Chicago Reader: print issue of September 22, 2016 (Volume 45, Number 50)

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 | S E P T E M B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 6

The

BOLLYWOOD ROMANCE NOVELIST

In Sonali Dev’s books, IndianAmericans fall in love too.

By AIMEE LEVITT 17 Policing The rise and fall of CAPS 12 Visual Art Three ways to see Expo Chicago 26 Film Reeling looks back, and ahead. 27

Join us in celebration on Patti’s 70th birthday!

Patti Smith

and her band perform Horses

Friday, December 30 Riviera Theatre

4746 North Racine / rivieratheatre.com Tickets on sale at JAMUSA.COM

®

2 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

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THIS WEEK

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

The rise and fall of CAPS

Chicago used to be at the vanguard of community policing. But more than two decades after the strategy was launched, CPD’s program is a shadow of its former self.

BY NISSA RHEE, MANNY RAMOS, AND ANDREA SALCEDO 12

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Sonali Dev’s Bollywood affairs

An Indian-American writer has become an unlikely star in the world of romance novels.

BY AIMEE LEVITT 17

27 Movies LGBTQ film fest Reeling looks back, and ahead.

CITY LIFE

MUSIC

7 Street View Student Nikki Milan Houston channels 1970s style.

7 Transportation A plan to eliminate traffic deaths stirs concerns of profiling and overpolicing.

9 Joravsky | Politics Why’d CPS fire Troy LaRaviere? An activist sues to find out.

11 Identity & Culture A performance artist pushes Chicago to deregulate female breasts.

EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES Gapers Block (RIP) on September 19,

46 Jobs 46 Apartments & Spaces 48 Marketplace

the Reader’s 16-inch softball team capped off a storybook media-league season, finishing with a 9-3 record Cup, named for the late, legendary Chicago Sun-Times columnist Irv Kupcinet. The trophy currently sits in the Reader’s River North offices, sparkling with the majesty of victory happy to report no broken fingers were suffered in the making of this title. —KEVIN WARWICK, TEAM CAPTAIN

41 Restaurant review: El Che Bar John Manion brings the heat with his follow-up to La Sirena Clandestina.

45 Key Ingredient: Vital wheat gluten Johnny’s Grill chef Sarah Jordan makes a seitan chorizo that would please even nonvegetarians.

CLASSIFIEDS

WITH A CHAMPIONSHIP WIN over

and bringing home the coveted Kup

30 In Rotation Current musical obsessions include touring like a grown-up, Smoking Popes, and hating on the Grateful Dead.

32 Shows of note Angel Olsen, Gucci Mane, Ahh! Fest, Magnificent Coloring Day, and more

FOOD & DRINK

ARTS & CULTURE

and smelling of stale beer. And I’m ON THE COVER: PHOTO BY ADAM JASON COHEN. FOR MORE OF HIS WORK, GO TO ADAMJASONCOHEN.PHOTO.

4 Agenda Hypocrites season opener You on the Moors Now, stand-up comedian Aparna Nancherla, Noam Chomsky, The Magnificent Seven remake, and more recommendations

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26 Visual Art Three strategies for embarking on the behemoth art fair Expo Chicago.

NEWS

EDITOR JAKE MALOOLEY CREATIVE DIRECTOR PAUL JOHN HIGGINS DEPUTY EDITOR, NEWS ROBIN AMER CULTURE EDITOR TAL ROSENBERG DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY DANIELLE A. SCRUGGS FILM EDITOR J.R. JONES MUSIC EDITOR PHILIP MONTORO ASSOCIATE EDITORS KATE SCHMIDT, KEVIN WARWICK, BRIANNA WELLEN SENIOR WRITERS STEVE BOGIRA, MICHAEL MINER, MIKE SULA SENIOR THEATER CRITIC TONY ADLER STAFF WRITERS 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 EDITORIAL ASSISTANT CASSIDY RYAN CONTRIBUTING WRITERS NOAH BERLATSKY, DERRICK CLIFTON, MATT DE LA PEÑA, MAYA DUKMASOVA, ANNE FORD, ISA GIALLORENZO, JOHN GREENFIELD, JUSTIN HAYFORD, JACK HELBIG, DAN JAKES, BILL MEYER, J.R. NELSON, MARISSA OBERLANDER, LEAH PICKETT, DMITRY SAMAROV, KATE SIERZPUTOWSKI, DAVID WHITEIS, ALBERT WILLIAMS INTERNS SARA COHEN VICE PRESIDENT OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT NICKI HOLTZMANN VICE PRESIDENT OF NEW MEDIA GUADALUPE CARRANZA SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER EVANGELINE MILLER ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES FABIO CAVALIERI, ARIANA DIAZ, BRIDGET KANE MARKETING AND EVENTS MANAGER BRYAN BURDA DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL JOHN DUNLEVY ADVERTISING COORDINATOR HERMINIA BATTAGLIA CLASSIFIEDS REPRESENTATIVE KRIS DODD

IN THIS ISSUE

FEATURES

23 Theater A dispute seems to have galvanized Porchlight’s In the Heights.

23 Theater Lookingglass’s Uncle Vanya adaptation, Life Sucks, doesn’t.

24 Theater The Goodman’s Wonderful Town is something less than wonderful.

25 Comedy Literary works inspire the improvisers of Fictitious at iO.

48 Straight Dope Are dogs and cats discerning eaters?

49 Savage Love No vasectomy, no more open marriage?

50 Early Warnings Ashanti, Ariana Grande, Nobunny, Slaughter & the Dogs, and more upcoming shows 50 Gossip Wolf Rainbo hosts a musician-heavy art exhibit dishonoring Trump, and more music news.

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Agnes of God Played with depth, nuance, and a whole lot of heart by Lisa McConnell, Dr. Martha Livingstone, the central storyteller in this brilliantly acted two-hour drama from Aleatoric Theatre Company, says, “I believe in the existence of an alternate last reel.” But a happy ending never materializes. The same holds true of her encounters with Sister Agnes (Courtney Stennett) and the Mother Superior (Joette Waters).

Agnes is accused of killing her newborn child, whose father remains the ultimate mystery, and Dr. Livingstone is appointed by the court to determine her sanity. Mother Superior calls Agnes an innocent, but she’s not an enigma, and unraveling her psyche raises more questions about God, faith, and miracles than the doctor could have imagined. —MARISSA OBERLANDER Through 9/24: Fri-Sat 7 PM, Heartland Studio Theatre, 7016 N. Glenwood, 773791-2393, aleatorictheatre.com, $20.

Carroll Gardens Set in the gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood of the title, A. Zell Williams’s play concerns Davis, a rising young African-American screenwriter who specializes in gritty urban dramas. The irony: his current life with a white GF who’s a foodie and Pilates instructor couldn’t be less like the world he writes about. Enter his childhood BFF Robbie, a white, loudly self-righteous pot dealer come to either save Davis’s artistic soul or harsh his mellow.

The play raises interesting, important questions about integrity and cultural authenticity, but ultimately dodges them in favor of easier lessons about relationships (be nice, listen) and business (it doesn’t mix well with friendship).

Director Ann Filmer’s fine ensemble is stronger than the script; Gregory Geffrard shows considerable range as the play’s conflicted protagonist, as does Minita Gandhi as the sharp-eyed wife of a film professor/wannabe producer.

—JACK HELBIG Through 10/15: Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 4 and 8 PM, 16th Street Theater, Berwyn Cultural Center, 6420

16th, Berwyn, 708-795-6704, 16thstreettheater.org, $20.

The Feast Celine Song’s drama, presented by Red Theater, imagines an uncomfortable dinner party set during the “postmeat apocalypse.” Somehow every cow, chicken, and pig in the world is dead; a butler (Pavi Proczco, magnificent clown) pours wine for the hostess and her guests as if nothing had happened, but tomorrow and possibly every day thereafter will be baconless.

As the meal devolves into mayhem, the play begins to pluck some queasy questions from the air. In a moment of world-historical turmoil, with omnipresent dread smothering everything one might still have held on to of privileged middle-class happiness under an atmosphere of death, what if, suddenly, there were no meat? Might this be enough to induce serious thoughts of cannibalism?

The last 15 minutes of this piece are wasted on a long monologue about how we’re really all just flesh and bone, but while we remain inside the question, Feast is delicious. —MAX MALLER Through 10/15: Thu-Sun 7:30 PM; also Mon 10/3, 7:30 PM, Den Theatre, 13291333 N. Milwaukee, 773-609-2336, redtheater.org, $15 suggested donation. F Grizzly Mama The middle-aged daughter of a famous feminist, Deb has decided to prove herself worthy of mom’s legacy by assassinating Patti Turnbeck, an Alaska politician exactly like Sarah Palin. She therefore rents a house right next to Turnbeck’s and makes it her war room. As staged by Megan Carney, the first act of George Brant’s script is played for sitcom-style laughs. Tara Mallen’s Deb is a dim-bulb sad sack who wrecks smartphones when she isn’t screwing up a murder attempt. Her teen daughter, Hannah (Taylor Blim), texts so obsessively that she doesn’t notice when Deb slips a gas mask over her face.

The second act turns tragic, though, requiring Hannah in particular to exhibit characteristics that were never even hinted at earlier on. It doesn’t work.

The climax comes off as an absurd non sequitur. —TONY ADLER Through 10/15: Thu-Fri 8 PM, Sat 4 and 8 PM, Rivendell Theatre, 5775 N. Ridge, 773-334-7728, rivendelltheatre.org, $22-$32.

five young, aimless Stockholm residents and one middle-aged rich guy become ensnared in increasingly dire romantic, familiar, and domestic entanglements until they’re all unlikely roommates in a one-room apartment—as madcap.

But Fredén’s philosophical musings on the nature of desire, ambition, and autonomy, as well as her beguilingly porous logic, make the two-plus hours semihypnotically droll. Director Breahan Eve Pautsch cagily exploits the humor and dread inherent in the play’s elusive tone, aided by her cast’s sophisticated performances (as the ultimately self-absorbed burnout Alan, Jae K. Renfrow delivers the evening’s funniest and most harrowing moments). Akvavit artistic director Chad Eric Bergman provides the fleet English translation as well as the crafty scenic design. —JUSTIN HAYFORD Through 10/16: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, Den Theatre, 1329-1333 N. Milwaukee, 773-609-2336, akvavittheatre.org, $20, students and seniors $15.

Julius Caesar Cell phones are already the bane of theater house managers’ existence, but they’re increasingly causing headaches for directors and adapters, too. Take the self-inflicted ones in this one-act Julius Caesar at Writers Theatre. Interspersed with the eulogy for Caesar given by Marc Antony (Thomas Vincent Kelly, projecting some humanity in an otherwise scowling/stoic universe), Romans incite action via their thumbs: “#Revenge” “#OccupyRome” “#MakeRomeGreatAgain!” Michael Halberstam and Scott Parkinson’s production takes such broad swings at technological and political salience that it becomes a choose-your-own-allegory affair. Operatic blocking and brutalist scenic design inspire at least one truly stunning Fritz Lang-style image; the rest of the time, the charcoal costumes and set of massive gray slabs of concrete serve as unfortunate visual reminders of the action, which is lumbering even at just 100 minutes. —DAN JAKES Through 10/16: Wed 3 and 7:30 PM, Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 7:30 PM, Sun 2 PM; also Sun 9/18, 10/19, and 10/16, 6 PM, Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Ct., Glencoe, 847-242-6000, writerstheatre.org, $50-$80.

Misalliance George Bernard R Shaw’s 1909 play—a quirky combination of intellectual debate

and screwball romantic comedy—is presented in a readers’ theater format

by ShawChicago, with top-notch actors delivering the vibrant dialogue from music stands. The “misalliance” of the title is the anticipated marriage of Hypatia Tarleton, rebellious daughter of a nouveau riche underwear manufacturer, to the spoiled son of a nobleman.

Dissatisfied with conventional courtship, Hypatia longs for adventure to drop out of the sky—which it does, when a small “aeroplane” crash-lands onto the Tarletons’ country estate. Hypatia takes an immediate liking to the handsome young pilot, while her (married) father falls for the plane’s passenger, a dashing female daredevil who embodies Shaw’s vision of the independent “New Woman” of the future. Misalliance is rarely given a full production these days; this well-spoken concert reading is an excellent opportunity to savor the script’s bristling wit. —ALBERT WILLIAMS Through 10/10: Sat-Sun 2 PM, Mon 7 PM (except 9/18, 2 PM), Ruth Page Center for the Arts, 1016 N. Dearborn, 312-337-6543, shawchicago. org, $35, seniors $30, students $24.

Parachute Men The men at the R center of Mando Alvarado’s dark domestic comedy make Eugene O’Neill’s

family look like the Cleavers. Five years after losing his mother to depression, an antisocial slob and compulsive masturbator moves in with his authoritarian brother and his stepfather, a former heroin addict. Together the three men work both with and against each other in an attempt to care for their autistic 21-year-old sibling and stepson (Tommy Rivera-Vega). Dramaturgically, Alvarado’s story is a bit of a mess, but it’s venturesome and truthful enough to be a good, if peculiar, kind of mess. Directed by Ricardo Gutiérrez, this Teatro Vista production features some fascinating and heartfelt scene work that goes beyond the usual antihero conventions, even if its parts are greater than its sum. —DAN JAKES Through 10/16: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln, 773-871-3000, teatrovista.org, $20-$30. on the Moors Now The R You tranquil moorland, home to the

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

Brontë sisters, serves as backdrop for this battle royale between prominent heroines of 19th-century lit and their equally famous gentleman callers.

Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, Emily’s Cathy Earnshaw (Wuthering Heights), Lizzy Bennet (Pride and Prejudice), and from across the pond, Louisa May Alcott’s Jo March (Little Women) set conventionalism ablaze when they—what else?—turn down marriage proposals. That leaves their heartbroken suitors Mr. Rochester, Heathcliff, Mr. Darcy, and Theodore “Laurie” Laurence with just one choice: fight. Playwright Jaclyn Backhaus’s Chicago debut is irrepressibly charming through most of its two-hour length, though some aspects, like the climactic fight scene, verge on overkill. Director Devon de Mayo’s tender touch is also evident here, which helps make the Hypocrites’ season opener a winner.

—MATT DE LA PEÑA Through 10/30: Fridays-Sundays, Den Theatre, 1329-1333 N. Milwaukee, 773-609-2336, the-hypocrites. com, $36.

DANCE

COMEDY

FackBuddies and Den Friends R A long-form improv show created

by Dina Facklis. 9/27-11/15: Tue 8:30 PM, iO Theater, 1501 N. Kingsbury, ioimprov. com/chicago, $12.

LIT R

Noam Chomsky Haymarket Books presents the author, linguist, and political activist discussing U.S. foreign policy and its relationship to U.S. domestic policy. Mon 9/26, 6:30 PM, Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, University of Chicago, 5850 S. Woodlawn, 773-7028069, haymarketbooks.org, $5, RSVP required.

Dina Facklis o FACEBOOK

Aparna Nancherla On Just R Putting It Out There, Nancherla’s debut stand-up album released in July,

o KRISTIE KAHNS

the charming comic does what the title promises. She starts each joke as if she accidentally walked in front of a microphone, then proceeds to drop dry, observational one-liners. “Apparently women’s magazines are written by spambots who want more from life,” she says, pausing to let the concept sink in, then moving on to the next thought she wants out in the world. Tue 9/27, 8:30 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, 773-227-4433, hideoutchicago.com, $12-$20.

Harvest Chicago ContempoR rary Dance Festival 2016 For seven years this curated dance fest,

produced by Melissa Mallinson and Nicole Gifford, has proved to be one of the more eclectic offerings of the fall season: two different programs split over two weekends, designed to showcase a multitude of artists within a relatively short time frame. And like most harvests, this year’s yields a mixed bag of goods, some more ripe than others.

Memorable performances of the first weekend included Joshua Blake Carter’s high-octane Fracture for the members of Giordano II and Grid, a skillful duet choreographed by former BalletMet dancer Shaun Boyle. Those who attend the second weekend won’t be seeing either piece, but the beauty of the Harvest Fest has always been the promise of tomorrow. Two local companies to keep an eye on: Ariel Dance Chicago and Same Planet Different World Dance Theatre. —MATT DE LA PEÑA Through 9/24: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Ruth Page Center for the Arts, 1016 N. Dearborn, 312-337-6543, hccdf.com, $25.

keynote speaker Joel-Peter Witkin discussing his work at Columbia College Chicago (618 S. Michigan) on Thu 9/22 at 7 PM and continues with a weekend of workshops, exhibits, and portfolio reviews at galleries across the city. 9/229/25. Various locations, filterfestival.com.

R

The Steezus Tour Comic Steven King’s full-length parody of Kanye West’s tour for Life of Pablo, featuring guests Andy Fleming, Joe Alden McMahon, Fran Hoepfner, and Kristen Toomey.

Wed 9/28, 9 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, 773-227-4433, hideoutchicago. com, $5.

VISUAL ARTS Jackson Junge Gallery “In the Corner of a Round Room,” a group exhibition inspired by freak shows dating back to the 16th century. Opening reception Fri 9/23, 6-10 PM. 9/23-10/30. Tue-Fri 10-7, Sat 10-6, Sun noon-5 PM. 1389 N. Milwaukee, 773-227-7900, j2gallery.com.

Hillary Clinton’s Faux Feminism R In These Times hosts this panel discussion featuring Liza Featherstone, Doug Henwood (My Turn: Hillary Clinton Takes Aim at the Presidency), and Yasmin Nair and Kathleen Geier, contributors to False Choices. Sat 9/24, 4 PM, Women & Children First, 5233 N. Clark, 773-769-9299, womenandchildrenfirst.com.

Stacy Schiff The author discussR es her book The Witches: Salem, 1692. Thu 9/22, 6 PM, Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton, 312-255-3700, newberry. org.

MOVIES

More at chicagoreader.com/movies NEW REVIEWS Bridget Jones’s Baby The bumbling English journalist and reluctant “spinster” of Helen Fielding’s popular novels, gamely played by Renée Zellwegger in two previous film adaptations, returns for a third installment that attempts to recapture the charm of the first (2001) but, much like the second (2004), is only a sour facsimile. Now 43, the heroine finds herself in another love triangle, with the perennial Mr. Darcy (Colin Firth) and hunky Option Two (Patrick Dempsey), except this time she gets

BEFORE

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pregnant and can’t figure out which dreamboat is the father. Fielding and fellow screenwriters Dan Mazer and Emma Thompson expect us to believe that neither man would ask for a paternity test, that the nervous protagonist would shrug off the whole matter, and that the unlikely threesome would forge ahead to birthing classes. Sharon Maguire directed; with Thompson and Jim Broadbent. —LEAH PICKETT R, 122 min. Century 12 and CineArts 6, Cicero Showplace 14, Crown Village 18, Ford City, Lake, River East 21, Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings The Dressmaker Kate Winslet stars as a seething woman who returns to her Australian hometown after 25 years in exile, takes the place by storm as a designer of chic dresses, and plots her revenge against the people who cast her out.

The movie was adapted from a novel

by Rosalie Ham, but the characters are so broad and goony they seem to have stepped out of an E.C. Segar comic strip. Judy Davis rants and raves as the heroine’s dried-up old mama, and Hugo Weaving plays a stiff-necked constable with a secret penchant for women’s clothing. The leaden comedy eventually gives way to histrionic anguish, though the movie is so emotionally garbled you may not notice any difference.

Jocelyn Moorhouse directed; with Liam Hemsworth and Sarah Snook. —J.R. JONES R, 118 min. Century 12 and CineArts 6, River East 21 For the Love of Spock Adam Nimoy created this documentary to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, but after his father, Leonard Nimoy, died in 2015, he widened the movie’s scope to include the actor’s private life as well.

Leonard comes off as a feverishly ambitious man who allowed his sudden stardom as Mr. Spock to swamp his family life and would spend the rest of his days reckoning with the cultural impact of the character he’d created. Adam clearly lacked the perspective required to contain the story, which lurches into W

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Smart Museum of Art “There Was a Whole Collection Made: Photography From Lester and Betty Guttman,” a collection of more than 300 works curated by photographer Laura Letinsky.

Opening reception Wed 9/28, 7-8:30 PM. 9/22-12/30. Tue-Fri 10 AM-4 PM (Thu till 8 PM), Sat-Sun 11 AM-5 PM. University of Chicago, 5550 S. Greenwood, 773-7020200, smartmuseum.uchicago.edu.

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B all sorts of odd and personal digressions, but as a celebration of the original 1966-’69 series this is first-rate, with telling reminiscences from the surviving players (William Shatner, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, George Takei) and insightful commentary from the young actors who have since inherited the show’s characters (Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg). —J.R. JONES 112 min.

Adam Nimoy appears via Skype at the Saturday evening screening. Fri 9/23, 6 PM; Sat 9/24, 1 and 7:45 PM; Sun 9/25, 3 PM; Mon 9/26, 6 PM; Tue 9/27, 8:15 PM; Wed 9/28, 6 PM; and Thu 9/29, 8:15 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan R Hero In this broad satire, the title character (Maz Jobrani) wins a

green-card lottery and immigrates from Iran to Los Angeles with his overprotective mother to pursue his dream of becoming an American cop like Steve McQueen in the movie Bullitt. Instead he becomes a security guard at a Persian grocery store and, after meeting a corrupt arms dealer, the unwitting participant in a conspiracy to start World War III. In the style of Borat, director Jonathan Kesselman and cowriters Jobrani and Amir Ohebsion use raunchy, puerile humor to jab at American prejudices toward the Middle East (Jimmy is immediately identified as a jihadist by cable channel Kox News), and the Iranian hero, though absurdly naive, is quite likable—a rarity in American media. —LEAH PICKETT 84 min. Jobrani performs and takes questions at the Sunday screenings; tickets for these shows are $25. Fri 9/23, 8:30 PM; Sat 9/24, 3:15 PM; Sun 9/25, 5:15 and 7:45 PM; Mon 9/26, 8:15 PM; Wed 9/28, 8:15 PM; and Thu 9/29, 6:15 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center Kicks Set in East Bay, California, this drama by writer-diirector Justin Tipping operates on the premise that a cool pair of shoes, or “kicks,” can buy one social influence and respect. A small, bullied 15-yearold (Jahking Guillory) craves this

power, so he buys a pair of redand-black Air Jordan 1’s out of a van (“Shoe game is everything in this world,” the seller confirms), only to have a gang jump him the next day and swipe the shoes.

Undeterred, the boy heads to Oakland with his two best friends to track down the top gangster (Kofi Siriboe, excellent) who stole his J’s. Tipping applies a visceral, operatic style to the hero’s journey, using intertitles with the names of rap songs to telegraph the nature of the ensuing action. The motif of a faceless, imaginary spaceman following the boy around is overly precious, but what does work is Tipping’s focus on sensitive boys hardening in reaction to their father figures (or lack thereof).

—LEAH PICKETT R, 84 min. River East 21 The Magnificent Seven R Director Antoine Fuqua proves that the western is far from

dead with this rousing update of John Sturges’s 1960 classic (itself adapted from Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai). Denzel Washington plays the unflappable leader of a ragtag, ethnically diverse band of gunslingers (Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, ByungHun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier) hired to protect a frontier town from a predatory capitalist and venal lawmen.

Cinematographer Mauro Fiore makes ample use of New Mexico’s mountains and buttes in his widescreen frames, and a score by Simon Franglen and James Horner rumbles ominously, like thunder on the plains. The only jarring element is Peter Sarsgaard, over-the-top as the megalomaniacal villain.

—ANDREA GRONVALL PG-13, 128 min. ArcLight Chicago, Century 12 and CineArts 6, Cicero Showplace 14, City North 14, Crown Village 18, Ford City, Landmark’s Century Centre, River East 21, Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings, Showplace ICON, Webster Place My Blind Brother Bill (Nick Kroll) lives in the shadow of his blind brother, Robbie (Adam Scott), who

spends his time running charity marathons and being interviewed on TV; by contrast, Bill’s life interests consist of watching television and feeling sorry for himself. After a one-night stand with Rose (Jenny Slate), Bill decides that he’s found his soul mate, but she winds up as Robbie’s girlfriend. None of the three is sympathetic in the least, and the jokes at the expense of the blind aren’t in bad enough taste to be funny. Zoe Kazan provides the only compelling moments as Rose’s roommate, who becomes Bill’s reluctant date, yet playing the normal one among such a group of narcissists is a thankless task.

Sophie Goodhart directed her own script. —DMITRY SAMAROV R, 90 min. Facets Cinematheque Queen of Katwe The R Walt Disney Company has given us a long line of uplifting

biographical sports dramas; what distinguishes this film about Ugandan chess player Phiona Mutesi is its complicated and colorful central setting: the Ugandan slum of Katwe, where Mutesi grew up. Director Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding), who has lived in Kampala, Uganda, for more than two decades, shot on location and employed locals to play almost every role—including the teenage lead, Madina Nalwanga, whom she discovered near Katwe. The kids may not be great actors, and their accented English can be difficult to understand, but their natural spirit and gumption are unteachable qualities that many Hollywood-trained children lack. David Oyelowo and Lupita Nyong’o are reliably superb in the critical supporting roles of Mutesi’s chess coach and young mother, respectively. —LEAH PICKETT PG, 124 min. Century 12 and CineArts 6, Landmark’s Century Centre, River East 21, Showplace ICON

The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger A collaborative effort by the Derek Jarman Film Lab, these four shorts examine the life and work of the English writer, painter, and art critic John Berger. The first, Colin MacCabe’s “Ways of Listening,” is the most evocative: actor Tilda Swinton, a longtime friend and creative partner to Berger, visits him at his Alpine village home during Christmastime, and they warmly swap insights into art. Christopher Roth’s “Spring” is affected and thus less affecting, and MacCabe and Bartek Dziadosz’s “A Song for Politics” awkwardly disconnects from the seasonal theme. The autumnal fourth film, directed by Swinton and fittingly titled “Harvest,” returns to the easy eloquence of the first and concludes the collection on a joyful note. This might have worked better as a more cohesive documentary. —LEAH PICKETT 90 min.

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CITY LIFE TRANSPORTATION

A plan to eliminate traffic deaths stirs concerns of profiling and overpolicing

By JOHN GREENFIELD

o ISA GIALLORENZO

I Street View

Groovy, baby “I LOVE THE 70S,” Nikki Milan Houston says, as if it weren’t obvious. A fan of blaxploitation films and Jane Birkin, the 18-year-old recently moved from a small beach town in California to study directing and screenwriting at Columbia College. “Between the perfect bell-bottoms, loafers, fur coats, and minidresses, [Birkin] has the exact effortless look that I’ve always admired,” she says. “Also, I have to throw in the Austin Powers costume designers as a huge inspiration.”

—ISA GIALLORENZO See more Chicago street style on chicagolooks.blogspot.com.

n May 2012 the Chicago Department of Transportation released its “Chicago Forward” agenda, including the stated goal of eliminating all traffic deaths by 2022. That target was inspired by the international Vision Zero movement, which began in Sweden in 1997. It’s based on the notion that road fatalities and serious injuries aren’t simply unavoidable “accidents” but rather outcomes that can be prevented through engineering, education, and enforcement.

In recent years the Vision Zero movement has spread to many major U.S. cities, most notably New York, where Mayor Bill de Blasio has made it a hallmark of his administration.

But it wasn’t until earlier this month that Chicago announced a formal Vision Zero initiative, starting with a three-year interdepartmental action plan slated for release this fall. The deadline for reaching zero traffic deaths and serious injuries has been pushed back to 2026.

“Every day someone is injured or worse as the result of a car crash on Chicago’s streets—and that is simply unacceptable,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a statement.

“These crashes are preventable, and that is why we are stepping up our efforts.”

Local transportation advocates like the Active Transportation Alliance applauded the news. After all, the city of New York has reported that between 2014 and 2015 there was a reduction in all traffic fatalities by 22

percent, with a 27 percent drop in pedestrian deaths (although this summer pedestrian fatalities spiked in NYC).

But it seems likely the devil will be in the details when it comes to ensuring Chicago’s safety program is a net positive for all residents, particularly those in low- to moderate-income communities of color.

In these neighborhoods, increased traffic enforcement—especially ticketing for minor infractions a la the “broken windows” theory—may not necessarily be seen as a good thing. Significantly, several high-profile police-involved deaths of African-Americans across the country began with traffic enforcement stops. Michael Brown was detained for walking in the street, Sandra Bland was arrested after failing to signal a lane change, and Philando Castile was pulled over partly due to a broken taillight. While behind the wheel, Castile had been stopped by police 46 times in 13 years, according to an NPR records analysis.

“One of the pillars of Vision Zero is increasing opportunities for police to apply their biases to street users, aka increased enforcement of traffic laws,” LA-based transportation consultant and anthropologist Adonia Lugo wrote last year in a widely shared blog post titled “Unsolicited Advice for Vision Zero.” “White people may look to police as allies in making streets safer; people of color may not.”

Lugo also argued that that Vision Zero is an overly top-down approach rather than one driven by the community, and yet another example of U.S. transportation advocates—who usually look to cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen for best practices—exhibiting “Eurocentric thinking.”

Transportation equity consultant Naomi Doerner echoed some of those concerns in a recent interview with Streetsblog USA. “If we’re going to be giving more investment to police enforcement, it has to be communities telling police how and where and what,” said the former head of the New Orleans advocacy group Bike Easy. “This particular Vision Zero analysis had not been done by the advocacy community. I think that a lot of that really does have to do with the fact that a lot of the organized bike and walk community are not comprised of people of color.”

And rolling out Vision Zero in Chicago may well be complicated by the fact that our gun-violence epidemic is arguably a much more urgent issue than traffic deaths. New York had about 330 homicides and 230 traffic fatalities in 2015; Chicago, with less than a third of the population of New York, had 491 homicides last year but averaged only about 110 traffic fatalities per year between 2010 and 2014 (the latest for which the Illinois Department of Transportation has released crash data). There have already been more than 3,000 people shot in Chicago this J

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

SURE THINGS THURSDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

SUNDAY

MONDAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

♀ Her Sto r y Is Ou r Sto r y Artemisia Theatre hosts its annual festival of feminist plays. This year’s lineup features six new works including Inda Craig-Galván’s Black Super Magic Mama and Traci Godfrey’s Sweet Texas Reckoning. 9/22-10/1: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, the Edge Theater, 5451 N. Broadway, artemisiatheatre.org. F

◎ B ad Axe Th rowing Open House The city’s new (and only) ax-throwing center celebrates its opening by offering a chance to try out the sport for free. Axes are provided, but you can bring your own food and drink. 9/23-9/25: Fri 6-11 PM, Sat 2-11 PM, Sun 2-8 PM, Bad Axe Throwing, 165 N. Loomis, badaxethrowing.com. F

ò Pig, Sw ig, and Re co rd D i g Shop for LPs and CDs from local record stores—such as Bucket o’ Blood, Reckless, and Saki— while enjoying music by DJs Lady Lea and Doug Hall, beer from Anchor Brewing, and a whole suckling pig. Noon-4 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, lh-st.com. F

& Vegan Vo rtex Paper Moon Pastry and Bake and Destroy host this pop-up market featuring all the vegan and cruelty-free snacks, clothing, and bath products you could ask for. There’s also live music, a Bloody Mary bar, and tarot readings. 11 AM-3 PM, LAMA Chicago HQ, 3519 W. Fullerton, facebook.com/ monthlyveganmarket. F

× Lincoln Lodge St arts a Revolution This fund-raiser for the Lincoln Lodge features performances from Michelle L’amour, pro wrestler Colt Cabana, rapping violinist Amanda Bailey, and stand-up Aparna Nancherla.

7 PM, Revolution Brewing Company, 2323 N. Milwaukee, 773-227-2739, thelincolnlodge. com, $30.

Th e Gi rl Talk Jen Sabella and Erika Wozniak host this all-female talk show, highlighting amazing women doing amazing things in Chicago. This month’s guest is outspoken CTU president Karen Lewis. 6:30 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, hideoutchicago.com, $5.

☼ D i sco at Dawn Daybreaker hosts this daytime gathering featuring sunrise yoga followed by a dance party. 5:30-8:30 AM, Savage Smythe, 920 N. Franklin, daybreaker.com/city/chi, $20-$35.

SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 7

CITY LIFE

year and over 500 homicides—more than New York and LA combined. As such, it’s likely that some residents may feel that channeling city resources into preventing traffic deaths rather than homicides is misguided.

CDOT spokesman Mike Claffey says the city’s Vision Zero efforts—including enforcement, but also safety infrastructure and educational outreach—will in fact be concentrated in the communities that are disproportionately impacted by severe crashes, largely low- to moderate-income neighborhoods on the south and west sides.

“A preliminary analysis performed by the Chicago Department of Public Health revealed disparities in traffic fatalities by race and economic hardship,” Claffey says. “The study found Chicagoans facing high economic hardship suffer a traffic fatality rate nearly twice as high as those facing low economic hardship.”

But he also promises that the upcoming action plan will be informed by community input. “Vision Zero will not be a top-down program, but will feature extensive public engagement with the goal of working with high-crash communities across the economic spectrum to develop the most effective strategies for reducing crashes in each community.”

Police spokesman Frank Giancamilli also says that the city’s Vision Zero initiative will be community driven. “The plan builds upon the work officers are doing every day to improve traffic safety through sensible traffic enforcement,” he says. “We are committed to fostering strong partnerships with residents and other key stakeholders to ensure the safety of motorists and pedestrians.”

“I haven’t heard much about Vision Zero-related racial profiling in New York,” says Veronica Vanterpool, director of the TriState Transportation Campaign, one of the groups advocating for the movement in that city. Instead, she says, most of the complaints have been about police disproportionately ticketing people on bikes while failing to cite motorists for dangerous behaviors such as speeding, red-light running, and intoxicated or distracted driving.

Vanterpool adds that she believes New York’s use of traffic enforcement cameras helps reduce incidences of profiling. “It’s less biased to have cameras issuing the tickets as opposed to a police officer,” she says. “The cameras are not biased—they are reporting behavior.”

She rejects the notion that the U.S. movement is “dominated by white men’s views,” as Lugo tweeted last year, at least in New York.

8 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

Ô BOBBY SIMS

Transportation continued from 7

“I am a woman of color, and I lead an organization that is promoting Vision Zero,” Vanterpool says. “There’s also a very strong and powerful coalition in New York called Families for Safe Streets.” That group is made up of survivors of traffic violence and families whose loved ones have been severely injured or killed by reckless drivers. “It’s a very diverse coalition of people.”

I asked Vanterpool if she had advice on how Chicago should approach Vision Zero in light of our homicide crisis. “The movement is about making streets safer so we’re using them more, which will help reduce crime,” she says. “It’s like Jane Jacobs always said, ‘Eyes on the street.’ This isn’t just a transportation issue, it’s a health, economic development, public safety, and environmental issue. The sooner you have all those players in place, the stronger your rollout will be.”

Accordingly, in addition to CDOT and the CPD, agencies participating in Chicago’s Vision Zero plan include the CTA, Public Health, Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, Innovation and Technology, and other city departments.

Like Vanterpool, Kyle Whitehead of the Active Transportation Alliance argues that Vision Zero can complement rather than distract from efforts to reduce homicides in communities that are disproportionately affected by homicides as well as traffic violence. “This goal shouldn’t take away from efforts to address

other challenges these communities are facing, including gun violence,” he says. “It’s another aspect of community health, and safer streets can lead to progress on many other issues.”

Jacky Grimshaw of Chicago’s Center for Neighborhood Technology endorses Vision Zero’s goal but argues that the city needs to adopt a similar no-tolerance plan for gun violence. “The homicide problem is our number one health issue at this time,” she says. “Vision Zero addresses preventable deaths [due to traffic], but we do not seem to have a strategy for preventable deaths due to homicide. We need one.”

Ronnie Matthew Harris, who leads the south-side transportation advocacy group Go Bronzeville, says it would be understandable if some Chicagoans become concerned about Vision Zero leading to overpolicing, given the many historic and recent examples of biased enforcement in our city. “But it behooves LMI communities of color to see Vision Zero as an opportunity to augment efforts to address the more pressing problem of gun violence in Chicago,” he says. “Vision Zero is a chance for these communities and the various city agencies involved to improve government transparency—leading to more communication and collaboration, and a collective impact towards creating a more flourishing city.”

Romina Castillo, who works at the Coalition to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children and volunteers with the bike equity group Slow Roll

Chicago, believes Chicago’s neighborhoods of color will welcome new safety infrastructure and open space, but agrees that community input will be crucial. “I am interested to see what Vision Zero proposes in regards to an overarching plan with equity being the driving force behind all decisions, based on an integrated participatory outreach process where the priorities of communities take precedent over engineering studies.”

Alex Wilson, who runs the Humboldt Parkbased cycling education center West Town Bikes, said last week that Chicago’s target of zero traffic fatalities by 2026 is “a fantastic goal.” But he added that the city will need to be sensitive to the fact that many people in communities like Humboldt view gun violence as a much more urgent problem than traffic safety.

“Just last weekend,” he noted, “someone was killed in a gang-related shooting at Division and Maplewood [a block west of the center].”

While none of the thousands of at-risk young people Wilson has worked with at West Town in the last decade have been killed or seriously injured by motor vehicles while participating in West Town rides (he says three have gone to the emergency room), a student did lose his life to gun violence.

In 2009, youth apprentice Chris Lander, 21, was shot in front of his Humboldt Park home in what Wilson says was a case of mistaken identity. And just this summer a male student was grazed by a bullet intended for someone else when he visited a local park outside of WTB program hours, according to Wilson.

The vast majority of local youth who participate in West Town’s bike handling and mechanics classes are black and Latino, Wilson says.

“Quite often they won’t be afraid to ride their bikes on a road with dangerous traffic, but they will avoid streets where they feel they may be in danger from gun violence. I’m really interested: Will Vision Zero just cover traffic fatalities or will it address the way transportation choices are affected by other safety concerns?”

Hopefully city officials won’t simply pay lip service to creating a culturally relevant Vision Zero initiative, but will prioritize recruiting people from diverse backgrounds to manage the program and provide input. Putting their money where their mouths are will show they believe that, when it comes to preventing traffic deaths as well as homicides, brown and black lives matter. v

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

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CPS chief education officer Janice Jackson, center, couldn’t tell parents why the district fired principal Troy LaRaviere in April. o BRIAN JACKSON/SUN-TIMES MEDIA

POLITICS

Tales out of school

Why’d CPS fire Troy LaRaviere? An activist sues to find out.

By BEN JORAVSKY

B

ack in April, a north-side resident named Nick Burt filed a public records request with Chicago Public Schools, seeking internal e-mails and other information regarding the firing of Troy LaRaviere.

The former principal of Blaine Elementary School, LaRaviere, an outspoken critic of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s school policies, had been suspended without pay over a variety of unspecified accusations.

“I think they fired LaRaviere for speaking out,” Burt says. “So I filed the FOIA request to see what I might find.”

Six months and one lawsuit later, CPS finally sent Burt a bunch of newspaper clippings and

TV news reports about LaRaviere’s dismissal In other words, it sent Burt what he could have easily have obtained on his own from any old Internet search.

It might as well have just given him the middle finger.

Welcome to another chapter in the ongoing public records saga of CPS versus citizen activists in the age of Mayor Emanuel, who came into office back in 2011 vowing to run “the most transparent government Chicago has ever seen.”

If I could put a positive spin on it, I’d say Rahm’s forcing activists to get better at these fights by making it increasingly difficult for them to obtain the information they seek.

Think of him as the absentee father in Shel Silverstein’s classic song “A Boy Named Sue,” who in a roundabout way teaches his son to fend for himself by giving him a girl’s name that the bullies love to tease him about.

The Freedom of Information Act is supposed to require public bodies like CPS to turn over public information. In reality, FOIA requests can become cat-and-mouse games, with officials turning the process into a bureaucratic obstacle course in an effort to

keep information from the public.

And let me tell you, Mayor Rahm and his school appointees are masters of this game.

Before I dive into the details of Burt’s case, let’s just run through a list of some of the intrepid citizen activists who came before him.

There’s Glenn Krell, a north-side parent who waged a yearlong FOIA campaign to get CPS to turn over any studies justifying its claims as to why Chicago needed a longer school day. CPS never sent him any, claiming that it had J

WE KNOW YOU HAVE AN OPINION. WE WANT TO HEAR IT. So let s have, it Chicago. We want to hear what s important to you and your family so we can take on the issues affecting Chicagoans. Whether it s at a farmers market, music festival or a Social Security forum, we re listening to what you have to say so we can help make a difference in your life.

Tell us what matters to you and see the list of our neighborhood listening events at aarp.org/Chicago

/aarpillinois @aarpillinois #aarpillinois

Chicago SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 9

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

CITY LIFE continued from 9

removed from the shelves, contradicting the destroyed them. Sorry ’bout that, man. official CPS line that the book had been mistakThen there’s the 2013 case of Joanna Brown, enly banned by some unnamed central office a Logan Square activist who wanted informa- bureaucrat who had misunderstood what he tion about the closing of Ames or she had been directed to do.

Middle School. After holding out Dapier turned the e-mails over for eight months, CPS sent Brown to me. I wrote a column. And in a blank piece of paper.

June, the American Library AssoJarrett Dapier, a graduate stuciation awarded Dapier its John dent in library science, had better Phillip Immroth Memorial Award luck. In 2014 he filed a FOIA “for defending the principles of request seeking internal docuintellectual freedom.” I’m surments regarding CPS’s 2013 deciprised the mayor didn’t send out a Nick Burt sion to ban Persepolis—Marjane press release, like he usually does Satrapi’s award-winning graphic when one of our locals does well. novel—from classrooms and school libraries.

In each of these cases, a citizen filed a FOIA CPS pulled back on the ban after it sparked a request because he or she didn’t believe CPS’s public outcry. official explanation for what it was doing. The CPS sent Dapier a batch of heavily redacted same is true in Burt’s case. e-mails that were virtually impossible to read.

Burt’s not a teacher or CPS parent. He’s a However, the redactions were only computer- former Occupy LaSalle Street activist who, ingenerated highlights, and Dapier was able cidentally, says he was arrested when Emanuel to remove them and see the e-mails that CPS ordered police to clear Grant Park of Occupy didn’t want him to see. Those e-mails revealed protesters in 2012. So you might say this is that top CPS officials had ordered Persepolis payback.

For the record, Burt says he’s never discussed the FOIA request with LaRaviere, whom he’s only met in passing. Likewise, LaRaviere says he had nothing to do with Burt’s FOIA request.

“Until I read about it on Facebook, I didn’t know anything about it,” he says.

Now let’s dive into the details. On April 26, Burt sent CPS a FOIA request asking for “copies of documents” having to do with LaRaviere, Blaine, or Bernie Sanders, for whom LaRaviere taped a campaign commercial slamming the mayor in March. Burt admits he was on a “fishing expedition, looking for whatever they had.”

On April 28, CPS denied his request as “unduly burdensome.” Eventually, he narrowed his request to e-mails regarding LaRaviere that had been exchanged by 18 high-ranking CPS officials, including CEO Forrest Claypool.

CPS didn’t respond to his narrowed FOIA request. So Burt filed an appeal with the Illinois attorney general’s office, as FOIA law permits.

A lawyer there wrote to CPS, asking the district if it had received Burt’s most recent

request. CPS didn’t respond to the attorney general, either.

On September 7, Burt and his lawyer, Daniel Massoglia, filed a lawsuit in Cook County court, demanding that CPS turn over the information he’d requested.

Two days later, the Sun-Times wrote an article about the lawsuit. Lo and behold, on September 13, CPS e-mailed Burt more than 300 pages of newspaper clippings and news reports that central office press aides had gathered on the LaRaviere case.

Of course, CPS could have sent Burt those clippings way back in May. But where’s the fun in giving a guy something without making him really work for it? (CPS didn’t respond for comment.)

Burt says he’s going to press on with his lawsuit.

If he wins, CPS—meaning taxpayers—will have to pay Massoglia’s legal fees.

It’s good to see someone may benefit from the mayor’s school policies. v

ß @joravben

Expand your knowledge base.

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10 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

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Read Derrick Clifton’s columns throughout the week at chicagoreader.com.

A production still from performance artist Bea Cordelia’s The Cosmic Body o MATTHEW GREGORY HOLLIS

IDENTITY & CULTURE

Get off our areolas

A performance artist pushes Chicago to deregulate female breasts.

By DERRICK CLIFTON

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t most any nightclub packed wall to wall, teeming with body heat, it’s not out of the ordinary for a few patrons to lounge around shirtless—that is, if you’re a man.

In Boystown bars, male bartenders sometimes do their duties in their skivvies. But if a woman in the same profession in Chicago ever did the same without covering up her breasts, the business would risk losing its liquor license. Under Chicago’s municipal code she might even face a fine or arrest.

One local performance artist hopes to change that. If she wins in court, those restrictions may loosen up considerably. I hope she’s successful. As many feminists and the #FreeTheNipple campaign have noted, laws like these reinforce gender inequality by categorizing a woman’s breasts as sexual objects.

Bea Sullivan-Knoff, known to audiences as Bea Cordelia, filed suit in federal court last month against the city and Mayor Rahm Emanuel challenging an ordinance that prohibits women from exposing “any portion of the female breast at or below the areola.”

Sullivan-Knoff’s artistic performances with above-the-waist nudity have previously been restricted or altered because venues didn’t

want to risk losing their liquor licenses, but there’s another important layer to her suit.

Sullivan-Knoff, a queer transgender woman, says that the ordinance also places transgender and gender-nonconforming people in a precarious position.

“They don’t define what ‘female’ [breast] means,” Sullivan-Knoff says of Chicago’s law.

“As soon as you look at anyone in the trans or intersex community, it can throw a wrench in a seemingly straightforward and simple statement. . . . If a trans woman has undergone hormone replacement therapy, and hasn’t done documentation to change [her legal] gender, then is it a male breast? I don’t think they have had to consider it before.”

Sullivan-Knoff often uses interactive performances to explore issues of trans identity and her relationship with her body. Some of her performances incorporate breast exposure.

In one such piece, developed through a residency at the University of Chicago’s Performance Lab, Sullivan-Knoff documents a sixday camping trip she took in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with her father. The Cosmic Body incorporates five screens with projections of outdoor scenery, 30 minutes of prerecorded poetry, candles, blankets, and a tent with childhood photos inside. (Sullivan-Knoff fre-

quently camped in Michigan with her church group as a child, but stopped after first coming out eight years ago. The experience was intended to facilitate healing and reconciliation with her past self.)

As part of the piece, Sullivan-Knoff performs a poem called “Shower,” in which she recounts bathing after spending days outdoors. Onstage, she turns away from the audience, disrobes, and ritualistically pours a bowl of water on herself.

“Even though I was indoors in someone else’s bathroom, I had a moment to just exhale,” she says. “Hopefully [the piece] will encourage [people] to take those moments with themselves . . . in an empowering, self-love sort of way.”

By preventing her from incorporating such moments into her performances, Sullivan-Knoff says, the “blatantly discriminatory” ordinance hampers the artistic integrity of her work.

This isn’t the first legal challenge to Chicago laws that censure the exposure of a woman’s chest. A November 2014 lawsuit filed by Sonoko Tagami challenged Chicago’s public nudity ordinance after police handed her a $100 ticket while she participated in that year’s Go Topless Day. Earlier this year, a U.S. District Court granted the city’s motion to dismiss Tagami’s suit, finding that its freedom of speech and equal protection claims weren’t sufficiently supported. In one portion of its ruling, the court said that public nudity isn’t “inherently expressive,” and that, notwithstanding any remarks that accompanied her display, Tagami hadn’t demonstrated a high likelihood that the message would be understood by those who viewed it.

(I’m not the one wearing a black robe here, but I find it hard to believe that a bunch of chanting activists carrying bullhorns and signs emblazoned with slogans about booby politics wouldn’t somehow send a clear signal that “This is an act of protest about the propriety of women’s breasts.”)

Before someone cues up Mrs. Lovejoy’s “Won’t somebody please think of the children,” it’s worth noting that many public nudity ordinances were designed to protect children—and, yes, even adults—from exposure that could cross boundaries of consent.

That protection isn’t being challenged by Sullivan-Knoff’s lawsuit, nor would it go away if the liquor license ordinance changes.

Yet the way the city defended its public nudity ordinance is indicative of prevailing

attitudes about female bodies. As the Chicago Tribune reported last year, the city’s lawyers argued that “female breasts are considered erogenous in a way that male breasts are not.”

Erogenous to whom? It’s not inconceivable that the exposure of so-called male breasts makes people who are attracted to men feel at least mildly titillated.

But sexuality and desire have long been defined and legally regulated from the perspective of those in power—cisgender, heterosexual males. The law is another example of how the patriarchy attempts to undermine the agency women have over their own bodies.

Still, women’s advocacy groups and some aldermen opposed efforts to change the ordinance when the possibility was raised in May. There’s a long-standing fear that liquor, combined with nudity, would greatly increase the potential for sexual violence and the exploitation of women in Chicago’s few strip clubs—a recent Tribune report noted that the firm working with Sullivan-Knoff, Shiller Preyar Law Offices, has also represented VIP’s Gentlemen’s Club, which has been in a long back-andforth with the city over the same law. (Mary Greib, an attorney at Shiller Preyar, says that although her office represented VIP’s in the past, it doesn’t currently, and that VIP’s has nothing to do with Sullivan-Knoff’s lawsuit.)

But when toxic masculinity gives way to strip club assaults, it’s not the alcohol or the breasts that caused the problem—it’s the person who committed the violence.

The long game, Sullivan-Knoff says, is a shift in representations of what healthy gender expression looks like. In the short term, she argues, that should include a shift from regulating “female breasts” to changing the business practices and customer behaviors that cause harm to performers.

At the very least, the city’s municipal code could make room for artistic nudity in venues with liquor licenses, as well as language that affirms the individual agency of patrons and performers of all genders. Performances like Sullivan-Knoff’s usually occur in venues where customers get carded before entry and arrive knowing what to expect. And as a young performance artist in a major city, her creative and financial opportunities shouldn’t be limited to art galleries and other venues that may not serve liquor.

In a city that already polices so much, it’s time to move the crosshairs away from the nipple. v

ß @DerrickClifton SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 11

Chicago police superintendent Eddie Johnson mans the grill during a National Night Out barbecue in August. The event aims to create stronger police-community bonds. o MARIA CARDONA

The rise and fall of CAPS

Chicago used to be at the vanguard of community policing. But more than two decades after the strategy was launched, CPD’s program is a shadow of its former self.

By NISSA RHEE, MANNY RAMOS, and ANDREA SALCEDO

12 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

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n a mild morning in early May, two teenage boys sat on the porch of a house in West Humboldt Park on busy Chicago Avenue.

From there, they could see a string of abandoned stores, boarded up and painted in bright colors. Occasionally, a CTA bus would pass in front of them, carrying commuters from the distant edges of the city to the Magnificent Mile shopping district eight miles to the east. A heavy breeze shook the blooming tree in front of the house.

At 10:30 AM, someone walked up to the porch and started shooting at them.

The 16-year-old, Eddy Brooks, was shot in the head and later died in the hospital, according to Chicago Tribune reports. The 17-year-old was hit in the calf and thigh but survived the encounter.

Neighbors say they had long known the house to be a drug den. In the months leading up to the shooting, they had repeatedly complained about the building to the police and attended meetings of CAPS, the city’s community policing unit, to demand that officers do something about the young men who congregated there.

CAPS community organizer John Campos was on his way to one of these public gatherings on the afternoon of May 6, when he saw yellow tape around the house. Two uniformed officers were taking pictures of the blood-splattered porch stairs. Despite a decades-long community policing system in place for reporting and preventing crime, violence had prevailed that day at the house on Chicago Avenue.

Community policing has long been a matter of life and death in Chicago. When it’s worked, researchers have found that communities of color report less fear of crime and better relations with the police, which can translate into improved crime prevention and fewer shootings. And in a year when shootings have skyrocketed and community trust of the police has been severely damaged by the release of a series of videos capturing police shootings, it’s been touted by politicians as a powerful crime-fighting strategy.

“Chicago is where the whole idea of community policing began,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a speech on police accountability on December 9, 2015, just two weeks after the release of the Laquan McDonald video rocked the city and sparked a crisis in police-community relations. “It remains

the best and most comprehensive approach we have in changing the everyday conditions that breed crime and violence and then breed mistrust.”

But nine months after that speech, an analysis by City Bureau and the Reader finds CAPS in crisis. Chicago’s once-trailblazing community policing program has been hollowed out by years of budget cuts and restructuring. Stretched thin, the police department no longer has the money necessary to reach out to the community and quickly follow up on citizen complaints

as of September 19, so far this year. But while residents are eager to tackle crime, with CAPS a shell of its former self, they no longer have the support from the community policing program that they once did.

“It comes down to a question,” Campos says. “Are our voices being heard on the west side?”

Asked for comment, Emanuel’s office deferred to CPD. Meanwhile, the head of CAPS, deputy chief of community policing Eric Washington, has dismissed the idea that the program is in crisis, arguing that

In the first seven months of this year, several police districts had more than 100 public CAPS events, while others had fewer than 40. o MARIA CARDONA

such as the ones made about the house on Chicago Avenue. Neighborhoods like those on the city’s west side struggle with far fewer resources and institutional knowledge than in previous years. CAPS today is an uneven patchwork of programs around the city. The result has been the destruction of the trust and goodwill the police department had built in the early years of CAPS. A rg uably, nei g hborhood s suc h a s West Humboldt Park need strong policecommunity relations more than ever. An open-air drug market plagues the area, and residents live in constant fear of violence. District 11, where the May shooting occurred, has had twice as many murders so far this year as it had in the same period last year. As of September 15, CPD reports that there have been 65 murders in District 11 this year. That accounts for around onetenth of the 519 homicides the city has had,

“Chicago has always been at the forefront of community policing.”

“Community policing started in Chicago in 1993,” Washington said in an interview at CPD headquarters. “We were at the forefront then and I believe we are at the forefront now.”

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ommunity policing got its start in the 80s and 90s as an innovative approach to reducing crime. Cities from New York to Seattle to Cleveland tried establishing community policing strategies during this time but failed to create strong standalone programs because of a lack of government funding or support.

In Chicago, however, Mayor Richard M. Daley was a staunch advocate of community policing and fueled the growth of CAPS. The city established the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy in April 1993 during

a period of high crime and poor public relations with the police. Chicago logged 940 murders in 1992 and 850 in 1993.

In a “Strategic plan for reinventing the Chicago Police Department,” released in October 1993, Daley praised community policing as a “new, proactive approach to preventing crimes before they occur.” He wrote that a “historic change was taking place in Chicago” with the adoption of CAPS, and that while “community policing means reinventing the way the Chicago Police Department works, it also means reinventing the way all City agencies, community members, and the police work with each other.”

The strategy was rooted in a belief that communities can and should play a role in preventing crime and maintaining a safe environment. Through regular neighborhood beat meetings and district advisory councils, CAPS allowed police officers to work directly with community members to solve persistent problems like drugs and graffiti. Strategies ranged from playing basketball with neighborhood kids to holding regular community meetings and improving transparency in police operations and crime data. At the root of these strategies was relationship building, with police officers taking the time to engage with youth, business owners, and community residents.

After a brief experimental phase, CAPS was rolled out to all police districts in 1994.

Between January and May 1995, more than 9,000 officers completed a three-day training on community policing’s approach to problem solving.

In 1996 and 1997, CPD expanded its civilian staff in order to improve community outreach and increase participation in beat meetings. More staff members were also brought on for additional CAPS programs like court advocacy and projects targeting gang and drug hot spots.

By 1999, CAPS had a budget of $12.5 million, about 1.4 percent of CPD’s total budget of $907 million—a small but significant slice. Each district was assigned a sergeant focused solely on community policing. The program was no longer dependent on the goodwill of the mayor’s office, and had an established bureaucracy that could address the needs of each district. The response from the community was by and large positive, but some communities found CAPS more useful than others.

Researchers at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research J

SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 13

CAPS community organizer John Campos, pictured here in 2012 o JIM NEWBERRY/FILE

continued from 13 studied CAPS between 1994 and 2003 and in 2004 published a report that found that the program had had a substantial impact on crime levels and police-community relations during its first decade. They found that African-Americans reported a 10 percent decrease in what they saw as crime problems after CAPS was created.

African-Americans also experienced a 22 percent decrease in fear of crime in their neighborhood. Whites also saw decreases in these measures during this time, though Latinos didn’t. (Researchers speculated that Latinos didn’t respond as well due to a combination of factors including language barriers, fear of deportation, and a young, mobile population that wasn’t interested in attending beat meetings.)

Northwestern researchers also found an improvement in how communities saw social order and physical decay in the first decade of the CAPS program. AfricanAmericans reported a 60 percent decrease

14 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

in perceived social disorder and a 30 percent decrease in physical decay problems in their neighborhoods.

Even more significant was the change in police favorability ratings among these communities during this time. AfricanAmericans, Latinos, and whites all felt that officers were more responsive after the establishment of CAPS than before its creation.

“From 1993 or so well into the 2000s, Chicago had the largest and most impressive community policing program in the world,” says Northwestern University’s Wesley Skogan, who led the CAPS study.

The early 2000s would prove to be CAPS’s high point, however. While other cities invested heavily in community policing programs, Chicago began to pull back from its once-powerful tool.

“The energy went out of it after that time,” Skogan says. “There was a new chief of police [Phil Cline] who wasn’t interested in it. . . . And the mayor got sidetracked by

a crime wave that was on the cover of the Chicago Tribune.” Violence spiked again in 2001 with 667 homicides, breaking a sixyear trend of a decrease in murders.

Following the rise in violence, Daley took a hard line on crime and focused the police department’s efforts on guns, gangs, and homicides. Money was pulled away from CAPS and never returned. This past April, the Police Accountability Task Force convened

by Emanuel gave its assessment of the state of policing in Chicago. The task force noted in its final report that “attendance [at CAPS events] dropped off significantly after 2000.” (Cline declined to comment for this story. Daley didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.)

In 2010, Daley moved 111 officers from CAPS to street patrol in order to address what he described in a press release as “the most immediate and pressing problem facing many of our neighborhoods—violence in our streets and in our homes.” Daley promised that the move would increase efficiency while at the same time ensuring “that the original goals and objectives of CAPS are met.”

A Chicago News Cooperative/New York Times story from early January 2011 noted that because of budget cuts and shrinking staff, fewer community meetings were being held.

“The program has pretty much been eviscerated, which is tragic,” 49th Ward alderman Joe Moore said at the time.

“There’s no substitute for an engaged citizenry and police officers taking an active role in preventing crime.”

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y the time Emanuel took office in May 2011, the budget for CAPS had fallen to $4.7 million, a little more than a third of what it had been in 1999. Meanwhile, CPD’s total budget had jumped to $1.3 billion from $907 million in ’99.

But in January 2012, Emanuel announced the “revitalization” of CAPS in order to restore “an effective community policing structure to the Department while providing the best possible services to the residents of Chicago.”

“Community policing is a philosophy, and the strength of that philosophy within the Chicago Police Department and in our communities is more critical now than ever before,” Emanuel said in a statement at the time. “CAPS is an important partnership between residents and police, and it’s time to revitalize the program by giving

District Commanders responsibility and authority to tailor programs for individual communities.”

Under the new CAPS structure, community policing resources once controlled by police headquarters were moved to individual districts. Each district’s CAPS program was to be handled by the commander, a CAPS sergeant, two officers, a community organizer, and a youth services provider. District commanders were given the responsibility of choosing which CAPS programs they would fund and which they would stop supporting, a strategy that the department hoped would make CAPS more responsive to local needs.

(Garry McCarthy, who served as Emanuel’s police superintendent from 2011 to late 2015, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.)

While the “revitalization” changed the structure of CAPS, it didn’t alter the downward trend in funding for community policing. In 2012, the year after Emanuel took office, the budget for CAPS was slashed by $178,497 from the year before. In 2016, CAPS has a budget of $3.9 million, less than a third of the funding it had in 1999 and 17 percent less than when Emanuel took office. The police department’s overall budget has ballooned to $1.45 billion today; CAPS funding represents just 0.3 percent of CPD’s overall budget.

“Emanuel kept CAPS in place, but there’s no money there,” says Jimmy Simmons, who has volunteered as a CAPS beat meeting facilitator in District 11 for 22 years.

“They don’t put any money into it. They continue to do these [beat] meetings, but that’s it.”

Emanuel’s 2012 changes to CAPS also resulted in a patchwork of programming spread unevenly across districts that inadvertently isolated CAPS volunteers and staff from their colleagues in other parts of town.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, CPD said that each CAPS district received between $7,000 and $9,500 in 2016 to “support local community policing activities.” Funding levels are dependent on “the size of the district, levels of crime, particularly violent crime, previous spending patterns and other factors.”

But in analyzing CAPS programs for the first seven months of 2016, City Bureau and the Reader found striking variations in the activity level across districts. Several districts had more than 100 public events in the first seven months of this year, while

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others had fewer than 40. Our analysis to hold them. District 11 is now one of the showed that the number of events a district few places that still does, but it’s only the held didn’t correlate with the amount of “skeletal remains” of the program, Campos money it received from CPD; some districts says. A previous commander got rid of the that received less funding had many events, program altogether; it was only reinstated while other districts that received more when a new commander came in. funding held fewer. Nor did programming EAVI was originally envisioned as an ideal levels in a district correlate with crime venue for community policing, a “beat meetrates. Instead, interviews with ing on steroids,” as Campos CAPS volunteers and staff puts it. Neighborhood leaders suggest that programming would meet regularly with levels are determined more police officers and CAPS staff How many events does by the interests of district and delineate problems in the my district host? Find an interactive map at commanders. neighborhood. People would chicagoreader.com.

Plus, CAPS teams now work break into groups around in what one facilitator detopics like public safety, comscribed as “silos” in each dismunity outreach, and problem trict, rarely collaborating with buildings, and come up with their colleagues. Campos recalls going out solutions. Both community members and on “wolf pack” missions with organizers police officers were responsible for thinking from other districts before 2013 to address up solutions and taking on “homework” problematic areas together. Now, however, that contributed to the solution. This could he rarely talks to CAPS employees outside be as simple as finding out who a resident of his own district. needed to speak to in order to get a stop sign “We don’t even have the opportunity to installed on a certain corner, or talking to learn from each other,” Campos says. “Like, the principal of a school where young men ‘Hey John, what are you guys doing in [Dis- loitered and caused trouble. When the group trict] 11 to do this?’ We used to get together met again the following month, its members monthly and have meetings. We don’t do would be graded on how well they’d comthat [anymore].” pleted their homework and how close they were to resolving the issue.

Campos says that while those early vion a Wednesday afternoon in July, two lence-prevention meetings were “pretty police officers roll a dusty portable successful” at addressing problems and chalkboard with SWAT printed on it to holding people accountable, the low turnthe front of a meeting room in the basement out in recent years has made the program of District 11’s west-side headquarters. less effective. Someone assigned an im“How many chairs and rows do you think portant piece of homework in one meeting we need?” asks one of the officers. could easily not show up to the next meet“Ain’t going to be that many people here ing, making accountability difficult. anyways,” says the other, as he arranges 36 Leticia Segura makes a point of attending blue chairs in the middle of the room. In- the meetings, despite the fact that they fall deed, when the meeting begins a few min- in the middle of a workday. She walks into utes later, only a dozen chairs are occupied. this one a little late, but is immediately District 11’s Expanded Anti-Violence recognized. The 44-year-old has lived in Initiative meeting wasn’t always so poorly the area for more than a decade, and got attended. Campos says that as recently as involved in CAPS a year ago when she startseven years ago, between 40 and 50 people ed having trouble with drug dealers near would regularly attend the meeting. At that her house. time a five- or six-person panel of commuThe dealers were hiding drugs in the nity policing experts would help facilitate alley, she says, and preventing her from the initiative. Now it’s led by Campos, beat backing her car out of the garage. When facilitator Simmons, and the district’s they began concealing drugs in her yard, CAPS sergeant, who is out of the office on she says, she feared for her family’s safety, this particular day. and began attending every CAPS meeting In the past, every district held monthly she could find. She called 911 frequently, antiviolence meetings. That changed determined to get the police department’s with the decreasing budget and recent attention. restructuring, which allowed district Her persistence paid off. After more than commanders to choose whether or not three months, during which she asked J

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continued from 15 the department for help, police raided the drug dealers and cleared the area.

Segura says the experience made her appreciate the power of community policing. Then, seeing that her local CAPS office was short-staffed, she started volunteering there, answering phones and doing administrative work.

CAPS “is spread very thin,” Segura says.

“You have only so many officers who can do so much. If we had more police help and more money, I think we could do way more things.”

CAPS did indeed do more things in the past, Simmons says—when they had a bigger budget.

“CAPS was high on the list [back then],” he recalls of the 90s. “Oh, you had your little drug dealers and shootings, but nothing like this because the people were committed.”

CAPS had turned his neighborhood around then, Simmons says. People weren’t afraid to leave their houses, and they felt respected by the police. Thanks to the good relationship with the police, he says, the community was the “eyes and ears” of the department and helped officers solve and prevent crimes.

But when funding for community policing started decreasing, Simmons says that CAPS stopped being the cornerstone of policing in his district. The number of public meetings between officers and community members decreased, and their relationship suffered for it. Districts had to rely on donations to support bonding events like barbecues, and began enlisting volunteers like Segura to answer phones and do paperwork in their CAPS offices.

Looking at the cold and half-empty room, Simmons knits his brows.

“I think [CAPS] can do a much better job than what is being done,” he says.

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ow, facing pressure over rising homicide numbers and poor community relations, CPD is once again looking to community policing to alleviate its problems. Superintendent Eddie Johnson said in April that CPD had made a mistake by downsizing CAPS and that the department is working on “reinvigorating” the program.

“While CAPS has been successful for decades, enhancements are being implemented to forge better relationships between police and the community,” CPD told City Bureau and the Reader in a statement

16 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

police districts, would be more responsive to community needs, the task force argued.

But there has been no indication that the police department or the mayor’s office is considering such a change.

Meanwhile, as CAPS withers, police departments across the country are bolstering their community policing offices with the support of the U.S. Department of Justice. Last year, President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing included community policing as one of its six pillars for police reform and recommended that community policing be “infused throughout the culture and organizational structure of law enforcement agencies.”

O Johnson and other CPD officials have said that going forward, community policing will no longer be an “alternative” strategy, but rather the department’s guiding philosophy. o MARIA CARDONA

this week. “Over the next several months, you can expect to see more on this as the department will develop a specific community affairs platform that tackles some of the very challenging obstacles and tensions that exist between communities and the officers as well as implement better programs to work with young people and minority communities.”

Still, just what the “new CAPS” will look like is unclear. So far the department has been vague and sometimes contradictory about the scale of the changes in store. In an interview at a CAPS event in August, Johnson had said his department was working on revamping CAPS, though he was “not really ready to roll out the actual details” of the change. In its statement to City Bureau and the Reader, CPD said that the formal strategy that will guide CAPS in the future is “still a work in progress.”

Yet in an interview after a community meeting in July, CAPS deputy chief Eric Washington said, “We are not changing anything.” In a second interview held at CPD headquarters in August, Washington hesitated to even use the acronym “CAPS” to describe Chicago’s community policing program, and hinted that the letters would soon stand for something besides the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy.

“Because that ‘alternative’ is still there, I don’t say ‘CAPS’ right now,” Washington

said. Both Washington and Johnson have said that going forward, community policing will no longer be an “alternative” strategy for CPD, but rather the guiding philosophy of the department.

“Every officer that works for CPD should be engaging in some type of CAPS activity,” Johnson said. He didn’t elaborate on what that work should entail, or how it would be paid for, however.

The talk of making CAPS a departmentwide doctrine and not just an “alternative strategy” may stem in part from the Police Accountability Task Force’s review of CAPS in its final report, in which it asserted that community policing should be “treated as a core philosophy throughout CPD.” “Community policing cannot be relegated to a small, underfunded program,” the report stated.

Since the CAPS “brand is significantly damaged” and its “civilian staff has dwindled to the point of ineffectiveness,” the task force recommended getting rid of the program altogether. (The task force is not the first to call for the death of CAPS. Last year, District 14 commander Marc Buslik said of the program, “We need to drive a stake right through its heart.”)

The task force recommended replacing CAPS with what it called “Community Empowerment and Engagement Districts.”

These CEEDs, one for each of Chicago’s 22

n a hot afternoon in August, Superintendent Johnson grills hamburgers and sausages in a park set up for the 11th District’s National Night Out. Nearby, Campos applies temporary tattoos of the CAPS logo to children’s arms, and seniors take refuge from the sun under white tents.

The event, which is held by police departments across the country, aims to create stronger community-police bonds.

“We are celebrating the community for being our right hand and helping us solve crimes,” explains Daniel Allen, District 11 CAPS sergeant and an organizer of the event. For some, like a 13-year-old named Xavier, the event marks the first time residents will meet a police officer. For others, it’s a chance to learn about ways they can help prevent crime and become involved in CAPS. Campos says he remains optimistic about the power of community policing to make neighborhoods like his more safe. He says that community policing can “absolutely” help reduce the homicide rate and that he saw its power at the peak of CAPS, when the program “had the resources [and] ways of pulling in the community.”

“It’s like building a better mousetrap,” Campos says. “We don’t need new or fancy methods for improving public safety, he argues, because the mousetrap “has already been invented.”

“The philosophy of community policing should work,” he says, “if that philosophy translates into action like it’s supposed to do.” v This story was produced in partnership with City Bureau, a Chicago-based journalism lab.

ß @nissarhee @_ManuelRamos_ @andreasalccc

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Sonali Dev’s

Bollywood affairs An Indian-American writer has become an unlikely star in the world of romance novels.

; PHOTOILLUSTRATION BY PAUL JOHN HIGGINS

By AIMEE LEVITT

I

f you learn anything from reading romance novels, it’s that true love happens unexpectedly. For Sonali Dev, it happened about ten years ago, when she was sick in bed with a 102-degree fever and nothing to read. She asked her husband, Manoj Thatte, to pick something up for her when he took their kids to the library.

He came back with a cheap paperback with the title stamped on the cover in gold foil.

It was called Rosehaven, and it was by Catherine Coulter. It was the story of a spirited heiress in 13th-century England, the warrior she is forced to wed, and their estate full of adorable animals. Dev still has no idea why her husband chose this particular book; she suspects he’d forgotten his mission until he reached the checkout line and then grabbed the first thing he saw. She was annoyed. “Ten years you’ve been married to me,” she told him, “and you think this is what I read?”

“This” was a romance novel. When Dev, now 44, was growing up in Mumbai, nobody she knew read books like that, and neither did she; even after she moved to America following her marriage, she continued to avoid them. Romance novels were not books for serious people. They had happy endings. They had too much sex and people talking about their feelings and ridiculously muscled men and beautiful women with purple eyes.

What she loved were the Bollywood films she grew up watching: tales of beautiful people kept apart by fate (or absurdly complicated circumstances), beset by emotions so powerful they can only express themselves through elaborate song-and-dance num- J

SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 17

o ADAM JASON COHEN

continued from 17

bers, until true love triumphs in the end. She’d even tried her hand at writing a few scripts for her best friend, Rupali Mehta, a Bollywood producer, but they never made it out of the development phase.

And then came the fateful day her husband brought her Rosehaven. She was desperate for reading material, so she decided she’d give it a look anyway. Coulter is considered one of the masters of the genre, and Dev succumbed almost immediately. It kept her up all night.

It wasn’t just the sex, or even that the book was a welcome distraction from her illness.

Rosehaven gave her pleasure on a far deeper level. Here was a story where, at last, the woman was just as important as the man and didn’t have to passively wait for him to choose her. Even more than that, it confirmed some of her most optimistic thoughts about the world: that love can bring out the best in people, can inspire them to be courageous and selfless, and can even create the kind of joy that makes people want to throw out their arms and sing.

“You’re not going to believe this,” she told her friend Mehta the next time they spoke, “but there’s an entire genre of books that feel exactly like Bollywood movies!”

18 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

Dev decided she was going to start writing these kinds of books herself. Here was an opportunity to tell the same sort of stories she’d been trying to tell with her Bollywood scripts, but in much greater depth and detail. She finished the first draft of what would become her second published novel in the spring of 2010 and joined the Romance Writers of America to learn more about the craft and business of romance writing. She signed a contract with Kensington Publishing, one of the largest romance publishers, three years later. All in all, she says, she’s been spectacularly fortunate.

Her first book (which was actually the second she finished), A Bollywood Affair, appeared in the fall of 2014 to almost universally glowing reviews; it ended up on several yearend lists of best books and was a finalist for a RITA, the RWA industry award, for Best First Novel. The Bollywood Bride came out last year to similar acclaim—and better sales. Dev’s third novel, A Change of Heart, debuts next week, and has already received starred notices from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Booklist, three of the most important early reviewers.

In the world of romance, she’s a star, praised equally for her writing and her warm and bubbly personality, which comes through on

social media and in blog posts. In person, she’s petite and stylish, earnest and unassuming.

She speaks in a soft voice with a slight Mumbai accent. You want good things to happen to her.

Dev’s editor at Kensington, Martin Biro, says that he’s the lucky one. He met Dev at the RWA’s Chicago Spring Fling conference in 2013, where he was part of a panel of Kensington editors recruiting new authors. As he recalls it, during the Q-and-A period, Dev shyly told him she’d written a book set in Bollywood, but she wasn’t sure if it was worth publishing.

It was the word “Bollywood” that caught Biro’s attention. “That sounds amazing,” he remembers telling her. “Come talk to me.”

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omance, like many other popular art forms in America, has been reaching a crisis point in recent years. In a time when people are more conscious of race and diversity, the romance community has started to become uncomfortably aware of its whiteness. Across every subgenre, from Regency to paranormal to hard-core erotica, romance was disproportionately full of straight white people who celebrated Christmas.

At the annual RWA national conference in the summer of 2015, a panel of five authors—

three black, one white, and one Indian—sat in front of a standing-room-only crowd to discuss the diversity issue. The problem, they agreed, was that the publishers didn’t seem to think that white people would buy books by “diverse”—that is, nonwhite—authors, so they either didn’t bother to promote them or segregated them under special African-American imprints (where, incidentally, e-books are priced higher than those published under “regular” imprints), so the books didn’t sell well: a self-fulfilling prophecy! It wasn’t enough that white authors were starting to include more nonwhite characters in their books. What would it be like, the authors wondered, if romance publishers took on more nonwhite authors and “allowed” them to write books where characters just lived their lives the way white characters did without thinking about race all the time? What if the publishers marketed those books the same way they marketed the “regular” titles? (Or as panelist Rebekah Weatherspoon put it, “I don’t write under the genre ‘black lady.’ I write contemporary new adult.”) What would happen then?

In response the RWA issued a statement that its board and staff were aware there was a discrimination problem in the industry and that they were working on ending it. Still, when it announced the 2015 RITA finalists this past spring, only five of the 90 books up for an award had a nonwhite protagonist. And this, as Dev noted in a blog post she wrote for NPR, was an improvement over previous years.

It seemed an especially egregious flaw for the romance genre. “We cultivate empathy,” explains Sarah Wendell, cocreator of the popular romance website Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and coauthor of Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels. “When you read stories of other people, that cultivates empathy. You connect and care for other people. The point of being in the world is not about reading about white people only.”

When Dev started sending query letters to agents and publishers back in 2010, though, the romance industry had barely started to recognize the problem. Several of the agents and editors who wrote back to her told her that romance readers weren’t interested in Bollywood. One told her they weren’t interested in a relationship between two Indian people, period, and suggested she make the hero of The Bollywood Bride a white dude instead.

Biro, however, saw things differently. As a gay man, he’s aware he’s an anomaly in the industry—the vast majority of romance editors are heterosexual white women—and is always happy to find a book that reflects his own expe-

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riences. (There’s a small but growing market for gay romances, known in the trade as M/M, for man/man.) So why, he reasons, shouldn’t people from other underrepresented groups like, say, Indians or Indian-Americans, feel the same way?

After Dev told him about The Bollywood Bride, Biro asked to see the manuscript. “You never know about a concept,” he says. “If the prose isn’t there, it’s a letdown. But from the first pages, I knew I was very happy she’d asked the question.”

In Dev’s novels, the Indian-ness never feels like a gimmick. She writes about Indians and Indian-Americans because these are the people she knows best, and these are the stories she’s been thinking about since she started writing Bollywood scripts. Like most people, she faces recurring conflicts in her life, but being Indian—or as she puts it, “Oh my gosh, I’m brown-skinned and everybody looks at me and sees a brown-skinned person whose family eats curry”—is not one of them. There’s a place for those kinds of stories, she says, but not in the books she writes.

Many of the stories that interest her are still particular to India. The kernel of A Bollywood Affair, for instance, was a tale her parents had told her about a man who served as a fighter pilot with her father in the Indian Air Force.

He had a wife with whom he was very much in love. One day his plane went down, and his family came from their village with another woman who they claimed was also his wife; they’d been married years ago, when they were children. Child marriage is officially illegal in India, but it’s still practiced in outlying villages.

What would it be like, Dev wondered, to be that child bride? To spend your entire life confined in a marriage to a man who doesn’t even acknowledge you as his wife? And then what if that child bride realized she wanted other things from life, like an education, and could use the privileges of being a wife but not a homemaker to get them?

And then a larger question, not particular to India at all: What does it mean to be a good wife—and mother and daughter—and how do you manage those expectations and still satisfy your own needs? This is one of the preoccupations at the center of her own life.

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ev comes from an outwardly nontraditional family. Her grandparents met in medical school when it was still a rare thing for an Indian woman to become a doctor.

They came from different castes and defied their families in order to marry. It would have been a splendid scenario for a romance

novel. “And then that marriage button is hit,” Dev says, “and you’re a wife, and all the rules change. From then on, he’s the husband, you’re the wife. Everyone’s all, it’s all good and dandy that you want to be a doctor or whatever, but your worth really comes from the taste of your lentil curry. All that is really was what she was most proud of, or what she was allowed to be most proud of, I think.”

When it came time for her own marriage, Dev took a more pragmatic view. She was in her mid-20s and exhausted by a long, drawnout, on-again, off-again relationship and waiting for the One to magically appear. If she opted for an arranged marriage, she reasoned, her family and friends, people who knew her well, would introduce her to a good man who actually wanted to get married. That was how she met Thatte. Unlike the other men she’d been introduced to, he laughed at her jokes and seemed delighted by her strong opinions.

Per Indian custom, they married a week later, and she moved with him to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he was working as a software developer and going to grad school part-time.

In America, Dev felt overwhelmed by the demands of marriage, family, and work, especially after she and Thatte had their two children, Mahir and Annika, now teenagers. She wanted to fulfill her duties as an Indian homemaker, providing beautiful meals, a clean house, and love and support for her children, but she also wanted to succeed in her career. She worked as a technical writer for a series of corporations, including Parke-Davis (now Pfizer) and Autodesk, and felt perpetually exhausted.

When she started writing romance, though, she realized she’d managed to claim one piece of her identity entirely for herself. When she married, she’d unthinkingly taken her husband’s last name; afterward, she thought about it a lot. She adopted the pen name Sonali Dev after she began trying to publish; it was a play off her maiden name, Mayadev. At first she took the name because no one could pronounce “Thatte,” but eventually it took on a life of its own. “It’s about creating this identity that belongs entirely to me,” she says. “And I don’t know why it’s important, but it is.”

In her novels, Dev’s heroines find other ways of measuring their self-worth. Mili, the heroine of A Bollywood Affair, has learned to make a perfect lentil curry so her unknown husband will love her, once he bothers to claim her, but as she falls in love with Samir, the hero, she realizes that her true worth as a human being comes from something more than her skills as a stereotypical perfect Indian wife. Anyway, one of the many great things about Samir, aside from his beautifully defined shoulders

“If I had waited another ten years without my book selling, would I have made compromises?

I don’t know.

I mean, I’m coming from a place of privilege, of someone who finally got somewhere.”

—Sonali Dev

and torso, is that he can make his own damned lentil curry, and it may be even better than hers. (At the very least, Samir’s cooking renders Mili nearly orgasmic. “Every bite sent her into raptures, the pleasure of the flavors bursting on her tongue palpable in the tiny peaks of bliss flitting across her face.”)

Take away the child marriage and the lentil curry, maybe replace it with an entail on an estate and a way with the embroidery needle, or a hostile corporate takeover and a really hot body, and you have the key element of any romance novel—or, for that matter, Bollywood rom-com: at last, someone sees you as you want to be seen and loves you for it.1 So why shouldn’t any romance reader (or anyone in general) be able to identify with this? As Dev points out, white romance readers are somehow able to identify with vampires. They’ve learned how to pronounce the name “Guinevere.” They’re able to keep track of landaus and barouches and the many other varieties of carriages available in Regency England, and imagine what an elaborate Victorian gown might look like. After all of this, how are they not capable of learning a name like Vikram or Ravi, or remembering what carrot halwa is? And, to be completely fair, Dev helps her readers along with evocative descriptions of Indian food: “For a few moments they just ate [carrot halwa]. There could be nothing else when there was this, this crazy assault of sweet, buttery flavor on your tongue.” In one scene in The Bollywood Bride, the heroine teaches her cousin’s fiancee and, by extension, non-Indian readers how to wrap and move in a sari. (Dev has also included a glossary on her website. For everything else, there’s Google.)

Some of Dev’s Indian friends have criticized her for playing up the “Indian-ness” in her books. The title of A Bollywood Affair refers to Mili’s American-born roommate’s Big Fat Punjabi wedding. (The characters who hail from other parts of India look down on Punjabis for being loud and obnoxious and vulgar, much the same way Americans tend to regard people from New Jersey.) “Someone actually said to me once, ‘Did you have to do that? Did you have to make them like that? Did you have to laugh at them like that? And is that really realistic?’ And I asked, ‘Do you not know these people? Have you not been to this wedding?’

And she was like, ‘Well, yeeeahh, but do J

1Romance novels never show the part that comes after, when you still may be madly in love, but you also want to be a good mom and good at your job and maybe you want to write romance novels too, so you’re really exhausted, and perfect, acrobatic sex is completely out of the question. Dev has, in fact, written about that, but only in essays. Romance is still, on a certain level, fantasy. Or, if you prefer, heightened reality.

SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 19

Sonali Dev picks her favorite romance novels Dream a Little Dream and Ain’t She Sweet by Susan Elizabeth Phillips Richly layered characters who feel like real people you will never, ever forget are SEP’s calling card, as is smart, sparkling banter.

Both these books epitomize what she does best— pair down-on-their-luck heroines with seemingly irredeemable heroes and make magic happen on the page and consequently in readers’ hearts.

Kiss of Snow by Nalini Singh If intricately detailed world building and visceral connections between characters are your thing, Singh’s Psy-Changeling world is as good as it gets.

You don’t have to read the books in order, but it helps. Definitely read a few of the earlier books before you get to Kiss of Snow, because the buildup to that book makes the coming together of the wolf alpha and the dangerously powerful young refugee under his protection even more intensely satisfying.

Blue Eyed Devil and Devil in Winter by Lisa Kleypas Kleypas is the author primarily responsible for hooking me into romance. Not only are her stories romantic but her storytelling is romantic in texture and tone. Her characters, how they interact on the page—all

20 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

of her writing just has this aching, burning lyricism to it. For me these two books have some of the most intense chemistry and connection in the genre.

The Best Man by Kristan Higgins Actually, anything by Kristan Higgins will make you laugh out loud one moment and then sob into your tissue the next. She creates some of the most vulnerable characters I’ve ever read and then puts them in situations where they must overcome their harshest challenges without losing their vulnerability or their softness. She also creates the quirkiest, warmest

families and communities that you want to crawl inside and never leave.

My Beautiful Enemy

by Sherry Thomas Thomas is by strong consensus acknowledged as the best wordsmith in the genre. Her prose is complex and delightful, and she plays the language like a finely tuned instrument.

Her characters are layered and conflicted, and they actually make huge damning mistakes— something we don’t see much of in romance. All her books are lovely, especially the Fitzhugh Trilogy, but My Beautiful Enemy is set in the Hindu Kush mountains between

India and China with a brilliant warrior heroine and a deeply feminist hero, and to me it epitomizes her substantial talent.

Glitterland by Alexis Hall There is such intelligence and nuance to Hall’s writing that it’s impossible not to be instantly transported to the very center of his protagonist’s world.

Glitterland is a free fall into the darkness that is mental illness, but also a coming out into the light. It is a beautiful breaking down of constraints like social class and age that dictate whom we allow ourselves to connect with. It is a love story that explores the nature of love itself purely

from the perspective of how it makes us feel, and it is utterly beautiful.

Forbidden by Beverly Jenkins Jenkins’s books have a raw honesty that lets you live the story, not just read it. Her characters are warriors with struggles you internalize to a point where you feel somehow personally transformed when you’ve overcome them.

Forbidden was my gateway drug to her work, and unlike most historical romance, it felt less like a fairy tale and more like a story my grandmother told me about her admirable youth, with all its heartbreak and pride, and I was hooked. —SONALI DEV

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continued from 19 we have to show that through the book?’” (The wedding in The Bollywood Bride is Marathi, and therefore much more tasteful.)

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n some ways, Dev owes her career to the romance industry’s recent preoccupation with multiculturalism. She’s been able to write the books she wants and they’ve been published and embraced. “If I had waited another ten years without my book selling, would I have made compromises?” she asks rhetorically. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m coming from a place of privilege, of someone who finally got somewhere.”

Dev’s friends in the romance-writing world think she got somewhere because, despite the industry’s early resistance, her instinct to combine romance with Bollywood was a good one. “Sonali has a vision that no one else has,” says Susan Elizabeth Phillips, another Chicago-area author who has had one of her books, Match Me If You Can, optioned by Bollywood.

“She’s very commercial. Readers are eager for a glimpse into other cultures.” Sherry Thomas, a Chinese-born writer whose most recent romance novel, My Beautiful Enemy, was inspired by the wuxia martial arts novels of her childhood, first met Dev during a pitch-writing workshop at an RWA conference. Thomas had 300 pitches to critique and was also facing a book deadline, but Dev’s pitch stood out. “The premise was so unusual,” she says. “I was really looking forward to reading it. You can tell when things are going to be good.”

Kensington has also done her the courtesy of publishing her books with care and attention. Instead of printing them as standard mass-market paperbacks with a cover illustration of a man’s bare chest or a couple clinching so hard their clothes are falling off, the publisher decided on larger, more expensive trade paperbacks with colorful images of saris, bangles, and henna. Dev herself is of two minds about this. On one hand, it seems stereotypical for a book about Indians and Indian-Americans to have saris, bangles, and henna on the cover. On the other, since all these things do appear in her books, they’re true to the spirit of the story. And she also realizes that the covers appeal to people who would be embarrassed to be caught in public reading something that looked too obviously like a romance. “I wouldn’t mind man chest, though,” she says a little wistfully.

According to Nielsen’s Romance Book Buyer Report, most romance readers choose their books based on recommendations from their friends or favorite reviewers. So before the release of A Bollywood Affair, the publisher

Dev at home with a copy of A Change of Heart o ADAM JASON COHEN

A CHANGE OF HEART

BY SONALI DEV (KENSINGTON)

Dev appears with Kate Meader for “Reading, Signing, Samosas and Mimosas!” Thu 9/29, 7 PM, Anderson's Bookshop, 123 W. Jefferson Ave, Naperville, 630-355-2665, andersonsbookshop.com F

sent out advance copies not just to regular romance reviewers and other authors, but also to bloggers and Goodreads users, who were charmed first by the Bollywood concept and then by Dev’s writing and began to talk it up on Twitter. By the time it was finally published, the chatter had grown to full-fledged buzz.

“Man,” began one of the few negative reviews, on the website Love in the Margins. “I’m going to be kicking a puppy here.”

A Bollywood Affair sold well. Dev had suggested publishing The Bollywood Bride second because of its darker subject matter: Ria, the heroine, is a Bollywood star who returns home to Naperville for a wedding and has to confront Vikram, her childhood best friend turned true love, ten years after they were torn apart by the tragic effects of her mother’s mental illness. It sold even better. Now A Change of Heart, the darkest book yet, is poised to broaden Dev’s readership beyond romance into mainstream fiction. “It’s a romance at its core,” Biro says, “but it’s also rooted in the real world and has a page-turning suspense element. From the get-go there’s a lot of crossover. It’s not pigeonholed as a romance. It has

broader appeal. It’s a window into another culture.”

Dev is kind of tired of talking about diversity now. For her, A Change of Heart was less about creating a window into another culture—though there is an excursion into the fresh territory of the Mumbai criminal underworld—than a harrowing exploration of trauma and grief. In a way, it’s a continuation of her preoccupation with marriage and family. She’d originally intended to tell the story of Ria’s cousin Nikhil and his wife, Jen, the two Doctors Without Borders medics who married in The Bollywood Bride. Maybe, subconsciously, she’d realized that she’d already given them their “happily ever after” and there was nowhere to go but down, but as she began to write about their adventures in the slums of Mumbai, the story began to take on a life of its own. So Jen’s investigation into an organ-stealing ring ended with a pair of gangsters raping and murdering her in an alley, right in front of Nikhil. When the novel actually begins, it’s two years later, and Nikhil, in his grief, has abandoned Mumbai and his ideals and has gone to work as a doctor J

SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 21

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on a cruise ship and drinks himself numb and sick every night. Jess, the mysterious woman he encounters aboard the ship who claims to have received Jen’s heart in a transplant, has been through even worse: human traffickers brought her from her native Nepal to India, where her troubles really began.

“I didn’t go shopping for a dark topic,” Dev says. “But you question, right? You spend your whole life trying to make this wonderful life in terms of being married and having kids, and you put all of your love and everything into this. People lose people all the time. Loss happens all the time. What lies after that?”

Because A Change of Heart is a romance novel, it’s a foregone conclusion that somehow Nikhil and Jess will recognize the best parts of each other and heal together and then live happily ever after. But that doesn’t mean they don’t suffer first. (“Everyone has demons to fight,” says Dev’s friend Kristan Higgins, who writes cheerful small-town romances set in the northeast. “That’s an important part of modern romance novels. It’s not just the nurse and the doctor falling in love.”)

They suffer a lot. They suffer so much that Dev began to have trouble disconnecting from them and the book and returning to her regular life. Normally she works in short, intense bursts; she tells her children to pretend she’s away on a business trip. During the writing of A Change of Heart, though, she felt herself unable to slip back into her regular identity as wife, mother, friend, and worker. She’d never been in such a dark place.

B

ut Dev, like almost all romance readers and writers, is an optimist. One of her favorite parts about reading romance novels is how the characters, particularly the women, have a sense of agency, and one of the most interesting parts about writing romance novels is exploring that sense of agency: How do you choose to navigate a world where your whole sense of self-worth is based on your looks and feminine accomplishments, or where circumstances force you into an elaborate lie to protect your family, or where you’ve seen the love of your life tortured and killed? Do you choose to find a way out, or do you succumb? In a lot of contemporary fiction, the characters succumb; part of the fascination is seeing how far they’ll go. Dev, however, doesn’t find this fascinating. “These are not characters I want to follow,” she says.

“I think that this whole snobbery around anybody hoping . . . ” Her voice trails off. “It’s not necessarily cheesy. But we’re so cynical, it is cheesy.”

22 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

For her, one of the most satisfying parts of a book is when characters finally embrace their own better natures: “He could do nothing for Jen,” Nikhil realizes. “But Jess, her? He could make the life she had survived count, help her take it back. Suddenly, he needed to do that more than anything else.”

The emphasis on hope, Dev believes, is why many readers still tend to look down on romance writing, even though there are romances, like her own, that are just as well written and structured as books that are considered literary fiction. And it’s true there are few things cheesier than an unearned happy ending, except for maybe video gamestyle annihilation. But hey, at least with that, nobody is talking about their feelings. “I think [romance will get more respect] when people who read romance are in charge of the world,” author Sherry Thomas says. “People stopped making fun of fantasy and science fiction when the fantasy and science fiction fans took over.

Women need to take charge of the world.”

Dev isn’t sure what sort of reception Change of Heart will receive from readers. She feels she managed to pull Jess and Nikhil through the darkness into a better place, though she’s not sure whether readers will agree. But Dev’s already moved on and is at work on revisions to her fourth book. It’s a sequel of sorts to Change of Heart and concerns a young woman in Mumbai who spent 12 years living in isolation while she waited for a heart transplant.

Now that she’s free, she’s determined to seize as much of life as possible, while the hero, who was a servant in her house and her only friend as a child and who has now grown up to be a cop, tries to make sure she doesn’t get into too much trouble. In tone, it’s more of a romantic comedy, like A Bollywood Affair. “I think all the darkness got squeezed out of my system,” Dev says. “At least for a while.”

She’s not entirely comfortable with her role as the One and Only Indian-American Romance Novelist; for one thing, she’s not. Alisha Rai and Suleikha Snyder write about Indian characters too, and Snyder has also written a series set in Bollywood. But if more people will read her books and be inspired to buy more romances by south Asian writers, she considers that a happy ending. And she firmly believes in happily ever afters.

“I don’t understand when people say to me, ‘Oh, life’s not like that,’” Dev says. “It kind of is! Or it should be. Everything you’re doing in the hope that something good’s going to happen. I mean, otherwise what are you living for, right?” v

ß@aimeelevitt

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ARTS & CULTURE

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Michelle Lauto, Missy Aguilar, Lucia Godinez, and Leah Davis o LIZ LAUREN

THEATER

Strength in adversity

By TONY ADLER

W

ell, we had a busy summer, didn’t we? No sooner had everybody caught their breath after the Profiles Theatre harassment scandal, with its satisfyingly dramatic climax (storefront windows plastered over with copies of the Reader cover story, Profiles abruptly shuttered), than we were confronted with another controversy: Porchlight Music Theatre announced that the lead role of Usnavi in its new staging of In the Heights would be played

by Jack DeCesare.

Let me repeat that for empty emphasis: In the Heights. Usnavi. Jack DeCesare.

There was at least one rational reason for the fighting. Written by Quiara Alegría Hudes and composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda (yes, he who would go on to become the author and longtime star of Hamilton), In the Heights is set in the Latino-majority Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights, and Usnavi is a Dominican-born resident of it. DeCesare is reportedly of Italian-American descent, which means that the only Latin ancestors he can point to wore togas. While equal opportunity is a cherished value that applies to DeCesare as much as anybody, Latino artists were smart to make a stink about his selec-

tion, if only to remind the Chicago theater community that they’re here, a major Latino role is still a rarity, and the chance to fill one important.

That bread-and-butter issue got mixed up, though, with the academic one of appropriation—the exceedingly questionable notion that an ethnicity-specific story like Usnavi’s doesn’t belong to and therefore can’t be told by anyone outside that ethnicity. Loads of angry tweets got sent, many passionate posts got posted, but even at an SRO town hall meeting titled “The Color Game: Whitewashing Latinx Stories,” the biggest anti-appropriation firebrands couldn’t figure out how to reconcile their ideology with democracy, artistic freedom, and the practical interests of artists themselves.

In the Heights makes a great test case for all of this, because the show (an early draft of which played at Wesleyan University in 1999, when Miranda was a student there) is all about the alleged tension between ethnic loyalty and membership in the United States.

Usnavi—whose name famously derives from the first thing his parents saw and misunderstood on arrival in New York: a ship labeled “U.S. Navy”—runs a neighborhood bodega but talks about returning to the Do-

minican Republic. Veronica, the beautician he oafishly idolizes, just wants an apartment downtown. Usnavi’s pal Benny hopes to follow in the footsteps of his bosses, Kevin and Camila Rosario—classic scrappy immigrants who started with nothing and built a solid limo service.

Yet it’s the Rosarios’ daughter, Nina, whose American dreams have brought her to the breaking point. A formidable student, she won a scholarship to Stanford University but found the expenses, financial and emotional, overwhelming. She flunked out without telling her parents, and now has to go back and face the music.

Fortunately for her, the music is extraordinary. Miranda’s score won a Tony when In the Heights hit Broadway in 2008, and it’s still a joy here, in all its multicultural elan—the exuberant way it rolls up everything from hip-hop to salsa, corridos to show tunes (“My man, Cole Porter!” exclaims Usnavi) and not so incidentally refutes those who’d claim that it belongs to any earthly grouping narrower than “human.” Cleanly, dancingly directed by Brenda Didier, with music direction by Diana Lawrence, this Porchlight version captures the irrepressibility at the heart of the thing: the sense that the twentysomething Miranda couldn’t keep himself from turning out song after song after song.

Under such circumstances, Lucia Godinez could allow her Nina more latitude for emotion. Strong as she is in many respects, including a dynamic voice, Godinez gives us too much of the hurt child and not nearly enough of the headstrong, mixed-up, smarter-thanyou kid. Similarly, DeCesare’s Usnavi is charming but more than necessarily modest.

That’s not a problem for the cast as a whole, though. I can point out plenty of vivid individual efforts: Frankie Leo Bennett’s raffishness as Usnavi’s employee, Sonny; Isabel Quintero’s radiance as Usnavi’s substitute mom, Abuela Claudia; Stan DeCwikiel Jr.’s pure tenor as the local shaved-ice guy.

But it’s the sense of ensemble energy that makes this In the Heights delightful. You’d almost think all the wrangling brought them together. v R IN THE HEIGHTS Through 10/23: Thu 7:30 PM, Fri8 PM, Sat 4 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PM, Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont, 773-327-5252, porchlightmusictheatre.org, $43-$51.

ß @taadler

Philip R. Smith and Penelope Walker o LIZ LAUREN

THEATER

Life may suck, but it beats the alternative

BY TURNS HOMAGE AND SEND-UP, faithful adaptation and freewheeling deconstruction, Life Sucks, Aaron Posner’s witty, iconoclastic update of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, is much smarter—and more entertaining—than its blunt title might lead you to believe. Posner (Stupid Fucking Bird) takes the story and characters from Chekhov’s classic play about love, loss, and ennui among the economically besieged late 19th-century Russian upper crust and infuses it with contemporary American sensibilities and obsessions. His Vanya is much more foulmouthed than usual, and more openly angry and disappointed. Similarly, the other characters are much more blunt and more frank about sex than in the original—and eager to break the fourth wall. Oddly, though, the more Posner diddles with the master, the more masterfully he communicates Chekhov’s mood and message: no one is happy with their lives, but it beats the alternative.

It would be hard to imagine a better home for this script than Lookingglass, a company known for intelligent, energetic reimagined classics, or a better director than founding member Andrew White, who’s cast his production with nimble actors capable of playing both the comedy and the tragedy in Posner’s Americanized Chekhov, sometimes at the same time. Eddie Jemison makes a brilliant Vanya, at once likable and irritating, and constantly making pointed, funny quips about a life he’s powerless to change. But then, all of White’s casting choices are spot-on, and even when Posner’s text dares the actors to stumble—as when characters directly address the audience asking what they think about the play—White’s graceful ensemble doesn’t.

Life may suck; not so this production. —JACK HELBIG R LIFE SUCKS Through 11/6: Wed 7:30

PM, Thu 2 and 7:30 PM, Fri 7:30 PM, Sat-Sun 2 and 7:30 PM, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan, 312337-0665, lookingglasstheatre.org, $45-$65.

SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 23

ARTS & CULTURE

THEATER

Some kind of wonderful, just not too

By JUSTIN HAYFORD

W

onderful Town, the second Broadway collaboration between Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden, Adolph Green, and to a lesser extent Jerome Robbins, was created during the height of McCarthyism, a menace that must have weighed heavily on the show’s creators. Robbins—who’d choreographed the trio’s first show, On the Town, and doctored important sections of Wonderful Town without credit—landed before the House Un-American Activities Committee a few months after the show opened in early 1953. Among the names he gave to the committee was Jerome Chodorov, who cowrote the show’s book. Two months later the State Department refused to renew Bernstein’s

24 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

Bri Sudia and Lauren Molina with ensemble members o LIZ LAUREN

passport until he signed an affidavit swearing he wasn’t a communist.

But you’d never know that anything scarier than colorful drunkards, booming construction, and snobby rich people lurks in the quaint, quirky Greenwich Village where Ruth and Eileen Sherwood, late of Columbus, Ohio, apply all manner of pluck and spunk to making it big. Plain intellectual Ruth wants to write.

Vivacious blond Eileen wants to act. Through a series of drawn-out misadventures, they each end up with a foot in a promising door.

The show’s creators set the action in 1930s, when they, like the show’s protagonists, were trying to make their mark. That’s of course long before Joseph McCarthy ever browbeat a witness; it’s director Mary Zimmerman who’s moved the action of this Goodman Theatre revival to the 1950s. But no matter the decade, it’s a wafer-thin story in sore need of complication (the original managed to leave out the Great Depression). One wishes Comden and Green—who’d shown how sophisticated a diverting period piece could be in their screenplay for Singin’ in the Rain—had written the book as well as the lyrics.

What complications the show does offer come from Bernstein’s ingenious score (played here by a full live orchestra under Doug Peck), which mixes myriad popular musical styles with academic concert techniques: shifting time signatures, dissonant sonorities, unifying motives, and unusual modulations (I counted 11 key changes in the opening number, and I likely missed a couple). It’s all bound together with soaring melodies well handled by the cast.

Zimmerman wisely acknowledges the story’s simplicity; Todd Rosenthal’s humorous set makes every building, car, train, and

passing cloud a two-dimensional cutout. Too often the supporting characters surpass that by being one-dimensional, but the leads find more nuance, particularly Bri Sudia, who as Ruth makes a predictable path seem surprising, bringing nearly as much ingenuity, intricacy, and panache to her performance as Bernstein brought to his score. It’s her show from start to finish. v WONDERFUL TOWN Through 10/23: Wed-Thu 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM (except 9/24, 8 PM only), Sun 2 and 7:30 PM; also Tue 10/4, 7:30 PM, Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn, 312-443-3800, goodmantheatre. org, $18-$94.

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Improvisers Virginia Muller and Gretchen Eng o FORESTT STRONG LAFAVE PHOTOGRAPHY

COMEDY

Literary works inspire improvisers at iO

By BRIANNA WELLEN

I

mprovisers Shelby Plummer and Brad Pike spend their time onstage creating worlds and characters, but their earlier work started on the page. Both studied creative writing in college and participated in the local live-lit community. With Fictitious, an online literary journal and live improv performance at iO, they marry fiction writing and comedy.

Each performance consists of six short fiction pieces—two stories are read at a time, and following the reading a scene based on each pair is improvised. The setup gives comedians a chance to work within tighter parameters and offers writers the opportunity to see

what else might happen within the narrative they’ve created.

“Some people have told me, ‘I can write a series now, because I know what this world would be like in these other ways,’” Plummer says.

Stories submitted through the website about dramatic breakups, the Oregon Trail computer game, and a robocop have inspired past performances, but the producers are open to partnering with other existing publications as well; last month Fictitious featured works only from the webzine Shredded. The eventual goal is to compile short fiction pieces

that have been staged with longer, unstaged submissions into a literary journal in print form to be published every other month and sold at iO. And Plummer encourages anyone to submit material.

“We found that most of our comedy friends also have some sort of a creative writing background,” Plummer says. “It’s a way to get that writing out of them without it being a high-pressure situation of writing a sketch revue or something like that.”

While Plummer and Pike are always open to funny submissions, they say it’s more interesting for improvisers to work with more

serious material they wouldn’t normally get to use as inspiration. For example, a recent story featured a character who kept trying to commit suicide only to have his plan thwarted by outside sources. Suicide doesn’t scream “comedy,” but the performers were able to create jokes from a specific preestablished perspective.

Despite their creative similarities, the comedy and fiction scenes don’t often overlap, but through Fictitious members from each group are finding a new outlet for their work and exposing their craft to more people.

“We have seen a lot of people who have never seen improv before, they just had a short piece that fit the parameters, and they were brought into the show,” Plummer says.

“It’s fun for us to get a breath of fresh air, and it’s fun for them to be introduced to this community, see their work onstage, and reach a new audience.” v R FICTITIOUS Wed 9/28, 10:30 PM, iO, 1501 N. Kingsbury, fictitiousthejournal.org, $5.

ß @BriannaWellen

SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 25

ARTS & CULTURE

VISUAL ART

Three ways to do Expo Chicago IF YOU WANT TO START COLLECTING

With dozens of gallery booths spread across Navy Pier’s 170,000-square-foot Festival Hall, Expo Chicago offers a prime opportunity to see new art. But is it also the right venue for someone who’s looking to begin collecting? Adam Fields, who’s been collecting for six years and has attended Expo since its inaugural, believes it is. “It showcases the majority of the local galleries and local artists,” he says. Fields is a Chicago native who now lives in New York, where he’s the founder and CEO of Arta, a start-up he describes as “Expedia for high-end art shipping.”

Fields suggests that new collectors head for the EXPOSURE and SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS sections, the places where one can spot work by emerging artists because, he says, “there are always accessible price points.” He recommends that novice collectors should also check out the EDITIONS + BOOKS area. “It can allow younger collectors to get a big, recognizable name at a more accessible price,” Fields says.

Most importantly, new collectors shouldn’t be too hasty. “Be patient,” Fields says. “Walk around the fair, take notes, both mental and actual, of what interests you. Don’t be afraid to ask considered questions. Hopefully go with your gut and buy things that mean something to you, things you appreciate, and not just for a name that you read in a magazine or heard from a friend.” —TAL ROSENBERG

IF YOU JUST WANT TO PARTY

For those looking to skip the formalities and go straight to the afterparty, there are plenty of chances to rub elbows with artists and art lovers with a cocktail in hand.

The fun kicks off Thursday with UNBRIDLED: SILVER FACTORY at Untitled (111 W. Kinzie),

26 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

An aerial view of Navy Pier’s Festival Hall during Expo Chicago 2015 o KELLY TAUB/BFA.COM

a free Andy Warhol-inspired celebration of adult-film performers, drag queens, socialites, musicians, and artists hosted by local burlesque icon Michelle L’amour.

On Friday, galleries across the city present their own “ART AFTER DARK” EVENTS in conjunction with Expo. Some highlights include the opening reception of “SKILLSHOT: THE COLLABORATIVE ART OF PINBALL” at the Glass Curtain Gallery (1104 S. Wabash); a one-year retrospective of the work of FMK5X5 ARTISTS at Fulton Market Kitchen (311 N. Sangamon); and AFTER DARK, a party in the Art Institute of Chicago’s Modern Wing (111 S. Michigan) that includes live entertainment from the Pheels, Fee Lion, and Shaka 23, plus a specialty cocktail inspired by the exhibit “A Lot of Sorrow.”

On Saturday, Party Noire and Rootwork Gallery (645 W. 18th) team up for ART/NOIRE, a BYOB night of dancing and Viktor le. Givens’s multimedia exhibition “The In-Between Space.”

For those who want to get a little sunshine with their art, the East Room (2354 N. Milwaukee) hosts the BACKYARD BBQ AND OPENAIR POP-UP GALLERY, featuring live painting, food from the Boiler Room, drinks from the bar, and exhibitions by artists Emma McKee,

Sick Fisher, Keithstone Smith, and more on Saturday and Sunday from 1-8 PM. —BRIANNA WELLEN

IF YOU WANT TO SEE IT FOR FREE

There are gratis concurrent exhibits and events at local galleries all weekend long. Here are six best bets: “#30 DIA DE LOS MUERTOS: JOURNEY OF THE SOUL” The National Museum of Mexican Art’s 30th annual Day of the Dead exhibition features material by more than 35 artists from across the country. Opening reception Fri 9/23, 6-8:30 PM. 9/23-12/11, National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th, 312-738-1503, nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org.

“THE ANNUAL” The yearly exhibit of work by local artists, curated by Edra Soto of the Franklin, includes a chance to view and purchase pieces during a free breakfast on Fri 9/23 at 9 AM. RSVP required. Through 9/29, Chicago Artists Coalition, 217 N. Carpenter, 312-491-8888, chicagoartistscoalition.org.

“BETA” A collection of paintings by Wasalu Jaco, better known as Lupe Fiasco. 9/23-11/30,

Ed Paschke Art Center, 5415 W. Higgins, 312533-4911, edpaschkeartcenter.org.

“HIGH PHI” New work by printmaker Jim Pollock. Opening reception Fri 9/23, 6-10 PM. 9/23-10/23, Galerie F, 2381 N. Milwaukee, 773819-9200, galerief.com.

POP-UP ARON PACKER PROJECTS The gallery presents a group exhibit featuring work by Krista Hoefle, Nancy Mladenoff, Lorraine Peltz, and Jennifer Yorke. Closing reception on Sun 9/25, 1-3 PM. Through 9/25, Mars Gallery, 1139 W. Fulton Market, 312-226-7808, marsgallery.com.

“SPUN” A collaborative installation led by Kevin Maginnis that includes the work of Erik Beehn, Sabina Ott, Tony Tasset, and more. Opening reception Sat 9/24, 7-9 PM. 9/24-11/5, Stuart and Co. Gallery, 2250 W. Ohio, 312-487-1850, stuartandco.com. —BRIANNA WELLEN R EXPO CHICAGO 9/22-9/25: Thu 6-9 PM, Fri-Sat 11 AM-7 PM, Sun 11 AM-6 PM. Navy Pier, 600 E. Grand expochicago.com, $30 three-day general admission, $20 one-day general admission, $15 group tickets.

ß @briannawellen @talrosenberg

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Slash

MOVIES

Reeling looks back, and ahead

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eeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival opens tonight at Music Box with a screening of Matt Kugelman’s drag comedy Hurricane Bianca, then moves to Chicago Filmmakers and Landmark’s Century Centre for a week of screenings that concludes with Justin Kelly’s true-crime drama King Cobra. This is the festival’s 34th edition and the third since founder Brenda Webb announced it would go on hiatus in 2013 as the planners rethought their mission and considered such questions as “a change in the time of year that the festival takes place” and “how the festival might expand or evolve to better address the changing needs of LGBT filmmakers.”

Webb—now heavily occupied with the renovation of an Edgewater firehouse that will become home to the festival and its sponsor, Chicago Filmmakers—took time out for an e-mail to assess Reeling’s progress since the year off. Moving the festival from early November to mid-September, she says, has been a boon in terms of scheduling films. “When Reeling was in November, films that played the spring and summer LGBT film festivals often had been released prior to our fes-

tival, so we didn’t have a chance to show them before they went to VOD or DVD or, in some cases, prior to a theatrical release. Meanwhile, newer films coming out in the fall would sometimes not commit to festival placement until they saw what happened in major festivals like Toronto and whether or not they got distribution.”

The construction project has forced Reeling to curtail its panel discussions this year, but Webb is happy with the previous years’ panels and filmmaker brunches, which were “oriented toward filmmaker peer-to-peer learning (as differentiated from audience-oriented panels).” Visiting filmmakers were able to interact more directly with local filmmakers, she says, to discuss such matters as how to create a webseries, how to exploit social media for promotion, and how to create a DCP (Digital Cinema Package). “It’s a tough environment for independent filmmakers,” Webb writes, “and our hope was that bringing filmmakers together might result in some brainstorming of innovative models for distribution and exhibition.” She hopes to resume the panels next year when Reeling slides down the firepole into its new home. —J.R. JONES

REELING: THE CHICAGO LGBTQ+ INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Thu 9/22-Thu 9/29, 773-293-1447, reelingfilmfestival. org, tickets $8-$15, passes $45-$130.

HURRICANE BIANCA In the setup for this broad comedy, an ineffectual New York science teacher (Roy Haylock) transfers to a hick Texas high school, where he’s promptly fired for being gay. He regains his confidence and his job after resurfacing in drag as Bianca Del Rio, a tart-tongued spitfire with bee-stung lips who aims to teach the locals a thing or two both inside and outside the classroom. Crowd-funded on a teensy budget, the movie is not without its charms, including Ryan Matthieu Smith’s inventive production and costume design and a cast of unknowns who prove worthy straight J

SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 27

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ARTS & CULTURE

September 23 - 29 JIMMY VESTVOOD: AMERIKAN HERO

Fri., 9/23 at 8:30 pm; Sat., 9/24 at 3:15 pm; Sun., 9/25 at 5:15 pm & 7:45 pm; Mon., 9/26 at 8:15 pm; Wed., 9/28 at 8:15 pm; Thu., 9/29 at 6:15 pm

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Fri., 9/23 at 6 pm; Sat., 9/24 at 1 pm & 7:45 pm; Sun., 9/25 at 3 pm; Mon., 9/26 at 6 pm; Tue., 9/27 at 8:15 pm; Wed., 9/28 at 6 pm; Thu., 9/29 at 8:15 pm

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Reeling continued from 27 men to Del Rio. Matt Kugelman wrote and directed, with an affinity for camp; there are cameos by Alan Cumming, Sandra Cho, and RuPaul. —ANDREA GRONVALL 82 min. Kugelman and Del Rio attend the screening, part of the opening-night program; tickets are $15. Thu 9/22, 7:30 PM, Music Box

Find hundreds of Readerrecommended restaurants, exclusive video features, and sign up for weekly news at chicagoreader.com/ food.

28 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

KING COBRA IFC Films is distributing this lurid true-crime drama under its “IFC Midnight” brand, but the movie is more like something you’d stumble across on cable at 4 AM before giving up on the day. A gayporn producer (Christian Slater) discovers the ultimate twink sensation (Garrett Clayton, cloned from Zac Efron) and exploits him mercilessly before the kid begins to get wise; meanwhile a controlling pimp (James Franco) and his number one rent boy (Keegan Allen) move in on the other couple, with ultimately bloody results.

Director Justin Kelly keeps all this within the safe confines of commodified underground cinema: the sex scenes are supposed to be desperately raunchy but are all shot in a

coy, TV-friendly manner. I mean, my goodness—Molly Ringwald and Alicia Silverstone are in this movie. —J.R. JONES 92 min. Kelly and Clayton attend the screening, part of the closing-night program; tickets are $15. Thu 9/29, 7 PM, Landmark’s Century Centre THE LANDSCAPE WITHIN Filipino costume designer and body painter Eric “Nui” Cabales uses paint, ink, and other media to transform ordinary people into mythical beings. His photographs of these creations are stunning, but this documentary profile of him by Andrea Capranico is too elliptical and abstract.

Capranico takes almost the entire running time to connect Cabales, who mourns his father’s death and his uncle’s dying, with the legendary Princess Nabingka, an emigre noble whose homesickness was cured only when her followers painted themselves with images of her beloved native flowers. Subtlety is often underrated, but a tad more exposition here would have been nice. In English and subtitled Tagalog. —ANDREA GRONVALL 79 min. Cabales

attends the screening. Mon 9/26, 9 PM, Landmark’s Century Centre LAZY EYE A successful graphic designer (Lucas NearVerbrugghe) suffers from an eye condition that flares up with the return of an old flame (Aaron Costa Ganis) who broke his heart 15 years earlier. His diminished eyesight could be a metaphor for this indie drama by writer-director Tim Kirkman, who focuses myopically on the problems of wealthy white hipsters. Like Andrew Haigh’s Weekend (2011), the movie transpires over about 48 hours and concentrates on gay lovers pondering whether they should continue their relationship or part ways. Yet Haigh’s natural, unnervingly intimate dialogue scenes make the lovers’ union thought-provoking, whereas Kirkman’s duo, though attractive and capably acted, come across as scripted and superficial.

—LEAH PICKETT 87 min. Kirkman attends the screening. Wed 9/28, 7 PM, Landmark’s Century Centre

R of slash—same-sex,

SLASH The weird world

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ARTS & CULTURE RSM

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erotic online fan fiction—is the focus of this delightful feature from writer-director Clay Liford, which depicts sexual discovery through the vivid perspectives of serious young writers. A diffident high school freshman in a small Texas town (Michael Johnston) thinks he’s alone in penning homoerotic vignettes that center on his favorite character from a sci-fi franchise, until he meets another, more confident classmate (Hannah Marks) who posts similar stories on adult Internet forums and encourages him to do the same.

Aside from a hackneyed early scene in which other students find and read aloud from the boy’s journal, the movie is refreshingly tender in how it deals with questions of identity, craft, and community. “I bet we’re the only kids in this entire joint who know what we know about,” the girl exclaims to her new friend, and their nerdy enthusiasm is infectious. With Michael Ian Black in a memorable cameo. —LEAH PICKETT 100 min. Sat 9/24, 5 PM, Landmark’s Century Centre SOUTHWEST OF SALEM: THE STORY OF THE SAN ANTONIO FOUR Deborah Esquenazi’s advocacy documentary traces the lives of four gay women—Elizabeth Ramirez, Cassandra Rivera, Kristie Mayhugh, and Anna Vasquez—who were convicted in the late 1990s of having gang-raped

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Ramirez’s two young nieces.

As the title suggests, the women were portrayed in the press as witches during an era when being openly lesbian in Texas was tantamount to black magic. All four were paroled in 2013 and eventually granted new trials after one of the nieces—now a mother herself— recanted her testimony. Using more than two decades’ worth of home movies and news interviews, Esquenazi makes palpable the loss of those 15-odd years of incarceration; one hopes that this moving account will help the women find some measure of justice.

—DMITRY SAMAROV 91 min.

Wed 9/28, 7:15 PM, Landmark’s Century Centre TOMCAT Intense and sometimes shocking, this Austrian drama by writer-director Klaus Händl lives in the pockets of two gay lovers—when they’re wearing pants, that is—and fosters such a sense of intimacy with them that you may not be able to pull back when the relationship is soiled and possibly doomed by an impulsive act of cruelty. The two men (Lukas Turtur, Philipp Hochmair) are both professional orchestra musicians, and Händl stages many agreeable scenes in which the men and their little circle of friends sing together and talk about music with taste and passion. Behind closed doors, however, the silence

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between the men is charged with rage, remorse, and uncertainty, leading to such elemental questions as “Who are you?” and “What’s wrong with you?”

In many respects this reminded me of Michael Haneke at his best, though it also rivals Ira Sachs’s Keep the Lights On in capturing the private fever of mutual desire. In German with subtitles.—J.R. JONES 119 min.

Tue 9/27, 7 PM, Landmark’s Century Centre UPSTAIRS INFERNO Documentary maker Robert L. Camina chronicles the 1972 arson fire at the UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans, which claimed 32 lives and ranked as the largest mass murder of gay people in U.S. history until the Orlando nightclub shooting of June 2016. Using archival footage and photography, as well as extensive interviews with survivors, Camina creates an empathetic portrait (2015) of a tragic event during an era very different from our own—at the time, no civic or religious leader was willing even to eulogize the dead.

The faded snapshots of the fallen, intercut with the tearful reminiscences of now-elderly survivors, effectively communicate the feeling of loss that still lingers, no matter how much progress this community and our larger society have made.

—DMITRY SAMAROV 91 min. Sun 9/25, 7 PM, Landmark’s Century Centre v

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Music by Nirvana, L7, Killdozer, & more!

Director Q&A after the screening!

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STARTS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23

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SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 29

MUSIC IN ROTATION

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

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

JUST ADDED • NEW SHOWS ON SALE FRIDAY! 11/5

Mohsen Namjoo

VISIT OLDTOWNSCHOOL.ORG TO BUY TICKETS! THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 7:30PM

Fifth House and Baladino present Nedudim

Joe Wong hosts The Trap Set podcast. o JENNA JONES

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 8PM

The Pines In Szold Hall

with special guests Jim White & Paul Fonfara

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 8PM

A still from the trailer for the Nick Cave documentary One More Time With Feeling o PICTUREHOUSE ENTERTAINMENT

The World Class Wreckin Cru released their final album, Rapped in Romance, in 1986.

TREVOR DE BRAUW

KENNY RASMUSSEN

Touring like a grown-up A few weeks ago I went on tour with my band—my first such trip on this side of 30. In the past I’d usually found a way to turn a short run of dates into a weeklong party, but this time we were total adults about it: very little drinking, crashing at nice places, eating healthy, taking a day off in the middle to camp and get some fresh air.

No hangovers means better attitudes, better shows, and an overall better time. Who would have thought?

Nick Cave, One More Time With Feeling and Skeleton Tree Grief is a particularly rich topic for art because it’s so universal and subsuming. Nick Cave, whose son died in an accident during the making of his new album, Skeleton Tree, invited a crew to film a documentary about finishing the record in the aftermath of that loss. The album is nakedly emotional and affecting, and the companion documentary, One More Time With Feeling, is a generous gift—a master poet deepening our perspective on grief by guiding us through his.

Susan Faludi, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man Faludi examines our culture’s rigid standards of masculinity by drawing on seemingly disparate people and organizations: male porn stars, the author of the book First Blood, sexist Vietnam war protesters, a borderline homoerotic military academy. If the catchphrase “Patriarchy hurts men too” has become a cliche to you, akin to “Save the planet” and “Meat is murder,” then this 1999 book should remind you it’s disturbingly true.

Russian Baths I played a show with this Brooklyn band last month, and their two-song tape from April has been in constant rotation with me since. These massive tracks perfectly blend spooky shoegaze and ear-piercing noise rock—they’re punishing in volume and delivery but delicate and beautiful in spirit.

The only bad thing I can say about Russian Baths is that this single is too short. I can’t wait to hear what’s next for them.

The Trap Set podcast I’ve been obsessed with The Trap Set podcast lately—it’s not just for drummers, it’s also by drummers. Host Joe Wong interviews some of the best percussionists of the past and present about their personal stories and spiritual and emotional connections to the drum set, rather than geeking out over gear, techniques, or chops.

Recent guests have included serious hitters Todd Trainer, Mac McNeilly, Greg Fox, and Mario Rubalcaba, and each episode clocks in at about 30 minutes—you could easily listen to a dozen or so during a regular workday, if you feel so inclined.

30 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

Guitarist for Pelican and RLYR

Smoking Popes, “Someday I’ll Smile Again” Early this month Smoking Popes released the first recordings by the band’s original lineup in 18 years. One of the two new songs, “Someday I’ll Smile Again,” lives up to their best work, buoyed by Josh Caterer’s immaculate vocal melody and heartaching lyrics. It worms through a chord progression that feels familiar but (in classics Popes fashion) takes left turns into unpredictable scenic territory.

Astronoid, Air Metal is built on brutality, but forward-looking artists have unlocked its ethereal, cathartic potential, often by hybridizing with other genres (screamo for Deafheaven, for instance, or shoegaze for Alcest).

Air, the full-length debut by Boston’s Astronoid, is a rare exception—it eschews minorkey brooding and screamed vocals in favor of majestic major keys and soaring melodies, but it never feels like a hybrid (the solo in “Up and Atom” has heavy metal in its DNA). Major keys and clean singing can sound cheesy in metal, but Air is sublime and ferociously catchy.

The Spirit of '86 in 2016 • In Szold Hall

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2 10AM & 1PM

LUCA CIMARUSTI

Reader music listings coordinator

Mike Peters of the Alarm

Bassist for Anatomy of Habit

Getting the chance to expand on why I dislike the Grateful Dead I have my reasons for not liking the Dead, but I’ll admit to being green on a fair amount of the band’s catalog.

Thanks to Luca Cimarusti, I heard some of the group’s choicest cuts. What I found were meandering guitars, dispassionate vocals, instrumental indulgence with little thought to hooks, melody, harmony, or power, and a dampening of the political spirit of the time.

AC/DC and the Ramones have never sounded better.

Late-70s and mid-80s rap and hip-hop The combo of analog synthesizers, vintage drum machines, and vocoders sounds incredible to me. Finding records by the World Class Wreckin Cru, Egyptian Lover, and Twilight 22 has kick-started an obsession. I love DJing, I love dancing, and I love DJing for people who love dancing. The technical innovation, dance styles, and fashion of this era are pure joy.

Dan Zanes Song Gusto Hour Kids' concert

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7 7PM

9th Annual Chicago Battle of the Jug Bands SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9 7PM

OneBeat Musical Migrations THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13 8PM

Darlingside

with special guest Frances Luke Accord

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14 8PM

Bonnie Koloc

with special guest Ed Holstein

WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL 2016 9/23 Doña Onete / Silvia / Manrique & Neusa Sauer with Luciano Antonio

ACROSS THE STREET IN SZOLD HALL 4545 N LINCOLN AVENUE, CHICAGO IL

9/24 The Gentle Shepherd: A Scottish Folk Opera 9/25 Jim Kweskin / Geoff Muldaur 9/30 Global Dance Party: West Indian Folk Dance Company 10/7 Global Dance Party: Swing Brasileiro 10/14 Global Dance Party: Hoyle Brothers

WORLD MUSIC WEDNESDAY SERIES FREE WEEKLY CONCERTS, LINCOLN SQUARE

9/28 Rajasthan Josh 10/5 Perujazz

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SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9 RIVIERA THEATRE 7:00pm • All Ages

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8:00pm • 18 & Over

ADAM CAROLLA

SATURDAY OCTOBER 1

8:00pm • 18 & Over

THIS SATURDAY! SEPTEMBER 24

OCTOBER 5

8:00pm • 18 & Over

7:30pm • All Ages

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13 8:00pm • 18 & Over

Tickets Purchased for the Riviera Honored

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• CHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS –Oct. 4 • BOYCE AVENUE – Friday, Oct. 7 • MARIAN HILL –Saturday, Oct. 8 • MARILLION –Oct. 27 & 28 • AMERICAN FOOTBALL –Saturday, Oct. 29 • THE WOOD BROTHERS LOTUS –Friday & Saturday, Nov. 4-5 • BRIDGET EVERETT –Saturday, Nov. 12 • JJ GREY & MOFRO –Friday & Saturday, Nov. 18-19 • MARC MARON –Saturday, Dec. 3

–Nov. 3

BUY TICKETS AT SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 31

MUSIC

Recommended and notable shows and critics’ insights for the week of September 22 b ALL AGES F

THURSDAY22 Califone See also Friday. Luyas open. 8 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, $20.

PICK OF THE WEEK

Angel Olsen ditches folk for a bigger sound

o COURTESY PITCH PERFECT PR

ANGEL OLSEN, RODRIGO AMARANTE Tue 8/27 and Wed 8/28, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 1801 S. Allport, sold out. 17+

I WAS A BIT ANXIOUS to watch the video for “Intern,” the first single from Angel Olsen’s latest album, My Woman (Jagjaguwar). Between her silver tinsel wig and the song’s all-synthesizer backing, it seemed she might have compromised her artistry to chase pop success—a fear apparently substantiated by her decision to bring on producer Justin Raisen (Sky Ferreira, Charlie XCX). But I should’ve known better than to worry about someone as savvy, talented, and thoughtful as Olsen. “Intern” addresses the struggle to establish identity and authenticity, so the ethereal electronic setting, though out of character for Olsen, makes sense thematically—and the synths can’t obscure the beauty of her vocal melody. The rest of My Woman sticks to the guitar-based sound of Olsen’s touring band, but she’s ditched the folk mannerisms of her earlier records (as superb as they were) for something bigger. She experiments with a wide variety of modes: a girl-group strut on “Never Be Mine,” the spirit of primo Fleetwood Mac on “Sister” (with its clear echoes of “Dreams”), unexpected dublike grooves on “Heart Shaped Face,” and dreamy Laurel Canyon atmosphere on “Those Were the Days.” Throughout it all, Olsen never sounds like anyone but herself—her musical strengths almost make the uncertainty and confusion of some of her characters seem incongruous. The uncertainty and confusion are superficial, though—the narrator of the irresistible “Shut Up Kiss Me” might be clingy, but when she delivers the title line, she makes her desire perfectly plain. And as the album unfolds into its more ruminative second half, it becomes clear that the people in Olsen’s songs don’t suffer fools gladly. Judging from how completely Olsen owns her work, neither does she.

—PETER MARGASAK

32 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

Califone rose from the ashes of Red Red Meat in the late 90s, by which time the latter’s narcotic, Stonesy groove had broken down into exquisite, improv-heavy rubble that few people seemed to appreciate. Led by RRM front man Tim Rutili, the new band applied their grasp of 70s Miles Davis grooves to a mix of old-timey music and primitive blues, developing a genuinely American sound.

Califone debuted with a couple of tentative EPs, but when they dropped their full-length debut, 2001’s Roomsound, they proved themselves one of the best rock bands not only in Chicago but in the country. Rutili was backed only by two drummers, Brian Deck and Ben Massarella; he played most everything, though he had occasional help from an array of guests such as Rick Rizzo, John Rice, and future member Eric Johnson. Dead Oceans is reissuing Roomsound, augmented with material cut at the same time, and it shows no sign of wear. Opening track “Trout Silk” stumbles out of the gate with a druggy, streamlined country blues, but like the rest of the record, it suffuses its primeval licks and riffs with subtle instrumental details—ambient keyboards, unassuming piano chords, flanged guitar stabs, and seductive percussion. When the album came out, Rutili told me, “I love records that you can put back on again and again, noticing something new every time. That’s the kind of record we want to make.” On that count he succeeded, so that revisiting Roomsound continues to yield unexpected dividends today—and the blurry, gorgeous melodies that anchor Rutili’s songs, delivered in his singular, soulful croak, remain supremely satisfying. Califone will play the album in its entirety here, with Rutili, Massarella, and Deck joined by Wally Boudway and Ross Andrews. —PETER MARGASAK

The Ghost Tigerfish & Lioncats open. 9 PM, Elastic, 3429 W. Diversey, $10 suggested donation. b Records such as Archie Shepp’s The Cry of My People and Joe McPhee’s Nation Time linked fiery free jazz to the civil rights battles of the 60s. Saxophonist Michael Foster (Andrew Barker Trio, Weasel Walter Large Ensemble), bassist Henry Fraser (Chris Pitsiokos Quartet, Nick Sanders Trio), and drummer Connor Baker (Nick Sanders Trio), who play together as New York-based trio the Ghost, use the flame of free music to torch different oppressors on their latest tape, The Hole (Tombed Visions). Their woolly blowing sessions and bracingly coarse textural explorations kick back at a homophobic preacher and a disapproving news commentator (whose voices are sampled in the group’s music), and on “No More Wire Hangers” they reposition the legendary freak-out scene from Mommie Dearest as a rejection of antiabortion restrictions. “Apply Pressure” changes tack, using recordings of a bondage encounter to underline a commonality between sex and free jazz—in neither case do you want to climax too quickly. Norwegian sax-and-drums duo Tigerfish & Lioncats open; the Ghost also play a DIY show on Wednesday, September 21, which you can probably find information about online. —BILL MEYER

Gucci Mane o JONATHAN MANNION Rock, Pop, Etc Buzzcocks, Residuels, Mystery Actions 8 PM, the Vic 18+ Death Valley Girls, Midnight Reruns, Platinum Boys, New Drugs 9 PM, Empty Bottle Dogs at Large, Gazebo Effect, Cass Cwik 9 PM, Burlington Droughts, Maeth, Mine Collpase, Naga 9 PM, Quenchers Saloon Flowtone, Forgotten Tropics, Leaft Greens 8 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Beth Hart, Cathy Richardson 8 PM, Park West 18+ Molehill, Nick D & the Believers, Dear Dario 8:30 PM, Subterranean Movits!, Sidewalk Chalk, Church Booty 8 PM, Bottom Lounge 17+ The Pines, Jim White & Paul Fonfara 8 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Stabbing Westward, En Esch, Ganser, DJ Pirate Twins 8 PM, Double Door, sold out Tokyo Police Club, Varsity 9 PM, Lincoln Hall Wellthen, Foreign Shores, Milked Myrcenes 9 PM, Beat Kitchen Susan Werner 7:30 PM, Auditorium Theatre Zerodent, Injured Parties, Rent Party, Bob Rok 8 PM, Township Hip-Hop Beadz, Karizmatik, TLaw 10 PM, Jerry’s Danny Brown, Maxo Kream, Zelooperz 7 PM, House of Blues b Dance Bassjackers 10 PM, the Mid Kings of Class, Hi-Five, Who Cares 11 PM, Primary Nightclub Ariel Zetina, Composuresquad, Hijo Prodijo, Swan Meat 10 PM, Smart Bar Folk & Country Devil in a Woodpile 6 PM, Hideout Blues, Gospel, and R&B James Hunter Six 8 PM, SPACE b Rahsaan Patterson 7 and 9:30 PM, City Winery b

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SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 33

Find more music listings at chicagoreader.com/soundboard.

MUSIC continued from 32

Jazz Joel Paterson & Joe Policastro 9:30 PM, California Clipper International Lautari Part of World Music Festival. Noon, Claudia Cassidy Theater, Chicago Cultural Center F b Dona Onete, Bossa Tres Part of the World Music Festival. 8 PM, The Promontory F Solo & Indre, SK Kakraba Part of the World Music Festival. 6 PM, Chicago Cultural Center, Preston Bradley Hall F b Classical Fifth House Ensemble & Nedudim 7:30 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b

FRIDAY23 Califone See Thursday. Luyas open. 8 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, sold out.

Gucci Mane 8 PM, UIC Pavilion, 525 S. Racine, $40-$200. b I was legitimately confused the first time I saw the video for “First Day Out tha Feds,” Gucci Mane’s first single after spending nearly three years in prison for firearms possession by a felon. When he was arrested in 2013, he was potbellied and soaked in lean, his slurred, stuttered rhymes flowing like a codeine-syrup drizzle. But the Gucci in the new music video is clearly a new Mane—his transformation had me triple-checking the YouTube box to make sure I was watching the right guy. The rapper born Radric Davis seems to have turned his life around in jail, slimming down, bulking up, and allegedly going sober. On the July full-length Everybody Looking, Gucci chronicles his journey atop bouncy, superslick Mike Will Made It beats, delivering surprisingly insightful rhymes about rebuilding burned bridges and recovering from drug addiction. The new record is a welcome return for Gucci— his signature slur has cleared up, but the clever voice that made him so much fun years ago is still intact. Added bonus: Everybody Looking features killer verses from some of hip-hop’s best, including Young Thug, Drake, and Kanye. —LUCA CIMARUSTI

but for this, their first eastern U.S. tour in a couple years, the hook is a gorgeously remastered tenthanniversary reissue of their debut, Diadem of 12 Stars, on their own Artemisia label. May it serve as a touchstone for both the band and their audience, because this gorgeous, hideous masterpiece helped put the mists of the Pacific Northwest on the global metal map with a big, spine-chilling skull and crossbones. —MONICA KENDRICK Rock, Pop, Etc Allah-Las, Tops 7 PM, Double Door Aloha, More More More, Dimwaves 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Bear’s Den, Liza Anne 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, sold out, 17+ Blood Orange 8 PM, the Vic 18+ Car Seat Headrest, Lucy Dacus 8 PM, Thalia Hall, sold out b Catfish & the Dogstars, Barrel Fever 9 PM, Emporium Arcade Bar F Emblems, Blood People, 100 Options 9 PM, Burlington Hot Buttered Rum, Lil’ Smokies, Drunken Hearts 9 PM, Martyrs’ I Made You Myself, Eyelet, Sough, Primordial Black 10:30 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Jumpsuit, Days Off, Rob Botchnik 8 PM, Township Lake Street Dive, Anderson East 8 PM, Chicago Theatre Leon Larregui 7 PM, Portage Theater, 17+ Mar Caribe 10 PM, California Clipper Moe., the Werks 8 PM, Concord Music Hall 17+ Oscar Bait, Peeves 9 PM, Quenchers Saloon Mike Peters, Spirit of ‘86 in 2016 8 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Post Animal, Rabble Rabble, Natalie Grace Alford, Sexy Fights 9 PM, Cole’s F Psychic Ills, Reality Something, Killer Moon 9 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Roosevelt, Shallou 8 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Devin Townsend Project, Between the Buried & Me, Fallujah 6:30 PM, House of Blues b Toy Robots; Luke Schmidt & the Cold, Cold Ones; All the Wine; So Pretty 7:30 PM, Cobra Lounge

Common o CINDY ORD

Wolves in the Throne Room Cloud Rat and DJ Adam Luksetich open. 9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $15.

Wolves in the Throne Room have been elusive and hard to pin down lately—2014’s ambient, atmospheric instrumental Celestite got a mixed reaction from fans who missed the band’s earlier style, a maelstrom that to many ears provided a template for a new and virulent strain of American black metal. The foundations for that sound were well in place on their previous album, 2011’s Celestial Lineage—indeed, they were there in the early aughts, when brothers Aaron and Nathan Weaver founded the group in Olympia, Washington—and their fundamentals have always been very much within the tradition (highly recommended if you’d love Burzum if not for Varg being Varg). Anticipation is high for Wolves in the Throne Room’s next record,

34 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

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Urban Pioneers, Viva Le Vox, Fangs & Twang, Scott Mickelson, Gentleman’s Anti-Temperance League 7 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Hip-Hop Lizzo, Joey Purp, Jamila Woods 9 PM, 1st Ward, 18+ Dance Anthony Attalla, Soul Goodman 10 PM, Primary Nightclub DHS, Not Breathing, Richard 23 10 PM, Smart Bar The Him 10 PM, Sound-Bar How to Dress Well, Lydia Ainsworth, Ex Reyes 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Henrik Schwarz 10 PM, Spy Bar Folk & Country Hey, Chere! 6 PM, Hideout Megon McDonough, Eddie Holstein 7 PM, SPACE b Twilight Hours 10 PM, SPACE b Blues, Gospel, and R&B Nikki Hill 9 PM, FitzGerald’s Larry McCray, Paul Hanover 9:30 PM, Buddy Guy’s Legends Jamiah Rogers Band 9:30 PM, Rosa’s Lounge Jazz Secret Keeper 8:30 PM, Constellation 18+ Scott Tixier 8 PM, the Promontory International Dona Onete, Silvia + Luciano + Neusa Part of the World Music Festival. 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music F b Solo & Indre, SK Kakraba Part of the World Music Festival. 10 PM, Hideout F Classical Paul Barnes Piano. 7:30 PM, PianoForte Studios b Fairs & Festivals Cold Waves V: Meat Beat Manifesto, Clock DVA, Black Queen, Vampyre Anvil, Chant, Polyfuse, Hide 6:30 PM, Metro, 18+ 312 Urban Block Party: Against Me!, Aggrolites, Beach Slang, and others 5 PM, Goose Island Beer Co.

SATURDAY24 Aahh! Fest See also Sunday. Tink headlines and Taylor Bennett opens; local artists audition for a chance to perform on the main stage tomorrow. Noon, Union Park, 1501 W. Randolph, $20. b Common’s homegrown hip-hop festival took a year off after its spectacular albeit low-key debut in 2014—if you can describe an event where Kanye West played an unbilled 45-minute set as “low-key.”

Aahh! Fest explicitly aims to support Chicago’s black creative community, so its return is more than welcome, but it’s had to struggle to find a place in the city’s overstuffed music-festival schedule. Common announced at the end of June that it’d be back, but the lineup wasn’t publicized till after Chance the Rapper unveiled (and sold out) his Magnificent Coloring Day spectacular, which is also this weekend. Fortunately Chance’s big Saturday only overlaps with the first half of Ahh! Fest—its Community Day, hosted by poet and rapper Malik Yusef and featuring sets by MC Taylor Bennett (Chance’s brother) and singer-rapper Tink. Community Day also features aspiring young locals, selected at citywide showcases, who are competing for a chance to perform Sunday on the main stage. Sun- J

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There’s more than just Chance and Common Cold Waves V Since 2012, this annual benefit has raised money for suicide prevention by staking its claim to legendary industrial bands. Meat Beat Manifesto and the Cocks headline this installment. 9/23-9/24, Metro, 3720 N. Clark, coldwaves.net, $46 single-day tickets, $81 three-day passes.

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The local beer giant celebrates the end of summer by hosting live music at its brewery compound. This year features punk rock mainstays Against Me! and Replacements admirers in Beach Slang. Added bonus: $3 beers all weekend. 9/23-9/24, Goose Island Brewery, 1800 W. Fulton, gooseisland.com, $10 suggested donation.

Aahh! Fest Chicago-based rapper Common put together this two-day festival to celebrate the city’s black creative community. One day focuses on local talent, while the other is fronted by big-name artists like J. Cole and Ice Cube. 9/24-9/25, Union Park, 1501 W. Randolph, aahhfest.com, $20-$150.

Hyde Park Jazz Festival More than 30 notable jazz acts spread out over Hyde Park for the ninth edition of the festival.

Artists include Randy Weston (see page 37), Matana Roberts (see page 37), Victor Goines, and Angel d’Cuba. 9/24-9/25, various venues, hydeparkjazzfestival.org, $5 suggested donation per show, $125 Jazz Pass.

Magnificent Coloring Day Chance the Rapper’s all-day festival brings together a stacked lineup to show his hometown some appreciation. Alicia Keys, John Legend, and Lil Wayne perform. See page 36 for more.

9/24, U.S. Cellular Field, 333 W. 35th, chanceraps. com, sold out.

KORBEE

KING CHARLES

09/30

10/02

SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS 10/06

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ZEALYN

CARSIE BLANTON 10/08 THE BALLROOM THIEVES 10/08 SHEL 10/09 CHRISSY & HAWLEY 10/10

GUEST

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10/07

GOLDEN SUITS 10/11 THE ROCKETBOYS 10/12 BJ BARHAM 10/13 WHISKEY SHIVERS 10/14

SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 35

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day is Aahh! Fest’s centerpiece event, and it benefits from falling late enough in the season that the radius clauses of other major summer festivals have expired: the lineup includes marquee hip-hop and R&B acts who played Pitchfork (Jeremih), Taste of Chicago (the Roots), and Lollapalooza (Vic Mensa, Sir the Baptist), as well as Odd Future R&B unit the Internet and of course Common, who’ll collaborate with singer Bilal. If only the “special surprise guest” were actually special. Instead it’s North Carolina rapper J. Cole (who also headlined Lolla’s unnecessary fourth day), who’s basically the hip-hop version of LaCroix—inexplicably popular, mostly flavorless, and dubiously touted as better for you than other choices. Cole’s heart is mostly in the right place, but his recordings tend to leave me cold (or worse).

“Wet Dreamz,” an exploration of budding sexuality from the 2014 album 2014 Forest Hills Drive (Roc Nation), is as subtle as an Adam Sandler movie. But maybe J. Cole is actually a good fit for the festival experience—he’s easy to half pay attention to while you party with pals outdoors. —LEOR GALIL

Kacy & Clayton Blitzen Trapper headline.

8 PM, City Winery, 1200 W. Randolph, $28-$34. b Kacy Anderson and Clayton Linthicum are second cousins from the Wood Mountain uplands of southern Saskatchewan, and they’ve been forging their own take on British and American folk songs together for a decade—a long time, considering they’re only 19 and 21 years old. Up till now they’ve used a sparse duo approach—usually little more than Linthicum’s acoustic guitar and Anderson’s lovely voice—but on their third album, this year’s Strange Country (New West), they adorn a kaleidoscopic mix of original tunes and traditional numbers with well-placed flourishes of vibraphone, steel guitar, drums, and strings. In their song “If You Ask How I’m Keeping” Anderson sings, “Because everything I’m doing has already been done,” and though it’s framed as general existential questioning, it suggests the duo’s self-awareness about revisiting centuries-old music. You can hear the influence of 60s Brits such as Sandy Denny and Anne Briggs, but Kacy & Clayton also borrow from American folkrock modes—Anderson eschews the mannered UK style in favor of a more intuitive, rangy delivery that’s more like Joni Mitchell. “Down at the Dancehall” projects a Cajun vibe a la Richard Thompson

36 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

thanks to Linthicum’s melodeon swells and the triangle patterns of drummer Lucas Goetz, while a take on the sea shanty “The Plains of Mexico” has hints of twang. The duo’s pop instincts sometimes veer closer to Peter, Paul & Mary than to the Watersons, but whether that’s a calculated choice or not, it’s nice to hear someone do something unexpected on this fertile musical ground. —PETER MARGASAK

Magnificent Coloring Day Chance the Rapper headlines. Opening are Skrillex; John Legend; Alicia Keys; Lil Wayne; Young Thug; Tyler, the Creator; 2 Chainz; and Lil Uzi Vert. 1 PM, U.S. Cellular Field, 333 W. 35th, $35-$150. b When Chance the Rapper announced the dates for this fall’s nationwide Magnificent Coloring World tour, his first to support May’s Coloring Book mixtape, the Chicago date listed no location. He hinted he was planning something special for his hometown, and he’s delivered: Magnificent Coloring Day has a better lineup than many of the bloated festivals that packed Chicago’s summer months, with Skrillex, John Legend, Alicia Keys, Lil Wayne, 2 Chainz, Young Thug, Lil Uzi Vert, and Tyler, the Creator (plus unannounced special guests). The bill hasn’t been Frankensteined together from parts of other major fests, as so often happens, but instead reflects Chance’s taste and personality—several of the acts appear on Coloring Book. Magnificent Coloring Day sold 50,000 tickets in about a week, and some might still be available: earlier this month, Chance announced on Twitter that he’d recovered 2,000 from scalpers and would put them back on the market. Chance has always been vocal about his love for the Chicago community, and it manifests itself clearly on Coloring Book. Beyond the obvious gospel influence and Chance’s religious turn, you can hear other ways the city has enriched the music’s sound, energy, and feeling: the references to footwork parties at roller rinks on “Juke Jam,” the shout-outs to local hip-hop stations Power 92 and WGCI on “Angels,” and the heartwarming, bittersweet trip through Chance’s childhood memories of running around Chatham on “Summer Friends.” As much as Magnificent Coloring Day is about Chance, he’s turned it into a celebration for all the kids who see themselves in him. —LEOR GALIL

Matana Roberts Part of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival. 4 PM and 6 PM, Performance

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MUSIC Penthouse, Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th, free ($5 suggested donation). b It’s impossible to guess what any given performance

by Matana Roberts will entail—especially a solo set.

The reedist, composer, and Chicago native’s two most recent albums are both solo efforts, and they could hardly be more different. Early last year she released River Run Thee (Constellation), the third and latest installment of her ambitious Coin Coin project, a sprawling genealogical exploration via music and text of the slave trade and African diaspora in North America. Years ago she described her technique to me as “panoramic sound quilting,” and that’s never been more apt—she layers spoken word, singing, atmospheric synth, and sweet melodies on alto saxophone as she melds original material with historical writings, old American patriotic songs, spirituals, and more. This heady concoction is sometimes hard to parse, but its richness and originality have kept me coming back. Last year Roberts also dropped Always (Relative Pitch), a more conventional solo effort featuring only her gorgeous, elliptical alto moving patiently through a wide variety of moods and approaches united by an emotionally moving air of contemplation. I saw her play solo in September 2015 at the Guelph Jazz Festival, where she split the difference between the two albums by alternating beautiful, improvised alto passages with intimate, spellbinding storytelling that combined elements from her Coin Coin research with spontaneous observations. She even got the audience involved, asking us to hum a steady long tone for her to work off, then to join in on the chorus of her devastating version of Oscar Brown Jr.’s “Bid ’Em In.” It took me hours to process the experience—and I’m ready for a new one. —PETER MARGASAK

Sonic LIberation 8 8:30 PM, Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont, $10.

For the past 15 years, Philadelphia percussionist Kevin Diehl has pursued a singular vision, using his group Sonic Liberation 8 (formerly Sonic Liberation Front) to experiment in wedding free jazz with the bata drumming that’s used in Santeria rituals in Puerto Rico and Cuba. This hybrid can be problematic, because the rich polyrhythms of the drumming stick to a fixed tempo that lacks the elasticity of free jazz, where the wild horn playing breaks

free of rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic restrictions. The complexity of the rhythms also requires Diehl’s front-line musicians to get intimate enough with the grooves to be seriously locked in; former member Julian Presley, a dyed-in-the-wool hard bopper, resisted the bata patterns, and the results fell flat. Fortunately the ensemble is at its best on the new Bombogenic (High Two), which raises the stakes by folding a string quartet into the arrangements and enlisting superb alto saxophonist Oliver Lake, who unleashes one tart, exciting solo after another and even brings a handful of compositions to the table. The string quartet adds an air of solemnity and gives extra contrapuntal heft to the horns—though they do get featured on a beguiling spin through Erik Satie’s “Gnossienne.” Bassist Matt Engle functions like a joint connecting the percussionists (Diehl, Nichola Rivera, Tom Lowery, and Ron Howerton) and the horn players (Lake, reedist Elliot Levin, and bass clarinetist Mike Watson). The touring lineup includes the four-strong percussion section from Bombogenic, along with Engle, Levin, bass clarinetist Daniel Peterson, and violist Veronica Jurkiewiecz, who leads the string quartet on the album. —PETER MARGASAK

Randy Weston Part of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival. 11 PM, Rockefeller Chapel, 5850 S. Woodlawn, free ($5 suggested donation). b Pianist Randy Weston turned 90 this year, but by all accounts he’s undiminished by age. He was integral to the development of hard bop in the 1950s— he wrote standards such as “Berkshire Blues” and “Hi-Fly”—and since then he’s become a thoughtful extender of its reach. Perhaps no single jazz musician has done more to integrate music from Africa, particularly Morocco, where Weston lived and owned a nightclub in the late 60s and early 70s.

He’s always exuded serious presence at the piano, and not just because he’s six foot eight—his lefthand figures are never less than commanding, with a low end that can get people dancing or summon an ominous portent. He internalized lessons from Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk but created a sound all his own, especially when he began incorporating influences from the Gnawa people in North Africa. At the 2013 Chicago Jazz Festival, he gave a gripping solo performance, and that same year he released The Roots of the Blues (Sun- J

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Sign up for guitar classes at oldtownschool.org SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 37

Lovefingers

MUSIC continued from 37

nyside), a gorgeous duo recording with tenor saxophonist Billy Harper, a longtime collaborator. The album demonstrates just how much sound Weston can produce without simply piling up notes, and its selection of tunes is similar to his solo repertoire, summing up his rich aesthetic—it mixes his hardbop classics with later tunes where he deftly incorporates the blues and elements of traditional music from Senegal, Mali, and Morocco (a full-circle vision if ever there was one). As much as I’d like to imagine that Weston is as immortal as his music, I can’t recommend passing up this opportunity to hear him live—you may not get another. —PETER MARGASAK

Rock, Pop, Etc Assassination Squad, Halligan, Drilling for Blasting, Oldes 9 PM, Quenchers Saloon Cactus, Black Pussy 7 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Celtic Thunder 7:30 PM, Chicago Theatre b Chiffon, Cole, Choral Reefr, Heavy Dreams 10 PM, Cole’s F Dandy Warhols, Savoy Motel 8 PM, Park West, 18+ Demolition Hammer, Aftermath, Disinter, Smash Potater 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ El Famous, Tanzen, Contra, Bubbles Erotica, Welp 7:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Hand Practices, Bear Pit, Delmar & the Dedications, Johnny Lightning & the Thunder 8 PM, Burlington

38 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

o COURTESY THE ARTIST

Jah Wobble & the Invaders of the Heart 9 PM, Empty Bottle Lau 7 PM, SPACE b Legendary Pink Dots, Orbit Service 9 PM, Subterranean Moe., Mungion 8 PM, Concord Music Hall, 17+ Cole Porter 125 with Paul Marinaro, Tammy McCann, Beckie Menzie, and Tom Michael with Rich Daniels’s City Lights Orchestra 7:30 PM, Auditorium Theatre Saint Johns, Birdtalker 10 PM, SPACE b Sinister Fate, Blackmarket Democracy, Hot Dang!

8:30 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Swearwords, Kerosene Stars, New Old Fashioned, Jesse W. Johnson 8:30 PM, Township Brady Toops, Oh Jeremiah 10 PM, Schubas Chris Trapper 7 PM, Schubas Dance Black Asteroid, Curse Mackey, Jim Marcus, Bud Sweet 10 PM, Smart Bar Andy Butler, Michael Serafini, Andrew Emil, Czboogie 10 PM, Primary Nightclub Dennis Ferrer 10 PM, Spy Bar Vicetone, Ryos 10 PM, Sound-Bar Blues, Gospel, and R&B Toronzo Cannon, Alex Wilson 9:30 PM, Buddy Guy’s Legends Henry Gray & Bob Corritore 9:30 PM, Rosa’s Lounge Jazz Joshua Abrams, Ari Brown, Gerald Cleaver, and

Jeff Parker; BaSH Part of Hyde Park Jazz Festival.

7:30 PM, International House, University of Chicago b Lorin Cohen Group, Bobby Lewis Quintet Part of Hyde Park Jazz Festival. 2 PM, Hyde Park Union Church b Orbert Davis Sextet, Maggie Brown Group Part of Hyde Park Jazz Festival. 2:30 PM, DuSable Museum of African American History b Katie Ernst & James Falzone Part of Hyde Park Jazz Festival. 2:30 PM, Oriental Institute Museum b

Roy McGrath & Bill Cessna, Yvonne Faddis-Stroud Part of Hyde Park Jazz Festival. 4 PM, Hyde Park Bank b Marvin Tate, Quentin Coaxum Quintet Part of Hyde Park Jazz Festival. 3 PM, Little Black Pearl Workshop b TRIP, Dee Alexander Quartet, Garden of Souls, Willie Pickens Quartet Part of Hyde Park Jazz Festival. 1:30 PM, Wagner Stage, Midway Plaisance Park b Thaddeus Tukes & Isaiah Collier, Matt Ulery’s Loom Part of Hyde Park Jazz Festival. 1 PM, Smart Museum of Art b DJ Sadie Woods, Angel d’Cuba, Greg Ward & 10 Tongues Touch My Beloved’s Thought, Sammy Miller & the Congregation Part of Hyde Park Jazz Festival. 2:30 PM, Western Stage, Midway Plaisance Park b Experimental MSHR 8 PM, Graham Foundation F b Pamela Z 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ XIII, Sabla, Exael, Quicksails 9 PM, Elastic b International The Bach & Beethoven Ensemble The Gentle Shepherd 8 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Kaynak Pipers Band, Yves Lambert Trio Part of World Music Festival. 8 PM, Martyrs’ F Klezmatics, Alfonso Ponticelli, Swing Gitan Part of World Music Festival. 6 and 7 PM, Lincoln Hall F Magic Carpet 10 PM, California Clipper Sounds of China Part of World Music Festival. 3 PM,

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MUSIC Ping Tom Memorial Park F b Fairs & Festivals Cold Waves V: Cocks, Pig, Cubanate, 16Volt, Dead When I Found Her, Bloody Knives, Kanga 6:30 PM, Metro, 18+ 312 Urban Block Party: Dawes, White Denim, Jr. Jr., and others 5 PM, Goose Island Beer Co. Miscellaneous Seth Bogart Show with Max Goldstein, Dorian Electra, DJ Ariel Zetina 9 PM, Empty Bottle

SUNDAY25 Aahh! Fest See Saturday. J. Cole, Ice Cube, the Roots, Common & Bilal, Vic Mensa, Jeremih, the Internet, and Sir the Baptist perform. 2 PM, Union Park, 1501 W. Randolph, $65-$150. 18+ Lovefingers Michael Serafini headlines; Garrett David and Lovefingers open. 10 PM, Smart Bar, 3730 N. Clark, $10.

On March 15, 2006, a website appeared at lovefingers.org. It was a blank white page with one line of text on it—the date and the hyperlinked words “Codek : Tim Toum.” The link was to an MP3 of a song by French art-disco group Codek—it sounded like a children’s choir singing over a drum machine, recorded somewhere in the Caribbean. Excepting the occasional intermittent hiatus, every day for nearly five years someone posted a new MP3 on that page, each one as bewitching as its predecessor. Sometimes the songs were familiar (Fleetwood Mac’s “Brown Eyes,” Metallica’s “Orion”), and sometimes they were ultra-obscure (Frank Zander’s “Captain Starlight,” anyone?), but taken together they reflected the hip and remarkable tastes of whoever was running the site: quirky disco, wavy psych, electronic-infused 70s studio rock, eclectic film scores. The responsible party turned out to be a single crate-digging savant, LA musician Andrew Hogge, and his MP3 blog became a legend that launched his career as an internationally successful DJ. On January 1, 2010, Hogge reached his 1,000th track (the last one: Peter Green’s “Little Dreamer”) and abruptly stopped uploading selections to the site. Today he focuses on running his electronicmusic label, ESP Institute, but he still DJs as Lovefingers—in every set you can be sure to hear some exquisite, unplaceable tunes. —TAL ROSENBERG

Tacocat Dude York and Swimsuit Addition open. 7 PM, Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport, $14. b Last month Tacocat front woman Emily Nokes talked to the Quietus about her punk band’s choice to root their feminist perspective in humor. They’d rather make fun of misogyny and patriarchy than simply rant about them: “By making fun, you can crush people’s ideals and take back some control,” she explained. On Tacocat’s recent third album, Lost Time (Hardly Art), Nokes’s wry lyrics underline the ridiculousness of the male-centric status quo. On “Men Explain Things to Me,” she delivers her lines (“Though I know all about / The words you’re spitting out / The floor is yours without a doubt”) in such a flat, plainspoken tone that it’s pretty clear

how tedious she finds mansplaining. Fortunately her bandmates graft this dull subject matter to a lively tune, keeping the the track humming with a jittery pop-punk melody and surf-rock riffs that alternate between grimy and sunny. Feminism and fun go hand in hand for Tacocat: one of my favorite songs on Lost Time is the quasi-ballad “Dana Katherine Scully,” a tribute to the X-Files protagonist whose joyous, upbeat melody harkens back to 50s rock ’n’ roll. —LEOR GALIL Rock, Pop, Etc Bill Callahan, Bill MacKay 6:30 and 9:30 PM, Constellation, sold out, 18+ Chencha Berrinches, Malafacha, Evil Empire, Subele, DJ Viernes 13 8:30 PM, Subterranean, 17+ El Famous, Cup Check, Speaking With Ghosts, Eighty Six Happiness, Action/Adventure 5:30 PM, Beat Kitchen b Anthony Green, Mat Kerekes, Secret Space, D.H. Currier 6:15 PM, Bottom Lounge Health, Cleared, Matchess 9 PM, Empty Bottle Eric Hutchinson, Great Caesar, Skout 8 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Krayola, Slow Death, Horrible Things, Big Night In 9 PM, Quenchers Saloon Mezzanine Swimmers, Ullnevano, No Monster Club, Darko the Super 9 PM, Burlington Power 9 PM, Hideout Slackers, Duppies, Circle City Deacons, Run & Punch 7:30 PM, 1st Ward, 18+ Smithereens 8 PM, City Winery b Suuns, Mind Over Mirrors 8 PM, Schubas Hip-Hop KB, Blanca, Tauren Wells, Joseph Solomon 6 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club b Folk & Country Rayland Baxter, Railway Gamblers 8 PM, SPACE b Anne Hills & Michael Smith 1 PM, SPACE b Jim Kweskin & Geoff Muldaur 7 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Jazz Chicago Jazz Orchestra, Douglas R. Ewart & Orbit Part of Hyde Park Jazz Festival. 3 PM, West Stage, Midway Plaisance Park b Victor Goines Quartet, Denise Thimes Quartet, Marquis Hill Blacktet Part of Hyde Park Jazz Festival. 2 PM, Wagner Stage, Midway Plaisance Park b Jose James 8 PM, the Promontory b Pasquale Mirra & Hamid Drake, Ross Hammond & Tim Daisy 9 PM, Hungry Brain Test Flight 9 PM, Whistler F International Kaynak Pipers Band, Yves Lambert Trio, Sounds of China Part of World Music Festival. 12-5:30 PM, Chicago Cultural Center, Preston Bradley Hall F b

12O’CLOCK

TRACK SERIES A SIDE OF JAM WITH YOUR LUNCH EVERY WEEKDAY

MONDAY26 Rock, Pop, Etc Belonger, Left & Right, Gardens 8 PM, Burlington Eric Burdon & the Animals 8 PM, also Wed 9/28, 8 PM, City Winery b Bill Callahan, Matchess 6:30 and 9:30 PM, Constellation, sold out, 18+ Get Dead, Bollweevils, Braver Days 8 PM, 1st Ward, 18+

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J SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 39

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40 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

o MICHAEL LAVINE

3855 N. LINCOLN

martyrslive.com

THU, 9/22

GREAT MOMENTS IN VINYL PRESENT GRATEFUL DEAD BOOTLEG “CORNELL 77” FRI, 9/23

HOT BUTTERED RUM, THE LIL’ SMOKIES, DRUNKEN HEARTS

SAT, 9/24 - WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL CHICAGO - NO COVER

KAYNAK PIPERS BAND, YVES LAMBERT TRIO MON, 9/26

READY FREDDIES, KOOKS TUE, 9/27

PAA KOW, LES VIKQ WED, 9/28 - SILVER COWBELL JUBILEE KALYAN ’S 25 YEARS IN CHICAGO

JAZZ MATA (CD RELEASE) W/S/G FAREED HAQUE + TRIBUTOSAURUS THU, 9/29

CHICAGO FARMER, EDWARD DAVID ANDERSON, JAIK WILLIS FRI, 9/30

SLIM GYPSY BAGGAGE, WAITING FOR HENRY, THE HANDCUFFS, BRAD PETERSON, THE POLKAHOLICS SAT, 10/1

BONES JUGS, LOW SWANS, SEEPEOPLES, IN THREES

continued from 39 Local Natives, Charlotte Day Wilson 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Elliot Moss, Yolk Lore 8 PM, Schubas, 18+ Opposite Sex, Pamphleteers, Bleach Party 9 PM, Empty Bottle F Josh Ritter, Parsonsfield 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Snowblink, Quarter Mile Thunder 9 PM, Hungry Brain Hip-Hop Mykelie Deville, Sidney Fenix, DJ Lisa Decibel 7 PM, the Promontory Folk & Country Robbie Fulks & Gerald Dowd 7 PM, Hideout Jazz Cecil 9 PM, Whistler F Gustavo Cortinas Septet, Ross Hammond Solo 9 PM, Elastic b Leroy Lux Lamar 9:30 PM, California Clipper Classical Civic Orchestra of Chicago Riccardo Muti, conductor (Brahms). 7 PM, Symphony Center In-Stores Ken Aldcroft 7:30 PM, Myopic Books F b

TUESDAY27 Angel Olsen See Pick of the Week on page 32. Rodrigo Amarante opens. 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 1801 S. Allport, sold out. 17+ Rock, Pop, Etc BD & the Jackrabbits, Bonzo Turks, She Rides Tigers 8:30 PM, Township IAMX, Cellars 8 PM, Double Door, 18+ L.A. Witch, American Breakfast, Nonnie Parry 9 PM, Empty Bottle Liima, Glam Camp 8 PM, Schubas Hip-Hop Dreezy 8 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 18+ Blues, Gospel, and R&B Dave Specter & Nicholas Tremulis 8 PM, SPACE b

Jazz Joshua Abrams & Jeff Parker 5:30 PM, Museum of Contemporary Art F b Conversation Music 9 PM, Hungry Brain F Meridian Trio 9 PM, Whistler F Toby Summerfield, Tim Stine, Matt Lux, and Dan Bitney 9 PM, Elastic b International Paa Kow, Les Vikq 8:30 PM, Martyrs’ Classical Members of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago Ewald, Brahms. 7 PM, Symphony Center

WEDNESDAY28 Angel Olsen See Pick of the Week on page 32. Rodrigo Amarante opens. 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 1801 S. Allport, sold out. 17+ Rock, Pop, Etc Ash 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Eric Burdon & the Animals 8 PM, also Mon 9/26, 8 PM, City Winery b Ace Enders, Aaron Gillespie, Vinnie Caruana, Warren Franklin 9 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Guerilla Toss, Lovely Little Girls, Daniel Wyche 9 PM, Empty Bottle Jill & Kate, Charlie Hirsch, Anu Alphonse 8 PM, Schubas Maks the Fox, Winkler Mill 9 PM, Whistler F Midnight Snaxxx, Mama, City Slang 8 PM, Emporium Arcade Bar F Mowgli’s, Colony House, Dreamers 6 PM, Double Door b Temper Trap, Coast Modern 7:30 PM, Metro b Titus Andronicus, A Giant Dog 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Jazz Jazz Mata with Fareed Haque 7 PM, Martyrs’ Colin Stetson 7:30 PM, SPACE b Classical Mariam Batsashvili Piano. 12:15 PM, Preston Bradley Hall, Chicago Cultural Center F b v

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FOOD & DRINK

R EL CHE BAR | $$$$

845 W. Washington 312-265-1130 elchebarchicago.com

NEW REVIEW

El Che Bar brings the heat

John Manion’s follow-up to La Sirena Clandestina puts the flame to Argentine food.

By MIKE SULA

Barbecued quail with escarole and peaches is a confoundingly tender and juicy version of the bird. o DANIELLE A. SCRUGGS

W

hen meals involve chefs summon i n g hu n k s of spit t i n g meat from towering curtains of flame, they call to mind all sorts of pleasurable primeval associations: the sun setting over the field where your enemies lie vanquished, your horse is tied panting to a post, and you’re wiping gore from your blades in anticipation of the spoils you’ve killed for.

For whatever reason, over the past year or two, chefs all over the city are recognizing, if not the fantastic allure of open-hearth cooking, then at least the very tactile pleasures of flame-kissed food. If this return to open flame isn’t a countermovement to the scientific precision that characterizes the modernist laboratory work that’s dominated kitchens for a decade, it’s certainly been pushed and embraced at a half-dozen J

SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 41

S P O N S O R ED CO N T EN T

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THU

$4 Lagunitas drafts, $4 Absolut cocktails, “Hoppy Hour” 5-8pm = 1/2 price IPAs + pale ales

50% off wine (glass & bottle) and salads. Happy Hour 5-6:30pm: half off appetizers, $5 pints of bud light, and $6 shots of Jameson

$6 Firestone Walker Opal $5 Anchor Drafts pints, $6 Finch Vanilla Stout $3 Happy Hour Specials 16 oz. cans, $7 house wines, $8 Few Spirits

FRI

“Hoppy Hour” 5-8pm = 1/2 price IPAs + pale ales

$6 Jameson shots, $5 Green Line; 50% off chicken sandwich. Happy Hour 5-6:30pm: half off appetizers, $5 pints of bud light, and $6 shots of Jameson

$6 Firestone Walker Opal $5 Anchor Drafts pints, $6 Finch Vanilla Stout $3 Happy Hour Specials 16 oz. cans, $7 house wines, $8 Few Spirits

S AT

$6 Jameson shots $3 PBR bottles

Brunch 11am-2pm, Bottomless Bloody Mary’s & Mimosas $15 w/food purchase, 1/2 off nachos & $15 domestic/$20 craft beer pitchers. Happy Hour 5-6:30pm: 1/2 off apps, $5 bud light pints, $6 Jameson shots

$6 Firestone Walker Opal $5 Anchor Drafts pints, $6 Finch Vanilla Stout $3 Happy Hour Specials 16 oz. cans, $7 house wines, $8 Few Spirits

SUN

$4 Temperance brews, $5 Absolut bloody mary’s

Brunch 11am-2pm, Bottomless Bloody Mary’s & Mimosas $15 w/food purchase, 50% off apps & $3 Bud Light pints. Industry Night 10% off reg. price items.

Happy Hour 5-6:30pm: 1/2 off appetizers, $5 bud light pints, $6 shots of Jameson

$6 Firestone Walker Opal $5 Anchor Drafts pints, $6 Finch Vanilla Stout $3 Happy Hour Specials 16 oz. cans, $7 house wines, $8 Few Spirits

MON

$4 Half Acre brews, FREE POOL, “Hoppy Hour” 5-8pm = 1/2 price IPAs + pale ales

all beer 50% off, $5 burgers. CLOSED Happy Hour 5-6:30pm: half off appetizers, $5 pints of bud light, and $6 shots of Jameson

TUE

$2 and $3 select beers

all specialty drinks 1/2 off, White Rascal $5, PBR and a shot of Malort $4, $2 tacos.

Happy Hour 5-6:30pm: half off appetizers, $5 pints of bud light, and $6 shots of Jameson

$6 Firestone Walker Opal $5 Anchor Drafts pints, $6 Finch Vanilla Stout $3 Happy Hour Specials 16 oz. cans, $7 house wines, $8 Few Spirits

WED

1/2 price aliveOne signature cocktails, $4 Goose Island brews, “Hoppy Hour” 5-8pm = 1/2 price IPAs + pale ales

50¢ wings (minimum 10), selection of 10 discounted whiskeys. Happy Hour 5-6:30pm: half off appetizers, $5 pints of bud light, and $6 shots of Jameson

$6 Firestone Walker Opal $5 Anchor Drafts pints, $6 Finch Vanilla Stout $3 Happy Hour Specials 16 oz. cans, $7 house wines, $8 Few Spirits, $10 classic cocktails

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Bombs $4, Malibu Cocktails $5 Anchor Drafts $4, Jack Daniel’s Cocktails $3 Happy Hour Specials $5, Tanqueray Cocktails $4, Johnny Walker Black $5, Cabo Wabo $5, PBR Tallboy cans $2.75

Happy Hour noon-6pm, $2 off all beers

Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

Wine by the Glass $5, Jameson $5, Patron $7, Founders 12oz All Day IPA Cans $3.50, Mexican Buckets $20 (Corona, Victoria, Modelos)

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Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

Heineken Bottles $4, Bloodies feat. Absolut Peppar Vodka $5, Original Moonshine $5, Corzo $5, Sailor Jerry’s Rum $4, Deschutes Drafts $4, Capt.

Morgan cocktails $5

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$4.75 Bloody Mary and Marias

Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

Buckets of Miller & Bud Bottles (Mix & Match) $14, Guinness & Smithwicks Drafts $4, Bloodies feat, Absolut Peppar Vodka $5, Ketal One Cocktails $5

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Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

All Draft Beers Half Price, Makers Mark Cocktails $5, Crystal Head Vodka Cocktails $4

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Happy Hour 4-6pm, $2 off all beers

Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

Jim Beam Cocktails $4, $3 Anchor Drafts Jameson Cocktails $5, Cabo $3 Happy Hour Specials Wabo $5, Malibu Cocktails $4, Corona Bottles $3.50, PBR Tall Boy Cans $2.75

Happy Hour 4-6pm, $2 off all beers

Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

$5 Anchor Drafts Stoli/Absolut & Soco $3 Happy Hour Specials Cocktails $4, Long Island Iced Teas $5, Herradura Margaritas $5, Stella/ Hoegaarden/Deschutes Drafts $4, Goose Island 312 Bottles $3.50

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42 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

SCHUBAS

PHOTO: ALEXEY LYSENKO/GETTY IMAGES

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FOOD & DRINK

Chocolate-coated mousse cake topped with marshmallows spiced with piri piri and set aflame at the table; lamb riblets with an almost pastrami-like quality are showered in shaved fennel and come plated with a minty yogurt. o DANIELLE A. SCRUGGS

continued from 41 prominent openings over the last year or two, including the Promontory, Band of Bohemia, Roister, Leña Brava, Steadfast, and now El Che Bar, from La Sirena Clandestina jefe John Manion, where flaming hardwood sparks and charred woodsmoke are a rousing backdrop for the chef’s take on Argentine food.

Within the olive-brick erstwhile Checker Taxi HQ in the West Loop, the flames burn bright in an open kitchen at the rear of a long dining room. Pity the handful of diners who, shunted into a claustrophobic alcove to the side, won’t see the show. But nearly everything on this menu passes through those flames, under the eye of chef de cuisine Mark Steuer, late of the Bedford and the defunct Carriage House. While this is no one-dimensional steak house, it does feature a meaty menu that also offers no shortage of plant life. And with no bread, one pasta dish, and a few potato sides, it’s a menu the carb averse can feel comfortable with.

You know a chef is talented when he makes the most overplayed item ever recorded by

man—a beet-and-cheese salad—taste exciting. The blistered char on a disk of scamorza cheese and a bitter gremolata made from the beet’s greenery play counterpoint to the powerfully sweet roots.. Wee pickled shrimp dance with cubes of sweet honeydew grounded by cucumber and fatty pureed avocado. Cooking and overdressing oysters always risks compromising the integrity of the delicate bivalve, but a light kiss of smoke from charred corn husks preserves the briny plumpness that plays well with bright cilantro, earthy corn, garlic, and brown butter.

Second courses will appeal to more hardcore carnivores. Compressed veal sweetbreads in a pickly house giardiniera are a bit stiff, the breast implant of sweetbread dishes.

Meanwhile a loosely bound, lightly seasoned blood sausage plays second fiddle to a succotash made with corn and white beans.

If you’re not getting that already meaty dishes are significantly brightened by the season’s current bounty, check out the juicy prawns, fairly exploding from their exoskeletons, luxuriating with charred sweet peppers, garbanzo bean puree, and a

red-pepper-and-tomato salsa criolla. (Here’s where some bread would come in handy.)

Lamb riblets with an almost pastrami-like quality are showered in shaved fennel and come plated with a minty yogurt.

Barbecued quail with escarole and peaches may be the most confoundingly tender and juicy version of the bird I’ve come across.

A 24-ounce boneless rib eye, one of three steaks on the menu, is probably the archetype for carnivorous longing: served flayed across the platter, it comes drizzled in a lily-gilding splash of rich marrow butter and escorted by tubs of brilliant red and green chimichurri.

In the hype leading up to El Che Bar’s opening, Manion made much of the oldschool thin-cut pork chops he’d be serving.

He’s definitely on to something. Nothing like the dino-size concrete pork slabs you’re used to seeing, the pair of chops, fatty yet slender and crisp, are served simply with spicy Coleman’s mustard, plums, herbs, and peanuts.

About the only savory item I ate at El Che Bar that wasn’t transformed into something beautiful by the flames was a hard,

undercooked potato topped with sweet caramelized onion mash draped in a blanket of melted Gruyere.

Pastry chef Marianna Reynolds makes a strong showing with some fairly innovative desserts: an “Argentine float” of Coke, lightly herbaceous fernet ice cream, berries, peaches, and candied almond; a dense, rolled tamarind cake with warmly spiced horchata ice cream drizzled with hot goat’s milk caramel; and a chocolate-coated mousse cake topped with marshmallows spiced with piri piri and set aflame at the table. In addition to the usual new- and old-world regions, the wine list features a healthy representation of Argentine reds, while seven cocktails sport some sort of Latin American element (yerba mate gin sour, mezcal negroni).

Manion’s been drawing on his South American upbringing since his days at the late, great Nuevo Latino spot Mas, and each time he returns to his roots feels more right.

El Che Bar is thus far the chef’s most elemental expression of where he comes from. v

ß @MikeSula SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 43

44 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

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FOOD & DRINK

○ Watch a video of Sarah Jordan working with vital wheat gluten in the kitchen at chicagoreader.com/food.

KEY INGREDIENT

A seitan chorizo good enough for nonvegetarians

By JULIA THIEL

Saturday & Sunday

BRUNCH 11am-2pm BOTTOMLESS BLOODY MARY’S & MIMOSAS – $15 W I T H F O OD PU RC H A S E –

EVERY MONDAY AND THURSDAY NIGHT WITH THE ORIGINAL CHICAGO BLUES ALL-STARS

FRI 5PM-2AM • SAT & SUN 11AM-2AM 14 80 W W EBS TER • CHICAGO 773 -770 - 3703

early warnings

never miss a show again

chicagoreader.com/early Seitan chorizo # JULIA THIEL

I

’m a good Irish girl who has meat and two veg for most meals,” says SARAH JORDAN, the chef at JOHNNY’S GRILL. VITAL WHEAT GLUTEN, a staple for vegetarians and the main component in seitan—often used as a meat substitute—wasn’t exactly in her wheelhouse. But when CHRISTINE CIKOWSKI and JOSHUA KULP of HONEY BUTTER FRIED CHICKEN challenged her to create a dish with the protein found in wheat (also called “wheat meat” or just “gluten”), Jordan, who’d never worked with the ingredient before, rose to the occasion.

Jordan and her fellow staff members have spent many hours creating recipes for chorizo, which made seitan chorizo a natural choice for her dish. After procuring vital wheat gluten from the Dill Pickle Food Co-op, she combined it with the same spices used in the chorizo recipe she and her staff created: paprika, chile powder, cayenne, onion powder, cumin, salt, and annato (for color).

Mixed with water, apple cider vinegar, and oil, it makes seitan chorizo. The vital wheat gluten, Jordan says, is there more for texture than flavor; the seitan “is going to be crumbly, like chorizo would be.”

Jordan cooked the seitan for several minutes over high heat and served it with seared quinoa patties (onion, cooked quinoa, garlic powder, onion powder, beaten eggs), breakfast potatoes, and poached eggs with hollandaise.

“I tried to keep it vegetarian,” she says, “but I couldn’t go vegan because I love butter.”

Surveying the dish, she noted, “It doesn’t look vegetarian.” As for the taste, Jordan says, it’s pretty close to real chorizo. “The flavor is there for sure, and the texture is just slightly different.” With a little more work on the recipe—next time she’d cut back on the apple cider vinegar, she says—it could go on the menu at Johnny’s.

SEITAN CHORIZO

1⁄2 CUP VITAL WHEAT GLUTEN 1⁄2 T SALT 1 T GROUND CUMIN 1⁄4 T CAYENNE PEPPER 1⁄2 T PAPRIKA 2 T CHILE POWDER 1⁄4 T ONION POWDER 2 T ANNATO POWDER 2 T WATER 2 T APPLE CIDER VINEGAR

6-10 PM • CHECK WEBSITE FOR DATES

MOTORROWBREWING.COM 2337 S MICHIGAN · CHICAGO 312.624.8149

A UTH E NTI C PH I LLY C H E E S E STEA KS!

T F A ER R C BE

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Mix dry ingredients together well, add liquid and mix until it forms clumps. Cook with two tablespoons oil in a nonstick pan at medium-high heat until browned, about eight minutes.

WHO’S NEXT:

Jordan has challenged RACHEL DOW of THE BETTY to create a dish with AMARANTH, a pseudocereal that’s sometimes used in gluten-free cooking. v

please recycle this paper

! @juliathiel SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 45

JOBS

SALES & MARKETING

MULTIMEDIA MARKETING

SALES

&

IS SEEKING HIGHLY MOTIVATED, WELL SPOKEN, INSIDE SALES REPS WHO ENJOY A FAST PACED ENVIRONMENT TO WORK IN OUR BUFFALO GROVE OFFICE. FULL BENEFITS PACKAGE AVAILABLE. CALL LISA AT 847-919-1025

RADIO TELESALES. EXCELLENT opportunity for a good, expe-

rienced radio sales pro to sell public service announcements. If you want respect, this is the place. High commissions and bonuses in relaxed environment in Skokie near transportation. 847-679-7660.

Telephone Sales Experienced/aggressive telephone closers needed now to sell ad space for Chicago’s oldest and largest newspaper rep firm.

Immediate openings in Loop office. Salary + commission. 312368-4884.

TELE-FUNDRAISING: FOR LOCAL VETERANS O R G A N I Z A T I O N . Felons

need not apply per Illinois Attorney General regulations.

Start ASAP, Call 312-256-5035

General VISUAL THERAPIST NEEDED

(with or without experience) Seeking a college educated individual for a permanent part-time employment in Evanston working with children and adults in a Behavioral Vision Training program with Dr. Jeff Getzell.

Experience preferred but not required for the right individual. Dr. Getzell is willing to work with an individual at an entry level, should there

be no previous experience.

Requirements: -Exceptional problem solver -Bright -Curious -Open minded Work schedule: -Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays 2pm-6pm -Saturdays 8am-12pm Please note that the employment hours are not flexible.

Resume submission options: -jeffgetzell@sbcglobal.net -Fax: 847-866-9822 No phone calls please.

LATIN AMERICA Communications Specialist (Chicago, IL): Analyze promotional goals of clients & suggest strategies; Advise clients on communications techniques; Write press releases/media communications; Establish relationships w/ communications agencies in Latin America; Prepare communications, marketing & promotion materials for clients in Latin America; Pitch media & respond to media requests; Coordinate corp. social responsibility & giving programs in Latin America. Min. Reqs: Masters degree (or foreign equiv.) in Journalism, PR, Corp. Comm. or rel. field & 2 yrs. exp. in a job involving promotions, media comm., or marketing in Latin America. Resumes: O’Malley Hansen Communications, Attn: A. Elliott, 6677 Delmar Blvd., Ste. 200, St. Louis, MO 63130.

Senior Build Engineer CDW LLC seeks Senior Build Engineer for Chicago, IL office (with approximately 15% of work at CDW’s Vernon Hills, IL office) to create software builds & execute deployment processes for our web, client server & stand-alone application environments using technologies including Delphi, C#, .NET, JAVA, VB, C++, COM, DCOM, Web Services, XML, SQL Server and ASPX. Min. requirements: Bachelor’s in electronic engineering, information systems, computer science or related technology field plus at least 5 years post-baccalaureate, progressive build experience (build experience must include release management and software develop-

ment duties). Send resume to: Kaeley McNerney, CDW, 25-75 Tri-State International, Lincolnshire, IL 60069. Reference job title.

COMPUTER SYSTEMS ANALYSTS ZENSAR Technologies, Inc.

has openings in Oak Brook, IL. All positions may be assigned to various, unanticipated sites throughout the US. Job Code: US-OBIL108 Computer Systems Analyst (Architecture/ Solutions): support, programming & reports. Job Code: US-OBIL109 Computer Systems Analyst (Project/ Work Requests): development & support/strategy. Mail resume to: Prasun Maharatna, 2107 North First Street, Suite 100, San Jose, CA 95131.

Include job code & full job title/s of interest + recruitment source in cover letter. EOE

Walsh Construction Company seeks Assistant Project Managers, for various and unanticipated worksites throughout the U.S. (HQ: Chicago, IL) to develop logistics plan, schedule, & coordinate complex construction proj.

Master’s in Construction Mgmt. or Civil Eng. +2yrs exp. OR Bachelor’s in Construction Mgmt. or Civil Eng. +5yrs exp. req’d. Exp. must incl. waste water plant proj., TETRA system installation, develop schedules & logistics plans for proj. valued at least $30 mil., Primavera, CMiC. Apply online at: www.walshgroup.com/careers. html Req. ID: 2016-1597 Assistant Project Managers

IT - WIZ TECH, INC. dba Cyberhull seeks Sr. Developers for various & unanticipated worksites throughout the US (HQ: Bartlett, IL) to dev. high-load web app. systems. Master’s in Comp. Sci./Eng. +2yrs exp. or Bachelor’s in Comp.

Sci./Eng +5yrs exp req’d. Exp. must incl. at least 2 yrs w/.NET, C#, WebAPI, Entity Framework, WPF, LINQ, HTML5, D3, JavaScript, AngularJS, T-SQL, ASP MVC, DevExpress. Send resume to: D. Wisniewski, Ref: EK, 780 W Army Trail Road, Suite 248, Carol Stream, IL 60188

Credit Analyst: determine customer credit terms. MS in finance or rel. fld. req. Apply to BV USA Enterprises Inc. 1680-1682 Carmen Dr, Elk Grove Village IL60007.

Operations Analyst: propose solutions to integrate business operations. Masters in math, statistics, finance, or rel. fld req. Apply to BV USA LLC, 1680-1682 Carmen Dr, Elk Grove Village IL60007 KCURA, LLC. (CHICAGO, IL)

seeks Software Engineer-Platform responsible for designing/writing/ testing/deploying/supporting new implementations for tools that drive kCura. Willingness to handle technical support calls after hours about twice a year. Apply at: recruiting@ kcura.com and reference Job ID: 2016-MM-ENG-1001.

NUTS ON CLARK POPCORN

Stores now hiring in Chicago for all locations...Earn $ while working with a team. Get paid while training.

Jobs Available Now Midway/O’Hare Airports. Apply in person @ corp. office: 3830 N. Clark St. Chicago.

9am-10am Mon-Fri. Must bring ID’s and Social Security Card to apply.

SALES CONSULTANT, SELL jewelries & general merchandise to retailers, demonstrate products, explain product features, & solicit orders. Req’s a HS diploma, 2yrs of sales exp + fluency in Korean. Job in Niles, IL. Res to: Lee’s Jewelry, 6310 W. Touhy Ave., #204, Niles, IL 60714

seeks Advanced Performance Engineer to drive customer confidence by assuring the quality of kCura’s current/future software products & contribute to a motivating environment that empowers teams & individuals to engineer QA efficiencies in practice. Submit resumes to: recruiting@kcura.com and reference Job ID: 2016-MM-ENG1003.

ASSISTANT MANAGER-NAIL SALON, Assist manager in coordinating activities of nail technicia ns/other workers. Assign work schedules. Train workers. Req 2 yrs exp in management in nail, hair or skincare salon. Job in Glenview, IL. Res to: Tres Bien Nails, Inc., 2737 Pfingsten Rd., Glenview, IL 60026

MOUNT SINAI HOSP. Med. Ctr. of Chicago, IL seeks Network Engineer. Plan & execute storage & server migration strategies; install & config softw, initiators & WWN’s for CISCO switches; trouDrivers – School Bus bleshoot netwrk issues. Reqs.

Master’s in comp sci., comp eng., School is in session and Sunrise or rltd & MCP certification. Send is growing. We need qualified CV to S.Rayner, California Ave. School Bus Drivers to help our at 15th Street, Chicago, IL 60608 children make the grade. We have AM/PM Routes, Pairs and Midday. Sunrise is a large provid- KCURA LLC (CHICAGO, IL) er of Field Trips for the custom- seeks Software Engineer-Delivery reers we serve. If you have a valid sponsible for designing/writing/ Illinois School Bus Permit, you testing/deploying/supporting new can begin driving almost immedi- implementations the tools that drive ately, for those without we pro- kCura. Willingness to handle technivide complete training. cal support calls after hours about

Handle high volume invoicing/ billing daily on two systems (Quantum and QuickBooks) Excellent math skills (including Excel) Attention to detail, a must. Email resumes to: Lindab@dbpchicago.com

twice a year. Apply to recruiting@

Apply in person at 4540 W Madi- kcura.com and reference Job ID: son or 8500 S Vincennes.

2016-MM-ENG-1002.

THE LATEST ON WHO’S PLAYING AND WHERE THEY’RE PLAYING

EARLY WARNINGS

WEEKLY E-BLAST GET UP TO DATE. SIGN UP NOW. CHICAGOREADER.COM

46 CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

KCURA, LLC (CHICAGO, IL)

ACCTING/BILLING ASSISTANT

PERSONAL ASSISTANT (Male

Preferred) with homemaking skills needed in Chicago Southside home to assist disabled adult male for community living P/T, 9am-2pm. $10/hr.

Call 773-291-0784. Non-smoking envionrment. Must have car.

SCOOTER NEEDED at

TECHNICIAN

Chicago’s largest showroom! Experienced, qualified Mechanic to work on all types of scooters from 50CC to 300CC engines. Email response to: mhodges@scooterworkschicago.com

SPRING MAKER - Elk Grove Co. is looking for exp. CNC Spring Coiler and or CNC Wire Former Set Up Person.

FT, 1st or 2nd shifts. Send resume to hr@jacksonspring. com.

REAL ESTATE RENTALS

STUDIO $500-$599

LARGE STUDIO APARTMENT

LARGE 3RD FLR 5rm 1brm w/

CHICAGO, HYDE PARK Arms

Lawrence. Lrg studio $525, 1BR $585$630. 113th & Indiana, XL 1BR heat incl. $640. 773-660-9305

near Loyola Park. 1339 W Estes.

Hardwood floors. Heat included.

Laundry in building. Cats OK. $695/ month. Available 11/1. 773-761-4318, www.lakefrontmgt.com Hotel, 5316 S. Harper, maid, phone, cable ready, fridge, private facilities, laundry avail. Start at $160/wk Call 773-493-3500

ROGERS PARK STUDIOS Clse to

Public Trans & Lake. Updatd Kitchns Hrdwd flrs Heat Incl 1Yr Lease $350 Movein Fee. $650. 773-562-6878 7500 SOUTH SHORE Dr. Brand New Rehabbed Studio & 1BR Apts from $650.

Call 773-374-7777 for details.

STUDIO $700-$899 EDGEWATER: Dlx Studio: full kic, new appl, DR, oak flrs, lndy, cats ok. $795/incl ht, water, gas, 773-743-4141 urbanequities.com

STUDIO $900 AND OVER Hyde Park West Apts., 5325 S. Cottage Grove Ave., Renovated spacious apartments in landscaped gated community. Off street parking available. Studios $950, 1BR $1150 - Free Heat, 2BR $1400 - Free heat; 3BR Townhome $1775, 4BR Townhome, $2200 Call about our Special. Visit or call 773-324-0280, M-F: 9am-5pm or apply online- www.hydepark we st.com. Managed by Metroplex, Inc

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

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

Ashland Hotel nice clean rms.

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

Low rates daily/weekly/monthly.

South Side. Call 773-376-5200

QUALITY

bly Clean Highrise STUDIOS, 1 & 2 BEDROOMS Facing Lake & Park.

Laundry & Security on Premises.

Parking & Apts. Are Subject to Availability. TOWNHOUSE APARTMENTS 773-288-1030

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

PARK! 7455 N .

Greenview. Studios starting at $625 including heat. It’s a newly remodeled vintage elevator building with on-site laundry, wood floors, new kitchens and baths, some units have balconies, etc. Application fee $40.

No security deposit! For a showing please contact Samir 773-627-4894 Hunter Properties 773-477-7070 www.hunterprop.com

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

EDGEWATER!

WEST PULLMAN (INDIANA

for sublease through 4/30/17. 6824 N Wayne. Hardwood floors. Pets OK. Laundry in building. $695/ month, heat included. Available 10/1. 773761-4318, www.lakefrontmgt.com

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

CHICAGO NEAR 80TH & Ingleside. Newly rehab, 1 BR, large LR, new kit, carpeted. $600. no sec, heat included. 708-921-9506 CHICAGO 77 RIDGELAND 3BR, heat included. $850.

LYNWOOD 3BR, 2BA Condo,$925 773-874-9637 or 773-493-5359

76TH & PHILLIPS Studio $575$600, 2BR $750-$800. Remodeled, Appliances avail. Free Heat. Section 8 welcome. 312-286-5678

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 6930 S. SOUTH SHORE DRIVE Studios & 1BR, INCL. Heat, Elec, Cking gas & PARKING, $585-$925, Country Club Apts 773-752-2200 HYDE PARK -SGL.FURN.RMS. With Refrig & Microwave, Utils. Inc. Close to Lake and Trans.$515-$550.

Ldry&24hr sec. 773-577-9361

û NO SEC DEP û

6829 S. PERRY. 1BR. $520/mo.

HEAT INCL 773-955-5106

1 BR $700-$799

7022 S. SHORE DRIVE Impecca-

SUMMER SPECIAL: STUDIOS starting at $499 incls utilities. 1BR $550, 2BR $599, 3BR $699. With

LARGE STUDIO APARTMENT

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

APARTMENTS,

SOUTH SHORE AREA Newly remodeled Studios.

Near Metra & CTA, appls incl. $500-$525/mo. Ray 872-212-0815

1061 W. Rosemont. Studios starting at $625 to $675, All Utilities included! Elevator building! Close to CTA red line train, restaurants, shopping, blocks to the lakefront, beaches and bike trails, laundry onsite, remodeled, etc. For a showing please contact Jay 773835-1864 Hunter Properties, Inc. 773-477-7070 www.hunterprop.com

6959 S MAY, 4 Room 1 BR new rehab, jumbo $650 + security. 773405-9361, 773-467-8200, Latrice, 2 BR $730.

Great Prices! Studios-4BR, from $450. Newly rehabbed. Appliances included. Low Move-in Fees. Hardwood floors. Pangea - Chicago’s South, Southwest & West Neighborhoods. 312-985-0556

SOUTH SHORE, 75th & Saginaw, 1 & 2BRs, hardwood floors.

Stove, fridge, parking & heat incl. $600-$950.

Call 312403-8025

ROGERS

75TH & EBERHART. 1 & 2BR apts ceiling fan, appls, hdwd flrs, HEATED, intercom. $650/mo & up Call 773-881-3573

1 BR UNDER $700

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

708-388-0170

STUDIO $600-$699

sunporch & hrdwd flrs. Heat, stove refrig included. Credit Ck. $675.

8217 Drexel Chuck 773-994-1170 CHATHAM 80TH & St.

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

Ave) Nice, lrg 1 & 2BR w/balcony.

1BR $550, 2BR $650. Security deposit $650. Sec 8 Welcome. 773-9956950

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

773-637-5957

Newly remod 1BR & Studios starting at $500. No sec dep, move in fee or app fee. Free heat /hot water. 1155 W. 83rd St., 773-619-0204

6915-25 S. DANTE - Beautiful 1BRs. Hardwood floors or carpet.

Contemporary kitchens and baths.

Spacious living room w/ separate dinning. C-fans and mini-blinds.

Gated with intercom. Free heat and cooking gas utilities. Tenant pays electric. Rents from $715-875, background check. No Sec. Deposits. Contact Ms. Patterson @ 312254-8274. Section 8 and Veterans welcomed.

HYDE PARK LARGE Studio. $69 5/MO. Newly decor, carpeted, stove, fridge, all utils incl, elevator, laundry facilities, Free Credit Check. 773-4932401 or 312-802-7301 9147 S. ASHLAND. 1BR, dine-In Kit, appls, laundry, Clean & Secure. $700/mo. U Pay gas & elec, No Pets. 10/15. 312-914-8967.

CHICAGO, 90TH & COLFAX, 5 rooms, 1BR, enclosed porch, heat & gas included, $700/mo + 1 month’s security. Call 773-731-5558 8324 S INGLESIDE: 1BR, 1st flr, newly remod., lndry, hdwd flrs, cable. Sec 8 welcome.$660/mo.

708-308-1509 or 773-493-3500 RIVERDALE - NEWLY decor,

2BR, appls, heated, A/C, lndry, prkng, no pets, near Metra. Sec 8 ok. $795.

630-480-0638

ALSIP: 1BR. $725/mo & 2BR, 1BA, $850/mo. Parking, appliances, laundry & storage.

Call 708-268-3762

l

l

1 BR $800-$899 LAKESIDE TOWER, 910 W Lawrence. 1 bedrooms starting at $895-$925 include heat and gas, laundry in building. Great view! Close to CTA Red Line, bus, stores, restaurants, lake, etc. To schedule a showing please contact Celio 773-3961575, Hunter Properties 773-4777070, www.hunterprop.com

1 BR $900-$1099

WRIGLEVILLE 1BR, 1000SF, new kit/deck, FDR, oak flrs, Cent H eat/AC, prkg avail. $1350 + util, Pet friendly, 773-743-4141 www. urbanequities.com ROGERS PARK:

Deluxe 2BR + den, new kitchen, FDR, oak floors close to beach. $1250/heated, 774-743-4141 www.urbanequities.com

EDGEWATER 1000SF 1BR; new kit, sunny FDR, oak flrs, Onsite lndy; PKG Avail., $1095/incl heat.

773-743-4141 www. urbanequities.com

LARGE ONE BEDROOM apart-

ment near Red Line. 6822 N Wayne.

Hardwood floors. Pets OK. Laundry in building. $900-$925/ month. Heat included. Available 11/1. 773-761-4318, www.lakefrontmgt.com

ONE BEDROOM APARTMENT

near Warren Park and Metra, 6802 N Wolcott. Hardwood floors. Heat included. Laundry in building. Cats OK. $900/ month. Available 11/1. 773761-4318, www.lakefrontmgt.com

WEST RIDGE, 6200N/ 2200W. Spacious updated one

bedroom garden apartment. Near transportation, shopping, parks.

Heat, appliances, electricity, blinds included. 773-274-8792. $900.

HOMEWOOD- SUNNY 900SF

1BR Great Kitc, New Appls, Oak Flrs, A/C, Lndry & Storage, $950/mo Incls heat & prkg. 773.743.4141

1 BR $1100 AND OVER WEST ANDERSONVILLE 1 bed-

room, soft loft, 2nd floor, owner occupied, cats OK. Non-smoking. $1500/mo + utilities. Available October 1. Call 773-506-1125

1 BR OTHER CHICAGO SOUTH SIDE Beauti-

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

APTS. FOR RENT PARK MGMT & INV. Ltd. IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN! OUR UNITS INCLUDE HEAT, HW & CG Plenty of parking 1Bdr From $750.00 2Bdr From $925.00 3 Bdr/2 Full Bath From $1200 **1-(773)-476-6000***

CHATHAM CHARM , Vintage,

CRETE: 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bath, FR w/wood burning fpl, large lot, 2.5 car garage, W/D, refrig, stove & dishwasher. $1950. 708769-7158.

CHICAGO - CLEAN, NEWLY remod, 1BR, 1st floor Apts, oak flooring. Ready Now! 722 E. 89th St. FREE HEAT. 708-951-2889

LOGAN

SPACIOUS-SAFE 773-4235727. BRONZEVILLE, 3BR, heat included. Englewood, 1,2 & 3BR, heat incl. Dolton, 2BR, Gated Parking.

CHICAGO

newly rehab, 1 BR, h/w flrs, sec alarm, heat & hot water incl, laundry, Sec 8 & Seniors Welc. Call for appt (773)418-9908

APTS. FOR RENT PARK MGMT & INV. Ltd. TIME TO TURN THE FURNANCE ON!!!

Most units Include..

HEAT & HOT WTR Studios From $495.00 1Bdr From $550.00 2Bdr From $745.00 3 Bdr/2 Full Bath From $1200 **1-(773)-476-6000**

W. AVALON, 1 & 2BR Newly decor. 8059 Ellis & 11200 S. Vernon.

Hdwd floors, heat & appliances incl, $585 & $685. 708-406-2718 CHICAGO - BEVERLY, large 2 room Studio, 1 & 2BR Apts. Carpet, A/C, laundry, near transportation, $650-$975/mo. Call 773-233-4939

LARGE 1 BEDROOM, $725 Nr Metra & shops, Sec 8 OK. Newly decor, dining room, carpeted, appls, FREE heat & cooking gas. Elevator & laundry room, free credit check, no application fee, 1-773-919-7102 or 1312-802-7301 82/WOODLAWN, STUDIOS $525+, 1BR $625+. 773-577-0993.

68/Michigan, 1BR $625+, 2BR $775. 773-744-1641. Lrg units, heat, appls, ckng gas incl. New wndws, lndry. No dep/app fee.

CHICAGO, 7727 S. Colfax, ground flr Apt., ideal for senior citizens. Secure bldng. Modern 1BR $595. Lrg 2BR, $800. Free cooking & heating gas. Free parking. 312613-4427

142 LOWE 3 & 1, fin bsmt, $1125.

144 Emerald 2 & 2 plus $1150.

Garages. Open House, Appt Avail.

773.619.4395 Charlie 818.679.1175

ADULT SERVICES

COLLEGE GIRL BODY RUBS $40 w/AD 24/7

224-223-7787

ADULT SERVICES

208-1771

CHICAGO - 7112 S. EUCLID

1ST FLOOR RENOVATED 2BR, HWF, 1BA. $750/MO. Call 773-2853206

MOVE IN SPECIAL B4 the N of this MO. & MOVE IN 4 $99.00 (773) 874-3400

CALUMET CITY, AVAIL. now,

2 BR UNDER $900

SOUTH SHORE 1BR, 1BA garden apt, newly rehab, quiet block, close to transport & lakefront. Must See! Nigel 312770-0795

arate living and dining rm. Appliances & Heat incl. 773.916.0039 or 312-

CHICAGO, 5552 W. Gladys. 2nd & 3rd flr, 2BR apts. Heat incl, $905/ mo. 5215 W. Augusta Blvd. 2BR. $865/mo. Sec Req. 773-251-6652

NO SECURITY DEPOSIT No Move-in fee! No Dep! Sec 8 ok. 1,

room, CA, , $160 SD. Non smoking, proof of income, background check, $360/mo. Rent discount if you can shovel snow. 773-227-5549.

1041 E. 80TH St. 1BR. $675. Sep-

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

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

1917 N KEDZIE, Small furnished

AUGUSTA/Springfield.

Large 2 bedrooms, $750 per month plus security, tenant pays heat. C all 312-401-3799

1043 E. 80TH St.: 2BR $775

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

2 & 3 Bdrms. Elev bldg, laundry, pkg. 6531 S. Lowe.

Call Gina. 773-874-0100

7600 S Essex 2BR $599, 3BR $699, 4BR $799 w/apprvd credit, no sec dep. Sect 8 Ok! 773287-9999 /312-446-3333

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

ROYALTON HOTEL, Kitchen-

ADULT SERVICES

SQUARE 2 bedroom apartment, 2-flat building, modern kitchen & bath, balcony, washer & dryer. $800/mo. Near Blue Line.

773-235-1066

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

BEAUTIFUL 5 RM, 2 BR, encl.

porch/pantry, appl. inc. tenant pays heat. nr trans. 71st/Fairfield.

No Smoking/pets. $700/mo +sec.

773-238-5188

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 East Chicago, IN, 2BR $675 Ht. Incl., 1 mo. free rent w/ lease. Call MIKE 773-577-9361

ADULT SERVICES

Large apartment, stove, fridge, heat included. Call 773.916.0039 or 312208-1771

2br, incl appl., AC, laundry rm. $875 month with 1 month sec. application check, sec 8 welcome, 773-875-1315

7414 S. VERNON 2BR, 1st flr, remod hdwd flrs, Sec. 8 OK, appl included, laundry on site. $780 & up. 773-406-4841 VICINITY 65TH AND St. Lawrence, modern, tenant heated, 2BR Unit. $725/mo. No Sec Deposit Agent Owned, 312-671-3795

BELLWOOD - 2BR, appl incl tenant pays heat, gas & electric, $850/mo + 1 month sec dep, no pets, close to trans.708-450-9137

2 BR $900-$1099

MONTICELLO & OHIO Beautiful

2BR apt, freshly painted, appl incl. tenant pays all util. No pets. Sect. 8 welcome. $900/mo + sec. dep. 773533-0140

W. HUMBOLDT PARK. 1302-08 N. KILDARE. DIVISION/ PULASKI. NEWLY REHABBED, 2BR, $785.

SEC 8 OK. 773-619-0280 OR 773286-8200 2BR+

NR

83RD/JEFFREY,

RECENT REHAB, 4BR/2BA, 2 BR/ 2BA & 3BR/1BA SF homes in Harvey. Professionally Managed.

Section 8 ok. 630-247-5146

2 BR $1100-$1299

MATTESON, 2BR, $990$1050; 3BR, $1250-$1400.

Move In Special is 1 Month’s Rent & $99 Sec Dep. Sect 8 Welc. 708-748-4169

EAST ROGERS PARK, steps to

the beach at 1240 West Jarvis, five rooms, two bedrooms, two baths, dishwasher, ac, heat and gas included. Carpeted, cable, laundry facility, elevator building, parking available, and no pets. Non-smoking. Price is $1200/mo. Call 773-764-9824.

EVANSTON 2BR, 1100SF, great kit, new appls, DR, oak flrs, lndry, $1250/mo incls heat. 773743-4141 www.urbanequities.co

More Local Numbers: 1-800-811-1633

vibeline.com 18+

www.megamates.com 18+

ADULT SERVICES

3 BR OR MORE UNDER $1200 MATTESON 3BR APT, 1st flr, new flrs, near METRA. Avail Immed. $920/mo + 1 month sec.

Utilities incl, pets OK. 708-9035930

11565 S. PEORIA, Huge 3 lev-

el, 3 bdrm, 2 bth twnhm, extra lrg kitc., lndry rm, side drive, appl. incl., pets welcome. $900 monthly. Wont last! 312-219-4340.

ADULT SERVICES

bathroom apartment, 3820 N Fremont. Near Wrigley Field. Hardwood floors. Cats OK. Laundry in building.

Available 11/1. $1695/ month. Parking available. $150/ month for single parking space. $250/ month for tandem parking space. 773-761-4318, w ww.lakefrontmgt.com

2 BR OTHER BEAUTIFUL NEW APT! 72nd and Evans 2 & 3BDRM 77th and Phillips 2 & 4BDRM 62nd and King Dr 3BDRM Stainless Steel!! Appliances!!

Hdwd flr!! marble bath!! laundry on site!!

Sec 8 OK. 773- 404- 8926

8943 S. ADA. Safe, secure 23BR, separate heating, nice flrs, school & metra 1 blk away, $750$1200 /mo. Section 8 welc. 708465-6573

ADULT SERVICES

ADULT SERVICES

60 MINUTES FREE TRIAL

THE HOTTEST GAY CHATLINE

1-312-924-2082 More Local Numbers: 800-777-8000

www.guyspyvoice.com

Ahora en Español/18+

THE LATEST ON YOUR FAVORITE

RESTAURANTS AND BARS

FOOD & DRINK

WEEKLY E-BLAST GET UP TO DATE. SIGN UP NOW. Try FREE: 773-867-1235

(773) 449-5083

apt, Living rm, Dining rm, sun porch, 1BA., w/appliances. Heat included.

Section 8 welcome. 773-206-4737

2BR, 2nd flr $800/mo. 702 E. 81st (Langley) 1BR, 2nd flr. $650/mo. Call Mr. Joe at 708-870-4801

LARGE TWO BEDROOM, two

REAL PEOPLE REAL DESIRE REAL FUN.

Try FREE: 312-924-2066

715 E. 61st St, 2BR

CHATHAM, 736 E. 81st (Evans),

2 BR $1500 AND OVER

Always FREE to listen and reply to ads!

Chicago:

CHICAGO,

ENGLEWOOD 2-4BR unit apts in 2 unit gated bldgs, hdwd flrs, pets OK, no sec dep, W/D & appls incl, tenant pays own utils 312929-2167

Elmhurst: Sunny 1/BR, new appl, carpet, AC, Patio, $895/incl heat, parking. Call 773-743-4141 www.urbanequities.com

Playmates or soul mates, you’ll find them on MegaMates

Meet sexy friends who really get your vibe...

RIVERDALE AVAIL OCT 1 !

3 flat building, Large 3 BR, heat/ gas free, QUIET, gated, laundry, security, close to Metra, large rooms, 708-201-8126

heated, decor FP, hdwd flrs, lots of storage, formal DR, intercom, newly remod kitchen & bath. $950. Missy 773-241-9139

2BDRM, 1 BATH apartment with

lrge lvng rm, new kitchen w/appl., Lndry rm on the premises, Lrge closets & off street parking available. $950/Mth incl Gas & Water. Call 708769-3814 to make an appt. Application Fee $35

CHICAGO, PRINCETON PARK HOMES. Spacious 2-3 BR Townhomes, Inclu: Prvt entry, full bsmt, lndry hook-ups. Ample prkg. Close to trans & schls. Starts at $844/ mo. w w w . p p k h o m e s . com;773-264-3005

CHICAGOREADER.COM

More Local Numbers: 1-800-926-6000

Ahora español Livelinks.com 18+

SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 | CHICAGO READER 47

RIVERDALE, Newly decorated 3BR Apartment. New carpet, near metra, no pets, $92 5/mo + security deposit. Call 708-829-1454 720 W. 61ST ST. Be au t if u l Rehab 4BR. $1150/mo + sec. 5723 S. Michigan.Newly decor 3BR. $95 0/ mo + sec. SS appls, tenant pays utils. 773-858-3163 AVAILABLE NOW Chicago, newly renovated, 3BR apt., 5734 S. May St, $1000/mo. Section 8 welcome. Contact Jawad, 218-310-8120

3BRS. JACKSON & Central,

Cermak & Pulaski, nr trans. $900$1150 + sec. Tenant pays utils, laundry hookup. 847.720.9010

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

708-288-4510 ROSEMOOR, 10344 S Green. beaut. rehab 3BR, 2BA house, granite ctrs, SS appls, fin bsmt, 2car gar, $1500/mo. 708-288-4510 BEAUTIFUL REHABBED 3BR, 2BA house, 11701 S Bishop, granite counters, SS appls, fin bsmt, 2 car gar, $1450/mo. 708-288-4510

4341 S GREENWOOD 1N $1400

SOUTH: MATTESON, COUNTRY CLUB HILLS, SAUK VILLAGE

large 4BR, 1BA, all updated, Heat and water incl., no sec dep. Call Toni 773916-0039 or Pam 312-208-1771

2, & 4BR, House /Condo, Sect 8 ok. For info: 708-625-7355

SEC 8 OK. 90th/Dauphin (near

Cottage Grove). 5BR, 2BA, new remod, all wood flrs, all appls incl, no sec dep $1300. 847-533-2496

SECT 8 OK, 2 story, 4br/2ba w/ bsmt. New decor, crpt & hdwds, ceiling fans, stove/fridge, $1465.

11243 S. Eggleston, 773-443-5397 PHOENIX Sec 8 Welcome $500 cash back . $0 Security for Sec 8. 3BR, $1300/mo. Fine condition. ADT Alarm. 708-715-0034

3 BR OR MORE $1500-$1799 3BR BEAUTIFUL HARDWOOD floors, remodeled kitchen, ceiling fans, spacious, near Blue Line & shopping. 2nd floor, 2 flat near Kimball & Irving. Laundry room. Ask about pets. $1500. 773-593-8297

HARVEY SPACIOUS 4 BR. ,

newly remodeled, hrwd flrs, appls, heat incl., $1500 + 1 mo. Sec 8 ok.

Must See. 773-419-0351

3 BR OR MORE OTHER

HARVEY

5BR, FRIDGE, stove, newly remodeled, $900 Call 773-805-8181

SECTION 8 WELCOME WEST PULLMAN 255 W. 111th Pl, 6BR, 3BA, $1620. Newly remod, appls incl, full bsmt, garage. 5BR Voucher Accepted. 773-793-8339 NEWLY RENOV 5BR, 2BA Houses, 5306 S. Wallace, 5400 S. Union, 8820 S. Yale. Sec 8 OK. A/C. Start at $1350/mo. 773-895-2867 RIVERDALE, 4 BEDROOMS, 1 Bath, finished basement, spacious home, $1250/mo.

Call 708-715-3169 CHICAGO, 6111 S. Normal 2BR apt, stove/refrig., 6101 S. Normal 4BR T/H apt, newly decor. Sec. 8 welc. Call 773-422-1878.

CHICAGO, 347 W. 109TH ST., newly remod 5BR, 1.5BA, near elementary school. $1300/mo, low security deposit. Call 708-275-1751 NORTH LAWNDALE - Beautiful 6 room, 3BR apt, C/A, W/D. Sec 8 Ok. Also Avail . 2BR Garden Apt Furnished. Call 847-962-4416 3 BEDROOM HOME to Rent.

2138 W. 71st Place. Chicago.

Call Corean at 708-275-7098 between 10 am and 6 pm NEAR 83RD & Yates. 5BR, 2BA, hdwd flrs, fin basement, stove & fridge furn. Heat incl. $1600 + 1 mo sec. Sect 8 ok. 773-978-6134

CHICAGO HEIGHTS 3 bdrm

house for rent, exc cond, available now. $1050/Mo, 1st mo + sec dep.

Tenants pay all utils. 708-343-8629

2323 W. WARREN Blvd, 5 blks from United Ctr, 4BR, 2 Full BA, 2nd flr. hdwd flrs, ceramic tiles, Call 773-261-8840

CHICAGO, 1945 S. Drake, 2nd floor, 3BR, 2BA, newly renovated, hardwood floors, storage, no dogs, $1050/mo. Call 773-485-3042

3 BR OR MORE $1200-$1499 161 N. LONG - Extra Large

South Shore: 3BR 1.5 bath & 2BR: newly remodeled. Hrdwd flrs, heat & hot water incl. No Sec Dep. Sec 8 welc.. Call 9am-5pm 773-731-8306

BEAUTIFUL & SPACIOUS 4

bed, 3 bath duplex on quiet tree lined 4BR/2BA home. Freshly painted. street in booming West Town! Freshly Hardwood flooring. 2 car gar. Sect. painted, newly refinished hardwood 8 welcome. $1,500/month. Mike floors.Cherry cabinets, stainless steel 312-446-8713 appliances, granite counter-tops, private deck off master bedroom, organized closet in master, Jacuzzi tub in master bath, lower-level family room SUNNY 3BR, 2BA apartment, with wet bar leads to private walk-out freshly painted, large rooms, laun- patio. W/D in unit, central AC, one gadry & parking included. Credit & rage spot included. Stone’s throw to background check + security nightlife - California Clipper & Roosdeposit required. Tenant pays tock, dining (Flying Saucer & Feed), heat. $1300/mo. 312-944-3189 park and convenient to Metra. Available Oct. 1st, 18 month Lease, rent $2,700. Call 815-412-5674 7317 S. HOYNE . 4BR, 1.5BA House, tenant pays all utils. Asking $1400/mo. Sec 8 Welcome.

773-617-2538

4151 S Berkeley: 7rm 3BR, 1BA, $1350 heat and water inc., No sec dep call Toni 773-916-0039 or Pam 312-208-1771

4221 S ELLIS: 7rm 4BR, 1BA $1475

heat and water inc., No sec dep. Ccall Toni 773-916-0039 or Pam 312-2081771.

3 BR 2 car gar, fin bsmt, hdwd flrs, c/a $1500/mo & 3BR apt $1050-1100. Sec 8 OK. 3BR voucher ok for home. Also 1 & 2BR voucher welc for apt. 708-2500748

WASHINGTON PARK. Wheelchair Access. ADA Compliant Spac 3BR, 2BA, laundry. off st. parking, balc. Avail now. Sec 8 OK. $1116/ mo.

Appl Fee. No Sec. 773-552-5228

CHICAGO HOUSES FOR rent.

Section 8 Ok, w/app credit $500 gift certificate 3, 4 & 5 BR houses avail.

312-446-3333 or 708-752-3812

FOR SALE PARK FOREST CO-OP WARS - A FRIENDLY COMPETITION COME SEE WHAT WE’RE DOING TO OUR UNITS! THREE CO-OPS COMPETE FOR YOUR VOTE FOR THE BEST RENOVATION. STOP BY OUR HOST OFFICE FOR A CHANCE TO WIN A $300 VISA CARD. PARTICIPATING COOPERATIVES: HOST: AREA J CO-OP - 294 LAKEWOOD BLVD. WWW.PFCAREAJ.COM 708481-9280 CEDARWOOD CO-OP - 63 CEDAR STREET WWW.MYCEDARWOOD. COM 708-747-3833 AREA E CO-OP - 66 FIR STREET W W W .

PARKFORESTCOOPERATIVE. ORG 708-748-9005 SUNDAY, SEPT. 18, 2016 123P.M. 294 LAKEWOOD BLVD, PARK FOREST, IL

48 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

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

units fully heated and humidity controlled with ac available. North: Knox Avenue.

773-685-6868.

South: Pershing Avenue. 773-523-6868.

STRAIGHT DOPE

COMMERCIAL OFFICE SPACE 9000 Sq Ft. Located at 819/821 Howard St. Evanston, IL. Approx. $9.00 Sq. Ft. 847-4921500

roommates SOUTH SHORE, Senior

Discount. Male preferred. Furnished rooms, shared kitchen & bath, $545/ mo. & up. Utilities included.

773-710-5431

2BR’S FOR RENT in home, near 79th/Ashland. Female Preferred. $385/mo. Refs & credit.

773-530-5298

MARQUETTE PARK - 6241 S. Maplewood. ROOMs for Rent. $1 13/week + 1 week sec dep. Call 773-378-7763

MARKETPLACE GOODS

CLASSICS WANTED ANY CLASSIC CARS IN ANY CONDITION. ’20S, ’30S, ’40S, ’50S, ’60S & ’70S. HOTRODS & EXOTICS! TOP DOLLAR PAID! COLLECTOR. CALL JAMES, 630-201-8122 MASSAGE TABLES, NEW and used. Large selection of professional high quality massage equipment at a very low price. Visit us at www. bestmassage.com or call us, 773764-6542.

GARAGE SALE 2825 N. Campbell

Ave. Chicago Saturday 9/24 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Rain/Shine. CASH ONLY. NO EARLY BIRDS - garage door goes up at 10:00 a.m.

HEALTH & WELLNESS FOR A HEALTHY mind and body.

European trained and certified therapists specializing in deep tissue, Swedish, and relaxation massage. Incalls. 773-552-7525. Lic. #227008861.

UKRAINIAN

MASSAGE.

CALLS in/ out. Chicago and suburbs. Hotels. 1234 S Michigan Avenue. Appointments. 773-616-6969.

MUSIC & ARTS TRACY GUNS ROCKS up Brit-

ney Beach S, slinky dresses & Daring Outfits, Bieber, Glory is a hit.

Metallica, too follow, Aerosmith, great country, M.Crue. 773-481-7429.

SLUG SIGNORINO

CHICAGO, 90TH & LAFLIN, 3BR, 2nd floor, heated, formal

dining room, carpet & hardwood.

Available. $1125/mo + sec.

312-946-0130

By Cecil Adams q : We’ve all seen the ads where pets

experience visible joy when served an expensive brand of dog or cat food.

But do dogs and cats discern flavors, and given the choice, would they prefer Alpo or Cesar to dog crap or dead rats? —TWO LARRYS

A : Even the most doting pet parents can have a tough time maintaining the illusion they’re dealing with a refined sensibility.

The high-end kibble might indeed disappear from your dog’s dish, but that doesn’t mean she can’t find room for a bird corpse or discarded diaper afterward. Yes, dogs and cats do apparently taste flavors, but no, the fancy brands don’t necessarily contain more of what gets them salivating than the cheap stuff, just as beluga caviar won’t necessarily trip human taste receptors more reliably than a bag of Doritos.

Taste starts with the tongue, and the number of taste buds varies drastically among species—in some cases, pretty widely within species too. Chickens have only about two dozen taste buds; humans tend to have somewhere between 2,000 and 10,000. As for dogs, they have about 1,700 taste buds; cats make do with a paltry 470. In both, you won’t be surprised to learn, many of these buds are particularly attuned to meats, fats, and the chemicals therein.

Beyond basic meatcentricity, though, we see some divergence. Sweet tastes, for instance, also make it onto dogs’ radar—note that they go for chocolate, even though it’s toxic to them. Cats, on the other hand, are alone among the mammals in having no ability to detect sweetness.

And it makes sense: foodwise, cats are wired to eat a lot more protein than dogs. In recent studies of macronutrient selection— where test animals had access to a buffet of variously high-protein, high-fat, and high-carbohydrate foods and ate what they wanted— British pet nutritionists report that cats chose a nutrient balance of 52 percent protein, 36 percent fat, and 12 percent carbohydrates, whereas dogs’ self-selected splits came out at 30 protein, 63 fat, and 7 carbs.

Why the gap? The researchers suggest that until not too long ago, humans weren’t setting aside much meat for cats, who were expected to make their nutritional numbers via mousing—and the small animals cats remain famous for hunting tend, in fact, to contain about 50 percent protein. Dogs, conversely, are descended from pack hunters, who could

land bigger prey with more body fat; then, of course, they tossed in their lot with people at least 15,000 years ago and have been eating our scraps ever since.

Now, taste and smell are overlapping senses for most animals, and you and I aren’t even in our pets’ league when it comes to detecting scent. Humans have maybe six million olfactory receptors in our noses, where cats can have up to 80 million and dogs as many as 300 million. Dogs and cats are also among the many critters whose mouths connect to their nasal passages through something called the vomeronasal organ, or Jacobson’s organ, containing its own set of receptors to detect chemicals like pheromones. Scientists are still studying this organ’s role, but with what’s essentially a second olfactory system running alongside the first one, pets may encounter their food via a multisensory experience it’d be hard for us to even comprehend.

That said, there’s no solid evidence that dogs and cats are biologically predisposed to favor the flavor of a higher grade of meat to the organs and by-products processed into cheaper fare. In fact, some bargain-brand dog foods may please your pet more, because they’re highly sweetened. None of this means there aren’t nutritional benefits to the pricier stuff, but I won’t attempt to moderate the countless disputes over proper pet diet that have been stirred up in the two millennia since the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro advocated feeding sheepdogs milk-soaked bread and marrowbones.

Then again, no dog ever lifted its muzzle from the trash to consider a more upscale dining alternative on TV. Advertisers set their snares for the species holding the credit card, and Americans are their willing prey, shelling out more than $20 billion on pet food annually. Again, it makes sense: according to a 2014 Cornell study, people will tend to believe that their own food tastes better the more they pay for it. If not out-and-out suckers, we’re at least suggestible. v Send questions to Cecil via straightdope.com or write him c/o Chicago Reader, 350 N. Orleans, Chicago 60654.

l

l

SAVAGE LOVE

By Dan Savage

No vasectomy, no more open marriage?

A wife wants hubby snipped—or else. Plus: a daddy on the hunt and more Q : I’m female, 26, and in an open marriage with a wonderful man. I have a recurring fear that he’ll get some other woman pregnant and she’ll refuse to abort.

I trust him, but condoms break (or get holes poked in them). He inherited serious money from his father, and his father got “oops’d” into having three kids. I would immediately divorce my husband if this happened.

(Yes, I’m an asshole, but my life plans have NEVER included children, step- or otherwise.) My solution is for him to get a vasectomy. He says he’s for it, but it’s been a YEAR and he hasn’t made an appointment. I’m seriously considering yanking “open” until he’s sterile. Maybe he really wants children and he’s not telling me, but I keep asking and he keeps saying no. Am I being unreasonable asking for the snip? —SERIOUSLY NOT INTO PREGNANCY

A : Maybe your husband

wants children, SNIP, maybe he doesn’t. Or maybe he’s one of those guys invested in/aroused by the power of spunk to make babies they don’t want; these guys would rather see their shots intercepted than go unattempted. So while a vasectomy is an eminently reasonable way for a married man who wishes to remain childless to prevent himself from impregnating someone who isn’t his wife, SNIP, arousal often defies reason.

And ultimately this is his decision to make—his body, his choice.

Q : I’m a single gay male in my

40s. I have a good life and do good work. I’m not worried about finding the right guy to settle down with. I’m worried about what happens next. I’ve had three serious

long-term relationships and several friends-with-benefits relationships. In every single one, a time has come, generally sooner rather than later, when I completely lose interest in my partner sexually. It’s not a matter of him being less attractive to me. It’s not a matter of us not being on good terms— often we become very close friends. It’s not a matter of my sex drive shutting down— I’m all kinds of turned on by other guys, just not the one I’m with. It’s reached a point where I’m deliberately holding myself back from getting into relationships because I’m tired of ruining good things. —CONFIRMED BACHELOR

A : You could get your

ass into therapy, CB, and churn through several relationships while you work on this—relationships that could fail for this or some other reason—and not have anything to show for your effort ten years from now.

Or you could find a guy who has the same problem you do—your predicament is not uncommon—and instead of breaking up when you lose interest in each other sexually, you stay together, you love each other, you take care of each other, and you both fuck other guys.

Q : I’m male, 30, and newly

single. I’ve been using my newfound freedom to sleep around, and last week I had sex with a married woman.

Yes, she was cheating. Yes, I was aware. There won’t be any future sexual encounters with this woman, but here’s the thing I was wondering about: I don’t feel guilty, not one bit. This fuck was a strong contender for best fuck of my life. Does that make me a bad person? And if so, do I just accept the

fact that I’m a bad person?

—BASICALLY A DASTARDLY DICK, YES?

A : Fucking someone

you know to be cheating implicates you in an infidelity, of course, and that’s usually bad—but not always. In some cases, cheating is the least worst option for all involved (the cheater, the cheated, their dependents); in others, cheating saves marriages that needed saving; in still others, cheating ends marriages that needed ending. Absent more info about this woman’s particular circumstances, BADDY, I can’t make a definite ruling about her badness for cheating or your badness for aiding and abetting.

ADMIRAL ★★ #$!%#"! ★★

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OPEN 7PM TO 6A M ADMIRALX.COM (773) 478-8111

Q : Straight 64-year-old man wanting to try the gay side of life!!! Don’t have the bodybuilder’s body anymore!!! Average size!!!

Would anyone get turned on to old-timer’s body!!! Need some advice where and how to meet other gay men!!!

Also HIV is a concern!!!

Any other advice would be appreciated!!! —WHEN I’M SIXTY-FOUR

A : Check out daddyhunt. com, WISF, the “largest gay personals site for daddies, bears, and guys that love them”!!! Don’t be paralyzed by fear!!! Of HIV or anything else!!! But consider getting on PrEP!!! And use condoms!!! And remember: sex with a guy who thinks he’s negative but isn’t is way riskier than sex with a guy who knows he’s positive and takes his meds!!! And stop calling yourself straight!!! v Send letters to mail@ savagelove.net. Download the Savage Lovecast every Tuesday at thestranger.com. ß @fakedansavage

SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 49

Delta Rae o COURTESY FLEMING ARTISTS

NEW

Against the Current 12/14, 6:30 PM, Bottom Lounge b Anne-Marie 10/13, 9 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Ashanti 11/19, 7 PM, Portage Theater Beef Jerk 11/13, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Luke Bell 11/27, 9 PM, Empty Bottle, on sale Fri 9/23, 10 AM Bouncing Souls 11/17-18, 7 PM, Double Door, on sale Fri 9/23, 10 AM Camila 10/6, 8 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Citizen 10/20, 8:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Dance Gavin Dance 9/30, 5:30 PM, Portage Theater Delta Rae, Penny & Sparrow 11/29, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 9/22, noon b Ensemble Pamplemousse & Mocrep 11/4, 8 PM, Constellation, 18+ Eyehategod, Negative Approach 10/16, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ The Falcon, Kyle Kinane 11/23, 8 PM, Metro, on sale Fri 9/23, noon, 18+ Felly 1/7, 6 PM, Portage Theater b Flobots 11/1, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 9/22, noon b Giraffe Tongue Orchestra 12/3, 9 PM, Bottom Lounge, on sale Fri 9/23, noon, 17+ Godheadsilo, Corey J. Brewer 1/9, 9 PM, Empty Bottle, on sale Fri 9/23, 10 AM Ariana Grande 3/14, 7:30 PM, United Center, on sale Sat 9/24, 10 AM Helen Money 12/9, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Highly Suspect 11/18, 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, on sale Fri 9/23, noon b

Frank Iero & the Patience 11/19, 6:30 PM, Bottom Lounge, on sale Fri 9/23, noon b In Flames, Hellyeah 11/30, 7:30 PM, House of Blues, on sale Fri 9/23, 10 AM, 17+ Jim James, Twin Limb 11/26, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, on sale Fri 9/23, 10 AM, 18+ Legendary Shack Shakers 11/8, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 9/22, noon b King Wasiu Ayinde Marshal 10/9, 4 PM, the Promontory, 18+ Monarchy 11/7, 8 PM, 1st Ward, 18+ Mohsen Namjoo 11/5, 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music, on sale Fri 9/23, 8 AM b Nobunny 11/16, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Overkill, Nile 2/17, 7 PM, Concord Music Hall, 17+ Sarah Potenza 11/12, 9 PM, Hideout Quince 11/13, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Repeat Repeat 11/6, 9 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Russ 10/30, 7:30 PM, Bottom Lounge b Saywecanfly 11/11, 4 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club b Set Your Goals 11/5, 7 PM, Bottom Lounge b Slaughter & the Dogs 11/26, 8 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 18+ Slim Jim Phantom 11/10, 8 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Wadada Leo Smith & John Lindberg 10/28-29, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Supersuckers 12/10, 7:30 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Nik Turner’s Hawkwind 11/6, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Wild Nothing, Small Black 11/9, 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, on sale Fri 9/23, 11 AM, 17+

50 CHICAGO READER - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

UPDATED Green Day 9/21, 7 PM, Aragon Ballroom, postponed Kongos, Joy Formidable 10/5, 7:30 PM, the Vic, moved from Riviera Theatre b

UPCOMING American Football 10/29, 7:30 PM, the Vic b Amira 10/30, 7 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Anderson Wakeman Rabin 11/5, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre Asking Alexandria, Born of Osiris, I See Stars 11/1, 4:30 PM, House of Blues b Attila 10/26, 5:45 PM, House of Blues b The Bad Plus 12/14, 7 and 9:30 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Bad Suns, Coin 10/28, 7 PM, Double Door b Band of Horses 11/16, 7:30 PM, Aragon Ballroom b Belanova 11/2, 8 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Birthday Suits 10/25, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Terry Bozzio 10/10, 8 PM, City Winery b Elvis Costello & the Imposters 10/29, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre Allison Crutchfield & the Fizz 10/3, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Cymbals Eat Guitars 10/11, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Darlingside 10/13, 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Death From Above 1979, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Deap Vally 10/13, 8 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Deerhunter, Aldous Harding 10/21, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Dinosaur Jr. 10/8, 9 PM, Metro

b Earthless, Ruby the Hatchet 12/2, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Emarosa 11/19, 6 PM, Beat Kitchen b Rik Emmett 11/3, 8 PM, City Winery b Alejandro Escovedo 11/18, 9 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn Melissa Etheridge 10/25, 8 PM, Park West, 18+ The Faint, Gang of Four 9/30, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Jeffrey Foucault 12/4, 8 PM, City Winery b Frankie Cosmos 10/26, 7:30 PM, Thalia Hall b Aretha Franklin 11/12, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre Goblin Cock 10/2, 9 PM, Empty Bottle The Good Life 11/11, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Har Mar Superstar 10/28, 9 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Lalah Hathaway 12/31, 7:30 and 11 PM, City Winery b Mayer Hawthorne, Windy City Soul Club 10/26, 7 PM, Concord Music Hall Hot Sardines 10/25, 8 PM, City Winery b Kero Kero Bonito 10/26, 6:30 PM, Subterranean b King Dude 12/17, 9 PM, Beat Kitchen The King Khan & BBQ Show 12/3, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Bill Kirchen & Austin De Lone 11/5, 9 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn Kishi Bashi 10/10, 7:30 PM, the Vic b Michael Kiwanuka 12/3, 8 PM, Park West b Kris Kristofferson 1/16-18, 8 PM, City Winery b Kshmr 12/16, 9 PM, Concord Music Hall, 18+ Malevolent Creation, Incantation 10/19, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Mana 10/22, 8 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont Mandolin Orange 11/10, 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Night Riots, Hunna 11/6, 6:30 PM, Bottom Lounge b Nihil 10/24, 8 PM, Cobra Lounge Willie Nile 11/11, 8 PM, City Winery b The 1975 11/13-14, 7 PM, Aragon Ballroom b Ninja Sex Party 10/1, 7 PM, Aragon Ballroom b Nots 10/20, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Anders Osborne 9/30-10/1, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Ellis Paul 10/15, 7 PM, Schubas Red Fang, Torche, Whores 12/10, 8 PM, Metro, 18+ Royal Bangs 10/1, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Royal Canoe 11/9, 9 PM, Beat Kitchen Satan 10/26, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Savoir Adore 10/15, 9 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+

ALL AGES

WOLF BY KEITH HERZIK

EARLY WARNINGS

CHICAGO SHOWS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT IN THE WEEKS TO COME

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Savoy Brown 9/30-10/1, 7 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Bob Schneider 11/12, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston John Scofield 10/5, 7 and 9:30 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Calum Scott 11/7, 6 PM, Lincoln Hall b Screaming Females 11/2, 9 PM, Subterranean Screeching Weasel, Bowling for Soup, Ataris 11/4, 6:30 PM, Concord Music Hall b Esperanza Spalding 10/27, 8 PM, Thalia Hall b Squirrel Nut Zippers 10/9, 5 and 8 PM, City Winery b St. Lucia, Baio 10/22, 7 PM, Concord Music Hall, 18+ St. Paul & the Broken Bones 11/1, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre Phil Vassar 10/23-24, 8 PM, City Winery b Velvet Acid Christ 10/15, 8:30 PM, Cobra Lounge Waco Brothers 10/8, 9 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn Warpaint 9/30, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Nick Waterhouse 10/4, 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Bob Weir 10/20, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre b Xeno & Oaklander 1/28, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Rachael Yamagata 10/4, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Yandel 10/9, 7:30 PM, Aragon Ballroom b Yelawolf, Bubba Sparxxx 10/29, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Ziggy Marley 10/2, 7:30 PM, Park West b

SOLD OUT Bear vs. Shark 10/29, 8 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Crystal Castles 10/1, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Failure 10/21, 9 PM, Double Door, 17+ Lukas Graham 1/17, 7 PM, House of Blues, b Jason Isbell 11/18, 7:30 PM, Thalia Hall and 11/19, 7 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn Tom Jones 10/3, 8 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Marshmello 11/25-27, 8 PM, Concord Music Hall, 18+ Conor Oberst 11/26, 8:30 PM; 11/27, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Tegan & Sara 10/21, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre b Timeflies 11/4, 7 PM, Bottom Lounge b Tricky 10/30, 7 PM, Double Door v

GOSSIP WOLF A furry ear to the ground of the local music scene GOSSIP WOLF IS SORRY to say that local punks Rabble Rabble—who released the acid-fried grunge opus Composure in May—are calling it quits after nine years, according to a Facebook post from guitarist Ralph Darski. “The live shows are my favorite part,” Darski says of Rabble Rabble, and they’ve played some scorchers!

Fans have two more chances to say goodbye: the Chicago Singles Club’s Fourth Fridays series at Cole’s on September 23 (where the bill includes Post Animal, Natalie Grace Alford, and Sexy Fights), and a final gig at the Empty Bottle on Friday, October 14, with headliners Oozing Wound—who’ll be celebrating the release of Whatever Forever.

Gossip Wolf reported in June that local guitarist Dan Rico had joined the revamped lineup of rollicking punk band Mama, and on Thursday, September 29, he’ll celebrate his debut full-length LP, Endless Love (a corelease by local imprint Maximum Pelt and French label Shit in Can), with two sets at the California Clipper. After a nudge from the romantic beach-scene video for lead single “Soft Feeling,” this wolf is falling hard for Rico’s soul-punk vibe! You can preorder Endless Love through Maximum Pelt’s website.

On Thursday, September 22, Wicker Park watering hole Rainbo hosts an art exhibit dishonoring Gossip Wolf’s least favorite presidential candidate. No, not Winfield Scott—the current Republican nominee, dingus! “The Trump Painting Show” features more than 35 artists, many of whom you might know from music, among them Rich Szczepanski (English Softhearts), Andrea Jablonski (Rabid Rabbit, From Bones), Jonathan van Herik (Disappears), and Emily Elhaj (Mayor Daley, Angel Olsen). The show opens at 4 PM. This past weekend jubilant Chicago rock group the Peekaboos dropped their second full-length, the rambunctious, freewheeling Help Stop Decay. Cassettes are available from Dark Circles Records!

—J.R. NELSON AND LEOR GALIL Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or e-mail gossipwolf@chicagoreader.com.

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SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 51