Archive for March, 2009

“Chicago’s Triple Threat”

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

This weekend’s Books & Media section of the Chicago Tribune reviews The Slide alongside new books by Jesse Ball and Patrick Somerville, two men I know and admire. The ender paragraph is a doozy…

Beachy writes with quiet force about innocence and corruption, about how even something as transparent as water can be a source of deception. In sizzling dialogue, madcap action and striking soliloquies, Beachy grapples with the toxicity of ambivalence and the complexities of inheritance, grief and the failure to communicate as his brooding young hero begins to discern what it means to be a man.

Slay the heart of the earth

Friday, March 6th, 2009

I admit resisting when Chris Bower suggested I come hear his friends’ band. I have no excuse beyond I was…busy? Or more, doubted the merit of a band I knew to wear costumes? This was in 2004, I think. And sometime soon after, another Chris (Shea) said to me, listen to this song right now. On the computer. And I did and it was “Murdered at the Bar” from the stellar The Grinning Corpse Who Went to Town, and that was the death of my resistance.

The Bitter Tears, geniuses, have released a second album called Jam Tarts in the Jakehouse, and it is perhaps even stellarER than their first. Tomorrow night, at Chicago’s The Hideout, they will play an album release show. Their shows are carnival lovefests of spinning wonder and manic terror. I could not possibly recommend it more.

Response to terrorist attack makes bus driver a hero

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

t1homebusdrivercnnThug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug. Thug.

Refreshing Sincerity Sans Shoes

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

Kind of late on this one, but February’s Chicago Magazine (with Michelle Obama, aka Mrs. Hope, on the cover) featured this nice little article by Joe Meno. And I’m honored to be grouped with Nami Mun and Frances De Pontes Peebles, two very talented novelists. I’m also not wearing any damn shoes in the photo. So.

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