Gapers Block has ceased publication.
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. ✶
TODAY
Monday, May 6
Slowdown
BY DAY
Wednesday, September 07 2011
Hennessey Youngman @ the Museum of Contemporary Art
Influential humorist and art commentator Hennessey Youngman visits the Windy City tonight for "The Dialogue," an annual live-chat panel on "museums, diversity, and inclusion" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Theater (220 East Chicago Avenue), 6pm. This year's event with Youngman will focus on Millennials and their effect on museum issues, alongside "Chicago's Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, Michelle T. Boone, and our newest curator, Naomi Beckwith, formerly of The Studio Museum in Harlem." The MCA's press materials describe Youngman as "You Tube's most followed art theorist," and points out Art in America's description of his satirical Art Thoughtz program performances as "Ali G with an MFA." If you can't make it to the live event, check out the Live Tweet at @mcachicago, using the #thedialogue to participate in the conversation via tweet.
Neal Samors and Bernard Judge @ Oak Park Public Library
Tonight, Neal Samors and Bernard Judge present Chicago's Lake Shore Drive: Urban America's Most Beautiful Roadway. An old school coffee table sized tome, Julia Keller of the Chicago Tribune calls it "a lavishly illustrated history of the bodacious byway that snakes around the lake [for the reader who] lives and breathes Chicago history." Oak Park Library, 834 Lake St., Oak Park, 7pm.
Interface II @ Steep Theatre
On the heels of the success of their first show in June, Interface returns to Steep Theatre (1115 Berwyn Avenue) in collaboration with This Much Is True, to bring to life an evening of live inspiration exploring the common boundaries of music, art and storytelling. Interface is an opportunity to watch inspiration as it happens, to be a part of the art as it develops. Storytellers of This Much Is True (with guest Robyn Okrant) will take the stage to share a personal tale, and at the conclusion of each story, jazz outfit The CEC Trio will play an original, improvised composition inspired by what they have just heard. For the duration of the show, digital artist Noah Ginex will be creating a one-of-a-kind piece of artwork inspired by everything he experiences throughout the evening. This unique work of art will be displayed, as it takes form, on five 40-inch plasma screens placed around the stage. Prints will be available for purchase after the show. Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 at the door, show starts at 8pm. For info and tickets visit Steep Theatre.
Reading Under the Influence: Apocalypse
Reading Under the Influence is back tonight at 7pm at Sheffield's, 3258 N. Sheffield Ave., with the theme being "the Apocalypse." This is a release party for featured reader Geoff Hyatt's book Birch Hills at World's End, hence the theme. Other readers will include James Finn Garner, Ilana Shabanov and Nick Delehanty. $3 cover. 21+
Collections and Cocktails @ The Poetry Foundation
Not literally, of course. But The Poetry Foundation is having another open house -- this time to showcase its library's programs and expanded hours. The library at the newly built Poetry Foundation building has around 30,000 books and is open to the public. Why not stop by and celebrate it? The open house, dubbed Collections and Cocktails, is tonight from 5:30pm to 8:30pm and will feature library collection readings from local poets, poetry fortune-telling, and more. Admission is free but first-come, first-served, so make sure you're in line early at the Poetry Foundation, 61 W. Superior St.! RSVP here.
