Photo: Kristine Sherred

Chicago Zen Buddhist Temple

Past Wrigley Field, past the crowds in red and blue, the sunburned faces, the men selling umbrella hats, the bars and bros and drunken hos, the noise and sweat and smoke. Down Addison past the taverns, tucked away on the corner of Cornelia and Paulina is the Zen Buddhist Temple. It seems such an odd little brick building, out of place on the loud streets. Brightly colored Korean paper lanterns strung outside the entrance sway in the warm wind. Stepping inside all sound is sucked away. A woman in the lobby bows her head in greeting and points to a shelf where others have set their shoes. The brown tiled floors are cool against bare feet. It feels like another universe. The temple is at the top of the stairs. More paper lanterns hang from the ceiling. The room is lit solely by natural light coming from the walls of windows, sweet-smelling jasmine incense fills the space and four stone statues of Buddha and his followers sit smiling from the altar. No one speaks. Everyone sits cross-legged on round pillows atop square cushions, adjusting their feet to point upward on their knees. The gathering is small, maybe twenty-five people, and is a mix of obvious newcomers and devoted Buddhists. In the back corner two tattooed skinheads begin to hum in low steady tones.  Read the rest of this entry »

WFMT

This week is the 60th anniversary of what many consider not only the most unique radio station in Chicago, but in the country, if not the world. When Bernard and Rita Jacobs went on the air at 3pm on December 13, 1951 for an eight-hour shift of classical music and fine arts programming until 11pm with Bernard as the engineer and Rita as the announcer, few could have predicted what a force this then-small station would become. Two years later, the programming had expanded to eighteen hours a day—24/7 by 1968—and in 1954, the station considerably broadened its broadcast range by moving down the dial from its original 105.9 to its current 98.7 FM setting. Generating its own unique programming was a signature element of WFMT from early on: early live programs included concerts by Pete Seeger and Big Bill Broonzy and a conversation between Carl Sandburg and Frank Lloyd Wright. WFMT was also an early innovator in broadcasting live concert and opera performances, including regular series broadcasts from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Lyric Opera that are still running. Other legendary WFMT programs include then University of Chicago student Mike Nichols creating the Saturday night folk music program “Midnight Special” in 1953, which is still on the air, before going on to his career as legendary stage and film director. Writer Studs Terkel began his WFMT show in 1953, which became a stalwart of the station until Terkel’s retirement over half a century later. WFMT has always made the highest possible audio broadcast standards a top priority, including some of the earliest stereo signal broadcasts and, in the early 1960s, the first regular broadcast series of stereo concerts by the Fine Arts Quartet. Voted in 1964 by Hi-Fi/Stereo Review readers as the highest-fidelity station in the nation, other innovations included broadcasting with Dolby Noise Reduction as early as 1969 and in quadraphonic sound in 1972. By 1979, WFMT became the first international “superstation,” not only broadcasting by satellite and across cable systems across the country but also becoming the first American station to become part of the European Broadcast Union as well as to have its prerecorded programs broadcast behind the Iron Curtain in the Soviet Union and China. In 1981, WFMT was chosen to be the first radio station in the world to broadcast music from a Compact Disc and the first programming of DAT (Digital Audio Tape) in the mid-1980s. For all of its cutting-edge technology and industry broadcast standards established by WFMT over the years, it remains in many ways the same “ma and pa” station that it was some sixty years ago in that then, as now, no prerecorded commercials are broadcast on the station. Instead, program and broadcast hosts continue to read advertiser copy with the same precise enunciation and alliteration that they give to carefully articulated foreign phrases and composer opus titles, which is just the way its devoted listeners want it.

98.7 FM

Audience choice:
WBEZ 91.5FM

Best of Chicago 2011

Warren Buffett

A newspaper delivery boy in his youth, Warren Buffett just nabbed the Omaha World-Herald. Just two years ago, Buffett said investing in newspapers is a bad idea—it looks like he’s doing this to support local reporting, not turn a quick profit. If he stays hands-off with the Omaha paper (which it looks like he will, as he’s no Murdoch), letting the Midwesterner edge a bit farther east might not be so bad. And what better billionaire to own our paper than one who wants higher taxes on himself, not the ninety-nine percent?

Audience choice: Mark Cuban

Best of Chicago 2011

The Field Museum

The Field Museum has relics from the catacombs of Egypt, one of the largest dinosaur re-creations ever and, apparently, the best bathrooms in the country. This according to Cintas Corp. who honored the museum with the accolade in this year’s tenth annual “America’s Best Restroom Contest,” as voted on by online readers. The eco-friendly, first-floor facilities were chosen for their art-filled break rooms, automated water faucets and hourly cleanings. We can only imagine the celebratory souvenirs coming to the Field’s gift shop.

The Field Museum
1400 South Lake Shore
(312)922-9410
fieldmuseum.org

Best of Chicago 2011

The return of the Queen’s Landing crosswalk

The Daley administration made a number of anti-pedestrian “dick moves” in a losing battle against auto congestion: fencing off crosswalks on Michigan Avenue, shortening walk-signal times and adding right-on-red arrows for cars. But the kicker was the 2005 removal of the stoplight and crosswalk at Queen’s Landing, where in 1959 the city rolled a red carpet across Lake Shore Drive so Queen Elizabeth II could stroll from the lakefront to Buckingham Fountain. While the removal saved motorists a minute or two of wait time, it forced walkers to take a ten-minute detour. As part of a wave of pedestrian improvements under Emanuel, the city reinstalled the crosswalk on Thanksgiving Day—definitely something to give thanks for.

500 South Lake Shore

Audience choice: He speaks coherently

Best audience comments: “Seeing Rahm’s ass on the Brown Line every morning with his security detail. Daley would NEVER have done that”; “He can’t have all his fingers in the pie, can he?”; “He was at the Adele concert at the Riv”; “That 50-0 budget approval vote. Oh, wait.”

Best of Chicago 2011

She Doesn’t Shill for Toxic Cults

On November 18, self-help guru James Arthur Ray was sentenced to two years in prison for negligent homicide, the result of a poorly planned “sweat lodge ceremony” gone awry. Ray was one of many new-age hucksters who gained celebrity and influence in the wake of “The Secret,” a simplistic positive-thinking fad that became an enormous cash cow after receiving The Big O’s powerful seal of legitimacy. Rosie O’Donnell may be an ostentatious do-gooder and a sucker for Hollywood glitz, but she retains a comedian’s nose for blatant BS. One can hope she won’t introduce the world’s desperate housewives to another dangerous con man like Ray.

Audience choice: Who cares?

Best audience comments: “She frequents Boystown bars”; “She said Soldiers Field and Wrigley Park or something like that”; “You don’t want to see what Rosie has put under your seat”; “Um… is there one?”

Best of Chicago 2011

35th/Bronzeville/IIT, Green Line

@governorblagojevich

It would be a cinch to switch voices from one foul-mouthed politico to another, so this is an effing golden opportunity. Blago is scheduled to report to the Big House on February 16 to serve his fourteen-year sentence for corruption, so Sinker could start out by predicting what the disgraced governor will do with his last precious weeks of freedom—lots of jogging, we presume. Once Blagojevich is locked up it’ll be easy to imagine his jailhouse pursuits: learning the harmonica, making license plates and desperately trying not to become ex-gov George Ryan’s bitch.

Audience choice: Richard Daley

Best audience comments: “@MayorDaley2020 A monday morning quarterback by Daley of Emanuel”; “Nothing can replace @MayorEmanuel ever. But I’d be ok with a Quaxelrod and Hambone joint twitter.”

Best of Chicago 2011

Kinzie Street protected bike lane

There’s lots to love about the city’s first protected bike lane, on Kinzie from Milwaukee to Wells, the first half-mile of one hundred miles of such lanes Rahm has promised for his first term. Since lines of parked cars and flexible posts shelter cyclists from moving vehicles, protected lanes may be just the ticket to help newbies feel comfortable riding on city streets. Best of all is the location, next to the fragrant Blommer Chocolate factory. “I like the Kinzie bike lane because it smells like chocolate,” says cyclist Lorena “Cupcake” Caiazzo in a recent Streetsfilms.org clip. “And it makes me feel like Charlie Bucket.”

There’s not just one best place to chill out, but 119…

…according to Anne Ford’s book “Peaceful Places: Chicago,” which details “tranquil sites in the Windy City and beyond.” Find serenity both outdoors and in, from the Baha’i Temple to the Jade galleries at the Field Museum.

“Peaceful Places: Chicago”
By Anne Ford
Menasha Ridge Press, 240 pages, $15

Best of Chicago 2011