Stuff that isn’t about the election, assassination plots, or high-profile murder cases:
* Blues Fest and Jazz Fest will be shorter and have fewer stages next year.
* “Although CPS math scores have improved since 2003, fourth-graders still tested worse than all but Cleveland and Washington, D.C., in the United States. Just 13 percent of CPS eighth-graders were proficient in math, putting them on par with students in countries such as Bulgaria, Cyprus, Jordan and Macedonia.”
* Ever since a friend showed me the Motor Club building I’ve been wondering when something would happen with it. Not sure if being forclosed on counts.
* The Grand Rapids Press has an obit of artist Ben Schaafsma, founder of InCUBATE.
* The Sun-Times has a short article on Chicago new-music groups; looking forward to the Eighth Blackbird/Glenn Kotche collaboration: “Lisa Kaplan, the ensemble’s pianist, will give the concert premiere of Kotche’s solo piano arrangement of ‘On the Corner’ by Chicago rapper Common.”