There’s nothing in the 132nd edition of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus more thrilling than standing in the parking lot outside Allstate Arena while the massive underbellies of one jetliner after another graze your head on their way to O’Hare. It almost justifies the $11 parking charge. Nothing justifies the muddy sound system inside, which turns most of what the ringmaster has to say into a blur, or the $6 boxes of popcorn and $8 slushy cups....

Does fresh produce eliminate? In other words, does your lettuce continue to breathe, process oxygen, and produce waste products? I have often noticed a bitter, for lack of a better word, organic chemical taste on lettuce, apples, and other produce. The appearance and relative strength of this taste appears to correspond with the length of storage time, etc. I’ve always assumed that this is the result of (relatively–can’t be good for you) harmless waste produced by the living plant and that the only solution (which always works) is to rinse the produce thoroughly....

What’s the Straight Dope on handwriting analysis? I know that handwriting experts’ testimony can be accepted in court, so there must be something to it. But I have a hard time believing that a smart criminal wouldn’t be able to change his writing to avoid detection. On a related issue, can an “expert” really tell something about your personality from your handwriting (e.g., that loops in your g’s and y’s indicate a high sex drive)?...

Two summers ago Doug Johnson was heading south on Lake Shore Drive when, right past the 57th Street exit, something in Jackson Park caught his eye: lawn bowlers playing on two perfectly manicured greens. An avid croquet player since discovering the game 12 years earlier, Johnson was thrilled. For him and his croquet cronies, who had been forced to search Lincoln Park for freshly mown grass to play on, this was everything they could hope for: beautifully tended lawns, lights for night playing, and an idyllic setting practically right on the lake, all courtesy of the Chicago Park District....

The best chamber festivals, like those in Marlboro, Vermont, or at Lincoln Center, allow top-notch musicians to have a good time playing together while revisiting cherished works. By that measure alone Northwestern’s monthlong Winter Chamber Music Festival has been a rousing success. Started in 1997 by Chicago Symphony Orchestra violinist (and Northwestern teacher) Blair Milton, this gathering of more than 40 instrumentalists, drawn mostly from the CSO and the Northwestern faculty, is so well respected and well attended it has no trouble attracting headliners....

Bleep Alert Chicago Tonight panelist Loren Ghiglione, dean of the Medill School of Journalism, thought Lipinski had overreacted. So did I. Lisa Bertagnoli, the freelancer who wrote the story, was the third member of the panel, and she was more nonchalant. When she woke up Wednesday morning and discovered another lead story in WomanNews, she assumed hers had been pushed back a week. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » A Sun-Times reporter called and told her otherwise....

Beginning Friday, the Film Center will screen a 13-movie, two-month retrospective of French filmmaker Eric Rohmer, who turned 80 last week. Though he’s directed almost three dozen films since his first feature in 1959, Rohmer has often labeled these works as serials. And aside from the inexplicable omission of Perceval–his greatest film–this retrospective certainly does justice to his major periods: it includes all of his “Six Moral Tales,” five of the six “Comedies and Proverbs,” and a third entry from the “Tales of the Four Seasons” that has never been shown here....

Centenarian Milford Beeghly, a barrel-chested Iowa eccentric and a pioneer in crossbreeding corn, is the subject of this inventive and beguiling 2000 documentary by his grandson Montieth McCollum. Proud, laconic, and deeply attached to the land, Beeghly preferred experimenting with and marketing new strains of corn to spending time with his family, and in interviews shot during the late 90s he seems vital but aloof. McCollum incorporates reminiscences from Beeghly’s children, family photos, 50s TV spots by the farmer-entrepreneur, time-lapse photography, and animation, fashioning a wry reverie on homegrown scientific discovery, the elusiveness of the past, and the family’s ambivalence toward its patriarch....

There’s no end to disaster in this world, a fact that has served Jay Bonansinga well. The Chicago writer has made a living churning out thrillers with titles like Sick and Head Case, but his latest book is a nonfiction account of the sinking of the steamship Eastland. On July 24, 1915, the docked boat was crammed with Western Electric employees and their families heading out on a company excursion when it heeled over onto its port side in the shallow Chicago River, killing 844 people....

Childhood, often romanticized as a state of carefree and innocent play, is in truth lived according to an intricate set of rules: this stoop’s third base; those sneakers are the best; don’t ride your bike down that street or you’ll lose it to a bully. In his new novel, The Fortress of Solitude (Doubleday), Jonathan Lethem meticulously maps out an eight-block square of 1970s Brooklyn whose arcane folkways are navigated and absorbed by young Dylan Ebdus....

Deeply Rooted Productions Gus Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago On second thought, though–and after seeing the second half, “Move!”–the problem seemed not the choreographer’s ability but his choice of sound track. While the first act included music, it was choreographed to words: when we hear the shout “I am somebody!” Willis raises his fist. Likewise Krystal Hall Glass’s Resonant Untruth–a solo for Brian Brooks to text highlighting the phrase “My pretty little nigger, I’ll never let you go”–gets bogged down in wrapped arms and dragging feet, literal and predictable representations of constraint....

Soon after Jason Farbman filed his Green Party candidacy for state representative from the 14th District, the regulars in Rogers Park did what they usually do to independents who dare to challenge their machine. They brought in the lawyers and took Farbman to court, hoping to have him bounced from the ballot for violating some technicality. To their surprise, and the delight of his backers, Farbman isn’t just fighting back–he’s exposing an embarrassing election-law blunder on the part of his Democratic opponents....

In her trio Carmen, New York choreographer Nancy Turano divides in three the character of opera’s most famous Gypsy, setting her distilled story to selections from Bizet’s score punctuated by laughter, sirens, and the occasional odd mutter. Progressing from external to more internal views, Turano makes her first Carmen so angry and defiant and iconoclastic she borders on crazy. Her second Carmen is the woman who must have captivated Jose in bed, tender and seductive but also strong, guarded, and independent....

After the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Steve Jones (a pseudonym), like many Americans, yearned to do whatever he could to help. For those without specialized search-and-rescue skills, it seemed there were only two answers: give money or give blood. Jones wanted to do both. The 37-year-old sales manager sent off checks to the American Red Cross and United Way and took time off from work so he could donate blood at the LifeSource center on Fullerton....

The Blackhawks opened the season with low expectations and equally low fan interest. Though they’d made the Stanley Cup playoffs last spring for the first time in five years, they gave up their most popular player, Tony Amonte, to free agency over the summer and signed in his place Theo Fleury, a veteran star with addiction issues. Fleury went AWOL from practice before the season even began, and almost immediately afterward was suspended by the NHL for violating the terms of his substance-abuse program....

HASIL ADKINS 5/17, BEAT KITCHEN In a world where “authentic” has come to mean “museum-quality,” the only way to shake off those quotes is to be a genuine one-of-a-kind specialty item–a brother from another planet, as it were. West Virginia legend Hasil Adkins is a prime example: the raw, unpredictable rockabilly this one-man Magic Band’s been honing since the 50s has influenced legions of would-be wild men (and women, including the Cramps’ Poison Ivy), but it’s yet to be topped by any of them....

The Lady Troubles, Triplette, at the Playground Theater. This debut sketch-comedy revue by Rebecca Fox, Laura Grey, and Heather Simms combines playful observations on a variety of mostly female subjects with the slaphappy energy of a slumber party. Though the show lacks the biting commentary you might expect from a production purporting to look at 21st-century womanhood, it has a genuine lighthearted intelligence. The humor is based more on the characters than the situations, which can be dark: a hyperactive, well-meaning girlfriend offers to cheer up her pal with martinis after an abortion, an infertile woman negotiates hysterically to keep her friend’s child (“I gave you one of Snowball’s kittens!...

The Promise Keepers The Plame scandal had about as much heft as the Rather scandal, but it happened last summer and would be forgotten by now if not for the special prosecutor who’s supposedly turning over every rock in Washington to get to the bottom of Novak’s expose. We’re reminded of his probe whenever a judge rejects the privilege claim of some subpoenaed reporter who possibly heard from the same source and orders him or her to appear before the grand jury....

I’ve asked every physics professor I’ve ever known but have never found a satisfactory answer to the question: How does a siphon work? I understand that it allows liquid to be moved to a lower altitude, so there’s no problem in terms of potential energy. But how do the individual molecules know that they’re going to end up at a lower altitude? Does air pressure have anything to do with it?...

While watching this year’s baseball playoffs, I remembered something someone told me a while ago. Curveballs don’t really curve. It is an optical illusion. Is this really the case? Also, how many different ways can a pitcher really throw the ball? –Mark J. Costello, via the Internet Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The debate over whether a curveball actually curves began maybe 20 minutes after the pitch was perfected by William “Candy” Cummings in 1867....