Category Archives: Uncategorized

November 11, 2011 · 4:34 pm

On tap for Chicago: Sharon Hayes, Logan Square Farmers Market, Clybourne Park, Chocolate etc.

Some ideas for our weekend in Chicago:

– The Logan Square Farmers Market Sunday from 10-2. The Congress Theater Lobby 2135 N. Milwaukee Avenue

– Clybourne Park, last weekend to see the Pulitzer Prize winning play at The Steppenwolf Theater.

– “Ann” – a play about former Texas Gov. Ann Richards Sunday through Dec. 4 at Bank of America Theatre, 18 W. Monroe St.; $20-$85 at 800-775-2000 and broadwayinchicago.com

– The exhibit all about Chocolate at the Field Museum. (From the museum website:Get a better understanding of where this sweet treat comes from — hint: it doesn’t grow in the candy store — when the popular exhibition returns to the museum, allowing visitors to explore the relationship we have with chocolate and its rainforest roots. Learn about the plant, products, history and culture through science and pop culture.)

– Sharon Hayes exhibit in the modern wing at the Chicago Art Institute. I don’t really understand what it is but that makes me even more interested. Something to do with performance art, video installations and free speech.  (From the institute’s website:The performance artist’s first solo show at a major museum in the United States features three recent moving-image and photo-based installations exploring the role of speech in personal and political contexts.) (more below)

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– This looks incredibly cool – alas we won’t be around when it’s happening.

Twilight Tour

What: A guided tour ($15) at the Driehaus Museum of how Chicagoans might have entertained after-hours in the late 1800s

Where: 40 E. Erie St.

When: 6:30 p.m. on the first and third Tuesday each month; the next tour is Nov. 15.

More information: 312-482-8933, ext. 21; driehausmuseum.org

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More on Sharon Hayes: From the art institute’s website:

The performance artist’s first solo show at a major museum in the United States features three recent moving-image and photo-based installations exploring the role of speech in personal and political contexts.

November 10, 2011–March 11, 2012
Galleries 182–184
Member Preview: November 9, 10:30–5:00

Overview: Over the past 15 years, American artist Sharon Hayes has been probing how speech—both public and private—intersects with politics, history, personal identity, desire, and love through her performances and multimedia installations. …she has tackled a diversity of issues and topics including the 1968 Democratic Convention, Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This presentation, the first solo museum exhibition of the artist’s work in the United States …includes several recent media and object-based installations as well as a live performance. 

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November 9, 2011 · 8:37 pm

Things to do in Hawaii – advice from a friend who lived there.

 

 

Here are recommendations on things to do in Hawaii from a friend who used to live there:

 

Big Island

Akaka Falls

Volcano Nat’l Park

CUTE LITTLE ZOO ON HILO SIDE

BAY WHERE CAPTAIN COOK DIED –  NEAR TOWN OF CAPTAIN COOK

CITY OF REFUGE – ON THE WATER; STATE PARK;  GOOD  SWIMMING AROUND IN NEARBY BEACH

Honolulu

Bishop Museum

Academy of Art  — (GOT TO MAKE RESERVS IN ADVANCE FOR LUNCH THERE)

Iolani Palace

Chinatown

Waikiki Aquarium  ( very small,  right near/on the beach)

Hanauma Bay

The drive from Hanauma Bay to wherever the road turns away from directly by the water – before Waimanalo

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October 31, 2011 · 5:56 pm

Amazing views and vertigo at Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis

We finally visited the new (okay five-year-old) Guthrie Theater last weekend during a visit to the Twin Cities. What an astonishing place. Designed by Frenchman Jean Nouvel’s (2008 winner of the Pritzker Prize)  its odd-looking exterior is a  rounded cobalt highrise (echoing the nearby historic flour mills downtown) with a protruding platform that sticks out towards the Mississippi River like a bridge lopped off in mid stride.  As suggested, we took the very narrow steep elevator that reminded me of an elevator in the London Tube system to the fifth floor and walked out on the platform which we had all to ourselves on a quiet Saturday morning in late October.  Astonishing views of the River,  St. Anthony Falls and the Stone Arch Bridge, bright sunshine bouncing off the blue glass, and I felt like an ant whose antenna had been ripped off. Dizzy. Disoriented. Dazzled.

Inside, the strange interior – soaring spaces with cut out windows offer very precise views of the river and city and a lovely green landscaped park dotted with fiery red-leafed trees – also had me feeling woozy. We rode the elevator up to the ninth floor for another dazzling view, this time through huge panes of yellow-green tinted windows. Interesting how the glass totally changed the view we’d seen several floors below. We also walked around the curving space lining one of the theaters and through the sleek darkened bars on the fifth floor.

Building tours are available the first Saturday of the month. Next time, we’ll go to a performance there at one of the complex’s three stages (the “thrust stage” and Shakespeare seems good idea.)

for photos and more info: see http://www.guthrietheater.org/about_guthrie/our_spaces

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October 21, 2011 · 2:54 pm

Adding to list for Hawaii’s Big Island: Polulu Valley and town of Hawi

A fellow blogger recommends the Polulu Valley in the northern tip of the Big Island. I’ve checked it out and definitely on our list now, thank you very much.

Here’s her thoughts: Polulu Valley….we are so glad when we added it to our things to do!! The Highway 270 up in North Kohala dead ends into this beautiful valley lookout. You can hike down the cliff to beautiful black sands with some green in it. Not very crowded at all. We wish we had brought lunch with us so we could just enjoy sitting by the water! If you google it, you can see some great pictures of it.

 

And here’s what Lets Go Hawaii has to say:

Polulu Valley, where North Kohala’s main artery, Hwy-270, comes to a dead end, is the last of the chain of inaccessible valleys, and for the moment is every bit as pristine as Waipio. The fear of tsunami, which led the Hawaiians to abandon these once densely populated valleys, is probably their best defense against the rapacity of the developers.

The morning is the best time to visit this picturesque perch overlooking a stretch of sea cliffs. Pololu valley is located at the end of Highway 270 in North Kohala.  On your drive up Highway 270, be sure to stop for a look-see and a wonderful bite to eat in the quaint town of Hawi. The highway ends at the picturesque lookout for the Pololu Valley.  At the top you can look down onto the Pololu Valley and a beautiful black sand beach.

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October 5, 2011 · 7:35 pm

Walking the Big Island in Hawaii

I’m starting to think we should visit the Big Island during our trip to Hawaii in January, which will start with a conference in Honolulu.  I’ve gotten some suggestions from VBT’s walking tours catalog – including visiting Pu’uhonua o Hanaunau,  Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Hamakua Coast/Wilamea/Anna’s Ranch , Kohala Coast, Hilo and staying at: Kilauea Lodge, Hilo Hawaiian Hotel, Hapuna Beach Prince Resort.

Any other suggestions welcome!

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September 20, 2011 · 1:57 am

Chicago restaurants to try….

I found myself taking six 19-year-olds out for lunch in Evanston, Illinois – upon my son’s return to Northwestern – which i was happy to do. But even happier when we went to Dixie’s – a fun Cajun place – that has a very parent-friendly menu of $6.95 lunch specials – including a good southwestern salad with grilled chicken, beans, corn salsa and a light creamy dressing and a sampler with little bowls of gumbo, jambalaya, and red beans and rice.
Now onto Chicago where E has these restaurants in mind:
This place is supposed to be great too, owned by the same people:
A combo of Asian and Mexican.

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September 18, 2011 · 3:29 pm

milwaukee – serbian food, sausages, santiago calatrava

Friends are going to Milwaukee for a college visit to Marquette U. so here are a few suggestions of things to do/see/eat:

– Three Brothers – a Old World Serbian restaurant in a neighborhood just north of the airport. Yes Serbian food. Good. Try the burek, sort of akin to Greek spinach and cheese pie

– The Milwaukee Art Museum, designed by Santiago Calatrava. The building alone – looking like bird landing on the lake – is worth a wander. There’s an exhibit on the building of the museum, marking its 10th anniversary. (more below)

– Usinger’s Sausages – okay, you don’t have to go to the original store downtown but it’s kind of a kick. there’s a stand selling them at the Milwaukee Airport.

 

 

Building a Masterpiece: Santiago Calatrava and the Milwaukee Art Museum

September 8, 2011–January 1, 2012

Feature image for the Calatrava exhibition It has been named the sexiest building in the world, featured in TV ads and shows and Hollywood movies, and it has transformed the city of Milwaukee. In September, the Milwaukee Art Museum celebrates the 10th anniversary of its iconic building, the Quadracci Pavilion, with the exhibition Building a Masterpiece: Santiago Calatrava and the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Designed by internationally renowned architect Santiago Calatrava, the Quadracci Pavilion was the Spaniard’s first completed commission in the United States. In 2001, it was named Time Magazine’s “Best Design of 2001.”

 

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September 16, 2011 · 2:53 pm

Mass MOCA – for huge art!

Last week, we thoroughly enjoyed a visit to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (aka Mass MOCA) in the old factory town of North Adams, near Williamstown. It was raining, which made it easier to spend a September day inside – and we were impressed not only by the exhibits but the building itself – a huge sprawling weathered old factory. The show on oppressed workers (see description below) was engrossing – as was the semi-permanent (“on view through 2033” according to the website) retrospective of bold colorful Sol LeWitt wall paintings (especially engrossing was a video of young people creating  these paintings, following LeWitt’s instructions.)

I thought the Tate Modern in London was huge – but Mass MOCA is even huger and the enormity of some of the art installations (by Nari WArd and Katarina Grosse) is astonishing. The museum also has a good cafe (Lickety Split) with large well-done salads and sandwiches. And if it had not been raining, would have been fun to poke around town a bit, especially some of the galleries that have sprung up in the wake of Mass MOCA.

THE WORKERS exhibit: “What does work look like today in a global economy marked by outsourcing, rapid migration, disruptive economies, and a state of labor that seems fractured, precarious, and almost invisible? With video, sculpture, photography, and performance art from 25 artists, this exhibition examines the way labor is represented today (and how some contemporary workers choose to represent themselves). “

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September 5, 2011 · 7:15 pm

Guilford – New Haven – Fairfield

The very good news is that our friends in Trumbull finally got their power back yesterday, eight days after Tropical Storm Irene. Beyond that we’ve seen a few downed trees and some dramatically rippled parking lot along the waterfront in Guilford, when it comes to storm damage. In Guilford, we walked around the pretty pristine New Englandesque town green, stopped in at the pleasant local bookstore and had a drink at Cilantro, a little coffee shop next door. In New Haven we had Pepe’s pizza in the Little Italy area which was as good as promised followed by Italian Ice and Gelato at Libby’s (I think.) Today we walked along the beach in Fairfield and stopped at Chef’s Kitchen for lunch (good tunafish in the salad bar.) Things are looking good for our drive to the Berkshires and Vermont – at least in terms of the roads, not so sure about the weather although my son managed to make it to the U.S.Open without rain, so far.

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August 24, 2011 · 2:33 pm

Leo’s/Royal Oak and Lou Malnati’s in Chicago

Made it home without a hitch yesterday after a 5.5 hour drive from Chicago which started with some very stormy weather. Didn’t have much time to explore the city since we were just passing through but did get a take out pizza from Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria – an outpost of which recently opened in my aunt’s Gold Coast neighborhood in the old Anthropologie building. Looked like a fun place to eat – especially the outdoor patio. We opted for takeout and thin crust, not Chicago thick. It was good  – especially the unusual crust that I believe is made with cornmeal – but wasn’t that bowled over. Certainly will try again. Another place to remember – the original Heaven on Seven, a Cajun restaurant downtown near the old Marshall Field’s and near my stepdaughter’s new place of employment. Comes well recommended by several.

Before leaving Michigan, we had to cram in a trip to Leo’s Coney Island in Royal Oak for my son who happily and quickly devoured two Coneys. And I do need to add – for one blog reader who protested – that Lafayette Coney Island was much more crowded when we tried to go there Saturday night than when we passed by midday Saturday. Unfortunately it was so busy that we couldn’t find a place to park and had to forego our visit.

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