FRIDAY 4/28 – Thursday 5/4
APRIL
By Cara Jepsen
28 FRIDAY The meaning of a 200-year-old sentence has become one of the most hotly debated topics in modern politics: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Today a who’s who of historians and constitutional scholars will give their opinions in a symposium entitled The Second Amendment: Fresh Looks. Speakers include Stanford University professor Jack N. Rakove, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution, and Michael A Bellesiles, director of Emory University’s Center for the Study of Violence. The free conference runs from 8 to 6 at the Chicago-Kent College of Law, 565 W. Adams. Registration is recommended. Call 312-906-5190.
The TIBETcenter library in Rogers Park has 407 books, 88 of which were donated by the Dalai Lama. But they need more. They’ve lined up over a dozen authors for a book signing and fund-raiser; the writers’ subject matter ranges from children’s stories to literary criticism and spirituality, and proceeds will go to help build the library’s collection. It’s today from 2 to 4:30 in the Galvin Auditorium lobby at Loyola University’s Sullivan Center, 6339 N. Sheridan. Tibetan arts and crafts will also be for sale, and the whole thing will be followed by a free lecture by Brother Wayne Teasdale, a board member of the Parliament of the World’s Religions and author of The Mystic Heart, who will discuss “The Growing Support for Tibet Among the Religions.” Call 773-743-7772 for more.
Journalist and death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal isn’t exactly in a position to promote his latest book, All Things Censored, so editor and Prison Radio director Noelle Hanrahan is doing a tour on his behalf. Tonight she’ll read from and discuss the collection of essays, which includes the text of commentaries Abu-Jamal recorded for NPR that never aired and several new essays. It’s at 7 at 57th Street Books, 1301 E. 57th (773-684-1300). It’s free.
29 SATURDAY Thirty-five years ago Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians set out to promote the playing of creative (i.e., jazz) music in a multitude of ways. The AACM’s anniversary festival started April 26 and runs through this Sunday, April 30. Tonight at 8 a group of AACM musicians and alumni will premiere Adegoke Steve Colson’s new large-ensemble piece 8th Tone Dimology at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago (312-791-9050). Tickets are $18; Douglas Ewart and Inventions will also perform. The evening will continue with an after-set performance at the Velvet Lounge, 21281/2 S. Indiana. Also today, Ernest Dawkins kicks off his three-year residency in Englewood, part of the Meet the Composer New Residencies program, with a free jazz improv workshop from 11 to 1 at Kennedy-King College, 6800 S. Wentworth. At 1:30 Dawkins’s New Horizons Ensemble and guests will give a concert with the Muntu Dance Theatre at the college’s Katherine Dunham Theatre. Call 312-747-0803 for more info.
In his 1992 book Among the Thugs, American writer (and former Granta editor) Bill Buford tried to capture what he called the “precise moment in its complete sensual intensity” when soccer fans go bonkers and lash out. The book’s been adapted for the stage by Tom Szentgyorgyi, whose play premieres this week in a Next Theatre Company production at the Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes in Evanston. Preview performances are Friday and tonight at 8 and tomorrow at 3; opening night is Monday. Preview tickets are $15. Call 847-475-1875.
30 SUNDAY Although the Salem witch trials were a long time ago, many Wiccans believe they must keep their practices under wraps. “There’s still a lot of discrimination,” says one of the organizers of Pagan Expo 2000. “Some people are afraid of losing their jobs or having their kids taken away. People have gotten fired.” At today’s expo, which is aimed at the non-Wiccan public, “out” practitioners will attempt to dispel some of the myths surrounding pagan religions and show that there’s nothing to be afraid of. The free expo, sponsored by the Pagan Interfaith Embassy, runs from noon to 6 on the third floor of the Irish American Heritage Center, 4626 N. Knox. Call 773-583-8083 for more information.
MAY
1 MONDAY Tonight’s free screening of Ronit Bezalel’s 1999 documentary, Voices of Cabrini, will be followed by a public forum on profit, politics, and public housing moderated by Chicago Reporter editor Laura Washington. Speakers include UIC professor Janet Smith, coauthor of For Rent: Housing Options in the Chicago Region, John LeFlore of the Metropolitan Tenants Organization, and a representative from the Coalition to Protect Public Housing. It’s at 6 at the Chicago Cultural Center’s Claudia Cassidy Theater, 78 E. Washington. Call 312-346-3278.
2 TUESDAY When Python-turned-author Michael Palin was researching his 1998 novel, Hemingway’s Chair, he became as obsessed as his protagonist, an unlikely Hemingway fanatic. For his new book, Michael Palin’s Hemingway Adventure (a companion piece to an upcoming PBS documentary), the British wit retraced Papa’s footsteps, visiting Oak Park, learning to drive an ambulance in Italy, checking out the writer’s tiny Paris flat, and spending a night in the Idaho house where Hemingway took his life. Palin will discuss his book tonight at 6 at the Harold Washington Library Center, 400 S. State. It’s free. Call 312-747-4050.
3 WEDNESDAY Today experts in science, management, politics, education, and business will discuss key issues facing women at a panel called Women in a Changing World, sponsored by the Renaissance Circle of DePaul University. Speakers include former state comptroller and Northwestern law professor Dawn Clark Netsch, DePaul College of Law dean Teree E. Foster, mathematician and DePaul associate dean Carolyn Narasimhan, and Miriam Ben-Yoseph from DePaul’s School for New Learning. It’s at 1:30 in the eighth-floor conference suite of the DePaul Center, 1 E. Jackson. It’s $20; reservations are required. For information, call 312-362-6985.
4 THURSDAY Since the Arche-works alternative design school was founded in 1994, its students have created several useful items that address social needs, like a car-seat device for people suffering from Alzheimer’s, furniture for disabled people who live in SROs, and pillboxes that accommodate an AIDS patient’s drug cocktail. At tonight’s fund-raiser, Trash Happens, the school will auction off “trash” works by artists, celebrities, and local creative professionals, including Tommy Hilfiger, Charlie Trotter, and Cindy Crawford (lipstick-blotted napkins). It starts at 6:30 at Archeworks, 625 N. Kingsbury (312-867-7254). Tickets are $50; all proceeds from the auction go to the Archeworks scholarship fund.