This Saturday, Shades, Yale University’s youngest a cappella group, is performing at the University of Chicago International House. Shades’ repertoire draws on many different musical backgrounds, but its focus is on African-American music, particularly R&B, gospel, jazz, pop, and traditional music.  Having attended several Shades performances, I can attest to the true talent of the group. And normally I am a music snob. But their tone is rich, and their harmonies are tight.  And it doesn’t hurt that the group is incredibly good-looking across the board.  Some of the songs they’ve showcased have ranged from Mary J. Blige’s “Real Love” to a traditional Caribbean mineworker song (adapted from “Sweet Honey in the Rock”). The performance is free, but donations are encouraged.

Shades will perform at the International House at 8pm on Saturday, March 13th. Catch a video of their recent performance in San Diego here.

Chicago may be the third-largest city in America, but it seems to get passed over time after time when it comes to reality show locations. Ever since the eleventh season of the Real World vacated its Wicker Park loft in 2002, the only reality TV series set in Chicago was part of Top Chef’s 2008 season. (Unless I’m forgetting anything?) Now, though, it looks like reality television may be coming to the South Side, as the Southtown Star announces a casting agency is looking for “buff, hot, sexy, crazy, fun, outgoing” participants for a “Jersey Shore”-type series set in these parts.  No details yet about the show beyond that, but if you’ve got a colorful personality and nothing better to do, see the Star article for how to apply.

In last week’s issue I wrote about poet Charles Bernstein, who gave a reading on the University of Chicago’s campus on February 14.  Here is the interview that I did with Bernstein the previous day. Read the rest of this entry »

Bon Appetit magazine’s Restaurant Editor, Andrew Knowlton, includes Dat Donuts as one of the “Top 10 Best Places for Donuts” in the country.  Dat joins the ranks with Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery in Yountville, CA—a far cry from the South Side of Chicago, but arguably better as the “purists’” first choice.

A former Chicago Weekly writer and Features Editor like Katie Buitrago! All of us at the Weekly want to congratulate Katie on her excellent feature in the most recent Chicago Reader, “What sort of woman reads Playboy?” It’s about Peggy Wilkins, a forty-something Hyde Park resident and University of Chicago Library server technician, who has worked her way to the top of Playboy Magazine fandom. She’s even had to rent an second apartment above the one she shares with her boyfriend to store her exhaustive collection of magazines and posters. So what drives Wilkins’s passion? Read the article to find out!

One of the countless photos for sale: Patrolman Bill Edwards studies a map of Hyde Park, January 2, 1968 (Chicago Sun-Times)

A rummage sale is always a great way to make a few dollars while getting rid of all that clutter. The Chicago Sun-Times, which could certainly use a little extra cash, has decided to clean out its archives and put up thousands (yes, thousands) of original photographic prints up for sale on eBay. Starting at $9.99, the photos range from mundane to surreal, from humorous to beautiful.

During a graduate seminar at UIC in 2008, Joe Baldwin came up with an idea for a mobile garden attached to a CTA train that would travel around the city bringing a bit of green into all of our lives. On Saturday he announced on his website that the CTA has approved the project. No word yet on when the garden will appear. [via Hugh Bartling]

In this week’s issue, we had a piece on poet Rae Armantrout, who was in the area for a reading and talk last week. Here is the rest of the interview with Armantrout, as conducted by Weekly writer Daniel Benjamin over email; follow-up questions, conducted in person and lightly edited, are preceded by an asterisk.

You have written about this before, in interviews and in your memoir True, but I’m wondering if you could say something about how your upbringing, education, and poetic influences have figured into your poetry?

I was alone a lot when I was growing up. I was an only child and there was alcoholism in my family so I often wanted to stay out of the way. I think that has affected my work in a couple of ways. First, I tended to entertain myself by reading and writing. And then, of course, I was a lonely child. I think that original loneliness shows up in my poems. I often seem to be looking at things from a distance. I don’t know how confessional I want to get here. As I’ve said before, my mother was a fundamentalist. That means I was exposed to the Bible. When I was looking for reading material, it was always there in all its strangeness. On the other hand, my exposure to dogma made me ornery. Read the rest of this entry »

The Jibarito (jntolva/Flickr)

Dining Chicago has an article up on four incredible-sounding Chicago sandwiches that haven’t yet acquired the same status as the Chicago hot dog or Polish. You’ve got the jibarito, a Puerto Rican steak sandwich between two crispy fried plantains, and the big baby, a sort of double cheeseburger with a particular list of condiments and probably invented by a man unfortunate to have the name Nick Vaginas. Then you’ve got the Freddy, an Italian sausage sandwich created by Calabria Imports founder Benito Russo, and finally, the mother-in-law, which is a… well, you should just read the article. The last three have South Side origins, even the jibarito can be found outside its Humboldt Park birthplace at places like Desde Puerto Rico in South Chicago. Be sure to check out Fat Johnnie’s Famous Red Hots for the mother-in-law, and Nicky’s the Real McCoy for a big baby.

Do some good for Haitian disaster relief–and your sweet tooth–by checking out the charity bakesale held tomorrow from 2-6 pm at the Medici on 57th Bakery (1327 E 57th St.)  All proceeds are given directly to Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam, and goodies will be available from individual volunteers and pro bakeries from across the city, including Bleeding Heart Bakery, Jimmy Jamm Sweet Potato Pies, and Luscious Layers Bakery. More info, including the full list of participating bakeries and items (gluten-free goods should be available too), is here.

Courtesy of Golden Age

Golden Age, a Pilsen gallery and “concept shop” whose exhibitions we’ve covered before, is moving to the West Loop, according to an announcement posted on their website yesterday. In our October 2008 feature on galleries in West Pilsen, co-founder Marco Kane Braunschweiler spoke highly of the neighborhood around Golden Age. “Where there’s open storefronts [around here], those storefronts often turn into galleries,” he told us. “It seems likely that there’ll be a lot more art spaces.” Things are looking a bit different in Pilsen these days, with galleries moving out or closing right and left.

Golden Age’s last open day at its current location will be Sunday, January 24, and they expect to open at their new (undisclosed) location in the West Loop late next month.

Memphis garage-punk rocker Jay Reatard was found dead yesterday morning, cause unknown. When we covered him two years ago, before his show at Reggie’s Rock Club, he told us Chicago was his favorite place to play. Chicago will miss him today.

South of Roosevelt “resides an art community that is often invisible to the mainstream,” writes Andre Guichard in the first post on his new blog, Fine Art South of Roosevelt Road. As an artist and the director of Gallery Guichard in Bronzeville, Guichard is a tireless promoter of art of the African diaspora, and the blog promises to continue this work by introducing readers to more than one hundred artists and collectors south of Roosevelt. It will also include updates about art events and exhibitions.

Our indicted former governor Rod Blagojevich will be speaking and signing his new memoir, “The Governor,” at the University of Chicago Bookstore (Barnes & Noble) this week.

The signing will take place Tuesday, December 8, at 2pm.

From the Times’s review:

His publicist has described the book, published by Phoenix Books, as a “six-figure deal.” But in his writing, Mr. Blagojevich seems to have a specific message for the public, and perhaps more precisely, for those who might sit on his jury in a federal trial next year: He did nothing corrupt, though others have. He then lays out what he portrays as Chicago’s gritty, crass political rules, established long before him, in which power is traded for favors.

…

Ms. Aimen suggested that Mr. Blagojevich might struggle to keep his own legal team because of his desire to talk openly about the charges. “I think he must be a hard guy to handle,” she said.

For those who don’t remember his term, this quote from a press conference about sums it up: “It’s like the little boy with a pile of horse manure, I kept digging cheerfully in that and found a pony in there — the pony is free public transportation for all seniors in the state of Illinois.”

De Colores, a new restaurant, opened on Halsted on the edge of Pilsen just over a week ago. The menu is Mexican with an emphasis on fresh ingredients prepared from scratch. Our meal began with a smokey salsa that the chef had just worked out, and a citrusy tamarind agua fresca. The entrees came out complex, generously portioned, and deliciously rich.

The space also serves as a gallery, and our waiter told us that they were soliciting local music to replace the Massive Attack that was playing over their stereo.

De Colores will be offering free cooking lessons during the monthly Second Friday gallery crawls, starting this Friday at 8pm with salsa and homemade tortillas.

De Colores, 1626 S. Halsted St. Entrees $8-12. (312)226-9886‎.

The University of Chicago’s sizable Indian population has finally caught the eye of the supreme deity that is the Bollywood film industry.

Hitting theaters last month, “What’s Your Raashee?” stars Harman Baweja as Yogesh Patel, a Booth School student who studies by day and disc jockeys by night. Summoned home by his parents, where, like in almost all Bollywood movies, a marriage is forced upon him, Patel decides to meet exactly twelve girls—one from each sign of the zodiac. All are played by Priyanka Chopra in a deeply complicated undertaking of lengthy proportions.

While the film has received chilly reviews back in India, I, for one, am glad that some attention is finally being brought to the Booth School’s seedy underworld of wild DJs.

Check out this excerpt from the film of Patel break dancing in all his branded glory.

(Thanks to the University of Chicago Magazine, which tweeted this to our attention.)

Tickets are still available for Redmoon Theater’s final production of “Hunchback” tonight at 8 pm at the University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Chapel. The Chicago-based company’s production, based on the Victor Hugo novel “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” features puppetry, masking, and a towering set that has been designed specifically for the chapel, with a score composed by jazz artist Michael Zerang. Tickets are $20 at the door, $10 for students and seniors.

This year’s Chicago Humanities Festival, which begins today, is devoted to a topic everyone can relate to: laughter. The kick-off begins appropriately on the South Side (where the roots of improv grow deep).  Here’s the breakdown:

• Tim and Tom: A Comedy in Black and White will take place from 2-3pm today at the DuSable Museum of African American History at 740 East 56th Place. Tim Reid was a Dupont Marketing Manager, and Tom Dressen was an insurance salesman when they met in 1968.  They were at a Junior Chamber of Commerce meeting in Chicago and decided to form a comedy duo, Tim and Tom. Through the increasingly tumultuous ’60s, they were the first (and only) black and white comedy duo. Here, they’ll reflect on their time together through an exciting period in Chicago’s history.

• From 4:30-5:30 PM at the International House at 1414 East 59th Street, An Incomplete History of Comedy in Hyde Park will feature Anne Libera, executive artistic director of The Second City Training Centers, and Sheldon Patinkin, founding member of The Second City and chair emeritus of the Columbia College Chicago Theater Department as they take the audience through the history of Hyde Park’s role in comedy.Chicago comedy might bring up associations with the impov group Second City, but Hyde Park was actually a pivotal place for the development of improvisational comedy. Second City itself came out of a comedy group at the University of Chicago in the 1950s. The evolution and development of Second City included the Compass Players, with Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine, Wait Until Dark), Elaine May (Primary Colors, the Birdcage), and Mike Nichols (The Graduate, Charlie Wilson’s War), and has concluded with the current form of improv we see today.

Despite the cold weather, Shawn Michelle’s seemed to be doing good business yesterday when we saw (and sampled) their ice cream truck parked in Kimbark Plaza in Hyde Park. They were back today as well. We’ll try to confirm whether they’ll be in the same place every weekend and for how long into the season they’ll be around—hopefully they’re planning to come back when the weather’s warmer, because that ice cream is good.

Update, 10/14: The plan right now is to have the truck in Kimbark Plaza 2pm-10pm, Wednesday through Sunday, and they’ll be year-round. They also said they’re working on some things like hot fudge to warm up the winter months.

Just the name of the Great American Cheese Collection is probably all the information you need before you start wondering where to find it. In case you’re still not hooked, here’s a little more: The warehouse is dedicated to small production cheeses from all over the country, with more than 67 producers and over 300 different cheeses in all. Many, the website claims, are among the finest in the world, something that owner Giles Schnierle would love to prove to you. This brings me to the best part—the warehouse is open every Saturday from 9am-1pm for tasting and shopping.

Great American Cheese Collection, 4727 S. Talman Ave. Saturdays, 9am-1pm. (773)779-5055