Chicago landscape painter sees the art in wind turbines
When Brian Ritchard drove through the Midwest on road trips in recent years, he found himself struck by a relatively new sight: Wind turbines. There were so many of the...
All Stories
Late Steve Montador, a former Blackhawks player, had CTE brain damage
Steve Montador knew something was wrong inside his brain. And he thought he might know the reason. Were the symptoms he couldn't shake — depression, sleeplessness, memory loss — related...
Perfect gardens in May a torment to procrastinators
To: The Management Re: Unfair Gardening Practices I would like to lodge a complaint. It has come to my attention that there are people who are gardening in a way...
Baltimore stirs thoughts of a former Chicago rioter
Eyes across the country have been focused on Baltimore — anger in its streets, looting, the calling in of the National Guard. Some eyes in Chicago have seen this before...
Former Nazi guard’s openness about atrocities surprises survivor
From her home in Skokie, Magda Brown is carefully following a trial in Germany. Brown, 87, is a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau. She was deported with her family at 17 in...
Rusty, Oak Brook’s favorite stray dog, comes home for a reunion
Julie Gleason knelt, her hand to her mouth, as the reddish dog trotted toward her. Moments later, she was scratching him behind the ears. "Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh...
In Chicago, don’t forget winter when celebrating spring
Are you happy now? No, not just happy — on delicious, teasing days of early spring, are you giddy, euphoric, rapturous? Does the sun pouring down onto newly blossomed flowers...
A bride-to-be asks about keeping maiden name
Rebecca Raab is getting married in July, and so faces a decision: Should she take her husband's name? Her decision-making process took a detour into my email box recently. Raab,...
Moving an elderly parent to live nearby — common and complicated
A friend is in the middle of the tense logistics of moving his elderly and ill father up from Florida to be near him. We talked about it — the...
Art and science intersect at the School of the Art Institute
Eugenia Cheng had just cut a bagel into a Mobius strip and was explaining why a liquid could not assume the same shape, when a student posed a question: "That...