From the Genuine Unauthorized Clothing Clone Institute by Abigail Glaum-Lathbury
DESIGN
Transit Ridership Up
“With prices at the pump hitting record highs nationwide, more people are looking to public transit,” reports WGN-TV. “Cities like New York and Chicago, which rely on public transit heavily, are seeing some of the biggest increases in ridership… There are still open seats… on most lines… The boom in remote working and recent highly publicized incidents of violence on transit have put downward pressure on ridership.” Meanwhile, Boston’s transit agency will place urine sensors on the floors of several elevators on the T. “The elevators were selected based on how often people were peeing in the cabs, different cab sizes, and the different environments they were located in, to see how well the sensors work. For example, the detection may be different in elevators in enclosed spaces versus those that are exposed to the street level and outside air.”
Englewood’s Multimillion-Dollar Elevated Nature Trail Could Be Open In Five Years
“After nearly two decades, plans to bring a 1.75-mile nature trail to Englewood are underway,” reports Block Club Chicago. “You have stuck with us for years to make this happen, and I think we have the team assembled to make it happen,” city officials said.
Century-Old Wood Paver Blocks Exposed In Gold Coast
Wood paver blocks have been “unearthed as city work crews tore up the surface of Banks Street just west of DuSable Lake Shore Drive to repave the road,” reports the Sun-Times. “Portions of the wood along Banks Street are rotten and chipping away. Other sections are in much better shape and resemble brick until, upon closer inspection, the wood grain patterns on the surface become visible.” Says a doorman of a nearby building, “People have been coming all week and taking home bits of wood as souvenirs.”
Luxury Without Labels
The New York Times profiles designer Abigail Glaum-Lathbury. “Ms. Glaum-Lathbury, 38, is a clothing designer, though her own small and short-lived label folded nearly a decade ago. Now she is an associate professor of fashion design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and occupies her off hours with personal and conceptual projects examining the qualities that make a garment desirable.” Her current project is called “the Genuine Unauthorized Clothing Clone Institute, it revolves around what Ms. Glaum-Lathbury has termed ‘clothing clones’: garments whose patterns are made from mirror selfies she has taken in luxury fitting rooms. Back in her studio, she edits every image to blur any trademarks or copyright-protected pattern—the signature Gs, for instance—and crops it to isolate the garment’s outline. Then she prints the image onto fabric, creating a pattern for a new piece of clothing.” Glaum-Lathbury’s site is here.
DINING & DRINKING
Boka’s Kevin Boehm On Sustaining Happiness
“One gloomy Monday morning in February of 2021, instead of writing my weekly list, I wrote a list of things that I loved in this world as an inspirational pick-me-up,” Boka Restaurant Group’s Kevin Boehm writes at Fast Company. “It was a random list of the serious and the frivolous, high-brow, low-brow, and everything in between: Haribo gummi bears, Van Morrison’s ‘Astral Weeks,’ a perfectly made spicy tako hand-roll, the sound of my kids’ laughter, driving on the highway at night and the smell of buttered popcorn. The list had no particular order, but eventually drifted in to entries that had framed my work life for my almost three decades: walking a dining room to Miles Davis’ ‘Kind of Blue,’ spitballing ideas with my teams, the adrenaline rush of a full dining room, table side chats with guests, and the thirty minutes restaurant teams level-set before service. I still loved my job, I just didn’t love how I was working it. The recipe of my job, the getto do’s and the got to do’s had fallen out of balance.”
Ferrero Candy Bloomington Expansion Sugared With 200 Jobs
Ferrero, reports the Trib, “the confections company known for producing Nutella and Kinder products announced plans to invest up to $214.4 million in an expansion of its facility in downstate Bloomington, an investment the company says will bring 200 jobs to the area.”
A Look At Nobody’s Darling And Its James Beard Nomination
“Nobody’s Darling opened last year as a cocktail bar in a city full of cocktail bars — but also with a mission,” reports Josh Noel at the Trib. “Co-founders Angela Barnes and Renauda Riddle are Black. They’re women. They’re lesbians. They wanted their bar to reflect them, their experiences and their social circles…Still short of its first anniversary, Nobody’s Darling became one of five finalists—and the only one from Chicago—alongside bars with years of renown or celebrity names attached…. Becoming a Beard award finalist in less than a year is a rare achievement.”
MEDIA
Three Chicagoans Take James Beard Foundation Media Awards
Three Chicagoans took home James Beard media awards, reports Eater Chicago, two for books and one for journalism. Julia Momosé of West Loop Japanese dining bar Kumiko and journalist Emma Janzen won in the Beverage with Recipes category for “The Way of the Cocktail: Japanese Traditions, Techniques, and Recipes.” Joanne Molinaro took an award for Vegetable-Focused Cooking for ” The Korean Vegan Cookbook: Reflections and Recipes from Omma’s Kitchen.”
Gannett Ending Daily Opinion Pages At Regional Papers
“Gannett has decided that the time for a traditional editorial page has come and gone. Beginning in the spring and accelerating this month, the 250-title chain is cutting back opinion pages to a few days a week while refocusing what opinion is still published to community dialogue,” reports Poynter. “A series of reader surveys and a task force of editors have persuaded [Amalie Nash, senior vice president for local news and audience development] and other executives to recommend a new chain-wide pattern as part of Gannett’s push to make digital content its focus.”
MUSIC
Drill Rapper FBG Cash Killed
“Chicago rapper FBG Cash was killed in a shooting that also left a woman seriously wounded in Auburn Gresham,” reports Block Club Chicago. “Tristian Hamilton, thirty-one, who is better known by his stage name FBG Cash, and a twenty-nine-year-old woman were inside a vehicle on the 1600 block of West 81st around 5am Friday when a black, four-door sedan approached them.”
STAGE
Jennifer Hudson: EGOT
Englewood’s own Jennifer Hudson becomes only the seventeenth person to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony, as co-producer of “A Strange Loop,” reports the Sun-Times. “Singer and actor Jennifer Hudson, the pride of Englewood, won a Tony Award on Sunday that put her in the elite ranks of the EGOT winners… The show has some thirty-five producers, including fellow celebs Don Cheadle, RuPaul Charles, Mindy Kaling and Billy Porter.” Variety adds, “Notable figures who have netted wins across all four awards bodies include Rita Moreno, Alan Menken, Andrew Lloyd Webber, John Legend, Mike Nichols, Mel Brooks and Whoopi Goldberg.”
Chopin Theatre Reflects On End Of The House Theatre Of Chicago
“Some time ago, we were advised that Chopin Theatre should not reserve space for House Theatre for this upcoming season,” the theater’s Zygmunt and Lela Dyrkacz write in a newsletter. “Being eternally optimistic we were hoping that after this spring’s production, under new artistic leader and director Lanise Antoine Shelley, that things would change. But, unfortunately they didn’t. The House Theatre is nevermore. And we are extremely sad—not just for the loss to us but for hundreds of artists associated with the House and huge audiences which will also have to move on. And Chicago, famous for its theater community, has lost another distinguished member. Since 2008, House Theatre produced forty-seven shows at Chopin, most of them on the Main Stage with a few running in the Studio Theatre. Most of them ran seven to eight weeks, four to five performances per week, and almost every performance sold out to young and enthusiastic audiences. They sustained their budget mainly from ticket sales, which is unheard of, gave special performances for high school students and the vision- and hearing-impaired… Their workshops with University of Chicago performance lab used their own scripts and music. And over the last few years, before the pandemic, they created their own headquarters with offices, storage rooms, scenic shop and rehearsal space with the dimensions of Chopin’s Main Stage. We were there when they were closing that space, moving all their sets and equipment to temporary storage. It was a heartbreaking, scary experience. Not many theaters were able to do what House Theatre did. And not just in Chicago. If we had to choose a word to describe them, they were ‘builders.’ More broadly, ‘building’ is something slowly disappearing in our country.”
ARTS & CULTURE
Indiana Loosens Public Carry Of Guns
“A new law will take effect soon in Indiana that some fear will make the availability of guns even easier— in the Hoosier state and in Illinois,” reports WBEZ. “Republican lawmakers in Indiana… repealed the state’s requirement for a permit to carry a handgun in public. Come July 1, no one eighteen years or older will have to apply for such a permit. That’s as long as they’re not a felon, under indictment or have serious mental health issues. ‘Licenses, they don’t stop a bad person from doing bad things,’ said Indiana state Representative Jim Lucas, one of the sponsors of the bill.” Meanwhile, in Ohio, the state’s Republican governor signed a bill allowing teachers to carry guns, with only minimal training required. The requirements include two hours of handgun training, reports WGN-TV. “The bill would allow teachers and other education staff the option, determined by their local school board, to carry guns after a minimum of twenty-four hours of training.”
Chicago Academy Of Sciences & Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum Names First Black CEO
The Chicago Academy of Sciences and its Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum announced Erin Amico as their new president and CEO. “A Chicago native, Amico will be the first African American CEO to lead the 165-year-old institution,” the museum relays. Amico succeeds Deborah Lahey, who is retiring at the end of June 2022, after twelve years as President & CEO. More about the museum here.
Aurora Pride Parade Went Ahead
“A judge ruled against Aurora Pride’s appeal to hold the parade Sunday after the city revoked its permit for the event,” reports the Aurora Beacon-News (via the Trib). After proceedings, “the city offered a triple-time financial incentive to its police officers to take overtime to provide security for the parade, and were able to reach the number of officers needed for the event.” Channel 7 News reports: “Parade organizers decided last month to not allow officers to march in the parade wearing uniforms or riding in police cars. [Republican gubernatorial candidate] Mayor Richard Irvin and the city then revoked the parade’s permit, claiming there weren’t enough officers to patrol the event… ‘I think it’s a little hypocritical of the organizers of the parade,’ Irvin said at the time.”
Illinois To More Than Double Number Of Marijuana Shops
“The number of recreational marijuana shops in Illinois is due to more than double after the state Friday announced its plans to issue 185 new dispensary licenses,” reports the Trib. “The action comes after courts lifted bans on issuing the licenses while litigation continues. Applicants who won rights to licenses last year must finalize compliance checks before their conditional licenses can be issued.”
Armadillos Come North To Illinois, Bringing Leprosy
“It’s like a tiny prehistoric creature, so you think, whoa, that’s out of place,” a Pekin resident tells Christopher Borrelli at the Tribune about an armadillo ripping up their window flower pots. “That’s also climate change in action, in real time—a known resident of the South pushing north, into a warmer Midwest… As our springs become wetter and our winters milder, as the soil stays warmer throughout the year (allowing insects to live longer)—all ideal conditions for armadillos—biologists expect a northward march… Armadillos can carry leprosy. They’re one of its few sources. It’s a rare occurrence for an armadillo to get someone sick… and difficult for someone to contract leprosy from an armadillo; generally, you’ve got to eat an armadillo undercooked or be infected by an exposed cut. Leprosy is hard to pass on. But it’s not impossible.”
Private Security Blooms As Legal Cannabis Proliferates
“Legal marijuana sales are heavily restricted, and federal laws prevent dispensaries from accessing traditional banks–that’s why there’s so much cash. Given all that cash, and the expensive cannabis products, Illinois state law requires security be on hand,” reports WBEZ. “‘We’re dealing with weed and cash, and it’s high risk,’ said a local officer recently while standing outside of a Near North dispensary. They did not want to be named, citing concerns about job security… The state currently has 110 licensed dispensaries, all of which must have a contract with a licensed, private security contractor agency.”
