Week Around The Ists

Image via Tommy6unz on Flickr

Image via Tommy6unz on Flickr
Chicagoist dived head first into 2011. They interviewed former Fall Out Boy vocalist Patrick Stump; watched in amazement as former Senator Carol Moseley Braun’s mayoral campaign self-imploded, ran previously unseen photographs from an unknown street photographer whose work is gaining a wide, posthumous audience; published Art Shay’s story a chance encounter with Elizabeth Taylor 50 years ago; and had some fun looking at reader photographs of the New Year’s Day Polar Bear Plunge at North Avenue Beach.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Ist-a-verse...

• Austinist columnist Spike Gillespie keeps Austin weird.
• Gothamist was amazed when the Village Voice fired legendary reporter Wayne Barrettt Another legend, investigative reporter Tom Robbins, quit, sort of in protest; Robbins discussed the state of journalism with us and lamented, "We used to write the stories that got the arrests. But now everyone is turning their back on the big stories and talking about the trivial ones and what goes on in media and this and that."
• Bostonist learned a lesson: People like pictures of people freezing their nether regions off by swimming outdoors in January. That sort of sporty fun set the tone this week as the Shaqonteur chatted up Letterman and Bill Buckner became the new manager of the independent Brockton Rox baseball team. We also think the Celtics are strong with the force.
• Shanghaiist came across a list purporting to be SMS words censored by the three telecommunications companies of China. Amongst them, swear words, 200 or so possible spellings of Falungong and the names of all our dear leaders.
• SFist welcomed Ed Lee, San Francisco's new interim (and, of course, controversial) mayor.
• Seattlest is nursing a a hangover over after celebrating the Seahawks' astonishing win over the New Orleans Saints. Before the game we tracked the inevitable mayoral bet and the revelation that the large and small-sized beers at Qwest Field actually hold the same amount of liquid.
• DCist was appalled at shocking video of a man being beaten inside a busy Metro station by several teenagers for no apparent reason, an act which the man who was beaten emotionally described as "a very lonely moment in a very public place."
• We took a deep cut of large and gaudy box-sets for an evaluation of this year's classic rock record offerings.