I imagine winter in Chicago to be much like winter in Ann Arbor: fat starlings huddled, rough-voiced-complaining, in the naked, craggy fingers of elm trees, their grayish droppings slicking the sidewalks (making for a decidedly icky biohazard); icy, parched wind whipping horizontal ropes against the forms of pedestrians struggling forward through slush and snow. As Chicago is nestled in the crook of an ancient lake bottom (read: with terrain as flat as a pancake), even snowboarding, my favorite winter vice, is totally out of the question.

But every cloud has a silver lining: as I cultivate replacement vices (whiskey drinkin’ and slackjaw fiddle) and make new friends, I hear that there ARE advantages to living in the grey, icy wasteland that is the Windy City in winter. Chief among them is the music scene. We Chicagoans (my right hand gives an involuntary spasm: since when am I anything but a Michiganian to the core?) are fortunate to live in a teeming metropolis built on a solid foundation of folk music, and to folk we aspire still.

This is guaranteed to be a fantastic night, with formal performances devolving into a post-show folk jam session.

On December 15th, we will have a bit of help from our Michigan friends: musicians Chris Bathgate, Michael Beauchamp, Luke Winslow-King, Susan Fawcett, and Chicagoan Ami Saraiya, with Ben Graham as emcee, will defy the elements and appear at Leland House (part of the Stone Soup Co-operative in Uptown), for a night of good times and good music.

Here are the details:

1st Annual Stone Soup Folk Fest

Saturday, December 15, 2007

8 p.m. onward, $8-12 sliding cover (pay what you can), BYOB

Stone Soup Leland; 1430 W. Leland, Chicago, IL 60640

Directions via the CTA:

Take the red line to Wilson; walk one block N on Broadway, three blocks W on Leland.

This is guaranteed to be a fantastic night, with formal performances devolving into a post-show folk jam session. We hope to see you there!

-Sharon Shattuck

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