Features

Brains, Brawn, and Blood
by Michael Kiefer
A look at the big, bad Bears defense at the start of a new season

Suite Charity
by Steve Fiffer
Corporate philanthropy in Chicago has become an industry within industry.

Jethro Burns
by Emily Friedman
A seasoned country-music performer shares memories of Homer and Steve Goodman and tells us why Homer and Jethro never played the Ed Sullivan Show.

The Sisters of Barry Street
by Susan Crawford
In the midst of urban sprawl, nuns who have found peace in their convent go out to offer it to the rest of the world.

Cheers!
by Gail Bernstein
A salute to those legendary saloons where the atmosphere is as warm as a shot of bourbon

A Death in the Morning
by Gene Mustain and Rick Soll
How a sophisticated state agency wasted opportunities to alter the odds against a doomed baby boy

Avoiding the Potholes
by John Lampinen
Questions about sponsorship, management, and television coverage cloud the future of America’s Marathon/Chicago.

Hand-Offs, Scopes, and Blips
by Grant Pick
Most air traffic controllers are take-charge cowboys undaunted by their job of movin’ airplanes.

The Rabbi of Lud
fiction by Stanley Elkin
How did this improbable guy ever get to be a rabbi?

Teacher’s Pet
by Alan Gross
Can you teach a drooling, whining, obstinate dog new tricks?

Thoroughly Modern Lizzies
by Jack Star
On a 26-mile-long assembly line, robots and humans team up to produce the Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable.

Departments

Letters

Upfront
by Henry Hanson
The uproar over Upfront‘s Hilda paintings sends model back to Sweden; the Prince of Wales flies in for polo and PR; a coming-out celebration for the Art Institute’s famed El Greco.

On the Aisle: “Fantastique” or “Bathetique”
by Claudia Cassidy
We look at the same stage yet see and hear different things.

Theatre: Imitation of Life
by Tom Valeo

James Yoshimura has crafted a prescient play about labor troubles at a big-city newspaper.

Books: Perfect Unity
Life with Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt: They did it their way.
The Goods
by Jamie Gilson
October is full of sense, common and uncommon: a coatrack that doubles as a ladder, great silver jewelry at below-the-border prices, a bookstore devoted to crime and intrigue, honey made by city-smart bees.
Movies: Lynch on Love
by Peter Keough
A new nightmare from America’s most polymorphously perverse filmmaker
Travel: South to Summer
by Jane Samuelson
Eight advocates of winter holidays tell what they like best about their favorite islands.

M.W. Newman: Confessions of a City Bloke
It’s time to offer a few thoughts about this and that.

City: This Building is Not Cool
by David McCracken
The State of Illinois Center: If you think those blue-and-white stripes are goofy, wait till you hear what’s been going on inside.

Dining on a Budget: Early-Bird Bargains
by Anne Spiselman and David Novick
Helpful strategies if your appetite is bigger than your wallet

Dining on the Town: Parlez-Vous Franchise?
by Carla and Allen Kelson
A lot of action is cookin’ on Ontario Street.

The Best of Chicago: A Bird Man’s Tale
by Sherri Gilman-Tompkins
Can you make a living hawking hawks? Ask Craig Hendee.

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