There’s a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall
And the bells in the steeple too.
And up in the nursery an ubsurd little bird
Is popping out to say cook-coo cook-coo, cook-coo
Regretfully they tell us cook-coo
But firmly they compell us cook-coo
To say goodbye cook-coo…
To you…
So long farewell, auf weidersehen good-bye
Update it has been confirmed that Edward Lifson has left Hello Beautiful as can be read here
Nothing is absolutely sure right now but WBEZ has redesigned it’s website and in the process there is no mention of Edward Lifson. Try to find his name anywhere and you come up with nothing. As you can see in these two photos of the website before and after it has gone from “Edward Lifson brings you in monotone polyphonic sound! Edward Lifson’s Hello Beautiful!” to “Hello Beautiful………….chirp…….chirp”. The Edward Lifson blog is not referenced and according to Alison Cuddy on this weeks show Edward Lifson is “out furthering his education on the arts”.
If it was a vacation they would have said vacation this isn’t Pro Wrestling where you have to have a fake injury to keep the “plot” moving while you bask in the Jamaican sun for a few weeks. Is he out like Kane walking the earth learning about art from the people that cross his path (and solving crimes on the side?) or is it more likely that with the new look comes some changes for WBEZ only time will tell. Until it does and we can in fact say goodbye to Hello Beautiful, it’s 1980 tone music opening and it’s monotone euphoria of this weeks “Hello Fellow!” we will count the seconds till it is over just as we do when we actually listen to the show.
- Episode 869: Nato Thompson and the Alternative - April 17, 2024
- Episode 868: EXPO 2024 - April 10, 2024
- Episode 867: Gary Cannone - April 4, 2024
Well, I’m curious to see who the new person is if this is indeed true.
I hope he goes back to being a foreign correspondant, he was really great at that.
I hope they reform the awful, patronizing, style of the show into something more dynamic.
Also, the opening is actually a song by the French band “Air” and is recent.
I have left the show, and the station. I was fortunate enough to receive a Loeb Fellowship to the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. I wish you and Bad at Sports all the best, as I always have. For the record, many of the choices about what would and what would not be on Hello Beautiful! were not made by me. One does what one can. Chicago deserves great arts coverage, we all know that. I’m glad you’re doing what you do. Keep it up; I plan to return, and I hope we meet again, – All best regards, Edward Lifson
I don’t know if the above post was actually placed by Mr. Lifson but it is correct he has taken a Loeb Fellowship and has left WBEZ. As can be seen at his personal website edwardlifson.com .
I can only speak for myself and can say that I wish him the best. Having worked myself in large groups and corporations people often assume someone has much more influence then they do and have a habit of placing all sorts of responsibility and authorship that really isn’t there. Never wanting to be that person and having suffered it myself I say even though I had a real distaste for the Hello Beautiful style I never wanted to hang Edward in effigy and was grateful (especially when I first moved here) that there was any art media at all since it seemed so few and fragile.
Here’s to your future and to the future of Chicago arts media.
Thanks Edward! Good luck at Harvard. HARVARD! That’s awesome. Everyone on and at Bad at sports wishes you the best. We are glad that you took our light hearted ribbing in stride. Thanks and sorry we gave you such a hard time.
…………..NOT!
Those darn Canadians and their politesse.
Duncan, Harvard Sucks. S-U-C-K-S.
for incontrovertible evidence, I direct you toward:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale's_%22We_Suck%22_Prank
and the video:
http://www.ifilm.com/video/2658051
Edward ! you lucky man. Congratulations !
Richard, is it technically to early to wish you a happy Fathers Day????
mk
half-fathers day maybe.
“http://www.ifilm.com/video/2658051”
“They don’t think good.” — The phrase that pays!
As an Architect, I cringed whenever the discipline was featured on the show. Lifson went for feel-good clichés when Chicago demands original, critical thinking. Maybe the Loeb Fellowship will help? I don’t know and I don’t care. This is a town where Mies van der Rohe’s biographer denied for a decade that his subject’s work had anything to do with his world view. Said biographer has seen the light and is rewriting his biography but we need more arts coverage that is candid and thinks more and networks less. Less ass-kissing and more honesty. Thank god for blogs!