21 Comments

"Musk is nuts." Hahahahaha!

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50% genius, 50% raving lunatic

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re: Bob Dylan Broadway show. Yikes. I cringed so hard that I will have to see a physical therapist. Please let me know where to send the bill to the Picayune Sentinel. LOL.

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Re: what Brandon should do. For starters, how about impounding the buses? Surely Chicago, the city of famously particular inspectors, can find some reason to do so for commercial vehicles that drop people off un-permitted? Then use the buses as warming centers.

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The article about the plummet in print newspaper circulation didn't give any information about online circulation. I wonder if aggregate circulation numbers including online would tell a somewhat different story. Good to know that combined print and online subscription numbers for the Chicago papers are healthy; the same may be true (or somewhat true) in other markets.

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Nov 2, 2023Liked by Eric Zorn

I will only bank with Musk if he pays me in Dogecoin.

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It drives me crazy when the language is edited. It's not confined to newspapers. I understand a newspaper wanting to not irritate those who don't like bad language. But I see this all the time on cable television as well. The most recent example that I noticed was Marty exclaiming, Doc, are my kids jerks in the future in BTTF3. Everyone heard Marty say assholes in the original movie. There are many examples of this throughout cable.

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Eric, thank you for including the Mary Schmich article. As the Day of the Dead came and left, her piece was both appropriate and moving.

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Thanks for the memory ... my husband and I saw the Bob Dylan Broadway show, The Times They Are A’ Changing at a Sunday matinee. It was directed and choreographed by Twyla Tharp after her successful Billy Joel play, Movin’ Out. Twyla sat in front of us making notes for changes so we were surprised to read in the paper the next day that it was cancelled. It was story about a circus told through Dylan’s songs. We enjoyed it, but could see where others wouldn’t.

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I might be cancelled for this but I never got Bob Dylan. I don't know how so many can kneel at the Dylan altar. His voice is terrible. I never like any of his songs. It's a mystery to me.

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The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind.

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:)

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Dylan had a good singing voice and was an accomplished musician, as he displayed in his album Nashville Skyline. See the link below to I Threw It All Away. I think when he sang his earlier stuff (and some of his later stuff), he wanted to make his voice grate. I think he wanted his voice to stick out over the music so that the anger and frustration in his protest songs would jump out at the listener and connect with the listener’s inner feelings. And it was very successful obviously with a lot of people. And his lyrics were essentially musical poetry, for which he received the Nobel Prize in literature in 2016. Another singer/songwriter whose lyrics are beautiful musical poetry was Warren Zevon who, I think, is vastly underrated.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8iruzIEQsL4&pp=ygUdaSB0aHJldyBpdCBhbGwgYXdheSBib2IgZHlsYW4%3D

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I am not putting him down. His music just escapes me but to those who are big fans than God love you.

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Good story on The Who concert. My turn for the ("hope I die before I get") old geezers was a couple years later at The Rosemont Horizon. The "opening band" mentioned in 1980 was Willie Nile, who is still touring at 75 and has put out plenty of fine music over the years.

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This is the first test of Mayor Johnson's ability to respond to and handle a crisis, and he gets an F.

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Nov 2, 2023·edited Nov 2, 2023

I didn’t think the tweet about changing the clocks twice a year was particularly funny, but I do think there’s a value to the clock changes that has nothing to do with when the sun comes up. It’s a twice yearly reminder that time of day is a human construct, not the law down from the mountain. This becomes particularly clear when you cross paths with a clock that doesn’t change automatically or that you forgot to fix (in our case usually the clock in the old car and the one in the rarely used guest bathroom). That moment of disorientation that comes with finding the unadjusted clock reminds us that time is arbitrary (an illusion, I think Ford Prefect said).

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42!

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Eric - you were disparagingly dismissive to my comment last week when I suggested that Biden's open Southern border could result in sleeper cells of terrorists awaiting orders to commit murder and mayhem in our country. However, in the past week,

1) the Intelligence Division of the Department of Border Security and Customs issued an internal advisory that Islamic jihad, Hezbollah and Hamas could be trying to cross our border.

2) The Director of the FBI warned that Islamic jihad, Hezbollah and Hamas could be planning attacks in the US..

3) Secretary Myorkas, in testimony to a congressional committee the other day said the Department of Homeland Security estimates 600,000 people came across our Southern border with out detection just this year!

Are you still pooh-poohing my expressed concern about possible terror sleeper cells already in our country after all these concerns stated by high ranking people and agencies in our government? Remember, not too many people were likely concerned about terrorist sleeper cells in our country before 9/11, and these are much more volatile times.

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Nov 3, 2023·edited Nov 3, 2023

Is Roseland:1972 still being updated? Seems like the book section hasn’t been added to in over a year and a half. I started it but gave up. . It honestly feels like a good idea gone wrong. Also the way the author describes it always struck me as odd.:The “story of Steve Bertolucci a 10 year old Roselander “. That how non-fiction is usually discussed. It makes me think “ who?” “ wait am I supposed to know who that is” Description of Fiction is usually put like this “ a novel about a 10 year old from Chicago’s Roseland neighborhood named Steve Bertolucci who….” I don’t know why the way Ms Plys insists on describing her book grates on me. But it does. However the non fiction sections of the Roseland 1972 site are fantastic.

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Migrants - This is what I feared about Johnson. Low communication, no transparency, no collaboration. He was silent most of the summer "planning and doing the work' but the city hasn't seen much movement - other than more NASCAR next summer. And the city has a lot of issues - but these families need a safe place sooner than later. (Interesting Rascal conversation this week) I do wonder - dare I say - if the Republican's made their point about federal assistance - now that non-border states have had to deal with this. Father's Sins - I think the Crimo case is less egregious than the MI Couple whose son shot up the school. MUSK: Isn't even a “Dog sniff’s man’s shoe” story. Can they say "Very Chinese Cookbook?" A little surprised by Marin over Kurtis - but both are top notch.

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