I was driving through central Michigan this weekend, when the Sunday afternoon host blurted out a rumor floating through the halls of NPR about a possible transition to television for Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me. Was this a slip? Was someone supposed to muzzle this unwitting sap before he spilled the beans? No matter what, we now know that the hit WBEZ show has arranged to film a pilot episode has been talking with CBS......

Despite being one of the city’s most notorious warm-weather tourist hubs, Millennium Park just keeps bangin’ out some rather impressive locally oriented programming. This week is no exception, as the Park celebrates Blockbuster Week, a celebration of some of Chicago’s “most beloved cultural gems.” Two highlights, both of which come at no charge to you: Tonight, Sept. 3, 6:30 pm - String connoisseur and whistling pro Andrew Bird takes the stage at the Jay Pritzker......

The Peabody Award winners were announced today, and among them is Chicagoist fave Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me. The Peabody board describes the show thusly: "A zippy update of one of broadcasting's long-ago staples, this live quiz show reminds listeners of the week's news even as host Peter Sagal and various panelists make witty sport of it." Peabodys are arguably the most prestigious awards in broadcast, and there are no set categories or numbers of winners.......

Funny Ha-Ha is a guaranteed good time. Tonight's edition at The Hideout features a host of writers, but seems to be "headlined" by Eric Zorn. We love Zorn, but find it kind of funny his credit is "Chicago Tribune Columnist & Blogger" while Claire Zulkey's is "Blogger & TV Critic for The Onion & Los Angeles Times." Yeah, yeah, yeah, Zulkey rose to fame due to her blog, but even so, once she scored the......

The listed events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Music The Riverboat Gamblers fucking slay, there's no debate there. Lead singer Mike Wiebe channels Iggy Pop's figuratively red-headed step-child as he thrashes and throws himself across the stage belting out hook-filled punk rawk anthems. No song breaks the 3-minute mark because there's no point in pushing the riffs any further than they need to......

Media speculation over whether or not Bill will chill has been answered with the announcement of the former president's campaign itinerary. Next stop on the legacy-tarnishing express: Edwardsville, IL. Hillary's more controversial half will be campaigning in the small town near St. Louis tomorrow morning, hosting a "Solutions for America" rally at Southern Illinois University at 7:45 a.m. Yeah, Illinois is supposed to be Obama country, but according to a WBEZ report this morning, the......

We first heard of Acrassicauda through a story on NPR, describing the trials and tribulations of these heavy metal band of Iraqi refugees. They were recently hunkered down in Damascus, but got out in the nick of time when Syria started ejecting all Iraqi refugees, and not the group is in Istanbul ... trying their damndest to keep from getting sent back to Bagdhad. VICE has sort of taken the group under its wing and......

Intonation is back! And they’ve partnered with the MCA to put on a big ‘ole party as part of the museum’s 40-year celebration. Even better? The whole show is as free as air. Intonation’s Rock/Art kicks off on tomorrow at 1 p.m. with a whole slew of local bands, representing some of the most notable sounds to come out of Chicago in the recent past. When you get there, check out the new Sympathy......

Winner of a special prize at the Berlin Film Festival, #12 on Metacritic's All-Time High Scores and one of the first 50 films chosen for preservation in the National Film Registry, Killer of Sheep has always been a film more talked about than seen. Until now. This week you'll probably be hearing a lot more about it, because twenty years after it was finished it's finally getting a release; it opens Friday at the Music......

What's Carl's Itinerary?...

NPR Host Peter Sagal — Again
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A.O Scott’s review of the new Michael Moore movie begins with a very astute observation; namely, that whenever Moore’s name is brought up it is inevitably attached to adjectives such as “polarizing,” “controversial,” “provocative,” and “muck-raking.” And that it is the media itself which perpetuates the use of these adjectives. Would one describe Steven Spielberg as “polarizing?” Spielberg has two films in the top ten highest-grossing films of all time and no one describes him......

We're not sure if she got the idea from the teens who were on NPR or not, but state senator Carol Ronan is taking on the "alcopops". Despite tasting like sugar headaches and costing too much for too little of the real thing, people keep drinking the so-called "alcopops," syrupy malt beverages like Bacardi Silver and Smirnoff Ice. Not just people, though — underaged people. Ronan, a Democrat, announced she is drafting legislation that could......

After careful thought and consideration about whether he will run for President in 2008, Senator Barack Obama announced today that he will begin even more serious thought and consideration today. In a statement (view it here), Obama said he “didn't expect to find myself in this position a year ago,” which is funny because pretty much everyone else did. The rest of the statement touches on the issues that Obama has covered before including health......

Chicagoist loves the iTunes. When we purchased our first Mac back in 2002, iTunes was our favorite application for messing with our (then) ten gigs of MP3s. We previously used MusicMatch Jukebox, but iTunes simply beat the socks off of that and turned us into a die-hard Apple fan. Over the last week, we've been following the story about iTunes Music Store sales. One research firm released a report saying that sales dropped 65% this......

We were on our way to work this morning and happened upon this hilarious story on NPR about our capital city hiring a “bird whisperer” to handle a bothersome pigeon situation downtown. Slow news day, we thought. But then the plot thickened. Jim Soules, owner of Soules Bird Repellant Co., gets paid to ward off birds from various Illinois cities, and he claims to do so without harming the creatures in any way. All he......

If it weren't for our life as an -ist, we're not sure we'd ever leave our apartment. Fortunately, to fully -ist, one must seek out the new, the fresh, and the unknown. Brand new, or just new to us, that's what we're all about this week. Phillyist keeps it fresh by getting a new motto, learning to prioritize, and taking in an experimental indie rock show. Torontoist does their first post in franglais, gets ready......

Last evening at the Park West, Chicagoist attended the Mason Jennings show. Mason Jennings has stated that he is interested in the experience of life and his songs relate those experiences in an extremely personal way. In fact, it’s a little shocking at just how vulnerable he allows himself to be in his songwriting. Before heading to the show, we anticipated a bunch of lovebird hippies sitting around arms around each other in a kumbaya......

Thanks to an incentive-laden deal with the state, Pabst Brewing Company is moving their corporate headquarters from San Antonio (WTF? Milwaukee was so bad they had to move to San Antonio?) to suburban Woodridge, according to an article in today's Sun-Times. The deal, which gives Pabst a nearly $1 million tax incentive and training funding package for 31 executives, to be hired from the area. Pabst itself ifs spending $2.4 million to lease a facility......

Newspaper publishers shocked the world ... of geeky stock analysts yesterday when many posted dismal results for the first quarter. As for the rest of us, we were thinking about the incestuous-ness of a newspaper article on newspapers not doing so hot in sales. We know it's necessary, but still—that's the kind of goofy crap we think about. Anyway, publishers cited poor ad sales, "new costs for dispensing stock options" and the rising cost of......

In today’s Sun-Times, David Jakubiak discusses a CD spotlighting the local hip-hop radio show “CTA Radio” broadcast on the University of Chicago’s WHPK 88.5 FM. The comp will be released on New York label Raptivism Records. Artists like Twista, Kanye and Common have led many to suggest a renaissance is brewing for Chicago’s hip-hop community and Raptivism label head Vincent Merry agrees: "It's a really large city with a very diverse population and numerous institutions......

We’ve already told you about the weekly tapings of locally produced NPR hit Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. We decided to attend yesterday's taping when we heard that Sarah Silverman was to be a call-in guest, since we honestly can’t get enough of that gal. Though we do admit to being totally mystified as to why a woman that cool is dating Jimmy Kimmel. Ah, those vexing mysteries of life. We arrived at the taping......

A couple of things caught our attention yesterday and we thought we’d share them. First off Ike Reilly will be on NPR’s World Café today. Now this would be easier if Chicago’s WBEZ carried the show, but it doesn’t so we all have to continuously check the Archives in order to see when they have that up to hear the stylings of Libertyville's finest. And far be it from us to not break news......

We're not proud, but man we are facinated with bank robberies in Chicago this year. As we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Chicago was on pace to shatter the 1995 record of 195 robberies. On December 2nd, we did that. Local media has been tracking the robberies daily, with today's count at 212, according to an NPR report Chicagoist heard this morning. The robbery spree isn't limited to just particular Chicago banks. The pictures......

Peter Sagal - Host of "Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me!" ...

Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis are unusual. They have been long-time Chicago critical stalwarts in the rock and pop vein. They have pioneered the idea of written rock criticism expanded into a talk-show format on both radio and television. Instead of merely being pasty music dorks hiding behind a keyboard they have both been brave enough to be pasty music dorks reflecting the white glare of the public eye. While almost everyone has probably read......

Last week, Chicagoist sat in on the weekly recording of "Wait, Wait -- Don't Tell Me!" "Wait, Wait" is a weekly program on NPR that packages the week's news in a quiz show format where callers work with panelists to answer questions about the important stories of the week. (It actually's a bit more complicated than that, so listen to the show online to get the full scoop.) The taping was done deep in the......

Chicagoist doesn’t drive that much (even less since we lost our car keys) so we aren't hip to what’s going on in the world of radio and specifically on NPR. When we heard that Recent Photo had been chosen as a featured song on The All Songs Considered’s Open Mic, we decided to check out what it was. All Songs Considered began because people kept writing in to find out what music was being......

Chicagoist never thought the day would arrive when we'd earnestly write "Smackdown" and "Ira Glass" in the same sentence. But the Rhinocerous Festival is always a time to defy expectations, pitting the gentle voiced This American Life host against Curious Theatre Branch's co-founder and spiritual force of the festival Beau O'Reilly Sunday night. These men shall duel—to the death! or at least till the end of the program!!—for the cultural supremacy of their respective......

Now Chicagoist hasn’t really listened to B96 since we were in high school. The Eddie and Jobo morning show just isn’t a part of our lives any more, and if we wanted to listen to Lindsay Lohan we’d start babysitting Dakota Fanning. But we still fondly remember that there were times late night driving on the Eisenhower that B96 really hit that aural sweet spot of keeping us awake with the late night dance mixes......