Last week, in my ongoing quest to understand what the young people are doing these days, I took advantage of an offer to get two tickets in the handicapped section for a Taste of Chicago concert. The bands are The Roots (who I know of thanks to QuestLove) and someone called Donnie Trumpet, who I’d never heard of. I […]

Mike’s post last month about using Facebook to mourn for Prince motivated me to ask the writers in the memoir classes I lead to write about a celebrity’s death that made them really sad. “The celebrity can be an author, an artist, an athlete, a musician, an actor, an actress, a political figure, anyone who […]

Here she is, DJ Mermaid, with her first guest post. Everyone knows the rule: Only post on the Internet if you won’t have it bite you back later. That includes your personal information for some people. I am one of them. This is because I did a StoryCorps interview that went on NPR and then […]

My first opera experience last night was a huge success, and while I work on paring that grand experience down into a piece short enough to publish here, as long as we’re on an orchestral bent, how about I share some thoughts about Steve Inskeep’s interview of Itzhak Perlman on NPR’s Morning Edition a couple […]

On Friday WBEZ (Chicago Public Radio) invited writer Mel Washburn and me to their studio to talk about the Sum Up Your Life in Three Songs assignment I gave to my Chicago memoir-writing classes last week. Mel is in the Monday class I lead for Lincoln Park Village. During the interview, Morning Edition host Tony […]