Gapers Block published from April 22, 2003 to Jan. 1, 2016. The site will remain up in archive form. Please visit Third Coast Review, a new site by several GB alumni. ✶ Thank you for your readership and contributions. ✶
Editor's Note: This is a guest post from Lakeview resident Amy Karatz.
Tuesday night a crowd packed the largest room at Ann Sather's on Belmont to hear the City of Chicago Curator of Public Art, Elizabeth Kelley, talk about the new permanent art installation at the renovated Belmont El stop. Ms. Kelley carefully explained the 11-step process for acquiring art for a public setting, from choosing the site, to picking participating artists, to installation. The CTA worked from a database of several hundred artists, then gave each of the six finalists $500 to develop a submission.
On-site requirements included filling a 6 feet tall by 20 feet wide wall space with a tile mosaic. Two columns several feet in front of the wall would be similarly tiled. The artists were asked to reference this work to an orange steel sculpture that will sit outside the station. They were also specifically asked not to create a baseball/Cubs theme.
The crowd, aged 7 to 70, enjoyed viewing large illustrations representing ideas from the six artist finalists. Each individual idea was carried through the room while Ms. Kelley read the artist's inspirations and intentions, so all present were easily able to see each idea. The audience were not given artist's names, and later, artists in the audience were asked not to comment.
It would be foolish to describe the art, because words would not do it justice. The six entries included sweet cartoons, fantasy images, abstract thoughts, and even classical references. More than one included samples of finished mosaic tiles.
When solicited for their opinions, various audience members spoke in favor of all but one of the six. The vast majority of comments, however, praised the work of David Csicsko, whose work had been seen in the old station. His mural presentation, showing wonderful characters on a train car, had a life and energy that wowed. Close up, his sample tile revealed multi-colored striped faces with raised eyes that seemed to pop. He also proposed a mosaic of three giant stylized eyes on each pillar -- a perfect image for their placement.
When the audience was asked for opinions, particular attention was paid to two small girls, each of whom spoke up in favor of Csiscko's ideas, because those were the citizens who would be using the station for the next 20 years. Noteworthy was the audience member who remarked that while all of the entries would work for several of the CTA stations, only Csiscko's was perfect for Belmont. A common audience theme was that his entry embodied the essence of the Lakeview neighborhood.
These Shining Lives, the Jeff-recommended play directed by Rivendell Theatre Ensemble's Rachel Walshe, closes this weekend. Shows are sold out, but an additional show has been added, today at 4pm. Tickets can be purchased until 3pm today. Go to the website to purchase tickets online.
If you can make it, I highly recommend attending. Throughout the play's over two-hour duration my eyes were glued to the stage, my ears listening attentively. Even if theater is not your thing, you will enjoy this show. Based on Ross Mulner's book, Deadly Glow: The Radium Dial Worker Tragedy, appropriately published by the American Public Health Association, the play written by Melanie Marnich chronicles the story of four women affected by what is known as the radium dial worker tragedy.
Although the tragedy is perhaps not as commonly known as the epidemic of human immunodeficiency virus, it's an important chapter of American history, especially pertinent due to the fact that the last radium dial worker that died from radium poisoning is documented as 1983 in Mulner's book.
Discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in the early 1900s, radium was heralded for its astonishing ability to glow in the dark. In 1902, William J. Hammer, an American electrical engineer, invented a paint using minute amounts of radium that when used on watches and scientific instruments, could be read in the dark. Due to its high cost, however, the commercial benefits of this discovery were not pursued until 1917, when America's entry into WWI created the demand for radium-treated devices.
Hundreds of women gained lucrative employment as dial painters, using a finely pointed brush to apply the paint to watches and other instruments. To speed up the application, the women commonly tipped the brush to their tongue, which over time led to them absorbing the radium that caused their premature deaths.
In These Shining Lives, the story centers on Catherine, a young mother and wife who finds happiness, good pay, and friendship through her work as a radium dial worker at an Ottawa factory during the 1920s, but who ultimately becomes poisoned with radium. Faced with an inevitable fatality, Catherine has to decide between telling the truth to the public about her employer's misdeeds, or accepting her lot with resignation.
Ultimately, the play's theme of "shining" examines the paradoxical beautiful and tragic nature of life. Rebecca Spence (Catherine) shows her husband that her skin is actually glowing in the dark, a foreshadowing of further debilitation, yet the four women enjoying the glowing sun at Lake Michigan suggest that life and death are intrinsically interwoven. Spence conveys a luminosity in this role, with a gentle smile and affecting grace. All the actors are superbly cast and highly endowed performers, with the women in particular successful in drawing audience sympathy.
Clearly director Walshe pays close attention to the development of character. Spence admirably "shines" as the seemingly gentle but surprisingly strong Catherine and Justine C. Turner displays noteworthy acting chops as Charlotte, the tough-as-nails but ultimately vulnerable friend and co-worker.
"You're my hero," Charlotte tells Catherine, in a scene that culminates the play's exploration of how women are affected by history.
The Rivendell Theatre, which focuses on plays about women, has two plays in store for the next half year: The Walls, directed by Lisa Dillman, to debut April 8, 2009, and Fresh Produce, coming in July 2009.
katherine of chicago uploaded this photo of fans paying tribute to street artist Solve, who was murdered in Logan Square this summer. For more on his work, read this interview Gapers Block conducted with him and other street artists in 2007.
For the better part of the last 365 days, the Luc Besson-written and -produced Taken has been opening country by country across the world until it finally hits screens in America this weekend. I'm guessing this film has been out on DVD already in some lands for quite some time, so those of you desperate enough to see this probably already have. But for the rest of us, the long wait it over — I've been seeing trailers for this film on and off for about six months now. And I'm happy to report the wait is mostly worth it. This is a quick-fix, shot of adrenaline in the brain work that doesn't offer much in the way of character development or plot, but has just enough of both to make this an above-average thriller and one of the better offerings I've seen from the Besson camp in recent years.
Perhaps an unlikely — although certainly not unwelcome — choice for our hero is Liam Neeson playing Bryan Mills, a seemingly mild-mannered father who has recently quit his government job and relocated to be closer to his 17-year-old daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace, once of "Lost"), who has lived with her mother (Famke Janssen) and exceedingly wealthy stepfather. Kim seems open to allowing her long-absent father back into her life, but a lot of time has passed when he hasn't been there for her because of his mysterious job, and Bryan is impatient to reconnect. On the eve of a lunch Bryan and Kim area supposed to have together, Bryan is pulled by some old work buddies into a one-night, well-paid security job that involves playing babysitter to a young pop star, whose life Bryan saves from a stalker's knife. This is the first chance we get to see just how well trained this man is, and the veil is slowly lifted from his past.
Perhaps the story is part of the huge publicity machine that surrounds the ceremony, fighting the battle against its sagging ratings ("this'll get those Chicagoans to watch this year!"), or maybe news producers really find the statuette story that fascinating. But as one Yelper said about R.S. Owens: "They create amazing, gorgeous, world-class statuettes and awards which are bestowed to the mediocre performers honored at the Academy Awards, Emmys and MTV Awards. But that's not their fault." Like any savvy Chicagoan, it sounds like Ellen M. knows where the real story is.
Skoff has gained a following via Facebook and Craigslist with his "free art hunts." He deposits above-the-couch-size paintings in public places in Chicago, then lists their location for fans to seek and acquire, free of charge. All he asks in return is a picture of the artwork in your place. He also sells plenty of affordable art, and has been on a bit of an Obama kick lately. Ah, but who hasn't?
The Village North Theatre, a locally owned dive movie theater in Rogers Park, has closed its doors due to mounting legal and money woes. A reporter for the Chi-Town Daily News recently found the theater "covered with signs simply reading, 'Theater Closed For Good.'" That sounds pretty final -- although the owner has stated plans to renovate and re-open in the spring and restore the building's historic facade. Some people aren't holding their breath. The Chi-Town Daily News reports:
While many are excited about the desire and work to save and improve the theater, others have developed a wait-and-see attitude. "The trend of developers in Rogers Park seems to be focused on demolishing beautiful nearly century-old buildings," says [Bill] Morton, who has lived in Rogers Park for the past 10 years. "This has been the case with the Adelphi Theater, the North Shore School, and the Lerner Building."
So how awesome was Aretha with that church-going hat? How many of us kinda wanted to run right down to the local craft store, buy a Bedazzler and get down to it?
Over at Threadbanger.com, they've got some talk in their forums (here and here) about how to make one for yourself.
Of course, if you're a little lazy or chained to your computer, have some fun with Photoshop and get yourself and Jack Nicholson an Aretha hat.
Preservation Chicago has just released its annual list of the city's seven most endangered historic places. Your may be surprised to learn that your own home is at risk, or at least part of it -- new aluminum and vinyl windows are quickly rendering the old-fashioned wood window a relic of the past. For more information on why that's a bad thing and to find out which other Chicago landmarks are in danger, visit the Chicago 7 site.
Fourteen years ago Flora Doody, a teacher from Lane Tech High School, made a call to the Chicago Conservation Center (CCC) about a school mural that was detaching from a wall. What CCC head conservator Barry Bauman found when he arrived to examine the painting was not just a damaged fresco, but a massive collection of Works Progress Administration and pre-WPA-era murals -- 67 in all -- many of them badly in need of repair.
After a conservation proposal was made to restore three of the northwest side high school's murals, Doody began fundraising to conserve the remaining 64, conducting student docent tours and bake sales. Her grassroots effort paid off: the CCC launched a sweeping campaign to track down, analyze and restore many of the city's WPA and pre-WPA-era murals, beginning with works that had been whitewashed -- literally buried under two layers of white paint -- at Lucy Flower High School, and eventually expanding to 38 additional schools.
"No Kedzie is known to have been arrested as a violator of the civil law, to have been intemperate, or dependent on charity, or to have paid less than one hundred cents on the dollar," claim family records, as quoted in Chicago: Its History and Its Builders.
Chicago's Kedzie Avenue, which runs about 23 miles from the city's southern border to its northern limit, is named after one of the family's favorite sons, John Hume Kedzie. The son of Scottish immigrants, he developed parts of the North and West Sides and several suburbs, and spoke out against slavery as an early member of Illinois' Republican Party, according to the book Streetwise Chicago.
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, one of the city's most renowned dance companies, is trying something new this year. They're offering a Family Workshop Series, an opportunity for children (ages 3 to 8) and their parents to be introduced to dance through doing. According to their site, workshop attendees will "participate in dance movement in various cultural settings around the city," including the Art Institute of Chicago (1/31), the Chicago Botanic Garden (2/14), Hubbard Street Dance Center (3/21), and The Center on Halsted (3/28). The workshops are only $5 per person, and they begin this coming Saturday, January 31, 1:00-3:30. For tickets and info, call HSDC (312-850-9744).
Part documentary, part animated splendor, part fever dream, writer-director Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir (having just captured the Golden Globe in this category, it's probably the current frontrunner for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar) is a surreal, sometimes terrifying essay on the fragile nature of memory as related to times of war. Folman was in the Israeli Army in the early 1980s, during the first Lebanon War, and he had led a life believing that his recollections about that time in his life are solid and accurate. But when an old army buddy tells Folman about recurring nightmare he's had, the two men convince themselves that both the nightmare and other aspects of their waking and sleeping state are a reaction to a time during that war that neither of them can recall accurately, if at all. Folman's film collects testimony primarily from men he served with or who served in the Israeli Army at the same time in the same place as he did, and he tries to piece together this missing fragment of his life. For the most part, the conversations we hear between Folman and these other men are the actual taped conversations he had with them in doing research for this film, but rather than simply show us talking heads in the form of a traditional documentary, Folman and a team of animators have pieced together something far more captivating.
In case you missed it at Steppenwolf in 2007, Broadway in Chicago says it's bringing back Tracy Letts' Pulizer-Prize winning August, Osage County in 2010 for a limited run at the Oriental Theatre. The planned dates are Feb. 2-14 (yeah, that's 2010 -- you have a two-year planner, don't you?) and Estelle Parsons, who does the role on Broadway, will play the drug-ravaged matriarch Violet Weston.
Attention anyone who's ever listened to "Pissing in a River" in a dark room by themselves: Patti Smith will be at the Jan. 30th screening of Patti Smith: Dream of Life at the The Block Museum of Art and will participate in a post-screening discussion with the film's director, Steven Sebring, and Sound Opinions co-host Jim Derogatis.
Tickets are $11 ($8 students) and go on sale Jan. 23, but you must pre-register to purchase them.
While the earthly real estate environment has gotten decidedly more difficult for architects in the past two years, a couple of architects have found a new market. Archi-artists Arturo Vittori (Italy) and Andres Volger (Switzerland) are opening a new exhibit at the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago, aptly titled "From Pyramids to Spacecraft". Beginning March 11th, the show will feature their hyper-real graphics and models of such futuristic projects as MoonBaseTwo, an inflatable space station or MercuryHouseTwo, a self-contained, mass-produced space eco-home. If the use of the hyphen in the previous sentence seems a bit excessive, it is only because their studio, Architecture and Vision, works beyond the typical scope of an architectural project. Their designs combine much of the mechanical ingenuity of Leonardo da Vinci with modern-day technological challenges. Check out their work at Architecture and Vision's website, here.
AREA Chicago recently connected with dozens of mover/shaker artists in Chicago to discuss socially engaged art, and pinpoint where art and politics collide to form action. Check out in-depth interviews with folks from Mucca Pazza, Theater Oobleck, threewalls, Experimental Station and more.
Gapers Block and Calumet Photographic invite photographers of all experience levels to participate in a photo swap on Friday, February 6, and an accompanying show that will run from February 3-11.
The photo swap will work like our previous swaps. The event (which will double as the show's opening) will run between between 5:30pm and 7:30pm at the Chicago location of Calumet Photographic, 1111 N. Cherry Ave. Simply arrive at Calumet with five 4"x6" photographs of any subject you like, hang out with other photographers and then leave with five photos from others. We'll have snacks and drinks for all. The actual swapping will begin after 6:30pm, so don't worry if it takes you a little time to get there after work.
If you'd also like to participate in the show, here are the details: the show will be organized around the theme "Intersections," which you may interpret any way you like, provided the images have a Chicago connection. To submit photographs to be considered for the show, add photographs to the GB flickr pool with the tag "Intersections09" no later than January 28. If you have your submissions in earlier than that, send an email to David Schalliol notifying us that your images are in the pool, and we'll review the images ahead of time. If you do not have a flickr account, send low resolution images to David Schalliol by the 28th. Regardless, we'll promptly notify you if your photo has been selected, so you can work on getting the image framed. To expedite the process and make room for as many photographers as possible, accepted photographs should be printed no larger than 8"x12", with frames that are no larger than 11"x14". Additional information will be sent to selected participants.
Any questions about the swap or the show should be directed to David Schalliol.
Geoffrey Baer is writer, producer and narrator for several documentaries taking viewers on tours of Chicago's neighborhoods and characters. He sat down with GB to discuss his most recent program, "Chicago's Lakefront."
The MCA upped the hip a notch recently by adding folktronica duo The Books to its Spring 2009 performance schedule. The May 3 concert, co-sponsored by the Empty Bottle, is part of the ongoing MCA Stage program, which expands the museum's reach beyond visual art and into the realms of theater, music, dance and other media.
The Books' multimedia performance includes an Artists Up Close pre-show talk with members Nick Zamutto and Paul de Jong.
Your $20 ticket gets you one free museum admission on the performance date or any day during the following week. And heads up students: tickets are $10 with valid ID.
The first time anyone saw True West in Chicago, John Malkovich and Gary Sinise were playing the lead roles at Steppenwolf. It's your classic Sam Shepard family odyssey: two brothers come together, innocuously at first, but after 70 minutes one obliterates a typewriter with a golf club and the other tries to strangle him. And while one version of American Theater Company's True West is probably similar to the 1982 Steppenwolf production (just replace the word "typewriter" with "MacBook"), the other is decidedly different: the two brothers are black.
Okay, I know what you're thinking, and fear not: this isn't exactly a case of an all-white ensemble attempting a shot at diversity by simply casting black actors in a typically all-white play. ATC and Congo Square Theatre have collaborated on two plays, one with a typically all-white cast, the other all-black, presenting two versions of each: one traditional, the "alternate" with the races reversed.
Well, we're three weekends into the new year, and I'm already doing a movie roundup. And this might be the absolute worst week to pull something like this, but I've been so busy that I must resort to capsule reviews. But the good news is, I've got links to some pretty kick-ass interviews I've done in the last month or so, if I do say so myself. Enjoy.
For all the Wright-o-maniacs, the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust is looking for volunteers at the Robie House in Hyde Park and the Wright Home and Studio in Oak Park. As the trust states in its release, volunteers are vital in tough economic times. Even for the selfish, however, spending a substantial amount of time in a Frank Lloyd Wright house should give you plenty of time to explore and find those minute details of beauty that get missed on a rapidly moving tour.
For more information go to www.gowright.org and click on "Volunteer".
Is the volatile arts climate is having its effect on Chicago theater administrations? Last week Court Theatre executive director Dawn Helsing announced her resignation. On Tuesday Redmoon Theater's executive and artistic directors, Jim Lasko and Christopher Schram, announced theirs.
While it may be easy to blame the recent moves on today's shaky financial scene, it should be noted that under Helsing's direction Court increased its annual budget from $2.5 to $3.2 million and saw its biggest hit to date in Caroline, or Change (which was on seemingly everyone's top 10 list last year). Redmoon may not be sitting as pretty -- the company announced it is contracting in size and will produce fewer shows on their home stage this year -- but its current production, Winter Pageant Redux, recently extended.
It's no picnic to lead an arts organization through an economic downturn, especially for administrators who'd rather focus on making plays for audiences than making spreadsheets for board members. (As Lasko's open resignation letter states, "I relish the opportunity to focus more purely on my artistic practice. Organizational leadership, like parenting, is a heavy load.") So it seems likely that this recent trilogy of arts administrators won't be the only ones to get shaken out of the trees, nor will their successors be the only fresh faces on the Chicago theater scene once this crisis is behind us.
In case a $4,320 cake wasn't in your means but you're still interested in future of the Farnsworth House (last fall marked the third time in 16 months that Mies van der Rohe's modern architectural icon in Plano, Ill. has been threatened by flood waters), this Thursday the Farnsworth House's site manager lectures at the Chicago Cultural Center about the two recent floods, their cleanup and aftermath, and future plans for the landmark.
The building was "rescued" five years ago when a group of preservationists bought it at auction for $7.5 million after "Baron" Peter Palumbo found its upkeep too financially risky. The site is now maintained by Landmarks Illinois, the organization sponsoring Thursday's lecture. If you can't make the lunch-time talk, Landmarks is currently seeking volunteer docents to make the trek to Plano once a month, April through November.
More information about Thursday's lecture in Slowdown.
"I dig the the goons. They are like off-brand, Third World Sesame Street-like characters from a show that you could only pick up on a scrambled channel." -- jugheadjones, via Flickr
One-man show. To the casual theater-goer the phrase is an immediate buzzkill: it conjures images of a spotlight, an endless monologue, perhaps some pointless nudity. It also screams vanity project.
And upon entering the Athenaeum and seeing the elevated box, framed in chicken wire, where Anthony Nikolchev begins his self-written one-man show, you think, "Is he going to do the entire play from inside there?"
But within the first two minutes Nikolchev jumps out and flips the 10-foot-tall contraption loudly on its side, revealing the kind of stage instrument that dialogue can transform into a podium, a gallows, a jail cell, or a truck.
The single best science fiction film of 2008 (OK, so the film came out in 2007 in most European nations and isn't really being released wide in the U.S. until 2009, but I saw it for the first time in March 2008, so suck it) is a movie that has no special effects and only four characters... OK, technically it has six characters, but three of them are the same guy. The least science-fictiony of all of the year's sci-fi works is from Spain, and it's called Timecrimes, a marvelous mind-bender of a movie that uses very simple storytelling to bend us around the same few hours of one day three different times, each time revealing just a little bit more about elements of the plot that were there from the beginning, we just didn't realize it until the end of this 90-minute masterpiece.
Karra Elejalde plays Hector, who is staying at what appears to be an isolated country home with his wife Clara (Candela Fernandez). While sitting in his backyard looking through is binoculars, Hector spots a beautiful young woman (Barbara Goenaga) removing her clothes in the woods behind his home. He also spots a strangely dressed man with bloody bandages around his head, and he runs to the woods to investigate. He finds the young woman lying naked and out cold against a tree. When he goes to help her, he is stabbed in the arm by the strange man, and he runs through the woods to escape what he assumes is immediate danger. He ends up at a nearby laboratory with a sole occupant, a scientist (the film's writer-director Nacho Vigalondo) working after hours on a secret project. With a crazed maniac supposedly coming after the two men, the scientist hides Hector in a strange tank filled with water and bright lights. When Hector emerges seemingly minutes later, he discovers that it is actually earlier that same day, right around the time these events began to unfold in the first place. The tank was in fact a time machine, and when Hector comes out of it, the scientist naturally has no idea who this man is stepping out of his equipment. Got it?
It looks like now Rob Roy: The Musical may not be making its North American debut at the Arie Crown Theatre, 2301 South Lake Shore Drive, this February. Chris Jones reported today that a spokesperson for the performance, "refused to comment on whether the show was still going to happen."
Ticketmaster, which has been selling tickets to the performance since December, lists the show as canceled.
As one Theater Loop commenter suggested, "The Celtic-wave thing is so 90s. Maybe they can transplant the story from Scotland to turn of the century Mexico and rename it Zapata: The Musical. I'd give that a better chance of survival than a story set in cold, soggy Scotland."
Either way, patrons who purchased the $52-$82 tickets may want to review Ticketmaster's cancellation policy, or call the Arie Crown Theatre box office at 312-279-6190.
If you haven't seen The Wooster Group, they're in Chicago this week only, waiting for your sweet little eyes to pop open wide at their interpretation of Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones. Based in New York, this ensemble has influenced theater companies around the nation (including our hometown Neo-Futurists) with their carefully calibrated anarchy and their smart mixture of low-tech/high-concept/anything goes/yes even that too. The production is part of the Goodman's O'Neill festival, which continues into the spring.
The general public will have the rare opportunity to witness all the hope, joy, anxiety, and realized (or crushed) dreams of dancers this weekend when DanceWorks Chicago opens the doors to their audition. Free of charge, anyone can come sit in the audience and watch the audition process, which consists of a ballet class (and eliminations) followed by repertoire (and oh, more eliminations). There will even be people milling about, ready to answer your questions. It's all happening Sat., Jan. 10, 1:00 to 4:00 (doors open at 12:30 and you can come and go as you please), at The Dance Center of Columbia College, 1306 S. Michigan Avenue. FREE. Click here for more information.
The Chicago Improv Rebellion is back and performing at ComedySportz. This is "punk rock improv" and not the usual family-friendly CSz fare. However, this lineup is about as close as improv gets to a guaranteed good time. Guests for this first show will be fantastic iO ensemble, The Reckoning, and one of my personal favorites, Pimprov (pimps who unwittingly took a class at the Playas Workshop of Second City).
The house ensemble, Hodge Podge, will feature (time around): Jon Barinholtz, Tyler Barkley, Allison Bills, Colleen Breen, Sean Ellis, Nick Hausman, Nathan Jansen, Peter Kremidas, John Langen, Ray Mees, Katie Nunn, Conner O'Malley, Matt Owens, Andrew Peyton, Eric Rutherford, Jake Schneider, Sam Weiner and Thomas Whittington. The whole hootenany is hosted by musician Nathan Cotter.
From 5:30 to 8pm at the MCA's Puck Café, knitters and hookers (crocheters) will be getting together with guest artist Karen Reimer to share techniques and stories and some good wintery bitching.
Check out more of Reimer's conceptual fiber art including embroidery here, here (LOVE the Equal packet and crossword puzzle) and here.
Josh Elder is the Chicago-based author of several graphic novels, including Mail Order Ninja, which was named one of the 25 best graphic novels for children. Here he talks about his love-at-first read relationship with comics and how to make it as a working artist.
Writer and Chicago expat Arlene Tribbia shared the following poem as something to "resonate .... now in the new year - a time when most of us are unusually contemplative."
Chicago in Winter: a bluelove rush
You must walk Michigan Avenue in the snow, the heroic South to North mile
over the Bridge of Angels and cross ancient Chikagou Creek for the street shop
bookstore where the café is warm and the cups filled strong and lovely with lemon
grass and coconut tea three stories above the crowd and watch as the after work day unwinds and sweetens into twilight, your book of poems open on the table left unread
for the real love stories of lives unfolding below on the street under flurries of stars falling onto the heads and faces of the people - how purposeful they look there at the light waiting and ready to cross over to the other side as the moment splits, the light changes and in a single flash of bravery they simply step off the curb together and rush forward into their moonlit destinies as the blue eye of a breeze off the lake sweeps past.
Happy New Years and all that good stuff. Let me first have you take a quick peek at this. First of all, I'm inviting this guy to every screening I host. Clearly he has good taste in films (see my Best of 2008 list below to see why I think this), but really I'd like him to come because he personifies the frustration my fellow film lovers and I have felt over the years as we try desperately to enjoy films without the distraction of human voices, cell phones, and all manner of devices that emit light. If you read this column regularly or don't but profess to being a film lover, let's make a New Year's Resolution Pact: turn everything off when you enter a movie theater. Don't put it on vibrate, don't dim the light; just turn it off. You can go two hours, give or take, without communication with the outside world. And if you can't, a) you have a problem bordering on addiction, and b) you don't belong in a movie theater. Especially in this day and age, people are clearly getting a lot pickier about how they spend their entertainment dollar. If they choose to spend it at a movie, they don't want a frickin' circus going on around them.
I'll tell you why I especially feel for this guy in Philadelphia — because in recent months, I've been pretty forward about telling me to shut up or turn things off. Let's face it, most theater management won't do shit about disruptive patrons. I remember one foreign film I went to see a couple years back with an especially chatty bunch. I complained to the manager, and his response (no lie) was "Well, the movie has subtitles; you don't need to hear it." Please feel free to count the number of wrongs that statement is. As terrifying a prospect as it is to confront talkative moviegoers, nine times out of 10, asking them to be quiet one time gets the job done. I realize when you're at a movie that attracts a younger crowd (I'm talking Bolt young), there's a noise source you can't really do anything about. But there's no damn excuse for talking through Benjamin Button or anything else for that matter. Let the (non-violent) revolution begin in Chicago; it seems like the sensible place. We've already seen at least one push for change out of our little corner of the Midwest. This call to action seems like small potatoes, and a lot easier for everyone to get on board with. Vote 'Yes' for shutting the fuck up and letting me watch my movies in piece.
First up is my wrap-up on 2008, followed by a couple reviews for films opening this first weekend of 2009.
On-site requirements included filling a 6 feet tall by 20 feet wide wall space with a tile mosaic. Two columns several feet in front of the wall would be similarly tiled. The artists were asked to reference this work to an orange steel sculpture that will sit outside the station. They were also specifically asked not to create a baseball/Cubs theme. 
From 5:30 to 8pm at the MCA's Puck Café, knitters and hookers (crocheters) will be getting together with guest artist Karen Reimer to share techniques and stories and some good wintery bitching.
