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On the eve of his 24th birthday, Finnish conductor Mikko Franck will make his CSO debut, a distinction rarely bestowed on someone so young. But then the wunderkind already has a formidable resume, having debuted with orchestras in Sweden, London, Munich, and Berlin–a list that even established maestros would envy. Franck, who took up the violin at age five and started reading orchestral scores as a hobby shortly after, was a sickly child–he reportedly whiled away time in hospitals practicing baton moves while listening to Tchaikovsky’s Sixth....

Thanks to Boeing, your wallet is lighter this morning. In December the aerospace giant, now headquartered in Chicago, arranged a deal that Arizona senator John McCain described as “the envy of corporate lobbyists from one end of K Street to the other.” Compliant congresspeople from the far west inserted a provision in the Defense Department appropriations bill allowing the air force to lease 100 Boeing 767s for use as tankers. As Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman summarize the deal in the January 5 issue of their on-line newsletter “Corp-focus,” these are planes that neither the air force nor the president has requested....

APRIL The Chicago Greens–one of the groups that used to organize Chicago’s annual Earth Day festivities–started boycotting the event two years ago, when Com Ed became its primary corporate sponsor. This year Earth Day has been canceled altogether due to “today’s uncertain funding climate,” says the Chicago Earth Month Coalition, which is encouraging people to visit the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum on Sunday instead. Meanwhile, the Greens are holding a free lineup of lectures called Earthday: From Chernobyl to Baghdad, which will address such topics as the use of depleted uranium missiles in Iraq, environmental terrorism, clean-air struggles at the Fisk and Crawford coal plants in Little Village and Pilsen, and the transport of high-level radio-active waste through Illinois to Nevada’s Yucca Mountain (part of a measure signed into law by the president several months ago)....

Detours Tellin’ Tales Theatre, a troupe founded by Tekki Lomnicki, uses the art of storytelling to mentor and heal, working with schoolchildren and with disabled performers, both adults and children. But occasionally the group produces shows, among them this showcase for five storytellers. The result offers intermittent pleasures and illustrates the tension between storytelling and performance and between the archetypal and the specific. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The evening’s theme, as the title suggests, is travel, both literal and metaphoric, and the difficulties and revelations it offers....

Ozzy can’t complete a sentence, Axl has spent a decade on an album he can’t finish, Motley Crue is ready for Star Plaza, and Metallica put out a record with a symphony orchestra. Metal is still alive, though. It’s just living in places many don’t notice–like Nightfall Records, an efficiency-sized death metal shop in Mayfair. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “Everybody was rejecting us,” says the ponytailed, 37-year-old Belau, dressed in black from his socks to his Morbid Angel sweatshirt....

With some five million people now listening to the likes of Norman Blake, Ralph Stanley, and Alison Krauss on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? sound track, it seems pretty clear that the general public’s perception of bluegrass has changed for the better. I sure hope James King gets his piece of the pie before the winds change again. Since the mid-90s the Virginia singer has been one of the genre’s most distinctive artists, a traditionalist when it comes to instrumentation but an innovator when it comes to tackling modern material....

Lawndale is not supposed to be Alan Keyes Country. According to a recent Tribune/WGN TV poll, Keyes is getting just 3 percent of Illinois’ African-American vote in his Senate race against Barack Obama. But last Friday afternoon a crowd milled around the mother-and-child statue at the corner of Kedzie and Douglas, waving Keyes placards and getting ready to board a charter bus with the candidate’s name on the side. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

Lead Story Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » According to an August Wall Street Journal report, the $10,000 foot surgery a 31-year-old Philadelphia woman recently underwent–she had one toe shortened and another straightened–is merely a radical manifestation of a widespread obsession with fashionable but ever-pointier pumps. Over-the-counter products like gel cushions and “toe hose” have proliferated to help women endure these excruciating shoes, and podiatrists are offering nail-narrowing surgeries and collagen injections to pad the soles of the feet....

We called it college rock for a reason. The Pixies sounded like they’d cobbled their lyrics together after batting around in-jokes in a dorm lounge at 4 AM and dressed like they’d grabbed yesterday’s clothes off the floor after waking up late for Intro to Psych. Hindsight’s 20/20, of course, but it sure seems this Boston band was destined to be “influential” from the start, and to be sure, the Pixies’ jarring dynamics and tuneful noisiness connected with pop audiences in a big way once they were hijacked by a zillion alternabands; even their junk-culture fixation now looks like a prophetic glimpse of the jury-rigged thrift-store aesthetic of 90s indie rock....

I am a 25-year-old bisexual female grad student in NYC. This summer I had sex with a man for the first time. It was casual sex, but we were together for a few days. I was spending the summer in California and met him there; he now lives in Philadelphia. First of all, you didn’t make a fool of yourself, you made a phone call, and that call didn’t break any of the 300,000 unspoken rules of casual sex....

A friend of a friend recently visited an uncle who’d just come back from fighting in Iraq. He conceded that the invasion hadn’t reduced the threat of terrorism or uncovered any weapons of mass destruction or exposed any links between September 11 and Saddam Hussein. “Just the same,” he said, “September 11 happened almost two years ago–and somebody’s got to pay.” Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The notion that “somebody’s got to pay” is arguably an aesthetic principle rather than an ethical one–the kind of expectation bred by the dramaturgy of dumb action movies with revenge plots as well as certain sports events, all of which promote a knee-jerk idea of tit for tat....

On ( ) (MCA)–yes, ( )–its hotly anticipated follow-up to 2000’s Agaetis Byrjun (Fat Cat), the Icelandic quartet Sigur Ros mostly leaves well enough alone. But the new album–eight untitled songs, clocking in around 70 minutes and recorded at the band’s new Reykjavik studio, a converted swimming pool called Alafoss–does scuff the ethereal polish of its predecessor ever so slightly. The drums sound crisper, the androgynous vocals of Jon Birgisson more sibilant, and the guitars more like guitars–except, of course, when they’re being played with violin bows....

Over a year has passed since the University of Illinois at Chicago had the last of the tenants and property owners evicted from the old open-air market around Maxwell Street. Now, in the latest twist in a land-use struggle that’s gone on for almost a decade, the university’s evicting some students from a dormitory built on the land–even though it once claimed it had to destroy the Maxwell Street Market for the sake of students....

Friday 11/1 – Thursday 11/7 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » 2 SATURDAY The mainstream media hasn’t examined the agenda behind post-9/11 changes to laws regarding our civil liberties, and this failure is the subject of today’s CMW conference, Propaganda: War, Terror & U.S. Empire. Speakers include locals like UIC education professor Bill Ayers and David Schippers, the attorney representing FBI whistleblower Robert Wright (who was told to stop discussing terrorist cells and 9/11), as well as folks like University of Massachusetts communications professor Sut Jhally, who’ll talk on “The Selling of Patriotism,” and Matthew Rothchild, editor of the Progressive, who’ll give the keynote address....

In the fifth canto of the Inferno, Dante and his guide, the poet Virgil, enter the second circle of hell, where they meet Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta, condemned for adultery. In life Francesca had pledged eternal love to Paolo, though betrothed to his older brother, the knight Lanciotto Malatesta (some accounts call him Gianciotto). When Lanciotto left to fight in the Crusades, Paolo and Francesca–comparing themselves to another illicit couple, Lancelot and Guinevere–consummated their relationship; upon his return, Lanciotto discovered the lovers and stabbed them both to death....

The Children’s Humanities Festival continues through November 2. Events take place at the Art Institute, Michigan and Adams; Chicago Children’s Museum, Navy Pier, 700 E. Grand; Ogden Elementary School, 24 W. Walton; and Walter Payton College Prep, 1034 N. Wells. Unless otherwise noted, programs are $6 at the door, $5 in advance (students and teachers are admitted free with reservations). Some tickets may become available for sold-out programs; check at the venue 20 to 30 minutes prior....

Leah B. scoops cookie batter onto trays in the bakery of the Greenhouse Inn at Misericordia Heart of Mercy, the Rogers Park residential facility for the mentally and physically challenged. Leah has been a community member for 15 years. “I can ice brownies, I can measure things,” she says. “I have been baking since three; my grandmother taught me. My goal is to listen to what people are saying. My other goal is to talk like an adult and not cry at work....

Lead Stories Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The for-profit school-administration company Edison Schools Inc., reportedly low on cash (its stock is currently worth around a dollar a share, down from $36 in February 2001), tried to cut corners this fall in its management of 20 chronically underperforming Philadelphia high schools. According to an October dispatch in Toronto’s Globe and Mail, Edison sold off newly ordered textbooks, computers, lab supplies, and musical instruments; briefly moved some of its Philadelphia executives out of company headquarters and into vacant schoolrooms, trying to save on rent; and suggested that students could acquire valuable experience (as well as cut down on the number of salaried adults) if they worked an hour a day for free in school offices....

Ten years ago I was celebrating a friend’s 21st birthday here after barhopping all night. Back then it was called the Last Act. Stephanie wanted me to see this place because it was across the street from the famed Second City. It was really crowded, and this guy kept bumping into me. I knew that he was from Second City because he kept mentioning it. I got really mad, and I turned around and pushed him, and we got into this shoving match....

Each year Art Chicago provides an opportunity to see work by major artists rarely exhibited hereabouts. A few examples: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Ann Hamilton is best known for her installation art, which is extraordinary for the way it engages the viewer in the viewing process. Her print Wreathe, shown by Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl (C113), is made with no ink at all–rather, raised scriptlike patterns are embossed on white paper....