Features How Your High School Stacks Up by Dennis Rodkin Chicago does a by-the-numbers evaluation of 233 public high schools in the six-county metro area, looking at school spending, as well as teacher experience, test scores, and other academic categories—including an exclusive appraisal of the relationship between money and test scores. PLUS: Educational experts discuss … Read more
We asked the experts to help us name the ten essential Chicago novels. The result: a list with big shoulders
Bright spots on the month’s cultural calendar
Two things everybody around here is talking about: fashion and film. We’re coming upon Fashion Focus Chicago, a week of hoopla surrounding local designers and local retailers. I’ll be blogging the whole thing, camera in tow. It’s also time for the Chicago International Film Fest. And since I can’t possibly be two places at once, I’m thrilled that Chicago‘s web editor, Esther Kang, will be scouting the fest. So for the next few weeks of Coda, you get two bloggers instead of one! Read her scoop on opening night…
It’s so … quiet … it is so … quiet. My first big outing since I got back from Paris: to walk through the MCA’s new rock and roll-themed exhibition, Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967. Compared to the exhibit I just saw at the Palais de Tokyo, Sympathy is so … sterile. I want to scream—we’re talking about rock here! …
Victoria Lautman chats with Andrea Barrett.
Noteworthy new releases for October
October brings cinema paradiso for film buffs. But for the rest of us, there is a sudden superabundance of esoteric imagery, offbeat venues, and C-list directors and actors. Where’s the best stuff? Chicago asked a film fest vet to draft a cheat sheet.
With a passion for tradition, the investment guru Richard Driehaus has become one of the city’s most dedicated advocates for historic preservation. This fall, he takes his commitment further by opening a museum of decorative arts in a phenomenally lavish 19th-century mansion on the Near North Side.
Forty years later, through writing The Defiant Muse, Chicago playwright Nicholas A. Patricca has finally accomplished his goal of getting to know Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.
