It seems like everywhere you look on the Web right now everybody's talking about either Bush's disastrous plan for Iraq or the iPhone. As Jessa Crispin over in Bookslut laments, "This January is such a dead zone for books even the Guardian has given up and is running stories like 'Just how ugly was Dante anyway?'" Here in Chicago we're distracting ourselves from the cultural drought and the gray weather by anxiously awaiting the One and Done weekend--or as everybody else knows it, the Bears NFL playoff debut, when Rex Grossman will heave passes to his imaginary friends and Brian Urlacher will spin around while Shaun Alexander runs past him.
Meanwhile, there are some other cultural developments in Chicago that are worth keeping an eye on. The Jazz Showcase has closed its doors after losing its lease on its Grand Avenue location. Owner Joe Segal is looking for a new location, but it will be a cold winter without Chicago's premier jazz venue. And Santiago Calatrava has come up with yet another design for his 2,000-foot, 160-story skyscraper, now known locally as the Twizzler. If completed, the Twizzler will be the tallest building in this universe, and probably several others as well. The newest design drops the flat-top look of design number three in favor of a tapering top and a shaft of light extending into the sky, much like the ghostly tributes to the vanished World Trade Center. The design will come before the Chicago Plan Commission for a vote very soon, but no hearing date has been set. Calatrava and Dublin-based developer Garrett Kelleher want to break ground by June. As much as I'd like to see a Calatrava in Chicago, every day when I leave from work I look toward the lake front and try to imagine a tower nearly twice the height of any building in the city and think how uneasy I'll feel when so many wealthy people are stacked above me. I just hope I'm not in the way when the Twizzler finally falls.
Posted by: |