Gapers Block is a Chicago-centric web publication providing information on news and events around town. There are many terms for the slowdown in traffic that occurs when there's an accident on the side of the road. Some people call it rubbernecking, others a lookie-loo. Here in Chicago, we call it a gapers block (or gapers delay). What better name for a site that asks you to slow down and check out all the cool things in the city?
Consider GB an antidote to all those sites infatuated with the coasts. It contains Merge, a collaborative weblog on a wide range of topics updated weekdaily; Slowdown, a calendar highlighting events you may not have heard about; daily columns from our resident Airbags; and Detour, a weekly feature, as well as a daily photo in Rearview, and a question to ponder and discuss in Fuel. In Transmission, you'll learn all about Chicago's music scene, and Drive Thru is all about the food in the city. Book Club is both an actual book club and a blog about Chicago's literary scene.
Our staff of contributors is made up of Chicagoans with diverse backgrounds but two things in common: a deep love of the city and a wish to share it with you.
Editors
Andrew Huff, Editor & Publisher
Andrew works deep into the night at his West Ridge two-flat, writing and editing and sometimes playing with the cats. He spends more time online than is healthy; follow along at me3dia.com.
Naz Hamid, Creative Director
Naz is easily irritated by inactivity but is a firm believer in simplicity. He takes a mellow approach to things but thinks a great lot about them. His online endeavors congregate here.
David Schalliol, Managing Editor
A graduate student in sociology at the University of Chicago, David is involved in far too many non-academic projects for his own good. You can check out some of his diversions at his personal website, metroblossom, and that flickr place. He has South Side pride.
Shylo Bisnett, Marketing Director
Public Notice
Shylo Bisnett is a recent California transplant. While she adores humidity, she could do without the snow. Shylo is a writer, editor and copywriter, in addition to her regular duties as bon vivant and gadabout. Shylo's writing — both fiction and non — plus Missed Connections can be found at Use Your Hands.
Veronica Bond, Book Club Editor
An Air Force brat, Veronica has lived in Chicago as long as she's lived anywhere else and likes to think of the city as having adopted her instead of the other way around. Her one super power is the amazing ability to read, write, eat, and watch televison at the same time. She reads a lot.
Anne Holub, Transmission Editor
Anne still thinks of herself as a Southerner, even though she moved to Chicago from Montana. During the daylight hours she likes to edit books and pictures, and in her copious amounts of free time she writes poems for no money at all. At night, she enjoys knitting and roving with The Crafty Ladies. She also has a wee blog.
Alice Maggio, Assistant Editor, Book Club Editor
Ask the Librarian
As a fourth generation Chicagoan, Alice has deep roots in the Windy City. During the day, she is a librarian at an applied arts college. In her precious free time, she enjoys browsing bookstores and antique shops, weaving, and digging up Chicago facts for her weekly column. Alice also writes at That Rabbit Girl.
Robyn Nisi, Drive-Thru Editor
Robyn is from Omaha, home of the best pizza in Chicago. She laments the discontinuation of such foodstuffs as PB Max and OK Cola, and continues to fight for sweet treat justice (using elite street justice).
Merge & Slowdown
David Schalliol, Editor
Jim Allenspach, MVP — Most Valuable Poster
A former spelling bee champ (Von Steuben Grade School, Peoria, IL), Jim wants you to know that "crepuscular" and "vespertine" are synonyms. He also has a Website.
Lauri Apple
A native of Johnstown, PA, Lauri is a contender for the title, "world's most renowned bag lady," thanks to her somewhat popular (at times) website, FoundClothing. Lauri has a JD and doesn't know why, but it will take about 30 years for her to pay it off, and that worries her. Her favorite cities are Prague, Pittsburgh, Austin and Chicago. When she's not looking through people's trash, she's either painting, taking pictures, or making/thinking about making cartoons about her weird life.
Mark Byrne
Mark Byrne calls Chicago home, but he's also lived in California, Wisconsin, and various countries in Africa. He spends all his time trying to validate the claim that he's a writer.
Jaime Calder
Jaime Calder was born and raised in the south suburbs. She has been a Featherproof Books intern, a temp, and builder of ramps for skateboarding cats. Jaime presently helps out at MAKE: A Chicago Literary Magazine, and talks a lot about that one time she met Ira Glass.
Vince Jose Cancasci
Vince currently lives in Avondale and works in Hyde Park as a biochemistry research technician, getting most of his writing done during meetings there. He squeezes watching movies, listening to music and playing with gadgets into every wedge of free time not spent enjoying the company of family and friends.
Katie Donbavand
Katie is a recent Boston import and a Scorsese movie buff. By day she's a mild-mannered publishing drone, but her secret identity is a blog-writing fashionista. She loves winning at Texas Hold'em, thrift store hunting, Frank Miller, and Chuck Palahniuk.
Karyn Dossinger
Karyn spends her working hours decoding human behavior using the magic of statistics and devotes her free time to volunteer activities such as attending rock shows, knitting and drinking Manhattans. A Wisconsin native, she has not put ketchup on a hot dog in eight years, but still calls water fountains "bubblers." She is addicted to Scrabulous.
Ken Green
Ken Green is a lifelong Chicagoan, ex-newspaper reporter, editor and sportswriter, a sometimes poet, wannabe playwright and lousy dancer. He was a member of several poetry slam teams, placed third in the Goodman Theater's David Mamet Write-a-like contest, can run a 5K and thinks 2005 is the greatest year in Chicago sports history.
Dan Kelly
Dan Kelly is a product of southwest suburban charm and deportment schools and 10-minute oil change shops. A 17-year resident of the city proper, he has written for the Baffler, Chicago Reader, Chicago Journal, and other publications. He invites you to visit him at his web site or blog, but begs you not to point and laugh.
Lindsay Muscato
Lindsay Muscato escaped from a toaster fire in Buffalo, NY at the age of four. She now lives in a slanty shanty in Andersonville, has written and performed with Around the Coyote and 2nd Story, and she's the managing director of The Neo-Futurists. Read her scribblings at lindsayliveshere.org.
Drew Myler
Drew and his wife live in the North Center neighborhood with a recalcitrant cat. He makes websites during the day and writes unfinished stories and screenplays at night. He also maintains a regularly re-designed, self-titled blog.
Deb Oestreicher
Deb Oestreicher is a freelance writer and editor — and sometime project manager — living in Lakeview with her husband, Victor, and a few thousand books. After two years in Chicago, she still can't get over all the great stuff that goes on here. When life calms down a bit, she takes notes at The Blog Is [not] the Territory.
Daniel X O'Neil
Writer, internet consultant, father of two. Born in Pittsburgh, from Chicago, more here.
Jenni Prokopy
A transplanted Texan, Jenni adores her adopted hometown of Chicago, surviving winters with the aid of a massive collection of colorful wool socks. When she's not eating sushi in Uptown or riding her bike by the lake or tapping her feet at Schubas, she writes about young women and health at ChronicBabe.com.
Shaz Rasul
Shaz Rasul spends his days between The University of Chicago & the Chicago Public Schools (not unlike a rock and a hard place). He enjoys literature, music, and taking long walks through dense urban landscapes. Shaz is fascinating by all things Chicago and maintains the weblog Present Tensed.
Brian Sobolak
Albany Park resident, hookah owner, dabbler in technology, general sand castle, kite and lawnmower man, pierogi and burrito connoisseur, decorative goose owner, word stylist and artist, fan of cheap beer, neighborhood cat person, pink bathrobe guy and, like, soooo not the person you want to ask for help with your next home improvement project. Bribe him with froofy martinis on his planet shwoop.
Sandor Weisz
Sandor Weisz likes to eat, especially food he's made himself. When not in the kitchen, he's usually in the living room playing Scrabble. He once thought about opening his own restaurant; now he dreams of the next triple-triple. In real life Sandor develops web sites.
Book Club
(Literature)
Alice Maggio & Veronica Bond, Editors
A/C
(Arts & Culture)
David Schalliol, Editor
Lauri Apple
Jaime Calder
Ramsin Canon
Norman Doucet
Norm moved to Chicago three years ago and has become a loyal Northsider and fierce Cubs fan. His affinity for theatre stems from a wonderful high school English teacher and was rekindled by a little theater called The Old Globe in San Diego, California. He spends his work time as a consultant and much of his free time as a sci-fi geek, amateur wine connoisseur, and political aficionado.
Carl Giometti
Before moving to the city, Carl grew up in the suburbs and considers himself to be a "Chicagolander." He can often be seen on Wabash Avenue muttering on about how the South Loop is "only a year or two away from being an incredible neighborhood." He spends his free time scrounging for any mundane piece of information about Chicago and excitedly repeats it to his sleeping wife and cats. When he is sick he only eats Taco Bell Mexican Pizzas and he can almost sing several Italian operas, word for word.
Lindsay Muscato
Laura Pearson
A native of the Great Lake State, Laura Pearson is an editor and writer whose favorite subjects to explore include books, art, music and self-motivated creators of culture. She has contributed news stories to Pitchfork Media, is a former associate editor at Punk Planet magazine, and currently writes about independent media and culture for Is Greater Than. Laura has been a writing tutor at 826 Chicago and now volunteers at Misericordia/Heart of Mercy.
Christian Scheuer
Christian, an artist, photographer and builder of things, works for a small gourmet bakery in Evanston, bringing sweet goodies to the masses in various coffee shops in and around Chicago. In his downtime, he makes "stuff for people who like stuff" and keeps a blog about his varied interests in design and things with wheels.
Marla Seidell
Marla is a freelance writer and copyeditor with a passion for belly dance and curries of any kind. She moved from Amsterdam to Chicago in 2004, following a 6-year stint as an expat in the Netherlands. Trips to Italy, Greece and Paris are among the highlights of her years spent abroad, in addition to learning Dutch and mastering the art of bicycling through traffic. Back in Chicago after several years, she's glad to be living in the place described by the Rough Guide to the USA as "the last great American city."
Jamie Smith
Jamie came to the big city from the buckle of the Bible Belt and couldn't be happier in her adopted hometown. When she's not working as a para-paralegal, she's reading, knitting, biking, baking, blogging and adding new hobbies to the list every day. She may eventually come to terms with the fact that her to-do list will never be done, but until then she plans to continue behaving as if there are 36 hours in a day.
Rachel Zanders
Rachel has called the dance studio her second home since the day she could toddle across a room, and she's still at it (and more). A born-and-bred Midwesterner, she is elated to be living among "her" people here in Chicago. She feels lucky to make a living by editing or writing just about anything anyone will let her sic her pen on (OK, anything on which anyone will let her sic her pen).
Drive Thru
(Food & Drink)
Robyn Nisi, Editor
Lori Barrett
Lori Barrett moved to Chicago from Brooklyn last summer. She's a freelance copy editor, writer and the mother of two vegetarian foodies. She fills her days in Chicago by job hunting and grocery shopping, an eye-opener in this town: Her local Brooklyn Met Food can fit into the salsa section at any Dominick's. She's trying to find out which stores have the best free samples, to better distract her little sous-chefs (when she can drag them away from the Food Network). Her goal is to find a way to blend family, writing, fake meat and work into a perfect cocktail — preferably an Absolut martini, straight up with olives.
Christine Blumer
Christine Blumer is the owner of Winediva Enterprises, a wine education company that provides private tastings and classes to corporations, restaurants and anyone else who wants to pay her. (Seriously. Bridal showers, book clubs, speed dating. She's done it all.) Check out her website for info on her public appearances, free newsletter and blog. You can also catch her on WGN radio once a month with The Steve Cochran Show, and occasionally on stage with Appetite Theatre Company. She's a sucker for rose Champagne.
Bobbi Bowers
Bobbi is a culinary guru wannabe whose training includes countless hours of watching Food Network and experimenting with recipes. She believes that there isn't anything that a good meal and a glass (or bottle) of wine can't cure. And while she loves her gig as a copywriter at a well-known Chicago advertising agency, deep down she'd love to give it all up for her shot at culinary stardom.
Chris Brunn
Christopher Robert Brunn loves enjoying conscious food and getting around on the bicycle in Chicago. Chris has volunteered as a cook at Inspiration Café, throws intimate vegan cooking sessions called Family Style with his pals and volunteer advocates from the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation.
Mandy Burrell
Mandy Burrell is a writer who has lived in Chicago for six years. Her love of eating and cooking was instilled in her by her mother, grandmother and four aunts, whose annual all-day Polish cookie-baking extravaganza can only be described as raucous. Her favorite time of year is market season, when local fresh food is available everywhere but her local supermarket.
Dana Currier
Dana is a French literature graduate student and a cheese snob. Despite the fact that she grew up on the East Coast, she is fiercely loyal to Chicago and to Andersonville in particular, her home for the past two years.
Abbey Gillespie
Abbey Gillespie grew up in Springfield, Illinois, and has lived in Chicago for four years. During the day, she works as an attorney, but requests that you don't hold that against her. Her love for all things culinary has been influenced by her life's curve: parents and childhood, traveling, relationships and accompanying pain/joy, celebration, creativity, and the sheer joy of dancing in the kitchen to great music, drinking a glass of wine and dirtying up a cookbook. Check out her food musings at No Olives.
Rachel Humphrey
Rachel is inherently curious and obnoxiously preoccupied with what you are eating. She learned how to cook at an obscenely young age, and currently works as a chef instructor and personal chef, she does catering and works with local farmer's markets. Eating seasonally has been her focus for the past eight years and poses some interesting challenges that make it all the more exciting to cook. Over all, she loves the hunt: food is an excellent place to practice fearlessness. Eat anything, eat everything and savor every last crumb.
Yu Kizawa
Yu is a recent (2003) expat from Japan. Though she occasionally misses hot springs (sans bathing suits) and some food items in her native country, she is now fully in love with the wide-ranging mix of edibles in Chicago — something unimaginable in her rather unadventurous, carrot-growing hometown. She thinks she's a pretty good cook, and writes about her daily food adventures in Nibble&Kibble.
Alan Lake
Alan has been a professional chef for 25 years and has won numerous awards, professional competitions and distinctions. He's mainly consulting now, setting up projects like kitchen design, menu development, hiring and training staff, research, etc. He has also been a professional musician most of his life, coining the term "jazzfood" to describe "solid technique based upon tasteful improvisational skills." Just like the music. Check it out at alanlake.com.
Gemma Petrie
Gemma grew up northwest of the city in Woodstock. She studied philosophy at Reed College in Portland, Oregon where she reveled in the abundance of fresh produce and microbreweries. Upon her return to Chicago in 2004, Gemma created Pro Bono Baker to document her gastronomic interests. She currently lives in Logan Square and works in nonprofit development.
Christian Scheuer
Andie Thomalla
Andie grew up in central Wisconsin with cheese on her fork and a song in her heart. Now a consultant by day and sometime contributor to chicagowonk.com, her main qualification to write about food is the amount that she really really likes it. (It's a lot.)
Tailgate
(Sports)
Andrew Huff, Editor
Andy Angelos
Aside from blogging, Andy has two primary objectives in life. One is to create new professional labels for himself like Information Zealot and Popavantfunk Drummer. The other is to become the first search result in Google for "andy."
Steve Gillies
Fire in Five
Steve Gillies watches too much soccer to be completely healthy. He's been a Fire fan since he stood in a torrential downpour while the Fire beat New England 6-0 and he realized watching American soccer games in person was a lot better than watching European football matches on television.
Ken Green
Daniel Mandel
A lifelong Chicagoland native, Daniel Mandel will graduate from Harvard University with a degree in Government in June, 2008. He has written and edited for "Fifteen Minutes," the weekend magazine of The Harvard Crimson. Daniel is a passionate armchair analyst of politics and popular culture. Despite his North Shore origins, he's also a White Sox fan.
Jeremy Piniak
Pucks in Five
Jeremy Piniak grew up watching hockey on all levels and is a lifelong Blackhawks fan who, inexplicably, still has hope that Bill Wirtz will once again provide Chicago with a championship hockey team and broadcast home games on TV, though he still mourns the destruction of Chicago Stadium.
Shaz Rasul
Aaron Rubens
When not pursing his undergraduate studies, Aaron can be found outside of Wrigley Field offering to exchange high fives or hugs for bleacher tickets. He is a lifetime inhabitant of Chicagoland currently resides in Lincoln Park.
Jeff Webber
Cubs in Five
Jeff Webber spends hours and hours every day taking in every printed, spoken, and broadcast word he can find about the Chicago Cubs, and each week till the end of the season he's boiling them down into five simple crib notes you can use to stay on top of any watercooler or corner bar Cubs discussion. Send comments to cubs@gapersblock.com.
Transmission
(Music)
Anne Holub, Editor
Craig Bonnell
Craig is a transplanted Bostonian who chased a dream (and a girl) to come to Chicago over 10 years ago. He's done it all in Chicago including working at a neighborhood bar, as a valet parker, a hotel employee, a Chicago high school teacher as well as a life altering stint at two of the finest roots labels Chicago has to offer. He now says 'pop' instead of 'soda,' 'gym shoes' instead of 'sneakers' and 'come with' instead of 'come with me,' so whether Chicago likes it or not he's here to stay. Now he's a father of two boys and is attempting to make a life out of music. Of course he writes a blog or two.
Andrew Huff
Troy Hunter
A creative trapped in a techie body, Troy Hunter came to Chicago from Southern Cali for proper schooling. More than 10 years, four worn keyboards, and numerous sheets of Bristol paper later, he's still here. He and his wife reside in Edgewater and coordinate activities at UrbanTherapy.
Brent Kado
Having lived in New Orleans, traveled across the country in a converted school bus, traversed Mexico via the backroads and written a novel about it, what was left for Brent Kado? Moving to Chicago, pursuing his Master's degree and immersing himself in the city's nightlife scene of course. Originally from Holy Bible, Indiana he spends his time curating his site and searching for the perfect burrito from his headquarters in Noble Square.
Emily Kaiser
Emily grew up on Long Island, NY, moving west to study at the University of Chicago. She now goes to more shows than she can afford, and has a sound system inappropriately large for a dorm room. When not listening to music, Emily is probably listening to music.
Kara Luger
Kara is a Chicago transplant who escaped from the Rocky Mountain high that is Colorado, and before that, North Dakota. She currently works as an editor and writer of things both structurally and sonically sound. She enjoys reading obsessively, knitting, live music, and beating the holy hell out of other women (i.e. roller derby).
Dan Morgridge
Dan has wandered the paid and unpaid music worlds of Chicago for some time now, and is currently a DJ and music director at 88.7 WLUW. He can be found wearing ugly hats to good concerts, playing Ultimate all year round, and encouraging an artistic re-appraisal of video games. He is a tireless advocate for socially-conscious hedonism.
Nilay Patel
When he was four years old, Nilay drove a Chrysler into a pond. It set something of a tone.
David Polk
David was born a Chicago(area)an. He's on the staff of 98.7WFMT, Chicago's classical (and sometimes folk and jazz) radio station. A former band and orchestra geek, he still occasionally picks up his trumpet and is learning the guitar. When someone asks him what kind of music he listens to, he likes to quote blues musician Big Bill Broonzy, who said that "all music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song."
Graham Sanford
Graham Sanford is a refugee from the "Heart of Dixie," but he has lived on the Chicago Southside since 1993. He writes, he edits, he cooks, he listens to lots of rump-shaking music, he sporadically does a radio show on WHPK, and he attempts to make visual art when time and money permit. He also made the mistake of moving to Baltimore a few years ago, for which he's very sorry and very glad to be back in the Windy City.
Chris Sienko
Chris' earliest musical memory was hearing "Lady Madonna" by the Beatles emanating from his parents' wood-paneled console turntable. He has no idea what happened from that point to the where he is now, writing about the most unusual and difficult "music" to be found in Chicago. Like the witnesses at the scene of the crime always say, he seemed like a regular guy — nobody really saw this coming.
Dan Snedigar
Dan grew up in the West, drifted around for a while, and somehow ended up in Chicago several years ago. He enjoys sunsets and long walks on the beach, and thinks that the free Honky/Nebula show at the Bottle in '05 was the best show ever.
Nicholas Ward
Nicholas produces 2nd Story for Serendipity Theatre Collective, a hybrid performance event of music, wine and storytelling. He lives in Roscoe Village with Amadeus the cat. He curses entirely too much for his parents' liking. In his free time, he writes a blog called The Alice Variations, waits tables, and plots world domination.
James Ziegenfus
James Ziegenfus moved to Chicago on a whim and now lives in Ravenswood. He spends entirely too much time digging for records wherever Odessey & Oracle and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady could be hiding.
Columnists
Andrew Huff & Alice Maggio, Editors
Blagg the Axman
Tales of Blagg the Axman
A former mercenary for hire, Blagg is an axman by trade and still carries the banner of King Mandrake, the once and true ruler of the realm. Gapers Block readers are invited to contact Blagg for advice, insight and recommendations at blagg@gapersblock.com.
Ramsin Canon
Revenge of the Second City, Bears in Five (2005 & 2006 seasons)
Ramsin was born in the Assyrian neighborhood on the North Side of Chicago and currently lives on the West Side. Writing is his game, but symbolic logic makes the world go round. Markets rise and fall, real estate bubbles burst: The Wizard of Odds says, bet on sports.
Cinnamon Cooper
One Good Meal
Cinnamon, being curiously strong and originally celebrated, tries to keep her ego managable by learning trivia bits as she wrestles with wayward electronic graphics by day and tames bolts of fabric and skeins of yarn by night. You can read what she learns at Did You Know? and see what she makes at Poise.
Steve Prokopy
Steve at the Movies
A Windy City resident for nearly 20 years, Steve writes about everything but movies at his day job for a trade journal publishing company. Using the alias Capone, he has been the Chicago Editor for Ain't It Cool News since 1998, and has been writing film reviews since he was a wee lad of 14, growing up in Maryland.
Dee Stiffler
Pop Goes the World
As a child, Dee was only allowed to watch one hour of television a day. She usually chose Sesame Street. Today, she overcompensates by knowing far too much about the WB's lineup as well as pop culture in general. She hardly ever updates her blog.
Lori Upchurch
Kids Ride Free
Lori McClernon Upchurch lives on the far Northwest Side in a house that's overflowing with books, kids, pets and too much stuff from the thrift store. She is a proud member of Team Upchurch, a family of multi-talented unschoolers. She can generally be spotted driving around with a bunch of kids, not all of them hers, looking for someplace fun to get out and play.
Peter Zelchenko
The Party Line
Peter has been growing up in Chicago all his life. He's also angrily hacked everything from mainframes to iPods over the decades. Today he hacks pretty much anything that gets in his way. He writes for Chicago-based startup The Point, and has a popular column for the Chicago Journal. He also wrote the critically acclaimed expose, It Happened Four Years Ago: Mayor Daley's Brutal Conquest of Chicago's First Ward.
Contributors
Auriane de Rudder
Auriane de Rudder moved to Chicago from Baltimore. She does not have syphilis or a drug habit, nor does she watch the Wire. She is eerily fond of hotdogs, and constantly references meat products while dancing, writing and nine-to-fiving her way through life. An avid consumer of free cocktails, Auriane holds down a lushy and coveted spot as a staff writer for Chicago's MyOpenBar.com.
David Hammond
David Hammond is a freelance writer living in Oak Park, and he regularly submits restaurant reviews and food-related articles to Chicago Reader and Time Out Chicago. With a number of friends from the old Chowhound Chicago board, he co-moderates LTHForum, the Chicago-based Culinary Chat Site. David co-wrote Increase the Peace, which was published in late 2006, and he is currently working on a guidebook to regional Mexican food in Chicago.
Ted McClelland
Ted McClelland is the author of Horseplayers: Life at the Track, published in 2005 by Chicago Review Press. He spent last summer driving around the Great Lakes — a 9,600-mile trip that took him as far west as Duluth, Minnesota, and as far east as Kingston, Ontario — to research his upcoming book, The Third Coast, which looks at the Lakes as a distinct region of North America, with its own culture and common interests. The Third Coast will be issued by Chicago Review Press in 2007. Gapers Block is pleased to present a series of excerpts from the book over the next several months.
JP Pfafflin
JP was raised in Glendale Heights, and now lives in Roscoe Village. She also moonlights as a designer for MEAT, a set-up that specializes in hand-printed textiles, and has designed gig posters and album art for bands around Chicago. Since you axed, her guitar heroes are Fred Frith, Frank Zappa and John Fahey.
Sean U'Ren
Chicago to LA
Sean U'Ren is a video editor who moved from Chicago to Los Angeles in 2004. In this occasional column, he shares his experiences transitioning from one city to another.
There's quite a bit more that will go in this section — past staffers, a colophon, etc. — but we're rejiggering the pages and decided to leave that off for now. It'll be back soon, I promise.