Live Active Culture

WHETHER THEY COME FROM the unconscious, the spirit realm, or both, or neither, it's an amazing process -- and all the more so for its my...

POETRY IS THE one form of entertainment loaded with hoards of mediocres completely unconscious of the fact that they are supposed to be ent...

ONCE UPON A TIME -- on May 26, 2000, to be precise--I received a most intriguing e-mail from an "E Aguilar."* The subject line re...

THE THING THAT'S so cool about growing old as a Gen-Xer is that for several years now, VH-1 has been replaying our entire youth for us...

but I'm so tired of the Super Bowl Shuffle gettin all the play in the wake of the Bears victory, while the sweetest '85 Bears char...

  AND MUSIC BY MUSICIANS is the new punk rock. Yes! So I have proclaimed it,  and so shall it be. While googling the term "art a...

TOM CRUISE IS a "Christlike figure" in Scientology? So says a high-ranking member of the celebrity-stalking cult . At least, so s...

ONE OF THE FUN THINGS about my career trajectory is that I'm probably one of few people to have both: 1) interviewed Daley as a repor...

THEY INTONED GRAVELY on every national newscast. 1) Is "national mourning" mandatory? Is there a law? 2) If not, then I'...

MTV AND VH-1 have perfected the art of serving up pop culture offal you're ashamed to be caught watching, with just enough snark to dis...

so here goes. This one will feature opinions and information about the arts (perhaps with a slight bias toward my hometown, Chicago), as you...

Compiled from the research papers of Mrs. Hartmann's sixth grade class, January 1997 In a country named Egypt They believed that ther...

Compiled from the research papers of Mrs. Hartmann's sixth grade class, January 1997 In a country named Egypt They believed that ther...

EARLIER TONITE I was in the Underground Cafe at Columbia College, sewing popped-off buttons back onto my new jacket (looks nice, but the qu...

Coed marketing A fake protest for "real fruit" draws a crowd on Chicago's Mag Mile IT'S AROUND 2:30 on a sunny Frida...

AS A NATURE LOVER, I'm a frequenter of our region's fine county forest preserves and State parks. I feel better when I'm ...

SO THERE I WAS AT Tojo Gallery last night, casually chatting with a butt-naked guy and girl. And trying not to look down. They were there w...

SO VINCE VAUGHN AND Jennifer Aniston did the unthinkable. They went ahead and filmed The Breakup without me.

AFTER A DISASTROUS first couple of days as a server at a private club, I did better today.  No dumb mistakes. (Well, at least none that the ...

WILD HORSES  WAS  the Anarchist Film Festival selection I came to see at the Autonomous Zone. Real good. The anarchists themselves -- borrrr...