see you be so happy!” I suspect you may soon receive an invitation as puzzling as this one, Aries—an apparent blessing that carries mixed messages or odd undertones. My suggestion is to hold off on accepting it until you find out more about it. Meanwhile, make sure it doesn’t distract you from taking advantage of a less flashy but more practical opportunity. Read the rest of this entry »

By John Greenfield

It’s a Sunday night in Aurora and a fiberglass dinosaur wearing the #34 jersey of Chicago Bears legend Walter Payton smiles down at my friend Eric and me as we clink glasses of Sweetness Stout, toasting the end of another epic walk. We’re at America’s Brewpub at the Roundhouse Complex, formerly co-owned by the late running back. The massive circular limestone structure was built in 1856 as a railroad maintenance workshop.

The dark beer helps kill the pain in my weary shoulders and blistered feet. I’ve just finished a forty-mile-plus hike from Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood across the entire width of the western suburbs. For two-and-a-half days I’ve traversed a landscape of cul-de-sacs, strip malls, parking lots and freeways, mitigated by miles on the lush Illinois Prairie Path trail system and multiple stops at brewpubs and tiki bars. In a half hour I’ll catch a Metra commuter train home from the station next door—I’m eager to return to the city and its dense, pedestrian-friendly grid.

Why did I subject myself to this death march across DuPage County? I love to walk. It’s a form of transportation that shows me details of my surroundings that I’d never notice on a bicycle, my usual travel mode, let alone in an automobile. So after my fortieth birthday this spring I decided to mark the occasion with a forty-mile pilgrimage to the Fox River, the western boundary of the Chicago metropolitan region. I hoped walking across the suburbs would reveal the redeeming qualities of a land built around cars. Read the rest of this entry »

One young college student, balanced on the shoulders of another, wobbles dangerously while the lower one cringes. “Low five!” he screams, and claps hands with the scavenger-hunt judge beside me, successfully fulfilling said item on the list of required finds or feats. Over the next hour, as people rush around the quads trying to figure out “Nearest what classroom building you can find a Ferrari?” and “the theorem illustrated on Eckhart” before time runs out, this happens thirty times. Thirty.

Students from the University of Chicago are attempting to break the official Guinness World Record for the largest scavenger hunt, one currently held by 212 children from St. Anthony’s Catholic School in Ontario.

This record-breaking attempt is happening just as the twenty-fifth annual UChicago Scav Hunt, one of the school’s zaniest and talked-about traditions, is underway. The entire event is a four-day-long frenzy to collect almost 300 items, including “The most evil thing you can build using only the parts and materials included with one IKEA item” and “brownies baked using only the power of the sun.” Captivated students abandon their student groups, midterms and souls to fulfill hundreds of insane challenges, putting their intellects to use in ways that seem both geeky and totally, unashamedly cool. So today, in the warm sun of a late Friday afternoon, they’re trying to break the Guinness World Record, an effort that is just one small part of the larger Scav Hunt.

“It’s crazy,” says one student, a first-year, who is sitting beside her team and planning their attack, “I want to break a world record! I want to buy the ‘Guinness Book of World Records’ and say, ‘Hey, I did that.’” Read the rest of this entry »

Don Washington with onetime mayoral candidate Patricia Watkins

While Mayor Emanuel is still settling into his new office, political website Mayoral Tutorial (mayoraltutorial.com) will be celebrating its new angle: keeping an eye on him. The site, which provides research and commentary on public policy in Chicago, was set up as a way to keep track of the issues during the 2010 mayoral campaign, but has been static since the election.

Creator Don Washington, a political director and policy researcher, says it’s high time to update as Mayor Emanuel goes from just a Twitter handle to the real deal. “During the campaign people went to it in droves,” he says. “Folks said you should really keep it up, as a way to keep track of the Emanuel administration and the city council.”

The relaunch party at the Heartland Cafe on May 17 will include skits, songs, stand-up and speeches from artists, activists and musicians. While it might be a celebration, there will definitely be an educational component to the night.

Washington regularly sets up “agitational” town halls around the city as a way to shake up citizens and get them engaged in the political arena. He brings in speakers from unions, universities and the business world to discuss policy issues with ordinary people, often dispelling political rumors and misinformation. Read the rest of this entry »