Results tagged “satire”

It's part of our national schizophrenia as Americans. Every year we bemoan the exploitation of Christmas, and every year we spend more and more money that we really don't have to buy crap to give to each other "in the spirit of the season." There's a great movie to be made about the overcommercialization of Christmas; What Would Jesus Buy? is not exactly that movie, but it still offers a lot of food for...

Two weeks ago, in what was considered a rare act of humility, Japanese Emperor Akihito apologized to his countrymen, taking responsibility for a bluegill infestation that's wreaked havoc on Japan's ecosystem by bringing home a pair of the fish from a trip to the States nearly fifty years ago. "Bluegills are the ones I brought back from the U.S. some 50 years ago and donated to a Fisheries Agency research institute", Akihito said. "In those...

Extortion is funny, violence is hilarious, and murder provokes a smirk in Bad Guys in Suits, Hobo Junction’s quirky late-night tribute to the hardest times our hard-time town has ever known. It’s 1933 and the mob rules Chicago with an iron fist. When you’re not waiting on a bread line or begging for work, you take solace in a radio voice urging you to keep your chin up.

Last night, North Side/North Shore Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky sat down with Stephen Colbert to discuss her participation in the House Hunger Caucus' Food Stamp Challenge. After accidentally introducing her as Jane (and insisting on calling her such for the rest of the evening, not wanting to admit an error), Colbert dished out his usual satire, suggesting that the food stamp allotment be decreased to $2 to combat obesity. Although she had some difficulty getting...

One of our favorite writers, Dawn Powell, once wrote, "Satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out." This explains why the documentaries of Frederick Wiseman, some of which are screening at the Chicago International Documentary Festival starting this weekend, often feel so scathing. They show people as they are, not how we usually see them, and in doing so...

It looks like the Tribune has more than just money and stockholder problems these days. Glommed from the Reader's Food Chain blog yesterday is this article about the politics of modern eating. In her attempt at writing a humorous piece (vegetarians are acid casualties with their own bad eating habits, haven't heard that before), Emily Nunn comes across instead as obstinate toward and proudly ignorant of what we would know about where our food comes...

Hey! Are you single? Really? Are you sad about Valentine’s Day coming up? Do you feel like you need a man to make you happy? You do? Well, guess what? Everything is going to be OK! Know why? Jen Schefft is here to tell you about her new book, Better Single than Sorry: A No-Regrets Guide to Loving Yourself and Never Settling. Golly, Molly, just even reading the name of the book makes us feel better! Right, ladies? Am I right?

John McNally, author of “The Book of Ralph”, is a prolific writer. Originally a Southside Chicago native, McNally has written two novels; his short fiction has appeared in over 30 publications; he has edited five anthologies and has won countless awards and fellowships.

An exhibit that makes you laugh sounds good enough. But we grew skeptical about the Chicago Cultural Center’s Situation Comedy: Humor in Recent Art, after reading this description from Cultural Affairs’ monthly e-newsletter: These works employ various strategies involving text and image using parody, satire, slapstick and practical jokes to inject humor into the normally staid art environment. We dreaded the prospect of seeing mildly funny work paired with belabored explanations draining what little humor...

The quarterly comedy writing and performance showcase Funny Ha-Ha rumbles into the Museum of Contemporary Art tonight, the December offering of the MCA’s Literary Gangs of Chicago series. Chicagoist was lucky enough to catch up with the Funny people last spring and was treated to host Claire Zulkey’s Cosmo Quiz satire, Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s musings on everyday life, a revival of Aaron Friedman's before-our-time ‘Council Wars’ routine, and comedy troupe Schadenfreude’s equal-opportunity hating on FM radio personalities.

A smorgasbord for the mind, the 2005 Chicago Humanities Festival has rolled into town. This year’s theme is Home and Away, concerning “the role that ‘place’ serves in the creation of our sense of rootedness and belonging.” Sounds like Pretentious-English-Major-speak, but an impressive slate of writers, musicians and performers are addressing such hot button issues as globalization, mobility, national identity, and bridging regional differences. Most tickets are $5, a bargain that ensures many sold out...

We say Booooooooooo! to the Chicago Tribune. As our friends at Gaper's Block mentioned yesterday, The Trib, along with three other papers, didn't run "The Boondocks" yesterday because in the strip one character says to another, "Bush got recorded admitting that he smoked weed," and another replied, "Maybe he smoked it to take the edge off the coke."

God damn tomorrow cannot come fast enough. Pre-election anxiety + post-Halloween hangover + drizzly Monday = craptacular, any way you slice it. If it were up to us, today would be national Cuddle on the Couch in Pajamas and Watch TV Day, but alas, the party wheels keep on turning. Tonight and tomorrow, there's plenty election action to keep you busy. Here are a few to get you started:

Chicagoist knows it's not original to say this, but man, we can't get enough of The Onion. Though based currently in New York, the paper hails from Wisconsin and it definitely has that indefinable Midwestern sensibility and sense of humor that we know and love. We have all the books (the brilliant Our Dumb Century, Dispatches from the Tenth Circle), a few of the T-shirts ("Your favorite band sucks"), the coffee mug ("Fuck off"), and can recite classic headlines for days ("There's no 'My Kid has Cancer' in Team"). We went to their Christmas party last year, and if your humor paper can get performances by David Cross, The Walkmen, and Yo La Tengo at such an event, you must be doing something right. Hell, Chicagoist even knows one of the writers, and he's a damn nice guy.