Chicago And The Birth of Gospel Music

“Gospel music historian and radio host Robert Marovich will discuss his book A City Called Heaven during a Society of Midland Authors program at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 12, at Harold Washington Library Center,” the Society says in a press release. “God’s Posse, a gospel chorus, will perform. Admission is free, and no advance reservations are required.
“Published this year by the University of Illinois Press, the book follows gospel music from early hymns and camp meetings through the Great Migration that brought it to Chicago.
“In time, the music grew into the sanctified soundtrack of the city’s mainline black Protestant churches.
“In addition to drawing on print media and ephemera, Marovich mines hours of interviews with nearly 50 artists, ministers, and historians – as well as with relatives and friends of past gospel pioneers – to recover many forgotten singers, musicians, songwriters, and industry leaders.

Read More

Posted on December 16, 2015

An Astonishing Spectacle

“It’s impossible to pinpoint the exact moment Americans embraced industrialized food. But the first Christmas after the Civil War is a key date to note. That’s when Chicago’s infamous Union Stock Yard opened to the public in 1865,” Anne Bramley reports for NPR.

“Its promoters clearly thought there could be no more appropriate way to observe a festive Christian holiday in the midst of America’s capitalist hothouse than to open the greatest livestock market the world would ever see,” writes Dominic A. Pacyga in his new book, Slaughterhouse: Chicago’s Union Stock Yard And The World It Made

“‘See’ is the key word here. Because the new modern industry was quite a spectacle to behold, says Pacyga, and it was by watching it that Americans began to change their relationship to meat.”
Click through for an interview with Pacyga.

Read More

Posted on December 9, 2015

By The Poetry Foundation and The Beachwood Linking & Embedding Affairs Desk 

Volatile! A Poetry and Scent Exhibition opens on December 11 at 6:30 p.m. at the Poetry Foundation Gallery with a panel featuring curator and design historian Debra Riley Parr, post-media artist Brian Goeltzenleuchter, and perfumer David Moltz discussing intersections of scent and poetry.

Read More

Posted on December 8, 2015

By Steve Rhodes

For those of you not in-the-know, Malcolm London, the activist poet who got arrested at Friday’s protest – and then released – is a pretty remarkable talent.
The CBS Evening News once called London, just 22 now, a new Carl Sandburg; Cornel West compared him to Gil Scott-Heron.
The Tribune in particular has been right on track chronicling London over the years; Rick Kogan in particular has been a champion of London’s.
Let’s take a look at London’s press (as always, please click through for the full stories) and some of his most notable performances, including his very own TED talks.

Read More

Posted on December 2, 2015