Friday 10/11 – Thursday 10/17
Anyone who’s spent time sipping joe at Earwax has gotten a taste of sideshow art–those banners advertising exhibitions of the weird and extraordinary. Unconcerned with representing reality, most artists never even saw their subjects, creating fantastical depictions that rarely resembled the actual attraction. The flashy form’s legitimized at Carl Hammer Gallery’s Freak Show: 20th Century Sideshow Banner Art exhibit, which features works with such subjects as “the monkey girl” and “the tattooed woman.” It opens tonight from 5:30 to 8 and runs through November 2 at the gallery, 200 W. Superior. It’s free. Call 266-8512.
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Novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Jules Feiffer has branched out into children’s books in recent years. Tonight he’ll read from A Barrel of Laughs, a Vale of Tears and The Man in the Ceiling in an audiovisual presentation (slides of the books’ illustrations will be shown) designed for adults and children ten and older. The program includes a screening of Feiffer’s Academy Award-winning short film Munro. It’s at 6 in the Fullerton Auditorium at the Art Institute, Michigan and Adams. Tickets are $10, $3 for children. Call 368-0905.
The House Rabbit Society Conference promises to give the lowdown on every aspect of bunny care from litter training to the special needs of older rabbits. The daylong event features workshops (“Bunny Basics,” “From Cage to Free Roam,” “Parasites”), roundtable discussions (“Ask a Vet,” “Grieving”), exhibits, a raffle, and a buffet lunch. It’s today from 10:30 to 5 at Koehneke Community Center at Concordia University, 7400 Augusta in River Forest. Tickets are $14, $10 for kids. Call 708-771-8300 for directions, 847-831-2691 for more info.
Senator Paul Simon, Jane Byrne, Mortimer Adler, Paul Hoover, Studs Terkel, Sugar Rautbord, Norman Mark, and Carol Kleiman will be among the 38 writers present at tonight’s fifth annual Chicago Authors Party. The free event promises no speeches, no readings, no slamming, and no hard sell–just the authors and their books. It’s from 5:30 to 7:30 at Gypsy Restaurant, 211 E. Ohio. Call 944-1300 for more.
