Print Issue of April 6, 2017 (Volume 46, Number 26) by Chicago Reader

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 | A P R I L 6 , 2 0 1 7

The Cubs are back—and there’s no love for losers in Rickettsville. 12

The Syrian conﬂict one very short story at a time Writer Osama Alomar looks for peace of mind in America. By AIMEE LEVITT 15

thurs · april 13 · 6-9pm OLD TOWN SCHOOL OF FOLK MUSIC 4545 N LINCOLN · SZOLD HALL AT

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THIS WEEK

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EDITOR JAKE MALOOLEY CREATIVE DIRECTOR PAUL JOHN HIGGINS DEPUTY EDITOR, NEWS ROBIN AMER CULTURE EDITOR TAL ROSENBERG DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY DANIELLE A. SCRUGGS FILM EDITOR J.R. JONES MUSIC EDITOR PHILIP MONTORO ASSOCIATE EDITORS KATE SCHMIDT, KEVIN WARWICK, BRIANNA WELLEN SENIOR WRITERS MICHAEL MINER, MIKE SULA SENIOR THEATER CRITIC TONY ADLER STAFF WRITERS MAYA DUKMASOVA, LEOR GALIL, DEANNA ISAACS, BEN JORAVSKY, AIMEE LEVITT, PETER MARGASAK, JULIA THIEL SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR RYAN SMITH GRAPHIC DESIGNER SUE KWONG MUSIC LISTINGS COORDINATOR LUCA CIMARUSTI EDITORIAL ASSISTANT CASSIDY RYAN CONTRIBUTING WRITERS NOAH BERLATSKY, MATT DE LA PEÑA, ANNE FORD, ISA GIALLORENZO, JOHN GREENFIELD, JUSTIN HAYFORD, JACK HELBIG, DAN JAKES, BILL MEYER, J.R. NELSON, MARISSA OBERLANDER, LEAH PICKETT, DMITRY SAMAROV, DAVID WHITEIS, ALBERT WILLIAMS INTERNS AUSTIN BROWN, ISABEL OCHOA GOLD, RACHEL HINTON, JIAYUE YU ---------------------------------------------------------------VICE PRESIDENT OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT NICKI STANULA VICE PRESIDENT OF NEW MEDIA GUADALUPE CARRANZA SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER EVANGELINE MILLER ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES FABIO CAVALIERI, ARIANA DIAZ, BRIDGET KANE MARKETING AND EVENTS MANAGER BRYAN BURDA DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL JOHN DUNLEVY ADVERTISING COORDINATOR HERMINIA BATTAGLIA CLASSIFIEDS REPRESENTATIVE KRIS DODD

FEATURES

25 Movies Cabaret Crusades re-creates the 11th-century war against Islam—with puppets!

MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE

CITY LIFE

SPORTS & POLITICS

RIP Wrigleyville. Welcome to Rickettsville.

The family behind both the Cubs’ World Series win and Trump’s presidential victory are remaking the team and the surrounding neighborhood in their image. BY RYAN SMITH 12

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ON THE COVER: PHOTO BY DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY DANIELLE A. SCRUGGS.

27 In Rotation Current musical obsessions include Billy Yeager’s Discogs hoax, Deftones, and more

4 Agenda The Great and Terrible Wizard of Oz, Ali Wong, Scott Simon, the ﬁlm Frantz, and more recommended things to do

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READER (ISSN 1096-6919) IS PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY STM READER, LLC, 350 N. ORLEANS, CHICAGO, IL 60654.

IN THIS ISSUE

LIT

The Syrian conflict one very short story at a time

Writer Osama Alomar looks for peace of mind in America. BY AIMEE LEVITT 15

7 Street View Fashion that answers the question “What if Neo from The Matrix was a cheerleader?” 7 Sure things A best-bet event for every day of the week 8 Joravsky | Politics EPA employees defend their agency from Trump’s budget cuts and executive orders. 9 Transportation Black bike advocates say they’ll ﬁght CPD’s biased ticketing practices.

28 Shows of note Lil Peep, BJ the Chicago Kid, Sweet Spirit, and more recommendations

FOOD & DRINK

ARTS & CULTURE

19 Theater Alexander Zelkin’s immersive Beyond Caring puts the audience in a sausage factory.

19 Dance Liz Gerring’s Horizon is an experiment in pure movement. 20 Theater Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne boil the epic Mahabharata down to being and nothingness. 21 Lit Gwendolyn Brooks gets the centennial birthday party she deserves. 22 Comedy The Ladylike Project raises money for local organizations through comedy showcases, yoga classes, and more. 23 Visual Art With “Memoria Presente: An Artistic Journey,” the National Museum of Mexican Art vibrantly celebrates its 30th anniversary. 24 Movies Gene Siskel Film Center remembers the ﬁrst great female artist of the American cinema.

39 Restaurant review: Mirabella The old-school Italian steak house in Irving Park is the Gene & Georgetti of the neighborhoods. 41 Cocktail Challenge: Oﬀ Color Troublesome Nicole Brudd of Wicker Park’s Revel Room makes a beer cocktail.

CLASSIFIEDS

43 Jobs 43 Apartments & Spaces 44 Marketplace

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44 Straight Dope How does anyone know what a lethally toxic substance tastes or smells like? 45 Savage Love Is “I’m overwhelmed” the new “It’s not you, it’s me”? 46 Early Warnings All Tomorrow’s Impeachments with Shellac, Freddie Gibbs, Phish, and other shows in the weeks to come 46 Gossip Wolf Logan Bay loses half a leg to a driver, keeps programming WLPN from his hospital bed, and more music news.

APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 3

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b ALL AGES

F bad after all. Revived by the House Theatre of Chicago, which premiered it in 2005, Phillip Kapperich’s stage version of the L. Frank Baum classic is inventive, amusing, familiar without getting slavish about it, and just arch enough to be hip without spoiling things. AnJi White is Marvels Comics sleek rather than Margaret Hamilton shriveled as the evil witch. Joe Steakley is sweet and fey as that original friend of Dorothy, Toto. But Christine Mayland Perkins is the luckiest cast member: her Scarecrow gets to build a brain of her own, delightfully, from scratch. —TONY ADLER Through 5/7: Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 7:30 PM, Sun 3 and 7 PM; also Thu 4/20, 4/27, and 5/4, 7:30 PM, Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division, 773-769-3832, thehousetheatre. com, $30-$45.

Born Yesterday o JOHNNY KNIGHT

THEATER

More at chicagoreader.com/ theater Born Yesterday Garson Kanin’s 1946 comedy crackles with R sharp-witted dialogue, smartly drawn

characters, and almost painfully fresh relevance in Remy Bumppo Theatre Company’s timely revival. It concerns a crooked New Jersey scrap metal dealer, Harry Brock, who arrives in the nation’s capital aiming to bribe a senator to pass legislation that will undo government regulations and beneﬁt Harry’s business. Hoping to make his uneducated but street-smart mistress, ex-showgirl Billie Dawn, a bit more “presentable” to the D.C. power elite, Harry hires a New Republic journalist, Paul Verrall, to tutor Billie, with unanticipated results not to Harry’s liking. Kanin’s theme—the right of the American people to know what’s going on Washington and the people’s responsibility to educate themselves and pay attention—is as basic as democracy itself. His targets are political corruption and public apathy—what one character calls “don’t-care-ism.” “I want everyone to be smart. As smart as they can be. A world of ignorant people is too dangerous to live in,” says Paul in the play’s most famous line. The topﬂight cast is headed by Eliza Stoughton as Billie, Greg Matthew Anderson as Paul, and Sean M. Sullivan as a cocky, vulgar, yet strangely charismatic Harry. David Darlow directed. —ALBERT WILLIAMS Through 4/30: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM; also Sat 4/8, 2:30 PM; Wed 4/12 and 4/26, 7:30 PM, Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln, 773-404-7336, remybumppo.org, $42.50-$52.50.

Fatelessness Theatre Y director Melissa Lorraine’s intriguing experiment with Imre Kertész’s Noble Prize-winning novel Fatelessness is half brilliant. While we hear Michael Doonan’s prerecorded voice reading a greatly condensed version of the book, which follows bemused, dispassionate 15-year-old Hungarian Jew Gyuri through three Nazi concentration camps, we watch Benjamin Holliday Wardell silently enact a 65-minute yoga routine. The juxta-

position of bodies—Gyuri’s buffeted by chaotic external forces, Wardell’s guided by disciplined internal commands, both contorted to the brink of recognizability—creates provocative tensions that never resolve. Even the unavoidable tedium nicely parallels Gyuri’s languishing in what Kertesz called “the dreary trap of linearity.” But in this adaptation by Andràs Visky and Adam Boncz, Kertész’s richly detailed text is stripped to an overly efficient outline, and Doonan’s disgruntled bro persona gives the story an unaccountable peevishness. Wardell’s meticulous work needs a stronger foil. —JUSTIN HAYFORD Through 4/16: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 4 PM, Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division, 773-769-3832, chopintheatre.com, $20, $15 students and seniors. Feminism & Other Things Midway through Drinking & Writing Theater’s hour-long two-woman show, pictures of nine murdered transgender women appear on video screens while performers Amelia Bethel and Lady Grace Murphy recite their names and offer them a toast. This one-minute ritual is one of the few focused, theatrically effective moments in an otherwise scattershot piece. Bethel and Murphy begin by saying they want to talk about “what it means to be a 21st-century woman,” but it’s difficult to piece together a meaningful portrait given the range of issues they skate over, from sexual experimentation at teen sleepovers to the American court system’s unwillingness to take sexual assault seriously to the frustrations of planning a wedding. By bringing up anything, they develop almost nothing. Tellingly, the murdered transgender women are entirely forgotten after their minute in the spotlight. —JUSTIN HAYFORD Through 4/22: Sat 4 PM, Drinking & Writing Theater @ Haymarket Pub & Brewery, 737 W. Randolph, 312-638-0700, drinkingandwriting.com, $10.

Metamorphosis Tellin’ Tales Theatre is a staple in the Chicago storytelling community, one that brings together disabled and nondisabled artists to share nonfiction narratives built around a universal theme. This set of long-form stories, curated by artistic director Tekki Lomnicki, finds hope and humor in the frightening, unsparing realities of aging. Steve Glickman revisits his relationships over the years as a gay man in Chicago, and Judi Lee Goshen chats about the social pressures of being a woman at any age dating a younger man. The biggest takeaway is from Lomnicki herself, who, in a story that makes no effort to romanticize taking care of an elderly parent, makes a powerful case for accepting major life transitions as they come. —DAN JAKES Through 4/9: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Sun 7 PM, Prop Thtr, 3502 N. Elston, 773-539-7838, tellintales.org, $20, $15 students and disabled. Silent Sky Lauren Gunderson’s R simple, gracefully written biographical play, about pioneering

American astronomer Henrietta Leavitt— whose discoveries in the early 20th century greatly expanded our conception of the size of the universe—is well matched by director Melanie Keller’s strong, elegant, moving production for First Folio Theatre. Cassandra Bissell is especially compelling as Leavitt, communicating at once her quirky brilliance

and the persistence she needed to make her discoveries and forge ahead in a ﬁeld dominated by men eager to use her talents but much less eager give her credit. The lighting, costumes, and set mirror the strengths of the script; Christopher Kriz’s sound design is particularly evocative. —JACK HELBIG Through 4/30: Wed 8 PM, Thu 3 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 4 and 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Mayslake Peabody Estate, 1717 W. 31st, Oak Brook, 630986-8067, ﬁrstfolio.org, $29-$39, $26-$36 students and seniors. Six Stories Tall First produced R by Adventure Stage Chicago in 2012 and now about to tour nationally,

this wonderfully entertaining show for the tween set leans grown-up in all the right ways. Marco Ramirez’s 2008 collection of short plays, inspired by Latino folktales, focuses on themes of courage while coming up with lots of melancholy foils. For example, a young boy dreams of becoming Batman to protect his depressed father from danger; a young girl battles Satan to save her widowed father’s soul; a grandson takes a circuitous jaunt to the south side for the benefit of his ailing grandfather. It appears director Tom Arvetis decided to trim at least one tale from the 2012 version, perhaps in favor of a more fluid 60-minute performance. No matter: the cast embrace doing more with less, and their exuberance is contagious. —MATT DE LA PEÑA Through 4/29: Sat 4 PM; also Fri 4/21, 7 PM, Northwestern University Settlement House, Vittum Theater, 1012 N. Noble, third floor, 773-342-4141, adventurestage.org, $17, $12 kids 14 and under.

DANCE

Horizon The Liz Gerring Dance R Company makes its Chicago debut with a work featuring seven dancers performing under a white ceiling on a bare stage in an eﬀort to highlight the movement and the movement only. See page 19 for more. Thu 4/6-Sat 4/8: 7:30 PM, Dance Center of Columbia College, 1306 S. Michigan, 312-369-6600, colum. edu/dance_center, $30.

The Great and Terrible Wizard R of Oz This Dorothy has a cell phone. Yes, she desperately wanted out

of Kansas, but, no, she didn’t expect to leave by way of tornado. Now, terrorized by the Wicked Witch of the West, she’s leading a motley crew down the yellow brick road and thinking Kansas wasn’t so

The Great and Terrible Wizard of Oz o MICHAEL BROSILOW

Best bets, recommendations, and notable arts and culture events for the week of April 6 For more of the best things to do every day of the week, go to chicagoreader. com/agenda.

COMEDY

enthusiasm, whether portraying punning nuns battling Beelzebub or disgruntled supporting cast members taking revenge on the narcissistic Wolfgang himself. —DMITRY SAMAROV Through 4/26: Wed 8 PM, Annoyance Theatre, 851 W. Belmont, 773-697-9693, theannoyance. com, $12.

Arguments & Grievances The ﬁnal Chicago edition of this debate series enlists some of the city’s funniest comedians to argue about heated issues such as “subway train vs. Subway sandwiches,” “rockabilly vs. hillbilly,” and “woke vs. asleep.” Sun 4/9, 8 PM, North Bar, 1637 W. North, 773-6973563, liveatnorthbar.com, $5. The Last Circus Given the sheer quantity and variety of Barnum & Bailey-style shit-show material that comes out on the daily, you’d think this circus-themed, politically bent sketch comedy revue at the Revival in Hyde Park would pick from the freshest headline scandals for inspiration. Instead, the ensemble plays it curiously tepid, with quasi-musical bits that could have been written last October and short-form improv games. Clearer points of view come into focus during a recurring “freak show” bit, in which ensemble members get personal in stand-up sets about neuroses, body fears, love, and racial dynamics. But combined, they elicit more head nods and knowing smiles than laughs. —DAN JAKES Through 5/6: Sat 7:30 PM, the Revival, 1160 E. 55th, 866-811-4111, the-revival.com, $15, $5 students. Late Late Breakfast pilot R screening The monthly brunch comedy showcase presents a screening

of its television pilot featuring a Q&A session and free pancakes. Sun 4/9, 5 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, 773-2274433, hideoutchicago.com. F

Spotlight on Women of Color in Comedy Hand Her the Mic hosts a panel discussion about being a woman of color in Chicago’s comedy scene featuring Kellye Howard, Shantira Jackson, Ana Velazquez, and Lily Be with moderator Sameena Mustafa. This event kicks oﬀ a new quarterly series. Sun 4/9, 11 AM-2 PM, Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th, 773-702-2787, woccpanelapril2017.eventbrite.com.

Museum of Contemporary Art “Untitled (Just Kidding),” a screening of ﬁve new works from performance artist Jesse Malmed. Tue 4/11, 6 PM. Tue 10 AM-8 PM, Wed-Sun 10 AM-5 PM. 220 E. Chicago, 312-280-2660, mcachicago.org, $12, $7 students and seniors, free kids 12 and under and members of the military, free for Illinois residents on Tuesdays. Weinberg/Newton Gallery “In Acts,” a group exhibition inspired by the University of Chicago’s summit for international artists that attempts to answer the question “What is an artistic practice of human rights?” 4/7-6/10. Tue-Sat 10 AM-5:30 PM. 300 W. Superior, #203, 312529-5090, d-weinberg.com.

o MIKE WINDLE

LIT & LECTURES

NEW REVIEWS

Intersextionality: A Talk With R Pidgeon Pagonis The activist and ﬁlmmaker discusses being an inter-

Privateers Who Ruled the Seven Seas. Fri 4/7, 7:30 PM, Women & Children First, 5233 N. Clark, 773-769-9299, womenandchildrenﬁrst.com.

sex person of color in the current political climate. The talk is followed by a screening of Pagonis’s documentary The Son I Never Had: Growing Up Intersex! Thu 4/6, 6:30 PM, University of Chicago, Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, 5733 S. University, 773-7028063, csrpc.uchicago.edu. Self-Publishing for Activism R Members of the artist collective Oomk discuss how zines, publications,

Scott Simon The Weekend Edition host discusses his book

The Wolfgang Stein Show R Wolfgang Stein stars as a smarmy, ever-squinting, bow-tied variety show

host named Wolfgang Stein in this fast-moving production directed by Anneliese Toft. Running breathlessly through nearly a dozen bits in just under an hour, the talented ensemble cast rarely lingers on a setup long enough to wear out its welcome. The most successful scenes combine gleefully corny wordplay and fully committed characterizations that manage to wink self-referentially without falling into allout camp. They’re putting on a show and never pretend not to be, yet are able to sell most of the premises through sheer

More at chicagoreader.com/movies

VISUAL ARTS

The Franklin “Dr. Rock,” this exhibit transforms the gallery into a therapist’s oﬃce where visitors can discuss their problems with the actual rock in attendance. It’s tied to the release of Coco Picard’s debut graphic novel, The Chronicles of Fortune. 4/9-5/9. Sat 5-11 PM, Sun by appointment. 3522 W. Franklin, 312823-3632, thefranklinoutdoor.tumblr.com.

MOVIES

and other works of art can address global issues as a form of activism. Thu 4/6, 6 PM, Gray Center for the Arts and Inquiry, 929 E. 60th, 773-834-1936, graycenter.uchicago.edu.

Chicago History Museum “Spies, Traitors, and Saboteurs,” an exhibit exploring the evolution of U.S. law enforcement, counterintelligence, and homeland security during the 19th and 20th centuries. 4/8-11/26. Mon-Sat 9:30 AM-4:30 PM, Sun noon-5 PM. 1601 N. Clark, 312-642-4600, chicagohistory.org, $14, $12 seniors and students (ages 13-22), free kids 12 and under.

My Cubs: A Love Story. Tue 4/11, 6 PM, Seminary Co-op Bookstore, 5751 S. Woodlawn, 773-752-4381, semcoop.com.

All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I.F. Stone Director Fred Peabody interviews several generations of left-leaning journalists (Carl Bernstein, Amy Goodman, Michael Moore, Cenk Uygur, Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Jeremy Scahill, John Carlos Frey) about their professional debt to Izzy Stone, the legendary investigative reporter whose weekly independent newsletter exposed government perﬁdy in the 1950s and ‘60s. The talkingheads commentary is like an echo chamber, zeroing in on the willingness of mainstream news organizations to collaborate with the federal government in a shared narrative and to narcotize their readers and viewers with celebrity bullshit. You won’t learn much about Stone from watching this, but thanks to some of the participants, you’ll learn about some criminally underreported stories, like the mass immigrant graves uncovered in Falfurrias, Texas—which is probably what Stone would have preferred anyway. —J.R. JONES 91 min. Fri 4/7, 2 and 6 PM; Sat 4/8, 5:30 PM; Sun 4/9, 3 PM; Mon 4/10, 8 PM; Tue 4/11, 8:30 PM; Wed 4/12, 6:00 PM; and Thu 4/13, 6 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center

Lauren Sook Duncombe The R author discusses her book Pirate Women: The Princesses, Prostitutes, and

Ali Wong The comedian and writer for Fresh Oﬀ the Boat brings her stand-up to Chicago. Sat 4/8, 7 and 10 PM, Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State, 312-462-6300, thechicagotheatre.com, $39.50-$65.

Scott Simon o KCTS 9 PUBLIC TELEVISION

Gregg Hertzlieb, Untitled, 2016, on display as part of “In Acts” at the Weinberg/Newton Gallery

Frantz The rare case of a remake that far surpasses the original, this sublime mature work by François Ozon borrows liberally from Ernst Lubitsch’s Broken Lullaby (1932) but supplants its fevered melodrama with erotically charged mystery. An elderly, provincial German couple (Ernst Stotzner, Marie Gruber), grieving for the son they lost in World War I, have taken in his ﬁancee (Paula Beer); visiting the son’s grave, the young woman meets a fragile veteran (Pierre Niney) who claims to have known the deceased, and brings him home to the parents, whom he comforts with his reminisces. Budgetary constraints forced Ozon to shoot in black and white, yet the seductive 35-millimeter imagery gains in potency from the brief color sequences used to reconstruct an elusive past. In German and French with subtitles. —ANDREA GRONVALL PG-13, 113 min. Landmark Century Cinema W

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B Going in Style Martin Brest’s 1979 comedy, about a trio of creaky retirees in Queens who decide to rob a bank, gets a plodding millennial update from Zach Braff, directing a script by Theodore Melfi (Hidden Figures). In the original movie the old guys (George Burns, Art Carney, Lee Strasberg) were just bored, but the new crew of geezers (Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Alan Arkin) are working stiffs who’ve been screwed out of their pensions and one is struggling to pay off a balloon loan on his house. (Thankfully, executive producer Steven Mnuchin is now treasury secretary and can start cracking down on that stuff.) Braff races through the planning and execution of the robbery, probably because the original film’s premise seems even more far-fetched in our modern security state. With Ann-Margret, Matt Dillon, John Ortiz, and Kenan Thompson. —J.R. JONES PG-13, 96 min. Cicero Showplace 14, Crown Village 18, Ford City, Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings Gook Justin Chon wrote, directed, and stars in this bracing blackand-white comedy, which shows the first day of the 1992 LA riots through the perspective of a South Korean family running a women’s shoe store in nearby Paramount. The two sons (Chon, David So) help their parents serve the mainly black and brown customers in their neighborhood, and the anti-Asian racism they endure throughout the day offers an intriguing counterpoint to the announcement of the Rodney King verdict and the chaos that ensues. Nodding to Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and Kevin Smith’s Clerks, this sophomore feature exemplifies the grunge and angst-ridden energy of the 90s, with a humorous streak as frank as its racially charged title. —LEAH PICKETT 94 min. Screens as the closing-night program of the Asian American Showcase; for a full schedule visit siskelfilmcemnter.org. Wed 4/12, 8 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center

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Karl Marx City Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein—whose debut feature, Gunner Palace (2004), is one of the essential documentaries about the Iraq war—tackle a more personal subject with this political memoir (2016), in which Epperlein returns to her hometown in the former East Germany to investigate her father’s suicide. The father was rumored to be a Stasi informer, and the filmmakers draw heavily on state surveillance tapes, broadcast intercepts, and propaganda films to conjure up the deeply repressive society that formed him. Screener issues prevented me from watching the documentary’s second half, but the first half alone indicates this is worth checking out. —J.R. JONES 99 min. Facets Cinematheque

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NOW PLAYING In Search of Israeli Cuisine Israeli-American chef Michael Solomonov returns to his homeland to sample the local delicacies. Roger Sherman directed this documentary. 120 min. Fri 4/7, 4:45 and 7:15 PM; Sat 4/8, 11:45 AM, 2:15 PM, and 4:45 PM; Sun 4/9-Wed 4/12, 4:45 and 7:15 PM; and Thu 4/13, 4:45 PM. Music Box Your Name Following an astronomical phenomenon, two teenagers ﬁnd that they have switched bodies. Makoto Shinkai directed this Japanese animation. PG, 106 min. Century 12 and CineArts 6, Music Box, River East 21

REVIVALS La Cienaga This astonishing R 2001 debut by Argentine director Lucrecia Martel (The Holy

Girl) manages to sustain tension and anxiety throughout. At their run-down country estate, a middle-aged couple drink away the hot, sticky days, ignoring their bored adolescent children. An accident next to the murky swimming pool sends the mother to her bed, while the other members of the family wander around, taking potshots at dogs and wild animals in the surrounding swamplands or flopping down on unmade beds, oblivious to ringing phones and doorbells and one another. After the mother’s cousin arrives from town with her own brood, violence seems not just possible but probable. This has the power of great literature, and it’s remarkably assured in its juggling of two large families. Every shot is dense with life, with children and animals running in and out, yet the movie is highly focused, a small masterpiece. In Spanish with subtitles. —MEREDITH BRODY 103 min. Filmmaker Melika Bass lectures at the Tuesday screening. Fri 4/7, 8 PM, and Tue 4/11, 6 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center Wings This 1927 silent feature won the first Academy Award for best picture, establishing a tradition of silliness that hasn’t been broken to this day, but there is some thrilling flying footage and impressively expensive spectacle. Director William Wellman was a

veteran of the World War I dogfights portrayed in the film, but he doesn’t let experience stand in the way of boyish fantasy. A love story with nurse Clara Bow as the apex of a romantic triangle has been superimposed on the action, though Wellman—typically—invests all the film’s warmth and sentiment in the friendship between her two suitors, Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen. With Jobyna Ralston and a supporting appearance by Gary Cooper. —DAVE KEHR PG-13, 139 min. The Prima Vista Quartet accompany the screening, performing an original score by Baudime Jam. Sun 4/9, 1 PM. Music Box Woman in the Dunes Japanese New Wave director Hiroshi Teshigahara’s 1964 allegory on the meaning of freedom and the discovery of identity. An office worker (Eiji Okada) on an entomological holiday spends the night with a widow (Kyoko Kishida), whose shack at the bottom of a sand pit becomes his prison. Gradually he learns to love her and to help her in her endless task of shoveling sand, which the local villagers use to protect themselves from the elements. A bizarre film, distinguished not so much by Kobo Abe’s rather obvious screenplay as by Teshigahara’s arresting visual style of extreme depth of focus, immaculate detail, and graceful eroticism. In Japanese with subtitles. —DON DRUKER 123 min. Mon 4/10, 7 PM. Univ. of Chicago Doc Films

SPECIAL EVENTS District of Corruption Steve Bannon, a ﬁlmmaker before he joined the Trump White House, directed this 2012 documentary examining corruption and transparency issues in the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations. 70 min. Screens as part of the Cinema Slapdown series; a debate on the ﬁlm’s merits follows. Fri 4/7, 7 PM. Film Row Cinema, Columbia College F Win It All Joe Swanberg cowrote and directed this comedy, in which a small-time gambler (Jake Johnson) can’t resist the urge to dip into the funds he’s holding for a friend. 90 min. Swanberg and Johnson attend the screening. Sat 4/8, 7 PM. Music Box v

CITY LIFE Street View

Sir, yes, sir! FASHION IS A SERIOUS matter for musician and comedian Sir Babygirl (aka Kelsie Hogue). “The ritual of putting on a face and getting a look together in solitude is very cathartic for me and an important act of self-care,” she says. Inspired by cartoon heroines such as Helga G. Pataki from Hey Arnold! and Ashley Spinelli from Recess, TRL-era music videos, and absurdist comedy like Tim and Eric, Sir Babygirl’s style is empowered, tomboyish, and very 90s. It’s the sartorial version of what would result, she says, “if you set a baby clown loose on a Spice Girls music video shoot and the baby clown stole clothes speciﬁcally from Baby Spice, Sporty Spice, and Ginger Spice’s wardrobes.” On the day she was photographed, she described her look as an answer to the question “What if Neo from The Matrix was a cheerleader and what eﬀect would that have on his character arc?” Wearing an Adidas jacket and sneakers, she says, makes her feel powerful, “like a really pretty boy named Sven. . . . He is very good at soccer and treats others with genuine respect.” —ISA GIALLORENZO See more Chicago street style on Giallorenzo’s blog chicagolooks.blogspot.com.

DONATE SHOP SUPPORT big-medicine.org 6241 N BROADWAY CHICAGO MON-SAT 11-7 SUN 12-7 773-942-6522

“One of the best resale shops in Chicago” -Time Out Chicago

o ISA GIALLORENZO

33rd Chicago Latino Film Festival

Opening NIght Gala

NIGHT OF ARGENTINA

SURE THINGS ¥ Keep up to date on the go at chicagoreader. com/agenda.

SUNDAY 9

Communities Against Is lamopho bia I: Identi f ying A nti -Muslim B i as The American Friends Service Committee leads this discussion about identifying and confronting Islamophobia. 12:30 PM, Second Unitarian Church, 656 W. Barry, 773-549-0260, secondunitarian.org.

THURSDAY 6

Te ll Me Some thing I Don’t Kn ow Freakonomics coauthor Stephen J. Dubner hosts this game show podcast featuring panelists Steve Levitt, Scott Turow, and Cook County commissioner Bridget Gainer with guest fact-checker Tricia Bobeda (Nerdette). 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 1227 W. 18th, thaliahallchicago. com, $25-$45.

MONDAY 10

½ Martha Kelly The Baskets star performs stand-up. Mon 4/10-Tue 4/11, 8 PM, North Bar, 1637 W. North, 773-6973563, liveatnorthbar.com, $18, $15 in advance.

FRIDAY 7

» Th e Inter v i ew Show Mark Bazer hosts playwright Tracy Letts, WXRT host Lin Brehmer, and ﬁlmmaker Stephen Cone. 6:30 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, hideoutchicago.com, $10.

SATURDAY 8

× Midwest Ru m Fest A celebration of the Caribbean liquor featuring tastings, mixology demos, seminars, and work by local artists. 1:305:30 PM, Logan Square Auditorium, 2539 N. Kedzie, midwestrumfest. com, $90.

Thursday, April 20th They’ve been happily married for 12 years but it takes one dinner at a nearby restaurant to bring it all down in this bittersweet romantic comedy. Meet lead actress Carla Peterson in person!

ONE NIGHT OF LOVE / UNA NOCHE DE AMOR

Argentina/2016/90 min. Directed by Hernán Guerschuny Genre: Romantic Comedy/Drama Spanish w/ English Subtitles

DOORS OPEN AT 5:30 PM

TUESDAY 11

& Taco Tuesday Mashup Four of the Revival Food Hall’s restaurants—Antique Taco Chiquito, Smoque BBQ, Aloha Poke, and the Budlong—present specialty tacos for guests to enjoy. Tickets include four tacos, chips and salsa, and either a beer or a margarita. 6-7 PM, Revival Food Hall, 125 S. Clark, revivalfoodhall.com, $35.

WEDNESDAY 12

» Po p Culture Ha ppy Hour NPR’s entertainment podcast comes to the midwest for the ﬁrst time with guest W. Kamau Bell to discuss the latest in pop culture. 8 PM, Harris Theater, 205 E. Randolph, harristheaterchicago.org, $45.

PROGRAM: 6:00 PM AMC River East 21 322 E. Illinois St.

PURCHASE TICKETS Tickets are available for purchase in advance at ChicagoLatinoFilmFestival.org or on the CLFF Facebook page.

TICKETS $90 General / $75 ILCC Member

PARKING Discounted parking available at River East Parking Garage (lower level of theater, 322 E. Illinois St.). $18 for up to 8 hours. Please pick up the discounted parking voucher at the Festival Information Table at the theatre.

Ticket includes ﬁlm screening, food, drinks & live entertainment. Cocktail attire strongly recommended.

ChicagoLatinoFilmFestival.org

RECEPTION: FOLLOWING THE SCREENING Embassy Suites Hotel 511 N. Columbus Drive

SPONSORED BY:

APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 7

Ô BOBBY SIMS

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

POLITICS

The bureaucrats’ revolt

EPA employees defend their agency from Trump’s budget cuts and executive orders. By BEN JORAVSKY

hen attorney Nicole Cantello went to work for the Environmental Protection Agency in 1990, she never imagined she’d wind up speaking at public rallies or giving interviews to reporters. She was fresh out of Northwestern Law School, and eager to work quietly to protect the Great Lakes from polluters. But once Donald Trump got elected president, everything changed. Since his January inauguration Trump has waged war on the EPA with a series of executive orders and proposed budget cuts that have sapped employee morale and raised concerns that they’ll be helpless to protect the public from pollution. Now Cantello and many of her colleagues in the EPA’s Region 5 office— which covers the six states around the Great Lakes—have stepped into the limelight, taking passionate public stands against Trump’s environmental policies. “I spent 25 years being a happy bureaucrat

8 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 6, 2017

working behind the scenes,” Cantello says. “I never talked to the press, never spoke at a rally. But they’ve dragged us kicking and screaming into the public arena.” In the last few months, Chicago-area EPA employees have organized and led two protest rallies in Federal Plaza. They’ve been quoted by name in the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and other national publications. On April 25 they’ll be featured speakers at The Girl Talk show at the Hideout. And now they ﬁnd themselves talking to me. I haven’t encountered such outspoken public employees since, well, ever. It’s not like they have much choice if they believe in their mission. As a candidate, Trump vowed to “get rid” of the agency “in almost every form,” claiming that the EPA saddled industry with needless rules and regulations. He said he didn’t believe that climate change was caused by human behavior—which is the position of the global scientiﬁc community—instead claiming that

it was a hoax perpetrated by China. Once in office, he appointed Scott Pruitt to head the EPA. Pruitt’s even more hostile to the environment than Trump is, if such a thing is possible. As the former attorney general of Oklahoma, he sued the EPA 14 times, usually alongside fossil fuel companies looking to abolish federal regulations that limit how much toxic pollution they can spew into the world. It was Pruitt’s nomination that spurred Cantello and other EPA employees to action. “We have this president who denies global warming,” says Felicia Chase, a geologist at the agency. “Are you kidding me? We had zero freaking snow in January and February [in Chicago]. And the president is telling us that climate change is fake news? If we don’t take a stand, we’ll come out of this era not knowing what the truth is.” Chase, Campello, and their cohort are most worried about Trump’s proposed budget cuts and recently signed executive orders. Let’s take the budget cuts ﬁrst. Chase was one of about 15 EPA water experts dispatched to Flint, Michigan, in 2015 once it became apparent that the city’s drinking water had been contaminated with lead. “We were sent in for deployments of up to ten days,” says Chase. “No days off, working 12 to 14 hours a day. We were going door-to-door, asking people to let us into their houses so we could collect and sample the water.” The case in Flint demonstrates why states often need federal oversight to do the right thing. The lead crisis began in 2014, when an emergency manager appointed by Michigan governor Rick Snyder approved a plan to draw the city’s drinking water from the Flint River. When residents complained that the water coming from their taps was making them sick, the state blew them off. “People told us, ‘The state said the water was good, but we knew it was bad,’” Chase says. “These were low-income, vulnerable people. They were left exposed.” Chase fears that Trump’s proposal to ax about $2.6 billion—or nearly one-third of EPA’s budget—would drastically undercut future emergency operations like the one in Flint. In addition to the proposed budget cuts, EPA staffers are also concerned about Trump’s executive orders, such as the one pertaining to the Supreme Court’s 2006 Rapanos decision, that have garnered less attention. The case Rapanos v. United States pitted the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers against John Rapanos, a farmer in Michigan. Developers wanted to buy his land and build a mall on it, but

the feds objected on the grounds that his property were part of Michigan’s wetlands, protected from development by the Clean Water Act. Rapanos contended that his land couldn’t be part of the wetlands because there was no water on it. The EPA countered that the water was underground, and if they let developers build a mall on his land, pollutants could bleed into drainage systems that emptied into two navigable rivers and, eventually, Lake Huron. Ultimately, the court was divided, effectively allowing the feds to continue regulating the development of wetland property. However, the justices didn’t agree on the larger question of what constitutes the wetlands. In a strident opinion, the late justice Antonin Scalia took up this question, castigating the fed’s assertions that Rapanos’s land was wetlands as being “beyond parody,” and arguing that the corps had exercised “the discretion of an enlightened despot.” If the government had its way, Scalia wrote, it would regulate “dry arroyos in the middle of the desert.” Furthermore, Scalia argued that the feds should only be allowed to regulate wetlands that had a “continuous surface connection” to rivers and other waterways. In other words, water you could see. Because the court didn’t settle the question of what counts as a wetland, Scalia’s opinion wasn’t precedent setting. But on February 28, Trump issued an executive order declaring that the EPA “shall consider interpreting the term ‘navigable waters’ . . . in a manner consistent with the opinion of Justice Scalia in Rapanos v. United States.” In short, Trump’s trying to impose what the Supreme Court couldn’t agree on—Scalia’s restrictive deﬁnition of wetlands that limits the EPA’s regulatory authority. As with many Trump executive orders, the full impact of this one isn’t clear. But EPA employees see it as a blatant attempt to bully them into backing off from proactively cracking down on potential polluters. “The Scalia opinion is a business person’s opinion,” Cantello says. “It’s got nothing to do with protecting the environment.” In my daydreams, I fantasize that one day Trump will experience a Scrooge-like awakening, where he’ll rise from his bed and tweet: “My God, I’m an ass. Sad.” And then he’ll try to undo the destruction he’s wrought. Until that exceedingly unlikely event, the environment—like our public schools, and our health-care plans—needs all the allies it can get. Federal bureaucrats included. v

ß @joravben

CITY LIFE CPD issues tickets to cyclists twice as often in black neighborhoods as white, according to a recent Chicago Tribune investigation. o RUSSELL MONDY/ VIA FLICKR CREATIVE COMMONS

TRANSPORTATION

Cycle of oppression

Black bike advocates say they’ll ﬁght CPD’s biased ticketing practices.

By JOHN GREENFIELD

ast month Chicago Tribune transportation writer Mary Wisniewski did a major service to the cause of bike equity in our city when she reported on a massive discrepancy in the number of tickets being written to bike riders in African-American communities compared to other neighborhoods. In the wake of this news, two local cycling advocates offered to share their experiences of “biking while black” in our city, and told me they’re determined to hold the Chicago Police Department accountable for ending its unfair enforcement practices. First let’s take a look at the numbers. The Tribune’s analysis of bike citation data from the CPD found that more than twice as many tickets are being written in majority-black community areas than in predominantly white or Latino areas. Seven of the top ten community areas for citations are black, and the other three are Latino—despite the fact that many of parts of the city with the highest numbers of bike commuters, according to

the U.S. Census, are majority white. In some cases the numbers are absurdly lopsided. Wisniewski found that over a roughly nine-month period last year, police issued 321 citations to people on bikes in the Austin neighborhood. But during the same time frame, a mere ﬁve tickets were written in Lincoln Park, even though it has one of the highest levels of biking in the city. Some online commenters have argued that the skewed ﬁgures can be attributed to a greater police presence in African-American neighborhoods plagued by violent crime. Others have argued that residents on the south and west sides may be more likely to ride on the sidewalk or against traffic because there are fewer bike lanes and there’s less access to bike-safety education in their communities. These things may be factors, but there’s no way they account for 64 times as many citations being issued in lower-income, majority-black Austin as compared to affluent, majority-white, and bike-crazy Lincoln Park. While the motives of the officers stopping and

ticketing cyclists aren’t certain, the numbers clearly show that the police are being far more aggressive about enforcing bike laws in African-American neighborhoods. When I asked the police department and the Chicago Department of Transportation— which is coordinating the city’s Vision Zero effort to eliminate traffic fatalities—how they plan to respond to the Tribune piece, they were fairly tight-lipped. “CPD is invested in the public safety of all Chicagoans, including creating the safest environment possible for pedestrians, vehicular and bicycle traffic,” police spokesman Frank Giancamilli said via e-mail. “Where bicyclist and vehicular safety has been an issue of concern, officers have been working with the community to enforce applicable traffic and safety laws.” “As we roll out Vision Zero across the City this year, we will be working closely with community members and local stakeholders to develop education and enforcement initiatives that are appropriate for their respective J

Find hundreds of Readerrecommended restaurants, exclusive video features, and sign up for weekly news chicagoreader.com/ food. APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 9

CITY LIFE Transportation continued from 9 community areas,” wrote CDOT spokesman Mike Claffey. “We are also working with enforcement agencies to ensure enforcement efforts focus on behaviors that are most likely to cause severe traffic crashes.” But black bike advocates Angela Ford and Waymond Smith say they’re not willing to wait any longer for the police to stop targeting African-American cyclists. They’re planning to speak with the police department and southand west-side aldermen to try to change this trend, and are looking into the possibility of filing a class action lawsuit. Ford, 52, is a real estate consultant who lives in the Washington Park neighborhood. She also runs a sustainability nonprofit called the T.A.G. Foundation, which has previously partnered with Working Bikes Cooperative to distribute hundreds of free bikes to families in Bronzeville and North Lawndale. Ford doesn’t own a car, and uses her Trek hybrid and the Divvy system as her primary means of transportation during the warmer months. Ford says it’s particularly unfair for police to concentrate enforcement in low- to moderate-income communities of color because many residents there can ill afford the $50 to $200 fines. “It’s just another example of what we call a ‘black tax,’” she said. “It’s more expensive to do things or even live in Chicago as a black person.” Smith, 64, is a retired prepress operator who lives in the South Shore neighborhood. He volunteers at Working Bikes and the Riverdale-based bike group We Keep You Rollin’. Last fall his attempt to pedal from Canada to Mexico via the Pacific Coast Highway was cut short when a driver struck him in Santa Cruz, California, fracturing his collarbone. But he’s back in the saddle now. Smith says that in 2000 he had a run-in with the police while biking through Lincoln Square on his way to work in Skokie, after an officer in an SUV deliberately drove too close to him three different times. When Smith cursed at the cop, he was pulled over, and the four white officers riding in the vehicle jumped out, surrounded him, and issued him a ticket for not riding far enough to the right. He now says there appeared to be a racial element to the incident. “The guy who had been driving kept ranting about O.J. Simpson and Johnny Cochran,” he says. Last summer Smith was at the Bronzeville Bike Box pop-up shop at 51st and Calumet

10 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 6, 2017

Waymond Smith and Angela Ford o ALBERTA DEAN

when he saw police ticket two black men in their mid-50s who had ridden their department-store mountain bikes for a block on the sidewalk. “It’s a high-crime area, so I’d think the officers would have something better to do,” he says. “They could have just warned them.” Smith says he suspects the police may be using bike enforcement in African-American neighborhoods as an excuse to search residents for drugs and guns. The use of such controversial “stop-and-frisk” tactics became even more fraught after the city reached a recent agreement with the ACLU requiring more paperwork for street stops. Smith calls this tactic counterproductive. “Biking has health and economic benefits,” he says. “You’re discouraging people from riding bikes who could benefit the most.” Smith and Ford both agree that it’s time to fight back against the targeting of African-American bike riders. “We’re going to try to mirror the success of other communities that have said no to aggressive ticketing,” she says. She noted that after a police staged a crackdown on cyclists last January in Wicker Park, residents voiced their displeasure to local alderman Brian Hopkins. “It’s not just about biking,” Ford added. “It’s about [African-Americans] being treated like criminals who are OK to profile. But I am optimistic that we can move the needle on this particular issue.” Hopefully Ford and Smith’s plan to lobby police leadership and politicians—and go to the courts if necessary—will help bring an end to these unjust enforcement practices. Regardless of whether a Chicagoan is on foot, in a car, or on a bike, he or she has a right to travel freely, without fear of racial profiling. v

John Greenfield edits the transportation news website Streetsblog Chicago. ß @greenfieldjohn

RIP Wrigleyville. Welcome to Rickettsville.

The family behind both the Cubs’ World Series win and Donald Trump’s presidential victory are remaking Wrigley Field and the surrounding neighborhood in their own image. By RYAN SMITH

; PAUL JOHN HIGGINS o SANTIAGO COVARRUBIAS/SUN-TIMES; CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

ast fall, there was a moment when it seemed all but impossible that the Chicago Cubs would win the World Series and Donald J. Trump would win the presidency. On October 30, after Cleveland Indians ace Corey Kluber silenced the bats of Joe Maddon’s team to go up 3-1 in the World Series, Nate Silver’s statistics-driven news website FiveThirtyEight published a post declaring “The Cubs Have A Smaller Chance Of Winning Than Trump Does,” citing forecast models that gave the Cubs and Trump a 15 percent and 21 percent chance of victory, respectively. But within the span of a single surreal week, the seemingly impossible came to pass. The Cubs made a historic comeback to take the franchise’s ﬁrst World Series in more than a century. Six days later, Trump won the electoral college vote to take the White House. In both of those unlikely triumphs one family figured prominently: the Rickettses. The clan of Nebraska natives who orchestrated the team’s turnaround with key top-level hires were also major players in Future 45, a right-wing super PAC that raised $25 million in the effort to defeat Hillary Clinton. Todd Ricketts, who Trump selected on November 30 to serve in his cabinet as deputy commerce secretary, ran the super PAC and his father, Joe Ricketts, donated $1 million to it. Todd turned out to be prescient when, according to the Sun-Times, he told Trump at a campaign fund-raiser in the suburbs last September that “It’s gonna be a great year because YOU are going to win the presidency AND THE CUBS ARE GOING TO WIN THE WORLD J

APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 11

Ricketts continued from 11 SERIES!” (Well, except for that debatable “great year” part.) In addition to helping alter the course of American politics and the underachieving history of the Cubs, the Rickettses are in the midst of reshaping the team’s historic home, Wrigley Field, and the surrounding neighborhood in their own image: both the stadium and the area around it are quickly becoming ever more bourgeois. “Overwhelmingly, the people I talk to say, ‘Do what you have to do.’ They really do,” Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts told Chicago magazine in 2013. “Every fan puts winning over Wrigley.” And he’s right. But that lust for winning—for a long-awaited championship and perhaps more—has led Cubs fans to accept a rather Faustian bargain. The trade-off felt worth it on the miracle of a night the Cubs won their first World Series in 108 years. Wrigley Field suddenly began to look even more like the kind of place that the romantic poets of professional sports have led us to believe it’s been all along: hallowed ground, “baseball’s version of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral,” as former Cubs general manager Ed Lynch once quipped. In the days following game seven, devotees journeyed to the Friendly Confines to bask in the team’s reflected glory, a sense of joy and collective brotherhood that could be felt like a stiff Lake Michigan breeze after stepping off the Red Line onto Addison Street. Fans scrawled thousands of messages in colored chalk onto a section of the stadium wall beneath the rightfield bleachers—dedications to deceased relatives, proclamations of long-abiding faith in the team. It was as if people were taking holy pilgrimages to baseball’s Wailing Wall. That period was fleeting. The Ricketts are perfectly happy to indulge Chicago’s strong devotion to its civic religion until the point that it begins to interfere with profits. A little more than a week after the World Series victory, crews power-washed the chalk-drawn memorials off Wrigley’s walls in order to continue the 1060 Project, the five-year, $750 million plan to remake both the stadium and surrounding neighborhood. Soon after the messages were scrubbed, chain-link fencing, concrete barriers, green tarps, and cranes appeared. Men in hard hats were hauling, drilling, hollowing out history. Another section on the Sheffield

12 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 6, 2017

President Donald Trump selected Todd Ricketts to serve in his cabinet as deputy commerce secretary. Ricketts ran the pro-Trump super PAC Future 45 and his father, Joe Ricketts, donated $1 million to it. o DREW ANGERER/ GETTY IMAGES

side had been leveled to allow construction vehicles inside. Through the gap, one could glimpse the sullied guts of the place. Where grass once lay, only concrete and rubble remained. A hulking bulldozer, a white “W” flag attached to its cab, sat in shallow center field next to a vacant area that was once bleacher seats. The lot where a McDonald’s once stood was a hole in the ground, the site of what will eventually be the Ricketts-owned Hotel Zachary. From the vantage point of the intersection of Clark and Addison, it was construction as far as the eye could see—a skeleton of a building here, a foundation for another there. It was a strange feeling: this baseball stadium turned shrine had become a dissected corpse. But with opening day at Wrigley Field just around the corner on April 10, the finishing touches are almost complete on phase three of the 1060 Project. Over the last five months of the offseason, Wrigley Field has added a 30,000-square-foot clubhouse and additional corporate-branded luxury suites that promise to be even more luxurious than those that preceded them. There’s a new 7,200-square-foot “VIP experience” dubbed the “American Airlines 1914 Club” under the seats between the dugouts behind home plate, a place where the wealthy can clink glasses in a private bars and use their own glistening bathrooms. Outside the stadium on Clark just north of Addison, an open-air plaza dubbed the Park at Wrigley Field is set

to be accessible in time for the home opener. A drab six-story office building built at Waveland and Clark will house Cubs administrative offices and conference rooms and a Starbucks “Reserve” store selling $10 cups of coffee. During the final phase of the project over the 2017-2018 offseason, construction will be completed on a two-story shoppingmall-like annex on the north side of Addison at Sheffield that’s designated for retail and restaurants; the aforementioned boutique hotel; and a seven-story mixed-use development adjacent to the ballpark on Addison containing rental apartments, more retail, a ﬁtness club, a ten-screen movie theater, and 400 parking spaces. R I P Wrigl eyvi lle. Wel come to Rickettsville. Once the dust finally settles next year, what remains will be ever more estranged from the sepia-toned version of the neighborhood that’s been grafted onto the collective imagination of Chicagoans and sports fans. For decades Wrigley Field has been canonized and fetishized and commercialized as the charming haunt where Ernie Banks wanted to play two, where Harry Carey serenaded, where PED-enhanced Slammin’ Sammy Sosa cranked home runs. What has made the area surrounding Wrigley unique in recent history was that it wasn’t a homogenous Cubbie Disneyland. Baseball fans mixed, sometimes uneasily, with Metro concertgoers, iO

comedians and their audiences, hippie academics at Bookworks, and rockers shopping at the Alley and hanging out at Punkin’ Donuts. (The Metro has somehow managed to persist in the neighborhood as iO moved to a shiny new complex in Lincoln Park, Bookworks shuttered, the Alley moved, and Punkin’ Donuts was razed to make room for a Target.) It appears small businesses not directly affiliated with the Cubs can no longer afford to exist in a neighborhood that, as Crane Kenney, the Cubs’ president of business operations, said on an ESPN podcast last year, is being developed to cater to the scions of the corporate class. “What’s missing—and particularly for our professional clients, our corporate guys—is, ‘Where do I take a client to dinner before the game? Where can I go afterward and have a cocktail but also a conversation and maybe not ﬁght a large crowd?’” The Cubs want to have a hand in every part of the Wrigley experience— before, during, and after the game. And with the hotel, even while fans sleep. In truth, Wrigley Field hasn’t resembled the humble, pastoral park built by luncheonette-chain owner Charles Weeghman in 1914 for decades. As cultural critic and former Chicagoan Thomas Frank recently noted during a talk in Hyde Park, “Chicago [has] changed from a city of Nelson Algren to a playground for the ‘creative class.’ For the winners of the new economy”—overwhelmingly young, single, childless, white people with jobs in tech, finance, advertising, and marketing. In Lakeview, the transformation from a more diverse middleand working-class neighborhood to a gentriﬁed home for young professionals was well under way by the time lights were installed in Wrigley Field in August 1988. (Just ask Sox fans.) So, no, the white-collar drift of Wrigleyville isn’t a new story. But what the Rickettses are achieving with the 1060 Project is a supercharged version of an old tale. In 2012, when the city initially balked at giving the Cubs permission to go full-steam ahead with the project, the Rickettses threatened to move the team elsewhere, possibly Rosemont. But instead the family ended up moving the suburbs into Lakeview. Today Wrigley Field is aging brick affixed to contemporary construction, a Frankenstein’s monster of fading flesh fused with the new. It’s a theme-park simulacrum of its historic self—refurbished, scrubbed clean. The

iconic red marquee remains outside the stadium. The famous ivy blankets the outfield walls once again. The big green scoreboard perched atop the back of the center-field bleachers continues to be operated by hand. All of it preying upon fans’ craving for nostalgia and helping to disguise the conspicuous transformation of a charming dive bar of a landmark ballpark into an uber-gentrified tourist district and pricey playground for the moneyed class, be they baseball fans or not. To accomplish this metamorphosis, the Rickettses have paid lip service to the franchise’s history, traditions, and long-suffering fans as they raised ticket prices 19.5 percent just a few weeks after the Cubs won the World Series. The team now possesses the third-highest average ticket price in the league at $51.33, according to Team Marketing Report, a publisher of sports marketing and sponsorship information. It’s a far cry from 40 years ago, when a bleacher bum could snag a ticket for 75 cents. These days, it’s impossible for Anthony Rizzo to hit a home run into the cheap seats because, well, they no longer exist. On March 29, alderman Ed Burke introduced a resolution warning that the Rickettses would “leave fans behind” by raising ticket prices and possibly—as has been rumored—by exiting WGN in 2019 to create their own regional sports network, potentially forcing fans to pony up for more expensive premium cable packages in order to view games from the comfort of their own homes. “[The Rickettses] should keep the plight of the working women and men of Chicago who are fans [in mind],” Burke said, “as they go ahead with this plan that’s gonna make it tougher for fans watch the Cubs.” Any influence that Burke’s resolution could have is too little, too late. THERE IS NO PLACE for economic losers in the gospel according to Joe Ricketts. The family patriarch, who earned his wealth as a former CEO and chairman of securities trading firm TD Ameritrade, isn’t a sports fan and wasn’t one when he purchased a 95 percent stake in the Cubs and Wrigley Field (as well as a 25 percent stake in Comcast SportsNet Chicago) from the ailing Tribune Company in 2009 for $845 million. “It’s no secret,” Joe wrote in a post on his personal blog during last year’s World Series, “that while my four children and wife are avid

baseball fans who bleed Cubbie blue, I’ve never been a sports buff.” What Papa Ricketts does believe in— apparently more than anything else—is the singular power of monied entrepreneurs like himself to make the world a better place through the commodiﬁcation of everything. Joe laid out some of this philosophy in a blog post written in September meant as an explanation of why he was spending $1 million of his own money to support Trump and Future 45. “The people walking us down this path have lost sight of the fact that it is the free enterprise system that has produced the opportunity, jobs, and innovation that have made the United States the greatest country in the world,” he wrote. “Higher taxes and government-orchestrated wealth distribution is a shortsighted and unsustainable strategy. New businesses started by entrepreneurs drive economic expansion, and economic expansion raises the standard of living for everyone in a lasting and meaningful way.” Cutting through the management speak, it’s clear that Ricketts is pro-

claiming his belief in a kind of market supremacy known as neoliberalism. It’s a faith not in god but in markets, with competition as the central life force and freedom and democracy finding their fullest expression in consumers’ purchasing choices. In the neoliberal model, a perfect society would starve the government and grant billionaires, corporations, developers, and other elites unlimited power to remake society in pursuit of private profits in exchange for economic growth. Problems occur, according to Ricketts and other subscribers to this philosophy, when the state interferes with pure unadulterated capitalism and heavily taxes profits to redistribute wealth to the poor, and when it uses regulation to curb the power of entrepreneurs. And if you can’t navigate the ever-choppy waters of ﬁerce competition? Too bad, so sad. To take money from the people who thrive and give it to the poor is a sin against the market. But this free-market orthodoxy when put forth by billionaires like Ricketts is hypocritical, as they’re often putting their hands out asking for taxpayer

Renovations continued last month in and around Wrigley Field as part of the third phase of the 1060 Project. o LEE HOGAN/FOR THE SUN-TIMES

money and accepting government handouts. For instance, while negotiating with the city over the Wrigley Field renovations back in 2012, the Cubs aimed to grab $200 million in public funds through a local amusement tax. That plan was yanked by Mayor Rahm Emanuel after the New York Times reported on a leaked proposal from Joe Ricketts’s anti-Obama super PAC Character Matters to spend $10 million on an ad campaign that would attempt to link Obama, the “metrosexual, black Abraham Lincoln,” to the controversial Chicago reverend Jeremiah Wright. Still, the Rickettses sought and landed $75 million in federal historic preservation tax credits to restore Wrigley Field after agreeing to satisfy the bare-minimum requirements from the National Park Service. Call it what it is: corporate welfare. The Rickettses believe in the redistribution of wealth—just not to the poor. Leave their money relatively untouched and the benefits will trickle down to everyone else. How important is this belief? So much so that while the family’s wealth keeps ballooning (it’s J

APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 13

Ricketts continued from 13 currently at $5.3 billion, according to Forbes, up from $3.4 billion in 2014), they continue to spend money in national elections to elect extreme political candidates—those that undertax the rich, starve the state, and underfinance public infrastructure and the safety net. It will be good for all of us, they believe, because the free market is inherently good. It’s telling that earlier in the presidential race Joe Ricketts donated $5 million to a pro-Scott Walker super PAC and nearly $6 million to Our Principles, a #NeverTrump super PAC. These donations prompted an angry tweet from Trump in February 2016: “I hear the Rickets [sic] family, who own the Chicago Cubs, are secretly spending $’s against me. They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!” Yet in the general election, faced with the choice of a misogynistic and xenophobic candidate looking to grow our military and security state and enact policies that would accelerate climate change and a candidate who might redistribute wealth a bit more, Joe went with the guy who promised deregulation and a lower minimum wage. That’s an incredible commitment to the tenets of neoliberalism. “If you let all of the airtime of Hillary Clinton go unanswered,” longtime Ricketts political strategist Brian Baker said last September, “it could be a disaster for the cause of limited government.” Most of Joe’s brood—Tom, Todd, Pete, and Laura—believe some version of this. Laura, the first openly gay owner of a major-league sports franchise, is the exception. She was a financial supporter of Hillary Clinton’s campaign (and even hosted Clinton at a fund-raiser in her Wilmette home last July), while Tom, the Cubs’ chairman, has made an effort to reflect an image of political neutrality. “Once you get invited [to the White House], you go,” said Tom of accepting Obama’s invitation for a ceremonial post-World Series visit to D.C. “I don’t care where you live or who you voted for.” The rest of the clan can be characterized as staunch ultraconservative activists. The agenda of Pete Ricketts, the governor of Nebraska, is a mix of pro-corporate neoliberal economic policies combined with a right-wing social agenda (anti-immigration, anti-Planned Parenthood, etc) that isn’t significantly different from that of the

14 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 6, 2017

Alderman Tom Tunney, Alderman Patrick O’Connor, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Tom Ricketts, Bud Selig, Laura Ricketts, Crane Kenney, Theo Epstein, and Kerry Wood break ground on the 1060 Project in 2014. o MICHAEL SCHMIDT/ SUN-TIMES

Trump administration, to which Pete has said he’s given input. Todd, who aired Future 45-funded Clinton attack ads between late innings of game six of the National League Championship Series, is a Tea Party type who has called the Koch brothers “great heroes.” On January 21, while thousands of Chicagoans swarmed the Loop to voice their discontent with Trump, Todd and Pete were feting him in Washington, D.C. The Rickettses cohosted a private party the night of the inauguration in honor of the newly sworn-in 45th president. The black-tie gala embraced Trump’s own casino-king aesthetic. According to a Politico report, they had an office near the White House decorated to resemble a Las Vegas lounge; televisions were framed in gold. The guest list was a who’s who of plutocrats and politicians who’ve helped take the Republican party and Beltway politics further right and toward neoliberalism. Attendees included Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate who has

funneled his immense wealth into super PACs such as Future 45. Trump’s foiled political opponent Bernie Sanders has repeatedly claimed that America has become a plutocracy masquerading as democracy. Perhaps the Rickettses’ lavish Vegas-meets-KStreet gala of the super elite celebrating the political ascendance of a billionaire tycoon turned reality TV star is proof that while the president promised to “drain the swamp” of cronies and insiders, the proverbial swamp has simply become a moat designed to protect the wealthy. Sadly, this sort of proﬁteering has become as American as baseball and apple pie. BEHIND THE RIGHT-FIELD bleachers of Wrigley Field, the Jumbotron that was added in 2015 is crowned by a 650-square-foot Budweiser logo. It’s one of several corporate monoliths that now dominate the visual landscape of the park. Last May, I half expected that sign

to switch to “America” after the nation’s biggest brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev, announced that Budweiser would be rebranded as such on 12-ounce bottles and cans through Election Day. (A few other ostensibly patriotic cosmetic changes to the label included replacing “King of Beers” with “E Pluribus Unum.”) It sounded like a cynical joke, as if an advertising executive had browsed a list of evocative imagery used to appeal to red-state types and realized Budweiser commercials had already exhausted sturdy workhorses, majestic scenes of mountainous wilderness, and sweaty laborers in dirty plaid shirts proudly enjoying their watered-down macrobrews. Who would buy that kind of shameless pandering, you ask? Perhaps the 62 million voters who apparently swallowed the “America First” sloganeering of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. After all, what is a “Make America Great Again” hat but an “America”-branded beer in the form of headwear? Trump, asked by Fox News if he inspired the Bud ad, took credit: “I think so. They’re so impressed with what our country will become that they decided to do this before the fact.” No matter if it’s a lager with a questionable taste or a nation-state with a questionable history, there’s a power to iconic brands and symbols from which none of us are completely immune. That’s why a gilded New York City billionaire and a multinational corporation based in Belgium aren’t the only ones exploiting a misty-eyed nostalgia for a past that either once existed or never did—for profit or power or both. Just look to the people who own the facility where the big Budweiser logo hangs. With opening day at Wrigley Field imminent, fans are eager to line the Ricketts family’s pockets with even more money for the privilege of watching the defending champs. After all, the owners made good on their promise to Make the Cubs Great Again. But now it is only winners—conquerors, really—that are allowed in the new Wrigley. The lovable losers of old—the ones on the ﬁeld who couldn’t excel and the bums who couldn’t afford a seat beyond the bleachers—have been cast out forever. Flown high above the ballpark by the Ricketts family, the “W” flag has never looked more like a symbol of conquest. v

ß @RyanSmithWriter

Short-story writer Osama Alomar: ‘I’m still alive’ The Syrian emigre looks for peace of mind in America. By AIMEE LEVITT

hen the writer Osama A l o m a r e m i g ra te d from Syria to Chicago in 2008, he and many other Syrians could already foresee some of the troubles that were coming. The country was in the middle of a severe drought, and tensions were high between the Alawite government and the Sunni opposition. But no one anticipated the brutality of the civil war that broke out in March 2011, and Alomar expected he’d come back to visit every two years or so. He felt so secure he left behind most of his possessions in his apartment in Damascus, including ten manuscripts ready for publication and a novel in progress. But the political situation was worse than he’d imagined, and the war was more violent. His apartment was destroyed by a bomb. He lost everything. “I was very stupid,” he says. He shrugs. “But I’m still alive.” Alomar tells his life story with the same sort of irony and mordant humor that fills his fiction. His stories feature characters who unwittingly find themselves the butt of the joke that is life. Alomar is familiar with those kinds of situations. In Syria he grew up under a regime so repressive that gatherings of five people or more had to be registered with the police, but he found freedom in writing and eventually made it his career. After he came to America,

he was able to enjoy complete liberty, at least in theory—but as an immigrant with a limited understanding of English who arrived in the middle of a recession, the only paying work he could find was as a taxi driver. Now, after seven years of driving and working on his stories between fares, Alomar, who’s 48, has begun to find recognition for his writing in America. The Teeth of the Comb, his first fulllength story collection to be published in English, comes out later this month. And thanks to City of Asylum, a literary community in Pittsburgh that supports refugee writers, he has a fellowship for the next 14 months that requires him to do nothing besides live and write. But this is all happening at a time when the United States is starting to become less welcoming to its immigrants, particularly immigrants from Syria. Although Alomar became a U.S. citizen in February 2016, these developments have made him start to worry about his future here. One of his skills as a writer is devising aphorisms, and he has many about freedom. The one that applies particularly well to his current circumstances is “Freedom is dignity.” Just before he left for Pittsburgh at the end of February, Alomar read some of his stories at an event sponsored by Chicago City of Refuge, a new project that was established to help writers who have, like him, been exiled from their home countries. A collaboration between the Guild Literary Complex, PEN International, and the International Cities of

FOCUS ON SYRIA

Alomar will read from The Teeth of the Comb and talk about the Syrian political situation with playwright, director, and former Syrian minister Riad Ismat, and Northwestern political science professor Wendy Pearlman. Sun 4/9, 1 PM, Gannon Center Piper Hall, 970 W. Sheridan, 877-3945061, guildcomplex.org, F

Refuge Network, Chicago City of Refuge hopes to someday provide a similar community for refugee writers here that City of Asylum has in Pittsburgh. (Similar programs also exist in Las Vegas and Ithaca, New York.) Though it doesn’t yet have the resources of City of Asylum—it has no money at all—its founders hope they can offer some help to writers like Alomar who found that, in coming to America, they sacriﬁced one form of freedom for another. It can give them a bit of dignity.

lomar began writing when he was 13. His ﬁrst piece was a description of spring. He showed it to his father, a professor of philosophy. “He was a really intellectual person,” Alomar remembers, laughing. “And he asked me, ‘Who wrote this?’ I said, ‘Me.’ He said, ‘Don’t lie to me, son.’” The praise from his father and his teachers at school encouraged Alomar. “I felt that I have something inside me,” he says. “I need to express it in a material way. So I started to write more and more texts. When I turned 15 or 16, I felt that my destiny or my future was going be as a writer. Nothing else but a writer.” He was already aware that the Syrian government, led by President Hafez al-Assad, father of Bashar, the current president, placed severe limits on personal self-expression. “You could say nothing at all,” Alomar says. “You cannot even think.” But even as a J

APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 15

o DANIELLE A. SCRUGGS

“We need to laugh. When you laugh, you increase your spiritual immunity. If you become weak, you will lose everything. You will lose yourself.”

16 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 6, 2017

Osama Alomar continued from 15 teenager, Alomar had begun to notice that most people didn’t seem bothered by this lack of freedom, or at least not enough to stand up for their basic rights. “I’m not talking about human rights, these big issues,” he explains. “I’m talking about the simple issues, of our ordinary lives, of our daily life. Many people say ‘yes, yes, yes,’ but nobody dared to say no.” Alomar knew he’d move to America eventually. He has a knack for making predictions about his life that have come true, and he knew that temperamentally, with his preoccupation with freedom, he wouldn’t be able to survive in Syria. He also believed he’d have a better chance of establishing his name as a writer if he did it in the United States. In the meantime, he studied Arabic literature at the University of Damascus and began publishing short stories in Syrian newspapers. He was particularly drawn to al-qissa al-qasira jiddan, which translates as “very short story.” It’s an old form of Arabic literature that goes back to the Middle Ages, but it found new life in the 1990s as writers discovered that it was a useful way to cope with the repression of the Assad regime. These stories don’t take up much space—some of Alomar’s are just a sentence long—and they read like fables, relying on characters that are more like archetypes and are often personiﬁed animals or objects. It’s obvious that the stories have some sort of allegorical meaning, but the meaning itself isn’t always obvious. This made it an ideal form for commenting on a dictatorial state. (Americans often tell Alomar that his stories remind them of Kafka, whom he greatly admires.) For example, Alomar’s story “The Pride of Garbage,” which reads in its entirety as follows:

When the owner of the house picked up the bag of garbage and headed out to the street to throw it in the dumpster, the bag was overwhelmed with the fear that she would be put side by side with her companions. But when the man placed her on top of all the others, she became intoxicated with her greatness and looked down on them with disdain. “It takes more than one interpretation,” Alomar explains. “You can take this story, you can make a projection on dictatorship. You can make a projection on people, ordinary people, the people who think—or any person who thinks—he is the best, he has an overblown ego. And really he’s just a garbage.” The Syrian authorities, however, didn’t bother with the subtleties of literary criticism

or interpretation. They simply regarded “The Pride of Garbage” as a very short story about a bag of garbage. And so Alomar could publish without repercussions. By the time he reached his 30s, Alomar had established himself as a serious writer in Syria. He published three books of stories (O Man in 1999, Tongue Tie in 2003, and All Rights Not Reserved in 2008) and one of poetry (Man Said the Modern Word in 2000). He was able to quit his day job as a trader at a garment company and write full-time. He became part of a circle of artists and thinkers who gathered monthly in the Damascus apartment of Sahar Abu Harb, a writer and a feminist. This was one of many similar get-togethers, known as muntadayat in Arabic, that emerged during the Damascus Spring, a brief period of political liberation and reform after Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father as president in 2000. Thatera ended after a little more than a year when Assad began cracking down hard on the intellectuals who opposed him, but Abu Harb’s group continued to meet in secret. “It was a really vibrant group of people using their art to rethink some aspects of their society,” says Alomar’s friend and translator C.J. Collins, who attended several of the gatherings during his year as a Fulbright scholar in 2007. “In retrospect,” he continues, “I was naive at the time, I didn’t see it, but they were foreseeing the things that happened afterward, the advent of sectarianism and civil war. They were using their work to call that stuff into question.” Alomar was always an active participant in the discussions, Collins recalls, often using his stories as a way to ground the conversation or bring it to another level. He has a way of condensing big ideas into pithy phrases. He describes the origins of the Syrian civil war in his story “Love Letter” this way: “But little by little the revolution against tyranny and oppression became something else . . . the tyrant who had been sleeping in the depths of the ordinary citizens began to wake up, baring his fangs.”

t was no secret that Alomar wanted to come to America. Immigration was a dream of many Syrians, but out of reach to all but the wealthiest or luckiest. Alomar was lucky: his older brother and mother had immigrated to the U.S. in the 80s and 90s, respectively, and he was able to get a green card and join them in Chicago in 2008. Alomar spent his ﬁrst few months in America at his cousin’s house. When his cousin told him he needed to get a job, Alomar informed him he had come to the U.S. to be a writer. “He looked at me, just like that,” Alomar recalls,

“and said, ‘You have to be realistic.’ So after three, four days, I was driving a cab. I never imagined that one day I would be a cabdriver even in my worst nightmares. I don’t like driving. I prefer a bicycle. Or walking.” Alomar laughs as he tells this story. He laughs easily, especially at himself; in his stories, humiliation is usually the price his object-characters pay for taking themselves too seriously. In repose, his face is melancholy, even sad, but when he laughs, his head tips back and he looks almost beatiﬁc, like a Buddha. “We need to laugh,” he says. “When you laugh, you increase your spiritual immunity. If you become weak, you will lose everything. You will lose yourself.” (Or, as he writes in his story “Swamp,” “I turned into a swamp of inactivity, and because of this, no one was able to see the gems in my depths.”) Driving did not prevent him from writing. He told himself that life has no respect for the weak (another aphorism) and that he had to be patient. His mind was always working on something. “The idea starts just like a stone, a small stone,” he explains. “So then I try to polish it, to work on it. Sometimes it takes a few days, sometimes weeks, sometimes even several months.” He would jot ideas and phrases down at traffic lights, in a notebook or on a Starbucks cup. As a teenager, he practiced his English by playing and singing Beatles songs on the guitar. In America, he kept a stack of dictionaries in the passenger seat of his cab, both

Arabic-English and Webster’s. His English improved, but not to the point where he could write in it or translate his old stories. He called his friend Collins for help. Collins, who was then living in Massachusetts and working as a librarian, made several trips to Chicago for four or ﬁve days at a time. Alomar couldn’t afford to miss that many fares, so most of their work sessions took place in the front seat of his cab, between passengers. “We would be sitting at the Rosemont train station, kind of dreading the next customer who would break our train of thought,” Collins recalls. “It was funny, the guesses the customers would make about who I was.” Translation was a collaborative process. They’d go through the stories sentence by sentence, negotiating the proper words and phrasing. Alomar uses a deceptively clear standard Arabic in order to emphasize the ironic twists in his stories. But like a lot of written Arabic it comes off as formal and even old-fashioned in comparison with the spoken language. He and Collins debated how much of that formality to preserve in the English translation; whether to attempt a re-creation of the long, elaborate Arabic sentences or some of the puns; and whether to hold on to the gendered pronouns. (There is no neutral “it” in Arabic.) They opted to use a matter-of-fact but slightly formal English to create a sense of defamiliarization, and to refer to objects as “he” or “she” to emphasize their human qualities. For instance, “Trying to Pass,” which reads:

One of the minutes tried to pass her companion in front of her, but the hand of time slapped her so hard she was thrown back a couple of minutes. She was just starting to recover when she was slapped back into her place in time.

New Directions published Fullblood Arabian, Alomar’s ﬁrst English-language collection, as a pamphlet in 2014. All the stories had been published in Alomar’s previous books in Arabic. Just 63 pages long, it contained 51 stories, a translator’s note by Collins, and a preface by the short-story writer and translator Lydia Davis, who placed Alomar’s work in the context of the international tradition of the very short story. (She compared him favorably to a long list of writers who would be more familiar to American readers, including Kafka, Oscar Wilde, and Karl Ove Knausgaard.) Fullblood Arabian brought Alomar a fair amount of attention. The fact that he was working as a cabdriver was good for publicity, as was the growing awareness in the U.S. J

APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 17

Osama Alomar continued from 17

of the atrocities of the Syrian civil war. The New York Times did a proﬁle. The stories were reprinted in literary magazines, including Ploughshares, Triquarterly, and the online editions of Vice and the New Yorker; the Internet, it seems, is as good a medium for obliquely political short short stories as Syrian newspapers were 20 years ago.

ne of Alomar’s new readers was He n r y R e e s e, cofou nde r a nd president of City of Asylum. “It certainly isn’t like anything I read before,” Reese says now of Fullblood Arabian. “There’s a fablelike character to it, but it’s not a fable. There’s a wittiness to it that’s like a joke, but it’s not a joke. It’s well done, but it strikes to the heart of many issues we deal with, in terms of the role of the writer in society and the relationship of the governed to the governing, things we ﬁnd vital and important.” Reese invited Alomar and Collins to Pittsburgh for readings; they also used the time to work on the translations that would appear in The Teeth of the Comb. As Reese got to know Alomar better, he began to get a sense of what his life was really like. “It hadn’t sunk in, how constrained his circumstances were,” Reese says. “As a creative artist, he’d been hamstrung. Our program is predicated on freeing that creativity.” Alomar was thrilled when City of Asylum offered him the residency. To him, it wasn’t just an honor, but peace of mind. He gave up his taxi, cleared out his apartment in Schiller Park, and left for Pittsburgh at the end of February. City of Asylum owns most of the buildings on Sampsonia Way, a small street in the Middle Allegheny neighborhood. Previous visiting writers have left their mark by creating “house publications”—murals and stories painted on the exterior walls. Alomar has a two-bedroom apartment there, a living stipend and health care, and no other responsibilities for the next 14 months except to write. He’s working on two books, one he describes as “a book of wisdoms” and the other a novel that combines elements of autobiography and the Syrian civil war. Although he hasn’t experienced any Islamophobia personally since he’s been in the U.S., he’s seen the effects of the war. “Actually, most of my writings are about the Syrian war,” he says, “because this war affects not only the Syrians but I think it affects the whole world. [Other] governments become more strict about refugees. Partly I understand them, because they want to protect their countries, but what about the children and what about women and what about the civil-

18 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 6, 2017

The Civil War burned up all stability and spread its ashes everywhere. The people ﬂed the city which had been almost entirely destroyed. Because of this the city’s buildings felt lonely and drew very close to each other until they were almost touching. Warmth spread between them. They looked like homeless people in torn clothes gathered around a ﬁre on a cold night. Years later . . . after the end of the war, the people of the city came back and began to rebuild the buildings, but when they did so, they kept their new closeness. And because of this human relationships became far warmer and closer than they had ever been before.

ians? I think most of them, they generalize: ‘You are from Middle East? You are a terrorist. You are Muslim? You are a terrorist.’ It doesn’t make sense at all.” (Alomar is Muslim, but not observant. “Actually, my religion is humanity,” he says. “I want to celebrate the humans, to encourage their feelings, their ideas without any kind of fear. To express their talents.”) Here in Chicago there’s been a growing awareness of the high cost of the war, particularly after the new immigration rulings placed restrictions on Syrian refugees entering the country. Nick Patricca, a playwright and professor emeritus at Loyola University, learned about City of Asylum and other similar programs during a PEN International congress in Quebec City in the fall of 2015. City of Asylum is part of the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN), an organization of more than 60 cities in Europe and North America that offer refuge to writers and artists who face persecution in their home countries. Given the lack of funds in both Illinois and Chicago, Patricca was under no illusion that he and his collaborators at the Guild Literary Complex would be able to raise enough money to create a program here that would operate on the same scale as City of Asylum. But there were still things they could offer: office space, free Internet, and library privileges—all courtesy of Loyola—and opportunities for the writers to read from their work and be heard. By the time Chicago City of Refuge was ready to launch, Alomar had already accepted the residency in Pittsburgh. But he participated in the program’s inaugural event at Loyola, where he and the Nigerian-born writer and LGBT activist Unoma Azuah read from their work and discussed the persecution they’d endured in their home countries. This weekend at Loyola he’ll read from The Teeth of the Comb and talk about the Syrian political situation with Riad Ismat, a playwright, director, and former Syrian minister of culture who now lives in Chicago, and Wendy Pearlman, a political science professor at Northwestern. Although he misses Chicago, Alomar is very happy to be in Pittsburgh. The mountains, he says, remind him of the mountains of life. But mostly he’s enjoying the peace of mind and the freedom to write. And he believes freedom will come to Syria someday. “In the long term, they cannot repress freedom of expression,” he says. “It’s something inside people’s nature. It’s a kind of instinct. “I’m still optimistic,” he continues, “because I’m still alive. I can read. I can write. I can work. I’m still alive.” v

Translated by C.J. Collins and Osama Alomar

ß @aimeelevitt

Selections from The Teeth of the Comb & Other Stories By OSAMA ALOMAR

Compression Akram cursed the day when he had compressed his age from seventy down to twenty, because the impotence of childhood became mixed up with the impotence of old age. Painful memories intermingled with happy ones, success united with failure, and marriage united with divorce. Laughter mixed with tears, and friends and enemies were fused in the same melting pot. The borders between positives and negatives disappeared. The magical inﬂuence of time that heals pains and calamities vanished into nothingness. And so, deciding to enjoy his true age, Akram undid the compression of time.

The Fingers of Dynamite A group of world leaders at an important international conference appeared before him on the television screen. They were warmly shaking hands and smiling wide smiles in front of the camera lenses. But his mouth gaped open in surprise as he noticed that their interlaced fingers were fingers of dynamite. *In Arabic, the term for a stick of dynamite is a “finger.”

Homeless Buildings

ARTS & CULTURE

READER RECOMMENDED

b ALL AGES

Edwin Lee Gibson and Caren Blackmore o LIZ LAUREN

THEATER

Graveyard shift By MAX MALLER

narled hands swipe chemicals across the f loor. Clots of blood and bone, macramed between the blades and coils of antique s l a u g h t e r h o u s e m a c h i n e r y, need to be cleaned, the works sterilized before the unseen boss’s new sausage line can go into production in the morning. Somebody’s gotta do it, and tonight, for 90 minutes, we’ll see who does it and how it’s done. The unheroic, degrading condition of the underpaid menial temp worker is the subject of British playwright and director Alexander Zelkin’s Beyond Caring, which is being presented at Lookingglass in a form revised from its original 2014 run at the National Theatre in London. This is muckraking political art, bathed in the same uncompromising light as Upton Sinclair’s Bubbly Creek and Orwell’s pigsties. Alive to the complexity of human suffering, it urges a new awareness of the most dire and invisible struggles in society today. The big change to this incarnation of Zelkin’s show is in its faces. The original production was created with European working conditions in mind, partly inspired,

Zeldin has said, by the investigative work of French journalist Florence Aubenas. The typical group of French or British low-wage workers is a mix of continental and immigrant nationalities, but the American crew at Lookingglass is two black women and a black man, a Hispanic woman, and a white overseer. It will be lost on very few audience members what sort of regime of control this power dynamic seeks to represent: the specter of slavery, a far more insistent ghost in American culture than in England, broods ferociously over the entire room. Once you know that these people are in the belly of a meat processing plant, it never escapes notice that their work space (to call it that— and to call this “work” and not something else, like, for example, “bondage”) puts them just feet away from the killing ﬂoor. Boss Ian (Keith D. Gallagher) wields his clipboard and Monster Energy Zero Ultra tallboy with undeserved aplomb over his sweaty charges’ bent necks. Yet Ian is obviously a shrimp in the chain of command, implicated in savage systemic forces much larger than any one man. Ian’s cruelty as a manager isn’t lost on Gallagher, but he wisely steers Ian away

from maniacal slave-master territory and toward something more like a crass boss on a midnight power trip. And as Phil (Edwin Lee Gibson), the most experienced and least talkative hand on the ﬂoor, puts it, “This ain’t what I thought I’d be doing,” which goes for everybody from Ian on down. There is no exit, no days off. These are temp workers—paychecks may come Friday, Tuesday, or not at all. As a pair of hands and two working feet you are expendable, replaceable, and with one slip of the bleach nozzle, it could all be over for you. Signs of tenderness are signs of weakness, something Phil discovers in a scene that I won’t spoil—though it may remind readers of the distinction drawn in Toni Morrison’s Beloved between lovemaking and “rutting among the headstones.” For all its political weight, the play is remarkably free of overt moralizing. It shows you the way things are, and they aren’t, let’s face it, good. Tracy (J. Nicole Brooks) is no Dickensian waif. Slumped on a pile of boxes, she’s a truculent, fed-up mom who blares Lil Yachty at full blast on her cell-phone speakers during breaks. Ebony-Grace (Caren Blackmore) and Sonia (Wendy Mateo, who’s excellent in the role) share snacks without speaking after Ebony-Grace offers gas-station cookies to Sonia, who pockets six as though she hasn’t seen food in days. Make no mistake—these are human beings with hearts and minds. Under freer conditions, with fresh air and a little daylight, there’d be plenty to discuss. But there’s nothing much to say by hour six of a graveyard shift, so they push the mops across the gray expanse of ﬂoor mostly in silence, rattled only by Ian’s hollering for efficiency. Though it doesn’t ask to be enjoyed, Beyond Caring is a deeply moving indictment of oppression. With utter clarity, it harkens a day of reckoning for the lives it honors. v R BEYOND CARING Through 5/7: Wed 7:30 PM, Thu 2 and 7:30 PM, Fri 7:30 PM, Sat-Sun 2 and 7:30 PM, Lookingglass Theatre, Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan, 312-337-0665, lookingglasstheatre.org, $40-$60.

Brandon Collwes and Claire Westby o THADDEUS ROMBAUER

DANCE

An experiment in pure movement By MATT DE LA PEÑA

AT FIRST GLANCE, the conspicuous white ceiling hovering over the stage in Liz Gerring’s Horizon is reminiscent of a giant fluorescent light bulb, ﬂattened out over several feet and suspended in the air like a cloud. Not many dances have ceilings, which is why you get the sense that what you’re looking at is the focal point of a muted, abstract design. “A lot my work, it’s the same way you would view something in an art museum,” Gerring says. “Taking in its visual properties and emotion is how you perceive what you’re looking at, rather than a narrative.” With its minimalist set, Horizon often suggests the notion of ﬁlling in the blanks—a canvas that’s colored by movement. The hourlong piece is plotless and features seven dancers who exhibit the kind of athleticism intended to reach all corners of their boundaries, in this case the stage. They engage one another in groups, disengaging for solos, the brightness of their costumes and their explosive leaps providing sweeping textures of color. It’s hard to give the piece a definable theme outside of calling it an experiment in pure movement. One might assume that on some level the piece is about relationships. But that would be assuming too much. “To me, the best comment on life is an action. It’s not something you can say or talk or speak or write, it’s like, ‘They’re just doing,’ Gerring says of Horizon and her cast. “It’s supposed to be uplifting—the triumph they have over their body.”—MATT DE LA PEÑA HORIZON Dance Center of Columbia College, 1306 S. Michigan, 312-369-6600, colum.edu/ dance_center, $30.

APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 19

Carole Karemera and Ery Nzaramba

ARTS & CULTURE THEATER

Carnage distilled By TONY ADLER

he war is over. The Pandavas have wiped out their royal cousins, the Kauravas, and Yudisthira is the rightful king of all he surveys. Except that what he surveys is horrible to contemplate: a vulture’s paradise, where mad widows root through heaps of severed body parts, trying to reassemble their husbands. Too traumatized to claim his crown, Yudisthira declares the victory a defeat. How can he rule? What is there left to rule? He’d rather live in the woods, he tells his mother, “without tears, without joy . . . wandering aimlessly, seeking neither death nor life.” That’s how matters stand at the start of Battleﬁeld, running through Saturday at the Museum of Contemporary Art. “It’s a narrative,” says its French cocreator, Marie-Hélène Estienne, “of an earth covered by dead corpses.”

o CAROLINE MOREAU

Battlefield is a 70-minute distillation of The Mahabharata, the monumental, ninehour work by legendary stage auteur Peter Brook and writer Jean-Claude Carrière. A retelling of the eponymous Sanskrit epic, The Mahabharata premiered at the 1985 Avignon Festival, attracting what the New York Times characterized as “ecstatic” reviews, and was adapted for ﬁlm four years later. Estienne was something of a junior partner in those efforts, though she assisted with the years-long development of the stage production and received a writing credit for the movie. She and the now 92-year-old Brook share equal billing on Battleﬁeld; indeed, a recent story in the Guardian calls her the “powerhouse” behind Brook—a notion she rejects as a reporter’s fancy. Asked to describe her relationship with Brook, she responds, “I would not describe it. I live it.” Reached by phone in Washington, D.C., where Battlefield was playing the Kennedy Center, Estienne seemed anything but jaded by her decades of exposure to the material. Just the opposite, she assured me: “If you enter the world of the Mahabharata, you will

not be able to leave it, because it asks you questions which are important in life.” Certainly, Yudisthira’s tale has its topical resonances. “If we say, for example, that victory is defeat,” Estienne says, “we can go to the Iraqi War or to whatever happens in the Middle East, which is linked to a victory which is a defeat. . . . People die and we do nothing and it is not even moral.” In that context, she considers Battleﬁeld a reminder of all we ignore—all we have to ignore to have a semblance of a normal life. Yet Yudisthira finds himself dealing with much more basic concerns as he tries to ﬁnd the will and the right to rule. In Estienne’s words, “How can we live in a world that is so

desperate? How can you go on?” When The Mahabharata first appeared, some critics attacked its “orientalism,” arguing that it colonized Indian culture just as the Raj colonized India itself. Having lived with that objection for almost as long as she’s lived with The Mahabharata itself, Estienne’s response is almost tender. The story is “never yours,” she says. “It’s never yours. You cannot possess anything, really. It belongs to humanity.” v BATTLEFIELD 4/5-4/8: Wed-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 7:30 PM, Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago, 312-280-2660, mca.org, $40.

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20 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 6, 2017

o AP PHOTO

ARTS & CULTURE

LIT

Our Miss Brooks turns 100 By AIMEE LEVITT

wendolyn Brooks, the great poet of Bronzeville, would have turned 100 years old on June 7. Although she won many honors and accolades before her death in 2000—she was the ﬁrst African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize, in 1950 for Annie Allen, her second collection of poems; she served as a poetry consultant to the Library of Congress and, for 32 years, as Illinois’s poet laureate; and her work has been widely anthologized—her former student, poet Quraysh Ali Lansana, believes she deserves nothing more than a full year of celebration, throughout Chicago and the entire country. He calls it Our Miss Brooks 100. “I believe Miss Brooks was among the most signiﬁcant poets of the 20th century,” he says. “I believe she has not received the kind of recognition in the literary canon that she merits. She’s woefully understudied, in my opinion. A big important part of all of this for me is to reintroduce her. Though some of us never forgot her.” For all her greatness, Brooks remained approachable. She lived in Bronzeville her entire adult life and taught and remained active in the community into her old age. As poet laureate, she ran an annual youth poetry

contest that she funded entirely out of her own pocket; Lansana helped her with the administration, but she insisted on doing all the judging herself. With support from the Chicago Community Trust, Lansana plans to reignite the contest this year. Our Miss Brooks 100 kicked off February 2 at the Art Institute’s Rubloff Auditorium, with readings by five other black Pulitzer Prize-winning poets, including Rita Dove, who became the second in 1987, 37 years after Brooks. This weekend, the University of Chicago and the DuSable Museum of African-American History will cosponsor Centennial Brooks, three days of readings, discussions, and musical performances by Black Earth Ensemble and Jamila Woods. Brooks has been underrated, says John Wilkinson, a poet and U. of C. professor who was one of the organizers of Centennial Brooks, not just because she was a black woman, but also because of her decision in the late 1960s to not have her work published by big New York publishers but by small, independent, black-run presses in Chicago. “She’s read and explored in a different way from poets who have major New York publishers behind them,” Wilkinson says. “We wanted to show that Gwendolyn Brooks’s influence is extremely widespread and extends outside of poetry.” Brooks, Lansana says, always considered herself an observer and was determined to portray her world honestly. When the editor of her first collection, A Street in Bronzeville, balked at including the poem “The Mother,” which begins, “Abortions will not let you forget / You remember the children that you got that you did not get,” Brooks threatened to pull the entire project. “This was 1944,” Lansana says. “That’s who she was.” Bronzeville remained equally devoted to Brooks. When she won the Pulitzer, she and her husband couldn’t afford to keep the electricity on in their apartment. By the next day, when the press arrived, the lights were on: someone had found a way to flip the switch on the light pole. “I love that story,” says Lansana. “The community was proud of her and that they were the substance of her work. It’s a real testament to who she was and how she moved through the world.” v R CENTENNIAL BROOKS Thu 4/6-Sun 4/8, various times and locations, 773-702-2787, gwendolynbrooks100.org. F

Since everything is one and One is everything, try to love and serve all, so that you will be able to love the One (the Truth). The Chicago Sufi Center is a spiritual center dedicated to the selfless service and love of all human beings. Our doors are always open to any sincere seeker who yearns for spiritual guidance and selfless service. A representative of Master Alireza Nurbakhsh of the Nimatullahi Sufi Order will visit Chicago April 13-20, 2017 please call to arrange a visit.

773-761-1616

www.nimatullahi.org

ß @aimeelevitt APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 21

ARTS & CULTURE Shirley Blazen o MEGAN GALLAGHER

COMEDY

Centennial Brooks

The Ladylike Project got mad, then gave back By BRIANNA WELLEN

April 6–8, 2017 / Free A tribute gathering of scholars, writers, musicians, and fans of Gwendolyn Brooks Featuring Nora Brooks Blakely, Robin Coste Lewis, Ishion Hutchinson, Haki Madhubuti, Ed Roberson, Sonia Sanchez, and Evie Shockley, with a performance of music and poetry by Jamila Woods, and the premiere of a commission by Nicole Mitchell and the Black Earth Ensemble. arts.uchicago.edu/brooks100 Thursday, April 6 / 7–9 pm DuSable Museum of African American History Friday, April 7 / 9 am–7 pm Saturday, April 8 / 9 am–9:30 pm Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts

Centennial Brooks is presented by the University of Chicago in partnership with the DuSable Museum of African American History and the Poetry Foundation, and in collaboration with Our Miss Brooks 100 and Brooks Permissions. Photo © Howard D. Simmons

please recycle this paper 22 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 6, 2017

fter this past election, activist Anne Haag was mad and didn’t care who knew it. “I’m angry that there are people who think that banning Muslims and banning refugees is going to solve anything and not just make it worse, and angry that one in six women is going to be sexually assaulted in her lifetime [according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network] and angry that we still have to explain why ‘all lives matter’ is a problematic thing to say,” Haag says. “I think there’s always been a push for particularly women to express their anger in a way that is palatable for people, and I’m tired of that.” She turned her anger into the Ladylike Project, a collective she created to connect artists who want to raise money for progressive causes— and she threw a big middle ﬁnger smack-dab in the center of an otherwise dainty logo to show that she’s not pulling any punches. Her mission isn’t to incite rage—quite the opposite. Haag has helped organize comedy programs, yoga classes, and other lighthearted events during the past two months to beneﬁt local organizations. Next the Ladylike Project is partnering with Pinwheel Records and burlesque performer Shirley Blazen to start a monthly stand-up showcase, Funny Grabs Back. The April performance will raise funds for GirlForward, a nonprofit that supports young refugee women. “If you can organize a fund-raiser where you end up making somewhere in the ballpark of $500, that isn’t a ton of money for an organization like Planned Parenthood,” Haag says.

“What I’m trying to do is zoom in a little bit and find groups where that can actually make a really big difference.” She’s trying to get as specific as she can. The Ladylike Project’s first event, Yoga Gives Back, was a fund-raiser for one woman, Twyana Bell, who teaches free yoga classes in Woodlawn to promote mental health. In the future Haag wants to look for single refugee families to support through concerts, food and drink events, and other creative gatherings. But as of right now, Haag’s the only one running the show. She hopes more people get involved—that way she can increase the number of projects and hopefully include more diverse voices and encourage intersectionality. The more artists who come together to put on uplifting fund-raisers, the longer postelection anger endures and can be turned into meaningful action. “I think people care more than we think they do, they just tend to not know how to proceed in caring and where to direct that energy,” Haag says. “I think if you can present people with opportunities that are fun, where they can feel like they’re making a difference, I think that could be powerful and that could be sustained.” v R FUNNY GRABS BACK WITH EMERALD CATRON, ALICIA MOLINA, ADRIENNE BRANDYBURG, MARLA DEPEW, AND KAITLYN GRISSOM Fri 4/7, 8 PM, Pinwheel Records, 1722 W. 18th, facebook.com/theladylikeproject, $5 suggested donation.

ß @BriannaWellen

Salvador Jiménez-Flores, La Resistencia de los Nopales Híbridos (The Resistance of the Hybrid Cacti), 2017 o COURTESY NATIONAL MUSEUM OF MEXICAN ART

VISUAL ART

Trump can’t stop the National Museum of Mexican Art By KERRY CARDOZA

ocal artist Alberto Aguilar often uses cognates—or as he describes them, “words that can be read in English and in Spanish simultaneously”—in his work. He knew he wanted to incorporate them when the National Museum of Mexican Art asked him to participate in its 30th anniversary exhibition, “Memoria Presente: An Artistic Journey.” One of his contributions is the first work visitors encounter, a window sign that reads PORTAL in bright red letters above the entrance. It’s a word that takes you places: into another dimension, another world, another time. With

the White House planning to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and increasing raids in immigrant communities—one of which resulted in a federal agent shooting a man in Belmont Cragin last week—entering a space where those communities are celebrated can indeed feel like being transported to a different reality. The National Museum of Mexican Art was founded by Carlos Tortolero and a group of educators in 1987. Originally called the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, the space expanded in 2001 and in 2006 adopted its current name. It’s the only Latino museum accredited by

the American Alliance of Museums. Cesáreo Moreno, the director of visual arts and chief curator, says the mission of the institution has remained the same throughout its history: To display the beauty and depth of Mexican culture, to develop a Mexican art collection, and to cultivate Mexican artists. “I think our mission is still strong, it still holds true,” he says. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t seen changes in the Latino art-world community since he started at the museum in 1995. He notes a big increase in female artists, and a greater diversity of content and material in artwork. In the 80s and 90s, he says, artists of Mexican descent had their ethnic identity in the forefront of their work. “Today’s artists, I think, have a much more complex identity,” Moreno says. For this exhibit, Moreno, who curated the show along with Dolores Mercado and Ricardo X. Serment, sought to include a wide range of artists—31, in fact, from Chicago and vicinity were invited to participate. “We want people to see and understand that there is a huge variety and diversity in the Mexican community,” Moreno says. The works on display represent an array of mediums. There’s graffiti, painting, video, and a kinetic sculpture, among other contributions. Some of the strongest pieces are mixedmedia installations. In Suffocated From the Inside (Party Chain) v2, Ivan Lozano pays tribute to the murdered son of the poet Javier Sicilia. Lozano downloaded and printed images of drug-cartel murder victims from the Internet, transferred them onto packing tape, and then formed them into paper chains like the ones you find in an elementary school classroom. Installed in a corner, the chains are lit by a lightbulb underneath them; a photo of a sunset adorns the wall. Yvette Mayorga’s Make America Sweet Again, a sugar-coated critique of the American dream, is inspired by her family’s work in the confectionery industry: pink and blue faux frosting on the walls is shaped into cakes and American ﬂags. Georgina Valverde addresses the history of the museum’s location for her installation, Temazcal, named for a Mesoamerican steam bath traditionally used to “cleanse the body, heal the sick, or assist women in labor.” She learned that Harrison Park, which borders the museum, originally housed a natatorium, or indoor swimming and wading pools. Space constraints led her to make a model of the bath, composed primarily of melted plastic bags covered with crocheted yarn. Valverde says the craft that went into making Temaz-

ARTS & CULTURE

cal was important, as her culture “still has a strong artisanal tradition.” “It also speaks about the labor that is here in this country that makes possible so many aspects of our lives,” she says, “all from the contributions of immigrants.” In conjunction with “Memoria Presente,” the NMMA is also running an extensive programming series for the local Mexican community. Events range from a street tour of public art to a presentation of 60 political cartoons in 60 minutes by artist Eric J. Garcia. Moreno notes that education and engagement have always been priorities for the NMMA. “That’s how we start to change a society, through education,” he says. “We firmly believe arts education can build bridges between communities.” To that effect, the NMMA remains one of the few museums in the city that’s always free. “In a time in the United States when being Mexican and being an immigrant has really been tarnished,” Moreno says, “I think that we have an even stronger struggle ahead of us to provide an accurate understanding of what it means to be Mexican and what it means to come from an immigrant community. Now the museum more than ever needs to really stand up and kind of show the other side, the beauty of our culture and the strength of our community.” There’s another piece by Aguilar above the exit of “Memoria Presente”: Titled Éxito, it’s a sign that reads TERMINAL made of painted butcher paper, black streamers, and black masking tape. Another cognate, but this one has darker connotations. Yet the word éxito suggests an alternate meaning, “more like celebration or wishing someone good luck,” Aguilar says. “I like to do this thing where I just am factual, like I just state facts,” he continues. “I hope sometimes that in doing that, that poetry sort of naturally emerges, rather than me forcing it.” The same could be said of the NMMA. It could be more overtly political in the exhibitions it stages, but the museum doesn’t force the issue. By representing a wide range of artists with a diversity of experiences, it lets a different story emerge, one that celebrates our differences instead of fearing them. v R “MEMORIA PRESENTE: AN ARTISTIC JOURNEY” Through 8/13: Tue-Sun, 10 AM-5 PM, National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th, 312-7381503, nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org. F

ß @booksnotboys APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 23

ARTS & CULTURE

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“LOIS WEBER: PIONEER PROGRESSIVE FILMMAKER”

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like to direct,” filmmaker Lois Weber told Photoplay in 1915, “because I believe a woman, more or less intuitively, brings out many of the emotions that are rarely expressed on the screen.” A hundred years later, Weber’s words still apply: nearly every movie I see by an exciting new female filmmaker—Ava DuVernay (Selma), Andrea Arnold (American Honey), Jennifer Kent (The Babadook), Elizabeth Wood (White Girl), Marielle Heller (The Diary of a Teenage Girl) —takes me to emotional spaces I rarely encounter in movies. Yet Hollywood in its infancy was more open to women than it is now. As film scholar Cari Beauchamp has noted, from the 1910s through the early ’30s, nearly a quarter of the screenwriters in Hollywood were women; that same figure for the 500 top-grossing films of 2016, according to the Center for Study of Women in TV and Films, was only 14 percent. The retrospective “Lois Weber: Pioneer Progressive Filmmaker,” which opened last week and continues through April at Gene Siskel Film Center, gives viewers a chance

to rediscover the first great woman of the American cinema, an artist largely forgotten by movie history but ranked by critics of her day alongside such pioneers as D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille. Those two filmmakers may have drawn their material from history, literature, and the Bible, but Weber advanced a more topical agenda, writing original stories that addressed social issues and explored progressive ideas. At the dawn of the movies, she laid down a marker for the sort of socially committed drama we still see in filmmakers like Courtney Hunt (Frozen River), Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone), and Kelly Reichardt (Wendy and Lucy). Yet Weber’s films are also deeply informed by her ideas about class, and progressives today might find some of them startling. Shelley Stamp’s fine biography Lois Weber in Early Hollywood traces the filmmaker’s rapid rise inside a movie colony still taking shape. A young singer from Pennsylvania, Weber married theater actor Phillips Smalley in 1904, when she was 24 and he was 38, and suspended her own performing career to

follow him on the road, earning extra money on the side by writing film scenarios. In 1910 the couple were hired by Edwin S. Porter (The Great Train Robbery) to write and direct ten-minute dramas for his Rex Motion Picture Company, and during the next three and a half years they cranked out more than 150 releases, supervising all aspects of production themselves, as Porter advocated. This was a period of great opportunity for women in the industry, some of whom moved naturally from secretarial duties to scenario writing. As Weber told a reporter in 1928, “I grew up in the business when everybody was so busy learning their particular branch of the new industry that no one had time to notice whether or not a woman was gaining a foothold.” The retrospective includes three of the Rex shorts but focuses mainly on Weber’s later features made for Universal Pictures and her own Lois Weber Productions. After leaving Rex for a short, unhappy stint at the fledgling Bosworth, Inc., the Smalleys landed at Universal in April 1915, and Weber thrived there. Carl Laemmle, the studio founder, ran Universal as a family operation, which generated a congenial working environment for women, and the studio’s sprawling Universal City complex in the San Fernando Valley provided Weber with state-of-the-art facilities. Shortly after her arrival, Laemmle entrusted her with his costliest production to date, an adaptation of Daniel Auber’s opera The Dumb Girl of Portici, starring the renowned Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova. Screening later in the series (Sat 4/22, 3 PM; Thu 4/27, 6 PM), this period drama about a mute Neapolitan woman caught up in a tax revolt against the Spanish crown was hardly a characteristic project for Weber, but she acquits herself admirably, demonstrating a sense of dramatic scale comparable to that of Griffith or DeMille. Weber came into her own with a series of intimate dramas that powerfully connected the cinema with the real world and the present. Hypocrites, released by Bosworth in 1915, had impressed critics with its story of a minister frustrated by his parishioners’ lack of spiritual commitment, and its reputation figured heavily in the Smalleys’ new deal with Universal. “I’ll tell you what I’d like to be, and that is, the editorial page of the Universal Company,” J

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Cabaret Crusades: The Secrets of Karbala

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Puppet regime By BEN SACHS

n ambitious and frequently overwhelming history lesson, Wael Shawky’s three-part experimental work Cabaret Crusades covers dozens of historical actors and several centuries’ worth of events over its three and a half hours. Its principal subject is the first three Crusades—which took place from the end of the 11th century to the beginning of the 13th—though Shawky also considers the seventh-century schism between Sunni and Shia Islam and various European and Middle Eastern political intrigues contemporaneous with the Crusades. The films are triumphs not only of historical research but of creative design, performed entirely with marionettes against gorgeous, handmade backdrops. As in the memorable Cambodian documentary The Missing Picture (2013), nonhuman figures contribute to a thoughtful depiction of atrocity that requires viewers to imagine the worst details. Shawky employs different kinds of marionettes for each part, and each carries a different connotation. In The Horror Show File (2010, 32 min.) the characters are 19th-century wooden marionettes from Turin, Italy, their antique look providing a tangible connection to the past. The first installment examines the anti-Muslim bigotry in Europe that prompted the Pope and other leaders to persecute Arabs, and the puppets’ European design mirrors the European origins of the Crusade. For The Path to Cairo (2012, 61 min.) Shawky switches to

clay marionettes, inspired by a line in the Koran stating that human beings were originally made of clay. Not coincidentally, Cairo focuses on Middle Eastern rulers who formed political and military alliances during the Crusades, worsening the bloodshed in their region. Shawky manages to bring some levity to the tragic stories. Several characters in Cairo are portrayed as talking camels, and in The Secrets of Karbala (2015, 120 min.) some of the political leaders are portrayed as talking dragons. The most tonally diverse of the three parts, Karbala is performed by glass marionettes that seem even more fragile than the clay figures in Cairo. This last installment looks at the second and third Crusades, concluding with the massacre of Constantinople in 1204. In the ﬁnal scene several onlookers plead with God to help the Crusaders triumph over their enemies. This chilling moment encapsulates Shawky’s entire project, showing how religion can generate calls for violence and how this perversion of religion has led directly to the suffering of countless people. After three and a half hours and several centuries, such massacres feel like a constant in human history. v CABARET CRUSADES sss Directed by Wael Shawky. Thu 4/13, 6 PM (The Horror Show File and The Path to Cairo) and 8:15 PM (The Secrets of Karbala), Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, 312-846-2800, siskelfilmcenter.org, $11.

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ARTS & CULTURE Lois Weber continued from 24

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Weber told the studio newsletter when the couple first arrived, and true to her word, she embarked on a string of dramas dealing with pressing social concerns. Shoes (1916), inspired by Jane Addams’s study of urban redlight districts, tells of an impoverished shop clerk so desperate for a new pair of shoes that she sells herself sexually. Hop, the Devil’s Brew (1916) dealt with opium addiction, The People vs. John Doe (1916) with capital punishment. Where Are My Children? (1916), the most notorious of them all, openly traded in the taboo subjects of abortion and contraception, taking its cue from the arrest earlier that year of birth control activist Margaret Sanger. Where Are My Children? (Sat 4/15, 3:30 PM) may have seemed progressive a century ago, but today it’s most remarkable for the classbased assumptions Weber brought over from Sanger’s work. Richard Walton (Tyrone Power Sr.), a respected district attorney, believes strongly in eugenics, a philosophy of human breeding that was fashionable at the time but would later inspire such practices as sterilization, forced abortion, and genocide. Walton is mounting a prosecution against a doctor for disseminating birth control literature, a felony at the time, but as the doctor testiﬁes, relating awful stories of unwanted and poverty-stricken children, Walton comes to embrace contraception as a method of thinning the lower classes. Privately the attorney yearns for a child of his own, but his wife can’t conceive; then, in a melodramatic twist, he discovers that she and her spoiled friends, eager to preserve their leisure-class lifestyle, have been secretly terminating their pregnancies with a local doctor. The ensuing censorship battle over Where Are My Children? had less to do with the forbidden subject matter than with the confused ideas surrounding it. From the beginning the Smalleys had been billed as codirectors, but in practice Weber wrote and directed while Phillips Smalley supervised production. By 1917 she had eclipsed him professionally, launching her independent Lois Weber Productions with a handsome distribution deal from Universal that made her the highest-paid director in the industry. Weber bought a residential estate in East Hollywood and converted it into a studio, shooting her ﬁlms in sequence whenever possible and favoring locations for both exterior and interior settings; her mise-en-scene is extraordinarily dense, the rooms so authentic they pull you in. Weber also swore off the “heavy dinners” of her Universal period and turned

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to more marketable romances and domestic dramas that nonetheless questioned conventional ideas about gender. From 1921, What’s Worth While? (Sat 4/29, 3 PM) shows Weber working in this lighter vein but still probing social norms. The spoiled easterner Phoebe (Claire Windsor) falls in love with a photo of Elton (Louis Calhern), her father’s young business partner in an oil property out west; when Phoebe and Elton meet in person, she’s offended by his crude ways but attracted by his masculinity and his command of nature. Hoping to bridge the social gulf between them, Elton spends two years in Europe educating himself, but when they’re reunited, Phoebe is disappointed by his polish. “He had been her superior—her master!” she realizes in a title card. “And now they were equals! She had put him through the conventional mill that had ground out all the men she knew!” Graceful and witty, the movie seems a world apart from such social provocations as Shoes and Where Are My Children? Widely regarded as Weber’s masterpiece, The Blot (Sat 4/8, 3:30 PM; Mon 4/10, 6 PM) brings into perfect harmony the social commentary of her Universal work and the domestic intrigue of her later projects. Amelia Griggs (Windsor), a lovely small-town librarian, lives in near poverty with her mother (Margaret McWade) and father (Philip Hubbard), an ill-paid college professor. Circling Amelia are three suitors of varying means: Reverend Gates, a minister whose congregation keeps him on slave wages; Phil West (Calhern), a rich swell who studies with Professor Griggs; and Peter Olsen, the shy eldest son of the immigrant family who live next door. The Blot burns with the shame of poverty, challenging its viewers to grant teachers and clergy a living wage, but it also betrays a nativist streak that might still resonate in Trump’s America: there’s a great sense of resentment toward the Olsens, who are supported by the father’s successful shoe business and lord it over their better-educated neighbors. The Blot may have been framed as another romance between Claire Windsor and Louis Calhern, but the key performance comes from McWade as Mrs. Griggs, an aging woman who was born into wealth but now bears the responsibility for running the professor’s household on his meager salary. McWade, who’d worked with Weber only once before, has a face made for sorrow, and Weber pulls you deep inside the character’s envy and shame. Even a visit from the minister is cause for embarrassment to Mrs. Griggs, who takes silent

note of her own paltry tea tray, her husband’s damaged shoe, an armchair’s worn upholstery. Her kitchen window is right across from Mrs. Olsen’s, and the other woman delights in showing off her ample stock of groceries. At one point Mrs. Griggs gazes in disbelief as the youngest Olsen, still a toddler, hobbles around the neighbors’ backyard in a discarded pair of expensive silk pumps; by contrast, Mrs. Griggs is forced to steal scraps from the Olsens’ garbage can to feed Amelia’s cat. Weber drew another fine performance from Calhern as Phil West, whose attraction to Amelia leads him into some unexpected insights. He appears first as a spoiled brat, horsing around with his two pals as Professor Griggs tries to lecture, but the young man gains depth as he gives Amelia a ride home and notices her frayed gloves and worn-out shoes. Scene by scene, Phil begins to comprehend the poverty that has existed right under his nose, and his gadabout friends at the country club begin to seem shallow; he strikes up an oddball friendship with the young Reverend Gates and makes awkward, well-meaning attempts to alleviate the Griggs family’s financial situation. By the end of the movie Phil has won Amelia’s hand, but Weber deflates this happy ending with a final image of the minister, who has loved Amelia all along, retreating up the sidewalk into the shadows—against Phil’s money and privilege, Gates never had a chance. The Blot marked a turning point for Weber both personally and professionally. After the film was completed in 1921, she and Smalley took an extended trip to Europe, then came home and divorced. At the same time, the movie business was changing, as studios consolidated and the hands-on philosophy that Weber favored was replaced by a more corporate, cost-conscious approach. Lois Weber Productions shut down as the big studios began to squeeze out independents, and Weber returned to Universal, where her star fell and she wound up working as a script doctor. (She reportedly salvaged the studio’s lavish 1925 production Phantom of the Opera.) Money wasn’t a problem—she married a citrus farmer and began focusing on her real estate holdings—but by the early 30s, as the Depression took hold, women were being drummed out of the studios. Weber was hailed in her own time for her creative accomplishments, but today her greatest achievement may lie in simply being remembered. v

ß @JR_Jones

MUSIC IN ROTATION

A Reader staﬀer shares three musical obsessions, then asks someone (who asks someone else) to take a turn.

Power Trip o NATHAN CONGLETON

KEVIN WARWICK

The cover of the 1986 Kilslug album Answer the Call

Hospital Productions’ 20-CD Skin Crime box set, Case Studies in Early Taxidermy Techniques

Reader associate editor

Vocalist for Lowhangers

CASSANDRA MUKAHIRN

OMAR GONZALEZ

Power Trip, Nightmare Logic Power Trip is crossover thrash for the tattered, sleeveless Cro-Mags T-shirt in all of us. The Dallas band’s best full-length by a good country mile’s worth of Scott Ian’s chin beard, Nightmare Logic sounds forged in the blast furnace of a scorched and abandoned industrial compound, where the only things that survive are scavenging radioactive coyotes and the memories of all that went wrong. Spin it three times in a row and you’re going to need a tetanus shot.

Merchandise at the Empty Bottle last September At the merch table I begged the guitarist to play anything from their ﬁrst record, (Strange Songs) In the Dark, but to my surprise their whole set was a beautiful mix of new and old—some songs from their newest album, A Corpse Wired for Sound, moved me deeply and physically. Everyone was dancing, something I’d never seen at the Bottle, and the synth-glazed music, bordering on Smiths worship, created a romantic 80s haze. Merchandise will make you yearn for a past lover or hold tight to the ones you have.

Skin Crime, Case Studies in Early Taxidermy Techniques This will probably be “in rotation” for quite some time due the magnitude of the release. Case Studies is a collection of rare and out-of-print music by American harshnoise pioneer Skin Crime, issued by Dominick Fernow’s Hospital Productions. It consists of 20 CDs of material clocking in at more than 20 hours of pure bliss, and it’s packaged with enough artwork to get you through it all.

Billy Yeager pulls a fast one In late March, online vinyl marketplace Discogs distributed a press release announcing its biggest transaction to date: the $18,000 sale of a 1989 test pressing of the album 301 Jackson St. by little-known Florida guitarist Billy Yeager. But now the transaction looks to have been staged by Yeager himself—since getting a cosign from Bruce Hornsby and a minute of major-label attention in 1990, he’s perhaps become a touch delusional about his fame and, well, the monetary worth of his music. Who doesn’t love a good hoax? Facs Disappears minus one, this local trio led by Brian Case (now on bass) have little music online—just two demo tracks on Bandcamp. I did catch their ﬁrst show, however, when they opened for Joan of Arc in January. Drummer Noah Leger gets more space here to explore, but the sound is still plenty stark and ominous, more so than Disappears even. Your chances of seeing them are increasing, as they’re playing out more and more.

Kilslug, Answer the Call (1986) My favorite noise-rock band from the 80s, Boston’s Kilslug is like a heavy, weird, drugged-out version of Flipper with aspects of sludge and metal thrown in. Singer Larry Lifeless is almost hard to listen to because of his off-key tone and strange lyrics (“I get mad, and I break things”), but he fits perfectly with the music. Answer the Call is discordant and sloppy, but in a perfectly palatable way. Related bands: Upsidedown Cross, Anal Cunt, Adolf Satan. Sea of Shit This insuﬀerable Chicago powerviolence band has been around for almost a decade but still constantly releases new music. Singer Robby Komen runs a DIY spot (the Mousetrap) as well as a label/distro (Diseased Audio). Sea of Shit’s artwork will make you cringe, and their music will make you shake your head at the despair in the world— it’s cripplingly, satisfyingly heavy and persistently grim. You won’t catch SOS playing at a bar, though—you’ll have to go underground.

Drummer for Rectal Hygienics

Dedekind Cut, $uccessor If you’re into ambient, spirituality, or new age, then you’ll probably find $uccessor (also a Hospital Productions release) to be quite the musical experience. Dedekind Cut is the experimental project of New York-based producer Fred Welton Warmsley III, formerly known as Lee Bannon. I was blown away by this album, and I’m looking forward to future eﬀorts. Deftones, Around the Fur I own a good number of CDs, and most of them aren’t lucky enough to get played on the regular. I do my best to pull out a few every so often, but honestly they mainly just collect dust. However, the surface of this 1997 Deftones CD has been getting some use lately, if you know what I mean—so what the hell, I popped Around the Fur in my laptop to reminisce about what 17-year-old me used to listen to while smashing mailboxes and peeing in unlocked parked cars with so-called friends. Still pretty heavy. I’ve deﬁnitely left many things in the past, but this album ain’t one of them.

APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 27

Recommended and notable shows and critics’ insights for the week of April 6

MUSIC

PICK OF THE WEEK

LA rapper Lil Peep isn’t ‘the future of emo,’ but he does add alt-rock flavor to hip-hop

THURSDAY6

Tift Merritt Suitcase Junket open. 8 PM, SPACE, 1245 Chicago, Evanston, $20-$34. b

o COURTESY THE ARTIST

Sun 4/9, 7:30 PM, Subterranean, 2011 W. North, sold out. b

LA RAPPER GUSTAV ÅHR, better known as Lil Peep, was a child when emo’s third wave crashed onto the Billboard charts. For Peep and a smattering of other underground MCs, emo in its most popular form—notoriously defined by the masses in terms of its quasi-gothic fashions rather than, well, its music—has been part of the pop lexicon since they came of age. It was only a matter of time till someone spiked rap’s punch bowl with pop-punk and third-wave emo, and though Peep isn’t alone in doing it, he’s figured out a blend that doesn’t feel like a put-on. His drawn-out rap-singing owes as much to the Used’s anxious yelps as it does to chopped-and-screwed rap remixes, and when he hits his stride on September’s self-released Hellboy, it barely seems to matter what influences he’s blurring together. Not that everybody is getting the message. A January Pitchfork profile not only emphasizes his proclivity for rapping about suicide but also notes that his hairdo is influenced by the dyed locks of My Chemical Romance front man Gerard Way. The story’s headline calls Peep “the future of emo,” a suggestion that seems to purposefully miss the mark for the sake of provocation—Peep’s music does have an alt-rock accent, but it speaks in hip-hop. —LEOR GALIL

28 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 6, 2017

BJ the Chicago Kid o COURTESY THE ARTIST

BJ the Chicago Kid Pell, Mykele Deville, and Owen Bones open. 7 PM, 1st Ward, 2033 W. North, $15, $5 with RSVP. 18+ BJ the Chicago Kid is ostensibly an R&B traditionalist: he’s reimagined Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” as a posthumous duet with the singer, he repeatedly alludes to the importance of the church in his lyrics, and he even sang the national anthem at President Obama’s farewell address here in Chicago. But it’d probably be more accurate to call BJ a restless polymath—for every reference to religion there’s a lyric about how he’s still looking for a lady friend, and for every homage to the Prince of Soul there’s a whole mixtape of Usher covers. On his most recent album, In My Mind (for Motown, of all labels), that multifarious approach manifests itself in a tug-of-war between smooth 70s funk and contemporary hip-hop. But while BJ often seems torn between the romanticism of classic soul and the realism of contemporary R&B (think Frank Ocean or Miguel), his exposed musical joints and plainspoken anxieties make for pleasures of a diﬀerent kind—less mythic and more grounded. —AUSTIN BROWN

LIL PEEP

ALL AGES

Tift Merritt wrote the songs on her new album, Stitch of the World (Yep Roc), as she attempted to wind down after a divorce, several years of touring both on her own and as a member of Andrew Bird’s band, and the clustered releases of several records, mostly under her name but sometimes with collaborators such as classical pianist Simone Dinnerstein. She retreated to a ranch in Marfa, Texas, and to her own cabin in California to ruminate on a life bereft of certainty, eventually producing a luminescent ten-song collection that embraces the mystery, resilience, and rebirth of life. “Heartache Is an Uphill Climb” is about realizing that counting the steps and days it takes to recover from romantic hurt is the wrong path, while “My Boat” adapts writing by Raymond Carver for its lyrics about taking solace in the camaraderie and company of friends; “Proclamation Blues” is an ebullient carpe diem, with Merritt expressing raw desire in the face of ambivalence. Working with a top-ﬂight band that includes Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam (who coproduced with Merritt), guitarist Marc Ribot, pedal-steel whiz Eric Heywood, and drummer Jay Bellerose, Merritt leaves herself space for her gorgeous, honeyed, soulful voice to soar and trickle. Sometimes she and her band could open up more and let things rip, but Merritt inhabits a specific, generous, and gentle world here, and I’m happy to get lost in it. —PETER MARGASAK Rock, Pop, Etc Joe Hertler & the Rainbow Seekers, North 41, Church Booty 9 PM, Lincoln Hall Honeystone, Harvey Fox, Sam Crossland & the Side Eﬀects 8 PM, Township Hungry Man, Bismarck, Korean Jeans 9 PM, Quenchers Saloon Mike Mains, Motherfolk 9 PM, Beat Kitchen

Minus the Bear, Beach Slang, Bayonne 8 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Silent Age, Ganser, Tuth 9 PM, Empty Bottle Space Carnival, Digeometric 8 PM, Emporium Arcade Bar F Rufus Wainwright, Lucy Wainwright Roche 8 PM, City Winery, sold out b Hip-Hop Ace da Vinci 8 PM, the Promontory F b Dance DJ SJ, Jena Max 10 PM, Smart Bar F Jazz Freddy Cole Quartet 8 and 10 PM, also Fri 4/7 and Sat 4/8, 8 and 10 PM; Sun 4/9, 4 and 8 PM, Jazz Showcase Matt Piet Trio, Keefe Jackson & Steve Hunt 9 PM, Elastic b Dan Thatcher’s Storytime 9:30 PM, California Clipper Experimental The Art of Percussive Storytelling with Cory Hills and Deidre Huckabay 7:30 PM, Comfort Station b Classical Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Truls Mørk Charles Dutoit, conductor (Stravinsky, Dvorak, Prokoﬁev). 8 PM, also Fri 4/7, 1:30 PM, Sat 4/8, 8 PM, and Tue 4/11, 7:30 PM, Symphony Center

FRIDAY7 Sweet Spirit Boytoy and Beastii open. 9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $10. Nine performers is a lot of band, and on their recordings Austin country-rock outﬁt Sweet Spirit can sound a bit clotted and ragged, like nobody’s quite clear where all the members go. Live, though, they throw one hell of a party. Lead singer Sabrina Ellis in particular has a riveting, no-fucks-given charisma that comes across best onstage. With a nasal edge that moves up into an almost shriek, her voice adds a threatening vibe to the band’s feelgood groove and authoritative aggression to lines like “Right hand on my heart / I swear I’ll knock J

APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 29

MUSIC King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard o COURTESY THE ARTIST

continued from 28

you out.” The band’s new album, St. Mojo (Nine Mile Records), comes out the day of this show, and single “The Power,” which they’ve already played extensively in concert, is one of their best tracks to date. Over a sludgy, sweaty, grinding riﬀ, Ellis talk-sings and wails through four minutes of rock innuendo: “I stood up on my chair to get tall, tall / I didn’t have any panties on under my graduation robes / And I made eye contact with every single person in the room.” And when she rears back and lets loose a towering Grace Slick-worthy “I’ve got the poooowwwerrrr!,” you believe her. —NOAH BERLATSKY Rock, Pop, Etc Blind Staggers, Barnyard Stompers, WT Newton, Pearls Mahone 8 PM, Cobra Lounge J.C. Brooks, Bassel & the Supernaturals 8:30 PM, 1st Ward, 18+ Chicago Loud 9, Sneezy 8 PM, Emporium Arcade Bar F Chicano Batman, 79.5, Sadgirl 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, sold out John Wesley Coleman, Obnox, Craig Brown Band, Vinnie Kircher 9 PM, Cafe Mustache Erra, Phinehas, Auras, Tanzen 5:30 PM, Beat Kitchen b Sallie Ford, Molly Burch 8 PM, Schubas Haymarket Riot, Spanish Flats, Mights 9 PM, LiveWire Lounge Cory Henry & the Funk Apostles 10 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Hippo Campus, Magic City Hippies 7:30 PM, Metro, sold out b Hope Country, Fleeting Suns, Littlebirds 10:30 PM, Beat Kitchen Horisont, Dirty Streets, Satan’s Hallow, Black Road 8 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Kreator, Obituary, Midnight, Horrendous 7:30 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Margo Price 8 PM, Thalia Hall, sold out, 17+ Sons of Ra, Modiviccan, Mediums 9 PM, Burlington Start Making Sense, Insidious Rays 9 PM, also Sat 4/8, 9 PM, Martyrs’ Strange Americans, American Grizzly 9 PM, Hideout Rufus Wainwright 7:30 and 10 PM, City Winery b Max Weinberg & the Weeklings 7:30 PM, SPACE b Wet Piss, Motorcycle, Firm Believers, Shawnthony Calypso 10 PM, Cole’s F Hip-Hop Da$htone, Ethan Butler, Oby, SoloSam 8:30 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Dance Big Wild, Phantoms, IHF 9 PM, Concord Music Hall, 18+

30 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 6, 2017

Dieselboy 10 PM, Sound-Bar I/Y, John Templeton, Jeﬀ Derringer 10 PM, Smart Bar Suara, Coyu, Bastian Bux 10 PM, Spy Bar Tale of Us 10 PM, the Mid Tony Trimm, Chante Linwood 9 PM, East Room Folk & Country Whiskey Myers 8:45 PM, Joe’s Bar Blues, Gospel, and R&B Ronnie Baker Brooks 9 PM, FitzGerald’s Nora Jean Bruso, Melody Angel 9 PM, Buddy Guy’s Legends Lil’ Ed & the Blues Imperials 9:30 PM, also Sat 4/8, 10 PM, Rosa’s Lounge John Primer & the Real Deal Blues Band 9 PM, also Sat 4/8, 9 PM, B.L.U.E.S. Nellie “Tiger” Travis, Mike Wheeler Blues Band 9 PM, also Sat 4/8, 9 PM, Kingston Mines J.W. Williams Blues Band, Laretha Weathersby 9 PM, also Sat 4/8, 9 PM, Blue Chicago Jazz Kenny Barron, Robi Botos, Bill Charlap, Benny Green, Ramsey Lewis, Renee Rosnes, Dave Young 8 PM, Symphony Center George Freeman, Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, Mike Allemana, and Dan Trudell 9 PM, also Sat 4/8, 8 PM, Green Mill James Sanders’s Proyecto Libre 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Mike Smith Quintet 9 PM, also Sat 4/8, 9 PM, Andy’s Jazz Club Sam Trump 10:30 PM, California Clipper Experimental Ono, Casper Skulls, Mykele Deville 10:30 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Spirits Having Fun, Izzy True, Jen Hill 9 PM, Elastic b International DJ Charrua 9:30 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Classical Inna Faliks 12 and 6 PM, PianoForte Studios b Raphaella Smits Guitar. 7:30 PM, Galvin Recital Hall, Northwestern University Zafa Collective 7:30 PM, Heaven Gallery b

SATURDAY8 King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard Orb and Stoneﬁeld open. 9 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, sold out. 18+ If you’ve got a low tolerance for whimsy, this Australian psych-prog band are probably not for you J

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APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 31

NEW

MUSIC 101WKQX QUEUED UP SHOWCASE WELCOMES...

MAGIC GIANT

APR 24

K.I.D.

ALLIE X

APR 27

JULIANA HATFIELD

MAY 01

RALEIGH RITCHIE

MAY 04

GAVIN JAMES

MAY 09

JULIA JACKLIN

ANDY SHAUF

MAY 13

EVAN DANDO

JUN 20

ROONEY

RUN RIVER NORTH

JUN 22

TICKETS AT WWW.LH-ST.COM

MARC SCIBILIA

COREY HARPER + BRAD RAY

APR 21

JUN 05 JUN 08

DIANA

JUL 08

NEW

JUN 02

NEW

MAY 10

NEW

HOLY WAVE

MR. ELEVATOR + L.A. WITCH + AL LOVER

EMILY CAVANAGH AND MUNDY

NEW

MAY 07

FRONTIER RUCKUS

GANG OF YOUTHS

NEW

MAY 01

THE SEA THE SEA

KING WASHINGTON

NEW

JILLETTE JOHNSON

NICHOLAS KRGOVICH

32 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 6, 2017

Find more music listings at chicagoreader.com/soundboard.

Contempo o DREW REYNOLDS

continued from 30

(the name really should have tipped you off to begin with). But if you like your trippy art-rock with lots of impish smiles implied, welcome to the weird world of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. The group formed in 2010, and their most recent full-length album, September’s Flying Microtonal Banana, is already their ninth. They plan to release five more in 2017 alone, so you needn’t worry about being left hanging. This is their first record using microtonal tunings, which lends an Arabic quality to the hypnotic “Billabong Valley” while giving the sing-song chorus of “Anoxia” something to kick against. During the almost enervating “Rattlesnake”—which exploits the phenomenon whereby a repeated word eventually ceases to have any meaning—the tweaked tuning makes the heavy wah-wah on their flubbery riffs really come to life. Unlike some of their prog kin, King Gizzard never let the desire to show off interfere with a good hook, which means their music generates earworms at a rabbit-breeding rate. —MONICA KENDRICK

Jacob Kirkegaard 8 PM, Graham Foundation, Madlener House, 4 W. Burton. F b For his long-overdue Chicago debut, Berlin-based Danish sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard presents Aion, a multimedia work built around a recording project he conducted in October 2005 within the radioactive zone that surrounds the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Released in 2006 as 4 Rooms (Touch), it consists of four pieces recorded in an abandoned gymnasium, church, swimming pool, and auditorium, where Kirkegaard set up microphones and captured ten minutes of unmediated ambient sound (in other words, “silence”), drawing inspiration from composer Alvin Lucier’s I Am Sitting in a Room (1969). For that influential piece Lucier recorded himself reading a text while sitting in a room, then recorded the playback of that tape, then in turn played back that tape while recording it, and so forth, until the sonic frequences speciﬁc to the room obliterated all traces of his voice. The four works on 4 Rooms, created via a similar process, are composed of slowly undulating drones that ripple with electronic humming—they not only preserve a fragment of time within forbidden areas but also metaphorically amplify the ghosts of a destroyed existence. Kirkegaard later paired the recordings with photographs shot near the power plant, altered

by techniques (such as layering and overexposure) that parallel his manipulations of sound. He’ll present the full work here. —PETER MARGASAK

Sarah Louise Nathaniel Braddock opens. 8:30 PM, Constellation, 3111 N. Western, $10. 18+ If you go by Sarah Louise’s two releases to date, she’s a splendid 12-string acoustic guitarist operating in the American Primitive tradition. She composed the tunes on the cassette Field Guide (Scissor Tails) and the LP VDSQ Solo Acoustic Vol. 12 (Vin du Select Qualitite) by devising new tunings whose unfamiliar resonances yielded jumping-off points for her instrumentals to change course every few measures, like a stream cutting through the Appalachian Mountains where she lives. But change isn’t just a compositional method; it’s built into her music. In the duo House and Land, she and fiddler Sally Anne Morgan use bracing vocal harmonies to explore a microtonal common ground between old-time ballads and hymns on the one hand and 20th-century minimalist compositions on the other. Louise won’t play any House and Land material in this solo setting, but she will sing the songs she’s been writing for her next album—and use an electric 12-string guitar to find new angles on some of the music from the aforementioned Vol. 12. Opening for Louise is guitarist Nathaniel Braddock, who lived in Chicago for more than a decade before relocating first to Melbourne, Australia, and then to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he now lives. Braddock has taught African, American, and English fingerstyle guitar, and he’s played indie rock, improvised music, and West African pop with the Ancient Greeks, Butcher Shop Quartet, Trio Mokili, and Occidental Brothers Dance Band International, respectively. The instrumentals on his new album, Quadrille & Collapse, integrate this myriad of styles into intricately constructed acoustic solos. —BILL MEYER

75 Dollar Bill Mind Over Mirrors and Sue Garner open. 9 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, $15. Last year scrappy, minimalist New York duo 75 Dollar Bill dropped their second proper album, Wood/ Metal/Plastic/Pattern/Rhythm/Rock (Thin Wrist), whose awkward title serves as a list of the basic ingredients that guitarist Che Chen and per- J

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Milonga Cumparsita at Old Town School with DJ Charrua Global Dance Party Ensemble Showcase: Riot Grrl, Big Band Jazz and Disco Ensembles World Music Wednesday: Extended Play • Herencia de Timbiquí Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre 2017 Season Kick-Oﬀ

WORLD MUSIC WEDNESDAY SERIES FREE WEEKLY CONCERTS, LINCOLN SQUARE

4/12 Gullibanque 4/26 Peter Mawanga and the Amaravi Movement

JUNE 14 & 15 VIC THEATRE SEATED PERFORMANCES

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ON SALE THIS FRIDAY AT 11AM!

BUY TICKETS AT APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 33

3855 N. LINCOLN

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MUSIC

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THU, 4/6 - 25 YRS ROCKABILLY OPEN MIC

Show Me the Body

BIG C JAMBOREE… THE DEACONS

o BROCK FETCH

FRI, 4/7 & SAT, 4/8 - TWO NIGHTS!

STARTMAKINGSENSE THE INSIDIOUS RAYS MON, 4/10

YURI LANE & CHICAGO BEATBOX LTD, PUGS ATOMZ, AWDAZCATE TUE, 4/11

GRATEFUL STRING BAND

WED, 4/12 CHIRPRADIO PRESENTS...

FIRST TIME: FIRST TEST

THU, 4/13 - CHICAGOHONKEYTONK PRESENTS...

DAN WHITAKER & THE SHINEBENDERS, LONESOME STILL, COUNTRY DOCTORS FRI, 4/14

NEW ORLEANS SUSPECTS LOWDOWN BRASS BAND SAT, 4/15

JOE MARCINEK BAND

W/S/G MIKE GREENFIELD (LOTUS) & IKE STUBBLEFIELD (B-3 LEGEND), MELK, THE DAWN

In Acts April 7 – June 10, 2017 Opening Reception: Friday, April 7, 5 – 8 PM In Acts is a group exhibition inspired by the summit that will bring international artists to the University of Chicago’s campus to ask: What is an Artistic Practice of Human Rights? Weinberg/Newton Gallery 300 W Superior Street, Suite 203 Chicago, IL 60654 312 529 5090 weinbergnewtongallery.com

34 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 6, 2017

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cussionist Rick Brown draw on. (“Second” doesn’t count their three cassette-only titles.) Though still rooted in the visceral, cyclical grooves of North African guitar music—Chen has studied under Mauritanian guitarist Jeiche Ould Chighaly, a key member of Noura Mint Seymali’s band—75 Dollar Bill have been loosening their rustic foundations through a mix of accretion, displacement, and electronic manipulation. The ecstatic “Beni Said,” for example, thickens the plot with soulful charts spelled out by contrabassist Andrew Lafkas and baritone saxophonist Cheryl Kingman, while Karen Waltuch uses her electronically flanged viola to slither and slide through high-density grooves. Brown typically relies on a cajonlike plywood box he found in the street and a variety of shakers and homemade mallets, but on “Cummins Falls” his post-Bo Diddley groove is chopped up by floor-tom patterns played by Carey Balch, and the 15-minute epic “I’m Not Trying to Wake Up” conveys a dublike play with density and smudged textures. Earlier this year I was able to hear 75 Dollar Bill perform at the tiny Brooklyn bar Troost, and their spell-casting sounds pulled me in like never before: somehow they both refuse to change and transform their sound from minute to minute, and while the recordings are magnetic, nothing compares to what they do live. Mind Over Mirrors and stunning singer Sue Garner—who’s married to Brown and has long collaborated with him— open. —PETER MARGASAK Rock, Pop, Etc Anvil, Night Demon, Graveshadow, Scars of Armageddon, Comfort Scarcity 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Bombadil, Predictions 7 PM, Schubas El Famous, Lowcountry, Gravesend, Face the Fire, Welp 7:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Escape Is Not Freedom, Arriver, Sin Vacas 8:30 PM, Township Luzbel, Disturbio 7 PM, Portage Theater Melodime, Cardinal Harbor, Midwest 6:30 PM, Subterranean b Metal Tongues 10:30 PM, California Clipper Psychedelic Furs, Robyn Hitchcock 8 PM, Thalia Hall, sold out, 17+ Sewingneedle, Fronts, Coffin Problem, Texas Chainstore Manager 9 PM, Burlington Spafford, Mungion 9 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Stolas, Mylets, Icarus the Owl, Death of Massive

Stars, When We Was Kids 5:30 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Judy Torres, Cynthia, Lil Suzy, Original Cover Girls 8 PM, Concord Music Hall Hip-Hop Streets Are Watching Showcase: Chi vs. MN 10 PM, Subterranean Tink, Queen Key, Neil 6 PM, Portage Theater b Dance Wally Callerio, Diz, My Boy Elroy 10 PM, Primary Nightclub Grandtheft 10 PM, the Mid Job Jobse, Harry Cross 10 PM, Smart Bar Weiss, Inphinity, Intermodal 10 PM, Spy Bar Folk & Country Elephant Revival, Dead Horses Early show sold out. 7 and 10 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Blues, Gospel, and R&B Amel Larrieux 7 and 10 PM, City Winery, sold out b Popa Chubby, Nick Bell 9:30 PM, Buddy Guy’s Legends Jazz Gerrit Hatcher, Eli Namay, and Bill Harris 6 PM, Empty Bottle F Charlie Hunter Trio 10 PM, SPACE b International Fatbook, Graduate, Rad Brian, Marcuslyah, King Tony 10 PM, Subterranean Indika 9 PM, Wild Hare Thomas Mapfumo & the Blacks Unlimited 8 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Classical Fifth House Ensemble 8 PM, Elastic b New World Youth Symphony Orchestra with Austin Hartman Adam Bodony, conductor (Beethoven, Rimsky-Korsakov). 3 PM, Symphony Center

SUNDAY9 Contempo: Five From Afar 3 PM, Logan Center for the Arts, University of Chicago, 915 E. 60th, $25, $5 students. b Contempo, the long-running new-music organization at the University of Chicago, casts a welcome light on five important female composers from Europe with this rigorous program performed by locals Ensemble dal Niente and the Kontras Quartet along with Polish pianist Pawel Checins- J

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CHICAGO JOURNEYMAN PLUMBERS UNION $7 ADMISSION ✦ $25 8AM EARLY ENTRY bottom lounge ONSALE FRI 04.07 AT NOON

UPCOMING SHOWS FREELANCE WRESTLING

04.07 SNAKES? WHY’D IT HAVE TO BE SNAKES? SILVER WRAPPER PRESENTS

04.08 SPAFFORD MUNGION

04.14 THE EXPENDABLES

RDGLDGRN / TRIBAL THEORY

04.19 THE OBSESSED

KARMA TO BURN / FATSO JETSON

REACT PRESENTS

04.25 NO CEILINGS FEATURING BOOGIE KAIYDO / KEMBA / MICHAEL CHRISTMAS

REACT & 1833 PRESENT ZERO FATIGUE PRESENTS

04.26 SWEANITA TOUR FEATURING SMINO ONSALE WED 04.05 AT NOON

BARI / JAY2

04.29 FRANK IERO AND THE PATIENCE

DAVE HAUSE AND THE MERMAID

RIOT FEST PRESENTS

05.01 BALANCE AND COMPOSURE

FROM INDIAN LAKES / QUEEN OF JEANS

05.06 KILLING GODS BUBBLES EROTICA

RIOT FEST PRESENTS

05.11 SORORITY NOISE

MAT KEREKES / THE OBSESSIVES / REMO DRIVE

THE YMF TOUR

05.12 AB-SOUL

05.14 EVERY TIME I DIE

WAGE WAR / ‘68 / GOD ALONE

RIOT FEST PRESENTS

05.18 THE STORY SO FAR

TURNSTILE / DRUG CHURCH

05.19 TALL HEIGHTS HENRY JAMISON

05.20 THE BIRTHDAY MASSACRE ARMY OF THE UNIVERSE / LUDOVICO TECHNIQUE

1833 PRESENTS

05.21 JMSN

ALCORDO

05.23 WAVVES

POST ANIMAL

06.30 THE SUBURBS APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 35

Chicago forever.

MUSIC

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continued from 34

ki, expat Moldovan bayan virtuoso Stas Venglevski, and mezzo-soprano Kayleigh Butcher, a founding member of Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble. While the connective tissue between the pieces doesn’t extend much beyond gender, geography, and modernist impulses, they undeniably share a dark power. Included are Sofia Gubaidulina’s sorrowful Songs of the Gallows, where the Russian composer uses the accordion-like bayan to express folkloric elements, and the bracing String Quartet by Polish-Israeli composer Chaya Czernowin, who though now based in Boston has spent most of her professional life in Austria and Germany. The program also features Aer by inﬂuential Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, a lush piece for large ensemble and electronics that’s part of her 1991 ballet Maa. But I’m most excited about the work of two women with whom I wasn’t previously familiar. Piano Quintet no. 1 by pioneering Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz is a luxuriously somber and expressive blend of piano and strings that incorporates folk dances in its charged rhythms, while Sandschleifen by Germany’s Isabel Mundry (at 53 the youngest of the featured composers) is a dynamically rich tightrope walk for string trio, piano, and percussion. —PETER MARGASAK

Lil Peep See Pick of the Week (page 28). 7:30 PM, Subterranean, 2011 W. North, sold out. b

Celebrating 60 Years of Making Music! We’ve been singing and strumming with Chicago since 1957! Join the party with a class this year in guitar, banjo, dance, ukulele, and so much more!

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oldtownschool.org 36 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 6, 2017

Six Organs of Admittance Tashi Dorji & Tyler Damon and Health & Beauty open. 9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $12, $10 in advance. In 2015 Ben Chasny, sole constant member of the long-running Six Organs of Admittance, created what he calls the hexadic system in an attempt to break familiar patterns and habits in his playing and writing. The rules, which revolve around the dealing of a deck of cards in relation to notes on the guitar, injected a jarring, unstable quality into his music, ﬁrst in an electric conﬁguration on Hexadic and then, with even greater displacement, in a solo acoustic singer-songwriter mode on Hexadic II. I can’t say with certainty what effect the experience had on him, but he sounds refreshed on his gorgeous, intimate new acoustic album, Burning the Threshold (Drag City). Much of it is inspired by literature—opener “Things as They Are” derives from a musical about the life of poet Wallace Stevens on which Chasny is collaborating— and the record features a stellar cast of players that includes fellow guitarist Ryley Walker, drummer Chris Corsano (Chasny’s bandmate in Rangda), and keyboardist Cooper Crain (Bitchin Bajas). Chasny’s presence and meditative poise still dominate, however. He sings of romantic contentment on “Under Fixed Stars,” where vocal harmonies from Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang shadow lines such as “I kept your letters inside my sleeve / Between my heart and my hand they breathe,” and “Taken by Ascent” is a blues-flavored call to action that’s the most forceful thing on the album. The current touring version of the band consists of Chasny and guitarists Donovan Quinn (his partner in New Bums) and Elisa Ambrogio (Magik Markers). —PETER MARGASAK

Rock, Pop, Etc Acid Dad, Honduras, Lucille Furs 9 PM, Schubas, 18+ Crystal Bowersox, Ken Yates 8 PM, City Winery b Dead Sun, Vagabonds, Elder Light, Close Kept 6:30 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Delicate Steve, Max & the Mild Ones 8 PM, Lincoln Hall The Few 9 PM, Hungry Brain Floating Points, JFDR 8 PM, Metro, 18+ Hung, Disrotted, Barren Heir 8 PM, Emporium Arcade Bar F Paul K. & the Killer Elite 8 PM, Hideout The Last Waltz 40: Warren Haynes, Dr. John, Jamey Johnson, Don Was, Terence Higgins, Danny Louis, Garth Hudson, and Taj Mahal 7 PM, Chicago Theatre Periphery, the Contortionist, Norma Jean, Infinity Shred 5:15 PM, House of Blues b State Champs, Against the Current, With Confidence, Don Broco 5 PM, Concord Music Hall b Richard Thompson, Joan Shelley 4 and 8 PM, also Mon 4/10, 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Hip-Hop Kosha Dillz 8 PM, Township Dance Michael Serafini, Garrett David 10 PM, Smart Bar Folk & Country John Sebastian 7 PM, SPACE b Marty Stuart & the Fabulous Superlatives, Kelsey Waldon 7:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Jazz Kirch Van Lux 9 PM, Whistler F Classical Civic Piano Quintet 2 PM, National Museum of Mexican Art F b Civic Woodwind Quintet 3 PM, Indian Boundary Park F b Civitas Ensemble 2 PM, Fullerton Hall, Art Institute of Chicago b Nazar Dzhuryn & Irina Feoktistova 3 PM, PianoForte Studios b Paul Lewis Piano. 3 PM, Symphony Center Nordic Affect 8:30 PM, Constellation Miscellaneous Raffi 1 PM, Harris Theater b

MONDAY10 Show Me the Body Dreamcrusher, Minimum Wage Assassins, and Clotting open. 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, $12, $10 in advance. 17+ The members of New York punk group Show Me the Body write barbed, sludgy songs that make it sound like they all woke up on the wrong side of the Dumpster. The band’s work draws on the distorted alt-rock and nasty pigfuck of 20-plus years ago as well as contemporary artists across a broad spectrum: the new mixtape Corpus I (Loma Vista/ Concord Music Group) is a collaborative aﬀair featuring snarling Florida rapper Denzel Curry, New York cyborg-folk mystic Eartheater, lo-ﬁ Memphis rapper Cities Aviv, Philly noise poet Moor Mother, and Massachusetts indie hybrid Mal Devisa. Show Me the Body’s wide-open sound leaves plenty of room for guests to make a space of their own without diluting an already burbling, acidic concoction. “Trash,” the only song the group per-

MUSIC Tinariwen o MARIE PLANEILLE

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forms without support, features serrated and distorted banjo notes and sandpaper croaks above a digitized industrial stomp; the single’s brutal simplicity is reﬂected in the video, which shows front man Julian Cashwan Pratt showering in a stream of brown and red liquid that pours down and covers up the Star of David tattoo on his left arm. All three members of Show Me the Body are Jewish, and since tonight’s show kicks off the first night of Passover this could be a hell of an alternative seder. —LEOR GALIL Rock, Pop, Etc Zeshan B 7 PM, Untitled Supper Club F Den, Bummer, Pinko, Ribbonhead 8 PM, Burlington Entrance, Thompson Springs, Kelsey Wild 9 PM, Hideout Hogg, Cube, Magas, Beau Wanzer (DJ set) 9 PM, Empty Bottle F Dave Mason 8 PM, also Tue 4/11, 8 PM, City Winery, sold out b Rosetta, Outrun the Sunlight, Lume, Ikaray 9 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Soft Jolts, Onyou, Le Tour 8 PM, Schubas F Jazz Dassit 9:30 PM, Whistler F Many Blessings, Subhi 9 PM, Elastic b Experimental Darren Johnston & Dave Rempis 7:30 PM, Experimental Sound Studio b

TUESDAY11 Tinariwen Dengue Fever open. 7 and 10 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music, 4544 N. Lincoln, $38, $36 members, early show sold out. b Over their previous few albums, veteran Tuareg band Tinariwen have included contributions from a revolving cast of rock musicians, and their strong new Elwan (Anti) follows suit. Guitarists Kurt Vile and Matt Sweeney (Chavez), who jam on a handful of tracks, deserve praise mainly for not getting in the way, which is more than I can say for the lugubrious moan that singer Mark Lanegan drops on “Nànnuﬂày.” Apart from the marketing opportunities the guests provide, I’m not sure why Tinariwen bother— they sure don’t need any extra talent. Then again, they could use a jolt of energy to shake up a formula that has remained comfortingly familiar for nearly two decades now. The band’s lattice of terse, bluesy guitar licks cycling in and out of clopping rhythms still sounds remarkable, but there just aren’t many surprises lurking within their hypnotic grooves. What has changed is the perspective of the group’s lyrics, which has taken a turn from the deﬁant ethnic pride that distinguished their early material. On

“Ténéré Tàqqàl” Ibrahim Ag Alhabib laments the dissolution of Tuareg unity, singing in Tamashek, “The strongest impose their will / And leave the weakest behind,” while “Assàwt” expresses sympathy for Tuareg women, pleading for an end to their subservience. —PETER MARGASAK

EARLY WARNINGS chicagoreader.com/early

MONDAY, APRIL 10................RC BIG BAND TUESDAY, APRIL 11................FLABBY HOFFMAN SHOW WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12..........ELIZABETH HARPER’S LITTLE THING THURSDAY, APRIL 13 .............FLABBY HOFFMAN SHOW FRIDAY, APRIL 14...................EE- ENVIORNMENTAL ENCROACHMENT MONDAY, APRIL 17................HENRY SMITH QUINTET EVERY MONDAY AT 9PM ANDREW JANAK QUARTET EVERY TUESDAY AT 8PM OPEN MIC HOSTED BY JIMI JON AMERICA

Rock, Pop, Etc Astronoid, Sioum 7 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Kishi Bashi, Tall Tall Trees 7:30 PM, Thalia Hall b Kodakrome, Distants, Retirement Party, Township 8 PM, Township David Lindley, Phil Angotti 7:30 PM, SPACE b John Mayer 7:30 PM, United Center Moon Bros. with Dan Bitney and Matt Lux 9 PM, Hideout Saint Pe, Dan Rico, Flesh Panthers 9 PM, Empty Bottle Aaron Lee Tasjan, Ricky Mirage 8 PM, Schubas Folk & Country Grateful String Band 9 PM, Martyrs’ Jazz Erwin Helfer 7:30 PM, Hungry Brain F Mute Duo with Brian Case 9 PM, Burlington Jeﬀ Swanson’s Case-Fitter 9:30 PM, Whistler F Greg Ward 9 PM, Hungry Brain F Experimental Joseph Giusti, Onur Zlobnicki, A.J. Halbrook, Mode Hexe 9 PM, Burlington

WEDNESDAY12 Rock, Pop, Etc Beat Drun Juel, Sad Baxter, Impulsive Hearts, Pussy Foot 8 PM, Emporium Arcade Bar F Ggoolldd, Archie Powell & the Exports, Muvves 9 PM, Empty Bottle Glass Lux, Fee Lion, Sunmachine 9 PM, East Room Oso Oso, City Mouth, Gardens, Yeti 7:30 PM, Subterranean, 17+ San Fermin, Low Roar 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ The Shelters 7 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Space Gators, Werd, Two Ton Jack 9 PM, Burlington Subhi, Tony Barba 9 PM, Whistler F Hip-Hop Gucci Mane, Dreezy, DJ Sean Mac 8 PM, Chicago Theatre Blues, Gospel, and R&B Noah Hunt 8 PM, SPACE b Jazz Stanley Clarke 7 and 9:30 PM, the Promontory b International Gullibanque 8:30 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music F b Classical Christoph Croisé & Noreen Cassidy-Polera Cello and piano. 12:15 PM, Preston Bradley Hall, Chicago Cultural Center F v

APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 37

38 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 6, 2017

FOOD & DRINK

MIRABELLA ITALIAN R CUISINE & BAR | $$$ 3454 W. Addison, 773-463-1962 mirabellaitaliancuisine.com

RESTAURANT REVIEW

Mirabella is the Gene & Georgetti of the neighborhoods A G&G veteran’s old-school Italian steak house in Irving Park scratches the itch with classics cooked with precision.

Crispy cottage fries arrive with your steak at Mirabella.

By MIKE SULA

o DANIELLE A. SCRUGGS

here is no more mercurial restaurant than Gene & Georgetti, the storied River North Italian steak house that’s a living set piece for a Chicago that dies a bit more every day. Sometimes it welcomes you with a drunk uncle’s embrace, dirty martinis in each hand. Other times it acts like you haven’t even arrived. In a city where the economy is indebted to the average conventioneer’s imperative to spend money in steak houses—and where restaurateurs are scrambling to redefine them—Gene & Georgetti refuses to change even as everything around it has.

But there’s a price to pay for eating (let’s face it) average steaks among the ghosts of those mobsters, politicians, and celebrities. High prices, occasionally indifferent service, and frequently exclusionary deference to regulars test the patience of even G&G admirers such as myself. And yet Gene & Georgetti doesn’t give a fuck about your whiny Yelp reviews. Even with that attitude it endures, having celebrated 75 years last summer, and the year before that expanding to Rosemont, the throbbing cardiomyopathic heart of suburban convention action.

Still, it’s difficult to imagine this unapologetically dated concept opening on the edge of a sleepy city neighborhood, across the street from an Olive Garden and within arm’s reach of the Kennedy in Old Irving Park. Enter Arturo Aucaquizhpi. The 40-year-old native of Ecuador paid his dues for 20 years at Gene & Georgetti, starting out washing dishes and prepping salads. At some point he took on a second job at Piccolo Sogno, but in his last six years he was G&G’s executive chef. That was until he noticed that the Mirabelle, the old German restaurant two blocks away from his house—itself an artifact from forgotten

Chicago—was for sale. Aucaquizhpi bought it, dropping the e, adding an a, and removing the relentless Deutsch kitsch that covered the walls. Voila—an Ecuadoran-owned Italian steak house was born. This is no carbon copy of Gene & Georgetti. They’re always happy to see you at Mirabella. The ﬁrst time I visited the chef dropped whatever business he had with the bartender and rushed over to open the door for me. Napkins are refolded when chairs are vacated. Servers in black vests with name tags leap at your every whim. Aucaquizhpi credits Mario Navarro, his J

APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 39

open now

FOOD & DRINK

king crab house lenten special

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Calamari o DANIELLE A. SCRUGGS

ALL YOU CAN EAT PERCH

$15.95

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Mirabella continued from 39

$2.00 domestic bottle beer during the games!! Mon-Thur: 4PM-11PM Fri/Sat: 4PM-12AM Sun: 4PM-10PM 1816 N. Halsted St. Chicago, IL 60614 312-280-8990

12O’CLOCK

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40 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 6, 2017

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predecessor at Gene & Georgetti, with teaching him everything he knows. A quick look at his menu reveals it’s been a faithful study. Nearly everything you could possibly order at G&G is on the menu at Mirabella, at signiﬁcantly lower prices. Boost your lipids with the bacon with blue cheese dip or its ostensibly healthier alternative, a wedge salad tottering under a blue cheese avalanche, itself carpeted with crushed bacon. The signature Mirabella salad is a dead ringer for G&G’s garbage salad: a pile of antipasto, iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, radishes, and olives. Fried ravioli, pizza bread, baked clams, sausage and peppers—it’s all there, with no concession given to the culinary currents of the day. There’s gratis bread service, crusty sliced loaves from D’Amato’s with fresh ricotta, butter, and roasted garlic. Crispy cottage fries arrive with your steaks, while each entree comes with choice of soup or salad. Grandma wouldn’t have it any other way. A perfectly broiled bone-in rib eye sells for nearly $20 less in Irving Park than it does in River North. Same for the filet mignon, the New York strip, and the surf and turf. Have a yen for G&G’s signature Chicken alla Joe? Here it’s known as Chicken Mirabella, a juicy roasted bird smothered in sauteed peppers and pepperoncini. Of course the Mirabella treatment can be applied to steaks and sausage and probably your mostaccioli with marinara sauce if you wanted. Mirabella offers the luxury of choice among limited templates, with eight veal dishes (not including the chop), eight chicken dishes, and

shrimp three ways: fried, scampi, and de jonghe. Nearly everything that comes from the kitchen is executed with the precision you’d expect from a journeyman with decades of experience under his belt. The tangles of grilled calamari come in a soppable pool of garlicky olive-and-whitewine sauce laced with paprika. Ballers at Mirabella will order the ﬁlet Oscar, a buttery hunk of tenderloin smothered in crabmeat and chopped asparagus. Steaks ordered medium rare will arrive with thin, sharply delineated scabs of char, which give way to evenly rosy ﬂesh. Some 16 saucy and hugely portioned pastas make up the balance of the menu. Rigatoni country style is a generous pile of tubes wantonly smothered in tomato cream sauce and sweet peas. You can barely spot your spaghetti under the heap of Bolognese sauce. Meat and cheese ravioli, fettuccine primavera, spaghetti diavolo: there isn’t a classic left out. Mirabella isn’t the second coming of a great steak house. The brightly lit bar could use a touch-up. The wine list is thin. Desserts are huge but pro forma. Still, it scratches an itch that none of the neo steak houses and ersatz supper clubs I’ve encountered in recent years has yet managed to reach. And it does so with warmth and without irony. Above all, it’s what most people look for in a solid neighborhood restaurant. It serves good food at a decent value, with an easy welcome. And it’s so wonderfully out of step with the prevailing winds of steak-house culture that it almost seems like it’s new. v

ß @MikeSula

S P O N S O R E D

Hundreds of bar suggestions are available at chicagoreader.com/ barguide. Bottoms up!

Watch a video of Nicole Brudd making this cocktail with Off Color Brewing’s Troublesome at chicagoreader.com/food.

C O N T E N T

N E I G H B O R H O O D

COCKTAIL CHALLENGE

How to make a beer cocktail

FITZGERALDS // BERWYN

LINCOLN HALL // LINCOLN PARK

FITZGER ALDSNIGHTCLUB.COM

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Two Brothers Cane & Abel Red Rye Ale $5 pints

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By JULIA THIEL

No More Fedoras by Nicole Brudd of Revel Room o CHRIS BUDDY

“I’M A BIG BEER DORK, so I’ve had my fair share of Troublesome,” says NICOLE BRUDD, a bartender at Wicker Park’s REVEL ROOM. She’s referring to OFF COLOR BREWING’S TROUBLESOME, the beer with which Paul “PK” Kim of Cafe Marie-Jeanne challenged her to create a cocktail. “Troublesome is a gose, so it’s a salted wheat beer with lactobacillus—you get a lot of lemon, sourness, saltiness,” she says. Brudd made a simple syrup with the beer, reducing it over heat to concentrate the flavor before adding sugar and water. She imagined pairing the syrup with tequila and celery bitters for a simple, savory cocktail, and experimented with the combination several ways: stirred, shaken, and up. “I was really conﬁdent, but [the drinks] were garbage,” she says. A few small adjustments vastly improved the cocktail, however. Brudd worked on it during a shift at the bar and used her customers as guinea pigs, giving them tastes of various iterations of the drink. “They’d pick one, then I’d add something, be like, ‘Between these two, which do you like better?,’” she says. She ended up using a slightly smoky sotol—a cousin of tequila made from the desert spoon plant (closely related to agave)—and

adding yellow Chartreuse for an herbal, savory note. To reinforce the flavor of the beer, she topped the drink with a little more Troublesome.

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TWO DASHES OF CELERY BITTERS .75 OZ LEMON JUICE .25 OZ YELLOW CHARTREUSE 1.5 OZ SOTOL 1 OZ TROUBLESOME SIMPLE SYRUP* TROUBLESOME BEER Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice, shake, and pour into an ice-ﬁlled glass rimmed with Hawaiian black sea salt and top with Troublesome beer. *Troublesome syrup: Add two bottles of Troublesome to a saucepan and simmer until reduced by half, then stir in a cup of sugar and half a cup of water

WHO’S NEXT:

Brudd has challenged STEVE GLEICH of LUXBAR to create a cocktail using SPAGHETTIOS. v

ß @juliathiel

$5 Absolut & Bacardi Cocktails Every Day special

All Lagunitas beers are $5.50

R I V E RB ENROWR YT N H

S NA R F ’S // 6 0 0 W CH I C AG O // E AT S NA R F S.C O M Snarf’s award-winning sandwiches are made-to-order using only the ﬁnest ingredients including premium meats and cheeses, crisp veggies, their own blend of giardiniera peppers and homemade, oven-toasted bread. They also oﬀer fresh salads with homemade dressings, soups, vegetarian options, desserts and a full catering menu. Free delivery is available.

“Their variety is what I enjoy the most.”

— AUGUST A / YELP

APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 41

42 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 6, 2017

JOBS

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American Veterans helping Veterans. Felons need not apply per Illinois Attorney General regulations. Start ASAP, Call 312-256-5035

food & drink BARTENDER DISHAND WASHER needed at Cy’s King

Crab Oyster Bar & Grill, 1816 N Halsted, Chicago IL 60614. 312-2808990. Please apply in person after 4pm any day.

General Simulation Modeling Consultant: Develop and implement AnyLogic models and simulations for Customers.Train and support users in development and implementation of AnyLogic models and simulations. Identify client needs and define the problem scope in order to develop effective yet creative solutions through a turnkey project or enhanced custom training. Incorporate system requirements in constructing simulation models employing unique capabilities of AnyLogic software by utilizing the most effective simulation method or combination of simulation methods. Utilizing industry specific libraries and capabilities of AnyLogic such as Rail Library, Road Traffic Library, Pedestrian Library, Fluid Library and Geographical Information System (GIS). Building expletory experiments such as optimization, parameter variation, sensitivity analysis and calibration to further analyze the system and quantify the possible scenarios. Verify and validate the model based on historical data and domain expertise. Ex-post statistical analysis of simulation outputs and documenting the possible solutions and recommendations. **Work is at Employer’s Office (20 N. Wacker Dr., Chicago, IL, 60606) with domestic travel approximately 3-4 times per year. Minimum Requirements: Master’s degree in Operations Research, Civil Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or closely related plus at least 2 years of experience in occupations performing simulations and modeling. Must have 2 years of modeling and simulation experience, 2 years of experience working with the three major simulation paradigms: Agent Based

modeling, Discrete Event, and System Dynamics. Must have 2 years of experience working with multi-method models. Must have 1 year of programing experience in either Java, C# or C++. Must have 1 year of experience working with a project management software, either Microsoft Project or Oracle Primavera P6. Must have 1 year of experience working with a relational database, either Oracle MySQL, Microsoft SQL, MS Access or SQLite. Email resume/CV and contact information to jobs@anylogic.com of ANYLOGIC NORTH AMERICA, LLC. No phone calls please Insurance Auto Auctions, Inc. seeks Database Administrators for Westchester, IL loc. Master’s in Comp Sci/Comp Eng +2yrs exp or Bachelor’s in Comp Sci/ Comp Eng +5yrs exp req’d. Req’d skills: SQL Database admin, installation, deployment, integration, programming, backup & recovery, providing logical database structures alternatives & creating physical database designs, Tuning T-SQL queries, performing proactive maintenance (ensuring continued space availability, monitoring activity, & documenting problems, changes, & solutions), using HA, DR options for MSSQL Server, clustering, handling production on-call issues. 25% telecommuting permitted. Send resume to: ¬¬A. Kostich, REF#MJ, 2 Westbrook Corp Ctr #500, Westchester, IL 60154. Insurance Auto Auctions, Inc. seeks Sr. Database Administrators for Westchester, IL loc. to perform database monitoring production databases & data processing jobs. Master’s in Comp S ci/Comp Eng +2yrs exp or Bachelor’s in Comp Sci/Comp Eng +5yrs exp req’d. Req’d skills: SQL Server programming & designing logical databases, SSIS, SSRS, SSAS, BIDS, SQL Profiler, PSSDIAG, SQL Loader, DTS, Commvault, Syammantec Net Backup. Send resume to: ¬¬A. Kostich, REF#SN, 2 Westbrook Corp Ctr #500, Westchester, IL 60154. Developer: Insurance Auto Auctions, Inc., Westchester, IL. Req. Master’s in Comp. Sc., Comp. Eng., or related field & 1 yr. exp. as Developer or a Bachelor’s & 5 yrs. exp. Must possess 1 yrs. exp. with ASP.NET C#; design & dev. of Web appls. in MVC, JQuery, HTML/CSS; design & dev. of Windows based appls. in C# .NET; SQL Server dev.; XML; & OOP concepts. Please submit résumé to Amanda Kostich, IAAI, Two Westbrook Corporate Center, Suite 500, Westchester, IL 60154. No agencies or phone calls please.

PRODUCT MANAGER (CHICAGO, IL) Manage data collection

and analysis to quantify the role of social impact in consumer purchasing. Oversee the delivery of research insights & their integration of consumer data into financial models. Bachelor’s Degree in Economics or related field and 2 years of work experience required. The experience above must include project management with clients & executive teams, experience in product development. Required skills: excellent written & oral communication skills, any level of proficiency in equity valuation, data collection & analysis. Mail resume to Mission Metrics, LLC, Attn: HR, 200 N. LaSalle, Suite 2650, Chicago, IL 60601

LIVE-IN WOMAN WANTED: Lincolnwood. Free private room & bath. Companion for elderly woman.

Needed to feed & keep her clean. All expenses cared for. Call Barry, 773531-0934.

RENTALS STUDIO $500-$599 STUDIO APARTMENT. AVAILABLE now. Near Northeast-

ern University, walk to transportation, street parking, intercom, laundry. One month security. Rent $560. 847-791-4780.

Chicago, Beverly/Cal Park/Blue Island Studio $575 & up, 1BR $665 & up, 2BR $885 & up. Heat, Appls, Balcony, Carpet, Laundry, Prkg. 708-388-0170 SOUTH SHORE AREA Newly remod Studios. Near Metra & CTA, appls incl. $500-$525/mo. Steve 312-952-3901

STUDIO $600-$699 CHICAGO, HYDE PARK Arms

Hotel, 5316 S. Harper, maid, phone, cable ready, fridge, private facilities, laundry avail. Switchboard. Start at $ 160/wk Call 773-493-3500 9147 S. Ashland. Lrg Studio, dine -In Kit., laundry, closets. Clean & Se-

cure. $650/mo. You pay utils. No Pets. Avail now! 312-914-8967.

STUDIO $900 AND OVER

LARGE SUNNY ROOM w/fridge & microwave. Near Oak Park, Green Line & Buses. 24 hr Desk, Parking Lot $101/week & Up. (773)378-8888

Spacious 3BR, 1.5BA, appls incl. $900/mo + utils. 773-406-0564

Ashland Hotel nice clean rms. 24 hr desk/maid/TV/laundry/air. Low rates daily/weekly/monthly. South Side. Call 773-376-5200

SUBURBS, RENT TO OW N! Buy with No closing costs and get help with your credit. Call 708868-2422 or visit www.nhba.com

1 BR UNDER $700 WINTER SPECIAL: STUDIOS starting at $499 incls utilities. 1BR $550, 2BR $599, 3BR $699. With approved credit. No Security Deposit for Sec 8 Tenants. South Shore & Southside. Call 312-4463333

FANTASTIC, 4 1/2 rm,1 bdrm with

newly remodeled Kitchen: granite counters, stainless steel appliances! Lovely hdwd flrs, dec. fireplace- Kitchen has large pantry! Onsite lndry/storage. Only 4 blocks from Wrigley Field, “EL’ stop and Jewel! $1,485.00, tnt, htd. 1249 West Wavelande (773) 3810150. www.theschirmfirm.com

69TH/CALIFORNIA 4RMS, 2BR ($820/mo) owner heated, coin laundry, off str pkng, nr Holy Cross Hospital. 1.5 mo sec dep. O’Brien Family Realty 773-581-7883 Agent owned

WINTER SPECIAL $500 Toward Rent Beautiful Studios 1, 2, 3 &

Ave) RENT SPECIAL 1/2 Off 1 month rent + Sec dep. Nice,lrg 1BR $600; 2BR $699 & 1 3BR $850, balcony, Sec 8 Welc. 773-995-6950

CLEAN ROOM W/FRIDGE & micro, Near Oak Park, Food -4Less, Walmart, Walgreens, Buses & Metra, Laundry. $115/wk & up. 773-637-5957 NEWLY REMOD 1BR & Studios starting at $500. No sec dep, move in fee or app fee. Free heat/ hot water. 1155 W. 83rd St., 773619-0204

SOUTH SHORE, 75th & Saginaw, 1 & 2BRs, hardwood floors. Stove, fridge, parking & heat incl. $600$950. Call 312-403-8025 Newly updated, clean furnished rooms, located near buses & Metra, elevator, utilities included, $91/wk. $ 395/mo. 815-722-1212 NICE ROOM w/stove, fridge & bath Near Aldi, Walgreens, Beach, Red Line & Buses. Elevator & Laundry. $130/wk & up. 773-275-4442 BIG ROOM with stove, fridge, bath & nice wood floors. Near Red Line & Buses. Elevator & Laundry, Shopping. $121/wk + up. 773-561-4970 CHICAGO 70th & King Dr, 1BR, clean, quiet, well maintained bldg, Lndry + Heat. Section 8 ok. $680/ mo. 773-510-9290.

û NO SEC DEP û

ROYALTON HOTEL, Kitchen-

2 BR UNDER $900

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

WEST PULLMAN (INDIANA

NO SECURITY DEPOSIT NO MOVE IN FEE 1, 2, 3 BEDROOM APTS (773) 874-1122

ACACIA SRO HOTEL Men Preferred! Rooms for Rent. Weekly & Monthly Rates. 312-421-4597

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

4 BR Sect. 8 Welc. Westside Loc, Must qualify. 773-287-4500 www.wjmngmt.com

CHICAGO, RENT TO OWN! Buy with no closing costs and get help with your credit. Call 708868-2422 or visit www.nhba.com

ette $135 & up wk. Free WiFi. 1810 W. Jackson 312-226-4678

7022 S. SHORE DRIVE Impeccably Clean Highrise STUDIOS, 1 & 2 BEDROOMS Facing Lake & Park. Laundry & Security on Premises. Parking & Apts. Are Subject to Availability. TOWNHOUSE APARTMENTS 773-288-1030

80TH & WESTERN: Spacious 2BR+ fplc, appls including Washer/ Dryer, formal DR, 2nd flr, $1300 + Security. No pets. 708-704-2313.

studio located 1 block from Metra, Mariano’s grocery, LA Fitness! 4832 North Wolcott: LANDLORD PAYS HEAT AND COOKING GAS! Lovely hardwd flrs, loads of closet space! built-in china cabinets! Lndry, storage onsite. $1,025.00. May 1 and June 1. (773) 381-0150. www.theschirmfirm. com

6949 S. GREEN.

CABLE & MAIDS. 1 Block to Orange Line 5300 S. Pulaski 773-581-1188

St. clean, heated, 2nd flr 1BR, appl inc. 24 hr sec $675/mo. 1.5 mo. sec. Sec. 8 OK. 773-520-1949 10a-7p

RAVENSWOOD HUGE 2 1/2 rm

ful Studios, 1,2,3 & 4 BR’s, Sec 8 ok. $500 gift certificate for Sec 8 tenants. 773-287-9999/312-446-3333

CROSSROADS HOTEL SRO SINGLE RMS Private bath, PHONE,

SOUTHWEST, 6348 S. Artesian

CAMPAIGN JOBS

BEST PRICE, BEST LOCATION. JACKSON HIGHLAND. STUDIO, $590. 1BR, $690. 2BR, $790. CALL MIKE, 773744-3235 CHICAGO SOUTH SIDE Beauti-

STUDIO OTHER

RAVENSWOOD 1 BDRM: only

1 block to fabulous Winnemac Park! Close to Brown line too! Lovely hdwd flrs, great closet space! Lndry/storage onsite! June 1: $1,200 heat incl. 1946 West Argyle, (773) 381-0150. www.theschirmfirm.com

1 BR OTHER SINGLE ROOM OCCUPANCY (SRO) WE are pleased to announce that Mark Twain at 111 W. Division and the Covent at 2653 N. Clark are now accepting rental applications. With rents starting at $500.00 per month, make our SRO’s your new home!

ALL requests for pre-applications can be completed on site. If you would like to receive an application via email or fax please reach out to 312-337-4000. Preapplications will be accepted between the hours of 9:00am 6:00pm, Monday - Friday: ---------------------------------------------To complete a pre-application visit the sites below. Mark Twain: 111 W. Division, Chicago, IL 60610 Covent: 2653 N. Clark, Chicago, IL 60614

Hickory Manor Apartments

Will open their waiting list for 1 bedroom Apts. on April 17 2017 at 9:00am Interested Applicants Should Apply At 4160 Continental Dr – Waukegan, IL Selection will be made on a 1st come, 1st serve basis. The waiting list will close on April 21, 2017 at 1:00pm. Property Managed by Ludwig And Company

CHATHAM 2BR apt 439 E. 80th St., $850 +sec,hdwd flrs, newly remod heat not included 6037 S Racine, 2BR apt, $750 +sec, heat incl Avail now. Call Doug 773-716-6331 SOUTHSIDE, COZY

2 bedroom apartment. Available now! Seniors welcome. $800/month + security. Call: 773.213.1705.

1117 N. CENTRAL Park, 2nd floor, deluxe 2BR, $850/mo. Must sign 6 mo lease. Must be employed. Call L. Simmons, 773278-2028 CHICAGO 1048 W. 81ST ST. Newly Decor 2BR, stove, fridge, carpet, c-fans, tenant pays heat. $800. Sec 8 Welc. 312-608-7622, 10a-5p 7127 S. EAST End, 2BR, 1BA, 1st flr, kitchen, appls incl., living & dining room, sun porch, heat incl. $875/mo. Sect 8 welc. 773206-4737 CHICAGO 7600 S Essex 2BR $599, 3BR $699, 4BR $799 w/apprvd credit, no sec dep. Sect 8 Ok! 773287-9999 /312-446-3333 SOUTH SUBURBAN HARVEY

East near 159th/Halsted, newly remodeled, 2BR, appl. off St. prk. $775 + 1 mo. sec. 708-289-5168

CHICAGO 5246 S. Hermitage:

AUSTINWESTSIDE OF CHICAGO,

2 BR/5 rm apt. $1,000 + 1 mo security. No Pets, heat incl Hdwd flrs throughout, lg bathroom compliment this newly renovated & decorated apt. 773-261-4415

CHICAGO, 92ND/ADA, Spacious 1BR w/ DR, fplc, sunrm, heat & appl incl, hrdwd floors, $875/mo + sec. Section 8 Welcome. 773-4156914 HAZEL CREST - 16953 S. Page. Newly remodeled, 2BR, stove & fridge incl. $950/mo + utilities. Section 8 welcome. Call 708-5571748

2 BR $1100-$1299 7220-22 S YATES Boulevard,

Chicago IL - 60649 - 2 Bed, 1 Bath Apt $1,225/Month, Large Newly Renovated Apartment, Accent Brick Wall New Kitchen, New Bath and New Floor, Stainless Steel Appliances, Heat & Hot Water included. Tenant Pays Cooking Gas and Electric Sec. 8 - 2 BR voucher welcome . Call or text Elliot 917-902-7605 or Alfredo 713291-6180 for showings

ANDERSONVILLE/ EDGEWATER 5-room, 2BR, DR/LR, kitchen, pantry, first floor, laundry included. Close to CTA, restaurants & shopping, $1245/ mo, heat included. Available May 1. One small dog ok. 312-415-9717 EAST ROGERS PARK, steps to

the beach at 1240 West Jarvis, five rooms, two bedrooms, two baths, dishwasher, ac, heat and gas included. Carpeted, cable, laundry facility, elevator building, parking available, and no pets. Non-smoking. Price is $1200/mo. Call 773-764-9824.

ADULT SERVICES

2BED/2BATH HOUSE. EAT-IN

kitchen. Full finished basement. Section8 welcome. Tent pays utilities. 1st/last security due on move in. No pets. Off street parking. Call/text 773307-4681.

2 BR OTHER ROUND LAKE BEACH, IL Cedar

Villas is accepting applications for Subsidized 2 and 3 bedroom apt waiting list. Rent is based on 30% of annual income for qualified applicants. Contact us at 847-546-1899 for details

BEAUTIFUL NEW APT!

6150 S. Vernon, 4BDRM 7649 S. Phillips Ave 2 & 4BDRM Stainless Steel!! Appliances!! Hdwd flrs!! Marble bath!! Laundry on site!! FREE 42IN TV Sec 8 OK. 773- 404- 8926 AFFORDABLE 2 & 3BRS FROM $575. Newly decorated, heated/ unheated. 1 Month Free for qualified tenants. CRS (312) 782-4041

GLENWOOD - Large 1 & 2BR Condo, H/F High School. Balc, C/ A, appls, heat, water incl. 2 parking, lndry. $775 & $975. 708-2683762

6914 S. WOOD, newly decorated 2-3BR, 2nd floor, schools nearby, $750/mo., tenant pays utilities. Section 8 welcome. 708743-8118 ENGLEWOOD 2-4BR unit apts in 2 unit gated bldgs, hdwd flrs, pets OK, no sec dep, W/D & appls incl, tenant pays own utils 773-715-1591

ADULT SERVICES

COLLEGE GIRL BODY RUBS $40 w/AD 24/7

224-223-7787

3BR, 2nd floor, $625. 3BR. 5258 S. Hermitage. $625. 1.5 mo sec req’d. 708-574-4085.

SECTION 8 WELCOME! 7406 S. Vernon 1 & 2BR, 2nd flr, remod, hdwd flrs, appl inc, laundry on site $700+ Zoran 773.406.4841

2 BR $900-$1099

6829 S. Perry. Studio/1BR. $465-$520/mo. HEAT INCL 773-955-5106

76TH & PHILLIPS, 2BR, 1BA, $775-$825; 2BR, 2BA $875-$900. Remodeled, Appliances avail. Free Heat. 312-286-5678

$12.50/HR FOR 90 DAYS THEN

$15.00/HR APPLY NOW 872.203.9303

1 BR $700-$799 SUNNY

LARGE

RAVEN-

SWOOD 2 1/2 rm studio! Close to fantastic Winnemac Park and Brown LIne! Lovely hdwd flrs, great closet space! Onsite lndry/storage. June 1: 1952 West Winnemac: $985 heat incl. (773) 381-0150. www.theschirmfirm.com

8324 S INGLESIDE: 1BR $660, newly remodeled., laundry, hardwood floors, cable. Sec 8 welcome. 708-308-1509, 773-493-3500

1 BR $1100 AND OVER HEART

BUCKTOWN/

Wicker Park. Milwaukee/ Ashland/ Division. 4 rooms, 1 bedroom. Extra room. Hwfl. Newly remodeled. Victorian building. Near Blue Line, expressway. $1100. 773-710-3634.

ROUND LAKE BEACH, IL Cedar Villas is accepting applications for subsidized 1BR apts. for seniors 62 years or older and the disabled. Rent is based on 30% of annual income. For details, call us at 847-546-1899 ∫

60 MINUTES FREE TRIAL

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

NICE, QUIET, NEWLY Decorated

ONE OF THE BEST M&N MGMT, 7727 Colfax, 1BR, $595$625, FREE gas & parking. Completely rehabbed, 6220 Eberhart, large 2 & 3BR, $950-$1200. 312613-4427

MATTESON 2BR TOWNHOME.

2 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment 950/mo Heat and water included. 9734 S. Prairie Call 708-417-0466 Sec 8 Welcome

Section 8 OK. $1150/mo + 1 mo sec. Call 708-625-7355 for info.

THE HOTTEST GAY CHATLINE

1-312-924-2082 More Local Numbers: 800-777-8000

www.guyspyvoice.com

Ahora en Español/18+

APRIL 6, 2017 | CHICAGO READER 43

CHATHAM, 720 E. 81st St. Newly remodeled 2BR, 1BA, hardwood floors, appliances & heat included. Call 847-533-5463.

3 BR OR MORE UNDER $1200 SECTION 8 WELCOME 2 BEAUTIFUL APTS & 1 House.

Ready Now. Newly remod 2BR/1BA & 3BR/1BA. Also 4BR House. All hdwd flrs, appls, pkng, $1100-$1400. 773-590-0101

SECTION 8 WELCOME Dolton - 3BR, 1BA, side driveway. $1000/mo. Available Now! Appliances incl. & security deposit required. Call 773-447-1990 CHICAGO, 6915 S Artesian, 2nd flr, beautiful 3 lrg bedroom, incl heat, stove, + fridge, wall-to-wall crpt, hdwd flrs, laundry room, newly renovated, no sec. $1150. Section 8 ok. 773-983-6671 5021 S. RACINE, B e a u t i f u l 3BR, 1.5BA, fenced yard. $850/mo + sec. Tenant pays utilities. Section 8 ok. Call 708-9229069 S. SHORE - NEAR 80th & Paxton: deluxe 7 rms. 3BR, heat incl.,

ROSELAND, SINGLE FAMILY Home, 3BR, 1.5BA, C/A, newly renov. 9600 Blk Wentworth, $1350. Sect 8 ok. Call Mr. Johnson, 630-424-1403

3 BR OR MORE $1500-$1799

SECTION 8 WELCOME . No Se-

curity deposit. 7047 S. Aberdeen, 4BR, 2BA house, appls incl, $1300/ mo. 708-288-4510

MARKETPLACE 3 BR OR MORE

3 BR OR MORE $1200-$1499 11740 S. LASALLE, 2nd floor of 2 flat bldng. 4BR, hdwd flrs, stove, refrigerator. Newly remod. $1200/mo. No Security Deposit. Tenant Pays utils. Sect 8 welc. Will accept 2BR Voucher, 773-221-0061 JEFFREY MANOR TOWNHOUSE, 3BR, 1BA, stove, fridge, no pets, Now Available! $1200/mo. 2 months in advance. $25 app fee, non refundable. Call 708-217-5131 E. GARFIELD PK Adams/

California 3BR, 2BA + Den, 2nd flr, A/C, tenant pays heat. Avail 4/1. $1370. Credit check req. 847-951-2515

GOODS

OTHER

330 W. 107TH St. 5BR, 2BA, fenced-in yard, hrdwd flrs, stove, refrig & micro incld. $1600/mo, no Security. Sect 8 welcome. Tenant pays utils. 773-221-0061.

MORGAN PARK - $1600/mo. 115th & S. Throop. Remodeled 5BR, 2BA, Hdwd flrs, fenced yard, near trans, Sect. 8 welc. 773-766-2640

Markham, 3 & 4 BR homes for rent, Section 8 welcome Security Required 708-262-6506

GENERAL 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

FOR SALE 7830 S. LAKE SHORE DRIVE TOWNHOUSE TAX CERTIFICATE FOR SALE $52,000 WADE, 773617-8534 3 UNIT BUILDING in up & coming

South Shore. 2200+ SF ea unit, 7rms, 3BR, 2 full baths, rehab, sep utils, cent heat & A/C. 5 car gar. Express CTA 15 mins to Loop. Principles Only $450K. 773-363-6789

HIGHLAND IN-1.5 STORY capecod 3 XL bedrooms 1.5baths ﬁreplace basement hardwood ﬂoors 1920sq ft $199K 219-838-6667

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.

44 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 6, 2017

HEALTH & WELLNESS FULL BODY MASSAGE. hotel, house calls welcome $90

special. Russian, Polish, Ukrainain girls. Northbrook and Schaumburg locations. 10% discount for new customers. Please call 773-407-7025

FRONT LOADER WASHER and Gas Dryer. Frigidaire approximately 6 years old. Good condition. 400.00 for both.

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

WANTED: R12 FREON. EPA Certiﬁed buyer will PICK UP and PAY CASH for cylinders of R12. 312-291-9169 or sell@refrigerantﬁnders.com.

KILL TEED!

ROACHES-GUARAN-

Buy Harris Roach Tablets. Odorless, Long Lasting Available: Hardware Stores, The Home Depot, homedepot.com

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.

KILL BED BUGS!

Buy Harris Bed Bug Killers/KIT Complete Treatment System Available: Hardware Stores, The Home Depot, homedepot.com

SERVICES SUNRISECOMPUTERSYSTEM. COM Quality and Affordable PC computer repair. We provide complete computer services 847-656-6336 for Free Diagnostics.

STRAIGHT DOPE

UKRAINIAN MASSAGE. CALLS in/ out. Chicago and sub-

urbs. Hotels. 1250 S Michigan Avenue. Appointments. 773-616-6969.

MUSIC & ARTS FREE CONCERT

Joseph Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ

(seven main sonatas) By St. Philip Neri Chamber Players (Members of Chicago Sinfonietta) Saturday, April 8 @ 7PM St Stanislaus Kostka Church 1327 N Noble, Chicago 60642

legal notices

7955 S. JUSTINE. 5BR, 2 full bath, Hdwd floors. 10215 S. Perry. 3BR, 1 full BA, hdwd flrs. 130 E. 120th Pl. 6BR, 2 full Baths. Sec 8 Welcome. 708-296-5477

CHICAGO HOUSES FOR rent. Section 8 Ok, w/app credit $500 gift certificate 3, 4 & 5 BR houses avail. 312-446-3333 or 708-752-3812

Chicago 1646 W. Garfield. 3 bdrm, 1 bath, newly renovated, hardwood floors, appliances included. $850/mo. 773-285-3206

PULLMAN AREA, Newly

AVAILABLE NOW! Spacious Rooms for rent. $400/mo. Utilities and bed incl. Seniors Welcome. No Sec Dep. 312-973-2793

CHATHAM-3BR 1.5BA, STOVE /HEAT incl, laundry in bsmt, 7900 block of Langley, Sec 8 Ok. $1130/Mo. Mr. Johnson, 630-424-1403

SECTION 8 WELCOME. No Security Deposit. 7721 S Peoria, 3BR apt, appls incl. $1050/mo. 708-288-4510

Discount. Male preferred. Furnished rooms, shared kitchen & bath, $550/ mo. & up. Utilities included. 773-710-5431

SECTION 8 WELCOME.

SOUTHSIDE Newly rehab, 5 bed, single family. $1500/month. Please Call 773-413-0073

newly decorated. Stove, refrig, hdwd flrs, $985/mo + move-in fee. 773551-3448

54TH & INDIANA. large 4br 1. 5ba, newly decorated, hardwood floors, sect 8 ok. $1150/mo + 1 mo security. 773-238-9770

SOUTH SHORE, Senior

remodeled 111th St., East of King Dr. $450-$550. Close to shopping & 1/4 block to metra. 773-468-1432

SOUTHSIDE, NEWLY REMODELED 3BR/2BA with appls & was her/dryer. Also, newly remod 2BR with appls. 773-908-8791

Chatham , 957 E 84th Pl, 3rd fl, 2BR heated, carpet, dining rm, cabinet kitchen, appls, $990 plus sec Avail now 312-946-0130

roommates

COPY OF LEGAL NOTICE TO BE PUBLISHED - ADDITION OF PARTNER(S) Notice is hereby given, pursuant to “An Act in relation to the use of an Assumed Business Name in the conduct or transaction of Business in the State,” as amended, that a certification was registered by the undersigned with the County Clerk of Cook County. Registration Number: D01069875 on March 15, 2017 Under the Assumed Business Name of CIRCA CERAMICS with the business located at: 3759 N RAVENSWOOD AVE STE 134, CHICAGO, IL 60613. The true and real full name(s) and residence address of the owner(s)/partner(s) is: NANCY PIZARRO, 3950 N LINCOLN AVE APT 2N, CHICAGO, IL 60613, USA NOTICE IS HEREBY given, pursuant to “An Act in relation to the use of an Assumed Business Name in the conduct or transaction of Business in the State,” as amended, that a certification was registered by the undersigned with the County Clerk of Cook County. Registration Number: D17150212 on March 27, 2017 Under the Assumed Business Name of PARADISE GROVE BEADS with the business located at: 2038 GREENWOOD AVENUE, WILMETTE, IL 60090. The true and real full name(s) and residence address of the owner(s)/partner(s) is: CAROL GROVE, 2038 GREENWOOD AVENUE, WILMETTE, IL 60090, USA NOTICE IS HEREBY given, pur-

suant to “An Act in relation to the use of an Assumed Business Name in the conduct or transaction of Business in the State,” as amended, that a certification was registered by the undersigned with the County Clerk of Cook County. Registration Number: D17150045 on March 15, 2017 Under the Assumed Business Name of YUMMIES BY YANNIE with the business located at: 5 W BRAYTON STREET, CHICAGO, IL 60628. The true and real full name(s) and residence address of the owner(s)/ partner(s) is: AYANNA SCOTT JENKINS 5 W BRAYTON STREET, CHICAGO, IL 60628, USA

By Cecil Adams Q : The recent dispatch of Kim Jong-nam

by VX poisoning is all over the news at the moment, and reports invariably describe VX as odorless and tasteless. How would anybody know what a substance this toxic tastes or smells like, short of a heroic selfsacriﬁce by the assessor? Even inhaling this stuﬀ seems foolhardy to me, let alone voluntarily giving it a lick. —MIKE CAUDWELL

A : Surely, Mike, you’ll recall the first principle

of toxicology, distilled from writings of the 16th-century medical pioneer Paracelsus: “Sola dosis facit venenum,” or “The dose makes the poison.” Inhaled or ingested in great enough amounts, the idea being, any substance will take you down, including necessities of life like water and oxygen. Conversely, your body can process nearly anything in sufficiently small quantities and keep on kicking. Even an encounter with the notorious nerve agent VX can be survived, though I can’t discourage this kind of field research strongly enough. So people have been sampling poisonous substances since antiquity. The earliest poisons were herbal and generally distinct tasting. Hemlock apparently tastes like parsnip, but more bitter and accompanied by a mousy smell. Aconite, also called monkshood and wolfsbane, was another poison known to the ancients; in testimony from an 1882 English murder trial, a medical examiner who’d tasted it reported that it created a burning and numbing sensation in the mouth. Strychnine, used medicinally in Asia for centuries, wasn’t identified by Western science until the early 1800s; with its bitter taste and tendency (in high enough doses) to cause dramatically convulsive death, strychnine was an effective way to kill but an ineffective way to not get caught. In 2006 the Hindustani Times reported that a goldsmith named M.P. Prasad had in his dying moments left a suicide note providing valuable insight into the experience of ingesting cyanide: “It burns the tongue and tastes acrid.” But cyanide’s powerfully bitter flavor had long been documented, as it takes about a half a gram to fell a midsize victim. To some people, cyanide smells like burnt almond, but to others it’s odorless—there’s a genetic factor at work here. The assassin’s best friend, of course, is a poison that kills slowly, and if you’re going to get someone to ingest their cause of death over time, it had better be undetectable. Arsenic is perhaps the most notorious tasteless and odorless chemical, involved in a third of all criminal poisoning cases in 19th-century

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England. A dose the size of a pea was enough to cause sudden death, though again the cagier poisoners doled it out more gradually. Some nonnaturally occurring poisons have made their way into scientific awareness innocently enough, and their taste and odor properties were determined through accidental exposure. Thallium sulfate, a highly toxic compound with no smell or taste, was discovered in 1861 as a byproduct of sulfuric acid production. VX, by contrast, was a killer from day one. Originally developed as a pesticide circa 1952, it showed immediate promise as a top-ﬂight chemical weapon: viscous enough to stick to whatever it touched; hypertoxic enough even in minute amounts (say, ten milligrams) to induce paralysis and respiratory failure via skin contact. (Malaysian oﬃcials say Kim Jongnam’s attackers managed to rub it on his face.) Scary stuff, but there is such thing as a nonlethal dose, and plenty of people have been exposed to VX in military research and lived to get debriefed about it. According to medical historian Ulf Schmidt, in an unauthorized 1958 test two British Army scientists had 50-microgram droplets of VX applied to their forearms. Retired U.S. Army psychiatrist James Ketchum, who in the 1960s conducted chemical-warfare studies at the Edgewood Arsenal research facility in Maryland, claims that the chief medical officer there would regularly startle lecture audiences by dipping a finger into a beaker of VX, then calmly scrubbing it off as he explained that the poison needed a little more time than that to soak in. But in a 2012 New Yorker article about Ketchum’s work at Edgewood, one former volunteer describes undergoing physical and mental agony after a tiny drop of VX was squirted on his arm and left there. So when the army tells you VX has no odor—as in its pamphlet Toxic Chemical Agent Safety Standards—that information was bought at a significant price. 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

When ‘slaves’ rebel

Is “I’m overwhelmed” the new “It’s not you, it’s me”? Plus: bad night for BDSM

Q : I’m a woman in my

late 40s. In my early 20s, I married a much older man. We did all the requisite things: kids, house, intercourse once a week. When the sex fell off due to his declining health, he surprised me by suggesting we open our marriage. He said I was too young to be limited and he didn’t want me to leave him for sex. I spent time contemplating how to truly fulfill my desires, and discovered that what turned me on was dominance. Not intercourse particularly, but power play with me as the queen controlling a slave. I like chastity, face sitting, and light bondage. I have found that this type of play appeals to smart and kinky gents. But I am finding that, despite a gentleman’s declaration of “wanting something long-term,” perhaps a friends-withbenefits arrangement, they tend to drop out in short order. Three times in the past two years I have spent a great deal of time getting to know someone before there was any play—a lot of time chatting online, several vanilla dates. In each of these instances, I felt that I had found a good friend. Each of these three men dumped me in exactly the same way. Each said that I was too overwhelmingly beautiful and powerful, and that their obsession with me took up too much room in their lives. This is very frustrating because I feel like I give someone the space they need. I think this is likely BS. Could “I’m overwhelmed” be the new “It’s not you, it’s me”? I’m tired of having my feelings hurt. Must I hang up my crop forever? —DONE OFFERING MY MENTAL ENERGY

A : Forever hanging up your

crop because a few guys tactfully ended things over a two-year period seems a bit melodramatic. So hang in there, DOMME, and hold on to that crop. The mistake you’re making, if I may be so bold as to offer some constructive criticism to the queen, is investing too much time and energy up front. Spending “a great deal of time getting to know” a potential kinky FWB is a recipe for disappointment. Because if you don’t click during play—if your style of BDSM doesn’t do it for them or vice versa—there are really no “benefits” in continuing. I suspect that was the case with your last three gents. But instead of ghosting you or saying something that could be construed as critical or unkind, all three heaped praise on you instead. You were too beautiful, too overwhelming, etc. It was, indeed, a kinder, gentler, subbier way of saying, “It’s not you, it’s me.” Dominant women are in such short supply relative to demand that submissive men will—well, they’ll submit to an endless vetting process. During that process, some submissive guys who aren’t looking for something longterm may say they are, at least if that’s what they sense you want to hear. In order to be safe while avoiding avoidable heartache, DOMME, you’ll want to invest a little time in getting to know guys before you play, but not so much emotional energy that you’ll be annoyed/upset/devastated if it doesn’t work out.

Q : My husband is

wonderful. We are into BDSM. It’s always been superhot for me, and he’s always respected my boundaries. The other night, both of us had a lot

to drink. I had WAY too much. When we got home, he asked if I was too drunk for sex and I said we should have sex. I encouraged him. But when kinky stuﬀ happened—him fucking my mouth, slapping my face a little—I quickly realized I was too drunk. I felt hurt and confused instead of feeling turned on, I felt sad, but I didn’t want to tell him to stop. At some point, he realized I was too drunk for what we were doing and he stopped. He feels horrible and says that, regardless of me insisting (more than once) that he continue, he should’ve known I was too drunk. He feels bad. I feel bad. Any direction you could point me in—perhaps a book to read?—would be appreciated. —DIDN’T KNOW MY LIMITS

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A : You don’t need a book,

DKML, you need a shift in focus. Right now, you’re focused on everything that went wrong that night and not giving enough weight to what went right that night. Your husband sensed you weren’t feeling it, realized you were too drunk, and then, despite the fact that you encouraged him to continue, he sensed you weren’t in the right head space and stopped. Your husband, even with a hard dick, even inebriated himself, even while topping during BDSM, didn’t lose sight of your safety and comfort. Don’t feel bad about the sex, or the kink, or your partner, DKML. Learn from this experience—BDSM and boozing don’t mix—and move on. v Send letters to mail@ savagelove.net. Download the Savage Lovecast every Tuesday at savagelovecast. com. ß @fakedansavage

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please recycle this paper APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 45

Drive-By Truckers o DANNY CLINCH

NEW

Aﬃance 5/21, 6:30 PM, Wire, Berwyn b Air 6/20, 7:30 PM, Auditorium Theatre, on sale Fri 4/7, 10 AM The Alarm 8/28, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 4/6, noon b All Tomorrow’s Impeachments with Shellac, Tar, Dianogah, Lardo, and more 7/21-22, 7:30 PM, Bottom Lounge, on sale Fri 4/7, noon, 17+ Amadou & Mariam, Frank Wain 7/24, 6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park F b Dierks Bentley, Cole Swindell 7/28, 7 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park, on sale Fri 4/7, 10 AM Big Thief, Overcoats 7/17, 6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park F b Emily Cavanagh, Mundy 6/2, 6 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 4/7, noon Chastity Belt 6/15, 7 PM, Subterranean, on sale Fri 4/7, 10 AM, 17+ Gerald Clayton Trio 5/15, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Norman Connors & the Starship Orchestra 5/31, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 4/6, noon b Robert Cray Band 7/8, 8 PM, House of Blues, on sale Fri 4/7, 10 AM, 17+ Cupcakke 4/29, 10 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Raheem DeVaughn & Wes Fulton 5/21, 6 and 9 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 4/6, noon b Digable Planets 5/20, 9 PM, Metro, on sale Fri 4/17, 10 AM, 18+ Dreamcar 5/27, 7:30 PM, the Vic, on sale Fri 4/7, 10 AM b

Drive-By Truckers 7/20, 6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park F b Eyes Set to Kill 4/25, 6 PM, Wire, Berwyn b Feist 6/14-15, 8 PM, the Vic, on sale Fri 4/7, 10 AM, 18+ Amina Figarova 4/29, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Fleet Foxes 10/3, 7:30 PM, Chicago Theatre, on sale Fri 4/7, 10 AM Frontier Ruckus 5/7, 8 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 4/7, noon, 18+ Alex G 6/28, 6:45 PM, Bottom Lounge b Freddie Gibbs 6/22, 9 PM, Metro, on sale Fri 4/7, 10 AM, 18+ Joe Goddard 5/26, 10 PM, Smart Bar Holy Wave 5/10, 8 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 4/7, noon, 18+ Honey Island Swamp Band 6/16, 9 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn, on sale Fri 4/7, 11 AM Hurray for the Riﬀ Raﬀ, Matthew Santos 6/22, 6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park F b Jaga Jazzist, Afrotronix 6/26, 6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park F b Jucifer 4/29, 8 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Lady Wray, Zeshan B & the Transistors 6/29, 6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park F b Lauv 5/31, 7:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, on sale Fri 4/7, 10 AM b A Lot Like Birds 5/20, 7 PM, Wire, Berwyn Magic Giant 4/24, 8 PM, Schubas, 18+ Maxo Kream 4/20, 6:30 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club b Imelda May 6/30, 8 PM, Park West, on sale Fri 4/7, 10 AM, 18+

46 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 6, 2017

MC 900 Ft Jesus, Gost 9/28, 9 PM, Empty Bottle, on sale Fri 4/7, 10:30 AM Miss May I 6/13, 6 PM, Wire, Berwyn b Gaby Moreno, Centavrvs 8/7, 6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park F b Gurf Morlix 5/28, 7:30 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn, on sale Fri 4/7, 11 AM Mount Kimbie, Ash Koosha 6/18, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, on sale Fri 4/7, 10 AM, 17+ Mutoid Man, Helms Alee 6/9, 9 PM, Subterranean, on sale Thu 4/6, 8 AM, 17+ Graham Nash 7/30, 7 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music, on sale Fri 4/7, 8 AM b Youssou N’Dour, Bassel & the Supernaturals 8/10, 6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park F b Joshua Nelson, Tone Ross & Inspired 8/17, 6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park F b No BS! Brass Band, Dayme Arocena 6/15, 6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park F b NRBQ 5/26-27, 9 PM, Hideout Conor Oberst 9/9, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, on sale Fri 4/7, 11 AM, 18+ Oﬀ With Their Heads (acoustic set) 5/11, 9 PM, Quenchers Saloon Linda May Han Oh 6/17, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ The Pains of Being Pure at Heart 6/24, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, on sale Fri 4/7, noon, 18+ Phish 7/14-16, 7 PM, Huntington Bank Pavilion, on sale Fri 4/7, 10 AM Phora 7/15, 7 PM, Portage Theater b Poptone 7/9, 8 PM, Metro, on sale Fri 4/7, 10 AM, 18+

b Gregory Porter, Tomeka Reid Quartet 6/19, 6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park F b Natalie Prass, Angelica Garcia 7/10, 6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park F b Chuck Ragan 6/3, 10 PM, Beat Kitchen, on sale Fri 4/7, 9 AM, 17+ Rooney, Run River North 6/22, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, on sale Fri 4/7, 10 AM, 18+ Royal Headache 7/9, 9 PM, Empty Bottle, on sale Fri 4/7, 10 AM Scorpions 9/23, 7:30 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont, on sale Fri 4/7, 10 AM Chris Smither 7/28, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 4/6, noon b Spring Awakening Music Festival with Diplo, Die Antwoord, Afrojack, Alesso, Galantis, and more 6/9-11, Addams/ Medill Park Otis Taylor, Ben Sollee & Kentucky Native 7/12, 6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park F b TKA/K7, George Lamond, Johnny O 8/19, 8 PM, Concord Music Hall Totó la Momposina, Xenia Rubinos 7/13, 6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park F b Trip Metal Fest with Wolf Eyes, Pharmakon, Aaron Dilloway, Container, and more 5/25, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Ralph White 5/22, 7 PM, Hideout Whitehorse 5/16, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 4/6, noon b Young the Giant, Cold War Kids 9/9, 7 PM, Huntington Bank Pavilion, on sale Fri 4/7, noon Hans Zimmer 8/4, 8 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont, on sale Fri 4/7, 11 AM

UPCOMING Anjunabeats 4/29, 8 PM, Concord Music Hall, 18+ At the Drive-In, Le Butcherettes 6/18, 7:30 PM, Aragon Ballroom b Belle & Sebastian, Julien Baker 8/16, 7:30 PM, Chicago Theatre Besnard Lakes 5/15, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Birthday Massacre, Army of the Universe 5/20, 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Black Angels, A Place to Bury Strangers 5/11, 9 PM, Thalia Hall, 18+ Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes 5/15, 6 PM, Cobra Lounge b Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 6/16, 8 PM, Auditorium Theatre

ALL AGES

WOLF BY KEITH HERZIK

EARLY WARNINGS

CHICAGO SHOWS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT IN THE WEEKS TO COME

Never miss a show again. Sign up for the newsletter at chicagoreader. com/early

The Damned 4/23, 8 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Every Time I Die, Wage War 5/14, 6 PM, Bottom Lounge b Fruit Bats 5/11, 8 PM, Schubas Diamanda Galas 4/17, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Gutter Demons 6/2, 8 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Don Henley 6/17, 7:30 PM, Huntington Bank Pavilion Iron Maiden, Ghost 6/15, 7:30 PM, Hollywood Casino Ampitheatre, Tinley Park b Jamestown Revival 6/15, 8 PM, Park West, 18+ Tim Kasher 6/8, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ King Crimson 6/28, 7:30 PM, Chicago Theatre Loudness 4/19, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Mastodon, Eagles of Death Metal, Russian Circles 5/13, 7:30 PM, Aragon Ballroom b New Bomb Turks 4/15, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Of Montreal 4/22, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Pissed Jeans, Stnnng 4/28, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Quivver 4/27, 10 PM, Smart Bar Record Company 5/24, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Rise Against, Deftones, Thrice 6/9, 6:30 PM, Huntington Bank Pavilion Secret Sisters 6/25, 7:30 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Shining 5/11, 6 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Trey Songz 5/4, 8 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Taake 6/1, 7:30 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Paul Thorn Band 5/7, 8 PM, City Winery b Tool 6/8, 8 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont Ugly God 5/20, 8 PM, Concord Music Hall b Vita & the Woolf 4/27, 8:30 PM, Beat Kitchen John Waite 6/11, 8 PM, City Winery b Roger Waters 7/22, 8 PM, United Center Wedding Present, Colleen Green 4/21, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall George Winston 4/27, 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Wrekmeister Harmonies 5/8, 9 PM, Empty Bottle F XTX 4/18, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ The XX 5/1, 6:30 PM, Aragon Ballroom Zombies 4/13-14, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ v

GOSSIP WOLF A furry ear to the ground of the local music scene AS STATION DIRECTOR at Lumpen Radio (aka WLPN), as an awesomely insane flyer artist, and as half of the Gutter Butter DJ crew, Logan Bay is one the friendliest, hardest-working, and most dedicated folks in Chicago’s weirdo music and party scenes. Early on the morning of Saturday, March 25, while unloading DJ gear in front of his Bridgeport apartment, Bay was struck and pinned to his car by another automobile, suffering catastrophic injuries to both legs. His lower right leg was amputated at Cook County Hospital that day, and he’s since undergone other serious procedures, including a major surgery on his left leg. WLPN founder Ed Marszewski says that Bay “is such a fucking nut that he’s been programming the station from his hospital bed! The great group he’s brought to WLPN is pulling together and will definitely keep going.” Though Bay has health insurance, he’ll still get mountains of bills—friends and family, including Marszewski, are looking for ways to help, especially with the prosthetics and physical therapy he’ll need. They’ve already set up a YouCaring page seeking $50,000 in donations—stay tuned for news on benefit events. Get well soon, Logan! On Saturday, April 8, CHIRP Radio hosts its 15th annual Record Fair at Plumbers Hall (1340 W. Washington). Expect collectible vinyl from more than 50 vendors plus live music and DJ sets from Gossip Wolf faves such as Beat Drun Juel, Flesh Panthers, and Avery Young. For almost a year, Seth Vanek (drummer for Kent Lambert’s ace art-pop project, Roommate) has been hosting a weekly variety show at the Hungry Brain called The Therapy Sessions. For the show’s first anniversary celebration on Thursday, April 6, he’ll hop around the corner to Constellation for a one-off called The Seth Show, Tonight! Admission is $10, and his guests are gubernatorial candidate and 47th Ward alderman Ameya Pawar, comedian Rebecca O’Neal, and singer-songwriter Akenya. —J.R. NELSON AND LEOR GALIL Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or e-mail gossipwolf@chicagoreader.com.

BRIAN REGAN FRIDAY, APRIL 7

THE LAST WALTZ 40 TOUR FEATURING WARREN HAYNES, DR. JOHN, JAMEY JOHNSON AND MANY MORE! SUNDAY, APRIL 9

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LEWIS BLACK APRIL 28

GUCCI MANE

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APRIL 6, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 47