Tag Archives: Chicago Reader

July 16, 2012 · 2:24 am

Sunday Scraps 66

1. WORK: Great Chicago Reader essay on how the phrase “work hard, play hard” sometimes means the opposite, and how 35, single, and broke might not be the worst thing.

2. BOOKS: Troy, Michigan employed a creative campaign in reverse psychology to save their local library.

3. LGBTQ: William McGowan at Slate profiles an extortion ring that targeted closeted gay men in the 1960s.

4. CUTE: NPR reporter “interviews” his 5-year-old about why she cut her 3-year-old sister’s hair.

5. LANGUAGE: National Geographic has a slideshow of speakers of dying languages. Fun fact, a language dies every fourteen days.

6. WORDS: Think you read a lot? Think again. Nancy Pelosi is interviewed on her reading habits by the Atlantic Wire.

Related Post: Saturday 65: Nicki Minaj on double standards, Margaret Atwood on Twitter, lady scientists

Related Post: Sunday 64: Word games, comic strips, Genevieve Bell

3 Comments

Filed under Advertising, Books, Chicago, Media, Politics, Really Good Writing by Other People

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

December 19, 2011 · 4:02 pm

That Time of Year When Everyone Makes Lists (Part 2!)

Last week, I posted part 1 of my Best Things I Read on the Internet series. Here’s part 2. Enjoy!

  • “Real Women” - Filling a Much-Needed Void (Hanne Blank): Short, succinct, dead-on. “There is no wrong way to have a body.”
  • “Paper Tigers” - New York Magazine (Wesley Yang): These are painful lessons about growing up as “other” that Yang describes, but each lesson is told with such breathtaking observational talent that you can hardly fault him for drawing attention to the cracks and crevices of the Asian-American experience.
  • The Price of Intolerance - Chicago Reader (Steve Bogira): It’s 1971 in Back-of-the-Yards, a neighborhood in Chicago in the midst of tremendous change. It’s a national story couched in the vernacular of the local.
  • “Poor Teaching for Poor Children…In the Name of Reform” - Education Week (Alfie Kohn): Do you think you know what’s wrong with schools? You’re probably wrong. This essay is the closest thing I’ve read to identifying exactly why the education I received was so outstanding, and why that’s unbelievably unfair.
  • “My First Time, Twice” - Guernica (Ariel Levy): Intimacy, angst, pressure, desire, fear… it’s all a bundle of crazy when you’re 14. That’s how old Ariel Levy was when she decided that the clock was literally ticking on her virginity.
  • “A Whiff o History” - Boston Globe (Courtney Humphries) – Are a history geek? Does thinking about the implications of recreating historical smells get you all excited? Yeah… me too.

Related Post: I list I wrote on sane portrayals of adult sexuality on TV for Smart Girls, Stupid Things

Related Post: A list of shows that merit the “Girl, White Guy, Non-White Guy” label, with visual evidence.

2 Comments

Filed under Body Image, Sex, Really Good Writing by Other People, Education, Chicago

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 6, 2011 · 10:23 am

Way to Go, Chicago Reader

Sam Navarro, one of two men featured in the story (Image: Chicago Reader)

I’m on a plane. Read this essay in my absence, I swear it will knock your socks off. It’s the story of a racial tensions in Back of the Yards in Chicago in 1971. When the shit hit the fan, the futures of a white South Side parent and a black teenager got tangled up. Forty years later, they reflect on that summer. Warning: it’s a two-part story and part two hasn’t been published yet; prepare for a cliffhanger.

Perhaps I’ve been underestimating the Chicago Reader all along.

Related Post: I want this map of Chicago.

Related Post: Modern day racial tensions, in the form of Obama family photos.

2 Comments

Filed under Chicago, Really Good Writing by Other People

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,