CHICAGO’S FREE WEEKLY SINCE | SEPTEMBER
Four on the fl oor—and in the air The Joff rey Ballet introduces a quartet of new company members. THIS WEEK CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER | VOLUME NUMBER
IN THIS ISSUE T R - CITY LIFE King’s Speech looks good but the city’s rappers but it serves as a @ 03 Feral Citizen An excerpt from drama is inert at Chicago Shakes vital incubator for adventurous Nance Klehm’s The Soil Keepers 18 Plays of note Oslo illuminates ambitious instrumental hiphop the behindthescenes 29 Shows of note Hyde Park Jazz P T B machinations of Middle East Fest Nick Cave FireToolz and E C S K K H D E K S diplomacy Hello Again off ers a more this week C LSK daisy chain of lusty interludes 32 The Secret History of D P J R Chicago Music Littleknown M E P M TD K R FEATURE FILM bluesrock wizard Zach Prather has A E J L 08 Juvenile Lifer In more 21 Review Rick Alverson’s The found his crowd in Europe S M E B W than adults who were sent Mountain is a fascinating but 34 Early Warnings Calexico Pile S W D I BJ MS as kids to die in prison were given a ultimately frustrating mood piece Tierra Whack and more just SW M D L G second chance Marshan Allen was 22 Movies of note The Cat announced concerts E A SN L one of them Rescuers documents the heroic 34 Gossip Wolf Grün Wasser L C S C -J F L C P F acts of Brooklyn cat people Misty diversify their apocalyptic EBM on D A A FOOD & DRINK ARTS & CULTURE Button is brimming with witty Not OK With Things the Chicago C N B 05 Restaurant Review Dim sum 12 Lit Everything Must Go pays dialogue and colorful characters South Side Film Festival celebrates L C I G M H J H and win some at Lincoln Park’s D tribute to Wicker Park’s displaced and the drama in Send Me to the house music and more I H D J M K Cuisine working class On Division follows Clouds feels canned M K S K J L a devout Jewish mother reconciling M M B M JRN OPINION O S L P BS her faith with her Hasidic 36 Savage Love Dan Savage says K S D S community’s cruelty to her late son your Republican dad’s cross C S I Y 14 Visual Art Artist Adela Goldbard dressing isn’t something you need ------draws from Mexican traditions to talk about with him D D J D D P E &P to address issues in Little Village K K today CLASSIFIEDS O M S A 15 Dance The Joff rey Ballet 38 Jobs A A J G Y D introduces a quartet of new 38 Apartments & Spaces company members American 38 Marketplace ADVERTISING Catracho puts Wilfredo Rivera’s -- - @ NEWS & POLITICS immigrant story on its feet C @ 07 Joravsky | Politics A Sun Times MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE S D P F reporter gathers the FBI’s fi les on THEATER 24 Galil | Feature Chicago’s O P R V P S A M S F S ’ C R M TP the famous and infamous 17 Review King Hedley II brings Old beat scene has to do without the S A R Testament fury to Pittsburgh The kind of attention devoted to the B G J L L M - H A R L S C S M W R
N A V M G --- THIS WEEK ON CHICAGOREADER.COM J L SB ------D C [email protected] -- STM READER LLC BP D R L T E R S J S A- S V
C C E B ------R ISSN - STMR LLC SM SC IL -- Movie Tuesday: The search Mom’s made a cream pu There she is C ©C R Backstage photos from this year’s P C IL for life in the universe with weed Miss Chinese Chicago pageant A C R R Five outstanding fi lms about beings Mike Sula on an ube-fl avored Big RR T ® from outer space Cream Puff infused with Purple Kush
2 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll CITY LIFE Less scrolling.
Our environment is shaped by what we choose to observe. But while our most abun- dant products are waste, these by-products of our activities are so plentiful and often so strangely formed it is either di cult or im- possible to contemplate them, let alone safely hold or fold them into a substrate that is able or willing to digest them.
From drain to faucet (or river or lake) and back again: our current water cycling pattern
Many industrial cities worldwide operate combined sewage-stormwater systems, largely built at the tail end of the 19th centu- ry in response to outbreaks of cholera and dysentery.* Large connected sewage systems in Chica- go, Paris, and Hanover, Germany, were some of the first built, and therefore are some of the modern world’s oldest and most in need of repair. Folding in additional infrastructure FERAL CITIZEN More strumming. for expanding populations, repairing tun- nels, and/or replacing more than 150-year- old pipes (many of them lead) and tunnels The gold is in is an expensive and complicated operation. Chicago has been at work on its plumbing in- frastructure for decades—repair, expansion, the dung heap and maintenance is an ongoing process. Black water from toilets, gray water from An excerpt from The Soil Keepers: bathtubs, showers, and sinks, stormwater Interviews With Practitioners on (including everything it catches as it flows the Ground Beneath Our Feet over streets, parking lots, roofs, lawns, and sidewalks), as well as contaminated water By N K from factories where manufacturing or mate- rial processing happens—it all ends up at the wastewater treatment plant at some point. In fact, sewers were designed to receive and treat stormwater first and foremost, and t a time when the word “organic” are referred to as “stormwater conveyance defi nes responsible living and mu- systems” by professionals, as the volume of nicipalities wring their hands over stormwater processed is many times of that soil contamination, stormwater which we fl ush. management, and the overtaxed The primary treatment is mechanical by sewerA system, how do we put two and two nature. Water passes through slotted grates together and harvest the rich minerals and or- where coarse materials over several inches Give your digital life a break. ganisms present in our waste streams? Work- are caught, collected, and landfilled. The ing with waste challenges cultural taboos, water then rests in large settling tanks for Connect over music, dance & more. as well as presenting as an environmental several hours until light solids (including risk. But sane, safe, low-tech systems for pro- grease) fl oat and are skimmed o and land- Anyone can play! Find your cessing waste also present a real solution to fi lled. Heavy solids sink and become primary summer class at oldtownschool.org reconnecting our bodies to earth. All we have sludge, which is then sent to a centrifuge to do is first pull out the thorn of ingrained where extra water is spun out and sand, grav- prejudice. el, co ee grounds, etc, are landfi lled. J ll SEPTEMBER - CHICAOREADER 3 Engage interact in medical, legal, with cannabis CITY LIFE and social equity professionals and shop conversations the marketplace
continued from 3 The by-products of human living have great The water from the settling tank then potential for reuse as soil amendment or enters secondary treatment, in which air is biogas creation resulting in healthier water, pumped into the tank to stimulate aerobic air, and, yes, soil for us all. But whether be- bacteria to consume the remaining organic cause that potential is invisible or simply too matter suspended in the mixture. Over unpalatable, that potential remains largely several hours, as the bacteria eat, more sed- untapped. Maybe it doesn’t have a profi t mar- iment falls out and settles into the tank. The gin, is seen to be dangerous, or would require YES WE water is then disinfected, usually by adding us to unhinge our brains to allow some new chlorine, then discharged as “e uent” into impulses to fi re. Regardless, we will stay in a natural waterway. Some of this secondary these nongenerative, damaging, disconnec- sludge is used as an inoculant to “seed” the tive patterns we have designed and encoded next batch of wastewater with a population into our lives unless we recognize the gold of aerobic bacteria. But most of it passes to that lies in the dung heap.*** a biodigester where it produces both oxygen and methane, which is then used for heat and Notes: CANN electricity. The e uent from this digestion *At the end of 2018, it was reported that 40 per- is then “dewatered” by another centrifugal cent of deaths in Pakistan are due to dysentery. A joint effort by the Reader, MOCA, process to create biosolids, and the resulting Emporium & Chicago Distilling water is then returned to the treatment plant **There are different rules for different for reprocessing and discharged. classes of biosolids. Class A biosolids contain The biosolids are mixed with waste carbon no detectable levels of pathogens. Class B bio- (usually wood pulp) and are windrowed to solids are treated but still contain detectable Saturday, October 19 be thermophilically composted and made levels of pathogens. Meaning class A biosolids 10AM-4PM available as soil amendment or mulch. As have passed through a thermophilic compost- recently as a few years ago in Chicago, these ing process that kills off pathogens where biosolids did not enter a composting process. class B biosolids have not. The use of grade of 10am-NOON: Instead they were heat dried or pasteurized biosolid, whether A or B, brings with it rules of Emporium to remove moisture and kill off pathogens, amount that can be used, type of use of the site CME/CEU 2-credit course then amended with organic polymers to im- it is used on (capping a landfi ll or mine tailings, Logan Square (an intro to cannabis; ticket prove their consistency. There has been both to fertilize crop land or community garden, as required, space is limited) 2363 N Milwaukee Ave celebration and uproar around the use of a turf amendment in a public park or residen- biosolids to help revegetate mining tailings, tial backyard). Pathogens aside, many of these remediate a brownfield into a park, a golf biosolids contain various heavy metals and Chicago NOON-4PM: course, or a housing development, etc. The dioxins that escape the treatment of the mu- Clintons had them spread in the White House nicipal wastewater facility. Only recently has Distilling Cannabis garden; the Obamas had them removed.** it been proposed to limit the concentration of 2359 N Milwaukee Ave conversations & Annually, the city of Chicago sends out an dioxin and dioxinlike compounds. extended water report to every mailbox in marketplace the city. Over the years I have noticed that ***While mining sewage sludge is being contamination rates in the water supply looked at to grab the precious metals—namely have increased, though we are assured that nickel, copper, platinum, iron, zinc, silver, and, Free & 21+ they are still within safe levels by EPA stan- yes, gold (from electroplating, electronics For details and class tickets, dards—as these standards continue to be manufacturing and automotive catalysts)— incrementally increased so we can clear the the economics have not proven worth the visit chicagoreader.com/yeswecann limbo bar as our systems age. With every hu- hassle. v man-designed energy system there is entro- py or a downcycling that occurs and a need Nance Klehm’s The Soil Keepers: Interviews for a discharge of liquid and solid material With Practitioners on the Ground Beneath Our that can’t be treated any further. Combined Feet (Terra Fluxus Publishing) is available for sewer overfl ows usually occur in wet weath- purchase at spontaneousvegetation.net as er when treatment plants fi ll to capacity. To well as locally at Women and Children First relieve pressure, excess fl ow is released into and Marz Community Brewing Co. open waters that we share with every citizen and the rest of life’s creatures. @NanceKlehm 4 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll D C | R N Clark - - dcuisinechicago.com FOOD & DRINK
RESTAURANT REVIEW Dim sum and win some at Lincoln Park’s D Cuisine Yum cha is fi ne at this rare tearoom outside of Chinatown, but it’s the Guangdong chef specials that are really worth investigating. By M S
Steamed spareribs; Chinese yam with mustard greens ALEXUS MCLANE
uesday, October 1, marks the 70th dim sum he serves every day from 8 AM to 11 anniversary of the People’s Re- PM on North Clark Street? public of China, a milestone that I’m not so sure, but the bright storefront Hong Kong—under British rule at restaurant does have one key distinction: it’s the time—doesn’t share. In the 48 the only tearoom in the nearly six miles that Tyears before the colonizer turned the island separate Furama in Uptown and Shanghai back over to the mainland and up until the Terrace downtown. It’s even more of a stretch present, Hong Kong has maintained its own considering that, apart from Streeterville’s identity, not a small part of which is its Grandee Cuisine, all the city’s credible dim standing as the world capital of Cantonese sum is clustered in Chinatown like siu mai food—probably the most internationally packed in a bamboo steamer, including stal- recognizable regional Chinese cuisine among warts such as Cai , Chiu Quon, Dim Dim, Dolo , so many. And that’s also defi nitely true of its Phoenix, and MingHin. Fang worked at the last particular subset of dim sum, the ritualized for close to a decade as a server, but shrewdly brunch of tea and small bites also known as chose to parlay his experience in the middle of yum cha. a dim sum desert. But in fact, no matter how much solidarity More so than regional di erences, the ques- we feel for democracy-driven protesters tion on everyone’s mind when it comes to the currently getting gassed and clubbed by po- dumplings, buns, rolls, cakes, and pastries that lice and (possibly) Beijing-supported thugs, make up the universe of dim sum is whether the practice of yum cha originated on the they’re prepared in-house or stamped out en mainland, in roadside tearooms in Guang- masse, frozen, and trucked to the back door by zhou, where Cantonese food is known—as it some outside vendor before they’re steamed is everywhere else in China—as Guangdong or fried, stacked, and then dutifully wheeled cuisine, named for the surrounding province. out on pushcarts through crowded dining Clockwise from top le : short ribs, steamed spareribs, Chinese yam with mustard greens, siu mai, Danny Fang, the owner of Lincoln Park’s rooms. minced beef and wild rice with lettuce and XO sauce, Guangzhou-style roasted chicken, crabmeat D Cuisine, is from Guangzhou, as is his chef, Fang threw down a glove when D Cuisine with seaweed ALEXUS MCLANE Fang Yu. Does that make any di erence in the opened in early June, not just for the loca- J ll SEPTEMBER - CHICAOREADER 5 Search the Reader’s online database of thousands of Chicago-area restaurants—and add your FOOD & DRINK own review—at chicagoreader.com/food.
Guangzhou-style roasted chicken ALEXUS MCLANE On sale now to members! Become a member for early access to tickets.
Public Sales Begin: Get Tickets: Tuesday, October 1, 10:00am chicagohumanities.org continued from 5 tion he chose, but for the promise of dim sum JOIN US FOR THE YEAR OF POWER! made in-house daily. That may be the case, but I experienced such a variety in execution Ta-Nehisi Coates � Nikki Giovanni � Sarah Vowell � among the bites I tried that it sometimes made Cooking with Cannabis � and many more! the effort seem irrelevant. One afternoon’s deep-fried taro pu s and minced pork dump- lings served at room temperature created a crime scene of fryer oil and darkened the OCTOBER 26 | 10:00am OCTOBER 27 | 6:30pm collective mood of a table full of fressers with the default disposition of crankiness when it comes to Chinese food. Panfried shredded taro cakes were so embedded with fi ve spice powder that they may have cross-contaminat- ed the chubby siu mai, perfuming the tensile shrimp forcemeat and the tobiko roe crown. I’m afraid it fogged their mirror on the rest of the meal. For me, I thought much of what crowded the table was perfectly executed in the context of the neighborhood. Panfried corn cakes stuffed with chunks of snappy shrimp yam (aka cinnamon vine) is possessed by the straddle the breakfast-appropriate sweet same fi ve-spiced ghost that haunts the menu and savory divide, while jiggly chicken feet in so many unexpected places. You’re meant to PATTI SMITH JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS and honeyed short ribs assertively favor the eat that rice in scoops of iceberg lettuce, but YEAR OF THE MONKEY IN CONVERSATION WITH former side. Fat shrimp dumplings enrobed much later that night I found myself introduc- JOE SWANBERG in chewy dough, unctuous steamed spare ribs, ing the two leftovers to each other in my own and vegetable-stuffed sheets of tofu skin all wok, and enjoyed the rest of the darkness free NOVEMBER 3 | 3:00pm NOVEMBER 8 | 7:30pm could pass inspection in Chinatown. And not of the usual terrors. all dishes are fried with reckless abandon: Besides these, there are still novelties to seaweed-wrapped krab sausages in a crunchy be found throughout D Cuisine’s larger menu batter jacket have more snap than a Vienna of Cantonese classics and a small represen- Polish. In total, D Cuisine’s dim sum, given its tation of Ameri-Chinese standards, such as a coordinates and 15-hour availability, deserves platter of salt-and-pepper-fried “Causeway its pushpin on the city’s Cantonese map. Bay Style Jumbo Shrimp.” Named for Hong But what the restaurant really has going for Kong’s teeming shopping district, they’re it are Yu’s Guangdong chef specials. These in- tossed with dried red chiles, shredded iceberg clude a superb Guangzhou-style whole roast- lettuce, and crushed soda crackers, as if the ed chicken, with crispy burnished skin and British never left. flesh from thigh to breast gravid with unre- It doesn’t say much of anything that D leased juices waiting to burst forth. A log pile Cuisine is serving the best dim sum in Lincoln of asparagus is shrouded in a gossamer veil of Park—if not the whole north side. But dishes JOHN HODGMAN SUPERMAJORITY egg white and crabmeat. In one Yu original, a such as those make the restaurant a rare generous pile of nutty wild rice is wok-tossed place of reward for Cantonese food outside of MEDALLION STATUS AI-JEN POO, ALICIA GARZA, with minced beef and glutamate-bombed with Chinatown. v AND CECILE RICHARDS savory XO sauce; a glossy-sauced casserole of mustard greens and planks of crunchy Chinese @MikeSula 6 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll NEWS & POLITICS
According to the FBI’s fi les, Ernest Hemingway tried to convince the Saul Alinsky, the radical activist of the 50s and agency that he saw a German 60s, who literally wrote the book on organiz- submarine off the coast of Cuba during ing (make that two books—Rules for Radicals World War II. COURTESY JOHN F KENNEDY and Reveille for Radicals). PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM An unidentified FBI agent filed a report based on a speech Alinsky delivered in 1969 in Rhode Island: “A confi dential source who has Apparently, the FBI will turn over a fi le so furnished reliable information in the past . . . long as the subject is dead. Though parts of stated that ‘the talk was rambling and disjoint- many fi les are blacked out, and I wouldn’t be ed with the basic theme of obtaining power surprised if they omitted the real good stu through community action’ and by ‘inciting altogether. municipal jitters’ to gain fi nancial goals for the As I said, I’ve spent the better part of sev- impoverished.” eral nights reading through them, and I got a That sure sounds like Alinsky. little dizzy from staring at the screen. I went The agent goes on to write: “Alinsky at one straight to the writers. Mainly, I wanted to see point stated, ‘It isn’t that I don’t like the estab- what a writer had to do to get the FBI’s atten- lishment, I hate their guts.’” tion. Apparently, not much. My guess is the feeling was mutual. The FBI had a fi le on Mike Royko, the great Reading through the files reminded me of columnist who died in 1997. In it was a copy a story I heard years ago from the late Paul of a letter from someone in Cleveland, upset Newey, an investigator for the Cook County over a 1969 column in which Royko chastised state’s attorney’s o ce. the FBI for spreading salacious dirt on Martin Newey knew all about the FBI and its fi les Luther King Jr. due to the years he’d spent in law enforce- Writing directly to then-FBI director J. ment. Near the end of his life, he was diligently Edgar Hoover (man, I’d love to see his fi le), the digging through some files on a Chicago reader in Cleveland says: “I am sending you gangster when, to his dismay, he discovered a some clippings you may want to read . . . I am report from an FBI agent about ties between with you one hundred percent on everything well-known gangsters and Mayor Richard J. you do . . . I would love an autographed picture Daley’s chief corruption investigator. of you if possible, to put over my fi replace.” The gangsters were talking about killing POLITICS Guess the Royko reader in Cleveland fi gured Newey because his investigations were get- it would pay to butter Hoover up. It worked, ting too close. as Hoover’s response is also in the fi le: “I am When he read the report, Newey was out- The Herguth fi les forwarding . . . one of my photographs, which raged because 1) the mobsters were talking I have autographed to you. I am returning the about killing him; 2) Mayor Daley’s chief A Sun-Times reporter gathers the FBI’s fi les on the famous and infamous. communications you send since I know you corruption investigator was, in fact, a confed- would want to keep them.” erate of the very mob he was supposed to be By B J You know, just in case the Royko reader in investigating; 3) the FBI knew all of this and Cleveland wants to hang it over the fi replace never bothered to tell him; 4) all of the above. with Hoover’s autographed picture. I wrote a story about Newey—which I urge here are many ways to honor great More like obsessive. And I say this with all due The Sun-Times also has the FBI file on everyone to read. After that, the FBI probably writers—award them prizes, name respect as someone kooky enough to spend 15 Ernest Hemingway (he was born in Oak Park, opened a fi le on me. streets for them, or best of all, buy years (and counting) writing about TIFs. so that makes him a Chicagoan, more or less). I’ll bet they have one on Herguth, what with and read their books. A few years back Herguth decided to gather The funniest parts are when some unknown all his poking around in their business. To that list let me add another: some FBI files, and he’s been methodically agent describes Hemingway’s unsuccessful ef- Perhaps years from now one of Herguth’s TOpen a secret fi le and fi ll it with info gathered gathering them ever since. Think of it as his forts to convince the FBI that he saw a German as-of-yet-unborn grandchildren—who shares by the FBI. hobby. Hey, man, it beats fantasy football. submarine o the coast of Cuba, where he was that Herguth journalistic gene—will send in a This is my way of saying that I’ve spent the He’s gathered files on mobsters, church living during World War II. request to the FBI, secure grandpa’s fi le, and better part of the last couple of days plowing leaders, politicians, and activists including The agent was skeptical in part because deposit it on the Sun-Times site. Which, by through pages of FBI fi les on famous and in- Mayor Richard J. Daley, organized crime boss Hemingway “is known to have personal hos- then, will no doubt include several thousand famous Chicagoans gathered by Bob Herguth, Sam Giancana, Muhammad Ali, Congressman tility to the FBI on an ideological basis, as he dossiers. intrepid investigative reporter for the Sun- Abner Mikva, and so on and so forth. He’s got considers the FBI anti-Liberal, pro-Fascist That would put Herguth right up there with Times. (You can page through it yourself by 125 fi les and counting, with more coming in all and dangers as developing into an American Royko, Hemingway, and Alinsky—pretty good going to the Sun-Times website.) the time. Gestapo.” company to keep. Before I dig deeper into what I found, a word If you want to know more about Herguth Say this for Hemingway—he was never shy Keep up the good work, Bob. v or two about Mr. Herguth. and his quest, check out our recent conversa- about speaking his mind. Even to the FBI. The dude’s a little, oh, I wouldn’t say kooky. tion from my podcast. Not surprisingly, the FBI also snooped on @joravben ll SEPTEMBER - CHICAOREADER 7 9,008 days In 2016, more than 2,000 adults who were sent as kids to die in prison were given a second chance. Marshan Allen was one of them. By D W
Marshan Allen, age 15 (1992) COURTESY MARSHAN ALLEN
arshan Allen emerged from prison would fi x on the landscape scrolling past as and, besides family, it was simple pleasures n 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled fi ve to in clothes unfit for the midwest- if that alone could somehow accelerate expe- that Allen had missed: fi shing, driving, wash- four that capital punishment is unconstitu- ern winter: a standard-issue gray rience and o set the quarter century he had ing cars, sleeping in, mowing the lawn. He I tional for crimes committed before the age hoodie and sweatpants, a pair of lost. Instead, he spent his time craned over a had missed baths, and had long envisioned a of 18. “The reality that juveniles still strug- slippers. He boarded a van that smartphone. He swiped the screen. He made bubbly soak on his fi rst night home. He fi lled gle to define their identity means it is less Mdrove him to the front parking lot of Stateville calls. I’m out, he told people. In 1994, he’d the shallow tub, lowered himself in, and supportable to conclude that even a heinous Correctional Center. It was December 2016, been given two sentences of mandatory life closed his eyes under the fl uorescent light. crime committed by a juvenile is evidence of and 40 miles northeast rose the orange glow without the possibility of parole for a crime He couldn’t sleep after the bath, so he irretrievably depraved character,” wrote Jus- of Chicago. The van slowed to a stop. The door he committed at the age of 15. He’d been con- called his high school friend Simone Bowles tice Anthony Kennedy. “The State can exact opened. From the huddled welcome party of demned to pass adolescence, adulthood, and and sat at a computer as they talked. He forfeiture of some of the most basic liberties, family and friends and lawyers came a shout: old age in maximum-security prison. Death toured East Chatham, his old neighborhood, but the State cannot extinguish his life and his “Hallelujah Jesus!” would be his liberation. Now here he was. on Google Street View. He visited his grand- potential to attain a mature understanding of His mother was fi rst to embrace him. It was The small caravan departed Stateville and mother’s house, not far from the scene of the his own humanity.” di erent from all those times she’d held him stopped at Allen’s new rental apartment. He crime, and then returned to the scene itself. Though the ruling hinged on a single vote, in shadowless visitation rooms. To her, it felt checked in with his parole officer while his He and Bowles wandered the past togeth- it provided the logical groundwork by which like giving birth again. “Let’s go,” Allen said family cleaned and talked, and then they left. er. “The weirdest thing was, it all seemed criminal justice advocates could chip away as they walked to his mother’s minivan, “be- The landlord, an old friend, had put Allen’s normal,” he told me of that fi rst night back. at the next-harshest punishments targeting fore they change their minds.” utilities in order and furnished the bedroom He’d expected to feel like an alien, adrift, or youth. In 2010, the Supreme Court agreed Allen had spent years imagining this night, and an office, but the place was otherwise disoriented. But nothing about freedom was that life without parole was impermissible the unshackled ride beyond the gates into empty. strange. “I felt like I went to sleep and woke for a juvenile convicted of any crime besides some new future, the tremendous scrutiny he Prison had been punishment by absence, up.” homicide. And in 2012, in Miller v. Alabama, 8 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll mandatory life without parole for juveniles it.” A 2016 decision made this retroactive. he told me in one of several conversations. $2,800 worth of cocaine, then pulled a gun was abolished. Suddenly eligible for a second chance were Allen bought a maroon 1984 Chevy Impala and robbed James of money and an additional Evan Miller was raised by an alcoholic and 2,200 adults sent as kids to die in prison. with an inheritance from his grandmother’s four ounces of cocaine. When the robbery drug-addicted mother, an abusive father, and death. “No one would ask where I’d been. No was over, Allen obediently completed his du- the foster care system. From an early age he one asked why I wasn’t at school, and the ties as chau eur, driving the men back to the was an addict. He fi rst attempted suicide in hen Allen was young and his Aunt Roset- school didn’t call home. At the time I thought corner where he’d picked them up, wondering kindergarten; three more attempts followed. ta visited she would toss him the keys to it was the coolest thing ever.” He now sees whether they would let him live. Then, at the age of 14, he pummeled his moth- W her gold BMW. He would slip out of the this as dysfunctional and has come to rec- A few days later, after a string of failed ne- er’s drug supplier with a baseball bat and house and sit in the car listening to the radio. ognize greater strains from childhood—his gotiations with the robbers at a White Castle, lit his trailer on fi re. (The man died from his During summers and on school days when uncles’ ascendance in the Gangster Disciples, James asked Allen to steal a Chevy Astro van injuries and smoke inhalation.) Miller, who he ditched class at Emil G. Hirsch Metropol- his family’s legacy drug business and addic- and, the next morning, Allen climbed into the was drunk and high at the time of the crime, itan High School, Allen helped a man named tions. Allen sold drugs to his aunts and de- back seat with one of James’s acquaintances, was tried as an adult, found guilty of murder, Doc repair cars behind his house. He rebuilt livered them to his mother. He left his mom’s Darnell Dixon. Behind the wheel was Eugene and sentenced, by statutory mandate, to life engines, installed brakes and transmissions, apartment, in South Chicago, at the start of Langston, who set a sawed-o shotgun on the without parole. and sometimes sold drugs. He would also oc- high school and moved in with his grand- fl oor. The three men made their way to Gas- The court, again in a fi ve-to-four opinion, casionally steal cars from his neighborhood, mother, three miles away on 79th Street. This ton’s apartment, parked around the corner, recognized universally “mitigating qualities joyride for an hour, then ditch them nearby was near the rental apartment out of which and climbed a back stairwell. Langston hand- of youth” in the details of Miller’s upbring- assuming word would get back to the owner— his brother, James, ran a lucrative drug ed Dixon a .45 caliber handgun, then knocked ing: kids are immature, reckless, and depen- but not, he said, before washing the cars and business, and for whom Allen ran errands, on the door. dent on family, for better or worse. “Incor- fi lling them with gas. If he and his friends were delivered packages, picked up buyers, and To Allen, the stolen van, the ride-along rigibility is inconsistent with youth,” wrote well enough organized, they would make o in dropped them o . with Dixon and Langston, even the weapons, Justice Elena Kagan in the majority opinion. a convoy of stolen cars and play tag by tapping According to court documents and testi- all marked a campaign grounded in that fun- State law could no longer mandate a life bumpers. mony, on March 11, 1992, Allen drove to get damental if rough-cut Old Testament variety sentence for juveniles, as such “punishment Allen grew up poor, but not unhappy. “I had Myron Gaston, a regular buyer, and two of of fairness: steal back what’s stolen. “I don’t disregards the possibility of rehabilitation no supervision, no curfew, I could come and Gaston’s friends. He took them back to his remember anyone talking about killing,” even when the circumstances most suggest go as I pleased, especially after I got my car,” brother’s apartment, where they purchased Allen told me. J
Elaine Welteroth Featured Speaker 34TH ANNUAL LUNCHEON
Hilton Chicago 720 S Michigan Ave For too many women, violence, economic insecurity and lack of OCT access to health care are de ning parts of their story. Join Chicago Foundation for Women as we change the story in Chicago by investing in basic rights and equal opportunities for all women and girls. #FlipTheScript Hear Elaine Welteroth share how she ipped the script and made an impact on the next generation through her work as an award-winning journalist, author, and former Editor-in-Chief of Teen Vogue. 15 Tickets + sponsorships available at www.cfw. org/luncheon. Brenda & James Grusecki / Laurel Appell Lipkin 2019 Marcie Love / Janice Rodgers ll SEPTEMBER - CHICAOREADER 9 continued from 9 nal mind,” said the prosecutor. This time all divine or earthly intervention, would he even Langston leveled the shotgun, fi red twice, the jurors agreed. recognize what this looks like—living life as then kicked down the door. Allen heard more he “should”? gunshots as he fl ed. He waited in the van until Dixon and Langston returned, then the three e was sent to the maximum security Pon- drove away and ditched the van. Dixon left tiac Correctional Center. He sought refuge hortly after this, Allen resigned from the to meet his girlfriend. Langston and Allen H with the Gangster Disciples, who knew Gangster Disciples, enrolled in a parale- returned to James’s apartment, where Allen his uncles well and embraced him in their S gal training course, and, in November of monitored his brother’s police scanner. Voic- prison bureaucracy. This proved a comforting 2001, received his certifi cate. He enrolled next es soon confi rmed two dead. familiarity. Fresh in Allen’s mind was mess in a two-year curriculum on small business Allen learned that the Gangster Disciples, hall, where signs lined the walls (“Sit down management. He pushed for transfer to a the gang Gaston belong to, had spread word when shots fired”) and a corrections officer medium-security prison, where educational to kill him and his brother, so the two of them surveyed the room while holding an M14. opportunities were comparatively bountiful. fl ed the city in a rented Lincoln. They looped Allen assumed a job on the bottom of the In 2007, the request was granted. At Western around the southern shore of Lake Michi- gang’s hierarchy as a “gallery coordinator.” Illinois Correctional Center he started taking gan, then sped east to Detroit, where they He canvassed his caseload, collecting legal classes o ered by Lake Land College. could sit out time with the family of James’s concerns, informal complaints, and formal Among several subjects, accounting girlfriend. grievances into a weekly report. He learned proved most irresistible. He disappeared One week into hiding, Allen turned 16. He to research legal cases in the prison library for hours in the subtle interpretation of walked down the block and bought a half and he tracked the progress of his own numbers. Because the prison had no pencil Marshan Allen, age 42 (2018) COURTESY MARSHAN gallon of strawberry ice cream at an Amoco appeal, which was in the hands of a lawyer sharpeners outside of the classroom, he car- ALLEN/TONE STOCKENSTROM gas station and enjoyed it by himself. In early bankrolled by his brother. ried two dozen presharpened pencils back to April, he and James returned to Chicago. Allen was 18, the enforcement of prison his unit and stayed up late at an empty table They never discussed the crime. rules was lax, and James soon began to mail in the common area laboring over his home- cation. He’s got a life without parole sentence Allen was arrested on April 4. The cops him packages of marijuana. He collected the work. He tracked stocks, matching their rise and instead of ‘oh, woe is me,’ he thinks: How came to his mother’s house, roused him drugs from another inmate at the law library and fall against his readings of Bloomberg do I get my GED? How do I get my paralegal from bed at midnight, and drove him to the or in the yard. Selling was easy, and he was Businessweek, the Wall Street Journal, Bar- certifi cate? Can I get transferred to pick up District Five police station, where he was in- soon rich with goods from commissary and ron’s, and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. He more classes because they don’t o er them at terrogated by detectives in a small room. By other homespun crafts offered in exchange underlined and dog-eared his copy of the this prison? Can I get an associate’s degree, midmorning, he’d signed a statement draft- for the drugs. Morningstar Complete Investor, and he de- a BA?” Frillman paused. “If he wanted, I’d ed by the assistant state’s attorney, Henry In January 1997, Allen was transferred to vised a fi ctional portfolio that outperformed adopt him.” Simmons, that outlined his crime. Allen was Stateville Correctional Center. Six months the 401(k) of his Lake Land professor, Ronald Meanwhile, the world of law, a strange shuttled to juvenile detention to await trial, later James was killed in a motorcycle crash Frillman. Then he realized he could legally cousin to accounting with its distinct ver- and 11 months later, on his 17th birthday, he on Chicago’s southwest side, at the sunken make his own investments, so he pulled to- nacular and byzantine rules, became Allen’s was transferred to Cook County Jail. He re- S-curve of Interstate 57 below the 107th gether a few hundred options and pored over second refuge. When he had first arrived members a stopover at the courthouse where Street overpass. Allen’s lawyer then dropped annual reports and SEC fi lings. He sought to at Pontiac, older prisoners taught him the an employee gave him a cupcake with a single his case, guards caught him with marijuana, model his decision-making on the inspired basics of legal research. Once he no longer lit candle, wished him happy birthday, and let and he was sent to solitary for six months. farsightedness of his new idol, Warren Buf- had legal representation, Allen spent long him call his mother. As Allen grieved for his brother, he could feel fett, whose self-exile from Manhattan and days at the library exploring the details of his Allen’s first trial ended with a hung himself slipping into a hole. He sat alone in San Francisco to the quiet of Omaha resonat- case. In 2003, he secured a job as a law clerk jury. One of the jurors found the mandated his cell, the fi xed anchor of his life sentence ed with Allen and his own involuntary exile. in Stateville prison. Three years later, the sentence of life without parole too severe. weighing even more heavily. Soon after his Allen put $150—all he had—into CVS stock. Illinois State Bar Association recruited him The prosecutors brought the case again in release back to the general population, he He had never stepped foot inside of a store. to help write Post-Trial Remedies: A Hand- June 1994, imbuing Allen with the crim- was transferred to X House. But he knew that most of the company’s book for Illinois Prisoners. He started fi ling inal motivation of vengeance. Because of X House, which had been home to inmates revenue came from its pharmacy, and this for postconviction relief on the grounds that Illinois’s law of accountability, it didn’t on death row when Illinois still practiced seemed like a stable bet. The fact that CVS the initial police interrogation had violated matter whether Allen had pulled a trigger capital punishment, was intimate relative had a smaller market share than Walgreens his rights and that he’d not received e ective or even possessed a gun. Accountability to other wings, housing 80 men rather than gave it greater room for growth, he reasoned. assistance of counsel. “is like a blanket that spreads out over the hundreds. Though raised Baptist, Allen had “Plus,” he said, “I’m a fan of the underdog.” Allen’s appeals failed and failed and failed, criminal activity,” the prosecutor explained never read the Bible, which he’d grown up Years after he’d purchased the stock, riding and he continued to file. “He will not stop in his closing statement. By stealing the knowing as the white man’s book. But haunt- on a prison transfer bus passing through fi ghting,” a public defender, Crystal Carbel- van, Allen “placed himself under the blan- ed by those the state had killed and in search Champaign, Illinois, Allen saw a CVS through los, who represented him during his 2016 re- ket.” Nor, the prosecutor continued, should of guidance, he shrugged o this preconcep- the mesh cage of the window. He nudged the sentencing hearing, told me. “He is unwilling Allen’s youth overshadow or soften the vi- tion and enrolled in a class on Catholicism. man beside him and said he owned a brick or to stop fi ghting.” Nearly two decades after he ciousness of the murders. The judicial lines He began to question the prayers for release two of the store. was fi rst arrested and jailed, the courts fi nal- of reasoning that animated Miller v. Ala- he had long whispered to God. What interest “Stop and think for a moment about the re- ly responded in Allen’s favor. When he wrote bama were still years away. “Whether it is did God have in letting him go, Allen thought, markable thing that occurred,” Frillman told an article for the prison newspaper, Stateville a 16-year-old, a criminal mind is a criminal if he wasn’t living life as he should? And if he me. “Here’s somebody who has been locked Speaks, he titled it “The Sixteenth Time’s a mind nonetheless, and it acted like a crimi- were somehow granted release, whether by up since he was 16, without a high school edu- Charm.” 10 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll As Allen’s individual disposition began to gone to college, had a girlfriend and a wife change, so too did the broader politics of ju- and a family with kids. He lost 25 years of venile punishment. He watched the Supreme his life. And what’s amazing to me is that Court in 2005 ban the death penalty for any- his experience has not jaundiced him toward one under 18. He had come to understand that people, toward life, even toward the judicial law changed incrementally, and that capital system.” punishment was, by necessity, the fi rst step The judge sent Allen home with time in dismantling the next-harshest youth served. “Would you like it in days, or years, or sanctions. Repealing mandatory life without months?” Carbellos asked him when it came parole for juveniles was not far down the list, time for the formal sentencing. Days, said the idea:Could cannabis and seven years later came Miller v. Alabama, judge. “9,008.” Allen sobbed, his head on the which did just that. table, as his family cheered. And yet, as pure In March 2014, the Illinois Supreme Court as the happiness should have been, it was not be a gateway drug decided that Miller would apply retroactive- untainted by the sense that he was leaving ly. Roughly 80 men and women across the men behind. He considered himself lucky— state sentenced to mandatory life without lucky that he was a juvenile at the time of the to success? parole as juveniles were eligible for a resen- crime, lucky that his sentence was mandato- tencing hearing. (Some states ruled Miller ry and not discretionary, and lucky that these was not retroactive; the Supreme Court set- two factors made him eligible to walk free tled this state-by-state discrepancy in 2016.) when so many others remain in prison with Allen, by that time, had been transferred to no possibility of release. Danville Correctional Center, where he was This is the strange and muddy legacy left pursuing classes through the local commu- by the Supreme Court: only mandatory life nity college. without parole for a juvenile was deemed That spring, Allen remembers the first unconstitutional. It remains within a judge’s truly nice day of the season, stepping into power to sentence juveniles to life without the prison yard and drifting to the solitude parole. Sentencing relief also applies only if of its southeast corner. Beyond the chain- the crime was committed before one’s 18th link fences and concertina wire was a small birthday; 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds are manmade lake. It was the fi rst time Allen had ineligible. States are struggling to answer a seen a body of water since getting locked up. new question too: How many years qualifi es There were a few men seated in a flat-bot- as a “de facto” life sentence? Can a juvenile tomed boat, chatting over the putter of the be sentenced to 100 mandatory years? What motor. Allen’s mother had instilled in him a about 70? Judges and legislators are working love of fi shing that, for years, he’d nurtured through this morbid actuarial logic. An April with subscriptions to Bassmaster Magazine, 2019 ruling in Illinois drew the line at 40 In-Fisherman, and Indiana Game & Fish. He years: below that is acceptable, above quali- sat out there in the calm and watched the men fi es as a life sentence. cast their lines, wait, talk, reel in, cast again. Before his release, Allen received a psy- chological evaluation at Cook County Jail. A conversation with The psychologist noted that he had been Hope Wiseman, and n April 2015, Allen moved back to Cook sentenced to 49 years—under Illinois law, he other leading experts, County Jail to await his resentencing date. owed half of this, which amounted to time about the business of cannabis. I He worked as a tutor and showed 19- and served—and the psychologist wanted to Museum of Contemporary Art. 20-year-old inmates how to carry numbers make sure Allen didn’t harbor any suicidal 17 October 2019 when doing addition along with the basics of thoughts. He told her he was in fact elated spelling and reading. with the sentence because it meant he was He was called to the courthouse in Novem- going to be released. “And then the more I ber 2016. Allen sat at a table with Carbellos, thought about it, the more it made me angry. his appointed attorney. His family filed in I’d been locked up for 25 years and no one behind him. The prosecutors argued he was decided to give me a psych evaluation then,” not ready for release. Character witnesses Allen said. “Y’all never cared about me and on Allen’s behalf rose to take the stand and how I was developing mentally, whether or argue the contrary. Carbellos choked up not I’d been a ected—never once gave me a while presenting her closing statement. psych evaluation. Now I’m on my way home “Why? Because of the number of years and you want to give me a psych eval?” Marshan lost,” she told me. “He should’ve On a Monday morning, he was ushered grown up like other kids grow up. He through the outtake process at Stateville; should’ve fi nished high school. He should’ve sometime in the evening he was pulled J ll SEPTEMBER - CHICAOREADER 11 ARTS & CULTURE continued from 11 which was di erent still from the sound of a aside and told his release had been delayed. big fi sh hooked and starting to fi ght. Twice (A spokesperson from the Department of the bells rang for something big, and twice he poetry competition Louder Than a Bomb, Corrections said the delay was “part of the reeled in catfi sh. and an instructor at UIC, the poet was a offender’s master file and deemed confi- Allen is now two and a half years out and scrappy kid from the suburbs who moved dential.”) His family had rented a party bus married. He lives south of the city, in Richton to Wicker Park in the mid-90s when it was and waited in the lot with close friends and Park, with his wife. He is a program director still a blue-collar, predominantly Latino and lawyers. Allen’s mother brought a sandwich at the Restore Justice Foundation, a Chica- eastern European neighborhood. Like many and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Kit Kats, and go-based criminal justice advocacy group. other creative spirits at the time, he was potato chips. Allen never showed. The ride He works closely with Northwestern’s Bluhm attracted by the cheap rent and burgeoning back was silent. Legal Clinic, and has also enrolled at North- arts and culture scene. “Wicker Park was my That night in his cell he tried to imagine eastern Illinois University to fi nish his bach- announcement—really even to myself—that what had gone wrong. “I felt cheated,” he elor’s in criminal justice policy and advocacy. [being a writer] was the life I wanted to pur- said. “These people, they already took all Allen is 43 years old, but is sometimes, sue,” Coval says. these days and years and stu from me, and briefl y, animated by the spirit of adolescent But the connection runs even deeper than Marshan, somehow preserved inside the man that. His grandfather had first moved to who was in prison. It occurs like a possession. Wicker Park in 1906, about 90 years prior to A certain subject rises and Allen fills with Coval. “My whole life has revolved around self-doubt, vulnerability, even naivete. the neighborhood. It’s been painful to see it Allen bears his personal story openly as shift in such a way that—like, I can’t live here “These people, they already both cautionary tale and evidence: though anymore.” (A studio in Wicker Park will now took all these days and years people tend to describe what he accomplished LIT cost you $2,700 a month.) while in prison, and since, as exceptional, he Coval had been wanting to write a book and stuff from me, and now views himself as an example. “Not the ex- about Wicker Park for a long time, but it you just took another day. ception, the example,” he says. He sees thou- Gentrifi cation wasn’t until artist Langston Allston came sands of people behind bars whose personal into the picture that the idea became a You just got another day from journeys to reform and remorse go unrecog- reality. The two met at Allston’s 2017 show, me. And it might not seem nized, people whose potential for creation pains “When People Could Fly,” on the history of rather than destruction goes squandered. Chicago public housing. Allston’s work had like a lot, but it was my day.” And amid everything sits an unsettling Everything Must Go pays tribute a “realism that hinted at a comic book love,” —Marshan Allen paradox not lost on Allen. As much as he to the displaced working-class of Coval says. despises the institution of prison in its cur- Wicker Park. They fi rst worked together on “Milwaukee rent form—the violence and grimness and Avenue,” a long stand-alone poem published hopelessness and lack of opportunity, its By T M in chapbook form last year. It was their manifestation of racism and intimations of “mixtape,” as Coval puts it. Allston’s work slavery, all of that—it is something to which is interspersed throughout Everything Must he also admits a troubling debt of gratitude. Go, from portraits of neighborhood mechan- now you just took another day. You just got “The people I left behind, the people from the ics (“The Saviors of El Barrio”) to full-page another day from me. And it might not seem streets, and the people I’ve met and become evin Coval’s poetry has always illustrations of Coval’s old apartment at 1108 like a lot, but it was my day. It was mine. It was friends with since, all of these people who focused on the margins of identity N. Hermitage. supposed to be mine. I wasn’t supposed to are a part of my life now—it never would’ve and community. Tackling subjects “Wicker park’s a quinoa wrap / a lite grain, spend that night there. I was supposed to be happened if it weren’t for prison,” he said. “It like his Jewish upbringing and a lite beer, a small brewery / a facsimile of at home with my family.” kind of hurts to think about that.” structural racism, the self-styled what it used to be,” Coval writes. Coval says These days he spends his time researching Kbreakbeat poet has drawn inspiration from that the fi rst sign he noticed that the neigh- possible changes to laws. He writes memos. working-class Chicagoans and people of borhood was changing was the closing of n 2017, while working at Starbucks, Allen He meets with state legislators to encourage color whose stories were not often told. co ee shop and beloved “third place” Urbus filled his spare time with spontaneous them to realize a more lenient and restorative Coval’s last book, A People’s History of Orbis in 1998. (It’s now the site of an expen- I fi shing trips. One day in early July, after the system of justice in Illinois. Not long ago, Chicago, ambitiously aimed to tell the story sive gym.) The second sign was when MTV’s heavy morning rains suddenly quit, he packed Allen was on his way home, entering the tun- of Chicago in 77 poems, and his follow-up The Real World was filmed in Wicker Park three rods, a tackle box, and folding chairs nel of Millennium Station, when his phone collection two years later, Everything Must in 2001—a move that was met with protests into his trunk, then drove to buy bait and ice rang. It was Justice P. Scott Neville Jr. of the Go (Haymarket Books), tackles another topic and has been blamed for hastening gentrifi - before heading to a nearby nature preserve. Illinois Supreme Court, who had become a close to his heart—gentrifi cation. Specifi cal- cation in the neighborhood. “Unexpected fi shing trip goes perfectly right,” mentor and performed his wedding rites, ly, the gentrifi cation of Wicker Park, once a Coval cut his teeth at weekly open mikes he said. checking in. Allen stopped for a moment. He working-class neighborhood and hotbed of hosted by Urbis Orbis and other coffee He had three lines out at once and on each stared at the screen as strangers streamed young artistic talent. It’s now one of the most shops, indie bookstores, and dive bars. You line he’d attached a fishing bell. He said he by, his world frozen as he considered where expensive communities in the city and, many could go to the “six-way”—the intersection knew what the bells sounded like when they he was and who was calling. v would say, a skeleton of what it once was. of Milwaukee, Damen, and North—on any rattled in the wind, and it was di erent from Before he was artistic director of Young day of the week and see something going the sound of a small fish tugging the line, @dylancwalsh Chicago Authors, cofounder of the slam on. Some of those businesses and organi- 12 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll E MG OD By Kevin Coval and Langston Allston By Goldie Goldbloom (Haymarket Books) (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) ARTS & CULTURE
zations, like the Guild Literary Complex and Some would argue that the low-income Subterranean, are still a training ground for white artists who moved into the neighbor- of whom reject their religion completely. young artists today, but other centers for the hood were themselves a gentrifying force— Chicago writer Goldie Goldbloom, who’s Ha- community were eventually priced out of the and with that comes a recontextualizing of sidic and queer, takes a di erent approach in neighborhood. people’s experiences coming of age in Wicker her quietly exceptional second novel, On Di- In his collection, Coval pays tribute to those Park. This sentiment is reckoned with ex- vision (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), released neighborhood mainstays, like Cafe Matou and plicitly in former Reader contributor Jessica last week. Her protagonist, Surie Eckstein, is Lit X, and some of its best-known residents, Hopper’s memoir Night Moves (2018), which a Hasidic Jew for whom there is no lapsing including local rapper Sharkula and the late followed the music critic’s life in Wicker Park from faith. Surie loves God. What she “strug- poet Oba Maja. But he focuses most on the and Ukrainian Village in the early-to-mid gles on” are God’s rules. working-class Wicker Parkers who were dis- 2000s, when the neighborhood was still rela- Surie has lived her entire life in Hasidic placed—the mechanics, barbers, waitresses, tively a ordable. Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She’s devoted to her the tamale guys. Coval evinces the same grief—and guilt—in religion and community despite the cruelty For them, there’s a “constant threat of re- conversation. “We were a part of the plan, with which the latter treated her son, Lipa, moval,” Coval says. And when that happens, unbeknownst to us,” he says. But even as he who committed suicide after being outed as “you have an erasure of working-class people acknowledges that gentrifi cation is a complex, gay. Surie misses him fiercely and blames and stories in the city.” systemic force, he thinks it can be mitigated herself for not defending him, but tries to As a resident of New Orleans—a city still at the individual level through small actions soldier on for the sake of her nine living chil- undergoing gentrifi cation post-Hurricane Ka- like supporting local businesses and public dren. Nine and counting, that is. Somehow, trina—Allston sees these forces happening in schools. at 57, Surie is pregnant with twins. real time. “It’s not really that alien of a concept Even as the neighborhood has become For Surie, this development prompts to read through [the book] and imagine the almost unrecognizable to longtime residents, neither an outpouring of faith nor a new neighborhood changing, because I watch my you can still see some vestiges of old Wicker challenge to it. Surie’s belief is unchange- community change constantly. Park, Coval says. Many of the dive bars are still LIT able, even in the face of a maybe-miraculous “As artists, we’re always looking for this intact, for example. And Sharkula still slings pregnancy. Often, she takes her connection way to freeze the neighborhood we came into, mixtapes on Milwaukee Avenue more than 20 to God for granted. She’d make a perfect in the way that we came into it,” Allston adds. years later. Struggling on foil to Leo Finkle, the rabbinical student in “And then you watch it start to change and you For Brian Wharton, who goes by Sharkula Bernard Malamud’s classic story “The Magic watch the things you love about it disappear, and Thingamajig, Wicker Park was essential Barrel,” who considers his life tragic because because the things you love about it are the in his journey as a hip-hop artist. “I worked God’s rules he is not “a talented religious person.” Su- parts that aren’t viable under capitalism.” two jobs just to fulfill my habit of wanting rie’s religious talent is a given. What matters to get cassettes out,” he says. All of the best In On Division, a devout 57-year- to her is religious practice. record stores, clubs, and parties were in old Jewish mother works to To Leo, loving God is abstract, and thus Wicker Park. “It was just exciting to be able to reconcile her faith with her impossible. To Surie, loving God is granular. breakdance and pop-lock in a circle amongst Hasidic community’s cruelty to The rules of Hasidism serve to remind her the greatest breakdancers, beat boys, her late son. that God is present, as tangible as her un- pop-lockers.” born children. In Goldbloom’s hands, these His old hangout spots—Lava Lounge, the By L M rules double as constant moments of obe- Pontiac, the Blue Note—are no longer around, dience, which, as the novel progresses, turn though, and neither are the rappers and break- into tiny moments of choice. dancers of that time. But even as Sharkula has Tiny-seeming, that is. Surie understands watched the neighborhood morph, he still be- the importance of small decisions. When lieves in Wicker Park. One of the main routes ecently, I interviewed the writer Lipa was little, she refused him the forbid- that he hustles at is still Milwaukee Avenue— Nathan Englander about his novel den “yarmulke he craved, maroon velvet the stretch between Damen and Ashland. Kaddish.com, whose protagonist with an embroidered star.” Black yarmulkes “I can definitely feel the spirit,” he says. is a lapsed Orthodox Jew who only, she told him, terrifi ed to permit her son “That’s what I feed o of.” lapses back. Englander finds this a “girly yarmulke.” Now, Surie sees that re- Even the illustration accompanying Coval’s Rreligious back-and-forthing eminently un- fusal as the fi rst time she withheld empathy poem about Sharkula reflects that hope. It’s derstandable. “I don’t think I was born to be from Lipa. a portrait of Sharkula—his hands clutching Orthodox,” he said, “but I don’t think I was Surie is much too good at withholding. his face, gazing upward as if having a vision. born to be secular. I struggle on my nonfaith Throughout On Division, she keeps her “He outlasted the chain / & the burger king / the way other people struggle on their faith.” pregnancy secret from her family. At first, & the real world / & yuppie capitalism,” Coval In Jewish American literature, struggling she’s too shocked to tell. Once she accepts writes. “Sharkula, will die / if he ever stops / not to believe is unusual. From Chaim Potok her pregnancy, the deception has grown to moving.” v to Philip Roth to Ta y Brodesser-Akner, Jew- unmanageable proportions, aided by her
Kevin Coval COURTESY THE ARTIST ish novelists in this country have tended to prepregnancy weight. Goldbloom doesn’t @taylormundo depict secular or nonpracticing Jews, some shy from describing Surie’s fatness, or J ll SEPTEMBER - CHICAOREADER 13 “T L J /E J F ” P P T L J R Through / , Tue-Fri AM- PM, Sat noon- PM, Sat /, : PM, La Villita Park, S. Sacramento, and by appointment, Gallery , S. Peoria, gallery . gallery .uic.edu, free. ARTS & CULTURE uic.edu.
Adela Goldbard’s “The Last Judgment” includes papier-mache renderings of two Judases and and continued from 13 an ICE SUV. KIAMMARCELOJUNIO the cruelty it sometimes provokes, as when Surie’s adult daughter recoils at the idea that her parents still have sex, demanding, “‘And link to Mexican traditions. In September, just what was Tatie thinking . . . how could he . . . after the exhibit opened, the neighborhood ? You’re so—’ ‘Old,’ Surie said, right as her held its 50th annual 26th Street Mexican daughter said, ‘Obese.’” Independence Day Parade, part of Fiestas Goldbloom never judges Surie’s weight or Patrias, which commemorates Mexico’s inde- libido. She writes with undisguised interest pendence from Spanish rule. about Surie’s varicose veins and mastectomy The exhibition draws from a 16th-century scars. In one scene, as Surie’s granddaughter morality play called The Last Judgment, Miryam Chiena investigates her wrinkles, which warns of the dangers of not living a de- Surie thinks lovingly, “This child was fasci- vout life. The fi rst Western play to be staged nated with bodies.” So is Goldbloom—and in what is now Mexico, The Last Judgment so is Surie. She befriends her midwife and was written by Franciscan priest Andrés de starts translating for other Yiddish-speaking Olmos as a tool of religious conversion. Gold- patients, whose disconnection from their bard takes this morality play and cleverly pregnancies convinces her to study midwifery turns it into a liberatory text. herself. Her husband is horrified, but Surie “Instead of generating fear, it’s about remains resolute, telling him, “The wives of celebrating traditions and it’s about burning Williamsburg need a Jewish nurse.” what needs to be eliminated from the com- Surie’s decision to meet this need is Gold- munity,” she says. bloom’s biggest departure from the Jewish Goldbard came upon this play while re- American literary tradition, which has tended searching other projects, and was immedi- to center on personal liberation. Potok’s Asher ately drawn to the use of pyrotechnics in its Lev escaped Hasidic Brooklyn for art; Roth’s original staging. The play’s central character, Alexander Portnoy escaped Jewish Newark for Lucia, wears earrings made of fi reworks that sex. But lately, the American novel seems to be explode, symbolizing the punishment she shifting toward treating personal liberation receives on Judgment Day. as a path toward social or historical freedom. VISUAL ART Lucia also appears in Goldbard’s work as Goldbloom puts Surie on this path. Rather a modern-day immigrant from the Mexican than liberate Surie from her community, she state of Michoacán. Her story is told via a asks Surie to liberate her community from its ‘The Last Judgment’ brings sound piece played in the gallery, spoken in worst self. the indigenous language Nahuatl, which was Goldbloom can do this precisely because also used in the original staging of the play. Surie follows Hasidic rules. Surie would be far catharsis to Little Village A fi nal version of this sound piece will be the less motivated to help the wives of Williams- central component of the project’s culmina- burg if she were ambivalent about remaining Artist Adela Goldbard draws from Mexican traditions to address tion. On November 2, the set pieces will be one. But Surie loves her faith. She loves the issues in the neighborhood today. transported to La Villita Park, where a spec- rules that have made her life holy, but ac- tacular public performance will take place cepts—slowly and painfully—that they mean By K C in connection with the Chicago Architecture less because they made Lipa’s life hell. Biennial. That acceptance enables Surie to break “It’s something in between a play, a pyro- rules judiciously. Rather than flout her dis- ave you ever wanted to see a police fi lled fi nale. technic spectacle, and a movie,” Goldbard obedience, she weighs it carefully. Goldbloom car set on fi re? You may soon have Entering the gallery is like entering Little says. “People can expect a celebration. People is careful to remind readers that liberation the chance to, albeit the car in Village itself. First you’re face to face with can expect a cathartic event. People can ex- doesn’t necessarily mean rule breaking, just as question is made of pulped paper. a replica of the Little Village Arch, which pect to have fun, but also to be encountered obedience doesn’t necessarily mean holiness. Artist Adela Goldbard’s “The Last stretches over 26th Street and is akin to the by events that require some criticality of Personal freedom becomes important to Surie, HJudgment/El Juicio Final,” on view through arches in many towns in Mexico. Nearby are a them.” but not in what her husband calls a “me, me, October 10 at Gallery 400, features papi- paleta cart, a small brick house, a copy of the Most of the objects in the gallery will be set me” sense. Surie frees herself for the people er-mache set pieces mirroring iconic symbols 26th Street Discount Mall sign, and of course on fi re during the spectacle while surrounded she loves, and in that way spares herself the of the Little Village neighborhood—both a Homeland Security vehicle, complete with by fi reworks. The idea stems from the tradi- fate of poor Leo Finkle, who “did not love God good and bad. The exhibition combines the federal agents sporting devil horns. tion of the burning of Judas, during which so well as he might, because he had not loved history of Mexican e gy-burning traditions Goldbard, who is originally from Mexico e gies of the traitorous fi gure were burned man.” v with the complexity of carnival to delve into and graduated from SAIC in 2017, chose to as a way of disposing of evil. These traditions the challenges facing the neighborhood of focus on Little Village because it’s a majori- are sometimes written o as merely celebra- @lillyjmeyer Little Village today, complete with a fl ame- ty-Mexican community that retains a strong tory, but Goldbard sees them as deeper than 14 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll J E /-/: Wed-Fri : PM, Sat and : PM, Sun PM; no performance Thu / or Wed /, Auditorium Theatre, E. Ida B. Wells, --, joffrey.org, $-$. ARTS & CULTURE
that, more complex. She says it’s a crucial way for a community to be openly critical of society’s ills and allows people to ritual- istically destroy those ills. It was crucial to Goldbard that this project be conceived in collaboration with Little Village residents. She spent months meeting with community members and local artists, listening to their concerns and holding art workshops with students. The From le : Hyuma Kiyosawa, José Pablo Castro Cuevas, Miu large papier-mache sculptures featured in Tanaka, and Jonathan Dole the exhibit are based on models from these at Melk Studio at the Joff rey workshops. Artisans from Artsumex, a col- PHOTOGRAPHER RYAN SEGEDI FOR CHICAGO lective from Tultepec, Mexico, were fl own READER ART DIRECTION JAMIE RAMSAY CHOREOGRAPHY CONSULTING BY BALLET in to craft the fi nal objects. MASTER SUZANNE LOPEZ “For me, it was important that, visually, the project is a bridge between communi- ties on both sides of the border,” Goldbard says. In one of her workshops, Little Village fifth-graders were asked to make card- board models of an event that had a nega- tive impact on their lives. Many depicted a house in fl ames, like the 2018 fi re that left ten children dead. One created an ambu- lance. Another made a gun. DANCE ents that I wanted to dance, but I didn’t know Goldbard’s project makes it clear that what exactly. So we spent a whole day just try- this community faces immense challeng- ing to fi nd what type of dance I like.” es—they’re so apparent even elementary Four on the fl oor—and in the air On why he loves ballet: “The movement and school kids can see them. For decades the the music, those two together are very free- coal-fired Crawford Power Generating Joff rey Ballet introduces a quartet of new company members. ing. It’s something where I wake up every Power Plant led to elevated rates of asthma morning and I’m like, ‘Oh, I get to do ballet and other respiratory illnesses among resi- By O S again.’” dents, especially children. In 2016, Fidencio On overcoming boy dancer stigma: “I started Sanchez, an 89-year-old paleta seller, re- dancing when I was six years old, and I had to vealed he couldn’t a ord to stop working. decade ago, Jo rey Ballet made a major to as far afi eld as Alexander Ekman or Andrea hide it from all my friends. Once they found The increasing threat of ICE raids caused investment in its future with the Acad- Walker.” out, it was crazy. People stopped talking to a recent 20 to 50 percent drop in sales A emy of Dance, an official school and The fi rst challenge for these new company me and were making fun of me. The director for Little Village retailers. But residents training program that feeds the company with members: Cathy Marston’s Jane Eyre, a Chi- of my school talked to them and they under- have fought against these injustices every new talent while providing open dance classes cago premiere that fuses classical and modern stood what it meant to be a ballet dancer. step of the way. In 2012 they successfully to the larger Chicago community. ballet techniques to mine the psychological They also included me in the jazz group of my shut down the plant. They raised nearly “It’s really rewarding that over a third of depths of Charlotte Brontë’s novel. school, and then everyone saw that I could $400,000 to support Sanchez. They’ve the company today has come through the “Cathy Marston’s not afraid to tackle litera- actually dance and thought I was so cool.” formed defense networks to warn neigh- academy,” says Ashley Wheater, Jo rey Ballet ture,” says Wheater. “She’s a woman who en- bors about ICE raids. It’s that strength, artistic director. That includes three of the joys the narrative, and her production of Jane H K in the face of staggering odds, that drew four new dancers the Jo rey added this year: Eyre spoke to me. She’s taken a great novel On his introduction to dance: “I started bal- Goldbard to tell this neighborhood’s story. José Pablo Castro Cuevas, 18; Jonathan Dole, and crafted a really beautiful work. Her work let when I was six years old. My father was a “At the end of the play, it’s a story of a 21; and Miu Tanaka, 21. Hyuma Kiyosawa, 18, and the way the company is bringing it to the professional weightli er in Germany. My dad very brave community,” Goldbard says. also joins the company, earning an invitation stage, it’s a really good fi t.” wanted me to be an athlete—weightlifting, “And that’s how I see Little Village. It’s a after impressing Wheater at the 2018 USA XI rugby, soccer player, baseball. I had a flex- community that has been struck by a lot International Ballet Competition last year. J P C C ible body, so he put me into ballet. On the of systemic violence, and not only are they When choosing candidates to promote from On his introduction to dance: “My dad was day he told me I’m going to take ballet class, I still standing, but they’re a community the academy, Wheater looks for a natural qual- a soccer player, and my mom would make fun thought it was volleyball class. They sound the that would never stop fighting for their ity. “You want to see that they are strong tech- of my dad because he would bring little gi s exact same in our accent. I went there, put on rights. This is a story of fi ghting for your nically, and have a natural sense of musicality. for soccer. And my mom would be like, ‘No, tights, and was like, ‘What am I doing here?’” own community.” v They have to have the ability to dance a huge what are you talking about? He’s going to be On when he knew he wanted to be a profes- repertoire. Anything from the very classical a ballet dancer.’ As a joke. But as I grew, I was sional: “I went to Kiev State Ballet School. I @booksnotboys ballets like Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty always involved in artistic stuff . I told my par- was nine years old and I went into the J ll SEPTEMBER - CHICAOREADER 15 C R D T A Various dates and locations: ARTS & CULTURE see cerquarivera.org
continued from 15 M T dorm and I saw the students so serious about On her introduction to dance: “I started ballet. Almost the same age as me, and they dancing when I was four years old. In Japan, were so passionate. That was when I realized I it was very strict. I had no off days. Christmas, Cerqua Rivera had a future as a ballet dancer.” New Year’s, doesn’t matter. It was very strict, Dance Theatre On his main strengths as a dancer: “My men- but I had good teachers.” WILLIAM FREDERKING tor, Nikolai Kabaniaev, he told me a er a per- On what inspires her: “I know how special it formance, ‘You look like fi reworks on stage.’” is to be able to change the audience’s emo- On joining Joffrey Ballet: “This is a place I tion through my dancing. It’s really diffi cult to can learn everything. I can become a better make the audience love. If it’s good, I can real- artist, a better dancer, and work with ballet ly feel the audience’s excitement. If it’s not as masters. Classes every day, rehearsals every good, that’s the moment when I get motiva- day, getting inspired every day.” tion and energy. It makes me want to get bet- ter and make the audience feel that.” DANCE On character roles: “I love the chance to dig deep and fi nd the character. You have diff er- American Catracho tuition-free arts conservatory that counts ent people playing the same character, and Wynton and Branford Marsalis and Harry it’s the exact same steps, the same choreogra- puts Wilfredo Connick Jr. among its alumni. Though of- phy, but it looks completely diff erent.” fered scholarships to college, Rivera could On her big break: “In [last season’s] Swan Rivera’s immigrant not attend. “There were many things out of Lake, someone got injured and I had to jump reach because I did not have a green card,” into her spot, which I had never done before. story on its feet he says. “A lot of my professional choices [Academy dancers sometimes dance in main- Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre were made because of what I could do with stage productions before joining the compa- turns 20 with two programs the resources I had, which was my talent. I ny.] I had almost four hours to learn the per- of work exploring American auditioned for Gus Giordano and Hubbard formance. I watched the video. I made it, no identity. Street, and I was lucky enough to receive mistakes. Because I learned all that stuff in apprenticeships with both of them.” At school before, it helped me. And it showed By I H Hubbard Street, Rivera met choreographer them what I could do.” Sherry Zunker, who hired him as a founding member of River North Dance Company, J D erqua Rivera Dance Theatre, founded where he danced for several years. Yet as he On his introduction to dance: “My mom put by composer Joe Cerqua, choreogra- began to choreograph for musical theater in me in a bunch of sports and I hated them all. Cpher Wilfredo Rivera, and the late visu- the city, Rivera realized he wanted to found She sent me to a dance studio in my neigh- al artist Matt Lamb, celebrates its 20th an- his own company. borhood. ‘Go take this tap class, get rid of niversary with two programs of new works “Since I grew up with musicians, live your energy.’” devoted to American identity, including music was the missing element. That was the On joining the academy: “When I fi rst came works by choreographers Shannon Alvis and initiation for starting Cerqua Rivera. Once here, we danced from 9 AM to 4:30 PM. Monique Haley that explore Native Ameri- you put live bodies behind those notes, it’s Before I was dancing at night for two hours. can and African American heritage, as well going to feel di erent all the time. Coming Every year was challenging. The rep was real- as the premiere of Rivera’s evening-length from a jazz and Latin background, the e er- ly good. I wasn’t technically a ballet dancer work devoted to the immigrant experience, vescent and joyful and spontaneous reaction until I got trained here as a ballet dancer.” American Catracho. Drawing from his own and counterreaction is inspiring, thrilling,” On starting ballet late: “Not starting in bal- story and those of his loved ones, Rivera he says. The company would also prove to let made me a lot more well-rounded. A lot says, “I wanted to share the traumatic com- be Rivera’s claim to permanent residency. of people, when you start ballet, you do bal- ponents of migrating from another country “I became legal because of my work in the let until you retire. We’re actually doing a tap and the story of working men and women community and my company. I was creating piece this year—‘The Times Are Racing’ has a who are looking for a new hope, a new land, a work, presenting it, and employing musi- tap part—so it’s an amazing opportunity to get new opportunity.” cians, dancers, and composers. I was teach- to do that as a fi rst year and as a soloist part.” Born in Honduras, Rivera arrived in the ing for schools as well, bringing dance and On ballet as sport: “Ballet has taught me so United States at the age of 12. “My parents arts to [areas of] need. I was able to present much discipline, and it gave me a place to put are musicians,” he says. “They saw some- all of this as my immigration case.” all of my focus. With a lot of sports, it feels thing artistic in me that we don’t have the “I feel American,” says Rivera. “This is like you do whatever. I defi nitely view ballet opportunity to explore and to relish in my where my life is, this is where I have invested more as an art form, personally, but one that is country. They wanted to take me to a place so much energy and talent and artistic lan- very athletic.” v where I could study this art form.” guage and work.” v Rivera graduated valedictorian from the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, a @IreneCHsiao 16 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll R READER RECOMMENDED b ALL AGES F K H II R Through / : Wed-Fri : PM, Sat-Sun and : PM, - -, courttheatre.org, $ -$. THEATER
It’s 1985, and Reagan’s “trickle-down” emotional moments is a showstopper mono- REVIEW economics have left the soil dry and parched. logue delivered by Kierra Bunch, who plays There are few jobs, which makes other meth- Hedley’s girlfriend Tonya, where she reckons Seeking salvation in ods of earning seductively compelling—if not with the nature of foresight, love, mercy, and a essential to survival. In a society that yokes subject that still remains taboo. Reagan’s America the output of an individual to self-worth, Both female characters are rich and layered, King Hedley II at Court brings Old what is the measure of a man without work? and Ruby (TayLar), Hedley’s mother, is no ex- Testament fury to Pittsburgh. Must securing his humanity require blood ception. A shrewd, uncompromising woman, sacrifi ce? Ruby knows that regret is just as much a part By S F Kelvin Roston Jr. is outstanding as Hedley, of life as joy. She and her beau, Elmore, played a man of modest lineage who stands fast by the indomitable A.C. Smith, have great in the eye of a great and terrible storm. His chemistry, and as TayLar and Smith tease out n his epic masterpiece King Hedley II, the brow bears the substantial weight of Wilson’s subtleties in the complex tale of their relation- penultimate play in his Century Cycle, Au- storytelling, a too-young man reckoning with ship, they treat us to a Rashomon-like retell- Igust Wilson captures man, society, and God racism, family legacy, betrayal, and the ven- ing of history as a parable and maybe even a in a bottle, and director Ron OJ Parson uncorks geance of an Old Testament-wrathful God who glimpse of destiny. its glory and unleashes its fury on the Court does not su er fools gladly. When Hedley asks, Rounding out the cast is Hedley’s best Theatre audience like a torrential downpour. “Do I have a halo over my head?” it’s a desper- friend, Mister, played by Ronald L. Conner. He As the play opens with thunder and an omi- ate plea for salvation from the merciless hand brings levity and an impish charm to scenes
nous, prophetic Shakespeare-esque prologue, King Hedley II MICHAEL BROSILOW of fate before the scythe cuts him down. of sobering shenanigans that remind us that we meet Dexter Zollicoffer’s Stool Pigeon, Director Parson deftly navigates the relent- these men are still children, grasping for the the friendly neighborhood hoarder who in a toms of mental illness. Zollico er inhabits the less waves of grief that bu et Hedley’s king- trappings of adulthood like blind seedlings different era might be called “touched”—a role with hilarious gusto and sobering dread, dom by o ering frequent comedic beats, leav- pushing up instinctively through the soil. v euphemism for one who can commune with reminding us frequently that “God is a bad ing the audience unmoored and vulnerable for a higher plane, and who also presents symp- muthafucka.” the next sucker punch. One of the standout @SheriFlanders
Assemble and Duval Timothy in September 13 collaboration with Demond Melancon and the Material Institute, New Orleans — TUFTING GUN arts.uchicago.edu/logan/gallery
TAPESTRIES October 27 • Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts • 915 E 60th St Chicago IL 60637 Chicago IL 60637 the Arts • 915 E 60th St for Center Logan and David Gallery • Reva Center Logan
ll SEPTEMBER - CHICAOREADER 17 T K ’ S Through / : Wed and : PM, Thu-Fri : PM, Sat and PM, Sun PM; also Tue / , : PM; Thu / , PM; and Sun / , : PM, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, THEATER E. Grand, -- , chicagoshakes.com, $ -$ .
OPENING had things in common.” It helps, of course, that the show, under the direc- Into the breeches tion of Sonita L. Surratt and Mary Pat Sieck, unfolds R Bernhardt/Hamlet examines the sexual so gracefully. They know how to use the small stage to politics of Shakespeare through the eyes of a full advantage, as do the show’s stars, Felisha McNeal famous actress. and Brendan Murphy. McNeal and Murphy have strong enough lungs to bellow with the best of them. Back in 2007, New Yorker theater critic John Lahr But they’re equally adept at speaking so ly enough dismissed Theresa Rebeck’s play Mauritius, about a that we lean forward to hear every word. Maybe if The King’s Speech woman getting involved with petty thieves, as “Mamet enough people lean forward, they will listen. In a LIZ LAUREN for girls.” I remembered that while watching Rebeck’s time of division, the story of Atwater and Ellis gives 2018 Broadway comedy, Bernhardt/Hamlet, now in its one hope. —J H T B E local premiere under Donna Feore’s direction at the Through 10/27: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Open Door Goodman—and not just because a sexist critic plays a Repertory Company, 902 S. Ridgeland Ave., Oak supporting role and decries an actress’s ambition with Park, 708-386-5510, opendoortheater.net, $27, $25 “You are a freak.” seniors, $15 students. Though Rebeck has written many essays on sexual discrimination in theater, she’s now put those thoughts The score’s the thing in The in a play about theater. Set in Paris in the late 1890s, R Color Purple the story revolves around Sarah Bernhardt (Terri McMahon), the glorious (but aging) doyenne of the Lili-Anne Brown’s production for Drury Lane stage who, having outgrown ingenue roles, decides stirs the soul. to play Hamlet. Only this woman of both sexual allure REVIEW nifi er of a change in locale in Kevin Depinet’s and seemingly indomitable self-assurance can’t work There is no doubt the 2005 musical adaptation of massively walled set is indicated by lighting her mind around the indecisiveness of the Danish Alice Walker’s 1982 Pulitzer Prize- and National Book prince, so she enlists her lover, pre-Cyrano de Berger- Award-winning novel (which also draws on Steven Words fail fixtures that go up and down as the action ac Edmond Rostand (John Tu s), to rewrite it for her Spielberg’s blockbuster 1985 movie) has a wonderful The King’s Speech looks good, but moves about—it feels like they’re getting own strengths. “A woman who cannot do anything score, packed wall-to-wall with powerful, soul-stirring the drama is inert at Chicago Shakes. more of a workout than the cast. Projection is nothing. A man who does nothing is Hamlet” she music and clever lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, designer Hana Kim does most of the heavy points out—an acidic reminder that women are o en and Stephen Bray—all seasoned veterans of the music judged on resumés and men praised for “potential.” industry when they began collaborating on this show. By C S lifting; Depinet’s walls serve as screens that Rebeck’s play, at least in this production, tends to The original cast album for the 2015 Broadway revival morph into variously sumptuous wall cover- work better taken in parts, but those good parts are even won a Grammy. he rise of Albert, Duke of York, from ings and teeming masses of Brits. pretty glorious. A scene between McMahon’s Hamlet Director Lili-Anne Brown, her choreographer, stammering puddle of self-doubt to glob- The first act hangs on the crisis that aris- and Larry Yando’s Ghost is as transcendent as the bril- Breon Arzell, and her strong cast of triple threats take al champion in the fi ght against Nazis is es when Bertie’s elder brother, David (Jeff liant moment in the TV series Slings & Arrows where a full advantage of the superb score. Much of the inner T director dissects the psychology of Ophelia. At nearly life of the main character, Celie, and her journey from a story with all the right stu . There’s a scan- Parker), insists on marrying Wallis Simpson three hours, Rebeck takes a little too long to make her shy, abused daughter of a sharecropper to a happy, dalous royal romance, a world on the precipice (Tiffany Scott), presenting the unthinkable points, but it’s overall a delightful and thought-provok- assertive clothes designer we learn through the of disaster, and in “Bertie,” an underdog who’s possibility of an American divorcee becoming ing theatrical exercise. —K R B / show’s songs and dances. And that is plenty, though easy enough to root for. In director Michael Queen of England. That’s settled offstage, H Through 10/20: Wed 7:30 PM, Thu 2 and it also helps that Celie is played by Eben K. Logan, an 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PM; also actor with enough power and grace to play a charac- Wilson’s staging of David Seidler’s drama for during intermission. David abdicates in the Sun 9/29 and Tue 10/15, 7:30 PM; Thu 10/10, 7:30 ter who’s the very personifi cation of the expression Chicago Shakespeare Theater there are also second act, having had a complete change of PM only, Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn, 312- “still waters run deep.” Downton Abbey-worthy period costumes heart while the audience was in the loo. 443-3800, goodmantheatre.org, $25-$80. The score for this show is so successful it almost by David C. Woolard and a cast led by Harry Hadden-Paton makes Albert easy to sym- doesn’t need a book. Good thing, because it almost Lean in doesn’t have one. Marsha Norman does the bare Hadden-Paton (Downton’s Seventh Marquess pathize with—as much as he can. Albert’s R Open Door Repertory’s The Best of minimum with Walker’s story to keep it going—she of Hexham, aka Lady Edith’s husband). Open- insecurities aren’t uncommon, but like most Enemies makes the case for fi nding common sets scenes, introduces characters, and then gets ing the play the same weekend as the Downton problems, they’re far easier to deal with if one ground in troubled times. out of the way. But with a production as thoroughly movie was a savvy move: Hadden-Paton comes doesn’t also have to worry about things like entertaining as this one, that is just an observation, Some plays seem tailor-made for small spaces. Such not a criticism. —J H with a built-in publicity bonanza. money or housing and has hundreds of sta on T C P is the case with Mark St. Germain’s powerful four- Through 11/3: Wed 1:30 PM, Thu 1:30 and 8 PM, But the production is more a series of call to do one’s bidding 24/7. And despite the hander, adapted from Osha Gray Davidson’s 1996 Fri 8 PM, Sat 3 and 8 PM, Sun 2 and 6 PM, Drury eye-catching historical tableaux than a liv- looming menace of a global war, The King’s book The Best of Enemies: Race and Redemption Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace, ing, breathing drama. Seidler’s dialogue is Speech is strikingly insular. There isn’t a per- in the New South (also the source for a 2019 fi lm), 630-530-0111, $55-$70. occasionally clever, particularly when speech son of color to be found in this version of En- about the real but unlikely friendship that developed between Ann Atwater, a fi ery civil rights activist, and The memory hole therapist Lionel Logue (James Frain) is at his gland, only a brief mention of colonial Africa C.P. Ellis, an equally fi ery “exalted cyclops” of the R Rebecca Alemán examines the personal most insouciant. But pretty pictures can’t and New Zealand. Knights of the Klu Klux Klan, in Durham, North Caro- price paid by human rights journalists. carry a drama. And that’s what The King’s Anglophiles are apt to love the production, lina, in the early 1970s. As performed in Open Door’s Speech o ers: artfully blocked actors looking especially those starving for the next season intimate 75-seat house, this show is riveting. Even the According to a recent NPR story, 12 journalists have quieter moments of the play raise the roof, as when been murdered in Mexico so far this year, making of The Crown. Chicago theaterphiles should fabulous. If you’re seeking illustrations for a a er lots of shouting and fi nger jabbing and name it the deadliest nation in the world for reporters. thoroughly Anglo-Saxon-centric history text, know this: John Judd is killed o early and rel- calling, these two stubborn souls suddenly discover Rebecca Alemán’s two-character play for Water Peo- look no further. egated to an o stage speaking role thereafter. they are a er the same things—a good education and ple Theater (presented as part of the third annual Seidler wrote the play before he wrote the That’s enough to make you want to petition a better future for their children. Chicago International Latino Theater Festival: Desti- In Ellis’s words, “The amazing thing about it, nos) addresses the crisis through the story of Paulina screenplay of the Oscar-winning 2010 movie the king, or better yet, the casting director. v her and I, up to that point, [had] cussed each other, (played by Alemán), a Venezuelan-born human rights of the same name. Unlike the movie, the action bawled each other, we hated each other. Up to that reporter in Mexico trying to regain her memory and here is restricted to interiors. The primary sig- @CateySullivan point, we didn’t know each other. We didn’t know we speech a er being in a coma for several months. 18 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll Oslo BRETTBEINER THEATER
Losing the plot By the second act, it all starts to feel more like an Equivocation gets tangled up in Shakespearean educational exercise than a work of theater, but de intrigue. comedic performances help keep it moving, particularly Kade Cox as a decadent, unpredictable, nefarious King The setup to Bill Cain’s revisionist Shakespearean fairy James I. —D J E Through tale is the sort of juicy, rebellious, intrigue-fi lled “what 10/10: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Wed 10/9, 8 if” fantasy that would make Quentin Tarantino proud: PM, Edge Theatre Off Broadway, 1133 W. Catalpa, What if a villainous Lord Robert Cecil (Michael Dalberg) 773-340-9438, idlemuse.org, $10-$20. approached the Bard (Brendan Hutt) and his company to create a propaganda play that whitewashes the Here you come again recently foiled Gunpowder Plot to bomb Parliament? R Hello Again off ers a daisy chain of lusty And what if the King’s Men deviated from their forcibly interludes. “requested” commission to instead expose a conspiracy led by a corrupt king? Ten pairs of lovers, ten pairs of strangers. This musical Interesting premise, right? And at times over the is a La Ronde adaptation, meaning it performs the same course of this nearly three-hour Idle Muse production, it cyclical game as Arthur Schnitzler’s 1897 play about ten does yield some lightly comedic, o en insightful scene interlocking sets of romantic partners: the whore tosses work from Evan Jackson’s capable and sharp ensemble. a freebie to the soldier, who trifl es with the nurse, who Paulina’s caregiver is her former coworker, Rodrigo play’s many moments of tenderness and poetry (Rodrigo But Cain’s long-winded, hard-reference-winking, drama- seduces the college boy, who leads the businessman’s (Ramón Camín), whose sympathetic demeanor seems to reads Octavio Paz aloud), even as Paulina begins to turgically leaden script and writing style will likely only young wife astray, on down the line until the whore mask a darker secret that comes out gradually over the piece together what happened to put her in the coma. appeal to the most committed Shakespeare-festival returns and the circle is complete. 90 minutes of the play. But The Delicate Tears of the The reason she and so many real-life women journalists nerds. Nobody exactly frolics on this model of romance. Waning Moon isn’t a whodunit so much as a “why do it?” have been targeted? “For telling the truth. For doing Hell, even those audiences—ones with deep-cut Playwright and composer Michael John LaChiusa’s Why do journalists like Paulina risk so much, and does their job. Because they’re women.” As the play honors Elizabethan prerequisites satisfi ed—may have a hard people try hard to feel the excitement of tossing away their sacrifi ce make a diff erence? Sobering questions, the memory of journalists like Miroslava Breach, it also time tracking the emotional beats in the plot here, which inhibition, but inhibition and dignity are so similar that to be sure. But Alemán, as both playwright and actor, asks us to be brave enough to look at the same injustices quickly and exponentially expand from the promising they regret their transgressions immediately and wish imbues Paulina with a defi ant wit that animates her frag- they wrote about. —K R T D T and focused starting point to include Shakespeare’s time could go backward. Passions fl ag, the wrong ile physical exterior and lets us see precisely what kept W M Through 10/13: Thu-Sat 8 strained relationship with his daughter Judith (Kali thing is said. Suddenly, they’re not heroes in their own her going as she reported on violence waged against PM, Sun 3:30 PM, Steppenwolf 1700 Theatre, 1700 Skatchke), the suppression of Catholics during the reign romances; they’re just people in rooms, misbehaving. other women, especially Indigenous activists. N. Halsted, 312-335-1650, steppenwolf.org, $25, $20 of James I, a fi ctionalized origin story of Macbeth, and Having tried to enliven existence by stepping out of Director Iraida Tapias skillfully underscores the seniors, $15 students. the joys and pains of the creative process writ large. bounds, they fi nd that the lines have relocated
NOW ON STAGE THE GREAT LEAP By Lauren Yee Directed by Jesca Prudencio
“One of the finest productions to be staged by “The play’s relevance could not Steppenwolf Theatre in recent years” – WTTW be more immediate” – Chicago Sun-Times
2019/20 GRAND BENEFACTORS 2019/20 BENEFACTORS
ll SEPTEMBER - CHICAOREADER 19 THEATER
B to include this deviance, and the excitement of try-home comedy Hay Fever, the result would be similar supposed transgression wears off all too quickly. As to J.T. Rogers’s 2017 Tony-winning play. Set in 1993, Oslo scene a er scene painfully evinces, having the thing traces the back-channel negotiations between Yitzhak we wanted can suddenly make us not want it anymore. Rabin’s Israeli government and the PLO instigated by I was impressed with the fl uid staging of direc- a Norwegian diplomat, Mona Juul (Bri Sudia), and her tor Brenda Didier’s production, which kicks off Theo think-tank-director husband, Terje Rød-Larsen (Scott Ubique’s new season in the company’s delightful Evan- Parkinson). ston space. I started to name actors and actresses who The latter in particular is a fi rm believer that getting deserved special commendation and found there were the involved parties out of the offi cial conference rooms too many; this is a stellar cast. Big up to the versatile and into more informal settings where they can see house band, which is conducted by keyboardist Jeremy each other as individuals is crucial to achieving a break- Ramey. —M M H A Through 11/3: through. That translates here into a series of complicat- Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 7 PM, Theo Ubique Cabaret ed (and o en hilarious) attempts to get the PLO and Theatre, 721 Howard St., Evanston, 773-347-1109, Rabin’s team to meet regularly in a Norwegian country theo-u.com, $34-$59, optional dinner $29. home, where they bicker over verbiage, air ancient (yet legitimate) grievances, fi nd common ground over Not enough at stake booze (and waffl es prepared by Juliet Hart’s hostess), Mother of the Maid views Joan of Arc through and—yes—take a walk in the woods. her mother’s eyes, but doesn’t commit to the real The great strength of Nick Bowling’s smart pro- drama. duction for TimeLine (presented in association with Broadway in Chicago) is not just how it keeps the some- Jane Anderson’s 2018 play retells the o -dramatized times-complicated narrative clear, though that’s no small life of Joan of Arc from the point of view of her mother, feat. It’s how, by showing us the full range of emotions Isabelle. But though Kate Fry brings fl ashes of faith, fear, felt by these complex individuals, all of whom are invest- and ferocity to Isabelle, the story itself falls curiously fl at, ed in their people’s survival as well as their own desire and not just because we know the ending. for a bit of history making, we see the wisdom of Terje’s Anderson’s use of contemporary vernacular seems approach. There’s not a weak link in the 13-member cast. designed to conjure the earthiness of Joan’s farming The saddest part is realizing how quickly the advances family, which includes choleric father Jacques (Kareem of the Oslo accords receded following fresh outbreaks Bandealy) and bratty brother Pierre (Casey Morris). of violence. —K R O Through 10/20: Wed But it feels instead like a playwright making a strained 2 and 7:30 PM, Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun case for the relevance of Joan’s story in our time—when 2 PM; also Sun 10/29, 7:30 PM; Wed 9/25, 7:30 PM it doesn’t feel like Isabelle is playing Edith Bunker to only, Broadway Playhouse, 175 E. Chestnut, 800- Jacques’s Archie. Expositional bookending monologues, 775-2000, broadwayinchicago.com, $35-$95. delivered by Fry’s Isabelle and referring to herself in the third person, distance rather than illuminate. Stoned soul picnic The question of whether or not Isabelle fully Hannah Ii-Epstein’s Pakalolo Sweet has a believes Grace Smith’s Joan is having holy visions (and communal feeling, but the story loses focus. whether her support for her headstrong daughter is rooted at least partly in her own desire for refl ected Staged in the coach house of a Chicago Park District glory) is well worth exploring. But Fry’s Isabelle doesn’t facility on the shore of Lake Michigan in the Edgewater make the shi s in Isabelle’s own feelings about her neighborhood, Hannah li-Epstein’s comedy-drama about daughter’s growing fame feel wholly motivated. a family of Hawaiian marijuana growers labors mightily That’s not really Fry’s fault or that of director BJ to be an investigation of mental illness masquerading Jones. Rather, it’s the fault of a playwright who picks as a mellow good time. Whether one buys what she’s up lots of tantalizing shiny objects (the perfi dy of the selling depends a lot on one’s attitude toward weed and clergy, the self-aggrandizement of teenagers) and puts the lifestyle connected to it. them down before fully exploring what they mean in the Before the actual play begins, the audience is context of Isabelle’s relationship to Joan. asked to participate in a karaoke session with the cast. Fry and Smith have a scene of great tenderness and Perhaps, with a group of stoned friends, this might sorrow before Joan’s death that suggests the emotional be a good time and a fi ne way to set the mood, but if depths Anderson could have reached if she’d spent one expects to be presented with theater rather than more time really investing in the mother-daughter con- a team-building exercise, this is a tedious bit of throat nection, rather than using it as a clothesline for airing clearing. The hour or so devoted to the narrative feels out a story that’s been told many times before. —K fragmentary, though it does contain a couple of power- R M M Through 10/20: Wed 1 ful moments. and 7:30 PM, Thu 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 2:30 and 8 The semilegal pursuit of growing pot, with its PM, Sun 2:30 PM; also Sun 10/13, 7 PM; Wed 10/9, structural fl aw of employees abusing the product, is 7:30 PM only, Northlight Theatre, North Shore convincingly evoked. But the oblique references to men- Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., tal illness aren’t developed fully enough to warrant the Skokie, 847-673-6300, northlight.org, $30-$89, $15 play’s jarringly abrupt conclusion. This piece is the sec- FOR TICKETS AND INFO VISIT CHICAGOSINFONIETTA.ORG OR CALL 312-284-1554 students (subject to availability). ond part of a trilogy but doesn’t feel complete enough to stand on its own. I wished a erward that li-Epstein Norwegian wood had canned the karaoke party and used that half hour R Oslo illuminates the behind-the-scenes to answer the many questions posed by what could machinations of Middle East diplomacy. one day be a compelling piece of theater. —D S P S Through 10/5: Wed-Fri If A Walk in the Woods, Lee Blessing’s 1988 play about 7:30 PM, Sat 4:30 and 7:30 PM, Mon-Tue 7:30 PM, the private talks between two diplomats—one Soviet, Berger Park Cultural Center Coach House, 6205 the other American—got cozy with Noël Coward’s coun- N. Sheridan, nothingwithoutacompany.org, $30. v 20 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll T M ss Directed by Rick Alverson. In English and subtitled French. min. Fri /-Thu /. Gene Siskel Film Center, N. State, -- , siskelfilmcenter.org, $ . FILM
The Mountain Andy deliberating over the invitation—the next scene shows the two men on the road. It’s a clever way of illustrating Andy’s passiv- and talkative, Wallace seems like no one ity, and it grants a sense of inevitability to the else in the movie thus far, and his presence characters’ journey. Like the heroes of a fairy signals a shift in the story. Wallace tells Andy tale, Andy and Wallace seem destined to go he once treated the young man’s mother (it’s out exploring; if Alverson’s tone weren’t so the first reference to her in the movie), and unchanging, the narrative development might after a short conversation in which he does inspire excitement. most of the talking, invites Andy out to dinner. Yet the director achieves something more Over Chinese food, Wallace tells Andy that he jarring after fi rst lulling viewers into a dreamy needs an assistant cum photographer to join complacency: he shocks us with the revelation him on his travels and asks Andy if he’d like that Wallace is a traveling therapist who per- to come along. Alverson doesn’t even show forms lobotomies at mental institutions J
OCTOBER LINEUP REVIEW Filmmaker appearances, events & more! violent subjugation. It’s ultimately a frustrat- ing experience, though its central rhetorical ABBAS KIAROSTAMI RETROSPECTIVE Through Oct. 30 + Ahmad Kiarostami Oct. 26 device certainly makes an impression. A jagged climb LECTURE SERIES VIEWING POSITIONS The Mountain takes place sometime in the Tuesdays through Dec. 10 Rick Alverson’s The Mountain is a 1950s in an unidentifi ed part of the U.S. that’s fascinating but ultimately frustrating woodsy and underpopulated. Andy (Tye CONVERSATIONS AT THE EDGE Thursdays through Nov. 21 mood piece. Sheridan) is a withdrawn man in his early 20s who lives with his father (Udo Kier), a former MILES DAVIS: BIRTH OF THE COOL Oct. 4 - 17 By B S fi gure skater who now owns an ice rink. Andy ONE CHILD NATION Oct. 4 – 10 assists his father by tending the ice; a mem- FLEABAG Oct. 5, 12, 20, 25, 27 orable early image presents the young man ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS driving a Zamboni across the empty rink, his Oct. 5, 9, 12 eyes fi xated on something outside the frame. THE KILLERS (1946) Oct. 4, 6, 10 n one of my first weeks of high school, Alverson barely shows the two men speaking THE KILLERS (1964) Oct. 4, 6, 7 my freshman English teacher provided to each other, and when he does their con- THE WOMAN WHO LOVES GIRAFFES our class with a short passage to intro- versation seems fraught with subtle tension. Oct. 11 – 17 duce a discussion of literary tone. The Andy’s father dies ten minutes into the fi lm, From Senegal HYENAS Oct. 11, 17 passage was a straightforward descrip- and the older man’s death makes little dis- THE TIGER OF ESCHNAPUR Oct. 11, 13, 14 Ition of a walk through a public park, with de- cernible impact on his son, whose demeanor THE INDIAN TOMB Oct. 11, 13, 16 tails of trees, benches, and such. Then, in the remains quiet and a ectless. Alverson invites LUCREZIA BORGIA Oct. 12 penultimate sentence, the narrator mentioned us to share in Andy’s emotional state through FANTASTIC FUNGI Oct. 18 – 24 seeing two men stabbing a third man to death; the film’s style. The camera rarely moves, DESOLATION CENTER Oct. 18 – 24 the passage concluded with another bland line and when it does, it proceeds steadily along + Jim Sikora’s MY CHAR-BROILED BURGER in keeping with the earlier sentences. You can straight paths; the sound design is hushed and WITH BREWER Oct. 20 probably guess what my teacher wanted to meditative, and the vivid sets and costumes END OF THE CENTURY Oct. 18 -24 achieve with his lesson: that a consistent tone evoke a cozy sense of the past that one can THAT PÄRT FEELING: THE UNIVERSE OF in literature can normalize or else dampen burrow into at the expense of the narrative ARVO PÄRT Oct. 18, 20 the impact of content that might otherwise content. Alverson will maintain this style IN THE MOUTH OF THE WOLF Oct. 19 seem egregiously out of place, in this case a throughout the film regardless of what hap- THE GOLDEN GLOVE Oct. 25 – 30 violent act. I’ve thought of this lesson often pens. If you get on its wavelength, you may GOOD KISSER Oct. 25 – 31 over the years, most recently when watching fi nd it trancelike. Oct. 25 – 31 The Mountain, the latest feature by American The fi lm experiences a jolt with the intro- TONI MORRISON: THE PIECES I AM independent Rick Alverson (The Comedy, En- duction of Dr. Wallace Fiennes (Jeff Gold- CAT PEOPLE Oct. 25, 31 tertainment). The fi lm exudes an eerily, consis- blum), who turns up at Andy’s family estate www.siskelfilmcenter.org tently placid tone and trades in the subject of sale following the father’s death. Confident $12 General | $7 Students | $6 Members @filmcenter @siskelfilmcenter ssss EXCELLENT sss GOOD ss AVERAGE s POOR • WORTHLESS ll SEPTEMBER - CHICAOREADER 21 Get showtimes and see reviews of everything FILM playing this week at chicagoreader.com/movies.
continued from 21 lace’s odyssey, accepting the events of the nar- across the country. Throughout The Mountain rative without thinking about what they might Alverson presents the procedure in graphic mean—but you’ll probably be disappointed if detail, and the cruelty of this outmoded you expect the various ideas to add up to more practice creates an unsettling frisson with than the sum of their parts. v Wallace’s friendly attitude whenever he’s not in a hospital. (Goldblum’s charismatic per- A series of political MOBILIZE formance, a standout in the actor’s career, is engagement events by so good that it puts one at ease even more ef- NOW PLAYING the Chicago Reader fectively than Alverson’s calming style.) Andy appears as unfazed by assisting a lobotomist The Cat Rescuers kickoff as he did by his father’s death—if anything, R Cat people tend to be unfairly maligned, but in this documentary, they’re heroes. According he seems to enjoy learning the art of photog- to the fi lmmakers, there are as many feral and event: raphy. Alverson hints that Andy is fascinated abandoned cats living on New York City’s streets Watch by Wallace’s work because it provides him as there are people in residences, and since local THURSDAY, “Power of Pride” with insight into the experience of his insti- government has failed to handle the problem, ordi- tutionalized mother, whom he hasn’t seen in nary citizens have stepped in to help. The fi lm OCT. 10 The Human Rights Campaign follows four Brooklynites who engage in TNR (trap, some time; then again, the young hero seems neuter, release) eff orts, giving up space in their 5:30 PM and CNN LGBTQ Town Hall so emotionally numb that it’s hard to say for homes and o en spending money from their own FREE! certain what he’s thinking. pockets to tend to the tens of thousands of street The mystery of Andy’s internal experience cats that roam their borough alone. The volunteers’ Hosted by Reader’s Ben Joravsky collective aim is two-pronged: decrease the number carries The Mountain for its fi rst half, albeit and Maya Dukmasova of at-risk felines, and rehome as many of them as just barely. As he demonstrated in The Come- With special political guests possible. But for all its good intentions, this shaggy dy, Alverson has a tendency to drive his met- doc elicits more heartbreak than hope; it’s diffi cult from the LGBTQ community aphors into the ground. It soon becomes clear to watch a succession of humans surrender their cats to the Animal Care Centers of NYC, seemingly that Andy, in his terminally subdued behavior, unconcerned by the knowledge their pets may be 3349 N. Halsted represents the perfect foil to Wallace in that euthanized. Yet this crowd-funded portrait of urban 21+ / ID required / Cash bar Doors open 5 p.m. he acts like a lobotomy patient without even animal activists—a labor of love itself—is commend- Program 5:30-6:30 p.m. needing a lobotomy, and for a good half hour able for spotlighting work that usually goes unseen or so, the fi lm is simply a series of variations and underacknowledged. —L P 87 min. Fri 9/27, 2 and 7:30 PM; Sat 9/28, 3 and 6:15 PM; Sun on this insight. Alverson changes things up Then join us to watch on CNN: 9/29, 3 PM; Mon 9/30, 6 PM; Wed 10/2, 6 PM; and with the introduction of two new characters: Thu 10/3, 7:30 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center 6:30: Sen. Cory Booker a recently released lobotomy patient named Susan (Hannah Gross) and her caretaker, Jack A Faithful Man Louis Garrel cowrote, directed, and stars in this 7: Former Vice President (Denis Lavant), the fi rst character in the fi lm piquant chamber comedy, which begins as the sort Joe Biden to exhibit a genuinely explosive personality. of relationship chronicle that his father, Philippe, M These two join Andy and Wallace on their might make, then enters into strange territory 7:30: Sen. Kamala Harris travels; Susan stirs a sense of sexual curiosity that’s reminiscent of what cowriter Jean-Claude Carrière once explored with Luis Buñuel. In the in Andy (perhaps for the fi rst time in his life), O 8: Sen. Elizabeth Warren opening scene, the live-in girlfriend (Laetitia Casta) while Jack spends his nights getting drunk and of a journalist (Garrel) tells him she’s leaving him 8:30: Mayor Pete Buttigieg haranguing anyone in earshot with tirades for his best friend, who’s gotten her pregnant. The B story then jumps forward a decade, a er the best that barely make sense. The fi lm takes its title 9: Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke from one of Jack’s antic monologues, when he friend has died of mysterious circumstances and the former couple has resumed their old relationship I comments on a mass-produced painting in his as though they’d never been apart. Things go well 9:30: Sen. Amy Klobuchar motel room. “This is not a mountain!” he yells until the woman’s son confi des in the journalist that L at Andy. “It is a cheap dream!” he believes his mother murdered his father and the I 10: Former HUD Secretary Does Alverson mean to imply that Wallace’s dead man’s younger sister (Lily-Rose Depp)—who’s Julián Castro long loved the journalist from afar—decides to steal therapy is another cheap dream, an illusion of him away from his current partner. The narrative Z Citing scheduling conflicts, Vermont Sen. Bernie serenity that’s really nothing more than forced twists come off as especially odd, thanks to Garrel’s Sanders and businessman Andrew Yang declined poker-faced direction and the uniformly naturalistic HRC’s invite. servility? If so, he isn’t onto anything all that shocking or profound; I doubt there’s anyone performances; all the characters seem like normal E people except that their behavior is unexplainable. who still believes lobotomies are a good idea. In French with subtitles —B S 75 min. Fri GREEN Maybe it’s best to take The Mountain as an ex- 9/27, 2 and 6 PM; Sat 9/28, 4:45 PM; Sun 9/29, 3:15 e l e m e n t tended mood piece on the themes of passivity, PM; Mon 9/30, 7:45 PM; Tue 10/1, 8 PM; Wed 10/2, RESALE 8 PM; and Thu 10/3, 6 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center www.big-medicine.org domination, sex, and longing, distinguished by several compelling performances and an Félicité arresting sense of tonal control. One can easily The fourth feature from Franco-Senegalese fi lm- watch the fi lm the way Andy takes part in Wal- maker Alain Gomis takes place in Kinshasa, capital 22 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll R READER RECOMMENDED b ALL AGES N NEW F FILM
of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and centers fi lms and other events at multiple locations. Fri 9/27-Sun on a bar singer (Véro Tshanda Beya Mputu, luminous in 9/29 and Fri 10/4-Sun 10/6. For a complete schedule, visit her fi lm debut) whose 14-year-old son is seriously injured southsidefi lmfest.org. in a motorbike accident. To pay for his surgery, she hits up family, friends, acquaintances, and, in despera- Dialogues with Che: tion, a local mob boss. These tense and o en painful encounters are played without sentiment, though in Appropriations of a Revolutionary the second hour their urgency gives way to detached, Figure dreamlike sequences showing the city’s street life and to a matter-of-fact romance between the woman and This program, part of Ism, Ism, Ism, a touring series her repairman. Cowritten by Gomis, Delphine Zingg, of experimental works from Latin America, includes and Olivier Loustau, the meandering narrative has a shorts by Pedro Chaskel and Leandro Katz and the lyrical quality consistent with the many musical numbers, short feature Diaglogue with Che (1968, 53 min.) by José most of which are performed by Mputu and the Kinsha- Rodriguez Soltero, all of which consider the legacy and sa-based group Kasai Allstars. In French and Lingala iconography of Che Guevara. 96 min. Thu 10/3, 7 PM. with subtitles. —L P 129 min. Gomis attends Northwestern University Block Museum of Art F the screening. Fri 9/27, 7 PM. Northwestern University Block Museum of Art F Female Filmmakers Night The Midwest Independent Film Festival’s annual pro- Holy Trinity The Cat Rescuers gram of short fi lms by women directors. The event Local fi lmmaker Molly Hewitt makes her feature debut includes a reception at 6 PM and a panel discussion at with this transgressive comedy about a dominatrix (played by the writer-director) who discovers she can of his home. Bobby’s desire to fl y leads him to buy a Mandarin with subtitles. —B S 99 min. Facets 6:30 PM. Tue 10/1, 7:30 PM Landmark’s Century Centre communicate with the dead a er she huff s a magical small plane, contract the necessary repairs for it, start Cinematheque air freshener. The narrative generally takes a back taking lessons, and, fi nally—with the help of his family (In)Justice for All Film Festival seat to Hewitt’s portrait of an inclusive underground and friends—take fl ight. There’s not much that sets the This festival, focused on fi lms dealing with the political, community that welcomes transsexual men and women, fi lm apart from other nonfi ction portraits of eccentrics, ALSO PLAYING social, and person issues related to mass incarceration, sex workers, S&M enthusiasts, and all sorts of people but it’s heartwarming nonetheless. —K S takes place at a variety of venues over ten days. Thu who live to get their freak on. The generous vibe 82 min. Shouldice attends the screening. Sat 9/28, 8 PM. Chicago South Side Film Festival 10/3-Sun 10/12. For a complete schedule, visit injustice- goes a long way in keeping this interesting; ditto the Gene Siskel Film Center Taking place over two weekends, this festival spotlights forallff .com. v imaginative production design (credited to one Mood fi lms set in or made in the south side of Chicago, with Killer, aka Columbia College grad Michael Zarowny), Misty Button which pops with Day-Glo colors and an array of comi- R James and Eoin are down-on-their-luck Irish cally similar-looking consumer goods that suggest the emigres living in the Bronx’s Woodlawn neighborhood. infl uence of Alex Cox’s Repo Man. Yet Hewitt still has a Lured by the promise of easy money, they agree to ways to go in terms of storytelling; many of the scenes place a bet on a horse, but a er they bail on the deal, drag on past their welcome, and the overall pacing feels gangsters blackmail them into doing their dirty work. THIS WEEK AT indiff erent. —B S 91 min. Hewitt and select cast Joining in on their reluctant crime spree is Ruby, a and crew attend the Friday screening. Fri 9/27, 9:45 PM, generic manic-pixie-dream-girl type who at fi rst seems and Tue 10/1, 7 PM. Music Box to have been written for no purpose—the friends practi- cally ignore her even a er she jumps into their getaway The Man Who Knew Too Much vehicle. But that’s the only glaring misstep in a fi lm THE LOGAN Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 fi lm has some of the bluntness brimming with witty dialogue and colorful characters. of a religious tract; it’s sort of a “Handbook on Chris- Misty Button is most engaging as it explores whether tian Marriage.” James Stewart and Doris Day are the these two deadbeats have any character beneath their middle-class Americans caught up in an exotic foreign boozy surfaces, resulting in comic and tragic twists and intrigue: their marriage represents an imbalance of rea- turns, including an uncomfortably funny church scene son and emotion, repression and expression, and secu- involving a pedophiliac ghost and experimentations with larism and faith. When their son is kidnapped, Hitchcock crack cocaine. —J L 88 min. Sugrue attends clearly characterizes it as an act of God meant to test the screening. Fri 9/27, 8 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center their union. The fi lm is uncharacteristically rigid and pious for Hitchcock; it feels more like a work of duty Send Me to the Clouds RISKY BUSINESS than conviction. Despite the many famous set pieces the In this light Chinese drama, a youngish journalist starts fi lm contains (the assassination in Algiers, the attempt to reevaluate her life a er she’s diagnosed with ovarian SEPTEMBER 27-30 AT 11 PM at the Albert Hall), the most impressive sequence, tech- cancer. Unfortunately for her, she can’t do much soul- nically and dramatically, is a quiet one in which Stewart searching because so many people are pulling on her tells Day that their child has been taken. With Bernard attention: her emotionally needy mother, a money-ob- Miles and Brenda de Banzie. —D K 120 min. 35 sessed friend, and the elderly businessman whose mm. Sat 9/28-Sun 9/29, 11:30 AM. Music Box F biography she’s agreed to ghostwrite in order to pay for her surgery. First-time writer-director Teng Congcong The Man Who Wanted to Fly juggles the various interpersonal confl icts with fi nesse, This charming documentary by journalist and playwright but she rarely achieves a sense of emotional conse- Frank Shouldice profi les Bobby Coote, an octogenarian quence despite the life-or-death crisis at the story’s bachelor who lives on his family’s century-and-a-half-old center. Though the movie never feels overstuff ed, too THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN farm near Bailieborough in County Cavan, Ireland, much of the drama feels canned; the mother-daughter with his brother Ernie; together they spend seemingly confl ict in particular recalls numerous other fi lms and OCTOBER 1-3 AT 10:30 PM idyllic days steeped in their respective interests. In TV programs. The most successful passages tend to addition to being an aspiring aviator, Bobby fi xes clocks, be those concerning the heroine’s sexual desire, which makes violins, and plays music of his own. Ernie, on she’s afraid she’ll lose a er her surgery. Teng generates the other hand, enjoys tinkering with his ham radio, a sense of urgency from the character’s anxiety to 2646 N. MILWAUKEE AVE | CHICAGO, IL | THELOGANTHEATRE.COM | 773.342.5555 fi shing, and watching spaghetti westerns in the quiet experience sexual satisfaction before it’s too late. In ll SEPTEMBER - CHICAOREADER 23 Matt Palenske, aka Consumer., performs a “feature” set during Open Beats at Cafe Mustache on Friday, September 20. ALLISON ZIEMBA FOR CHICAGO READER
Johnson, aka Mr. Echoes of production duo the Opus, began making beats in the early 90s for underground Chicago hip-hop group Rubber- oom, and in June he celebrated the release of the Mr. Echoes album Needful Things at Push Beats. El’s 40th birthday celebration at August’s Open Beats doubled as a going-away party for Push Beats cofounder Marcos “Cos” Rivera, who moved to San Diego at the end of the month. Cos was the last of Push Beats’ founders to leave Chicago. The series started out weekly in 2010 at defunct Wicker Park lounge Lokal, and it quickly became the highest-profi le man- ifestation of Chicago’s beat scene. After two subsequent venue changes, it became monthly when it landed at the Whistler in October 2015. Push Beats may be diminished, but Chica- go’s beat scene as a whole has hit a growth Keeping spurt, partly because of Open Beats. Two simi- lar monthly showcases have cropped up in the past few months: Cutoff at Innjoy in Wicker the beat Park in May and the Choppin’ Block at the Sil-
B With sets from Jamie Hayes, Damon Locks, Shon Dervis, Mr. Jaytoo, DJ Tess, Ben Fasman, Chicago’s beat scene has to “feature” sets, which close the night and run based jazz as well as dance subgenres such as King Hippo, DJ Emmaculate, iRon, DJ Rude One, DJ Skor, do without the attention the longer than 15 minutes. But Fess has always house and techno—and though a few might Sasha Kokorokoko, Norm city’s rappers get, but it’s a vital intended Open Beats to be a platform for as- partner with rappers or singers, most prefer Rockwell, Twilite Tone, Alo, incubator for adventurous, piring producers, and its democratic promise to approach instrumental music as complete and DJ Pauly. Sun / , noon, Wicker Park, N. Damen, of an outlet open to everyone remains key to and self-contained. ambitious instrumental hip-hop. free, all ages its identity. The phrase “beat scene” can also be used By L G This past January, Open Beats threw a to describe this kind of music, rather than the P B three-year anniversary party that Fess says people who make it, in which sense it’s used Thu /, PM, the Whistler, N. Milwaukee, free, + packed Cafe Mustache. Since then, the sign-up interchangeably with “live PA”—that is, a sheet fills up earlier and earlier. “There has performance where a producer uses hardware O B n the night of Friday, August not been any night where there’s been any (drum machines, samplers, turntables, audio Fri /, PM, Cafe Mustache, N. Milwaukee, $ 16, eight young men huddled less than, like, ten artists showing up trying to e ects units) live in real time, rather than sim- suggested donation, + over Apple laptops and sam- play,” Fess says. “Most of those artists bring ply playing back fi nished tracks. Many beat- plers set up on circular tables in their handful of people with them—they’re scene producers insist on playing live, and near the DJ booth at Cafe like, ‘Yeah, I’m about to play this thing.’ Two some even improvise, but no one gets turned OMustache. They were there for Open Beats, a or three of those artists get there too late, and away from Open Beats for just pressing “play” sort of open-mike night that gives electronic I have to turn them away.” At August’s Open on a laptop. ver Room’s Wicker Park location in June. Open producers the opportunity to play their music Beats, the sign-up sheet maxed out almost an Chicago has had instrumental producers Beats regular Rodolfo launched Cutoff with for an audience. The event doesn’t start till 9 hour before start. “I was sure, showing up here for decades, of course, but its beat scene co- the help of producer Obehko, and he’s been PM, but the 15-minute performance slots are at 8:05, nobody would be here,” Fess says. alesced in the early 2000s. From the start it’s trying to move it to the Logan Square Innjoy fi rst come, fi rst served, and these eight pro- Open Beats’ success has been a boon to a brought together multiple generations, and (as of this month he’s also changed its name ducers all wanted a chance. Chicago DJ and community of musicians that have otherwise it’s characterized by crossover and collabora- to Live Beats). With producer Azarias, Obehko producer Fess Grandiose launched Open Beats had trouble marketing themselves in Chicago: tion. Uncle El, who started rapping in the 90s also cofounded the Choppin’ Block, which will in January 2016, and he’s held it on the third the “beat scene,” as it’s rather ambiguously as a student at Roger C. Sullivan High School, need a new home after the Wicker Park Silver Friday of every month at Cafe Mustache ever called, is by design very loosely defi ned, cover- isn’t just cohost of Open Beats; he and a small Room closes on October 1. The brand-new since; producer Uncle El has helped Fess host ing producers who make tracks in a variety of collective of producers also run Push Beats, event series Kinky Yeti, kicked o by Azarias it since July 2017. Each month, Fess and El se- interrelated styles. Beat-scene musicians are the city’s longest-running beat-scene event, with producer Loony Is Normal and DJ Skoli, lect a few beat makers in advance to perform based in hip-hop, but they incorporate groove- now at the Whistler (its fourth venue). Kevin spotlights beat makers and vocalists. 24 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll The Open Beats crowd at Cafe Mustache. Vocalist Sonia Morant, who performed later in Strangers of Necessity at Open Beats: from le to right, the duo is Malcome Flex the night with producer CoryaYo, is second from right in a blue hat. Open Beats founder (aka Fooch the MC) and producer CoryaYo. ALLISON ZIEMBA FOR CHICAGO READER and cohost Fess Grandiose is at far right. ALLISON ZIEMBA FOR CHICAGO READER
These events are intimate and specialized, an evangelist for Chicago music, spends most producers for label showcases and released ton, and attracted glowing profi les by the New with small crowds that often consist mostly of of the year living and traveling in Europe, beat-scene music, and one of the most popular York Times and Rolling Stone. other producers, but as is frequently the case stocking record stores with copies of releases artists on its roster, jazz drummer Makaya Producers from the Chicago beat scene have in the music business, which people show up by his ETC label. Many are his own, but most McCraven, broke out beyond the jazz audience also had successes outside it, even though the is more important than how many. Over the of the rest are by local beat-scene artists—on after Chicago beat-scene events spurred him scene itself gets almost no publicity. Kenny past few years, Chicago’s beat scene has made October 25, he’ll put out the Uncle El full- to explore its production techniques on his Keys played a live PA set at Pritzker Pavilion its presence felt far beyond the city limits. length Now U C Me? Progressive jazz label own albums. He’s been positioned as a modern in July as part of the Millennium Park Summer Veteran producer Ramon “Radius” Norwood, International Anthem has booked beat-scene “savior” of jazz, much like Kamasi Washing- Music Series, and that same month, Marco J
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LEE ANN WOMACK Paula Cole Kevin Griffin Randy Brecker & Fareed Haque with sarah siskind of Better than Ezra ll SEPTEMBER - CHICAOREADER 25 continued from 25 was living in Tokyo at the time, and considered “Maker” Jacobo released the instrumental moving to LA. “There was a bunch of awesome album Systematic Soul, his fourth for Los An- music that was coming out of there, and it geles label Now-Again. Run by Egon, creative was all coming in at once,” Hippo says. “I was director of the J Dilla estate, Now-Again has super interested to see what was happening licensed Maker’s music for TV and movies, over there and thought I would try my luck.” including 2017’s The Big Sick. And Slot-A pro- Fortunately for Chicago’s beat scene, Hippo duced the majority of one of the year’s most changed his mind—he came back here instead. significant albums: Jamila Woods’s Legacy! LA’s beat scene could only have achieved its Legacy! infl uence after the rise of online networking made it easy for musicians to fi nd fellow lov- o begin August’s Open Beats, Fess asks ers of subversive sounds. “One of the biggest for a moment of silence to honor LA outlets that we had was MySpace, to be honest Tproducer Ras G, aka Gregory Shorter with you,” Radius says. He’d eventually play Jr., who died at age 40 on July 29. Ras con- Low End Theory several times, beginning in sidered himself a disciple of Sun Ra and made 2009. “We were all listening to each other. I’d experimental instrumental hip-hop he called come home and have like 300, 400, 500 plays a “ghetto sci-fi .” day. We would be in our top eight—we’d be in In the late 2000s, Ras and other eccentric Dibiase, Ras G, and Flying Lotus. We all were in Sev Seveer performs with a Boss SP-303 sampler at Open Beats. ALLISON ZIEMBA FOR CHICAGO READER LA producers (Flying Lotus, Daedelus, Sami- each other’s vision, trading music.” yam, Dibiase, Nosaj Thing) achieved main- The message boards for LA label Stones stream popularity with the first beat scene Throw began hosting weekly beat battles in own styles, and had a lot of infl uences as well into boundary- pushing jazz by the likes of Je to become widely known by that name. Their 2007 (if not earlier—the boards are dead, so from there.” After Stones Throw closed the Parker, Ken Vandermark, and the Association community’s center of gravity was the weekly it’s hard to be sure). Each Saturday, the pre- boards last year, longtime posters launched for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. series Low End Theory, founded in 2006 by DJ vious week’s winner would post a sample for stbbforever.com to keep the community going. “That’s what was drawing me, in my musi- and producer Daddy Kev and discontinued in producers to use in an original instrumental Sev graduated in 2010 and moved back to cality, to seek becoming a better musician,” he August 2018. Daddy Kev also owns Alpha Pup to be uploaded by the following Wednesday. Chicago, getting involved in The Hip-Hop Proj- says. In class, he met Brandon “Illiac” Murphy, Records, which has released the music of sev- Forum users voted for their favorite track at ect, a mix show that’s aired on Loyola radio who shared his tastes. “We would be in jazz eral Low End regulars. Flying Lotus launched the end of the week, and the cycle started over. station WLUW since 1995 (it’s now run by DJ class but reminiscing about hip-hop and his Brainfeeder label in 2008, providing an- The Stones Throw site was a natural hub for Scend and Slot-A). He also continued to post talking about some of the current electronic other platform for emerging artists eager to beat makers eager to experiment with instru- original material online, both as part of Stones music that was going around,” Cos says. push the boundaries of instrumental hip-hop, mental hip-hop, since the label worked with Throw beat battles and on Soundcloud, and Cos dropped out of college in 2005, after and two years later UK label Ninja Tune began two artists who had become foundational to that’s how the local beat scene found him. In three semesters—he’d had a son, and was distributing Brainfeeder releases. By March the beat scene: Madlib and J Dilla. 2012 Cos heard something Sev had shared and finding it hard to keep up with schoolwork. 2011, when Radiohead front man Thom Yorke The Stones Throw beat battles were import- invited him to check out Push Beats. But his bond with Illiac continued to deepen, DJed at Low End Theory with Flying Lotus, ant for Chicago producer Sev Seveer in the and as his friend got hooked on electronic LA’s beat scene had already had its crossover late 2000s, when he was an undergrad at the os decided to pursue music after fall- production—first with Ableton, then with moment. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. ing three and a half stories o a balco- modular synthesizers—Cos learned alongside Even before then, that community was “It became this community of folks all study- Cny—there’s nothing like a brush with him. In 2010, Illiac got invited by his friend attracting heads from around the world. In ing each other’s techniques and approaches to death to help you clarify what you want to do Adam Bowsman (aka Abyss) to host a music the mid-2000s, beat-scene music from LA had each sample,” he says. “I had won a couple beat with your life. He enrolled at Harold Washing- night with him and Raj Malosh (aka Raj Mahal) reached DJ and events producer King Hippo, battles on there—during that time was really ton College to study piano in 2004. Though he at Lokal. Abyss asked Illiac if he could recom- aka Chicagoland native Alejandro Ayala. He when I started to develop my own tastes, my grew up on hip-hop, he’d subsequently gotten mend anyone else, and once Cos came aboard,
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26 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll the four of them launched Push Tuesdays, Makaya McCraven says Raj is one of the best which became Push Beats within a year. beat makers he’s met in Chicago. “It was really cool that people could bring Push Beats fosters a collegial environment, what they made in their basement or in their where producers are encouraged to learn from room or whatever, and play it out in front of one another rather than jealously guard their people,” Raj says. Raj caught the production secrets. “Cos is a classically trained pianist, bug while still living in his native Detroit, after and every one of his shows I’ve seen has a hearing producer House Shoes spin tracks by di erent feel, because he’s actually still play- his most famous collaborator, J Dilla. He made ing keys live,” Fess says. “That within itself is his fi rst beats using an MPC 2000 sampler he what made me think, like, ‘I need to step my shared with his friend John Utsler, an original game up, and at least o er more than just me member of Insane Clown Posse and brother of playing premade productions.’” Joseph Utsler (aka Shaggy 2 Dope). Sev bought his fi rst Roland SP-404 sampler The rest of the Push crew (and the scene after becoming a Push resident. “I realize I’m growing up around them) shared Raj’s a nity most expressive when I’m using hardware,” for Dilla, but despite their aesthetic consensus he says. He started getting booked for more they resisted giving a name to the style of gigs after he began improvising live with Cos. music they’d incubated. “We really had a hard “I would come with a bunch of samples, and time describing the genre—and I still feel like he would come with this keyboard, and we I have a hard time describing it,” Raj says. would have absolutely no idea what we were “What was exciting to me—and I feel like was going to do going into this set,” Sev says. common amongst us—was that there wasn’t a “That’s when the dynamic of my performances whole lot of parameters. There was an essence changed—when folks could see that I knew as that existed in it, and that was like a harder much about what I was gonna do as they in the hip-hop form, but you could go anywhere audience did, and they saw that vulnerability.” around that.” The Push producers, Raj says, decided early evin “Mr. Echoes” Johnson says he on that they wanted to grow beyond Chicago played his first instrumental hip-hop to establish a midwest touring circuit to bring Kset in the early 2000s. Echoes and his in like-minded producers from the coasts or collaborator in the Opus, Aaron Smith (aka the even abroad. That hasn’t happened yet, but Isle of Weight), opened a show at Metro. Push has thrown parties bigger than its reg- “We grabbed our drum machines—Aaron ular events. Cos remembers one during the had his ASR-10 and his MPC, I had my MPC— 2012 Pitchfork Music Festival that the police and we basically got onstage and traded broke up. “Flying Lotus was supposed to beats,” Echoes says. “Everything was so play—Jeremiah Jae was onstage, and the cops slow back then. It was so funny, because he’d told him he better not rhyme one more lyric or load up a beat while I was playing, and then I they’re going to take all the equipment,” Cos would literally have to wait for him to fi nish says. “That was fun—400, 500 people in this loading the beat. So I had to be as creative as warehouse across from a Department of Cor- possible with a track that I’m doing, because I rections building.” The Push crew had better would have to wait for him.” Their MPCs used luck with a loft party they threw the following fl oppy disks, which didn’t have much storage December featuring Toronto’s Elaquent and space—a single song might require four or fi ve LA’s Knxwledge. disks. The Push collective grew as the events took Before that show, Echoes says, he’s not o —at one point it had ten members. Sev came aware of any Chicago producers playing live aboard in 2013. “I sat in front of these dudes, instrumental hip-hop. There wasn’t a regular in a multiperson interview, when I became a public forum for people making that kind of resident,” he says. “They were all sitting in a music till 2005, when producer Tone B. Nimble circle at Cos’s place, and there was almost like (a member of the All Natural collective and an initiation.” the owner of its record label) launched Dance Push survived the loss of its first three to the Drummer’s DB at beloved Noble Square venues—Lokal, Rodan, and Double Door’s club Sonotheque. “When other people were basement space, Door No. 3, have all closed— doing beat showcases, I didn’t feel like they in part because the crew’s members are so were highlighting the producers the way they tightly bonded. Raj Mahal and Uncle El, for should be highlighting them,” Tone says. “You jan 17, 18, 24, 25 instance, were roommates in 2011. “I would didn’t get to see a real presentation.” Dance to hear him working on stuff and just be like, the Drummer’s DB encouraged producers to GET TICKETS FRIDAY AT 10AM AT LIVENATION.COM ‘Whoa,’” El says. “It was awe-inspiring and bring samplers, drum machines, and synths, got me to where I am now, wherever that is.” and to set up in the middle of the crowd. “I J ll SEPTEMBER - CHICAOREADER 27 continued from 27 Heartbeats was also the event that first wanted producers to feel the energy from the hooked McCraven on Chicago’s beat scene. audience,” says Tone. King Hippo got involved through Push Beats Dance to the Drummer’s DB was the seed after moving back from Tokyo, and the two of of Chicago’s current beat scene. The event them met in June 2014 after Radius told Hippo incorporated a battle component via a March to check out a McCraven show at Double Door. Madness-style tournament, but the com- They’d end up working together as part of Hip- petition didn’t prevent Tone from bringing po’s stateside version of a Tokyo event called together di erent beat-making collectives and Raws: a jazz combo would open the show, and creating a new community. “It became more of then a handful of beat makers would have an a unifi ed thing,” says Marco “Maker” Jacobo. hour and a half to make original tracks by sam- “I met a lot of producers there that I didn’t pling a recording of the combo’s set. really know—it’s the fi rst time I met Tall Black Hippo hosted a Raws night in Chicago in Guy—and got to play with a bunch of people.” 2014 with a jazz group led by bassist Junius For Kenny Keys, the series opened new Paul (Radius and Raj Mahal made beats), then doors. In the late 90s, he’d started producing another in LA in 2015 with McCraven and Je for Pugslee Atomz’s underground hip-hop Parker. Raws was too expensive to do regular- crew, the Nacrobats, whose Uptown headquar- ly, but Hippo adapted the idea into a Whistler ters, Dover Crib, was also a recording studio. monthly called Fresh Roasted, which ran from (Radius lived there briefly in 2001, learning 2014 till 2018: DJs would simply pick records about production techniques.) Dance to the for producers to sample. Drummer’s DB introduced Kenny to many Subsequently Hippo pitched in to book beat more of Chicago hip-hop’s heavy hitters— makers at International Anthem showcases Fess Grandiose introduces a beat maker. ALLISON ZIEMBA FOR CHICAGO READER Molemen cofounder Panik, Twilite Tone, and help produce two McCraven albums with No ID—and challenged his approach to per- beat-scene bents: 2015’s In the Moment Remix Soundcloud. “Seeing what they were doing that ‘lofi chill’ or whatever—now that that’s forming and recording. “It opened my mind, Tape and 2017’s Highly Rare. on a weekly basis, when I was like 22, 23—that starting to reach a much greater audience, it’s big time, to be even more uninhibited when I McCraven’s path into the beat scene is was everything,” Fess says. “When I started just starting to be di erent, and corny in some work, even alone,” he says. unusual: most producers come to it from hip- Open Beats, I literally went up to Cos, and I’m respects.” Dance to the Drummer’s DB lasted only hop. Slot-A had his epiphany while watching like, ‘Are you OK with me doing this?’ Because Whatever effect lofi will have on the beat a couple years, but the audience it found Flying Lotus play the inaugural North Coast I didn’t want them to even perceive that I was scene’s listeners, it doesn’t seem to have in- inspired other producers to start their own Music Festival in 2010. He picked up tips trying to compete.” fluenced its practitioners. Guatemalan-born nights. Push Beats wasn’t the only new series about hardware at Push Beats and learned Cos doesn’t seem to have minded, given that producer Rodolfo, who runs Live Beats at to emerge in the late 2000s and early 2010s: techniques from Cos, Radius, and other elder Open Beats hosted his farewell party. Innjoy, is a relative newcomer to the scene, in- Maker cofounded Face Melt, Uncle El helped statesmen. The December 2015 death of Tim- troduced to it at Open Beats just a couple years start Tronic, and Joshua “Lokua” Kleckner othy Jones, aka influential Chicago hip-hop eat-scene music isn’t generally chart ago—but he came looking for psychedelic of the Moment Sound collective launched DJ and radio personality Timbuck2, spurred material, the e orts of FlyLo and com- instrumental hip-hop like Flying Lotus. Heartbeats. Slot-A to consider what he could accomplish Bpany notwithstanding—instrumental Fess calls Rodolfo an Open Beats all-star: Face Melt occasionally threw events at in the beat scene. “I was like, ‘If I only had a music rarely outcompetes songs with vocals he’s only missed a few in two years, and he Darkroom and Reggies’ Rock Club, and its couple more years to live, what would I want in that arena. But a recent development in the played a feature set in July. “Since I came record label had released two Kenny Keys al- to spend my time doing?’” he says. “It’d be streaming ecosystem could drive a flood of here, every month I wanted to have something bums by 2013. Tronic struggled to pull a crowd dope to give other producers a platform. It’d new fans to the beat scene’s door. fresh—like a new track, a whole new set,” Ro- at its original home, Red Kiva in the West also be dope to share my knowledge.” In 2016 In the past couple years, a style of instru- dolfo says. He’s accumulated enough material Loop. “Nobody was feeling like the bass-heavy he launched Beat Lo-fi Social, a monthly series mental hip-hop called “lofi” has exploded for what he hopes will be his full-length debut, beats music, that whole LA beat-scene vibe,” at Subterranean with a spinoff Web radio online. YouTube channels such as College which he’s tentatively titled Tools of Conquest. El says. “People would be like, ‘What is this?’ show, and it lasted a couple years. Music, Chillhop Music, and ChilledCow run Other beat-scene newcomers seem to be They were talking to the bar manager: ‘Why Beat-scene events tend to be ephemeral— 24-hour streams of beat-driven wallpaper. The following the same path. If this keeps up, when you letting these guys do this night? What is even Push Beats, at almost ten years old, is no biggest channels have subscriber counts in the the millions of people listening to “homework electronic music?’” The series did better at its Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind—but millions, curate popular Spotify playlists, and beats” get tired of that, they’ll have a self- subsequent locations, Sonotheque and Dark- of the series active today, the one that’s doing even sell clothing. Chillhop Music, based in the sustaining community of adventurous, ambi- room, but still folded a couple years later. the most to inspire newcomers and revitalize Netherlands, also runs a record label. tious producers to seek out. Among the open- Heartbeats was a weekly live PA series at the community is Fess Grandiose’s Open These outlets pitch instrumental hip-hop mike performers at August’s Open Beats was Morseland in Rogers Park that died when the Beats. Fess grew up in the south suburbs and as relaxation music or “beats to study to.” Sev Hameedullah, a 24-year-old who spent part of club closed in 2012. “There were only so many began producing right out of high school in Seveer likens lofi to 80s smooth jazz—and just his set rapping. He found the series through people doing live PA,” Lokua says. “It wasn’t the late 2000s, hoping to provide tracks for his as relatively rigorous jazz musicians must Instagram while looking for something like necessarily focused on hip-hop—we had peo- own rapping. His 2011 mixtape, Life in Lo-Fi . . . have hoped to attract some of the smooth- Low End Theory in Chicago—a place where he ple doing techno, people doing glitchy stu .” Vol. 1, features guest verses from J Dilla col- jazz crowd, the beat scene might benefit could fi nd other producers eager to make their In total he booked more than 100 producers laborator Guilty Simpson, but it was his last from the huge numbers of people exposed to mark. “I just wanted to be a part of it,” he says. for the series, including Radius, who released release as a rapper. Around the same time, he a watered-down version of what it does. “I’ve “And to see if I can take it to another level.” v some music through the label run by Lokua’s got his fi rst invitation to Push Beats from Raj heard folks identify my stu as like, ‘Oh, you Moment Sound collective. Mahal, who’d found Fess’s instrumentals on make homework beats,’” Sev says. “I think now @imLeor 28 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll Recommended and notable shows and critics’ insights for the week of September 26
b ALL AGES F MUSIC
THURSDAY26 Plantasia Featuring groups drawn from a PICK OF THE WEEK large pool of musicians: Andy Ortmann, Ben Billington, Brett Naucke, Chandeliers, Emma Mainstream pop is finally Hospelhorn, Jim Magas, Natalie Chami, Oui Ennui, Sam Wagster, Tony Janas, and Whitney Johnson. Rob Sevier DJs between sets, and here for Lizzo Andrew Savage closes the night. 6 PM, Garfi eld Park Conservatory, 300 N. Central Park, $25. 17+
On his 1976 album Mother Earth’s Plantasia, com- poser Mort Garson captures some of the most inventive sounds and most radical notions of the mid-70s. Specifi cally, he made his goofy and endear- ing compositions solely on the relatively new Moog synthesizer, and he intended that they be played for plants to help them grow. Inspired by his wife’s houseplants, the work of Robert Moog, and a con- troversial 1973 book about plant sentience, Garson created a wholesome mix of sounds, including play- ful arpeggios, dainty melodies, and warm textures. Over the decades Plantasia developed a cult fol- lowing, and this past summer the album (initially dis- tributed through a modest houseplant store) was reissued for the fi rst time by Brooklyn label Sacred Bones. To celebrate the album’s wonky-weird good- ness, the label is partnering with hidden-wonders blog Atlas Obscura and Empty Bottle Presents to host an event at Garfield Park Conservatory that features Plantasia listening sessions and live inter- pretations of its music by local musicians. Sacred Bones and Atlas Obscura have paired up for simi- lar events in other cities, and for the Chicago edi- tion they brought on EBP’s Brent Heyl and musi- cian Whitney Johnson (aka Matchess) to curate a lineup of artists from the city’s electronica and experimental scenes. The night will feature a slew of musicians—including Johnson, Andy Ort- J
LUKE GILFORD LAL DJS E Ari Lennox performs on Sunday only. Sat 9/28 and Sun 9/29, 8 PM, Aragon Ballroom, 1106 W. Lawrence, Saturday sold out, remaining Sunday tickets $204 with fees. 17+
LIZZO’S SINGLE “TRUTH HURTS” dropped in September 2017, Lizzo channels self-love and empowerment on upbeat songs but it didn’t hit number one on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart until such as “Soulmate” and “Like a Girl,” but she comes across this month. That sleeper-hit narrative fi ts her: ever since her as most powerful on the subdued, almost sinister R&B jam first album, 2013’s Lizzobangers, the singer and rapper has “Tempo” (featuring the legend Missy Elliott). “Slow songs ain’t been slowly but steadily growing her following thanks to her for skinny hoes,” Lizzo drawls, carving out an explicit space for incredible bops, celebratory music videos, and high-energy fat bodies in pop music. Though a pop icon with a fat body still live performances, where she sometimes incorporates her fi rst feels radical in 2019, Lizzo takes the spotlight with such ease instrument, the fl ute. Why did it take mainstream pop so long that it’s possible to imagine a future where body diversity is a to catch on? Today, Lizzo isn’t just topping the charts. She’s a given among Top 40 stars. “When all the dust has settled on the TikTok meme, a VMAs headliner, an Absolut Vodka spokesper- groundbreaking-ness, I’m going to still be doing this,” she told son, and a supporting actress in Jennifer Lopez’s new movie, Allure magazine in her March 2019 cover story. “And if that’s Hustlers—and on top of all that, she’s become an icon of body body positive to you, amen. That’s feminist to you, amen. If Whitney Johnson MARIA TZEKA positivity. On her latest album, this spring’s Cuz I Love You, that’s pro-Black to you, amen.” —M K ll SEPTEMBER - CHICAOREADER 29 MUSIC N LINCOLN AVENUE, CHICAGO IL OLDTOWNSCHOOL.ORG . .
JUST ADDED ON SALE THIS FRIDAY! continued from 29 of the liveliest hip-hop songs I’ve heard this year. Badi and Clarice Assad mann, Natalie Chami of TALsounds, Ben Billing- —L G FOR TICKETS, VISIT OLDTOWNSCHOOL.ORG ton, Emma Hospelhorn, Jim Magas, and Chande- liers—reimagining Plantasia in two timed sessions. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER PM Rob Sevier of the Numero Group will spin ambient music between sets, Jacqueline Castel will demon- SATURDAY28 strate “plant aura” photography (that is, Kirlian pho- Jonathan Wilson tographs of plants), and Andrew Savage of Parquet BBsitters Club, Giant Claw, and with special guest Josh T. Pearson Fire-Toolz Courts will close the evening with an outdoor ambi- Seth Graham open. 9:30 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. ent set. Humans have a vital relationship with plants, Wabansia, $8. 21+ THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER PM of course, and this event invites us to recognize it with gratitude and awe. —I Y Chicago sound artist, multi-instrumentalist, and Town Mountain noise weirdo Angel Marcloid creates meticulously with special guest The Lowest Pair • In Szold Hall teetering collages out of vivisected bits of various incongruous genres under several different mon- FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER PM ikers. She’s already put out two albums this year: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER PM FRIDAY27 March’s Bubble Universe! (Hausu Mountain), where Little Brother 9 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, she appears as Nonlocal Forecast, has a gently Bruce Cockburn $36-$51. 18+ frothy ambience that verges on jazzy fusion before sliding into semi-ironic new age. Tonight she cele- FRIDAY, OCTOBER PM On August 19, rapper Phonte Coleman posted brates the second album, the recent Field Whispers album art for May the Lord Watch (Imagine Nation (Into the Crystal Palace), released under the name I AM TANGO Music/Members Only/Empire), a previously un an- Fire-Toolz by the Orange Milk label. The album tra- A Taste of Argentina & Uruguay... nounced full-length by his North Carolina hip-hop verses some of the same ground as Bubble Uni- An Experience You Will Never Forget duo, Little Brother on Instagram. It’d been nine verse!, but it’s more aggressive and noisy; it sounds years since the last Little Brother album, 2010’s L e - like comforting elevator music being devoured by FRIDAY, OCTOBER PM back, but Phonte and fellow MC Big Pooh didn’t rabid locusts. The impossibly titled “Mailto:spasm@ try to heighten the suspense with a long lead-up: swamp.god?subject=Mind-Body Parallels” kicks off The Accidentals In Szold Hall they dropped May the Lord Watch at midnight that with an easy-listening Muzak groove that Marcloid same night. So beloved is Little Brother that even interrupts with shrieking black-metal vocals over SUNDAY, OCTOBER PM those few hours were enough for intense hype to Aphex Twin-like glitch beats—and then the track grow up around the suddenly anticipated album— defaults back to smooth sounds. “She Was Me, My Bruce Molsky In Szold Hall and the music moves with the kind of resplendent Name Was Surrounded” has a catchy rock-guitar grace that’s worthy of such fervent fandom. Phon- hook that evaporates into fruity upbeat electron- SUNDAY, OCTOBER PM te (age 40) and Pooh (39) have come up with their ics. Her video for “BEiNG,” which includes screen- own charming way of navigating hip-hop as they saver geometric shapes, cartoon fi sh swimming in a near middle age, and their vision has plenty of room cloudy sky, the world on fi re, and Marcloid playing The Tannahill Weavers for self-refl ection, euphoria, and hope. I keep com- guitar like a rock god, nicely captures the range of In Szold Hall ing back to “Picture This,” where Phonte and Pooh her fractured interests. Some musicians want to be trade verses about their past, present, and future demons; some want to be Hello Kitty; some want FRIDAY, OCTOBER : & :PM over a smooth and sophisticated instrumental by to be wallpaper. Marcloid is perhaps the only one underground hip-hop hero Black Milk. Their invigo- who manages to be all of them at once. —N The Wailers rating but unsentimental enthusiasm makes this one B :pm show: Performing the th Anniversary of Survival :pm show: Performing songs from the album Legend plus other Greatest Hits Est.Est.1954 1954 Celebrating over 6165 years of service service FRIDAY, OCTOBER PM to Chicago! 1800 W. DIVISION Victor Garcia In Szold Hall (773) 486-9862
SATURDAY, OCTOBER PM Come enjoy one of Chicago’s finest beer gardens! In Szold Hall Richard Shindell FEBRUARYSEPTEMBERJASEPTEMBERNUARY 11...... 20 23 .....26 .....MIKEDA AMERICANVID QUINN FLABBY FELTEN TROUBADOUR HOFFMAN SHOW NIGHT 8PM SEPTEMBERJASEPTEMBERNUARY 12...... 21 .....WAGNER27 DJ BLOTTSKI AMERICAN& MORSE DRAFT SEPTEMBERSEPTEMBER 22 .....THE28 STRAYDYNAMOS BOLTS FEBRUARYJASEPTEMBERNUARY 13...... 24 29 ..... DJDA SKIDRK DJRO LICIOUS SKIDOM LICIOUS MEN ACROSS THE STREET IN SZOLD HALL SEPTEMBERJA NUARY 14...... 23 ....WHOLESOMERADIOOFFWHITEWOLFSONICPRINCESS THETO NYVINE DO 4PM DJRO NIGHTSARIO GROUP SEPTEMBER 30MURPHY JOSHUAMOJO THOMPSON 49JERN JAZZ 9:30PM ORCHESTRA 7PM N LINCOLN AVENUE, CHICAGO IL JAOCTOBERNUARY 17...... 2 MIKE MORSE FELTENJA &MIE WAGNERWAGNER 6PM & FRIENDS JAOCTOBERNUARY 18...... 3 THE SMILIN’ RON MIKEAND BOBBY RACHEL FEL TOANDN SHOW THE CLEMTONES Global Dance Party: FEBRUARYOCTOBER 254 .....WHOLESOMERADIO FOSTER & HIGGINS DJ NIGHT SEPTEMBERJAOCTOBERNUARY 19...... 24 5 .....RC ALISON BIG BAND SITU GROSS 7PMATION DAVID Jimmy Träskelin and Tallari FEBRUARYOCTOBER 267 .....RCBIRDGANGS PROSPECT BIGMAXLIELLIAM 9:30PMBA FOURND 7PM 9:30PM ANNA JAOCTOBERNUARY 20...... 8 TITTY FLABBY CITTY FIRST HOFFMANWARD PROBLEMSSHOW 8PM OCTOBER 9 ELIZABETH’S CRAZY LITTLE THING FEBRUARYJA NUARY 21...... 28 .....PETERDUDEFEATURING SAMETO CASANONY DOJEFFRO HELGESONVASARIOQUARTET GROUP 9PM 8PM WORLD MUSIC WEDNESDAY SERIES SEPTEMBEROCTOBER 26 10 .....PETER FLABBY CASANOVA HOFFMAN QUARTET SHOW 8PM FREE WEEKLY CONCERTS, LINCOLN SQUARE JANUARY 22...... RC BIG BAND 7PM MARCHSEPTEMBERJAOCTOBERNUARY 1...... SMILIN’ 24...... 27 11 .....DORIAN RICKYTA PETERCANNINGJ BO CASONOBBY ANDVA THEQUARTET CLEMTONES SEPTEMBEROCTOBER 28 13 ..... TO HEISENBERGURS UNCERTAINTY PLAYERS 7PM Emel Mathlouthi JAOCTOBERNUARY 25...... 14 RC BIG THE BAND WICK 7PM MARCH 2...... ICEBULLYPROSPECT PULPITBOX AND FOUR BIG 9:30PM HOUSE Sammy Figueroa & His Latin Jazz JAOCTOBERNUARY 26...... 16 MORSE THE & WAGNER HEPKATS 6PM SEPTEMBER 29 .....SOMEBODY’SSKIPPIN’ SINS ROCK Explosion MARCHOCTOBER 3...... CHIDITAROD 18 FEATURING UNIBROW JOE LANASA AND TARRINGTON 10PM JAOCTOBERNUARY 27...... 19 THE LILACS THE STRAY BOLTS MARCHSEPTEMBER 7...... 30 .....OFFTHEJA THEMIE LAST VINEWA 4:30PMAFTERNOONSGNER & FRIENDS JAOCTOBERNUARY 28...... 20 NUCLEAR THE TONY WHOLESOMERADIO JAZZ DO QUARKTET ROSARIO 7:30PM GROUP DJ NIGHT 8PM EVERY TUESDAY (EXCEPT 2ND) AT 8PM OLDTOWNSCHOOL.ORG EVERY TUESDAY (EXCEPT 2ND) AT 8PM Little Brother ANTOINELYERS OPENOPEN MIC ON MIC TUESDAY HOSTED BYEVENINGS JIMIJON (EXCEPT AMERICA 2ND)
30 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll Find more music listings at chicagoreader.com/soundboard. 3730 N. CLARK ST MUSIC METROCHICAGO.COM @ METROCHICAGO
A VERY 2ND SHOW ADDED! EMOTIONAL TOUR CLAIRO EMOTIONAL BEABADOOBEE HELLO YELLO ORANGES SUN SEP 29 CHIIILD SAT OCT 5
ON SALE FRIDAY! Sylvie Courvoisier BOY HARSHER FREDDIE GIBBS SPELLLING / FEE LION and Mary COUSIN STIZZ SCARY LADY SARAH BENNY THE BUTCHER Halvorson WED OCT 09 CONWAY THE MACHINE perform WED NOV 13 Saturday at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival. CMARDOK
Hyde Park Jazz Festival See also Sunday. Jazz by Chicago-born fi lmmaker Edward Bland and 1 PM-midnight, various locations in Hyde draws on the tradition of hush harbors (secret reli- Park (including Augustana Lutheran Church, gious services where slaves practiced their own rit- Hyde Park Bank, and Rockefeller Chapel), $5 uals); another The Story of 400 Years, a sonic nar- suggested donation per concert, $125 Jazz Pass rative of African American history by Isaiah Col- provides preferred seating at select indoor lier & the Chosen Few. The festival also hosts new- venues. b to-us stuff by out-of-towners, such as trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and his killer new trio with The happy paradox of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival is pianist Kris Davis and drummer Nasheet Waits. But that while it was instituted to celebrate the jazz leg- it also doesn’t neglect, say, vocalist Maggie Brown acy of Chicago’s south side, its programming puts and other reliable favorites of the picnic-on-the- it on par with great jazz festivals around the globe. Midway crowd. Part of the pleasure of the Hyde It commissions new projects from rising local musi- Park Jazz Festival derives from walking around the cians. This year one of those works is Requiem for neighborhood, taking in its beautiful architecture, Jazz by Angel Bat Dawid, a 12-part multi media jazz and being happily surprised by what you hear—and funeral that responds to the 1959 film The Cry of there are plenty more sets you shouldn’t miss. Boy- hood friends and recurrent percussion partners Adam Rudolph and Hamid Drake will play spiritual- ly steeped grooves as the duo Karuna; pianist Syl- SMARTBARCHICAGO.COM vie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson will 3730 N CLARK ST | 21+ explore the attuned interplay and astounding vir- tuosity that made their 2017 CD Crop Circles (Rel- ative Pitch) such a delight; Dana Hall’s Spring, which THURSDAY SEP 26 has played the festival before, will bring its intri- The Playground with RICK WADE / JORDAN FIELDS cately voiced reeds and eruptive rhythms; and elec- HECTOR LOPEZ tric guitarist Bill MacKay and cellist Katinka Kleijn will demonstrate the eclectic improvisational style FRIDAY SEP 27 showcased on their forthcoming album, Stir (Drag 1PM-7PM: Front Le Speaker: City). Closing Saturday’s music is singer, trumpet- House Meets Techno with SASSMOUTH / MARK THERBLIG er, and santur player Amir ElSaff ar, who de ly binds JAY JAY / NICO together forward-looking jazz and Iraqi maqam 10PM: J.PHLIP (a classical vocal form); he’ll present the Chicago PAUL JOHNSON / DUKE SHIN debut of Ahwaal, commissioned by the Jazztopad SATURDAY SEP 28 festival in Wroclaw, Poland. This collaboration with THE BLACK MADONNA bassist Ksawery Wójciński, reeds player Waclaw PEACH / PHILLIP STONE Zimpel, and the Lutosławski Quartet will weave Western classical orchestration and a bit of the SUNDAY SEP 29 Queen! with DERRICK CARTER blues into the former Oak Parker’s already rich mix MICHAEL SERAFINI of styles and traditions. —B M GARRETT DAVID
TICKETS AVAILABLE VIA METRO + SMARTBAR WEBSITES + METRO BOX OFFICE. NO SERVICE FEES AT BOX OFFICE! Lizzo See Pick of the Week, page 29. DJ Sophia Fire-Toolz ANGELMARCLOID Eris opens. 8 PM, Aragon Ballroom, 1106 W. Lawrence, sold out. 17+ J ll SEPTEMBER - CHICAOREADER 31 NEW RELEASE FROM
RANDOM CHANCE RECORDS Find more music listings at MUSIC chicagoreader.com/soundboard.
continued from 31 SUNDAY29 Defeater Field Mouse and Time & Pressure open. 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, $15. 17+
Melodic hardcore isn’t known for indulging pleas- 7” VINYL 45 RPM RECORDING “COMES LOVE” antries, and Boston-based fi ve-piece Defeater dare CHICAGO-BASED SINGER/SONGWRITER you to enter a universe that’s as bleak as it is com- HANNAH FRANK plex. Derek Archambault (vocals), Adam Crow (gui- WITH GRAMMY WINNER BILLY FLYNN (GUITAR) tar), Jake Woodruff (guitar), Mike Poulin (bass), and DENNIS LUXION (PIANO) Joe Longobardi (drums) write concept albums that BEN E. MILLER (BASS) tell the story of a Depression-era working-class fam- DEAN HAAS (DRUMS) ily as they struggle with adultery, treachery, pov- AVAILABLE FROM ITUNES, AMAZON: erty, and death. Archambault refers to the charac- 45 OR DIGITAL DOWNLOAD ters he’s created as his own “Glass family” (a refer- HEAR HANNAH FRANK AT THE ELBO ROOM ence to recurring characters in the fiction of J.D. 2871 N. LINCOLN | 8PM | OCT. 3, 2019 Salinger), and his narratives are inspired by Salin- & ger’s work as well as stories from his grandparents. UNCOMMON GROUND Literary- minded listeners can follow the story line 3800 N. CLARK | 8PM | OCT. 4, 2019 chronologically, but that’s by no means necessary HANNAHFRANKMUSIC.COM to enjoy Defeater’s music. In May the band put out their self-titled fi h full-length, the only release in their catalog that tackles multiple character arcs at once. It might seem odd for a band to release their fi rst self-titled album so late in the game, but RANDOMCHANCERECORDS.COM they seem to be proudly claiming it as their mag- num opus—and if they are, they have good reason. Produced by tastemaking engineer Will Yip (Tou- che Amore, Turnover), Defeater is clean and calcu- SAT • OCT. 5 • 8PM lated, and Archambault still spits damnation and salvation in his tightly written lyrics. The narratives don’t overpower the songs as they sometimes did on previous releases; instead they’re complement- ed by explosive full-band bashes and so er, more methodical guitar lines that lace the underbellies of tracks such as “Desperate.” But even without the stories dominating center stage, Defeater will suck you right into their wretched world. —M H
Hyde Park Jazz Festival See Saturday. 1-7 PM, various locations in Hyde Park (including Augustana Lutheran Church, Hyde Park Bank, and Rockefeller Chapel), $5 suggested donation $22 TICKETS ON SALE NOW per concert. b
Lizzo See Pick of the Week, page 29. Ari Lennox and DJ Sophia Eris open. 8 PM, Aragon Ballroom, ALSO PERFORMING: Daryl Nitz, , Jeremy Khan 1106 W. Lawrence, $204. 17+ Ann McGregor, Joe Policastro and Phil Gratteau! MONDAY30 Caracara 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. released the EP Better, which Yip not only pro- Caracara’s music feel like a grand triumphant trek Belmont, $12. 17+ duced but also released on his Memory Music through a valley of shadows—Pianos Become the label. In a just world it would’ve racked up millions Teeth, Brutus, Caspian, and Deafheaven. Those If you’re an indie-rock fan with a taste for emo, of streams in the six months since, just as several infl uences come out in Caracara’s soaring guitars then the words “Philadelphia band produced by other Yip productions already have (Title Fight’s and huge melodies (though they prefer a fl awlessly Will Yip” should get your attention. Philly has “Head in the Ceiling Fan” has topped fi ve million clean sound over murk or distortion) and in Lind- please recycle become a bastion for indie and underground plays, and Turnover’s “Super Natural” is closing say’s agonized vocals, which lend the music just rock this decade thanks to the likes of Yip, a pro- in on 17 million), but Better’s bittersweet epic of a enough grit to hint at deep wells of anxiety, frus- this paper lific engineer whose studio guidance has helped title track still hasn’t hit 100,000. Earlier this year, tration, and hope. Better is this year’s scene sleep- many of this generation’s best posthardcore bands front man William Lindsay talked to Stereogum er—Caracara are on the right path, and with any take flight. In March, Philly four-piece Caracara about several bands that inspired him to make luck, more people will notice soon. —L G 32 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll MUSIC
Nick Cave TINO VACCA
CONVERSATIONS WITH Nick Cave: An writer answers questions, takes song requests Evening of Talk & Music 8 PM, Copernicus (which he plays on piano), and generally puts him- Center, 5216 W. Lawrence, sold out. b self out there with a straightforwardness and vul- nerability that most other artists who’ve made those Nick Cave has taken many twists and turns during qualities their stock-in-trade would be loathe to do. his decades-long career. Though the iconic singer- And though Cave is unafraid to confront serious songwriter is fi rst and foremost known for his music, issues, these performances also highlight a quality he’s also delved into acting, theater, novels, poet- that’s been underrated over the years: his sense of ry, and fi lm scores. His latest venture is possibly his humor. —M K most startling and profound deviation yet: ol’ Nick the Stripper now runs a blog called the Red Hand Files where he publicly answers fan mail. He might discuss the sound of God’s voice, field requests WEDNESDAY2 from blocked-up songwriters for “spare lyrics lying around,” or reply to heartfelt questions about sex- Girl Band Ganser opens. 7:30 PM, Beat uality, addiction, and the creative process. He’s Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, $10. b become a sort of countercultural counselor, and beyond addressing his readers’ issues, he’s been On their fi rst full-length, 2015’s Holding Hands With very open about the way that his entire sense of Jamie, Dublin-based four-piece Girl Band perfect- self was ripped apart and re-created following the ed high-tension minimalist noise rock. The album’s accidental death of his teenage son, Arthur, in 2015. songs are based on terse rhythms and simple, dis- During that time, Cave was in the midst of writing sonant guitar loops, which lay the foundation for The Skeleton Tree, his 16th studio album with his singer Dara Kiely’s convulsive performances—which band the Bad Seeds. When they began recording in always sound like he’s trying as hard as possible to 2016, he commissioned fi lmmaker Andrew Dominik fend off a full-on psychotic break. But on Girl Band’s to document their process, in part to answer the upcoming second album, The Talkies (Rough Trade), public’s questions about the music and his grief the group seem to be doing their equivalent of without subjecting himself to a barrage of inter- taking a deep breath and chilling out. The tracks views upon its release. The album and the result- stretch moods out to the brink of snapping, but the ing fi lm, One More Time With Feeling, are stark tes- energy is less barreling out of control and more syr- taments to the hollowing, mask-stripping effects upy throb. Girl Band’s new restraint may come as of sudden loss. For the past year, Cave has been a bit of a surprise to old fans, but even within that taking the intimate Q&A format of his blog on the less abrasive feel they’ve gotten better at conjur- road. In programs he’s calling Conversations With ing icky feelings and high-stress sounds. —L Nick Cave: An Evening of Talk & Music, the song- C v ll SEPTEMBER - CHICAOREADER 33 CHICAGO SHOWS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT IN THE WEEKS TO COME
EARLY WARNINGS b ALL AGES F WOLF BY KEITH HERZIK Nerf Herder, Copyrights, 12/7, Never miss 8 PM, Reggies’ Rock Club, 17+ a show again. NF 4/17/20, 8 PM, Aragon Ball- room, on sale Fri 9/27, Sign up for the 10 AM b newsletter at Old 97’s Holiday Hoopla! with chicagoreader. Caseymagic, Rhett Miller GOSSIP 12/11, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ com/early Mike Phillips 10/29, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Fri 9/27, WOLF noon b Wet Wallet, Stander, Graphics Nicholas Phillips’ #45minia- 10/8, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle A furry ear to the ground of tures: A Musical Response JJ Wilde 11/14, 7:30 PM, Cobra to Trump 10/6, 8:30 PM, Lounge, 17+ the local music scene Constellation, 18+ Webb Wilder & the Beatnecks Pile 11/16, 8:30 PM, Empty 1/11/20, 8 PM, FitzGerald’s, SINCE DEBUTING in 2015, local elec- Bottle Berwyn, on sale Fri 9/27, Grace Potter 2/7/20, 8 PM, 11 AM tronic duo Grün Wasser—aka vocalist Riviera Theatre, on sale Fri Kamaal Williams 11/29, 9 PM, Keely Dowd and producer Essej Pollock— 9/27, 10 AM, 18+ Lincoln Hall, 18+ have steadily broadened their apocalyp- Rebirth Brass Band 1/17/20, Jamila Woods 11/27, 8 PM, the tic EBM by adding new sounds. On Fri- 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Geraghty, part of Red Bull Rex Orange County 1/27/20, Music Festival Chicago, 18+ day, October 4, they drop the new album 7 PM, Aragon Ballroom, on Yola, Amythyst Kiah 1/14/20, Not OK With Things (on vinyl and cas- sale Fri 9/27, 10 AM b 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b sette via Texas label Holodeck Records), Tedeschi Trucks Band IAN RAWN Rocket Summer 10/5, 8 PM, Zero Fatigue with Smino, and it’s easily their most diverse work yet. Chop Shop, 18+ Monte Booker, and more Dan Rodriguez 12/11, 8 PM, 11/23, 9 PM, Thalia Hall, part Advance tracks “Stranger’s Mouth” and Chromeo (DJ set), Goldroom Aulis Long, Psycho-Bitch, City Winery, on sale Fri 9/27, of Red Bull Music Festival “Driving” bristle with nervous energy, sus- NEW (DJ set), DJ Holographic Hector Lopez, and more 11/17, noon b Chicago, 18+ pended between subtle pop hooks, chilly 12/28, 9 PM, Park West, 18+ 8 PM, Metro, part of the Red Saba & Pivot Gang present synth tones, and scattered drum patterns. 24hrs 10/24, 7 PM, Bottom Claire & the Bears, Impulsive Bull Music Festival Chicago John Walt Day with Saba, UPDATED Lounge b Hearts, Lauren Anderson Mark Guiliana’s Beat Music Joseph Chilliams, MFnMelo, On Thursday, October 3, Grün Wasser 3.2 featuring Robert Berry, 11/19, 8 PM, GMan Tavern 10/15, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston Frsh Waters 11/29-11/30, 7 PM, Temples, Art d’Ecco 1/31/20, play a release show at Sleeping Village Chris Clark & Kenny Gro- Dillinger Four, Modern Life b Metro, part of Red Bull Music 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, new date; with openers Ariel Zetina and Material howski 10/19, 8 PM, Reggies’ Is War, Arms Alo , C.H.E.W. Heidi, DJ Heather 10/11, 10 PM, Festival Chicago b moved to Lincoln Hall, 18+ and a DJ set from Cid Ikarus. Rock Club, 17+ 11/21, 7 PM, Metro, 18+ Smart Bar Schoolboy Q, Nav 11/21, 7 PM, Academy of Mexican Dance Dolly Varden, Frisbie 1/11/20, Marquis Hill/Michael King/ Aragon Ballroom b UPCOMING On Friday, September 27 , the Chicago 1/5/20, 5 PM, Thalia Hall b 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on Junius Paul/Makaya McCra- Sharp/Shock 11/10, 7 PM, Cobra South Side Film Festival opens its ten-day American Authors, Magic sale Fri 9/27, 10 AM b ven with K-Love & Meaghan Lounge b Actors, Bootblacks, New Can- run with a night devoted to the history of Giant 2/18/20, 7 PM, Thalia Dos Santos, Lester Rey, DJ McNeil, Kassa Overall 10/30, Souly Had, 12AM, Foggieraw yons, Bellwether Syndicate house music! Raven’s Place in Blue Island Hall b Que.Madre 11/2, 9 PM, Sleep- 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, on sale Fri 12/14, 6 PM, Reggies’ Rock DJs 10/20, 8:30 PM, Empty Anti-Flag, J. Navarro & the ing Village 9/27, 10 AM, 18+ Club b Bottle hosts a screening of the documentary Traitors, Code, Blind Adam & Ensiferum, Kalmah, Abigail Il Volo 2/15/20, 8 PM, Chicago Sports Team 10/31, 7 PM, Jonathan Bree 10/27, 9 PM, House Music: The Real Story by producer the Federal League 12/20, Williams, Aenimus 11/19, Theatre, on sale Fri 9/27, Cobra Lounge b Sleeping Village Jesse Saunders, who’s o en claimed that 8 PM, Reggies’ Rock Club, 17+ 6 PM, Reggies’ Rock Club, 17+ 11 AM b Riva Starr, Ferrick Dawn, and Bridal Party, Little Church 2019 is the 35th anniversary of house— Aquadolls 10/18, 7:30 PM, Eradicator, Dollar Signs, Wm In Flames, Red, Arrival of more 11/22, 10 PM, Smart Bar 10/6, 8:30 PM, Hideout Cobra Lounge b Covert 10/25, 6 PM, Cobra Autumn 11/24, 7 PM, Concord Tedeschi Trucks Band 1/17- Teri Bristol, Psycho-Bitch because in 1984 he released his debut sin- Aweful, Blood People, Dorian Lounge b Music Hall, 17+ 1/18/20, 7:30 PM; 1/24-1/25/20, 10/18, 10 PM, Smart Bar gle, “On and On,” widely considered the Taj 11/30, 9:30 PM, Hideout Fee Lion, Kontravoid, Him Hun Juan Wauters, Tenci 10/3, 7:30 PM, Chicago Theatre, on Mary Chapin Carpenter & fi rst house record. This wolf suspects the Meg Baird & Mary Lattimore 10/27, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle 9:30 PM, Hideout sale Fri 9/27, 10 AM b Shawn Colvin 10/18, 8 PM, film will dive into the backstory of that 10/20, 8:30 PM, Hideout Feminist Happy Hour with Kayden 11/6, 7 PM, Schubas, on Tennis System, Suburban Athenaeum Theatre b Bayside, Sincere Engineer 11/7, Ruth & Ellaine and more 10/5, sale Fri 9/27, 10 AM b Living 11/13, 8 PM, Subterra- Slaid Cleaves 10/17, 8 PM, Fitz- 12-inch! A er the screening, house veter- 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, on sale 6 PM, Empty Bottle, comedy Dave Koz and friends 12/13, nean, 17+ Gerald’s, Berwyn ans Shawn Christopher, Keith Nunnally, Fri 9/27, noon, 17+ and music event F 8 PM, Chicago Theatre b The Things You Gave Me with Michael Franti & Spearhead and Sundance perform live; Alan King, Black Monastic with Yaw Fitz & the Tantrums, Twin XL Jack Larsen 11/19, 7:30 PM, Alex Jenny, J Bambii, Winter 10/24, 8 PM, Concord Music Mike Dunn, and Lori Branch spin DJ sets. Agyeman, Kiara Lanier, Ben 2/28/20, 8 PM, Riviera The- Schubas, on sale Fri 9/27, Sherrod, Bonita Appleblunt Hall, 18+ LaMar Gay, Joshua Abrams, atre, on sale Fri 9/27, 10 AM b 10/14, 8 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Kazu 10/12, 8:30 PM, Constel- The event starts at 9 PM; tickets are $25 in ADaD, Charles “Rick” Heath 10 AM b Lupe Fiasco 11/21, 8 PM, Riviera Thrice, Mewithoutyou, Drug lation, 18+ advance, $35 at the door. IV, Chris Paquette, Peter Julia Fordham 5/6/20, 7:30 PM, Theatre, part of Red Bull Church 1/31/20, 6 PM, Con- Legendary Pink Dots, Orbit Gossip Wolf craves the delightful feel- CottonTale 11/19, 8 PM, Gar- SPACE, Evanston b Music Festival Chicago, 18+ cord Music Hall, 17+ Service 10/4, 8 PM, Beat ing of being a hometown tourist—and that fi eld Park Conservatory, part Donavon Frankenreiter, Chris- Madball, Old Firm Casuals, Through the Roots, Pacifi c Kitchen of Red Bull Music Festival tina Holmes 2/17/20, 8 PM, Fear City 12/13, 7 PM, Reg- Dub 10/16, 8 PM, Beat Kitch- Little Feat 10/13, 8 PM, the itch is best scratched when two local insti- Chicago, 18+ F City Winery, on sale Fri 9/27, gies’ Rock Club, 18+ en, 17+ Vic, 18+ tutions unexpectedly come together! On Blimes & Gab, Dave B 11/1, noon b Makeout 12/12, 7 PM, Reggies’ Tierra Whack 11/26, 8 PM, Roscoe Mitchell, Moor Mother Friday, September 27, house-music leg- 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Gammer, Riot, Tokyo Machine Rock Club b Concord Music Hall, part 12/12, 7:30 PM, Fullerton Hall, end Farley “Jackmaster” Funk DJs the Sarah Borgess & the Broken 11/14, 8 PM, Concord Music Manchester Orchestra, Fox- of Red Bull Music Festival Art Institute of Chicago b Singles 12/11, 8 PM, FitzGer- Hall, 18+ ing, Oso Oso 12/4, 7:30 PM, Chicago, 18+ Angel Olsen, Vagabon 11/14, 21-and-over Shedd Aquarium party series ald’s, Berwyn, on sale Fri 9/27, Freddie Gibbs, Cousin Stizz, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Tora Tora 10/6, 7:30 PM, the 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Shedd After Hours. The dance floor will 11 AM Benny the Butcher, Conway Masked Intruder, Bombpops, Forge, Joliet b Shintaro Sakamoto 10/18, start grooving at 6 PM, but you need to Broasis (Oasis tribute), Tight the Machine 11/13, 7 PM, Tight Wire 10/19, 8 PM, Torche, Eye Flys, Rlyr 11/15, 8 PM, Subterranean, 17+ nab tickets online or at the Shedd before Pettyz, DJ Faithful Anchor Metro, on sale Fri 9/27, Cobra Lounge, 17+ 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet 10/31, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle 10 AM b Montana of 300 10/4, 7 PM, Trashcan Sinatras 10/22, 8 PM, Band 10/19, 8 PM, United 4:15 PM that day—otherwise you’ll miss David Broza and friends Gramaphone 50: Celebrating the Forge, Joliet b SPACE, Evanston b Center b the dolphins performing their famous 1/14/20, 8 PM, City Winery, on 50 Years of Gramaphone Moonlight Disco featuring Unknown New, Oh Yeahs Richard Shindell 10/12, 8 PM, synchronized dance to “Love Can’t Turn sale Fri 9/27, noon b Records with Steve “Silk” Hyphen Hyphen 12/6, 9 PM, 1/7/20, 7:30 PM, SPACE, Szold Hall, Old Town School Around”! —J R NLG Calexico, Iron & Wine 1/29- Hurley, Derrick Carter, Ron Cerise at Virgin Hotels Chica- Evanston b of Folk Music b 1/30/20, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Trent, DJ Heather, Colette, go, on sale Fri 9/27, 10 AM Midge Ure 1/29/20, 8 PM, Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, Carbon Leaf 10/17, 8 PM, Chop JR of the Moleman, G Most, Mucca Pazza 10/8, 10/15, 10/22, City Winery, on sale Fri 9/27, Senora May 10/11, 10 PM, Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or e-mail Shop, 18+ Jesse De La Pena, Justin 10/29, 9:30 PM, Hideout noon b Sleeping Village v [email protected].
34 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll ll _SEPTEMBER - CHICAOREADER 35 OPINION
better for everyone if your dad had been open about his SAVAGE LOVE cross-dressing with his wife and kid(s), that ship sailed a The mind-your-own-business edition long time ago. I don’t see what this Your Republican dad’s cross-dressing isn’t convo—coming 20 years something you need to talk about with him. after you discovered his cross-dressing and two years By D S after your mother discovered it—will achieve other than embarrassing and humiliat- WiFi that keeps up ing your father. Your parents’ long, loving, successful mar- with the whole family. : I’m a 35-year-old bisexual than 40 years. Your take riage coexisted with your man in a LTR with a man. would be appreciated. father’s cross-dressing for Xfi nity xFi gives you the fastest speeds and the best in-home WiFi experience. See My question, however, has —S C -D four decades, and I don’t see who’s online, set curfews and pause your WiFi to bring the family together. Xfi nity xFi to do with my parents. As why it can’t continue to coex- puts you in control. Now that’s simple, easy, awesome. an adolescent/teen, I was a A: Why does your mother ist with it now. And if your snoop (as I think most of us want you to talk to your dad mother is sad that your dad Go to x fi n i t y . c o m , call 1 - 8 0 0 - x fi n i t y or visit an Xfi nity Store today. are, looking for dad’s porn about his cross-dressing? never shared this with her stash, etc). I was probably Does she want you to talk and wants to reassure him 12 or so when I found him out of it? Does she that he didn’t need to hide evidence of my dad being a want you to convince him this part of himself from her cross-dresser. There were to include her on his cross- and that she loves him just Restrictions apply. Not available in all areas. Actual speeds vary and are not guaranteed. Xfinity xFi is available to Xfinity Internet service customers with a compatible Xfinity Gateway. Ability to pause limited to home WiFi network. Does not pictures of him in makeup dressing trips? Does she the same, she doesn’t need apply to Xfinity WiFi hotspots. Call for restrictions and complete details. NPA224259-0017 and women’s clothing, and think he would benefi t from to deputize her bisexual correspondence (under attending a pansexual play son to initiate that conver- an alias and to a separate party with his adult bisexual sation. If she thinks it would 134763_NPA224259-0017 Internet Superiority 4.7917x4.8542.indd 1 9/3/19 12:34 PM PO box) with other men son? be a relief and not a torment interested in cross-dressing. Unless your father is in for her husband to know As far as I could tell, he did some sort of emotional dis- she knows and that know- this alone in hotel rooms tress or your mother is in ing hasn’t changed how she Final Round! while on work trips. Two some sort of danger, I real- feels about him, she should years ago while on vacation, ly don’t see the point of this tell him. it came up while my mom conversation, SOACD. It and I were at dinner. She had doesn’t sound like your dad is : I’m 25 years old and recently found evidence, struggling with shame. If your polyamorous. I’m in a and she needed to take a dad had to abuse alcohol relationship with a 28-year- short break to visit a friend or smoke a crate of meth in old man since August 2018. out of state to process. She order to give himself permis- It was just him and me when suggested I bring it up with sion to cross-dress alone in a we fi rst started dating, and him (I guess) because I’m hotel room, you surely would then his old fl ame came queer and she knows I used have mentioned that fact. into the picture. This whole to help host pansexual play From the details you time he had said he was parties. My dad is a devout included in your letter, not interested in having Republican and comes off as SOACD, it sounds like your kids and a home and a very masculine. I see them dad has successfully inte- primary partner. Since he 2019 only a couple times a year. grated cross-dressing into got surgery in June and is We know you love Chicago, now tell us why! Vote Should I try to bring this his life without harming now unemployed, he’s had for your favorite places, people, and things to do in up with my dad and let him himself or neglecting and a lot of time to think, he know that I’ve known about endangering your mom. You says, and now he’s decided this city, and they could be featured in the Reader’s his cross-dressing for more could say your parents had he wants kids and a home special Best of Chicago issue this November. than 20 years and off er my a long and loving marriage and a primary partner. He knowledge about kink and despite the cross-dress- knows I do not want any of alternative sexuality? Or ing . . . or you could say it’s these things, so he says his chicagoreader.com/VOTE just let him do his thing and possible your parents’ mar- old fl ame is the person he’s we all retain the illusion riage is an ongoing success going to do this with. He has of ignorance? My parents not despite the cross-dress- made jokes about being an : : are still happily married— ing but because of it. (It’s “alcoholic” since I fi rst met Vote Party and whether it is more too bad it didn’t make him a him, and I thought it was just 9/25 – 10/21 11/19, Thalia Hall companionate than lusty, better person politically, but a joke. But now he’s spending they love each other and you can’t have everything.) money he simply does not have been married for more And while it might have been have on alcohol. It worries
36 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll OPINION
me. Do I hang in there? Do him urinating (no penis N D M I throw in the towel? I love visible, just the stream), S this man very much, but I’m and lots and lots of “bitch so confused. —P shots,” i.e., crotch-height A: You’ve already told P photos looking up at him your brother the Internet from below. He uses a lot is forever and the low-key, A: I’m so sorry, PTP, but it of homophobic slurs in the low-stakes pseudo sex work would appear you’ve lost the tweets that accompany he’s doing could come back unemployed guy with the these images. I would have to haunt him, FINDOMS. drinking problem to another. exactly zero fucks to give Beyond that . . . well, there’s But take heart: You’re young about this if my brother really not much more you enough to meet someone wasn’t still a teenager and can do. Your brother is an else, someone who wants wasn’t posting photos of his adult, as are the men paying what you want and doesn’t face. I warned him that the “tribute” to him, as they say want what you don’t. I’m Internet is forever, and that in FinDom/FinSub Twitter, certain that a er meeting facial-recognition so ware and he’s free to make his own this person—or even long is a thing, and that people choices. As for your parents, before you meet them— who don’t understand the why is explaining where your you’ll be able to recognize role-play aspect of his use brother is getting all those that your ex did you a favor. of hate speech will think he’s new shoes your problem? If Sometimes we dodge the a bigot. This could come your brother is old enough bullet, PTP, but on rare back to haunt him socially or to set up his own Twitter occasions the bullet dodges professionally. Complicating and Venmo accounts, he’s us. matters somewhat, my little old enough to come up with brother is a straight boy and a plausible lie about those : My 19-year-old younger I’m gay. He’s not making a shoes. v brother is doing fi nancial ton of money doing this, but domination online. He he’s making enough that Send letters to mail@ maintains a Twitter account my parents are wondering savagelove.net. Download that’s mostly photos of how he’s buying all those the Savage Lovecast every him giving the fi nger and superexpensive shoes. What Tuesday at savagelovecast. looking smug. He also posts do I tell him? What do I com. pics of his feet, videos of tell them? —F I @fakedansavage
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ll SEPTEMBER - CHICAOREADER 37 adoption & accuracy of REF: PBJ, 555 W Adams, 60% telecommuting 60626. (09/26) Large studio apartment w/ mattress & box spring, JOBS existing products as well Chicago, IL 60661 (09/26) permitted. Send resume near Morse red line. 6826 N. bookshelf, pictures, night as developing new BI & TransUnion, LLC seeks to: R. Harvey, REF: DN, 555 GEOGRAPHER Wayne. Hardwood floors. stand, dresser, clothes and GENERAL Analytics solutions. Apply Sr. Analysts, Analytics W. Adams St., Chicago, IL CBRE, Inc. has an oppty in Pets OK. Heat included. shoes. All sales are subject at www.grouponcareers. for Chicago, IL location 60661 (09/26 Chicago & Oak Brook, IL for Laundry in building. to cancellation. We reserve The Northern Trust com by searching keyword to independently design a Project Mgr – Must wrk at Available 11/1. $850/month. the right to refuse any bid. Company seeks an R21986 (09/26) & execute all aspects of TransUnion, LLC seeks Sr. both locatns. Mail resume (773)761-4318. www. Payment must be in cash or Associate Quantitative statistical analytics projects Consultants for Chicago, to Attn: HR, 2100 Ross lakefrontmgt.com. (09/26) credit card (3% surcharge Portfolio Manager to IL location to design, Ave, Ste 1600, Dallas, TX will apply), no checks. ASSOCIATE DATA for predictive modeling, implement, upgrade & 75201; Ref #CHIJGR. Must (09/26) manage day-to-day SCIENTIST business reporting & BEDROOM activities and strategies of Catalina Marketing customer evaluations. maintain sw applications be legally auth to work in SERVICES portfolios to meet client for business processes. the U.S. w/o spnsrshp. EOE Bucktown. One bedroom Corporation has an opening Master’s in Statistics/ Master’s in Comp Sci/ (09/26) financial objectives within in Chicago, IL for an Mathematics or Analytics/ apartment. 24 2 7 W Miracle Message. Obtain specified guidelines, Associate Data Scientist. Risk or Operations Comp Applications/Comp Lyndale. $600/m. Call health, energy and joy. regulatory framework, and Spprt advncd prdctve Research/Management or Eng/any Eng field + 3yrs Systems Administrator Edward (312) 320-6484 Prolong your youth and corporate policies. Manage mdling intiatves that algn related Quantitative field exp. or Bachelor’s in Comp Install, configure, and (09/26) life. Decrease illness with cash, client activity, futures w/ bsnss objctvs. To apply +2yrs exp. or Bachelor’s Sci/Comp Applications/ support clients local the possibility of healing. and corporate actions. please send a resume to: in Statistics/Mathematics Comp Eng/any Eng field area network (LAN), wide One bedroom apartment Call Jolanta: (847)640- Work with lead portfolio Catalina, Attn.: R. Calvin, or Analytics/Risk or + 5yrs exp. req’d. Req’d area network (WAN); near Warren Park and 8989. 5237 W. Addison St. manager to create and 200 Carillon Parkway, St. Operations Research/ skills: Java development, monitor network to ensure Metra. 6802 N. Wolcott. Chicago, IL 60641 (10/10) execute necessary trades. Petersburg, FL 33716. Must Management or related supporting TeamSite/ network availability to Hardwood floors, Laundry LiveSite CMS, OpenDeploy, clients system users in building. $995-1050/ Work with support partners respond with job requisition Quantitative field +5yrs ADULT SERVICES in operations and middle number 4438311 (09/26) exp req’d. Req’d skills: JavaScript, CSS, HTML/ and perform necessary month, Heat included. office to resolve issues SAS, R, SAS macros, XML, responsive/adaptive maintenance to support Cats OK. Available 11/1. related to exceptions, TransUnion, LLC seeks SQL, Python and Natural design, Tomcat, Struts, network availability; (773)761-4318. www. Danielle’s Lip Service, accounting issues, or Consultants for Chicago, Language Processing, Spring, Hibernate, Maven, maintain and administer lakefrontmgt.com (09/26) Erotic Phone Chat. 24/7. discrepancies to ensure IL location to independently scripting languages, SQL XSLT. 20% telecommuting computer networks Must be 21+. Credit/ portfolio management collaborate w/internal queries for data extraction, permitted. Send resume to: and related computing Large one bedroom Debit Cards Accepted. All information is accurate. & external customers, Unix Command, Tableau, R. Harvey, REF: SRA, 555 W environments, including apartment near Loyola Fetishes and Fantasies Assist portfolio managers sales associates, & team data visualization, MS Adams, Chicago, IL 60661. computer hardware, Park. 1335 W. Estes. Are Welcomed. Personal, and management as members. Master’s in VBA, Dimensionality (09/26) systems software, Hardwood fl oors. Cats OK, Private and Discrete. 773- needed with presentations Comp. Sci./Comp. Eng./ reduction techniques applications software, Laundry in building. $995/ 935-4995 (09/26) and special projects. Build any Eng. fi eld + 2yrs exp. or (feature selection, feature Sr. Trading Platform and all configurations; month. Heat included. and maintain portfolio Bachelor’s in Comp. Sci./ extraction, and stratified Engineer needed by add users to a network, Available 11/1. (773)761- PERSONALS management tools used Comp. Eng./any Eng. field sampling), cluster analysis Peak6 Group, LLC in and assign and update 4318. www.lakefrontinet. to analyze and research + 5yrs exp. req’d. Req’d & variable selection, factor Chicago, IL to review, security permissions on com (09/26) 52 year old incarcerated quantitative active skills: software analysis/ analysis for high risk analyze, develop & the network; recommend Black/Italian male investment strategies. development exp. working customer behavior. Send implement Trading changes to improve Large one bedroom seeks sincere, down Create and interpret client on multiple projects (8-10) resume to: R. Harvey, REF: Platform SW solutions. computer or information apartment near Morse to earth and genuinely portfolio performance simultaneously; analyzing SL, 555 W Adams, Chicago, Reqs bachelor’s, or foreign systems; document red line 6824 N. Wayne. open-minded people reports and respond to credit industry trends; & IL 60661 (09/26) equiv., in Comp. Sci, or network and system- Hardwood fl oors. Pets OK. (like myself) to correspond client inquiries regarding w/ETL tools (Ab-Initio) related field, & 3 yrs. exp. related activities or tasks; Heat included, Laundry in with. All welcome, I can’t portfolio and investment incl. Transform, Partition, TransUnion, LLC seeks developing & engineering test computer hardware building. Available 11/1. wait to share my story strategy performance. Departition, Dataset; Consultants for Chicago, financial industry data and software performance; $1025/month. (773)761- and learn about yours. Develop risk exposure writing scripts to create IL location to independently processing SW app. dealing windows server 2012 and 4318. www.lakefrontmgt. Peter Saunders #B– and attribution analysis new tables, views, queries; develop complex sw test with US Equities & Options. 2016 configuration and com (09/26) 001182600 N. Brinton reporting solutions using Unix/Linux, scripting plans, execute all test Exp. must include dev’t of troubleshooting; perform Avenue Dixon, Illinois 61021 Python and Oracle SQL. (Unix, Korn, Bourne), plans, and validate batch financial data processing data backups to prevent CLASSIFIEDS BEDROOM Research and back-test Control M, Salesforce, fulfillment system setup app, & work with Java, loss of information; keep investment strategies using Buildforge, Clarity, Data and output data and JavaScript, Golang, client environments Large 2 BR/1 BA SAS or R. Position requires Gateway, Autosys, DB2/ resolve critical software Python, Redis, Microsoft patched and secure; apartment near RUSH/ a Master’s degree in Oracle databases, SQL development batch issues. SQL Server, & PostgreSQL. maintain the inventory UIC Med. 1628 W. Adams. Finance, Risk Management, Server Queries, DB2 Master’s in Comp. Sci. or To apply, mail resume to: K. of equipment for clients; Laminate floors, new Mathematics, or a related SQL, Netezza, Agile. 20% Comp./Management Info. Hilgart, Peak6 Group, LLC, collaborate with technicians bathroom, parking, tenant field, and 2 years of telecommuting permitted. Systems + 2yrs exp. or 141 W. Jackson Blvd, Suite to resolve information utilities, laundry in building. experience in performing Send resume to: R. Harvey, Bachelor’s in Comp. Sci. 500, Chicago, IL 60604 technology issues; plan, $2050/month. Available JOBS quantitative fi nance in risk REF: SSN, 555 W Adams, or Comp./Management (09/26) coordinate, and implement immediately. (847)867- analysis or banking setting. Chicago, IL 60661 (09/26) Info. Systems + 5yrs exp. network security measures 9275. (10/03) Experience must include req’d. Skills Req’d: sw Poder Learning Center to protect data, software, ADMINISTRATIVE a minimum of: 2 years TransUnion, LLC seeks development, maintenance, seeks Program Support and hardware; administrate BEDROOM of experience creating Specialists in Chicago, infrastructure, including Analysts, Analytics for integration, testing & IL to maintain QuickBooks fi rewalls, switches, servers Large 3 bedroom, 2 bath and interpreting portfolio Chicago, IL location to migration to new system apartment near Wrigley LEGAL NOTICE SALES & performance reports and database incl. account and malware protection support multiple projects & & using C#, C++, Git; payables & receivables software; and update Field. 3820 N. Fremont. MARKETING responding to inquiries deliver analytical products. requirement gathering, ETL Hardwood floors. Cats STATE OF ILLINOIS, regarding performance of for non-profit org. Identify knowledge about emerging Master’s in Statistics/ design & implementation; & secure community industry or technology OK. Laundry in building. PUBLICATION NOTICE FOOD & DRINK strategies and portfolios; Applied Mathematics/ automating model Available 11/1. $2225/ OF COURT DATE FOR 2 years of experience partnerships with local trends; Predictive Analytics/related execution processes; orgs & edu institutions For 1-2 times per week, month. (773)761-4318 www. REQUEST FOR NAME performing quantitative Quantitative fi eld + 1yr exp. complete SDLC exp.; lakefrontmgt.com (09/26) CHANGE. L o c a t i o n SPAS & SALONS analysis, including trend to provide new student employee is required to req’d. Req’d skills: exp. resolving critical sw referrals within Spanish- travel to customers’ place Cook County District BIKE JOBS analyses, impact analyses, performing segmentation & development batch issues; FOR SALE 2- County Division - Case and portfolio attribution statistical analyses on large developing POC for sw speaking community. of business to perform Type: Name Change from GENERAL analyses, using SAS or population sets, & w/SAS, models using JAVA; .NET Req’d: Bachelor’s degree some of his/her on-site Private waterfront home Matthew Radzik to Maciej R; 2 years of experience R, Python on Linux, SQL, framework, SQL queries, in social work, financial job duties. Assignments with sand beaches Radzik Case Initiation Date researching, developing, AbInitio, GLM, visualization, Ab-Initio, Maven/Hibernate, management, bus admin will last 2-4 hours. All on Lake Michigan. 09/03/2019 Court Date implementing and back- logistic regression & time- analytics tool creation or rel & 3 years of relevant customers are located in View pictures at www. 11/06/2019, 9:00 AM in testing quantitative series analyses, scenario and statistical model work exp. Fluent in Spanish. Cook County Illinois. Mail newkewauneerealestate. Courtroom #0204 Case # REAL methodologies and & sensitivity analysis, development, R, SAS, If qualifi ed, email resume to résumé to Bruce Sokol, com $374,000.00 N.E.W. 20192003712 (09/26) strategies, using SAS or machine learning to analyze standard Open systems Griselda Piedra at gpiedra@ Clear Corp., 409 W. Huron Real Estate, Inc. Kewaunee, R; 2 years of experience big data. Send resume to: applications, LINUX, UNIX, poderworks.org. (09/26) St, Lower Level, Chicago WI (920) 388-1004 (09/26) Notice is hereby given, ESTATE processing large datasets R. Harvey, REF: ZL, 555 W FTP/FileZilla, SQL, Visual IL-60654 (09/26) pursuant to “An Act in and performing analytics Adams, Chicago, IL 60661 Studio, Eclipse Neon. 40% Northwestern University relation to the use of an using data management, (09/26) telecommuting permitted. seeks Psychologist for StarLab Corp. needs a Assumed Business Name in RENTALS data visualization and Send resume to: R. Harvey, Evanston, IL location. Medical Technologist. the conduct or transaction statistical analysis software TransUnion, LLC seeks REF: ST, 555 W Adams, PhD or Psy.D in clinical or Mail resume to HR - 9213 of Business in the State, FOR SALE including SAS Enterprise Lead Engineers for Chicago, IL 60661 (09/26) counseling psychology Parklane Ave Franklin Park, “as amended, that a Guide, SQL, and VBA; and 2 Chicago, IL location to from an APA accredited IL 60131 (09/26) certifi cation was registered NON-RESIDENTIAL years of experience working assess, develop, design TransUnion Interactive, academic program + 1yr by the undersigned with with middle office and & architect high volume, Inc. (a wholly owned exp. req’d. Req’d skills: the County Clerk of Cook ROOMATES operations team to resolve high concurrency software subsidiary of TransUnion, Completion of 1yr pre- County, Registration issues of exceptions and applications. Master’s in LLC) seeks Sr. Analysts doctoral internship at an REAL Number: Y19002080 on discrepancies with data. Comp Sci./Comp Eng./ for Chicago, IL location APA accredited academic August 30, 2019. Under Job location: Chicago, IL. site. 1yr exp. working in any Eng. field + 3yrs exp. to design, implement, comprehensive university ESTATE MARKETPLACE the Assumed Name of To apply please visit https:// or Bachelor’s in Comp maintain, & deliver RENTALS GENERAL Mo’Hawk The Mixher MARKET- careers.northerntrust. Sci./Comp Eng./ any Eng. sw applications & IT counseling center, must Mobile Bartending Services com and enter job code field + 5yrs exp. req’d. infrastructure. Master’s in incl. working w/Asian/Asian with the business located at 19084 when prompted. Req’d skills: sw design, Comp. Sci./Comp. Eng. + American students on FOR SALE 3145 W Flournoy, Chicago, PLACE Alternatively, please send campus, incl. psychological STUDIO architecture exp. w/high 2yrs exp. or Bachelor’s in assessments, individual Sunny Andersonville IL 60612. The true and real your resume, cover letter, volume, high concurrency Comp. Sci./Comp. Eng. + NOTICE OF PUBLIC SALE full name(s) and residence and a copy of the ad to S. & group therapy, crisis studio apartment, modern GOODS software applications; 5yrs exp. req’d. Skills req’d: intervention & outreach kitchen/bath, eat in dining/ to satisfy the owner’s address of the owners(s)/ Saultz, 2160 E. Elliot Road, Java, Spring, Git, Maven, exp. in a customer-facing moving lien. H2H Movers partner(s) is: Owner/Partner Tempe, AZ 85284. (09/26) preventative programs. bar area, mini blinds, SERVICES Jenkins, Confluence, role w/sw development/ Exp. providing clinical washer/dryer, garage will sell at public lien sale Full Name: Monique Rolling SonarQube, AWS/Cloud application delivery using on September 28, 2019, Complete Address: 3145 W Groupon, Inc. is seeking supervision. Must be option, no dogs. OCT HEALTH & platforms, Linux, DevOps, B2B integration tech. Licensed or License Eligible 1. $545. 708-482-4712. the personal property Flournoy, Chicago, IL 60612 a Technical Product Big data; container (WebMethods, SAP XI/PI in the below listed unit, (09/26) WELLNESS Manager in Chicago, in Illinois. Must be fluent (10/03) technologies (Docker, middleware, XML, IDOC, in Mandarin. After hours which may include but IL w/ the following Kubernetes), Enterprise xCBL, EDI formats); SQL not limited to household Notice is hereby given, responsibilities: mng data on-call rotation req’d. Send Large studio apartment INSTRUCTION Connection Manager tool. query; XSLT; Sharepoint; resume to: John H. Dunkle, near Loyola Park. 1337 W. and personal items. pursuant to “An Act in needs for various business Send resume to: R. Harvey, Jira; ASP.net; Visio; Java. The public sale of these relation to the use of an lines & be a champion for REF: QZ, 633 Emerson Estes. Hardwood floors. MUSIC & ARTS Street, Evanston, IL 60208. Cats OK. Heat included. items will begin at 10:00 Assumed Business Name in (09/26) Laundry in building. AM on storageauctions. the conduct or transaction NOTICES Available 9/1. $850-880/ com and continue until of Business in the State, MANUFACTURING month. Sublease from the unit is sold. PUBLIC “as amended, that a MESSAGES ENGINEER (location: 10/1/19 through 3/31/20 STORAGE 1916 N Elston certifi cation was registered WANT TO ADD A LISTING TO OUR CLASSIFIEDS? Chicago, IL); mail resume available for $765/month. Ave, Chicago, IL 60642, by the undersigned with Unit D571. Karen Minogue the County Clerk of Cook LEGAL NOTICES E-mail [email protected] with details to Kathy Bennett, S&C (773)761-4318. www. Electric Company, 6601 lakefrontmgt.com (09/26) – Glassware and dishware, County, Registration ADULT SERVICES or call (312) 392-2970 N Ridge Blvd, Chicago, IL vases, china cabinet, bed Number: Y19002080 on 38 CHICA O READER - SEPTEMBER ll August 30, 2019. Under the conduct or transaction Tiesha Turner and *. SUMMONS AND NOTICE obligations under the the Assumed Name of of Business in the State,” [FOR FURTHER OF ADOPTION BY Indiana adoption statutes. Mo’Hawk The Mixher as amended, that a INFORMATION, CALL 253- PUBLICATION A person being served with Mobile Bartending Services certifi cation was registered 372-5738, 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 To the Biological Father, this notice should consult with the business located at by the undersigned with p.m.] JUAN MOLINA, upon and the Indiana adoption 3145 W Flournoy, Chicago, the County Clerk of Cook Said Petition will be heard against all persons claiming statutes. IL 60612. The true and real County. Registration on October 29, 2019, at the from, through or under full name(s) and residence Number: Y19002152 on hour of 8:15 a.m., at King them, and any other person Date: FEB 20 2019 address of the owners(s)/ September 13, 2019. Under County Superior Court, who may be concerned: Lorenzo Arredondo partner(s) is: Owner/Partner the Assumed Business Juvenile Department, 401 You are hereby notifi ed that Clerk of the Lake County Full Name: Monique Rolling Name of SCP NEWSPAPER 4th Ave North, Kent, WA a petition for adoption of Courts Complete Address: 3145 W SALES. with the business 98032, before a judge of TRENT MOLINA has been Flournoy, Chicago, IL 60612 located at: 2622 E 83RD the above entitled court, at filed in the office of the Attorney for Petitioners (10/10) STREET, CHICAGO, IL which time you are directed clerk of the Lake County Robert A. Plantz 60617. The true and real to appear and answer the Superior Court, Juvenile Ind. Atty. No.: 22104-64 STATE OF ILLINOIS, full name(s) and residence said petition or the petition Division, located at 3000 W. 8105 Georgia Street PUBLICATION NOTICE address of the owner(s)/ will be granted and action 93rd Avenue, Crown Point. Merrillville, Indiana 46410 OF COURT DATE FOR partner(s) is: Owner/Partner will be taken by the court Indiana 46307. Telephone: (219) 942-3710 Find hundreds of REQUEST FOR NAME Full Name Complete such as shall appear to be If you seek to contest (10/10) CHANGE. Location Cook Address SCOTT PARKER for the welfare of the said the adoption of the child, County - County Division - 2622 E. 83RD STREET, child. you must file a motion to at Case Type: Name Change CHICAGO, IL 60617 (10/10) Dated September 3, 2019 contest the adoption in Reader-recommended restaurants from Saidah Annitra BARBARA MINER accordance with I.C. 31-19- Davis to Saidah Annitra I N THE SUPERIOR KING COUNTY 10-1 in the above named Adjoa Akun Court Date COURT OF THE STATE SUPERIOR COURT CLERK court not later than thirty chicagoreader.com/food. 1112/2019, 9:30 AM in OF WASHINGTON IN BY: AMD, Deputy (30) days after the last date Courtroom #1702 Case # AND FOR THE COUNTY Clerk (09/26) of publication of this notice. 2019CONC001178 (10/03) OF KING, JUVENILE If you do not file a motion DEPARTMENT STATE OF INDIANA ) IN to contest the adoption STATE OF ILLINOIS, IN RE THE DEPENDENCY THE LAKE SUPERIOR within thirty (30) days after PUBLICATION NOTICE OF: TIE’LAJIAH PITTMAN COURT JUVENILE the last date of publication OF COURT DATE FOR DOB: 03/15/13 DIVISION, CROWN POINT. of this notice the above REQUEST FOR NAME NO: 19-7-01908-3 KNT INDIANA. named court will hear and CHANGE. Location Cook NOTICE OF HEARING ) SS: determine the petition for County - County Division - TO: * N i c h o l a s COUNTY OF LAKE adoption. Your consent Case Type: Name Change Pittman, Alleged Father; ) Cause Number: to the adoption will be Never miss a show again. from Juan Jesus Velazquez Unknown Father, and/or 45D061902AD000028. irrevocably implied and you Jacobo to Nathan anyone claiming parental/ Lake County (Quest). Filed: will lose the right to contest Velazquez Filed 09/18/2019 paternal rights or interest in 2/12/2019 3:43 PM. Clerk either the adoption or the Court Date 11/19/2019, 1:00 the child and to All Whom It Lake County, Indiana. validity of your implied PM in Courtroom #1704 May Concern: consent to the adoption. EARLY WARNINGS Case # 2019CONC001180 On June 21, 2019, a petition IN RE THE ADOPTION No oral statements made (10/10) for Dependency was filed OF: TRENT MOLINA, a to you relieve you of your in the above entitled Court, minor child. MARY JANE obligations under this Notice is hereby given, pursuant to RCW 13.34.080 STRAUBEL, Petitioner. And notice. This notice complies chicagoreader.com/early pursuant to “An Act in and/or RCW 26.33.310 THOMAS E. STRAUBEL, with 1.C. 31-19-4.5-3 but relation to the use of an regarding the above named Petitioner. does not exhaustively Assumed Business Name in child, whose parents are set forth a person’s legal
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