SINKING DEEP

Married Burglars Cop Pleas To Funereal Crimes

By Elizabeth C.

TALK ABOUT TAKING THEFT TO NEW LOWS: An Illinois couple have pleaded guilty to burglarizing the homes of mourners attending loved ones’ wakes and funerals.

Jacquelyn S. Buchholz, 25, of Johnsburg, Ill., was sentenced to nine years in prison, while her husband Jason K. Werner, 27, received a six-year-sentence.

Prosecutors say Buchholz scanned online obituaries at a library and then targeted the homes of the named survivors.

LAUGHTER FIRST

The Laughs Are Primary At Music Box’s Screening Of Iconic ‘Safety Last’

By Elizabeth C.

SHRIEKS OF LAUGHTER are probably still ringing in the ears of moviegoers who screened a special showing of the silent classic Safety Last Saturday at the Music Box Theater.

Roger Ebert’s favorite Chicago movie house is hosting a limited engagement of the uproariously funny 1923 comedy starring Harold Lloyd as a striving sales clerk determined to impress his girl.

The showing is part of a limited engagement release of the movie’s digital restoration for its 90th anniversary. Saturday night’s screening was preceded by live music by the West End Jazz Band, several vaudeville acts, as was accompanied by oganist Dennis Scott — in all, a fantastically produced night of entertainment.

FAITH ‘PAYOFF’

Credit: NBC Chicago

$4.85 Lottery Windfall Is Bittersweet For Man Who Lost Teen Daughter

HERE’S A BITTERSWEET STORY ABOUT A COOKIE JAR, a teenager’s tragic death, and a winning lottery ticket.

Fourteen-year-old Savannah Cerezo of Geneva, Ill. bought a cookie jar several months before she died after suffering a seizure nine months ago. Since then, her father Ricardo Cezero has stashed little keepsakes and unchecked lottery tickets inside the jar.

With the family facing foreclosure, Ricardo “was on my knees crying, just asking the Lord” for a way to hang on to his daughter’s unchanged room.

METAMORPHOSIS

Credit: Tyler Curtis

As Tavi Gevinson Turns 17, The Young ‘Rookie’ Prepares For A Kind Of Death

By Elizabeth C.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO FASHION’S YOUNGEST MUSE TAVI GEVINSON WHO TURNED 17 April 21.

The darling of publishing celebrated at Chicago’s Storefront Company with her parents and Jonah Ansell, her co-collaborator on the animated short, Cadaver, as well as his parents.

DELIVERING A MESSAGE

Amid Contentious Negotiatons With Chicago, Cubs Owner Gets Goat’s Head Delivered

By Elizabeth C.

BAD OMENS KEEP COMING FOR THE CHICAGO CUBBIES’ 2013 season.
It’s rained every day since the hapless team opened home season at Wrigley Field Monday.
The $500 million proposed deal between the Ricketts family and the City of Chicago remains unresolved — with the local alderman saying negotiations about increasing night games the sticking point.
And now there’s …the goat’s head — possibly sent as a threatening homage to The Godfather.
The Chicago Tribune reports that a package was hand-delivered to Gate K Wednesday afternoon addressed to the team’s owner Tom Ricketts. Inside was a dead goat’s head — a dark reminder of the legendary curse on the team placed by William Sianis, the late Billy Goat Tavern owner William who was refused entry into Wrigley during the 1945 World Series.

RIP

“Raconteur,” “Intellectual,” ”Icon” : Chicago Journalists Mourn Roger Ebert’s Passing

By Elizabeth C.

THE ACCOLADES KEEP COMING ABOUT LEGENDARY FILM CRITIC ROGER EBERT who died peacefully Wednesday after a long illness.

Raconteur. Dream journalist.” A “soldier for cinema.” Intellectual. Competitive. Noble. A “great man.” And that’s just a sample of the heartfelt eulogies delivered about the widely-popular film critic.

“Today, the film world has lost its heart,” Filmmaker Greg Nava, who was with Ebert when he died, told WTTW’s Phil Ponce Thursday evening. “Roger, what he represented to movies and I think to this nation, it’s a hole that nobody can replace. And it’s a void that can’t be filled.”

Nava said that the 70-year-old writer “passed peacefully, very very beautifully…surrounded by family and friends. …It was a beautiful beautiful moment and it was a powerful moment. And he passed without pain, gracefully and beautifully.”

OUTSIDER ART

A Circus Clown’s Menagerie On Display In Chicago

By Elizabeth C.

PERPETUAL OUTSIDER THAT I AM, I’m compelled to share the primitive collages created by a circus clown named C.T. McClusky now on display at the Intuit museum in Chicago.

Little is known about McClusky except that he worked as a clown with a traveling circus, living offseason at a boarding house in Oakland, California, between 1940 and 1960. After he died, 53 collages that he created were uncovered in a worn leather suitcase at the Alameda Penny Market in California in 1975. The collages were reportedly being offered for sale by the daughter of McClusky’s former landlady.

These naive works, created with found materials such as animal cracker boxes, cardboard and string, were discovered by John Turner, then curator at the Museum of Craft and Folk art in San Francisco. The result is the traveling exhibit, The Circus Collages of C.T. McClusky, now showing at Intuit through May 25.

WHACK WEDNESDAY

Credit: Erica Berman/H&M/Esquire

Kimye’s Baby Swag, H&M’s Cliched Collection & Roger Ebert’s Cancer Returns

By Miz J

KIMYE’S SPOTTED IN PARIS shopping the ultra-luxe Bonpoint Boutique for their sure-to-be-swagged-out bundle of joy. These two are shopping HARD lately, and we can’t help but wonder just HOW MUCH they’re spending on these fashionable catch-alls for barf, spit, snot and poo—and how much of what they’re buying is likely to be dry-clean only. We can just imagine Kanye’s raps now: “Baby poopies, MERCY.” End of song.

SATURDAY NIGHT SPECIAL

Teens Maraud Flashmob-Style On Chicago’s Magnificent Mile

By Staff

TWENTY-EIGHT TEENAGERS WERE popped Saturday night in downtown Chicago after attacking pedestrians on CTA trains and along the city’s major shopping artery known as the ”Magnificent Mile.”

“I’ve never been scared like this before,” one 27-year-old woman told the Chicago Tribune. “We were just minding our own business. … It was really, really violent.”

HOT FUN IN THE SUMMERTIME

Leaked Lollapalooza Lineup: The Cure, Mumford & Sons, The Killers, Vampire Weekend & More

By Jacob Wittich

A LEAKED POSTER FOR THE 20113 LOLLAPALOOZA LINEUP CONFIRMS THIS YEAR’S PARTY is full of diversity. Lollapalooza 2013 will feature artists from a variety of genres that should appeal to all Lolla-goers, young and old.

The Cure, Mumford & Sons, The Killers and Nine Inch Nails are listed at the top as headliners, joined by other big acts such as Phoenix, Vampire Weekend, Queens of the Stone Age and Kendrick Lamar.