When prominent Chicagoans list the Web sites they like to visit, their choices can reveal personality traits.
Take Chicago artist Ed Paschke. He’s showing his professional persona when he logs on to www.graphicconservation.com. “It’s like an ER of things of importance that are on paper,” he explains.
But he reveals his macabre mind-bent when he searches for the bizarre and the unusual at www.killingtime.com. He also likes to get a close look at autopsies and celebrity graveyards at www.rotten.com. “I’m interested in the various aberrations of the human condition so it’s a good place for me to hang out.” (Paschke’s own site is www.edpaschke.com.)
At first glance, there are no surprises in some of the favorite Web sites of Ira Glass, the producer and host of the radio program “This American Life” on WBEZ-FM 91.5, which broadcasts vignettes documenting the quirky details of ordinary people muddling through the mudslides of everyday life. He likes to get his daily dose of true tales at www.openletters.net, which posts a different letter every day. He enters the inner sanctum of people’s lives on www.diaryland.com. Glass says he saw the “wazzzzup” TV commercial and parodies of it for the first time on www.adcritic.com. For cool looking graphics, he goes to www.soulbath.com and www.superbad.com. If it seems like Glass surfs the Internet a lot, he denies it. “Actually I spend next to no time on the Internet,” he explains. “I’ve learned about most of the Web sites from my girlfriend who calls herself my Web portal.” (The radio program’s site is www.this life.org.)
Rives Collins won a Parent’s Choice award for his recording “Let’s Fill Up the House with Stories and Songs.” He logs on to www.storynet.org. “It’s a great cyberspace cafe for on-line discussions about storytelling and it has lots of links for finding stories to tell,” says Collins, who teaches children’s theater at Northwestern University. He finds trends in the field at www.aate.com, the site of the American Alliance for Theatre in Education.
Photographer Rashid Johnson knows how to find a laugh on the Internet at www.jokeland. com. He says, “It’s really crude, but when you’re in that mood and open to that kind of humor, it’s really funny.” He also uses e-bay, where he purchased a lamp recently. Rashid goes to www.danielsmith.com to buy paper for his photography work, which includes two portraits in the collection of the Art Institute and a series of large-scale photos of feet. Johnsonexplains, “The feet fall into designs based on my interpretation of the direction we’ve taken historically through migration and movement and the idea of how boundaries are created whether they be physical or psychological.” (Information about Johnson is on www.grnnamdi.com, the site of the G.R. N’Namdi Gallery.)
Jim Vincent, who was recently named artistic director of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, likes a German site EYE4U.com. “It’s very creative with great effects and soundtrack and it’s highly interactive,” he explains. “They’re light-years ahead of the pack in their attention to detail, music and color.” (The dance company’s site is www.hubbardstreet dance.com.)
Aldo Castillo, the owner of Aldo Castillo Gallery, may sell fine art but he picks out www.rogerheaton.com, which features the work of commercial photographers represented by Chicagoan Roger Heaton. “I like the site because it is very similar to what we do with fine art, but it is with commercial photography, which is sometimes looked down upon even though the photographers are very creative people whose work helps businesses in town.” (The site of Castillo’s gallery is www.artaldo.com, which features approximately 900 works of art.)
Writer Scott Turow, author of such popular novels as “Presumed Innocent,” likes to log on to a site that reflects the fact that he is also a lawyer. During the legal wrangling to select a president, he found www.findlaw.com invaluable. “I used the site to examine the text of all those Florida protest, contest and recount statutes the lawyers were prating about,” he says. The site also corresponds to Turow’s sense of fairness. “I’ve always resented the monopolies many of the law publishers have established of legal opinions and statutes which, after all, ought to be free to the public that those laws regulate.”
The favorite sites of chefs Rick Tramonto and Gale Gand, co-owners of Tru, highlight their professional interests and some personal ones. Gand likes uptontea.com. She also logs on to www.forums.foodtv.com for interactive question-and-answer chat sessions about the dessert recipes she demonstrates on her TV program “Sweet Dreams” on the Food Channel. Tramonto likes www.foodtv.com because it offers lots of recipes, current food news and trends. To satisfy another need, he goes to www.oneplace.com, a Christian Web site that has live broadcasts of religious sermons. Gand and Tramonto both use the Internet with their young son. He likes www.dinofest.com about the dinosaur exhibit at Navy Pier. He also goes to www.pbskids.org where he can download coloring pages of the show “Dragon Tales.”
