Good for you

Last night, Chicago Tonight remembered the deadlist plane crash in U.S. history.  American Arilines flight 191.

Chicago Public Radio recently covered the controversy that arose out of the painting over of a Bridgeport mural of Chicago Police Department blue light cameras and images of the crucifiction.  The Department of Streets and Sanitation has recently taken blame for the mural’s disappearance, but the whole incident raises interesting questions about where officials draw the line between mural art and grafitti.

The whole thing reminds me of the painting over of the famed Virgin Mary salt stain under the Kennedy Expressway earlier this year.

So what do we think?  Art?  Miracle?  Or simply defacement?

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 AP is reporting that the Chicago City Council voted today to ban the sale of  baby bottles and sippy cups containing BPA in Chicago.  This is very good for babies.

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.

Check out NYTimes‘ Mark Bittman’s video on how to stock up your kitchen with the cooking tools you actually need.

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.