Print Issue of June 14, 2018 (Volume 47, Number 36) by Chicago Reader

C H I C A G O ’ S F R E E W E E K LY S I N C E 1 9 7 1 | J U N E 1 4 , 2 0 1 8

Paciﬁc Standard Time: A westcoast oasis 32

Welcomed by America’s Got Talent, but not the CTA 6

Pride is high Climbing The new Rebecca The best drag queens queer canon Makkai on ways to the AIDS celebrate 8 10 epidemic 19 14

2 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 14, 2018

THIS WEEK

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FEATURES

IN THIS ISSUE

CITY LIFE

5 Joravsky | Politics Scandals involving sexual predators, special ed cuts, and ﬁlthy schools have happened on the mayor’s watch. 6 Transportation Street musician Andrew Johnston is frustrated over the CTA’s inconsistent performance rules.

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

ARTS & CULTURE

20 Theater History resonates through Suzan-Lori Parks’s Civil War drama Father Comes Home From the Wars. 21 Dance The Retreat may be the next best thing to a week in the wilderness. 21 Theater Guards at the Taj and more new stage shows, reviewed by our critics 23 Movies Upgrade is so derivative, it’s original. 24 Movies Superﬂy and more new ﬁlms, reviewed by our critics

MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE 25 Shows of note Retirement Party, Neko Case, Indigenous, and more of the week’s best

For some drag artists, a 50-foot climbing wall is a new stage Brooklyn Boulders’ Out to Climb fundraiser oﬀered a chance for the queer community to have fun outside a nightclub.

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BY PAT NABONG 8

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The new queer canon

Chicago creatives talk about what they were watching, reading, and listening to when they ﬁrst came out.

BY KT HAWBAKER 10

Lyrical love ON THE COVER: PHOTO BY PAT NABONG. FOR MORE OF PAT’S WORK, GO TO PATNABONG.COM.

Poet and rapper Tati wants to help you make your own love potion.

BY MATT HARVEY 13

‘I’m realizing how little so many people know’ A conversation with Rebecca Makkai about the 1980s AIDS epidemic in Chicago and her new novel, The Great Believers.

BY ALBERT WILLIAMS 14

Solidarity forever After making international news last year, the 2018 Dyke March oﬃcially announces its support of Palestine.

BY KERRY CARDOZA 17

The best Pride events BY STEVE HEISLER 19

FOOD & DRINK

32 Restaurant Review: Paciﬁc Standard Time Underscore (and One Oﬀ Hospitality) present Erling Wu-Bower’s vision of a west-coast oasis in the midwest. 34 Booze How a mead that hasn’t yet hit the market exploded in popularity.

CLASSIFIEDS

35 Jobs 35 Apartments & Spaces 36 Marketplace 36 Straight Dope “Why are the contents of the abdomen arranged asymmetrically?” 37 Savage Love What to do when your dick is merely a consolation prize. 38 Early Warnings Destroyer, Nothing, Nicki Minaj, and more shows to look for in the weeks to come 38 Gossip Wolf Quenchers hosts its ﬁnal concert, and more music news

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CITY LIFE Mayor Rahm Emanuel walks with students on the ﬁrst day of school at Harold Washington Elementary School, 9130 S. University Ave., on Sept. 5. é ASHLEE REZIN/SUN-TIMES MEDIA

POLITICS

CPS: It can always get worse

Scandals involving sexual predators, special ed cuts, and ﬁlthy schools have happened on the mayor’s watch. By BEN JORAVSKY

ast week, Mayor Rahm officially apologized for the sexual predator scandal that’s hit Chicago Public Schools. The latest wrong was uncovered by the Tribune in an investigation that found “widespread mishandling of student sexual abuse and rapes.” Wow, just writing that sentence is upsetting. After Rahm’s mea culpa early last week, three of the city’s leading school beat reporters joined me for the monthly talk show former colleague Mick Dumke and I host at the Hideout. Onstage Juan Perez Jr., one of the reporters who broke the story, was joined by Lauren FitzPatrick of the Sun-Times and Sarah Karp of WBEZ. Karp is the reporter who broke the troubling story late last year about how CPS under Rahm

had been shortchanging its special education program with a double-cross that was devious even for Chicago. The mayoral-appointed school board paid some consultants millions to devise new ways to avoid spending money on special education. The consultants came up with new ways to keep kids from being designated as special-needs students—whether they needed assistance or not. Fewer kids in special education classes means hiring fewer special education teachers, which means saving money on salaries so it can be spent on something else—like highpriced consultants. The situation was so bad that the state recently appointed a monitor to oversee the program. That was the scandal of the day until Fitz-

Patrick broke the story of filthy schools in which hallways and classroom were littered with trash, debris, and rodent droppings. After talking to janitors, FitzPatrick discovered that after Rahm privatized the cleaning contracts, schools were passing the inspections largely because they were getting tipped when the inspections were about to happen. So they could do a fast cleanup and keep the schools clean long enough to pass the test. Then it was back to mouse droppings again. As any teacher can tell, it’s not hard to pass a test when you’ve been given the answers in advance. And now the Tribune’s investigating sexual predators on the payroll, including coaches, teachers, and security guards employed by CPS. Its central findings: “The district conducted ineffective background checks that exposed students to educators with criminal convictions and arrests for sex crimes against children, while some teachers and principals failed to immediately alert child welfare investigators when allegations of abuse arose.” FitzPatrick, Karp, and Perez noted that there’s been a pattern to all the scandals. First, parents, teachers, or students tried to notify school officials of the problem at a school board meeting. CPS officials responded by telling the par-

ents that they had everything wrong and there was no problem, and the matter got buried until reporters started asking questions. At which point, school officials stonewalled the reporters by stalling on public record requests and otherwise doing everything they could not to correct the problem but to prevent anyone from knowing about it, probably in the hopes that the reporters would get discouraged and go away. And then the story broke, prompting Rahm to express various forms of anger. In the case of filthy schools, the mayor said he was “beyond outraged.” In the case of the sex predators, Rahm had to say something because we’re on the verge of a campaign season and his opponents—Lori Lightfoot, Paul Vallas, Garry McCarthy, and Troy LaRaviere—were blasting him. So he apologized and then sort of blamed everything on Janice Jackson, the woman he appointed as CEO of the system. In the case of special education, he hasn’t apologized or expressed outrage. No, even worse, he used his clout in Springfield to bottle up state rep Sonya Harper’s legislation that would have enabled CPS to spend tax increment financing funds on special education. The TIF program allows the mayor to divert roughly $250 million a year in property taxes from the schools to a virtual slush fund under his sole control. Apparently, this TIF money means so much to Rahm that the CPS lobbyist in Springfield got dispatched to argue against Harper’s bill. How pathetic. A lobbyist for CPS—who’s supposed to be looking out for the kids—is fighting to keep schools from getting the property taxes that got diverted from them in the first place. If anything points to the need for a school board that’s independent of the mayor, this is it. During the question-and-answer part of last week’s gathering at the Hideout, someone asked if an elected school board would make things better. My response: We might as well try it, ’cause things couldn’t get worse. FitzPatrick, who’s covered CPS for several years, corrected me: Things can always get worse. v

m @joravben JUNE 14, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 5

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é COURTESY OF ANDREW JOHNSTON

early every day, performers fill the Red Line’s station at Lake with smooth electric guitar riffs, or soulful a capella, or improvised raps, or—as was the case on the afternoon of May 15—with a voice nearly identical to Sam Smith’s. Andrew Johnston, 26, who is being featured on this season of America’s Got Talent, was halfway through a song when a CTA employee approached him to say he needed to turn off his portable speaker and leave. “She started telling me to shut off. She said, ‘You can’t perform down here,’” he recalls. “I said, ‘No, that’s not correct.’” This wasn’t Johnston’s ﬁrst encounter with this particular employee, who has called police on him multiple times. As I was waiting for a train that day, I observed what happened as the police arrived. “This is really unfortunate,” Johnston said, looking the employee in the eye. He then pulled up the text of the CTA’s ordinance governing performances on his phone, and tried to calmly argue to the officers that as a permitted performer, he was indeed allowed to sing at this location. They weren’t having it. Soon his speaker was off, his mic wrapped up, and he was on his way off the platform with a ticket for performing at a “nonperforming” CTA station. Since 1991, the CTA has designated four stations where people who’ve paid the agency $10 for a performer’s license can showcase their talent—the Washington and Jackson stations on the Blue Line and the Washington and Jackson stations on the Red Line. The Washington Red Line station, however, has been shuttered since 2006, when the city launched a $400 million attempt to convert

it into a “superstation” under Block 37. The plan never came to fruition, but the CTA’s ordinance was never amended to take the ghost station off the list. Johnston and many other performers thus interpret the “Washington and State Streets” location as the Lake station, which has entrances stretching all the way to Washington Street. Apparently, many CTA employees share that interpretation, and so do hearing judges tasked with handling the tickets. Even though it’s officially not allowed, Johnston says he doesn’t always get told to leave when performing at Lake—which he’s been doing regularly since he got his license a year ago. He’s gotten four tickets for singing at Lake since November, he says. Every time he was issued a ticket, it was thrown out in court. Though Johnston says he’s glad judges have agreed with his interpretation of the CTA’s rules, it’s still a pain to have to go to court. “The more I go through this, the more adamant I get about the situation,” he says. Between the CTA’s staff, the agency’s K9 security contractors, and police, it seems to him that “nobody knows what’s going on. . . . Some days I’m ﬁne and some days I’m not.” CTA spokeswoman Catherine Hosinski said in a e-mail that the agency strives for “consistent enforcement of performer regulations. We realize that a more uniform application of rules is desirable and we will be working with our operations personnel to achieve that.” She added that the agency will be updating its website “to include detailed information about the performer’s program, including authorized performance locations.” Still, updating the website doesn’t amount to changing the ordinance. Asked whether there were any plans to formally amend the rules to remove the defunct Washington Red Line station from the list, or to substitute it with a different location, Hosinski said there were “no immediate plans” to do so. All of this begs the question: Why are the CTA’s authorized performance areas so limited in the ﬁrst place? Compared to other cities, as the Tribune reported last year, Chicago’s subway performance policies are very restric-

tive. This leads to tense competition for the few available performance spaces and lots of “unauthorized” performances that get musicians like Johnston into unpleasant situations. The Chicago Transit Board’s archives shed some light on the roots of these policies. A transcript from a September 1991 meeting of the CTA’s governing body revealed that a push to restrict performances came from advocates for the blind and other disability rights groups. Performers’ equipment could make it difficult for people with mobility impairments to maneuver around the system’s narrow platforms, and the volume of the music sometimes disoriented blind people. Musicians, meanwhile, objected to the restrictions; they wanted to continue being able to play at high-traffic stations to earn a living. At the meeting, Bill Mooney, then the CTA’s manager of transportation administration, explained the compromise that was reached: “We went through a complete survey of our downtown properties, which was the locations the street musicians were interested in playing. We identiﬁed four of our heavier stations downtown as being locations where we could set aside space for street musicians to play.” He added that performers would be required to turn down their music “if any member of the blind community or any representative of CTA requested . . . to allow audio cues or announcements to be heard.” As the board passed the new ordinance, member James Charlton noted that this was a “complex and controversial” issue. The new rules were “not going to be designed where everybody is happy. We’ve struck some middle ground,” he said. Chicago Lighthouse, a social service organization that advocates for the visually impaired, was one of the groups that lobbied for the restrictions on performers back in 1991. Today, the organization no longer has an ofﬁcial position on the matter but Greg Polman, its senior vice president for public policy, says subway performers’ volume continues to complicate navigation for the visually impaired. “Some of the musicians are very good but what bothers me is when they turn

CITY LIFE the ampliﬁers up and they’re so loud that you can’t hear what’s going on,” says Polman, who is himself blind. “Some of the music is so loud that it’s difficult to hear when the train comes in.” The performers, meanwhile, have for years argued that the CTA should expand the number of stations where performances are allowed. These calls intensiﬁed last year when downtown alderman Brendan Reilly pushed to limit the volume at which street performers are allowed to play (or preach), and the times and locations at which they can set up shop. Though Reilly’s proposal died in City Council, Johnston—who’s also a licensed street performer—says enforcement of existing rules above ground can also be unfair. For example, on May 19, as he was completing a set in front of the Wrigley Building, Johnston was approached by police and told his “amplified sound is too loud.” City law prohibits sound “that is louder than average conversational level at a distance of 100 feet or more, measured vertically or horizontally, from the source.” This applies to licensed per-

formers, too, and Johnston says he will turn down his amplifier when asked. In a video he made of the May 19 encounter, Johnston can be heard quietly arguing with the officers about whether or not amplified sound is a violation of the city’s street performance ordinance and whether or not the officers who approached him could hear him from 100 feet away. Johnston explains that he needs to leave anyway, and refuses to give the officers the ID hanging around his neck to be issued a ticket. The video cuts off with Johnston saying “stop” and backing away. What happened next was captured on video by a passerby. Johnston was handcuffed and wrestled to the ground facedown. Police said in a statement that officers responded to a “music disturbance. Officers attempted to issue a citation to a male who was using amplified sound in violation of the city ordinance. When the violator failed to provide evidence of identity and refused to sign the citation he was placed in custody.” He was taken to the 18th District lock-up, cited for a violation of the city noise ordi-

nance, and charged with two misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest. “They conﬁscated my equipment—speaker, two car batteries, my ampliﬁer, microphone,” he says. He came back to sing at the same location with a spare set of gear the following weekend, and was issued yet another ticket. All of this has seriously dampened Johnston’s enthusiasm for performing on the streets or in the subway—or for crediting the CTA’s performance program when he gives interviews about how he got his start in singing. The ticket he was issued at Lake Street on May 15 isn’t going to court because the CTA isn’t pursuing the matter. But he decided not to bother renewing his subway performer’s license when it expired on June 8. Johnston has been using his lunch breaks from a job at a calling center to look for an attorney to help him disentangle from the criminal charges from the arrest on Michigan Avenue. He’s got no prior record and he thinks the videos of his arrest make it clear there was an “abuse of authority.” Despite Johnston’s frustrations performing

on the street and in the subway he has been featured on both local and national television programs. He’s even gotten words of encouragement via Twitter from singer Sam Smith, who saw a video of Johnston. Johnston recently traveled to L.A. to ﬁlm an appearance for the current season of America’s Got Talent. The appearance, he says, is a step toward stardom, but he currently can’t travel out of state for future auditions or other opportunities because of conditions placed on his bond. He says the city should do more to support and encourage rather than police its talent. “The exposure that street performing has given me has allowed me to move on to shows like Windy City Live and Steve Harvey,” he says. “But there comes a point where it’s not worth it. And it’s unfortunate because irrespective of the pushback I get from police and K9 [security guards] in the subway, the passengers on the CTA and people shopping on the street enjoy it. I notice.”

m @mdoukmas

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For some drag artists, a 50-foot climbing wall is a new stage Brooklyn Boulders’ Out to Climb fund-raiser oﬀered a chance for the queer community to have fun outside a nightclub. STORY AND PHOTOS BY PAT NABONG

Denali and designer Eda Yorulmazoglu, who specializes in designing clothes for drag artists, race to the top. The climb-oﬀ was open to anyone who wanted to compete.

Abhijeet Rane, 24, and Jforpaydotcom, 25, race to the top of the wall. After climbing, Rane and Jforpaydotcom, who don’t climb often, said they would love to climb more frequently.

D Aunty Chan strikes a pose after ﬁnishing a boulder problem.

8 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 14, 2018

ressed in a yellow leopard-printed bodysuit and a colorful skirt, Bambi Banks climbed a 50-foot wall while lip-synching to “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus. The crowd below cheered as Banks reached the top, let go, and gracefully rappelled down. A climbing gym in Chicago might seem like an unlikely place for a drag performance, but in the spirit of Pride, Brooklyn Boulders Chicago earlier this month hosted its second annual Out to Climb event to celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community. To many of the drag artists who attended, the evening wasn’t just an opportunity to try a new sport but a chance to reach a wider audience and expand their communal space.

“Queer culture is so embedded in the nightlife, and a lot of youth don’t get to do that because Chicago [clubs are] 21 and up, like, straight across, so a lot of them don’t get to experience gay spaces,” said Banks, who’d never climbed before. “Events like this get us meeting some of our younger fans and followers . . . and let them know that there are people out there and you do have spaces to, like, express yourself even in public.” The climb-off, where drag artists of different climbing skill levels raced to the top of the wall while the audience below pledged money, was at the center of the event, a beneﬁt for the Howard Brown Health Center, which has clinics serving the LGBTQ community throughout Chicago. “We post these signs on our door that say that we’re a welcoming place, that we value everyone based on their color and their gender identity,” said Claire Bao, Brooklyn Boulders Chicago’s marketing

Bambi Banks rappels down as they perform to “The Climb” by Miley Cryus.

Abhijeet Rane reveals their banner while climbing.

manager. “We take these steps to be as inclusive as we can in our space, to have a gender-neutral bathroom, but what does that mean if we’re not celebrating it and activating it, right?” A monthly climbing meet-up for the LGBTQ community is in the works, said Bao. Events like Out to Climb “are deﬁnitely important to bring together, of course, the queer community, because obviously a lot of times we feel like a lot of queer people and LGBTQ people only have the spaces that are designated to them, maybe in nightlife and different things like that,” said Denali, one of the drag queens who climbed that night. “But it’s really important to also have activities for them to do.” v

Jforpaydotcom strikes a pose while climbing. “We’re feminine and we’re strong as fuck,” they said.

Aunty Chan, in white, and Imp Queen, in orange, collect money during the climb-oﬀ. The proceeds will go to Howard Brown Health, which has clinics that serve the LGBTQ community in diﬀerent neighborhoods.

m @pat_nabong JUNE 14, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 9

Devlyn Camp, creator of the Mattachine podcast 26, they/them

The new queer canon Chicago creatives talk about what they were watching, reading, and listening to when they ﬁrst came out. By KT HAWBAKER Illustrations by RAZIEL PUMA It’s Pride month, sinners, and with that comes a melange of rainbow-slathered everything. Yay, love! Yay, parades! As queerness becomes more marketable, however, it risks becoming more whitewashed. So! To keep the “homo” out of homogenization, we spoke with the city’s queer and creative about the media that inﬂuenced them most as they were coming out—a reminder that there’s no one right way to forge an identity.

As I was coming out, I was simultaneously wrapped up in my first relationship. He was the lead of our county summer musical, and we were bonding over Moulin Rouge—a story about a forbidden romance between a writer and the star of a musical. Right on the nose, huh? I knew I was attracted to men physically, but not quite ready to accept that romance with them was real. The first line of the climactic song “Come What May” really made my feelings for him sink in: “Never knew I could feel like this / Like I’ve never seen the sky before.” It’s camp, but the stakes are serious. With one foot grounded in painful drama, the absurd moments are even more hilarious. What’s queerer than that?

Liz Dumler, activist and nightlife host 28, she/her/they/them

Dolly Parton as a whole entity was very important to me growing up. There are few country icons who are both meaningful to queers and traditional Appalachian families. Dolly Parton was that crossover for me. I could sing along to her songs with my country-proper grandpa and nothing about it felt strange or forced, and I knew it was meaningful to both of us. I remember seeing Dolly playing the banjo with inch-long acrylics, and my country femme idol appeared just like that. Being a high, hard femme from the country (or what I lovingly call a “dirt femme”), I try to show that there are more dynamics to us Appalachian queers while still doing work to support my home, even from a distance—I learned that from Dolly.

Sky Cubacub, owner-operator of Rebirth Garments 26, they/them

Joe Lewis, drag performer 32, he/him

There was this online publication called Curfew that [was] all about the party scene in D.C., and I used to read the hell out of it and image the exciting gay life I’d escape to. I had to hide my sexuality in the beginning, so I would pilfer through my mom’s CD collection—she had all the Celine Dion, and she also had some KD Lang stuff. When I really want to get in touch with my gayness, that’s what I put on.

10 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 14, 2018

Xena: Warrior Princess has always been the most important piece of media to my queerness. I watched it when it aired on TV originally, and I have rewatched it many times (four full times in the past year alone!). I can’t believe people minimize Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship, especially when Xena literally introduces Gabrielle as her “soulmate” to Xena’s former female lover’s ghost—and they also have a baby together! It was very important for me to see these amazing queers dress whatever way they wanted—and it is for themselves and not for others—while kicking some serious butt.

Brendan Fernandes, artist 39, he/him

We didn’t have the Internet when I was coming out, so things like Bikini Kill and riot grrrl zines were so important—they gave me the sense that other people were out there, which was so empowering. I was living in the suburbs of Toronto, but I would write letters and then get a zine in the mail.

Alex Grelle, Shelley Duvall impersonator and cocurator of Ordinary Peepholes 32, he/him

I’m embarrassed to admit this because the show has turned into trash, but the Real World on MTV had a huge inﬂuence on me. I was only supposed to like girls, but when Danny from Real World: New Orleans was introduced to me in my early high school years something clicked. I knew I was gay and OK with it. I’m still hoping Danny and I can get married.

Morgan Martinez, editor in chief of Hooligan Mag 24, she/her

When I was younger, it was a lot of Paramore, a lot of Bleached, a lot of Tegan and Sara—old Tegan and Sara—it was a very pure time. Back then I just listened to whatever made me feel good—I’m a lot more conscious of what I listen to now, but I think I just really needed that in the moment.

RivkaYeker, cofounder and managing editor of Hooligan Mag 21, she/her/they/them

In high school, I started listening to a lot of feminine punk bands and emo music made by nonbinary folks and noncismen. I’d internalized so much misogyny when I was younger and had just dismissed womanhood, so that was a way for me to reengage.

Pidgeon Pagonis, intersex activist, educator, and ﬁlmmaker 32, they/them

My mom told me that she used to put on Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker tape when I was little and I would just watch it over and over again. There’s a queer aesthetic to Jackson’s performances and his way of being. He was an adult who preferred to live in a world of childlike fantasy, which is queer in and of itself. Living in place called Neverland with a chimpanzee? That’s the queerest thing ever to me. J

JUNE 14, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 11

continued from 10

Vicente Ugartchea, artist 28, he/him

The core of horror films rests in the fear of the abject and the unknown, so women’s bodies, queer themes, and biofluids are forefronted in many films. I gravitated to the horror genre for this very reason. I remember watching Sleepaway Camp when I was around eight years old and while my family was absolutely repulsed by the film, I sat there marveling at the protagonist. Here was a trans girl trying to navigate a world that was constantly assaulting her, citing essentialist notions of womanhood which reflected real-world trans experiences. However: She. Fought. Back.

Sean Estelle, national network coordinator, Power Shift Network 26, they/them

The single most important piece of media to me as I was coming out was Angels in America. It was my freshman year of college, I had just landed a part in an ensemble of mostly graduate students putting up Chekhov’s The Seagull, and I was going through a crisis of self because of the desires I was feeling and the humanity of the queer people I was coming into relationship with. Eventually, I came out to the whole cast, and one of them handed me the text of Angels and told me to read it. The play resonated in a deep way—it was trying to tell a story at the same mythological level as the Bible stories I was raised on. And it worked!

Brittany Meyer, founder and producer of Strip Joker 27, they/them

One of the biggest pieces that influenced me was Ellen DeGeneres’s The Beginning. At the top of the hour, she does an interpretative dance of what it’s been like since coming out—it was hilarious, and sad, and uplifting, and perfectly kicked off her doing an hour of comedy, almost entirely unaffiliated with that. The first time I watched it was with my homophobic half sister—she’s the one who put it on for us. It was odd for me to see her enjoy Ellen’s comedy while hating her sexuality—in retrospect, I was very conflicted. Why is it that she gets to enjoy her jokes but vocally disapprove of her sexual orientation, to actively vote against her? To relate to her so much to laugh, but refuse to let her marry another woman and be against her living her life openly gay?

Gnat Rose Madrid, fetish-wear designer and manager of Duro Latinx dance party 27, she/her

My root is deﬁnitely Ursula from The Little Mermaid: She was a voluptuous femdom drag queen, and that excited me. When I came out to my family, I watched an MTV documentary about AFAB [assigned female at birth] nonbinary folks called Gender Rebels. This resonated with my own desire spectrum and helped me understand my queer attractions and personal gender journey.

12 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 14, 2018

Mika Tosca, climate scientist 33, she/her

One of the most influential movies for me as a child was Ferngully, which propelled me to become a climate/environmental scientist. The protagonist is a female fairy and even though I was assigned male at birth, I always imagined myself as her—fighting corporations and being a badass chick. I’m still inspired by the concerted effort to save the rain forest.

Mark Joseph Jeffrey, artist, professor, and choreographer at Atom-R 45, he/him

Right now, I am obsessed with Borderline, Madonna’s ﬁrst album. The guy who produced that album and started her career, Reggie Lucas, just died. Those songs are really extraordinary and beautiful.

JosephVarisaro, program director of Queer, Ill + Okay and Salonathon curator 33, he/him

I came out early in high school and faced all the standard retaliations from classmates, loss of friends, estrangement from family, and abandonment from the church I had so long been involved with. I found myself going to see plays such as Machinal by Sophie Treadwell, which is about one of the first women to face a death sentence by electric chair. The last scene still provokes me: the character sits at the end of the stage, hair shaved off, strapped down to the electric chair crying out to anyone to help her. I also filled my days with sci-fi series—I loved watching Quantum Leap with my dad—Scott Bakula shirtless was not to be missed. Watching his character inhabit so many different bodies illuminated an early fascination with queerness.

Scott Cramer, cofounder of A Queer Pride, a Pride month event planning organization 36, he/him Deee-Lite: the music, art, and intersection that the band and Lady Kier created in the The 90s meant so much to me. It got me to dance, made me feel good about who I am, and gave me hope at times when I struggled. The music is also timeless for me—I can put it on today, and it still takes me back to the ﬁrst time hearing it. Over the years I’ve had Lady Kier out to DJ and perform at a number of events including my 30th birthday.

Abhijeet, cofounder of A Queer Pride 25, they/them

I grew up in Mumbai, India, where I lived for 19 years before moving to Chicago for school. I wound up consuming a lot of Western pop culture, and Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk was instrumental in forming my trans identity before I ﬁgured it out. I read it when I was 16, and it introduced me to characters who were trans and nonbinary, who were ﬂawed and struggled,

who made ends meet and were resourceful. It helped me understand that wanting to change your body is body positivity but also that there aren’t any rules to understanding or accepting your body.

Melissa Hespelt, cofounder of A Queer Pride 21, she/her

When Ariel from The Little Mermaid whined, “I’ve got gadgets and gizmos aplenty. I’ve got whozits and whatzits galore. You want thingamabobs? I’ve got 20. But who cares? No big deal. I want more,” my ﬁve-year-old self felt it deep in her glamour-queen soul. Beyond that, the videos and images I discovered of icons like Amanda Lepore, Lil’ Kim, Madonna, and Dolly Parton solidiﬁed my own ability to play around with high femme presentation while maintaining control and enjoying my own self-expression.

JWilson, cofounder of A Queer Pride 25, they/them

When I was ﬁrst coming out, I was listening to the Scissor Sisters constantly. Their wild, provocative sound and Jake Shears’s story of escaping his religious family to travel to New York City resonated with me like nothing had before. Their album Night Work gave me a road map from an adolescence ﬁlled with video gaming and self-denial to a glamorous, gritty life among society’s outcasts where people survive on what they can.

AlbertWilliams, associate professor of theater, Columbia College Chicago, and former editor of GayLife and Windy City Times (and longtime Reader contributor) “No way,” he/him

The literature that most influenced me when I was coming into a sense of my gay identity, as a teenager in the 1960s, were Gore Vidal’s novels The City and the Pillar and Myra Breckenridge, Patrick Dennis’s novel Tony, and the 1968 play The Boys in the Band.

Kristen Kaza, cultural producer at No Small Plans, Slo ’Mo, and Reunion (and also former Reader director of marketing) 32, she/her

My dad got me a BMG music subscription, and he’d let me pick whichever albums I wanted as long as two were Christian. This was one of those deals where you bought a CD for $20 and then got, like, seven free. I fell into obsessions with the Lilith Fair era of Sarah McLachlan, Tracy Chapman, and Tori Amos, as well as the 90s era of R&B powerhouses like Mary J. Blige, Aaliyah, and Toni Braxton. And while most of these artists aren’t gay per se, it was through music that I discovered and explored my sexuality and sense of identity, inspired to be strong, independent, sensual, and proud like the women I listened to. I had insomnia as a teen, so I’d stay up all night listening to music, making mixtapes and writing poetry about people I was pining for. Like, what’s more lesbian than that? v

m @kthawbaker

Tati performing her song “Better” at Young Chicago Authors é MELVYN WINDMON

Lyrical love Poet and rapper Tati wants to help you make your own love potion. By MATT HARVEY

n Saturday, June 16, at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s 21Minus event, 20-year-old north-side poet and rapper Tati debuts her first performance art piece, Luvpotion—the result of a year’s worth of emotional trauma, self-care, and spiritual growth. She’s been writing raps (and rapping for her friends) since elementary school, but her first public performance as a rapper was only about a year and a half ago—part of a rapid transformation during which she’s brought several of her private artistic pursuits onto public stages. At the start of 2017, Tati (full name Tatiana Rodriguez) was majoring in journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and working as a columnist for The Daily Illini. She wanted to get into journalism to harness her voice, but she quickly started to see it as a “safe” choice, a way of avoiding pushing herself to become a full-fledged artist. “It was like I was stuck, floating,” Tati says. “I wasn’t going anywhere and

I wasn’t doing anything fulfilling.” As one of only a tiny handful of people of color at the paper, she felt like an outcast, and even worse, she says she received frequent insults and threats in response to her opinion pieces. She decided to return home to Chicago. She got a job at Ulta Beauty and started to rebuild. What Tati saw in the city was a path to recovery that required self-love and self-care in the form of exploring her ancestral spirituality and continuing to write poetry, raps, and essays. However, just putting pen to paper wasn’t enough. She yearned to bring her art to life onstage, something her bashfulness wouldn’t at first allow. “I just wasn’t confident enough in saying ‘I’m an artist’,” Tati says. “I had to let my creativity slap me in the face.” The first time she rapped in public was at an event put on by south-side arts collective Las Topo Chicas in December 2017. She shuffled onto the stage with a disclaimer—“This is my first time doing this, so if it’s trash, don’t roast me too badly”—but

the response was overwhelmingly positive. That performance was a major step in what she calls her “bad bitch evolution.” Luvpotion takes its title from a Spotify playlist Tati made and dedicated to someone left behind in her “pre-bad bitchified” life. The etymology of the name also owes something to her spiritual roots, which she identifies as the biggest component of the piece. “Part of this transformation was getting into my family’s spiritual practices. That was reading books, herbalism, manifesting positivity, and witchcraft,” she says. A love potion is probably the most digestible form of witchcraft—but what if your target were yourself? Self-love is the message behind Tati’s rap on the song “Luvpotion,” which may or may not be part of Saturday’s performance. On the hook she muses, “When shorty starts to feel herself, I can tell that y’all won’t like me / I’m carefree, love myself, fuck the bourgeoisie / I’m a honeybee, I take care of me, I take care of me.” For Tati, her love potion was proving to herself that she could become an artist and discovering her spirituality—so in a slightly meta way, it was Luvpotion. In the performance piece, Tati hopes to rely heavily on audience participation— she wants the people who come out to define what their own love potion would be made of. In this case she’s thinking of herself less as a performer than as a facilitator of what she describes as a “spiritual dialogue.” “Self-love is something that is unique to every person—and it should be that way, so that it can be as easily accessible to you as possible,” Tati says. “This is queer art, this is brown art, this is black art,” she says. “In every piece I loudly mention my queerness, my brownness, my spirituality.” But as important as her identity is to her art, Tati doesn’t want Luvpotion to be only about her struggles—she wants to help other people find their paths. “One of the major themes is the accessibility of self-love. It’s easier to love yourself when you see society valuing you and what you identify with,” she says. Last year Tati attended the MCA’s 21Minus event—an annual museum takeover by artists under 21—and it was one of the places where she found the courage to become an artist. “I went last year and was so inspired, I had so many concepts that could work,” she says. “I had to keep telling myself, I know that I can do this.” When the application window for the 2018 edition of 21Minus opened earlier this year, Tati pounced on the opportunity practically by instinct. After she was accepted, she says, the MCA’s Grace Needleman and the museum’s Teen Creative Agency played instrumental roles in the process of bringing Luvpotion to life. When Tati performs Luvpotion at the MCA—she’ll give three performances throughout the afternoon, at 1:15, 2:15, and 3:30—she wants more than anything for her audience to understand where she’s coming from and get involved. “It’s about reciprocity of energy,” she says. “Self-love should be a practice, not a performance.” v

m @MattheMajor JUNE 14, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 13

‘I’m realizing

Rebecca Makkai and Albert Williams at the Chicago Diner, May 25, 2018 é RYAN EDMUND

how little so many people know’ A conversation with Rebecca Makkai about the 1980s AIDS epidemic in Chicago and her new novel, The Great Believers By ALBERT WILLIAMS

ebecca Makkai is a Chicago author whose new novel, The Great Believers, is set during the AIDS crisis in Chicago in the 1980s. Albert Williams, a Chicago Reader contributor since 1985, has a long history as a gay activist and journalist. He served as editor of two Chicago LGBTQ newspapers in the 1980s, GayLife (1981-’85) and Windy City Times (1987). On the ﬁrst hot day of spring of 2018, they sat down together at the Chicago Diner in the heart of Chicago’s Boystown to talk about The Great Believers and Chicago’s LGBTQ history, both real and imagined. The book’s narrative skips back and forth in time between 1985 and 2015, focusing on two people: Yale, a gay man who works as a development officer in the Chicago art world, and Fiona, the sister of one of Yale’s friends who has died of AIDS complications. Over the course of the story, Yale and Fiona wrestle with the emotional and medical impact of the AIDS crisis on the lives of themselves and their friends and loved ones, including Yale’s partner, Charlie, publisher of a ﬁctitious Chicago gay newspaper in the 1980s.

ALBERT WILLIAMS: Your book is coming out on June 19, just in time for Pride Week. Why did you choose to write this story? Why now? REBECCA MAKKAI: I set out to write something completely diﬀerent and it migrated over. The art subplot that’s there now was really where the book started. And at that point, AIDS was going to be maybe 5 to 10 percent of the book. It was going to be more of a subplot. Then a couple things happened. One was I really got drawn in by the research, by the story. That was just where the gravity of the story was for me. The other thing is when I sat down and asked myself, do I want to write this, do I want to switch this proportion around, one of the reasons that my answer was yes,, was that I’m really tired of narratives where AIDS is a subplot. Someone dies romantically oﬀstage and the plot continues and it was symbolic in some way. I don’t want to malign any books that do

14 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 14, 2018

that, because there are plenty of marvelous books where AIDS is a subplot, but I just didn’t feel like I wanted to relegate it to that. I felt like if I was going to do this, I wanted to take it head on. One of the narrative arcs in the novel is that the male protagonist, Yale— He starts off fairly nonpolitical. He’s an art guy. He’s partnered with someone who’s quite political, and he has friends who are quite political, but he stays out of it. People ask him to come to protests, meetings, and he generally doesn’t unless he’s dragged along. By the end, as his life is falling apart, he has this political awakening. He feels that he has nothing to lose and feels like he’s fighting for his life. The story begins in Chicago at a turning point in the AIDS crisis, 1985. You’re not someone who has been deeply involved in the gay world, and you were only seven years old in 1985. The timing thing is really interesting to me. I think you’re the first person to ask me about the timing. Nineteen eighty-five, as you know, is a pivotal year— It was in 1985 that [blood] testing [to identify infection with the virus that causes AIDS] became available for the first time, and there was a lot of resistance to getting tested—a lot of anxiety about reportability and anonymity. And

reliability. And also just—“Do I want to know? What good would it do?” Because at that time, even if you knew, by the time you tested positive you had already been exposed for about three months at least. Yeah. That’s it. It was fascinating to me on the personal level. It was also fascinating on the plot level of here’s a Rorschach test for all your characters. Who wants to get tested, who doesn’t, why? Who follows through, who doesn’t, why? What are the results? In a densely populated novel, those ways of sorting people out around certain issues were helpful to me as a writer, and hopefully helpful for the reader too. By a densely populated novel, you mean there are a lot of characters. It’s an ensemble piece, not a star vehicle. Right, exactly. That’s one of the things I really liked about it. The book begins in 1985 with Yale and Charlie walking up Belden, and you think it’s going to be about Yale and Charlie. Then it ends up being about something very diﬀerent. You follow characters and then they don’t go where you think they’re going to go. And one character suddenly becomes less important and a character who is minor becomes very important. In that respect, this novel, structurally, reminds me a great deal of Angels in America, which is very much an ensemble work. Oh, I’ll take that!

You’re writing a book in 2018 for people, like me, who were there, but also for younger people who do not know what that world was like. That was very much on my mind. On the one hand, I felt some, but not all, of the weight of writing nonfiction. I’m not writing nonfiction. Someone out there needs to write the comprehensive nonfiction history of AIDS in cities that were not New York or San Francisco. Someone needs to write a book about Chicago. A full-on scholarly thing, you know what I mean? This is not that book. One thing I promised myself is that if there’s any film interest—and I don’t know how much say people have, but here’s my proviso—it has to be about Chicago. The last thing I want is for someone to buy this and they go “I’m gonna set it in San Francisco!” No the fuck you’re not. A lot of my research comes from newspapers, but more of it came from in-person interviews. A lot of it was just, “tell me stories,” and sort of getting them talking about people they knew, things that happened, places. I didn’t even know what I was looking for. I always told people going into an interview: “I have my characters, I have my plot, don’t worry that I’m going to write you or your friends into this book.” I just wanted those details—just the tiny, random, minor details about, you know, a certain place or a certain moment that they might not even be able to recognize later in my work. Because it would have been reinvented. It would have been reinvented. I think someone told me a story at one point about having ridden with a friend on a motorcycle down Lake Shore Drive, and on this guy’s deathbed he said, “I think that was the happiest moment of my life, riding on that motorcycle,” and it transmuted. There’s no motorcycle scene in my book but— There is a scene of a car. There is. That’s what it turned into. It turned into Yale driving down Lake Shore Drive and it’s not the happiest moment of his life particularly. A lot of my research was going on right at the time [of Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory and inauguration]. These interviews are what got me through that. Talking to people about the fight, and being out there and fighting for your life, and fighting for other people’s lives, and it seeming hopeless, and just channeling your rage into productive avenues. That was the thing that I kept kind of relying on in my panic and fury. There are people who’ve been through this shit before in very different ways who are still with us, who we can still learn from, who have perspective, who have a longitudinal view on this that I lack. In some cases, we got to talking about things they hadn’t talked about in a very long time. That was an incredible position to be in, and it’s one that I hope I continue to be in as I’m out talking about this book in the world, of being so completely honored to receive these people’s stories. I’m going to put in a little list here of some of the places you [name in the book]. Chicagoans will recognize these references—some of which are still around, some of which are not: Sidetrack, the Bistro, Berlin, Little Jim’s, the Inner Circle, Cheeks, Unicorn, Club Baths, Unabridged Books, Victory Gardens Theater, the “festively Swedish” Ann

Sather restaurant on Belmont, and my personal favorite, the late and lamented Belden Deli. Also the Art Institute, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the gyms at Marina City and the Jane Addams Hull House, and the cruisy men’s room at Marshall Field’s downtown. I’d love to claim that as a seven-year old I was going to all these places and I just remembered them now. My parents just took me around, you know, barhopping. [Both laugh] It seems to me that the most journalistically detailed section of the book is the part about the 1990 ACT UP protest in front of the [Cook] County Building, which was partly researched on YouTube and also draws from a 1990 Chicago Reader article about [local ACT UP leader] Danny Sotomayor.1 Yes, that Reader article was fantastic. It goes through that day [of the ACT UP protest] in tremendous detail in a way that helped me make sense of what I was seeing in those YouTube videos, which were piecemeal. And there were little details—like someone sticking a “Silence = Death” sticker on the sweaty flank of a police horse—where I was like, “I have to use that.” So that was heavily journalistic. You’re dealing with historical events, but it’s a fiction. There are no historical characters in the book at all, except glancing references to [public figures like] Mayor Harold Washington and Cardinal Bernardin and Governor James Thompson. And Ronald Reagan. Another thing that happened in 1985 is that President Reagan spoke about AIDS for the first time publicly. In 1985! Because he had been safely reelected. That was a long decision process for me about whether to include actual names of activists, actual names of newspapers. It ultimately came down to not wanting to write about real people as much, [though] in certain cases I think people are going to draw comparisons. I really needed to, for instance, reinvent the gay press scene so that I wasn’t talking about an editor of Windy City Times, because that was an actual person. I can’t just make up his life. But if I’m going to reinvent that, I need to reinvent everything. There were certain areas where I was like, “I need to get it exactly right. I don’t want to make up bars, I want to use real bars. I don’t want to mess up the ACT UP demo.” But this was a whole sphere where I was like, “I need to just completely reinvent it.” For several reasons, a lot of them having to do with what I was free to do with these characters, the kind of people I needed them to be for the plot, because ultimately, like I said, I’m not writing nonfiction. Or even Ragtime, a novel in which fictional and real-life figures interact. No, right, exactly. I’m writing a novel where I want to get things either right if I’m telling the truth or plausible where I’m not. 1 Danny Sotomayor was an AIDS activist and a political cartoonist in the gay community in the 1980s and early ’90s, until he died of AIDS in 1992 at age 33. A prominent and controversial figure, he was a subject of a feature story in the Reader: “The Angriest Queer,” by writer Joseph Crump, published August 16, 1990.

I’m not writing nonﬁction. Someone out there needs to write the comprehensive nonﬁction history of AIDS in cities that were not New York or San Francisco. Someone needs to write a book about Chicago. A full-on scholarly thing, you know what I mean? This is not that book. -Rebecca Makkai

What is the takeaway you want to give to people who lived through this [period], and then to people your own age and younger? As much as I know I can never perfectly capture this world, I would love for people who lived through this to feel some recognition, to feel some catharsis. To have a book that they could give to someone else and say, “Hey, listen, if you want to know more about this, this is what I lived through.” It bothers me that this Chicago story has not been told nationally. When there are things I’ve left out, where there are things that people feel don’t represent exactly what their experience was, I would very much hope that they would take that as a starting point for telling their own story. There were several people who I met with who afterward kept e-mailing me with more and more stuff that they would remember. In at least one case, someone e-mailed me and the book had already gone off to press. This guy has incredible stories and was on the receiving end of so much stress and grief and pain for so long. And I was like, “Let’s have coffee sometime, but I can’t use anything more.” He wrote back and he was like, “You know, gosh, maybe this is a sign that I should J write this down myself.” And it absolutely is.

JUNE 14, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 15

é RYAN EDMUND

continued from 15 I was editor of Chicago’s GayLife newspaper from July 1981 through April 1985. The week I started there, the New York Times reported on a cluster of cases of a rare cancer, Kaposi’s Sarcoma, aﬀecting gay men in California and New York. It was an early sign of the AIDS epidemic that emerged over the next few years—the most important, alarming, and perplexing story the paper covered during my tenure. Here are some stats on AIDS in Chicago. —ALBERT WILLIAMS

1982

1992

2015

Number of HIV diagnoses

1,622

921

Number of people living with HIV

7,578

23,824

Number of AIDS diagnoses (i.e. stage 3 HIV)

1,728

372

Deaths among people living with HIV

1,017

327

STATISTICS COURTESY OF THE CHICAGO DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH

16 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 14, 2018

One of the important locations in the novel that is very authentic and detailed is Illinois Masonic hospital. It had an AIDS unit—Unit 371—which was really a home away from home for a lot of people, because you would go and you would visit your friends, and then you would see someone else you didn’t know was sick. Or, as you have in the novel, a man visiting his ex-lover realizing that this is probably where he will end up dying himself. And the heroic people who worked in that place. It was so powerful. I did my research in layers. So I’d write a bit, research, write a bit, research. In my initial outlines, my initial thinking, I was assuming that most people’s hospital experience was going to be fairly uncaring, negative, and those [cases] certainly were out there. I’ve made sure they were represented in a couple of different ways in the book. But I had no idea there was a place this wonderful. The picture I have of it in my mind is extraordinary and accurate, as far as I know, in terms of the comforts that were there. The restaurants that would donate food on certain nights of the week. The people that would come in to cut hair, the massage, the fish tank in the lobby. Two different people drew me floor maps [of the AIDS unit]. Before I’d gone up there, they drew me floor plans and they were wildly contradictory of each other, which I found really funny. I was showing the one guy what the other person had drawn and he was like, “No!” Then I went up there. It’s still there. It’s closed, of course. It is not really a unit anymore. The rooms are still there. They’re being used for meeting rooms and nap rooms for on-call doctors and storage. The lights are, at least in my experience, always kind of half dimmed. I spent a lot of time. First when I went, I just looked around and took photos, took videos, was carrying my two contradictory hand-drawn maps in hand. Things had changed too. Walls have shifted over time. For a while there was a smoking lounge. Then they tore down a wall to make the art therapy room. So I’m kind of piecing it all together. And in specific, certain rooms where I’d heard of certain things happening, trying to think, “Oh, this must have been the room.” Then I went back a couple of more times, and at a certain point there was a bench there in the hallway, and I just sat there with my laptop and I was writ-

ing. I sort of sketched out the scenes that would happen at Masonic but I was really writing those scenes there. Particularly some of the last scenes of the novel, without talking too intensely about that. There was one room that was ajar. I think it would have been a patient room and it actually would have been one of the single rooms that would have been used for hospice in the back of the unit, which I knew from conversations. It was cracked and there was—I just thought this is the room, this the room where Yale— Never mind, I’m not going to say that—this is the room I’m gonna use at a crucial point in this book. It’s funny because—I felt in so many ways as I was writing this like Danny Sotomayor was fucking haunting me. Things would happen and I was like, what? Again, he was ubiquitous, but there were certain weird things, and one of them was this room. I later told a friend who was also a friend of [Danny’s] about this room and he said, “Well, which room was it?” and I drew it on a map and he was like, “Yeah, that was where Danny died.” It was just the room that I was, you know, drawn to, that was magically ajar, that I saw it and was like, “This is it.” So. But Danny is not actually depicted in this book. No. Well, there’s a guy with a macaw on his shoulder. The absolute Easter egg for anyone who really lived through this is Yale looks past a guy with a green-and-blue macaw on his shoulder in the park. I’m gonna say that’s Danny. That’s something that, you know, like 12 people are going to get that. But it’s there. I wanted to have it in there. It meant something to me. It’s so terrifying [for an author] to have any book go out and this one, for so many reasons, is just extra terrifying. You’re dealing with some real stories and, you know, ﬁction is always lying and trying to get away with it. It always feels like playing that old game show, where they’re like: “Would the real ‘whoever’ please stand up?” To Tell the Truth? Thank you, that’s what it was, To Tell the Truth. You always feel like one of those contestants. They’re asking you things like, “So, you’re the Boy Scout commissioner of the USA, tell

Chicago Dyke March 2013, Uptown é SARAH-JI

us this,” and [the contestants are] all trying desperately to sound like the Boy Scout commissioner of the USA. Whenever you write fiction, you end up doing that. I’m always trying to talk to my grad students [at Northwestern] about this, about how much research is involved in writing good fiction. You can’t just gloss over it. I asked you before about what you wanted people to take away— I answered the part about what do you want people to take from it who were there, but the part I didn’t answer was the part about people who weren’t there and don’t know. I do want people to realize this stuff. I want this to be an emotional education if not also a political education and a historical education. I’ve been alarmed at the number of people, very sweet, well-meaning people who I’ve spoken to as I’ve been writing this book and they ask me what I’m writing about and—I’m talking about, you know, maybe uppermiddle-class women, typical book buyers, honestly. I talk about that and they say, “Oh, I remember that time.” Like, it’s a thing they have not thought about in 20 years. Talking about AIDS as if it’s this thing of the past, which it isn’t. I’m realizing how little so many people know. So I hope very much that the people who weren’t paying attention at the time but were around that this is a start of a glimpse of what they missed. I hope this is the beginning— If my book is the first thing about the AIDS crisis that someone has read, I hope to God it’s not the last thing and that they’re running out to buy more. Or someone else in their book club says, “Hey, there’s this other book we should also read.” Also, there’s another category out there of the people who maybe would never read anything like this. I would love for some really conservative readers to happen upon this by mistake because their book club makes them read it. The Great Believers is a great title. Yeah, it’ll trick everyone, right? They’ll think it’s religious, it’s a Bible study guide! Oh, my God. I would love it! This book does get political. It’s not preachy, it’s just telling what actually happened. But the parallels between the conspiracy theorists freaking out about Obamacare and death panels and whatever— We always had death panels. And they condemned tens of thousands of men to die. And the fuckery of the insurance companies—sorry, use some other word, Chicago Reader—that is absolutely still going on. And the unaffordability of the medication, and the way people can be murdered slowly by institutions and by government, is something that is absolutely relevant and is absolutely still happening. And if this is a book that draws certain people in—maybe let’s just say they aren’t very political and they’re drawn to a character-driven novel that their friend liked—if this introduces them to some of those concepts and makes them think more deeply, more personally about some of those concepts, I will be thrilled. I also hope people just enjoy it. But if I just wanted people to enjoy a book, I would have written a different book. v THE GREAT BELIEVERS. By Rebecca Makkai (Viking). Book release party Tue 6/26, 7 PM, Women and Children First, 5233 N. Clark, 773-769-9299, womenandchildrenfirst.com. F

Solidarity forever After making international news last year, the 2018 Dyke March oﬃcially announces its support of Palestine. By KERRY CARDOZA

he first Chicago Dyke March took place in Lakeview in 1996, and from the very beginning, its intentions were radical. That first march, its organizers said, was conceived as an alternative to the “corporate, white male dominated Chicago Pride Parade.” To this day, it has no corporate sponsorships and doesn’t allow police officers or politicians to participate. Its original intention was also to increase dyke visibility, which in recent years has expanded to include queer, bisexual, and transgender folks. The Chicago Dyke March Collective, a fluctuating group of about ten core organizing members, is also explicitly antioppression. According to the group’s website, the event is an “anti-racist, anti-violent” grassroots effort. After last year’s Dyke March the collective put forth another core tenet, explicitly declaring itself anti-Zionist. It defines Zionism as “an inherently white-supremacist ideology . . . based on the premise that Jewish people have a God-given entitlement to the lands of historic Palestine and the surrounding areas.” Last year’s march made international news after three participants—Laurel Grauer, Eleanor Shoshany Anderson, and a third woman whose identity has not been made public—bearing rainbow flags emblazoned with the Star of David altered the chant “From Palestine to Mexico, border walls have got to go” to “From everywhere to Mexico.” When they were asked to stop by both Jewish and Palestinian organizers and participants, they refused. An argument ensued over what the three marchers meant by the term “Zionism”—the Anti-Defamation League defines it as “the national liberation movement of the Jewish people in the Jews historic homeland . . . based on providing for equal opportunity for the Jewish people, like

others, to have sovereignty in their land while still fully protecting the rights of minorities who live within Israel”— and eventually the organizers asked the women to leave the rally. The dispute—and also misleading reports about what had actually happened—led some organizations and op-ed columnists, including the Anti-Defamation League, the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council, and Bari Weiss of the New York Times, to dismiss the Dyke March out of hand, calling it anti-Semitic. This charge, however, doesn’t ring true to some Jewish participants present at last year’s march. On the event’s Facebook page, Li Palombo, who identiﬁes as an anti-Zionist “Jewish queer” writes, “I would like to put out a friendly reminder that anti-Zionism DOES NOT equal anti-Jewishness. I felt perfectly safe and accepted being Jewish at dyke march.” Stephanie Skora, a self-described “genderqueer trans woman” and “anti-racist, anti-Zionist white Jew,” echoes this sentiment. “Dyke March has always been safe for Jewish people,” she says. “There’s never been an issue with anybody being visibly Jewish at Dyke March.” Skora attended the march last year, and was one of the participants who engaged in dialogue with the three women who were asked to leave. She is also a member of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a national organization that supports the end of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. JVP issued a statement in support of Dyke March last year. Skora says she has every intention of attending the march again this year. “I have a Star of David tattooed on my arm and I plan on showing up being really proudly and visibly Jewish,” J she says.

JUNE 14, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 17

Chicago Dyke March 2014, Humboldt Park é SARAH-JI

continued from 17

For her part, Laurel Grauer does not plan on returning. “I don’t want to go if there’s only going to be agitation,” she says. “I feel like I’m a well-documented Jewish lesbian Zionist at this point so I don’t need to be in a parade for it for people to know.” After last year’s march, much was made of the fact that Grauer was at the time employed by A Wider Bridge, an LGBTQ advocacy organization that seeks to build community with Israel. A Wider Bridge had come under ﬁre following the National LGBTQ Task Force Creating Change Conference in 2016, which was held that year in Chicago. Anti-Zionist protesters interrupted an event hosted by A Wider Bridge and Jerusalem Open House, accusing organizers of “pinkwashing,” that is, using the Israeli government’s support of LGBTQ or progressive causes to downplay its human rights violations against Palestinians. An alliance of Chicagoarea activist groups, including Black Lives Matter, the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity, and JVP, accused A Wider Bridge of mischaracterizing that protest as anti-Semitic. Grauer says she thinks tensions rose in the Chicago LGBTQ activist community following the conference and were still running high at the time of last year’s Dyke March. After the march, A Wider Bridge called for the collective to apologize, writing that its response to Grauer and the two other marchers veered “down a dangerous path toward anti-semitism.” A collective member responded that the group had no reason to

18 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 14, 2018

apologize. (As of this May, Grauer is no longer employed by the organization.) When asked last week for a statement on the march, Ronit Bezalel, communications director of A Wider Bridge, responded in part, “We believe that full equality and inclusion of LGBTQ people is only possible if everyone is at the table. A Wider Bridge works with our allies in the progressive community to ensure that no one is asked to hide part of their identity, whether Palestinian, pro-Israel or other identities.” Last year the Anti-Defamation League also voiced support for Grauer and her companions. ADL regional director Lonnie Nasatir says, “We hope that there are no recriminations for those who choose to express their identity at this year’s march.” Daisy Zamora, a longtime Dyke March attendee, supports the collective’s actions. “Dyke March is a time for people to have fun,” she says. “It’s a time to celebrate being queer, being dyke. I think if people want to bring their ﬂags, that’s where it gets interesting, because we live in a world where there are colonizers and there are those that are colonized.” Zamora says she has always felt safe and welcomed at the march. “I think it’s good to say this is a safe place, and that means that your identity is respected. That also doesn’t mean that folks won’t be challenged if they fuck up, if they say something that’s oppressive to another group.” For this year’s march, the collective is making its stance on Palestine even more explicit. At a fund-raising event on May

31, collective member Sarah Youssef informed the crowd that this year’s march would be held in solidarity with Palestine. The ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine has been front-page news in recent weeks due to increased bombing and gunfire along the border with Gaza. (Core members declined to comment for this article.) “We are marching in La Villita, Little Village, again this year, to highlight and align ourselves with the struggles of brown and black and indigenous people here in the U.S. and in Chicago: undocumented folks, folks who deal with surveillance, incarceration, overpolicing,” Youssef said. “And really think about what that looks like here, what that looks like in Palestine, even though it’s unfortunately all too similar. I really hope [our] community is there to celebrate and to show our resilience and strength.” If the responses on Dyke March 2018’s Facebook page are any indication, this year’s march will likely be as well attended as previous years. And despite everything that happened, even Grauer still believes in the collective’s mission. “I know these people raise voices of people that need to be heard,” she says. “Every year is a year of new beginning. I hope this is a new beginning. I hope that—whether it’s Dyke March or other groups—we can look at this and think creatively at what can we do to come together, how can we find commonality, how can we be stronger and less divided.” v

m @booksnotboys

Thousands gathered on the north side for the 48th Annual Chicago Pride Parade last year. é ASHLEE REZIN/SUN-TIMES

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Pride

Serving Greater Chicagoland and surrounding Suburbs

weekends Big Gay Ice Cream Truck The iconic New York ice cream truck parks in the Gold Coast at Nico Osteria for Pride weekend, raising money for Howard Brown Health with a dessert menu featuring boozy collaborative creations such as Out and Proud Pops, freeze pops served submerged in a shot of tequila. Sat 6/23, 9 AM-11 PM, Sun 6/24, 9 AM-10:30 PM, Nico Osteria, 1015 N. Rush, 312-994-7100, nicoosteria.com. Cards Against Humanity Live Inspired by the ribald party game Cards Against Humanity, the improvisers in this group solicit sordid suggestions from the audience. This particular evening incorporates LGBTQthemed segments. Sat 6/16, 10 PM, Pride Arts Center, 4147 N. Broadway, 1-800-737-0984, pridefilmsandplays. com, $10. Chicago Pride Fest This street festival kicks off the city’s Pride celebration. Features include live music, local vendors, a dance party, and a pup parade. Sat 6/16-Sun 6/17, 11 AM-10 PM, Halsted and Waveland. Chicago Pride Parade It has arrived! The route for this year’s parade begins at Montrose and Broadway, ending at Diversey and Sheridan. Expect drag performers and elaborate balloon sculptures among the floats and revelers. Sun 6/24, noon, various locations. Let’s Make It Perfectly Queer: A Salute to Pride The Annoyance’s Mick Napier directs a cast composed of all-LGBTQ comedians performing new and classic Second City sketches concerning queer topics. Corey Caldwell, George David Elrod, Lanny Fox, Maya Haughton, Claudia Martinez, and Riley Mondragon take the stage. Through 6/24: Fri and Sun, 7 PM, Second City, 1616 N. Wells, 312-337-3992, secondcity.com, $20, $15 students. Raks Geek: Smoke + Wonders Composed of self-professed sideshow geeks, the Raks Geek dance troupe performs pieces inspired by “gods, demons,

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midi-chlorians, and superheroes with bellydance and fire.” A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the National Runaway Safeline to help LGBTQ+ youths. Sat 6/16, 10 PM, Uptown Underground, 4707 N. Broadway, 773-867-1946, uptownunderground.net, $25-$39. Steamworks: The Musical This comedic play, returning to the Annoyance for a limited run, is set in a Chicago bathhouse populated by gentlemen ready to welcome the new kid in town. Through 7/6: Fri 8 PM, Annoyance Theatre, 851 W. Belmont, 773-697-9693, theannoyance. com, $20, $15 students. Striking Out (A Gay Baseball Musical) In order to play baseball for the Chicago Otters, Jimmy Roberts must hide his horrifying secret: He’s straight. Will his shame tear the team apart? Sat 6/16, 8 PM, Annoyance Theatre, 851 W. Belmont, 773-697-9693, theannoyance. com, $20, $15 students. The T Join in the festivities at this launch party for The T, a new webseries prominently featuring LGBTQ characters. Mon 6/18, 7 PM, Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington, 312-744-6630, chicagoculturalcenter.org. 30 Queer Plays in 60 Straight Minutes The Neo-Futurists perform a queer-themed version of their tentpole show the Infinite Wrench to raise money for Brave Space Alliance, the first black-led, trans-led LGBTQ center on the south side. Thu 6/21, 7:30 PM, Neo-Futurarium, 5153 N. Ashland, 773-275-5255, neofuturists.org, $25.

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You’re Being Ridiculous Some of Chicago’s ﬁnest storytellers take center stage to raise money for the Women’s Voices Fund. The pride-themed lineup includes Carly Ballerini, Ada Cheng, Erin Diamond, Nestor Gomez, Jeremy Owens, and C. Russell Price. Sat 6/16, 7 PM, Women & Children First, 5233 N. Clark, 773-769-9299, womenandchildrenﬁrst.com, $10 cash. v

JUNE 14, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 19

ARTS & CULTURE Sydney Charles, Jacqueline Williams , Ernest Perry Jr., Michael Aaron Pogue, Ronald L Conner, and Kamal Angelo Bolden é LIZ LAUREN

THEATER

The odyssey

History resonates through Suzan-Lori Parks’s Civil War drama Father Comes Home From the Wars. By JACK HELBIG

here are plays that seduce and anesthetize and candy-coat everything to make the world taste good. And then there are plays like Suzan-Lori Parks’s three-part, three-hour 2014 drama Father Comes Home From the Wars, Parts 1, 2, & 3—long, complicated, intellectually teasing, hard-to-categorize works that riff on difficult issues and refuse to give expected, easy answers. Set in the American south at the time of the Civil War, Parks’s play focuses on the adventures of a slave as he serves his master, a colonel in the Confederate army. As the postmodernists would say, there are many competing narratives of what slave life was like in the antebellum south, ranging from the inane minstrel shows (happy-faced, childlike folk singing and dancing in the cotton ﬁelds) to the racist nostalgia of Gone With the Wind and its ilk to the overheated, antislavery propaganda of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the less melodramatic family history of Roots—and Parks, always the iconoclast, wants no part of any of them. Or rather, she wants to show us a new way of looking at a world we thought we knew. In her early play Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom, she strapped a tiny camera on the back of a cockroach, which then gave us a roach’s-eye tour of an inner-city apartment. In the current play she creates a story that resonates unexpectedly with other unrelated or tangentially related narratives.

20 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 14, 2018

Father Comes Home From the Wars is steeped in references to Greek drama and literature. The play’s structure echoes Aeschylus’s Oresteia—three short connected plays (Part 1, A Measure of a Man; Part 2, The Battle in the Wilderness; and Part 3, The Union of My Confederate Parts) that portray moments in a larger, not fully dramatized epic. Like the Greek dramatists, Parks uses a chorus to provide exposition or to comment on the action, though in her play the members of the chorus are also slaves (“The Chorus of Less than Desirable Slaves”). And Homer, too, is very present in the play, in the hero—called Hero in the ﬁrst two plays and Ulysses in the last— who goes to war and then returns home, in the

R WARS, PARTS 1, 2, & 3

FATHER COMES HOME FROM THE

Through 6/24: Wed-Thu 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 2 and 7:30 PM, Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn, 312-443-3800, goodmantheatre.org, $10-$40.

faithful woman (Penny) who waits for him, and, in in a po-mo touch, a character named Homer, though, ironically, he is neither blind nor a storyteller. The last part of the play is in many ways a retelling of Ulysses’s return home in The Odyssey, though Parks plays with the story a bit. In her version, Ulysses’s dalliance with

John Jandernoa, Amanda Maraist, Chih-Hsien Lin, and Enid Smith é CHRISTIAN DEKNOCK

Calypso has resulted in a child, and in an impediment to his reunion with Penny. Also, Ulysses’s faithful dog, Argos, has a larger role in Parks’s play (in The Odyssey, he merely recognizes his old master and then dies). It appears at first glance like Parks is drawing a parallel between the Trojan War and the American Civil War, but really the comparison she is making is not between the two wars—which were started differently and ended differently—but between the effect of both wars on the survivors. The characters in both Aeschylus’s Oresteia and Homer’s Odyssey suffer a kind of PTSD, as do the characters in Father Comes Home From the Wars. Likewise, reverberations from both the Trojan War and the Civil War continued to shake history long after the fighting ended. By bringing in allusions to works about the Trojan War, Parks also shakes up the audience, forcing us to look with new eyes at a war and a world we think we knew already. She doesn’t just want to say slavery is bad or that the Civil War was hell, she wants to show us their full effects—the way they distorted and damaged lives, and the ways the patterns of slavery live on in our own still-wounded culture and in our unequal justice system, which seems designed to incarcerate and disenfranchise more African-Americans than whites—a point made by costuming the slaves in orange prison jumpsuits. Parks also wants to show us how the influence of African culture and, by extension, slave culture on American life runs deeper than is often supposed: the banjo appears twice in the show, once in its African form and once in the more familiar iteration first popularized in minstrel shows. It’s a tiny detail but a powerful one, in a play full of tiny, powerful details. When the African banjo appears, it is owned and used by slaves. When the Americanized banjo appear, it is owned by a white slaveholder, Hero’s master. The banjo stands in for the slaves. Like them it has been appropriated by white society; Hero’s owner plays the banjo at the same time he toys with Hero, making promises he will never deliver on. The performances are universally strong; every gesture and glance add to the whole. Kamal Angelo Bolden and Almé Donna Kelly are particularly compelling as Ulysses and Penny, and BrittneyLove Smith is very winning as the faithful dog. v

THEATER DANCE

Close your eyes and relax

The Retreat may be the next best thing to a week in the wilderness. THE CREATORS OF KHECARI’S WEEKLONG DANCE EVENT, The Retreat, encourage audience members to fall asleep. Or rather Khecari’s artistic directors, Jonathan Meyer and Julia Rae Antonick, who have been developing the project since 2014, fuse improvisation and highly structured choreography into an amorphous performance designed to put viewers in a meditative headspace. Meyer and Antonick want to evoke the feeling of being in the wilderness, using fabric and light to transform Pilsen’s Glass Factory into a living environment. “There’s things happening sometimes, but it’s always existing,” says Antonick. “Your attention can go away, go inward, and then something will happen that stimulates your brain. There’s a lot of ways of interacting with the world.” Those interactions include optional movement, drawing, and writing workshops. Audience members are asked to complete an application when they book their tickets so the company can individualize their experiences. Stays range from two hours to the entire week, but instant immersion is the goal. “You can step out into the wilderness for ﬁve minutes, and it’s not a diﬀerent feel than what you get in a day or two,” says Meyer. “You experience more, but the feel is clear from the beginning.” THE RETREAT Mon 6/18-Sun 6/24: 24 hours,

the Glass Factory, 900 W. Cermak, khecari. org. F

The scope of The Retreat introduces a slew of logistical challenges. “Who’s cleaning every day so the space feels good?” asks Meyer. “How’s laundry getting done, because you can’t perform in sweaty, nasty clothing? They’re mundane issues, but incredibly important to how everyone is feeling.” Comfort for the audience and performers is a primary concern in creating a relaxed atmosphere where viewers can engage with material on their own terms as it develops organically before their eyes, open or closed. —OLIVER SAVA

A fabulous fair

There’s no devil in Burnham’s Dream: The White City, only music. This world premiere musical by June Finfer (book and lyrics) and Elizabeth Doyle (music and lyrics) recounts the behind-the-scenes drama in the creation of Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, arguably the most important cultural event in America in the decade leading up to the dawn of the 20th century. Presented by Finfer’s company Lost and Found Productions, the show focuses on Daniel Burnham, who supervised the building of the famed “White City” in Jackson Park. In Finfer’s telling, Burnham was an obsessive manager whose sometimes abrasive personality was complemented by his gentler, more artistically inclined architectural partner, John Wellborn Root. The pair was in charge of designing and building the fair, until Root’s untimely death from pneumonia in 1891 forced Burnham to commission other architects—including his rival, Louis Sullivan—to participate. Driven to bring his dream of a mammoth fair to life against huge odds—including Chicago’s dangerously brutal winter weather—Finfer’s Burnham also grows emotionally, becoming more aware of his great civic project’s impact not just on the city but on its people as he butts heads with the likes of philanthropist Bertha Palmer and civil rights journalist Ida B. Wells, who vigorously protests the fair’s underrepresentation of African-American achievements. The ten-person cast sings well to the accompaniment of an oﬀstage chamber quartet, and Doyle’s music evokes Gilded Age Chicago with waltzes and ragtime pieces as well as delicate art songs in the manner of Ned Rorem and Samuel Barber. —ALBERT WILLIAMS BURNHAM’S DREAM: THE WHITE CITY

Through 7/1: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, 773-975-8150, lostandfoundproductions.org, $37-$42.

A sinking ship

The Deckchairs can’t make American political comedy great again Flash back to just before the presidential election in 2016 when comedians were wringing their hands about then-candidate Donald Trump’s toxic eﬀect on people whose jobs it was to make fun of the news for a living. In an interview with Slate’s Jacob Weisberg, Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! host Peter Sagal memorably put the conundrum like this: “Well, what does Jonathan Swift do if they actually start eating the babies?” Two years later and in the thick of some predictably heinous shit, I think comics by and large have a lot to be proud of and that their worst fears about their industry did not, in fact, come to fruition. Rather, after some staﬀ turnover and soul-searching, television, podcast, sketch, stand-up and social media satirists became a powerful point of contrast to the both side-ism that has plagued mainstream political media. From explicit education and advocacy to cathartic tomfoolery to direct eye-poking, comics have risen to meet the unique challenges of the muck they have to comment upon. And yet, when it comes to full-on comedic plays, I’ve yet to see that evolution really reach the stage.

READER RECOMMENDED

b ALL AGES

In Sid Feldman’s two-hour, self-serious meme-based allegory, the ﬁrst-class passengers on the Titanic elect sinking denialist D.J. Drumpf (Brian Rohde) to command the ship. Smeared in ghastly, ghostly makeup and underlit vaudeville-style with accompanying snare drum hits to punctuate most of his lines, Drumpf throws paper towels, gropes under skirts, and holds batshit press conferences. Director Wm. Bullion’s production for the Conspirators hits most of the Twitter lowlights from the last few years without adding much to them. Like jokes on red MAGA hats, no amount of subversion here makes up for the bummer that is spending extra hours with Donald Trump. You can only shoot spitballs at someone for so long before you realize how long you’ve spent staring at their face. —DAN JAKES THE DECKCHAIRS, OR MAKE THE TITANIC

GREAT AGAIN Through 6/30: Thu-Sat 8:30 PM,

Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln, 773404-7336, conspirewithus.org, $30, $18 students.

R A haunted house

In The Displaced, the ghosts of gentriﬁcation won’t leave a young couple alone.

Isaac Gomez’s exciting new thriller mixes bumps in the night with poignant social commentary, similar to Jordan Peele’s Get Out. In its world premiere, produced by Haven Theatre and directed by Jo Cattell, the one-act two-hander features charismatic performances by Karen Rodriguez and Rashaad Hall. They play Marisa and Lev, a young couple with a visibly strained relationship marred by the distance created by device addiction, mistrust, and some deep-seated hurt around the challenges of an interracial relationship. They hope their new apartment in Pilsen will get them “running toward each other instead of away,” as Marisa puts it, but their spats only intensify in the mess of moving and the subsequent discovery that their space may have a mind of its own. The discovery of an old photo album spurs conversation around the previous tenants, a Latino family forced out as a consequence of gentrification, and from there the tension builds in the form of both superficial arguments and supernatural happenings. It soon becomes clear Marisa has more familiarity with magic and ofrendas (ritual objects and offerings) than she is letting on, and her refrain of “things are only real if you let them be real” undergoes subtle changes of meaning as the story races toward a terrifying conclusion. Rodriguez is spellbinding as Marisa, mixing humor and emotion as her internal psyche and external circumstances begin to unravel. Arnel Sancianco’s scenic design provides a spooky backdrop, including an upstage closed door that’s positively frightening. —MARISSA OBERLANDER THE DISPLACED Through

7/1: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee, 773-697-3830, haventheatrechicago. com, $20.

R A magnificent mausoleum

Two Guards at the Taj meditate on the nature of beauty.

A magniﬁcent mausoleum, commissioned by Shah Jahan as a monument for his most loved wife, Mumtaz Mahal, designed by the architect Ustad Isa, formed by the hands of 20,000 men, the Taj Mahal was built bB

JUNE 14, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 21

ARTS & CULTURE Guards at the Taj é MICHAEL BROSILOW

164 North State Street

Between Lake & Randolph MOVIE HOTLINE: 312.846.2800

FIVE SEASONS

“Grapples with the ideas and themes that made Rodin such a radical force in sculpture.” — Screen Daily

THE GARDENS OF PIET OUDOLF

RODIN

June 15 – 21

Fri., 6/15 at 2:15, 6, & 7:45 pm; Sat., 6/16 at 6:15 pm; Sun., 6/17 at 2 pm; Mon., 6/18 at 6 pm; Tue., 6/19 at 8:15 pm; Wed., 6/20 at 6 pm; Thu., 6/21 at 8:30 pm

Fri., 6/15 at 3:45 & 6:15 pm; Sat., 6/16 at 7:45 pm; Sun., 6/17 at 3:30 pm; Mon., 6/18 at 7:30 pm; Tue., 6/19 at 6 pm; Wed., 6/20 at 7:30 pm; Thu., 6/21 at 6 pm

Movie Club discussion on Friday at the 7:45 pm show with director Thomas Piper and Lurie Garden’s Head Horticulturist Laura Ekasetya in person!

Directed by Jacques Doillon and starring Vincent Lindon!

JUNE 15 - 21 • GRACE JONES: BLOODLIGHT AND BAMI BUY TICKETS NOW

Monday, June 18: Post-screening dance party with DJ I.N.C. (included in ticket price).

www.siskelﬁlmcenter.org

From the Directors of THE TWO ESCOBARS

“CHARGED AND POIGNANT” –THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

STARTS FRIDAY, JUNE 15 22 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 14, 2018

FACETS CINÉMATHÈQUE 1517 W Fullerton Ave (773) 281-4114 Fri 6/15: 7:00 & 9:00 Sat 6/16: 1:00, 3:00, 5:00, 7:00, 9:00 Sun 6/17: 1:00, 3:00, 5:00, 7:00 Mon-Thur 6/18-21: 7:00, 9:00

« behind an encircling wall for sixteen years, intended to be unveiled at day’s first light, revealing a pure and complete glory that could be experienced just once before, like us and everything, it began to decay. Rajiv Joseph’s Guards at the Taj does not show the edifice or its builders to us, instead allowing the dome, the minarets, the gardens, the marble, turquoise, jade, and lapis lazuli to be seen through the eyes of the two lowliest guards tasked to defend it. Friends since boyhood, Humayun (Omar Metwally) and Babur (Arian Moayed) are mediocre guards because they see and hear too much: the redbreasted jibjab singing before the sun rises; that blasphemy gets three days in jail but sedition death by elephant; that the Taj Mahal, the most beautiful thing ever made, contains as much suffering as beauty. Joseph’s work, directed by Amy Morton, is a piercing examination of the nature of beauty, its relationship to power, and its unspeakable costs. Though pawns of a dictatorship that does not acknowledge their existence other than as subjects and agents of oppression, ambitious Humayun and imaginative Babur, sensitively rendered by Metwally and Moayed, are profoundly alive in dialogues that roam across visions and inventions, horror and pain. Beauty and violence coexist in the same minds, in the same unfortunate world. —IRENE HSIAO GUARDS AT THE TAJ Through 7/22: Wed-Fri

7:30 PM, Sat-Sun 3 and 7:30 PM, Tue 7:30 PM; no performance 7/4, Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted, 312-335-1650, steppenwolf.org, $56-$94, $15 students.

A complicated classic

Daniel Kyri turns in a triumphant performance in the Gift’s Hamlet. Make the ghost real. Make Hamlet a genius and a killer at the same time. Make Ophelia’s insanity inevitable. Make Polonius wise. Or is the ghost an illusion through and through? Is Hamlet a privileged monster, a whiny misogynistic fencing enthusiast and creep who commits foul murder with impunity, writes blatantly offensive letters, and enjoys a good four-hour pacing session by himself around the halls at Elsinore? Is it Ophelia’s play, really? Is Polonius a clown? To say that this Gift Theatre production, led by director Monty Cole, finds all the right answers to these questions assumes that they have right answers, which they don’t. Like “to be or not to be,” the only sure answer is an equivocation, another question. Daniel Kyri, who heads up a predominantly black cast, brings utter control over the language and a quality of hard-won majesty to the role of Hamlet. Kyri also has the ability to inflict the most profound hurt imaginable, as he demonstrates in Hamlet’s falling-out with Ophelia (Netta Walker), or when he viciously shanks Polonius (Robert Cornelius). In its sensitivity to the violent contradictory impulses within each scene, Kyri’s Hamlet is a triumph. On a practical note, the entire cast could do with being twice as loud as they think they need to be. William Boles’s vivid set design includes a pane of transparent plastic at the apron’s edge, simulating a mirror. A fine illustration of the going aesthetic theory in Shakespeare’s time (“hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature,” Hamlet says), it muffles the sound something awful. —MAX MALLER HAMLET Through 7/29: Thu-Fri

7:30 PM, Sat 2 and 7:30 PM, Sun 2:30 PM, Gift Theatre, 4802 N. Milwaukee, 773-283-7071, gifttheatre. org, $35-$40, $25 seniors, $20 students and industry.

And eminent doom

Too many metaphors spoil the drama in Opportunities Of Extinction. In Sam Chanse’s 2017 one-act, romantic partners and ardent social critics Mel and Arjun attempt to escape the world—at least for one night—in Joshua Tree National Park. Arjun, a professor of ethnic studies, fears an ill-advised tweet about campus racism may end his career at USC. Mel, already in mid-career meltdown, has retreated from her abuse-ﬁlled stint as a lightning-rod “hot shit blogger” to write an experimental novel no one’s likely to read. It seems the overweening twitterverse, where everyone is righteously aggrieved for a few minutes, has turned the sort of sustained analysis Mel and Arjun favor into a quaint fossil. Problem is, they’ve set up camp in a metaphor for their own lives, as roving, tightly-wound Youth Conservation Corps member Georgia makes abundantly clear through a series of overdetermined encounters. The Joshua tree, like nuanced civil discourse, is on the verge of extinction. So, indeed, is everything, as the earth is four million years overdue for its next extinction cycle. The question becomes: facing imminent(ish) doom, how does one engage meaningfully with the world? Chanse doesn’t suggest answers so much as reillustrate the question through additional unnecessary metaphors, resulting in more philosophical musings than drama. Director Jen Poulin’s hesitant Broken Nose production struggled to ﬁnd its rhythms on opening night, partly because an understudy performed with script in hand. Only Echaka Agba as Mel delivered a performance with nuance and depth, as she routinely does. —JUSTIN HAYFORD OPPORTUNITIES OF

EXTINCTION Through 6/30: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun

3 PM; also Wed 6/27, 7:30 PM, Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee, 773-697-3830, brokennosetheatre.com, pay what you can. v

Get showtimes at chicagoreader.com/movies.

ARTS & CULTURE R

RSM

Logan Marshall-Green in Upgrade

www.BrewView.com 3145 N. Sheffield at Belmont

MOVIES

Man of steal

Horror director Leigh Whannell rips oﬀ so many other movies that his Upgrade becomes a collage. By BEN SACHS

eigh Whannell’s low-budget horror feature Upgrade, now playing in general release, reminds me of the goofy genre mash-ups made by Brian De Palma in the 1960s and ’70s (Hi, Mom!, Phantom of the Paradise) and Takashi Miike in the 1990s and the aughts (Fudoh: The New Generation, The Happiness of the Katakuris). Whannell steals from so many different movies—and does it so cheerfully—that Upgrade stops feeling derivative and starts looking like a collage, with the recycled elements forming a new sensibility. Like the De Palma and Miike films, this one takes place in a selfaware cinematic world where taboos don’t exist and anything is possible, the writer-director hurling out narrative developments and sci-fi conceits. The film takes place in an unspecified future era outside an unidentified first-world city, and the lack of a definite setting feels appropriate, suggesting that Upgrade belongs solely to the movies. Grey (Logan Marshall-Green), a 20th-century nostalgist, makes a living fixing up old cars—i.e., ones that don’t drive themselves. He spends most of his time at home, while his wife, Asha (Melanie Vallejo), works at a tech company that makes robotic limbs for wounded veterans. These bits of exposition ssss EXCELLENT

sss GOOD

evoke both David Cronenberg’s 1999 fantasy eXistenZ (in the wooded setting and the theme of digital technology fusing with human body parts) and Spike Jonze’s 2013 romance Her (in characterizing the future through longing for the past). These points of reference become more pronounced as Upgrade proceeds, even as Whannell throws in aspects of Michael Winner’s Death Wish (1974), Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2014), George Romero’s Monkey Shines (1988), and Carl Reiner’s All of Me (1984). Hired to fix a car for a reclusive software designer named Eron Keen (Harrison Gilbertson), Grey takes Asha with him to meet the designer in his top-secret underground studio. (Felicity Abbott’s production design conveys a sense of mystery and futurism with minimal means.) Keen, shown working on some mysterious project, is essentially Grey’s opposite, obsessed with the future whereas Grey is committed to preserving the past. Their meeting is awkward, and the couple depart in their self-driving car. In a frightening twist, the car gets hacked and soon the couple find themselves in an industrial corridor where thugs lie in wait. They kill Asha and shoot Grey in the spine, leaving him quadriplegic. Having learned of Grey’s accident, Keen of-

ss AVERAGE

s POOR

•

WORTHLESS

fers to implant a computer chip in Grey’s spine that can take control of his motor functions. Grey agrees, only to discover after the surgery that the computer chip, called Stem, is also artificially intelligent. Stem, which talks to Grey in a soothing monotone reminiscent of the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, uses surveillance technology to locate the men who killed Grey’s wife; when Grey confronts them, it uses a predictive algorithm to anticipate the assailants’ moves and manipulates Grey’s limbs as if he were a Swiss Army knife, laying waste to his attackers in a comically exacting manner. The ease with which Whannell navigates the pile-up of ideas can be breathtaking—Upgrade may be the first sci-fi revenge buddy comedy. The fight scenes in Upgrade suggest someone kicking ass at a video game such as Grand Theft Auto, the choreographed violence so precise that it becomes hypnotic and a little eerie. And for a while, the murders provide good, amoral fun—because a computer chip is doing all the work, Grey can remain a sympathetic, even pitiable hero. Yet like Monkey Shines, which dealt with a quadriplegic man and his homicidal service animal, the film asks whether the hero can really be innocent of murders committed by an entity with whom he shares a symbiotic relationship. One rarely finds such moral ambiguity in a popcorn movie. Whannell also mines his premise for topical commentary: Stem turning Grey into a killing machine is only a satirical exaggeration of how the Internet can bring out the worst in people. Upgrade’s smooth turn into intellectual provocation may be the most surprising thing about it. (By comparison, the twist ending— stolen from the 1970 cult classic Colossus: The Forbin Project—feels somewhat forced.) Whannell, in throwing so many different ideas at the wall, finally comes across one that sticks. But even though he seems to arrive at his big ideas haphazardly, Whannell sees them through. Here’s a filmmaker who doesn’t just evoke other movies but also seems to have learned from them. v UPGRADE sss Directed by Leigh Whannell. R, 95 min. For listings visit chicagoreader.com/movies.

m @1bsachs

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

18 to enter 21 to drink Photo ID required

Sunday, June 17 @ 4:00pm

Black Panther Sunday, June 17 @ 6:30pm Tue-Wed, June 19-20 @ 6:30pm

Ready Player One Sunday, June 17 @ 9:05pm Tue-Wed, June 19-20 @ 9:05pm

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JUNE 14, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 23

ARTS & CULTURE MOVIES NEW REVIEWS

Hearts Beat Loud

The widowed proprietor of a Brooklyn record shop (Nick Oﬀerman) pressures his college-bound daughter (Kiersey Clemons) to abandon her life plans and instead collaborate with him on an indie-rock band; in the sort of puerile fantasy common to such stories, their pedestrian song demo becomes an instant sensation on Spotify, hailed as proof positive that the daughter has “got it.” Writer-director Brett Haley, blowing whatever critical acclaim he might have earned for his Sam Elliott vehicle The Hero (2017), coaxes a few weak laughs from the daddy-daughter role reversal, and stale, mushy drama from the cycling death of the girl’s mother more than a decade earlier. Haley likes working with faded TV stars,

Bayaya

so there are roles here for Ted Danson as a philosophical bartender and Blythe Danner as the girl’s comically demented grandmother. —J.R. JONES PG-13, 97 min. Century 12 and CineArts 6, Landmark’s Century Centre, River East 21.

Mountain

This Australian nonﬁction feature plays like a highbrow version of an IMAX nature documentary. Director Jennifer Peedom presents one gorgeous image after another of mountains and mountaineering; she also provides a cerebral counterpoint to the visual spectacle with Richard Tognetti’s modernist score and Willem Dafoe’s voice-over readings from Mountains of the Mind, the philosophical memoir by British mountaineer Robert Macfarlane. Peedom subtly argues that mountaineering, which enables people to explore previously unseen parts of the world, helped usher in a less spiritual, more scientiﬁc age; at the same time she tries to create a meditative, even transcendent experience through reverential depictions of the natural world. The tension between these two thematic elements sustains one’s interest even as the imagery becomes redundant. —BEN SACHS PG, 74 min. Fri 6/15-Wed 6/20, 1:50, 3:45, 5:30, 7:30, and 9:40 PM; and Thu 6/21, 1:50, 3:45, 5:30, and 7:30 PM. Music Box.

R Nossa Chape

A compelling human-interest story, this Brazilian documentary follows the rising soccer team Chapecoense after the November 2016 plane crash that killed 19 players and the entire staff. The new manager quickly replenishes the roster and hires a strict coach who, removing photos of the deceased from the locker room, pushes the untested squad to its first match barely two months after the tragedy. Meanwhile the three surviving players are recruited as poster boys for the new sponsor and widows of the players face a court battle over their dead spouses’ image rights. Despite the bitterness and discord, the team resurges; even more miraculously, friendship and loyalty make a comeback too. Jeff and Michael Zimbalist and Julian Duque directed. In Portuguese with subtitles. —ANDREA GRONVALL 101 min. Fri 6/15-Thu 6/21. Facets Cinematheque.

Rodin

This biopic of the influential French sculptor focuses on his sexual and professional exploitation of his brilliant young student and model Camille Claudel, who lived in Rodin’s shadow long after their affair had ended and who spent her last 30 years confined to an insane asylum. Her story has become a feminist parable of sorts, dramatized onstage and onscreen, but writer-director

Jacques Doillon (Ponette) is less concerned with her victimization than with the thinking behind Rodin’s work and the artistic signiﬁcance of the lovers’ feverish sex life: scenes of them rolling around in the sheets, a tangle of arms and legs, provide a real-world corollary for their careful study of the human form in the studio sequences. Claudel (Izïa Higelin) may be a tigress in bed, but nothing about her excites Rodin (Vincent Lindon of The Measure of a Man) more than her insight into his unﬁnished sculptures. In French with subtitles. —J.R. JONES 119 min. Fri 6/15, 3:45 and 6:15 PM; Sat 6/16, 7:45 PM; Sun 6/17, 3:30 PM; Mon 6/18, 7:30 PM; Tue 6/19, 6 PM; Wed 6/20, 7:30 PM; and Thu 6/21, 6 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center.

Superfly

The 1972 blaxploitation classic Super Fly gets a millennial remake, transplanted from seedy Harlem to fur-clad Atlanta, with Trevor Jackson as the well-coiffed cocaine dealer Priest and a supporting cast that includes Jason Mitchell, Esai Morales, and Michael Kenneth Williams. The original film was propelled by Curtis Mayfield’s dynamic score and the lively camera work and itchy pacing of director Gordon Parks, Jr.; this one strolls around by comparison (it must be the heat), taking itself pretty seriously most of the time but delivering a few choice comic moments (a car chase through a public park ends with the bad guy wiping out against a Confederate monument). Julien Christian Lutz bills himself as “Director X,” which seems inconsistent with this proud celebration of thug life. —J.R. JONES R, 116 min. ArcLight, Century 12 and CineArts 6, Chatham 14, City North 14, Crown Village 18, Ford City, River East 21, Showplace ICON.

The Year of Spectacular Men

Actor Lea Thompson (Back to the Future) makes her directorial debut with this ribald comedy about youngadult growing pains, costarring her real-life daughters,

Zooey and Madelyn Deutch, as siblings and featuring herself as their New Age-y mother. The quirky, directionless elder sibling (Madelyn, who also wrote the script) moves in with her younger sister, a rising movie star (Zooey), and dates a rash of unavailable men. The beaus take up too much screen time, given that the most aﬀecting love stories involve the sisters and their mother; the few scenes with this close-knit trio are the ﬁlm’s highlights. —LEAH PICKETT 102 min. Fri 6/15-Thu 6/21. Facets Cinematheque. REVIVALS

R Bayaya

By the time Czech animator Jiri Trnka made this extraordinary 1950 feature, adapting two fairy tales by Czech writer Božena Němcová, his strategic use of shadow had become an art in itself: the elaborate medieval sets are often cloaked in darkness, with spot lighting on the characters and immediate objects to conjure up a mood of foreboding. A peasant boy whose mother has died encounters a white horse that identiﬁes itself as her ghost; led by the horse to an eerie castle, the boy falls in love with a princess there and charges into battle with a multiheaded dragon; every time he chops oﬀ one of its goggle-eyed heads, which fall to the ground with jaws still snapping, another head pops up to replace it. —J.R. JONES 75 min. Sun 6/17, 3:45 PM, and Wed 6/20, 6 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center.

Feel My Pulse

Gregory La Cava, a master of verbal comedy in the sound era (Stage Door, My Man Godfrey), directed this 1928 silent feature. Bebe Daniels stars as a hypochondriac visiting a sanitarium that turns out to be a front for rum runner William Powell. —J.R. JONES 63 min. 35mm archival print. Dennis Scott provides live organ accompaniment. Sat 6/16, 11:30 AM. Music Box. SPECIAL EVENTS

Jewel’s Catch One

C. Fitz directed this 2016 documentary about Jewel Thais-Williams and her long-running Los Angeles nightclub Catch One, which provided a haven for black and LGBTQ individuals. 98 min. Fri 6/15, 7:30 PM. Stony Island Arts Bank. F

Liza: The Fox-Fairy

Nossa Chape

24 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 14, 2018

In this 2015 Hungarian black comedy, a woman seeking love is cursed by the ghost of a Japanese pop singer that causes the death of any man who enters her life. Károly Ujj Mészáros directed. In Hungarian and Japanese with subtitles. 98 min. Screens as part of Cinema/ Chicago’s free summer-ﬁlm series; for a full schedule visit chicagoﬁlmfestival.com/events. Wed 6/20, 6:30 PM. Chicago Cultural Center. F v

MUSIC

Recommended and notable shows and critics’ insights for the week of June 14 b ALL AGES F

PICK OF THE WEEK

The feminist spirit of Neko Case shines through loud and clear on Hell-On

Ashley Monroe é HANNAH BURTON

THURSDAY14 Ashley Monroe Kevin Andrew Prchal opens. SPACE, 1245 Chicago Ave., Evanston, $20-$35. b

é EMILY SHUR

NEKO CASE, RAY LAMONTAGNE

Sat 6/16, 7:30 PM, Huntington Bank Pavilion, 1300 S. Linn White, $29.75-$89.75. b

NEKO CASE HAS rarely voiced her ideas directly in gorgeously, meticulously plotted music, preferring allusion, metaphor, and the pure sound of language, but there’s no missing a sense of mission and drive on her new album Hell-On (Anti). The travails Case endured during the production of the album have been widely reported; her Vermont home burned down while she was in Sweden recording with Björn Yttling of Peter Bjorn & John, and she dealt with both a fanatic stalker and a prying reporter. Much of the music was written before these trials, and as always her ﬁghting feminist spirit bursts through most of the songs. The title track opens the album with a Zen-like expression of the ultimate helplessness of mankind, as she asserts, “God is not a contract / Or a guy / God is an unspeciﬁed tide.” From there she moves on to subjects where she’s intent on demanding agency; “My Uncle’s Navy” is a portrait and rejection of a bullying, abusive man (not an actual blood

relative), and “Last Lion of Albion” takes on colonialism through a feminist lens. Case was laying down the vocals to “Bad Luck” in the immediate aftermath of the house fire; her voice registers a mixture of resignation and vulnerability as she catalogs a streak of bad luck before insisting, “My heart could break for a one-legged seagull.” “Winnie,” about a titular character who’s a badass worthy of Case’s admiration, functions as a love letter to women in general: “I wanted to be her sailor’s tattoo,” she sings. The record was made with a large cast of collaborators, and among them the vocalists make the greatest impact: Kelly Hogan, Nora O’Connor, Laura Veirs, Beth Ditto, and K.D. Lang, and others provide harmony singing, and Case duets with Mark Lanegan and Eric Bachman. The elegant melodies don’t cleave to any particular style as they ﬂoat over lush, soaring pop-rock arrangements with the slightest hint of the singer’s twangy roots. —PETER MARGASAK

Singer and songwriter Ashley Monroe has built a career with one foot deep inside Nashville orthodoxy as a member of Pistol Annies (with Miranda Lambert and Angaleena Presley) and a Warner Bros. solo artist, and the other staunchly outside of the middle-of-the-road sentimentality typical of mainstream country. Monroe made her latest album, Sparrow, with de rigueur producer Dave Cobb, who’s helped fashion a rich blend of countrypolitan gloss with sleek soul undercurrents. Her songwriting (she cowrote each song with a wide cast of cohorts) embodies the sort of emotional complexity and moral ambiguity that’s been an endangered species in country music for decades. The album title comes from opening track “Orphan,” a fragile meditation on life’s uncertainty that draws upon the persistence and survival instincts of the small, wild bird, but throughout the record she explores the gamut of human emotion and experience. She delves into desire and lust on songs such as “Hands on You” and “Wild Love,” while on others she reflects on parental impact: “Mother’s Daughter” weighs in on inherited commitment problems and “Daddy I Told You”—a missive to her father, who died from cancer when she was a teenager—proclaims the pride she gleaned from him in lyrics such as “Daddy don’t you know I’m carrying / Your spirit like a torch.” Her most unalloyed expression comes in “She Wakes Me Up (Rescue Me),” a joyful celebration of a child that’s full of unconditional love. “I love my baby, she’s the light of the world / She wakes me up with the sun in her eyes,” she sings. Elsewhere J

JUNE 14, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 25

SAM HUNT

DIERKS BENTLEY

TOBY KEITH

LUKE BRYAN

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW AT COUNTRYTHUNDER.COM 26 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 14, 2018

MUSIC King Coya and Queen Cholas é NORA LEZANO

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Monroe confronts the type of everyday struggles that visit long-term relationships in a way that touches upon the faith in tenacity depicted in the opening track. In “Paying Attention” she’s moved on to something new, but her heart and head can’t let go of hope. —PETER MARGASAK

FRIDAY15 Matt Piet 8:30 PM, Constellation, 3111 N. Western, $15, $12 in advance. 18+ Pianist Matt Piet is a Palos Park native who jumped into the local improvised music scene in 2014 when he returned home after ﬁnishing his studies at Boston’s Berklee School of Music. Since then, he’s rapidly achieved an exalted status among a younger generation of musicians through his abiding sense of curiosity, drive to collaborate, and raw talent. Earlier this year Piet dropped Rummage Out (Clean Feed) and Throw Tomatoes (Astral Spirits), albums he made with two of the working combos he’s developed with players a generation older than he is—a sign of the respect he’s earned. Now he’s saluting his peers with City in a Garden (Ears & Eyes), a new recording built around duos, trios, and quartets with some of Chicago’s most promising rising talent across nine untitled improvisations (I’ll forgive Piet for approving the awful album cover, which looks like a clip-art silhouette of Chicago). Depending on the collaborator, Piet swings ﬁercely or unravels wonderful shattered-glass clusters and jagged runs, revealing a keen knowledge of the history of jazz and improvised music. He achieves an impressive, slow-moving introspection with Macie Stewart, who braids astringent long tones on violin and vocals

that shift from mournful, wordless melodies to impressive overtone singing. His quartet with saxophonist Gerrit Hatcher, bassist Charlie Kirchen, and drummer Julian Kirshner is tightly coiled as close intervals, friction, and tangled phrases seethe like livewire lashing the ground in unpredictable spasms before the combo locks into a forceful swing, balancing propulsion with frenetic digressions and raw energy; when the group is reduced to a trio with Hatcher, Piet suggests the early work of Cecil Taylor with phrases that surge and recede in elegant flurries. Guitarist Steve Marquette (the Few) brings a nifty post-Derek Bailey mixture of string hammering and flinty friction to his duets with Piet, who offers a comparatively lush counterpoint. Most of the players on the record—Hatcher, Kirshner, drummer Bill Harris, and saxophonist Jake Wark— will reconvene tonight, joined by violinist Johanna Brock, bassist Eli Namay, and guitarist Matt Murphy in a variety of small groupings. —PETER MARGASAK

Retirement Party What Gives, Dead Sun, and Lettering open. 8:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, $10. 17+ If there was a soundtrack to ﬁt the lives of Chicago’s latest generation of pop-punk fans, it would probably feature the Retirement Party. Fronted by Michigan native and Logan resident Avery Springer, Retirement Party understand the nuances of poppunk and emo like they’re water and air, and their new debut album, Somewhat Literate (Counter Intuitive), plays like a conversation between the ﬁdgety, long, and tangled histories of both genres. The group’s cheeky blends of cathartic, uplifting emo and propulsive pop-punk come through in short, sizzling bursts—like drops of milk dribbled into a bowl of Rice Krispies. Despite their relatively short

Summer is more fun with Old Town School

Group classes start JUNE 25 Music • Dance • Art • Theater ® Wiggleworms

oldtownschool.org JUNE 14, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 27

MUSIC

Find more music listings at chicagoreader.com/soundboard.

continued from 27

lifespan as a band, Retirement Party roll through each knotty melodic ﬁssure with veteran precision. Springer delivers insightful lyrics that are both witty and neurotic, with a hint of a sneer that nicely counteracts her warm earnest demeanor. Such a precipitous balance allows her to place her lifestyle under the microscope while lending a shoulder to anyone else struggling through the process of “adulting.” I hope Retirement Party continues to harness their powers into supersize songs, as they do on the blustery “The Big Boom.”—LEOR GALIL

SATURDAY16 King Coye and Queen Cholas Part of LatiNxt festival featuring Bembona, DJ Jigue, La Misa Negra, Dat Garcia, Sonida Gallo Negro, DJ Kinky P, and others. Navy Pier Beer Garden, 600 E. Grand. F b Gaby Kerpel has spent nearly two decades pushing traditional music forms from South American toward electronic music, recontextualizing styles like Colombian cumbia and Andean huayno with inventive club rhythms. It makes sense that the Argentine musician, who makes club work under the name King Coya, was embraced by the electro-cumbia adherents behind Buenos Aires’s ZZK label. Unlike many of his labelmates, Kerpel has steadfastly retained the sound of traditional music in his creations, making prominent use of sweet-toned native string instruments like the charango and ronroco as well as plaintive wooden flutes such as the tanka. At the same time, his deft production skills extend beyond the beats of South America to include heavy infusions of Jamaican dancehall and Angolan kuduro. Kerpel’s new album, Tierra de King Coya, features vibrant vocal cameos from a slew of guest artists, including forceful electro-cumbia singer La Yegros and traditional Peruvian healer Isabel Pinedo Rengifo,

Matt Piet é MATT SCHWERIN

28 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 14, 2018

Joe McPhee and Graham Lambkin é COURTESY THE ARTIST

who adds spellbinding shamanic chants to “Icaro Llama Planta.” Kerpel’s reedy, commanding singing eﬀectively melds past and present in a way that reminds me of a more adventurous Manu Chao. He’ll perform with singer-dancer trio Queen Cholas (all in costumes that combine folkloric patterns and modern fabrics) as part of LatiNxt Festival, a free twoday event that brings together an impressively wide variety of artists who mix electronic beats and traditional rhythms. —PETER MARGASAK

Graham Lambkin & Joe McPhee Graham Foundation, Madlener House, 4 W. Burton. F b John Snyder lays downs gnarly, surging, needling analog synthesizer tones alongside multihorn player Joe McPhee on The Willisau Concert, a 1975 concert recording originally released by Hat Hut and recently reissued by Chicago’s Corbett vs. Dempsey. The album, which also features the explosive drumming of South African Makaya Ntshoko, is a typically quizzical affair for McPhee, who’s built a career moving in and out of jazz orthodoxy while letting his curiosity and experimental impulses guide him. British sound artist Graham Lambkin has cited Snyder’s synthesizer sound as an inspiration for his old band the Shadow Ring, but despite that affinity Lambkin and McPhee would hardly seem logical collaborators— which could be exactly why they’ve hit it off. Lambkin moved to Poughkeepsie, New York, in the late 90s and eventually became friends with McPhee, a lifelong resident. By then Lambkin had started developing a kind of experimental musique concrete that left no potential sound source untouched; on his recordings he meticulously arranges field recordings, low-key spoken word, conversations, musical interludes, found sound, and more into puzzling but consistently gripping anti-narratives that force the listener to impose his or her own meaning. His 2016 album Community (ErstSolo) layers in some passing musical passages, played by musicians like cellist Judith Hamman and violinists Troy Schafer and Sean McCann, but even those moments register as just another event or element ordered by Lambkin. In late 2015 Lambkin released Chance Meeting (Kye), an edition of 50 CDRs that collected a disorienting world of sounds, dialogue, and disjointed narrative J

JUNE 14, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 29

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

MUSIC

SATURDAY, JUNE 16 8PM

continued from 28

Asleep at the Wheel

assembled with McPhee (who’s credited with chimes, whistle, and synthesizer, while Lambkin uses whistle, tape, and “other objects”); most of the time I ﬁnd it hard to know what the hell is happening, even when the two artists are lightheartedly conversing. But that air of mystery allows the listener’s imagination to fill in the blanks within a very deliberate ﬂow of sonic events. I recently asked McPhee what Chicagoans could expect from the duo’s first local performance, and after chuckling he promised that it would involve “frogs, highways, and subways.” —PETER MARGASAK

SUNDAY, JUNE 17 7PM

Cracker

with special guest David Lowery

MONDAY, JUNE 25 9PM

Ana Tijoux

presents Roja y Negro

THURSDAY, JUNE 28 8PM

Joseph FRIDAY, JUNE 29 8PM

Meat Puppets with special guests Ratboys

FRIDAY, AUGUST 24 7PM

An Evening with

Alejandro Escovedo and Joe Ely ACROSS THE STREET IN SZOLD HALL 4545 N LINCOLN AVENUE, CHICAGO IL

6/15 Global Dance Party: Chicago Reel 6/22 Jug Band Kazoobilee featuring Strictly Jug Nuts, the Deep Fried Pickle Project, and Bones Jugs 6/29 Global Dance Party: Peruvian Folk Dance Center

WORLD MUSIC WEDNESDAY SERIES FREE WEEKLY CONCERTS, LINCOLN SQUARE

6/20 Elida Almeida 6/27 Son Veteranos

OLDTOWNSCHOOL.ORG JULY 13, 14, 15

Neko Case See Pick of the Week on page 25. Ray Lamontagne headlines. 7:30 PM, Huntington Bank Pavilion, 1300 S. Linn White, $29.75-$89.75. b Test Ozzuario, Stye, and Gonzo Violence open. 8:30 PM, Chitown Futbol, 2343 S. Throop, $10. b Bless Maryland Deathfest for providing planet earth with one of its preeminent annual showcases for dark and abrasive music. By reputation alone, its organizers are able to attract obscure but revered metal acts from distant corners of the globe to Baltimore, Maryland, where the festival takes place each Memorial Day weekend. For some bands the fest is a one-off occasion, but others take the opportunity to tour; maybe just a few days around the east coast, maybe a monthlong trek. The midwest is often lucky when it’s the latter, and this June, Test, a pummeling grindcore duo from São Paulo, Brazil, make their way from Deathfest through North America to ravage intimate venues with explosive, blastbeat-ridden screeds. The band’s most recent full-length, 2015’s Especies, expands upon its straightforward but lethal 2012 album, Arabe Macabre, incorporating ominous sound art and clipping bouts of electronics to bookend the growls and yowls from guitarist and vocalist João Kombi and relentless rapid-ﬁre rhythms laid down by drummer Thiago Barata. Make no bones about it, this is extreme and violent music that attracts a very select audience, but those who love grindcore should take advantage of a band like Test playing a loose and welcoming venue like ChiTown Futbol. —KEVIN WARWICK

SUNDAY17 FE ATURING

THE JAYHAWKS POKEY LAFARGE MATTHEW SWEET THE HANDSOME FAMILY BOMBINO AND MORE! PLUS CRAFT BEER FROM

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SQUAREROOTS.ORG 30 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 14, 2018

Roy Kinsey Mother Nature open; DJ Audio Jack and Hijo Prodigo spin between sets. 7 PM, Sleeping Village, $15, $10 in advance. Chicago rapper Roy Kinsey has long known how to make it feel like his voice is the most important in the room. When he appeared on “Loverboy,” a track on Big Dipper’s 2013 Thick Life mixtape that’s anchored by a perfect Sade sample (an idea that came straight from Kinsey), his persona radiates so strongly that while he doesn’t exactly steal the spotlight, I think he comes pretty close. With February’s Blackie: A Story by Roy Kinsey (selfreleased), he asserts himself as an impeccable, observant lyricist. A librarian by day, Kinsey strove to tell his maternal grandmother’s story after she

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died in 2016, and with Blackie Kinsey drew upon his family’s history, starting in Mississippi before his mother and grandmother moved north as part of the Great Migration and opening up the larger conversation of historical racism and how it continues to plague black communities around the U.S. “I knew that on paper my life would look beautiful,” Kinsey recently told Vocalo host Jesse Menendez. “I went to the best schools that Chicago has to oﬀer, I am around a very loving community. . . . I do feel as though I have some privileges and some freedoms that a lot of people that I have grown up with don’t have. But inside I didn’t feel that way. I didn’t feel as happy as I felt like I should be, and I wanted to know exactly what that was—I had to ﬁgure out what that was and be able to move past it.” And so Kinsey emerged with a novelistic story about a young black man trying to make sense of a system designed to crush people who look like him; Kinsey’s trenchant prose, immersive storytelling, and powerful voice gives me hope that we can dismantle that system for future generations. —LEOR GALIL

MONDAY18 Indigenous 8 PM, City Winery, 1200 W. Randolph, $18-$22. b Indigenous was formed by guitarist Mato Nanji, along with his brother, sister, and cousin, in the 90s. As Native Americans growing up on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, they originally heard the sounds of blues from Nanji’s father—a musician who regularly played this style of music around the house. Though his family members eventually left the band to pursue other interests, Nanji has kept it going strong. Forty years ago, a band like Indigenous would have been considered a commercial rock group with blues elements, but in some circles today it’s considered to be a straight-up blues band. If you have to go the blooze-rock route, you could do a lot worse. Mato Nanji’s guitar work is very prominent, and though it has tone similar to that of Stevie Ray Vaughan, it’s clear Nanji is not a disciple of the famed musician. What sets Indigenous apart from most in its subgenre is that its members have a definite sense of taste and swing, as well as decent songwriting skills, and it’s always been blessed with a tight rhythm section too, which you can hear on its most recent album, Grey Skies (Blues Bureau International). When the band aims for a solid shuffle rhythm, such as on “Lonely Days,” it usually hits the target, and when the group decides to funk it up, it generally avoids all the cliches that make other blues-rock bands sound like a poor man’s Little Feat. Nanji has carried on the Indigenous name with different lineups for 20 years now; it’s to his credit that the concept still sounds fresh after all this time. —JAMES PORTER

TUESDAY19 Broken Shadows 8 PM, Bourbon on Division, 2050 W. Division, $25, $20 in advance. 21+ Numerous intersecting lines connect the members of Broken Shadows, a new quartet devoted to

MUSIC the music of three saxophonists who emerged from Fort Worth, Texas: Ornette Coleman, Julius Hemphill, and Dewey Redman (the group also tackles “Song for Ché,” by bassist Charlie Haden, who worked with Coleman and Redman). Frontline saxophonists Tim Berne and Chris Speed worked fruitfully together in the remarkable quartet Bloodcount for much of the 90s; bassist Reid Anderson and drummer Dave King have been playing together for nearly two decades in the Bad Plus; and King also plays in Speed’s trio. A few years ago the Bad Plus organized a project involving Berne that interpreted the music of the Coleman album that gives Broken Shadows its name. The earliest of all of these links extends back to the 70s: Hemphill was Berne’s key mentor, and instructed him so intensely that they eventually became inseparable cohorts. Later on, Berne paid homage to Hemphill’s compositions and reissued some of his music. These threads lay the groundwork for music that demands serious interplay, and on some live recordings of Broken Shadows’ early gigs it’s clear they’re taking advantage of that. On a version of Coleman’s iconic ballad “Lonely Woman” the rhythm section burrows hard into the tune’s hydroplaning harmonic anchor and levitating while the saxophonists pivot and dance around the tune’s sorrowful theme with the kind of assurance and intimacy that requires years of immersion in jazz performance. A version of Hemphill’s brilliant “Dogon A.D.” balances a frictive, weighty navigation of the music’s heady bass line and lurching drums with a tart, imploring melody that Berne and Speed trace with a masterful sweet-sour blend. While there’s a clear sense of respect for the material, the musicians don’t let reverence get in the way of their meticulously honed personalities, which allows listeners to glean the essence of the players within tunes that have become important parts of jazz’s repertoire. —PETER MARGASAK

WEDNESDAY20 Pink Navel Mother Evergreen headlines; Haunter, Pink Navel, and Grandkids open. 8 PM, Subterranean, 2011 W. North, $8. 17+ “I think I’m the cutest rapper,” Dev Bee told UMass Amherst radio show Hip-Hop Made Me Do It last year. Bee, a Boston musician who uses “them” and “they” pronouns, came up playing in punk and emo bands; I’m quite tickled by their “burrito emo” group, the Baja Blasters. Under the guise of Pink Navel, Bee has built up a small library of DIY raps that sometimes concern sweet cultural froufrou—which they translate into hard, staccato lines and deliver with loopy aplomb. The brand-new Born on the Stairs (Ruby Yacht) has all the intimacy of a living-room show; I can picture Bee feeling out the keyboard melodies and drum-machine percussion on the fly in an intimate Boston house venue (though Mike Taylor handled a majority of the key parts on these songs). Bee imbues the album’s scruffy charm with animated flair, such as when they drop impressionistic nuggets with a tilta-whirl flow on “Say the Least.” It’s all pretty cute. —LEOR GALIL v

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FOOD & DRINK

PACIFIC STANDARD TIME | $$$$ R 141 W. Erie 312-736-1778 pstchicago.com

Wood roasted asparagus é BRITT RYAL

RESTAURANT REVIEW

Paciﬁc Standard Time is now

Underscore (and One Oﬀ Hospitality) present Erling Wu-Bower’s vision of a west-coast oasis in the midwest. By MIKE SULA

anch dressing as we know it was invented by a Nebraska-born African-American cowboy working as a plumbing contractor in Alaska. It’s true. Steve Henson whipped up the concoction of buttermilk, mayo, sour cream, parsley, onion, garlic, and salt and pepper to feed his crew of hungry workers in the early 50s. Eventually, though, Henson and his wife, Gayle, moved to Santa Barbara and opened Hidden Valley Ranch, where the dressing grew so popular among their guests they began to bottle it and send it home with them. Today ranch dressing abuse is committed all over the country in everything from soda to

32 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 14, 2018

Corn Nuts to Cheetos. The practice of dipping crappy pizza into cool, creamy garlic glue seems so uniquely midwestern it’s hard to believe that ranch was originally a product of the Golden State’s unparalleled agricultural bounty. And yet ranch is having a huge moment in the chef world too, giving yolk porn a run for its money among the nation’s Instagram inﬂuencers. Ranch comes in a tiny ramekin along with your pizza at Paciﬁc Standard Time, the obsessively anticipated new River North restaurant from the fledgling Underscore Hospitality, with a major assist from Paul Kahan and company’s One Off Hospitality. Chef Erling

Wu-Bower is a veteran of that august group, having spent much of his formative career clocking shifts at Avec, the Publican, PQM, and Nico Osteria (Bower was meant to have been joined by former Publican chef Cosmo Goss before the latter stepped away in the wake of Chicago’s ﬁrst restaurant #MeToo moment). The idea behind PST is a celebration of the California culinary lifestyle, though I couldn’t decide whether the ranch was intended to ironically channel coastal disdain or sincerely pander to a midwestern audience. According to Bower it’s neither: “It’s a nod toward shamelessness,” he told me. Whatever the case, the ranch is wholly un-

necessary, because the pies all by themselves are very nice, belched from one of two looming dome-shaped wood-burning ovens. These are prominently positioned in the open kitchen at the rear of this massive cream-colored and teak-stained room, so filled with the din of shouting diners that Norwegian death metal could be playing on the soundtrack and it would still sound like a faint faraway echo under all the noise. (Servers—and Bower— promise that acoustic remediation is coming.) The pizzas are thin and flat, with high cheese-encrusted corniciones, and possessed of a superelasticity that might come at some expense to the bread’s bubble structure and yeasty ferment. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed a pie adorned with ramps and tangy tomato, punchy ubriaco rosso cheese, and house-cured coppa. This being a California-themed enterprise, all three of the pies can be had with a gluten-free crust instead, and while there was nothing on the menu at PST I wanted to eat less than a gluten-free pizza, I am so hopelessly devoted to you, reader, that I took one for the team. Happily, it too was quite good considering the crust’s made from rice and corn flour. Thin and flat with nary a raised edge, it still takes on a tasty blackened form during its brief time in the oven and is nicely chewy if thoroughly soft. This with an application of roasted mushrooms, cippolini onion, stracchino cheese, and a powerfully umamic deposit of XO sauce (made from ham, dried scallops, and shrimp) makes a perfectly acceptable pie under the circumstances. Four pastas can be made to suit the gluten averse as well, though I avoided those, sticking to the conventional semolina-based and rather large-bore chittara, somewhat too squishy noodles tangling among a pancetta-boosted tomato sauce thick with shredded Dungeness crab and chopped ramp greens. Ricotta dumplings look disturbingly like a collection of exfiltrated testicles—but they’re great. It’s rare to encounter an Italian filled pasta with such a delicate wrapper, and these are paired simply with fresh green peas and wilted spinach in a Parmesan rind-infused brodo. But back to those ovens, which play a crucial role across the menu, most notably in the fresh-baked pita bread, the sort of thing that inspired envy among chefs and professional eaters across the country when the great New Orleans Israeli restaurant Shaya start-

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Chicken wings; the dining room at PST é BRITT RYAL

ed cranking them out to order from its own wood-burning oven in early 2015. Here circles of hand-formed dough are fed into a 650-degree (or so) inferno where their internal steam inﬂates them like balloons in a matter of a minute, after which another minute gives them a fetching stippled char. There are foods to swipe these through: escabeche ahi tuna with hummus and mint, or roasted eggplant and peppers with melted robiola cheese, or beef tartare, delicious with anchovy mayo and slivered radish, but you might be tempted just to tear them into pieces and eat them on their own in a fervor for their toastyfresh, lightly oiled and salted sorcery. One can even order a whole roasted duck in a ceramic roasting pan covered with a layer of this hot flatbread. But really these all seem sort of superﬂuous. If PST was just Bower and a stand on a street corner and this pita was all he produced, I’d call it an American success story. The ovens are used to blacken the crust on a ruddy skirt steak sliced and fanned so that its ruby interior is set against pale-green sweetpea puree and hot, oily salsa macha. But they also can be graceful, used to put the merest kiss of heat on asparagus so fresh and tender

you could eat it raw, tossed with Fresno chiles, basil, cilantro, tangy sambal vinaigrette, and peanut aioli. Without writing a book on the subject, I can’t say exactly how one should deﬁne California cuisine. But in an essay penned for the Washington Post (an extraordinary publicity coup), Bower writes this: “The best description of California cuisine that I have heard comes from chef Stuart Brioza [owner of San Francisco’s State Bird Provisions and the Progress]. ‘The California diner expects a level of intercultural conversation in their food.’” And that’s why certain dishes—a good number of them, in fact—draw upon various Asian cuisines. There’s the aforementioned asparagus; fat chicken wings in a thick, sticky glaze with a soul-gripping saline bottom from ﬁsh sauce and warm, glowing sweetness from caramelized sugar; and a stone bowl containing a daunting lump of fork-tender pork shoulder that shares space with soft cubes of tofu and chewy clams, all in a depthless braising liquid. And yet, just as often PST puts out a straightforward expression of the pristine, resolutely seasonal midwest: new English peas with a dense burrata and just overcooked

farro are blanched just right to preserve their plump, green essence without shriveling their shells. Or by now ubiquitous asparagus simply scattered alongside a near-raw piece of Creamsicle-colored trout with a delicate crust of toasted ground rice and cashews, thin as a chip, that I watched a lost soul sitting at the table next to me scrape from the fish one evening (this has been replaced by a larger shareable dish of oven-roasted trout). While PST certainly follows a Californian aesthetic of seasonality, for now it’s not quite that local. Some extraordinarily sweet and fulsome California strawberries appear on a starter salad with snap peas, sumac, and stracciatella, but pastry chef Natalie Saben has got ahold of them too, and macerates the intensely floral berries, setting them up against chartreuse sorbet, oxalis, and a delicate “sunflower cotton cake” textured somewhere between cotton candy and angel food. The huckleberry sundae is equally memorable—clean, rich fruit ice cream with a scoop of honey ice cream alongside, topped with shards of meltaway meringue and thin slivers of buttermilk cake that stand upright like the fins on a stegosaurus. Not surprisingly, a great portion of the wine list comes from the west coast, California in particular, but in the end there’s surprisingly little about PST that is truly Californian, and a lot that’s reflective of a midwestern fantasy of what California could be if only it were located in Illinois—open space, clean lines, fresh vegetables year-round. Plus, you don’t even have to ask for ranch dressing with your pizza. v

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m @MikeSula JUNE 14, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 33

é COURTESY BONEFLOWER MEAD

FOOD & DRINK

BOOZE

Catching a buzz

Boneﬂower is a star in the mead world—even though it has yet to sell a single bottle. By JULIA THIEL

oneflower Mead, located in northwest Indiana, has a rating of 4.7 out of a possible 5 on Untappd, a social networking app for beer aficionados that allows them to rate what they’re drinking. The rating is impressive for a fledgling meadery—but so is the fact that Boneflower, which has yet to sell a single bottle of mead, has more than 150 reviews. Aaron Schavey, who cofounded the meadery with Geoff Resney, a friend and former colleague in the air pollution testing business, has been making mead for about two years and giving it away for almost as long. After being introduced to what he calls “the first mead that really blew me away” a couple years ago, he started looking for quality mead to buy and, finding limited options, decided to make his own. For guidance he bought a book on mead making by Ken Schramm, whose eponymous Michigan meadery had made that first fermented honey beverage that impressed Schavey, a boysenberry mead called Madeline.

34 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 14, 2018

Online forums for mead makers and talking to meadery owners also helped him learn. Productionwaslimitedtoﬁve-gallonbatches Schavey made in his basement, but that didn’t stop him from getting as much mead as possible out into the world. He went to craft beer festivals to pour samples and started a Facebook group where he’d do bottle giveaways and raffles where the proceeds went to charity. “My intention from day one in giving out the samples was to get honest feedback on it,” Schavey says. He and Resney had already registered Boneflower as an LLC, but hadn’t decided yet whether to actually apply for licensing and start a company. If they did, they wanted to know what kind of mead people liked to drink. In the meantime, they were making mead in the style of that ﬁrst Schramm mead that Schavey fell in love with; these are the meads Boneflower has become known for. Schavey describes them as “heavy fruited meads—lots of fruit, higher gravity, they’re a little thicker,

deﬁnitely sweet.” That style, he says, is why pouring samples at beer festivals made more sense than going to wine festivals. While the process of making mead is similar to wine making (wine is fermented from grapes, while mead is fermented from honey, sometimes with fruit added), Boneflower’s sweet, highalcohol meads don’t taste much like wine. They have more in common with beers like imperial stout or barleywine, which are often syrupy and boozy. “I think that’s why it caught on, because [craft beer drinkers] were chasing a very high alcohol, sweet, thick dessertlike beverage, and [our] mead is of that style,” Schavey says. Schavey himself cut his teeth on craft beer well before he knew anything about mead. “I think we all owe a lot to Three Floyds,” he says. Now 32, he grew up in northwest Indiana and recalls throwing parties as a 21-year-old with kegs of locally brewed Three Floyds Gumballhead. “If you traveled anywhere outside of here, 21-year-olds were drinking Keystone Light kegs,” he says. “As I was discovering beer, it was craft beer.” And craft beer drinkers have embraced Boneflower enthusiastically. “It really just started to take off; people were reaching out to me nonstop asking for mead,” Schavey says. “I was probably getting between ten and 20 messages a day from complete strangers.” That enthusiasm helped convince Schavey and Resney that this was a concept worth pursuing, and in March they applied for their federal and state licenses. That same month Boneflower entered the Mazer Cup International Mead Competition, the largest mead competition in the world, where their Cherry Apple Inception mead won second place in its category (mixed fruit sweet mead). A couple of months later they were granted their licenses —a lucky break since the process can take a year or more. “To celebrate getting our licensing we started an Indiegogo,” Schavey says. They had a space, at least for the moment—Resney owns a manufacturing site in Saint John, Indiana, where Boneflower was able to set up shop, though Schavey says that won’t be their permanent home (they eventually want to move to a space where they can set up a tasting room). But they needed to buy equipment and ingredients for producing mead on a larger scale, and honey isn’t cheap. Schavey set an ambitious goal of $100,000 for Boneﬂower’s crowdfunding campaign, not expecting to reach it.

Rewards for the lower levels of donations ($5-$55) range from a thank-you on social media to the usual swag—T-shirts, corkscrews, stickers—though $250 gets you a “standard membership”: a couple bottles of mead and the right to first dibs on future releases of Boneflower mead for two years. A donation of $475 is the same deal but gets you twice the mead allotment of regular backers, and the $750 level, known as the “adviser’s club,” is a standard membership that also includes bottles of experimental mead that members can provide feedback on. Just four contributors get the opportunity to create their “dream mead” for $5,000 a pop (all the membership award levels are limited in quantity). The Indiegogo campaign went live May 17 and within 13 hours had surpassed its goal, selling out of all membership-level rewards and exceeding $109,000. The campaign is set for 60 days, but it’s been stalled at that (admittedly impressive) number ever since. Boneflower’s backers don’t seem particularly interested in swag; while all 270 memberships were claimed in the first day, just six people have contributed $55 or less. “I had no idea we were going to just absolutely blow the goal out of the water,” Schavey says. “Giving away as much mead as I could in the early stages is really what got people’s interest. We gave away thousands and thousands of dollars of mead just to get feedback.” In the process, as it turns out, he also built a loyal following. Next, Schavey and Resney will be buying bigger equipment for their meadery, along with thousands of pounds of honey (most of what they’ve been using so far comes from Michigan). Along with their Cherry Apple Inception, they make a raspberry-creme brulee mead with caramelized honey; Slow Heavy Jam, which is made from Concord grapes; and a blackberry and black-currant mead called Black Number One. They’re excited to start working on some drier styles, though, Schavey says. He wants to do some barrel aging and make seasonal mead, like a fruity, light, carbonated style for summer. In the midwest, Schavey says, it’s mostly craft beer fans who are gravitating toward mead, but in other parts of the country where drier styles of mead are more common, it’s popular among wine drinkers—and he wants to attract wine drinkers too. “Our ultimate goal,” he says, “is to make mead for everybody.” v

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ELM STREET PLAZA SUBSIDIZED WAIT LIST ELM STREET PLAZA IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT THE STUDIO, 1 AND 2 BEDROOM WAIT LISTS FOR SUBSIDIZED APARTMENTS WILL SOON BE OPEN. WAITLIST APPLICATIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED ONLINE MON, 6/18/18- WED, 6/27/18 ELM STREET PLAZA MANAGEMENT OFFICE - 1130 N. DEARBORN, CHICAGO, IL ELIGIBILITY ALL APPLICANTS MUST MEET CERTAIN ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS: • AGE 18 AND OLDER • U.S. CITIZENSHIP/LEGAL IMMIGRATION STATUS • IF A FULL-TIME STUDENT, MUST MEET HUD GUIDELINES FOR ELIGIBILITY • PASS TENANCY HISTORY REVIEW • PASS CRIMINAL BACKGROUND HISTORY REVIEW • APPLICANTS ARE SUBJECT TO MEET HUD INCOME ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS HOW TO APPLY PLEASE VISIT WWW.ELMSTREETPLAZA.COM OR WWW.HABITAT. COM OR CALL THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING HOTLINE (312) 5953250 FOR MORE INFO. WAITLIST APPLICATIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED ONLINE BETWEEN 6/18/18-6/27/18. AFTER YOU HAVE COMPLETED THE ONLINE APPLICATION, PLEASE PRINT THE RECEIPT WITH YOUR APPLICATION ID FOR YOUR RECORDS. NO PAPER APPLICATIONS WILL BE DISTRIBUTED. ALL WAITLIST APPLICATIONS RECEIVED DURING THAT TIME WILL BE ENTERED IN A LOTTERY, AND WILL BE RANDOMLY SELECTED FOR PLACEMENT ON THE WAITLIST. *AN APPLICANT WITH A DISABILITY OR WITH LIMITED ENGLISH PROFICIENCY MAY REQUEST INFO ABOUT OBTAINING ASSISTANCE WITH THE PRE-APPLICATION PROCESS OR MAKING REASONABLE ACCOMMODATIONS BY CONTACTING 312-337-1150 BETWEEN THE OFFICE HOURS OF 9:00AM-5:00PM MONDAY-FRIDAY

STANTEC CONSULTING SERVICES INC., DESIGNER (MULT. POSITIONS),

Chicago, IL. Prepare construction drawings & construction detailing using comp.-aided drafting equipment. Req’ts incl.: Master’s deg or foreign equiv. in Architecture, or rel. field + 2 yrs of rel. work exp.; OR Bach’s deg or foreign equiv. in Architecture, or rel. field + 5 yrs of post-bach’s, progressive rel. work exp. Travel up to 10% is req’d. Any suitable combo. of education, training, or exp. is acceptable. Interested applicants email CV to HRApply@stantec.com & specify job title in subj. line.

BERKLEY INSURANCE

COMPANY (Chicago, IL) seeks Software Engineer II w/ Bachelor’s in CS, IT or related plus 5 yrs exp. in enterprise web apps development. Work experience must include: 1) Open source frameworks Spring, Hibernate and Struts; 2) Web services with SOAP and REST APIs; 3 ) Javascript, Jquery and JSP; 4) HTML5 and CSS coding; 5) Oracle and DB2; and 6) MSSQL database design. Send resume to lpatel@ berkleyselect.com with job title in subject line. No calls. EOE.

ARCHITECTURE: INTERN ARCHITECT (MULTI-UNIT

Luxury). Assist lic’d architects w/ plan & design of multi-unit lux. buildings. Prep. scale drawings & arch. designs, using Revit, a parametric building modeler prgm. Bach. in Arch. req’d. Min. 1 yr. of exp. in pos’n(s) involving design of multiunit lux. buildings, & min. 1 yr. prior exp. w/ Revit req’d. bKL Architecture LLC, Chicago, IL. Resumes to: Recruiting, bKL Architecture LLC, 225 N. Columbus Dr., Ste. 100, Chicago, IL 60601.

REAL ESTATE RENTALS

STUDIO $500-$599 NO SECURITY DEPOSIT Chicago, Peterson & Damon, Kedzie & Lawrence, Studio, 1, 2, 3 & 4BR Apts. $550 & Up. Section 8 Welcome. Call 847-401-4574 CHICAGO, CAL PARK & Blue Island: Studio $625 & up; 1BR $700 & up; 2BR $885 & up. Heat, Appls, Balcony, Carpet, Laundry, Parking. Call 708-388-0170

STUDIO $600-$699 NO SECURITY DEPOSIT Fullteron & Kedzie, Large Studio near bus, train & shopping. Free heat, gas & lights. $650 & Up. Call 773-616-1253 or 847-401-4574 Chicago, Hyde Park Arms Hotel, 5316 S. Harper, elevator bldg, phon e/cable, switchboard, fridge, priv bath, lndry, $165/wk, $350/bi-wk or $650/mo. Call 773-493-3500

STUDIO OTHER GARY NSA ACCEPTING applications for SECTION 8 STUDIO AND ONE BDRM Apartments. Apply Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10am to 2pm 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.

MES PROGRAMMER. APPLICATION development of MOM/

MES apps. Design & devel. reports. Define req’s & devel. designs to match. Design / devel. system mgmt. utils. & custom apps for MOM/MES systems. Manufacturing process kno wl.req’d . Req. Bachelor’s in IT, CS, or equivalent. Req. 1 yr. exp. as MES Programmer. Salary comm. w/ exp. Mail resumes to IT SOFT USA INC, 55 W Monroe St., Ste. 2575 Chicago, IL 60603.

SYSTEMS ENGINEER I sought

by PLS Financial Services, Inc.: Req MS in EE, Comp. Eng., Mech. Eng., CS, or IT & 1 yr exp. as Prog/Analyst in Microsoft Servers, VM Ware & SAN Storage Systems, using PowerShell Scripts, SQL Queries, & LANDESK. Position is in Chicago, IL. Mail CV to: Attn: Tracie Marcus, One South Wacker Drive, Floor 36, Chicago, IL 60606. EOE.

NOW HIRING CLASS A CDL Drivers Call (312)545-2818 Drivers must have 2 years of driving & a clean MVR & drug test is mandatory www.mizantransportation.com

1 BR UNDER $700

7022 S. SHORE DRIVE Impecca-

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

2BR, SHERIDAN RD., North of Irving Park. Washer/Dryer, parking space INCLUDED, roof deck, 2 year lease if desired. Available 8/1/18.

$2300/mo. Call Vince 312-656-0800, BHHS Realty.

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

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

PRE-SPRING SPECIAL - CHICAGO South Side Beautiful Studios, 1,2,3 & 4 BR’s, Sec 8 ok. Also Homes for rent available. Call Nicole 312-446-1753; W-side locations Tom 630-776-5556; CLEAN ROOM W/FRIDGE & micro, Near Oak Park, Food -4Less, Walmart, Walgreens, Buses & Metra, Laundry. $115/wk & up. 773-637-5957 NEWLY REMOD 1BR & Studios starting at $580. No sec dep, move in fee or app fee. Free heat/hot water. 1155 W. 83rd St., 773-619-0204

CROSSROADS HOTEL SRO SINGLE RMS Private bath, PHONE,

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

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

NEWLY REMODELED UNITS

61st & King Dr. 3 Bd/2Ba, Washer/ Dry Hook-up, Alarm, 61st & Racine - 1Bd/1Ba, 1 year Free Heat. Chicago Heights 4 Bed, 2 Full baths, SFH. Other locations available. Approved credit receive 1 month free rent. For More Info Call 773.412.1153

1 BR UNDER $700

AVAILABLe NOW SENior citizENS 62+ yEarS Section 8 Eligibility-Low Rents 1 Br & Studio aptS

RIVERDALE, IL 1 Bedroom Condo, newly decorated, off st. parking, gated comm. $750 + sec. Call Mr. Jackson 708-846-9734

1 BR $800-$899 LARGE GARDEN APARTMENT. 6802 N. Wolcott. Hardwood floors. Cats OK. $850/month (heat included) Available 7/1. 773-761-4318.

1 BR $900-$1099 MONTROSE/ CLARENDON VINTAGE one bedroom. Sunny/

bright, across from park, heat/ gas included. Miniblinds/ ceiling fans. Free laundry, private porch, block Montrose Harbor. $945. 773-9733463. LARGE ONE BEDROOM Apartment near the lake. 1337 W. Estes. Hardwood floors. Cats OK. $975/ month. Heat included. Available 8/1. 773-761-4318.

1 BR OTHER

6930 S. SOUTH SHORE DRIVE Studios & 1BR, INCL. Heat, Elec, Cking gas & PARKING, $585-$925, Country Club Apts 773-752-2200 BR $735, Includes Free heat & appliances & cooking gas. (708) 424-4216 Kalabich Mgmt

CHATHAM - 7105 S. CHAMPLAIN, 1BR. $650. 2BR. $750. SEC 8 OK. Heat & appl. Call Office: 773966-5275 or Steve: 773-936-4749

WOODLAWN 2BD- $ 9 0 0 3 B D-$ 10 0 0 Move in by July 1. Free TV & No Security Niki 773-8082043

Newly updated, clean furnished rooms in Joliet, 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. $133/wk & up. 773-275-4442 BIG ROOM with stove, fridge, bath & nice wood floors. Near Red Line & Buses. Elevator & Laundry, Shopping. $121/wk + up. 773-561-4970

Forest Park: 1BR new tile, energy efficient windows, lndry facilitities, a/c, incls heat - natural gas, $895/ mo Luis 708-366-5602 lv msg NO SEC DEP

7801 S. Bishop. 2BR. $610/mo. HEAT INCL 773-955-5106

ADULT SERVICES

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

W. HUMBOLDT PARK. 1302-08 N. Kildare. Division/ Pulaski. Newly Rehabbed, 2BR, $785. Sec 8 OK. 773-619-0280 or 773-286-8200

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

ROGERS PARK, 1549 W. Birch-

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

2 BR UNDER $900 CHICAGO 7600 S ESSEX PRE-SPRING SPECIAL - 2BR $599, 3BR $699, 4BR $799 w/apprvd credit, no sec dep. Sec 8 Ok! Also Homes for Rent avail. South Side office: 773-287-9999; West Side office: 773-287-4500

APTS. FOR RENT PARK MGMT & INV. LTD. SUMMER IS HERE!!! MONST UNITS INCLUDE.. HEAT & HOT WATER STUDIOS FROM $495.00 1BDR FROM $545.00 2BDR FROM $745.00 3 BDR/2 FULL BATH FROM $1200 **1-(773)-476-6000** APTS. FOR RENT PARK MGMT & INV. LTD. SUMMER IS HERE!!! HEAT, HW & CG PLENTY OF PARKING 1BDR FROM $785.00 2BDR FROM $1025.00 3 BDR/2 FULL BATH FROM $1200 **1-(773)-476-6000*** CHICAGO - BEVERLY, 1 & 2BR Apts. Carpet, Hdwd Flrs, A/C, laundry, near transportation, $785-$1030/mo. Call 773-2334939 2BR, 1BA, 1ST flr & 3BR, 1BA, 2nd flr, 115th & Damon. 1 mo sec & 1st mo rent. Starting at $1050. mo. Tenants pay all utilities. $35 credit check. Call 773-837-6256

ADULT SERVICES

BEAUTIFUL REMOD 1, 2 & 3BR Apts, hdwd flrs, custom cabinets, granite cntrs, avail now. $1000$1200 /mo + sec. 773-905-8487. Section 8 Ok 93RD/JEFFREY. 2BR T.H,

stove, brand new hdwd flrs, remod BA, fin bsmt. No Pets. $1150+ non-ref fee. Sec 8 OK. Kay 773.370.8018

63RD/THROOP. New Renov 2BR in secured bldg. Lrg LR, DR, kitchen, nr CTA Green line. $750. Tenant pays heat.

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

Call 773-629-0314

BRONZEVILLE - SEC 8 OK! 4950 S. Prairie. Remod 1BR. $690 and up. Heat, cooking gas & appls inc, lndry on site.

hdwd flrs, big rms, lots of closets, Clean, fresh, Sec. 8 ready. 6900 South 773-405-9361. $750 MO.

very lrg beautifully decorated Security system, wood floors/combination carpet. $750-$1100. Section 8 ok. 773-206-9364

wood (at Ashland) Very large 2 bedroom vintage flat with Hardwood floors and updates. 3 blocks from lake. $1175.00 (no utilities included). Call EJM at 773-935-4426

SECTION 8 WELCOME. NO SECURITY DEPOSIT. 7335 S Morgan, 5BR, 2BA house, appls incl., $1400 /mo. 708-288-4510

2 BEDROOM, 5 RM, all new rehab,

AUSTIN BLVD & ERIE , 1&2BR.

2 BR $1100-$1299

86TH & YATES, 5 room Apt, 1st floor, 2BR, stove & fridge, A/C, ceiling fans, heat incl. Sec sys. No pets. $850/mo. 773-8423652

Z. 773.406.4841

REMODELED 5 1/2 room apartment 2 ND FLOOR, $85 0/MO. & 1/2 MONTH SECURITY. CALL 773-995-8605

7425 S. COLES - 1 BR $620, 2

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

1 BR $700-$799

77TH/RIDGELAND. 2BR. Hdwd flrs, Heat Incl. $775.

75TH/Langley. 3BR. $950. 773-874-9637 or 773-493-5359

50+ PREF, 1445 S. Karlov. 2.5BR Garden apt, kit, living rm, 1BA, tenant pays utils, appls optional. $750/ mo incl water. 773-544-2114 1 & 2 & 3 BEDROOM Unit, newly remodeled, fresh, clean, quiet. 773774-3200 Eugene. South.

2 BR $900-$1099 THIS BEAUTIFUL 2 1/2 bed-

room apartment is in a fantastic location with easy access to public transportation. Quite building. Only $900 per month. 87th & Throop. Call David (312) 933-7896 for more information. Won’t last long.

SECT 8 WELCOME, 2 & 3BR Houses. Also Sharp 2 & 3BR Apts, fenced yard. $985-$1200/mo. Will accept 1 or 2BR Voucher. 708-573-5628 CALUMET CITY 2-3BR, 2 car gar, fully rehab w/ gorgeous finishes & hdwd flrs. Beautiful bkyd. Sec 8 ok. $900-$1150. 510-735-7171 CHATHAM AREA, Gorgeous, 2BR, 1st flr, updated kit & bath.

$900/mo + 1 mo sec. Clean & Quiet. No Pets. 773-930-6045

GLENWOOD,

2 BR $1500 AND OVER

LARGE BRIGHT LINCOLN PK 2Bd, 1Bth, In Unit W/D, Roof Deck, Back Porch, HVAC, Fireplace, DW, Hardwood Floors, Available Immediately. $2000-$2900. Call: 773-4725944

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

CHATHAM CHARM - Vintage, newly rehab, 2 BR, h/w flrs, sec alarm, SS appls, heat & hot water incl, laundry, Sec 8 & Seniors Welc. Call for appt (773)418-9908 CHATHAM 88TH/DAUPHIN. 2BR. bright & spac, near METRA, laundry on site, sec camera. 312.341.1950

SECTION 8 WELCOME

Chatham 8819 S. Cottage Grove Ave. 3BR Vouchure w/ appls, garage, wood flrs. 312-804-0209

MATTESON, RICHTON PARK, HAZEL CREST & UNIV PARK. 2 & 3BR Houses & T.H. Sec 8 OK. Call 708-625-7355

HUGE

IMMAC

2BR/1BA

newly remod, spac, quiet block & bldg, nr trans & shops. Won’t Last. Sec 8 Welcome. 312-519-9771

3 BR OR MORE UNDER $1200 SEC LRG 6 RMS , (3BR/1BA), 5 mins from Hyde Park, new kit w/ SS appls, encl porch, lrg fenced-in yard, sect 8 ok. $1000/mo + utils. $1000 sec req. $2000 to move in. Avail Immed. 773-213-0187

Updated lrg 1 & 2BR Condos, $850-$990/mo. HF HS, balcony, C/A, appls, heat/water incl. 2 pkng, lndry. 708.268.3762

16880 S. ANTHONY - 3BR, wall to wall carpet. $1175/mo. Section 8 Welcome. 773-285-3206

ADULT SERVICES

3939 S Calumet Ave 773-373-8480 or 373-8482 6225 S Drexel Ave 773-955-6603 or 955-7162 Offering Quality services for Senior Citizens 62 years and older • Wellmaintained, secure-gated parking • Close to shopping, restaurants, public transportation • On-site Internet center • Computer training • Movies • Arts & Crafts classes • Bible classes • free weekly transportation for grocery shopping • Coin-operated laundry machines • Vending machines • Secure mail system and more Get more information at the website: www.trinityseniorapartments.com

JUNE 14, 2018 | CHICAGO READER 35

BRONZEVILLE: SECTION 8 WELCOME. No Security Deposit. 4841 S Michigan. 4BR $1300 & 3BR $1100. Appls incl. 708-2884510 CHATHAM 8817 S. Cottage Grove. Nice 3BR, 1st flr,

3 BR OR MORE $1800-$2499 LARGE 3 BEDROOM apartment near Wrigley Field. 3822 N. Fremont. Hardwood Floors. Cats OK. $2175/ month. Available 7/1. Single parking space available for $175/month. Tandem spot available for $250/month. (773) 761-4318

CHICAGO, 5BR, 2BA, Newly

Ten. Pays Utils., $1,100/mo. Section 8 Welcome No Sec. Dep! Call 773-844-1216

remodeled, alarm, C/A. stove, fridge & dishwasher incl. $2000/mo. Call 773-852-7381

Chicago, 6 rooms, 3BR, 5242 W. Congress, heat included, enclosed porch, $1110/mo + security. Available now. Call 773-6264239

4BR, 2BA, 2 car garage, great area. $2000/mo.Call Al 847-644-5195

REMODELED, Brick, Georgian

3 BEDROOM 1 BATH, NEWLY

REMODELED, SECTION 8 OK, APPLIANCES INCLUDED, NO SECURITY DEPOSIT 7088224450. JEFFREY MANOR 3BR, 1BA Townhouse, Newly Remod, $925/ mo. Near trans. Call Mr. Brown, 312-459-6618

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

3 BR OR MORE $1200-$1499

3 BR OR MORE OTHER

MONEE - Beautiful, Large 3BR, 2.5BA, sun room, fireplace, on 3 acres, 1 level, 2 car attached garage, $1900/ mo. 708-747-3344

GENERAL NO SECURITY DEPOSIT CHICAGO HEIGHTS, Studio, 1, 2 & 3BRs, free heat, gas and parking, close to everything, section 8 welcome. $500 and up. 708-300-5020

EMERSON SQUARE AND Live

Evanston Rentals in Evanston will be opening the waiting list only June 18th-June 22nd for all apartment sizes. Please stop by the office at 1580 Foster #1W to ﬁll out a pre-application. Placement on the waiting list is subject to meeting minimum and maximum houshold income restrictions. For more information call #847-475-5199.

1BR, 87TH & Ashland, $625/mo. 70th & Aberdeen, 2BR, $695/mo. 3BR, 3rd floor, $750/mo. 1 mo rent + 1 mo security. 773-6518673

FOR SALE

Large 3-4BR. In unit laundry, hardwood flrs, very clean, No Deposit! Available Now! 708-655-1397

SERVICES

36 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 14, 2018

GOODS

CLASSICS WANTED ANY CLASSIC CARS IN ANY CONDITION. ’20S, ’30S, ’40S, ’50S, ’60S & ’70S. HOTRODS & EXOTICS! TOP DOLLAR PAID! COLLECTOR. CALL JAMES, 630-201-8122

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

BODY MASSAGE 312-834-2806

Located Downtown Chicago In Call / Out Call Available

4934 S. Washington Park Court, Hyde Park. Newly renov., XL 3BR, stove/fridge incl., hdwd flrs. heat & 3 BEDROOM UNIT, newly rewater incl. $1300/mo. 773-425-5732 modeled, fresh, clean, Section 8

CHICAGO S: Newly renovated,

MARKETPLACE

FULL BODY MASSAGE. hotel, house calls welcome $90

PRE-SPRING SPECIAL CHICAGO Houses for rent. Section 8 Ok, 3, 4 & 5 BR houses avail. Call Nicole: 773-287-9999; West Side 773-287-4500

80TH & DREXEL, 3BR, 2BA, $1200. 79th & Aberdeen, 3BR & Bsmt Apt, $750-$950. Ten pays utils. Sec 8 OK. Hdwd/ ceram tile. 773-502-4304

CHURCH FOR SALE. Ready as a weekend getaway or convert to business, house or 2-unit. 30 minutes West of Wisconsin Dells. $49,900. 773-655-1099

HEALTH & WELLNESS

MORGAN PARK/ WEST PULLMAN Newly decorated 3-4BR, 1.5Ba, Appliances included. Section 8 ok. 847-606-1369

ready, quiet, 773-774-3200 Eugene. 3400 Walnut.

STRAIGHT DOPE

MUSIC & ARTS REDUCED!! 8348 S. St. Law-

rence, 60619. Only $125,900. Beautiful Chatham Georgian. 3bdrms, 1.5baths. Brick 2 car garage. Finished basement. BDW Realty PC (708) 774-2977

SERVICES

VOCALIST SEEKING BAND

to play with or behind for gigs, bars, weddings, etc. I can perform from all genres & all artists from 50’s-present days. Contact Michael J. Lally at 773-203-4738

SERVICES

SLUG SIGNORINO

CHICAGO 6747 S. PAXTON, NEWLY RENOVATED, 2BR, 2BA, HWFS THRU OUT, 1ST FLR, $975/ MO, APPLS, HEAT & PRKG SPACE INCL., 773-285-3206

By Cecil Adams Q : The outside shape of mammals is

symmetrical: limbs, eyes, ears, and nostrils arranged on either side of a central axis. Why are the contents of the abdomen arranged asymmetrically? —EMY AMSTEIN

A : Take a look at a car sometime, Emy. As

seen from the sidewalk, nearly all the elements are laid out symmetrically, but pop the hood and it’s a free-for-all in there. Animal physiology has shaken out the same way: the operating principle for human and most other animal bodies seems to be that symmetry prevails where it’s useful, but no further. In creatures as in Chryslers, external bilateral symmetry—a trait shared by 99 percent of the world’s animal species—just makes sense. Most obviously, it’s good for locomotion: it helps us walk, run, swim, or fly in a straight line, pivot quickly and reliably, etc. But there are plenty of further theories about the adaptive nature of the external body plan, as it’s called: some relate to partner selection (a more symmetrical appearance could imply better genetic well-being), others to self-defense (symmetrical placement of the eyes means that a prey animal doesn’t have a blind side). Once within the abdominal cavity, however, aerodynamics and attractiveness count for zilch. It makes for a more eﬃcient body to have the inner workings crammed in as compactly as possible, and in fact that’s how they evolved. On the outside it’s about interfacing with the environment; inside, it’s about optimized use of space. But there’s another question here: what causes the organs to actually grow asymmetrically in the developing body? The nascent human embryo is symmetrical, and remains so until . . . something happens: ﬁrst the heart makes its way to the left and develops asymmetrical features of its own; the liver and stomach rotate into place on the right and left respectively; and so forth. This process, known as left-right symmetry breaking, is directly observable in the viscera at around six weeks, but how it all gets going was something that had been bugging scientists for ages. Symmetry breaking seems to originate in an embryonic region called the node; in mice (subjects of the key research into this topic), the node is a notch on the embryo’s outer surface where the cell walls are lined with hairlike structures called cilia. Typical cilia just wave or whip back and forth, but, as reported by Japanese scientists circa 2005, these nodal cilia twirl around clockwise,

and they’re attached to the cell wall at a slight tilt, and together that’s enough to direct the fluid surrounding the embryo in a leftward direction. It’s still unclear exactly what happens next: it may be that some unidentified molecule in the fluid acts as a chemical trigger that’s distributed unevenly over the embryo, or the embryo may react to the directional force of the flow itself. But either way, certain key genes are then expressed on the embryo’s left side but not the right, and the organs begin their asymmetric growth. Anything going haywire with symmetry breaking, therefore, can result in abnormal development, as demonstrated in experiments from 2002: embryonic mice with nonfunctioning cilia grew organs situated at random; when other mouse embryos were exposed to fluid pumped in the wrong direction, their left-side-specific genes wound up expressed on the right side of their bodies. These are, as you might guess, serious medical issues. Figuring out the mechanics underlying the symmetry-breaking process will help doctors understand human congenital afflictions like heterotaxy syndrome, in which leftright troubles result in organs being doubled, misshapen, or nonexistent. This can manifest as any of various malformations of the heart, in conjunction with other defects like asplenia (no spleen, which is supposed to be on the left side), polysplenia (spleens on both sides), or misaligned intestines. The symmetry-breaking problem you’d want, if you had to have one, is what’s called situs inversus totalis, in which organs develop in the chest and abdomen in a perfect mirror-image configuration. Here, because everything is correctly formed and positioned relative to everything else, it’s really no big deal in terms of down-the-road complications. In fact it can go undetected until a doctor does a stethoscope exam, at which point the double-takes ensue. If you’ve always figured that at least your heart’s in the right place, it can be a real shocker to find out it’s not. v Send questions to Cecil via straightdope.com or write him c/o Chicago Reader, 30 N. Racine, suite 300, Chicago 60607.

SAVAGE LOVE

HOT GIRL

By Dan Savage

BODY RUBS

When a spouse is a secret long-term sexter Is this a betrayal he should forgive? Plus: when a dick is a consolation prize Q : Without snooping, I came across texts of a very sexual nature between my wife, “Mary,” and a guy, “Jeremy.” While I would be OK if she were doing this and I knew about it, this has been going on since before we met ten years ago. She says she has never met him in person and this was the only thing she was doing that she thought would have been out of bounds. Again, if I had known, it would have been fine. I’m not OK with her being with other guys, but I know harmless flirting can be a release. Still, I have issues with anxiety and depression, and this is definitely triggering me. Prior to this, it never occurred to me that Mary would do anything that had a whiff of dishonesty about it. But her having kept this from me for as long as I have known her has made me question that. What do you think I should do? —UPSET IN THE MIDWEST

A : I think you should get over it, UITM. Easier said than done, I realize, particularly with the twin burdens of anxiety and depression. But if you would have been fine with this had you known—if there was no reason for Mary to hide this LTR of sorts from you—the best way to prove that to her is by giving it your retroactive blessing. You’re right, UITM: Mary shouldn’t have hidden this from you. But she assumed— incorrectly, as it turned out— you would have a problem with those texts. It was a reasonable assumption on her part, since swapping flirty texts with a stranger is regarded as “out of bounds” by most. While this makes Mary’s failure to disclose look a little worse, we live in a culture that defines absolutely everything as cheating—don’t

get me started on the idiocy that is “micro-infidelities” and the idiots pushing that toxic concept—and as a consequence, people not only lack perspective but also the language to honestly discuss our need for a little harmless erotic affirmation from someone who isn’t obligated to find us attractive, i.e., not a spouse or partner. If there’s nothing else—if no other shoes drop—give this your retroactive blessing.

Q : I have an unusual

situation. I met a girl I am crazy about. She didn’t really have any interest in me except for the occasional drink; she just wanted to be friends. A few months later, I saw her at a bar. We drank a bit more than we could handle and slept together, and I thought we would start dating. A few weeks went by, and she always had an excuse as to why we couldn’t hang out. Then one night, she texted to say she wanted to see me, but I could tell she was tipsy. We went out for a few more drinks and then slept together again. A week later, the same thing happened. When I contact her during the day, she never seems interested. But I run over like a starved dog when she calls at night. (Sadly, due to stress and overwork, I usually can’t get hard when I go over. That’s become a big issue.) She’s very attractive, and I’m surprised she has any interest in me at all, but it’s only when she’s drunk. I don’t know what attracts her to me except maybe I’m her booty call, but recently I have been terrible at it. The last time we hooked up, she told me she’s quitting drinking. Maybe she won’t contact me anymore. My question: Is it worth pursuing this if I get my ED situation ﬁxed? Or should I just move

on and if she does contact me one night, I just say, “Sorry, not interested”? It’s obvious she’s using me. But we actually have good conversations despite us both being drunk and it kinda seems like a date of some sort. What do you think? —SUMMONED WITH A TEXT

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A : She’s interested in you

for only one thing (sex) and at only one time (when she’s drunk, horny, and out of other options) . . . and she can summon you with a single drunken late-night text. It’s actually not an unusual situation, SWAT—millions of people have received similar summonses. So long as the summoned person doesn’t want anything more than sex from the person issuing the summons, Yahtzee: everybody gets laid, nobody gets hurt. But if the person being summoned wants more—if the summonee has unrequited feelings for the summoner—the summoned person is going to get hurt. Because what the summoner is essentially saying is this: “I want sex; I don’t want you.” Even if the sex is good, the rejection that comes bundled in that summons stings and the hurt grows over time. So, yeah, stop answering that drunk girl’s summonses. Let her know you want more than sex, and if she’s not interested in something more, you’re not interested in her. As for those erectile issues, SWAT, try having sex sober, earlier in the evening, and with someone who doesn’t regard your dick as a consolation prize. I bet they clear right up. v Send letters to mail@ savagelove.net. Download the Savage Lovecast every Tuesday at savagelovecast. com. m @fakedansavage

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EARLY WARNINGS

chicagoreader.com/early

JUNE 14, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 37

b Zeal & Ardor, Astronoid 9/29, 9 PM, Subterranean, 17+

UPDATED Aaron Neville 10/11-12, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston, second show added b Pelican, Cloakroom 7/26, 6 and 9 PM, Beat Kitchen, early show added, 17+

UPCOMING

Nothing é BEN RAYNER

NEW

Idris Ackamoor & the Pyramids 10/14, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM Alina Baraz 9/30, 7:30 PM, Metro, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM b Shoshana Bean 9/21, 7 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM b Blessthefall 9/26, 5:30 PM, Bottom Lounge, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM b Boy Named Banjo 7/17, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 6/14, noon b Cory Branan 8/26, 8 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM Brand X 12/8, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Olivia Chaney 8/8, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Brad Cole 7/7, 9 PM, Hideout Chelsea Cutler 10/2, 8 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Howie Day 7/18, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 6/14, noon b Dead Sara 9/29, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 18+ Dead to Fall 8/11, 8 PM, Cobra Lounge, 17+ Destroyer 10/17, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM b Django Django 10/5, 9 PM, Metro, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM, 18+ Josie Dunne 8/12, 7 PM, Lincoln Hall b Eliane Elias 11/13, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 6/14, noon b Robert Ellis 8/29, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM b Emancipator Ensemble, Papadosio 10/5, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+

Eptic 9/22, 8 PM, Park West, 18+ Ghost 11/1, 7 PM, Aragon Ballroom, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM b Givers 9/10, 8 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM Gringo Star 8/29, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Howard Hewett 9/2, 7 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 6/14, noon b Hippo Campus 10/6, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre, on sale Fri 6/15, noon b Will Hoge 9/28-29, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM b Honne 9/29, 9 PM, Metro, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM, 18+ Honorary Title 8/16, 7:30 PM, Lincoln Hall, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM b Hozier 9/21, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM b Hunna 10/10, 8:30 PM, Metro, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM, 18+ Jain 10/21, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Kodaline 11/27, 6:30 PM, House of Blues, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM b L.A. Witch, Pussy Foot 8/30, 9 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Greg Laswell 9/15, 7:30 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM b Low 11/16, 7:30 PM, Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM b Lvl Up 8/31, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Shelby Lynne 8/20, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 6/14, noon b Nicki Minaj, Future 9/28, 7:30 PM, United Center, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM Nothing, Culture Abuse 9/12, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Ocean Blue 10/14, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM, 18+

38 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 14, 2018

Pig 9/30, 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Remo Drive 9/20, 7 PM, Subterranean b Rico Nasty 8/9, 7 PM, Lincoln Hall, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM b Brandon Rogers 8/25, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall b Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever 9/8, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Rubblebucket 11/17, 10 PM, Bottom Lounge, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM, 18+ Romeo Santos 10/16, 8 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM Rina Sawayama 9/14, 7 PM, Subterranean b Scott Sharrard 8/20, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM b Soccer Mommy 10/4, 7:30 PM, Lincoln Hall, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM b Steel Pulse, Tribal Seeds 8/28, 8 PM, Concord Music Hall, on sale Fri 6/15, noon, 18+ Sun Seeker 8/5, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Robert Earl Thomas, Dogs at Large 7/9, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle F Tillers 8/4, 9 PM, Hideout Träd Gräs och Stenar, Endless Boogie 10/4, 9 PM, Hideout VNV Nation 12/1, 7:30 PM, Metro, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM, 18+ Butch Walker 9/26, 8 PM, House of Blues, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM, 17+ Jess Williamson 8/8, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Alicia Witt 8/22, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 6/14, noon b Wookiefoot 11/9-10, 8:30 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Yungblud 10/18, 7 PM, Subterranean, on sale Fri 6/15, 10 AM b

Lily Allen 10/31, 7:30 PM, the Vic b Amber Run 12/13, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Nicole Atkins 8/10, 7 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Bambara 6/26, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Mary J. Blige 7/20, 8 PM, Ravinia Festival, Highland Park b Bongripper 7/13, 8 PM, Metro, 18+ Borns, Twin Shadow 9/30, 7 PM, Aragon Ballroom b Arthur Buck 9/23, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall Brian Chase’s Drums & Drones with Ursula Scherrer 6/24, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Tyler Childers, Larkin Poe 8/2, 11 PM, Schubas, 18+ Chick Corea Trio 8/23, 7 and 9:30 PM, City Winery b Dead South 11/26, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Deafheaven, Mono 7/30, 7 PM, Metro, 18+ Death Cab for Cutie 10/7, 7 PM, Auditorium Theatre Dreamers, Weathers 10/10, 7 PM, Lincoln Hall b Jeremy Enigk 6/30, 8:30 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Erasure 7/28, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre Roky Erickson 11/9, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall Florence & the Machine, Perfume Genius 10/19, 7 PM, United Center Greg Fox 7/28, 9 PM, Hideout Ggoolldd 7/27, 9 PM, Empty Bottle A Giant Dog 8/13, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Gordon Lightfoot 9/16, 8 PM, Copernicus Center b Gorilla Biscuits, Modern Life Is War 9/29, 1 PM, Metro b Guided by Voices 8/26, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Havok, Extinction AD 7/24, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Griﬃn House 6/23, 8 PM, City Winery b Miki Howard 7/3, 8 PM, City Winery b James Hunter Six 7/8, 8 PM, City Winery b Jayhawks 7/13, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Joy Formidable, Tancred 11/3, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+

ALL AGES

WOLF BY KEITH HERZIK

EARLY WARNINGS

CHICAGO SHOWS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT IN THE WEEKS TO COME

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Kindred the Family Soul 12/29, 8 PM, Portage Theater King Buﬀalo 8/15, 8 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Jim Lauderdale 6/30, 8 PM, Hideout Lyle Lovett & His Large Band 8/28, 7:30 PM, Ravinia Festival, Highland Park b Jeﬀ Lynne’s ELO 8/15, 8 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont Meat Puppets 6/29, 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Melvins 7/31, 7:30 PM, Park West b The Men 8/25, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Janelle Monae 7/5, 7:30 PM, Chicago Theatre Kevin Morby, Anna Burch 7/8, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Mt. Joy 9/6, 8 PM, Thalia Hall b Oh Sees, Timmy’s Organism 10/12, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Oneida, Cave 7/28, 10 PM, Empty Bottle Phish 10/26-28, 7:30 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont Posies 6/23, 7:30 PM, Park West, 18+ Rusko 8/3, 10 PM, Logan Square Auditorium, 18+ Ty Segall, William Tyler 11/2, 7:30 PM, Thalia Hall b Serpentwithfeet 7/1, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Sleep 8/1, 7 PM, Riviera Theatre b Sleigh Bells 8/17, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers 6/21, 7:30 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park Swearin’, Empath 10/18, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Unknown Mortal Orchestra 7/27, 8 PM, House of Vans Unsane, Child Bite 7/14, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Wailin’ Jennys 10/26, 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Wax Idols, Shadow Age 9/9, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle We Are Scientists 6/22, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Why? 11/3, 9 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Wild Nothing 11/9, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Wimps 8/3, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen Witch Mountain 8/8, 8 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Wolf Parade 8/8, 8 PM, House of Vans Wombats, Future Feats 8/2, 11 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ v

GOSSIP WOLF A furry ear to the ground of the local music scene BELOVED BAR AND VENUE Quenchers Saloon closes for good this weekend—its final day is Saturday, June 16. Local bookers Phantom Note and MP Presents give the old place a proper send-off on Friday, June 15, with a five-act show billed as “Pharewell to Quenchers.” The lineup includes local Saves the Day cover band Band From the Back Porch (whose members also play in Space Blood, Laverne, Camo Hat, Santah, and Bev Rage & the Drinks, among others), ace Chicago postpunk duo Tinkerbelles, Rust Ring, Bow & Spear, and Hi Ho. Gossip Wolf has been hyping Bric-aBrac Records since before it opened in 2013, and with good reason—it’s not just a shop for music and 80s-centric toys but also one of the city’s best venues for in-store shows! On Saturday, June 16, Brica-Brac throws a fifth anniversary party that includes sets from five bands, among them garage rockers Glyders, bubblegum punks Slushy, and dream-pop squad Star Tropics. Keep up the good work, folks! When Avantist dropped their debut LP in April, the Reader called these punkprog brothers “one of the best bands in Chicago.” And they seem keen to keep proving it: in just four weeks, they wrote and recorded the new EP Terasoma, and lead single “Violence” bristles with slamming postpunk riffs. On Wednesday, June 20, Avantist celebrate at the Empty Bottle with Mother Nature and new duo Djunah, aka former Beat Drun Juel guitarist Donna Polydoros and drummer Nick Smalkowski of Fake Limbs (who just went on hiatus). On Saturday, June 16, amazing Chicago boogie label Star Creature Universal Vibrations takes over the Hideout for a label showcase and release party. Mexico City synth-pop duo Shiro Schwarz, recently unretired Chicago soul singer Donnell Pitman (with the band Wings of Sunshine), and feel-good local pop-funk group Family of Geniuses perform to celebrate new Star Creature seven-inches. —J.R. NELSON AND LEOR GALIL Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or e-mail gossipwolf@chicagoreader.com.

THIS FRIDAY & SATURDAY! JUNE 15-16 • VIC THEATRE

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SATURDAY, JUNE 23 PARK WEST

AL DI MEOLA NOTORIOUS Electric Tour 2018/2019

Music from Elegant Gypsy to Opus

SUNDAY, JUNE 24 PARK WEST

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Buy tickets at JAMUSA.COM JUNE 14, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 39