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October 2007
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...

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Sale of the Week—Putting the Park(ing) in Lincoln Park
By Dennis Rodkin

List Price: $3.25 million
Sale Price: $3.15 million

The Property: This lavish townhouse has splendid views across the street into Lincoln Park, a nice perk for a house that itself was built to block an unsightly view. In this case, it's the view of a two-story parking structure on a block lined with handsome old co-ops and apartment buildings.

The association of owners in the vintage condo building immediately north of this house had a slim ground-level parking lot that they wanted to expand without fouling up the block. They enlisted the architect Lucien Lagrange to design the parking structure with two townhouses...

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Week 24: Trial of Tears

What do you do when you hear a baby cry?

My first instinct is to run in the other direction. I don’t want to have anything to do with it; the whole thing is the family’s business, not mine. But when my child-to-be starts screaming in four months, I honestly don’t know how I’ll react. I certainly hope I don’t run away. This is a hot-button issue, I’m told, this crying thing, especially as it pertains to sleep. It tends to polarize new parents, most of which fall into one of three camps...

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Supersized Marquee: The Original Jersey Boy
By Rebecca Little

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...

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New on the Market—Reaching for a Record in Clarendon Hills
By Dennis Rodkin

List Price: $3.199 million

The Property: This new 8,500-square-foot house with a deep lot is nearing completion on a curving street in Clarendon Hills. Built by Double Diamond Developers, the house has 16 rooms, including a 3,000-bottle wine room and, off the kitchen, a small "chef's office" that the listing agent, Bryan Bomba, says "would be a good time-out room for one of the kids."...

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Samuelsson, Kahan … and Walken?
By Penny Pollack & Jeff Ruby

C Food
Little by little, it seems every culinary star has begun setting his sights on Chicago. The latest is Marcus Samuelsson, the highly celebrated chef at New York's Aquavit and Riingo, who announced his intention to open C House, a casual seafood restaurant in Streeterville's Affinia Hotel (formerly the Fitzpatrick; 166 E. Superior St.), in March. "Chicago is an unbelievable food town," says Samuelsson, 36. "And I want to be part of that." C House's menu will be full of crowd pleasers such as whole snapper for two, wild salmon, a lobster club sandwich, and a salmon burger—Samuelsson calls it "simplistic food built on great ingredients," which may be a generic sound bite, but when a chef this talented says it, we take note. Look for an open kitchen in the dining room's center to focus on small dishes, and rooftop seating to follow next summer...

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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!...

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Housing Bulletin—Signs of the Times

On Saturday, October 6th, I happened to travel around much of the North Shore. As I went, I counted the for-sale signs in front of houses that had added language touting “Reduced Price” or something similar. In all, I counted 18 advertised reductions out of the 48 for-sale signs I had passed. That’s 37.5 percent.

It turns out my casual count was a little sunnier than reality. Last week, California-based ZipRealty released figures showing that in the Chicago area, 40.8 percent of all homes listed in September had markdowns from their original asking price. Not all houses whose prices have been cut will have a sign out front saying so...

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Week 23: Bridge Over Humbled Waters

More bad news. At synagogue, I saw Nate, an old guy whose daughter’s pregnancy was two weeks ahead of Sarah’s. His daughter miscarried. Her cervix had basically opened up and the fetus came out early, which happens in about one percent of all pregnancies. I practically burst into tears right there in the sanctuary. Nate, who’d been giddy at the prospect of being grandfather just a month ago, now looked miserable. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could say to him.

That night, I held Sarah tight. But not too tight...

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