By J.J. Tindall
My Mind is Like a Rhododendron
Let me be candid:
I like beer and I
love the ladies!
That’s the thing of it.
My mind is like a rhododendron:
everywhere it leaps, it eats.
This is the thing of it,
Posted on May 31, 2012
Color Jam: The Largest Public Artwork In Chicago History
By The Silverman Group
With an assist from the Beachwood 3-D News Desk.
Color Jam is the largest public artwork in Chicago’s history and the largest contiguous vinyl project in the United States. It is composed of more than 76,000 square feet of colored vinyl – enough material to make 50,000 vinyl records, wrap more than 130 city buses or cover one-and-a-half football fields. Printing Color Jam on a standard HP home printer would require 2,100 ink cartridges and 180 hours of continuous printing.
Color Jam is the third installment in Chicago Loop Alliance’s annual Art Loop public art initiative, following Tony Tasset’s three-story EYE sculpture in 2010, and last year’s five-story mural by Kay Rosen encouraging viewers to GO DO GOOD.
A video feed of the Color Jam installation site at State and Adams Streets is streaming live at www.colorjamchicago.com now through June 5. Color Jam will cover the intersection of State and Adams Streets from June 5 through September 30, 2012.
Posted on May 25, 2012
Leinie’s Introduces Big Eddy Imperial IPA
By The Leinenkugel Brewing Company
Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company is rolling out Big Eddy Imperial India Pale Ale, a bold interpretation of the classic style, featuring earthy hop bitterness. Big Eddy Imperial IPA is the second in a series of new Big Eddy brews debuting in 2012.
Big Eddy IIPA fills the senses with five distinctive Pacific Northwest hops, which are added at each stage of the brewing process. Hops include Warrior, Cascade, Simcoe, Citra, and the extremely rare Amarillo. The beer boasts grapefruit, mandarin orange and mango notes, balanced by a hint of pine and a strong caramel, toffee sweetness, giving it a complex, multifaceted character.
Posted on May 24, 2012
Timely Reminder: Chicago 10
Blue Helmets And War Machines
When Walter Cronkite declared Chicago a police state.
Posted on May 22, 2012
Chicagoetry: Re*ac*tor
By J.J. Tindall
Re*ac*tor
My skull became a nuclear reactor,
where my mind
burned white.
Overwhelmed by a tsunami
of grievous
but universally human
Posted on May 20, 2012
Paint This Mural!
By The Mural At Addison And Avondale Crew
Local residents and organizations of the Avondale neighborhood will come together on Thursday, June 21, for a Community Paint Day from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. to help complete the colorful and vibrant mural created by Rafael Lopez an internationally recognized artist.
Working with local artists and neighborhood children, Lopez will create a 100-foot mural, which he has designed based on the professed values of community members including: diversity, energy, growth, vitality, friendship, sense of community, family, green space and intersections. The mural, which is to cover the South wall of the viaduct will beautify the neighborhood and provide color and style to the well-tred intersection of Addison and Avondale, just under the Metra tracks.
Posted on May 17, 2012
The Beer Thinker: Make Beer, Not War
By Dan O’Shea
Chicago Craft Beer Week, which is not really a week at all but 10 days (not that we’re complaining), begins Thursday and has either the good fortune or misfortune of overlapping with the NATO summit.
If traffic is too jammed up by protests and NATO-forced road closures to travel, where would you rather be but a bar, where you are able to sample some of the newest and rarest that the craft beer community has to offer?
On the other hand, how easy is it going to be to get to your favorite watering hole in the first place if Chicago becomes fully Occupied?
I don’t follow any political causes ardently enough to actually get off the couch, let alone march down the street and possibly break stuff in their honor, but if there ever would be one I could really get behind it would probably be something like “World Peace Through Inebriation.” Local craft brewers certainly seem prepared to do their part, as CCBW comes at a time when several of them are making big news in their efforts to produce even more of their beer, and make it even easier for us to get it.
Posted on May 15, 2012
Model Railroad Garden: Landmarks of America
By The Chicago Botanic Garden
“The Model Railroad Garden delights visitors of all ages with the sights and sounds of garden-scale trains traversing bridges and trestles, past miniature scenes of America’s best-loved landmarks and beautiful gardens planted to scale. The 7,500-square-foot exhibition is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily (weather permitting). On Wednesdays, June 2 – August 29, the Model Railroad Garden hours are from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. (weather permitting). Visit http://www.chicagobotanic.org/railroad for more information.
Posted on May 14, 2012
Get Your Train On!
The Rail Way Comes To Life
“National Train Day is this weekend, May 12 and there are 4 ‘Major Market’ Events being held in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia,” according to TrainTalkTV. “These events are well covered by Amtrak, so I’d like to shine a light on some of the over 130 National Train Day Events being held at other locations around the U.S.”
Posted on May 9, 2012
Replacing Marilyn
By The Beachwood Public Art Committee
Marilyn Monroe is leaving Michigan Avenue and taking her big skirt with her. What’s next for Pioneer Court? We have some ideas.
* A stack of Richard M. Daley’s pension checks. So fat they should just about reach Marilyn’s height.
* Rahm Emanuel in a dress. Billowing like Marilyn from all the sunshine the city council is blowing up his ass.
* A giant parking meter lease. So we can all finally see the fine print for ourselves.
Posted on May 8, 2012