“If Americans don’t fall in love with soccer after this, well, maybe they never will,” said Jim Litke, the sports columnist for the Associated Press, after the US women’s soccer team defeated Brazil in a dramatic comeback in the quarterfinal of the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup earlier this month. (They lost the final in a hard-fought nail biter.) The fact is, women’s soccer is a transient phenomenon for most sports fans in the United States. Every four years a squad of twenty-one of America’s best players give it their all, excite the crowds and typically walk away having performed very well. They’ve never finished the tournament in less than third place in its twenty-year history and on two occasions, the team walked away champions. Unlike their male counterparts, who have to play third fiddle to superior play in Europe and Latin America, women in America are arguably the best at soccer in the world. Yet a short time after the tournament ends, the women fade back into obscurity for the next four years as the American fair-weather love affair with soccer continues. But now a newish professional team aims to turn this occasional flirtation into a long-term commitment for Chicago fans. Read the rest of this entry »

This Week’s Biggest Gainers:

1
Neil Bluhm
The JMB mogul hit the jackpot, opening the Rivers Casino, the first in Cook County. The poor li’l billionaire, he could use the ka-ching, we’re sure.

2
Bill Davies
The British real estate developer proposed a colossal development centered around the old Post Office that would give Chicago the tallest building title once again. Only half the reports were skeptical about his plan. Read the rest of this entry »

By Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): I love how the poet Rachel Loden describes her impressions of Daniel Borzutzky’s”The Book of Interfering Bodies.” She says that reading it is like “chancing upon a secret lake full of trembling lilies that projectile vomit both poems and petroleum.” I call this imaginary scene to your attention, Aries, because I’m wondering if you might encounter a metaphorically similar landscape in the coming week. The astrological omens suggest that you’re attracted to that kind of strange beauty, surreal intensity and tenderness mixed with ferocity. Read the rest of this entry »

This Week’s Biggest Gainers:

1
Amy LePeilbet
Despite the crushing loss in the final, Crystal Lake-native LePeilbet and the rest of the US women’s soccer team made Chicago, and America, proud. And kept their shirts on, to boot.

2
Matthew Lewis
The “Harry Potter” star attended the AMC River East premiere of the new movie and then hit the town. Apparently he had a little too much fun at a local bar—those kids really have grown up. Read the rest of this entry »

By Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): I dreamed you were in a cake store. Every delicious kind of cake you could imagine was there: carrot cake, strawberry cheesecake, gooey butter cake, rich chocolate cake with four layers of cherries and whipped cream, birthday cakes that must have been baked in paradise. Sadly, there was a problem: You weren’t allowed to buy anything, even though you had enough money. A big sign on the wall said, simply, “Absolutely no cakes available for Aries.” What do you think my dream means? More importantly, what are you going to do about the situation? I suggest that in my next dream, you get a friend to buy a cake for you. Either that, or go to a different cake store. One way or another, the astrological omens say it’s high time for you to get the cake you want. Read the rest of this entry »

The Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust is honoring its namesake’s position in the rich heritage of Chicago’s architectural history with the grand opening of the new Shop Wright gift store on July 21 in the Rookery, one of Chicago’s oldest and most historically significant buildings. Wright remodeled the lobby of the Rookery in 1905 and it was then restored to his designs at the end of the twentieth century. Heidi Farina, director of multi-channel retailing at the Preservation Trust, explains that the Shop Wright opening has always been the next step after the central offices of the Trust were relocated to the Rookery in late 2010. “It allows us to reach a new, different type of audience,” she says, “not only the tourists but the business community of Chicago.” The grand opening, which the public can attend, will feature “champagne and shopping” from 5pm-7pm together with appetizers, three prize giveaways and a ten-percent discount to the public and twenty-percent to members of the Trust.  Alongside the boozing and browsing, the Trust is offering rare tours to the Rookery Vault storage, which usually has no public access and features catalogued architectural items from recent renovations, including ornamental ironwork and elevator grilles. Farina says that the gift store will contain many new items that incorporate the Rookery’s design styles with floral, geometric patterns and elements taken from the elevators, as well as bird styles that pay homage to the heritage of the Rookery’s name. These will slot in beside the rich catalogue of Shop Wright’s furniture, books, accessories, jewelry and art inspired by Wright’s design work. Together with the new store, tours of the iconic Rookery are being expanded to five days a week beginning at noon every day, Monday through Friday. (Ben Small)

The Go Wright grand opening is July 21 at the Rookery, 209 South LaSalle, 5pm-7pm. RSVP at gowright.org/rsvp-rookery.html.

“If Tour de Fat was a drug,” an attendee to the cycling festival says on its Facebook page, “I’d say it was the same chemical compounds released in your brain and euphoric experience that we know as love.”

Those interested in the way beer, free music and bicycle riding can stimulate that particular feeling would do well to check out the upcoming Chicago leg of the Tour de Fat, which comes to Chicago this Saturday. Centered around a costumed bike parade, the festival, which is hosted by the Colorado-based New Belgium Brewing Company, will have an emphasis upon sustainability. The Car-for-Bike program allows one pre-chosen Chicago citizen to trade in their polluting car for an eleven-speed handcrafted bicycle for one year. Performing acts this year are appropriately eclectic, including vaudeville comedy act The Daredevil Chicken Club, psychedelic blue-grass band The Dovekins, and  self-described “circus punk marching band” Mucca Pazza. Seventies rock mainstay Free Energy headlines the stage. (Michael Gillis)

The Tour de Fat is in Chicago on July 16. Registration for the bike parade begins at 9am, with the parade itself being at 10am at Palmer Square, North Kedzie Avenue and West Palmer Square. Performances continue at Palmer Square from 11am to 4pm. 

This week’s biggest gainers:

1
Paul Konerko
They love him. They really love him. And put him in the last All-Star slot with 8.4 million votes.

2
Dave Matthews
His Caravan invigorated the blighted Southeast Side, helping erase his earlier tour bus mal-fecal-sance. Read the rest of this entry »

By Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the coming days you have permission from the universe to dwell less on what needs to be resisted, protested, flushed out and overcome. Instead you have license to concentrate on what deserves to be fostered, encouraged, bolstered and invited in. Sound like fun? It will be if you can do it, but it may not be as easy to accomplish as it sounds. There are many influences around you that are tempting you to draw your energy from knee-jerk oppositionalism and cynical naysaying. So in order to take full advantage of what life is offering you, you will have to figure out how to rebel in a spirit of joy and celebration. Read the rest of this entry »

This Week’s Biggest Gainers:

1
Armando Uvalle
Forget about sharks. Uvalle prevented his own horror story by saving his son after he was snatched up by a convicted sex offender on North Avenue Beach.

2
Patrick “Deep Dish” Bertoletti
The Chicagoan came a close second in a hotdog-eating competition in Coney Island, a mere nine wieners behind Joey Chestnut’s triumphant tally of sixty-two. Read the rest of this entry »