Here's what we're reading today:
The Great West Ridge/Rogers Park Cabbage War: Everyone knows Cabbage Patch dolls are horrible and terrifying, but in the late 1800s, residents of a very divided Far North Side exchanged barbs — like "cabbage head" — as they sparred over taxes, parks and booze during what is known as the West Ridge/Rogers Park Cabbage War. Reporter Linze Rice is learning about this interesting snippet of history from WBEZ's Curious City show, a collaborative project that explores the many quirks that makes Chicago, well, Chicago. In the accompanying video, you'll see how squabbles over how parks should be funded and opinions on where one can drink originated, and how they've affected the area today. So for a moment, put down those pitchforks and cabbages, and take a stroll down memory lane.
"Every stripe of Bucktown and Wicker Park citizenry" Digging Small Cheval: Tribune's Michael Nagrant popped by the new Small Cheval at 6 p.m. on a Wednesday and in addition to a 30-person deep ordering line, found "a satisfying stomach massage of greasy, peppery beef oozing with the very finest in food processor ingenuity whose richness is cut by the perfect acidic onion and pickle component, all smooshed between a master baker’s bun." Read Nagrant's full raving account here. Since Small Cheval opened a few weeks back, Wicker Park reporter Alisa Hauser can attest to the lines as well as the amazing burger smells wafting down the 1700 block of North Milwaukee Avenue.
The Gospel According to Stephen: Reporter Heather Cherone found herself transfixed by Joel Lovell's profile of Stephen Colbert in GQ, who of course got his start in comedy at Northwestern University and at Second City. Colbert, the youngest of 11 boys, whose father died in a plane crash with two of his brothers when he was 10, reveals a deeply thoughtful and intensely religious outlook that upends the conventions of most glossy-magazine celebrity profiles. Colbert will attempt to translate that perspective into TV ratings gold as the new host of CBS' Late Show starting Sept. 8.
Urban Studies: David Simon has made some of the best television ever (The Wire, Homicide, Treme) says senior editor Andrew Herrmann. Now, he's back with an HBO six-parter about race called Show Me a Hero. Simon's work reflects life in American cities and his comments in a recent New York Times interview are thoughtful: "I believe in the city. I have to. I live on a planet where the rise in urbanity requires all of us to master the multicultural beast that is the city. We have to figure out the city or we fail...For every city to thrive, burying the American pathology of race has to be this next century's first order of business." Simon's hopeful: "The fact is, more and more Americans are figuring out race, and their kids are figuring it out, with a degree of sophistication that is progress."
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