Perhaps you’ve seen them before, out on the Midway Plaisance on a crisp autumn afternoon with coolers open and medieval banners flying. And perhaps you’ve been wondering who these men and women clad head-to-toe in armor and medieval crests might be. They are proud members of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), which began in 1966 in Berkeley, California, when a group of friends decided to hold a medieval tournament. The idea caught on, and the society has since expanded to include nineteen “kingdoms” spanning the entire globe. But the society does not confine itself to tournaments and battling. Many participants dance, sing, sew, and cook, all in a medieval fashion. Read the rest of this entry »

Before pianist Reginald Robinson’s Sunday performance at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, the crowd murmured about the lack of an actual piano. Onstage sat a small keyboard with an impressive amplifier behind it. Whispers went up that ragtime requires something with a little more wood and a few more strings. The room was muted in the dim golden light from the ceiling lamps, as its heavy curtains were closed against the gray rain outside. Large glasses, for fashion or necessity, seemed to be a prerequisite for attendance. The scene bore little resemblance to a swinging ragtime club of yore. Read the rest of this entry »

If you want to pay lots of money in exchange for being asked increasingly obscure and intellectual questions that will leave you hunched over the bar counter, drunk, broke, and brainless, Hyde Park is the place you’re looking for. The University of Chicago Pub, in the basement of Ida Noyes (1212 E. 59th), hosts an intensely competitive trivia night every Tuesday at 8pm that requires participants to draw upon their knowledge of Malaysian geography, Romantic novelists, and theoretical physics, as well as the trivia standards of one-hit wonders and Bears scores. The rewards are high—a cash prize for first place, in addition to random free appetizers and Pub merchandise—but they come at a price: each participant must pay $3 to enter, and the bar is open only to University affiliates and their guests after buying a $10 membership or paying a $3 cover. Read the rest of this entry »

For a few decades at the beginning of the twentieth century, between the collapse of its fading colonial empire and the eruption of a civil war that led to 39 years of dictatorship, Spain saw a brief period of intense cultural revival. The painter Picasso and the philosopher Ortega y Gasset are internationally known, but other figures from this burst of Spanish modernism, including some of the most innovative composers of the twentieth century, have faded from popular memory. Their music and the contexts that produced it are the center of the festival, “Beyond Flamenco: Finding Spain in Music,” which takes the stage at the University of Chicago’s Mandel Hall this weekend. Read the rest of this entry »

Upon hearing that Chicago’s Queer Intercollegiate Alliance was planning to stage a flash mob on the steps of the Art Institute, I was instantly reminded of the scene in Gus Van Sant’s movie “Milk” in which a furious horde of gay rights activists spills out into the streets of San Francisco and sends a trolley careening off of its rails. So imagine my disappointment when I arrived at the Institute at 6pm last Thursday, only to find that the “flash mob” consisted of about thirty blue-lipped college students (a bit less than the 550 who had replied “attending” on Facebook) forming a disjointed, shivering rainbow and being corralled to one side of the steps by slightly amused museum guards. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Saturday, the University of Chicago’s Uncommon Fund committee saw presentations on fifteen proposals that have made it to the final round of projects. This Friday, the committee will decide which of these proposals will receive a portion of the $40,000 grant. Fourth-year Connie Ma, who presented her project, “Fortune Favors,” emphasizes that “the Uncommon Fund was created to support projects and initiatives that without this money, wouldn’t really otherwise exist.” Ma seeks to involve the student body and the larger Hyde Park community in an effort to create witty fortune cookies, which will be distributed in student-run coffee shops, the admissions office, and neighborhood restaurants. “You don’t need to add ‘in bed’ to it to make it funny,” she promises. Read the rest of this entry »

“We don’t hear too much about Haiti anymore, because most Americans were evacuated.” Thus East Coast artist Charles Jean-Pierre, a Chicago native and the son of Haitian immigrants, introduces a fundraiser in support of Haiti on Mardi Gras, February 16, at the University of Chicago. Read the rest of this entry »

This Saturday, Pictures and Sounds brings the recent surge in live, improvised soundtrack performances to the campus of the University of Chicago. An annual collaboration between WHPK 88.5 FM and the University’s Film Studies Center, the event features a sampling of four acts gleaned from the Midwestern avant-noise/free improvisation music scene. Each performer has chosen a short film to accompany their show, ranging from classics of experimental cinema to films produced specifically for the occasion. This year’s roster of musical acts includes Mist, Dog Lady, Trauma y Nate Wooley, and Brett Naucke. Read the rest of this entry »