Feature: The Fine Arts Building—A Monument to Dreamers—Celebrates 125 Years
The first things you notice when you get off the elevator or walk up the stairs are the sounds: the tinkle of a piano perhaps or the voice of a […]
June Sawyers has published more than 25 books. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, New City, San Francisco Chronicle, and Stagebill. She teaches at the Newberry Library and is the founder of the arts group, the Phantom Collective.
Review: Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood—Do All the Good You Can, by Gary Scott Smith
How can someone be so famous and yet so misunderstood? It’s easy if your name is Hillary Clinton. Gary Scott Smith, author of Do All the Good You Can, contends […]
Poem: Taylor Knows
June Sawyers wrote this poem—as a way to record her experience—on a walk over to Soldier Field this weekend during the Taylor Swift The Eras Tour. Taylor knowsyour secretsyour vulnerabilitiesyour […]
Review: Highwaymen, Hookers, and Thieves: The Threepenny Opera at Theo Ubique
The songs in Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera remain standards: “Pirate Jenny,” “Tango Ballad,” and especially “Mack the Knife,” which is arguably the world’s most famous murder […]
Essay: Divine Decadence—A Look Back at Porchlight’s I Am a Camera and Cabaret
Cabaret has always been about pushing boundaries. But it also has a rich and complicated past. This month Porchlight Music Theatre at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts offered not only […]
Review: The Last Stand, Beacons in the Darkness: Hope and Transformation Among America’s Community Newspapers, by Dave Hoekstra
Dave Hoekstra has loved newspapers since his boyhood in west suburban Naperville. He understands the important role newspapers play in the life of a community, and how a newspaper—the best […]
Review: Gay Old Times, Last Call Chicago, by Rick Karlin and St. Sukie de la Croix
Last Call Chicago is not a narrative book. Rather it is an extensive listing with brief descriptions of 1,001 LGBTQ and LGBTQ-friendly bars and such. But it is also a […]
Poem for Today: Freedom
It happened in Ferris Bueller’s hometown In the Mayberry of the Midwest I first heard about it while listening to WXRT When Terri Hemmert played “All You Need Is Love” […]
Review: Talkin’ about Early Bob Dylan, The Dylan Tapes
Bob Dylan is having a bit of a late-career cultural moment. His most recent album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, was released in June 2019, and the featured single, “Murder Most […]
Poem: The Voice
June Sawyers wrote this poem—as a way to record her experience— after listening to a musician named Andrew perform in Printers Row. It came out of nowhereAt first we barely […]
Essay: Back of the Book, or How I Explain My Profession
It’s the same reaction most every time I tell someone I am an indexer. Blank stare. “You know, the thing at the end of a book,” I offer helpfully.Then, a […]
Essay: Taking a Walkabout on Printer’s Row, a Neighborhood Within a Neighborhood
There is a street in the South Loop—Dearborn from Polk to Harrison is only one block long—that is one of the most charming blocks in the city. I say the […]