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ART
Barbara Rossi Remembered In Artforum
“Barbara Rossi, a former Catholic nun whose passion for painting led her to join the amorphous, irreverent group of artists who rose to prominence in the late 1960s and seventies as the Chicago Imagists, has died at eighty-three,” writes Artforum. “Rossi is best known for painstaking compositions whose sensual, interpenetrating forms whimsically straddle figuration and abstraction, grotesquerie and grace. Her work was as inspired by her religious background as it was by the commercial and street culture that stimulated her fellow Imagists. As critic James Yood once wrote in these pages, ‘Of all the Chicago Imagists, Barbara Rossi has most consistently achieved an equipoise between a mania for technique and a commitment to iconography with profound spiritual implications.'”
Errant Installation At Andrew Rafacz; Gallery Closes To Rebuild
A huge black pick-up truck made its way into Andrew Rafacz’s West Town Gallery on Sunday morning, as the gallery owner pictured on his Instagram. “Five planets were retrograde: Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Neptune and Pluto. The cosmic turbulence of late summer was too much to contain the apocalyptic power of Roxanne Jackson’s ceramic sculptures,” Rafacz writes. On 2:44am Sunday morning, the truck “made a shocking sharp left turn into the gallery’s front window, smashing ceramic vessels, cakes and cockatoos to smithereens. The driver was soon a shadowy figure, fleeing the accident and disappearing into the humid night, leaving behind an uncanny crime scene of ceramic shards and rubble. An active investigation is ongoing… Our current exhibitions are now closed, and we are temporarily suspending our programming as we rebuild and regroup.”
Wisconsin Museum Director Accused Of Embezzling From Students With Special Needs
“Investigators in Racine County said that Heather Wenthold, who had just been named the leader of the Cedarburg Art Museum in January, allegedly embezzled $100,000 from Sonnenberg Consultants, which runs three schools [for students with special needs] across Wisconsin,” reports ARTnews. “She had allegedly deleted thousands of emails, [gave] herself bonuses and paid herself certain amounts without permission, and of having billed the schools for a $5,000 fee that was used to fund the creation of a hot tub for herself. Wenthold also allegedly used funds from the school to support vacations [and] home renovations.”
DESIGN
Thompson Center Redevelopment Could Be Done In 2026
“Google will now occupy most of the 308-foot tall structure’s nearly 1.2 million square feet of space,” relays Chicago YIMBY. “The redevelopment itself is being designed by JAHN Architects, Helmut Jahn’s firm, who call for an updated skin for the building as well as a new enclosure for the office floors facing the inner atrium to allow it to be open to the elements… The developer has also claimed the new office space will open a year later than the pre-Google plans called for, with an anticipated completion sometime in 2026.”
Number Of Reduced Fare Transit Card Users Dropping
“Eligible Chicago-area seniors and people with disabilities have been able to apply for permits to either ride transit for free or at reduced fares,” reports the Tribune. “But the number of free and reduced-fare transit passholders in the Chicago area dropped sharply in 2022, falling by about twenty-three percent from the prior year.” The year 2022 was the first since the start of the pandemic “that cardholders were asked to renew their passes. And many of the seniors and people with disabilities who once used the permits had either died or seemingly chose not to come back to transit.”
Downtown Residents: No, No NASCAR
“NASCAR’s first Chicago street race ought to be its last, according to a survey of downtown residents,” reports Crain’s. “The online poll was conducted for Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, whose ward includes the central business district… Reilly, in an email to his constituents, said he will rely on the results as well as the findings of an upcoming economic impact study in deciding whether to continue or cancel the NASCAR event next year.”
Amazon West Humboldt Center Stocks Stuff “People Want And Need In A Hurry”
By “Black Friday,” 350 people should be working at a new fast-response Amazon delivery warehouse, reports the Sun-Times. Four-to-eight-hour delivery is planned. The West Humboldt Park site “is designed to receive, store and ship common household items that company algorithms know people want quickly. Think of it as Chicago’s repository for urgent orders of diapers, dog food, laundry detergent and toothbrushes… The building goes by the name SIL4. In Amazon-speak, the S stands for sub-same-day delivery. IL is for Illinois, and 4 means it’s the fourth rapid-response center in the state, the others in Skokie, West Chicago and Country Club Hills.”
Gentrification Could Displace Historic Black Evanston
“Museums that focus on racial violence and antisemitism have begun using holograms, artificial intelligence and virtual reality to allow visitors to have simulated ‘conversations’ with Holocaust survivors and hear the words of enslaved people,” reports Axios. “The use of technology such as generative AI to create immersive displays is aimed at fighting bigotry—and comes amid rising concern that AI also can fuel racism by amplifying bias from human-generated content on the internet. The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center in Skokie and The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration in Montgomery, Alabama, are among the institutions aggressively deploying new technology to vividly tell harrowing aspects of history.”
Like Uber, But For AI: AI Requires “Ghost Workers” Across Global South
“AI is often regarded as autonomous. But even the most advanced AI models rely on data that is labeled and validated by a largely unregulated, exploited global workforce,” reports the Washington Post, “an army of overseas workers in ‘digital sweatshops’… More than two million people in the Philippines perform this type of ‘crowdwork.'” AI “relies on the labor-intensive efforts of a workforce spread across much of the Global South and often subject to exploitation… ‘A total absence of standards.'”
Ozempic-Wegovy Cash Rush Transforms Denmark
“Novo Nordisk, the Danish company behind two popular obesity medications, is reaping huge profits and is now responsible for most of Denmark’s economic growth,” reports the New York Times. “Novo Nordisk’s market value has exceeded the size of the Danish economy. Its soaring share price has made it the second most valuable public company in Europe, after the luxury goods group LVMH… There are broad benefits for the Danish population. Novo Nordisk is the biggest contributor of corporation tax in Denmark, a boon for the country’s public finances. And the company is expected to only grow… More than a hundred million American adults are obese.”
America’s Groundwater Troubled
“Overuse is draining and damaging aquifers nationwide, a New York Times data investigation revealed,” the New York Times features in an interactive report. “A wealth of underground water helped create America, its vast cities and bountiful farmland. Now, Americans are squandering that inheritance.”
DINING & DRINKING
Reza’s Closes Forty-Year Andersonville Location
After forty years in Andersonville, Reza’s posts on Facebook, their original location has closed “to make way for a new venture.” The Oak Brook and Evanston locations remain open, as does their catering business. (The original site had multiple recent problems, reports Block Club.)
Ninety-Two-Unit Apartment Building Planned For Site Of Holiday Club
“A Public Notice has appeared in a window of the vintage building at Sheridan and Irving.” The building, reports Uptown Update, “home to Holiday Club, will be replaced with a seven-story, ninety-two-unit development with thirty-six parking spaces by Catapult Real Estate Solutions.”
Wirtz Family Stays In Control At Breakthru Beverages
“Danny Wirtz is succeeding his late father as co-chairman of Breakthru Beverage Group, the liquor distributorship [one of the nation’s largest], in which the Wirtz family has a major ownership stake,” reports Crain’s. “Danny’s sister, Hillary Wirtz, also is joining the Breakthru Beverage board.”
Liquor My Eggo! Brunch In A Jar A “Boozy, Diabolical Disaster”
“A boozy, diabolical disaster,” reports the Washington Post. Eggo’s “Brunch in a Jar” drink, a boozy (twenty percent ABV) invention, seems “designed to impart all the tastes you might find on a combination platter at your local diner—’toasted Eggo waffles, sweet maple syrup and rich butter, with a hint of smoky bacon’…— in a single glass. The drink is the product of a collaboration with Tennessee-based Sugarlands Distilling, whose rum-infused Appalachian Sippin’ Cream forms the base of the Eggo drink.” Kellogg’s release: “Eggo Brunch in a Jar makes it easy for parents to kick back when they’re not caring for their little ones.”
Why We Use Starbucks’ Coffee Nomenclature
A marketing professor lays out the history of Starbucks and its predecessors and their ordering regimen introduced by Howard Schultz when he came to the company, modeled after Italian coffeehouses for CNN.
FILM & TELEVISION
Let A Thousand Pickets Bloom
Yet another organizing effort borne of the strike against the studios by writers and actors, reports Variety: Disney Pictures VFX workers are seeking representation. This is the second time “that VFX professionals have joined together to demand the same protections and rights as their colleagues… VFX crews at Marvel Studios voted to unionize beginning August 21.”
Striking Actors Boost Local Biz Cameo
“Over 2,400 celebrities flocked to Cameo amid the SAG-AFTRA strike,” reports Insider. “It’s the largest boost to the platform since the lockdowns in 2020. Stars joining the platform include Screen Actors Guild president Fran Drescher and actress Alyssa Milano.” During the early days of the pandemic, “the company had raised $100 million in funding at a valuation of $1 billion… Despite the recent influx of celebrities, Cameo has grappled with layoffs, axing eighty of its workforce in July and leaving the company with less than fifty employees.”
National Cinema Day Draws 8.5 Million Admissions; “Barbie” Gets Last Boost
“The whole gist behind National Cinema Day last year was to drive people to movie theaters in order to shake off their COVID jitters and to drive attendance to movie houses when there was no product in them,” reports Deadline. “This year was different: There were a lot of tentpoles with Warner Bros.’ sixth weekend of ‘Barbie’… warring with Sony’s first wide weekend of ‘Gran Turismo’… On the distribution side, there are some skeptics as to whether we needed National Cinema Day this year. Exhibition, [which] didn’t hold back online ticket booking fees, begs to differ.”
Gabe Klinger Film Project To Market
Chicago filmmaker Gabe Klinger [Newcity Film 50] is looking to finish the financing for a film set in his birthplace of São Paulo, Brazil, a press release in Variety relays. A stylized coming-of-age piece, “Okonomiyaki,” with key crew and co-production in place, could start shooting by the middle of next year.
LIT
Rumpus Names Aram Mrjoian New Editor-In-Chief
The Rumpus’ new editor-in-chief is Aram Mrjoian, who was associate fiction editor, and a Creative Armenia-AGBU Fellow. Mrjoian has been an editor at TriQuarterly, the Southeast Review and the Chicago Review of Books. He has also contributed fiction, essays and interviews to The Rumpus and is the editor of the anthology “We Are All Armenian: Voices from the Diaspora” published by the University of Texas Press. Aram earned his doctorate in creative writing from Florida State University and his Master of Fine Art in creative writing from Northwestern University. More here.
Chaos In Katy, Texas Over “Itty-Bitty Kitty Korn”
“Katy Independent School District has frozen purchases of new library books and will place incoming books in storage,” reports the Houston Chronicle. “Katy ISD has been mired in controversy over removing or limiting access to books at schools. Last year, the board adopted a policy requiring parents’ permission for students to check out classroom library books. The district’s three newest board members, elected in May, cited the removal of ‘sexually explicit’ materials as top priorities during their campaigns.” “Katy ISD mom” Anne Russey posts on Twitter the book that started the salvo: “Itty-Bitty Kitty Korn,” writing that a trustee “claims that while the book is not ‘sexually explicit,’ it does contain ‘pronoun terminology’ and content that parents find ‘sexually suggestive’ and ‘inappropriate’… If the proposed ‘gender policy’ is adopted by the board… it is reasonable to expect the board will move to ban books like ‘Itty Bitty Kitty Korn,’ that they believe violate the ‘gender fluidity materials’ portion of their policy.” (In the picture book, a group of individuals is referred to as “they.”)
MEDIA
ABC 7 Sports Director Jim Rose Retires
WLS-Channel 7’s seventy-year-old “sports director and anchor Jim Rose announced on Monday’s 5pm newscast that he plans to retire next month after forty-one years at the station,” reports the Trib.
STAGE
Columbus Stages At Risk Of Going Dark?
The heads of the Contemporary Theatre of Ohio are concerned about the state of theater in their city, as they write at the Columbus Dispatch. “Now is the time to act to ensure theater and the performing arts stay at the center of our community’s revitalization and growth.”
ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.
Old Man River: Wendella’s Bob Borgstrom Was Eighty-Nine
“Robert Borgstrom spent most of his life on the Chicago River as owner and one of the captains of the Wendella sightseeing boats,” reports the Tribune. “He took the last of his thousands of trips on that river on June 2, 2020, and as he stood on the deck of the fleet’s newest boat and watched the city pass by, he said, ‘Fifty, sixty years ago, this was an ugly, filthy river and twenty years ago it wasn’t much better. I would sometimes find dead bodies floating around. But look, now the river’s clean and the banks are alive with trees, small parks and restaurants. That’s all helped me appreciate it more.'”
Tempel Lipizzans End Sixty-Five-Year Run
The Tempel Lipizzans program is ending, the program director announcing the closing “with pride and great sorrow,” reports the Sun-Times. “For sixty-five years and three generations, promoting and preserving the Lipizzan breed and classical horsemanship has been a passion for our family, those who have worked closely with the horses, and community members near and far.”
Political Veteran Don Rose Remembers March On Washington
Don Rose, now ninety-two, remembers the March on Washington in a video (with transcript) from CBS 2. “Don, here we are sixty years later, how should we look at it?” “We’re about halfway where we should be. We’ve had moments of progress and we’ve had moments of regression.”
Univision Crew Robbed At Gunpoint At Damen And Division While Reporting On Robberies
“A reporter and photographer for Spanish-language TV station Univision Chicago were filming just before 5am in the 1200 block of North Milwaukee when three men wearing ski masks and brandishing firearms robbed them at gunpoint,” reports the Trib.
Suburban Wealth Brings Return Of Polo
“A good turnout for matches at the Oak Brook Polo Club, a hallowed institution staging contests for more than a century in the tony west suburb, involves a couple of thousand spectators. Considering that each rider owns at least a half-dozen horses, often valued at $100,000 and more each, the $15 price of admission hardly pays the freight,” reports Crain’s. “That’s why team owners… are rarely called owners. They are more often dubbed sponsors or patróns (pronounced in the Spanish way, with the accent on the second syllable), because even though polo is a for-profit sport, the goal isn’t to turn a profit but simply to limit the subsidies required from well-heeled supporters like [Oak Brook Polo Club president, business consultant James J. Drury] to finance operations.”
“‘The team at Oak Brook has never been a profit-making venture,’ Drury, eighty, chairman and CEO of James Drury Partners in Chicago, acknowledges. ‘Nobody sponsors polo to make money.'” The Chicago Polo Association has “eight local clubs and fourteen polo fields spread among suburbs such as Elgin, Barrington, Oswego and Yorkville. There are competitions most weeknights through the summer, as well as on Sundays in Oak Brook, which remains ground zero for metro-area polo.”
Airbnb Troubles In Los Angeles, New York City
“Los Angeles is not enforcing its law against illegal short-term rentals facilitated by Airbnb and other companies, according to a new report from an advocacy group,” reports Capital & Main. “Short-term rental companies are controversial in gentrifying cities because they take housing off the market when owners rent units to tourists instead of local tenants—… converting rental housing units into hotels. In New York City, where officials are considering enforcing its law restricting short-term rentals more aggressively, the city could convert an estimated 10,000 listings back into rental housing.”
Head Of National Realtors Quits After Allegations Of Sexual Harassment, “Climate Of Fear”
“The head of an influential American realtors group resigned after the New York Times reported on allegations of sexual harassment and a culture of fear at the organization,” reports Bloomberg. “Kenny Parcell, president of the National Association of Realtors, stepped down [from] the Chicago-based group, which controls access to home listings across the country.” The latest New York Times report is here: The fifty-year-old executive “exhibited a pattern of behavior that included improper touching and sending lewd photos and texts.” Says Parcell, “I am deeply troubled by those looking to tarnish my character and mischaracterize my well-intended actions.”
Exxon Mobil Says No Way The World Will Meet Climate Targets
“Oil giant expects global emissions to fall twenty-six percent by 2050, short of U.N. goal,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “Exxon Mobil says the global effort to curtail greenhouse-gas emissions isn’t on track to keep the planet’s temperature from rising beyond an increase of two degrees Celsius by 2050.”
Missouri Health Scrubs LGBTQ Youth Resources From Website
“As Missouri lawmakers were considering the most anti-LGBTQ bills of any state, the state health department quietly scrubbed youth sexual health and LGBTQ resources from its website,” reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “The spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, emailed the agency’s website team in late January directing the removal of links from the website’s adolescent and teen health information page.”
Allina Health Will No Longer Cut Care To Indebted Patients
“Allina Health, a large Midwestern system of hospitals and clinics based in Minneapolis, says it has decided to stop cutting off medical care to patients with unpaid medical bills of $4,500 or more,” reports the New York Times. “Although Allina’s hospitals treated anyone in emergency rooms, other services were cut off for indebted patients, including children and those with chronic illnesses like diabetes and depression… Patients weren’t allowed back until they had paid off their debt entirely… Allina issued its policy change less than a week after Keith Ellison, the attorney general of Minnesota, announced that his office was investigating Allina’s practice of withholding care.”
