A competitive art show for Jr High and Middle School Students from the greater LaGrange area. This show is juried for exhibition and judged for awards. Information/entry form available until 10/3/09, absolute deadline for entries

Exhibit runs from October 10, 2009 - October 17, 2009 Gallery Hours: Mon-Sat 10am-5pm

The Colona District Public Library invites everyone to come and enjoy our new outdoor artwork. Artist Sarah Robb has painted a spectacular 60 foot long mural on the outside of the building, for all to see!

Witness the emotional impact of war through the lenses of award-winning photojournalists: Ron Haviv, Antonin Kratochvil, Christopher Morris, James Nachtwey, and Franco Pagetti.

The exhibit will display from September 25, 2009 through November 20, 2009 on Mondays - Fridays from 9 AM - 7 PM and Saturdays from 9 AM - 5 PM.

With "Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition," an exhibition created by the Library of Congress, will open at the Newberry Library on October 10, 2009, in commemoration of the 200th birthday of America's 16th president. The exhibition offers the public the opportunity to view rarely seen treasures from the Library of Congress's collections.

"With Malice Toward None" charts Lincoln's growth from prairie lawyer to preeminent statesman and addresses the monumental issues he faced, including slavery and race, the dissolution of the Union, and the Civil War. The exhibit reveals Lincoln the man, whose thoughts, words, and actions were deeply affected by personal experiences and pivotal historic events.

By placing Lincoln's words in a historical context, the exhibition gives visitors a deeper understanding of how remarkable Lincoln's decisions were for their time and why his words continue to resonate today.

This exhibition is on display from October 10, 2009 - December 19, 2009.

"Experience the Arts in Palos" presents Palos West Student Exhibit

The student exhibit will be displayed at Standard Bank & Trust Co. for the month of October, 2009 on Mondays - Thursdays 9 AM - 5 PM; Fridays 9 AM - 6 PM; and Saturdays 9 AM - 1 PM.

A "Meet the Artist" reception will be held on Saturday, October 3rd from 4 - 5 PM at the bank.

"Experience the Arts in Palos" presents month long exhibit of local artists

The exhibition will display from October 1, 2009 through October 31, 2009 during normal business hours: Monday - Thursday 9 AM - 5 PM; Fridays 9 AM - 7 PM; and Saturdays 9 AM - 1 PM.

Join us for a great family even with something for everyone! 12 Farms will be open to the public with a variety of antiques, arts, crafts, produce and gifts for sale.

In addition to the Woodstock and Marengo food pantry, food will be for sale at the lunch barn with all proceeds donated to faith in action of McHenry County; assisting seniors to stay in there own homes.

The McHenry county health department will be on site offering information on free mammograms and cervical cancer screening for women in McHenry County.

Animal House Shelter, a non-profit, no kill shelter in Huntley will be there with dogs up for adoption.

All money raised at the Perkins Town Hall will go towards the McHenry County Historical Society.

Location Details:

Located between the towns of Woodstock and Marengo on beautiful Garden Valley and River Roads. Garden Valley Rd is 1 mile north of Rte. 176. 4 miles east of Rte 23 and 5 miles west of Rte. 47.

At 9:30 AM, join Glennette Tilley Turner, author of The Underground Railroad in Illinois, for an illustrated talk followed by a bus tour of centers of anti-slavery activity in Chicago's western suburbs.

The tour will include the Graue Mill in Oak Brook, the Sheldon Peck House in Lombard, Wheaton College, and sites as far west as Aurora. Come and learn of little-known local links in the underground railroad.

This program is part of a series in conjunction with two exhibitions commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln: "With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition", a Library of Congress exhibition, and "Honest Abe of the West", an exhibition of the Newberry Library's collections about Lincoln. Both exhibitions are free and open to the public. For more information visit http://www.newberry.org.

Tour Details

Exhibit and sale of colorful pallette knife oil paintings by artist Laureen Dunne

Artist Reception Sunday, October 18 1-4pm; Exhibit will be up 10/3/09 thru 10/31/09 Gallery Hours: Mon-Sat 10am-5pm

Annual tour of private homes in Quincy, IL and an occasional commercial building

Food will be served at 1515 Jersey St.

Contemporary works in ceramics, wood, papier mâché, and paintings, including many works relating to The Day of the Dead by noted Mexican folk artists as well as vintage pieces from the Tarble Arts Center collection and private collections.

This exibition is on display from October 2, 2009 - December 6, 2009. Tarble Arts Center hours are 10 AM - 5 PM Tuesdays - Fridays; 10 AM - 4 PM Saturdays, and 1 PM - 4 PM on Sundays.

Note: Related film showings on October 29 and November 5, 7 PM

Note: As part of Latino Heritage Month, there will be a ublic guided tour of this exhibition on October 13, 2009 at 3 PM.

The Prairieland Art Tour is a unique opportunity for the public to meet with local artists and watch the creative process unfold.

Each artist will be present & ready to discuss their work. Visitors will also have a chance to view & buy artwork.

Laughter feels instinctive, but it's really a brainy phenomenon. Consider the pertinent questions: what part of the brain is responsible for laughter and humor? What are the differences between laughter that occurs as an emotional or behavioral response, and laughter that occurs outside either explanation?

Join Steven Small, director of the Human Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Chicago, for a neuroscience perspective on that rich experience of laughing your head off.

About Steven Small
Steven Small is a professor in the departments of neurology and psychology, a member of the Committees on Neurobiology and Computational Neuroscience, and director of the Human Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Chicago. He is also the editor-in-chief of the international journal Brain and Language. His research investigates the basic neurobiology and rehabilitation of language disorders and hand motor function.

Join us for a Sing-Along that features 10-Year Old Alea Pearson singing favorite hymns.

Irony is not a mere play on words, nor a witty way of remaining detached from any commitment. It is, instead, a fundamental capacity of the human soul, a peculiar way of testing our commitments to see if they ring true.

Jonathan Lear, the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, has explored the concept of irony from the ancient Greeks to the Romantics and Kierkegaard, as well as its uses in modern psychoanalysis. Lear guides us through the murky definitions of irony and their relevance to—and in—contemporary society.

About Jonathan Lear
Jonathan Lear is the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor at the Committee on Social Thought and in the philosophy department at the University of Chicago, where he works primarily on philosophical conceptions of the human psyche from Socrates to the present. Trained in philosophy at Cambridge University and The Rockefeller University and also as a psychoanalyst at the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis, he also serves on the faculty of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis.

Send in the clown doctors! Big Apple Circus's Clown Care Unit brings the joy of the classical circus to patients at the University of Chicago's Comer Children's Hospital as well as 17 other leading pediatric hospitals across the United States.

In partnership with medical and administrative staff, members of the Clown Care team conduct "clown rounds," their version of medical rounds, where the prescription is always the healing power of humor. In this presentation, Nurse Grandma and Dr. Sparkle Gong get serious for a moment to demonstrate how their innovative program empowers children and improves staff and parent morale.

H. Barrett Fromme, assistant professor of pediatrics, University of Chicago, will join them.

About the Participants

First held at the University of Chicago in 1946, the annual Latke-Hamantash Debate has spawned a series of successors at universities and colleges nationwide and remains a mainstay of the campus calendar.

These humorous academic debates, sponsored by the Newberger Hillel Center, feature University of Chicago professors in full regalia arguing the relative merits of two of the greatest culinary achievements of all time: latkes (a kind of potato cake) and hamantashen (a triangular wheat-flour pastry with a sweet filling). Although no one has ever won the debate, a colorful cast of characters has campaigned mightily, displaying sincere devotion even while heartily lampooning academic seriousness.

Why does the debate have such relevance for generations of debaters and audience alike? Most importantly, will this special edition, complete with "greatest hits," settle the latke-hamantash question once and for all?

About the Participants

Retrospecitve Exhibition featuring Illinois Artist Glen C. Davies that focuses on his series of "Bannerline" paintings influenced by his experience traveling with circuses and carnivals. Loose canvas formats reveal his personal language.

This exhibit will be on display from October 5, 200 - November 17, 2009.

Hours: Mondays - Fridays 10 AM - 3 PM; Mondays - Thursdays 6 PM - 8 PM; and Saturdays Noon - 2 PM

In a petition to King Louis XIV, Molière wrote, "The mission of comedy is to correct men's vices." Both a product and a daring critic of classical France, Molière developed a sophisticated and influential vision of the comic genre. This vision reinvented theatrical comedy through character-based satirical portraits of various aspects of 17th-century French society.

Charles Newell, Court Theatre's artistic director, and Larry Norman, University of Chicago associate professor of Romance languages and literature, discuss Molière's most important works and his infamous claims about the reformative powers of theater.

About the Participants

Journey Stories tells how we and our ancestors came to America. From Native Americans to new American citizens and regardless of our ethnic or racial background, everyone has a story to tell.

Our history is filled with stories of people leaving behind everything - families and possessions - to reach a new life in another state, across the continent, or even across an ocean.

Many chose to move, searching for something better in a new land. Others had no choice, like enslaved Africans captured and relocated to a strange land and bravely asserting their own cultures, or like Native Americans already here, who were often violently removed by newcomers.

This exhibition runs from July 18 - August 30, 2009.

Tom Dreesen and Tim Reid met for the first time in tumultuous 1968 Chicago. While the country was wracked by the civil rights movement, a sexual revolution, and a controversial war, these friends took the stage as the first—and so far, only—black and white comedy team. Together they spent five years touring the country, facing unabashed racism, occasionally violent hecklers, and cheering crowds.

Reid went on to star in the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati and create the influential Frank's Place, and Dreesen spent 30 years in stand-up, including 15 years as Frank Sinatra's opening act.

The duo returns to the stage to tell their stories and reflect on a lifetime of unique experiences.

About the participants

At first blush, a sports program might seem a stretch for laughter. Anyone who has spent time at the University of Chicago, however, knows that sports on campus have been the butt of many a joke. We also know how hard it is for Cubs fans to laugh at themselves and their perennially disappointing team (but do so anyway, rather than crying).

In fact, Chicago sports fans spend so much time—out of necessity, really—laughing at themselves and their teams that it might not be much of a stretch after all.

Join sportswriter Lester Munson and a panel of writers and athletes for a Chicago-style mash-up of sports stories and commentary.

About Lester Munson
Lester Munson, a Chicago lawyer and journalist who has been reporting on investigative and legal issues in the sports industry for 18 years, is a senior writer for ESPN.com.

In 1783, W. A. Mozart composed the music and plot for a commedia dell'arte pantomime intended for Vienna's upcoming carnival season. Although written for string quartet, only the first violin part and the sketchiest outline of his scenario survive.

In this session, University of Chicago faculty present an excerpt of Mozart's pantomime and a conversation centered on opera and laughter as they relate to performance, audience, politics, and improvisational comedy in the 18th century.

Participants include faculty members Martha Feldman, David Levin, and Roger Moseley. The ensemble Impromptu performs the pantomime, directed by Moseley.

About the Participants

What does your laughter say about you?

Alison Lurie, author of nine novels including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Foreign Affairs will discuss humor in literature and how her own satiric fiction has frequently taken aim at campus life, with Bill Savage, senior lecturer in English at Northwestern University.

They will share examples and discuss why—and for whom—they are funny.

About the Participants

School-aged children and their families are invited to meet award-winning author and nature photographer Nic Bishop as he shares his books, travels, and amazing experiences. Nic is a recipient of the Robert F. Sibert Honor Award and the Gryphon Award.

Get a temporary henna tattoo and listen to music from Bollywood films as well as making an original glass pendant or refrigerator magnet.

Hyde Park lore includes not only the atomic bomb's invention in the basement of what became the Regenstein Library, but also the birth of The Second City as a comedy troupe of University of Chicago students.

To separate truth from fiction in the telling of this second tale, join Anne Libera, executive artistic director of The Second City Training Centers, Sheldon Patinkin, founding member of The Second City and chair emeritus of the Columbia College Chicago Theater Department, and Tim Kazurinsky, screenwriter, actor, and former Saturday Night Live cast member.

These three transport us from the early 1950s and the Playwrights Theater Club, through the Compass Players of Alan Arkin, Elaine May, and Mike Nichols fame, to the present-day Chicago institution, revealing how improvisational theater forms pioneered in Hyde Park changed the course of comedy.

About the Participants

Contemporary classical music doesn't usually rank high on a list of funny things. There is, however, a not-so-serious side.

Join pianist Amy Briggs, a leading interpreter of the music of living composers; the new music ensemble Contempo; and conductor Cliff Colnot for performance, commentary, and insight into a playful collection of contemporary chamber works.

Highlights include Esa-Pekka Salonen's Floof, scored for an ensemble of six, and the piano solo Schnozzage, written for two hands and a nose.

About Cliff Colnot
Cliff Colnot is a distinguished conductor, musician, and arranger. He is the conductor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's MusicNOW series, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), among others.

Award Acknowledgement for exhibit of 2-D and 3-D work by Jr High and Middle School Students from the greater LaGrange area.

music and refreshments

Details

• The exhibition will run from October 10, 2009 - October 17, 2009
• The Information/Entry form is available until 10/3/09, the absolute deadline for entries
• Gallery Hours: Mon-Sat 10am-5pm

You know the feeling: it starts with a nod, then a smile, and pretty soon you feel it to the ends of your fingers. That's the joy that comes from the celebration of the human spirit in motion.

Nationally recognized Muntu Dance Theatre has been bringing that joy to audiences in Chicago since 1972. Known for high-energy dancing and drumming, Muntu presents dances that honor African and African-American traditions.

The Chicago Humanities Festival is pleased to present Muntu in several works from its extensive repertoire, including Eveningtime, a playful gem from Muntu's past, and Mujuboo Rock, a synthesis of authentic West African dance with the contemporary, conceived by artistic director Amaniyea Payne.

You might just find yourself dancing—and laughing—in the aisles.

Michael Montenegro's puppets run an astounding gamut, from tiny Punch and Judy figures to a headless, life-size doppelganger of the puppeteer.

Most beautiful is a delicate moving sculpture of bones in the 2004 Sublime Beauty of Hands, which tells an oblique, poetic story about evil munitions makers, the vulnerability of the body, and the limitations of puppetry.

Matters turn much less serious in the delightful Klown Kantos: six very funny puppet bits, loosely connected by the ensemble's clowning.

Montenegro's interactions with his creations--comic revelations of the tender, antagonistic, complicated relationship between puppet and puppeteer--are a highlight.

Display running Friday & Saturdays at 7:30pm and Sundays at 3pm from October 16, 2009 - November 1, 2009.

Symphony Orchestra Concert

Celebrate Millikin University's Homecoming with MDSO in a colorful evening of audience favorites, including the exotic Scheherazade. Principal clarinetist Solomon Baer is featured in works by Debussy and Weber.

The Little Theatre Players of the Centralia Cultural Society will be presenting this new play written by local Playwright, Jan Jones Heischmidt.

The story is based on the happenings of a group of individuals left stranded on Tybee Island, Georgia as a hurricane is approaching, part comedy, part drama, part intrigue.

Doors will open at 7:30 PM.