It’s the third Thursday of the month at Argonne National Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Energy facility in the southwest Chicago suburbs, and that means it’s open mic night. By the time the first band goes on at 5:30, the Exchange Club on the ground floor of Building 617 is filled with the hubbub of conversation, and the parking lot outside is packed. Employees crowd the bar, socialize on couches, and play pool as the Sloppy Joes start off the night with “Roadhouse Blues.” Two out of three of the band members could probably pass for rock stars, particularly long-haired guitarist Mark Clark. As a matter of fact, Clark moonlights in an ’80s heavy metal cover band called Lockdown alongside drummer Eric Zoellner. Both are technicians at Argonne; by day Clark works with radioactive materials, while Zoellner operates an X-ray beam line at the Advanced Photon Source. Read the rest of this entry »

It was a fine idea for the Museum of Science and Industry and the Chicago Public Library to hold, as part of the “One Book, One Chicago” reading of Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff,” a panel discussion at the Museum of Science and Industry on October 11. A fine idea, but a little silly when you consider the following:
1.) Wolfe’s book is about going toe-to-toe with the Soviets miles above Earth at the height of the Cold War. Wolfe may be criticizing Project Mercury as a wasteful venture made possible by a hysterical public and a complicit media, but he also knows he’s got a great human interest story.
2.) The panel was supposed to discuss the accuracy of Wolfe’s book, but the NASA representatives, astronaut Ken Ham and former shuttle program director Wayne Hale, are products of the shuttle era. This is the era best encapsulated by the picture in my Spanish book depicting astronaut Ellen Ochoa playing her flute in space to determine if zero gravity has any effect on acoustics. What would Al Shepard say about all this? Read the rest of this entry »

Students were almost entirely absent from the mostly gray-haired crowd that came out to spend an “Evening with Eli” on Tuesday, May 6. Sponsored by the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference, the event was a follow-up to an October conversation between local residents and Eli Ungar, founder and president of Antheus Capital and associated MAC Properties, Hyde Park’s second-largest landholder. About seventy people showed up at the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club to take part in this conversation, which began with a brief PowerPoint by MAC Director of Community Development Peter Cassell. In it, he outlined the company’s recent successes in revamping “uninhabitable” buildings, told its “exciting economic development story” of hiring 130 full-time Chicago employees, and explained recent rent hikes by linking them to the broader picture of condo conversions and the mortgage crisis. Cassell also described Solstice on the Park, a soon-to-be-built condo at 56th and Cornell with modern architecture and a number of “environmentally progressive” features. With MAC’s positive contributions fresh in audience members’ minds, Ungar took the stage, opening the field to their questions. Read the rest of this entry »

The Hyde Park Art Center (HPAC) celebrates its third annual 24-hour festival, Creative Move 2008, this Friday and Saturday. Creative Move is a free event created specifically for an audience interested in and curious about art, where open mics, lectures, cocktails and activities abound. HPAC’s festival is an excellent opportunity for Chicago residents to mingle in an interactive setting; in fact, Creative Move is described as “24 hours of hands-on art-making,” where a do-it-yourself approach to understanding contemporary art is enthusiastically encouraged. Read the rest of this entry »

Lumpen’s eighth annual Version festival kicked off with a welcoming on Thursday night, with a one-night installation and show by Lumpen and Philadelphia-based artist collective Space 1026 at the Country Club gallery in West Town. It marked the launch of Version ‘08 with a union of the two art collectives that will continue at least throughout the arts festival. Read the rest of this entry »

Leave the pearls and Lily Pulitzer at home: Thursday evening, the Version festival begins at Country Club, a gallery in Wicker Park. According to the festival’s website, “Version is an annual springtime convergence that brings in hundreds of artists, musicians and educators from around the world to present some of the most challenging ideas and progressive art initiatives of our day.” Space 1026, a Philadelphia-based artist collective named after the address of their building in Philly’s Chinatown, will host Version’s opening show on Thursday evening. On Friday night, Version moves to the South Side’s Co-Prosperity Sphere for “The Dark Matter Group Show.” This former warehouse in Bridgeport was gutted and restored to reveal beautiful high copper ceilings, hardwood floors, and a fairly vast and, once preparations are complete, appealing contemporary gallery space. Music and theater performances are held in the basement, and an apartment complex occupies the second floor. Read the rest of this entry »

Depending on how naïve you are, calling a dance party celebrating gay life in Bridgeport the “Snow Ball” is either seasonally appropriate or disturbingly indecorous. Lumpen, the party hosts, probably intended the title to be both, but it indicated neither, since there was no snow on the ground last Friday night and a decidedly demure scene taking place inside the Co-Prosperity Sphere, Lumpen’s headquarters. What the Snow Ball provided was what any Lumpen event demands: randomness. There were no fewer than four “main” events taking place, all unrelated. For guests, there was dancing, air hockey, a home-style food buffet, and a trip to Party Planet, a simulated Space Shuttle ride leftover from last year’s Select Media Festival. (The “Party Planet” turned out to be Earth, albeit an Earth that looks a lot like Brazil during Carnival.) Read the rest of this entry »

The Dayglo tones, the Spandex, the artists, the affected Williamsburg-party vibe: Lumpen’s “Return Flight” conclusion to this year’s space-themed Select Media Festival was a lot like the blast-off event a week previous. Beneath the cavernous ceiling, Lumpen impresario Ed Marszewski looked down on the crowd from his loft like the doyen of a mystical space council. The partygoers danced on the floor below just like the geeky white kids they were. All the light-colored clothing aglow from the black light, errant leotards hugging silhouettes and shaking to beats from U.S. Girls, the occasional dry-humping: “Return Flight” looked more like a seething neon jazzercise gangbang than a triumphant return from outer space. Read the rest of this entry »