Today In The Culture, October 10, 2022: You Are Beautiful Is Twenty | Western Illinois University Gets A Major Performance Center | LGBT Hall of Fame Inductees
You Have Been “You Are Beautiful” For Twenty Years
To celebrate the “You Are Beautiful” vibe turning twenty this year, relays YAB, “we have put together an exciting group show glowing with positivity & kindness in our gallery. We’ve asked artists, designers, poets, & creatives to share their most inspiring kind words on the walls of our gallery. We couldn’t be more honored to be sharing their work with you! Our studio & wood shop will be open to the public. We only do this once or twice a year, so take advantage of getting to take a peek behind the curtain & see where it’s all made! (There might even be some machines running.)” Their holiday collection will be available in-store as well. Contributors of Kind Words include Aaron Draplin, Alex Synge, Ben Blount, Big Fightin Words, Case Kenny, Cody Hudson, Dani Knight, Faesthetic Zine, Gingergold, Hyesu Lee, Josue Pellot, The Poetry Foundation, Martha Rich, Miss Merlot, Nick Adam, Poster Journal, Seth Godin, Shae Synnestvedt, Shawnimals, Tanner Woodford, Thomas Campbell, Vantablac Sol, We All Live Here and Zuzu. Details about the November 5 event here.
Wicker Park Walgreens-In-A-Bank Building Could Close
“A Walgreens official surprised Wicker Park neighbors this week by saying a flagship location inside a renovated bank in the heart of the neighborhood is closing—but company representatives are now saying that’s up in the air,” reports Block Club Chicago. “A Walgreens spokesperson said no decision has been made to close its centerpiece store in the former Noel State Bank, 1601 North Milwaukee.”
Lowrider Festival At Navy Pier
Slow & Low will take over 170,000 square feet of exhibition space in Navy Pier’s Festival Hall on Saturday, October 15, 10am-8pm, for Chicago’s largest-ever celebration of Lowrider culture, community and art, with over 250 lowrider cars, motorcycles, bicycles, along with bands, DJs and dancers. Tickets are $15 here.
City To Develop Five Miles Of Western Into Green, Pedestrian-Oriented Space
“City planning officials held the final meeting for their Western Avenue Corridor Study, an effort to transform the five-mile stretch from Addison Street north to Howard Street,” writes the Trib. “Planners identified the five Western Avenue intersections likely to attract the most development, including Lawrence Avenue in Lincoln Square, Devon Avenue in West Ridge and Byron Street in North Center.” The Western Avenue Corridor Study, open for comments until the end of the month, is here.
Winnetka Homeowners Suggest Eminent Domain For Billionaire-Held Lakefront
“Forget the land swap, a pair of Winnetka homeowners suggest. The Winnetka Park District should take Justin Ishbia’s multimillion-dollar lakefront parcel by eminent domain,” reports Crain’s.
DINING & DRINKING
How Howard Schultz Became Starbucks’ Union Buster-In-Chief
At the Washington Post, reporter Greg Jaffe spent three months hoping to decipher Starbucks’ virulently anti-union founder and current CEO Howard Schultz. “The stress of it all was weighing on Schultz, who had been back on the job for three months and had told Starbucks’s board that he didn’t have the energy to stay for more than a year. That gave him twelve months to convince his nonunion workers that his version of benevolent capitalism could offer them more than any union. In his mind, he had twelve months to save his company… The sixty-nine-year-old CEO had always seen himself as the good guy of American capitalism, believing that his own wealth and Starbucks’s rise to become one of the most ubiquitous brands on the planet was a direct outgrowth of the company’s concern for its workers and their well-being. Only now all of that was being challenged. Across America, workers who had labored through a once-in-a-century pandemic were concluding that they deserved better and were quitting or demanding more from their bosses, or in the case of some Starbucks workers, unionizing… On picket lines outside the stores, pro-union workers were slamming Schultz as a greedy, out-of-touch billionaire with a $130 million yacht. The NLRB [accused] Starbucks in court filings of carrying out a ‘virulent, widespread and well-orchestrated’ anti-union campaign that relied on firings, threat and surveillance… To Schultz, the unionization drive felt like an attack on his life’s work.”
Julius Meinl On Southport Closes After Two Decades
The Southport Avenue location of the traditional Vienna coffee roaster was the first Julius Meinl to open in the United States, reports Block Club, and closed at the end of September.
West Loop’s Coquette Sets Opening
Coquette, Bonhomme Hospitality’s pink, Parisian, modern French bistro in the West Loop, opens Tuesday, October 18. “Coquette embraces the liberating energy of the French New Wave and welcomes fun, flirtatiousness and the joy of breaking rules to create an elevated setting where forty guests can enjoy a Parisian party filled with French flavors, bubbles, spirits and music,” the group relays. “Bonhomme’s award-winning culinary and beverage team offers world-class cocktails, audacious natural wines and cooking done exclusively on charcoal and wood. Designed by Maison Bonhomme, Coquette pays tribute to the style of Mondrian, YSL, Godard and Bauhaus, using bold colors and simple geometric shapes to express a postmodern aesthetic sensibility. Vibrant interiors fashioned with curvaceous furnishings wrapped in soft textures and a palette of pinks and lavenders offer a distinct vision for what a modern French bistro could be.” More here.
MEDIA
Tracy Swartz Leaves Tribune After Fifteen Years
Tribune education reporter Tracy Swartz is making a move: “After fifteen years, today is my last day at the Chicago Tribune,” she tweets. “It’s been an honor to work the CPS, A&E and CTA beats in my time at the Trib + RedEye. I’m thrilled to start my new job Monday as an associate editor/writer of features/entertainment news at the New York Post. I’ll be remote from Chicago.”
Could The Sun-Times Be A Model For Further Nonprofit News Collaborations?
“A free Sun-Times—particularly one that, with a little public radio DNA, could create an interesting mix of tabloid energy and broadsheet gravitas—should probably put a little worry in the Tribune’s hedge fund owners, if only because a free direct alternative offers readers an excuse to stop paying for the Trib, which currently sells its digital subs at $17.33 a month,” writes Joshua Benton at NiemanLab. “The Sun-Times lists ninety-seven people in its newsroom, which, while a fraction of early metro-paper glory, is still substantial enough to make some noise journalistically. Most importantly, a successful public media-owned Sun-Times could be that rarest of things in local media circa 2022: a replicable business model. Just about every American metro area of any size has a public radio and/or public TV station.”
Gannett Takes Over Printing Fees For Propaganda Fake Newspapers
“Newspaper giant Gannett is now printing Dan Proft’s controversial faux newspapers,” reports Crain’s. Weeks after being dumped by Paddock Publications, “The papers that started a political standoff in Illinois are now being printed by the nation’s biggest newspaper chain.”
MUSIC
Chicago Philharmonic Seeks Development Director
The Chicago Philharmonic has invited applications and nominations for Director of Development, available this fall. “The Director of Development plans and executes a comprehensive development program to ensure that the Chicago Philharmonic achieves its annual and long-term goals for contributed income from individual donors. The Director of Development ensures that the highest standards of professionalism and excellence are maintained in the execution of all Chicago Philharmonic development activities.” More details here.
Ye’s Antisemitic Tweet
A few hours after congratulations were tweeted from Elon Musk for a return to the website, Ye (born Kanye West) posted a shard of manifesto [all sic]: “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda”[.] Twitter removed the tweet several hours later: “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules.” A noted journalist who covers rightwing extremism deleted a pointed response tweet that included the reflection, “Even if this is illness speaking, it will be more influential on behalf of fascist antisemitism than anything most of us will ever say; it is in the air, in the water.” University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck: “A lot of folks are probably reacting to Kanye with a shrug—it’s just Kanye; it’s not like he’s in a position to act on his anti-Semitism; etc. Don’t. His behavior isn’t harmless. Normalizing hate moves the Overton window on what’s acceptable for people under far less scrutiny.” Twenty-five-year federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance: “Kanye West has more than [thirty-one] million followers. He threatened to go “death con 3″ on Jewish people. I don’t hear his GOP supporters coming out to condemn this. Instead, Jewish people are being told to get over it because he isn’t serious.” Ye has also posted a picture with Mark Zuckerberg about being barred from Instagram: “Look at this Mark… How you gone kick me off instagram… You used to be my —–”
Remembering Music Maven Sergio Mims
Sergio Mims, sixty-seven, memorialized at the end of last week for his passion for film, had a parallel life in the classical music sphere, about which his neighborhood paper, the Hyde Park Herald, sounds notes: Sergio was also a classical music obsessive; longtime friend Keith Boseman “estimated that he had 4,000 classical music CDs, and his WHPK show, ‘Stuff From My Collection,’ consisted of selections from only that. He loved the German mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig and a number of conductors like Georg Solti, the longtime music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and twentieth century master Herbert von Karajan. He traveled internationally and across the country annually to hear orchestras and check in with friends who were musicians and conductors.” Sergio began “his collection at age ten from classical records bought at the local A&P after his father gave him a recording of Arthur Sullivan and W.S. Gilbert’s comic opera ‘The Mikado.’ ‘Why classical music? I don’t know, that’s sort of an eternal question. It’s just something that spoke to me; I just gravitated towards it more than any other music.’ Boseman called him ‘a renaissance man beyond compare… Everybody goes, ‘Well, he’s a scholar of Black cinema.’ Yes, yes, he’s a scholar of Black cinema. But that just touches the surface of this guy.'”
STAGE
Eclipse Joins Theater Company Exodus
Eclipse Theatre Company is “closing after twenty-eight seasons as a stalwart of the non-Equity scene,” reports Kerry Reid at the Reader. “Founded in 1992, the company originally focused on new work… and featuring actors (mostly graduates from DePaul’s Theatre School) known as ‘the Dog Boys.’ … But beginning in 1997, the company shifted its mission to mirror that of New York’s Signature Theatre, which focuses on one playwright for an entire season (both older and newer works). The first playwright presented under the new model was French surrealist Jean Cocteau; the last was contemporary American writer Christopher Durang.” Longtime Eclipse ensemble member Steve Scott, who was also a thirty-seven-year producer at the Goodman, says it was hard to continue even before the start of the pandemic. “You know, these companies have lots of really young people who want to become part of the company. And as those young people age and get lives, they decide that they don’t necessarily want to work for nothing. It was getting harder to keep a core company together. We were starting to have some issues” but the pandemic “was such a hard time for so many of the company members. They really couldn’t focus on doing anything with Eclipse. I mean, we proposed several online projects, but people were too busy trying to live, you know?”
ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.
Governor Announces $119 Million Investment In Western Illinois University
Governor Pritzker has announced a $119 million investment for the construction of a Center for Performing Arts at Western Illinois University, with funding from the bipartisan Rebuild Illinois capital plan. The Center for Performing Arts will support the academic mission and programs in the WIU College of Fine Arts and Communication and serve as a cultural and performing arts destination for the campus community, the City of Macomb and the entire western Illinois region. “For nearly fifty years, Western Illinois waited for state government to fund a new facility, while unmet opportunities piled up and potential innovation fell by the wayside,” said Governor Pritzker. “Today, I am proud to announce an investment of $119 million for a new, best-in-class Center for Performing Arts here at Western Illinois University. It’s projects like these that prove Illinois is no longer defined by its fiscal woes, but by its determination to invest in its people. That’s what has always made this the greatest state in the nation: our people. And Western Illinois University is on the forefront of our renaissance as a state.”
NorthShore Disbands Auxiliary
A charity ends, reported by the Evanston RoundTable: “The Auxiliary and NorthShore Foundation leadership came to the difficult decision that this will be the last American Craft Exhibition show sponsored by NorthShore, given the rapidly changing healthcare landscape, volunteer sector and artist community, all amid the continually complex and demanding times in our world. We are grateful for the thirty-eight years of the incredible talent of ACE artists and ACE’s philanthropic impact. We look forward to continuing to work with volunteers and event partners in other capacities, including through NorthShore’s Community Partner activities.” “The news was sent to participating artists in an email five weeks before the American Craft Exhibition would take place at the Chicago Botanic Garden… ‘After much discussion, it was announced last week that the difficult decision was reached to formally sunset The Auxiliary and its associated activities, including ACE as a NorthShore-sponsored event, effective as of January 1, 2023.'”
Hindman To Auction Mike Ditka Stuff
At the age of eighty-three, Mike Ditka is letting go of some things. Hindman will present The Mike Ditka Collection on October 24, featuring property from Ditka’s Restaurant, which closed in 2020 after twenty-three years on Chestnut Street. “It’s been a privilege to work with the Ditka family to present this distinctly Chicago collection at auction,” Hindman director and senior specialist for sports memorabilia James Smith says. Along with collectible material from the walls of the restaurant, the auction will feature items from Ditka’s personal collection that were displayed at the restaurant, including The Coach’s jersey retirement presentation, the game ball presented to Ditka after the Bears’ Super Bowl XX victory, along with trophies he was awarded. More here.
Remembering Trans Activist Mama Gloria
“Family and friends honored Mama Gloria Allen, on what would have been her seventy-seventh birthday, at the Center on Halsted, where Allen, a Black transgender woman, ran a charm school to teach youth life skills and to be proud of who they are,” reports the Sun-Times.
Chicago LGBT Hall Of Fame Names 2022 Inductees
The Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame was founded in 1991 to honor Chicago’s people and entities, nominated by the community, who have made significant contributions to the quality of life or well-being of the LGBT community and the city of Chicago. The Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame inductees for 2022 were selected from a slate of candidates submitted by Chicago’s LGBT community. Eight individuals, three organizations and three “Friend of the Community” inductees were chosen. The individual inductees are Rick Aguilar, a professional photographer recognized for documenting the LGBT community for over thirty years; Zahara Monique Bassett, an activist and longtime advocate for transgender and HIV rights, social justice, health equity, and LGBT equality; Dr. Maya Green, who helped establish clinics that serve LGBTQ individuals on the South and West Sides of Chicago; Matthew Harvat, DJ, producer, and performance artist, known professionally as CircuitMOM, for over thirty years of bringing Broadway-style production numbers, DJ sets and event decorations to charity and fundraising work; Paul Highfield, for volunteering and fundraising for more than thirty years; T.L. Noble, design, talent booker, and promotional maven for the 1970s disco, Dugan’s Bistro; Joey Soloway, television and stage writer, director, and producer and LGBTQ activist who honed their craft at Annoyance Theatre and created the Amazon series “Transparent”; Dan Wolf, inducted posthumously, the owner of the Bagel Restaurant on Broadway, who worked tirelessly to support the LGBT community during the AIDS epidemic and for decades following. Those inducted as allies, or “Friends of the Community” include the posthumous induction of Patricia “Patty the Pin Lady” Latham, who sold ribbons and pins to generate funds for the LGBT community for Open Hand and later Vital Bridges, donating more than $80,000 over her decades of work; The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, for advocating for LGBTQ rights and the inclusion of LGBTQ history in classrooms, museums and places of public memory; and Season of Concern Chicago, the theater community’s fundraising and support organization. LGBT organizations include Windy City Performing Arts, which originated in 1979 with the formation of the Windy City Gay Chorus; Outspoken, a monthly LGBTQ+ storytelling showcase; and Homocore Chicago, a concert promotion organization founded in 1992 that for eight years provided queer, or all-girl punk bands, a safe place to perform and raised funds for LGBT community groups. This year’s Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame induction ceremony, open to the public, will be October 11, 6pm, at The Chicago History Museum. The Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame is supported and maintained by the Friends of the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame, a 501c3 not-for-profit organization, with approval from the City of Chicago. The Hall of Fame has no physical facility but maintains its website here.
