By about 12:30 last Friday afternoon, University of Chicago mathematics graduate students Strom Borman and Daniele Rosso were sitting under the King Lear statue at the foot of the Magnificent Mile, basking in their speedy victory under the late fall sun. They proudly held a trophy bearing a boldly-striding golden figure clad in a red-and-white striped shirt, along with its source: a set of Martin Handford’s “Where’s Waldo” books. Read the rest of this entry »

“We’re having a sit-in, yo!”

The statement wasn’t exactly necessary. Judging by the excess of signs with slogans like “Worker Power” and “We Demand a Fair Contract,” it was immediately obvious that some sort of protest was taking place. But in lieu of angry fist-raising, the fifteen or so students gathered on the floor of the University of Chicago’s Bartlett Hall lobby lounged around, singing songs of solidarity to the tune of “Glory, Glory Hallelujah” and playing board games. In their defense, it wasn’t any old board game: it was “Power Grid,” a German game with the objective of powering the most U.S. power plants. Even in recreation, these students aim to help society. Read the rest of this entry »

“Oh shit, are you okay?” I ask. John Paul Thompson is sitting on a crate outside the WHPK studio in the University of Chicago’s Reynolds Club, and it’s beginning to crack.

“Oh, yeah.” He laughs, and readjusts his weight. Thompson has a great laugh. It’s a deep throat laugh, the cock-your-head-back-and-slap-the-knee sort.

Thompson, a first-year undergraduate at the University of Chicago, runs the Pandarosa Record Company of Cedar Hill, Texas, just outside of Dallas. He is also the man behind the two concerts (Peter and the Wolf, the Dodos) held earlier this year in his dormitory, Shoreland Hall. The Thompson brothers, Joseph, David, and John Paul, brought the Pandarosa together about five years ago. Today, it is almost exclusively run by John Paul. Read the rest of this entry »

“Bat Boy: The Musical” is a play based on a recurring feature in the Weekly World News tabloid about a boy who grows up in a cave isolated from mankind with bat-like features—sharp, pointy ears and fangs—until he is discovered in his hideout. The plot of “Bat Boy” is very much like that of French author Michel Tournier’s 1967 novel, “Friday or The Other Island,” a spin on the original “Robinson Crusoe,” where Crusoe finds an uncivilized human being who can’t communicate (he can neither talk nor read), gives him a name, Friday, and chooses to “raise him” as a man. Read the rest of this entry »

Repression, corruption, subversive action… while this may sound more like an authoritarian regime than a dining hall, these are all words used to describe the workers’ conditions in the last Aramark Worker Student Alliance (AWSA) meeting at the University of Chicago. Though the thousands of University members that frequent the dining halls daily normally don’t perceive the conflict, many students are trying to bring visibility to the workers’ struggle for a better working environment. Roughly a third of the campus dining hall workers have met with a group of students for the last three Saturdays, forming a basis of support for the workers in the renegotiation of a new contract with Aramark Inc., the university’s food service provider. Read the rest of this entry »

For students in Rebecca Graff’s archaeological field methods class at the University of Chicago, involvement with Hyde Park’s history extends much further than the four years they’ll spend here in college. They’re waist-deep in the South Side’s past, excavating the remains of the World’s Columbian Exposition held in 1893 in Jackson Park. Read the rest of this entry »

Art in Action is an annual festival launched by the Southside Solidarity Network, a University of Chicago student group; now in its third year, the event has blossomed into a full day of music, hands-on art, and community discussions where both students and the local community can “have a good time in a safe place,” according to UofC third-year Caroline Weiss. Numerous stands were scattered across the backyard of the First Presbyterian Church at 64th and Kimbark last Saturday, with everything from face painting and T-shirt spray painting to encouraging students registered in the state of Illinois to go out and vote. There was also an eclectic array of activities organized by students and local residents, such as a discussion titled “Hip Hop & Youth,” in which festival organizer Reola Avant and South Side hip-hop artist H.B. Sol led a conversational seminar on the differences between hip-hop culture and the music industry. Student volunteers played with and entertained neighborhood children, and at least for this day there were attempts to breach the wall that often separates the campus from the rest of the neighborhood. Read the rest of this entry »

A pale beam of light washes over an elevated throne, lending it a sickly glow that cuts through the darkness. We will see many swords, but appropriately, this glistening prize is the only object remaining onstage throughout the grotesque affair. It is both the catalyst for the ensuing butchery and its silent witness. Slowly the players emerge, and fall into stylized stances around the throne, as a menacing, hunchbacked Richard addresses the audience in his famous monologue: “Now is the winter of our discontent…” Read the rest of this entry »