CHICAGO — Here's what we're reading today.
Riverwalk romance: Couples have taken engagement photos near the Chicago River for years, but now the city's new Riverwalk is apparently setting the scene for marriage proposals too. Reporter David Matthews is reading in Loop North News that at least two men have successfully convinced someone to marry them at the Riverwalk, which opened earlier this year. One guy popped the question last month on the steps of the River Theater between Clark and LaSalle streets, and another in August underneath the Dearborn Street bridge after vino at City Winery. The passion is intoxicating.
Did Avril Lavigne Die in 2002? In the years since her breakout hits "Complicated" and "SK8R Boi" catapulted Canadian teen Avril Lavigne to stardom in 2002, the popstar's career has taken some interesting twists and turns, including unexpected romances (spiky-haired Deryck Whibley? That guy from Nickelback??) and the ill-advised foray into Japan's Harajuku style. So maybe we shouldn't be surprised that conspiracy theories popped up on the web late this week theorizing that the real Avril died in 2002 and was replaced by a body double named Melissa Vandella, who has been making mistakes on the real Lavigne's behalf for 13 years. The theory first popped up on a Brazilian fansite whose author has since claimed the blog post was a hoax, but senior editor Lizzie Schiffman Tufano still isn't fully convinced.
Bungalow Belt Myths Busted: Those charming bungalows that many Chicagoans take such great pains to preserve were once the McMansions of their day — 60 percent larger than the average home being built in the early 1920s. Atlantic.com has a terrific piece by Daniel Hertz that bursts the nostalgia bubble surrounding this iconic architectural style. Though bungalows have become the backbone of many of Chicago's neighborhoods, they initially sprung up on the fringe of suburban sprawl and contributed to the rise of the automobile. "Critics accused the new bungalow neighborhoods not just of being ugly, but of ripping apart the social fabric of the city," writes Hertz. "The same bungalows that seem to us quaint and charming were tacky and soulless to many of the people watching them be built."
Gun Fallacies: The tragic shooting of 18 people in Oregon Thursday, nine fatally, has already turned up the political rhetoric on gun control again. Rolling Stone is making an effort to purge the specious arguments from the debate in an attempt to refocus the debate.
Amazon, Can't We All Just Get Along?: There's lots of appeal to shopping on Amazon, but the online superstore is making a change that might give pause to some shoppers. Reporter Ariel Cheung is reading in Slate that Amazon will stop selling Apple and Google devices that don't easily run Amazon's streaming content. It seems a little shady, especially when recalling that Amazon buried listings of books from publisher Hachette during strained negotiations. Of course, there are plenty of websites that will still sell Apple TV and Google Chromecast, but if you can't get something delivered by an Amazon drone, by tomorrow, what's the point?
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