Holidays

    Chicago festival season is here, but are you ready? Music festivals, film series, street fests, beer bashes – it's a summer long party. So pull out your calendar, read our guide and start enjoying weekends.

    Friday Art Markets at Daley Plaza

    Select Fridays August 19 through September

    Daley Plaza

    Cost: Free

    Directions: Nearly 75 artists will be showing their work in Daley Plaza, including jewelry, ceramics, sculpture, paintings, glass, wearables, wood and mixed media.

    Website: http://www.FridayArtMarketsaDaleyPlaza php?sid=146320

    Renegade Chicago Pop-Up

    Sept. 9-10

    Pilsen

    Cost: Free

    Directions: Get your hands on the goods at this outdoor celebration of all things handmade. Festivities include food trucks, DJ sets, craft brews, DIY workshops, photo ops and shopping.

    Website: http://www.RenegadeChicagoPop-Up php?sid=146346

    Millennium Park Summer Music Series

    Select Mondays and Thursday June 12 through Aug. 21

    Millennium Park

    Cost: Free

    Directions: Grab a blanket and some picnic snacks for a free outdoor concert in the park. The music series features a wide variety of music from top local, national and international artists.

    Website: http://www.MillenniumParkSummerMusicSeries php?sid=146432

    Northsider Craft Beer Fest

    Sept 23

    Uptown

    Cost: $15 - $69

    Directions: Spend a day on the green sampling beers and hard ciders （苹果汁）from breweries across the country, including Colorado, Michigan, California and Wisconsin – and let's not forget those in our own home state, too.

    Website: http://www.NorthsiderCraftBeerFest php?sid=146467

    Many Chinese people have awakened their interest in classical Chinese poetry recently thanks to a popular TV show that aims to “appreciate classical Chinese poetry, explore cultural genes and enjoy the beauty of life” by combining traditional literary form with light-hearted TV quizzes.

    The ten-episode “Chinese Poetry Competition”, since its broadcast, has been praised for injecting vitality(活力) into TV programs with fantastic performances of contestants, impressive comments from judges as well as its innovative interactive mode. In the show, poems can be adapted into songs or depicted(描绘) through artistic pictures. Any contestant who can memorize the largest number of poems may not necessarily be the final winner, while fast reaction and usage of poems matter a lot more in the competition.

    Wu Yishu, a 16-year-old student from the High School Attached to Fudan University in Shanghai, is the champion of this season. Her rich knowledge of classical poetry impressed everyone and she rose to become famous online. In an earlier episode, Wu wowed the audience when performing in a section. She amazingly recited lines from the Classic of Poetry(《诗经》), the earliest collection of poems in China.

    “Learning poems isn't about winning or losing. The power of poetry lies in shaping one's view of life and developing one's inner world,” said Li Bo, an expert guest at the Chinese Poetry Competition's second season.

    When it comes to teaching people about poetry, Li Dingguang, the show's academic advisor, suggested that teachers should explain more about the beauty of the poetry from both the aesthetic(审美的) and emotional sides, and guide students to lose themselves in the poems' rhythmic and rhyming(押韵的) lines.

    “Although the proportion（比例) of ancient Chinese poems in the textbooks of primary and secondary schools has increased, many students still learn them for exams,” Li Dingguang said.“ Therefore, it's important to help students truly appreciate the artistry and fun of poetry.”

    Retired judge Davison hated all the quiet. Evy, his wife of 66 ears, had passed away, and he was lonely and sad in the months after her death. But he knew how to beat those feelings; he decided to build a pool.

    Davison contacted a family-run company in Hopkins, Minnesota, that had built a pool for his previous house 40 years ago. “They did such a great job before and were still in business, so they came out and planned it,” Davison said.

    Kevin, who works on new pools for the company, helped Davison with everything, from initial planning and completing contracts back in March to teaching him how to filter the water once the pool was finish in July.

    “If You build it, they will come,” he thought. He invited all the neighborhood kids over to swim. Now it's not so quiet anymore.

    He hears the sounds of laughter and splashing as he sits on a chair in the shade, watching happy children play in his backyard.

    “I knew they'd come.” 94-yvear-old Davison told KARE-TV.

    Neighbor Jessica thought the judge was joking when he talked about putting in a pool until she saw the work starting. Now she and her four kids have been regulars since the pool was finished in July.

    “It's him spreading joy throughout our neighborhood for these kids.” Jessica said.

    Davison's pool includes a diving board and reaches nine feet in the deep end under the board. It's especially welcome in a town that doesn't have a public outdoor pool.

    Although Davison has three adult children, he doesn't have any grandchildren.

Jessica says she's told him, “You kind of adopted our whole neighborhood of kids. These are your grandkids.”

    The judge's rules require that a parent or grandparent stay while the children are swimming. Once the kids leave, he likes to swim, too.

    Davison tells KARE-TV that he realizes that putting in the pool didn't make a lot of financial (经济的) sense for an old man. But that didn't matter to him.

    “I'm not sitting by myself looking at the walls.” he says. “What else would you think of doing where you could have a whole bunch of kids over every afternoon?” The 94-year-old judge now hears laughter all day as he watches children splash in his backyard pool.

    In a win for literary fiction amid declining sales, Sally Rooney's novel Normal People has been named Waterstones book of the year in 2018.

    Rooney's second novel, which follows two young people falling in love in Ireland, has sold 41, 000 copies in hardback in the UK since it was released in August-five times the hardback sales of her 2017 debut, Conversations With Friends. At 27, Rooney is now the youngest winner of the award, which is given by the UK's biggest bookshop chain, Waterstones.

    Normal People received almost universal applause upon its release. Longlisted for the Man Booker prize, the book won novel of the year at the An Post Irish book awards in November of 2018 and has also been shortlisted for the Costa novel of the year, announced in January of 2019.

    The reader response to Normal People had been astonishing. As well as the universal praise, it has been a huge word- of-mouth (口头的) hit. There're customers returning to buy multiple copies as gifts. Normal People strengthened Sally Rooney's reputation as the voice of her generation and one of the most exciting novelists around today. Its success is a testament to the health of literary fiction and indicates that there is still significant appetite for excellent storytelling.

    The award, established in 2012, tends to go to books that are already bestsellers near Christmas. It has previously been won by the late American author John Williams's Stoner, the cookbook Polpo by Russell Norman, and last year's choice, Philip Pullman's La Belle Sauvage.

    James Daunt, Waterstones' managing director, said Rooney's win was a sign of the healthy state of literary fiction, which has seen sales decrease over the last decade. "We are delighted to name it our book of the year," he said.

    Western conservation groups are seeking stricter laws to deal with trade in endangered wildlife, but Dr. Paul Jepson warns that this isn't the best solution. He highlights the case of the Bali starling (八哥). Bringing in tougher laws created unexpected outcomes, which contributed to the bird's extinction in the wild in 2006.

    He said that the traditional law enforcement (执行) approach that outlawed (宣布……非法) ownership of the Bali starling in the 1980s and 1990s increased rather than reduced the demand for wild-caught Bali starlings. The bird has become a popular gift among the rich of Indonesia, who can gain more status by owning one.

    Instead, a case-by-case analysis might be needed. Last year, he said, a bird association set up a network of breeders (饲养者) among the owners of Bali starling on the island of Java. By introducing a "crowd-breeding" model, it transformed the bird into a species whose price and source of supply were publicly known. This lessened the status of keeping such birds and thereby reduced their profitability to black market suppliers.

    Another case was on Nusa Penida, an island southeast of Bali. A Balinese conservation group planned to release starlings on the island. Critics tried to block the plan, saying the island was outside the birds' native zone. Eventually, the Governor of Bali came up with a proposal. The starlings were given to a local temple as a ceremonial offering before they were released. This gave the Bali starling status as a "sacred bird", giving them protection under customary laws. Now the released starlings established a breeding population on Nusa Penida.

    Dr. Jepson commented, "I do not want to criticize the international approach seeking tighter law enforcement, but this case study shows we should not oversimplify how we respond to the problem of the wildlife trade. There is a growing body of evidence that shows more different approaches are sometimes needed to fit with the local social and political realities. We should tailor solutions on more of a case-by-case basis."