Look inside the can to win

A funny thing happened this weekend at the Old Town School's Folk and Roots Festival in Lincoln Square. Wending through a maze of batik windcatchers and stained-glass toe rings in search of the beer tent**, I came upon a booth hung with pictures of a backwards-facing "R." Yes, it was the Reader. A handful of low-level staffers sat in the sun, reminding people just who provides the doorstops in this town.

They'd dreamed up a delightful gimmick to let passersby know the paper still exists. All you had to do was take a fun quiz, and if you answered most of the questions right and/or acted like a good sport, you walked away with a logo-emblazoned gold bandanna. (Kind of a funny choice for a paper that's trying to gin up downtown cred, but old habits die hard.)

Anyway, I'm wearing mine right now. I've got it folded into a headband with the "R" centered on my forehead like a kamikaze meatball. Thanks, Reader!

**The beer tent which did not actually sell beer, but offered beer in exchange for tickets purchased after waiting in line at an adjacent booth. For an analysis of this arrangement, see David Cross's indispensable LP "Shut Up You Fucking Baby."