Kinetic Loop

This is the tail end of the 8k Shamrock Shuffle, which just happens to be in the background of my photo of the two people on the right. It was in the 30s then (Sunday), but I was surprised how many people were wearing pants. Today the temp got up to 58. I went running in shorts and a long-sleeved shirt in the rain, and except for the motherfucker of a wind tunnel I had to get through, it was really nice.

He was actually quite nice and said “thank you” after I took his photo.

The Trib reports that Pitchfork is adding Jarvis Cocker to the lineup in July. According to the Pitchfork site, he’s slated for Saturday, July 19.

I hate crowds and haven’t been to a music festival since, erm, 1991 or so (love music, hate crowds), but Jarvis Cocker…hmm.

The former Holiday Inn City Centre at 300 E Ohio in Streeterville (not to be confused with the Chicago City Centre Hotel, in about the same location) will be renovated and turned into a Doubletree. The renovation includes “a new restaurant featuring organic food produced in the Midwest and an Einstein Bros. Bagels shop.” Great. An Einstein Bros. The restaurant sounds interesting, though.

The Grand and State Red Line station is also getting renovated. The new granite floors, elevators and escalators will be the first major update since the station was built in 1943.

The International Vintage Poster Fair is this weekend at the Cultural Center.

At the Daley Civic Center: “Kick off to motivate City Year members on a challenging week of 100 Hours of Power is a service marathon that lasts for 100 consecutive hours.” Huh? That sentence makes my head hurt.

World Kitchen has a class on knife skills on April 5. “Good knife skills are so important to confidence and safety in the kitchen. This class will explain which knife to use for what and will teach you how to use and choose them properly. We’ll slice, we’ll dice, and we’ll have fun as we make our lunch!” Well, when you want to be quiet, and you’re at close quarters with an opponent, say in a kitchen, then a knife comes in handy. World Kitchen may get a more diverse group than they’re used to with this class. Knife throwers, bodyguards, soldiers of fortune, etc.

This Fortune piece about Target mentions the retailer’s “‘creative cabinet,’ an elite, secret team composed of a dozen people of all ages, interests, and nationalities.” The Creative Cabinet Task Force hand-picks members for each mission. “We identify them, and we cultivate the relationship,” says marketing evp Michael Francis. Though they work independently from across the globe — some from mountaintop lairs, some from satellites — all Creative Cabinet members will pull together and meet in person to prevent the destruction of the world….and weigh in on a new, slimmed-down cereal box with a self-locking top. But members will be tested on the Judgment Day of the Overmaster, when internecine conflict will cause the Cabinet to form splinter groups such as Michael Francis’ Extreme Innovation.

London is so not a good place for street photographers. Via Conscientious. If you do street photography, best to keep moving and be quick, wherever you are. (I often act like a clueless tourist to get shots, though people tend to think I’m from some other country, anyway.)

Slate explains what’s behind the boom in homeland-security and emergency-management majors.

Jhumpa Lahiri is “a succinct realist writer in an era of attention-getting maneuvers.”

This band of brothers, this happy few, are looking at a clear plastic panel full of junk food, Unbound energy drink cans, and some other drink in a plastic bottle. Hansen Natural Corp (which develops, markets, sells and distributes Unbound) would be pleased at this response to an outdoor advertising effort on Randolph Street.

The drink brand’s target market of male teens, as represented by this group of skateboarders who like to risk full traction at the Aon center, zeroed in on this panel like it was an open truck of Doritos and Steak-Umms. They said “We just need a razor blade” and “Holy shit, f*ck me.”

JCDecaux Chicago bus shelter folks should be thrilled, though apparently they were targeting workers at Aon, Prudential and Blue Cross, who only seem to have the energy to smoke right outside their respective buildings. I doubt JCDecaux Chicago knew how much the Aon center is treated as a skate park.

From my walk by the lake to the museum campus today. Brr.

The nearby Millennium Park rink is so not their scene.

I started to watch Top Chef in season four because it was filmed in Chicago. The first episode was off to a bad start when they met in Pizzeria Uno before the deep-dish challenge. And though I was happy to see Anthony Bourdain, the guest judges have been gag-inducing. Was it so hard to find Chicago-based judges for the first couple of episodes?

Moreover, they found the least charismatic guest judge they could possibly find for the Lincoln Park zoo challenge, and flew him in from New York. I would have rather seen ANYONE who cooks in Chicago as a guest judge instead of that guy. As for the regular hosts and judges, give us Michael Chiklis instead of Tom Colicchio, even though Chiklis isn’t a chef. Replace Padma with the Big Dog robot from Boston Dynamics.

I didn’t watch the first three seasons because the show didn’t appeal to me at all, and now I see why. According to The Stew, upcoming eps have chefs from Tru, Blackbird and Avec, Table Fifty-Two, and the improv masters at Second City, so maybe the season will improve a little. But it’s been lame so far; my expectations aren’t high.