APRIL
Writer and monologuist Jonathan Ames has made a career out of his almost stream-of-consciousness meanderings through the minutiae of life: he’s got several books under his belt, he’s a frequent contributor to Public Radio International’s The Next Big Thing, and his hilarious stories have made him a favorite guest on the Late Show With David Letterman. He’ll appear for the first time in Chicago tonight at 9 for a free reading at Burkhart Studios, 2845 N. Halsted. Tomorrow night at 11 he’ll perform an updated version of his one-man show Oedipussy at Bailiwick Arts Center, 1229 W. Belmont, also in Chicago. Tickets are $15, $18 at the door; call 773-330-8728 or see www.jonathanames.com for information on both events.
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In the 1960s, an Oak Brook developer agreed to move the contents of the old Thurston Cemetery so he could build on the land. Apparently he never finished the job: archaeologist Catherine Bird says that when a local road was widened a couple years ago, contractors found themselves cutting through something other than dirt. Bird’s firm, Midwest Archaeological Research Services, was called in to investigate; she found scattered buttons, coffin parts, and human remains. She’ll talk about the fate of these 19th-century graves at today’s meeting of the Chicago Archaeological Society at the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian at Kendall College, 2600 Central Park in Evanston. Refreshments will be served at 3, and the lecture starts at 3:30. It’s free and open to the public; call 630-739-7255.
Before he became grandpa to the beat generation, before the William Tell routine that killed his wife, before the boys in Tangier, and before Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs lived in Chicago. In 1942, he rented a north-side apartment and took a job as an exterminator; a year later he moved to New York and began hanging out with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. Burroughs died in 1997; his longtime companion, editor, biographer, and adopted son, James Grauerholz, will discuss the Chicago chapter of his deliberately outrageous life today at 5 in Harper College’s Drama Lab, Building L, on the campus at Roselle and Algonquin in Palatine. Admission is $7; call 847-925-6100.
29 THURSDAY
