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ART
MCA Announces “Faith Ringgold: American People”
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago has announced “Faith Ringgold: American People,” a career-spanning survey of artist Faith Ringgold in the Griffin Galleries of Contemporary Art from November 18-February 25, 2024. This exhibition will be Ringgold’s first solo presentation in Chicago. “With a career that spans six decades, artist, author, educator and organizer Ringgold is one of the most influential cultural figures of her generation. This major retrospective presents a comprehensive assessment of the artist’s impactful vision, which bears witness to the complexity of the American experience.”
The exhibition “will showcase many of her best-known pieces, including paintings, quilts, and sculptures, as well as archival materials from her activist work in the late 1960s and 1970s. It will examine Ringgold’s art as it evolved in response to politics and society, including the artist’s indelible works of the civil rights era, her radical explorations of gender and racial identity, and her focus on collective struggles for social justice and equity.” More here.
DESIGN
Proposal To “Firewall” Gentrification From Obama Center
South Side alderperson Desmon Yancy “has introduced a sweeping ordinance to help residents worried about being priced out of their neighborhoods because of the Obama Presidential Center’s development in Jackson Park,” reports the Sun-Times. Although the group drafting the proposal “believe the presidential center, scheduled to open in 2025, will usher in investments to the South Side, they have concerns that it will lead to increased home prices and rents that long-term residents will find unaffordable.”
Evanston’s Mexican Shop In Fifty-Sixth Year
“Tiny silver earrings. Treasures in takeout food bags. The groundhog-like spring hiatus,” writes Claire Zulkey at Evanston RoundTable in a history of an iconic establishment. “The Mexican Shop has been an iconic Evanston destination for generations of shoppers since it opened in 1967. Its devoted hometown support has kept this defiantly independent shop open through illness, death, pandemic and even the gaucho pant revival.”
Royal George Redevelopment Plan Approved
“The Royal George Theatre will be redeveloped into a nine-story apartment building after City Council approved the plan,” reports Block Club. “Developers Draper & Kramer plan to tear down the closed theater at 1641 North Halsted” and construct the building with ground-floor retail. “The Royal George Theatre was a staple in Chicago’s theater scene, but never reopened after its pandemic-related closure in 2020.”
Solar Farm Near Frankfort Canceled After Concerns Over Home Values
“A Chicago company that proposed a solar power plant near Frankfort has withdrawn its application after residents expressed concerns about potential pollution and affect on their property values,” reports the Daily Southtown. “Some older residents said they were unsure of the technology and worried about the potential for chemicals leaching into the ground… noting residents in the area rely on wells for their water.”
How Decatur Became The “Playground” Of Multibillionaire Warren Buffett’s Son
“Howard Buffett, sixty-eight, is the second child of Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world,” reports the Lever in a detailed 5,000-plus-word report. Raised in Omaha, “the younger Buffett came to Decatur in the early nineties to work as an executive for Archer Daniels Midland… Since then, using his father’s money, Buffett has pushed Decatur toward his preferred version of reality… Over the last few decades the Howard G. Buffett Foundation has spent over $200 million in a shrinking city of 70,000 people.”
Sterling Bay Puts Another Building Near Lincoln Yards Up For Sale
“A month after selling a property near Lincoln Yards, Sterling Bay has put another one on the market along the edge of its stalled North Side megaproject,” reports Danny Ecker at Crain’s. “The Chicago developer has hired brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle to sell a vacant 23,677-square-foot industrial building at 1860 North Elston… across the street from the western edge of Sterling Bay’s planned $6 billion Lincoln Yards mixed-use campus.”
DINING & DRINKING
Loaf Lounge Duo Are Plate’s Chefs To Watch
Plate magazine selected Ben Lustbader and Sarah Mispagel-Lustbader of Loaf Lounge as their 2023 Chefs To Watch in its September-October issue. The pair share their story at the link. (Here’s the recipe for their fig mostarda.)
Cooking For People And Making Them Happy: “The Bear” Brings Gustatory Tourism To Town
“One Off Hospitality’s Avec and Publican Quality Meats have seen an influx of out-of-town diners this summer, hosting people from throughout the Midwest,” reports Crain’s. “But there have also been diners from farther-flung locales—like the group of Disney executives that hit multiple restaurants, and the influencers that flew in from Los Angeles, Poland, London and Amsterdam. Why the international intrigue? Those restaurants—Publican in Fulton Market and Avec’s River North and West Loop locations—were featured in Season Two of ‘The Bear.’ The show, which follows a fictional Michelin-starred chef as he tries to turn around his family’s dilapidated Italian beef stand, is pushing tourists to sample fare from all swaths of the city’s restaurant scene.”
Axios: Food To Try Between Gambling Sessions
On visits to the River North Bally’s Casino, Monica Eng found the Medinah Bistro “from the folks who operate the Publican” closed for three days, so she sampled Asian 888 Kitchen. “The food is terrific. Taiwanese beef noodles soup ($24) features luscious chunks of beef shank and tendon with bok choy and noodles in a rich anise-scented broth. Hot garlic green beans ($18) offer bold flavor and nice blistering. Crisp Vietnamese spring rolls ($14) and the sticky wok fried wings ($18) can make you forget all that money you lost at the roulette table.”
Lincoln Park’s Bourgeois Pig Reveal-Conceals Gatsby “Speakeasy”
“The Gatsby, the Bourgeois Pig’s covert second-floor bar, will require a password to get in,” reports Eater Chicago. The owners of the “thirty-year-old coffee house serving DePaul University students, visitors from nearby hostels, and the workers at Children’s Memorial Hospital before the hospital’s departure—have converted their upstairs space into the Gatsby, a swanky new cocktail bar that gives locals new second-floor perspective in the middle of an area filled with sports bars at Lincoln, Fullerton, and Halsted… Patrons will enter through a swinging bookshelf that reveals a metal door with a sliding peephole. Visitors will need a password and reservations.”
How COVID Changed American Drinking
“From the rise of the canned cocktail to the death of the downtown happy hour to how a cork shortage in Portugal might affect what you drink, the lingering effects of the global pandemic have shown up in some interesting ways,” writes Fast Company.
Starbucks Says It Wants To Eliminate Disposable Cups Within Seven Years
“By 2030, Starbucks wants to move away from disposable cups, which represent big portions of the company’s overall waste and greenhouse gas emissions,” reports AP. “The stated reason is that it’s the right thing to do for the environment, and Starbucks has a history of lofty sustainability goals around various aspects of their global operations. Some have been met, such as new stores being certified for energy efficiency; others have been revised or scrapped entirely.”
FILM & TELEVISION
WGA And AMPTP May Resume Negotiations In Week Twenty-Two
With the writers’ strike in week twenty-one and the actors at two months, talks could resume, reports Elaine Low in the Strikegeist newsletter. The two entities have made statements that they’re prepared to talk again. The WGA “has called this moment ‘existential,’ arguing that the streaming era has deteriorated its members’ working conditions and compensation levels,” reports the New York Times. “Studios have defended their proposal as offering the highest wage increase to writers in more than three decades, while also offering protections against artificial intelligence and signaling a willingness to discuss staffing minimums in television writers’ rooms.”
Avers correspondent Brooks Barnes, “The financial toll on people across the entertainment industry has become increasingly grim. Showrunners like Ryan Murphy employ thousands of crew members across their productions, putting them in the position of being besieged by people who ask when they can get back to work and having no answers.”
Chat Hosts Who Were Planning To Break Strikes Back Down, Including Barrymore And Hudson; Even Bill Maher
“Drew Barrymore has announced she is pausing her talk show amid the writers strike.” Last week, the “Drew Barrymore Show” host announced that “her show would be returning without writers and would abide by strike rules in not discussing struck work. After widespread criticism and accusations of scabbing, Barrymore apologized on Sunday and said the show will return when the strike is over.” Following Barrymore’s example, “The Talk,” a CBS network show, has delayed its announced return, as has Jennifer Hudson. with her Warner Bros.-owned show. HBO’s Bill Maher joins the chorus: “I’m going to delay the return of ‘Real Time,’ for now, and hope they can finally get this done.”
LIT
Local Librarians React To Plague Of Violent Threats
“As state leaders fight to protect access to books, Chicago-area libraries keep getting threats,” reports the Sun-Times. The recent run of bomb threats to Chicago libraries “came just several weeks after a different string of threats to other Chicago-area libraries, including the Oak Park Public Library and Wilmette Public Library. As the state’s librarian, Giannoulias said these attacks moved him to testify in Washington. ‘I can’t speak to why it’s happening here specifically. I will tell you that it’s a very troubling, disturbing, terrifying trend… At the same time I’m testifying as to why we should step up for our librarians, back home libraries are being forced to evacuate again because of these horrendous bomb threats. It’s gotta stop.'”
Schools In Katy, Texas Ban More Books
Katy Independent School District just banned fourteen more books, including a Dr. Seuss title, after putting nearly $100,000 worth of books in storage, reports the Houston Chronicle. “Katy ISD removed four books in 2022, eight in 2021 and four in the first seven months of 2023. This year the district expanded the terms under which a book could be pulled for review, adding ‘nudity’ in the definition of inappropriate material… Drew Daywalt’s ‘The Day the Crayons Quit’ was one of forty-four books flagged for review… that was later retained. An illustration depicts a beige crayon that has lost its wrapper, becoming ‘naked.'”
MUSIC
Questions Over CSO’s Fired Violist
Chicago Symphony Orchestra violist Bea (Beatrice) Chen was fired last week, reports Slipped Disc. She was fired, the site says, “for disciplinary reasons.” She “applied to the CSO for a week’s leave from the Ravinia Festival… to play a concert in Taiwan. Her request was turned down. She then called in injured with a doctor’s note. Later she was pictured on social media on August 22 playing Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante in Taiwan with her father, Robert Chen, who is concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.”
World Music Festival Chicago Returns
From September 22–October 1, the World Music Fest will bring ten consecutive days of live, global music by artists from around the world to the citywide, multi-venue festival. This year’s event features more than thirty artists and ensembles representing twenty countries and regions of the world at eleven venues across Chicago. The free festival also celebrates eleven years of Ragamala, the largest all-night presentation of live Indian classical music in the United States, hosted at the Chicago Cultural Center (September 29-30). The Global Peace Picnic returns September 30, featuring six Latine dance companies and three global bands performing across two stages at the Humboldt Park Boathouse. All World Music Festival Chicago concerts are free; reservations for music venues are encouraged. RSVP here.
STAGE
“Sugar Hill: The Ellington/Strayhorn Nutcracker” Will World-Premiere At Auditorium
The world premiere of “Sugar Hill: The Ellington/Strayhorn Nutcracker,” the jazz reimagining of “The Nutcracker” based on the collaboration of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, will play Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre, December 19-30. Set to the music of Ellington and Strayhorn, “Sugar Hill” features a libretto and concept by Jessica Swan and will be directed by Emmy Award winner and Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics nominee Joshua Bergasse, with choreography by Jade Hale-Christofi. Tickets and more here.
The Russian Theater Siege
The stage in Russia is dying: “Theater has been one of the most outspoken art forms of the Russian cultural scene since the end of the Soviet era. State theaters in Russia are still heavily subsidized–as they were in Soviet times–and are correspondingly cautious about subject matter and language. But since the 1990s, independent theater has also flourished in many provincial cities, as well as in crowded black-box studios in Moscow and St. Petersburg,” reports The Conversation.
“New legislation and guidelines have banned the use of obscenity in literary texts, theater and cinema. They’ve also censored ‘blasphemy,’ forbidden the promotion of ‘non-traditional’ (a euphemism for LGBTQ+) family values to anyone under eighteen, outlawed any public expression of disrespect towards people or symbols representing the authorities and forbidden the representation of historical events unless these match ‘official’ narratives of the past… Since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia’s independent theater scene has been obliterated.”
ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.
Would Johnson’s Financial Transaction Tax Drive Derivatives Firms Out Of Chicago?
“Derivatives firms that collectively handle trillions of dollars a year in trades, greasing the wheels of global markets with everything from stock options to corn futures… have called Chicago home for decades—providing thousands of jobs within the city’s $75 billion finance industry,” reports Bloomberg (via Yahoo). “The firms’ commitment to the Windy City is being tested by some $800 million in taxes proposed by a new mayor.”
“One idea is a levy on financial transactions, which has alarmed companies already worried about a jump in crime that shows few signs of abating… While executives haven’t explicitly threatened to leave, in private conversations it’s clear they will consider quitting the city if crime remains an issue and the financial transaction tax passes.”
Checking Into The MGM Casino Hack
Industrial-scale gambling requires software, and software can be hacked: “At the Aria, Bellagio, and MGM Grand, evidence of the massive ransomware hack is everywhere, if you’re looking for it,” reports 404. “Las Vegas’ hottest new attraction is an interactive ransomware exhibit, currently playing out across every MGM property in the city. To experience what it’s like to gamble in hacked casinos, I got on [a flight] Saturday morning with the goal of figuring out not just how screwed up the casinos were, but also to witness the marvelous ability of the human species to adapt and cope with bizarre circumstances.”
“Last week, the ransomware gang ALPHV hacked Caesars and MGM, taking down multiple systems across the casino giants’ networks. Caesars folded quickly, and paid a $15 million ransom, helping return everything to normal for their customers. MGM, meanwhile, is refusing to pay, meaning that all sorts of things are broken at its fourteen hotels and casinos in Vegas, including the Bellagio, Aria, MGM Grand, NoMad and Mandalay Bay.”
“Two former commissioners from the Big Ten Conference top Crain’s latest ranking of Chicago’s Highest-Paid Nonprofit Leaders, which excludes university and hospital executives,” tallies Crain’s. “Former Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren, now CEO and president of the Chicago Bears, earned over $3.6 million in 2021… Five nonprofit leaders on the list earned more than $1 million in 2021. Field Museum President and CEO, Julian Siggers (No. 13), saw the greatest surge in pay—a whopping 220 percent increase from September 2020.”
Six new executives rose to the list: “Joanne Pike of the Alzheimer’s Association, Pamela Scholl of the Dr. Scholl Foundation, Lorraine Martin of the National Safety Council, Timothy Knight of the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, Gerard Donnelly of the Morton Arboretum and Chevy Humphrey of the Museum of Science & Industry.”
