2/13/2006

Today in city called windy

Sun-T:
 
* Zay Smith in QT pretends to be above it all with ref. to "supermarket headline of the month; FOOL AND HIS MONEY STILL TOGETHER AFTER 35 YEARS" by not saying which tabloid had it.  Come on, Zay, cough it up.  Which one?
 
* The exec committees of the priests' council ("presbyteral," including deacons: Presbyterians, watch out, they have your term in hand) and of the association of priests (unofficial but longstanding) defend Cardinal-Archbishop George in a blather-filled letter which hints at why Catholic sermons are so bad.  Grit your teeth and read it, like you grit them and read C. George in The Catholic (vs. what other kind?) New World every two weeks.  Turgid, believe me.
 
* The Bears' Terry "Tank" Johnson, he think he hot stuff.  Told a downtown cop he'd bust him up were it not for his badge and gun, when the cop picked on his illegally parked vehicle on Rush St. at almost 4 a.m.  Which is why cops have badge and gun.  Bad boy, Tank.  Yo mama gonna get you.  (Don't tell him I said this, ain't got no badge, aint' got no gun.)
 
Chi Trib:
 
* Monday with Charles and Dennis gives us K'hammer calling out the Muslim moderates and Byrne tilting at windmills (for power) and all in all giving us stuff to chew on energy-wise, and I don't mean Mars bars.
 
* The NYT obit of Peter Benchley sets me straight: he's GRANDson of Robert, who sat at the Algonquin Hotel round table with "Mrs. Parker" and features prominently in the movie of that name (plus "& the Vicious Circle," about Dorothy.  And a splendid movie it is, with Jennifer Jason Leigh doing a star turn as Mrs. P.  Such a movie.  OPPL does not have it, unfortunately, but got it for this viewer, who is grateful.  It's a good obit, by the way; reads well anyhow and I assume (hope?) is accurate in what it denotes and what it connotes.  Very important that last.
 
* Last but not least, the cruelly literate (cruel to her competition) Julia Keller reviews the latest Stephen King novel, Cell, as in phone, as in signalling  the end of the world.  She starts by characterizing King as a virtual force of nature, at least as writers go.  She notes his "gorgeous phrase," "a kind of haunted avidity" and his character's referring to cell phones -- what I consider the defining character of our age, such as it is, even more than use of Internet -- as the "devil's intercoms."
 
 She does the novel for us -- and the film can't be far away: King writes the BEST stuff for films, and gets the BEST directors and cast -- and tosses in an interview with a Columbia College teacher, author of Technophobia! Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology, Daniel Dinello.  What's more, she tells when and where Dinello is talking about and signing copies of his book -- Hothouse, 31 E. Balbo, 6 p.m., 3/2.  Shucks, I might go there.  It's free.  Call 312 344 7383 for more info.  That's good: a little cultural vitality, tying local to international.

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