A former Chicago Weekly writer and Features Editor like Katie Buitrago! All of us at the Weekly want to congratulate Katie on her excellent feature in the most recent Chicago Reader, “What sort of woman reads Playboy?” It’s about Peggy Wilkins, a forty-something Hyde Park resident and University of Chicago Library server technician, who has worked her way to the top of Playboy Magazine fandom. She’s even had to rent an second apartment above the one she shares with her boyfriend to store her exhaustive collection of magazines and posters. So what drives Wilkins’s passion? Read the article to find out!

One of the countless photos for sale: Patrolman Bill Edwards studies a map of Hyde Park, January 2, 1968 (Chicago Sun-Times)

A rummage sale is always a great way to make a few dollars while getting rid of all that clutter. The Chicago Sun-Times, which could certainly use a little extra cash, has decided to clean out its archives and put up thousands (yes, thousands) of original photographic prints up for sale on eBay. Starting at $9.99, the photos range from mundane to surreal, from humorous to beautiful.

The feature in this week’s issue of the Weekly is on the Academy for Urban School Leadership, a nonprofit organization based on the Northwest Side that’s been taking over failing public schools in Chicago and replacing the entire faculty and staff over the summer. They created this model, called “turnaround,” in partnership with Arne Duncan back when he was CEO of Chicago Public Schools, and now it’s being held up as an example for other cities. An article in the February issue of Philadelphia Public School Notebook gives a brief history of turnaround in Chicago over the past six years.

Toni Preckwinkle, the Hyde Park alderman who Clare Fentress profiled in our pages earlier this winter, has handily won the Democratic primary for the highest office in Cook County government, and with it, probably, the office itself. More at the Tribune.

(photo by Sam Bowman)

A lot’s happening in Bridgeport at the moment. Bridgeport art collective Lumpen has launched a new “community newsletter,” the Bridgeport International. Check out their first issue online or in stores around the neighborhood, and make sure to read their endorsements for today’s primary. This Friday Lumpen is holding a combination zine release party/benefit concert for the Whale, the Pilsen artists’ society building that went up in flames in December. Meanwhile, Chicago freelancer John Greenfield wrote a comprehensive tour of Bridgeport for the latest issue of bike magazine Momentum.

During a graduate seminar at UIC in 2008, Joe Baldwin came up with an idea for a mobile garden attached to a CTA train that would travel around the city bringing a bit of green into all of our lives. On Saturday he announced on his website that the CTA has approved the project. No word yet on when the garden will appear. [via Hugh Bartling]

In this week’s issue, we had a piece on poet Rae Armantrout, who was in the area for a reading and talk last week. Here is the rest of the interview with Armantrout, as conducted by Weekly writer Daniel Benjamin over email; follow-up questions, conducted in person and lightly edited, are preceded by an asterisk.

You have written about this before, in interviews and in your memoir True, but I’m wondering if you could say something about how your upbringing, education, and poetic influences have figured into your poetry?

I was alone a lot when I was growing up. I was an only child and there was alcoholism in my family so I often wanted to stay out of the way. I think that has affected my work in a couple of ways. First, I tended to entertain myself by reading and writing. And then, of course, I was a lonely child. I think that original loneliness shows up in my poems. I often seem to be looking at things from a distance. I don’t know how confessional I want to get here. As I’ve said before, my mother was a fundamentalist. That means I was exposed to the Bible. When I was looking for reading material, it was always there in all its strangeness. On the other hand, my exposure to dogma made me ornery. Read the rest of this entry »

The Jibarito (jntolva/Flickr)

Dining Chicago has an article up on four incredible-sounding Chicago sandwiches that haven’t yet acquired the same status as the Chicago hot dog or Polish. You’ve got the jibarito, a Puerto Rican steak sandwich between two crispy fried plantains, and the big baby, a sort of double cheeseburger with a particular list of condiments and probably invented by a man unfortunate to have the name Nick Vaginas. Then you’ve got the Freddy, an Italian sausage sandwich created by Calabria Imports founder Benito Russo, and finally, the mother-in-law, which is a… well, you should just read the article. The last three have South Side origins, even the jibarito can be found outside its Humboldt Park birthplace at places like Desde Puerto Rico in South Chicago. Be sure to check out Fat Johnnie’s Famous Red Hots for the mother-in-law, and Nicky’s the Real McCoy for a big baby.

Yesterday the Tribune reported that another round of school closings will hit Chicago Public Schools after this year, with four schools being shuttered outright, four being consolidated with other schools, one no longer accepting new students, and five being “turned around” by the Academy of Urban School Leadership or CPS’s Office of School Turnaround. We’ve put together a Google Map to help visualize the geographic distribution of the schools to be closed. As the map shows, the fourteen schools are mostly located on the South Side, with only three on the West Side and two on the North Side. Public schools blog District 299 has the full 54-page CPS presentation on the closings.

Do some good for Haitian disaster relief–and your sweet tooth–by checking out the charity bakesale held tomorrow from 2-6 pm at the Medici on 57th Bakery (1327 E 57th St.)  All proceeds are given directly to Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam, and goodies will be available from individual volunteers and pro bakeries from across the city, including Bleeding Heart Bakery, Jimmy Jamm Sweet Potato Pies, and Luscious Layers Bakery. More info, including the full list of participating bakeries and items (gluten-free goods should be available too), is here.

Courtesy of Golden Age

Golden Age, a Pilsen gallery and “concept shop” whose exhibitions we’ve covered before, is moving to the West Loop, according to an announcement posted on their website yesterday. In our October 2008 feature on galleries in West Pilsen, co-founder Marco Kane Braunschweiler spoke highly of the neighborhood around Golden Age. “Where there’s open storefronts [around here], those storefronts often turn into galleries,” he told us. “It seems likely that there’ll be a lot more art spaces.” Things are looking a bit different in Pilsen these days, with galleries moving out or closing right and left.

Golden Age’s last open day at its current location will be Sunday, January 24, and they expect to open at their new (undisclosed) location in the West Loop late next month.

Toni Preckwinkle, the 4th Ward alderman we profiled in this week’s feature, may not be ahead in the polls, but she’s winning the hearts of newspapers right and left in her campaign for the Democratic nomination for Cook County Board President. The Tribune and the Sun-Times both enthusiastically endorsed her earlier this week, and the Austin Weekly News, a West Side community newspaper, added its voice to the Preckwinkle chorus last night. The Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club also endorsed her last week. Add in the endorsement from Daley fan Phil Krone at the Chicago Daily Observer and the fact that Mayor Daley’s brother’s law firm donated $1,500 to Preckwinkle’s campaign, and it looks like everyone’s lining up behind the Hyde Park alderman. We’ll see if the voters follow suit on February 2.

Memphis garage-punk rocker Jay Reatard was found dead yesterday morning, cause unknown. When we covered him two years ago, before his show at Reggie’s Rock Club, he told us Chicago was his favorite place to play. Chicago will miss him today.

This week’s cover story is a must-read: a profile of Alderman Toni Preckwinkle (4th), Hyde Park’s independent alderman and a candidate for Cook County Board President. Also in this issue: Gloria Henderson opens a popcorn shop under the Metra tracks in Hyde Park after years of setbacks. Abundance Bakery on 47th Street offers a wealth of baked goods. Experimental music collective the Exponential plays at the Chicago Art Department in Pilsen this Saturday night. John Paro, a student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, has recorded an album, “Med School Rock,” to help medical students learn their material. And Katherine de Shazer is teaching a weekend class at St. Mary of Perpetual Help on Byzantine Russian icon painting.

South Shore Train (amtrak_russ/Flickr)

State Sen. Kwame Raoul (D-Hyde Park) introduced legislation that would require all commuter trains to provide service to all stations, according to an article in the Tribune. Sen. Raoul aims this bill at the South Shore Line, which shares a portion of its route from downtown Chicago to South Bend, Indiana with the Metra Electric Line. He hopes to address the concerns of groups like SOUL (Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation) who take issue with the South Shore Line’s policy of not allowing passengers to board inbound trains or disembark from outbound trains at stops within Chicago—stops in areas which many believe are underserved by transportation.

Sen. Raoul admits the bill is flawed and would basically put an end to any kind of express train. Even if it’s unlikely to pass, he thinks it succeeded in “stimulating the discussion.” Additionally, the RTA has approved the $450,000 South Lakefront Corridor Transit Study to find ways to improve transportation and stimulate economic growth on the South Side.

South of Roosevelt “resides an art community that is often invisible to the mainstream,” writes Andre Guichard in the first post on his new blog, Fine Art South of Roosevelt Road. As an artist and the director of Gallery Guichard in Bronzeville, Guichard is a tireless promoter of art of the African diaspora, and the blog promises to continue this work by introducing readers to more than one hundred artists and collectors south of Roosevelt. It will also include updates about art events and exhibitions.

The Chicago Art Department offers a chance to get educated during this week’s Second Friday gallery crawl in Pilsen. Its new exhibition Video Art 101 will teach basic video art concepts, addressing such questions as: What is unique about the medium of video?  What are some of the basic techniques?  What are some of the tools and how are they used? Stop by 1837 S. Halsted St. between 6 and 10pm this Friday to learn the answers.

The University of Chicago student activist group SOUL (Students Organizing United with Labor) got some big-time press coverage for their latest demonstration against hour cuts for residence hall staff. In addition to the usual chants, the activists sang their own protest-specific renditions of Christmas carols last Thursday outside the campus housing office and administration building. The story appeared in the online and Chicago print editions of the New York Times and was reported by the recently founded Chicago News Cooperative.

Our indicted former governor Rod Blagojevich will be speaking and signing his new memoir, “The Governor,” at the University of Chicago Bookstore (Barnes & Noble) this week.

The signing will take place Tuesday, December 8, at 2pm.

From the Times’s review:

His publicist has described the book, published by Phoenix Books, as a “six-figure deal.” But in his writing, Mr. Blagojevich seems to have a specific message for the public, and perhaps more precisely, for those who might sit on his jury in a federal trial next year: He did nothing corrupt, though others have. He then lays out what he portrays as Chicago’s gritty, crass political rules, established long before him, in which power is traded for favors.

…

Ms. Aimen suggested that Mr. Blagojevich might struggle to keep his own legal team because of his desire to talk openly about the charges. “I think he must be a hard guy to handle,” she said.

For those who don’t remember his term, this quote from a press conference about sums it up: “It’s like the little boy with a pile of horse manure, I kept digging cheerfully in that and found a pony in there — the pony is free public transportation for all seniors in the state of Illinois.”

Sebastian Ellefson at Backstory Café

Having any legal problems? Landlord-tenant disputes, DUI questions, concerns about your small business? Drop by Backstory Café tomorrow afternoon between 1:30 and 3:30 and attorney Sebastian Ellefson will be happy to provide you with legal advice for no charge. Ellefson, who got his BA from the University of Chicago in 2003 and his JD from the University of Minnesota in 2008, practices law in Bridgeport during the week, but starting last month he’s appearing at Backstory on the first Saturday of every month to help out those in need of legal consultations. Ellefson says the free consultations are “a way to get your name out there and use your legal powers for good.”