Friday 10/1 – Thursday 10/7
Long before Mike Royko conceived of Slats Grobnik (or was conceived himself), turn-of-the-century Chicago Evening Post columnist Finley Peter Dunne used fictional Bridgeport barkeep Martin J. Dooley to put forth his views on everything from the fetid conditions at the stockyards to the Spanish-American War. The writer and his work will be celebrated at this weekend’s Finley Peter Dunne Remembered forum at the Irish American Heritage Center, 4626 N. Knox. It starts tonight at 8 with Irish soprano Catherine Hegarty making her U.S. debut and continues all day tomorrow with a discussion of Chicago’s contribution to traditional Irish music, a performance by the Irish Heritage Singers, and a video about Dunne. Tickets to Hegarty’s concert are $10; admission to Saturday’s event is $8. Call 773-282-7035.
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2 SATURDAY Today Green Party members from throughout the state will meet to hammer out a platform for an Illinois Green Party, which will espouse ten key values, including ecological wisdom, social justice, and personal and global responsibility. The free gathering is from 9 to 4 at Grace Place, 637 S. Dearborn, and will be followed by a party at 7. Tomorrow morning at 9 they’ll march for the shutdown of the Clark Oil refinery in Blue Island. Call 773-384-4209 for more.
Those who suffer from depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia can take some comfort in the fact that they’re in good company: Abe Lincoln, Michelangelo, and Eugene O’Neill all suffered from one or more of the above, according to the Chicago branch of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. Today the group will hold a free Mental Illness Awareness Week open house from 3 to 6 at their offices at 1536 W. Chicago (312-563-0445).
7 THURSDAY Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti will make his first appearance here since the mid-80s when he kicks off Columbia College’s fall/winter poetry series. Ferlinghetti, who cofounded San Francisco’s City Lights Books and runs the imprint of the same name, will read from These Are My Rivers: New & Selected Poems 1955-1993 and A Far Rockaway of the Heart (1997) tonight at 5:30 at Columbia College’s Ferguson Theater, 600 S. Michigan. Call 312-344-8100.
