Q: Are you in Chicago, going to be in Chicago, or a fan of the Chicago Cubs?

A: Two completely unrelated notes on the Windy City:

• Playwright Tracy Letts (Killer Joe) recently premiered a new show, August: Osage County, at Steppenwolf, and Chainsaw Calligraphy's Marisa Wegryzn says Wow. Wegryzn applauds Letts for thinking grandly in an era of theatrical minimalism, and says a bunch of other things that make me excited to check the production out when I'm in Chicago later this month.¹ Check it out, Chicagoans.
  
  
• Chicago Cubs' GM Jim Hendry is easily one of the worst executives in baseball, but donating $6 million and two prospects to Billy Beane in exchange for a catcher with an OBP of .261 and a SLG of .281 is impressively moronic even for him. The Cubs are actually decent this year (they've got a one in three shot at the playoffs), but until they fire Hendry, they deserve nothing but excruciating misery. Sorry.
  
  UPDATE: Now that the deal's cash considerations have been revealed (the Cubs will only end up paying around $850K for Kendall, with the A's and Pirates covering the rest), I'd like to downgrade this deal from "impressively moronic" to merely "dumb and pointless."
  

¹ And if you live in Chicago and have connections at Steppenwolf and your name is Brant and you're reading this, MAKE IT HAPPEN.