Via General Economy Exquisite Exchange

At the entrance to G.E.E.E., a new exhibit at the Hyde Park Arts Center, a sign declares, “neighborly currency is the operative currency.” It’s true. G.E.E.E., or General Economy Exquisite Exchange, is all about things we share with neighbors. More than that, the exhibit questions what else we exchange when we buy or sell something.

G.E.E.E., which advertises itself as a “post-retail space,” is an exhibit that focuses on bartering. Visitors can take home any item so long as they leave another of equal value, or deposit sufficient cash into the provided piggy bank. If an item was donated to G.E.E.E., visitors are welcome to take it home for free. The exhibit operates on an honor system, though visitors are encouraged to record their exchanges in a logbook. At the end of each month, the exhibit’s curators make large charts on brown paper which show the exchanges made. Sometimes the visitors write little messages, such as “Happy Holidays!” in the logbook. These missives are dutifully copied to the charts as well.

The items featured at G.E.E.E. are supposed to be the types of things that you’d share with a neighbor–seeds, jam, cookbooks. Inside, the exhibit feels like the home of your artist neighbor. Whimsical art lines the walls, and a bookshelf is broken down into sections entitled “New Years Resolutions” and “Vegetarian and Healthy Cookbooks.” In August and September, a rooftop garden lets visitors pick their own black cherry tomatoes. In the winter, different plants, equally welcoming, bloom inside. Some of the larger plants are decorated with ornaments made from pomegranate slices. These ornaments recall the legend of Persephone and serve as a welcome reminder that after every cold and dormant season comes spring.

A placard at the entrance of the exhibit, near these plants, offers a quote from Marcel Mauss’s The Gift: “They exchange rather courtesies, entertainments, ritual, military assistance, women, children, dances, feasts.” Another sign, chalked by the exhibit’s curators, reads, “Trade with transparency, kindness, and <3.”   Overall, G.E.E.E. encourages us to reflect upon what we usually exchange when we buy our commodities, and the ways in which this experience could be different.

Welcome to the Chicago Weekly blog! As Chicago has transitioned into fall, we at the Chicago Weekly have been working on reviving and relaunching our blog, which as you may see has been inactive since a post about garbage trucks last January.

Within the next day or two, we will begin uploading new content, so stay tuned for South Side news, events, profiles, explorations, and musings, as well as updates to stories we’ve published in print that have since developed further. We’re really excited to share what we learn about the place we call home, and we hope you’ll join us as we do.

-The Chicago Weekly Staff

While the University of Chicago’s Festival of the Arts (FOTA) may be a whole winter away, the eponymous organization that coordinates the event strives to promote the arts year-round, which generally means hosting on campus events and shows. Tonight, however, in a collaborative effort with the UofC’s WHPK radio and Fire Escape Films, FOTA moves off campus with the SIGHT SOUND SPACE event.

SIGHT SOUND SPACE from Fire Escape Films on Vimeo.

The admission free multimedia showcase, which features 25 different performances ranging from dance to photography, will take place at the Little Black Pearl, a community art and design center located at 1060 East 47th Street in the Kenwood/Oakland neighborhood. The Little Black Pearl, which promotes arts and culture in the black community and the South Side as a whole, played host to FOTA’s first non-UofC showcase in an effort to do what FOTA director and UofC fourth year Bonnie Kate Walker terms “bringing the focus off campus”. SIGHT SOUND SPACE is the first FOTA event to feature artists from the greater South Side as much as students.

One such pair of artists who will perform at the event, Maren Hoopfer and John Hanson, comprise the band Photographers. Hoopfer and Hanson, who are actual photographers as well as folk musicians, hail from northern Michigan. After moving to the South Side’s Bridgeport neighborhood this past May, the duo took up residence in a ballroom alongside fellow SIGHT SOUND SPACE performers Oos Imaginary, who choreographed a pseudo-dance performance called “Movers” for the event.  Photographers have since released an album, titled “You Can’t Die in the Living Room”, as well as the two track EP, “Songs in Ursa Minor”, and are currently playing shows throughout the Midwest.

SIGHT SOUND SPACE also features  collaborations between students and independent artists. Olivia Li, a student at UofC, made her first foray into choreography with a neoclassical ballet duet danced by Kathleen Grogan, a Butler University graduate who spent time doing freelance dance work in New York before coming to Chicago. Li, who was herself a serious ballet dancer in her youth, “left ballet on the back burner” in order to make time for other commitments when she started at the UofC. Now, as a choreographer, Li’s dually comedic and precise ballet piece is the first step in her effort to  “practice the art in a new way”. The piece also features music by the current concertmaster of the University of Chicago’s Chamber Orchestra, Carlos Villareal, whose violin piece has been written in an “implied fugue”, meaning that it’s meant to sound as though two violins were playing rather than just one.

By transitioning away from entirely student-centric programming to include an even more diverse and vibrant community of artists, FOTA looks ready to become a serious presence in the South Side arts community. (Colin Griffin)

Courtesy WTTW Channel 11

Monday November 29th marks the premier of Biking the Boulevards, a documentary by Chicago’s WTTW Channel 11.  Geoffrey Baer—local PBS celebrity and architecture buff– hosts the documentary and delves deep into the history of Chicago’s boulevard system and the South side.

Chicago’s boulevard system was the first of it’s kind in 1860’s America.  The city itself was a harsh environment of industry, manufacturing, and, of course, the ever-present stockyards. The boulevard system was a solution to these problems and was designed as a network of green spaces to help city dwellers escape from the industrial dust and din of 19^th century Chicago. Greats such as Frederick Law Olmstead (designer of New York’s central park), William le Baron Jenny (the father of the skyscraper), and Jensen worked separately to create beautiful respites from city living; employing the newly-conceived prairies style architecture. The results are some of the most beautiful and well-loved parks in the United States. Linking north and south side; east and west into a twenty-eight mile emerald-green loop.

The past grandeur of the boulevards is now concealed in peeling paint and streets littered with Vitner’s potato chip bags.  By peddling along at ten miles per hour, Biking the Bouelevards is able to look beyond disrepair and reveal the boulevards’ and the south side’s most surprisingly beautiful secrets including the existence of a Frank Lloyd Wright beer garden at 60^th and Cottage Grove, a horse racing track in Washington Park, and the origins of social service programs in Sherman Park.

My summer was devoted to scrounging for photos for this documentary. LOTS of photos. Obscure requests on our script called for a “photo of Carter Harrison II on a bike built for ten.” Also, “Drexel Boulevard as Bleak” and “Decaying of the Fountain of Time ” were on my list, and fortunately through the course of the summer, checked off.  Many a sweltering summer day was spent on the back of a camera truck.  Our cameraman, Tom, would lean precariously far over the truck bed to get the perfect shot, I held onto a thick script, and Geoffrey peddled along on his shiny black Pashley cruiser with a perpetual smile on his face.  We must have been a sight to behold. “What movie are you filming for?” was the continual question. “Transformers Three,” we would yell back.

A pair of roofers on Martin Luther King Drive looked up from their work.  “Geoffrey Baer, right?  I’m a fan of your shows!” one shouts as we cruise by.  We were pleasantly surprised to see the show had a south side following.

So tune in the Monday after Thanksgiving to WTTW Channel 11 and check out Biking the Boulevards—Trust me, you’ll learn a lot on the ride.

Check out a sneak-peak preview here

Happy Halloween yalls

Candy, Egyptians, demon-possessed automobiles, burlesque… Halloween 2010 has it all, and so does our guide for stuff to do this weekend.  Get decked out in your fanciest garb, grab your pumpkin candy-bucket and go get some cavities.  Just remember to watch out for razor blades.

Halloween at the Oriental Institute with Night of the Pharaohs
It was money that drew William Faulkner away from Oxford, Mississippi toward the glitz of 1950s Hollywood, and it was money he would write about. Working for Warner Bros., Faulkner, along with Harold Bloom and Harry Kurnitz, penned “The Land of the Pharaohs,” a film centered on the accumulation and preservation of a vast treasure. As greed moves through the plotline, corrupting beauty and innocence, the aesthetic of the film is pushed toward the grandiose. Luckily it stops just short, standing as one of the last examples of golden-age Hollywood. As Warner Bros. funded nearly 10,000 extras to construct fictitious pyramids in one scene, the accompanying score by Hollywood great Dmitri Tiomkin places the shot among Hollywood’s most epic. Enjoy the film for free on Halloween. Don’t forget, you’ll earn a discount at the souvenir shop for wearing a costume. 1155 E. 58th Street. October 31. Sunday, 2-4pm. (773)702-9514. oi.uchicago.edu/events (Tyler Leeds).

Good Apples/7 Sexy Sins Burlesque Show
Do you like Sleater-Kinney? No? That’s fine—it just means that the highlight of Reggie’s “7 Sexy Sins” pre-Halloween party will not be local bopsters Good Apples. All levity aside, Good Apples have created a tight, coherent oeuvre, which, however, betrays an uncanny affinity for that of the iconic Portland riot grrrl stars. Nevertheless, their deep jams will most certainly keep you grooving on and on. The rest of the night is shrouded in mystery, as the club has refrained from publishing a description of events or a lineup of burlesque girls slated to show up and dress down. But knowing Reggie’s and its propensity for heavy metal-influenced spectacles, you can most likely expect lots of black hair, makeup, huge boobs, and a whole lot of leather. If you ask me, it’s the perfect recipe for making a lot of serious mistakes and/or having a smashing time. Reggie’s Music Joint. 2105 S. State St., October 30. Saturday, 11pm., $15, 21+ (Alec Mitrovich)

Sweet Home Chicago
If you love Tootsie Rolls, Fannie May Chocolate, and Wrigley’s Gum, stop rifling through the kitchen cabinet and learn something about your passion. Beth Kimmerle—author, candy expert and modern-day Willie Wonka—has appeared on NBC’s The Today Show, National Public Radio and Martha Stewart Living and will now be showcasing an exhibit about candy at the John Crerar Library. Drop by to learn about the technology behind the production of chocolate and confectionery in the city we call home. Using items from the library’s own culinary collections, this event will leave your mouth waterin, and your pockets full of candy. Just be sure not to get stuck in the endless chewing gum. And be careful of the river of chocolate. You don’t want to fall in. John Crerar Library Atrium. 5730 South Ellis Avenue. Through June 11, 2011. Monday-Saturday, 9am-4:30pm. (773)702-7715. Free­­ (Lauren Kelly-Jones)

Wyches of Yore
If you think that a University Symphony Orchestra concert serving up the discordant delights of Dvorak, Liadov, Mussorgsky, all in one night is the definition of a frightening nocturne, then you should  make it to Mandel Hall on Halloween. The University Symphony Orchestra has put together an enchanting and eerie program offering up the great composers’ odes to the witches of Slavic folklore. This years’ hymns to hags include a Dvorak tone-poem to the Noonday Witch, Liadov and Mussorgsky’s tributes to the child-devouring Baba Yaga, and Humperdink’s musical incarnation of the “munching-witch” from Hansel and Gretel.  The concert is billed as a family-friendly event and will feature storytelling and an assortment of other entertaining effects. The Orchestra is arriving in full costume and the audience is encouraged to don ghoulish garb as well. Mandel Hall. 1131 E. 57th St. October 30. Saturday, 8:15pm. $8 general/$4 students with ID. (Christopher Riehle)

Halloween Movie Night
Take your date down to the Beverly Arts Center on Wednesday night for a showing of the goriest scream-fest ever written—“Frankenstein’s Daughter”! Just kidding. This movie, a must-see guilty pleasure directed by Richard E. Cunha in 1958, won’t rattle your bones. It has its stars a-rockin’ and a-rollin’ to the grave. Turn up and watch some hilarious dialogue, bad stage makeup, cringe-worthy acting and the cheesiest of cheesy dancing. Perfect for a haunted night on the town.  Beverly Arts Center. 2407 W. 111th St. October 27. Wednesday, 7:30pm. (773)445-3838. $7/$5 for BAC members. beverlyartcenter.org/ (Lauren Kelly-Jones)

Doc Films’ Halloween Midnight Movie
This Halloween, Doc Films will be showing John Carpenter’s 1983 cult classic “Christine.” Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, it is centered on the relationship between a nerdy high school boy and his sports car, Christine. The car possesses not only a mind of its own, but also the capacity for evil. Christine single-handedly commits murder several times throughout the film. In addition to the screening, there will also be a costume contest, so it is highly advisable that you show up decked out in your Hallow’s Eve finery. Ida Noyes Hall. 1212 E. 59th Street. October 30. Saturday, 11:55pm. (773)702-8574. $5. docfilms.uchicago.edu (Tobi Haslett)

• WORD: Hip-hop churches after the hype
• Collectors’ Edition: African Art aficionados open their homes for a private tour
• Going Once, Going Twice: Grand Crossing auction sells weird wares to the highest bidder
• Reel Jazz: Screening Rare Jazz films
• Taking the gold (away): what happened to the Olympic bid
• Art of Three Neighborhoods: Inside and Out

In This Week’s Issue:

• The Wright Idea: Celebrating the centennial of a Hyde Park architectural icon
• Breaded Bliss: Italian-American sandwiches are all in the family at Ribocene’s
• A Gentleman’s Game: Tradition and conflict on the Washington Park cricket grounds
• Early bird special: South side birdwatchers
• Party in das streets: Reflections on Hyde Park Oktober fest (hermit crabs included)
• Core Values: New Zealand artist reflects on American culture by experimenting with our signature fruit
• Training Grounds: Student artists at HPAC test their boundaries in two recent exhibitions

In This Week’s Issue:

• Cirque du Soul: A visiting troupe tries to revive black circus
• String Theory: Sharon Bowen makes world-class violins with local pride
• Cyclical History: Take a bike tour through the south side
• Village Voices: La Villita’s annual arts festival spans generations and genres
• Made in China(town): Exploring the ample offerings of Asian groceries
• Local Grind: Robust Coffee Lounge might be Woodlawn’s next hot spot
• Comedic License: The Court updates Shakespeare’s classic farce
• Broad Strokes, Broad Shoulders: Chicago Artists Month puts the city on the walls and art on the streets

Everyone deserves a makeover every once in a while…websites included. That said welcome to the brand spanking new Chicago Weekly website with everything you loved about the old site, but in a sleeker, more readable format.  Stay posted for South Side news, the latest from our blog, upcoming events and other cool stuff to do. So go ahead, check it out!

This week’s feature is on the redevelopment of Hyde Park’s Harper Court, which aims to turn the 45-year-old retail complex into a mixed-use district over the next five years. Also in this week’s issue: a look at the community garden at 65th and Woodlawn, which brings neighbors together and produces fresh produce in an area often labeled a food desert. Yah’s Cuisine gives Soul Veg a run for its money as the best vegan soul food on the South Side. The University of Chicago’s MFA candidates display their work at the DOVA Temporary gallery in Hyde Park and Roxaboxen in Pilsen. This Saturday, the fifth annual Art in Action festival brings together UofC students and Woodlawn community members for a day of free food, art, and workshops. The Woodlawn Children’s Promise Zone aims to duplicate the success of the famed Harlem Children’s Zone. And Russian artists Ilya and Emilie Kabakov got their first glimpse of clips from a new documentary about themselves at the UofC’s Film Studies Center last week.

For this week’s feature, we sat down with Bill Gates and examined the impact the world’s second-richest man has made on the South Side and the world. Photographer Justin Kern posts breathtaking shots of Chicago and the American landscape daily on The Windy Pixel, a photoblog he shares with Mike Boehmer. The Renaissance Society’s latest exhibition is a two-story structure containing works by three Romanian artists. Former United States Poet Laureate Mark Strand gave a reading on the University of Chicago’s campus last week, and he took a few minutes afterward to speak with the Weekly. And the Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo that took over McCormick Place two weeks ago gave comics fans three days of panels, vendors, and guest stars.

This week’s issue of the Weekly is all about visual art on the South Side and why it matters. The feature includes profiles of galleries and interviews with artists all over the South Side, plus a preview of Lumpen’s eleven-day Version festival and an exploration of Bridgeport’s Third Fridays gallery nights.

The feature in this week’s issue is on Moneythink, a nonprofit founded and run by University of Chicago undergrads that teaches local high schoolers financial literacy and entrepreneurship. Teamwork Englewood is trying to raise neighborhood participation rates in the census above the abysmal 2000 rate. Logsdon 1909′s latest gallery exhibition features works from two very different mixed-media artists. The Opportunity Shop, a monthlong communal art space that occupies vacant storefronts in Hyde Park, is back, this time in a former Hollywood Video on 53rd Street; we also wrote about it last December, when it was located in former MAC Property Management offices on 55th Street. At Little Black Pearl, kids and artists are collaborating on murals for the future Logan Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Chicago. St. Sabina’s Catholic Church and the Black Star Project call together 1,000 men of action to repair the black nuclear family and fight gang violence. And last Saturday, the Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America celebrated twenty years of fighting for human rights and economic well-being in the Americas.

You (yes, you!) can vote to get a fruit orchard planted in Chicago. The Communities Take Root initiative is going to donate a fruit orchard to five lucky winners throughout the country. Seven Illinois sites are eligible, and five of those are Chicago Park District parks:

• Jackson Park, 6401 S. Stony Island Ave.
• Washington Park, 5531 S. King Dr.
• Douglas Park, 1401 S. Sacramento Dr.
• Humboldt Park, 1400 N. Sacramento Ave.
• Garfield Park, 100 N. Central Park Ave.

Communities Take Root is a partnership between Edy’s Fruit Bars and the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation to provide fresh fruit to communities as well as the environmental benefits of fruit trees. The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation has been to Chicago before—they planted 22 fruit trees in Kilbourn Park in 2008, creating the first mature public fruit tree orchard in a major metropolitan city. FTPF is an international organization and has done work in Brazil, India, and Kenya with the eventual goal of planting 18 billion fruit trees worldwide. In the United States, FTPF primarily targets low-income communities and often partners with schools and Native American reservations.

Chicago is one of the few major cities on the list of candidates, but despite our population advantage, none of the CPD parks are currently in the top ten. Cast a vote for your favorite here.

This week’s feature is on the Neighborhood Writing Alliance, a nonprofit organization based in Hyde Park that offers writing workshops to people all over the city and publishes their work in the Journal of Ordinary Thought. Chicago-based artist Nance Klehm blurs the line between art, activism, and environmentalism in her wide-ranging projects, which include a community apple orchard in Little Village and two huge earthworm compost sites at a homeless shelter in the South Loop. In the Perspectives section, Andrew Foster plays with the concept of a “Human Library” to show the divisions between people in and around the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library. Pilsen art collective No Coast explains why we can’t have nice things through the collages and mixed media work of artist Marvin Astorga. Contra dance comes to the International House tonight and tomorrow, and beginners are welcome. And a service at Rockefeller Chapel for victims of gun violence brought together mourners of all faiths last week.

INRIX just released the 2009 edition of its National Traffic Scorecard, and unsurprisingly the news isn’t good for Chicago. For the fourth year in a row, Chicagoland is the third most congested metropolitan area in the country, behind only New York City and Los Angeles. INRIX also found that five of the country’s 25 worst traffic bottlenecks are located on the Dan Ryan Expressway between the Cermak and Taylor exits—a distance of about a mile and a half. No wonder traffic tends to back up there at all hours of the day.

The feature in this week’s issue is our annual Hyde Park housing guide, an invaluable resource for anyone looking for an apartment in Hyde Park. For more advice, see our guides from previous years. Elsewhere in this issue, I wrote about the current controversy at Shimer College, the tiny Great Books school on IIT’s campus, where the student body, faculty, and staff are up in arms against new president Thomas Lindsay, who is threatening the school’s tradition of communal governance. Weekly editor Harry Backlund writes an essay, “Report from Obamaland,” about the Secret Service-patrolled space surrounding our President’s house. A chain of barbecue joints along I-57 aren’t just good spots to grab a meal while headed out of town, but destinations in their own right. This weekend at Mandel Hall, a festival of Spanish music shows there’s a lot more to Spain than flamenco. On Saturday, the Hyde Park Art Center puts on a multimedia music and puppet show inside its exhibition “Notes to Nonself.” Author Michelle Alexander spoke last week at the Experimental Station about systematic racial discrimination in the criminal justice system and her book “The New Jim Crow.” And a Queer Intercollegiate Alliance-planned flash mob at the Art Institute last Thursday didn’t really get the whole “f lash mob” thing right.

This week’s cover story is a must-read: a profile of Alderman Toni Preckwinkle (4th), Hyde Park’s independent alderman and a candidate for Cook County Board President. Also in this issue: Gloria Henderson opens a popcorn shop under the Metra tracks in Hyde Park after years of setbacks. Abundance Bakery on 47th Street offers a wealth of baked goods. Experimental music collective the Exponential plays at the Chicago Art Department in Pilsen this Saturday night. John Paro, a student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, has recorded an album, “Med School Rock,” to help medical students learn their material. And Katherine de Shazer is teaching a weekend class at St. Mary of Perpetual Help on Byzantine Russian icon painting.

This week’s feature is about the Chicago Arts District’s recent decline. Is Bridgeport the new Pilsen? Read and find out. Elsewhere in Pilsen, Ciao Amore serves up exceptional Italian food and photographer Xavier Nuez displays his eerie long-exposure shots of urban decay. Court Theatre’s new play “The Mystery of Irma Vep” is a satire of Victorian gothic horror and much more. The University of Chicago’s Objectivist Club had an outing to the Art Institute last weekend to discuss aesthetics and the failings of modern art. Meanwhile, Cornel West gave a fiery speech at St. Sabina Catholic Church.

The feature in this week’s issue is on Chicago Community and Workers Rights (CCWR), a new immigrants rights organization based in Little Village that’s trying to fight the use of E-Verify by employers. A photo essay reveals the range of Woodlawn’s churches, from the beautiful to the historic to the typical. Tomorrow the Chicago Storytelling Guild is holding a festival at the Experimental Station, part of the annual worldwide Tellabration. Weekly writer Keith Jamieson, who liveblogged Raymond Lotta’s talk last week, explains what’s wrong with Communism. Lagniappe brings delicious Cajun food and jazz to Auburn Gresham. The theme for this year’s installment of Lumpen’s annual Select Media Festival is “Super Bad Ass.” Mash-up magician Girl Talk performs at the University of Chicago tomorrow night. And the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic’s new chamber ensemble debuted at the International House last Saturday.