Friday 5/24 – Thursday 5/30
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25 SATURDAY The city’s official Memorial Day parade honoring war veterans starts at noon today at Columbus and Balbo and will include more than 10,000 participants and 286 marching units; significantly smaller will be the concurrent Peace & Happiness Parade organized by the Zen Buddhist Temple in celebration of the Buddha’s 2,546th birthday. The parade starts and ends outside the temple at 1710 W. Cornelia. It’ll be followed at 2:30 by a public forum on the subject of “Compassionate Conflict: A Buddhist Look at What Happens When People Disagree” inside the temple ($5). At 6:30 there’s a vegetarian feast ($20, reservations required), followed at 8:30 by a cabaret show ($10). The birthday celebration continues Sunday with religious services and a lantern lighting ceremony. Call 773-528-8685 for details or to make reservations for the dinner.
“I’m still a big hairy gay man,” insisted Survivor champ Richard Hatch in an April 2001 interview in American Bear magazine, even though he was clean shaven and substantially trimmer than in his on-camera days. The Hatch interview–along with chats with comedy writer Bruce Vilanch, former New Hampshire state senator Rick Trombly, and former Advocate senior editor Mark Thompson–appears in Ron Suresha’s new book Bears on Bears, which attempts to demystify that subculture of gay men who are big, hairy, and often defiantly unfashionable. Suresha will read from and sign the book today at 2 PM at Gerber/Hart Library, 1127 W. Granville (773-381-8030). On Sunday, May 26, he’ll appear at 11:30 AM at Borders Books & Music, 2817 N. Clark (773-935-3909). Both events are free.
29 WEDNESDAY For the past nine months, Columbia College fiction teacher Germania Solorzano and Free Street Arts Literacy Project volunteer Amanda Lichtenstein have been working with sixth, seventh, and eighth graders from the Helen C. Peirce and Albert R. Sabin public schools. The result is Split Second, the third annual anthology of student writing and photography to come out of the project. Students from both schools will read from their work at today’s book-release party in Columbia’s Narrative Arts Center, 33 E. Congress, first floor. It runs from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM, and you’re welcome to bring your lunch. Free copies of the book will be available at the event or can be ordered from Free Street (773-772-7248). Call 312-344-8863 for more information on the party.
