Print Issue of June 1, 2017 (Volume 46, Number 34) by Chicago Reader

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

THE ROAD TRIPS ISSUE 10 PRINCE’S MINNEAPOLIS

SILICORN VALLEY

THE HOBO CAPITAL OF AMERICA

And more stories of MIDWEST EXPLORATION

THE LARGEST CRAFT BEER CELEBRATION

Saturday, June 10 Chicago, IL

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2 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

THIS WEEK

C H I C AG O R E A D E R | J U N E 1 , 2 01 7 | VO LU M E 4 6 , N U M B E R 3 4

TO CONTACT ANY READER EMPLOYEE, E-MAIL: (FIRST INITIAL)(LAST NAME) @CHICAGOREADER.COM

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

IN THIS ISSUE

THE ROAD TRIPS ISSUE

27 Lit With Imagine Wanting Only This, Kristen Radtke turns comics into poetry. 28 Small Screen In Twin Peaks: The Return, the only certainty is that no one other than Mark Frost and David Lynch could’ve made it.

A freight-hopping- Prince’s purple free trip to the Hobo reign continues Capital of America The artist’s death has given For more than 100 years, Britt, Iowa, has feted the nation’s traveling workers during the Hobo Days festival. BY AIMEE LEVITT 10

way to a somewhat ghoulish new tourism business in his native Minnesota. BY STEVE MARSH 12

Children of the Silicorn Valley

Fairﬁeld, Iowa, is an unlikely hub for Transcendental Meditation and enlightened capitalism. BY JOHN GREENFIELD 13

Home cooking from Jisr al-Shughur The food traditions of a Syrian city under siege are being preserved in a small deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan. BY MIKE SULA 16

---------------------------------------------------------------READER (ISSN 1096-6919) IS PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY STM READER, LLC, 350 N. ORLEANS, CHICAGO, IL 60654. COPYRIGHT © 2017 CHICAGO READER. PERIODICAL POSTAGE PAID AT CHICAGO, IL.

ON THE COVER: ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN GARRISON. FOR MORE OF HIS WORK, GO TO JOHNGARRISONART.COM.

30 Feature To support Love Sick, her biggest album yet, Natalie Chami—aka TALsounds—has learned to replay the beautiful ambient pop songs she improvised to record it. 35 In Rotation Current musical obsessions include Friends of the Gamelan, Willie Nelson, and Questlove’s food book. 36 Shows of note Joan Shelley, Dam-Funk, Do Division, Alan Licht, and more recommendations

CITY LIFE

CHICAGO READER 350 N. ORLEANS, CHICAGO, IL 60654 312-222-6920, CHICAGOREADER.COM

MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE

4 Agenda Takashi Murakami at the MCA, The Incredible Hank at the Royal George, Story Arc Sketch Comedy Festival, Pop-Up Magazine, the ﬁlm The Death of Louis XIV, and more recommended goings-on about town

Wright place, right time

Frank Lloyd Wright’s SC Johnson campus in Racine, Wisconsin, beckons architecture buﬀs oﬀ the beaten path. BY JAKE MALOOLEY 17

7 Street View A musician in a panda mask makes it his mission to spread happiness. 7 Sure Things A Prince roller-disco party at the Rink and more of the week’s best bets 8 Joravsky | Politics A judge orders CPS to turn over records concerning former principal Troy LaRaviere.

ARTS & CULTURE

23 Dance Tango 21 and its oﬀshoot Tango 21 Dance Theater bring the real deal from Argentina to Chicago. 24 Lit For Give a Girl a Knife author Amy Thielen, there’s just as much magic in the midwest as in Manhattan ﬁne dining. 24 Theater Tonya Harding remains a cipher in American Theater Company’s T.

Day trips, by trail then rail

Increasing bike friendliness among passenger railways makes it possible to pedal to neighboring states and take the train back. BY JULIA THIEL 22

FOOD & DRINK

26 Visual Art The Polaroid Wall app commemorates the pioneering ﬁlm and video studio IPA.

42 Restaurant review: Gemini The reboot of the Lincoln Park standby will surprise no one. 45 Cocktail Challenge: Cottage Cheese Kiel Schelich whips up a boozy peaches-and-cream-inspired milk shake.

CLASSIFIEDS

46 Jobs 46 Apartments & Spaces 47 Marketplace

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48 Straight Dope What’s the diﬀerence between service animals, emotional support animals, and therapy animals? 49 Savage Love How not to be an asshole on Grindr 50 Early Warnings Ryan Adams, Agent Orange, Taylor Bennett, Guns N’ Roses, Lauryn Hill, and more upcoming shows 50 Gossip Wolf Rabid Rabbit alum Andrea Jablonski dusts oﬀ her bass for a duo at ESS, and more music news.

JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 3

AGENDA

R READER RECOMMENDED

Send your events to agenda@chicagoreader.com

b ALL AGES

THEATER

tival. Other performers include Aparna Nancherla, Jena Friedman, and Bobcat Goldthwait & Caitlin Gill. 5/31-6/4, various locations, 26comedy.com, $10-$34.50.

Late Late Breakfast’s FourR Year Blowout The brunch-time stand-up showcase celebrates its fourth

More at chicagoreader.com/ theater

There’s so much to do at Navy Pier this summer, from free live music in the Miller Lite Beer Garden to the Aon Summer Fireworks, every visit is a new experience.

For more information, visit navypier.com

The Incredible Hank In the fictional city of Sandicago, superheroes and supervillains are running rampant. All except Hank, who would rather be the world’s greatest file clerk than even admit to possessing any special powers, much less use them to fight bad guys. But when his loudmouth superhero-wannabe boss, Carl, shoots the city’s greatest supervillain, Dr. Manticle, Hank is forced to step in and save the day. What makes this hour-long comedy from New Millennium Theatre Company work is that it’s sincere without being cloying and self-referential without being smug. The handmade, ultra-low-budget costumes and the use of puppets and fake newscasts only add to the fun, making the underlying commentary on our fame-obsessed society go down that much easier. Alex B. Reynolds wrote and directed. —DMITRY SAMAROV Through 6/24: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Royal George Theatre Center, 1641 N. Halsted, 312-988-9000, theroyalgeorgetheatre.com, $20. The Karaoke Murder Mystery Extravaganza Somewhere, for some reason, and at an undisclosed juncture in human history, a cash prize is being awarded for best karaoke performance. The contestants are also the judges. Trouble is that everybody keeps getting picked off by the mob or poisoned with ricin. So much for the plot. What really happens here is that a gaggle of absurd caricatures, unburdened of any depth, sing their favorite songs and then absurdly die, with all the mystery and suspense of a boiled egg. There are pre- and postshow karaoke parties, if you care to get in on the act. —MAX MALLER Through 6/24: Sat 10 PM, Public House Theatre, 3914 N. Clark, 800650-6449, pubhousetheatre.com, $15. The Night Season In her 2004 play about a prototypical pent-up rural Irish family—semidemented, unabashedly libidinal grandmother Lily, besotted misanthropic father Patrick, and seething, sexually frustrated sisters Maud, Rose, and Judith—British playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz borrows liberally from Pinter, Chekhov, and Martin McDonagh, among others. It makes for intriguing, well-observed characters facing potentially explosive moments, especially when handsome actor John, playing Yeats in a biopic being shot in town, takes up temporary residence and ignites dormant passions in at least two of the women. But the explosions are late and limp. Little of significant consequence happens until midway through act two, when a flurry of confessions and meltdowns springs

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birthday with secret guest comics, greatest-hits games, and lots and lots of pancakes. Sat 6/3, 2 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, 773-227-4433, hideoutchicago.com, $5 suggested donation. The Roast of Wonder Woman Stand-ups get in character to R roast Amazonian superhero Wonder

The Incredible Hank o SAM LONG from near left field. Director Elly Green’s fine cast deliver winning moments—far more winning than the story they’re meant to support. —JUSTIN HAYFORD Through 6/24: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 4 PM, The Factory Theater, 1623 W. Howard, strawdog.org, $30. The Radiant Marie Curie’s epochal scientific triumphs, including the isolation of radium and the discovery of radioactivity, were overshadowed during her lifetime by unwanted celebrity, sexism, and public scandal. Shirley Lauro’s tender, searching play, presented by Genesis Theatrical Productions, is adapted from accounts of Curie’s clandestine affair with Paul Langevin, a married former student of her beloved husband, Pierre Curie, whom two Parisian packhorses trampled to his untimely death four years prior to the action of the drama. Debbie Ruzicka puts forward an overwhelmingly fragile Marie to James McGuire’s shuffling and rakish Paul, her extreme demands—”Leave your wife and children!”—tough and beautiful in their urgent passion. Kaitlin Taylor directs. —MAX MALLER 5/18-6/11: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport, 773-935-6860, genesistheatricals.com, $32, $17 students and seniors.

Susan Powers, and more. Mon 6/5, 7:30 PM, Links Hall at Constellation, 3111 N. Western, 773-281-0824, linkshall.org, $10.

COMEDY

Beautiful/Anonymous A live recording of comedian Chris R Gethard’s podcast, in which he talks

to random strangers over the phone, eliciting their life stories. Tue 6/6, 6 PM, Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln, 773-5252501, lh-st.com, $20.

Cocktails and Humor A stand-up showcase featuring Meghana R Indurti, Josh Ballew, Vik Pandya, Tyler Fowler, and Greg Bach. Sat 6/3, 7 PM, CH Distillery, 564 W. Randolph, 312-7078780, chdistillery.com, $20.

Four Man Show Corey Caldwell and Jeremy Sender’s sketch show R tackling millennial culture. 6/7-6/28: Wed 10 PM, iO Theater, 1501 N. Kingsbury, ioimprov.com/chicago, $5.

Fourth Annual 26th Annual R Comedy Festival The A.V. Club welcomes headliners Patton Oswalt,

Christopher Guest, and Mike Judge to town for its fourth annual comedy fes-

Woman. Sun 6/4, 9 PM, Laugh Factory, 3175 N. Broadway, 773-327-3175, laughfactory.com, $20 plus two-drink minimum, $17 plus two-drink minimum in advance. Story Arc Sketch Comedy R Festival Sketch group Vienna Juvenile hosts this brand-new festival

combining theater and sketch comedy. 6/1-6/10: Thu 8 PM, Fri-Sat 8 and 10 PM, Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont, 773-327-5252, viennajuvenilecomedy.com, $15, $25 for all-night pass, $50 for five-day pass. 26 Pride Arts Center christens its latenight programming with this compilation of sketches and supershort plays written by staples of Chicago’s comedy and theater scenes. In the vein of the One Minute Play Festival or the Neo-Futurists’ The Infinite Wrench, ten playwrights and comedians are randomly assigned letters of the alphabet (hence the title) by director Brian Gore, from which they derive inspiration for a one- or two-minute piece presented by a game ensemble of eight. The result is a little more than an hour of poetry, quick gags, and context-free dramatic fragments that tend to land better the more familiar you are with the names and companies behind them. However slight the pieces, though, at least the fostered sense of community is authentic and palpable. —DAN JAKES Through 7/14: Fri 11 PM, Pride Arts Center, 4147 N. Broadway, 1-800737-0984, pridefilmsandplays.com, $10.

DANCE

The Art of Resilience Red Clay Dance’s spring concert focuses R on themes relating to identity with ﬁve

new works. Saturday’s performance is followed by the Paint the Town Red fund-raiser. 6/3-6/4: Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3:30 PM, Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th, redclaydance.com, $20. Co-Mission Festival of New R Works Jenn Freeman, Joanna Furnans, Darling Shear, and Jessica Ray

present new performances during this inaugural dance festival. Thu 6/1-Sun 6/4: 7 PM, Links Hall at Constellation, 3111 N. Western, 773-281-0824, linkshall.org, $25 festival pass.

Jello: Seven This iteration of the choreography series features works R in progress by Tuli Bera, Kristin McCoy,

26 o BRIAN GORE

Best bets, recommendations, and notable arts and culture events for the week of June 1

Tyler Jackson and Danny Maupin of Late Late Breakfast o JIM VONDRUSKA

We Still Like You: Pride and Shame This pride-themed show features all-LGBTQ performers—including Cody Cartagena, Dina Nina Martinez, and Toyota Corona—sharing their most shameful stories. Sat 6/3, 10 PM, Collaboraction, 1579 N. Milwaukee, 312226-9633, facebook.com/WeStillLikeYou, $5 suggested donation.

component. 6/6-9/18. Tue-Sat noon-7 PM, 6760 S. Stony Island, 312-857-5561, rebuild-foundation.org/site/stony-islandarts-bank.

hood in the New Black Sun. Thu 6/1, 7:30 PM, Women & Children First, 5233 N. Clark, 773-769-9299, womenandchildrenﬁrst.com.

Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art “Night Train,” Chicago artist Marcos Raya’s semiautobiographical exhibit featuring paintings, collages, and found-object works. Opening reception Fri 6/2, 6-9 PM. 6/2-7/30. Wed-Sun noon-4 PM. 2320 W. Chicago, 773-227-5522, uima-chicago.org, $5 suggested donation.

Pop-Up Magazine Artists create R a live magazine featuring true stories, ﬁlms, photography, and radio

Vertical Gallery “Hidden in Plain Sight,” work by UK street and graﬃti artist Pure Evil. Opening reception Sat 6/3, 6-10 PM. 6/2-6/24. Tue-Sat 11 AM-6 PM. 1016 N. Western, 773-697-3846, verticalgallery.com.

Museum of Contemporary Art “The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg,” Japanese artist Takashi Murakami has collaborated with Kanye West and Louis Vuitton, and now his anime-inspired paintings are on display in Chicago for the ﬁrst time. High rollers can attend the opening gala on Sat 6/3—which features a performance by Janelle Monáe—for $250-$2,500; the rest of us will just have to take in the artist’s work examining globalization, media culture, and the continued threats of nuclear power in less glamorous company. 6/6-9/24. Tue 10 AM-8 PM, Wed-Sun 10 AM-5 PM. 220 E. Chicago, 312-2802660, mcachicago.org, $12, $7 students and seniors, free kids 12 and under and members of the military, free for Illinois residents on Tuesdays. Stony Island Arts Bank “Future People,” this exhibit features Derrick Adams’s multimedia work mimicking the windows and control center of a spacecraft, complete with a live DJ-set

Rebecca Mir Grady, and Amy Giacalone. Tue 6/6, 8 PM, the Chicago Publishers Resource Center, 858 N. Ashland, twocookieminimum.blogspot.com, $5.

Document Gallery “Psychopompopolis,” Erin Jane Nelson’s site-speciﬁc display of photographic experiments printed on fabric, based on Nelson’s short story of the same name. 6/3-7/8. Wed-Sat 11 AM-6 PM. 1709 W. Chicago, 262-719-3500, documentspace.com.

Matthew Rachman Gallery “The Fantastic Nest,” Kate McCarthy explores human comfort through works created with fabric and embroidery. Opening reception Fri 6/2, 6-9 PM. 6/2-7/23. ThuSun 11 AM-6 PM. 1659 W. Chicago, 773245-3182, matthewrachmangallery.com.

Two Cookie Minimum The R reading series returns with local zinesters Yewon Kwon, Alenka Figa,

You’re Being Ridiculous This edition of the storytelling show features performers sharing tales inspired by the theme “pride” as part of Steppenwolf Theatre’s LookOut series. 6/7-6/21: Wed 8 PM, Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted, 312-335-1650, yourebeingridiculous.com, $20.

VISUAL ARTS

Filter Space “The Personals Ads and the B-Side,” Karen Connell’s project based on a personal ad she placed in the Village Voice in 2000 paired with silhouette works by Frank Ishman. Opening reception Fri 6/2, 6-9 PM. 6/2-7/22. Mon-Sat 11 AM-5 PM. 1821 W. Hubbard, suite 207, ﬁlterfestival.com.

from writers, performers, and musicians including This American Life producer Karen Duﬃn, author Jon Ronson, Reader editor Robin Amer, and more. Sat 6/3, 7 PM, Harris Theater, 205 E. Randolph, 312-334-7777, popupmagazine.com, $25.

MOVIES

More at chicagoreader.com/movies NEW REVIEWS Angela Jackson o COURTESY OF BETTY J. JACKSON UZZELL

Western Exhibitions “New Relics from the Pleasuredome,” a collection of Dutes Miller’s sculptures created from found objects. Opening reception Sat 6/3, 5-8 PM. 6/3-7/8. Wed-Sat 11 AM-6 PM. “Supple Leopard,” Katie Halton’s velvet paintings. Opening reception Sat 6/3, 5-8 PM. 6/3-7/8. Wed-Sat 11 AM-6 PM. 1709 W. Chicago, 312-480-8390, westernexhibitions.com.

LIT & LECTURES

Brooks Day @ Nite The “oﬃcial R centennial birthday party” featuring hors d’oeuvres, cake, and 100

Buster’s Mal Heart This peculiar indie drama scores points for originality and impressive performances, though it’s elusive in its design and feels unsatisfying on the whole. Writer-director Sarah Adina Smith intercuts between two narrative strands. In the ﬁrst, a hotel concierge (Rami Malek), raising a twoyear-old daughter with his devout Christian wife (Kate Lyn Sheil), starts to lose his grip on reality after he befriends a nomadic computer engineer (DJ Qualls) who believes the collapse of civilization is imminent. In the second, a hermit living in the woods of Montana (Malek again) sustains himself during the winter by breaking into vacation homes of the upper class and taking their belongings. Smith maintains a compelling air of mystery and introduces some interest-

For more of the best things to do every day of the week, go to chicagoreader. com/agenda. ing themes about self-determination and social organization; however, the various pieces don’t quite add up, and Smith’s attempts at humor aren’t especially funny. —BEN SACHS 98 min. Music Box Dean Comedian Demetri Martin is partially famous for using drawings in his stand-up routines; in his debut feature as writer-director he also stars as a grieving Brooklyn cartoonist, but here his doodles don’t carry the same punch. At loose ends after his mother’s passing, and at odds with his more practical father (Kevin Kline), the title artist avoids another showdown with dad by flying to Los Angeles to drum up new work. Shallow admen, old friends who’ve gone Hollywood, and one excruciating party are needed distractions, but his funk hovers like smog until he clicks with a radiant beauty (Gillian Jacobs). Martin’s gentle observational humor is appealing but doesn’t quite fit the resentful lead character, and Kline, who plays his role straight, seems to belong in another movie; this material might’ve worked better as sketches in an omnibus film. —ANDREA GRONVALL PG-13, 87 min.

Centennial Celebration Free Programming Live on the Lake! - Free Music & Dance Series in the Miller Lite Beer Garden Wednesday - Sunday Memorial Day Weekend – Labor Day Weekend Aon Summer Fireworks Every Wednesday & Saturday Memorial Day Weekend – Labor Day Weekend Rush Hour Fitness Fitness Formula Club Classes: Tuesdays from 6:00pm - 7:00pm June 6 - August 29 Sunset Yoga VibeUp Yoga Classes: Tuesdays from 7:30pm - 8:30pm June 6 - August 29 Navy Pier Pride Saturday, June 24 Shakespeare in the Park Romeo & Juliet July 26 - July 28

The Death of Louis XIV As R much a lesson in medical history as political history, Spanish director

Albert Serra’s retelling of the final days of the Sun King relates the monarch’s treatment in meticulous and fascinating detail. The film focuses almost exclusively on the dying king’s relationship to his doctors (which Serra based on court records), and from their interactions one gains a vivid sense of the superstitions and limited scientific knowledge that determined medical practices in the early 18th century. Reminiscent of the historical dramas that Roberto Rossellini created for television in the 1970s, Serra’s movie immerses viewers in the day-to-day life of the period, making narrative a secondary concern. Yet the story never feels aimless, thanks to Serra’s skillful parceling of observations W

one-minute performances from Tara Betts, Kevin Coval, Angela Jackson, Nate Marshall, Patricia Smith, and more. Wed 6/7, 6 PM, Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th, voices.uchicago. edu/brooks100, $45.

I Just Like the Way It Sounds R Members of the Teen Writers Studio celebrate the release of their

chapbook by reading original stories and poems. Mon 6/5, 6:30 PM, 826CHI, 1276 N. Milwaukee, 773-772-8108, 826chi.org.

Angela Jackson The author R reads from her Gwendolyn Brooks biography, A Surprised Queen-

Buster’s Mal Heart

JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 5

AGENDA oﬀ to an unhappy start when her husband-to-be (Sam Neill) refuses to transport her piano. A local white man living with the Maori natives (Harvey Keitel) buys the piano from him and, fascinated by and attracted to the mute woman, agrees to “sell” it back to her a key at a time in exchange for lessons, with ultimately traumatic consequences. —JONATHAN ROSENBAUM 117 min. Sun 6/4, 7 PM. Univ. of Chicago Doc Films

The Death of Louis XIV and the refined performances of the ensemble cast. At the center of it all is Jean-Pierre Léaud’s commanding B and achingly vulnerable turn as Louis, which ranks among the actor’s best work. In French and Latin with English subtitles. —BEN SACHS 115 min. Fri 6/2, 6 PM; Sat 6/3, 7:45 PM; Sun 6/4, 3 PM; Mon 6/5, 8 PM; Tue 6/6, 8 PM; Wed 6/7, 6 PM; and Thu 6/8, 8:30 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center Julian Schnabel: A Private Portrait Painter and filmmaker Julian Schnabel is the subject of this insufferable documentary, a work of pure hype that feels like watching an overeager puppy lick the face of its owner. Director Pappi Corsicato loads the film with testimonies from Schnabel’s famous friends (among them Al Pacino, Laurie Anderson, Bono, and Willem Dafoe), who speak in vague, albeit glowing terms about his talent and outsize personality. None of them provide any insight into his oeuvre or its cultural significance, and the interviews with Schnabel don’t reveal much either. The underlying argument is that Schnabel’s ascension in the art world in the late 70s and early 80s owed as much to his genius for self-promotion as it did to his actual paintings, and Corsicato plays into the artist’s self-mythologizing. —BEN SACHS 88 min. Fri 6/2, 2 and 8:15 PM; Sat 6/3, 3 PM; Sun 6/4, 5:15 PM; Mon 6/5, 6 PM; Tue 6/6, 8:30 PM; Wed 6/7, 6 PM; and Thu 6/8, 8:45 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center

REVIVALS Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire A marked disappointment after Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), this fourth installment in the franchise is a 157-minute holding pattern in which neither of the ongoing stories—Harry’s conﬂict with the evil sorcerer Voldemort, the young schoolmates’ comingof-age at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft—progresses much. The rangy plot centers on a magic decathlon between rival schools, allowing for the usual splendid special eﬀects, but I was more charmed by a brief centerpiece in which the

6 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

kids prepare for and attend their first prom—with the chronically embarrassed Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) being tutored in dance by the prim Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith). Mike Newell (Mona Lisa Smile) directed; with Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Robbie Coltrane, and far too little of Alan Rickman. —J.R. JONES 2005 PG-13, 157 min. 35mm. Fri 6/2-Sat 6/3, midnight. Music Box Manhattan Woody Allen’s R great leap forward into character development and dramatic integrity (1979). The story is La Ronde with a thrown cog, as Allen’s Isaac Davis, a television writer with serious aspirations, turns among three women (Mariel Hemingway, Diane Keaton, and Meryl Streep), his spin impelled by best friend Michael Murphy. The script is funny and observant, full of shocks of recognition, but for all his progress as a writer, Allen’s direction remains disconcertingly amateurish. The visuals are cramped and gray, the pacing is rough, and the performances are pitched on disruptively different levels of stylization. Still, it remains perhaps the only film in which Allen has been able to successfully imagine a personality other than his own. With Anne Byrne. —DAVE KEHR R, 96 min. Music Box

The Piano Sweetie and An R Angel at My Table have taught us to expect startling as well

as beautiful things from Jane Campion, and this assured and provocative third feature (1993) oﬀers yet another lush parable—albeit a bit more calculated and commercially minded—about the perils and paradoxes of female self-expression. Set during the last century, this original story by Campion—which evokes at times some of the romantic intensity of Emily Brontë—focuses on a Scottish widow (Holly Hunter) who hasn’t spoken since her childhood, presumably by choice, and whose main form of self-expression is her piano playing. She arrives with her nine-year-old daughter in the New Zealand wilds to enter into an arranged marriage, which gets

The Red Circle Jean-Pierre Melville’s austere heist film, made in 1970, was his next to last; it opens with a Buddhist aphorism about fate binding two men to meet again, and ends with a police chief pronouncing all men ultimately guilty. Two prisoners return to society—Corey (Alain Delon) has served his sentence and is released, while Vogel (Gian Maria Volontè) escapes from a speeding train. They team up with a sharpshooting ex-cop to mount an exquisite jewel theft. Melville renders the taciturn crooks and corrupt inspectors with the nocturnal blue palette that is his signature. Key action points are edited with finesse, but the denouement, with its dutiful hail of gunfire, is heartless and mechanical. With Yves Montand, André Bourvil, and François Périer. In French with subtitles. —BILL STAMETS 140 min. Sat 6/3, 5 PM, and Thu 6/8, 6 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center

SPECIAL EVENTS In the Morning Directed by Nefertiti Nguvu, this 2014 drama follows a group of nine friends in modern-day Brooklyn. 75 min. Nguvu attends the screening. Fri 6/2, 7 PM. Stony Island Arts Bank Mercury Is Mine The owner of a failing Filipino restaurant takes on as her apprentice a teenage American boy. Jason Paul Laxamana directed this 2016 drama. In English and subtitled Tagalog. 98 min. Wed 6/7, 6:30 PM. Chicago Cultural Center New York Dog Film Festival You know it’s from New York because the dogs are all incredibly rude. This second annual touring festival consists of two diﬀerent programs collecting canine-themed animation and live-action shorts. Sun 6/4, noon and 2 PM. Music Box NU Docs Thesis ﬁlms by graduate students in Northwestern University’s new documentary media program. Wed 6/7 (program one), Thu 6/8 (program two), and Fri 6/9 (program three), 7 PM. Northwestern University Block Museum of Art F Premiere Film Festival Short works by cinema, screenwriting, and animation students at DePaul University. Fri 6/2, 6 PM. Music Box v

CITY LIFE

Street View

o ISA GIALLORENZO

Panda expression

IT WAS LOVE at first sight when Torrio Jetson was given a giant panda mask as a “serendipitous gift.” “The purpose for me was clear as soon as I saw it,” the local musician says. “No hesitation—I put it on my head upon receiving it and walked around Wicker Park. I even went to Big Star and ordered tacos with it on.” Reactions from bystanders have been universally positive. “I wave at them and they wave back ecstatically,” Jetson says. “While driving they yell out and sing along with cheer. They come out of restaurants and ask to take a selfie with me. Very rarely does anyone respond in an unhappy manner. Parents love it, as well as kids. In a world that’s so gray and dismal sometimes, I just want to brighten their day.” —ISA GIALLORENZO See more Chicago street style on Giallorenzo’s blog chicagolooks.blogspot.com.

SURE THINGS ¥

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

SUNDAY 4

& A S c of f l aw S e i n fe l d Tr i b u t e The cocktail bar serves up Seinfeld-inspired drinks with a special food menu that includes a big salad, black-and-white cookies, and muffin tops. Sun 6/4-Mon 6/5: 11 AM-2 AM, Scofflaw, 3201 W. Armitage, scofflawchicago.com.

THURSDAY 1

FRIDAY 2

SATURDAY 3

& Maifest Celebrate Chicago’s German heritage with this annual springtime festival. Now in its 17th year, Maifest includes German food, entertainment, and maypole dances. 6/1-6/4: Thu 5-9:30 PM, Fri 5-11 PM, Sat noon-11 PM, Sun noon-10 PM, Lincoln and Leland, mayfestchicago.com. F

& Flavors of Mexico The weekend festival features authentic Mexican cuisine, live music, arts and crafts, and carnival rides. Fri 6/2-Sun 6/4: noon-10 PM, 26th and California, chicagoevents. com/events/taste-of-littlevillage-ﬂavors-of-mexico.

M D im Sum 5K The Chinese Mutual Aid Association hosts this race that rewards runners with a box of dim sum from Furama. 8 AM, Buttercup Park, 4901 N. Sheridan, chinesemutualaid.org, $40.

MONDAY 5

TUESDAY 6

WEDNESDAY 7

# Th ings Th at Mat tere d Daniel Borzutsky and Bethany Collins discuss the role of language and speech in shaping humanity. 6 PM, Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell, hydeparkart. org. F

# First Tuesdays Wi th Mick and Ben The Reader’s very own Ben Joravsky and the Sun-Times’s Mick Dumke host their monthly political roundtable at the Hideout. 6:30 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, hideoutchicago.com, $5.

ò Let’s D isgo Crazy! A three-day celebration of Prince kicks oﬀ tonight with a roller disco with music from Rae Chardonnay and Shazam Bangles. Purple costumes encouraged. 8:30 PM-midnight, Rink Chicago, 1122 E. 87th, happybirthdayprince. eventbrite.com, $20.

JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 7

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

CITY LIFE Troy LaRaviere speaks about his removal as principal from Blaine Elementary at a press conference at Wishbone North in 2016. o MAX HERMAN FOR SUN-TIMES MEDIA

POLITICS

FOIA ﬁght

A judge orders CPS to turn over records about former principal Troy LaRaviere.

By BEN JORAVSKY

s court orders go, a Cook County judge’s recent decision to make Chicago Public Schools officials turn over the so-called “LaRaviere ﬁles” don’t rank up there with, say, the U.S. Supreme Court compelling President Nixon to release the White House tapes. Not that I’m comparing Rahm to Nixon. It’s more that I’ve got Nixon and his Watergate crimes on my mind these days, for all the obvious reasons. But Judge Sanjay Tailor’s ruling is pretty big news here in Chicago for anyone who takes seriously Mayor Rahm’s claim to running a transparent, open city government. Stop laughing. Let’s fill in the details. The LaRaviere in question is Troy, the former principal at Blaine Elementary School who was bounced from

8 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

his post last April on trumped-up charges of malfeasance that no one—with the possible exception of Rahm—actually believes. And I doubt even Rahm believes them. After CPS officials fired LaRaviere, a northside activist named Nick Burt asked CPS to turn over the documents and e-mails related to the principal’s dismissal, including memos or e-mails that mentioned Senator Bernie Sanders. Why Sanders? Burt thought LaRaviere may have been punished for openly endorsing Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton, the mayor’s choice. But even if the Sanders endorsement played no role in LaRaviere’s dismissal, Burt ﬁgured it was worth going on a ﬁshing expedition to see what Rahm was up to. Thus, he entered a circle of hell known as the FOIA maze. FOIA, or the Freedom of Information Act,

is of course the state law that requires public entities like CPS to turn over public documents, including any that might indicate why they fired the mayor’s most outspoken critic. Which, now that I think of it, is not completely unlike President Trump firing the man—FBI director James Comey—who was heading the investigation into Russia’s alleged meddling with our elections. Looks like I’ve got Trump as well as Nixon on my mind. Although FOIA laws are intended to help the public access information about the inner workings of government, FOIA is often wielded as a weapon the mayor’s aides use to frustrate truth seekers until their spirits are broken and they raise their hands in desperation as if to say, “We quit! Do whatever you want, Mayor Rahm.” In this case, CPS officials hit Burt with the oldest trick in the FOIA book: delay, delay, delay. For months, Burt got no response, so he hired a lawyer, Daniel Massoglia. And on September 7 he filed a lawsuit in Cook County court, aiming to force CPS to turn over the information. On September 9, the Sun-Times wrote a story about his case. Within a few days, CPS sent over a bunch of newspaper clippings, mostly having to do with Bernie Sanders. In short, nothing Burt didn’t know already. That may be the second-oldest trick in the mayor’s FOIA book—feed ’em bullshit. More days passed. It looked as though Burt would never get to the bottom of things. And then, last month, he hit pay dirt. Well, as much pay dirt as you’re going to hit in a FOIA case. As part of a court-ordered exchange of documents, CPS turned over a transcript of an instant message exchange that schools aides Andrew Mason and Emily Bittner had sometime last year regarding Burt’s FOIA request. In it they mention Massoglia, Burt’s lawyer: Mason: Meh. Bittner: One of his likes is “the law” Mason: And he lectures. Bittner: I’m sure. Mason: Big tell on his letter, he uses the firm’s stationary but uses his home address. False alarm, this is a lame recreational FOIA.

In other words, Massoglia’s not a serious lawyer, at least in their estimation, so there’s really no reason to respond to this FOIA request. CPS also sent Burt a copy of a May 20, 2016, e-mail from Mason to Bittner that says: “random attorney [Massoglia], seeking emails for various people regarding [La Rav iere] a nd Bern ie Sa nders. A f ter weeks of narrowing, I would deny the [Troy LaRaviere documents] for various reasons, but grant the Bernie Sanders portion because almost all of them are news clips.” In other words, we’ll feed Massoglia some bullshit to justify not turning over the good stuff about LaRaviere, and then we’ll turn over a bunch of new clips about Bernie. Which is what they did. Clearly, Mason and Bittner didn’t think much of Burt or his lawyer. But as we all know, every now and then David beats Goliath. And so it was on May 23, when Judge Tailor ordered CPS to stop messing around and turn over the LaRaviere documents, as the district hasn’t shown a compelling reason why they should be kept secret. So now, at long last, we’ll get to see what little secrets Rahm and his f lunkies have been hiding—if they’ve been hiding anything at all. It could be that there’s an e-mail from Emanuel to Forrest Claypool, his appointed schools CEO, along the lines of: “Listen, you dimwit, fire that fucker or I’ll kick your ass.” Wh ich sou nds l i ke somet h i n g R a h m might say to his most loyal of sidekicks. Or maybe there’s nothing interesting in the files, and Rahm’s clan at CPS has been messing with Burt for no reason other than that they can. CPS didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story. One thing’s for certain, though: their FOIA high jinks will cost the dead-broke school system money—because they’re going to have to pay Massoglia’s legal fees. So the “random attorney” who works out of his house will get the last laugh after all. In any event, CPS and Burt will return to court next month to figure out a timetable for turning over the stuff they should have given to him months and months ago. “We’ve done all that we can,” Burt says. “And now we’ll see what we get.” v

ß @joravben

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ROAD TRIPS The Hobo Museum is located inside the building that was once the Chief movie theater. o J. STEPHEN CONN / FLICKR CREATIVE COMMONS

A freight-hopping-free trip to the Hobo Capital of America

For more than 100 years, Britt, Iowa, has feted the nation’s traveling workers during the Hobo Days festival.

By AIMEE LEVITT

here are two versions of the story of how Britt, Iowa, became the Hobo Capital of America. The official version, as told by Bill Eckels, a volunteer guide at Britt’s Hobo Museum who also answers to the nom de hobo Boxcar Billy, goes something like this: Back in the summer of 1900, the hobos of America were planning their annual gathering, at which they’d sing songs, tell stories, eat stew, and possibly develop new additions to their elaborate system of signs. But there was some difficulty deciding where this gathering would take place. Finally one lone hobo stepped between the two arguing factions from New York and California and proposed his own hometown, Britt, on the grounds that it was smack-dab in the middle. All the other hobos agreed this was a brilliant idea, and a tradition was born. Every August for more than a century now, the town of Britt has hosted Hobo Days, welcoming the nation’s hobos with a parade; 500

10 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

gallons of free mulligan stew; a hobo jungle, or campsite, complete with boxcar; and, since the 1970s, a permanent resting place in Evergreen Cemetery. (This year’s festival is August 10 to 13.) Every year, the hobos elect a king and queen, who like winners of local beauty pageants spend their reigns serving as goodwill ambassadors. Eckels, who is 71 and looks like Santa Claus, also has fond childhood memories of organizing a gang of 30 kids to sneak into the Hobo Days burlesque show (“I saw more in church last Sunday!”), but presently Hobo Days is more of a family-friendly affair, with clowns, carnival rides, an ice cream social, a cow-chip-tossing contest, and a toilet bowl race down the middle of Main Avenue. To get to Britt, you have to travel by road, not rail. The train passes through town twice a day, but it’s almost all shipping containers mounted on ﬂatbeds, no boxcars. A few years ago, a man from Mason City, about half an hour away, attempted to make a grand en-

trance to Hobo Days in bona ﬁde hobo style. He got busted almost immediately and was thrown in jail and fined $600. Once he got out—paying his own way because, according to Eckels, “he could buy half the town”—he was the hit of the hobo jungle. Still, Britt takes its hobo heritage seriously. The ﬁrst thing you see when you drive into town is a big sign that says national hobo convention topped with a picture of a hobo carrying a bindle and a can of stew. There’s a diner called Mary Jo’s Hobo House, decorated with model trains, bindle sticks, and photos of famous hobos, some of which look suspiciously like professional head shots. There’s a garden decorated with metal cutouts of hobo signs and a hobo time capsule. And of course, there’s the museum, located in what was, until 20 years ago, the Chief movie theater. If you want to visit any time of the year that is not Hobo Days, you have to call to make an appointment. At the moment, Eckels is your guy, and his number (641-843-3512) is posted on the museum’s front window, though he says he’ll be giving up the gig sometime this summer. (And here I must give a shout-out to the very nice woman at the Britt city clerk’s office who walked down there on her lunch hour to get the number for me. My boyfriend, whose “people”—as he puts it—come from nearby, says this kindness is typical of rural northern Iowans, but I was impressed anyway.) If you stop to take a picture, and thus identify yourself as a tourist, someone in the town will alert him that you’ve arrived. Despite having a hobo name, Eckels has never actually hoboed himself. He’s lived in Britt all his life, where he owns and operates the Cobbler Shoppe, which sells not only shoes but clothes and, via eBay, pieces salvaged from nearby farms. One of the items of interest in his tour of the Hobo Museum is the spot in the back corner of the Chief where he used to sit with his future wife not watching the movie. The holdings of the Hobo Museum consist largely of photos of hobo life, some dating back to the 1930s, and portraits of famous hobos of the past. There are also hobo dolls

and other pop culture artifacts, a facsimile of a hobo jungle—“I could make up a smartass answer for why they call it that,” Eckels says, “but I won’t”—and hobo artwork, which transforms found materials like string, matchsticks, and bottle caps into structures that are intricate and beautiful. That is because, Eckels explains, hobos have lots of free time. Eckels knew a lot of those hobo celebrities personally. Hobo Days, for him, is like a family reunion. There’s Hobo Spike, who worked his way so far up the corporate ladder at General Motors that his bosses donated $30,000 annually to the orphanage where he grew up; Connecticut Slim, who would put on a suit when he went looking for work and whose children remain involved in Hobo Days; Father John Brickley, the hobo chaplain; Cinderbox Cindy, who “married a sugar daddy”; and Steamtrain Maury, a college professor who so disliked the food prepared by the Crumb Boss, the Britt jungle cook, that he went back to Chicago to hire his own personal chef, Stir Fry Jack. Steamtrain was also one of the founders of the Hobo Foundation, which until recently operated the museum, and made several appearances on late-night talk shows. The Hobo Museum draws firm distinctions between hobos, tramps, and bums. As a sign posted on the wall in the lobby reads, “A hobo wanders and works, a tramp wanders and dreams and a bum neither wanders or works.” But it’s hard to think of those distinctions as particularly meaningful when you look at the display of the worldly possessions of the Hardrock Kid, the first person buried in the corner of Evergreen Cemetery reserved for hobos. He died alone on the road, under a tree, and the people who found his body had no idea what to do and called up the Hobo Foundation. Hardrock had been carrying a toothbrush, toothpaste, a can of Campbell’s stew, a can of peanuts, and a crumpled pack of Camels. It all fits on a single narrow shelf. “The road is not kind,” says Nathan Tye, a graduate student at the University of Illinois who writes about hobos. “The road does not care about you, no matter how much you romanticize or love it.” Tye has never been to Britt, though he says it’s on his bucket list and he’d definitely go if anyone nominated him for Hobo King. While he says he admires how the town keeps the romance of the hobo alive, he doesn’t believe the official story of how it became the Hobo Capital. This is because he’s studied newspapers and other primary

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ROAD TRIPS sources, and because one of the functions of a historian is to be a total buzzkill about local legends. In Tye’s version, sometime in the 1890s, a newspaper man from Seymour, Illinois, named Charles Noe founded a fraternal order called Tourist Union 63. Despite its hobo theme, it was composed largely of sedentary middle-class professionals who liked the idea of the freedom of the road, but not the hobos themselves. In 1899, they had what they called their third annual convention—though Tye can’t find any evidence of the first two—in nearby Danville, Illinois. They dressed up in hobo clothes and told hobo stories and were very surprised when actual hobos, lured by press coverage, showed up. (“I can’t imagine being a small-town person in torn pants and blackface and seeing real hobos show up,” Tye says.) The next year, the convention was in Britt. When the hobos arrived, the citizens of Britt fed and sheltered them. And then they didn’t have another hobo convention until 1933, in the depths of the Depression, when the town fathers decided they needed a festival to cheer everyone up. In reality, Tye says, hobos were hardly organized enough to develop a secret language of universally understood signs or a professional code of ethics, let alone organize a national convention. They did form a community of sorts, in the jungles outside of town, with its own slang and songs, but when you’re on the road, you look for community wherever you can ﬁnd it. There was, however, a town that was famous as a haven for hobos, at least up until World War II, when a hobo could find permanent work in the military. Unlike Britt, it was the hub of many railroads and had lots of cheap ﬂophouses. It was also full of bohemians and union workers, including a self-appointed King of the Hobos, who all mixed together in “hobrohemia.” It even had a Hobo College, founded by an eccentric millionaire. It was, yes, Chicago. But as with superheroes, gunslingers, pool hustlers, and other figures in our national mythology, it’s much nicer to imagine a footloose and free hobo instead of the reality of being a homeless itinerant worker who had to sleep in a boxcar. As Bill Eckels says, “I’m an honest person, but I’ll lie a little to make it sound better.” And also, what’s the point of a summer road trip if you don’t actually leave town? v

ß @alevitt 12 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

Prince’s Paisley Park residence in Chanhassen, Minnesota, was opened to the public as a museum mere months after the artist’s death. o COURTESY PAISLEY PARK

Prince’s purple reign continues The artist’s death has given way to a somewhat ghoulish new tourism business in his native Minnesota. By STEVE MARSH

o longer do tourists make mere visits to Minneapolis to commune with Prince. Ever since the city’s iconic son overdosed in April 2016 at the age of 57, such trips have become veritable pilgrimages. The tourism bureaus of Minneapolis and Minnesota now prominently host itineraries on their respective websites, featuring points of interest such as First Avenue, the nightclub where Purple Rain was filmed; Prince’s childhood home on the city’s north side; and the downtown studio where he recorded his ﬁrst demo. “If you ask somebody what they know about Minnesota, it’s lakes, loons, ﬁshing, and now Prince,” says Erica Wacker with Explore Minnesota, the state’s tourism office. Fans who take an excursion 20 miles southwest of (and a world away from) Minneapolis to the artist’s Paisley Park estate and studio in Chanhassen—now a museum and shrine where one can glimpse Prince’s ashes interred in an elaborate ceramic-and-glass urn modeled after the residence—have perhaps more in common with Muslims piously making their hajj through the desert on the way to Mecca and Medina than with anybody who could be described as a vacationer. Although the cottage industry of Prince tourism can feel slightly ghoulish, my Catholic upbringing allows me to appreciate the sometimes awkward veneration of saints. To mark the one-year anniversary of Prince’s death this past April, for instance, Paisley Park hosted Celebration 2017, charging as much as $1,000 for access to four days of headless yet moving

performances from the likes of the Revolution and the New Power Generation. The sky-high ticket prices were expectedly tsk-tsked by local media. And while the Prince estate could’ve been perceived as shaking down the most fervent fans willing to mourn their idol at any price, there’s no denying that even when he was alive, the artist aroused an ecstatic religiosity in his true believers. In online forums, fans parsed his cryptic scripture in a search for signs of an invitation to the legendary after-hours dance parties he hosted at his home. In truth, though, Paisley afterparties were a pain in the ass. After driving some 20 miles to the middle of nowhere, you’d stand at a frigid park and ride waiting for a shuttle that would drop you off in a line outside the residence where aggro security guards would pat you down for any forbidden alcohol or drugs. Once inside the mythological building, fans would be offered frozen pizza and energy drinks while security skulked around waiting to eject people foolish enough to take their cell phones out of their pockets. Yet despite all the reasons not to go, I still get a pang of Catholic guilt that I only made it out there twice while Prince was alive. Because all of that groveling at the gate was worth it when on the other side you actually got to see Prince play guitar. He was divine, and all you had to do was put up with some paranoid bullshit out in the suburbs to see him. So is the pilgrimage worth it now that he’s gone? To find out, I booked the $100 Paisley Park VIP tour.

After Prince passed, his estate hired Graceland Holdings to transform Paisley Park. The firm, which manages Elvis’s residence turned temple in Memphis, would base the museum plans on Prince e-mails in which the artist had laid out his vision for album-based galleries, says Graceland employee and new head Paisley Park curator Angela Marchese. When the doors to the museum opened to the public in October 2016, there were inevitable complaints from Prince acolytes. Some protested what they saw as thieves in the temple hastily pursuing proﬁt. But to its credit, Graceland spent money on a new roof for Paisley Park, built out the galleries, and diligently cataloged more than 6,000 artifacts—guitars, handwritten lyrics, and (yes) blouses. The docent on a recent tour was a man in his late 40s named Mitch, who sported a salt-andpepper goatee. Originally from New York, he moved to Minneapolis six years ago to work in education but ended up devoting his life to Prince. Now he presents himself as a humble friar in a long-sleeved purple T-shirt. When I asked him if I could take notes on my phone, Mitch seemed alarmed before calmly instructing me to go back to the guard desk to get one of the straitjackets to which every cellphone is committed. He later explained, “We do our best to keep it the way it was when he was still here.” The VIP tour takes about 70 minutes and includes a visit to studios A and B, the video editing suite, and the Purple Rain room, located in what was Studio C, where his 1985 Academy Award for best original song score is displayed alongside the purple 1981 Honda motorcycle from the movie. The attendees hailed from as nearby as Blaine (a suburb of Saint Paul) and as far as Germany, Sweden, and Australia. Mitch kicked things off with a short speech about Prince’s generosity during his lifetime—all the music that he gave us, his invitations to fans to listen to it inside his own home—followed by a moment of silence that allowed the group to contemplate Prince’s sacred remains encased in the miniature Paisley Park urn. Mitch’s tone throughout was reverent but sunny. He demonstrated the low-key ebullience of a hip youth pastor, and was prone to cracking wise with the older German ladies. “OK if I turn it up a little bit?” he’d ask with a grin as he cranked up an exclusive Musicology tour clip from a Canadian stop in 2006. Mitch explained that he was lucky enough to have attended a

ROAD TRIPS show on that particular tour. When the clip ended he gently downshifted to a more somber note. “His loss came entirely too soon, but we’re lucky to have had him as long as we could.” The highlight was the walk-through of studios A and B. In the latter room, he invited us to take a turn rallying on Prince’s Titan ping-pong table before he gathered us onto the parquet floor of the live room and ticked off the albums that were recorded in the space: Graffiti Bridge, The Black Album, and Emancipation as well as two by Prince’s jazz-fusion band Madhouse. Mitch explained that the control board was installed in Prince’s house on Lake Riley before being transplanted to Paisley Park in 1987. He mentioned that the ﬁrst song Prince recorded on the board was “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker” from Sign ’o’ the Times. In Studio A we were shown Prince’s LinnDrum drum machine and his Oberheim OB-X synthesizer, which Mitch explained were both literally instrumental to the austere power of the bassless “When Doves Cry.” He pointed out the chair where Prince would perch to record his vocals. “He would sit down because he was the vocalist, the recording engineer, and the producer,” he said. “The only guy in the room.” It evoked a poignant picture of the lonely little genius toiling in the middle of the night. At the tour’s end, Mitch divulged aloud that even though he’d never met Prince, the man’s music helped him to know himself. He implored the group to go back to our local hamlets and spread the gospel of the tiny purple love god. The pitch was heartfelt and earnest, but it was impossible not to wonder whether this kind of evangelism was what Prince would’ve asked of his disciples. He was a devout convert to the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ faith, but he was also full of contradictions—a reclusive artiste who loved God and celebrated sex. Even if he’d intended Paisley to ultimately become a half museum, half shrine, it was hard believe these somber, reverential tours could ever ﬁll the vacuum of freaky creation left in his wake. The penultimate space Mitch took the tour group through was a 12,500-square-foot sound stage where Prince would play freewheeling funk jams until the dawn licked Chanhassen’s horizon. I took a moment to appreciate the brand-new purple Yamaha piano Prince introduced at a pajama party in April 2016, days before he died. He reportedly played a snippet of “Chopsticks” and implored those assembled who were worrying about his health, “Wait a few days before you waste any prayers.” It’s been more than a year now, and we’re still left whispering into the dark, wondering what he would’ve wanted. v

ß @stephenhero

Pandits by a gateway arch in Vedic City o JOHN GREENFIELD

Children of the Silicorn Valley Fairﬁeld, Iowa, is an unlikely hub for Transcendental Meditation and enlightened capitalism. By JOHN GREENFIELD

he club car of Amtrak’s California Zephyr was full of Amish families playing Uno as the train rolled west toward the Mississippi. I was heading to Fairfield, Iowa, a town of about 10,000 that’s been called the world’s largest training center for Transcendental Meditation, a form of silent mantra meditation with an estimated five million practitioners worldwide. I was visiting a buddy from Chicago whose life partner grew up in the TM movement in Fairfield. They’d recently moved into a big house in the woods a few miles from the blissful burg to raise their young sons near family and escape the big-city grind. As the Amish folk slapped down their cards, I read up on the history of TM, a similarly back-to-basics spiritual movement, and how rural southeast Iowa came to be its American educational headquarters. In the mid-20th century, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi pioneered the technique of meditating twice a day for about 20 minutes while sitting with eyes closed, silently focusing on a mantra. In the 1960s devotees famously included the Beatles. In 1974 the holy man’s Maharishi International University bought the Fairfield campus

of Parsons College, which had gone bankrupt and shut down the previous year. Now called the Maharishi University of Management, the school requires students to study TM and offers degrees in Ayurvedic medicine, organic agriculture, and “Maharishi Vedic Science,” which is described as “the science and technology of consciousness.” In the decades since then, formerly struggling Fairﬁeld has been transformed as wellheeled urban professionals settled in the area seeking enlightenment. While small-town Iowa has generally lost population in recent decades, Fairfield’s population rose by 14 percent between 1970 and 2015. A 2009 study from the University of Iowa’s Community Vitality Center found that $250 million had been invested in 50 different Fairfield companies since 1990, including communications, manufacturing, and tech businesses. Accordingly, the area is nicknamed “Silicorn Valley.” A typical local enterprise is Sky Factory, a company with about 40 workers that makes windows and ceiling panels showing seaside views or blue skies, used to improve morale for people stuck inside. Artist Bill Witherspoon founded Sky Factory in Fairﬁeld in 2002 in order to sup-

port his family and TM practice. Thanks to this entrepreneurial spirit, plus the discretionary income of Fairfield’s many affluent residents and visitors, the downtown is lined with handsomely refurbished buildings and an impressive array of bookstores, cafes, boutiques, and art galleries. There’s a surprising variety of international restaurants, offering everything from Caribbean to Vietnamese to Ethiopian to, naturally, Indian cuisine. In the past, the relationship between blue-collar Fairfield natives and TM devotees was a bit uneasy, according to a 2008 Wall Street Journal article. Some locals were skeptical in the early 1980s when the university built two giant gold domes on campus for the “roos” (a townie nickname, short for “gurus”) to meditate in. Another townie nickname for the newcomers is “floaters,” a reference to the advanced meditation technique of “yogic flying,” in which practitioners in the lotus position hop, froglike, on cushions and, with practice, can supposedly defy gravity. (Some TM followers consider this term highly offensive.) Relations have thawed over the years, as demonstrated by the 2001 election of current Fairfield mayor and meditator Ed Malloy—the natives apparently decided that a rising tide (or floating meditator) lifts all boats. The gravel-voiced locally born folksinger Greg Brown summed up the townie perspective nicely in his 2000 song “Fairfield,” which is wildly popular among TM folks:

If the ﬂoaters come to your town, your town, your town, Floaters come to your town, You might wanna stick around. They meditate and get focused, focused, focused, They do a little hocus-pocus, And the money just rolls in.

They know all ’bout computers, your New Age, and foreign food, They do all that real good, Fairﬁeld’s where to go.

After a four-hour train ride and 25-mile bike trip through a rainstorm, my friend’s large wooden house was an oasis of tranquility. He bought it from a TM practitioner and, like most roo homes, it was designed using the feng shui-like principals of Maharishi Vastu Architecture. For example, the front door of a Vastu home is always pointed east to greet the sunrise, and the roof holds a golden ornament called a kalash, shaped like a Hershey’s Kiss, that’s supposed attract positive energy.

JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 13

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The next day, we stopped at Abundance Ecovillage, a cluster of 14 Vastu homes that are almost completely off the grid. Developer Michael Havelka, who moved to the area from Texas to get deeper into his meditation practice, explained that the houses are heated through passive solar energy. Propane gas, used for cooking, is the only nonsustainable energy source. We then headed to the university campus to tour one of its two 25,000-square-foot domes. Over a thousand roos from around the region drive to these structures daily to meditate at 7:30 AM and 5 PM, which creates Fairfield’s equivalents to rush hour. Our guide was Margi Gunn, a sprightly senior who volunteers with the Ideal Community Group civic organization. After we removed our shoes, she showed us around the women’s dome, a vast space capped by a roof that resembles a wooden geodesic dome. The floor is lined with foamrubber cushions to facilitate yogic flying. From there, it was off to Maharishi Vedic City, a separate town that TM practitioners founded a few miles northwest of Fairfield in 2001. Currently home to fewer than 300 residents, the village includes 200 or so Vastu buildings. The town is organized around the Vedic principles, ancient Indian rules for promoting health, wealth, and happiness. These guidelines endorse natural healing and natural foods. As a result, a 2002 ordinance prohibits the sale of nonorganics within the village’s borders. Our first stop in Vedic City was the Vedic Observatory, a ring of ten massive white concrete-and-marble astronomical instruments. Creator Tim Fitz-Randolph claims the implements can precisely track the movements of heavenly bodies, and that the data can be used to promote inner harmony. Afterward, Gunn took us to Vedic City’s northwest corner to a private gated compound with rows of barrackslike structures. These formerly housed about a thousand “pandits” (pronounced pundits), young male Indian priests who were flown to the U.S. starting in 2006 and paid a small stipend to meditate and chant in an attempt to foster world peace. Gunn said fewer than 25 pandits remain in Vedic City. She blamed their diminishing numbers on issues that arose when some of the priests “went rogue” after their visas expired instead of catching flights home from O’Hare. Gunn presumes many found work in Chicago’s Indian-owned businesses. In 2014 the university decided to send home an older pandit who’d encouraged his proteges to defect, Gunn said. According to a Des

Moines Register report, administrators asked a sheriff to be present while the priest was removed, but some 80 pandits swarmed and trashed the lawman’s truck. In the wake of the “Pandit Rebellion,” there were calls for more transparency in the program, and almost all of the priests returned to India. Currently there’s an effort to rebuild Vedic City’s pandit population, but Gunn said it’s being hampered by the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration policies. This tumultuous recent history wasn’t in evidence during a recent pandit chanting session. The audience settled into comfy red seats in a colorful meeting hall. It wasn’t long before about ten white-clad Indian men filed into the room and sat on the floor, chanting in a pleasantly musical manner as incense was lit and small bells were rung. Feeling sufficiently blissed-out, I returned to Fairfield. Pedaling over the green, rolling farmland, it struck me that while TM may not be the solution to triggering world peace and curing all the world’s ills, as the Maharishi’s followers often suggest, it does appear to be an effective mental health tool for many folks. The David Lynch Foundation, founded by the movie and television director, provides free meditation training to veterans, prison inmates, and at-risk youth; a handful of Chicago Public Schools have adopted DLF’s Quiet Time program for students. Like most relatively young spiritual movements, TM has its share of critics who paint it as a manipulative cult. For example, in Claire Hoffman’s 2016 memoir Greetings From Utopia Park: Surviving a Transcendent Childhood, the Fairfield native argues that the Maharishi’s consciousness movement has evolved into a bottom-line-driven organization that pushes its followers to spend their hard-earned money on expensive classes, products, and housing. After researching and touring Fairfield, and hearing from my friend about his partner’s childhood (she attended the Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment from kindergarten through 12th grade), I left town with the impression that TM has had an overall beneficial effect on the area. As a financially thriving, sustainability-oriented place, Fairfield suggests a possible path forward for other midwestern communities facing the challenges of the new information economy. Could be Greg Brown was right when he sang, “If the floaters come to your town . . . you might want to stick around.” v

ß @greenfieldjohn

Rashid Johnson: Hail We Now Sing Joy June 23â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sept 17 Head North! See new paintings and sculptures by the Chicago native; their impact is as monumental as their size.

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JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 15

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The deli counter at Exotic Bakeries & Syrian Cuisine in Ann Arbor o CLAIRE BARTOSIC

Home cooking from Jisr al-Shughur

The food traditions of a Syrian city under siege are being preserved in a small deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan. By MIKE SULA

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ast April, one day after the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria, Tamara Briggs’s aunt and uncle fled their hometown, Jisr al-Shughur, 62 miles northwest. Two days later a bomb took out the building next door, which in turn flattened their house. “They’re in Aleppo now,” Briggs says. Jisr al-Shughur, in northwestern Syria near the Turkish border, is the town Briggs’s father, Monib El-Khatib, came to Ann Arbor from in 1978 to study land-use planning at Eastern Michigan University. Briggs’s mother, Jinan, followed a year later. She began taking culinary classes at a community college, and after graduating, she spent six months in France training under a pastry chef. In 1991, the couple opened a small storefront bakery on a well-hidden side of a strip mall, offering typical French and Middle Eastern pastries, and custom-made cakes for weddings, birthdays, and anniversaries. But over time, Jinan noticed that her customers often

seemed less interested in her baguettes and croissants, and were drawn more to the homestyle Syrian food she gradually incorporated into her offerings. These were foods most Syrians would never go out for, things you’d never taste unless you were invited into the home of someone from Jisr al-Shughur—a bright purple baba ghanoush, for example, the usual eggplant replaced with beets, which are abundant around Jisr al-Shughur. She made tabbouleh baladi, a salad of red and green cabbage, ﬁne bulgur, mint, red pepper, pomegranate molasses, olive oil, tomatoes, onions, and parsley, usually made in wintertime, when brassicas are in season. And she made kibbeh al toum, a very particular version of the bulgur and ground meat amalgamations found all over the Middle East, hers taking the form of ﬁst-size footballs of meat, grain, and garlic, boiled, then smothered in brick-colored muhammara, a puree of spiced red pepper and walnuts. “Lots of Middle East-

ROAD TRIPS erners are like, ‘I don’t what that is,’ ” Briggs says. “But this is what we make in our city.” Over 26 years Exotic Bakeries & Syrian Cuisine, evolved into a kind of full-service deli—something that doesn’t actually exist in Syria. It’s also been the sole proprietor of Syrian food in Ann Arbor, and one of the very few in the Detroit metropolitan area. Even in nearby Dearborn—which has the largest proportion of Arab-Americans in the U.S. and is the country’s promised land for great Middle Eastern food—there’s only one dedicated Syrian restaurant. “Syrians are known to be highly educated,” Briggs says. “That’s why you won’t see a lot of restaurants.” Also, Syrian immigration to the Detroit area historically has been limited, relative to Lebanese, and more recently, Yemeni and Iraqi. But since the start of 2015, nearly 19,000 Syrian refugees have been resettled in the U.S. Over 2,000 of them are in Michigan, more than any other state apart from California. Many of these families are living in small homes in nearby Ypsilanti. A few have found work here and there making labor-intensive food like kibbeh for restaurants and parties. One woman waiting for her green card works in the kitchen of the Briggs family’s deli. The family refurbished a car for her, and they’re working on others for refugees in need. The deli is set up as a drop-off point for donations of toys, clothing, furniture, appliances, and other goods for the newcomers. “My cousins are in the same position,” Briggs says. “So I want people to treat them as good as we’re treating these people.” Jisr al-Shughur was an early flash point in the Syrian civil war, the site of clashes between armed militias and government security forces, prompting a crackdown by the Syrian military that led most of its civilian population to flee. Since then control has shifted back and forth between the government and a variety of Islamist insurgent groups. One cousin fled after the Al-Nusra Front (also referred to as Al Qaeda in Syria) kidnapped him, held him for two weeks, and then released him with a warning. “Our city is gone,” Briggs says. “Pretty much flattened.” Her father saw it coming, halting construction on a retirement home and putting the money aside to help the extended family weather the coming storm. Today the deli helps support family members scattered across the Middle East and Europe—in Idlib, Aleppo, Turkey, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Arab Emirates. Briggs and her immediate family applied to sponsor

The SC Johnson campus, with Wright’s Research Tower on the left and the Administration Building on the right o CAROL M. HIGHSMITH

many of them, but she says their hope died when Donald Trump took office. If Jisr al-Shughur has been destroyed, it’s some small consolation that its food traditions are preserved in a small deli in suburban Michigan. Some two dozen salads and sides reside in the refrigerated display case, along with mamoul, baklava, and other Levantine sweets. In addition to French pastries, there’s an array

“Syrian people cook at home. And this is home cooking.”

—Tamara Briggs

of the savory hand pies called fatayer, stuffed with meats, cheeses, and/or vegetables, plus a full sandwich menu ranging from conventional kefta and chicken shawarma to house specialties like the Aleppo (eggplant baba ghanoush, veggies, feta, pita chips, and fattoush dressing) and the Jinan (ajjeh, aka the Syrian omelet, with tabbouleh, pickles, and garlic sauce). Briggs, a former teacher who’s taking over the business as her parents near retirement, has known many of the deli’s customers her entire life. They draw from Ann Arbor’s ethnically diverse population, but it’s somewhat ironic—though it makes perfect sense—that very few of them are Syrian. “Syrian people cook at home,” she says. “And this is home cooking. When they go out they eat stuff they don’t get to make. Stuff that takes a long time.” WHEN ANN ARBOR’S SYRIANS do go out looking for Syrian food, you might ﬁnd them some 42 miles to the east in Dearborn at Al Chabab, a two-year-old restaurant specializing in the food of Aleppo. There’s an array of kebabs, sandwiches, and appetizers, and some off bits, including a whole sheep’s head. But excellent Aleppo-style dishes you’ll want to prioritize include kabob bil karaz (meatballs served in a sweet cherry-pomegranate sauce), kabob khashkhash (minced with chile pepper, garlic, and pine nuts), and kabob al halabi (or “Aleppo,” served under a mountain of tomato-sauced pita). Since Aleppo is known for its many varieties of kibbeh, do not miss its most beloved: kibbeh nayyah, a flattened disk of fresh raw meat minced with onions, mint, and crushed red pepper and drizzled with olive oil. It’s Syrian steak tartare, born in one of the oldest cities in the world. v

ß @MikeSula

Wright place, right time

As sesquicentennial celebrations of Frank Lloyd Wright’s birth ramp up, the architect’s unusual creations on the SC Johnson campus in Racine, Wisconsin, beckon buﬀs oﬀ the beaten path. By JAKE MALOOLEY

ity the SC Johnson employees, the 175 poor souls in marketing and sales that are relocating from its global headquarters in Racine, Wisconsin, to a regional office in Chicago that opened last fall. Such a move would normally seem like an indisputable upgrade, a grand opportunity to make a new, exciting life in the big city—but in this case those workers are leaving behind the splendor of a landmark campus largely designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in exchange for leased space in a West Loop highrise that the notoriously censorious Wright would probably deem conventional at best. The extent of the SC Johnson staffers’ misfortune was immediately evident on a recent Sunday-afternoon tour of the company’s Racine HQ. Nestled near the Lake Michigan shoreline about 75 miles north of Chicago, the campus has a preserved, museumlike quality, in part the result of a $30 million restoration effort the company completed about two years

ago. The property’s been so meticulously maintained that it’s difficult to imagine much actual business gets done there. Visitors approaching from sleepy 14th Street were assured they’d arrived in the right place as the gleaming Golden Rondelle Theater came into view; the stunning space-age clamshell structure originally built as the SC Johnson Pavilion for the 1964-’65 New York World’s Fair was later reassembled on the company’s grounds by Taliesin Associated Architects, the ﬁrm conceived by Wright as a way for the students of his schools in Spring Green, Wisconsin, and Scottsdale, Arizona, to carry on his vision after his death. To be sure, Chicago-area residents have no shortage of access to Wright’s work, from Robie House in Hyde Park to his own home and studio in Oak Park—and that’s especially true with programming and tours ramping up as the 150th anniversary of Wright’s June 8 birth approaches. Still, architecture buffs will J

JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 17

ROAD TRIPS

o CAROL M. HIGHSMITH

Clockwise from left: the Great Workroom in the Administration Building; a ﬂoor of the Research Tower enclosed by Pyrex tubing; some of the 40 pieces of furniture Wright designed for the Administration Building

18 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

Racine and adopt a version of the Broadacre City plan—Wright’s vision of a utopian community oriented horizontally (a foil to the traditional vertical city) that incorporated ideas about employee housing in addition to the desired company building. Johnson ultimately made it clear he had no interest in moving the headquarters or his workers. “So [Wright] turned to the one thing that was abundant, which was the natural lighting,” said the twentysomething woman guiding the free 90-minute SC Johnson tour. (Tours are offered Thursday through Sunday at 10 AM and 2 PM.) She rattled off facts about Wright’s buildings with the authoritative reﬂexiveness of an airline attendant performing a preflight announcement routine. “He installed the tubes so that he would get that lighting that he wanted but so the workers couldn’t see outside into the ugly Racine landscape. He then justiﬁed it by saying the work-

o M.L. JOHNSON

continued from 17 find the short trip to Racine worthwhile, if only to experience two of Wright’s most notable commercial creations: the dazzling Johnson Administration Building (1939) and its later vertical companion, the exceptional but troubled Research Tower (1950) that was opened for the first time to public tours in 2014, more than 30 years after it was decommissioned. Wright outfitted both structures with his trademark “Cherokee Red” brick, and in place of traditional glass for the windows he filled the gaps with rows of custom-made translucent Pyrex tubes that filter in light but don’t allow clear views out. Their unusual exteriors make the buildings seem just the sort of places chemical-based household products such as Drano, Windex, and Shout are created, marketed, and sold. At the same time, they subvert some of Wright’s fundamental principles for residential architecture—that designs exist in harmony with nature, that a house blend seamlessly into its environment. “Many of his public buildings, by contrast, were introverted, shutting out their surroundings and celebrating the interior space instead,” wrote Mark Hertzberg, a Wisconsin journalist and photographer, in his 2004 book Wright in Racine. Wright so disliked the industrial area surrounding the Johnson property that he initially attempted to convince Herbert Fisk Johnson Jr., the third-generation head of SC Johnson, to move the company out of

ers should be focused on their work anyway and not distracted by looking outside.” Ironically, it was an overabundance of natural light that became the Achilles heel of Wright’s doomed Research Tower. The edifice is wrapped in bands of brick (the main floors, which are square shaped) alternating with bands of Pyrex tubing (the circular “mezzanine” floors). Now that the tower is essentially a museum piece, tour groups are permitted to ascend to the third level’s main and mezzanine floors to look at a kind of laboratory diorama— test tubes and beakers are arranged next to

press materials heralding the building’s dynamism, as well as often tense correspondence between Wright and Johnson, who feared the drastic cost overruns that burdened the construction of the Administration Building. Shortly after entering the tower, even on the overcast day of my visit, it was literally blindingly apparent why scientists eventually request sunglasses to endure working in the building. All the light pollution also made the poorly ventilated structure unbearably hot, especially during the summer. The tubing was notoriously leaky in spots as well. More- J

JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 19

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over, strong winds caused the tower to tilt slightly, resulting in inaccurate lab measurements. But the primary reason SC Johnson decided to close the tower in 1981 and consolidate R&D in the former Saint Mary’s Hospital on campus was due to fire code: the structure has only one narrow main exit—a 29-inchwide, steep, twisting staircase that posed a danger to employees in a building where openflame experiments were being conducted. The Research Tower may have been a functional nightmare, but it was a formally daring move for Wright. At 153 feet, the 15story building is one of the tallest towers built on the cantilever principle. It was the architect’s first application of his concept of the “taproot” structure, in which a center core holds up the rest of the building, like a pine tree supports its branches; in this case, a concrete core 13 feet in diameter is sunk 54 feet into the ground. And while the tower was unpopular with those who labored inside it, it was the site of the development of some of SC Johnson’s most successful and enduring brands, including Raid, Glade, Off!, and Pledge. “They all got hatched up when the tower was there,” Samuel C. Johnson, the now deceased fourth-generation chairman and CEO of the company, told Hertzberg. “Who’s to say that wasn’t the Wright influence?” Some 32 years after the Research Tower was shut down, the Administration Building that preceded it by more than a decade continues to be where much Johnson business is conducted each day. “This new building,” Wright told the Racine Journal Times in a preview of the opening cited by Hertzberg, “will be simply and sincerely an interpretation of modern business conditions designed to be as inspiring to live in and work in as any cathedral ever was to worship in.” The centerpiece—and the supreme highlight of Wright’s Johnson campus—is the Great Workroom, an immense yet elegant open office on the ground level. The space is broken up at regular intervals by off-white concrete columns that broaden out from an impossibly slim nine inches on the floor before being capped on the ceiling by a load-bearing disk 18 feet in diameter. Sunlight spills in from skylights between the columns, which have been compared to everything from mushrooms to lily pads to golf tees but are more accurately described as “dendriform,” or treelike. “Mr. Wright actually envisioned this whole space as if employees are working in a great forest with the columns being the trees,” the Johnson tour guide said, “the tubing being the leaves, and the light streaming through the leaves to

o MARK HERTZBERG

Celebrating our

continued from 18

o CAROL M. HIGHSMITH

RELOADED & Reopened !

ROAD TRIPS

One of the Research Tower laboratories; entrance to the Administration Building

make it a more natural working environment.” Wright also designed more than 40 pieces of furniture for the building in line with his “organic architecture” philosophy, which dictates that furnishings share the same conceptual principles as the structure they occupy. On the Administration Building’s third ﬂoor sits H.F. Johnson Jr.’s office, which seems rather modest by the standards of today’s CEOs. The room’s handsome wood, gorgeous built-in shelving, and Cherokee Red brick fireplace would befit the den of one of Wright’s residences. A few months into construction, Johnson remarked that he thought the building was so appealing that “I think I’ll just put a cot in my office and live there.” To which Wright replied that he would build Johnson a house. That’s the origin story of Wingspread (1937), Wright’s last Prairie-style house, located on a vast acreage six miles north of Racine in Wind Point, Wisconsin. The residence has four distinct wings zoned by function and built around

an octagonal domed living room, the center of which is a massive chimney that branches into five fireplaces. The Johnson family lived there through the 1950s, and it’s now owned by the family’s foundation and used as a conference center. Hour-long tours of Wingspread are free, available Wednesday through Sunday (barring the occasional special event), and highly recommended as a companion to the SC Johnson jaunt—after you come to grasp Wright’s accomplishments in the commercial sphere, Wingspread offers a glimpse of the genius at work in the residential realm during roughly the same period. The tour of the SC Johnson grounds concludes at the jarringly contemporary Fortaleza Hall, a 2010 building that wasn’t designed by Wright or one of his Taliesin school apprentices but by the British architect Norman Foster. It houses slender exhibits that attempt to tell the 131-year history of the company—a story few tourgoers seemed interested in exploring. On display in one room is a scale replica of the biplane in which the company’s president flew on a 1935 trip to Brazil in search of a sustainable source of wax for the company’s floorcare products. The aircraft was met mostly with blank stares. At one end of the building is the gift shop, which sells an odd assortment of SC Johnson products, displayed earnestly as objets d’art, next to a first-rate selection of Wright merch. “Who’s buying the Raid?” the clerk behind the counter was asked as she rang up a pair of Wright books and a pack of greeting cards inspired by the architect. “You know,” she said, “I’ve worked here for two years and maybe sold one can of the stuff.” If there was any question as to which man—Samuel Curtis Johnson or Frank Lloyd Wright—the guests that day had come to admire, it was settled once and for all in the checkout line. v

ß @jakemalooley

JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 21

ROAD TRIPS A bike path on Wolf Lake, next to I-90 just east of the Illinois-Indiana border o JULIA THIEL

Day trips, by trail then rail Increasing bike friendliness at Amtrak and the South Shore Line makes it possible to pedal to neighboring states and take the train back. By JULIA THIEL

bout ten years ago I biked with a friend from Chicago to Hammond, Indiana—a 30-mile ride that was made especially easy by a strong tailwind. We could take the train back, my friend assured me, which was a relief because I’d been having knee problems and wasn’t up for a return cycling trip. Unfortunately, she turned out to be wrong: when we wheeled into the station we found signs clearly stating that bikes were allowed on trains only if they were packed into boxes. The station didn’t sell boxes, and even if it had, we didn’t have the right tools with us to disassemble our bikes. It was a long trip back, riding into a wind that seemed to grow stronger with every turn of our pedals. While all Metra trains allow you to roll your bike on board (except during rush hour), until last year the South Shore Line—which goes

22 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

from downtown Chicago to South Bend, Indiana—did not. Neither did Amtrak’s Hiawatha Express, which runs between Chicago and Milwaukee. Last spring both of those policies changed: the South Shore Line announced a pilot program that would add train cars that could accommodate bikes to most weekend runs between April and November, and Amtrak began offering what it calls “trainside checked bicycle service” on the Hiawatha line, which means that you no longer have to stuff your bike into a box. As someone who’s spent the years since that miserable journey back from Hammond trying to ﬁgure out the best way to take public transit back to Chicago after a southerly bike trek, I was pretty excited about the policy change on the South Shore Line. Biking from Chicago to northwest Indiana is one of my favorite rides: the Lakefront Trail is much less

crowded once you get south of McCormick Place, you can stop at Calumet Fisheries for smoked fish or fried oysters, and there’s a weird industrial beauty to the reﬁneries and steel mills that line Lake Michigan near the Illinois-Indiana border. And, of course, Three Floyds Brewpub in Munster is a fun place to stop for a burger and an Alpha King or three. Biking home afterward can be less fun, especially if you’ve had one too many beers (what seems reasonable while you’re sitting in the brewpub often feels regrettable when you start biking home). Until last year, though, there weren’t a lot of other options. You can pick up the Metra Electric line in Flossmoor, about ten miles west of Munster, but the route there isn’t particularly bike friendly. And actually getting on the train can be dicey, since the ME line allows a maximum of eight bikes per run—and that’s only if the priority seating area isn’t already occupied by strollers, wheelchairs, or suitcases. I’ve done the trip a few times, nervously eyeing the other cyclists on the platform waiting to board with their bikes, calculating how many open spaces we’ll need and wondering whether the conductor we get will be helpful or surly. (Conductors have the right to refuse to allow bikes for any reason, and they sometimes do.) Although the South Shore Line doesn’t go to Munster, being able to bring bikes on board still makes for an easier trip back than riding Metra. The seven-mile ride to the nearest station is straightforward, and more importantly, the specially modiﬁed cars can accommodate about 24 bikes, which all but guarantees you a spot. The cars also feature easy-to-use bike racks (on Metra trains you have to bring a bungee cord to secure your bike to the railing of the folding seat). If you really want an easy commute to the train after lunch, 18th Street Brewery now has a brewpub in Hammond, just over a mile from the train station. It’s got good beer and food, and a patio where I’ve never had to wait for a table. As handy as it is to be able to take the train back from Hammond, though, what I find really useful about the South Shore Line’s new train cars is that they make biking to the Indiana Dunes more attractive. It’s about a 50-mile ride from downtown, which means

that doing it round-trip would be around 100 miles. That’s doable for some cyclists, but it’s too far for me as a rule. Several years ago, after biking to the dunes, I spent the night in a hotel before moving on to Flossmoor the next day and taking the Metra back to Chicago. Last fall I finally got to do a day trip to the dunes: I arrived in the late afternoon, whiled away an hour or so wading in the lake and watching members of a kite club flying fancy kites on the beach, then headed to the Dunes Park station to catch the early evening train back to the city. As I waited, a dozen-odd cyclists started filtering into the station; it turned out that there was an organized ride from Chicago to the Indiana Dunes that day, and they were also headed back into the city. I did get a little nervous about whether there would be enough room on the train for all of our bikes—if we didn’t get onto this one, we’d have to wait another four hours for the next. But all was well. About a month after the Indiana Dunes adventure, I biked from Chicago to Milwaukee for the first time. It might be an exaggeration to say that the new Amtrak policy made that trip possible—other cyclists have been doing it for years—but it definitely made it easier. Faster, more efficient riders than I could even do it as a day trip: the last train leaves Milwaukee at 7:30 PM and arrives at Union Station at 9 PM. My cycling style involves going slow, taking lots of breaks, and getting lost often (that last one is never intentional), so I’d already planned to spend the night. Dusk was falling by the time I saw the lights of downtown Milwaukee, nearly 12 hours and a couple unexpected detours after leaving home. The last thing I wanted to do after a 100-mile ride was take a train back to Chicago—I barely had the energy to go find dinner before collapsing into bed. But it’s nice to know that I could have. When I did finally take the train back the next afternoon, I didn’t have to worry about packing my bike into a box or being kicked off the train due to lack of space (on Amtrak, you pay a $5 fee per bike when you reserve your ticket). Biking home, my body told me, was not an option. v

ß @juliathiel

ARTS & CULTURE Golondrinas (“swallows”) in Feathers: A Tango Journey o JOE KWON

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Tango sans the rose between the teeth

By MATT DE LA PEÑA

he tango exists in the popular imagination as a sleek, sexy, intimate dance. Hollywood has helped. Films like Easy Virtue, True Lies, and Scent of a Woman all feature spiced-up tango numbers, as of course do episodes of Dancing With the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance. Barack and Michelle Obama went viral after cutting a rug with two tango partners during a 2016 state dinner in Buenos Aires. But the theatricalized popular conception isn’t necessarily true to the traditional form. “Nobody in Argentina would dance with a rose in their mouth,” says Liz Sung, a dancer instructor, and DJ with local organization Tango 21. “That’s deﬁnitely a Hollywood invention.” Established in 1990 by Jorge Niedas, a native of Buenos Aires, Tango 21 (a reference to Niedas’s tagline “Tango for the 21st century”) seeks to introduce people to the real thing. Niedas, who studied ballet at the city’s Instituto Superior de Arte del Teatro Colón, ﬁrst landed in Chicago with intentions of performing. But he recalls getting quizzed repeatedly upon arriving in the States: “Everyone had the image of the American tango,” he says. “I started getting questions about the Argentine tango, and there’s a big difference.”

Niedas decided to fill what he believed was a void, and began teaching the dance as well as hosting milongas, social events where the tango is danced, under the Tango 21 brand. Eventually he set out to find more permanent headquarters, and in 2006 he and Tango 21 co-owner Dinah D’Antoni, another native of Argentina, opened a Ukrainian Village spot called the Ritz Tango Cafe, which at night doubled as a studio where Niedas hosted dance classes. A year after opening Ritz, he met a second creative partner in Sung after he caught her spying on a class and persuaded her to join in. She was quickly hooked after finding tango much more “introspective” than she’d expected, and “not anything sexual.” “When you see the actual dances between two people, they’re having this quiet conversation between their bodies. It’s very respectful,” she says. Lessons and coffee at the Ritz Tango continued until 2010, when Niedas and D’Antoni shuttered its doors. But Tango 21 continued to host milongas at restaurants and nightclubs, and Niedas and Sung were part of the team that brought Astor Piazzolla’s tango opera María de Buenos Aires to the Chicago Cultural Center in 2011. (Chicago Opera Theater went on to give the work a fully staged production in J

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JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 23

ARTS & CULTURE

LIT

A girl and her knife

By AIMEE LEVITT

ood writing is some of the most eupeptic writing there is. It’s impossible to feel completely miserable when you’re reading about someone enjoying a really good meal, especially if the writer is generous enough to provide sufficient detail to let you imagine it for yourself. Amy Thielen, however, is the ﬁrst food writer I’ve ever read who makes me yearn for the hard physical labor of cooking. Whenever I have to prepare a meringue, I give thanks to the genius who invented the KitchenAid mixer, but in her new memoir Give a Girl a Knife, Thielen makes whipping egg whites with a whisk seem like a joyous experience and dinner service at a busy Manhattan restaurant absolutely transcendent. “As the chaos of the nighttime dinner kitchen mounted,” she writes, “I located a weird stillness in myself. As the intensity tightened, the more my inner reverb began to hum.” For Thielen, cooking is an “affliction,” the same term her husband, the sculptor Aaron Spangler, uses to describe his compulsion to make art. Give a Girl a Knife is the story of her quest to develop the technical skill and the palate to make the ﬂavors of the ingredients of her native northern Minnesota sing. If you read the author bio on the back flap of the book jacket, you know she succeeded: her pre-

24 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

vious book, The New Midwestern Table, won a James Beard Foundation Award, and she had her own show, Heartland Table, on the Food Network. But what makes Give a Girl a Knife so good is that while the outcome of the story is never in doubt, there’s an element of suspense in how Theielen gets there. In the beginning, Thielen was an ordinary midwestern girl with a mom who’d aspired to be a chef but settled for being a great home cook. In college she fell in love with Spangler, who grew up in the same small town, Park Rapids, Minnesota, but who wasn’t ordinary: besides being an artist who sang in a glam band, he was also an aspiring homesteader who built himself a one-room cabin on his family’s hunting land in Two Inlets State Forest. The place was so far off the grid it had neither plumbing nor electricity. Living there was like living in the 1880s, which, to Thielen, who moved in with Spangler after graduation, was part of the attraction. “I wanted to cook like my Midwestern great-grandma,” she writes, “with scantness at my back. I wanted to pick a bowl of peas in the afternoon and bathe them in butter to fully capture their ﬂeeting sweetness.” But, as she discovers in the book’s first chapter, her ambition far outstrips her skill, and she and Spangler move to Brooklyn so she

can go to cooking school and he can network his way into the art world. For the next seven years, Thielen works as a line cook under David Bouley, Daniel Boulud, Shea Gallante, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten. This is the ﬁrst part of Give a Girl a Knife and by far the most exciting, as Thielen gets caught up in the world of the restaurant kitchen, a place that seems almost magical. Time shifts, a few drops of vinegar or a sprinkle of salt transform a bland dish into something sublime, and the cooks “channel all their hopes and wishes and ambitions into the center of the plate, letting their liquid emotions fall off the sides,” she writes. Part two, the antithesis of part one, isn’t magical at all. It’s a chronicle of Thielen’s early years in Park Rapids and her and Spangler’s initial adventures in homesteading, and while there are some exciting moments, the story is less about kitchen alchemy than hard work rewarded with love and warmth. (The homesteading parts are slightly reminiscent of Little House on the Prairie, except that Thielen experiences far more self-doubt than Ma Ingalls ever did.) But that’s part of the point. In part three, Thielen learns to synthesize the magic of New York with her Minnesota heritage, to combine her culinary tricks with the instincts she inherited from her mother and grandmother, and, as she puts it, “[take] my place in a long line of fearless Midwestern women cooks who were possessed of sharp knives, sprawling cut-ﬂower gardens, and big opinions about food.” This is, of course, a very personal vision of the midwest, and midwestern women in particular, and Thielen’s midwest feels as distant to me as those New York kitchens she learned to cook in. But she did make me start thinking about the place I come from, and what people ate there, and how I can make it part of my life now, the way Thielen brought her past into the present. I’ve never tasted any of Thielen’s food—though it gave me great pleasure to imagine it, even the headcheese—but she seems to have found a way to make it tell the same story that she’s told in this book. I imagine her dishes are thoughtful and carefully composed, with juicy centers and caramelized edges, and, most of all, made, as her fellow line cooks liked to say, with love. v R GIVE A GIRL A KNIFE By Amy Thielen (Clarkson Potter). Reading Sat 6/10, 6:30 PM, Read It & Eat, 2142 N. Halsted, 773-661-6158, readitandeatstore.com. F

ß @aimeelevitt

READER RECOMMENDED

b ALL AGES

Leah Raidt in T. o MICHAEL BROSILOW

THEATER

An American tragedy— not By TONY ADLER

efore Trump vs. Hillary, there was Tonya vs. Nancy. Back in 1994, Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan were the competing divas of American figure skating, their rivalry enhanced by their night-and-day personas. Tonya was muscular, blond, pugnosed, and tacky; Nancy, willowy, dark, horsey, and tasteful. Nancy didn’t come from money but projected a patrician air. Tonya fulfilled

ARTS & CULTURE Dance continued from 23 Center in 2011. (Chicago Opera Theater went on to give the work a fully staged production in 2013.) And in 2014, Niedas and Sung founded the nonprofit Tango 21 Dance Theater, which in the three years since has staged an original production annually. The company is a ragtag assembly of dancers, actors, musicians, and singers, many of them current or former students of Tango 21, others former collaborators, and most of them working day jobs. Sung and Niedas’s first original show, El Tango Cafe, was loosely inspired by the Ritz Tango Cafe and its closing. But like María de

Buenos Aires, it was also informed by Argentina’s “Dirty War” of 1976-’83, in particular by Niedas’s experience of immigrating to the United States in the wake of state violence and political unrest. Their second, Cambalache: A Tango Holiday Story, was a seasonal variety show centered on a Grinch-style character that steals people’s dreams. They reprised it in 2016, and plan to keep it an annual holiday production—Sung half-jokingly says she hopes the piece will become Chicago’s “tango version of the Nutcracker.” Their latest show, Feathers: A Tango Journey, debuted at the Ruth Page Center for

the Arts last August and will be revived this weekend at the Madison Street Theatre in Oak Park, after which it will move on to stops in Milwaukee and South Bend. Its premise is that three women—a flight attendant, a janitor, and a birder (the last stems from Sung’s fascination with bird watching)—ﬁnd themselves stranded at an airport, where they go on to share stories about “love, loss and finding a path home.” “We thought [supplying this framework] was a good way to express the dance, bringing it further so that the audience watching can understand, ‘Oh my God, there’s so much more

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164 North State Street

Theater continued currently getting its world premiere at the American Theater Company. Aibel could’ve gone any number of ways with the material. Exploiting the class angle, for instance, he might’ve portrayed Tonya as a barbarian at the gates of elite figure skating—a poor little poor girl whose talent brings her this/close to triumph even as lumpen desperation casts her back down into the muck. Alternately, he might’ve tried the ugly-hairand-makeup-of-the-90s approach. He seems to have opted instead for presenting Tonya as (1) a victim of the parasitic, grasping men in her life, and (2) a cautionary figure, illustrating the dangers of fame and fortune in an America where it’s all about cashing in. I say “seems” because T. fails to make either argument in a coherent, much less compelling, way. Aibel’s careless storytelling fails to supply important information about the scandal, and his gratuitous neo-Mametisms shoot for gritty only to hit insipid. Add a misshapen structure that lets Tonya’s dumb-as-rocks pals talk on and on while Tonya herself remains a cipher and Nancy never even shows up, and you’ve got a based-on-fact mess. Worse still is the relentlessly cartoonish treatment of the characters in Margot Bordelon’s 95-minute staging, with its one-stepfrom-Honey Boo Boo vibe. Talk about magical thinking: After working hard to render practically everybody as ridiculous as possible, Bordelon and Aibel make a last-second bid to turn T. into an American tragedy. Which is what the Tonya Harding story may be, at heart. Just not here. v T. Through 6/25: Thu-Fri 8 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PM, American Theater Company, 1909 W. Byron, 773-409-4125, atcweb.org, $38.

going on than just two people embracing and walking together,’” says Sung. For those interested in experiencing Argentine tango themselves, Niedas and Sung (aka DJ Lizita) host the Milonga la Baldosita every Sunday at Alhambra Palace (1240 W. Randolph), with a lesson for beginners from 7 to 8 PM and social dancing from 7 PM to midnight; it’s $15. v FEATHERS: A TANGO JOURNEY Fri 6/2-Sat 6/3, 7:30 PM, Madison Street Theatre, 1010 W. Madison, Oak Park, 708-524-1892, tango21dancetheater.com, $25.

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o COURTESY SCOTT JACOBS

ARTS & CULTURE

VISUAL ART

Another Polaroid in the Wall By JOHN OWENS

hey are the Polaroid snapshots of members of Chicago’s ﬁlm and video community, captured at work and in repose, during the last decades of the 20th century. Some of the subjects are well-known—there’s Kartemquin founder Gordon Quinn in one photo with noted video editor Eve Saxon, smiling at some long-ago party. And there’s noted anchorman and documentarian Bill Kurtis in another, with companion Donna LaPietra, also mugging in a festive atmosphere. Other people are less prominent, like Diane Abt, a street reporter for WBBM during the 1960s and ’70s, seen with a script in hand, seated at a tapeto-tape video-editing console, working on an undetermined video project. These images are documents of Independent Programming Associates, Inc., the legendary postproduction house located on Medill Avenue in Bucktown, which was open from 1982 to 2000. More than 2,600 of these Polaroids were taken at IPA, the place where documentaries like Hoop Dreams (1994) and Hollywood features like Soul Food (1997) were edited, along with countless other commercials and corporate videos. At one time

26 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

they were part of the atmosphere of IPA. “We’d post them on our kitchen wall, and when we ﬁnally closed in 2000, we took them all down and I put them on the floor of my closet, and that’s where they stayed for about 15 years,” says Scott Jacobs, a former SunTimes reporter who founded IPA. But now Jacobs has found a new purpose for these photographs. With the help of his friends he’s developed an app, featuring all of the images, called the Polaroid Wall. The 2,600plus pictures are searchable by name, year, or theme. The app was ﬁrst released during the Christmas season, and it’s now available for $1.99 at the Apple Store (or for free in a nonsearchable version at Gigapan.com). The Polaroid Wall chronicles an important development in Chicago: the rise of independent film and video production in the city. “When no one had the tools, we were able to provide them,” Jacobs says. “The idea was to empower independent producers to make things, and there’s nothing more powerful than having your own editing equipment.” Jacobs, who left the Sun-Times after Weinberg encouraged him to do more work in video, launched IPA with three other partners.

They wanted to provide an inexpensive alternative to some of the downtown postproduction houses. “We opened with three three-quarter-inch (videotape-editing) machines and we were in business,” Jacobs recalls. “Soon, [we] started making it available to everyone we could for pretty reasonable prices.” One of Jacobs’s partners, Starr Sutherland, started taking Polaroids of the production house’s visitors. The practice became an IPA ritual; the staff even wrote snarky captions on the photos. For instance, a picture of Kartemquin editor Jerry Blumenthal talking on the phone is accompanied by the inscription “Jerry . . . Calling his Bookie.” “Overall, you get a sense of that community, what the spirit was and the technical tools that they had, which were amazing at the time,” Jacobs says. “Chroma keys, DVEs, Avids, a Quantel Paintbox—all these things were brand-new, and people were trying to ﬁgure out how to use them.” Another former partner, Tom Shea, digitized the photos for the Polaroid Wall, and IPA clients Scott Munn, Casey Stockdon, and David Zerlin provided the design and app programming. Jacobs, along with other notables like Quinn, Saxon, Chicago Film Archives founder Nancy Watrous, and Media Burn Archives founder Tom Weinberg will stage what Jacobs calls a “soft launch” party for the Polaroid Wall on Thursday, June 1, at Wishbone in the

West Loop. Weinberg, a veteran television producer who created the PBS programs Image Union and The 90s, points out that IPA was known almost as much for its parties as it was for its influence on Chicago’s media industry. “One of the functions of IPA was to have parties for the community,” he says. “This is another party, just years after the last one. And some of these people haven’t seen each other in a really long time.” Other people featured in the photos include Hollywood screenwriter-producer Denise DeClue, video artist Skip Blumberg, documentary producer Scott Craig, and former PBS show Wild Chicago producer-host Ben Hollis. There are also surprises, like a young Forrest Claypool, now the CEO of Chicago Public Schools, pictured when he was working as a political consultant, assisting on an undetermined commercial (his caption is “Backroom Politics”). “[The app] is a little like reading a comic book,” Jacobs says. “If you get into following and searching different paths, it’s a little like a graphic novel. Every path gives you a different view.” Jacobs also compares the Polaroid Wall to Middlemarch, George Eliot’s famous novel about life in a fictional British town in the early 19th century, told through the eyes of a number of characters. As Middlemarch depicts Britain at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the Polaroid Wall is a visual catalog of Chicago in the midst of another revolution, according to Jacobs. “I believe we were there for a media revolution,” he says. “This was the start of the democratization of the media. Before, TV stations were closed shops, but [with IPA] independent producers were knocking at the door.” It’s a period that doesn’t exist anymore. Many postproduction houses fell by the wayside in the early 21st century, due to the introduction of nonlinear programs like Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro, which gave producers easy access to sophisticated editing tools. However, Jacobs isn’t bitter about the changes. “I believe there’s this growth of visual literacy,” he says. “And part of the reason is because we took television out of the stations and put it in the hands of these people who showed up at IPA.” v THE POLAROID WALL “SOFT LAUNCH” PARTY Thu 6/1, 5:30-8:30PM, Wishbone, 1001 W. Washington, 312-850-2663, wishbonechicago.com F

ß @john_p_owens

ARTS & CULTURE

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Imagine Wanting Only This turns comics into poetry By AIMEE LEVITT

risten Radtke’s new book, Imagine Wanting Only This, is less a graphic memoir than a graphic essay, which is odd to think about. Comics are concrete, with their pictures and word bubbles, and essays deal in abstractions. But then again, many essays also rely on juxtapositions, the braiding together of two or more separate narratives or ideas, so why can’t an essayist juxtapose words and pictures to tell stories and explore ideas? Imagine Wanting Only This explores the idea of loss. It begins with two premature deaths: Radtke’s beloved Uncle Dan, who succumbs to a heart ailment (which Radtke may also have inherited), and Seth Thomas, a 24-year-old photographer from Indiana who was hit and killed by a freight train he was trying to shoot. After his death, Thomas’s friends scattered some of his pictures of urban ruins on the ﬂoor of an abandoned church in Gary,

Indiana; Radtke unwittingly destroys this memorial when, during a college expedition, she gathers up the photos and takes them home, and she remains haunted by this desecration for years. These two losses resonate through the story of Radke’s 20s, a period marked by restlessness. A native of a small town in northern Wisconsin, she moves to Chicago to study photography at Columbia College, then to Iowa City to attend the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and finally to Louisville, where she settles unhappily into her first full-time job. In between she explores the ruins of Europe and southeast Asia and abandons a fiance in a desperate attempt to avoid being pinned down and turned into a ruin herself. “I can’t believe you’re willing to throw away something good for something new,” the fiance tells her during the breakup call. But for her, the need to move feels almost primal. “Ruins are often born in

the wake of stasis,” she muses at one point. “Some nights I pulled up the hem of my clothes and clawed at my skin, searching for signs that I was becoming one.” One of the greatest difficulties of creating Imagine Wanting Only This must’ve been ﬁnding a way to express ideas as images in a way that would be intelligible to another reader. (So often our pictures of things are so deeply personal that they make sense only to us.) Radtke avoids abstraction by drawing in a very clean, almost photo-realistic style, and she makes creative use of diagrams, secondary material like books and newspapers, and, occasionally, a series of panels showing herself telling another person what she’s thinking. Sometimes, though, she breaks the format wide open. In a stunning sequence at the end of the fourth chapter, she brings together ruins and memory and mortality with images of Mayan temples, the rust-belt ruins of Detroit, and herself, returning home after a long trip to a letter from her former ﬁance and an empty apartment. It comes as close to graphic poetry as anything I’ve ever seen. v R IMAGINE WANTING ONLY THIS By Kristen Radtke (Pantheon)

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ß @aimeelevitt JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 27

ARTS & CULTURE Kyle MacLachlan in Twin Peaks: The Return o SUSAN TENNER/ SHOWTIME

SMALL SCREEN

It is happening again By TAL ROSENBERG

ne problem for anyone trying to write about Twin Peaks: The Return, of which four episodes have already aired on Showtime, is that it’s impossible to predict where it will go next. This predicament was also somewhat true of Twin Peaks, the ABC TV show produced by Mark Frost and David Lynch that debuted in 1990, ran for two seasons (one consisting of eight episodes, the other an oddly weakened 22), and led to the feature-film prequel, written and directed by Lynch, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Jonathan Rosenbaum reviewed Twin Peaks for the Reader in 1990, after only two episodes had been broadcast, and while he correctly foretold some creative developments of the series—that the episodes not helmed by Lynch would resemble conventional network television, for one—he couldn’t have known that the murder-mystery premise of the ﬁrst season would transform into a New Age spirit quest involving owls and alternate dimensions, which would in turn precede a deeply unsettling art-house movie about incest, prostitution, and patriarchal malevolence. In The Return, the only certainty is that no one other than Frost and Lynch could’ve made it. In hindsight, Fire Walk With Me was a turning point in Lynch’s career. Before that,

28 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

he was playing something of a hot hand as someone who could successfully bring arty, even avant-garde aesthetic practices to mainstream audiences, first with Blue Velvet, then with the Palme d’Or-winning Wild at Heart, and finally with Twin Peaks, whose first episode attracted nearly 35 million viewers. Fire Walk With Me was savaged by critics and was a box-office bomb seemingly everywhere but Japan, but the film initiated certain attributes that would distinguish the next quarter century of Lynch’s work: split narratives (Lost Highway, Mulholland Dr.), an emphasis on mood over plot, slight incorporations of horror, more female leads, tangential scenes that obliquely address or supplement the material, and an increasingly caustic and bitter tone. The Return adopts many of these features, though it doesn’t completely abandon the story line of Twin Peaks. That show began with FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) investigating the murder of teenager Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) in the title town; during the course of his inquiry he (and the audience) discover the various behaviors, backstories, and secrets of the townspeople. By the time of the finale, Cooper is trapped in the Black Lodge—an alternate reality also inhabited by the spirit Killer Bob (Frank Silva), who took control of the body of Palmer’s kill-

ARTS & CULTURE

David Lynch in Twin Peaks: The Return o SUSAN TENNER/SHOWTIME

er—and his evil doppelganger has escaped into the real world. While in the Black Lodge, Palmer tells Cooper, “I’ll see you in 25 years”; The Return picks up approximately 25 years after the ﬁnal episode of Twin Peaks. In The Return Cooper’s double is running amok in the real world, committing heinous crimes and trying to evade his return to the Black Lodge. Cooper, still trapped in that mystical realm, is tasked by a mutated tree (once the Man From Another Place, previously played by Michael J. Anderson) to ﬁnd his doppelganger and return him to the Black Lodge. Concurrently,

the Log Lady (Catherine Coulson in her last role) alerts Twin Peaks deputy sheriff Hawk (Michael Horse) that something from Cooper’s file is missing, prompting the sheriff’s department to revisit the Laura Palmer investigation. If all that sounds confusing, well, it’s also about as much as I can “reveal” without “spoiling” anything. Most of The Return is so strange that it’s hard to imagine how plot points could be construed as spoilers. But it’s still best to go in knowing as little as possible, because part of what makes the show so captivating is its unexpected and imaginative nature. This is why the

horror elements of The Return are so horrific, the science-fiction aspects so unusual, and the comedic scenes so humorous. Lynch directed all 18 episodes of The Return, but any fidelity or resolution to the various plotlines and characters of Twin Peaks is likely due to Frost, whose influence on the show is often underreported or totally unaddressed. While Lynch helmed the director’s chair for seven episodes of Twin Peaks, and those installments feel like isolated shorter features, the other 23 hours of the ABC series seem as if they’re Frost’s work more than Lynch’s. Frost is a seasoned TV writer who cut his teeth on Hill Street Blues, and he brings an extensive knowledge of television and its history. (On Twitter he revealed that the inclusion of one character in The Return was a reference to The Patty Duke Show.) Most importantly, Frost contributes order and boundaries that’s absent in a lot of Lynch’s work. That grounding is fortified by Frost’s most esoteric contribution: The Secret History of Twin Peaks, a novel constructed as a dossier that provides all the details surrounding the mystery that Cooper investigated in Twin Peaks. I haven’t read it, but fans have told me that many of the apparently nonsensical scenes in The Return are addressed in some form in the book. And such world building is key to what helps Frost and Lynch retain a diehard cult audience (the Twin Peaks Reddit page provides extensive and intriguing commentary on The Return). Lynch’s presence is most prevalent in the show’s direction. There are long, drawn-out scenes where dramatic action takes place

right before the stalled momentum becomes interminable. There are B-movie special effects, adventurous sound design, and human beings transported through electrical sockets. And just as the Lynch-directed episodes of Twin Peaks felt like half-size feature ﬁlms, each installment of The Return seems to be a different exploration of Lynch’s ﬁlmography. The pilot episode has some of the episodic randomness, thematic unity, and unusual tension of Mulholland Dr. and parts of Inland Empire. The third episode (the pilot consists of episodes one and two) is Lynch’s closest approximation to Eraserhead since that movie came out 40 years ago. And the fourth and most recent episode is an over-the-top comedy that might be the funniest work in Lynch’s oeuvre. At times The Return is more like a career retrospective than the follow-up to a beloved pop-culture franchise. But if The Return is a reexamination of Frost and Lynch’s work, it’s an oblique one. And it’s possibly a farewell—Lynch confirmed in an interview with the Sydney Morning-Herald that Inland Empire is his final film. The Return is, in part, a meditation on the decisions human beings make and how those decisions affect the course of their lives. If this is the last we hear from Frost and Lynch, it’s one of the more unlikely and bizarre manifestations of creative selfreflection to arrive on any screen, big or small. v R TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN Sundays at 8 PM on Showtime

ß @talrosenberg

JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 29

MUSIC

TALSOUNDS

Sat 6/2, 6 PM, Reckless Records, 1379 N. Milwaukee, free, all ages

Natalie Chami of TALsounds opens for Xiu Xiu at the Empty Bottle on March 31. o ANTHONY NGUYEN

TALsounds steps into the same river twice

To support Love Sick, her biggest album yet, Natalie Chami has learned to replay the beautiful ambient pop songs she improvised to record it. By PETER MARGASAK

or the past three months Natalie Chami, a Chicago high school teacher who’s been making music as TALsounds since 2011, has been fastidiously learning songs from her new album, Love Sick. If you think it seems

30 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

backward to record ﬁrst and learn the material later, you’re not wrong. Right from the beginning, Chami has improvised every TALsounds performance and recording, using digital looping technology to layer piano, synthesizer, and other electronics with her ethereal

MUSIC vocals. She creates her meditative, richly melodic ambient pieces from scratch each time, and only recently has she even tried to repeat herself—for years, she never played any songs from her recordings onstage. Love Sick comes out Friday, and it’s the first TALsounds release on New York label Ba Da Bing. Chami considers it her fourth full-length, among several splits and shorter recordings. In her live sets, she generally leads her audience on an uninterrupted journey, but when she records (almost always at home) she typically divides her music into shorter chunks, ranging from four to ten minutes. As she prepares to embark on an east-coast tour this summer to support the new album, she’s decided it might help to be able to reproduce some of its tracks live. “Maybe some people will want to hear a song they can recognize,” Chami says. “It’s been weird. It’s challenging as far as theory goes, trying to ﬁgure out which parts are important—‘How can I redo this?’ I’m super type A, and when I do this I’m not feeling or vibing as much as I would like to. I’m concerned with getting this part right. It turns into something like classical music, which I love, but it’s the opposite of how I like performing.” If you’ve heard TALsounds’ music, it might come as a surprise that it’s completely improvised—with its poppy polish, it could hardly have less in common with established improvisatory genres such as free jazz or noise. Chami’s moody confections ﬂow with organic grace, and in performance she never seems to be at a loss for what comes next—she arrives at an idea and brings it to life, with no perceptible latency. Max Allison, one of Chami’s bandmates in the trio Good Willsmith (and a solo performer under the name Mukqs), is as familiar with her approach as any outsider could be. “She has mastered the art of ‘live production,’ for lack of a better term,” he says. “The layered loops she creates live sound like deliberate overdubs that were pored over in a studio setting.” She’s mastered this style of performing with discipline, focus, and determination—the same virtues she’s applying to the transcription of her improvised songs for her tour. Chami, 30, was born and raised in Windsor, Ontario, by Lebanese immigrants who’d arrived in Canada in 1982, about five years before her birth. When she was ten, her mother and a new stepfather moved the family to Falls Church, Virginia, where she remained until coming to the midwest in fall 2005 to study at Northwestern.

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The cover of Love Sick

She began formal piano studies when she was ﬁve and she sang in her school choir. Her listening habits were largely a product of her environment—first she absorbed the rap, R&B, and dance music that her older sister loved, and later she got into Deftones and Incubus alongside her middle-school peers. Her tastes were broad from an early age, and that openness has stayed with her over the years. During high school in Falls Church she joined an indie-folk band, and after moving to Evanston for college she sang backing vocals and played organ in another folk group. It wasn’t until she moved to Chicago in her senior year that she discovered synthesizers and the local rock scene. Chami had decided in high school that she wanted to be a music teacher, and at Northwestern she studied opera and education. After graduating in 2009, she landed a plum gig teaching at the Chicago High School for the Arts, which was just about to open—originally located inside Pershing Magnet School at 32nd and Calumet, it’s since moved to Humboldt Park. “It’s my dream job,” she says. Chami’s coworkers are a community of working artists, and one of her students, R&B singer Ravyn Lenae (who’s finishing her senior year), recently toured with Noname and signed a deal with Atlantic. Lenae has loved having Chami as a teacher. “As a sophomore, I remember being extremely inspired by her music when she performed for the class,” she says. “At this time, I was beginning to create my own music and needed that last push. I thought her music was very intriguing, especially because her performance is very nontraditional and exciting. I immediately thought to myself, ‘Hey, chicks can do cool things too!’” J

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STAMPY, LOW SPARK, TENDERBROS SAT, 6/3

MOON, MOLEHILL, MODEL STRANGER, SAYERS MON, 6/5

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MUSIC continued from 31

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32 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

In late 2010, Chami launched her first serious performing project in Chicago, an ambient duo called L’eternebre with bassist Brian Griffith. They secured a weekly residency at Wicker Park bar Rodan, but when Griffith moved to Los Angeles the following year, Chami was left in the lurch—so she began performing solo as TALsounds. (She’d been using the name since 2009, though not in public—“Tal” is a shortened version of “Natalie”). Those shows soon brought her into Good Willsmith: Allison and the future trio’s third member, Doug Kaplan, had been told by a friend to check out Chami’s music. They saw her play at Rodan and enlisted her for an experimental rock band they wanted to start. Allison and Kaplan introduced Chami to Chicago’s thriving DIY scene, a sprawling network of largely underground performance spaces whose community of artists defines itself more by self-reliance and a progressive punk ethos than by any specific genre. Good Willsmith itself certainly doesn’t fit into any one genre—it collides jammy psychedelia, electronic dance music, and a trunkload of other sounds, among them Chami’s lush ambience and concise melodies. The band quickly put her on the map, and after Allison and Kaplan founded the Hausu Mountain cassette label in 2012, they began releasing not just Good Willsmith’s music but also Chami’s work as TALsounds. TALsounds has steadily developed over the past six years. Chami retains her talent for lengthy excursions, some shot through with thrilling dissonance and blobby abstraction, but she’s sharpened her practice so that she also has the option to develop an almost poppy feel, with her music covering its luxurious sweep in a swifter, more assured way. “The way her tracks unfold in narrative arcs owes a lot to her piece-by-piece introduction of elements to her live mix,” Allison says. “She isn’t worried about her sessions fitting into a grid or coming off as a rigidly structured pop song. She makes very long loops that have tons of room within them for arrhythmic elements to loosely tumble together.” Allison has also watched Chami increase her mastery of her gear and her voice. “Like any improviser, she has a box of tools that she pulls from in given situations,” he says. “She can dial in on a synth whatever tone she hears in her mind, within the limits of that synth. She can cast off vocal lines in so many different styles—from operatic highs to manic whispers to screams to gentle singsong mel-

odies. She knows the EHX 2880 multitrack loop pedal front to back, and uses it like a digital audio workstation on a computer—fading loops in and out, blasting the whole mix into pitch-shifted madness when she sees fit.” Last spring Ba Da Bing founder Ben Goldberg reached out to Chami about opening for one of his label’s artists, Georgia singersongwriter Claire Cronin. Chami took the gig—and also noticed that Goldberg had bought several TALsounds releases through Bandcamp. Never one to dither in the face of an opportunity, she asked if he wanted to release her music. He said yes. In July 2016, Good Willsmith left on a short tour to support its latest album, Things Our Bodies Used to Have (Umor Rex), but Chami cut it short partway through. The band has essentially been on hiatus since then. “I love them, but I can’t be around Doug and Max 24-7 anymore,” she says. “I could when I was younger, but I don’t sleep well when I’m around them because they snore—it’s hard.” She breaks into laughter. Chami needed to take a break from Good Willsmith for more than one reason, though. When she confirmed her deal with Ba Da Bing last summer, Goldberg asked if she could get him a finished album in August—he was aiming for January release. At that point, she hadn’t even begun to record. The label eventually pushed the release date back, but the deadline lit a fire under Chami. She threw herself into the project with characteristic discipline, recording almost every day. On November 11, when she finished the final song that would appear on Love Sick, she had more than 18 hours of music to choose from. For her previous releases—most of which have come out on Hausu Mountain—Chami has fed everything she’s played into her computer through a single channel, which has given her little flexibility in postproduction. Her boyfriend Erik Rasmussen is a sound engineer, and he’s often helped edit or master her recordings and do whatever limited mixing was possible. For Love Sick he was intimately involved from the beginning—Chami reconfigured her setup to use several channels, so that she and Rasmussen could extensively mix and manipulate the music’s individual layers of sound after she recorded them. “I make a chart of every date that I record, and right after I’m done I add it to a spreadsheet,” Chami says. “I’ll number the songs and try to listen back and figure out the text or the lyrics that I sang and describe what it sounds like—the mood and the length—and later I’ll

MUSIC

TALsounds at Silent Barn in Brooklyn on June 11, 2016 o ASHLEY AYARZA

go back and start listening to them and rating them. I go through and try to pick things that complement each other. While I’m doing that, Erik starts to mix what I just picked, and then I keep recording.” After wrapping up recording in November, she spent two months mixing and sequencing the album with Rasmussen and submitted it to the label on January 17. Three days later, early on a rainy Thursday evening, an inattentive driver hit Chami with his car as she left ChiArts. “I was crossing the street to go to my car, and I slipped in the crosswalk,” she says. “A guy turning left at the four-way stop didn’t see me fall or walk or be on the ground, and he ran over both of my legs. I had just fallen and I thought, ‘All of these people just saw me eat shit,’ and then my next thought was, ‘I’m getting run over by a car.’ And then I was like, ‘Am I alive or paralyzed?’” Miraculously, Chami suffered no major broken bones, and she was discharged from the hospital that same evening. “I was thrilled . . . ‘This is awesome, amazing,’” she remembers thinking. “‘I’m going back to work on Monday.’” By Saturday, though, the drugs she’d been given were no longer a match for the pain—she was incapacitated, and she still couldn’t move her legs. While she went

through a grueling rehab program, she missed six weeks of work and had to cancel several shows she’d booked. When she spoke to me a couple weeks ago, she’d just started wearing heels again. Since ﬁnishing intensive physical therapy in March, Chami has been learning the beautiful songs on Love Sick, the most assured and cohesive album of her young career. “I think it all sounds more contained into a single vibe throughout, because it was all recorded in a shorter span,” she says. She made most of her previous albums over the course of a year, she explains, rather than in a few months. Her vocals are more present in the mix—she credits the sound of her favorite Björk song, “Cocoon,” as her model. Chami is especially excited about the exposure she hopes a Ba Da Bing release will bring—it’s an older, more traditional label than Hausu Mountain, with a bigger staff and more resources. When a box of vinyl copies of the new record showed up in the mail, she says she cried. “It’s something I’ve been working towards,” she says. “I would love to be recognized for my music.” v

ß @pmarg JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 33

MONDAY JUNE 12 7:30

WITH THE

CSO

Brimming with “fizzy spirit and breezy sophistication” (Chicago Sun-Times), the sensational Pink Martini returns to Symphony Center for an evening of glamour and glitz. Experience an alluring mix of classical, jazz and golden-era pop as “one of the world’s most elegant live bands” (The Times UK) mingles with the incomparable Chicago Symphony Orchestra for an unforgettable party.

Steven Reineke conductor Ikram Goldman guest vocalist

CSO.ORG • 312-294-3000 Artists, prices and programs subject to change.

34 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

IN ROTATION

2017

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

FREE JUNE 6–AUG. 2

Friends of the Gamelan o PHILIP MONTORO

TUES., JUNE 6

TUES., JULY 11

Radio Free Honduras

Maracujaz

7–8:30pm James Park

Latin American band fronted by Honduran music legend Charlie Baran and backed by lively percussion, eclectic instrumentation, and rich harmonies

The Chantels’ 1958 debut album

TUES., JUNE 13 Angela James o JORDAN MARTINS

PHILIP MONTORO Reader music editor

DANIELLE SINES Front woman and

AMELIA HRUBY

songwriter of Impulsive Hearts

Codirector of features at CHIRP

Friends of the Gamelan at Hyde Park Union Church on May 13 The massed metallophones of traditional Indonesian gamelan ensembles sound like a heavenly clockwork of ineffable complexity and patience. At the public concerts of this Chicago nonproﬁt, founded in 1980, attendees are sometimes invited to play the instruments afterward, provided they take oﬀ their shoes and behave themselves. I recommend sticking your head inside the big bass gong, the gong ageng, and having somebody lay into it with a mallet.

The Chantels, We Are the Chantels When it gets sunny, I start digging through my Motown and doo-wop collection. One of my favorites is the Chantels’ 1958 debut album. Arlene Smith’s voice is like no other, cutting through the luscious backing harmonies with angelic perfection. At age 16, Smith cowrote their ﬁrst hit, “Maybe,” and it sends chills down my spine every time I hear it. Find a copy with the original cover—ﬁve young black women in matching peach dresses—not the reissue with a cartoony white couple at a jukebox.

Questlove, Somethingtofoodabout Last year Questlove put out a beautiful book of interviews with innovative chefs and photos of their restaurants and food. While it’s sometimes rambling and a bit too arty for its own good, I love how much insight you can glean when two artists in different fields come together in conversation. Plus the cover image is a fruit-and-vegetable portrait of Questlove himself in the style of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, with a potato face and kale Afro.

Celestial Bodies, Spit Forth From Chaos I’ve been disappointed by lots of black-metal bands whose PR insists they’re inspired by free jazz. Netherlands-based duo Celestial Bodies—aka electronicist Vincent Koreman of Nihill and drummer René Aquarius of Dead Neanderthals—actually deliver. Their nightmarishly anarchic debut album often maintains its relentless momentum without a clear unanimous pulse or steady tempo, so that I’m entirely prepared to believe it’s at least in part freely improvised. Aquarius’s drumming hammers and spatters like a hailstorm, and the deranged buzzsaw of Koreman’s distorted noise swirls, yaws, and lunges like a howling wind trying to tear the windows out of your house.

Various artists, Girls Rock! Chicago: July 2016 I’m always declaring my love for Girls Rock! Chicago—a weeklong summer camp where girls and transgender youth learn to play instruments and be in a band (including a live show and a recording session). The 2016 camp mix was just released, and it sounds incredible. Listen to Frizzza Sistaz’ “Tame Your Mane”—they belt out blended harmonies and rap about self-respect. I started to cry like a little baby. How do eight-year-olds do it?

Can, “Turtles Have Short Legs” Much of the music I find restorative is frankly ugly and unpleasant (see above). But I’m conﬁdent that all humans can enjoy the jaunty, playful riﬀs, goofy lyrics, and irresistibly frisky drumming in this 1971 Can single. We miss you, Jaki.

Willie Nelson, God’s Problem Child Ah, Willie, I can’t stop listening to your new record. It’s perfect for staying outside late, stargazing and enjoying the beautiful Chicago weather. This record ﬁts with his classic catalog, yet now he sure-handedly tackles the subjects of age and time. “He Won’t Ever Be Gone,” dedicated to Merle Haggard, is my favorite. If this ballad doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, then may God have mercy on your cold dead soul. I’m driving to Austin for his July 4 bash—I’ll be holding the sign FROM CHICAGO WITH LOVE <3.

Angela James, Women of the World Take Over at the Hideout At Angela James’s March residency at the Hideout, the ﬁrst show featured Chicago women covering other Chicago women from all eras and genres. Have you ever wanted to see Bethany Thomas cover Veruca Salt’s “Benjamin” or Sima and Macie from Ohmme take on Minnie Riperton and Mavis Staples? Do you dream about Sally Timms singing Freakwater or Tasha VietsVanLear channeling Chaka Khan? Months later, I’m still thinking about these amazing women taking over that stage (aka the world). Screaming Females covering Sheryl Crow’s “If It Makes You Happy” In a recent interview for Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter, Sheryl Crow talks about how this song was inspired by her rise to fame. Apparently a lot of her stoner friends thought she was “selling out” when she landed on Top 40 radio. Either way, it reminded me how much I love Screaming Females’ cover, recorded for an A.V. Club session. Screaming Females (and Sheryl Crow) do all my friend angst justice.

7–8:30pm Dawes Park

LowDown Brass Band

From street beat to metal, this brass band showcases a unique high-energy style that will get you grooving

TUES., JUNE 20 7–8:30pm Twiggs Park

Christ Temple Sanctuary Choir & Worship Team

A mix of traditional and contemporary gospel; special guest TBD; Juneteenth celebration with food trucks on site

TUES., JUNE 27 7–8:30pm Bent Park

Lawrence Peters Outfit

This two-time winner of the Chicago Music Awards’ “Best Country and Western Entertainer” Naunts its deep-rooted honky-tonk sound Food trucks on site

7–8:30pm Leahy Park

Brazilian jazz band playing mellow bossa novas, upbeat sambas, and jazz classics

TUES., JULY 18 7–8:30pm Brummel Park

Chicago Tribute Anthology

Driving rhythm section, powerful horns, and authentic vocals recreate the sound of legendary rock band “Chicago” Food Truck Festival

TUES., JULY 25 7–8:30pm Mason Park

Lynne Jordan & The Shivers

One of Chicago’s great musical divas belts out the blues, jazz, funk and rock Interactive family activities are from 6–6:45pm

Sing-alongconcert gearedtowardsfamilies withyoungchildren

WED., AUG 2

6–7pm Tallmadge Park

Miss Jenny and Dawn-Marie Hamilton

Presented by the City of Evanston Sponsors: Renewal by Andersen, Chicago Reader, Evanston RoundTable, the Homestead Hotel, and the Hearth Restaurant cityofevanston.org/starlight Rain site: Levy Senior Center, 300 Dodge Ave., except Starlight Junior at Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes St. For concert rain site and weather updates, call 847-448-4311 or visit cityofevanston.org/rainout.

JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 35

Recommended and notable shows and critics’ insights for the week of June 1

MUSIC

ALL AGES

In the Sea o PETER GANNUSHKIN

PICK OF THE WEEK

Joan Shelley unleashes her most poetic collection of songs yet

THURSDAY1 In the Sea The Few open. 9 PM, Elastic, 3429 W. Diversey, $10 suggested donation. A

o EBRU YILDIZ

JOAN SHELLEY, JAKE XERXES FUSSELL

Sat 6/3, 8 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music, 4545 N. Lincoln, sold out. b

LAST MONTH LOUISVILLE singer-songwriter Joan Shelley released her fifth album, the eponymous Joan Shelley, the first she’s made outside of Kentucky. She cut the record in Chicago at the Wilco Loft with Jeff Tweedy as producer, but his presence is barely felt, which says something about her quiet confidence in her delicate and poetic folk rock. It’s the leanest, most restrained record of her career so far—the tracks feel intuitive, following a path that’s both spontaneous and intimate, with melodic shapes reflecting the empathetic rumination of her lyrics. In song after song she addresses a lover scarred or scared, afraid to succumb or settle in, and though she asks questions and makes tough observations—on “We’d Be Home” she sings, “’Cause you move your body like / A puppet on its line”—there’s an unmistakable generosity and tenderness to her meditations. The gorgeous arrangements circle around and caress her gossamer voice, at once strong and weightless, the guitars executing crisp acoustic arpeggios and strums accented here and there by gently devastating electric lines. Tweedy adds some of those as well as bass, his son Spencer some drumming with brushes, and James Elkington alternates between guitar and keyboards, but the heavy lifting is done by Shelley and her regular accompanist, guitarist Nathan Salsburg. Together the two convey the lyric essence of each song, the playing inextricably connected with the singing. They’ll perform as a duo here, though there’s no ruling out a guest appearance from one of the musicians who helped make this brilliantly understated record. —PETER MARGASAK

36 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

Cellist Tristan Honsinger ﬂed his native America in 1969 to avoid the draft, settling in Montreal, where he discovered improvised music and changed his musical life. Starting in 1974 he lived in Europe, bouncing around between Paris, Florence, and Amsterdam, where he built his reputation as an indefatigably curious player who worked with a who’s who of heavies including guitarist Derek Bailey, pianist Cecil Taylor, and saxophonist Evan Parker. Over the last couple of decades his best-known work has occurred within the ICP Orchestra, where his ferociously textured bowed improvisations and love of slapstick and European cabaret music have proved simpatico with the absurdist tendencies and surprise-laden MO of founders Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink. Lately he’s enjoyed a kind of Montreal homecoming under the moniker In the Sea, his warped aesthetic achieving its fullest expression alongside a few of the city’s younger musicians. Drummer Isaiah Ceccarelli contributes sprawling propulsion to the group’s 2015 debut, Henry Crabapple Disappear (Astral Spirits), but In the Sea’s eponymous new album for Relative Pitch features just a string trio, allowing the players to settle into a chamberlike collision of approaches. Double bassist Nicolas Caloia and violinist Joshua Zubot bring brio and care to Honsinger’s pieces, which draw from classical music, Italian folk, and his aforementioned slapstick aesthetic, loads of nonsensical singing alternately limning pretty melodies and harnessing pure chaos. Improvisation and attuned interplay between the players deﬁne the music more than the composed themes—it’s sometimes hard to know when one composed piece ends and the improvisation begins. This is the trio’s Chicago debut. —PETER MARGASAK

Mr. Mitch Letta and DJ Chuck open. 9 PM, East Room, 2354 N. Milwaukee, $12, $8 in advance. Grime—the phenomenon that borrows its hard edges from jungle and UK garage and has the baddest MCs rap over them—exudes an alluring nasti-

ness right down to its name, which suggests the culture proliferated in dank corners far from sunlight. Still, in recent years Britain’s pop charts have taken a shine to the sound. Amid all of this is London producer Miles Mitchell, better known as Mr. Mitch, who runs the underground label Gobstopper and cofounded an experimental-grime night called Boxed. His second album, April’s Devout (Planet Mu), is built on grime’s combative pulse but so atmospheric that it’s stripped of its frisson; all the same, the results can remain tense and intense even when the most noticeable sound is that of a hovering synth note slowly dissolving. Mitchell’s biggest inspirations for Devout were his two children, and that’s reflected in his tender touch and softened approach. And while he employs singers with supple voices to butter everything up, often it’s Mitchell himself who delivers the goods—on “My Life,” when he sweetly intones the words “It’s yours” over a plinking melody, the tone of his gentle half-singing can turn your guts to jelly as eﬀectively as any tenton percussive attack. —LEOR GALIL

Chris Potter Through Sunday. 8 and 10 PM, Jazz Showcase, 806 S. Plymouth, $25-$30. For much of the last decade reedist Chris Potter has been experimenting with new forms, whether dipping deep into a groove-heavy electric sound with his band Underground or exploring orchestral writing and conceptual frames on his 2015 album Imaginary Cities. He’s pulled back a bit on his lush, patient new quartet recording The Dreamer Is the Dream (his third album for ECM), occupying the postbop comfort zone that’s made him one of the most admired jazz artists of his time and an idol for countless students. But he’s also engaging in some quiet new experiments. Potter’s supported by one of his strongest bands to date: bassist Joe Martin along with Cuban pianist David Virelles and drummer Marcus Gilmore, two of the most distinctive practitioners of their given instruments in improvised music. The album opens with a tender, rhapsodic ballad where Potter uses his agile tenor to unfurl an extended solo of exquisite beauty and calm, gently caressed by his rhythm section, which stokes the smoky atmosphere with subtle accents. He begins the cool burner “Ilimba” with cycling

MUSIC kalimba lines as Virelles obliquely references driving montuno patterns within a rangy solo, while “Yashodhara” employs an extended rhythmic cycle borrowed from Indian classical music. Such excursions, however, never get in the way of the leader’s smoldering intensity or his investment in postbop fundamentals. —PETER MARGASAK

Xasthur Johanna Warren, Fabio Brienza, and Magick Potion open. 8:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, $15, $12 in advance. 17+ When black metal reached American shores in the early 90s, it started a movement of artists trying to re-create the chilling, nihilistic sounds of their Norwegian forefathers—and it didn’t get much better than Xasthur. Formed in 1995 and operated mostly as the solo project of Maleﬁc (aka Scott Conner), Xasthur embodied everything that was great about black metal while improving upon it. Staying completely underground and mainly sharing his massive discography via self-released tapes and CDs, Maleﬁc appropriated the harsh, dissonant tremolo guitars and blast beats of Burzum and Dark Throne, adding personal lyrics and sweeping, mournful progressions to stir up a depth and beauty never before heard in the genre. By the mid-aughts Xasthur records were coming out on Hydra Head, and Malefic’s signature inhuman shriek was cropping up on to tracks by SunnO))) and Twilight—he really

seemed to be hitting his stride just when he abruptly ended the project in 2010. Five years later, Xasthur made a sudden return, and last fall its first new record since coming back, Subject to Change, came out on Maleﬁc’s own Disharmonic Variations label. On it, the next-level black metal of the past is gone, traded in for dark, intricate neofolk. It’s an unexpected turn, and kind of a weird one to grasp, but the new songs still capture the same twisted, unsettling bleakness of Xasthur’s best metal tracks. —LUCA CIMARUSTI

FRIDAY2 Ben Allison Quartet See also Saturday. 9 PM, Green Mill, 4802 N. Broadway, $15. Bassist, composer, and bandleader Ben Allison is one of the most deliberate and focused ﬁgures in jazz, a musician who conveys a clear-cut conception in everything he does. Over the years he’s led a wide variety of bands with shifting personnel, but whether through a lineup shuﬄe or a total overhaul of his stylistic framework, the sounds he shepherds change in sharp, satisfying ways. His forthcoming new quintet album, Layers of the City (Sonic Camera), is no exception. Allison leads pianist Frank Kimbrough, guitarist Steve Cardenas, drummer Allan Mednard, and trumpeter Jeremy Pelt through an

Dam-Funk o RASHID AKRIM / NRK P3 assortment of pensive, deeply considered postbop numbers that retain a measure of the poprock concision displayed on his guitar-driven 2013 album The Stars Look Very Diﬀerent Today but also push in more challenging, elastic rhythmic directions. Featuring Allison on electric bass, “Enter the Dragon,” for example, opens with a taut, stuttering

groove and a lockstep arrangement that convey a fusionlike feel up to about halfway through the track, when a steeplechase-like piano solo by Kimbrough throws the tune on its ass. Frenetic runs up and down the keyboard pull the rhythm section frantically along before Pelt and Cardenas gently return to the unison melody in the J

JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 37

MUSIC continued from 37

background, as though gathering up the rest of the band. And when they all return to the theme it’s nothing short of exhilarating, Mednard jacking up the tension and Pelt uncorking a ﬁery solo. In press materials Allison has explained that the album’s title is intended to be a reﬂection of the disparate juxtapositions and collisions of a big city—like New York, where he lives—and with its strong sense of space, shifting dynamics, and changing attacks, the title track certainly conveys that. Minus Kimbrough, the band from the record appears with the bassist. —PETER MARGASAK

Dam-Funk (DJ set) Shazam Bangles and Mata open. 10 PM, Smart Bar, 3730 N. Clark, $20, $15 in advance.

Even hunched over a turntable in the cramped, overflowing record room of his LA abode, DamFunk is elegantly chill. During an hour-plus Boiler Room Collections DJ set he recorded in 2015, the Stones Throw-represented modern-funk musician and producer—less known as Damon Garrett Riddick—takes casual drags oﬀ cigs and plays smooth air-drum ﬁlls while spinning through a collection of deep-funk cuts and disco-infused early 80s “backwards-skating” jams. Occasionally he’ll ad lib some falsetto vocals over an instrumental or impart some liner-note details, but it’s a simple, casual trip during

which you can almost feel the warm breeze tousling your hair. As much a champion of the $1 Shalamar bargain-bin purchase as a private-press rarity, DamFunk is a pro at touching the needle down to a deep groove, a skill he’s reworked into his own music, from his 2009 behemoth five-LP debut, Toeachizown, up to and through his current collabs and comps. Tonight is a straight DJ set in which DamFunk’s encyclopedic funk knowledge—and unpretentious mellow vibe—will no doubt be put to excellent use. —KEVIN WARWICK

Ragan, the Hot Water Music front man turned folk singer. You can also expect plenty of arts and crafts vendors, greasy street food, beer, and the requisite Family Fun Fest, which features kid-friendly musical performances, face painting, and pony rides. —LUCA CIMARUSTI

Migos Future headlines; Migos, Tory Lanez, and Zoey Dollaz open. 7 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, 19100 Ridgeland, Tinley Park, $36$148.98. A

Do Division Street Fest See also Saturday and Sunday. Adult., Black Marble, and Perlada (East Stage); Lucky Boys Confusion, Midwest Hype, and Ember Oceans (West Stage). 6:15 PM, Division between Damen and Leavitt, $5 suggested donation. Do Division again offers three days of live music on two stages, with the usual suspects handling the eclectic programming: Empty Bottle Presents booked the East Stage at Damen and Division, while Subterranean took care of the West Stage at Leavitt and Division. This year includes a reunion set from Chicago garage-rock favorites the Ponys as well as sets from devastating doom-metal outﬁt Pallbearer and Detroit postpunks Protomartyr. Do Division has always done a decent job at keeping its lineups diverse, and that continues in 2017—the

Cristina Martinez and Jon Spencer of Boss Hog o JERI LAMPERT

days are spiced up with appearances by acts like old-school scuzz-rock weirdos Boss Hog, local postrock supergroup RLYR, poppy punk heroes Lucky Boys Confusion, darkwave project Black Marble, doo-wop punks Shannon & the Clams, and Chuck

Atlanta rap trio Migos have experienced a lifetime of music industry ups and downs in less than half a decade. Rappers Quavo, Offset, and Takeoff first made it through the buzz of their breakthrough 2013 sensation, “Versace,” surviving a Drake remix that felt less like a cosign than a jump on something hot. They held their ground in Atlanta’s ﬁckle, rapidly evolving hip-hop scene—still the apple of the country’s eye—long enough to drop 2015’s Yung Rich Nation through Atlantic, 300, and heavy hometown indie Quality Control. Later it looked like they’d doomed themselves by betting it all on the dab, pledging allegiance to the Atlanta dance long after most teens had given up on it and even as Paul Ryan began to catch on to it. Then, in January, Donald Glover’s outstanding FX series Atlanta, which prominently featured the members of Migos in an episode, won the Golden Globe for Best TV J

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21 NEW EVENT ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10AM TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE CHICAGO THEATRE BOX OFFICE OR THECHICAGOTHEATRE.COM The Chicago Theatre provides disabled accommodations and sells tickets to disabled individuals through our Disabled Services department, which may be reached at 888-609-7599 any weekday from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Ticketmaster orders are subject to service charges.

38 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

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MUSIC

FRIDAY, JUNE 2 8PM

continued from 38

Anaïs Mitchell / Grant-Lee Phillips

Series, Musical or Comedy—and Glover changed the group’s fortunes during his acceptance speech, saying, “I really wanna thank the Migos, not for being in the show, but for making ‘Bad and Boujee,’ that’s the best song . . . ever.” Like the other great cuts oﬀ January’s Culture (Quality Control/300/Atlantic), “Bad and Boujee” gets its power from Migos’ melodic, acrobatic rapping, which bounces atop a deceptively simple instrumental like a handful of rubber jacks let loose upon a trampoline. —LEOR GALIL

SATURDAY, JUNE 3 7:30PM

National Tap Day Celebration SATURDAY, JUNE 3 8PM

Joan Shelley

with guest Jake Xerxes Fussell • In Szold Hall

Find more music listings at chicagoreader.com/soundboard.

Alan Licht o SETH TISUE

Chris Potter See Thursday. 8 and 10 PM, Jazz Showcase, 806 S. Plymouth, $25-$30.

SUNDAY, JUNE 4 7PM

Hugh Ragin 8:30 PM, Constellation, 3111 N. Western, $15. 18+

Ottmar Liebert & Luna Negra WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7 10PM

Kate Simko & London Electronic Orchestra In Szold Hall

FRIDAY, JUNE 9 7PM

House of Waters

In Szold Hall

THURSDAY, JUNE 15 8PM

A Conversation with Robben Ford In Szold Hall SATURDAY, JUNE 17 8PM

Robyn Hitchcock

with special guest Kacy & Clayton

SUNDAY, JUNE 25 8PM

Django Festival All Stars ACROSS THE STREET IN SZOLD HALL 4545 N LINCOLN AVENUE, CHICAGO IL

6/2 6/16 6/23

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40 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

He’s made only a handful of recordings under his own name, but trumpeter Hugh Ragin has been a forceful presence in American free jazz for nearly four decades, among other things as a trusted sideman to David Murray. The Texas native’s last album, 2004’s Revelation (Justin Time), is a deeply satisfying inside-out quartet recording propelled by the elastic rhythm section of bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake, Israeli reedist Assif Tsahar sharing the front line with Ragin. At one point in the early 80s, the trumpeter toured with high-pitched big-band brass icon Maynard Ferguson—a testament to the former’s mainstream chops—and however far out he pushes his playing now, he retains sharp melodic instincts and a rich, full-bodied sound. Ragin last performed in Chicago in 2015 as part of a series of overlapping trios presented by Roscoe Mitchell in conjunction with the Museum of Contemporary Art’s “Freedom Principle” exhibition. A forthcoming recording of that encounter, Bells for the South Side (ECM), is due next month, and it reinforces my memory of the trumpeter’s malleable, tuneful contributions—whether playing in a trio with Mitchell and Tyshawn Sorey or in larger combined settings, he brings a stately elegance to passages of chamberlike austerity and an ebullient buoyancy to more extroverted moments. Tonight he gives a rare performance under his own name, fronting a local band with reedist Ernest Dawkins, bassist Junius Paul, and drummer Vincent Davis. —PETER MARGASAK

SATURDAY3 Ben Allison Quartet See Friday. 8 PM, Green Mill, 4802 N. Broadway, $15. Do Division Street Fest See Friday. Ponys, Girlpool, WebsterX, Hoops, Rays, and Ian Sweet (East Stage); Shannon & the Clams, Diet Cig, Chuck Ragan, Christopher Paul Stelling, Sports, Wellthen, and Little Kids Rock (West Stage). Noon, Division between Damen and Leavitt, $5 suggested donation. Chris Potter See Thursday. 8 and 10 PM, Jazz Showcase, 806 S. Plymouth, $25-$30.

Joan Shelley See Pick of the Week (page 36). Jake Xerxes Fussell opens. 8 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music, 4545 N. Lincoln, sold out. A

SUNDAY4 Boss Hog Part of Do-Division Street Fest (see page 38). 7:15 PM (set time), East Stage at Damen and Division, $5 suggested donation. A It’s been 17 years since the husband-and-wife duo of Jon Spencer (of Pussy Galore and Blues Explosion fame) and the confrontational, underrated Cristina Martinez have released a full-length album as Boss Hog—though last year’s EP Brood Star was a tantalizing taste of things to come. Parenthood has had a lot to do with their unapologetic hiatuses—their son, now a college student, is an aspiring electronic musician—and they pick right up with their weird and wailing blues-noise as though they’d tucked the sound away in a time capsule and buried it in a Lower East Side basement in 1989. (That’s a compliment, by the way.) Their new full-length, Brood X (like the EP, on In the Red), is every bit as greasy and scuzzy as their early output, while also more agonized and eerie and uncomfortably intimate than Pussy Galore. The record covers a lot of emotional ground, from detached and alienated to full-on savagery, and Martinez establishes that motherhood has sharpened her claws, not dulled them. It’ll be a delight to once again see her and Spencer go at each other onstage like postpunk Honeymooners. —MONICA KENDRICK

Do Division Street Fest See Friday. Pallbearer, Boss Hog, Muuy Bien, Glyders, She-Devils, and Ohmme (East Stage); Protomartyr, Boogarins, Wildhoney, RLYR, Mykele Deville, Yomi, and Little Kids Rock (West Stage). Noon, Division between Damen and Leavitt, $5 suggested donation.

Chris Potter See Thursday. 4, 8, and 10 PM, Jazz Showcase, 806 S. Plymouth, $25-$30.

WEDNESDAY7 Alan Licht Slow Planes and Michael Vallera open. 9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $8. Over his lengthy career guitarist Alan Licht has covered lots of disparate terrain, whether playing naif indie rock in Love Child or creating works of conceptual sound art as he did on his 2003 album A New York Minute (XI). He’s an inveterate explorer with a deep historical sensibility, and he also writes about music with impressive clarity and unfussy analysis, but he’s never allowed his knowledge and respect for the past to confine his own work. In the last couple of years he’s released records in wildly divergent contexts. Last year’s Skip to the Solo (Public Eyesore) is a collaboration with fellow guitarist Henry Kaiser that’s full of rock frameworks for endless jamming—on nearly every song one of them solos from the opening bar, and often a track jumps to the next as if someone lifted a turntable needle to skip past all the singing and intros. That record’s high-definition clarity starkly contrasts with the improvisational landscapes he creates with Japanese guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama on last year’s Tomorrow Outside Tomorrow (Editions Mego), which features two extended, heavily atmospheric works marked by seething feedback and churning texture. The first, made with additional guitarist Oren Ambarchi, sounds as though individual instruments are dissolving within a rich, communal sound stew, while on the second, with cornetist Rob Mazurek, separate lines glisten and wriggle. For this rare local appearance, though, Licht will play music from his first solo acoustic album, 2015’s Currents (VDSQ), which defiantly eschews fingerstyle playing in favor of unabashedly sweet melodic instrumentals that meld propulsive strumming with piquant arpeggios—the tender, melodic pieces feel decidedly like songs rather than mere vehicles for polyphonic techniques. —PETER MARGASAK v

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JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 41

FOOD & DRINK

GEMINI | $$$

2075 N. Lincoln 773-525-2522 geminichicago.com

RESTAURANT REVIEW New York strip steak o NICK MURWAY

When reliability isn’t enough

The reboot of Lincoln Park standby Gemini will surprise no one. By MIKE SULA

composed plate featuring two rows of four perfectly aligned nachos shows up on the menu of Gemini, the second act for a long-running Lincoln Park neighborhood restaurant. Each of those well-behaved chips is piled with successively diminishing gobs of garnish, beginning with juicy duck conﬁt, followed by a tiny, perfect square of melted chihuahua cheese, then a wee spread of avocado pico de gallo, a dribble of lime-infused crema, and a thin sliver of bright red chile. It’s a composition so uptight and precious I thought I’d entered a time warp back to 2009. That was the year Jason Paskewitz opened the kitchen at Gemini Bistro. On his menu was “a basket of greasy tortilla chips dus ted with dry, gamy, stringy duck and sprinkled sparsely with mango salsa and queso fresco,” wrote Martha Bayne, eating for the Reader. Paskewitz has long since moved on (redeeming himself for a time at the Blanchard, among other things), but the fact that the new Gemini, which has dropped the “Bistro,” currently pays some kind of tribute to its original chef’s duck nachos says something about its embrace of the familiar. The interior is quite different, that’s for sure. Gemini has in fact undergone a significant internal redesign; new additions include an enormous horseshoe bar, fat padded barstools, spacious booths, and banquettes that seem to stretch on for days. The menu, on the other hand, executed by Miguel Ortiz, if not a faithful duplicate, remains faithfully rooted in the expected and the conventional: no one need fear going without steak frites, roasted chicken, salmon, or a burger. There’s a wedge salad, a beet salad, and a Caesar salad. And for those who feel frisky there’s a crab cake, risotto, and mussels. For the most part these standards are reliably well executed. The New York strip, J

42 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

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please recycle this paper JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 43

FOOD & DRINK

GEMINI | $$$

2075 N. Lincoln 773-525-2522 geminichicago.com

Cheesy potato pave crowned with crispy cauliﬂower is a comforting indulgence. o NICK MURWAY

RESTAURANT REVIEW

When reliability isn’t enough The reboot of Lincoln Park standby Gemini will surprise no one.

By MIKE SULA

44 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

at Gemini Bistro. On his menu was “a basket of greasy tortilla chips dusted with dry, gamy, stringy duck and sprinkled sparsely with mango salsa and queso fresco,” wrote Martha Bayne, eating for the Reader. Paskewitz has long since moved on (redeeming himself for a time at the Blanchard, among other things), but the fact that the new Gemini, which has dropped the “Bistro,” currently pays some kind of tribute to its original chef’s duck nachos says something about its embrace of the familiar. The interior is quite different, that’s for sure. Gemini has in fact undergone a significant internal redesign; new additions include

an enormous horseshoe bar, fat padded barstools, spacious booths, and banquettes that seem to stretch on for days. The menu, on the other hand, executed by Miguel Ortiz, if not a faithful duplicate, remains faithfully rooted in the expected and the conventional: no one need fear going without steak frites, roasted chicken, salmon, or a burger. There’s a wedge salad, a beet salad, and a Caesar salad. And for those who feel frisky there’s a crab cake, risotto, and mussels. For the most part these standards are reliably well executed. The New York strip, glistening with marrow butter, languishes

in a sweet port wine sauce. The half roasted chicken is crisp, juicy, and positively birdlike in flavor, the kitchen avoiding the common modern miscalculation of sending out overbrined pastrami-like poultry. If the salmon is slightly overdone atop its bed of brussels-sprout leaves and candied bacon, then the burger—cooked to a default medium odd for such a thick patty—at least goes down in a wet and sloppy tide of aioli, Monterey Jack, and lettuce. But it’s nothing your average Lincoln Park soccer mom and her middle-management husband can’t handle. There are actually a few gems on this menu. A cheesy potato pave, its finely rendered layers crowned with crispy cauliflower florets, is an exemplar of technique and a comforting indulgence. The natural gaminess of a quartet of lamb meatballs is offset by cucumber fennel and tzatziki. Sweet peas with bacon and cream are emerald jewels of spring. These likable little dishes compete with an equal number of duds. Tiny calamari ringlets are lost in their crispy breading amid arugula leaves dominated by competing aioli and vinaigrette dressings. Chile, fennel seed, and lemon oil do no favors for bland sauteed broccoli, and a bready crab cake gets a weak assist from julienned green apple and a blob of remoulade. Gemini’s dessert menu may be its most thrilling feature, with a lineup of smooth house-made ice creams and sorbets (blueberry-limoncello, brown-butter-malt) that at least strive for distinction, and a salted toffee creme brulee that manages to revive the old after-dinner warhorse. A focused wine list is arranged in price tiers, which should make things easy for most, and Amstel Light and Modelo are trumpeted among a handful of “celebrated” beers. And yet Gemini Bistro has attained what every restaurateur fervently desires: the enduring patronage of a large group of neighborhood regulars. The new Gemini likely won’t run many of those off. For the rest of us? Move along. Nothing to see here. v

ß @MikeSula

FOOD & DRINK

○ Watch a video of Kiel Schelich making this cocktail with cottage cheese at chicagoreader.com/food.

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The Hope on Top cocktail by Eight Bar’s Kiel Schelich o CHRIS BUDDY

hen I was growing up, all I would eat with cottage cheese were these really syrupy, densely packed peaches,” says KIEL SCHELICH, bar manager at EIGHT BAR. But when Steve Gleich of Luxbar challenged Schelich to use COTTAGE CHEESE in a cocktail, his mind didn’t immediately go there. Schelich’s first thought was to make a drink modeled after a cement-mixer shot, in which lime juice is added to Bailey’s to curdle it. He quickly rejected that idea and moved on to scotch because, he says, it pairs well with cheese. “For, like, three days, I was doing scotches, trying to make a sophisticated cocktail with it,” he says. “Then I was like, ‘It’s fucking cheese curds. Why am I overthinking this?’ ” That’s when Schelich decided to return to his childhood tastes—with booze added, of course. He blended cottage cheese with canned peaches, vanilla ice cream, tequila, and a little mezcal for a peaches-and-creaminspired milk shake that smoothed out the lumpy cottage cheese. He also made peach Jell-O shots to “get the texture of what would appear to be the cheese curd,” he says. In addition to mixing a Jell-O shot into the drink, Schelich served one as a chaser for the milk shake. He’s happy with the cocktail, he says, but acknowledges that cottage cheese

can be a divisive ingredient. “I asked my chef, ‘You got any ways I can go with this?’ He’s like, ‘I don’t even want to know about it.’ ” HOPE ON TOP

4 CANNED PEACH SLICES .25 CUP OBERWEIS COTTAGE CHEESE 1 SCOOP (ABOUT .25 CUP) VANILLA ICE CREAM .25 OZ MEZCAL 1 OZ TEQUILA 2 PEACH TEQUILA JELL-O SHOTS* Put two canned peach slices in a blender along with the cottage cheese, vanilla ice cream, mezcal, and tequila. Blend well, add one Jell-O shot, then blend again for a few seconds. Place the other two peach slices in a glass and pour the shake over the top. Serve with the second Jell-O shot. *Jell-O shots: Mix one packet of peach Jell-O with one cup of water, then add one cup of tequila. Pour into molds and refrigerate until set.

WHO’S NEXT:

Schelich has challenged TIM WILLIAMS of BENCHMARK to create a cocktail with INSTANT RAMEN SEASONING PACKETS. v

ß @juliathiel

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JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 45

JOBS

ADMINISTRATIVE SEEKING LEGAL ASSISTANT

for temporary part time position. Busy real estate law office seeking an administrative assistant who is organized, works well with others, possesses basic computer skills and preferably has some experience working with real estate. Prefer applicant who is bilingual and speaks Spanish fluently. Please submit a current resume with at least two references. rodriguezlawoffices@yahoo.com

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food & drink LINE COOKS & SERVERS WANTED

Come in to apply: Fireside Restaurant 5739 N Ravenswood Ave, Chicago

General ARCHITECTURAL DESIGNER. CHICAGO, Illinois. Work with all

phases of project design, from conceptual design to construction administration for institutional, cultural and educational clients. Work with: AutoCad, Rhino, Adobe Creative Suite, Revit and 3D rendering program, Physical Modeling using basic hand tools as well as 3d printing, laser-cutting, and digital technologies, large scale ecological and landscape projects, Materials research, Hand Drawing, Diagramming. Required education: bachelor’s degree in architecture (US or foreign equivalent) AND Required experience: 3 years experience working with AutoCad and Adobe Creative Suite. NO PHONE CALLS. Forward resumes to: Studio Gang Architects, Attn: Ms. Amy Vodicka, Ref. GRP, 1520 W. Division Street, Chicago, IL 60642

Retail

THE NORTHERN TRUST COMPANY is seeking a Sr Auditor in Chicago, IL w/ the following reqts: MS degree in Accountancy, Business Administration or related field or foreign academic equivalent. 2 yrs of related experience. Required skills: Utilize Matlab and Excel-VBA to develop and backtest a model to apply discriminant analysis and multivariate regression for the statistical forecasting of default probabilities; Sample from multivariate returns distributions with Matlab and R using parametric linear, historical non parametric and Monte Carlo methods, employing key rates shift, stochastic volatility, and Principal Components Analysis techniques to quantify the market loss of financial instruments and estimate the Value at Risk and Expected Shortfall metrics required by the Basel Rule; Develop hybrid internal credit rating model on Matlab and Excel-VBA combining reduced form, structural form, and credit scoring model and bond market data to rate and rank obligors based on their creditworthiness in line with Basel II regulatory expectations; Design and implement sensitivity analyses and stress tests on Matlab and Excel-VBA using worst case and distributional historical, as well as factor push hypothetical scenarios to quantify the loss projection on the portfolio. Please apply on-line at w w w .

northerntrustcareers.com and search for Req. # 17052

Groupon, Inc. is seeking a Data Warehouse Engineer I in Chicago, IL with the following reqs: Bach deg in Comp Sci, Electronics Engg, Comp Engg, Comp Info Systems, Mgmt Info Systems or rel field or foreign academic equiv + 1 yr of exp in data warehousing or business intelligence systems. Academic or wrk exp must have incl: (1) MySQL; (2) SQL; (3) ETL in multi-terabyte data warehouses & BI systems incl data modeling & OLAP; (4) Custom & open source job scheduling, data quality, & metadata; (5) Parallel processing & architectures; (6) Perl, Python, Bash, Korn or other scripting language; (7) Java or C++; &, (8) Hadoop or Hive. Apply on-line at https://jobs.groupon. com/jobs/R13356.

ENERGY

RESOURCES

CENTER at the University of Illinois at Chicago, located in a large metropolitan area, is seeking a full-time Senior Research Engineer to lead project teams to conduct applied research and technology transfer in the fields of energy and the environment, providing industry, utilities and government agencies, and the public with education proven ideas and concepts, information and technical assistance. Initiate and direct the development of energy and environmental research ideas, leading these ideas into new fundable projects and programs in the areas of: energy efficiency, energy use, energy conversion, energy storage and emission reduction. Apply energy engineering principles, technologies and concepts to specific energy and/or environmental research projects and tasks, and establish direction and budgets for existing and new program areas. Utilize knowledge of energy engineering to perform energy audits, energy studies and analyses to identify practical answers through research to energy problems in the industrial, commercial, institutional and/or residential markets. Manage energy efficiency projects, including the approval of project plans, timelines and cost structures. Review and approve final project deliverables to ensure accuracy and supervise ten Research Engineers. Requirements are a Bachelor’s degree or its foreign equivalent in Energy Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field of study, plus five years of energy related research experience, including three years of experience related to energy efficiency. Some travel is required. For fullest consideration, please submit a CV, cover letter, and 3 references to the attention of the Search Coordinator via email at jfarme1@uic. edu, or via mail at University of Illinois at Chicago, Energy Resources Center, 1309 S Halsted Street, Chicago, IL 60607. The University of Illinois is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action employer. Minorities, women, veterans and individuals with disabilities are encouraged to apply. The University of Illinois may conduct background checks on all job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent offer. Background checks will be performed in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

ACCOUNTING MANAGER, TRANSACTION SERVICES – Capital Markets Accounting & Advisory Services (Multiple Positions),

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Chicago, IL. Advise on fin’l reprtng, valuation & tax iss. Req BS in Acctin, Bus Admin, or rel + 5 yrs post-bach’s prog rel work exp; OR MS in Acctin, Bus Admin, or rel + 3 yrs rel work exp. Must hv an active US CPA. Travel up to 60% req. Apply by mail, referencing Job Code IL1268 Attn: HR SSC/Talent Management, 4040 W. Boy Scout Blvd, Tama, FL 33607.

IMPERIAL GROUP, LLC seeks Technical Sales Engineers for Chicago, IL location to support exec team by providing tech input & analysis in nonferrous scrap metal recycling industry. Bachelor’s in Industrial/ Mech Eng +2yrs exp req’d. Req’d Skills: create & deliver sales deck, analysis of nonferrous metal markets, statistical, commodity & M&A analysis, project finance, R, Excel (regression analysis). Send resume to: J. Kozin Ref# RG, 1700 W Fulton St. Chicago, IL 60612

NORTHWESTERN MEMORIAL HEALTHCARE seeks Medical

Technologists for Chicago, IL to perform test procedures in a clinical lab. Bachelor’s in Med. Tech. req’d. Req’s: Must be ASCP certified Medical Laboratory Scientist. 40hrs/wk. 3rd Shift: 11pm-7:30am; Mon-Sun, incl. holidays. Drug test & bkgd check req’d. Apply online: http://jobseeker. nm.org/ Requisition ID: 0024486 EOE

IMC AMERICAS INC. (Chicago, IL), a proprietary trading company, seeks experienced professionals to fill multiple openings in its Chicago office, including Trader, FPGA Engineer, Software Developer and Software Engineer Team Lead. To apply, submit resume and cover letter to talent@imc-chicago.com with position title in subject line. No calls. EOE.

TRP MANAGEMENT COMPANY SEEKS Construction

BINNY’S IS HIRING!

BARTENDER

NEW STORE OPENING SOON IN PORTAGE PARK ADDITIONAL OPPORTUNITIES IN LINCOLN PARK AND LAKEVIEW Binny’s Beverage Depot is the Midwest’s largest upscale retailer of ﬁne wines, spirits, beers and cigars, and due to our continued growth, we are now looking for dedicated individuals to join our team at multiple Chicago locations.

STORE ASSOCIATES

Portage Park: Full Time and Part Time Lincoln Park and Lakeview: Part Time We are seeking energetic, customer-oriented individuals to perform a variety of store functions. Qualiﬁed persons must be over 21 years of age, able to lift 40-50 lbs. and available to work ﬂexible hours. Previous retail experience a plus, with cashier or stock experience preferred. Candidates must be able to work nights & weekends.

Please apply online at www.binnys.com/careers

EOE

46 CHICAGO READER | JUNE 1, 2017

THE

AND

SERVER

needed. Full-time. 2 years experience. King Crab House, 1816 N Halsted. 312-280-8990. Apply in person any day after 3pm. Bring resume.

and Maintenance Manager in Burr Ridge, IL. U.S. Bachelor’s degree, or foreign equivalent, in Mechanical Engineering, plus 6 years experience in carpentry, electrical, plumbing, and construction required. Submit resume to info@trpinv.com.

NUTS ON CLARK POPCORN

STORES- Paid training, lots of hours & opportunity available. Apply in person between 9 A.M. & 11 A.M. 3830 N Clark St. Must bring state ID & Social Security Card.

ACCOUNTANT, CHICAGO & ILLINOIS RIVER MARKETING, LLC , in Chicago, IL. Prepare, examine, & analyze accounting records, financial statements & other financial reports. Assist w/ trade execution, writing contracts & confirming EFP. Support traders. Req: Master’s in Acc ounting/Accountancy w/ coursework in Advanced Audit Theory & Financial Statement Analysis + 1 yr exp as Accountant or Accounting Manager. Email resume to da m es@cofcointernational. com.

EN BUSCA DE personas dedicadas, enérgicas y leales. Varias posiciones disponibles incluyendo conductores, mensajeros y trabajadores en general. Posiciones de tiempo completo. Visitar el 2100 S. Sawyer Ave. en Chicago, de 9:00 a 12:00 pm de lunes a viernes para aplicar.

Hotel, 5316 S. Harper, maid, phone, cable ready, fridge, private facilities, laundry avail. Switchboard. Start at $ 160/wk Call 773-493-3500

STUDIO OTHER LARGE SUNNY ROOM w/fridge & microwave. Near Oak Park, Green Line & Buses. 24 hr Desk, Parking Lot $101/week & Up. (773)378-8888 CROSSROADS HOTEL SRO SINGLE RMS Private bath, PHONE,

1 BR UNDER $700 SPRINGTIME SAVINGS! NEWLY Remod. 1 BR Apts $650 w/

gas incl. 2-5BR start at $650 & up. Sec 8 Welc. Rental Assistance Prog. for Qualified Applicants offer up to $ 400/month for 1 yr. (773)412-1153 Wesley Realty

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

SPRING SPECIAL: STUDIOS starting at $499 incls utilities. 1BR $550, 2BR $599, 3BR $699. With approved credit. No Security Deposit for Sec 8 Tenants. South Shore & Southside. Call 312-446-3333 SECTION 8 WELCOME Newly Decorated 74th/East End. 1BR. $625. 77th/Drexel. 2BR. $700. 87th/Dante. Heat not incl. 2BR. 5rms. $750. 773-874-9637 or 773-493-5359

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

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

SPRING SPECIAL $500 Toward Rent Beautiful Studios 1, 2, 3 & 4 BR Sect. 8 Welc. Westside Loc, Must qualify. 773-287-4500 www.wjmngmt.com

MIDLOTHIAN 1BR CONDO, rent incl. heat, gas/water, assigned parking space, laundry facility, $850/mo + 1 mo. sec. dep. 773-326-8006

Ave) RENT SPECIAL 1/2 Off 1 month rent + Sec dep. Nice,lrg 1BR $575; 2BR $699 & 1 3BR $850, balcony, Sec 8 Welc. 773-995-6950

NEWLY REMOD 1BR & Studios starting at $580. No sec dep, move in fee or app fee. Free heat/ hot water. 1155 W. 83rd St., 773619-0204 CHICAGO LOVELY 4 rm apt, 1BR, liv rm, din rm, kitchen/bath, heated and hrdwd flrs. Close to trans. $800, avail now. 773-264-6711

Chicago, Beverly/Cal Park/Blue Island Studio $575 & up, 1BR $665 & up, 2BR $885 & up. Heat, Appls, Balcony, Carpet, Laundry, Prkg. 708-388-0170

MARQUETTE PARK: 6315-19 S . California, 1 Bedrooms from $675, 2 Bedrooms from $825. Heat included. Call 312.208.1771 BIG SUNNY 2BR, 4 RM, Section 8

REHABBED APARTMENTS 1 Month Free 1BR on South Shore Drive From $650 w/Parking Incld. Call 773-374-7777

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

EXCHANGE EAST APTS 1 Brdm

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

SECTION 8 READY, 4 ROOM, 7022 S. SHORE DRIVE Impecca-

773-881-3573

STUDIO $600-$699

1431 W. 78th St 1BR. $500/MO HEAT INCL 773-955-5106

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

WEST PULLMAN (INDIANA

STUDIO $500-$599

û NO SEC DEP û

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

REAL ESTATE RENTALS

Newly updated, clean furnished rooms, located near buses & Metra, elevator, utilities included, $91/wk. $ 395/mo. 815-722-1212

NICE ROOM w/stove, fridge & bath Near Aldi, Walgreens, Beach, Red Line & Buses. Elevator & Laundry. $130/wk & up. 773-275-4442

CLEAN ROOM W/FRIDGE & micro, Near Oak Park, Food -4Less, Walmart, Walgreens, Buses & Metra, Laundry. $115/wk & up. 773-637-5957

nate flooring. Diversey/ Lincoln area. 773-509-2930.

SECTION 8 WELCOME, 7334 S. Jeffery Blvd. New remodeled 1 Bedrooms, heat/appl incl. Dan 312-493-5544

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

CARPENTER NEEDED. EXPERIENCED. To install plastic lami-

73RD AND JEFFERY BLVD. Studio, 1BR & 2BR, heated, hardwood flrs, laundry room, appls, near trans. $565 and up. LOOKING FOR ENERGETIC, dedicated, and loyal workers. Several positions available including drivers, messengers, and general laborers. Full-time positions. Visit 2100 South Sawyer Ave. from 9:00 AM to 12:00AM Monday-Friday to apply.

CHICAGO, HYDE PARK Arms

Ready! Huge, fresh, clean new rehab. Cadillac unit! 773-290-8740, Norm. 1215 W 70th.

SECTION 8 WELCOME

1BR, All new, Huge, fresh, 773-2908740, Albert. 8160 S Racine.

MOVE

NOW!!! Studios-3

Beds. Hyde Park & Washington Park Call Megan 773-285-3310

1 BR $700-$799 7100 SOUTH JEFFERY Large 1 BEDROOM, $725 Near Metra & shops, Section 8 OK. Newly decorated, dining room, carpeted, appls, FREE heat & cooking gas. Elevator & laundry room, free credit check, no application fee, 1-773-919-7102 or 1-312802-7301 AUBURN GRESHAM 80TH & Paulina, 2 bedroom from $825, Heat included. Call 312.208.1771

1 BR $800-$899 ONE BEDROOM NEAR Warren

Park and Metra. 6804 N. Wolcott. Hardwood floors. Cats OK. Heat included. Laundry in building. $850895/month. Available 7/1. 773-7614318.

DOLTON - 14526 Cottage Grove. 1BR, heat, cooking gas, water A/C, fridge, & stove incl. $840/mo + sec. Section 8 Ok. Call 708-846-5342

1 BR $900-$1099 Ravenswood DLX 3/rm studio: new kit, SS appl, granite, French windows, oak flrs, close to Brown L; $1050/heated 773-743-4141 w ww.urbanequities.com HOMEWOOD- 2BR new kitchen, new appls, oak flrs, ac, lndry/ stor., $1195/mo incls ht/prkg, near Metra. 773.743.4141 Urban Equities.com LARGE ONE BEDROOM near

the lake. 1335 W Estes. Hardwood floors. Cats OK. Heat included. Laundry in building. $900/ month. Available 7/1. 773-761-4318.

W RGS PK spac. studio: full kit. New appl, carpet & windows, AC $ 825/incls heat. 774-743-4141 www.urbanequities.com

1 BR $1100 AND OVER LINCOLN SQUARE, 2629 W.

Winnemac beautiful 2BR apartment. New bath and remodeled kitchen, hardwood floor, big apartment. Wate r/gas + heat included. Close to Brown Line. No pets. $1350 + deposit. 773-710-5100

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

Never miss a show again.

EARLY WARNINGS Find a concert, buy a ticket, and sign up to get advance notice of Chicago’s essential music shows at chicagoreader.com/early.

Bronzeville 4950 S Prairie. 1BR. Heat, cooking gas, appl incl. $660 & up. Call Zoro, 773-406-4841

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT SUNNYSIDE PROPERTIES, located at 840 W. Sunnyside Ave., Chicago IL. Will open its federally subsidized Section 8 wait list on June 2, 2017 at 9:00am for individuals age 18 years and older, in need of a one bedroom apartment. No one will be permitted on the property before 9am. In accordance to unit occupancy, only two people per one bedroom Apt. Applications will be given to the first 25 individuals and the wait list will then close. Sunnyside Properties, LLC and Group Fox management hereby notifies all applicants that a full credit history and criminal background check will be conducted according to current leasing criteria, applicants who do not meet these criterias will be informed according to HUD and Local regulations.

IMMEDIATE AVAILABILITY Affordable housing-section 8 preferences for Senior 62+. Near elderly with disabilities 50-61 & near elderly 50-61. Beautiful Park like setting near University Commons. Pay 30% of income for rent (Sec. 8) Appliances, A/C & Heating. Indoor hallways, laundry facilities and rec. rooms. Cable ready, gated parking, Wheelchair accessible units. Congressman George Collins Apartments, 312-243-5048 EHO/H

APTS. FOR RENT PARK MGMT & INV. Ltd. IT’S MOVING TIME!!! OUR UNITS INCLUDE HEAT, HW & CG Plenty of parking 1Bdr From $795.00 2Bdr From $925.00 3 Bdr/2 Full Bath From $1200 **1-(773)-476-6000***

SOUTHSIDE, FURN. R m s , $350 & $425/mo, utils incl. Nr good trans. $200 clean up fee req’d. Fixed income invited. Call 312-758-6931 SUNNY & LARGE 2 & 3BR, hd wd/ceramic flrs, appls, heat incld, Sect 8 OK. $850 plus 70th & Sangamon. 773-4566900 CHICAGO SOUTH SIDE Beauti-

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

LOOKING TO MOVE ASAP? Remodeled 1, 2 , 3 & 4 BR Apts. Heat & Appls incl. Sec 8 OK. Call 773-593-4357

SUBURBS, RENT TO OW N! Buy with No closing costs and get help with your credit. Call 708868-2422 or visit www.nhba.com CHICAGO, RENT TO OWN! Buy with no closing costs and get help with your credit. Call 708868-2422 or visit www.nhba.com 1BRS, 1ST & 2nd flrs, Newly rehab, hdwd flrs, spac, appls, lndry facility, Quiet bldg. Gated backyard. Sec 8 ok. 773-344-4050

NO SECURITY DEPOSIT NO MOVE IN FEE 1, 2, 3 BEDROOM APTS (773) 874-1122 ACACIA SRO HOTEL Men Preferred! Rooms for Rent. Weekly & Monthly Rates. 312-421-4597

ROYALTON HOTEL, Kitchen-

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

2 BR UNDER $900

APTS. FOR RENT PARK MGMT & INV. LTD. SPRING HAS SPRUNG!! MOST UNITS INCLUDE.. HEAT & HOT WTR STUDIOS FROM $475.00 1BDR FROM $550.00 2BDR FROM $745.00 3 BDR/2 FULL BATH FROM $1200 **1-(773)-476-6000**

ROUND LAKE BEACH, IL

55 W. 68TH ST. 2BR, granite countertops in kitchen, newer appls., hdwd flrs, lndry on site, granite/marble bath, $850. 773-418-1132 SOUTH EASTSIDE - 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, newly remodeled, heat & appls included. $ 600/month. Section 8 OK. Call 773-850-6871 7701 S. South Shore Dr. 2 BDs with 1.5 Baths, Large Combo Living-Dining Rm, FREE Heat & cking gas. Prkng extra. $785-$850, Kalabich Mgmt (708)424-4216

CHICAGO

7600 S Essex 2BR

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

$599, 3BR $699, 4BR $799 w/apprvd credit, no sec dep. Sect 8 Ok! 773287-9999 /312-446-3333

CHICAGO - Beverly, large 2 room Studio & 1BR Apts. Carpet, A/ C, laundry, near transportation, $660-$785/mo. Call 773-2334939

RIVERDALE APT FOR rent, 2 bedroom, newly decorated heat included $825/mo. plus security. Please call 773-852-9425

MOST BEAUTIFUL APARTMENTS! 6748 Crandon, 2BR, $875. 7727 Colfax, 1 & 2BR, $625-$875. 6220 Eberhart, 2 & 3BR, $850-$1150. 773-947-8572 or 312-613-4424

rm, stove & fridge incl, hdwd flrs, sec 8 welc, no pets. $875/mo. No Sec Dep. 773-315-7008

2402 E. 77TH St(77th & Yates).

Sunny 2BR, 2nd flr, free heat,appls, glistening hrwd flrs, c-fans, mini blinds, quiet. $795. 312-479-5502

LOGAN SQUARE 2 Bedroom Apartment. Modern kitchen & bath, balcony, washer & dryer in unit. $850/MO. 773-235-1066

$1000.Spac, good trans, laundry on site, sec camera. 312-341-1950

SENIOR

woman pref’d, your own full BA, $800. Irving Park & Pine Grove, req’d non-refundable $350 processing fee. 872-315-3906 after 5pm or lv msg.

kit cabinets & Kolher prod., tenant pays heat, 8632 Escanaba, $650/mo + security. Call 773-415-4970

14141 SOUTH SCHOOL ST, Riverdale, IL. All new remodeled 2BR, 1BA apartment. $825/month. Call 312-217-6556

2 BR $900-$1099 BEVERLY, Modern 1BR, newly decor, carpet, stove & fridge, intercom & lndry room. $770 + sec. Vicinity of 111th & Western. 773-238-7203

2 BR $1100-$1299 ELMHURST: Dlx 1BR, new appl, new carpet, AC, balc. overlook pool, $925/mo. incl heat, prkg, OS Laundry. 773-743-4141 www. urbanequities.com 73RD & DORCHESTER, 2BR, refrig & stove, lndry hookups, off street prkg, enclosed yard, $975/ mo. No security dep. 773-684-1166 SOUTH SHORE - 2BR, 1.5BA, hdwd floors. appls incl, fin basement. near beach & Metra. $1250/mo, utilities not incl. 708-868-3225

2 BR OTHER ROUND LAKE BEACH, IL Cedar

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

AFFORDABLE 2 & 3BRS FROM $625-$745. Newly decorated, heated/unheated. 1 Month Free for qualified tenants. CRS (312) 782-4041

GLENWOOD, Updated lrg 2BR Condo, H/F High School. Balc, C/ A, appls, heat/water incl. 2 prkng, lndry. $975/mo. 708-268-3762.

SECTION 8 WELCOME $200 Cash Move-In Bonus, No Deposit 6227 S. Justine 3BR/1BA & 225 W 108th Pl, 2BR/1BA, $1100; 7134 S Normal, 4BR, 2BA, $1150. Heat & appls incl. 312-683-5174

12407 S. NORMAL. Remod 4BR. C-fans, Stove & Fridge Incl. School across street, near metra. $800/mo + Sec. Call 773-520-4430

2BR APT: LR/DR, carpet, stove /

refrigerator furnished. Section 8 & Seniors Welcome. Call 773-287-7512 or 773-430-0089

NEWLY REHABBED 1BR Apt. $750. 3 & 5BR single family homes w / 2BA. $1200-$1500. Sect 8 Welc. 773-431-2968

3 BR OR MORE UNDER $1200 NR CERMAK/PULASKI, updated 3BR, hdwd flrs, lrg kit & BA, laundry hookup, 2nd flr, tenant pays utils, nr pink line $950 + dep. 708-249-6661

AUBURN GRESHAM, 1401-11 West 80th, 2beds from $775, Free heat – no deposit. Call 312.208.1771

ADULT SERVICES

PARK MANOR: 7825 S Champlain, beaut rehabbed 4BR, 2BA house, granite ctrs, SS appls, fin bsmt, 2-car gar, $1500/mo. 708288-4510 HARRISON/CICERO Updated 5BR, upper duplex, 2 Kitchens, 2BA, W/D, no pets, tenant pays utils. $1550+dep. 708-249-6661

JACKSON/CICERO 5BR, updated kit, 2BA, hdwd flrs, cer tile, W/D

CHATHAM-3BR 1.5BA, STOVE /HEAT incl, laundry in bsmt, 7900 block of Langley, Sec 8 Ok. $1129/mo. Mr. Johnson, 630-424-1403

ALB PK DLX 3BR + den, new kit, SS appl, granite, oak flrs, on-site lndy, $1495/+ util. 773-743-4141 w ww.urbanequities.com

LATROBE near Oak Park, newly decorated 3BR, stove and fridge included, tenant pays utils. Sec 8 OK. $900 + sec. 773-626-2874 4010 S. KING Dr. 3BR, heat incl,

$1025. 7908 S. Justine. 2-3BR ($750-$800) & Restaurant for rent. 708-421-7630 or 773-899-9529

hkup, nr blue line, tenant pays utils. No Pets $1650+dep. 708-249-6661

ALB PK DLX 3BR + den, new kit, SS appl, granite, oak flrs, on-site lndy, $1495/+ util. 773-743-4141 w ww.urbanequities.com WRIGLEYVILLE 2BR 1100sqft new appls, FDR, oak floors, cac. OS lndry, $1495 + utils. Prkg avail. 773-743-4141 urbanequities.com

GENERAL 88TH & HARPER St., Newly remod 3BR, 2BA, ten pays utils. 1 months rent & sec req’d. $1400. Also, 1BR avail, $1000 + utils. Avail July 1st. Section 8 Welcome. 310-529-1531

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

units fully heated and humidity controlled with ac available. North: Knox Avenue. 773-685-6868. South: Pershing Avenue. 773-523-6868.

93RD & UNION: Male preferred, no smoking, no children, furnished room, share kitchen and bath, cable, utilities included, $600/mo.

3 BR OR MORE $1200-$1499

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

MUST SEE S. SUBURBS Newly Renovated. 3BR, 2BA, fin bsmt, 2 car gar, Seniors Welcome. $1250 /mo + 1.5 mo sec. No pets. 773-941-8254 ROSELAND, SINGLE FAMILY Home, 3BR, 1.5BA, C/A, newly renov. 9600 Blk Wentworth, $1325. Sect 8 ok. Call Mr. Johnson, 630-424-1403 SECTION 8 WELCOME.

SOUTHSIDE Newly rehab, 5 bed, single family. $1250/month. Please Call 773-406-1213

SECT 8 OK, 2 story, 4br/2ba w/ bsmt. New decor, crpt & hdwds, ceiling fans, stove/fridge, $1465. 11243 S. Eggleston, 773-443-5397

ADULT SERVICES

3 BR OR MORE OTHER

SECTION 8 WELC. 8457 S Brandon, 4BR, 1st flr, 2 & 3BR voucher ok. 2707 E 93rd St., 2nd flr, 5BR, 3BR voucher ok. 847-3125643.

SOUTH SHORE, Senior

SHARED APT, PRIVATE bedroom, male preferred. No drugs or alcohol, 7300 block of S. Vernon, Chicago, IL, 60619. Call 773-580-4141 1 WEEK FREE. 96th & Halsted & other locations. Large Rooms, shared kitchen & bath. $100/week and up. Call 773-673-2045 AVAILABLE NOW! Spacious Rooms for rent. $400/mo. Utilities and bed incl. Seniors Welcome. No Sec Dep. 312-973-2793

10234 S. CRANDON, small home, 3BR, 1BA, kit & util room, totally ren a/c, all appls incl, nice fncd yd, CHA welcome. 773-3174357

ROOMS FOR RENT in 3BR Apt, 6933 S. Stewart, Male pref, Furnished or unfurnished. $450/mo + 1 mo sec. Mr.Bee. 773-568-2384

SOUTH SUBURBS, 4BR, modern kitchen & bath, dining room. Sect 8 OK, 2 car garage. $1250/mo & up + sec. 847-909-1538.

Quiet, Furnished Rooms, Share Kit & Bath, Call 773-895-5454

SOUTHSIDE, Newly Remod 3BR /2BA with appls & washer/dryer. Also, newly remod 2BR with appls & WD hk up 773-908-8791

Near 95th and Dan Ryan. Nice Home, $125/week. Handyperson a plus. 773-594-1156

CHICAGO HOUSES FOR rent.

Large, clean, quiet room 112th &

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

ADULT SERVICES

$$ ANTIQUE SLOT MACHINES $$ Cash Paid. Any condition welcome. 630-346-4806 buyingantiqueslotmachines.com

KUBOTA L2350D 4X4 1993

,25HP,Manual Transmision ,Diesel tractor with only 450 hours. $2150 Call me:7732456351

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

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

roommates

Gary NSA accepting applications for studio & 2 bedroom SUBSIDIZED apartments. Apply Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9am to 1pm ONLY at 1735 W 5th Ave. Applications are to be filled out on site. Adult applicants must provide a current picture ID and SS card.

CHICAGO, 3BR, living room & dining room, kitchen, 1BA, hdwd flrs & carpet, $1250/ mo. 1 month’s security req’d. Sect 8 welc. 773-778-5526

ROSCOE VILLAGE GARAGE SALE. Join us June 3 from 9A-2P. Sales at 30+ Roscoe Village. homes. See our map of sales at ros coevillage.org.

PIT BULL PUPS 6wks, dewormed Black/Whites and Brindle Stripes $300 obo Call Eric @ (773) 507-0794

non-residential

1/2 security deposit, Senior welcome. 773-238-1082.

SPAC 3 & 4BR, stove, fridge & heat incl, near Hamlin & Gladys. $1250-$1325/mo. 1 mo sec, section 8 Welcome. 773826-7939

GOODS

2122 W. 68TH PL. Remodeled 5BR House, 2BA, Central Air, Tenant pays utilities, security system. Sec 8 ok. Call Roy 312-405-2178

3 BR OR MORE $2500 AND OVER

appliances incl. 312.208.1771 or 773. 916.0039

MARKETPLACE

CHICAGO SOUTH - YOU’VE tried the rest, we are the best. Apartments & Homes for rent, city & suburb. No credit checks. 773-221-7490, 773-221-7493

8001 S. DOBSON. 3BR $950 New Kitchen and Bath. Heat and

SECTION 8 WELCOME West

103rd Street, small 2 bedroom. No security deposit. Heat and appls included. 773-719-2695

3 BR OR MORE $1500-$1799

CALUMET CITY, 3BR, 2 full BA, fully rehabbed w/ gorgeous finishes, CAC & appliances incl., porch, Section 8 OK. $1100/mo. 510-735-7171

52ND/PEORIA - 2BR Apt, dining

73RD/INDIANA, 2BR, 88TH/DAUPHIN, 2BR. $800-

SEEK ROOMMATE,

2BR W/ NEW CARPET, cherry

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JUNE 1, 2017 | CHICAGO READER 47

SAVAGE LOVE

By Dan Savage

The p’s and q’s of Grindr

How not to be an asshole on the hookup app. Plus: Who me, a snob? Q : I’m a middle-aged homo

trying to ﬁgure out Grindr. Is it impolite to go on Grindr if you’re not looking for an immediate hookup? My preferred form of sexual relationship is the friendwith-beneﬁts situation. I go on Grindr looking to make friends who could, at least potentially, be sex partners, but I like to do the friend thing before the sex. I’ve had guys call me an asshole because I exchanged messages with them for 20 minutes and then didn’t come right over and fuck them. Do they have a point? Does logging into a hookup app like Grindr imply openness to an immediate sexual encounter? —TALKING ONLINE REPULSES SOME OTHERS

A : Always be up-front about

your intentions, TORSO. The best way to do that is by creating a profile—on Grindr or elsewhere—that clearly describes what you want and what you’re up for. Adding something like this to your profile should do it: “My preferred form of sexual relationship is the friendwith-benefits situation. I go on Grindr looking to make friends who could, at least potentially, be sex partners, but I like to do the friend thing before the sex.” Grindr is an app designed and marketed to facilitate hookups, but some people have found friends, lovers, and husbands on the app (usually after hooking up first). So being on a hookup app doesn’t automatically mean you’re looking for “right now,” and it certainly doesn’t obligate you to fuck every guy you swap messages with. But if you’re not clear in your profile or very first message about what you’re doing there, TORSO, guys looking for a hookup on that

hookup app will be rightly annoyed with you. (The time and energy they sunk into you could have been sunk into someone looking for right now.) If you’re clear, guys seeking instacock have only themselves to blame for wasting their time on you. Your timing could also have something to do with guys calling you an asshole. Are you exchanging messages at two in the morning for 20 minutes? Because most guys on Grindr at that hour are seeking immediate sexual encounters. Think of Grindr as a giant gay bar—most guys are there to hook up, a few just want to hang out and chat, some dudes are really messed up (avoid them), and no one is at their best around closing time.

Q : I’m a 25-year-old gay

woman and I’ve been looking for a girlfriend for the past two years. I post on dating websites, go to the lesbian club, take part in the LGBTQ+ scene at my university, and put myself in places where I might meet women. But I’m worried that my persona deters women: I’m extremely analytic, a doctoral student and university instructor. Whenever I meet a girl, our conversation always goes in the same direction: She thinks it’s cool I work with literature and then brings up her favorite pop-culture novel like Harry Potter. I say something like “I’ve never read Harry Potter, but people rave about it. What do you like about it? I took an online Harry Potter test once for a friend, and it said I was a Slytherin.” At this point, things change. The girl I’m speaking with gets ﬂustered. She says something like “Oh, I’m not good at describing

things,” seemingly feeling pressured to give me an intellectual response, like I’m giving her a quiz. I’m not sure what to do about this. I am having trouble maintaining casual and fun conversations despite my intentions. I come off as intense. I think I’m a pretty attractive person, but my dating life is starting to make me feel differently. I work out regularly and take good care of myself. How can I find a woman I jibe with? —A LESBIAN OBVIOUSLY NEEDS EXCITEMENT

A : You’re doing all the right

things—almost. You’re getting out there, you’re not shy about initiating conversation, and you’re moving on multiple lesbo fronts—join a women’s softball league and you’ll be moving on them all. That said, ALONE, I’m surprised this hasn’t popped into your extremely analytic head: If y happens whenever I do x, and y isn’t the desired outcome, then maybe I should knock this x shit the fuck oﬀ. Your response to the mention of Harry Potter drips with what I trust is unintentional condescension. Don’t want women to get the impression you’re too intellectual for them? Don’t want to seem like someone incapable of keeping things casual and fun? Don’t administer quizzes, don’t act like a snob, and keep things casual by oﬀering a little info about yourself instead of probing. (“I haven’t read the Harry Potter books, but I’m a huge Emma Watson fangirl. Who isn’t, right?”) And maybe go ahead and read Harry Potter already. v Send letters to mail@ savagelove.net. Download the Savage Lovecast every Tuesday at savagelovecast. com. ß @fakedansavage

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JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 49

Cloud Nothings o JESSE LIROLA

NEW

Ryan Adams, Districts 8/3, 11 PM, the Vic, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Agent Orange 10/14, 8:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Alvvays 8/5, 10 PM, Empty Bottle, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM And Then She Came 10/29, 8 PM, Cobra Lounge Marc Anthony 12/3, 7 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM Banks, Japanese House 8/4, 11 PM, the Vic, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Jon Bellion, Max 9/1, 7:30 PM, Metro, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM A Taylor Bennett 8/4, 10 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ 6lack 8/5, 10 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Broncho 7/15, 9 PM, Subterranean, on sale Thu 6/1, 10 AM, 17+ Ann Hampton Callaway 8/3, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 6/1, noon A Kirin J. Callinan 7/1, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Car Seat Headrest, Gold Connections 8/5, 11 PM, Lincoln Hall, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Cloud Nothings, Oozing Wound 8/3, 10 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Barns Courtney, Luke Henry 8/5, 11 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Crystal Castles, Pham 8/3, 11 PM, Lincoln Hall, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Mac DeMarco 8/4, 10 PM, Concord Music Hall, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 17+

Drums, Stef Chura 8/2, 9 PM, Empty Bottle, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM Rik Emmett 9/28, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 6/1, noon A Foster the People, Honne 8/2, 9 PM, the Vic, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Liam Gallagher, Blossoms 8/2, 9 PM, Park West, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Gang of Youths, Valaska 6/5, 8:30 PM, Schubas, 18+ Grouplove, 888 8/5, 11 PM, Park West, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Guns N’ Roses 11/6, 8 PM, United Center, on sale Sat 6/3, 10 AM Head and the Heart, Walters 8/6, 11 PM, Metro, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Lauryn Hill, Nas 9/7, 6:30 PM, Huntington Bank Pavilion, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM Hippo Campus, Remo Drive 8/2, 8 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Homeshake 8/17, 9 PM, Empty Bottle India 6/30, 9 PM, Joe’s Live, Rosemont Isley Brothers 8/4, 8 PM, the Venue at Horseshoe Casino, Hammond Kaleo 8/5, 11 PM, Thalia Hall, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 17+ Kaytranada 8/2, 8 PM, Concord Music Hall, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 17+ Patti LaBelle 8/18, 8 PM, the Venue at Horseshoe Casino, Hammond Oliver Lake 6/28, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Gaelynn Lea 7/10, 7 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Lemon Twigs 8/4, 11 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+

50 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 1, 2017

Les Nubians 7/10, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 6/1, noon A Aaron Lewis 10/6, 8 PM, the Venue at Horseshoe Casino, Hammond, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM Little Dragon 8/3, 10 PM, Concord Music Hall, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 17+ Live, Shelters 8/4, 11 PM, Park West, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Logan Square Arts Festival with Metz, Strand of Oaks, Circuit Des Yeux, Air Credits, Chuck Inglish, and more 6/23-25, Illinois Centennial Monument A Maze with Frankie Beverly 6/16 and 6/17, 8 PM, the Venue at Horseshoe Casino, Hammond Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, Missio 8/4, 11 PM, Bottom Lounge, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 17+ Mondo Cozmo, Billy Raﬀoul 8/2, 9 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Mura Masa, Saint Jhn 8/5, 11 PM, Bottom Lounge, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 17+ Omni 7/29, 9 PM, Hideout Brad Paisley, Dustin Lynch 9/23, 7 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM Pretty Reckless, Slothrust 8/3, 11 PM, Bottom Lounge, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 17+ Pup, Deeper 8/3, 10 PM, Empty Bottle, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM Righteous Brothers 7/29, 8 PM, the Venue at Horseshoe Casino, Hammond Chris Robinson Brotherhood 11/18, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 17+ Diana Ross 7/15, 8 PM, the Venue at Horseshoe Casino, Hammond

b Royal Blood, White Reaper 8/4, 11 PM, Lincoln Hall, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ San Fermin, Ron Gallo 8/4, 10 PM, Empty Bottle, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM Brian Setzer 6/17, 8:30 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Shadowboxers 8/11, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, on sale Fri 6/2, noon Todd Sheaﬀer & Andrew Altman 7/26, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 6/1, noon A Shins, Mt. Joy 8/5, 11 PM, the Vic, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Skott 8/3, 11 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Spoon, CRX 8/2, 9 PM, Metro, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Suicideboys 8/2, 7 PM, Bottom Lounge, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM A Sylvan Esso 8/4, 11 PM, Thalia Hall, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 17+ Tegan & Sara, Frenship 8/3, 11 PM, Park West, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Temples, Declan McKenna 8/2, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 18+ Thunder Dreamer 7/13, 9 PM, Hideout Towkio, Jidenna 8/5, 10 PM, Concord Music Hall, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 17+ Venom Inc., Goatwhore, Toxic Holocaust 9/8, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 17+ Wage War 8/12, 5:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, on sale Fri 6/2, noon A Whitney, Kevin Devine 8/3, 11 PM, Thalia Hall, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 17+ Wicker Park Fest with Guided by Voices, Doomtree, Jeﬀ the Brotherhood, Sales, and more 7/29-30, Milwaukee between North and Paulina A Dwight Yoakam 6/16, 8 PM, Joe’s Live, Rosemont You’ll Never Get to Heaven 8/15, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Zeds Dead 8/6, 10 PM, Concord Music Hall, on sale Fri 6/2, 10 AM, 17+

UPCOMING Against Me!, Bleached 9/30, 6 PM, Concord Music Hall A All Time Low, Swmrs 7/21, 6 PM, Aragon Ballroom A Appleseed Cast 6/9, 9 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Big Business 6/23, 9 PM, Subterranean Scott H. Biram 8/17, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Mary J. Blige 7/30, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre Cap’n Jazz, Hop Along 7/29, 7 PM, House of Vans, 18+ F Courtneys 10/29, 8:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Tim Darcy 9/13, 9 PM, Schubas Richard Edwards 9/9, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+

ALL AGES

WOLF BY KEITH HERZIK

EARLY WARNINGS

CHICAGO SHOWS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT IN THE WEEKS TO COME

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

Ex-Cult 8/14, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Four Voices: Joan Baez, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Indigo Girls, Amy Ray 6/11, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre Yonatan Gat 6/21, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Haken 9/23, 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Horse Lords 6/10, 9 PM, Hideout Inter Arma 8/6, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Jay Som 9/14, 8 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Tim Kasher 6/8, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ King Crimson 6/28, 7:30 PM, Chicago Theatre Sonny Landreth 8/18, 9 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn Barry Manilow 7/29, 7:30 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont Melvins 7/25, 8 PM, Metro, 18+ Negative Approach, Bloodclot 7/29, 7 PM, Cobra Lounge, 17+ Neurosis, Converge, Amenra 7/28, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Palehound, Rips 7/7, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Pinback 10/11-12, 9 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Queen & Adam Lambert 7/13, 8 PM, United Center Rancid, Dropkick Murphys, Bouncing Souls 8/8, 6:30 PM, Huntington Bank Pavilion Juelz Santana 6/16, 8 PM, Portage Theater, 17+ Strumbellas 10/19-20, 7:30 PM, Thalia Hall A Thou 7/3, 5 PM, Subterranean A Tower of Power 8/11-12, 8 PM, City Winery A UFO, Saxon 10/8, 6:30 PM, Concord Music Hall, 17+ Ultimate Painting 7/25, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Vader, Internal Bleeding, Sacriﬁcial Slaughter 6/14, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Waka Flocka Flame 7/15, 7 PM, Metro A War on Drugs 10/19, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Roger Waters 7/22, 8 PM, United Center Jesse Colin Young 9/7, 8 PM, City Winery A Young the Giant, Cold War Kids 9/9, 7 PM, Huntington Bank Pavilion Zeal & Ardor 8/22, 9 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Zombie Girl 8/11, 8:30 PM, Cobra Lounge, 17+ Zomboy 7/21, 8 PM, Concord Music Hall, 17+ v

GOSSIP WOLF A furry ear to the ground of the local music scene IT FEELS LIKE eons since the blown-out tones of Chicago bassist Andrea Jablonski have set Gossip Wolf’s teeth to rattling. This wolf was particularly fond of her playing with sludge purveyors Rabid Rabbit, who ended their ten-year run in 2015, and short-lived doom-folk act From Bones, who debuted in 2014—and whose final show in late 2015 was the last time Jablonski played in public. On Monday, June 5, she and former Tight Phantomz dude Cale Arthur will duet on two new collaborative compositions for electric bass as part of Experimental Sound Studio’s Option series. After the show, Jablonski and reedist Ken Vandermark (one of Option’s programmers) will discuss her artwork and her collaborations with nonprofits, especially Humboldt Park community arts program Opera-Matic. Local DIY label and multimedia collective FeelTrip hosts a showcase at the Empty Bottle on Thursday, June 1. This wolf is particularly excited to see producer and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Humphrey, aka Sun Cop. The label released Sun Cop’s debut album, When You Hear the Drum You May Speak, in April, and its cosmic psych-pop is one hell of a trip! Chicago band Yawn, whose members cofounded FeelTrip to release their first album in 2011, headline the show—and the bill also includes psych-tinged soul-rock combo Lovejoy and DJ sets from members of Twin Peaks. This wolf has been keeping tabs on vinyl-centric Chicago dance label Clear since its debut in 2015, and it never disappoints when it comes to jack-happy techno killers! Last month Clear dropped a scorching 12-inch from Jason Letkiewicz, aka Steve Summers, who’s also recorded for L.I.E.S. and Clone (among others) and who moved here a year ago. Artificial Light pushes menacing beats and unsettling synth chatter into a zone that’s both dystopian and dance-floor friendly. Seems like Summers knows our city pretty well already! —J.R. NELSON AND LEOR GALIL Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or e-mail gossipwolf@chicagoreader.com.

Anheuser-Busch & the Northcenter Chamber of Commerce present

Voted Best Food Fest CHICAGO READER Featured on FOOD NETWORK

Grizfolk SUSTO Diane Coﬀee

JUNE 9, 10 & 11 LINCOLN/DAMEN/IRVING PARK

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Food Lounges BBQ King Smokehouse Mrs. Murphy & Sons Irish Bistro Porkchop

Magic Giant Banditos Nora Jane Struthers & the Party Line Air Traﬃc Controller Nick Lynch The Whiskey Gentry The Saps Greta Van Fleet The Inventors The War on Peace Rebecca Rego & the Trainmen American Grizzly Dream Version Ballroom Boxer Wild Skies

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Ribfest-Chicago.com JUNE 1, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 51