Asleep at the Switch
If you haven’t gotten your fill of the CTA after reading this week’s feature on the history of the Green Line, or if you like slipping into fifteen-minute fugue states while you should be doing something more productive, go on YouTube and check out the videos the CTA has been posting, which feature high-definition time-lapse videos recorded from the cockpit of trains shooting up and down the Red and Blue lines. You’ll be able to watch stop after stop slip by and catch CTA workers loafing on the elevated tracks, all to the tune of vaguely unsettling electronic music. Especially recommended is the underground portion of the Red Line, which features trance-inducing lights and a haunting, Philip-Glass-esque piano. If only all commutes were this stimulating— and this fast.
Tributes
Jerry Blumenthal
Longtime Chicago documentary filmmaker and founding partner of Kartemquin Films Jerry Blumenthal passed away on Thursday. The producer of many documentaries and the director of Golub and Independent Lens, among other films, Blumenthal became seriously interested in film after attending film screenings at Doc Films while at the UofC. Blumenthal aggressively documented social issues, including union organization and public housing, while also focusing on fine art later in his career. In addition to filmmaking and teaching college cours- es, he was a mentor to various aspiring filmmakers. With Blumenthal, Kartemquim has produced various social-issue documentaries about Chicago, including The Last Pullman Car and The Chicago Maternity Center Story, as well as films of a national scale, like Vietnam, Long Time Coming. Golub was his favorite. Though Blumenthal’s passing is a great loss of a brilliant visionary, we hope his legacy of curiosity and bravery in filmmaking will endure.
Jane Byrne
On Monday morning, Chicago paid tribute to former Mayor Jane Byrne, the first (and only) woman to lead from the helm of City Hall from 1979 to 1983. Among those who came to pay their respects were Mayor Emanuel, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, and mayoral candidates Alderman Bob Fioretti and Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia. Jane Byrne is remembered for her role in Chicago’s downtown revitalization, for the renovation of Navy Pier, and for her somewhat un- usual campaign in 1979, when she ran on an aggressive snow-removal platform. She is remembered as an intrepid trailblazer who cared deeply for the city. Lisa Madigan, recounting Byrne’s dynamism to the Tribune, mused, “She took on the big boys and won.”