WORD
ON THE STREET
by Holiday Dmitri
The Booster - Wicker Park
March 6, 2002
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WORD
ON THE STREET |
The thought came during dessert. A little over a month ago, I was having lunch with Dan Miles, a professional photographer and party promoter of LoveChaos. Dan, whom I had met just a week earlier, was telling me about LoveChaos, an event he described as "theatre, rock show, movie, dance party, rave and art gallery, all in one." The party started out in 1999 as a grassroots affair and quickly spread word-of-mouth in a self-perpetuating manner -- three years later -- to include a community of loyalists and a large league of players (this year, totaling 50 artists and performers). LoveChaos features poets, dancers, painters, writers, musicians, actors and various Creative Types all congregating in a multimedia, free-form frenzy. LoveChaos is live music, performance artists, video projections, the whole kit-and-caboodle, where the control element is removed, and a sort of cohesive "chaos" ensues. And the point? "We want to celebrate diversity, take a fresh and unpredictable view of what art is, and bring forth a sense of community," Dan said. With those generalities, it was hard to really argue anything, and seeming along the lines of Dan's atavistic endeavor, I ventured: Why not feature Studs Terkel in the video-portion of the show? Terkel is the man many call Mr. Chicago. Rightly so. He has lived in the Second City for a whopping 80 years (arriving here from New York City in 1922 at the age of 10) and is a literary fixture as monumental to the city as the Water Tower: He's been many things in his 90 years: stage and television actor, radio show host, soapbox orator, playwright, author, lecturer, entertainer and columnist; but is probably known to most as one of the world's most popular oral historians -- a genre that he largely created and defined. The celebrator of the uncelebrated, Terkel tells stories with a purpose. Author of many best-selling books including "Division Street: America" and the Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Good War: An Oral History of World War II," Terkel is known for examining broad subjects through the voices of its participants, collecting memories of everyday Americans and creating books that reveal people's intimate portraits and disparate views on common topics. And last week, Terkel welcomed us to his house on the North Side of Chicago for a videotaped interview with America's interviewer ... "Just ask me a question, and I'll run off like Fidel Castro," quipped Terkel. "If I don't know the answer, I'll fake it." What strikes you immediately upon meeting Terkel is his candor and compassion. To top it off, he is witty and brilliant, and has an almost photographic memory with spryness of a man half his age. His desires -- based on idealistic dreams -- are genuine and are as passionate as they are involuntary. He emotes from the heart, churning agitprop against today's targets, big government and big business, for as he puts it, "I root for the losers." His answers during the interview gravitated towards phrases like "spirit of the community" and "the human voice." Said Terkel: In 1935-1936, Hot House, the venue for the LoveChaos party, was the theatre where labor and anti-war plays like 'Waiting for Lefty' and the more celebrated Marc Blitzstein play 'The Cradle will Rock' were performed by Terkel and other pro-union champions. "It was all in that very same room," Terkel said. "So [LoveChaos] seems like a continuity of that spirit." "It is the revival of the spirit of community of the 1930s during the Depression. An old-time legacy, really," he explained. "It's about community and in unity, there is strength." Whether you agree with him or not (I don't entirely), Terkel's magic lies in his agelessness and relentless pursuit of his craft: a man, who at 90, still refuses to retire. His most recent book, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Reflections on Death and Hunger for a Faith," was to be his "ultimate book" as he called it, the work he thought would be his last. But with his oral history on death brought to life, Terkel has already changed tunes, tapping away at his electric typewriter on his next editorial endeavor -- a hymn to hope. Aware that his book on hope may be the beginning of his finale, Terkel remains unyielding. "That's the thing about hope," he said. "Hope dies last." Side
Note: This videotaped interview with Studs Terkel will be shown
at LoveChaos this Friday, March 8, 2002 at the Hot House, 31 E. Balbo.
Doors open at 8 pm. The evening commences at 9 pm, with over 20 artists
showcasing their pieces in the gallery. Performances start at 10 pm. $10
cover. |
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