Lake Geneva Wine Festival

September 6-9, 2007- Sponsored by Chicago Magazine, the 2007 Lake Geneva Wine Festival presented the artistry of acclaimed winemakers and chefs, featuring headliner talent from Carnivale, Opera, Le Lan, Room 21 and Spiaggia to over 1,500 participants in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Intimate wine dinners, seminars, a gala event, and a lakeside grand tasting and auction were included. Visit www.lakegenevawinefestival.com.

Fandom Takes Me to Milwaukee

I’ve been a fan of Joanna Newsom since 2005, when I saw her at a Jeff Tweedy-curated, Wired magazine-sponsored concert at the Vic. The theme of the concert was the future of music, and she was on the bill, along with The Handsome Family.

The Handsome Family played first, and I thought, well, if this is the future of music, it sucks. Then some of the stagehands dragged a whopping gold harp on stage. Newsom, a pixie of a girl, came wandering out, straddled the harp like a bull, and started plucking away…

November 2007 Table of Contents

Features 124 Best Dishes We scoured the city for the top offerings on Chicago’s world-class restaurant scene. From appetizer through dessert, from über haute pineapple rum soup to down-home juicy fried chicken, here’s your road map to the 124 yummiest dishes around. How the CIA Enlisted the Chicago Mob to Put a Hit on Castro … Read more

Supersized Marquee: The Original Jersey Boy

The Garden-State Path
Jersey Boys, the Tony-winning musical biography of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, follows the group from blue-collar roots to pop fame, bumps in the road (mafia high jinks, gambling, womanizing, heartbreak) and all. Chicago’s much-anticipated run is onstage now, but the show’s inspiration isn’t idling in the wings. A consummate professional who parlayed his trademark falsetto into 25 top-40 hits and counting, Valli just released a new compilation of love ballads, Romancing the ’60s, and has an upcoming concert date at the Chicago Theatre. Marquee spoke with Valli recently about his long career…

Intern Meets Skintern

Why do I love an intern? Let me count the ways. Not only are they useful for sorting through my mound of mail, fact-checking, and picking up small writing assignments, but, like little lab mice, occasionally they’re fun for an experiment or two.

It would have been just a day’s work to have one of my most industrious interns, Leona Liu, to talk to Mr. Skin, a local “documentarian” of sex and nudity in mainstream films. Mr. Skin has recently published a book that counts boobs and butts for movies like Action Jackson (breasts: 4) and Amazon Women on the Moon (breasts: 5, butts: 3). Who does all the counting? Well, Mr. Skin and his army of “Skinterns,” of course!…

New Country

Tom Schraeder and his Gram Parsons-Wilco-Paul Westerberg-Tim Booth-inspired sound, fresh off Lollapalooza, are on the brink of stardom.