Summer seduces.
Even those who profess to hate it — and in putting together this special issue we have learned that many people moan about summer’s heat, its traffic and its skating/bike-riding/jogging armies — are not immune to its powerful pull.
The summer drags some children into lakes and pools for the first time. These neophytes are full of fears, but they confront the waters. Sometimes alone, often buoyed by the arms of parents, they are baptized into the cult of the season. That first taste of summer lingers in the memory.
From then on the summer lures us out of our homes and apartments and onto porches and front steps (in those neighborhoods that still have porches and front steps); from long distances to the beaches and parks that hug the shore like beads of some abstract necklace; from coats into T-shirts.
Like many seducers, the summer has a dark side. It can drive people mad and those people will fill the city’s harsher canyons with the echo of guns and of bad deeds. Most cops, rightly, dread summer.
The spring and winter and fall?
Fine times, if you like rain and snow and dying leaves.
Summer arrives inevitably with its thick, humid hello and its months-long offer of more possible pleasures than all the other seasons combined.
Doubt that? Just read the following pages, which offer a vast and varied sampling of Chicagoans’ favorite things to do when it sizzles, along with selections by Tribune critics.
Summer brings us all outside, shoulder to sweaty shoulder. When summer’s here, we are, like it or not, seduced into a semblance of community.
— Rick Kogan
WAY TO EXPLORE CHICAGO
“I’ve been riding my bike around Chicago since I was a teenager. It’s a great way to explore the lakefront and neighborhoods.”
— Susanna Fajardo
Teacher, Spry School
BIKE ROUTE
“From the South Shore Cultural Center, follow the bike path north to North Avenue Beach. It’s a great ride, particularly behind McCormick Place around the boats.”
— Jesse Jackson Jr.
U.S. representative
“There is a great bike path that I haven’t taken in a while but I love to do it. It starts at Caldwell and Peterson (exit off the Edens Expressway) and goes all the way through the North Shore. This bike path is usually not crowded. You can ride it and usually not have to dodge walkers and Rollerbladers. Usually I’ll take my bike to the starting point by car from downtown, then ride on the path all the way to the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe. You can see a lot of nature on the way; it’s tree tunnels basically the entire way.”
— Andre Walker
Hair stylist and author
SUMMER ACCESSORY
“The body bags are the hot ticket this season. They are perfect for an urban environment. They are ergonomic; they are ideal for the beach. . . . They strap onto your body, either across your chest or wrapped around your waist, and they are all very well styled so they don’t look like anything else you’ve seen.”
— John Zimmerman
General manager, Prada, Chicago
“Not many people wear hats anymore, but I like a Barcelona’ Panama flexi-straw hat.”
— Gordon Sinclair
Owner, Gordon restaurant
“A black lab puppy. My new one is Roy. He is the perfect accessory for long summer walks.”
— June Blaker
Owner, June Blaker boutique
“I love my Liberty print lipstick tote, silver rhinestone thong sandals and a new slalom water ski.”
— Cynthia Rowley
Designer
UNDERRATED OUTDOOR SPOT
“I think people need to capitalize more on their rooftops. Rooftops can be really wonderful places in Chicago because Chicago is a very flat city. In New York if you have a terrace on your roof, you have five towers around you that are 15 stories higher than you. In Chicago almost every rooftop is completely open to the sides, so you have the sky as your umbrella, not a building umbrella.”
— Rodrigo del Canto
Architect
BUDGET-CONSCIOUS OUTINGS
“The street festivals, the taste of Lincoln Avenue, the Sheffield Garden Walk, the Old Town Art Fair–that’s what makes the summer truly a Chicago experience.”
— John Flynn
Deputy budget director, City of Chicago
TIME FOR BICYCLING
“Early morning. It’s cooler and quieter, and there’s less traffic. I like bike riding because it gives you a tremendous sense of freedom. It lets you clear your mind.”
— Mayor Richard M. Daley
SUMMER MEMORY
“Riding the train to New Orleans (from Chicago) with my mother. We would bring our own boxed lunch. It was like a big picnic, and our mother would read to us. The conductors would name the stops and it would sound like they were singing–Carbondale, Memphis.”
— Ronne Hartfield
Arts consultant
“Those really thin (flip-flops) that went between your toes. I loved the noise they made when they slapped against my heel. We would lie on our backs, put our feet in the air and we’d flip them against our heels and make the sandals go slap, slap, slap, and we would have like a Morse code language where we would talk back and forth like little ducks.”
— Debborah Hopkins
Model
“In the early ’50s, when air conditioning wasn’t quite as prevalent as it is today, we had one air conditioner and it was up in an office my father had, so on real hot summer nights the whole family would sleep in the same room and enjoy the air conditioning, and that was probably more fun than anything. It was like a camp-out at home.”
— Monsignor Kenneth Velo
President, Catholic Church Extension Society
PLACE TO WATCH THE CHICAGO AIR AND WATER SHOW
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“The 44th floor of the John Hancock Center. It is the halfway point where you change elevators, and they have a nice lounge area looking out onto the lake, and you are right at the height of these planes.”
— Ed Paschke
Artist
OUTDOOR ARTWORK
“Harry (Caray): They just unveiled the statue outside Wrigley. It’s not just him with a microphone; they have it quoted: `A-one and a-two and a-three.’ At the base of the statue are the fans looking up, and I’m sure the faces represent the history of Wrigley.’
— Kevin Dobson, Actor, appearing in “Art”
GARDENING PROJECT
“Pruning. I find it relaxing. One of the neatest things to do is to take a flowering crab-apple and do the pruning. In my mind it is like a work of art when you can accent the form of a tree.”
— Tim Johnson
Director of horticulture, Chicago Botanic Garden
SUMMER PLEASURE
“I go to church every morning, and in the summer I’ll take a stroll along the lake afterward. Sometimes on a really hot day, a nice Budweiser helps.”
— Dutchie Caray
Widow of Cubs announcer Harry Caray
“Giving a gift of pickled relish or anything that was made from things you have grown in your garden. You give back to nature, back to your friends and back to yourself.”
— Doris Lomax
Executive vice president, Human Resources Development Institute
SUMMER MONTH
“August. We were married in August, and on our anniversary we usually end up celebrating our marriage by picnicking, Rollerblading by the lakefront or eating at an outdoor bistro. Last year we rented a sailboat with two other couples and shared our anniversary with them. This year our daughter is a year and a half, so we will probably stay on firmer ground.”
— Christine Doyle
Reporter, Fox-Ch. 32
PREPARATION FOR SANDAL WEATHER
“I go to Vickie’s Nails on Elm Street whenever they can take me. We need the calluses on our feet, so I was afraid at first, but I found pedicures help my feet. Having calluses rubbed down makes them feel and look better.”
— Susan Lopez
Joffrey Ballet
SUMMER RITUAL
“A friend who lives a block away meets me at the North Avenue pier Tuesday nights. We pack a picnic basket and do it elegantly–we put down a tablecloth, have nice cheeses, a real to-do, and we talk and we see the sun set.”
— Eileen Mackevich
Executive producer, Chicago Humanities Festival
“Unless there is a thunderstorm, I take my dog out to the beach every morning. I take the paper and I take coffee and I take a soggy tennis ball and I sit on the lakefront and my dog just goes in and out of the water. It sets a really nice energy for the day.”
— Katalina Groh
Film producer
PLACE TO TAKE VISITORS
“The fountain in front of the Children’s Museum at Navy Pier. There is a big square, the fountain is in the middle, and there are no barriers. It invites kids in to play in the fountain. As you sit there, you realize the kids are part of the museum exhibit, and the fountain goes through all these patterns, shooting water into the air. So you see the kids playing in it and you see a lot of adults playing in it too. It sort of brings out the kid in them. Instead of just people-watching, you can watch people’s inner children. When my sister Katie was in town, we just sat there and enjoyed watching the kids for hours.”
— Pete Heine
MBA student, University of Chicago
SURVIVAL GEAR
“Barbecue tools, a smoker and a boombox blasting Chaka Khan.”
— Art Norman
Anchor/reporter, NBC-Ch. 5
“I couldn’t live without air conditioning.”
— Don Baum
Artist
“I have to have my coffee ice cream shakes and trusty golf clubs in the back of my convertible.”
— Larry Potash
Anchor, WGN-Ch. 9
“My cell phone, so I can run my Oak Street Beach office.”
— Leslie Hindman
Sotheby’s auctioneer
BEER GARDEN
“When it’s nice outside, I’ll go for a beer at Duke of Perth (2913 N. Clark St.). It’s Scottish and there is an outdoor beer garden; it’s really laid back.”
— Sylvia Jumawan
Peace Corps recruiter
REASON TO SPEND THE SUMMER IN A MUCH HOTTER PLACE THAN CHICAGO
“It’s laid back and slow and easy. It’s tropics in a city. You’re in the tropics, and at the same time you have the same thing the city has. It’s not meant for everyone. If you can’t take extreme heat, summertime is not the time to go.”
— Adam Bourgeois Sr.
Criminal defense attorney and owner of a house in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, for more than 20 years
SUMMER DRINK
“Nothing beats good old-fashioned Kool-Aid, but you want to avoid purple because there is the Jonestown connection.”
— Ed Paschke
Artist
“Root beer floats. I’ve loved them ever since I was a kid and I’ll drink them anywhere. But I’m partial, of course, to those served at the zoo’s Park Place Cafe.”
— Kevin Bell
Director of Lincoln Park Zoo
PEOPLE-WATCHING
“The Good Humor man always stops at the corner of Tower Road and Forest Way in the Skokie Lagoons on weekends in the summer. It’s our best spot for hanging out and seeing lots of people pass by.”
— Chris Segal
Catalog business manager, Crate & Barrel
“I love sitting in the Corner Bakery (1121 N. State St.) across from Melvin B’s and watching all the people sitting outside. The women are wearing as little as possible and when guys on motorcycles drive by, the girls wave them in; it’s like a big mating ritual.”
— Christine Barrett
Headhunter
CONVEYANCE
“A 1957 Thunderbird convertible, gun-metal gray with red leather interior and a black top. I bought mine last summer and can’t wait to drive it again!”
— Mark Giangreco
Sports director, ABC-Ch. 7
“My favorite thing in the summer is to take my 5-year-old daughter to Lincoln Park, and after a little tree climbing in the rookery, we walk through the zoo to the paddleboats. I let Cassidy drive–we are constantly turning–while I pedal.”
— Mike Smith
Art director, Online Investor Magazine
“I love being outdoors to enjoy the summer, so I fly around on my Honda 250 scooter.”
— Marianne Strokirk
Owner, Marianne Strokirk Salons
“In the summer I go to a house in upstate New York that we’ve owned for a while, and every morning I get into my 1971 Oldsmobile Cutlass convertible, bright red, and drive to a town 20 miles away, where I run and work out in a gym.”
— Stanley Fish
Dean of liberal arts and sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago
SUMMER MOVIES
`If I watch movies in the summer they tend to be comedies; they are shorter and fun. I don’t want to be inside for three hours on a beautiful day. `Raising Arizona,’ I think of that as a summer movie, `Lost in America,’ maybe `The Lady Eve,’ `My Favorite Year.’ They aren’t very long.’
— Katalina Groh
Film producer
FOOD
“Summer for me is fresh produce and white wine from the Loire Valley.”
— Klaus Puck
Managing partner, Spago
“White peaches and wild strawberries.”
— Charlie Trotter
Charlie Trotter’s restaurant
“It wouldn’t be summer without a 3 1/2-pound steamed lobster from The Palm.”
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— Harold Ramis
Writer-director, “Analyze This”
BIRD-WATCHING SPOT
“Birding in my back yard is the best place to see warblers. I’ve seen all kinds of them. I’ve seen chestnut-sided warblers; they are black and white with brown on the side. The Canadian warblers are gray and yellow; they are always fun to see. You have to get up early in the morning, because that is when they are feeding and running around. Your own back yard is a great place to start if you are a beginner, especially if you live along the lake or in a suburb that is still relatively forested. The Upstart Crow in Evanston is a great birding resource. They’ll tell you where to go to see birds, what time of year, and they’ll tell you what type of bird feed attracts certain birds.”
— Harry Drucker
Back-yard birder
MARGARITA
“Frontera Grill makes the best margarita as far as I’m concerned. They usually use a premium tequila and they use fresh lime juice, which I think is the key to a good margarita. And they don’t use a mix; they make their own. They use all fresh ingredients.”
— Andre Walker
Hair stylist and author
GARDENING IMPLEMENT
“I have a pair of goatskin gloves, and when they get wet, they get particularly soft and a little bit slimy, and it is just one of the best feelings in the world. You are digging around in this dirt all day and then you pull your hand out of these goatskin gloves and the hand is perfectly, perfectly clean and the fingernails completely clean and soft. It’s not like I have a problem with getting my hands dirty, but there is something very sensual about pulling the clean hand out of the wet, dirty glove.”
— Sophia Shaw
Director of exhibits, Field Museum
PLACE TO WATCH THE SUN COME UP
“Right at my desk at WGCI, because I come on early. We watch the sun rise over the lake every morning. It is just the most beautiful sight. I didn’t realize there was such a perk for getting up early; it’s a free perk from God.”
— Sasha Doltonn
Morning show host, WGCI-AM 1390
ICE CREAM PLACE
“Margie’s Candies (1960 N. Western Ave.) is the best place for ice cream, and they have killer chocolate milkshakes with a little wafer on the side. They’re like 3 bucks but they are worth every penny of it. It’s a throwback, you know, and it’s really important to go there and support these things.”
— Heather McAdams
Illustrator and filmmaker
OUTDOOR ARTWORK
“Harry (Caray): They just unveiled the statue outside Wrigley. It’s not just him with a microphone; they have it quoted: `A-one and a-two and a-three.’ At the base of the statue are the fans looking up, and I’m sure the faces represent the history of Wrigley.’
— Kevin Dobson
Actor, appearing in “Art”
ART CRITIC ALAN ARTNER LOOKS FORWARD TO MCA SUMMER SOLSTICE
Near the end of Benjamin Britten’s Spring Symphony, a din of castanets, tambourines, drums, chorus and orchestra celebrates poet John Beaumont’s “merry month of May” and a boys choir suddenly sings on top of it, in an older form of English, “Sumer is icumen in.” That is the happiest welcome to the season I know, but in July the symphony will be 50 years old, which is not much help for anyone seeking contemporary expression.
The event in Chicago with the best chance to give an up-to-the-minute equivalent is the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Summer Solstice rite, a continuous 24-hour festival of musicians, dancers, performers and visual artists.
Intended as a one-time-only preview of the MCA’s new building in 1996, the party brought so much good will to art novices and professionals alike–more than 25,000 attended–that it’s now a yearly happening, with simultaneous programming in every museum space from the front plaza to the rear sculpture garden.
The Louvre museum in Paris was to commemorate its 200th anniversary in 1993 by staying open for 24 hours to allow visitors to see, literally, art in a new light. But a strike denied the opportunity.
Chicagoans seldom do better than Parisians when it comes to ceremonies involving art. This year it happens from 5 p.m. June 18 to 5 p.m. June 19 at 220 E. Chicago Ave. Call 312-280-2660.
MUSIC CRITIC JOHN VON RHEIN LOOKS FORWARD TO ICE CREAM AT RAVINIA
Somehow the performances I hear during the hot-weather months at Ravinia appear incomplete without something sweet to accompany them. That means making a beeline for the ice cream stand during intermissions. The Carousel, one of the food concessions on the summer music festival grounds in Highland Park, offers up a dozen flavors of Edy’s ice cream, as well as frozen yogurt. The Mirabelle restaurant offers cappuccino crunch ice cream on its dessert menu. Edy’s makes ice cream specifically for Ravinia, and certain flavors such as cappuccino crunch aren’t available anywhere else, says Mike Majercik, director of operations for Levy Restaurants, which caters the food concessions at the festival.
You can choose from butter pecan, cookies-and-cream, rum raisin and more, as well as the traditional vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. My favorite is the cappuccino crunch, dense and shamefully rich. Majercik reports that this flavor is by far the best-selling ice cream at Ravinia; I’m pleased others share my discerning taste.
If Tosca made Scarpia forget God, ice cream at Ravinia makes me forget calories and cholesterol. Hey, it’s summer, so no cheap cracks about expanding waistlines, OK? Majercik, bless him, is in total sympathy. “When people are treating themselves to a night at Ravinia to hear the Chicago Symphony or a pop concert,” he says, “they want to do just that–treat themselves.”
RESTAURANT CRITIC PHIL VETTEL LOOKS FORWARD TO SOFT-SHELL CRABS
Summer for me means summer dining, which can be as delightful as dinner in the outdoor garden at Green Dolphin Street or as dreary as a 97-in-the-shade forced march through Taste of Chicago.
The season can be feast or famine for Chicago restaurateurs, too, depending on whether the sun smiles on their sidewalk cafes each weekend or their ambience is enhanced by a choir of jackhammers tearing up the street outside (tentative completion date: Oct. 15).
Summer pleasures include fresh berry cobblers, farm-stand peaches warm from the sun and grilled-in-the-husk sweet corn. Summer is that magical time when a caprese salad (fresh tomatoes, mozzarella, fresh basil) tastes heavenly. Even the perils of the summer–margarita brain-freezes–are something to be anticipated, not feared.
But my favorite treats are soft-shell crabs, succulent blue crabs that have the good taste to shed their shells in summer. Harvested before their new shells harden, soft-shells can be eaten whole–slightly crunchy shells and all.
Soft-shells can be sauteed lightly or incorporated into more complex dishes. I always make time to enjoy soft-shells at Shaw’s Crab House in the summer, but I’ve had great luck at restaurants Starfish, Con Fusion and one sixtyblue. A couple of other new seafood restaurants have opened recently–McCormick & Schmick’s on the Gold Coast and Parker’s Ocean Grill in Downers Grove–and I’m eager to see what they do with soft-shells this season.
ARTS CRITIC HOWARD REICH LOOKS FORWARD TO `JAZZ ON A SUMMER’S DAY’
The only things I dislike about summer are the hot weather, relentless sunshine, crushing humidity, irritating bugs and teeming masses converging at beaches and parks.
To avoid all the above, yet maintain the illusion of the season, I simply slip a copy of “Jazz on a Summer’s Day” into the VCR. With the air conditioner going at full blast and not a mosquito in sight, I lean back on my sofa and behold one of the most glorious jazz movies ever made.
Filmed in 1958 at the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island, “Jazz on a Summer’s Day” makes the Chicago Jazz Festival seem like amateur hour (which, admittedly, isn’t hard to do). Aside from the stellar performances, there are the virtues of the film itself: The camera takes you closer to the performers than any outdoor fest would allow, the audio mix virtually eliminates the din of audience conversation, and Bert Stern’s lush cinematography makes everyone appear more beautiful than in real life.
And by watching “Jazz on a Summer’s Day” at home, you’ve dramatically decreased the likelihood that someone will spill a beer on you.
Jazz festivals these days aren’t what they used to be, in part because so many of the greatest stars have swung on over to the ultimate after-hours session. But in “Jazz on a Summer’s Day,” I still can savor Louis Armstrong joyously singing “(Up a) Lazy River” and dueting sublimely with Jack Teagarden on “(Ol’) Rockin’ Chair.” I can hear Anita O’Day at her vocal prime, I can marvel anew at Dinah Washington’s soulful version of “All of Me,” I can see Gerry Mulligan and Art Farmer and George Shearing looking like mere youngsters.
Best of all, I can be overwhelmed once more by Mahalia Jackson, who unfurls one of the most majestic, exultant voices ever put on this earth.
Show me a summer festival that can compete with that.
TELEVISION CRITIC STEVE JOHNSON LOOKS FORWARD TO RERUNS, ER, ENCORE PRESENTATIONS
I am certainly not advocating TV over anything out-of-doors during Chicago’s all too few months of weather temperance. But you cannot spend the whole summer on a boat, in a park or counting the alley rats from your back-porch perch.
So just a reminder that the two best series of the last TV season–and two of the best of the last half-decade–will be in reruns starting in June, especially noteworthy considering that these series were slow to catch the attention of the public.
Both “The Sopranos” on HBO and “Sports Night” on ABC blend humor and drama. Both operate at peak intelligence and assume viewers are doing the same. And both tell a riveting story over time, which means rich rewards for those willing to follow them from the June (re)start.
They diverge in story, length and other essentials. For “The Sopranos,” executive producer/writer David Chase got the bright idea to examine a mob boss moved by job pressures to seek counseling, and Chase got it on TV before “Analyze This” hit movie screens.
But the initial season of 13 hourlong episodes dips into a rich cauldron of humanity, eschewing the overt jokiness of the movie. The visits of New Jersey capo Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) to the office of Dr. Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) serve as a kind of comforting chorus amid the increasingly muddled verses of his life with both of his families: his wife and children in their suburban palace and the made men he meets with at a pork store and a strip club.
Chase crafts his story with a spare elegance that belies its propulsive narrative line–as both families move from disarray into crisis–and it is rich with bone-dry, nearly British humor. New episodes begin airing June 9 and will continue each Wednesday at 8 p.m.
Over on ABC is “Sports Night,” a series that isn’t much about sports. Promise. This backstage look at an ESPN-style sports highlight show from writer Aaron Sorkin (“A Few Good Men”) is really about the complexity of workplace relationships and the way they can substitute for family in our far-flung society.
Sorkin’s highly stylized dialogue plays like David Mamet without the curse words, but there is exhilaration in just sinking into the rapid-fire banter, and what a pleasure it is to see characters for whom language is such a vivid thing. Sorkin and his crackerjack cast of mostly unknowns make the ebb and flow of these people’s lives something you not only care about but also catch yourself thinking about in the weeklong wait for the next episode.
The network expects the “Sports Night” story cycle of more than 20 half-hour episodes to begin again in early June, in the regular time period of 8:30 p.m. Tuesday (WLS-Ch. 7).
ROCK CRITIC GREG KOT LOOKS FORWARD TO THE AMERICAN MUSIC FESTIVAL
Maybe it’s the long winters, but for some reason music just seems to sound better when it’s hot and sultry outside. When I think of summer, I think of the Rolling Stones at Soldier Field on a blistering June day, back when they were still making great albums like “Some Girls”; Miles Davis in the midst of his early ’80s comeback, stalking the stage at the Petrillo Music Shell like a panther during Jazz Fest; NRBQ singing under the stars on a muggy evening during one of the city’s numerous street fairs.
Those are isolated, once-in-a-lifetime events, and all I’ve got left of them is memories. But the American Music Festival at FitzGerald’s in Berwyn can be relived every year, a midsummer rite that will celebrate its 18th year on 4th of July weekend.
Why is it so consistently enjoyable? Maybe it’s because Bill FitzGerald has such great taste in music–call it roots ‘n’ groove, with a heavy emphasis on roadhouse rock and blues, Cajun, conjunto and swing. Or maybe it’s the aroma of gumbo and jambalaya simmering in the open-air tents. Or maybe it’s the people who show up at these affairs, with kids in tow and ready to dance. Whatever it is, the festival has a down-home charm that no other annual outdoor music event in the Chicago area can touch, a sense of intimacy, community and fun that represents the best the city and suburbs have to offer.
ARCHITECTURE CRITIC BLAIR KAMIN LOOKS FORWARD TO `THE CLIFF’
Some cities have mountains or other spectacular natural features. In the flatlands of Chicago, our cliffs and canyons are man-made.
My favorite is the Michigan Avenue “cliff”–the great wall of buildings that fronts Michigan between Congress Parkway and Randolph Street.
Beginning with Adler and Sullivan’s Auditorium Building on the south and stretching to the Chicago Cultural Center on the north, these structures line up to form a cityscape of extraordinary power.
While many of the buildings are great individual works of architecture, their collective impact is even more impressive.
Together, they project an image of stunning strength and drop-dead delicacy, the very qualities that made Chicago the first city of American architecture.
There’s no better time to see the Michigan Avenue cliff than on a warm summer night in Grant Park, especially when Buckingham Fountain–our man-made geyser–is spouting toward the heavens.
MOVIE CRITIC MICHAEL WILMINGTON LOOKS FORWARD TO `EYES WIDE SHUT’
For serious movie lovers, summer 1999 has one crucial date: July 16, opening Friday for “Eyes Wide Shut,” the last film by American master Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick, the brainy, irreverent, perfectionist and often-inspired director of all-time classics such as “Dr. Strangelove” and “2001: A Space Odyssey,” put his final stamp on this erotic thriller before his death March 7 –but only after much controversy and a lengthy shooting and editing period. Though advance publicity has focused almost exclusively on the supposedly super-steamy love scenes between husband-wife co-stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, it’s safe to say that no other summer movie (with the exception of late-spring holdover “Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace”) is more eagerly awaited.
I have another personal movie pleasure peculiar to summer. On balmy weekend nights, I like to go down to Navy Pier and sit near the end of the dock with ice cream, either before or after catching one of the film programs there.
What’s to watch? Well, you could catch a movie somewhere else. But there’s always something at the Navy Pier IMAX Theater, this summer showing a rotation of “T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous,” “Encounter in the Third Dimension” and a third film to be announced. In the past, there have also been special 70-millimeter shows in the IMAX Theater (“Late Night at the MAX”) as well as occasional outdoor screenings by the Chicago Film Festival and other groups. (Nothing, though, is yet scheduled for this summer.) And you can’t beat anticipating, discussing or ruminating on the movie while watching the waves come in.
SUMMER ANTIDOTES
It’s a great season and all, but let’s face it, it can easily be the same old same old. The same overcrowded festivals, the same in-line skaters mowing you down along the lakefront, the same noise, the same heat every year. Here are the Magazine’s antidotes to some of the chronic conditions of summer.
CHRONIC CONDITION/THE ANTIDOTE
TASTE OF CHICAGO/A hot dog at Fluky’s on the North Side, a milkshake from the Bunny Hutch in Lincolnwood, then to Krispy Kreme in Summit for a fried-dough fix
ICE CREAM HEADACHES/Pressing your tongue against the roof of your mouth
RAVINIA/Listening to the cicadas
LAWN-CARE NOISE/A push mower and a rake
OVERPRICED EUROPEAN VACATIONS/The Tempel Lipizzans, the Leaning Tower YMCA in Niles and Bavarian pork at the Golden Ox
OVERPRICED/UNDERINSPIRING CUBS AND SOX GAMES/Little League games in Thillens Stadium on the North Side
CHICAGO AIR AND WATER SHOW/The submarine and the Omnimax film “The Magic of Flight” at the Museum of Science and Industry
OVERHYPED BLOCKBUSTER MOVIES/Weekend matinees at the Music Box Theater, 3733 N. Southport Ave.
BELMONT AVENUE TRAFFIC/Aldine Avenue (eastbound) and Melrose Street (westbound)
HARDBODIES PLAYING VOLLEYBALL AT NORTH AVENUE BEACH/Exposed cellulite at the malls
SIX FLAGS GREAT AMERICA/Kiddieland in Melrose Park
MOSQUITOES/Wearing white clothing; mosquitoes are drawn to dark colors
THE LAKEFRONT BIKE PATH/The Illinois & Michigan Canal path west of Channahon, Ill.