The Local Pizza Place
Michael Altenberg, chef and owner of Lincoln Square's Bistro Campagne, will open Chicago's first all-organic flatbread pizza restaurant, called Flat Earth, in Wicker Park in mid-September. The menu is "100-percent organic" and includes "flatbread pizzas, salads and sandwiches," according to managing partner Greg Christian. The restaurant will also feature a "live salad bar," where "organic greens such as romaine and red leaf and baby lettuces will be in a medium that is growing," says Altenberg. He stresses that the restaurant focuses not only on organics, but on regional products. "We figured, 'Why can't we support our local farmer, who is literally the backbone of American culture?'" All ingredients--from local duck to Wisconsin lamb--will be "from locally and regionally sustained produce and meats," says Christian. In fact, the only imported item in the restaurant will be its handmade wood-burning oven from Italy.

Archivist Anarchy
Chicago Filmmakers will begin a four-part series on Sunday that will showcase rare and eclectic films--from home movies to education films--from the collections of three film archivists and the Anthology Film Archives. The series, "Odds and Ends: Exploring the Cinematic Junk Drawer," features different programs through June 30, including psychoactive cinema, educational films and "unessential" cinema. "It kind of grew out of the idea of looking at film from more of a sociology point of view rather than an artistic point of view. There's artistic uses for films, Hollywood things, then there's this huge range of filmmaking practices that neither one of those cover," says Patrick Friel, program director for Chicago Filmmakers. The event opens on Sunday at 7pm with two collections from curator Greg Pierce of the Orgone Archive. Pierce will showcase the films of Fred McLeod, a Pennsylvania auteur who made personal movies about ordinary objects such as wood saws and steam locomotives from 1933 to 1980. "Fred's fairly unique in the sense that he utilized 16mm film as his medium and chose to make sound 16mm recordings," Pierce says. "He was also a fairly constant documenter of a lot of things, taking in architecture, shooting his family and a lot of other stuff." Following screenings, the collectors will be available for informal discussions. Friel says he hopes that after seeing these programs, people will reflect on the different forms films can embody. "Film can tell us a lot about who we were and how we've changed over the years and how we've stayed the same."

Sky High
Artist James Turrell, famous for his use of light, has designed the first entirely public "skyspace" for UIC's South Campus at the corner of Halsted and Roosevelt. "The unusual thing about it is that it's completely public--twenty-four-seven, all year round," explains Anne Brooks Ranallo from the UIC News Bureau. "There hasn't been another one of these." The unique building, elliptical in shape, boasts a large lens on the roof "that is calculated so that the sky appears to be on the same level as the ceiling," says Ranallo. "It's incredible to feel like nature's that close to you." In the observatory, individual streams of water trickling down between supporting columns generate enough white noise to muffle unpleasant city noises. "My work is not so much about my seeing as about your seeing. There is no one between you and your experience," Turrell has said of his art. According to Ranallo, the skyspace serves a dual purpose: to beautify the neighborhood, and "to be accessible to the public as an urban oasis on a busy corner."

Promising Petition
The AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC) is asking people to sign a petition asking for assistance from Governor Blagojevich and Mayor Daley in order to help sustain their rental-assistance programs for those affected by HIV/AIDS. The program helps about 800 Chicago-area people who are on fixed incomes pay the rent, but increased rent prices and a large demand for housing has drained the existing funds, says David Munar, associate director for AFC. "As we were assisting more people, we were adding people to the housing programs over the last several years. The program grew rapidly and anticipated federal funding was not granted," he says. "So that combination forced us to restructure the program, seeing that the funding would not sustain the current rate of assistance." AFC is assisting everyone who currently is enrolled with them at a reduced rate but they can't accept any new applications--a problem that the AFC wants addressed in the coming months. "We know that the need is much greater, that those we are serving is only the tip of the iceberg," Munar says. The petition can be downloaded at www.aidschicago.org.

(2006-05-09)

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