Welcome to Culture Hound, InsideHook’s deep dive into the month’s most important cultural happenings, pop and otherwise.
WATCH: The Snowman
It’s a cold case, literally. A serial killer with a snowman fetish returns to the bleak wintery streets of Oslo, as (*cough* porn name) detective Harry Hole (Michael Fassbender) hunts for clues. Based on a best seller and directed by Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy). (Oct. 20)
LISTEN: Chicago Podcast Festival
If you love podcasts as much as we do, you’ll be happy to hear the Chicago Podcast Fest is back for its second year. Held across multiple venues across the city, this year’s highlights include Steve Dolinsky and Rick Bayless’ James Beard-award winning show The Feed, and improv4humans — a fully improvised podcast from Matt Bessar, one of the four founding members of Upright Citizens Brigade. (Oct. 2-8)
Mark Howard Collection
WATCH: Chicago Home Movie Day
Every year the Chicago Film Society and Chicago Film Archives join forces to bring us a shot of nostalgia. Here’s how it works: bring in your home movie films (8mm, 16mm or Super 8) and the archivists and projectionists will inspect and project them for all to see. The show-and-tell is followed of a special program of home movies and amateur films from the Chicago Film Archive’s private collection. (Oct. 7)
Vintage home movies not your thing? Then you’ll wanna hit up the Chicago International Film Festival (Oct. 12-26). Peruse the lineup right here.
GO: MCA Hearts Chicago
On the heels of its record-breaking Takashi Murakami exhibit the opening of its Jason Hammel-helmed in-house restaurant Marisol, the MCA celebrates its 50th anniversary with a weekend of free admission, art talks and live music. Expect appearances from Billy Corgan and local rising musician Jamila Woods as well as an interactive site-specific installation from local artist Edra Soto. (Oct. 21-22)
ENJOY (NSFW): Nude
Steve Shaw — the photographer/owner behind Treats!, a quarterly magazine that devotes the bulk of its pages to models shot au naturel — partnered with French photographer David Bellemere to shoot a calendar for a concept called NU Muses, which was billed as fine art at Basel in Miami. And now Starz has the behind-the-scenes documentary on it, which should be … eye-opening. (Oct. 29)
GO: Chicago Humanities Festival
Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose new book We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy looks back on the Obama era, is among the must-see talks at this year’s fest. Other include Al Gore, The Publican’s Paul Kahan and Cosmo Goss on their new cookbook and the Gwendolyn Brooks Cenntennial. (Oct. 28-Nov. 12)
Looking for more inspiring talks? Also going down this month: Chicago Ideas Week (Oct. 16-22). This year’s diverse lineup includes something for everyone, from Father Michael Pfleger on civil activism to Kim Kardashian West on building your personal brand.
SEE: OpenHouse Chicago
One of our favorite civic events returns for another year, allowing visitors free access to more than 200 architectural gems across the city. In addition to favorites like Englewood’s Yale Building and Lincoln Park’s Elk’s National Memorial, 2017 will see the debut of sites in Logan Square and Avondale. Get ready for your Instagram feed to be an endless scroll of architecture. (Oct. 14-15)
LEARN: Leonardo da Vinci
Walter Isaacson canonized Steve Jobs. Here, he tackles another genius, a man of both art and science who was also a social misfit (“Illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical.”). Devour this before the DiCaprio adaptation that no one asked for. (Oct. 17)
LAUGH: Saturday Night Live: The Experience
Saturday Night Live has a grand tradition of poaching Chicago’s funniest people (look no further than its newest batch of cast members), so it makes sense that the Museum of Broadcast Communications is hosting the show’s touring exhibition. SNL fans will be treated to over 500 relics of late-night TV, including a recreation of the Wayne’s World’s basement set piece. (Opens Oct. 21)
SUBSCRIBE: Quartz Obsession
From one of our favorite online publishers, Quartz Obsession is a new email that takes a deep dive into a single newsy topic every weekday, timed for your evening commute (unless you’re driving … then, um, don’t look at your phone). You’ll get history, stats, quotes, charts and interactive elements, all dedicated to one fascinating topic (recently, it was tulips).
LISTEN: Our Spotify playlist
A slightly revamped version of our former monthly playlist, still devoted to the best in new music but now an on-going, living, breathing entity called Put This in Your Ear. We’ll be adding and archiving songs as we go, but still curating great new tunes along the way, including songs from Wolf Alice, Wu-Tang Clan, Phoebe Bridgers, CHVRCHES (covering Tegan & Sara) and, somehow, Bill Murray.
BINGE: Mindhunter
The ‘70s, David Fincher and the hunt for serial killers? Count us in. Netflix’s latest drama is based on the work of the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, which interviewed imprisoned serial killers to understand how they think (a bit o’ Silence of the Lambs there, but real). (Oct. 13)
And don’t forget… Best-selling author Dave Eggers (The Circle) tackles anthropomorphic art in the illustrated Ungrateful Mammals (Oct. 17) … Marc Maron shares his learnings from his WTF podcast in Waiting For the Punch (Oct. 10) … Personal tragedy can’t keep down comedian Patton Oswalt, who debuts this stand-up special Annihilation on Netflix (Oct. 17) … Film buffs: Be sure to check out our 2017 Fall Movie Guide … Book buffs: Be sure to check out our 2017 Fall Book Guide (unreleased Vonnegut!) … Finally, welcome back Mr. Robot (Oct. 11), Riverdale (Oct. 11), The Walking Dead (Oct. 22) and Stranger Things (Oct. 27).
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