Friday 10/4 – Thursday 10/10
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Max Elbaum was managing editor at the leftist CrossRoads magazine in the mid-90s when he decided to write Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che. “I was spending a lot of time interacting with veterans of the different left currents out of the 1960s and ’70s,” he explained to Chris Crass in the anarchist newspaper Onward recently. “I was struck by the absence of any detailed written history of one of the main 1960s-generated left trends, the thousands of people who turned to Third World-oriented versions of Marxism, and within that, the contingent that tried to build new revolutionary parties.” Elbaum, who became an activist while a University of Wisconsin student in the late 60s, will discuss the “new communist movement” and why he thinks it failed tonight at 7:30 at the New World Resource Center, 2600 W. Fullerton (773-227-4011), and tomorrow, October 5, at 9 AM at the Heartland Cafe, 7000 N. Glenwood (773-465-8005). Both events are free. For more on the book see www.revolutionintheair.com.
5 SATURDAY Sponsors of today’s solar home tour are keen to point out that the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs’ Renewable Energy Resources Program will reimburse home owners for up to 50 percent of the cost of installing hot-water solar systems (and wind-powered generators) and up to 60 percent of the cost of photovoltaic panels that generate electricity from sunlight. The free, self-directed tour includes 14 residences in Evanston, Wilmette, Winnetka, Skokie, and Lincolnwood that use both types of solar power. Homes are open from 10 to 2, and the tour starts at 1144 Wesley (near Dempster and Ridge) in Evanston–a new house with a four-panel solar system that owner Richard Winship installed “because it was the right thing to do.” Call 847-677-9870.
9 WEDNESDAY From 1992 to 1994, environmental artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude traveled 14,000 miles along 89 rivers in the Rocky Mountains in search of the perfect site for their installation Over the River. They finally settled on Colorado’s Arkansas River, high above which they plan to hang woven fabric panels that will follow 40 miles of the river’s course. The piece will be up for two weeks, tentatively in the summer of 2004. No date’s been set yet for their other work in progress, The Gates, which will consist of 7,400 16-foot-high gates hung with golden fabric and placed along 20-odd miles of selected footpaths in Manhattan’s Central Park. The pair will discuss both proposals tonight at 7 in the Sidney R. Yates Gallery at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington. It’s free, but reservations are recommended (312-744-2032).
