Beck’s “Record Club” recruits St. Vincent for INXS cover
St. Vincent is coming to The Highdive on March 30th, but recently she’s been spending a bit of time with Beck and friends. In case you haven’t investigated Beck’s “Record Club“, in which Beck gathers various musical peers (Feist, Wilco, Jamie Lidell, Devendra Banhart) to cover an entire record of their choosing (Leonard Cohen, Velvet Underground, Skip Spence) in a spontaneous single-day affair, you most definitely should. It’s pretty much the coolest idea making the rounds amongst musicians these days.
This time around Beck has gathered possibly his strangest grouping of buds in St. Vincent’s Annie Clark, the Liars, and Os Mutantes, to cover ... INXS’ “Kick.“ While I’m sure this group has nothing on Shipwreck (who covered INXS at the Cover Up a few years ago), I’m anxious to see the results. So far, we have just a teaser video for their take on “Guns in the Sky.“ That’s Ms. St. Vincent on rhythm geetar and the Liars’ Angus Andrew on vocals.
| Provena loses tax case in Illinois Supreme Court
Illinois Supreme Court rules Provena must pay tax
The Illinois Supreme Court ruled this morning that Provena Covenant Medical Center in Urbana did not provide enough charity care to qualify for a property tax exemption.
The widely watched ruling, which rejected the Catholic hospital's appeal of a tax review board decision to take away its tax exempt status in 2003, could set the stage for charity care expectations at hospitals around the country.
Click here for further details.
Jane Addams Book Signing: Sandra J. Dixon
Location: Jane Addams Bookshop
Date: Saturday, March 20, 2010
Time: 1:00pm - 3:00pm
Address: 208 N. Neil St., Champaign IL
The Invisible Girl: Uncovering Repressed Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse
The Invisible Girl is a riveting personal account of living in the aftermath of physical and sexual abuse. It breaks frontiers of what we know about repressed memories. It is based both on personal experience and the lives of hundreds of patients that Sandra Dixon has treated as a mental health professional. She will encourage questions and open discussion at this event.
Visit The Invisible Girl website for more information.
Hum to perform in Champaign
Local legends Hum will play the Champaign 150 Music Festival on Saturday, July 10th. This marks their first show in Champaign since December 2008. The show is free and will also include Beat Kitchen, The Delta Kings, Candy Foster and Shades of Blue, plus several more acts that are still TBA.
NIT Ticket Info (Assembly Hall)
http://www.fightingillini.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/031610aab.html
Should Illinois advance to the second round of the National Invitation Tournament, ticket orders and sales will begin Thursday, March 18 through the Illinois Athletics Ticket Office.
I FUND and season-ticket holders have an exclusive window of opportunity to place orders for reserved seats in A Section only Thursday from 9 am-5 pm in person at the Athletics box office at the Assembly Hall, by phone (217-333-3470 / 866-ILLINI1) or online at www.fightingillini.com. Reserved tickets in A Section are $25 each. Seat locations in Section A will be allocated by I FUND membership levels and priority points.
General admission tickets for B and C Sections are $15 and will go on sale Thursday during regular business hours (9 am-5 pm). General admission tickets can be purchased in person, by phone or 24 hours a day online at www.fightingillini.com.
All tickets sold from Friday until game time on Monday would be general admission.
Fans who place ticket orders are encouraged to pick up their tickets beginning Friday, or, as early as possible on Monday to avoid possible long lines at the Will Call windows.
University of Illinois students may purchase a special student ticket for $10 with a UI ID card.
Parking for possible second and third-round games will cost $5 for all Assembly Hall lots.
Illini earn #1 seed
The Illini men travel to Long Island this week to face the Stony Brook Seawolves in the opening round of of the NIT.
Illinois can't play at home because Cirque du Soleil is in town.
The game airs o' ESPNU at 8 o'clock o' St. Patrick's Day.
If you drink enough, you may imagine you're seeing inbounds plays. Except that you don't have ESPNU.
Velvet Rut playwright to speak at Station Theatre tomorrow
James Still is going to be here hanging out by the railroad tracks. Who the hell is James Still?
It's quite clear that James Still is a perfectionist with a hell of an output. A long-time playwright-in-residence at Indiana Repertory Theatre in Indianapolis, the Kansas-born, Seattle-dwelling writer has produced over a dozen plays, a screenplay or two, plenty of children's television (our twenty-and-under readers have almost certainly experienced his work on Nickelodeon with the Little B's-Bill and Bear), and he has encountered, in the process, much critical acclaim.
Last year he premiered three new dramas. One of which was commissioned by Ford's Theatre (Yes...that Ford's Theatre...) for a grand re-opening and to commemorate the two hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. Attended by the Obamas. No biggie. Another of last year's fruits was The Velvet Rut, a two-man drama about an existentially out-of-control high school English teacher with a penchant for poetry secret, and a curious Boy Scout.
Here, you can see what James Still looks like, and what his play looks like as interpreted by somebody else, but with a much lamer promotional poster than the Station's
This is fresh, piping-hot drama served up with a side of savory author.
Under the direction of Joi Hoffsommer, our own Station Theatre, that tucked-away depot in downtown Urbana that makes our Broadway at least something like the other "Broadway" (since lord knows the Save-a-Lot wasn't pulling its weight in that department), will play host to the man and the work this Sunday. After a performance at 8:00, Still will talk-back with the audience about craft, process, the Mid-West, his play, Parcheesi strategies, or maybe even his favorite kind of Thai food. It all depends on what you ask him. Because you get to ask him things!
Otherwise, The Velvet Rut runs through March 20th, Wednesday through Sunday at 8:00 P.M. sharp!
UC2B Granted $22.5 Million, Champaign City Council Deciding Tuesday Whether to Accept Funds
The Champaign City Council is deciding at their meeting on Tuesday at 7pm whether to accept $22.5 million federal grant already awarded to the two cities and the University for creating jobs and building internet connectivity in our community. If you support the deployment of a municipal broadband network in Champaign-Urbana, please consider contacting your city council member to express your support of the plan. Here is a .doc file containing contact information and a sample correspondence. Whether or not Champaign accepts the grant funds has a strong bearing on whether federal stimulus money under the Broadband Opportunities Program will be used to create jobs in both Champaign and Urbana or provide essential services to underserved parts of our community. Our acceptance of this money also has a strong bearing on the viability of our round 2 funding proposal for community centers, libraries, and schools. Additional, it may have a bearing on Champaign-Urbana's viability for Google's fiber to the home project and future federal stimulus grants.
Project description from the NTIA press release below:
The Urbana-Champaign Big Broadband project plans to construct 187 miles of fiber-optic broadband network to provide high-speed connectivity to area community anchor institutions and support fiber-to-the-home services in four low-income neighborhoods. Known as a leader in computer networking technology, the University of Illinois plans to bring its experience to bear as it works to close the digital divide in Urbana-Champaign. The project will directly connect 143 anchor institutions, including 40 K-12 schools, 17 social service agencies, 14 healthcare facilities, nine youth centers, four public library systems, and two higher education institutions. A majority of these institutions expect to receive their first high-speed Internet connection via this project. The project proposes to create a fiber-to-the-home pilot project for 2,500 low-income households to purchase an affordable high-speed Internet service plan from commercial providers. In addition, the project expects to spur affordable broadband Internet access for local consumers, including up to 50,000 households and 3,700 businesses, by enabling local Internet service providers to connect to the project's open network.
Jeff Jordan had a point to make
The Illini defeated Wisconsin today in Indianapolis during the second round of the Big Ten tournament. Jeff Jordan displayed minor heroics down the stretch.
Stories & Beer returns!
Stories & Beer | Sunday March 14th | 4 p.m. | Iron Post | Free
Driven by our compulsion to repeat, Smile Politely and HOBART: another literary magazine has tossed together another Stories & Beer event for you drinking/listening pleasure. If you missed the last one, check out Aaron Burch's recap, wherein you can listen to the audio for each of our readers — and while you should definitely take the time to listen to all of them, make sure you check out Josh Bishoff's reading of "Librarians of the Midwest" for the generally raucous response it evoked.
As for this month, we have taken to heart the various calls for "more estrogen." Now, if I were in an apologetic mood, I'd say that the reason we didn't have any readers who were of the feminine persuasion last time was because we were in a rush to get readers and we weren't really concerned with inspecting anyone's reproductive organs (apologies to Judy Butler) — we just wanted to make sure our readers (a) could read, and (b) were willing to read something that wasn't about their uncle's funeral. But since I'm not in an apologetic mood, I'll say screw that, it was a great reading, and if you missed it, you missed out.
Now on to this Sunday, when the following readers will try to live up to the lofty standard set last month.
Featured Writer: Bryan Furuness
Bryan will be driving in from Indianapolis, where he lives with his wife and two smartypants boys. He likes to write stories and teach composition and watch the Chicago Bears; in other words, he doesn't require a lot of reward in this lifetime. Today he spent all day helping a buddy with yard work, yanking out strange vines that may leave him covered with a hideous rash by Sunday. Come to the reading to find out (see what I did there? That's called suspense, son).
Emily Cody
Emily is from Chicago, where she used to spend her time writing snarky things about the Chicago Transit Authority. Now she teaches middle school in Champaign, and writes snarky things about children.
Sara Gelston
Sara Gelston comes from Maine. She has an affinity for rural life and soul music and an aversion to most games. When asked for directions, she always points east.
Quoth Sarah: "An old boyfriend of mine took a business trip to Indiana and sent back a postcard. He circled the place he was staying on the front and on the back wrote "Can you believe people live here?" We were from Maine; we couldn't imagine it. We laughed and laughed. Then I moved here."
Brian Kornell
Brian Kornell grew up in Mentor, OH, 20 minutes east of Cleveland. Not exactly on the wrong side of the tracks, but very close. In first grade, he won the JC Award from St. Mary's Elementary School for being the student who most exemplified the teachings of Jesus. He took this as a free pass to never go to church again. His work has appeared in Storyglossia, Ninth Letter, and on his grandparents' refrigerator.
Sidney Sheehan
Sidney Sheehan was born not too many years ago somewhere in the Midwest. She loves elephants and cornbread. She doesn’t like littering or when people inquire about where her life is going. Someday she will buy a motorcycle with a sidecar. She’ll fill it with her stuffed animals and ride off into the sunset.
So come on out and listen to some stories while you drink some beer. It'll make you feel better.
Note: Even though nobody complained about the lack of gingers, we made sure that our readers adequately represented C-U's population of redheaded people.
Most Recent SPlog Comments
General Admission? Are we supposed to camp out the night before the game to get decent seats?
First off did you read the wired magazine article I posted? You should. Second, WAS!? HAhahaaha. What, we aren’t being spied on right now. Its not legal anymore? Obama didn’t just re-authorize the patriot act? Semi-mythical deep packet inspection devices. Semi-mythical deep packet inspection devices. Semi mythical…
ESPN360!!!!! For those that don’t know, you can watch the ESPNs’ games on your puter.
So John is seeing all comments as being authored by John. I am seeing all comments as authored by me. The first comment was Mysterious McDade who evidently acquired an Optimism Hat and is now seeing how it fits.
No, everyone is me! Muahahaha! I so didn’t make that first comment so I thought maybe someone was trying to get my goat, adding me to the staff. I hope jumping to that conclusion is forgivable. Yeah, uh, I guess I should say that I swear I…
I have reached Nirvana, I guess. Everyone is me.
Something weird is happening.
WTF guys? Does impersonating a user in the comments section run afoul of your commenting policy?
This is federal money, yes. But it is money going to a network that is going to be owned by an inter-governmental of the two cities and the University, not by the federal government. If you’re worried about the local governments spying on us, that’s fine, but…
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Most Recent Comments
Interesting about who owns land in the path of the Olympian Drive extension. My comment was in response to ‘Tony C’s remarks about the I-74 expansion. Just who owns land in the 150 [BloomingtonRd]-I-74 corridor?? Because the corridor is zoned for future use as Commercial/Industrial, I am…
(happy face)
Wow, great article. I wish you the best in your endeavors and hope you have a nice trip.
Um. Yeah — check out that “General Disclaimer” at the bottom of the article, folks.
As an adoptee, I can empathize—although I’m not an international adoptee, and I apologize if I’m assuming too much on the nature of your adoption. You can feel what you feel, but don’t be too hard on yourself. When I started a search for my birth family,…
I highly doubt a single dish is vegan at Bombay. Most Indian dishes use Ghee(essentially clarrified butter) as the base fat. While I guess they could make some dishes with canola oil, I would for sure ask the exact ingredients before I consumed if you are following a vegan diet.
You’re right! Every runner, in my opinion, is a real runner.
Congratulations on the AG place! In all of your accomplishments, don’t forget what it was like to think a mile was an impossible distance. Getting to the six-mile point takes a lot of training and preparation to acclimate the mind and musculature to so much pounding. Your…
Sounds like it!
I heading out on my 9 miler before my 10 hour work day right now. Do I have what it takes?
Nice, killer work pretty man…the channeled, one sided collaborated rhyming poem. An oft forgot genre. The ruckus was felt even here in my living room, which is normally a safe haven from ruckus.
wait, I was commenting on the wrong thing - sorry - he’s actually a gigantic sellout but who really knows what all this is about.
If the democrats didn’t have Kucinich, and the republicans didn’t have Ron Paul, where would both these parties really stand? These men actually mean what they say.
Joel, thank you for the opportunity to answer these questions and have them posted here. I really appreciate it! Yes, I was thrilled to see that Rep. Kucinich flipped today, so he will has committed to voting yes for health reform. I appreciated his comments which seem…
It appears to me that your reviewer did all that could be expected: she paid her money, saw the play and conveyed her impressions. The review (on the whole, laudatory) may have been rushed, in a generous attempt to publicize the production while it was still available…
Dan Schreiber’s chocolate is simply the best I’ve ever had. It’s a whole different ball-game; closer to very high-end wine than anything out of Hershey PA.
That settles it… Im going.
Vosges is pretty decent chocolate, but you should definitely try the locally-produced chocolate from Dan Schreiber, available (regularly?) at Amara, Caffe Paradiso, and Common Ground. I believe it is or will be at other places soon.
I read Kucinich flipped today. He must have read this and been convinced.
Bread Company can do some fantastic vegan dinner dishes! Several of their pastas are vegan or could be made vegan and their pizzas can be ordered (and taste great) without the cheese. I also recommend their roasted potatoes and their roasted garlic head appetizer.
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