Rosenthal: Big Ten getting too big for its own good?

There's a lesson the empire builders at Big Ten Conference headquarters in Park Ridge would do well to heed if they can be convinced to stop peering out to the distant horizon:

Growth through acquisition is fraught with peril.

"In the business world you acquire new companies and you have to deal with different corporate cultures, different priorities and so forth," Robert Arnott, chairman of Research Affiliates LLC, an investment firm, said in an interview. "Merging them is often very messy and often fails. Here you're merging two teams into an existing conference and it creates risks. … Even college football teams have different cultures, different ways of thinking about how to win and different standards."

There undoubtedly was a logic behind each acquisition as the old Sears sought to expand and diversify its corporate profile. By the time the Chicago-area company's portfolio grew to include Allstate insurance, Coldwell Banker real estate and Dean Witter Reynolds stock brokerage, it was clear the increase in size was in no way matched by an increase in strength.

Rather than an all-powerful Colossus astride many sectors at once, it was reduced to an unfocused blob, bereft of identity, covering plenty of ground but hardly standing tall. Years after shedding its far-flung holdings, Sears has yet to regain its muscle, mojo or market share.

"It's hard to find a better example of a company that lost its mission and focus in the quest for growth," Arnott said.

"(Growth) may be partly a defensive move. It may be ego driven. In the corporate arena, you certainly see that in spades," he said. "When growth is through acquisition, you have to figure out what the real motivation is. Is it synergy, the most overused word in the finance community, or is it ego?"

Adding the University of Maryland and New Jersey's Rutgers University in 2014 will push the Big Ten to 14 schools and far beyond the Midwestern territory for which it's known. But doing so may not achieve what its backers envision.

Rather than spread the conference's brand, it may merely dilute it. The fit may be corrosive, not cohesive.

There is a school of thought that this is but the latest evidence that the Big Ten is not about athletics, academics or even the Midwest. Instead, it is just a television network, the schools content providers and student-athletes talent.

As it is, the overall TV payout is said to give each of the 12 current Big Ten schools about $21 million per year. They point to the Big Ten's lucrative deals with ESPN and its own eponymous cable network, a partnership with News Corp. They note that public schools Rutgers and Maryland are near enough to New York, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., to drive a better bargain with cable carriers.

To Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany, a New Jersey native, the addition is more the result of a paradigm shift that has redrawn the college sports map over the past decade. Some conferences splinter. Others seize new turf. The result: Idaho's Boise State football team is poised to join the Big East Conference next year.

"Institutions that get together for academics or athletics have got to be cognizant that they are competing for students, they are competing for student athletes, they are competing for research dollars," Delany told reporters.

"When you see a Southern conference in the Midwest or you see a Southern conference in the Plains states or whether you see other conferences in the Midwest or Northeast, it impacts your recruitment. ... It impacts everything you do," he said. "At a certain point you get to a tipping point. The paradigm has shifted, and you decide on a strategy to basically position yourself for the next decade or half-century."

Big has always meant more than 10 in the Big Ten, an intercollegiate entity formed by seven Midwestern universities that now boasts 12 with the bookends of Penn State and Nebraska added in 1990 and last year, respectively. Last week's announcement of adding schools 13 and 14 was just a reminder that the conference has only had 10 member schools for 70 of its 116 years and won't again for the foreseeable future.

Rutgers President Robert Barchi said his school looked "forward as much to the collaboration and interaction we're going to have as institutions as we do to what I know will be really outstanding competition on our field of play."

But make no mistake, the Big Ten was born out of sports, specifically football. A seven-school 1896 meeting at Chicago's Palmer House had Northwestern among those still stinging from a scathing Harper's Weekly critique of college sports abuses, the Tribune reported at the time.

A prohibition on allowing scholarship and fellowship students to compete was shot down. But "a move towards the coordination of Faculty committees" in terms of standards and enforcement passed and the precursor to the Big Ten was born.

Along the way, the conference has added member schools and come to recognize that the Big Ten's image has much to say about how those institutions are perceived. Scandals already are no stranger to the Big Ten. But whether you play in a stadium or on Wall Street, the bigger one gets, the bigger target one becomes.

"Whoever's biggest draws scrutiny," said Arnott, co-author of a research paper, "The Winners Curse: Too Big to Succeed." "That means politicians, regulators, the general public generally don't root for the biggest. They look to take them down a notch, so it's harder to succeed as the largest. It's also harder to move the dial and move from success to success as you get really big."

Everyone talks about becoming too big to fail, but there's also too big to scale, companies that are unable to capitalize on the efficiencies of their increased size ostensibly because they are so big that they cannot be managed adequately.

"People talk about economies of scale. There are also vast diseconomies of scale, mostly in bureaucracies," Arnott said. "The more people you have involved, the more people you have who feel they have to have their views reflected in whatever's done. So you wind up with innovation by committee."

That's deadly. That's why companies break up, citing the need to get smaller so they can grow.

"If you break up companies into operating entities that are more nimble," Arnott said, "the opportunities to grow are no longer hamstrung by centralized bureaucracies that have to pursue synergies that don't exist."

Size matters in all fields of play. Sometimes smaller is better.

philrosenthal@tribune.com

Twitter @phil_rosenthal

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Firefighters battle extra-alarm blaze in condo building

Firefighters were battling a 3-11 alarm blaze in a five-story condominium building in the Morgan Park neighborhood this afternoon.

The fire began in the building at 2030 W. 111th St. about 2:20 p.m. It was raised to a 2-11 alarm at 2:42 p.m. and to a 3-11 alarm about 3 p.m. An EMS Plan 1, which sends six ambulances to the scene, also was called for the fire. Four people at the building were treated on the scene, but did not need to be taken to the hospital, according to the Chicago Fire Department's media office.

When the first fire company arrived, flames were shooting from a third-floor window on the east side of the building, but firefighters also found fire in the walls on the first and second floors, said Chicago Fire Department spokeswoman Meg Ahlheim. In total, about 120 fire personnel and 40 pieces of fire equipment were dispatched to the fire, she said.

Fire officials called a Mayday alert for a lost firefighter about the time the 2-11 alarm was called, but the alert was quickly cancelled when the firefighter was located unharmed, Ahleim said. Other members of his company apparently had lost track of the firefighter, but he was not trapped, she said.

The five-story brick Terrace Place West Condominiums had smoke billowing from the top two floors, where firefighters were concentrating the efforts of several hoses, including two directed from tower ladder trucks. By about 3:45 p.m., there were no visible flames, but white smoke was billowing from the roof.

By about 4:15 p.m., the fire was largely under control, but large parts of the fourth and fifth floor visible from the street appeared heavily damaged by smoke and fire. About 4:30 p.m., firefighters were concentrating on hotspots on the fifth floor of the building.

During the fire, the smoke could be seen from at least a mile away.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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Pop art “godfather” Blake still the outsider at 80

LONDON (Reuters) – Pop music loves him. The art establishment shuns him. At the age of 80, British artist Peter Blake is revered for his celebrated “Sgt. Pepper” Beatles album cover yet at the same time dismissed as too “cheerful” to be one of the greats.

Regularly stroking his wispy silver beard, and supported around a central London gallery by a walking cane, the man dubbed the “godfather of Pop art” still struggles to come to terms with his place in the world of contemporary culture.

“It’s a cross I bear,” he said of the fact that his art is not taken as seriously as that of some contemporaries.

“Perhaps it’s surprising that at my kind of age and with my infirmities I’m still cheerful,” he told Reuters at the Waddington Custot Galleries where his latest show, “Rock, Paper, Scissors” has just opened.

Surrounding him are works ranging from some of his earliest watercolours executed in 1948 when he was 16 to “The Family”, a sculpture he completed just a few days ago.

What is striking is just how lively they are – plastic figures of Snow White and 30 dwarves crowd outside a model of a Swiss chalet in one humorous work, and the six-foot-long “A Parade for Saul Steinberg” is a model bursting with color and references to popular culture.

Blake concedes that he is often left having to defend his work in a world where “serious” art is cherished above all.

“Painters all have a different reason to paint – it could be politics, it could be angst, it could be anger. My reason to paint is to make magic and to make cheerful things.”

He has compared himself to contemporaries like Frank Auerbach, 81, whose dark oil paintings are increasingly sought after by collectors.

“Compared to that I am light, I have to accept that,” Blake said, adding that he is a great admirer of Auerbach. “It is the reason I am quite often aesthetically undervalued.”

TELLING OFF THE TATE

The art market clearly ranks his peers above Blake, including Auerbach and David Hockney, whose “Beverly Hills Housewife” fetched $ 7.9 million at auction in 2009.

But more of a bugbear is being overlooked by Tate Modern, the most important British gallery for modern and contemporary art which, ironically, gave a major retrospective this year to a much younger artist whom Blake helped nurture – Damien Hirst.

After uttering a few choice words in what he himself called a “rant” to a newspaper against the influential Tate director Nicholas Serota, he sought to strike a more conciliatory tone.

“Oddly enough Serota came in earlier to see the show,” Blake recalled. “I said, ‘Look it’s not personal. You’re the director of the Tate … and if I don’t fit into your scheme I’m not that bitter about it. It’s a fact. I don’t hate you.

“I think he was slightly embarrassed because I have been quite voluble about it. He accepted it.”

What Serota would have seen at the exhibition was an artist still bursting with ideas in a phase of life he describes as an “encore” to the main acts of his career.

Blake named the show after the children’s game “Rock, Paper, Scissors”, and the childlike runs throughout.

“Rock” represents sculptures, some of which are occupied by superheroes, Boy Scouts, toy soldiers and knights alongside the more sobre “Army” consisting of human figures made up of wooden blocks topped by bowling balls for heads.

“Paper” covers works on paper that include Blake’s portrait of Queen Elizabeth commissioned by the Radio Times for the cover of its 2012 Diamond Jubilee souvenir issue.

“Scissors” stands for collage, and the works range from abstract 1950s creations to a series of scenes of prominent London landmarks like Westminster Abbey and Piccadilly Circus populated by comic characters, animals, skeletons or horses.

Asked how his recent work compared to earlier “acts”, he replied: “It’s not a development, it’s a leaping about.

“I describe my working methods as being like a big oak tree and the trunk is and has always been that I am a figurative painter of a certain kind of realist style – I was when I was 16 and I still am. But the branches of the tree are these excursions into other art.”

MUSIC’S MOST FAMOUS SLEEVE

Blake was producing art by 1945, aged just 13, and in the 1950s and “swinging 60s” emerged as one of the frontrunners of pop art which drew on popular culture and advertising to subvert the traditions of mainstream art.

He is best known for designing the album sleeve for the 1967 Beatles album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, featuring a collage of famous figures behind the band members dressed in bright military-style regalia.

It is one topic Blake is keen to avoid.

“Best if you don’t,” he replied with a grin, when asked if he was willing to talk about a design for which he was paid a reported 200 pounds. “I’d much rather talk about this work.”

That album has led to a lifelong association with British pop music, including designing sleeves for charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in 1984 and Madness’s latest album as well as the BRIT Award statuettes earlier this year.

Blake, it is clear, is still going strong, but only recently the outlook was far less rosy.

“All last year I wasn’t very well, and I was talking often about the fact that I was working on this show and I hoped I would live long enough to go to it,” he said.

“The question is there in the background, of mortality, but I’ve cheered up a bit and I’m not so unwell and I’m not forecasting my own death yet.”

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Indian Prostitutes’ New Autonomy Imperils AIDS Fight

MUMBAI, India — Millions once bought sex in the narrow alleys of Kamathipura, a vast red-light district here. But prostitutes with inexpensive mobile phones are luring customers elsewhere, and that is endangering the astonishing progress India has made against AIDS.

Indeed, the recent closings of hundreds of ancient brothels, while something of an economic victory for prostitutes, may one day cost them, and many others, their lives.

“The place where sex happens turns out to be an important H.I.V. prevention point,” said Saggurti Niranjan, program associate of the Population Council. “And when we don’t know where that is, we can’t help stop the transmission.”

Cellphones, those tiny gateways to modernity, have recently allowed prostitutes to shed the shackles of brothel madams and strike out on their own. But that independence has made prostitutes far harder for government and safe-sex counselors to trace. And without the advice and free condoms those counselors provide, prostitutes and their customers are returning to dangerous ways.

Studies show that prostitutes who rely on cellphones are more susceptible to H.I.V. because they are far less likely than their brothel-based peers to require their clients to wear condoms.

In interviews, prostitutes said they had surrendered some control in the bedroom in exchange for far more control over their incomes.

“Now, I get the full cash in my hand before we start,” said Neelan, a prostitute with four children whose side business in sex work is unknown to her husband and neighbors. (Neelan is a professional name, not her real one.)

“Earlier, if the customer got scared and didn’t go all the way, the madam might not charge the full amount,” she explained. “But if they back out now, I say that I have removed all my clothes and am going to keep the money.”

India has been the world’s most surprising AIDS success story. Though infections did not appear in India until 1986, many predicted the nation would soon become the epidemic’s focal point. In 2002, the C.I.A.’s National Intelligence Council predicted that India would have as many as 25 million AIDS cases by 2010. Instead, India now has about 1.5 million.

An important reason the disease never took extensive hold in India is that most women here have fewer sexual partners than in many other developing countries. Just as important was an intensive effort underwritten by the World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to target high-risk groups like prostitutes, gay men and intravenous drug users.

But the Gates Foundation is now largely ending its oversight and support for AIDS prevention in India, just as efforts directed at prostitutes are becoming much more difficult. Experts say it is too early to identify how much H.I.V. infections might rise.

“Nowadays, the mobility of sex workers is huge, and contacting them is very difficult,” said Ashok Alexander, the former director in India of the Gates Foundation. “It’s a totally different challenge, and the strategies will also have to change.”

An example of the strategies that had been working can be found in Delhi’s red-light district on Garstin Bastion Road near the old Delhi railway station, where brothels have thrived since the 16th century. A walk through dark alleys, past blind beggars and up narrow, steep and deeply worn stone staircases brings customers into brightly lighted rooms teeming with scores of women brushing each other’s hair, trying on new dresses, eating snacks, performing the latest Bollywood dances, tending small children and disappearing into tiny bedrooms with nervous men who come out moments later buttoning their trousers.

A 2009 government survey found 2,000 prostitutes at Garstin Bastion (also known as G. B.) Road who served about 8,000 men a day. The government estimated that if it could deliver as many as 320,000 free condoms each month and train dozens of prostitutes to counsel safe-sex practices to their peers, AIDS infections could be significantly reduced. Instead of broadcasting safe-sex messages across the country — an expensive and inefficient strategy commonly employed in much of the world — it encircled Garstin Bastion with a firebreak of posters with messages like “Don’t take a risk, use a condom” and “When a condom is in, risk is out.”

Surprising many international AIDS experts, these and related tactics worked. Studies showed that condom use among clients of prostitutes soared.

“To the credit of the Indian strategists, their focus on these high-risk groups paid off,” said Dr. Peter Piot, the former executive director of U.N.AIDS and now director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. A number of other countries, following India’s example, have achieved impressive results over the past decade as well, according to the latest United Nations report, which was released last week.

Sruthi Gottipati contributed reporting in Mumbai and New Delhi.

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Walmart protests draw crowds, shoppers largely unfazed

Dozens of local workers, and hundreds nationally, took advantage of Black Friday crowds and camera crews at major retailers like Walmart to call for wage increases.

But there was little evidence that the chanting disrupted holiday shoppers.

Steven Restivo, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Stores, said the chain had done its "best Black Friday event ever" despite protests organized by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union in Chicago and other cities.

At a Walmart in Chicago's Chatham neighborhood on the south side, only one of the store's 500 employees took part in the demonstration, the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer said. "Almost all the folks you'll see protesting today are not Walmart associates," Restivo said. "I guess you can't believe everything you read in a union press release."

According to the union, protests took place in Miami and Washington, D.C., with additional events planned at Midwestern and Southern stores.

Walmart has so far avoided a union presence, which has become cumbersome for competitors like Jewel-Osco and Dominick's Finer Foods. Those chains have been closing stores as Walmart has expanded locally.

Separately Friday, dozens of members of the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago and its supporters marched from the Loop to the Magnificent Mile to demand a $15 minimum wage and union contracts for downtown workers. Organized on November 15, the union has about 150 members and has received financial support from Service Employees International Union, Action Now and Stand Up Chicago.

Deborah Sims, marching Friday, said she worked at Macy's for 12 years, eventually making $13 an hour, before losing her job during the recession. She was rehired last holiday season, but at $8.50 an hour, with no benefits.

Sims said she expects retailers to turn to younger, less-experienced workers because "$8.25 an hour is going to look good to them."

Macy's did not respond to a request for comment.

Peter Gill, a spokesman for the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, called the demand for a $15 minimum wage dangerous "because people are out looking for jobs and it's tough in this economy."

He explained that if retailers were forced to nearly double the starting hourly wage, "you're going to have to cut the number of employees."

Reuters contributed to this story.

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Earlier Black Friday kicks off holiday shopping season

An hour after Emilia Dlugolecka opened her consignment boutique at the north end of Andersonville, she made her first Black Friday sale, a total of about $30.

Still small business owners in this North Side neighborhood said that year-over-year sales show  an improving economy.

Dlugolecka said sales are about 40 percent up from a difficult 2011, when she just sold enough clothes and accessories to pay the bills.

On Friday, she greeted familiar faces with offers of 30 percent off of outerwear, such as gloves and scarves, 15 percent off accessories and 25 percent off anything else.

She had a few people walk in before she made a sale but she was confident that she would sell more as people ventured outside.

Denise Riesen, a manager at Andersonville Galleria, near Foster Avenue, also said sales were slow, but foot traffic started increasing by about 1 p.m.

The Galleria houses more than 90 small designers, artists and entrepreneurs.

On the second floor, between Performado Photography and Figano Parisian Interiors, Sheila Hansen, owner of If a Goddess Wore Makeup, finished a basket with $10 lotions and fragrances, regularly priced at $16 to $20.

Hansen said her chemical-free products priced between $12 and $42 have developed a steady following since she opened her business 3 1/2 years ago. This season, her customers are buying bold lipsticks, especially red colors.

After lunch at nearby Mediterranean restaurant, Mary Wells and Bethy Sielaff perused through the Galleria.

"I don't see the economy ... improvement is very slow but I think people got the point where they want to treat themselves a bit," said Sielaff, 66. 

Sielaff, a retired teacher, said she doesn't shop much, but when she does, she prefers to support local merchants and artists. Her budget is about the same as last year, she said, but she doesn't need a lot of things. At her age, she would rather get an invitation for the movies or a play because she can take her memories with her when she dies, she said.

Massive crowds negotiated the escalators and the revolving door at Water Tower Place Friday afternoon.

Megan Rohde, 40, was there with her Bay City, Mich., family for their annual Black Friday shopping adventure.

They'd done Walmart the night before and hit Kmart and Target Friday morning.

Still, she said much of Friday was about activity as opposed to spending.

"It's more just people watching. We're doing some shopping, but we don't have a ton of stuff.

"We're two teachers and we are tight, tight, tight," she said.

Still, her family plans to spend a bit more this year.

"It's better than last year. Our insurance went up last year, and we hadn't gotten accustomed to it. This year, we're accustomed to it."

Craig Lightfoot and John Livingston III were on a bag hunt downtown.

In Chicago for a radiology conference, the Melbourne, Austrailia, duo began shopping at 9 a.m.

"We're chasing bags for the wives," Lightfoot said.

He plans to shell out more money for gifts this year.

"The kids are getting older and I'm spending more," he said.

Livingston, who'd picked up handbags for his daughter at Barney's and was scouting for more for his wife, said the family's shopping budget is out of his hands.

"My wife sets the budget from the other side of the world," Livingston said.  "At this point, it's infinite."

The Henri Bendel handbag and accessory store offered doorbusters this year to drive traffic.

"We wanted to see if we could get a lift in our business," store manager Kristen Koch said. "We found it drove a lot of self purchases.

"It seem like everyone is looking for the best deal," Koch said. "They might be spending the same amount as last year, but they're getting more."

Mary Jane and Steve Day, both 62 and from Peoria, strategized for their Black Friday excursion to Woodfield Mall after spending Thanksgiving with family in Rolling Meadows.

"She woke me up 6:52 (a.m.), " he said.

Looking for luggage, the Days started by shopping online, then called stores to buy over the phone. The first physical stop for the retirees wasn't until 9 a.m. at the Macy's store.

"This isn't bad," said Steve Day. "There's not that many people in the streets."

And though the Macy's store had been opened since 12 a.m., Mary Jane Day said: "We're too old to get up that early."

For Shelly Wright's first Black Friday experience, she and friend Megan Valentine got to the mall at 6:30 a.m. The Chicago women dropped a load of bags at the car three hours later, and said they would probably shop until lunch time.

Wright, 32, moved to the country three years ago from her native Canterbury, England. She said with a laugh: "This is kind of a grand, cultural experience."

Valentine, 28, said she's been Black Friday shopping for years. She said sales were better last year than this, though the crowds were more manageable.

"I expected it to be a lot worse but we weren't the first drove of people," Valentine said. "A lot of stores staggered their open times."

The frenzy is not created equal for all retailers.

Even if they don't have specials or promotions, small and independent businesses can be subject to a shopping center's early opening hours.

At Woodfield, Candy World owner Parul Patel manned her shop alone starting at midnight Friday without any specials.

The store's customer base is made up of children and teenagers, and the merchandise is at a low price point. This means business was normal, if not slow during some parts of the night, Patel said.

To fill some of the time, she read a newspaper, topped off candy containers and people-watched. The mall was busier than usual, but Patel said: "Nobody is here, you can see."

This year was the first mandatory 12 a.m. opening for the metro area's largest shopping center. Of Woodfield Mall's nearly 300 businesses across 2.2 million square feet, only about 20 stores didn't open at that time, according to the  mall's general manager, Marc Strich.

Retailers and customers had asked for the early hours, Strich said. Last year, the mall held a "volunteer" midnight opening, and about 20 stores participated.

As is typical, stores other than big-box retailer are required to be open when the mall is, Strich said, though he declined to talk about whether there were any fined or punishments for those that aren't.

Sears opened Thursday at 8 p.m., while Nordstrom's didn't open until 9 a.m. Friday, Strich said.

Amanda Lewkowicz, the store manager at PJ's Avon Beauty Center, said it didn't initially want to open at midnight after disappointing sales last year.

"We didn't want to be open at midnight because it didn't pick up until 5 a.m. last year," Lewkowicz said. "We felt it didn't benefit us."

The store is a rare brick-and-mortar outlet for Avon beauty products, which is typically sold through catalogs and sales representatives. That "destination" business model for PJ's Avon means customers typically seek them out, Lewkowicz said.

Being independently owned also requires its own promotional efforts, which included emailing its customer list and cold-calling others.

"(Other stores) do commercial advertising. We can only do so much," Lewkowicz said.

Jessica Foch had only sold one pack of cigarettes by noon at the smoke shop on Division Street in Wicker Park, in spite of her boss's insistence that a Black Friday special on hookahs would bring in throngs of shoppers.

The 24-year-old store manabger admitted that 25 percent off a $300 hookah is a pretty big discount but said she didn't expect to see them fly off the shelf.

"People don't go to little shops like this on Black Friday. They go to Target and Kmart," she said.

With pink hair, sparkly black nail polish and fingerless gloves, Foch said she once worked for Wal-Mart and hates the way people treat each other on Black Friday

She plans to spend at least $100 on her boyfriend and give generously to friends. But she won't be shopping today.

"I know somebody who got punched in the face for a toaster," she said, "a toaster."

The line may seem impressive outside St. Alfred's -- a streetwear clothier in Wicker Park -- but that's because the tiny shop is only letting in one person at a time, apparently to avoid a run on the Michael Jordan sneakers out Friday.

"But we don't even want them," said Armin Hajdarovic, 17, bundled up outside the store with a half a dozen friends as it began to snow.

The crew of Northsiders was waiting to get inside to buy shirts at 20 percent off.

Asked who they were shopping for, the group said: themselves, of course.

By 9:30 a.m. on Black Friday, still a half hour before Yorktown Shopping Center in Lombard would open on any other weekday, Santa was in his green armchair and lines had queued at Caribou Coffee for those refueling, some after an entire night of shopping.

At the food court, three sisters sipped from cartons of orange juice, their daughters having awakened them hours before dawn for a 4 a.m. excursion. One, Patricia Baker, 54, of Maywood, had made an 8 p.m. jaunt to Target Thursday and a midnight run to Anna's Linens.

Now, she and her sisters, Donna Holliday, 48, of Bellwood, and Carolyn Baker, 56, of Lombard, and their daughters had spread their J.C. Penney, Forever 21, Victoria's Secret and Bath and  Body Works bags across several tables, taking a break before heading to Chicago Premium Outlets in Aurora.

The sisters hadn't been able to get together for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, so shopping signified bonding time.

"I'm just hanging with my sisters and nieces," said Holliday. "Just hangin'."

Baker added that she lets her daughter, Jahanna Baker, 19, and nieces, Azia and Amber Welch, both 17, do most of the shopping while she and her sisters chat at the follow. 

"My income has become more secure," said Carolyn, a nurse. "The fear has died down. My work hours are more steady." She plans to spend a couple thousand dollars more this year, including a new stove she bought for herself.

Holliday, too, says she has been working more hours this year and plans to spend a couple  hundred dollars more .

"I buy what I like," she said, "as long as I'm not broke."

At the courtyard in front of Von Maur at Yorktown, three generations of shoppers sat on a bench with bags from the Gap, Justice, Claire's and Aeropostale around their feet.

Kathy Zuehlke, 69, had driven in from Rantoul, in central Illinois, to go shopping with her daughter, Lisa Salgado, 43, and granddaughter Alicia Salgado, 14, both of Rockford.

It was the first time Alicia had joined the decade-long tradition, which Kathy views as "a chance to get together because we're all spread out across Illinois."

They followed a system, scouring the circulars from three newspapers before plotting a course that took them to Target on Thanksgiving evening, back at a relative's house to nap for a few hours and on to Kohl's, Best Buy, Toys "R" Us and Yorktown.

They had budgeted about as much for gifts this year as the last, about $300 to $500 for Lisa and $800 to $900 for Kathy, who says she has several grandchildren to spoil.

They pay in cash, however, so as not to overspend.  The deals they snagged on Black Friday, including 60 percent off most apparel, helped them stay within budget, too.

In Chicago's rapidly gentrifying Logan square neighborhood, most shops and restaurants were closed Black Friday, but not Torres-Omar Jewelry.

The tiny shop, near the Blue Line stop, was offering double discounts on watches.

Bob Garza -- dressed as Santa Claus and handing out fliers for the jewelry store and candy canes as CTA riders exited the train station -- said he usually delivers groceries for Mariano's but the shop is closed through the weekend so he got out his Santa outfit to make a little extra cash.

Tomorrow, Santa will be handing out Chamber of Commerce fliers on Belmont.

"The economy is bad right now," he said. "There's work out there. You just have to create it."

Across the street at the jewelry store, Jose Torres, the store's owner, said they've been in the same location since 1980 and stay open Black Friday because their regular customers expect it.

"We're always open," he said. The store was quiet, but Torres said traffic to the store looked better than last year.

Just before 7 a.m. the door busters and the crowds had dwindled at the Target in Schaumburg. Store leader Aaron Stephenson said that while the store was still busy, the crowd had died down a bit. "This is what I consider normal busy for a weekend," said Stephenson.

This is the Minneapolis-based Target's first year offering staggered door busters, the first at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving, when the store opened and the second, at 4 a.m. Friday. Beyond consumer electronics, housewares had been popular according to Stephenson and by early morning some had also disappeared, including a Dyson Vacuum, a Farberware 18-piece cook set and a Pyrex 20-piece set.

The stack of PlayStation 3 and XBox 360's also were gone and toys, including Legos, he said, flew off the shelves. There are plenty of still good deals, Stephenson added. "We still have quite a few big TVs," he said.

In a form of subtle protest, several people who roamed Yorktown Shopping Center in Lombard as early as 4 a.m. started buying when they usually did -- on Friday morning -- and refused to give into retailers that opened their doors on Thursday evening.

"I boycotted anything midnight or earlier," said Chrissy Wojdyla, 29, of Downers Grove. "I will not shop there. I think it's ruining Thanksgiving tradition and infringing on my family." Moving Black Friday hours up to Thanksgiving, she added, "takes people away from their families." 

Instead, Wojdyla, her sister, Mary Steele, 26, and their mother, Patti Wojdyla, 54, dedicated their Thanksgiving Day to family and food, withholding themselves from any kind of shopping until they met at Yorktown at 4 a.m. Friday.

"Four a.m. is early enough!," said Patti, of Glen Ellyn. "Why would anyone want to do it on Thanksgiving evening? You're full. You're tired."

Steele, also of Glen Ellyn, said that caring for her young kids all day had made Thanksgiving too tiring to shop. 

Plus, she said, "when you start on Thanksgiving Day, it's not even Black Friday. We enjoy our 4 a.m. Friday tradition."

So they all got sleep on Thursday, ranging from 1 to 6 hours , and woke up to glam themselves out with glitter, tiaras and garland necklaces for their early morning of shopping. Steele wore a paper crown that read "Happy Holidays." |

For their efforts to keep with Yorktown's "bling" theme, Lynette Steinhauser, the assistant marketing director at the mall, rewarded them with $10 gift cards to Von Maur, which prompted a profusion of delighted thank-yous. 

Outside of J.C. Penney, Ramiro Carrizales, 44, waited with his wife, Lorena Carrizales, 40, in a seven-people-deep crowd for the store to open at 6 a.m.

They were looking for good clothing deals for their kids, specifically Mickey Mouse-themed items, but the couple, who lives in Forest Park, adamantly stuck to early Friday morning shopping hours instead of venturing out on Thursday evening. 

On Thanksgiving, said Ramiro, "I wanted to spend time with family. I didn't want to go out."

Post-Thanksgiving shopping also is a ritual for Elk Grove's Krys Slattery, Chris Duncker and Gina Wirth -- a decade-long tradition among friends.

Each year, they finish Thanksgiving dinner with their families and embark upon a 12-hour pilgrimage to knock-out the bulk of the Christmas shopping by visiting several stores in and around Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg. They power-up with coffee and breakfast at Panera and then wind-down the spree at Olive Garden for lunch. 

"We're constantly laughing," said Duncker.  "It's not just about the deals for us really, It's all about the experience, we love it," added Wirth. 

On Thanksgiving night they were in the Target on Higgins Road in Schaumburg.  Each with carts, a list and Target's "door buster" circular holding folded in their hands. All three giggled and called out to each other, squealing with delight when they spied a good deal.

After picking-up some blue sequined slippers for her teenage daughter, Slattery held them up for Wirth and Duncker to inspect.  "Do you think she'll like these?" she said.

This year Slattery was lucky. Target was opening earlier than ever -- at 9 p.m. so her mother cooked Thanksgiving dinner.

The trio weren't alone, the Target on Higgins Road in Schaumburg was swarmed, many pushing carts piled high with merchandise, from 50-inch televisions, to game consoles, tablet computers, MP3 players, apparel and cameras, which manager Brett Thiele said sold out in an hour.

The scene was similar at Yorktown Shopping Center in Lombard. 

Laura Maxey and six of her closest friends shrieked when they saw the black bags. They had carved out a spot in front of the information booth at Yorktown, standing for 5 1/2 hours at the head of a 250-person line, until the mall officially opened at 5 a.m. Friday and the staff began handing out goodie bags filled with multicolored totes and $10 gift cards to stores throughout the mall.

"We pretty much just slept over at the mall," said Laura, 14, of Lombard. "We wanted to be first."

Their parents had dropped the friends, plus two older brothers, off at the mall shortly before midnight, and they rushed to the booth to claim their spots -- only the first 200 people in line would receive gift bags, with another 50 turned away -- before taking turns to embark on a shopping rotation that included Victoria's Secret, American Eagle and PacSun. At Charlotte Russe, they picked up $15 jeans.

The friends said they were at the mall for the joy, the deals and the once-a-year feel of Black Friday, and they were hardly the only ones caught up in the retail frenzy.

"I got a suitcase thrown at my head!" said Melanie Malczewski, 14, of Lombard, recalling her experience at Victoria's Secret, though she was smiling broadly at the memory later that morning.

Lynette Steinhauser, assistant marketing director at Yorktown, said that this, her 14th Black Friday at the mall, "is the busiest it's ever been." About half of the stores had been open since midnight, she said, with nearly all the rest the turning on their lights when the mall officially opened at 5 a.m. Steinhauser compared the foot traffic at 5: 30 a.m. on Black Friday to what it feels like on a Saturday afternoon.

"Everyone is in a really happy mood," she said. "And festive!"

Black Friday, which for years kicked-off the holiday shopping season for retailers and consumers, has bled into Thanksgiving, with retailers including Target, Sears and Toys R US opening on Thursday night aiming to boost their bottom lines by enticing consumers to shop early and often.  

Holiday shopping is crucial for retailers -- it accounts for up to 40 percent of their yearly sales. That's why it's called "Black Friday" as for years they've used the day to go from red to black -- or turn a profit.  

This year, retail watchers are expecting holiday shoppers to oblige.  Consumers are expected to spend, on average, $586.1 billion this year on gifts for friends and family, just over a 4 percent increase from last year. Experts are saying this pick-up in spending is conservative, but a glimpse at popular hotspots for early Black Friday shopping, it wasn't apparent.  

This year a handful opened earlier than ever, Walmart set an 8 p.m. opening and Sears followed suit.  Target opted for an opening scheduled an hour later at 9 pm.

Despite some criticism around the increasingly early open times, shoppers in Schaumburg were out in full-force last night.  A Deloitte survey found that 60 percent of consumers plan to shop over Thanksgiving weekend, aiming to take part in sales that offer merchandise at prices the dip below 50 percent off. 

Experts said that this year, as in most years, low-priced flat screen televisions would move fast.  So would deeply discounted Android-powered tablet computers. 

The line to get into the Sears at Woodfield Mall stretched along the building by 7 p.m., an hour before opening time.  

Manager April Buehler said the line outside the store looked larger than last year, and about a mile away at Target, Thiele said this year the store was filled with more families, instead of the hardcore, deal-hunter that typically shows up when the store opens early on Friday morning.  "It's a lot more casual shopper, which I'm excited about," said Thiele. "It's not necessarily people that had to get up super early and be dedicated, just people going out with families. Grandparents and grandkids," he said. 

Carol and Russel Freitas fall into the deal-hunter category.  It's date night for the Palatine couple of 26 years when they head out to shop each year after dinner, leaving their two teenaged sons behind to tackle the stores.  They said they love it.

They waited patiently in line for more than an hour, hoping to snag one of Sears' hot door busters, a 32-inch flat screen for less than $100. 

As it turns out, they waited in vain.  By the time the store opened, they were in the first third of the line, but the Sears employee had run out of TV vouchers when she got to the Freitas' in line.  "It's okay," said Carol Freitas, "There's other stuff on our list, we're going to head to the boys' department to get shirts for my son."

Shortly before Sears opened, about 12 feet away from the Freitas, there was a small, but growing crowd of suspected "line jumpers,"  who stood about 12 feet away staring at the line.

At close to 9:30 at Target, some shoppers could be seen pushing carts stockpiled with 32 inch flat screen for $147.  Alex Gackle  from Fargo, N.D., left his grandmother's dinner with his dad and brother-in-law to buy  another of the Minneapolis-based retailer's most sought-after deals: They bought  four televisions. One for himself, another for his grandmother, one for her caretaker and the fourth for his father.  They waited in line for more than an hour and things were calm, said Gackle.  That changed when Target's doors opened, said Gackle. "That's when people started getting crazy and rushing toward things."

By 10:30 a long line of shoppers were still waiting to get inside the Toys R Us in Schaumburg.  Customers said they were told that shoppers would be allowed in the store every 10 minutes in increments of 50.

After 10 p.m. the temperature had dropped and Laura Saul stood in a sweater with her two daughters and their cousin to get into Toys R Us.  The item of the evening -- "Monster High" dolls for her 10-year-old daughter, Emily.  She pointed to Emily and said, giggling, "She conned us to do this."  Saul's old daughter, Lauren, who stood nearby, was not in such good spirits, "I could be sleeping," she said.

The trio from Elk Grove shopping at Target said over the years they've seen it all -- fights and shoving matches.  As the 10 p.m. hour approached at Target, they thought things were pretty calm.  At Target People get angry, but this is fun for us," said Wirth.  "Even if we don't get what we want, we don't care."

Sally Ho, Julie Wernau and Erin Chan Ding contributed to this story.

crshropshire@tribune.com | Twitter: @corilyns

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Rejected Beatles audition tape appears at auction

LONDON (Reuters) – The Beatles audition tape rejected by a record label executive in arguably the biggest blunder in pop history has resurfaced and will go on sale at a London auction next week.

Ted Owen of The Fame Bureau, an auction house specializing in pop memorabilia, said the 10-song tape was recorded on New Year’s Day, 1962, at label Decca‘s studios in north London.

Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Pete Best – who would later be replaced on drums by Ringo Starr – performed up to 15 songs at the session, 10 of which appear on the tape to be sold on November 27.

The band members had been driven from Liverpool to London the night before, and, despite getting lost on the way managed to get to the studios in time for the infamous session paid for by their manager Brian Epstein.

Decca’s senior A&R (artists and repertoire) representative Dick Rowe, who later became known as “the man who turned down the Beatles“, decided against signing them in favor of Brian Poole & The Tremeloes who also auditioned that day.

“Guitar groups are on their way out, Mr. Epstein,” he is widely quoted as saying.

Rowe did, however, sign the Rolling Stones, who went on to become one of the biggest acts in British rock, and experts dispute whether it was him or a more junior colleague who passed the Beatles over.

There are bootleg versions of the session in existence, but the “safety master”, or back-up tape, on offer at auction is unique, Owen said.

“The most important thing about this is the quality,” he told Reuters. “There are bootlegs out there, horrible bootlegs — some are at the wrong speed, others are crackily and taken from a cassette off an acetate (disc).

“This quality we have never heard.”

Despite its rarity, the tape has been estimated to fetch 18-20,000 pounds ($ 29-32,000), which Owen said had been set by the owner and was a “sensible” starting point.

He added that only a handful of collectors were likely to bid for the piece of pop history, and, given that the Beatles own the copyright through their company, a commercial record release based on the tape was extremely unlikely.

Marked as the “Silver Beatles”, which the “Fab Four” were briefly called, the tape comes with a hand-written track list and black-and-white photograph of the musicians posing in leather jackets that would be been used for the record sleeve.

Also on offer at the Popular Culture auction is a guitar used by Jimi Hendrix to play the bulk of his breakthrough set at the Monterey festival in California in 1967. The black Fender Stratocaster is expected to fetch 120-180,000 pounds.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Inquiry Sought in Death in Ireland After Abortion Was Denied

DUBLIN — India’s ambassador here has agreed to ask Prime Minister Enda Kenny of Ireland for an independent inquiry into the death of an Indian-born woman last month after doctors refused to perform an abortion when she was having a miscarriage, the lawyer representing the woman’s husband said Thursday.

The lawyer, Gerard O’Donnell, also said crucial information was missing from the files he had received from the Irish Health Service Executive about the death of the woman, Savita Halappanavar, including any mention of her requests for an abortion after she learned that the fetus would not survive.

The death of Dr. Halappanavar, 31, a dentist who lived near Galway, has focused global attention on the Irish ban on abortion.

Her husband, Praveen Halappanavar, has refused to cooperate with an investigation being conducted by the Irish health agency. “I have seen the way my wife was treated in the hospital, so I have no confidence that the H.S.E. will do justice,” he said in an interview on Wednesday night on RTE, the state television broadcaster. “Basically, I don’t have any confidence in the H.S.E.”

In a tense debate in the Irish Parliament on Wednesday evening, Robert Dowds of the Labour Party said Dr. Halappanavar’s death had forced politicians “to confront an issue we have dodged for much too long,” partly because so many Irish women travel to Britain for abortions.

“The reality is that if Britain wasn’t on our doorstep, we would have had to introduce abortion legislation years ago to avoid women dying in back-street abortions,” he said.

After the debate, the Parliament voted 88 to 53 against a motion introduced by the opposition Sinn Fein party calling on the government to allow abortions when women’s lives are in danger and to protect doctors who perform such procedures.

The Irish president, Michael D. Higgins — who is restricted by the Constitution from getting involved in political matters — also made a rare foray into a political debate on Wednesday, saying any inquiry must meet the needs of the Halappanavar family as well as the government.

In 1992, the Irish Supreme Court interpreted the current law to mean that abortion should be allowed in circumstances where there was “a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother,” including the threat of suicide. But that ruling has never been codified into law.

“The current situation is like a sword of Damocles hanging over us,” Dr. Peter Boylan, of the Irish Institute of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told RTE last week. “If we do something with a good intention, but it turns out to be illegal, the consequences are extremely serious for medical practitioners.”

Dr. Ruth Cullen, who has campaigned against abortion, said that any legislation to codify the Supreme Court ruling would be tantamount to allowing abortion on demand and that Dr. Halappanavar’s death should not be used to make that change.

Dr. Halappanavar contracted a bacterial blood infection, septicemia, and died Oct. 28, a week after she was admitted to Galway University Hospital with severe back pains. She was 17 weeks pregnant but having a miscarriage and was told that the fetus — a girl — would not survive. Her husband said she asked several times for an abortion but was informed that under Irish law it would be illegal while there was a fetal heartbeat, because “this is a Catholic country.”

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Chicago shopping frenzy gets early start

An hour after Emilia Dlugolecka opened her consignment boutique at the north end of Andersonville, she made her first Black Friday sale, a total of about $30.

Still small business owners in this North Side neighborhood said that year-over-year sales show  an improving economy.

Dlugolecka said sales are about 40 percent up from a difficult 2011, when she just sold enough clothes and accessories to pay the bills.

On Friday, she greeted familiar faces with offers of 30 percent off of outerwear, such as gloves and scarves, 15 percent off accessories and 25 percent off anything else.

She had a few people walk in before she made a sale but she was confident that she would sell more as people ventured outside.

Denise Riesen, a manager at Andersonville Galleria, near Foster Avenue, also said sales were slow, but foot traffic started increasing by about 1 p.m.

The Galleria houses more than 90 small designers, artists and entrepreneurs.

On the second floor, between Performado Photography and Figano Parisian Interiors, Sheila Hansen, owner of If a Goddess Wore Makeup, finished a basket with $10 lotions and fragrances, regularly priced at $16 to $20.

Hansen said her chemical-free products priced between $12 and $42 have developed a steady following since she opened her business 3 1/2 years ago. This season, her customers are buying bold lipsticks, especially red colors.

After lunch at nearby Mediterranean restaurant, Mary Wells and Bethy Sielaff perused through the Galleria.

"I don't see the economy ... improvement is very slow but I think people got the point where they want to treat themselves a bit," said Sielaff, 66. 

Sielaff, a retired teacher, said she doesn't shop much, but when she does, she prefers to support local merchants and artists. Her budget is about the same as last year, she said, but she doesn't need a lot of things. At her age, she would rather get an invitation for the movies or a play because she can take her memories with her when she dies, she said.

Massive crowds negotiated the escalators and the revolving door at Water Tower Place Friday afternoon.

Megan Rohde, 40, was there with her Bay City, Mich., family for their annual Black Friday shopping adventure.

They'd done Walmart the night before and hit Kmart and Target Friday morning.

Still, she said much of Friday was about activity as opposed to spending.

"It's more just people watching. We're doing some shopping, but we don't have a ton of stuff.

"We're two teachers and we are tight, tight, tight," she said.

Still, her family plans to spend a bit more this year.

"It's better than last year. Our insurance went up last year, and we hadn't gotten accustomed to it. This year, we're accustomed to it."

Craig Lightfoot and John Livingston III were on a bag hunt downtown.

In Chicago for a radiology conference, the Melbourne, Austrailia, duo began shopping at 9 a.m.

"We're chasing bags for the wives," Lightfoot said.

He plans to shell out more money for gifts this year.

"The kids are getting older and I'm spending more," he said.

Livingston, who'd picked up handbags for his daughter at Barney's and was scouting for more for his wife, said the family's shopping budget is out of his hands.

"My wife sets the budget from the other side of the world," Livingston said.  "At this point, it's infinite."

The Henri Bendel handbag and accessory store offered doorbusters this year to drive traffic.

"We wanted to see if we could get a lift in our business," store manager Kristen Koch said. "We found it drove a lot of self purchases.

"It seem like everyone is looking for the best deal," Koch said. "They might be spending the same amount as last year, but they're getting more."

Mary Jane and Steve Day, both 62 and from Peoria, strategized for their Black Friday excursion to Woodfield Mall after spending Thanksgiving with family in Rolling Meadows.

"She woke me up 6:52 (a.m.), " he said.

Looking for luggage, the Days started by shopping online, then called stores to buy over the phone. The first physical stop for the retirees wasn't until 9 a.m. at the Macy's store.

"This isn't bad," said Steve Day. "There's not that many people in the streets."

And though the Macy's store had been opened since 12 a.m., Mary Jane Day said: "We're too old to get up that early."

For Shelly Wright's first Black Friday experience, she and friend Megan Valentine got to the mall at 6:30 a.m. The Chicago women dropped a load of bags at the car three hours later, and said they would probably shop until lunch time.

Wright, 32, moved to the country three years ago from her native Canterbury, England. She said with a laugh: "This is kind of a grand, cultural experience."

Valentine, 28, said she's been Black Friday shopping for years. She said sales were better last year than this, though the crowds were more manageable.

"I expected it to be a lot worse but we weren't the first drove of people," Valentine said. "A lot of stores staggered their open times."

The frenzy is not created equal for all retailers.

Even if they don't have specials or promotions, small and independent businesses can be subject to a shopping center's early opening hours.

At Woodfield, Candy World owner Parul Patel manned her shop alone starting at midnight Friday without any specials.

The store's customer base is made up of children and teenagers, and the merchandise is at a low price point. This means business was normal, if not slow during some parts of the night, Patel said.

To fill some of the time, she read a newspaper, topped off candy containers and people-watched. The mall was busier than usual, but Patel said: "Nobody is here, you can see."

This year was the first mandatory 12 a.m. opening for the metro area's largest shopping center. Of Woodfield Mall's nearly 300 businesses across 2.2 million square feet, only about 20 stores didn't open at that time, according to the  mall's general manager, Marc Strich.

Retailers and customers had asked for the early hours, Strich said. Last year, the mall held a "volunteer" midnight opening, and about 20 stores participated.

As is typical, stores other than big-box retailer are required to be open when the mall is, Strich said, though he declined to talk about whether there were any fined or punishments for those that aren't.

Sears opened Thursday at 8 p.m., while Nordstrom's didn't open until 9 a.m. Friday, Strich said.

Amanda Lewkowicz, the store manager at PJ's Avon Beauty Center, said it didn't initially want to open at midnight after disappointing sales last year.

"We didn't want to be open at midnight because it didn't pick up until 5 a.m. last year," Lewkowicz said. "We felt it didn't benefit us."

The store is a rare brick-and-mortar outlet for Avon beauty products, which is typically sold through catalogs and sales representatives. That "destination" business model for PJ's Avon means customers typically seek them out, Lewkowicz said.

Being independently owned also requires its own promotional efforts, which included emailing its customer list and cold-calling others.

"(Other stores) do commercial advertising. We can only do so much," Lewkowicz said.

Jessica Foch had only sold one pack of cigarettes by noon at the smoke shop on Division Street in Wicker Park, in spite of her boss's insistence that a Black Friday special on hookahs would bring in throngs of shoppers.

The 24-year-old store manabger admitted that 25 percent off a $300 hookah is a pretty big discount but said she didn't expect to see them fly off the shelf.

"People don't go to little shops like this on Black Friday. They go to Target and Kmart," she said.

With pink hair, sparkly black nail polish and fingerless gloves, Foch said she once worked for Wal-Mart and hates the way people treat each other on Black Friday

She plans to spend at least $100 on her boyfriend and give generously to friends. But she won't be shopping today.

"I know somebody who got punched in the face for a toaster," she said, "a toaster."

The line may seem impressive outside St. Alfred's -- a streetwear clothier in Wicker Park -- but that's because the tiny shop is only letting in one person at a time, apparently to avoid a run on the Michael Jordan sneakers out Friday.

"But we don't even want them," said Armin Hajdarovic, 17, bundled up outside the store with a half a dozen friends as it began to snow.

The crew of Northsiders was waiting to get inside to buy shirts at 20 percent off.

Asked who they were shopping for, the group said: themselves, of course.

By 9:30 a.m. on Black Friday, still a half hour before Yorktown Shopping Center in Lombard would open on any other weekday, Santa was in his green armchair and lines had queued at Caribou Coffee for those refueling, some after an entire night of shopping.

At the food court, three sisters sipped from cartons of orange juice, their daughters having awakened them hours before dawn for a 4 a.m. excursion. One, Patricia Baker, 54, of Maywood, had made an 8 p.m. jaunt to Target Thursday and a midnight run to Anna's Linens.

Now, she and her sisters, Donna Holliday, 48, of Bellwood, and Carolyn Baker, 56, of Lombard, and their daughters had spread their J.C. Penney, Forever 21, Victoria's Secret and Bath and  Body Works bags across several tables, taking a break before heading to Chicago Premium Outlets in Aurora.

The sisters hadn't been able to get together for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, so shopping signified bonding time.

"I'm just hanging with my sisters and nieces," said Holliday. "Just hangin'."

Baker added that she lets her daughter, Jahanna Baker, 19, and nieces, Azia and Amber Welch, both 17, do most of the shopping while she and her sisters chat at the follow. 

"My income has become more secure," said Carolyn, a nurse. "The fear has died down. My work hours are more steady." She plans to spend a couple thousand dollars more this year, including a new stove she bought for herself.

Holliday, too, says she has been working more hours this year and plans to spend a couple  hundred dollars more .

"I buy what I like," she said, "as long as I'm not broke."

At the courtyard in front of Von Maur at Yorktown, three generations of shoppers sat on a bench with bags from the Gap, Justice, Claire's and Aeropostale around their feet.

Kathy Zuehlke, 69, had driven in from Rantoul, in central Illinois, to go shopping with her daughter, Lisa Salgado, 43, and granddaughter Alicia Salgado, 14, both of Rockford.

It was the first time Alicia had joined the decade-long tradition, which Kathy views as "a chance to get together because we're all spread out across Illinois."

They followed a system, scouring the circulars from three newspapers before plotting a course that took them to Target on Thanksgiving evening, back at a relative's house to nap for a few hours and on to Kohl's, Best Buy, Toys "R" Us and Yorktown.

They had budgeted about as much for gifts this year as the last, about $300 to $500 for Lisa and $800 to $900 for Kathy, who says she has several grandchildren to spoil.

They pay in cash, however, so as not to overspend.  The deals they snagged on Black Friday, including 60 percent off most apparel, helped them stay within budget, too.

In Chicago's rapidly gentrifying Logan square neighborhood, most shops and restaurants were closed Black Friday, but not Torres-Omar Jewelry.

The tiny shop, near the Blue Line stop, was offering double discounts on watches.

Bob Garza -- dressed as Santa Claus and handing out fliers for the jewelry store and candy canes as CTA riders exited the train station -- said he usually delivers groceries for Mariano's but the shop is closed through the weekend so he got out his Santa outfit to make a little extra cash.

Tomorrow, Santa will be handing out Chamber of Commerce fliers on Belmont.

"The economy is bad right now," he said. "There's work out there. You just have to create it."

Across the street at the jewelry store, Jose Torres, the store's owner, said they've been in the same location since 1980 and stay open Black Friday because their regular customers expect it.

"We're always open," he said. The store was quiet, but Torres said traffic to the store looked better than last year.

Just before 7 a.m. the door busters and the crowds had dwindled at the Target in Schaumburg. Store leader Aaron Stephenson said that while the store was still busy, the crowd had died down a bit. "This is what I consider normal busy for a weekend," said Stephenson.

This is the Minneapolis-based Target's first year offering staggered door busters, the first at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving, when the store opened and the second, at 4 a.m. Friday. Beyond consumer electronics, housewares had been popular according to Stephenson and by early morning some had also disappeared, including a Dyson Vacuum, a Farberware 18-piece cook set and a Pyrex 20-piece set.

The stack of PlayStation 3 and XBox 360's also were gone and toys, including Legos, he said, flew off the shelves. There are plenty of still good deals, Stephenson added. "We still have quite a few big TVs," he said.

In a form of subtle protest, several people who roamed Yorktown Shopping Center in Lombard as early as 4 a.m. started buying when they usually did -- on Friday morning -- and refused to give into retailers that opened their doors on Thursday evening.

"I boycotted anything midnight or earlier," said Chrissy Wojdyla, 29, of Downers Grove. "I will not shop there. I think it's ruining Thanksgiving tradition and infringing on my family." Moving Black Friday hours up to Thanksgiving, she added, "takes people away from their families." 

Instead, Wojdyla, her sister, Mary Steele, 26, and their mother, Patti Wojdyla, 54, dedicated their Thanksgiving Day to family and food, withholding themselves from any kind of shopping until they met at Yorktown at 4 a.m. Friday.

"Four a.m. is early enough!," said Patti, of Glen Ellyn. "Why would anyone want to do it on Thanksgiving evening? You're full. You're tired."

Steele, also of Glen Ellyn, said that caring for her young kids all day had made Thanksgiving too tiring to shop. 

Plus, she said, "when you start on Thanksgiving Day, it's not even Black Friday. We enjoy our 4 a.m. Friday tradition."

So they all got sleep on Thursday, ranging from 1 to 6 hours , and woke up to glam themselves out with glitter, tiaras and garland necklaces for their early morning of shopping. Steele wore a paper crown that read "Happy Holidays." |

For their efforts to keep with Yorktown's "bling" theme, Lynette Steinhauser, the assistant marketing director at the mall, rewarded them with $10 gift cards to Von Maur, which prompted a profusion of delighted thank-yous. 

Outside of J.C. Penney, Ramiro Carrizales, 44, waited with his wife, Lorena Carrizales, 40, in a seven-people-deep crowd for the store to open at 6 a.m.

They were looking for good clothing deals for their kids, specifically Mickey Mouse-themed items, but the couple, who lives in Forest Park, adamantly stuck to early Friday morning shopping hours instead of venturing out on Thursday evening. 

On Thanksgiving, said Ramiro, "I wanted to spend time with family. I didn't want to go out."

Post-Thanksgiving shopping also is a ritual for Elk Grove's Krys Slattery, Chris Duncker and Gina Wirth -- a decade-long tradition among friends.

Each year, they finish Thanksgiving dinner with their families and embark upon a 12-hour pilgrimage to knock-out the bulk of the Christmas shopping by visiting several stores in and around Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg. They power-up with coffee and breakfast at Panera and then wind-down the spree at Olive Garden for lunch. 

"We're constantly laughing," said Duncker.  "It's not just about the deals for us really, It's all about the experience, we love it," added Wirth. 

On Thanksgiving night they were in the Target on Higgins Road in Schaumburg.  Each with carts, a list and Target's "door buster" circular holding folded in their hands. All three giggled and called out to each other, squealing with delight when they spied a good deal.

After picking-up some blue sequined slippers for her teenage daughter, Slattery held them up for Wirth and Duncker to inspect.  "Do you think she'll like these?" she said.

This year Slattery was lucky. Target was opening earlier than ever -- at 9 p.m. so her mother cooked Thanksgiving dinner.

The trio weren't alone, the Target on Higgins Road in Schaumburg was swarmed, many pushing carts piled high with merchandise, from 50-inch televisions, to game consoles, tablet computers, MP3 players, apparel and cameras, which manager Brett Thiele said sold out in an hour.

The scene was similar at Yorktown Shopping Center in Lombard. 

Laura Maxey and six of her closest friends shrieked when they saw the black bags. They had carved out a spot in front of the information booth at Yorktown, standing for 5 1/2 hours at the head of a 250-person line, until the mall officially opened at 5 a.m. Friday and the staff began handing out goodie bags filled with multicolored totes and $10 gift cards to stores throughout the mall.

"We pretty much just slept over at the mall," said Laura, 14, of Lombard. "We wanted to be first."

Their parents had dropped the friends, plus two older brothers, off at the mall shortly before midnight, and they rushed to the booth to claim their spots -- only the first 200 people in line would receive gift bags, with another 50 turned away -- before taking turns to embark on a shopping rotation that included Victoria's Secret, American Eagle and PacSun. At Charlotte Russe, they picked up $15 jeans.

The friends said they were at the mall for the joy, the deals and the once-a-year feel of Black Friday, and they were hardly the only ones caught up in the retail frenzy.

"I got a suitcase thrown at my head!" said Melanie Malczewski, 14, of Lombard, recalling her experience at Victoria's Secret, though she was smiling broadly at the memory later that morning.

Lynette Steinhauser, assistant marketing director at Yorktown, said that this, her 14th Black Friday at the mall, "is the busiest it's ever been." About half of the stores had been open since midnight, she said, with nearly all the rest the turning on their lights when the mall officially opened at 5 a.m. Steinhauser compared the foot traffic at 5: 30 a.m. on Black Friday to what it feels like on a Saturday afternoon.

"Everyone is in a really happy mood," she said. "And festive!"

Black Friday, which for years kicked-off the holiday shopping season for retailers and consumers, has bled into Thanksgiving, with retailers including Target, Sears and Toys R US opening on Thursday night aiming to boost their bottom lines by enticing consumers to shop early and often.  

Holiday shopping is crucial for retailers -- it accounts for up to 40 percent of their yearly sales. That's why it's called "Black Friday" as for years they've used the day to go from red to black -- or turn a profit.  

This year, retail watchers are expecting holiday shoppers to oblige.  Consumers are expected to spend, on average, $586.1 billion this year on gifts for friends and family, just over a 4 percent increase from last year. Experts are saying this pick-up in spending is conservative, but a glimpse at popular hotspots for early Black Friday shopping, it wasn't apparent.  

This year a handful opened earlier than ever, Walmart set an 8 p.m. opening and Sears followed suit.  Target opted for an opening scheduled an hour later at 9 pm.

Despite some criticism around the increasingly early open times, shoppers in Schaumburg were out in full-force last night.  A Deloitte survey found that 60 percent of consumers plan to shop over Thanksgiving weekend, aiming to take part in sales that offer merchandise at prices the dip below 50 percent off. 

Experts said that this year, as in most years, low-priced flat screen televisions would move fast.  So would deeply discounted Android-powered tablet computers. 

The line to get into the Sears at Woodfield Mall stretched along the building by 7 p.m., an hour before opening time.  

Manager April Buehler said the line outside the store looked larger than last year, and about a mile away at Target, Thiele said this year the store was filled with more families, instead of the hardcore, deal-hunter that typically shows up when the store opens early on Friday morning.  "It's a lot more casual shopper, which I'm excited about," said Thiele. "It's not necessarily people that had to get up super early and be dedicated, just people going out with families. Grandparents and grandkids," he said. 

Carol and Russel Freitas fall into the deal-hunter category.  It's date night for the Palatine couple of 26 years when they head out to shop each year after dinner, leaving their two teenaged sons behind to tackle the stores.  They said they love it.

They waited patiently in line for more than an hour, hoping to snag one of Sears' hot door busters, a 32-inch flat screen for less than $100. 

As it turns out, they waited in vain.  By the time the store opened, they were in the first third of the line, but the Sears employee had run out of TV vouchers when she got to the Freitas' in line.  "It's okay," said Carol Freitas, "There's other stuff on our list, we're going to head to the boys' department to get shirts for my son."

Shortly before Sears opened, about 12 feet away from the Freitas, there was a small, but growing crowd of suspected "line jumpers,"  who stood about 12 feet away staring at the line.

At close to 9:30 at Target, some shoppers could be seen pushing carts stockpiled with 32 inch flat screen for $147.  Alex Gackle  from Fargo, N.D., left his grandmother's dinner with his dad and brother-in-law to buy  another of the Minneapolis-based retailer's most sought-after deals: They bought  four televisions. One for himself, another for his grandmother, one for her caretaker and the fourth for his father.  They waited in line for more than an hour and things were calm, said Gackle.  That changed when Target's doors opened, said Gackle. "That's when people started getting crazy and rushing toward things."

By 10:30 a long line of shoppers were still waiting to get inside the Toys R Us in Schaumburg.  Customers said they were told that shoppers would be allowed in the store every 10 minutes in increments of 50.

After 10 p.m. the temperature had dropped and Laura Saul stood in a sweater with her two daughters and their cousin to get into Toys R Us.  The item of the evening -- "Monster High" dolls for her 10-year-old daughter, Emily.  She pointed to Emily and said, giggling, "She conned us to do this."  Saul's old daughter, Lauren, who stood nearby, was not in such good spirits, "I could be sleeping," she said.

The trio from Elk Grove shopping at Target said over the years they've seen it all -- fights and shoving matches.  As the 10 p.m. hour approached at Target, they thought things were pretty calm.  At Target People get angry, but this is fun for us," said Wirth.  "Even if we don't get what we want, we don't care."

Sally Ho, Julie Wernau and Erin Chan Ding contributed to this story.

crshropshire@tribune.com | Twitter: @corilyns

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2 dead, up to 120 injured in Texas highway pileup

Handout image of emergency personnel on the scene of a vehicle pileup near Beaumont (HANDOUT, Reuters / November 22, 2012)

Reuters

4:54 p.m. CST, November 22, 2012

(Reuters) - A high-speed pileup of up to 150 vehicles on a fog-bound Texas interstate highway killed at least two people on Thursday and injured up to 100, a sheriff's spokesman said.

The chain reaction of collisions shut down Interstate 10 about 15 miles west of Beaumont for several hours, said Deputy Rod Carroll of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office.

"We have 18-wheelers on top of cars, we have cars on top of cars. It's just catastrophic," he said, adding that rescuers were still looking for victims.

Two bodies were found underneath a tractor-trailer, he said. After all vehicles were searched, authorities determined as many as 100 people were injured, up to 12 of them seriously or critically hurt, Carroll said.

"People were not driving for the conditions at hand," he said.

He said the initial accidents took place separately about a mile apart on the east- and westbound sides of the interstate.

The highway had been crowded with motorists traveling over the Thanksgiving holiday. Many of the vehicles were moving close to the posted speed of 70 mph despite dense fog that limited visibility, Carroll said.

The westbound lanes of the interstate have been reopened, he said.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Sandra Maler and Todd Eastham)

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