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ART
2023 Venice Biennale Exhibition, Featuring Norman Teague, Returns Home To Cleveland
Cleveland’s Spaces announces the return of “Everlasting Plastics,” which originally premiered “in the U.S. Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Biennale of Architecture.” The exhibition “brings together artists and designers to examine our complex relationship with plastic. ‘Everlasting Plastics’ includes site-specific works by Xavi L. Aguirre (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, assistant professor of architecture); Simon Anton (Detroit-based designer); Ang Li (Northeastern University School of Architecture, assistant professor); Norman Teague (University of Illinois at Chicago, assistant professor in the School of Design); and Lauren Yeager (Cleveland-based sculptor).” Opening September 26. More here.
DESIGN
Is Downtown Chicago’s The 78 Tipping Toward Suburbia?
Streetsblog looks at how modifications to The 78’s development plan have eliminated much of the multimodal access to the new downtown neighborhood and Chicago Fire stadium. “The good news: A professional soccer stadium may be coming to Chicago’s South Loop. The bad news: The current proposal would abandon previous plans for a new Red Line station and other sustainable transportation wins.”
Chicago Area Amtrak Routes See Fastest Ridership Growth In The Nation
“Ridership on seven train lines connecting Chicago and Midwest cities is up eight percent for the nine months ending June 30,” reports Crain’s. This marks the fastest ridership growth in the nation, according to a new report from DePaul’s Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development. “Things have picked up in surprising ways, despite capacity constraints,” says Joe Schwieterman, director of the Chaddick Institute. “Every line had growth. A year ago, there was a sense we had reached a plateau.” Schwieterman expects these numbers will continue to grow, “helped by the additional Chicago-to-Rockford trains, which will be run by Metra, and another Milwaukee-Chicago train. Amtrak has an ambitious goal to double ridership in the Chicago hub by 2040.”
Self-Taught Typewriter Repairman Opens Shop
“Self-taught typewriter repairman Lucas Dul opened up a brick-and-mortar shop in 2024,” reports Chicago magazine. Open afternoons Wednesday through Saturday in Downers Grove, Typewriter Chicago stocks several “models and ribbons. But the real wizardry is that Dul can fix almost any manner of typewriter, whether the hefty vintage version inherited from your grandmother or the ultraportable you use to disconnect from the digital realm.” The wait, warns the shop, can be months. More on the “analog and legacy services” here.
DINING & DRINKING
Croissant Craze! Del Sur X Daisies Release Calamansi Chamomile Croissant
Del Sur, the Filipino-Midwestern bakery from owner-pastry chef Justin Tiu Lerias, has teamed up with Daisies for the Calamansi Chamomile Croissant. It’s “a buttery, golden pastry filled with silky calamansi curd (a tribute to the bright, zesty Filipino citrus), coated with chamomile sugar and topped with a toasted chamomile meringue.” The Daisies x Del Sur Calamansi Chamomile Croissant will be available at the Daisies Chicago café, starting Monday, September 1 through the end of the month. A portion of the proceeds will benefit immigration group AFIRE Chicago.
Ithaki Estiatorio Opens In Greektown’s Former Parthenon Space
Forte Hospitality opens Ithaki Estiatorio in the heart of Greektown tonight. The modern Greek seafood restaurant will be located in the space which once housed the legendary Parthenon, the landmark restaurant of nearly five decades. Ithaki features a Mykonos-inspired design and whole fish flown in fresh from Greece, with the goal to build Chicago’s most extensive Greek wine and spirits program. Founder Kosti Demos, whose family once ran Greektown institution Costa’s, says the opening is part of his greater mission to revive the neighborhood’s legacy, as one of only four nationally recognized Greektowns remaining in America.
Thirty-Six-Year-Old Barba Yianni Evicted In Lincoln Square
A “commercial eviction” has removed Barba Yianni Grecian Taverna from its home of thirty-six years in the heart of Lincoln Square, relates Block Club. “Attempts to reach the landlord were unsuccessful.”
Little Lark Lands On Guild Row
“After a year and a half in the making, Little Lark, the latest project from Meadowlark Hospitality, has opened,” maps Eater Chicago. “The restaurant, which anchors Guild Row, the co-working space and social club in Avondale, serves pizzas, sandwiches, small plates, and easy-drinking cocktails in a casual setting with a spacious patio.”
Van Leeuwen Ice Cream Opens First Chicago Location With The Expected Malört Flavor
Van Leeuwen Ice Cream will open its first Chicago scoop shop on Friday, September 12 at 1555 North Damen in Wicker Park. The ice cream shop plans dollar scoops 11am-1pm on opening day, and will feature the debut of a limited-time Jeppson’s Malört ice cream. A second Chicago location, their hundredth shop, will open this fall at Willis Tower. More here
Chicago-Based Grubhub Settles False Advertising Suit For $7 Million
“Grubhub agreed to a nearly $7.2 million settlement in a case originally filed in 2020 that alleged Grubhub falsely advertised unaffiliated restaurants that were added to its platform without permission, according to court documents filed this week in the United States, District Court for Northern District of Illinois,” reports Restaurant Dive. “The settlement could involve up to 387,000 businesses that may have had their names or logos used on Grubhub or its affiliate sites without a contract in place during the period of January 1, 2019, to April 30, 2024.”
Bourbon Industry Rocked
“The bourbon industry is grappling with market challenges, affecting both new and established distilleries. Several distilleries struggle with financial difficulties, threatening their operations and creating uncertainty in the industry,” reports the Lexington Herald-Leader, surveying recent trends in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
FILM & TELEVISION
A New Exhibition At Lakeside Museum Celebrates Surrealist Filmmaker Luis Buñuel
A newly opened exhibition at the Gold Coast’s International Museum of Surgical Science “pays tribute to visionary filmmaker Luis Buñuel, tracing his journey through exile, dream and cinematic revolution. Marking the centennial of Surrealism, the exhibition explores Buñuel’s poetic imagination, his literary adaptations, and his lifelong fascination with collage as an artistic practice.” The exhibition will include “personal family archives, rare books awards, and ephemera that accompanied Buñuel in exile from Spain in 1936 until his death. A curated selection of contemporary surrealist artists will also contribute, including acclaimed Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin.” “Buñuel: Master of Dreams” is open now. More details here.
Diego Marcon Debuts Dance Film At The Renaissance Society This Fall
“Diego Marcon, an artist known for his radical rethinking of cinema, sound and space, makes his U.S. debut at the Renaissance Society this fall, presenting the newly commissioned musical dance film, ‘Krapfen,’” reports Artdaily. “Celebrated for exploring the formal and emotional architecture of cinema through meticulously constructed short films, Marcon’s practice resists traditional storytelling in favor of experimental forms that examine the mechanics of filmmaking itself and challenge the hierarchy between subject and image, narrative and abstraction.”
DePaul Professor Doug Long Passes
Longtime DePaul University professor and film educator Doug Long has died. Posts composer Joe Clark on Facebook, “Doug was the director of DePaul’s First Year Program (the mastermind behind the Discover and Explore Chicago classes) and always there for the students and instructors during his twenty-five years at DePaul. He was an actor and director, and he brought his love of stage and film to his classes.” Writes former Chicago Tribune critic Michael Phillips, “We used to meet up as part of his ‘Chicago on Screen’ DePaul course, and every time, you could tell he had stoked the students’ curiosity and brought out the best in them from day one.”
LIT
National Endowment For The Arts Ends Longtime Creative Writing Fellowship
“Alice Walker. Charles Bukowski. Louise Erdrich. Juan Felipe Herrera. These are just some of the authors who received a Creative Writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts over the years. The fellowship has now been canceled,” reports NPR. “The annual program was set up in 1966 to help foster American fiction, non-fiction and poetry. The latest iteration of the fellowship offered fiction and creative nonfiction writers a $50,000 grant. Applications were due in March and notifications were set to go out in December. But last week, notices were sent to applicants stating: ‘The NEA has cancelled the FY 2026 Creative Writing Fellowships program.’”
Booking Kup
“There’s a whole chapter of Peter Orner’s new novel, ‘The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter,’ in which the fictional narrator, but really Orner—Chicago native son, Highland Park-raised, now homesick and running the English and creative writing department at Dartmouth—just lists the names of the people he misses. Names he’s heard a million times. Chicago names. ‘It’s their names,’ he writes, ‘we’ll never shake their names.’ Some of those names stand alone, some of the names are lumped, and some cascade down the page,” writes Christopher Borrelli at the Trib in an engrossing profile, calling the book “the most Chicago novel I’ve ever read.” Read our review here.
MEDIA
Bill Kurtis On “Whirlwind” Life
Bill Kurtis “comes at you in substance and even swashbuckling style in ‘Whirlwind,’ his forthright and exciting autobiography that will hit bookstores in mid-September,” writes Rick Kogan at the Tribune. “The past is brought forth in compelling detail. That means that Kurtis either took and kept great notes or has an astonishing memory. He does write, ‘Every person who appears in these pages (there are 312 pages) deserves my thanks. While writing it I could see their faces again… They all linger in my memory with the clarity of a sunny morning.’
“This book gives us the beginning and early parts of his career, a justifiable perspective because—what many may have forgotten—he was at the center of many of the biggest stories of the last half century. The Charles Manson murder trial? He was there for that… He was the first American to return to Vietnam after the war’s end and reported on the effects of Agent Orange (‘The biggest story of my career,’ he writes), and on the tens of thousands of children fathered by U.S. soldiers who were left behind in Vietnam after the U.S. withdrawal in 1975.”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Ends Print Run; Calls Paper “Scrambled Eggs”
“On December 31,” posts the Atlanta daily, “the AJC will print its last newspaper. We will begin the new year as a fully digital organization, committed, as always, to being the most essential and engaging news source for the people of Atlanta, Georgia and the South. After 157 years, we did not make this decision lightly; for many of us, reading the paper with our morning coffee is as ingrained in our routine as brushing our teeth or scrambling eggs. Embracing our digital future means we can focus every resource and every ounce of energy on producing world-class journalism and delivering it to each of you in the most [effective] way… The AJC is fortunate to be owned by Cox Enterprises, which cares deeply about the importance of independent, local journalism and about our community.”
MUSIC
63rd Street Drummers Locked Out
“Drummers and other musicians have met daily at a painted circle at 63rd Street Beach since 1970. The music stopped recently after their circle was sectioned off by Park District fencing,” reports Block Club. “The district is ‘piloting an improved parking system’ at 63rd near the Diversey Drive golf facility ‘as a response to public safety concerns including unauthorized vending and low compliance with the pay-to-park system,’” said a Park District spokesperson.
STAGE
Refracted Theatre Company Cancels “Dream Hou$e”
“As artistic director of Refracted Theatre Company, I carry a profound responsibility to safeguard the integrity of our work, the well-being of our collaborators and the trust of our community,” writes Refracted Theatre artistic director Tova Wolff. “It is with a heavy heart that I share that, after careful reflection, Refracted has made the decision to cancel our production of ‘Dream Hou$e.’ … Dozens of artists and technicians pour their time, talent and love into each fleeting second on stage. It takes an extraordinary kind of alchemy for all the pieces to align—that’s why we so often call it ‘theater magic.’ But because that alchemy is so specific, there are times when unforeseen challenges arise—challenges too great to overcome. It’s heartbreaking when that happens. But it’s also a reminder of how precious this art form truly is.” Read the full statement here.
Shattered Globe Theatre Sets Three Plays For Thirty-Fifth Season
Shattered Globe Theatre has announced its thirty-fifth anniversary season, introducing one world premiere and two Midwest premieres “that find humor in unexpected places” and offer a fresh look at our world. More here.
Female-Led Ballet Company Brings Día de Muertos To Chicago Stage
Ballet 5:8’s one-night-only performance, “Beauty Will Save the World” will take place at the Harris Theater, Saturday, October 11. “The performance is a bold, timely exploration of heritage, hope, and healing—featuring new works by artistic director Julianna Rubio Slager, Chicago-born master Gerald Arpino, and contemporary choreographer Kevin Jenkins.” The evening includes “Día de los Vivos” by Rubio Slager: “Inspired by Día de Muertos, this ballet confronts depression and suicide with hope. Slager shows how family, comunidad, and love become the ultimate antidote to despair, transforming grief into celebration through striking tableaux and emotive movement.” More here.
ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.
What It Means When UChicago Abandons The Humanities
The Atlantic published an essay on why UChicago’s pause in admissions to doctoral programs across the humanities is so singularly depressing: “Some other elite schools might have the coveted Ivy League branding, or a few more famous faculty members, or a couple more dollars to tack onto the salaries of its professors and graduate students. But perhaps nowhere is the study of literature, philosophy, the arts, and languages more valued, their spirit more authentically preserved, their frontiers more doggedly pursued, than at Chicago.”
Pilsen Proceeds With Plans For Mexican Independence Day
The twenty-fourth annual Mexican Independence Day Parade will go on, “and community leaders in Pilsen are inviting everyone to attend—despite ICE concerns,” reports WGN-TV. “The parade is scheduled for September 6 at noon on 18th Street. Organizers said the plan in place is to ensure everyone is safe and can enjoy the parade without fear.” Says Vicky Logo, of United Merchants Of Pilsen Chamber Of Commerce, “We are going to have volunteers throughout the parade route to help secure areas. Also, if they see any immigration agents, we’re going to be communicating throughout.”
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