The Iconography Of Death

“Welcome to Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection,” Explore Chicago announced in January. “This groundbreaking exhibition, one of the Chicago Cultural Center’s largest to date, showcases over five hundred artworks and other artifacts from the personal collection of Chicago-based collector Richard Harris. Amassed over several decades, Harris’s collection explores the iconography of death across cultures and traditions spanning nearly six thousand years, and includes works by some of the greatest artists of our time.
“To help guide your visit, the exhibition is organized into two major sections: The War Room, which deals with the horrors and reactions to war expressed through art; and The Kunstkammer of Death, a play on the traditional European term for a ‘cabinet of curiosities.’ While the subject matter may seem a bit macabre, artists have long derived inspiration from death, mortality, and the impermanence of human existence. This eclectic collection examines these concepts from centuries past to the present day.”
Let’s take a look.
1. The city uploaded this video to YouTube this week:

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Posted on March 30, 2012

By Roger Wallenstein

Third of a four-part series. Previously: Part One, Part Two.
I taught for nine years at Chicago’s Francis Parker, as polar opposite from Oasis Elementary as you can get. It is urban vs. rural, rich vs. poor, private vs. public, varied curriculum vs. narrow curriculum, and primarily white vs. Latino. I could go on, but you get the picture.
Parker students enjoy material, monetary and cultural gifts that would be incomprehensible to kids at Oasis. However, I always thought that in addition to meaningful and venerable traditions and rituals at Parker, what set the school apart from most others was what went on once the teacher closed his or her classroom door and went to work.
It matters not how bright, eager, and advantaged the students are, nor how fancy and complete the facilities; learning doesn’t occur unless a competent, dedicated teacher encourages and leads the students on the path to scholarship and enlightenment.
In this regard – despite test scores, lack of funding, and demographics – Oasis does just fine.

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Posted on March 28, 2012

From The Chicago Film Archive’s Margaret Conneely Collection

“Margaret Conneely, an award winning and prolific amateur filmmaker, began making films when she joined a Chicago amateur film club in 1949. She shot and directed 16mm films at a time when most of the women of these clubs were less technically inclined and often delegated to the role of actress or slides manager. Her work is well crafted, clever and subtly subversive.”

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Posted on March 27, 2012

By Roger Wallenstein

Second of a four-part series. Part One is here.
From the day Oasis students first walk in the door, they’re already behind and beginning a lifetime game of catch-up.
“[B]y the time high-income children start school, they have spent about 400 hours more than poor children in literacy activities,” the New York Times reported last month.
For the 698 students at Oasis in grades K-6, that means parents have spent about a half-hour less per night reading to their children before they enter school than parents of means.
Couple that with the fact that English often is not spoken at home. Then consider that just 25 percent of Oasis’s parents have finished high school. Many of these folks spend the day picking strawberries or pruning grape vines. Making dinner and falling into bed just might take precedence over reading to their toddlers at the day’s end.
But Oasis is trying to change that.

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Posted on March 20, 2012

By J.J. Tindall

Djinns of Catalina
March has been usurped by May
in this season of strange days.
The heat mirages, djinnis of oil,
already shimmer up Harlem Avenue
and the squalls along the eastern horizon
conjure a Catalina off the Third Coast:
holographs of Hearst and Chaplin
yachting with Rosetta and Loretta Martin,
Old Man Wrigley’s battery ditching practice
to swim with invisible sharks.
Outside the women come and go
talking of the marriage that is in woe.

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Posted on March 18, 2012

By MrDONK1975

“Every weekend in Chicago people go to Washington Park to stunt so come bring your car and stunt.”

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Posted on March 13, 2012

By Roger Wallenstein

First in a series.
We’re nearing the close of the morning language arts period, and it’s time to clean up. Roberto (I’m not using any real names for kids here), who struggles with speaking, reading, and writing English, has everything back in its proper place – books back on the shelf, papers in his folder, pencils returned to his desk drawer – and he comes running back to the table. “What did you forget?” I ask. “Forgot to push my chair in,” he responds. This is a kid who easily could hate school. It is so difficult for him. Yet he needs to make sure his chair is pushed in. Unreal!
* * *
Few schools in our country have students from poorer circumstances than Roberto’s school, Oasis Elementary in Thermal, California. I happen to be fortunate in that I can spend much of the winter escaping Chicago’s elements in the desert of Southern California. For the past couple of winters my wife Judy and I have added to our good luck by volunteering in a fourth grade classroom at Oasis.

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Posted on March 12, 2012

By The Beer Beer Beer Show

Taste testing.
1. Half Acre’s Daisy Cutter (Chicago).
2. 5 Rabbit Cerveceria’s 5 Vulture (Chicago).
3. Two Brothers Cane and Ebel (Warrenville).

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Posted on March 8, 2012

By Chicago Foodies

“Fred Daniels talks about Growing Home in advance of the Good Food Festival in Chicago March 15th-17th.”

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Posted on March 7, 2012

By The Leinenkugel Brewing Company

The Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company on Monday launched Big Eddy Wee Heavy Scotch Ale, the first in a series of daring, yet delicious Big Eddy brews to be released in 2012. Big Eddy Wee Heavy Scotch Ale captures the signature warmth and comfort of traditional scotch ales, one of the most majestic beer styles in the world.
Thanks to an intensive brewing process, Big Eddy Wee Heavy Scotch Ale offers significant malt complexity, including eight malts and grains for a robust richness. The brew, which adds a touch of hops to balance the malts, features assertive chocolate, toffee and caramel notes, with a hint of smoke and dark fruity undertones subtly emerging throughout.

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Posted on March 6, 2012