Good for you

Watch this audio slide show for gardening tips for the homebody. Helpful links.

• Plant Care has a plant encyclopedia where you can read up on your babies
• Gardening Coaches is helpful for diagnosing plant symptoms
• The Gardeners Network has good tips on looking after plants

Special thanks to Jocelin Shalom and Sarah Hudson for being outstanding models.

Has anyone else noticed the growing popularity of the brain tumor/hallucination storyline on TV?  More than ever, networks have their most beloved characters seeing cartoon characters and talking to dead people.

Here’s the count so far:

• House
• Grey’s Anatomy
• Bones
• Lost (only because people are always acting crazy on Lost, so why not?)
• The Unusuals

If anyone else is seeing crazies on primetime, please do let us know!

And, for good measure, here are the real symptons of a brain tumor, courtesy of WebMD.

The Architecture and Design gallery in The Art Institute's new Modern Wing. Nicole Cohen/Good for You

The Art Institute of Chicago will be opening its Modern Wing with a week of free admission starting this Saturday, May 16 until Friday, May 22.

Designed by architect Renzo Piano (who also designed Paris’ Centre Pompidou), the Modern Wing was built to provide more room for the museum’s growing collection (the third largest in the United States).

The $294 million project includes a bridge that links the museum to Millennium Park, an education center, and a restaurant featuring concoctions from Spiaggia chef Tony Mantuano.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  The point here is that admission is free next week, so pick a sunny day (the better to enjoy the wing’s views and naturally lit galleries) and don’t forget your canned goods (which the museum will be collecting for the Greater Chicago Food Dispensitory during its opening week).

Some highlights from the new wing:

Jeff Wall’s decidely spooky graveyeard photography.

Candyass’s (a.k.a Cary Leibowitz) “Photo Booth Fortune” featuring fortune cookie fortunes and a hairy man in a photo booth.

Steve McQueen’s video “Girls, Tricky” featuring “trip-hop” artist Tricky (a.k.a Adrian Thaws) in the recording studio and smoking what I will, for the sake of the blog, only identify as a cigarette.

Architecture and Design galleries’ (pictured above) seat-provoking chairs

Add to that the names like Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and  Joan Miro and you’ll wonder how the institute every got by without this space.

tschorda/FLICKR

This morning’s All Things Considered featured a brainy piece about mind exercise by Linton Weeks.

Some of the things we learned:

• more sleep, less food, and lots of exercise can make you smarter
• one way to improve your memory is to give it a workout by (drum roll please…….) remembering things
• you can improve sensory memory by closing your eyes and smelling everything in your kitchen
• working memory can be improved by doing something I’m pretty sure no one reading this will actually try:

Name the U.S. presidents, going backward from Barack Obama to John F. Kennedy. Then, arrange them in chronological order starting with Kennedy, assigning each his proper party affiliation (so, Kennedy — Democrat; Johnson — Democrat; etc.). Next, list them alphabetically.

litherland/Flickr

It only took hearing two different NPR reviews (here and here) of the X-Men Origins Wolverine movie for me to realize the summer blockbuster season is upon us.  And while I am looking forward to spending hot summer evenings in and out of movie theaters, I’m definitely not looking forward to paying for it.

For those out there aching for Hollywood action on a tight budget, I recommend a trip to Logan Theater on at 2646 N. Milwuakee Ave.  They may not play new releases (only movies that have been out for a couple months) but tickets only cost you about $4 and reviewers love their chocolate covered frozen bananas.

Here’s a map to cheaper movie fun:

View Logan Theater in a larger map

Next time you’re anywhere near the Damen stop on the Blue Line, take a minute to pop in on the Weirder Park General Store at 1539 N. Damen Ave, a novelty shop that sells handmade trinkets from their third story window.  The Web site describes the store as “Chicago’s one-stop shop for all your novelty needs!”

But how, you might ask, does one novelty shop out of a window?  Don’t fret, their site provides detailed instructions.

Our revolutionary ‘walk-up window service’ lets you make all your purchases from the streets below. Simply ring the bell, and we’ll pop our heads out of our window and help you pick out the merchandise that best suits your needs. When you are ready to go on your way, we’ll lower your purchases via a basket. Simply place your hard-earned money back into the basket, which comes back to us to ensure that we can continually add new products and services.

As of Tuesday night , Weirder Park expanded into a concert venue and co-founder Celia Rose Marks says she hopes to eventually grow into an art space as well.

“This is our first venture into what this space could potentially be,” Marks said.

Tuesday night’s performers included out-of-towners Liz Isenberg and Omnivore (or Glenna Vannostrand).  See pictures and hear their music after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

The White House has formally declared a “public health emergency” at a press briefing today as news sites exploded with reports of a swine flu epidemic outbreak whose roots are currently being traced to Mexico.

Dr. Richard Besser of the Centers for Disease Control explained that there were 20 confirmed cases of swine flu at the time of the press briefing, adding that all U.S. cases of the flu were already in recovery.

Besser went on to explain the steps individual communities can take to prevent infection.

Very frequent hand-washing is something that we talk about time and time again and that is an effective way to reduce transmission of disease.  If you’re sick, it’s very important that people stay at home.  If your children are sick, have a fever and flu-like illness, they shouldn’t go to school.  And if you’re ill, you shouldn’t get on an airplane or another public transport to travel.  Those things are part of personal responsibility in trying to reduce the impact.

Besser also cited the CDC Web site as a good source for up-to-date information on the status swine flu in the U.S.

The AP has reported that 86 deaths are being attributed to the virus in Mexico and that confirmed cases have also sprung up in France, Israel, Canada, and New Zealand.

According to the CDC Web site, swine flu is a respiratory disease common among pigs.  Swine flue does not normally infect humans.

One-time Chicagoan and Hideout bartender Neko Case took the Chicago Theater by storm last night in heels and a little black dress that Case characterized as a tribute to Chicago’s meat-packing  industry.

A testament to the thought and work Case puts into her live performances, each song was accompanied by a short film featuring everything from shadow puppets to footage of birds flying overhead to an animation that begins with four girls knitting in the belly of a whale (see below).

The Sun-Times’ Mark Guarino described the show beautifully:

Her six-member band staged the narratives in shadowy country noir, with guitarists Jon Rauhouse and Paul Rigby playing off the other — one driving a jittery rhythm underneath things with the other coloring in the moods with smoky reverb. The band’s strengths were revealed in the pockets they opened for Case to fill in with her voice, a lustrous instrument that somehow manages to reveal lonesomeness and determination at the same time.

The “alt-country chanteuse”, also known for her work with the New Pornographers, played with a band including a bassist who looked suspiciously like Tom V. Ray of Devil in a Woodpile — a Chicago blues and ragtime group rumored to have broken up.

Case is currently on tour to promote her newest release Middle Cyclone which came out in March of this year.

For more about Neko Case, check out Q&As from Decider and Pitchfork.