Perspectives
The Crowd
“Read my lips…Obama won’t kill Grandma.” The slogan is printed over the image “Whistler’s Mother,” and the button-seller tells the small student crowd around her that this one was very popular during the President’s push for health care reform. There are salesmen like her all along the 59th street Midway, men and women vending... »
Collectors’ Edition
My heartbeat swells quickly to the rhythm of the saxophone. I am in an apartment near 55th and Everett, praying I don’t knock any of the thousands of art pieces down to the ground. Alice Scott is showing us around her home, and with each step through the old wooden doorways, paintings, figurines, dioramas,... »
Dirty Words
In 1929, Joseph Stalin read a story and didn’t like it. He put down Andrei Platonov’s short story “Doubting Makar” and declared it an “ambiguous work.” It wasn’t a compliment. Ambiguity in literature is dangerous—any lack of clarity in art opens up opportunities for interpretation, and thus criticism. While the state press churned out... »
Art Springs Eternal
The University of Chicago isn’t an arts school, and no one pretends that it is. But this spring, the character of the arts on campus is changing. Starting on Saturday, May 8th, the week-long annual Festival of the Arts will celebrate student work in visual and performance mediums, followed on May 15th by Summer... »
Special Collections: Who would you check out from a human library?
A homosexual, a Jew, a male nanny, a communist, an anthropologist, a mathematician, a parking attendant, and a pot head. I’m not listing my friends—I don’t personally know a male nanny or a parking attendant. These are people that can be checked out of the Human Library, a small youth organization turned international activist... »
Obamagration?: Searching for significance in a modern-day march
Cindy Agustin is trying to get a bus-load of tired Chicago-area students, friends, and parents to share what made them decide to march. “Come on, guys,” says the University of Chicago fourth-year trip organizer, upbeat and timid as a substitute teacher enforcing a mandatory show-and-tell, “everyone will have to go at some point.” Before... »
Report from Obamaland: The President may not be here, but his presence remains
Stately and elegant, red brick with white trim, partly obscured by a row of trees, the house has nothing to set it apart from the other homes on this affluent residential block of Kenwood. Except that it is protected. In the driveway there is always a black SUV. At the end of the street,... »
What’s Wrong with American Journalism?
The journalism industry seems to be on its last legs these days, and everyone thinks they know why. Is it faulty business models? Corporate greed? An inevitable result of changing technology? Over the past year or so, as both the Tribune Company and the Sun-Times Media Group have filed for bankruptcy protection, fingers have... »
