Category: Issues

Michelangelo unplugged — After decades of protecting actors from baring more than just their souls, the film industry has finally served up a trifecta of mainstream actors who are taking it all off for the big screen

Jae-Ha Kim

Mark Ruffalo appears nude in “In the Cut.” Sean Penn bares all in “21 Grams.” And Ewan McGregor — Obi-Wan Kenobi himself — shows off his lightsaber in “Young Adam.” “It’s about time that men are stripping down,” Neve Campbell says in the current issue of In Style. “If we have to take it off, they should too.” Hallejuah, sister.

Mother’s little helper

Jae-Ha Kim

You got reamed at the office. The baby spit up on you. And you just spent the last two hours doing the kids’ chores. All you want to do is go to bed, but your husband wants to do more than sleep. If this situation could be rectified by an herbal supplement, would you snap it up? That’s what the makers of Avlimil are hoping with a flashy ad campaign that has some experts wondering whether there’s any substance to back up the glitz.

Bruce Lee — Urban Legend

Jae-Ha Kim

“Without a question, Bruce Lee was the uncontested idol for a lot of little black boys growing up in the ’70s. We absolutely accepted him as Soul Brother No. 1.”

Hamming it up for hunger

Jae-Ha Kim

Step aside, Anna Kournikova. You’ve got some tasty competition on the pinup calendar front. More than a baker’s dozen of top Chicago area chefs have struck a pose to help fight hunger. Unlike the beefcake and cheesecake calendars flooding the market, there were no age, sex or physique requirements for these models, who gladly posed for the Northeastern Illinois Area Agency on Aging’s Holiday Meals on Wheels (Out of the Kitchen to Fight Hunger) calendar.

Can you steer clear of the SAT? Some students work around a test many deplore

Jae-Ha Kim

Here’s how Katharine Callard outsmarted the SATs: She chose a college that didn’t require them. That’s right: She didn’t sweat those SAT prep classes, and she got into Hampshire College anyway. Of course, as a straight-A student at the top-notch Latin School of Chicago, Callard had a pretty good idea of her ability to do well in college.

Comfort entertainment after the World Trade Center tragedy

Jae-Ha Kim

Chicagoans want to hear Ray Charles sing “America the Beautiful.” We are reading up on the Middle East. We are renting movies that celebrate the human spirit, but some of us also are checking out “Armageddon” and “Independence Day”–films where the United States reigns victorious. In different ways, we all are sating our psyches with comfort entertainment–in whatever form we need it–to help us deal with last week’s tragedy.

Grieving

Jae-Ha Kim

Get over it isn’t eactly what you want to hear when your mother dies. Neither does heading that your loved one looks good dead. Yet the awkward words from the lips of our friends and family often add up to extreme insensitivity and hurt feelings, when it’s the last thing they mean. In the quiet moments after goodbyes have been said, it’s often hard to avoid dwelling on the hackneyed nature of sympathetic wishes. While we’d liek to think of our well wishers in a positive, warm light, those of us who have grieved can’t help but wonder: “What were they thinking? Are they nuts?”

Downsizing figures

Jae-Ha Kim

When is a perfect size 6 not so perfect? When it’s really a size 8. Confused? Join the club. If you’re a woman–or you’ve ever tried shopping for your favorite femme–you already know that judging fit by eyeballing the item or checking the tag is a crapshoot. A size 6 Donna Karan skirt may fit like a charm. But if you try that same size in something like Guess? or BCBG, you may wonder when you managed to pack on an extra five pounds.

We customers get no respect

Jae-Ha Kim

Just when did the shift take place from the customer always being right to just being a plain pain in the butt? In recent months, I have been cut by a manicurist, pierced by a tack while trying on clothes at a department store, handed mixed-up food orders and messed-up film negatives and subjected to cab trips in which the drivers’ seats were so far back that I had to kiss my knees. Fact is, I can deal with inconveniences. But they’d be a lot easier to stomach if people would just show some common courtesy.

State of being single not a sickness

Jae-Ha Kim

I realize that no one’s going to mistake me for Tyra Banks and that Keanu Reeves probably won’t be knocking on my door any time soon with an engagement ring (although a girl can always dream). But I’ve got a good career going, my mental health is stable and I’m debt-free. In some countries, I would be considered a good catch.