Kinetic Loop

Sounds recorded on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen will be played over the Pritzker Pavilion speakers from 9am-10pm this weekend, then the visual complement will be screened on the glass doors from 5pm-10pm. (For local audio, check out Chicago Public Radio’s Sonic Soundscapes. I keep intending to record the various alien invasion- and pterodactyl-like sounds of downtown.)

The Chicago Architecture Foundation has an exhibit of large-format photos taken of major Chicago intersections during the 1930s.

Madeleine Grynsztejn (GRIN-shtayn) is the new director of the MCA. This isn’t her first time in Chicago: she was associate curator and acting department head for 20th-century painting and sculpture at the Art Institute during most of the 1990s. Here’s an interview, from when Grynsztejn was at SFMOMA.

A nice article on Threadless

Taken within ten minutes of each other.

Two David Lynch films at the Siskel Center in November:

A freshly minted 35mm print of David Lynch’s Eraserhead, November 23-29.

LYNCH_(one), a new documentary comprised of footage during the making of Inland Empire, playing November 23-29.

The thought of both makes me happier than Lyndon Johnson getting handed a Fresca after crawling through the Arizona desert for a week. The Siskel had a Lynch retrospective in July; I wish it were every other month.

Also at the Siskel Center in November:

A restored 35mm print of Touch of Evil.

Cityscape as Landscape, which presents the Chicago skyline as backdrop for interpretations of urban life and includes The Building: Chicago Stock Exchange (1975); time-lapse footage of the construction of the Equitable building (1964); Chicago Loop (1976); and Super Up (1966), with portraits of Chicago’s rapid change as a city. There are three other films in this Big Picture series.

Seurat, Drawing His Way to the Grande Jatte
Roberta Smith, I love you for using ‘cohort’ in the way it should be used. “The earliest is open to a cafe interior so charmingly stiff that you expect Madeline and her cohort — the 12 little girls in two straight lines — to file past its striped awning.”

A haven for lovers of avant-garde bagpipe music
‘”Cussed eccentricity,” says Herrington, “should be celebrated.”‘

Why the Saw movies are perfect for middle managers
Holy crap, his root canal shattered into shards?

The Guardian interviews Steve Buscemi

Helping Nikki Sixx write his book, ‘Heroin Diaries’
“…co-founder and sole songwriter Sixx was an abject junkie, a melancholic depressive… and an idiosyncratic and obsessive diary-keeper.” I really want to excerpt from every paragraph, but then it would be the whole article.

We Are All Larry David
“That bald man made a mountain out of a molehill!”

Taken from the Gehry bridge. No pics of people until next week. I went out to the lakefront, which, like Grant Park, was nice and deserted. Also, everyone is dressed for February.

Battlestar Galactica: Razor will be screening at the AMC River East 21. Register tomorrow (Friday) at battlestarevent.com.

20-Something Angst, in 8-Minute Bursts, on the Web
A web-based drama series set in Chicago offends a New Yorker: “The only creative industry that Chicago could claim superiority over New York is in its new theater and improv, which produced Stephen Colbert and Tina Fey — who then moved to New York.” To support that argument, the writer dismisses Columbia College, saying that the film school may be big, but it’s “known more for its technicians” (no!). Yeah, I can’t imagine why any young artist would live in Chicago and not New York, beyond being able to afford living here. Maybe the 20-something artists here don’t know that there IS such a thing as New York!

Microsoft close to moving Chicago office
“Microsoft Corp. is close to a deal to move its Chicago office (a sales office and a MS Technology Center) to the Aon Center.”

Podcasts are sweeping Chicago museums
“Despite the lower cost, few museums are moving entirely away from traditional audio tours. The Adler Planetarium is reserving its podcasts as a vehicle for original content.” Look for the sidebar guide to six local museums.

I can’t stand even the scent of curry, maybe because I had a British landlord who cooked with it all the time. If you love curry, good for you, but smelling it makes me want to hurl.

We like to go to Ben Pao for their seven-flavor chicken and spicy dragon noodles. The last time we were there, we noticed that inside the usual Ben Pao menu was this “Curry Celebrasian” menu.

I didn’t order from that one.

The one on the right visited the other at the rail about three times, so I think they were checking out a few of the boxers (in the World Boxing Championships walk).