Chicago Reader: print issue of January 7, 2016 (Volume 45, Number 14)

C H I C A G O ’ S F R E E W E E K LY | K I C K I N G A S S S I N C E 1 9 7 1 | J A N U A R Y 7— 2 0 , 2 0 1 6

Beyond the bench Cook County judge Jackie Portman takes justice outside the courtroom.

By MAYA DUKMASOVA 12

Politics Inside the Emanuel administration’s Laquan McDonald e-mail dump 10

Criminal Justice Chicago’s connections to Netflix’s Making a Murderer 11

Food & Drink Block 37’s Latinicity is rescuing underserved Loop lunchers. 33

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EDITOR JAKE MALOOLEY CREATIVE DIRECTOR PAUL JOHN HIGGINS DEPUTY EDITOR, NEWS ROBIN AMER CULTURE EDITOR TAL ROSENBERG FILM EDITOR J.R. JONES MUSIC EDITOR PHILIP MONTORO ASSOCIATE EDITORS KATE SCHMIDT, KEVIN WARWICK, BRIANNA WELLEN SENIOR WRITERS STEVE BOGIRA, MICHAEL MINER, MIKE SULA SENIOR THEATER CRITIC TONY ADLER STAFF WRITERS LEOR GALIL, DEANNA ISAACS, BEN JORAVSKY, AIMEE LEVITT, PETER MARGASAK, JULIA THIEL GRAPHIC DESIGNER SUE KWONG MUSIC LISTINGS COORDINATOR LUCA CIMARUSTI SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR RYAN SMITH CONTRIBUTING WRITERS NOAH BERLATSKY, JENA CUTIE, MATT DE LA PEÑA, ANNE FORD, ISA GIALLORENZO, JOHN GREENFIELD, JUSTIN HAYFORD, JACK HELBIG, DAN JAKES, BILL MEYER, J.R. NELSON, MARISSA OBERLANDER, DMITRY SAMAROV, ZAC THOMPSON, DAVID WHITEIS, ALBERT WILLIAMS INTERNS MANUEL RAMOS, KACIE TRIMBLE ---------------------------------------------------------------SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER EVANGELINE MILLER ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES AARON DEETS, BRIDGET KANE MARKETING AND EVENTS MANAGER BRYAN BURDA DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL JOHN DUNLEVY BUSINESS MANAGER STEFANIE WRIGHT ADVERTISING COORDINATOR HERMINIA BATTAGLIA CLASSIFIEDS REPRESENTATIVE KRIS DODD

ARTS & CULTURE

4 Agenda Ten 2016 at the Gift Theatre, stand-up Beth Stelling, the film Anomalisa, and more recommendations

16 Visual Art On “The New Contemporary”—and competition between the AIC and the MCA 17 Theater The Rhinoceros Theater Festival, now with absurdist rhinos 18 Comedy In its 15th year, the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival is bigger than ever.

19 Small Screen Making a Murderer documents the inexorable nightmare that is the criminal justice system.

CITY LIFE

8 Street View Life’s a drag show for Shea Couleé.

8 Chicagoans Embrace professional cuddler Shawn Coleman.

10 Joravsky | Politics Inside Mayor Rahm’s New Year’s Eve info dump 11 Criminal justice A Chicagobased legal team is appealing the Making a Murderer case.

FEATURE

20 Movies More of the same hatred for human progress in Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight

MUSIC

23 Shows of note Tomorrow Never Knows, Majical Cloudz, Alex Wiley, San Fermin, Red Baraat, Bruce Springsteen, 1349, and more 26 The Secret History of Chicago Music Electric blues guitarist Eddie Taylor was far more influential than famous.

FOOD & DRINK

33 Review: Latinicity Richard Sandoval’s pan-Hispanic food court lights up Block 37.

35 New Year, new beers Four Chicago brewers discuss what they’ll be drinking in 2016.

CLASSIFIEDS

38 Jobs 38 Apartments & Spaces 40 Marketplace

40 Straight Dope If humans were to die out tomorrow, how long would it take for nature to take over?

41 Savage Love An “ardent feminist” turned on by cavalier indifference, and more from Uncle Dan 42 Early Warnings Dream Theater, Pusha T, Grace Askew, Blue October, White Denim, and more shows on the horizon 42 Gossip Wolf Rotted Tooth serves up a second helping of Hogg, Wrong Numbers debut with a kiss-off to 2015, and more music news.

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ON THE COVER: PHOTO OF JUDGE JACKIE PORTMAN BY BILL WHITMIRE. FOR MORE OF WHITMIRE’S WORK GO TO BILLWHITMIRE.COM

TRANSPORTATION CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Beyond the bench

Cook County judge Jackie Portman takes justice outside the courtroom.

BY MAYA DUKMASOVA 12

Loop Link’s missing link?

A global authority says patience is the watchword when it comes to the sluggish speeds of CTA and CDOT’s new bus rapid transit program in the Loop.

Read John Greenfield’s column at chicagoreader.com.

JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 • CHICAGO READER 3

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AGENDA R

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DANCE

Cinderella The Moscow Festival R Ballet dances Sergei Prokofiev’s classic. Sun 1/10, 2 and 7 PM, McAninch Arts Center, College of DuPage, 425 Fawell, Glen Ellyn, 630-942-4000, cod. edu/artscntr, $55.

Sono’s Journey Thodos Dance Chicago’s world premiere, created by Melissa Thodos, celebrates the life and legacy of local Japanese-American dancer Sono Osato. Sat 1/9, 7:30 PM, Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress, 800-982-2787, thodosdancechicago.org, $28-$68.

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COMEDY

Ten 2016 " COURTESY THE GIFT THEATRE

THEATER

More at chicagoreader.com/ theater

7:30 PM, Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PM, Tue 7:30 PM, Bank of America Theatre, 18 W. Monroe, 312-9021400, broadwayinchicago.com, $38-$105.

Ten 2016 The Gift Theatre’s The Best of Times Vs. The R annual evening of short works R Worst of Times As you file in off Halsted through the noisy main floor of features ten original playlets, plus

the Haymarket Pub and Brewery, you see a quote by Brecht printed on the wall: “A theater without beer is just a museum.” This is the principle that governs the little performance space on the other side of the black felt curtain, home to Drinking and Writing Theater, which continues its “Vs.” series with The Best of Times Vs. The Worst of Times. The laid-back atmosphere of the room gives the fun, hip cast an ideal atmosphere for their zany original pieces. A randomly selected judge announces a “winner” in the end. Some of the segments were a little art-schooly, but there were plenty of belly laughs to be had, as well as some poignant moments. Best enjoyed with a beer, which you may order before the show. —MAX MALLER Through 1/30: Sat 4 PM; also Tue 1/19 and 1/26, 8 PM, Drinking & Writing Theater @ Haymarket Pub & Brewery, 737 W. Randolph, 312-638-0700, $10.

Gotta Dance Do we really need another show about scrappy underdogs confounding popular stereotypes and their own self-doubt to achieve . . . well, whatever it is they’re supposed to achieve? Sure we do, as long as there’s something worthwhile in the telling.

Gotta Dance doesn’t qualify. Stopping in Chicago on its way to a Broadway run, the new musical based on a 2008 film documentary follows a bunch of senior citizens as they train to become a hiphop dance squad, supplying half-time entertainment for a pro basketball team.

Matthew Sklar’s tunes are generic, as are Nell Benjamin’s lyrics. Bob Martin and Chad Beguelin’s book is a skeleton hung with trite backstories. And why doesn’t anybody say the obvious: That the squad is just a novelty designed to amuse fans with the spectacle of cute oldsters acting silly? Maybe because Gotta Dance is precisely the same thing.

—TONY ADLER Through 1/17: Wed 2 and

4 CHICAGO READER • JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

offerings from the troupe’s improv team, live-lit series, and youth ensemble. This year’s participating playwrights include Tracy Letts, Will Eno, and Ike Holter.

There’s no overarching theme to the show, but energy, intelligence, and wry compassion for human failings, anxieties, and heartaches are constants throughout. Throw in an exquisite sense of the ridiculous and you’ve got the mood of my favorite piece, Eno’s Furcher vs. the Dark. Set at a tennis match, it ends with the protagonist—an apprehensive pregnant woman—leading the other spectators, players, and us in chanting “We’re afraid!” over and over, until it becomes a kind of secular prayer. Talk about capturing the tenor of the times. —ZAC THOMPSON Through 1/10: Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, Gift Theatre Company, 4802 N. Milwaukee, 773-283-7071, thegifttheatre.org. F

Tribulation: The Musical As it’s applied in Molly Miller and Brad Kemp’s musical comedy, tribulation is a term out of Christian eschatology, denoting a period after the Rapture but before the Second Coming when all hell is expected to break loose on earth. I mean literal Four Horsemen shit: famine, war, pestilence, and death. For the purposes of this review, though, I’m going to use the word more generally to refer to suffering—as in, “Around 85 percent of this show about office workers caught in the Tribulation was a tribulation to me.” The blessedly entertaining 15 percent comes in the second act, when our heroine, Genevieve, enrolls in a graduate poetry program; we get a great satirical song about the current collegiate notion of the “life of the mind” and a hilariously original Jesus. For the rest, at least the cast give it their all. —TONY ADLER Through 2/28: Sun 8 PM, iO Theater, the Mission Theater, 1501 N. Kingsbury, ioimprov.com/chicago, $12.

ensemble has a patience and a knack for floating unusual scene starters around until a joke presents itself organically; a dependance on the rake effect, though, had some cast members visibly wanting others to put it back in the shed. —DAN JAKES Through 1/30: Sat 9:30 PM, pH Comedy Theater, 1515 W. Berwyn, whatisph.com, $15, $10 students.

Rachel Feinstein A performance R by the stand-up comic, known for Red Oaks and Inside Amy Schumer. 1/7-

1/9: Thu 8 PM, Fri-Sat 8 and 10:30 PM, Up Comedy Club, 230 W. North, 312-3373992, upcomedyclub.com, $20.

Jermaine Fowler The stand-up R stops in Chicago on his Give ’Em Hell tour. Tue 1/12, 7 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, 773-525-2508, lh-st. com, $15.

Dear James Franco Each time Generals Hosted by Antoine R I catch an Under the Gun show, R McKay and Christy Bonstell, this the improvisers are sharper, clearer, and one-hour set is a uniquely theatrical more imaginative. And without sharp, clear imaginations, the conceptually challenging Dear James Franco would likely land with a thud. Each week the host reads aloud a published letter of sorts (on the night I attended, it was a memoir entry from a young writer musing on her World War II veteran father’s courage under fire). A few of the nine-person ensemble write down phrases from the story, each of which becomes the title for an improvised scene. And while those scenes wander gloriously far afield, they often ingeniously subverted the original text. The scene titled “Bravery” featured a father explaining to his five children all the cowardly lies he’d ever told. —JUSTIN HAYFORD Through 2/27: Sat 9 PM, Under the Gun Theater, 956 W. Newport, 773270-3440, undertheguntheater.com, $12.

Faceshow As if there weren’t enough to be anxious about on social media, upon request pH Comedy Theater will cull your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram profiles (thank goodness they leave you alone on Tinder) for bits of inspiration to perform “you” going about your day. It’s a clever premise executed with a proportionate ratio of lighthearted roasting to good-natured absurdity. Here pH’s

Cinderella " DWIGHT MCCANN

Annoyance production featuring improv inspired by special guest stage actors.

Three-time Jeff Award winner Aaron Todd Douglas (Congo Square Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre) kicked things off with an Othello monologue on the night I attended, which “’twas passing strange” and cleverly turned on its head in McKay and Bonstell’s successive bits as a dimwitted monk and progressive nun. The duo’s most interesting talent, made clear after Douglas’s second monologue, from August Wilson’s Seven Guitars, is their ability to blend comedy and drama on the fly. One minute a doomed southern couple mourns their relationship that never was; the next, a seedy man in tight pants places a blackjack bet with Pringles. —MARISSA OBERLANDER Through 2/21: Sun 8 PM, Annoyance Theatre, 851 W. Belmont, 773697-9693, theannoyance.com, $8.

Porn Minus Porn Unlike most R shows on Under the Gun’s improv-heavy calendar, this one is fully

scripted. Each week a cast of ten or so offer readings of two episodes from Cinemax’s soft-core series Life on Top, transcribed in stilted, preposterous glory by show creator Ben Bowman, who also acts as host. The dialogue is

Best bets, recommendations and notable arts and culture events for the weeks of January 7 and January 14

MOVIES

More at chicagoreader.com/ movies Anomalisa Originally a pseudonR ymous play by eccentric screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation,

Jermaine Fowler " BENJAMIN RAGHEB

by turns mundane and overwrought (“I would drag my dick ten miles over hot asphalt to sniff the tire of the garbage truck that took away her panties”), the story lines impenetrable, and the sex— well, who knows? Whenever sex begins, the performers shake hands and an audience member releases a balloon. It’s joyous trash, and since the actors read the scripts cold, the hour feels as spontaneous as the best improv. —JUSTIN HAYFORD Through 2/20: Sat 10:30 PM, Under the Gun Theater, 956 W. Newport, 773-270-3440, undertheguntheater. com, $12.

R

Beth Stelling The LA-based comic makes a triumphant return to the city where she cut her teeth. 1/81/10: Fri 8:30 and 10:30 PM; Sat 7, 9, and 11:15 PM; Sun 8:30 PM, Zanies, 1548 N. Wells, 312-337-4027, chicago.zanies.com, $25 plus two-drink minimum.

LIT

Beyond the Valley of the Dahl R The regular lit salon Naked Girls Reading does (Roald) Dahl! As usual, it’s BYO. Fri 1/8, 8 PM, Studio L’amour, 4001 N. Ravenswood, ste. 205, 312-243-6690, nakedgirlsreading.com, $20.

Fillet of Solo Festival A R three-week storytelling festival featuring solo performers. The lineup

this year—the fest’s 19th—includes live-lit heavy hitters from Chicago SlamWorks, the Moth, and Story Club. 1/9-1/25, various locations, lifelinetheatre.com, $10, $50 for festival pass.

Margo Jefferson The author R discusses her book Negroland: A Memoir. Thu 1/14, 6 PM, Seminary Co-op

Bookstore, 5751 S. Woodlawn, 773-7524381, semcoop.com.

VISUAL ARTS Galerie F “Seventy-Seven,” a collection of new works by street artist Penny Pinch, each inspired by one of Chicago’s 77 community areas. Opening reception Fri 1/8, 6-10 PM. 1/8-1/31, 2381 N. Milwaukee, 773-819-9200, galerief.com.

Gallery 400 “Few Were Happy With Their Condition,” a group show exploring life in postcommunist Romania.

Opening reception Fri 1/15, 5-8 PM. 1/15-2/27, 400 S. Peoria, 312-996-6114, gallery400.aa.uic.edu.

Hyde Park Art Center “The Weight of Rage,” a new collection of artwork created by the classes of the Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project at Stateville Correctional Center. 1/10-3/20. “Regenboog Broer,” a painting installation by Justin Witte exploring color, light, and geometric shapes. Reception Sun 2/21, 3-5 PM. 1/10-4/3, 5020 S. Cornell, 773324-5520, hydeparkart.org.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), this uncanny and moving stop-motion animation tells a story of loneliness, selfishness, and fragile connection. A customer-service guru (given voice by David Thewlis) arrives in Cincinnati to lecture at a business conference and tries to reconnect with an old flame, then settles for drinks and possibly more with a pair of single women in his hotel who are gaga to meet him.

Kaufman’s comedy of personal discomfort is much in evidence, though in this case the awkward moments are acted out by puppets created with a 3-D printer; the movie plays like a Rankin-Bass TV special penned by Tom Stoppard.

Kaufman made his directing debut with the ambitious and unwieldy Synecdoche, New York (2008), which involved the construction of a miniature city; by contrast this second theatrical feature is tightly focused, its only windows those that open onto the mind. Duke Johnson codirected; with Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tom Noonan. —J.R. JONES R, 90 min. Landmark’s Century Centre Band of Robbers In this modR ernized reappropriation of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry

Finn novels, the former (Adam Nee) and the latter (Kyle Gallner) are now grown-up rascals—a corrupt cop and petty criminal, respectively—who reunite their ragtag posse called the Band of Robbers to find buried treasure they’ve been searching for since childhood.

Cowritten and codirected by Nee and his brother Aaron, this comedic caper resembles Wes Anderson’s jaunty Bottle Rocket in plot, style, and a dusty-bright visual aesthetic, but it’s infused with Twain’s acerbic humor. The action, told through five chapters and an epilogue, is filled with familiar characters from Twain’s novels that have been cleverly tweaked to fit the transposed narrative, often to surprising effect. With Stephen Lang, Matthew Gray Gubler, and Hannibal Buress. —LEAH PICKETT 95 min. Fri 1/15, 2 PM; Sat 1/16, 4:45 PM; Sun 1/17, 3 PM; Mon 1/18, 6 PM; Tue 1/19, 8 PM; Wed 1/20, 7:45 PM; and Thu 1/21, 6 and 8 PM.

R

Margo Jefferson " LARRY D. MOORE

Drone Norwegian filmmaker Tonje Hessen Schei’s examination of the CIA drone war stings like a splash of iodine on a fresh cut: painful but necessary. Though multiple facets of the drone conflict are scrutinized, this well-researched documentary (which originally aired in 2014 on the Franco-German TV station Arte) primarily focuses on the people on either side of the bombings, from U.S. drone builders and operators to Pakistani civilians who wonder why their death toll continues to rise if they are not

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the intended targets. Drone warfare’s lucrative and troublesome role in the U.S. military-industrial complex is exemplified by two of the film’s talking heads: Brandon Bryant, a traumatized former drone operator who testified before the United Nations about the dehumanizing effect of distance in warfare; and human rights lawyer Shahzad Akbar, who in one wrenching scene helps Waziristani villagers blanket their rooftops with blown-up photographs of their children.

In English, Urdo, and Pushto with subtitles. —LEAH PICKETT 78 min. Facets Cinamatheque The Emperor’s New Clothes The latest effort from British director Michael Winterbottom (Everyday, The Trip) is a well-intentioned but poorly executed documentary on wealth inequality, in which irritating comedian-activist Russell Brand rants about capitalism in the streets of New York City and London.

Brand argues that tax cuts for the wealthy and the deregulation of banks have allowed the rich to get richer and that the system is in desperate need of reform. “Everything you’re going to hear about in this film,” Brand says, “you already know.” That’s true, and his points are articulated far better by former U.S. secretary of labor Robert Reich in Jacob Kornbluth’s 2013 documentary Inequality for All. —ERIC LUTZ 101 min. Sat 1/9, 7:45 PM; Thu 1/14, 6 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center Every Thing Will Be Fine Remember when Wim Wenders made charming, stylish films with complex characters?

You wouldn’t know he ever did after taking in this baffling slog, exacerbated by an unnecessary and headache-inducing 3-D format. In rural Quebec, an aspiring writer (James Franco) kills a young boy in a car accident, an event that has a profound effect on the writer’s work, life, and relationships, particularly with his girlfriend (Rachel McAdams) and the victim’s mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg).

There are so many problems with this film who knows where to begin, but I’d chalk up the majority of the blame to Bjørn Olaf Johannessen’s tone-deaf script, Franco’s wooden and uncommitted performance, and Alexandre Desplat’s intrusive and syrupy score.

—TAL ROSENBERG Fri 1/8, 2 and 8 PM; Sat 1/9, 5 PM; Sun 1/10, 3 PM; Mon 1/11, 8 PM; Tue 1/12, 6 PM; Wed 1/13, 6 PM; Thu 1/14, 8 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center The Mask A psychiatrist comes into possession of an ancient South American skull mask that, when donned, calls forth the wearer’s most wicked impulses.

This low-budget Canadian horror movie, picked up for distribution by Warner Bros. in 1961, clunks along for 83 minutes, but about 15 of them are taken up by wildly imaginative and ghoulish 3-D dream sequences designed by the noted Hollywood montage specialist !

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JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 • CHICAGO READER 5

AGENDA

B Slavko Vorkapich. “Put on the mask!” commands a mystical voice on the soundtrack; viewers with the requisite anaglyph (red-blue) glasses can enjoy snakes leaping from the eye sockets of a skull, masked characters breathing fire, a sacrificial altar crumbling into a sinkhole to hell, and more. Vorkapich was known for the dynamism of his montage, and his sequences here have the hurtling quality of a bad dream. Julian Roffman directed. —J.R. JONES 83 min. Sun 1/10, 3 PM; Tue 1/12, 6 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center Mustang In this Turkish R drama, director Deniz Gamze Ergüven shows, with varying degrees of subtlety, how fear, especially when it’s a product of misogyny or xenophobia, can corrode an insular society. Five orphaned sisters revel in nature and their youthful energy until an innocent romp on the beach scandalizes a provincial village neighbor. The girls’ alarmed grandmother and violent uncle quickly hide them from sight and turn the family home into a gated fortress where they prepare the sisters for the domestic drudgery of arranged marriages; faraway Istanbul becomes the bea-

con of freedom for the youngest child (Günes Sensoy). Ergüven and cowriter Alice Winocour have a keen understanding of teenage impetuosity and adult cruelty, visually and audibly assisted by David Chizallet’s fluid rack-focus cinematography and Warren Ellis’s sensuous score. In Turkish with subtitles. —ANDREA GRONVALL 94 min. Music Box My Friend Victoria This French-language drama, based on a Doris Lessing short story, is a languid reflection on race, class, and identity in contemporary Paris, in which the passive protagonist (Guslagie Malanga) is a working-class black woman haunted by a night she spent in the home of a wealthy white family when she was a child. Her writer friend (Nadia Moussa) is the film’s narrator, and writer-director Jean-Paul Civeyrac relies too heavily on her voice-over to tell rather than show, particularly when she describes events she didn’t witness and conjectures feelings that would have been best left to the actors to convey. Malanga is exquisite, her face a map of her character’s interior life; the story simmers when it’s unsaid. In French with subtitles. —LEAH PICKETT 95

6 CHICAGO READER • JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

min. Fri 1/8, 2 and 8 PM; Sat 1/9, 3 PM; Sun 1/10, 5:15 PM; Mon 1/11, 6 PM; Tue 1/12, 8:15 PM; Wed 1/13, 8 PM; and Thu 1/14, 6 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict Lisa Immordino Vreeland follows up one documentary about a female art-world luminary (Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, which is about the documentary maker’s grandmother-in-law) with another, in this case one of the world’s greatest collectors of modern art. Bestowed a trust fund by her father (who sank while aboard the Titanic), in 1920 twentysomething Peggy fled New York for Paris, where she befriended countless artists and writers, slept with many of them, and met her two husbands—Laurence Vail and Max Ernst. When World War II broke out, she left Europe with hundreds of avant-garde works she’d purchased for a song; once back in America, she became patron to Jackson Pollock and Alexander Calder, among others. Vreeland includes previously lost audiotapes recorded by Guggenheim’s biographer, Jacqueline Bograd Weld; Peggy, who died in 1979, sounds amused and unabashed when she

ArcLight Chicago, Century 12 and CineArts 6, Cicero Showplace 14, Crown Village 18, Ford City, Lake, Landmark’s Century Centre, River East 21, Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings, 600 N. Michigan

Anomalisa recalls her unusual life. —ANDREA GRONVALL 96 min. Music Box, Wilmette The Revenant By the time R Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman or (The Unexpected

Virtue of Ignorance)) finished shooting locations for this wilderness-survival drama its budget had more than doubled, to $135 million, but at least the money was spent recording the world instead of creating it with pixels. Adapted from a novel by Michael Punke, it’s the harrowing true story of fur trapper Hugh Glass, who was mauled by a grizzly bear near the

Grand River in South Dakota in 1823 but managed to drag himself 200 miles to safety. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Glass, and Tom Hardy is the scheming fellow trapper who foolishly leaves him for dead; they don’t have more than a few dozen lines combined, but words serve little purpose amid the blunt power of the natural settings and the animalistic conflict at the center of the story. Press materials claim this is about “the extraordinary power of the human spirit,” but Iñárritu’s real achievement is how he captures the monumental force of the untamed land. —J.R. JONES R, 156 min.

Western This gentle documentary focuses on the town of Eagle Pass, Texas, and its connections to Piedras Negras, Mexico, located across from Eagle Pass on the opposite bank of the Rio Grande.

Directors (and brothers) Bill and Turner Ross portray their three subjects—the town’s mayor, a cattle trader, and the trader’s young daughter—by showing them go to concerts, talk on the phone, fly kites, or discuss business. Growing drug violence in Mexico gradually intrudes on the town, but the viewer learns of events as the characters do, through conversations, radio, and newspapers. No overarching message is enforced, which makes the violence and its effects seem all the more absurd. In its lack of obvious excitement the film suggests that the rhythms of daily living are worthy of consideration.

In English and Spanish with subtitles. —FRED CAMPER 92 min. Fri 1/8, 6 PM and Thu 1/14, 8 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center v

JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 • CHICAGO READER 7

CITY LIFE Ù

OUR MOST READ ARTICLES LAST WEEK ON CHICAGOREADER.COM IN ASCENDING ORDER: “Peter Margasak’s favorite albums of 2015, numbers 10 through 1” —PETER MARGASAK

ò ISA GIALLORENZO

Street View

Life’s a drag

INVITED TO HOST Soho House’s Route 66-themed New Year’s Eve party, Shea Couleé showed up with a look she describes as “1950s Cadillac meets the streets meets cotton-candy confection.” Channeling a Vogue fashion editorial featuring model Karlie Kloss at the graffiti-covered Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas, she worked with Chicago designer Randall Hill to create the pink neoprene dress.

Hill finalized the look by spraying paint on Couleé from head to toe—including the toy car sitting atop her wig. The Columbia College costume-design alum says she’s “equal parts bourgie and banjee. A ‘banjee girl’ is your neighborhood girl hanging out on the front stoop, while my bourgie side represents the fantasy of being the polished, well-taken-care-of rich woman.” Despite donning elaborate getups, she says a constant consideration is comfort: “I don’t mean physically, because sometimes you have to suffer for fashion.

But your look should represent something you really want to wear and embody.” And for those willing to stand out, she says, “The bigger, the better. You want your fashion to be an experience.” To experience firsthand Couleé’s looks, watch her perform in drag shows on Wednesdays at Hydrate, the Naughty Little Cabaret on Saturdays, and Smart Bar on Sundays. —ISA GIALLORENZO See more Chicago street style on Giallorenzo’s blog chicagolooks.blogspot.com.

“F Is for Family: The last show to bingewatch in 2015” —MANNY RAMOS

“Books we can’t wait to read in 2016” —AIMEE LEVITT

“In Chicago, mental health workers are armed and dangerous” —DARRYL HOLLIDAY

“Hey, Mayor Rahm, reopen the mental health clinics!”

—BEN JORAVSKY

Diameters of circles are proportional to the number of page views received.

Chicagoans

Shawn Coleman, professional cuddler A PROFESSIONAL CUDDLER is someone who gets paid by the hour to cuddle. It could also include things such as having a conversation while holding hands or eye gazing.

It’s very much about connection and being there for whatever the client wants.

I’ve been going to cuddle parties for several years. Cuddle parties are specific, structured events where strangers establish a nonsexual, safe, consent-focused space in which to play and cuddle and connect. Exchange massages, tickle each other, whatever they want to do within the guidelines.

When I walked into my first cuddle party, I didn’t fully know what I was getting myself into. I wasn’t as good with my boundaries as I thought, and I ended up agreeing to forms of touch that I didn’t really have an enthusiastic yes for, like a shoulder rub with people I didn’t know well. I didn’t go back for two years. When I did come back, I was much more equipped to state my enthusiastic yeses or my honest nos as needed and to make requests as well. Now I feel much more comfortable and confident, which makes it possible for me to do this job.

Clients get in touch through my website, and I e-mail them back and get a sense for what they want from

“It’s pretty clear right off that it’s a nonsexual thing,” Coleman says of cuddle sessions with clients. ò JOHN STURDY

the session. I do take safety precautions when interacting with people I’ve never met before. Thankfully, I have quite a few friends who live in the area and are happy to have me call them before and after the session. It also helps that I have a roommate.

So far it’s been all men except for one female friend. Mostly guys over 50. These aren’t necessarily guys who’ve never had a girlfriend or a wife. Many have been married, but then got divorced or were widowed.

They are in a place of not getting consistent touch. I get to help fill that need, which feels nice and like I’m doing something important in this world.

I have a little sunroom area, and I have a futon mattress on the floor, and lots of pillows, and the softest blanket that I have ever felt in my entire life. Around the windowsill I have candles. I also have a whitenoise app for clients who want to chill out and snuggle and fall asleep.

Back scratches are a common

request. Spooning, obviously. Some people like to lie in my lap, with me sitting up, or vice versa. Hand massages. Head scratches or head rubs.

People sometimes like slow, gentle caresses on the face.

I haven’t had a single inappropriate request so far, surprisingly.

It’s pretty clear right off that it’s a nonsexual thing. Yes, guys might get erections. Arousal happens. The agreement is that we’re simply not going to act on it. That said, there’s no shaming done by me. We simply shift positions, or maybe take a few moments to be apart.

I love connection. I fall deeply in platonic love with lots and lots of people on first meeting them. I feel like I can see them and understand them much more quickly and easily when I am either cuddling with them or having a vulnerable and authentic conversation with them. I believe in connecting deeply, in bringing my whole self and allowing the walls to fall. That’s the way I show up in the world. —AS TOLD TO ANNE FORD

Ñ Keep up to date on the go at chicagoreader.com/agenda.

CITY AGENDA Sure things to do about town THURSDAY 7

SATURDAY 9

SUNDAY 10

TUESDAY 12

WEDNESDAY 13

SATURDAY 16

WEDNESDAY 20

ñ Bow ie Ball Honor David Bowie’s birthday with a celebration of the Thin White Duke’s new album, Blackstar.

DJs Heaven Malone and Maewest provide the tunes, Ajali will be on hand to glam up your look, and those who stick around until midnight can sing their hearts out at Bowieoke. 10 PM, Berlin, 954 W. Belmont, bowieball.com, $5.

× Lagunit as Beer Brunch A five-course collaboration between Lagunitas, whose beers will be incorporated into dishes like beignets with peach-berry-Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ Ale jam, and Bloodshot Records, who’ll provide music swag.

Noon, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, lh-st.com, $35.

¿ Profession al Bull Riders Chicago Invit ati onal Bulls do their damnedest to get the brave souls who choose to ride them off their backs, with winning riders moving up in the ranks on the way to the world championships. 1:50 PM, Allstate Arena, 6920 Mannheim, Rosemont, pbr.com, $20-$127.

Sl urring Bee The five-buck entry fee buys you free shots for every round of this spelling bee you’re able to stay competitive for. Billy Parker and Mandy Levy host.

7 PM, Quenchers Saloon, 2401 N. Western, facebook. com/slurringbeechi, $5, free to watch.

1 Token 2 A night of zines, music, and video games made

by Chicagoans. Featured creators include Alex Kostiw, Jessica Checkeroski, and Maximum Pelt; there’s also DJ sets by Cat Claw and White Mystery’s Alex White, plus food from Puesto Sandwich Stand. 6-11 PM, Emporium Arcade Bar, 1366 N. Milwaukee, easy-press.co/token. F

· Ru n th e Jewe ls El-P and Killer Mike talk musical collaboration with music journalist Jessica Hopper as part of the MCA’s “In Sight Out” series. 6 PM, Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago, mcachicago.org, waitlist available.

Chicago Moth GrandSlam Brian Babylon hosts this spoken-word competition. 8 PM, Park West, 322 W. Armitage, 773-929-5959, parkwestchicago.com, $25.

8 CHICAGO READER • JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

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JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 • CHICAGO READER 9

CITY LIFE

BOBBY SIMS

Read Ben Joravsky’s columns throughout the week at chicagoreader.com.

POLITICS

You’ve got e-mail

Inside the mayor’s New Year’s Eve info dump

By BEN JORAVSKY

A

s a public service for the multitudes who didn’t see Mayor Emanuel’s massive New Year’s Eve e-mail dump about the Laquan McDonald case, let me tell you what you missed.

Nothing.

Well, that’s not completely accurate.

It’s pretty obvious from reading the thousands of pages of e-mails that his advisers and aides have known for months that the video of the Laquan McDonald shooting contradicted the official version of what had gone down.

Or at least it contradicted the version as put out by a spokesman for the Fraternal Order of Police, which effectively became the city’s official version since no one, including the mayor, bothered to refute it.

According to the police union’s initial statement, officer Jason Van Dyke shot

17-year-old McDonald after McDonald charged Van Dyke, even though the video shows McDonald was walking away from Van Dyke when the police officer fired.

In any event, the e-mails released New Year’s Eve reveal that high-ranking mayoral aides and advisers spent the better part of December feverishly trying to come up with some PR spin that would convince the public that Mayor Emanuel hadn’t been sitting on crucial evidence of a potential first-degree murder.

Which pretty much everyone believes.

But before I go into what else these e-mails revealed, let me remind you that Mayor Emanuel didn’t release these correspondences out of the kindness of his heart. He released them in response to a slate of Freedom of Information Act requests filed by reporters from media outlets all over town.

10 CHICAGO READER • JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

I will give Mayor Emanuel credit for this. Rather than haphazardly doling out bits and pieces of the e-mails to individual reporters, he did a massive info dump.

However, he called reporters to City Hall to receive their own personal CD of the e-mails on December 31, when most of the city’s news outlets were short staffed and headed for the holidays.

Why would the mayor—who has pledged to run an open and transparent government—release the e-mails at precisely the moment when he knew hardly anybody would be paying attention?

Well, I think that question pretty much answers itself.

Plus Emanuel knew releasing these e-mails on New Year’s Eve would keep reporters busy through the night, thus ruining their holiday plans.

So in one fell swoop the mayor tried to bury the e-mails and make life miserable for reporters. My guess is that reporters rank somewhere above librarians but below teachers on the list of people the mayor detests the most.

But back to what the e-mails actually say.

Many of them are exchanges between advisers and press aides, swapping tweets, news articles, and Facebook postings they’d come across in their search for information that might embarrass the mayor.

Then they plotted how they might respond, if at all.

There is no smoking gun in which an aide tells the mayor something like, “Hey, boss, don’t let the public see this video until after the election.”

Not that Mayor Emanuel would need an aide to tell him this. Or that he’d voluntarily release such an e-mail, if it existed. As with previous e-mail releases from the mayor, there are lots of redactions.

In short, the mayor lets you read the stuff that’s largely irrelevant. And lets you guess about the rest.

For instance, just three days before the video is released in late November, Graham Grady, a corporate lawyer, e-mails a suggestion to his old friend, Stephen Patton, the mayor’s chief counsel.

“I love Chicago and I’m concerned that the city may erupt when and if the video gets out,” Grady writes. So he suggests that the mayor march with Father Michael Pfleger and about 100 or

so African-American youth “wearing red mortarboards to symbolize education as the solution.”

Thinking it’s a pretty good idea, Patton forwards Grady’s e-mail to several aides, most of whom react positively.

“Not a bad idea,” writes David Spielfogel, the mayor’s senior adviser.

“I like the concept,” writes Clothilde Ewing, the mayor’s chief of strategic planning.

Jenny Rountree, the mayor’s deputy chief of staff for public safety, writes . . .

Well, we don’t know what she writes because it’s redacted.

In response, Ewing writes, “Understood.”

So ends that discussion. Guess we’ll have to file another FOIA to find out why the mayor’s men and women killed Grady’s proposal.

Among the other e-mails were a few Chicago Public School officials sent to mayoral aides, seeking guidance as to what teachers should tell students about the Laquan McDonald video. Just in case there’s still anybody out there who thinks CPS is allowed to so much as breathe without running it past the mayor’s office.

In response to this particular chain of e-mails Rountree writes: “Made significant edits to [CPS officials’] ‘lesson plan.’ I guess I understand why this is necessary (if they don’t send out some version of the facts, teachers may take it upon themselves to lead discussions depending on their personal politics).”

Because lord help us all if we don’t have all teachers reading from a script approved by the mayor’s office.

As a side note, most of the press aides and advisers exchanging these e-mails make more than $100,000 a year.

If Mayor Emanuel values their counsel, that’s fine with me. But at least take them off the public payroll and put them on the mayor’s political operation— since they seem to spend much of their time serving his political needs.

Then let’s spend their salaries reopening the mental health clinics in highcrime areas that the mayor closed four years ago.

It’s about time something good came out of this debacle. v

v @joravben

CITY LIFE

H For more on Netflix’s Making a Murderer, see page 19.

Brendan Dassey, shown here in 2007, and his uncle, Steven Avery, were convicted of the 2005 rape and murder of Teresa Halbach. Dassey’s legal team says his confession was coerced. ò AP/DAN POWERS

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Unmaking a murderer

By DEANNA ISAACS

M

ak in g a Murderer, t he compulsively watchable Netflix series that ate up a big chunk of the holidays for many of us, has a couple of major Chicago connections.

If you haven’t yet succumbed to this ten-part documentary—which took a decade for former Columbia University classmates Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos to complete—be aware that what follows contains some spoilers. None are likely to be potent enough to keep you from becoming addicted once you click the play button.

Making a Murderer follows the dicey criminal investigations and trials of Steven Avery of rural Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, and his nephew, Brendan Dassey—both convicted of the lurid murder of 25-year-old photographer Teresa Halbach, who’d been sent to their family’s auto salvage yard to photograph a car on Halloween 2005.

It was the second notorious conviction for Avery. He’d already spent 18 years in Wisconsin prisons for a rape he didn’t commit, and was in the process of suing Manitowoc County and its officials for $36 million when they arrested him again.

The future of his intellectually challenged nephew—who was 16 years old when he confessed to raping Halbach while she was chained to his uncle’s bed, slitting her throat, and helping torch her body—rests in large part with Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth. With Milwau kee-based attorney Rober t Dvorak, the center has taken his case to federal court in Wisconsin, where a decision by district court magistrate judge William E. Duffin is pending.

Northwestern law professor Steven Drizin, a cofounder of the center, says their team spent two years investigating the case and came up with striking

new evidence: one of Dassey’s own court-appointed attorneys, Len Kachinsky, and an investigator working for him, Michael O’Kelly, had “essentially conspired to coerce a confession out of Brendan” in order to get him to testify against his uncle, and had then allowed him to be interrogated by the police without his attorney present. “We were floored,” Drizin says.

The Northwestern team filed an appeal. It was heard in January 2010 by the same judge who had presided over Dassey’s trial. In one of the documentary’s many jaw-dropping moments, O’Kelly describes the Avery clan as “pure evil” (an opinion apparently shared by much of the local community). He then admits in court that his goal when he met with Dassey was to gather evidence that would help the state in its prosecution of Avery, even if that evidence would inculpate his client.

The district court denied the appeal, as did the Wisconsin appellate court.

When the state supreme court declined to review the case, Drizin says, they were left with one option—“to try to get the federal courts to vacate the state court decisions, because they unrea-

“THESE INTERROGATION TACTICS ARE NOT DESIGNED TO BE USED WITH CHILDREN AND WITH PEOPLE WHO ARE COGNITIVELY LIMITED.” —Northwestern University law professor Steven Drizin

sonably applied federal constitutional law.”

The constitutional issues include whet her Da ssey ’s con fession wa s i nvolu nta r y—whet her t he tac t ics used on him trumped his own will.

Defense attorney Mark Fremgen, who replaced Kachinsky, can be seen in the documentary ascribing those tactics to the training that some police and investigators received from a Chicago firm, John E. Reid and Associates.

Reid president Joseph Buckley did not return a request for comment before press time.

Developed in 1947 by a former Chicago cop, the Reid technique is, according to the company’s website, the world’s most widely used interrogation approach. Its procedure reportedly calls for investigators to put major emphasis on the subject’s body language and, among other tactics, allows them to pretend that they have evidence of guilt while shutting down denials. In the documentary, Fremgen’s cocounsel, Ray Edelstein, points out that during Dassey’s interrogation, as the socially awkward teen tried to maintain that he didn’t know anything about the murder, investigators accused him of lying more than 75 times.

Drizin expects a decision within the next year. If Dassey loses, there could be an appeal, and, ultimately, the case could go before the U.S. Supreme Court.

“But,” Drizin says, “at each stage of the process, it becomes harder to prevail.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s impossible,” he says. “The federal court process, because it’s completely independent, and because the judges are appointed for life, should give you a fair and impartial review. And that’s what we’re hoping for.”

The one thing Drizin says he would like viewers of the film to understand is that “these interrogation tactics are not designed to be used with children and with people who are cognitively limited. Unless there’s a defense attorney present, it’s an unfair fight—it preys on their vulnerabilities and it increases the risk that they will confess to crimes they didn’t commit.

“The police shouldn’t be allowed to use them with someone like Brendan Dassey,” he says.

By early this week, more than 250,000 people had signed a Change.org petition to free Steven Avery; about 27,000 had signed one for Brendan Dassey. v

v @deannaisaacs

JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 • CHICAGO READER 11

C

Beyond the bench Cook County judge Jackie Portman takes justice outside the courtroom.

By MAYA DUKMASOVA

ourtroom 100 is on the first floor of Chicago’s dreary, neoclassical George N. Leighton Criminal Courthouse at 26th and California. And it is one of the dreariest rooms in the whole building. Unlike its wood-paneled cousins on the upper floors, this room has bleak, beige walls, PVC-tile flooring, and rows of uncomfortable wooden pews filled seven days a week by the anxious friends and relatives of the newly arrested. This room, where daily bond court hearings are held, is a gateway to the expansive machinery of the Cook County criminal justice system.

Here, a judge takes scarcely more than 30 seconds to assign a bail amount and give the defendant the next court date. As defendants grind through, they embark on a long, uncertain journey, beset with lucky breaks and unfair turns. Theirs are among the tens of thousands of felony or misdemeanor cases churning through the world’s largest unified court system. Whatever the outcome, these defendants are unlikely to encounter much personalized treatment.

Unless their case lands in front of Judge Jackie Portman.

Portman is an iconoclastic judge whose unconventional approach has won her countless fans—but also critics who question whether she’s overstepping the bounds of her office.

Just before the bond court call begins at 1:30 PM, the atmosphere in Courtroom 100 is decidedly more amped than its usual nervous torpor.

Portman swishes onto the high bench carrying her smartphone, a big, black cowbell with a red handle, and a carabineer jangling with keys and rewards cards.

“I require 100 percent,” Portman announces to a fresh batch of defendants lined up in front of her. “Everybody in this room is on 100. Every time we walk out of that door we are on 100.”

“Let me tell you what I will not take,” she continues, her voice loud and firm, rising for emphasis. “I will not take ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine . . . ” she trills on and on and on, the sound of repeating nines filling a courtroom growing tense with silent anticipation.

“NINE!” she ends, a good 30 seconds later.

“One hundred is what I expect.”

Portman’s unconventional approach has won her countless fans—but also critics. ò BILL WHITMIRE

12 CHICAGO READER • JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

Some of the defendants in front of her are smirking, some look stupefied. No one dares relax because they don’t know what to expect next. The staff milling around the bench, though, have heard it all before, and sometimes someone even sings along to the endlessly repeating nines.

Portman, a native of Englewood, runs two special programs at the Cook County criminal courthouse. One, known as the Deferred Prosecution Program, is designed for first-time, nonviolent felony offenders. Participants give up their right to a preliminary hearing in exchange for participating in the program for nine months to a year. If they fulfill all the requirements—like quarterly court appearances, paying restitution if it applies, and working, volunteering, or going to school—their charges are dropped and their arrest records can be expunged. Portman calls this her “second chance” program.

Her “last chance” program is Adult Redeploy Illinois, part of a statewide effort to reduce prison populations. Participants have been convicted of nonviolent felonies that could be punishable by prison sentences.

However, within the program, they are instead offered probation if they comply with community-based drug rehabilitation and/or behavioral therapy in addition to school, work, or community service.

In this latter program, Portman is empowered to enforce compliance by briefly jailing participants for testing positive for drugs or breaking other rules. With the former, she can kick someone out for noncompliance; in that case, a defendant would then have to undergo prosecution for the original felony offense.

But neither of these outcomes happens often. Portman has her ways of motivating people to stay on the straight and narrow.

“I am not the typical judge,” she explains to a dozen “second chance” defendants huddled in front of her on their first day in the program.

“I sing, I rap, I fuss, I dance, I shout, I flip, I do all kinds of stuff up here. Wanna know why?

Because you’re not typical people. You made a mistake, you stood up and said ‘I made a mistake and I want to fix it.’ I applaud that effort. I am your biggest supporter.”

Portman wastes no time communicating her expectations in a well-rehearsed cadence.

If “you do everything you need to do to take care of you,” she explains, “you will have noooooooooooooooooooooooo problem with me.”

But she warns: “When you mess up, I’m like the Incredible Hulk: You do not wanna see me

angry. When I get angry, I lock people up. I’m known as the lock-’em-up judge.”

She warns program participants not to “play with the keys to their freedom,” thrashing her bulky carabineer in the air. And to get the point across about how important it is not to miss required meetings with pretrial officers, she paints a vivid picture: “You go home tonight, you take a nice bubble bath, you all oiled down, you’re smelling good, looking good, chest just glistenin’, looking right. You got that tight outfit on, you got your house smelling like whatever your favorite meal is. Candles are lit, rose petals from the front do’ to the bedROOM, you got that favorite music on the radio playin’, be it Chris Brown, Rihanna, Beyonce, Neil Diamond, Julio Iglesias, whoever it is. And you watchin’ the clock, ’cause you know it’s gon’ happen TONIGHT . . . ” she pauses dramatically. “That person never shows up. You KNOW you’re gonna be mad. That’s how I feel when y’all don’t show up for their appointments. Because they set that time aside just for you.”

Even though this initiation spiel can seem intimidating, Portman’s softer, jocular side is just as readily on display. She inquires about defendants’ families, offers warm birthday wishes, and congratulates them on their achievements, such as going to therapy or finding housing. She vigorously rings the cowbell to celebrate every defendant who pays off restitution in full. When participants finish the program, she calls it “graduation” and toots a spirited rendition of Pomp and Circumstance through her lips.

“I appreciate you,” is a phrase Portman uses often. She greets everyone politely and inquires about their well-being, making empathetic eye contact. “How are you, kind sir?” she always begins with the men; she calls all the women “ma’am.”

While the typical demeanor of a Cook County judge is somewhere on the spectrum between boredom and impatience, Portman’s style is both maternal and authoritarian, like a tough high school principal or a strict grandmother. She adds an intensely personal touch to defendants’ daunting interactions with an often inscrutable court system.

Last winter, the sister of a young man killed in a Walmart parking lot appeared before Portman. The judge expressed her condolences and deep appreciation that the woman made her court date despite this tragedy. “My heart and my prayers go out to you and your family at this time,” Portman told her, leaning forward for emphasis.

“I am not the typical judge. I sing, I rap, I fuss, I dance, I shout, I flip, I do all kinds of stuff up here.

Wanna know why?

Because you’re not typical people.”

—Judge Jackie Portman

That same day the judge had her bailiff and the relatives in the pews in stitches as she terminated a young man’s probation early.

The man’s grandmother and uncle were in the pews with him. The grandmother announced that she was planning to move to Texas to save her grandson from the Chicago streets. She yelped with joy at the news of the early termination, and said she wanted to get the man married off too.

“Any takers?” Portman called out. “I’m a judge, we can do this right here, right now!”

A

s far back as she can remember, all Portman wanted was to be a judge.

Even though she was elected into the Fifth Judicial subcircuit in 2008 and has been retained since, there is not much information about Portman online besides campaign donation websites that list her parents, sister, and pastor as her biggest contributors. But she jumps right into telling me her life story minutes after I meet her in the chambers she shares with six other judges behind Courtroom 100.

Her father is the son of Irish immigrants; her mother came to Chicago from New Orleans during the Great Migration. After they married—much to the displeasure of her father’s Catholic community—the couple settled in the heart of Englewood and raised four daughters.

Portman was the youngest.

“I never had a problem with being mixed, even growing up in Englewood being mixed,” Portman says. “A lot of people are like, ‘Did you have issues growing up?’ Because of my white face.”

She adds that her light skin drew some skepticism from voters when she was cam-

paigning for her judicial seat. The Fifth subcircuit encompasses swaths of the south side from the lake to Western, between 26th and 75th Streets. “Of course the high yellowness of my skin made them ask if I was like them, really like them.”

Portman wastes no time establishing her south-side credentials in the courtroom. “I love when [defendants] come to court and they don’t know I’m from Englewood,” she says. “They tell me they were over on 63rd and Damen, or they were over on 67th and Ashland. Oh really? So you’re telling me that you went to the store. Did you go to the church right around the corner?”

The judge relates to her defendants in a way that she thinks will get them to take her and the program seriously. Though she won’t change her approach to suit who’s in front of her, she takes special care to connect with the young people coming from her own neighborhood. She wants them to know that she knows where they’re coming from.

“I give them real-life examples to show them that I’m not just saying that I live there,” she says. “I’m not just saying that I know the areas—I’m from the areas.”

Portman moved from Englewood to another south-side neighborhood shortly after she first began campaigning. She says an opponent distributed pamphlets with pictures of her family’s Englewood home, and she no longer felt comfortable having her parents live there.

“I still go back to the neighborhood all the time,” she is quick to note. “I really do think that kids need to understand that.”

Portman says it’s important for her to stay involved with her community and tell her story in order to show young people from the neighborhood that they have people to look up to among them.

“Everybody says [Englewood] is such a bad area, or such a bad place to be,” she explains.

“It’s not. You make it what you want it to be.

I came through the shootings just like everybody else. I walked past the drug dealers just like everybody else. But I still went to school, I got my education, I didn’t get pregnant, I didn’t get hooked up on drugs, I didn’t get into criminal activities. I was able to stand, and be an island, and do what I needed to do to take care of me.”

Portman also grew up around law enforcement. Her paternal great-grandfather had been a Chicago cop for 35 years; an aunt and sister worked for the sheriff’s department.

She remembers going with her mother to J

JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 • CHICAGO READER 13

continued from 13

drop her aunt off at work and seeing judges in the parking lot of the courthouse.

“I would sit there and think, man, who are these people?” She made up her mind about her future at the age of seven, after her aunt explained what a judge did. “I lived my whole life towards that,” she explains. “I had friends who were doing stuff they shouldn’t do and I was like, I can’t hang with you all. I gotta be a judge.”

After graduating from Maria High School, Portman double majored in political science and criminal justice at UIC. She went on to Thomas Cooley Law School in Michigan and scored a job with the Cook County state’s attorney’s office while she was still in her last year of school. Portman was a prosecutor for seven years before becoming general counsel at the Office of Professional Standards (now the Independent Police Review Authority) in 2005.

Three years later, before she even turned 40, her childhood dream came true.

P

ortman was one of the rotating bond court judges until early 2012, when the chief judge asked her to take over both the Deferred Prosecution and the Adult Redeploy Illinois programs. Until then she was one of a number of judges on these calls. But Portman’s ability to connect with defendants set her apart from her peers. She was willing to go far beyond her expected role as a judge to help defendants succeed in untangling themselves from the criminal justice system.

On an early November afternoon Portman enters a converted loft building on a postindustrial stretch of Cermak Road in Pilsen.

She is out of her robes, wearing a light beige dress, a necklace made of shiny beige beads, and matching lipstick. Her face is carefully made up. “I just came from court,” she says apologetically. Normally, she likes to dress more casually on these visits, to show a more down-to-earth side of herself.

The building is home to WestCare, a health and human services agency that partners with the Cook County probation department to provide counseling services and other social support to defendants.

After she arrives on the fourth floor in the creaky industrial elevator, the judge presses herself against the exposed brick wall of a corridor leading to large, airy meeting space.

Slowly, cartoonishly, she edges along, and peeks around the corner. Several men sit around a U-shaped table, their backs to her.

Portman sneaks up, nearly reaching them

Portman rings her cowbell to celebrate every defendant who pays off restitution in full. ò MAYA DUKMASOVA

before she raises her voice in gotcha tone: “Who’s late? Who’s late? This can’t be the whole class!” A man turns around, his face registering surprise, then recognition. “It’s you!” he says, grinning. Just then another man walks in, tardy for the 1:30 PM group therapy session. His walk slows as he edges away from Portman in mock fear. She turns him around and points to a giant clock showing 1:35. The men at the table burst out laughing.

Every so often Portman pays a visit to WestCare, where at any time about 50 to 60 defendants from her ARI program participate in counseling services. The goal of these appearances, she explains, is to show her defendants that she’s there to support their positive efforts, not just punish them. In the past, she has also come to the funerals of defendant’s’ relatives, made house calls, gone to her defendants’ sports games and music performances.

She does not intrude on the actual counseling sessions, but gives the staff a heads-up and, as she has today, comes a few minutes beforehand to give a pep talk, and school any latecomers about the importance of being on time.

With Thanksgiving around the corner, she chats with the men about their holiday plans, and the proper way to cook chitlins. She counsels a young man who arrived with a cut in his palm on how to dress and care for the wound.

At first the WestCare staff were apprehensive about these visits, and about the consequences of a judge appearing in defendants’ lives outside the courtroom. But their fears

14 CHICAGO READER • JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

were quickly dispelled, according to the program’s director Gwen Maxwell.

“I have never encountered this,” she says of Portman’s approach. But, she clarifies, the judge’s sincerity in caring for defendants is palpable. However unorthodox it may be for Portman to cross the usual boundaries, to Maxwell and her counseling staff it seems like a step in the right direction.

“We talk about bridging the gap—bridging community and law enforcement, bridging community and the legal system,” Maxwell explains. In her view, that is exactly what Portman achieves with these visits. “She’s not designed for [defendants] to continue to be locked up.”

As Portman continues talking with the men in the meeting area, periodically inducing roaring laughter, John Greenlees, the assistant public defender assigned to the ARI program, walks in. He is surprised to see Portman at first, but they quickly get to talking about one defendant who has not yet shown up for the group meeting.

Greenlees comes by WestCare’s offices often, since many of his clients do not have reliable phone access or stable addresses where he can reach them. Today he’s here to warn a man who is having some difficulties complying with ARI requirements that he needs to get his act together. Portman is also concerned about this defendant. They wait together by the elevator, and when the man finally appears, they scold him for being late. The process does not

appear adversarial; the lawyer, the judge, and social worker Darryl Cooke all team up to convey that the man cannot be late without giving notice. They’re there to help, but he must communicate if he is having trouble doing what he needs to do.

Is this what criminal justice reform looks like?

“Yes,” Greenlees says unequivocally.

In an office, away from his group, Cooke reflects on the therapeutic value of Portman’s outreach. He leads cognitive behavioral therapy sessions with ARI defendants.

Like Maxwell, Cooke was first suspicious of having Portman there.

“We’ve been pleasantly surprised,” he says.

His main concern was that her presence would undermine his clients’ trust in WestCare as a place where they could speak freely. He soon saw, however, that Portman’s appearances reinforced his own messages to his clients.

“When guys come to the program, they identify everybody in the criminal justice system as the enemy,” Cooke explains. “She talks directly to them like a family member.” Cooke says that many of the men he works with suffer from trauma and a life of abandonment and neglect. In some ways Portman is rebuilding trust that was lost long before these defendants entered her courtroom.

“You’d be surprised when was the last time they had somebody come in that told them they was doing a good job and gave them a hug,” Cooke says. “They don’t receive that on a daily basis. So to get it from somebody that you view as superior to you is an overwhelming feeling.”

P

ortman’s informal, hands-on approach is not without critics, and she knows this well. In the past, observers from municipal and state judicial monitoring organizations have taken issue with her informality.

When she initiates defendants into Adult Redeploy Illinois, for example, she schools them on the consequences of trying to fake their drug-test results, pulling out a WhizzanatorTM in court. The device is basically a fake rubber penis attached to a bladder that can be filled with someone else’s urine. “It’s not to shock and chagrin and show profanity to the clients,” Portman explains. “It’s to tell them, ‘Don’t do this, because if you do, you’re gonna get a new felony charge and get locked up again.’”

Portman says she has been criticized for yelling in the courtroom too—for pointing her finger and for saying, “I’m gonna lock you up.”

Indeed, when the Chicago Council of Lawyers released its evaluation of judges up for retention in 2014, they noted that a “few defense counsels complain that she can get inappropriately ‘animated’ in the courtroom, but most respondents praised her temperament.”

Portman points out that some of her critics, who arrive for brief, one-off visits, can’t understand the efficacy of her approach. “When I took on [ARI], I tailored my attitude and my demeanor, and how I speak and the examples that I use to the crowd, on a level that they could understand.”

However, some criticism has gone beyond her methods. “I had one complaint I’ll never forget,” Portman says. “They told me I speak in an ‘Afrocentric tone.’ And I said, ‘Well first: What is an “Afrocentric tone?” ’ They were saying I was talking down to the defendants in this ‘Afrocentric tone,’ and I said, ‘Well it’s kind of difficult for me to address that because I don’t know what an “Afrocentric tone” is, one. And then two, I’m Afrocentric, in case you didn’t know. Born and raised in Englewood, spent my whole life there, don’t know any other way to talk. This is how I talk.’”

Portman says the racial undertones of the criticism were offensive: “I’m part African-American, so are you saying something’s wrong with the way I speak?”

However one feels about Portman’s demeanor, her approach sparks the larger question of whether the criminal justice system can be reformed through the personalized stewardship of judges like her. And even if it were possible to populate Cook County courts with dozens of Portmans, would that be desirable for the administration of justice?

Attorney Ali Abid says no. Abid is a policy analyst at the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice, an organization devoted to researching and helping implement reforms within the criminal justice system.

“Certainly one of the things we need in the criminal justice system is more humanization,” Abid says. But he also argues that the risk with Portman’s beyond-the-courtroom outreach is that information starts to flow in ways that could ultimately hurt defendants.

“You have lots of information that’s going to the court, directly to the judge, that may affect the decision making that’s happening, outside of the presence of the defendant’s attorney,” Abid explains. “One of our bedrock principles is that a defendant should be represented—that they should have control over what information goes and doesn’t go to the courts in order to defend their rights. And a

“You’d be surprised when was the last time they had somebody come in that told them they was doing a good job and gave them a hug. So to get it from somebody that you view as superior to you is an overwhelming feeling.”

—Social worker Darryl Cooke

judge showing up to a group therapy session, following that person out of the courtroom into other aspects of life, circumvents a lot of the infrastructure that’s set up to protect people’s rights.”

Moreover, Abid adds, even if these out-ofcourt interventions have worked in Portman’s programs and for her clients, there is no way to standardize her methods. Judges are not trained to do social work, nor could we count on all of them to do it right.

“You can’t expect every judge to be equally good at understanding the nuances of group therapy, of individual therapy, of drug test results, of all the other things that are happening,” he says. “You’re not going to get on board massive criminal justice infrastructures, involving dozens and dozens more judges, hundreds of other state’s attorneys and public defenders, and treatment providers, to all know how to behave in this new way where a judge can just show up and be expected to act responsibly on all the information that they’re getting.”

Instead, Abid says, to achieve true, lasting reforms, we need more programs like DPP and ARI, which involve a coordinated team of specialized professionals who work with defendants on various aspects of their cases and their lives, which have checks at various

levels. Cook County already has more than 30 specialty courts in addition to Portman’s, ones that deal with veterans, the mentally ill, and other types of offenders. But very few defendants get access to these courts, Abid says.

Still, Abid says, Portman’s work and the positive response to it show that “there is a demonstrated need for looking at defendants in a more holistic way, as whole human beings with needs and goals that need to be worked upon and assisted with to rehabilitate them.”

P

ortman’s impact on the lives of defendants who pass through her courts can’t be denied, even if she’s destined to be a one-of-a-kind phenomenon within the Cook County criminal justice system.

Avery Brady, 60, was one such defendant.

Brady’s parents, like Portman’s mother and many other black Chicagoans, came from the south. His father, Avery Brady Sr., was a noteworthy musician, playing an unusual repertoire of his own Delta blues songs at private parties and clubs around the city after World War II. Brady Jr. was the baby of the family. He remembers his parents’ house parties and his father teaching him to play guitar.

Eventually Brady became a blues musician in his own right, playing bass guitar with A.C. Reed and other famous acts in the 1980s. But, Brady says, he got hooked on drugs, and his addictions to heroin and cocaine predictably took over his life.

On a February morning in 2013, Brady and a friend went out looking for scrap metal and other valuable materials in Austin, to sell for money to buy drugs. They came to an abandoned house and were about to make away with a bathtub when someone called the police.

Avery spent about a month and a half in Cook County Jail before being released on probation, he says. He started using again as soon as he got out.

His probation officer’s patience wore thin.

“She put up with me for about six months, let me get high,” Brady remembers, “then she recommended me to a probation officer at 26th and California.” This was how Brady wound up with Portman as his new judge, in the Adult Redeploy Illinois program.

The first time he tested positive for drugs she locked him up for three days. He knew that this time he had to start taking the probation terms seriously. “I drunk plenty of water, cleansed my system of the little cocaine I had smoked,” he says. “When I came back and took

my drop, it was clean.” From there, Portman released him from jail and sent him to WestCare, where he met Maxwell and Cooke.

Looking back, Brady thinks Portman was fair and sincere. “She was just a real lady, and I think she’s a good person,” he says. “If you do what’s right, she’s gonna do you right.” He says he had never seen a judge like that before.

Brady thrived at WestCare. He started bringing his guitar to play for the other clients and staff. One day, he invited everyone to come see his gig at Lee’s Unleaded Blues, a legendary south-side blues bar that has since gone out of business.

Brady was playing with vocalist Willie White and a four-man band. They were about three songs in, and the bar was packed, when “Gwen, Darryl, and all of them came,” he remembers. “They said, ‘We’ve got a surprise for you.’”

Portman was there, rounding out his support team in the bar.

Maxwell remembers how elated Brady was to see the judge. “His eyes lit up! He came on over and he was like, ‘Wow, you said you’d do this, but I wasn’t expecting it!’”

Brady says his bandmates were impressed, and he was proud to have “his judge” at the show. It meant a lot to him to have someone that important show up to support him.

“I think it was a blessing for all of them to come out,” he says. “It was a real good feeling.

It made me feel that I am somebody. That made me stronger.”

Portman recalls it as “a wonderful night.”

“He kept saying, ‘My judge is here! My judge is here!’” she says.

“I saw pride,” Cooke adds. “That’s an acknowledgment. You never see people put a judge in the same category as some celebrities, and that’s what happened that night.”

“And ever since that day I’ve been moving up,” Brady says. “No getting high, no nothin’.”

Brady hasn’t had any new arrests since he successfully completed ARI. He now lives in Austin, playing occasional shows around town and in his church band.

He doesn’t like taking the bus and is working on restoring his driver’s license. Once he does, he plans to pay Cooke and Maxwell a visit at WestCare, and to go see Portman too.

“One day I’m gonna go to court and I’m just gonna sit there, just listening to her,” he says.

“If you hear from her, tell her I’m not getting high and that I’m still doing real good.” v

v @mdoukmas

JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 • CHICAGO READER 15

ARTS & CULTURE

R

Roy Lichtenstein, Artist’s Studio “Foot Medication,” 1974

VISUAL ART

The new Art Institute

By IONIT BEHAR

T

his past December, the Art Institute of Chicago unveiled the largest gift in the museum’s history in a new exhibit titled “The New Contemporary.” What’s being shown is part of the collection of Stefan Edlis and his wife, Gael Neeson, who in April donated 44 postwar artworks valued at around $400 million; the generous gift includes pieces by Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, and Roy Lichtenstein as well as more recent pieces by Cindy

Sherman, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, and others. Edlis and Neeson required their pieces to be immediately and lastingly displayed rather than put in storage for another time, as so often happens with museum collections—the AIC agreed to permanently feature the 44 paintings, sculptures, and photographs for the next 50 years.

“The New Contemporary” occupies ten galleries on the second floor of the Modern Wing.

Jasper Johns’s Target (1961) is a focal point,

16 CHICAGO READER • JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

ò ESTATE OF ROY LICHTENSTEIN

strategically placed in the center of the room that visitors enter. A wax-based rendering of a shooting target, the image unintentionally imparts the institution’s excitement for the gift: “We hit the jackpot!” Other smaller works

by Johns, Twombly, Lichtenstein, and Robert Rauschenberg are found in the same area, as is Hirst’s Still (1994), a clinical vitrine made from glass, mirror, and steel displaying a series of surgical instruments, located on the opposite side of the wall on which Target hangs.

The adjacent room showcases ten of Warhol’s works, including Liz #3 [Early Colored Liz] (1963), which unlike the other contributions will be exhibited only for eight weeks (it will return at some undisclosed point in the future). Continuing on, there’s a space devoted to photography that alternates between six pictures by Sherman and six by

READER RECOMMENDED

b ALL AGES

F

Richard Prince. There’s a superb transition from this section to a different one featuring Richard Richter’s illusionist paintings—two from the 1960s and two from the 1980s—as well as Charles Ray’s Boy (1992), John Currin’s Stamford After Brunch (2000), and Eric Fischl’s Slumber Party (1983). When I viewed “The New Contemporary,” people were taking pictures and admiring the realistic skin and breasts of Koons’s Woman in Tub (1988) in front of windows facing Millennium Park and the Pritzker Pavilion.

There’s unimaginable potential for dialogue between the artworks in the exhibition with those in the museum as a whole. Experiencing Sherman in the permanent collection and Deana Lawson in “Deana Lawson: Ruttenberg Contemporary Photography Series”—a temporary exhibit that closes this Sunday, January 10—is just one example of the discourse that can be established within the context of the museum. However, I remembered that Sherman and Lawson have been prominently featured in two recent shows at two other institutions in Chicago: Sherman’s work is currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art as part of “Surrealism: The Conjured Life,” and “Mother Tongue,” a showcase of Lawson’s oeuvre, took place at the West Loop gallery Rhona Hoffman in early 2014.

The competition between the MCA and the AIC becomes more apparent with “The New Contemporary.” The MCA has faced the challenge of exposing new artists and being up-todate with the rest of the art world while also bringing in larger, more conventional crowds (look no further than “David Bowie Is,” which really only fulfilled the latter objective). With “The New Contemporary,” the AIC is targeting the MCA’s mission: “ . . . to be an innovative and compelling center of contemporary art.”

Of course, the AIC has been collecting contemporary art since the museum’s founding in the mid- to late 19th century, a time when impressionism was considered “contemporary.” But Edlis and Neeson’s gift and the popularity of the Modern Wing have completed the transformation from the 20th-century AIC into what Marc Augé calls a “supermodern” place—one that feels faster, in pursuit of bigger crowds and new money. v“THE NEW CONTEMPORARY” Sun–Wed 10:30 AM–5 PM, Thu-Fri 10:30 AM–8 PM, Sat 10:30 AM–5 PM, Art Institute of Chicago, Modern Wing, 111 S. Michigan, 312-443-3600, artinstituteofchicago.org, $23, $17 students, seniors ($5 discount for Chicago residents), free kids under 14; free for Illinois residents Thursdays 5-8 PM.

Beau O’Reilly ò COURTESY RHINOFEST

THEATER

Rhinofest, now with rhinos “PEOPLE ALWAYS ASSUME it came from the play,” says Beau O’Reilly via e-mail.

But no. The Rhinoceros Theater Festival wasn’t named for Rhinoceros, Eugène Ionesco’s classic 1959 comedy about a man whose neighbors morph into odd-toed ungulates with horns. The actual inspiration was “Rhinocéros Cosmique,” a series of bronzes by Salvador Dalí. According to O’Reilly, rhinocéros was “Dalí’s word for ‘a really big thing.’”

I’d trust him on this, inasmuch as O’Reilly’s a cofounder of the Curious Theatre Branch, which has presented each of Rhinofest’s 27

annual iterations.

This year Curious will finally make the connection that never was: O’Reilly himself will direct RHINOCEROS (1/23-2/28, Sat-Sun 7 PM), and the fest’s fringe-y local participants have been invited to create pieces inspired by it.

Predictably, the contributions include shows titled HIPPOPOTAMUS (1/22-2/26, Fri 9 PM) and ORANGUTAN (1/21-2/25, Thu 8 PM).

Mark Chrisler’s ENDANGERED (1/23-2/27, Sat 7 PM) concerns efforts to lure a gamer-turned-rhino back to the human side using his high school crush as bait. Logan Breitbart’s JAIL (1/22-2/26, Fri 9 PM) asks “How does it feel to be the last person like you?”

And in the center of everything, marvelous Ionesco, whom O’Reilly regards as “the major absurdist after Beckett.” The absurdists are crucial to modern theater, he asserts.

“Plus I like investigating [Ionesco’s] work, the dreamy sharpness of it.” —TONY ADLER R RHINOFEST 1/16-2/28: Thu-Tue various times, Prop Thtr, 3502 N. Elston, 773-492-1287, rhinofest. com, $12 in advance, $15 or pay what you can at the door. Opening gala Sat 1/16, 8 PM.

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JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 • CHICAGO READER 17

TION COLLEAS EBN TOS RAC

& FINAL THE 15TH

PR

ARTS & CULTURE

E R T A E H T N I P O H JANUARY 14-24 C For 15 years, the SKETCHBOOK Festival has brought together thousands of artists, designers, and directors for a collection of world premiere short pieces here in Chicago. This January we celebrate the Grand Finale of this ground-breaking festival with two weeks of live musical guests, panel discussions, art from Chicago Artist Wesley Kimler, and 16 spectacular world premiere plays. Don’t miss your last chance to experience this Chicago tradition before it disappears.

LIFE

DEATH

SPANX YOU VERY MUCH

OPEN ARMS (THE RAPTURE)

by Dani Bryant, Directed by Erica Barnes Choreographed by Sheena Laird

by Emily Schwartz, Directed by Steven Wilson

WE CALL YOU FAMILY; WE CALL YOU MEMORY

POST-APOCALYPTO

by Andrew Grigg, Directed by Genevieve Fowler

by Laura Jacqmin, Directed by Greg Werstler

THE AFTER

FIX YOURTEETH B*TCH REMIX

by Samantha Dedian, Directed By Charlotte Drover

by Carolyn Hoerdemann

THE BALCONY SCENE FROM I <3 JULIET

MENAGERIE

by The Q Brothers

by Drew Dir, Directed by Lee Stark

MA(S)KING HER

TRUMP INTERNATIONAL TOWER

by Honey Pot Performance

by Benno Nelson and Ethan Dubin

OVERNIGHT PARKING BAN, IN EFFECT

by Joe Zarrow, Directed by Sarah Moeller

SEVEN MINUTES

by Beth Henley, Co-Directed by John Cabrera and Ian Downing-Beaver

BLINK

SILENCED

By Arlene Malinowski, directed by Lavina Jadhwani

WHEN THE BACHELORS COME OUT OF THE BRUSH

by Anne Washburn, Directed by Jeremy Wechsler

THE TITLE IS FORGOTTEN

by Anthony Moseley

by Jen Ellison

NIGHTLY MUSICAL GUESTS INCLUDE:

STEVE GILPIN & KARLIS KANDERO 1/14 at 8PM JULIA MILLER & ELBIO BARILARI 1/16 at 9PM ENVIRONMENTAL ENCROACHMENT 1/21 at 8pm GARVEY TRAIN 1/23 at 7PM CONSUELO LEPAUW 1/17 at 7PM SHON ROKA 1/15 at 8PM JULIO BISHOP 1/24 at 3PM RICK RIZZO 1/18 at 8PM MICROPHONE MISFITZ 1/16 at 7PM NICK TREMULIS 1/24 at 5PM JOIN US FOR OUR 15 YEAR CELEBRATION PARTY AND PERFORMANCE ON JAN. 21ST!

TICKETS AND ALL-ACCESS FEST PASSES AVAILABLE AT COLLABORACTION.ORG OR BY CALLING THE BOX OFFICE AT 312-226-9633.

This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

AUDIO/VIDEO

18 CHICAGO READER • JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

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EQUIPMENT

|

RENTAL

|

PRODUCTIONS

Heavyweights

COMEDY

ò COURTESY HERON AGENCY

SketchFest 2015: Reunions, breakouts, and a wealth of comedy

By BRIANNA WELLEN

I

n 2014, when famous improvisers TJ Jagodowski and Dave Pasquesi relinquished control of the Mission, the duo’s theater, Tribune critic Chris Jones all but announced sketch comedy outside of the walls of the Second City to be dead. Comedian (and artistic director of Stage 773) Brian Posen’s brainchild, the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival, disputes that notion. This year’s fest features more than 180 different sketch groups, its largest lineup yet.

SketchFest’s 15th edition is nearly an even split of new and returning groups, with many of the latter reuniting after spending years not even speaking. “When we approached this landmark we said, ‘Let’s dream,’” Posen says. “We looked back over the last 15 years and created our dream list.” And with only a few phone calls, they were able to book nearly every act on that list.

T.J. Miller (Silicon Valley) and Danny Pudi (Community) return with their original groups—Heavyweights and Siblings of Doctors, respectively—along with other reunited acts like Superpunk, Brick, and Party Central USA. “The festival keeps redefining itself because every year we get new people,” Posen

says. “Sketch comedy is exploding. The first couple of years we really had to seek out to get just 30 groups. Now we have hundreds and hundreds that we turn away.” Groups making their SketchFest debut include female-positive Bevvy and brand-new Creamy Barracuda.

In the past couple of decades that Posen has been in the biz, he has noticed a few emerging trends, like solo sketch acts and more involvement with technology—for example, the Laser Comedy Show, in which one man uses lasers to create scenery and characters. But the core of sketch comedy, just as during the days of The Carol Burnett Show, remains the same—it’s the perspective that changes. And despite what Mr. Jones had to say, there are still plenty of new, entertaining perspectives.

“What’s always new is presentation and the group’s voice—that’s what’s interesting,” Posen says. “Twenty years of watching sketch comedy I still go, ‘Ooh, look at that!’ ” v

R CHICAGO SKETCHFEST 1/7-1/17: Thu-Sun, times vary, Stage 773 , 1225 W. Belmont, stage773.com/ChicagoSketchfest, $15 per show.

v @BriannaWellen

H To read about Chicago’s connections to Making a Murderer, see page 11.

ARTS & CULTURE

GOLDEN GLOBE® AWARD NOMINATIONS “ ONE OF THE BEST FILMS OF THE YEAR!”

THE 8TH FILM BY

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NOW PLAYING AT THEATERS EVERYWHERE SEE IT IN 70MM AT SELECT THEATERS CHECK DIRECTORIES FOR SHOWTIMES • NO PASSES ACCEPTED

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SMALL SCREEN

Making a Murderer documents the inexorable nightmare that is the criminal justice system

By DMITRY SAMAROV

L

aura Ricciardi and Moira Demos’s tenyears-in-the-making Netflix documentary Making a Murderer is a diligent dissection of how law and law enforcement is practiced—and abused—in America. Over ten hours covering 30 years, Making a Murderer repeatedly returns to a salvage yard in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. We see cars covered in snow; sun glinting off smashed windshields; rusting, bent fenders sinking into the earth as seasons pass. This is Steven Avery’s world. We meet him just as he’s being released from prison after serving 18 years for a rape he didn’t commit. He’s short, with a buzz cut and a beard worthy of Duck Dynasty, grinning ear to ear when he’s back in his family’s auto-wreck kingdom.

The first few episodes take us back to 1985, when a scraggly young Avery, recently married, with one child born and more on the way, is convicted of the attempted murder and rape of Penny Beerntsen, a local woman attacked while jogging in a state park. He persistently maintains his innocence, as do most members of his sprawling extended family; a cousin of Avery’s (whose spouse is in the sheriff’s department) is blamed by most of the film’s interviewees for causing his incarceration.

Avery is cleared and released 18 years later, when DNA evidence conclusively links the crime to a serial rapist—who might have been caught had the police department not been dead set on Avery’s guilt.

Freed, Avery hopes to lead a happy, unevent-

ful life. But first he wants to settle the score with those who wronged him. He becomes a poster boy for the Wisconsin Innocence Project and sues the Manitowoc County police department to compensate him for his 18 lost years. But shortly thereafter the remains of Teresa Halbach, a young photographer for Auto Trader magazine, are found on Avery’s property and he’s back behind bars. The sequence of torments that this slight, barely educated man endures beggar belief, but the filmmakers don’t ever portray Avery as a saint—even when they seem to advocate on his behalf. There’s equally little sympathy shown to the prosecutors, sheriffs, investigators, judges, and various other functionaries of the local and state law enforcement agencies—they come off as callous, conniving, or just plain ignorant.

Whether or not Avery is guilty, no one who watches this miniseries will come away believing the way he’s convicted to be just.

This whole epic is a nightmare, yet there’s no hope of waking up and resuming everyday life for anyone involved. We know Avery didn’t rape Penny Beerntsen, but could 18 years in jail have turned him into a murderer? One of Making a Murderer’s greatest virtues is that it allows unresolved questions to linger. We keep passing over the remnants of all those automobiles, watching different members of Avery’s family wander the muddy paths, looking for a vehicle in good enough condition to drive them the hell out of there. v R MAKING A MURDERER is streaming on Netflix.

please recycle this paper JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 • CHICAGO READER 19

THE HATEFUL EIGHT s Directed by Quentin Tarantino. R, 187 min. including overture and intermission.

For venues visit chicagoreader.com/movies.

ARTS & CULTURE

Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Bruce Dern

MOVIES

Quentin Tarantino, still out of ideas

By TAL ROSENBERG

T

he release of a new Quentin Tarantino movie is usually accompanied by press that invariably addresses whatever the provocative premise or subject matter of the film is, whether it’s the writer-director’s casual use of racial epithets (Jackie Brown) or his flippant treatment of World War II (Inglourious Basterds) and slavery (Django Unchained). But with the release of The Hateful Eight—like Django, a political western—most of the hubbub isn’t about the film, it’s about Tarantino.

At issue are two statements Tarantino made. The first came during an engrossing interview on The Howard Stern Show.

Tarantino angrily claimed that Disney told the proprietors of the LA-based Cinerama Dome, which is owned by up-and-coming chain ArcLight Cinemas, that if it showed The Hateful Eight instead of Star Wars: The Force Awakens during the holiday season then Disssss EXCELLENT

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ney would pull The Force Awakens from all ArcLight theaters (nearly a dozen) across the country. The second statement has to do with Tarantino’s recent activism against police brutality. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, he spoke about the Laquan McDonald shooting: “I completely and utterly reject the bad apples argument. . . . They’re all bad apples,” he said. “It’s about institutional racism.

It’s about institutional cover-ups that are about protecting the force as opposed to the citizens.” Tarantino’s comments about mafia tactics on both the corporate and law-enforcement levels are separate issues—but they reveal quite a bit about him, and they corroborate some of my feelings about The Hateful Eight.

Tarantino’s insistence on screening The Hateful Eight at the Cinerama (the theater’s iconic logo appears during the opening credits) is just one aspect of this film that

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20 CHICAGO READER • JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

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illustrates his at times monomaniacal and fetishistic devotion to bygone moviegoing experiences. (Cinerama is also the name of a wide-screen film process that became a fad in the 1950s.) At the press screening for The Hateful Eight, a spokesperson made sure to explain every technical detail of what we were about to see, particularly with regard to Ultra Panavision 70, the extrawide and rarely used format with which Tarantino shot the movie.

There’s more: the “Special Roadshow Engagement” of The Hateful Eight also featured a promotional booklet, a 12-minute intermission, and an overture—composed, as with the rest of the score, by none other than Ennio Morricone. Yet none of these novelties ever really enhance the story.

The film opens presumably at the tail end of Reconstruction during a blizzard in rural Wyoming. A horse-drawn carriage driven

by O.B. (James Parks) transports John Ruth

(Kurt Russell)—a bounty hunter known as the Hangman who is famous for always bringing in wanted fugitives alive—and Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a murdering bandit with a $10,000 reward on her head, to Red Rock so that Domergue will hang. Obstructing their path is Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a legendary Union soldier-turned-bounty hunter whose horse has died and who is stranded with the corpses of three fugitives. Ruth reluctantly lets Warren hitch a ride and later on does the same for Chris Mannix, a Confederate yokel with yet another felled horse who claims to be the incoming sheriff of Red Rock. They eventually seek shelter at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a rest stop populated by a mysterious group of characters, including the purported hangman of Red Rock (Tim Roth), a Mexican caretaker (Demián Bechir), a shadowy cowboy (Michael Madsen), and a Confederate general (Bruce Dern). Ruth is convinced that at least one of these people is in cahoots with Domergue and has designs on freeing her. The rest of The Hateful Eight plays out as a parlor mystery, with Tarantino gradually disclosing (sometimes via his own voice-over narration) who’s part of the conspiracy.

When I say “gradually,” what I really mean is “extremely slowly.” The Hateful Eight is more than three hours long with the overture, and the real action doesn’t start until just before intermission. Most of the dialogue in the first half of the film doesn’t feel like it establishes character or advances the plot—it’s more like a screenwriting professor showing off for his students. And once the action does rev up, mostly during the second half, the film becomes grotesquely violent—even for Tarantino’s standards.

Yet the violence in this film points to a noticeable different between The Hateful Eight and Tarantino’s other works: a relative absence of humor. At the press screening there were a couple moments of isolated laughter, but for the most part the audience hardly made any noise. Unsure if Tarantino intended for The Hateful Eight to be more serious than his other movies, I also watched the movie shortly after its public opening. The audience was virtually silent.

I hated Django Unchained, but not because of its politics or its premise—I was merely tired of Tarantino’s revisionist-history revenge fantasies, something he’s been doing since Kill Bill, his last good movie, a humorous

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genre medley that pays homage to the long history of action films. The Hateful Eight is yet again about revenge, but it at least shows Tarantino thinking about the subject—its nature, its roots, its role in American history.

During the opening credits, the camera is fixed on a snow-covered stone crucifix, the only site for miles, which Ruth’s carriage rolls past. Tarantino returns to this image a few times as a means of pointing out that this is the entrance to the region where Minnie’s Haberdashery is located. Minnie’s is essentially Purgatory, and we come to learn that each of the characters who inhabit the shop has committed terrible acts, whether as criminals, Civil War soldiers, or bounty hunters. These are all sinners of the Civil War and Reconstruction, and Minnie’s is where judgment takes place.

“Justice without dispassion,” one character says, “is in danger of not being justice.” Therein lies the problem with The Hateful Eight, and with Tarantino’s thinking generally. Without spoiling anything, in the final scene Tarantino wants the audience to question the very foundations of justice; impartiality and objectivity are impossible, in his view, therefore all acts of “justice” are essentially revenge.

What’s troubling about this stance isn’t just its cynicism. It also discounts the tenets of law and philosophy that are the benchmarks of human progress. It’s this frankly conservative reasoning that finally helps explain why the director doesn’t think twice about indirectly discrediting the Nuremberg trials (as in Inglourious Basterds) or imagining the antebellum south as a cartoon where slaves become cowboys gleefully taking revenge on their masters.

And that brings us back to Tarantino’s comments on police brutality. His “bad apples” comment evinces his one-dimensional attitude toward people. All cops are “bad apples” because Tarantino can’t see people as more than stereotypes or caricatures; with all his talent for writing dialogue, he still hasn’t learned that people are complicated.

The characters of The Hateful Eight aren’t ever really explored or fleshed out—they’re mouthpieces for Tarantino’s speciously clever screenwriting. That’s what makes The Hateful Eight an even more frustrating film than Django: it shows Tarantino thinking but not being thoughtful. People come to bloody ends in The Hateful Eight, but at least they weren’t bored to death. v

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OLDTOWNSCHOOL.ORG 22 CHICAGO READER • JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

MUSIC

Recommended and notable shows, and critics’ insights for the weeks of January 7 and January 14 b

ALL AGES

F

FESTIVAL

The broadened Tomorrow Never Knows festival still prefers the cozy warmth of indie rock

Devon Welsh of Majical Cloudz ò COURTESY MATADOR RECORDS

THURSDAY7 Boneshaker Dave Rempis, Albert Wildeman, and Ryan Packard open. 9 PM, Elastic, 3429 W. Diversey, $10 suggested donation. b

Lady Lamb ò DENNY RENSHAW

SINCE ITS MODEST BEGINNINGS at Schubas, Tomorrow Never Knows—which is at least somewhat spun as a kind of beat-thebitter-weather get-together—has grown steadily over the years.

Now in its 12th installment, it brings five days of mostly indie rock and comedy acts to six different north-side venues. Starting on Wed 1/13 with indie-folk singer LADY LAMB headlining Lincoln Hall and Smith Westerns spin-off WHITNEY playing Schubas, the fest also features the classical pop of SAN FERMIN (see page 29) at Athenaeum Theatre on Thu 1/14 and the electronic psych of artist TOBACCO at Smart Bar. Dreamy pop band ETERNAL SUMMERS play Schubas on Fri 1/15, while art-pop songwriter FEE LION (see page 29) opens for WILD BELLE at Metro. Lincoln Hall hosts indie collec-

tive THE GO! TEAM on Sat 1/16, and noise-rockers METZ headline Metro. Dinosaur Jr. bassist and Sebadoh front man LOU BARLOW closes things out at Schubas on Sun 1/17. Also over the course of the weekend, the Hideout hosts two shows a day of solid stand-up comedy: NICK THUNE on Thu 1/14, BOBCAT GOLDTHWAIT on Fri 1/15, and HARI KONDABOLU on Sat 1/16 (both of his shows are already sold out). Tickets are available for each Tomorrow Never Knows show, but the $100 all-show passes are sold out. —LUCA CIMARUSTI Wed 1/13-Sun 1/17, various venues (Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln; Schubas, 3159 N. Southport; Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport; Metro, 3730 N. Clark; Smart Bar, 3730 N. Clark; Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia), $15-$23 per show, 18+ (except Smart Bar), tnkfest.com.

Though saxophonist Mars Williams and bassist Kent Kessler have a long history together—they played for years alongside singular multi-instrumentalist Hal Russell—the genesis of their trio Boneshaker came within Peter Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet, where they worked with explosive Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love. As heard on Boneshaker’s second recording, Unusual Words (Soul What), the trio of Williams, Kessler, and Nilssen-Love make an unholy racket via paint-peeling free improv that rivals what they produced under the muscular German reedist. But I like them most when they pull back and share a more jazz-oriented sound—because they’re all of that lineage, even if it isn’t always apparent in the music they make now.

The opening track, “Preantepenultimate,” is a full-on body blow in which ferocity rains down for a steady seven and a half minutes. “Oculoplania” is a different beast: the track may not sound like a conventional ballad but, tender in its restraint and delicate in its interplay, it kind of behaves like one. “Mallemaroking” conveys a brisk energy, the trio sticking to a steady, swinglike pulse that embraces jazz foundations more than rips them apart. Boneshaker rarely perform these days, so this promises to be something special. —PETER MARGASAK

FRIDAY8 Sapropelic Pycnic Haley Fohr, Jim Baker & Carol Genetti, and Tar Pet open. 9 PM, Elastic, 3429 W. Diversey, $10 suggested donation. b

Multi-instrumentalist Kathleen Baird, a former Chicagoan, moved from Madison to New J

JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 • CHICAGO READER 23

JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA with WYNTON MARSALIS Symphony Center • January 22 & 23 Friday, January 22, 8:00 SCP JAZZ SERIES JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA WITH WYNTON MARSALIS: JAZZ IN THE KEY OF LIFE The unparalleled virtuosos of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, led by Wynton Marsalis, return to Symphony Center with “Jazz in the Key of Life,” featuring new jazz arrangements by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra of popular songs by Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, The Beatles and more. Experience the stylistic authenticity and unmatchable sense of swing of “the greatest large jazz ensemble working today” (Chicago Tribune).

Saturday, January 23, 1:00 JAZZ FOR YOUNG PEOPLE®: WHO IS DUKE ELLINGTON? Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis

Bring the young people in your life for a foottapping, swinging good time with Who is Duke Ellington? Explore the life and music of one of the greatest composers in jazz history.

Saturday, January 23, 8:00 BATTLE ROYALE: JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA WITH WYNTON MARSALIS AND THE LEGENDARY COUNT BASIE ORCHESTRA DIRECTED

BY SCOTTY BARNHART Two of the greatest jazz orchestras in history come together for an epic, one-night-only Battle Royale.

SYMPHONY CENTER PRESENTS The SCP Jazz series is sponsored by:

24 CHICAGO READER • JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

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This presentation is supported by the Arts Midwest Touring Fund, a program of Arts Midwest that is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional contributions from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, the Crane Group and General Mills Foundation.

Where are the rest of the music listings?

Find them at chicagoreader.com/soundboard.

MUSIC SATURDAY9

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York last year but has maintained strong local connections. Her long-running midwest-based psychedelic-folk group Spires That in the Sunset Rise continue to perform sporadically, and they just released an expansive collaborative album with veteran Chicago percussionist Michael Zerang called Kata Physin (out on the new Chicago cassette imprint No Index). That trippy effort pushes the combo’s warped folk sounds into the realm of improvisation, which makes Baird’s new solo effort for the same label a bit less surprising. A Love Supreme takes its title and inspiration from the classic 1965 John Coltrane album of the same name. On opener “Elation, Elegance, Exaltation,” beneath overdubbed sax fantasias played

by Spires bandmate Taralie Peterson, Baird chants a poem Coltrane wrote and included in the original album’s liner notes; on the following track she recites Gil Scott Heron’s Trane tribute “And Then He Wrote Meditations” over turbulent, moody piano accompaniment. The highlight, though, is the closer, “A Love Supreme,” on which Baird’s wordless quasi-operatic vocals, Troy Schafer’s strident violin scrapes, and Andy Ortmann’s curdled electronics form a captivating homage that feels the most heartfelt and genuine of the three pieces. For tonight’s performance Baird will play solo piano. Her headlining set is preceded by Haley Fohr of Circuit des Yeux, the duo of Jim Baker and Carol Genetti, and Tar Pet (Peterson’s solo project). —PETER MARGASAK

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THU, 1/7 - NO COVER

DJ Richard Galcher Lustwerk headlines; DJ Richard and Young Male open. 10 PM, Smart Bar, 3730 N. Clark, $16, $13 before midnight, $10 in advance

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DJ Richard’s Berlin apartment was burglarized in September 2014, and among the items taken from the home of the Rhode Island native was a computer backup that contained a nearly completed album. He did, however, manage to find a thumb drive containing his ominous ambient tune “Ejected,” which eventually became the penultimate track on this year’s Grind (Dial). The adventurous LP collects tracks that bleed into one another but sound almost radically different once you’re fully immersed in each. It’s enough to confuse Apple Music—some of Grind’s tracks are ID’d as Experimental/IDM, while others are house—and Beatport filed half of the album under the ever-ambiguous “electronica.” Grind is more about atmosphere than genre, as bits of house, noise, and ambient techno emerge from the humming, foggy synths and disappear without a trace. DJ Richard’s trance-inducing abilities are on display during the colorful percussive patchwork of “Bane”—which can propel people into a dancing stupor—as well as on tracks in where he shows off his penchant for minimalism. The eight-minute “Vampire Dub” pulses with a resounding four-on-the-floor beat, but its twinkling, cosmic synths are the real magnet.

—LEOR GALIL

Alex Wiley Kirk Knight headlines; Alex Wiley, Hurt Everybody, Allan Kingdom, Logan, DJ Oreo, and DJ Sunny Woodz open. 6 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, $18, $16 in advance. b Alex Wiley raps like he’s the battle vehicle from Mad Max: Fury Road outfitted with massive speaker cabinets, gramophone cones, and a guitarist whose riffs send a plume of flames surging from the ax’s neck. It’s all to say Wiley’s flow is furious and colorful, and he can rap with so much adrenalized speed it’s like he leaves skid marks on the instrumentals at the exact point he hits hyperdrive.

But Wiley’s less inclined to push his speedom- J

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Find your folk.

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JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 • CHICAGO READER 25

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26 CHICAGO READER • JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

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eter into the red on November’s Village Party 2: Heaven’s Gate, which he self-released after parting with local hip-hop indie Closed Sessions this past summer. Everything breathes easy on the digital release: sumptuous postsoul instrumentals move at a slack pace, and Wiley’s tempered, unhurried performances allow the full breadth of each track to be absorbed. At one point on “Navigator Truck” Chance the Rapper lets out a brief chuckle in the middle of rapping, which underscores the album’s exultantly carefree air. And though Wiley can still

let out steam with pent-up force—as he does alongside Twista on “Japanese”—I find myself drawn to Village Party 2’s largely relaxed atmosphere.

—LEOR GALIL

MONDAY11 Venom Inc. Necrophagia, Crusader, and Spare Change open. 7:30 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 2105 S. State, $30. 17+

Where are the rest of the music listings?

Find them at chicagoreader.com/soundboard.

Johnny Young ò COURTESY THE ARTIST

English extreme-metal pioneers Venom tore the world apart with their second record, 1982’s landmark Black Metal. That ode to satanism and violence takes the Black Sabbath formula and cranks up the speed and piles on the grime. Their deranged, demonic speed metal had bands like Slayer and Darkthrone bowing at their altar as the group helped draw the blueprint for the burgeoning American thrash-metal and Norwegian black-metal movements. They’re still around; in fact since their 1979 formation they’ve stopped playing only for a couple of years in the mid-90s—though every slot in the lineup has been switched out at least once. (The trio currently consists of original lead singer and bassist Conrad “Cronos” Lant and a couple of players who hopped on board in the mid-aughts.) But last spring, founding guitarist Jeffrey “Mantas” Dunn and drummer Anthony “Abaddon” Bray joined forces with Atomkraft bassist Tony “Demolition Man” Dolan (who initially replaced Cronos in the original Venom back in ’88 when the front man attempted a solo career) to create Venom Inc. The three tour, playing spirited sets of classic Venom, and now they’re even talking about working on a full-length of brand-new original material. Live footage shows that the band is killing it, conjuring evil spirits even without the legendary Cronos—who used to run his bass through Marshall stacks and supposedly modeled his vocal stylings after Ozzy’s terrified sound on “Black Sabbath.” —LUCA CIMARUSTI

TUESDAY12 Jank Pyramid Scheme headline; Jank, Vivian K., and Pine open. 6:30 PM, Subterranean, 2011 W. North, $8. 17+ Emo needs Jank more than Jank needs emo. The Philadelphia three-piece’s rambunctious debut full-

length, November’s Awkward Pop Songs (Funeral Sounds/Honest Face Records), pile drives emo by combining the genre’s de rigueur cycling guitar work with cartoonishly exuberant hammer-ons, loose and limber bass jamming, and a smidgen of electronics. The key is Jank’s carefree approach: they might play a forlorn melody with aplomb on one track but then say “screw it” and lay down a silly number composed of hair-metal riffs about buying a “motherfucking hat” (as they do on the appropriately titled “The Hat Store”). The polarities are in line with front man Matt Diamond’s previous project, Panucci’s Pizza, which had a thing for inside jokes. Jank’s humor is part of what makes their music vital. But these guys don’t hold much back—their songs are touching even when the lyrics appear lacking. On “Wut I Liek Abt U” Diamond sings, “Tell me about your favorite dinosaur,” and his earnest vocals make the subject as wondrous as when you were a kid. —LEOR GALIL

THURSDAY14 Homme The Few headline. 8:30 PM, Constellation, 3111 N. Western, $10. 18+ With their recent eponymous debut as Homme, the duo of Macie Stewart (also of Marrow) and Sima Cunningham reeled me in with whimsical but locked-in vocal harmonies that float, shimmy, and slalom through an impressive variety of settings.

For example, on “Woman” the vocals are delivered with early-jazz insouciance over hypnotic guitar arpeggios, but after a minute the guitars rev up to garage-rock volume and begin riffing over machinegun beats. Eventually the track returns to its initial pace, but the new intensity indicates that it’s only a matter of time before the pair serve up sustained fury—and they don’t disappoint when they do. At the heart of Homme’s substantial appeal is the J

JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 • CHICAGO READER 27

28 CHICAGO READER • JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

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continued from 27

fluid, effortless interplay between the singers, who also play every instrument on the record—piano and drums work alongside the hyper-rhythmic guitars that ground their live performances. It certainly helps, though, that Stewart and Cunningham have crafted winding, hook-laden melodies that make unexpected turns and end up in surprising places. —PETER MARGASAK

San Fermin Andy Shauf opens. Part of Tomorrow Never Knows (see page 23). 9 PM, Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport, $17$23. 18+ Ellis Ludwig-Leone wrote the 17 tunes on San Fermin’s eponymous 2013 debut before there was a band to go by that name, his savvy arrangements and beguiling melodies placing the project in the same crossover territory as the classical pop of Dirty Projectors. He enlisted a nimble unit to tour the record, and it’s clear that the material on the group’s follow-up, Jackrabbit (Downtown), was influenced by that experience: the songs are bigger and more direct. They’re also way less interesting. Ludwig-Leone brought in a slew of great players to add orchestral depth—including members of yMusic, kind of an all-star chamber ensemble that’s worked with Ben Folds and Jose Gonzalez—but the extra strings and brass feel overwhelmed by big grooves, slick pop melodies, and glib crooning from vocalists Allen Tate and Charlene Kaye. The album is immaculately crafted, but San Fermin has gone from an elegant pop experiment to a rather generic product. For this concert the group will be joined by Chicago’s agile Fifth House Ensemble, which promises an injection of the sort of symphonic richness Jackrabbit lacks. —PETER MARGASAK

FRIDAY15 Fee Lion Wild Belle headline; Fee Lion and Glass Lux open. Part of Tomorrow Never Knows (see page 23). 9 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, $18. 18+ The mood Justina Kairyte (aka Fee Lion) summons with her voice alone on “Ah Control”—the opener of III, the five-song cassette she released last year—is a mix of downcast 70s-era track lighting and eerie, slow-flickering strobe. Her dark and brooding vocals, imperial and emotive, are complemented by an unadorned beat and barely gurgling synth that etches through the track like a dragonfly stirring up ripples while it skims across a pond. Kairyte has such a strong control of the elasticity of her voice that she treats it like an instrument on “Lovebug,” gently poking at the minimal swaths of synth with vocal clicks and short, airy falsettos. The cassette’s other true single, “Needs,” is a more direct electropop track mostly fueled by a witchy beat and swirling haze, but as it devolves into a cycling and tumbling acoustic riff at the end, it morphs into performance art—which Kairyte is more than comfortable directing. —KEVIN WARWICK

Savage Beliefs See also Sat 1/16. 9:30 PM, Liar’s Club, 1665 W. Fullerton, donation requested.

Small local archival label Alona’s Dream Records has long taken an interest in obscure, far-gone midwestern hardcore-punk (Rights of the Accused, Necros, Bored Youth, etc), definitely making it more of a passion project for founder Chris Gilbert than any sort of a cash cow. His newest venture, however, the complete (and short) recorded history of J

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Red Baraat ! JAMES BARTOLOZZI

continued from 29 early-80s Chicago band Savage Beliefs, deserves an audience beyond the rabid collectors of boutique hardcore-punk seven-inches. Transferred from the original master tapes by Mr. Steve Albini himself—who according to Gilbert was a big supporter of the band, especially considering bassist David Riley was eventually recruited to play in Big Black—Big Big Sky consists of a brief discography of intricate and melodic hardcore-punk recorded between 1983 and ’84. (Included are the out-of-print seven-inch The Moral Efficiency of Savage Beliefs and a pair of recording sessions, one never before heard and another that turned up on the long-ago 1984 WNUR-sanctioned comp The Middle of America.) The album transitions from a first half of tight straight-ahead punk (“Big Big Sky”) to a more polished back half that features poppier, lick-driven jams (“Zulu Time”) and a sound that would have gone perfectly alongside contemporaries like the Dead Milkmen (“Talking to the Man”). Outside the most basic definition of early-80s hardcore punk, Savage Beliefs showcased their talent and inventiveness as opposed to falling in line with the burgeoning scene’s mantra—which was often focused on being gruffer, louder, and don’t-give-a-fuck-ier.

Tonight’s show at Liar’s Club and tomorrow’s at Logan Hardware—where I happen to work a weekly shift, so you know—will be Savage Beliefs’ first shows since they re-formed in 2009 to honor the documentary You Weren’t There: A History of Chicago Punk, 1977-1984. And the same version of the band will perform: founding members Wes Tabayoyong (guitar) and Brian Gay (vocals, guitar) will be joined

by You Weren’t There director Joe Losurdo (bass) and Anthony Illarde, former drummer for Rights of the Accused. —KEVIN WARWICK

SATURDAY16 Savage Beliefs See Fri 1/15. 3 PM, Logan Hardware, 2532 W. Fullerton. F b

30 CHICAGO READER • JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

MONDAY18 Majical Cloudz She-Devils open. 8 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, sold out. 18+ Few songs from last year capture the essence of new romance quite like “Downtown” by Majical Cloudz. The bare and spare music from front man Devon Welsh and producer Matthew Otto pairs well with reactions like the deafening pulse of your heartbeat brought on by a new beau, or the lump in your throat and searing rush of tears behind your eyes at the idea of losing that person.

Many of the songs on last year’s Are You Alone?

(Matador) feel distinctive even though they sound a little similar in passing. As the duo explore a wide range of emotions and reactions to romance and loss, their subtle shifts rippling with titanic emotive shocks, Otto’s minimal yet lush electronic instrumentals help Welsh’s plainspoken, piercing lyrics reverberate. Genuine intimacy burns throughout the album and elevates tracks like “Silver Car Crash.” Not much else should matter when that song is in motion: in the middle a synth melody that plays like a mutated sample of a choir rings out just after Welsh bluntly declares, “I am in perfect love with you.” —LEOR GALIL

TUESDAY19 Red Baraat DJ Bashert spins. 7:30 PM, SPACE, 1245 Chicago Ave., Evanston, $18-$34. b As New York Indian brass band Red Baraat have expanded their audience through incessant touring, their music has changed along the way. Led by percussionist Sunny Jain, the group had never been strictly traditional. Now they’ve carved out a niche as a high-functioning party band that bring a wild brass attack to bhangra music with nice accents from New Orleans (the group dubs its sound “dhol

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Fee Lion ! STEPHANIE BASSOS

’n’ brass”). Last year’s Gaadi of Truth (Sinj) made it clear that Red Baraat want an even broader audience. They take on topical subjects, as in the title track’s rapped screed against racial profiling, and they embrace a more hybrid approach, making room for hip-hop beats, psych-rock guitars, and endless doses of Crescent City ebullience. I appreciate the group’s efforts to tackle different styles— the airy instrumental “Layers” has jazz-derived harmonies, and “Se Hace Camino” is Latin pop fusion— but as Red Baraat have magnified their music and ideas for a wider listenership they’ve become less special to me. Ultimately they’re a party band, and being unique is less important than keeping that dance floor packed. —PETER MARGASAK

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band 7:30 PM, United Center, 1901 W. Madison, sold out. b Released in 1980, The River was Bruce Springsteen’s fifth record, and its sprawling four sides of vinyl collectively sounded like his first attempts at writing actual pop songs. While previous efforts focused on the soul-crushing helplessness of being stuck in a dead-end town, cuts from The River showed the Boss reminiscing about the fun he’d had and the dear friends he’d found in the bleak, economically depressed New Jersey city he was trapped in. Plus, he wrapped up the stories in neat little three-minute packages, a far cry from the sweeping epics of Born to Run or the rambling fairy tales of The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle. The River turned 35 in October, and last month Springsteen released The Ties That Bind: The River Collection, a box set that includes a remastered version of The River, an early single-disc sequence of the record, 22 never-before-heard outtakes from the recording sessions, and hours of live footage. Unheard Springsteen material—especially from his unstoppable golden era in the 70s—is always a treat, and the songs here, though cast aside as throwaways decades ago, sound fresher and more exciting than anything he’s released in the past 20 years. On this tour, Bruce and his trusty E Street Band will perform The River in its entirety, and they’ll also dust off some of the box set’s outtakes for their usual hit-machine marathon set. —LUCA CIMARUSTI

1349 Tombs, Full of Hell, Khaotika, and Sons of Famine open. 8 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 2105 S. State, $15. 17+ Named after the year the Black Death reached their homeland, Norway’s 1349 have always had

what some might call an identity crisis—though others might just call it unpredictability. Beginning as a straight-ahead post-Celtic Frost black-metal morass in the late 90s, 1349 spent subsequent albums trying on whatever black metal can mean nowadays. A grueling tour schedule with a diverse host of bands probably helped to keep them pushing the envelope. They’re not exactly WYSIWYG: come for the filthy chaotic howling and blasting, stay for the surprising moments of wonderfully weird shit (like what they did to Pink Floyd’s “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” on 2009’s Revelations of the Black Flame). Last year’s Massive Cauldron of Chaos (Indie Recordings) is truth in advertising for sure, but the standouts “Chained” and “Slaves” have an infectious power that sets them apart from the storm—and the under-two-minute “Golem” punches so fast it leaves you wondering what hit you. —MONICA KENDRICK

WEDNESDAY20 Johnny Young & Friends play On the Beach 9:30 PM, the Whistler, 2421 N. Milwaukee. F One measure of the worth of a Neil Young album is how far he buries it. Unlike the legendary Homegrown and Chrome Dreams, 1974’s On the Beach isn’t a bootleg-only mirage—though he didn’t let it come out on CD until 2003. Another measure of merit is how bleak Young allows an album to get, and in that regard On the Beach shines. “For the Turnstiles,” “Revolution Blues,” “Ambulance Blues,” and the title track conflate the national malaise of America in the post-Watergate/Manson murders era with Young’s own personal and professional state of drift (even rockers like “Walk On” and “Vampire Blues” are suffused with woozy belligerence).

The Whistler honors this bitter and sometimes neglected masterpiece as part of its “Playing Favorites” series, in which musicians pay tribute to the “music that resonates most with them.” Singer-guitarist Johnny Young’s recent cassette EP II (Voyager Golden) consists of solo instrumentals that fit into the American Primitive camp, but he also leads a rock trio with viola player Hanna Brock and drummer Jim Lechocki that just returned from a tour of the western U.S. Young performs On the Beach from front to back with a group built around his trio that brings significantly more guitar firepower.

Bill Satek and Daniel Wyche trade off on lead guitar, while Doug Malone plays lap steel, Benjamin Pera mans the Wurlitzer electric piano, and Darren Amaya plays bass. —BILL MEYER v

JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 • CHICAGO READER 31

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32 CHICAGO READER • JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

FOOD & DRINK

Latinicity lights up Block 37

Often compared to the Italian superstore Eataly, chef Richard Sandoval’s panHispanic food court in the Loop is both less and more in positive ways.

By MIKE SULA

T

he specter of defunct cream-puff stand Beard Papa’s still haunts the corridors of Block 37. Despite newer tenants like the AMC Dine-in Theatres, the Disney Store, Zara, the Foodseum, Magnolia Bakery, Akira, and Anthropologie, the shopping-mall portion of the historically accursed development somehow still feels like it hasn’t shaken off all of the echoing, empty gloom of the past.

That’s why the building’s third floor is, in some ways, a perfect place for Latinicity, the pan-Hispanic food hall developed by chef Richard Sandoval (who has a hand in some 39 restaurants worldwide) in partnership with homeboy Jose Garces (Mercat a la Planxa, Rural Society). During its opening weekend in early November it had to temporarily shut down after getting swamped by more than 10,000 visitors. That kind of traffic can’t be bad business for Steve Madden and Sephora.

While the immediate and obvious comparison is to Batali & Bastianich Hospitality Group’s Eataly (which faced a similar crisis of inventory after its debut), Latinicity is both less and more in positive ways. By the time I got there, over four visits during the height of preholiday mania, the Christkindlmarket across State Street was hosting its typical glogg-drunk mob scene. But Latinicity, with its ten food counters, full-service tapas restaurant, retail market, large wraparound bar, and spacious eating area, was blissfully tranquilo.

R LATINICITY | $$

108 N. State, third floor 312-795-4444 latinicity.com

From left: Chaufa Wok’s arroz aeropuerto, the Milanesa torta, Sonoran-style hot dog ò ANTHONY SOAVE

Each time I was free to stroll the food court, listening to my gut’s desires and swiping a card whenever I was lured by one of the ten stations, my tab tallied at the exit. Tacos? Tortas?

Ceviche? Churrasco? There is an abundance of offerings, and a relaxed, unintimidating presentation. Even Latinicity’s retail portion is compact and carefully curated. Unlike at Eataly, you won’t be burdened by the enormity of your choices—here in Brazilian chocolate, Spanish canned fish, Argentine wine, celebrity cookbooks, and branded swag. In fact this is the only aspect of Latinicity that’s lacking.

With all of South and Central America, the Caribbean, and the Iberian Peninsula to pluck stock from, it’s somewhat surprising there isn’t more to shop for.

But there are still plenty of decisions to make. How about a torta? Among the four on offer—including crispy pork belly and sweet potato, Cuban-style ham and Swiss, and carne asada and Oaxacan cheese—the Milanesa ($9), with its compact construction of crispy chicken, black bean, chipotle aioli, Oaxacan cheese, avocado, tomato, and pickled chiles, is a solid representation of the form, its slightly too soft telera roll contrasting with the fried chicken’s crunch.

And that’s just about true of most of the food at Latinicity. At first it seems disconcerting to watch a counter worker slop together the myriad ingredients of the ceviche mixto ($10) with all the grace of a toddler. But once one starts digging into the mahimahi, precooked shrimp and octopus, and cooling, fatty avocado sloppily bathed in sharp, acidic lime sauce, you can’t get enough tostadas to scoop it all up. Same goes for a fat Chori-frita burger ($9) that, depending on your timing, results in a chorizo-beef patty that’s been resting on the griddle prior to your arrival.

But the textural harmony of the porky beef with melting manchego, thick bacon mojo, crunchy potato sticks, and soft, warm brioche renders the slightly overcooked interior only a mild nuisance. By the same token a gloriously sloppy Sonoran-style hot dog ($6)—a near knockwurst-size weenie wrapped in crispy bacon and topped with coleslaw and pureed black-bean puree—is worth all the chile mayo you’ll need to wipe off your gob.

While tacos might be grill-kissed carne asada or al pastor or stewy chicken tinga, ($3-$4), they’re uniformly piled high on unremarkable corn tortillas and drenched in an assortment of salsas. They may be the weak link in this slapdash mode of prep, but across the mercado at the Peruvian Chaufa Wok, J

JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 • CHICAGO READER 33

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continued from 33 the arroz aeropuerto ($14) is a frighteningly delicious soy-splashed, carb-loaded mess of crispy fried noodles and rice, chicken, beef, fish, and shrimp—a pile of food you’ll need to start shoveling down before a stronger, more cunning predator pounces on it.

None of this is to suggest you can’t find grace and beauty on your tray. The Brazilian-style Saladero Grill offers perhaps the best steak value in town: eight ounces of tender, beefy skirt steak drizzled with vibrant emerald chimichurri sauce ($11). Add a juicy grilled chorizo ($4) or crumbled chorizo swimming in melted cheese ($4) and you have an enviable mini asado mixto. While the aforementioned ceviche bar may seem imprecise, its adjunct sushi operation produces tightly rolled, surprisingly understated maki, including a volcano roll of compact crabmeat topped with lightly seared salmon and a dab of chipotle aioli ($9).

Meanwhile at the mariscos station, delicately fried items like creamy salt-cod croquettes ($8) contrast with well-shucked if characterless Atlantic whitecap oysters ($15 per dozen).

Finally, among four sopas, the thick tortilla soup ($6), infused with raisiny pasilla chile and loaded with avocado and shredded chicken, might be Latinicity’s most sophisticated spoonful.

Pata Negra, the food hall’s full-service restaurant, which sits in the center of the space, holds up against any Spanish tapas op-

eration in the city. Brochettes of candied bacon-wrapped dates are held in check by crumbles of punchy Cabrales cheese ($11). Tight, gamy meatballs ($11) sizzle in a pepper-tomato sauce that surrounds a gooey poached egg. Superfresh shrimp ($10) practically leap from a hot garlic-butter bath. A four-ounce Iberico secreto steak ($25), sliced thin on the bias, is an indulgence of pure porky goodness that only the rare breed can offer. There’s nothing better with which to wash everything down than a bottle of Asturian Trabanco cider ($36).

The other main focal point of Latinicity is a large wraparound bar that stocks a commendable list of Spanish, Portuguese, and South American wines, plus a deep rum and tequila list (regrettably not yet printed). From here retrieve cocktails like a respectable rum old-fashioned ($12), made with five-year-old El Dorado, or a smoky-spicy Silencio Por Favor ($13), made with mescal and sweetened with maraschino and green chartreuse, and repair to the spacious dining area.

Latinicity’s greatest value may be to the perpetually underserved lunch crowd in the Loop, which despite all its progress continues to disappoint this captive audience. Under the rough edges there’s a lot of generally solid pan-Latin food that could keep these poor folk happy indefinitely. v

v @MikeSula

FOOD & DRINK it, that bright citrus dank hoppy burst at the end,” he says.

Le Seul III (Une Anee) An American wild ale fermented with a wild yeast strain and blackberries, Le Seul III is slated to land in early January. “Une Anee is doing some amazing things with their sour program,” Dubovick says. “They’re the sour to look out for in Chicago.”

BRIAN TAYLOR | Whiner Beer

ELIAS STEIN

Located in the Plant, a vertical farm and “food incubator” in Back of the Yards, Whiner has been producing beer for a couple months now but is still waiting for the permits necessary to sell it (which should be arriving any day). Fortunately for brewer Brian Taylor, who co-owns Whiner with cicerone Ria Neri, waiting fits in with his plans to barrel-age nearly all the beer he produces. His brews are mainly French- and Belgian-style sours; an alum of Goose Island, Taylor has experience making aged sour and wild beers like Sofie and Matilda.

BREWING

New Year, new beer

By JULIA THIEL

L

ooking forward to the year in beer, I asked brewers at four breweries that opened in 2015 to tell me about the just-released beers they’re most excited to drink in 2016. Ones containing brettanomyces, lactobacillus, and pediococcus—strains of yeast and bacteria that make beer sour and/or funky—appeared on the lists of all the brewers I talked to, evidence the sour-beer trend doesn’t appear to be waning anytime soon.

BRANT DUBOVICK

Corridor Brewery & Provisions

A sibling of DryHop Brewers, Corridor (3446 N. Southport, 773-270-4272, corridorchicago. com) opened last October. The brewpub serves farmhouse-style beer to go with its farmhouse-style food. Dubovick is focusing on French and Belgian styles of beer, and currently has a fermenter dedicated to

week of December. “It has that beautiful funkiness in the nose that we love from the sours,” Dubovick says. (The Corridor beer he’s most excited about, though, is fermenting now and won’t be released until the spring. It’s a sour imperial farmhouse ale with lemon verbena and juniper; brettanomyces is added in the secondary fermentation.)

brettanomyces—a type of wild yeast that lives on the skin of fruit and is considered a contaminant in most beer but is key to the production of some traditional Belgian styles.

Johnny Quest Thinks We’re Sellouts (Begyle and DryHop) This is the third year that the two breweries have collaborated to create this black IPA brewed with Galaxy, Citra, Simcoe, and Cascade hops. According to Dubovick, it smells like citrus and “finishes with a touch of roast that really complements the citrus beautifully.”

The Clock Strikes 13 (Corridor Brewery & Provisions) The brewpub’s first kettle sour, a traditional Berliner Weiss, was released the last

Hopslam Ale (Bell’s) Dubovick puts this imperial IPA brewed with honey in his top five beers of 2015. “I love the malt sweetness, the way the honey plays in

Le Tub (Whiner) “All the different bacteria and wild yeast we have in the beer is like a bathtub of growth,” Taylor says. (The brew’s name means “bathtub” in French.) Part of the saison is fermented for several months in cabernet barrels with lactobacillus, a bacteria that converts sugars to lactic acid, adding sour flavors to beer. Taylor then blends the aged saison with some fresh-brewed saison to achieve the desired taste.

Outlier (Penrose Brewing) A Belgian-style strong ale with an impressive 10 percent ABV, Outlier is aged in Four Roses bourbon barrels for 16 months before being released. “There’s a ton of bourbon and chocolate notes,” Taylor says, “a lot of fruitiness from the yeast.”

Foeder Saison (Perennial Artisan Ales) This saison spent nine months in a foeder, a large wine barrel, prior to its recent inaugural release. It’s fermented not only with yeast strains from the well-known Dupont and Fantome breweries but also brettanomyces and lactobacillus. Taylor describes it as tart and fruity: “With all these Belgian strains of yeast, you’re going to get major fruit-punch-style taste on the back end.”

J

JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 • CHICAGO READER 35

SPONSORED CONTENT

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Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

Bombs $4, Malibu Cocktails $4, Jack Daniel’s Cocktails $5, Tanqueray Cocktails $4, Johnny Walker Black $5, Cabo Wabo $5

$6 Firestone Walker Opal pints $6 Finch Vanilla Stout 16 oz. cans $7 house wines $8 Few Spirits

Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

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$10 All Rise Brewing Co. Flights of 4-20oz, $18 Imperial Flights of 4-37oz, $4 Jameson, Absolut & Sailor Jerry Shots

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Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

Heineken Bottles $4, Bloodies feat.

Absolut Peppar Vodka $5, Original Moonshine $5, Corzo $5, Sailor Jerry’s Rum $4, Deschutes Drafts $4

SUN

$6 Jameson shots, $3 PBR bottles, $4 Temperance brews, $5 Absolut bloody mary’s

$10 All Rise Brewing Co. Flights of 4-20oz, $18 Imperial Flights of 4-37oz, $4 Jameson, Absolut & Sailor Jerry Shots

$6 Firestone Walker Opal pints $6 Finch Vanilla Stout 16 oz. cans $7 house wines $8 Few Spirits

Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

Buckets of Miller & Bud Bottles (Mix & Match) $14, Guinness & Smithwicks Drafts $4, Bloodies feat, Absolut Peppar Vodka $5, Ketal One Cocktails $5

MON

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CLOSED

Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

All Draft Beers Half Price, Makers Mark Cocktails $5, Crystal Head Vodka Cocktails $4

$6 Jameson shots, $3 PBR bottles, $2 and $3 select beers

$10 All Rise Brewing Co. Flights of 4-20oz, $18 Imperial Flights of 4-37oz, $4 Jameson, Absolut & Sailor Jerry Shots

$6 Firestone Walker Opal pints $6 Finch Vanilla Stout 16 oz. cans $7 house wines $8 Few Spirits

Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

Jim Beam Cocktails $4, Jameson Cocktails $5, Cabo Wabo $5, Malibu Cocktails $4, Corona Bottles $3.50, PBR Tall Boy Cans $2.75

$6 Jameson shots, $3 PBR bottles, 1/2 price aliveOne signature cocktails, $4 Goose Island brews, “Hoppy Hour” 5pm-8pm = 1/2 price IPAs + pale ales

$10 All Rise Brewing Co. Flights of 4-20oz, $18 Imperial Flights of 4-37oz, $4 Jameson, Absolut & Sailor Jerry Shots

$6 Firestone Walker Opal pints $6 Finch Vanilla Stout 16 oz. cans $7 house wines $8 Few Spirits $10 classic cocktails

Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

Stoli/Absolut & Soco Cocktails $4, Long Island Iced Teas $5, Herradura Margaritas $5, Stella/Hoegaarden/ Deschutes Drafts $4, Goose Island 312 Bottles $3.50

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OUR READERS LOVE GREAT DEALS! CONTACT YOUR READER REPRESENTATIVE AT 312.222.6920 OR displayads@chicagoreader.com FOR DETAILS ON HOW TO LIST DRINK SPECIALS HERE.

36 CHICAGO READER • JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

PHOTO: ALEXEY LYSENKO/ GETTY IMAGES

FOOD & DRINK

Search the Reader’s online database of thousands of Chicago-area restaurants—and add your own review—at chicagoreader.com/food.

continued from 35 Dantalion Wild Dark Ale (Upland Brewing Company) Another sour ale, Dantalion is based on the Belgian Oud Bruin (old brown) style and is aged for eight months in oak barrels with ginger, coriander, star anise, grains of paradise, and black pepper.

BRYAN SHIMKOS

Blue Island Beer Company Blue Island Beer Company (13357 Old Western, Blue Island, 708-954-8085, blueislandbeerco.com) just opened last May, but brewer Bryan Shimkos is hardly a newcomer to the Chicago beer scene. “I appreciate a lot of different styles,” and “never wanted to brew one exclusive type of beer,” says the veteran of Flossmoor Station and Ale Syndicate. Instead Shimkos focuses on classic styles, offering six to eight beers on tap at any given time.

Lost Weekend (Blue Island) A rye barleywine, Lost Weekend is being brewed now and won’t be released until February; Shimkos also plans to save some to barrel-age so that next year he can offer sideby-side tastings of the new release and the aged version. The flavor, he says, is essentially what you’d expect from a barleywine, but with a little spiciness from the rye.

Chiberian Warmer (Arcade Brewery) Shimkos got to know the people behind Arcade when he worked at Ale Syndicate, since the two breweries share a space, and he’s excited to try the brewery’s newly released winter warmer, brewed with cranberries and orange peel.

Anything from Haymarket Pub & Brewery’s “Beerthday” celebration on January 12 Each year Haymarket celebrates its anniversary by releasing special beers. While the lineup for the fifth “Beerthday” hasn’t been announced, Shimkos says all of Haymarket’s barrel-aged beers are impressive. If you can’t make it to the event, Haymarket’s Indignant Imperial Stout, aged for six months in Woodford Reserve bourbon barrels, is a regular fixture in the brewpub.

Red Skull (Revolution Brewing) According to Shimkos, Revolution does an

especially good job at English-style beers, and Red Skull, an imperial red ale, is an excellent example of the brewery’s prowess.

“You’ve got a lot of caramel characteristics going on, and the hops really enhance the malt bill,” he says.

MIKE PALLEN | Mikerphone Brewing Longtime home brewer Mike Pallen made the leap to professional brewing a few years ago, working for 18th Street Brewery and Breakroom Brewery before officially launching his music-inspired Mikerphone Brewing a few months ago. The brewery, which focuses on sours, saisons, and “hoppy stuff,” is temporarily contract-brewing at Une Année Brewery while the permanent brewery space in Elk Grove Village is being built out.

Innocent Criminal (Mikerphone) A double milk stout brewed with cacao nibs and aged with blackberries, Innocent Criminal is named for one of Pallen’s favorite bands (Innocent Criminals). “I’ve brewed several beers in the past with blackberries, and truly love the extra layer and complexity they add to beers, especially stouts,” he says.

Grand Cru (Flesk Brewing Company) Flesk’s special anniversary release for 2015 is a sour ale aged for more than a year with brettanomyces, lactobacillus, and pediococcus. “I’m a huge sour-beer nut,” Pallen says, “so this sour, funky beer is right up my alley.”

Anything by Transient Artisan Ales Pallen recommends the recently released Neckbeard Nectar, an imperial stout with coconut, cinnamon, vanilla, and molasses. He also endorses the Pentameter #2, a lambic-inspired ale aged in oak barrels—or anything else by the gypsy brewery, which is so small and its beer so sought after that it can be difficult to find at all.

Smells Like Grahamma’s Tarts (Burn ’Em Brewing) A saison with graham crackers in the mash and lemon peel in the boil, this beer was recently rereleased. Pallen, who collaborated with Burn ’Em for the first brewing of the beer about a year ago, calls it “incredibly unique, but darn delicious.” v

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JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 • CHICAGO READER 37

JOBS

SALES & MARKETING MARKET ANALYST: City Sports is looking for a Market Analyst with Bachelor’s. Duty: Research and forecast marketing and sales trends. Mail Resume to Palm USA, Inc. Attn: Jin Noh, 5050 West Lawrence Ave. Chicago, IL 60630.

RADIO PHONE SALES.

Sell public service announcements for radio stations. Great income potential for strong sales closers with excellent communication skills. Excellent commission. No appointment setters!

Skokie 847-679-7660.

TELESALES! NEED EXCEPTIONAL diamond in the rough

salesperson to sell radio time. Bonus incentives and high earnings for right person. Need big fish for small pond.

Great environment in Skokie. PT/FT. Call 847-679-7660.

FT & PT EXP INSURANCE AGENTS

Clear Career Path & More!

2+yrs exp $11-$17/hr +Com &Bonuses Email AQMustafa@aaachicago.com AAA/Crescent Insurance (NW Chgo)

NEW YEARS CASH TeleFundraising. Felons need not apply per Illinois Attorney General regulations.

Start ASAP, Call 312-256-5035 IMMEDIATE OPENINGS

Full Time positions High commission/Hourly guarantee CALL CHIP AT 847-233-0333

food & drink SERVERS FULL/PART-TIME ,

Experienced. Please apply in person: Sabatino’s Restaurant. 4441 W Irving Park Road, Chicago. 773-283-8331.

General SACIA

ORCHARDS,

INC, in

Galesville, WI is hiring 10 temporary Farm Workers, General Farm Laborers from 02/10/201604/26/2016: 40 hrs/ week. Workers will plant trees, cut away dead and excess branches from fruit trees using handsaws, pruning hooks, and shears. May apply healing compound to pruning wounds.

May cut down and fertilize trees.

Workers will operate tractor to remove limbs and brush from pruning sites Must be able to lift 50 lbs. Must have three months verifiable experience. $12.02/hr. (prevailing wage). Guarantee of 3/4 of the workdays. All work tools, supplies, and equipment furnished without cost to the worker. Free housing is provided to workers who cannot reasonably return to their permanent residence at the end of the workday. Transportation and subsistence expenses to the worksite will be provided or paid by the employer, with payment to be made no later than completion of 50% of the work contract. Send Resume or contact Illinois Department of Employment Security, Migrant/Farm Workers Programs, 33 State Street, 8th Floor, Chicago, IL 60603, (312) 793-1284, (312) 793-1778 FAX, or your nearest State Workforce Agency and reference job order 1795668.

ASSOC ATTY: Manage 25-35 wa ge/hour cases on Rule 23 class action litigation under IL Day & Temporary Labororer Services Act for U.S. & foreign national workers. Litigate related civil & administrative claims.

Perform normal litigation related tasks. Conduct community outreach on workers rights & U visas. Draft legislation & participate in rule making process. Secure govt agency cert for U visas. Chicago, IL loc. Reqs a JD & IL law license. Reqs 4 yrs exp, incl’g: 1) litigating Rule 23 class actions under IL Day & Temp Labororer Services Act, 2) drafting leglislation in empl law, 3) drafting rules/regs in empl law, 4) providing advice to one or more foreign Consulates on U.S. & IL labor law & worker protections, 5) applying for govt agency cert for U

visas & working w/govt agencies to develop U visa protocols, & 6) developing know your rights materials w/ community orgs in empl law. Send resume to: Workers’ Law Office, P.C., 53 W Jackson Blvd, Ste 701, Chicago, IL, 60604. Attn: C. Williams.

REAL ESTATE

NORTHWESTERN MEMORIAL HEALTHCARE seeks Application

STUDIO $900 AND OVER

Technical Architects for Chicago, IL for app sw support, dev, deployment, implementation, installation, admin & maintenance for intranet & WebCenter Suite. Master’s in Comp.

Sci./Comp. Eng./any Eng.field +3yrs exp or Bachelor’s in Comp. Sci. / Comp. Eng./any Eng. field +5yrs prog. exp. req’d. Must have healthcare industry exp with sw deployment, installation, administration & maintenance, & w/ Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF), WebCenter Portal, Oracle SOA Suite (BPEL, ESB, WSM, OSB), Fusion Applications, UCM, J2EE, JSF, JSP, Web Services, Oracle Application Server 10g, Oracle Weblogic Server, Secure Enterprise Search. Apply online: http://jobseeker.nm.org/, Requisition ID: 0004790.

JAVA DEVELOPER (ECOMMERCE).

Des./dev.

/implement/test procurement/ecommerce software. Bach. degree (Computer Science) or higher req’d.

Min. 2 years’ exp. in programmer analyst or software dev. posn’s req’d.

Prior exp. must incl. dev. using Java 6 language & Hibernate framework.

InnerWorkings, Inc., Chicago, IL. Resumes to: Recruiting, InnerWorkings, Inc., 600 West Chicago Avenue, Suite 850, Chicago, IL 60654.

NORTHWESTERN MEMORIAL HEALTHCARE seeks Application

Analysts, Senior for Chicago, IL. Master’s in Info. Sys. or Comp./ Electronics/Instrumentation Eng. + 2yrs exp or Bachelor’s in Info. Sys. or Comp./Electronics/Instrumentation Eng. +5yrs prog. exp. req’d. Exp. must incl. PeopleSoft Financial (e-PRO, AP, GL), People Tools, Oracle, SQL. Apply online: http:// jobseeker.nm.org/, Requisition ID: 0004562.

CHICAGO W. SIDE 3859 W Maypole Rehabbed studios & 1 Bedrooms, $425-500/mo, Utilities not included. 773-617-0329, 773-5332900

RENTALS

RAVENSWOOD.

CHICAGO ASHBURN/ EVERGREEN PARK, cooking

N.

STUDIO OTHER BIG ROOM WITH stove, fridge,

bath & new floor. N. Side, by transp/ shop. Clean w/elevator. $116/wk + up. 773-561-4970

CLEAN ROOM WITH fridge and microwave. Close to Oak Park, Walmart, Buses & Metra. $105/wk & up. 773-637-5957 EDGEWATER - NICE Room with

stove, fridge & bath, by Shopping & Transp. Elevator, Lndry. $116/wk. & Up. Call 773-275-4442

1 BR UNDER $700 8927 & 8931 S. Dauphin.

Studio Garden & 1BR 2nd flr apts. $575 & $600/mo. Heat Incl. Mr. Smith. 773-531-3531 80TH and Hermitage. 1BR & 2BR, 3rd flr, Appls incl. $625 -$675/mo. Dennis 773-445-9470

7022 S. SHORE DRIVE Impecca-

bly Clean Highrise STUDIOS, 1 & 2 BEDROOMS Facing Lake & Park.

Laundry & Security on Premises.

Parking & Apts. Are Subject to Availability. TOWNHOUSE APARTMENTS 773-288-1030

MIDWAY AREA/63RD KEDZIE Deluxe Studio 1 & 2 BRs. All

modern oak floors, appliances, Security system, on site maint. clean & quiet, Nr. transp. From $445. 773582-1985 (espanol)

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Get some at sTraighTDope.com 38 CHICAGO READER | JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

WIN-

CHESTER. Studio available now. $935. Beautiful courtyard building.

Hardwood floors. Heat included.

Close to Lawrence Ave. and great transportation. For appointment, call 312-822-1037 weekdays until 5:30pm, Saturdays 9am-3pm and Sundays 10am-2pm.

facil, sec dep, background chk, prkg, seniors welcome. $500 negotiable.

773-678-8654

97 & CALUMET 4 & 2 FB, gar

$1500. 143/Eggelston. 3/1 FB, gar $1150. 142/Lasalle 3/1, SS, gar. $1075.

New Reno. Appt Only.

773.619.4395 Charlie 818.679.1175

CHICAGO SOUTH - YOU’VE tried the rest, we are the best.

Apartments & Homes for rent, city & suburb. No credit checks.

773-221-7490, 773-221-7493

WEST PULLMAN (INDIANA

Ave) Nice, lrg 1 & 2BR w/balcony.

1BR $650, 2BR $750. Move-In Fee $300. Sec 8 Welcome. 773-995-6950

EXCHANGE EAST APTS 1 Brdm $575 w/Free Parking,Appl, AC,Free heat. Near trans. laundry rm. Elec.not incl. Kalabich Mgmt (708) 424-4216

Chicago, 8400 S. Green. 1BR, $650. Tenant pays utilities. Carpet, appls, washer/dryer & bldg security incl. Section 8 ok. 773-329-3780

6930 S. SOUTH SHORE DRIVE Studios & 1BR, INCL. Heat, Elec, Cking gas & PARKING, $560-$850, Country Club Apts 773-752-2200

RIVERDALE - NEWLY decor, 1 & 2BR, appls, heated, A/C, lndry, prkng, no pets, near Metra. Sec 8 ok. $675$800. 708-798-4465 8001 S. Drexel – 1BR $675 Stove and fridge, heat. incl. Section 8 welcome. Call 312.208.1771 or 708.890.1694

5401 S. Ellis.

1BR. $535-$600/mo Call 773-955-5106

CHICAGO- 6717 S. Claremont.

Brand new apt. 3BR/1BA, appls incl, Sec tion 8 OK. New Pisgah Properties. 708-733-0365

ALTERNATIVE REPRODUCTIVE RESOURCES

ARR

CHICAGO - HYDE Park

Chicago’s premier agency is looking for the following:

79th & Woodlawn and 76th & Phillips 1BRs $650-$700, 2BRs $775$800; Remodeled, appls avail. Sect 8 welcome. Call 312-286-5678

CHICAGO - 1216 W 91st St, 1BR, heated, appliances, ceiling fans, laundry room, $670 + security deposit, Call 312-296-0411

Egg Donors: $7,000 to all healthy, nonsmoking women ages 20-29.

1 BR $700-$799

Gestational Surrogates:

PLAZA ON THE PARK 608 East 51st Street. Very spacious renovated apartments. 1BR $722 - $801, 2BR $837 - $1,009, 3BR $1,082- $1,199, 4-5BR $1,273 - $1,405. Visit or call (773)548-9300, M-F 9am-5pm or apply online at www.plazaonthepark apts.com Managed by Metroplex, Inc

$30,000- $35,000

to women between 21-38 who has delivered at least one child.

To Learn More:

773.327.7315 ! info@arr1.com www.arr1.com BECOME A

PLAZA ON THE PARK 608 East 51st Street. Very spacious renovated apartments. 1BR $722 - $801, 2BR $837 - $1,009, 3BR $1,082- $1,199, 4-5BR $1,273 - $1,405. Visit or call (773)548-9300, M-F 9am-5pm or apply online at www.plazaonthepark apts.com Managed by Metroplex, Inc

HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONAL

1 BR $800-$899 LAKESIDE TOWER, 910 W

Lawrence. 1 bedrooms starting at $825-$895 include heat and gas, laundry in building. Great view! Close to CTA Red Line, bus, stores, restaurants, lake, etc. To schedule a showing please contact Celio 773-3961575, Hunter Properties 773-4777070, www.hunterprop.com

312-236-9000 AAS Accredited Degree Programs:

• MRI Technologist • Health Information Technology (includes 3 certifications: Medical Billing, Coding, and Medical Office Administration) • Non-Invasive Cardiovascular Sonography (diploma & degree options) • Diagnostic Medical Sonography (diploma & degree options)

Now offers Associate of Applied Science Degrees

For OPEN HOUSE info, visit WWW.MCCOLLEGE.EDU

Diploma & Certificate Programs:

• Medical Assisting (also includes Phlebotomy & EKG) • Cardiology/Monitor Tech/EKG • Dialysis Technologist • Phlebotomy Technologist • Surgical Technologist (also includes Sterile Processing certification) • CNA • Pharmacy Tech • ESL

Office hours, programs, and class schedules vary by location.

Please call us or visit our website for details.

We accept international students.

MIDWESTERN CAREER COLLEGE

Chicago 20 N. Wacker Dr. (@downtown) (312) 236-9000

Naperville Blue Island 200 E. 5th Ave. 12840 S. Western Ave. (@Metra Station) (@Metra Station) (630) 536-8679 (708) 926-9470

Midwestern Career College is approved by the Division of Private Business and Vocational Schools of the Illinois Board of Higher Education. Gainful Employment information for each program is available on our website at www.mccollege.edu under program descriptions.

ONE BEDROOM APARTMENT

near Red Line, 6824 N Wayne. Hardwood floors. Pets OK. Laundry in building. $824/ month heat included.

Available 2/1. 773-761-4318, www. lakefrontmtg.com

1 BR $900-$1099 EDGEWATER. 1055 W Catalpa 1

bedrooms starting at $925 heat and cooking gas included! Application fee $40. No security deposit. Parking available for an additional fee. Laundry room in the building, wood floors, close to grocery stores, restaurant, CTA Red Line train, etc. For a showing please contact Millie 773561-7070 Hunter Properties,Inc. 773477-7070 www.hunterprop.com

EVANSTON. CENTRAL AVE.

Large 1 bedroom available 2/1. $1030.

Stately building on quiet street, near Sheridan Road and Main Street, shops, restaurants, transportation.

Heat included, hardwood floors. For appointment, call 312-822-1037 weekdays until 5:30pm, Saturdays 9am to 3pm and Sundays 10am to 2pm.

Hyde Park West Apts., 5325 S. Cottage Grove Ave., Renovated spacious apartments in landscaped gated community. Off street parking available. Studio $674 Free heat, 2BR $995 - Free heat. Visit or call 773324-0280, M-F: 9am-5pm or apply online- www.hydepark west.com.

Managed by Metroplex, Inc

1 BR $1100 AND OVER EVANSTON.

FOREST

AVE.

Large 1-bedroom available now6/30/15. $1250. Stately building on quiet street, near Sheridan Road and Main Street, shops, restaurants, transportation. Heat included, hardwood floors. For appointment, call 312-822-1037 weekdays until 5:30pm, Saturdays 9amto 3pm and Sundays 10am to 2pm.

LINCOLN PARK/ DEPAUL. W.

GEORGE & SEMINARY. Great 1 bedroom available 2/1/16-4/30/16. $1170 per month. New 12 month lease also available. Hardwood floors, heat included. Great location for DePaul and transportation. For appointment, call 312-822-1037 weekdays until 5:30pm, Saturdays 9am-3pm and Sundays 10am-2pm.

CHICAGO, 7727 S. Colfax, ground flr Apt., ideal for senior citizens. Secure bldng. Modern 1BR $595. Lrg 2BR, $800. Free cooking & heating gas. Free parking. 312613-4427 CHICAGO, 3-4BR TOWNHOUSE & Single Family Homes.

Beautifully renovated, new kitchen, hardwood floors. Cash Only.

708-557-0644 SUBURBS, RENT TO O W N !

Buy with No closing costs and get help with your credit.

Call 708-868-2422 or visit w ww.nhba.com CHICAGO, RENT TO OWN! Buy with no closing costs and get help with your credit. Call 708-868-2422 or visit www. nhba.com MOVE IN SPECIAL!!!

B4 the N of this MO. & MOVE IN 4 $99.00 (773) 874-1122 95TH & COLFAX, 3BR, 1 BA, lrg

master BR, LR & DR, hrdwd flrs, huge fenced yd, no pets, tenant pays utils Sec 8 ok. $1350/m 773-392-4126.

NO MOVE-IN FEE! No Dep! Sec 8 GREAT EVANSTON CAMPUS

1 BEDROOM! Ridge/ Davis. Large 3½ room/ 1 bedroom. Available now7/31/16 for $1245. Beautiful courtyard building with hardwood floors, high ceilings. Heat included. For appointment, call 312-822-1037 weekdays until 5:30pm, Saturdays 9am3pm and Sundays 10am-2pm.

LINCOLN PARK. ADDISON.

Prime location 1 bedrooms available now. From $1245. Beautiful courtyard building steps from the lake and transportation. Hardwood floors, heat included. For appointment, call 312-822-1037 weekdays until 5:30pm, Saturdays 9am-3pm and Sundays 10am-2pm.

LINCOLN PARK LANDMARK.

BELMONT/ HUDSON. 2 buildings from the lakefront. Large 4 room/ 1 bedroom with full dining room, oak floors. Available now for $1330. Heat included. For appointment, call 312822-1037 weekdays until 5:30pm, Saturdays 9am-3pm and Sundays 10am-2pm.

1 BR OTHER APTS. FOR RENT PARK MANAGEMENT & Investment Ltd. Summer is Here but.. Winter is on its Way! Most Include HEAT & HOT WTR Studios From $510.00 1Bdr From $550.00. 2Bdr From $ 775.00. 3 Bdr/2 Full Bath. From $1200. **1-(773)-476-6000** CALL FOR DETAILS

APTS. FOR RENT PARK MANAGEMENT & Investment Ltd. Finally summer is here Come Enjoy The Pool! HEAT, HW & CG INCLUDED. 1Bdr From $725.00.

2Bdr From $895.00. 3 Bdr/2 Full Bath. From $1200. **1-(773)-4766000** CALL FOR DETAILS

GORGEOUS

NEW

REHAB

Appls & Heat Incl. 73rd /Jeffery, 1BR $600. 79th/ Escanaba, 1BR $600, 2BR. $750. 3BR $875. 72nd/Eberhart, Studio $500. 76th/Aberdeen, 2BR $750. 79th/Ellis, 1BR $575.

82nd/Cottage Grove. Studio. $500.

Section 8 ok. Call 773.430.0050

CALUMET CITY 158TH & PAXTON SANDRIDGE APTS 1 & 2 BEDROOM UNITS MODELS OPEN M-F, 9AM-5:30PM *** 708-841-5450 ***

ok. 1, 2 & 3 Bdrms. Elev bldg, laundry, pkg. 6531 S. Lowe. Ms. Payne.

773-874-0100

ROYALTON HOTEL, Kitchenette $135 & up wk. 1810 W. Jackson 312-226-4678

Fullerton and Pulaski. 2426 North Tripp. Nice 2BR apt, tenant pays utilities, $800/mo. Call 312-3206484

EVANSTON 2BR, 1100SF, great kit, new appls, DR, oak flrs, lndry, $1175/ mo incls heat. 773743-4141 www.urbanequities.co

NO SEC DEP 1431 W. 78th. St. 1B R/2BR. $495-$595/mo6829 S. Perry. Studio $460. 1BR. $515.

HEAT INCL 773-955-5106

CHATHAM BEAUTIFUL REMOD 2 & 3BR, hdwd flrs, custom

HARVEY 2BR, nice area, Sec 8 ok, Heat, water & trash incl, tenant pays elec., parking. $875/mo 702-204-8008 or 708-527-0740

78TH AND THROOP. 4rms, 2BR, hdwd flrs, modern kitch and bath, tenant pays heat. $600. No Sec Dep. Brown Realty Inc. 773239-9566 ENGLEWOOD NEAR 67th & Damen, $600/mo plus 1 mo sec, 2BR, 1BA clean & quiet block, owner pays all util. Cple preferred 773-471-0485 62ND/CALIFORNIA 2BR $740 or 3BR $920 Heat incl in all & Sec Dep req. O’Brien Family Realty 773-581-7883 Agent owned 7701 S. South Shore Dr. 2 BDs with 1.5 Baths, Large Combo Living-Dining Rm, FREE Heat & cking gas. Prkng extra. $785-$800, Kalabich Mgmt (708)424-4216

CHICAGO SOUTHSIDE BRAND new 2, 3 & 4BR apts. Excel-

lent neighborhood, nr trans & schools, Sect 8 Welc., Call 708-7742473

7440 S. VERNON. 2BR, remod hdwd flrs, Sec 8 OK, heat and appls incl, laundry on site. $780 & up. Call Z. 773-406-4841 CHICAGO: 1518 W. Marquette Rehabbed 2BR, $650/Month, Utilities Not Included. Section 8 Ok. 773-617-0329, 773-533-2900 PULLMAN - NR 108TH & KING DR. Very Spacious 2BR. DR, Carpet. Heated. Laundry Fac. Quiet Bldng. $830 + Sec. 773-568-7750 CHICAGO 2 BEDROOM Apartment. Near 51st & Western, heat incl $675 + 1 month’s security.

773-436-5850 Between 10a-8p.

2 BR $1300-$1499 LINCOLN

2 BR $900-$1099 2 & 3 Bdrm

Aparts. 7637 S Sangamon. 2 Unit Bldg. Heat Inc. Hrd w/Tile Flr. Fans/Applis. Newly Remolded. Vouchers Ok. $995/ $1095. 773-807-0046

2BR/1BA RENOVATED; hdwd floors; large closets, laundry available; free heat & water. $1000/mo + $1000 dep. 8350 S Drexel; 773952-8137.

PARK.

ADDISON.

Great 2 bedroom available now–4/ 30/16! $1465 per month. Heat included. Courtyard building steps from the lake and transportation. For appointment, call 312-822-1037 weekdays until 5:30pm, Saturdays 9am-3pm and Sundays 10am-2pm.

APARTMENT FOR RENT 5 1/2 large room apartment in 2 floor building, newly decorated, $1300. Heat included. Deposit needed. No pets. 5845 N Maplewood, Chicago. Call 773293-3399

CHICAGO, PRINCETON PARK

HOMES. Spac 2 - 3 BR Townhomes, Inclu: Prvt entry, full bsmt, lndry hook-ups. Ample prkg. Close to trans & schls. Starts at $816/mo. www. ppkhomes.com;773-264-3005

74th & Artesian, Section 8 Welcome. Newly remodeled, huge 2, 1BA, hdwd flrs, separate utils. Sec dep req’d. 773-908-1080

3 BR OR MORE UNDER $1200 Cornerstone Apts., 4907 S. St Lawrence, Newly Remodeled. 3 BR starting $1038- $1090/mo., 2 BR w /1.5 bath for $900 heat included.

Visit or call (773) 548-9211. M-F: 9am-5pm or apply on line. www.

4907cornerstoneapts.com Managed by Metroplex, Inc.

CHICAGO EBERHART (close to U 3BR, 1BA, 3rd flr, Section 8 OK. 773-802-0422

-

61ST

of

&

C campus)

Includes heat. $1,100/month.

6343 S. ROCKWELL - 3BR, incl heat. hdwd flrs, lndry facility, fenced in bldg, fireplace, garage & appl.$ 1000/mo. Sec 8 ok. 773-791-

1920

CHICAGO, 3BR, 5729 S. MICHIGAN AVE., newly decorated, appliances incl., tenant pays utilities. $950/mo + security. Call 773-858-3163 8001 S. Dobson – 1BR $700, 2BR $800, 3BR $950, H/W flrs. Stove, fridge, & heat incl’d.

Sec. 8 Welccome. 312.208.1771 or 708.890.

1694

BEAUTIFUL NEW APT!

6150 S. Vernon Ave. 3Bdrm 2442 E. 77th St. 2Bdrm Stainless Steel!! Appliances!! Hdwd flr!! marble bath!! laundry on site!!

Sec 8 OK. 773- 404- 8926

MATTESON 2 & 3 BR AVAIL. 2BR, $990-$1050; 3BR, $1250-$1400.

Move In Special is 1 Month’s Rent & $99 Security Deposit. Section 8 Welcome. Call 708-748-4169

Chicago- 6005 S. Ashland. 3BR Ready to move in! 2nd floor apt., secure bldg., washer/dryer in bsmt. $800/m plus utilities. 773329-3780

PARK FOREST- SOUTH Suburb 3BR,2BA Ranch. Appls included. $1150/mo + sec. Sect 8 welcome!

Call before 5pm. 708-756-7918

SOUTHSIDE 8035 S. Marshfield, 3BR, 2nd floor, no Pets, $875/mo. + 1 mo. sec. dep. & all utilities. 773-8734549

MORGAN PARK 3BR Apt. $700 + sec dep. 2nd flr, hdwd flrs, no pets. nr trans, Metra and shops, 6 mos to 1 yr lease req’d. 773-678-8654

LOGAN SQUARE. SPACIOUS,

beautiful, three bedroom apartment, living room, dining room, kitchen, back porch. Hardwood floors, new appliances, free washer/ dryer. $120 0/ month. 773-583-5449.

2 BR $1100-$1299 8000 S. CALUMET - V e r y large, completely renovated 2BR w/ formal DR & custom featurs throughout.

A/C, stove, fridge & vented microwave incl. $1200/mo+$500 non refund-able move in fee.

773-981-2731

2 BR UNDER $900 GARFIELD RIDGE 3049 West Arthington, beautiful 2BR, recently remodeled and painted, across from grade school, close to trans & Blue line, 5 mins from downtown, appls incl: fridge and stove, section 8 welcome, $725. 773-317-7450

cabinets, avail now. $1100-$1200/mo + sec. 773-905-8487 Sec 8 Ok

2 BR OTHER

1436 S TRUMBULL, New Remod 2BR, hardwood flrs, laundry . Heat not included .

Security system in bldg $1100 plus security 708-308-1788

2 BR $1500 AND OVER

LINCOLN PARK LANDMARK.

BELMONT/ HUDSON. 2 buildings from the lakefront. Large 5 room/ 2 bedrooms with full dining room, oak floors. Available now from $1700.

Newly renovated apartment for $1800. Heat included. For appointment, call 312-822-1037 weekdays until 5:30pm, Saturdays 9am-3pm and Sundays 10am-2pm.

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house for rent, exc cond, available now. $1050/Mo, 1st mo + sec dep.

Tenants pay all utils. 708-343-8629

SOUTHSIDE: 5BR 1BA

71st & Sangaman $1200/month plus utilities plus security deposit.

708-921-7810

CHICAGO 5246 S. Hermitage: 4BR Coach House. $765. 2BR 1st flr, $525. 3BR, 2nd flr, $625.

1.5 mo sec req’d. 708-574-4085.

68 SOUTH ROCKWELL, 3BR, heat incl, newly updated includes appliances, hwd flrs., laundry on site, $1100 sec 8 ok, 312-622-7702

3 BR OR MORE OTHER

NORTH AUSTIN LUX.

3 BR OR MORE $1500-$1799

5BR brick house for rent w/ option to purchase. Huge bckyrd, 1 car gar, new windows, new h/w flrs throughout, marble kitch. flr & counter top, maple cabinets, has 2 full ceramic BAs, w/ finished bsmnt, alarm. Must have decent credit. Rent/price neg.

630-709-0078

LAKEVIEW! 1739 W. Addison.

3 BR OR MORE $1200-$1499 CHICAGO, BEVERLY, 1316 W. 100TH PL. TOTAL REHABBED, HEAT & A/C incl. 6 rms, 3BR, Sec 8 Welcome, $1200/mo. 773339-0182

Must See. 3 bedrooms at $1725.

Hardwood floors, completely renovated apartments, 1 blk to CTA Brown Line on Addison, walking distance to shops, restaurants, Wrigley Field, and more! Application fee $40. No security deposit! Parking space available for a monthly fee. For a showing please call Saida 773-407-6452, Hunter Properties 773-477-7070 www. hunterprop.com

COUNTRY CLUB HILLS vic of 183RD/Cicero.

4BR, 1.5BA $1400 & 3BR/2BA. $1450.

Ranch Style, 2 car gar. 708369-5187

5034 S. Michigan: Newly renovated 3BR, 2BA $1375. Hardwood flrs Stainless appls w/DW, Central heat/air, in unit w/d. 312.208.

1771 or 708-890-1694

NEAR 83RD & YATES. 5BR, 2BA, hdwd flrs, fin basement, stove & fridge furn. Heat incl. $1600 + 1 mo sec. Sect 8 ok. 773978-6134

RIVERDALE - 4 BEDROOMS,

1.5 bath, finished basement, spacious home, $1200/month. Call 708-715-3169

3 & 4 BDRM, 2 Bath Houses & Apts in Woodlawn. Completely Rehabbed. Section 8 welcome.

Contact 773.784.7900.

3 BR OR MORE $1800-$2499

3BR - Appls, w/new stove. Hdwd flrs, nr public trans. $890/mo + utils. 773505-5405

RIVERDALE - 13937 S. School St. 3BR, 1st floor apt, jacuzzi, free pkng, appls inc. Section 8 with voucher ok. 773-873-8730

4 BEDROOM! Ridge/ Davis. Large 7 r oom/ 4 bedroom/ 2 bathroom. Available now. From $2395. Beautiful courtyard building near Northwestern, Evanston downtown, restaurants, movies, “L” and Metra. Large, airy rooms with hardwood floors, high ceilings, spacious closets, 2 bathrooms. Heat included. For appointment, call 312-822-1037 weekdays until 5:30pm, Saturdays 9am3pm and Sundays 10am-2pm.

other locations. Large Rooms, shared kitchen & bath. $100/week and up.

Call 773-848-4020

MARKETPLACE GOODS

CLASSICS WANTED Any classic cars in any condition. ’20s, ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s & ’70s. Hotrods & Exotics!

Top Dollar Paid!

Collector.

Call James, 630-201-8122

MASSAGE TABLES, NEW and

used. Large selection of professional high quality massage equipment at a very low price. Visit us at www. bestmassage.com or call us, 773764-6542.

CAVALIER

KING

BR, 2 BATH, NEWLY REMODELED, SECTION 8 OK. 96 W. 15TH. NO SEC. DEPOSIT. 708-822-4450

BRICK, 4 BED, 2 bath, w/ bsmt, 2 car gar., 87th Fairfield, Evergreen Park. 1 Mos Sec Dep, $1575/mo. Call Al, 847-644-5195

SERVICES LEGAL SERVICES- Need a lawyer? For as low as $17.95/mo.

Consultations, Contract, Evictions, Foreclosure, Bankruptcy, Traffic Tickets, Expungement, Divorce, Criminal & more. Call Theresa 312-806-0646

non-residential SELF-STORAGE CENTERS. T W O locations to serve you. All

units fully heated and humidity controlled with ac available. North: Knox Avenue.

773-685-6868.

South: Pershing Avenue. 773-523-6868.

HEALTH & WELLNESS UKRAINIAN MASSAGE. CALLS in/ out. Chicago and sub-

urbs. Hotels. 1234 S Michigan Avenue. Appointments. 773-609-6969.

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FURNISHED ROOM for rent, cable and laundry room included.

Private bath. Call for more information. 708-253-9593

STRAIGHT DOPE

By Cecil Adams Q: If humans were to die out tomorrow,

how long would it take for nature to take over and overgrow most traces of our existence? After like 10,000 years, would you have to undertake an archaeological dig to find evidence of us, or would parts of major cities still be standing and distinguishable? —JIM HUFF

CHARLES

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show at the theater that is home to improvisational comedy. Using audience suggestios Spotty Truth creates a fully improvised comedic biography. Showing milestones or the whole life story, Spotty Truth will bring it full circle in an exciting, exhilarating, and hilarious way. iO Chicago (1501 N. Kingsbury)

MESSAGES UIC VULVODYNIA AND ACUPUNCTURE RESEARCH.

Department of Women, Children, Family Health Science. Contact: Judith Schlaeger, PhD; office; (312) 413-4669 cell: (708) 3341097; jschlaeg@uic.edu

A: As it happens, such a scenario was enter-

tained by the journalist Alan Weisman in his 2007 book The World Without Us. Weisman’s conceit was apparently seductive enough that it inspired not one but two documentary franchises: the History Channel series Life After People and National Geographic Channel’s Aftermath: Population Zero. Granted, the latter title carries a real whiff of basic-cable cheese, but Weisman’s no slouch. Working from interviews with botanists, structural engineers, art conservators, et al., he credibly predicts what might happen in cities and less-populated areas, as well as at sites whose abandonment would lead to notably dramatic results—think oil refineries and nuclear reactors.

A particularly vivid passage gives the playby-play in New York City. How quickly would urban infrastructure go to shit in a nondenominational rapture scenario? Very, very quickly. “After we’re gone, nature’s revenge for our smug, mechanized superiority arrives waterborne,” Weisman writes. In New York’s case it comes from below: with no one to operate the pumps that keep water out of the subway tunnels, the system finds itself inundated in “no more than a couple of days.” As the water rises toward ground level, it eats away at the soil; within 20 years the streets collapse, becoming rivers. Pipes burst, gas lines ignite— your standard postapocalyptic hellscape.

Within 50 years, their foundations scoured out by water, skyscrapers start to falter and crumble. It’s another few centuries before trees really recolonize the place. (Interestingly, the animals that don’t make it are ones that adapted too well to human dominance, including several species fabled for their supposed indestructibility: cockroaches, which can’t handle northern winters without heating, and rats, which can’t replace the caloric value of a zillion tons of garbage.)

But you’re thinking on a bigger scale than this, Jim. Here are the headlines:

• Debris in high earth orbit stays there for more than a century.

• Suspension bridges collapse within 300 years; 40 CHICAGO READER | JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

SLUG SIGNORINO

CHICAGO HEIGHTS 3 bdrm

other, heftier designs might hold up for a millennium.

• In cities like New York, the most durable struc-

tures will be stone walls, like those of Saint Paul’s Church; Weisman sees them lasting “thousands of years.”

• Meanwhile, the estimated erosion rate at Mount

Rushmore is just one inch per 10,000 years. From this, Weisman extrapolates that we can expect parts of it to remain recognizable for about 7.2 million years.

In 10,000 years, then, a visitor surveying the earth’s surface will find it largely reforested, with stone ruins here and there indicating the former presence of human life.

How long till those are gone too? Here’s where Weisman and another scientist who’s written on the subject—astrophysicist Mayank Vahia, of India’s Tata Institute of Fundamental Research—demur. Vahia suggests that stone and metal building materials will hang on “for tens of thousands of years,” while Weisman figures whatever’s still standing in 20,000 or so years will be erased by another ice age.

What’s left then? PVC plastics and glass remain under the ice, ground to a powder.

Wiring and plumbing, which show up as subterranean metal deposits. Heavy metals and nuclear materials like uranium and plutonium residues, whose half-lives only begin at 24,000 years. You’ve heard of the Anthropocene, I presume—the name geologists have proposed giving our current geological epoch, so profoundly affected by humans. Epochs are demarcated by identifiable shifts in the earth’s strata; the aforementioned is all the stuff alien archaeologists will find as evidence of us, millions of years in the future, just as today’s geologists find evidence of past glaciation. Of course, the likelihood of a coming ice age looks even dimmer now than it did back when Weisman wrote his book: we’re not doing such a hot job keeping the atmosphere cool. But that’s an existential problem for another day. v Send questions to Cecil via straightdope.com or write him c/o Chicago Reader, 350 N. Orleans, Chicago 60654.

SAVAGE LOVE

By Dan Savage

‘Ardent feminist’ turned on by cavalier indifference Meet a man who pays for it. Plus: more orgasm etiquette Q : I’m a 45-year-old straight male. Politically and socially, I consider myself an ardent feminist. There is nothing I enjoy more than giving a woman an orgasm or two. I’m very GGG and will cheerfully do whatever it takes. Fingers, tongue, cock, vibrator—I’m in. If it takes a long time, so much the better. I’m OK with all of that. Now and again, though, I really like a quickie, a good old-fashioned “Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am!” The only ladies I’ve found willing to engage in those cock-centric acts are sex workers. I’m OK with that, too. But the last time I paid for it, with a woman I had patronized before, I was just about to slip my cock in doggy style when her phone rang. It was in reach, and she picked it up! I hesitated, but she didn’t pull away, and in fact pushed back a bit while she answered. I figured this was what I came for, so I proceeded. Her cavalier attitude toward being fucked from behind while having a trivial phone conversation wound up being a huge turnon for me. By the time she finished her 20-second call, I was finished as well. I hadn’t come that quickly since I was a teen. She laughed that she should take calls more often. What kind of beast am I that I really enjoyed such utter indifference?

Does this reveal some dark secret deep in my psyche?

How can that mesh with my otherwise feminist views?

—PREMATURE EJACULATION NEEDS SOME INTROSPECTIVE VIEW EXAMINED

A : First, PENSIVE, “enjoys

giving women orgasms” sets the bar for “ardent feminist” just a bit low. So here’s hoping your feminism involves more than penetrating a willing partner with your fingers,

tongue, cock, and whatever vibrators happen to be lying around. Because if your feminism doesn’t include support for pro-choice policies and candidates, regular donations to Planned Parenthood, backing equal pay for equal work, speaking up when other men say shitty/ rapey/dehumanizing things about women (particularly when there isn’t a woman in the room whose pussy you want to lick until you come, because feminism!)— and more—then you’re not a feminist, ardent or otherwise.

Moving on . . . Why did it turn you on when the sex worker took a call during your session? Because it did.

Turn-ons are subjective and mysterious. People who are curious about their turn-ons have to start with “this turns me on” and work backward from there. And to figure out why a particular fabric/ adornment/attitude/scenario arouses us, we use the only tools available to us—guesswork and self-serving rationalizations—to invent a backstory that makes some sort of logical sense, and then we apply it to something that really defies logic.

So, PENSIVE, if I were to hazard some guesswork on your behalf, I’d probably go with this: Being treated with passive contempt by someone that you are supposed to be wielding power over (the woman you’re fucking, a sex worker you’ve hired)—being subtly humiliated and mildly degraded by that woman— taps a vein of eroticized self-hatred that makes you come quickly and come hard.

And while that’s wonderful for you, PENSIVE, it isn’t proof you’re a feminist.

Q : I’m a 29-year-old gay

trans man. On female hormones, I took a long time to come and usually wouldn’t

come at all. I always enjoyed sex; I just wasn’t focused on coming. My partners would or wouldn’t, depending on their preferences. Since starting testosterone a few years ago, I now come quickly and easily.

(Sometimes too quickly and easily.) My problem is that after I come, like most men, I’m done with sex. And the stronger the orgasm, the truer this is. A while ago, after a really fun time, I woke to find that I’d accidentally fallen asleep and left my longtime hookup buddy to fend for himself. Other times, I’m just tired and/or turned off. I definitely don’t want anyone inside me (it hurts), and while I’ve tried mustering enthusiasm for blow jobs, hand jobs, etc, my attempts come across as pretty tepid. So in the context of both ongoing relationships of various sorts and hookups, what’s the etiquette? I’ve found myself just avoiding things that’ll push me to come, because I don’t want to be rude. And since I’ve always enjoyed sex without orgasms, this doesn’t bother me mostly.

But once in a while, I would like to come. How can I do this and still take care of the other guy? —NOT GOOD AT

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A : Use your words, NGASA: “If it’s not a problem, I’d rather come after you do— my refractory period kicks in hard when I come and, like other men, I briefly lose interest in sex. On top of that, I’m a terrible actor. So let’s make you come first or let’s try to come at the same time, OK?” v Send letters to mail@ savagelove.net. Download the Savage Lovecast every Tuesday at thestranger.com. v @fakedansavage

Get a side of jam with your lunch every weekday at noon with the Reader’s 12 O’Clock Track series on TheBleader.com.

41 39 JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 • CHICAGO READER 43

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Pell 2/2, 6 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club b Chris Pureka 4/30, 7 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Pusha T 4/5, 8 PM, the Vic, 18+ Secrets 3/2, 6 PM, Subterranean, on sale Fri 1/8, noon, 17+ Slaves 4/4, 5:30 PM, Bottom Lounge b Matthew Logan Vasquez, Reverend Baron 4/23, 10 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 1/8, 10 AM b White Denim 4/30, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, on sale Fri 1/8, 10 AM b

UPDATED 2Cellos 4/2-3, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre, 4/3 show added b Wavves, Best Coast 2/24-25, 6:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 2/25 show added b

UPCOMING Abbath, High on Fire, Skeletonwitch 4/8, 6:45 PM, Metro, 18+ Animal Collective, Ratking 2/27, 7 PM, Concord Music Hall, 17+ Avett Brothers 4/22-23, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre b Babymetal 5/13, 8:30 PM, House of Blues b Bear Medicine 1/24, 8 PM, Schubas Bongzilla 4/8, 9 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Cannibal Corpse, Obituary, Cryptopsy 2/27, 7:30 PM, Metro, 18+ Coheed & Cambria, Glassjaw 2/26, 7 PM, Aragon Ballroom David Cook 3/16, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Cradle of Filth 3/1, 6 PM, House of Blues b

42 CHICAGO READER • JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016

Dr. Dog 3/12, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Alan Doyle Band 1/31, 8 PM, City Winery b Fall Out Boy, AWOLNATION 3/12, 7 PM, United Center b Kirk Franklin 4/1, 7:30 PM, Chicago Theatre Freakwater 3/18, 9 PM, Hideout Future, Ty Dolla $ign 2/18, 8 PM, Aragon Ballroom, 17+ G. Love & Special Sauce 2/25, 8:30 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Jack Garratt 3/6, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Guster 1/29-30, 8 PM, the Vic, 18+ Gutter Demons 2/12, 8 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Half Moon Run 1/27, 7:30 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Il Volo 2/26, 7 PM, Chicago Theatre b Joseph 3/11, 9 PM, Schubas Killing Joke, Soft Moon 2/9, 9 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard 5/8, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall Korby Lenker, Megan Slankard, Alex Wong 2/23, 7:30 PM, SPACE, Evanston b The Loved Ones, Cheap Girls 2/12-13, 8 PM, Cobra Lounge, 2/12 is sold out Mass Gothic 2/6, 10 PM, Schubas Todd Meehan & Doug Perkins 2/26, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Megadeth, Suicidal Tendencies, Children of Bodom 3/13, 7 PM, Aragon Ballroom, 17+ Mountain Goats 4/11-13, 8 PM, City Winery b Napalm Death, Melvins, Melt Banana 4/22, 8 PM, Metro, 18+ Gary Numan 5/15-17, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Anders Osborne, Amy Helm & the Handsome Strangers 3/4, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+

b Protomartyr 1/24, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Queensryche 1/31, 8 PM, Concord Music Hall, 17+ R. City 2/15, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ R5 3/10, 7 PM, Chicago Theatre Ra Ra Riot 4/8, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Uli Jon Roth 3/27, 6 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Todd Rundgren 1/26, 8 PM, Park West, 18+ Ruth B 2/24, 8 PM, Schubas b Safetysuit 1/29, 7:30 PM, Bottom Lounge b St Germain 4/10, 8 PM, the Vic b St. Lucia, Tigertown 2/22-23, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Joe Satriani 4/15, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre b Savages 4/7, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Savoy Brown 4/23, 7 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint John Scofield & Joe Lovano Quartet 2/5-6, 7 PM, SPACE, Evanston Martin Sexton 1/28, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Catey Shaw 2/9, 9 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Sheer Mag 3/31, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Jake Shimabukuro 2/1-2, 8 PM, City Winery b Corky Siegel’s Chamber Blues 2/6, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b William Singe 2/16, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Skizzy Mars 2/19, 7 PM, Concord Music Hall b Slayer, Testament, Carcass 2/19, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre b Subdudes 3/24-25, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Sultans of String 3/4, 8 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Avery Sunshine 2/4-6, 8 PM, the Promontory Taake 2/26, 9 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Taj Mahal Trio 4/14, 7 and 9:30 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Livingston Taylor 3/11, 7 PM, SPACE, Evanston b James Taylor, Jackson Browne 6/30, 7 PM, Wrigley Field b Tech N9ne 4/28, 6 PM, Concord Music Hall, 17+ Tedeschi Trucks Band 1/22, 7:30 PM, Chicago Theatre b B.J. Thomas 2/14, 5 and 8 PM, City Winery b Those Darlins 1/27, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Titus Andronicus, Craig Finn 3/13, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Toasters 1/29, 7:30 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Tonight Alive, Set It Off 3/1, 6 PM, Bottom Lounge b Too $hort 1/21, 9 PM, Double Door, 18+ Tortoise 1/23, 6:30 and 9:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+

ALL AGES

WOLF BY KEITH HERZIK

EARLY WARNINGS

CHICAGO SHOWS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT IN THE WEEKS TO COME

F

Never miss a show again.

Sign up for the newsletter at chicagoreader. com/early

Carrie Underwood 5/17, 7 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont W&W 2/5, 8 PM, Concord Music Hall, 18+ Dale Watson 3/5, 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra 2/29, 8 PM, City Winery b Emily Wells 3/11, 8:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Susan Werner 3/18, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Wet 2/5, 10 PM, Schubas, 18+ The Who 3/10, 7:30 PM, United Center Keller Williams, Kwahtro 1/30, 8:30 PM, Park West, 18+ Marlon Williams 2/10, 8 PM, Schubas, 18+ Rita Wilson 5/3, 8 PM, City Winery b Wolf Eyes, Timmy’s Organism, Video 2/25, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Wolfmother 2/25, 8:30 PM, Metro, 18+ Wray 2/12, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen Wynonna & the Big Noise 2/3, 8 PM, City Winery b Chris Young, Cassadee Pope 2/4, 7:30 PM, Rosemont Theater, Rosemont b Young Galaxy 2/5, 9 PM, Subterranean Dweezil Zappa 2/8, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+

SOLD OUT AC/DC 2/17, 7:30 PM, United Center Beach House 3/1, 8 PM, the Vic, 18+ Alessia Cara 1/29, 7:30 PM, Metro b Gary Clark Jr. 4/1, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ The Cure, Twilight Sad 6/10-11, 7:30 PM, UIC Pavilion b Daughter 3/11, 8 PM, Metro b Greg Dulli 3/18, 8 and 11 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Carly Rae Jepsen 3/12, 8:30 PM, Metro b Less Than Jake 3/3-4, 7 PM, Double Door, 17+ Lydia Loveless 1/23, 7:30 PM, Schubas Melanie Martinez 3/17, 7:30 PM, the Vic b Shellac, Mono 3/30, 7 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Underoath 4/7, 7 PM, Riviera Theatre b Vance Joy 1/22-23, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre b v

GOSSIP WOLF A furry ear to the ground of the local music scene CHICAGO PROTO-INDUSTRIAL duo Hogg use electronics, guitar, bass, and their own distorted voices to create burning beds of skronk ’n’ awe—this wolf thinks their 2015 tape, Bury the Dog Deeper (via Andy Ortmann’s Nihilist Records), was one of the year’s most unsettling local listens.

On Sat 1/16, Rotted Tooth Recordings releases an expanded, retitled LP version, Carnal Lust & Carnivorous Eating, that includes two new tracks. That night Hogg play at a local underground venue with noise punks Running, who are approaching the show with the same panache that earned them a Reader nod for “Best Album Packaging” in 2012—bassist Matthew Hord promises plastic palm trees, frozen tropical drinks, and reggae goth DJs! Hawaiian attire is encouraged; e-mail runningband@gmail.com for details.

Were you relieved when New Year’s Eve brought 2015 to a close? Well, Gossip Wolf has just the song for you: “Weird Year,” the debut release from Wrong Numbers, a new poppy lo-fi solo project from Marcus Nuccio of the Please & Thank Yous, Mountains for Clouds, and Pet Symmetry. Nuccio dropped “Weird Year” on December 31, and its yearning, winsome electro-pop melody could help you say a final good-bye to a year you’re glad is finally over. The song is a pay-whatyou-want download on Wrong Numbers’ Bandcamp page: bit.ly/wn_wy.

Gossip Wolf is always down for a bombastic Bowie blowout. On Thu 1/7 (a day before Blackstar drops), Berlin hosts the annual Bowie Ball, with DJ Heaven Malone and a “glitter and glam makeover booth”—and you can guess what “live Bowieoke” is! Hopefully nobody minds a wolf in DIY Aladdin Sane makeup howling along. —J.R. NELSON AND LEOR GALIL Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or e-mail gossipwolf@chicagoreader.com.

39 JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 • CHICAGO READER 43

44 CHICAGO READER • JANUARY 7 TO JANUARY 20, 2016 © 2016 Goose Island Beer Co., Goose IPA®, India Pale Ale, Chicago, IL, Baldwinsville, NY, & Fort Collins, CO | Enjoy responsibly.