SEPTEMBER
29 FRIDAY You can learn how to make wood do what you want it to at the Chicagoland Woodworking Show this weekend. Floor demonstrations and seminars will tackle subjects like bending wood, building a cabinet, and door and drawer construction. More than 100 manufacturers will exhibit their wares and local clubs such as the Du Page Woodworkers and the North Suburban Carvers will display their masterpieces. Hours are noon to 7 today, 10 to 6 Saturday, and 10 to 4 Sunday at the Odeum, 1033 N. Villa in Villa Park. Admission is $9; kids 12 and under are free. The three-hour seminars are $60 each and include a weekend pass to the show. Call 800-826-8257 for information.
30 SATURDAY Admission’s not usually the biggest expense at the track, but general admission ($4.75) is free today at Arlington Interna-tional Racecourse. So is the fireworks show after the last race. It’s the final day of racing for this season (the park will open again next June) and Fan Appreciation Day. Doors open at 11; post time is 1:05 for the first of ten thoroughbred races. Parking is also free. Arlington International Racecourse is located at 2200 W. Euclid in Arlington Heights. Call 847-255-4300.
In 1909, Italian futurism hit Russia like a sack of spuds, and within no time cutting-edge writers and artists in the major cities were painting their faces, giving confrontational performances in cafes, and creating outdoor spectacles while wearing flamboyant outfits. Their manifesto, “Why We Paint Ourselves,” explained that “art is not only a monarch but also a newsman and a decorator. The synthesis of decoration and illustration is the basis of our self-painting. We decorate life and preach–that’s why we paint ourselves.” Tonight at 7 a group of actors, musicians, artists, and others will re-create Saint Petersburg’s Stray Dog Cafe–a basement dive that was a nucleus of the movement–as part of the Chicago Cultural Center’s “Moscow Is Burning” series. The free readings and performances (complete with costumes and clowns) start at 7 in the Cultural Center’s Sidney R. Yates Gallery, 78 E. Washington in Chicago (312-744-6630).
The recent Bollywood blockbuster Josh has a lot in common with West Side Story–only its two warring gangs live in the state of Goa. “The dancing is somewhere between Michael Jackson, Busby Berkeley, and Alvin Ailey,” says a fan. The film’s star, Shahrukh Khan, will re-create one of the scenes at tonight’s Wanted Live: Best of Bollywood Bash. He’ll be joined by film stars Sanjay Dutt (“the Indian Sylvester Stallone”), former Miss Universe Sushmita Sen, comedian Johnny Lever, and two former Miss Indias-turned-actresses–Juhi Chawla and Namrata Shirodkar. They’ll perform scenes from Bollywood blockbusters with a live band at 8 at the UIC Pavilion, 1150 W. Harrison, Chicago. Available tickets range from $35 to $55. Call 773-465-3344.
OCTOBER
1 SUNDAY If you’re a slower-moving biped, a walk of just under two miles through Brookfield Zoo sounds like the right choice among the events planned for the 15th annual Zoo Run Run. The 3K stroll starts at 9 near the Discovery Center (inside the North Gate entrance). Mature bipeds wanting to move at a faster pace can enter the men’s and women’s 5K runs (with competition in 13 age categories), which begin at 8 and 8:20. Warm-up activities prior to race time will be held in the zoo’s northwest parking lot. For kids under nine, there’s a half-mile Fun Run beginning at 10 just west of Roosevelt Fountain, followed by a Diaper Derby–a ten-foot crawl for babies 12 months and under. All participants get T-shirts, zoo admission, and parking for the day, and a chance to win raffle prizes. On-site registration fees are $25 for the walk and 5K run; $15 for the Fun Run. Credit cards aren’t accepted; proceeds benefit the zoo, which is at First and 31st in Brookfield. Call 773-777-9000 for more information.
It’s not often that horror fiction writers get together with goths, fetishists, model toy collectors, illustrators, filmmakers, a former Playboy model, Channel 26’s Svengoolie, and Mancow’s makeup artist. But that’s just a (bad) taste of who will be at this weekend’s Experiment in Terror Convention, which combines two formerly separate events–the ReznHedz Model & Toy Expo and the Twilight Terrors horror writers convention–into one long weekend of horror. Today’s the last day to catch all the panels, seminars, and vending; it’s from 10 to 4 at the Ramada Plaza O’Hare, 6600 N. Mannheim in Rosemont. Admission is $15, or $50 for the entire event, which began on Thursday. Call 800-878-9378.
2 MONDAY Eve Ensler’s Obie-winning show The Vagina Monologues, which just opened at the Apollo Theater, is based on interviews she did with more than 200 women from all walks of life. The monologues address everything from rape to pelvic exams, childbirth, and the reappropriation of the word “cunt.” Now the stories have been compiled in a book of the same name, which Ensler will be reading from and signing tonight from 7:30 to 8:30 at Women & Children First Bookstore, 5233 N. Clark, Chicago. It’s free; call 773-769-9299 for more.
3 TUESDAY They’ve danced at the Hollywood Bowl with Placido Domingo and Gloria Estefan, performed with over 150 symphony orchestras, toured the U.S. five times, and been called “the finest Spanish dancers we have in the world today” by Dance Magazine. Pascual Olivera and Angela Del Moral are also life partners, and they use their own story as the basis for their new two-act “dansical,” Te Amo. They’ll perform a version of the work in progress, created with the New Tuners Theatre, tonight and tomorrow night (and October 10 and 11) at 7:30 at the Theatre Building, 1225 W. Belmont in Chicago (773-327-5252); tickets are $15.
4 WEDNESDAY “The needle is not important. Whether you sniff it smoke it eat it or shove it up your ass the result is the same: addiction,” wrote William S. Burroughs in Naked Lunch. In her new book, Writing on Drugs, maverick British intellectual Sadie Plant references everything from Thomas De Quincey’s 1821 Confessions of an English Opium-Eater to Mandelbrot’s fractals to examine 200 years of drug use and its cultural impact. She’ll discuss her work tonight at 6:30 at Quimby’s Bookstore, 1854 W. North, Chicago. It’s free. Call 773-342-0910.
5 THURSDAY The literary torch has been passed around in the city’s African-American community for some 30-odd years, says poet and Chicago State University professor Haki R. Madhubuti, who is founder and director emeritus of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing and the publisher of Third World Press. “Chicago has a great literary legacy, starting with Gwendolyn Brooks and moving up to people such as myself, Sterling Plumpp, Angela Jackson, and others,” says Madhubuti. Tonight he’ll be joined by Plumpp, Michael Warr, and B.J. Bolden to discuss Chicago Writers and the Black Arts Literary Movement: Then and Now on a panel moderated by Usani E. Perkins. It’s from 6 to 7:45 at the Woodson Regional Library, 9525 S. Halsted, Chicago. There will also be a youth forum from 4 to 5, a reception from 5 to 6, and a presentation by the Voices of Literary Chicago from 7:45 to 9. All events are free; call 773-995-4440.