DOWNTOWN — It's Friday! Which means it's the perfect time to waste your afternoon on cat cafe Kickstarter pages and reading about jagoffs.
Cat Cafe Kickstarter: Howard Ludwig found himself reading what appears to be a PR pitch this morning for a Kickstarter campaign for Blue Cat Cafe. The goal is to surround diners in Austin, Texas with both playful and shy (adoptable) cats. It says the cafe would help to socialize the animals, perhaps readying them for adoption? Not sure if something like this would work in Chicago (Editor's Note: LET'S DO THIS), but kudos for the personalized shot of a kitten asking me for a pledge.
I can haz donations? (Kickstarter/Blue Cat Cafe)
Let's Start a Churro Dog Petition: There’s not much to read here, but in the absence of a “what we’re drooling over” roundup, Lizzie Schiffman Tufano can’t get enough of this new menu item at the Arizona Diamondbacks stadium per their recent Facebook post. Mostly she’s upset that her own hotdog-loving city didn't think of this churro-ice cream-doughnut concoction first.
We feel like we failed you for not thinking of this first. H/T to reader and churro fan Kyle Janis for the find. (Facebook/Arizona Diamondbacks.)
Another One Needlessly Bites the Dust: Another historical and architecturally significant Chicago building could be facing the wrecking ball — even though it found a savior. Join Patty Wetli’s rage-a-thon after reading this detailed report from John Morris for Chicago Patterns on the fate of the Adolph Arnold House in East Garfield Park. Arnold was co-founder of the Schwinn Bicycle Company, and his home, built in 1904, was appropriately schwank. Peter Toalson (one of the dudes behind Longman & Eagle) bought the now-dilapidated property but not a single bank would loan him the money to renovate the house.
Is Mark Kirk Too Moderate? Well-known Republican media sniper William Kelly is out with a new “Truth Squad” post comparing U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk’s support for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to the infamous Bernie Upton campaign slogan “Before It’s Too Late” in his 1983 run against Harold Washington in the general election. Ted Cox thinks it suggests less about the mayoral race and more about the Republican rear-guard opposition Kirk could face in his own re-election bid next year.
Memorable Chicago Jagoffs: At least one Hyde Parker, the writer Saul Bellow, was a jagoff. Sam Cholke is reading Lumpen’s (PDF) “Field Guide to Chicago Jagoffs,” those who seem oblivious to the world two feet past their nose. Is the south lakefront’s progressive politics included in August Spies’ labeling of the “old Left” as jagoffs? Or does Luann Paladino’s “trapped in amber liberal jagoff” apply to Hyde Park’s pols?
At-Risk Teens In (More) Trouble? In his first budget plan, Gov. Rauner proposed deep cuts to social services and higher education. Mina Bloom is reading the Chicago Tribune's article on the impact of cutting funding for state wards over 18. Some child advocates are worried that the decision to eliminate extended services will hurt foster youth. One expert said: "Illinois will be going backward in a very serious way."
Timothy Hutton Grows Up: Thursday night’s debut of the critically-acclaimed "American Crime" on ABC-TV has Andrew Herrmann re-reading the 1980 Roger Ebert review of "Ordinary People," a film set on Chicago’s North Shore. Timothy Hutton won an Oscar for Ordinary People at age 20; in "American Crime" he plays a father in his mid-50s (coincidentally around the same age as Herrmann.) In an interview with the Sun-Times’ Bill Zwecker earlier this week, Hutton recalled making the extraordinary "Ordinary," including staying at the Sheraton in Waukegan (coincidentally not far from where Herrmann grew up.)
Ebert gave four stars to Ordinary People, which he described as a “three-way emotional standoff” -- between Hutton’s troubled teenage character, his mother Mary Tyler Moore and his father, played by Donald Sutherland. The movie, Ebert wrote, “shows them doing what's most difficult to show in fiction -- it shows them changing, learning, and growing.”
Timothy Hutton today, and after his 1981 Oscar win. (ABC-TV/Oscars.org)
McCheapos? A wee morning bout of insomnia had Alisa Hauser steamed up over an email chain between McDonald’s and Brooklyn-based indie band Ex Cops, who were invited by the $90.3 billion global fast food giant to play South by Southwest -- for free! McDonald’s budget unfortunately did not have any room in it for artist fees to pay the duo, though offered them “exposure,” explained a spokeswoman who used the hashtag “#slownewsday” in her response to the band.
The furor will likely strike a chord with any musician, artist, photographer or writer entrenched in the age of the ‘net, where the desire to “consume content” is growing faster than the ability to produce original works. Cue in Gillian Welch’s “Everything is Free.”
