You may have heard or read about Mayor Daley (DePaul alumnus, Law '68) proclaiming Thursday, April 23rd Talk Like Shakespeare Day. The Website, compiled by the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, honors the Bard's 445th birthday with a variety of entertaining audio and video clips along with tips on how to introduce a little Elizabethan banter into your speech at work, school and home. Here's your chance to bust out all those pent up expressions you wish you could use everyday: thou, thee, Sirrah, Mistress, and [any verb]-eth, e.g. runneth, drinketh, speaketh. However, the Libraries do not condoneth calling anyone a jack-a-napes or a canker-blossom. 

Did you know that these seemingly mundane, work-a-day words were also coined by the Bard? aerial, circumstantial, employment, moonbeam, uneducated (not one we use often around here!) 

[see a list of more everyday words from Shakespeare's plays]

Message any modern phrase to "ShakespeareSays" on Twitter, and discover how it would have sounded four hundred years ago.

And there's more! Check out the Libraries' most recent acquisitions on the topic of Shakespeare or his works, or watch one of 47 performances of Shakespearean plays via streaming video through our resource, Theatre in Video. 

Happy birthday, William Shakespeare!

[image credit: Folger Library]

 

This Tuesday, One Book One Chicago at DePaul invites you to join them for a lecture by Juan Mora-Torres, Associate Professor in the Department of History. In the spring of 2006, over a million people, including large numbers of young people, marched in Chicago to demand civil rights for the undocumented population. This lecture/presentation revisits key themes in Sandra Cisneros’ novel, The House on Mango Street – the meaning of community, the politics of the youth and issues of immigration in the making of contemporary Mexican Chicago.

Tuesday, April 21st, 6:00 p.m.
McGowan South Building
1110 W. Belden, Room 108 

Chicago’s a vibrant theater town and ‘tis the season for many local troops to pull out old standards including It’s a Wonderful Life, Christmas Carol, and The Nutcracker as well as new favorites such as The Santaland Diaries. Between spoofs, fairy tales, musicals, and contemporary plays with holiday themes, there’s something for every theatergoer on stage this month. Both Metromix and Time Out Chicago highlight a range of local options and be sure to check Hot Tix for cheap last minute tickets.

Some conspiracy theorists believe that man has never walked on the moon. And it is a bit fantastical if you try to imagine what it must be like to be rocketed into space. Want to know more about NASA and how the United State won the space race? Then join us tonight for DePaul's One Book One Chicago film screening of When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions.

Tonight's screening will feature the opening installment of this fascinating series. If you're hooked after watching Ordinary Superman tonight, check out the complete series from the Richardson Library: DVD. 629.450973 W567f2008

 

 

 

Fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit is the predicted high temperature in Chicago this week. Darkness is approaching earlier in the afternoon. Across the city, radiators are banging into action (some leaking through the ceiling of the apartment below). On an autumn weekend, skies may be dismal gray or sunny and cloudless, the air chilly or warm, cold rain may fall and the wind will very likely blow, so make a Saturday plan that can be adjusted for indoor or outdoor entertainment.

Outdoors:

Pick apples at one of the many orchards in Northern Illinois
Visit a pumpkin patch and sharpen your knives for carving
Bike through fallen leaves
Jog outside in a sweatshirt and running shorts
Visit the Green City Farmers Market before it moves indoors in November
Fly a kite on the lakefront

Indoors:

Convene friends for a chili cook-off or cookie bake-off
Sign up for Netflix or peruse the library’s DVD collection
Attend the Chicago International Film Festival
Rearrange the furniture in your dorm room or apartment
Try out DIY Projects you read about in ReadyMade
Work out at the Ray Meyer Fitness & Recreation Center
Study for finals

 

From Resurrection Mary to the serial killings chronicled in Eric Larsen’s Devil in the White City (364.1523 M944YL2003), from the Billy Goat Curse at Wrigley Field (the curse that keeps on giving!) to hauntings at the Red Lion Pub and the Biograph Theater near DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus, Chicago’s sometimes brutal history and frightening legends are worth revisiting during this month’s Halloween celebrations.

To hear spooky stories and glimpse hidden alleys and creepy cemeteries, consider taking a bus ride around the city on a ghost tour. Time Out Chicago reviewed four popular tours.

Many of the notorious haunted houses in Chicagoland necessitate a trip to the suburbs: Statesville Haunted Prison (http://www.statesville.org/main.php) in Crest Hill, IL; Dungeon of Doom, Grayslake, IL; Eleventh Hour Haunted House in Elk Grove Village, IL; and Dream Reapers Haunted House in Melrose Park, IL. Or stick around the city and visit the Haunted Sanitarium at the Theater on the Lake (Lake Shore Drive and Fullerton). Check out this web site for a complete list.

This Chicago “web publication” highlights a variety of topics related to city life in distinct blogs including Merge on general issues, Slowdown with a calendar of events, Detour with weekly features, Transmission on music, Drive Thru on food, and Book Club on literary events, as well as editorial columns and a stunning photo on Rearview.

My favorite story about this blog happened in 2006. Some readers of Gapersblock were complaining online about This American Life’s move to New York City to begin the Showtime television series. Among all the comments posted in this conversation was one from Ira Glass himself explaining the move. You know you’ve found a blog worth reading when a local personality both reads the blog and responds to its news thread.

If you read this blog and Chicagoist, consider yourself an expert on the city.

Feel like summer is passing you by way too quickly? If you're like me, you just realized that we are mid-way through August, and Autumn, unfortunately, is right around the corner. Want to take advantage of these great summer nights we're having while they're still around? Then grab a blanket and a picnic and check out Movies in the Park, sponsered by the Chicago Park District.

Movies in the Park are offered at most neighborhood parks, and best of all, they're free! Movies in the Park run from June through September, and more than 170 movies will be shown this summer, everything from summer classics, like Field of Dreams, to family favorites, like Shrek the Third. Now, get out there and have some fun already!

I read this Chicago blog for its snarky political commentary, suggestions on where to spend my time and money, concert features, goofy videos and photographs, restaurant reviews, reflections about the day’s weather, CTA updates, and sports news, among many other topics. The articles use a first-person plural point of view (“we”) and refer to the writer as “Chicagoist,” which creates a communal and strangely omniscient tone to the blog. The entries tend to be short, succinct, and informative but not journalistic, offering a gossipy snapshot of life in Chicago. 

More than 40 bands will perform at three stages in Union Park this weekend, July 18-20, playing indie rock, world music, and a variety of other styles. Three-day passes and two-day passes are sold out, but individual passes can be purchased for $30 to hear a jam-packed schedule of bands. On Saturday and Sunday, the music starts at 1:00 PM and the last act takes the stage at 9:00 PM. Among the top acts are Spoon, M. Ward, Dinosaur Jr, Ghostface and Raekwon, Les Savy Fav, and Bon Iver.

On Friday night, scheduled bands will play entire albums on the main stage. This year features Public Enemy playing “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,” Sebadoh playing “Bubble and Scrape,” and Mission of Burma playing “Vs.”

To purchase tickets and find out more information on the bands, check out the website and don’t miss out what has become a staple summer music festival in Chicago.