WBEZ | Culture

Seamless and GrubHub to combine, no terms revealed

Mon, 20 May 2013 09:01:00 -0500

Seamless North America and GrubHub say they're combining to create an online food ordering service covering more than 20,000 restaurants in 500 cities across the U.S.

Financial terms were not disclosed. Matt Maloney, GrubHub's co-founder and CEO, will become CEO of the combined company. Seamless CEO Jonathan Zabusky will serve as president.

Brian McAndrews, an independent director on the Seamless board, will serve as chairman. Both New York-based Seamless and Chicago-based GrubHub will have significant representation on the new company's board.

The combined company's name and marketing brands will be determined following regulatory approval.

Last year, orders through the two privately-held companies totaled about $875 million, resulting in combined revenue of more than $100 million.

Maloney says the new company will be well positioned for continued growth.

No misprint: The New Regal Theater is on sale for $100,000

Mon, 20 May 2013 05:00:00 -0500

The New Regal Theater — the 86-year-old South Side showplace that is one of the city's finest remaining examples of vintage movie palace architecture — is for sale. Asking price: $100,000.

A city landmark, the theater is being sold by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation which took ownership in 2011 after the bank holding the building's mortgage failed.

An FDIC spokesman said the New Regal, 1645 E. 79th St., had been under contract for $99,000, but the deal fell through and the theater has been placed back on the market.

The FDIC is responsible for the big building's upkeep — a motivating factor behind the cut-rate price. Chicago's U.S. Equities is handling the listing, but representatives from the company did not return phone calls seeking comment.

The New Regal has been closed since 2010 and faces some big-ticket repairs. According to the city's inspection reports, violations include "severe structural damage" on the building's four corners, each of which are "are separating from building structure." In addition, the building has been cited for having dangerously loose and missing terra cotta, washed-out mortar, potentially unstable chimneys and more.

The conditions prompted Landmarks Illinois to place the theater on its "Ten Most Endangered Places" list back in 2011. Preservation Chicago followed suit a year later. The New Regal's exterior and interior are under city landmark protection.

A spokesman for the Department of Housing and Economic Development said the agency believes the low sale price is potentially good, given the building's condition.

"It would enable a potential buy to invest more into the building than into the acquisition cost," said department spokesman Peter Strazzabosco.

Even with its problems, the New Regal is in far better condition than the landmark Uptown Theater which sold for $3.2 million in 2008. The Uptown, 4816 N. Broadway, bears the scars of 30 years of decay, vacancy and disuse — its owners believe it could take as much as $40 million to restore the place (WBEZ's Jim DeRogatis recently pegged the number at upwards of $70 million) — while the New Regal interior remains quite the showplace as photographer Matt Lambros documented in these spectacular images from 2012.

Designed by John Eberson and built in 1927 as the Avalon Theater, the dazzling Moorish style building was inspired by an intricate metal Persian incense burner Eberson found in a Royal Street antique store in New Orleans.

The 2500-seat movie theater could also accommodate live shows. In 1985, the theater was later purchased by Soft Sheen products founder Ed Gardner and his wife Bettiann. The restored theater re-opened as the New Regal in 1987, in honor of the legendary Regal Theater, 47th and King Drive, that was demolished in 1973. The theater has had subsequent ownership since.

Architect’s Pilsen vision is green and fashion friendly

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:23:00 -0500

Architect Patricia Saldaña Natke grew up on the 4800 block of South Marshfield Avenue, in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood. Her parents, immigrants from Mexico, worked in the Stockyards.

Some days after school, Saldaña Natke would take the bus away from her aging, blue collar neighborhood with its bungalows and smoke stacks, up to the Loop, and marvel at the sparkling skyscrapers and expansive public parks in the city’s downtown.

“I would look at the beautiful buildings and wonder why those kinds of spaces weren’t in existence where I lived,” Saldaña Natke recalled. “That’s the reason I became an architect; I felt that public places should be the greatest in the area of most need.”

Saldaña Natke channeled those beliefs into UrbanWorks, the architecture and planning firm she founded, which specializes in socially and environmentally conscious planning and design work -- the kind she dreamed about as a kid. She’s set her sights on one Chicago hood in particular: Pilsen.

“[Pilsen] needs to be a place where people can move upward in mobility,” Saldaña Natke said. “The entire core of why I work in Pilsen comes to the fact that there are neighborhoods that need a lot of attention.”

UrbanWorks’ previous Pilsen projects include a college dormitory intended to help keep students from the neighborhood on the path to academic success, a high school designed to resemble the copper canyons of Mexico and Saldaña Natke’s most ambitious project: a master plan for Pilsen.

In architecture and planning circles, a master plan is a grand vision for the future development of a neighborhood.

“It’s much more than a wish list,” Saldaña Natke said. “It may be implemented slightly different than the plan shows, but the core of it should remain intact.”

This plan isn’t funded, but Saldaña Natke is working with 25th Ward Alderman Danny Solis and the Department of Housing and Economic Development to assemble funds to inch her vision along.

Saldaña Natke consulted with Pilsen residents in a series of community meetings, including a neighborhood-wide meeting at Providence of God Catholic Church in 2004. The resulting plan aims to build on Pilsen’s assets: its strong Mexican cultural heritage, its main commercial drag zoned for pedestrian use and its historic architecture.

“The community says church steeples are its high rises,” Saldaña Natke said.

The plan calls for greater access to the Chicago River and also addresses what Saldaña Natke says are the neighborhood’s challenges: While the west side of Pilsen is served by the CTA’s Pink, Green and Orange Lines, the east side has few transportation options, leaving the neighborhood disconnected.

And, there is a surprising lack of green space in Pilsen. According to Saldaña Natke, the city requires two acres of green space for every 1,000 Chicago residents.

“But the Park District just said to us that the recommended amount is four acres of green space,” she said. “[Pilsen] is over 18 acres short.”

So, UrbanWorks’ master plan starts there. Saldaña Natke envisions more green space along the neighborhood’s largely industrial waterfront, and the transformation of an abandoned, surface-level railway that runs along Sangamon Street into a stretch of park—something like New York’s High Line or the Northwest Side’s Bloomingdale Trail, only without the elevation. Then, she hopes to transform the abandoned buildings that line the railroad into a fashion and textile incubator.

A fashion incubator?

Yes, Saldaña Natke says.

“You shouldn’t need to go to 900 North Michigan or Michigan Avenue to see all the high-end fashion shows. Why can’t it be in the neighborhoods?”

You can hear Saldaña Natke describe her dream in more detail in the audio above.

Dynamic Range showcases hidden gems unearthed from Chicago Amplified’s vast archive of public events and appears on weekends. Patricia Saldana Natke spoke at an event presented by the Chicago Architecture Foundation in April of 2013. Click here to hear the event in its entirety.

Robin Amer is a producer on WBEZ’s digital team. Follow her on Twitter @rsamer.

Everyone needs a cultural hero

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:30:00 -0500

Like a proper homecoming, Theaster Gates returned to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago for his latest major solo exhibition, 13th Ballad (more on that next week).

In my eyes, there are two reactions to Theaster Gates. The first, who is this man? The second, I love this man. Gates inspires rapturous attention from his audiences and his artistic career has flourished exponentially in the past decade. But this is not about what Gates has done., It's about who Gates is and continues to be for the public at large.

I am not an artist but I see in Gates a creative force that is unparalleled. Others perhaps feel the same way, too. His latest exhibition then, is a reminder of his place as an important, even critical cultural figure for the city of Chicago and for lovers of the arts in general. Gates is a cultural hero, someone to admire, to study, to find purpose in with each new career move.

Theaster Gates is my cultural hero. So too are Zadie Smith and artist Lorna Simpson. I grew up staunchly independent, finding little purpose in others and instead turning inward. But it was not until I read Smith’s White Teeth that I saw so much of what was missing.

Although I admire their work, their position as a cultural hero is greater than the sum of their creative productivity. It is more selfish, more indicative of what I need as an emerging creator. Cultural heroes help solidify one’s work and purpose. It is not that they provide vocal assurance. Rather, it is their pursuit of their own endeavors that gives rise to one’s own sense of security. You begin to think, “If they can do that, then I can do this.” Our projects may not be as grand, but it is in the creation of them – the birth of a core idea, the making, and the final product – that we find meaning.

In Smith I found a voice that was so precise and exact as to be frightening. And once that surpassed, I found a young woman of color who wrote (and wrote well and did so successfully). This career path, this pursuit of the written word… in Smith I found assurance: Yes, this is possible. Yes, this can be great.

But in some ways, there is value in living vicariously through another’s work and choices. For the emerging creator, our cultural heroes show us not a path, but a possibility. This can be yours, they say.

“Sometimes, you just need to know that you’re not completely wrong,” my friend Hafsa Arain said. She is in graduate school studying Religious Leadership. Our paths are not similar, but we are both creating and in the early stages of this creation.

“Especially when you are trying to explain what you are doing,” Arain said. “It’s good to know that your work can matter.”

Our cultural heroes often inform our choices, opinions, outlook, and interests. This does not signal a lack of personal vision, but rather guidance, assurance and care. What their work and pursuits say is that, “You are right. This is okay.”

Britt Julious blogs about culture in and outside of Chicago. Follow Britt's essays for WBEZ's Tumblr or on Twitter @britticisms.

The Cheryl Raye Stout Interview: A chat with one of Chicago's veteran sports reporters

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:52:00 -0500

As a veteran female sports reporter, Cheryl Raye Stout has had to prove her chops over the nearly 30 years she’s been reporting in this city. We had a delightful phone conversation about breaking through the glass ceiling (which took the form of the Bears locker room door), her rapport with some of the city's sports legends and her thoughts on head injuries. Go here if you’d like to learn a little bit more about her history as a Chicagoan and reporter. We spoke for much longer than your typical blog post, so if you'd like to see the full chat, go here.

You teach radio sportscasting at Columbia College. What do you have to teach students now about reporting that wasn’t relevant 10 years ago?
I also taught ethics in broadcasting. I had to bring that into play because a lot of times they take blogs verbatim, they take Tweets verbatim, Facebook... I said, 'Whoah! Unless it’s a legitimate source, you can’t take it at face value.' One of the things I tell my students too is if you’re using Twitter or Facebook, you’ve got to be very careful. I think players, strangely, think that Twitter is almost personal and private. They don’t realize the ramifications when they put things out there. I think there are more pros than cons but there are cons and the negativity—like what I’ve seen this year, about Derrick Rose, that really, really is bothersome.

I saw a post on Deadspin about how little anyone knows about the kind of injury Rose has, yet everyone feels so qualified to say he’s slacking.
I find that just appalling. Because those of us around him—I know the kid, I’ve been around him—we know that he’s not the person that they’re painting him out to be. And it’s hard because people will attack you for saying anything about him positively. Sports talk radio has really become a beast of negativity and of vile spewing things.

You alluded to some unpleasant situations you encountered when you first started covering sports in Chicago. Can you give an example or two?
I’ve told the story about the Bears, when I was going up there for practices, the players would be really angry and say, insult me and be mean-spirited, and then they had to sit outside the locker room. But there’s been times when I was in a Boston Celtics locker room early in my career and they never had any women covering at that time. I was there in the visiting locker room at the stadium and a player saw me and he’s coming out of the shower, dancing and everything, naked. I’d never make eye contact, I’d walk away. I thought, 'What a jerk.' So, he was dressed and I walked past him and said, 'You know, there really isn’t much to look at.' I just felt that humor was my way of getting back without being mean, and to indicate that I’m not going to back down just because you don’t want me in here.

How do you advise female sports reporters on how not to be pushed around, prove they are going to stick around and can roll with the punches?
You have to know more. You have to research more. You cannot rest. I also tell them, especially when you do a lot of phone calling or contacting, you make sure you know who is on the other end of the phone. If it’s a wife or girlfriend, or whoever, you treat them well. I always tell everybody, men and women but women particularly, if you're going to interview a player, don’t just gung-ho start the interview. Introduce yourself, talk to them a little bit, and then say, 'Can I talk to you now on the record?' Just to break that ice because you then get comfortable.

The seasons when you had to sit outside the Bears locker room before Jim Harbaugh invited you in, what did you do while you sat there?
I would sit there and ask the PR director to get me a player, the player would come out and I’d talk to them. The funniest thing was when I was sitting there one day and Walter Payton sat down next to me. This was before I was let in. He goes, 'Go Cheryl, go in there!' I said, 'No. I know you, you’ll open the door, I’ll walk in and you’ll walk the other way.' He was a practical joker. I just knew that I had to bide my time.

What are some of your proudest moments as a reporter?
One of the things I learned a long time ago is that everybody you meet—if it’s a security guard, an usher, a handler, a PR person—no matter what, you introduce yourself, you get to know them. That’s the way I was raised. Michael Jordan used to talk to us before games in the locker room. He was very accommodating. A lot of it was background information, and sometimes it was on the record when you were doing an interview for news. But he talked to me about baseball and he said, 'That’s the sport I wanted to play.' I said, 'Oh Michael, you’ve got years.' This was almost a year and a half before he retired. Michael retires and somebody I knew that was involved with both the White Sox and the Bulls came up to me at a Bulls game and said, 'Michael’s going to try out for the White Sox.' I called up a person I knew that was doing security with the White Sox. I said 'Hey, what time does Michael get there to work out?' And the person says, 'Oh, about 10 o’clock.' And she goes, 'You...didn’t know that, did you?' I said, 'Don’t worry, I’ll never use your name. I just need to make sure I’m on the right trail.' As I progressed I was able to get the information and it was a firestorm when I did it.

I watched that 30 For 30 about him playing baseball: I never before heard that conspiracy theory that he was being forced to take time off from basketball because of his gambling.
His dad had been murdered. That’s what people forget. And in '93, James Jordan traveled with Michael. That was the first year he had ever traveled with him. I was working for the team’s flagship station and I traveled with him. They were closer than father and son. When James was murdered, there were over 100 cameras on Michael’s lawn. That’s when his privacy was really unearthed. I think that that devastated him more than anything. So to say that it was from gambling... unless you know for a fact, I just don’t like that conjecture.

Has anything you've learned from your career influenced the way you raised your son?
I made a clear decision that he will do sports for enjoyment, he will not do sports to make that a career. I suppose you could mold anybody into an athlete if you really really try. I just think that the way it’s evolved now—where the parents are living through their children, and these kids are playing sports 24/7, I don’t think they become well-rounded. Also I saw the injuries. When I was covering Bears camp up at Platteville, the old place, we used to be feet away from injuries. I saw the collisions that went on, I heard knees and shoulders pop, I saw these guys with their bell rung. I had talked to a couple of Bears coaches, Dave Wannstedt and Dick Jauron. They had daughters. I said 'If you had a son, would you let them play football?' They both said no. I was in a very bad car accident when I was 19 and I had a concussion that was really bad. I had the effects for over a year. I now have a brain ailment. We don’t know if it’s connected but I wonder if it is.

Can you tell me more about your brain ailment?
Five years ago I started having some symptoms with my eyes. I had trouble. I kept blinking a lot. My jaw was dropping. It took over a year to be diagnosed. I was going from different types of doctors until I finally went to a neurologist who said, 'You have Meige’s syndrome.' I get Botox shots every three months to control it. It’s my eyes, my throat, my neck, down the blade of my shoulders. I deal with pain every day and sometimes it affects my voice and affects certain things. I don’t want that to impede me from doing what I do what I want to do. I’m not going to sit here and feel sorry for myself. I just deal with those times when I’m working and I can feel the symptoms bother me. It just frustrates me more than anything.

Who are the nicest Chicago athletes that you’ve gotten to know over the years?
Boy, there’s so many. I love Ozzie Guillen. I don’t care if he’s a lightning rod. I knew him from the time he was a rookie. I’ll never forget he was doing a live shot with us on WMAQ and he didn’t speak good English. The only language he knew was profanity.

This is my favorite Bulls team, this last few years. The core of Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, Luol Deng. My son was given jerseys by other people, but the only one I ever bought for him was Luol Deng’s, because of him as a person. He is the most well-rounded, grounded, intelligent, caring athlete I’ve ever been around. Michael Jordan and I had a great rapport. I really loved him. I could go on and on.

How does it feel to be the 349th person interviewed for Zulkey.com/WBEZ?
I feel honored!

Follow me @Zulkey and go here to see previous Zulkey.com interviews.

Bike culture 101

Fri, 17 May 2013 08:00:00 -0500

Just in time for summer bike season, Walk Score (the company best known for rating the walkability of neighborhoods across the country) awarded Chicago the number 10 spot on its list of most bikeable American cities. Sure, we lag behind Portland, San Francisco and New York, but we beat Austin! Hipsters unite.

Of course, not all Chicago cyclists are hip young people riding vintage Schwinns or fixie conversions with neon aerospokes. Some are newbies (a.k.a the people who had no idea what I was referring to just now), while others are hard-core athletes accustomed to flying down Lakeshore Drive at maximum velocity. We're a diverse bunch, and our many varied bicycle-friendly neighborhoods prove it.

So, what are you waiting for?

Meet up

The Chainlink- an online community for Chicagoland cyclists to share info on bikes, routes, rides and events.

Handlebar- A restaurant/bar that supports bicycle advocacy. Come for the beautiful beer garden, stay for the best veggie brunch in the city.

Chicago Cycling Club- Become a member! Upcoming events include a ride through the 45th Ward (Parks & Burgers) and a Memorial Day 35-mile round trip to Frankfort, IL via the Old Plank Bicycle Path.

Critical Mass Chicago- Group bike rides start at Daley Plaza at 5:30 p.m. on the last Friday of each month. Free, fun and perfect for meeting fellow cyclists.

"Bike the Drive" 2013- May 26. Register for five hours of car-free biking down Lakeshore Drive. Best summer kickoff party ever.

10th Annual World Naked Bike Ride- June 8. If you dare.

Gear up/Tune up

Working Bikes Cooperative (gold star for incredible community service) - Pilsen

Roscoe Village Bikes- in the heart of Roscoe Village

Heritage Bicycles (with general store/coffeeshop) - Lakeview

Boulevard Bikes and The Bike Lane- both in Logan Square

Comrade Cycles- Ukranian Village

Rapid Transit Cycle Stop- Wicker Park and UIC

Ride like the wind

The city's Divvy bike-sharing program launches in June, with 4,000 three-speed bikes painted "Chicago blue" available at 400 docking stations and priced at $7 per day. Hopefully, this new infrastructure will continue to grow Chicago's budding cyclist community and convert more city streets to be bike-friendly to all.

Bike Score didn't take this new program into account when adding up Chicago's "bikeability" numbers, but their methodology did come up with the 25 best neighborhoods for cyclists based on bike parking, on-street lanes and road connectivity:

East Ukrainian Village
Ukrainian Village
Wicker Park
Illinois Medical District
Noble Square
East Pilsen
Margate Park
West Loop Gate
Sheridan Park
Fulton River District
University Village / Little Italy
Tri-Taylor
Bucktown
Palmer Square
Near East Side
Uptown
Ravenswood
Pilsen
Greektown
Streeterville
Buena Park
South Loop
Lincoln Park
Near West Side

Are you as surprised as I am to not see Logan Square on this list? Where are your favorite places to meet, shop and ride in Chicago?

Leah Pickett writes about popular culture for WBEZ. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr.

Four corners, four gas stations

Fri, 17 May 2013 05:00:00 -0500

I grew up near a landmark intersection, though I didn’t realize it at the time.

The year is 1961. Montrose Avenue, meet Austin Avenue. 4400 north, 6000 west.

Four corners. Four gas stations. What better monument to the American car culture of the mid-20^th Century?

The Standard station on the northwest corner came first. Then, going clockwise around the intersection, there was Texaco, Mobil, and Pure. I’m not sure in what order these other stations were built.

(There was actually a fifth gas station a few hundred feet east of the intersection. A tiny Sinclair station stood on the southeast corner of Montrose and Mason. Grandpa Price said it had been there since the 1920s. By 1965 it was gone.)

Next to the Mobil station there was a vacant lot where we played baseball. Like most Chicagoans, we called it "the prairie." Other than that, I had no connection to the four gas stations on the four corners, and no stories to tell about them. They were simply part of the neighborhood.

During the 1970s, with gas prices rising, four stations became redundant. The Texaco was the first to go, converted into an auto clinic. The Standard became a bank branch. The Pure was an Arco for a while, and then a fast-food drive-thru. Today there’s only one gas station at Montrose and Austin.

Chicago had a few places where three gas stations crowded the four-corner intersections. Montrose-Austin was the only place in the city where I ever saw four stations on all four corners, though I suspect this might have happened in the suburbs.

Were there any other four-corner intersections within the city limits that had four gas stations at one time? I'd be interested in learning where they were.

From 1989: PBS documentary on Harold Washington Library competition

Fri, 17 May 2013 05:00:00 -0500

For several months in 1988, the competition to design the Harold Washington Library was the talk of the city.

The new downtown library not just a place for books, but an architectural gut check: Would America's first city of architecture pick a daring design? Or would Chicago—in the wake of the cost overruns at the then-new State of Illinois Building and the McCormick Place west addition (or out of sheer timidity)— select the safe and familiar?

In 1989, PBS' Nova series took a look at the competition in an episode called "Design Wars," seen in an edited version in the video above. The program explored the five teams each headed by architects Dirk Lohan, Thomas Beeby, SOM, Helmut Jahn and Arthur Erickson of Canada that sought the commission. Each architect was paired with a real estate developer to assure the design could be built for $140 million price tag.

Each submittal was profoundly different. Beeby's design won, of course, and the building was completed in 1991.

Watching "Design Wars" a quarter century later, there is much to note. The camera pan at the beginning of the video reveals a skyline east of Michigan Avenue that looks remarkably barren now. At 0:16, architecture historian Bob Bruegmann in a stroll along the riverwalk that once ran next to the old Chicago Sun-Times Building at 401 N. Wabash Ave. nicely explains why architecture is so important here. SOM's computer modeling at 2:00 is also worth a look. So is the scene with architects damning each other's designs with the faintest of praise at 3:38.

Broadcaster and civic leader Norman Ross chaired the design jury. His critique of each design at 7:27 is both erudite and devastating—as is architect Stanley Tigerman's assessment of Beeby's design at the end.

What do you think of the design—then and now? Back then, I rooted for Erickson's design. Looking at it now, I'm far less impressed. In "Design Wars," Ross said a juror thought the building resembled "a Houston or Marin County shopping center." It does. Take a look at the video and leave your comments below.

Handpicked Chicago food and drink events: trash fish dinner, mah jongg and more

Fri, 17 May 2013 05:00:00 -0500

Friday, May 17
Unicornucopia: Big Fork, Co-op Sauce, and Pipeworks Brewing collaboration party at Star Lounge. A Chicago Craft Beer Week four course, four beer pairing dinner. First magical course: Wisconsin morels, Michigan asparagus, crispy Don Pedro's prosciutto, shaved salt cured yolk, and fermented poblano vinaigrette; paired with Pipeworks' Ninja Vs. Unicorn Double IPA. Admission $45.

Saturday, May 18
Agroterrorism (Food Poisoning Brought to a New Level!) at the Chicago History Museum. Presented by the Culinary Historians of Chicago, poison expert Dr. Jerrold Leikin will discuss agroterrorism, including the first and biggest bioterrorist attack in U.S. history: the 1984 Rajneeshee salad bar salmonella contamination which poisoned 751 people in 10 Oregon restaurants. What food samples will be served at a food poisoning event? Come and be surprised! This event will be recorded for WBEZ’s Chicago Amplified. Admission FREE for Culinary Historians of Chicago members, $5 general, $3 for students.

Sunday, May 19
Goose Island 25th anniversary party outside at Goose Island’s Fulton Street Brewery. A celebration of beer, with actual craft brewers on-site, plus local food favorites and music. Sample craft beers from Goose Island (including the Fulton and Wood, and Bourbon County collections) plus special guests Half Acre, Emmett’s Brewing, Virtue Cider, and more. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild. Admission $25.

Monday, May 20
Trash Fish Dinner: the Best Seafood You've Never Tried at Big Jones. Asian carp, scup, dogfish, triggerfish, smelt and speckled trout have traditionally been discarded by fishermen, left off menus by chefs, and are virtually unknown to the general public. Presented by Chefs Collaborative, 10 of Chicago’s best chefs turn trash fish into treasured dinner. Hosted by Big Jones chef Paul Fehribach with Avec’s Erling Wu-Bower, Blackbird’s Paul Kahan, North Pond’s Bruce Sherman, Prairie Grass Café’s Sarah Stegner and George Bumbaris, Trattoria No. 10’s Laura Piper, Trenchermen’s Michael and Patrick Sheerin, and Vie and Perennial Virant’s Paul Virant. The dinner is sold out but add your name to the waitlist to be notified when seats become available. Weather permitting, Big Jones will open the patio. All proceeds benefit Chefs Collaborative. Admission $125.

Tuesday, May 21

Chinese Roots of Mah Jongg at the Chicago History Museum. Presented by the Chicago History Museum in collaboration with the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago, discuss the cross-cultural love of Mah Jongg over kosher tea. This event will be recorded for WBEZ’s Chicago Amplified. Admission $8 for Chicago History Museum members, $10 general.

Wednesday, May 22
International Biodiversity Day at The Field Museum. Travel the globe through the lens of photographer David Cavagnaro. Learn the geographic origins of our favorite fruits and vegetables, and the diaspora that's responsible for the diversity we have today. Tour the Edible Treasures Garden at the museum then taste food inspired by this year's plantings. Presented by the Field Museum, Peterson Garden Project, Seed Savers Exchange, and Jewell Events Catering, celebrating seed diversity. Admission $10.

Thursday, May 23
Meet the Market at bellyQ. Presented by the Green City Market Junior Board, kick off this season's series with passed apps and featured cocktails from Koval Distillery and Green Acres Farm of North Judson, Indiana. Admission FREE, food complimentary, Koval cocktails additional and act as your donation.

Follow Louisa Chu @louisachu.

Why Kelly Rowland's 'Dirty Laundry' is one of the most important songs of 2013

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:45:00 -0500

I am thinking about my friends and acquaintances in high school, how they arrived to class with bruises on their arms.

"What happened?" we used to ask.

And then they whispered something about their boyfriends, a volatile argument, and how it was their "fault." They would brush questions aside, blaming themselves for the violence in their relationship. My friends were across the racial and ethnic spectrum, but their situations were eerily similar.

On Wednesday, former Destiny's Child member and solo artist Kelly Rowland released "Dirty Laundry," a highly emotional, personal, and startlingly blunt song about her career and personal life. Production-wise, "Dirty Laundry" is as clear and straightforward as the lyrics. Structured with steady, yet ominous piano chords and a static drumbeat, "Dirty Laundry" plays like some of the best confessional r&b songs. Rowland sings:

Started to call them people on him/I was battered/He hit the window like it was me/Until it shattered/He pulled me out and said 'Don't nobody love you but me/Not your mama not your daddy and especially not B'

In the song, Rowland talks about her feelings in the industry and a violent relationship with an ex, but her situation is applicable and relevant to the circumstances of her listeners. According to a study from the U.S. Department of Justice in a compilation of statistics from the American Bar Association's Commission of Domestic Violence, "Black females experienced intimate partner violence at a rate 35% higher than that of white females, and about 22 times the rate of women of other races." As a singer in the r&b genre with audiences largely both black and female, Rowland's release can act as a call for action and a means of shedding light on an issue that still receives little attention.

The statistics for domestic violence are sobering. We assume that because we are not actively talking about it all the time that it is not there. We assume that if it is not in front of us everyday that it can't possibly exist. And yet, the numbers do not lie. The number one killer of African-American women ages 15 to 34 is homicide at the hands of a current or former partner, says the ABA. As well, only 17% of African-American sexual assault survivors report their assault to the police. The importance of this song and Rowland’s experiences can’t be reiterated enough. Later in the song (and years after her relationship ended), she sings:

I got my shit down pat/Think I had it good/And they don't know how bad/Fooled everybody/Except myself/Soaking in this hurt/Bathing in the dirt

Like many of her listeners, Rowland kept her experiences a secret. Outside she exuded strength and charisma, but inside she kept a secret. She was shamed herself, never being able to reveal her experiences to the public.

The question of how much a public figure owes the public is debatable. I do not believe it was Rowland’s responsibility to reveal this part of her life. And as the lyrics of the song indicate (Phone call from my sister; 'What's the matter?'/She said, 'Oh no, baby, you gotta leave') family and friends like Beyonce knew. But Rowland’s experience began nearly a decade ago. The courage to speak out can be difficult for many. If only one woman listens to Rowland's work and sees in it the courage to speak out that is one life potentially saved.

Art can and should mean different things to different people. As a whole however, art in and of itself is something that we consume constantly and voraciously. Music is the most accessible form of art. We seek in it something personal and true. It is no surprise that a variety of different genres exist to speak to both our personal tastes and our desire to clarify and reiterate life's questions through notes, chords, or lyrics. In "Dirty Laundry," Rowland reveals her truth. That it is shocking to the public reflects our unwillingness to address an insidious facet of our culture.

Britt Julious blogs about culture in and outside of Chicago. Follow Britt's essays for WBEZ's Tumblr or on Twitter @britticisms.