Features

Hot Tips From the Experts
by Dan Santow
Ever wondered how Studs Terkel gets people to open up, or how Koko Taylor sings the blues? We wanted to know that and more. So we asked 40 Chicagoans – all tops in their field – to tell us how they do the things they do.

What does Lynn Martin Want?
by Greg Hinz
Can the veteran Illinois pol’s in-your-face style play the White House? The woman who is seen as the Republican Party’s most viable female candidate wants to find out.

Haunted By Angels
by David Cowan
The deadly 1958 fire at Our Lady of the Angels School nearly cost John Raymond his life. The search for scapegoats cost Raymond’s father, the school’s janitor, his reputation. Thirty-five years later, Raymond is still troubled by the memories.

Rooker: Portrait of a Serial Bad Guy
by Cindy Pearlman
Michael Rooker has made a career of playing murderers and other undesirables on the wide screen. But beneath that tough exterior, he’s just a nice guy with a wife, a kid, and a house in Rogers Park. Really he is.

Just Plane Cheap
by Libby Morse
How low can they go? A new crop of bargain airlines flying out of Midway is offering rock-bottom, no-strings fares. But is the service cut-rate, too?

Departments

Letters

Frontlines
A guy has designs on the holidays; an actress cops a role.

Metro
by Greg Hinz
An all-male district becomes a battleground of the sexes; pols grab land on the new board map.

Chicago Woman
by Marcia Froelke Coburn
Two doctors in the house – a husband-and-wife team takes on breast cancer.

Stage & Screen
by Penelope Mesic
It’s fight or flight as mother and daughter do battle with bleakness at Steppenwolf.

Show Biz
by Penelope Mesic
Actor Aidan Quinn relies on the pluck of the Irish to play a homicidal detective in his own hometown.

Prime Time

Hot dates around town this month

Real Estate

by Dennis Rodkin
A Japanese-style retreat complete with teahouse, rare statuary, and lavish gardens. Plus, recent and notable sales

Dining
by Dennis Ray Wheaton
Surprisingly, at Michael Jordan’s sports-themed food arena and at gaudy, star-struck Planet Hollywood, the food is better than it has to be.

Budget Beat
by Anne Spiselman and David Novick
Warming trends: head for Mediterranean climes via a Parisian bistro, a Greek taverna, or a Spanish tapas bat – in the dead of a Chicago winter.

Back Talk
by Henry Hanson
Shulamit Ran, Dick Phelan, Paul Simon, Michael Bilandic, Georgie Anne Geyer, Cheri Eisenberg, Jack Mabley, Fernando Botero, and Helyn Goldenberg