Barista! Our Ennobling Mission

By Maude Perkins

My java retraining continued today with a five-hour workshop at corporate headquarters. This class was specially designed for new employees, and focused on memorizing the various prongs of the company’s mission statement. I was the only veteran barista in a class with ten doe-eyed coffee virgins; all painfully more willing and excited than the next to be cooped in that room for five straight foodless hours. I could smell their fresh naive blood across the room – it smelled earthy and nutty, with a full rich body and a dull acidity. Pairs well with . . . brainwashing.

Posted on October 16, 2006

Deep in the Heart of Dixie

By Marilyn Ferdinand

Barbara Kopple has done it again. The preeminent documentarian of the American experience, and Cecilia Peck, her co-director (and daughter of Gregory Peck), have turned their compassionate beam on the three gifted and courageous women whose idea of being patriotic created the greatest crisis of their professional lives. Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing, screened Thursday night at the Chicago International Film Festival, takes us along with this phenomenally successful band from the night in 2003 lead singer Natalie Maines told a British audience that the Chicks were ashamed that the President of the United States was from Texas to the recording of their latest album, Taking the Long Way, an angry and emotional chronicle of their experiences.

Posted on October 13, 2006

Cab #5884

Date: 10/11/2006
From: Hyde Park
To: Garfield Green Line
The Cab: Despite sporting the always-hateful ad bar up top, exceedingly clean and – most importantly on a frigid evening – warm. Seatbelts prominently displayed and in full working order. The burglar window was locked in the open-and-trusting position, and there was an extremely low level of inoffensive air freshening that threatened, for once, to actually freshen the air. Radio was tuned to a crushingly depressing NPR segment on child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which had a dampening effect on the conversation. Still, it certainly put your correspondent’s runny nose and empty stomach in their proper context.

Posted on October 11, 2006

Barista! Tales From the Coffee Front

By Maude Perkins

Almost exactly two years ago, I hung up my apron for what I assumed was good, and left behind the caffeinated world I’d come to know. I bid adieu to nearly three years working for a worldwide corporate coffee chain. My departure was bitter and hostile – not toward the company as much as my manager, whose job I did for a year while he was out schtupping some hussy from another store on his three-hour lunch breaks.

Posted on October 9, 2006

A Talent for Torment

By Marilyn Ferdinand

It was one of those days at the Chicago International Film Festival that just did not meet expectations. They don’t happen often. But this day gave me three films that let me down in varying degrees. I believe there is an audience for each of these films, and you might be among them. But I’ve seen these stories before, done better.

Posted on October 9, 2006

Soul In Flames

By Marilyn Ferdinand

Requiem, which tells the story of a modern-day possession and exorcism, is based on the true story of German college student Anneliese Michel. German director Hans-Christian Schmid’s take on this story, which certainly must be well-known in his country, focuses intensely on the possessed woman herself. In using this approach, Schmid does a remarkable thing. He takes us inside the life of someone who eventually comes to believe she is possessed by demons.

Posted on October 8, 2006

Corruption and Comedy

By Marilyn Ferdinand

The Comedy of Power (La Comèdie du Pouvoir) is the latest film by veteran New Wave director Claude Chabrol, and watching him perform a perfect balancing act between a drama of corruption and a comedy veering on slapstick shows just what a miracle the creators of the French New Wave really were.

Posted on October 7, 2006

Better Than Fiction

By Marilyn Ferdinand

It’s that time of the year again – the time when I go nuts trying to figure out my schedule for the Chicago International Film Festival. I have already spent two hours juggling films to come up with a line-up that includes almost all the films I want to see. Only one film didn’t fit in – a last-minute entry by Kiyoshi Kurosawa called Retribution – and, oh, does that hurt! If you’re a film geek like me, you understand the agony and ecstasy of this annual ritual. What’s new for me this year is that I’m going to share my experiences with you. So I’ll give you a rundown of how I make my choices, what you can expect, and how I think you might best enjoy the festival.

Posted on October 5, 2006

Life at Work

By J. Bird

Well, I’ve done it all. I’ve worked. And I’ve not worked. And I can’t say either one really fulfilled my expectations.

Posted on October 5, 2006

Starbucks City

By The Beachwood Coffee Affairs Desk

Starbucks announced last week that it planned to double the number of its stores in America; Chicago is line for at least 250 more locations. That’s right – 250. More. Starbucks.
Where will they go? A Beachwood analysis of sophisticated caffeine-use mapping software, integrated into an Excel spreadsheet of current city zoning designations, parsed with data gleaned from company financial reports and aldermanic campaign disclosure statements, has yielded an answer. Welcome to Starbucks City, Chicago-style.

Posted on October 3, 2006

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