June 11, 2004

Bike in the Nude!

Like Biking? Like hanging out in your birthday suit? Why not combine the two and join the World Naked Bike Ride tomorrow night!? The Chicago ride starts from 1542 N. Milwaukee Ave., kicking off with a pre-party and body painting session at 7pm, then hitting the streets around 9pm. More info here.

- ah | 11.06.04 ~ Offbeat/Misc. Events

Tale of Two CTAs

Just weeks after This Is Grand is launched, a competitor appears. The CTA Tattler offers short vignettes and snippets of conversation witnessed on and around the city's train lines. Interesting.

- ah | 11.06.04 ~ Transportation

CHA, photographed

Photographer Jack Bridges's site has some quietly moving pictures of Chicago's disappearing high-rise housing projects: Robert Taylor homes, Jane Addams homes, and Stateway Gardens.

- jd | 11.06.04 ~ Photography

Bring me your broken, your old, your G3 laptops

If you've got some tired and dusty CPUs taking up space in your living room, or if you've upgraded to a new computer and don't feel right just tossing the old one, you can recycle them and help out Chicago's schools, all in one trip. The City of Chicago, Computers for Schools, GM, the UAW, and Electromotive are co-sponsoring Chicago's first annual Recycle Day at the United Center on Saturday. You can even drop off those old cell phones that are bigger than a small child. The groups will clean up and fix donations, and use them where they can in schools in the Chicago area.

- ash | 11.06.04 ~ Schools/Education

The Blacklist

The Blacklist is a well done online magazine produced here in good old Chicago. Publisher and crative director Ray Noland writes in the publisher's notes, "Coming from Chicago, I see a lot of talented individuals around this town that struggle to keep their lights on. Most of them decide to move either east or west to broaden their horizons. Such a shame." Keeping the Chicago spirit alive, Blacklist.

- nh | 11.06.04 ~ Print/Magazines

Coming Soon: Green Evening Farmers Market

On June 24th, the city will open the first evening farmers market, at 843 W. Randolph. The market will run through the end of October on Thursday evenings, from 4 to 8 p.m. The Sun-Times reports, "about 10 farmers will offer organic produce and meats, and specialty vendors will sell artisanal goods such as pastries and cheese. At least twice a month, chefs will prepare and sell to-go meals". The market is a direct response to the city workers who complain about the only other organic market, the Green City Market, held on Wednesdays mornings. Hooray for good city response!

- eh | 11.06.04 ~ Eating/Drinking

Blues Fest Overflow

Blues Fest is underway, but Grant Park isn't the only place you can catch live blues this weekend. The Sun-Times offers a quick list of some of the shows at area clubs, (including pornstar-turned-chanteuse Candye Kane, Willy Kent and the Gents and Jimmy Johnson -- maybe they were going with some sort of sexy name theme).

- ah | 11.06.04 ~ Music/Clubs

Clinger Blooms on Stage

A couple of months ago it was noted that Will Clinger, longtime host of WTTW's "Wild Chicago", was leaving the show to pursue a career on stage. He's just showed up in his first role post-WC -- as James Joyce's Leopold Bloom in the Irish Repertory production of "A Dublin Bloom," a stage adaptation of "Ulysses". So far, it's gotten mostly positive reviews. The show runs through June 27 at the Victory Gardens Theater.

- sw | 11.06.04 ~ Theatre/Dance

Pitchformula

Always thought music criticism was formulaic? Loren Jan Wilson wrote a computer program to analyze the frequency of words in positive and negative album reviews published on Pitchfork. He used the data to determine which words and phrases appear most frequently in positive reviews, and wrote songs to capitalize on the reviewers' collective preferences. The paper is Wilson's BA project at the University of Chicago.

- rah | 11.06.04 ~ Found on the Web

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