Print Issue of June 22, 2017 (Volume 46, Number 37)

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

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THIS WEEK

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

EDITOR JAKE MALOOLEY CREATIVE DIRECTOR VINCE CERASANI CULTURE EDITOR TAL ROSENBERG DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY DANIELLE A. SCRUGGS FILM EDITOR J.R. JONES MUSIC EDITOR PHILIP MONTORO ASSOCIATE EDITORS STEVE HEISLER, KATE SCHMIDT, KEVIN WARWICK SENIOR WRITER MIKE SULA SENIOR THEATER CRITIC TONY ADLER STAFF WRITERS MAYA DUKMASOVA, LEOR GALIL, DEANNA ISAACS, BEN JORAVSKY, AIMEE LEVITT, PETER MARGASAK, JULIA THIEL SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR RYAN SMITH GRAPHIC DESIGNER SUE KWONG MUSIC LISTINGS COORDINATOR LUCA CIMARUSTI CONTRIBUTING WRITERS NOAH BERLATSKY, MATT DE LA PEÑA, ANNE FORD, ISA GIALLORENZO, JOHN GREENFIELD, JUSTIN HAYFORD, JACK HELBIG, DAN JAKES, BILL MEYER, MICHAEL MINER, J.R. NELSON, MARISSA OBERLANDER, LEAH PICKETT, DMITRY SAMAROV, DAVID WHITEIS, ALBERT WILLIAMS INTERNS LIBBY BERRY, PORTER MCLEOD, EMILY WASIELEWSKI ---------------------------------------------------------------VICE PRESIDENT OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT NICKI STANULA VICE PRESIDENT OF NEW MEDIA GUADALUPE CARRANZA SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER EVANGELINE MILLER ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES FABIO CAVALIERI, BRIDGET KANE MARKETING AND EVENTS MANAGER BRYAN BURDA DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL JOHN DUNLEVY ADVERTISING COORDINATOR HERMINIA BATTAGLIA CLASSIFIEDS REPRESENTATIVE KRIS DODD ---------------------------------------------------------------DISTRIBUTION CONCERNS distributionissues@chicagoreader.com CHICAGO READER 350 N. ORLEANS, CHICAGO, IL 60654 312-222-6920, CHICAGOREADER.COM ---------------------------------------------------------------READER (ISSN 1096-6919) IS PUBLISHED WEEKLY

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4 Agenda It Came From the NeoFuturarium XII, SummerDance, the film Maudie, and more goings-on

CITY LIFE

8 Chicagoans Meet Ryan Shannon, a veteran and Warrior Games athlete.

10 Joravsky | Politics The budget impasse is Governor Rauner’s favorite campaign weapon.

12 Transportation Police said a cyclist “swerved into” a car before he was killed—but we’ve heard only the driver’s side of the story.

ARTS & CULTURE

REASONS TO LOVE CHICAGO

55 Theater In defense of Hedy Weiss 56 Lit 826CHI shows how friendships develop through letter writing.

58 Movies Last Men in Aleppo plunges viewers into the Syrian civil war.

CHICAGO’S THE CITY TRUMP HATES MOST

MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE

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CHICAGO WAS A SANCTUARY LONG BEFORE TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY

TOLLWAY OASES

FLATNESS

THE CTA SINGLE SEAT

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22 31

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THE FUTURE-PROOF CITY THE TOP FLOOR OF 17 METRA TRAINS 34 BACK PORCHES 18 LEAVING CHICAGO RAIL TWENTY-SIXTH STREET BY 36 20

THE 4100 BLOCK OF SOUTH BERKELEY AVENUE 22

CROSSING GUARDS 25

URBAN RABBITS 27 ON THE COVER: MURAL BY FINER SIGNS. FOR MORE, GO TO WEAREFINERTHINGS. COM/FINER-SIGNS. PHOTO BY DANIELLE A. SCRUGGS. WALL DONATED BY KIMSKI CHEF WON KIM, WHO CONTRIBUTED THE ADJACENT MURAL.

IN THIS ISSUE

BEST OF CHICAGO

OPEN UNIVERSITY OF THE LEFT 29

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THE SWEET STEAK SANDWICH

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BARS ON RESIDENTIAL STREETS 38

GETTING GROCERIES ON ARGYLE AND DEVON 39

THE SWEETS & SNACKS EXPO 40

48 17

CRIME STORY 42

K-POP OF CHINATOWN

44

LEFT OF THE DIAL 46

STEVE STONE 48

OPTIMO HATS 50

THAT FIRST WARM DAY 52

MIDWESTERN NICENESS 53

BEING THE ONE LEFT BEHIND 54

READERS’ POLL WINNERS

Goods & Services 14 Food & Drink 19 Music & Nightlife 31 Arts & Culture 35 Sports & Recreation 44 City Life 50

60 Shows of note Body/Head, Freddie Gibbs, the Era, and more 63 The Secret History of Chicago Music The Bonemen of Barumba played “barbecue music from hell.”

FOOD & DRINK

71 Restaurant Review: Ella Elli Chef Matt Eversman stands out amid the Four Star Restaurant Group empire.

CLASSIFIEDS

73 Jobs 73 Apartments & Spaces 74 Marketplace 75 Straight Dope Did male dominance make it impossible for men to worship goddesses?

76 Savage Love A monogamous straight woman has become smitten with a man who’s poly.

78 Early Warnings Peanut Butter Wolf, Washed Out, and more shows 78 Gossip Wolf Chicago rapper Chris Crack breaks a yearlong silence, and more music news

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F to inherit her money and land might seem dated—not to say grotesque—the self-delusion and absurd conniving at the heart of this story are as current as today’s headlines. Directed by Terry McCabe. —DMITRY SAMAROV Through 7/23: Fri-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Mon 7/10 and 7/17, City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr, 773-293-3682, citylit.org, $32, $27 seniors, $12 students/military.

!

Golden Jubilee

Macbeth Suddenly Shakespeare R is relevant again. And not just because a few rabid supporters of our

th

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50% off 16-19th century prints including views, natural history, portraits, vintage ads, satire, genre, fashion plates, reference books, more Tue - Sat: 10 - 5.

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Macbeth ò JOHNNY KNIGHT

THEATER

More at chicagoreader.com/theater Bette Davis Ain’t for Sissies There are no big surprises in Jessica Sherr’s 60-minute solo, no novel insights. Yes, Bette Davis faced sexism in the movie industry. Yes, it was lonely at the top.

Even if you didn’t see Feud, the recent FX series about her war with Joan Crawford, you likely know already that Davis drank to excess, smoked like a chimney, had a sharp tongue, and earned two Oscars, arguably getting robbed of a third

by Vivien Leigh and the 1939 Gone With the Wind juggernaut. The main appeal of Sissies (the title, by the way, isn’t homophobic, just off point: it paraphrases Davis’s comment that “old age ain’t no place for sissies”) is Sherr herself, whose Davis isn’t quite like any you’ve seen, adding a bright comic energy to the usual semaphore gestures and wised-up locutions. Sherr is especially wild during a passage where Davis gets randy with Howard Hughes. —TONY ADLER Through 7/2: Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2 and 7:30 PM, Sun 2 PM, Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport, 773-935-6860, athenaeumtheatre.com, $24-$34.

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Jaques Brel’s Lonesome Losers of the Night Some of my most treasured Sundays in Chicago have been spent sipping beer and taking in a songbook at Theo Ubique, Roger Park’s gem of a hole-in-the-wall cabaret that specializes in revues. Fred Anzevino’s reprisal of his and translator Arnold Johnston’s 2008 hit is no exception, though the repertoire on hand cuts more deeply with a coarser sound than many such offerings—that’s part of what makes these rare English-language renditions so valuable. Under the musical direction of Jeremy Ramey, four vocalists revive Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel’s eminently dramatic ballads and drinking songs against the backdrop of a crumbling 1959 Amsterdam. There’s only piano accompaniment, but the trade-off for losing the brass and accordion that bolster Brel’s opulent

swells is taking in Joshua Stephen Kartes’s rich arrangements and Randolph Johnson’s stunning vocal interpretations all the more clearly. —DAN JAKES Through 8/6: Thu 7:30 PM, Fri-Sat 8 PM, Sun 7 PM, No Exit Cafe, 6970 N. Glenwood, 773-743-3355, theo-u.com, $29, $25 students and seniors; dinner and show $49-$54.

The King and I Based on the most recent Broadway revival of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s 1951 musical, this Equity touring production offers visual beauty, fine dancing, gorgeous voices, and ethnically sensitive casting (Asian roles played by actors of Asian descent). What it lacks, though, is crucial: a properly explosive relationship between the leads. Laura Michelle Kelly has all the vocal power she needs as Anna Leonowens, a reallife Englishwoman who taught in the court of the King of Siam from 1862 to 1868. But her manner is staid and her tensions with the king tend to come off as teacher’s-lounge gripes. Jose Llana’s King, meanwhile, never conveys a sense of how very, very dangerous an absolute monarch—even one who wants to westernize his country—can be. Their relationship fails to catch fire pedagogically, much less romantically. —TONY ADLER Through 7/2: Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PM, Tue 7:30 PM, Wed 2 and 7:30 PM, Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre, 24 W. Randolph, 800-775-2000, broadwayinchicago.com, $24-$90.

current thin-skinned Chief Executive— and the fearful corporate sponsors they intimidated—got their boxers in a twist over a recent staging of Julius Caesar. Even in this apolitical take on the Scottish play by Oak Park Festival Theatre, where Matthew Fahey’s callow, shaved-headed Macbeth couldn’t seem less like the president who shall not be named, there are moments when a canny audience member still can’t help but flash on our contemporary scene.

(Sample line: “Alas, poor country! Almost afraid to know itself.”) But that may also be because the current production, adeptly directed by Barbara Zahora, is so simple and direct, and the bard’s poetry so deftly and fluidly conveyed, that we feel all the dark power in this tight, taut, tragic tale. —JACK HELBIG Through 7/22: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 7 PM, Oak Park Festival Theatre, Austin Gardens, Forest & Ontario, Oak Park, 708-445-4440, oakparkfestival.com, $30, $25 seniors, $15 students.

Nautilina For this immersive R program of intersecting monologues and vignettes, the adventurous

Agency Theater Collective has taken over a raw black-box space at the Den and transformed it into a dumpy bar called Finnegan’s. Audience members sit at tables and booths, sometimes joined by the actors as they deliver their stream-of-consciousness reflections, reminiscences, and rants. Is the faux tavern’s name a reference to James Joyce’s novel Finnegans Wake? I don’t know, but certainly the absurd, sometimes profane, sometimes funny, and sometimes downright mystifying soliloquies evoke a dreamlike experience as the characters try to escape from their emotional

shells. In one sequence, a man lewdly propositions a woman at the bar, then disrobes in escalating frustration as she ignores him. Later, the same woman explodes about her job monitoring hundreds of hours’ worth of EDM for possibly offensive (and therefore exciting) content. Written by Brian Foster, the well-acted production is codirected

by Sommer Austin and Anna Lucero.

—ALBERT WILLIAMS Through 7/16: ThuSat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, Den Theatre, 1329-1333 N. Milwaukee, 773-609-2336, wearetheagency.org, $24.

Safe in My Own Head The R premise is cringeworthy: Brendan Duffy casts himself in his autobi-

ographical one-man musical about his struggles with depression, anxiety, and self-loathing. But rather than an evening of self-indulgence and self-importance, Duffy delivers almost nonstop self-ridicule, portraying himself as a hapless, over-rationalizing fool who seeks out any reason, no matter how absurd, to subvert his own better judgment. He’s ably thwarted by his brain, an offstage female voice (the delightful Natalie Moretti) with a penchant for chipper downers (“You look like you have the first stages of lupus,” she chirps when he glances in the morning mirror). Duffy’s pop/ doo-wop score is clean and tuneful, and his performance is candid, coy, and commanding. Director Jenn Noyes lets real darkness seep into this deceptively light show. —JUSTIN HAYFORD Through 7/21: 8:30 PM, iO Theater, 1501 N. Kingsbury, ioimprov.com/chicago, $14.

DANCE Afro-Dancehall with Stacy Letrice Combining West African, Jamaican dancehall, and African pop culture styles, Letrice has given birth to a kind-hearted Frankenstein’s monster form of dance. Join her for a lively, uncommon two-hour experience. Sat 6/24, 6-8 PM, Lou Conte Dance Studio, 1147 W. Jackson, 312-850-9744, hubbardstreetdance.com/lcds_home.asp, $20.

SummerDance WhethR erChicago you’re an experienced dancer

London Assurance Dion BouciR coult’s arch 1841 comedy of manners gets a spirited and fully committed production at City Lit. This story of bumbling boors, chiseling social climbers, and simpering fops gallivanting and scheming around the London countryside is crisply performed by a uniformly excellent cast. Their nimble way with this wordy text is a thing to behold and illustrates neatly why this play was such an influence on Oscar Wilde. While the idea of an old man marrying a much younger woman sight unseen in order

London Assurance ò ALLY NEUTZE

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Best bets, recommendations, and notable arts and culture events for the week of June 22

or have two left feet, come to SummerDance and learn—or merely watch—sick moves that’ll score you points at Bar Mitzvahs. Through 9/14: Fri and Sun typically run from 6-9:30 PM at Spirit of Music Garden, Grant Park, 601 S. Michigan; other times and venues vary, 312-742-4007, cityofchicago.org/city/en/ depts/dca/supp_info/chicago_summerdance6.html. F

COMEDY

Dick Pix Montana “Romeo, oh R Romeo, wherefore art thou dick pic Romeo . . . ” This modern adaptation

of Shakespeare’s famous star-crossed lover’s tale finds Romeo photographing his long-and-danglies. Only instead of sending to his love, he blasts the photo on Snapchat and is arrested for distributing child pornography. These questionable delights have odd ends.

Sun 6/25, 7 PM, Mary’s Attic Theatre, 5400 N. Clark, 773-784-6969, hamburgermaryschicago.com, $10.

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It Came From the Neo-Futurarium XII: Dawn of the Neo-Futurarium For the 12th year, the NeoFuturists mock—with love—some of the worst movies ever made by targeting the scripts. These performers don’t hold back in outrageous staged readings of anything from Nicolas Cage’s classic Face/Off (they take his face off) to the made-for-TV masterpiece Someone I Touched. 6/24-7/15: Sat 7:30 PM, Neo-Futurarium, 5153 N. Ashland, 773-275-5255, neofuturists.org, $15-$50.

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Justin Hires The up-and-coming comedian performs his energetic and quick-witted stand-up. Hires’s credits include 21 Jump Street, Key & Peele, and CBS’s Rush Hour. 6/22-6/23: Thu 8:30 PM, Fri 8:30 and 10:30 PM, Zanies, 1548 N. Wells, 312-337-4027, zanies.com/ chicago, $25.

The Potterotica Podcast Danny Chapman, Allie LeFevere, and Lyndsay Rush present a live reading of the freakiest Harry Potter-themed erotica from the depths of the Internet. Sip on some butter beer to ease the steamy broom ride that is the realization someone went out of their way to put e-pen to e-paper in the name of Hogwarts. Tue 6/27, 7-9:30 PM, Quenchers Saloon, 2401 N. Western, 773-276-9730, quenchers.com, $10.

Premier Premieres! Enjoy R this third annual weekend of new musical comedies. The topics

include the Civil War, William Henry Harrison’s brief presidency, abortion, and deceased prom dates. 6/22-6/24: Thu 7 PM, Fri-Sat 7 and 9 PM, MCL Chicago, 3110 N. Sheffield, mclchicago. com, $15-$60.

Punchline Panic Eight comics have 90 minutes to write and perform brandnew material. Nowhere does it say the material has to be funny, though, so no pressure! Open run: last Monday of the

Abouet, Alex Lyttle, Krystyna Poray Goddu, J.I. and M.A. Powers are authors looking for readers. Thing is, at Reading Group Choices, they have only a limited amount of time to present their books to attendees before the next writer takes the stage. It’s like speed OkCupid-ing. Sat 6/24, 6:30 PM, Book Cellar, 4736 N. Lincoln, 773-293-2665, bookcellarinc.com.

Susan Bordo ò VIA WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST month, 8:30 PM, Zanies, 1548 N. Wells, 312-337-4027, zanies.com/chicago, $10 plus two-drink minimum.

VISUAL ARTS Ciao Chicago “Drawn in Europe: The Art of European Comics Comes to Chicacgo” compares our red, white, and blue comics to those from over the pond.

Award-winning illustrators from Italy and France present surreal, sometimes somber pieces of comic art—plus there’ll be food and drink from both nations to seal the deal. Noon. 1656 W. Chicago. F Gallery 400 “Black Light,” an exhibition named after Faith Ringgold’s paintings during the Civil Rights movement, looks at the ways black artists have challenged structural racism and given visibility to black producers of cultural and educational content. 6/23-8/5. Tue-Fri 10 AM-6 PM, Sat noon-6 PM. 400 S. Peoria, 312-996-6114, gallery400.aa.uic.edu.

Susan Bordo Bordo discusses her new book, The Destruction of Hillary Clinton, an insightful exploration into last year’s chaotic election. (Wait, what?!)

She’s joined by local author Kim Brooks for an intriguing dialogue about, among other things, probably Russia. Wed 6/28, 7:30 PM, Women & Children First, 5233 N. Clark, 773-769-9299, womenandchildrenfirst.com.

MOVIES

More at chicagoreader.com/movies The Bad Batch In the bleak near future, a Texas bad girl, played by Suki Waterhouse, is herded with others of her ilk past the Mexican border into a desert hellscape polarized by a grubby encampment of heartless cannibals

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47 Meters Down The only thing this so-called thriller has going for it is widescreen cinematography by Mark Silk, a pro with more than two dozen film and TV credits in marine work; he conveys the vastness and terrors of the sea far better than Johannes Roberts and Ernest Riera do with their preposterous screenplay. Two sisters vacationing in Mexico (Mandy Moore, Claire Holt) sign on for a shark dive but soon regret their decision after the winch suspending their underwater cage breaks and they plummet to the ocean floor. The sharks are scary enough, but the dialogue is banal and repetitive, and almost every plot development is telegraphed—often

by Matthew Modine as the captain of the expedition, whose portentous instructions veer toward parody. Roberts directed. —ANDREA GRONVALL PG-13, 89 min. For listings see chicagoreader. com/movies.

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Arundhati Roy Arundhati Roy’s semi-autobiographical novel The God of Small Things captures the experience of fraternal twins growing up in Aymanam, Kerala, and their search for distinct identities. Roy grew up there herself, and her 1997 book—which won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction—pulls from her experiences. She reads from and signs copies of her novel as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival. Plus, bonus! Heartthrob John Cusack will introduce Roy. Fri 23, 7 PM, Francis W. Parker School, 2233 N. Clark, 773-3533000, fwparker.org, $15.

Reading Group Choices Lucy R Knisley, Sarah Shoemaker, Penelope Bagieu, Jennifer Latham, Marguerite

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Kimono Exhibition The kimono has long been part of Japanese culture, and this exhibition displays a collection of those garments that have intricate, eye-catching designs—likely worn at fancy events no one can attend without a really rad kimono. Sat 6/24, noon-Sun 6/25, 5 PM, Japanese Culture Center, 1016 W Belmont, 773-525-3141, japaneseculturecenter.com, $6.

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Maudie and a Dionysian disco cult. This gaudy postapocalyptic adventure from writer-director Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night) never stops moving, its heroine bouncing back and forth between the revelers and the flesh eaters, but it never really gets anywhere either. Jason Momoa is a brooding presence as “Miami Man,” the cut and tattooed leader of the cannibals, whom the plucky heroine desires sexually even though he ate her right forearm and left calf; on the other side, Keanu Reeves struts around in big shades and a cop mustache as the charismatic cult leader “the Dream.”

Amirpour has cited El Topo and The Road Warrior as references, and follows through with sun-baked weirdo roles for Jim Carrey and Giovanni Ribisi. —J.R. JONES R, 118 min. Fri 6/23-Sun 6/25, 2,

Maudie This Irish-Canadian drama R tells the true story of Maud Lewis (played beautifully by Sally Hawkins),

an arthritic woman in Nova Scotia who taught herself to paint and became an internationally recognized folk artist.

Rather than dwell on Lewis’s career, screenwriter Sherry White looks at her relationship with her husband (Ethan Hawke, cast effectively against type), a mean and socially maladroit handyman who hires her as a live-in maid but over time falls in love with her. White and director Aisling Walsh refuse to soft-peddle the husband’s chauvinism or insensitivity, and because of this, his transformation into a loving, supportive husband seems as hard-won as his wife’s success in the art world. The setting, emotionally wounded characters, and sensitivity to small-town dynamics all µ

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AGENDA were staged with a feather-light touch. The best reason to see this is Eddie Izzard, admirably low-key and consistently amusing as the crusty army captain who tries to nail the thieving pub rats. Gillies MacKinnon directed; with Gregor Fisher, Kevin Guthrie, and Ellie Kendrick. —J.R. JONES 98 min. Fri 6/23-Thu 6/29.

Gene Siskel Film Center REVIVALS Car Wash Not quite a disco R musical, this 1976 release sure feels like one in terms of

When You Read This Letter B reminded me of Jean Negulesco’s classic Johnny Belinda (1948).

—BEN SACHS PG-13, 115 min. Century 12 and CineArts 6, Landmark’s Century Centre

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the group; Zoë Kravitz and Ilana Glazer barely register, except for the fact that their characters are former lovers. Lucia Aniello directed a script she cowrote with Paul W. Downs; with Demi Moore and Dean Winters. —J.R. JONES R, 101 min. For listings see chicagoreader. com/movies.

Moka Two grandes dames of the French cinema face off in this psychological thriller when a grieving mother (Emmanuelle Devos) tracks down the aging beautician (Nathalie Baye) who may have killed the former’s teenage son in a hit-andrun accident. The premise is hardly fresh, but screenwriters Antonin Martin-Hilbert and Frédéric Mermoud tease it out so gradually that you may find yourself hooked anyway. The mother takes a twopronged approach to her pursuit, posing as a customer to strike up a friendship with the beautician even as she negotiates privately with the woman’s husband (David Clavel) for the purchase of their dented Mercedes. Once these twin deceptions dovetail, her true identity will be exposed, but there are surprises in store for her as well. Mermoud directed. In French with subtitles. —J.R. JONES 89 min. Fri 6/23-Thu 6/29. Gene Siskel Film Center

this early thriller (1953) from JeanPierre Melville, the French cinema’s preeminent misanthrope. A young novitiate (Juliette Gréco) is called home to watch over her younger sister (Irene Galter) after their parents are killed in a car accident, and when the sister is raped by a handsome drifter (Philippe Lemaire), the former nun comes after him packing more than a rosary. The atmosphere is so thick with lust and vengeance that any Catholic reading of the story is impossible; here the Church is just another shadowy institution, where people hide from their own evil. In French with subtitles. —J.R. JONES 104 min. 35mm. Thu 6/29, 6 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center

Rough Night Scarlett Johansson works overtime to salvage this dismal Bridesmaids knockoff, heavily informed by The Hangover and even Weekend at Bernie’s.

Her character, a young candidate for state senator, takes off with four gal pals for a bachelorette weekend in Miami before her marriage, and they wind up having to dispose of a dead male stripper.

If the genders were reversed, this would be condemned as misogynist, and it isn’t any funnier with the women in control of the situation. Kate McKinnon makes the most of her second-banana role as the bride’s old Australian friend, and Jillian Bell plays the doofus of

Whisky Galore! During World War II, a Scottish seaside town makes the ultimate sacrifice when whiskey is rationed, but then a U.S. ship carrying 50,000 cases founders off the coast, and the thirsty townspeople launch a pirate expedition.

This British comedy, adapted from a novel by Compton Mackenzie, can’t help but pale in comparison to the Ealing Studios version from 1949; the characters in the newer one are more carefully shaded, but that doesn’t necessarily make them funnier. As the Coen brothers discovered with The Ladykillers (2004), remaking an Ealing classic can be a tricky business; the studio traded in farce, but even the broadest gags

When You Read This R Letter Sex, religion, and blackmail feed the cauldron of

bounce, verve, and energy. It’s basically a comedy-drama built around a string of vignettes related to a day in the life of a Los Angeles car wash, with a very good, largely nonwhite cast featuring Franklyn Ajaye (a particular delight), Antonio Fargas, Bill Duke, Ivan Dixon, Richard Pryor, Tracy Reed, and Garrett Morris; Sully Boyar plays the white boss.

The gags tend to be much more concerned with questions of class than one is accustomed to in American movies—and the contrapuntal punctuations of the disco DJ are positively Altman-esque.

Michael Schultz (Cooley High) directed a screenplay by Joel Schumacher, and if you compare this movie to Schumacher’s somewhat similar D.C. Cab, made seven years later, you may conclude that Schumacher’s is the dominant creative voice. Critics seemed to like this less than audiences; personally I had a ball. —JONATHAN ROSENBAUM 97 min. 35mm. Tue 6/27, 7:30 PM. Northeastern Illinois University, Auditorium

L’America This masterful R and extremely moving 1995 feature by Gianni Amelio recalls

some of the best Italian neorealist films. An Italian con artist (Enrico Lo Verso) tries to set up a fake corporation in postcommunist Albania in order to get his hands on state subsidies; with his business partner, he digs up a traumatized 70-year-old former political prisoner to serve as the phony president of his phony company, but the poor creature—whose memory, like Albania’s links with the outside world, seems to have frozen a half century earlier—keeps wandering away. The story only grows in dimension and resonance as it proceeds, becoming an epic, multifaceted portrayal of a postcommunist Europe awakened from its slumbers by TV and consumerism—as illuminating a portrait of what’s happening in the world as we can find in movies. As the title suggests, it also has something to do with America and what it represents—or used to represent—for others. In Italian with subtitles.

—JONATHAN ROSENBAUM 97 min.

35mm. Novelist Aleksandar Hemon lectures at the screening. Tue 6/27, 7:30 PM. Facets Cinematheque v

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JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 7

LOOKINGGLASS THEATRE COMPANY

CITY LIFE

TICKET GIVEAWAY

LOOK FOR THE MOBY DICK WHALE TAIL HIDDEN ON A PAGE IN THE CHICAGO READER’S JUNE 8, 15 AND 22 ISSUES. SWEEPSTAKES RUNS JUNE 8–28.

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Enter two or more weeks during the sweepstakes for a chance to win the Grand Prize: a pair of tickets and a Lookingglass gift bag.

NO PURCHASE OR PAYMENT OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. SWEEPSTAKES RUNS FROM 12:00 AM CDT ON 6/8/17 TO 11:59 PM CDT ON 6/28/17. SEE CHICAGOREADER.COM/WIN FOR DETAILS AND COMPLETE OFFICIAL RULES WHICH APPLY. ON 6/8/17, 6/15/17 AND 6/22/17 AN IMAGE OF THE MOBY DICK WHITE TAIL WILL BE HIDDEN (“HIDDEN TAIL”) IN THE CHICAGO READER. EACH ENTRANT WILL NEED TO IDENTIFY THE PAGE WHERE THE HIDDEN TAIL IS LOCATED TO ENTER THE SWEEPSTAKES. THE PAGE NUMBER WHERE THE HIDDEN TAIL IS LOCATED IS VALID FOR THE DAY IN WHICH IT APPEARS IN THE NEWSPAPER, AND FOR THE FOLLOWING SIX DAYS (THE “SWEEPSTAKES PERIOD”). ENTRIES MUST BE SUBMITTED PRIOR TO THE END OF THE APPLICABLE SWEEPSTAKES PERIOD.LIMIT ONE ENTRY PER PERSON PER SWEEPSTAKES PERIOD DURING SWEEPSTAKES. A TOTAL OF THREE (3) PRIZES WILL BE AWARDED, EACH CONSISTING OF A VOUCHER FOR TWO (2) TICKETS TO LOOKINGGLASS THEATRE’S MOBY DICK (THE “PERFORMANCE”). ONE GRAND PRIZE WILL BE AWARDED CONSISTING OF A VOUCHER FOR TWO (2) TICKETS TO THE PERFORMANCE AND A GIFT BAG. EACH PRIZE VOUCHER’S VALUE IS $110 AND THE GRAND PRIZE’S VOUCHER VALUE IS $315. TO BE ELIGIBLE TO WIN THE GRAND PRIZE ENTRANT MUST HAVE ENTERED THE SWEEPSTAKES IDENTIFYING THE CORRECT PAGE NUMBER OF THE HIDDEN TAIL A MINIMUM OF TWO (2) DAYS DURING THE SWEEPSTAKES. OPEN TO LEGAL RESIDENTS OF ILLINOIS, INDIANA, AND WISCONSIN, AGED 18 YEARS OR OLDER. ODDS OF WINNING DEPEND ON NUMBER OF CORRECT ELIGIBLE ENTRIES RECEIVED. SPONSOR RESERVES THE RIGHT TO SUBSTITUTE ANY PRIZE WITH ANOTHER PRIZE OF EQUAL OR GREATER VALUE SHOULD THE STATED PRIZE BECOME UNAVAILABLE. IF THE SWEEPSTAKES IS NOT CAPABLE OF RUNNING AS PLANNED FOR ANY REASON, SPONSOR RESERVES THE RIGHT TO CANCEL, MODIFY OR SUSPEND THE SWEEPSTAKES. SPONSORS: SUN-TIMES MEDIA, LLC, 350 N. ORLEANS ST., 10TH FLOOR, CHICAGO, IL 60654 AND LOOKINGGLASS THEATRE, 821 N MICHIGAN AVE, CHICAGO, IL, 60611.

8 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

ò PORTER MCLEOD

Chicago Reader & Lookingglass Theatre Company are giving you the chance to win a pair of tickets to the Jeff Award-winning production of Moby Dick!

Chicagoans

The injured vet Ryan Shannon, 30, veteran and Warrior Games athlete I NEVER REALLY HAD the military bug. I was in college when the Northern Illinois University shooting happened, and I read about how one man died saving his girlfriend’s life.

I started reevaluating my life, based off his story. I was like, “I gotta go do something bigger than me.” I thought, “You know what, I’m going to be the first person in my family to be in the military.”

It was exactly the right choice. You grow up real quick in the military. I joined the navy, and I was stationed on a submarine for six of my nine years. I was a radio man.

But I had this three-year span of bad luck.

We were in New Hampshire, getting the

submarine retrofitted. A worker wanted to go home early, so he lit a rag on fire and threw it in a hazmat locker, and all that stuff went up in flames. We fought that fire for ten and a half hours. Anything related to fire now—the smells, the sounds—they trigger that night, and I have nightmares.

Then when we left New Hampshire, we had a fire drill. The alarm went off while we were sleeping. A buddy of mine was in his [bunk], the third rack up. He jumped down, and both of his heels hit me where your neck meets the base of your skull. It knocked my head between my legs and bounced my face off the floor.

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CITY LIFE Now, I’m six foot six and I chose to be on a submarine, so stitches in the head weren’t uncommon for me, but this was definitely a whole different experience. I was really dazed, and they wouldn’t let me sleep, and at points I’d get injected with epinephrine to keep me awake. Then they medevaced me.

I had brain swelling and two cracked vertebrae in my neck. For 58 straight days, if my eyes were open, I had the worst headache possible.

I ended up in a [traumatic brain injury] clinic for two years. I lost a lot of memories, I had speech issues, my reading wasn’t too great. It’s not fixed now, but there’s all these different things I can do to help. Then later I broke my foot at the beach, and it was misdiagnosed for three months as a sprained ankle, so I developed this thing called complex regional pain syndrome. Basically, my brain thinks my foot is still broken.

I’m in this brace-type thing, and I have a spinal-cord-stimulator implant to try to alleviate the pain.

The Warrior Games are what got me off the couch. They’re a Paralympic-style athletic competition between branches of the military. I do swimming, track, and sitting vol-

SURE THINGS

THURSDAY 22

leyball. Doing the Games has given me this family of people. They give you brotherhood and camaraderie, everything that was taken when I left the military. This year in Chicago is the first time they’re open to the public.

My story is only a very small portion of what you’ll see out there. Everybody’s got a story, and nobody’s life has gone according to plan.

A funny story is, last year in my first event, I broke my foot. I didn’t know it, ’cause of course it already felt broken. I just noticed my gait was off. I ended up in the hospital, and they’re like, “You have a fracture in your foot again,” and I’m like “Awesome. That makes a lot of sense.” —AS TOLD TO ANNE FORD

FRIDAY 23

SATURDAY 24

Ô THE INCREDIBLE HANK In the fictional city of Sandicago, superheroes and supervillains run rampant. All except Hank, who would rather be the world’s greatest file clerk. The show ends its run tomorrow, so hurry to find out what’s so incredible. Through 6/24: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Royal George Theatre, 1641 N. Halsted, $20.

J CHICAGO ZOMBIE MARCH Saunter through the streets in gruesome getups. If you don’t have time (or skill) to zombify yourself, makeup artists will help.

They aren’t undead.

Unless they are? 3:30 PM, Millennium Park, Michigan and Randolph, chicagohorror.com. F

MONDAY 26

TUESDAY 27

WEDNESDAY 28

Ñ

× GOLD COAST GREEK FE ST Celebrate Greek culture with authentic food and pastries, traditional music and dance, and a tour of the historic cathedral to the tunes of Hello Weekend and the Kosta Kastanis Band. Beta be there! Noon-11 PM, Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral, 1017 N. LaSalle, 312-6645485. F

—Ryan Shannon

* AN EVENING OF SOUL ON WA X DJ Stevenson Roberts dusts off his collection of vintage vinyl for a night of old-school soul.

M Lounge, 1520 S. Wabash, 6 PM. F

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

SUNDAY 25

“Doing the Warrior Games has given me brotherhood and camaraderie— everything that was taken when I left the military.”

* BAT TLE OF THE BANDS Local bands White Mystery, Ric Wilson, Lili K, and Modern Vices face off for the chance to open for the Roots at the New Belgium Tour de Fat on July 29. They’ll be bringing their A sides; this is Questlove we’re talking about. Schubas, 3159 N Southport, lh-sh.com. F

PAUL GAUGUIN More than 240 paintings, sculptures, and prints give insight into why Gauguin received praise only posthumously—but deserved it beforehand.

Through 9/10, Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan, artic.edu, $14 for Chicago residents.

| MISS SPOKEN The monthly reading series features fearless and authentic nonfiction stories by femaleidentifying authors.

This month’s theme is munchies. Um, medicinal munchies. Gallery Cabaret, 2020 N. Oakley, miss-spoken.com. F

WICKER PARK: 1478 N. Milwau Av. (Blue Line @ Damen) • 773-22kee 7-9 558 BUFFALOEXCHANGE.COM •

SLEEP RESEARCH STUDY FOR PEOPLE WITH LUNG DISEASE: Volunteers are invited to join this study: you must be over age 45 years, have either emphysema or chronic bronchitis and difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep to qualify.

We are testing a program to improve sleep in people with lung disease. Volunteers eligible for the study will participate in 6 weekly sessions in one of four behavioral or educational programs. The programs are offered by the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Hines VA. Health evaluations include an overnight sleep study, lung function tests, two blood draws, activity monitoring and questionnaires. Compensation is provided to enrolled participants, all program activities and testing are free and free parking is provided.

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JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 9

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

CITY LIFE

ò MARIA CARDONA/ SUN-TIMES MEDIA

A

POLITICS

Better call Bruce

In a sleazy style reminiscent of Saul Goodman, Governor Rauner has made the budget impasse his favorite campaign weapon.

By BEN JORAVSKY 10 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

s absurdist comedy goes, the Father’s Day greeting I got from, of all people, Illinois governor Bruce Rauner was right up there with Better Call Saul, the AMC television show about a sleazy, con-artist lawyer.

Rauner’s putting his inner Saul Goodman on display as he tries to convince voters that the budget impasse—for which he’s primarily responsible—is actually the fault of the Democrats.

“The very future of our state is at stake,” Rauner wrote in the e-mail. “This past week, I called a special session to bring the General Assembly together in Springfield to pass a balanced budget with real, lasting reforms.”

The message—which included an appeal to donate to Citizens for Rauner, as though he needs more money—was signed “Bruce.”

First of all, Bruce—don’t act like you’re my friend. Second of all—why are you bugging me? I’m the last guy who’d give you a dime.

Sure, his campaign probably got my e-mail address from some mailing list it purchased with the millions Rauner’s already got stashed in his war chest.

I give the governor credit for getting one thing right: On June 15, he called a special session of the legislature. But not to pass anything resembling “reform” or to sincerely bargain with the Democrats. C’mon, folks—we know he has no interest in that. Senate Republicans bargained for months with their Democratic counterparts for a budget that would include a property tax freeze, one of Rauner’s so-called reforms. And then at the end of May, Rauner left the Democrats in the lurch, ordering his Republican senators to retreat from the deal. The deal passed the senate, but without any Republican votes, thus enabling Rauner to blast the Democrats for passing a deal he had wanted them to pass. I don’t think even Saul would’ve been so audacious.

That senate-approved budget died in the house, where Rauner’s arch rival, speaker Michael Madigan, reigns. Some Democratic legislators pressed Madigan to bring the budget for a vote, if only to put Rauner on the defensive and show the world that the Dems are more than a party of no. But Madigan didn’t bring it for a vote for several reasons. It’s unclear he had the votes to pass it. And even if Madigan had twisted enough legislative arms to pass the budget, Rauner probably would’ve charged that the speaker’s willingness to use his power to “ram through multiple tax hikes outside a comprehensive jobs and reform package confirms that the

entire Democratic Party’s position is to raise taxes while protecting the status quo.” Which is what a GOP press release said about the senate Democrats.

In short, if Madigan had advanced a tax hike, like the one in the senate, Rauner would’ve blasted every house member who voted for it. As well as every Democratic gubernatorial candidate, just for good measure.

No matter what the Democrats do, it seems, Rauner will blast them for doing it. Unless of course they totally capitulate to his demands for union-busting legislation that would eviscerate both the unions and the Democratic Party, as labor can be counted on to donate to the Dems.

So here’s Madigan’s choice: sign on to a suicide pact for his party, or let the governor pound him like a piñata.

And Rauner can afford to do plenty of pounding. The governor kicked $50 million into his own campaign back in December. Last month, his friend and ally, Ken Griffin, a hedgefund operator who’s the richest man in the state, kicked in another $20 million to Rauner.

That’s $70 million just sitting around ready to be used for commercials, press releases, and (apparently) Father’s Day solicitations.

So what can we expect from Rauner’s special session?

I doubt they’ll pass a full budget. At best they’ll come up with a stopgap measure. That’s where both parties agree to authorize money for things like education, without passing a full budget.

Rauner likes stopgap measures. As I’ve mentioned before, the budget impasse hits hardest at social service providers who are not being paid to provide service for the aged, infirm, and indigent, people not likely to vote for Rauner in the first place. So he clearly doesn’t care about them. But over the next few weeks the impact could spread unless the state passes some stopgap measures. Road construction projects may be halted. Or the state may not have enough money to pay its employees. Can you imagine how angry people will be if the motor vehicle facilities close?

Furthermore, state aid for public school may not be delivered in August. That might cause problems for Rauner. He does care about people like suburban parents of school-age kids—at least he wants their votes. As long as they’re relatively unaffected by the impasse, Rauner’s free to torpedo any deal even as the state slides toward bankruptcy. v

v @joravben

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The cash from a HECM loan can be used for any purpose.

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1 Source: http://reversemortgagedaily.com/2016/06/21/seniors-home-equity-grows-to-6-trillion-reverse-mortgage-opportunity. 2If you qualify and your loan is approved, a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) must pay off any existing mortgage(s).

With a HECM loan, no monthly mortgage payment is required. A HECM increases the principal mortgage loan amount and decreases home equity (it is a negative amortization loan). AAG works with other lenders and `nancial institutions that offer HECMs. To process your request for a loan, AAG may forward your contact information to such lenders for your consideration of HECM programs that they offer. Borrowers are responsible for paying property taxes and homeowner s insurance (which may be substantial). We do not establish an escrow account for disbursements of these payments. A set-aside account can be set up to pay taxes and insurance and may be required in some cases. Borrowers must occupy home as their primary residence and pay for ongoing maintenance; otherwise the loan becomes due and payable. The loan also becomes due and payable when the last borrower, or eligible non-borrowing surviving spouse, dies, sells the home, permanently moves out, defaults on taxes or insurance payments, or does not otherwise comply with the loan terms. American Advisors Group (AAG) is headquartered at 3800 W. Chapman Ave., 3rd & 7th Floors, Orange CA, 92868. (Illinois Residential Mortgage Licensee; Illinois Commissioner of Banks can be reached at 100 West Randolph, 9th Floor, Chicago, Illinois 60601, (312) 814-4500), V11082016

These materials are not from HUD or FHA and were not approved by HUD or a government agency. V11082016

JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 11

Memorial to Louis Ray Smith at the crash site in East Garfield Park

CITY LIFE

ò JOHN GREENFIELD

TRANSPORTATION

Survivor bias

Police said cyclist Louis Ray Smith “swerved into” a car before he was killed—but we’ve heard only the driver’s side of the story.

By JOHN GREENFIELD

J

udging from the memorial to fallen cyclist Louis Ray Smith at the East Garfield Park crash site, the 56-yearold was beloved. On Homan Avenue about 200 feet south of the roaring Lake Street elevated train, relatives and friends planted red, white, and blue artificial flowers in the grass and burned memorial candles on the curb. A colorful lei and a stuffed beagle with “Snoop” and “Smooth,” the nicknames of friends, written in marker on its fur are tied to a tree. On paper taped to a lamppost, mourners left messages like “Rest up uncle—love U 2 pieces,” “Nothing compares to yoo—R.I.P. Ray,” and “I’m gonna miss U dude, but never will U be 4 gotten.”

On Monday, June 5, at about 8:35 PM, Smith was biking north on Homan when he was struck by a southbound driver in a Chrysler 200 sedan, according to the Chicago Police Department. The crash report stated that the cyclist “swerved into the vehicle,” suggesting that he was to blame for his own death, and local mainstream news reports used that phrase.

However, according to CPD, there were no witnesses to the crash, so that preliminary description of events was most likely merely the driver’s side of the story. Smith, tragically, wasn’t alive to give his account. Police presenting motorists’ accounts of fatal or serious bike crashes as fact can be a roadblock to finding out what really happened to these victims and making sure justice is served.

Smith was born in 1960 to a family with eight other siblings in Batesville, Mississippi, a small town on the Tallahatchie River. After laboring more than a decade at a local casket company as a young man, he followed his mother, Willeva Smith-Washington, to Chicago in search of better opportunities and found work at Jewel

12 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

and Dominick’s warehouses. He married three times and had nine children of his own. “ He wa s a good son,” sa id Sm it hWashington, 73, a retired factory worker, reached by phone at her home in west-suburban Maywood. “He liked people and he loved his kids—he was very fond of children. All of his cousins and stuff, they were just crazy about him because he would keep you laughing.” She added that his favorite activity was riding motorcycles, which he’d use to visit family in the suburbs.

Sm it h-Wash ington sa id her son had recently hit a rough patch in life, wasn’t living with his third wife, Gerice King, and didn’t have steady employment. “Sometimes you get off on the wrong foot—none of us is perfect,” Smith-Washington said.

After the crash, the Cook County medical examiner’s office stated that Louis Ray Smith lived on the 100 block of Sangamon, which Smith-Washington said is the location of a drug and alcohol rehab center. “He stayed there for a while, trying to get himself back on track.” But at the time of the collision he was living with his half brothers Bernard and Bennie Washington and nephew Jonathan Spivey, 30, in a house at Homan and Fulton, two blocks north of the crash site.

Smith-Washington added that her son had recently been using a bike “every day” to get around since he didn’t own a car.

Last week I spoke with Spivey, who does construction, by the house on Fulton. “Uncle Ray was a good man, and he was a very funny guy,” he recalled, adding that Smith made money by fixing cars for friends and neighbors, and sometimes worked with his nephew on painting, drywall, and flooring jobs.

Spivey said that on the night of Smith’s death, his uncle had biked from their house

to a gas station at Washington and Homan, a block south of the collision site, to buy a snack. “He loved Nutty Buddies.”

Not long after Smith left on the errand, Spivey drove away from their home with a female friend and they happened upon the crash scene. “He was lying in the middle of the street,” he recalled. “I said, ‘That’s my uncle!’

[The driver] had knocked some teeth out, and you really couldn’t recognize his face.” He said the motorist, a young woman with two small boys in her car, was crying and pounding on the side of her vehicle. Smith was transported to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 9:12 PM. The driver, who told responding officers that Smith had veered in the direction of her car, has not received any citations. On June 15 a police spokesperson indicated via e-mail that Major Accidents is no longer investigating the case. “They have determined the bicyclist caused the accident by swerving into a vehicle.

No offender is being sought in this incident.”

At a Mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Council meeting last week, transportation commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld told attendees there were no witnesses to the crash. So it’s not clear how investigators reached the conclusion that the driver wasn’t at fault, if they weren’t simply taking the woman’s testimony at face value.

If it’s true that there were no witnesses, hopefully police investigators viewed nearby security camera footage before absolving the driver. (CPD News Affairs didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry on this subject.) If not, Smith’s case is another example of police making unfounded preliminary statements about blame after serious and fatal bike crashes, and the media reporting these narratives as fact.

We saw this happen on June 2016, when a tour bus driver struck and killed bike courier Blaine Klingenberg, 29, at Oak and Michigan.

The police report stated that, “The victim disregarded the light at Oak and turned into the bus, causing the collision,” and most local news outlets ran with that story. However, two witnesses later told me they’re convinced the bus driver was at least partly responsible for Klingenberg’s death because she entered the intersection after her light turned red.

Bike lawyer Brendan Kevenides of FK Law (a Streetsblog Chicago sponsor) recalled two recent local bike crash cases resulting in serious injuries, in which the police report was “ridiculously wrong.” After a driver struck a bike rider at Damen and Fullerton in 2013, the police report indicated that the cyclist blew a red, but witness testimony and red light camera footage later proved that the cabbie had actually caused the crash by failing to yield while making a right turn.

After a 2014 dooring crash involving another cabdriver on Milwaukee near Division, the police report stated that the driver was sitting in his car with the door closed when “he observed [the cyclist] lose control of her bike and she fell off and struck [the taxi].” However, video footage and damage to the door showed that the cyclist actually collided with his open door, which means the driver was to blame.

We see the same problem in other cities.

Last week in New York, preliminary NYPD statements and media reports claimed that 36-year-old bike-share rider Dan Hanegby “swerved” away from a parked vehicle in Manhattan before being run over by the driver of a coach bus. However, security footage later recovered from a nearby apartment building appears to show that the cyclist held his line but the driver clipped his handlebars, causing the cyclist to fall under the vehicle’s wheels. The Gothamist report that broke that story noted that there were three cases in NYC last year in which the causes of fatal bike and pedestrian crashes were misreported immediately after the collision.

Therefore, if it’s true, as Commissioner Scheinfeld said, that there were no witnesses to Smith’s crash, but it’s also the case that Major Accidents made no effort to find video before closing the case, police should be held accountable to search for any existing footage. Justice demands it. v

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

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HAZEL APPAREL

1926 W. Montrose, 773-904-7779, hazelchicago.com RUNNER-UP: Milk Handmade

CHICAGOʼS THE CITY TRUMP HATES MOST

MEYVN

2627 N. Kedzie, 312-852-6012, meyvnshop.com RUNNER-UP: Fat

By Ben Joravsky

Tiger

BEST KIDS’ CLOTHING

WINDY CITY BEBE

1423 W. Belmont, 773-666-5005, windycitybebe.com RUNNER-UP: Monica

+ Andy

BEST LOCAL CLOTHING DESIGNER

JAMIE HAYES

jamielhayes.com RUNNER-UP: Meg

Musick-Makely

BEST LOCAL FASHION BLOG OR BLOGGER

STILE.FOTO.CIBO stilefotocibo.com

RUNNER-UP: SWGRUS

ò COURTESY MEVYN

BEST VINTAGE STORE

SHANGRI-LA VINTAGE

1952 W. Roscoe, 773-348-5090, facebook.com/ShangriLaVintage RUNNER-UP: Toy

j RACHAL DUGGAN

BEST BOUTIQUE FOR MEN

de Jour

14 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

○

AS PART OF my ongoing effort to join Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s crusade to say good things about Chicago, I’m happy to note that Donald Trump hates our fair city.

In fact, I’d say Chicago ranks near the top of the list of people, places, and things that Trump really, really loathes—somewhere between Alec Baldwin and Rosie O’Donnell.

Second City, my ass!

Trump has said plenty of nasty things about Chicago, mostly having to do with the city’s violence epidemic. For example, there was the infamous tweet from January: “If Chicago doesn’t fix the horrible ‘carnage’ going on . . . I will send in the Feds!” (It hasn’t and he didn’t.)

It’s pretty obvious that Trump’s mastered the insincere art of acting like he cares about the city’s problems when he really just wants to taunt us with them. After all, there’s no way he would’ve gotten so far in life if he wasn’t a world-class bully.

On one level, his hatred for Chicago makes no sense, as the city’s been pretty good to Trump.

Sure, protesters did close down the one major campaign rally he tried to hold in town, at the

UIC Pavillion in March 2016. But most of those demonstrators were relatively powerless malcontents—you know, people like me.

It’s a somewhat different story when it comes to Chicago’s ruling elite. The most powerful man in the City Council, alderman Ed Burke, helped Trump win a hefty tax break with an appeal of the assessment on his hotel and tower along the Chicago River.

And Rahm’s administration allowed Trump to slap his name on the skyscraper. (The mayor, through a spokesperson, later called the sign “awful” and “in poor taste,” but it was too late.) Late last year the City Council redeemed itself, to a degree, when it voted to remove the honorary street signs dedicated to the Donald that had been installed around Trump Tower.

It was punishment for “painting a distorted caricature of Chicago” and for “comparing our great city to a decimated, war-torn country,” the 42nd Ward’s Brendan Reilly, who led the effort and in whose ward Trump Tower stands, told the Tribune. Still, it seems to me that the still-standing nameplate only cost Trump a $50,000 contribution to Rahm back in the 2011

mayoral campaign. Not only can we be bought, but at bargain-basement prices!

So why all the hate? Don’t forget: Chicago is the adopted hometown of Barack Obama. And Trump’s determined to malign, demonize, or obliterate anything even remotely connected to his presidential predecessor. In that regard, Chicago’s in good company on a Trump enemies list that includes banking regulations, the Paris climate accord, affordable health care, and peace with Cuba—just to name a few.

For the record, I’d like to point out that Obama’s actually from Hawaii. Yes, he lived in Chicago on and off for about 19 years. But apparently Trump’s decided that saying bad things about Hawaii doesn’t have quite the same impact.

I have mixed feelings about Trump’s attacks on Chicago. Certainly I can get defensive when I hear the president rip my hometown. On the other hand, living in the city Trump despises more than any other is something we can all be proud of.

Feel free to use that as a motto in your next promotional campaign, Mayor Rahm. v

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BEST OF CHICAGO

READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST SHOE STORE

ALAMO SHOES

5321 N. Clark, 773-784-8936, alamoshoes.com

CHICAGO WAS A SANCTUARY LONG BEFORE TRUMPʼS PRESIDENCY

RUNNER-UP: Loriʼs Shoes

BEST RESALE SHOP

BROWN ELEPHANT

Various locations, howardbrown.org/brown-elephant RUNNER-UP: Savvy

Seconds and 1sts

BEST JEWELRY STORE

SILVER ROOM

1506 E. 53rd, 773-947-0024, thesilverroom.com RUNNER-UP: Lillstreet

Gallery

BEST EYEWEAR SHOP

By Jeff Nichols

Lewis W. Hine, Tenement Child, Handicapped in Every Way, 1910, from the series “Hull House & Chicago” ò RICHARD A CHAPMAN/SUN-TIMES MEDIA

the lurid glare from the furnaces tells of unceasing toil.”

Chicago hasn’t always been a tolerant place either. During the First World War, German immigrants who weren’t naturalized citizens were required to register with the federal government, their names and addresses printed in Chicago newspapers. These “enemy aliens” could be sent to internment camps without trial. Railing against the city’s radicals, “thirdsex agitators,” Lutherans, and “long-haired visionaries and work-haters from every race in the world,” Emerson Hough, a member of the American Protective League, a wartime volunteer auxiliary of the Department of Justice tasked with investigating suspected German sympathizers, complained that Chicago “has invited them, accepted them, and made them free of the place.”

But if you’ve ever been struck by a sense of wonderment in Chicago, there’s probably an immigrant story behind it, perhaps even one about how this stubborn city “invited them, accepted them, and made them free of the

place.” That spot on the corner you’ve always admired? It’s a church that German Catholics poured their hearts into—motivated in part by a desire to show up the Lutherans and the Irish.

That theater or restaurant or bar you frequent was more than likely built by someone born in a town you probably can’t pronounce, who had to work harder than you’ve ever had to just to compete against other immigrants from places you can’t pronounce. If you like that you have the weekend off to wander around Chicago, you can thank the Chicago immigrant labor organizers who worked tirelessly for the 40-hour workweek.

Our latter-day Emerson Houghs may think they can fix Chicago by redirecting our police to stop everyone who exhibits the telltale signs of being a foreigner who doesn’t belong.

But Chicago would not be Chicago if it hadn’t been a refuge, a sanctuary for those fleeing from famine, war, hopeless poverty, degenerate monarchs, and vain authoritarians. The city of immigrants makes us proud and makes us humble, just as true love does. v

LABRABBIT OPTICS

1104 N. Ashland, 773-957-4733, labrabbit.com RUNNER-UP: MyEyeDr.

BEST BICYCLE SHOP

TURIN BICYCLE

4710 N. Damen, 773-271-3141, turinbicycle.com RUNNER-UP: Comrade

Cycles

BEST RECORD STORE

LAURIEʼS PLANET OF SOUND

4639 N. Lincoln, 773-271-3569, lauriesplanetofsound.blogspot.com RUNNER-UP: Reckless Records ò COURTESY OF LABRABBIT

MYSTERY—NEVER BEING able to completely comprehend that which has captured your heart—is an important component of falling in love. Chicago’s immigrant past and present may well be why no one can quite figure this city out.

For much of the 19th century, the percentage of Chicago’s population born outside the United States was higher than even New York City’s. By 1890, nearly four out of every five Chicagoans were either immigrants or children of immigrants. “There is a swarming interaction of all the peoples of the human race on every street,” the German sociologist Max Weber marveled after visiting the city in 1904.

To be sure, the city could be a brutal place for these newcomers. “Near the Steel Mills there is the sound of gigantic processes suggesting peril to life and limb, and mysterious accidents of which the public never learns,” noted one study on the appalling conditions of immigrant housing. “Here a pall of heavy smoke darkens the sky by day, while by night

BEST MUSICAL INSTRUMENT SHOP

OLD TOWN SCHOOL MUSIC STORE Various locations, oldtownschool.org/musicstore

RUNNER-UP: Chicago Music

Exchange

○

JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 15

READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST OF CHICAGO

BEST BOOKSTORE

WOMEN & CHILDREN FIRST

5233 N. Clark, 773-769-9299, womenandchildrenfirst.com RUNNER-UP: The

Book Cellar

BEST USED BOOKSTORE

OPEN BOOKS

651 W. Lake, 312-475-1355, open-books.org RUNNER-UP: Myopic Books

FLATNESS

BEST COMICS SHOP

ALLEYCAT COMICS

By Bill Savage

5304 N. Clark, 773-907-3404, alleycatcomics.com RUNNER-UP: Challengers Comics

ò LEE HOGAN/FOR SUN-TIMES

BEST CARD AND STATIONERY STORE

FOURSIDED CARD + GIFT

Various locations, foursided.com RUNNER-UP: Hazel

BEST HOME-IMPROVEMENT COMPANY

POWER PLUMBING AND SEWER CONTRACTOR, INC.

3840 N. Ashland, 773-248-9574, powerplumbinginc.com RUNNER-UP: Fettes Love

& Sieben

BEST HOME FURNISHINGS

ALAPASH NEW HOME (AND TERRARIUMS)

4835 N. Damen, 773-769-8825, alapash.com

ò MARCO CHAVARRY

RUNNER-UP: Nadeau

- Furniture With a Soul

BEST GARDEN STORE

GETHSEMANE GARDEN CENTER 5739 N. Clark, 773-878-5915, gethsemanegardens.com RUNNER-UP: Sprout

Home

16 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

○

A LOU MITCHELLʼS pancake. A pool table at Chris’s Billiards. A thin-crust pizza from Vito & Nick’s. Each evokes one of Chicago’s overwhelmingly obvious physical features: flatness.

Geologically speaking, the generalization that we live in a flat place is true and historically important. Chicago’s flatness inspired some of the engineering innovations that would, in turn, make the city a global center of innovation.

The flat postglacial geography of the sluggish Chicago River and its adjacent swamps marked the narrow southwestern edge of the Great Lakes watershed, the perfect spot for a canal to connect the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River watershed. The Illinois and Michigan Canal opened in 1848, but the flat landscape complicated the growing city’s sanitation, as the river (more or less an open sewer) contaminated the Lake Michigan drinking water. So Chicagoans built things to overcome the negative effects of the flatness: a tunnel beneath the lakebed that stretched two miles out, beyond the polluted area, to bring in clean drinking water; a sewer system constructed at ground level, which then required raising the grade of the streets; and finally the Sanitary and Ship Canal in 1900, which reversed the flow of the river and made our shit Saint Louis’s problem. The soft

sedimentary soil required early skyscrapers to have “floating foundations”—essentially vast, heavy underground rafts—that made a building’s weight sustainable without having to reach the deep bedrock.

People from scenic hilly towns like Seattle or San Francisco find our flatness dull. Distant mountain vistas offer sublime views that their aficionados consider superior to Chicago’s horizontal sprawl.

Well, we don’t need no stinking mountains! Chicagoans built their own: the skyline of the Loop, with subsidiary ranges up and down Lake Shore Drive. Every day hundreds of thousands of people in cars or on trains or bikes converge towards this man-made mountain range, as beautiful in the changing light and weather as any vista in the world.

Still, it must be noted that the city is actually not entirely flat. Look at a topographical map and you’ll see that while Chicago is mostly around 600 feet above sea level, peripheral neighborhoods like Beverly and Rogers Park do feature hills, rare outcroppings of underlying bedrock or the remnants of prehistoric beaches.

Chicago also abounds with artificial elevations: bridges, viaducts, and overpasses, an undulating rhythm that punctuates the flatness.

In fact, I’d argue that the general flatness makes Chicagoans more attuned to any rise or fall of elevation, especially when we walk or ride bicycles around town.

I write this as someone who regularly bikes from my home in Rogers Park to my sweetheart’s place in south-suburban Evergreen Park. Sure, the 25 miles are mostly flat, but natural features like the river, along with infrastructure like railroads and expressways, create virtual hills. Ride Halsted from Boystown to Bridgeport and you’ll need to downshift and pedal harder on the bridge over the river from Hooker to Erie, then again atop the Ohio feeder ramp, down to Grand, up over the Metra tracks, down to Greektown, then one final rise to surmount the Eisenhower and down to UIC. Later, you’ll hit the underpass at the 16th Street viaduct and one final rise on the bridge over the South Branch of the river.

An Alpine stage of the Tour de France this ain’t, but neither is it the utterly horizontal Chicago of myth. And don’t get me started on the Kedzie viaduct over the rail yards from 73rd to 77th—that, my friend, is a hill, even if it was built by traffic engineers rather than geologic processes.

So Chicago’s flatness is like so many other tales of this city: it’s true, except when it isn’t.

And both the truth and the exceptions make the place more interesting. v

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BEST OF CHICAGO

READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST FLORIST

A NEW LEAF

Various locations, anewleafchicago.com RUNNER-UP: Asrai Garden

BEST SEX TOY SHOP

EARLY TO BED

5044 N. Clark, 773-271-1219, early2bed.com RUNNER-UP: The

Pleasure Chest

BEST PLACE TO BUY LOCAL WARES

LILLSTREET GALLERY

THE FUTUREPROOF CITY

4401 N. Ravenswood, 773-769-4226, lillstreetgallery.com RUNNER-UP: Andersonville

Galleria

BEST INDIE CRAFTER

MICHELLE STARBUCK DESIGNS michellestarbuckdesigns.com

By Mike Sula

RUNNER-UP: Lindsay

Lewis Jewelry

j BOBBY SIMS

BEST PET STORE

don’t call us “the Saudi Arabia of freshwater” for nothing.

We still even have a few newspapers in this town, since the abundant rainfall in the subtropical midwest ensures a bumper crop of paper-grade hemp, and people finally realize that an independent free press is critical to keep things from going completely down the toilet. When the Internet went dark, they started to pay journalists enough to eat. Now I can afford a beach vacation in Pittsburgh.

In fact, Chicago and our handful of loyal midwestern vassal states form a relatively self-sufficient and secure island in the chaotic ocean that swallowed half the earth. We were always going to be among the last to be nuked (by a few minutes), but now we’re even further away from Russia and China, which have their own problems to deal with. Nobody even remembers North Korea.

I bet you don’t remember winter either.

Barely, right? Now that’s just a few gray weeks when it rains every day (get your milk crates off the street for Christ’s sake!). You can’t go outside during the daytime in July anymore, but there’s still Major League Baseball, thanks to generous corporate sponsorship of each stadium’s state-of-the-art photovoltaic roof, with plenty of solar juice to fuel the airconditioning and ice the Bud Light.

When has it ever been perfect? When has it ever been better? Today, the best of Chicago is the envy of the world. Everybody’s still pointing fingers about the collapse of the pension funds and fighting over who gets to line up first at the food banks, but there’s still a lot everybody can agree on. Remember how we laughed and slammed the door when the Trump kids tried to claim a few floors in daddy’s old tower? That’s a vertical cabbage farm now anyway. Says so right on the sign. As if we could afford to accept refugees. v

URBAN POOCH CANINE LIFE CENTER 4501 N. Ravenswood, 773-942-6445, urbanpooch.com RUNNER-UP: Jameson

Loves Danger

BEST DOG WALKERS

WINDY CITY PAWS

2523 W. Eastwood, 312-473-6466, windycitypaws.com RUNNER-UP: Windy

City Dog Walkers

BEST DOGGIE DAY CARE

URBAN POOCH CANINE LIFE CENTER ò MATT WOSKEY

ITʼS 50 YEARS from now. Boston is an archipelago, Los Angeles is a bay, and New York is under the sea. But in Chicago, you don’t piss and moan about dibs on your street, rats in your backyard, or Cubs fans urinating on your porch. Those things are still aggravating, but you keep your trap shut because nobody calls us the Second City anymore.

Compared to the rest of our continent’s erstwhile major metropolitan regions, we’re doing great, still high and dry above sea level.

And every once in a while in January and February, when the E. coli take a day off, you can still swim in the lake.

Chicago’s excellent position in what’s left of North America has ensured its survival long after all the ice cubes in the planet’s great blue old-fashioned have melted. We’re still shooting each other in the streets, but at least we have drinking water (when there’s power to run the purification plants). Even so, they

4501 N. Ravenswood, 773-942-6445, urbanpooch.com RUNNER-UP: Jameson

Loves Danger

○ JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 17

READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST OF CHICAGO

BEST VETERINARIAN

BLUM ANIMAL HOSPITAL

3219 N. Clark, 773-327-4446, blumvet.com RUNNER-UP: South

Loop Animal Hospital

BEST TATTOO SHOP

INSIGHT STUDIOS

1062 N. Milwaukee, 773-342-4444, insightstudiosonline.com RUNNER-UP: Black

Oak Tattoo

ò TRIPP / FLICKR CREATIVE COMMONS

BEST TATTOO ARTIST

TINE DEFIORE

blackoakchicago.com/tinedefiore

BACK PORCHES

RUNNER-UP: David Allen

BEST AUTO REPAIR SHOP

JERRYʼS AUTO REPAIR

By Aimee Levitt

3250 N. Sheffield, 773-327-4409, jerrys-auto-repair.com RUNNER-UP: B&L

Automotive Repairs, Inc

BEST MOTORCYCLE SHOP

ENJOY MOPED

2068 N. Western, 773-252-6705, enjoymoped.com

BEST DENTIST

DENTAL SALON

939 W. North, 312-642-3370, dentalsalon.com RUNNER-UP: Big City Dental

BEST GENERAL PRACTITIONER

DR. CYNTHIA ROZIER, MD RUNNER-UP: Dr.

Andrew Repasy, MD

ò OLI SCARFF

BEST PEDIATRICIAN

DR. ERIN M. GAROFOLI, MD RUNNER-UP: Dr.

Frederick Cahan

18 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

○

CHICAGO APARTMENT BUILDINGS have fire escapes in the back, the story goes, because after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 the new city fire code stipulated that every apartment have at least two means of escape. The alley system allowed plenty of room for solid staircases in the back of the buildings instead of rickety metal structures in the front, as in New York. But those back stairways were meant to be used as entryways only! They were to be kept clear of stuff, and they were definitely not a space for loitering.

Clearly the authors of the fire code had no grasp of human nature. It probably didn’t take more than one warm and sunny afternoon for those late-19th-century Chicagoans to discover how pleasant it is to linger on the back landing chatting with the neighbors, maybe while eating ice cream or drinking a beer. Or that a back stairwell is a convenient spot for growing things, or hanging laundry, or smoking, or even sleeping, because living in an unair-conditioned brick building sometimes isn’t

that much different from living in a pizza oven.

Thus, the Chicago porch.

(And what’s more Chicago than a fire escape made of wood because it’s cheap? WBEZ’s Curious City investigated and learned that it takes longer for the pressed wood generally used in porches to burn than the fire department to arrive. So it’s all good! And, hey, you’ve still got those front stairs.)

The shittiest apartment can be redeemed by a back porch. I once lived in a miserable thirdfloor studio that in summer was approximately 20 degrees hotter than outside. The porch added an extra 100 square feet of semifresh, cool air. Best of all, I shared that porch with a neighbor whom I probably would’ve liked anyway, since we found the same things ridiculous, but porch co-stewardship made it easy to have the sort of long, late-night conversations that cement friendships. She remains one of my dearest friends still.

I’ve lived in apartments in other cities with other forms of semiprivate outdoor space. The

stoop had no shade, and Jehovah’s Witnesses would occasionally interrupt my breakfast to proselytize. The balcony was badly positioned for chatting with neighbors. The backyard fenced me in. The roof deck was glamorous but inconvenient, so nobody used it. The front porch was fine, but it lacked the excitement of being above ground level. I yearned for a good Chicago porch.

The last apartment I lived in had a walled-in porch, which was handy for extra storage, but not much else. I was merely on a waving basis with the neighbors. The evening I moved into my present apartment—chosen, in part, for its big and beautiful porch—I unfolded my camp chair, sat down, and felt a profound sense of well-being. As it grew dark, I smelled grill smoke and heard the quiet chatter from nearby porches and an occasional yell from the kid downstairs. People stopped by to introduce themselves. It felt like being in a little village.

Or—I realized in shock—like being back in the suburb where I grew up, where the backyards all ran together and everyone hung out together at night, the grown-ups talking, the kids catching fireflies and showing off their sad attempts at cartwheels.

I mostly hated growing up in the suburbs, but I remember enjoying those summer nights. It felt like everyone out there wasn’t comparing or judging the way they usually did, but looking out for each other. Instead of dividing up our space, we were sharing it. v

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eat. drink. read. local.

READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST MANI/PEDI

BEST REAL ESTATE AGENT

BEST WESTERN WEAR

JEWELS A NAIL BOX

JACKIE LUXEM, @PROPERTIES

ALCALAʼS WESTERN WEAR

3355 N. Lincoln, 773-809-4367, jewelsnottools.com RUNNER-UP: Juko Nail

and Skin Rescue

atproperties.com/agents/5509/ jackie-luxem RUNNER-UP: Jennifer Johnson, @properties

BEST MASSAGE

LINCOLN SQUARE MASSAGE

4757 N. Hermitage, 773-7285768, lincolnsquaremassage.com RUNNER-UP: Pulling Down

the Moon

1733 W. Chicago, 312-2260152, alcalas.com

BEST AUTO DEALERSHIP

MINI OF CHICAGO

1111 W. Diversey, 773-9695700, miniofchicago.com RUNNER-UP: Perillo

BMW

Food & Drink BEST OVERALL RESTAURANT

BEST BARBERSHOP

REV. BILLYʼS CHOP SHOP

4314 N. Lincoln, 773-248-2887, revbillyschopshop.com

BEST USED AUTO DEALERSHIP

ENTERPRISE RENT-A-CAR Various locations, enterprise.com

ELIZABETH RESTAURANT

4835 N. Western, 773-6810651, elizabeth-restaurant.com RUNNER-UP: Cherry

the book cellar.

Circle Room

RUNNER-UP: Iron Heritage & Supply Co.

BEST HAIR SALON

REV. BILLYʼS CHOP SHOP

4314 N. Lincoln, 773-248-2887, revbillyschopshop.com

BEST SMOKE SHOP

BEST FANCY RESTAURANT

BLUE HAVANA CHICAGO

GIRL & THE GOAT

3240 N. Clark, 773-242-8262, bluehavanachicago.com

773.293.2665.

809 W. Randolph, 312-4926262, girlandthegoat.com RUNNER-UP: Elizabeth

4736-88 n. lincoln ave. words@bookcellarinc.com. follow us @ BookCellar.

Restaurant

RUNNER-UP: Goldplaited

- A Finishing Salon

BEST PLACE TO GET MARRIED

SALVAGE ONE

1840 W. Hubbard, 312-7330098, salvageone.com RUNNER-UP: Lillstreet

BEST BANG FOR YOUR BUCK

BEST VAPE SHOP

Loft

IRAZU

VAPE DAZE

2817 W. Belden, 773-270-2340, facebook.com/vapedaze5 RUNNER-UP: Roots Smoke & Vapor Shop

1865 N. Milwaukee, 773-2525687, irazuchicago.com RUNNER-UP: Taste

of Lebanon Restaurant

CHICAGO’S PREMIERE IRISH FESTIVAL

Fun for all Generations

TICK ETS

$10 PRESALE

$15@DOOR C HIL DR E N 12&UNDER FREE

BEST MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY

DISPENSARY 33

BEST UP-AND-COMING CHEF

RUNNER-UP: Windy

SCYTHIAN

City Cannabis

SATURDAY F R I & S A T

YOUNG RUNA THEFOLK

BEST PEST CONTROL

ROSE PEST SOLUTIONS

F

1809 W. North, 773-384-3000, rosepestcontrol.com

SARAH GRUENEBERG

BEST PAWN SHOP

CHICAGO ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION

ò CLAYTON HAUCK; SUN-TIMES MEDIA

12 S. Michigan, 312-940-3552, chicagoathletichotel.com RUNNER-UP: The

Guesthouse Hotel

BEST APARTMENT FINDER

DOMU CHICAGO APARTMENTS 610 N. Fairbanks, 312-6423668, domu.com RUNNER-UP: Apartment

People

chefsarahjayne.com/bio

CASH KING

2853 W. Belmont, 773-866-2729 RUNNER-UP: Cash

America Pawn

BEST MOVING COMPANY

THE PROFESSIONALS MOVING SPECIALISTS 3918 N. Western, 773-4781365, thepromove.com

RUNNER-UP: Rogers Moving

Services

GAELIC STORM S A T U R D AY

5001 N. Clark, 312-620-3333, dispensary33.com

BEST HOTEL

S U N D A Y

RUNNER-UP: Katie

Simmons

BEST CHEF

STEPHANIE IZARD

stephanieizard.com RUNNER-UP: Dan

Weiland

JULY 7-8-9 FRI 6pm–12am | SAT 12pm–12am SUN 12pm–12am | RAIN OR SHINE

irishfestchicago.com Follow us!

I

D

A

Y

MICHAEL

McDERMOTT

S U N D A Y

WE BANJO3

SAT & SUN S U N D A Y

TUPELO SPAIN

#81 LAWRENCE @ KILPATRICK

MAKEM

@ MONTROSE–BLUE LINE

SEVEN MILES NORTH OF DOWNTOWN CHICAGO AT THE 90/94 SPLIT

BEST FOOD BLOG

DISHROULETTE

dishroulette.com RUNNER-UP: Grandbaby

R

Cakes ○

FREE ONSITE PARKING

Irish American Heritage Center

4626 NORTH KNOX AVENUE, CHICAGO (773)282-7035

JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 19

READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST OF CHICAGO An elote vendor on 26th Street ò PORTER MCLEOD

BEST FOOD-DELIVERY SERVICE

GRUBHUB

grubhub.com RUNNER-UP: DoorDash

BEST RESTAURANT NAME

GLAZED AND INFUSED

Various locations, goglazed.com RUNNER-UP: The

Growling Rabbit

BEST NEW FOOD TREND

RAMEN RUNNER-UP: Poke

BEST COCKTAIL BAR

TWENTY-SIXTH STREET

LOST LAKE

3154 W. Diversey, 773-293-6048, lostlaketiki.com RUNNER-UP: The

Sixth

By Robin Amer

BEST BEER BAR

HOPLEAF

5148 N. Clark, 773-334-9851, hopleafbar.com RUNNER-UP: Map

Room

BEST TIKI BAR

LOST LAKE

3154 W. Diversey, 773-293-6048, lostlaketiki.com

BEST COCKTAIL

THE ASSHATTAN AT REMEDY

1910 N Milwaukee, 773-698-7715, remedybarchicago.com

BEST MIXOLOGIST

PAUL MCGEE

ò JEREMY KEITH / FLICKR

RUNNER-UP: Annie

Beebe-Tron

BEST WINE LIST

INCOME TAX

5959 N. Broadway, 773-897-9165, incometaxbar.com RUNNER-UP: Rootstock

Wine & Beer Bar

○

20 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

LITTLE VILLAGE IS a port of entry for Mexican immigrants, and the neighborhood’s roughly two-mile 26th Street corridor from Sacramento to Kostner is crammed with around 500 local businesses that cater to their tastes: butcher shops, pharmacies, and more than 100 restaurants offering everything from mangonadas—fresh sliced mango spiked with chile and lime and drizzled with savory tamarind sauce—to toddler-size mariachi suits and live doves.

“It’s the nostalgia market,” says Jaime Di Paulo, executive director of the Little Village Chamber of Commerce. “It’s the place that you go to buy stuff that reminds you of home, or your grandpa. This is the place where Spanish is spoken, where you feel Mexican.”

Twenty-Sixth Street reportedly generates more revenue than any other commercial corridor in the city save Michigan Avenue—$900 million in sales in 2011, according to Di Paulo (more recent figures aren’t currently available from either the chamber or the city). It’s also a really fun place to shop.

In the mazelike warren of stalls at the mas-

sive Discount Mega Mall (3101 W. 26th), you’ll find the aforementioned kids’ duds and birds, along with a neon rainbow of futbol paraphernalia—soccer balls and cleats in fuchsia, highlighter yellow, and lime green—and beautiful acoustic guitars. (One was inlaid with a starburst mother-of-pearl rosette; another had a bridge shaped like a bull’s head.)

Cremeria La Ordeña (3234 W. 26th) has a bulk section to rival any Whole Foods, with an array of chile-lime snacks (pepitas, white beans, chickpeas, and peanuts) and a deli case full of fresh cheeses, sticky-sweet cajeta (goat’s milk caramel), and a dozen different kinds of fresh mole. (I left with a quarter pound of the deliciously smoky black Oaxacan variety.)

OK Corral VIP Western Wear (3300 W. 26th) stocks cowboy boots in every conceivable pattern (stippled, snakeskin) and color (orange, pistachio, cobalt blue), genuine Stetson hats, spurs, and lovely hand-tooled leather saddles.

At Dulcelandia (3253 W. 26th) you can choose from an army of cartoonish piñatas— Spiderman, Mickey Mouse, Cinderella, Dora

the Explorer—then scoop up bulk Mexican candies to fill it with.

The chain Indio (3401 W. 26th) bills itself as “the world’s most complete manufacturer and distributor of spiritual and mystical products.” Its stripped-down location feels like Aldi for witches, its metal shelves stocked high with candles, incense powders, and oils intended to bring luck, exorcise demons, or spur breakups or sudden romances. (Jars of occult author and hoodoo supplier Anna Riva’s “Law Stay Away” were stacked next to “Lottery” and “Gambler’s.”)

Like any great shopping district, this one is home to a variety of street vendors: I counted no fewer than three competing paletas carts staking out territory in front of various entrances to the Mega Mall; west of the “Bienvenidos a Little Village” arch that greets visitors you’ll find at least as many sellers with elotes, vats of agua fresca, and bags of chicharrones; and the sidewalk in front of the parking lot at Cermak Produce (3311 W. 26th) was strung with luchador masks, embroidered blouses and belts, and red leather sandals detailed with gilt-thread horses and roosters.

In its splendorous variety, the bustling 26th Street commercial district is certainly proof of the strength and vibrancy of Chicago’s Mexican community. But sales at some local businesses fell as much as 40 or 50 percent this winter, Di Paulo says, after Donald Trump’s election sparked deportation fears among undocumented immigrants, who stayed home instead of shopping. The corridor lost as many as a dozen businesses as a result. “There was a jewelry store, a dress store, a quinceañera store—luxury stores,” he says. “Not like grocery stores—disposable-income-type places.” Business has since rebounded, he says, thanks in part to a shop-local campaign he helped spearhead— around 60,000 people showed up for the Taste of Little Village festival in early June.

In that way the corridor is symbolic of the broader community that created it—a welcome addition to the city that’s vulnerable but resilient. v

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READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST SOMMELIER

BEST WINE SHOP

BEST UNDERGROUND DINING

INDEPENDENT SPIRITS, INC. 5947 N. Broadway, 773-989-2115, shop. independentspiritsinc.com

RUNNER-UP: Lush

Wine & Spirits

DISOTTO ENOTECA

200 E. Chestnut, 312-482-8727, facebook.com/disottoenoteca RUNNER-UP: From

Good Stock

BEST WAITSTAFF BEST LIQUOR STORE

BINNYʼS BEVERAGE DEPOT

Various locations, binnys.com RUNNER-UP: Independent

ALPANA SINGH

alpanasingh.com RUNNER-UP: Mandy

Sparacino

BEST LOCAL DISTILLERY

Spirits, Inc.

BEST BEER SHOP

RUNNER-UP: Gene

& Georgetti

BEST FAMILY-FRIENDLY RESTAURANT

THE BEER TEMPLE

3185 N. Elston, 773-754-0907, craftbeertemple.com RUNNER-UP: Bottles

CHERRY CIRCLE ROOM

12 S. Michigan, 312-792-3515, lsdatcaa.com

and Cans

ROOTS HANDMADE PIZZA

1924 W. Chicago, 773-6454949, rootspizza.com RUNNER-UP: Wishbone

Restaurant

KOVAL DISTILLERY

5121 N. Ravenswood, 312-8787988, koval-distillery.com/newsite RUNNER-UP: Letherbee

BEST LOCAL BREWERY

HALF ACRE BEER COMPANY

4257 N. Lincoln, 773-248-4038, halfacrebeer.com RUNNER-UP: Revolution Brewing

BEST BYOB RESTAURANT

BEST FOOD FESTIVAL

TANGO SUR

RIBFEST CHICAGO

3763 N. Southport, 773-4775466, tangosurgrill.com RUNNER-UP: Wasabi

RUNNER-UP: Mac & Cheese

BEST PLACE WORTH A WAIT

BEST FOOD TRUCK

MARGIEʼS CANDIES

THE FAT SHALLOT

1960 N. Western, 773-3841035, margiesfinecandies.com RUNNER-UP: Au Cheval

BEST BREWPUB

REVOLUTION BREWING

2323 N. Milwaukee, 773-2272739, revbrew.com

Fest

thefatshallot.com

RUNNER-UP: Doner

Men

BEST GLUTEN-FREE RESTAURANT BEST ALFRESCO DINING

ALOHA POKE CO.

131 N. Clinton, 312-285-2887, alohapokeco.com

RUNNER-UP: Forbidden

Root Restaurant & Brewery

RUNNER-UP: The

Growling Rabbit

BEST BREWERY TOUR

BEST GOURMET MARKET

REVOLUTION BREWING

GENEʼS SAUSAGE SHOP AND DELICATESSEN

2323 N. Milwaukee, 773-2272739, revbrew.com

4750 N. Lincoln, 773-7287243, genessausage.com

RUNNER-UP: Lagunitas

Brewing Company Chicago

DAISY CUTTER

halfacrebeer.com/ daisy-cutter-pale-ale RUNNER-UP: Anti-Hero

RUNNER-UP: Eataly

PARSONʼS CHICKEN & FISH

BEST LOCAL BEER

ò SUN-TIMES MEDIA; CLAYTON HAUCK

773-525-3609, ribfest-chicago.com

2952 W. Armitage, 773-3843333, parsonschickenandfish. com RUNNER-UP: Piccolo Sogno

IPA

BEST LOCAL GROCER

HARVESTIME FOODS

2632 W. Lawrence, 773-9894400, harvestimefoods.com RUNNER-UP: Dill

Pickle Food Co-op

BEST LATE-NIGHT EATS BEST LOCAL SPIRIT

JEPPSONʼS MALORT

jeppsonsmalort.com/jm.html RUNNER-UP: Koval

Distillery Susan for President

PICK ME UP CAFE

BEST LOCAL FOOD PRODUCT

3408 N. Clark, 773-248-6613, pmucafe.com RUNNER-UP: Parsonʼs Chicken &

Fish

EL MILAGRO TORTILLAS el-milagro.com

RUNNER-UP: Hoosier

Mama Pie Company

○ JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 21

READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST OF CHICAGO

BEST LOCAL FARMER

SLAGEL FAMILY FARM

23601 E. 600 N. Rd., Fairbury, IL, 61739, 815-848-9385, slagelfamilyfarm.com RUNNER-UP: Montalbano Farms

LOGAN SQUARE FARMERS MARKET 2755 N. Milwaukee, 773-489-3222, logansquarefarmersmarket.org RUNNER-UP: Green

City Market

BEST BUTCHER SHOP

PAULINA MARKET

By Maya Dukmasova

3501 N. Lincoln, 773-248-6272, paulinamarket.com RUNNER-UP: Geneʼs Sausage

ò MAYA DUKMASOVA

THE 4100 BLOCK OF SOUTH BERKELEY AVENUE

BEST FARMERS’ MARKET

Shop and Delicatessen

BEST CHEESEMONGER

PASTORAL ARTISAN CHEESE, BREAD & WINE Various locations RUNNER-UP: Eataly

BEST BARISTA

JEFF WINN RUNNER-UP: Alice

Max

BEST RESTAURANT GROUP

LETTUCE ENTERTAIN YOU ENTERPRISES

5419 N. Sheridan, 773-878-7340, leye.com RUNNER-UP: Land and

Sea Dept.

BEST RESTAURANT WITH A VIEW

CINDYʼS

12 S. Michigan, 312-792-3502, cindysrooftop.com

ò RICHARD A. CHAPMAN

RUNNER-UP: Signature

Room

BEST RESTAURANT FOR ROMANCE

CHERRY CIRCLE ROOM

12 S. Michigan, 312-792-3515, lsdatcaa.com RUNNER-UP: Les Nomades

○

22 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

ONE DAY WHILE researching a mixed-income housing development in the south-side neighborhood of Oakland, I wound up on the 4100 block of South Berkeley Avenue—a quiet residential street lined on the east side by colorful two-story cottages and capped at the north end by a garden filled with whimsical wooden sculptures.

This stretch of Berkeley stands out for its unique collection of houses by architect Cicero Hine. Built in the 1880s, the residencies’ modest size belies the prestige of their first inhabitants, who were all white—lawyers, professors, and city officials. Some of the structures are brick, with narrow bay windows and ornate woodwork in the gables; some are gray stone, with little onion-domed turrets; the third variety have rounded front windows with stained glass, tiny front porches, and second floors slightly larger than the first.

During the Great Migration, as Oakland became a black neighborhood and its population burgeoned due to segregationist housing policies, some of these homes continued to be inhabited by the well-to-do families, while others turned into tenements. Eventually, public housing high-rises, promising to fulfill the dream of clean, safe, affordable rental

properties, sprouted between Berkeley and Lake Shore Drive. But as the projects lapsed into neglect and disrepair, Berkeley Avenue also deteriorated in their shadow. Some of the cottages became drug dens, and violent crime was common. By 1990, Oakland was the poorest of Chicago’s 77 community areas.

Still, some saw opportunity on Berkeley, and within a decade black homeowners’ investment in the cottages began to pay off as the projects were redeveloped into low-density mixed-income housing. One of the block’s steadiest inhabitants was sculptor Milton Mizenburg Jr., who chainsawed abstract forms and African figures into dead tree trunks and made gardens for his creations on two empty lots he christened the Oakland Museum of Contemporary Art. Over the years other vacant lots on this stretch of the street were beautified into miniature community spaces where kids play and neighbors gather for spontaneous barbecues and cocktail parties.

“I call it Sesame Street for adults,” says musician Lloyd King, who lives in one of the cottages.

Today more and more cottages are restored by and sold to whites. King, who’s black, de-

scribes the gentrification with ambivalence.

On one hand he’s disappointed each time he sees a new white lady walking her dog on the block; on the other he’s thrilled about property values soaring. As middle-class families build equity in the neighborhood, there’s also a concerted effort to keep out lower-income households. Oakland now has the highest rate of racial discrimination complaints from people searching for rental housing with Section 8 vouchers, and according to King, many neighbors would like to purge a six-unit apartment building (the only one on the block) consisting of Section 8 households.

Ultimately the block is a testament to the way race and class have shaped this city; but it also shows how communities can find strength and beauty within themselves to persevere against the odds. Kitty-corner from his museum, Mizenburg (who died in 2016) was commissioned to create a sculpture in front of the mixed-income development. It’s a lumpy bronze figure called Restoration, which faces toward Berkeley with its back to the lake. The inscription reads: “This sculpture is dedicated to the men and women who remained in the Oakland community during difficult times and worked hard to restore its former beauty.” v

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READERSʼ POLL ○

LITTLE GOAT BAKERY

BEST RESTAURANT

820 W. Randolph, 312-8883455 littlegoatchicago.com

FOR A CHEAP DATE

SMALL CHEVAL

RUNNER-UP: Pleasant House

1732 N. Milwaukee, smallcheval.com RUNNER-UP: Parsonʼs Chicken &

Fish

BEST NEIGHBORHOOD RESTAURANT

LONGMAN & EAGLE

2657 N. Kedzie, 773-276-7110, longmanandeagle.com RUNNER-UP: Francescaʼs Bryn

Mawr

BEST BAGELS

CHICAGO BAGEL AUTHORITY Various locations

RUNNER-UP: New

York Bagel & Bialy Corporation BEST BAKERY

DINKELʼS

3329 N. Lincoln, 773-281-7300, dinkels.com RUNNER-UP: Mindyʼs

HotChocolate Bakery BEST BANH MI

BA LE SANDWICH SHOP

5014 N. Broadway, 773-5614424, balesandwich.com RUNNER-UP: Nhu

Lan Bakery

BEST BARBECUE

SMOQUE BBQ

3800 N. Pulaski, 773-545-7427, smoquebbq.com RUNNER-UP: Green

Street Smoked Meats BEST BREAD

Bakery

BEST BREAKFAST

BATTER & BERRIES

2748 N. Lincoln, 773-248-7710, facebook.com/BatterandBerries RUNNER-UP: Bite

BEST DOUGHNUTS

STANʼS DONUTS

Various locations, stansdonutschicago.com RUNNER-UP: Glazed

and Infused

BEST FALAFEL

Cafe

BEST BRUNCH

TWEET

5020 N. Sheridan, 773-7285576, tweet.biz RUNNER-UP: Bite

Cafe

BEST BURGER

AU CHEVAL

800 W. Randolph, 312-9294580, auchevalchicago.com RUNNER-UP: The

Bad Apple

SULTANʼS MARKET

2057 W. North, 773-235-3072, chicagofalafel.com RUNNER-UP: Taste

BEST CHINESE RESTAURANT

of Lebanon Restaurant

JOY YEE

Various locations, joyyee.com RUNNER-UP: Duck Duck Goat

BEST CHINESE TAKEOUT/DELIVERY

HOUSE OF WAH SUN

4319 N. Lincoln, 773-477-0800, houseofwahsunchicago.com RUNNER-UP: Joy

Yee

BEST CAFE/COFFEE SHOP

CAFE MUSTACHE

BEST GREEK RESTAURANT

GREEK ISLANDS

200 S. Halsted, 312-782-9855, greekislands.net RUNNER-UP: Athena

Greek Restaurant

BEST HOT DOG

SUPERDAWG DRIVE-IN

6363 N. Milwaukee, 773-7630660, superdawg.com RUNNER-UP: Gene

& Judeʼs

2313 N. Milwaukee, 773-6879063, cafemustache.com

BEST ICE CREAM

RUNNER-UP: Groundswell

JENIʼS SPLENDID ICE CREAMS

Coffee Roasters

jenis.com

RUNNER-UP: Black

Dog Gelato

BEST COFFEE ROASTER

ò RICHARD A. CHAPMAN; CHERRYLET VIA FLICKR

DARK MATTER COFFEE

738 N. Western, 773-697-8472, darkmattercoffee.com RUNNER-UP: La Colombe

Coffee Roasters BEST DESSERTS

DʼAMATOʼS BAKERY

1124 W. Grand, 312-733-5456, damatosbakerychicago.com AND

MINDYʼS HOTCHOCOLATE BAKERY

1747 N. Damen, 773-489-1747, hotchocolatechicago.com RUNNER-UP: Cherry

Circle Room

LOOK FOR OUR FREE MAP INSERT IN THIS WEEK’S READER

BEST INDIAN RESTAURANT

CHIYA CHAI CAFE

2770 N. Milwaukee, 773-3607541, chiyachai.com RUNNER-UP: Hemaʼs Kitchen

BEST ITALIAN RESTAURANT

1020 W. Madison, 312-8883041, monteverdechicago.com

Enoteca

USE THE MAP’S PROMO CODE FOR UP TO 4 HOURS OF FREE PARKING WITH SPOT HERO AT THE HARPER COURT GARAGE FROM 6/22 THROUGH 9/30* @53rdst_hp

MONTEVERDE

RUNNER-UP: Davanti

SHOWING ALL THE SHOPS, RESTAURANTS, AND EVENTS TO DISCOVER IN DOWNTOWN HYDE PARK.

○

53rdStreetHydePark

@53rdSt

fiftythird.uchicago.edu

*Offer only valid for reservations at The Harper Court Garage, located at 5222 S. Lake Park Ave., Chicago, IL 60615, and is subject to availability, as determined by garage operator. One-time use only. Offer valid up to a $10 value. Must apply promo code prior to completing reservation. Cannot be applied to prior parking reservations. Excludes special events and cannot be combined with other promo codes or offers. Not redeemable for cash or credit. Offer valid for qualifying reservations made between 6/22/2017 and 9/30/2017. Additional terms, conditions and certain restrictions apply, see spothero.com/terms-of-use.

JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 23

24 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

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BEST OF CHICAGO

READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST KOREAN RESTAURANT

SAN SOO GAB SAN

5247 N. Western, 773-334-1589 RUNNER-UP: Cho

Sun Ok Restaurant

BEST MEXICAN RESTAURANT

FRONTERA GRILL

445 N. Clark, 312-661-1434, rickbayless.com/restaurants RUNNER-UP: Cafe El

Tapatio

BEST MIDDLE EASTERN RESTAURANT

REZAʼS RESTAURANT

ò M. SPENCER GREEN/AP PHOTO

5255 N. Clark, 773-561-1898, rezasrestaurant.com

By Jonathan Messinger

LAST YEAR, IN the fog of the morning hustle to get my son to school, I saw something that bolted the day clear: a seven-year-old girl lying on the side of the road, right on the corner of school property, a handful of adults clutched over her. Just before 8 AM, a drunk driver had struck her and her sister on their way to school. Thankfully, they would both recover, but the justified outrage prompted a number of questions about how to address the problem: Erect a streetlight? Add a stop sign?

Bring the road down to a single lane? But in the end, the most mighty of all measures was imposed: a crossing guard.

That’s no joke. I’m a nebbish who flunked out of the Chicago school of writers who wax permanently about the toughness of the city

and its shoulders. But Chicago crossing guards fit the bill. On my way to drop my son off every morning, I encounter three of them, each exhibiting a lethal combination of an openhearted kindness to children and a freeze-ray death stare reserved for me-first motorists.

The first of the guards is an elderly gentleman who rides an enormous tricycle to his corner every morning. It’s not easy for him to outpace the kids into the crosswalk to hold up his stop sign, but I’ve seen him verbally strip the paint off a truck as he dressed down a driver for trying to sneak through. In the winter, the rear basket of his trike totes a pickax from his home to his corner, so he can chip away at the ice that gathers along the curb.

The second is a guy I’m certain would do the

of Lebanon Restaurant

BEST PIEROGI

KASIAʼS

2101 W. Chicago, 773-486-7500, kasiasdeli.com RUNNER-UP: Podhalanka

BEST PIZZA

PEQUODʼS PIZZA

2207 N. Clybourn, 773-327-1512, pequodspizza.com RUNNER-UP: Lou

Malnatiʼs Pizzeria

BEST PIZZA DELIVERY

LOU MALNATIʼS PIZZERIA

Various locations, loumalnatis.com RUNNER-UP: Peteʼs Pizza

BEST PIZZA BY THE SLICE

DIMOʼS PIZZA

Various locations, dimospizza.com RUNNER-UP: The

Art of Pizza

BEST POKE ò SCOTT STEWART

CROSSING GUARDS

job even if he were not paid to do so. He never leaves the middle of the street, greets every family as they approach the school, and talks to you, the driver, the entire time you’re in your car with the windows up. If he wants you to stop, he stands you down like Spartacus. If he wants traffic to progress, he flaps his arms like one of those hype men with T-shirt cannons at Bulls games.

The third is a woman who now stands at the intersection where those young girls were hit. She would have to google the word “nonsense,” so far removed is she from the notion.

Every morning I smile. Nothing. I give her a wave. Stoicism. I chuckle and nod my head at the kids running through the intersection, like, “Look what these animals put us adults through, am I right?” Silent fury.

We’re lucky to have her on that corner now, but it took an accident to make it happen. If Chicago is truly the poetically tough city we like to think it is, then we need to support those guards, which City Hall of course hasn’t done. I’d be first in line to back a movement to better fund the crossing guards. And I’ve been learning the death stare from the masters. v

RUNNER-UP: Taste

ALOHA POKE CO.

131 N. Clinton, 312-285-2887, alohapokeco.com RUNNER-UP: Pokiology

○

JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 25

Rashid Johnson: Hail We Now Sing Joy June 23â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sept 17 Head North!

See new paintings and sculptures by the Chicago native; their impact is as monumental as their size.

mam.org/milwaukee

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26 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

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Wirth .

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READERSʼ POLL

j MIKE CENTENO

BEST OF CHICAGO ○

BEST POLISH RESTAURANT

STAROPOLSKA RESTAURANT

3030 N. Milwaukee, 773-342-0779, staropolskarestaurant.com RUNNER-UP: Red

Apple Buffet

BEST PUB GRUB

LONGMAN & EAGLE

2657 N. Kedzie, 773-276-7110, longmanandeagle.com RUNNER-UP: Revolution Brewing

BEST RAMEN

FURIOUS SPOON WICKER PARK

1571 N. Milwaukee, 773-687-8445, furiousramen.com

By J.R. Jones

THREE YEARS AGO my wife and I rented an old bungalow in Avondale, and when we moved in, we discovered the street was lousy with rabbits—the eastern cottontail, to be exact, one of the most common species in the U.S. On one side of our house lay a weedy area that the rabbits used for cover, and on the other side stood a grassy open plot that they treated as their personal country club. When I came home at night, there would always be one in our front yard, giving me the hard stare, twitching its nose if I spoke, and hopping away if I made a move askance. I remember some epic stare downs with those guys, and they always won.

After a while we came to think of the rabbits as our friends and neighbors, and we looked

forward to seeing them when they came out to forage at dusk. Periodically we’d sit down for ceremonial viewings of the misbegotten 1972 horror movie Night of the Lepus, set in an Arizona town that’s been overrun by rabbits after the townspeople have gotten rid of its coyote population. Stuart Whitman and Janet Leigh are scientists who inject rabbits with a hormonal formula to stunt their breeding, and after one of the rabbits gets loose, authorities begin to find mutilated bodies of livestock and people. Eventually the scientists discover that their serum has created a mutant species of marauding bunnies the size of bears. Cheapo special-effects shots show live rabbits loping around miniature sets, though an actor in a rabbit suit fills in for the attack scenes.

RUNNER-UP: Wasabi

BEST SANDWICH

FRIED CHICKEN SANDWICH, PARSONʼS CHICKEN & FISH 2952 W. Armitage, 773-384-3333, parsonschickenandfish.com RUNNER-UP: Bari

BEST SEAFOOD RESTAURANT

GLENNʼS DINER

1820 W. Montrose, 773-506-1720, glennsdiner.com RUNNER-UP: El Barco Mariscos

BEST SOUL FOOD RESTAURANT

LUELLAʼS SOUTHERN KITCHEN 4609 N. Lincoln, 773-961-8196, luellassouthernkitchen.com

ò KURMAN COMMUNICATIONS

URBAN RABBITS

Chicago rabbits may not be quite as big, but their numbers have risen dramatically since the 1990s, when Mayor Daley’s various greening projects began to invite more woodland creatures into an urban environment. Drawn by the elevated heat level of the city, rabbits began spreading from parks into grassy areas like expressway ramps, and even made their way into the Loop. They eat any kind of vegetation, laying waste to people’s gardens. When there’s no greenery available, they’ll chew the bark off a tree trunk.

Similar greening projects have brought population explosions in other cities. As a graduate student at University of Frankfurt and a doctoral candidate at Goethe University, ecologist Madlen Ziege has made comparative studies of rural and urban rabbits and finds that city rabbits are a lot like us. Out in the country, rabbits live communally in large, sprawling burrows, with multiple exits that offer escape from predators; as they move into the city, where predators are less common, their burrows become smaller, simpler, more private, and more uniformly spaced. Ziege has also discovered that urban rabbits establish communal latrines that they use to demarcate their territory from that of rival bunny gangs.

During the winter I’d come home after dark, find rabbits sitting in our snowy front yard, and marvel at what tough bastards they were.

But according to Mason Fidino of the Urban Wildlife Institute at Lincoln Park Zoo, 70 percent of Chicago’s rabbits die every winter.

The population keeps growing only because they breed like crazy: with a gestation period of four weeks, females typically deliver 16 to 20 offspring a year. Apparently rabbits do nothing but eat, mate, defend their turf, cause property damage, and die. So, you know— typical Chicagoans. v

RUNNER-UP: Soul Vegetarian

BEST SOUP

SOUPBOX

50 E. Chicago, 312-951-5900, soupbox.com RUNNER-UP: Captʼn Nemoʼs

○

JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 27

* CIRQUE DU SOLEIL AND LUZIA ARE TRADEMARKS OWNED BY CIRQUE DU SOLEIL AND USED UNDER LICENSE.

UNDER THE BIG TOP

28 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

JULY 21 - SEPTEMBER 3 UNITED CENTER (Lot K) CIRQUEDUSOLEIL.COM/LUZIA

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READERSʼ POLL

U. of C. professor emeritus and longtime activist Mel Rothenberg presents the lecture “Contemporary Capitalism and Why We Need Marxism” at an October 2016 session of Open University of the Left. ò YOUTUBE

○

BEST STEAK HOUSE

GIBSONS BAR & STEAKHOUSE 1028 N. Rush, 312-266-8999, gibsonssteakhouse.com

RUNNER-UP: Gene

& Georgetti Restaurant

BEST SUSHI

KAI ZAN

2557 W. Chicago, 773-278-5776, eatatkaizan.com

By Deanna Isaacs

PERHAPS, IN THIS Trump-addled era, you’re finding yourself more than a little concerned about the direction civilization is going?

Disturbed by vanishing jobs, rising plutocracies, melting polar ice caps, not to mention numerous other serious threats to a good night’s sleep and a reasonable life for future generations?

Then you may want to head over to the Lincoln Park branch of the Chicago Public Library on a Saturday afternoon for Open University of the Left, a free, monthly, and drop-in-friendly program that’s the equivalent of a graduate-level seminar. OUL presents erudite and impassioned lectures (and the occasional panel discussion) by academics and activists on a range of issues vital to old lefties and, especially now, to all of us. The meetings feature a 50-minute talk, followed by a question-and-answer period of about the same length.

In the past few months OUL has hosted

Loyola University sociology professor Lauren Langman discussing the new book he coauthored on the American character, God, Guns, Gold, and Glory, and activist Thomas Frank (great-great grandson of a Chicago mayor, but not the What’s the Matter With Kansas? guy) leading a “toxic tour” of East Chicago, Indiana. Those sessions are up on OUL’s YouTube channel, along with a series of videos Hughes recorded earlier this month at the national 2017 Left Forum in New York. Next up: Lehigh University political science professor Anthony DiMaggio on the question “Does Capitalism Have a Future?” That’ll be at 2:30 PM, July 15, at the library, 1150 W. Fullerton.

The OUL has been around—mostly under the radar—for more than 30 years. Robert Hughes, a participant since 2004, says it was founded in the mid-1980s by onetime SDS official Carl Davidson and former Chicago Public Library reference librarian and activist David Williams. Originally, Hughes says, it was “a leftist

Great Books discussion club,” reading authors like Stephen Crane and drawing minuscule attendance: “Five or seven people would show up, and three of them would have the book.”

During the Iraq war, OUL began screening antiwar videos and saw a bump in attendance that led to programming changes and an affinity for the medium. Since 2009 it’s been recording the events and posting them on YouTube. As a result, Hughes says, the live event is now a victim of its own success: “There may only be 25 people at the event, but 1,000 might view it online.”

OUL has survived with no formal organizational structure, no officers, no fees, and no budget. Small donations are sometimes collected to help cover expenses, but aren’t tax-deductible, since the group has no government-sanctioned charitable status. Speakers aren’t paid, beyond the occasional stipend for gas. “It’s a floating crap game,” Hughes says.

“We have no money, but that’s a strength. We can’t be squeezed.”

Hughes, who was politicized by the “police riot” at the 1968 Democratic Convention, credits OUL’s longevity to its refusal to get pigeonholed by the factionalism that he says has always been the problem with the left in the United States. “We’re basically leftists, but strictly nonsectarian,” he says. “You will get different perspectives at different events, and there is disagreement galore. It’s a freespeech forum.” v

BEST TAQUERIA

LA PASADITA

1140 N. Ashland, 773-278-2130, pasadita.com RUNNER-UP: Taqueria El

Asadero

BEST THAI RESTAURANT

STICKY RICE

4018 N. Western, 773-588-0133, stickyricethai.com RUNNER-UP: Opart

Thai House

BEST VEGETARIAN RESTAURANT

CHICAGO DINER

3411 N. Halsted, 773-935-6696, veggiediner.com RUNNER-UP: Handlebar

BEST VEGAN RESTAURANT

CHICAGO DINER

3411 N. Halsted, 773-935-6696, veggiediner.com RUNNER-UP: Alice

& Friendsʼ Vegan Kitchen

BEST VIETNAMESE RESTAURANT ò GEOFF MARTIN

OPEN UNIVERSITY OF THE LEFT

RUNNER-UP: Ora

TANK NOODLE

4953-55 N. Broadway, 773-878-2253, tank-noodle.com RUNNER-UP: LD Pho

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JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 29

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BEST OF CHICAGO

READERSʼ POLL ○

Music & Nightlife BEST NEW BAND

SCOTCH THE FILMMAKER

facebook.com/ScotchtheFilmmaker RUNNER-UP: Glitter

TOLLWAY OASES

Moneyyy

BEST ROCK BAND

LEVER

leverband.bandcamp.com RUNNER-UP: Laverne

BEST HIP-HOP ARTIST

CHANCE THE RAPPER

By Jake Malooley

chanceraps.com

RUNNER-UP: Ausar

Bradley

BEST METAL BAND

OOZING WOUND

oozingwound.bandcamp.com j MIKE CENTENO

RUNNER-UP: REZN

the only similar structure is suspended above I-44 in Vinita, Oklahoma, and currently houses the world’s largest McDonald’s.

Illinois boasts seven tollway oases: four along the Tri-State Tollway, two serving the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway, and a lone outpost on the Reagan Memorial Tollway. In the mid-aughts, the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority moved to demolish and redevelop the sites, replacing the sleek but neglected buildings created by PACE Associates, the firm that was headed by Charles “Skip” Booher Genther, a frequent collaborator of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s. Even the Lincoln Oasis, a later addition built in 1967 and designed by one of Mies’s master disciples, David Haid, was razed.

The new, contemporary structures look more like floating airport terminals than anything you might see on the IIT campus, but they still live up to their promise as oases in a kind of desert. No mere gas station or truck stop, each veritable mini-mall functions as a patch of state-sanctioned abundance amid endless asphalt—a place to leisurely stretch your road-weary legs, to let the dog pee among the grassy knolls, to lap up the sweet nectar of free Wi-Fi, or to kick

back on a picnic table and savor a smorgasbord of delicious empty calories that, were you not in transit, you’d feel guilty about putting in your face. The oases certainly don’t force decisions, something my mother always appreciated on road trips; under one roof, I could order a slice of pizza from one stall while my sister grabbed a sub sandwich from another.

But the centerpiece of any tollway oasis is the expansive wall of windows that overlooks the inbound and outbound traffic charging by on the interstate. I recall, on one occasion when I was a kid, pressing my forehead to the glass as vehicles in eight lanes, each occupied by people hurrying toward their own private destinations, roared past. It’s the first time I can remember being confronted, in panoramic scope, with the frightening size and speed of the world and my relative smallness within it.

I’d eventually come to associate this shrinking feeling with any transcendent travel experience. That day at the oasis, however, the revelation sent my head spinning. I staggered over to a large map of Illinois hanging on a wall near the bathroom and put my fingertip on a red arrow, beside which a stabilizing reminder was printed: you are here. v

EIGHTH BLACKBIRD eighthblackbird.org

RUNNER-UP: Morton Feldman Chamber

Players

BEST INTERNATIONAL/WORLD MUSIC ACT

PAPA G

soundcloud.com/djpapag

BEST JAZZ BAND

CHRIS GREENE QUARTET chrisgreenejazz.com

ò COURTESY EIGHTH BLACKBIRD

WE WERE A ROAD-TRIP FAMILY. Every few weeks, no matter the season, my mother, little sister, and I would pack up the sedan and depart from the small north-central Illinois town where I was raised. Mom believed it was important to initiate us early into a world bigger than the tiny agricultural bubble that we called home. Our destinations were all over the midwestern map: Ronald Reagan’s boyhood home in Dixon, Illinois; Big Powderhorn Mountain ski resort on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; Amish country in northern Indiana; a rented lake house in Door County, Wisconsin; a Chicago hotel room with spectacular views of Fourth of July fireworks.

No matter where we were headed, at some point along the journey we’d manage to find our way to an Illinois tollway oasis. The unconventional rest stop consists of a building constructed atop a bridge spanning the width of the interstate, allowing convenient access to gas, food, shops, restrooms, and travel information. The plazas first opened as sitdown restaurants in the middle of the last century, when trips by automobile maintained a glimmer of elegance. Today, they remain a distinctive feature of the U.S. roadway system;

BEST CLASSICAL GROUP

RUNNER-UP: Sabertooth

BEST JAZZ MUSICIAN

MAKAYA MCCRAVEN

makayamccraven.com RUNNER-UP: Nico Segal

○

JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 31

SET ON THE COAST OF LAKE MICHIGAN WITH A RIVER RUNNING THROUGH THE HEART, MILWAUKEE PROVES THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO LEAVE CELL RECEPTION BEHIND TO FIND ADVENTURE. IT’S ALL RIGHT HERE. PLAN YOUR VISIT VISITMILWAUKEE.ORG/GO

32 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

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BEST OF CHICAGO

READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST BLUES BAND

ANTHONY MOSER AND THE FAT TONE BLUES BAND mosermusic.com

RUNNER-UP: Ronnie

Baker Brooks

BEST COUNTRY BAND

BIG SADIE

bigsadie.com RUNNER-UP: Lawrence

Peters Outfit

BEST SINGER/SONGWRITER

ERYN ALLEN KANE

ò PORTER MCLEOD

erynallenkanemusic.com RUNNER-UP: Davey

Dynamite

BEST DJ

SCARY LADY SARAH

facebook.com/TheScaryLadySarah RUNNER-UP: DJ Rae

SINGLE SEATS ON EL TRAINS

Chardonnay

BEST LOCAL DANCE PRODUCER

TWITCHIN SKRATCH

soundcloud.com/twitchinskratch

By Kevin Warwick

BEST BAND NAME

most precious gem. Elusive and damn near taunting, this protector of solitude allows a lucky passenger to check out and stare off into the middle distance in peace. No more awkward, accidental leg-to-leg contact with a seatmate; no more being jarred from a nap by an exiting rider. Just focus on the thrum of the train. Blue Line singles are often jammed behind the last pair of seats on both sides of the aisle, tucked in such a way that they look like a last-ditch effort to give another body a place to sit. Chicagoans have taken to single seats like the ancient, broken-in La-Z-Boy recliners languishing in their parents’ basements: temporarily forgotten, but beloved once you see them.

With the rollout of the 5000 series el cars in 2011 on the Red and Green Lines, the single seat

seemed as though it might be in peril. Meant to maximize space and replace the 2600 series rolled out in the 80s, the newfangled 5000 series mimicked New York’s MTA setup with longitudinal seating and wider aisles for standing. There was no single-seat pipe dream upon boarding these bright and shiny cars; we’d have to be near other people and interact with them (or we’d have to take the bus). What a drag. But with the recent return of rail-car manufacturing to Chicago—thanks to last year’s $1.3 billion contract with CRRC Sifang America—we’ll soon have an even shinier new 7000 series, which is being spun as a hybrid of the 5000 and 3200 series of cars, the latter of which now operates on the Brown and Orange Lines and features . . . forward-facing single seats. Thankfully, being left alone will never go out of style. v

CELINE NEON

celineneon.bandcamp.com AND

LIL TITS

liltits.bandcamp.com RUNNER-UP: Harvey

Dentures

BEST GIG POSTER DESIGNER

MATTIE HAMILTON

mattiehamilton.com

RUNNER-UP: Frank ò BRYAN ALLEN LAMB

WHILE CHICAGO IS blessed to have access to a relatively high-functioning train system, it’s still hard not to get beaten down by the monotony and grind of the public-transit gauntlet. Weary-eyed and apathetic—oftentimes compounded by whatever weather-beaten slog it took to get from point A to point B—we wriggle through thickets of humans during rush hour in hopes of finding some shred of somewhere to sit, just enough for a butt cheek.

We scoff at the gnarled and matted seat fabric, wonder what has soaked into it over the decades, and plop down anyway. And now, with the implementation of CTA transit trackers at most stops, our routines have become more methodical—we don’t even have the mystery of arrivals to liven things up.

At least there’s the single seat, the CTA’s

Okay

BEST LOCAL MUSIC BLOG

CHIRP RADIO

chirpradio.org RUNNER-UP: neonpajamas.com

○

JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 33

READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST OF CHICAGO

BEST LOCAL MUSIC PODCAST

CHIRP RADIO

chirpradio.org RUNNER-UP: Better

Yet

ò PORTER MCLEOD

BEST LOCAL LABEL

BLOODSHOT RECORDS

3039 W. Irving Park, 773-604-5300, bloodshotrecords.com RUNNER-UP: Sooper Records

BEST PARTY PROMOTER

THE TOP FLOOR OF METRA TRAINS

EMPTY BOTTLE PRESENTS

1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600, emptybottle.com RUNNER-UP: Kristen

Kaza

BEST MUSIC FESTIVAL

RIOT FEST

By Tal Rosenberg

riotfest.org RUNNER-UP: Pitchfork

Music Festival

BEST MUSIC VENUE

THALIA HALL

1807 S. Allport, 312-526-3851, thaliahallchicago.com RUNNER-UP: The

Empty Bottle

BEST ROCK CLUB

THE EMPTY BOTTLE

1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600, emptybottle.com RUNNER-UP: Metro

ò ALISON GREEN;

BEST HIP-HOP CLUB

EAST ROOM

2354 N. Milwaukee, 773-698-8774, eastroomchicago.com RUNNER-UP: Bottom

Lounge

○

34 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

WHEN I TAKE a day trip outside the city limits, I often drive—but I prefer to fly and take the train at the same time. After all, an $8 weekend pass on the Metra is only a fraction of the price of a tank of gas, and I get to be up high . . . well, not in the sky, but it’s the closest thing we’ve got to flying cars.

The bottom floor (or the lobby, as I like to call it) is for the respectable people who would rather not bother with the upstairs slog or the riffraff of the top floor. The top floor (or the balcony) is where people sneak beers and booze when drinking onboard is prohibited during special events and festival season, or where groups of intoxicated people assemble in the back of the aisle and try to surreptitiously take hits of weed or cigarettes.

Upstairs is where the sneaks are, the people who’re trying to hide from the conductor and

hoping to get a free ride.

What’s funny is that the top floor was once the ultimate luxury. Bilevel rail cars date back to the mid-19th century, when voitures à impériale (double-decker cars) were introduced to French railways. These early models were actually a way not to just sit on top of the train but also to enjoy the outdoors: they had awnings that covered seats facing sideways.

In Chicago the first double-decker train seating was on “gallery cars,” a specific model that was designed in the 1950s by the Saint Louis Car Company and ordered by the Chicago and North Western Transportation Company in 1955; they were also the first bilevel rail cars in the country. The Chicago and regional railway system has a complicated history, but since the network became Metra in 1985 the gallery car has remained in use. Today the

train cars are designed by the Japan-based manufacturer Nippon Sharyo. In 2010 the company built a factory in nearby Rochelle to create new gallery cars for Metra, which will purchase updated cars from another Japanese corporation, Sumitomo, in the near future.

Don’t worry—double-decker seating will remain, though being able to flip seats might be lost.

Even if I can’t flip a single front-facing seat so that you can use the cushion as a table for eating a sandwich or storing your bag, I’ll still always prefer sitting upstairs. Downstairs you may have camaraderie and convenience, but upstairs you have privacy. In a single seat, you can be alone with your thoughts, and if you nab a side seat you get panoramic views through the windows across the aisle. I appreciate the clunky spiral staircase leading up to the top floor and not having to sit next to the bathroom.

But what I love most of all is that the balcony is where you really feel the sense of living in a city. It’s the individualism of being lost in a crowd, the railway approximation of apartment living, of riding on public transportation, yet also feeling like you’re a part of the engine that keeps Chicago moving. The lobby is for tourists coming into the city or people going home. The top floor is for people who are already home. v

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READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST JAZZ CLUB

THE GREEN MILL

4802 N. Broadway, 773-8785552, greenmilljazz.com RUNNER-UP: Constellation

BEST BLUES CLUB

KINGSTON MINES

2548 N. Halsted, 773-4774647, kingstonmines.com RUNNER-UP: Buddy

Guyʼs Legends

BEST DANCE CLUB

BEAUTY BAR

1444 W. Chicago, 312-2268828, thebeautybar.com RUNNER-UP: Berlin

1035 N. Western, 773-2763600, emptybottle.com RUNNER-UP: Small

Bar

1150 N. Damen, 773-4895999, facebook.com/pages/ Rainbo-Club RUNNER-UP: Beauty

Because sometimes you just have to laugh—even when life is a dumpster fire

Bar

BEST HOTEL BAR BEST JUKEBOX

ROOF ON THE WIT

201 N. State, 312-239-9502, roofonthewit.com RUNNER-UP: Cherry

Circle Room

SIMONʼS TAVERN

5210 N. Clark, 773-878-0894, facebook.com/simonstavern RUNNER-UP: Cafe

Mustache

BEST 4 AM BAR BEST KARAOKE

THE OWL

2521 N. Milwaukee, 773-2355300, owlbarchicago.com RUNNER-UP: East

Room

ALICEʼS LOUNGE

3556 W. Belmont, 773-279-9382 RUNNER-UP: Cafe Mustache

BEST BARCADE BEST MAGICIAN

AJ SACCO

ajsacco.com

BEST DANCE PARTY

PARTY NOIRE

RUNNER-UP: Justin

Purcel

thepartynoire.com

Arts & Culture

BEST LGBTQ DANCE PARTY

FEMMES ROOM AT BERLIN

954 W. Belmont, 773-348-4975 RUNNER-UP: Slo

ʻMo

BEST GAY BAR

BIG CHICKS

5024 N. Sheridan, 773-7285511, bigchicks.com RUNNER-UP: Berlin

BEST LESBIAN BAR

BIG CHICKS

5024 N. Sheridan, 773-7285511, bigchicks.com

BEST NEW BAR

THE MILK ROOM

12 S. Michigan, 844-312-2221, milkroom.tocktix.com

LOGAN ARCADE

2410 W. Fullerton, 872-2062859, loganarcade.com RUNNER-UP: Emporium

Arcade Bar

EMPTY BOTTLE

1035 N. Western, 773-2763600, emptybottle.com RUNNER-UP: Simonʼs Tavern

BEST NEIGHBORHOOD BAR

EMPTY BOTTLE

from bitches gotta eat blogger and comedian

GHOSTLIGHT ENSEMBLE

1903 W. Warner, 773-3775342, ghostlightensemble.com RUNNER-UP: Otherworld

Theatre Company

BEST STRIP CLUB

ADMIRAL THEATRE

3940 W. Lawrence, 773-4788111, admiralx.com

BEST ESTABLISHED THEATER COMPANY

RUNNER-UP: Vipʼs Gentlemenʼs

1650 N. Halsted, 312-335-1650, steppenwolf.org

Club

RIVERS CASINO DES PLAINES 3000 S. River Rd, Des Plaines, IL, 847-795-0777, riverscasino. com/desplaines

RICHARDʼS BAR

491 N. Milwaukee, 312-7332251, facebook.com/pages/ Richards-Bar RUNNER-UP: Bottom

STEPPENWOLF THEATRE RUNNER-UP: Remy

BEST CASINO

BEST SMOKING AREA BEST DIVE BAR

The New York Times bestseller

BEST NEW THEATER COMPANY

RUNNER-UP: Deadbolt

ò STEVEN SEVERINGHAUS

we are never meeting in real life.

Owl

Lounge

BEST PHOTO BOOTH TO MAKE OUT IN

RAINBO CLUB

Bumppo Theatre Company

Samantha Irby

“Heartbreaking and hilarious....

© Kirsten Jennings

RUNNER-UP: The

Done in Irby’s signature style of raw, self-deprecating, rapidly unspooling sentences.”

—Chicago Reader

BEST OFF-LOOP THEATER COMPANY

“Outstanding….

STEPPENWOLF THEATRE

1650 N. Halsted, 312-335-1650, steppenwolf.org RUNNER-UP: Trap Door

I cannot remember the last time I was so moved by a book.”

—Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of Difficult Women and Bad Feminist

Theatre

BEST LONG-RUNNING PLAY

THE INFINITE WRENCH

New in paperback and eBook

neofuturists.org

Read her side-splitting essay “My Bachelorette Application” excerpted from We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. at VintageBooks.com

RUNNER-UP: Hamilton

kittensandtacos

@wordscience

bitchesgottaeat

○ JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 35

READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST OF CHICAGO Amtrak’s California Zephyr at the end of its daily 2,400-mile trip from Chicago to Emeryville, California ò JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES

BEST NEW PLAY

DUNDEE: A HIP-HOPERA

facebook.com/Dundeehiphopera RUNNER-UP: Hatchet Lady

BEST TOURING PLAY

HAMILTON

broadwayinchicago.com RUNNER-UP: Hedwig and

the Angry Inch

LEAVING CHICAGO BY RAIL

BEST REVIVAL OF A WELL-KNOWN PLAY

UNCLE VANYA

goodmantheatre.org

By Ryan Smith

RUNNER-UP: Picnic

BEST MUSICAL

HAMILTON

broadwayinchicago.com RUNNER-UP: Dundee:

A Hip-Hopera

BEST ACTOR

DANIEL KYRI MADISON RUNNER-UP: Greg

Matthew Anderson

BEST ACTRESS

ELIZA STOUGHTON elizastoughton.com

RUNNER-UP: Mary-Kate

Arnold

BEST PLAYWRIGHT

GABE CARUSO RUNNER-UP: Ike

Holter

ò TYLER CORE

BEST STAGE DIRECTOR

TIFFANY KEANE-SCHAEFER

otherworldtheatre.org/artistic-ensemble RUNNER-UP: Madison

Smith

○

36 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

IF I WERE to meet President Donald Trump, I’d tell him all about my recent train ride west.

On the second afternoon of a memorable 31-hour journey to Whitefish, Montana, my girlfriend and I sat together on a pair of swiveling seats while avidly gazing out a window of the observation car on the second floor of the Empire Builder, the Amtrak line that stretches from Chicago to Seattle. It’s one of 15 long-distance lines threatened by Trump’s 2018 transportation budget.

After rolling through the flat expanse of the dry grasslands of the Great Plains for many hours, we’d finally glimpsed the foothills of the Rocky Mountains surrounding Glacier National Park. A teenage boy a few seats behind us began playing a mournful tune on his violin that perfectly complemented the grandiosity of the snowy peaks we were approaching. It sent a pleasant chill up my spine.

“I just made up that song, actually,” he said afterward. “Seeing the mountains, well . . . they inspired me.”

It was a vivid reminder of the rewards of a trip on one of the long-distance routes that start at Amtrak’s central hub, Chicago’s Union

Station, and spiderweb out into big cities, small towns, and all-but-forgotten outposts from coast to coast. These extended treks by rail offer opportunities for what’s become known as “slow travel,” an approach that embraces the unhurried journey as an alternative to the frantic pace of contemporary life—a chance for tourists to immerse themselves in the physical world and connect with the people around them.

This type of Zen-like downshifting is exactly what I’ve enjoyed about my own 15,000 miles of train travel over the past decade. Aboard Amtrak’s Southwest Chief, I marveled at the unending deep blue New Mexico sky. Through the window of the California Zephyr, I watched a herd of wild horses galloping across the dusty Colorado plains. During a heavy rain, the City of New Orleans train seemed to hydroplane over the flooded waters of Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain.

Something about the leisurely, unfussy experience of train travel breaks down barriers between people who’d otherwise be strangers.

Like residents of a summer camp on rails, passengers are brought together to share meals

at a communal table. Travelers sit, walk, and sleep adjacent to each other—and so you end up organically making new friends. I’ve had in-depth conversations with people from all walks of life—the Amish, New Zealand expats, a Muslim family from New York City, elderly antifracking activists from West Virginia.

I’ve sung along to the tune of an Irishman’s jangly acoustic guitar during an impromptu late-night jamboree, swigged cheap beer with rowdy New Orleans Saints fans who turned the dining car into a traveling tailgate party, and snuck a kiss with a French woman I once chatted with all day on the way to Seattle.

Contrast the richness of those experiences with the memories of my airplane trips during that same period—a blur of unpleasant security lines, terse exchanges with seatmates, and the counting of minutes until I’d be allowed to escape the cramped cabin.

That’s why Trump shouldn’t eliminate the long-distance routes by slashing Amtrak’s budget from $1.4 billion to $774 million, as he’s proposed. If the president were serious about making America great again, he’d expand them. v

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BEST OF CHICAGO

READERSʼ POLL

Taurus Flavors in Avalon Park

○

ò DANIELLE A.

BEST CHOREOGRAPHER

JOSHUA ISHMON

SCRUGGS

facebook.com/joshualishmon RUNNER-UP: Haley

Stone

BEST STAND-UP COMIC

KYLE SCANLAN

kylescanlan.com RUNNER-UP: Sarah

Sherman

BEST SKETCH/IMPROV TROUPE

VAMP CHICAGO

vampchicago.com RUNNER-UP: Hitch*Cocktails

BEST VENUE FOR STAND-UP

THE HIDEOUT

1354 W. Wabansia, 773-227-4433, hideoutchicago.com RUNNER-UP: UP Comedy

Club

BEST VENUE FOR IMPROV/SKETCH

LAUGH OUT LOUD THEATER CHICAGO 3851 N. Lincoln, 773-857-6000, laughoutloudtheater.com/chicago

RUNNER-UP: The

THE SWEET STEAK SANDWICH

Annoyance Theatre & Bar

BEST DANCE TROUPE

By Ernest Wilkins

esteak, the steak sweet consists of perfectly charred beef chopped fine, then slathered with a sugary, tangy, smoky red sauce, packed into a sub roll (usually from Gonella), and topped with green bell peppers. That famed sauce, dubbed “proprietary” on one menu, varies in sweetness from place to place and visit to visit. As it soaks into the crusty bread, the sandwich takes on a texture akin to a dipped Italian beef.

The two titans of the steak sweet are Taurus Flavors, established in 1966, and Home of the Hoagy, which opened in 1969. Both of these venerable institutions are located in predominantly black neighborhoods (Avalon Park and Morgan Park, respectively), and they’re kept alive almost exclusively by the patronage of people in those communities. For more than two decades Taurus has been my standby for killing extreme hunger. Even though I grew up in Rogers Park, making the trip down south to get a steak and an ice cream or sherbet was a

special treat, a source of many memories of hanging with my dad, a go-to spot for celebrating good report cards and graduations.

Later it became my first stop when returning home from college in Florida—a place that has plenty of amazing Cuban sandwiches yet is sorely lacking in sweet steak.

It’s puzzling that the purveyors of a bona fide Chicago delicacy get scant foot traffic from outside their neighborhoods and little love from the local food media, unlike, say, the Indian restaurants along Devon or the Vietnamese spots on Argyle. But what’s especially maddening is that in a city supposedly crawling with so-called foodies, I’ve met precious few in my three decades here who know the supreme pleasures of the steak sweet.

They say you are what you eat. But in this city at least, what you eat can also say a lot about who you are—especially if what you’re eating happens to be a steak sandwich smothered in sweet red sauce. v

HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO 1147 W. Jackson, 312-850-9744, hubbardstreetdance.com RUNNER-UP: Raks Geek

BEST VENUE FOR DANCE

ò TODD ROSENBERG

TO ANY NORTH-SIDER who might think for a second that this city’s fundamental segregation problem doesn’t touch his life in ways both trivial and monumental, I’d like to pose this question: Have you ever eaten a Chicago sweet steak sandwich?

In a more just world, the “steak sweet” would be as iconic a Chicago food institution as deep-dish pizza, Italian beef, or even that weird-ass Jim Shoe (aka Gym Shoe) sandwich. But there isn’t a single street festival dedicated to it, Anthony Bourdain hasn’t offered up grizzled, tough-guy-poet wisdom about poor American folk while crushing one, and you’re not going to buy a $14 upmarket version in River North. In fact, if you’re a white person of a certain socioeconomic standing, this may very well be the first time you’re hearing of this standout sammy, seeing as it’s available mostly on the south side and surrounding suburbs.

A localized variant of the classic chees-

AUDITORIUM THEATRE OF ROOSEVELT UNIVERSITY 50 E. Congress, 312-341-2310, auditoriumtheatre.org RUNNER-UP: Harris Theater

○ JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 37

READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST OF CHICAGO The Corner Bar, at Leavitt and Palmer ò PORTER MCLEOD

BEST BURLESQUE TROUPE

KISS KISS CABARET

4713 N. Broadway, 773-867-1946, kisskisscabaret.com RUNNER-UP: Burlesque

Is More

BEST PERFORMING ARTS FESTIVAL

LOUDER THAN A BOMB

youngchicagoauthors.org/louder-than-a-bomb RUNNER-UP: Chicago

Improv Festival

BEST ESTABLISHED GALLERY

LILLSTREET GALLERY

4401 N. Ravenswood, 773-769-4226, lillstreetgallery.com RUNNER-UP: Chicago

Truborn

BEST NEW GALLERY

AMFM GALLERY

2151 W. 21st, 312-971-7502, amfm.life RUNNER-UP: Rootwork

Gallery

BEST GALLERY EXHIBIT

ART AIDS AMERICA

artaidsamericachicago.org

BARS ON RESIDENTIAL STREETS

RUNNER-UP: LEXICON

BEST UNDERGROUND ART SPACE

By Julia Thiel

UPTOWN UNDERGROUND

4707 N. Broadway, 773-8671946, uptownunderground.net RUNNER-UP: The

Dojo

BEST ESTABLISHED VISUAL ARTIST

KERRY JAMES MARSHALL

jackshainman.com/artists/kerryjames-marshall

ò CAMERON WITTIG

RUNNER-UP: Theaster Gates

BEST NEW VISUAL ARTIST

MYRON LABAN

myronlaban.wordpress.com RUNNER-UP: xTRVONx

38 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

○

LONG BEFORE STARBUCKS started claiming the title of the “third place”—a space besides home and work where people gather—the corner bar was already filling that role. The third place, according to Ray Oldenburg (who wrote a book on the subject, called The Great Good Place, published in 1989), fosters community and social interaction by providing a comfortable, welcoming space for both regulars and occasional visitors to congregate. Examples include cafes, barbershops, libraries, bookstores—and, of course, bars.

Chicago has no shortage of neighborhood bars, but the most comfortable and welcoming ones tend to be located off the beaten path, on residential streets. Here there’s little to no chance that a bachelorette party or group of bros on a nightlife crawl will stumble in by accident: away from the main thoroughfares there’s little foot traffic, so odds are good that everyone in the place is there on purpose.

There’s a sense of camaraderie, even when the other patrons are strangers.

These bars often feel like relics from the past, holdouts that stay the same as their

neighborhoods develop around them. Innertown Pub, for example, is just a couple blocks from the busy intersection of Division and Damen—which would’ve looked very different when the bar opened in 1983 than it does today. Although it’s not clear exactly when the bar acquired its stuffed moose head, indoor stained-glass window, or life-size Elvis statue, they’ve all been in place for a very long time, along with numerous smaller knickknacks that adorn the walls.

The eclectic decor that defines the Innertown Pub is, if not ubiquitous among bars on residential streets, definitely not unusual.

If these places are short on anything, it’s not character. I sometimes get the sense that I’ve stumbled into the basement of someone’s eccentric grandma, board games and all. A lot of these places just feel like home. Better, even—they’re sanctuaries away from home. “Hospitality” is a concept common in the bar and restaurant industry, but I’ve never met warmer bartenders than the ones at the out-of-the-way bars I’ve visited. Maybe that’s why people get so upset

when they close their doors. Regulars are still mourning the late Club Foot and Beachwood Inn, and in 2015, when Danny’s Tavern announced it was being evicted, the public outcry convinced the landlord of the former two-flat house in Bucktown to change his mind. So the dance parties continue, at least for now.

While these tucked-away gems remain preserved as if in amber, the rest of Chicago’s bar scene is evolving so fast it’s hard to keep up. Going out is serious business these days: at some of the fancier places, you have to make reservations weeks in advance or wait hours for a table to order a cocktail encased in an ice sphere that you break with a slingshot. I love the new bars too; I’m fascinated by obscure cocktail ingredients and weird presentations.

But those places aren’t relaxing. They’re not homey. You go there to be wowed, to experience something new. When you want a place as familiar as your own living room—with a menu you can understand without an extended consultation with your server—the neighborhood bar is there. v

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BEST OF CHICAGO

READERSʼ POLL

The Fresh Farms market on Devon devotes half its space to fresh produce—including luffa squash (sinqua) and whole turmeric.

○

BEST PHOTOGRAPHER

BRIGID GALLAGHER

bgallagherphotos.com

ò PORTER MCLEOD

RUNNER-UP: Greg

Inda

BEST STREET ARTIST

MAX SANSING

maxsansing.tumblr.com RUNNER-UP: Penny

Pinch

BEST MURAL

SAMANTHA KIRK AND SANDRA ANTONGIORGIʼS “WEAVING CULTURES” iamsamkirk.com/exhibitions

RUNNER-UP: JC Riveraʼs Bear

Champ

BEST ARCHITECT

JEANNE GANG

studiogang.com/people/jeanne-gang RUNNER-UP: Peter

Landon

BEST ARCHITECTURE FIRM

By Philip Montoro

IMMIGRANTS ENRICH EVERY square inch of Chicago’s food culture—including my grimy little kitchen. Though I’m a gardenvariety mixed honky from Texas, my favorite recipes are all Indian and Thai. I live in Edgewater, a short hop from two of the city’s densest concentrations of international groceries: the Indo-Pak strip along Devon and the cluster of Southeast Asian shops around Argyle. I learned to feed myself in college from the Hare Krishnas who catered for the student vegetarian club, and a couple years ago I started working my way through the lovingly researched cookbooks of part-time Chicagoan Leela Punyaratabandhu.

To do justice to any but the simplest recipes, I’ve had to seek out specialized markets.

And in the 21 years I’ve lived here, they’ve become my most reliable food-related happy places. I love the powerful perfume of fresh-cut jackfruit, and even better are the brain-tickling sulfidic smells of durian and

asafetida. When I want makrut lime leaves, galangal, black cardamom, or dried shrimp, I know where to go. I get a kick out of buying vegetables I have no clue how to prepare—the tiny cucumber-shaped squash called tindora turn out to retain their snap even when simmered for half an hour in sambar.

Of course, people who aren’t already familiar with southern and Southeast Asian foods may not care to explore them. But even those folks have good reasons to shop on Argyle and Devon: many things you can buy at mainstream supermarkets are vastly cheaper at smaller specialty stores. I spent a June afternoon biking around my end of town to compare prices, starting at Whole Foods (6009 N. Broadway) and Jewel-Osco (5343 N. Broadway) to establish a baseline. Maybe you want fresh mint to make a shitload of mojitos, not for lap kai or bun mam; either way, at Whole Foods it’s $3.99 per ounce, and at Jewel it’s $3.47 per ounce. But at Hoa

Nam (1101 W. Argyle) mint costs 41 cents per ounce, and at Tai Nam (4925 N. Broadway) it’s 44 cents. Fresh ginger is $2.99 per pound at Whole Foods, $1.29 at Jewel (for relatively wizened rhizomes), and 69 cents at Patel Brothers (2610 W. Devon), which has the healthiest-looking stock of the three.

Basmati rice is $2.99 per pound at Whole Foods and 90 cents to $1.50 per pound at Fresh Farms (2626 W. Devon). Pork belly is $7.99 per pound at Whole Foods, largely because the store promises the animals were humanely raised—and while Viet Hoa (1051 W. Argyle) offers no such reassurances, for $2.39 per pound you can have your belly with ribs and skin still attached, perfect for the sour Filipino soup sinigang na baboy. The shops on Argyle sell whole shrimp with their heads on for six to eight bucks a pound— meanwhile, you’ll pay two or three times that for the more thoroughly processed creatures at Whole Foods or Jewel.

You may not think you have time to visit more than one store per grocery run, but Argyle and Devon both have several markets within walking distance—and if you’ll permit yourself a detour, you can grab a coconut bun at Chiu Quon Bakery (1127 W. Argyle) or a motichoor ladoo at Sukhadia’s Sweets and Snacks (2559 W. Devon). You already pay a premium to live in a city as large and diverse as Chicago.

You might as well get your money’s worth. v

RUNNER-UP: DMAC Architecture PC

BEST PUBLIC ARTWORK

ANISH KAPOORʼS CLOUD GATE (“THE BEAN”) cityofchicago.org

RUNNER-UP: Alexander

Calderʼs Flamingo

BEST PUBLIC ART EVENT

CONNECT HYDE PARK ART FESTIVAL Various locations, arts.uchicago.edu RUNNER-UP: Art ò CHRISTOPHER ANDREW

GROCERY SHOPPING ON ARGYLE AND DEVON

STUDIO GANG

studiogang.com/people/jeanne-gang

In Public Places

BEST ADVOCATE FOR THE ARTS

FOR THE PEOPLE ARTISTS COLLECTIVE forthepeoplecollective.org RUNNER-UP: Stacey Smith

○

JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 39

READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST OF CHICAGO Fully loaded snack bazookas

BEST ART SALE

ò SARAH JOYCE

RENEGADE CRAFT FAIR

1910 S. Halsted, 312-226-8654, renegadecraft.com RUNNER-UP: Lillstreet

Art Center

BEST MUSEUM

THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

111 S. Michigan, 312-443-3600, artic.edu RUNNER-UP: Museum

of Science & Industry

BEST MUSEUM EXHIBIT

“TATTOO”

fieldmuseum.org/discover/on-exhibit/tattoo/ RUNNER-UP: “Kerry

James Marshall: Mastry”

BEST ART CLASSES

LILLSTREET ART CENTER

THE SWEETS & SNACKS EXPO

4401 N. Ravenswood, 773-769-4226, lillstreet.com RUNNER-UP: Sip & Paint

By Leor Galil

BEST MOVIE THEATER

MUSIC BOX THEATRE

3733 N. Southport, 773-871-6604, musicboxtheatre.com RUNNER-UP: Davis Theater

BEST MOVIE THEATER BAR

MUSIC BOX THEATRE

3733 N. Southport, 773-871-6604, musicboxtheatre.com RUNNER-UP: The

Logan Theatre

BEST FILM PROGRAMMING

ò COURTESY LILLISTREET ARTS CENTER

MUSIC BOX THEATRE

3733 N. Southport, 773-871-6604, musicboxtheatre.com RUNNER-UP: Gene

Siskel Film Center

BEST FILM FESTIVAL

CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 212 W. Van Buren, 312-683-0121, chicagofilmfestival.com RUNNER-UP: Chicago Critics Film Festival

○

40 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

IT WAS A MAY midafternoon on the first day of this year’s Sweets & Snacks Expo, and I was catching my breath and charging my phone when I accidentally met the biggest celebrity at the whole three-day event. I was in the Jack Link’s pavilion, one of the largest at the expo, with my friend Sarah Joyce, a photographer and founder of GlitterGuts. Aside from the charging station, the pavilion included a claw arcade game filled with rolled-up T-shirts and several tables of samples—including bites of a new “breakfast bacon” flavored like brown sugar and maple, which had a cloying syrup aftertaste. A middle-aged man with weathered skin asked me and Sarah what we did for a living, and when we answered, he jokingly offered to let us interview him. It was only after we politely declined that we learned he was the actual Jack Link, founder of the Wisconsin company that beats all comers in the jerky game—according to a recent story in the Star Tribune, Jack Link’s pulls in more than $1.2 billion annually.

In my defense, I didn’t come to the expo

to interview snack superstars. I came to try every unusual confection, questionable candy, and bizarre chip my stomach could handle. The convention stands out among the many industry events at McCormick Place: unlike, say, Cyber Security Chicago, which caters to security specialists and IT professionals, Sweets & Snacks attracts lots of media people, who have to apply to attend. And of course I applied: I have such a ridiculous sweet tooth that if I ease up on the brakes and really indulge it, I’ll end up unable to do anything but lie flat and very, very still.

For retailers scoping out new products and suppliers hoping to get their treats into more hands, the expo is the Olympics of the industry, attracting the best from 90 countries. For the rest of us, it’s Halloween without costumes— and the vendors’ tables are a lot closer together than houses on a block. This year nearly 800 snack companies posted up across four acres of McCormick Place, which meant there was so much to try that I had to carefully pace myself.

The expo’s real treat isn’t the quantity of

snacks, though, but rather the opportunity to eat so many that are new to you—this year the majority of the samples I got were things I’d never tasted before. I tried square pink yuca chips flavored with beet and goat cheese by Massachusetts company Cassava Crunch. I had peanut butter caramel corn balls from Indiana’s Albanese Confectionery Group, which melted in my mouth surprisingly quickly. And for some reason I popped a few green “Minion Fart” Jelly Belly jelly beans, which smelled appropriately putrid—like essence of rotten egg—but tasted more like burnt sugar. I don’t know what I thought Minion farts might actually taste like, but that wasn’t it.

By the end of the expo I’d taken home three huge tote bags full of snacks—enough to overwhelm even me. When I got back to my place at the end of the first day, I couldn’t even think about eating more, so I decided to set up a goofy Instagram selfie: I covered myself in packaged candy until only my face was showing. You could even say that I . . . poured some sugar on me. v

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We’re Hiring!

Bold Disobedience June 23 – September 2, 2017 Opening Reception: Friday, June 23, 5 – 8 PM Bold Disobedience is a group exhibition presented in collaboration with Mikva Challenge. Selected by a council of student curators, this collection of works demonstrates the myriad social issues youths of today are fighting against.

Weinberg/Newton Gallery 300 W Superior Street, Suite 203 Chicago, IL 60654 312 529 5090 weinbergnewtongallery.com

Featuring works by Angela Davis Fegan, Jaclyn Jacunski, Kuumba Lynx, Yvette Mayorga, Cheryl Pope, Sarah Ross, Dread Scott and students of the Chicago High School for the Arts.

We are accepting applications for drivers for this fun and unique job!

We have paid training for qualified CDL drivers for double deckers, as well as new trolley driver/tour guides.

Apply in person at 4400 S. Racine Ave. between 9am and 4pm.

You can also visit us at CHICAGOTROLLEY.COM and click on our employment page.

Interviews will be set up upon review of applications.

Explore the City of Chicago and get paid to do it!

JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 41

READERSʼ POLL

BEST OF CHICAGO

○

Dennis Farina stars in Crime Story as Chicago Police Department lieutenant Mike Torello.

BEST FILMMAKER

AUSTIN VESELY

vimeo.com/austinvesely RUNNER-UP: The

ò SUN-TIMES MEDIA

BMP Film Co.

BEST LATE-NIGHT MOVIES

MUSIC BOX THEATRE

3733 N. Southport, 773-871-6604, musicboxtheatre.com RUNNER-UP: The

Logan Theatre

BEST NOVELIST

CRIME STORY

KATHLEEN ROONEY kathleenrooney.com

RUNNER-UP: Stacey Ballis

By Lee Bey

BEST NONFICTION WRITER

ADAM HOMER LAWSON

goodreads.com/author/show/16659469.

Adam_Homer_Lawson RUNNER-UP: Samantha Irby

BEST NEW NOVEL BY A CHICAGOAN

WEDDING GIRL

by Stacey Ballis

RUNNER-UP: Ghost Talkers

BEST NEW NONFICTION BOOK BY A CHICAGOAN

THE SOUTH SIDE

by Natalie Moore RUNNER-UP:

A Peopleʼs History of Chicago BEST POET

ALISON OGUNMOKUN RUNNER-UP: Chance

the Rapper

ò BETH ROONEY

BEST LITERARY EVENT

CHIRP RADIOʼS FIRST TIME STORYTELLING SERIES firsttime.chirpradio.org RUNNER-UP: Miss Spoken

○

42 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

ITʼS THE MIDDLE of the night near Cermak and Canal, and the police lieutenant is angry.

There’s a dead body, fresh out of the South Branch. But before beginning to unravel the homicide, he has to handle a federal prosecutor who’s on the scene, trying to get past the police barricade.

The cop, who’s had run-ins with this particular fed before, breaks, unloading right in the guy’s face with a Chicago accent as sharp as the hot peppers on an Al’s Italian beef: “Listen to me, you pompous bastard: This is the city of Chicago—politically the most potent city in America. And you are a third-rate political opportunist. You wanna get in a dogfight with me? I’ll eat you alive. You’re trying to climb the ladder. I am the ladder.”

That’s Crime Story, the spectacular police drama that ran on NBC from September 1986 to May 1988, long before Dick Wolf settled on our shores. From the locations to the dialogue, nothing quite as quintessentially Chicago— save, perhaps, 1993’s The Fugitive—has been filmed here since.

Set in the early 1960s, Crime Story was a neo-noir starring former Chicago policeman Dennis Farina as Mike Torello, a CPD lieutenant trying to pinch Outfit hood Ray Luca.

The modern cop show owes a debt to Hill Street Blues, but the vig on that loan is payable to Crime Story, among the rare earlier TV dramas to serialize story lines and mix violence with gallows humor.

“Looks like a Jackson Pollock,” says Torello, inspecting a blood spatter on a wall inside a diner near Milwaukee and Damen after a mob hit.

“Is he an Outfit guy?” a passing detective asks.

“No, an artist,” Torello says. “He used to paint stuff like this.”

“Well,” the detective says before walking off, “he’s got a sick mind.”

Created by Chicago-born director and producer Michael Mann—hot off the success of Miami Vice—Crime Story kicked off with a two-hour pilot sleekly directed by Abel Ferrara, who would later make King of New York and Bad Lieutenant. Their Chicago is dark and violent. Cops. Gangsters. Guns. Pompadours.

Neon. Rain-slicked streets. Big black Fords prowling the city like dinosaurs.

There’s a diamond heist in the Field Museum. A mobster lives lavishly in a Jetsonsmeets-the-Flintstones house in Park Ridge.

Janson’s Drive-In in Beverly shows up. Luca

tunes in to real-life 1960s black radio jazz DJ “Daddy-O” Daylie.

Chicago Film Office director Rich Moskal, who was a location scout for Crime Story, says the crew mined everything from old magazines to Chicago History Museum archives in its search for extant 1960s locations. “And when those places turned up as long gone, they retrofitted,” Moskal says. “Dry cleaners and bank lobbies turned into snack shops and jazz lounges.”

Watch now on DVD and the show is a revelation, beginning with Farina. He’d begun his acting career only five years before Crime Story’s premiere, playing a henchman in Mann’s 1981 Chicago-set thriller Thief, and he delivers in his first starring role. And so does Tony Denison as the scary-as-hell Luca, based on mobster Tony Spilotro.

“Hey you,” Torello tells a stick-up guy. “You hurt anybody else, when this is over, I’m gonna find what you love the most and I’m gonna kill it. Your mother, your father, your dog. Don’t matter what it is. It’s dead.”

Crime Story loses its punch when the story shifts to Las Vegas near the close of the first season. The change of scenery reflected actual events: the Outfit sent Spilotro to Vegas to watch its gaming interests. Still, the 15 Chicago episodes are pure gold, certainly worthy of a restored Blu-ray release with commentary (although it would be incomplete without the voice of Farina, who died in 2013). Or a remake. Don’t matter what it is.

It’s time. v

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A UNIQUE MUSIC AND CRAFT BEER FESTIVAL IN LINCOLN SQUARE!

JULY 7, 8, 9 • 2017 ON LINCOLN AVENUE BETWEEN MONTROSE & WILSON AVENUE • CHICAGO

Summer is more fun with Old Town School New music and dance classes start next week!

FEATURING FOUR STAGES AND OVER 70 BANDS, INCLUDING

LUCERO MEAT PUPPETS NIKKI LANE

JOAN SORIANO • THE ACCIDENTALS • EXPLOSIÓN NEGRA PARKER MILLSAP • OH PEP! • SKYWAY MAN LOS TEXMANIACS • SCOTT LUCAS & THE MARRIED MEN A KIDS ZONE WITH GAMES, ART, FAMILY FUN, AND MUSIC AND MUCH MORE!

This year we celebrate our 60th anniversary of making music in Chicago.

Now is a great time to join us and get playing!

oldtownschool.org

PLUS CRAFT BEERS FROM THESE LOCAL, MIDWEST BREWERIES!

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE VISIT

SQUAREROOTS.ORG

Join us July 7, 8, 9 Sign up today at oldtownschool.org in Lincoln Square!

squareroots.org JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 43

READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST OF CHICAGO

Sports & Recreation BEST ATHLETE

ANTHONY RIZZO rizzo44.com

RUNNER-UP: Jonathan

Toews

BEST BLACKHAWKS BAR

PEQUODʼS PIZZA

ò SUE KWONG

2207 N. Clybourn, 773-327-1512, pequodspizza.com RUNNER-UP: WestEnd

BEST BEARS BAR

KROLLʼS SOUTH LOOP

K-POP OF CHINATOWN

1736 S. Michigan, 312-235-1400, krolls-chicago.com

BEST BULLS BAR

THE OGDEN CHICAGO

By Leor Galil

1659 W. Ogden, 312-226-1888, theogdenchicago.com

BEST CUBS BAR

THE GMAN TAVERN

3740 N. Clark, 773-549-2050 RUNNER-UP: Sluggers World Class

Sports Bar

BEST SOX BAR

REGGIES CHICAGO

2105 S. State, 312-949-0120, reggieslive.com

BEST CHICAGO FIRE BAR

THE GLOBE PUB

1934 W. Irving Park, 773-871-3757, theglobepub.com

ò JAE C. HONG

BEST TV/RADIO ANNOUNCER

PAT FOLEY

nhl.com/blackhawks/team/broadcasters RUNNER-UP: Pat

Hughes

○

44 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

IN MAY, A seven-member boy band from Seoul called BTS (aka Bulletproof Boy Scouts) won the Top Social Artist prize at the Billboard Music Awards, defeating Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Shawn Mendes, and Selena Gomez. It was a milestone moment in K-pop’s crossover into the Western marketplace, as was the chart performance of BTS’s second album, Wings, which in fall 2016 debuted at number 26 on the Billboard 200—higher than any previous K-pop release.

“K-pop” is a catchall term for South Korean music that incorporates elements of Western pop (especially post-2000 radio hip-hop, contemporary EDM, and 90s New Jack Swing) but whose lyrics are sung or rapped almost entirely in Korean. Despite the geographic and cultural distance between the U.S. and South Korea (and marketing plans that focus on Korean TV appearances and Southeast Asian fans), K-pop has been finding footholds in the States since long before BTS’s recent successes. The Internet has allowed the

music to trickle into the country, language barriers notwithstanding, and tours have followed—though Korean groups tend to hit the same handful of big cities when they travel here. Over the past few years Chicago has become one of those cities—hip-hop boy band Monsta X kick off their six-date U.S. tour at the Rosemont Theatre on July 12.

Last year I jumped in with both feet when a friend invited me to see Shinee at the Rosemont—my first live K-pop experience was a polished pop group that could pull off complex dance moves with almost inhuman precision. But if you can’t spend $75 on a concert ticket and you still want an in-person K-pop fix—if streaming songs on YouTube and Spotify isn’t enough for you—then I recommend K-Pop of Chinatown. This obscenely brightly lit shop occupies the second-floor retail space of a building on Wentworth Avenue, where it’d be inconspicuous from the outside if it weren’t for the black banner emblazoned with K-POP three times in hot-pink lettering.

Being a hard-core K-pop fan can be expensive. Even if you stick to the cheap merch, you’ll pay way more for a pen adorned with the image of the group Big Bang ($3.99) than you would for an ordinary pen. DO NOT DISTURB doorknob hangers featuring boy band Exo cost $7.99, a black-and-white snapback cap for rap duo Leessang is $12.99, and paper dolls of various stars are $8.99. You can also get a handheld lantern with its lit-up end striped like a cartoon bumblebee—an official piece of merch for the seven-piece Block B—for $49.99. “Hip-hop monster” dolls representing members of BTS will run you $39.99 apiece.

I bought two CDs—BTS’s 2013 debut single, 2 Cool 4 Skool, and a new edition of the album Now, We by eight-member girl group Lovelyz—and paid a total of $69. The Lovelyz CD arrived tucked into the back cover of a 118-page perfect-bound photo book that’d be right at home in the MCA gift shop. K-Pop of Chinatown displays most of its CDs along a wall behind a counter, so that it’s hard to get a good look at them without assistance—the only discs stocked out in the open are from girl groups. There’s a good reason for this arrangement, though, and it has everything to do with the enthusiasm of boy-band fans. As one of the teenage employees explains, “Most people who come here are young girls.” v

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Sat. and Sun., July 15–16, 12–7pm Free Admission

Enjoy world music and dance, family crafts, artist vendors, and culinary delights from an abundance of countries.

Don’t miss the opening ceremony with a procession of flags from more than 200 countries at noon on Saturday!

Presented by the City of Evanston

Dawes Park, Sheridan Rd. and Church St. cityofevanston.org/world arts; 847-448-4311

Partially supported by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency

JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 45

READERSʼ POLL

BEST PLACE TO WATCH COLLEGE SPORTS

LEFT OF THE DIAL

VAUGHANʼS PUB

2917 N. Sheffield, 773-281-8188, vaughanspublakeview.com RUNNER-UP: State

Restaurant

BEST NEIGHBORHOOD PARK

WELLES PARK

2333 W. Sunnyside, chicagoparkdistrict.com/ parks/Welles-Park RUNNER-UP: Winnemac

Park

BEST DOG PARK

MONTROSE DOG BEACH mondog.org

RUNNER-UP: Jackson

Bark

BEST ALTERNATIVE TO THE LAKEFRONT PATH

THE 606

the606.org RUNNER-UP: North

Branch Trail

ò CHRIS SWEDA; BRIAN JACKSON/SUN-TIMES

BEST ORGANIZED BIKE RIDE

BIKE THE DRIVE bikethedrive.org

RUNNER-UP: Critical Mass

BEST PLACE TO TAKE A STROLL

LAKEFRONT TRAIL

choosechicago.com RUNNER-UP: The

606

○

46 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

By Peter Margasak

LAST YEAR I moved from Evanston to Albany Park, and serendipitously my radio options changed. For decades I’ve appreciated the wide-ranging, unconstrained programming on local college and community stations, but I never spent much time actually listening to them, even during the years I hosted an international-music program on Loyola University’s WLUW. Maybe I couldn’t hear one station because I was too far from the transmitter, or missed out on another because I lived in a signal shadow cast by tall buildings. Maybe my home stereo just wasn’t configured right.

Thankfully the situation has improved in my current digs. In my kitchen the only way to play music is a stand-alone radio, and though I can plug my iPod into it and play my own stuff, a couple of lucky experiences switching between stations at the left end of the FM dial persuaded me to stick with what I can pick up on the airwaves. I’ve spent time listening to WLUW (88.7), Northwestern’s great and often challenging WNUR (89.3), Northeastern’s defiantly free-form WZRD (88.3), and genre-agnostic oldies station WRME (87.7), which is run by Chicago-based rerun-driven television network MeTV. (It’s a sad state of affairs when a TV network that’s proud of airing old episodes of Alf also operates the most satisfying commercial radio outlet in Chicago, but that’s another discussion.) My radio has an actual physical dial, not a digital tuner—no preset buttons here—so once I realized that all four of these stations fell within 1.6 MHz, I took advantage of their proximity to channel surf. With the smallest nudge in one direction or the other, I could find another good song every time things got slow.

I have my issues with the student DJs on college radio—they’re sometimes maddeningly inarticulate and sometimes ridiculously self-indulgent, whether they’re trying to entertain themselves or affect some sort of detached cool. But I still love the stations where they work, because the programming there has the potential to be so open-ended.

j BOBBY SIMS

○

BEST OF CHICAGO

Depending on the station and the hour, you could hear indie rock, noise, jazz, international music, or even a hyperlocal news show.

WRME boasts about building its playlist from an “active library” of more than 3,000 songs, but that’s a meager number compared to the bottomless options available to college stations. All the same, I’ve gotten a lot of pleasure out of WRME since I discovered it a couple years ago—it veers wildly among 50 years of pop styles, including 60s Merseybeat, 70s hard soul, and 80s R&B, with such a complete lack of rhyme or reason to the transitions that I suspect a computer program makes the choices. Within its relatively mainstream territory, it can feel just as free-form as college radio—and the jumps in genre happen from song to song instead of

from show to show.

When WRME plays a song I detest (about one tune in three), I switch to one of those other stations. Sometimes I stay there for an hour or more, if the DJ strikes my fancy and doesn’t yammer too much; sometimes I leave after 30 seconds. It’s fun and informative— you can never learn so much about music that you can’t be surprised.

Chicago has other great community radio outlets, of course—but CHIRP has yet to launch its terrestrial broadcast at 107.1 FM, and in my kitchen I can’t pick up Lumpen Radio’s signal at 105.5 FM. So I spend almost all my radio time at the left of the dial, with WRME, WNUR, WZRD, and WLUW. Those four stations have become one of my favorite things about this often maddening city. v

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JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 47

READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST OF CHICAGO Steve Stone in 1989

BEST PUBLIC GOLF COURSE

ò SUN-TIMES PRINT COLLECTION

JACKSON PARK GOLF COURSE

6401 S. Richards, 773-667-0524, jacksonpark.cpdgolf.com

BEST BILLIARDS

CARYʼS LOUNGE

2251 W. Devon, 773-743-5737, caryslounge.com

BEST BOWLING ALLEY

DIVERSEY RIVER BOWL

2211 W. Diversey, 773-227-5800, drbowl.com RUNNER-UP: Waveland

Bowl

BEST CANOE/KAYAK RENTALS

CHICAGO RIVER CANOE & KAYAK 3400 N. Rockwell, 773-704-2663, chicagoriverpaddle.com RUNNER-UP: Wateriders - Chicago

River Kayak Tours and Rentals BEST GYM

GALTER LIFECENTER

5157 N. Francisco, 773-878-9936, galterlifecenter.org RUNNER-UP: Chicago Athletic Clubs

BEST BEACH

STEVE STONE

FOSTER BEACH

5200 N. Lake Shore, 773-363-2225, cpdbeaches.com/beaches/foster-beach RUNNER-UP: Kathy

Osterman Beach

By Kate Schmidt

BEST PERSONAL TRAINER

DREW SWITHIN

goldenphysique.com RUNNER-UP: Melissa

Mcnamara

ò AL PODGORSKI

BEST YOGA STUDIO

BLOOM YOGA STUDIO

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Chicagoʼs Original Hot Yoga

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48 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

I BECAME A baseball fan at the back end of the bar of the Deadwood, in Iowa City, Iowa.

It was 1985, the Cubs had just missed getting into the World Series the year before, and a quasi-boyfriend from Chicago initiated me, teaching me the basics of stats and keeping score. With a bunch of us huddled up, drinking Old Style, making jokes, and occasionally cheering, it was kinda like being a bleacher bum—we just had our necks craned up at a TV.

WGN was the transmitter of that particular bug, broadcasting Cubs games nationally, and Harry Caray was its ever-more-famous cheerleader, with his upswept white hair and goggles, crying “Holy cow!” at a home run, wagging his finger as he counted out “Ah-one, ah-two” before belting “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” and dancing alongside pert girls with fluffy 80s ’dos while proclaiming himself a “Cub fan, Bud man” during commercials.

And then there was his sidekick, color commentator Steve Stone, in his first job as a broadcaster. A Cy Young winner with the Baltimore Orioles in 1980, Stone had pitched for the Sox and the Cubs, then the Sox again in the late 70s. Perhaps that was the source of their connection. Caray too—a legendary Cards announcer to begin with—had spent time on both sides of town, and in fact developed his whole shtick, down to the shirtless sunning in the bleachers and the seventh-inning-stretch sing-along, with the White Sox under Bill Veeck. Whatever it was, the duo made it work, the smooth brainiac Stone working alongside the seeming clown Caray without ever coming off as a stiff. He even played along with Caray’s digs at his cigars, a running joke that Caray once told him was “one of our best bits.” Hey, it’s showbiz—at least that was Caray’s view.

Not so for Stone. After Caray’s death in 1998, he did duty with Harry’s grandson Chip and battled illness himself before returning for one of his finest hours. It was 2004, the year after the Bartman debacle, and the Cubs were once again blowing it under manager Dusty Baker. In a moment that Sun-Times sports columnist Rick Morrissey earlier this month recalled made him “misty-eyed,” Stone criticized Baker’s strategy, then the team’s collapse, saying, among other things, “At the end of the day, boys, don’t tell me how rough the water is; you bring in the ship.’’ Crusty Baker (as I once heard him called by an irate fan) and the Cubs thought he had been too critical, Stone refused a contract extension, and that losing season ended with fans cheering, not for the team, but for the veteran in the broadcast booth, chanting “Stoney! Stoney!”

Thankfully for Chicago baseball, Stone eventually crossed the street again—even if it was at the cost of being christened “Stone Pony” by one of the homiest and hokiest of all announcers. Since 2008, he’s been providing counterballast to White Sox TV play-by-play man Hawk Harrelson. You know, the guy who says “He gone.”

Or maybe you don’t know, because the CUBS FUCKING WON THE WORLD SERIES and who cares? Never mind that in 2005 the White Sox won it too. Now more than ever, it’s a Cubs town.

Stone, like so many before him, never came to possess one of those gaudy rings. He’s more valuable than that: the these-days rare broadcaster who calls it like it is. v

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JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 49

READERSʼ POLL

BEST OF CHICAGO An Optimo hat

○ BEST PILATES STUDIO MIND ART CORE PILATES PERFORMANCE

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OGDEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

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50 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

WHEN I BOUGHT my beautiful brown-felt fedora from him a few years ago, Optimo owner Graham Thompson was still operating out of a combination storefront and factory on Western Avenue in Beverly, where the hat-making happened on premises. Things have changed.

In 2016, Thompson moved production to a former firehouse on 95th; if you want to buy a hat, you head for the store at 51 W. Jackson, in the Monadnock Building.

The Monadnock, of course, is one of the most splendid things in Chicago. Optimo occupies a ground-level space in the 126-yearold northern half, whose 17 stories are supported at the corners by brick laid to a thickness of up to six feet. Stand across the street and contemplate its plain, perfect lines before you go in.

But do go in. Optimo general manager Tiffani Bell says the current owners of the

building wanted to create an atmosphere of retro grace with their choice of high-end, small-scale, craft-oriented storefront tenants (a bespoke clothier, fine men’s footwear, no Starbucks), and Thompson was an early lessee. Designed by Angela Finney-Hoffman of the now-defunct furniture and design business Post 27, the front room of the store contains a long, absolutely clutter-free counter with a polished concrete surface and stools planted in the floor along its length. All the rest is dark wood, low light, glass, decorative hat blocks, and the hats themselves, displayed like artifacts in a gallery, on shelves consisting of two metal cables apiece.

Thompson has a gritty backstory reminiscent of the standard tale told about young white Chicago rockers from the 60s who’d spend their nights at south-side clubs, cribbing off black blues masters. His own master

was Johnny Tyus, who made and sold hats at a shop on 79th. No grit here, though. The store is classy and smooth and full of the romance of fine things, and I felt like a hayseed on a recent visit, wearing the crushable straw I’d bought at Goorin Bros. for $60—which is to say, roughly a tenth to a 100th of the price for an Optimo. I saw fedoras, homburgs, top hats (Bell says a surprising number of frantic grooms show up looking for them on their wedding day), rolled brims, a Stetson-y thing, and even old-fashioned bowlers, in shades of brown, black, gray, blue, tan, and red.

The felt, Bell told me, is “wild fur, and specifically beaver-fur felt for about 95 percent of our hats. The others are blends of other wild furs and hare’s fur.” Felt finishes vary too, from flecked to shiny, “long-haired” Melusine. The straws are woven in Montecristi, Ecuador— oddly enough, the traditional home of the “Panama”—and sent in a dome shape to Optimo, where the crafting is done. A fine weave is more expensive but also less airy. I prefer the texture of a rougher weave myself. An astonishingly good salesperson, Bell had her tailor’s measuring tape around my head before I quite knew what was happening. The Goorin Bros. hat rested on the counter. v

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READERSʼ POLL ○

dnainfo.com/chicago BEST BLOG

THESE DAYS

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Athletic

BEST NEWSPAPER

CHICAGO READER

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Shore Drive

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CHICAGO CULTURAL CENTER

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RUNNER-UP: Danny

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and Liz Maupin

BEST LAWYER BEST JOURNALIST

NATALIE MOORE

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BEST ATTRACTION

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CHANCE THE RAPPER chanceraps.com

FORGOTTEN CHICAGO facebook.com/groups/ forgottenchicago

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DNAINFO

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SHEDD AQUARIUM / MUSEUM CAMPUS 1200 S. Lake Shore, 312-9392438, sheddaquarium.org

pview.findlaw.com

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CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE FOUNDATION RIVER CRUISE

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facebook.com/puppetbike RUNNER-UP: Ronnie Woo-Woo

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AMEYA PAWAR

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1251 W. Devon, 773-856-0598, girlforward.org RUNNER-UP: National

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RUNNER-UP: Logan

Square

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PILSEN RUNNER-UP: Hyde Park

○

JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 51

READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST OF CHICAGO

BEST NEIGHBORHOOD FOR AFFORDABILITY

ROGERS PARK RUNNER-UP: Bridgeport

BEST NEIGHBORHOOD FOR DIVERSITY

ROGERS PARK RUNNER-UP: Uptown

ò ORIANA KOREN

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RAVENSWOOD RUNNER-UP: North

Center

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EVANSTON RUNNER-UP: Oak

THAT FIRST WARM DAY

Park

BEST STREET

By Jake Malooley

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MARY BARTELME PARK

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52 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

○

THE WINTER OF OUR political discontent brought Chicago some incongruously mild weather. The National Weather Service logged no measurable snowfall in the city during the months of January and February for the first time in the 146 years it’s been keeping such records. In place of regular seasonal flurries, a shitstorm of turmoil swept the country.

Russia had effectively shoveled out a spot in the U.S. electoral system and plunked down an orange traffic cone with a bad combover into the White House, as if Vladimir Putin were a neighborhood jagoff calling “dibs” on our democracy. While one blandly chilly day bled into the next, the relentless blizzard of scandals emerging from the inchoate presidential administration intensified the season’s slate-gray gloom, giving otherwise temperate afternoons a forbidding atmosphere. Sooner, it seemed, would society collapse than we’d live to see the dark cloud of winter lift.

But just as the Senate pulled the nation deeper into the twilight zone by confirming

climate-change denialist Scott Pruitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, a hopeful glimmer of light flashed briefly at the end of the pitch-black tunnel: that first warm day. On a Friday in mid-February, the high temperature brushed up against 70 degrees.

This event was received by Chicagoans as nothing less than a miracle, a temporary reprieve handed down by the weather gods as recompense for our collective suffering.

Emerging from the subway after sweating through that morning’s commute, I shed the jacket and sweater that had become my winter skin and stuffed them into my shoulder bag with the gleeful abandon of a bank robber filling a sack with unmarked bills. All around town, shorts and tank tops, their hibernation in closets and drawers suddenly interrupted, made appearances on not-yet-beach-ready bodies—but even pallid patches of flesh radiated seductiveness after months in hiding.

Instagram users flooded their feeds with photos of the sky as if the sun’s appearance was a

mass UFO sighting. From an open car window, a cranked stereo carried the voice of Bruno Mars, who alerted anyone within earshot that there was 24-karat magic in the air. And he was right: the city had thawed and come back to life, and it felt positively supernatural. Political dangers lurked as ever. But all we could do was smile.

A sudden unseasonable temperature spike always feels like a balm for winter wounds.

Especially this year, as the trauma may have been deeper—mental, emotional, and intellectual, as well as physical. Turns out there’s a fairly straightforward biological reason why, even with a full-spectrum “happy lamp” helping to curb the ill effects of premature darkness, the earliest intensely sunny day is such a profound experience: sunlight triggers the synthesis of vitamin D, enabling calcium absorption. You can feel that first warm day in your bones.

In a city such as Chicago, where a willingness to endure winter is seen as a sign of virtue and nice weather is thought of as a hard-earned reward, that first warm day deserves to be designated an official municipal holiday. Of course, that’s impossible due to its unpredictable nature, which is also precisely what makes it such a gift—a fleeting reminder of what your life was, and what it soon will be again. v

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BEST OF CHICAGO

READERSʼ POLL

Slate once said of Minnesota Senator Al Franken (pictured here as his SNL character Stuart Smalley): “Midwesterners can weaponize niceness with a mastery that surpasses even that of genteel southern ladies.”

○

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NORTHEASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY

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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

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University

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SECOND SHIFT

3432 W. Diversey, 773-698-6142, thesecondshift.com

MIDWESTERN NICENESS

By Megan Stielstra

wave folks through at crosswalks. We wave thanks after somebody lets us pass. Sometimes we roll down our windows and stick our hands into the frozen winter air to make sure the person behind us knows we’re grateful.

I’ve always considered it part of our midwestern niceness, the seemingly small things we do to help each other, to coexist together in this beautiful, complicated city, to know that, as Emerson wrote, “even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.”

Do you think that’s silly, sentimental? I don’t mind. Sentimental is midwestern nice too.

I was raised midwestern nice. Please and Thank you. Great to meet you! How can I help? My mom taught fourth grade in smalltown southeast Michigan, and there was one rule in her class: We say and do nice things.

Sometimes, when I go back to visit, I run into her former students, long grown, at the bank or the grocery store or the lone coffee shop.

“You’re Ms. Stielstra’s daughter!” they say, excited. They tell me about their accomplish-

ments in the hopes that she’ll be proud of the person they’ve become. “The thing I remember most,” they always say, “—she taught me to be nice.”

I’m thinking about what it means to be nice, midwestern or otherwise. When do we learn it, what does it look like, what, more specifically, are the policies that help people not only breathe easier but breathe, period?

Chicagoans are midwestern nice—to a point.

We’ll welcome you, unless you’re being a dick.

We’ll say, “Thanks for coming!” and then get back to work. We are the city that works. We are also the city that celebrates. I keep returning to that woman on Lake Shore Drive, pulling up the memory like a video on demand. She leans back against her car, smoking with one hand, waving with the other. What she means, I’ve decided, is this: You go on and pass. I don’t want your rage. It’s a gorgeous day and I have this cigarette and we’re stuck here, so for the next five minutes, I choose joy. For five minutes, at least, I’ll stand in the sun. v

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HYDE PARK ò ANH DINH; JOSHUA MACWAN

HEREʼS THE MOST Chicago thing I’ve ever seen: I was driving down Lake Shore Drive, traffic at a near standstill, and in the lane next to mine, a truck was trying to steamroll a small car in front of it: riding its bumper, slamming the horn—general dick moves. I could see the truck driver’s face. He was angry, yelling. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it’s fair to assume it was not nice. What did he want the smaller car to do? What did he think his honking, his middle finger, his rage would accomplish? Finally, the woman in the car had enough. Smack-dab in the thick of the clogged four-lane expressway, she turned off her engine and got out, closing the driver’s-side door behind her. Slowly she lit a cigarette and leaned back in the sunshine, puffing luxuriously while cars inched past and the guy in the truck lost his mind, laying on the horn and gunning his engine. She turned to him with a big, dazzling smile—and waved.

The wave, I’ve learned, can mean many things. We wave each other into traffic. We

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WXRT

wxrt.cbslocal.com RUNNER-UP: Vocalo

○

JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 53

READERSʼ POLL ○

BEST OF CHICAGO

BEST RADIO DJ

LIN BREHMER

wxrt.cbslocal.com/personality/lin-brehmer RUNNER-UP: Nicole

Oppenheim / Ear Candy on CHIRP Radio BEST MORNING SHOW

WGN MORNING NEWS

wgntv.com/category/morning-news RUNNER-UP: Morning AMP on Vocalo

BEST AD CAMPAIGN

PREP4LOVE AIDS FOUNDATION OF CHICAGO events.aidschicago.org

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BEST SUMMER CAMP

BEING THE ONE LEFT BEHIND

By Laura Pearson

GIRLS ROCK! CHICAGO

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METROPOLITAN FAMILY SERVICES LEARNING AND WELLNESS CENTER 5338 S. Loomis, 773-535-0101, chicagoearlylearning.org

RUNNER-UP: Kidsʼ

Work Chicago Too

v

54 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

LIVE IN ANY city long enough and you’ll experience a never-ending series of departures— people, whom you know to varying degrees, deciding to move on: roommates, coworkers, the family across the hall, the woman who cut your hair, the guy you went on four dates with, friends near and dear or peripheral. They go to smaller cities, other towns, far-flung countries, and, of course, the coasts. News of loved ones leaving stings the most, even if you understand their decision, but so many goodbyes take a toll. I’ve been a Chicagoan for 12 years now and have finally figured out how to, if not love the leaving, find ways to learn from it. It might be self-centered to think of other people’s departures primarily as opportunities for

introspection, but whereas I used to go into existential-crisis mode with every farewell announcement (Wait—should I go too? Would I be happier elsewhere? elsewhere?), now I see all the going as a chance to reevaluate why I stay.

I recommend such soul-searching for anyone staying put. There’s no shortage of reasons why it’s hard to live in Chicago—high taxes, a lack of job opportunities, harsh winters—and, for many residents of this segregated city, it’s harder still. Local demographers have studied the exodus of African-Americans from Chicago, and oft-cited reasons for relocation include crime and violence as well as inadequate community investment in southand west-side neighborhoods. In recent years,

we’ve led the nation in population loss. “Of the country’s ten largest cities, the Chicago metropolitan statistical area was the only one to drop in population between 2015 and 2016,” a Tribune article from March reports. “By most estimates, the Chicago area’s population will continue to decline in the coming years.”

Amid so many legitimate reasons for moving—and the realization that not everyone who wants to leave even can—it’s a privilege, and honestly therapeutic, to consider the pros of sticking around.

To make the most of being left behind means asking questions: not only interrogating friends’ and acquaintances’ specific reasons for decamping, but also understanding what they now miss. I recently conducted my own little exit poll on Facebook, and of 80 exChicagoans who responded, key motivations for moving included job opportunities, weather, partner/loved one wanted to live elsewhere, cost of living, and other (where “other” encompasses Chicago traffic, pursuing a degree elsewhere, the desire to be closer to nature, lack of family in the area, and the rapacious Department of Revenue).

Particularly illuminating, though, were answers to my follow-up question: “What, if anything, about Chicago do you miss?”

Here, respondents were emphatic, effusive: “Everything.” “The peeps.” “EVERYTHING!” “The personalities.” “Diversity.” “Progressive politics.” “Big city culture.” “The El.” “Even complaining about how slow the Brown Line is.” “Walking on a busy street and ducking into a calm quiet spot, then popping back out into the busy.” “Seeing squirrels go up trees with full bagels in their mouths.” “The brownstones and bungalows and wide sidewalks with big mature trees.” “The People / The things those people believe in / Creativity to the Chicago Degree—for the sake of creativity—(rarely in pursuit of riches).”

I often ask myself what I would miss about Chicago if I were to move, but reading former residents’ nostalgia-tinged tributes makes me grateful for my city now: radiant summers, wide green boulevards, the way the skyline looks while driving up South Lake Shore Drive, the diversity of neighborhoods, knowing I could never uncover all its wonders, and, yes, the people.

If there’s an art to leaving, there’s also an art to staying. Self-actualized stayers don’t try to convince others with their reasoning; they know that where someone chooses to reside is personal—and also that no one place can satisfy all our needs and desires. Chicago isn’t everyone’s kind of town. But with every goodbye, I remember why it’s mine. v

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ARTS & CULTURE

THEATER

In defense of Hedy Weiss

By DEANNA ISAACS

I

saw the same Steppenwolf opening Sun-Times critic Hedy Weiss saw two weekends ago—Antoinette Nwandu’s Pass Over, a lacerating, absurdist exploration of racism. The play was genuinely shocking.

And so was the Internet mob attack that blew up in response to Weiss’s review of it.

As of Tuesday, more than 3,500 people had signed an online petition accusing Weiss of repeated “racism, homophobia, and body shaming,” and asking all Chicago theaters to drop her from their lists of invited critics. (No examples are cited in the petition.) In other words, they want to take away her press pass.

On Wednesday, Steppenwolf issued a statement calling Weiss’s review “particularly egregious,” and charging that her “critical contribution has, once again, revealed a deep seated bigotry and a painful lack of understanding of this country’s historic racism.”

The statement, which did not contain any examples of this “deep seated bigotry,” was signed on behalf of the company by Steppenwolf’s artistic director Anna D. Shapiro and executive director David Schmitz.

It was a startling move by a major Chicago

theater against a critic who’s logged more than 30 years—thousands of nights in storefronts and millions of words written on deadline—as a champion of the vaunted Chicago theater scene.

The petition, which went up on Change.org on June 13, was put together by a new group, the Chicago Theater Accountability Coalition (ChiTAC). According to its own press release, ChiTAC was founded by playwright Ike Holter and actors Kevin Matthew Reyes, Tony Santiago, Sydney Charles, and Sasha Smith, who came together only that night, “to brainstorm a solution to combat the accustomed, irresponsible and unresponsive nature of a specific Chicago critic.” The press release cites “harm to the theater community” caused by “recent reviews [of Pass Over] from several critics,” but the petition is aimed at only one: “Since we believe that it is the duty of everyone in our community to uphold our very high standard for conduct, we formally request that your company not invite Hedy Weiss to the run of any present or future productions.” On Monday, a spokesperson for ChiTAC said 62 theaters have joined them so far and they “hope to release a statement” at

the end of the week.

Since ChiTAC’s “very high standard for conduct” is not spelled out (beyond the desire for a “safe environment”), we’re on our own to suss out Weiss’s current infractions from what she actually wrote. In her Pass Over review, Weiss applauded the playwright’s concept—a riff on Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, with two young black men stranded under an urban street lamp—as “inspired.” She found the acting “brilliant” and “sublime,” and the dialogue “terrific.” But, she wrote, “this play distorts the full story” by ignoring violence perpetrated “within the community itself,” while presenting a “simplistic, wholly generic characterization of a racist white cop (clearly meant to indict all white cops).” And, she concluded, the last ten minutes of the play derail it—condescending to Steppenwolf’s “largely white ‘liberal’ audience” while also clubbing it over the head.

Weiss declined to comment for this story, as did Sun-Times editor and publisher Jim Kirk, but this is certainly not her best review ever. It contains comments that, as some have noted, are, at best, “tone-deaf.” She condenses sys-

temic racism into the breezy “for all the many and varied causes we know so well,” and suggests that people are relieved when police arrive at a crime scene, as if Bettie Jones wasn’t mowed down when she opened the door of her home for an officer, or we’d never seen the Laquan McDonald video. But she’s not pulling those comments out of thin air. Nwandu has written a pointedly provocative play. The two white characters in Pass Over (played by a single actor) are stereotypes—evil incarnate, and the only shooters the audience sees. And Weiss is doing what a critic is expected to do: reacting. Does she relate the story to the reality on the streets of Chicago (where, last weekend at least 50 people were shot and seven died)? Yes, and so does Steppenwolf, which is explaining Pass Over in its supplemental programming as “an absurd cycle of violence and inertia” that we “see playing out right here in Chicago year after year.”

As far as I know, Weiss has never bothered with political correctness. If a chorus line breaks with tradition by incorporating a variety of body types, she notices—as does everyone in the audience. If a play for young audiences glorifies vandalism in the form of graffiti, she objects. I’d argue that’s her greatest strength as a critic: she’s taking on the subject matter of the work, as any critic worth his or her salt should, and she’s not afraid to go out on a limb. You might not share her perspective, and that can make her a lightning rod, but it doesn’t automatically make her a bigot.

Ironically, the bigotry that’s evident in all this has been piling on in Facebook discussions and other Internet comments (where the worst of her attackers have taken her past words out of context and maliciously distorted their meaning). The Tribune’s Chris Jones, the critic at the Sun-Times’s rival paper and one of the first people speaking up on her behalf, has written that he has “been truly appalled by the ageism, cruelty, personal vitriol and nasty threats” online.

That eager herd brutality brings to mind something very nasty and much older than the Internet. Something like a witch hunt. As it happens, Steppenwolf’s next season of theater for young adults will open with Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, followed by a world premiere of Philip Dawkins’s The Burn, which the company is describing as “a modern telling of the way social media blurs the lines of truth and fiction and paves the way for new kinds of witch hunts.” v

v @DeannaIsaacs JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 55

ARTS & CULTURE

Students take their first look through the new book P.S. You Sound Like Someone I Can Trust. ò WIL HUGHES PHOTOGRAPHY

LIT

P.S. You Sound Like Someone I Can Trust shows how friendships develop through letter writing

By AIMEE LEVITT

W

hen Eliza Ramirez’s eighthgrade students at Emiliano Zapata Academy in Little Village learned that they’d be spending the fall and winter corresponding with a class of tenth-graders at Amundsen High School in Ravenswood and that the letters would be collected into a book published by 826CHI, a nonprofit writing center, they were skeptical. What was the point of writing letters, they wondered, in this marvelous age of text messages and Snapchat? How could ink on paper possibly compare to the magic of cat filters?

The tenth-graders weren’t really into it, either. It took a little while for the charms of letter writing to become apparent. But gradually, with some prompting from their teachers and 826 volunteers, things began to change.

“They realized that to get their partner to open up, they had to open up first,” explained Maria Villarreal, 826’s director of programs, at the book’s release party on Monday, June 12. The book’s title reflects that shift: P.S. You Sound Like Someone I Can Trust, a line taken verbatim from a letter from eighth-grader Vanessa Cruz to her letter-writing partner, Jazmine Rodriguez.

56 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

Cruz was one of the students who read at the release party, which took place at Ovation, an event space in West Town roughly equidistant between the two schools. Through their correspondence, she and Rodriguez had discovered that they both grew up in families led by single mothers.

“I know we are just getting to know each other,” she read, “but I hope you know that I’m here for you. Like you said, I know how it feels to have no dad. I’ve got to admit seeing Mom suffer taking care of us is hard. . . . After reading your letter, I knew I should keep going, knowing he is happy wherever he is. Like you kept going on, without your father.”

Not all the letters ventured into such deep territory. Ivan Perez and Mauricio Muñoz read their letters together, which began with Perez asking, “Are you into school? Probably not. Do you draw? Or do you just respect people who draw? Do you think you are better than me?” To which Muñoz replied, “Well of course I think I’m better than you. What a silly question to ask. I am older and have more life experience in things or situations!”

With the help of a questionnaire, the 826 staff tried to figure out which of the 62 participants would make the most compatible

letter-writing partners. The writing began in mid-November. Once a week, 826 volunteers would visit Ramirez’s class at Zapata and Tanya Nguyen and Eric Markowitz’s classes at Amundsen and guide the students through letter writing, providing prompts if the correspondence didn’t develop naturally.

The students knew from the beginning that their letters would be read not only by their letter-writing partners but also by the 826 staff and the complete strangers who’d pick up the book. Their teachers were impressed by their bravery and willingness to share anyway.

“It’s important to stop and let kids express who they are,” said Nguyen. “This is what’s important, that they open up and give a piece of the most important things about themselves.

The students created a beautiful thing.”

In their letters, many students said they were excited about meeting their partners in person, but at the release party, shyness took over. The eighth-graders overcompensated with silly ad-libs, while the sophomores tried to look cool.

Tenth-grader Sohail Nazari had exchanged stories with his partner, eighth-grader Inocente Dircio, about poetry, meaningful encounters with strangers, and adventures scaling buildings. But when the two finally met, the best they could do was exchange an awkward hug, shaking hands and then leaning forward for a quick shoulder bump. Within minutes, they had gone their separate ways. Still, Nazari said he was looking forward to writing more letters, maybe this time to people he already knew.

The letter-writing program won’t be duplicated; 826 changes its book project every year. Still, Villarreal said she hoped more kids would have the experience of writing letters to new and unmet friends elsewhere in the city.

“We got students to think about how rich their lives are,” she said, “and to open up to their letter-writing partners.” v P.S. YOU SOUND LIKE SOMEONE I CAN TRUST is available at 826CHI, 1276 N. Milwaukee, and at secretagentsupply.com.

v @aimeelevitt

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LEAD SPONSOR

The exhibition is organized by the Art Institute of Chicago, the Musée d’Orsay, and the Réunion des musées nationaux–Grand Palais. Major support is provided by Lesley and Janice Lederer. Additional funding is contributed by anonymous donors, the Alice M. La Pert Fund for French Impressionism, Juliette F. Bacon, the Kemper Educational and Charitable Fund, Ann C. Cooluris, Katherine L. Olson Charitable Foundation, Margot Levin Schiff and the Harold Schiff Foundation, Barbara and Marc Posner, the Robert Lehman Foundation, and David and Mary Winton Green Research Fund. Annual support for Art Institute exhibitions is provided by the Exhibitions Trust: Neil Bluhm and the Bluhm Family Charitable Foundation; Jay Franke and David Herro; Kenneth Griffin; Caryn and King Harris, The Harris Family Foundation; Liz and Eric Lefkofsky; Robert M. and Diane v.S. Levy; Ann and Samuel M. Mencoff; Usha and Lakshmi N. Mittal; Thomas and Margot Pritzker; Anne and Chris Reyes; Betsy Bergman Rosenfield and Andrew M. Rosenfield; Cari and Michael J. Sacks; and the Earl and Brenda Shapiro Foundation. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Paul Gauguin. Mahana no atua (Day of the God) (detail), 1894. The Art Institute of Chicago, Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection.

JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 57

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illions of people worldwide saw the June 2014 video, shot during Russian air strikes against the city of Aleppo, in which a Syrian rescue worker reaches into the rubble of a collapsed building, grabs the collar of a buried baby, and pulls it out of the wreckage to safety. But in Feras Fayyad’s moving and suspenseful documentary Last Men in Aleppo, one sees the video through particular eyes, as a little raven-haired girl watches it on a smartphone in her family’s living room.

“That’s daddy!” she exclaims to the filmmaker, and then turns to her father. “You got him out!

It was you!” Her father, Khaled Omar Harrah, is a member of the Syrian Civil Defense or, more popularly, the White Helmets. As civil war rages, these heroic volunteers hurtle toward the sites of aerial bombardment and risk their lives to recover the survivors, the dead, or even body parts for identification.

Last Men in Aleppo plunges viewers into

the carnage and destruction of the Syrian civil war after Russian planes began providing air support to Bashar Assad’s brutal regime in September 2015. There are staggering vistas of shattered high-rise buildings and grim scenes of dead babies being extracted from piles of broken concrete. “The bombings, the ruins . . . it’s unreal,” Khaled remarks. “It cannot be comprehended by humans or anything else.” One wonders how he, Nagieb, and Mahmoud, the three rescuers Fayyad follows, cope with all the stress and suffering. From the looks of it, their strongest defense mechanism is to redirect their fear for themselves into love for others—most powerfully, for the children around them. Confronted with savagery on a daily basis, these grown men are only too eager to take refuge in a child’s innocence before it’s worn away by the horror and privation of the war.

Khaled, the most vivid of Fayyad’s three subjects, dotes on his two girls, Batoul and

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ARTS & CULTURE Israa. Shortly after Batoul presents him with the video clip of the “miracle baby,” he leads her by the hand through the battered streets of Aleppo, searching for vitamins to combat her malnutrition. Stocky and good-natured, he never seems happier than when the girls are romping around him at home, though he grows silent and distraught when a TV news report shows a local hospital in ruins and newborn babies lying helpless in their displaced incubators. When Khaled and his friend Abu Youssef report for overnight duty at another White Helmets center across town, the father hangs on phone calls from his girls.

Following a beautiful long shot of dropped bombs leaving golden light trails in the black sky, Khaled sits in a darkened room, the phone illuminating his face as he listens to Israa complain about her sister. “Keep talking to me,” he begs.

A native of Aleppo and a founder of the White Helmets, Khaled is torn between responsibility for his wife and daughters and a greater responsibility to the city and its people. “The dilemma is our children,” he explains to Fayyad early in the film. Khaled refuses to abandon Aleppo and agonizes constantly over whether or not to keep his family with him when others are fleeing for the Turkish border. When he asks Israa and Batoul if they’d like to live in Turkey, they decline, but later he and Abu, hunkered down in the cab of their rescue vehicle, debate whether Khaled should relocate the girls and their mother.

Abu asks: “Khaled, if you send them away and you all get besieged in separate areas, would that be better, do you think?” Khaled takes a fatalistic view of the conflict but can’t bear to be separated from his daughters. “I’d rather they die before my eyes than have something happen to them far away,” he says. “I would cry blood if that happened.”

Unlike Khaled, Mahmoud has no kids of his own, but he seems no less vulnerable to the suffering of children. Early in the film he responds to an emergency call and succeeds in freeing a little boy from the rubble of a bombed-out building; two babies are pulled from the wreckage, dead, before another boy is found alive. A few days later Fayyad tags along as Mahmoud, a humble and religious young man, pays a visit to the boys’ family to inquire about the children who were lost.

In a touching scene, one of the rescued boys

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crawls into Mahmoud’s lap and asks how he was saved. Embarrassed by the camera, Mahmoud shushes him but finally replies, “By God’s grace. You’re a flower and you must see life.” Driving home, he swears he’ll never repeat the experience. “It felt like we were there to show off,” he tells Fayyad. He redirects his anxiety for himself mainly toward his younger brother, Ahmad, who lives with him in Aleppo (though they’ve told their parents they’re both safe and sound in Turkey).

Selfless concern for the young is hardly limited to the White Helmets. Recounting a rescue operation to fellow volunteers, Mahmoud marvels at the mother they found trapped in a collapsed building: “Her body was pierced by metal spikes. One of them stuck out of her back. . . . Three and a half hours under the rubble and she only worried about her children.” As Mahmoud confesses, he told her the children were safe to keep her spirits up when in fact they were all dead. In a sense, besieged people focus on children because doing so is their only way of ratifying the future. Khaled’s friend Abu, a wiseacre but often wise, puts his finger on the phenomenon as he plants a few saplings near the White Helmets center, telling his fellows, “If you don’t get to eat from them, the next generation will.”

By the end of Last Men in Aleppo you may wonder whether the adults are protecting the children or vice versa. Hungry for diversion, Khaled and Abu install a stone fish pond on the roof of the center and admire their colorful specimens like delighted kids. And about an hour into the film there’s an extraordinary scene, shot during the February 2016 ceasefire, in which Khaled takes advantage of the calm to walk his daughters to a local park for the first time in ages. Everyone else in the neighborhood has the same idea, and as children run wild in the mobbed park, their parents break down and start playing on the swings and slides as well. They might all be children at school recess, though in this case recess ends when a public-address system announces that warplanes are headed for the city, and everyone scurries home. v LAST MEN IN ALEPPO ssss Directed by Feras Fayyad. 105 min. Fri 6/23–Thu 6/29, Facets Cinematheque, 1517 W. Fullerton, 773-281-4114, facets. org, $10.

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MUSIC

Recommended and notable shows and critics’ insights for the week of June 22 b

PICK OF THE WEEK

Kim Gordon and Bill Nace build brutalist guitar architectures as Body/Head

ALL AGES

F

THURSDAY22 Freddie Gibbs Jon Connor, Mata, Loren, and Forever Doyan open. 9 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, $26, $23 advance. 18+ On the brand-new You Only Live 2wice (Empire/ ESGN) rapper Freddie Gibbs, who made his name as a resident of nearby Gary before settling in LA, takes his biggest departure yet from his gangsta-rap roots—though he’s far from going soft. Packaged with this year’s best LP cover—featuring a halo-fitted Gibbs in Jesus garb levitating above a posse of cops, strippers, and “disciples” documenting the scene on their iPhones—are eight excellent tracks of psychedelic and soulful hip-hop, with beats that flow more than snap. Gibbs’s approach on You Only Live 2wice is a bit different from his past work: he finds a new sense of humility and humbleness, making the tracks deep, personal, and extraheavy and heady. Still, it’s his vocal delivery that will always be his greatest weapon—each word explodes like a bomb going off, his voice powerful and mean, his rhymes rapid-fire and unstoppable. —LUCA CIMARUSTI

Juiceboxxx Vail and Howardian open. 9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $8.

BODY/HEAD, DIAMOND TERRIFIER CIPHER, FACS

ò ANNABEL MEHRAN AND ANDREW KESIN

Sat 6/24, 7 PM, Bohemian National Cemetery, 5255 N. Pulaski, $20. b

IT’S BEEN A FEW YEARS since Body/Head, the unapologetically rude guitar duo of Kim Gordon and Bill Nace, dropped Coming Apart, a seething debut where slate-gray chords, strangulated single-note flurries, and clouds of viscous feedback commingle in carefully sculpted environments that are usually punctuated by the former’s pregnant whispers, potent shouts, and numbing incantations. Late last year they dropped a follow-up, No Waves: Live at the Big Ears Festival (Matador), which was recorded in 2014 at the eclectic experimental-music extravaganza in Knoxville. The album’s three tracks don’t show a radically different approach from their earlier work, but somehow Gordon and Nace have pared

60 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

down their materials (the unexpected harmonica wheeze that snakes through “The Show Is Over” notwithstanding) while increasing the precision of their brutalist guitar architectures, even if at first blush the record sounds decidedly slapdash. Needling lines, crushing waves, ticking damped tones, writhing metallic buzzing, and clanging chords engage in dances that envelop the listener—morphing before one notices the shift—while Gordon’s elliptical vocalizations provide further displacement. The pair seems like a perfect choice to headline the annual summer solstice concert on the grounds of the Bohemian National Cemetery.

—PETER MARGASAK

Milwaukee native Juiceboxxx has spent the better part of his life rummaging through American music, constructing and hard-wiring a DIY career using sources of inspiration other artists would consider refuse: crusty Japanese punk comps, battered 80s-house 12-inches, high-powered rap-rock singles, barbaric noise-band discographies, jittery futuristic rap loosies stripped from Soundcloud, and Springsteen B sides (OK, that last one isn’t too far-fetched). Juiceboxxx, or JB if you will, has put rap first and foremost for more than a decade, weathering the kinds of ups and downs that not even folks who’ve become permanent fixtures in our nation’s basement circuit have experienced.

Sure, plenty of underground musicians have performed to fewer people than the number of fingers they’ve got on both hands, but how many of those veterans have also opened for Public Enemy and had a book written about them? (That would be Leon Neyfakh’s The Next Next Level: A Story of Rap, Friendship, and Almost Giving Up.) JB’s forthcoming Dangerbird debut, Freaked Out American Loser, is his most concise fusion of his broad, eclectic musical taste and his earnest, enthusiastic rap-rock anthems thus far. The area of overlap in the Venn diagram of punk and rap has grown over the past decade, but few people have made songs that gel as well as “Guts and Tension,” which splices thick breakbeats with rubber-burning guitar riffs. —LEOR GALIL

Southern Avenue Sonder Sway and Dawg Yawp open. 8 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, $12. 18+ Southern Avenue are named after the original Memphis address of Stax Records, and that tells you most of what you need to know about their sound. Their self-titled debut—on Stax itself, naturally—is a boiling retro-soul primer. Israeli guitarist Ori Naftaly can be a bit fussy, but at his best he plays dirty blues licks

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MUSIC Charles Rumback with Jim Baker and John Tate ò JACOB HAND

that would make Billy Gibbons smile from behind his beard. Drummer Tikyra Jackson keeps the beat crisp and soulful. But what really makes Southern Avenue is Tikyra’s sister, singer Tierinii, whose gospel-tinged growl drips equal parts fire and sex. When she pleads “I was trying to love you / But you didn’t notice” on “What Did I Do,” she both convinces you of her desperation and makes you wonder how the hell the guy could possibly not have noticed. Most of the tracks are stone -cold soul, but Tierinii shows some improv chops on the jazzy “Wildflower,” while “Rumble” blurs the divide between the dozens and rap with quickjivin’ lines like “Came home late about three in the mornin’ / Tennessee whiskey got my feelings flowin.’”

Tierinii has a riveting stage presence, and the band nail covers of classics like “Rock Steady.” They do the Stax legacy proud. —NOAH BERLATSKY

FRIDAY23 Charles Rumback with Jim Baker and John Tate 8:30 PM, Constellation, 3111 N. Western, $10. 18+ Anyone who follows the Chicago music scene closely has surely encountered drummer Charles Rumback, one of the most versatile and tasteful musicians in town, a player who moves easi-

ly between jazz, free improvisation, rock, and folk communities. His hard work ethic often means his own projects convene only sporadically, and his regular collaborations with musicians who don’t live in Chicago—like Denver trumpeter Ron Miles and New York saxophonist Tony Malaby—further limits their activity. A little over three years ago

he formed an impressive piano trio with Jim Baker and New York bassist John Tate that underlines his subtle touch and ruminative sensibility better than most of his groups. Because Tate doesn’t live in town, the combo hasn’t performed much, but what I’ve caught by the band has been quietly staggering. Last year Rumback and Tate revealed

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JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 61

Uniform ò SAMANTHA MARBLE

MUSIC continued from 61

gently gorgeous. If nothing else the setting provides a simpatico showcase for the lyric, post-Bill Evans side of Baker—a part of his aesthetic usually hidden in free-improv settings—who solos on Rumback’s tender themes with endless invention and harmonic splendor. While the medley “Three Storey Birdhouse/Right Reasons” conveys a ballad feel, there’s plenty of thorniness in the drummer’s wonderfully draggy, prodding machinations— swinging and stammering at once—while Tate plays at a nifty pace that generates tension and the pianist accelerates and decelerates at will. The album also includes a wonderful spin through the brooding Andrew Hill obscurity “Erato,” showing just how far ahead of his time the composer was.

—PETER MARGASAK

SATURDAY24 Body/Head See Pick of the Week (page 60).

Diamond Terrifier Cipher and Facs open. 7 PM, Bohemian National Cemetery, 5255 N. Pulaski, $20. b Uniform Oozing Wound, Running, and Repos open. 9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $10.

One totally reasonable reaction to damaged industrial music is to turn it off. No matter how impressively it might creep and writhe and explode, the sheer hostility and balefulness of the blown-out everything can be hard to take in heavy doses. New York duo Uniform, who happily tip their hat to Big Black, navigate that slippery slope via the work of producer/guitarist Ben Greenberg. On January’s Wake in Fright (Sacred

®

62 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

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Bones) he’s prone to relentlessly pulverizing a track into rubble (“The Light at the End (Cause)”), but he can just as easily finesse a twisted rock ’n’ roll lick from the noise (“Habit”) or build a track off a meaty power-chord riff that in another life could’ve been the foundation of a Dead Boys track (“The Killing of America”). And Michael Berdan smears his hateful, sneering voice into the mix just enough to register clips of what he’s screaming about—like hearing a madman from afar trying to reason with his own vanishing sanity. —KEVIN WARWICK

SUNDAY25 Chicago Edge Ensemble 9 PM, Hungry Brain, 2319 N. Belmont, $10 suggested donation.

In 2001, guitarist Dan Phillips moved to Bangkok, where he now works as a music professor, but the six years he spent on the Chicago jazz scene prior to his relocation made a profound impact upon him.

Last year, during one of his regular visits home J

JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 63

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Secret Sisters ò ABRAHAM ROWE

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(he grew up in the area), he convened with some of the most important players at work in the late-90s free-jazz scene to form a new band called the Chicago Edge Ensemble and create the recent album Decaying Orbit (released by Silpakorn University, where he teaches). Indeed, the seven tunes on the record vividly recall the brawny yet precise attack of some of the city’s best-loved groups of the time, like the NRG Ensemble and Vandermark 5—the latter of which comes as no surprise, since Edge Ensemble members Jeb Bishop (trombone) and Mars Williams (reeds) played together in the outfit. Phillips wisely hired drummer Hamid Drake, a master percussionist who’s worked with both horn players in numerous contexts over the years, as well as his own regular Chicago bassist, Polish native Krzysztof Pabian. The guitarist’s wiry playing veers closer to mainstream jazz than the raucous, noisy sounds Bishop created in the V5 when he wasn’t playing the trombone, but his tunes nicely wend muscular grooves, full-blooded multilinear arrangements, and attractive melodies, giving the soloists plenty to work with. Decaying Orbit is hardly the most original thing I’ve heard this year, but it evokes fond memories of one of Chicago jazz’s most fertile eras. —PETER MARGASAK

The Era Diamond Terrifier Cipher, Miho Hatori, Michael Beharie, Don Devore, and DJ Jody Digital open. 8 PM, Elastic, 3429 W. Diversey, $10 suggested donation. b The Era are tired of footworkers like themselves being pigeonholed as background dancers to the rappers and DJs who’ve taken the breakneck tracks from the streets of Chicago to the mainstream.

64 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

The four-man crew are pushing the culture forward through “footwork with words,” their attempt to bridge the gap between hip-hop and the 160-plus BPM homegrown tunes. And it works—their laidback rhymes seamlessly lead listeners in and out of the adrenaline-pumping dance routines in the video for “Get U Some (Remix),” a track off their self-released debut EP, So·lo (z). The Era’s ringleader, Litebulb, explains what the genre might be missing: “I’m pretty sure it’s a ton of dancers with stories that we just never hear about or won’t hear about.

But this is a way for us to do that over music.” If you’re a fan of footwork or curious about the creative possibilities of the art form, don’t miss out.

—TIFFANY WALDEN

Secret Sisters Cheyenne Medders opens.

7:30 PM, SPACE, 1245 Chicago, Evanston, $17$30. b The career of Alabama’s Secret Sisters seemed on the upswing when they dropped their second album, Put Your Needle Down (Republic), three years ago, the sweet close-harmony singing of Laura and Lydia Rogers set to catch fire. Instead, their label dropped them, they got tangled up in a lawsuit with a former manager, and they had to file for bankruptcy—Laura was forced to earn her keep more from cleaning homes t h a n f ro m t a k i n g the stage. But their J

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READER PITCHFORK TICKETS Pair of ticket for Sunday, July 16, 2017 admission >> PITCHFORK AFTER PARTY LINE UP AT CERISE ROOFTOP <<

ALBUM RELEASE SHOW ZONE ON NINE

“Delicacy and drama, surrender and anger, made a riveting combination when Bonzie performed” —THE NEW YORK TIMES “Stunning... BONZIE has shown a consistent refusal to be pinned down to a genre or simplified descriptions of the kind of music she makes.”

—CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Friday, June 23rd • 7:00pm ALL AGES With special guest Spectralina SCHUBAS 3159 N Southport Ave. Chicago, IL Facebook.com/BONZIEmusic Instagram: @bonzie

NO PURCHASE OR PAYMENT OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. SWEEPSTAKES RUNS FROM 3:00 AM CST ON 6/21/17 TO 11:59 PM CST ON 7/7/17. SEE CHICAGOREADER.COM/PFGIVEAWAY FOR DETAILS AND COMPLETE OFFICIAL RULES WHICH APPLY. LIMIT ONE ENTRY PER PERSON PER SWEEPSTAKES PERIOD DURING SWEEPSTAKES. INDIVIDUALS CAN RECEIVE AN EXTRA ENTRY FOR EACH PERSON THAT ENTERS VIA THIER SHAREABLE SOCIAL MEDIA LINK. THREE (3) PRIZES WILL BE AWARDED, GRAND PRIZE WILL BE ONE (1) PAIR OF VIP TICKETS TO PITCHFORK, TWO (2) SECONDARY PRIZES WILL BE AWARDED THAT CONSIST OF A PAIR OF SUNDAY TICKETS PITCHFORK MUSIC FESTIVAL. GRAND PRIZE VIP TICKETS (2) VALUE IS $730.00 AND THE SECONDARY GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS (2) VALUE IS $150.00. TO BE ELIGIBLE TO WIN THE GRAND PRIZE ENTRANT MUST HAVE ENTERED THE SWEEPSTAKES BY ENTERING THIER EMAIL ADDRESS ON THE CONTEST PAGE. OPEN TO LEGAL RESIDENTS OF ILLINOIS, INDIANA, AND WISCONSIN, AGED 18 YEARS OR OLDER. ODDS OF WINNING DEPEND ON NUMBER OF CORRECT ELIGIBLE ENTRIES RECEIVED. SPONSOR RESERVES THE RIGHT TO SUBSTITUTE ANY PRIZE WITH ANOTHER PRIZE OF EQUAL OR GREATER VALUE SHOULD THE STATED PRIZE BECOME UNAVAILABLE. IF THE SWEEPSTAKES IS NOT CAPABLE OF RUNNING AS PLANNED FOR ANY REASON, SPONSOR RESERVES THE RIGHT TO CANCEL, MODIFY OR SUSPEND THE SWEEPSTAKES. SPONSORS: SUN-TIMES MEDIA, LLC, 350 N. ORLEANS ST., 10TH FLOOR, CHICAGO, IL 60654.

JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 65

MUSIC continued from 64

talent had advocates like singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile, and after she signed on to produce the new You Don’t Own Me Anymore (New West) and a crowd-funding effort covered recording costs, the Secret Sisters have returned, the beauty of their singing undiminished even if their songs sound wearier than ever. The lyrics are so steeped in everyday trials and tribulations—especially romantic betrayal—that they leave little doubt that their recordbiz experience was wrenching. Secret Sisters’ mix of twangy folk-rock and pop gets its old-fashioned juice from their vocals, which suggest a female analogue to the Everly Brothers, and while a cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Kathy’s Song” reveals the one-dimensionality of their own tunes, Carlile’s lean, focused production and the way the sisters sell them provide all the allure they could possibly require. —PETER MARGASAK

MONDAY26 CFM, Cairo Gang Axis:Sova headlines; CFM and Cairo Gang open. 9 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, $14.

3855 n lincoln ave.

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for complete listings, tickets, and social updates... martyrslive.com facebook.com/martyrslive @martyrslive 66 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

On Dichotomy Desaturated (In the Red), his second solo outing under the CFM moniker, Charles Moothart once again played everything—though his pal Ty Segall contributes drums on one track—crafting an elegant strain of lumbering hard rock that shows impressive growth from his eponymous 2016 debut. Quite a few tracks feature strummed acoustic guitar, but despite a superficial airiness now and again, the music’s foundation is built on the sort of swinging hard rock perfected nearly five decades ago by Black Sabbath. On the most extroverted songs Moothart sounds more comfortable than ever behind the microphone, his vocals recalling the nasal incantations of Ozzy Osbourne. Despite the steady stream of overdriven guitar solos, Moothart channels a spaced-out melodic vibe redolent of early Pink Floyd, while the multipartite “Saline/ The Man/Kind to You” reminds me of some early70s Kinks action. He fronts a quartet on this latest Chicago visit.

Opening the show is former Chicagoan Emmett Kelly—now a trusted foil to Segall, much as he has been for Bonnie “Prince” Billy—who brings his great CAIRO GANG to the stage with fellow Chi-Town expats Ryan Weinstein (bass) and Marc Riordan (drums) in tow. Earlier this year Kelly dropped Untouchable (God?), another immensely pleasurable spin on scrappy rock fundamentals that’s made the past few weeks a blast for me. Kelly deftly repurposes various licks and gestures from rock’s golden era— “That’s When It’s Over” opens with a well-trodden riff you might recognize from either “Crimson and Clover” or “There She Goes Again” before co-opting the hydroplaning turnaround Jimi Hendrix brought to “Hey Joe”—but those things feel more like trusted tropes than rip-offs, thanks largely to the fragile lead singing, the vocal harmonies, and the effortless guitar playing. A Cairo Gang record can sometimes suggest that Kelly was simply born in the wrong era, but that’s all erased by the group’s excellent live sets, during which a good melody negates all sense of time as you wisely spend the minutes drinking it in.

—PETER MARGASAK J

Strand of Oaks

FESTIVALS

Mamby till you drop B96 Summer Bash This collection of sugary, dancy, radio-ready producers and pop acts features the likes of Jason Derulo, Zedd, Kygo, and Camila Cabello.

6/24, 6:30 PM, Allstate Arena, b96.cbslocal.com, $55-$80. b Country Lakeshake A hay baler’s worth of popular pop-country artists gather at this lakefront fest (formerly Windy City Lakeshake). Miranda Lambert, Rascal Flatts, Thomas Rhett, and Little Big Town perform. 6/23-6/25, Huntington Bank Pavilion, lakeshakefestival.com, $49.75-$99.50 per day, $149-$300 three-day passes. b A Day in the Country Beer from Lagunitas, barbecue from Honky Tonk, and pie from Bang Bang accompany this all-day country party, with performances on the inside stage and front porch from Dan Whitaker & the Shinebenders, Dirty Green, Rex Hobart & the Misery Boys, and the Lawrence Peters Outfit. 6/25, 2 PM, Hideout, hideoutchicago.com, $12.

Mamby on the Beach Some of the biggest names in slick ’n’ safe indie pop descend upon Oakwood Beach on the city’s south side. The fest is headlined by MGMT and Walk the Moon, with support from Local Natives, Misterwives, Flying Lotus, and Cut Copy. 6/24-6/25, Oakwood Beach, mambybeach.com, $61-$71 per day, $122 for two-day passes. 17+ Logan Square Arts Festival The outdoor art market doubles as a great place to scope live music—much of it local— with Metz, Strand of Oaks, Air Credits, Joan of Arc, and Circuit des Yeux performing.

6/23-6/25, Illinois Centennial Monument, logansquareartsfestival.com, $5 suggested donation. b

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SUMM R M U SIC S RI S

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JUN 28

Daniel Romano ò SEBASTIAN BUZZALINO

continued from 66

WEDNESDAY28 King Crimson 7:30 PM, Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State, $39.75-$149.75. b Which shade of King Crimson can one expect to see tonight? The baroque-hippie, fast-shredding prog-rock of “21st Century Schizoid Man”? The show-offy protomath prog-rock of the band’s 1972’74 peak? The global-fusion avant-AOR prog-rock of the group’s trio of albums in the early-to-mid

1980s? I have some bad news: You probably won’t get any of these. What you’re likely to witness is what “King Crimson” has been about since 1995’s THRAK—cheesy, technically impressive prog-rock that’s favored by Guitar Center employees and diehard fans. Yes, that’s not exactly an endorsement.

So why go to a present-day King Crimson show?

Because its mastermind, Robert Fripp, is one of the greatest guitarists alive. Whether he’s playing monster riffs or complex chord progressions or unwinding solos that might make Yngwie Malmsteen shit his pants, Fripp is someone who deserves a venue as regal and historic as the Chicago Theatre—even if you have to endure post-80s King Crimson for the privilege. —TAL ROSENBERG J

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JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 69

MUSIC

Find more music listings at chicagoreader.com/soundboard.

continued from 69 Daniel Romano Tuomo & Markus open.

8 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, $14, $12 in advance. 18+ Over the past couple of years Daniel Romano, a fickle but talented singer-songwriter from Welland, Ontario, has seemed to detach from his early infatuation with country music, an ardor that led him to race from honky-tonk to psychedelic countrypolitan over a pair of albums. Romano’s melodic wooziness remains intact on his new Modern Pressure (New West), but with his move from the sound of Nashville to that of Los Angeles he’s created a detail-rich studio concoction marked by shifting, kaleidoscopic arrangements that cushion his sweet, slightly hyperactive, helium-sucking voice with impressive authority and style. The title track gets its juice from a muscular bass line that would do Paul McCartney proud, while “Roya”—described by the singer as “a celebration of women”—conveys an uplift of spirit right through to its unexpected sitar-driven coda, which seems ready to launch into the Beatles’ “Love You Too.” Elsewhere “The

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Pride of Queens” pays homage to the Ramones as crunching power chords blast in to wipe out the track’s initial hints of rusticity reminiscent of The Basement Tapes. Romano is a master of bricolage, piecing together disparate sounds from psychrock’s past—whether backwards-tape experiments or trippy harmony singing—with a thoroughly modern sound and a load of pop hooks. His chameleonic transformations sometimes feel annoying, but when the melodies hit hard I’m willing to cut him slack. —PETER MARGASAK

(Sandy) Alex G Japanese Breakfast and Cende open. 6:45 PM, Bottom Lounge, 1375 W. Lake, $16. b In April, about a month before he released his second Domino album, Rocket, Philadelphia experimental rocker Alexander Giannascoli altered the stage name he’d used since 2010, adding “(Sandy)” to “Alex G,” the parenthetical a reference to the first song he posted on Bandcamp way back in June 2011. As Spin magazine discovered, LA musician Alexandra Gronlund had put a trademark on “Alex G” in late 2015, forcing Giannascoli to make an awkward adjustment just as he was about to take a big step in his career. Despite the name augmentation, (Sandy) Alex G on Rocket is more or less the same as Alex G ever was—which is to say the album’s music follows no traceable progression and changes wildly while retaining an intimate complexity unique to Giannascoli. He mumbles over a clamoring collection of banjo notes, booming piano keys, acoustic-guitar reverberations, and galloping violins (“Poison Root”); he heartily sings over an ambling country instrumental (“Proud”); he duets with an overdubbed, high-pitched recording of his voice atop crystalline guitars fit for a minimal emo tune (“Witch”); and he belts out stentorian, staccato screams over blown-out, industrial percussion and damaged, lo-fi guitars (“Brick”). And that’s just at the album’s halfway mark. Giannascoli makes sense of it all over the course of the record, and by swerving into prickly, confrontational melodies he strengthens his quietest moments. The vulnerable “Sportstar,” where Giannascoli lays his watery vocals atop an echoing piano and guitars that evaporate as they ripple upward, gets a power-up from following the tank blast of “Brick.” If you can follow Giannascoli’s trip, a name change is nothing. —LEOR GALIL v

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FOOD & DRINK

R

ELLA ELLI | $$$ 1349 W. Cornelia 773-935-3552 ellaellichicago.com

Roasted carrot salad with pickled celery and avocado, dressed with za’atar and harissa ò BRITTANY SOWACKE

RESTAURANT REVIEW

Matt Eversman is back in the game at Ella Elli

The former Saigon Sisters chef stands out amid the Four Star Restaurant Group empire.

By MIKE SULA

M

y accomplice and I huddled at our table outside the restaurant, shivering as waitstaff struggled to light the outdoor heaters. It was the first night of sidewalk season at Ella Elli, but we were the only guests fool enough to take advantage of it. Suddenly the doors swung open and a well-fed, ruddy-cheeked, blue-blazer-over-white-golfshirt alpha-bro strutted onto the sidewalk bellowing over and along with the tastefully leveled sound system: “Doot dooo-ooo dooo dooo. Doot! Dooo dooo dooo. Oh-oh. Oh-oh.

Oh-uh-ohhhhh. This is gonna be the best day of my li-i-i-i-i-i-i-ife!”

We were treated to several minutes of this special performance before the dude’s postprandial Uber whisked him away into the buzzing twilight of west Wrigleyville. That’s what out on the town on the Southport corri-

dor looks like these days.

That’s in no small part due to the early success of Ella Elli, the tenth opening from the Four Star Restaurant Group, a company I’ve criticized in the past for its calculated pursuit of the mundane. It sits right around the corner from the company’s family-oriented Crosby’s Kitchen, a restaurant that serves a skillet cookie for dessert that’s “better than mom’s!,” according to the menu, which should not be talking about your moms.

You usually know what to expect from a Four Star restaurant. One thing I did not expect was for Ella Elli to be full. It was a Monday, there was a Cubs game happening just a few blocks away, and who could imagine we’d be offered a 45-minute wait for a table? The bar was full, and so to the patio it was.

Turns out the fading natural light illuminated some striking details about the food

that might otherwise be hidden in the dim of the dining room. The chef here, Matt Eversman, is a guy who blew me away when he opened Saigon Sisters, and who I continued to root for at the doomed, unloved Oon. After a time taking command at Crosby’s, he’s put together some very pretty and very different food at Ella Elli, under the broadest and vaguest sort of pan-Mediterranean umbrella that somehow encompasses a basket full of prevalent but disparate menu trends, such as toast, charcuterie, vegetables, and the somehow inseparable pizza-pasta. You better bet the bottom line there’s a burger, dawg.

Well, everybody has to be fed, right? And that avocado toast is actually no joke. It’s a thick slab of charred rustic bread, smeared with a blanket of the green goo, topped with a poached egg jiggling like Gypsy Rose Lee amid a shower of everything-bagel spice J

JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 71

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72 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

blend. It’s a collision of three of the most prevalent Instagram food trends in current rotation, but also the kind of virtuous food that somehow feels bad for you, as you struggle to shove it in your face before old man frat rock stops singing on the sidewalk and snatches it away. There’s a mushroom toast that performs similarly: superb meaty slices of fungi glistening with heavy cream and butter on smoky bread.

On the overwhelmingly plant-dominated left half of the menu, sections of sweet roasted fennel tangle with bright wedges of orange and grapefruit. Crispy smashed whole fingerling potatoes tossed with pickled mustard seeds push up through a cover of grated cheese like snow-covered mountains.

Clusters of caulif lower, burnished with char, embrace a salsa verde souring agent.

A mound of roasted carrot salad tossed with sharply pickled celery and avocado, and dressed with za’atar and harissa, is a kaleidoscopically colored dish, alive with loud, jousting flavors. A textural medley of fried grains with sliced radishes and a generous pile of sprouts comes alive with a smear of tangy goat cheese.

You might expect a restaurant that doesn’t specialize in pasta couldn’t cut it with a simple coil of bucatini with sungold tomato and Parmigiano, but it’s a marvel of simplicity; nicely al dente noodles, bright yellow tomato puree, and shavings of the King of Cheeses.

Similarly, wide fettuccine noodles with mint, peas, and sweet rock shrimp is a dish so springlike you might start sneezing.

But as many restaurants tend to do, Ella Elli stumbles when it comes to entree-size plates.

It’s usually difficult to redeem swordfish— the chicken breast of the sea—because it’s so frequently (often by necessity) overcooked, and that’s the unfortunate situation at Ella Elli. The aforementioned crispy potatoes make a nice partner to grilled octopus as long as it doesn’t smell too fishy (mine did). And while there’s rarely a need to overcook lamb chops, the ones I ordered, otherwise paired nicely with yogurt and harissa, suffered the same fate as the swordfish.

While it wouldn’t be a Four Star restaurant (or just about any Chicago restaurant) without a burger on the menu, Eversman has taken pains to distinguish his: a juicy puck topped with a disk of soft ripened cheese, with a lily-gilding little shot of powerfully rich cognac-and-cream-powered poivre sauce on the side.

While Ella Elli’s menu takes Four Star’s familiar scattershot approach to Eversman’s more interesting food, dessert is a less wide ranging exercise: profiteroles, fruit and yogurt, and a modest tarragon pound cake are offered along with a pair of boozy cocktails.

There’s no skillet cookie. Unlike Crosby’s there won’t likely be kids canoodling in the dimly lit alcoves of the dining room, or the bar outfitted with stools for two. The wine list is similarly easy to digest, with just 40some bottles over which to dither.

Ella Elli is a welcome departure for Four Star, and a welcome return for Eversman, who may no longer be cooking Asian food but at least has found a place to exercise his creative muscles, even if they’re confined to the focus-grouped menu trends of the day. v

v @MikeSula

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312-368-4884.

with payment to be made no later than completion of 50% of the work contract. Send Resume or contact Illinois Department of Employment Security, Migrant/Farm Workers Programs, 33 State Street, 8th Floor, Chicago, IL 60603, (312) 793-1284, (312) 793-1778 FAX, or your nearest State Workforce Agency and reference job order 2102319.

SSI (U.S.) INC. d/b/a

Spencer Stuart seeks QA Lead in Chicago, IL. Req. Bachelor’s or equiv. in CS or rel’d + 5 yrs post bachelors exp. in TELE-FUNDRAISING job offered, in general software devt.

SUMMER CASH! and QA testing role, or rel’d. Duties: American Veterans helping Veterans. designing, implementing, and exeFelons need not apply per Illinois cuting test cases. Must have experiAttorney General regulations. ence in: (1) testing cases using agile Start ASAP, Call 312-256-5035 methodologies, ETL processes, data modeling approaches, automaton processes, and/or web based application (2) SQL optimization techniBARTENDER/WAITSTAFF: ques and the ability to recommend Part-time, experienced needed. opportunities for improvement on Must be friendly & outgoing. Must be query performance (3) collecting able to work weekends. Brehon Pub business intelligence data from availRiver North, Send resume & availabil- able industry reports, public information, field reports, and/or purchased ity to: brehonpub@outlook.com sources to define and design test cases and scenarios (4) analyzing and applying report data to actionable data structures and tools (5) anaSACIA ORCHARDS, INC, in lyzing business and technical reGalesville, WI is hiring 2 temporary quirements involving logical and Cook/Chef from 8/7/2017- physical data models (6) Metadata 10/15/2017: 40 hrs/week. Cook/Chef management practices. Send resume will plan and coordinate menu, pre- to https://chj.tbe.taleo. pare breakfast, lunch and dinner, net/chj05/ats/careers/requisition. clean and organize kitchen, applian- jsp?org=SPENCERSTUART&cws=1&ri ces and dishes. Cook/Chef will coor- d=576 w/Job ID IE-QAL0617 dinate food supply request as well as check in of food/supply orders. In addition, Cook/Chef will ensure to keep INFO TECH a clean and organized kitchen, dining IT PROJECT MANAGER 2 and delivery areas at all times. Will (RR Donnelley & Sons Company; sanitize kitchen surfaces regularly Buffalo Grove, IL) - Develop project throughout the day. Will maintain plans for information technology meal records. Must have knowledge projects including project objectives, of generally accepted well balanced technologies, systems, information nutrition guidelines. Must be able to specifications, schedules, funding, lift 50 lbs. Worker must have and staffing. Reqs: Master’s degree in 3 months verifiable experience.

Information Technology, Computer $12.75/hr. (prevailing wage). GuaranScience, Management Information tee of 3/4 of the workdays. All work Systems, or a related technical field, tools, supplies, and equipment furplus 3 years of experience in nished without cost to the worker.

Microsoft .Net development Free housing is provided to workers environment; or a Bachelor’s degree who cannot reasonably return to in Information Technology, Computer their permanent residence at the end Science, Management Information of the workday. Transportation and Systems, or a related technical field, subsistence expenses to the worksite plus 5 years of post-baccalaureate will be provided or paid by the em- progressively responsible experience ployer, with payment to be made no in Microsoft .Net development later than completion of 50% of the environment. Apply online at work contract. Send Resume or conhttps://www.rrdonnelley.com/ tact Illinois Department of Employabout/rrdonnelley-jobs.aspx ment Security, Migrant/Farm WorkJob # 35890. ers Programs, 33 State Street, 8th Floor, Chicago, IL 60603, (312) 7931284, (312) 793-1778 FAX, or your nearest State Workforce Agency and COMPUTER/IT: WAVE 6, LLC reference job order 2102575 seeks Sr. Salesforce Consultant to ds gn/dvlp Salesforce-based social/ SACIA ORCHARDS, INC, in mobile/cloud apps., plan/oversee.

Galesville, WI is hiring 27 temporary Projects, lead design/build/test/rollFarmworker-Apples from 8/7/2017- out/troubleshoot of Salesforce10/15/2017: 40 hrs/week. Workers ac- based solutions. Duties incl: dvlp tivities include pruning, picking, project plans/budgets/time frames, c cleaning, grading, sorting, packing reate/maintain system-related docs. and loading apples. Must be able to such as business reqs/process flow/ lift 50 lbs. Workers will be expected data maps/configuration work sheets to harvest a minimum of 80 bushels and related project info. Reqs: BS per day. Must be able to operate a 55 Comp. Sci./Info. Tech. or similar + 5 HP or larger tractor. Must have three yrs’ exp. in SW design/dvlpmnt. As months verifiable experience. 12.75/ part of 5 yrs., reqs 3 yrs’ exp creating hr. (prevailing wage). Guarantee of solutions w/ Salesforce.com/force.

3/4 of the workdays. All work tools, com/Cloud Pltfrms. Also reqs exp w/ supplies, and equipment furnished review, dvlpmt., executive of plans without cost to the worker. Free per user reqs, increasing engagehousing is provided to workers who ment w/Salesforce apps, use of Sales cannot reasonably return to their force.com APEX dl/ permanent residence at the end of Visualforce/training clients on the workday. Transportation and sub- Salesforce. Resumes: Wave 6, 20 N. sistence expenses to the worksite Wacker Dr., Ste. 2050, Chicago, IL, will be provided or paid by the em- 60606 ATTN: HR, REF: NN. ployer, with payment to be made no later than completion of 50% of the work contract. Send Resume or contact Illinois Department of Employment Security, Migrant/Farm Workers Programs, 33 State Street, 8th Floor, Chicago, IL 60603, (312) 7931284, (312) 793-1778 FAX, or your nearest State Workforce Agency and reference job order 2102613.

food & drink

General

APPLELAND, LLC, in Belgium, WI is hiring 15 temporary Farmworker, Fruit Pickers from 8/8/2017-10/25/2017: 55 hrs/week.

Workers will be required hand harvest outdoor fruit and melon/gourd crops, climb on 8ft ladder while picking fruit trees, use long handled hoe to weed strawberries patches and be able to lift a picking bag, weighing up to 40lbs over the shoulder. 12.75/ hr. (prevailing wage). Guarantee of 3/4 of the workdays. All work tools, supplies, and equipment furnished without cost to the worker. Free housing is provided to workers who cannot reasonably return to their permanent residence at the end of the workday. Transportation and subsistence expenses to the worksite will be provided or paid by the employer,

TECHNOLOGY MANAGER, IT FUNCTION TRANSFORMATION (MULT. POS.), PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services LLC, Chicago, IL. Provide strategy, mgmt, tech. & risk consulting services to help clients anticipate & address complex bus. challenges. Req. Bach’s deg. or foreign equiv. in Comp Sci, IT, Info Systms, Engg or rel. + 5 yrs post-bach’s progress. rel. work exp.; OR a Master’s deg. or foreign equiv. in Comp Sci, IT, Info Systms, Engg or rel. + 3 yrs rel. work exp. Travel up to 80% req. Apply by mail, referencing Job Code IL1304, Attn: HR SSC/ Talent Management, 4040 W. Boy Scout Blvd, Tampa, FL 33607.

PATTERN MAKER (GERBER

CAD) Well established contemporary fashion design firm is looking for a women’s wear pattern maker with at least 2-3 years of Gerber version 8.3-10 CAD experience.

International manufacturing experience at a women’s wear company preferred; or 5-7 years’ industry experience with men’s or children’s wear. Candidates should also be interested in researching current trends to complement their pattern making skills. Experience with fitting, specs, factory communication and Gerber grading is a plus. EOE. KRussell@OneGroup.com

THE NORTHERN TRUST CO. is seeking a Sr. Consultant Fund Accounting in Chicago IL, with the following requirements: BS in Business, Engineering or Computer Science and 3 years related experience.

Prior exp. must include 3 years of experience with each of the following: implementing enhancements of FIS’s Invest One Enterprise accounting application; maintaining double entry accounting reporting ledger; designing, developing and implementing macro solutions using visual basic; managing projects utilizing software development Lifecycle (SDLC) Methodology. Please apply on-line at www.northerntrustcareers.com and search for Req. #17064

System Integration Test Engineer Develop and implement system integration testing procedures for microwave and free space optics networks using of millimeter wave technology and customization of testing environments and deployment of such procedures for ultimate application in the field. Requirements: Bachelor’s degree or equiv in Telecommunications Engineering or related field and 2 years experience. Forward resume and references to SMG Holdings LLC d/b/a Anova Technologies, HR, 205 N. Michigan Ave, Ste 4230, Chicago IL 60601.

NO calls

TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPER 3 (RR Donnelley & Sons Company; Buffalo Grove, IL) - Develop, support, and maintain various software applications, plugins, and automation tools around variable print file generation. Reqs: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Management Information Systems, or a related technical field, plus 5 years of post-baccalaureate progressively responsible software development experience. Apply online at https:// www.rrdonnelley.com/ about/rrdonnelley-jobs.aspx Job # 35819.

Software Developer/Engineer.

Design and develop software and data platforms using AWS, Lambda framework, Java, Python, SNS, API gateways, VPCs, sandboxes, mySql, MongoDB, Cassandra, Micro Service Oriented Architecture, Junit Mockita, Endpoint tests, and Cucumber behavior tests.

Requirements: BS in Computer Science or related degree and 2 years experience.

Frwd resume and references to Mighty Legal LLC, Attn HR, 79 W Monroe St. 5th Fl Chicago IL 60603. NO calls PROJECT CONTROL SERVICES TEAM LEAD (MULTIPLE POSITIONS) (Accenture LLP; Chicago, IL): Enable more effective program management that increases the overall quality of Technology Delivery, under direct supervision.

Must have willingness and ability to travel domestically approximately 80% of the time to meet client needs.

For complete job description, list of requirements, and to apply, go to: www.accenture.com/us-en/careers (Job #00482332).

FINANCIAL ANALYST (Computa tional Finance – Options).

Quantitative research & performance /risk analysis of options and other derivatives; use multi-period financial models. Master’s deg. (Computational Finance) req’d. Must have completed graduate level coursework in multi-period asset pricing and stochastic calculus. Satisfactory completion of standardized screening & tests req’d. Resumes to: Recruiting, Wolverine Trading, LLC, 175 W. Jackson Blvd., Suite 200, Chicago, IL 60604.

TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPER 3

CAPITAL ONE SEEKS a Software Engineer in Chicago Metro Area (multiple positions available) to perform technical design, development, modification, and implementation of computer applications using existing and emerging technology platforms. Requires a bach. + 3 yrs. of exp. Must pass company’s assessment. See full req’s & apply online:https://www. capitalonecareers.com/ Req # R28341.

(RR Donnelley & Sons Company; Buffalo Grove, IL) - Develop, support, and maintain various software applications, plugins, and automation tools around variable print file generation. Reqs: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Management Information Systems, or a related technical field, plus 5 years of post-baccalaureate progressively responsible software development experience. Apply online at https:// www.rrdonnelley.com/ about/rrdonnelley-jobs.aspx Job # 35819.

Quantitative Developer, Midlevel.BS in Physics, Math, Engineering or Compu Sci or related.

2 yrs exp in developing applications in Python & knowl of numpy, pandas & related libraries & w/ derivative pricing & data analysis or regression analysis. In lieu of 2yrs exp, will accept coursework &/or internship that taught stated skills. Must pass proprietary coding & math exam. Mail resume to Megan Suerth, Akuna Capital LLC, 333 S Wabash, Ste 2600, Chicago, IL 60604

Chicago Marriott Marquis is one of Marriott International’s 30 renowned hotel brands. As the world’s leading Hospitality Company, we offer unmatched opportunities for associates to grow and succeed. We believe a great career is a journey of discovery and exploration.

Chicago Marriott Marquis 2121 South Prairie Avenue, Chicago, IL 60616

HERE’S TO YOUR JOURNEY!

Now Accepting Applications for open positions to include: Front Office, Guest Services, Housekeeping, Laundry, Club Lounge, Loss Prevention, Banquets, Culinary, Engineering, Food & Beverage, and Administrative Departments Interviews are being scheduled for late June Apply now to Be Considered! www.marriott.com/careers

CAPITAL ONE SEEKS a Software Engineer in Chicago Metro Area, IL (multiple positions available) to perform technical design, development, modification, and implementation of computer applications using existing and emerging technology platforms. Requires a bach. + 3 yrs. of exp. Must pass company’s assessment. See full req’s & apply online: https://www. capitalonecareers.com/ Req # R28056.

FPGA Engineer(Hardware Engineer: BS in Compu or Electrical Engineering, or related field & 2yrs exp as Hardware Engineer, Hardware Developer or related role. 2yrs exp must have included VHDL/Verilog exp, understanding of algorithms & data structures using simulation tools.

Must pass coding exam. Mail resume to Megan Suerth, Akuna Capital LLC, 333 S Wabash, Ste 2600, Chicago, IL 60604 ENGINEER Field App Engr. Dsgn/support mfg & apps installation. MS + 24 mos as App Engr. Exp w/ IEC61131 standard prgm langs Ladder/ Structured text/Function Block Diagram/SFC/CC-Link/CC-Link I E/VFD/Servo/HMI programming.

Dom & intl travel up to 40%. Resume: M.Goodwin/Re:FAE, Mitsubishi Electric Automation, Inc., 500 Corporate Woods Pkwy, Vernon Hills, IL 60061.

Sr Energy Options Trader: BS or forgn equiv in Math, Commerce, Economics or closely related field. 2 yrs exp in role related to prime brokerage in the global investment industry that required reconciliation of trading activity & risk mgmt. Must pass timed proprietary math exam. Mail resume to Megan Suerth, Akuna Capital LLC, 333 S Wabash, Ste 2600, Chicago, IL 60604 ACCOUNTANTS AURORA, IL area. Audit & validate employee theft & dishonesty claims for insurance companies. Review claim documentation & summarize on Excel spreadsheets. Write & submit report describing claim. Travel to local clients sites 15% of the time.

Send res to SDC CPAS LLC, 1444 N Farnsworth Ave., Ste. 500, Aurora, IL 60505.

MECHANICALLY

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

STUDIO OTHER LARGE SUNNY ROOM w/fridge & microwave. Near Oak Park, Green Line & Buses. 24 hr Desk, Parking Lot $101/week & Up. (773)378-8888 CHICAGO - HYDE PARK 5401 S. Ellis.

Studio. $470/mo. û CALL 773-955-5106 û CROSSROADS HOTEL SRO SINGLE RMS Private bath, PHONE,

SPRING SPECIAL: STUDIOS starting at $499 incls utilities.

1BR $550, 2BR $599, 3BR $699. With approved credit. No Security Deposit for Sec 8 Tenants. South Shore & Southside.

Call 312-446-3333 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)

CHICAGO LOVELY 4 rm, 1BR, liv rm, din rm, kitchen/bath, heated & hw flrs. Close to trans. Avail now. Also, 1BR w/ crpt avail.773264-6711

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

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

773-637-5957

Ashland Hotel nice clean rms.

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

Low rates daily/weekly/monthly.

South Side. Call 773-376-5200

WEST PULLMAN (INDIANA Ave) RENT SPECIAL - 1st Mo. FREE only Sec dep. req’d. Nice lrg 1BR $575; 2BR $699 & 1 3BR $850, balcony. Section 8 Welc 773-995-6950.

1 BR UNDER $700 SPRINGTIME SAVINGS! NEWLY Remod. 1 BR Apts $650 w/ gas incl. 2-5BR start at $650 & up.

Sec 8 Welc. Rental Assistance Prog. for Qualified Applicants offer up to $ 400/month for 1 yr. (773)412-1153 Wesley Realty

FREE HEAT! NO SEC Dep. No Move-in Fee! 1, 2, 3 & 4 BRs, laundry rm.

Sec 8 OK. Tiffany 773.285.3310 www.livenovo.com

SPRING SPECIAL $500 Toward Rent Beautiful Studios 1, 2, 3 & 7022 S. SHORE DRIVE Impeccably Clean Highrise STUDIOS, 1 & 2 BEDROOMS Facing Lake & Park.

Laundry & Security on Premises.

Parking & Apts. Are Subject to Availability. TOWNHOUSE APARTMENTS 773-288-1030

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

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

SECTION 8 WELCOME Newly Decorated 74th/East End. 1BR. $625. 77th/Drexel. 2BR. $700. 87th/Dante. Heat not incl.

2BR. 5rms. $750.

773-874-9637 or 773-493-5359

û NO SEC DEP û 1431 W. 78th St. 1BR. $500/mo.

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

INCLINED

PERSON Needed for operating bagging machine Apply in person Tues.-Sat., 9 A.M.-11 A.M. Bring state of IL ID & Social Security Card, Nuts On Clark, 3830 N Clark St.

REAL ESTATE RENTALS STUDIO $500-$599 Chicago, Beverly/Cal Park/Blue Island Studio $575 & up, 1BR $665 & up, 2BR $885 & up. Heat, Appls, Balcony, Carpet, Laundry, Prkg.

708-388-0170

Never miss a show again.

STUDIO $600-$699 REHABBED APARTMENTS 1 Month Free 1BR on South Shore Drive From $650 w/Parking Incld.

Call 773-374-7777

For recorded updates, you may contact the Marriott Marquis Chicago Job Hotline at 312-791-6332 Benefits may include: medical, dental, vision, 401(k) profit sharing, paid time off, tuition reimbursement, career advancement, hotel room discounts and more.

7'++"/; 5)!-+)'8/)'& "= ') -,:'& /../+!:)"!$ -*.&/$-+ 1/**";-3 !/ %"+")# ' 3"<-+=- 9/+(0/+1')3 =:=!'")")# ') ")1&:="<- 1:&!:+-4 7'++"/; 5)!-+)'8/)'& 3/-= )/! 3"=1+"*")'!- /) !%- 2'="= /0 3"='2"&"!$6 <-!-+') =!'!:= /+ ')$ /!%-+ 2'="= .+/!-1!-3 :)3-+ 0-3-+'&6 =!'!- /+ &/1'& &'9=4

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

JUNE 22, 2017 | CHICAGO READER 73

CHICAGO NEAR 80TH & Ingleside. Newly rehab, 1 BR, large LR, new kit, carpeted. $600. no sec, heat included. 708-921-9506

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. $130/wk & up. 773-275-4442

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

CHICAGO - $299 Move In Special! 110th & Michigan, 1BR & 2BR Apts, $575-$720/mo. Avail now Secure building. 1-800-770-0989 CHICAGO W. SIDE 3859 W Maypole Rehabbed studios, $425/ mo, Utilities not included. 773-6170329, 773-533-2900

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

EXCHANGE EAST APTS 1 Brdm $575 w/Free Parking,Appl, AC,Free heat. Near trans. laundry rm. Elec.not incl. Kalabich Mgmt (708) 424-4216

SECTION 8 WELCOME Bronzeville 4950 S Prairie. 1BR. Heat, cooking gas, appl incl. $660 & up.

Call Zoro, 773-406-4841

1 BR $700-$799 8322 S INGLESIDE & 8001 S Colfax, 1BR $650, newly remodel, hrdwd flrs, cable. Sec 8 welcome (Laundry Ingleside only) 708-3081509 or 773-493-3500 AUSTIN AREA 1-2 BR apts, $800-$1050, heat & appliances incl .Section 8 OK, close to transportation 708-267-2875

1 BR $900-$1099 Ravenswood DLX 3/rm studio: new kit, SS appl, granite, French windows, oak flrs, close to Brown L; $1050/heated 773-743-4141 w ww.urbanequities.com

1 BR OTHER WAIT LIST OPEN I-Care, 501 North Cass Ave., Westmont, IL 60559 is now accepting applications from eligible seniors (62) and older.

Studio and 1 Bedroom units, subsidized rent (30% of income).

Great location near shopping.

Walk-In for application, e-mail: wecare501@yahoo.com or phone (630) 963-9631.

Evergreen Real Estate Services, LLC, Sponsoring Broker and Management Agent

6230 S. CLAREMONT. 1BR, $625/MO. HEATED. Steadman Rlty. 773-284-5822 After 5pm 773-835-9870

CHICAGO - 82ND/JEFFERY: 1 BR Garden Apt, applicances incl, heat & cent air incl, mature adult preferred. $775/mo 312-805-6534 77TH/LANGLEY

4RM,

1BR

APT, 1st flr, newly remod, heat & hot water, ceiling fans, & appls incl. $725 /mo + 1 mo sec. 708-641-1227

2 BR OTHER ROUND LAKE BEACH, IL Cedar

2 BR UNDER $900 SECTION 8 OK. 206 W. 111th Place. 2nd flr, 2BR Apt. Newly renovated. Fridge & stove incl. $700/mo + $400 move-in fee.

773-876-6591

SECTION 8 WELCOME 54 W. 109TH St. 2BR, 2nd flr, new remod, ceiling fans, appls, ner Elementary School. $775/mo + 1 mo sec. 708-641-1227 Call 12p-7p 7701 S. South Shore Dr. 2 BDs with 1.5 Baths, Large Combo Living-Dining Rm, FREE Heat & cking gas. Prkng extra. $785-$850, Kalabich Mgmt (708)424-4216

73RD/INDIANA, 88th/Dauphin & 74th/King Dr. 2BRs. $800- $1000.

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

APTS. FOR RENT PARK MGMT & INV. LTD. IT’S MOVING TIME!!!

OUR UNITS INCLUDE HEAT, HW & CG PLENTY OF PARKING 1BDR FROM $775.00 2BDR FROM $925.00 3 BDR/2 FULL BATH FROM $1200 **1-(773)-476-6000***

APTS. FOR RENT PARK MGMT & INV. LTD. SPRING HAS SPRUNG!!

MOST UNITS INCLUDE..

HEAT & HOT WTR STUDIOS FROM $475.00 1BDR FROM $550.00 2BDR FROM $745.00 3 BDR/2 FULL BATH FROM $1200 **1-(773)-476-6000**

ROUND LAKE BEACH, IL Cedar Villas is accepting applications for subsidized 1BR apts. for seniors 62 years or older and the disabled.

Rent is based on 30% of annual income. For details, call us at 847-546-1899 ∫

MOST BEAUTIFUL APARTMENTS! 6748 Crandon, 2BR, $875. 7727 Colfax, 1 & 2BR, $625-$875. 6220 Eberhart, 2 & 3BR, $850-$1150.

773-947-8572 or 312-613-4424

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

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

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

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

CHICAGO

7600 S Essex 2BR

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

2 BR $900-$1099 FREE HEAT 8200 S. DREXEL XL 2BR $995/mo.Heat & appls incl.

Living & dining room, newly remodeled. No Sec Dep. Section 8 OK. 312-915-0100.

MATTESON - DUPLEX, 2BR/ 1BA, Appls, $990/mo. + sec. avail.

7/15 HAZEL CREST - 3BR/1BA, $11 00/mo + Sec. Avail 7/15. 888-4346855

75 S.E. YATES - R e n o v a t e d 2BR Apt, Family Room, 1.

5BA, LR, DR, Eat in Kitchen, 3 flat, tenant heated, $950/ mo. Call 773-375-8068

Section 8 Welcome, Sharp 2 & 3BR Apts, fenced yard. $985$1000/mo. Will accept 1 or 2BR Voucher. Also, 3BR House Avail.

708-250-0748

2 BR $1100-$1299 SOUTHSIDE RENOVATED, 2BR, 1BA, Open floor plan, lots of Closet space, great loc, close to trans, Avail Now, $1100/mo 615-300-0066

ALB Pk DLX 3BR + den, new kit, SS appl, granite, oak flrs, on-site lndy, $1375/+ util. 773-743-4141 www. urbanequities.com

3 BR OR MORE $1800-$2499 EUROPEAN

CHICAGO WEST SIDE Attn: Sec 8 holders!

No Sec Dep + $100 Back 2-5 Bdrms. Everything New + Lndry & A/C. Call 312-493-6983 GLENWOOD, Updated lrg 2BR Condo, HF HS, Balcony, C/A, appls, heat/water incl. 2 pkng, laundry.

VILLA, 1ST flr, charming & unique, stained glass ceiling, venetian plastering, hdwd flrs, kitchen & bath with stainless ste el/granite, LR/DR, 3BR, 2BA, washer & dryer in unit, patio, grill, spacious yard & garden, garages available.

STEPS TO to lake, grocery store, restaurants, movies, pharmacy, schools. $1850/mo. 773-274-4775.

$975/mo. 708.268.3762

NEWLY REHABBED 1BR Apt. $750. 3 & 5BR single family homes w / 2BA. $1300-$1800. Sect 8 Welc.

847-962-0408

Spac good trans, laundry on site, security camera. 312-341-1950

CALUMET CITY- 1 lg BR apt, wall to wall carpeting, A/C, heat incl, laundry facility. $725/mo. 1 mo rent + security. 708-323-8317

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

3 BR OR MORE UNDER $1200 NR CERMAK/PULASKI, u p dated 3BR, hdwd flrs, lrg kit & BA, laundry hookup, 2nd flr, tenant pays utils, nr pink line $950 + dep. 773-2450422 SECTION 8 WELCOME $200 Move-In Bonus, No Dep. 7134 S. Stewart. 5BR/1BA House. 6227 S. Justine. 3BR/1BA & 225 W 108th Pl, 2BR/1BA. 7134 S. Normal, 4BR/ 2BA. Ht & appls incl 312-683-5174 70TH & ARTESIAN, Huge 3BR, eat in kitch, large pantry + bonus rm,1st fl lndry rm, sep heat. hdwds $ 950/mo Section 8 Welcome 312-3425547

3 BR OR MORE $2500 AND OVER Gary NSA accepting applications for studio & 2 bedroom SUBSIDIZED apartments. Apply Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9am to 1pm ONLY at 1735 W 5th Ave. Applications are to be filled out on site. Adult applicants must provide a current picture ID and SS card.

OTHER SECTION 8 WELCOME Chicago, 11526 S Harvard 5BR/2BA, $1600.

255 W. 111th Pl., 6BR/3BA $1700.

Call 773-793-8339, ask for Joe. WASHINGTON PARK, NEWLY remod 3BR duplex, LR, DR & den. Hdwd flrs, appls incl., ample prkg, Near trans & schools. 773241-0619 CHICAGO S: Newly renovated, Large 3-5BR. In unit laundry, hardwood flrs, very clean, No Deposit!

Available Now! 708-655-1397

CHATHAM-3BR 1.5BA, stove/ heat incl, laundry in bsmt, 7900 block of Langley, Sec 8 Ok. $1000/ mo. Mr. Johnson, 630-424-1403

4BR, 1.5BA, HDWD flrs, recently remod, gated bldng, no smoking /no pets. $1500/mo.

Shemaiah, 773-205-8362 or 312218-1888

SOUTHEAST LOC 3RD flr apt,

CHICAGO HOUSES FOR rent.

8001 S. DOBSON. 3BR $950 New Kitchen and Bath. Heat and appliances incl. 312.208.1771 or 773.

916.0039

4200 BLOCK OF W. Grenshaw, 2nd floor 3BR Apt, newly decorated, heat & ceiling fans incl., $975/ mo + 1 mo sec. Call 773-785-5174

88TH & HARPER St., Newly remod 3BR, 2BA, ten pays utils.

1 months rent & sec req’d. $1250. Also, 1BR avail, $1000 + utils. Avail July 1st. Section 8 Welcome. 310-529-1531

Section 8 Ok, w/app credit $500 gift certificate 3, 4 & 5 BR houses avail.

312-446-3333 or 708-752-3812

GENERAL

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74 CHICAGO READER | JUNE 22, 2017

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By Cecil Adams Q : I saw a British documentary that stated that God—the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim God, that is—used to have a female companion, but then male dominance made it impossible to imagine such a powerful female being, and goddesses were no longer worshipped. Did this really happen? —AMALIE A : Before the Israelite god Yahweh really

made it big, a bevy of other deities shared the stage with him, among them a fertility goddess named Asherah. So says theologian Francesca Stavrakopoulou, host of the 2011 BBC series you evidently saw, called Bible’s Buried Secrets. And that much is largely accepted by historians. Nor is Stavrakopoulou alone in claiming that Yahweh (in some form) and Asherah were at one point an item, worshipped side by side, though this is a matter of more contention. But I don’t see where she suggests that the goddess’s disappearance was the result of a male-centric power play, or some resulting failure of imagination—as far as we can know, Asherah may have been just another victim of the messy shift to monotheism.

It’s not hard to dream up more sinister theories, of course. As discussed here in a 2008 column, for more than 150 years scholars have periodically floated the idea that Western societies were, in millennia past, largely matriarchal, peacefully worshipping a nurturing Mother Goddess, until a warlike patriarchy took over and set up male gods in her place.

But the bulk of the archaeological evidence called on to support this notion—female statuettes from prehistoric Europe, 9,000-yearold burial sites in Turkey, etc—is open to other interpretations, to put it mildly. Goddess worship by Wiccans and other present-day pagans is probably best understood as reflecting a modern spiritual longing, rather than as some superancient tradition brought back to life.

But whether or not anyone ever really worshipped a dominant Goddess in the prehistoric past, there’s no doubt that high-powered goddesses were found in pantheons all over the ancient Near East and Europe. In the Canaanite religions of the eastern Mediterranean, the god El, a major precursor to Yahweh, and his wife, Asherah, presided over a whole squad of lesser gods, male and female, with the goddesses Anat and Astarte high up among these. Polytheistic deities can seem like supernatural versions of humans— embodying various elemental concepts and forces, sure, but still feuding and fighting and mating with each other like earthly families.

How do we get from there to a single God,

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Well, academics tell us, in systems where you’ve got a hierarchy of gods, with one or two dominant and the others variously subordinated (henotheism, you’ll see this setup called), sometimes the dominant god will gradually come to assume the roles of all the mid-level gods below, leaving behind the only bottom-tier deities to function as the top god’s servants. And that’s what happened with the Canaanites, says (e.g.) biblical historian K.L. Noll: Yahweh became the one God; the other divine beings remaining in the Old Testament are portrayed as his messengers—i.e., angels. So yes, the goddesses got written out of the story, but most of the other male gods did too. If female divinity really was singled out for expungement, it’d be tough to prove it.

And in fact, the Christian God that eventually emerged from all this was seen as having transcended any corporeal attributes, the male-female divide included. As theology professor Andrew Walker told the BBC: “Out of the Holy Trinity, the three Gods in one, only one is male. . . . Jesus Christ, because he was born a man.” Under a strictly orthodox reading, Walker says, God the father has no actual procreative role, and thus no gender; he’s called the father because that’s what Jesus calls him. So why, then, is he a he? Here the hand of male dominance may be easier to infer: in a male-centered society, of course God was going to get a male pronoun. As liberal theologians have worked over the years to establish the use of more inclusive language, traditionalists have battled back. Hell, traditional grammarians are still hanging on to the idea that he works just fine as a gender-neutral generic pronoun; what do you expect conservative clergy to say?

It’s not like the feminine divine got stamped out of Christianity altogether, though: witness the Virgin Mary. She’s crucially not God, or a god, of course, but she’s held to have been conceived free from sin and taken up into heaven, and in much of the Christian world she’s the addressee of prayer. v Send questions to Cecil via straightdope.com or write him c/o Chicago Reader, 350 N. Orleans, Chicago 60654.

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SAVAGE LOVE

By Dan Savage

Odd woman out

A monogamous straight woman has become smitten with a man who’s poly.

Q : I’m a 34-year-old straight woman. I’m monogamous and have an avoidant attachment style. I’ve been seeing a guy I really like.

He’s just my type, the kind of person I’ve been looking for my whole life. Thing is, he’s in an open relationship with someone he’s been with for most of his adult life. He was sneaky—he didn’t reveal he was in an open relationship until the second date, but by then I was infatuated and felt like I wasn’t in control of my actions. So what I’ve learned is that poly couples often seek out others to create NRE or “new relationship energy,” which may help save their relationship in the long run. I was deeply hurt to learn about NRE. What about the people who are dragged into a situation by some charmer in an attempt to breathe new life into a stale relationship? I feel like no one cares about the people on the side, the ones who might be perceived to be cheating with someone’s partner, as some sort of competitor, a hussy. How can I reconcile the fact that I’ve fallen for someone who sees me as a tool to be discarded once the excitement wears off? I know we all have a choice, but we also know what it’s like to be infatuated by someone who seems perfect. I feel like such a loser. —SOBBING HERE AND MAKING ERRORS

A : “One of life’s hardest

lessons is this: Two people can be absolutely crazy in love with each other and still not be good partners,” said Franklin Veaux, coauthor of More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory (morethantwo.com). “If you’re monogamous and you meet someone you’re completely smitten with who

76 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

isn’t, the best thing to do is acknowledge that you’re incompatible and go your separate ways. It hurts and it sucks, but there it is.”

Veaux advocates ethical polyamory—it’s right there in the title of his book—and he thinks this guy did you wrong by not disclosing his partner’s existence right away. “Making a nonmonogamous relationship work requires a commitment to communication, honesty, and transparency,” said Veaux. “Concealing the fact that you’re in a relationship is a big violation of all three, and no good will come of it.”

I have a slightly different take. Straight women in open relationships have an easier time finding men willing to fuck and/or date them; their straight male counterparts have a much more difficult time. Stigma and double standards are at work here—she’s sexually adventurous; he’s a cheating bastard—and waiting to disclose the fact that you’re poly (or kinky or HIV-positive or a cammer) is a reaction to/work-around for that. It’s also a violation of poly best practices, like Veaux says, but the stigma is a violation too. Waiting to disclose your partner, kink, HIV status, etc, can prompt the other person to weigh their assumptions and prejudices about poly/ kinky/poz people against the living, breathing person they’ve come to know. Still, disclosure needs to come early—within a date or two, certainly before anyone gets fucked—so the other person can bail if poly/kinky/poz is a deal breaker.

As for that new relationship energy stuff . . .

“There are, in truth, polyamorous people who are NRE junkies,” said Veaux.

“Men and women who chase new relationships in pursuit of that emotional fix. They’re

not very common, but they do exist, and alas they tend to leave a lot of destruction in their wake.”

But your assumptions about how NRE works are wrong, SHAME. Seeing your partner in the throes of NRE doesn’t bring the primary couple closer together; it often places a strain on the relationship. Opening up a relationship can certainly save it (if openness is a better fit for both partners), but NRE isn’t a log the primary couple tosses on the emotional/erotic fire. It’s something a poly person experiences with a new partner, not something a poly person enjoys with an established one.

And there are lots of examples of long-term poly relationships out there—established triads, quads, quints— so your assumption about being discarded once NRE wears off is also off, SHAME. There are no guarantees, however. If this guy were single and looking for a monogamous relationship, you could nevertheless discover you’re not right for each other and wind up being discarded or doing the discarding yourself.

I’m going to give the final word to our guest expert . . .

“Having an avoidant attachment style complicates things, because one of the things that can go along with avoidant attachment is idealizing partners who are inaccessible or unavailable,” said Veaux. “That can make it harder to let go. But if you’re radically incompatible with the person you love, letting go is likely your only healthy choice. Good luck!” v Send letters to mail@ savagelove.net. Download the Savage Lovecast every Tuesday at savagelovecast. com. v @fakedansavage

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UPDATED Kirin J. Callinan 7/1, 9 PM, Empty Bottle, canceled INVSN 9/15, 7:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, canceled Zomboy 7/21-22, 8 PM, Concord Music Hall, 7/21 sold out, 7/22 added, 17+

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Appleseed Collective 9/8, 8:30 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn, on sale Fri 6/23, 11 AM Avett Brothers 11/9-11, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM Coronas 11/14, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM Coven 10/31, 8 PM, Metro, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM, 18+ Doom 8/19, 8 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 18+ Experimental Sound Studio Gala with Tortoise; Helen Gillet & Kim Alpert; TALsounds; Jeff Parker, Ben LaMar Gay, and Tomeka Reid 7/22, 7 PM, Constellation, 18+ Luis Fonsi 9/26, 8 PM, Rosemont Theater, Rosemont, on sale Thu 6/22, 10 AM Ruthie Foster 9/14, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 6/22, noon b Nils Frahm 3/24-25, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, on sale Fri 6/23, 11 AM, 17+ Art Garfunkel 9/11-12, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 6/22, noon b Gente De Zona 9/2, 6:30 PM, Concord Music Hall, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM b Rhiannon Giddens 9/22, 8 PM, the Vic, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM Goddamn Gallows 7/22, 7:30 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Goldlink 10/8, 7 PM, Metro, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM b Jackie Greene & Anders Osborne 11/4, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 6/22, noon and 11/5, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 6/23, noon b Hod 8/26, 8 PM, Cobra Lounge, 18+

Hoops 9/14, 9 PM, Empty Bottle, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM Hundred Waters 9/30, 9 PM, Empty Bottle, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM Hyde Park Jazz Festival with Andrew Cyrille & Bill McHenry, Anima Claudine Myers, Jeremy Pelt Quintet, Joe Locke & Warren Wolf, and more 9/23-24, various venues J Rocc & Karriem Riggins, Peanut Butter Wolf 8/26, 9 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Jamaican Queens 8/25, 9 PM, Empty Bottle, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM Joey Purp 7/15, 11 PM, Bottom Lounge, 18+ Kacey Johansing 7/30, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Juvenile 7/3, 7 PM, Portage Theater Kasabian 9/19, 8:30 PM, House of Blues, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM, 17+ Stephen Kellogg, Emily Hearn 10/6, 6:45 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM b King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard 9/24-25, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM Alison Krauss, David Gray 10/5, 7:30 PM, Rosemont Theater, Rosemont, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM Living Colour 9/3, 6 and 9 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 6/22, noon b Living End 8/31, 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, on sale Fri 6/23, 8 AM, 17+ Lorde 3/27, 7 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM Luna 11/2, 8 PM, Park West, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM, 18+ Janiva Magness 8/16, 8 PM, Wire, Berwyn Max 10/29, 7 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM b

78 CHICAGO READER - JUNE 22, 2017

Andy Mineo 10/14, 7 PM, House of Blues, on sale Mon 6/26, 10 AM b Thomas Nicholas Band 8/18, 8 PM, Wire, Berwyn, 18+ Daniel Norgren 10/3, 8 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM A Perfect Circle 11/24, 8 PM, UIC Pavilion, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM Picture This 9/16, 8 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM b A Place Both Wonderful and Strange, Panda Riot 8/20, 9 PM, Empty Bottle, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM Push Stars 9/26, 8 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM Revolting Cocks 11/17, 9 PM, Metro, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM, 18+ Vic Ruggiero 8/24, 8 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Kevin Saunderson 7/14, 10 PM, Smart Bar 7 Minutes in Heaven 7/30, 6 PM, Wire, Berwyn b Amy Speace 9/21, 8:30 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn, on sale Fri 6/23, 11 AM Tiempo Libre 8/2, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 6/22, noon b Toadies, Local H 10/10, 9 PM, Metro, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM, 18+ Troyboi 9/29, 8 PM, Concord Music Hall, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM, 18+ Chad VanGaalen 12/2, 9 PM, Empty Bottle, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM Washed Out 8/25, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Chelsea Wolfe, Youth Code 10/24, 8 PM, Metro, 18+ Zedd 10/12, 8 PM, Aragon Ballroom, on sale Fri 6/23, 10 AM, 17+

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Mark Lanegan Band 8/22, 9 PM, Thalia Hall, 18+ Jonny Lang 9/23, 9 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Live, Shelters 8/4, 11 PM, Park West, 18+ Wynton Marsalis 10/13, 8 PM, Symphony Center Rhett Miller 7/9, 8 PM, City Winery b Dan Navarro 8/22, 7:30 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Neurosis, Converge, Amenra 7/28, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Of Montreal 9/14, 8 PM, Logan Square Auditorium, 18+ Over the Rhine 8/26-27, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Katy Perry 10/24-25, 7 PM, United Center Pixies, Mitski 10/8, 7:30 PM, Chicago Theatre Rancid, Dropkick Murphys, Bouncing Souls 8/8, 6:30 PM, Huntington Bank Pavilion Rocket Summer 8/12, 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Royal Headache 7/9, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Slow Dancer 9/29, 9 PM, Hideout Slowdive 11/5, 8 PM, the Vic, 18+ Stick Men 9/1, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Sun Kil Moon 10/3, 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Thou 7/3, 5 PM, Subterranean b Tiger & Woods 6/30, 10 PM, Smart Bar Torres 10/5, 8 PM, Subterranean UFO, Saxon 10/8, 6:30 PM, Concord Music Hall, 17+ Ultimate Painting 7/25, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Venom Inc., Goatwhore 9/8, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ War on Drugs 10/19, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Roger Waters 7/22, 8 PM and 7/28, 8 PM, United Center Waxahatchee, Cayetana 7/19, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ The Weeknd 11/2, 7:30 PM, United Center Whitney, Kevin Devine 8/3, 11 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Wire 9/16, 8 PM, Metro, 18+ Woods, John Andrews & the Yawns 7/10, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Young the Giant, Cold War Kids 9/9, 7 PM, Huntington Bank Pavilion Zeal & Ardor 8/22, 9 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Zola Jesus, John Wiese 10/8, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ v

GOSSIP WOLF A furry ear to the ground of the local music scene CHICAGO RAPPER and New Deal Crew leader Chris Crack was fairly prolific, averaging three major releases per year, till last June—that month he put out Troll Till They Fold and then fell silent. He didn’t return to releasing music till last week, when he uploaded Nobody Cares (Thanksforlettingmebemyself) to Soundcloud. He’s formatted the mixtape as a single 36-minute track, with no information to identify any of the songs or indicate when they begin or end. Crack says he wants everyone to digest the entire thing: “No skipping around and being picky.”

Last November, psychedelic Chicago six-piece Lovejoy dropped “Phoebe,” the power-poppy lead single from their new album, The Girl From the Crystal Cave— and Gossip Wolf still can’t get enough of their Strokes-meet-the-Flaming Lips chops! This week the band (and FeelTrip Records) finally release the finished LP in preparation for a nationwide tour in July.

On Friday, June 23, Lovejoy celebrate at Martyrs’ with soulful groovers the King of Mars and garage stompers Brisco Darling.

Also on Friday, June 23, Teklife footwork stunt man DJ Paypal swings through East Room with a couple producers who have releases on his Mall Music Inc. label— DJ Orange Julius and DJ Mastercard.

He’s also lined up some fine Chicago DJs to open, and among them, Gossip Wolf is particularly psyched to see Jana Rush.

She began spinning at age ten in the early 90s and soon became the only woman with a record on iconic ghetto-house label Dance Mania—a 1996 split with DJ Deeon called The Armagedon. For much of the 2000s, Rush withdrew from music, but over the past few years she’s reemerged, collaborating with Teklife producer Boylan and contributing a track to the 2016 compilation Beta Orionis from local label Deep Space Objects. Next month UK imprint Objects Limited releases Rush’s debut full-length, Pariah, and she’ll likely test out new tracks at Friday’s show!

—J.R. NELSON AND LEOR GALIL Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or e-mail gossipwolf@chicagoreader.com.

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JUNE 22, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 79

©2017 Goose Island Beer Co., Chicago, IL I Enjoy responsibly.