In a new book, The Tylenol Mafia, author Scott Bartz says he knows why the “Tylenol murders” continue to confound investigators
Author Archives: Joy Bergmann
Seduced
He drew them in with his good looks and charm. He involved them in betrayal, robbery, and murder. He left them doing time.
Cable Box
Format Three La-Z-Boy pundits swilling beer and displaying their dirty socks assess music and cinema. In any given half-hour episode, pickin’ may refer to selectin’ fine VCR fodder, riffin’ rhapsodically […]
The Hardest Working Santa in Show Business
When there’s a job to do, he does it well.
Group Efforts: I’m OK, you’re OK, even if we’re not OK
A poster listing the “10 Warning Signs of ‘Normality’” hangs in Katherine Hodges’s Ukrainian Village kitchen. It cautions that such qualities as being obedient, boring, and gullible may be psychiatric […]
A Bitter Pill
Someone killed seven people by putting cyanide in tylenol capsules. When James Lewis was caught for writing an extortion letter, prosecutors appeared to stop looking for the killer. Almost 20 years later no one has been convicted of the murders.
Reel Life: bending the rules of sexual politics
Filmmakers Ben Berkowitz and Ben Redgrave have a message for Chicago artists of every stripe: Buckle down and get to work. Second-class hang-ups may pervade Second City attitudes, but they […]
Cable Box
Format Multimedia variety show, with an emphasis on variety. Depending on the episode, viewers might see repetitive skits performed by hand puppets, an immigrant offering snack cakes, or sad-faced young […]
Ladies’ Rooms
By Joy Bergmann Susan Leinwohl leapt at the chance to run away from her dour Denver women’s college with a dashing graduate student from Northwestern she’d met on the Colorado […]
Down on the Farm
Iowa’s attempt to lure me back only remind me why I left in the first place.
Cable Box
Format Sixty minutes of “nonstop action” produced by the avuncular Bill Wildt, 56, president of the nonprofit Motorsports Advancement Crusade. Footage of racing and of customized cars, trucks, motorcycles, snowmobiles, […]
On Exhibit: ambassadors of the insect world
A group of boys jockeys for position around the open display of delicate chrysalises. One kid bullies forward and extends his index finger to a fallen, newly emerged butterfly. As […]
Cable Box
Format Half hour of sketch comedy by the Cirque du Squirrel ensemble under the direction of auteur Dale Chapman. Program promotes yucks through “dick jokes and infantile bathroom humor.” Target […]