Chicago Reader print issue of May 16, 2024 (Vol. 53, No. 16)

THIS WEEK

04 Readers Respond

04 Publisher’s Note Why we’re returning to weekly

06 Feature Chicago’s arcade evolution

&

08 Review Tary Coffee House brings ancient preservation techniques to River North.

09 Reader Bites Green Dreams at DeSalvo’s Pizza

&

10 Investigation When Chicago powers down ShotSpotter this fall, will the microphones keep listening?

12 Brown | Unions Chicago’s service and cultural workers are getting organized.

COMMENTARY

14 Isaacs | On Culture It’s cicada party time.

15 Business A DePaul professor thinks small biz training needs to evolve.

ARTS & CULTURE

16 Comic The labor of art is made transparent in the group show “Works By.”

18 Festival American Writers Festival returns for its second year.

20 Exhibitions of Note

“Sandra Binion” at Audible Gallery, “Decadence” at Renaissance Society, and “Christina Ramberg” at the Art Institute of Chicago

THEATER

22 Reid | Preview A comedy by Joe Janes about author appearances tours Chicago bookstores.

24 Review An Educated Guess is an unexpected story about migrant experiences.

25 Plays of Note Gods& Monsters, Poor People! The Parody Musical, and Ten 2024

FILM

26 Movies of Note In the Fade starts too strong, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is ripe for sequels, and more.

27 The Moviegoer Kat Sachs on maritime movies at the Music Box

MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE

28 Galil | Palestinians in Chicago music The Palestinian diaspora enriches our local scene. Three Chicagoans show how in their own words.

36 City of Win

38 Shows of Note Previews of concerts including KingTrey, Suzanne Ciani, Ride, Bill MacKay, and Mike Reed’s 5 for 50

42 Early Warnings Upcoming shows to have on your radar

42 Gossip Wolf J Bambii makes space for everybody at south-side party the FiFi, the free Grant Slam Fest comes to Jonquil Park, and more.

OPINION

43 Savage Love Splosh away, just lay down a tarp.

CLASSIFIEDS

44 Jobs

47 Professionals & Services

47 Matches

ON THE COVER: ORIGINAL CUT-PAPER ART FOR THE CHICAGO READER BY LUCIE VAN DER ELST, PHOTOGRAPHED BY READER ART DIRECTOR JAMES HOSKING. FOR MORE OF VAN DER ELST’S WORK, VISIT LUCIE-VANDERELST.COM OR FOLLOW THEM ON INSTAGRAM @ VISAGE_PLAT_PAPERART AND @LUCIE. VAN.DER.ELST. COVER PULL QUOTE FROM “BUGGED! IT’S CICADA PARTY TIME” BY DEANNA ISAACS, P. 14.

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Goalden Chyld transforms drill music by pushing for peace.

Reader Letters m

Re: “Review: Macbeth,” written by Noah Berlatsky and published at chicagoreader.com on April 24

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

“. . . Endless tergiversations from resolute blood-spiller to craven dipshit.” I suspect that Fiennes has been able to make use of a recent surfeit of prominent craven dipshits to inform his performance. Can’t wait to see this. — Polly Poplar, via Facebook

Re: “Jon-Carlo Manzo, indie tastemaker,” written by Leor Galil and published in the April 18 issue (volume 53, number 14)

People like him are why I miss Chicago. —Wyndi Skillrud, via Facebook

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The Chicago Reader accepts comments and letters to the editor of less than 400 words for publication consideration.

m letters@chicagoreader.com

Soon, late in the evening on the fifth of June, a delivery driver will drop a fresh bundle of our beautiful newspapers at one of 1,100 locations across the city. This will mark our return, after a long four years, to publishing the Chicago Reader on a weekly basis. Hell, yes.

We are returning to weekly for the following reasons . . .

First, because Chicago’s creative, civic, and cultural concerns don’t reproduce on a biweekly basis, nor do they circulate equitably from behind an online paywall. From Portage Park to Pullman, Chicago is a living conversation. For the tens of thousands of people who use our printed paper, that conversation doesn’t pause for two weeks so we can recapitulate it. It’s time for the Reader to get back on beat, back in rhythm with the verses and views, pictures and sounds, tastes and takes that make this the best city in the world.  This return will be critical come November when Chicago heads to the polls. The last few

elections came and went without a free copy of the Reader in newsprint to guide people or help them digest the results. Yes, we have a website that’s open 24/7, and succeeding online will ensure our future, but at present the Web isn’t enough—often it’s too much, particularly the online news ecosystem that can be as regressive and frenetic as it is impersonating.

There is still great joy in picking up a paper. It packages the week in a way that a website can’t. We believe printed words and art remain a worthy public service that still have a role to play in the great American experiment that is diverse democracy.

Second, returning to weekly is a piece of a larger Reader puzzle. As we enter yet another phase of technological evolution, we, like many independent newsrooms, are pushing harder to make sure our online spaces are robust, reliable, and dynamically designed in service of our legacy and sustainability. In parallel we’re building plans to open a live space,

Reader Station, in partnership with a core Chicago community—more on that soon. We’re also adding research to our toolbox: our first study looks at how the presence or absence of arts and culture journalism impacts society.

These complementary efforts serve and inform our broader mission as the Reader Institute for Community Journalism: to produce and protect free, safe, public spaces for conversation and presentation, for di erence and demonstration, for the bridge-building power of the arts and the power-checking ferocity of a free press.

Third, there’s more money to be made. By publishing weekly we will become a “paper of record” again, allowing us to accept public notices, a consistent stream of dollars that could alone cover the increased printing costs. Additionally, and as a testament to the legacy and standing of the Reader, several advertising partners— current, lapsed, and new—agree that a weekly cadence, combined with an upgraded digital program, better serves their needs.

No, this will not be a windfall. Advertising should produce about half of our $4.5 million budget—not enough to run the Reader, but it doesn’t have to be. The other half comes from the tax-deductible donations we can now accept as a nonprofi t. This is still news to some, but in 2019, my predecessor, the legendary Tracy Baim, made the prescient decision to transition the Reader to a 501(c)(3), which created the novel, hybrid revenue model that empowers our flexibility and growth today.

Fourth, it’s in our blood. Our founders, a bold foursome of iconoclasts, created with the Reader a regular, striking, authentic mirror in which Chicago’s people could find themselves, every Thursday. We aim to protect and revive that practice—to be dependable toll-free bridges of discovery that close the distance between Us and Them—and have a damn good time along the way.

Finally, and most important to many of us, we are going weekly because the people who make the Reader —our designers, our salespeople, our communicators, our editors, and our writers—be they full-time or freelance, deserve the best possible vehicles for their work; the best possible shot at more reach, more impact, more reward, and more time to pass on the Reader torch.

This is what our return to weekly is: A commitment to Chicago, to the arts community we adore, to equitable local journalism, to accessible democracy, to my wonderful colleagues—and to you. We love you, Chicago. You are, along with words like “transparency” and “kindness,” part of our guiding principles. As my friend and colleague, editor in chief Salem Collo-Julin, said when I asked them, yet again, why we are doing this: “Because Chicago is joy.”

See you on the streets. v

—Solomon Lieberman, CEO and Publisher, Reader Institute for Community Journalism m slieberman@chicagoreader.com

A mighty Reader box holding it down on Clark Street in Andersonville KIRK WILLIAMSON FOR CHICAGO READER

CITY LIFE

Chicago’s arcade evolution

Imagine a typical video game arcade. Filling the aisles, there are probably some classic games like Ms. Pac-Man or Galaga, or maybe newer ones like Mortal Kombat or Need for Speed . The thumping of bumpers and flippers from pinball machines mixes with blips and beeps from video cabinets to create ambient background noise. Maybe the arcade has a snack bar, and if it does, the smell of fried foods and pizza fills the air. Reflected in the dull glow of the LED screens, illuminated by sudden flashes of “GAME OVER” or “HIGH SCORE,” what kinds of faces can be seen in a place like this? Who’s playing the games? In the 80s or 90s, it would be common to see groups of teens and young adults filling up the aisles of Chicago’s arcades, with parents and adults underrepresented in this type of space. Nowadays, it’s common to see these demographics flipped, with adults over 21 being the primary patrons of arcades, and children and young adults nearly nonexistent in them. Of course, the popularity of bar arcades explains much of this shift, with the majority of old-school arcade cabinets, air hockey

tables, and Skee-Ball machines finding second lives in establishments where bouncers check IDs and alcohol sales are the moneymakers.

But what is left for young Chicagoans nowadays? The current landscape of arcades and other video gaming spaces is overwhelmingly designed with adults in mind. Young people struggle to find anywhere where they feel welcome to hang out for a few hours and spend their money, and this problem extends beyond gaming spaces in Chicago. In recent years, young Chicagoans have continued to lose access to the spaces around them, with things like Maggie Daley Park’s youth curfew policy entering its third year starting May 20 and the pattern of disappearing basketball hoops serving as examples of ways the city denies young people—and most often Black and Brown young people—the same rights to access city space as their adult counterparts. Given the role arcades have played in the past as havens for unstructured free time in the lives of youth, what exactly do young people lose when they no longer have access to them?

My uncle, Kenny Kroll, grew up on the

FEATURE

Nothing can rival the video game boom of the 1980s, but with the majority of today’s arcade options catering to alcohol-consuming adults, the city’s youth are cut out of vital community spaces.

By MAXWELL KROLL

southwest side near Midway Airport during the early 1980s—a time of peak popularity for classic arcades. In a conversation about his life during this time, I asked him what kinds of places he hung out around when he was growing up, and he told me that there used to be an arcade near Curie High School that was his spot between the ages of 12 and 13, from 1980 to ’81.

“[The arcade] felt like home. We would stay there late, even if we didn’t always have quarters for the games. A lot of us were lost during that time, and it felt like we had a place,” he told me.

He described the arcade as a space where kids could hang out for hours without spending too much money. When life was stressful, the arcade was always there as a place to decompress. “Shooting something out of the sky with your frustrations was awesome,” he said, referencing the game Space Invaders. The early 80s are generally seen as a golden

age for video arcades. According to the Verge, the arcade industry fl ourished the most between 1978 and 1982, with the most popular machines pulling “$400 dollars a week in quarters” in 1982 and the number of dedicated arcades in the U.S. reaching 13,000 the same year. The arcade boom was particularly palpable in Chicago, where popular arcade machine manufacturers like Bally, Williams, and Gottlieb made their headquarters. Dedicated arcade establishments, like Fun Zone, Dennis’ Place for Games, Silver Sue’s, King Cash, Aladdin’s Castle, and Funland, found great success entertaining Chicago’s young people through the 80s, 90s, and, in the case of Dennis’ Place, as late as 2007. Some arcades became chains that stretched across the city—Fun Zone had locations in Lincoln

“[The arcade] felt like home. We would stay there late, even if we didn’t always have quarters for the games. A lot of us were lost during that time, and it felt like we had a place.”

Park, Roscoe Village, and near Curie High in Garfield Ridge. Dennis’ had two locations: one in Rogers Park, as well as their original

Replay Andersonville is a full restaurant and bar with vintage arcade games and pinball machines. KIRK WILLIAMSON

location near the corner of Belmont and Sheffield in Lakeview.

Forgotten Chicago is a community archive website full of stories from people like my uncle who grew up during this golden age of video arcades. Among this group is John Edel. He’s known by many for creating the Plant, a research and production facility that hosts more than 20 small businesses that pioneer closed loop waste systems in Back of the Yards. Before creating the Plant and its parent company Bubbly Dynamics, Edel worked as a visual artist for the game design studio VictorMaxx Technologies. He says that the Fun Zone arcade near Lane Tech, which he frequented after school during the mid-80s, helped nurture a passion for engineering and game design in him as a teenager.

“These days, I focus on things like freight elevators and laboratories . . . but even when I was in high school, I was very much fascinated with how video games worked, and very much wanted to understand what was going on inside that box.” In addition to the creative benefits, he says the arcade was a place for him to socialize or just hang out. “We did a lot of hanging out . . . because it was kind of a safe place to go. Where else are you going to hang out?”

Following the golden age of arcade gaming in the early 80s, the arcade industry went through a series of booms and busts, with a notable decline in 1985 caused partly by an overproduction of poorly designed games as well as the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System, which saw profits in the gaming industry shrink to a fraction of their original size. According to the Verge, “Gaming revenue, which had peaked at over $12 billion, sank to $100 million by 1985.”

The decline continued into the early 90s, as did public opinion over arcades, which were argued by many parent groups and politicians to be wastes of time and dangerous for young people. A failed city council ordinance in 1988 even attempted to impose restrictions on the hours in which people under 16 could enter arcades.

Despite home computers and consoles often getting the blame for the decline of in-person video gaming, gaming lounges—spaces in which patrons can pay by the hour to use gaming PCs and consoles—gained popularity in the U.S. starting in the early 2000s and created similar social environments to those described by fans of classic arcades. Ignite Gaming Lounge, which now operates in Skokie, ran a gaming lounge in Avondale for

ten years. The closing of their Chicago location in 2022 marked a significant loss for young people in the city seeking an after-school hangout spot where they could be surrounded by other young people.

PJ Beigh, a recent college grad and former patron of the Avondale Ignite, told me that the gaming lounge was particularly attractive to him and his friends throughout high school due to the lack of other safe, welcoming places to hang out in the city. “When you’re in high school, there’s not a lot of places you can go after school, especially if friends’ houses aren’t an option. Ignite was a safe space where everyone could participate,” he said. Beigh also explained the appeal of visiting a physical space to play video games with friends, as opposed to playing online. “It’s nice to be able to see your friend’s face as you’re chatting over a game, and feels much more personal,” he told me.

The rise of bar arcades since the 2010s has created a new model for gaming spaces that lets arcade owners maintain a large number of games under one roof and a steady stream of income through alcohol sales. (These establishments are often referred to as “barcades,” though notably the word “barcade” can only be used in any o cial capacity by the Brooklyn-based company, Barcade.) The owner of Logan Arcade, James Zespy, has experience running a bar arcade as well as an arcade attached to a record store, and he understands the di culties that arcade owners face to keep their businesses open.

“Vintage games, especially, frankly, there’s not a ton of money in it,” Zespy said. “Especially if you’re in a city and you’re paying rent, and especially if you want to maintain [the machines]. So the income to support that is the beer, wine, and alcohol sales.”

The opportunity to enjoy arcade games in a bar atmosphere, along with the appeal of some good old-fashioned nostalgia, have allowed bar arcades to flourish in Chicago. The bar arcade chains Emporium and Replay each operate three locations in the city, and other establishments like Logan Arcade add to the long list of ways drinking-age people can have fun in the city.

In comparison to bar arcades, the amount of arcades and video gaming spaces without age restrictions is minimal. In Chicago, only a small number of businesses operate game rooms that are accessible to young adults, and even these options must be qualified.

In addition to their bar arcade, Logan Arcade operates an all-ages pop-up game

room through a collaboration with Liberation Kitchen on Grand Avenue. For $10, anyone can use the arcade side room filled with over 30 video and pinball machines. This popup is not a permanent fixture of Liberation Kitchen, but Zespy hopes to keep it going as long as possible.

“I’m into having games wherever we can,” he says. “Hopefully we can keep that going and . . . have another place where people can play. You know, have some good food and bring your whole family.”

Another gaming space open to everyone is Midlane Esports on Milwaukee Avenue. Like

CITY LIFE

coming spaces in practice. In places where alcohol consumption is at the forefront, teens may stay away because of fears about the behavior of drinking adults as well as concern about their presence being unwelcome. “I wouldn’t want to bother people, or cause a disruption in any way, because I’m there,” she told me.

In comparison to bar arcades, the amount of arcades and video gaming spaces without age restrictions is minimal.

Ignite, Midlane is a gaming lounge where patrons can pay by the hour to use advanced gaming PCs and consoles. Midlane also has a bar, but they are open to all ages before 10 PM. According to Midlane’s owner, Adam Abbas, the lounge aims to be a place where online gaming communities can meet up in person and create foundations for permanent esports teams in Chicago.

Even though Midlane doesn’t ID patrons until 10 PM, the young people that I spoke to who knew about the gaming lounge were under the impression that they would not be allowed inside based on the “gaming bar” branding. Jax Del Angel, a freshman at Walter Payton College Preparatory High School, told me that the presence of a bar and drinking adults did a lot to dissuade her from entering a place like Midlane. “I’d rather go to a place that is just a restaurant, rather than, like, a restaurant and bar. Because one, I’m probably not the type of customer that they’re looking for . . . and also, considering the people who do come there, they’re all going to be older than me.”

Del Angel’s account shows that while some places may welcome young people in theory, that doesn’t necessarily mean they are wel-

At the present moment, the amount of attractive hangouts for young people in Chicago without significant cost, research, or commute is almost zero. The amount of e ort required to find accessible places to spend periods of unstructured time is usually too much considering schoolwork, extracurriculars, and jobs, according to Del Angel. “After school, or after your clubs, or after work or something, you’re not going to have the energy or motivation to even go somewhere to hang out . . . you’re gonna feel more inclined to just go home, and maybe call people or use social media,” she says. Even if being online is not always preferable to going out with friends, for most young people, it is what’s most easily accessible.

Margot Avery, a junior at Lane Tech College Prep High School, also feels that there is a lack of places for young people to hang out without significant cost or planning. “It would be nice if there were more recreational areas marketed to teens, where people could gather and enjoy each other’s company, without the need to buy something to spend time there,” she said. When getting together isn’t accessible, teens also miss out on crucial benefits for their overall health. “It can be hard to motivate ourselves to get out of the house if there isn’t some sort of destination, but it is so essential that we do because as we’ve learned from the pandemic, staying home is extremely detrimental to our mental health,” Avery told me.

Bar arcades have infused a lot of new life into in-person gaming in Chicago, and they serve as great examples of how video games can bring people together and how arcades can be important assets to the social health of a community. Talking with young Chicagoans, it’s clear that there is an interest and a need for more spaces for young people, and the strides that bar arcades have made in creating welcoming, social gaming spaces should be a model for what we can give to the younger generations. v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

FOOD & DRINK

Tary Co ee House brings ancient preservation techniques from the central Asian steppes to River North

The first U.S. outpost of a Kazakh cafe can do anything with millet and fresh milk.

By MIKE SULA

Last weekend, chef Ratbek Sadvakasov was competing in the Top Chef Challenge at the Vegan Women Summit in Hollywood. He served vivid and carefully composed plates of Impossible Beef meatballs with golden millet, spinach, pumpkin cream, and honey, garnished with steamed broccoli and dried raspberry powder.

Sadvakasov is not a vegan. Nor is his restaurant, Tary Coffee House. And neither is the owner of the franchise, Symbat Zharkynkyzy, who opened the first U.S. outpost of this central Asian chain in River North last October.

There isn’t much of a vegan tradition in Kazakhstan, where Sadvakasov and Zharkynkyzy grew up. Its cuisine developed around the nomadic, livestock-dependent lifestyle of its people, and the necessity of preserving the meat and milk of the fat-tailed sheep, camels, horses, and cows they raised. “No,” laughs Zharkynkyzy. “We love meat. But I was interested in trying something new. My chef is very talented, and we were thinking, why not? We will be going there and showing our culture and hospitality, and so we just applied.”

There is plenty of animal protein on the menu at Tary. There’s a burger and a smoked beef and tomato soup, a veal salad—and balgyn qurydaq, a sizzling plate of blade steak tips and potatoes that could restore your strength after a long, exhausting day riding the steppes.

Sadvakasov also uses quite a bit of butter, milk, housemade cheese, and other fermented dairy products. But the central ingredient at Tary is its namesake—tary—a variety of millet grown only in western Kazakhstan.

“That product is very important,” she says. “It saved our nation several times in war. People were surviving by eating this product. They had nothing. It’s very rich in nutrients.”

In various forms, this toasty, nutty tasting ancient grain finds its way in dishes all over

the menu, but most notably in three signature breakfast porridges served reverently atop carved wooden serving pieces. There’s the signature tary porridge itself, distinct grains of millet settling on the bottom of a bowl of warm, whole organic milk, its placid, creamy surface bejeweled with pomegranate seeds.

Bylamyq is a thicker, smoother, goldencolored porridge made from milk and roasted,

milled tary called talqan, and served, like the former, with ladles of housemade raspberry jam and limpid golden ghee. In a nod to the vegans, these can be prepared with plantbased milks upon request.

A third, maisok, is not quite a porridge, but a more solid, lightly sweet bowl of millet with the texture of thick oatmeal; it’s a treat often served to children. In fact, if you were raised

on American-style porridges—say, Cream of Wheat, with butter and brown sugar—you’ll already be acquainted with the comforting warmth these bowls deliver.

Sadvakasov dispatches the millet in a handful of lightly sweet desserts as well: suspended in a thick slice of cheesecake; or in ice cream, best enjoyed as an affogato; or with zhent, ground tary formed with

From le : Tary porridge and balgyn qurydaq (blade steak tips and potatoes) SANDY NOTO FOR CHICAGO READER

tarycoffee.com

caramelized cottage cheese and sugar into irregular snackable nuggets.

The millet is in a handful of coffee drinks too, roasted and deposited in the Americano, fried and added to the cappuccino, or lurking at the bottom of the latte. These, along with imported black tea with whole milk and tary, make an ideal accompaniment to a collection of these sweets that also include small cookies made from talqan, and a crunchy snack of honeyed, deep-fried dough bits called chak-chak. Altogether you have a central Asian version of the fika, the Swedish midday co ee break, that similarly represents a pinnacle of living well.

Among the other techniques that his forbears used to preserve sheep, horse, cow, and camel protein, and their milk, Sadvakasov reconstitutes kurt, dried balls of yogurt that add a sharp, tangy balance to a salad of roasted eggplant.

Another uniquely Kazakh preserve is irimshik, a lightly sweet and tangy cheese, formed from caramelized and fermented milk curd, that’s also stuffed into deep-fried donuts known as baursaq; or a cinnamon roll frosted

eggs benedict with smoked salmon, and a turkey sandwich.

And then there was that vegan meatball, which isn’t o ered at Tary—yet. Sadvakasov and Zharkynkyzy would like to stretch out their repertoire in that way, but even though the bright, high-ceilinged cafe feels as open as the grasslands, their kitchen is small and limiting.

And that was another reason for their recent trip to California—they were scouting locations for a Los Angeles outpost. A New York spot is in the works, too, which would bring the total number of Tary Co ee Houses up to a 14. Presently, most of them are in Kazakhstan, with a branch in Moscow, but more are on the way throughout Asia and Europe.

That’s all since 2020—an explosive growth that’s part of a greater surge of awareness of central Asian cuisine and culture, both here in Chicago and globally.

“People started to get more educated about our culture, and who we are,” says Zharkynkyzy. “There are so many ‘stans.’ People assume they are all the same, because before

with sweet condensed milk called balqaimak. The latter also tops a trio of cottage cheese pancakes and is served on the side of the maisok. If you ordered this in Kazakhstan, the milk might have come from a camel (here, it’s cow’s milk).

Sadvakasov trained in the Ukraine, and a portion of the menu reflects a Western style of cooking, like tru e mushroom cream soup,

I’ve had my Green Dreams thick—somewhere between Detroit-style and Sicilian, dough pocked with all those focaccia-y bubbles—but let’s be real: this slice isn’t about the crust. It’s about alliums: a garlic-oil base and onions caramelized until they’re sweet. It’s about virtuosity: green spinach sauteed with just enough chili flake to spark. It’s about briny things: fat, matte green olives (do I spy Castelvetranos?), their gorgeous flesh set o by glistening pesto. The pesto has been blitzed, and it’s zigzagged right onto the slice, from pizza oven to white paper plate. DeSalvo’s is an oxymoron of a restaurant, hip and family friendly. Most everything’s

FOOD & DRINK

compostable, the house-made soft serve is made with oat milk, and the namesake chef has serious culinary chops, coming from stints at Lettuce Entertain You and Evanston’s much-mourned Boltwood. I’ve eavesdropped on Northwestern intelligentsia, bros in purple warm-ups, and fellow parents corralling toddlers; I’ve seen crowds gather in the back room for live music; and I’ve watched the staff in the open kitchen wind down with a loud Daft Punk set. It’s bustling from lunch through dinner. Order at the counter, grab a seat on the big wooden banquette, and relax—with your Green Dreams, of course. —JOANNA NOVAK DESALVO’S PIZZA, 1945 Central Street, Evanston, $5.24 per slice, 847-425-0053, desalvospizza.com v

Reader Bites celebrates dishes, drinks, and atmospheres from the Chicagoland food scene. Have you had a recent food or drink experience that you can’t stop thinking about? Share it with us at fooddrink@ chicagoreader.com.

they were all in the Soviet Union. They started to recognize the di erence between Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. That’s kind of a very cool thing. From food, you can tell your story. You can tell your history. And you can show your hospitality. You can do anything with your co ee shop.” v

m msula@chicagoreader.com

Green Dreams at DeSalvo’s Pizza

NEWS & POLITICS

POLICE SURVEILLANCE

ShotSpotter’s reverberations

When Chicago ends its contract with the gunshot detection company this fall, will the microphones keep listening?

By ED VOGEL AND SHAWN MULCAHY

In June 2022, the Illinois State Police (ISP) inked a $362,000 contract with ShotSpotter. The agency planned to pilot the controversial gunshot detection system along eight miles of the Dan Ryan Expressway, beginning at Canalport, just north of Cermak, in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, and stretching south.

The prior year had been a particularly violent one—for the interstate, the city, and the country at large. The ISP logged some 80 shootings on the Dan Ryan in 2021, twice as many as in 2020. State police hoped to crack down on the spike in expressway incidents by connecting sensors installed along the interstate to the expansive network maintained by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) that already covered much of the city’s south and west sides.

The technology, apparently, didn’t live up to its promise. When the contract expired a year later, the agency let it lapse. (Melaney Arnold, a spokesperson for the state police, cites “unique challenges with the high speeds and noise associated with interstate tra c” as reasons why the agency ultimately chose to pull the plug.) So why, then, are the microphones still listening?

Documents obtained through open records requests show ShotSpotter sensors along the Dan Ryan continued to publish alerts through at least April. It wouldn’t be the first time ShotSpotter (which has since rebranded as SoundThinking) left its microphones in communities that chose not to renew their contracts. And it foreshadows challenges facing Chicago when the city winds down its use of the technology in the fall.

ShotSpotter did not answer a list of emailed questions about the company’s process for removing sensors upon contract expiration, whether the company plans to remove microphones from the Dan Ryan, or how the company uses the data collected from microphones in jurisdictions without active agreements.

In a statement, Tom Chittum, SoundThinking’s senior vice president of forensic services, wrote, “Every ShotSpotter deployment is unique, and we evaluate the best way to move forward once a contract has expired.”

The Dan Ryan cuts a line straight through Chicago’s south side. From its beginning at the intersections of the Eisenhower and Kennedy near Greektown, it runs south to 95th before branching o southeast to Indiana and southwest toward Champaign. The neighborhoods surrounding the interstate—from Bridgeport and Bronzeville to Englewood and Chatham— are squarely within the jurisdiction of Chicago police. But interstates and highways, including the Dan Ryan, are patrolled by the ISP.

The ISP’s pilot with ShotSpotter kicked off on June 28, 2022. The agency hoped to connect the gunshot detection system’s sensors to its automated license plate reader and camera systems that already surveilled the highways. More than that, it planned to grow the web of ShotSpotter microphones that dot the city’s south and west sides. An agreement between state and city police allowed the agencies to access data from each other’s sensors. But by the time the ISP pilot came to an end, o cials decided they wouldn’t renew the contract. Arnold says, “After examining the data and the overall impact on follow-up investigations, the decision was made not to renew a contract at this time.

ISP continues to assess any and all technology that can help us fight crime.”

In February, Wired published a leaked database with the locations of 25,580 ShotSpotter sensors, including those in Chicago, that were installed as of September 2023. SoundThinking maintains ownership of the sensors it installs in our communities and the data they collect, and it has long sought to keep the locations of its microphones private. It claims divulging sensor locations would expose valuable trade secrets—and has even sought to hide that information from the very police departments using the technology.

The leaked data shows microphones monitored the Dan Ryan two months after the ISP’s contract expired. Documents obtained through public records requests, including a log of published ShotSpotter alerts, confirm the sensors continued to record gunshots and state police continued to be sent to investigate through at least the end of 2023.

“Decommissioning and cancellation ought to mean decommissioning and cancellation.”

On August 8, for example, expressway sensors alerted police to what it said were 33 rounds fired just before 3 AM. In a police report obtained by the Reader, Trooper Darius Burse writes that he was patrolling I-94 when he was dispatched at 2:58 AM to a portion of the interstate near the on-ramp at 37th Street. He arrived at the scene four minutes later and canvassed the area. Burse found eight shell casings, which he pointed out to Chicago police as they arrived on the scene. Those cops, the Ninth District’s Angelica Arroyo and the Seventh District’s Taquisha Drisdell, write in a report that they recovered 16 casings in total near the entrance of the 90-94 expressway. A ShotSpotter report of the incident (called an investigative lead summary) prepared for the CPD shows both the department and the ISP were notified of the suspected shooting; the microphone’s location is listed as “Chicago / DanRyanExpresswayIL.” In response to the leaked information, SoundThinking’s Chittum wrote in a statement, “We want to be clear that SoundThinking believes the document containing this confidential information was illegally disclosed by ex-employees and SoundThinking is currently pursuing civil and criminal remedies against the private parties responsible. Due to this ongoing litigation, we cannot comment specifically on the leaked data, however, we

State police installed ShotSpotter sensors along eight miles of the Dan Ryan Expressway. WIKIMEDIA

will continue to object to the use of our stolen data and reinforce the privacy and safety risks of disclosing individual sensor locations.”

Arnold says ShotSpotter allowed state police to continue using the technology free of charge through January 4, 2024, ”to allow ISP to further evaluate the system, which had technical challenges associated with interstate shootings, the purpose of ISP’s contract with ShotSpotter.” But a spreadsheet of published ShotSpotter alerts obtained from the CPD shows microphones were still active along the Dan Ryan as recently as April. It’s not clear if the ISP also continued to receive alerts after the January 4 deadline. The Reader asked the ISP if microphones were still installed on the Dan Ryan or if o cials had asked ShotSpotter to remove them. Arnold referred questions to the company and said, “The sensors are owned and operated by ShotSpotter and as such, ISP has no control over them.”

The phantom microphones along the Dan Ryan are part of a larger pattern in cities across the U.S. In 2017, o cials in Fall River, Massachusetts, announced they were ending their contract with the gunshot detection company. Police chief Al Dupere, in an interview with the Herald News, pointed to repeated false alarms and an accuracy rate below 50 percent as reasons for dropping the technology. But ShotSpotter, hoping to win over the town, continued to operate its microphones, free of charge, for about nine months while it attempted to iron out the kinks. (ShotSpotter ultimately pulled the plug. Dupree said officials saw “little improvement with it in the past eight or nine months.”) Closer to home, Mirror Indy found ShotSpotter microphones in Indianapolis more than a year after the conclusion of a three-month pilot on the city’s east side.

Internal emails published by South Side Weekly and Wired appear to confirm the practice. In one email, a company executive estimated there were a “few hundred sensors still installed” in San Diego that were “active even if the market isn’t.” The outlets also obtained documents that show San Diego police continued to use ShotSpotter for 15 months after the contract with that city ended in September 2021. And ShotSpotter notified the San Diego Police Department of scheduled maintenance and even provided cops with an investigative lead summary upon their request.

Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, a professor at American University Washington College of Law and author of The Rise of Big Data Policing , says startup companies often enter the

policing technology industry by o ering their services for free or at little cost and use those clients to market the product to other law enforcement agencies. ShotSpotter has struggled to gain control of the market and demonstrate its ability to accurately detect gunshots, he says. But SoundThinking, a publicly traded company with a market capitalization of about $175 million, is large enough that it shouldn’t need to give away its services for free. “Maybe after the criticism, they feel like they have to do that. Maybe it’s a business decision to o er this technology essentially free until it’s proven valuable enough that someone wants to pay for it.”

Fer thinks the focus on ShotSpotter misses a bigger picture. “It is just a symptom of the larger problem of private companies—not just SoundThinking—battling to become the sole provider of data-driven services for a police department.” Technology companies are increasingly marketing a platform of services, from case management to predictive policing, rather than individual products, sold for expensive monthly or annual subscriptions.

SoundThinking’s SafetySmart platform includes ShotSpotter, in addition to products like CrimeTracer, a law enforcement search engine currently being piloted by the CPD, and ResourceRouter, an automated tool that detects crime “hot spots” and deploys police. “My assumption was that their way in was to essentially create a contract using the gunshots—which is a piece of data—and then be able to sell the rest of the platform services.”

will the microphones stop listening? Mayor Brandon Johnson followed through on a campaign-trail promise to cancel the city’s ShotSpotter contract. He announced earlier this year that the city would continue to use ShotSpotter through late September, followed by a two-month transition period. (The contract extension runs through November 22.)

Since the sensors are owned by SoundThinking, it’s ultimately the company’s responsibility to remove them. Many of Chicago’s ShotSpotter sensors are installed on lampposts, school rooftops, and utility poles—property owned by the city. In response to questions about Chicago’s plan for

property—apartment buildings, roofs of businesses, even billboards. But Manes says Chicago officials have recourse here too. He points to a provision in the contract—a paragraph within the 212-page document—called “Demobilization.” It stipulates that if the contract is terminated or expires, ShotSpotter will make “reasonable e orts” for an “orderly demobilization” of its services and will “otherwise comply with the reasonable requests and requirements of the City in connection with the termination or expiration.” Manes says this gives Chicago o cials authority to order the company take down all its microphones, even those on private property.

Once a department is tied to a platform like SafetySmart, Ferguson says, “you can’t escape.”

“It would be consistent with that business plan to keep giving sensors to cities and build contacts with cities, even if it’s at a loss, because what you’re really trying to do is develop the relationships and the business plans that you can sell the rest of your platform,” he says.

When Chicago’s agreement ends this fall,

removing microphones, Tiernán Gordon, a spokesperson for the mayor, wrote in an email, “Upon the expiration of the contract, relevant City entities will undertake the removal of any acoustic gunshot detection devices that are currently installed on City property.” Jonathan Manes, an attorney at the MacArthur Justice Center who leads the Illinois office’s work on surveillance technology, says that’s well within the city’s authority. “I think that the city could certainly tell ShotSpotter that it no longer has permission to have microphones attached to city property,” he says, “just like the cable company can’t attach things to city property without permission or cell towers can’t go up without city permission.”

Less clear, however, is the city’s power to remove microphones installed on private

Whether Chicago actually scraps ShotSpotter is another matter. SoundThinking worked behind the scenes with alders to push a proposal that would sidestep Johnson and give the City Council final say on the use of the technology, the Reader reported in April. That measure has yet to pass, but it’s likely not ShotSpotter’s final attempt to continue business with one of its largest customers. The planned end of the technology in September coincides with the start of Chicago’s municipal budget season, and sympathetic council members will likely press for funding anew. ShotSpotter could also simply allow the CPD to continue using its microphones, free of charge—as it did with the ISP and police in San Diego and Fall River—a practice Manes calls “deeply, deeply problematic” and undemocratic. “It’s just a completely unaccountable surveillance system that’s being used in the city and having real-life consequences for residents, without any kind of control or accountability by the city government responsible for its use.”

“There’s a question about what the city’s going to be doing after September if ShotSpotter continues to somehow operate despite the fact that it has no contract,” Manes says. “Decommissioning and cancellation ought to mean decommissioning and cancellation.” v

m smulcahy@chicagoreader.com

Highways and interstates in Illinois are patrolled by the Illinois State Police. BRIAN CRAWFORD / FLICKR

NEWS & POLITICS

Bosses beware

Chicago’s service and cultural workers are unionizing like never before.

By DMB (DEBBIE-MARIE BROWN)

As the pandemic first sank its talons into the service industry—closing hotels, restaurants, grocers, and retail stores— service workers became lauded as “essential workers.” Since then, they’ve been unionizing their workplaces at a speed the U.S. hasn’t seen in more than half a century. Between March 2022 and April 2024, about 290 workers at nine Chicago hotels, bars, and restaurants won union representation with Unite Here Local 1. These new contracts include a minimum wage of $25 per hour, health care coverage, and new or strengthened pensions.

The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), representing 35,000 museum workers nationally, has seen similar gains. Since 2021, sta at the Art Institute of Chicago, School of the Art Institute, Field Museum, Museum of Science and Industry, Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Newberry Library, and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA) all joined AFSCME Council 31. Shedd Aquarium employees recently announced their intent to unionize.

Robert Bruno, director of the Labor Studies Program and professor of labor and employment at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, says all industries have experienced a surge in unionization at some point in U.S. history. But the service industry has always been organized at a much lower rate than other sectors.

The country’s golden age of organized labor unfolded in the 1950s, following World War II, when unions represented nearly every auto, construction, electric, and mine worker, as well as four out of every five construction workers. But, he continues, our country has never seen the service industry organized at comparable rates. That trend might be changing.

Carla Mendez has worked as a housekeeping supervisor at the Hilton Chicago/Magnificent Mile Suites for more than three decades. She and her coworkers were the first hotel staff in Chicago to organize a union since the pandemic took hold in 2020. Their new contract, approved in January, got rid of costly health insurance deductibles that made care prohibi-

tively expensive. Now they’re covered for free. Mendez, who has prediabetes, would avoid seeing her doctor because she was afraid it’d be too expensive. “Now I’m not scared to go anywhere,” she tells the Reader

For most of her time at the hotel, Mendez was content without a union and even felt gratitude and loyalty to her employer for giving her a job. “I feel like [I was] sleeping, and I woke up because [of] the pandemic,” Mendez says. Once the coronavirus hit, she was assigned a number of tasks that weren’t in her job description. She wouldn’t talk to anyone during work hours because she was worried managers would get upset. Sometimes, she and her peers skipped lunch breaks to finish their work. “I feel that this was not right,” Mendez says. “The manager screamed at us, angry. This is why I decided to say, ‘This is not normal.’”

Bruno says there are a few reasons that service workers have historically unionized at low rates compared to other industries. First, profit margins in the service industry tend to be smaller than those in other sectors, like the automotive industry. That means employers have less wealth to distribute and workers less incentive to unionize. Second, Bruno says many see the service industry as second-class. And if the work isn’t considered a “career,” there’s less emphasis on the need to organize. But today, baristas and fastfood workers aren’t transient, part-time workers; people raise families off of their incomes. Third, the service industry employs large numbers of women and immigrants, and a degree of cultural gender bias and discrimination can place restraints on organizing those sectors. “But there’s always been unionized service employees in this country,” Bruno says.

felt like their employers didn’t give a damn,” Bruno says. “For a while, maybe they got some hazard pay, maybe they were called heroes. But then the pandemic ends [and] the hazard pay goes away. All of a sudden, they’re not heroes anymore.”

The union representing workers at the MCA formed one month ago, and its members are at the very beginning of negotiations for their first contract. Serena Hocharoen has been a part-time visitor experience associate at the museum for more than a year. She works 24

on Tuesdays. “Small scheduling things are sometimes the deal-breaker in if someone keeps this job or not,” Hocharoen says. The museum’s programming is busiest during the summer, when the MCA offers free, weekly concerts. In fall and spring, the MCA hosts performances by the Jo rey Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance, and more. The winter holidays aren’t slow either, she says.

MCA workers kicked off their organizing effort one year before they went public on February 14, 2024. The idea of unionization spread rapidly through secret conversations among sta in the learning, retail, and visitor experience departments before reaching curatorial sta and other back-o ce departments. Each of the 100 eligible museum staffers is now in the union.

Hocharoen says the MCA, as a contemporary art museum, claims to be a place where people can discuss works that are relevant to our times. The museum presents itself as a cutting-edge institution that showcases art by women and other groups. “With that mission statement, I think we can really push for the institution to be also a cutting-edge institution [that] practices care towards the people that make it what it is,” Hocharoen says.

Anders Lindall, a spokesperson for AFSCME Council 31, thinks cultural institutions like the MCA take workers for granted because of their high name recognition and prestige. “But proximity to a collection, no matter how amazing, doesn’t pay the bills,” Lindall says. “It doesn’t ensure professional development. It doesn’t make sure you can a ord to see the doctor when you get sick.”

We’re seeing an uptick in unions following the pandemic shutdown because workers felt vulnerable. They consciously connected their jobs to their life expectancy and sought out unionization for greater protections. “They

hours per week (alongside two other jobs). She and her coworkers found they were constantly understaffed and exhausted. Hocharoen’s position is client-facing, meaning most of her work involves interacting with the public. But she feels her pay doesn’t reflect the level of service she provides.

She also wants more flexibility around scheduling. She and her coworkers—even those balancing the position with college classes or another job—are required to work

Some 700 food service workers at the United Center, employed by Compass Levy, have been unionized for decades, but ratifications to their contract last year set a new precedent for what’s possible. Tawanda Murray has worked at the United Center for three decades, and she’s raised two kids and put another through college using the salary she makes there. “During the pandemic, we lost a lot of people,” Murray says. “People were laid off. They had to cash in 401(k)s to provide medical [care] for themselves. Some people lost their homes. It was a trying time for our industry. We decided once we got back that we would come together and fight for what we needed, which was a decent wage and health care coverage all year round.”

Union members did whatever they could to get the message out. They went to the company office and talked with the president of

Carla Mendez pickets in support of Hyatt Centric Magnifi cent Mile workers on February 27, 2024.

HR and the operations director. They pleaded with fans, including season ticket holders they’ve known for decades. They talked to media outlets and even organized a mass walkout during a 2023 Bulls game ahead of the Big Ten men’s basketball tournament. “When they got the call that we were on strike, they

were sleeping,” Murray says. “We don’t sleep in the hospitality industry. . . . We do 24-hour shifts, depending on what entity or hospitality industry you’re in. So while you decided to sleep, we was awake and we was organizing.”

As part of the new contract, dozens of parttime employees at Guaranteed Rate Field,

home of the White Sox, and the United Center can pool their hours and be qualified for fulltime, year-round health insurance coverage. The Sox stadium employees are also employed by Levy Compass.

Phyllis Israel is a 60-year-old woman who has worked in hospitality for 20 years and

at the two stadiums for the past three years. Israel got involved with the union after management accused her of soliciting tips from patrons in violation of company policy (something she insists she didn’t do). Israel was suspended for five days without pay. The union fought her suspension and ultimately recouped her lost wages. “All this time, I kept saying the union never did anything for me,” Israel says. “But as soon as I needed the union, they didn’t hesitate to step up to the plate for me. And I’m like, wow, I could do this for somebody else.”

Bruno says the battle between labor and capital is a political one. “It’s always been a political decision because you’re talking about how you’re going to distribute the country’s wealth and resources,” Bruno says. “So it matters. Whenever there’s a union drive, that’s an effort to pull some power away from the employers. And that becomes something that has strong political implications.” v

m dmbrown@chicagoreader.com

May 19

Le : Tawanda Murray (le ) strikes outside the United Center in March 2023. Right: Phyllis Israel (far right) pickets outside Wrigley Field with coworkers in September 2022.

Kindertransport – Rescuing Children on the Brink of War was created and organized by Yeshiva University Museum and the Leo Baeck Institute - New York | Berlin.

Children from a Kindertransport after their arrival in Waterloo Station in London, February 2, 1939 (ÖGZ S 52/11).

COMMENTARY

ON CULTURE

cicada party time.

By DEANNA ISAACS

“Straggler!” I said, the insult popping from my lips the instant I spotted the creature. He was parked on a branch —his awkward tank of a body, banded with orange ridges, was supported by six toothpick legs and cloaked in gossamer wings. I couldn’t tell which of his three black and two red eyes might be fixed on me, but it was clear that he’d heard.

“Wrong, human,” he replied, not bothering to hide his contempt. “The stragglers came and went four years ago. This is the main event.”

Then he began twerking and singing, brazenly flexing his abdomen. Soon, the air was laden with a deafening metallic chorus, the brittle voices of a million of his brood brothers.

“Party’s on,” he said.

OK, that conversation only happened in my head. But it’s not much stranger than what’s actually occurring: the 2024 dual emergence of trillions of Brood XIII and XIX periodical cicadas, scheduled to begin in the last half of this month and running until the end of June. The last time these two broods emerged together was 221 years ago, and it’ll be just as long until it happens again.

Here in Chicago, we’ll only see Brood XIII. But central Illinois, especially around Springfield, will have a real emergence convergence, in both time and place. Brood XIII, which comes out every 17 years, and Brood XIX, which appears every 13 years, will spring from

the ground simultaneously. Although their territory is not expected to actually overlap, they’ll be in close proximity.

Which is one reason why I wanted to talk with Professor May R. Berenbaum, head of the University of Illinois’s Department of Entomology. “Yes, the only place where they’ll come out very close to each other is central Illinois,” a clearly jazzed Berenbaum told me by phone from the Urbana-Champaign campus last week. “This is as exciting as it gets in entomology. Better than the eclipse.”

It’s a massively orgiastic event. The cicadas, after spending their 13- or 17-year nymphal stage sucking tree root sap underground, are rewarded with a monthlong mating party. They shed their exoskeleton, climb a tree, hang there till their wings expand and dry, and, if they’re males, start singing to attract partners. Interested females will flick their wings in response, making a clicking sound. Everybody is up for multiple partners, especially the males. Females then deposit the fertilized eggs in tree branches, and about six weeks later, nymphs emerge, fall to the ground, and burrow under, starting the cycle all over.

This is the best party ever, if they don’t get eaten or catch the deadly fungal disease that can turn them into what has been called zombie cicadas or “flying saltshakers of death.”

The fungus, Massospora cicadina , destroys the back end of the cicada, packing its abdominal cavity with spores which then drop and

increase in mortality,” Berenbaum says. Lloyd investigated a huge emergence of Brood XXIII, in a backyard in Ullin, Illinois, in 1976. This brood had a startlingly high percentage of prematurely dead cicadas stuck in their nymphal shells. Coming up in a suburban-style residential community, they couldn’t find enough trees to climb up, escape from their skins, and hang out to dry, Berenbaum says. She found that paper “poignant.”

spread as the cicada flies. The fungus also energizes the doomed bug, altering its behavior. On something like an amphetamine high until they die, infected males begin to flick their wings, attracting male as well as female sexual partners, who then are also infected.

“This is as exciting as it gets in entomology. Better than the eclipse.”

Cicadas are slow on the ground and clumsy fliers; they’re easy prey. Many animals, including those who cook them, will eat them. But, Berenbaum says, except for the Massospora fungus, it’s human alteration of the environment that presents the cicada’s greatest threat. She cites a 1979 paper by Monte Lloyd, a University of Chicago professor known for developing an important metric for measuring crowding.

“When things get very crowded, there’s an

Berenbaum is also the founder of the nationally recognized Insect Fear Film Festival, which is the other reason I wanted to talk with her. An annual free public event at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the festival offers kid-friendly activities like an insect petting zoo and animated shorts along with Hollywood’s goriest and most scientifically incorrect insect horror films (it launched in 1984 with Them! and Bug , made in 1954 and 1975, respectively)—all in the service of education. It’s been celebrated in media from the Wall Street Journal and NPR to a supermarket tabloid. Berenbaum, who grew up “profoundly entomophobic,” and became an entomologist because a course in terrestrial arthropods was the only option for filling a Tuesday/ Thursday hole in her second semester undergraduate college schedule, says, on the festival website, that “As long as they [Hollywood] keep disseminating disinformation about the most misunderstood taxon on the planet, we have an obligation to counter with the truth about insects.” So, never mind those giant irradiated ants and mutated killer cicadas.

Still, when I asked her whether insects will outlast humans, here’s what she said: “I think that’s a pretty good bet.” v m disaacs@chicagoreader.com

Side view of a cicada J. WEINSTEIN, COURTESY FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Museum cicada specimens

Web3 is here, but where’s the diversity?

Small business education from the 1980s holds keys for today’s women founders.

By MAIJA RENKO

In the age of artificial intelligence (AI) available for all, women business founders may have the most to gain—and lose—by understanding how to leverage the new technologies. AI is already replacing employees in many industries and, with some jobs more easily automated than others and existing gender distribution in the job market, women are often getting the short end of the stick due to AI. At the same time, amid a boom of Web3 companies leveraging AI and blockchain, only 7 percent of these companies’ founders are women.

As a professor of entrepreneurship, I have been on a mission to understand which startup lessons have staying power, which have faded, and which may have contributed to the severe entrepreneurship gender gap that we still see today. DePaul University has supported Chicago’s aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners for decades. Digging into the files describing collaborative programming DePaul and the U.S. Small Business Administration provided in the 1980s has been eye-opening. Much has changed, but still less than you might think.

Advising entrepreneurs on how to use the latest technologies to their advantage has always been a cornerstone of entrepreneurship training. Today, we can share AI-based tools that help entrepreneurs research ideas, develop company logos and names, and create websites. In the 1980s, the technology training sessions addressed different topics: “Telemarketing: How to attract more customers by telephone?” and “What are the advantages and pitfalls of owning a computer?” Even when men and women entrepreneurs learn similar facts about the latest technologies, we know that women’s self-efficacy may lower their ability to successfully marshal this new technology.

A 1990s advice booklet urges founders to solicit customer feedback early, which continues to be taught in our classrooms. While the emphasis has moved from probing a description of an idea in the decades past to building an early version of the actual product or service for testing today, the essence of the advice

is still the same: you need to build what your customers want to buy, and you’d better figure that out fast.

Today, entrepreneurs can use language AI tools to learn from customers. For example, if a company concept is about solar panel installation, an entrepreneur could tell a tool like ChatGPT or Microsoft Bing to pretend it is

topics covered in the 1985 “Financing for the Independent Business” seminar at DePaul to the entrepreneurial finance classes held in the same building today, almost 40 years later. “First source of capital is you” was the starting point back then, as well as today. Nobody invests in you unless you are all in yourself.

In the 80s, this session was followed by

times as much equity capital, on average, as all-female teams.

But not everything has stayed the same. In the 80s and 90s, entrepreneurs needed more hands-on support to start home-based businesses. Today, most modern, small-scale entrepreneurs first operate from home with the assistance of online technology. Similarly, some of the underlying gendered and wealth-related assumptions evident in the materials from earlier decades would not fit well into today’s entrepreneurship training. Advice from 1997 entrepreneurship training materials claims that “people have to see what you look like,” or how you carry yourself, or how old you are. Advice like that reflects societal bias that makes us think entrepreneurs should have a stereotypical look and demographic profile to fit the mold of success. It is good we have moved on. Owners of active businesses that opened in recent years show considerably greater diversity than those of older businesses. As of 2023, non-Hispanic white men owned over 50 percent of active businesses that were established prior to 1990, but only 22 percent of businesses opened since 2020. Black women in the U.S. are now more involved in entrepreneurship than any other demographic group.

a commercial property owner in Chicago with 20 years of experience. Then the entrepreneur can interview this AI property owner, instead of bothering to find actual property owners to interview.

Indeed, the ways of uncovering customer needs change with technological progress, but the basic idea of entrepreneurs responding to real customer needs is alive and well. In this area, there is no evidence of women entrepreneurs lagging behind men. In fact, 60 percent of marketing jobs are filled by women, suggesting that women are drawn to roles that require understanding customer needs. What surprised me the most is how little has changed from the entrepreneurial finance

learning about alternative money sources—something that we still discuss with entrepreneurs today, albeit with an emphasis on technology-enabled sources such as crowdfunding. After this, the list of entrepreneurial finance sources has virtually stayed the same: venture capitalists, SBA loans, supplier financing, bank financing, and possibly government financing. It is this area of financing entrepreneurship that has traditionally seen the largest gender gap, and the current underrepresentation of women in Web3 startups will likely further widen this gap as the largest investments always go to startups at the forefront of technology. Among Web3 companies, all-male founding teams raise nearly four

The trip through the archives holds value, and new technology has the power to further democratize access to opportunity. Web3 companies are shaping the future of digital society. Educators, policymakers, and tech executives alike need to create systems that ensure that diverse entrepreneurs, including women, are shaping this future so that we don’t perpetuate biases and stereotypes of the past.

Maija Renko, PhD, is a professor and the Coleman Chair of Entrepreneurship at DePaul University, where she conducts research and teaches entrepreneurial students how to build their companies. v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

collected thesis statements

By JK Anowe

suppose every brushstroke of red. every pen put to poem. is the artist stabbing at their canvas. is paper heralding its defacement. is the omen who toolless crafts its own deathbed. rain that pursues its maker into disappearance. augury of ink obscuring a luminous sky. suppose your eyes open to me as the entrance of a cave opens to the rest of the cave. as language opens to hunger & it is the deepest mouth. what then ridiculous reader. to stand in your line of sight is to be lowered into a loop of uncountable mirrors. i multiply to infinities. what profit the good lord must have made selling my body every impulse every data that suggests it is truly & unequivocally mine. suppose i am one person for whom waiting is a syntax similar to festering. that as a boy i wanted nothing but to grow up. to shed & shed until my father emerged. a scream. suppose i vow to tell you everything. suppose some secrets i keep alone. my past forecast by how capable a boy is of touching & touching falsely. the ghost embalmed where the body is left to rot. self-righteous reader. i am just as ridiculous. tomorrow’s proof i was once present. the hourglass drips blood instead. but i am alive. which means dying in slow motion. dying with the illusion of time on my side. you my onlookers long-dispersed three hourglasses ago. but suppose we touch & everything else explodes. suppose love renewed is love ruined & our runaway car wouldn’t budge until we’ve jumpstarted our hearts. ruin-hungry reader. am i not the palm eager to be read. a river’s surface & you its reflection of the sky. are we not inter-coursed but just as a ripple slung outside its water. are we not far removed.

JK Anowe (he/they) is an Igbo-born poet and MFA+MA candidate at the Litowitz Creative Writing Program. A Gwendolyn M. Carter Fellow in African Studies at Northwestern University, Anowe lives and writes from somewhere in Chicago.

Poem curated by Stuti Sharma. Stuti is a poet, stand up comic, writer, filmmaker, but most importantly, a lover. She grew up on Devon street and the south suburbs. They are a Tin House 2023-2024 Reading Fellow. Stuti will not stop fighting for a Free Palestine and uplifting Palestinian voices & poets.

A biweekly series curated by the Chicago Reader and sponsored by the Poetry Foundation.

Hours

Wednesday & Friday: 11:00 AM–5:00 PM

Thursday: 11:00 AM–7:00 PM

Saturday: 11:00 AM–5:00 PM

CLOSING SOON: Kara Walker: Back of Hand

Foregrounding Walker’s long-term engagement with language and text, this exhibition features works completed in 2021 and shown for the first time in Chicago.

Open through May 18, 2024.

Poetry off the Shelf: Maya C. Popa and Richie Hofmann

Maya C. Popa and Richie Hofmann will read from and discuss their second books, Wound is the origin of Wonder and A Hundred Lovers, respectively. This is a hybrid event, which will be offered in-person and via livestream. Thursday, May 23 at 7:00 PM CT

Learn more at PoetryFoundation.org

RAMERICAN WRITERS FESTIVAL

Sun 5/ 19, 11 AM- 5 PM, Harold Washington Library Center, 400 S. State, americanwritersmuseum.org/american-writers-festival/schedule, free, first-come, first-served seating

FESTIVAL

The return of the American Writers Festival

The free event will feature nearly 30 author talks and panels.

By EMILY MCCLANATHAN

In May 2022, the American Writers Museum presented the inaugural American Writers Festival, a free literary event featuring conversations with more than 70 authors from across the country. With five stages at the museum and the Chicago Cultural Center, the festival drew thousands of visitors. On May 19, the one-day event returns for a second iteration—this time at the Harold Washington Library and copresented by the American Writers Museum (AWM) and the Chicago Public Library (CPL).

Opened to the public in 2017, the AWM aims “to excite audiences about the impact of American writers—past, present, and future—in shaping our collective histories, cultures, identities, and daily lives.” Its programming includes permanent and temporary exhibitions, author events, and digital resources such as online exhibits, podcasts, and reading recommendations.

The initial inspiration for the American Writers Festival was twofold, AWM president Carey Cranston explained. “One was that we were coming out of COVID, and we wanted to kind of remind everybody that the American Writers Museum was here. And it happened to coincide with our fifth anniversary, so we felt that it was a good time for us to try and do something new.”

Building on the success of the first festival, the 2024 edition again features five stages with nearly 30 author talks and panel discussions. The diverse topics include writing about politics, history, food, gaming, and jazz, as well as genre-focused discussions of literary fiction, romance, speculative fiction, memoir, and true crime. One stage is dedicated to programming by four partner organizations: Newberry Library, Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, American Library Association (ALA), and Poetry Foundation. In the Children’s Library, events range from story times for the littlest book lovers to panels on young

adult literature and media literacy for young learners.

“Pretty much, there’s something for everybody,” said Cranston. “We’re trying to really show the breadth of all the di erent types of writing and how writing affects everybody, which is what the museum’s about.”

This year, additional activities take place in the Winter Garden, the sunlit space on the top floor of Harold Washington Library. These include book signings, writing workshops, literary arts and crafts, and photo ops. Attendees can also interact with representatives from more than a dozen local and national organizations, such as ACLU of Illinois, ALA, Chicago Books to Women in Prison, League of Chicago Theatres, and Silent Book Club.

CPL served as one of the festival’s community partners in 2022, and it was a natural fit to step into the role of copresenter this year, said CPL commissioner Chris Brown. “American Writers Museum’s whole mission of celebrating and giving more visibility to American writers is so tied to the Chicago Public Library’s history,” he elaborated. “The Harold Washington Library Center has welcomed and celebrated incredible American writer luminaries like bell hooks, Kurt Vonnegut, Toni Morrison, and Michael Pollan, so we have a long history ourselves of celebrating

American writers. This partnership made a lot of sense.”

Brown also spoke to the importance of festival guests such as journalists Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague, authors of the new book, The Steal: The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election and the People Who Stopped It. “[Given] the prominence of the 2024 election and its proximity, I think it makes for a very timely chance to hear from those folks,” he said.

The ALA addresses another timely topic in its “Freedom to Read” panel. Donna Seaman, an editor for the ALA’s Booklist publication, is joined by Heather Booth, a librarian and editor; Anna Claussen, policy and outreach coordinator for libraries at the Illinois Secretary of State’s office; and Sara Paretsky, a Chicago-based author and freedom of speech advocate.

“Depressingly enough, we had a panel [at the festival] two years ago as well, because this has been going on this entire time,” said Seaman. “There’s a deep, terrible history of censorship and book banning all over the world, including in the U.S.”

“We do these panels to inform people who are interested about efforts to combat book challenges, to address the underlying issues, and to assert our rights,” she continued. “I’m hoping that people will feel inspired and also feel empowered that they do have a voice.” Brown also feels strongly about this subject. “We’re in this moment in time where our libraries and institutions like the American Writers Museum are so critical,” he said. “We know that authors—primarily LGBTQ+ and BIPOC authors—are literally being removed or censored throughout the country. And at the Chicago Public Library, we democratize access to these voices.”

Although some of the subject matter is serious, the festival as a whole is meant to provide an inspiring, informative, and fun day out for readers of many ages and interests, from parents looking for kid-friendly activities to book lovers seeking ways to get more involved.

“I think that a lot of people who love to read don’t always think about all of the different ways that they can interact with other people who love to read or people who like to write,” said Cranston. “It’s very important that people realize [the festival] is free and open to the public. This is something that’s meant to bring people together who need that feeling of community, and I think that everybody can come out and find something that interests them.” v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

Top to bottom: The 2022 American Writers Festival; AWM president Carey Cranston; CPL commissioner Chris Brown COURTESY AMERICAN WRITERS MUSEUM

STOKELY : UNFINISHED REVOLUTION THE WORLD PREMIERE

BY NAMBI E. KELLEY

DIRECTED BY TASIA A. JONES

MAY 24JUNE 16, 2024

5535 S Ellis Ave

Free Garage Parking

Student/Group Rates (773) 753-4472

CourtTheatre.org

Gustavo Bamberger and Martha Van Haitsma

Al Burts, PIECES; courtesy of Gallery Guichard

ARTS & CULTURE

REVIEWS

RNo dust to shake off

Over a five-decade career, Sandra Binion’s work is as vital as ever.

On a sunny spring day, Experimental Sound Studio’s Audible Gallery is an ideal place to immerse oneself in the five-decade retrospective of interdisciplinary artist Sandra Binion. The walls are covered with tactile displays of timelines, correspondences, and ephemera selected from Binion’s archive by curator Mariana Mejía (166 distinct artifacts, to be exact). In the center of the gallery, three screens loop video documentation of performances that took place between 1975 and 2024. At any point, the viewer is between these panoptic screens and covered walls—becoming yet another figure activating the work.

Binion is a Francophile, locating the source of this obsession in early exposures to the French composer Erik Satie and Gustave Flaubert’s 1857 novel Madame Bovary. Many works directly reference the latter, including an outdoor installation of weatherproof photographs titled Searching for Emma (2021). The series depicts Binion’s ongoing quest to recast Madame Bovary’s titular character, who yearns for a life beyond the means and “provincial” lifestyle provided by her husband; her disillusioned affliction has been coined “the romantic malady.” The universality of this type of

female dissatisfaction—a longing for a life beyond one’s station—is so pervasive that, as Binion writes, “I observe young women in passing and imagine each as Emma Bovary, a role that will always be played out in some way in every culture.”

It is these unsophisticated banalities of everyday existence that Binion explores throughout her Fluxus performance practice. Enactments of humble domestic labor and activities of daily life pervade the exhibition: ironing, dressing and undressing, scrubbing the floors, eating, sleeping. Binion languidly explores these “choreographies of the everyday” with all the grace afforded by her studies in ballet and modern concert dance. As Binion explains, “something ordinary becomes extraordinary, and through repetition and labor, something pragmatic takes on a heightened presence.”

A he y publication and robust program calendar accompany the retrospective. Don’t miss the reinterpretation of Figure, Painting by the brilliant duo Tara Aisha Willis (who also contributed an essay to the catalog) and Ben LaMar Gay at Roman Susan on May 18. Binion says there is “no dust to shake off ” this symphony of movement and sound, as it and other historic works are simply “out of the portfolio and back to life.” —ERIN TOALE “SANDRA BINION: AUTIOBIOGRAPHY OF LOOKING” Through 6/9: Sun noon-5 PM or by appointment, Audible Gallery at Experimental Sound Studio, 5925 N. Ravenswood, ess.org/esscalendar/sandrabinion, info@ess.org

RThe spectacle of justice

Jordan Strafer fuses the aesthetics of erotic thrillers with her own personal history.

Amid former president Trump’s notorious hush money trial, Jordan Strafer’s solo exhibition at the Renaissance Society, “Decadence,” evokes another historical criminal trial involving a member of America’s “royal family.” In 1991, William Kennedy Smith, a nephew of JFK and at the time a bumptious medical student, was tried on a rape charge. The attention-grabbing trial was one of the most watched television events of the year. It wasn’t surprising that the high-profile defendant was acquitted; it was, though, that the jury only took 77 minutes to reach a not guilty verdict. The trial was also where Smith’s criminal defense lawyer, Roy Black, met his future wife, Lea, who served as a juror.

The Smith trial isn’t just any case study that piqued the artist’s interest. Her mom was involved in the trial as a lawyer for the defense. Tapping into the aesthetics of erotic thrillers, Strafer’s two films, Loophole and Decadence the first two episodes of a planned trilogy, fictionalize the historical events with a personal emphasis. Her mother was the blue-suited character “The Pen” in Loophole, a partial reenactment of the trial that turns into the kinky love story between lawyer and juror; in Decadence, she’s the so -spoken lady who excuses herself from a Palm Beach mansion party to pump breast milk in a guest bathroom. (If the acquittal party happened at the end of 1991, the artist would have been one year old at the time; it’s a curious reference.) At the Ren, the two lush films—of dizzying colors and sensual musical scores, that of a drony Lynchian disquiet—loop in front of two rows of chairs that allude to a jury bench. Space and time become compressed at the opposite end of the gallery, where, in an alcove, a miniature Oprah talk show set is lit with a magenta glow. Between two tiny sofas, a flickering screen scans a picture of the artist’s mother transfixed in a smile—it is as though young Strafer was playing with a dollhouse. —NICKY NI “DECADENCE”

physical ephemera, notebooks, and 35 mm reference slides, all of which provide further insight into her mysterious work.

At the School of the Art Institute, the artist Ray Yoshida—Ramberg’s legendary teacher—encouraged her to fully indulge in collecting as a practice in dialogue with and inspiring her painting. Following Yoshida’s example, Ramberg scoured Chicago’s Maxwell Street Market in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The sprawling bazaar was a favorite haunt of fellow SAIC classmate and artist Roger Brown, who competed with Ramberg for the most elusive finds. She amassed a collection of dolls, 155 of which are on view in the retrospective, hung on a wall similar to how Ramberg displayed them in her home. The doll’s battered forms, some without clothes or heads, echo the faceless com-

positions and fragmentary bodies in her paintings. In a 1989 Chicago Tribune interview, Ramberg said, “What I like about them is their sense of history. I’m interested in what is implied.”

Through 7/7: Wed-Fri noon-6 PM, Sat-Sun 10 AM-6 PM, Renaissance Society, 5811 S. Ellis, Cobb Hall, 4th floor, renaissancesociety.org/exhibitions/554/ jordan-strafer-decadence

RCollecting as practice

An Art Institute retrospective unveils some of the artist’s keenly observed inspirations.

The late Christina Ramberg’s paintings, drawings, and quilts are showcased in a gorgeous and long-overdue retrospective at the Art Institute, on view until August 11. Rather than explore Ramberg’s trenchant themes of gender and the body, I’d like to focus on her personal archive, pieces of which are displayed here. As an artist who also uses archives, albeit in a different fashion, I was fascinated by how the curators integrated Ramberg’s

Ramberg’s archive of personal photos is excerpted in a video slideshow as well as in a large, wall-mounted light box with slides inside. Both offer intriguing glimpses of her visual interests: Victorian corsetry, constricting beauty devices for the face, and folds of fabric rendered in stone and in medieval religious paintings, as well as several austere water tower photos taken by the German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher. Like them, Ramberg worked with unexpected variations and found transcendence in repetition. She once illuminated her process: “My aim is to make from my obsessions and ideas the strongest, most coherent visual statement possible. Before I can make them strongly stated I need to fully understand what those ideas are. Only then can I really struggle.” It’s a gi to spend time with the matte surfaces of her exquisitely rendered paintings and to see some of the keenly observed sources of their unnerving beauty. I only wish she had lived to make more. —JAMES HOSKING “CHRISTINA RAMBERG: A RETROSPECTIVE” Through 8/11: Mon 11 AM-5 PM, Thu 11 AM-8 PM, Fri-Sun 11 AM-5 PM; Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan, artic.edu/exhibitions, adults $32 ($40 Fast Pass, $27 Illinois residents, $20 Chicago residents), seniors 65+, students, and teens 14-17 $26 ($34 Fast Pass, $21 Illinois residents, $14 Chicago residents), children under 14 and Chicago teens 14-17 free; 6/6-9/26 Illinois residents free Thu 5 PM-8 PM v

Installation view, “Christina Ramberg: A Restropective,” Art Institute of Chicago JAMES HOSKING

STAGED READING

An in-store event goes wrong in Meet the Author

Joe Janes’s latest comedy takes place at bookstores around the city.

By KERRY REID

The in-store author appearance is an awkward neither fish nor fowl contraption.

It’s primarily a marketing tool dressed up as a literary event. And unlike larger lectures or panel discussions at events like the Chicago Humanities Festival or Printers Row Lit Fest, where the merchandise is kept outside in the lobby, authors for in-store appearances are surrounded with not just their own wares—there are also reminders of all the other authors who are winning the awards and achieving the sales figures to which they aspire. I worked at the late Rizzoli Bookstore

in Water Tower Place o and on for five years, and there was nothing quite so disheartening as seeing an author look out anxiously at rows of empty folding chairs, surrounded by stacks of their latest e ort—with nobody clamoring for an inscription.

Chicago writer, performer, and longtime improv and sketch teacher Joe Janes has turned that awkwardness and anxiety into a new one-act comedy, Meet the Author. In a meta touch, the show (directed by Andrea J Dymond) takes place in real time at various bookstores around the city for the next month. It kicks o Thursday at Tangible Books in Bridgeport (3324 S. Halsted), and other participating bookstores include the Looking Glass bookstore in Oak Park; Uncharted Books and Women and Children First in Andersonville; and the Book Cellar in Lincoln Square.

MEET THE AUTHOR 5/ 16 -6/ 12: Wed-Thu 7 PM (visit joejanes.net for complete schedule and locations), free

cred Meow.

For Janes, Stumpner represents a particular kind of thwarted artist. “I’ve always been a little fascinated with the idea of people who just have that dream. But in this case, they don’t really know how to get there. They’re lacking mentorship or quality education. But they still have the drive.” Not unlike Ed Wood or Mark Borchardt (subject of the 2002 documentary American Movie , about Borchardt’s attempts to make an indie horror film), Stumpner has chutzpah, but not skills.

son who works at a bookstore and wants to be on the shelf.” A longtime instructor at Second City, Janes also sees parallels with “the person taking your coat or selling you a ticket” who wants to be onstage.

Janes found the seed of the idea back in 2009. That was when, inspired by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks’s 2006 project, 365 Days/365 Plays—in which she created a new short play every day for a year—Janes came up with 365 Sketches, and wrote a new sketch every day for a year. (He started on January 19, 2009, so there was some overlap into 2010.) The finished collection was produced in concert with Janes’s longtime friend Don Hall and his then company, WNEP Theater, in June 2010.

“There was a sketch in there that I always liked,” says Janes. “It’s a sketch about this person who works at a Borders bookstore. On a day when they’re working and their boss isn’t there, they do a reading of a book they wrote, and they just kind of fake it. And then of course they get busted. I was always fascinated by that. There’s so many mirrors—here’s a per-

In Meet the Author , Casey Stumpner (Janes) is a middle-aged white guy and Tom Clancy wannabe flogging the latest in his self-published series of “actiotica” (action plus erotica),

“I’ve always been a little fascinated with the idea of people who just have that dream. But in this case, they don’t really know how to get there.”

Thrust & Perry:

Pig in a Blanket of Danger (about the “thrilling midwest adventures” of Nigel Thrust and Sinister Perry). Paige Turner, the owner of the store, is only presenting the event because her partner, Seth, arranged it without telling her. The only person at the reading who has actually read any of Casey’s work, Nate, hates his writing (which, based on the excerpts we hear, is a fair choice). There’s also an unseen (but heard) bookstore cat, Sa-

Janes finds some parallels in his own career path. “In the early days after college, I was a standup comedian and I toured for five years. This was in the 80s, where the big, big [standup] explosion was. I’m sort of like Casey in that situation where I wanted to get up onstage and do it. I wanted to be super famous, get a sitcom, whatever. But I had no mentors. I didn’t know how to ask for help. I was embarrassed to ask for help. And then I learned on the road like, ‘Oh, I need a headshot. I need a press kit. I need to, like, figure out who I am and try to sell it.’”

In the play, Stumpner’s resentment (and yes, sense of entitlement) bubbles out toward the handful of people at the reading. “Pay something, for God’s sake. It’s pay-what-youcan, not pay-if-you-feel-like-it. I worked hard. For free. For you. Don’t be a doofus, like my mom, who expects everything for free. Want to support your son’s life’s work, Mom? Maybe throw him a few bucks. You’re no longer paying for my clothes, food, or rent, so what else are you doing with those Social Security checks? Prescription meds and food? Use your senior discounts.”

Joe Janes JENNI CARROLL

The idea of touring the show to various bookstores made sense to Janes. “We probably couldn’t find a bookstore that would want us to do a whole run. But we thought, ‘Maybe this is something to take around. Maybe it’s an opportunity to go to independent bookstores and give them an opportunity to do something that’s unusual that might bring in people who don’t usually come in and sell some books [to them].’ And you know, in theater today, it’s a little up and down. People are having trouble getting audiences in.” Janes also wrote Macbeth by the Sea , a comedy based on the Shakespeare tragedy. That show won raves in the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and will be remounted in the

fall at the Den Theatre. He also hopes to do a sit-down run with Meet the Author at some point, and he’s submitted it for a possible appearance at Printers Row.

“I’m sort of like Casey in that situation where I wanted to get up onstage and do it. I wanted to be super famous, get a sitcom, whatever.”

For now, he’s looking forward to bringing the piece to audiences around the city and building word of mouth in an increasingly crowded and complicated world for all forms of culture.

“How do you stand out? How do you get people to notice it? Here’s five billion books you can read for free. So how do you distinguish yourself? I commend these bookstores. It’s so awesome that they exist and they’re out there either doing used books or bringing in new authors and new books.” v

m kreid@chicagoreader.com

ATTENTION

ATTENTION ALL HCV PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS, PUBLIC HOUSING RESIDENTS, RAD & PBV RESIDENTS

If you listed Lawndale Complex or the Lawndale Community Area on your Housing Choice Survey as a place you would like to permanently live, please read the information listed below.

Proposed Updates to the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Administrative (Admin) Plan & to the Public Housing Admissions and Continued Occupancy Policy (ACOP)

The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) is releasing proposed updates to the HCV Admin Plan & Public Housing ACOP for public comment.

The 30-day public comment period begins May 15 and ends June 13, 2024. While CHA encourages and welcomes all program participants, residents, and the community-at-large to review the proposed updates to the HCV Admin Plan & Public Housing ACOP you are not required to view or attend the public comment hearings to submit comments. Your presence or absence at the hearing does not a ect your housing.

The Draft Tenant Selection Plan (TSP) and Lease for Ogden Commons, a mixed-income community is available for review. The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) has worked with its development partner to develop a Draft TSP and Lease for use at the private development known as Ogden Commons (previous site of the Lawndale Complex). The units within this development will be used as replacement public housing units for Lawndale Complex and the Lawndale Community area. If you listed Lawndale Complex/Lawndale Community area on your Housing Choice Survey as a place you want to live or maintain a right to return to new CHA replacement housing per the Relocation Rights Contract (RRC), you can comment on the Draft TSP and Lease during the 30-day public comment period.

CHA will host two public comment hearings—one livestream and one in-person:

• Livestream: Mon, May 20, 2024, at 11:00 am www.thecha.org (A recording of the livestream session will be available following the hearing. A sign interpreter will be present.)

The 30-day public comment period will be held for CHA to receive written comments starting April 7 through May 7, 2021. The Tenant Selection Plans (TSP) will be available on CHA’s website beginning April 7, 2021.

• In-person: Wed, June 5, 2024, at 6:00 pm FIC 4859 S Wabash (Sign and Spanish interpreters will be present.)

Due to COVID-19, CHA has suspended all in person public meetings and instead, CHA will livestream one public comment hearing. The date and time of the public comment livestream hearing is as follows:

Tue, April 20, 10:00am: https://youtu.be/QBGG47BHXMg

We ask that comments pertaining to the HCV Admin Plan & Public Housing ACOP be submitted electronically to commentontheplan@thecha.org prior to each comment hearing or submitted in the chat during the livestream. All comments will be added to the comment grid and receive a response during the livestream and/or in writing in the comment grid.

If you require translation services check with your property manager for more details or go to www.thecha.org/ about/plans-reports-and-policies/proposed-policies-out-public-comment.

We ask that comments pertaining to the TSP & Lease be submitted electronically to commentontheplan@thecha.org at least 48-hours prior to the comment hearing. Comments will be read live during the time outlined above. Comments received after the hearing will be added to the comment grid.

If you require translation services, please read the attached notice or check with your property manager for more details. Do not mail comments to CHA.

A summary and the full Proposed HCV Admin Plan & Public Housing ACOP will be available on CHA’s website at www.thecha.org May 15. You may also mail or fax comments for the Proposed HCV Admin Plan & Public Housing ACOP. All comments must be postmarked and received by June 13, 2024.

Mail, E-mail or Fax comments to: Chicago Housing Authority

E-mail or Fax comments to: commentontheplan@thecha.org Fax 312. 913.7837

Attention: Proposed HCV Admin Plan & Public Housing ACOP 60 E. Van Buren Street, 12th Floor Chicago, IL 60605

Email: commentontheplan@thecha.org | Fax: 312-913-7837

Ifyouhaveaquestionaboutthisnotice,pleasecalltheCHAat312.913-7300. Torequestareasonableaccommodation,pleasecall312.913.7062. TTY 866.331.3603

If you have a question about this notice, please call 312-913-7300. To request a reasonable accommodation, please call 312-913-7062. TTY 866-331-3603

This smash Off-Broadway hit and Obie Award-winning “rich new play, contemplative and comic” (New York Times‘ Critics’ Pick) makes its Chicago premiere.

“English Only.” Four adult students in Karaj, Iran are studying for the Test of English as a Foreign Language—the key to their green card, medical school admission or family reunification. Chasing fluency through a maze of word games, listening exercises and show-andtell sessions, they hope that one day, English will make them whole. But it might be splitting them each in half.

NOW THROUGH JUNE 9

R AN EDUCATED GUESS

Through 6/2: Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; Definition Theatre, 1160 E. 55th St., definitiontheatre.org, $ 30

REVIEW

An unexpected story about migrant experiences

Definition Theatre’s world premiere of An Educated Guess is gripping.

By ALEJANDRO A. RIERA

When it comes to portrayals, on the big screen or the stage, of the Latino migrant experience, most stories focus on the journey, on the actual border experience and the abuses many migrants face or on multigenerational stories that begin inevitably at the border and end with the family’s eventual assimilation to this country.

So my ears and interest perk up when I hear about movies like Fernando Frías’s touching 2019 feature debut I’m No Longer Here (about a member of Monterrey’s underground cumbia dance scene who is forced to travel to New York after a run-in with a local cartel), or Julio Torres’s quirky, imaginative 2023 Problemista (about a young Salvadoran artist who, in need of a sponsor for his visa, accepts a job with a demanding and rather psychotic art curator played by Tilda Swinton). That’s also true for a play like Definition Theatre’s current world premiere production of Juan José Alfonso’s An Educated Guess. These stories offer a unique perspective and approach to a multifaceted, and complex, issue that defies simplification.

Alba Guerrero (Claudia Quesada, most recently seen in Teatro Vista’s production of ¡Bernarda! , Emilio Williams’s reimagining of Federico García Lorca’s classic) is an INS o cial in charge of interviewing any and all applicants for green cards, work visas, and even citizenship. She learned her interviewing “skills” during the first Gulf War. Guerrero is a tough, by-the-book bureaucrat distrustful of anyone who wants to start a new life in this country, including a Colombian priest, Father Romelio Ospina (Miguel Cohen), sent by the Vatican to clean house at the diocese of New Jersey. Even her colleague, the more empa-

at a time when the INS is under scrutiny for allowing some of the perpetrators into the country and is about to be merged into a new entity—makes the situation even messier. Assuming full responsibility for the oversight, Alba resigns.

Two years later, now working as a secretary/janitor for Father Romelio, she carries the burden of that guilt and is determined to meet face to face with Markovich and find out why he killed those people.

dilemma we could expect.

Alfonso interrupts the action with monologues from a number of migrants (played by Carina Lastimosa and Dylan Rogers) from di erent parts of the world, a device that at first seems distracting and even unnecessary. But by paying close attention to their stories, we see how they relate to Alba’s. Some have been mistreated by bureaucrats like Alba. Others have a connection to her or her relatives. These are stories full of hardship but also empathy and kindness. And it’s hard to even take your eyes o Lastimosa and Rogers when they address you directly, as if you were sitting at a bar or a restaurant or even a park listening to their story. This sensation is aided by Definition Theatre’s small and intimate space, where there is no fourth wall separating stage from audience.

thetic and approachable Nilda (a hilarious Maya Vinice Prentiss), is not immune to Alba’s third-degree approach to her job and life.

Alba’s world is turned upside down when a man she cleared for the green card, Bogdan Markovic (a calculating and chilling Mehmet Can Aksoy), walks into a Boys & Girls Club in Brooklyn with a gun and kills over a dozen people, including six children. What did she miss? The fact that the shooting happens six years after the September 11 terrorist attack—

Quesada portrays Alba as a woman whose intense anger is coiled and ready to strike at any moment, always on the defensive, determined to maintain an appearance of strength even as her inner world begins to crumble. Her conversations with Father Romelio are tense, her own stubbornness getting in the way of seeing reason or even listening to him or acknowledging that he may be right. That’s why the final scene between them packs a punch and delivers the one and only resolution to her

The use of a radio broadcast to break the news of the mass shooting and report on the negotiations of a bipartisan immigration bill during George W. Bush’s administration as well as the display of news clips to mark the passage of time may seem facile, but they end up providing context to the play. Alfonso and director Tyrone Phillips are good eavesdroppers: they are aware of the cadences of how we speak, the informality, the sudden turns a conversation may take. The dialogue has a certain fly-on-the-wall quality that demands our attention, drawing us into these characters’ fortunes and misfortunes.

Even when Alfonso employs the old trick of using a cancer diagnosis as a plot device, the ease with which it is introduced and the direct, no-nonsense way in which it is addressed by the diagnosed character doesn’t feel gratuitous.

An Educated Guess is one of those plays that grabs you by your lapels and shakes you to your core. More than that, it is brave: by positioning a bureaucrat who, by her own words, kills people’s hopes at their centers, Alfonso and Phillips ask us to feel empathy towards a type of character often vilified and turned into a cartoon by well-meaning works about immigration. v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

Clockwise from top: Ana Ortiz-Monasterio (le ), Claudia Quesada; Carina Lastimosa; Dylan Rogers JOE MAZZA / BRAVE LUX

OPENING

RCreature feature

Gods & Monsters revisits the story behind James Whale’s Frankenstein

It’s been too long since actor/director/writer/singer/ dancer/Obama media strategist Paul Oakley Stovall dedicated his prolific talents to Chicago’s theater community. A regular on stages hereabouts through the 1990s and early aughts, the multihyphenate’s career has traveled the globe over the past three decades, encompassing both the worlds of entertainment and high-level politics. With Gods & Monsters, Stovall brings his directorial talents back to Chicago, delivering a production that uncovers new layers within the (fictionalized) final days of pioneering movie director James Whale.

Based on Christopher Bram’s 1995 novel, Father of Frankenstein (turned into the Oscar-winning 1998 film, Gods and Monsters), Tom Mullen’s stage adaptation (produced by Book & Lyrics Theatricals in association with Frame of Reference Productions) retains the key bullet points of the story. Truly a man far ahead of his time, Whale was openly gay in early 20th-century Hollywood, where he made his name as the director of Show Boat, Frankenstein, and Bride of Frankenstein The play unfolds in 1957, when a dying Whale (Scott Westerman) forms a tempestuous friendship with Clayton Boone (Rashun Carter), his gardener. In the movie, Clayton (played by Brendan Fraser) was white. Here, he’s a Black man; the change makes the relationship between Clayton and Whale, and how it intersects with his movies, address race and racism in ways both subtle and vibrant. Frankenstein’s creature was a man of color, Clayton points out in one key passage, specifically a man of color who had to flee a torch-wielding lynch mob a er he was falsely accused of murdering a white girl. It’s one of many revelatory passages that allow Gods & Monsters to explore who gets worshipped and who gets villainized in the U.S. of A.

Like Clayton’s unforgettable analysis of Paul Robeson singing “Ol’ Man River”—the haunting, signature ballad of Show Boat Gods & Monsters merges tragedy with love and hope. It will have you asking just who the real monsters are, both in Hollywood and in the realms beyond. —CATEY SULLIVAN GODS & MONSTERS Through 6/2: Wed-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 8 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Sun 5/26 7 PM; no show 3 PM Sat 5/18; Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, 773-9758150, godsandmonstersonstage.com, $37.75 (VIP reserved seating in first four rows $47.75, seniors $27.75, students $12.75)

RCity kids on the move Last Stop on Market Street hits the high notes.

Young People’s Theatre of Chicago brings this musical adaptation of the children’s book classic Last Stop on Market Street back to Chicago in a vibrant production that packs soul, substance, and silliness into one hour. Cheryl L. West’s adaptation of Matt de la Peña’s picture book (illustrated by Christian Robinson) features a score from son Paris Ray and father Lamont Dozier—the latter a member of legendary Motown songwriting team Holland-Dozier-Holland. It has its roots in Chicago, as it was codeveloped by Chicago Children’s Theatre and a similar company in Minneapolis. YPT’s production, codirected by Tuesdai B. Perry and Randy White, excels with the musicality and bilingual rhythm of the songs

and scenes, thanks to an enthusiastic and earnest cast, as well as a charming jewel box set.

The story follows CJ, a six-year-old who is majorly disappointed to be spending the weekend with his Nana in the city. Aja Singletary brings such depth of feeling and nuance to CJ, reminding us how multilayered and relatable kids can be beneath the pouts and tantrums. And as Nana, Jenece Upton feels familiar and full of life, using humor and tough love to crack her grandson’s exterior, which is as hard as the shells of his turtles (a favorite animal). In one funny grandparent/grandkid misunderstanding, CJ can’t believe Nana plans to feed him ropa vieja (translation: old clothes) for dinner. Singletary and Upton’s musical duets are memorable and wide-ranging, from punchy hip-hop to plaintive

the space to bring out the senses of foreboding and claustrophobia as Becket makes his return from exile to Canterbury, and predicts his murder by knights acting in the name of King Henry II.

James Sparling is excellent as Becket. For all practical purposes he carries the piece—Becket is the only character in the play identified with a proper name, not just a description—and he winningly conveys the dedication of the “turbulent priest” who so vexed King Henry. The supporting players, among them a chorus commenting on the action, are excellent as well, especially Varris Holmes and Robert Howard as both “tempters” to Becket and knights who arrive to kill him.

When the knights show up, they stand outside the

ballads. Around them, the rest of the cast creates the textured fabric of a diverse, multicultural city and at my performance, kids were up and dancing in their seats. —MARISSA OBERLANDER LAST STOP ON MARKET STREET Through 6/2: Sat 11 AM and 1:30 PM, Sun 1:30 PM; Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln, 773-404-7336, yptchi.org, $25 (under 12 $19), recommended for 4+

RMurder in the Cathedral has fresh relevance

City Lit stages T.S. Eliot’s classic about political violence.

T.S. Eliot conceived of his verse play Murder in the Cathedral in 1935. It was performed at Canterbury Cathedral and in the very room where the murder that provides the inciting incident of the plot—the killing of Archbishop Thomas Becket—took place.

In a nod to that original staging, City Lit Theater Company’s new production (the first actual performance in Chicago in decades) unfolds in the sanctuary of Edgewater Presbyterian Church, instead of the second-floor space where City Lit normally performs. Performing the play in a church was an inspired choice—director Terry McCabe makes excellent use of

Genco) orphanage through a manhole/time portal, ending up in 1815 Paris where Arnie’s met by the cast of Les Misérables, or at least as close to the cast of Les Misérables as satire exceptions for copyright regulations allow.

Tyler Anthony Smith’s script gets even more delightfully absurd from there, reeling in references to Bob Fosse, Oliver!, The Phantom of the Opera, Miss Saigon, poverty, death, human trafficking, coprophilia, and home invasion, to name just a few themes woven into this crazy tapestry.

The cast (directed by Stephanie Shaw) seems exceptionally game throughout. Caitlin Jackson stopped the show, belting out the tunes as Pantene (“the crazy cat Garnier Fructis lady”); she also portrays respiratory distress better than any other performer, or asthmatic, I’ve ever seen. Portraying Nancy, an archetypal hooker with a heart of gold, Smith knows how to hold his notes as well.

Poor People! is expertly choreographed by Christopher Kelley, and I loved most of the songs when I could hear the lyrics correctly—I was unfortunately seated next to a speaker, and the music frequently drowned out the singers. Among my favorite tunes were the show’s takes on “It’s the Hard-Knock Life,” from Annie; “Feed the Birds,” from Mary Poppins; and especially “Show Me,” from My Fair Lady —MATT SIMONETTE POOR PEOPLE! THE PARODY MUSICAL Through 6/16: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 4 PM; Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division, handbagproductions.org, $42 (VIP/ reserved seating $60)

RThe power of Ten Gi Theatre’s annual festival of tenminute plays is a must-see.

What started as a birthday party celebration for the Gi has since become an annual tradition, featuring ten ten-minute plays by a variety of playwrights. Adding to the numerical energy, each play is also rehearsed for ten hours before being performed . . . you guessed it, ten times. In defiance of rising entertainment costs, the show costs $10 too.

sanctuary trying to force the doors open as Becket resigns himself to his fate. It’s an eerie moment made all the more real when we remember similar moments in recent history when mobs, not knights, have shown up to rid themselves of their leader. Even more unsettling is when the knights break the fourth wall near the play’s end and ask the audience to reconsider their guilt. City Lit’s production does a great job drawing out the contemporary pertinence in Eliot’s 89-year-old text. —MATT SIMONETTE MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL Through 6/16: Fri-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Mon 6/3 and 6/10 7:30 PM; City Lit Theater Company, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr, 773-293-3682, citylit.org, $34 (seniors $29, students and military $12)

ROrphan black comedy

Hell in a Handbag’s Poor People! serves a satirical feast.

At one point in Hell in a Handbag’s new opus, Poor People! The Parody Musical, the central protagonist, L’il Orphan Arnie (Dakota Hughes), complains, “Nothing makes sense when I try to make sense of it.”

Audience members should keep Arnie’s statement in mind when they watch Poor People! In true Handbag fashion, the show begins with Arnie escaping the abusive environs of the meth-addled Miss A’s (Sydney

This year’s lineup was a satisfying mixture—a jumble of themes and genres, from a ten-minute sketch from improvisers Dr. Coke (directed by Hannah Toriumi), to a tragicomic physical theater piece called The Imaginary Friend by Silent Marvin, acted by Martel Manning and his alter ego Harrison Hapin (directed by Jordan Reinwald).

In today’s attention-span-challenged world, the ten-minute play has a lot going on—it must set its premise, build empathy, and nail the story arc before the clock runs out. That creates a palpable sense of forward motion with the audience. For example, the first short play, The Unbroken Line by Matthew Yee (directed by Gabriel Franken), established its world quickly—an alternative Paris at the scene of a successful art heist, where detectives use psychic abilities rather than the process of elimination to solve crimes. A subplot that paralleled the art heist story emerged, exploring loss and burnout amongst detective colleagues. Not the kind of simple tale you might expect for such a short work, yet singular in its execution.

Ten 2024 creates a setting with simple constraints where seasoned and new directors and actors can mingle their talents and keep the audience riveted. Ten out of ten; must-see. —KIMZYN CAMPBELL TEN 2024 Through 5/20: Mon and Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; Filament Theatre, 4041 N. Milwaukee, thegifttheatre.org, $10 v

Gods & Monsters YESENIA ESTEBAN

Get showtimes and see reviews of everything playing this week at chicagoreader.com/movies

NOW PLAYING

RIn the Fade

Fatih Akin’s 2017 In the Fade (Aus dem Nichts) starts out as a painful and necessary examination of the human costs of right-wing ideology and neoNazi violence. Reformed drug dealer, travel agent, and translator Nuri Şekerci (Numan Acar) and his son Rocco (Rafael Santana) are killed by a neo-Nazi nail bomb, leaving wife and mother Katja (Diane Kruger) to struggle with her grief and rage.

Turkish former small-time drug dealers are rarely protagonists in Western film, and the movie is well aware of that fact and its implications. The hideous ideology of the murderers, Edda and Andre Möller (Hanna Hilsdorf and Ulrich Brandhoff ), is mirrored and validated by the police, and even by Katja’s mother, all of whom are convinced that Nuri somehow brought his death on himself. The absence of Nuri and Rocco is a bleak, throbbing reminder of the way that certain people’s lives, and certain people’s griefs, are erased and ignored.

The first third of the film, in which Kruger forces us to sit with and stare at that insight, is almost unendurable. The rest of the movie, though, shi s in genre—first courtroom drama, and then revenge plot.

Akin’s direction and storytelling remains competent and compelling. But the familiar tropes inevitably tame the material and give you someone and something to root for—a blond, white woman protagonist whose quest and actions at least approximate those of white woman protagonists in a lot of more familiar films.

In the Fade is hardly a cheerful watch, and it carefully avoids various Hollywood visions of catharsis and justice. It also, though, turns its back, at least to some degree, on its own most painful insights. It remains a good movie, with an important message about the costs of intolerance and radicalization. It doesn’t, however, quite live up to the shattering power of its early moments. —NOAH BERLATSKY Thu 5/23, 6 PM, Goethe-Institut Chicago (Michigan Room), 150 N. Michigan, free

R Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes begins generations a er the franchise’s last installments directed by Matt Reeves, which followed the first speaking ape, Caesar. And just as this film’s central simian Noa (Owen Teague) must contend with Caesar’s legacy, director Wes Ball must escape the shadow of Reeves, who took easy popcorn fodder and built a complex saga about emancipation and revolution.

Ball follows Reeves’s example, albeit with a more scattered approach. Themes jump around, from coexistence, to isolationism, and most interestingly, to the bastardization of legacy. Proximus (Kevin Durand), the film’s villain, hopes to transcend his mortal kingdom, much like the original ape messiah, Caesar. Proximus, Ball, and screenwriter Josh Friedman muddy the mem-

ory of Caesar, commemorating him as a populist tyrant rather than a selfless leader. It’s a fascinating move, in line with this franchise’s refusal to deliver easy answers.

As Noa journeys across the remnants of human civilization, other complicated questions arise. This lumbering odyssey demands more patience than the usual science-fiction blockbuster, with frequent pauses for Noa’s traveling partner, the sage orangutan Raka (Peter Macon), to ruminate and remember. This more measured pace may excite audiences eager for a spread of themes and frustrate those who prefer ape action.

The film does dole out plenty of inventive, highenergy set pieces that make thorough use of this new world’s verticality. And frequently, the action sequences mirror the film’s central tension: can Caesar’s dream of cohabitation be realized in this world marred by violence? This question lays the groundwork for future installments, though the film itself is self-contained. Thankfully, rather than leaving us with a dangling narrative, Ball ends it on a thematic cli anger, one ripe for future exploration. And if this film is anything to go by, Ball and this team are off on the right foot.

—MYLE YAN TAY PG-13, 145 min. Wide release in theaters

Mother of the Bride

While there’s nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned Hallmark-style rom-com, there are just so darn many these days that to make one truly worthwhile, it really has to be a cut above. And while Mother of the Bride seems to have a lot of what could make it a standout—a pretty solid cast full of charismatic actors, a beautiful location, and a mildly predictable plot—it doesn’t manage to gel. While Miranda Cosgrove is fun as a brideto-be that gets a little sucked into her influencer life, Brooke Shields seems to be trying just a little too hard as Lana, the titular mother of the bride. Scenes where she’s meant to be reconnecting with an old flame played by Benjamin Bratt seem entirely one-sided, with most of the steam and charisma coming from Bratt’s side of the

the story of a little brown pony (Alabama Shakes’s Brittany Howard, in her first acting role) who fronts a rippin’ band, the Rusty Buckets, with her two donkey friends. The group aspires to a spot on Sparklepalooza, but they’re not getting a fair shake. That is, until Thelma has a run-in with a carrot and a truck carrying paint and glitter, a er which she gains an almost instant, shockingly rabid following.

From there, it’s your typical “girl doesn’t know what she got until it’s gone” story, but with a few high points, including a couple of sleazy character performances from Jemaine Clement and The Righteous Gemstones’s Edi Patterson. Howard delivers on the original songs, but overall the movie feels fairly ephemeral, not unlike much of Netflix’s other kids content. Thelma the Unicorn probably won’t end up making a lasting impression on most people, but it’s an enjoyable enough watch for any family movie night. —MARAH EAKIN PG, 93 min. Netflix

back-and-forth. Rachael Harris plays a horny aunt and gets a lot of fun lines but sadly no action, and Wilson Cruz and Michael McDonald are welcome additions to the cast, playing the groom’s married uncles. The film ends with a misdirect and twist that are so ridiculous they’re almost maddening, and the choreographed dance number during the credits doesn’t help win any goodwill back. If you’re a diehard fan of someone in the cast, then it could be worth a second-screen skim, but otherwise you can send your regrets to this wedding flick. —MARAH EAKIN PG, 88 min. Netflix

Thelma the Unicorn

Kids love unicorns. It’s a fact. They’re sparkly, cute, and always have some kind of magical rainbow vibes radiating off of them. But what about boring old brown farm ponies? Does anyone care nearly as much about them— even if they’re imbued with a superstar singing voice? That’s the question at hand in Thelma the Unicorn, a new Netflix movie based on a book by author Aaron Blabey (Pig the Pug, The Bad Guys). Written by Napoleon Dynamite’s Jared and Jerusha Hess, Thelma tells

Wildcat

Flannery O’Connor wrote some of the most honest stories about Americans and their many flaws that anyone has ever put to paper. A woman of the south, contrained by lupus as well as the region’s prejudices, O’Connor created characters as funny and cursed as she was, by all accounts.

Ethan Hawke and his daughter, Maya, the director and star of this waxwork biopic, respectively, clearly have their hearts in the right place, but they miss just about every beat that makes O’Connor’s prose sing. Interspersing documentary-reenactment-style scenes from her stories with anecdotes from her own life, they bathe the entire thing in a warm nostalgic light not unlike one of those old-timey filters on Instagram. This is an animatronic re-creation of an ugly, racist America and a troubled, misunderstood writer that didn’t make me feel any connection to the country’s past, nor how that past continues to haunt its present.

Alongside his daughter, Hawke has assembled a stellar cast highlighted by Laura Linney, who plays several women from O’Connor’s stories, namely her domineering mother. Liam Neeson pops up improbably as a well-meaning Catholic priest, and Cooper Hoffman does a nice turn as a fictional Bible salesman who’s not what he seems. But none of their talents can rescue a project that values appearances over emotion and substance. The best thing it can do is point new readers to O’Connor’s immortal work.

—DMITRY

SAMAROV 103 min. Gene Siskel Film Center, Music Box Theatre v

In recent years, I’ve watched several of Peter Weir’s films—Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), The Last Wave (1977), and The Mosquito Coast (1986)—and have rather liked them. He’s Australian, which may account for the canny handling of the natural world as a stage for cinematic intrigue in these films. He has range, though, accounting for the overall quality of his work despite some di erences in genre and tone among it. (He also directed such films as Dead Poets Society [1989] and The Truman Show [1998].)

I’d long heard that Weir’s 2003 big-budget seafaring epic was well worth watching, but I was thankful for having held o when I saw that the Chicago Film Society (CFS) would be screening Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)—on film, of course— at the Music Box Theatre. Sometimes it works out like that: I miss something released relatively recently, and then I’m finally able to see it with an audience further removed from any initial hubbub. There’s something to be said about distance from a film’s original release, especially as “the discourse” has begun to mold our collective opinions of a movie often before most have even had a chance to see it. Master and Commander is both quite good and a fun watch. Based on English novelist Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey–Maturin series of maritime novels, the film was intended to be the first in a franchise (probably for the best that didn’t happen; very rarely do the words “franchise” and “quality” exist in the same sentence) but exists now as a relic of only just recently bygone times, when special e ects were actually, you know, still kind of special. Great detail went into making the film as accurate as possible; it was largely shot on full-scale replicas of ships in a 20-million-gallon tank,

built originally for Titanic, and for ten days on a reproduction of an 18th-century Royal Navy ship at sea.

Russell Crowe plays the ship’s captain and Paul Bettany its doctor. The film, set during the Napoleonic Wars, centers on orders to intercept a French privateer. While the battle scenes are as impressive as they are rip-roaring, it’s the social relationship among the men that captivated me. Much is written about toxic masculinity these days, but here’s an example of something I might term positive masculinity in how it depicts the bonds among the men only strengthening their resolve for goodness, albeit shown here with regard to the expectations and conformity of military life.

(There’s always a catch.)

Contrast this sharply with Maurice Tourneur’s The Ship of Lost Men (1929), which CFS also screened at the Music Box on 35 mm with live musical accompaniment by Jay Warren.

Maurice is the father of Jacques Tourneur (Cat People [1942], I Walked with a Zombie [1943]). Perhaps Jacques inherited his sense of menace from his father. While I generally found the film to be meandering, I felt great anxiety when, toward the end, the ship’s crew run amok attempting to find the rescued woman (played by Marlene Dietrich, an aviatrix whose plane crashed into the sea), ostensibly to rape her. It’s a terrifying premise and an even more terrifying sequence. I’ll give the elder Tourneur credit even if I didn’t care so much for the film overall—this part especially was brilliantly directed and achieved its intended e ect.

Until next time, moviegoers. —KAT SACHS v

The Moviegoer is the diary of a local film bu , collecting the best of what Chicago’s independent and underground film scene has to o er.

The Ship of Lost Men (1929) MUSIC BOX THEATRE

POP ARTIST

Amira Jazeera M

y mom was born and raised in Chicago. Her dad and her mom moved to the States when they were young—they left Palestine. They actually started a food company called Ziyad. My dad, he was born in Palestine. In the ’67 war, he was two; my dad was born in ’64, so when he was two, he had to leave with his whole family. They moved to Kuwait—there’s a lot of Palestinians that ended up moving to Kuwait during that time. He grew up there.

‘This is deeply rooted in who I am’

The Palestinian diaspora enriches our city’s music scene. Three Chicagoans show how in their own words.

By LEOR GALIL

More Palestinians call Cook County home than any other county in the United States. I’ve often thought of the local Palestinian diaspora in the months since Israel launched its military assault on Gaza. I’m a longtime advocate for Palestinian rights and sovereignty and an Israeli citizen through my father, and I oppose the genocide Israel is committing in my name. My job at the Reader has put me in touch with many Palestinians who’ve enriched the music scene in Chicago, which I’ve dedicated my professional life to covering. I wanted to interview them at length, so that I could give them space in the paper to discuss their lives and the complexities of their experiences, which we’ll never hear

about in mainstream U.S. media.

I couldn’t get to everyone, but I did talk to three Palestinians involved in Chicago music. I spoke with pop singer Amira Jazeera, who appears on The Art of War, a guest-packed Gaza relief album that Detroit-based Arab American rapper Eddy Mack released in February; Sooper Records co-owner Steve Daoud, who founded the label with Glenn Curran and Nnamdï and oversees its digital operations; and producer Na’el Yusef Shehade, whose dance-pop duo, Drama (founded with vocalist Via Rosa), recently headlined a sold-out Salt Shed show. Our interviews have been edited for length and clarity. —LEOR GALIL

In his 20s, my dad went to college in the Philippines, and he ended up coming to the States in the 1990s. Then he met my mom. They got married and moved to Columbus, Ohio—so random. My family, they have roots in the Chicago area—we would come and visit my mom’s side. It was my high school graduation, and I decided to drop everything and move here. My older brother, Kal, actually moved here for college, and that was in 2012. Then I decided to come here in 2018.

When I was younger, I would come to visit my older brother, meet his friends and his little chosen family. They were very warm and welcoming. They knew that I had a dream of doing music. Everyone was super supportive, like, “You should go for it.”

I remember my first show—I did a performance here when I was 17. That’s what made me decide to move here. It did help that my brother was here—it’s not like I knew nobody. He introduced me to his friends, so I had a tiny little community. But I mostly didn’t know anyone and kind of started from nothing. Chicago just felt like home to me.

The first week that I moved here, my brother was already living in an apartment with a roommate, and he was about to go to the Middle East for a few months. He let me stay in his room for three months—rent was paid, so I had time to save up money. At the time, I was working at Panera Bread, and I transferred that job from Ohio to here. I remember having no friends, so I downloaded Tinder to make friends. I would go to shows, networking events, meet producers.

What really put me into music was I got a chance to visit SAE Institute Chicago—“SAE” for School of Audio Engineering. One of my good friends, Najee Searcy, they were going to school at SAE at that time and needed a guin-

Clockwise from top le : Amira Jazeera, Steve Daoud, and Na’el Yusef Shehade DANIEL

ea pig for their project—someone to record songs. I volunteered. This was my first time in a real recording studio. I learned a lot about the music business when I was there. It’s like a ripple e ect. The music scene is really tiny here—someone knows someone, and then that person knows someone.

Growing up, I loved pop music. I was in choir. I loved Hannah Montana and the Cheetah Girls. I used to be like, “I wanna be a pop star when I grow up.” That wasn’t really taken as seriously by my family. They were like, “This is just a hobby.”

I almost went to school to be a dentist. But I was like, “This isn’t really what I love to do.”

I’ve always loved making music. I remember at the age of 13, I turned my little brother’s old room into a mini recording studio and would play with GarageBand and write songs on my piano.

What made me realize that I could do it for real was that visit when I was 17. I was onstage, connecting with an audience, and getting to do what I loved. And I remember getting my first paycheck for singing. It was $25, and I’m like, “Wow, this is so cool! You can get paid for this.” Also, me being naturally stubborn as a Taurus, I was very driven. In the early stages of my career, I was trying to prove something too, a little bit, to my family. When I left home,

I was like, “Look, guys, I can do this.” If you listen to my first song, “Whoever,” I’m talking about being whoever I want to be, deciding that, and stepping into it.

Over the past few months, with this genocide and everything going on in Palestine, my views and my intentions toward music have shifted completely. There was a moment where I almost gave up and was like, “What’s the point of this anymore. It feels like this doesn’t even matter. There’s so much shit going on in the world—who gives a fuck about my little dancing song?”

But then something just hit me: “Actually, I do matter, and this is what I’m supposed to

“Something just hit me: ‘Actually, I do matter, and this is what I’m supposed to do. Me silencing myself is what the oppressors want.’” —Amira Jazeera

do. Me silencing myself is what the oppressors want. They don’t want us to be visible, they don’t want us to do all these things that everyone else can do.”

Seeing how strong they are back home, and how resilient they are—you’ll see these kids still playing outside, and they’ve seen the most horrific shit you’ve ever seen in your life, something you’re not supposed to be seeing as a child. They can still have a smile on their face. Like, I need to step the fuck up. That’s how I felt. I’m like, “I’m so blessed and lucky to have a roof over my head and somewhere safe to be.”

During that time when I gave up on music— it was for a month, almost two—I got into tattooing. I needed a creative outlet. I ordered a stick-and-poke kit. I needed to put the pain somewhere, I guess. I remember giving all my Palestinian friends watermelon tattoos. It was really a healing outlet for me, because the idea of being in a studio, making music, made me want to puke. I just did not want to do it. When I came to Chicago, I saw, like, “Damn,

DANIEL

MUSIC

continued from p. 29

there’s so many Palestinians here that are like me.” There’s a huge queer Palestinian community here, and a lot of them are amazing organizers or healers. We’re there for each other—there’s a level of understanding that we have that only we understand. It’s really nice to be in that space. The queer community also inspires me so much, ’cause I see the resilience, and I see how fucking strong they are. It just makes me feel even more driven.

Like I said, now my intentions have changed—the kind of songs I write, what I’m saying in my music, who I want to hear them. I grew up in Columbus, Ohio. I went to a school in a small town—Reynoldsburg High School. There was maybe one or two other Arab girls in the school. I think there was one other Palestinian girl. I didn’t really have anyone else that, like, related to me or looked like me, besides my cousins, and I didn’t see them that often.

It was very new, when I came to Chicago and saw that there were people out there. Before that, I think I just hid away from it a little bit. I never saw representation. I don’t speak Arabic fluently. I understand it, but growing up I didn’t really learn it. I think that has a lot to do with growing up post-9/11 and being in a really white neighborhood. I feel like it was a survival tactic for my mom—her not wanting to teach us or speak to us in public in Arabic.

I feel like a lot of first-generation Palestinians can relate to that. That’s common in the diaspora, but that feels like a piece of me was taken away. I’m learning Arabic right now, taking classes and everything. Obviously it’s harder when you get older.

Most of our family migrated to Jordan. I have a few relatives that are still in Palestine. I would be a little girl, and my dad would be watching Al Jazeera, and all we’re used to seeing is the same issue and it not being resolved. Our fight for liberation has been all I’ve known for my whole life.

Being young, too, I wouldn’t really know what was happening. I just knew that Palestine, they changed the name to our homeland, and we can’t get in—that’s what I knew when I was little. We’ve talked about visiting, and it’s a process. I still haven’t gone to visit, and that’s a goal of mine.

I remember being little and feeling, like, “Why does the world hate us?” Especially growing up post-9/11, that changed a lot. Getting bullied was a thing—for being Arab, Palestinian. Me and my younger brother, the little kids on the bus would be like, “Your dad

is Osama bin Laden. You guys are terrorists.” I’m not even joking. As a little kid, that’s hard to process. That’s also another reason why I would hide away from that identity.

Leaving home and stepping into the world with fresh eyes, without being as sheltered as I was growing up and seeing things for what they are, I was like, “I’m gonna be loud and proud, and I’m gonna be seen. I want people to know who I am and my identity. I’m not gonna let these little things bother me anymore. I feel like that’s going with what the simulation wants—like, going with the Matrix. I don’t wanna be afraid of who I am. I don’t want to have to dim myself to be in these spaces.”

[The song I did with Eddy Mack, “Rhythm of Resistance,”] speaks on that, actually. “Hey, love, don’t you hide, the world needs your shining light.” Pretty much, don’t water yourself down, don’t hide away from this and who you are, use your voice and speak loud. Our joy is our resistance too. I would feel a lot of guilt and shame for being safe, being alive, and eating a meal—having all these things that other people don’t have right now. It would just make me feel like, “Damn, I don’t deserve this.” But we do deserve it, and someone has to tell you it’s OK. I wanted to put that into song. It was like, “This really ties together my purpose and why I make music in general. You are a voice for this community, and now’s your time to speak on it. What do you want to talk about? What message do you want to spread?”

Being in that safe space too, [working on the Eddy Mack project] with a bunch of Palestinian Arab creators, to be able to do that was very nurturing.

It’s my first time singing in Arabic on a song. That was something I used to be very insecure about and, like, ashamed of my American accent or my pronunciation. Being in that space was very healing. It’s giving me chills thinking about it. It was a very special moment, and it’s for a great cause. I’m very honored to be a part of this historical moment. I hope it makes people dance and cry at the same time, or feel some sort of . . . like, you’re allowed to feel joy.

I think of my younger self a lot and those little daydreams that I would have of being a superstar and being able to connect with people. Now it’s different. I want to be able to fully be myself and to let people know that Palestinians in the diaspora, we exist and we deserve to be in these spaces just as much as anyone else. I see myself being like my idols. I want to be a household name. I want it to be normalized to see someone like me.

SOOPER RECORDS CO-OWNER AND COFOUNDER

Steve

Daoud

I’ve known Glenn [Curran] since I was 12. We grew up in the same neighborhood; we went to the same grade school. That’s where we met, in seventh grade. He and I seemed artistically and humorously connected from the getgo. We loved bands like Blink-182 and the pop punk of the ’90s and 2000s. Glenn had a guitar, and I happened upon a bass one day that I got for free. So we just started playing. It was a fun way to connect, artistically, with my friend. There’s the intrinsic enjoyment you get from creating and sharing the experience with someone you care about. Obviously the emotional connection was there. It was also a great tool to keep our heads—or at least my head— above water, to keep out of trouble. I looked at it as a saving grace, a way to productively use my time to grow, creatively and intellectually, and do something positive with my time—and something I enjoyed.

We were playing music in his basement, and eventually we formed a band when we were 15, 16 years old. We played for quite some time, until our early 20s. It really helped build friendships and communities. We started hanging out with people from different cultures and backgrounds who connected through music—a lot of our lifelong friends, people that we don’t maybe see every day but we’re still connected with, or that we hung out with a lot back then. Incredibly diverse. It really helped us—or at least myself—experience di erent cultures, di erent ways of thinking, different perspectives within the bubble of the south side of Chicago. Where we were at, it was very—with the exception of maybe myself—homogenous. It really helped me to see the world a bit more broadly and di erently.

My parents split when I was fairly young. My father wasn’t really in the picture. I lived with my mom in Mount Greenwood. She was a single mom, just her and I. My grandparents lived about a mile down the road. My grandfather is Palestinian. He emigrated to the States in, I believe, the 50s with my grandmother, who he met in Brazil. My father and my uncle were born in Brazil.

In high school, I would go to school, and then I would go to my grandparents’ house. I

would spend a lot of time with my grandfather. He worked in a factory when they came here, made his living, saved up, and bought his first grocery store. Then he would sell [grocery stores]. He repeated that process until he was able to retire fairly early. I’ve always been proud that my grandfather did that work, and he was able to have that life. He wasn’t my father, but he was always a provider and a father figure. He was always around; if I needed anything, he was there.

When I was around 17 or 18, my grandparents moved to Palestine. My grandfather built a home there, and they lived there for seven or eight years. But he had a lot of trouble because he was Palestinian. He had resources to travel in and out of the country; he was very fortunate in that way. But he was often getting arrested trying to come into the country. He owned property. They had a little olive farm off the property; they had caretakers at the property. He just wanted to be home— that’s where his ancestors are from, that’s where he was born, that’s where his father farmed in the early part of the last century. He wasn’t able to because of the political conflict. Every time he would leave—they still had an apartment in Chicago—he would come back and it was always some trouble for him.

My grandparents living down the street, my grandma—she’d cook, she would do everything for us. I had my own setup there: video games, N64. We’d go there and chill. My cousins would be there all the time too. It was in the neighborhood, so my friends were easily accessible.

I really lived with them for at least half of my life. My mom is Hispanic and Polish—so even more diversity within my life. She worked during the day, and I’d go to school and see [my grandparents] on evenings and weekends. She took care of me very well, was always around when I needed her. But the majority of my tweens and teens I spent with my grandparents. When they moved away, it was phone calls. I would see them when they would travel back.

My grandfather was Muslim. I’m an atheist myself, but being around him, seeing his habits, his work ethic, and his focus on caring for his family, that really inspired me to be the person that I am today—wanting to be successful, to be able to provide for myself and for the people I love. His story, coming here with less than nothing—he had a wife and two kids—and having to build a life. Finding a path to be so successful that you’re able to retire early and live a good life. That was really inspirational.

My grandfather was there for me. My dad was an auto mechanic—my dad’s still around—and he bought me my first car, paid like 65 bucks for it. It was the biggest piece of crap in the world. My grandparents came back from Palestine—I was 19 or 20 at the time. My grandfather saw this thing, he was like, “What the hell are you driving?” He bought me a car. He took me to get something that was gonna take care of me. It was just love. He wanted to see all of his children and grandchildren do well. My parents only had me; I’m an only child. My dad has a brother, and he has six kids. My grandfather took care of all of us. My dad and my uncle don’t share the success that my grandfather did, to put it kindly. He would find a way to make sure that we had what we needed. It’s an inspiration.

and Yasser Arafat that he was so proud of in the middle of their living room. I don’t know the name of the organization, but he was the president of the Palestinian organization here in Chicago. In their home, he has awards on the shelf underneath the TV. I know that he donated, quite significantly, to the organizations.

I don’t know all the details—he would never share exactly what he did—but the proof was there that he was doing something, because he was constantly being recognized.

I never really thought about [my identity].

I knew I was Palestinian but never thought of myself, culturally, as anything other than

some kid from the south side. That’s who I am and who I was. Diversity was just a part of life. That’s just what you are. My father is from Brazil, my grandmother’s from Brazil. My grandfather, he’s from Palestine, my mom’s Polish and Hispanic. That’s just what life is. I’m just a guy who likes to play music; I like pro

“Profit is not what Sooper is or has been about. It’s about helping others.” —Steve Daoud

It really instilled in me that deep desire for success. I don’t want to frame it as just monetary success, but the ability to take care of the people that you love and yourself.

[My grandfather] was very involved in the community. In my grandmother’s house—my grandma’s still with us, but he passed in April of last year. [He was] very involved in Palestinian politics, and he had a big picture of him

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continued from p. 31

wrestling. I like to eat and cook, watch funny movies. I never really interpreted, to an intellectual level, the history, the culture, and the identity that comes along with all of that. I feel like I may have been to some degree insulated, because I did have such a nice, accepting, warm community. I feel like I’m fortunate in that way. It’s in the later years of my grandfather’s life where I start to really think about that context of me as a person. And especially with the tragedy that’s happening currently. I know that I have family overseas; I don’t know any of them personally. But [when] the communities in the places, the spaces, the heritage, the blood that formed one of the most meaningful people in your life are under attack—that’s very hard to swallow.

I’ve never had to think about this. I’ve never

DRAMA COFOUNDER AND PRODUCER

Na’el

Yusef

Shehade

Ibought a Daft Punk record, “Da Funk,” and that sparked my curiosity for music. I started DJing at 11 years old. Then I heard Kanye West’s College Dropout, and I was like, “How did he speed up those voices?” I saved up a bunch of money and bought an MPC [music workstation], and then I found an ASR-10 at a pawnshop. I began to make music after that; I never stopped.

I was DJing at this place called the Silver Room on Milwaukee Avenue. I was literally a child, and I would come with this record bag, walk into the [Silver Room], and [the owner, Eric Williams, would] be like, “Go ahead and DJ!” Then he’d be like, “Want to come back next weekend and DJ?”

I would come back every few weeks, whenever my mom allowed me to come back. I would walk down the street with this 50pound record bag. I got into the rap world for a while, worked on some really amazing rap records, and then wanted to go back to my house and dance roots.

I grew up in Wicker Park. My family migrated here from Palestine and Syria. They ended up first in South America, and then we migrated into Chicago. I think they just want-

had to feel this or understand this. I think about that in the context of my grandfather and the pain he would have felt, had he experienced this now. Perhaps he had some good fortune to pass before having to experience what’s going on. There’s no hate within that context either. It’s just sadness. He always used to tell us that the Jewish people are our cousins. Even the grief that he felt, he would always say that to us: that they’re your cousins, you don’t hate them. When I was younger, before I married my wife, I brought a couple of Jewish girls to meet him, and he was nothing but kind, loving, “welcome to the family” sentiment.

He was a good person. My name is Steve. ’Cause he had a thick accent, sometimes he would pronounce my name “Stef,” S-T-E-F. Sometimes I identify as Stef when my wife is joking around with me. “Stef, get over here.” That’s also a nice way to remember him.

ed a place where they knew other Arabs like us and they could assimilate into the culture. My uncles were here, and they brought my dad here, and then they just began their other whole journey.

My dad always ingrained in us, “Always give back to the Palestinians. Always make sure that you go back and visit.” I’ve been trying to go back as much as I can. It’s very di cult to go back, even as an Arab American with an American passport; they give you a really hard time.

I’ve tried to go a few times. Nine out of ten times I’ve been at the border for, like, nine hours, plus being asked a thousand questions: why I’m coming here, what’s my purpose here. They do that to you to push you away from actually coming to visit your father’s land. I went one time with some friends; they’re American, and they got in normally. I was like, “Watch this, guys, they’re gonna give me the hardest time.” That time, it was a seven-hour wait—so my friends were outside the airport waiting for seven hours.

My parents really ingrained in us not to lose our culture. When you come to the West, you do tend to lose yourself with the influence around you. They always ingrained in us, “Remember that you’re Palestinian. Remember that you’re an Arab. Remember that your culture is so rich and strong.” That’s what I grew up understanding.

I’ve been trying my best to always represent who I am and always go back and always give back. I was able to go back in 2017, to a refugee camp. It’s called Aida camp, and it’s in Bethlehem. I went with a group, and we were able

On the day-to-day, I’m not crazy involved in Sooper. I have done it because of my relationship with Glenn. I had a skill and talent that was useful in the creation of Sooper, and I wanted to offer that to my friend. I’ve always enjoyed music. But I didn’t join Sooper because of music, per se—that was a nice bonus. I joined Sooper because of my friend. He had this idea, and I wanted to be there for him. Even to this day that’s the philosophy. I’m really happy with the work that he’s done with Sooper and where it’s going. All of the credit belongs to him. I am here to support him, and that’s my role at Sooper.

That is deeply rooted in who I am—wanting to support the people that you care about. I’m glad that Sooper exists, because it gives me that opportunity. It’s also a connective tissue. As we get older and we start to build our own families, we still talk, but there’s now this

to work with youth in that area to teach them how to produce and do music. Being in a refugee camp for the first time, I was just, “This is fucking crazy, how people can live like this.” I knew there was gonna be some issues, but I never thought it was going to be like what I saw—just how oppressed people are. But it also gave me a perspective of how they take a negative situation and they really see the positive out of it. They’re like, “Thank God we’re still alive. Thank God we have this, thank God we have that.” They don’t really have anything, but they’re so grateful.

I was able to work with the youth and create a studio out of nothing. I brought a bunch of wires and things in my bag, so I could make something out of it, and we made a studio. I brought my [Ableton] Push; I brought my laptop. We made a couple beats; we shot a music video there.

It taught me to be resilient—especially being in this music business, you can’t give up. It’s structured and designed in a way to push you away from doing it, because it’s so hard and it’s so many obstacles that you have to go through in order to “make it” or to make something of it. That’s like the resilience of a Palestinian—just never giving up and fighting for what your value is and what you know is right.

My parents would have preferred me being a doctor or a lawyer, something of that caliber. But I chose art because you can connect with people a lot di erently. It’s pretty cool when I meet other Arabs and immigrants and they’re like, “Dude, you’re paving the way. You’re

thing that’s also there to constantly keep us connected. Glenn’s a genius; I feel like he did that intentionally.

I hope I’ve had a positive impact. I’m happy and excited to continue to do that alongside him. Sooper is not just about music. It is deeply rooted in caring for the community. It’s a for-profit company, but profit is not what Sooper is or has been about. It’s about helping others. Honestly, it’s a point of pride. It’s something very interesting and cool. We went to see Nnamdï play the UIC Pavilion with my wife and her sister and husband. It was cool, like, “Oh, this guy that I own this company with is opening for the Strokes.” But for me, outside of the doldrums of the day-to-day, working, having a full-time job, studying, and taking care of our home, it’s something I can think about and help influence on a more creative level. It’s an outlet. It satisfies that creative bug.

showing that you can be Brown—you don’t have to be a certain kind of look to do this.” Being a Palestinian has helped me out a lot. What I go through is nothing compared to what they’re going through. I’m trying to make it in this music business; it ain’t shit. What am I really doing, essentially? They’re the real heroes. They’re the ones who are really fighting for something that we take for granted every day—just being able to walk outside, just being free, and to be able to make music and go to a Guitar Center. There was a Guitar Center that we wanted to go to, but it was in Tel Aviv. If we took the normal route, it would’ve taken us 30 minutes. But none of them could leave—and I couldn’t leave either. I would have never come back, because I would’ve gotten stuck at some border. I just had a baby. And I look at the baby, and I see what’s going on in Palestine, and it’s heartbreaking. There’s times where I tear up and I cry. This is unfair. I would cry even if I wasn’t Palestinian. Anyone who su ers to that capacity, it’s heart-wrenching. But also, it’s shown me there’s always a bright side to everything. As negative as it is, this is the first time that the Palestinians have the world—have their ears. We finally have their ears. Even if a lot of people don’t agree with the Palestinians, now you know what a Palestinian is. You know what the struggle is, so you’re able to make a better assessment. Doing these shows, I’ve seen so many Palestinian flags in places I would have never thought I’d ever see Palestinian flags. I was in Idaho last week, and there is a Palestinian

WILD CHILD

+ OH HE DEAD + TANNER DANE (OF HOLLYY)

HEMANOS GUTIÉRREZ

YELLOW DAYS IN THE ROUND + THE JACK MOVES

JOHN GARCIA

PERFORMING KYUSS, HERMANO, AND SLO BURN + JARED JAMES NICHOLS + TELEKINETIC YETI + LEFT LANE CRUISER

KATIE PRUITT MANTRAS TOUR + JACK VAN CLEAF

PRATEEK KUHAD SILHOUETTES TOUR

FERN BRADY I GAVE YOU MILK TO DRINK

THE

CHARLOTTE DAY WILSON + OURI

ALLIE X

VALEBOL IN THE ROUND + ELIZABETH MOEN (DUO) + CARLILE

HIP-HOP IS HISTORY W. QUESTLOVE

TWO DYKES AND A MIC TOPPING YOUR BEST FRIEND

MATT NATHANSON

THEE SINSEER & THE ALTONS

SINSEERLY YOURS TOUR + BENNY TROKAN

BONNY LIGHT HORSEMAN + ALPHA CONSUMER

SAY SHE SHE + KENDRA MORRIS

MONSIEUR PERINÉ BOLERO APOCALÍPTICO TOUR

MDOU MOCTAR + J.R.C.G.

WITCH + RAHILL

LOS CAMPESINOS! + SHORT FICTIONS

MIDDLE KIDS + GORDI

PEDRO THE LION IN THE ROUND + SQUIRREL FLOWER

MUSIC

continued from p. 32

shows, we finished [the 2016 EP Gallows], and then it just fuckin’ blew up.

I never thought I would ever reach this point. I’m a movement in Idaho. Which was crazy to me. There were no Palestinians in the crowd; it was all white. There was an Instagram page that is dedicated to Palestinians in Boise.

Finally we’re being heard—at whatever volume it’s at, but we’re being heard. There are some shows where I get flicked off. The majority is love; I get a lot of love, about the movement and what’s going on. But you definitely have those negative people. Sometimes it a ects Via [Rosa]—she gets pissed about it. I was like, “You can’t get mad. They want you to get upset.” It’s hard to deal with that. But you gotta do it—it’s a part of the growth.

Ifinished the Chance the Rapper project [in 2013], and I started doing a couple more projects after. I got to a point where I was like, “I’m so sick of rap music. I’m so sick of this scene.” The money’s always weird; it’s never straightforward business. I was like, “You know what, I’m done with this.” A part of it too was Chance went o and won Grammys and didn’t come back to certain people who helped him grow. I was like, “You know what, man, I’m gonna do this the way I wanna do it.”

At the time I was starting a record label. I signed a couple artists, and every artist that I signed wasn’t willing to put in the work. I went to banks and got loans on my artists and tried to really do it. I spent, like, $30,000, $40,000 on artists, ’cause I really believed in what I was doing, and I really believed in them. It was not working. I was like, “Fuck it, I’m just gonna do it myself. I know how to play music. I know how to make tracks. I’ll do it independently, on my own, without any vocalist—or I’ll hire vocalists, here and there.”

I started making the tracks, and then I met Via. We became friends. She was working with ThemPeople at that point. So I was like, “Listen, I’m working on a dance project, would you want to feature on some tracks?” It opened up a whole world. I needed someone to trust me in the process. She really had faith in me; we started the band together. We started doing a couple

She showed me how to be expressive with my music and really be an artist. I’m usually the guy who’s behind the artist; I’m the guy pushing artists to be great. She’s like, “You gotta push yourself to be great.” She definitely inspired me to push through and do this the right way. A lot of this was just believing in myself. She’s just amazing to work with.

producer first. Being an artist now, it’s fucking wild. It’s crazy that I’m able to produce records, go out there and play, and connect with people from all over the world. That’s the biggest thing: being able to connect with different kinds of people, hear di erent peoples’ thought processes and how they do things. It’s

really inspiring. My music has gotten better over the years, because I’m able to travel, listen to different kinds of music, and hear di erent kinds of people play.

Before my dad died, I wasn’t doing Drama yet—it was still an idea. He supported us, but he was always like, “For all the effort that you put into this music, you could have been doing something so much bigger, so much better.” It always stuck in my head because of where he came from. He came from Palestine. He migrated at 17 years old,

“If I was in Palestine, I’d be exactly how those kids were in that refugee camp— wanting to be a musician, wanting to be an artist, but not having an outlet.”

—Na’el Yusef Shehade

on a boat, for three months—went to South America. I had to put myself in his mindset. He just wanted me to have a life that was easier than his. He didn’t want me to struggle, because the music business is a struggle. I could have used what he said as negativity and been like, “He doesn’t support my music.” But I took it as, “I see where he’s coming from. It’s gonna motivate me to really do it at the highest level.” I’m still going. I haven’t reached that level yet. I’m gonna get there at some point. My mom was always supporting me, from day one. She helped me buy a computer—it was, like, 350 bucks at the time—and was like, “Sure, I’ll buy you this computer. But you gotta make sure that you use it.” She was very supportive at the time, always, and still now. She was at the Salt Shed show too, which was crazy for her to see.

That was so important, for her to see my hard work all in one room. It’s crazy, ’cause my parents are very low-key—they’re simple people. I couldn’t even imagine doing what my dad did and my mom did, coming over here from a di erent country, not speaking the language, not having any fucking money. My dad had a fourth-grade education but taught himself how to speak Spanish, Portuguese, and English and created a business for himself. In my eyes, he’s the real one. I have all the opportunity in the world.

Their journey and what they’ve taught me has molded me into the man that I am now. Even just bringing me to this country has given me an opportunity. If I was in Palestine, I’d be exactly how those kids were in that refugee camp—wanting to be a musician, wanting to be an artist, but not having an outlet. So I thank them every day.

My duty as a Palestinian is to give back and to create opportunities for those kids who want to be artists. I feel like I come from this world where there’s no emphasis on being artists. That’s where I need to push through on my end more, to push through to my people to go into the arts. Of course our parents want us to be doctors and lawyers, but that’s not the end-all. There’s more to this.

I went back to [my dad’s] village. He’s from the West Bank, and it’s occupied territory. My dad has land there—he bought his family’s land. It’s olive trees everywhere, but we can’t build on it. We can’t really do anything to it, because it’s in occupied territory. What’s the point of owning a house if you can’t paint the fucking house? Or you can’t build something? Going back there and seeing where he came from and seeing where he lived is crazy. He

MUSIC

lived in this hut—literally a hut. I just couldn’t believe it. To see where he came from gave me even more motivation. Every time I went back, it fuckin’ motivated the shit out of me. It made me more proud to be a Palestinian and pushed me. “I need to do more. I need to do more than my dad did.” My dad did a lot for his people. My father built a mosque in his hometown. He worked so hard to save up money, to build a community center there. He helped build roads and do things in his town. It’s a small town, but to do those things—it gives me perspective, and it gives me a road map to do something great. I feel like our purpose, as humans, we are here to help each other. I feel like we forget about those things—those little things that you can do to give back. I’m grateful for being raised by a man who showed me those things.

I’m not gonna say he was the greatest father in the world, because every father has a struggle. Being an immigrant father is di cult because of the things that you went through. But what he’s taught me has given me the strength to do something great for my people. I plan to build a mosque in Chicago one day, and to build a community center for people to come do music and also tap into the religion or tap into their culture. It’s gonna be open to everyone. We’re working on it. At some point it’s gonna happen. It’s definitely on my list of things I have to do.

I want [my daughter] to always be proud to be a Palestinian, no matter how di cult it gets, no matter what people say. I want to give her the opportunities to spread positivity and give back to her community and other communities. I want people to know who she is. I want her to move the culture.

A lot of pressure, obviously, but I’m gonna set up the groundwork for her to become the best of the best. Everything before was about me. But now it’s about her. Every show, I always think, “How can I save some money for her from this gig?”

What I’ve been doing now, every song that I write, I give her publishing on the record. A few of my records, you’ll see her name in the credits. So by the time she’s 18 or 20, she’ll have a good amount of money in the bank that she can do something with. What’s cool to me is she has writing credits with Via and people like [Danish producer] Robin Hannibal—people who are amazing artists, and she’s right there with them. Setting her up to be great, that’s my plan. Hopefully it goes right. v

m lgalil@chicagoreader.com

+

Featuring Goalden Chyld, the Healthy Hood Cadre, Recoe Chi, Tyre Hakim, Teefa, and more. Hosted by Awthentik Poetry. Sat 5/25, 7 PM, DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, 740 E. 56th Pl., $35, $25 in advance, $40 for two, $50 with meet-and-greet

CITY OF WIN

Goalden Chyld transforms drill music by pushing for peace

His new debut album, War Cry, reached number three on Apple Music’s rap chart, but what he really cares about are the neighbors he serves.

By ALEJANDRO HERNANDEZ

City of Win is a series curated by Isiah “ThoughtPoet” Veney and written by Alejandro Hernandez that uses prose and photography to create portraits of Chicago musicians and cultural innovators working to create positive change in their communities.

More than a decade after it broke out commercially, drill music has arguably become Chicago’s biggest cultural export. This hip-hop subgenre burst into the mainstream in the early 2010s thanks to the likes of Chief Keef, King Louie, and Lil Durk, and it’s now influencing the sound of music as far afield as New York, London, and Japan. But for its entire existence, drill has been marred by controversy due to the gang a liations of its artists and their often violent lyrics.

Chicago rapper Goalden Chyld wants to change the narrative about more than drill music. He wants to transform the way we see the city’s most violent neighborhoods—the ones the folks who live there sometimes call “the trenches.” Growing up, he moved frequently across the south and west sides and saw the e ects of generations of systemic racism and disinvestment.

Mainstream media paints these areas as war zones, incomprehensible to “normal” people, but GC understands that violence in a neighborhood doesn’t make its residents less human. You can demonize them as thugs and gangbangers, but their lives are nuanced and complex, just like the lives of anybody in Wicker Park or Old Town. GC chose to be proactive: he became a community organizer and stepped into conflicts between gangs to resolve them peacefully.

“I was always taught that the best title any man can have is ‘brother,’” he says. “And I strive to be my brother and sister’s keeper—a unifier and peace warrior that’s genuinely for the betterment of our people.”

Goalden Chyld was born into a musical

family in Geneva, Illinois, and raised between Chicago and Aurora, settling here at age six. His mother grew up singing in the choir at Gayles Memorial Baptist Church in Aurora, and his father performed under the name Landmine in 90s Chicago rap collective Soldierz at War. He vividly recalls his first time recording in a studio: when he was eight years old, his father wrote a poem called “Dear Dad” for him to memorize, then held him up to the mike so he could recite it. GC kept an open mind about music as a kid, and today he says he draws inspiration from all over—hip-hop, soul, country, techno. But drill is the sound he’s perfected.

Despite drill’s chart dominance, many rap purists sneer at it because it’s not “lyrically conscious”—that is, it lacks constructive social messaging. GC doesn’t accept that drill isn’t conscious, though, and he believes he can spread positivity in a way that appeals to the younger fans who closely follow Chicago’s drill scene.

“Drill is conscious. I believe oftentimes, the only setback with drill is that they’re telling the truth about the reality of what they may experience in the trenches, but without there being a solution attached to it,” he explains.

“When I listen to drill music, I’m listening to the problems, I’m listening to the struggles, I’m listening to the pain. And for anybody that wants to help, you got to be able to understand the problems or struggles, the pain, so that in turn you can provide some type of remedy.”

Goalden Chyld’s new debut album, the March release War Cry, attempts to o er those missing solutions. Its production is very much in line with typical drill—hard-hitting bass knocks, aggressive 808 drums—but its lyrics diverge from the genre’s template, instead promoting peace, self-improvement, and faith in God. GC often drops “Allahu Akbar” as an ad-lib. The final product sounds like a hybrid of two Chicago rap legends, fusing G Herbo–style

beats with lyrics that might’ve come from Common.

In the War Cry track “Trenches United,” GC raps, “We still cleaning up, I told them that we far from perfect / Brothers hit me ready to crash out, I’m like nah, it ain’t worth it / I need thinkers with me, we got too much work to do.”

So many rappers exaggerate the truth to inflate their importance that Goalden Chyld stands out by actually living what’s in his lyrics, spending his days intervening in gang violence. War Cry surpassed all expectations, and within days of its release it’d peaked at number three on the Apple Music rap chart, right under Future & Metro Boomin and Joyner Lucas—all with zero promotion budget. But to GC, what matters more than the commercial success of his recordings is his connection to the people he serves—that’s what makes everything he does worth it.

is to do unto others as you would have them do unto yourself,” Goalden Chyld says. “Unity is the solution to about 95 percent of our problems. A lot of the problems we face in our community is because we’re disconnected.”

Sometimes disconnection is as obvious as not treating neighbors like neighbors. “I know some young men, 20 and 25, that have never even been downtown, let alone four or five blocks up the street, because that’s quote- unquote ‘enemy territory,’” explains GC. “Whereas if we were connected and able

“I was always taught that the best title any man can have is ‘brother,’ and I strive to be my brother and sister’s keeper.”

After War Cry charted, some of Goalden Chyld’s friends and peers expressed their appreciation for that service. They insisted that while his album might’ve reached number three, he’s number one in the trenches because of how he pushes peace in the hood. In early April, they teamed up to present him with a golden trophy he calls the first and only “#1 in the Trenches Award.” Its base reads “#1 GC / War Cry / Trenches / Unity.”

As part of his community work, over the past few years Goalden Chyld has performed at and helped organize several Unity Concerts, including a few hosted by Healthy Hood Chicago in Pilsen. On Saturday, May 25, he’s headlining Unity Concert 3 at the DuSable Black History Museum. The event is also advertised as the premiere of his “Trenches United” video, but its bigger purpose is to bring together people from di erent cultural communities and celebrate art that delivers a positive message.

“The best religion I was taught growing up

to communicate with each other, we will come to realize that we have more in common than we don’t have in common. Then on those bases, we’ll be able to work together more to make our community a safe and decent place to live.” v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

Photos by ThoughtPoet of Unsocial Aesthetics (UAES), a digital creative studio and resource collective designed to elevate communitydriven storytelling and social activism in Chicago and beyond

Goalden Chyld

THOUGHTPOET FOR CHICAGO READER

UPCOMING SHOWS

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MAY 20 gary clark jr WITH ABRAHAM ALEXANDER

MAY 17 CHICANO BATMAN .... . THE SHED WITH LIDO PIMIENTA

MAY 18 SOCIAL D ISTORTION .. . THE SHE D & BA D RELIGION WITH LOVECRIMES

MAY 19 FREDD IE GIBBS ... FAIRGROUN DS & MA D LIB WITH EL MICHELS AFFAIR AND EYEDRESS

MAY 21 THE D ECEMBERISTS ... . THE SHE D WITH RATBOYS

MAY 25 BLEACHERS ...... FAIRGROUN DS WITH SAMIA ON SALE NOW

Recommended and notable shows with critics’ insights for the week of May 16

Chicago rapper KingTrey angles for a spot in the post-Chance canon with Southend Legend

with

KINGTREY, FRSH WATERS, ALEXIS RAY PARKER, YVNG.WOLFE

Wed 5/22, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln, $22, $20 in advance. 18+, under 18 permitted with parent or guardian

ACCORDING TO THE U.S. CENSUS, the suburban village of Glenview has a population of around 47,000 people, and just 1.4 percent of them are Black. That helps explain the isolation, frustration, and sadness Chicago rapper KingTrey felt navigating that town as a teenager—an experience he makes the focus of “Black Kid / In Glenview,” a track from his breakthrough 2023 album, Southend Legend (Alpha Pup). Trey saunters into the song with a casual swagger, rapping about himself in the third person to relay the microaggressions white kids threw at him. That nonchalant swing makes it sound like those othering comments must’ve slid o him like he was Teflon—but then the upbeat, lightly funky instrumental dissolves into a solemn, desolate keyboard melody,

and Trey reveals in a weary rasp the psychic damage he still carries from his upbringing. Trey’s skillful performance on “Black Kid / In Glenview” is one of the highlights of Southend Legend, which he reissued in a deluxe edition earlier this year. Trey clearly aspires to be part of the great decade-long movement of Chicago rappers who balance lyrical sensitivity, dexterity on the mike, and a love of tastefully luxurious instrumentals ornamented with soul vocals. Two significant figures in that movement, Mick Jenkins and Femdot, appear on Southend Legend, and they’re both on standout cut “Carefree,” intensifying the simmering heat that Trey creates. And Trey coheadlines Lincoln Hall with another great Chicago MC, Frsh Waters of Pivot Gang. —LEOR GALIL

THURSDAY16

Ride Knifeplay open. 7:30 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, $40, $35 in advance. 18+

Ride made an indelible impact on shoegaze and indie rock. The UK four-piece’s first two albums, 1990’s Nowhere and 1992’s Going Blank Again , are widely considered genre landmarks. Though Ride split up just before releasing their fourth full-length, Tarantula, in 1996, the original lineup reunited nearly two decades later. And they’ve stayed reunited: this March, they released Interplay, the third album of their second go-round. The record dials back the band’s ecstatic fuzz to embrace synth pop and arena-size alt-rock, which has impressed some fans but left others pining for the classic Ride sound. Stagnation is boring, though, and the dreamy arrangements, propulsive rhythms, and twinkling synths of Interplay demonstrate how wonderful it can be to try something new. With rich vocal harmonies and sunny atmospheres, “Peace Sign” strikes a happy medium between New Order and the Beach Boys. The song was inspired by the 2021 free- climbing documentary The Alpinist , and its bright, adventurous spirit can make anyone feel like they’re on top of the world. That optimism doesn’t last, however, as Ride examine everyday anxieties and realities. The spacious “I Came to See the Wreck” ponders which memories endure and which fade away in the public mind, while dance-pop rager “Monaco” rails against the never-ending financial pressures on ordinary folks and extends a middle finger toward the überwealthy who live in enclaves detached from reality. Interplay also gives the rest of us a reprieve from the daily grind—the dark, mysterious psychedelia of “Midnight Rider” invites fantasies of late-night rendezvous and voyages into the unknown. —JAMIE

LUDWIG

FRIDAY17

Suzanne Ciani Jeremiah Chiu opens. 8 PM, Fourth Presbyterian Church, 126 E. Chestnut, $64.38. b

If you’ve seen television commercials from the 1980s, you’ve probably heard Suzanne Ciani, even if you don’t realize it. Do you remember the sound of a Coke can being popped and poured? The spaceage shimmers that accompanied the on-screen appearances of logos for the likes of AT&T and ABC? The robotic chirp of a GE dishwasher? Ciani was an early adopter of the Buchla, an analog modular synthesizer invented in 1965 by Berkeley physicist, musician, and counterculture evangelist Don Buchla. It requires intense devotion to master, but Ciani’s talent on the instrument helped turn her into one of the most prolific electronic artists of 70s and 80s advertising.

Though its sound potential is similar to that of the Moog, the Buchla represents a very different philosophical approach to electronic music, one that’s more abstract and tactile. The idea of playing it intimidated a lot of musicians, partly because it lacks a keyboard. But Ciani welcomed the challenge. A Wellesley-trained classical musician, she was invigorated by music technology while attend-

KingTrey (right)

coheadliner Frsh Waters ALEXANDER JIBAJA

ing night courses at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the late 60s she began studying for a master’s in composition at University of California, Berkeley, and she worked so hard to understand (and afford) the Buchla that she spent a short time building circuits for the company.

Ciani’s commercial work creating era- defining sound effects and scores (including 1971’s “Fish Song,” commissioned by the Woodfield Mall to soundtrack its aquariums) allowed her to handsomely finance her real passion: avant-garde electronic music. She walked so that Aphex Twin could run. My favorite release from her catalog is Buchla Concerts 1975, which compiles live recordings of two of her earliest public Buchla shows—the music is bizarre, thrilling, and ahead of its time. But her most celebrated effort is probably the romantic, ethereal 1982 album Seven Waves, made with technologies that no longer exist. It reflects Ciani’s preoccupation with water’s aesthetics and metaphorical qualities, which have influenced a great deal of her output. If you were to draw a Venn diagram to describe the creative and historic overlap between fans of dance music and new age music, a love for Ciani— and particularly for Seven Waves—would sit right in the middle. At her Fourth Presbyterian show, she’ll celebrate the album’s 40th anniversary with a concert featuring image-mapping and lighting installations, creating an audiovisual experience that will wash over you like an undulating ocean. Prepare to be transformed like sand as it meets the tide. —MICCO CAPORALE

SATURDAY18

Secret Sisters Tyler Ramsey opens. 8 PM, Maurer Concert Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music, 4544 N. Lincoln, sold out.  b

The Secret Sisters released Mind, Man, Medicine in March, and it already feels like one of the best Americana albums of 2024. The record represents a homecoming, musically and literally—the duo recorded it at the legendary FAME Studios in their hometown of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Since the early 60s, FAME has served as a forge for the heart and soul of American music; Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, and Jason Isbell are on the long list of talents who’ve made iconic recordings there.

Laura Rogers and Lydia Rogers Slagle (real-life sisters as well as Secret Sisters) splice that lineage into the DNA of their country, soul, and folk songs, which showcase their perfect vocal harmonies and pensive writing. The duo refer to each of their albums as a “chapter” in an ongoing narrative, and here they use classic instruments such as Wurlitzer organ, fiddle, and steel guitar to help tell their story. They explore the self-awareness and the domestic routines they developed over a period during which they got married, had kids, and struggled to find rhyme and reason in the state of the world.

Mind, Man, Medicine comes a long four years a er the Secret Sisters’ acclaimed 2020 album, Saturn Return . That record was produced by singersongwriter Brandi Carlile, and the new material takes cues from her; the building tension that culminates in the high-heavens vocals on “Never Walk Away” is straight out Carlile’s playbook. Their coproducers on Mind, Man, Medicine are John Paul

White (formerly of modern Americana poster children the Civil Wars) and Ben Tanner (who’s worked with St. Paul & the Broken Bones and Lera Lynn), and they weave together the sisters’ beautiful folk tapestries while providing space for more leaps. The operatic dramatics of “I Needed You” get an assist from FAME’s studio orchestra, and the Ray LaMontagne collaboration “All the Ways” offers an alluring vocal ménage à trois. The Secret Sisters have had ups and downs over their 14-year career: early on, they worked with Jack White at Third Man Records; they faced bankruptcy after being dropped from Republic in 2015; and after signing with New West in 2017, they scored a Grammy nomination for Saturn Return. With that record and now Medicine , they seem to have learned how to stay at the top of their game despite what life throws at them—and their music can inspire listeners to do the same. —SELENA FRAGASSI

TUESDAY21

Sonja Wayfarer headlines; Sonja and Varaha open. 8 PM, Reggies’ Rock Club, 2105 S. State, $25, $20 in advance. 17+

Sonja aren’t a traditional supergroup—the members of this Philadelphia trio have all collaborated with one another elsewhere, most notably in beastly Philly black-metal band Woe. But these folks also have heavy pedigrees outside their shared past, spending time individually in metal outfits Tombs, Infernal Stronghold, Rumpelstiltskin Grinder, and Crossspitter. If you can name a metal subgenre, they’ve played it and played it well. With all that in mind, it’s practically a given that Sonja whips. But their introspective take on heavy metal—which pulls from the moodiness of gothic postpunk as much as

the lasciviousness of the Sunset Strip or the flashiness of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal—is still breathtaking in how good it manages to be. Their 2022 debut album, Loud Arriver , with its focus on the urgency of human connection (death and sex lurk in its lyrics), provided much-needed fresh air to a scene that’s lately been overly concerned with dragons and wizards.

On their latest single, April’s “Discretion for the Generous,” Sonja refine their distinctive blend with an opening bit of guitar-and-bass interplay that wouldn’t sound out of place at any goth club in America—that is, until Melissa Moore’s soaring vocals kick in, anchoring the song in sexy devilhorns territory. “I know how to keep your privacy / We’re just gonna call it generosity,” she sings, nimbly describing the power a sex worker holds over their customer, inverting the typical dynamic of metal songs on that topic (compare and contrast with Mötley Crüe’s “Piece of Your Action”). This dynamic extends to the music video, which juxtaposes metal iconography with kink imagery. Moore takes a dress out of an instrument case while her bandmates flip through metal records. Then the whole crew migrates to a party with live tattooing and lots of steamy, erotic mingling between guests. It’s more than enough to get anyone hot and bothered—especially those who gravitate to Judas Priest for the leather and studs as much as for the riffs.

WEDNESDAY22

KingTrey See Pick of the Week, page 38. Frsh Waters coheadlines; Alexis Ray Parker and Yvng. Wolfe open. 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln, $22, $20 in advance. 18+, under 18 permitted with parent or guardian

Mike Reed’s Loose Assembly As part of his 5 for 50 series, Mike Reed performs five nights with longtime collaborators in celebration of his 50th birthday. See also Thu 5/23, Fri 5/24, Sat 5/25, and Sun 5/26. 9 PM, Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont, $20. 21+

Mike Reed owns Constellation and the Hungry Brain, coprograms the Chicago Jazz Festival, and directs the Pitchfork Music Festival; he knows how to throw a shebang. But the five-night celebration that he’s planned to observe his 50th birthday keeps the focus on his creative side. Reed is also a drummer, composer, improviser, and bandleader whose music fosters dialogues among key movements in the evolution of Chicago’s avant-garde jazz scene from the 1950s to the present.

Each night of the celebration, which Reed is calling 5 for 50, he will appear with a different musical project, several of which will also welcome special guests. The series starts on Wednesday with the rare treat of a show from Loose Assembly, whose music moves fluidly between composed material—it can make Reed’s original melodies take flight—and bristling free improvisation. Between 2005 and 2010 the quintet, which consists of Reed, bassist Joshua Abrams, vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, cellist Tomeka Reid, and alto saxophonist Greg Ward, sustained a brisk recording and performance schedule. But for

Sonja ZEV DEANS AND CHRISTOPHER RAYMOND

Suzanne Ciani KATJA RUGE

MUSIC

more than a decade, Loose Assembly has been nearly invisible due to the challenges of coordinating the schedules of its members, who are increasingly prominent bandleaders in their own right.

On Thursday night Reed will play with Artifacts, a collaborative trio that includes Reid and Nicole Mitchell on flute and electronics. The band came together to play repertoire from artists associated with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians; augmenting their lineup for this occasion will be cornetist and AACM member Ben LaMar Gay.

On Friday, Reed and Abrams will join octogenarian saxophonist and pianist Ari Brown. This as-yet-unrecorded trio, which will welcome cornetist Josh Berman as a guest, is devoted to wide-open, total improvisation, and it’s one of Chicago’s best live acts at the moment.

The action moves from the Hungry Brain to Constellation on Saturday for a concert by Reed, pianist Craig Taborn, and another mentoring elder, multiinstrumentalist Roscoe Mitchell. Mitchell joined the AACM as a founding member in 1965, and he remains committed to musical advancement, switching instruments (currently his preferred horns are the sopranino and bass saxophones) and transcending styles. While the connections among these three musicians go back many years, this is their first trio gig.

And on Sunday the party will return to the Brain for People, Places & Things. Reed originally formed this quartet with Ward, bassist Jason Roebke, and tenor saxophonist Tim Haldeman to explore the music of underappreciated local hard-bop musicians such as John Jenkins and John Neely, but over time it has become a vehicle for in-person exchanges with musicians from Amsterdam and New York as well as figures from Chicago’s past, including Ira Sullivan and Julian Priester. Guests have been promised but not yet identified. —BILL MEYER

THURSDAY23

Bill Mackay Desert Liminal and DJ Slinkie open. 8:30 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, $18. 21+

I’ve loved seeing kindly troubadour Bill MacKay get more of the spotlight. Once Chicago’s bestkept guitar secret, he now seems to be growing his fan base even faster than his discography, which already included solo works and collaborations with experimental musicians such as Ryley Walker, Nathan Bowles, Katinka Kleijn, and Cooper Crain (Bitchin Bajas, Cave). Crain recorded and mixed most of MacKay’s new Locust Land for Drag City, the stalwart local label that’s signed them both. MacKay’s past couple solo LPs for the influential imprint, 2017’s Esker and 2019’s Fountain Fire , feature heartfelt tunes and textural experimentation while showcasing his six-string skill. Locust Land opens with “Phantasmic Fairy,” a wordless epic that establishes the album’s otherworldly vibe. Bathed in echo and droning pipe organ, it evokes Mike Oldfield’s pastoral 1974 release Hergest Ridge and the visionary strains of Popol Vuh guitarist Conny Veit. The second cut, “Keeping in Time,” delves into stripped-down songwriting, like about a third of the album. On these

tracks, MacKay o en comes across like a less gruff Kris Kristofferson or Lou Reed. But on “When I Was Here,” his wry sibilances recall Tom Verlaine and Dean Wareham (I could easily imagine MacKay’s labelmate Bill Callahan covering it), and the gentle, breezy “Half of You” evokes the folk eras of Dion or John Sebastian. These songs nicely balance MacKay’s sublime instrumentals. “Glow Drift” sounds like its title, with bent surfy guitar resting on subtle polyrhythms in a way that recalls the latter-day excursions of Hungarian guitarist Gábor Szabó. “Oh Pearl” is a blissed-out early-morning guitar solo, and MacKay expands its raga vibes on “Radiator.” MacKay plays everything on the title track, and its bright acoustic guitar and piano may be the album’s most concrete example of his elegant strengths. He also invites a handful of special guests to join him, including percussionist Mikel Patrick Avery and Janet Beveridge Bean of Eleventh Dream Day, who lays down wordless vocals on the Morricone-channeling “Neil’s Field.” Mute Duo pedal-steel guitarist Sam Wagster plays bass on several tunes, and he’ll join MacKay for this recordrelease show, as will master percussionist Michael Zerang. Whether Locust Land catapults MacKay to guitar-hero status remains to be seen, but this show should help. Dark ’n’ dreamy pop group Desert Liminal—who recently wrapped recording on a new album—open the show, and DJ Slinkie (aka Eliza Weber of Glyders) spins between sets.

—STEVE KRAKOW

Artifacts Trio with Mike Reed, Tomeka Reid, Nicole Mitchell, and guest Ben LaMar Gay See also Wed 5/22. As part of his 5 for 50 series, Mike Reed performs five nights with longtime collaborators in celebration of his 50th birthday. 9 PM, Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont, $20. 21+

FRIDAY24

Mike Reed, Ari Brown, and Joshua

Abrams with guest Josh Berman See also Wed 5/22. As part of his 5 for 50 series, Mike Reed performs five nights with longtime collaborators in celebration of his 50th birthday. 9 PM, Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont, $15. 21+

Tomeka Reid Quartet See also Sat 5/25. 8 PM, Green Mill, 4802 N. Broadway, $20. 21+

Cellist Tomeka Reid and her powerhouse quartet— guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Jason Roebke, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara—recently celebrated their tenth anniversary of performing together. But you could be forgiven if you thought they’d already had a decade together when they released their selftitled debut in 2015—the album is a marvel of uncanny synchronicity and head-spinning polyrhythms. In 2019 they released their second album, Old New , whose grooves are swept up in torrents of free improvisation.

On the quartet’s new 3+3 (Carrier), Reid’s com-

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positions seesaw between order and freedom as much as ever, but she’s le behind the bite-size originals that made up the quartet’s first two albums in favor of longer forms. “On this album I wanted it to sound like a gig or a show, instead of something for a recording,” she writes in the liner notes.

That it does. Just as one would expect at a live show, 3+3 organically segues from tune to tune. On “Turning Inward / Sometimes You Just Have to Run With It,” a chorale intoned by Reid’s cello and Roebke’s bass opens into an up-tempo, syncopated melody, with Halvorson and Reid in playful unison. A drum solo by Fujiwara eventually becomes a bridge into the punchy, high-temperature “Fever,” and the closer, “Exploring Outward / Funambulist Fever,” journeys from free improv into a continuously evolving cello melody. The exception is “Sauntering With Mr. Brown,” a coy tango that stands alone in the album’s center. A writhing bass solo by Roebke and a reverb-drenched rock-out by Reid bring it home.

—HANNAH EDGAR

SATURDAY25

Mike Reed, Roscoe Mitchell, and Craig Taborn See also Wed 5/22. As part of his 5 for 50 series, Mike Reed performs five nights with longtime collaborators in celebration of his 50th birthday. 8:30 PM, Constellation, 3111 N. Western, $30. 21+

Tomeka Reid Quartet See Fri 5/24. 8 PM, Green Mill, 4802 N. Broadway, $20. 21+

Sprite Plant Matter and Naked Lunch open. 7 PM, Fallen Log, 2554-2556 W. Diversey, $10.

The four Chicagoans who recently formed slackerrock group Sprite have a surplus of indie cred, but none of their previous bands has balanced heavy and heavenly as well as Sprite do on December’s self-released, self-titled album. Separately, the members of Sprite traffic in related but distinct styles.

Tomeka Reid Quartet: Jason Roebke, Tomas Fujiwara, Mary Halvorson, and Tomeka Reid

JASMINE KWONG

Mike Reed KEN WEISS

Guitarist Donny Walsh has played in nervy postpunk outfit Stuck, whose jittery sound complements the egg punk of emerging group Cel Ray, which features Sprite drummer Josh Rodin on guitar. Sprite bassist Kinsey Ring is also in thrashy punk band Lollygagger, and Sprite singer-guitarist Sam Brown has drummed in flowery garage groups Laverne

flows from song to song.

Founded in 2021 by guitarist Daniel Vida and drummer Jonathan Milo, Selenoplexia also includes vocalist Courtney Vida (Daniel is her spouse) and bassist, vocalist, and synth player Sawyer Fridel. They’re a tight unit with a great sense of sonic architecture. Exalt and Despair is unrelenting and over-

and Flesh Panthers. I knew these folks would make great music together, but I couldn’t have predicted the relaxed tempos and colossal distortion they use in Sprite. Ring’s thick bass lines give Sprite’s songs weight and swing, while Rodin’s brisk, snappy drumming keeps their boulder-huge riffs moving. The melodic shoegaze dreaminess and blown-out psychedelia of Walsh and Brown’s guitars can test the limits of your speakers, and Walsh’s drawling vocals contain hints of a country growl. With shoegaze in vogue among indie rockers, I hope more guitar bands take note of the dusty, heavy style of Sprite —LEOR GALIL

SUNDAY26

Mike Reed’s People, Places & Things

See Wed 5/22. As part of his 5 for 50 series, Mike Reed performs five nights with longtime collaborators in celebration of his 50th birthday. 9 PM, Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont, $15. 21+

Selenoplexia Everlasting Light, Bird Law, and Vow open. 9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $12. 21+

Chicago metal quartet Selenoplexia attracted some attention with their strong 2022 debut EP, Agony , and last fall they released their first full-length, Exalt and Despair. The band’s name refers to what were believed, prior to the 20th century, to be the sometimes fatal physical and mental health conditions caused by the rays of the moon. Haunted and a little bit lunatic, awash in existential dread, the album is a power rush with a self-assured swagger that rapidly

stimulating in the best of ways, with varied pacing and a dynamic range that’s big enough to create breathing room in its ebbs and flows.

Selenoplexia’s ultra-crispy blackened platter makes room for avant-garde metal, drone, postrock, and ambient influences, and they have the instrumental mastery to properly season the blend. The roaring barn-burning riffs of “Bowels of the Earth’’ and “A Gilded Rope” yield to dreamlike breakdowns, while “Visions of Hell” taunts suffering souls with a glimpse of celestial heaven. The album’s epic closer, “Void Palace,” has a creamy, so , wistful center that hangs in space like the acceptance of peaceful

MUSIC

death and dissipation into the universe. Then Selenoplexia rage against the dying of the light in the track’s brutal ending—props to whoever wrote the lyrics for their use of “sennet,” an Elizabethan term for the trumpet sound that summons an actor off the stage.

On Tuesday, May 21, at Kuma’s Corner, Selenoplexia will premiere a live-set video recorded in an abandoned well by So Below, then hit the road for a string of midwest shows that concludes with this Empty Bottle homecoming. The bill is rounded out by Rock Island black metallers Everlasting Light, darkly hilarious metalcore band Bird Law (check out “Dogs Smell Seizures” and “Bird Law Doesn’t Listen to People Who Don’t Like Them”), and Vow, who just released a heavy, grotty four-song cassette demo on Tomb Tree Tapes. —MONICA KENDRICK

MONDAY27

Feller Bitcrush and PDCkev (DJ set) open. 9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 21+. F

Last fall, when Jon-Carlo Manzo launched Fire Talk’s Chicago-centric sublabel, Angel Tapes, I knew to keep an eye on it. Fire Talk had already done exceptional work releasing music by local indie rockers, and Manzo has great taste. Angel Tapes’ third release is the new Universal Miracle Worker , the debut EP by local duo Feller, and it’s the imprint’s best so far. Drummer Ethan Toenjes and guitarist-vocalist Pete Willson both have experience in dreamy rock: Toenjes has played with shoegaze groups Old Coke and Sleepwalk, Willson with psych-adjacent outfits Cafe Racer and Pete Willson & the Rooks. As Feller, Willson and Toenjes get wacky and heavy, and Universal Miracle Worker darts from style to style as wildly as a snake stuck in a bounce house. The EP opens with the light, melodic bossa nova guitar of “Goya” before plunging into the furious thrashing of “Skeletor.” Universal Miracle Worker introduces Feller as a band willing to buck convention and demolish rock song structure to create music that cuts deeper and stranger. —LEOR GALIL v

Selenoplexia KYLE WILSON

UPCOMING

EARLY WARNINGS

MAY

THU 5/30

Bobbi Wilsyn with Miguel de la Cerna, Marlene Rosenberg, and Frank Morrison 1 PM, the Promontory b

FRI 5/31

Sadness, Dismalimerence, Vulning, Apophy 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+

JUNE

SAT 6/1

Andrew Sa’s Queer Country Review 8:30 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn

MON 6/3

Reggie Watts 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b

THU 6/6

Chicago Blues Fest Pre-Party All-Star Harmonica Blast featuring Joe Nosek and Oscar Wilson of Cash Box Kings, Rob Stone, Omar Coleman, Martin Lang, Joey J. Saye, Kenny “Beedy Eyes” Smith, Mike Scharf, Andrew Diehl, and more 8 PM, Reggies Music Joint

FRI 6/7

Lola Brooke 8 PM, Avondale Music Hall b

SUN 6/9

Rick Springfield 7 PM, Metro, 18+

WED 6/12

Charli XCX 7 PM, Radius, 17+ Nep 8 PM, Schubas, 18+

FRI 6/14

Bitchin Bajas, Sam Prekop 10 PM, Empty Bottle

FRI 6/21

Violent Femmes with Chicago Philharmonic (Stuart Chafetz, conductor); DJ Corner 8 PM, Ravinia, Highland Park b

FRI 6/28

Hawthorne Heights, I See Stars, Anberlin, Armor for Sleep, Emery, This Wild Life 5:30 PM, Salt Shed (indoors), 17+ Letters to Cleo 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ RXK Nephew 10 PM, Empty Bottle

SAT 6/29

Bummer Summer featuring Tenmonthsummer, Bottom Bracket, Manor Gates, and more 6 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Koyo, One Step Closer, Anxious, Prize Horse 7 PM, Avondale Music Hall b

BEYOND

WED 7/3

FitzGerald’s 41st American Music Festival day one featuring Nikki Lane & Sierra Hull, Ha Ha Tonka, and more 4 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn b

THU 7/4

The Baseball Project featuring Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey, Mike Mills, Linda Pitmon, and Steve Wynn 7 PM, SPACE, Evanston b

FitzGerald’s 41st American Music Festival day two featuring Jayhawks, C.J. Chenier & the Red Hot Louisiana Band, and more 3 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn b

FRI 7/5

FitzGerald’s 41st American Music Festival day three featuring Old 97’s, the Rumble featuring Chief Joseph Boudreaux Jr., and more 3 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn b Supersuckers, Lords of Altamont, Ravagers, Evictions 8:30 PM, Reggies Music Joint

SAT 7/6

FitzGerald’s 41st American Music Festival day four featuring Robert Randolph & the Family Band and more 1:30 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn b

b ALL AGES

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TUE 7/16

Redd Kross, Dale Crover (DJ set) 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+

SAT 7/20

Schoolboy Q 8 PM, Ramova Theatre b

MON 7/22

Kommuna Lux 8 PM, the Promontory

FRI 7/26

Mizmor, Amarok 8 PM, Cobra Lounge, 17+

SAT 7/27

Sluice, Fust 8:30 PM, Hideout

SUN 8/11

Indigo Girls, Melissa Etheridge 7 PM, Ravinia, Highland Park b

FRI 8/16

Vomitory, Gorgasm, Embalmer, Melting Rot 8 PM, Reggies Rock Club, 17+

SAT 9/7—SUN 9/8

Evanston Folk Festival featuring Sierra Ferrell, Patty Griffin, Sarah Jarosz, and more Noon, Dawes Park, Evanston b

FRI 9/20

The Movement, Long Beach Dub Allstars, Aurorawave 7 PM, Park West b

THU 9/26

NCT Dream 8 PM, United Center  b

MON 9/30

Marcos Valle 8 PM, Metro, 18+

WED 10/9

Fontaines D.C., Been Stellar 7:30 PM, Salt Shed (indoors), 17+

THU 10/10

Danny Ocean 8 PM, Aragon Ballroom, 17+

Illuminati Hotties, Daffo 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+

THU 10/17

Johnny Marr & James 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+

SUN 10/20

California Honeydrops 8 PM, the Vic, 18+

THU 11/7

The Garden, Cowgirl Clue, Slater, 3L3D3P 6 PM, Aragon Ballroom b v

GOSSIP WOLF

A furry ear to the ground of the local music scene

INSPIRED BY HER FAMILY and the gettogethers, birthday parties, and other celebrations they held throughout her childhood, south-side rapper J Bambii began curating fun, healing spaces for her community a decade ago. One of her recurring events is the FiFi , a party she started in spring 2022. Bambii says it’s grown to attract more than 200 people, and the Summer FiFi will take over the Promontory on Saturday, June 1 . The entertainment will include a performance from singer Melvin Knight and a headlining set from the O’My’s, plus a special guest performance from New York artist S!lence and DJ sets from Ryan the Person and DJ Uncle El throughout the evening. Tickets are $20, $15 in advance.

Bambii is tired of paying for Ubers to northside bars and clubs (which o en enforce antiBlack door policies and charge too much for lousy drinks), so she’s been intentional about keeping the FiFi on the south side. She says there’s a misconception that people can’t have safe fun on the south side, but she hasn’t had any trouble at the nine FiFis so far. The challenge she’s having now is finding a venue large enough to accommodate everyone.

“If we want things to change, we have to be a part of that change,” Bambii says. “If you want to see more things on the south side, you need to start coming to the south side. Stop waiting for white people or clout or anybody else to give you the green light to start enjoying your own neighborhood.”

While planning her events, she says she asks herself, “Can a Black, fat, queer, darkskinned, disabled person come to my party and have a good time?” She imagines her younger self, who was less comfortable and secure, and what she would need. “I want to create parties where there’s enough space for everybody to feel like they can have space, they can take it up, they can dance, and they can extend themselves.”

WHEN GRANT LENDVAY graduated from Barrington High School in 2021, he threw a party in his childhood basement with live music. He turned it into an annual tradition a er he moved to Chicago to attend DePaul, where he’s now a junior—last year he hosted what he called Grantchella in his apartment building’s courtyard. This year’s Grant Slam Fest is the biggest yet, with eight bands and more than two dozen vendors in Jonquil Park on Saturday, May 18.

Lendvay and his four colleagues on the festival’s production board began planning in

October. “We really took a shot in the dark with the Chicago Park District, and luckily they liked what we were offering,” Lendvay says. “We’re super excited that we have a permit. We knew that everything would come naturally, because once you get the circus, we’ve got plenty of clowns.”

Most of the lineup has a connection to DePaul, including shoegaze group Daundry , indie rocker Joe Glass , and emo band Forgetting Sarah Marshall . Lendvay works at Bub City venues alongside Grant Slam audio engineer Alexander Lehr, which helped him know what to do when it came to setting up speakers, porta-potties, and a two-foot-tall stage for the fest. “The real focus here is to get a lot of friends and young individuals that make a lot of awesome DIY music in the Chicago scene on a big stage and getting them at a more legit music festival,” Lendvay says, “They deserve that space.” The fest starts at 2 PM on Sunday, and it’s free.

IN EARLY 2022 , Milkswarm cofounders Nikel Martinez and Joey Apter connected on Reddit about starting an indie-rock band. The Internet being what it is, though, Martinez ghosted Apter for nearly a month. “We [both] thought we were getting catfished,” Apter says. When he finally met Martinez in person, Apter brought the band’s eventual first bassist, Ryan Lewis, as backup.

“[Ryan] was there ’cause he told Joey he wanted to make sure he was gonna be safe, ’cause he was gonna meet a guy from Reddit,” Martinez says. “He was there as, like, a bodyguard.” Martinez and Apter began Milkswarm that day, then cycled through rhythm sections till they brought aboard bassist Daniel Arechiga and drummer Cameron Gouthro. At first, Gouthro would only perform with Milkswarm if they bought him dinner.

“It got to the point where he ended up getting a meal that was cheaper than how much we were getting from ticket sales and merch,” Apter says. Gigging helped Milkswarm sharpen their shifting sound, which draws from shoegaze, postrock, and emo. Last week, Milkswarm self-released their debut album, Sodakink , and on Friday, May 17, they headline a record-release concert at Epiphany Center for the Arts . Tickets cost $15 ($13 in advance), and the show is 17+. Fruitleather and Gayun Cannon open. —TYRA

NICOLE TRICHE AND LEOR GALIL

Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or email gossipwolf@chicagoreader.com.

Caraqueño singer-songwriter Danny Ocean visits Chicago in October. COURTESY OF LIVE NATION

SEX AND RELATIONSHIPS

Messed up

Yes

By DAN SAVAGE

Q: I’m a 33-year-old gay man emailing you because I have a kink that I enjoy but have always felt ashamed about. Earth-shattering, right?

My kink is called “wet and messy” (WAM) and it involves getting covered head to toe in messy, gloopy substances. People who are into this usually have preferred substances—in no specific order, mine are paint, mud, and pies.

People enjoy WAM for a variety of reasons. Some people like the humiliation aspect.

I just love the feeling of losing myself in the mess. It’s very primal and very freeing.

I’ve done this with a couple of men I met through a website that caters to people who are interested in this. I’ve even told my longterm boyfriend about it. He took it well and offered to do it with me, but I shot him down.

The problem is that I feel ashamed about this on some level. I know it’s harmless, if a little weird, but I can’t

shake the feeling of shame that keeps me from enjoying this part of my sexuality. I feel like I’ll be branded a freak forever if my boyfriend sees how much I enjoy this.

This feels like as much of a struggle as coming out of the closet was. Any sage words?? —GETTING OFF ON PIES

a: I’ve talked with a lot of kinky gay men over the years—ahem—and more than one has described kink as a second coming out.

That said, gay people who want to come out to lovers and friends about kink have an advantage over straight people who wanna do the same: experience and perspective.

Telling lovers you’re kinky is a lot less scary than telling parents you’re gay: lovers

that shame can be replaced. Parents who shame are forever. But just as coming out as gay has the power to improve lives and relationships, coming out as kinky has the power to improve love lives and romantic relationships.

And speaking of romantic relationships . . .

Don’t deny yourself the pleasure of exploring your kink with someone who cares about you and don’t deny your boyfriend the pleasure of giving you this pleasure. It doesn’t sound like he offered to indulge you because he doesn’t want you doing this with other guys. He’s not offering to grimly go through the motions to control you.

Rather, it sounds like he offered because he’s sincerely invested in your pleasure. And if your boyfriend is one of those guys who gets off

on getting people off, letting him get you off will get him off too.

And sometimes kinks are contagious, GOOP, even the weirder ones: a guy gives his partner’s kink a try and something clicks and before you know it’s his weird kink too.

And your kink isn’t really that weird. While WAM, aka “gunging” or “sploshing” isn’t my thing, it’s not that hard to wrap my head around it. You find the sensation of paint, mud, and pies running down your skin arousing.

Not for me! But easily understood!

Additionally, you like being covered in gooey substances because it relieves you—temporarily—from the burden of being yourself.

Like a drone covered head to toe in rubber or a furry in a mascot costume or a woman in Lycra as a super-

hero, you enjoy, from time to time, erasing and/or transforming yourself.

In that, you are far from alone.

Look, GOOP, if getting covered in slime gives you joy and doesn’t hurt anyone, take your boyfriend’s yes for an answer. If you could learn to let go of the shame of being a cocksucker, you can let go of the shame of being a wetand-messy player.

Get some tarp, bake some pies, and invite the boyfriend over to play. v

Got problems? Yes, you do. Record your question for the Savage Lovecast right now at savage.love/askdan. Ask questions for the column, download podcasts, read full column archives, and more at the URL savage.love. m mailbox@savage.love

CLASSIFIEDS JOBS

PROFESSIONALS & SERVICES

MATCHES

JOBS

Health Care Service Corporation seeks Business Analyst (Chicago, IL) to work as a liaison among stakeholders to elicit, analyze, communicate and validate requirements for changes to business processes, policies and information systems. REQS: This position reqs a Bach deg, or forgn equiv, in Tech or us dmin or a rel d + 2 Yrs of exp as a proj mgr, sys analyst, or a rel position. Telecommuting permitted. Applicants who are interested in this position should submit a complete resume in English to hrciapp@bcbsil.com, search [Business Analyst / R0026599. EOE].

Associate Data Engineer Denodo Technologies, Inc. is seeking an Associate Data Engineer in Chicago, IL to assist our clients and partners to realize their full potential through accelerated adoption and productive use of Denodo’s Data Virtualization capability to provide modern solutions for agile data delivery to empower people. Please visit our career website at https://www.denodo. com/en/company/ careers for more details and apply online.

IT Systems Designer (Oracle Developer) USG Corporation is seeking an IT Systems Designer (Oracle Developer) in Chicago, IL w/ the following reqmnts: Bachelor’s deg in Engg, omp ci, or rel field or foreign equivalent deg. 5 yrs of rel exp. Reqd skills: Utilize Oracle SQL, PL/SQL, Oracle Forms Builder, Oracle Report uilder, ork o uilder, TOAD, SQL Loader, Unix, XML/BI Publisher, XML SpreadsheetML to customize or enhance Oracle E-Business suite system to meet end user reqmnts (5 yrs); Prep technical, functional design document per Oracle AIM Methodology using PowerPoint & Word applications (5 yrs); Document test cases using HP Quality Center Tool & perform unit testing for all dvlpd technical objects (5 yrs); Support Oracle online order, Oracle Advanced Pricing, Oracle Inventory, Oracle Bill of Materials systems & third-party systems like BI, Salesforce application systems integrated w/ Oracle E Business Supply Chain Applications (5 yrs). 100% telecommuting; no residence reqmnt. 10% trvl reqd to company headquarters in Chicago, IL. Please visit www.

usg.com/careers to view the entire job description & apply.

IT Systems Designer USG Corporation is seeking an IT Systems Designer in Chicago, IL w/ the following reqmnts: Bachelor’s deg in Software Engg, Comp Sci, Inormation ec or rel field or foreign equivalent deg. 5 yrs of rel exp. Reqd skills: Utilize Oracle SQL, PL/SQL, Oracle Forms Builder, Oracle Report uilder, ork o uilder, OAF/JDeveloper, TOAD, SQL Loader, Unix, XML/ BI Publisher to customize or enhance Oracle EBS system to meet end user reqmnts (5 yrs); Utilize Oracle E-Business Suite application in Inventory, Costing, Order Mgmt, Purchasing, Account Payables, Account Receivables, General Ledger, Channel Revenue Mgmt, Advanced Pricing, Fixed Assets, iExpense, iSupplier, iReceivables, iStore, iProcurement, EBTax (5 yrs); Prep technical, functional design document per Oracle AIM Methodology using Word & Visio applications (5 yrs); Document test cases using HP Quality Center Tool, JIRA & perform unit testing for all dvlpd technical objects. Perform end-to-end change/fix migration of an issue to production environment using tools such as ServiceNow, Flexdeploy, WinCVS, Fisheye (5 yrs); Support different third-party systems like Salesforce, Mulesoft, Vertex, EDI integrated w/ Oracle E Business Applications (5 yrs). 60% remote work allowed; must live w/in normal commuting distance of Chicago, IL. Please visit www.usg.com/ careers to view the entire job description & apply.

Struc Engr REX Engineering Group seeks Struc Engr in Naperville, . roficiency o uilding codes, structural design codes and design standards IBC, ACI, AISC, ASCE-07. Must have MS degree in Struc or Civil Engr. Educ or Exp to have included Steel Plastic Design, Structures: Steel III, Structural Dynamics, Engineering Problems, and BIM for Construction. Mail resume to Vivian Ogo, 280 Shuman Blvd, Suite 108, Naperville, IL 60563.

Software Engineer Groupon, Inc. is seeking a Software Engineer in Chicago, IL with the following responsibilities: develop, construct and implement the next generation of company products and features for Groupon’s web and mobile applications. Apply at

www.grouponcareers. com by searching keyword R28354

Struc Engr REX Engineering Group seeks Struc Engr in Naperville, IL. Create building system concepts and struc engr design. Must have BS degree in Struc or Civil Engr. 24 Mos Exp IBC, AISC, design codes, TEKLA Structures, Mathcad, GIZA 22.0, Bluebeam. Mail resume to Vivian Ogo, 280 Shuman Blvd, Suite 108, Naperville, IL 60563.

Sr. Elec Engr REX Tech Solutions, Inc. seeks Sr. Elec Engr in Naperville, IL. Build, enforce component validation, planning, design and development of systems Must have BS degree in Elec Engr. 24 Mos Exp in Embedded Systems, C++, Python, Web Servers, KiCAD. Mail resume to Vivian Ogo, 280 Shuman Blvd, Suite 108, Naperville, IL 60563.

Arcus Technologies, Inc. dba Kat Tech Systems, Inc in Arlington Heights, IL is seek’g Software Developers (.NET) to dsgn & dvlp sw sol’ns. No trvl; no telecomm. Job duties proj-based @ unanticipated sites w/in U.S. Relo may be req’d @ proj end. Send resumes to: hr@ kat techsystems. com

Software Developers-Multiple openings – Schaumburg, IL eTek IT Services Inc needs professionals: Work using Java/J2EE, RESTful API, GIT, Tomcat, CI/ CD, Splunk, Kubernetes, Oracle, NoSQL and Spring MVC. Req. – bachelor’s with 2 yr Exp/3 yr Exp in lieu of 1 yr of edu. Accept any suitable combo of edu, exp & training. Comp. sal., Relocate to unanticipated site. No National/ International travel. Please mail resume to Ref: PO Box 59058, Schaumburg, 60159.

Developer Operations Team Lead Developer Operations Team Lead: Bach or forgn equiv in CS, comp engg or rel; + 3 yrs exp. Use exp. w/ Windows + Unix/Linux OS, Python/Bash/Groovy/ similar langs, Docker/ Kubernetes, distrb’d vers ctrl w/ Git, cloud arch. w/ AWS, autom’n w/ Ansible, infrastructure as code w/ Terraform, container orchestr’n, continuous integr’n w/ Jenkins/GitHub actions/ Datadog/Sentry/similar; + an incident command sys to manage sw apps + IT microsvcs. National Collegiate Scouting Association LLC. May telecommute to Chicago IL from any US loc. F/T. $124K/yr-$137K/yr. Ben-

efits ttps //tinyurl.com/ yc2drau6. Send resume to jtoney@ncsasports. org re: job 6004. No calls/ agents/visa sponsorship.

Home Partners of America seeks Senior Technical Product Manager in Chicago, IL to drive technology product life cycle for our internal and external stakeholders. BS deg in Comp Sci, Info Tech & Management, or rltd field & 5 yrs of relevant exp req’d. This position is 100% remote. Domestic travel required 3 days per quarter. For position details & to apply, visit: www.homepartners. com/about/careers.

Northwestern Memorial Healthcare seeks Diagnostic Medical Physicists II for Chicago, IL location. Master’s in Med Physics/related field +3yrs exp req’d. Req’d: imaging protocol optimization in CT or MRI; ABR certified in DMP; MQSA qualified; Eligible for registration w/IEMA as a Diagnostic Imaging Specialist. Drug & background check req’d. Applyonline: http://jobseeker.nm.org/ Req ID: REF64814C

Data Integration Developer, Chicago, IL, for Team TAG Services, LLC (TAG): Responsible for dev. & maintenance of data transfer & all processes supporting acquisition of data design, & architecture of new Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) processes & adherence to standards developed by the data team for all integration processes. Req’d: Bach. (or foreign equiv.) in IT, Comp. Sci., Software or Electronics Eng., or related tech. discipline & 8 yrs. of experience designing & implementing ETL processes & using ETL tools. May work remotely up to 2 days/ wk. Resumes to code JBDID, c/o Juliana Ximenes, Team TAG Services, LLC, 800 W Fulton Market, Chicago, IL 60607 or apply at https://careers. aspendental.com/us/en/ job/R2024-007806/DataIntegration-Developer.

Logistics Analyst Req’d: Bachelor’s in Bus. Admin., Logistics, or related. Wage: $42,182/ Yr. Work Site: Wood Dale, IL 60191 Mail Resume: ALLSTATE INT’L FREIGHT USA INC, 1250 W Artesia Blvd., Compton, CA 90220

Engineers CTC Trading Group, LLC seeks Engineers in Chicago, IL. Use a test and data driven approach to write impactful and reliable high-performance Java applications. Telecommuting permitted. Apply @ www.jobpostingtoday. com #29083.

Application Architect Application Architect, AbbVie Inc., Vernon Hills / Waukegan (Lake County), IL. Responsible or defining, designing, & delivering S/4 HANA centric solutions that enable & enhance organizational processes in the Quality Management space. Partner with business leadership & project management, provide guidance to technical teams, drive effective issue management & effective communication with key stakeholders. Evaluate alternatives to satisfy business objective, estimate & plan projects. Solve complex problems that arise during the planning & execution of different IT programs & projects as well as managing SAP support activities. Employ process expertise & solution design in SAP Quality Management, batch management (including batch determination, batch genealogy, & batch derivation , uality notifi cations, sample management, uality certificates, quality master data, & integration with other SAP Modules & non-SAP tools such as LIMs. Responsible for managing SAP projects & teams & all aspects of the SAP ASAP methodology including Applications, Integration, Data, Security, Change Management, Training, & Communications. Employ experience planning & facilitating blueprint workshops centric to SAP solutions, & mentor business & IT resources to ensure effective & sustainable application design. Demonstrate knowledge of SAP QM integration with manufacturing, supply chain, EWM, finance, sales, & purchasing processes. Resolve complex technical problems during planning & completion of IT programs & projects utilizing releases & waves methodology to roll out Global solution template, 4As methodology, RAID logs, Solution manager, and other testing tools. Define templates, standards, and patterns to be used across project teams. Communicate with stakeholders and external partners. Review alternatives to meet business objectives. Estimate and plan projects in alignment with department priorities. Must possess a Bachelor’s degree or foreign academic equivalent in Management Information Systems, Mechanical Engineering or a highly related field of study with at least 14 years of related experience as an Architect - SAP, Managing Consultant, Lead Consultant. Must also have experience in the following: (i) process expertise & solution design in SAP Quality Management, batch management (including batch determi-

nation, batch genealogy, & batch derivation), quality notifications, sample management, quality certificates, uality mas ter data, and integration with other SAP Modules & non-SAP tools such as LIMs: (ii) managing SAP projects & teams & all aspects of the SAP ASAP methodology including Applications, Integration, Data, Security, Change Management, Training, & Communications; (iii) experience planning & facilitating blueprint workshops centric to SAP solutions, & mentor business & IT resources to ensure effective & sustainable application design; (iv) SAP QM integration with manufacturing, supply chain, EWM, finance, sales, & purchasing processes; & (v) resolving complex technical problems during planning & completion of IT programs & projects utilizing releases & waves methodology to roll out Global solution template, 4As methodology, RAID logs, Solution manager, & other testing tools. Apply online at https:// careers.abbvie.com/en & reference REF24409L.

Manager I, Emerging Channel Insights

Manager I, Emerging Channel Insights, AbbVie US LLC. Mettawa, IL Provide insights & analytics into Trade & Distribution strategy, design & performance, respective Return on Investment across multiple therapeutic & customer segments. Responsible for collaborating with internal Market Access Marketing stakeholders from Pharmacy/Trade Sales and Marketing; leaders within Managed Care Brand Marketing, Legal, Finance, Pricing, & . to in uence strat egy development through insights & evaluate performance of the Trade related contracts, program recommendation, product performance, & measure program performance impact on the organizational portfolio. Employ experience with multivariate statistics, analytical software, & pharmaceutical data sources (IMS, Symphony Health, HIRC, HSG, & other syndicated data sources). n orm & in uence t e or ganization toward having an appropriate strategies & capabilities in place for our current products, as well as future pipeline products. Responsible for leading insights on primary research & analytics requiring development processes to support Specialty/ Retail Pharmacy, Distributor, GPO strategy development. Provide analytical leadership to the development & execution of standardized performance measures, KPI reporting, Product performance, program

performance & support Trade Quarterly Business Review initiatives. Responsible for leveraging & building analytic models that address critical issues & meet key business criteria (e.g. cost, risk, business impact) & key technical criteria (e.g. reliability, validity, & predictability. Evaluate the value of Specialty Pharmacy, Fee for Service (FFS) & Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) contracts for marketing & analyzing their impact. Responsible for leading on the development of data strategies for trading partners, including identifying analytical opportunities for value-based engagements. Employ experience with of multivariate statistics, analytical software & pharmaceutical data sources such as IQVIA, Symphony Health, IHS, MMIT/ Fingertip Formulary/Business One Technologies, & HIRC. Employ experience with distilling complex information synthesized into concise & impactful messages & communications. Must possess a Bachelor’s degree or foreign academic equivalent in Business Analytics, Statistics, or a closely related field required with at least 3 years of related experience in the following: (i) multivariate statistics, analytical software, & pharmaceutical data sources (IMS, Symphony Health, HIRC, HSG, & other syndicated data sources); (ii) leveraging & building analytic models that address critical issues & meet key business criteria (e.g. cost, risk, business impact) & key technical criteria (e.g. reliability, validity, & predictability); & (iii) performing data analysis using tools such as SAS, R, SPSS, SQL, Excel, & Dataiku. 10% travel required. Apply online at https:// careers.abbvie.com/en & reference REF24417V. Statistical Programmer Statistical Programmer, AbbVie Inc., North Chicago, IL. Responsible for the accuracy of SAS programs by reviewing output, reviewing code, reviewing log files and running all checking utilities. Utilize knowledge of SAS programming concepts. Develop, review and execute code using SAS applications/ tools e.g., SAS Enterprise Guide, SAS Studio. Review output to ensure internal consistency with other output for the activity (CSR, ISS, ISE). Follow all department and project standards. Responsible for creating peer review programs for assigned studies. Ensure all SAS programs are imported into the archive system prior to the creation of final output. Ensure clarity, accuracy and consistency of case report forms (CRFs),

data ase definitions, and specifications or analysis data sets or individual studies. nsure accura cy o data ase uality assurance c ecks and assess data accuracy and consistency. evelop data ase c ecks or rou tine situations. espon si le or t e creation and accuracy o derivation programs or routine situations, including peer revie . esponsi le or t e creation and accuracy o su mission data sets and analysis programs or routine situations. esponsi le or t e cre ation o data de inition documents and s. reate speci ications or nalyst ata odels a , tudy ata ta ulation odels , and a les, istings, and igures. ssist in t e development o ne processes and ensure all process improvements are implemented. tili e expertise in t e use o t e acros developed or t e tatistical ro grammers. articipate in t e development o ne acros. aintain expertise in t e use o t e utilities developed or t e tatistical ro grammers. articipate in t e development o ne utilities. ork col la oratively it ot ers to develop uality s, da ta ases, reports, pu lica tions and regulatory su mission. rovide accurate and timely responses to routine re uests rom clients. ffectively mentor statistical programming peers it regard to unctional operations. oordinate t e statistical programming activities or 2 early stage clini cal pro ects in t e same t erapeutic area. ust possess a ac elor’s de gree or oreign academic e uivalent in tatistics, omputer cience, or a ig ly related ield o study it at least 2 years o related experi ence in t e ollo ing i no ledge o ro gramming ii developing, revie ing and executing code using appli cations/tools e.g., nterprise uide, tudio iii kno ledge o statistical met odology used or analysis o cat egorical and continuous varia les e.g., linear re gression, categorical data analysis, survival analy sis, signi icance testing etc. iv experience in t e use o t e ac ros developed or t e tatistical rogrammers. pply online at ttps // careers.a vie.com/en & re erence 244 . Manager, Tax anager, ax, ie nc., ort icago, . esponsi le or preparation, revie & iling o ederal/state/in ternational income tax re turns, including preparing tax packages & identi y ing transactions t at ave tax ramifications. upport all aspects o income

tax provision process, including ar anes xley internal controls compliance & reporting, & various ot er pro ects. repare t e tax provision, analysis o tax accounts & reserves, & ar anes x ley compliance. tili e in dept kno ledge o tax accounting & ot er necessary pronouncements, as ell as internal control issues. repare interim & annual orld ide income tax provision, including t e e ective tax rate, analysis o tax accounts & uncertain tax positions, ournal entries & ot er supporting sc edules. repare . . tax disclosures or orm , reporting, as ell as mont ly tax alance s eet account reconciliations. esponsi le or researc ing ig ly complex tax issues & or eing pro icient in inter preting & applying t e tax la , regulations, & cases to specific transactions & actual situations. ssist it tax process improve ment initiatives & tax tec nology implementa tions utili ing icroso t xcel & tax provision so t are suc as ne ource & ongvie . rovide support relating to tax audits, including provid ing in ormation, extensive researc , & strategy as it relates to specific issues & positions in t e tax returns. er orm analysis or de erred tax assets & lia ilities, as ell as iden ti ying & communicating potential tax planning op portunities or exposures to management utili ing analytical tax researc skills & tools suc as eckpoint, ax e searc , & loom erg ax & ccounting. pply ad vanced tax kno ledge to support usiness needs. ct as an advisor to man agement. ontri ute to t e development o ne concepts, tec ni ues & standards. ust possess ac elor’s degree or or eign academic e uivalent in ccounting cience, inance or a ig ly related ield o study it at least years o related experience in t e ollo ing i supporting all aspects o t e income tax provision process, including ar anes xley internal controls compliance & reporting, & various ot er pro ects ii preparing t e interim & annual orld ide income tax provision, including t e e ective tax rate, analysis o tax accounts & uncertain tax positions, ournal entries and ot er supporting sc edules iii preparing . . tax disclosures or orm , reporting, as ell as mont ly tax alance s eet account reconciliations iv as sisting it tax process improvement initiatives & tax tec nology im plementations utili ing icroso t xcel & tax pro vision so t are suc as

ne ource & ongvie & v per orming analysis or de erred tax assets & lia ilities, as ell as iden ti ying & communicating potential tax planning op portunities or exposures to management utili ing analytical tax researc skills and tools suc as eckpoint, ax esearc , & loom erg ax & ccounting. pply online at ttps // careers.a vie.com/en & re erence 244 .

Senior Manager, EDC Systems Design enior anager, ystems esign, ie nc., ort icago, . e sponsi le or ensuring success ul delivery against programs & main taining est in industry re sources. anage multiple tec nology evaluations & implementations or per ormance improve ment & cost reduction y practicing continuous improvement o process es & tec nology usage. rovide strategic input on t e analysis o ne com puteri ed systems & so t are used or clinical trial data collection, uality assurance and integrity. e ine, complete, vali date, apply and oversee electronic case report orm systems, ex ternal data ac uisitions, reporting & usiness in telligence tools including potfire, evie , , , & . uper vise & allocate internal & external resources it in t e erapeutic rea. nsure all per ormance assessment responsi ilities are ac ieved or direct reports y provid ing training & eed ack, resolve personnel issues, and manage talent retention or assigned staff. pply data capture systems and met ods as a mem er o t e evie team & complete reports o use in data revie & reconciliation. esponsi le or t e per ormance management o staff. upport team in uilding & maintaining a ig per orming team, recruitment, on oarding, resource assignment, & development opportu nities or sta it in re sponsi ility. omplete t e validation o electronic systems, so t are & pro grams applied internally per current regulatory re uirements suc as 2 art & . rovide strategic direc tion, advice & guidance to staff in relation to op erations responsi ilities & activities y promoting est practice & ensure t at o ectives are suc cess ully met. anage data capture, revie and data ase lock activities or programming activi ties rom start up t roug statistical analysis stage o clinical studies. ead t e application o pro gramming standards & conventions. esponsi le or selecting & managing vendors including ,

& tec nology provid ers. mploy experience it clinical data ase design, data loading, & data ase modeling con cepts suc as , , , , edidata , yt on, & eeva . p to domes tic & international travel re uired. ust possess a ac elor’s degree or oreign academic e uiva lent in omputer cience, n ormation ec nology, lectronic ngineering or ot er tec nical ield plus years o related ork experience in clinical researc , pro ect management, or similar industrial ackground. ust possess experi ence in t e ollo ing i de ining, completing, validating, applying and overseeing electronic case report orm systems, external data ac uisitions, reporting & usiness intelligence tools including pot ire, evie , , , and ii completing t e validation o elec tronic systems, so t are and programs applied internally per current regulatory re uirements suc as 2 art & iii managing data capture, revie and data ase lock activities or programming activi ties rom start up t roug statistical analysis stage o clinical studies & iv clinical data ase design, data loading, & data ase modeling concepts suc as , , , , edidata , yt on & eeva . p to domestic & international travel re uired. osition re uires ork at various & unanticipated ork locations t roug out t e . . telecom muting is permissi le. alary ange , 22 , per year pply online at ttps //careers. a vie.com/en. e er to e 24 .

Audit Data Analyst udit ata nalyst, ie nc., ort icago, . esponsi le or assisting t e udit ata nalytics anager t roug ie nternal udit unction in supporting execution o an e ective data an alytics program. ssist in t e execution o data analytic initiatives y creating, documenting, training, & partnering it inance, ompliance, & audit teams & activities. artner it ata nalytics anager to deliver nternal udit ata nalytic key pro ects & improvements. artici pate in ata nalytics overnance ommittee. ssist in t e identification & assessment o gaps in internal processes t roug use o analytics, reporting, & das oard visuali ations as part o a data analytics audit process. esponsi le or reporting experience & documentation o inan cial & analytics processes

using yt on, , o er oint, xcel. e sponsi le or capturing, implementing, reporting, analy ing & managing all re uired data used in course o audits t roug out t e year. aintain in dept kno ledge & understanding o all aspects o t e ie n ternal udit data analytics program. rovide support or creating, monitoring, documenting & providing recommendations on audit analytics it in eac unctional team. er orm monitoring tasks, including identi ying & de ining issues, devel oping criteria, revie ing & analy ing evidence, & documenting processes & procedures. espon si le or data cleaning using yt on & . ompile & analy e in or mation in order to assist audit planning & field ork sampling o transactions per ormed y audit team. denti y any inconsistency & analy e data so t at it can e accurately doc umented. nvestigate & correct errors in logic or data sources. ncorporate kno ledge o usiness & tec nology to make recommendations. tili e experience it , erver an agement tudio, & ice uite. ranslate data gat ered rom user discussions into usiness re uirements. denti y usiness/system needs & recommend solutions. ssist it t e testing strategies & develop pre liminary findings. evelop solutions to pro lems ere casual relation s ips can e identified & precedents exist. ork it data revie & cor rection or re uests sent y audit team. aintain constant & open commu nication it t e unction al audit teams. upport ot er team mem ers & management in strategic initiatives. artner it usiness to analy e pro cesses & needs. naly e t e most complex ork procedures & o met ods & present concepts to simpli y t ose proce dures. ork e ectively it team/group to ac complis organi ational goals. ust possess a ac elor’s degree in n ormation ec nology, n ormation ystems, om puter cience, usiness, ccounting, inance, tatistics, or a ig ly related field o study it at least year o expe rience in t e ollo ing i reporting experience and documentation o inancial and analytics processes using y t on, , o er oint, xcel ii ata cleaning using yt on and & iii experience it , erver anagement tudio, & ice uite. pply online at ttps // careers.a vie.com/en & re erence 24 .

Medline Industries,

LP in undelein, as multiple openings . r. eveloper nalyst s to dsgn & implmnt soltns t at sup’rt t e m g divisions. o trvl. ene it avail days/ k. rovides on call sup’rt during non ork’g rs. pply at ttps //medline. taleo.net/careersection/ md con idential/ o apply. tl lang en& o . r. usiness ystems nalyst s are ouse utomation to implemt automat’n in our logistics landscapes. o trvl. ene it avail. ust e in o ice 2 days/ k. pply at ttps //medline.taleo. net/careersection/ md con idential/ o ap ply. tl lang en & o 2

Adifice, LLC d/b/a Adifice Technologies seeks Software Engineers for various & unanticipated worksites throughout the U.S. (HQ: Chicago, IL) to design, dev, & test s at every stage o t e dev process. aster’s in omp ci/ n o ec / n o ystems/related ield 2yrs exp re ’d. e ’d skills ava cript ype cript ngular rame ork eact. s g x or state mgmt uery node. s lex edia ueries ootstrap s ore dvanced ava concepts pring oot data ases rame orks ax ect riented rogramming / pipelines & tools enkins, it a , it ucket, ure epository, rti actory unit test cases using est & asmine rame orks in dev gile processes & met odologies. elecommuting permitted. end resume to naren@ adificeusa.com

Data Engineer (Professional Services) evelop modern data arc itecture approac es or large scale, custom designed, enterprise level usiness intelligence and analytics pro ects using so t are development languages, suc as yt on and ava, and cloud ased data management tec nologies. onduct tec nical and organi ational revie s and provide su ect matter expertise in t e analysis, preparation and development o data processes. evelop data driven solutions utili ing current and next generation tec nologies to meet key client usiness o ectives and provide end to end data solutions. esponsi le or analysis, development and testing on ull li e cycle data management solutions and so t are development pro ects using gile met odologies, including

xtreme rogramming, ontinuous ntegration, ontinuous elivery, est riven evelopment and pair programming. lay a role in t e team’s per ormance and reporting any issues, suc as acting as liaison et een t e client and team to de ine scope and tec nical direction, as ell as gat er re uirements and update on delivera les and time rames. oordinate across countries and time ones enever pro ect teams are distri uted. t least travel across . . ust ave aster’s degree in omputer cience, omputer or lectrical ngineering, n ormation ystems or related field. ust ave 2 years o experience in t e o o ered, onsultant, o t are ngineer, or related position. ust ave at least t elve 2 mont s experience in . articipating at all stages o t e data management solutions delivery li e cycle, including analysis, development, testing and deployment 2. eveloping applications t at are cloud ready/ cloud native using at least one o t e primary cloud providers , , or ure . orking it data are ouse arc itectures, data lake arc itectural patterns, and streaming data arc itectures or real time processing 4. sing gile development met odologies including ontinuous ntegration, xtreme rogramming, ontinuous elivery, est riven evelopment and pair programming and . orking on pro ects it distri uted teams, including managing coordination across countries and time ones. mail resume to i o s@ t oug t orks.com / o 2 24.

Software Engineer roupon, nc. is seeking a o t are ngineer in icago. / t e ollo ing responsi ilities esign & dvlp t e so t are eatures re d to personali e t e deals to t e customers across ort merica & uropean countries. telecommuting allo ed can live any ere in t e . o ead uarters in icago, . pply at .grouponcareers. com y searc ing key ord 2 2 IT & Lead IT Professionals sought by Zensar Technologies Inc. incl. & ec ro ect grs and ead & on ead est ngineers omp. rogrammers omp. ys. nalysts ys. dmins omp. ys. ngineer/ rc itects o t are evs/ ngineers, pps & o t are ual. ssurance ngineers.

ro ect grs & all eads re . aster’s or e uiv. in omp. ci., ngg. any , , gmt. n o. ys. or related & yr. relevant indus exp. lternatively, ill accept a ac . in t e a ove fields & yrs’ progressive relevant indus exp. on eads re . ac . or e uiv. in t e a ove ields & yrs relevant indus exp.. omp. ys. nalyst roles also accept us. degree. ec . ro ect grs re . ac . or e uiv. in omp ci., ngg any , n o ys., us. or related & 2 yrs’ relevant indus exp. incl. colla orating / so t are engs and managing pro ect timelines & stake older concerns. n lieu o degree & exp., ill accept 4 yrs’ relevant indus exp. crum aster ertification re d. ositions are ased out o our in icago, & su . to relocation to unanticipated orksites. uali ied applicants send resumes to gmusgreencard@ ensar.com or ensar ec nologies nc. . onroe t, te 2 , icago, ttn anager.

Senior Cost Manager enior ost anager ranklin ark, ctively participate & analy e tenders/ ids to ensure client value or money. reate estimates & cost plans. e s ac elor’s degree in uantity urveying/ onstruction gmt./ oreign e uiv. 2 mt s exp in osition/ uantity urveyor/ stimator. ail to inesig t, exington ve, l. , e ork, . ttn . it gerald, . Landscape Operations Manager ia roup is currently iring a andscape perations anager in alumet, . e are seeking a ig ly skilled and experienced individual to oversee and manage all aspects o our landscaping operations. you are interested in oining our team, please send your resume to arit a ivera at arit a.r@ dia groupllc.com

Manager, Strategic Partnerships & Integrated Models vant seeks a anager, trategic artners ips & ntegrated odels in icago, . elecom prmtd. pply at o postingtoday. com .

Senior Software Engineer mount, nc. seeks a enior o t are ngineer in icago, . roduce and implement unctional so t are solutions. osition is remote. pply @ ttps // . o postingtoday. com / e 4 .

Sr. Analyst, Business Systems Sr. Analyst, Business Systems, AbbVie Inc. North Chicago, Illinois. Consult with functional areas to develop understanding of the varied and complex business needs supported by the system. Responsible for determining how changing business needs will affect the system. Responds to questions and influences the users regarding current and potential system inputs, processes, and outputs. Conduct research and analysis into the nature, effect, and results of system problems. Develop detailed business user requirements, system documentation, ork o procedures, and data modeling. Ensure current and accurate system documentation, coordinate and perform testing of system modifications in both validated and nonvalidated systems. Provide systems expertise and support system training, educational tools, and materials. Work with the Business System Owners, Site BTS Leads, and Site Operations Managers regarding planning/scheduling and resource allocation. Develop project charter, project plans, project work plan (WBS), process maps and all other project and quality deliverables determined by project needs. Ensure projects/tasks are completed within time and budget constraints. Document and mitigate technology deployment project issues and risks. Effectively monitor and control project scope and budget. Communicate project progress to all appropriate stakeholders proactively. Apply analytical thinking skills to diagnose and make recommendations on systems and data. Incorporate knowledge of business and technology to make recommendations. Translate data gathered from user discussions into business requirements. Identify business/system needs and recommend solutions. Assist with testing strategies and develop preliminary findings. Work as liaison with business representatives, gather business requirements from user discussions and translates into IT requirements. Identify business/system needs and partner with IT teams in identifying a solution. Assist with testing strategies and develop preliminary findings. Partner with business to analyze processes and needs and make recommendations that are most effective to satisfy those needs.

Analyze complex work procedures and job methods and present concepts to simplify those procedures. Use appropriate tools to collect, correlate and analyze data, record and maintain technical data for use in developing operating and instruction manuals. Conduct tests and develop preliminary findings for review by experienced analysts. Responsible for accountability for supplier assessment, compliance, and fitment evaluation per Corporate and BTS Policies and Procedures. Must have at least 5 years of practical experience in the following: (i) developing detailed business user requirements, system documentation, workflow procedures, and data modeling; (ii) performing testing of system modifications in both validated and nonvalidated systems; (iii) working as liaison with business representatives, gathering business requirements from user discussions, and translating into IT requirements; & (iv) collecting, correlating and analyzing data, recording and maintaining technical data for use in developing operating and instruction manuals. Apply online at https:// careers.abbvie.com/en & reference REF24717R.

Lead Engineer – Data & Analytics Lead Engineer – Data & Analytics, AbbVie Inc., North Chicago, Illinois. Responsible for planning, requirements, design, implementation of analytics & business intelligence reporting solutions for the operations organizations. Manage the project team and budget and control resources, expenses, and capital costs against the budget. Partner with functional and business stakeholders to understand strategic business analytics requirements and work closely with management and project teams, to provide guidance in driving solutions along with effective issue management and communication to key stakeholders. Utilize operations expertise in end-to-end supply chain business process (Plan, Source, Make Deliver) domain. Develop test plans, test cases and user-level automation scripts using tools such as Selenium. Manage and oversee robust solutions, aligning priorities across stakeholders and communicate results. Align department priorities appropriately, determine critical success factors, evaluates and pursue initiatives based on fit with strategies. Establish

and manage collaborative working relationships with key stakeholders within the Business, BTS and implementation partners to provide relevant solutions. Utilize modern data warehouses such as Hadoop/ Data Lake Concepts, Redshift, and/or data ingestion mechanisms. Ensure comprehensive software QA test coverage and assist team leads in planning and scoping of projects. Work on strategies aimed to improve business reporting and planning processes utilizing continuous improvement across functions, ensuring that project commitments are achieved and compliance, business, and data privacy requirements are met. Responsible for planning, designing, development and execution of both manual and automated test plans, processes and scripts. Lead the strategy to evaluate purchasing supplier management analytics and business intelligence solutions. Lead multiple development teams and manage solutions (Modern Data Warehouse, Qlik, Power or different analytical and operational reporting needs for the business functions. Utilize software development life-cycle (SDLC) and Agile methodologies. Act as BTS liaison with functional and business team, understand business strategy and needs related to reporting analytics, and lead BTS and partner teams for development and successful implementation of dashboards, data visualization reports to provide actionable insights for business decision making. Provide project status updates to leadership BTS team in prioritization, project strategies, manage portfolio by working with the program/ project manager. Partner with Enterprise BTS organization to evaluate and establish analytics best practices and solutions related to data visualization and data mining. Provide thought leadership on consolidation of reporting platforms for operational & analytics data visualization and modelling. Must possess a Bachelor’s degree or foreign academic equivalent in Applied Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Development, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, or a related field o study it years of related experience. In the alternative, employer will accept a Master’s degree in lieu of a Bachelor’s degree in the aforementioned

fields. Each educational alternative with at least two (2) years of experience in the following: (i) developing test plans, test cases and user-level automation scripts; (ii) ensuring comprehensive software QA test coverage and assisting team leads in planning and scoping of projects; (iii) planning, designing, development and execution of both manual and automated test plans, processes and scripts; and (iv) software development life-cycle and Agile methodologies. Employer will accept any suitable combination of education, training, or experience. Apply online at https://careers. abbvie.com/en & reference REF24719V.

Business Intelligence Engineer Business Intelligence Engineer, AbbVie US LLC, North Chicago, IL. Work with business requirements to identify and understand source data systems. Provide resolutions to all data issues and coordinate with data analyst to validate all requirements. Develop and perform tests and validate all data flows and prepare all ETL processes according to business requirements and incorporate all business requirements into all design specifications using SQL. Utilize experience in Snowflake, SQL, and AWS infrastructure. Design, develop, and debug new business intelligence tools to solve complex engineering challenges in a dynamic environment. Utilize experience in ETL and/or other data manipulation languages such as Python, SAS, and R. Adapt ETL processes to accommodate changes in source systems and new business user requirements. Provide application analysis and data modeling design to collect data for centralized data warehouse. Ensure high levels of business Intelligence availability through support functions and in-depth testing. Responsible for properly following all IT standards, processes, and methodologies as applicable including but not limited to Quality Assurance (QA). Collaborate with customers and stakeholders as well as other members of IT. Work with Data tools like AWS Lambda, Step Functions, CloudWatch, Eventbridge and Snowflake to deliver Data products. Architect and design the implementation plan for delivering the Data Products across Finance, Data Science etc. Connect data sets to data visualization tools and create reports

using Tableau and Power BI. Cross Collaborate with different teams in the organization. Must possess a Bachelor’s degree or foreign academic equivalent in Computer Science, Data Engineering, or a highly related field o study it at least 3 years of related experience in: (i) working with Data tools like AWS Lambda, Step Functions, CloudWatch, Eventbridge and no ake to deliver Data products; (ii) experience in SQL and AWS infrastructure; (iii) experience in ETL and other data manipulation languages such as Python, SAS, and R; (iv) connecting data sets to data visualization tools and creating reports using Tableau and Power BI. 100% telecommuting permitted. Apply online at https:// careers.abbvie.com/en & reference REF24720Y. Salary Range: $140,400 - $157,500 per year

Northwestern Memorial Healthcare seeks IS Team Leads for various & unanticipated worksites throughout the U.S (HQ: Chicago, IL). Bachelor’s in IS/ related field +5yrs of progressive exp req’d. Req’d skills: 3yrs exp in: SQL Server: complex queries & stored procedures; SQL for data extraction, manipulation & reporting; mentoring staff. Exp must incl: SSRS, SSMS, SSIS, SSAS; Power BI/ Tableau/Crystal Reports; Agile environment; R/ Python for stat analysis; healthcare analytics; present tech solutions to stakeholders; Excel: Pivot Tables, Dashboards. Background & health screen req’d. Some remote work available. Apply online: http:// jobseeker.nm.org/ Req ID: REF64958Q

Data Engineer (Professional Services) Thoughtworks seeks Data Engineer (Professional Services) to work in Chicago, IL & various unanticipated U.S. locations to develop modern data architecture approaches for largescale, custom-designed, enterprise-level business intelligence and analytics projects using software development languages, such as Python and Java, and cloud-based data management technologies. Must have Master’s in Computer Science, Computer or Electrical Engineering, Information Systems, or related field. Must have 2 years exp. in the job offered, Consultant, Software Engineer, or related IT position. Must have at least twelve (12) months experience in: 1. Participating at all stages of the data management solutions delivery lifecycle, including analysis,

development, testing and deployment; 2. Developing applications that are cloud ready/ cloud-native using at least one of the primary cloud providers (AWS, GCP, or Azure); 3. Working with data warehouse architectures, data lake architectural patterns, and streaming data architectures for real-time processing; 4. Using Agile development methodologies including Continuous Integration, Extreme Programming, Continuous Delivery, Test-Driven Development and pair programming; and 5. Working on projects with distributed teams, including managing coordination across countries and time zones. At least 80% travel across U.S. Email resume to ijobs@ thoughtworks.com w/ Job ID SKDE-2024.

Northwestern Memorial Healthcare seeks Analytics Developers for Chicago, IL location to deliver data warehouse & analytic solutions. Bachelors in IT/Med Sci/ related field +2yrs exp req’d. Req’d Skills: 2 yrs w/coding lang; relational databases; SQL for data extract, manipulation, & report; work w/business users in dev analytical solutions; SQL query; stored procedures; data visualization w/ Power BI/Tableau; structured programming. Background check req’d. May telecommute in the Chicago area with ability to commute to HQ Chicago office as req’d. Apply online:http:// jobseeker.nm.org/ Req ID: REF64679H

Principal Data Engineer Thoughtworks seeks Principal Data Engineer to work in Chicago, IL & various unanticipated U.S. locations to develop modern data architecture approaches for largescale, custom-designed, enterprise-level business intelligence and analytics projects using software development languages, such as Python and Java, and cloud-based data management technologies. Must have Bachelor’s in Comp Sci, Comp or Electrical Engineering, Info Systems, or related field. Must have 10 yrs exp in the job offered, Consultant, Software Architect/Engineer, or related IT position. Must have at least 5 yrs exp: 1. Participating at all stages of the software delivery and data management solutions life-cycle, including analysis, development, testing and deployment; 2. Leading a team of software and data engineers to oversee project activity, manage project deliverables and progress, prioritize plans for future iterations, and manage team

performance; 3. Working with data warehouse architectures, data lake architectural patterns, and streaming data architectures for realtime processing; and 4. Using Agile development methodologies including Continuous Integration, Extreme Programming, Continuous Delivery, Test-Driven Development and pair programming. Must have at least 2 yrs exp: Developing applications that are cloud ready/cloud-native using at least one of the primary cloud providers (AWS, GCP, or Azure); Must have at least 1 yr exp: 1. Serving as a liaison between client and development team to define scope and technical direction of the project including requirements gathering and design discussions and managing project deliverables and timeframes; 2. Working on projects with distributed teams, including managing coordination across countries and time zones; and 3. Coaching and mentoring junior developers and data engineers in all aspects of data solution development, including Agile development methodologies. At least 80% travel across U.S. Email resume to ijobs@ thoughtworks.com w/ Job ID SMPDE-2024.

Senior Software Engineer Sought by Enova Financial Holdings, LLC. in Chicago, IL. Dsgn and implmnt sftwre solutions to biz prblms. Telecomm. prmttd. Apply at https:// www.jobpostingtoday. com/ Ref # 95210.

Health Care Service Corporation seeks Sr. Systems Analyst (Chicago, IL) to design enhancements and new business applications and/or information systems solutions through integration of technical and business requirements. REQS: This position requires a bachelor’s degree, or foreign equivalent, in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field plus 4 years of experience as an Information Technology Specialist or related occupation. Telecommuting permitted 2 days a week. Applicants who are interested in this position should submit a complete resume in English to hrciapp@bcbsil.com, search [Sr. Systems Analyst / Reference # R0028600. EOE].

Senior Relevance Engineer Zoro Tools, Inc. is seeking a Senior Relevance Engineer in Chicago, IL to Improve the ranking & relevance of search results by

optimizing search queries & index mappings. 100% remote work allowed from anywhere in the U.S. Please submit res to https://jobs.grainger. com, ref job #309772.

Rate Analyst Commonwealth Edison seeks Rate Analyst in Oakbrook Terrace, IL to prep. reg. filings or ne or rev. tariffs for retail electric servs; prep. & submit informational filings; dvlp & prep cost of serv studies; conduct rate dsgn & pricing analysis, bill reports, & bill impact studies; prep. reports on reg. filings & external comms. on rate proposals; respond to inquiries on retail rate dsgn & app., data requests in reg. proceedings, & reports to reg. agencies. Reqs U.S. Master’s deg. in Applied Econ., Electricity, Natural Gas & Telecomm., or rel. deg. focused on utility reg. & 2 yrs’ exp. in Reg. Analysis, incl. but not limited to utility rate dsgn, embedded cost of serv. analysis, regulated utility revenue req. determination, energy procurement processes & legislative processes governing utility regulation. Telecommuting from w/ in normal commuting distance of Oakbrook Terrace, IL is permitted. Reply by electronic mail w/ resume to jobposting@ exeloncorp.com.

Senior Manager, Project Management Commonwealth Edison seeks Senior Manager, Project Management, in Oakbrook Terrace, IL to dir. the personnel & activities of the Project Mgmt. Group, incl. dvlpmnt, def. & implmntation of wrk processes & financial mgmt. tools; dvlpmnt & implmntation of processes & tools to oversee & effectively mng projects, control costs, assure adherence to schedules, prioritize projects & resources, & forecast budgets; & assure dvlpmnt & effective implmntation of strategic initiatives & focus & attainment of bus. goals & objs. Reqs U.S. or foreign equiv. bach.’s deg. in engr., engr. bus. mgmt., bus. admin., or rel., + 10 yrs’ progressive project mgmt. exp. in energy ind. demonstrating knwldg & understanding of project mgmt. tools, techniques, contracting, & dvlpmnt & implmntation of process enhancements & efficiencies incl. tech.& perf., incl. min. 3 yrs supervising employees. Telecomm. w/in normal commuting distance of Oakbrook Terrace, IL perm. Reply by electronic mail w/ resume to jobposting@ exeloncorp.com

Health Care Service Corporation seeks Senior Developer (Chicago, IL) to provide high level and detailed estimates on work packages. REQS: This pos reqs a bach deg, or forn equiv, in Comp Sci, Electrcl, Electrnc, Mgmt Info Sy or a rel fld, + 4 yrs of exp as a Sr Dev or rel occ. Telecommuting permitted 2 days/week. Applicants who are interested in this position should submit a complete resume in English to hrciapp@bcbsil.com, search [Senior Developer / R0026741. EOE].

Home Partners of America seeks Senior Product Analyst in Chicago, IL to develop accurate SQL queries to generate and validate reports for software products (25%). BS in Stats, Maths, Operations, Indstrl Tech and Operations, or other rlvnt field and 4 yrs rlvnt exp. in positions of Data Anlyst, Cnsltnt IT, Cnsltnt Intern, or rltd position req’d. In alternative, we will accept MS in Stats, Maths, Operations, Indstrl Tech and Operations, or other rlvnt field & 2 yrs’ yrs’ rlvnt exp. in positions of Data Anlyst, Cnsltnt IT, Cnsltnt Intern, or rltd position. For pos. details & to apply, visit: www.homepartners. com/about/careers.

Multiple Positions

Cisco Systems, Inc. is accepting resumes for multiple positions in Chicago, IL: Customer Escalations Engineer (Ref#: CHI190B): Lead complex and critical network problems to resolution for customers. Telecommuting permitted. Leader, Technical Support (Ref#: CHI163B): Responsible for leading a team in the delivery of worldclass customer support on a line of products or for a targeted group of customers. Telecommuting permitted. Software Engineer (Ref#: CHI103B): Responsible for the definition, design, development, test, debugging, release, enhancement or maintenance of software. Telecommuting permitted. Support Product Specialist (Ref#: CHI189B): Responsible for reviewing and approving defects for company Meraki network switching products, and work with product management and engineers to prioritize and resolve them. Telecommuting

permitted. Support Product Specialist (Ref#: CHI489B): Provide technical product support regarding the company’s proprietary systems and software. Telecommuting permitted. Please email resumes including position’s reference number in subject line to Cisco Systems, Inc. at amsjobs@cisco. com. No phone calls please. Must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. without sponsorship. EOE. www.cisco.com

PROFESSIONALS & SERVICES

CLEANING SERVICES

CHESTNUT ORGANIZING AND CLEANING SERVICES: especially for people who need an organizing service because of depression, elderly, physical or mental challenges or other causes for your home’s clutter, disorganization, dysfunction, etc. We can organize for the downsizing of your current possessions to more easily move into a smaller home. With your help, we can help to organize your move. We can organize and clean for the deceased in lieu of having the bereaved needing to do the preparation to sell or rent the deceased’s home. We are absolutely not judgmental; we’ve seen and done “worse” than your job assignment. With your help, can we please help you? Chestnut Cleaning Service: 312-332-5575. www. ChestnutCleaning.com

MATCHES

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BREAK CYCLES TO BUILD FUTURES