(Legendary Chicago-based photographer Art Shay has taken photos of kings, queens, celebrities and the common man in a 60-year career. In this week's look at his photography archives, Art uses the Holiday season to look at faith in the hereafter.) more ›

"Studs" passed away three years ago today and Chicago has been the worse for the lack of his presence. more ›

Recently discovered video indicates Nelson Algren really wasn't that beat up about leaving Chicago in 1975. more ›

When Studs Terkel, age 90, came out of his heart surgery anesthetic in 2002, his exultant surgeon, mask and green gown spattered with the little giant's blood and sweat, said , "You're done!" more ›

Today Art looks back at Chicago's cultural heavyweights, from Ray Kroc and Henry Crown to Roger Ebert and Oprah Winfrey. more ›

Beginning on the banks of the Ohio River at the tip of Illinois and marching 400 miles through 14 counties north to Chicago, Halsted Street is America in microcosm. Follow it from downstate, through the suburbs, along the central swathe it cuts through many of Chicago's most integral neighborhoods and you'll get a great idea of what this state and this city are all about. 13 years ago, that's just what filmmaker David E. Simpson did, and he took his camera. The result was Halsted Street USA, which you can watch online in its entirety. more ›

The fine folks at StoryCorps have been doing a great job on a wonderful project and it just so happens that one of their biggest supporters early on was the legendary Studs Terkel. A fantastic short to start the morning. more ›

Cult comic book artist Harvey Pekar passed away early this morning at his home in Cleveland, Ohio. A cause of death hasn't been announced with an autopsy pending, but Pekar was suffering from prostate cancer, asthma, high blood pressure and depression. While Pekar was best known for his series "American Splendor," Pekar also oversaw a graphic adaptation of Studs Terkel's Working that's well worth checking out. After the jump, just for the heck of it, a clip from an old Pekar appearance on David Letterman's old NBC late night show. more ›

Studs Terkel is one step closer to being preserved online. Earlier this week, the Chicago History Museum reached a deal with the Library of Congress to digitize 50+ years (or around 6,000 hours) of interviews Studs did with various people including Martin Luther King, Jr., Bob Dylan, and Louis Armstrong. Studs, who passed away in 2008, had donated the tapes to the museum back in 1997. Said Gene DeAnna, who's heading up the project, “This project will require significant staff time and expertise, specialized audio equipment and a computer infrastructure capable of safely storing, delivering and sustaining the digital content: resources that are typically beyond the reach of small archives and museums. Some of these tapes are over 40 years old and are fragile.” The Chicago History Museum will retain ownership and copyright of the interviews; the project should take two years to complete. more ›

A sheriff, a musician, and a professor walk into a bar--wait, that's a different post. more ›

Gapers Block points us in the direction of this story, showing that famed Chicago writer Studs Terkel was tracked by the FBI for most of his life under suspicion of being a Communist. You can check out all 99 pages here [PDF]. more ›

Frankly, we’re sick of hearing about the economy. And when the new show at Second City e.t.c. opened singing, “The economy blows,” we settled in ready to tally the number of times the actors poked fun at the economic down turn. Thankfully, we didn’t get very far. more ›

Chicago legend Studs Terkel, who passed away last fall, is being honored with a posthumous induction into the Radio Hall of Fame. Joining Studs as posthumous honorees are legendary Philadelphia Phillies announcer (and Naperville native) Harry Kalas as well as Jose Miguel Agrelot, the Radio Hall of Fame's first Hispanic inductee. [via Windy Citizen] more ›

No doubt the art of oral storytelling has been around since even before Beowulf, but in Chicago’s own history no figure has loomed larger than Studs Terkel. From 1952 to 1997, Terkel broadcasted his conversations with writers, politicians, labor organizers, and artists on “The Studs Terkel Program,” chronicling a shifting narrative of the city’s structure. This Friday, May 1rst, The Windy City Story Slam celebrates Terkel, his modern day progeny . . .and the month of May. more ›

The above is very likely the worst demonstration of alliteration in a while, but what the hell. On this week's entry into the Chicagoist Podcast Series, we check in with our own Chuck Sudo to get a little more perspective on the experience that was this weekend's Dark Lord Day at the Three Floyds Brewery in Munster, Indiana. Following that, I had the opportunity to go on WLS radio Sunday afternoon to talk about my own response to Talk Like Shakespeare Day, called Talk Like Terkel (or Speak Like Studs if you prefer). Just for fun, we've included that audio here. more ›

A whole lot more than just the Oscars comin' up. For instance: more ›

Between now and Wednesday, we're counting down the top 8 local stories that captivated us in 2008. more ›

We know this is bordering on overload, but the admiration many of us here at Chicagoist have for Studs can't be overstated. So we'll leave you tonight with this outstanding and extensive interview with Studs from 2003. more ›

Photo by efroten
• Eight people were hurt, some seriously but none life-threatening, in a multiple car accident on the Northwest Side this morning that involved a Fire Department ambulance
• Internet muckraker Matt Drudge is reporting that representatives from three newspapers that have endorsed McCain are being booted from the Obama campaign pool. Some reports are that room is being made for documentary filmmakers or for major television reporters.
• Test results were revealed today for the state's schools. Both the Trib and the Sun-Times have rundowns of the report.

We thought we were going to make it through the afternoon without any bad news, but unfortunately that's not the case. Chicago legend Louis "Studs" Terkel passed away today at his home here in Chicago at the age of 96. more ›

Studs Terkel is a national treasure and one of Chicago's crown jewels. So with all the punditry and talking heads why did it take so long for someone to ask him what he thought of the Obama race towards the presidency? Edward Lifeson, who usually blogs about architecture at Hello Beautiful, called Studs Terkel to talk Presidential politics (which, presumably, isn't the hardest conversation to start) over at the Chicago branch of the Huffington Post. more ›

In celebrating Time Out's 40th anniversary, our colleagues at Time Out Chicago have assembled a list of Chicago's 40 Cultural Heroes, honoring Chicago's best and brightest and leaving no stone unturned. The issue focuses on "people who continue elevating our flat prairie metropolis to even headier heights," says TOC Editor Frank Sennett. The Chicagoans featured span a wide range, from Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan to Mayor Richard M. Daley to acclaimed, award-winning writer Achy Obejas. more ›

It's that time of year again, summer is officially starting, regardless of what the weather says. And one of our favorite early summer festivals, the Printers Row Book Fair, is this weekend! Touted as the Midwest's largest literary event, Printers Row features nearly 150 vendors from Women and Children First bookstore to Featherproof press to the Art Institute of Chicago's museum store. more ›

Today is the birthday of one Louis Terkel. Parroting Michael Sneed, "Studs" would be ageless and priceless. Actually, he's 96 today, but still priceless. more ›

A request for a street named in honor of Chicago author Saul Bellow was denied due to controversial remarks and writing by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Bellow's University of Chicago colleague and friend, Richard Stern, made the request to Ald. Toni Preckwinkle. Stern told the Chicago Tribune that Preckwinkle sent him a letter saying she had heard Bellow made racist comments and so would not endorse a memorial to him. Raised in Humboldt Park from... more ›

You might have already heard of the City 2000 project. The mission was to document life in Chicago in the first year of the 21st century for future generations and all that (which, as NASA's "Ask an Astrophysicist" informs us actually started in 2001). Over 200 photographers set out to capture life in the city, as well as sounds and video, which are housed at UIC's library. You can watch parts of the project... more ›

Who knew that U of C's DOC Films has been showing movies for 75 years? (Rhetorical question, as we're sure that many of you already knew that.) Well, they have. In fact they're the longest continuously running student film society in the U.S. As you can imagine, they've collected a lot of cool mementos in that time. Things like letters from Samuel Fuller and Jean Renoir, movie posters autographed by Hitchcock, and old programing calendars. And, yes, Fritz Lang's martini recipe (we're anxious to compare it Buñuel's). They're putting some of the neater stuff on display with a new exhibition which opens today and runs through August 31 at the school's Joseph Regenstein Library, 1110 E. 57th St. There's an opening reception this afternoon from 3:00 to 4:30 in the gallery. more ›

We're sweltering in the heat here, the CTA sometimes seems to barely function and both of our baseball teams suck. All annoyances no doubt. But let's not forget that in the midst of all this a little thing called the Iraq War just keeps marching on: $442 billion and several thousand lives later. We can protest against it and agitate for change but most of the time it's much easier for us to put it... more ›

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 that way. Yet (among documentaries) Moore has two films in the top five. How “controversial” can a filmmaker be and yet sell so many tickets? We just think he’s a filmmaker possessing a keen instinct for issues that get people riled up, which is a good thing. more ›

“I promise you, this story is going some place. I’m not simply blogging,” said author Erik Larson at the Printers Row Book Fair, which was in full swing today. more ›