Friday 1/11 – Thursday 1/17
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12 SATURDAY According to professional hypnotist Evan Gollrad, when the world peanut market became glutted around the turn of the 20th century, farmers asked agronomist George Washington Carver to come up with some new uses for the legume. Carver sat down upon the sandy soil and asked the peanut in his hand, “What are you good for besides eating?” After meditating a while, he came away with some 300 ideas. Helping people perform similar mental feats is the goal of Gollrad’s seven-session course Developing Your Psychic Powers, which teaches students to use their subconscious minds to solve problems–anything from healing an illness to creating more closet space. The two-hour sessions start today and are held Saturdays at 10 AM through February 23 in room L-965 in the continuing education department at Truman College, 1145 W. Wilson. The entire course is $59; register by calling 773-907-4440.
13 SUNDAY In 1910, on the south side of Chicago, Defender entertainment writer William Foster became the first African-American filmmaker when he began producing slapstick comedies starring black vaudeville performers. Black-cast films made in primarily black production houses and screened in black theaters for black audiences, says University of Chicago professor Jacqueline Stewart, “were able to develop because of segregation, and were known as ‘race films’ because they were intended to uplift the ‘race.’” Doc Films, in conjunction with a graduate seminar taught by Stewart, will screen a series of rarely seen race films–which range from melodramas to westerns to comedies–Sundays through March 3 at 7 PM at the Max Palevsky Cinema in the U. of C.’s Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 E. 59th (773-702-8574). Screenings–with live musical accompaniment for the silent films–are $4 and will be introduced by students from Stewart’s seminar. Today’s installment features the short comedies Spying the Spy (1918), Two Knights of Vaudeville (1915), and A Natural Born Gambler (1916), starring legendary comedian Bert Williams, the first African-American performer to star in the Ziegfeld Follies.
