October 2024 Issue: Popcorn (Print Edition)

History in a Bottle. Or Two. 

Everyone is family at Kasey's Tavern

"Bill White, the owner of Kasey’s Tavern in Printers Row, remembers the old days when the neighborhood was down on its heels. He remembers too the way Kasey’s looked when he bought it. 'It was all wood at the time. It looked like an abandoned storefront,' he says. Instead of the large glass picture windows of today, the front of the bar was hidden behind painted wood panels." (June Sawyers)

The German Question

Exploring the Saint Louis Art Museum's extraordinary collection of Teutonic painting

"In the late forties, May went on a quest to obtain cutting-edge modernist art to decorate his new home. He struck gold in 1951 on a visit to J.B. Neumann’s New Art Circle in New York City, where he purchased a commanding twenty-five works. His revelation wasn’t aesthetic, however—he’d been to the gallery years before, and seen the same works on sale, but bought none. What prompted his purchase was the fact that they hadn’t sold in the intervening years: a businessman through and through, May knew that he could buy unsold inventory for cheap." (Charles Venkatesh Young)

A Corny Story That Really Pops

How a Chicago family fed America's snack obsession for more than a century

"Americans eat a lot of popcorn. According to The Popcorn Board, a part of the USDA, annual consumption averages forty-three quarts for every man, woman and child in the United States. So: a lot of popcorn. It’s a big enough deal that it qualifies not only for its own day (January 19 is National Popcorn Day), but has actually been granted its own month (October has been National Popcorn Poppin’ Month since 1999). And in Illinois, popcorn is the official state snack. Consumption is nationwide, and even worldwide, but popcorn is strongly associated with Chicago. The Popcorn Board is even based in Chicago. But the real connection is C. Cretors, a family-owned, Chicago-area company that changed our relationship with popcorn starting back in the late 1800s." (Cynthia Clampitt)

Studio Visits

Mark Ballogg’s “Making Space” project takes us into the artist’s creative home

"After nearly forty years of working as an architectural photographer my focus has shifted to making personal work. A 2017 visit to Richard Hunt’s studio inspired a book project that would lead me to photograph 162 Chicago artist’s studios. Each studio visit started with two hours of photography followed by an hour of recorded conversation with the artist. Over the course of five years around 4,000 photographs were made and 160 conversations transcribed." (Mark Ballogg)

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Poetry

"A Dancer”: A new poem by Reginald Gibbons

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