This week, the week of midterms, the events are all local.
Friday / October 26
The second part of the series “Voices from Iraq,” sponsored by the department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations and Campus Progress, features a screening of a 2006 documentary about American army recruits. The Ground Truth: After the Killing Ends delivers a searing portrayal of the systematic dehumanization of American troops from basic training to the killing fields of Iraq. A discussion follows the screening. (Breasted Hall, Oriental Institute, 7 p.m., free)
Besides the leering black-face caricatures in D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, most people think silent movies were lily-white. But there was one remarkable exception: Sessue Hayakawa, who was the only non-white leading man in silent cinema (not to mention, surprise surprise, a U of C grad). How was it possible, when anti-immigration sentiments were at high tide, for a Japanese man to be a major film star? Daisuke Miyao, an assistant professor of Japanese film at the University of Oregon, will discuss Hayakawa’s remarkable career. Two of his films, The Devil’s Claim and Forbidden Paths, will be screened. (Film Studies Center, 7 p.m., free)
Saturday / October 27
The U of C chapter of The Triple Helix, this year’s Outstanding New RSO award winner, touches off its Science Policy speaker series with a discussion of Net Neutrality, featuring Columbia University professor and Slate contributing writer Timothy Wu. The question on the docket: Who exactly owns the Internet? A reception will follow the talk. For more information on The Triple Helix, visit its site at uchicago.thetriplehelix.org. (Ida Noyes West Lounge, 2 p.m., free)
You may, oh flustered first-year, be tiring of U of C traditions. It sometimes may seem like every second stall in every public bathroom on campus has some bizarre story associated with it, or some esoteric ritual requisite for its safe use. I am in the unfortunate position of foisting yet another tradition on you, but this one I think you may appreciate. Every Halloween, the University of Chicago Orchestra puts on its Halloween Concert, with conductor Barbara Schubert flying in on a broomstick or some such thing and the whole orchestra robed in Halloween splendor. Works by Wagner, Orff, and Dvorák will send shivers down your spine. (Mandell Hall, 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., $4 for students)
Sunday / October 28
Sunday is your last day to see the Renaissance Society’s video installation, a piece by British artist Steve McQueen entitled Gravesend. The work is a meditation on the industrial mining process, following a mineral called coltan from sepulchral mine shafts deep in the jungle all the way to space-age automated refinement facilities. (The Renaissance Society, 12 a.m. to 5 p.m., free)
Monday / October 29
Fans of Monday Night Football can get their ya-yas out at Seven Ten Lanes, which shows games on plasma screen TVs every Monday night until December 31. This week: Green Bay Packers at Denver Broncos. Apparently there are drink specials, too (football cocktails?). That’ll make you cheer. (1055 East 55th Street, no cover)
Tuesday / October 30
Bar Louie is probably most familiar to Shoreland residents as a bustling local hangout (though not as grungy as the Cove) that parties far into the night, but it’s also a pretty damn good restaurant in its own right. Gorge yourself on a Tuesday night with $2 half-pound burgers if you can stand the wait. (5500 South Shore Drive, 5 p.m. to 2 a.m.)
Wednesday / October 31
Considering that most of the Halloween fun will be taking place over the weekend, I expect that by the time Wednesday comes around, most U of C students will be hoping for something a little more low-key. Perhaps the subtext of all Halloween celebrations, the horror of death, will have sunk in. If not, Doc Films’ screening of Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter seems wholly appropriate. This 2001 cult film combines Our Lord, a Mexican wrestler, and the a bunch of lesbians in the best B-movie this side of Plan 9 from Outer Space. Doc is also hosting its second annual costume contest on the same night. (Max Palevsky Cinema, 11:59 p.m., $5, free with costume!)
Thursday / November 1
Today is the second-to-last day of the Hyde Park Art Center’s exhibit, Seasons, by Chicago-based video artist Sandra Binion. Five 2.5-minute projections chart the change of the seasons, with the images occasionally verging on abstraction. The visuals are accompanied by sound artist Lou Mallozzi’s reworking of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, which plays both inside and outside the building. (5020 South Cornell Avenue, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., free)
