CHICAGO’S FREE WEEKLY SINCE | FEBRUARY
Mayoral Spotlight on Bill Daley Nate Marshall 11
Aldermanic deep dives: DOOR TO DOOR IN THE 25TH Anya Davidson 12 THE SOCIALIST RAPPER IN THE 40TH Leor Galil 8 INSIDE THE 46TH Maya Dukmasova 6
Astra Taylor asks what democracy is Sujay Kumar 22
Age of displacement As the U.S. government grinds to a halt and restarts over demands for a wall, two exhibitions examine what global citizenship looks like. By S C 16 THIS WEEK CHICAGO READER | FEBRUARY | VOLUME NUMBER
T R - A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR @
HAPPYVALENTINE’SDAY! To celebrate our love for you, we got you a LOT lot! FOUR. TEEN. LA—all of it—only has 15 seats on its entire city council. P T B of stories about aldermanic campaigns. Our election coverage has been Oh and it’s so anticlimactic: in a couple weeks we’ll dutifully head to the E C AE M so much fun that even our die-hard music sta ers want in on it. Along- polls to choose between them to determine who . . . we’ll vote for in the M E P S K side Maya Dukmasova’s look at the 46th Ward, we’re excited to present runo in April. But more on that next week. M E D K H D E K S Leor Galil’s look at the rapper-turned-socialist challenger to alderman Also in our last issue, there were a few misstatements of fact. Ben C L SK Pat O’Connor in the 40th—plus a three-page comics journalism feature Sachs’s review of Image Book misidentifi ed the referent of the title of D P J R C E AL from Anya Davidson on what’s going down in the 25th Ward that isn’t an part three. “Those fl owers between the rails, in the confused wind of trav- M E PM uncomfortable text message from Danny Solis. elers,” comes from a poem by Rilke, not Rimbaud. And Deanna Isaacs’s A E J L S W D I We’re thrilled you enjoyed our fi rst-ever mayoral campaign question- review of Electra overstated the show’s length by 40 minutes: the opera BJ M S naire last issue. We were excessively pleased with ourselves for pulling runs for only 100 minutes. Additionally, our January 31 review of Irving S W M D L G G D D C it o —at least until we realized we had entirely overlooked OG mayoral Park cafe Finom misidentifi ed owner Rafael Esparza. S M E B W candidate Bob Fioretti. How embarrassing! We have almost no excuse! But let’s not let the mistakes of the past ruin our special day. Happy M L C L C F L C P F Except that there are SO MANY DAMN CANDIDATES. Fourteen on the bal- Valentine’s Day, sweethearts. —A E M T A E C S C D A N B D C L C I G A G J H J H I H D J M K S K M M BM S M JRN M O L P J P BS D IN THIS ISSUE S K W A W ------D D FILM 36 Gossip Wolf Minor Moon JD 22 Interview Astra Taylor’s new fi lm celebrate a new album Hooligan D P E & P What is Democracy? challenges magazine throws itself a fi h K K viewers and conventions birthday party and more O M 24 Reviews Andrea Gronvall on SN L Never Look Away and Ben Sachs on OPINION ADVERTISING Everybody Knows 37 Savage Love How to get -- - @ 26 Movies of note To Dust is a dominated lustfully laid and also C @ winsome debut I Want to Dance mummifi ed Dan Savage off ers S M P F VISUAL JOURNALISM critiques Iranian society and Happy advice for every situation S A R 12 Comics feature Anya Davidson Death Day U is a wild scifi fantasy A M A R CITY LIFE goes doortodoor in the th Ward CLASSIFIEDS LM -H N S 03 Feral Citizen Frozen scat and 37 Jobs C R M other sightings tracking city wildlife 37 Apartments & Spaces T P 37 Marketplace N A V M G --- JL SB ------D C [email protected] -- STMREADERLLC FOOD & DRINK B P D RL 15 Restaurant Review Boston Fish T ER MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE S J S Market is a midwestern leviathan 28 Feature Daredevil producer Jlin A- S V NEWS & POLITICS survives her own trial by fi re COMICS SERIALS 04 Joravsky | Politics Just call Tom ARTS & CULTURE 32 Shows of note Pitchfork 39 Comics Prairie Pothole Violet C C EB Tunney Alderman Lucky 16 Feature Two exhibitions examine Midwinter fest Sharon Van Etten Private Eye and P L Dermes in ------06 Dukmasova | Politics Five global citizenship in the age of and other excellent shows this week “Paralisis”all your indie comics faves! R ISSN- challengers take on th Ward displacement 35 Secret History of Chicago STMR LLC SM SC IL alderman James Cappleman 18 History Evidence the slave trade Music Willie “Big Eyes” Smith and -- 08 Galil | Politics A rapperturned built America the fate of the sideman O P D C G C S I C ©C R socialist candidate for alderman 19 Theater Magic transforms into a 36 Early Warnings Electric Wizard N F G ’ P C IL 11 Feature Is Chicago poised to elect women’s game and Pipeline examines Snoop Dogg Partner and more just A C R R another Daley? the opposite of white privilege announced concerts RR T ®
2 CHICA O READER - FEBRUARY ll Writer trailing coyote NANCEKLEHM CITY LIFE
and dens. In our winter months, devoid of the foliage that serves to camouflage these 2019 features, all of these marks are much easier to spot. Without saying, there’s winter’s gift of snow, a fantastic substrate that takes impres- sions quite readily and creates contrast both in color and shadow. I have been tracking rats, wild birds, and a muskrat in my yard and the city’s alleyways and parks. A coyote or three and a fox at the city’s margins. Tall grasses, shrubby hedges, SYMPOSIUM tree snags, and open waterways are a great W men’ starting point to look for such creatures, as someone is usually taking refuge from the humans or other predators in these places, or FERAL CITIZEN taking advantage of open water to hydrate or Thursday, February 28 fi sh. A wet snow is better at taking a clear reg- Leae hip istration of tracks. A dry snow makes it more 7:30 a.m. — Noon A cure for the challenging to fi nd clear physical tracks, and a deep snow causes hooves, tails, and paws to University Club | Chicago | 76 East Monroe drag, which can be confusing. But the general winter blues shape, distance between, and patterning of punch marks through the snow can give you Yellow snow, frozen scat, and other clue of identity. I also look for signs of naviga- Join Three Dynamic Women Leaders sightings tracking city wildlife tion through a landscape: stripped bark, bent and professional women from across Chicago for By N K or broken branches, a scatter of seed from a tallgrass, the shredding of seeded fl owers, a a dynamic discussion and interactive workshop on frozen pile of scat. Yellow snow. Red snow. ver the past few weeks I have found I carry binoculars, a loupe, a camera, and The Power & Possibilities of Feminine Leadership. myself either in sweaters over my ever-present tools of measurement: my pajamas or in long underwear and hand and my natural walking pace. I prepare snow pants. Between packaging to track and trail by dumping my mind in the FEATURING: dried mushrooms and herbs and house before I step outdoors, walking to a Oorganizing my seed room, I have outdoor quiet starting area, and then centering myself – Dr. Judith Wright, best-selling author, women’s empowerment chores—there are the wild birds that I provide quietly. I open my senses, every one of them pioneer, co-founder The Wright Foundation with oil-rich seeds and starchy corn cakes extending beyond my own body, including the of lard and food. Water and straw go to the sensing organ of the skin, and allow for fuller – Christie Hefner, longest-serving female CEO of a US public coveys of bobwhite quail kept in four large en- awareness of my environs—air, layers, and company, former Chairman of Playboy Enterprises, Inc. closures outside; once native to this region but type of tree and shrub canopy, species and now unseen in the local rural landscape due to arrangement of plants, change of slope within – Jill Wine-Banks, Watergate prosecutor, infl uential thought leader habitat destruction. I also leave the warmth the ground, large stones, fallen logs, buildings, in multiple law fi rms and corporations, MSNBC legal analyst of the woodstove fi re for stretches to hone my dumpsters, water features. Once I discover skills in identifying animal tracks and trailing signs, I enter the mind-set of whatever I might wild birds and mammals. Stepping outside to be following and learn from it as I proceed. notice and learn how animals inhabit this city Once tuned in you will notice animal high- REGISTER NOW — LIMITED SPACE! in the depth of the season could cure more of ways everywhere. Who’s there, how they sofi awomen.com/symposium us of our wintertime blues. move through and use the land, who they I view the practice of trailing as taking in the encounter—favorite forage spots and the For information: 312.645.8333 larger story of an animal, while I see tracking speed or urgency in which they look for food as building a more individual picture. Trailing are all revealed. The swish of a tail into a den involves following signs or marks in the land- or brushing of feathers around a pounce kill, scape left by animals, which includes their the pause when a four-legger, once trotting, tracks and any disturbances they have made stands on its hind legs to notice something, Hosted by by feeding, moving, or taking shelter. Some of and the rerouting of its journey. Burrows re- these marks are: bark scrapes, foraging holes veal themselves in tree snags explaining the FOR THE REALIZATION OF HUMAN POTENTIAL and kill sites, broken branches, lost feathers or pile of bones in front of them. The hustle and wrightfoundation.org clumps of fur, scat, compressed plant remains, switchback weavings of rabbits as they build temporary lays or longer-term beds, burrows cities under woodpiles. You’ll find the J ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER 3 CITY LIFE NEWS & POLITICS
Tom Tunney continued from 3 Is the animal walking, loping, galloping, or ERICCRAIG crack in the wood that the rats have discov- running? ered to get into your garage. Wing impressions: Important for preda- A few features to scout for: tors, as they are rarely just standing on the Burrows and dens: Diameter and orienta- ground and usually perched coming into tion of hole, if it is sloped or drops suddenly; ground to swoop and pick up an animal to feed where they are found, be they under shrubs or on or process a kill. a woodpile, and if under a tree, what species it Scat: Size and shape as well as color and is and at what height it is found. contents. A loupe is perfect for identifying the Nests: Size and shape, materials they are animal’s favorite foods. made from, height they are found at. As most of us humans huddle inside, know Prints: If a bird, size and distance between that midwinter is the courting and mating tracks. Are they webbed, signaling seagulls, time for many predators—fox, great horned ducks, geese, etc, or anisodactyl (three toes and barred owls, coyotes, and also beavers and forward and one back), belonging to hawks, fal- squirrels. cons, pigeons, morning doves, crows, herons, While the cold-weather bird species are or with the back toe less pronounced, such as here—hawks, kestrels, woodpecker, jay, have wild turkeys and pheasants, or zygodactyl chickadee, cardinal, and housewren—the (two toes forward and one toe back), such as first spring birds arrive from their sojourns woodpeckers and owls have. If a mammal—a south—robins, eastern bluebirds, sandhill digger? A leaper? Long toes? A canine? A cat? A cranes. Go outside early, after the animals rodent? A tail drag, claw marks, foot pads, fi n- have been moving all night, and keep your gered paws—all are strong markers of specifi c senses open to these signals of the thaw to mammals. come. v Patterns and pacing: Take note of the straddle and stride of the tracks you find. @NanceKlehm
POLITICS Alderman Lucky In the Ricketts family, Tom Tunney has the best enemies an alderman seeking reelection could have. By B J
ntil his recent fall for swapping ettses—a long line that stretches from Clark zoning changes for Viagra, 25th and Addison to their native state of Nebras- Ward alderman Danny Solis was, ka. Let’s see . . . in my opinion, the luckiest alder- Sox fans don’t like the Rickettses ’cause— man in Chicago for his ability to duh, they own the Cubs. Udodge his way out of any predicament. But Architectural purists don’t like them be- with Danny out of the picture—probably cause they’ve turned Wrigleyville into the in witness protection for wearing a wire on north-side version of Schaumburg. Alderman Ed Burke—I’m ready to announce Democrats don’t like them ’cause one a new Alderman Lucky: Ricketts (Pete) is the Trump-loving gover- Tom Tunney of the 44th Ward. nor of Nebraska and another (Todd) is the Man, Tunney’s been graced with the best Koch-brothers-loving chair of the Republi- enemy any reelection-seeking alderman can National Committee. could ask for—the Ricketts family, owner of OK, Laura Ricketts is a Democrat. But she the Cubs. hardly makes up for Papa Joe, the head of The Rickettses say they don’t like Tunney the clan. Nobody to the left of Donald Trump ’cause he’s been “needlessly disrespectful” likes him after his abominable string of big- in negotiations with the family over Wrig- oted comments, including the latest batch ley Field development. But the more they directed at Muslims. complain about him, the more attractive If the enemy of your enemy is your friend, he seems to people who don’t like the Rick- then Tom Tunney’s got lots of Ricketts- 310346_4.75_x_4.75.indd 1 9/12/18 12:13 PM 4 CHICA O READER - FEBRUARY ll NEWS & POLITICS Less scrolling. hating friends. Maybe Tunney should report against those deals. Tunney didn’t respond for opposition from the Ricketts family on his comment, but in a recent letter to constituents economic-disclosure statements as an in-kind he said he’d vote against Lincoln Yards. “I feel it contribution. is an unnecessary burden on tax-payers to sub- It’s a shame too, because there’s a case to be sidize this multi-billion dollar private project in made for ousting Tunney. As service providers any way.” Wow—I couldn’t have said it better go, he’s a dutiful respondent to residents’ myself. Tunney’s newfound vigilance either in- complaints. But as a legislator? He’s been an dicates a radical change of heart or the realiza- unapologetic rubber-stamper since Mayor tion that he’s in a heated reelection campaign. Daley appointed him to fi ll the vacancy caused Shydlowski says she’s an independent—not when his predecessor, Bernie Hansen, stepped a Republican—even though she used to work down in 2002. Tunney’s supported the parking in the Rauner administration. “I’ve voted for meter sale and every TIF handout that the re- Democrats and Republicans,” she says. cipient didn’t need but got anyway. On the matter of the Ricketts family, both One of the few times he broke from the of them are walking a fine line. Baidas says, mayor was to vote against Rahm’s proposal to yes, he knows Laura Ricketts. But, no, he’s not raise the minimum wage. Great, he goes along taking any donations from the family. when it comes to handing out millions to the Shydlowski says it’s easy for Baidas to be so rich. But when it comes to a measly raise for selective when he comes from a family wealthy the working poor he’s Thomas Paine. enough that he can self-fund his campaign. Tunney was the only north-side alderman to She’s accepted $10,000 from Tom Ricketts, vote for the Presence TIF deal. In that one, the $5,000 from Sylvie Legere (Todd Ricketts’s city gave $5.5 million of your property taxes wife), and $2,500 from a couple of Ricketts to Presence, a health care conglomerate that family employees. But she vows to stand up vehemently opposes abortion rights. for the community in any future Wrigley Field Talk about bad twofers. Not only did the city developments. More strumming. give millions to a wealthy company, but it gave As for the Ricketts family, well, call me it to an outfi t that wants to take women back cynical, but I think the whole to-do over the to the Middle Ages—at least on reproductive Wrigley renovation was like one of those care- rights. fully choreographed melodramas (not unlike “There’s absolutely no excuse for a public Rahm’s squabble with Rauner). In this one, oª cial to deny a woman access to reproduc- Rahm played the good cop, Tunney played the tive health care,” says Terry Cosgrove, CEO of bad cop, and the Rickettses got pretty much Personal PAC, the reproductive rights group. everything they wanted. “Tunney’s vote on Presence was shameful.” Not surprisingly, they see it differently, Cosgrove was an early supporter of Austin according to Dennis Culloton, the family’s Baidas, a former aide to Governor Pat Quinn spokesperson. and President Obama, who’s running against “Tunney has been unnecessarily disrespect- Tunney as a left-of-center progressive pledg- ful,” says Culloton. Especially his “up the butt” ing to “end TIFs and corporate giveaways.” assertion. In that one he declared: “I’m gonna “Tunney’s voted 97 percent of the time with be up the butt everyday to make sure that the the mayor—from the parking meter deal to commitments the Ricketts make” get kept. Presence,” says Baidas. “Tom has voted Ed Culloton also disagrees with my theory Burke values—not Lakeview’s values.” that the Rickettses have actually benefited Elizabeth Shydlowski, the third candidate Tunney’s reelection chances. “If they had not in the race, vows to be an independent (“I raised any concerns about Tunney, he wouldn’t won’t serve a mayor or special interest, but I have any competition,” says Culloton. will serve my constituents”). She also calls for Well, Mr. Culloton, as if to prove my point, a “one-two year moratorium on TIF spending a few days after our conversation, the Sun- while the City Council runs a full audit of the Times joined the Tribune in endorsing Tunney Give your digital life a break. program.” She says she’s running because for, you guessed it, standing up to the Ricketts soaring taxes have made Lakeview una ord- family—standing up to Rahm and Daley being Connect over music, dance & more. able for middle-class families like her own. something else. Sigh. The rise in property taxes will continue Hey, Alderman Tunney—on Valentine’s Day, Winter group classes forming now. should Mayor Rahm win council approval for you might want to send some chocolates to the oldtownschool.org the $2.4 billion in TIF handouts he’s seeking Rickettses. Lord knows, they’ve earned it. v for the Lincoln Yards and the 78 developments. Baidas and Shydlowski say they’d vote @joravben ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER 5 NEWS & POLITICS
POLITICS Uptown may be ready for the return of Helen Shiller’s spirit Five challengers take on 46th Ward alderman James Cappleman from the le . By M D
epending on who you talk to, 46th came from the right. Sure, he’d pushed to Ward alderman James Cappleman is close SROs and tried to get the Salvation MAYADUKMASOVA either a cold, deceitful hater of the Army to stop serving meals to the homeless, poor who’s destroyed much of Up- but these moves to “clean up the neighbor- gang leader illegally living in one of the units. But there’s another version of that story town’s a ordable housing stock or hood” were apparently not enough. His He got results. going around. After our interview ended I Da friendly, responsive neighborhood booster opponent, corporate lawyer Amy Crawford, “That was my first moment where it shu° ed two blocks south on Sheridan to the who’s made Uptown a better place to live. ran on basically the same tough-on-crime clicked on me that this works,” he said. “Ne- Uptown People’s Law Center, which had fi led Since Cappleman, 66, was elected in 2011, platform that had helped get him elected gotiations, going back and forth. And I liked the lawsuit against the city that ended with the 46th Ward has seen massive transfor- after Shiller quit politics. Crawford’s can- it.” The experience got him thinking about that court order. There I found attorney Alan mations. High-rise luxury towers have been didacy put anti-Cappleman “Shilleristas” running for office. He became increasingly Mills, Uptown resident and homeless advo- erected, the Wilson Red Line stop has been in the tough position of choosing the lesser critical of Shiller and Uptown’s social service cate since the late 1970s, who was on his way revamped; homeless encampments have been of two evils. But this time around, all fi ve of agencies, some of which, he says, weren’t to lunch in a black “Outlaw poverty, not pros- cleared, single room occupancy (SRO) build- Cappleman’s challengers are coming from using “evidence-based best practices” to help titution” hoodie. “The only reason we went to ings—which provided cheap studio living— the left. the neighborhood’s struggling residents “be- federal court is because [the city was] forcing have been closed. The benches have disap- come stabilized.” them to move,” he told me, rolling his eyes. In peared from many CTA bus stops, as have the ar from being a fi rebrand retail politician, When asked about past positions—like his recollection, Cappleman wasn’t trying to hoops from many public basketball courts. It Cappleman has a soft-spoken manner. He why, in 2004, he opposed the residential por- stop the displacement. hasn’t all been the alderman’s doing. Devel- Fgrew up on the Gulf of Mexico, near Hous- tion of Wilson Yards being entirely a ordable Other claims the alderman made were opers and gentrifi ers have for decades eyed ton, and has a silky voice with the slightest housing—Capplemen says he sides with what equally suspect. Like that he’d mounted a se- Uptown, a prime swath of lakefront real es- twinge of a southern accent. He came to Chica- experts recommend. Later, he leaned on the rious e ort to try to keep Lawrence House—a tate that has long been one of the north side’s go in the 80s as a friar with the Franciscans— same argument when pressed by the Reader crumbling SRO that was tied up in bankrupt- low- to mixed-income neighborhoods with a the mendicant Catholic order dedicated to on his removal of basketball hoops at an cy court and was eventually bought and re- level of racial integration unheard of in most serving the poor. He eventually left monastic Uptown park a few months into his term. He developed by the Flats real estate group into parts of the city. life, came out of the closet, forged a career in touted it as a crime-fi ghting measure: “If you a hip microapartment building with a co ee For almost a quarter century before Cap- social work, and opened a homeless shelter for can show me research showing a benefi t from shop and a bar on the ground fl oor—as a ord- pleman’s election, the ward was led by Helen men dying of AIDS. He described himself at the basketball in an unsupervised setting where able housing. Kate Walz, an attorney from the Shiller, whose persona was as polarizing as time as a “pretty far-left-wing feminist,” and gang recruitment is going on, I’ll reconsider,” Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty his. She was slammed for being antidevelop- came to know Uptown fi rst as a case manager he told us. Law who represented Lawrence House ten- ment and not tough enough on crime, and li- with what is now Heartland Alliance. In 1999, As we got deeper into a discussion of his re- ants in their fi ght against imminent building onized for her track record of preserving the Cappleman and his husband, Richard Thale, cord, Cappleman’s warm, refl ective demean- closure without a relocation plan, burst out neighborhood as a home for the poor. In 2007, a court advocate for the 19th police district, or disappeared and something hardened in laughing when I relayed Cappleman’s ver- after Shiller’s last election, in which she beat settled in the neighborhood. his eyes. He leaned forward in his chair and sion of events. “He was fully supportive of Cappleman without a runoff, the Reader’s Cappleman’s critics scoff at the frequent became increasingly defensive about his his- Flats coming in. He was coming to court and Ben Joravsky wrote: “The ward . . . is more invocation of his monk-turned-social worker tory of supporting Uptown’s poor. speaking to the need for the property to be or less divided between wealthier lakefront biography, but he seemed earnest enough “There was a lawsuit filed about the vacated,” she said. “He appeared, from state- high-rise voters who are alarmed by Shiller’s as he spoke to the Reader about the forma- viaduct, that people had to leave,” he said, ments he made in court, intent on having the rhetoric and poorer blacks, whites, and Lati- tive years of his life. Cappleman says he referring to the last big showdown between building closed, and largely unsympathetic nos who rally to it.” was galvanized to get more involved in the the city and Uptown’s homeless, when the to [tenants’] needs and concerns.” But a curious thing happened in 2015. community in 2001 after witnessing street Lawrence and Wilson viaducts needed to Cappleman had told me he’d brought nearly Though he received kudos for his pigeon violence and mismanagement at a Chicago be repaired and the sidewalks narrowed to two dozen Low Income Housing Trust Fund deportations and promotion of broken- Housing Authority-subsidized building in make way for new bike paths. “There was a units into the community, voted to protect -windows policing strategies, Cappleman his neighborhood. One day he showed up to federal judge that ordered them to leave. And SROs in 2014, and that, despite the fact that was vulnerable enough to fi nd himself in a a neighborhood peace walk and put public they criticized me because I wouldn’t tell the there’s more subsidized housing in Uptown runo after just one term. And the challenge pressure on Shiller and the CHA to evict a police to ignore a federal court order.” than anywhere else in the city, he wants 6 CHICA O READER - FEBRUARY ll James Cappleman; Erika Wozniak Francis; Marianne Lalonde; Angela Clay MAYADUKMASOVA NEWS & POLITICS
more. The ONE People’s Campaign however, She (like all the other candidates run- apers and likely wears Tevas in the summer. a political 501(c)(4) o shoot of the nonprofi t ning against Cappleman) also vows to join He’s also campaigning to make sure East ONE Northside community organization, citywide e orts to create an elected school Lakeview—where a third of the ward’s resi- couldn’t corroborate. Staff, whose sympa- board, reopen mental health clinics, bring dents live—isn’t an afterthought. thies lie with the ward’s have-nots, eagerly back community policing, lift the state ban Meanwhile, Buena Park-based Jon-Robert showed me spreadsheets tracking the num- on rent control, and pursue ethics reforms for McDowell, 37, is deeply concerned about the ber of SRO units lost (803, with 200 more on the City Council. city’s pension debt ruining any chances the the chopping block) and upscale rental units A few blocks north on Sheridan Road, 46th Ward might have to remain a ordable. created (1,265, including 64 at the shuttered Marianne Lalonde, 32, has her campaign “You have to deal with fi nancial mismanage- Stewart Elementary) on Cappleman’s watch. headquarters in the Institute of Cultural Af- ment we have in the city to get resources to They’d also found that “interested parties” fairs, where giant maps of proposed changes people in Uptown,” he says. connected to these developments had donat- to the Wilson Avenue o -ramps to Lake Shore A few years back McDowell had to drop out ed more than $56,000 to Cappleman in his Drive hang on the walls. A sign in the window of a graduate program to work and help pay second term alone. reads: “Science Against The Machine!”— for the medical care of a brother who’d been Lalonde has a PhD in chemistry from North- diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and was one of this has been lost on Cappleman’s western. She also worked as a legislative aide dropped by his insurance. He packed up his challengers, who’ve all been accusing for Ohio Democratic senator Sherrod Brown. mom and the rest of their siblings and moved Nthe alderman of hypocrisy and running Her campaign, largely funded by a network of from New York to Chicago, where they could on a promise to make Uptown something family and friends, has received an endorse- a ord to all live together. McDowell traded other than a developer’s playground. If you ment from mayoral candidate Lori Lightfoot. dreams of writing political commentary for think that an anti-gentrifi cation platform will Lalonde seems to have a hard time smiling, working on campaigns, and now holds a job alienate the ward’s “wealthier lakefront high- although she’s got an encyclopedic knowl- at a digital marketing firm. He’s confident rise voters,” perhaps not in 2019: a majority edge of granular issues in the ward. She’s enough to crack jokes when talking to voters, of every precinct in the ward voted in favor involved in a long list of local organizations: but of all the candidates he seems the least of lifting the state ban on rent control last a block club, a local park board, the women’s sure about his prospects of winning. He says November. shelter Sarah’s Circle. “It was through my it’s tough to compete with Cappleman, who Just a couple of doors down from Cap- involvement that I started to understand that sent him six mailers in three days just last pleman’s campaign office, Erika Wozniak our alderman’s oª ce wasn’t hearing every- week—clearly something the alderman can Francis, 36, is organizing a run lubricated one’s voice equally,” she said. a ord due to his connections to big money. “I by union support and her minor celebrity Lalonde slammed Cappleman for taking can’t see any reason why I wouldn’t vote for as a cohost of The Girl Talk live show at the money from developers seeking zoning whoever that other person was in a runo ,” Hideout. A fi fth-grade teacher at a northwest- changes (his self-imposed rule—that he McDowell says. side elementary school and a frequent critic won’t take donations within a year of a devel- If he’s subconsciously pessimistic about of the city’s TIF deals, Wozniak Francis has oper receiving requested changes—doesn’t his chances at the ballot box, he’s got good out-fundraised the other challengers and impress her) and from Ed Burke; for voting reason to be. The 46th Ward has a history of is supported by Congressman Jesus “Chuy” to divert $15.8 million in TIF funds toward a electoral skepticism toward newcomers, and Garcia, David Orr, and other progressives. luxury high-rise when an aging community all of these challengers have lived in the ward She’s even earned the endorsement of center needed renovations; for his support for less than than five years. Perhaps the the National Association of Social Workers’ of a Lake Shore Drive project that would person best poised to recapture the energy Illinois chapter—which Cappleman once cut Weiss Memorial Hospital off from easy and votes that propelled Shiller is 27-year-old belonged to. The group is now distancing access to the thoroughfare. She wants to see Angela Clay. itself from the alderman. “We reject James a community benefi ts agreement created for a peaceful community,” he said. He wants With a warm manner and familiar style Cappleman’s e orts to displace the econom- the rehab of the Uptown Theatre. She also to push developers to build more three- that means hugs on the second meeting, Clay ically disadvantaged under the ruse of social thinks the City Council needs a scientist. bedroom apartments to accommodate fam- makes you feel like you’re the only one in work best practices,” it wrote in a statement “Scientists are naturally objective,” she ilies, to launch a PR campaign to make local the room when you’re talking. She’s the only released last week. said coolly. “They’re detail oriented in their schools more attractive, and to stop throw- black candidate, and would be the ward’s fi rst Wozniak Francis, who speaks in a breathy decision-making, they look at data critically, ing armed cops at every problem rooted in black alderman. Though she’s lost friends to tone punctuated by expressions of intense and they’re BS fi lters.” poverty. gun violence and knows about the grinding enthusiasm and wide-eyed empathy, was The two men in the race display less local Kreindler says he was inspired to run by poverty some of her neighbors experience, thrilled to have the support. If elected, she expertise and have far less money in their watching Cappleman “bash” the community she doesn’t talk about the Uptown of the past promises to require developers to keep 30 campaign funds than Wozniak Francis and during his 2015 campaign. “It ba° ed me why as the bad old days, like Cappleman does. percent of units in new ward buildings af- Lalonde. But they’re equally frustrated with someone who disliked their community so Instead, she waxes lovingly about the neigh- fordable on-site. She also wants to improve Cappleman and want to make the 46th Ward much would want to run to be alderman.” borliness that helped people thrive. neighborhood schools. “Uplift [Community a kinder and gentler place. Kreindler, who works with the youth lead- Clay’s family has an 80-year history in High School] under CPS terms is considered Justin Kreindler, 38, lives in the East ership nonprofi t Public Allies, is measured— Uptown, and she grew up in a subsidized underutilized, which drives me crazy,” she Lakeview part of the ward. He’s the only can- and honest if he doesn’t know the answer to housing building on the corner of Hazel and said. “Seventeen kids in a class is actually a didate with kids, and his campaign platform a question. He has the soothing manner of a Sunnyside, where she lived with her mother really great class size.” comes down to “housing, education, and guy who probably doesn’t mind changing di- and grandmother. She attended all the J ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER 7 Aldermanic candidate Andre Vasquez talks politics with a potential constituent at Isabella Bakery NEWS & POLITICS (1659 W. Foster) in January. DEANARUTHERFORD continued from 7 and who recently replaced the embattled Ed neighborhood schools. She remembers Burke, in whose footsteps he’s long walked, the neighborhood as “buzzing” during as chair of the City Council’s Finance Com- her childhood. “All of us are interconnect- mittee. O’Connor is Emanuel’s fl oor leader in ed because we were a part of the same the council, a role he also played under the struggles.” younger Daley. After he won his fi rst alder- Clay has served as the president manic election in 1983, he aligned himself of Voice of the People in Uptown, the with Burke and Tenth Ward alderman Ed nonprofit affordable housing developer Vrdolyak, who led a council bloc that fought behind the building she grew up in, but Mayor Harold Washington as stubbornly currently works in HR at a bank. Watching and viciously as congressional Republicans the neighborhood get less a ordable and fought Obama. O’Connor represents the kind youth resources dry up, and not seeing of old-school political power that Vasquez Cappleman fi ght like Shiller used to, mo- and the other challengers—Maggie O’Keefe, tivated Clay to run. She says the alderman Dianne Daleiden, and Ugo Okere—position POLITICS too often claims problems are out of his themselves as alternatives to. hands. She doesn’t blame Cappleman for The 40th Ward covers pieces of several gentrifi cation, however, but for not doing Hip-hop taught Andre Vasquez about north-side neighborhoods—Lincoln Square, enough to ease its blow on lower-income Edgewater, Andersonville, and Budlong residents. She says that just because drug community—and he wants to take those Woods among them. (Rosehill Cemetery dealing isn’t as prevalent on the streets takes up a large chunk of the ward, but the doesn’t mean it’s not happening—or that lessons to City Hall dead are a notoriously risky electorate to its root causes aren’t still there. court.) Jon Cignarale, who co-owns Over Her campaign has almost no money, In the 90s he rapped as Prime and joined underground collective the Easy Cafe near Lawrence and Damen, saw his and she organizes her volunteers out of Molemen. Now he’s a socialist candidate for 40th Ward alderman, business get redrawn into the 40th Ward in Everybody’s Co ee on Wilson, a cafe that hoping to unseat entrenched incumbent Patrick O’Connor. 2015; prior to that, he’d built a relationship touts itself as the place that fi lters “co ee, By L G with 47th Ward alderman Ameya Pawar. not people.” But, she says, she’s built a “I used to see him once a month, he’d come coalition she’s confi dent will turn out to in—anytime I needed anything, it was real vote when they see a candidate they can ndre Vasquez had never run for after his DJ forgot the backing tracks, or the quick,” Cignarale says. “O’Connor, not so relate to. public office before launching his time he freestyled with Guru from Gang Starr much—it’s old-school.” If Clay or any one of the other challeng- campaign for 40th Ward alderman and Juice at Metro. But about eight years ago, Cignarale doesn’t know much about ers manages to get to a runoff, it seems in April, but he’s been in plenty of Vasquez, who’s now 39, decided he wanted O’Connor and hasn’t heard of any of the chal- likely the bases of the others will fall in battles. As a Lane Tech student in out. “I remember going to the bars and the lengers. But he’s got a couple issues he’d like line to help that candidate oust the incum- theA mid-90s, he’d spend his weekends criss- clubs and being like, ‘I don’t want to be the any alderman to deal with—including snow bent. And between the fi ve of them, they crossing Navy Pier, entering impromptu cy- over-30 guy at the club when all the kids are removal, of course, and an increase in crime collected 2,000 more signatures on their phers where he’d freestyle against other am- doing their thing,’” he says. “It started feel- that he’s heard about. “I don’t really follow nominating petitions than Cappleman. bitious young rappers from all over Chicago. ing very repetitive. I’m like, ‘All right, let me that many of the issues, but in general, how The alderman, meanwhile, is still lean- Vasquez says he competed in more than 1,000 see what the rest of life looks like.’” about plowing?” Cignarale says. “We used to ing on his tough-on-crime message and battles and lost only seven times—though ad- Vasquez never considered getting involved have it. Now we do it all ourselves.” insisting he’s been the champion that mittedly that’s by his own count. He says that in politics until the 2016 presidential prima- A mechanic named Pete at an auto-body both the ward’s business leaders and its someone who saw him in action called him Op- ries, when he became a fan of Bernie Sanders. shop near Foster and Western (he declined poor need. When I asked if he’d thought timus Prime, in homage to the Transformers He went to bat for Bernie on social media, to give his last name) has his concerns too. about what he’ll do if he loses, Capple- franchise’s head Autobot—he thinks because then knocked on doors in Iowa. In March “Everything—violence, homeless people, man seemed baffled. He enumerated all of his skill at mimicking popular rappers. The 2016, he threw a fund-raiser at the Wild Hare everything,” he says. But he can’t name the the new improvements in the ward, and name stuck, and as Vasquez grew into a career called Bern Fest, and its success led him to get 40th Ward alderman—perhaps a less unusual listed more to come, what with the Baton in hip-hop, he called himself Prime. involved in community organizing that had phenomenon here than elsewhere in Chicago, and Double Door moving in, and the In the late 90s, he went on to become a nothing to do with Bernie. He’s now the chair given the low profi le O’Connor keeps in the long-awaited renovation of the Uptown member of venerable underground hip-hop for the North Chapter of Reclaim Chicago, a ward. His opponents all criticize him for his Theatre looming at last. collective the Molemen. He toured with At- progressive PAC that aspires to make local disconnection from the community and his “What do you think the odds are of me mosphere in the early aughts, appeared on politics more equitable—that is, he’s the lead failure to listen to its residents, and the Sun- losing right now?” he asked. “I’ve been in HBO’s Blaze Battle and MTV’s Direct Effect in volunteer for the group’s organizing work on Times even repeated those complaints while tough elections. In 2011 there were 11 of 2000, and recorded with KRS-One in 2008. the north side. endorsing him earlier this month. us in this race. 2015 was a tough race. And He’s happy to tell visitors to his campaign Reclaim endorsed Vasquez shortly after “I really don’t care, to be honest,” Pete says. 2019—I would not want to run against oª ce about the time he coaxed Wyclef Jean he announced his bid to become 40th Ward He doesn’t know who’s running for alderman me.” v into a cypher after spotting him in the bath- alderman. He’s one of four candidates chal- either, and he won’t be voting. “Our votes room at the House of Blues, or the time he lenging incumbent Patrick O’Connor, who’s don’t count for nothing,” he says. “We’re @mdoukmas improvised an entire set opening for Noreaga held the seat for more than three decades— just people—we’re just pawns in this world. 8 CHICA O READER - FEBRUARY ll NEWS & POLITICS
Our votes don’t matter.” That’s an attitude street from the Congress Theater. DJ and Vasquez provided the Molemen with infra- Vasquez knows well. “Hip-hop music taught producer Juvenal “PNS” Robles judged the structure and promotional support. He’d sell some of us to be absolutely cynical, to believe competition and gave Vasquez the L. “He Molemen tapes at Navy Pier and the Taste of that our votes don’t mean anything, that we could read an opponent, and it’s funny ’cause Chicago and wear Molemen T-shirts while don’t understand and aren’t welcome to that I think it still fi ts him today,” Robles says. “As working at Gramaphone Records. When the world,” he says. opposed to regular battle guys, who’d just go Molemen were working on their expansive Vasquez has learned to reach past such cyn- in for insults and the cheap joke, he’d go for 2001 double album, Ritual of the . . . , Vasquez icism, and he believes he’s got the best chance nuance.” helped bring in rappers from outside the against O’Connor. He’s about as far from the Robles became an important figure in crew. “I was going back and forth to New Chicago machine as aldermanic candidates Vasquez’s development as a rapper—thanks York, so I actually hooked up a lot of those get: he’s a member of the Democratic Social- to his position in the Molemen, one of the songs as an executive producer,” he says. ists of America, and he supports a Civilian city’s longest-running DJ and production “Some of the songs that were there, it was Police Accountability Commission (an idea collectives, he provided the younger man definitely me putting that together—I was pushed by fellow DSA member and 35th Ward with an entry point into the local hip-hop just super geeked to be a part of it all.” Ritual alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa). He’s in favor scene. Founded in 1989 by producers Ed features Chicago greats such as E.C. Illa, Rub- of an elected school board, and he wants to “Panik” Zamudio and Alberto “Mixx Mas- beroom, Juice, and Rhymefest, plus out-of- strengthen the Affordable Requirements sacre” Espinosa and rapper Donald “Vakill” town heavies such as Aesop Rock, MF Doom, Ordinance, requiring developers to build 30 DEANARUTHERFORD Mason, the Molemen had become a dominant and Atmosphere rapper Slug. Vasquez got the percent of new units as affordable housing believes his relative rootlessness as a kid force in Chicago’s underground rap commu- track “Unbreakable” to himself, though it’s and closing loopholes that allow them to build taught him the value of being connected to nity by the mid-90s, when Robles joined. He his only appearance. those units elsewhere or not at all. a place and its people. “It allowed me the frequently DJed at local hip-hop events, and In 2002, the Molemen released the Prime “It’s di erent when it’s music or hip-hop— opportunity to see what it’s like feeling sepa- Vasquez o ered his services. “I used to carry 12-inch Madman and a CD-R called The Op- people go, ‘I like the music, that’s why we’re rated and not part of a larger community,” he records for him when I was like 16, 17, to get timus, the debut by Prime’s crew the Scam coming out in a crowd,’” Vasquez says. “But says. “So I’m really invested in trying to build into Double Door to get on the mike,” Vasquez Artists, which also included Atomz, rappers when you’re talking about these issues, and community at every possible instance.” says. He bonded with several core members Verbal and Robust, and producer Qwel (who you get people that are invested that are As a freshman at Lane Tech in 1993, of the Molemen especially easily because of eventually became a Moleman). Within a throwing down and dedicating so much time, Vasquez found his first real community their shared heritage. “I met Panik through year or so, however, Vasquez started getting it just speaks volumes.” through hip-hop. Rap fans at the school his brother, Visual. I think because we’re all frustrated by his position in the Molemen. “I would form cyphers between classes. “I went Latino too, it was easy to kind of identify, and kept seeing my value as being, like, ‘Oh, [I’m] n the late 70s, Vasquez’s parents emi- from writing my fi rst little raps and trying they were just like, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna bro the intern, I’m gonna go do this,’” he says. “It grated from Guatemala to Illinois, where them out in front of people to really work- you, so come on board.’” took a while for me, as a person, to be able to Ithey married. His father repaired shoes ing on my freestyle skills, and that got me In the late 90s, while studying education at separate myself from what I was accomplish- downtown and eventually found a job making notoriety,” he says. “And as somebody who the University of Illinois at Chicago, Vasquez ing, and understanding that I have value re- orthotics for Lurie Children’s Hospital; his had never been the center of attention, it just became a member of Molemen himself. gardless of that. I think I was going through mother worked the night shift at an envelope blew my sense of self up—which is sometimes Through a rapper he knew in New York, he internal stuff, and at that point we kind of factory, then became a housekeeper. Vasquez a little bit too much when you’re a battle landed a spot on MTV’s hip-hop countdown parted ways.” was born in 1979, and he and his younger rapper. But considering what I had come from Direct Effect. “Then I ended up being part of Vasquez had already formed another crew, brother grew up in southern Bucktown. “There and feeling like nobody, I think it provided a the HBO Blaze Battle, which was the fi rst tele- Middle Ground, in 2001, and there he was were Latin Kings on the street, so my parents good counterbalance.” vised MC battle—most of the city then was more a mentor than a peer to the other rap- kept me inside and sheltered,” he says. “But In high school, Vasquez aspired to be an like, ‘Oh, you’re the guy,’” Vasquez says. “It pers. “I just wanted to see what it’d be like also because they were undocumented, they English teacher, and rapping engaged his went from not having a community to, like, to actually start my own group of folks, and were concerned that anything I would get writing skills. “I’ve always been really . . . ‘Here’s your community, here’s what we do little-bro with some other folks who were into might perhaps put them in a situation excited is a weird word to say, but really inter- all the time, here’s everyone to connect with,’ rappers,” he says. Robles remembers the ad- where they could get deported.” He spent a ested and intrigued in how people put words and really feeling valued for myself. I’d never vice he gave Vasquez as he left the Molemen: lot of time reading alone at home. “Because together,” he says. “Hip-hop allows you to pictured I’d have anything like that, so when I “I told him, ‘If you start your crew, you’re still my parents kept me in that space, books and create these Rubik’s Cubes of wordplay.” did I was full in.” going to have to clean toilets,’” he says. “But everything were my way out of it,” he says. He Soon Vasquez got a taste for battle rap, and Chicago rapper Pugs Atomz, then head the person that cleans the toilets cares about devoured science fi ction and comics—and as every day after school, he’d post up near the of the Nacrobats crew, befriended Vasquez the crew.” an adult, he’d name his son Parker because of edge of campus on the corner of Addison and through battling. Atomz saw Vasquez’s Middle Ground released a couple albums his love for Spider-Man. Western, dressing down challengers in front leadership qualities and drive back then, and in the late 2000s, but like most of Vasquez’s During Vasquez’s childhood, his family got of dozens of spectators. On weekends, he took describes him as “tenacious and not accept- recorded output, they’re hard to find these priced out of four different neighborhoods. his hunt for opponents to Navy Pier. “That got ing ‘no,’ and willing to create the things we days. Aside from the stray YouTube upload— They left Bucktown for Humboldt Park, then me a lot of notoriety citywide, also because I wanted to see. Like, ‘All right, let’s go to New the title track to Madman, for one—Vasquez’s moved to Roscoe Village, Avondale, and fi- was one of the very few brown kids that were York tomorrow.’ ‘Let’s go battle at Scribble music isn’t streamable. And he’d prefer to nally Irving Park East—all areas to the south doing it,” he says. “What they would say is, Jam.’ That’s what we’re doing. We were just keep it that way. He’s unhappy with the sound and west of the 40th Ward, which extends ‘Who’s that white boy?’” always both ready to do it, and willing to quality of many of the recordings, and with north-south roughly from Devon to Lawrence One of the few battles Vasquez lost took take the lead if necessary—and support each some of the things he was saying in those and east-west from Clark to Kedzie. Vasquez place in a Mexican restaurant across the other.” songs. J ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER 9 Che “Rhymefest” Smith and Andre “Prime” Vasquez at Metro in 2007 for the Molemen’s NEWS & POLITICS Chicago Rocks festival COURTESYANDREVASQUEZ continued from 9 11,000 apartments and condos throughout “The part that’s really problematic about Illinois; he continues to juggle the job with hip-hop music is that it’s plagued by toxic his campaigning. masculinity, misogyny, homophobia—and if When Vasquez took an interest in Bernie’s you’re a battle rapper, that’s your world,” he presidential campaign, he shared his enthu- says. “There’s a lot of things I’ve said in the siasm through some of the same channels past that I am incredibly sorry for, thinking he’d used to share music. “Facebook, Twitter, about what folks who have lived different Instagram: the same way I would promote experiences feel when they hear it. I think, as songs, videos, albums back in the day. It a person of color, when you listen to hip-hop remained the way I stayed connected to music, you’re like, ‘Yes, it’s a strong voice people,” he says. “Folks would be like, ‘Oh, I from a black or brown person, and I need that didn’t even know this guy was running—I in my life ’cause I never had those role mod- had no idea.’ It felt really cool to be able to els.’ But it’s hard then to separate it and go, plug people in who weren’t a part of the polit- ‘Yeah, that’s great, but you’re also o ending ical process at all, and just connected with me and putting other people down because of it.’ from a di erent history that we share.” There’s defi nitely a lot of records where I’ve When he organized Bern Fest in March She sees Vasquez’s unconventional trajectory volunteers helping him knock on doors and said stu that was of that vein.” 2016, he called on old friends from his life and his hip-hop past as assets. “What Andre’s make calls. “I love actually knocking and Vasquez acknowledges this in a voice-over in hip-hop. Veteran battle rapper Shadow doing is showing by taking this risk that all of hearing the stories from everybody,” Vasquez in the video on the front page of his campaign Master and a duo of Pugs Atomz and rapper- us can do politics, and it’s going to take all of says. “You learn so much and you see so much website: “Being a hip-hop artist taught me to producer Awdazcate took the stage among us doing it to change the city,” she says. “It’s of your experience in someone else’s.” develop my voice, when as a person of color speakers such as Black Lives Matter activist inspiration to the rest of us who were always The capstone of Vasquez’s hip-hop career, I didn’t think that I had one. I’m not always Ja’mal Green, My Block My Hood My City told, ‘This is not your place.’” as he tells it, was a studio session with New proud of how I used my voice in the past, but founder Jahmal Cole, Cook County State’s Sanford says Vasquez is already doing York rapper KRS-One in 2008 (they released it’s where I started and where I moved from.” Attorney candidate Kim Foxx, and 2015 some of the work he’d need to do to in order a song with Que Billah called “Todays Les- The video shows glimpses of Subterranean, 40th Ward aldermanic challenger Dianne to accomplish things in City Hall. “I know son”). In some ways that collaboration pre- where Vasquez spent many Tuesday nights Daleiden. Andre’s building relationships with all the fi gured his interest in community organizing at the long-running open-mike series. “I’d Bern Fest impressed at least one of the other candidates we’ve endorsed,” she says. and public service—KRS-One has been one of battle like fi ve, six people at once onstage,” he community organizers in attendance. “One of “We could see a new class of freshman al- the most prominent political voices in rap for says. “I defi nitely had a reputation for want- them stayed around at the end and was like, dermen with relationships with each other more than 30 years. “I had learned so much ing to battle. People would throw drinks to ‘What are you doing next?’ And I was like, and fresh vision for the city.” Ramirez-Rosa about society and about politics without even try to throw me o —this was not a friendly, ‘I just know how to throw shows,’” Vasquez is the lone incumbent of the fi ve candidates knowing about it, listening to KRS,” he says. conducive environment. But it’s definitely says. “They were like, ‘You should come to with Reclaim endorsements—the others are “It was really full circle for me, and I was able what it was, and it was entertainment.” one of our trainings, because you’ve been Colin Bird-Martinez (31st Ward), Rossana to go, ‘I’ve accomplished more than I expect- community organizing.’ That’s what led me Rodriguez (33rd Ward), and Maria Hadden ed, we’re good.’” usic was never enough to support to do the canvass.” (49th Ward). Though Vasquez has left rap behind, Vasquez by itself—as he got estab- That organizer was Amanda Weaver, Running a competitive race against Chi- the friends he made during that chapter in Mlished in hip-hop, he also moved up in executive director of Reclaim Chicago, and cago’s second-longest-serving alderman his life first helped him understand what the world of retail. “I had gone from fi rst being Vasquez joined her organization to run chap- requires plenty of cash. And challengers who it meant to be part of a community—and a janitor at Kids ‘R’ Us at the Addison Mall to ter meetings in his ward and launch a month- rely largely on small individual donations are he wants to hang on to that feeling. When working at record stores to selling cell phones ly series encouraging informal conversations at a huge disadvantage against incumbents Vasquez started fund-raising for his cam- to running my own AT&T store on Chicago and about politics at neighborhood bars—he such as O’Connor, who have establishment paign last year, he called up some of his old Rush,” he says. His day jobs helped him pay for called it “Drinks and Discourse.” (“I like al- money from industry groups, PACs, and comrades to help. Che “Rhymefest” Smith studio time and beats, but they also provided literation, ’cause I’m a rapper,” he says.) And unions. According to data provided by the headlined a show in August called “Chicago him a cushion for a future beyond rap. “The just as people used to come out to his shows, Illinois State Board of Elections, Vasquez Hip Hop for Prime.” Sean Daley, aka Slug from way I thought about it was, ‘If my parents they came out to his events. “That’s where I has a little more than $20,000 cash on hand. Atmosphere, donated $1,500, and Atomz and came to this country and I’m just this rapper started seeing it and going, ‘Oh, we’re getting Daleiden and O’Keefe trail him closely, with Robles gave money too. Vasquez understands that lives in the basement when they’re older, a turnout of 80 to 100 people—how can we around $16,000 apiece, and Okere is in a that as an activist and aldermanic candidate, then I’ve failed,’” he says. “It caused me to turn that into power?’” Vasquez says. “I be- distant last place with about $6,000. But he has the opportunity to do for others what make a lot of calculations.” came the chair of the Reclaim Chicago North O’Connor’s budget dwarfs those of all four the rap scene did for him—to connect them In the early 2010s, when Vasquez was Chapter—it was so focused on the 40th Ward. challengers combined: the Citizens for Pat- to something bigger and more powerful than running that AT&T store, he decided to I was already having the idea, like, ‘Maybe rick O’Connor committee has nearly a quar- themselves. “He wrote me this card from his leave music. In 2013, he enrolled in Kaplan this is a thing.’” ter million dollars. campaign, ’cause I donated,” Robles says. University (now Purdue University Global), Reclaim Chicago spokesperson Kristi Vasquez is nonetheless confident he can “He personally wrote on the back, saying where he earned an associate’s degree in Sanford remembers Vasquez from Bern Fest force O’Connor into a runo . “We’ve raised I was the closest thing he ever had to a big business administration a year later. Since and considers him an embodiment of the the most money out of all the challengers; brother.” v 2011 he’s been a marketing accounts manager organization’s goals. “This is what we’re all we’ve gotten the most petition signatures,” for AT&T, overseeing the accounts of around about—regular people running,” she says. he says. He estimates he has more than 200 @imLeor 10 CHICA O READER - FEBRUARY ll NEWS & POLITICS
Bill Daley with Reverend Marshall Hatch and members of the MAAFA Redemption Project at New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church in expanding executive control in Chicago, as ev- West Garfi eld Park CHRISCOSTOSO idenced by his opposition to an elected school board and his proposal to merge Chicago Pub- have busied themselves with ballot challenges lic Schools and the City Colleges. Richard M. or scandal management, Daley has been con- famously unilaterally closed Meigs Field and tent to amass a war chest that is by far the reconstituted the leadership of CPS into its largest in the fi eld ($5.94 million compared to current structure. The elder Daley exercised the next closest, Toni Preckwinkle’s, at $3.75 wide-ranging political control across the city’s million). Daley’s list of donors at $25,000 and Democratic machine and strengthened the up reads as a who’s who of Chicago business notorious patronage system that would pro- and private equity types, including Pritzker duce politicians like Burke. In a muddied fi eld matriarch Marian (married to Jay) and Cubs it seems likely that the city of Chicago could CEO Tom Ricketts. Ironically, Daley has turned experience another generation of Daley power his lack of local political bona fides into an consolidation. advantage of sorts. He avoids the more exten- This Daley, at the very least, seems unlikely sive political connections to Burke of other to match his father or brother’s two-decade front-runners while being able to count on the rules of the city. He could, though, fi nd himself endorsements of famous national politicos in the most diª cult fi scal and political situa- like Al Gore. tion of the bunch. He would assume control Gore’s endorsement of Daley would seem of a city that is losing population (and in par- a surprise to some. Gore championed Daley’s ticular hemorrhaging black residents), with POLITICS ability and willingness to be an advocate for an embarrassingly low homicide clearance environmentalism, while Daley simultaneous- rate, historically strained community-police ly received endorsements from the plumbers’ tensions, and a continually darkening fi nancial union that was essential in keeping lead ser- picture. The next mayor will be tasked with ad- Another Mayor Daley? vice lines in use for years in Chicago after the dressing all of these issues with a City Council In a race marked by strong women of color, Chicago may be potential health risks were well-known. Daley still reeling from the made-for-TV defection of poised to elect the machine-backed legacy white candidate. may also stand to benefi t from his association Danny Solis in aid of federal investigators. with Obama. Though the former president is Will the next mayor be a Daley? The polit- By N M unlikely to endorse him personally, it wouldn’t ical planets are aligning to make Bill Daley a be shocking if Obama was quietly rooting for major player in Chicago. Black and Latinx com- Daley given the candidate’s stated opposition munities fi gure to have their support fractured he year 2018 was considered by many Mendoza, and Gery Chico have been weakened to a community benefits agreement for the across a number of candidates, perhaps open- pundits the year of the woman. From by their personal and professional ties to forthcoming Obama Presidential Center. ing the door for a “trusted” candidate like him congressional bids to local and state Burke. Now Daley is positioning himself toward a to peel o support. Daley may have as good a races across the country, women Meanwhile, 70-year-old Daley has quietly strong base that includes a good bit of Chica- shot as any at making the likely runo and per- challenged and in many places won emerged as a potential front-runner with little go’s business community, some elements of haps winning the whole thing. If he does make Tpower at rates previously unseen in American of the stink of Burke and Chicago machine organized labor, and fans of past presidents the runo , it seems likely that a rush of cash life. But just when momentum seems to be politics on him. Despite Burke’s famous fealty he’s served under. Daley’s overtures toward would fl ow into his already bloated war chest. building in national politics, Chicago seems to the two previous Daley mayors, Bill has Obama’s base have been met with a mix of His family’s old power base of working-class poised for an abrupt turn back toward the escaped much of the scrutiny of other candi- confusion and hostility, but may prove per- white voters would likely fall in line. Those masculine in our mayoral election. While dates because much of his political career has suasive to fans of the former president who voters, coupled with even modest support headlines early in the mayoral race focused on happened in D.C. under Clinton and Obama don’t remember the unseemlier dimensions from communities of color, would place him in the celebrity and youth support behind Amara rather than in his ancestral Bridgeport haunts. of past Daleys. Bill has suggested the Dan Ryan a strong position to win it all, particularly with Enyia or the supposed front-runner status of It seems possible, although perhaps shocking, Expressway name be changed to honor Obama the diminished voting power of black Chicago Cook County Board president Toni Preckwin- that in a race where much of the conversation and garnered the endorsement of his brother’s due to out-migration. Many younger voters, kle, it seems that in truth Chicago may be on has been focused on women-of-color candi- former mayoral challenger, Bobby Rush. These either new to the city or new to civic life, may the brink of the reign of yet another Daley. dates like Enyia, Preckwinkle, Mendoza, and machinations seem designed to portray him not remember the Daley family’s former mis- Bill Daley, the youngest child of Mayor Rich- Lori Lightfoot, a white guy from the most as the kindler, gentler Daley, eager to sell out deeds and penchant for power grabbing, and ard J. “Boss” Daley (1955-1976) and the young- famous Democratic political family this side a former close family ally (Dan Ryan was the may be seduced by the chance to have a former er brother of Mayor Richard M. Daley (1989- of Camelot might be poised to step into the big Cook County Board president considered the Obama sta er in City Hall. Only time will tell 2011), now seems to be the surest bet to make seat on the fi fth fl oor. second-most powerful Democrat next to Rich- if he’ll continue his habit of following Rahm an inevitable runo election in a fi eld rocked Daley, to be sure, seems to be the smoothest ard J. Daley) and to show that Bill will be more Emanuel—whom he replaced as White House by the scandal of long-standing City Council operator of his family, less prone to verbal attentive to the needs of black voters than his chief of sta after Emanuel resigned to run for boss Ed Burke, alderman of the 14th Ward. ga es than his father or brother. If anything, predecessors. mayor—into a new job. v Candidates who’ve operated in local and state he seems to aggressively avoid making much Bill, for his part, seems to be in lockstep politics for years such as Preckwinkle, Susana of an impression at all. While other candidates with his family’s traditions of solidifying and @illuminatemics ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER 11 ANYADAVIDSON
12 CHICA O READER - FEBRUARY ll ANYADAVIDSON J ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER13 continued from 13 ANYADAVIDSON
14 CHICA O READER - FEBRUARY ll L’ B F M B F M R N. Milwaukee Ave., Wheeling R Forest Ave., Des Plaines -- bostonfishmkt.com -- FOOD & DRINK
Louis Psihogios; black sea bass, South African shrimp, red snapper RESTAURANT REVIEW MAXTHOMSEN Boston Fish Market is a midwestern leviathan From a small wholesale market to a sprawling suburban seafood emporium By M S
ive years ago, if you were shopping a handful of Greek restaurants and diners, for, say, a pound of shrimp or some notably cooking at the late Melrose Diner in smoked chubs at Boston Fish Market Boystown. That was followed by a few years in Des Plaines, you might have been as a Boston longshoreman unloading fi sh from treated to something from the huge the docks, the experience from which he took Fspread of fresh, fried, or grilled sea creatures the name of his fi rst wholesale market, which Louis Psihogios laid out every day to impress he opened in Park Ridge in 1995. his large wholesale restaurant accounts. The business has grown exponentially. He “We didn’t want it to go to waste,” says Psi- says he has ten ships fi shing the Great Lakes hogios, the founder, kapetanios, and executive for whitefish, and 40 more under contract, chef of what is now, with the recent opening which goes a long way toward establishing of a massive restaurant and fi sh market in a Boston Fish Market as the top processor of former Pete Miller’s Steak & Seafood in Wheel- midwestern whitefi sh, now more than 100 tons ing, a seafood wholesale, retail, and restaurant per week, he says. There are ten ships sailing armada. out of New Bedford, Massachusetts, too. Psihogios didn’t plan for this to happen The company first made moves on the when he moved his processing operation from 227,685-square-foot property in Wheeling Park Ridge to Des Plaines in 2013, but soon his three years ago, throwing a gauntlet in front retail customers—the ones who knew about of nearby Bob Chinn’s Crab House, one of the the fresh fish to be had tucked inconspicu- country’s perennial top-grossing independent ously o Mannheim Road—began to come in restaurants. Last summer Louie’s Boston Fish around lunchtime and clamor for fried clams Market opened with a new flagstone facade and walleye sandwiches. Before long there and four separate dining areas, two of them was a menu with Georges Bank scallops, and facing glass displays featuring a sprawl of gulf snapper fried to order by the pound, and piscine abundance on ice. Psihogios, trading charbroiled Great Lakes platters, and whole his chef’s whites for a sport coat, can be spot- branzino, though he’d prepare anything cus- ted prowling his domain, while white-shirted tomers wanted from the display cases. The Greek servers scurry tableside the instant towering Greek salads with crabmeat and one’s eyes are raised. shrimp were impressive values at $13.99, and That shrimp and crabmeat salad has jumped before long, lines went out the door. Those in price—it’s $23.99 now—along with many heaping platters of seafood became a signa- other things on the sprawling menu, but ture too, notably the zuppe di pesce, a six- they’re rarely not astonishingly abundant, pound mountain of mahi mahi, Manila clams, even daunting. A massive plate of halibut Vesu- mussels, calamari, and shrimp, the soup itself vio, fl aky fi llets slathered with tomatoes, pep- a relative puddle of sauce. pers, potatoes, olives, and asparagus, seems Psihogios was born 50 years ago in Greece— unrestrained compared to presentations done in the Peloponnese, he says vaguely. He’s im- with Mediterranean simplicity. That’s the way patient with questions about his past: “It’s all Psihogios still prefers things: whole broiled on the website,” which outlines a youth spent fi sh, barely treated with olive oil, lemon, and fi shing the Mediterranean and harvesting the oregano. family’s olive orchard. He arrived in the States “I eat it every day,” he says. v in the 70s, first living in New York for a few years, and then Chicago, where he worked in @MikeSula ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER 15 Omar Imam, Live, Love, Refugee, 2015 ARTS & CULTURE COURTESYOFTHEARTISTANDCATHERINEEDELMANGALLERY
VISUAL ART numbers of this mass movement and nods to the contradictions and collective trauma of this crisis through the lenses of eight contem- Age of porary artists. It asks what kinds of stories are being told about people forced to leave home and who gets to tell them. Some of the most displacement intimate works elevate the individual and in- corporate the direct voices of people uprooted There are more refugees now than from their culture and language and left adrift at any other point since World War in unforgiving immigration systems where II. Two exhibitions examine what paper often trumps people. global citizenship looks like. Educator and visual artist Fidencio Fifi eld- Perez, who was born in Oaxaca, Mexico, By S C learned to hoard mail at a young age. “My mom told me to never throw away mail,” he says. “It was a way of documenting where we n a time when the question of whether to physically had been here, and proof that we build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border exist in this country.” dominates the national discourse and In order to qualify for DACA, nearly 800,000 the question of who belongs on each side undocumented youth have presented a me- is omnipresent, two Chicago exhibits lange of report cards, receipts, and letters to Iwrestle with what citizenship means today, prove their existence. For Fifield-Perez, the especially for those who are deliberately and process has ingrained in him the necessity in 2016 when the toll was 400,000. The num- Beirut, London, and Paris in a series of videos structurally denied these rights. of holding on to paper. DACA allowed him to ber today is unknown. called “Women Memories.” Among them are “Dimensions of Citizenship: Architecture live without fear of deportation for the first In his series “Live, Love, Refugee,” Imam, a Ghada, a mother of Palestinian descent who and Belonging From the Body to the Cosmos” time. In his series of 15 paintings called “Da- photographer and fi lmmaker, uses droll irony has lived through two exiles—the first the will be on view for the fi rst time in the United caments,” Fifi eld-Perez paints lush renditions and deft absurdism as a visual response to the collective exile after the Nakbah in 1948 when States at Wrightwood 659 after its debut in the usual depictions of refugees in humanitarian 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were expelled from U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale last year. photography. After surviving kidnapping and their homes, the second her own more recent Curated by Niall Atkinson, Ann Lui, and Mimi “S V torture (he told the New York Times in 2016 exile from Syria—who arrives in Europe by Ziegler, “Dimensions of Citizenship” plays on G M ” that he wasn’t sure who his captors were), sea. Another is Maissa, a religious studies Through / : Mon-Sat the architectural implications of citizenship AM- PM, Sun noon- PM, Imam left Damascus in 2012. He settled fi rst in student from a rural area outside Homs whose through seven spatial dimensions, ranging Museum of Contemporary Lebanon, where he began to collaborate with family has been decimated by the war. from citizen to nation to, fi nally, the cosmos, Photography, S. Michigan, displaced Syrians living in a refugee camp in In one of these videos, In Ten Years, the --, mocp.org. F produced by seven transdisciplinary teams. Beqaa Valley. The experience taught him to women speak about where they see their lives “Stateless: Views of Global Migration” at the “D C believe other’s stories no matter how strange a decade on, often dreaming of the day they Museum of Contemporary Photography, by A they seem. Imam spent the better part of a year will return to Syria. B F contrast, looks to patterns of exclusion and B C ” working with Syrian refugees to create the- Al-Charif isn’t sure when a return to Syria belonging in an unprecedented movement of /-/: Wrightwood , atrical reenactments of their dreams, night- will be possible. Ten years seems too soon. people across borders fueled by confl ict, eco- W. Wrightwood, -- mares, and memories, which he subsequently “Unfortunately, when I watch this video today, , wrightwood.org. F nomic inequality, and climate change. captured in black-and-white still photographs after almost seven years, I understand that we Today migration is at its highest level since with handwritten quotes from the subjects. are still very far from what we hoped for at the World War II. According to the United Nations Imam, the recipient of the 2017 Tim Heth- beginning of the Syrian revolution,” she says. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), of his favorite houseplants on envelopes that erington Trust Visionary Award and a 2014 Both videos are near a display of 36 photo- in 2018, 68.5 million people were displaced represent his own immigrant paper trail: an Magnum Foundation Arab Documentary graphs of mundane objects from Syria—hand worldwide; of that number, 25.4 million have agave on a white envelope addressed to his Photography Program grantee, now lives in cream, ID cards, keys, a teacup—that have been designated as refugees; ten million have husband brings back memories of the Logan Amsterdam. He was denied a visa to attend the become relics, a reminder of both the journey been left stateless (that is, not recognized as a Square porch where they met; a split-leaf “Stateless” exhibition in Chicago because he and an unreachable home. citizen of any state and often lacking access to philodendron, a wedding present, spreads does not hold a valid Syrian passport. He says The loss of home is an intimate and partic- basic rights such as freedom of movement and across an envelope from the University of barriers to travel have been the story of his ularly important subject for Al Charif. “I have education); and fewer than 105,000 have been Iowa that held his master’s diploma. “Home is life, another banal annoyance of statelessness. made an artistic choice as soon as the [Syrian] resettled. Only 22,491 refugees were resettled where my plants are,” he says. “I wonder if they will accept me when I have a uprising began,” she writes in an e-mail. “My in the U.S. in 2018—half the 45,000 permitted, Omar Imam and Bissane Al Charif, who are Dutch passport?” he asks in a WhatsApp inter- questions resulted from my own experience, and just a quarter of the total number of refu- both displaced from Syria, make a radical view. “I will be the same artist, only the papers inciting me to decode the unceasing succes- gees resettled in 2016. declaration of love for Syrian lives and stories will be di erent.” sive migrations and the footprint they leave Organized by MoCP executive director in an age that has systematically devalued Al Charif, a photographer, documents the on the way we see ourselves and the space in Natasha Egan, “Stateless” humanizes the them—the UN stopped counting Syria’s dead memories of ten women who fled Syria for which we live.” 16 CHICA O READER - FEBRUARY ll R READERRECOMMENDEDb ALLAGESF ARTS & CULTURE Save $5 with code: ronically, “Dimensions of Citizenship: Ar- Studio Gang envisions a public monument chitecture and Belonging From the Body for tomorrow. A video shows how a vacant TeamFatGay Ito the Cosmos” couldn’t escape the fallout six-city-block stretch of cobblestones that from the budget battle over the $5.7 billion once served as Memphis’s historic port for the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. Its cotton industry and slave trade can be reimag- by Morgan Gould opening date has been pushed back from Feb- ined in a way that blends personal histories of directed by Jessica Fisch ruary 15 to February 28 due to a slowdown in longtime residents into a civic space truly for cargo handling from an east-coast shipyard. all. The display in “Dimensions of Citizenship” “It is worth noting, given the fact that this includes 50-pound stones from Memphis Feb 15 - Mar 23 exhibition tackles topics of migration and Landing, also known as Cobblestone Landing, boundaries, that the recent government shut- and a hand-drawn map of the city. down complicated and no doubt contributed In Thrival Geographies (In My Mind I See a to the delay in the receipt of our shipment,” Line), Chicago artists Amanda Williams and Wrightwood 659 director Lisa Cavanaugh Andres L. Hernandez, in collaboration with writes in a press release. Shani Crowe, a multidisciplinary artist best The installation examines genuine be- known for her work with hair braiding, ques- longing in both worldly and heavenly bodies. tion whether all people are able to access the “Dimensions of Citizenship” invited represen- rights and benefi ts of citizenship in the United tatives from the worlds of architecture and States. design to build what the exhibition catalog The collaboratively built 22-foot-high steel it’s women’s work describes as spaces of healing and citizenship frame structure shooting into the air was set www.rivendelltheatre.org for all immigrants, legal or otherwise, today in the courtyard of the U.S. Pavilion in Venice; or call 773-334-7728 and in the future. in Chicago, it will occupy a corner space of the “Architecture, urbanism, and the built en- Wrightwood 659 atrium. The “intervention vironment—these form a crucial lens through in the courtyard,” as Williams calls it, honors which we come to understand better what, African-Americans who “took up space” in perhaps, we all already know: that citizenship a country that has historically dismantled, is more than a legal status, ultimately evoking stolen, and illegally acquired black land, prop- the many di erent ways that people come to- erty, and lives. gether—or are kept apart—over similarities in Both exhibits, “Dimension of Citizenship” geography, economy, or identity,” the curators and “Stateless,” call us to create a new mea- write in an essay in the exhibition catalog. surement for belonging, perhaps in court- In 2017 the city of Memphis removed three yards, dreams, and memories instead of on statues that commemorated the Confederate paper. v States of America. In Stone Stories: Civic Mem- ory and Public Space in Memphis, Tennessee, @sarahanneconway
Stone Stories by Studio Gang at the U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Biennale TOMHARRIS/COURTESYTHESCHOOLOFTHEARTINSTITUTEOFCHICAGO/THEUNIVERSITYOFCHICAGO ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER 17 “P L T A S T -” Through /: Fri-Wed AM- PM, Thu AM- PM, Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, Woods Dr., Skokie, --, ilholocaustmuseum.org, $ , $ seniors, $ ARTS & CULTURE students, $ children five- , free children under five.
An estate auction at the Saint Louis Hotel in New Orleans; items for sale included artwork, There were, of course, attempts at resis- household goods, and slaves tance. Slaves would slow their work, break THEHISTORICNEWORLEANSCOLLECTION their tools, or go into hiding. Newspapers frequently carried ads from owners looking on “Purchased Lives,” the Historic New Orle- to recover runaway slaves. Punishments were ans Collection had never done an exhibition severe: whippings; time in the “hotbox,” a hole on slavery, even though New Orleans was the in the ground; wearing an iron collar with bells nexus of the domestic slave trade for the fi rst attached. There is one such collar on display half of the 19th century. (At one point, there in “Purchased Lives.” It weighs six pounds, were 50 markets in the city, not counting roughly the same as a brick. informal sales on the ships and levees.) Nor Slavery was oª cially abolished in 1865, but had the Smithsonian, said Nancy Bercaw, the in a lot of ways, it still goes on. Immediately chair of the division of political history at the after the war, many freed slaves, without National Museum of American History, who homes or tools or even clothing of their own, joined Greenwald and Christopher Reed, a continued to work the plantations as share- professor emeritus at Roosevelt University, croppers; one of those plantations, Angola, for a panel discussion on Sunday moderated which belonged to Isaac Franklin, who ran the by the Triibe’s Morgan Elise Johnson (who oc- largest slave-trading operation in the nation, casionally contributes to the Reader). The rea- is now the Louisiana State Penitentiary, a son, said Bercaw, was that historians—a large- high-security prison farm. At the end of Re- ly white and male population—had claimed construction in 1877, many of the antebellum there were no objects to display. “Oddly,” she government officials returned to power and said, “there were objects everywhere.” established the restrictive Jim Crow laws New Orleans was particularly rich in doc- that effectively made blacks second-class umentation: customs manifests, warrants to citizens. “Any hope for change fell apart,” says seize property subject to forfeiture, newspa- Greenwald. per ads, and bills of sale, which, unique to Lou- And families who had been separated HISTORY isiana, were kept as public records. Greenwald during slavery remained divided. As late as also had access to testimonies of former slaves 1912, former slaves placed ads in the South- collected by the Works Progress Administra- western Christian Advocate, a newspaper The “purchased lives” tion in the 1930s. circulated in fi ve states throughout the deep All of these things are on display in “Pur- south and often read aloud by pastors to their chased Lives.” It is unsettling to see a three- congregations on Sundays. There is a search- that built America foot-long shipping manifest that, in exquisite able database of 2,400 of these “Lost Friends” 19th-century copperplate script, lists human ads in “Purchased Lives.” For the IHMEC ver- An exhibit at the Illinois Holocaust Museum connects beings by name along with their ages, weights, sion of the exhibition, Weininger prepared an the slave trade to the reality of the present. trades, and degrees of blackness (“black,” installation of enlarged copies of 22 ads that “yellow”), as if they were cattle or furniture. have some connection to Illinois. Some of the By A L These manifests and bills of sale contain a ads were placed by people who had moved to disproportionate number of ten-year-olds; ten Illinois during the Great Migration or were he Act to Prohibit the Importation of the Carolinas—to the deep south, by boats and was the youngest age a child, under Louisiana searching for people who had last been seen Slaves went into e ect on January 1, trains and on foot, chained together in co° es, law, could be separated from his or her mother. heading to Illinois many years ago. 1808, e ectively ending the transat- marching through cities. “The only birth records were on plantations,” “There’s a lack of understanding among lantic slave trade from Africa. It did This history is now on display in “Purchased says Greenwald. There was profi t to be made Americans about the history of slavery,” says not, however, end the demand for Lives: The American Slave Trade from 1808 from inaccuracies. “Owners would lie to place Greenwald. (In the panel discussion, Reed put Tslaves in the United States. to 1865,” a new exhibition at the Illinois Holo- a small child into the trade.” it more succinctly: “Denial.”) In the south, The Louisiana Purchase had recently dou- caust Museum and Education Center on loan Many auxiliary industries grew up in New textbooks were written to support the Lost bled the size of the country, and the expulsion from the Historic New Orleans Collection. Its Orleans to support the slave trade. There Cause narrative: the war was about states’ of Native Americans opened up even more connection to IHMEC is obvious, says chief were suppliers of cheap clothing, markets rights, not slavery. In the north, people tend to land for white settlers. The cotton and sugar curator Arielle Weininger: “When one group that fattened up new arrivals before they were think of slavery as something that happened plantations in the new states of Louisiana, decides another group is ‘other,’ when that sold, and hospitals that provided medical elsewhere. But the north, especially before in- Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas would group is brutalized and families are torn apart care because, since Louisiana was the first dustrialization, profi ted from slavery too; the make the American south the fourth-largest and people are murdered, the parallels con- state with lemon laws (meaning merchandise southern economy boosted the entire nation. economy in the world. None of this expansion nect our histories.” deemed defective could be returned), it was “People think this is a southern story,” Green- would have been possible, of course, with- “How do you humanize this story and in the dealers’ best interests to sell healthy wald concludes. “It’s not a southern story. It’s out slave labor. Between 1808 and 1865, one connect it to the reality of 2019?” asks Erin slaves. The Touro Infi rmary charged $1 a day an American story.” v million people were transported from the Greenwald, who curated the original exhibit. for slaves; a record book, on display, shows “upper south”—Maryland and Virginia and In the 50 years before Greenwald began work who was paying. @aimeelevitt 18 CHICA O READER - FEBRUARY ll SAVE $10* WITH PROMO CODE: READER ARTS & CULTURE
Alba performing in 654 Club at Chicago Magic Lounge JAMESMURPHY/ CHICAGOMAGIC LOUNGE
MAGIC in Italy. Their act features mentalism—one of the most rare and diª cult types of magic be- Presto change-o cause it creates the illusion of another person The Incredible Jan Rose and reading your mind. “I am excited about the Alba transform magic into a enthusiasm and education and reimagining of women’s game. magic,” Rose says, “people understanding and respecting magic as an art form. It feels good By S F to the soul and spirit.” When Alba began studying at a magic agic has long been known as a boys’ school in Buenos Aires, her father initially dis- club. It’s estimated that only between couraged her hobby. One day, he came to see M5 and 10 percent of professional magi- her perform at a restaurant. At the end of the cians are women. But now a new generation of performance, he told her he now saw that she female magicians is poised to seize the spot- could change lives through magic, that he was 6 PERFORMANCES ONLY! light and stand shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts. “V ’ W Throughout the month of February, the S S ” MARCH 6–10 / -/ Chicago Magic Lounge will feature two female standouts. The Incredible Jan Rose graces the “A S ” stage from Thursday, February 14, through / -/, Thu PM, Fri-Sat and PM, Chicago Magic Lounge, N. Clark, Saturday, February 16, for the “Valentine’s --, chicagomagiclounge.com, Weekend Signature Show” with her husband $-$. Sold out. and fellow magician, Danny Orleans. Alba will be the featured act for the “Anniversary proud of her, and gave her his blessing. Steadi- Show,” which runs the following week from ly her career evolved until she received her Thursday, February 21, through Saturday, big break at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, an February 23. opportunity she compares to an opera singer “Magic has been around forever” says Les- performing at La Scala in Milan. TICKETS START AT $34 ley Stone, COO of the Chicago Magic Lounge, Alba’s specialty is sleight of hand. “I like to DISCOUNTS FOR GROUPS OF 10+ “and women have always been here. It’s time do intelligent magic. With intelligent prem- that they start being recognized.” Historically ises. I always think that my audience is full of AuditoriumTheatre.org women operated in the roles of assistants, better-educated people than myself who came 312.341.2300 50 E Ida B Wells Dr | Chicago, IL prepping props or being sawed in half though to share their time with me. I feel honored that they were often just as skilled as the men. they decided to give me a chance to entertain Rose met Orleans at an audition in 1983. them and show them something new. “At ENGAGEMENT SPONSORS 2018–19 SEASON SPONSORS After touring together for more than six years, every show, she takes the time to connect with they got married. Their mentor, vaudevillian the audience. “I use magic techniques as a tool Performance Opening Night Performance Performance International Student Matinee Sponsors Eddie Fields, retired and passed his secrets to communicate what is inside me. Hopefully Sponsor Sponsor Sponsor Sponsor Dance Sponsor on to the young couple. Over their 32 years of it will resonate with the audience,” she says, Commissioning support for Lazarus provided by the Auditorium Theatre with sponsorship support Samantha Figgins and Jeroboam Bozeman, marriage, they have personalized the act, trav- “and we can make magic together.” v from ARIEL INVESTMENTS, AVISON YOUNG, and SVOBODA CAPITAL PARTNERS. photo by Andrew Eccles. eling and performing across the globe togeth- *O er valid on price levels 1–4. Not valid on previously purchased tickets. No refunds. er, even lecturing at a magicians’ conference @SheriFlanders ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER 19 SIX YOUNG WOMEN. ONE SMALL TOWN. ARTS & CULTURE DIFFERENT LANES.
Pipeline LIZLAUREN
THEATER The third strike Pipeline examines the opposite of white privilege. By K R
rivilege in America means not just get- Omari assaulted a white teacher who singled ting opportunities to succeed but being him out to discuss Bigger Thomas’s violence in Pforgiven for screwing up. Rich white kids Richard Wright’s Native Son. with a penchant for partying and brawling Morisseau’s dialogue ripples with warmth (or worse) still end up becoming CEOs and and wit as well as despair about the state of Supreme Court justices, while many studies public education in impoverished districts. indicate that black kids who break school rules Janet Ulrich Brooks as Laurie, Nya’s white face far harsher punishment from early on. fellow teacher who has just returned to the That’s one of the dimensions of the school- classroom after having her face slashed by the TWILIGHT to-prison pipeline illustrated in Dominique family of a kid she fl unked, spouts “tough love” Morisseau’s richly faceted, if occasionally rhetoric, saying, “A good old ass whipping can opaque, 2017 drama, aptly titled Pipeline, now teach a lot.” But she has expectations for her in its local premiere at Victory Gardens The- kids beyond good behavior, as demonstrated BOWL ater under the direction of Cheryl Lynn Bruce. by her mockery of a substitute for showing her Nya (Tyla Abercrumbie) is a black teacher in an class season four of The Wire instead of giving embattled inner-city public high school where them actual work. Where Morisseau’s play feels thinnest, BY ironically, is when it focuses on Omari and REBECCA GILMAN P DIRECTED BY ERICA WEISS Through /: Wed-Fri : PM, his Latinx classmate and girlfriend, Jasmine Sat and : PM, Sun PM; also (Aurora Real De Asua). Their performances Wed /, PM, and Tue /, spark with kinetic energy, but they sound as After graduating from a small Wisconsin high school, Sam heads : PM, Victory Gardens Theater, N. Lincoln, - -, if they’re talking past each other, even when to college on scholarship—but her cousin Jaycee’s future isn’t victorygardens.org, $-$. they’re alone and away from the su ocating looking as bright. As the young women and their friends face expectations of parents and teachers. adulthood, their local bowling alley becomes a place to celebrate But when Abercrumbie and Elam face off, triumphs, confront challenges and forge new identities. even the morning announcements sound like a it’s breathtaking and heartbreaking. Nya’s prison warden’s exhortations. Her son, Omari attempts to bridge the divide between what (Matthew Elam), is facing expulsion on a “third she knows as a teacher and what she fears as NOW THROUGH MARCH 10 strike” from the private school where her a mother leave her son hanging in the void. We successful ex-husband, Xavier (Mark Spates don’t know what Omari’s first two “strikes” Smith), has wangled a spot for him. at the school were, but his description of the 312.443.3800 | GoodmanTheatre.org Over 90 tense minutes, we’re immersed in fateful classroom assault (later mirrored by GROUPS OF 10+ ONLY: 312.443.3820 the fear and self-recriminations Nya experi- Laurie’s harrowing account of a fi ght between ences around her son’s future and her own role two boys in her classroom) shows us how in shaping him as a single mother. Morisseau quickly the pipeline can suck someone like
THE ELIZABETH F. also adroitly references famous black writers. Omari in, when it’s just one bad day too many, CHENEY FOUNDATION Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem “We Real Cool,” one microaggression too far. v Major Support Contributing Sponsors which Nya teaches, underscores her fears for her son. In the play’s best scene, we learn @kerryreid 20 CHICA O READER - FEBRUARY ll ARTS & CULTURE
returns to the household she le 15 years ago when she abandoned her husband, children, and all material comfort in the name of self-actualization, and Hnath spends 90 intellectually hypercharged minutes asking us to weigh everyone’s culpability. “Everyone” here is Torvald, Nora’s banker husband, who for years treated her like a brainless bauble; Anne Marie, the nanny who raised Nora’s three children a er Nora vanished; and Emmy, Nora’s headstrong grown daughter, who remembers nothing of her mother. There’s a skeletal potboiler plot involving suspect legal maneuverings and emotional blackmail (all very Ibsen), but it’s there mostly to prop up a series of two-person encounters—all of which involve Nora—through which Hnath considers myriad layers of accountability among a quartet of people, each of whose every decision seems to put the other three in great jeopardy. Along the way Dead Man’s Cell Phone PAULGOYETTE the playwright shows just how diffi cult it can be to make any defi nitive pronouncement about marriage, gender THEATER roles, or family responsibility. It o en feels like a rigorous theatrical exercise, Like a very small casserole despite the astonishing eff orts of Witt’s cast to fi ll the R Dead Man’s Cell Phone resurrects the brainy dialogue with human dimension. That eff ort even- lost art of taking other people’s messages. tually pays off , and by the time Nora’s done, she—and we—have been through the wringer. —J H Photo: Hayim Heron Gordon’s cell phone has a cheerful ring, light and lilting, A D ’ H P Through 3/17: Wed-Fri not the ringtone of a man you take seriously. Still, it cuts 7:30 PM, Sat-Sun 3 and 7:30 PM, Tue 7:30 PM; also through the air with the disarming insistence of an ice Wed 2/27, 3/6, and 3/13, 2 PM, Steppenwolf The- cream truck, or maybe only an ice cream pushcart, and atre, 1650 N. Halsted, 312-335-1650, steppenwolf. Jean, the woman next to him in the cafe, at last picks up. org , $20-$99. Jean is a polite woman. Gordon is dead. Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone explores what They paved paradise happens to love and loss when the previously discrete R A folksinger, an ambitious young couple, variables of presence and absence are muddled by and an enigma battle existential dread in an URBAN BUSH WOMEN our common technology. “You’ll never walk alone,” says Amazon-like Fulfi llment Center. Gordon’s mother. “Because you’ll always have a machine in your pants that might ring.” Four quietly desperate souls struggle to abate their HAIR & OTHER STORIES Ruhl writes like a lucid dream: attentive to the way modern economic dread and suff ocating loneliness in dialogues become monologues as the distance between Abe Koogler’s 2017 tragicomic one-act. To the chagrin of speakers tends toward infi nity, nostalgic for the lost art his city-loving long-term partner (Toya Turner), a young February 28–March 2, 2019 of taking other people’s messages, handy with peculiarly middle manager (Jose Nateras) accepts a six-month trial apt comparisons (“You’re like a very small casserole”). position in an Amazon-like megawarehouse in suburban Jean continues to pick up for Gordon, discovering his New Mexico, a stepping stone in their journey to a next 7:30 p.m. life in fragments of missed conversation. chapter in Seattle. Predictably, upon uprooting and relo- The Comrades’ production, directed by Arianna cating their lives from New York, the couple fails to fi nd Soloway, strikes the ideal balance between ordinary and a sense of new normalcy in a land of shuttered blinds, uncanny that this play requires. Cydney Moody is deli- disillusionment, and unused sidewalks. “The Urban Bush Women are committed, triple- cately sympathetic as Jean in a grown-up Wonderland. What diff erentiates Koogler’s play from other Caroline Latta is batty and outsize as Gordon’s mother, suburbia-as-existential-limbo stories is a wary, perhaps threat performers who dance, sing, and act with Lynette Li a loose cannon of a wound-up woman as misanthropic suggestion that a bohemian fi delity to Hermia, Gordon’s wife. Bryan Breau makes the most of youth and adventure is equally as doomed and futile his momentary manifestation as Gordon. And the cell- a course of action as giving in to the man. When we a sometimes searing sense of truthfulness.” phone ballet of Ruhl’s script is indicated throughout, meet Suzan (Natalie West)—a housing-insecure aging the familiar transition of transmission made strangely folk singer with a broken car and breaking back—she’s THE NEW YORK TIMES wonderful. —I H D M’C P suff ering the indignity of a warehouse-mandated, stop- Through 3/10: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Greenhouse watch-timed walking test around a course of safety Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln, 773-404-7336, cones as part of an interview for a seasonal gig. Grasp- the-comrades.com , $15-$20. ing for any sense of intimacy, she befriends a mysterious loner (Steve Schine) who is similarly haunted by bygone TICKETS Nora Helmer’s back—and this relationships. R time it’s personal Jess McLeod’s taut, volatile production for A Red $30 REGULAR / $24 SENIORS / $10 STUDENTS Orchid Theatre features some truly excellent beat-by- dance.colum.edu A Doll’s House, Part 2 checks in on Ibsen’s beat scene work by a cast adept at humanizing some characters 15 years later. incredibly fl awed human beings. And for all of Fulfi ll- ment Center’s Joni Mitchell-scored angst, the glimmers Director Robin Witt places 34 audience seats—two of compassion and intimacy shared between characters groups of 12, two groups of fi ve—on the stage surround- read as authentic and earned. —D J F - ing the playing area for her keenly observed production C Through 3/24: Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat of Lucas Hnath’s heady 2017 play. In essence, two juries 3 and 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, A Red Orchid Theatre, and two galleries observe the proceedings: Nora, the 1531 N. Wells, 312-943-8722, aredorchidtheatre.org , proto-feminist heroine of Ibsen’s 1879 scandalous classic, $30-$40. ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER 21 ARTS & CULTURE The Golden Girls: The Lost Episodes FILM RICKAGUILAR
B Girlfight R The Girl in the Red Corner tries to punch her way out of life’s problems. MOVIES
Broken Nose Theatre presents the midwest premiere of Stephen Spotswood’s drama about a young woman who confronts her demons by climbing into the steel Democracy and cage of an MMA ring. The metaphor of the hero liter- ally punching out her problems couldn’t be more, er, on the nose, but in the hands of this capable cast and with just enough real-life detail, this production man- disobedience ages to transcend cliche and end up with an aff ecting, o en-powerful story of perseverance. Astra Taylor on wealth, power, Halo (Elise Marie Davis) turns up at a local MMA and the American dream gym not knowing exactly why she’s there, but needing an outlet to defuse the rage she feels a er losing her binary pronouns to the patrons of a feminist cafe. By S K job and ending her marriage. Although initially hesi- In the second half, set at the Miami Senior Center’s tant, Gina (August N. Forman) agrees to become her Sadie Hawkins dance, Dorothy nearly gets engaged trainer. The pair form an unlikely bond that helps both to an ex-con suspected of murdering his wife, while confront the familial and societal forces keeping them inebriated Sophia faces off with her archrival Sylvia, n What Is Democracy? Astra Taylor, a Ca- from reaching their goals. Putting on boxing gloves played deliciously by Danne W. Taylor. nadian filmmaker, writer, and organizer, gives Halo the power to deal with an alcoholic mother “Commercial breaks” in the form of an audience- poses that question to Greek scholars, Gua- and overbearing sister; taking on a protege helps Gina participation quiz game led by cabaret comic Mau- I ease their sense of isolation from family and friends reen SanDiego add to the fun, as does the inevitable temalan immigrants in North Carolina, Syrian (due, apparently, to their gender presentation) and sing-along rendition of The Golden Girls theme song, refugees, a Miami barber who’s a convicted battle with opioid addiction. “Thank You for Being a Friend.” —A W felon, and many others. In one scene, black Astra Taylor COURTESYZEITGEISTFILMS Can a woman really punch her way out of life’s T G G T L E —T middle-schoolers discuss how their voices are problems? As Halo herself admits to her sister in V E Through 3/10: Thu-Sat 8 PM, their most heartfelt conversation, the ring is the Sun 3 PM; also Sat 2/23, 3/2, and 3/9, 10:30 PM, often ignored by teachers. “What you say to be an economic component, right? You can’t one place where she feels she can actually win. That Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont, 773-327-5252, hand- us all the time is, ‘Go to college so you can do separate politics from economics. feeling, however fl eeting, may be enough fuel to bagproductions.org , $27, $21 seniors and students. what you love,’ but you don’t even love what The American dream, which was stron- keep one going. Elizabeth Laidlaw directed. —D you do,” says one student, to the applause of ger in an earlier cut, is this pathological S G R C Through Sucker punch her classmates. What Is Democracy? is a fl uid way that Americans have talked around the 3/2: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Mon 2/18 R Spoiler alert: Nothing in On Clover and Wed 2/27, 7:30 PM, Den Theatre, 1331 N. Road is what it seems. visual essay, an investigation stitched togeth- issue of class. It’s such an ideological phrase Milwaukee, 312-725-6729, brokennosetheatre.com , er with quotes from Plato’s Republic. The fi lm, because it’s this idea of freedom, pulling pay what you can. The best comics are deadpan. They don’t telegraph in violation of one of the most common tropes yourself up by your bootstraps, meritocra- that they are going to be funny, they just are. In the of fi lmmaking, is actually interested in listen- cy, striving, the pursuit of happiness from Thank you for being a friend same way, the best thrillers don’t let us in too early on R The Golden Girls: The Lost Episodes the fact that we’re watching a thriller. Steven Dietz’s ing to what its subjects have to say. the declaration of independence—but it takes on Valentine’s Day. 2015 play about a mother trying to steal her daughter Taylor, who also tours occasionally with was always founded on exclusion, found- away from a cult begins with a rather fl at, naturalistic husband Jeff Mangum’s band Neutral Milk ed on the dispossession of indigenous peo- Fans of The Golden Girls, the popular 1980s sitcom conversation between a woman and a man who we Hotel and wrote 2017’s must-read The People’s ple and slavery, and a very selective rela- about four senior citizens—three widows and a divor- slowly realize must be a cult deprogrammer. The audi- cee—sharing a home in Miami, will likely enjoy this ence is lulled into thinking we’re going to be watching Platform (from Metropolitan Books), is a tionship to immigration. Implicit in the fi lm is campy spoof from Hell in a Handbag Productions. a dramatic exploration of family dysfunction ending in co-founder of the Debt Collective , an organiza- the fact that there’s a critique of the Amer- Written by Handbag’s artistic director, David Cerda, some variation of a mother-and-child reunion. Instead, tion that provides a digital platform to dispute ican dream, but then there’s also some- and directed by Jon Martinez, the show takes the Dietz sucker punches us, then sucker punches us debt and turns individual indebtedness into thing related to it, which is that everybody original series’ main strength—the perfectly balanced again and again until by the end of the evening we’re personalities of its four aff ectionately quarrelsome positively punch drunk—and utterly thrilled. To be collective power (and action, like a success- has the right to not just exist but to thrive. leads—and ups the source material’s already plentiful more specifi c would spoil the ride. ful debt strike against Corinthian Colleges, queer-appeal. Housemates Blanche, Rose, Dorothy, Dietz does not deserve all the credit. Thanks a now-defunct group of for-profit schools). Americans are disillusioned, for very good and Sophia—the roles played on TV by Rue McCla- to director Halena Kays and her team of theater She’s hosting an “assembly of the indebted” at reason. Why did you bother making this nahan, Betty White, Bea Arthur, and Estelle Getty, professionals at American Blues Theater, both on- and Hull House on February 15. fi l m ? respectively—are performed here by men in drag. backstage, the pace of this production is pretty close Michael Rashid as strong, sarcastic Dorothy; Adrian to perfect. Every turn in the plot comes at just the You can’t just wag your finger at people, Hadlock as Dorothy’s o en inappropriate 83-year-old moment we think we—fi nally—know who is who and This interview has been edited and condensed. because that doesn’t acknowledge the fact mother, Sophia; Grant Drager as sultry, oversexed what is happening. And each performance is riveting that people are cynical because the struc- southern belle Blanche; and especially Ed Jones without being overwrought. Gwendolyn Whiteside Instead of showing textbook examples of ture is actually really rotten. It is really cor- as sugary, naive Rose from Saint Olaf, Minnesota, is compelling as the grieving mother, yearning to set de ly re-create the sharply timed rhythms of the her daughter free. And Philip Earl Johnson is terrifi c democracy like voting and the White House, rupt. You have to hear people, you have to insult-packed banter among the “girls.” Script writer and terrifying as a strong-willed, utterly unscrupulous, you choose to film black and brown faces speak to people’s discontent. You can’t just Cerda—who also plays Dorothy in late-night perfor- perhaps-savior turned villain we will, by the end of the who defi ne democracy as the pursuit of jus- smugly tell them that they should engage in mances—hammers home the sexual subtext of the evening, love and hate with equal fury. —J H tice and the American dream. Why? the most baseline aspect of democracy, which jokes in this ribald, salty entertainment. O C R Through 3/16: Thu-Fri 7:30 In the fi rst segment, the women place risque per- PM, Sat 3 and 7:30 PM, Sun 2:30 PM; also Mon When people think about democracy, they is voting. And our voting system is so fucking sonals ads in their local supermarket’s in-house shop- 2/18, 7:30 PM and Wed 3/13, 2:30 and 7:30 PM; think typically of government and of elections. unfair. The fi lm is one thing, but as an activist, per newspaper, resulting in Rose apparently hooking no performance Sat 2/23, 3 PM, Stage 773, 1225 They think of the rule of law. They think it’s what we have to do is tap into that discon- up with a lesbian girlfriend; meanwhile, masculine W. Belmont, 773-654-3103, americanbluestheater. the protection of minority rights as a sort of tent and orient it in a constructive democratic Dorothy inadvertently introduces the concept of non- com , $29-$39. v principle, individual liberties. But there has to direction and be strategic about how we then 22 CHICA O READER - FEBRUARY ll engage in what’s going to be a pretty brutal power struggle. Because the billionaires are going to write their little books like Howard Schultz. But when push comes to shove, they will try to kill us!
Schultz referred to billionaires as “people of means.” Somebody tweeted that at me. He really wanted a euphemism? Wait till he hears the word “capitalist.”
In the fi lm you go to a Trump rally in Raleigh. What Is Democracy? COURTESYZEITGEISTFILMS How do we view the MAGA movement through the prism of democracy? do instead is just, you know, make a republic I want to ask about your camera and how it I did need to show this idea of popular sov- so that the natural aristocracy can shine.” The lingers on faces and watches as they shift ereignty, but if it’s disconnected from other thing that we have never tried is actually just from arguing to smiling, and then crying. types of guardrails then it can be the tyran- sharing the wealth. Let’s fi nally create condi- I didn’t want the camerawork to reinforce the ny of the majority even if they’re not really a tions of relative economic egalitarianism and idea that this is an elite inquiry. I specifi cally majority. It’s more like the tyranny of a nos- see how unstable things are. make fi lms that are philosophical and people talgic retrograde minority. What struck me do not feel invited into intellectual conversa- the most at those events (aside from genuine How do we break the stranglehold tech com- tions. I wanted the camerawork to say, “Hey, misogyny and racism) was some of the mes- panies—monopolies that still brand them- you’re here with me. I might be an intellectu- saging on the big screens on the jumbotron. selves as democracies—have on our lives? al, but actually what an intellectual is is some- And it was all this anti-hedge fund, antibank- There’s just a problem with the business one who wants to know more, who is curi- er messaging. We cannot cede discontent to model. The current pathologies of democ- ous, who’s always learning.” I want to put ask- this pseudopopulist plutocrat-serving divide- racy, whether it’s electoral or technologi- ing questions and the desire to learn back at and-conquer bullshit. The solution can’t be cal, derive from the incentives that are driv- the heart of what it means to be an intellec- the sort of platonic idea that the masses are ing it. There has to be an economic fi x. There tual. I wanted to have respect for the people so moronic that we have to disempower them. has to be a breaking up of tech monopolies. on screen and also a love for them. Because It has to be “let’s engage in political educa- There has to be a de-commodifying of things. I do think we have to have a kind of aff ection tion and actually try to improve people’s lives It’s not about privacy. It’s about the status of for other human beings if we’re going to work so we can pull some people to our side and this private data as the sort of raw materi- this out. v marginalize those where there’s no hope.” But al for an extractive form of capitalism. A lot it is democracy. Democracy is always going to of our leverage over these tech companies @Sujay721 be unstable, it’s always going to undermine its is actually more as citizens than consumers. own legitimacy. But because we are not the main consumers, Part of the message of the film is that, all because we’re not really paying for the ser- the way back, Plato said the problem is the vices—the advertisers are—we have almost no divide between the rich and the poor. Then power of the purse. No ability to boycott. We when Madison and Hamilton were writing have to think about them politically. So that’s their Federalist Papers, they were like, “oh, why it’s ultimately more of a democracy prob- democracies are unstable, but what we should lem than a technological problem.
What Is Democracy?
COURTESY
ZEITGEISTFILMS
ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER 23 N L A sss Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. FILM In German with subtitles. R, min.
Never Look Away
as Richter did, conforming to the monotonous ing, even when he was stuck; of course, he was social realist style favored by the GDR and in his late 70s by then, globally acclaimed and Carl, who pays Kurt to do his portrait. a far cry from a struggling young artist, and It’s at this juncture that Never Look Away well on his way to his current net worth, con- fl irts with the lurid. Carl is living a lie, hiding servatively estimated at $40 million.) his wartime role as the Nazi SS officer who Never Look Away becomes livelier after sent hundreds of German women deemed unfi t Kurt and Ellie escape to West Berlin and settle for reproduction to certain death, including in culturally bustling Düsseldorf. Hoping to Elisabeth. He disapproves of Kurt because break his creative stagnation, Kurt enrolls in he believes the artist’s DNA is contaminated the city’s Kunstakademie, where he befriends MOVIES by the same genetic factors as Elisabeth’s— other young artists searching for the next although there are hints that Carl’s preoccu- new thing. In sequences that have energy, pation with Ellie’s sex life goes deeper than his economy, and wit, von Donnersmarck sketches Truth and beauty commitment to Aryan purity. In an article last the exhilarating ferment of the early 1960s, month in the New Yorker, Richter, who made showing us bits of performance art and hap- Never Look Away makes a German painter’s life a little too pretty. himself available while von Donnersmarck penings, abstract expressionist forms like was conducting research, disavowed both the action painting (Kurt briefl y tries to emulate By A G fi lm and the director for the more sensation- Jackson Pollock) and kinetic nail sculptures, alist elements of the movie’s trailer. The artist and alludes to the Fluxus movement by intro- has been very precise about documenting his ducing a professor named van Verten (Oliver or years now, one of the great myster- many shortly before the Berlin Wall went up. legacy in his three-volume catalogue raisonne, Masucci), dressed much like the seminal artist ies in covering the fi lm beat has been In Never Look Away—its original German title, beginning with works dating back to 1962, the Joseph Beuys, who taught at the Düsseldorf why so many viewers feel that an Werk Ohne Autor, translates as Work Without year in which the fi lm’s story line ends, so one academy at that time. Those touches, along opening title “based on a true story” Author—Tom Schilling, who at certain camera can imagine why any plot development about with a considerable amount of nudity by Schil- (or “inspired by real events”) some- angles resembles the youthful Richter, stars Ellie that Richter’s fi rst wife could perceive as ling, Beer, and Rosendahl, add to the movie’s Fhow validates a movie, makes it worth the in- as fl edgling postwar artist Kurt Barnert. As a spurious would be a sticking point. eye candy—which is why it’s a letdown when creasingly expensive price of admission, and/ quiet, observant six-year-old growing up near If only von Donnersmarck had been more the director uses Kurt’s breakthrough to pho- or distinguishes it from mere “fi ction” (even Dresden in 1937, he adores his aunt, Elisabeth interested in depicting the growth of an artist torealist painting as a means to indict Carl and if the work in question is an openly imaginary (Saskia Rosendahl of Lore), a dazzling but as an intellectual. Richter, in Gerhard Richter: tidy up a plot point. There just is so much else take on actual events or personages). Maybe mentally unstable pianist who teaches him The Daily Practice of Painting—Writings and going on. a sizable segment of our population trusts that “everything true is beautiful.” When she Interviews, 1962-1993, is quoted thus: Like many a German film about Nazism, creative vision only when it serves pragmatic is rounded up by the Nazis to be sterilized and “Strange though this may sound, not know- Stalinism, and the postwar “economic mira- goals, preferring “just the facts” (however euthanized under Hitler’s new eugenics laws, ing where one is going—being lost, being a cle” funded by the Marshall Plan, Never Look “facts” are defined) to anything that even she urges Kurt to “never look away,” to face re- loser—reveals the greatest possible faith and Away can be read as yet another step in con- suggests art, as if art were the same thing as ality, an entreaty he only half follows, peering optimism, as against collective security and temporary Germans’ coming to terms with artifi ce, or, God forbid, requires a little heavy through his fi ngers to obscure the image of her collective significance. To believe, one must their nation’s role in the cataclysmic tragedies lifting. Regardless, Never Look Away, the lat- disappearing into an ambulance. In the movie, have lost God; to paint, one must have lost and events of the 20th century. Koch, whose est drama by German writer-director Florian Elisabeth is later gassed; in real life, Richter’s art.” career spiked when he appeared in the cold Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Oth- aunt Marianne starved to death in a psychiat- Understandably, there’s a commercial im- war thriller The Lives of Others, has stated ers), will be a challenge for viewers who prefer ric facility in 1945. perative behind concocting a triangle between that that fi lm was embraced everywhere but i’s dotted and t’s crossed, because it is, and yet After the war ends, the 20-year-old Kurt re- Ellie, Kurt, and Carl: it’s so much easier to Germany itself. This time around, von Don- isn’t, about one of the world’s foremost enig- turns to Dresden (as did Richter), then part of make a showdown with an evil father-in-law nersmarck is striving to deliver an epic that’s matic living painters, Gerhard Richter. the GDR, to study art. On campus he meets and cinematic than it is to enliven a scene where a palatable to wider audiences. But in cosmet- Richter was born in 1932 in Dresden, sur- falls in love with Ellie (Paula Beer of Frantz); frustrated young painter stares at a blank can- icizing the painter’s life, making this more of vived World War II while other members of his her father, Carl (Sebastian Koch, Black Book, vas while he tries to fi gure out what his work a love story crossed with wartime intrigue, family perished, and then spent his early years Bridge of Spies), is a respected obstetrician should be. (Although fi lmmaker Corinna Belz he has overshot his target. With a little more as a painter in the German Democratic Repub- and gynecologist who opposes their match. To made Richter’s creative process engrossing in truth, Never Look Away could have been really lic, defecting in 1961 with his wife to West Ger- earn a living Kurt paints propaganda murals her 2011 documentary Gerhard Richter Paint- beautiful. v ssssEXCELLENTsssGOODssAVERAGEsPOOR• WORTHLESS
24 CHICA O READER - FEBRUARY ll E K ss Directed by Asghar Farhadi. R, min. In subtitled Spanish and Catalan. Landmark’s Century Cinema, N. Clark, --, landmarktheatres.com. FILM
Everybody Knows
fi rst half hour is practically a slog, as Farhadi shift from benign family drama to thriller lingers on scene after scene that does little is the most successful of its turns, signaling besides relay exposition. a marked change in tone. Still, given how Laura (Penélope Cruz) is a middle-aged little the exposition weighs on the rest of the woman from a small town outside Madrid film, one wonders whether Farhadi couldn’t who’s lived in Buenos Aires for some time have gotten to the kidnapping sooner—it’s with her husband (Ricardo Darín), young son, as though he wanted to lull his viewers into and teenage daughter. At the start of the fi lm, comfort for no other reason than to pull the Laura returns with her family to her birth- rug out from under them. Regardless, Every- place to attend a wedding. Farhadi leisurely body Knows picks up speed as Laura and her introduces the nuclear family along with family fret over how to handle the situation Laura’s sisters and parents, inviting viewers to and the story settles into a familiar abduction bask in the lovely small-town setting and the narrative. interactions of the happy family. The writer- Farhadi ameliorates the sense of familiar- director also introduces another character, ity by bringing in more surprises. The fi rst of Paco (Javier Bardem), a vineyard owner who these is that Laura’s husband isn’t the success- once worked for Laura’s parents, though he ful businessman that others presume him to MOVIES waits for a while to reveal Paco’s connection to be; the truth is that he’s been out of work for the other characters. two years and lacks the money to pay the ran- Before the wedding, Laura’s daughter, Irene, som. The second is that Paco is really Irene’s Lost in translation gets to know a local boy who’s about her age. father, having sired her before Laura moved They ride around on a motorcycle (nearly away. This would explain why Paco (who In Everybody Knows, Iranian director Asghar Farhadi colliding with Paco and his wife at one point) hasn’t had any children with the woman he attempts to make a Spanish movie. and have the sort of vaguely reckless good married) jumps in to help Laura and her family time one might find in movies about young manage the crisis of the girl’s abduction. He By B S people from all over the world. While the feels a sense of responsibility for Irene and wedding takes place in a local church, the boy cares personally for the girl’s safety. Farhadi takes Irene to the church’s bell tower; on the also raises the possibility that Paco still longs wall she notices an inscription made by her for Laura and that he acts as he does out of de- he great Indian director Satyajit Asghar Farhadi has now made two movies in mother and Paco when they were teenagers. votion to her. Yet since the fi lmmaker reveals Ray once remarked that, in making countries other than Iran, The Past (2013) and Apparently the two were lovers when they relatively little about Paco and Laura’s past movies for the entire world, his Everybody Knows (2018). The first of these were young. “Everybody knows about it,” the relationship, their present-day moral dilemma responsibility was to look at the was shot in France but focused on an Iranian boy asserts, but it comes as news to Irene. The feels theoretical at best. particulars of his society and find character; the protagonist, somewhat alien- revelation of Laura’s past, as seen through her Even worse, Farhadi fails to elicit inter- Tthe universal. This sounds like a good formula ated from French customs despite being mar- daughter’s eyes, is one of the movie’s stronger esting performances out of anyone in his for storytellers who aspire to international ried to a Frenchwoman, poignantly refl ected moments, tapping into a universal coming-of- cast—the biggest inadvertent surprise of viewership, but it would seem to break down Farhadi’s own emotional distance from the age experience wherein one realizes his or her Everybody Knows may be how little chemistry whenever they work outside their native setting. The more recent fi lm, shot in Spain, parents were once reckless youths like oneself. he generates from real-life spouses Bardem countries. Can a director truly understand the contains no Iranian characters—or, for that Yet Farhadi refuses to let the moment stand and Cruz. You can’t really fault the actors for particulars of a society he or she doesn’t know matter, any character who might be perceived in on its own—rather, he makes it portend a this failing, as they’re playing dramatic con- intimately? If not, can his or her fi nely honed as an outsider. Farhadi has decided to look at bigger revelation to follow. (The remainder ceits rather than fully fl edged characters; they sense of the universal make up for this lack people who could conceivably exist anywhere, of this review will address some of the plot just don’t have enough to work with. The cast of understanding? Some fi lmmakers working and unfortunately this ends up working to the twists of Everybody Knows, so readers who achieves some interesting moments when Far- abroad have used their outsider status to their movie’s detriment. The film’s observations want to be surprised by the fi lm may want to hadi explores the dynamics of Laura’s family advantage, producing work that speaks to don’t feel universal, but simply generic. check out here.) as they prepare for the wedding and respond feelings of alienation that people experience Everybody Knows hinges on a few big plot During the wedding party that night, to the kidnappers’ threats, perhaps because everywhere. The films Michelangelo Anton- twists, and while they keep the narrative com- Irene gets kidnapped when she’s left alone in the family dynamics are more tangible than ioni made outside of Italy (Blow-Up, Zabriskie pelling, they detract from the fi lm as a whole: her bedroom. Farhadi leaves the abduction the moral drama that surrounds them. In any Point, The Passenger) exemplify this; so too the turns feel plausible, yet they also exude a offscreen, keeping the identity of the kid- case, these scenes keep Everybody Knows do the ones that Hou Hsiao-hsien has directed certain show-o y quality that take one out of nappers a secret. In fact, Irene’s abduction grounded and attention-grabbing; without outside of Taiwan (Café Lumière, Flight of the the story. Moreover, the fi lm is so dependent becomes known only when the family receives them, the fi lm would feel so indistinct as to be Red Balloon). on its surprises that it seems to be treading a text message from the kidnappers demand- immaterial. v Perhaps the most internationally recog- water whenever it isn’t building up to a twist ing a ransom and threatening to kill Irene nized Iranian filmmaker presently working, or watching the characters reel from one. The if her parents contact the police. The film’s @1bsachs ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER 25 FILM Get showtimes at chicagoreader.com/movies.
NOW PLAYING Isn’t It Romantic Audition In this call-out of romantic comedies that traffi cs in the A spoiler warning is necessary: a drastic change in tone genre’s cliches, a cynical architect (Rebel Wilson) bonks occurs partway through this methodically deceptive her head and wakes up in an unrealistic rom-com version drama. And though I hate to ruin the complex expe- of her life. Grimy New York suddenly teems with fl owers rience of following a rather calm story about a lonely and cupcake shops, her cramped apartment transforms widower as it becomes something else, I feel obliged to into a luxe suite, and hunky men fall over themselves point out that the hard-core gore and so -core surreal- to woo her, including an Australian billionaire (Liam ism of this baroque morality play may not support any Hemsworth) with a fondness for the word “beguiling.” theme, least of all the one spelled out in a vengeful char- Though the movie’s tropes have been written about acter’s dialogue. Takashi Miike directed a screenplay by or spoofed before in funnier fi lms like They Came Daisuke Tengan; with Ryo Ishibashi and Eihi Shiina. In Together, this breezy take from cowriters Erin Cardillo, Japanese with subtitles. —L A 115 min. Dana Fox, and Katie Silberman—among them, credits Fri 2/15-Sat 2/16, 11 PM. Music Box include How to Be Single and Set It Up—has heart and a I Want to Dance clever resolution. Adam Devine as the protagonist’s best Cold Pursuit friend, Priyanka Chopra as her romantic rival, and Betty Director Hans Petter Moland remakes his Norwegian melodrama, drawing on Douglas Sirk for his dramatic to mental illness, addiction, domestic violence, incarcer- Gilpin as her assistant round out a strong supporting fi lm In Order of Disappearance (2014), transferring the mise-en-scene and Vincente Minnelli for his saturated ation, or sudden death. Ellen Robinson of Chatham rears cast. —L P PG-13, 88 min. AMC Dine-in Block action to Colorado but retaining a sense of nihilistic color schemes and iconic handling of the stars. The her teenage grandson, Patrick, with the help of Chicago 37, ArcLight, Century 12 and CineArts 6, Chatham 14, ugliness familiar from numerous Scandinavian thrillers. A scandalous secrets come tumbling out in such profusion police offi cer Denny Perdue, who has steered the boy City North 14, Ford City bored-looking Liam Neeson stars as a snowplow driver that the women’s issues are buried, and by the end the into swimming and boxing. Georgeanne Fischetti of whose grown son gets murdered by members of a pow- mystery has begun to crumple of its own weight. But the Lincoln Park took charge of her granddaughter Martha The Lady From Shanghai erful drug ring. The driver predictably takes revenge, French screen royalty assembled by Ozon and the fi lm’s during the girl’s infancy, became her guardian a year R The weirdest great movie ever made (1948), tracking down and killing several of the culprits, but the sheer exuberance in its own artifi ce make this a delight later, and eventually adopted her at the child’s request. which is somehow always summed up for me by the surviving criminals suspect that members of another from beginning to end. In French with subtitles. —JR This warm, upli ing documentary also introduces the image of Glenn Anders cackling “Target practice! Tar- drug ring committed the crimes, and a bloody turf war J R, 111 min. 35mm. Wed 2/20, 7 and 9:30 PM. Second Chance Grandparents Writing Group, which get practice!” with unbalanced, malignant glee. Orson ensues. Moland attempts to play this for black comedy, Univ. of Chicago Doc Films off ers a creative outlet to stressed caregivers. —A Welles directs and stars as an innocent Irish sailor who’s indulging in lots of Tarantinoesque mannerisms along G 58 min. Anderson attends the screening. dra ed into a bizarre plot involving crippled criminal the way (all the criminals have silly nicknames and The Favourite Sun 2/17, 3 PM. Chicago Filmmakers lawyer Everett Sloane and his icily seductive wife Rita pontifi cate a lot), but the director seems to take greater Anyone—woman or man—who weds for money, position, Hayworth. Hayworth tells Welles he “knows nothing delight in laboriously killing off his characters than he or power is highly mercenary. And that’s what makes Happy Death Day 2U about wickedness” and proceeds to teach him, though does in delivering jokes. The fi lm contains a good deal the obsidian-black comedy The Favourite so bracing: R One of the only horror fi lms I’d describe as cute, he’s an imperfect student. The fi lm moves between of racist invective, and Moland unwisely tries to play two alluring, clever, resourceful, and ruthless “ladies” the 2017 Blumhouse hit Happy Death Day was a slight Candide-like farce and a deeply disturbing apprehen- this for laughs too. With Laura Dern and Tom Bateman. of the early 18th-century British royal household, Sarah but engaging riff on Groundhog Day, following a college sion of a world in grotesque, irreversible decay—it’s the —B S R, 118 min. AMC Dine-in Block 37, Ford City Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, Keeper of the Privy student doomed to relive the day of her murder until only true fi lm noir comedy. The script, adapted from a Purse (Rachel Weisz), and her declasse cousin, Abigail she fi gures out the identity of her masked killer. This novel by Sherwood King, is credited solely to Welles, but The Color of Pomegranates Hill (Emma Stone), are so locked in competition for the superior sequel gives up on being a horror fi lm early on it’s the work of many hands, including Welles, William R The late Sergei Paradjanov’s greatest fi lm, a favors of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) that her bed- and transforms into a wild sci-fi fantasy with imaginative Castle, Charles Lederer, and Fletcher Markle. —D mystical and historical mosaic about the life, work, and chamber becomes a key battlefront. “Intriguing” doesn’t twists involving parallel universes and characters with K 87 min. Former Reader fi lm critic Jonathan inner world of the 18th-century Armenian poet Sayat begin to describe them, and “likable” rarely does. multiple identities. Director Christopher Landon (who Rosenbaum lectures at the Tuesday screening. Fri 2/15, Nova, was previously available only in the ethnically —A G R, 120 min. Sat 2/16, 7 and also scripted this one) maintains the same charming 1:55 and 6 PM; and Tue 2/19, 6 PM. Gene Siskel Film “dry-cleaned” Russian version—recut and somewhat 9:30 PM; and Sun 2/17, 4 PM. Century 12 and CineArts 6, tone he established in the fi rst fi lm—we’re not meant to Center reorganized by Sergei Yutkevich, with chapter headings City North 14, Univ. of Chicago Doc Films take the story too seriously, even though we’re meant added to clarify the content for Russian viewers. This to view most of the characters with aff ection—and he Mutual Appreciation superior 1969 version of the fi lm, found in an Armenian Female Perversions accomplishes some ni y tracking shots as well. Like its R YouTube has realized the indie-fi lm ethic of studio in the early 90s, shouldn’t be regarded as An adventurous and sometimes sexy (if only fi tfully suc- predecessor, the movie has a broad sentimental streak, ordinary people generating their own cinema, but the defi nitive (some of the material from the Yutkevich cut cessful) 1996 adaptation of Louise Kaplan’s celebrated but the sentiment feels more thoughtful and heartfelt result seems to be a library of solipsism, self-regard, and is missing), but it’s certainly the fi nest we have and may nonfi ction book, directed by Susan Streitfeld from a this time around. —B S PG-13, 100 min. AMC second-rate showbiz. That makes a genuine indie talent ever have: some shots and sequences are new, some are script she wrote with Julie Hebert. Streitfeld focuses Dine-in Block 37, ArcLight, Century 12 and CineArts 6, like Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha) even more notable; positioned diff erently, and, of particular advantage to on a successful single prosecutor (British actress Tilda Chatham 14, City North 14, Ford City, 600 N. Michigan his low-budget tales of confused college grads have all Western viewers, much more of the poetry is subtitled. Swinton, displaying an impeccable American accent) as the immediacy of a bedroom webcast, but they’re also (Oddly enough, it’s hard to tell why the “new” shots she waits to discover whether she’s been appointed as I Want to Dance drily funny and shrewdly observant of personal and were censored.) In both versions the striking use of a judge, her kleptomaniac-scholar sister (Amy Madigan), R A 60-year-old Tehran author suff ering from social behavior. Shot in black-and-white 16-millimeter, tableaulike frames recalls the shallow space of movies the prosecutor’s boyfriend, a lesbian psychotherapist writer’s block receives a CD of songs from a mysterious this second feature (2005) centers on a shaggy musician made roughly a century ago, while the gorgeous uses of she has a fl ing with, and other people in her orbit. street vendor; a er he listens to it, he becomes mag- (Justin Rice) who arrives in New York, meets up with color and the wild poetic conceits seem to derive from Oscillating between everyday events in her life and ically possessed by the urge to dance everywhere he an old friend (Bujalski), and begins dri ing into a love some utopian cinema of the future, at once “diffi cult” her dreams and fantasies, the fi lm is much more suc- goes. This 2015 feature, directed by Bahman Farmanara triangle with the friend’s sweetheart (Rachel Cli ). With and immediate, cryptic and ravishing. This is essential cessful with the former than with the latter, which o en (Smell of Camphor, Fragrance of Jasmine) from a script characteristic shyness, Bujalski backs away from any viewing. —J R 79 min. Sun 2/17, get heavy-handed and obscure. But the freshness of by Omid Sohrabi, might seem to some Western eyes dramatic fi reworks, but he’s become increasingly adept 7 PM. Univ. of Chicago Doc Films Streitfeld’s approach toward gender anxiety and social like a genial comedy about fi nding happiness. It’s really at rendering ambivalent and uncomfortable situations— conditioning fascinates even when the overall clarity a pointed critique of Iranian society. Since it’s illegal to most memorably a party where the hero arrives late 8 Women diminishes. Not for everyone, but those who like it will dance in public in Iran, the author’s strange behavior and falls into the clutches of three young women deter- R A factory owner is found dead, and the fi nger probably like it a lot. With Karen Sillas, Clancy Brown, doesn’t make others regard him as a kook, but rather a mined to get him into drag. —JR J 110 min. of guilt passes from one occupant of his glamorous Frances Fisher, Laila Robins, Paulina Porizkova, and full-blown dissident. The central joke is that one can be At Facets Cinémathèque. Visit facets.org for showtimes. home to another: his coolly fashionable wife (Cather- Dale Shuger. —J R R, 114 min. perceived as dangerous in Iran without even trying to ine Deneuve), his willful daughters (Virginie Ledoyen 35mm. Tue 2/19, 7 PM. Univ. of Chicago Doc Films be, and it’s to the fi lmmakers’ credit that the joke never Rabbit à la Berlin/Wir Bleiben and Ludivine Sagnier), his morally loose sister (Fanny grows stale. Not surprisingly, the Iranian government Ardant), his miserly mother-in-law (Danielle Darrieux), The G Force didn’t fi nd this very funny; the fi lm was banned there Hier his neurotic sister-in-law (Isabelle Huppert), and the Strong women propel Pamela Sherrod Anderson’s docu- for three years. In Farsi with subtitles. —B S Polish documentarian Bartek Konopka’s wryly funny home’s two domestics (Firmine Richard and Emmanuelle mentary, about seniors who step up as primary caregiv- 99 min. Sat 2/16, 8 PM, and Sun 2/17, 5 PM. Gene Siskel Rabbit à la Berlin (2009) unfolds from the perspective Béart). François Ozon directed this slaphappy musical ers for their grandchildren a er their children fall prey Film Center of the rabbits that lived in the no-man’s-land between 26 CHICA O READER - FEBRUARY ll East and West; for them the wall is no symbol of bitter than a little nuts as an upstate New York Hasidic cantor eArts 6, Chatham 14, City North 14, Ford City, Showplace LIC UB P division but a paradise of quiet and “green, succulent plagued by nightmares about his recently deceased ICON, Webster Place 11 HE T O T grass.” Dirk Otto’s 1990 German documentary Wir wife’s corpse decaying in her grave. Determined to learn N E P O Bleiben Hier is about Vietnamese immigrants in East how quickly her dust will return to dust, he badgers a The Anabasis of May and Fusako Feb. 27-March 1, 2019 D N A
Germany a er the fall of the Berlin Wall. In German with pot-smoking, burned-out community college science E
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subtitles. —B S 82 min. Fri 2/15, 7 PM. Northwest- teacher (Matthew Broderick, master of the double take) Shigenobu, Masao Adachi and 27 FR ern University Block Museum of Art for some hard data as to when her ruach (soul) is likely Years Without Images CHICAGO to return to God. Some cockamamie, quasi-scientifi c, and defi nitely not kosher experiments ensue; mean- French fi lmmaker Eric Baudelaire’s 2011 experimental Shadows of Forgotten FEMINIST R Ancestors while, enthralled by a pilfered tape of the 1937 Yiddish documentary looks at the connects between Fusako classic The Dybbuk, the cantor’s two impressionable Shigenobu, leader of the radical Japanese Red Army, FILM Adapted from a novel by Ukrainian writer M. Kotsyubin- young sons (Leo Heller, Sammy Voit) decide dad needs his daughter May, and the radical Japanese fi lmmaker sky, Sergei Paradjanov’s extraordinary merging of myth, an exorcism. Writer-director Shawn Snyder makes a Masao Adachi. In English and subtitled French and Japa- FESTIVAL history, poetry, ethnography, dance, and ritual (1964) strikingly original and winsome feature debut. —A nese. 66 min. Sat 2/16, 12:30 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center Film Row Cinema remains one of the supreme works of the Soviet sound G R, 105 min. Landmark Renaissance Place, 1104 S. Wabash Ave. 8th oor cinema, and even subsequent Paradjanov features have Westfi eld Old Orchard Beat Street chicagofeminist lmfestival.com failed to dim its intoxicating splendors. Set in the harsh A break-dance musical (1984), directed by Stan Lathan, and beautiful Carpathian Mountains, the movie tells the What Is Democracy? with Guy Davis, Rae Dawn Chong, and Robert Taylor. 103 story of a doomed love between a couple belonging R For those itching to take a political philosophy min. 35mm. Thu 2/21, 7 PM. Univ. of Chicago Doc Films to feuding families, Ivan and Marichka, and of Ivan’s class or wishing they’d paid more attention in college, life and marriage a er Marichka’s death. The plot is this documentary is a potent introductory course. Dream of the Bridal Chamber aff ecting, but it serves Paradjanov mainly as an armature Canadian-American fi lmmaker Astra Taylor (Examined Guo Baochang directed this revised and modernized to support the exhilarating rush of his lyrical camera Life) traces the idea of democracy back to its roots version (2005) of a 1925 antiwar Peking opera about movements (executed by master cinematographer Yuri in ancient Greece and Plato’s Republic, visiting the a newlywed couple separated when the husband is Illyenko), his innovative use of nature and interiors, his philosopher’s strongholds in Athens and de ly weaving conscripted. In Chinese with subtitles. 88 min. Guo and de juggling of folklore and fancy in relation to pagan Greece’s ongoing debt crisis into her scrutiny of a cinematographer Hou Yong attend the screening. Thu and Christian rituals, and his astonishing handling of corruptible system. Taylor speaks with public fi gures, 2/21, 7 PM. Logan Center for the Arts F color and music. A fi lm worthy of Dovzhenko, whose scholars, and a wide range of citizens in several poetic vision of Ukrainian life is frequently alluded to. countries about their views of democracy and its fault False Faces In Ukrainian with subtitles. —J R lines, eliciting passionate commentary from all parties. Lowell Sherman directed and stars in this 1932 drama 97 min. 35mm. Mon 2/18, 7 PM. Univ. of Chicago Though her subject would be diffi cult to unknot even about an unethical plastic surgeon who also has roman- Doc Films as a docuseries, what Taylor achieves with her fea- tic entanglements. 81 min. 35mm restored archival print. ture is commendable. She presents an inclusive and Wed 2/20, 7:30 PM. Northeastern Illinois University Sudden Fear necessary debate, asking whether democracy today Gargoyle thriller from 1952, with Joan Crawford (in really is of, by, and for the people, and if it ever was. Guy her high garish period) as an heiress who discovers —L P 107 min. Taylor attends the Friday and Alex Lutz directed and stars in this French mockumen- her husband (Jack Palance, the perfect iconic match) Saturday screenings. Fri 2/15, 7:45 PM; Sat 2/16, 3 PM; tary about a journalist who discovers that he’s the son is planning to kill her. The fi lm was a product of Sun 2/17, 5:30 PM; Mon 2/18, 7:45 PM; Tue 2/19, 6 PM; of a pop singer, and decides to make a documentary RKO desperation and didn’t do especially well on fi rst Wed 2/20, 7:45 PM; and Thu 2/21, 6 PM. Gene Siskel about him to learn more about his life. In French with BEST IN SHOW release; its anomalous success as a revival (in 1987, in 35- Film Center subtitles. 101 min. At Facets Cinémathèque. Visit facets. FEB 15-18 AT 11 PM millimeter restoration) seemed largely a matter of fi del- org for showtimes. ity to archetype (as a clear-lined suspenser) and kitschy Wings of Desire iconographic tastes, though probably Charles Lang’s R Wim Wenders’s ambitious and audacious fea- Films by Laida Lertxundi glossily noirish cinematography had something to do ture (1987) focuses mainly on what’s seen and heard A program of experimental works (2012-18) by Los Ange- with it too. With Gloria Grahame, Bruce Bennett, and by two angels (Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander) as they les-based Spanish fi lmmaker Lertxundi. 70 min. 16mm. Mike Connors; David Miller directed. —P G fl y over and walk through contemporary Berlin. These Lertxundi attends the screening. Thu 2/21, 6 PM. Gene 110 min. Fri 2/15, 7 and 9:30 PM; and Sun 2/17, 1:30 are the angels of the poet Rilke rather than the usual Siskel Film Center PM. Univ. of Chicago Doc Films blessed or fallen angels of Christianity, and Wenders and coscreenwriter Peter Handke use them partially to Films by Sasha Litvintseva Swimming Pool present an astonishing poetic documentary about the A program of two experimental documentaries codi- As a big fan of Under the Sand (2001), the previous life of this city, concentrating on an American movie star rected by Sasha Litvintseva. The Stability of the System Never collaboration between Charlotte Rampling and writ- on location (Peter Falk playing himself), a French tra- (2016, codirected by Isabel Mallet) is a philosophical GOOD WILL HUNTING er-director François Ozon, I was prepared to follow peze artist (Solveig Dommartin), and a retired German exploration of a volcanic island; and Salarium (2017, codi- them pretty far into the ambiguities and nuances of this professor who remembers what Berlin used to be like rected by Daniel Mann) is a look at the Dead Sea and its missFEB 19-21 a AT 10:30 PM tale (2003), about a celebrated British mystery novel- (Curt Bois). The conceit gets a little out of hand a er environs. 59 min. Litvintseva attends the screening. Fri show ist (Rampling) who arrives at her publisher’s country one of the angels falls in love with the trapeze artist and 2/15, 7 PM. Museum of Contemporary Art For showtimes and advance tickets, visit house in the south of France to work on a book but decides to become human; but prior to this, Wings of thelogantheatre.com fi nds her space invaded by his promiscuous daughter Desire is one of Wenders’s most stunning achievements, Reza again. (Ludivine Sagnier of Ozon’s 8 Women and Water Drops certainly in no way replaceable by City of Angels, the In this Iranian romantic comedy, an architect attempts to on Burning Rocks). Unfortunately, a er the well-honed ludicrous 1998 Hollywood remake. In English and subti- navigate single life a er his wife of nine years divorces psychological melodrama of its fi rst half, this wanders tled French and German. —J R him. Alireza Motamedi directed. In Persian with subti- off into the metaphysical territory of Ingmar Bergman’s PG-13, 128 min. Thu 2/21, 7 PM. Northwestern University tles. 94 min. Sat 2/16, 6 PM, and Sun 2/17, 3 PM. Gene Persona (a much better fi lm). In English and subtitled Block Museum of Art Siskel Film Center French. —J R 102 min. 35mm. Thu 2/21, 9:30 PM. Univ. of Chicago Doc Films ALSO PLAYING Rubén Blades Is Not My Name EARLY Abner Benaim directed this documentary about cele- To Dust Alita: Battle Angel brated Panamanian singer Rubén Blades. In English and R His searing lead performance in Son of Saul Robert Rodriguez directed this sci-fi adaptation of subtitled Spanish. 85 min. Fri 2/15, 2 and 6 PM; Sat 2/16, WARNINGS (2015) established Géza Röhrig overnight as a prodi- Yukito Kishiro’s popular manga series Gunnm, about a 4:45 and 8:15 PM; Sun 2/17, 3:45 PM; Mon 2/18, 6 and 7:45 giously gi ed dramatic actor, but who knew he could female cyborg (Rosa Salazar) who’s lost her memory. PM; Wed 2/20, 6 PM; and Thu 2/21, 8:15 PM. Gene Siskel chicagoreader.com/early also be funny? In this screwball comedy about death and With Christoph Waltz and Jennifer Connelly. PG-13, 122 Film Center v mourning, he’s by turns hapless, endearing, and more min. AMC Dine-in Block 37, ArcLight, Century 12 and Cin- ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER 27 Daredevil producer Jlin survives her own trial by fi re The Indiana-based beat wizard returns to the stage for Pitchfork Midwinter a er courting burnout to fi nish her second album and score an avant-garde dance performance. By L G EBRUYILDIZ
n October 19, 2018, six days Patton says. “She just nursed me back to talent, including chameleonic composer and after producer Jerrilynn health until I could function again.” performance artist Laurie Anderson, ambi- P M Add-on tickets for “Jlin” Patton performed at Thankfully Patton is functioning again—last tious jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington, Tortoise, Deerhunter, the 16th annual iteration of week she performed two nights in Abu Dhabi, postrock veterans Tortoise (performing all of Serpentwithfeet, Grouper, experimental-music festival her fi rst appearances since Unsound, and on 1998’s TNT ), and British shoegaze favorites Kamasi Washington, Panda Bear, and Jlin are sold out. OUnsound in Krakow, Poland, she decided to Saturday, February 16, she plays a late-night Slowdive, whose 1995 album Pygmalion Pitch- Check midwinter.pitchfork. cancel her appearance a week later at the set at Pitchfork’s new Midwinter festival. This fork reissued in December in conjunction with com for updates. Fri 2/15 Semibreve Festival in Portugal. “I’ve never multiday event focuses on avant-garde, fringe, record club Vinyl Me, Please. through Sun 2/17, 5 PM, Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. had to cancel a show due to my health, but this and outre music, and presents more than two Patton, 31, suspects that the fatigue that Michigan, $50 per night time I have to,” she wrote in an Instagram post dozen artists in various spaces at the Art Insti- laid her low last fall had its beginnings in 2016, plus add-on tickets ($15-$30 at the time. Patton had worked for years at a tute of Chicago from Friday through Sunday. when she was working simultaneously on apiece), three-day passes U.S. Steel mill in Gary, Indiana—she left that Five musicians appear in the museum’s galler- two major undertakings. Her shape-shifting and Saturday base tickets sold out, all-ages job in late 2015, nine months after releasing ies all three nights, among them Portland gui- second full-length, Black Origami , came out her debut album—but she says she’s never tarist Marisa Anderson and Chicago vocalist on Planet Mu in May 2017, and by December J experienced anything as exhausting as her Haley Fohr of Circuit des Yeux, while the mar- it seemed like no “best albums” list was com- Part of Pitchfork Midwinter. Sat 2/16, 10:30 PM, Chicago tour schedule. To recuperate, she fl ew to India quee names (whose sets require “add-on tick- plete without it. She also scored a stage show Stock Exchange room, Art to stay with her girlfriend, illustrator and de- ets”) play in four di erent halls and auditori- by internationally renowned choreographer Institute of Chicago, 111 S. signer Nafi sa Crishna, who lives in Bangalore. ums. Jlin is among the most enticing, though Wayne McGregor, Autobiography, that pre- Michigan, sold out, all ages “I was dehydrated, my stomach was upset,” she shares the bill with plenty of high-profi le miered at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London 28 CHICA O READER - FEBRUARY ll in October of that year (Planet Mu released work tracks and artists. In the late aughts, she the music in September 2018). “I would tell began to communicate with a network of Chi- anybody, ‘Do not ever do two major projects in cago producers on MySpace. The fi rst person one year,’” Patton says. “I did it, but it defi nite- she contacted, Avery Seaton (who now goes by ly beat me.” DJ Seven Six), sent her a copy of FL Studio in Patton, who lives with her parents in Gary 2008. “The fi rst week I couldn’t get it to make when she’s not flying around the world, up- a sound, and I was like, ‘Man, forget this, I’m ended her entire schedule while working on not doing this,’” Patton says. “Then I went to Autobiography. “I would sleep from six in the YouTube one day, and they had FL tutorials evening to two in the morning, and I would up—I watched one and I was like, ‘Oh.’ The start working at about two, two-thirty,” she fi rst sound that I made, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m in! says. “I could get into the workfl ow. Once ev- I’m a musician!’” erybody got up, I probably was in the groove One of Patton’s three favorite discoveries by then, so it was fi ne. I would work up until on Imeem was a producer named Clarence six. It actually got the job done.” Because Mc- Johnson, better known as DJ Roc. In 2005, Gregor and his team were on Greenwich Mean the year Patton started college, Johnson had Time, six hours ahead of Gary, this routine cofounded a footwork production collective allowed Patton to stay in real-time communi- called Bosses of the Circle, and it’d been going cation with them. Two in the morning for her was breakfast time for them. McGregor created Autobiography using his own sequenced genome, which in turn shaped an algorithm that generated a new structure for every performance, reordering the 23 sec- tions (one for each human chromosome) that fell between the show’s fixed beginning and end. Patton wanted to respect the choreogra- pher’s investment in the piece, so she wrote the score with utmost care. “I went vegan during that period—I just wanted to detox,” she says. “Wayne’s piece, I considered that one more important than Black Origami—Wayne trusted me with something so intimate. His genome. The cover of Jlin’s second album, That’s a deeply intimate thing, and so I took all Black Origami of that to heart. That’s why I just wanted to be as clean as I could get, and then write.” The 13 movements in Autobiography’s score strong for four years when Patton messaged vacillate from ghostly and serene to visceral him out of the blue with a track she’d made. “I and hyperactive, and like all of Patton’s work liked her music from the jump,” Johnson says. from Black Origami forward, they belong to a “When I asked her where she’s from, I’m like, genre of their own. Threaded through her cur- ‘Really? Indiana?’” Patton became a member rent sound, though, are clustered hi-hats, rap- of Bosses of the Circle without further ado. “It idly hiccupping vocal samples, and other hints was cool, ’cause I was at a really low point in of the adrenalized Chicago-born dance-music my life,” she says. “It was nice to be a part of style that fi rst inspired Patton: footwork. something.” Patton was unhappy with the way her atton was four when she first heard studies were going. “I was running away footwork at a neighbor’s house. “I was from life—’cause I didn’t like my majors,” she Plike, ‘Oh my God,’ and I just never forgot says. “I should’ve just majored in math and that sound,” she says. “That’s how it started, left it at that.” She’d developed a powerful and I loved it ever since.” She fi rst tried making love for math, particularly calculus, while footwork herself after she enrolled in Purdue still in high school, and to this day she works University Calumet (now Purdue University on math problems to calm her nerves: “It’s Northwest) in August 2005. She’d signed up to just a relaxing thing.” Instead of going to her double major in computer graphics technolo- classes, Patton would hole up in the school’s gy and architectural engineering, with a minor Gyte Building, which housed several science in mathematics, but music increasingly took labs, and work on tracks. “I would do calculus precedence. by myself in the basement of that building for, Patton spent much of her free time on like, four hours before I would start making streaming site Imeem in search of new foot- music,” she says. J ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER 29 continued from 29 list before Patton submitted her work, but he Patton found her voice as a musician as her hadn’t settled on a name, and she was happy academic career fell apart. She dropped out of to help on that front too: she suggested using college, but her tutelage under Johnson con- the title of one of DJ Trouble’s contributions, tinued. “We was even doing sample battles,” “Bangs & Works.” he says. “She make a track, and I make a track Planet Mu’s second Bangs & Works compi- off the same sample.” Johnson also helped lation, released in November 2011, included connect Patton to infl uential London electron- two tracks of Patton’s, both of which she’d pre- ic label Planet Mu and its founder, Mike Para- viously posted online. “I used to put up these dinas, aka producer µ-Ziq. In 2010, as Johnson videos on Facebook,” Patton says. “I put up prepared his fi rst full-length for the label, The ‘Erotic Heat,’ and Mike came to me and said, ‘I Crack Capone, he also helped recruit other gotta have that on a compilation.’ I said, ‘OK,’ producers for Planet Mu’s fi rst footwork com- and he said, ‘I want “Asylum” too.’” pilation, Bangs & Works . Johnson told Patton “Erotic Heat,” with its froggy synth loop, about the comp, and in June 2010 she reached cross-stitched hi-hats, and rattling percussive out to Paradinas on Facebook. patterns dropping into the mix at unexpected “I was befriending many producers from angles, became Patton’s breakthrough. Amer- Chicago—I needed their help to identify tracks ican clothing designer Rick Owens used an on YouTube battle videos,” Paradinas says. extended version of it to soundtrack his Paris “Jlin was very friendly and helpful.” Patton Fashion Week showcase in 2014. Patton, who’d had o ered Paradinas a couple of her tracks taken a job as a mobile equipment operator at for Bangs & Works. “Her initial tracks were full U.S. Steel in 2012, brought her mom to Paris of spirit and rough round the edges, much like for the occasion—she saw it as an opportunity other footwork tracks from that time,” Paradi- to make amends for dropping out of college. nas says. He’d fi nalized the compilation’s track “That’s why it was so important for me that she
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went,” Patton says. “Because I was like, ‘I’m not a hard-to-classify aesthetic that pushes its a failure—I messed up, but I’m not a failure.’” idiosyncrasies so far that it’s basically a genre When Patton told Paradinas about Paris with just one practitioner. Fashion Week, he suggested that Planet Mu Although Patton worked on Black Origami release a full-length of her music. With help and Autobiography simultaneously, she’d from producer and labelmate Jamie Teasdale nearly completed her own record before really (aka Kuedo), Patton finalized a track list for diving into McGregor’s score. “I was procras- what would become her first album, Dark tinating on writing, ’cause I was scared,” she Energy , which came out in March 2015. At that says. “I was like, ‘How do I start this?’ And so point she was using FL Studio, a digital audio I got this text message from Wayne one day— workstation called Reason 6, and basically he wasn’t trying to push me or anything, he nothing else—she was following advice that literally just was like, ‘Hey, I can’t wait to hear This Friday! Teklife cofounder DJ Rashad had given her the fi rst piece.’ And I’m thinking to myself, ‘I after they fi rst connected on MySpace in the haven’t even started writing yet! I gotta jump February 15 on it.’ Right when he sent that message, the Park West ball started rolling.” McGregor took a hands-off approach to working with Patton. “The one thing he told Next Thursday! me that I really appreciate, he was like, ‘I want 2nd Show Added you to just write—I’m not micromanaging at 10pm February 21 you,’” Patton recalls. “He said, ‘I love what you 7:30pm - Sold Out! Riviera Theatre do, and all I want you to do is create.’ That was it. He was the vision, and I was the audible, and we put it together.” McGregor gave Patton a copy of one of the foundational texts for his show, Siddhartha Mukherjee’s 2016 book The Gene: An Intimate History. Patton also stud- ied YouTube videos of public Autobiography The album release of Jlin’s music for rehearsals to help her create complementary Wayne McGregor’s Autobiography sounds. Patton wanted to make music whose imag- late aughts. “He said, ‘Don’t go out and buy inative complexity and constant evolution a whole bunch of equipment. I know some of would reflect not only McGregor’s essence the musicians with all the equipment in the but also what his show says about all people. world—they sound like shit. Don’t do that. “As much as it is personal—it is about him—I It’s not the equipment, it’s you.’ I never forgot also think it’s about humanity as a whole,” she Friday, February 22 • Vic Theatre those words,” Patton says. “I didn’t have any says. “Our vulnerability, our happiness, our equipment when I made Dark Energy. Nothing. anger, our sadness. We all go through these Zero. That’s just funny. And for as many acco- di erent emotions and variations and phases lades as that album got, I had no equipment.” of life, and that’s what I was trying to capture.” Dark Energy sold well enough to let Patton Planet Mu released the Autobiography quit her job at U.S. Steel and focus on music score in September, roughly a month before Saturday full-time. “After the success of Dark Energy Patton canceled her Semibreve appearance. “I she gained a lot of confi dence,” Paradinas says. felt like I was cracking, and my nerves felt like March 2 Patton also began to drift away from foot- I was about to snap—I was like, ‘No, I can’t do Vic Theatre work. “The second album, it started to change this,’” she says. “I made that call—it was real- drastically,” she says. “My pyramid shifts ly, really important. I’m happy I made it, ’cause 2nd Show constantly—but Black Origami, the closer I I honestly couldn’t have done it.” She’s spent got to the end of it, that’s when that shift was much of her time since then in Bangalore, and Added really, really happening.” One obvious sign she also joined Crishna’s family on a holiday Saturday, February 23 at 10pm that Patton had begun working with a new mu- trip to Sri Lanka. In January, after several Vic Theatre 7:30 Show sical language was her choice of collaborators months o from writing music, she got back to is Sold Out! on Black Origami—most notably composer business, working at a desk next to Crishna in Holly Herndon and sound artist William Ba- her Bangalore studio. “When I started back, I sinski (who also performs at Midwinter this was like, ‘Man, I missed this,’” Patton says. “I weekend). She’d been pen pals with Herndon missed the writing. I missed the fun part—that since 2011, and she’d met Basinski at a show in exhilarating feeling. I can hear my growth, and BUY Los Angeles. They were bound to cross paths that’s a beautiful thing.” v TICKETS AT eventually, given the rarefied musical world in which they all travel: like Patton, each has @imLeor ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER 31 Recommended and notable shows and critics’ insights for the week of February 14
MUSIC b ALLAGESF
THURSDAY14 Donna Missal Samia opens. 7 PM, Chop Shop, 2033 W. North, $15, $12 in advance. 18+
New Jersey singer-songwriter Donna Missal has a smoky, powerhouse voice, and a fl air for making PICK OF THE WEEK retro soul sound up-to-the-minute that recalls Amy Winehouse. She began releasing songs in 2015, and on her 2018 debut album, This Time (Harvest), she Postrock shows she has potential to become a household name. Opening track “Girl” starts with her vocals instrumentalists framed by a few muted chords and a stripped-down beat; it sounds so good you’re almost sorry when the rest of the band comes in. The song’s profanity- Tortoise reemerge laced lyrics hint at same-sex lust—“Girl, you got me all fucked up / I’m in my feelings”—and though they from their shells might not have come out of Stax in its heyday, Mis- sal sings them like they did. Elsewhere, she com- bines complex emotions and concepts into a single for two local shows verse, which manages to be an excuse for stealing a lover, a call for feminist solidarity, and a come-on all at once: “Thinking I did something wrong / But I wouldn’t choose this / When women hate on other women / Everybody loses.” The elements don’t often come together quite as perfectly through-
ANDREWPAYNTER out the album, but Missal is a pleasure to listen to, T T M D whether she’s throatily emoting over an overdriv- Part of Pitchfork’s Midwinter fest. Sat 2/16, Sun 2/17, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. en beat on the title track, running up and down a 6:30 PM (event begins at 5 PM), Rubloff Western, $25. 21+ jazzy vocal line on “Skyline,” or unleashing her full Auditorium, Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. hog-calling power on “Keep Lying.” The sort of Michigan, sold out. b promise she exudes now seems likely to turn into greatness down the road. —N B
THEREMAYBE no better musical representation of the adage that these hometown icons in the near future: fi rst on Saturday, February Party Knüllers with Jaimie Branch 9 PM, Elastic, 3429 W. Diversey, $10. b the whole is greater than the sum of its parts than instrumental 16, at Pitchfork’s Midwinter festival (which has a stacked lineup as postrock group Tortoise. Nearly 30 years after its inception, the Chi- eclectic as Tortoise) and then on Sunday, February 17, at the Empty Cello and electronics player Fred Lonberg-Holm, cago-born quintet continues to synergize the disparate infl uences of Bottle for a Midwinter afterparty. The festival gig is also a special who lived in Chicago until 2017, and Norwe- gian drummer Ståle Liavik Solberg are the Party its members, combining groove-fi lled, indie-leaning Krautrock with 21st-anniversary performance of the band’s acclaimed 1998 album, Knüllers. The name of the duo is a bit deceptive; electronic fl ourishes, jazz sensibilities, global infl uences, and mini- TNT, its fi rst to feature virtuosic guitarist Je Parker. It’s always their freewheeling approach to improvising is malist beauty. Though a few members still reside in Chicago, the rest a profound experience to witness how these musicians fuse their more like a friendly (but not too friendly) game of streetball than Andrew W.K.-style headbanging. are now spread throughout the country, making it even more rare for assorted styles and switch among multiple instruments (almost ev- But they do adhere to one rule of partying—no mat- the band to record or perform—and this is a group that took seven erybody plays percussion at some point), and though Tortoise gigs ter how much fun you’re having making music, it’s years to complete its most recent album, 2016’s The Catastrophist are becoming fewer and farther between, this week’s sets should be even more fun when the right friends join in. On Party Knüllers’ 2013 LP Four Images of Wank (His- (Thrill Jockey). Thankfully, Chicagoans have two chances to see no less engaging. —S M pid), Jim Baker uses his synthesizer to add code-
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32 CHICA O READER - FEBRUARY ll Donna Missal Find more music listings at MALIAJAMES chicagoreader.com/soundboard. MUSIC N LINCOLN AVENUE, CHICAGO IL OLDTOWNSCHOOL.ORG . .
JUST ADDED ON SALE THIS FRIDAY! violating electrical zaps to the duo’s skittering feints friends gathered on his Brooklyn rooftop and lis- and elbows-out collisions. Party Knüllers X Jaimie tened to playbacks of his music while watching Dom La Nena Branch at the Casa, a download-only recording of dusk descend over the city. He released the work Della Mae Dale Watson & Kelly Willis a 2018 concert with the formerly Chicago-based in four parts throughout 2002 and 2003, and the FOR TICKETS, VISIT OLDTOWNSCHOOL.ORG trumpeter (available on Bandcamp), is more mercu- reaction to them was so powerful that in 2012 The rial. At fi rst Branch’s quick trumpet jabs challenge Disintegration Loops was inducted into the Nation- the flow of Lonberg-Holm and Solberg’s running al September 11 Memorial & Museum. But even SATURDAY, FEBRUARY & PM game, but within minutes she’s using extended tech- without the music’s link to such profound tragedy niques to meld her instrument’s voice with either of (and the seismic cultural and political shi s it trig- John McCutcheon in Szold Hall theirs. Though this concert is part of the trio’s sec- gered), its sweeping, haunting beauty would still ond American tour, it’s the fi rst time they’ve played be moving. Then, on Saturday night, festivalgoers SUNDAY, FEBRUARY PM together in Chicago. —B M can leave the troubles of earth behind for music of the extraterrestrial variety as Basinski performs a Mandolin Orange solo set showcasing his upcoming release On Time at Thalia Hall, S Allport Street Sharon Van Etten See also Friday. Nilufer Out of Time (Temporary Residence), which consists Yanya opens. 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 1807 S. of works originally commissioned in 2017 for a pair FRIDAY, FEBRUARY PM Allport, sold out. 17+ of art installations by Evelina Domnitch and Dmit- ry Gelfand (part of a Berlin exhibition called “Lim- Sierra Hull It’s been nearly fi ve years since Sharon Van Etten its of Knowing”). Including source material derived with special guest String Symphony released Are We There—which means it’s also been from the gravitational waves emitted by two super- nearly fi ve years without that voice. The Brooklyn- FRIDAY15 massive black holes that merged together 1.3 bil- SATURDAY, MARCH PM based singer-songwriter has long possessed the lion years ago (captured by the Laser Interferome- secret power to sound woefully resigned to the Kai Alcé Marcellus Pittman and Specter open. ter Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO), the
poetic drudgery of life while simultaneously pro- 10 PM, Smart Bar, 3730 N. Clark, $20, $12 in material is simultaneously calming and chilling, and Fifth House Ensemble phetic in her realization of that. Though Van Etten advance, $15 before midnight. 21+ always awe-inspiring. —J L and Alash present is a raw and affecting lyricist, her smoky, folklike vocal singing sometimes does the job all by itself— “House music has always been New York, Chica- Sonic Meditations she threads each line with emotion using her deliv- go, and Detroit, maybe as far as D.C. and Phila- DJ Koze Part of Pitchfork’s Midwinter fest. Baba In Szold Hall ery and melodic timbre. For last month’s Remind Me delphia,” Atlanta producer Kai Alcé told Red Bull Stiltz opens. 9:45 PM (event begins at 5 PM), Tomorrow (Jagjaguwar), Van Etten enlisted produc- Music Academy in 2016. “Under what we could Griffi n Court, Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. THURSDAY, MARCH PM er John Congleton, who worked alongside St. Vin- call the Mason-Dixon line, house music hasn’t had Michigan, $50 per night plus $15 add-on ticket for cent during her rise to art-pop authority—news that that history.” Alcé, who was born in New York and DJ Koze. b Habib Koité & came with the question of whether or not she’d be raised in Detroit, has helped foster a house com- heading down a similar aesthetic path. But that munity in Atlanta since he moved there in the early A 2018 XLR8R profi le of German producer Stefan Bassekou Kouyate didn’t happen. Not even close. Remind Me Tomor- 90s. In 2005 he cofounded the annual outdoor Kozalla, aka DJ Koze, mentioned his predilection for row plays like Van Etten’s next chapter rather than party House in the Park, which now draws between telling the press that when he was a child his par- FRIDAY, MARCH & PM her reboot. Though standout tracks such as “No 10,000 and 20,000 attendees. And a few years later ents had left him in a Marrakesh forest with just One’s Easy to Love” and arena-ready single “Sev- Alcé launched NDATL Muzik, a label named after an Akai MPC. It’s a totally batshit yarn, but it pro- The Earls of Leicester enteen” are propelled and girded by dark, ethere- the three house hubs he’s resided in. Last year the vides an illuminating way to approach his music. His featuring Jerry Douglas, Shawn Camp, al synths, those new textures don’t come close to label dropped his latest EP, Back in This Shit, which third album, May’s Knock Knock (Pampa), meanders Charlie Cushman, Johnny Warren, and Jeff White overshadowing Van Etten—or drowning her out. opens with “Sheed’s Move,” a lovely downtempo through the woods of pop music’s past, gathering Instead, they add another extension to her song- house cut on which Rasheeda Ali provides wa ing its wildest roots, most beautiful fl ora, and squiggli- SUNDAY, MARCH & PM writing that feels incredibly welcome. —K fl ute notes. Tonight Alcé headlines Smart Bar to cel- est fauna and merging them into a kaleidoscope W ebrate NDATL’s tenth anniversary. —L G of sound. At fi rst it may seem like Koze’s blips and Steep Canyon Rangers burps of bold rap, tender psych, erratic techno, and outre pop would be impossible to fit togeth- SATURDAY, MARCH PM Kai Alcé William Basinski See also Saturday. Part of er, but he makes it work—even when the music MARIESTAGGAT Pitchfork’s Midwinter fest. 6:20 PM (event begins gets so mellow it seems like it’s on the verge of col- Sam Bush at 5 PM), Rubloff Auditorium, Art Institute of lapsing. On “Music on My Teeth,” dour folkie José Chicago, 111 S. Michigan, sold out. b González sings atop a swirling, twinkling rainbow of SUNDAY, MARCH PM psych-guitar melody, and on “Muddy Funster,” Lam- Ambient music is o en unfairly regarded as “back- bchop’s Kurt Wagner melancholically intones along Graham Nash ground noise,” but in the hands of its most passion- with a cosmic synth drone. Koze has long made at the Athenaeum Theatre, N Southport Ave ate practitioners, it can be as striking as the loud- music with a punklike flair for disruption, starting est and most confrontational music ever produced. with his 90s hip-hop group Fischmob (which helped THURSDAY, MARCH :PM Minimalist composer William Basinski has been build the foundation for Germany’s hip-hop commu- mastering this realm of sound for four decades, nity), and these days he continues to challenge what
and he’s bringing his expertise to Chicago for two we should expect from popular music. I’ve heard a Avishai Cohen performances at Pitchfork’s Midwinter fest. On Fri- few critics say they expect genres will be obsolete at Constellation, N Western Ave day night, he’ll perform his seminal work The Dis- within 20 years, and instead everything new will integration Loops with the Chicago Philharmonic. just be considered “pop.” When the time comes, I WORLD MUSIC WEDNESDAY SERIES Basinski began creating this piece—later dubbed hope it will resemble the spirit—and maybe even the FREE WEEKLY CONCERTS, LINCOLN SQUARE “The Saddest Music in the World” by Vice—in Sep- sound—of Knock Knock. —L G Rhodee and the Garifuna Flava tember 2001. While converting material he’d record- Band Wasugurun "Garifuna ed in the 80s into digital fi les, he noticed the mag- Struggle" CD Release Event Hamid Al-Saadi with Safaafi r: netic film on one of his tapes flaking away with Sasha Go Hard Illi headlines; Sasha Go the Maqam of Iraq each rotation, destroying earlier layers and leaving Hard, Matt Muse, and Gatson open. 9 PM, Beat Flamenco Eñe: Diego Guerrero blank space along the strip. Intrigued, he repeat- Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, $10. 17+ ed the process with other tapes from the set, mix- ing the decaying sounds with additional ambient Seven years ago, the rap world’s spotlight affixed OLDTOWNSCHOOL.ORG layers. A er the Twin Towers fell, Basinski and his itself on the fi rst wave of drill with such inten- J ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER 33 Find more music listings at MUSIC chicagoreader.com/soundboard.
continued from 33 ately restrained attack to attune listeners’ hearing sity I wouldn’t have blamed anyone for thinking it’d to subtle tonal changes. Her recent recordings for be permanent. But the attention began to move on the Another Timbre and Black Pollen labels adapt sometime between when Keef dropped Finally Rich the voluptuous melodic contours of Indian dhrupad in December 2012 and when he started serving 60 music, but Aperiodic will perform earlier, unrecord- days for violating his probation in January 2013. ed pieces that Lamb composed in 2010 and 2011. On The couple dozen rappers who helped make drill’s Thursday the festival moves to Constellation. First fi rst wave a phenomenon have since evolved as art- on the bill is a song cycle of mortality-minded piec- ists, and many of them have grown out of anything es by female writers performed by clarinetist Jen- resembling drill’s icy, violent image. Take Sasha Go nifer Woodrum and piano-voice combo Albatross Hard, who shows off her agility and pop sensibilities Duo. Then Mabel Kwan will celebrate the release on her two 2018 releases, the January full-length of her recent CD, G.E. Haas: Trois Hommages (New No Problems and the October EP Make America Focus). This marvelous album contains three piec- Ratchet Again (Nutty World). She internalizes the es for two pianos, which are tuned a quarter tone tropical pulse of “The Porch” so perfectly that her apart—an arrangement that creates a halo of bright red-hot hook punches up the energy of the song overtones around the insistent rhythms of a pair of without ruffl ing its luxuriant mood. Sasha tries out a pieces dedicated to György Ligeti and Steve Reich. coterie of stylistic choices on Make America Ratch- Another composition, dedicated to Josef Matthias et Again, including bounce (“The Porch”), ghostly Hauer, dri s sublimely into increasingly disorient- dance (“Shake”), and subterranean, arty R&B (“New ing sonorities. On Friday local experimental musi- Bitch”). It makes for a somewhat jumbled listen, but cian Kevin Drumm—who hasn’t played in Chica- she approaches each track with an outsize confi- go since 2017—will collaborate with trombone duo dence that welds these disparate sounds together. Sasha Go Hard TRACYGARDNER Rage Thormbones. And in a free concert on Satur- —L G day, International Contemporary Ensemble, a tire- less proselytizer for new music, will present works that involve the deconstruction and reconstruction Sharon Van Etten See Thursday. Lucy Dacus Tortoise See Pick of the Week, page 32. of woodwind instruments. The festival concludes and Nilufer Yanya open. 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, Part of Pitchfork’s Midwinter fest. 9:45 PM, Art on Sunday night with a concert by Ensemble dal 1807 S. Allport, sold out. 17+ Institute of Chicago, Griffi n Hall, 111 S. Michigan, Niente that will include a performance of Viola Yip’s $50 per night, $128 three-day pass. b “Vibrations Vibrantes VI,” which uses lights, quiet sounds, and the dimensions of whichever space it’s played in to explore mutual infl uences of auditory SATURDAY16 SUNDAY17 and visual materials. —B M William Basinski See Friday. Part of Pitchfork’s Midwinter fest. 6:30 PM (event begins Tortoise See Pick of the Week, page 32. Portrayal of Guilt, Stay Asleep Portrayal at 5 PM), Fullerton Hall, Art Institute of Chicago, Mute Duo opens. 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. of Guilt headlines; Stay Asleep and Porcupine 111 S. Michigan, $50 per night plus $15 add-on Western, $25. 21+ open. 9 PM, Subterranean, 2011 W. North, $10. 17+ ticket for Basinski. b On last year’s Let Pain Be Your Guide, Austin screa- mo band Portrayal of Guilt pull off a rare feat, wear- Dark Fog Balms, Diagonal, and Bow & Spear WEDNESDAY20 ing their influences on their sleeves while forg- open. 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, ing a distinct identity of their own. Over the past $10, $8 in advance. 21+ Frequency Festival Tonight’s concert is at decade, screamo has largely comprised bands recy- 8 PM at the Logan Center for the Arts, University cling the same ideas, so it’s noteworthy that Por- Trippy Chicago trio Dark Fog have defi nitely hit a of Chicago, 915 E. 60th. F b Frequency Festival trayal of Guilt are able to pull from genre stalwarts deep vein of psych productivity. When I e-mailed concerts on Thu 2/21 through Sun 2/24 are at such as Majority Rule and Pageninetynine without guitarist and bandleader Ray Donato to ask about 8:30 PM at Constellation, 3111 N. Western, $15 sounding beholden to either of them. In the short their new album (meaning Living the Past . . . Kill- (Sat 2/23 free). 18+ time since their self-titled 2017 debut EP, Portray- ing the Future), he sent me a link to a completely al of Guilt have gone from a lean trio doling out different new album, Make You Believe. And nei- When former Reader staff writer Peter Marga- blasts of hypercharged screamo to a quartet capa- ther of these releases is October’s Our Secret Soci- sak began programming the Frequency Series in ble of building expansive worlds inside densely ety. Way to make every other band on the plan- 2013, he envisioned concerts that would expose packed songs. And those tiny moments are what et look like slackers, guys. To clarify, because I was audiences of different avant-garde musical disci- make Let Pain Be Your Guide so thrilling—with var- confused and you might be too: This show is a plines to artists from other genres that they had ious strains of the genre recalled by slow, doomier release party for the U.S. vinyl edition of Make You not heard before but might well appreciate. Mar- passages (“Daymare”), industrial fl ickers (“Let Pain Believe, a beautiful deluxe package for a complex gasak left the Reader and Chicago in order to Be Your Guide”), and even a trace amount of black and rich aural brew that was released digitally via move to Rome in 2018, but he’s continued to pro- metal (“Among Friends”), there’s a constant sug- Bandcamp last June. Living the Past . . . Killing the gram the series (which usually takes place on Sun- gestion that anything could happen next. Tonight Future was released digitally on February 7 and has day nights at Constellation) as well as a semiannual they’re playing with Chicago’s Stay Asleep, who’ve already sold out preorders for a very limited pic- festival. During the fourth Frequency Festival, sev- been able to accomplish something similar, albe- ture-disc edition, but Donato promises a more wide- eral new-music and experimental performers will it with diff erent source material. Stay Asleep mine ly available vinyl version of Our Secret Society soon. premiere compositions or collaborations, starting the sounds that were all but defined by brothers Tonight you can expect Dark Fog to play rippling with a free Wednesday concert by Aperiodic at the Paul and Todd Burdette—the creative forces behind sonic waves of melodic psych jams from all three Logan Center on the University of Chicago campus. His Hero Is Gone, Deathreat, and Tragedy—but their records, and possibly some from their next three or The group, which specializes in deep dives into the music never sounds like pure idol worship. Their four—judging by their current pace, that should take material of contemporary composers, will perform a songs rarely move in a straight line, instead bringing us to next fall. —M K program of music by Berlin-based, American-born in dirgier elements and even some nimble little gui- violist and composer Catherine Lamb. Lamb’s tar runs that link all the pieces together. The pairing music uses alternate tuning systems and a deliber- of Portrayal of Guilt and Stay Asleep seems fi tting—
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both groups show that the most devoted students er, and complex, bluesy shredding by guitarist of hardcore’s past are often the most capable of Robin Trower. Though the band’s lineup shifted a pushing the genre forward. —D A bit throughout the 70s, they released an excellent run of soulful, progressive symphonic rock before splitting up in 1977. But like many other bands of Procol Harum Also Thu 2/21 at the same their generation, Procol Harum joined the reunion venue and time. 8 PM, City Winery, 1200 W. circuit in the early 90s. Though Brooker, Fisher, Randolph, $65-$75. b and Trower initially combined forces once again, it was only a matter of time before people started Formed in England in 1967, Procol Harum are prob- dropping out, which eventually le Brooker as the ably best known for their massive debut single, “A sole original member. In 2017, Brooker and a line- Whiter Shade of Pale,” a chilling, Bach-inspired, up of hired guns released Novum, the fi rst Procol organ-led beauty of a tune deemed by some the record since 2003. Obviously it’s not very good: the first progressive-rock song ever. But prog or not, songs aren’t interesting and the whole thing has a it introduced the world to the baroque-rock gran- bizarre adult-contemporary production sheen to it. But no one’s going to see Procol Harum in 2019 to deur Procol Harum came to specialize in, with its epic, story-driven lyrics, sweeping arrangements, hear new songs; fans want to hear the classics, and double-keyboard interplay between singer and Brooker’s still got the pipes to bring them. —L TICKETS AVAILABLE VIA METRO + SMART BAR WEBSITES + METRO BOX OFFICE. NO SERVICE FEES AT BOX OFFICE! pianist Gary Brooker and organist Matthew Fish- C v ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER 35 CHICAGO SHOWS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT IN THE WEEKS TO COME
EARLY WARNINGS b ALLAGESF WOLFBYKEITHHERZIK UPDATED Never miss a show again. Lizzo 5/3-4, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 5/3 sold out, 5/4 Sign up for the added b newsletter at chicagoreader. GOSSIP UPCOMING com/early Aborted, Cryptopsy, Benight- WOLF ed 3/22, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock La Luz 3/22, 9 PM, Sleeping Club, 17+ Village A furry ear to the ground of Acid Mothers Temple, Yaman- Let’s Eat Grandma 4/9, taka // Sonic Titan 4/13, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ the local music scene 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Jenny Lewis 3/30, 7:30 PM, Action Bronson, Meyhem Riviera Theatre, 18+ LASTWEEK local folk-rock outfi t Minor Lauren 2/23, 6 PM, Concord Lords of Acid, Orgy, Geni- Music Hall, 17+ torturers 3/7, 8 PM, Bottom Moon dropped their new album, An Antlers 4/5, 9 PM, Thalia Lounge, 17+ Opening, via the Midwest Action label. Hall, 17+ Meat Wave 5/4, 8:30 PM, Singer-songwriter Sam Cantor weaves Jacob Banks 3/2, 8 PM, Con- Sleeping Village stately vocal harmonies and spacious cord Music Hall, 18+ Meek Mill 3/8, 7:30 PM, Aragon Baroness, Dea eaven 3/31, Ballroom b arrangements around his ruminative, 6:30 PM, Riviera Theatre b Misfi ts, Fear, Venom Inc. 4/27, engaging melodies. Gossip Wolf is espe- Beirut, Helado Negro 2/22, 7:30 PM, Allstate Arena, cially fond of the keyboard-saturated shuf- Tim Hecker COURTESYENVISIONMANAGEMENT 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Rosemont fl e of “When You Notice (A Little Light),” Adrian Belew 4/4, 8 PM, Maur- Monolord 4/26, 8:30 PM, er Hall, Old Town School of Empty Bottle which eventually bursts into a startling- Distillers 5/22, 8 PM, Metro, on Lissie 5/10, 7 PM, SPACE, Folk Music b New Found Glory, Real Friends ly horn-heavy, almost jazzy outro. On Fri- NEW sale Thu 2/14, 10 AM, 18+ Evanston, on sale Fri 2/15, Black Lips, Fucked Up 4/27, 6/23, 6 PM, Concord Music day, February 15, Minor Moon will play a Downlink 5/3, 8 PM, Concord 10 AM b 8 PM, Metro, 18+ Hall, 17+ record-release show at Constellation with Art Alexakis, Chris Colling- Music Hall, 18+ MC Lars 5/3, 6 PM, Cobra Black Moth Super Rainbow Jerry Paper 3/23, 8:30 PM, wood, Max Collins, John Dream Syndicate 5/31-6/1, Lounge, on sale Thu 2/14, 3/20, 8 PM, Sleeping Village Empty Bottle openers Niika and Storm Jameson. Wozniak 6/5, 7 PM, City Win- 8 PM, Hideout, on sale 9 AM b Billy Bragg 4/25-27, 8 PM, Lin- Graham Parker 4/18, 8 PM, Chicago’s Bad Witch Club describe ery, on sale Thu 2/14, noon b Fri 2/15, 10 AM Partner 5/5, 8 PM, Hideout coln Hall, 18+ City Winery b themselves as a “coven” and a “queer, fem- Juan Atkins 5/1, 9 PM, Thalia Electric Wizard 4/15, 8 PM, Railroad Earth 5/11, 8 PM, Cactus Blossoms 4/6, 9 PM, Post Animal 3/12, 9 PM, Empty inist art collective” who curate live music, Hall, 18+ Riviera Theatre, 18+ the Vic, on sale Fri 2/15, Lincoln Hall Bottle Beck, Cage the Elephant, Epic Beard Men 4/10, 8 PM, 10 AM, 18+ Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Jessica Pratt 5/10, 9 PM, art, and more in order to give female Spoon 7/31, 6 PM, Huntington Subterranean Ranky Tanky 5/15, 7:30 PM, Angel, Necrot 3/4, 6 PM, Sleeping Village and LGBTQ+ artists, organizers, and fans Bank Pavilion, on sale Fri 2/15, Fab Faux 5/10, 7:30 PM, Park SPACE, Evanston, on sale Concord Music Hall, 17+ Priests 4/22, 7:30 PM, Lincoln the spotlight. For their fi h annual Femi- 10 AM West b Fri 2/15, 10 AM b Captain Beyond 4/12, 8 PM, Hall b fest DIY Arts and Music Festival, they’ve Andrew Bird 4/2-3, 7:30 PM, Family of the Year, Lydia 3/4, Red Sun Rising 3/24, 6:30 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Rise Against, Face to Face Green Mill 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Bottom Lounge b Cherry Glazerr 2/23, 9 PM, 4/28, 7:30 PM, Chicago booked a magical lineup of musicians and Andy Black 5/7, 6:30 PM, Flipper 6/28, 8 PM, Reggie’s Rodrigo Y Gabriela 5/24, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Theatre b performers, including Told Slant, Beach Metro, on sale Fri 2/15, Rock Club, 17+ 7:30 PM, Chicago Theatre, on Chicago Open Air with Todd Rundgren 4/23-24, 8 PM, Bunny , Superknova, Molly Soda , and Glit- 10 AM b Gangstagrass 5/12, 7:30 PM, sale Fri 2/15, 10 AM System of a Down, Tool, Athenaeum Theatre ter Moneyyy —and the event also features Olivia Block & Biliana Vouth- SPACE, Evanston, on sale Run River North 5/17, 9 PM, Ghost, Prodigy, Meshuggah, Running Touch 5/10, 8 PM, kova, Carol Genetti & Gwyn- Fri 2/15, 10 AM b Lincoln Hall, 18+ Gojira, Beartooth, and more Chop Shop, 18+ an art gallery, vintage resellers, and baked eth Zeleny Anderson 3/8, Getter 4/10, 8 PM, Concord John Sebatian 7/8, 8 PM, City 5/18-19, SeatGeek Stadium, Tom Russell 6/8, 8 PM, FitzGer- goods (vegan and otherwise). It runs the 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Music Hall, 18+ Winery, on sale Thu 2/14, Bridgeview ald’s, Berwyn night of Friday, February 15, at the Auxil- Tamar Braxton 5/31, 8 PM, Heart, Sheryl Crow 7/11, 7 PM, noon b Dead & Company 6/14-15, 7 PM, Jesse Rutherford 5/3, 8 PM, iary Art Center (3012 W. Belmont) and all Patio Theater Hollywood Casino Amphi- Shlippenbach Trio 3/27-28, Wrigley Field Subterranean Marc Broussard 4/16-17, 8 PM, theatre, Tinley Park, on sale 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Elvis Depressedly 2/28, 6 PM, Scientists 4/10, 9 PM, Sleeping day Saturday, February 16, at Hostel Ear- City Winery, on sale Thu 2/14, Fri 2/15, 10 AM Slayyyter 6/26, 7 PM, Schubas, Cobra Lounge b Village phoria (3464 W. Diversey). The organizers noon b Tim Hecker & the Konoyo on sale Fri 2/15, 10 AM b Empress Of 3/1, 9 PM, Sleep- Travis Scott 2/21, 8 PM, United request a donation at the door of $10 (one Buika 8/1, 8 PM, Patio Theater Ensemble 5/14, 9 PM, Thalia Snoop Dogg 6/29, 8 PM, Con- ing Village Center day) or $15 (both days). You can also RSVP Burna Boy 4/7, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, on sale Fri 2/15, 10 AM cord Music Hall, 17+ Ex Hex 4/10, 8 PM, Thalia Spiritualized 4/9, 8 PM, the Hall, 17+ Hot Mulligan 6/2, 5:30 PM, Spiral Stairs 3/20, 9 PM, Hall, 17+ Vic, 18+ or donate via femifest.eventbrite.com. Chainsmokers, 5 Seconds of Bottom Lounge b Hideout God Is an Astronaut 9/25, Sunn O))), Papa M 4/19, 7 PM, Chicago arts and culture magazine Summer 10/4, 7 PM, United Griffi n House 5/10, 8 PM, City Teen Days 6/3, 8:30 PM, Empty 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Rockefeller Memorial Chapel Hooligan launched in January 2014, and Center, on sale Fri 2/15, Winery, on sale Thu 2/14, Bottle F Goddamn Gallows, Scott H. T-Pain 3/29, 8 PM, Park on Saturday, February 16, it celebrates 10 AM noon b Summer Walker 3/21, 7:30 PM, Biram 4/6, 7 PM, Reggie’s West, 18+ Clarks 5/31, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, Metro, on sale Thu 2/14, Rock Club, 17+ Tauk 4/12, 9 PM, Concord fi ve years with a ten-hour party! New York Jon Cleary 7/18, 8 PM, SPACE, Father John Misty 6/15, 7 PM, 10 AM b Steve Gunn, Gun Outfi t 4/19, Music Hall, 18+ indie rocker Mal Blum tops a bill otherwise Evanston, on sale Fri 2/15, Huntington Bank Pavilion, on Washed Out (DJ set) 4 /4 , 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Teenage Fanclub 3/6, 7:30 PM, stuffed with Chicagoans, among them 10 AM b sale Fri 2/15, 10 AM 10 PM, East Room Hatebreed, Obituary, Terror Metro, 18+ singer-songwriter Tasha, genre-blending Coheed & Cambria, Mastodon Henry Jamison 5/12, 7:30 PM, Dale Watson, Kelly Willis 5/11, 4/11, 6:30 PM, Concord Music The-Dream 2/28, 8 PM, Lincoln 6/14, 6:30 PM, Huntington Schubas, 18+ 5 and 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Hall, 17+ Hall, 18+ vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Akenya , Bank Pavilion, on sale Fri 2/15, King Gizzard & the Lizard Town School of Folk Music, on Iceage, Nadah El Shazly 5/7, Three Cities Trio 3/10, and R&B artist Loona Dae. Poets Scout 10 AM Wizard 8/24, 7:30 PM, Aragon sale Fri 2/15, 8 AM b 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Kelly, José Olivarez, and Raych Jackson Dark Funeral, Belphegor 5/26, Ballroom b Betty Who 5/16, 7:30 PM, the Japanese Breakfast 3/12, Yob, Voivod 3/27, 8 PM, Thalia will also perform, and independent arti- 3:30 PM, Concord Music Kodak Black 5/2, 7 PM, Patio Vic, on sale Fri 2/15, 10 AM b 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Hall, 17+ Hall b Theater, 18+ Xeno & Oaklander, Odonis Jerusalem in My Heart 3/26, Louis York & the Shindellas sans will sell their wares. For tickets and Delicate Steve 5/3, 9 PM, Kruger Brothers 4/14, 7 PM, Odonis 4/11, 9 PM, Empty 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle 4/3, 8 PM, City Winery b more info (including the location), RSVP at Schubas, on sale Fri 2/15, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri Bottle Judas Priest 5/25, 8 PM, Rose- You Me at Six 3/2, 7 PM, Bot- hooliganmagazine.com/hooliganturnsfi ve. 10 AM, 18+ 2/15, 10 AM b Ted Yoder 5/21, 7:30 PM, mont Theater, Rosemont tom Lounge b —JR N L G Della Mae 5/10, 8 PM, Szold Dom La Nena 5/4, 8 PM, Szold SPACE, Evanston, on sale Valerie June 4/22, 7:30 PM, Yuri & Pandora 3/16, 8 PM, Hall, Old Town School of Hall, Old Town School of Fri 2/15, 10 AM b Park West, 18+ Rosemont Theater, Rosemont Folk Music, on sale Fri 2/15, Folk Music, on sale Fri 2/15, La Dispute, Gouge Away 4/23, Zveri 5/31, 7 PM, Concord Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or e-mail 8 AM b 8 AM b 6:30 PM, Thalia Hall b Music Hall, 17+ v [email protected].
36 CHICA O READER - FEBRUARY ll Req.s: Bach degree in civil en- Units available for immediate gineering or related. Req’s 5 yrs occupancy. JOBS exp as a civil engineer or related Seniors 62 and older or Disabled GENERAL occupation. Exp must incl: design Project-based Section 8- Income & develop complex hydrologic & restriction apply. Architects. Highly experienced. hydraulic analyses associated w/ Call (773) 334-6500, email By Dan Savage SAVAGE LOVE Residential and Commercial. watershed studies, stormwater [email protected] Small projects welcome. Zoning, management & floodplain anal- or stop by the leasing office to Building Permit services, Report/ ysis, drainage assessments & complete your application. Consultation starting at $150. improvements, design of bmps Offi ce Hours: www.thdarch.com 312-361-1134 for water quality, & sustainable Monday – Friday from site design. Prep storm water 9am to 5pm Looking for bondage—or at least some pity sex SALES MANAGER: work loca- mgmnt reports, idot location tion Franklin Park, IL. Mail resume drainage studies & hydraulic 6900 S. Crandon will be taking Advice for getting laid (or just getting mummifi ed) to: Rebecca Mandra, Transcendia reports, istha concept drainage applications for the studio & 1 bdr Inc, 9201 W. Belmont Ave, Frank- report, swppp, watershed plans, waiting list at 6900 S. Crandon in lin Park, IL 60131. & fl oodplain map revisions. Lead the Mgmt. Off. from 1pm-4pm. drainage engng phase of a proj- To be considered for occupancy, : I’m a 56-year-old sexuality,” said Andrew the able and ambulatory or OPERATIONAL ANALYTICS ect. Prepare bid doc’s for con- applicants must be at least 62 LEAD: work site: Franklin Park, struction incl fi nal engng plans, years of age & have income at or heterosexual man, and I’ve Gurza, a disability awareness objectifying the facially sym- IL. Mail resume to: Rebecca specifi cations, & cost estimates. below HUD income guidelines. lived with ALS for the past consultant and the host of metrical. Which is why it has Mandra, Transcendia Inc, 9201 Manage multiple transportation Applicants are screened and W. Belmont Ave, Franklin Park, & infrastructure projects w/tight must meet the tenant selection six years. I am either in a Disability A er Dark, a terrifi c always seemed to me that if IL 60131. deadlines & mentored & lead civil criteria. On 4/29 the waiting list engng staff. Use hydrologic & will be closed. Units include ap- wheelchair or in a hospital podcast that explores and being with someone who is VP/Director, Project Mgmt: hydraulic engineering software’s pliances, heating, on bed, and I have very little celebrates the sexual agency turned on by your whatever- Lead digital marketing & business xp swmm , hec-ras, hec-hms, site laundry facility intelligence analysis projects for tr-20, hec-1, hec-2, pondpack, and off -street parking. motor ability in my limbs. and desirability of people the-fuck is good enough for digital ad agency. Chicago, IL tr-55, hydrafl ow, & gis. *requires: location. Req’s Master’s in Bus P.E. license (certified floodplain STUDIO Like most or all male ALS with disabilities. “But what the able-bodied, it’s good Admin & 2 yrs exp as Digital Proj- manager & certifi ed professional Studio ect Mgr. Send resume to: Digitas, in erosion & sediment control) any patients, I still have full RAGDOLL is looking for enough for people with dis- Large studio near Warren Park. Inc. 40 Water St, Boston, MA, state. To apply, mail resume to 1904 W. Pratt. Hardwood fl oors. sensory ability, including might not be directly related abilities. Provided of course 02109, Attn: M. DeSimone. Danielle Landis: Manager, HRBP Cats OK. $795/month. Heat WSP One Penn Plaza, New York, included. Available 2/1. (773)761 a fully functioning penis. to his specifi c disability. It that, able or disabled, we’re Platinum Cares & Cleaning NY 10119. Are there safe websites sounds like he’s looking to appreciated for everything Services is now hiring $480 4318. www.lakefrontmgt.com WEEKLY Rehabilitation Institute of Chi- or groups I can connect engage with a community we bring to the table or the Cleaner, Housekeeper, Contract cago d/b/a Shirley Ryan AbilityL- labor, The Position is flexible, ab seeks Biomedical Engineers LEGAL with that deal with helping of people called ‘devotees.’ chair or the bed. with minimum requirement and II for Chicago, IL to participate paralytics like me fi nd These individuals are Ryan Honick, a disability No Experience is required, 3 Days on team to outline project req’ts NOTICE in week. All Interested Candidate needed to commission newly de- people who are interested attracted to people primarily advocate and public speak- should; [ Resume ONLY or Con- signed electronics & mechatron- in hooking up? I’m talking because of their disabilities.” er, doesn’t think you should tact - Woodwendy922@gmail. ics equip. Bachelor’s in Biomed Notice is hereby given, pursuant com for more info! Eng/Mechatronics Eng/related to “An Act in relation to the use fi eld +2yrs exp req’d. Req’d skills: of an Assumed Business Name about people who have If you’re open to playing limit your search to websites Telephone Sales CLASSIFIEDS 2 yrs w/supporting research stud- in the conduct or transaction a fetish for paralytics. I with a devotee, RAGDOLL, aimed exclusively at the dis- Experienced/aggressive closers ies working w/rehab patients & of Business in the State,” as know that some people Gurza suggests checking out ability community. needed now to sell ad space for clinicians in inpatient & outpatient amended, that a certifi cation was Chicago’s oldest newspaper rep hospital/healthcare environ to registered by the undersigned have a thing for amputees; paradevo.net, a website for “It’s estimated that one fi rm. Immediate openings in Loop design, fabricate, & program ex- with the County Clerk of Cook office. Salary + commission. perimental systems for biological/ County. Registration Number: I imagine there’s a fetish “female devotees and gay in five people has a disabili- 312-368-4884. biomechanical signal acquisition, Y19000497 on Feb 7, 2019 (For for any number of diseases male devotees” of men with ty,” said Honick. “And when I incl calibration of biomedical Office Use Only) Under the As- Network Support Engineer sensors; Real-time, online, digital sumed Business Name of SIMAS or affl ictions. When I was disabilities. think about how challenging JOBS Aeris Communications, Inc. signal processing & analysis for Family Management Company in Chicago, IL seeks Network upper limb force measurement with the business located at: 616 healthy, I was into light “Many disabled people dating can be anyway—dis- Support Engineer to provide & high-gain electromyography W. Schubert Av, 1E, Chicago, ADMINISTRATIVE tech supprt of core netwrk (data bondage. That seems like a have also set up profiles on ability notwithstanding—my signals in Matlab, C#, Python, IL, 60614 The true and real full centers/cloud). Bach in Telecom Spike2; hands-on designing & name(s) and residence address of redundancy now, but I can sites like FetLife to explore immediate thought is that SALES & Eng’g or Comp related Eng’g machining of biological signal the owner(s)/partner(s) is: Owner/ MARKETING plus 3 yrs req. Mail resume w/ ad acquisition prototypes, w/ Partner Full Name Complete still get into dress-up and not only their fetishistic sides, RAGDOLL shouldn’t exclude copy to Aeris Communications, machine shop tools (CNC lathe, Address Aparna Sharma, 616 role-play. I would be cool if but also how their disabled 80 percent of the population Inc. 435 N. LaSalle St., Suite mill); instrumentation systems W. Schubert Av, 1E, Chicago, IL FOOD & DRINK 300, Chicago, IL 60654 Attn: C. integration; embedded systems 60614 someone was into the whole identities can complement from his search. So I would Kearns #LO104. programming for microcontrollers SPAS & SALONS using PIC-C, Arduino w/Ardui- STATE OF WISCONSIN CIR- bathing, grooming, dressing and play a role in that,” said encourage him to use some Jim Beam Brands Company no-IDE; Eagle; Solidworks; exp CUIT COURT OUTAGAMIE thing, and whatever baby- Gurza. of the mainstream apps—like BIKE JOBS (a wholly-owned subsidiary of w/presentation & training of staff COUNTY BRANCH 1. Case Beam Suntory Inc.) is seeking a in the use of biological sensors No. 18 CV 1203 PRN HEALTH doll fantasy they might have. Now, many people, dis- Tinder, OkCupid, Bumble, GENERAL Salesforce Architect in Chicago, & data acquisition equip. Send SERVICES, INC. 1101 E. South IL w/ the following reqs: MS deg resume to M Pearson Ref: AFC River Street Appleton, WI 54915 Hell, I’d be happy if someone abled and otherwise, look or Match—and put what he’s in Info Tech, Comp Sci, Engg, or 355 E. Erie St Chicago, IL 60611 Plaintiff v. MARK WELDLER 6134 just wanted to give me a pity down on devotees, who are after front and center.” rel fi eld or foreign equiv degree. N. Saint Louis Avenue Chicago, 6 yrs of related exp. Reqd skills: IL 60659, et al Defendants fuck! —R A often accused of fetishizing Honick would caution REAL Design & build custom apps on AMENDED SUMMONS THE the Salesforce platform using REAL STATE OF WISCONSIN To each G D O disability and objectifying other people with disabilities ESTATE Apex & Visualforce (6 yrs); Design person named above as a Defen- disabled people. But people that putting your disability & build custom web & mobile in- ESTATE dant: You are hereby notifi ed that L L terfaces using Javascript, HTML, the Plaintiff named above has HTML5 & CSS (6 yrs); Execute & RENTALS who are exclusively attracted front and center—even on RENTALS fi led a lawsuit or other legal ac- Perform data migration from 3rd tion against you. The Complaint, A: “I struggled to fi nd to the able-bodied and/or the mainstream dating apps—is party legacy systems to sales- BEDROOM which has been sent to you by FOR SALE force platform using Data Loader any specifi c online groups conventionally attractive are likely to attract the attention One Bedroom U.S. Postal Service First Class (6 yrs); Integrate w/ 3rd party Mail, states the nature and basis NON-RESIDENTIAL apps w/in the enterprise app Large one bedroom apartment with respect to ALS and rarely accused of fetishizing of devotees. near Metra and Warren Park. of the legal action. Within forty J stack using Webservices API (6 (40) days after January 31, 2019, ROOMATES yrs). Certifi cation as a Salesforce 1904 W. Pratt. Hardwood fl oors. Cats OK. Heat included. $975/ you must respond with a written certifi ed Admin & as a Salesforce answer, as that term is used in certified Force.com Developer month. Available 2/1. (773)761 4318. www.lakefrontmgt.com chapter 802 of the Wisconsin reqd. Statutes, to the Complaint. The MARKET- Plse apply to the Careers section Court may reject or disregard an of www.beamsuntory.com by BEDROOM answer that does not follow the searching by job title: Salesforce Two Bedroom requirements of the statutes. The PLACE Architect Large two bedroom duplex near answer must be sent or delivered Warren park 1900 W. Pratt. 2 to the Court, whose address is Capital One seeks a Software full bathrooms. Heat included. 320 S. Walnut Street, Appleton, GOODS Engineer in Chicago Metro Area, Private storage. Cats OK. $1600/ Wisconsin 54911, and to Plain- IL (multiple positions available) month. Available 2/1. (773)761 tiff ’s attorneys, whose address is SERVICES to perform technical design, 4318. www.lakefrontmgt.com 122 E. Main Street, Little Chute, development, modification, and Wisconsin 54140-0186. You may HEALTH & implementation of computer BEDROOM have an attorney help or repre- applications using existing and sent you. If you do not provide WELLNESS emerging technology platforms. Bucktown : 1922 N Wilmot, 4 RMS, 2BR, 1 Blk from “Blue Line a proper answer within forty (40) Requires a bach. + 3 yrs. of days, the Court may grant judg- exp. Must pass company’s as- L”. Modern kitchen & bath. Hard- INSTRUCTION wood fl oors. $1200 + security . 1 ment against you for the award sessment. See full req’s & apply of money or other legal action online: bit.ly/COseKRV Garage Space $150 month .Avail MUSIC & ARTS 2/1. No Pets. Call (773) 612-3112 requested in the Complaint, and you may lose your right to NOTICES Supervising Drainage Engineer object to anything that is or may (Chicago, IL) WSP: Lead the GENERAL be incorrect in the Complaint. MESSAGES hydrology & hydraulics efforts Clarendon Court Apartments A judgment may be enforced on major highways, local roads, 4500 N. Clarendon in Chicago as provided by law. A judgment LEGAL NOTICES design-builds, site development, Currently accepting applications awarding money may become a transit & rail, airports, & other for newly renovated Studio and lien against any real estate you ADULT SERVICES transportation related projects. one-bedroom apartments. own now or in the future, ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER 37 B and may also be enforced of WORDED BY DESIGN with just begun by garnishment or seizure of the business located at: 3858 ♥ Baby Doll, be mine forever. I This will be our year property. W. 124TH PL, ALSIP, IL 60803 love you. Johnny. Took a long time to come -Alex The true and real full name(s) Dated: January 21, 2019. and residence address of the ♥ I cherish Shawnta always ♥ My dearest Andrew H. you VAN LIESHOUT LAW OFFICE owner(s)/partner(s) is: TANEI- and forever, love Kendal. are always my purple rain! SAVAGE LOVE Attorneys for Plaintiff /s/David SHA FLEMING 3858 W. 124TH J. Van Lieshout State Bar No. PL ALSIP, IL 60803, USA (2/21) ♥ To Tim: Great butt, great ♥ You still make 1012641 friend, best husband. Thank my heart fl y Captain 122 E. Main Street P.O. Box Notice is hereby given, you for everything. Daddypants- FunnyHoney 186 pursuant to “An Act in relation continued from 37 potential new fuck buddy can I determine if someone Little Chute, WI 54140-0186 to the use of an Assumed Busi- ♥ Donut, I want to fi ll you up ♥ When we first met you (920) 788-0800 ness Name in the conduct or and eat you. shared your treat, “RAGDOLL doesn’t seem know you’re sharing their info who agrees to mummify me transaction of Business in the Years later you are still so like he would mind being with a trusted friend. can be trusted not to initiate Notice is hereby given, State,” as amended, that a cer- ♥ Can’t fi nd a butter girl. sweet. pursuant to “An Act in relation tifi cation was registered by the I love you now as I loved you with a devotee,” said Hon- Second-to-last word goes sexual activity? —W to the use of an Assumed Busi- undersigned with the County ♥ Hey dum dum you’re in the then ness Name in the conduct or Clerk of Cook County. Regis- paper, love ya Lizzie You’re my lover, my partner and ick. “But those of us who do to Honick: “Another option, R A P transaction of Business in the tration Number: Y19000522 on my best friend. mind need to be a little more if it’s available to RAGDOLL State,” as amended, that a cer- February 11, 2019 Under the ♥ You: your eyes crossed the So I am wondering Nini, tifi cation was registered by the Assumed Business Name of table into mine and you be- Would you consider marrying discerning. I’ve inadvertent- and he’s open to it, would be A: I assume the app you’re undersigned with the County TYLER ANDERSON HEALTH come the only person I wanted me? Clerk of Cook County. Regis- AND WELLNESS with the busi- to know. You were deep in ly attracted a fair number of hiring a sex worker.” using is Recon, WRAP, as it’s tration Number: D07106551 on ness located at: 2847 N ROCK- conversation with my friend, ♥ Happy 25th anniversary year people with a devotee fetish, And the last word goes to the most popular hookup January 16, 2019 (For Office WELL ST APT B, CHICAGO, but later offered to buy me a Jean! WOW, 25! — Love, Tracy Use Only) Under the Assumed IL 60618 The true and real full drink. You asked what I was and it honestly squicked me Gurza: “RAGDOLL shouldn’t app for kinky gay and bi Business Name of KESCO name(s) and residence address reading. You asked, can I kiss ♥ You helped me move apart- SECURITY with the business of the owner(s)/partner(s) is: you later? You asked, can I kiss ments in the rain and took me out.” resign himself to the idea men. There are “FRIENDS” located at: 3041 HARTZELL TYLER STEVEN ANDERSON you now? You were the first on a boat tour, something I Zooming out for a second: that he’s a ‘pity fuck.’ His listings in the lower right- STREET, EVANSTON, IL 60201 2847 N ROCKWELL ST APT stranger I ever went home with never thought I’d do. Two years The true and real full name(s) B CHICAGO, IL 60618, USA and you started every sentence later I’ve never been happier. Safety is always a concern desires as a disabled man hand corner of each profi le. and residence address of the (2/28) with your hands. Me: drunk on ♥ owner(s)/partner(s) is: Owner/ Irish car bombs and adrenaline, when inviting a stranger over have full value and worth. Contact the friends of Partner Full Name Complete I slid my underwear off right ♥ Uno Gigante Chocolati, for sex, RAGDOLL, even for And I want him to know, as a anyone you’re interested in Address BRIAN POST 3041 there in your living room and Happy 2019 V-Day - Team HARTZELL STREET EVAN- MARKET- shoved them into my coat Johnson! the nondisabled. In addition fellow disabled man, that he playing with and ask for a STON, IL 60201, USA (2/14) pocket. I didn’t go home for Caramel Gurl! PLACE two days. When: Friday, Janu- to attracting the attention of can have a fulfilling sex life reference. Is this guy skilled, Notice is hereby given, SERVICES ary 6, 2017. Where: Some bar. ♥ Love, a few good and decent peo- and that someone out there can he be trusted, does he pursuant to “An Act in relation You: Man. Me: Woman. See you at sunset. to the use of an Assumed Danielle’s Lip Service, Erotic -Mini ple, devotees or not, your does find him attractive.” respect limits, etc? If the Business Name in the conduct Phone Chat. 24/7. Must ♥ To my best friend: may 2019 or transaction of Business in be 21+. Credit/Debit Cards bring us $$$, more snorkeling, ♥ where has the time has relative helplessness could answers are yes, yes, and the State,” as amended, that Accepted. All Fetishes and & LOVE gone—I love you Pete! attract the attention of a I’m interested in yes, you can most likely trust a certification was registered Fantasies Are Welcomed. : by the undersigned with Personal, Private and Discrete. ♥ M, WHATEVER “THIS” IS, I ♥ Me oh my, you caught my predator. So before inviting mummifi cation—being him. v the County Clerk of Cook 773-935-4995 LIKE IT (AND YOU). eye. Luv + County. Registration Number: anyone over, get their real covered in layers of plastic Y19000497 on Feb 7, 2019 WANTED ♥ Little bunny, small and quiet, ♥ Meet by the water, frostbit- name and their real phone wrap and duct tape—but I Send letters to mail@ (For Office Use Only) Under but such a biggggg heart ten lover - Annie is urs the Assumed Business Name Roommate Needed. Prefer number. Then share that am not interested in sexual savagelove.net. Download of SIMAS Family Management ♥ alice, may you warm my ♥ Mom, female. $410 6901 N Ridge. Company with the business loins forever. Here’s to lots of travel memo- information with a trusted activity. I created an account the Savage Lovecast every Call 1-5pm 773-892-8311. located at: 616 W. Schubert love, your bean ries. Happy VDay! Erica If voicemail give your phone friend—someone who can on what I have been told is Tuesday at savagelovecast. Av, 1E, Chicago, IL, 60614 number and times to call back. The true and real full name(s) ♥ Babe, I still have food- ♥ Señor Miguel, Te casaste check in with you before and the most popular hookup com. and residence address of the PERSONAL stamps left 867-5309 con una mujer pelirroja, owner(s)/partner(s) is: Owner/ comiste mucha pizza, te after a date—and let your app for kinky gay men. How @fakedansavage Partner Full Name Complete Were you on a Lake Michigan ♥ Tom, It’s valentines, I love mudaste a Chicago, Estado Address Aparna Sharma, 616 booze cruise in early 90s and you, and that ass hot Falcón, pero el pueblo siempre W. Schubert Av, 1E, Chicago, a rude, drunk girl cut to the estará en tu corazón (zón-zón- IL 60614 (2/28) front of the LONG bathroom ♥ CC, Pumpkin, muffi n, best zón-zón-zón). Love, tu mujer line? Please accept my humble cat dad: you got a girlfriend? pelirroja Notice is hereby given, apologies! Email snlane@chi- pursuant to “An Act in relation cagoreadercorp.com ♥ Beautiful curly salvadoreña, ♥ Join me for an erotic ex- to the use of an Assumed Busi- we ordered same nitro brew , ploration to celebrate! XOxXx! ness Name in the conduct or espero verte - coff ee lovers MissDaff [email protected] transaction of Business in the State,” as amended, that a cer- VALENTINE’S ♥ Dear Jermaine, I love you ♥ MK: be my Star Wars road tifi cation was registered by the honey, trip best friend Valentine undersigned with the County Always and forever, Clerk of Cook County. Regis- DAY Tracy. ♥ Hey Beanie, I love you and tration Number: Y19000425 happy Valentine’s Day! ♥ on January 24, 2019 Under Jackie, I so love you on this ♥ Julie, the Assumed Business Name Valentine’s Day. - Miguel Now we’re here and we’ve only
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38 CHICA O READER - FEBRUARY llll Unusual publications Aberrant periodicals Never miss a show again. Saucy comic booklets Assorted fancies EARLY WARNINGS Independent zines chicagoreader.com/early
Mainstream & Independent Comics and Graphic Novels + Pull Lists and Special Orders & Events 1854 W. North Ave. Chicago IL 60622 please recycle 6443 N. Sheridan Rd., Chicago, IL 60626 773-342-0910 thirdcoastcomics.com www.quimbys.com this paper ll FEBRUARY - CHICA O READER39 LIVE MUSIC IN URBAN WINE COUNTRY 1200 W RANDOLPH ST, CHICAGO, IL 60607 | 312.733.WINE DON’T MISS... UPCOMING SHOWS 3.15 EILEN JEWELL 2.24 The Four C Notes - 3.4-5 aaron neville 3.21-22 THE SUBDUDES 2.20-21 PROCOL HARUM Frankie Valli Tribute 3.23 IDAN RAICHEL - PIANO & SONGS 3.6 The Ides of March 3.1 WE BANJO 3 2.24 Funkadesi 3.24 FREDDY JONES BAND feat. Jim Peterik 3.7 KASIM SULTON’S UTOPIA 3.25 EIGHTH BLACKBIRD 2.25-26 steve earle WITH SPECIAL 3.16-17 los lonely boys 3.10 CHICAGO TAP THEATRE - 3.26 VAN HUNT GUEST SHANNON MCNALLY SWEET TAP CHICAGO 3.27 THE TIM O’BRIEN BAND 3.19-20 christopher cross 3.11 LUTHER DICKINSON, AMY 2.27 Ann Hampton Callaway HELM & BIRDS OF CHICAGO - 3.29 THE VERVE PIPE JAZZ GOES TO THE MOVIES SISTERS OF THE STRAWBERRY 3.28 Robert Glasper Trio MOON 3.30-31 WILL DOWNING 3.3 jd souther & karla FEAT. CHRIS DAVE & DERRICK HODGE 3.12-13 THE HIGH KINGS 4.2 DAVID ARCHULETA WITH DJ JAHI SUNDANCE bonoff 3.14 Q PARKER (OF 112) & FRIENDS 4.3 LOUIS YORK & THE SHINDELLAS FEB FEB FEB FEB 17 19 22 18 + 23 KANDACE SPRINGS DONAVON FRANKENREITER VICTOR GARCIA BOBBY MCFERRIN WITH MATT GRUNDY & GIMME5: CIRCLESONGS