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Smile Politely’s culture team sets its sights on the places, faces, attitudes and idiosyncrasies that give Champaign–Urbana its own special flavor.
At Smile Politely, we're interested in what the people of Champaign- Urbana think about this place we call home. So how do we find out what they think? Simple. We ask them.
Name: Larry Ecker
Occupation/Education: Director, Creative Services, The U
Original Hometown: Buckley, Ill.
Current Hometown: Champaign
Number of Years Living in the C-U Area: 30
Age: 56
"You used to be able to spend an entire day on campus," Geoff Merritt ruminates with me over coffee. "It's not a destination anymore." That's a shocking realization, but hard to deny, coming from the owner of the last remaining cultural hub in the bar, restaurant, and new monolithic apartment building zone that once hosted a movie theater, record stores, bookstores, a video arcade, and numerous other fun places to stop. Now Merritt's store, That's Rentertainment — an excellent video store featuring foreign films, music videos, independent films, documentaries, and everything Blockbuster doesn't and does stock — seems to be the last oasis of intelligent consumption left in what was once a thriving cultural center.
Many women will have a moment in their life where they will take a pregnancy test. The results will bring different reactions for everyone. One thought may be, "Am I ready for this?" Another might be, "Will it be a boy or a girl?" And yet another, more common thought will undoubtedly be, "What the hell am I going to wear for the next nine months?"
Well, look no further than Bella Bambini, the new maternity and early childhood store for you, me and everyone else.
Getting your green thumb on is not as easy as it seems. As a new homeowner, I lack the confidence to feel anything more than a little uneasy about planting — and tending — a garden of vegetables and herbs. That, however, won’t stop me from giving it my best shot. After all, there’s nothing quite like fresh Roma tomatoes from your own garden.
This Saturday, May 10, Common Ground Food Co-op gives us another reason to bow at its altar. In addition to providing the community’s only truly organic and local food store, the co-op is also hosting its annual plant sale in the store’s parking lot at the corner of Fourth and Springfield in Champaign. The sale will run this weekend from 8 a.m.–12 p.m.
CGFC is touting its heirloom vegetables and herbs as the freshest around, so expect these newly sprouted plants to be just as delectable as the co-op’s popular cashew butter and zucchini.
Common Ground Food Co-op will remain in its current location at 610 E. Springfield Ave. in Champaign until July 1, when it’ll move to Lincoln Square Village.
Orange and blue? Not quite, but close enough. School colors are sprouting up on campus as the University of Illinois gets ready for graduation weekend. This year's commencement speaker is Mannie Jackson, current owner of the Harlem Globetrotters and a 1960 Illinois grad. Check out the university’s website for a full commencement calendar.
Are you itching to work at Urban Outfitters? Now here's your chance. Today in my inbox, I received an e-mail with the subject of "Urban Outfitters Champaign - Now Hiring." How did Urban Outfitters know that I live in Champaign and would like to know about job openings as a manager, display artist or merchandiser? Well, I'm not quite sure and I really don't want to work there. But perhaps you do?
At Smile Politely, we're interested in what the people of Champaign-Urbana think about this place we call home. So how do we find out what they think? Simple. We ask them.
Name: Kevin Barthelemy
Occupation/Education: Smattering of community college; clerk at U of I
Original Hometown: Champaign
Current Hometown: Ditto
Number of Years Living in the C-U Area: 40
Age: 48
When Julian Burger takes the lectern at the University of Illinois tonight, he’ll turn his attention to one question: What’s the state of human rights in today’s world?
As the guest speaker at the 17th Annual Daniel S. Sanders Peace & Social Justice Lecture, Burger will deliver a talk titled, “After 60 Years of Human Rights: Is there Cause for Celebration?” Burger is well qualified to address this topic; he currently serves as the coordinator of the Indigenous and Minorities Unit at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, which his based in Geneva, Switzerland. He’s also an internationally renowned authority on indigenous cultures and human rights.
At Smile Politely, we're interested in what the people of Champaign- Urbana think about this place we call home. So how do we find out what they think? Simple. We ask them.
Name: Jessica Paris, aka DJ Hellcat
Occupation/Education: Strategic Project Coordinator at Wolfram Research, DJ at Mike 'n Molly's (Fridays), Photographer, retro culture geek
Original Hometown: Philadelphia, PA
Current Hometown: Champaign, IL
Number of Years Living in the C-U Area: 13 (I tried to move away a few times but always end up coming back.)
Age: 32
Five things I really like about C-U:
Five things I really don’t like about C-U:
... otherwise, no complaints!
DJ Hellcat will be spinning tonight at the Grand Opening of Artists Against AIDS at Orpheum Children's Science Museum (346 N. Neil St., Champaign) and again on Sunday, during the artists' meet and greet.
Every tree has a story to tell. Some have been planted merely to beautify to land, others have been planted to provide refuge from the sun and on Arbor Day, more trees are planted than any other day of the year. Tomorrow, Friday, April 25 is Arbor Day and Parkland College will honor and remember friends and loved ones of local supporters by planting several trees on the south side of the campus in the Memorial Grove. Each tree planted is a part of the Living Tree Program, where each tree is adopted and maintained for life by the college. A dedication plaque will accompany the tree.
The tree planting ceremony will be held in the Donald and Alice Dodds, Jr. multi-purpose room within the campus' Child Development Center at 10 a.m. Parkland College is located at 2400 West Bradley Ave. in Champaign.
A message to all you homeowners out there.
Your chance to get all that winterized gunk out of your yard could end as early as today, depending on where you live. The city of Champaign authorizes Spring and Fall collections of yard waste each year, and according to this map, May 2, next Friday, will be the last day that you can take advantage of the service.
I've got $100 dollars on the notion that west Champaign neighborhoods in the B–5 zone are subject to midnight drop-offs from procrastinating citizens come Thursday night.
For those who miss the deadline, there is always the Landscape Recycling Center in Urbana that operates year-round.
If you see an excess of streamers, painted bodies, tall bicycles or decorated floats tomorrow at West Side Park, you've stumbled upon the genius of OPENSOURCE'S "Biking the Boneyard Arts Festival." This parade is yet another fun-filled event during the Boneyard Arts Festival and OPENSOURCE invites everyone and anyone to make themselves and their bikes into moving pieces of artwork and travel though Champaign-Urbana. OPENSOURCE also encourages all artists, activists, poets and writers to bring their distributable work to pass out to the Boneyard crowd.
At Smile Politely, we're interested in what the people of Champaign- Urbana think about this place we call home. So how do we find out what they think? Simple. We ask them.
Name: Alfie McCool
Occupation/Education: Transportation/Junior college
Original Hometown: Champaign, Ill.
Current Hometown: Champaign, Ill.
Number of Years Living in the C-U Area: 50 years
Age: 50
The sun is out and the weather is fine, so why not take your little one outdoors and explore nature? Lake of the Woods Forest Preserve is hosting "Wild About Water" this Saturday, April 12 from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. It is a hands-on educational program designed for preschoolers, ages 3 to 5, and their chaperones to discover the wonders of water. The children will be engaging in scientific activities such as buoyancy and the movement of water.
When Drew's Pizza, the take-out restaurant on Green Street between Sixth and Wright streets known for their $5 pies that tasted like cardboard closed, their darkened storefront became the third on the block, until now. Offering bagels, sandwiches, spreads, and treats, Howbowda Bagel will open in summer 2008, and if they serve matzo ball soup, I will have no reason to travel back to the Chicago suburbs ever again.
Ben Smith of Big Grove Zydeco: The Iron Post — 11:45 p.m.
It’s 1939 and a small Polish village is overtaken by Soviet forces. A young boy, Wesley Adamczyk, along with his family, is taken captive, deported and sent to a series of brutal camps in Siberia. In the far reaches of a frozen and unfamiliar continent, they encounter everything from scorpions to communist double agents.
Adamczyk’s childhood was as difficult and unique as they come, and he will bring his story to the Urbana Free Library this Sunday, April 6, at 2 p.m. The author will read an excerpt from his memoir, When God Looked the Other Way, followed by a screening of Children of Exile, a documentary based on Adamczyk’s memoir.
Greetings.
This Thursday, April 3, Smile Politely will congregate at local watering hole Mike 'N Molly's at 7:30 p.m. It's been four months since we launched, and we'd like to invite all of YOU to come out and tell us how much you love us, how much you hate us and what we can do to make Smile Politely, and this community, even better.
See you there!
Editors
At Smile Politely, we're interested in what the people of Champaign-Urbana think about this place we call home. So how do we find out what they think? Simple. We ask them.
Name: Cara Maurizi
Occupation/Education: Masters of Music Education, music teacher, actor, singer, songwriter
Original Hometown: Galesburg, IL
Current Hometown: Urbana
Number of Years Living in the C-U Area: 9
Age: 33
This past weekend saw capoeiristas from around the world gather in Champaign-Urbana for the 6th Annual International Capoeira Conference. Over 15 capoeira masters from Brazil, Mexico, Paris and all points in between spent four days teaching capoeiristas new skills and techniques for this growing discipline.
If the previous paragraph does not make much sense to you, it is probably easier to see than to describe. Capoeira is a Brazilian dance-like, martial-artsy, game-like, cooperative interplay of two people set in a circle of drums, percussion instruments and Portuguese chants. People who enjoy this kind of thing are called, appropriately enough, capoeiristas.
Mark Charles of Vandaveer: Cowboy Monkey – 10:45 p.m.
At Smile Politely, we're interested in what the people of Champaign- Urbana think about this place we call home. So how do we find out what they think? Simple. We ask them.
Name: Dimitria Johnson
Occupation: Secretary III
Original Hometown: Omaha, Neb.
Current Hometown: Urbana, Ill.
Number of Years Living in the C-U Area: 12 years
Age: (No answer)
Unless you've been living under a rock, a beer can, or a pile of other books, you've probably been hearing a lot about this guy Ivan Ilyich and his kicking of the bucket. That's due to the fact that this weekend, the University of Illinois, Champaign Public Library and Urbana Free Library are launching a "Big Read," putting the community's collective nose in the pages of Leo Tolstoy's classic The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
The Illinois men’s basketball team fell short in the Big Ten Championship game in Indianapolis yesterday, losing to Wisconsin 61–48. With the season over, Assembly Hall, which last hosted the men’s team on March 8 and the women’s team on March 2, has begun a hiatus from college hoops that will last until October. Next on tap at Assembly Hall: Cheap Trick and Joan Jett on March 28.
Successful businesses often have humble beginnings. The first Apple computers were assembled in Steve Jobs’ living room. YouTube’s first office was in a garage. eBay’s first sale was a broken laser pointer.
For Book Glutton, a website that allows users to form virtual reading groups and comment on online books, the origins were no less humble. The idea was born out of a night of drinks at the Esquire in downtown Champaign and the initial notes were scribbled on cocktail napkins. Of course, for Travis Alber and Aaron Miller, the company’s founders, designers, principle investors and only full-time staff, Book Glutton’s success is still a distant goal that depends on users taking advantage of what the site has to offer.
If anyone truly knows the fabric of Chicago, it's Timuel Black.
From running the playground of Burke Elementary School on the city's South Side to receiving his master's degree at University of Chicago in Hyde Park and finally, penning the book Bridges of Memory: Chicago's First Wave of Great Migration – it's quite possible Black's pulse beats in step with the sounds of the windy city.
Tonight, the Chicago-based community leader, oral historian, teacher, activist and philosopher presents the discussion "Black Chicago: What Was, What Is, and What Is Likely To Be." Black discusses the economic, political, and social elements that make Chicago a dynamic hub for African-American culture.
A few months ago, Louis Lefebvre and two other biological researchers published an article on kleptoparasitism, the act of snatching food that someone (or something) else has already gathered. Along with his colleagues, Lefebvre, who specializes in birds, constructs a scientific study that examines the ornithological equivalent of this question: Why did your buddy suddenly start stealing your Big Mac and fries rather than just getting his own? Is it because he's bigger than you? Was it the way he was raised? Is there simply no safe place for you to stash that fast-food feast until the bully has gone away? Or maybe because his brain's telling him there's an advantage to grabbing your goods?
The University of Illinois hosts the registered-to-capacity Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Ally College Conference this weekend, beginning Friday and running through Sunday.
While it's too late to participate in conference workshops (or see any of the keynote speakers, including Eric Alva, TJ Jourian, and Angela Davis), consolation can be found in what the registered will accomplish: Conference organizers and attendees will be working to organize for and promote LGBTQA activism and awareness (and diversity in general) on Midwestern college campuses.
Outside, but near, the conference, there's still at least one opportunity to get involved – the Illini Union will host Spit Fire, a competitive poetry slam organized for conference attendees and community members alike.
Author Ray Elliott and five local war veterans discuss the perils of war tonight in a conversation ranging in topics from World War II and Korea to Vietnam and the current conflict in Iraq. Elliott served in the Marines before penning his 2006 book Iwo Blasted Again.
The panel of local vets includes Dan Perrino and Tom Henderson, both stationed in the Pacific during World War II; Robert Henderson, who served in Korea; American Legion Post #24 commander and Vietnam veteran George Flowers; and Iraq veteran and injured soldier advocate Garrett Anderson. Moderated by Elliott, the panel's experience stretches through a long history of United States conflicts, and tonight the military men reflect on their experiences during wartime.
On Aug. 28, 2007, Champaign-Urbana only had an opportunity to see half of a lunar eclipse. Since the eclipse began in the early morning hours, the sun came up before the eclipse was over. This Wednesday evening, however, we'll get another chance. A total lunar eclipse will happen at 7:30 p.m. and the members of the Champaign-Urbana Astronomical Society, with help from the William M. Staerkel Planetarium staff, are offering up their own personal telescopes for a free viewing of the rare event.
Riddle me this – which is more deadly, a gun or a swimming pool? Ask economic scholar Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dunbar, co-authors of Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side of Everything, a book answering questions about everyday life.
Tonight, Levitt presents “Freakonomics: The Hidden Side of Everything” in University of Illinois' Foellinger Auditorium at 7 p.m. in anticipation of his new, yet to be released, collaboration with Dunbar, a sequel to his 2005 bestseller dubbed SuperFreakonomics.
There has been a great deal of talk about the environment, sustainability, and "green" issues. When it comes to building design, many are saying it would be silly not to include sustainable environmental elements in this day and age. What about historic rehabilitation projects, though? In more progressive communities, redevelopment of historic buildings is considered hip and trendy. Original fixtures, vaulted ceilings, and the coolness and charm that often come with acquiring a unique, older space intrigue visionaries and creative types. But in smaller communities, more often than not, without the necessary resources at their fingertips, there is an impulse to do away with the old and build new — or worse, build nothing. This wasn't the case for the New Holland Apartments, located at the cusp of downtown Danville.
Now in it's fifth year, UC Hip-Hop Congress proudly hosts the 2008 date auction, Spin the Record, in all of it's break-beat glory tonight at the Courtyard Cafe. The fine men and women of the local club take to the stage to sell themselves to affections, lusts, and most of all, to win support and funds for Hip-Hop Awareness Week 2008. The week encompasses a variety of events that celebrate hip-hop as a culture and increase awareness of issues and elements within the culture.
Thursday nights are wine nights when you’re wiling the evening away at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Sponsored by a rotating cast of local businesses (Bacaro, the Corkscrew, Friar Tuck, jim gould and Sun Singer) who know a thing or two about top-quality inebriants, the “Krannert Uncorked” tastings offer the opportunity to spend your happy hour sampling new wines and taking in some live music.
Tonight’s featured wines, selected and supplied by Sun Singer, all come from South Africa: a 2006 Bon Cap “The Ruins” white; a 2005 Bon Cap Pinotage; and a 2006 Bon Cap "The Ruins Red." Sips are free and glasses are available at a discounted price.
Local jazz ensemble, the Darden Purcell Quartet, will provide the music. The event kicks off at 5 p.m. in the lobby of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, 500 S. Goodwin Avenue on the University of Illinois campus.
Painting courtesy of Elin Pendleton
Workers braved temperatures in the teens this afternoon to keep the construction moving at 507 E. Green Street in Campustown. The new building is set to house Urban Outfitters in its first two floors with five stories of office space up above. According to a representative at the University of Illinois News Bureau, the project remains on schedule and Urban Outfitters — as well as the university’s Office of Public Affairs and other occupants to be determined in the coming months — will be open for business by August 2008.
Is your ability to recall random facts and dates alienating you from your friends? Let the facts fly tonight at Drink n’ Think, a good old-fashioned trivia night (plus a few bottles of brew) featuring questions crafted by the party’s host with the most, Lena Singer (a Smile Politely contributor). Gather up a few of your quick-witted friends (up to six), or just rely on your own overextended cranium. Whether you’re a sports fanatic or a pop culture aficionado, run with the big brains tonight at the battle royale of arbitrary knowledge.
The brain bowl kicks off at 8 p.m. sharp, and sign-up begins at 7:30 p.m. at Mike n’ Molly’s located on 105 N. Market St. in Champaign.
Photo by Pat Schmitz
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