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Issue 191 |
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Your cultural event guide
Read our editors' weekly picks for things to do in Chicago. Or find more events, updated daily, on Flavorpill.com. |
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IN THIS ISSUE
May 13-19, 2008
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Giveaways!
Keep your eyes open.
We'll hook you up. |
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Some of us at Flavorpill are still in the clutches of academia. Others left school years ago, but we still buy fresh pencils and new notebooks in September and suffer through occasional stress-induced exam nightmares during the winter. This week, school's out for summer (cue rad guitar lick) — and we're ready to party like it's graduation day all over again. 826CHI throws a prom for grown-ups (translation: no need to smuggle in your dad's flask). Or, if you hated prom the first time around, hang with the misfits under the bleachers and decide who'll pay for the tickets to see the Cure at Allstate Arena.
- Audrey Mast, Managing Editor
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SPECIAL FEATURE
Watchdog.net
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Politics and the Internet share an uneasy alliance. But the "character" issues and PR minutiae that dominate this year's US election coverage inspired Aaron Swartz to forge a new kind of connection between the message and the medium. It's called Watchdog.net, and our sister publication Activate got the lowdown on exactly what it's trying to accomplish.
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Todd Osborn
The artist also known as Osborne drops his self-titled house and techno trip.
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Flavorpill Mobile
Access Flavorpill listings, rate events, and find friends on the go, all via your handheld device.
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READING
Arianna Huffington
| when: |
Tuesday May 13 (7pm)
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| where: |
Borders (830 N Michigan Ave, 312.573.0564)
map
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| price: |
FREE |
View on site»
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Reagan's line about not leaving the Democratic party ("it left me") has become such a tired conservative mantra; progressives can be forgiven for feeling a little bit of schadenfreude when the opposite occurs. As the cofounder and editor of the Huffington Post, former righty Arianna Huffington now heads what is arguably the most influential Beltway blog. Huffington's new book, Right Is Wrong, sounds the bell on extremist neo-con politics in the author's trademark sardonic tone. It's a persuasive argument against Rove's muckraking and Fox's softball news — one that some of her opposite-aisle counterparts might even be willing to concede.
- Stephen Gossett
[Info Source]
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MUSIC: Hip-hop
Yo Majesty w/ Does It Offend You, Yeah?
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Tuesday May 13 (8pm)
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The Mansion (2408 N Kedzie Ave)
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| price: |
$13 |
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Pairing Tampa shock-hop duo Yo Majesty and UK dance punks Does It Offend You, Yeah? is an inspired idea — if only because the latter question comes up for members of both bands (especially Yo Majesty's frequently topless ladies). After crashing onto the dirrrty club scene with 2006's Yo EP and a series of illicit live shows, Shunda K and Jwl. B signed with Domino in 2007. Matched by hard, sleazy production from electro duo HardfeelingsUK, their raps are fast, femme, and suggestive. Reading quartet DIOYY?, meanwhile, are known for their similarly raucous gigs, a fact rightly underscored by the title of their debut: You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into.
- Leah Taylor
[Info Source]
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MORE FLAVOR: Tour
Catastrophe! The Destruction and Looting of Iraq's Past
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Wednesday May 14 (12:15pm)
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The Oriental Institute (1155 E 58th St, 773.702.9514)
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FREE |
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Curator Katharyn Hanson leads a lunchtime tour of the Oriental Institute's ongoing exhibit Catastrophe!, which explores the devastating effect that the Iraq War has had on ancient art and artifacts. The show opened last month to mark the fifth anniversary of the looting of the Iraq National Museum. It highlights not only the irreparable losses there, but the ongoing, less-publicized theft and damage of archaeological treasures all over the region. Many priceless relics that shed light on the birth of civilization are presently missing, and many more are destroyed.
- Audrey Mast
[Info Source]
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PERFORMING ARTS: Dance
Joffrey Ballet: American Moderns
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Wednesday May 14 (7:30pm)
More times»
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| where: |
Auditorium Theatre (50 E Congress Parkway, 312.922.2110 ext 0)
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| price: |
$25 - 140 |
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Last we checked, high-modernist dance peaked at 1972's Stravinsky Festival, and what followed hasn't improved much with age — which makes Paul Taylor's Cloven Kingdom all the more remarkable. Arcangelo Corelli's über-baroque score fights for its life against an angry onslaught of pots and pans (expertly mashed up by John Herbert McDowell), while the dancers — men in tuxes and tails, women in pastel gowns and giant, mirrored headpieces — ceaselessly bust ass, running and leaping with classical elegance and rabid-beast mechanism. It's relentlessly energetic and uncompromisingly bizarre, a high point of both the period and Taylor's career. Also on the program are works by Twyla Tharp, Lar Lubovitch, and Mehmet Sander.
- Zachary Whittenburg
[Info Source]
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MUSIC: Rock/Pop
Laura Veirs w/ Liam Finn
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Thursday May 15 (7 & 10pm)
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Schubas (3159 N Southport Ave, 773.525.2508)
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| price: |
$14 |
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Portland singer/songwriter Laura Veirs has a deadpan vocal delivery just a shade lighter than Liz Phair, but whereas Phair's breakup songs were blunt articles of faith, Veirs wraps her own in gorgeous natural metaphors and lush indie-pop production. Her lyrics have grown more and more literary with each album, and better-known musicians like Death Cab for Cutie continue to sing her praises. Opening, New Zealander Liam Finn honed his chops touring with his father Neil's beloved band, Crowded House. The younger Finn shares his dad's love of Beatles-esque pop, but with a smart brashness befitting his 24 years.
- Max Goldberg
[Info Source]
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PERFORMING ARTS: Comedy
Eddie Izzard: Stripped
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Thursday May 15 (8pm)
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| where: |
The Chicago Theatre (175 N State St, 312.462.6300)
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| price: |
$50 |
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Only Eddie Izzard could make wearing jeans and loafers an act of subversion. For Stripped, the "executive transvestite" British comic retires his trademark drag costume. It's a good reminder that, ever since he charmed American audiences with his much-loved Dress to Kill special, it has been Izzard's elliptical delivery that makes him so inimitable. Not that his self-described "male tomboy" garb ever felt shticky, but classic routines like "Cake or Death?" and "Do You Have a Flag?" would kill regardless of Izzard's getup. As Wayne Malloy on FX's The Riches, he shows off some surprising dramatic chops — but Izzard on stage still means Izzard at his best.
- Stephen Gossett
[Info Source]
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ART
Maleonn: Days on the Cotton Candy and Brian Yates: you ruin everything
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Friday May 16 (6–9pm)
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Kasia Kay Art Projects (1044 W Fulton Market St, 312.492.8828)
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| price: |
FREE |
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The term "visual artist" is a relatively vague one, but it's a dead-on description of Shanghai's Maleonn; his work demands a general characterization, anyhow, not a specific one. Graphic design meets staged photography in his surreal photos that depict stunning figures, caught in the act of simply existing. Maleonn's background in film is apparent in his still photos' bizarre sense of movement. In the project room, Brian Yates' multimedia work makes use of nostalgic found objects, as well as photography and painting.
- Courtney Nash
[Info Source]
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MUSIC: Rock/Pop
Pillars & Tongues w/ Talibam! and Binges
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Friday May 16 (9pm)
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Ronny's Bar (2101 N California Ave)
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| price: |
$5 |
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They say good things come to those who wait. With avant-classical experimentalists Pillars & Tongues, it's a long wait — and that's a very good thing. Patient listeners who enjoy the local trio's largely improvised "spontaneous compositions" are richly rewarded with transcendent jams that tremble with melancholic grandeur. Using a slowly churning organ, barely there flute, clarinet, violin lines, sparse vocal incantations, and upright-bass pulses, the multi-instrumentalists build delicate drones into blink-and-you'll-miss-it denouements. It's an amorphous, meditative sound — recalling the hushed side of Thee Silver Mt. Zion — and one that is definitely not for the instant-gratification crowd. Tonight, they perform at Ronny's with copies of their gorgeously packaged, self-released CD-Rs.
- Suzanne Niemoth
[Info Source]
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MORE FLAVOR: Fundraiser
826CHI presents Prom
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Saturday May 17 (8pm–midnight)
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Pulaski Park Auditorium (1419 W Blackhawk St, 773.508.8076)
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| price: |
$38.26 |
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Whether yours was a Pretty in Pink fairytale, a traumatic Carrie ordeal, or simply the most awkward episode of Saturday Night Live, prom night has a built-in guarantee to be memorable. Now that your acne has finally subsided, you and yours can attend version 2.0 without worrying how the photos will turn out. Drinks are free, and the Power of Love and DJ Friar Tuck play pogo-happy '80s classics. So don't be afraid to grab your Molly Ringwald dress or Valley Girl skinny tie — proceeds benefit 826CHI, the local nonprofit writing workshop for kids.
- Stephen Gossett
[Info Source]
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MUSIC: Hip-hop
Subtle w/ Pit Er Pat and Locks
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Saturday May 17 (10pm)
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| where: |
The Empty Bottle (1035 N Western Ave, 773.276.3600)
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| price: |
$12 |
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With apologies to Why?, Subtle might be the most consistently rewarding band to emerge from the Anticon collective. Imagine TV on the Radio if they ditched the Pere Ubu fixation in favor of early Warp's dense rhythms. On the new ExitingARM, Subtle lyricist Doseone's speed-rapping is still second to none. But with a few exceptions (like the mega-riffed "The No"), he sounds more like Cee-Lo than Twista, with a weird helium croon that's easier to grasp than his MC acrobatics. There's also an album-spanning narrative about Dose's alter ego and an ever-present, Yorick-style skull bust. All the mythology might furrow a few brows, but the arty rap-rock keeps the fists pumping.
- Stephen Gossett
[Info Source]
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MORE FLAVOR: Lecture
Nietzsche and Simone Weil, Two Tragic Philosophers
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Sunday May 18 (1pm)
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Chicago Cultural Center (78 E Washington St, 312.744.6630)
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| price: |
FREE |
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Friedrich Nietzsche suffered a crippling, 11-year mental breakdown before his death. Simone Weil died at 34, after refusing food in solidarity with the French Resistance. But for University of Chicago theologian David Tracy, the tragedy of these great philosophers' lives is of less interest than their shared belief that modern Western culture has lost, and must recover, the ancient Greek "tragic vision." This afternoon, Tracy discusses this way of understanding the world — the "yes-saying" to life's suffering and joy that Nietzsche first detailed in The Birth of Tragedy, and that Weil echoed decades later — and how it can empower us to fight injustice.
- Suzanne Niemoth
[Info Source]
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MUSIC: Rock/Pop
Joe Lally w/ Michael Columbia and MRDR
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Sunday May 18 (9pm)
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| where: |
Schubas (3159 N Southport Ave, 773.525.2508)
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| price: |
$8 |
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Joe Lally's trademark bass lines — like the pummeling, reveille-sounding opener on "Waiting Room" — gave Fugazi's minimalist ragers their wallop. Since the band's 2002 hiatus, the ascetic Lally has explored numerous solo projects, and his stripped-down, relatively folksy work filters Fugazi's modus operandi through a restrained lens. With prominent, four-string melodies and hushed, poetic murmurings, Lally's songs abound with distorted guitar riffs and syncopated drum lines. In a word: Fugazi Lite. Tonight, Lally perform songs off his latest album, Nothing Is Underrated, with Capillary Action drummer Ricardo Lagomasino and composer Jonathan Morris on guitar.
- Suzanne Niemoth
[Info Source]
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FILM
Arranged
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Monday May 19 (7pm)
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Evanston Public Library (1703 Orrington Ave, 847.448.8600)
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| price: |
FREE |
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Indie drama Arranged examines the dying tradition of arranged marriages in the United States. The story, based on the experiences of Yuta Silverman, who spearheaded the project, centers on two grade-school teachers in Brooklyn: one an Orthodox Jew and the other a Syrian-born Muslim. The young women's unlikely friendship blossoms as they share the hope and fear that surround their impending nuptials, and navigate the patriarchal dating rituals of their religions. With a shoestring budget of $120,000, the film is modest in scope, and it shies away from the political implications of its narrative. But the sweet story and remarkable performances by the lead actresses make it touching, slice-of-life fare.
- Suzanne Niemoth
[Info Source]
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MUSIC: Rock/Pop
KTL w/ Németh and Helen Money
| when: |
Monday May 19 (9pm)
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| where: |
The Empty Bottle (1035 N Western Ave, 773.276.3600)
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| price: |
$12 |
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About two years ago, Stephen O'Malley of Sunn O))) and Peter Rehberg of Pita started collaborating as KTL, constructing a black-metal-glitch soundtrack to the theatre work of visual artist Gisele Vienne and cult novelist Dennis Cooper. Lucky for us, the fertile sessions convinced the two to keep KTL going. With O'Malley's monolithic, low-end guitar buoying Rehberg's clenched-jaw electronic grind, KTL pummel audiences with noise before sedating them into an ambient trance. Thrill Jockey labelmate Németh opens, contorting electronic and acoustic instruments into chilly post-rock textures not unlike those of his day-job band, Radian.
- Stephen Gossett
[Info Source]
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ART: Photography
Three Hours Between Planes: Contemporary Photography from Leipzig and Chicago
| when: |
Tuesday May 13 (8am–7pm)
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Chicago Cultural Center (78 E Washington St, 312.744.6630)
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| price: |
FREE |
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In Three Hours Between Planes, co-curators Marco Poloni and Eiko Grimberg find the common themes running through the work of 11 young artists from Chicago's SAIC and Leipzig, Germany's Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst (Academy of Visual Arts). The work is predominantly narrative, focusing on the sense of waiting between events and the spaces in which that waiting happens. The exhibition's various pieces evoke actual and constructed spaces, focusing the viewer's attention on the gap between lived experiences and fabricated ones.
- Rachel Adams
[Info Source]
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PERFORMING ARTS: Comedy
Campaign Supernova! or How Many Democrats Does It Take to Lose an Election?
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Thursday May 15 (8pm)
More times»
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The Second City e.t.c. (1608 N Wells St, 312.337.3992)
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| price: |
$19 - 25 |
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From the director of the recent hit Between Barack and a Hard Place comes another election-season winner, Campaign Supernova!, performed by Second City. Where Barack focused squarely on Obama and Clinton, Supernova is broader, asking how much change we can reasonably expect from our political leaders. The show is fast-paced and funny throughout, with a mix of timely political swipes, quick blackouts, grounded emotional scenes, and a few instant-classic moments.
- Ben Bass
[Info Source]
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More Flavor |
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Editors
MANAGING EDITOR
Audrey Mast
DEPUTY EDITOR
Suzanne Niemoth
PRODUCTION EDITOR
Nick Earhart
SENIOR EDITORS
Anna Balkrishna
Doug Levy
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Patricia Courson
Stephen Gossett
Courtney Nash
Andrew Phillips
Lisa Rosman
IMAGE EDITORS
Adda Birnir
Sarah Steele
PUBLISHERS
Sascha Lewis
Mark Mangan
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About Us
FLAVORPILL CHICAGO
All events featured on Flavorpill CHI are pure editorial — we never accept paid promotions or advertisements. If you know about an upcoming event that you think should be covered in Flavorpill CHI, email us a press release at chi_events at least two weeks prior to the event and we'll consider it.
To learn more about our staff and policies, see the credits and about us pages. If you'd like to respond to our editors about a listing published here, or have a general inquiry, please email chi_feedback.
MORE PUBLICATIONS
Flavorpill also publishes nine other email magazines, covering ART, BOOKS, NEWS, MUSIC, and cultural events in five other cities — NEW YORK, SAN FRANCISCO, LOS ANGELES, LONDON, and MIAMI. Coming soon:
STYLE/DESIGN and FILM. Subscribe now.
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