Print Issue of April 26, 2018 (Volume 47, Number 29)

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Memorial to fascist Balbo stays put 4

HOME LAND, PROMISED LAND, CANDY LAND Yvette Mayorga’s art depicts Mexican immigrants’ vision of the American dream

By KERRY CARDOZA 11

MLK mural mystery in Bronzeville 6

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INTERIM EXECUTIVE EDITOR DAVE NEWBART CREATIVE DIRECTOR VINCE CERASANI DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY JAMIE RAMSAY CULTURE EDITOR AIMEE LEVITT FILM EDITOR J.R. JONES MUSIC EDITOR PHILIP MONTORO ASSOCIATE EDITORS STEVE HEISLER, JAMIE LUDWIG, KATE SCHMIDT SENIOR WRITER MIKE SULA SENIOR THEATER CRITIC TONY ADLER STAFF WRITERS MAYA DUKMASOVA, LEOR GALIL, DEANNA ISAACS, BEN JORAVSKY, PETER MARGASAK, JULIA THIEL SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR RYAN SMITH GRAPHIC DESIGNER SUE KWONG MUSIC LISTINGS COORDINATOR LUCA CIMARUSTI FILM LISTINGS COORDINATOR PATRICK FRIEL CONTRIBUTORS NOAH BERLATSKY, ALLISON DUNCAN, JORDANNAH ELIZABETH, ANNE FORD, ISA GIALLORENZO, JOHN GREENFIELD, ANDREA GRONVALL, KT HAWBAKER, JUSTIN HAYFORD, JACK HELBIG, TANNER HOWARD, IRENE HSIAO, DAN JAKES, MONICA KENDRICK, H. MELT, BILL MEYER, ANGELA MYERS, MICHAEL MINER, J.R. NELSON, MARISSA OBERLANDER, MARK PETERS, LEAH PICKETT, JANET POTTER, BEN SACHS, DMITRY SAMAROV, KATE SIERZPUTOWSKI, OLIVER SAVA, TIFFANY WALDEN, KEVIN WARWICK, BRIANNA WELLEN, DAVID WHITEIS, ALBERT WILLIAMS INTERN ASHLEY MIZUO ---------------------------------------------------------------ADVERTISING DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER BEST SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER EVANGELINE MILLER DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL JOHN DUNLEVY ADVERTISING COORDINATOR HERMINIA BATTAGLIA ---------------------------------------------------------------DISTRIBUTION CONCERNS distributionissues@chicagoreader.com CHICAGO READER 30 N. RACINE, SUITE 300 CHICAGO, IL 60607 312-222-6920 CHICAGOREADER.COM

FEATURES

CITY LIFE

There used to be a Martin Luther King memorial somewhere around 43rd and Langley. . .

VISUAL ART

MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE

eyes of immigrants.

BY KERRY CARDOZA 11

More than a century ago, Joe Hill wrote some of the most enduring anthems in the radical union’s Little Red Songbook—and today’s activists carry on that legacy of struggle through music.

BY KIM KELLY 23

At the border of Mexico, The songs that drove the U.S., and Candy Land the Wobblies are still Yvette Mayorga’s art shows the lighting fires American dream through the

What happened to it?

BY JEFF HUEBNER 6

IN THIS ISSUE

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CITY LIFE

4 Street View A look that’s “a little weird, a little masculine, a little trendy, and a lot of streetwear” 4 Transportation What’s the status of Chicago’s memorials honoring the fascist aviator Italo Balbo?

ARTS & CULTURE ON THE COVER: ICE ICE LADY

BY YVETTE MAYORG. FOR MORE OF YVETTE’S WORK, GO TO YVETTEMAYORGA.COM.

15 Lit Previews of four talks at this year’s Chicago Humanities Festival, “Graphic!”

17 Theater MPAACT’S Blood Mural misses what’s right in front of it.

18 Dance At Lucky Plush’s “Tab Show” anything can happen.

18 Theater Redtwist Theatre’s

Frost/Nixon and five more current performances, reviewed by our critics 19 Movies With The Green Fog, Guy Maddin delivers an experimental feature that’s pure entertainment.

20 Movies In the new Amy Schumer comedy I Feel Pretty, the road to feminine empowerment leads straight to the cash register.

21 Movies The Rider, The Blood Is at the Doorstep, and more new releases reviewed by our critics.

MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE

27 Shows of note Lost Dog Street Band, American Pleasure Club, Anteloper, and more of the week’s best

29 Secret History Deacon Jones cofounded the legendary Baby Huey & the Babysitters—and that was just for starters.

FOOD & DRINK

32 Culinary Industry The website Equity at the Table helps minority women find their place in the culinary industry.

33 Restaurant Review: Astoria Café Irving Park’s Serbian bakery has savory pastries of epic proportions.

CLASSIFIEDS

34 Jobs

34 Apartments & Spaces 35 Marketplace 36 Straight Dope Are Zika and toxoplasmosis—two diseases that cause microcephaly—related?

37 Savage Love A serial adulterer makes a case for himself (and gets reamed).

38 Early Warnings My Bloody Valentine, Janelle Monae, Car Seat Headrest, and more shows to look for in the weeks to come 38 Gossip Wolf White Mystery keep on celebrating their first decade, the All Smiles hip-hop showcase reaches its sixth birthday, and more.

APRIL 26, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 3

CITY LIFE TRANSPORTATION

Balbo’s still standing

A monument to fascist aviator and Blackshirt leader Italo Balbo remains in Burnham Park despite protests—but a explanatory plaque may soon join it.

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n the summer of 1940, six-year-old Beno Weiss’s family was awakened by pounding on the door of their home in Abbazia, then in northeast Italy. It was a year and a half after Benito Mussolini had bowed to the influence of Nazi Germany and passed the Italian Racial Laws, which stripped civil rights from Italian Jews. “Pandemonium broke out,” according to Beno’s widow, Susan.

Police seized Beno’s father, Isaac, a Polish-born Jewish textile salesman, and he was hauled off to Ferramonti, an internment camp in southern Italy that had just been established to house foreign-born Jews and political dissidents. The rest of the family was sent to Tuscania, a small town 95 miles northwest of Rome. It was the start of many years of dis-

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placement, uncertainty, and terror.

As a boy in central Pennsylvania, I knew that Beno, my best friend Sandro’s father and a professor of Italian at Penn State University, despised Mussolini, but I didn’t fully understand the roots of his bitterness. I recently talked with the family about Beno’s wartime experiences to gain insight into the controversy surrounding Chicago’s Balbo Monument and Balbo Drive, tributes to Mussolini’s air commander, Italo Balbo.

Mussolini donated the monument, a 2,000-year-old Roman pillar, to Chicago after Balbo led a squadron of 24 seaplanes on a transatlantic mission to our city’s 1933 Century of Progress World’s Fair. The dashing aviator, who previously led the Blackshirts paramilitary units, received a hero’s welcome from the Italian-American community, and the downtown street was soon rededicated in his honor.

After the racist violence last August at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, southwest-side alderman Ed Burke (14th) and northwest-side alderman Gilbert Villegas (36th) said they planned to push for removing the Balbo tributes, and a month later they were ready to introduce an ordinance to City Council. But there was stiff opposition from some local Italian-American civic leaders and history buffs, who view the landmarks as a source of ethnic pride.

On April 16, Villegas’s policy director, Justin Heath, told me the aldermen’s legislative effort has stalled. “We got sort of pushed aside due to the fact that we aren’t ‘geographically involved,’” he said via e-mail.

The fate of the monument and street name are now in the hands of downtown aldermen Sophia King (Fourth), whose ward contains

the pillar and part of the street, and Brendan Reilly (42nd), whose district includes the rest of the roadway.

King previously voiced support for the removals. “Balbo is a symbol of racial and ethnic supremacy. . . . It’s high time we removed these symbols of oppression and antidemocracy,” she said in a statement last August.

On April 17, however, King said that after discussing the matter with community groups, she has changed her position: “I was initially in support of the removal of the Balbo Monument, due to its link to fascism. However, there is much to learn from displays like this, and removing it entirely would hinder a valuable historical lesson.” Instead, King said, she’s currently in favor of installing a plaque by the monument that would inform visitors of “the monument’s ties to fascism and our denunciation of it.”

Both King’s and Reilly’s offices said the aldermen are still open to renaming the drive after a worthy Chicagoan. There are online petitions nominating journalist, suffragist, and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells and Italian-American saint Francis Cabrini, both of whom lived in Chicago. U. of C. physicist Enrico Fermi—who fled the fascists because his wife was Jewish-Italian—has also been proposed.

Chicago Park District spokeswoman Jessica Maxey-Faulkner confirmed that a new plaque may be installed next to the column.

“The Chicago Park District identified four options within a wide range of cost and conservation impact affecting the integrity of the Balbo Monument, and is currently reviewing these options with [Alderman King] and the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans [JCCIA].”

JCCIA president Enza Ranieri told me

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Rachel, Eugenia, Beno, and Isaac Weiss with an Indian soldier from the British army in Atessa, Italy, just after the Allied liberation of Italy é WEISS FAMILY

Left: Dozens call for the removal of the Balbo Monument from Burnham Park last August. é ASHLEE REZIN/CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

that during a phone call with Burke last fall the alderman assured her the column would stay in place and invited her group to provide input on the wording of the plaque. Ranieri said she’s happy with the current plan for the monument. “It’s a living part of Chicago history. It celebrates the aviation feat of a heroic man who fought for the rights of people.

Balbo was pro-Jew and anti-Nazi,” she says.

President emeritus Dominic DiFrisco, who told me in August he would “fiercely oppose” efforts to remove the tributes, has made similar arguments.

Other local Balbo boosters have noted that that the air commander was the sole fascist leader who spoke out against Mussolini’s pact with Hitler, and showed his disdain for the racial laws by dining in public with Jewish friends. They also credit Mussolini’s refusal to turn over Jewish citizens to the Germans for the fact that an estimated 80 percent of the roughly 45,000 Jews in Italy survived the war.

But Loyola professor Anthony Cardoza, an expert on modern Italian history, wasn’t having it. “Calling Balbo anti-Nazi is a bit much,” he said. “Balbo was opposed to Mussolini’s alliance with the Nazis because he rightly feared that Italy would be the junior partner.” He added that Balbo scorned the racial laws because when he rose to local power as a “fascist warlord,” his supporters included members of the Jewish upper class.

Cardoza said that while Mussolini “dragged his feet” about deporting Jews, the real credit for saving Italian Jewry should go to decisions made by people further down the chain of command, as well as ordinary Italians.

Sandro Weiss says Beno shared this viewpoint. After Mussolini lost power in the fall of 1943, the family was reunited, but when Germany invaded the country they found themselves in a much more perilous position. As they fled the Nazis they were nearly arrested and they faced starvation, plus bombardments

from both the Germans and the allies. On multiple occasions farmers risked their lives by hiding the Weisses in their barns. “My father always maintained that he and his family survived due to the kindness of the Italian people, the strength of his parents, and pure luck,” Sandro said. “He certainly blamed Mussolini for his family’s plight. That the Nazis were even worse does not cleanse the fascists of their anti-Semitism.”

Cardoza, who was involved in a 2011 petition effort to rename Balbo Drive, said that adding a plaque by the Balbo monument is a reasonable alternative to removing it, but argued that the street name still needs to change. “Balbo was the pioneer of the paramilitary violence that transformed Mussolini’s movement into a national force, and he was responsible for the deaths of many hundreds of people through his ‘punitive squads.’” The professor added that when Balbo served as governor of Italy’s African colonies, he oversaw the use of saturation bombing, poison gas, and concentration camps against indigenous people in Libya and Ethiopia.

Some of those who view Balbo as a hero, such as Dominic DiFrisco, have told me that reports of atrocities were untrue or exaggerated, or that the aviator wasn’t responsible for them. But Cardoza said resistance to removing the tributes can largely be traced to nostalgia for the 1933 landing in Grant Park, which was attended by the parents of many current Balbo apologists. “They’re cherry-picking, focusing on what Balbo did in one year of a regime that lasted two decades,” he said. “It’s a classic example of ‘Don’t mess with people’s memories. Don’t let facts or serious scholarship get in the way.’ But memory is not necessarily reality.” v

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

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There used to be a Martin Luther King memorial somewhere around 43rd and Langley. . .

What happened to it?

By JEFF HUEBNER

A

t the southeast corner of 43rd Street and Langley Avenue, the ghosts are still trying to speak. It’s an unremarkable corner in a rebounding niche of Bronzeville, occupied by a blandly newish subsidized town-house apartment building. But in the late 1960s this corner was the site of the nation’s most renowned African-American mural.

Over the years, I’ve heard stories about people coming to the corner to visit, thinking that there’s a plaque or a marker there.

There’s not. But there used to be. And it didn’t just pay tribute to the wall. It was also one of the city’s first memorials to Martin Luther King Jr.

I

n 1979, the Chicago Council on Fine Arts (CCFA), a forerunner agency to the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, commissioned artist Eugene Wade, known as Eda, to create a sculptural mural on African-American history and culture on a plaza near 43rd and Langley, just west of the recently built Dr. Martin Luther King Community Service Center. Richard

6 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 26, 2018

Hunt had already created two sculptures for the site, and a fountain had been planned for the plaza, according to reports, but the artist, author, activist, and DuSable Museum of African American History founder Margaret Burroughs insisted that a public artwork be installed commemorating both King and the Black Arts movement landmark Wall of Respect, widely regarded as the nation’s first community mural. The wall, which depicted 50 black heroes, had been created in 1967 by a group of 15 artists from the Organization of Black American Culture; they’d painted panels and placed photographs on the side of a liquor and grocery store that once stood on the same corner.

Eda had worked on a later version of the wall, which went through several versions by different groups of artists before it was damaged in a suspected arson fire in 1971. The building was demolished soon afterward, along with others in neighboring blocks, as part of an urban renewal program.

There were other reasons Burroughs wanted to honor King at the site, according to Eda. The human services building was named for

him, but the civil rights leader hadn’t been pictured on the Wall of Respect. Residents, activists, and the artists had deemed King’s philosophy of nonviolent resistance not militant enough, preferring figures like Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael.

Eda, then 40, was a pioneering 1960s street muralist in Chicago and Detroit before earning his graduate degree from Howard University. He was employed by the CCFA’s Artist-in-Residence Program when a panel (which included Burroughs, who died in 2010) interviewed and selected him to create a mural on a hulking, four-winged, six-foot-high concrete structure that had been brought to the plaza for the purpose of being used as an artwork. “I was asked specifically, would I be willing to work on the old Wall of Respect site on this concrete thing,” recalls Eda, who retired as an art professor from Kennedy-King College in 2005 and moved back home to Louisiana; he now teaches at Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge. “I said, ‘Absolutely.’ I saw it as the very last phase of the Wall of Respect.”

Eda researched materials; he wanted to use durable paint to create images for the sculptural piece, he said, “from slavery to civil rights.” Later in 1979, he’d been invited to attend a mural-painting class at the School of the Art Institute in which coteachers Georg Stahl, an interior architect with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and Harold Haydon, professor emeritus of art at the University of Chicago and a former WPA artist, were experimenting with permanent techniques.

(Haydon, perhaps better known at the time as the Sun-Times art critic, died in 1994.)

Stahl recalls that Eda “became particularly interested in the possibilities of porcelain enamel.” Also known as vitreous enamel and pioneered as a public art medium by the French architect Le Corbusier in the 1950s, it’s more properly a powdered glass-based coating rather than a paint; it’s virtually permanent, weather- and fireproof, and maintenance free, which makes it a popular industrial material. It’s also expensive: Eda’s initial commission of $5,000 climbed to $28,000, mostly for materials and fabrication. But the city approved the project.

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The city invested quite a bit of money,” Eda says now. “They had to pay for the porcelain enamel, they had to pay for the firing, they had to buy the [panels], they had to pay for putting it up, they had to pay me.”

Eda said he’d applied to the Artist-in-Residence Program several times before he was finally accepted. The program “set out . . . to explore the ground where art and public service meet,” according to a CCFA-published catalog, Artists-in-Residence, Chicago: 19771981, by Robert A. Gottlieb, and assigned artists to work with city agencies.

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ven after the city accepted his proposal for a mural made of porcelain enamel, Eda didn’t start designing until about 1981 because of other artist-in-residence jobs and funding delays.

Stahl built a small model in class, and made detailed installation drawings for the CCFA. (Eda later did a larger, nine-inch-high model.)

Eda worked with the Department of Human Services on the project for more than a year. The 40-odd five-by-three-foot metal panels, which would be affixed to the concrete wings, were fabricated at a suburban foundry and then shipped to Porcelain Enamel Finishers on West 30th Street. (The facility has since been demolished.) Eda painted in a vacant factory space next door, and then, with help from PEF workers, fired each of the panels in the furnace at 1600 degrees for a few minutes. “I had complete freedom in terms of the subject matter,” he says. “I had no dictates. Nobody looked over my shoulder.”

Mitchell Cooper, former owner of PEF, which shut down in 2003, told me the city had contracted with a Chicago sign company—he couldn’t recall which one—to install the metal panels on the concrete wings.

The artwork panels formed four sections.

The first showed scenes of slavery, freedom struggles, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.

The next two showed black leaders from various fields, some of whom had appeared on the original wall: musicians and scientists, inventors and businessmen, medical pioneers and cultural figures. The final section, titled “Spokesmen,” highlighted King and other civil rights icons, including Rosa Parks and Marcus Garvey; one scene linked capitalism, racism, and wage slavery.

Eda remembers a bizarre incident that happened in the plaza while the panels were being installed; it was also reported in a 1982 Reader story by Debbie Nathan. The first few panels scheduled to be installed on the concrete included images of the Ku Klux Klan, and they were left out on the plaza overnight. A black man, thinking a racist had

Eda with Lenora Cartwright, the Department of Human Services commissioner, at the mural’s dedication on October 28, 1982 é COURTESY EUGENE “EDA” WADE

placed them there, smashed the panels with a crowbar, damaging the enamel. A group of men, thinking he was a bigot, assaulted the vandal; all were arrested and booked. The city paid for four new panels, and hired a security guard.

The finished work, formally titled “Wall of Respect”: King Memorial Mural, was unveiled October 28, 1982, in a dedication ceremony attended by city and cultural officials. The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. High School Band and a jazz trio played. A statement in the brochure handed out at the event read, “Our challenge is to see to it that the dreams and works of those depicted in this monument continue through our joint efforts and commitment to make our community a haven for people of dignity, peace and freedom.”

But that challenge was not met. By 2002, the King Memorial Mural had disappeared.

It was replaced by an affordable housing development. “No one informed me at all,” Eda tells me. “I found out maybe a year or two later.

I think somebody either told me or I figured I would go down there to look at it. And boom!— it wasn’t there. They had the [apartment] complex. I was surprised.” While he didn’t pursue the matter at the time—“I just continued on doing other things,” he says—it started to haunt him in the years leading up to the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Wall of Respect.

by 1982; it was folded into the Department of Cultural Affairs, along with the Mayor’s Office of Special Events and the Office of Film and Entertainment, in 1984. The city apparently doesn’t keep CCFA records, or any documentation of them, though the booklet Artists-in-Residence, Chicago: 1977-1981 mentions specific CCFA projects, including, briefly, Eda’s. (Some COFA papers can be found in the Harold Washington Library Center’s special collections.)

Through Schulman, I learned that Georg Stahl was also looking for remnants of the King Memorial Mural. He’d hoped to include panels from it in a 2015 exhibit he was organizing on porcelain enamel painting in Chicago for the Koehnline Museum of Art at Oakton Community College. He’d nearly forgotten about the piece. He soon found out from Eda that it was gone.

Stahl says he wrote e-mails to the offices of then-Fourth Ward alderman Will Burns (who quit in 2016 to take a job with Airbnb)

and Cook County Board president Toni Preckwinkle, who had been the alderman when the artwork went missing. Stahl learned that the ward had convened community meetings to discuss the possibilities of “restoring” the piece, meaning that the panels must’ve been saved. “Records must exist,” he says.

But both Burns’s and Preckwinkle’s offices replied that they didn’t have any information.

Stahl also went to the Department of Buildings and looked through the records there. He discovered what I did when I recently talked with Marko Mihajlovich, a DOB coordinator who handles demolition and wrecking permits: none was issued for the concrete structure and the enamel panels. “We issue permits only for buildings,” he told me. “We don’t deal with sculptures or public art.”

Stahl’s show, “Art After 1600° Fahrenheit: Enamel Painting in Chicago,” ran at Oakton in May and June 2015. It included several works created by students and artists in the SAIC mural painting class, as well as photomontages of prototypes of abstract murals Stahl had designed for the State Street subway system in the late 1970s, a project that was never realized. In lieu of the actual panels, Stahl reconstructed for the exhibit a replica of Eda’s old model (which was lost) of the King Memorial Mural to which he affixed the artist’s original color scale drawings.

Eda flew up from Louisiana and gave a gallery talk on June 4. After describing the process of creating the artwork to a couple dozen visitors, he concluded, “We want to know what happened to it. Whether it was taken down and destroyed or whether it’s somewhere in storage . . . somebody knows J something about it.”

D

aniel Schulman, the program director of visual art for the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, had been unaware that the mural existed. After first investigating in 2014, he wrote me, “we’ve found no documentation on the commission, and don’t have any information on when [the panels] were removed, who removed them, or their present whereabouts.”

The Chicago Council on Fine Arts began as a mayor-appointed agency in 1976 and had become the Chicago Office of Fine Arts

APRIL 26, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 7

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A website about the project, mlkmemorialchicago.org, notes that it’s “Chicago’s very first memorial honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” and “the very first permanent memorial to Dr. King and the Chicago Freedom Movement in the state of Illinois.” That’s not quite true: Eda’s piece was designed to be permanent too—or, as Nathan put it in her 1982 Reader story, “meant to outlive many of the people in the neighborhood.”

Eda at work on the mural in 1982 é COURTESY EUGENE “EDA” WADE

Eda at the Koehnline Gallery exhibition in 2015 é JEFF HUEBNER

continued from 7 Granted, the fate of a missing artwork, even a King memorial, may be a trivial matter compared to the city’s—and the nation’s—escalating affordable housing crisis. Everyone deserves a safe, economical, and dignified place to live. But everyone also deserves meaningful public art.

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here are few public artworks in Chicago memorializing King. The earliest known piece was Geraldine McCullough’s 1973 Our King, a nine-foot-high bronze sculpture that imagined him as a West African chieftain. It stood in front of the Martin Luther King Apartments, a housing project at Madison and Kedzie that replaced buildings burned out in the 1968 riots after King’s assassination. After the base of the statue began to corrode, Rickie Brown, now the executive director of the West Side Historical Society, led a campaign to rescue it. Since 2015, it’s stood in front of the West Side Housing Association’s Austin Wellness Center.

The MLK Memorial District, located on a four-acre area in North Lawndale, is cen-

10 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 26, 2018

tered on the demolished tenement at 1550 S. Hamlin where King and his family lived in 1966 during his Chicago campaign for fair housing and to end slums. It’s now the site of an affordable housing apartment complex, with a museum. A project of LISC Chicago and the Lawndale Christian Development Corporation, a district composed of a park, gardens, art, a new public library, and other facilities is taking shape.

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Living Memorial, dedicated in 2016, commemorates the 50th anniversary of King’s open-housing march through Marquette Park on August 5, 1966, when an angry white mob bearing swastikas and other racist signs threw bottles and rocks, one of which hit the civil rights leader on the head. Commissioned by the Inner-City Muslim Action Network and supported by a diverse group of organizations, institutions, and other donors, the three ten-foot-high carved-brick stelae by artists Sonja Henderson and John Pitman Weber stand in a mosaic-decorated park plaza at 67th and Kedzie.

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ast fall, when I wrote to the office of Fourth Ward alderman Sophia King, I got a call a week later from Preckwinkle’s executive assistant Pamela Cummings. (The e-mail had been forwarded.) Preckwinkle, she said, “didn’t really remember” the artwork or neighborhood meetings. “We also talked with people who’d been in the community for a while, and they didn’t know either.” Cummings insisted that if the memorial was connected with the King Community Service Center, then it would’ve been the city “that would’ve taken it down or removed it.”

You’d think. Since March 2017, I’ve filed very specific Freedom of Information requests with eight city departments—CHA, Buildings, Transportation, Planning and Development, Streets and Sanitation, Fleet and Facility Management, the Public Building Commission, and—with repeated follow-ups—Family and Support Services (whose forerunner agency, the Department of Human Services, sponsored the piece).

None claimed to have records.

Stahl and Eda find it hard to believe that such a prominent, cumbrous public artwork (and its paperwork) could seemingly disappear without a trace. “It was a very large piece!” Eda says. “There’s almost like a whole veil of secrecy [about it].”

He and Stahl separately explain that professional expertise would have been necessary to dismantle the structure without destroying the porcelain enamel. The art panels affixed to the concrete—along with metal roofs and end panels—were seamlessly sealed, caulked, and screwed into place.

The seals would’ve had to be cut. Had crowbars or sledgehammers been used to loosen the panels from the concrete, they would’ve broken. “My feeling is that they simply destroyed a more than $100,000 work of art out of ignorance, a fact they try to hide,” Stahl wrote me.

“I don’t know how they managed it,” says Eda, “unless they just bulldozed it down.”

Privately, a city official conceded that that was most likely the case. Starting in the late 1990s, the Bonheur Development

Corporation and Hearts United Community Development, a group of area churches and community groups, had partnered to build dozens of subsidized mixed-income developments in a several block area around 43rd and Langley, according to a November 2001 Tribune article. By 2002, the Quincy, an affordable housing town-house complex, occupied the sculpture site. Fred Bonner, the BDC’s president, didn’t return repeated calls to three phone numbers at his companies, but last October BDC office manager Faith Underwood did call back to say, “He knows nothing about it.”

I called Bob Mathes, the senior vice president of Linn-Mathes, the Quincy’s general contractor; it turns out he was the project manager for the site. He said that there wasn’t an artwork in the plaza when the construction firm started. “I think if we had known that there were significant art pieces there, we certainly would’ve saved them,” he said. “Actually, I’m a supporter of public art.”

He did recall what could’ve been piles of concrete rubble. He said that if there had been a structure there, Linn-Mathes would’ve used a demolition company. But it subcontracted with an excavator, which hauled the rubble away.

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ut could the porcelain enamel panels still exist, in storage, somewhere? Perkins McDowell, who was the King Center’s building engineer when the artwork was removed, retired in January 2013. He didn’t return repeated calls to his home. Recently, the front desk referred me to Human Services district manager Jaime Palomino, whose office is in the King Center.

He said he hadn’t “seen those items in the building” and that artwork wouldn’t likely be placed into storage for too long, if at all.

“When it comes to art, or statues, or certain things, there is a tendency to just demolish or destroy those items,” he said.

“The time comes when people want to do certain things in the building, and it’s in their way. Space is valued, and if there is something that is never used, they throw it to the lake.” (Unless, of course, someone took the panels home.)

Eda’s not surprised to hear that. “It’s almost as if I never worked there,” he says.

“The powers that be decided that the mural painting and the artist-in-residence program wasn’t important—there are no records of it.

They didn’t want it to exist. That’s a tragedy, but that’s the way politics is. If they don’t like something, or what it’s saying, they got a way of destroying it and forgetting all about it.

It’s like it never happened.” v

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Yvette M Mayorga’s ’s art shows the American dream through the eyes of immigrants.

Yvette Mayorga é WILLIAM CAMARGO

é FROSTING TEXT: JAMIE RAMSAY

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By KERRY CARDOZA

he artist Yvette Mayorga, clad in a black sports bra and leggings, stands arms akimbo behind a barbed wire fence near the U.S.-Mexico border. The fence is laced with tiny American flags. Mayorga’s image blinks and then disappears. This scene is quickly replaced by an ornate domestic space displaying religious figurines. That gives way to a shot of street vendors selling food and luchador masks under a bright sun. Miniaturized migrants, weathered and dirty and carrying backpacks, walk past the merchandise laid out on the ground. All the while, a remixed cumbia track plays at a manic pace, like carnival music made sinister.

These images are from Really Safe in My Room, in America, a video installation that was part of Mayorga’s 2016 MFA show at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

The video, which combined personal photos with found images of the border, was part of one of her now-distinctive installations: a garishly painted room decorated with cake frosting (preserved with a coat of acrylic) and filled with paintings, party supplies, and sculptures layered with foam,

paint, toy soldiers, plastic handcuffs, photographs, bags of Cheetos, angel figurines, plaster, and even more frosting. It all represents the American dream, and how that dream looks to immigrants hoping for a better life.

“I’m interested in having the viewer think that they’re going to experience something maybe sensory or decadent, but then, through being attracted to the colors, to the smell, they discover that the work is about something else, something more profound, something darker,” Mayorga says.

“In that same sense it’s also a metaphor to the illusion of the American dream, that America itself can seem to be something very decadent, luscious, promising to somebody coming from another country.

But, you know, it can fall short of that.”

Mayorga, 26, is short and striking, with her dark bob and bright red lipstick. Her work is mature in its consideration of border politics—though, paradoxically, she uses a conceptual framework based on the board game Candy Land. It’s also personal. Mayorga’s parents migrated to the U.S. in the J

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Alligator Boots, After Lenardi, Giovanni Battista, sugar sculpture 16th century é COURTESY THE ARTIST

Cheetos, Nike’s, Sad Face, Happy Face, Middle School, Immigration é COURTESY THE ARTIST

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1970s, an era when migration from Mexico into the United States was steadily increasing. Her father in particular had a harrowing experience: he crossed into Texas inside the hood of a car, packed in with another man beside the engine. (Her parents have since become citizens.) As a first-generation Mexican-American, Mayorga feels guilt at not having had to endure such hardships. That’s partly why she feels it’s imperative for her to bring these stories not just into the open, but into the art world.

The artist uses bright colors (hot pink, kelly green), confectionary sights and smells (cakes, frosting, oversize Candy Land props), and signifiers of American prosperity (palm trees, a ceramic Louis Vuitton purse) to lure in her audience.

But a closer look at the elaborately staged scenes reveals darker images. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents hide in the brightly patterned wallpaper. A body peeks out from under the hood of a car. A gold nameplate necklace spells out “Illegal” in cursive script so oversize it might fit around the neck of the Statue of Liberty.

Allison Glenn, the associate curator of contemporary art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville,

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Arkansas, first encountered Mayorga’s work at the 2016 MFA show. “I was completely enamored of the installation,” she says. “I was really impressed at the depth, the concept that she was engaging with, the material, how she approached it.

It all seemed really fresh.” After a studio visit, Glenn invited Mayorga to exhibit work in “Out of Easy Reach,” a crossinstitutional exhibition she was curating in Chicago that highlights the artistic contributions of women of color who use abstraction to explore both personal and universal histories.

The show is on view concurrently at Gallery 400 at UIC, the DePaul Art Museum, and the Stony Island Arts Bank; each location centers around a different theme. Mayorga is part of the Gallery 400 exhibition, which focuses on issues of spa-

tial politics, mapping, and migration. “I think that her work really problematizes a linear narrative or a one-dimensional perspective of the immigrant experience,” Glenn says. “It’s important to include works that deal with this narrative and are part of this larger global conversation.”

ayorga grew up in Moline, Illinois, a small city of around 40,000 residents on the Iowa border. As a child, Mayorga never quite felt like she fit in with the area’s ’s majority-white population. “I still had friends that were Mexican, friends that were white, friends that were black, but I always felt a little bit of that disconnection,” she says.

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Her house felt like a sanctuary, a safe space where she could fully express her identity. “Home to me, especially in Moline, was my point of reference to being Mexican,” Mayorga says.

“All of the objects that were inside, everything that happened inside, felt very much like: this is my identity. Then stepping outside, going to school, felt very American. I felt kind of displaced in those interactions. So to me, the home was political in that sense. It was also where I could form that identity of feeling like I was Mexican and American, but mostly Mexican, there. Kind of like an island in like a larger place. I felt like I was in two spaces at the same time.”

The youngest of five, Mayorga knew from an early age that she wanted to be an artist. She often followed the artistic cues of her older siblings, two of whom had a talent for drawing.

Her brother, Alex, wooed his high school girlfriends with illustrations of roses. Mayorga remembers going to school and copying his flowers. Her classmates saw her work and would ask her to make drawings for them. “I think that’s the moment where I was like, ‘Oh, I can draw.’”

Though she was always interested in art, Mayorga didn’t visit an art museum until her late teens. Her visual references came from pop culture—she loved Hello Kitty and the Mexican-American Tejano pop star Selena—and the baroque imagery of the Catholic Church. For most of her early life, she spent summers in Jerez, Zacateca, her parents’ hometown in central Mexico. “Having that experience, of being able to be in Mexico for the whole summer and see where my parents grew up, see what the culture was like there, gave me access to a whole other visual language,” she says. “I was really interested in the religious iconography of the Virgin Mary and these really excessive decorations that were found in the church, whether it was church in Mexico or church in Moline. All of the baroque influences, now that I can name it. The gold, the angels, and the ritual in itself.”

This interest in art led her to study painting as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. But the program, which had a heavy emphasis on oil painting and the masters, bored her. It wasn’t until she took a sculpture class that she really felt inspired. “To me, [sculpture] was more present,” Mayorga says. “It was more like art in space rather than art trying to be a space through painting.”

Excited by the possibilities of sculpture, she decided to pursue an MFA in fiber and material studies at SAIC. She admired the work the faculty was producing, and wanted to see how fiber could be incorporated into her own sculptures.

Lisa Vinebaum, an associate professor in the department who was Mayorga’s graduate adviser in her final semester, recalls Mayorga applied for the program with a strong, cohesive body of work. “She came in knowing that she wanted to work on themes of the border and the American dream,” Vinebaum says. Mayorga was already making work around these ideas as an undergrad, but in grad school she began incorporating more personal narratives and was less ambiguous about what she was trying to express.

During her time in grad school, Mayorga worked steadily on improving her installation skills, which culminated in her room-size thesis project. Titled Really Safe in My Room, the work incorporated many of her now-signature elements, including rococo motifs and lots of frosting. The confectionary

ICE ICE Lady

aspect also stems from Mayorga’s family history. Growing up, her mother and aunt both worked as bakers, making elaborate cakes and pastries. These sweet memories make perfect sense in the artist’s work, which contrasts symbols of celebration with the violence of the border. The video makes those themes even more explicit.

“I felt like the work—the installation work, the monuments, all these separate components—could talk about the political things that I was interested in, but I felt like video had a quickness,” Mayorga says. “I could just conflate all these images at once and kind of scream the message instead of having it be more nuanced.”

Really Safe in My Room also contained pieces from Mayorga’s ongoing Monuments series, which she began in 2014; five of them will be on display in “Out of Easy Reach.”

The monuments are sculptural totems that each represent a different person who is important to her. Ranging in height from around three to more than six feet, the pieces are complex, layered assemblages made of frosting, found objects, party decorations, acrylic paint, and an assortment of other materials relevant to that individual.

“The Monuments series was me thinking through imagining people crossing the border and becoming covered in this idea of the American dream,” Mayorga says. There is an emphasis on representing people who have crossed the border. At Gallery 400, the largest monument is an homage to Selena. “Just seeing her on the TV, or seeing her face, a brown woman, I think was the most important part about her being present,” she says.

Another monument is dedicated to her father. One is a portrait of herself. “A lot of them have sacrifices embedded in them,” says Glenn, the curator. “Not just sacrifice, the full gamut of emotions that comes with starting a new life and leaving a country.”

é COURTESY THE ARTIST

After Cesare Auguste Detti é COURTESY THE ARTIST

Ride or Die é COURTESY THE ARTIST

ince graduating from SAIC in the spring of 2016, Mayorga’s been busy. She spent that first year in the Chicago Artists Coalition’s yearlong Bolt residency program, which culminated in her first solo show, “The Politics of Desire.” During the residency, she met Janine Mileaf, the executive director of the Arts Club of Chicago, who selected her for a solo booth at last year’s Expo Chicago. Mayorga had about six months to create a new installation; she chose to build it around the concept of trying to create art after the November 8, 2016 election, and the energy it takes to keep going in such a stressful, scary time.

The result, High Maintenance, made a huge splash, drawing mentions in Hyperallergic, Bad at Sports, and the Reader. Saturated in hot pink, the installation was partially inspired by time Mayorga spent in Miami in 2017 on a Fountainhead artist residency. On display were tiered cakes as tall as people, a ceramic pair of Nike sneakers, and a series of frosting-laden bas reliefs illustrating lush scenes of American excess: in-ground swimming pools, ornately landscaped yards, palm trees, gold chains.

Mayorga maintains a regular studio practice, putting in a full week’s work in addition to the administrative tasks that come with regular gallery shows. She’s also a part-time art education coordinator for the National Mexican Museum of Art, where she teaches art to kids off-site at schools and community centers.

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High Maintenance é COURTESY THE ARTIST

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Nameplate é COURTESY THE ARTIST

14 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 26, 2018

“What gets me the most excited is to be able to give them that connection [to fine art],” Mayorga says of her students.

“That they can see themselves in art history, in history, and so that maybe at a younger age they feel like it’s something that’s possible for them to pursue.”

Busy schedule notwithstanding, Mayorga is exactly where she wants to be. Ever since she had her own studio at the U. of I., she knew she wanted to be a full-time artist, sharing her story and that of her family. And though she has been exploring this subject in her art since long before the last presidential election, her work has taken on a sharper resonance since then.

“Sometimes it feels harder to make work, or to think about what is art’s role in all of this or what can art do,” Mayorga says. “But at the end of the day you realize that art is powerful.” She is happy her work can provide a counterpoint to the often disparaging remarks the president makes about immigrants. “More than ever, it gives me more of that wanting, that urge, to make this kind of work.”

Despite all her thinking and creating work based on the idea of the American dream, when I ask Mayorga if she thinks her family has achieved it, she’s ambivalent. She thinks her dad would say that he had, but she’s not so sure when she thinks about the sacrifices he’s made and the toll that decades of fac-

tory work has taken on his body. But in another conversation several weeks later, while explaining why it’s important for her to tell her father’s story, Mayorga seems to have overcome her earlier ambivalence.

“It’s a real story of an immigrant who came to America, who made a life, who had a daughter that’s me, and how I was able to achieve going to college and follow this career of mine,” she says. “Wanting to be an artist at a young age seemed super impossible. Thinking about living in a capitalist society and having to make money, and how do you make that work? Being able to achieve that dream, I feel really thankful for that. And I feel like it’s inherent that I would want to talk about my experience growing up. Maybe another young girl seeing my work can feel like she’s being represented also, or her father’s story is being represented, or her mother’s story, to feel like we’re not aliens, that we are people. And these things happen to people, in order to achieve something greater.”

She pauses for a moment. “I guess I’m technically the achievement that my dad wanted.” v “OUT OF EASY REACH” 4/27-8/5: Tue-Fri 10 AM-6 PM, Sat noon-6 PM, Gallery 400, 400 S. Peoria, 312-996-6114, outofeasyreach.com. F

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ARTS & CULTURE LIT

“Graphic Novels and Identity”

Sat 4/28, 1 PM, Studebaker Theater, 410 S. Michigan, chicagohumanities.org, $20, $15 members, $10 students and teachers.

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hi Bui was just three years old when her family escaped Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975, but her graphic memoir The Best We Could Do delves deep into the history of the war that divided her home country, often from the perspective of her parents and grandparents. In telling the story of her childhood in the U.S. and, later, the birth of her son, Bui explores her relationship with her mother and father, reflecting on how their experiences shaped them as individuals. For this event, local artist and educator Patricia Nguyen joins Bui for a conversation about “the journey from refugee to citizen in a moment of travel bans and border walls.” But before that, Bui talked with me about the art of the comic memoir.

—JULIA THIEL

You learned to draw comics to create your memoir—that seems like an unusual approach.

I teach in an MFA in Comics program now [at California College of the Arts], and it is the worst thing when someone brand-new to the medium wants to embark on a really big, long project. I tell people: It’s possible, clearly, but you have to be a little crazy. Or a lot crazy.

What made you decide to tell your story through comics?

I had sort of failed at a few other ways to do it. I was an art major and learned to draw the more traditional fine-arts way. I can bang out a really good copy of a Michelangelo drawing, but it’s not very useful for drawing comics. I had to learn a way of drawing that’s much more symbolic, cartoony. Exactly the opposite of what they’re trying to teach you in art school.

Getting ‘Graphic!’ at the Chicago Humanities Festival A preview of four talks this weekend

By READER STAFF

How did you learn?

I didn’t take any classes. I’d already done two masters, and I was going to die before I went back to school for anything. I read a lot of comics and took inspiration from other people’s work.

How much detail did you know about the history of Vietnam before writing the book?

I had to research a lot. I did a lot of visual research into hairstyles, clothing, buildings. I really love flora and fauna. I spent way more time looking up the shape of bushes than you might expect. I wanted to get those visual details right.

I didn’t give time to stereotypes about Vietnamese people. They made me so angry that I only spent two panels on them. That way I saved a lot of real estate in the rest of the book for fully human representations of Vietnamese people. The small details of what life was like here [in the U.S. after her family immigrated]: the furnishings in our home, our clothes, the way we slept in one room, those kind of details.

What’s your next project?

It was supposed to be about climate change in Vietnam, but as of last week I’m going to first do a shorter book about Southeast Asian deportations. It’s posing the question, how did all these people who came here as refugees end up in mass incarceration and detention and deportation?

“Bachelor Nation: Our Obsession With Reality TV” Sat 4/28, 3 PM, Studebaker Theater, 410 S. Michigan, chicagohumanities.org, $20, $15 members, $10 students and teachers.

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or nearly two decades romantics (or maybe sadists) across the country have obsessed over watching beautiful single men and women date multiple other single women and men on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. At first it was easy to forget that behind all the skydiving adventures and candlelit dinners there were camera people and producers. Now, in a time of heightened

Amy Kaufman é COLIN DOUGLAS GRAY

awareness of the inner workings of reality television, the magic is seemingly gone, yet the shows’ audience keeps growing. Los Angeles-based entertainment journalist Amy Kaufman’s new book Bachelor Nation: Inside the World of America’s Favorite Guilty Pleasure uncovers the darkest “unauthorized” secrets about what goes on behind the scenes while exploring the reasons people keep watching the franchise. She’ll be discussing it at the Chicago Humanities Fest with Ali Barthwell, the recapper for Vulture.

“Every year it’s more and more baffling that we’re still into [the show], but we are,” Kaufman says. She continues to watch every week even after learning some of the more unsavory details of the production process.

“When it feels to me more authentic, those are the moments I like,” she continues. “To get to see people grapple with their emotions in the state, that is the ultimate voyeurism for me, but also what makes me relate to them and feel less alone in the world.”

Spurred by a quest to discover how much of Lifetime’s fictional behind-the-scenes drama UnReal was true to life, Kaufman spoke to past contestants and producers about their experiences on the show. In her book she reveals a world of bribery, brainwashing, and menstrual-cycle tracking to keep emotions and drama high. The idea of a fairy tale is pushed onto contestants and viewers alike, which Kaufman says feeds the prince-andprincess narratives introduced to us as children. It’s what makes the world keep watching and what makes contestants continue to sign up for the show—well, that and a social-media sponsorship, if their Instagrams are any indication.

Despite being a die-hard fan, Kaufman acknowledges how far The Bachelor has to go to catch up with more progressive times. “I just want a more diverse group of people on the show that are more reflective of actual people in the world who are dating, not just in race and ethnicity but in body type and sexuality,” Kaufman says. “I think there needs to be more public questioning of it because if we just keep watching, nothing’s going to change.”

J —BRIANNA WELLEN

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“The Places of American Memory” Sun 4/29, 4 PM, Chicago Athletic Association, 12 S. Michigan, chicagohumanities.org, $20, $15 members, $10 students and teachers.

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ow we should reckon with our collective history has long been one of the most fraught subjects in the national conversation, and it’s gained still more importance in a time when the question of whether to remove Confederate statues from public spaces has led to thorny debates and deadly confrontations. It becomes clearer every day that William Faulkner was all too right when he said “The past is never dead.

It’s not even past.”

But while memorials to long-dead Confederate leaders are perhaps the most visible sites of contested historical memory today, there are many others that remain unseen.

Challenging this overlooking is the goal of

Marked, Unmarked, Remembered, a collection by the photojournalist Andrew Lichtenstein with an introductory essay by his brother Alex, a historian. Their work seeks to shed light on events that have been left out of the national story, even as these issues continue to define political struggles today.

“So many Americans want to believe a set of comfortable myths about the country’s past,” says Alex, “myths that leave out or neglect the very violent history of dispossession, slavery, racial terror, and class conflict that have made up this country’s history, [and] are probably its essence. We need a full and honest reckoning with that past right now.”

The book explores important historical sites that remain relatively obscure, places like a ruined South Carolina slave cabin on the banks of the Combahee River, where Harriet Tubman led a Union brigade on a raid that freed 700 slaves. In some cases, official monuments often obscure more potent meanings, as at a Ford auto plant in Dearborn, Michigan, where there’s a statue of Henry Ford but nothing to mark the dramatic labor unrest that shook

the factory for years. In Forest Home Cemetery, not far outside Chicago, the Haymarket Martyrs’ Memorial has become a pilgrimage site for those unwilling to forget the city’s important history of class struggle.

“I always believed that the first step towards healing a deep wound is acknowledgement,” Andrew Lichtenstein said in a 2012 speech.

Adds Alex now, “We are always looking for that kind of twilight space between remembering and forgetting, which is where historical meaning often resides.”

—TANNER HOWARD

“War and What Comes After: A Conversation With Clemantine Wamariya” Sun 4/29, 4 PM, Studebaker Theater, 410 S. Michigan, chicagohumanities.org, $20, $15 members, $10 students and teachers.

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Mose Wright’s church, East Money, Mississippi, 2010. In 1955, when Emmett Till’s great uncle, Mississippi sharecropper and lay preacher Mose Wright, identified Emmett’s two killers in open court, his courageous act could be considered the birth of the civil rights movement. é ANDREW LICHTENSTEIN

16 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 26, 2018

wandan massacre survivor Clemantine Wamariya has recently told her extraordinary story in an eloquent memoir, The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After, out this week. Cowritten

by Elizabeth Weil, the book follows Wamariya’s journey after she and her older sister, Claire—then ages six and 15—escape Rwanda’s civil war with their lives but are forced to travel from refugee camp to refugee camp across seven African countries before finding asylum in Chicago in 2000.

The book opens with an account of Wamariya and Claire’s appearance on The Oprah Win-

Clemantine Wamariya é JULIA ZAVE

frey Show, where they were reunited with their parents; their sister, Claudette, whom they hadn’t seen since she was two years old; and an eight-year-old brother who was apparently born after the family was separated.

The reunion was a total surprise to the sisters, who’d had no contact with their family in Rwanda during their entire exodus out of Africa.

The Girl Who Smiled Beads captures Wamariya’s personality. Wamariya describes her happy childhood in Kigali, where she was a “precocious snoop” while Claire was frugal and sensible. Despite their struggles, they maintain these characteristics in America: Wamariya keeps up a courageous, happy demeanor, while Claire supports them both by washing clothes. When they meet their family, Waimariya writes, “Claire remained frozen for a moment. So I, in my TV clothes and blownout hair, ran toward my Oprah-produced family, arms outstretched.”

Chicago holds an important place in the author’s heart. “This is where my people are,” she says. Her “people” include her adopted family, who provided her with a loving home in Kenilworth and a good education at New Trier High School and Yale.

“Whatever story you want to have begins when you decide it begins,” Wamariya says. “[We need to] be able to look backwards and see the people who raised us, who mirror our passion, people who are able to fill in the path that we want to create, and ask ourselves, how do they get there? How did they create it?”

—JORDANNAH ELIZABETH v

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READER RECOMMENDED

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ARTS & CULTURE Elaina Sanders and Brittany L. Davis é SHEPSU AAKHU

DANCE

High rollers At Lucky Plush’s “Tab Show,” anything can happen.

THEATER

Blood Mural pounds its head against a blank wall The inchoate new MPAACT show misses what’s right in front of it.

By TONY ADLER

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he story of Chicago’s street murals isn’t exactly untold. Much of it has been documented in the Reader, as a matter of fact, primarily through articles by the estimable Jeff Huebner. But it’s seldom if ever been mined as a subject for theatrical exploration. The nearest attempt, as far as I know, was This Is Modern Art by Kevin Coval and Idris Goodwin, which is about tagging—a genre that’s been known to serve as the apprenticeship program for mural making as well as its outlaw wing, but isn’t the thing itself.

That’s too bad, because there’s a lot of drama in and around our town’s murals. So many of them were born from the militancy or utopianism of the 1960s. So many have been lost, taking history down with them in literal chunks. And then there’s the question of co-optation, local governments having figured out that murals can ratify the status quo as efficiently as they attack it. Meanwhile the muralists themselves may live as precariously as their handiwork.

Lauren “LL” Lundy has recognized the potential power of the subject. Blood Mural, which she “devised” and directed for MPAACT, gives us a pair of muralists: the eminent Dr. E.J. Lockhart (Brittany Davis) and her former standout student Marie Del Pizzo (Elaina Sanders). Though they’ve fallen out of touch with each other in the two years since Marie graduated, Lockhart has invited Marie to spend a weekend helping her paint a mural on a wall in northeast Rogers Park.

The setup invites classic tensions: The clash of generational sensibilities. Kill-the-teacher ambition. The longing for a legacy. We also need to learn why Lockhart brought Marie in on this particular project, and what it’s all got to do with that great title.

Sure enough, some of those elements find their way into the play, but in a desperately convoluted and sketchy fashion. The hope for devised pieces is that they’ll open up room for improvisational genius; the risk is that they’ll subside into stasis, repetition, and cliche. The latter appears to have happened here. The two artists bicker over Lockhart’s tendency to treat Marie like an intern rather than a peer, but that fight never really moves off first base.

Neither do their discussions of issues from Picasso to catcalls. We never get a handle on what either woman’s art is like, or how they differ. And information that should be a starting point is held back till the end as a kind of anti-revelation.

By far the worst failure of the show, though, is its waste of the situation. The women never prime the wall they’re supposed to paint much less paint it, and the little bit of futzing they do suggests a complete ignorance of how murals are actually made. The real drama stands behind them, nearly blank and all but ignored, from start to finish. v BLOOD MURAL Through 5/27: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln, 773-404-7336, mpaact.org, $22-$40.

m @taadler

THE MEMBERS OF LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS jokingly call themselves the “keep-it-real dance company.” They abandon the pretentiousness that’s often associated with dance performance, instead balancing formal technical elements with a casual, relaxed perspective. This makes their productions feel spontaneous and improvised even though the ensemble work within a tight framework.

“The shows are very choreographed and scripted,” says Lucky Plush artistic director Julia Rhoads. “The performers are not actively creating the show in real time, but there’s the feeling because we try to have that practice of really listening to each other.”

“Tab Show,” playing this weekend at the Harris Theater, highlights the company’s signature approach with two pieces. Curb Candy remixes five moments from past works in a dreamlike traveling road show, and Rink Life takes its inspiration from the

roller rink to explore how people relate in an active space. “There’s something about the old roller rinks where people were navigating all these things in real time,” says Rhoads. “You try to dance and roll around with someone and create relationships where people are always falling down. It’s funny and absurd.”

Lucky Plush’s works begin with a concept and prompts that the troupe riff on with movement and dialogue, which they refine during the rehearsal process. If Rhoads comes in with script pages, the material morphs as it’s interpreted by the artists.

“The most important thing is that authentic voice,” she says. “When the audience feels like the show is unfolding live with them, they feel more included. They’re leaning forward and there’s an element of the unknown and anything can happen.” —OLIVER SAVA “TAB SHOW” 4/26-4/28: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Harris Theater, 205 E. Randolph, 312-3347777, luckyplush.com, $25-$70.

Lucky Plus Productions ensemble members Kara Brody, Elizabeth Luse, and Aaron R. White é BEN WARDELL

APRIL 26, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 17

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ARTS & CULTURE

READER RECOMMENDED

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Grand Hotel é EVAN HANOVER

THEATER

R Share a light

Ashes of Light is a family drama as moody, moving, and graceful as a plume of cigarette smoke.

La Luz de un Cigarrillo (literally “the light of a cigarette”) is the Spanish title of Marco Antonio Rodriguez’s play about a troubled man’s return home for his estranged father’s funeral. It’s better than the awkward title Rodriquez has chosen for the English-language version and more fitting for a play in which characters routinely tamp down their feelings with food and cigarettes. It promises the audience a story as moody, moving, and graceful as a plume of cigarette smoke, and Rodriguez delivers on that promise.

Over the course of two intense hours we get to know Rodriquez’s exquisitely drawn characters intimately—the stoical, repressive, and repressed matriarch (named Luz), the artistic son she drove away, the eccentric aunt who nurtured him in ways his mother would or could not—and watch them as they try to deal with loss and regret, torn between the desire to escape and the hope of redemption.

This is a play of long-simmering grudges and sudden outbursts, but Miranda Gonzalez’s ensemble play it cool, revealing their characters slowly, never falling into over-the-top telenovela-style acting (though the play, in the wrong hands, could come off like a slow soap opera). In particular, Nydia Castillo and Sipriano Cahue are riveting as the mother and son at the center of the story; they reveal in every glance and gesture what a minefield their relationship has become, and how much they yearn for something better. —JACK HELBIG ASHES OF LIGHT Through 5/13: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, Urban Theater Company, 2620 W. Division, 312-767-8821, urbantheaterchicago.org, $10-$30.

R Here come the brides

The plot is ripped from the headlines, but The Cake lets in a whiff of ambiguity.

Professional baker Della, a southern evangelical trapped in a sterile, repressive marriage, puts all her passion into making cakes according to traditional, gospellike recipes. When long-absent Jen, the grown daughter of her deceased best friend, shows up unannounced in her North Carolina bakery, Della gushes with affection—until Jen asks if she’ll provide the cake for her upcoming marriage to a woman.

Despite the predictable ripped-from-the-headlines setup, playwright Bekah Brunstetter gets the two lead characters in this 2017 drama to exquisitely complicated places. Della sees the deep love between Jen and her fiancee, Macy, and tears herself to shreds trying to believe their relationship isn’t an abomination, especially when her own “proper” marriage is so injurious. Jen works overtime to convince righteously liberal Macy that good people can hold intolerant views, but it’s ultimately Jen’s own internalized homophobia, ingrained from her hyperconservative upbringing, that pushes her away from Della, the woman whose love makes her feel her own shame all the more acutely.

The route to the play’s engrossing emotional climax is as engaging as it is schematic. Often Brunstetter reduces her characters to singular points of view (Della follows instructions, Macy expects everyone to think like her), depicting certain cultural divides with excessive

18 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 26, 2018

tidiness. But just as often she lets ambiguity reign, leaving director Lauren Shouse’s sensitive cast ample room to breathe full dimension into their characters. As Della, a woman whose faith corrodes the only nurturing relationship in her life, Rivendell founder Tara Mallen is heartbreaking. —JUSTIN HAYFORD THE CAKE Through 5/20: Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 4 and 8 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Wed 5/9, 8 PM, Rivendell Theatre, 5779 N. Ridge, 773334-7728, rivendelltheatre.org, $38, $28 students, seniors, military.

thoughtfulness and grace R The of . . . Richard Nixon?

The former greatest presidential villain doesn’t seem so bad anymore, at least in Frost/Nixon.

Peter Morgan’s dramatization of the televised 1977 interviews between the lightweight British talk show host and the disgraced former American president gets a deft and timely revival under Scott Weinstein’s direction.

There’s nary a dull moment as Nixon and Frost prepare to spar in front of the cameras. Jeffrey D. Kmiec’s set manages to make Redtwist’s tiny stage work as a TV studio and a half dozen other locales through clever use of doorways and video elements. The worn acoustic foam panels covering the walls of this tiny storefront theater underscore a key theme of this play: which information is kept in and which is kept out and by whom.

While Brian Perry bears little physical resemblance to Nixon, he nails the timbre and cadence of the man’s voice, so by the middle of the show he inhabits him almost completely. Brandon Wardell’s extensive use of shadows in his lighting design heightens Perry’s transformation. The rest of the cast is top-notch as well, with Adam Bitterman as both Swifty Lazar and Mike Wallace a particular standout.

It would be difficult to imagine the current resident of the White House acting with a fraction of the thoughtfulness and grace of Nixon—one of the greatest villains in U.S. history. But the seeds sown during Watergate cover us like kudzu now, so the sight of a former president admitting criminal complicity on prime-time television is almost worthy of nostalgia at this point. We can only hope that history can repeat itself one more time. —DMITRY SAMAROV FROST/NIXON Through 5/20: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Tue 5/15, 7:30 PM, Redtwist Theatre, 1044 W. Bryn Mawr, 773-728-7529, redtwist.org, $35-$40, $30-$35 students and seniors.

GI Joe Schmoe

Ghosts of War tells more than it shows In Griffin Theatre artistic director William Massolia’s adaptation of Ryan Smithson’s 2009 memoir, Ghosts of War: The True Story of a 19-Year-Old GI, Ryan (Sam Krey), a high school student with little talent and no ambition, decides to join the U.S. Army after 9/11 when he’s struck by an overwhelming sense of love for his fellow Americans as he stands with his junior-college-bound sweetheart in front of a fence strewn with memorabilia for those who fell with the World Trade Towers. As Ryan tells the story of his deployment to and return from Iraq, photographs of the scenes he describes are projected onto a paper screen behind him. The resulting image is not unlike those cardboard figures with an oval cutout for the face, only here, the motionless figures in the photos—GIs packed into their aircraft for deployment, hungry Iraqi

children with their arms outstretched, soldiers facing the empty helmet of their dead friend—bear far more of the aura of life than the actor telling the story, though Krey is valiant in his portrayal of a “GI Joe Schmoe.”

The problem is partly the form. There simply are too many words in this play, and Ryan is put into the position of narrating rather than representing his story.

While that may be fine for a memoir, a play generally benefits from some action, if it is not also graced with some interaction. This play also contains baldly positive sentiments about weapons, warfare, and religion that are difficult to take seriously if you are not a young white male pro-military Christian American. —IRENE HSIAO GHOSTS OF WAR Through 5/6: various dates and times; see website, Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee, griffintheatre.com, $23-$30.

R Five stars

Grand Hotel weaves serviceable material into a compelling story.

Based on Vicki Baum’s 1929 novel and its 1932 Hollywood film adaptation, this 1989 musical focuses on a group of people staying at a swank Berlin hotel in 1928. Among them are a handsome young German baron in debt to a gangster; an aging Russian ballerina on yet another farewell tour; the dancer’s devoted secretary, secretly in love with her employer; a young typist who dreams of Hollywood stardom; a businessman on the brink of bankruptcy; a mortally ill Jewish accountant who has cashed in his life’s savings in order to spend his final days in luxurious living; and a cynical doctor, a morphine-addicted veteran of World War I. As these characters cross paths, they discover unexpected romance and experience deadly danger.

The show’s script and score are credited to playwright Luther Davis and songwriters Robert Wright and George Forrest, with additional material by Maury Yeston. But the real strength of Grand Hotel lies in the way its original director-choreographer, Tommy Tune, along with original musical supervisor Wally Harper, edited merely serviceable material into a fluid, compelling theatrical narrative. This strength is evident in Kokandy Productions’ intimate revival, directed by John D. Glover with imaginative choreography by Brenda Didier. The ensemble singing and dancing is excellent,

and musical director Aaron Benham’s onstage instrumental trio (piano, violin, percussion) brings authority to a score that evokes the 1920s with operetta waltzes, dance-hall foxtrots, ballroom tangos, and a touch of “le jazz hot.” —ALBERT WILLIAMS GRAND HOTEL Through 5/27: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Wed 5/9, 8 PM, Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, 773-975-8150, kokandyproductions.com, $34-$40.

R Oklahoma! OK!

The Rodgers and Hammerstein classic has no relation to historical reality, but it’s sweet, sweet nostalgia porn.

“Return with us now to the thrilling days of yesteryear,” went the intro to The Lone Ranger radio and TV shows.

Marriott Theatre’s revival of Oklahoma! might as well start with the same line. Interested in a realistic depiction of life in the Sooner State on the eve of its 1907 admission to the union? One that alludes to ugly truths about the way Native Americans were treated? One that so much as features a Native American? Go see August: Osage County. Oklahoma! sticks as close to the historical record as, say, a serial about a masked Texas Ranger who rides around on a white horse fighting bad guys with the help of his trusty sidekick, Tonto.

Yes, it’s nostalgia porn. It was nostalgia porn back when it premiered in 1943. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote it that way, to help World War II-era American audiences understand what we were fighting for. Curly the cowpoke has an almost Thoreauvian appreciation for the bright golden haze on the meadow. He’s stuck on strong, sassy farm girl Laurey and defends her when she’s stalked by Jud the hired man, whose evil is implicit in his lack of connection to the clean natural world. Their battle takes place on an archetypal level, with no room for ambivalence or inconvenient facts. I sat through Aaron Thielen’s solid, respectful production fully aware of the stories that weren’t being told—but enthralled by the one that was: by its humor, its sense of hope, and the bonedeep sweetness of its classic score. —TONY ADLER OKLAHOMA! Through 6/10: Wed-Thu 1 and 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 8 PM, Sun 1 and 5 PM, Marriott Theatre, 10 Marriott Dr., Lincolnshire, 847-634-0200, marriotttheatre.com, $50-$60. v

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ARTS & CULTURE David Caruso in Jade, excerpted in The Green Fog

MOVIES

Fun with fragments

With The Green Fog, Canadian indie Guy Maddin delivers an experimental feature that’s pure entertainment.

By J.R. JONES

F

or 30 years now Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin has been escaping into the early cinema, shooting and editing his eerie, eccentric comedies in the style of silent films and primitive talkies from around the world. Archangel (1990), his sophomore feature, draws on the heroic imagery of the Soviet cinema; The Saddest Music in the World (2003), his biggest critical success, recaptures the rickety magic of the earliest screen musicals; and his recent triumph The Forbidden Room (2015) is a fever dream of reheated Saturday-matinee genres— the submarine drama, the jungle adventure.

With a master’s ease, Maddin incorporates old-fashioned materials (black-and-white photography, low-grain film stocks, color tinting) and editing conventions (wipes, irises, intertitles) to re-create the cinematic experience of a bygone era and indulge his personal obsessions and fetishes. His films preserve that sense of mystery lost in so much other contemporary cinema.

The Green Fog is a striking departure from Maddin’s previous features because it’s composed entirely of archival footage, nearly all of it from Hollywood movies and TV series.

Acting on a commission from the San Francisco Film Society, the director pored over more than 100 dramas shot on location in the City by the Bay, snipping out the images he wanted and editing them into a new narrative ssss EXCELLENT

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loosely based on the greatest of them, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958). The result, running about an hour, may not be particularly innovative—avant-gardists have been repurposing archival footage for decades—but it could be the most entertaining experimental film ever.

Maddin has a jeweler’s eye for the screen moment; he extracts only the most potent images and kinetic movements, divorcing them from their original story lines and distilling them into moments of pure pleasure. His narrative, something about a detective investigating a mysterious green fog that’s swept over the city, is so silly you needn’t think about it; the visual candy alone, unified by Jacob Garchik’s edgy string score, will pull you through to the end. The Green Fog is a true paradox—an academic exercise with a popcorn mentality and a big role for Chuck Norris.

Maddin reaches back to his beloved 1920s and ’30s for footage, pulling shots from such black-and-white classics as Greed (1924), Barbary Coast (1935), and San Francisco (1936).

But The Green Fog also forces him out of his silvery comfort zone and into the postwar era’s overlit, Technicolor pop culture, everything from The Love Bug (1968) to Dirty Harry (1971) to Star Trek: The Voyage Home (1986) to Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) to Terminator Genisys (2015). The numerous references to Vertigo— the opening rooftop chase, the mysterious trip to the art museum, the climactic bell-tower

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climb—are all stitched together from other, lesser movies. Most of the scenes that carry Maddin’s vague narrative come from two long-running cop shows: NBC’s McMillan & Wife (1971-’77), starring Rock Hudson and Susan Saint James, and ABC’s The Streets of San Francisco (1972-’77), starring Karl Malden and a young Michael Douglas.

Miraculously, Maddin succeeds in alchemizing this Hollywood junkola into something strange, new, and frequently wonderful. Because the dialogue from other movies would only distract from the new story, he simply deletes those frames; the image skitters as the actors speak, but their expressions and reactions remain, driving home the scene’s emotion even though its import has been removed. You come to appreciate anew the craft of such hard-working players as Hudson, Malden, Joseph Cotten, Lee Remick, Claude Akins, and John Saxon. When the dialogue survives, its isolation tends to heighten its poignance or irony. In a scene revisited throughout the film, Inspector McMillan (Hudson) sits handcuffed to a chair while two hoods make him watch projections of 16-millimeter films. When the celluloid breaks, clattering as the reel spins, the inspector finally pipes up: “That’s the trouble with that old film.”

Fortunately that old film can be taped together too, and Maddin’s interpolation of footage from different movies is captivating.

In one highly formal sequence, anchored by a shot from The Streets of San Francisco, Cotten sits on the patio of a fancy home overlooking the hills; when he looks up, Maddin inserts a low-angle shot from another movie, and when Cotten looks down, a high-angle shot follows.

Again and again the actor looks up and then down, until Maddin has exhausted his store of images. Shots of reel-to-reel tape recorders and electronic surveillance (courtesy of The Conversation and other suspense films) allow Maddin to connect otherwise unrelated scenes. Characters watch projection screens or TV monitors showing images from other movies, and the transitions can be surreal.

After a scene from Basic Instinct (1992) in which Michael Douglas gets out of bed naked and walks into a bathroom, Maddin cuts to a scene from The Streets of San Francisco two

decades earlier in which Douglas watches a 16-millimeter projection. “You really look good, Mike,” his character cracks, appearing to comment on the previous scene. “Did you ever think about going into show business?”

The Green Fog really ignites when Maddin organizes his montages around pure motion.

The aforementioned rooftop chase begins with a formal flourish as the filmmaker cuts back and forth between a color close-up of a horizontal ladder rung (one of the few images actually taken from Vertigo) and a long shot of a rifleman making a vertical ascent up a building ladder (from Edward Dmytryk’s 1952 thriller The Sniper). After that Maddin binges on shots of characters dashing across rooftops, taken from Dirty Harry, The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950), the Chuck Norris actioner An Eye for an Eye (1981), and the Sidney Poitier vehicle They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970). A later, similarly propulsive sequence samples car chases from all over San Francisco, and Maddin communicates the Hitchcock movie’s title neurosis with a gripping montage of characters falling through space, either tracked in their vertical descent or shrinking from view in an overhead shot. These creme de la creme sequences are delectable, reminding you why people go to the movies in the first place: to see things move.

The film wouldn’t be a tribute to San Francisco without a giant earthquake, and for the climax Maddin not only collects images of the city crumbling—from San Francisco all the way up to San Andreas (2015)—but lets the actors from the various source films have their say at last, shouting accusations one after the other in a sequence that replicates James Stewart’s final confrontation with Kim Novak in Vertigo. This collective tantrum is another reminder of why people go to the movies: to see others moved. Meanwhile, Inspector McMillan gets the jump on his captors when they allow him a cigarette during the private screening; surreptitiously flicking it into a garbage barrel of loose celluloid, he sets off a blaze that distracts the hoods, allowing him to clobber them with his chair. That old film—it offers escape, for the inspector certainly but no less for you and me. v THE GREEN FOG sss Directed by Guy Maddin. 63 min. Fri 4/27, 4:30 PM; Sat 4/28, 3:45 PM; Tue 5/1, 8 PM; and Thu 5/3, 6 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, 312-846-2800, siskelfilmcenter.org, $11.

m @JR_Jones

WORTHLESS

APRIL 26, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 19

ARTS & CULTURE MOVIES

Lifestyles of the thin and gorgeous

In the new Amy Schumer comedy, the road to feminine empowerment leads straight to the cash register.

By LEAH PICKETT

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p to this point, comedian and actor Amy Schumer has been known as a boundary pusher. The best sketches on her Comedy Central series Inside Amy Schumer (2013-’17) called out and rejected the ways in which women are expected to adhere to certain beauty standards and behavioral norms in consumer society.

Trainwreck (2015), her first starring feature, was a successful extension of her TV show’s themes and her stand-up persona as a raunchy, unapologetic lush. Like Bridesmaids (2011), Trainwreck became a feminist triumph not by emphasizing the differences between men and women but by riffing on their similarities, and by letting the smart and unsparing humor speak for itself.

Unfortunately, Schumer’s latest venture, I Feel Pretty, represents the kind of hypercommercialized feminism that Schumer’s show might have skewered. Renee (Schumer), an insecure Manhattanite in her mid-30s, falls off her bike in spin class and wakes up from

164 North State Street

Between Lake & Randolph MOVIE HOTLINE: 312.846.2800 NEW FROM PHILIPPE GARREL!

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Fri., 4/27 at 6:15 pm; Sat., 4/28 at 5:15 pm; Sun., 4/29 at 3:15 pm; Mon., 4/30 at 8:30 pm; Wed., 5/2 at 8:30 pm; Thu., 5/3 at 6 pm

“Painterly, probing, and mesmerizing” — Chicago Reader

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20 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 26, 2018

DID YOU WONDER WHO FIRED THE GUN? April 27 - May 2

Fri., 4/27 at 6 pm; Sat., 4/28 at 6:45 pm; Sun., 4/29 at 5:15 pm; Mon., 4/30 at 8:15 pm; Wed., 5/2 at 6 pm

“Incendiary…one of the most powerful reckonings in recent American cinema” — Sight & Sound

NEW FROM GUY MADDIN!

www.siskelfilmcenter.org

Aidy Bryant, Busy Phillips, and Amy Schumer in I Feel Pretty

a head injury to see herself as a perfect ten.

Renee looks the same to everyone else, but that doesn’t stop her from upgrading her life based on the image in her mirror. Finally she has the confidence to nab a receptionist job at the glitzy Fifth Avenue headquarters of her favorite highend cosmetics company, hit on a guy at the dry cleaner, and perfectly apply liquid eyeliner.

I Feel Pretty has a mildly creative premise that might have generated some trenchant satire, and a nice if cliched message: that self-confidence can be beautiful. But first-time filmmakers Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein squander both these assets, delivering less of a movie than a corporate-friendly platform on which to sell female empowerment through platitudes and lifestyle brands. The film begins, ends, and stops twice in between at a SoulCycle in SoHo, and that’s just one example. Whether intentional or not, the film’s design is depressingly obvious: to lump women into a convenient demographic and barrage them with product placements.

Even more tiresome is how Renee becomes a mouthpiece for what “real women” want, as if she were the spokesperson in an advertising campaign. At her new job, Renee literally stumbles into a meeting with executives who are testing products for a lower-end makeup line. When asked for her thoughts, she expresses her displeasure with the blush. “Regular girls” want an applicator inside the blush compact, Renee says, because a woman who shops at Target probably doesn’t own a nice makeup brush. Later, Renee explains that ordinary women hate “statuesque” makeup artists in department stores, because the latter cause the former to “feel bad.”

Based on this and other reductive comments, which the filmmakers treat as not only universally true but profound, the company’s founder (Lauren Hutton) and her granddaughter (Michelle Williams), the CEO, ask Renee to present the line to Target bigwigs in Boston.

Yes, in what is, unfortunately, not a cinematic

first, a corporation works its way into a film’s climax, muddying the message to an almost comical degree. I Feel Pretty encourages women and girls to be individuals, and also to shop at Target.

The most damning aspect of this movie, more damning even than its pandering or blatant commercialism, is how deeply unfunny it is. Kohn and Silverstein, who also cowrote the script, have a tenuous grasp of comedic timing, often leaving a vacuum of dead air inside which the actors flail. Aidy Bryant, frequently funny on Saturday Night Live, is wasted here as Renee’s blank, put-upon best friend, and so is Busy Phillips as Friend #2, whose unexplained medical scrubs substitute for character development. Michelle Williams comes off the worst: using a squeaky voice that serves as the character’s single joke, the Oscar nominee has never looked more lost onscreen. Rory Scovel, as Renee’s slightly effeminate boyfriend, is appealing, but his underwritten role gives him little to do other than bask in Renee’s newfound fearlessness. And Renee, in contrast to the complex and semi-autobiographical character Schumer wrote and played in Trainwreck, is bland, didactic, and shallow.

Near the end of I Feel Pretty, Renee says to a roomful of women, and also to the viewer: “When we’re little girls, we have all the confidence in the world. . . . Let’s get that little-girl confidence back!” And, referring to the makeup she’s selling, “This line is for every girl!” Never mind that not all women share the same experiences or would blindly accept her as their spokesperson (especially nonwhite women). Despite the gutsiness the movie projects, I Feel Pretty is a self-conscious work, relying on an amorphous yet unimpeachable rallying cry of girl power to sell itself. v I FEEL PRETTY s Directed by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein. PG-13, 110 min. For listings visit chicagoreader.com/movies.

m @leahkpickett

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ARTS & CULTURE RSM

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The Blood Is at the Doorstep

www.BrewView.com 3145 N. Sheffield at Belmont

Movie Theater & Full Bar 0 $5.0 ion s admisthe for ies Mov

18 to enter 21 to drink Photo ID required

Sunday, April 29 @ 5:30pm

Love, Simon SPECIAL EVENTS

Sunday, April 29 @ 7:30pm

Chicago Filmmakers open house MOVIES NEW REVIEWS

R The Blood Is at the Doorstep

Dontre Hamilton, a Milwaukee man with a history of mental illness, made the mistake of sleeping outside a Starbucks in the city’s Red Arrow Park in April 2014, and when an employee insisted that the police remove him, a scuffle with longtime officer Christopher Manney left Hamilton dead of 14 bullet wounds. Documentary maker Erik Ljung sticks with the Hamilton family for weeks and then months as the wheels of justice turn slowly and then stop: though Manney was fired, a county investigation ruled the shooting to be self-defense and a federal investigation found no grounds for civil rights charges against him. Some good came of the tragedy—Milwaukee cops now wear body cameras and receive crisis intervention training for mental health cases—but the muddled resolution and its coincidence with a wave of police killings across the nation leave the documentary with a jagged edge. —J.R. JONES 98 min.

Ljung attends the 3, 5, and 7 PM screenings on Saturday.

Fri 4/27-Thu 5/3. Facets Cinematheque.

Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami

Fearsome disco diva Grace Jones is still going strong in this 2017 documentary, which alternates scenes of her eye-popping stage act at a Dublin theater with lengthy cinema verite sequences of her private life. The veteran fashion model looks sensational in her late 60s, strutting around onstage in a corset, heels, and her trademark outrageous hats; she cuts an imposing figure offstage as well, in scenes that show her recording with her longtime collaborators Sly and Robbie and relaxing with her extended family in Spanish Town, Jamaica, where she grew up. The offstage sequences can be revealing—in one scene, Jones recalls the abusive step-grandfather who inspired her aggressive musical persona—but director Sophie Fiennes sets such a languid pace that the songs can’t come soon enough. —J.R. JONES 120 min.

Fri 4/27, 4:30, 7, and 9:30 PM; Sat 4/28-Sun 4/29, 2, 4:30, 7, and 9:30 PM; Mon 4/30-Tue 5/1, 4:30, 7, and 9:30 PM; Wed 5/2, 4:30 and 9:30 PM; and Thu 5/3, 4:30, 7, and 9:30 PM. Music Box.

R Lover for a Day

Like a good magic trick, this fleet romantic drama from veteran French filmmaker Philippe Garrel succeeds through misdirection: the story and dialogue revolve around sexual fidelity, but the true conflict is between two young women fighting for emotional control of an older man. Reeling from a bad breakup, Jeanne (Esther Garrel) shows up at the doorstep of her single father (Éric Caravaca), a philosophy professor, only to learn that he’s living with Ariane (Louise Chevillotte), an oversexed former student. These two contemporaries bond at first as Jeanne works through her heartache, but Ariane comes to understand that her intense physical relationship with the professor is no match for the intimacy and mutual respect he and his daughter have built up over the years. Shooting in black and white, Garrel creates a sort of classically French ambience, somewhere between the nervous energy of Godard and the emotional perspicacity of Renoir. In French with subtitles. —J.R. JONES 76 min. Fri 4/27, 6:15 PM; Sat 4/28, 5:15 PM; Sun 4/29, 3:15 PM; Mon 4/30, 8:30 PM; Wed 5/2, 8:30 PM; and Thu 5/3, 6 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center.

R The Rider

An extraordinary translation of life into art, Chloé Zhao’s drama fictionalizes the experiences of Brady Jandreau, a Lakota cowboy on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, whose rodeo career ended in April 2016 after a bucking bronco threw him and stepped on his skull. Jandreau has a sixth sense with horses, and Zhao captures a long, fascinating scene of him patiently walking and talking a wild stallion into submission; unable to ride anymore, or even to train horses safely, his character loses any sense of purpose or identity, and Zhao turns this personal crisis into a stoic modern-day western. The writer-director, who met Jandreau while making her first film, Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2013), cast his father and younger sister, Tim and Lilly Jandreau (who has Asperger’s syndrome), and they add to the drama immeasurably as the hero’s dad, a defiant gambling addict, and loyal sibling, who tries to talk him through his unhappiness. —J.R. JONES R, 103 min. Century 12 and CineArts 6, Music Box, River East 21.

The independent cinema hosts a free ribbon cutting and open house for its new facility, a historic firehouse purchased from the city in 2016 and newly renovated for classes and screenings. Sat 4/28, 11 AM-2 PM. Chicago Filmmakers. F

Game Night

NY Dog/Cat Film Festival

Two touring festivals of short films about dogs and cats, respectively. Your dog is welcome at the former; your cat wouldn’t be caught dead at the latter. Cats: Sat 4/28, noon (program one) and 1:30 PM (program two). Dogs: Sun 4/29, noon (program one) and 1:45 PM (program two). Patio.

Windy City Horrorama

A three-day festival of independent horror shorts and features from around the world. For more information and a complete schedule visit windycityhorrorama.com.

Fri 4/27-Sun 4/29. Davis.

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THIS WEEK ON chicagoreader.com Ben Sachs looks at Takeshi Kitano’s Japanese drama A Scene at the Sea (1991), and Patrick Friel surveys FilmStruck’s new series of early Alfred Hitchcock films from the UK. v

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MUSIC

The songs that drove the Wobblies are still lighting fires More than a century ago, Joe Hill wrote some of the most enduring anthems in the radical union’s Little Red Songbook— and today’s activists carry on that legacy of struggle through music.

By KIM KELLY

A

t a bar in Chicago nearly 30 years ago, Billy Bragg slugged down Joe Hill’s ashes with a bottle of union beer. Now 103 years dead, Hill remains one of the most iconic faces of the Industrial Workers of the World, informally called the Wobblies, a radical international union that is itself an enduring symbol of militant working-class power. After Bragg played a concert in Chicago, a couple of Wobblies brought him a packet of Hill’s ashes—one of the last remaining traces of this particular relic, which had been divvied up into 600 envelopes and distributed to IWW branches and their allies worldwide. The Chicago Wobblies were acting on a suggestion Abbie Hoffman had made shortly before his death in 1989: that Hill’s legacy be preserved by having the new “Joe Hills,” Bragg among them, eat his ashes.

For Bragg to be named one of Hill’s spiritual successors by an anarchist anti-war protester as prominent as Hoffman was no small honor—and to actually imbibe his ashes was akin to taking Wobbly communion.

Hill was executed by firing squad in Utah in November 19, 1915, convicted of a double murder he almost certainly didn’t commit, and his body was shipped to Chicago for a second memorial on Thanksgiving Day. After hours of songs, speeches, and tributes in ten languages, he was cremated at Graceland Cemetery in Uptown. “When Joe was killed, he said he wanted to be buried anywhere except Utah,” Bragg says by phone from his home in Dorset. “So they cremated him, and they sent little packets of his ashes to all the Wobbly unions in each state.”

Former teacher Sherrie Parker leads a chant at a May 2013 rally against Chicago school closings, attended by parents, activists, students, labor leaders, and CTU president Karen Lewis. é JESSICA KOSCIELNIAK a ILLUSTRATION: SUE KWONG

He relays his own Joe Hill anecdote with obvious pride and an impish chuckle. The British singer-songwriter and activist has always been one hell of a storyteller, and his knack for making the political personal has kept him and his music relevant since he started playing pubs in 1977—well before Margaret Thatcher went to war with the UK’s coal miners in 1984 and gave him a cause to rally behind.

That knack is also something he shares with Hill, born in Sweden in 1879 as Joel Emmanuel Hägglund, who spent his truncated life fighting for the working class on picket lines, in factories, and most memorably in song. As an IWW labor organizer and songwriter, he’s responsible for some of labor’s most enduring hymns and rabble-rousing tunes, including “There Is Power in a Union,” “The Rebel Girl,” and “The Preacher and the Slave.” His life was cut short by the state following a sham trial, but Hill’s Wobbly anthems had already been collected (alongside a bevy of other labor songs) into a volume eventually christened The Little Red Songbook. First printed in Spokane in 1909, it was soon distributed by Wobbly publishing bureaus in other cities too—including Chicago, where the IWW itself had been founded in 1905.

The International Workers of the World arose from a meeting of more than 200 anarchists, socialists, Marxists, and radical trade unionists from across the country, dubbed “the Continental Congress of the working class.” The bestremembered of these founders include miners’ unionist Big Bill Haywood, five-time socialist presidential candidate Eugene V.

Debs, labor and community organizer Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, Hill’s fellow songsmith Ralph Chaplin, and Chicago anarchist Lucy Parsons, whose husband had been hanged in 1887 for his alleged role in the Haymarket Affair. “You are not absolutely defenseless,” Parsons said in 1886. “For the torch of the incendiary, which has been known with impunity, cannot be wrested from you.” She encouraged her comrades to fight with dynamite—Chicago police famously described her as “more dangerous than a thousand rioters”—but ol’ Joe fought with song. He inspired countless others, just as she did, among them Bragg protege Otis Gibbs. Bragg shared Hill’s ashes with him (their intended recipient, Michelle Shocked, had become a born-again Christian), and Gibbs wrote a song for Parsons on his 2016 album Mount Renraw.

That Bragg’s path would cross in Chicago with that of one of the most significant figures in labor history is almost too perfect. The blood of radicals has watered the Second City’s streets for nearly two centuries, and its air has long resonated with the uplifted voices of those who know it doesn’t have to be like this—dreamers, thinkers, fighters, martyrs. The city’s political history is knotted and complex, but one thing its activists have always held in common is a talent for propaganda and an appreciation for the power of song. During many of their struggles—the 40,000-strong May Day parade that Parsons led in 1886, the Democratic National Convention protests in 1968, the Chicago Teachers Union strike in 2012, the current No Cop Academy campaign—people have leaned on the same J

APRIL 26, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 23

continued from 23 familiar songs to get them through dark nights and anxious mornings. “There Is Power in a Union.” “Which Side Are You On?” “The Preacher and the Slave.” “Solidarity Forever.”

As a member of the leadership council for Writers Guild of America East, I attended the Labor Notes conference in Chicago in early April, presented by the nonprofit Labor Education and Research Project. During an impromptu sing-along in our hotel’s upstairs bar, I heard “Solidarity Forever” in the wild.

One of the people joining in was Natasha Carlsen, a special education teacher and member of the CTU’s executive board.

“We had gathered a group of comrades from New York City to Puerto Rico to Chicago, all teacher unionist, and were beginning to feel the sense of togetherness,” Carlsen says. “We were cognizant that not everyone was CTU. ‘Solidarity Forever’ holds true in today’s conditions just as it did when it was created, and there has been no other song that resonates with the labor movement in such a way. Solidarity is when one realizes that it’s not just important to be together with those in their own community or their own occupation, but in building and fighting for a world that’s just for all. Music is a way to build those connections between communities, religions, ethnicities, or nationalities. Music is universal. What we all had was in fact solidarity—and all of us knew the chorus.”

As Hill himself once said, “A pamphlet, no matter how good, is only read once, but a song is learned by heart and repeated over and over.” Many labor classics use simple, unforgettable choruses—“Solidarity forever, for the union makes us strong”— and though they’re made for echoing down picket lines, they’ve traveled far beyond that traditional context. The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle recorded an impassioned rendition of “There Is Power in a Union” during the 2011 demonstrations in Wisconsin by teachers and other public-sector workers whose wages and collective bargaining rights were under assault by Governor Scott Walker. Darnielle says he was drawn to “There Is Power in a Union” by its strong melody, clever internal rhymes, and stark images of factory, land, and workers’ hands. “Union songs fucking own,” he says. “It’s very hard not to get caught up in the feeling—they’re songs about the power of being together, at their core, which is the same power we all feel in a room together playing and listening to and sharing music. Music itself is kind of inherently about union.”

Darnielle has been a member of SEIU Local 660 and the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians, and he’s prounion to his bones. “I was raised to never cross a picket line—it’s a value I was taught to hold from early childhood. And then I was a teenager when Reagan broke up the air traffic controllers’ union, and the anti-union movement really began, after years of failure, to find inroads,” he says. “And we arrive at a point where a simple thought like ‘union is powerful’ needs to be stated plainly. It’s just a very direct and beautiful expression of the to-me self-evident truth that if workers organize, they have power, and if they don’t, somebody else will have that power.”

Darnielle is inspired by the giants upon whose shoulders modern activists stand, but he wasn’t singing Hill’s version of the song—he used lyrics Bragg wrote in the 80s, which have since become the new standard.

“I wasn’t really aware of Joe Hill until I came to America, on one of my very first trips,” Bragg recalls. “I picked up Utah Phillips’s album We Have Fed You All a Thousand Years, which had quite a few of Joe’s songs on it, among them ‘There Is Power

24 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 26, 2018

A demonstrator at a downtown Chicago march on May 1, 2017, celebrates May Day (also known as International Workers’ Day) by carrying a portrait of IWW cofounder Lucy Parsons. é SCOTT OLSON

Below: Labor activist Joe Hill wrote many of the most enduring anthems in the IWW’s Little Red Songbook. é UTAH DIVISION OF ARCHIVES AND RECORDS SERVICE

in a Union.’ Then I came back to the UK, right in the middle of the miners’ strike, and was looking to write a song about that particular struggle in the style of Joe Hill to connect with that tradition—because when I first started going out doing gigs for the miners, which were predominantly in the north of England, there were folk singers there singing these old songs like ‘The Red Flag’ and ‘Which Side Are You On?’ They were more radical than I was, and I was supposed to be this ‘one-man Clash’ punk kid from London!

They made clear to me that by standing up for the miners I was joining the tradition they were part of, so I tried to write songs that reflected that.”

In 1990 Bragg released a whole album of labor solidarity songs, The Internationale, but he’s hardly the only musician to find inspiration in revolution. Artists as disparate as Bostonbased Celtic punks the Dropkick Murphys and Brooklyn rapper Talib Kweli have joined the tradition with versions of Florence Reece’s “Which Side Are You On?” One of the most compelling modern renditions of the song has come from Austin Lunn’s black-metal band Panopticon, which honored the union battles of coal miners with pathos and grit on the 2012 album Kentucky.

“It’s all in the lyrics,” Lunn explains. “The boss needs us—we don’t need the boss. I have seen worker exploitation firsthand and railed against those who would take advantage of workers.

I have been a part of coalitions, protesting and picketing; I have held signs, locked arms, participated in sit-ins in federal buildings, and screamed alongside other folks struggling. I know there’s a lot of folks who don’t want politics in metal, and that’s fine. They don’t have to hear it. But for me, I’m always going to write about what’s in my head and in my heart . . . and a lot of the time, what’s in my head and heart is this desire to burn down the destructive forces in this world and try to build something better in the place where that once stood.”

The metal community may be divided about left-wing politics, but Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello was working entirely in character when he tackled “Sol-

“Union songs are songs about the power of being together, which is the same power we all feel in a room together playing and listening to and sharing music.”

—John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats

idarity Forever”—it appears on the 2011 album Union Town by his solo project the Nightwatchman, which he says owes a great debt to Joe Hill’s work. Morello has long used his platform to advocate for anti-oppressive, anti-capitalist, and proworker causes, including the global Occupy movement, the Fight for 15, immigration reform, and death penalty abolition. He’s also a proud member of the IWW, and in 2007 he wrote the foreword to The Big Red Songbook, a compendium of more than 250 IWW songs accompanied by historical essays.

“These songs look an unjust world square in the eye, slice it apart with satire, dismantle it with rage, and then drop a mighty sing-along chorus fit to raise the roof of a union hall or a holding cell,” he writes. “The IWW literally wrote the book on protest music. These songs, some written many decades ago, address the same issues facing us today: poverty, police brutality, immigrant rights, economic and racial inequality, militarism, threats to civil liberties, union busting.”

Chicago continues to fight against the injustices that provoked the founding of the IWW, with activists rising up with each new generation to hold their oppressors’ feet to the flames. The young rabble-rousers of the No Cop Academy campaign aren’t necessarily gathering ’round a campfire J

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continued from 24 to sing “I’m Too Old to Be a Scab,” but they do have their own versions of Joe Hill.

Ethan Ethos, an organizer with No Cop Academy and restorative justice group Circles & Ciphers, names Chance the Rapper (a vocal supporter of No Cop Academy), G Herbo, and Jamila Woods as current Chicago artists fighting in Hill’s tradition. As a key inspiration, he cites a fiery 2013 rendition of “Which Side Are You On?” by Bronx hip-hop duo Rebel Diaz with Dead Prez and Rakaa Iriscience, and notes how younger people remix old songs to suit their new battles.

“There’s a quote by Emma Goldman that says ‘I don’t want to be part of your revolution if I can’t dance,’ and this remains true in the movement,” Ethos says. “We need to make a movement that attracts people and shows the love they want to see in the world. Emory Douglas of the Black Panther Party and activist singers like Nina Simone pioneered this. They captured the pulse of the moment, and we now walk in their legacy, creating new ways to make the revolution sexy, to make it the fire in the belly of the people.”

Ethos remembers a Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) conference several years ago in Cleveland, during which a young boy was arrested outside the site of the meeting. The people at the conference rallied and got the boy released from police custody into his parents’ care. After he was safe, someone played “Alright” by Kendrick Lamar. “Everyone went nuts,” Ethos says, “and for that second, I really felt free. Like no matter what they throw at us, it’s all gonna be all right.”

Alexandra Bradbury, editor of Labor Notes magazine and codirector of its organizing and research project, also points to the black liberation movement as a modern-day locus for activist songsmiths. “I’ve heard some great chant songs, like the Black Lives Matter one that goes ‘Back up, back up / We want freedom, freedom / Tell these racist-ass cops / We don’t need ’em, need ’em,’ sung in harmony while you’re marching,” she says. “Or there was one people sang at the Flood Wall Street action, ‘The people gonna rise like the water / Gonna calm this crisis down / I hear the voice of my great-granddaughter / Singing shut down Wall Street now!’ For movement building, I’m interested in songs that get people singing together.”

Bradbury also has a soft spot for the old tunes in The Little Red Songbook. Joe Hill and his comrades wrote songs designed to be learned by ear and picked up quickly by large, diverse groups, she explains, with memorable lyrics and catchy choruses. This kind of people’s poetry has an emotional impact that’s deepened by its long evolution through history—though she also notes that just about any song can be made into a protest song. “When you think of some of the long-lasting movements that have persisted through adversity—the black freedom struggle in the U.S. south, the fight against apartheid in South Africa—it’s impossible to imagine them without song.”

The ghost of Joe Hill still lives: in the words of a tune written in his memory in 1938, “What they forgot to kill / Went on to organize.” The melodies in The Little Red Songbook continue to ring out in the streets. And Chicago’s ingrained activist streak creates new forms of resistance to old ills. No matter how much the world changes, some things—the power of music, the power of the people—never will. v

m @GrimKim 26 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 26, 2018

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Recommended and notable shows and critics’ insights for the week of April 26

MUSIC

b ALL AGES F

PICK OF THE WEEK

Princess Nokia celebrates other women, her cultural heritage, and herself on 1992 Deluxe

é MONICA SCHIPPER

PRINCESS NOKIA

7 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, sold out. b

THURSDAY26 Gordon Grdina 9 PM, Elastic, 3429 W. Diversey, $10 suggested donation. b One of the things that sustains my admiration for Vancouver jazz guitarist Gordon Grdina is that he places himself within a seemingly endless variety of contexts. Plenty of musicians who compartmentalize different sides of their work can appear to suffer from split personalities, but Grdina has a distinctive knack for sating his curiosity in many projects while always sounding like himself. I first heard his music more than a decade ago; his debut album was with a hushed trio that included bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Paul Motian. Since then he’s more often embraced an aggressive, bruising attack, as when

IN CONVERSATION, Princess Nokia (born Destiny Nicole Frasqueri) is soft-spoken and thoughtfully tackles subjects such as blackness and urban feminism. But get on her bad side and she’s lethal. In February 2017, the underground rapper from Spanish Harlem punched an audience member for mouthing sexist obscenities, and in October she slapped another man for making racist remarks on the train. Frasqueri owns the dualities of her personality in interviews and in her lyrics, and she always expresses exactly how she feels. On her studio debut, July’s 1992 Deluxe, Frasqueri celebrates herself and her multicultural roots as well as other women, draping it all in unshakeable self-assurance and vivid detail. Expanding on her 2016 mixtape, the 25-year-old delves into the elements that have contributed to her identity and her self-described “fab bitch” persona. “Tomboy,” her breakout track, champions body positivity and challenges Western beauty standards, as she asserts that she could still snatch any man with her “little titties and my phat belly . . . Big pants and some scuffed shoes.” In “Brujas,” she proclaims herself a “Black a-Rican bruja” (Spanish for “witch”) whose powers originate from her

collaborating with Mats Gustafsson in a free context or exploring hard-rock-driven terrain with his longtime drummer Kenton Loewen in the duo Peregrine Falls. Last year Grdina released Inroads (Songlines), a quartet effort with reedist Oscar Noriega, pianist Ross Lossing, and drummer Satoshi Takeishi. The group’s output lands on either side of the chamberlike feel of his early trio: complex, slaloming pieces that provide a hothouse environment for charged improvisation on one hand, and atmospheric works that privilege color and mood on the other. Whether Grdina is playing guitar or oud, everything makes sense together. On his forthcoming solo record, China Cloud, he ranges just as widely, crafting cinematic tone poems drenched in reverb, gnarled oud reveries steeped in brittle twang, and a tender jazz ballad. He sings on the pensive folk tune “A Doll’s House,” which ends the album—a rarity from the instrumental-focused musician. Tonight he returns

indigenous ancestors in Nigeria, Puerto Rico, and Cuba and highlights the legacy of women supporting other women. On other tracks the production and Frasqueri’s talent for specificity (reminiscent of Nas) come together to paint a loving and nostalgic portrait of New York life. The sounds of school bells and kids’ voices on “Bart Simpson” help conjure Fraqueri’s childhood, and we can practically feel her teenage indolence as she sucks on a Now and Later and watches The Simpsons. “Green Line” features the rumble of incoming trains and wafts the aromas of the horchata and chop cheese sandwiches Frasqueri references. All these details, along with the strings and R&B background singers that recall 90s rap on “Saggy Denim,” help to illuminate the neighborhoods where she grew up. Even when some elements or songs don’t work—such as when she adopts different voices by alternating pitch and speed a la Nicki Minaj’s alter-ego shtick—Frasqueri’s tenacious attitude keeps the tracks afloat. By the time listeners finish the album, they may find themselves standing up straighter and declaring (as Princess Nokia does in “Kitana”) “I don’t give a damn and I don’t give a fuck.” —RACHEL YANG

to Chicago for two sets of improvisations with percussionist Michael Zerang, bass clarinetist Jason Stein, and other guests. —PETER MARGASAK

Lost Dog Street band Edward & Graham and Matt Heckler open. 8 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, $12. 18+ Nashville’s Lost Dog Street Band mixes old-timey music with touches of contemporary Americana, but what most distinguishes the group is the voice of front man Benjamin Tod Flippo. He’s not a powerhouse singer—his delivery wavers somewhere between high-lonesome bluegrass and Bob Dylanstyle talk-singing. As he flirts with the wrong key or scrambles to keep up with the rollicking pace of songs such as “Hard Road Again,” his ragged-butright approach adds a pleasingly uncertain punk

edge to the band’s sound. When Flippo wails “Circumstances shot us down like September doves” on the first track of the group’s self-released 2016 album, Rage and Tragedy, he gives the impression that he’s in danger of falling, while his wife and bandmate, fiddle player Ashley Mae, joins in with a harmony that just about keeps him afloat. On “I Remember You Well”—a tribute to Nicholas Ridout, his former bandmate in folk four-piece Spit Shine, who died in 2013—he makes even better use of his characteristic vocals. “And now you’re gone / Long time gone / But we’re still here / And life goes on,” he draws out in a painful yodel. The song doesn’t resolve with ease; the notes come out broken, as if grief’s gotten into the song and pushed it out of true. When it comes to folk music’s long tradition of perfect imperfection, the Lost Dog Street Band is a worthy heir. —NOAH BERLATSKY

J

APRIL 26, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 27

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MUSIC

Find more music listings at chicagoreader.com/soundboard.

continued from 27

FRIDAY27 Ryan Keberle & Catharsis Matt Ulery’s Loom opens. 8:30 PM, Constellation, 3111 N. Western, $15, $12 in advance. 18+ When New York trombonist Ryan Keberle and his band Catharsis performed at the Hungry Brain in March 2017, it was clear that he had the intolerant policies and posturing of the Trump regime on his mind. Though his group was supporting the 2016 album Azul Infinito (Greenleaf)—a reflection of Keberle’s appreciation of and engagement with the music of South America—they also played several new pieces from their then-forthcoming album of protest songs, June’s Find the Common, Shine a Light (Greenleaf). There’s no missing the cynical bite in the band’s take on the Beatles classic “Fool on the Hill,” and their cover of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’” seems more hopeful than prophetic—given how rarely jazz expresses a political viewpoint, these might as well be explicit statements of disillusionment with the country’s current leadership. Catharsis’s lineup includes agile, sweet-toned Chilean singer Camila Meza, who also plays guitar in the band, laying down chordal support rather than extended improvisation. She deepens the group’s connections to South American music on their cover of Uruguayan pop singer Jorge Drexler’s “Al Otro Lado del Rio,” and her melodic sensibility, phrasing, and warmth add to the lyricism and protest-song feel that some of their original material shares with nueva cancion. While the band’s recordings reflect a poplike polish and concision, their Hungry Brain performance found the group stretching out and injecting improvisational fury into the material—I expect the same will hold true during this return visit. The rhythm section of drummer Eric Doob and bassist Jorge Roeder couldn’t be more elastic, though Matt Clohesy will fill in for Roeder at this performance. It’s also a drag that trumpeter Mike Rodriguez, who plays on both albums, won’t be with the group, but his sub, reedist Scott Robinson, proved an excellent front-line partner at their previous Chicago appearance. —PETER MARGASAK

John Prine The Milk Carton Kids open. 8 PM, Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State, $79.50-$89.50. b John Prine’s new record, The Tree of Forgiveness (Oh Boy), is his first album of original material in a decade. He underwent surgery for lung cancer in 2013, and his characteristically cracked voice is a little worse for wear, but he’s as avuncular, funny, and wise as ever—a poet of the everyday. Prine’s influence continues to be felt through each new generation of roots musicians, so it’s fitting that this album was produced by current Nashville darling Dave Cobb and has instrumental support from a crew of contemporary players and singers that includes Sturgill Simpson and Brandi Carlile. At 70, he’s writing songs that seem as if they could have been created at any time in the past century and erasing any gaps that might normally exist between country, folk, and rock. On “I Have Me My Love Today” he

John Prine é DANNY CLINCH

conveys a warm optimism and flushed romanticism without treacly sentiment, and his dry but exuberant delivery of lines such as “We’ll go on forever / And I can truly say / I have met my love today” says more than words on a page ever could. Likewise, on the bittersweet “Summer’s End,” a gorgeous, plainspoken ballad where Prine reaches out to a distressed lover or family member, he turns nostalgia into the most potent feeling possible: “I still love that picture of walkin’ / Just like that old house / We thought was haunted.” On the album’s closer, “When I Get to Heaven,” Prine imagines the afterlife with typically wry humor, spouting lines such as “I’m gonna take that wristwatch off my arm / What are you gonna do with time / After you’ve bought the farm” and dreaming about the vices his body has punished him for indulging in on earth: “Gonna smoke a cigarette / That’s nine miles long.” —PETER MARGASAK

Post Animal Slow Pulp and Rookie open.

9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Western, $15. 18+ If there’s anything I dislike more than Stranger Things, it’s the eagerness with which commercial enterprises and media outlets have flocked to the Netflix show in hopes of monetizing its afterglow.

I’m willing to make an exception for Post Animal, a Chicago psych-rock outfit that happens to count Stranger Things actor Joe Keery as a member. If his limited presence in the band (he’s a nontouring guitarist and vocalist) has helped them complete their impressive forthcoming debut, When I Think of You in a Castle (on Polyvinyl—clutch), well, I’m all for it.

Post Animal play massive, brooding rock melodies that sound like an oncoming storm—they’re topped with airtight pop vocal harmonies and driven by power-pop riffs that feel like the musicians have just emerged from a cryogenic slumber that started in 1978. That the resulting songs, such as the jaunty, radiant single “Ralphie,” stick in your head and feel fresh makes it even better. —LEOR GALIL

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SATURDAY28 American Pleasure Club Special Explosion and Spencer Radcliffe open. 6:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, $13. b In a Track Record essay published just before American Pleasure Club dropped February’s A Whole Fucking Lifetime of This (Run for Cover), front man Sam Ray wrote about the process of changing the band’s name from Teen Suicide. In the piece he described the group’s effort to retain their fervent cult following while shedding that name, which they’d matured beyond—their decision to flood the Web with new material, a la Lil Wayne during the

lead-up to Tha Carter III, was intended to help with the transition. “I figured that at the very least, those who worried about us changing our sound, or, God forbid, ‘selling out’ (I hate this term and concept) would hear and recognize so much of the scuzzy, poppy-rock band they fell in love with in new, free songs and decide to stick around—even with a new name.” The tactic seems to have worked, thanks in part to Ray’s experience and versatility. At age 26, he’s already led more projects in his short time on earth than many of his fans may ever get around to hearing, with his solo experimental electro work under the name Ricky Eat Acid among the most prominent. Though he freely experiments with style, he manages to imprint each project with a distinctive character. Teen Suicide began as J

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oldtownschool.org APRIL 26, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 29

4544 N LINCOLN AVENUE, CHICAGO IL OLDTOWNSCHOOL.ORG • 773.728.6000

FRIDAY, APRIL 27 8PM

Peter Case

MUSIC

Find more music listings at chicagoreader.com/soundboard.

continued from 29

In Szold Hall

SUNDAY, APRIL 29 7PM

Jodee Lewis SUNDAY, APRIL 29 8PM

Sam Amidon

with special guest James Elkington, In Szold Hall

FRIDAY, MAY 4 7PM

Hot Rize

40th Anniversary Tour with special guest Brennen Leigh & Noel McKay

THURSDAY, MAY 10 8PM

Ike Reilly

MAY RESIDENCY Joining Ike Reilly For A Rare Opening Set Very Special Guest and Comrade Michael McDermott

FRIDAY, MAY 11 8PM

Robby Hecht & Caroline Spence / Walter SalasHumara In Szold Hall TUESDAY, MAY 15 7PM

WBEZ's Podcast Passport Presents:

It's Been A Minute with Sam Sanders THURSDAY, MAY 17 8PM

Ike Reilly

a band who sounded like they were falling apart; their brittle, biting tracks threaded nihilistic punk with scarred second-wave emo. Under Ray’s guidance, the group evolved toward something more calm and gentle but also less rule bound. The woozy “Sycamore” is filled with loudly echoing hand percussion and vocal melodies that melt as they crawl through the song. It connects American Pleasure Club to the aching sounds of their past and to a future in which they can yank in jarring, almost alien sounds that would’ve felt out of place before—such as the spiky drum-and-bass percussion loop in “Just a Mistake.” No matter which direction they flow from here, Ray and company will ensure the music keeps making sense. —LEOR GALIL

Anteloper Preoccupations headline; Odonis Odonis and Anteloper open. 8:30 PM, Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219-21 S. Morgan, $15. 21+ Former Chicago trumpeter Jaimie Branch was one of last year’s big success stories in jazz. Her long-overdue debut as a leader, Fly or Die (International Anthem), captured her protean strength and melodic vision with stunning concision and soul, and synthesized some of her many musical interests into a cogent postbop direction that allowed for plenty of free expression. But Branch has endless curiosity about all sorts of music, and with Anteloper, a duo project with drummer Jason Nazary, she’s opened up fresh paths. On their brand-new debut, Kudu (International Anthem), they deliver a clear salute to the Chicago Underground Duo, aka cornetist Rob Mazurek and drummer Chad Taylor, whose agile performances Branch heard regularly when she still lived here. Branch and Nazary share instrumentation with that duo as well as a penchant for heavy electronic textures—synthesized bass lines, amorphous acidic squiggles, washes and counter-riffs—but Anteloper has a stronger pop drive. On “Oryx,” a descending electronic melody cycles over a heavy groove meted out by Nazary (who’s played

MAY RESIDENCY • with special guest Gia Margaret

SATURDAY, MAY 19 8PM

Lucy Kaplansky

In Szold Hall

THURSDAY, MAY 24 8PM

Ike Reilly

MAY RESIDENCY with special guest Half Gringa (solo)

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OLDTOWNSCHOOL.ORG 30 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 26, 2018

APRIL 27...............

FEBRUARY 24 UNIBROW .....DARKDJROOM MEN JANUARY 13..................

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SITUATION

MAXLIELLIAM ANNA APRIL 29...............

HUBER FEBRUARY 26 ANDREW .....RC D.BIG BAND 7PM FIONA MCMAHON JANUARY 20..................

FIRST WARD PROBLEMS MAY 2 ...................

SMILIN’ BOBBY AND THE CLEMTONES 9PM 8PM JANUARY 21..................

DO ROSARIO GROUP FEBRUARY 28 .....PETERTONY CASANOVA QUARTET JIMIJON AMERICA JANUARY 22..................

RC BIG BAND 7PM PLUS DJ MR. WIGGLES MARCH BOBBY AND THE CLEMTONES JANUARY1............SMILIN’ 24..................

PETER CASONOVA QUARTET MAY 3 ................... THE POLKAHOLICS 8PM JANUARY 25..................

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RICKYD BLUES MARCH 2............ICE BOX AND JANUARY 26..................

THE HEPKATS MAY 5 ...................

CITY IN A GARDEN SKIPPIN’ AND ROCKTARRINGTON 10PM MARCH 3............CHIDITAROD IZMZ JANUARY 27..................

THE STRAY NIGHT BOLTS MAY 6 ................... AMERICAN TROUBADOUR MARCH WAGNER & FRIENDS JANUARY7............JAMIE 28..................

WHOLESOMERADIO DJ NIGHT WITH MIKE FELTEN

EVERY TUESDAY (EXCEPT 2ND) AT 8PM OPEN MIC HOSTED BY JIMIJON AMERICA

American Pleasure Club front man Sam Ray é COURTESY THE ARTIST

free jazz with the likes of Darius Jones and Joe Morris), into which Branch bursts with a soaring, anthemic trumpet line that’s borne aloft by the repeating rhythms. The more open-ended “Fossil Record” places Branch’s probing horn against sputtering didgeridoo drones that help create a kind of trancelike ecstasy. On “Lethal Curve,” a dirgey, propulsive rhythm hammers on amid dive-bombing synth lines as Branch pushes her abstract horn improvisation toward the heavens with striated noise and piercing upper-register tones, and toward the end Nazary pitches down the groove like he’s running out of fuel. —PETER MARGASAK

Joan Shelley The Other Years open. 9 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, $15. 21+ It took me a couple of listens before I realized that Louisville singer Joan Shelley was tackling Nick Drake’s singular ballad “Time Has Told Me” on her new six-track covers EP, Rivers and Vessels (released as a benefit for the antipollution advocacy organization Kentucky Waterways Alliance).

Shelley’s honeyed, weightless voice can express both pain and empathy; it’s so distinctive that her interpretations of songs have a tendency to utterly remake the source material. Over a gorgeous lattice of gentle acoustic guitars played by Shelley and her musical partner, Nathan Salsburg, she gives an airy delivery to the measured optimism of the lyrics, as if her voice is stepping as lightly as her expectations. On J.J. Cale’s “Magnolia,” she’s shadowed by the gorgeous harmony singing of fellow Louisville vocalist Julia Purcell as she conveys bittersweet longing for a distant love—giving the tune a personal twist by substituting Bowling Green, Kentucky, for New Orleans as the place she dreams of returning to. Bonnie “Prince” Billy joins her for a lilting take on the devastating Dolly Parton song “The Bridge,” in which the narrator returns to where she met the lover who has since left her behind, pregnant; she announces that she’s going to end her life in the same spot, and you know she’s done it because the song comes to an abrupt stop. Daniel Martin Moore accompanies Shelley on a beguiling

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Jaden Smith é SARAH MORRIS

spin through the Connie Converse obscurity “How Sad How Lovely,” and she concludes the record with a stark reading of the traditional Scottish folk song “Silver Whistle.” Tonight Shelley performs with Salsburg, a peerless accompanist. —PETER MARGASAK

SUNDAY29 Princess Nokia See Pick of the Week, page 27. 7 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, sold out. b Peel Furr and Strange Lovelies open. 8 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport. 21+ F Chicago foursome Peel play the kind of swashbuckling rippers that demand to be called “rock ’n’ roll” (don’t even think about using the whole “and” in there) and that sound like they could’ve poured out of a jukebox four or five decades ago, depending on the tune. At least, that’s the case on their new self-released EP, Never Not Dead, which they celebrate tonight. The recording follows Peel’s second album, September’s Goes Bananas (get it?), and it shows they’ve decided to crank up the volume on their feel-good rock and ratchet up the assault a bit too. They pull together various strains of sixstring pop, including freewheeling anthems for 1950s greasers (“Teenage Rock & Roll Singer”) and shoegaze-style melodies, though the latter sound clearer and more energetic than the 80s UK bands that influenced them. No matter the era or mood they draw from, Peel capture the frisson of a closeknit group of musicians throwing ideas together, and they flirt with combustion without letting that intensity get in the way of a good hook. They exemplify that on opener “Wet Work,” a track that’s so rambunctious it sounds like their instruments have come alive and are wrestling for control of the song.

—LEOR GALIL

MONDAY30 Michael Coleman & Ben Goldberg 7:30 PM, Experimental Sound Studio, 5925 N. Ravenswood, $10, $8 students and members. b Bay Area clarinetist Ben Goldberg thrives in sparse settings, where the sere bite of his melodically fluid lines can stand out in stark contrast to surrounding silence. He’s got a keen sense of time, and some of his strongest efforts have been drummer-free projects, such as his new duo recording with New York cornetist Kirk Knuffke. The music on Uncompahgre (Relative Pitch) is fully improvised; each player adroitly complements the other’s spontaneous melodic fragments and breaks off into sudden counterpoints that force fleeting redirection. They don’t feel the need to fill all the space with sound; instead they leave potent gaps that imbue each utterance with greater weight. The music of soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy clearly influenced that aspect of Goldberg’s playing: Lacy made many solo recordings where his improvisations proceeded in exquisitely patient, measured motions, their silences as much about architecture as they were about moments of repose to plan the next gambit. In 1986

Lacy released one of his more obscure solo records, Hocus Pocus, which contained a series of difficult exercises and studies he’d made to develop his own practice. Lacy gave Goldberg a copy of the record in Paris following a private lesson, and on Practitioner (BAG), Goldberg’s new duo album with keyboardist Michael Coleman, the clarinetist has tackled those thorny etudes in an expanded fashion.

Sometimes the musicians play melodies in unison, but more often they create shadowy, weird arrangements; Coleman lays down appealingly wheezy, sometimes distorted blankets of sound on electronic keyboards and synthesizers, while Goldberg threads through them or creates biting dissonance against them. Goldberg impresses with his handling of Lacy’s complex, jagged lines, but it’s even more fun to hear him and Coleman reenvision them as modular experiments, juggling repeating and refracting phrases. —PETER MARGASAK

Jaden Smith 7 PM, Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Western, sold out. b Long before I realized Jaden Smith was carving out a rap career, I found his weirdness endlessly entertaining. The 19-year-old son of superstar couple Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith has been blowing up the world of Twitter since age 12, sharing his deep thoughts and musings on topics as disparate as Illuminati conspiracies and chance encounters with Owen Wilson. More recently, he’s posted about how much he loves the Twilight movies and his appreciation for potatoes. Smith has been dabbling in hip-hop for just about as long as he’s been on social media, and at the end of last year he released his first official record, Syre. The album is a bit of a scattershot affair, jumping all over the hiphop spectrum. It opens with four dark, introspective Weeknd-flavored tunes, “B,” “L,” U,” and “E,” before bouncing between ethereal screw and hardhitting psychedelic trap on “Breakfast” (which features a verse from A$AP Rocky) and later segueing into off-kilter, sparkly electro on the single “Icon.”

Though Syre hasn’t captivated me nearly as much as Smith’s Web presence, his seemingly effortless ability to handle so many different kinds of rap makes for a totally solid debut. The album’s follow-up, Erys (“Syre” backward), is set to see the light later this year. —LUCA CIMARUSTI v

APRIL 26, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 31

FOOD & DRINK

EQUITY AT THE TABLE

equityatthetable.com

CULINARY INDUSTRY

A woman’s place is in the kitchen The website Equity at the Table helps minority women find their place in the culinary industry.

By JULIA THIEL

T

here’s an old saying that if you’re more fortunate than others, it’s better to build a longer table than a higher fence. Loosely, that’s the principle on which the new website Equity at the Table is based. It describes itself as a “practical and proactive response to the blatant gender and racial discrimination that plagues the food industry.” The site’s founder, Julia Turshen, chose the name “equity” deliberately; it’s not the same as equality.

“I think they’re really different,” she says.

“It’s not just about who’s invited to the table, it’s who gets to do the inviting, who gets to sit at the head of the table. It’s not looking at diversity for the sake of diversity, but true inclusion and intersectionality.”

Turshen, a cookbook author based in New York’s Hudson Valley, created Equity at the Table to be a database of women and gender-nonconforming individuals in professions related to the food industry, nearly all of them people of color or queer people (or both). The site encourages straight white women to join if they’re able to provide resources for food professionals, but it’s mostly intended for women who are part of at least one minority group. (Turshen herself is gay.)

In the process of putting together her most recent book, Feed the Resistance, Turshen got to know many of the people who contributed recipes and essays, which helped plant the seed for EATT. “Coming to better understand

32 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 26, 2018

Julia Turshen é GENTL AND HYERS

their experiences and getting their stories out there was very eye-opening for me,” she says. “I’ve come to understand the power of representation and seeing your story reflected in the world.”

When she first had the idea for EATT, Turshen says, she thought something like it must already exist. “The more I looked, the more I spoke with colleagues and friends, we were all like, we don’t see this, but we want it,” she says. She put together an advisory board of colleagues and friends, and with the help of the board and other contacts, began inviting people to join the site before it offi-

cially launched. “It was important to me that when we launched, people could actually see the thing, not the idea of the thing,” she says.

EATT went live April 3 with about 100 members and now has nearly 400.

Maya-Camille Broussard, a Chicagoan and creative entrepreneur, was one of the site’s first members and helped Turshen find other women to invite. She owns a bakery, Justice of the Pies, and runs a workshop called I Knead Love that teaches kitchen skills to kids in low-income neighborhoods.

Broussard contributed a recipe to Feed the Resistance and says that she and Turshen have

been in touch ever since. “When she mentioned Equity at the Table, as a black woman living with a disability it felt like the perfect place for me to let myself be known to other professionals in the culinary industry,” says Broussard, who’s hearing impaired. “What the industry is lacking is a core support, and that’s what EATT does. It provides a core for women to bond, to have power in numbers. The more people we add to the network, the greater the leverage will be.”

The response to the site, Turshen says, “has been wonderful.” The very first day it was live, a member tweeted that a potential client had found her through EATT and e-mailed her, and Turshen says she’s heard from other members with similar experiences. A Patreon to support the project, where “patrons” pledge to donate a certain amount each month, is currently at nearly $5,000 a month from 38 supporters (the original goal was $150 a month).

Eventually, Turshen says, she wants the site to be not just a directory but also a community. “I have talked a lot with the advisory board about how can we really be in touch with each other, support each other in our work?”

She also recalls the frustration of seeing lists in magazines of chefs or sommeliers and noticing all the people who’ve been left out.

“Looking at a list of all male, all white people—it doesn’t mean there aren’t other people in the professions, doing this work in new and interesting ways. I wanted a place where it was really easy and obvious and simple to find everyone. We’re all here.”

Broussard recalled that recently a chef she knows, a white woman, looked over a job application for her. “She said, ‘You need to sound more like a white man.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ She said, ‘You really have to brag about your stuff. Every single white male chef in this industry brags about themselves, and their food isn’t even that good. Your food is great, so you need to brag about yourself so they get that you’re just as talented as they are. It’s all about perception.’”

Broussard notes that if a man loses his temper in the kitchen it’s accepted, but if she does the same thing she’s seen as an angry black woman. “Those perceptions are not something I can change overnight. That changes over time, and it changes when you have a core collective of other black women, other queer women, other women with disabilities, come together.” v

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ASTORIA CAFÉ & BAKERY | $ R 2954 W. Irving Park 773-654-1033

FOOD & DRINK

facebook.com/AstoriaChicago

Slava kolac, Serbian bread; pasulj, pinto-bean soup, with the Serbian Village crepe; Chicago deep-dish burek é JAMIE RAMSAY

RESTAURANT REVIEW

Astoria Café is home to some heroic buns

Irving Park’s Serbian bakery has savory pastries of epic proportions.

By MIKE SULA

E

ven by Serbian standards the komplet lepinja at Irving Park’s Astoria Café & Bakery is a breakfast of epic proportions. But is it a pizza? Is it a pastry? Is it a sandwich?

Its name means essentially (and somewhat unhelpfully) “a bun with everything in it.”

But more specifically, it’s an enormous toasty Serbian bread bowl filled with a thick, bubbling scramble of egg, roast pork drippings, and kaymak, the tangy Balkan clotted cream that behaves like a seductive butter. At Astoria, after a brief spell in a blazing pizza oven,

the komplet lepinja is removed and its crater and the top crust that once covered it are showered with pulled pork. Fanned off to the side are six slices of the prosciutto-like curedand-smoked pork loin called pršuta, because without it this colossus simply doesn’t have enough protein, carbohydrates, and fat to fuel your grueling day.

I’ve been studying photos of the komplet lepinja in its natural habitat, the western Serbian city of Užice in the mountainous Zlatibor District, and even those seem somewhat stingy in comparison.

Astoria’s heroic komplet lepinja is the work of Snjezana “Suzi” Jeftenic, a 55-year-old former mechanical engineer who with her husband, Zoran, both Detroit autoworkers, lost everything after their jobs moved to Mexico in 2012. Along with their daughter Tanja, they picked up, moved to Chicago, and started living in their UHaul, parked on Irving Park Road, while they looked for work. Snjezana quickly found it in the kitchen at now 34-year-old Cafe Beograd, baking burek, sweet pastries, and fresh lepinja, which is most commonly used as the vehicle for grilled meats.

This wasn’t her first turn at a bakery. When the family arrived in Michigan in 1999, via Germany, Suzi and Tanja both found work at a bakery owned by a Serbian woman. After the woman died Tanja would eventually purchase it. But she says the real chef is her mother, who was cooking long before they fled the war in the former Yugoslavia in 1992.

Last November mother and daughter opened Astoria in a pizzeria across the street from her former employers. She wanted to serve something that would distinguish the place from Cafe Beograd, and settled on the

komplet lepinja, which was made famous decades ago by Užice baker Dragan Lazić at Suljaga, a bakery now owned by his son of the same name.

Traditionally, pretop, the drippings, are leftover from the previous night’s whole roast lamb or pig roast. Suzy roasts her own pork for the purpose each morning, and rather than waste the meat gives her komplet lepinja an extra dose of protein. The correct method of attack for this monster is to tear at the upper crust and dip it into the egg, dairy, and pork slurry—though it’s prudent to work on the sublime crusty edges before things get too messy.

There are other wonders at Astoria: buttery, flaky burek come coiled in spirals filled with feta cheese, spinach, or potato or specialty variants such as raspberry jam and Nutella.

The Chicago deep-dish burek, with mozzarella, olives, ham, mushrooms, and tomato sauce, is nearly as monumental as the komplet lepinja.

Portions across Astoria’s menu are generous. A gibanica is another large pastry that only looks daunting, buttery phyllo dough filled with a souffleelike suspension of eggs, feta, and ricotta. Mantije, pastry-wrapped J

APRIL 26, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 33

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Komplet lepinja; sarma, stuffed cabbage rolls, with pork ribs é JAMIE RAMSAY

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orbs of ground meat and onions served with garlicky sour cream sauce, remind itinerant chef Alan Lake, who introduced me to Astoria, of his bubbe’s knishes.

An arsenal of sweet and savory crepes that cover the plate come packed with fillings like Nutella, hazelnut, and crushed cookies or the Serbian Village—pršuta with kaymak and roasted red peppers. On weekends there’s przenice, thick slices of fresh bread soaked in egg and milk, fried till golden, and served with slices of ham and feta, a savory Serbian response to French toast.

A few things not so carb dominant are well worth working on. A large bowl of sarma, beef-and-rice-stuffed cabbage rolls, seasoned with black pepper and Vegeta, the highly umamic Croatian seasoning blend, come adorned with braised carrots and chunks of smoked pork rib. The ribs also lurk in a thick bowl of the pinto bean soup called pasulj.

But Astoria Café—named for the Queens neighborhood home to many Serbs—is primarily a bakery, and its display case is filled with delicate, gently sweet pastries and cookies like moskva śnit, a cherry-pineapple-peach torte studded with sliced almonds; breskvice (“little peaches”), cookies the shape and color of the fruit, filled with apricot jam, crushed cookies, and walnuts; or knedle, plum-stuffed potato dumplings rolled in crunchy panko.

Any of these—including the sturdy feta-filled crescent rolls kiflitse—are ideal accompaniments to strong cups of Serbian (“not Turkish,” Tanja jokes) coffee. Displayed on the walls are various iterations of slava kolac, ornately sculpted loaves made for families

34 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 26, 2018

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Responsible for software design & development using Microsoft-based corporate environment.

celebrating their patron saints and blessed by priests before consumption.

The place is snug but bright and welcoming, adorned with photos of Tanja and various celebrities from her days as a party promoter, among them pop-folk singers Lepa Brena and Saša Matić—and the Backstreet Boys.

There’s another of her sitting down at a table with recording artist Željko Vasić and his band, who stopped by the cafe specifically for komplet lepijna while on tour, but instead ended up with an epic feast. v

m @MikeSula

Web Application Development 020- Responsible for designing & developing a suite of Web Services which will form the basis of advanced application development.

Business Intelligence 030 – Define the architecture, design solutions, & develop test & implementation of Business Intelligence & software applications.

Database Services 040– Responsible for designing, developing & testing database solutions & bi-directional ETL (extract, transform, load) processes.

Infrastructure Services 060 – Design & modify complex, multi-system environments, identify & analyze business requirements to integrate hardware, storage, operating systems & connectivity solutions.

TESTING & QA SERVICES

070– Perform various functions related to testing & QA services for

web & non web based environments.

PLM Consultants 090- Develop prototypes & write production ready code or configure & execute on approved design documents reflecting the requested Teamcenter & Enovia configurations, integrations, extensions, etc.

Project Management Services 120-Coordinate, plan, organize, control, integrate & execute a project or collection of projects.

Apply online at: https://www. capgemini.com/us-en/careers/ job-search/ and search for job and code 010 through 120. Must be available to work on projects at various, unanticipated sites throughout the United States

Researcher (Domestic II) for American Institutes for Research (AIR) to work at Chicago, IL loc. Lead projects/tasks (info mgmt). Dev concept frameworks that guide project work.

Mentoring research associates.

Org & doc results & procedures. Be client contact for anal ytical/stat expertise. Create data collection instruments. Help dev & draft bus. proposals.

Present findings to clients & public (incl at conferences). Int & ext communications, incl w/ experts & mgmt. Train staff.

Teamwork to reply to client requests. Pilot data collection instruments. Prep full tech. reports. Apply approp. techniques to collect, org & analyze quantitative data. Prep journal articles. Represent AIR when sharing project info. Networking activities. Little domestic travel may be involved. May undergo background checks. Requires communication skills. Must have Masters in Educ, Psych, Public Policy, Sociology, or related field; and 2 yrs relevant research exp. Requires skills (2 yrs exp) in: working with large data files; and SAS, SPSS, or R. Apply with complete application at www.air.org; ref. Job # 10620. EOE ADEPTIA, INC. SEEKS SR. SOFTWARE ENGINEERS, f o r Chicago, IL loc to dev & design sw solutions using integration platform. Master’s in Comp Sci/Comp Eng/any Eng field +2yrs exp or Bachelor’s in Comp Sci/Comp Eng/ any Eng field +5yrs exp req’d. Req’d skills: Sterling Integrator, Axway (Data Mapper, B2Bi Mapping Service), WebSphere Message Broker & MQ Series, Connect Enterprise, Connect Direct, EDI Transactions, Data Formats (X12, EDIFACT, RosettaNet, XML), Databases (DB2, VSAM, MySQL), RDBMS databases, SQL queries, Java, XML (XSLT, DTD, Schema, XPath), Communication Protocols (FTP, AS2, PGP, OFTP, POP/SMTP, JMS, JDBC, SOAP, REST). Background check req’d. Send resume to: Deepak Singh, Ref: RS, jobs@adeptia.com TRANSUNION,

LLC

SEEKS

Consultants for Chicago, IL location to independently collaborate w/ internal & external customers, sales associates, & team members to gather & understand business requirements. Master’s in Comp. Sci./Comp.

Eng./any Eng. field + 2yrs exp. or Bachelor’s in Comp. Sci./Comp. Eng./ any Eng. field + 5yrs exp. req’d.

Req’d skills: software analysis/ development exp. working on multiple projects (8-10) simultaneously, & w/ETL tools (Ab-Initio) incl. Transform, Partition, Departition, Dataset; Informatica/Datastage, writing scripts to create new tables, views, queries; Unix/Linux, scripting (Unix, Korn, Bourne), Control M, JCL, SyncSort, Salesforce, Buildforge, Clarity, Data Gateway, Autosys, DB2/ Oracle databases, SQL Server Queries, DB2 SQL, Agile. Send resume to: C. Studniarz, REF: JG, 555 W Adams, Chicago, IL 60661

SUPPORT SPECIALIST—AIRO – Perform custom install for complex

radiotherapy and radiosurgery products; resolve product issues using engineering expertise; update and service radiotherapy/ radiosurgery products; communicate complex problems; instruct users in calibration checks, surveys, maintenance of radiation therapy equip; deliver high level customer service; analyze/follow signal flow on blueprints, schematics, wiring diagrams; preventative maintenance; demonstrate and promote products/

services at client mtgs; keep abreast of new develop through training, research, analysis. National travel up to 80% to customer locations. Reqd: BS in Biomed Eng, Bioeng, Elec Eng, Mech Eng, or IT Tech; and perm US work auth. Send cvr ltr and resume to N Bandukwala, HR, Brainlab, Inc., 5 Westbrook Corporate Center, Suite 1000, Westchester, IL 60154.

TRANSUNION, LLC SEEKS Sr.

Consultants - Developers for Chicago, IL location to design, implement & maintain application systems & IT sw infrastructure. Master’s in Comp.

Eng./related field + 2yrs exp. or Bachelor’s in Comp. Eng./related field + 5yrs exp. req’d. Req’d skills: Ab Initio, Informatica, Data Modeler, Database Architect, Metadata Management, QA/UAT, Linux/AIX platforms, Talend, Oracle, Teradata, Multifile, Cloudera Hadoop, YARN, SQL, JavaScript, UNIX AIX, Linux, SSH Tectia, UNIX shell (Ksh/ Csh/Bourne), Autosys, Tivoli, Perl Scripting, DB2. Send resume to: C. Studniarz, REF: RG, 555 W Adams, Chicago, IL 60661

TRANSUNION, LLC SEEKS

Consultants for Chicago, IL location to design, implement & maintain sw applications. Master’s in Comp. Sci./ Comp. Eng./Info. Systems/Info. Tech. + 2yrs exp. or Bachelor’s in Comp.

Sci./Comp. Eng./Info. Systems/Info.

Tech. + 5yrs exp. req’d. Skills req’d: sw development, analysis, modification & enhancement of datawarehouse applications in ETL environment using Ab-Initio, analysis & testing, SQL, PL/SQL, Autosys, full SDLC, Unix/Linux, shell scripting, DB 2/Oracle databases, testing codes & graphs & fixing bugs, UAT testing & release. Send resume to: C. Studniarz, REF: BPS, 555 W Adams, Chicago, IL 60661

(Hoffman Estates, IL) Omron Management Center of America, Inc. seeks Accountant w/ Bach or for equiv deg in acct or rel fld & 3 yrs exp in job offered or in acct/ bkping, inc. 3 yrs exp w/ assumptions underlying budget forecasts; devp of Cash Flow/Profit & Loss or rel acct spreadsht/report for intern use; For Curren Trans; understanding acct proced by analyz curr proced & recommen chngs; implem GAAP rules, proced & stnds; anal & interp stat & acct info; Interco Trans; & JSOX or SOX. Occas trvl reqd.

Apply to M. Husmann, 2895 Greenspoint Prkwy, Ste 100, Hoffman Estates, IL 60169.

ADVISORY ADVISORY MANAGER, CORPORATE & BUSINESS STRATEGY, PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services LLC, Chicago, IL. Provide strategy, mgmt, technology & risk consulting svcs to help clnt anticipate & address complex bus. challenges. Req. Master’s deg or foreign equiv. in Bus Admin, Info Systems or rel. + 2 yrs rel. work exp. Travel req. up to 80%. Apply by mail, referencing Job Code IL1719, Attn: HR SSC/Talent Management, 4040 W. Boy Scout Blvd, Tampa, FL 33607.

TECHNOLOGY ORBITZ WORLDWIDE LLC has openings for Sr. SEM Analysts (Job ID#: 728.2577) in Chicago, IL: Enhance and develop the internal tools and systems that assist in driving optimization and growth.

To apply, send resume to: Orbitz Recruiting, 333 108th Avenue NE, Bellevue, WA 98004.

Must reference Job ID#.

SOFTWARE EGENCIA LLC has openings for Software Engineers (Job ID#: 728.4297) in Chicago, IL: Design, implement, and debug software for computers including algorithms and data structures. To apply, send resume to: Egencia Recruiting, 333 108th Avenue NE, Bellevue, WA 98004. Must reference Job ID#.

MARKETING ANALYST –

Research market conditions of cellphone service providers. Collect data from vendors. In charge of dealer supports and new promotions.

Req’s a Bach in BA, Econ, Marketing and fluency in Korean. Job in Chicago, IL. Res to: Blink Investment Co., 5244 N. Elston Ave., Chicago, IL 60630

Head Librarian – Master Deg in Library & Information Sciences + 3 months’ exp in position or Librarian field; and exp with: MAK+ online catalog systems and the inventory of a library’s archival collections. Apply to (inc Ref # 10001) Mr. Owsiany, The Polish Museum of America, 984 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60642

ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT-LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT. Reqs: Master’s degree plus 1 year of experience. Job Location: Chicago, IL. Submit resumes to the attention of Gary Holt, Arts Consulting Group, Inc., 2356 Moore Street, Suite 104, San Diego, CA 92110.

GENERAL OFFICE: PARTTIME flexible hours 12-6 Mon-Thurs.

scheduling, making & receiving phone calls. Computer experience a plus. Congenial/Pleasant. Evanston.

Next to Purple Line. Nicole 847-8756463

Quantitative Trader Dvlp trading strategies. MS finance or rel. 2 yr Trader rel. exp in derivative markets. To Blue Fire Capital, 311 S Wacker Dr #2000, Chicago IL 60606 PART-TIME HOUSE CLEAN-

ERS: Daytime hours. Drivers license a plus. No experience necessary. We do background checks. Next to purple line Call our recruiter Nicolette 847-875-6463.

Marble refinisher. honest, reliable, skilled. Join our team, good pay, bonus and 50% Health Benefits Call (773) 850-0286 OR Email mike.sungloss@gmail.com JOB OFFER: Woman personal assistant. SW Chicago. Drivers license needed.

Call after 6pm: (773) 233-5678.

REAL ESTATE RENTALS

STUDIO $500-$599 CHICAGO, BEVERLY/CAL Par k/Blue Island: Studio $625 & up; 1BR $700 & up; 2BR $885 & up.

Heat, Appls, Balcony, Carpet, Laundry, Parking. Call 708-3880170

STUDIO $600-$699 MAY 1 - ANDERSONVILLE ST U D I O GARDEN APARTMENT, modern kitchen & bath, lots of light, easy access to backyard & private deck, washer/dryer in building. No dogs. $635/mo.

708-482-4712 Chicago, Hyde Park Arms Hotel, 5316 S. Harper, elevator bldg, phon e/cable, switchboard, fridge, priv bath, lndry, $165/wk, $350/bi-wk or $650/mo. Call 773-493-3500

STUDIO OTHER HARBORSIDE APARTMENTS ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS for SECTION 8 1,2,3 & 4 Bedroom Apartments. Apply Wednesdays ONLY from 12pm to 4pm at 3610 Alder St. Applications are to be filled out on site. Adult applicants must provide a current picture ID and SS card.

LARGE SUNNY ROOM w/fridge & microwave. Near Oak Park, Green Line & Buses. 24 hr Desk, Parking Lot $101/week & Up. (773)378-8888 û NO SEC DEP û 6829 S. Perry.

2.5 room. $475/mo.

HEAT INCL 773-955-5105 CROSSROADS HOTEL SRO SINGLE RMS Private bath, PHONE,

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

Ashland Hotel nice clean rms.

24 hr desk/maid/TV/laundry/air.

Low rates daily/weekly/monthly.

South Side. Call 773-376-5200

1 BR UNDER $700 SPRING INTO SAVINGS! "Let Us Help" qualified applicants receive 1 month FREE RENT. Newly Remod. 1 & 2 BR w/heat start at $650. 3BR & up start at $900. Section 8 Welcome. For info call: (773)412-1153 Wesley Realty CHICAGO W. SIDE 3859 W Maypole Rehabbed studios, $450/ mo, Utilities not included. 773-6170329, 773-533-2900

l

l

REAL ESTATE

6930 S. SOUTH SHORE DRIVE Studios & 1BR, INCL. Heat, Elec, Cking gas & PARKING, $585-$925, Country Club Apts 773-752-2200

Chicago - Hyde PARK

RENTALS

1 BR UNDER $700 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 MIDWAY AREA/63RD KEDZIE Deluxe Studio 1 & 2 BRs. All

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

PRE-SPRING SPECIAL - CHICAGO South Side Beautiful Studios, 1,2,3 & 4 BR’s, Sec 8 ok. Also Homes for rent available. Call Nicole 312-446-1753; W-side locations Tom 630-776-5556; 65TH & EBERHARTREMODELED 2BR apt in nice 6-

flat. $775/mo. 1st and last month rent, background & credit check required. Call Matt at (312)476-9474

NEWLY REMOD 1BR & Studios starting at $580. No sec dep, move in fee or app fee. Free heat/hot water. 1155 W. 83rd St., 773-619-0204 CLEAN ROOM W/FRIDGE & micro, Near Oak Park, Food -4Less, Walmart, Walgreens, Buses & Metra, Laundry. $115/wk & up.

773-637-5957 7520 S. COLES - 1 BR $520, 2 BR $645, Includes appliances & AC, Near transp., No utilities included (708) 424-4216 Kalabich Mgmt FOREST PARK: 1BR new tile, energy efficient windows, lndry facilitities, a/c, incls heat - natural gas, $955/mo Luis 708-366-5602 lv msg Newly updated, clean furnished rooms in Joliet, near buses & Metra, elevator. Utilities included, $91/wk. $395/mo. 815-722-1212

5401 S. Ellis.

1BR. $625/mo.

Call 773-955-5106

1 BR $900-$1099 LARGE ONE BEDROOM near Loyola Park, 1333 W. Estes.

Hardwood floors. Cats OK. $925$950/month. Heat included. Available 6/1. 773-761-4318.

1 BR OTHER

1 BR $700-$799 LARGE STUDIO $750 ALL UTILITIES INCLUDED, DINING ROOM, NEWLY DECORATED, STOVE & FRIDGE, LAUNDRY ROOM, ELEVATOR, FREE CREDIT CHECK, NO APPLICATION FEE. 1-773-919-7102 OR 1-312-8027301 CALUMET CITY - 1BR Unit, heat included, laundry facility, parking & appliances all included.

Carpeted. $750/mo. Call 708704-7224 WEST HUMBOLDT PK, 1 & 2BR Apts, spacious, oak wood flrs, huge closets. heat incl, rehab, $820 & $935. Call 847866-7234 75TH/EBERHART & 70TH/ MAPLEWOOD 1 & 2BR apts, c- fans, appls, hdwd flrs, heated, intercom. $700/mo & up.

773-881-3573

Newly rehabbed apartments for IMMEDIATE OCCUPANCY

loacated at 401 E. Bowen Ave. SUBSIDY waiting list for studios and one bedrooms.

Open House Dates: Saturday, April 14, 2018 from Noon until 3:00p.m.

Saturday, April 21, 2018 from Noon until 3:00p.m.

Saturday, April 28, 2018 from Noon until 3:00p.m.

HEAD OF HOUSEHOLD MUST BE AT LEAST 62 YEARS OLD!!

Maximum income limits apply State photo ID or drivers license will be required to fill out waiting list application.

Only one pre-application per household allowed.

Open House held at 400 E 41st St Chicago IL 60653 773.924.2100 Applications will only be accepted on the dates listed above.

CHATHAM 736 East 81st (Evans), 2 bedroom garden apt, $700/mo.

Please call Mr. Joe at 708-870-4801 for more info SOUTH SHORE, 75th & Saginaw

Ave., 1 & 2 BR apartments for rent, hdwd flrs, heat, & appls incl, $700- $950, 312-403-8025

2032 EAST 72ND PL . 2BR, 1BA, condo, 2nd floor. appliances incl.

No Pets. $1,050/mo plus security. heat included. 312-497-2819

1 BR $800-$899 MONTROSE/ CLARENDON VINTAGE one bedroom. Sunny/

bright, across from park, heat/ gas included. Miniblinds/ ceiling fans.

Free laundry, private porch, block Montrose Harbor. $895. 773-9733463.

APTS. FOR RENT PARK MGMT & INV. Ltd. SUMMER IS HERE!!

Most units Include..

HEAT & HOT WTR Studios From $475.00 1Bdr From $550.00 2Bdr From $745.00 3 Bdr/2 Full Bath From $1200 **1-(773)-476-6000**

LOOKING TO MOVE ASAP? Remodeled 1, 2, 3 & 4 BR Apts.

Heat & Appls incl. Sec 8 OK. Southside Only. 773-593-4357

DES PLAINES 2BR Apt, newly decorated, utils incl except elec. Sec 8 OK. across from High School. $1200/mo. 630-606-9388

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

IMMAC

3BR/1BA

newly remod, spac, quiet block & bldg, nr trans & shops. Won’t Last.

Sec 8 Welcome. 312-519-9771

AVAILABLE NOW. ROOMS for

rent. Utilities incl’d. Seniors Welcome. $500/mo. Call 773-431-1251 ACACIA SRO HOTEL Men Preferred! Rooms for Rent. Weekly & Monthly Rates. 312-421-4597

2BR, 1BA FOR rent avail. May 1.

Near 147th/Kedzie. Clean unit, quiet area. $700 mo, plus $700 Sec. Dep. Tenant pays electric. New windows, updated bath. Kevin 708-341-1229.

RIVERDALE, NEW DECOR, 1st flr, 1 & 2BR, new crpt, heated, lndry, prkng, no pets, nr Metra.

Sect 8 ok. $730-$830. 630-4800638 SECTION 8 WELCOME 10743 S. Indiana 2BR in a lovely

UPTOWN, SMALL 1 bedroom apartment, 2 blocks from lake, 813 West Montrose Ave. (at Clarendon) , rehabbed vintage, heat/appliances included. $875.00 Call EJM at 773935-4425 HUMBOLDT PARK. 1 bedroom apartment for rent. Newly remodeled. Next door to food store. $880/ mo plus security deposit. Includes gas. Near shopping area. Tim, 773-592-2989.

6748 CRANDON & 7727 COLFAX MOST BEAUTIFUL APARTMENTS! 1 & 2BR, $625 & UP. OFF STREET PARKING. 773-947-8572 / 312-613-4424

RIVERDALE APT FOR RENT, 2 bedroom, heat included, $875/mo + security.

Section 8 ok. Please Call 773852-9425

SEC 8 WELC 7446 S. Vernon.

1BR, 1st flr, remod hdwd floors, appls & heat incl, laundry on site. $700/mo & up. Z. 773-406-4841

LARGE ONE BEDROOM garden apartment. 6802 N. Wolcott.

Hardwood floors. Cats OK. $850/ month. Heat included. Available 6/1.

773-761-4318.

SUNNY & LARGE 2 & 3BR, hd wd/ceramic flrs, appls, heat incl’d, Sect 8 OK. $900 plus.

70th & Sangamon/Peoria. 773456-6900

BRONZEVILLE SEC 8 OK! 4950 S. Prairie. Remod 1BR. $700+. Heat, cooking gas & appls inc, lndry on site. Z. 773.406.4841

7425 S. COLES - 1 BR $620, 2

AUSTIN, 1BR, LR/DR, balcony, air,

7031 S. CARPENTER. Newly

BIG ROOM with stove, fridge, bath & nice wood floors. Near Red Line & Buses. Elevator & Laundry, Shopping. $121/wk + up. 773-561-4970

108TH & PRAIRIE: Studio (BR,

kit, Ba) $595, 1BR $690. Newly decorated, heat & appls incl. Section 8 ok.

888-249-7971

CHATHAM - 7105 S. Champlain, 1BR. $640/mo. Sec 8 OK. Heat & appl. Call Office: 773-9665275 or Steve: 773-936-4749

BR $735, Includes Free heat & appliances & cooking gas. (708) 424-4216 Kalabich Mgmt

GENERAL

laundry, cable ready, heat & cooking gas incl, sec, $850-$900/mo.

773-710-5052 btwn 8-5.

GENERAL

Decorated 2BR, 1BA, 2nd flr rear, W/D on presmises, $750/mo.

Contact Mr. Brown 773-426-6603

GENERAL

2 flat bldg, formal dining room, hdwd flrs. Heat not included $850-$950/mo. Call 773-663-7440

CHICAGO 94-3739 S. Bishop.

2BR, 5 Rms, 1st & 2nd flr, appls, parking, storage, near shops/ trans. $950 + sec. No pets. 708335-0786

8316 S INGLESIDE 1BR $ 660/

mo Newly remodeled, laundry, hrdwd flrs, cable, Sec 8 welc. 708308-1509 or 773-493-3500

GENERAL

NR 77TH & STONY ISLAND 2 story, Spacious 3BR/2BA, w/ yard, appls. $1250/mo + utils. Credit check

SECTION 8 WELCOME 110th & Vernon. 2BR, Quiet Bldg w/ long term tenants, Heat/appls incl, Laundry Rm, $950/mo.

No sec/appl fee. 312-388-3845

req. Sec 8 OK Quiet area 646-202-3294

SAUK VILLAGE- RANCH, 3 sm BR, 1 mast BR, 2BA, lrg backyard, appl. incl, laundry hookup, $1299. 1 & 1/2 mo sec., sec 8 ok, 708-307-5003

CALUMET CITY 2-3BR, 2 car gar, fully rehab w/ gorgeous finishes & hdwd flrs. Beautiful bkyd.

Sec 8 ok. $900-$1150. 510-735-7171

AUSTIN 5035 W. Westend, 1st flr

apt w/bsmt incl. 2BR. $1100/mo.

Tenant pays all utilities. $600 Move In Fee. Sect 8 Welc. 773-317-1837

ASHBURN 7601 S Maplewood, beautiful rehabbed 4+1BR, 2BA house, granite ctrs, SS appls, fin bsmt, $1625/mo. 708-288-4510 ASHBURN 7927 S WHIPPLE,

Beaut rehabbed 3+2BR, 2BA house, granit ctrs, ss appls, ca, fin bsmt, 2 car gar. $1675/mo 708-288-4510

SECTION 8 WELCOME. NO SECURITY DEPOSIT. 718 W 81st St, 5BR, 2BA house, appls incl., $1300/mo. 708-288-4510

Remod 3.5BR, ceramic BA & kitch, LR /DR, hdwd flrs, C/A, appls incl. $1200+. Sect 8 ok. 773-474-3266

80TH AND PHILLIPS: 3 bed-

room, 1 1/2 bath, 1100/mo. 1st and 2nd Flr. available. Contact 773-655-7515. 1 month’s move-in fee required. Newly remodeled, hardwood floors, ceiling fans, chandelier and freshly painted.

Some appliances included with eat in kitchen. Tenant pays utilities, off street parking limited. No pets or smoking preferred.

SECTION 8 WELCOME No Deposit 13356 S Brandon. NICE

4BR/1BA, W/D incl $1300. 225 W. 108th Pl. 2/1 w/ ht & hot wtr. $1000. appls incl w/ both 312-683-5174

ALSIP, IL 3 BR/1.5 BA 2 story townhouse for rent. $1100/mo without appliances. $2200 due upon signing. Call Verdell, 219-888-8600 for more info.

Refurb 5BR, Appl incl, laundry rm, C/A. 1132 E. 81st Pl. $1700/mo neg.

NO Dep Req. 800-566-2642

3 BR OR MORE $1800-$2499

CHICAGO, DELUXE, NEWLY

Decorated 2 & 3 BR, by 71st & Union.

Free heat. $750-$850/mo. Section 8 Welc. Mr. Wilson, 773-491-6580

3 BR OR MORE UNDER $1200 CHICAGO, 1945 S. Drake, 3rd floor, 2BR, 2BA, newly renovated, hardwood floors, storage, no dogs, $1050/mo.

Call 773-4853042

ADULT SERVICES

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

708-288-4510

3 BR OR MORE $1200-$1499

MARKETPLACE

GOODS

OTHER

53RD & WALLACE, N e w l y renov 5BR house, 1.5BA. Available Now. Close to park & schools. $1350/mo. Sect 8 welc. 773-895-2867

3rd floor, beautiful 3 br, in clean & quiet building, $1150 mo plus sec.

773-902-2128

80th & Ashland. $450/mo. SSI welcome. 773-449-8716

3 BR OR MORE

Chicago, Newly remod, 3BR, hardwood floors, 4643 W. Monroe. $975/mo, water incl. Tenant pays all utilities. Contact Alvin, 773-865-0060

SOUTH SHORE/78TH & Paxton,

No security. 773-614-8252

OLYMPIA FIELDS Newly remodeled 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath house, full basement. Beautiful area. $1995/mo.. 708-935-7557.

CALUMET CITY - Newly remodeled 4BR, 2.5BA, 2.5 car garage incl. with driveway, backyard.

Avail Now! $1500/mo. Trina, 708646-3312

NW 2 FLAT brick, 900 blk of Springfield 2BR, hdwd flrs. $800/mo + utils & sec. deposit. Credit check req. Call 773-386-5932

roommates

SECT 8 WELCOME OR SHARE

BRONZEVILLE: SECTION 8 WELCOME. No Security Deposit.

4841 S Michigan. 4BR apt, appls incl., $1400/mo.

Call 708-2884510

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

CHURCH SPACE FOR RENT, Vicinity of 69th & Morgan, great location, seats 80-100 people, close to trans, 773-799-4397

3 BR OR MORE $1500-$1799

Oz Park 2 bedrooms, 2nd floor, 1 bathroom, Central Air, Parking 847721-0506 or jminam@ameritech.net $2000./month plus utilities

ROUND LAKE BEACH, IL Cedar

$1650+ utils & sec. 708-265-3611

non-residential

LARGE ROOM FOR rent. Near

OVER

2 BR OTHER

AUSTIN AREA 5BR, 2BA, newly remod BA & kitchen, hdwd flrs, resp for lawn maint. No pets .

CHICAGO 55TH & Halsted, male pref. Room for rent, share furnished apt, free utils, $ 440/mo.

PRE-SPRING SPECIAL Chicago Houses for rent. Section 8 Ok, w/ app credit $500 gift certificate 3, 4 & 5 BR houses avail. Call Nicole: 773-287-9999; W-side locations: Tom 630-776-5556

LINCOLN PARK- HOWE Street-

6339 S. Artesian, 3BR, 1BA, hardwood floors, heat & electric included in rent. $950/mo. Section 8 Welcome. Fred, 773-4430175

Bronzeville, 35th & King Dr, 2BR condo, 2 full BA, W/D in unit, maple cabs, wood flr, granite, fpl, exposed brick. $1295. 773-447-2122

RIVERDALE: MUST SEE! 3BR Apt Newly decorated. Carpet, near metra, no pets, $925/mo + sec dep Available Now 708-8291454

2 BR $1500 AND

CHICAGO HEIGHTS, 3BR, 1BA, NEWLY REMODELED, APPLS INCL , SECTION 8 OK. NO SEC. DEPOSIT. 708-822-4450

AUSTIN 1143 S. Monitor Newly

6812 S. ROCKWELL. 2 & 3BRs, newly rehabbed, no pets, appls incl. $1000/mo + elec & cooking gas. 773-507-8475

2 BR UNDER $900

80TH/ASHLAND, Beaut. newly remod, 2BR w /ofc. Nr schls & trnsp. $800 /mo, ten pays all utils. $500 move in fee. Available now. 773-7754458

5900 W & 300 N. 1/2 block from Greenline & Oak Park. Renovated 3BR, sanded floors, heat incl. $1200/mo + sec deposit. Call 773626-8993 or 773-653-6538

CHICAGO, Quiet 2BR, 2nd floor, incl. dining room, heat, enclosed back porch. $850/ mo. + security. Call 773-8481858

2 BR $1100-$1299

PTS. FOR RENT PARK MGMT & INV. Ltd. SPRING IS HERE!!!

HEAT, HW & CG Plenty of parking 1Bdr From $845.00 2Bdr From $925.00 3 Bdr/2 Full Bath From $1200 **1-(773)-476-6000***

NICE ROOM w/stove, fridge & bath Near Aldi, Walgreens, Beach, Red Line & Buses. Elevator & Laundry. $133/wk & up. 773-275-4442

including heat and appliances. burnside, southshore first floor. call 312-771-3236

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APRIL 26, 2018 | CHICAGO READER 35

HOT GIRL BODY RUBS

STRAIGHT DOPE

By Cecil Adams Q : Since each can cause microcephaly,

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is there any correlation between Zika (which everyone seems to fear) and toxoplasmosis (which most seem to have forgotten)? —MAJA RAMIREZ

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Biologically speaking, that one’s easy: no. In seeing them as similar, are you nonetheless onto something? Nice work, Maja—the medical world sees it the same way.

Zika needs little introduction, as you suggest, having vaulted into public awareness a few years ago following scary outbreaks in South America. It’s a mosquito-borne virus, kin to yellow fever and dengue. Toxoplasmosis is another, possibly weirder story: Linked to schizophrenia, it’s caused by a parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, that lives in cats and spreads via their feces. As discussed here in 2006, one theory is that T. gondii evolved to cause rodents to hallucinate and behave irrationally, increasing their likelihood of being caught by cats and thus the parasite’s likelihood of reproduction.

So although infection with Zika or toxoplasmosis during early pregnancy can each indeed result in microcephaly—an unusually small head or brain in the developing fetus— that doesn’t make them any more related than two random diseases that might both cause blindness.

Since the early 70s, however, doctors have grouped toxoplasmosis with a few hard-to-distinguish but otherwise unrelated in-utero infections that share some grim traits: they may cause only mild illness (or none at all) in the pregnant mother but severe problems in the fetus, and treating the mother prenatally doesn’t usually improve the outcome for the child. This original group of pathogens—toxoplasmosis, rubella, cytomegalovirus, and herpes simplex—was given the acronym TORCH; the O later came to stand for “other” infections that may present similarly, notably syphilis.

Use of TORCH as a diagnostic tool varies from region to region. U.S. medical societies don’t recommend full prenatal screening; doctors do typically check pregnant patients for rubella antibodies, but even if they’re not there, it’s too dangerous to administer a live-virus vaccine with a fetus in the picture— all you can do is keep an eye out for symptoms in the baby once it’s born, and vacci-

nate the mom later so it’s not an issue again.

Most often, infants are tested for the TORCH agents if they display certain telltale indicators: microcephaly is the most dire, but the list also includes hearing loss, cataracts, jaundice, and others.

In the last few years, doctors have come to recognize Zika as the newest member of the TORCH group. The virus was first identified in Uganda in 1947, and for decades wasn’t thought to be a big deal: only 20 percent of those infected experienced symptoms, and these were things like fever and achy joints.

Then a series of outbreaks in the 2000s caught everyone’s attention—particularly in Brazil, where an explosion of Zika infections beginning in 2013 coincided with a terrifying 20-fold increase in fetal microcephaly. In 2016 the Centers for Disease Control concluded that Zika was a cause of microcephaly and other severe brain defects.

The story of rubella, seemingly the best analogue to Zika among the TORCH group, is a pretty close match: it wasn’t considered dangerous for about 50 years after its discovery. In the American rubella epidemic of 1964’65, an estimated 50,000 pregnant women were among the 12.5 million new cases, and the result was a tragedy: 20,000 babies with serious birth defects, thousands more dead in infancy or during pregnancy. By 1969 we’d found vaccines and started administering them to children; now annual U.S. cases are in the single digits. Presumably that’s how a Zika vaccine would work too.

Of course, we don’t have a Zika vaccine yet—and, in the U.S. at least, neither have we acquired any natural immunity via exposure.

As of the mid-60s epidemic, rubella had been kicking around long enough that most American women had developed antibodies. Zika, by contrast, hasn’t really shown up here at all thus far. Vaccine researchers are on the case, needless to say, but the clock’s ticking. v Send questions to Cecil via straightdope.com or write him c/o Chicago Reader, 30 N. Racine, suite 300, Chicago 60607.

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SAVAGE LOVE

By Dan Savage

Biggest jerk ever?

A serial adulterer makes a case for himself—and gets reamed.

Q : I’m a straight male in

my 30s. I’ve been with my wife for 12 years. I have had several affairs. Not onenight-stand scenarios, but longer-term connections. I didn’t pursue any of these relationships. Instead, women who knew I was in an “exclusive” relationship have approached me. These have included what turned into a one-year affair with a single woman, a three-year affair with a close friend of my wife, a seven-month affair with a married coworker, and now a fairly serious four-months-and-counting relationship with a woman who approached me on Instagram. On the one hand, I do not regret my time with any of these women. On the other hand, I have been deceitful and manipulative for almost my entire adult life. I am a terrible husband in this respect. Also, I’m going to get busted eventually, right? Finding out about this would crush my wife. I love her, we get along great, and the sex is good—if I wasn’t such a lying piece of shit, you could even say we make a pretty good team.

We are also very socially and financially entangled.

I don’t want to leave, but I suspect I should. And if so, I need help considering an exit strategy. Part of my motivation for writing is that I am particularly attached to the woman I’m having an affair with now, and both of us fantasize about being together openly.

I’m a liar, a cheat, a user, and a manipulator—and it just keeps happening. —A SERIOUSLY SHITTY HUSBAND ON LOSING EVERYTHING

PS: I’m expecting you to rip me to shreds.

A : It doesn’t “just keep happening,” ASSHOLE, you keep doing it. And these

women didn’t “turn into” one-year, three-year, sevenmonth, and four-months-andcounting affairs on their own.

You turned them into affairs by continuing to show up.

And while you claim that each of these women pursued you despite knowing you were in an “exclusive” relationship, it doesn’t sound like you ran from any of them. At best, you broke into (or slowed to) a trot, which allowed each one of these lady predators to overtake you.

The first step toward holding yourself accountable for your appalling actions—a close friend of your wife? really?—is doing away with the passive voice. Don’t ask yourself, “How’d that happen?!?” as if the universe were conspiring against you somehow. You weren’t hit by a pussy meteor every time you left the house. You did these things. You had these affairs. You. Zooming out: If all it takes for some rando to get her hands on your otherwise committed cock is to DM you on Instagram, you have no business making monogamous commitments. If you’d sought out a partner who wanted an open relationship—a wide-open one—you could have had concurrent, committed, nonexclusive relationships and avoided being “a liar, a cheat, a user,” etc.

Seeing as you’re a reader, ASSHOLE, I suspect you knew an honest open relationship was an option—that ethical nonmonogamy was an option—but you didn’t pursue that. And why not?

Maybe because you don’t want to be with a woman who is free to sit on other dicks. Or maybe the wrongness and the self-loathing— the whole bad-boy-on-therack routine—turn you on. Or maybe you’re the wrong kind

of sadist: the un-self-aware emotional sadist. You say you love your wife, but you also say she’d be crushed— destroyed—if she discovered what you’ve been doing. Be honest, ASSHOLE, just this once: Is the destruction of your wife a bug or is it a feature? I suspect the latter.

Because cheating on this scale isn’t about succumbing to temptation or reacting to neglect. It’s about the annihilation of your partner—a (hopefully) subconscious desire to punish and destroy someone, anyone, fool enough to love you.

The tragedy is how unnecessary your choices have been. There are women out there who aren’t interested in monogamy, there are female cuckolds out there (cuckqueans) who want cheating husbands, and there are masochistic women (and men) out there who get off on the thought of being with a person who would like to crush them. So long as those desires are consciously eroticized, fully compartmentalized, and safely expressed, you could have done everything you wanted, ASSHOLE, without harming anyone.

So what do you do now?

It seems like you want out, and your wife definitely deserves better, so cop to one affair, since copping to all of them would crush her—or so you think. People are often way more resilient than we give them credit for, but on the off chance it really would crush your wife to be told everything, just tell her about Ms. Instagram. That should be enough.

PS: Get your ass into therapy, ASSHOLE. v Send letters to mail@ savagelove.net. Download the Savage Lovecast every Tuesday at thestranger.com. m @fakedansavage

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NEW

ASG, Lo-Pan 6/24, 8 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Lee Bains III & the Glory Fires, Navy Gangs 6/5, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle J Balvin 10/12, 8 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM Brendan Bayliss & Jake Cinninger 6/16, 11 PM, Bottom Lounge, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM, 17+ Car Seat Headrest, Naked Giants 9/7, 7:30 PM, the Vic, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM b Brian Chase’s Drums & Drones with Ursula Scherrer 6/24, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Crash Course in Science, Ruby 9/20, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle, Cold Waves kick-off show Deafheaven, Mono 7/30, 7 PM, Metro, 18+ Deep Purple, Judas Priest 8/22, 7 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM El Fantasma, Voz de Mando 6/9, 8 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont, on sale Thu 4/26, 10 AM Flasher 6/15, 9 PM, Schubas, 18+ Garbage 10/17, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM, 18+ Huntertones 6/28, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM b Idles 9/14, 10 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Indigo Girls, Lydia Loveless 7/28, 7 PM, Canal Shore Golf Club, Evanston, part of Out of Space, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM Jojo 6/10, 7 PM, Lincoln Hall, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM b Khemmis 7/1, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+

Sondre Lerche 6/22, 7 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM SG Lewis 10/6, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM, 18+ Punky Meadows & Frank DiMino 7/7, 7:30 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Mephiskapheles 8/3, 8 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Janelle Monae 7/5, 7:30 PM, Chicago Theatre, on sale Wed 5/2, 10 AM Mt. Joy 9/6, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM b My Bloody Valentine 7/27, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM, 18+ Owl City 10/13, 8 PM, House of Blues, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM b Michael Rault 7/5, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Red 7/13, 7 PM, Bottom Lounge, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM b Curtis Salgado 8/19, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM b Tim Spinnin’ Schommer 6/1, 8 PM, Concord Music Hall Show Me the Body 5/10, 7 PM, Cobra Lounge b Simple Minds 10/15, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM Steve ’n’ Seagulls 9/11, 9 PM, Beat Kitchen Superfruit 5/30, 8:30 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Toots & the Maytals 8/8, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM, 17+ Keith Urban, Kelsea Ballerini 8/18, 7:30 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM Vicious Rumors 9/21, 8 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Webb Wilder & the Beatnecks 7/14, 9 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn, on sale Fri 4/27, 11 AM

38 CHICAGO READER - APRIL 26, 2018

UPDATED Bhad Bhabie, Asian Doll 5/15, 7:30 PM, Bottom Lounge, rescheduled from 5/20 b Sylvan Esso 7/23-24, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre, 7/23 sold out, 7/24 added, on sale Fri 4/27, 10 AM b Midori Takada 5/14, 7:30 PM; 5/19, 7:30 PM, Rubloff Auditorium, moved from Fullerton Hall b Yob, Bell Witch 7/8-9, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, second show added, 17+

UPCOMING Alt-J 6/7, 8 PM, Huntington Bank Pavilion Nicole Atkins 8/10, 7 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Big Sean, Playboi Carti 5/27, 7 PM, Huntington Bank Pavilion Bing & Ruth 5/11, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Black Moth Super Rainbow 6/16, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Bongripper 7/13, 8 PM, Metro, 18+ Breeders, Melkbelly 5/8, 8 PM, the Vic, 18+ Greg Brown 7/28, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Cold Cave, Black Marble 6/8, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Shawn Colvin 6/1-2, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Ry Cooder 6/24, 7:30 PM, Thalia Hall b Cultura Profetica 5/26, 9 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Dick Dale 8/10, 7:30 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Anthony David 7/11, 8 PM, City Winery b Jonathan Davis 5/6, 8 PM, House of Blues, 17+

b Drunks With Guns 5/5, 9 PM, Liar’s Club Jeremy Enigk 6/30, 8:30 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Erasure 7/28, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre Tav Falvo’s Panther Burns 5/21, 7 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Gomez 6/15-16, 7:30 PM, the Vic, 18+ Halfnoise 5/5, 8 PM, Subterranean, 17+ A Hawk and a Hacksaw 5/30, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Imagine Dragons 7/13, 7 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park Jimmy Eat World, Hotelier 5/8, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre b King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard 6/10, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre b King Tuff, Cut Worms 5/25, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ La Luz, Gymshorts 5/31, 8 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Kendrick Lamar, Sza, Schoolboy Q 6/15, 7:30 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park Richard Lloyd Group 8/15, 7 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint The Make-Up 7/6, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks 6/3, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Mutoid Man 5/14, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ No Age 5/10, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Nobunny 6/9, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Omni 5/9, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Ozzy Osbourne, Stone Sour 9/21, 7:30 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park Alan Parsons Project 6/5, 7:30 PM, Copernicus Center b Pedro the Lion 8/24, 9 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Pelican, Cloakroom 7/26, 9 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Quintron’s Weather Warlock 5/22, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Raekwon 5/18, 9 PM, the Promontory Red Wanting Blue 6/28, 8 PM, City Winery b Martin Rev, Wolf Eyes 6/1, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Scarface, DJ Quik, MC Lyte, KRS-One, Twista 5/25, 8 PM, Arie Crown Theater Sleep 8/1, 7 PM, Riviera Theatre b Smoke DZA 5/22, 6 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club b Snail Mail 6/16, 7 PM, Subterranean b Social Distortion 6/22, 8 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Suuns 5/30, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Taylor Swift 6/2, 7 PM, Soldier Field Swimming With Bears, Cuckoos 5/17, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+

ALL AGES

WOLF BY KEITH HERZIK

EARLY WARNINGS

CHICAGO SHOWS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT IN THE WEEKS TO COME

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Tory Lanez 7/1, 7 PM, House of Blues b Tricky 5/6, 7 PM, Bottom Lounge Ufomammut 5/27, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Vance Joy 5/25, 7:30 PM, Rosemont Theater, Rosemont Wand 6/18-19, 9 PM, Hideout We Are Scientists 6/22, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Wet 5/25, 8:30 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Wonder Years, Tigers Jaw 6/3, 5 PM, Concord Music Hall b Wooden Shjips 6/2, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Young Widows, Emma Ruth Rundle 6/8, 9 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Mike Zito, Bernard Allison, and Vanja Sky 8/10, 10 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson 7/15, 7 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park

SOLD OUT Alice in Chains 5/15, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Animal Collective, Lonnie Holley 7/27, 7:30 PM, the Vic b Courtney Barnett 5/21, 8:30 PM, Preston Bradley Hall, Chicago Cultural Center Bishop Briggs 5/12, 8 PM, Metro, 17+ Bon Iver 6/3, 7 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park b David Byrne 6/1-3, 8 PM, Auditorium Theatre Dinosaur Jr. 7/19, 7:30 PM, Temperance Beer Company, Evanston, part of Out of Space Flatbush Zombies 5/10, 7:30 PM, the Vic b Gaslight Anthem 8/11, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre b Grouplove 6/1, 7:30 PM, Metro b Ides of March 5/3, 8 PM, City Winery Kooks 5/30, 8 PM, the Vic, 18+ Natalia Lafourcade 5/3, 6 PM, Concord Music Hall b Mt. Joy 5/11-12, 9 PM, Hideout New Pornographers 6/22, 7:30 PM, Temperance Beer Company, Evanston, part of Out of Space Shakey Graves 5/22, 7:30 PM, the Vic, 18+ Sum 41 5/18, 6 PM, Concord Music Hall b Voidz 6/15, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Yeah Yeah Yeahs 5/29, 7:30 PM, Aragon Ballroom b v

GOSSIP WOLF A furry ear to the ground of the local music scene DURING THE HEYDAY of Chicago’s Wax Trax! industrial scene in the late 80s and early 90s, Gossip Wolf was a pup still learning how to apply eyeliner. But it was obvious even then that My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult would outlast the era with their gnarly nightmare electro jams packed with horror-film samples! Though born in Chicago, the group is now based in LA, and this month founders Groovie Mann and Buzz McCoy hit the road with a full band to celebrate the Kult’s 30th birthday—on Saturday and Sunday, April 28 and 29, they land in all their creepy-crawly glory at Berwyn club Wire. The Kult will play the entirety of Wax Trax! classics I See Good Spirits and I See Bad Spirits (1988) and Confessions of a Knife (1990) as well as a few other faves—look for this wolf in the pit during “Sex on Wheelz”!

On 4/20, in keeping with band tradition, Chicago DIY royals White Mystery celebrated a decade together, playing their 1,000th show and releasing their ninth album, Hellion Blender. They’ve also lined up another gig so soon after their tin anniversary that this wolf might consider it an afterparty—except it’s to celebrate the 33rd birthday of guitarist and front woman Alex White. White Mystery headline a free show at the Empty Bottle on Monday, April 30, with Bryce Cashman and Bev Rage & the Drinks.

For years Gossip Wolf has been singing the praises of All Smiles, the hip-hop monthly helmed by rapper-singer Rich Jones that showcases locals from different generations and scenes at Tonic Room. On Friday, April 27, All Smiles celebrates its sixth anniversary with a typically great lineup: soul-searching MC J. Bambii, Big Body Fiji of the Decent Militia crew, and heavenly singer Manasseh.

Gossip Wolf hears that Numero Group staffer, Grammy nominee, ace old-school DJ, and onetime Reader contributor Jon Kirby is moving to North Carolina this week—enjoy the barbecue, good sir! —J.R. NELSON AND LEOR GALIL Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or e-mail gossipwolf@chicagoreader.com.

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