Our complete pullout guide to the CHICAGO JA ZZ FESTIVAL Section 3

CHICAGO’S FREE WEEKLY | THIS ISSUE IN FOUR SECTIONS FRIDAY, SEPT 2, 2005 | VOLUME 34, NUMBER 49 Ivan Brunetti arrives p 18 End Game Gary Stern is the Movies only guy Alex de in the la Iglesia’s world dark comedy still El crimen making perfecto pinball machines. p 26

Miner on the anatomy of a hoax, Joravsky on the Park Grill’s woes, Lynn Becker PLUS on Mies’s Crown Hall, Liz Armstrong on getting weird shit in the mail, and more. Section One Letters 3 Architecture 14 Mies’s Crown jewel Columns Hot Type 4 Our Town 18 Ivan Brunetti’s big break The story behind the story of the Kodee Kennings hoax Reviews The Straight Dope 5 Movies 26 How do karate guys break those boards? Alex de la Iglesia’s El crimen perfecto Theater 28 The Works 8 TimeLine Theatre Company does Making the Park Grill pay Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen Chicago Antisocial 10 Books 30 September 2, 2005 Liz’s mailbag Dave Zirin, What’s My Name, Fool? Plus The Sports Section 12 Ink Well Sox fans have feelings too. This week’s crossword: Crossing the Finish Line

ON THE COVER: ELIZABETH M. TAMNY (PINBALL), SHEILA SACHS (INSTRUMENTS) End Game

Gary Stern at his factory in Melrose Park

aped to the door of a small room next to the factory floor at Stern Gary Stern is the only Pinball is a memo telling employees they have to sign up to play T the company’s latest game and test it for bugs. “If you don’t sign guy in the world still up,” it says, “you obviously don’t want to work at a pinball factory.” Gary Stern, owner of the company and author of the memo, is inside playing Elvis. The room is dark, and only the flashing lights of making pinball machines. the game’s playing field illuminate his face. Asked a question, he says, “Shhhh. This is serious business.” When he makes a good shot, a plas- tic figurine of the King shakes its hips, and the machine plays the By Seth Porges | Photographs by Marty Perez hook from “All Shook Up.” He laughs. continued on page 20 2CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE 3

m Chicago Reader, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago, IL 60611 312-828-9926 SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 f VOL 34 | NO 49 Letters @ [email protected]

Publisher Michael Crystal Editor Alison True tone of the article, posted under the Managing Editor Kiki Yablon heading High Jinks, is clearly Senior Editors Michael Miner |Laura Molzahn | Kitry Krause Where Hypocrite meant to entice us to find their Associate Editors Martha Bayne | Anaheed Alani stunt clever and amusing; instead I Philip Montoro | Kate Schmidt Indymedia Hackers am thoroughly disgusted. It does Assistant Editors Jim Shapiro | Mark Athitakis Staff Writers Steve Bogira | John Conroy | Jeffrey Felshman not seem that the men who Harold Henderson | Deanna Isaacs | J.R. Jones | Ben Joravsky Puts It Your cover story [“But Can He responded to the chat room invite Monica Kendrick | Peter Margasak | Tori Marlan | Bob Mehr Hack Prison?” August 19] does a were looking to commit statutory Jonathan Rosenbaum | Mike Sula | Albert Williams Copy Chief Brian Nemtusak Dear editor: good job of documenting the sorry Justin Fleming rape or a crime of any kind. Rather Editorial Assistants Pat Graham | Renaldo Migaldi In response to the criticism of state of “radical” politics these days. of Protest- it seems that they were just men Joel Score | Laura Kopen | Mario Kladis | Michael Marsh the Chicago Independent Media I can just see all these left- and Warrior in with a mild kink looking for some Tom Porter | Jerome Ludwig | Tamara Faulkner | Patrick Daily Stephanie Manis | Robert Cass | Kerry Reid | Todd Dills Center (chicago.indymedia.org) in right-wing computer nerds trying Letters, August clean fun with a consenting adult. Katherine Young | Ryan Hubbard | Miles Raymer last week’s letter by a Protest- to figure out how to shut down Web 26: “While the The Reader, after it has made a for- Typesetters Vera Videnovich | Kabir Hamid Warrior [August 26], we would sites they don’t like. Talk about social justice tune in advertising revenue from Archivist Eben English like to call attention to our editori- hypocrisy. Jeremy Hammond trum- movement phone sex and other adult-themed al policy, which is on our Web site: pets himself as being the defender covers their services, now sees fit to mock the Advertising Director Don Humbertson “The collective that maintains of the “free Internet.” What he faces with people who patronize these services. Sales Director Ginger Wade the CIMC website can hide posts seems to mean is that the Internet bandannas But Ms. Rickert and Mr. Display Advertising Manager Sandra Goplin if the material is far outside of, or should be “free” as long as he agrees when speaking Erdman didn’t just lure them to Assistant Display Advertising Manager Katie Platz in conflict with, the principles of with the content in question. their truest phone; they then proceeded to Online Advertising Coordinator Renate Durnbaugh the project and this website. convictions or humiliate them with messages that Display Representatives Jeff Martin | Christine Thiel Gary Baldwin Examples of material that may be shriek about insulted them with stock phrases Brad Winckler River North Sales Development Manager Susan Zuckert hidden include newswire posts “persecution” recorded on a sampler. All of this is Senior Account Executives Denice Barndt | Angie Ingham that are racist, sexist, homophobic, whenever their lurid and debasing for all con- Evangeline Miller | Ryan A. Norsworthy | Geary Yonker or that clearly fly in the face of our message, cerned, but where Rickert and Account Executives Michael J. Anderson | Nichole Flores Julie Mueller | Tim Tomaszewski mission to serve as a space for the It’s Not Easy means, motives, Erdman descend into the truly Advertising Project Coordinator Allison Hendrickson exchange of news, dialogue, and and associa- creepy is in recording the voice mail Advertising Assistants Katie Hennebry | Jennifer K. Johnson opinion that advances economic Being Lefty tions are called and releasing a CD. I am pretty sure Kieran Kelley | Sarah Nishiura and social justice. into criticism, that after Steve Allen, the FCC does “In addition, posts that serve as While I typically find extreme those of us who not approve of phone calls being Art Director Sheila Sachs commercials for for-profit compa- activists on both ends of the politi- have gone out unknowingly used for entertain- Associate Art Director Godfrey Carmona nies will be removed. We respect cal spectrum to be, at best, annoy- into the street ment purposes. Are we supposed to Art Coordinator Elizabeth Tamny and support a diversity of opinion, ingly cute but rarely informative with our find their illegal behavior funny? Production Director David Jones Production Manager Bob Cooper but our site, as well as other sites (god, everything was so very black- support for the Look, I understand that there is Associate Production Manager Nickie Sage in the Indymedia network, have and-white when I was younger U.S.’s prose- something pathetic about people Production Artists Jeff Marlin | Jennifer McLaughlin unfortunately been increasingly too!), Mr. Fleming [Letters, August cution of a war trying to meet sexual needs over Mark Blade | Benjamin Utley | John Cross | Andrea Bauer targeted by quantities of right- 26] and the rest of his ilk need to be against terror the phone with strangers. But Dustin Kimmel | Josh Honn | Mike Browarski Nadine Nakanishi wing disinformation and hatred- aware of, or at least acknowledge, haven’t seen the what’s disgusting is the willingness Editorial Design Jardí + Utensil promoting messages. We would one very glaring difference between need for such of people like Rickert and Erdman appreciate it if such persons would activists on the left and right: protections.” to embarrass others simply because Operations & Classifieds Director Mary Jo Madden instead use [other Web sites], or groups such as [ProtestWarrior] they are vulnerable. Simply put, Controller Karl David Wilt set up their own ...rather than haven’t been infiltrated by the FBI, they are bullies. And Ms. Rickert’s Classifieds Manager Brett Murphy subjecting our readers and posters weren’t subjected to preemptive attempt to justify this sadism is Classified Representatives Sara Bassick | Danette Chavez to their objectionable cant.” arrests prior to political conven- lame, to say the least. Bill Daniel | Kris Dodd | Chip Dudley | Andy Hermann However, when we find post- tions, weren’t threatened with Suppose Rickert and Erdman Janet Lukasiewicz | Jeff McMurray | Amy O’Connor | Scott Shehan Kristal Snow | Bob Tilendis | Stephen Walker ings which violate our editorial grand jury subpoenas, and on and had posted a picture of a young Matches Coordinator Jane Hanna policy they are not erased; they’re on and on. And Justin, please drop stud and enticed gay men to call Back Page Representative Chris Auman merely moved into the “hidden the “center-right” appellation. with their fantasies and then be Operations Assistants Patrick O’Neil | Alicia Tomaszewski articles” section of our Web site. There is nothing even remotely cen- held up for mockery. It is hard to Receptionists Monica Brown-Fielding | Dorie T. Greer Those articles can be viewed by trist about anyone who supports the imagine that such an article would Robert Jacobs |Dave Thomas | Stephen Walker Bookkeeper Marqueal Jordan selecting the “hidden articles” link current administration. have been allowed to be published. on the lower right of our home But what exactly is different? Circulation Manager Perry A. Kim Jake Daab Circulation Fred Adams | Sadar Bahar | Neil Bagwell page. The articles, which Mr. I have always felt like the Reader S. Union John Barrille | Kriss Bataille | Steve Bjorkland | Mark Blade Fleming says we are “deleting,” can existed in a slightly utopian space, Michael Boltz | Jeff Boyd | Michael Bulington | Bill Daniel Tom Frederick | Kennedy Greenrod | Nathan Greer be found there. where if we were just a little more Scott Harris John Holland | Sasha Kadukov We should also say that tolerant of other people’s quirks the Dave Leoschke | James McArdle | Shane McDougall John Merton | Dave Miedzianski | Terry Nelson ProtestWarrior is notorious for Cheap Thrills world would be a better place. To Gerald Perdue | John Roeser | Phil Schuster harassing bona fide left organizers find the Reader glorifying the wan- Dorian Tajbakhsh | David Thomas | Stephen Walker during protests, rallies, events, and I am disheartened that the Reader ton humiliation of mild deviants Craig White | Dan Worland in the digital realm. While we chose to run an article that and rewarding one of the perpetra- welcome civil, honest, and con- described the cruel prank pulled by tors with a job is a dispiriting sign Information Systems Director Jerry Davis structive dialogue from a variety Julia Rickert and her roommate of the times. Information Systems Project Manager Conrad Hunter of perspectives, we do not tolerate Derek Erdman in 2001 [“MyMuff Information Systems James Crandall | John Dunlevy Joshua Kilroy Doug Fawley | Sean Phelan abuse, but we have yet to hear Has Tusks!” August 19]. The snarky Hyde Park Special Projects Coordinator Lisa Martain Hoffer anything besides incessant abuse from ProtestWarrior and National Advertising their ilk. The Ruxton Group, 1-888-2-RUXTON In solidarity, New York |Chicago|Phoenix |San Francisco Mitchell Szczepanczyk Rita Sand CHICAGO READER Don Goldhamer 11 E. Illinois, Chicago, IL 60611 312-828-0350 Chicago Independent Media Center www.chicagoreader.com W. Diversey

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CHICAGO READER, INC. President Robert A. Roth Vice President Robert E. McCamant Treasurer Thomas K. Yoder Executive Editor Michael Lenehan 4CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE

[email protected] Hot Type www.chicagoreader.com/hottype

You Can Fool All of the People Some of the Time In the history of hoaxes, the Kodee Kennings story is a doozy.

By Michael Miner n 1989 Tribune investigative the Department of Defense. the Egyptian newsroom? reporter Bill Recktenwald For obvious reasons Hadley’s parents say it wasn’t I took a call from the daughter Recktenwald, who now teaches their daughter who made them. of Vito Marzullo, a 91-year-old journalism at SIU, has spent The paper admits all in a state- former alderman. The Tribune some time lately recalling those ment onits Web site, “DE duped in had just published Marzullo’s old Tribune mistakes. hoax.” It’s posted every last word obituary, but in the background Everything that went wrong of its Kodee Kennings coverage, Recktenwald could hear him then went wrong in the Kodee and to read those 16 stories now is cackling, “Tell ’em I’m still alive!” Kennings hoax—and a lot more. to marvel at human credulity. Two years later the Tribune ran a In the fall of 2003 Brenner Even Moustafa “Mous” Ayad story about a Green Beret from became editor of the Egyptian, believed. Born in Egypt, Ayad Palos Hills who’d parachuted and Kodee’s colorfully misspelled lived in Kuwait until 1991, when behind Iraqi lines on a secret letters to the paper were turned he was ten. Two days before Iraq mission during the gulf war. A lot into a popular column; the little invaded, the family left on a vaca- /THE SOUTHERN of callers questioned the story, girl who longed for her warrior tion to Disney World, and they and an editor told Recktenwald father was a voice of the war. didn’t go back. Ayad wound up to check into it. “It took me five “Dear Mr. Presadent,” she wrote. an SIU journalism student and minutes to find out this guy was “I’m rily mad at you and you Caitlin Hadley, aka Kodee Kennings MICHAEL THOMAS staffer at the Egyptian, where he not in the army,” he says. make my hart hurt. I don’t think had no use for Kodee. “We were These things happen. In the your doing a very good job. You ment of Defense. It couldn’t. “Colleen” in another part of the allowing all these misspellings, spring of 2003 sports editor keep sending soldiers to Iraq and Recktenwald tried to help the building and asked what she was and everybody was ‘Oh, it’s so Michael Brenner of the Daily it’s not fair. Do you have a soldier Egyptian confirm it by exchang- doing. Reynolds laughed and cute,’” he says. “But it wasn’t cute Egyptian of Southern Illinois of your own in Irak? Why can’t ing e-mail with someone he knew replied, “Oh, you have me mixed to anybody in the newsroom who University in Carbondale invited our soldiers come home?” Kodee in Baghdad. Eventually that con- up with my twin sister.” had any respect for the opinion an eight-year-old girl who’d writ- and Colleen dropped by the tact concluded: “The facts of his There was no Kodee Kennings pages. It was only cute to anyone ten a fan letter to stop by for a Egyptian every few weeks, and death are clear that he did not die either. She was actually Caitlin smitten by her charm.” visit. Dressed in army fatigues, the girl often called; staffers here. His life is a question now.” Hadley, the daughter of a minister Ayad says Kodee would come little Kodee Kennings arrived passed the phone around, and There was no Colleen Hastings. in Montpelier, Indiana. And there around with Colleen every cou- with her “guardian” from nearby she talked for hours. She was actually Jaimie was no Dan Kennings. The man ple of weeks to toss a football Marion, Colleen Hastings, who If you’ve been reading the Reynolds, a radio-TV major who who occasionally portrayed him— with Brenner and fire off her told a touching tale: Kodee’s Tribune in recent days you know graduated from SIU in 2004. It such as during a visit to the Nerf gun in the newsroom, mom was dead, and her dad had how this story comes out. Colleen seems beyond belief that one Egyptian while he was supposed- where a banner on a wall says, “If gone off to fight in Iraq. The story let it be known that Dan Kennings journalism student could have ly home for special training—was your mother says she loves you Brenner wrote about Kodee was had died in Iraq and there’d be a fooled so many other journalism actually Patrick Trovillion, a nurse check it out.” The horseplay too vivid—he described Sergeant memorial service August 20. students for so long, but from Vienna, Illinois. He and drove Ayad nuts. “I was like, ‘I’ve Dan Kennings’s heart-wrenching Alerted by Recktenwald to this Recktenwald says the communi- Hadley and Hadley’s parents have got to write a story and go home farewell at Fort Campbell, human drama, the Tribune sent a cations and media arts building is tried to explain to reporters that and study for a test. I don’t have Kentucky, as though he’d been reporter to cover it. But he says huge, and the radio-TV studios Reynolds told them she was mak- time for a nine-year-old.’” there to see it. And even though that 1991 Green Beretstory taught and the newspaper office are so ing some kind of movie with hid- When Ayad became editor of Brenner had only one grown-up the Tribune a lesson. As a matter far apart that the Egyptian edi- den mikes and cameras and that the Egyptian in the fall of 2004 source—Colleen—he didn’t dou- of routine, the Tribune tried to tors probably never saw her. One they believed her. Those letters he had big plans: he wanted the ble-check what she told him with confirm the death with the Depart- Egyptian ad worker did run into and phone calls from “Kodee” to paper to focus on the elections CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE 5

® The Straight Dope by Cecil Adams

I recently watched a karate/tae kwon do demonstration of breaking boards, and once again I wondered: What is the important part in making the board break? Is it the speed with which the martial artist moves his hands/feet/elbows, according to the laws of physics, and to dig into a potentially discipline policy dragged the dis- meaning any other trained sportsman who achieved that same scandalous audit of the universi- trict into lawsuits, but he was speed could do the same? Or is it mostly concentration, summoning ty. “I wanted to change the way backed by his board and honored this newspaper worked, and the by his peers. He sat on the gover- of chi, etc, as martial artists claim? —Constanze W., Germany last thing on my mind was what nor’s Education Accountability little Kodee Kennings was going Task Force. He sat on the board onsidering what an exercise in through.” He promptly banished of the Illinois Association of participatory science this turned out to be, you might her from its pages—an unpopu- School Administrators. C guess I started by consulting lar decision. “I took a lot of heat This March the Daily ancient masters and visiting martial arts from readers. I got hate mail.” Southtown reported that an audit shrines to get a handle on the subject. He’d been affected by war him- of the 2003-’04 school year dis- Nah. I googled it. Topping the results was self, but though he’s sure it covered that school funds were a paper promisingly entitled “The Physics makes him sound “heartless and used to buy cabinets for Ryan’s of Karate Strikes” by Jon Chananie at the University of Virginia. On inquiry I learned cold,” he says, “I didn’t identify home and insurance for his car that Jon, a good fellow who’s now a UVA with her at all.” Yet he didn’t and to cover more than $6,000 of law student, had been an undergraduate doubt her story, and he didn’t a daughter’s college tuition. Ryan writing in the short-lived e-pub Journal of doubt Dan Kennings when he dismissed the irregularities as How Things Work, a venue that didn’t met him. “I said, ‘How much honest mistakes, the Southtown inspire the same confidence as, say, the Arabic do you know?’ And he reported, and despite the audit Acta Gynecologica Scandinavica. Then again, other JOHTW articles included said the Arabic word for ‘stop’— the school board gave him a new “How a Cruise Missile Works” and “Crafty qif—and I was, ‘Oh, this guy contract with a 9 percent raise. Connie’s Hot Glue Gun Experience,” so I knows a little Arabic.’” (Ayad The Southtown’s education figured, hey, maybe this guy’s OK. UG SIGNORINO

knew so little himself that as a writer, Linda Lutton, kept poking He was. Jon had done his homework, SL career move he’d gone back to around. She reported finding a among other things citing a genuine (in my book) ancient master, my friend meaning that you don’t strike the boards sixth, left the seventh intact—call it five Cairo one summer to study it.) dozen more tuition checks drawn Jearl Walker, who’d expounded on the sub- en bloc, as it were, but rather one at a and a half. Recuperating briefly, I tried Now a reporter in Pittsburgh, on school funds, and after-school- ject in 1975. His article informs us that time. (2) The boards aren’t two-by-fours again. Same result. Thinking that my low Ayad points out that none of program money that had paid for karate is governed by such axioms of laid lengthwise; instead, they’re six-inch platform was preventing me from getting today’s Egyptian editors were Blackhawks tickets, graduation physics as F = ma, ▲ p = Ft, and so on, the pieces of one-by-twelve (nominal; true enough back into the project, I got a cou- there when Kodee was. Neither gifts for Ryan’s three daughters, practical significance of which is that the thickness three-quarters of an inch) laid so ple more concrete blocks, made the thing was Eric Fidler, the new faculty and a DJ for a staff party. karateka (karate artiste) should hit the that the blow strikes parallel to the grain. higher, and on my next try endeavored boards as fast as possible, minimizing the Now we were getting somewhere. to uncoil my physical being in stages so managing editor. Fidler says that When Cook County state’s contact surface of the blow so as to maxi- Time to repair to the lab. I bought some as to maximize the velocity of the blow. in more than 20 years as a attorney Richard Devine person- mize impact. No mention is made of chi, one-by-twelve pine board and a box of This time I cleanly split six boards, but reporter for the AP and various ally announced Ryan’s indict- concentration, or any such; Jon merely number-two pencils, sawed the former the seventh remained unscathed. papers he never saw a story so ment on August 23, he said, “It is observes, “Karate black belts often advise into pieces of the requisite dimension, I called it a night but in the morning bizarre. Like Recktenwald and the worst case of financial fraud white belts [rookies] ... not to try to break and upended a couple concrete blocks to resolved to have at it again. Two more the board, but to break the floor under the serve as a platform. Never one to be attempts, the second using both hands. Ayad, he doesn’t believe Brenner by a public official I have seen in board. This is to ensure that the hand does accused of rashness, I started with one (Hey, I was on deadline.) No go. Mrs. was in on the plot, though my nearly nine years as state’s not decelerate prior to contact with the board. Easy. Three. Knife through butter. Adams sweetly suggested having one of Reynolds has said she was trying attorney.” Ryan was accused of target.” No disrespect to Jon, but imagin- Five. I’d had more trouble swatting gnats. the little researchers try, reasoning that, to help him further his career. stealing more than $100,000 ing one’s civilization-softened hand Seven. Well. Advantageously grained and being taller and younger, he would have Beyond that, Fidler’s at a loss. from the district (some $70,000 encountering a stack of kiln-dried two-by- interpolated with pencils though they may the advantage of leverage and a fresher But when the truth came out, of which went to his daughters’ fours at bone-shattering speed, one thinks: be, seven boards is a formidable stack of supply of testosterone. Ha. The kid split There’s gotta be more to it than that. lumber. I reviewed my sparse knowledge of three, cracked two, and left two on the he says, “I sent Mous an e-mail colleges), of awarding a buddy Back to the Internet. Ten more minutes karate. Chi is not a thing readily summoned table. Once more for the old man, this saying, ‘Thank you. Thank you. a $72,000 no-bid lighting of browsing elicited the following addition- on short notice. Likewise, while it’s fine to time with six boards. I split five. Thank you.’” contract, of demanding kick- al insights: (1) In the typical karate demon- speak of breaking the floor under the board, Am I quitting? No, merely taking a backs from employees paid stration—strictly speaking, the typical landing the blow inside your opponent’s breather till the swelling goes down. overtime, and of intimidating karate demonstration as performed by a body, etc, it’s something else to actually do Verdict so far: It’s likely just physics, physics teacher—the boards aren’t packed it. I pretty much just hauled back and let fly. but if somebody has a line on some chi, employees into doctoring records solid but rather are separated by pencils, Shoot. I split five boards, cracked the I’m game to give it a go. Credit Report to cover his tracks. “He also milked the milk fund, stole Thomas Ryan was known as a library fees, and made off with Comments, questions? Take it up with Cecil on the Straight Dope Message Board, www.straightdope.com, tough man in a tough job—super- book fees,” said Devine. “The or write him at the Chicago Reader, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago 60611. Cecil’s most recent compendium of knowledge, intendent of the Sauk Village financial havoc he wrought in Triumph of the Straight Dope, is available at bookstores everywhere. school district, one of the poorest the district will be felt for years.” in the state. His zero-tolerance continued on page 6 6CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE

Hot Type

continued from page 5 wonderful piece of journalism.” good enough job of giving each On August 16 a raid of Ryan’s That’s not what other papers other credit.” Not content with Ray home in Orland Park netted some said. The occasional pettiness giving the Southtown no credit, $730,000 in cash stashed there. of newspapers can take your the Tribune reported that Nordstrand, The same day the former school breath away, especially big Devine’s office swung into action board president—a Ryan ally papers that treat small papers’ after getting a letter from the 1932-2005 who’d resigned in late July—was stories as if they don’t exist. The state board of education. Overheard indicted for theft, misapplication AP account of Ryan’s indictment Lutton e-mailed me, “The WFMT’s vernacular quality of funds, and official misconduct. cited the Southtown, but neither only reason the state board did made the station an easy n the Red Line, a big galoot in a Cubs By that time other papers had of the downtown dailies did, ANYTHING at all—and all they habit to get into. It exuded O cap bitching about “Crusty Baker”: begun taking notice of the scan- even though the Sun-Times and did was pass on the audit I comfortable midwestern intel- “They haven’t won a World Series in a hun- dal. The Sun-Times and Tribune the Southtown are both uncovered—was because I was ligence; the brow was high dred years,” he says to his buddy. “Do you both covered Devine’s press con- Hollinger papers. all over them asking, ‘What is but seldom arched. Ray know how long that is?” —Kate Schmidt ference. But until she moved to I asked Phil Jurik, who runs the state board going to DO Nordstrand, who spent 52 Mexico in July, Lutton worked the Tribune’s Orland Park about this???’” years there in one capacity or the story pretty much alone. bureau, why his bureau didn’t Lutton said the Tribune had no another, died last week, and Devine praised the Southtown touch the Ryan story until July. reason to mention her by name. when the station played high- Brickhouse with different for its work, and assistant state’s “I just don’t think I’m going to go “But at least they could have said lights of his old Midnight enthusiasms. attorney Scott Cassidy, who led the there,” he said. But he conceded, that ‘newspaper reports’ sparked Specials, I heard the plain, WFMT was largely Nordstrand’s investigation, told me, “They did a “Probably most papers don’t do a the investigation.” awkward voice of a Jack creation, as was Chicago maga- CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE 7

zine, which began as the sta- tion’s program guide. Ron Dorfman, an editor who left the magazine in the late 70s because of an exposé Nordstrand wouldn’t run, gives Nordstrand credit for “real entrepreneurial genius.” He says Nordstrand managed to persuade the audience, staff, and advertisers of WFMT and Chicago “that they were, for the most part, a mutually respectful community, all participating in the same high-minded enterprise.” Nordstrand was more comfortable as a champion of culture than of muckraking journalism, but by the late 80s staffers at both places felt his leadership was too complacent. His board eventually stripped him of his executive authority and sold the magazine, and WFMT entered a time of tur- moil, from which it was slow to emerge. “Ray was curiously unbitter about the raw deal he’d received,” remembers Tony Judge, WFMT’s sales manager until he was fired in a 1990 bloodletting. Nordstrand even continued to work for the station as a consultant. If he ever wondered why so many good things end so bad- ly, he must have decided they don’t need to. v 8CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE

The Works [email protected]

The Poor, Poor Park Grill Even if they end up paying property taxes, they still have a ridiculously good deal.

By Ben Joravsky ames Horan and Matthew been temporarily waived, and O’Malley, the well-connected they’re paying a percentage of J proprietors of the Park Grill their gross. Between opening day, restaurant in Millennium Park, got in December 2003, and March a sweet deal. In 2003 they signed a 2005 they paid a total of only 30-year contract with the Park $162,656.72, so the first year’s Districtthat allowed them to pay payment was half what the mini- relatively little for the right to oper- mum fee would have been. I don’t ate a restaurant, a souvenir shop, know how much they’ve paid a bakery, and several kiosks and since then. “You should call Jody concession carts in the park. The Kawada in the mayor’s press deal was so sweet it drew lots of office,” Park District spokesper- attention from the media—and son Michelle Jones told me. “We from the county tax assessor. Now were instructed to refer all ques- they’re about to get hit with a big tions about that particular ven- property tax bill, even though dor to the mayor’s press office.” Park District concessionaires Kawada said she didn’t know rarely pay property taxes. how much the Park Grill paid but As I wrote in February, the Park promised to get back to me. (She Grill soap opera began in October didn’t.) City officials I’ve talked to 2001, when the Park District say that when you subtract all the selected Horan and O’Malley for things the Park District’s paying the restaurant contract, even for, it’s probably losing money on though two rivals were offering to the Park Grill. pay more for the privilege. After The contract became a major many months of negotiating, the political embarrassment for Park District signed a contract Mayor Daley last February, when giving Horan and O’Malley the the Sun-Times revealed that exclusive right to operate the O’Malley had had a baby with restaurant and other concessions, Laura Foxgrover, the Park ON

as well as the right to hold private District official whose depart- KS AC concerts and admission-only spe- ment oversaw the bidding J A. cial events in Millennium Park’s process for the restaurant in Park Grill “concession area,” which is rough- Millennium Park, and that the ly everything west of the Pritzker Park Grill’s roster of investors Soon afterward the city was According to Stephen Novack, agreement. “There’s a difference Pavilion. Last summer the Park included friends and associates of negotiating with Horan and the lawyer who filed the suit, between a lease and a license or Grill held a smooth-jazz series in the mayor’s. The paper also O’Malley. other vendors who have some concession agreement. The dif- the concession area, and in the pointed out that the Park Grill The brouhaha apparently form of property on Park ference is that of control. In a fall it had an Oktoberfest event, wasn’t paying any property taxes. caught the attention of Cook District land aren’t paying prop- normal lease a landlord does charging admission for both. The When the story broke, Daley County assessor James erty taxes. But the heart of his not exert the kind of control Park District also agreed to pay defended the contract, arguing Houlihan. On March 16 his argument is that the county that the Park District has here for the Park Grill’s gas, water, and that the city had gotten the best office sent Horan and O’Malley doesn’t have the right to impose in terms of prices they charge or garbage collection. deal it could given that it was a letter notifying them that their a tax on the Park Grill because how long they stay open.” He It’s still not clear exactly what taking bids right after 9/11, but restaurant was being assessed at its contract with the Park points out that the Park Grill’s Horan and O’Malley are sup- within a few days he and other $502,550 and that they would District isn’t a lease. “The law contract never uses the term posed to pay in return. The con- administration officials were be sent a bill in the fall for their allows the county to impose lease and doesn’t refer to the tract states that they have to pay backtracking. He told reporters 2004 property taxes. property taxes on businesses on parties as lessor or lessee. either an annual minimum fee of that the Park District had been On August 5 Horan and tax-exempt property—provided John Gorman, a spokesman $275,000 or a percentage of their too eager to get a restaurant up O’Malley filed suit against the they have leases,” he says. “But for the state’s attorney’s office, gross, whichever is higher. But and running, and through his assessor, asking that a judge my client does not have a lease.” which is defending the assessor because the two paid to build the aides he demanded that the prohibit the county from impos- He says the Park Grill simply in the case, says the contract is a restaurant, the minimum fee has Park Grill negotiate a new deal. ing taxes on the restaurant. has a license or concession lease, even if it doesn’t specifi- CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE 9

cally call itself a lease. “We have Other City Hall observers sus- like this that’s not being taxed,” By her calculation the Park they start imposing property not yet filed our response to pect that Houlihan was playing she says. “They probably sent Grill will get hit with a $30,000 taxes, where do they stop?” their suit,” he says, “but our hardball on Daley’s behalf, put- them a notice soon after they tax bill sometime in the next says one. “It’s not that I’m position is that the Park Grill is ting pressure on the Park Grill as read about it in the press.” few weeks. “And it will probably crying for the Park Grill. But a leaseholder and as a lease- a way to force it to renegotiate its Raila says the county has the go up next year, because this is a deal’s a deal. If the city didn’t holder they are subject to taxes.” contract with the Park District. right to tax property even if it’s prime real estate,” she says. “If I like the bids that came in for I asked Novack why the county (A publicist for the city says the on tax-exempt land, pointing to were them, I’d start preparing a the restaurant they should went after the Park Grill. He two sides are still negotiating.) a hot dog vendor in a CTA space tax appeal now, ’cause that law- have rebid them. They were in thinks it was because the media But Andrea Raila, who runs a who had to pay. “It doesn’t mat- suit over the lease could drag such a rush to get Millennium pointed out that the restaurant property tax appeal service, ter who owns the land—the city, on for years.” Park going they signed a deal wasn’t paying any property taxes. agrees with Novack: she thinks the county, the CTA, the Park Some Park District conces- they regret. This is the fallout “The county did not want to be Houlihan was acting on his own. District,”she says. “The land sionaires worry that the county to a contract they probably accused of ignoring its obligation “They have staffers who scour may be tax-exempt, but the will now go after them. shouldn’t have signed in the to collect taxes,” he says. the papers looking for property building’s not.” “Everyone’s watching this—once first place.” v 10 CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE

Chicago Antisocial [email protected]

Friendster picture that this was Liz Birch. “You scared the shit out of me!” I exclaimed, shoving her shoulder. She laughed and pushed me back. Birch has always been infatu- ated with the shipping of goods. “One of my favorite pictures of myself in the future is getting and shipping and receiving lots of things,” she says. “I’d be the one who understands where they all go. It just seems like a really awesome thing to have a walkie-talkie and have a huge dolly of boxes. ...That’s what I really want to do with my life.” Chapman, meanwhile, has been making packets and kits since she was a kid putting together boxes of games for her siblings. Now, she says, “I have my screen-printing kit, my embroi- dery kit, my beading kit. I just like to keep things in little boxes. It’s the way I like things.” And D’Angelo, says Chapman, “had been thinking about the epistolary quality of writing in general and about giving away stuff.” All these tendencies came together in the Packit project. “We just decided to send stuff out, individually, to people,” ER

AU says Chapman. I wandered through the cou- ANDREA B Left: at the Packit party. Right: actual stuff Liz got in the mail. ple dozen folks who’d gathered as they gently fondled the con- tents of their gifts. One couple sat on the cement poring over a handwritten bio of Fannie Lou Hamer, a handwritten account of the Haymarket riot, and a page cut out of the creator’s sev- enth grade journal. A friend of Chapman’s showed me his loot: a rectangular slice of an old Hey, Thanks for the Fetus album cover painted with Wite- Out and decorated with stick-on lettering. Inside was half an LP And other mysteries of the mailbag with letters stuck on to spell CICADAS WHIRRING. By Liz Armstrong My friend Annie sat at a table ne occupational hazard of woman and a cat, a couple short The space for the return paper the size of a fortune-cook- despondently rifling through my job is occasionally get- stories about an unnamed writer address said Tommy D’Angelo, ie fortune: “clear out a little her Packit. It contained a page O ting weird shit in the mail. and again the “Packit!” home among the bones and cut from a magazine about who was missing and possibly Some weird shit I like, like the dead dotted with names of places Within a few days I’d figured make our bed,” it said. “botched boob jobs” that’d been lady who drew pictures on manila I frequent, and the floor plan of out most of the mystery. I I got one more envelope a cou- fixed, complete with before and sales tags with cryptic messages an apartment a few blocks away found Liz Birch on Friendster ple weeks ago. Inside were these after pictures: swollen udders like “Can I help you? You missed a from mine. I’d just moved, none and saw that she knows my instructions: “Pack this empty with hard raisins way under- good moment when I walked of my friends had been over yet, friend Margaret Chapman. I e- Packit full! Create your own neath traded in for turbo tits, down to the lake.” Some of it con- and I hadn’t informed the post mailed Chapman and got the Packit as best you see fit. Feel rock-hard curdles smoothed fuses and disturbs me, like the guy office of the change. scoop. Chapman, Birch, and free to be unedited & uncut— out, a crooked nipple blob set who sent a magnet showing old At first I thought about sleep- D’Angelo are former school- this is for an anonymous Packit tidy. She also got lots of porno women talking about penises and ing elsewhere for the night. Then mates from the Art Institute. raffle exchange!” shots of naked shaved women a birthday card with cartoon les- I reconsidered—it was probably They decided to take 45 peo- Per the instructions, last cut up almost like snowflakes; bians excited about a giant dildo— some kind of arty malarkey ple—each artist selected 15 Saturday afternoon I showed dictionary entries for such rele- and it was nowhere near my birth- delivered by some press whore. I friends—on a literary journey up in the courtyard of Phyllis’ vant words as abnegation, day. And some of it grosses me liked the stories, actually. They by mail. Everyone’s first two Musical Inn with my Packit, denial, and nihilism; and a few out: last week I got a package that had a private quality, like the envelopes came from the which included a mock rough capsules full of fake blood, one included a tiny fetus of indetermi- writer was talking to herself. But strangers; only the third enve- draft of one of my columns, of which broke all over her nate species (but definitely not I was determined not to satisfy lope bore a familiar name. plus a torn-out copy of the real hands, staining them pink for human) in a baggie filled with red this person’s jones for publicity. Chapman’s package finally thing, a friend’s poems about the rest of the day. She’d filled liquid. That was pretty revolting, A month later I got a brown arrived a little over a month ago. hyenas, a romantic Hallmark her own Packit with homemade though I’m flattered that the envelope, again with no postmark, Besides a hand-bound booklet card that I’d glued shut, and chocolate-chip oatmeal cookies responsible party was brave full of soft feathery fluff, maple about two girls growing up in the fetus, which had turned and a logic puzzle she’d written enough to risk federal prosecution tree whirligigs, a drawing of teeth, the westward-ho expansion era into goo. I gave it to Chapman about a cookie-eating contest. just to send me a present. and a surreal sort of miniplay: who were kidnapped and then and she gave me a scrap of When my letter was called I But one package last May really left in the woods, she included a paper with the letter B on it. giddily ran up to get my Packit. freaked me out. A brown envelope (toms sin is warm winter is map of the Union and Central When my letter was called, I Chapman handed me the enve- addressed to me showed up at my over it’s spring!) Pacific railroad routes, tiny illus- learned, I would get someone lope. It felt really flat. I reached in house with no postmark. Where trations of giant rocks in else’s Packit. and pulled out a single sheet of the return address should have sunburnt buildings: it’s april Kentucky, and a little calico fab- I ran up to a young woman white paper. About halfway down been there was just the name Liz 7th tommy! ric pouch filled with a plastic with blond hair and big brown in a tiny lowercase font was the Birch and the word “Packit!” cowgirl trinket, printouts of old sunglasses who was smoking a message: “you just have to won- Inside was a photo of a blond tommy: hurray! tintype photos, and a scrap of cigarette. I knew from her der why.” Yeah, I guess so. v CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE 11 12 CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE The Sports Section [email protected] Adversity Makes the Heart Grow Fonder It took a losing streak to get Sox fans to show some emotion.

By Ted Cox f the White Sox’ recent troubles night determined to cheer an I thought the Sox would run off served any purpose, it was to end to the Sox’ skid as they met a streak if they managed to beat I make their fans admit to each the hated Yankees. But the Sox Santana the following night in other how much this year’s team again could muster no offense, Minnesota, and though they didn’t meant to them. As delightfully and Mike Mussina outdueled they played so well and crisply— unexpected as their early success Garland 3-1. Saturday’s matinee Minnesota’s Shannon Stewart and was—the White Sox had the best was worse—the Sox were shut the Sox’ Jermaine Dye both made record in baseball for most of out. Their lead was down to eight running catches crashing into the the season—the fans seemed and a half games over the outfield wall—the cloud lifted almost blase about it. But that’s Cleveland Indians, they’d con- anyway. Santana hurled a shutout; the south-side manner—or, more ceded the best record in baseball Freddy Garcia lost a no-hitter, a accurately, the Sox-fan manner— to the Saint Louis Cardinals, shutout, and the game in the and it’s often misinterpreted. comparisons with the cursed ’69 eighth inning when he left a curve An article earlier this month in Cubs had replaced the clinching out over the plate and Jacque Slate by a self-loathing Sox fan magic number in the newspapers, Jones hit it so hard over the declared, “The team’s futility has and erratic Jose Contreras was center-field fence his bat seemed no romance, glamour, or mean- going against fearsome Randy to recoil at the end of his swing. ing.” Ridiculous: Sox fans are Johnson in the series finale. The Sox ran off four straight simply adept at masking their Contreras looked impressive wins after that, and as e-mails feelings. Cubs fans act like warming up in the bullpen, but circulated I found myself revel- they’ve got a monopoly on curs- in the third his wild pickoff ing in details. Such as bench es, but the Sox dwell under a throw helped the Yankees move player Geoff Blum pulling his deservedly cursed cloud, the ahead 1-0. Johnson, meanwhile, feet in as he slid to elude a swipe Black Sox scandal, and it’s a bur- had been mowing down the Sox tag at third base in the tenth den their fans bear not with self- when Tadahito Iguchi came to inning (he then scored the win- flagellating histrionics but with the plate with one out in the bot- ning run); and flame-throwing stoicism. But as the Sox’ bright tom of the fourth. Iguchi’s swing rookie Bobby Jenks nailing down season, the playoffs a foregone is a sort of modified version of that victory by fanning the last conclusion, tumbled into a the one-legged flamingo stance two Twins batters on curveballs; seven-game losing streak, doubt- of Japanese home-run king and Orlando Hernandez out- ing Sox fans I know clutched at GES Sadaharu Oh. A right-handed pitching teenage phenom Felix IMA

one another in ways that defied TY hitter, Iguchi keeps a firm right Hernandez in Seattle with the

the stereotypes. Late-night GET side, weight on his back foot, help of two homers by golden- phone calls were placed and then draws up his left foot before boy rookie Brian Anderson; and

anguished e-mails exchanged, GREULE JR./ striding into the pitch. This Iguchi winning the game with a some of them rehashing or sec- TO allows him to wait on the deliv- 12th-inning homer after the OT ond-guessing the games’ events Brian Anderson after a two-run homer in Seattle ery while giving him surprising bullpen had blown the lead. in the most minute detail. Sox power to right field, which is Not even Garcia’s loss on fans met in bars to insist they Buehrle couldn’t hold a four-run ly enough, was the crowd. When exactly where he hit a high Sunday could put a damper on weren’t worried, only to hurried- lead as the Sox lost to Boston 9-8, the Sox took a 4-3 lead it didn’t Johnson slider—into the seats. things. By that time Sox fans ly order another round. When and the next night Jon Garland seem deserved, and the game- Rowand followed, stiff-necked, were back to being unflappable, the Sox emerged from that trou- got clobbered in a 7-4 defeat. tying homer that bullpen closer elbows out, and hit another slid- and I recalled an incident toward bled spell, I believe their fans When rain washed out the Sox’ 5- Dustin Hermanson gave up to er into the same area. Paul the end of that skid-snapping emerged more committed—more 2 fourth-inning lead in the Michael Cuddyer in the ninth Konerko came up, fell behind 0- game with the Yanks. Among the accursedly devoted, if it comes to Sunday finale, the Fates seemed felt almost expected. The Sox 2, and then smacked a Johnson joyous fans in the left-field cor- that—than before. to be conspiring against them. couldn’t push a run across, and curve into the left-field seats for ner, where I was sitting, was a The Sox knew their August If Sox fans weren’t worried yet the game dragged on—while we the third straight homer. A rat- guy wearing a Red Sox cap who stretch of 15 straight games with as the team returned home, that drove home listening on the radio tled Johnson gave up two more started giving grief to some the New York Yankees, Boston would soon change. The Sox and then watched on TV—until hits in the inning and then Yankees fans seated nearby. They Red Sox, and Minnesota Twins— were just plain outplayed in the pitcher Jon Adkins was pounded another homer to the unlikely jawed back and forth as if the including home-and-home series opener of a three-game series in the 16th and the Sox lost 9-4. Chris Widger. The fans were White Sox were beneath con- with the Yanks and Twins— with the Twins, losing 4-2. The The next night Buehrle got elated, the losing streak was over, tempt, as if they didn’t exist. The would be a critical test. After los- next night I took my teenage smacked around while the Twins’ and all was right with the world. funny thing was, the Chicago ing the opening game of that daughter and her best friend, a Johan Santana took a no-hitter “I was coming from the gro- fans didn’t seem to mind. It was sequence in Yankee Stadium, Cubs fan, to Sox Park, wanting into the seventh and coasted to a cery store and turned on my as if the skid had returned the they twice beat the Yankeees 2-1; them to see the excitement 5-1 win. The Sox had been swept radio just in time to catch the White Sox to the role of under- Aaron Rowand particularly dis- swirling around the south side, and had now lost five straight. magic inning,” a mutual friend, dogs and let their fans be what tinguished himself with his but the Sox were listless—the That’s when the fans tried to Steve, e-mailed my Sox pal Kate. they’re comfortable being: secure smooth, gliding play in center loss of leadoff man Scott put the team on their shoulders. “Unbelievable! Called my son at in their insecurities and hopeful field. Yet when the Sox traveled Podsednik to a groin injury was A raucous sold-out crowd of his college in Michigan to tell that one year—maybe this year— on to Fenway Park, Mark clearly hurting—and so, strange- 39,496 turned out on a Friday him about it.” things will change. v CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE 13 14 CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE Architecture

Sweet Nothing Mies van der Rohe’s gloriously simple Crown Hall isn’t just restored—it’s improved.

By Lynn Becker udwig Mies van der Rohe’s goal as an architect was to L use emerging technology to build something besides fortresslike rock piles, to create buildings that were “almost nothing.” In 1921 he proposed a skyscraper whose walls were made entirely of glass. It would be over a quarter century before he could achieve this vision, and it would happen not in his native city of Berlin but in his adopted home of Chicago. Mies emigrated here in 1938 to be the architect for the new Illinois Institute of Technology campus, on State Street between 31st and 35th streets. But administrators and finances forced him to keep his early buildings simple, with lots of ON brick. He came closer to achiev- ing his heroic ideal after World War II, with glass-walled struc- tures such as the high-rises at Y OF KREUCK & SEXT TES

860-880 N. Lake Shore Dr. and OUR the Farnsworth House in Plano. , C UNA

Finally IIT let him design a UR building for his own department N K DA of architecture. Crown Hall That building, the 1956 Crown Hall, would be the purest work- building on the campus in dows was a quarter-inch thick, north facade next to glass that to build a building brain that will ing out of Mies’s dual obsessions: decades, opened up across the and it moved and sometimes matched Mies’s originals. The automate the blinds. Right now achieving maximum transparen- street from Crown Hall, faced in broke in the wind. City code now final choice was a sandblasted the concavity of the [blind] cy and creating the largest possi- shiny corrugated stainless steel. requires glass to be a half-inch glass that achieves the translu- blade goes down. We’re going to ble building with the least possi- It was soon followed by Rem thick. “As glass gets thicker it gets cency of the original. flip that, so it goes up. That way ble structure. He created a single Koolhaas’s riotous McCormick greener,” says architecture dean Free of controversy was the sunlight is going to bounce fur- open room—120 feet wide by Tribune Campus Center to the Donna Robertson. “We switched restoration of the vents along the ther into the interior, rather than 220 feet long by 18 feet high— north. Koolhaas claimed that the to what is a low-iron glass—some bottom of the windows. Mies’s relying so much on the electrical whose roof is suspended from blazing orange glass in his build- people call it the superwhite later glass boxes would become lights. And the lights will be con- just four enormous girders, leav- ing helped set off the color of the glass. There are only two manu- sealed environments dependent trolled by the building brain as ing the interior completely free older buildings on campus, but facturers from whom we could on mechanical air-conditioning, well, because it will read what of columns. The floor is gray ter- Crown Hall’s black paint had buy a piece of glass of that type in but Robertson says he was a the foot candles are at any point razzo, the ceiling a continuous faded to a smudgy gray. It this size. It took ten men and a “protogreen” architect who in time.” Robertson also hopes to sweep of white acoustic tile. remained a shrine to Mies and crane to hoist the glass in the air “understood natural air.” Fresh, use the original radiant heating Along the building’s perimeter modernism, but it had become and then slide it into the steel cool air flowed through the vents tubes in the floor to cool the the structure was pared down to like a beloved old aunt. You frame of the building.” at floor level, and hot air flowed building during warmer weather. an ultralight steel frame sur- might bring her flowers, but if Each of the massive new panes out through vents in the ceil- Mies once said that “God is in rounding huge glass windows. you were looking for a good time weighed 700 pounds, more than ing—a simple convection effect the details” but some architects Each of the clear upper panes is you’d call Jahn or Koolhaas. the original Mies-designed “stop,” that’s been rediscovered by con- think his attention to detail was a spectacular 11 and a half by 9 Crown Hall just reopened, the piece of metal that holds the temporary green architects. much too anal—even the hall’s and a half feet. The window after the $3.6 million second glass in place, could support. Building managers tend to love worktables were designed to fit frames, the blinds, even the phase of its restoration, and it’s Arguments raged over “what sealed boxes because everything’s the grid of the terrazzo flooring. tables for the architecture stu- never looked better. The sleek, would Mies do,” and the decision automated, but when Crown Hall Perhaps they see his controlled, dents who worked there were shiny black of the new paint job to go with a slightly heavier, opened, the lighting and ventila- linear, simple architecture as a designed by Mies, and every- is as vivid as Koolhaas’s trapezoidal stop was opposed by tion system consisted of venetian relic of a despotic age. Yet the thing fit together perfectly with orange—and a lot more elegant. the purists as a betrayal of his blinds and a man named Ludwig simplicity of Mies’s masterpiece, simplicity and grace. The result Beltemacchi remembers that the commitment to right angles. Hilberseimer, who came with with its spare, paradoxically open was a communal space that elo- original paint was the same Unlike the originals, the new Mies from Germany and taught enclosure, can be extraordinarily quently expressed the idea of black. “Mies was very proud of it,” stops had to be custom-made. planning at IIT. “Hilberseimer freeing. A story told by Peter freedom within order. he says. “It didn’t turn gray for a “There’s a lot of scrap metal out used to walk around and adjust Roesch, now a professor at IIT, The intervening years have not year and a half.” The restoration there, because huge amounts them all day long,” says about a day when Mies stopped to been kind to Crown Hall. project’s architect of record, were rejected,” says Sexton. Beltemacchi. “A lot of it was to look at his work suggests a parallel Moisture that got into the highly Mark Sexton, says it wasn’t easy The smaller, lower panes of get some light up onto the ceiling between the way Mies taught and porous travertine marble used for the contractors to get the glass presented another problem. to get it out onto the tables. the effect his buildings can have for the south porch froze and new paint exactly right. “They Mies’s originals had been sand- When he died in 1967, that’s on people. “The good news was expanded over many harsh win- would spray an entire elevation, blasted to create a translucent when the venetian blind business that he didn’t walk away,” Roesch ters, cracking and crumbling the and we would rejectthe entire white finish. They were replaced went to hell. We don’t have any- says. “The bad news was that I stone. Rust attacked the often elevation,” he says. “They would in 1975 with two eighth-inch one who does that anymore.” didn’t know what he didn’t like. poorly maintained steel frame say OK. And they sprayed the panes of glass and a plastic film Robertson and Sexton hope to He did not say one word for 20 and made the air vents inopera- entire east and south elevation, sandwiched in between, but get a surrogate during the third minutes. It forced me to look at ble. Peter Beltemacchi, associate and we said, ‘Rejected.’ The these laminates were less phase of the restoration, estimat- my own work, and I found all dean at IIT, says the white blinds amazing thing is that there was translucent than opaque, casting ed to require another $5 million. the mistakes—everything. After over the windows turned yellow very little whining. They were reflections back into the build- “We’re going to cut down on the 20 minutes of silence, I said, from “tar and nicotine and haze actually very conscientious.” ing. Sexton and his colleagues energy consumption of this ‘Mies, could you come back and age.” Replacing the building’s 340 compared more than 100 types building, which we can do very tomorrow? I’ll fix it all up.’ And In 2003 Helmut Jahn’s State windows wasn’t easy either. The of glass, then mounted the five dramatically in terms of electrici- he laughed, and he puffed his Street Village, the first new original glass of the upper win- full-size finalists in the hall’s ty,” says Robertson. “We’re going cigar, and he left.” v CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE 15 16 CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE 17 18 CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE

[snip] Park the space shuttle making valuable scientific discoveries. back and forth a hundred miles off already, argues Maciej Ceglowski at NASA clings to its mission of “explo- the coast of Portugal, nor did they idlewords.com. It’s expensive, danger- ration,” citing the European voyages construct a massive artificial island ous, and pointless, while compara- of discovery 500 years ago. But as they could repair to if their boat Our Town tively cheap unmanned probes of Ceglowski notes, “The great explorers sprang a leak.” —Harold Henderson | Mars, Titan, and various comets are of the 1500s did not sail endlessly [email protected]

The Comics Cartoonist’s Eye WHEN Tue-Sat through 10/22, 11 Ivan Brunetti AM-5 PM. Opening reception Thu 9/8, Gets Happy 5-8 PM WHERE Columbia With a little help from College A + D Buddha and Chris Ware, a Gallery, 619 S. classic sad-sack comics artist Wabash succeeds in spite of himself. PRICE Free INFO 312-663-1600 By Susannah J. Felts MORE Chris Ware couple years ago Ivan and Canadian car- Brunetti published a comic toonist Seth will A in the Reader in which a present their work at 6 PM. weepy, scruff-jawed character recounts his attempt to off himself Panel with with 300 aspirin dissolved in Chris Ware, whiskey and Coke. “That’s a true Ivan Brunetti, story,” he says. “I put it to my mouth and Seth many times, but I couldn’t do it in WHEN Fri 9/9, 1:30 the end.” He finds it a little discon- PM certing to look at that strip now that WHERE Columbia “everything’s just hunky-dory.” College Center for Without a trace of the sarcasm you Book and Paper might expect from a guy who’s noto- Arts, 1104 S. rious for his bile-soaked outlook on Wabash, room life—and for cartoons about baby EC302 killing, raunchy sex, and homicidal PRICE Free pranks—he adds, “I’ve got nothing INFO 312-663-1600 to complain about anymore.” Y Lately Brunetti, who’s paid the bills working as a Web designer and JIM NEWBERR freelance illustrator over the years, Ivan Brunetti has been busy curating an exhibit called “The Cartoonist’s Eye: Artists “I’m in the middle now,” Brunetti Cartoons and Hee! “Every time I do phies, and his sensitive, sentimental Use the Comics Medium to Tell Real says. “Most of my life has been this it I say, well, that’s the last time, side surfaces for the first time. In one Stories,” opening at Columbia process of trying to find that gray but then I get ideas.” elegantly drawn and oddly touching College’s A + D Gallery this week. He area where you’re not going from Brunetti’s more personal work wordless strip about a rainy day he says he thinks of the show, which one extreme to the other.” Though hasn’t been much more sanguine. feeds his adoring cat, laughs at a features more than 50 cartoonists he knows better, Brunetti often sees The first three issues of his comic Peanuts book, and meditates. His from Charles Schulz to R. Crumb to things in dichotomous terms: book Schizo were preoccupied with new work is “not just about being Daniel Clowes, as a “metaphor” for “Good Ivan is curating the show,” he suicide and self-loathing; the last depressed and sad,” he says. “I’m the book he’s almost finished editing, says, “trying to do a dignified exhib- appeared in 1998, around the time laughing at myself, almost chiding An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, it.” And then there’s bad Ivan. “I Brunetti’s first marriage ended, and myself at times, showing the worst due in a year from Yale University have a very Victorian sense of he slogged through a particularly part of my personality. I’m encourag- Press. He also has a gig teaching morality, so sometimes I surprise rough period. It’s taken almost eight ing people to laugh at me. I know I graphic novel writing at the myself with what goes through my years for him to produce Schizo 4, can be ridiculous.” University of Chicago and a similar head,” he says, referring to the bru- due out in December, but growth is Brunetti practiced Buddhism for class at Columbia. And he’s getting tal gag panels collected in two evident here: Brunetti looks beyond several years. He credits it with help- married in November. books, Haw! Horrible, Horrible himself in a clever series of biogra- ing him more than any of the meds CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE 19

[snip] “While popular culture is obsessed with Akst to suspect that “we as a culture have fashion and style, fully two-thirds of American engaged in a kind of aesthetic outsourcing, trans- adults have abandoned conventional ideas of ferring the job of looking good—of providing the attractiveness by becoming overweight,” desired supply of physical beauty—to the specialists writes Daniel Akst in the Wilson Quarterly. “Nearly known as ‘celebrities,’ who can afford to devote half of this group is downright obese.” That leads much more time and energy to the task.” —HH

he’s tried—and he says he’s tried Without Ware’s input “I probably assisted him with the book and a proposal and landed the job. them all. But his friend Chris Ware would have quit,” Brunetti says. whom he’d also recommended for “Five years ago I’d debate whether gets the credit for keeping his “He’s been very encouraging and the U. of C. teaching job. Brunetti it was worth it to get out of bed or cartooning career alive. Brunetti supportive. My friendship with had shown his syllabus and handouts pick a scab; it was a metaphysical had admired Ware’s work but only Chris turned me into more of a to Ware, who liked what he saw. “He issue,” he muses. “Now it’s like, How felt comfortable calling him up to human being, and I think because knew that I worked really hard on it,” do I get the things I want to get done ask a technical question after of that my cartooning got better. I Brunetti says. done? Not, Are they worth doing? I signing on with Ware’s publisher, don’t think it was a coincidence.” Serendipitously, the very day that realized it’s pointless to debate that.” Fantagraphics, in the late 90s. Soon Last year Ware got a call from Yale Ware mentioned Brunetti to Yale, the Then the old pessimism rears its they were hanging out regularly. University Press asking him to edit Sun-Times published an article head. “Probably the answer is no, These days they gab on the phone an anthology of comic art. He about “Comics on the Verge,” a show they’re not worth doing,” he says. a lot. “We’re like a couple of old declined, as he’d just finished a simi- that included some of his “good Ivan” “The pointlessness of it all, that’s just ladies,” he says, “calling each other lar project, the all-comics issue of work. The article was the first thing always there anyway. You can’t to commiserate about this thing McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern. the Yale editor came across when he change that; that’s like the rules of we’ve devoted our lives to.” Instead he suggested Brunetti, who’d googled Brunetti. Brunetti submitted the universe.” v 20 CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE

Pinball

continued from page 1 Stern, whose father was a part- ner in the world’s biggest pinball manufacturer, Williams Electronics, has loved the game since he was a little kid. “It’s an American icon—part of the fab- ric of life,” he says. “It’s not a video game that every action has a programmed reaction.” His 40,000-square-foot factory, at 2020 Janice in Melrose Park, about three miles west of Chicago, has around 65 full-time employees making some 10,000 machines a year. At the moment they’re the only people in the world making pinball machines, and Stern insists that’s the way it’s going to stay. “If we ever quit,” he says, “that will be the end of pinball.”

inball has its roots in games P such as the 19th-century French bagatelle, in which play- ers used sticks to push balls into numbered holes on a table. But Chicago has always been the cen- ter of the modern game. In the early 1920s the city became the base for the coin-operated machine industry, manufactur- ing peep-show and gambling machines, and in 1929 some unknown Chicagoan invented a coin-operated pinball machine. In 1932, as the country was sink- ing into the Depression, another Chicagoan, Raymond Maloney, designed the first pinball machine that could be mass-pro- duced. The game was called Ballyhoo, and according to Michael Colmer’s Pinball: An Illustrated History , more than 50,000 of the machines were sold across the country within seven months. The success of Ballyhoo led to an explosion of manufacturers looking to cash in on the craze— some 150 companies, most of them in Chicago, were soon turning out the games. Some of The machines are assembled entirely by hand from more than 3,500 parts; Stern’s Harley-Davidson game them became legends—Bally, Chicago Coin, D. Gottlieb & some money, so much the better.” were almost all conversions: oper- It was like that with pinball.” Sharpe remembers machines in Company—but most were small The American public soon saw ators would bring in their old New York City mayor Fiorello the train station at Randolph shops. As the Depression got pinball as just one more game of machines, and the factories would La Guardia, who called the pin- and Michigan, in a game room in worse, the small manufacturers chance, not a harmless amusement rework and repaint them to look ball industry a “racket dominat- a building that stood on what’s went under, and by 1934 only 14 and certainly not a game of skill. new. Many of these refurbished ed by interests heavily tainted now Block 37, and in a game manufacturers were left. Many of It got lumped in with gambling games had what were seen as with criminality,” demanded a room on South State. the remaining factories were in devices such as slot machines, patriotic names: Marines, Yankee citywide ban on pinball machines, the area between Diversey and which were popular with Chicago’s Doodle, and Smack the Japs. and in late January 1942 a judge he end of the war allowed Belmont, Western and Elston. gangsters, and so became associ- Big-city politicians weren’t declared one. Newspaper front T manufacturers to get back to Stern’s father, Sam, got into the ated with the city’s seedy under- impressed. “Pinball machines are pages ran pictures of police and full-scale production, and in business in the early 30s in belly. “A lot of it was this a harmful influence because of screaming crowds surrounding 1947 yet another Chicagoan, Philadelphia, setting up games in Hollywood image,” says Sharpe. their strong tendency to instill La Guardia as he pushed over Harry Mabs, invented the flip- bars and restaurants and taking a But the image stuck, and pinball desire for gambling in immature and smashed pinball machines per. Players had learned to portion of the earnings. “In those became a target of antigambling young people,” said New York with a sledgehammer.The pho- manipulate a ball by tilting and days,” says Stern, “pinball zealots. According to Sharpe, the City police commissioner Lewis tos were strikingly similar to shoving the machine, but flip- machines were countertop games first antipinball law was probably Valentine. “Children and minors those of prohibition-era officials pers required a lot more skill— with a bunch of nails in them.” enacted somewhere in the rural who play these machines and fre- swinging axes into barrels of one reason the game’s popularity Most of the early machines were south in the mid- or late 30s, and quent the establishments where booze, though according to soared again. It was the begin- designed just for entertainment, bans then “spread like wildfire” the machines are located some- Sharpe, some of the machines ning of a golden age that would though some rewarded winners through small towns. times commit petty larcenies in La Guardia demolished were last through the 50s. with cash, and gamblers routinely Antipinball fever didn’t take order to obtain funds, form bad actually jukeboxes. Sam Stern, who’d been making bet on the outcomes of others. hold in big cities until World associations and are often led La Guardia’s campaign attract- decent money in Philadelphia The games were popular even War II, even though production into juvenile delinquency and ed lots of publicity around the from the pinball machines he was though many people were desper- of the machines ground almost eventually into serious crime.” country, and soon mayors of distributing, visited Chicago in ately poor. “Inexpensive enter- to a halt. Pinball manufacturers “I think there’s always been this other big cities—Philadelphia, 1947. He went to see Harry tainment, diversions from the were among the country’s largest attitude that where there’s a lot of Los Angeles, Salt Lake City— Williams, who’d founded his issues and problems of the day-to- makers of copper wiring, and young people gathering, some- followed his lead. Even Chicago company a year earlier. Gary day were most definitely in favor,” they quickly shifted their pro- thing must be desperately wrong,” banned the games, though illegal Stern says his father put his feet says Roger Sharpe, a Chicago duction to the war effort, churn- says Sharpe. “If they’re congregat- pinball machines remained scat- up on Williams’s desk and asked native and author of the history ing out wiring, parachute straps, ing at bowling alleys, bowling is tered around the city. But the ban if he wanted to sell his company. Pinball! “If you could be enter- and aircraft parts for the military. bad. If they’re congregating at a was rarely enforced during the Gary thinks Williams was sur- tained and have a chance to make The new games that did appear penny arcade, then that’s no good. three decades it was in place, and continued on page 22 CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE 21 LAST CHANCE FOR A SUMMER FLING

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Pinball

continued from page 20 prised but intrigued by Sam’s audacity. “They were young guys,” he says. “Williams wasn’t much of a company—none of these busi- nesses were very big. I’m not sure how serious Sam was in asking to buy or if he was kidding—kidding on the square. Harry lived in California and Chicago. I guess he wanted someone else involved so he could spend more time in California.” At any rate Williams soon offered to sell Sam half his company, and the Stern family moved to Chicago. Williams was the ace designer— he would design more hit pinball games than just about anybody who ever lived, in addition to inventing the “tilt”device that ends a game if a player shoves the machine too hard. Sam Stern was the savvy businessman. They made a good team, eventually turning Williams Electronics into the world’s largest pinball manufacturer. 6) “I entered the game business in 97 1945, the year I was born,” says Gary Stern. “I attended as a kid many business dinners where I sat and listened and learned.” His Y OF ROGER SHARPE (1 first paycheck came in 1961, TES OUR when he worked a summer job in ), C AY the Williams stockroom. After OD graduation he went off to college, majoring in accounting, then got PEREZ (T TY

a law degree from Northwestern MAR University. He practiced bank- Roger Sharpe today (top and right), helping overturn New York’s pinball ban in 1976 ruptcy law for a couple years, but in 1973 he was back working full- story. But even though business had written about the game in the committee had sponsored a bill cities dropped their bans—that time at Williams with his father. was booming, the games were still GQ and the New York Times and to overturn the ban and that the December the Chicago City “Practicing law wasn’t for me,”he illegal in many cities, including was known as a superb player, to other five would be tough sells. He Council voted to make pinball says. “If I represented a bank it was Chicago and New York City. be its star witness. told them that pinball had become legal again. Yet Nashville didn’t fine. If I represented a small busi- There’d been attempts to repeal That April Sharpe walked into a game of skill, not chance, that it overturn its law until last fall, and nessman I got a little nervous— the bans on the game, but most a Manhattan courtroom, where, was an all-American art form, not Ocean City, New Jersey, still for- gambling. Then he began to play bids pinball playing on Sundays. one of the two games that had In a move he compares to Babe Ruth calling his been set up in the room. In a move ew technology, especially home run in the 1932 World Series, Roger he compares to Babe Ruth calling N microprocessors capable of his home run in the 1932 World producing endless flashing lights Sharpe pointed to a lane at the top of the Series, Sharpe pointed to a lane and ringing bells, was changing at the top of the playing field and pinball machines. In 1976 Gary playing field and said, “I’m going to pull the said, “I’m going to pull the and Sam Stern decided to leave plunger back, and the ball will go Williams Electronics and try to plunger back, and the ball will go there.” there.” The ball went exactly make it on their own. Stern says where he said it would, and the Williams “was a public company, ’cause I could mess up their life.” had failed. In 1976 the Music and surrounded by cameras and astonished committee members and we didn’t necessarily agree By that time interest in pinball, Amusement Association decided reporters, he stood before a com- promptly voted to allow pinball with what they were doing. It was which had dropped off in the to try to persuade New York City mittee of the city council. “I didn’t machines back into the city. time to go.”He refuses to be more early 60s, was surging again, to overturn its laws, hoping that expect it to be a spectacle,” he Sharpe acknowledges that it was, specific. The two bought Chicago partly in response to the 1969 if it did, other towns and cities says. “I feel my heart beating ironically, a lucky shot. “There Coin from a bank that had fore- release of the Who’s pinball saga would follow its lead. The MAA now just thinking about it.” was divine intervention,” he says. closed on it and rechristened it Tommy and the 1975 movie of the asked Roger Sharpe, who by then He knew that one member of It wasn’t long before other continued on page 24 CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE 23 24 CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE

Pinball

continued from page 22 licensors have to want to be in Stern Electronics. Stern says it pinball. They all take some free In 1990 Stern developed a game called Back to became the “fourth or so” biggest games. We had one license where manufacturer, and they ran it they took almost no cash and we the Future, based on the movie Steven Spielberg together until Sam died in 1984. paid them in games.” In 1990 he After his father’s death, Stern developed a game called Back to produced. He tried to send Spielberg a free shut down the company. But he the Future, based on the movie immediately started working on Steven Spielberg produced. machine, only to find out he’d already bought one. a plan for a new pinball business Stern tried to send Spielberg a and two years later sold it to a free machine, only to find out manufacturers folded. By 1996 playing field. The company mar- tern Pinball produces only Japanese video-game company, he’d already bought one. only Williams Electronics—which keted it as the “future of pinball.” S two or three new games a Data East. The company set up a Sales of pinball machines had absorbed Bally and another But the machines were expensive year, all licensed titles—the Lord separate pinball division, and he peaked around 1992, when more legendary company, Midway— to produce, and it was soon clear of the Rings, the Simpsons’ became its general manager. He than 100,000 were manufac- and Data East were left. that a hybrid wasn’t going to save Pinball Party, Elvis. NASCAR says he often developed machines tured; among them was Bally’s In 1999 Stern bought Data East’s pinball. Williams built only two came out in July. Places such as with licensed titles connected to Addams Family game, the best- pinball division and renamed it games—Attack From Mars and bars and restaurants buy 45 per- a well-known name, because the selling machine ever. But con- Stern Pinball. A few months later Star Wars: Episode I—and that cent of the company’s machines, name widens a game’s audience sumers were shifting to home Williams Electronics unveiled a fall it decided to get out of pinball and sales to nostalgic baby beyond pinball devotees: “We say video and computer games, and new game that melded video and focus on more lucrative slot boomers who want pinball games that the license gets the first mall arcades were closing. One games and traditional pinball, machines. “I am the last man in their homes account for anoth- quarter.” He also says, “The after another the remaining projecting video images onto the standing,”says Stern. er 20 percent. The remaining sales are overseas, mostly in west- ern Europe, Russia, and China. Nevertheless, Stern says, “Pinball is America. Take a look at our workforce—our factory is America.” His employees, most of them Mexican-American, put together the 3,500 parts of each machine by hand. “There’s about three and a half man-days of labor in a pinball machine, give or take,” Stern says. “That’s more man-hours than in a Ford Taurus It’s such a beautiful evening. that’s built around here, from what I’ve read.” Across the country Let’s eat someplace robots have taken over this kind of work, but he insists they won’t that has a garden or patio. replace people in his factory. He says pinball machines are so complex they require the atten- Sushi? tion of engineers the entire time they’re on the assembly line. He also insists he isn’t afraid of competition from China or any- place else, and he isn’t afraid he’ll be forced to move his com- pany to China someday, though he admits some of his parts are already made overseas. “We’d all have to move there,” he says. “I don’t think there’s any blues bars I want to go to in China.” Still, Stern might be aware that perfect . he sounds a little like he’s Sushi would be whistling in the dark. “They teach you in business school that But not Wrigleyville! you’re supposed to be in love with business, not in love with There’s a game tonight. your business,” he says. “But we’re in love with our business.”

A tour of Stern Pinball will be offered to attendees of the OK, so we’re looking for 21st annual Pinball Expo, held November 17-20 at the Wyndham O’Hare in Rosemont. a sushi place with outdoor Admission is $110 to $135; more info at 1-800-323-3547 seating, not in Wrigleyville... or pinballexpo.net.

wwwwww.chicagor.chicagoreadereader.com .com

The Reader Restaurant Finder thinks like you do. It allows you to search by cuisine, price, amenities, and dis- tance from more than 200 clubs, theaters, and landmarks. And it’s based on reports from more than 2,000 Reader Restaurant Raters—Reader readers like you who know good food and good times. CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE 25 26 CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE Reviews Movies Theater Books Alex de la Iglesia’s TimeLine presents Dave Zirin El crimen Copenhagen What’s My perfecto REVIEW BY Name, Fool? JUSTIN HAYFORD REVIEW BY REVIEW BY J . R . JONES ANN STERZINGER a 26 a 28 a 30

Movies

EL CRIMEN PERFECTO sss DIRECTED BY ALEX DE LA IGLESIA RATINGS WRITTEN BY IGLESIA AND JORGE GUERRICAECHEVARRIA ssss MASTERPIECE WITH GUILLERMO TOLEDO, MONICA CERVERA, LUIS VARELA, sss A MUST SEE FERNANDO TEJERO, KIRA MIRO, AND ENRIQUE VILLERI ss WORTH SEEING s HAS REDEEMING FACET • WORTHLESS The Fat, the Odd, and the Ugly Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia has won a cult following by celebrating society’s losers—and punishing the winners.

By J.R. Jones lex de la Iglesia isn’t who lives with his mother and much to look at, and he dresses up as Darth Vader. A knows it. The director of El crimen perfecto is Iglesia’s such cult favorites as The Day of most interesting examination of the Beast and Common Wealth human oddity yet, revisiting the appeared at the Gene Siskel Film theme with the fervor of Mutant Center last weekend to introduce Action but expanding it into a El crimen perfecto, his latest film satire of advertising and con- and the first to get a commercial sumer culture—and all the while release in Chicago. A mountain- unreeling a tale of sex, lies, and ous Spaniard with a full black homicide that recalls the classic beard, dressed in two layers of noirs of the late 40s. Guillermo dingy black T-shirt, he explained Toledo is fascinating as the repul- that the Spanish release title was sive hero, Rafael, a dapper ladies’ El crimen ferpecto, a spelling wear salesman in a Madrid error that’s key to the film. department store. Bearded and “Everything in life was a mis- handsome, Rafael lives a life of take,” he explained. “Even my consumerist splendor, parading movies. My movies are a mis- around in the latest fashions and take. I am a mistake. I am not bedding his sensationally beauti- perfect, obviously. You know, I ful clerks in the furniture depart- am a fucking fat guy.” ment, but when he loses a big Like any good maker of black promotion to his dreaded rival in comedy, Iglesia measures his menswear, Don Antonio (Luis humor in deviations from the Varela)—a portly man with lumpy norm. His debut feature, Mutant features and a bad toupee—their Action (1993), was a grungy sci-fi mutual antipathy boils over into a adventure about a group of scuffle in the dressing rooms and deformed gonzos who carry out Antonio winds up accidentally terrorist missions against beauti- impaled on a wall hook, hanging El crimen perfecto ful celebrities and the culture of there from the back of his skull personal attractiveness. In his like a human overcoat. “I’m just an elegant man who perfect. The light, the music, the first seen descending on a store much-loved The Day of the Beast Rafael gets one of the flashiest wants to live in an elegant world. colors ...the aroma. ...I’m the escalator as Rafael ascends on the (1995), a trio of oddballs—a introductions Iglesia has ever Is that asking too much?” priest in a pagan temple, sur- adjoining one, she turns away in Basque priest, a slick TV mystic, afforded a character: as a catchy Walking to work through busy rounded by my followers.” shame. Rafael is uniformly smug and a thuggish black-metal fan— funk tune plays on the sound Madrid streets, he argues that life Yet Rafael fails to recognize his and cruel toward those less team up to hunt down and kill track, the camera pans over a is for the taking, and to prove his most ardent follower, a homely attractive than he is, but he gets a the Antichrist. And his wonder- table of half-empty liquor bottles point, he grabs a stunning woman young woman named Lourdes monumental comeuppance when ful Hitchcock homage Common and motivational paperbacks in the middle of a busy crosswalk (presumably to evoke the sick Lourdes witnesses the death of Wealth (2000), a Rear Window - ( Machiavelli, ese hombre reads and they spin around kissing as and disabled pilgrims to the Antonio, steals the body from the type story about a real estate one), then over a naked woman startled pedestrians pass this way French cathedral). Played by store basement (where Rafael has agent who finds a pile of money lying in bed and clothes scattered and that. Arriving at the store, Monica Cervera, she’s a real been trying to stuff it into a fur- in a dead man’s apartment, fea- across the floor. Rafael steps out where he’s worked for years, he fright, with bug eyes, frizzy black nace), and blackmails the depart- tures a rogues’ gallery of neigh- of the shower and dresses, drinks in the glamour: “Welcome hair, and a smile so fierce she ment store princeling into bors that includes a balding geek explaining himself to the camera: to my world, where everything’s actually looks better scowling; becoming her boyfriend. CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE 27

This sharp dichotomy between the beautiful and the ugly is most reminiscent of the superlow- budget Mutant Action. It’s hardly a great film, spinning off into chaos in the second half, but it seems closer to Iglesia’s heart than those of some of his later features. The terrorist group of the title counts among its mem- bers a hunchbacked dwarf, a retarded deaf-mute, and a pair of conjoined twins; as a newscaster informs us, they’ve spent the last decade carrying out attacks against “persons known for their physique, institutions for public health, and sperm banks.” They kidnap a plastic surgeon and plant explosives at a fashion show. They kill the president of a body- building federation and his attrac- tive lover, leaving her to soak in a burst heart-shaped water bed as the theme from Mission: Impossible plays on the sound track. During a TV exercise show they storm the soundstage, mow down the lithe host and her stu- dents, and hoist a MUTANT ACTION banner for the camera. Six features into his career, Iglesia may not be quite that angry anymore, and he celebrates beauty as well as ugliness, intro- ducing Rafael’s stable of sexually willing clerks in a series of gauzy slo-mo shots. But after the killing he sticks mostly with Rafael, the increasingly possessive Lourdes (whose family includes a horribly angry mother, a narcoleptic father, and a noxious eight-year- old daughter who claims to have AIDS), and a walleyed but dili- gent police detective (Enrique Villeri, an Iglesia regular), who slowly unravels Antonio’s mysteri- ous disappearance. By the end of the film, Rafael’s trials have driv- en him to a bitter insight that may not be entirely credible coming from his lips but certainly reflects the director’s resignation: “You’re ugly, Lourdes,” he shouts as the two wrestle on the floor. “It’s not your fault, but it’s not mine either. It’s the world we live in that makes me hate you. People, mag- azines, TV. We’re raised to, whether we like it or not.” El crimen perfecto is actually more pungent in its commentary than Mutant Action because of the cosmic joke visited on its protagonist. Early in the film, when Rafael is locked in a battle to outsell Antonio, he flatters an overweight middle-aged woman into buying a fur coat, but after her check bounces he cruelly berates her, finding exactly the right place to turn the knife. For his meanness he winds up in the romantic clutches of Lourdes, who uses Antonio’s corpse as the ultimate charge card. By the time she surprises Rafael in a wedding gown, accompanied by the crew of a TV reality show, he’s become something of a fur coat himself, a beauty accessory bought to prop up a seriously damaged ego. Only then does he seem to realize that he’d be bet- ter off like Antonio, literally hanging from a hook. v 28 CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE Theater

COPENHAGEN TIMELINE THEATRE COMPANY The Improbable Past Michael Frayn’s acclaimed Copenhagen is everything historical fiction shouldn’t be.

By Justin Hayford n his 2000 Broadway smash Germany, and Bohr stayed in Copenhagen, playwright Copenhagen until he escaped to I Michael Frayn makes the case America in 1943 and joined the that a brief 1941 meeting Manhattan Project. The 1941 between Werner Heisenberg and meeting, which the director of his mentor Niels Bohr, the the Niels Bohr Institute charac- fathers of quantum physics, terized in a might have altered the course of WHEN Through 2002 essay as World War II and thus the fate of 10/9: Thu-Fri 8 PM, “compara- humanity. But for all the play’s Sat 4 PM and 8 PM, tively trivial,” supposed brilliance, Frayn is Sun 2 PM resulted in peddling a lie, and not doing a WHERE Baird Hall little beyond very good job of it. A creaky dra- Theatre, hurt feelings matic frame renders the action Wellington Avenue that mended implausible and even slightly United Church of quickly: the ludicrous. In the opening, Christ, 615 W. two scientists Heisenberg, Bohr, and Bohr’s Wellington visited each wife, Margrethe, announce that PRICE $10-$25 other many they’re all dead and planning to INFO 773-281-8463 times after meet in the afterlife to hash out the war and what happened in 1941. After even vacationed together in delivering an extended exposito- Greece. Yet Frayn repeatedly ry introduction, they relive the asserts that the meeting meeting in Nazi-occupied destroyed their friendship. Copenhagen—three times—as Over the past 65 years many though it were 1941 again (lucki- theories have been advanced ly a heavenly seamstress provid- about Heisenberg’s motives in

ed them with period costumes). contacting Bohr, and Frayn SCH They also step outside the action alludes to all of them: the ethical to describe one another or their complexities here are compelling, LARA GOET innermost thoughts—a preroga- if you can stomach the play’s Copenhagen tive of the dead, I suppose. Much improbabilities. Perhaps of the narration reiterates what’s Heisenberg wanted reassurance highly unlikely given that what might have happened if quantum physics to appreciate already obvious; Margrethe even from his colleague that the tech- Heisenberg knew how many Bohr had returned to his teach- the issues at stake. But that announces “silence” when the nical challenges to creating atom- Allied physicists were working on ing role and suggested to knowledge rarely flows organi- men stop talking. ic weapons were nearly insur- fission, is that he hoped to forge a Heisenberg a crucial calculation cally from the action in the way Historically, only a few facts mountable, which might have pact with Bohr to prevent devel- that would have enabled the concepts of chaos theory do about the meeting are known. been a relief to him. Perhaps he opment of the bomb. Germany to build the bomb first. in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. Heisenberg, who’d been Bohr’s was seeking moral guidance: There’s an inherent dramatic But Germany lacked the Worse, the scientific discussions student in the 1920s, was head of Heisenberg asserted years later interest to the mysterious resources to construct a bomb. in Copenhagen barely move Hitler’s nuclear program when that his first question to Bohr was Copenhagen meeting: why did it And unlike the Manhattan beyond freshman physics. he visited Denmark to deliver a “whether or not it was right for happen at all? A playwright Project scientists, working in the Imagining these two geniuses lecture at a conference. He also physicists to devote themselves in might easily ask, to use Bohr’s perfect safety of Los Alamos, engaged in such facile debate is got clearance to meet with Bohr, wartime to the uranium prob- words, “how and with what Germans were working in cities like imagining Mozart and a half-Jewish Dane who discov- lem.” Or maybe he was spying for authority such a dangerous mat- that were routinely under fire. Beethoven arguing over the ered nuclear fission—a man the Nazis, hoping to learn some- ter could be taken up with some- Though Heisenberg managed to number of sharps in the key of D. Hitler could only have viewed as thing about the status of weapons one in an occupied and hostile produce a small, malfunctioning The characters even dispute sci- a serious threat. Though not a research in the United States and country?” But rather than suc- reactor, he had to keep shuttling entific issues that were settled Nazi, Heisenberg was a staunch Britain. Perhaps he was trying to cessfully dramatizing the tension it around the country because of long before they died. patriot, and Bohr was so alarmed persuade Bohr to join the between the two friends, each of the air raids. Louis Contey’s TimeLine by his discussion of the German German effort, because in Bohr’s whom might be concocting a The play’s conceptual muddle Theatre Company production is nuclear program—just acknowl- recollection, Heisenberg asserted weapon intended to vaporize the prevents real stakes from devel- handsome and grounded, but it edging its existence to an enemy that German victory was certain other’s country, Frayn resorts to oping, a problem compounded only comes to life when the play scientist was treason—that he and that the war would probably various fanciful scenarios to give by Frayn’s amateurish dialogue. does—when Frayn moves beyond cut the meeting short. be decided with atomic weapons. the scene interest. A significant Certainly audiences need to the inconsequential meeting to Heisenberg returned to One speculation, which seems element of the plot is imagining understand something about consider Bohr’s and Heisenberg’s CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE 29

political and ethical situations. A harrowing scene in the second half of the first act shows how much real drama is missing from the rest of the script, as Heisenberg recounts the moral nightmare of running a nuclear program for a madman. Charged with using the insights he gained from Bohr to exterminate Bohr’s world, he’s struggling to produce enough results to remain in con- trol of the Nazi program without actually wanting it to succeed. In this static play, Contey’s small, smart ensemble is beauti- fully arranged on Brian Sidney Bembridge’s set, which suggests both a decaying manor house and a surgical gallery. Terry Hamilton as Bohr and P.J. Powers as Heisenberg are initially overani- mated, which makes their copious dialogue nearly impenetrable. But later they settle into more natural rhythms, and these give the pro- ceedings a welcome warmth. The two also seem to have a keen understanding of the scientific and political realities involved, and many of their exchanges are utterly engrossing. In the point- less role of Margrethe—who spends the play skulking about, doing little but defending her husband—Isabel Liss is convinc- ing and aptly unobtrusive. Playing fast and loose with his- tory is a dramatist’s prerogative. Where would Shakespeare be without it? But when a play- wright abuses artistic license, dif- fusing tension and rendering characters implausible, it should be revoked. v 30 CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE Books

WHAT’S MY NAME, FOOL? SPORTS AND RESISTANCE IN THE UNITED STATES DAVE ZIRIN (HAYMARKET BOOKS) The Political Arena Lefty sportswriter Dave Zirin argues for sports as a force for social change

By Ann Sterzinger n the partisan dung fight that on the other, megarich Texas down the road, where he would are dissected by a driving, is the culture war, the left too owner Jerry Jones and his have devoted body and soul to inspired voice that gets funnier I often smears bellowing sports Astroturf-chewing pawns. standing against the moneyed as it gets angrier. “In the Shadow fans with the same shovel it uses Zirin engages the Packers leg- bigots of this country, instead of of Ali: Sports, War, and to bury shrieking war boosters. end in a section that mourns the alongside them.” Resistance Today” highlights the It’s an easy elision—too easy, untimely death of a Packer hero, This hopeful, unjaded tone antiwar activities of Danielle according to sportswriter Dave defensive end Reggie White. For buoys most of the text. In his Green, a college basketball star Zirin. In his first book, What’s the 1996 season, White turned introduction Zirin politely takes once profiled in the Reader who My Name, Fool? Sports and down a lucra- down Noam Chomsky for his lost her left hand in Iraq, as well Resistance in the United States, Dave Zirin tive deal with facile dismissal of sports as mere as the story of Pat Tillman, the a collection of columns previ- WHEN Thu 9/8, 7 PM Dallas to play bread and circuses, declaring NFL player turned army ranger ously published in outlets from WHERE 57th Street for a fran- that “we need to look at sports who became a media hero after Basketball.com and SportsFan Books, 1301 E. 57th chise he for what they are, so we can take he was killed in Afghanistan—a magazine to the tiny Prince INFO 773-684-1300, admired and apart the disgusting, the beauti- PR coup so important to the mil- George’s Post (where he’s the semcoop.com with guys he ful, the ridiculous, and even the itary that the Pentagon sup- news editor) and his Web site, respected, radical.” Chapter one dives into pressed the inconvenient fact edgeofsports.com, Zirin tackles WHEN Fri 9/9, like QB Brett history with a biography of 94- that he had been felled by friend- the assumption that all jocks are 7:30 PM Favre. Then year-old Lester “Red” Rodney, ly fire. Throughout, Zirin ham- mindless jingoists. Written with WHERE Left of he led the who as sports editor of the com- mers his point home: sports fans a gleeful ear, the book inter- Center Bookstore, Packers to munist Daily Worker during the people say that athletes should don’t all buy into the jingoistic twines the history of the labor, 1043 W. Granville Super Bowl 30s turned the party organ’s just play and not be heard. hoopla that often threatens to civil rights, and antiwar move- INFO 773-338-1513, glory. sports page into a forum for What do you think about that?”) smother play-by-play coverage. ments from the Depression to leftofcenterbook But Zirin investigative journalism that But his interview with George In one of my favorite subchap- the present with biographies of store.com also takes a pushed to end the ban on black Foreman—who spent his own ters, “Are We Ready for Some sports figures who’ve leveraged close look at players in major league baseball. turn on the ’68 Olympic dais Football?,” Zirin gives peace-lov- their fame for political impact. the moldy underside of the Reggie Zirin goes on to reexamine the waving a little American flag—is ing fans a name we can be proud Though the sports arena is White myth. When White’s mainly legend of Jackie Robinson, who more interesting. Unfortunately, of: “radical helmet-huggers.” often used to stage morality black evangelical churchin was the first black player in the when Foreman makes the In “Sports, Racism, and the plays shoring up the status Tennessee was burned to the big leagues but was later astonishing statement that only Modern Athlete,” Zirin contrasts quo—no other country in the ground in ’96, the “Minister of shunned by the Nation of Islam black athletes who were “college the taunts and insults that world kicks off every game Defense” took a bold stance as an establishment patsy. He guys” were approached by dogged players of color in the with the national anthem, against racist hate, speaking out argues that Muhammad Ali’s organizers of the ultimately 60s with subtler slams against Zirin says—he believes it once forcefully against the white antiwar stance during Vietnam unsuccessful African-American contemporary players who are was a ring where the establish- supremacist groups responsible. was a force in turning the tide of boycott of the games, Zirin does “too arrogant” or “too hip-hop”— ment was challenged and can Then, empowered, he seized a public opinion against the war, nothing to refute or corroborate in other words, “too black.” He be again. chance to speak before the and he interviews members of the story—by, say, asking Carlos takes guilty pleasure in cheap (if Makes sense to me. When the Wisconsin state legislature—and the 1968 U.S. Olympic team, for his take, or asking Foreman accurate) shots, landing one on Green Bay Packers take on the spewed racist, homophobic, most notably John Carlos, who what the hell he’s talking Rush Limbaugh, who got kicked Dallas Cowboys, for example, I Bible-thumping venom. Before with gold medalist Tommie about—and the resulting essay off ESPN for saying that Eagles can’t help but see a symbolic bat- dying last year at the age of 43, Smith shocked the world by rais- is the closest thing in the book QB Donovan McNabb was “over- tle between good and evil. On he’d become a spokesman for the ing the black power salute on the to leftist boilerplate. rated” because the media was one side there’s the last real Christian right. victory stand. Still, Zirin’s close attention to desperate to see a black quarter- hometown team in the NFL, a Zirin doesn’t vilify him. “I will These bios are dry by Zirin’s history sharpens the reader’s back do well, and then rejected crew of working stiffs whose miss Reggie White,” he says. “I standards, and some of his appetite for more. Much of the the opportunity to explain him- stock is still owned mostly by will miss seeing if there may have questions to the 60s icons are rest of What’s My Name, Fool? is self on air. Snickers Zirin: “I locals and doesn’t pay dividends; been another chapter in his life softballs. (To Carlos: “Many dedicated to recent events, which don’t want to say Rush is a cow- CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 | SECTION ONE 31

Ink Well by Ben Tausig

45.Water or rust Crossing the 46.Wanted-poster letters Finish Line 47.Graceland middle name 49.Opium room ACROSS 50.Letter-writing, some say 1. Certain to receive 54.Tap a butt 6. Con game 56.Not fooled by ard, but he would sooner sing 10.Lose on purpose 57.Only an old-fashioned transmission? 14. Letters to a Young Poet poet ‘We Shall Overcome’ in a pink 63. Green and black, for two 15.Dean scream state thong than debate outside the 64.______Eduard Leopold von Bismarck- 16.______time flat Schönhausen friendly confines of right-wing 17.Heat big man 65.Martini dirtier talk radio.” 18.Inventor of a sort 66.It’s a long story By the third quarter, unfortu- 19.It’s up in Wicker Park 67.Get better 20.“Fuhgeddaboutit”? nately, the book starts to drag. 68.Dough state 22.“______dat!” The historical background in the 69.Visa alternative, briefly 23. H.S. hurdle chapter on women in sports, for 70.Neptunes side-project 24.Noted ukelele player 71. Phil Collins, in A Hard Day’s Night instance, would have hit harder 26. Marshall, e.g. had it been interwoven with the 29.Word said while shaking DOWN civil rights history laid out early 32.Address a fracture 1. Hot brand creator on. And the inspiring final chap- 33. Super Mario aids 2. Half a course 35.Ambitious course ter on recent acts of rebellion 3. Took to the sky 40.Greasing choice would have been stronger had it 4. Permits 41. Passes on truth 5. Prepares another round wrapped up with some analysis 42.Slurpee competitor 6. Like some boxers rather than another Q & A. But 43.Modern discussion forum: var. I’m glad he got this stuff on the 7. Invent,as a word streets just as oil prices deliver a 8. Hold out for LAST WEEK: FLAT FEATURES 9. Some on the left right hook to tailgaters’ pocket- 10.Soiled cereal? books and our commander in 11. Like helium 34.Idaho jazzman’s horn? 51. Late bedtime chief’s approval ratings are worse 12.The blahs 36.Clairvoyant 52.Play ground? than the Milwaukee Brewers’. 13.Freud’s ______and Taboo 37.Trip agent? 53. Apprentice 21. Way to go: abbr. Zirin offers no miracle cure for 38.Relinquish 55.Spiral 25.Bull foe 39.Sharp the queasiness induced by 58.The sun, for one 26.Dubya in 1972, allegedly 41. Termination letter starred-and-barred Super Bowl 27.Landlocked North African nation 44.Jamaican genre 59.Tattled commercials, but he provides 28.Dubya in 2005 45.Like lighthouses 60.It’s made for fighting hope that if we tap into the 30.In the distance 48.Granola grain 61. State firmly legacy of rebels like Ali and 31. Incipient bug 50.Many, slangily 62.Lucy Lawless role Carlos and Billie Jean King we can “build a broader movement for social justice outside the arena” and turn our ball fields into staging grounds for the forces of sanity. v