Chicago Reader print issue of November 2, 2023 (Vol. 53, No. 2)

F R E E A N D F R E A KY S I N C E 1 9 7 1 | N OV E M B E R 2 , 2 02 3

Police misconduct cases p. 14 Support for ceasefire in Gaza p. 17

18th Street Distillery’s Drew Fox and master fermenter Mike Bancroft team up to create some weird, wonderful new spirits.

By Mike Sula

La Casa de Satanas p. 24 Sly Stone and Chicago p. 32

THIS WEEK

C H I C AG O R E A D E R | N OV E M B E R 2 , 2 02 3 | VO LU M E 5 3 , N U M B E R 2

IN THIS ISSUE

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

LETTERS

04 Readers Respond Old Dads and storytelling 04 Editor’s Note Galas and grief

NEWS & POLITICS

CITY LIFE

06 The To-Do Coming events in Chicago

14 Police The FOP’s push to move police misconduct hearings behind closed doors 17 Protest Jewish Chicagoans demonstrate to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.

26 Dance Profile Deeply Rooted Dance Theater creates an oasis.

FILM

28 Preview Explore movies for kids and teens at CICFF40.

COMMENTARY

19 Isaacs | On Culture Theaters try to make up budget shortfalls with smaller seasons and shorter runs.

OPINION

ARTS & CULTURE

FOOD & DRINK 08 Cover Story

Sula | Distillery Weird, wonderful new spirits at 18th Street 10 Drinks Speakeasies look much different 90 years post-Prohibition.

20 Art Exhibit “Difference Machines” exposes technology’s human-made problems.

21 Small Press SARKA is a home for raw, unpolished writing.

22 Craft Work Cherylle Booker: the ceramic artist centers empathy in her work.

THEATER

24 Caporale | Haunted House La Casa de Satanas wants you to get hysterical.

36 Shows and Records of Note Previews of concerts including Illusion of Safety, Slow Pulp, Los Johnny Jets, and Skyzoo 40 Early Warnings Concerts to have on your radar 40 Gossip Wolf New music from Chicken Happen, Hausu Mountain, Ester, Jeff Lescher, and more, plus a live hip-hop ofrenda honoring P-Lee Fresh 41 Savage Love We met at the gym.

CLASSIFIEDS 30 Movies of Note All the Light We Cannot See has sickly sweet shortcomings; Anatomy of a Fall never loses momentum; and more.

MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE

32 Feature When Sly Stone fronted a Chicagoland bar band 34 Chicagoans of Note DJ Slugo, ghetto house champion

42 Jobs 42 Housing 42 Auditions 42 Professionals & Services 42 Matches 42 Adult Services ON THE COVER: PHOTO BY MATTHEW GILSON. FOR MORE OF GILSON’S WORK, GO TO MATTHEWGILSON.COM

CEO AND PUBLISHER SOLOMON LIEBERMAN ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER AMBER NETTLES EDITOR IN CHIEF SALEM COLLO-JULIN MANAGING EDITOR SHEBA WHITE ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR SAVANNAH HUGUELEY PRODUCTION MANAGER KIRK WILLIAMSON SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER AMBER HUFF THEATER AND DANCE EDITOR KERRY REID MUSIC EDITOR PHILIP MONTORO CULTURE EDITOR: FILM, MEDIA, FOOD & DRINK TARYN ALLEN CULTURE EDITOR: ART, ARCHITECTURE, BOOKS, LITERARY ARTS KERRY CARDOZA NEWS EDITOR SHAWN MULCAHY ASSOCIATE EDITOR AND BRANDED CONTENT SPECIALIST JAMIE LUDWIG DIGITAL EDITOR TYRA NICOLE TRICHE SENIOR WRITERS LEOR GALIL, DEANNA ISAACS, BEN JORAVSKY, MIKE SULA FEATURES WRITER KATIE PROUT SOCIAL JUSTICE REPORTER DEBBIE-MARIE BROWN STAFF WRITER MICCO CAPORALE SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT ASSOCIATE CHARLI RENKEN ---------------------------------------------------------------VICE PRESIDENT OF OPERATIONS ANN SCHOLHAMER CHIEF DEVELOPMENT OFFICER DIANE PASCAL VICE PRESIDENT OF PEOPLE AND CULTURE ALIA GRAHAM DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS CHASITY COOPER MULTIMEDIA CONTENT PRODUCER SHAWNEE DAY DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE MICHAEL THOMPSON TECHNOLOGY MANAGER ARTURO ALVAREZ OFFICE MANAGER AND CIRCULATION DIRECTOR SANDRA KLEIN VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES AMY MATHENY SALES TEAM VANESSA FLEMING, WILL ROGERS DIGITAL SALES ASSOCIATE AYANA ROLLING MEDIA SALES ASSOCIATE JILLIAN MUELLER ADVERTISING ADS@CHICAGOREADER.COM CLASSIFIEDS: CLASSIFIEDS.CHICAGOREADER.COM NATIONAL ADVERTISING VOICE MEDIA GROUP 1-888-278-9866 VMGADVERTISING.COM JOE LARKIN AND SUE BELAIR ---------------------------------------------------------------DISTRIBUTION CONCERNS distributionissues@chicagoreader.com 312-392-2970

THIS WEEK ON CHICAGOREADER.COM

READER INSTITUTE FOR COMMUNITY JOURNALISM, INC. PRESIDENT AND CHAIRPERSON EILEEN RHODES TREASURER REESE MARCUSSON SECRETARY KIM L. HUNT DIRECTORS ALISON CUDDY, DANIEL DEVER, MATT DOUBLEDAY, VANESSA FERNANDEZ, TORRENCE GARDNER, ROBERT REITER, CHRISTINA CRAWFORD STEED ----------------------------------------------------------------

Oh the horrors!

A highbrow approach to a “lowrent” genre in a new book series

2 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

Channeling the divine through static Nyra’s Dreams connects the past and present through dance.

The future in five

Chicagoans to watch from Cleve Carney’s emerging artists exhibit

READER (ISSN 1096-6919) IS PUBLISHED BIWEEKLY BY THE READER INSTITUTE FOR COMMUNITY JOURNALISM 2930 S. MICHIGAN, SUITE 102 CHICAGO, IL 60616

312-392-2934, CHICAGOREADER.COM

COPYRIGHT © 2023 CHICAGO READER PERIODICAL POSTAGE PAID AT CHICAGO, IL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. CHICAGO READER, READER, AND REVERSED R: REGISTERED TRADEMARKS ®

ll

ll

Reduce Taxes, Build Wealth & Eliminate Interest Payments!

CREATE YOUR OWN BANK • Earn Uninterrupted Compound Interest and Dividends!

• Eliminate All Debt, in 9 Years or Less Including Mortgage(s) and Student Loan(s) !

• Enjoy Tax-Favored Growth and Distribution of Money!

• Access to Cash Value Prior to Age 59-1/2, Without Penalty!

• Reposition Your Tax-Deferred and Taxable Assets to Tax-Free!

• Self-Finance Purchases!

GET EDUCATED EMPOWERED & EQUIPPED TO WIN!

30 S. Wacker Dr., Suite 1260, Chicago, IL 60606 ERIC K. WILLIAMS TOP OF THE TABLE

312.724.7755

www.ERI.global

NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 3

Community m Letters Re: “Review: Old Dads” by Myle Yan Tay, posted on chicagoreader.com on October 20, 2023 It was OK. Burr’s character reminded me a lot of myself as I just don’t have enough energy to care about social/political correctness (even though I have no problem with people doing whatever they want in their own lives). It was light and kinda cute, but after an hour or so, it became stale and I was uninterested. I didn’t finish it. It was obvious what the ending consisted of (and from what I’ve read I was right).

Decent movie if you just got off work and your brain is half-off and you need a little stupid relief before sleep. —Pieter David, via Facebook Couldn’t get past the first ten minutes.

Toxic, unnecessary, and just dumb. —Joshua Travis, via Facebook Re: “John Michael teaches us how to time travel with the Neo-Futurists” by Dilpreet Raju, posted on chicagoreader. com on October 30, 2023 John Michael worked with my church (Gilead Church Chicago) on a storytelling project about harm reduction. He’s so vibrant and energetic and also both fiercely tender and intelligent and gave us a look at this wrok. It’s deeply moving.

Go see it and be so moved. —Elizabeth (adhdsuperstar), via Instagram Find us on socials: facebook.com/chicagoreader twitter.com/Chicago_Reader instagram.com/chicago_reader linkedin.com search chicago-reader The Chicago Reader accepts comments and letters to the editor of less than 400 words for publication consideration.

m letters@chicagoreader.com

4 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

EDITOR’S NOTE

T

he Reader’s UnGala happened since we last published an issue, and it was such a treat to see some of you show up and show out, all in shades of gold and Reader yellow. I was especially delighted to talk to and see some longtime Reader alumni like former staff member Vera Videnovich and current contributor Isa Giallorenzo. The hidden bonus of these UnGalas thus far is that our extended Reader family has been treating the events as an excuse for a reunion, which we encourage and applaud.

I was asked to introduce our publisher, Sol Lieberman, who gave a passionate speech about why local media matters. But the evening’s organizer’s screwed up a bit and gave me a microphone, so I had to offer my own words. Here’s basically what I said, for those who arrived late or couldn’t join us at the Epiphany Center for the Arts.

Hey I’m Salem Collo-Julin, the editor in chief of the Chicago Reader. I’ll begin by acknowledging the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we are gathered tonight, and pay my respects to the Elders past and present. Chicago is the traditional homeland of the Council of the Three Fires: the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi Nations. Many other tribes like the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Sac, and Fox also called this area home. We are all always on native lands.

Hi, I’m Salem. I’m a queer nonbinary Chicagoan. I’m a person of color. I’m a metalhead (first 4 Black Sabbath albums, Metallica until Cliff Burton died), a househead (all house especially hip-house from the early 90s), a south sider, a bisexual, a writer, a fellagirlie, a dog mom, an aunt, a sister, a sibling, a nosy neighbor. I’m a survivor of trauma. I’m a friend. And I’m the editor in chief of the Chicago Reader. I was born in 1974 at Illinois Masonic Hospital.

The Reader was on the streets for just about three years at that point but it’s been a part of my life for its entirety, as someone always brought one home. Growing up, the Reader and papers like it gave me a window into a world that I desperately needed, connected me to parts of the city that I wasn’t yet a part of, and gave me passage to become the person I am.

We are entering our 53rd year: some might think that would be impossible for a free newsweekly, for a local paper. But the tenacious commitment of countless people brought us here today. Countless people dedicated to bringing Chicago its diary, dedicated

Singers accompanied performer Peter CottonTale. JACOB KING

Contributor Isa Giallorenzo (left) of our Street View column and artist Jenny Kendler FELTON KIZER

to documenting the lives of Chicagoans that “don’t usually make the news,” dedicated to creating community space for those that need it. The commitment to grabbing the attention of people like me and saying “there is another world that is wonderful, read here and come along.”

The Reader has been instrumental in documenting the issues that plague us in Chicago.

We are unafraid to speak truth to power from corruption in the police department to unjust principles at work in city hall. It’s my pleasure and privilege to carry on the legacy and tend to this magical flower as it blooms for another generation of rabble rousers. v —Salem Collo-Julin, editor in chief m scollojulin@chicagoreader.com

ll

ll

NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 5

CITY LIFE calendar

The To-Do Upcoming events and activities you should know about

By MICCO CAPORALE

O

n Saturday, November 4, Mostra Brazilian Film Festival kicks off

with an opening reception followed by a screening of Paloma at Instituto Cervantes (31 W. Ohio). Paloma is a movie about a farm worker who wants to marry her boyfriend. When the local priest denies her request because she is trans, she confronts her rural community and fights to make her dream a reality. Mostra is the largest Brazilian film festival in the Midwest and spotlights both features and shorts that probe Brazilian history, politics, and culture within a lens of social consciousness. This year’s festival happens in various venues in five cities (Chicago, Evanston, Indianapolis, West Lafayette, and Greencastle, Indiana) and runs until November 18. mostrafilmfestival.org/xiv For the queer history enthusiasts, Affinity Community Services (2850 S. Wabash, Suite 108) has two free events coming up that you don’t want to miss. The first is on Sunday, November 5, as they host the 30th-anniversary celebration of the Ad Hoc Committee

of Proud Black Lesbians & Gays Marching in Bud Billiken Parade . In 1993, LGBTQ+

activists applied to march in the Bud Billiken Parade but were denied, setting off a chain of events that led them to file and win a public accommodation discrimination lawsuit. As one of the largest annual parades in the United States—and the largest specifically by and for African Americans—this was a landmark moment. At this event, filmmaker Magdiel Carmona will screen portions of a documentary in progress about the committee’s experience followed by an intergenerational panel featuring parade participants as well as organizers from younger generations. The group will reflect on the Ad Hoc Committee’s legacy and where the fight is today. A reception will be held before the screening and archival materials from the committee members will be on display. This party happens from 4-8 PM. Admission is free and RSVPs are encouraged through Eventbrite. For those who cannot

6 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

attend, a livestream will happen on Affinity Community Services’s Facebook page. facebook.com/AffinityCommunityServices Eventbrite at bit.ly/3sgLmvr Then on Saturday, November 11, Affinity hosts Uncovering Queer History: A West & South Side Discovery Project, created by MAPPED. MAPPED (Making a People’s Pathway for Engaging Design) is something of a Wikipedia for community spaces and projects.

At this event, activists and historians from the south and west sides will share memories and insights about some of the queer spots that enriched their communities, now cataloged in MAPPED. They’ll also discuss ideas about community storytelling and shared history.

This free event starts at 1 PM; reservations are encouraged at Eventbrite.

Eventbrite at bit.ly/3FH4Ex4

A still from Paloma featuring actress Kika Sena COURTESY MOSTRA

Sunday, November 12, is pretty action-packed. There’s a one-time only screening of Mixtape Trilogy: Stories of the Power of Music happening at 4 PM at the Davis Theater (4614 N. Lincoln). Mixtape Trilogy is a documentary about the relationship between musicians and fans that focuses on interviews with three musicians and music groups: the Indigo Girls, Vijay Iyer, and Talib Kweli. After the screening, there will be a Q&A with the filmmaker, Kathleen Ermitage. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased through the film’s website. All proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to The People’s Music School in Uptown. mixtapetrilogy.com At 6 PM on November 12, there’s a teach-in and discussion about artificial intelligence and discrimination happening at Chop Shop (2033 W. North). New technologies pose amazing possibilities for efficiency, ease, and innovation, but they’re also designed to reflect the biases of the systems that create them, including sexism, ableism, and white supremacy. Presented as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival, Dr. Joy Buolamwini, a thought leader on AI and ethics, will discuss

Music lovers Amy Ray (left) and Emily Saliers in Mixtape Trilogy COURTESY THE ARTIST

the potential and perils of these increasingly common tools—and who is being left most vulnerable by them. Tickets are $20 and, as of this writing, sold out, but check the Chicago Humanities Festival website before the event to see if any tickets become available. chicagohumanities.org Pilsen Community Books (1102 W. 18th St.) hosts a fundraiser on November 12 for activ-

ists involved in the Stop Cop City protests in Atlanta. Sixty-one people, including legal observers and bail funds, are facing racketeering charges. From 5-7 PM, several local activists including Kelly Hayes and Bill Ayers, will speak and read. A livestream of the event will be available. pilsencommunitybooks.com/events v

m mcaporale@chicagoreader.com

ll

ll

Be Smart, Gift Smart Game odds available at Illinoislottery.com

NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 7

FOOD & DRINK

18TH STREET DISTILLERY R 5417 Oakley Ave. #1, Hammond, Indiana (219) 937-6103 18thstreetdistillery.com

Mike Bancroft (left) and Drew Fox have a new collaboration called Fernet Fungo: a bitter, savory, head-spinning shitake mushroom–infused amaro. MATTHEW GILSON FOR CHICAGO READER

INNOVATIVE ALCOHOL

The next Chicago Handshake

18th Street Distillery’s Drew Fox and master fermenter Mike Bancroft team up to create some weird, wonderful new spirits.

By MIKE SULA

A

25-gallon oak barrel sits upright on a pallet among hundreds of others in a former furniture factory in Hammond, Indiana.

Drew Fox lays it on its side, yanks out the bung, and inserts a long, copper whiskey thief into its depths. From that he drains a luminous, tobacco-colored liquid into a pair of juice glasses and hands me one. We swirl, sniff, and take a snort.

A jolt runs down the back of my legs and my eyes roll back, as waves of warm dark cherries, maple syrup, and figs wash across my tongue.

“Wow,” he whispers.

“Yeah, wow!” I blurt.

I wasn’t sure I’d get anything from it but a 110-proof, barrel-strength tongue lashing—my papillae were still buzzing from the mushroom-citrus-curry-infused amaro I’d just sampled from a 55-gallon stainless steel barrel

8 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

a few minutes earlier. But this whiskey tasted richer, more layered, and a lot older than its three-plus years on heavily charred oak would indicate. Fox had managed to transfigure malted rye, barley, and 78 percent native Indiana white corn into a spirit that briefly took over my controls like a body snatcher.

Fox is famous for brewing beer. He’s not just a pioneer of Chicago’s craft brewing industry, but his 18th Street Brewery—which was born in a shed in his Gary backyard in 2008—is widely regarded among beer nerds as one of the best in the world.

He’s not as famous for his whiskeys, but for the past five years he’s distilled, aged, and bottled a dozen of them in downtown Hammond out of the same 37,000-square-foot building where he runs the brewery and its brewpub. That’s just down the block from his 8,000-square-foot Fermentorium warehouse,

special events space, and Airbnb. There are a dozen more different whiskeys still aging in their barrels there.

When Fox launched his distillery and tasting room, it was the first of its kind in northern Indiana since Prohibition doomed the Hammond Distilling Co., exactly 100 years earlier. Back then it was one of the largest producers of alcohol—particularly whiskey—in the country.

Fox has no intention of scaling up to that size, but his passion is in fact in bourbon, rye, and single malt brown spirits, even though the distillery’s profile has included gin, rum, vodka, bottled cocktails, hard seltzers, and, during COVID, hand sanitizer.

But his latest release is a liqueur called Fernet Fungo: a bitter, savory, headspinning shitake mushroom–infused amaro he’s bottling in collaboration with Mike Bancroft of Edgewater’s Co-op Sauce, and Sauce and Bread Kitchen.

Diversification is what led Fox to become one of the very few Black distillery owners in the country—and the only one in Indiana.

In 2014, when he moved 18th Street Brewery from Gary to Hammond, his beers were continuing to rack up awards, but he had an inkling the ongoing craft brewing boom wasn’t sustainable. He was also burning out on the punishing travel schedule that took him and his beers around the world, but kept him away from his kids for some 70 to 90 days in a year.

“I wanted to not be so dependent on beer,” he says. “But also do something that was special to me.”

Fox was raised in Humboldt Park by his Mississippi-born grandparents. His grandmother baked pies and cakes for their westside Baptist church, while his whiskey-loving grandfather worked as a bricklayer.

“There was a bar at the corner of North and Maplewood: Tip Top Tap,” says Fox. “They had package goods in the front bar, and pool tables, dope, and hookers in the back. Every Friday my grandad got off—that was the only time he could drink—he’d go and get shitfaced, and the bartender would call my grandmother, ‘Hey, can you come get Mr. Fox?’ She’d send me and my cousin Terrance to go pick them up.

I’d see these guys talking shit in the bar and drinking whiskey. And I loved that.”

When Fox came of age, working in food and beverage at a succession of high-end hotels

SAUCE AND BREAD KITCHEN R 6338 N. Clark (773) 942-6384 sauceandbread.com

around town, he became a whiskey guy too.

“I loved Jack Daniel’s,” he says. “It wasn’t until I got older that I looked at whiskey as something sophisticated. I served a ton of whiskey when I worked in four- and five-star hotels. I knew it was something that brought people together.”

But beer came first. It was on a trip to Belgium that he discovered and fell in love with Belgian beer—beer he couldn’t stock in the Swissotel lobby bar he was managing. This led to his first home brewing experiments, and then volunteering at the fledgling Pipeworks Brewing Co., before he was hired on as its first full-time employee.

In 2013, the year RateBeer declared Pipeworks the best new brewery in the world, Fox launched a Kickstarter for his own brewery in Gary, and it took off like a rocket. In 2014, the year RateBeer deemed him the best new brewer in Indiana, he bought the building in Hammond and moved his brewing operations there. More awards, collaborations, and world travel ensued, and though he hates the word “empire,” he started building something that looks a lot like one that includes a taproom in Gary, a now-shuttered one in Indianapolis, and a separate sour beer brewery (also now closed).

“The craft beer boom was really on fire, but I was one of those guys that looked at, ‘How can you diversify what you have and not be a onetrick pony?’ Be something that’s sustainable.

I grew up extremely poor. My mom worked three overnight factory jobs, so we didn’t have a lot. I knew that you got to put something away for that rainy day.”

Fox had conducted home distilling projects on his own, and he attended a six-day hands-on course at Moonshine University in Kentucky. In 2015, he distilled his first rye with his friend Bill Welter at Journeyman Distillery, in Three Oaks, Michigan, and began aging it in charred oak barrels in advance of opening 18th Street Distillery.

It’s easy enough for new craft distillers to get unaged spirits like vodka, gin, or moonshine into bottles in order to start making money right away. Fewer are able to get out of the gates right away with an aged whiskey.

But with beer paying the bills, he was able to launch with all of them, plus rum, and that 19-month-old rye. Five months later he released his first bourbon, Spirit Thief, along with another rye under the same label.

“We don’t have the same climate as Kentucky,” he says. “And one thing I learned in school is you want to get those barrels to

ll

ll

Find more one-of-a-kind Chicago food and drink content at chicagoreader.com/food.

expand as quickly as possible to draw off as much of the wood sugars as possible—and also color. So we may have a barrel on what we call the ‘hot side.’ There’s about 8,000 square feet of space up there, and in the summer it cycles up to 110 degrees. I knew I was gonna get some quick expansion on those barrels.

Some of those early whiskies were just rich and sweet. Young, not in flavor profile, but young whiskies that drank like three-year-old whiskies.”

Over the years he’s won more than 20 medals in contests like the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and the American Distilling Institute’s Craft Spirits Awards.

For his mash bills, he uses grains from Sugar Creek Malt Co. in Lebanon, Indiana. Despite the many variables that go into making a whiskey, he thinks the distinct qualities of these heirloom corn varieties show up in the bottle, particularly with many of his “experimental” whiskies, like the single-barrel three-year-old bourbon I tried in his second-floor hot side.

He expects to release less than a dozen cases of that under the Spirit Thief label in December, but not before another single malt near the end of November. A 122-proof whiskey he distilled from Pipeworks’s Abduction imperial stout drops this week.

You can find 18th Street Distillery spirits behind the bars at Bronzeville Winery, Jade Court, the Green Lady, the Green Room, the Map Room, and the Skylark. You can buy bottles at Bitter Pops, Bottles and Cans, and Kimbark Beverage Shoppe, but most of his small-batch special releases can only be found at the distillery.

There are bigger projects afoot too. He plans to open another distillery in Indianapolis replacing his closed taproom there, and next spring, he’s launching a separate spirit brand named after the Hammond Distilling Co., whose trademark he purchased last year.

But he sounds most excited about the collaboration he started with Bancroft, who rivals Fox for the sheer multitude of projects he has going at any given time.

The two met when Bancroft hosted a number of beer dinners with Pipeworks in its early years. Today he carries Fox’s beers and spirits at Sauce and Bread Kitchen, and Fox, who handles his own spirit distribution in Chicago, often swings by the cafe.

One day last winter, Fox dropped in and Bancroft invited him to sample something he’d been working on.

“I’m a big amaro fan,” says Bancroft. “The more bitter, the more better. I also like cocktails that have savory hits. So I just was look-

FOOD & DRINK ing for something that could give some foundation to cocktails.” Bancroft macerated some shitakes he had leftover from one of his Supper Club dinners in neutral grain spirits, along with an abundance of lemon and orange zest from his partner Anne Kostroski’s pastry work.

To that he added toasted cumin, fenugreek, nigella, cinnamon, fennel, bay leaf, and mustard seed, all in tribute to the veritable spice bazaar of nearby Devon Avenue. Molasses balanced the bitterness, and smoked salt added a savory element.

Fox was impressed. “He said, ‘I want you to try this thing I’m working on. It’s really weird,’” he says. “And from the first spoon I was like, ‘Dude, you really got something here.

Let me make this for you. Let me put this in a bottle. This story needs to be told. This will rival any fucking fernet that’s out there right now.’ This is the type of stuff that drives me.”

Bancroft dropped off a bottle of Fernet Fungo for me a few weeks ago, with lovely artwork depicting an imagined landscape of the bridges between Hammond and Rogers Park. Every time I taste it, I pick up something different: an earthy fungal nose, followed by a punch of bitterness, salt, warm molasses, baking spices, and a lingering finish of curry.

It’s challenging for sure, but it grows on you, particularly if you start off incorporating it into a Black Manhattan, or a “Shrooma Libre” with Mexican Coke.

Fox and Bancroft have other spirits in the works. A coffee fernet made in collaboration with Dark Matter Coffee; another amaro made with Indiana persimmons; and a riff on Aperol they’re tentatively calling Apersoul, with blood orange, rhubarb, ginger, and gentian.

They expect to release that in February or March, just in time for spring cocktail season.

For now you can find Fernet Fungo behind the bar at 18th Street Distillery, Sauce and Bread Kitchen, Avec, and the Long Room.

But Fox sees bigger things ahead for the fernet. “I’m a big fan of an Old Style and a shot of Malort,” he says. “But I would love to see this be the next Chicago Handshake.” v On November 13, Bancroft is popping up at the Long Room, serving New Orleans–style yakamein, and fried oyster mushrooms and chicken thighs, plus Fernet Fungo cocktails and shot specials. And December 11, he’ll be at Ludlow Liquors for Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up.

Let’s Play!

Make time to learn something new with music and dance classes at Old Town School! We offer flexible schedules for all skill levels both in-person and online.

Sign up for classes today at

oldtownschool.org MUSIC CLASSES FOR ADULTS & KIDS LINCOLN SQUARE LINCOLN PARK SOUTH LOOP & ONLINE

m msula@chicagoreader.com OTS_1_2V_ClassAd_072921.indd 1

7/23/21 2:21 PM9 NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER

FOOD & DRINK

UNDERGROUND BARS

From tunnels to TikTok, the bars once used for illicit drinking look much different 90 years post-Prohibition.

By JORDANA COMITER

W

A 1920s-style performer at Drifter, the speakeasy below the historic Green Door Tavern THE AUTHOR

Bordel, a cabaret and cocktail bar located in Wicker Park THE AUTHOR

10 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

hen Max Mirho, a Lakeview resident, lived in Pittsburgh three years ago, he found himself at a secret party. It was a gay, techno sex club downtown, next to a tiny ATM, underneath a gay bathhouse, “in the middle of frickin’ nowhere.”

To get in, Mirho used a passcode found on a Facebook page called “Hot Mass,” which posed as a casual, small music venue promotion page. A DJ came from France to do eccentric, niche dance music sets. Men came downstairs from the bathhouse and sat on their towels.

People showed up in leather and animal masks, dancing until 6 AM. Instead of “buying” drinks, attendees would “tip.”

Due to Pittsburgh city law, the sale of alcohol past 2 AM was prohibited—for a few hours, Mirho got a glimpse into Prohibition.

A few months later, he moved to Chicago; as a top city for illicit drinking and underground bars during that 1920-1933 Prohibition era and the land of infamous gangster Al Capone, surely it would have a speakeasy scene of its own.

Seeking the intimacy and secrecy of the party he found in Pittsburgh, he started his mission of finding similar spots in Chicago and quickly discovered dozens of so-called speakeasies.

“The vibe of going to a place that’s a little bit secret, a little bit hidden, makes the experience of whatever you’re doing that much more fun,” Mirho says. “When everything is just so commercial now, it feels like there’s very little stuff that’s secret.”

Like Mirho, thousands of people are going to these modern speakeasies. Although there is no official count—as nobody agrees on the exact definition—roughly 50 to 100 speakeasies exist in Chicago today. With no need to drink in secrecy anymore, the authentic version no longer exists—at least, not for the same purposes.

The first speakeasies, also known as gin joints, were born when Congress passed the 18th Amendment and prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages anywhere in the country. The name comes from patrons who whispered or spoke “easy” when attempting to enter the drinking spots run by mobs and gangsters. Law enforcement officers knew what was going on but were mostly paid off to stay quiet. When the Great Depression hit, tax revenue from alcohol sales became appealing to cash-strapped governments. In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt made a campaign promise to legalize drinking. On December 5, 1933, the 21st Amendment was ratified, overturning the 18th.

In the early 2000s, modern speakeasies began appearing across the map. Pioneered

by Milk & Honey in New York City, these new, legal establishments were modeling themselves on historical speakeasies to curate an exclusive nightlife experience.

When Prohibition ended and ordinary citizens could get a drink almost wherever

ll

ll

FOOD & DRINK they pleased, the cocktail movement suffered as bars began mass-producing quick, easy drinks. The new speakeasies, however, set out to slow down service, enforce rules, make people work a little harder to find the space, and curate craft cocktail menus with exotic liquors and unique ingredients.

The romanticization of the speakeasy aesthetic has revitalized the craft cocktail movement and industry. “Without this speakeasy movement, we might have lost the footing we had,” says Peter Vestinos, founder of the BarMedic, a beverage consulting company. “There was, all of a sudden, a center of attention on cocktails.” Today’s menus even frequently feature mocktails, which never would have been found at authentic speakeasies.

Mike Ryan, one of the early bartenders at the Violet Hour in Wicker Park, saw mixed reactions at the beginning of Chicago’s speakeasy movement.

“In 2007, when [the Violet Hour] first opened, I remember people coming in, waiting in this long line, walking in and saying, ‘I’ll have two sodas, a Vodka Red Bull, and where are all the chicks?’” Ryan says. “I’m like, ‘You’re in the wrong place.’”

When Prohibition ended, hospitality also shifted.

“The pendulum of hospitality had swung so far over to the side of the guest where there was no intentionality, no thought, no curation on the side of the operator,” Ryan says. “They just said, ‘Yeah, whatever the guest wants, we’ll get that right in.’” Speakeasies like the Violet Hour chose to do things their own way, putting focus on the atmosphere and the cocktails, rather than the accessibility.

“They’re not traditionally great moneymakers for the operators or the staff, because when I take away that kind of raucous atmosphere and your group of friends aren’t doing rounds of shots now and then and running up your tab, the bartenders and bar don’t make as much money,” says Charles Joly, who once bartended at the Oscars and won the Diageo World Class Global Bartending Competition.

“They’re oftentimes passion projects; you got to really be in it because you love it.”

The people who love it care more about the drink—the natural ingredients, the historical origin, the potency of the bitters.

“Speakeasies were the first type of bars that rekindled a love affair with cocktails in the modern era,” Joly says.

These businesses provide a space where the bartenders can be the stars of the show.

People began making cocktails from scratch

again—squeezing juices, adding bitters, and identifying when to shake versus stir. Bartending takes skill for any space, but to thrive in a speakeasy setting, according to Ryan from the Violet Hour, there are three necessary skills: people, mechanical, and encyclopedic.

“People skills would be the number one, and that’s everything from being able to put people at ease, to making people feel comfortable with your ability to find what they are looking for, to being able to read somebody,” Ryan says.

As for mechanical skills, it’s the ability to quickly pick up a bottle, pour the right measure into your jigger, add ice, shake, grab a glass, fill it up, and put a garnish on—all while being economical and smooth.

“It feels like this ballet, choreographed and scripted,” Ryan says.

Finally, bartenders should be able to share their knowledge about the liquor.

For example, knowing the origin of specific herbs or the provenance of some cocktails can provide value and context to what the customer is drinking.

These ingredients largely came out of Prohibition, which Joly, the bartending champion, says, “changed the palate in America.”

He describes the palate as shifting to become slightly sweeter and juicier.

“People masked the shitty alcohol with a lot of heavy juices, mixtures, cream, milk, orange juice, and cranberry juice . . . stuff that was not used as heavily in cocktails prior [to the Prohibition era],” Joly says. Bartenders understood that without recipes to cover up the taste, the liquor that was being produced was nearly undrinkable.

Safety was a concern, too. Since liquor was being transported illegally from person to person, place to place, it was nearly impossible to track down its origin. Members of the upper class who belonged to social clubs could get high-quality booze. But in working-class neighborhoods, people often drank whatever was available to them, even at the risk of ingesting something dangerous.

Many producers conjured up ingredients to produce alcohol illegally from their homes, resulting in “bathtub gin,” a phrase that came from making liquor in a bottle so tall that it could not be topped off with water in the sink—so they used a bathtub. The process of converting impure or wood alcohol (methanol) into a drinkable form was not always successful, so some batches of gin were poisonous and caused blindness or even death.

Coupled with the federal poisoning program

Blind Barber disguises itself behind a barber shop, but it’s actually one of West Loop’s most popular nightclubs. THE AUTHOR

in which the U.S. government intentionally poisoned alcohol to try to discourage people from drinking, somewhere between 1,000– 10,000 Americans died every year, according to Ken Burns’s documentary Prohibition.

Aside from alcohol, the quality of the speakeasy experience depended greatly on social standing and neighborhood. Since people mostly went to drink and see their friends, they stayed nearby. More upscale places used nice silverware and glassware and maybe even hung pictures of women on the walls.

Less fancy ones might have had peeling wallpaper, dust in every corner, and an unkempt atmosphere. Many establishments removed clocks to avoid reminding anyone of the time spent drinking.

Whatever the experience might be, Hol-

lywood movies have created an image with secret hallways, doorways, passcodes, and tunnels. In actuality, they were escape routes, not entrances. Many had a green door or light on the outside to signal it was a speakeasy (like Green Door Tavern in River North, which is still open today).

“They really weren’t much more complicated than high school and college parties,” guide Jonathan Knotek says on a recent Chicago Prohibition Tour, a three-hour tour of various downtown spots rooted in Prohibition history.

“They feel secretive but not in a way where you’re saying some stupid password and someone is dressed up in period clothing,” Knotek says. “It’s much more in keeping with the time, and I think people enjoy that. . . .

Everybody wants to be a part of something

NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 11

FOOD & DRINK attempt to mimic 1920s culture and pay where they feel a little bit more exclusive, homage to the era through burlesque shows, where they feel like not everybody knows flapper-dressed servers, and live music.

At these establishments, customers nurse about it or it’s a little bit harder to get into.”

Mirho, the uber-fan, describes the feeling of drinks that typically start at $15. “I wouldn’t go to a speakeasy before a night out, because finding a speakeasy as a “victory.”

To Mirho, the new speakeasy is “something on nights out, you want to get the bang for that maintains a very high quality, while not your buck,” says Sara Ganas, a 24-year-old being obscenely popular.” He has visited West Loop resident, while leaving the Press nearly 35 speakeasies in Chicago and says each Room. On a Saturday night, while looking for one provides high-quality drinks—not like the a quiet spot to have a drink with a friend, she beer served at Wrigleyville sports bars like chose a speakeasy over her usual going-out spots. “I’d rather have one good cocktail, sit Sluggers, Deuces, and Old Crow Smokehouse.

“That doesn’t mean cheap drinks, it just down, have a good talk,” Ganas says.

Ganas discovered the Press Room while on means that this place is great, and sometimes it will get packed, but it’s not Old Crow a walk when she saw the green LED light that Smokehouse,” Mirho says. “It’s not, like, read “down for a drink.” She stepped inside stupid-packed like most of the top-quality and and thought it looked cool, imagining it might be a speakeasy. Later seeing it on TikTok, she popular places in the city.”

Some modern Chicago speakeasies disguise realized she was right. The Press Room still themselves as other businesses or operate in- feels like a hidden gem.

But often, going viral can ruin the appeal. side other businesses. Blind Barber is situated “There’s a laundromat speakeasy that behind a barber shop. Dorian’s is through a record shop. Bodega Taqueria y Tequila West is now filled with people because it went BCL_Best_of_Holiday_cookie_9.075x4.8542.pdf 1 10/27/23 9:16 AM Loop is hidden inside a taco bar. Others, such viral, and that does kind of ruin the charm, as Bordel, the Drifter, and the Roar Chicago, especially if you can’t get in because it’s so

continued from p. 11

crowded,” Ganas says.

In addition to TikTok, speakeasies are being discovered through Yelp, Instagram, Thrillist, GetYourGuide, and even Google Maps, making it nearly impossible for anything to be kept truly secret. Almost all the bars today have public websites where customers can look up the address. Their aspect of secrecy usually comes from finding the door. In instances like the Drifter, no clear sign indicates that it is underneath Green Door Tavern. But for Booze Box, Suski Dokku’s underground extension, one four-star Yelp review from user WordTravelingWombat reads, “Dropped star for the lack of ‘Speakeasy-ness’ that I expected.” They had no problem finding the underground spot.

When Mirho first arrived in Chicago and wanted to discover the less popular speakeasies, he spent time simply going onto Google Maps and zooming in on different neighborhoods.

“If you zoom in on the different neighborhoods and get closer and closer, Google Maps will give you more specific results in that area, and basically every single Google review that

has ever been left for any bar in the city that mentions the word speakeasy,” Mirho says. By making posts in Reddit groups and talking to people around the city, he sifted through his 20+ hours of research and compiled his list.

Even though he loves the secrecy aspect, he publicly shares his list through a website called chicagospeakeasies.com. (He created it as a passion project but would consider taking advertising or selling it to someone if the opportunity arose.) He gets around 200 site visitors per month. But if he were to receive thousands of visitors, and see the vibe of the speakeasies being ruined, then he would consider changing his sharing method.

“The only authenticity that I’m looking for is that they are very much trying to cultivate a very specific aesthetic and vibe when you go in there,” Mirho says. “It feels more like an art project than a business.”

Even though Mirho knows they aren’t Al Capone–like underground places, he still likes going. It’s almost as if he’s in on the secret: speakeasies today are meant to be found. v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

12 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

ll

ll

L RRO

+

DY O L ME

E ANG PEN

L

U THO

SE

of y e : n r .

R CA ORM al jou E ody F b A T @ R r c S CEN ERE NN usi e you / PE E E m I M U a P V -9 in rgiz 0 e BL GAN TO BE H LUES: k 3 n c : 7 s ro l and e 4/ B e T O u V l L N L WA b ou NO and NTA ur s AT,

YOU

E

pel, the yo s o g o EO als, e to so C u EX N t i spir on sur RMA O g F n i i ER end italizat l EP b N O cert nd rev n o A c arsis a cath

IM R E P

/ NLY

E ANC

S

TICKETS $10 General; $5 students, seniors, children 12 & under logancenter.uchicago.edu/blues Logan Center for the Arts 915 E 60th St • Chicago @loganUChicago The Logan Center’s Blues programming is made possible with the generous support of The Jonathan Logan Family Foundation with additional support provided by friends of the Logan Center. Above: Vienna Carroll (left). Photo: Jane Feldman Melody Angel. Photo: Jason Rosewarne

NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 13

NEWS & POLITICS POLICE MISCONDUCT

Arbitrating police terminations could result in a ‘decade of police impunity’ Police accountability experts warn a proposal under consideration by the City Council could prove disastrous for efforts to hold officers accountable.

By SAM STECKLOW, TRINA REYNOLDS-TYLER, AND ANDREW FAN, INVISIBLE INSTITUTE

A

potential change in the way Chicago police officers appeal disciplinary charges could result in secret hearings, more officers getting off the hook for misconduct, and an overall breakdown in the city’s newly strengthened police oversight infrastructure.

That’s according to city officials, from Mayor Brandon Johnson to Inspector General Deborah Witzburg to police board chair Ghian Foreman, and experts who worked on the consent decree between the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and the Illinois Attorney General’s office.

The change would allow most officers facing serious disciplinary charges—terminations and suspensions longer than a year—to have their cases heard by an arbitrator, rather than the Chicago Police Board (CPB). The CPB currently holds public trial-like hearings for officers facing serious discipline, and the board members consider those cases during monthly public meetings.

Arbitration proceedings, by contrast, are conducted in secret, and the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 (FOP), which represents rank-and-file CPD officers, will have a hand in selecting the arbitrators that hear these disciplinary cases.

Police accountability experts warn that the shift—while it may seem purely bureaucratic—could prove disastrous for the city’s efforts to hold officers accountable for misconduct, and undermine recent moves to strengthen police oversight and make it more democratic and transparent.

If the provision is ratified in the contract with the FOP that the Chicago City Council is currently considering, according to University of Chicago law professor Craig Futterman, it “would all but guarantee another decade of police impunity in Chicago.”

14 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

A potential change in the way Chicago police officers appeal disciplinary charges could result in secret hearings, more officers let off the hook for misconduct, and a breakdown in the city’s newly strengthened police oversight infrastructure. MADS HORWATH FOR CHICAGO READER

T

he data about arbitration and the CPD’s current and historic system of grievances—the first level of the CPD’s complicated internal appeals process, which generally ends with either settled agreements or hearings before independent arbitrators—seems

to support this prediction. Between 2010 and 2017, disciplinary charges were lessened or completely overturned in 85 percent of appeals brought by officers, according to reporting by ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune.

It’s a problem that Chicago police oversight

officials have struggled to address for decades. “The discipline imposed upon Chicago police officers is routinely cut in half by arbitrators,” then CPB executive director Mark Iris found in a 1998 study.

Since then, multiple other studies of police arbitration from across the country have found that it “creates incentives for arbitrators to consistently reduce disciplinary actions in order to increase their probability of being selected in future cases,” as Loyola University Chicago law professor Stephen Rushin wrote in a 2021 article.

The Police Accountability Task Force, appointed by then mayor Rahm Emanuel in the wake of the release of the Laquan McDonald video and led by then police board chair Lori Lightfoot, also noted issues, finding that one form of disciplinary arbitration led to discipline being reduced or overturned in 70 percent of cases.

In 2021, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released a review of disciplinary grievances from 2014 to 2017. The OIG found that most eligible cases get appealed through this system, and of those cases 78 percent get discipline overturned or reduced.

That’s well over the national average of around half of cases resulting in overturned discipline that Loyola law professor Rushin found in his 2021 article.

If given the opportunity to choose arbitration over the police board, officers “will 100 percent go for arbitration,” said Iris, who is now a lecturer emeritus in Northwestern University’s Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences program, in an interview.

The FOP is “clearly looking out for the best interests of their constituents,” said Sharon Fairley, who was the head of the city’s Independent Police Review Authority and then Civilian Office of Police Accountability from 2015 to 2017. “They see arbitration as being in their best interest. The problem is that it’s not necessarily in the best interest of the community at large.”

Data from the police board analyzed by the Invisible Institute shows that the board is generally more inclined to uphold disciplinary recommendations against officers.

Between 2011 and 2022, the board decided 200 cases, the vast majority of them recommendations from the superintendent to fi re CPD officers. The board approved the recommended discipline or increased it in just over

ll

ll

“If the community doesn’t

NEWS & POLITICS

believe that officers are half of those cases.

Additionally, in 60 cases, CPD officers resigned before the police board issued a ruling. This includes the case of current FOP president John Catanzara, who resigned from the CPD midway through a police board hearing into a recommendation that he be fi red from the department over racist and homophobic social media posts, amongst other charges.

Catanzara made it plain that he resigned to avoid a fi ring: “There was never a possibility under God’s green earth that I was ever going to give this mayor the ability to utter the words, ‘I fi red you,’” he said at the time.

All told, 63 percent of officers with cases before the police board either resigned or had their discipline upheld, while the rest had their cases overturned or were given lighter discipline, often a lengthy suspension in lieu of fi ring.

T

he move to allow arbitration came out of the FOP’s current round of contract negotiations with the city. The 2021 contract that Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration signed with the FOP did not settle a host of issues that went to their own arbitration proceeding before longtime labor arbitrator Edwin Benn, who is based in Glencoe.

During this process, the FOP argued that a 1984 law, the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act (IPLRA), requires the city to allow officers to have cases involving terminations and suspensions of over a year heard by arbitrators rather than the CPB. Since the first FOP contract was signed in 1980—four years before the IPLRA was passed—every contract has stated that terminations of officers can only be heard by the police board. The FOP never asked for this change during any previous contract negotiations, as the city argued to arbitrator Benn.

However, to Benn, once one of the parties to a contract asks to bring cases to arbitration rather than some other process, the IPLRA “leaves nothing to discretion,” he wrote in a June decision. The law overrules any previous contract or custom.

In that decision, which was not binding, he found that officers represented by the FOP should have the choice between a CPB hearing or a hearing with an arbitrator for terminations and suspensions of over a year.

If there were any doubt as to what option FOP-represented officers would choose, in August, the union put that to rest when it fi led a motion with the police board to move

being held accountable,

that undermines public safety for everyone.”

22 cases from the CPB’s jurisdiction to an arbitrator’s.

Notably, the cases included not only pending terminations and suspensions of over a year, but also four officers who had already been fi red by the CPD, had their cases adjudicated by the police board, and are currently trying to overturn the CPB’s decisions in court.

Those include the officers who were fi red over the fatal shootings of Paul O’Neal, an unarmed Black teenager who had led officers on a car chase, and Maurice Granton Jr., a 24-year-old Black man who had led officers on a foot chase and was shot as he ran away, and another officer who was fi red for using racial slurs and making a false report.

In September, the CPB shot down the FOP’s motion to move the cases, finding that it didn’t have authority to do so, and even if it did, it would be contrary to the current contract to move the cases.

Regardless, in a fi nal opinion released on October 19, Benn upheld his previous findings. “The necessity for issuing” this new decision, he wrote, was due to “some public reaction to the prior awards which, in my opinion, showed a misunderstanding of the arbitration process or a desire to dismantle that process.” Later, he referred to the use of the phrase “behind closed doors” to describe arbitration hearings—which Benn found should continue to be secret—as “perhaps even the creation of a public relations effort.”

The change will not go into effect, however, until it is ratified by two-thirds of the Chicago City Council. Mayor Brandon Johnson, after fi rst asking the City Council to accept the new FOP contract, has now called for alders to reject the specific provision regarding disciplinary arbitration while approving the rest of the contract. To overcome Benn’s decision, at least 30 alders must vote to reject it. No hearing has been scheduled of the City

Council’s Workforce Development committee, which will fi rst consider the contract.

I

f the contract provision does go through, the new wave of cases involving serious misconduct will be handled by a CPD office with a history of disarray. When the OIG began its review of the CPD’s disciplinary grievance and arbitration system in 2019, it took time out to issue a “management alert” about “areas of concern” in the CPD’s Management and Labor Affairs Section (MLAS), which oversees grievances and arbitration as a labor issue.

It found that MLAS had no procedures for processing grievances, no coordination with the city Department of Law, and no database to track cases, outcomes, or precedential opinions, and that it was severely understaffed. CPD “disagreed” that it “lacks formal policies and procedures”—providing documents that the OIG had already found insufficient. It said that it was creating a new case management database and that it was aware of its staffi ng issues.

Two years earlier, ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune compiled the fi rst database of CPD disciplinary grievance and arbitration appeals, fi nding that a single arbitrator dropped multiple cases solely for investigations taking too long. This arbitrator, Michigan attorney George Roumell Jr., heard at least 75 cases between 2010 and 2017, fi nding in favor of the officer in 79 percent of them.

Roumell is one of the five approved arbitrators included in the contract that Benn approved. Just two of the five have professional addresses in Chicago.

In another case, a previous arbitrator found that a ten-day suspension was too heavy-handed for an officer who shot a man while off-duty, then fled and waited a half hour to report the shooting. A homeowner saw the man who was shot crawling on the ground and called 911. The arbitrator found that securing the scene “was not worth the [officer’s] life.”

D

ecisions made in serious disciplinary cases by a board that can be held to account at public meetings have come to be expected in Chicago. But it wasn’t always so. The CPB was created in 1960 to support the agenda of O.W. Wilson, a criminology professor who was hired as superintendent by then mayor Richard J. Daley to reform the CPD after a scandal involving an officer burglary ring. The city Civil Service Commission, which preceded the CPB, was viewed as being

too friendly to officers facing termination, and Wilson needed a board that would uphold his discipline.

“It was created, in large part, to deal with the output function: getting rid of officers,” said Iris, who was the board’s executive director from 1984 to 2004.

For the next decade after its creation, it conducted its work in private, if not in secret: it wasn’t until 1970 that a community group called Citizens Alert crashed a meeting of the police board and began attending as members of the public for the fi rst time, the Reader reported in 1992.

By 1973, the board, initially resistant, held a hearing on issues with the CPD, and the next year, at then superintendent James Rochford’s request, it created the department’s fi rst civilian oversight body, the Office of Professional Standards, which, after years of pressure from Citizens Alert and other groups, eventually brought charges against notorious Commander Jon Burge and some of his associates before the board. Mirroring this practice, there were also regular protests at police board meetings following the killing of Rekia Boyd in 2012, helping build public pressure to fi re Detective Dante Servin and institute broad reforms of the CPD. A move to arbitration would take those most serious police discipline cases out of the public view to a closed system that would obscure research and reporting. For decades, journalists and researchers have analyzed police board cases, meetings, and transcripts in ways they have not been able to with grievances and arbitration.

With that information, it is possible to show that, over the years, decisions on disciplinary cases by the CPB—a mayoral-appointed board—have shifted with the agenda of the mayor and council appointing the members. In 1973, the Chicago Law Enforcement Study Group published a study of the CPB’s fi rst decade of existence and found that it had only rejected charges fi led by the superintendent in 10 percent of cases.

By the time of a 2009 report by the Chicago Justice Project, which examined the previous ten years of data, the watchdog found that the board had overruled the superintendent’s recommendation for discharge in more than 60 percent of cases. That remained roughly consistent with a 2016 Police Accountability Task Force report.

The police board has shown a greater willingness to fire officers in recent years.

According to an Invisible Institute analysis

NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 15

NEWS & POLITICS

Unemployed

By Britteney Black Rose Kapri

Mutual Non-Disparagement

continued from p. 15

of data from the board from 2011 to 2015, about 50 percent of officers facing fi ring were formally fi red or resigned ahead of a police board ruling. Those numbers shifted noticeably in the wake of the publication of video of the murder of Laquan McDonald at the hands of CPD officer Jason Van Dyke in late 2015. Between 2016 and 2021, more than 80 percent of fi ring cases led to the officer separating from the department.

The shift in police board behavior came amid a time of sweeping changes for the department, including an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice that found widespread unconstitutional use of force by CPD officers and the initiation of a court-ordered reform process.

Recent data shows that the CPB may be reversing course. In 2022 and the first half of 2023, the police board increasingly ruled in favor of officers in termination cases, allowing police to remain in the department in more than half of all cases.

In at least some instances, this pattern appears to be linked to recent appointees to the police board. In an October 2023 case about the proposed fi ring of two CPD officers who allegedly lied about their role in a 2010 police shooting that cost the city over $4 million, the five members appointed during the Lightfoot administration found the officers not guilty, with the three members appointed before her tenure dissenting.

The arbitration decision also comes at a time when the CPB is undergoing more change than it ever has previously during its six-decade existence. The new Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA) now appoints its members, rather than the mayor, and that process has resulted in significant turnover.

For the first time, a body created with the purpose of providing true community oversight to the police disciplinary system in Chicago has the ability to choose the individuals who decide whether officers should be fired—and that ability could be taken away from it almost as soon as it’s granted.

“The public is not allowed to participate in any way” in the arbitration system, said Fairley, who is now a University of Chicago law professor studying civilian oversight of police. “That really undermines the system of accountability. If the community doesn’t believe that officers are being held accountable, that undermines public safety for everyone.”

16 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

B

enn’s decision has faced condemnation from most officials involved in the police oversight system in Chicago, including CCPSA president Anthony Driver, Inspector General Deborah Witzburg, and outgoing police board chair Ghian Foreman. “Police accountability, and ultimately the people of Chicago, will suffer” if this change goes through, Foreman said.

Now the Chicago City Council gets to weigh in. If at least 30 of the city’s 50 council members vote to reject the arbitration provision, it will set up further legal wrangling and a possible return to the negotiating table.

“City Council and the mayor’s ratification of this system would not only tell officers that they have nothing to fear even for the most extreme abuse of their powers, but they would also shield the most serious cases from public scrutiny,” said Futterman, the law professor, whose Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project represented community groups in negotiations over the CPD’s federal consent decree.

“The ratification of the FOP’s efforts to circumvent accountability would turn back the clock on the progress that we have made toward police transparency and accountability in Chicago,” he added.

There is a larger issue that the issue of successful disciplinary appeals raises: how the bodies that have historically been responsible for investigating and disciplining police misconduct—and the city funding them—have allowed for delays, investigatory errors, corruption, and other issues to provide avenues for officers credibly accused of serious misconduct to get off scot-free.

“Maybe what’s broken is how these cases are brought forward,” not necessarily the specific system through which officers fi ght their discipline, said University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign labor relations expert Robert Bruno. “Maybe it speaks to a bigger problem and something structural in the supervision that should be responsible for recruiting, training, creating a culture, disciplining.” That, of course, is a battle police reformers have been waging for almost as long as there have been police in Chicago.

Disclosure: Employees of Invisible Institute provided pro bono data analysis of publicly accessible data for the community groups represented by Craig Futterman in negotiations around the consent decree. v

REVISED

You agree that you will not do anything that scares us.

damage

makes us uncomfortable. reputation

you shall be permitted to do the thing we non-profitted from. Y’know that thing we were just celebrating. Y’know “the Cardi B of this poetry shit. “At the heart of REDEACTED’s pedagogy we believed everyone is an expert of their own experiences” fill in text. need to fill in Y’know unless we don’t like it.

addendum

CENSORED request you don’t hurt our feelings

Full poem can be read on Britteney’s Instagram @gogogadgethoe Britteney Black Rose Kapri is a teaching artist, writer, performance poet and playwright based out of Chicago. She is a former staff member and writer for Black Nerd Problems. Her first chapbook titled “Winona and Winthrop” was published in June of 2014 through New School Poetics. Her first full collection of poems, Black Queer Hoe, was published by Haymarket Books in 2018. She has also been published in Poetry magazine, Vinyl, Day One, Seven Scribes, The Offing and Kinfolks Quarterly.

Poem curated by Cortney Lamar Charleston. Cortney Lamar Charleston, originally from the Chicago suburbs, is a Cave Canem fellow and the author of Telepathologies (Saturnalia Books, 2017) and Doppelgangbanger (Haymarket Books, 2021). He serves as a poetry editor at The Rumpus and on the editorial board at Alice James Books.

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

Hours

Wednesday & Friday: 11:00 AM–5:00 PM Thursday: 11:00 AM–7:00 PM Saturday: 10:00 AM–5:00 PM

David Antonio Cruz: green,howiwantyougreen Saturday, November 4 | 2 pm CT Join us for an experimental operatic performance piece based on the last 11 poems by the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, Sonnets of Dark Love.

Open Door: KB Brookins + Faylita Hicks, imani elizabeth jackson + S*an D. Henry-Smith Thursday, November 9 | 7 pm CT The Open Door series highlights creative relationships and collaborations in the Midwest, inviting two featured pairs to share work that opens up poetry as a porous category.

Learn more at PoetryFoundation.org

m letters@chicagoreader.com

ll

ll

NEWS & POLITICS ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR

Eli Newell, a protest field organizer, leads demonstrators in chants demanding a ceasefire in Gaza at Federal Plaza on October 23.

‘Not in our name’

A.J. ROCCA

Chicago’s Jewish left coalesces to demand a ceasefire in Gaza

By A.J. ROCCA

“T

wo Jews, three opinions” is an old saying used by Jewish people to express the beautiful (and often maddening) diversity of perspective found inside their community. The saying could have been a slogan for the October 23 crowd gathering at 3:30 PM in Federal Plaza, when Jews and others came out to blockade the streets of downtown Chicago and protest Israel’s conduct in the Israel-Hamas war.

At about 4 PM, they marched down Clark, chanting, “Ceasefire now! Free Gaza now!

Free, free Palestine!” Arms linked, they deployed in two lines across Clark and Ida B. Wells to block rush-hour traffic. Others gathered on the corner with a megaphone. The protesters, the majority of whom appeared to be white Ashkenazi Jews, gathered from across the Chicagoland area to demand an immediate ceasefire to the Israel-Hamas war, to send the message that not all Jews support the State of Israel, and to demanded Illinois senators Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin push to end U.S. military aid to Israel.

“Durbin, Duckworth you can’t hide. Your silence upholds genocide!”

The Jewishness of the majority of protesters was no secret. Many of the men wore kippahs; songs in Hebrew wafted through the crowd; chants were punctuated by the blast of a shofar. “Jews say: ceasefire now!

Jews say: free Gaza now! Jews say: not in our name!”

A coalition of Jewish, pro-Palestinian groups organized the protest, including

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), If NotNow (INN), and Never Again Action—among the most active allies in demonstrating for the pro-Palestinian cause. The coalition made international news when they mass demonstrated on October 19 in Washington, D.C. They sat down inside Congress’s Cannon House Office Building and refused to leave; about 400 people were arrested.

The Chicago protest was comparatively modest—100 to 150 people showed up, and the worst they got for their direct action were police citations for obstructing traffic—but the spirit and demands were the same.

Speakers, including Rabbi Brant Rosen of Tzedek Chicago, an anti-Zionist synagogue, Deanna Othman, a journalist and educator with American Muslims for Palestine, and Rifqa Falaneh, a local organizer for Palestinian rights, spoke against Israeli militarism and on behalf of Palestinian human rights.

“I’m someone who’s spent my life in the Jewish world,” says Eli Newell, a chapter coordinator for INN and one of the protest’s field organizers. “I was raised in the Jewish community, went to Jewish day school, had rigorous Jewish education . . . and I feel a responsibility as a member of that community to [resist] things that desecrate that tradition.”

Ashley Bohrer, a member of JVP’s Chicago chapter and an assistant professor of gender and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame, expresses similar sentiments. “What it means for me to be Jewish is that I’m Jewish all the time. I’m Jewish when I go to work, I’m

Jewish when I take a shower, I’m Jewish when I go to a protest,” Bohrer says. “If I watched atrocity unfold without saying anything, this would fly in the face of everything I learned in Jewish day school, of basically every line of Pirkei Avot or the Talmud or the Mishnah.”

Both Newell and Bohrer name pikuach nefesh—a concept from Judaism which sees human life as sacred and demands its preservation in almost all circumstances—as a guiding principle to their activism. They agree with the official position of INN and JVP, which condemns Hamas’s October 7 attack, but also argue that that Israel’s extreme retaliation constitutes the beginning of genocide. “I do not understand how anyone can root themselves in Jewish tradition, including the laws of pikuach nefesh, . . . and stand idly by and watch the atrocities that are being committed in Gaza and in the rest of Palestine,” Bohrer says.

David M. Friedman, U.S. ambassador to Israel under Donald Trump, remarked on Twitter about the October 19 protests in Washington, D.C. that “any American Jew attending this rally is not a Jew – yes I said it!”

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), tweeted “these radical far-left groups don’t represent the Jewish community. Far from it.

They represent the ugly core of anti-Zionism —> antisemitism.”

The ADL has made a number of criticisms in this vein of the Jewish left, especially of JVP. It argues JVP exploits Jewish tradition to provide a cover for their anti-Zionism, ex-

presses support for terrorism, and tolerates anti-Semitic hate speech in their web spaces.

The ADL placed both JVP and INN on its list of activists who “celebrate Hamas attacks.”

The ADL itself has come under increasing censure for using its reputation as a Jewish advocacy and civil rights group to push a hard Zionist line and weaponize the accusation of anti-Semitism against critics of Israel.

Its criticisms of the Jewish left thus bear closer scrutiny. Broadly, they boil down to two points.

The fi rst charge—that the Jewish left is not authentically Jewish—belies real shifts occurring in American Jewish opinion. According to Pew Research Center’s 2020 polling (the most recent available), nearly a quarter of American Jews say America is too supportive of Israel, up from 11% in 2013. The same study found two-thirds of Jews think the Israeli government is not making a sincere effort towards peace with Palestinians, and a little under one in five Jews who’d heard of the BDS movement supported it (BDS stands for boycott, divestment, and sanctions, and it refers to a movement for cutting fi nancial ties with pro-Zionist organizations).

Severa l prom inent Jew ish A merican writers, artists, and intellectuals have also voiced dissent against Israel. The Guardian recently published an open letter to President Joe Biden, signed by the likes of Judith Butler, Masha Gessen, and Michael Chabon, demanding an immediate ceasefi re.

Pew Research also notes that more than a third of Jews under 30 years old say America is too supportive of Israel, compared with just 16 percent of those 65 and older. This means young American Jews often fi nd themselves painfully at odds with their parents.

“Most of my biological family does not talk to me anymore,” Bohrer, of JVP Chicago, tells me. “I know that for many Jews who are thinking about speaking up on this issue that the loss or transformation of connections and relationships can really be an intimidating factor.” During the protest, I watched Bohrer get cited with her fellow protesters for obstructing traffic. After talking to her, the ticket seemed like a very small thing knowing how much she’d already sacrificed for her activism.

NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 17

NEWS & POLITICS continued from p. 17

The diversity of Jewish opinion on Israel doesn’t just pose an ideological challenge for Zionists. Arno Rosenfeld writes in the Forward that the Hamas attack on October 7 opened fault lines in the Jewish left. Many in leftist spaces were initially split over whether Hamas’s attacks were justified and to what extent Israel bears responsibility. Lurking here is the broader question of when, if ever, it’s ethical for Palestinians to use violence in pursuit of liberation. Rosenfeld reports organizations like INN and JVP formed a coalition by ignoring this question to instead focus on some key points their members could get behind. This unwillingness to answer the question of political violence led to some awkwardness at the protest on October 23.

Near 5:30 PM, about five people not associated with organizers joined the protest on the opposite side of Clark. A few wore keffiyehs, and they brought signs, a Palestinian flag, and their own megaphone. Many of this second group’s slogans departed from the main coalition’s. Two in particular stood out: “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free!” and “Long live the intifada!”

“From the river to the sea” refers to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and it signifies the territory of the modern State of Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank.

The phrase fi rst gained traction in the 1960s, and it communicated Palestinians’ desire to reclaim the land of historic Palestine. Many peaceful pro-Palestinian groups and individuals use it today to signify that the struggle for liberation continues. However, the phrase

has also been adopted by militant organizations including Hamas, whose programs either historically or currently include violence in pursuit of freedom. Jewish organizations including the ADL and AJC flag the phrase as anti-Semitic because, in their interpretation, it signifies the intention to ethnically cleanse Jews from Israel.

The intifada referenced in the second slogan denotes an uprising to “shake off ” an oppressor. In the context of the Israeli-Pale stinian confl ict, this means resistance, often violent, against Israeli occupation. The conflict’s history is punctuated by two famous intifadas. The first, sometimes called the stone intifada because Palestinians literally threw stones and Molotov cocktails at the Israeli military, precipitated after a decade of increased Israeli land expropriation and political repression when, in 1987, an Israeli military truck crashed into a car, killing four Palestinians. In all, according to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, 271 Israelis died and Israeli forces killed around 1,400 Palestinians. Provoked by failed peace talks and an Israeli opposition leader’s visit to an Islamic holy site to assert Israeli sovereignty over the area, the second intifada, from 2000 to 2005, was marked by suicide bombings and rocket attacks; about 1,000 Israelis and 3,000 Palestinians died.

Regardless of this smaller group’s intentions, the two slogans it shouted are undeniably controversial. They raise the question of when, if ever, Palestinian political violence against Israelis is justified.

I asked both INN and JVP what they

thought of these slogans being shouted at their protest. INN organizers say they don’t know the other group but refused to comment further. Organizers instead pointed to two tweets affirming INN’s stance that Hamas’s October 7 attack was horrific and unjustified. They emphasize that Israel is an apartheid state and the injustices it commits daily on Palestinians are an abomination.

JVP did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

JVP and INN’s refusal to unambiguously distance themselves from the second group of protesters ties into the ADL’s second criticism of the Jewish left: that it tolerates extremism. The ADL has cited multiple instances of JVP sharing, platforming, or otherwise associating with people whom it says defend terrorism. One of JVP’s regional chapters, for example, once stated that Israeli civilians can be killed because they are part of an occupying force. And, a speaker at a Philadelphia event cosponsored by JVP said Hamas was the only organization fighting for the rights of Palestinians.

Most of this material comes from JVP’s peripher y—Facebook com ments, rogue regional chapters, off-message signs at protests—and is contradicted by the group’s central statements. The question arises as to how much control JVP and INN—or any organization, really—have over extremists at their margins and how much responsibility they bear for what those margins say.

JVP and INN could have disavowed the second group when asked, and they chose not to.

While I can’t know why, it’s perhaps in part

because the groups were afraid of pressing on the fault lines Rosenfeld mentioned in the Forward.

What I love about the expression “two Jews, three opinions” is that it suggests the third opinion can’t be traced back to either Jew individually, but rather somehow emerges as the result of the two talking to each other. I’ve come to think of the second group of protesters as the Jewish left’s third opinion. While neither JVP nor INN proclaimed “long live the intifada,” the sentiment is a logical enough response to their criticism of Israel. It may not be something they’d say, but it’s also not something they can safely disavow.

Regardless of any internal division on the periphery, the Jewish left came together and put on a powerful demonstration at Clark and Ida B. Wells. For two hours demonstrators held space at the heart of the city to show their outrage at what is happening in Gaza.

They successfully raised a coalition to put a Jewish voice to the defense of Palestinians.

Newell, with INN, speaks about the difficulty of organizing under present circumstances. “We don’t only need to hold the line to the general public and to our elected officials, but we also need to take stock of the needs in the [Jewish] community, which is full of grief, full of cognitive dissonance, and full of all the emotional things that happen when there’s a traumatic event.” Despite this, Newell emphasizes, “There is an immediate goal that we are working towards right now—and that is a ceasefi re.” v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

OPENS OCT 22 18 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

ll

COMMENTARY ON CULTURE

Navigating a rocky arts and culture recovery Smaller seasons, shorter runs

By DEANNA ISAACS

Y

ears ago, when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, which is the business end of the CSO, was undergoing one of its periodic contract negotiating face-offs with its unionized musicians, someone close to the musicians told me something surprising: the administration wouldn’t really mind a strike. If the orchestra doesn’t play, they save money. It’s better for the bottom line.

I took this cynical view of administrative motives with a grain of salt—my source had a stake in the game. But the contradictory situation, in which an organization created to support concerts could be better off if the concerts didn’t happen, came to mind last month, when both Americans for the Arts and the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) released studies that looked closely at the economics of arts and culture.

Here’s why: in an ironic twist, at the height of the pandemic, when venues and in-person programming were shut down and government rescue money was flowing, many of those organizations, especially in the smaller-to-midsize categories, showed uncharacteristic budget surpluses. They weren’t really functioning, but—thanks to the combination of sharply reduced program expenses and greatly increased government support—their bottom line flourished.

Shutting down doesn’t work as a long-term strategy, but the fact is, programming’s expensive, and ticket revenue in the nonprofit arena doesn’t usually cover it. Goodman Theatre executive director Roche Schulfer has been telling us for years that this is a structural problem.

Live performance “can’t take advantage of gains in productivity or technology like other sectors of the economy,” Schulfer says.

“It takes the same number of musicians the same amount of time to play Beethoven’s sym-

phonies, or actors to do Shakespeare’s plays, as it did when they were written.” If we’re going to have live performance that’s not market-driven, that will take a risk on new work while keeping ticket prices accessible, it’s going to require robust financial support from individual donors, foundations, corporations, and, especially, government. Without it, Schulfer predicted when he talked with me a year ago, there will be hard times ahead.

They’ve arrived: as the DCASE study, “Navigating Recovery: Arts and Culture Financial and Operating Trends in Chicago,” conducted

by SMU DataArts, the National Center for Arts Research at Southern Methodist University, demonstrates, what we’ve effectively got now is a partial shutdown. In 2022, in-person attendance at performing arts events was down a stunning 59 percent from the 2019 level, while the number of programs presented declined “nearly two-thirds.”

But which is the driver? Fewer ticket sales or fewer programs? I put this chicken-or-egg question to SMU DataArts director Zannie Voss. “It appears that arts organizations are trying to manage programming in a way that fits within their revenue constraints,” Voss said. “And that’s not just a matter of a decrease in demand—it’s also a reaction to increased costs. From September 2019 through September 2023, inflation is up 20 percent.”

This fall, less than two years after completion of a $54 million expansion, Steppenwolf Theatre laid off 12 percent of its staff. Executive director Brooke Flanagan says this “reduction in force is in alignment with a national crisis that we’re seeing at other major regional theaters.”

“When you look at where Steppenwolf was pre-pandemic compared to where we were in our last season, our subscription base diminished 40 percent, single-ticket sales

COURTESY DCASE

diminished 30 percent, and expenses went up 19 percent,” Flanagan says. Pre-pandemic, the Steppenwolf season consisted of nine shows; the 23/24 season consists of six. “The drop in subscribers has impacted both the number of productions and the length of runs,” Flanagan adds, and single-ticket sales, which are more expensive to attract, have not made up for it.

“We were the first industry to close and the last to reopen; we have a longer arc of economic recovery. But we’re working in partnership with each other and the city and the League [of Chicago Theatres] to figure out creative answers to the moment we find ourselves in.”

League of Chicago Theatres executive director Marissa Lynn Jones says the combination of pandemic, inflation, and acceleration of a long-term decline in the number of subscribers has made it harder and more costly to attract audiences. Programming has been

cut “out of necessity,” she says, “and part of that necessity has come from the decline in attendance.”

“It’s really a reduction of programming in order to sustain in the long run,” Jones says, “with hopes to be able to bring that programming back in the future.”

The studies were introduced in a double-feature day of webinars, with audience members tuning in on screens, each snugly cocooned in their own home or (less likely) office. No one had to spend any time or money getting to the event, stop multitasking to give it their full attention, or even put their pants on.

And therein lies the longer-term problem, exacerbated by inflation and the pandemic, created and enabled by technology. v

m disaacs@chicagoreader.com NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 19

ARTS & CULTURE

“DIFFERENCE MACHINES: TECHNOLOGY AND IDENTITY IN R CONTEMPORARY ART” Through 12/16: Fri noon-7 PM, Sat 10 AM-5 PM, Wrightwood 659, 659 W. Wrightwood, wrightwood659.org, admission $15

VISUAL ART

New gadgets, old problems

“Difference Machines” confirms what we already know—technology does not solve human problems.

By NICKY NI

“D

ifference Machines: Technology and Identity in Contemporary Art,” a tech-heavy exhibition that features 17 international artists and 20 artworks, invites exhibition-goers to survey a slice of recent technology history wrought with excitement, problems, and critical reflections.

The works confirm what we already know— technology does not solve human problems; instead, it exposes them brutally, increasing inequality in the name of efficiency. “Difference Machines” spotlights the role of human beings, together with our malice, prejudice, our artificial construction—and politicization—of what we call “identities,” and the impact of our inadvertent or passive participation in this process.

Artists explore various aspects of these topics in relation to the human body. Joiri Minaya and Skawennati reflect digital representations of female bodies and womanhood respectively in #dominicanwomengooglesearch (2016), an installation of free-hanging printouts of body parts, and She Falls for Ages (2017), a machinima created in the virtual world Second Life featuring an Indigenous woman protagonist.

How technology coupled with capitalism disenfranchises Black people and renders them invisible is also at the center of the several of the works on view. Sondra Perry uses the color chroma-key blue to discuss how green screen technology intrinsically erases Black people or puts them in the background. The well-exhibited conceptual piece Blackness for Sale (2001) by the rock star artist duo Mendi + Keith Obadike is, quite literally, what the title entails: an archived webpage that documents the sale of their Blackness on eBay in 2001 with an ironically truthful description of the “benefits” and “warnings” this package comes with.

Artworks with an activist edge not only challenge the norms of our perception but also lend themselves to plausible real-world impact. Material Speculation: ISIS (2015-16)

by Iranian-Kurdish artist Morehshin Allahyari are 3D-printed plastic sculptures modeled on ancient Mesopotamian artifacts destroyed

by ISIS in 2015. Though each comes with an embedded data-storage device that contains

20 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

Installation view of Rian Ciela Hammond’s Root Picker, 2021, at Wrightwood 659 MICHAEL TROPEA

the sculpture’s source files and other archival materials, the device is sealed inside the sculpture and ghostly suspended in translucent plastic. Allahyari is coauthor to the 3D Additivist Manifesto, which calls to “accelerate the 3D printer and other creative technologies to their absolute limits and beyond into the realm of the speculative.” Another activist piece challenges the hefty price tag of hormone therapy for trans women. Rian Ciela Hammond, a self-described “transfeminist” bioartist has a research practice rooted in hacking the production of the hormone estrogen. The installation of Root Picker (2021) features an attractively intricate bioreactor, which gradually turns wild yam extract into steroid hormones throughout the exhibition.

On the side, Hammond’s endeavor also includes hosting public workshops to share their method as a way to challenge pharmaceutical monopoly.

What excites me most though is that this exhibition displays a collection of works— spanning a couple of decades, from speculation to reaction—that delve into the issues of surveillance and its skewed discrimination against people of color. These works

are calipers by which we measure how far we’ve overcome issues—seemingly very little. The hopeful lightness and ironic humor some artworks emit sometimes can’t outdo the bleakness underneath. Bangladesh-born artist Hasan Elahi’s installation Thousand Little Brothers (2014), for example, embodies an astute critique of the U.S.’s racialized surveillance protocol through whimsical passive aggression. He started “Tracking Transience,” a project ongoing since 2002— also the umbrella project of the installation we see—after being mistaken for a terrorist amidst the post-9/11 paranoia. How the artist rebelled against an FBI investigation and its follow-up request is by being just a little TMI—from the urinal he used and the food he ate; almost 32,000 pictures gridded on the wall were just a portion of the images he posted online to “help” the FBI monitor his whereabouts. In an interview, the artist is amused by how “antiquated” his art has become. An intentional, well-orchestrated abuse of technology 20 years ago is now a mundane activity (albeit still odd) that everybody can afford to do. (Not to mention the installation itself, which stretches from

floor to ceiling, is conveniently a backdrop for Instagram selfies.)

This kind of racialized surveillance that Elahi has experienced rhymes with what British artist Keith Piper predicted in his 1992 video Surveillance: Tagging the Other. Using the aesthetics from real-time video analysis, each of the four videos shows the artist’s head slowly rotating while a bounding box (or in one video, a target) is fixed on the face, measuring his ethnicity and otherness. At the top, what’s akin to a scrolling news ticker rolls out slogans that reflect the discussions taking place at the time around what constituted a new European subject. Almost 30 years after this video was made, we are fighting against using racially biased AI as a crime-predicting tool by the police.

More contemporary works seek creative anti-surveillance solutions, albeit more conceptual than practical. Zach Blas’s Facial Weaponization Suite (2012-14) produces masks that look like crumpled aluminum foil with ten layers of porcelain glaze. Pitting the algorithm against itself, Blas delved into the technology of facial recognition, its history, application, and flaws, and developed a method to combine multiple faces (that of queer men, women, Black, or Latinx people) together to then feed this collective face through stages of mutation until it becomes unrecognizable by the technology. This vacuum-formed mask made of recycled polyester allows the wearer to own a “face” they identify with without the risk of being wrongfully profiled by a deeply biased system. Though I don’t think I can wear this mask through homeland security, I appreciate how this project opens up a slate of questions and critiques around the paradox between identities and masks. We wear a mask of identity only to not be identified.

Lastly, it’s worth mentioning that, if hovering over an obsolete computer and becoming part of the work’s public demonstration sounds too daunting, many interactive pieces can be experienced off-site, in the comfort of one’s private computer. These include collective Mongrel’s grungy hack of Adobe Photoshop, Heritage Gold (1997) via Rhizome’s Net Art Anthology; Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’s WE ARE HERE BECAUSE OF THOSE THAT ARE NOT (2020) that revamps 1970s text-based games to empower Black trans players; and A.M. Darke’s Ye or Nay?, a two-player “Guess Who?” online game in which all the characters are Black celebrities. v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

ll

ll

instagram.com/sarka.publishing R sarkapublishing.com

ARTS & CULTURE SARKA’s first print book; SARKA founder Francesca Kritikos L: JAC BERNHARD; R: ELIZABETH DAY

my grandparents all emigrated from Greece to Chicago in the 50s and 60s. My grandparents met because my grandpa was a bartender at the Drake, and my grandma was the coat check girl.

I decided to study creative writing at university and got a scholarship to attend the University of East Anglia in England. After that, I moved back to Chicago. After a few years of starting to meet other writers in Chicago, going to readings, and doing poetry workshops in person and online, I wanted to start my own journal to add something to the Chicago literary scene that I thought was missing.

Writing as an act, not an artifact An interview with Francesca Kritikos, editor-in-chief of SARKA Publishing

By MAXWELL RABB

I

n a literary world steeped in academia, Francesca Kritikos seeks the raw and unpolished. As a poet and publisher, she’s developed an aversion to overly cerebral work— writing created with the intention of locking readers out. Instead, she looks for accessible writing that evokes catharsis and self-discovery. Increasingly, she found herself struggling to find publishers interested in “raw” writing.

Facing a haughty publishing world, Kritikos took it upon herself to found SARKA, a refuge for writing and writers enduring in academia’s fringes.

Since first opening for submissions in November 2022, SARKA has released two online journal issues, featuring what SARKA deems “works of the flesh.” Through SARKA, Kritikos aims to not only position Chicago— her home—as a literary epicenter but also to enrich its literary landscape with diverse voices. SARKA is investing in Chicago’s literary ecosystem, hosting workshops to foster a community around the publishing house. Kritikos believes editors, like poetry, should feel

accessible to both writers and readers.

In October, SARKA celebrated a milestone with the release of its first print book, If I Close My Eyes by Ben Fama. The inaugural novel marks the beginning of SARKA’s print line, which will open for submissions in the near future. For now, the publisher has teased a short story collection from an unnamed writer.

Outside of SARKA, the Chicago-born poet has published two full-length collections, including Sweet Bloody Salty Clean (Feral Dove, 2023) and Exercise in Desire (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2022), as well as three chapbooks.

But Kritikos prefers to look toward her next project rather than reminisce.

Maxwell Rabb: Can you share your background in Chicago and how you first entered the poetry scene?

Francesca Kritikos: I was born and raised in Chicago; I grew up in Albany Park. I’m a CPS kid. My mom is a CPS teacher, and, actually,

You mentioned no longer having a copy of your first chapbook, It Felt Like Worship.

It Felt Like Worship came out in 2017, and I don’t have a copy of it anymore because I’ve given them all to friends. It’d be hard for me to reference.

Would you say that once you’ve published your poetry, it’s like leaving behind eras of writing?

I wanted to start a home for writing that is simple, raw, accessible, and kind of naked, which is where I got the idea for SARKA, because sárka is the Greek word for flesh. Writing that is very connected to the embodied experience as opposed to writing that is highly cerebral.

I write as catharsis. Once I have it out there and it’s published, I feel like I’ve washed my hands of it. It’s for everyone else to read, and I don’t need to read it or do anything with it anymore.

Every time I have a book or a chapbook published, I immediately give all the copies away.

Friends tell me I might regret that and should keep a copy of each of my books. They might have a point, but writing is more of a verb, not a noun. I need the process of writing but not the product.

How has SARKA developed in the past years?

With that in mind, have you moved on from Sweet Bloody Salty Clean?

We’ve had two journal issues come out so far, and both have included artists from places from Los Angeles to Chicago to Berlin to London to Athens to New York. One thing that I think has been special is connecting Chicago artists to artists globally and creating a network of people I’ve seen keep in touch and then work together on future projects.

Not yet. I still have a few copies that I’m sure some of my friends will be getting. It’s a relatively new book. What’s distinct about Sweet Bloody Salty Clean compared to my previous collections is that I stepped into a mindset of it being an unfiltered collection with no clear start or end. It features grocery list fragments, diary entries, a mix of prose and poetry, and some cut-up techniques. For instance, one poem is a list of different medications. I really leaned into the idea of writing as the body in motion with this collection. The title itself suggests the different states that a body might be in, reflecting the transience of the body and the experience of existing in flesh.

What gap did you find in the literary scene?

How does SARKA fill that void?

PUBLISHING

about [the work], let alone what other people will feel about it.

In terms of in-person community, how has SARKA become a resource for writers?

We have been holding in-person workshops where people can come and hang out. Sometimes we’ll do guided prompts, offer readings, or have people collaborate on projects.

Do the workshops help your personal practice?

Yeah, it forces me to be comfortable with being uncomfortable with my work. Collaborative workshops like that are something where you really have to be good at sitting in your discomfort, and that’s a good skill. You barely have time to think about how you feel

What are your pet peeves in Chicago’s literary scene?

Poet voice. One thing I want SARKA to do is show that simple and accessible writing doesn’t mean it’s basic or cliche. Writing that tries to place itself with an inflated sense of importance is boring. v

m letters@chicagoreader.com NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 21

“TITANIA’S MASQUERADE: UNSEEN WORLDS OF WONDER” R Through 11/4: Wed-Sat 5-8 PM or by appointment, art@epiphanychi.com, Epiphany Center for the Arts, 201 S. Ashland, epiphanychi.com/cherylle-booker-titanias-masquerade

ARTS & CULTURE

Cherylle Booker draws inspiration from Yoruba mythology, Shakespeare, and biblical stories.

COURTESY OF PROJECT ONWARD

CRAFT WORK

Cherylle Booker blurs the line between saints and sinners The artist on invisible disabilities and the importance of empathy

By BOUTAYNA CHOKRANE

T

he Judy Istock Butterfly Haven at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum is one of Cherylle Booker’s cherished sanctuaries. A fortress of butterflies and solace that never fails to soothe her soul. “Every time I go there, I reach out my hand, and a butterfly lands on me,” Booker recalls. “How could you not feel more peaceful?”

Entering her 40s, the artist, a native of Forest Park, has an insatiable fascination with the city.

Her adventures, from natural havens to art galleries, eventually brought us to our meeting on a rainy Friday the 13th at the Epiphany Center for the Arts. Seated in its softly lit cafe bar, Booker fondly reminisces about her sightings of deer and foxes during walks in forest preserves.

Booker graciously offers to guide us through this enchanting labyrinth, a former Episcopal church built in 1885. We meander through a series of rooms, each adorned by divine architecture and art, including her latest exhibition, “Titania’s Masquerade: Unseen Worlds of Wonder,” open until November 4.

Among her sculptures, Grief stands out in

22 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

white stoneware, with glaze-induced bruises, flooding tears, and golden lacquer etched within its deliberate cracks. This piece, a raw embodiment of the inner strength in all of us, came upon hearing the tragic news of Project Onward’s studio manager Whitney Oliver’s passing, along with her unborn son, Felix.

Booker is a storyteller at heart, drawing inspiration from Yoruba mythology, Shakespeare, and biblical stories, among other narratives.

Through her art, a fusion of ancient and modern culture, Booker brings empathy to weighty discussions of mental health. “Part of having PTSD is hypervigilance, and I think that I see things and patterns that other people don’t notice,” Booker adds. “I use a lot of that in my artwork, and it informs the way that I treat people.”

Choosing to open up about her invisible disability was a challenging path for Booker, but her commitment to changing the stigma is resolute, emphasizing that even those who don’t outwardly exhibit a disability face unique challenges. “If I get myself hyped up, wear certain clothes, speak a certain way, people wouldn’t

know that I had a disability,” she says. “I want those people to be safe and have the support they need, so if I can expose myself to help in some way, I’m OK with it.”

Booker’s artistic journey began in her childhood, with a love for PBS shows, like The Joy of Painting and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

“I had a teacher in middle school, and she convinced our school to build a new art room, and get a kiln room, and add a clay room,” she says.

After-school hours were spent molding clay, but after graduation, the high cost of ceramics impeded her pursuit.

It was only around seven years ago that Booker initiated her artistic venture with Thresholds’s Creative Arts Therapy program—initially focusing on drawing and painting. It was Kathy Osler, her art therapist, who reintroduced Booker to clay, and the rest is history.

When Booker feels a certain sentiment she wants to release, she first envisions the finished artwork. Once she has crystallized a mental picture, she considers the steps to give it life. “I feel more confident about starting once I have that image in my mind,” Booker says. She then sets her one and only playlist on shuffle. “It’s got like 700 songs on it, and I’ve been adding to it over the years. You never know what you’re gonna get,” she says. “But I started to notice that whatever mood I’m in, somehow that’s what songs play.”

A natural people watcher, Booker is intrigued by the contrast between public displays of righteousness and more private, personal moments.

In these moments, when someone in distress asks for help, she proposes the question, “What are you going to do when nobody is watching?”

One of Booker’s favorite creations is The Mask of the Red Death, a nod to Edgar Allan Poe’s short story. Crafted during the early days of the COVID-19 lockdown, it reflects a time of global panic due to the lack of information about the virus.

“In the beginning, regular people—like you and me—were locked down. Couldn’t go to work.

Couldn’t go out. If they see you walking down the street, the police will question you,” Booker says. “But then, you saw rich and famous people having parties. In the story, all the common people were dying from this disease, and the nobility had shut themselves into the castle, and they were having parties.”

Her upcoming project, “The Saints and Sinners,” blurs the distinction between the two and delves into the complexities of human morality.

No one is entirely one or the other. “It’s more of what we choose to do that brings us closer to one edge or the other, and we have to make an active choice to be more saintly in our everyday life,” she says.

If you take one message away from Booker’s ceramics, it is to approach human interactions with empathy and shift your perspective from accusation to understanding. This is the essence of her art.

“The abuse that I experienced that caused the PTSD—I do wish it didn’t happen, yes—but it did raise my levels of empathy, because there were so many times people could have intervened, and they didn’t because it was inconvenient,” Booker says. “It gives me a strong drive to say, ‘Well, I don’t want to be that person,’ because I know how it feels to be the person who’s just stuck.” She adds: “We’re always looking for a way to say, how could you have done that better?

What did you do to bring this on? Have you been doing enough for your mental health? Have you been taking your meds? Sometimes, a person can do all those things, and they can still have a setback.”

Swap those questions for: What support do you need? How can I help? Do you want to talk about what’s on your mind?

Before we part, Booker shares one more story, a Sumerian poem titled The Descent of Inanna.

In this ancient tale, Inanna, the goddess of love, sensuality, and war, descends to the underworld to visit her widowed sister, Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Dead, who is also expecting a child.

Ereshkigal kills Inanna upon her arrival.

After three days and three nights, Inanna’s father-god, Enki, sends two “little androgynous fairies” to aid the sisters. “At this point, [Ereshkigal] is having this baby, and she has no one to turn to, she just killed the person who came to help her.”

The fairies, in an act of empathy, mimic her cries of pain. Ereshkigal interprets this as sympathy and, once her baby is born, offers them anything they desire, and they request the return of Inanna.

“I tend to take that as when someone is in a crisis, they will lash out at the people who have come to help them,” Booker says. “But I try to make art that exposes me. I have to be really humble about it. And also, to be like those two fairies that are like, ‘You’re crying out in pain, and I hear you. I see you.’” v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

ll

ll

THE

LION WINTER

The Family Drama Begins November 3

IN BY

JAMES GOLDMAN DIRECTED BY

RESIDENT ARTIST RON OJ PARSON Sponsored by

ART BY DANIEL MINTER.

Ron OJ Parson’s residency is made possible by

5535 S Ellis Ave | Free Garage Parking (773) 753-4472 | CourtTheatre.org

TONY

AWARD

WINNING

NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 23

THEATER

LA CASA DE SATANAS

Through 11/4: Wed and Fri-Sat 7 PM; haunt industry night 11/1, “extreme experience” night 11/4; Co-Prosperity, 3219-21 S. Morgan, reservations and information lacasadesatanas.wixsite.com

Clown treehouse of horrors: La Casa de Satanas returns with Ur Fucking Hysterical. KEATON BEACH

EXTREMELY HAUNTING

La Casa de Satanas wants you to get hysterical “I feel like laughing and being terrified go hand in hand, like horror and love go hand in hand.”

By MICCO CAPORALE

I

spent Valentine’s Day on my back at Co-Prosperity getting waterboarded by a sassy little Cupid with a glittering beard and sumptuous breasts. There was a wet pillowcase over my head and a specimen cup in my mouth in a room that smelled of hot piss (my group and I had poured our urine into a fountain together). I was sitting knee-to-knee on a picnic bench with a man I’d only just met who looked like Rob Zombie. Both of our hands were behind our backs, and he was also getting waterboarded, along with two women sitting similarly on a neighboring bench. As soon as the pillowcases came off, one called safety and left unceremoniously.

That was the conclusion of the first scene of maybe eight in the avant haunted house organized by La Casa de Satanas, the raucous brainchild of artist Amelia de Rudder that blesses the city twice a year: on the most heart-wrenching night of the year (Valentine’s Day) and the most gut-churning (Halloween).

Legend says that La Casa started as a reaction to a repressive alderperson. Now in its tenth

24 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

year, the project continues as a free-spirited artistic collaboration and bizarre community trust exercise, and it enjoys a devoted cult following because of its varied and unusual scares as much as its campy spirit.

Rudder’s never been a haunted house enthusiast—she claims to only have been to one—but she loves scary stuff. A child of the 70s, Rudder lived in Paris until she was eight, where her bohemian parents—a Belgian father and an American mother—threw Halloween parties populated by creatives: photographers, writers, models, and so on. At one party, before she came to the states to live with her Halloween-obsessed grandmother in Washington, she remembers a coffin filled entirely with ice that was populated by champagne bottles and a fresh pig’s head.

“Back in the day Halloween was a lot scarier,” she says. “And my family was always really about the spooky, the scary. My grandma would go all out with the decorating. We had to have the scariest house, the best candy. It was our unique thing.”

She moved to Chicago in the late 90s to attend SAIC. In 2010, her friend Yamil Rodriguez approached her. He was an instructor at Yollocalli Arts Reach, teaching installation and performance art, and his teenage class was putting together a haunted house. Did she know where to get several gallons of fake blood for cheap?

“I was like, ‘Oh, I got you. That’s easy. I got you.’”

She made the blood herself. (That kind of information swirls in Rudder’s memory like an old family recipe.) Over the next few years, she helped Rodriguez with more theatrical elements, gradually glimpsing his haunted house process. He’d begin planning by asking the kids what scared them, and they’d recall moments from their lives, like being checked by gangbangers while walking home from school or encountering people experiencing homelessness who were having severe mental health crises late at night. From there, teacher and students worked together brainstorming ways of creatively exploring those fears in

ways that felt safe and manageable, while retaining an element of surprise. Then on Halloween night, the class would host a free haunted house for the neighborhood.

“It was cute,” Rudder says. “Very PG-13.”

According to Rudder, in 2013, Rodriguez approached Alderperson Danny Solis’s office about routine matters related to the haunted house.

“I think my friend needed permits or sometimes Solis’s office would give him a, like, $200 or $500 stipend or something—chump change. But that particular year, the alderman said some committee—his ethics committee or something—had said they cannot condone giving any city funding or permits or something to a satanic holiday or group that can be viewed as satanic.” Rudder reiterates: “For a PG-13 show made by kids that’s free on a really bad night for gang activity.”

Rudder was livid. What kind of person is so threatened by haunted houses that they deny children a safe, fun activity on Halloween?

She also had so many materials prepared, and she was on a mask-making binge. A few weeks before the holiday, she decided to spit on the alder’s decision by putting together the most brutal, disgusting haunted house she could create with a limited budget and no permits.

The first La Casa de Satanas was held after-hours in the now-defunct Pilsen coffee shop Nitecap Coffee. It was advertised via flyers on nearby streets in Pilsen and only open for Halloween. Despite a brisk, wet night, there was a line out the door. Scenes included a half-naked devil playing the harpsichord, a rape scene leading to a live birth, and bestiality with a goat corpse. After the house wrapped, the goat provided two meals for the cast and crew: one half going into a vindaloo, the other served over couscous.

Within days, people in Rudder’s community were asking, “Are you going to do a show like this again?” Come Valentine’s Day, it happened once more at a new location. And then it just kept happening—usually for a weekend in February and a week in October. Though the house operates on as little money as possible, now she gets all the requisite paperwork. The biggest fee—and hardest part—is finding a space. This is its second time being hosted at Co-Prosperity.

ll

ll

THEATER La Casa is not for everyone. For starters, you have to be over 18 and sign a waiver. There are also “extreme” nights, which have involved things like rotting meat and tattooing.

“Always read the website and the waiver,” Jason McLaughlin laughs. “Know what you’re getting yourself into.”

McLaughlin has performed with La Casa since 2019. He recalls when the team decided to have fun with the fact that most people take what they’re signing for granted and don’t do their homework.

“Last Halloween, we had on our website for people to wear anti-facial-recognition makeup—you know, where you put blocks and stuff on your face to disguise yourself from cameras. That was an instruction we gave expecting people to not follow it. And oh boy, did they not follow it! Part of my performance was to take their phones and use their face ID to go into their social media and post as them while they were unable to stop me. . . . So yeah, definitely a pro tip for coming to Casa: read up on the show and get a sense of what to expect!

If you don’t, I might be on your Facebook.”

Tickets must be purchased in advance through La Casa’s website (no walk-ins), not only so groups of up to four can reserve a time slot together but also to manage guests’ expectations. Against a glitching background of what looks like a vintage pig costume head laughing in a silent movie, the website for this season’s scare warns: “This experimental haunted house is no joke, yeah, there’s a safe word and a waiver. That’s because it’s fully Immersive and you will be touched, exposed to grimy gross things, get dirty, maybe wear a helmet, be exposed to very graphic adult content and did I mention TRIGGERS . . . gasp.”

So-called “extreme” haunts are hardly new, but their appeal and scope vary. One of the most famous is McKamey Manor in Lawrence County, Tennessee, which requires both a 40-page waiver and doctor approval.

While killing time on Valentine’s Day, I asked people in the waiting area what brought them to La Casa. Several described themselves as members of the “haunt community,” scouring haunt forums and even traveling the country to find new or unusual scares and people to share them with. One detailed accessing an invite-only haunt where he had to provide an inventory of past breakups and what was most painful about them so his walk-through could be customized based on that.

“It was cathartic,” he said, though he couldn’t explain why. “You’d have to experience it to understand.”

He described another where he had to prearrange what level of torture he was willing to subject himself to (low-voltage electrical wands vs. real tasers, for instance). He used words like “fun” and “self-reflection” to describe what he got out of these experiences.

The man who looked like Rob Zombie warned me to never visit McKamey—a name I first learned that night but which came up in several different conversations. When asked why, he stared into the distance for a minute before replying, “Just don’t.” This year, Hulu released a documentary about the abusive man who created the cruel destination called Monster Inside: America’s Most Extreme Haunted House.

There are always risks when trafficking in experiences that push physical and psychological limits to extremes, but Rudder prides herself on the playful qualities at the heart of La Casa—and the intimacy and trust she cultivates with her accomplices. Props are homemade and showcase imagination over realism.

For cast and crew, she relies on a rotating core group of six to 13 people, depending on her space and participating artists’ availability.

They come to her through her network and describe it as a passion project they look forward to. Proceeds from ticket sales are split evenly among everyone to create an atmosphere of shared buy-in, and working together repeatedly allows them to build on successes and incorporate past wisdom. For instance, actors become more comfortable developing darker scenes, drawing boundaries with guests, and recognizing when visitors are getting too distressed. When in doubt, they ask, “Do you need to call safety?”

Filmmaker Holden McClain came to the project because they were concerned about roommates who were previously involved.

“They kept coming home at night covered in fake blood,” they say. “And they’d describe stuff like spinning people on crosses. I was like, ‘What the hell, are they doing witch rituals?

Are my roommates in danger?!’ I went down to figure out what was going on, but when I got there I was like, ‘Oh wait, ha ha, these are my kind of people.’”

McClain, a shy and soft-spoken individual who began performing at Rudder’s encouragement, has been helping put together La Casa haunts for five years.

“For me, it’s been such—I don’t know, like taking my power back, honestly. My entire life—the rest of the year between shows— gets put into how I perform. I’m a very small, femme-presenting person. I get harassed a lot

“Here’s Clowny!” KEATON BEACH

day to day and just feel like I lose a lot of power through interactions and stuff throughout the year. To be able to kind of take that back in my own way and exactly how I want to do it is very gratifying to me. And if people don’t want to be there for it, they don’t have to.”

“The first one was so sensationalist,” Rudder recalls. “Too serious.”

Now she tries to be more mischievous or conceptual. Brainstorming begins months in advance, and she collaborates with her cast and crew to create haunts that subvert familiar tropes and play off of real-world anxieties, similar to what Rodriguez would do with his students. Each house has a theme.

When I went for Valentine’s Day, it was called Open Your Heart and featured moments of emotional and physical vulnerability as well as vulnerability of conscience. At one point, you had to tell the truth—and trust your group recognized you were telling the truth—or suffer consequences.

It was sexy and scary—but most of all, it was strange. Or just bizarre, like someone crouched in the dark mining for minerals to make iPhones. I fished for keys to a lover’s heart in a color-changing pool rippled by low-frequency sound vibrations. A person with a Mario mustache wore a cone bra so extraordinary it could impale someone. I got sandwiched between nude bodies with nipples and hair in places I’d

never imagined. Many parts made me . . . laugh.

“I feel like you can tell people are about to call safety in one of two ways,” Rudder explains. “They kind of shut down and go quiet and close their eyes—like really scrunch up their faces. Or they laugh. I think laughter can be a very human response to lots of things, including discomfort. But if you’re laughing at something that is very taboo—very not OK, societally speaking or just humanly speaking or globally or whatever—if you’re laughing at something you shouldn’t be laughing at, that’s so much more of a burn than laughing or being afraid of something that is just external.

That laughter literally makes you part of what makes this disgusting. So that causes some self-reflection: Where is the laughter coming from?”

This Halloween’s haunt is called Ur Fucking Hysterical. Each scene is guided by the idea of hysteria. How was hysteria defined in clinical settings? Why were certain people more often diagnosed with it than others? What causes mass hysteria? Why are funny things sometimes called “hysterical?”

Rudder says, “I feel like laughing and being terrified go hand in hand, like horror and love go hand in hand. It’s just peanut butter and jelly to me." v

m mcaporale@chicagoreader.com NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 25

DEEPLY ROOTED DANCE THEATER

THEATER

Fri 11/3 7:30 PM, Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Dr., 312-341–2300, auditoriumtheatre.org, $25-$85

Madonna Anno Domini by Nicole Clarke-Springer premieres with Deeply Rooted Dance Theater Friday. TODD ROSENBERG

DANCE

Deeply Rooted Dance Theater creates an oasis As plans for their new south-side home take shape, the company celebrates at the Auditorium.

By IRENE HSIAO

O

n November 3, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater kicks off the Auditorium Theatre’s 2023-24 Made in Chicago dance series with a mixed bill featuring the premiere of artistic director Nicole Clarke-Springer’s Madonna Anno Domini, the company premiere of Keith Lee’s Mama Rose (performed by 2023 Princess Grace awardee Emani Drake), as well as the return of works by Ulysses Dove and resident choreographers and DRDT cofounders Kevin Iega Jeff and Gary Abbott.

Clarke-Springer drew inspiration from a long-held question about her family history in the creation of Madonna Anno Domini.

“My mom is from Birmingham, Alabama, and grew up during the civil rights movement— and her mom didn’t let her march,” she says.

“She was quite young, and she had a brother who would sneak out and try to go be part of the movement. I never understood why my grandmother said no—this was history being made!”

Decades later in 2020, as Chicago and other cities erupted in uprisings after the murder of George Floyd, Clarke-Springer, by then

26 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

a mother herself, began to understand her grandmother’s resistance. “I have two daughters who are very proud and very vocal. They speak up not just for their space and how they want it to be created but for others. And they were wondering, ‘When are we going to go downtown? When are we going to be a part of this?’—and I found myself saying no,” she recalls. “You know, it shocked me. I realized my grandmother was coming from a place of fear, trying to make sure [her children] were safe, understanding that, yes, this is a movement, and understanding the importance thereof, but also knowing that if I send you out there, you might not come back or might not come back the way I let you go.”

Conflicted by her reaction, Clarke-Springer began to examine herself: “Where are you in time and space, and who are you now, versus the 20-year-old Nikki, who would be out marching and being a part of this wonderful movement and making sure that we all were having space to be who we are? How do you join that movement, how do you speak to it, how do you have a place in it? For me as a cho-

reographer, it was through the art. Madonna reflects everything inside of these youth: their fight, their ability to push forward.”

With music by Aretha Franklin, Culoe de Song, Sinéad O’Connor, and Alev Lenz, the work contains movements about persistence and community (“the understanding that it’s not new—we’re on this road, we’re still there, and we don’t know if we’re ever going to get off—the idea of being able to still plow through work. As long as we do that together we’ll be OK”), tyranny (“individuals who aren’t making space for others and are divisive”), and the complex aftermath of empowerment (“How do we unpack all of that energy? What happens when we settle down? How do we unpack that trauma? What does that look like? How do we choose the next leader? Does the next leader have the strength to move forward, or does he have to go away, recuperate, rest, heal his wounds?”).

Clarke-Springer chose the title Madonna Anno Domini to reflect a sense of timelessness and universality in this struggle. “It felt almost like before Obama, or after Obama, or before Trump . . . the year could be any year.

If you select a year, we’re still going through this—some are more volatile than others, but in other places, it’s happening. You think about everything that’s happening with Israel—it’s not just here in the states with civil rights; I think this ballet can speak to global issues: how do we make space for ourselves and learn to share it and make space for others and for religions and who we are as individuals, as humans? That’s a constant thing; it’s not just a Black thing, a white thing.”

After about a quarter century of sharing space with Ballet Chicago (currently downtown at 17 N. State), DRDT is also anticipating making space to share with others with the construction of Deeply Rooted Center for Black Dance and Creative Communities at 5339 S. State at 54th Street, just off the Garfield Red Line station in the Washington Park neighborhood. The 33,000-square-foot facility will have six studios, a black box theater, on-site physical therapy, office and conference spaces, a rooftop community garden, and other places for people in the community to gather. The company currently projects breaking ground in spring or summer of 2024, and are aiming for completion in the last quarter of 2025.

“We think about this space as our oasis,” says DRDT executive director Makeda Cray-

ton. “It’s the space that we come to work, it’s the space that we come to create art, but it also needs to be a space for the community and for us to feel like we can find our peace.”

With initial funding from the Reva and David Logan Foundation and the Arts Work Fund, and partially funded by a $5 million award from the Chicago Department of Planning and Development, $3 million from the state’s Rebuild Illinois Downtowns and Main Streets Capital program, and $500,000 from the Together We Heal Creative Place Program from the Mayor’s Office of Equity and Racial Justice and Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, DRDT is about $2.5 million short of completing their capital campaign for the facility, which will cost almost $17 million to build. “We are working now to get over the finish line,” says Crayton. “It’s been a labor of love.”

The company intends to share the center with other arts and creative organizations.

“We would welcome being in a shared space agreement,” says Crayton. “What we’ve learned with our relationship with Ballet Chicago is that sometimes it’s easier for us nonprofit arts organizations to use each other as a resource, so we’re trying to be a resource for other Black dance organizations and other creative and nonprofit organizations who need office space.” In addition to housing DRDT, the company anticipates the expansion of its creative education programming, including yoga, meditation, classes for youth and seniors, preprofessional training, and outreach with Chicago Public Schools.

“We’ve gone into the community, and we have engaged as many people as possible that live in the area on what they need, because it’s not just about us, it’s not just about the dance community, but it’s also about the larger community that we’re moving into. This is Deeply Rooted planting roots in the city of Chicago and becoming fully integrated within the community,” says Crayton.

“We’re trying to do something bold as a Black dance organization by creating a space not just for us but for others as well,” says Crayton. “It has been an incredible journey to build a multimillion-dollar facility. We’re creating space within the community for humans to be humans, and for them to interact with each other in a loving and positive way.” v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

ll

ll

A COMEDIC SHOWDOWN BETWEEN TRUTH AND FACT CHICAGO’S HOLIDAY TRADITION

$5 OFF with code READER5 Some restrictions may apply

LIMITED RUN! NOW PLAYING

615 W. Wellington Avenue (at Broadway), Chicago

773.281.8463 timelinetheatre.com

Providing arts coverage in Chicago since 1971.

NOVEMBER 18 - DECEMBER 31 GoodmanTheatre.org 312.443.3800

Groups 15+: Groups@GoodmanTheatre.org

chicagoreader.com

Major Corporate Sponsor

Corporate Sponsor Partner

NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 27

FILM

CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S FILM FESTIVAL

11/3–11/19, venues vary $12 single tickets, $10.20 for Facets members; $40 four-ticket bundle, $36 for Facets members; $250 festival pass, $212.50 for Facets members cicff40.eventive.org

FESTIVAL PREVIEW

CICFF40 teaches families that ‘Chicago is a film town’ A still from A Greyhound of a Girl COURTESY

Explore movies for children and teens at the 40th Chicago International Children’s Film Festival.

FACETS

By EMMA OXNEVAD

A

s the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival (CICFF) celebrates its 40th year, festival program director Deidre Searcy wants people to know it offers something for everyone.

The festival runs from November 3-19 and is the first competitive children’s film festival in the United States. It includes a wide array of films designated by age groups—ranging from My First Movies (ages 2-5) to New Dimensions (18+)—steadily introducing topics designed to spark intellectual curiosity and discussion among viewers.

Searcy says this year’s programming strikes a thematic balance between fear—whether sparked by COVID-19 or uncertainty toward the future—and hope.

“In particular, I was looking for films that dealt with differences and understanding other people’s experiences,” she says.

Searcy says the festival received over 1,000 entries, which were evaluated by a selection committee composed of teachers, past jurors, and friends of the festival. Once narrowed down, panels of all-ages jurors offer feedback about the films before Searcy makes the final call, with input from festival manager Jake Laystrom.

The festival will also host family-friendly events, including hands-on animation workshops, a celebration of African American music, a performance from the Old Town School of Folk Music’s Wiggleworms, and its opening night celebration and screening, among others.

Opening night, held at the Chicago History Museum, will feature an appearance from filmmaker Matthew A. Cherry, who won the 2020 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for his film Hair Love.

Founded by nonprofit media organization Facets, CICFF is both the largest annual and

28 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

first-ever Academy Award-qualifying children’s film festival; first-place winners of the fest’s live-action short and animated short categories are then submitted to the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences.

Searcy says she hopes the festival can both continue to reach new audiences and collaborate with other arts festivals to continue its legacy as a cultural institution.

“I think that art, film, [and] music provide this opportunity for us to get out of this sort of limited perspective of, ‘This is what I know, this is the one political thing that I know, or this one political piece of information that I’ve gathered,’” she says. “But putting that in context is so important for us to be able to communicate and understand each other.”

I spoke to Searcy about what attendees can expect at the fest this year and the organization’s goals for the future. The conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Emma Oxnevad: Did any of this year’s selected filmography inspire debate or extra consideration from the selection committee or jurors?

Deidre Searcy: The Color of Autumn. It’s a short—it has some folks involved in it . . . from Chicago, [and] it’s based in Chicago and [on] the experience of an eight-year-old girl on the south side of Chicago. I think that the fact that the N-word is used, we were concerned about that. It was important to us to find that the children who were involved in the making of it, that there was a cultural sensitivity consultant who worked with them in terms of the making of it. But I think that at the end of the day, what was more important to us was [that] these are experiences that our kids might have. . . . It’s one thing to talk about history . . . it’s another thing for young people to see that through the perspective of another child

A still from Tony, Shelly and the Magic Light COURTESY FACETS

and to contend with it, as opposed to a general historical concept.

Has the festival returned to its full prepandemic operations?

This year is another hybrid year for us, and I think we’re holding onto hybrid maybe a little more . . . for school groups and for people with young children; maybe they’re a little bit hesitant or maybe there are barriers to having them come out. But ultimately, we do want them to have that experience and are trying it in as many ways as we can through incentives.

How has the festival evolved over the years?

Certainly, we were impacted by COVID, but I also think that [there are] school impacts around the arts that all arts organizations have dealt with: whether or not the arts are supported in a full way, or [if] there’s an emphasis on testing. So things like taking a trip out to the film festival don’t seem to coincide with a well-rounded education—which we know isn’t true—but can sometimes impact just how many folks are coming out, especially within the schools. . . . We’re partnering with other arts organizations, and I love that.

We’re partnering with Merit School of Music, Chicago Danztheatre, Old Town School of Folk Music; we’re finding ways to make those connections for people, and I think that’s a good

thing, as well as partnering with other film festivals. We’re partnering with [the] Chicago Irish Film Festival and we’re partnering with a Brazilian film festival. . . . We’re all in this together and have these wonderful things to share with audiences.

What are your goals for the future of the festival?

We’ve talked about extending the fest and being able to reach parts of rural Illinois and other places with our programming. I think that our participation in the Chicago Alliance of Film Festivals is really going to help, we hope, lift all the boats of all the film festivals. . . . I hope that as families start to connect with the various festivals, that they see the value.

Chicago is a film town: films are produced here, filmmakers come from here, actors come from here, and you’ve got this long history.

And [there’s] the first-of-its-kind alliance in the nation of film festivals that are trying to support each other and, in doing so, make it an even greater value for families and people who love film to engage in these different opportunities. . . . The future is in finding our strength together and [being] able to get that message out. People don’t know there are over 55 film festivals in the Chicago area, and it’s important for people to know that. v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

29th Annual Black Harvest Film Festival Revolutionary Visions November 3-16

Celebrate Black storytelling Tickets & festival lineup: siskelfilmcenter.org/blackharvest We'd like to thank festival sponsor Gallagher for their generosity.

FACETS Presents

UPCOMING AT

40th Chicago International Children’s Film Festival

THE LOGAN

Celebrating 40 years Nov 3-19, 2023

THE CRAFT

NOV 3-6 AT 11 PM Special Event Schedule

Scan GR to view full schedule.

FRI (11/3) Opening Night Chicago History 7:00 PM @ Museum

SUN (11/5) My First Movies 1 10:30 AM @ AMC Newcity 14

THUR (11/9) Animation Party!

FACETS w/ 6:30 PM @ Anime Club

CICFF40.eventive.org

SAT (11/11) 9:30 AM

Animation Celebration

@ Chicago History Museum

FAETS 1517 W Fullerton Ave, Chicago

THE HUDSUCKER PROXY

NOV 10-13 AT 11 PM

2646 N. MILWAUKEE AVE | CHICAGO, IL | THELOGANTHEATRE.COM | 773.342.5555 NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 29

R READER RECOMMENDED

FILM

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

Five Nights at Freddy’s PATTI PERRET/UNIVERSAL PICTURES

NOW PLAYING

All the Light We Cannot See (Miniseries) You may think that four hour-long episodes (essentially one long, bingeable movie) would provide Steven Knight and Shawn Levy’s All the Light We Cannot See with plenty of time to explore the diverse ways that two young people living during World War II—a blind girl aiding the French Resistance and a Nazi Wehrmachtmember-turn-defector listening to her on shortwave radio—experience their world turning upside down.

Instead, the Netflix limited series based on Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel sacrifices valuable narrative depth, character development, and historical nuances in favor of empty platitudes, moral absolutism, and drone shots of the French seaside. Marie-Laure LeBlanc becomes a sightless, superpowered Mary Sue; Werner Pfennig, a starry-eyed victim of circumstance, is basically forced to heil Hitler at gunpoint.

As often happens when fictionalizing the past, this war becomes far too simple: it’s a battle of good versus evil, reason versus superstition, darkness versus light (even if it’s light we cannot see). The Americans become unquestioningly virtuous liberators, the Nazis malicious caricatures yelling things like “What you are is your race!” and “The lion is not free to be a lamb!”

Some of Netflix’s casting choices are spot on.

Lars Eidinger’s fanatical Sergeant Major Reinhold von Rumpel and Louis Hofmann’s unquestionably Aryan Werner come to mind, as does Marie, who is portrayed by blind newcomers Aria Mia Loberti and Nell Sutton (an inclusive casting choice we might get more of, if we’re lucky). Others, however, remain bizarre and unexplainable beyond big-box name recognition: Hugh Laurie’s shell-shocked Uncle Etienne seems to suffer more from boredom than PTSD, and Mark Ruffalo plays Marie’s sage and whimsical father, Daniel, while sporting

30 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

a laughably unconvincing British accent.

There are a few moments that sparkle like a diamond beneath the rubble of this series. The scenes that feature a young Marie allow Sutton to shine, and some visually and emotionally arresting moments can be found in Werner’s backstory. The bulk of these include his time at the National Political Institute of Education, scenes that, while often moving, are riddled with enough overt Nazi rhetoric to rival the satirism of Jojo Rabbit (2019).

“Sentimentality is a potent and cheap smokescreen.

It shelters us from the barrage of deeper emotions, and spares us from their ethical implications. It substitutes surfaces for depths, and glamor for complexity,” wrote the New Republic’s Dominic Green of All the Light We Cannot See, shortly following the book’s 2014 publication.

Unfortunately, this Netflix original miniseries suffers from the same sickly sweet sentimental shortcomings as the novel, if not more so. It’s visually stunning, star-studded, and expensively produced, but this reviewer struggles to find an enthusiastic audience for it beyond the odd middle school history class. —BROOKS EISENBISE Four

hour-long episodes. Netflix

R Anatomy of a Fall

Bickering couples often wound each other without words. The act of passive aggression that opens Anatomy of a Fall might technically be wordless, but it is anything but silent.

Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller), a German novelist living in the French Alps, is being interviewed by a young woman (Camille Rutherford). The questions, at first, are straightforward, until gradually, they lean into flirtatious territory. Suddenly, before any real intimacy, an instrumental rendition of 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P.” rains down from the attic in a deafening deluge. Immediately, you can see Sandra’s frustration—and the young woman’s discomfort. Soon after, they give up the interview in the painfully unworkable house. Then, with strikingly

stoic composure, Sandra walks upstairs—presumably to confront her husband, Samuel (Samuel Theis), about his petulant behavior.

But we don’t meet Samuel. Instead, we first see him when the couple’s 11-year-old son, Daniel (Milo Machado Graner), returns from walking the dog to find his father dead. Daniel screams. Sandra runs from the house to comfort him. And just like that, nothing is certain. The scene sets the tone for the entire film: emotions boil beneath cool exteriors, facts are consistently muddled, and family dynamics unravel into increasingly complicated (and frustrating) messes.

Anatomy of a Fall never loses momentum. Once the 50 Cent song plays, the film is as tight as a drum.

Hüller’s performance is bolstered not only by Machado Graner’s career-starting portrayal of her son, but also by Swann Arlaud’s Vincent, Sandra’s incredibly persuasive lawyer. Ultimately, the question is whether Sandra killed Samuel, motivated by resentment, or Samuel killed himself, plagued by shame after his son was partially blinded on his watch.

But really, director Justine Triet is challenging us, in a suspenseful frenzy, by interrogating what we believe “truth” really means. The film is a monumental courtroom drama because Triet casts us as the jury—and as the judge and executioner. As an audience, she implores us to determine right and wrong, to put life in our hands without the complete picture. —MAXWELL RABB R, 152

min. Music Box Theatre

R Five Nights at Freddy’s

Five Nights at Freddy’s is a largely successful dread-fest, with genuinely frightening visuals (giant shadows of killer robots), tense direction, clever jump scares, and an unhinged performance by the underappreciated Matthew Lillard in a key supporting role.

But how do you turn a point-and-click game into a decent movie? Hire Emma Tammi, who directed the seriously creepy supernatural western The Wind; enlist the Jim Henson Creature Shop to design life-size animal animatronics; and kill an unnamed security guard in the first three minutes by turning his head into mincemeat.

After the first security guard is dispatched, Mike Schmidt (not the Philadelphia Phillies all-star, but Josh Hutcherson, who plays exhausted and dejected well) takes a job from a mysterious employment agency as a night guard at the long-closed Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.

He cares for his young sister, Abby (Piper Rubio), and is fighting his aunt (Mary Stuart Masterson) in court to retain custody. But his shaky employment record makes this crummy gig the only one he can get. The Freddy’s position should be a cinch: don’t let neighborhood scumbags break in and trash the joint.

If only things were that simple. If only the plot were simple. There’s enough backstory here for, say, a dozen movies (wink). There are also tenuous connections between Mike, his sister, the villain, and a local cop. And the pacing? Creaky. There are a billion stops and starts

in the film, but when everything works, it really works.

Warning: the themes of child abduction, murder, and the shocking violence make Five Nights at Freddy’s one of the nastier PG-13s in recent memory. How it isn’t rated R, I’ll never know. Unless it has something to do with making the franchise accessible to anyone with a wallet.

Maybe that’s it. —DAVID RIEDEL PG-13, 110 min. Wide

release in theaters

R Priscilla

Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla is a subtly crafted continuation of the long fascination of the writer/ director toward fame, notoriety, and the ways in which we find ourselves at first bewildered by and then isolated by success.

Based on Priscilla Presley’s memoir, Elvis and Me, Priscilla isolates a portion of the Elvis (Jacob Elordi) mythology, reframing it from the perspective of his wife, whom he first meets and courts when she’s a mere 14-year-old girl (Cailee Spaeny). Calling it the “Elvis mythology” in and of itself gives little credit to the work that Coppola accomplishes in truly creating a confined cinematic world, nearly claustrophobic in its focus on the longing and loneliness of Priscilla. It’s the family and work life of our characters that interests Coppola, cutting through a series of vignettes of important milestones, tinged by the increasingly detrimental forces of fame and addiction.

The disturbing power dynamic is inherently skewed from the beginning, with the already massively famous Elvis taking interest in a girl he knows is only 14, as her befuddled parents ask, “Why of all the girls in the world is it her that he’s interested in?” Elvis dictates Priscila’s ability to see him, at first leaving Germany for a series of years and later leaving their Graceland home for a seemingly never-ending series of tours and film sets. Of note, the height difference between Elordi and Spaeny is used to great effect, with Elvis towering over the diminutive Priscilla. For her part, Spaeny gives a confident yet devastating performance, pivoting between the moments of confusion and loneliness, and the exhilaration of new love and previously unimagined experiences.

Absence is a recurring theme—Priscilla from her parents, Elvis from Priscilla, the murky presence of Colonel Tom Parker, which is given weight but no screen time— and Coppola uses the narrow focus of her storytelling well. Even Elvis’s fame is largely alluded to versus seen, with the film eschewing song performance and further confining the scope of the narrative to the mundane moments of daily life which are broken by moments of gleeful exuberance, but also violent outbursts. To that end, Coppola has little interest in portraying Elvis as a monster and Priscilla as a hero per se, instead leaving it to the viewer to bring their own notions to the table.

They’re both sympathetic figures, trying to claim a degree of independence back from a world that has trapped them in gilded cages. —ADAM MULLINS-KHATIB

R, 113 min. Wide release in theaters v

Tickets at evanstonspace.com

NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 31

MUSIC One Eyed Jacks (right) backed Sly Stone at the Red Parrot in New York City on May 4, 1983.

When Sly Stone fronted a Chicagoland bar band

FLYER COURTESY PETER NEUMER; PHOTO COURTESY JACK SWEENEY

In 1982 and ’83, the unpredictable pop star spent several months of a comeback attempt gigging with local seven-piece One Eyed Jacks.

By JACK RIEDY

J

ack Sweeney was on tour with Sly Stone, and business was slow. His Chicago-based seven-piece, One Eyed Jacks, had accepted a job as the erratic pop star’s backing band in late 1982. Long past his Woodstock-era prime, Stone had all but abandoned live performance seven years earlier. He was now attempting a comeback via small club shows, playing a series of one-night stands.

One Eyed Jacks were used to gigging six nights a week on their own. When Stone was booked on Late Night With David Letterman, Sweeney encouraged him to pitch more performances. “I told Sly ten times, ‘When you go on Letterman, tell them we’re looking for work!’” Sweeney says.

In response, Stone gave out Sweeney’s home phone number on national television.

Sweeney definitely hadn’t expected that—but then again, he hadn’t expected to be living and touring with the former superstar in the first place.

Sweeney had formed One Eyed Jacks in 1981, the group’s name inspired perhaps by the playing card or a late-60s band from Champaign, Illinois. The lineup consisted of Sweeney on keys, his high school classmate Frank Wiencek on guitar, Santos Dominguez on bass and vocals, Todd Brooks on drums, Peter Neumer on saxophone, Tom Decourcey on trombone, and Don Tenuto on trumpet, and they performed full-time around the midwest with a repertoire of originals written by Sweeney and Dominguez.

The band also did covers. “We were a group

32 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

of funky white boys that played a Sly medley,” Sweeney says. Sly & the Family Stone’s run of pop hits coincided with the band members’ teen years; Wiencek went to Grant Park on July 27, 1970, for what turned out to be an infamous Family Stone no-show. It devolved into a riot that injured more than 160 people, and Wiencek left downtown when he heard gunfire.

In late 1982, Sly Stone was digging out from under years of missed shows, middling albums, and negative headlines, including those arising from a drug and weapons arrest in Los Angeles that summer. He was in need of a new band, and One Eyed Jacks’ agent surprised the group by bringing the singer to one of their shows. “As if Sly’s gonna come out to Elkhart, Indiana, to a motor lodge to hear us play,” Neumer says. But they could, in fact, believe their eyes. “We walked offstage, and this guy in black leather pants and coat said, ‘We got a match.’”

It was that simple. “We became the Family Stone, so to speak,” Sweeney says. The band was billed accordingly, as Sly & the Family Stone, Sly & the New Family Stone, or sometimes just Sly Stone.

Stone soon moved into Sweeney’s home in Marquette Park, sharing it with Wiencek and other nonmusician roommates. Such an arrangement “was out of the ordinary for a Black guy when Marquette Park wasn’t the best place to be,” Wiencek says.

“I believe it was really a lot of Jack’s generosity, helping him out at the time, that allowed us to have his attention as long as we did,” says

Brooks. Despite Stone’s fame and his famously turbulent past, he was a genial roommate, a “regular guy,” according to Sweeney.

“I wake up in the morning, I go downstairs,” Wiencek says, “and there’s Sly Stone behind the piano.”

One Eyed Jacks still had other engagements to finish, which left them time for just a few rehearsals spread out across two weeks in a practice space on Kedzie to nail down their set with Stone. “Rehearsals were fun,” Wiencek says. “No pressure, because we already knew his songs.”

Stone focused on maintaining a groove and building dynamics, and he “drove it home like it was a new religion,” Neumer says. Stone would modify arrangements on the fly, dazzling his bandmates. “He could take ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ and make it incredible,” Neumer says.

Stone also gave borderline incomprehensible instructions. “He called a meeting before a job and told me to just forget about two,” says Brooks—“two” meaning the second beat of the bar. The drummer still doesn’t know what Stone meant.

The group also worked on a few new tunes, among them “All I Wanna Do Do,” its juvenile wordplay likely inspired by Stone’s collaborator George Clinton. The song was never recorded professionally, but Neumer remembers performing it as “dramatically rip-your-faceoff funk.”

One Eyed Jacks would play their original songs as an opening act before Sly Stone took the stage. “Crowds would chant, ‘We wanna

see Sly! We wanna see Sly!’” Brooks says.

“What was cool was being able to deliver on that and have him come out.”

Stone didn’t have any of his own gear and would use Wiencek’s black Les Paul to open the show with 1969’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).” Stone would frequently break keys on Sweeney’s Hammond B-3 organ, until his management provided him with a newer, more durable keyboard. “When he was on, he was on,” Neumer says. “It was an experience to be onstage with the guy for 400 or 4,000 people.”

The band played their first show with Stone in fall 1982 at southwest-suburban restaurant and club Prime ’N Tender. Chicago journalist Dave Hoekstra attended the show, along with about 200 other fans.

“A smiling Stone wore crisp white slacks and a matching white jacket, accented by a flowing white scarf dotted with black piano keys,” Hoekstra wrote in a 2021 blog post (he remembers the show as happening in spring 1983). “Stone and the One-Eyed Jacks covered all the Family Stone hits ranging from ‘Stand!’ to ‘If You Want Me To Stay.’ He botched some of the words to ‘Hot Fun in the Summertime’ but he was in a place that made him happy.”

Milwaukee-based musician John Sieger saw Stone and the band perform at a Shakey’s Pizza Parlor-turned-nightclub on Green Bay Road in Kenosha, Wisconsin. “It was a lazy-ass show, maybe half an hour, started and ended with ‘I Want to Take You Higher,’ and it was one of the greatest shows I ever saw,” he says.

“If that was [Stone] phoning it in, I want to see

ll

ll

MUSIC him when he’s inspired.”

The band performed in Champaign, Illinois, in early February 1983, and Sweeney sent Stone home behind the wheel of his van. The band arrived back in Chicago separately and encountered an unwelcome development.

“We heard on the ten o’clock news that Sly was busted in midstate Illinois, and I thought, ‘Oh great, that’s my truck,’” Sweeney says.

Stone had been stopped by police near Paxton, Illinois, on February 7. They’d found a sawed-off shotgun and what they thought was cocaine in the car, and Stone was booked on weapon and drug charges. Some news articles inaccurately identified the other four passengers as Stone’s band members, prompting Neumer’s parents to give him a concerned call. Stone’s arrest created a media circus, and the authorities decided to discharge him. He drove home to Marquette Park, and within a couple weeks the charges were dropped. “I asked him what was going on,” Sweeney says.

“I don’t recall any definitive answers.”

Stone appeared on Letterman on February 21, 1983. The band had traveled to New York City but hadn’t been invited to perform, so they watched the show from the Milford Plaza hotel. Stone sat onstage in a gray sweatsuit and white sneakers, riffed about being tired of being retired, and dismissed his recent arrest as a misunderstanding. Letterman noted that Stone was “early, well-dressed, and courteous,” to laughter and applause from the studio audience.

Boasting about his recent run of club shows, Stone mentioned One Eyed Jacks and said, “Jack wanted me to give his phone number out.” Letterman and his producers worried aloud that Sweeney would be flooded with prank calls. “That’s OK,” Stone said. “Jack’s prepared for that.” He rattled off Sweeney’s home phone number. Sweeney wasn’t prepared at all; though the network muted half the number, he jokes that he received a thousand phone calls from intrepid lip-readers looking for Sly Stone.

Stone developed a good rapport with the band, whom he called “AAWB,” short for “Above Average White Boys.” He nicknamed Neumer “Baby Boy.” They’d all go out for drinks or breakfast after shows. Stone’s birthday was a few days before Neumer’s mother’s, so he took the family out for a steak dinner.

When the waitress asked how he wanted his steak, he answered, “Quick.”

But Stone also continued to test his bandmates. Ten minutes before they were due onstage at suburban club Haymakers, he insisted

that Neumer drive him back to the house to retrieve something. They stopped at a gas station while returning to the show, where Stone purchased bologna, baking soda, and a Coke.

To Neumer’s dismay, Stone began smoking crack out of the soda can in Neumer’s new ’82 Charger as they passed a police substation.

“Couldn’t have been a worse place,” Neumer says.

In spring 1983, Stone and One Eyed Jacks switched to a new booking agent based in Atlanta, leading to more shows down south and out east. At Flaming Sally’s in Macon, Georgia, Stone walked offstage after two songs and didn’t come back, infuriating the club owner and the crowd. Neumer stormed backstage with the rest of the band in tow and asked Stone why he did it. “He kinda giggled,” he says. “I think he was shocked, because I was the quiet one in the band.”

“Well, if you don’t like it, Peter, why don’t you quit?” Neumer remembers Stone saying.

“I’m not a quitter. You are,” Neumer recalls himself saying. He reminded Stone that the singer owed him $100 for the outfit he wore on Late Night.

“He came back with a hundred-dollar bill, threw it at me, and slammed the door,” Neumer says. “The next morning it was like, ‘Baby Boy, off to the next show.’ Like nothing happened.”

The shows were successful as long as the rest of the band ensured that Stone made it to the stage and stayed there. He was managed in part by a large bodyguard who would “plow open a hotel door if we couldn’t get him up,” says Brooks. But Stone’s high profile and mercurial behavior meant that “drug dealers would always find him,” Wiencek says. “We had to keep him away from drug dealers.”

“He’d have a couple grand in his pocket, and then the next morning would be borrowing money for breakfast,” Neumer says.

The tour continued through Florida, Alabama, and North Carolina. Stone and One Eyed Jacks played April 29 and 30 at the Kaywood Theater in Mount Rainier, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., with former Motown band Rare Earth opening. “He told the whole crowd, ‘Come back to my hotel room and party!’”

Neumer says.

“Once we got up near Washington, he knew people who got him too messed up,” Brooks says. Brooks was enlisted to drive Stone and George Clinton to New York City while they freebased in the back of Stone’s Winnebago.

It was Brooks’s first time visiting the city (he’d been out of the band briefly during the Letter-

man episode), and he found himself driving a vehicle the size of a bus into downtown Manhattan. He dropped the two stars at a motel and left the RV parked on a side street.

The band played hip New York warehouse Red Parrot on May 4, 1983, with Yoko Ono and Journey’s Neal Schon in attendance. A New York Times review by Stephen Holden offered faint praise for Stone’s “competently performed set of oldies” with “what was apparently a pick-up band.” But amateur recordings posted to YouTube reveal a locked-in ensemble ripping through a brief set of classics with verve and postdisco precision, led by Stone as an energetic emcee and wailing singer.

The chemistry would not last. During a performance at New York club Fun House a few days later, Stone showed up intoxicated and kept switching between songs without warning the band. He even tried to get Brooks to move his drums in the middle of the set.

“Sly looked back to me, then waved me forward, wanted me to come up closer to him,” Brooks says. “We’re playing! How do I move my drum set?” After about five minutes onstage, Stone played their usual closer, “I Want to Take You Higher,” then walked off.

“The place was packed. The stage was in the middle of the room—they could grab your leg,” Wiencek says. “People were getting fidgety because they had paid to see Sly.” “I thought we were going to get mugged getting our equipment off the stage,” Sweeney says.

Stone did not appear for their second show, planned for later that night. “Of course we were wanting to make a good go of it, and he was making it difficult, so arguments ensued,” Brooks says. “It was a good time, wish it had lasted longer, but it was a very volatile situation.”

The band made a hasty decision to end their tour with Stone and return to Chicago with their gear, leaving little time for goodbyes.

Neumer overheard Stone through a hotel door on the phone with management. “I’m not gonna say he was crying, but he was broken up,” he says.

Stone moved on quickly, though. Within a few weeks, he’d relocated to Florida and begun playing with a band called Starshower. He was arrested on drug charges in Lee County in June 1983, then bonded out a day later by two anonymous fans.

One Eyed Jacks regrouped after a few months and returned to their old routines.

“It was a great group of guys with strong camaraderie, no animosity going on,” Sweeney

says. The band stayed together for another few years, touring 38 states in total, including a lengthy stint in Florida from September 1983 to May 1984.

After the band dissolved, Brooks worked in drum rentals and in audio engineering for public radio and The Steve Harvey Show. He now lives in Crown Point, Indiana, with a home studio. Neumer played freelance with the likes of Martha Reeves, Daryl Stuermer, and Del Shannon, and he recently moved to Florida, where he still performs. Dominguez relocated to Texas. Trumpeter Don Tenuto formed the Chicago Rhythm & Blues Kings with former members of the Mellow Fellows. Trombone player Tom Decourcey became a schoolteacher, but he passed away in Naples, Florida in 2011, survived by his wife and two daughters.

Sweeney settled down with his wife and two kids and started an environmental cleanup business in northwest Illinois. He and Wiencek watch the Bears together every Sunday.

Sly Stone made few public appearances in the ensuing four decades. The pop visionary showed up at a 2006 Grammy tribute in Los Angeles, and in 2009 he made a surprise cameo onstage at the African Festival of the Arts in Washington Park with George Clinton & P-Funk. Stone finally got clean in 2019 with support from family and management, and last month, at age 80, he published his memoir, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin): A Memoir. It includes a few pages on his time with Sweeney and One Eyed Jacks, but his publishers couldn’t make him available for comment.

Despite the chaos of the tour, the members of One Eyed Jacks look back with pride on their experience with Stone. “It was a real nice ride. It was interesting, it was educational,” Wiencek says. “I enjoyed it. Everybody in the band enjoyed it.”

“You’re playing with somebody who’s wellknown, and you think a lot of things are gonna go on from there,” Brooks says. “It was more a life-learning experience in dealing with the realities of the road and all the other sins out there.”

Brooks hopes to jam again with his former bandmates soon. “I’m glad to see many of us that are in the band still thriving,” he says.

He’s also relieved that Stone has dealt with his addiction. “I’m just amazed that he went that long still doing it, and I’m glad to hear that he had that victory. Because he deserved what he created.” v

m letters@chicagoreader.com NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 33

MUSIC

CHICAGOANS OF NOTE

DJ Slugo, ghetto house champion “I’m a kid from the projects, so being able to go places and see other people who don’t even speak the language but understand the music—to see how universal music is—it’s epic.”

As told to LEOR GALIL

For more than three decades, Thomas Kendricks, better known as DJ Slugo, has been DJing, producing, and celebrating ghetto house, a sound he helped pioneer. Slugo grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes and began building his reputation in his neighborhood; in the 1990s, he became part of a network of underground house producers connected through the Dance Mania label, run by record-store owner Ray Barney. In 1995, Slugo began putting out music through his own label, Subterranean Playhouse, through which he’d also release a handful of DVDs in the 2000s documenting the local juke and ghetto-house scenes of the day. Slugo recently launched two vinyl series, Ghetto House Music and Dance Mania Legends, and he just issued the first 12-inch in the latter—a compilation also called Dance Mania Legends that features Slugo, DJ Thadz, and DJ Phats. On Sunday, November 19, Gramaphone Records hosts a free in-store show celebrating that compilation, where each DJ will spin for an hour between 2 and 5 PM.

I COURTESY THE ARTIST

34 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

was always around music, from my mom and my grandmother and all them. My cousin Geno was one of the DJs from the neighborhood. I saw how popular they were in the neighborhood from doing music, and I was like, “If you can get that popular from spinning records, then I want a piece of that.” I had him teach me. I ended up looking at all the equipment they had, saved up my money, bought everything they had, and became my own DJ. I started really trying to get into it—learn the ins and outs of it—at about 11, 12. And then 14, 15 was my first time somebody actually paid me to do a few hours at a gig. Once I seen that you can actually make money from it, I was like, “You can get paid from that?” That was it for me. It turned into a business. I started looking at peoples’ minimum wage, and I used to always say, “If I can make at least what

people make weekly, if I can make that weekly DJing, this will be my nine-to-five.”

I used to complain about how slow some of the music was—like, 130 and 125 [bpm] was kinda too slow. The neighborhoods was changing—like, our surroundings was changing. I was like, “Man, this music is too slow for us.

They can’t dance to it.” One of the producer guys was like, “If you don’t like the music, then make your own.”

I ended up being fascinated with the Roland R-70 [drum machine]. And that’s what I used to make “Where the Rats” and “Wouldn’t You Like to Be a Hoe [Too].” That was my machine.

Those were my first two major pieces. When I did “Where the Rats,” I didn’t have a sampler.

People still don’t believe that to this day. I did “Where the Rats” with a mixer—they had the A, B, C, D bank pads on it, and you had two,

ll

ll

MUSIC

three seconds on each bank pad. I was in there, clicking the buttons, [chanting] “Woo, where they at?” [and] “Uh-oh!” and changing the sequences on the R-70 at the same time. If you listen to “Where the Rats” close enough, you’ll hear it. It’s almost like a live setting. That and “DJs on the Low.” We did that live—all of us sitting in a room with the mike in between us.

I already had a following in the buildings where I grew up, and then I ended up meeting [DJ] Deeon. Deeon was like, “You should let Ray hear this stuff.” I’m like, “Who’s Ray?” He’s like, “Ray Barney, Dance Mania Records.”

“OK, who’s that?” He was like, “I’m gonna just take you up there—he’s gonna look out for you and give you a $1,000 advance because I’m bringing you up there.”

I wasn’t really believing nothing of it. Ray was like, “Yeah, I’ma write you a check for $1,000—I just need you to give me the records in this format.” And I was like, “Oh, wait a minute, you for real.” If you look on my first album [Livin’ That Ghetto Life], it says “DJ Deeon presents.” I put that on there because Deeon was the one who walked me in the door.

Ray Barney is solely responsible, on the musical side, for everybody who came off of Dance Mania. If you wasn’t on Dance Mania, if you didn’t get the chance to get a record out on Dance Mania, people really didn’t take you serious—you wasn’t on that epic label. It ended up becoming iconic because he was taking all the hood guys who did production and he was putting the music in front of people that we couldn’t get to. He actually changed all our lives, every last one of us. We’re legendary and all that because of Dance Mania and Ray taking a chance on us.

[Nineteen] ninety-five was my first release with Ray. I had just got out of a four-year stretch in County. Imagine that—I got out, started doing records with Ray, and didn’t look back. I ended up getting in trouble again in 2000. But that first five years with Ray, it just changed everything. Even with the mixtapes— he would pay for our mixtapes and say, “I’ll distribute it everywhere else. Y’all can have Chicago.” It made me epic in Chicago. The colored mixtapes was like crazy. People was like, “I want the green one!” “I want the blue one!”

Ray changed my entire life.

Ray made me leave hanging up under the buildings. I started focusing strictly on music.

I wanted to be in the studio. Basically, I wanted them checks. Every time I released a mixtape, that’s a check. Every time I released an album, that’s a check. I was like, “This my way out the hood.”

I always wanted to be my own entity. I read [Don Passman’s book] All You Need to Know About the Music Business, and when I started learning the music business and all that, [I thought,] “I need to have my own company. I need to actually be bringing out my records under my own label. I need to break away from the Dance Mania thing.” So I started Subterranean Playhouse.

Ray honored it and said, “Hey, no problem. If you want to break out and do your own thing, just let me distribute it.” So Ray distributed my first three albums for me. Ray was still distributing whatever it was we had, because he had all the connects on the distributors; we didn’t have that. He had a 23-page list of places to distribute the music. He never gave up that list. Even after Dance Mania shut down, he didn’t give that list up.

[Releasing my music through my own label] afforded me to be able to get more up-to-date equipment. I bought a 32-track Mackie board. I was living in Lansing at the time, and my whole entire front room ended up becoming a recording studio. It afforded me to be able to become a real producer, a real musician, all my own equipment. I didn’t care about furniture; it was a futon in there, and everything else was equipment.

I was in Lansing from ’97 to maybe 2000. I caught my case in 2000. I fought my case up until 2002, I think. Then I had to turn myself in. I didn’t get back out till 2005. So jail was my home for the next four years.

When I got out in 2005, I was completely upset with everybody who was doing ghetto house and doing juke, because when I came home, it was dead. A lot of the guys were working nine to five. Hip-hop had took over Chicago, and wasn’t nobody doing ghetto house. I was like, “Why is nobody doing this no more?” All the people who used to dance was now thugs.

It was just crazy for me. I just said, “I’m not giving up on the music that put me where I’m at to this day.” So I became the poster child for it. Like, “I’m gonna put these CDs out. I’m gonna put these mixtapes out.”

I went and started videotaping stuff and piecing it all together [for a juke and ghetto house DVD]. I did the soundtrack behind it.

I was like, “I’m not gonna let this music die, not the music that built me to the person I am.”

The DVD kind of opened up everything for me. There was a place called Nitro where a lot of the kids went to dance and party. The guy who was throwing the parties, Tony Bitoy, was my buddy. I was like, “Tony, I need this. I need to videotape it. This DVD is gonna revive my career.” He was like, “For you, bro, I’ll do it.” And once people saw that I was able to get into Nitro with a camera, the DVD [Chicago Juke DVD] started doing real well. The whole soundtrack was all my tracks. I used nobody else’s tracks; it was all original to me. The DVD just took off. It established me right back to where I was—even a little further than when I left.

I flipped the colored mixtapes to CDs. But when CDs faded away, I flipped it to USB drives. So what I did was, I took the mixes, flipped the whole mix to just one MP3. Then I took maybe 26 other mixes, put them all on a flash drive, and was selling the flash drive.

But my flash drive looks like a mixtape—it’s an actual tape, but it pops out at the bottom as a USB stick.

I always looked at streaming like a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because people outside the United States are able to get your music without having to go through all the [rigmarole] for getting it to them. [But] the pay on it, I don’t understand. I asked that at a seminar not too long ago: “How are you able to break up a penny? The lowest amount of money on planet earth, how are you able to split that up?” I don’t understand that.

So streaming sucks to me. How you gonna fraction out a penny and then give that to an artist for their life’s work? That’s crazy. I hate streaming.

When things change, you just gotta figure

out how to get in, change with it, and get what you can from it. When they went to streaming, I was like, “Well, if I’ma stream, I’ma stream the best way that I can, try to hold on to it as much as I can.”

I’m more into physical products, and that’s why I went back to vinyl. I know how it was when the vinyl was out: you had to have your own. So now I’m on a kick where me and a few of my other buddies are just doing 1,000 albums each, and only 1,000 albums, throughout the world—so if you don’t get one of those 1,000, then you just don’t get it. That makes it exclusive.

I’m a kid from the projects, so being able to go places and see other people who don’t even speak the language but understand the music—to see how universal music is—it’s epic. Especially when you’re DJing and you’re playing a song that you made ten or 15 years ago, and they dancin’ or they chantin’ the record. I ain’t never ever in my entire career think it would be what it is now, to be able to go to these different countries on somebody else’s dollar.

I’m having fun with it. It’s fun for me. I actually want to be on a plane as much as physically possible. Anytime they book me, I want to go—ain’t no ifs, no ands, no buts. Let’s work it out, ’cause I wanna get on that plane. I’m taking every gig—I haven’t turned down a gig yet. Especially for countries I’ve never been to.

I’m geeked.

I love music. If I could pay all my bills and do music for free, I would do music for free. I would make the tracks and release the tracks for free if all my bills was paid every month. To just come from beating pens and pencils on my desk in grammar school to me actually tapping out these sounds on a drum machine now, and then people actually in love with it—that’s what keeps me excited. When I hear people say, “I love what it is that you’re doing—don’t stop what you’re doing,” that’s what makes me keep going. That’s my happiness to it all.

And I always tell my buddies, whenever I stop having fun with it, that’s when I’m gonna quit.

But right now, I’m having a ball. v

m lgalil@chicagoreader.com NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 35

Recommended and notable shows with critics’ insights for the week of November 2

MUSIC

b ALL AGES F

PICK OF THE WEEK

Illusion of Safety celebrates 40 years of sonic confrontation

THURSDAY2 Daniel Villareal Cabeza de Chivo open.

9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $18. 21+ Chicago percussionist Daniel Villarreal is such a workhorse that his CV wouldn’t fit in a concert preview like this. But I think I can get my point across just by mentioning his role as cofounder and coleader of local Latine five-piece Dos Santos: Villarreal has a gift for rhythms that command your body to move. His new album, Lados B (International Anthem), follows his 2022 solo debut, Panamá 77, for which he assembled a diverse pool of support musicians to enrich its expressions of his ethnicity and identity. Lados B is a conjoined rejoinder, having emerged from sessions Villarreal put together while working on Panamá 77—in October 2020, he improvised with bassist Anna Butterss and guitarist Jeff Parker in the Los Angeles backyard garden of International Anthem cofounder Scottie McNiece.

Some of the material the trio recorded ended up on Villareal’s debut, but the music on Lados B has its own distinct character, looser and more relaxed than the sculpted grooves of Panamá 77. Villarreal, Butterss, and Parker generate an active heat with their rapport, so that their playing can rivet your attention even during their quiet, contemplative turns—particularly the drawn-out “Things Can Be Calm.” For all three musicians, these sessions were their first with other musicians since the beginning of the pandemic, and the cautious enthusiasm of playing together after so much solitary work surely gives Lados B much of its fuel. —LEOR GALIL

SATURDAY4 Dan Burke of Illusion of Safety COURTESY THE ARTIST

Illusion of Safety See Pick of the Week at left. Cheer-Accident and Hali Palombo open; Illusion of Safety headlines and performs between them. 8 PM, Elastic Arts, 3429 W. Diversey #208, $15, $10 with student ID. b

ILLUSION OF SAFETY, CHEER-ACCIDENT, HALI PALOMBO

Illusion of Safety also performs between the two openers. Sat 11/4, 8 PM, Elastic Arts, 3429 W. Diversey #208, $15, $10 with student ID. b

WHEN UK NOISE PIONEERS Throbbing Gristle filed their terminal report in the early 1980s, a legion of followers stood willing to continue the industrial collective’s research into humanity’s less comfortable impulses. Among those who took up the investigation was Elgin resident Dan Burke, who dubbed his own project Illusion of Safety. Early on, his combinations of electronically generated sounds and found visual and audio operated within industrial music’s dark parameters. Over time, the material and methods have changed, as Burke and a long series of temporary and recurrent collaborators (among them Jim O’Rourke, Thymme Jones of Chicago avant-rock ensemble Cheer-Accident, Kurt Griesch, Kevin Drumm, and Arvo Zylo) have pursued Illusion of Safety’s deep engagements with minimalist electronics, sound collages, and ambiences that simultaneously entice and trouble. Burke put the project into suspended animation between 2014 and 2020 while he

36 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

prioritized other musical pursuits, including working as a sideman in Cheer-Accident and studying piano. But this year he resumed issuing new recordings, some of which combine material he made decades ago with newly created work. Burke is definitely looking forward to this concert, which celebrates 40 years of Illusion of Safety. He plans to use Elastic Arts’ 16-channel CLEAT speaker system to present Float, a new piece derived from the sounds of water in all its physical states.

Audiovisual artist Hali Palombo will open, followed by Illusion of Safety’s Float. Cheer-Accident will then play a large-ensemble set, which will morph into a performance by a similarly large version of Illusion of Safety, incorporating the CLEAT system as well as the space’s main PA. With that information, you may feel like you know what to expect from this concert, but given the crop of musicians involved, you’re almost certainly wrong. —BILL MEYER

Skyzoo Skyzoo performs with United Grind Society; Elementz Emcee and IAmGawd open.

9 PM, the Point, 1565 N. Milwaukee, $20, $15 in advance. 21+ It’s not difficult to find good live hip-hop in Chicago, but this headlining show by east-coast veteran Skyzoo, aka Gregory Skyler Taylor, isn’t merely good— it reads more like quintessential. The pedigreed Brooklyn-born rapper (he grew up a block away from the Notorious B.I.G.) has had a fruitful career.

He’s dropped more than 20 albums and mixtapes since 2002, garnering acclaim from critics and fans alike for his dense hip-hop master classes and odes to longevity.

A remarkably gifted MC, Skyzoo has collaborated with GOAT-level acts: John Legend, Just Blaze, Jill Scott, Black Thought, and many others. He’s also an in-demand ghostwriter who’s had a hand in hits by some of the best in the game (but like any professional in that line of work, he’s very hush-hush about his clients).

In January, Skyzoo released a joint venture with D.C. production team the Other Guys called The

MUSIC Mind of a Saint. This gripping concept album puts Skyzoo in the mind of Franklin Saint, the “magical rookie” played by Damson Idris on John Singleton’s hit TV crime drama Snowfall. Skyzoo takes inspiration from the show to build a narrative world straight from the mid-1980s crack epidemic, weaving together tight scenes and callbacks to Saint’s harrowing journey through high-level drug dealing, government conspiracies, and community destruction.

For this tour, Skyzoo has brought hip-hop collective United Grind Society on the road to help bring these songs to life. This stop at the Point also features support from enigmatic local linguist IAmGawd and longtime bar specialist Elementz Emcee. If you make the wise decision to attend this show, expect an elite level of lyricism, above-par performances, and a perfect response to the question of hip-hop’s enduring impact.

—CRISTALLE BOWEN

WEDNESDAY8 Awakebutstillinbed Like Roses and Stay Inside open. 7 PM, Cobra Lounge, 235 N. Ashland, $22.25 in advance. 17+ No one can accuse Awakebutstillinbed guitarist, vocalist, and bandleader Shannon Taylor of not knowing emo. Her fidelity to the genre’s traditional use of all-lowercase letters (she styles the band’s name and all its song and album titles that way, even though the Reader doesn’t) and her equally traditional omission of spaces between words ought to tip you off all by themselves, but the music she makes drives the point home. In the test of recondite musical knowledge represented by the emo iceberg meme (you list old bands atop the image of an iceberg, with the most obscure deepest underwater), Taylor is clearly a champion. On Awakebutstillinbed’s new second album, Chaos Takes the Wheel and I Am a Passenger (Tiny Engines), the song “Streamline” gets closer to the elegiac intensity of 1990s Texas greats Mineral than any other contemporary recording I’ve heard. And on “Redlight,” Taylor turns her mewl into a cannonball of a scream while the entire band launches into a tidalwave breakdown—even if you’ve never washed ink off your fingers after flipping through a copy of HeartattaCk, you’ll still feel the tug of the mosh pits of yore. —LEOR GALIL

Ana Everling 8 PM, Old Town School of Folk Music, Maurer Hall, 4544 N. Lincoln. F b Ana Everling channels a world of music through her singing. Born in Moldova, she studied voice, piano, composition, and music theory at a conservatory, then went on to study jazz performance. But when she moved to Chicago in 2010, she put her music career on the back burner for years as she settled into her adopted city and rebuilt her life. Everling began performing again in 2015, and since then she’s more than made up for lost time, lending her rich, gorgeous voice to local groups (among them Beats y Bateria, Amada, and Ode) and collaborations with other musicians. A multilingual singer with a knack for improvisation, she can seamless-

ly move between jazz, bossa nova, electronic, classical, and folk music while summoning rich emotion with every note. Earlier this year, she was awarded the title Artist Emerit (“Merited Artist”) by the president of Moldova for her dedication and talent, and in September she released the stunningly intimate, minimalist recording Live at Pro Musica with guitarist Kenny Reichert. She’s also working on a new album (funded in part by a DCASE grant) inspired by her Moldovan heritage and memories of her home country; she plans to include contributions by musicians from Chicago’s jazz community. At this show, she’ll be joined by Reichert, acoustic guitarist Edinho Gerber, and multi-instrumentalist Hunter Diamond, who will play clarinet, flute, saxophone, and percussion. —JAMIE LUDWIG

THURSDAY9 Bib Angel Du$t headline; Candy, Bib, and 9Million open. 7 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, $28, $24 in advance. 18+ Omaha five-piece Bib play hardcore like the last survivor in a horror film, army crawling through the mud to escape something so nasty they don’t dare look back. On the August release Live in Liverpool (Convulse), Bib make their case as skilled purveyors of filth: they can use their collective brawn to stir up a turbid stew to coat your eardrums, then snap into fifth gear to sprint through a classic hardcore rampage. They recorded this live set in May 2023, four months short of the eighth anniversary of their first demo, and they sound seasoned but still juiced up with youthful vigor. I’m usually ambivalent about live punk albums, because all too often what you get is a poor-quality recording that buries the bristling bite of hardcore in sonic ooze—and not the fun kind.

Thankfully Live in Liverpool makes it easy to appreciate how Bib wrestle their sludgy sound into a furious 19-minute set. You can hear all 12 guitar strings, and the palpitating, seesawing “Eyes of the World” feels even more explosive here than it does on the 2020 studio album Delux. I fully expect Bib to bring the scorching intensity of this live recording to their Metro set. —LEOR GALIL

Skyzoo ROBERT ADAM MAYER

FRIDAY10 Valerie June Valerie June, Rachael Davis, Thao, and Yasmin Williams take the stage together in a songwriter’s circle performance.

5 PM and 7 PM, Old Town School of Folk Music, Maurer Hall, 4544 N. Lincoln, $55, $53 members, $125 VIP, early show sold out. b Singer and guitarist Valerie June takes a broadchurch approach to roots music. She incorporates elements of old-time, country, electric blues, rock, R&B, and neosoul into her vision of a single seamless American tradition. A big part of June’s secret is her distinctive voice, simultaneously nasal, rough, and dreamy, which recalls iconic singers such as Sara Carter and Billy Holiday. On her most recent release, last year’s EP Under Cover (Fantasy), her singing makes songs by the likes of Nick Drake, Mazzy Star, John Lennon, and Frank Ocean sound

Awakebutstillinbed JONATHAN BOTKIN

NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 37

UPCOMING CONCERTS AT

MUSIC

Find more music listings at chicagoreader.com/musicreviews.

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

NEW SHOWS ANNOUNCED • ON SALE NOW! 12/10 Jeffrey Foucault & Pieta Brown 12/17 The Nut Tapper 4/19 Joe Pug - 40th Birthday Show FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3 8PM SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4 8PM

Bruce Cockburn In Maurer Hall SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4 8PM

Community: A Choreographer's Festival In Szold Hall

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5 7PM

Alison Brown / Special Consensus In Maurer Hall FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10 7PM

Valerie June & Friends With Rachael Davis, Thao, Yasmin Williams In Maurer Hall FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17 8PM

Jerry Douglas with Daniel Kimbro In Maurer Hall SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26 7PM

Irish Christmas in America In Maurer Hall SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26 7PM

Irish Christmas in America In Maurer Hall SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2 8PM

Funkadesi 27th Anniversary Concert In Maurer Hall SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2 8PM

Seamus Egan (of Solas) In Szold Hall SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3 7PM

Over The Rhine An Acoustic Christmas In Maurer Hall SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9 8PM

The Claudettes In Szold Hall WORLD MUSIC WEDNESDAY SERIES FREE WEEKLY CONCERTS, LINCOLN SQUARE

11/8 11/15

Ana Everling Windy City ramblers

OLDTOWNSCHOOL.ORG 38 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

Valerie June (in red) performs with Thao, Rachael Davis, and Yasmin Williams. ANDREW ROGERS

continued from p. 37

like lost gems from some undiscovered volume of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music.

This concert at the Old Town School of Folk Music seems like a natural extension of June’s easy eclecticism. She’ll be joined by jazz, blues, and country singer Rachael Davis, Thao Nguyen of alternative folk-rock group the Get Down Stay Down, and fingerstyle guitar player Yasmin Williams for a performance that weaves together conversation and song in a Nashville-style songwriters’ round.

The musicians first came together for the 46th Ann Arbor Folk Festival in January 2022, and they enjoyed the experience so much they’ve taken the show on the road. Given the format and the personnel, the repertoire is likely to be pleasingly all over the place. If June takes requests, though, I’d lobby for her amazing version of Nick Cave’s “Into My Arms” from Under Cover—she treats the aching, piano-driven, antitheist love song like a folk-music standard. —NOAH BERLATSKY

SATURDAY11 Los Johnny Jets D7 Even and Killer Diller open. 8 PM, Distro Music Hall, 6815 W. Roosevelt, Berwyn, $35, $30 early bird. 21+ During the great rock ’n’ roll explosion of the early 60s, American and British acts hogged much of the limelight, but people got together in their garages (or other informal spaces) and started bands around the world. Los Johnny Jets formed in 1964 in Tamaulipas, Mexico, and made sure that the “garage” sound took off in their home country too. As with many of their peers, they specialized in cover versions of popular hits of the day. Though they may have stood out—at least north of the border—for belting out familiar English-language tunes in Spanish, they were more remarkable as musicians who

gave those songs an extra kick.

James Brown’s “I Got You” is so definitive it’s hard for anyone to really touch it, but Los Johnny Jets’ version (“Bule Bu”) comes within striking distance.

They work similar miracles on the McCoys’ “Hang On Sloopy” (“Es Lupe”) and the Monkees’ “Mary Mary.” Like most bands of their generation who lasted past 1967, they changed their sound with the times, going on to record boleros and other forms of traditional Mexican music into the 70s. Today, the garage-rock cult still reveres their classic 60s releases, some of which were compiled on the 2007 anthology La Gran Coleccion 60 Aniversario. Given their stylistic flexibility, it’s more than possible that Los Johnny Jets will dip into their traditional side during this set. However, the show is being DJed by Enrique Rico, known for his rockabilly record hops in Pilsen, so it’s a sure bet that the Jets will put on their rock ’n’ roll shoes. In any case, this piece of rock history is worth witnessing. —JAMES PORTER

Slow Pulp Babehoven open. 7 PM, Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport, sold out. 17+ Slow Pulp have been through a lot. First, lyricist and lead vocalist Emily Massey was diagnosed with Lyme disease and chronic mononucleosis. Next, the pandemic hit. Then, as the four-piece band, which formed in Madison before moving to Chicago in 2018, worked on their debut LP, 2020’s Moveys, Massey’s parents were injured in a serious car crash, and she returned to Wisconsin to care for them.

On their striking new album, Yard (Anti-), Slow Pulp show they’ve faced these challenges and come out stronger.

The band wrote and recorded most of their 2018 EP, Big Day, at a cabin in Michigan, and Yard follows that tradition—Massey began working on it during a solo stay at a friend’s family’s lakefront property in northern Wisconsin. The solitude of that experience seeps into her lyrics, which touch on seeing

a childhood home go up for sale (“Yard”), periodassociated self-loathing (“Cramps”), and varying stages and forms of relationships.

Like Slow Pulp’s previous releases (Moveys and four EPs), Yard incorporates folk, pop punk, and slacker rock. Here, those sounds are separated into distinct songs sequenced in a way that feels cohesive and organic. The band lean into thick guitar distortion and aggressive drumming on “Worm” and showcase an equally gritty but more melodic approach on “Slugs.” The new album also includes gentle, folk-forward tracks, including “Broadview.” Slow Pulp have previously added harmonica and violin to their music, and on Yard they’ve also brought in two banjos, played by guests Willie Christianson and Tyler Bussey.

Slow Pulp’s listenership has skyrocketed in the months leading up to the September release of Yard, and later this month they’ll head overseas to tour the UK and Europe. First, though, they’ll play this hometown show at Thalia Hall, which wraps up a string of U.S. dates. —DORA SEGALL

DJ Swisha & Kush Jones Jana Rush and D. Strange open. 10 PM, Smart Bar, 3730 N. Clark, $25, $20 in advance. 21+ New York dance DJs and producers DJ Swisha and Kush Jones befriended each other through Soundcloud, but they soon became part of the same footwork-loving collective, the Juke Bounce Werk crew. Their collaborative tracks thrum with giddy looseness and always feel like they could change shape at a moment’s notice. In February, they self-released (Respectfully), a joint EP built on the complex cross-stitched rhythms of footwork. Their piercing percussion pulses with serious heat, so that when Swisha and Jones add soothing synths and vocal samples, it’s like they’ve poured water onto the hot rocks in a sauna, and the whole EP fills up with steam. The heavenly “OMG” smooths over

MUSIC

Slow Pulp ALEXA VISCIUS

its serrated drum ’n’ bass beats with silken keys and honeyed vocals, and the song’s fusion of dropforged techno percussion and soulful human melody makes it feel as euphoric as any great dance cut since the dawn of house. —LEOR GALIL

MONDAY13 Skinny Puppy See also Tue 11/14 and Wed 11/15. Lead Into Gold open. 8 PM, House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn, $49.50. 17+ If you’re a Nine Inch Nails fan who has yet to heed the siren bark of Skinny Puppy, it’s not too late to fix your life. NIN came up in the scene opening for these Canadian industrial pioneers, and in a mid90s interview with a Dutch radio station, NIN founder Trent Reznor admitted that his band’s 1989 debut single, “Down in It,” was a rip-off of Skinny Puppy’s 1986 song “Dig It.” The vocal melodies don’t have much in common, and “Dig It” is definitely uglier and more brutal, but it’s easy to hear parallels between the two tracks’ layered, chattering rhythms and bursts of sandpapery noise. I guess imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery.

Kevin Crompton, aka cEvin Key, launched Skinny Puppy in 1982 in Vancouver, British Columbia, as a side project of new-wave band Images in Vogue. He initially wanted an outlet for his less radio-friendly, more avant-garde impulses, but when Images in Vogue relocated to Toronto in 1985, Key stayed behind and devoted himself to developing his pet project into a full-time beast. With the help of bandmate Nivek Ogre, aka Kevin Graham Ogilvie, Key developed a sound and attitude that have left an indelible mark on electronic music.

While their name likely originated as a throwaway word combo that stuck, Skinny Puppy have since mused that they make music about life as

experienced by a dog. Their records are hardly Air Bud soundtracks, though. Skinny Puppy create textured, punishing songs propelled by wails and drum machines and punctured by samples of things that sound like rocket launches and military coups. Across 12 studio albums and two EPs—some with canine-referencing titles such as Rabies and Bites—they’ve addressed animal rights, chemical warfare, environmental waste, and similar themes.

In 2014, they called attention to the ongoing humanrights violations at Guantanamo Bay by leveraging rumors that their music was being used to torture Gitmo prisoners. They supposedly billed the Pentagon $666,000 for unauthorized use of their work, but the Department of Defense denied ever receiving an invoice (Skinny Puppy in turn denied accusations that this was a publicity stunt to promote 2013’s The Weapon). Key and Ogre may have grown older, but their disgust for the horrors of man hasn’t waned a bit. Skinny Puppy are currently on their farewell tour, and two shows of their three-night stint at House of Blues have already sold out. Don’t sleep on your final chance to bask in the sweat and depravity of these true iconoclasts.

—MICCO CAPORALE

Kush Jones (left) and DJ Swisha BORIS HALAS

TUESDAY14 Skinny Puppy See Mon 11/13. Lead Into Gold open. 8 PM, House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn, sold out. 17+

WEDNESDAY15 Skinny Puppy See Mon 11/13. Lead Into Gold open. 8 PM, House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn, sold out. 17+ v

NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 39

EARLY WARNINGS

UPCOMING CONCERTS TO HAVE ON YOUR RADAR

b ALL AGES

GOSSIP WOLF A furry ear to the ground of the local music scene

Early Warnings newsletter: sign up here WED 2/14/2024 Kills 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ THU 2/22/2024 Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ TUE 2/27/2024 Silversun Pickups, Hello Mary 7:30 PM, the Vic b

Maxo DONOVAN NOVOTNY

NOVEMBER FRI 11/17 Adam Zanolini, Fred Jackson, Naydja Bruton, Sharon Udoh, and Ben LaMar Gay 7:30 PM, the Promontory b TUE 11/21 Cloud Houses, Fizz, Dogbod, Sleeping Villains 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ FRI 11/24 Femdot. 7:30 PM, Thalia Hall b Hedex 8:30 PM, Chop Shop, 18+ SAT 11/25 Maxo 7 PM, Subterranean b Sick Day, Llo Llo, Fake English 8 PM, Schubas F

FRI 12/22 Sons of the Never Wrong, John Erickson Trio 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b SAT 12/23 Mariachi Herencia de México 2 PM, 5 PM, and 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b FRI 12/29 Joe Hertler & the Rainbow Seekers, Of Good Nature 8 PM, Schubas SAT 12/30 Nnamdï and friends 9 PM, Empty Bottle

FRI 3/8/2024 Beartooth, Plot in You, Invent Animate, Sleep Theory 6 PM, Riviera Theatre b Eagles, Steely Dan 7:30 PM, United Center b TUE 3/12/2024 Dead by April 8 PM, Avondale Music Hall Kid Bloom 8 PM, Bottom Lounge b FRI 3/15/2024 Kooks, Vaccines, Daisy the Great 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre b Mclusky 7:30 PM, the Vic, 18+ SAT 3/23/2024 Forever Grey 9 PM, Empty Bottle

TUE 11/28 Urban Heat, Rare DM 9 PM, Empty Bottle

SUN 12/31 Local H’s New Year’s Eve Adventure 9 PM, Bottom Lounge Nnamdï and friends 10 PM, Empty Bottle

THU 3/28/2024 Bad Bunny 8 PM, United Center b

DECEMBER

BEYOND

SAT 3/30/2024 Bad Bunny 8 PM, United Center b

FRI 12/1 Mavis Staples 8 PM, Cahn Auditorium, Evanston b Leon Thomas 8 PM, Beat Kitchen b

SAT 1/6/2024 Western Elstons 8:30 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn

SUN 3/31/2024 Cmat 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 18+

SAT 12/2 Ella Vos 8 PM, Beat Kitchen b Freestyle & Flow Jam featuring Cynthia, Lisette Melendez, Ms. Krazie, Erik G, Angel, Someone.SM1, Kinto Sol, DJ Tim “Spinnin’” Schommer, DJ Payback Garcia 7 PM, Patio Theater, 18+ MON 12/11 Robot Civil War, Totally Cashed, Lollygagger, Background Character 8 PM, Sleeping Village WED 12/20 Delmark Blues and Jazz All-Stars Holiday Concert featuring Jimmy Burns & the Soul Message Band, Mud Morganfield, Billy Boy Arnold, Demetria Taylor, Mike Wheeler, and more 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+

FRI 1/12/2024 G. Love & Special Sauce, Jakobs Castle 8 PM, Park West, 18+ SAT 1/13/2024 Terence Blanchard with the E-Collective and Chicago Philharmonic 7:30 PM, Auditorium Theatre b TUE 1/23/2024 Los Rolling Ruanas 7:30 PM, Schubas, 18+ WED 1/31/2024 Young Gun Silver Fox 8 PM, Lincoln Hall

FRI 3/29/2024 Bad Bunny 8 PM, United Center b

SAT 4/13/2024 Jonathan Roy 7 PM, Bottom Lounge b FRI 4/26/2024 Augustana, Valley Boy 7:30 PM, Park West b SAT 5/4/2024 Our Last Night, Broadside, Sam Tinnesz 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre b SUN 6/9/2024 Jacob Collier, Emily King 7 PM, Aragon Ballroom b

WED 2/7/2024 Josh Ritter & the Royal City Band 7:30 PM, the Vic b

SAT 6/15/2024 New Kids on the Block, Paula Abdul, DJ Jazzy Jeff 7 PM, Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre, Tinley Park b

SAT 2/10/2024 Talk, Zinadelphia 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+

THU 10/24/2024 Iron Maiden 7:30 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont b v

40 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

SINCE 2013, local power trio Chicken Happen have been making excellent tunes that share more than a vibe with 90s alternative rock. Gossip Wolf can imagine the band landing a video or three in MTV’s Buzz Bin, alongside Veruca Salt, Jawbox, or maybe Letters to Cleo. Over the past few months, singer, guitarist, and keyboardist Lilly Choi, drummer Mark Gianforte, and bassist Zack Hjelmstad have been working on a new album with producer Chris Sutter (front man and guitarist for Meat Wave), who’s added vocals, synths, guitar, and percussion. They recorded with engineer Joe Gac (bassist for Meat Wave) at Kildare Studios, and Chicken Happen IV drops Friday, November 10. “These songs draw a lot of inspiration from R&B,” says Choi, “and are some of the most vulnerable songs I’ve ever written.” Over the years, Chicken Happen have shared stages with the likes of Lydia Lunch, No Men, Ovef Ow, and the Brokedowns, and on Sunday, November 19, they play a record-release show at Subterranean with openers Kate Wakefield, Bob Rok, and Hobbyist.

Chicago experimental label Hausu Mountain turns up in Gossip Wolf all the time, because its exceptional catalog just keeps growing. On October 27, HausMo dropped two more great cassettes: The Celebration from Ohio act Tiger Village and Surface from Ben Baker Billington’s long-running Quicksails project.

Ester is one of Gossip Wolf’s favorite local bands. In August the jazzy pop project, led by singer-songwriter Anna Holmquist, released the single “Seed, Sun, Soil,” which compares the effort to grow a plant with the struggle to stay present in a relationship. “This song is about how sad it is to watch the death of something you grew and nurtured,” Holmquist says. “Once after we played this live, someone enthusiastically told me that he wanted to share it with his Dungeons & Dragons group and I’ve never received a higher compliment.” In November, Ester will drop the eight-song EP Laundry, which includes “Seed, Sun, Soil,” and a few rerecorded tracks from the 2020 album Turn Around, many recorded as a duo with cellist Katelyn Cohen. If you thought Ester’s sparse, lovely songs couldn’t get any more sparse and lovely, you’re in for a treat. Holmquist has a Nick Drake-esque knack for embellishing their

songs with a haunting sense of empathy and self-forgiveness.

Jeff Lescher became a Chicago powerpop phenomenon in the 1980s as the main songwriter of the band Green, and over the decades he’s been the sole constant member.

Lescher has recently started releasing solo material, debuting in late 2019 with the album All Is Grace. Lescher recently contacted Gossip Wolf with news of a second solo full-length, Larks of Avon, which showcases Lescher’s affinity for slow, doe-eyed balladeering with shaggy frenzied numbers—this wolf is pretty keen on the frazzled warmth of the propulsive “Not Like This Time.” On Saturday, November 4 , Lescher celebrates the arrival of Larks of Avon with a release party at Phyllis’ Musical Inn. On Thursday, November 2, Chicago’s hiphop scene will gather at Logan Square tavern the Double (3545 W. Fullerton) for Fresh Ofrenda, a celebration of the culture’s ancestors—especially the late Parker Lee Williams, aka DJ P-Lee Fresh, who died in December 2021. Akbar, Williams’s longtime collaborator in the duo Mental Giants, will perform selections from a forthcoming album; MozDef, Illanoize, and Kay-Aye will spin.

Halloween in Chicago would feel incomplete without new music from underground dance producer Beau Wanzer—his synthetic sounds can get your blood pumping as reliably as a splatter movie. On October 27, Indiana label Sophomore Lounge dropped Gub, the debut full-length from the duo Gub, aka Wanzer and Alex Barnett of Champagne Mirrors. Gub’s low-groaning tracks will make you wish David Cronenberg had directed a body-horror flick set in a dance club—they’d be a perfect soundtrack.

In September, this wolf mentioned the debut EP of a new postpunk project called Model Living that features Matt Ciani of Arthhur and Flesh of the Stars. Ciani’s friends and bandmates have also been busy lately: folky indie duo Coventry (featuring Mike Fox of Arthhur) debuted later in September with Our Lady of Perpetual Health. And last week, Flesh of the Stars dropped their first full-length album in four years, the mammoth prog-metal opus The Glass Garden.

—J.R. NELSON AND LEOR GALIL Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or email gossipwolf@chicagoreader.com.

ll

ll

SAVAGE LOVE

3730 N CLARK ST METROCHICAGO.COM @METROCHICAGO

SUN NOV 05 THIS ROAD I’M ON TOUR

PAUL CAUTHEN

SEX AND RELATIONSHIPS

Paying tribute

WED NOV 08

ZACK FOX + Sky Jetta

with special guest Tanner Usrey

If I only knew him from the gym, should I be grieving?

By DAN SAVAGE

SAT NOV 11

HALF MOON RUN

THU NOV 09 RIOT FEST WELCOMES

ANGEL DU$T

+ Candy / BIB / 9Million

Q: Young and gay gym

member here. A few

years ago, I was alone in the sauna when this older guy asked if he could massage my feet. I’m pretty vanilla but he didn’t seem like a menacing pervert. So, I took your advice (I’ve been a reader of your column forever) and used my words.

I told him he could massage my feet on the condition that he didn’t do anything else. He respected my boundary, so I let him do it again, and it turned into a regular thing. We would nod to each other in the weight room and he would follow me into the sauna when I was done working out.

We started to make stupid small talk to relieve the tension (sexual for him, regular for me) and it turned out that he worked in the field that I wanted to go into. (I can’t be more specific than that, sorry.) He offered to take a look at my resume, and then wrote me a letter of recommendation that eventually led to a job offer.

Here our story takes a sad turn. The older guy died. I’m not sure how to process what I’m feeling.

We emailed a little, but we never met outside of the gym. Am I allowed to feel grief? And should I go to his funeral? It’s not a private ceremony but how would I explain my presence to his

family? I didn’t know this man socially and I feel like saying, “I knew your husband and father from the gym,” might raise questions or suspicions. He was bisexual but not out and I don’t want to cause his family any additional pain. —GETTING YOUR MEANING

a: I’m guessing you haven’t

buried anyone close to you yet—maybe a grandparent, but not a parent or a partner.

So here’s how condolences work at funerals.

If someone wants to express their condolences to the immediate family of the deceased, that person approaches the family before or after the service.

If that person is unknown to the family, that person can mention (but isn’t obligated to mention) how they knew the deceased before expressing their sympathy (“I’m so sory for your loss”).

It’s meant to be a brief interaction—you want to acknowledge their grief, not burden them with your own—and it’s an entirely optional one. If you don’t want to say something to the family, or don’t know what to say, you don’t have to approach the family.

There were a lot of people at my mother’s funeral that I didn’t know, GYM, and some of those strangers (strangers to me, not my mother) approached me, my siblings, my stepfather, and my

mother’s siblings to express their condolences. Some did not. But we were grateful to each and every person who came to my mom’s funeral, whether they approached us or not, and we didn’t run around asking strangers how they knew my mother.

For all I know, GYM, there were a dozen people at my mother’s funeral whose feet she rubbed in the sauna at the gym we didn’t know she belonged to. So, go to the funeral, dress appropriately, sit in the back, don’t be surprised if you recognize a few faces from the gym (I’m guessing the deceased didn’t have a monogamous relationship with your feet), and don’t feel obligated to approach the family. If someone sitting in your pew asks how you knew the deceased, feel free to tell (part of) the truth: “We went to the same gym, he gave me some professional advice, and I really appreciated his friendship.”

And . . .

I’m sorry for your loss, GYM. Your share of the grief is tiny compared to that of this man’s wife and kids, but he touched your life (not just your feet), and your grief is real, meaningful, and touching. v Ask your burning questions, download podcasts, read full column archives, and more at the URL savage.love. m mailbox@savage.love

+ Billie Marten

SATURDAY NOV 04 / 7:30PM / ALL AGES

HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER

TU E SD AY NO V 28 / 8 PM / 18 + KIC KSTA ND P RODUC T IONS & M ET RO P R ESENT

IMMINENCE

with special guest Sylvie

WEDNESDAY NOV 15 / 7:30PM / 18 + THE BUNNY TOUR

BEACH FOSSILS + Turnover / Sword II

F RI D AY D E C 0 8 / 8 PM / 18 + R IOT FEST A ND T HE L AW R ENC E A RM S P R ESENT

THE 9TH ANNUAL WAR ON XMAS

+ We Are The Union / Pkew Pkew Pkew

F RI DAY NOV 17 / 8PM / 18+

LUCERO / JASON BOLAND & THE STRAGGLERS SATURDAY NOV 25 / 8PM / 18 +

MUSIC FOR MARS Liquid Soul Ft. Mars Williams

DEC 09 DEC 10 DEC 16 DEC 23 JAN 10 MAR 02 MAR 22 APR 25

9TH ANNUAL WAR ON XMAS GINGER ROOT THE ARMED SINCERE ENGINEER PLAID CODE ORANGE CLAIRE ROSINKRANZ MIKE

SMARTBARCHICAGO.COM 3730 N CLARK ST | 21+

FRI NOV 03 NDATL ft.

ASH LAURYN BYRON THE AQUARIUS KAI ALCÉ SAT NOV 04

KINK SHAUN J. WRIGHT SEVRON THUR NOV 09 Inferno ft.

GLAMOUR CADAVER KOBE DUPREE FLORES NEGRAS

Laid Back | Cold Beer | Live Music

21+

@GMANTAVERN GMANTAVERN.COM 3740 N CLARK ST

NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 41

CLASSIFIEDS JOBS GENERAL

HOUSING RENTALS

AUDITIONS PROFESSIONALS &

SERVICES CLEANING

MATCHES ADULT SERVICES

JOBS Medline Industries, LP in Chicago, IL is seek’g Sr. Java Developers to be responsible for dsgn’g & implmnt’g solt’ns for var biz initiatives. No trvl req’d; WFH benefit avail.

Apply at: https://medline. taleo.net/careersection/ md_confidential/jobapply.ftl?lang=en&job=INF0100YE Software Engineer S o f t w a r e E n g i n e e r.

Develop and maintain apps for Kiosk systems.

Req. Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related. Proficient in Android, iOS, HTML5, CSS3, Java and SQL. Worksite: Chicago, IL. Wa g e : $ 7 3 , 9 6 5 / y e a r.

Send resume: INFI USA Inc., 159 N Sangamon Street, Suite 200, Chicago, IL 60607.

Operations Manager Operations Manager: Direct, coord activities of employees of constr comp to max profits. Plan & develop org policies & goals. Coord marketing, sales, advertising. Comm w/ clients, employees, subcontractors. Plan/ manage business budget. Analyze financials.

Prep contracts, proposals & estimates for constr bids. Prep docs for accountant, 2 yrs exp as operations manager or in any business management related position.

HS. Must speak Polish.

Res: All Concrete Chicago, Inc. 9707 S 76th Ave, Bridgeview IL 60455 Curam Developer(s) RedMane Technology LLC seeks Curam Developer(s) in Chicago, IL to develop and implement object-oriented n-tier software applications, including web-based applications, using Curam software. Telecommuting permitted. Email resume to yourcareer@redmane. com; reference job code D7038-00102. E.O.E. Medline Industries, LP in Northfield, IL is seek’g Sr. IS Business Systems Analysts (RIMS) to deliver solut’ns across Quality MGMT Systms landscape, & Regulatory Info MGMT System (RIMS). No trvl; WFH benefit avail. Apply at: https://medline.taleo. net/careersection/ md_confidential/jobapply. ftl?lang=en&job=INF0100YF Medline Industries, LP in Mundelein, IL is seek’g A) Developer Analysts III (ABAP) to dvlp quality techn’l solt’ns us’g ABAP code. No trvl; WFH benefit avail. Must be avail as on-call supprt for critical issues dur’g non-work’g hrs. Apply at: https://medline. taleo.net/careersection/ md_confidential/jobapply. ftl?lang=en&job=IN-

42 CHICAGO READER - NOVEMBER 2, 2023

F0100YD; & B) Managers, IS Applications (IS Solutions Delivery Manager – SAP Finance & Controlling) to steer overall direction of financial & functionality. No trvl req’d; WFH benefit avail.

Apply at: https://medline. taleo.net/careersection/ md_confidential/jobapply.ftl?lang=en&job=INF0100YA U4 Business World Consultant U4 Business World Consultant sought

by Systems Accountants Inc. in Chicago, IL to utilize the UNIT4 Business World (formerly Agresso) product and modules and maintain an appreciation of all UNIT4 product families. Position requires a Bachelor’s degree or foreign equivalent degree in Computer Science, or a related field, and five (5) years of experience utilizing the Unit4 Business World product and modules, IT processes and systems; implementing and enhancing Unit4 products and modules (including the Core Financials, Procurement, Project Costing & Billing, Human Resources and Payroll); configuring and testing system functionalities to overcome deficiencies; participating in development projects utilizing ERP software such as Business World; developing and configuring Business World systems; assisting with the implementation of functionality changes for new and existing Business World users. Two (2) of these five (5) years of experience should include management experience of supervising a team of three or more analysts and managing development projects from start to finish for projects such as Concur and Unit4 Business World upgrades. Any suitable combination of education, training or experience is acceptable. Send resumes to Systems Accountants, Inc. at jack@ systemsaccountants. com.

Telecommunications Engineer Kerlink US Inc- Chicago, IL Telecommunications Engineer Dvlp & troubleshoot telecommunication software for LoRaWAN gateways & LoRa Network Server (LNS). Min educ req’d: Mstr Deg in Electronics Engrg, or similar. Min exp req’d: 5 yrs as Telecommunications Engineer or similar, knowledge of Linux, LoRa networks & LoRaWAN protocol, ability to dvlp & troubleshoot connectivity software.

Send resume to: H.R., Kerlink US Inc., 1907 West Warner Ave., Chicago, IL 60613 Trader PEAK6 Capital Management LLC seeks Trader in Chicago, IL to test & analyze trading strategies on the market

by employ’ng data-driven frmwrk to monitor posttrade analytics & improve strategy performance.

Reqs. Bachelor’s degree o r f o re i g n e q u i v i n Statistics, Economics, or rel. field & 2 yrs of postbaccalaureate exp. as Trader, Trading Assoc., or rel. role. Exp. must incl. eval’tng investment portfolios & performing options trading; utilizing Python to buy & sell stocks. Pos’n will be HQ’d in Chicago, IL but is a telecommuting pos’n, allowing for remote emplymnt f/var. unanticipated worksites throughout U.S. Email resume: svallette@peak6. com Financial Manager P ro - Te c h S a l e s C o .

Inc.-1 opening Appl reqs Bach. degree in technical management + 1yr exp in financial analysis/ preparing financial reports/developing internal policies, cost accounting & annual budget, etc. Send resume by email to accounting@ protechcompanyinc.com or to 2802 Hitchcock Ave, Downers Grove, IL 60515.

Project Architect & Studio Design Lead: Send resume to: Harken Interiors LLC, 1431 W Hubbard St, Ste 204, Chicago, IL, 60642. Attn: J. Moser.

MANAGER, BACKBOOK RISK Affirm, Inc. has job opp. in Chicago, IL: Manager, Backbook Risk. Dvlp & execute end-to-end r i s k rd m a p f o r t h e dvplmt, implemntatn & evolutn of repaymt & loan modificatn tools, stratgies & policies.

Sal ary: $197,246 to $256,500 per year. To apply email resumes referencing Req. #MBK97 to Recruitment@affirm. com Consulting Senior Manager with Crowe, LLP (Chicago, IL) – pln, drct, or crdnt actvts in such fields as electrnc dta prcssng, info sys, sys anlys, & cmptr prgrmg.

Remote work avail. Reqs ed & exp. For full details, all reqs & how to apply, visit bit.ly/Crowe44153 Software Architect with Crowe, LLP (Chicago, IL) – pln, drct, or coord actvts in such fields as electrnc dta prcssng, info sys, sys anlys, & cmptr prgrmmng. Remote work avail. Reqs ed & exp. For full job details, all reqs & how to apply, visit bit.ly/ Crowe44155 ENGINEERING/ TECHNOLOGY DRW Holdings LLC has openings in Chicago, IL for following positions:

LEAD FPGA ENGINEER (Position ID FE/IL/F046) to architect / implement new FPGA apps. Req BS CS, EE, or rel & 5 yrs prog post-bacc exp; SOFTWARE DEVELOPER (Position ID SD/IL/M051) to develop, maintain, support best in class SW sys for trading desk.

Req BS in CS or rel & 6 mo exp. Email resume to apply@drw.com, Attn: M. CARTER. Must ref.

Position ID to ensure consideration for proper position. EOE. QUANTITATIVE TRADING ANALYST DRW Holdings LLC has opening in Chicago, IL for following position: QUANTITATIVE TRADING ANALYST (Position ID QA/IL/Y052) to analyze, research, dev, trade systematic strategies. Req MS in Fin Math, Fin, Fin Engr, CS, or rel. Email resume to apply@drw.com, Attn: M. CARTER. Must ref. Position ID to ensure consideration for proper position. EOE. (Chicago, IL) PEAK6 Capital Management LLC seeks Software Engineer I w/ Bach or for deg equiv in CS, CIS, IM, Eng or rltd fld & 2 yrs exp in job offered or sftwre dev. Also accepts Mast or for deg equiv in CS, CIS, IM, Eng or rltd fld & 1 yr exp in job offer or sftwre dev. Must have exp in Linux platform, Python libr, Pandas, NumPy, PyArrow, Scikitlearn. Apply online https://peak6.com/ careers/ or to HR, 141 W. Jackson Blvd., Suite 500, Chicago, IL 60604 MULTIPLE POSITIONS Uber Technologies, Inc. has multiple positions (various levels/types) open in Chicago, IL for the following. Some positions may telecommute from home. To apply refer to Ref# & email resume to: resumes_uberus@ uber.com. Engineering Manager (Ref#: 6886483) Collaborate with various program and platform teams to develop technical roadmaps for engineering initiatives. $186000 - $228000/yr.

Customer Success Operations Manager (Ref#: 6716534) Work with other members of the Account Management and Sales teams along with Central and Strategic Operations to build and optimize processes, drive operational efficiency, and report on process and vertical performance. $96500 - $118000/yr Behavioral Health Counselor Esperanza Health Centers seeks Behavioral Health Counselor in Chicago, IL to provide counseling, comprehensive assessments,

treatment planning & appropriate interventions.

Requires master’s in social work, counseling psychology or related; 2 yrs. exp. providing mental health counseling & interventions; IL LCPC or LCSW license. Send CV to hr@esperanzachicago.org. Use job code BHC1123.

HOUSING Northcenter/ Lincoln Square rental with designer kitchen Located between Lincoln Square and Northcenter, and near the North branch of the river, is sleek 2 flat with an eat in kitchen perfect for cooks. 2 bedrooms with spacious closets, hardwood floors, shared laundry. Available garage parking. The building is close to both Horner Park and Welles Park. So many good coffee shops, restaurants, bookstores! Also walking distance to the “L” at Rockwell or Western. 2506 W. Cullom Ave. Unit 1

AUDITIONS Hot cool female wanted for pics clips etc Fun cool clean safe discreet secret Call 773-977-8862

a smaller home. With your help, we can help to organize your move.

We can organize and clean for the deceased in lieu of having the bereaved needing to do the preparation to sell or rent the deceased’s home.

We are absolutely not judgmental; we’ve seen and done “worse” than your job assignment.

With your help, can we please help you? Chestnut Cleaning Service: 312-332-5575. www.

ChestnutCleaning.com

M AT C H E S A l l ro m a n t i c d a t e s women wanted All romantic fun dates all requests 24.7 Call (773) 977-8862 swm MWM 58 Seeks Couple 45-60 for Threesome Fun Clean, Fun-loving down to earth male seeks a fun couple for some fun together! Love lots of oral fun and touching fun!

MJM 52 SEEKS JEWISH FEMALE WEEKEND P L AY M AT E M J M 5 2 SEEKS JEWISH FEMALE WEEKEND PLAYMATE HOT OIL AND ORAL MASSAGES SPANKING BONDAGE DISCREET LT R H O S T C A L L / TEXT-224-292-9899 Seeking Real, Sexy D/ MWF to Enjoy Some Closeness I’m a late 50’s MWM, seeking a down-to-earth woman for some time together.

Love conversation, music and spending time with friends. Let’s connect!

MWM DOM 52 SEEKS SUBMISSIVE WHITE FEMALE 40’s 50’s MWM DOM 52 SEEKS SUBMISSIVE WHITE FEMALE 40’s 50’s TRAIN BONDAGE ORAL SPANKING PLEASURE PUNISHMENT HOST CALL/ TEXT-224-292-9899.

Experienced drummer wanted for established C h i c a g o f u n k ro c k band. Email ja.shellist@ gmail.com.

A D U LT

IDM / EDM ARTISTS NEEDED Original music only. Contact: idm-edm. com

Danielle’s Lip Service, Erotic Phone Chat. 24/7.

Must be 21+. Credit/ Debit Cards Accepted.

All Fetishes and Fantasies Are Welcomed. Personal, Private and Discrete.

773-935-4995

PROFESSIONALS

& SERVICES

SERVICES

CLEANING SERVICES CHESTNUT ORGANIZING AND CLEANING SERVICES: especially for people who need an organizing service because of depression, elderly, physical or mental challenges or other causes for your home’s clutter, disorganization, dysfunction, etc. We can organize for the downsizing of your current possessions to more easily move into

WANT TO ADD A LISTING TO OUR CLASSIFIEDS? Go to classifieds.chicagoreader.com

ll

ll

REP THE

READER!

the

platform Local Goods & Services

HOME IMPROVEMENT

BOOKS A premier contractor serving Chicago and the surrounding areas since 1976.

store.chicagoreader.com

We offer remodeling, repairs, maintenance work, spray foam installation, and much more.

Contact for more info!

(773) 528-1671 | thebuildingdoc@hotmail.com | garyjbuilder.com Let us take you from

GRIME to

SHINE! (219) 219-0049

Trash Cans, Recycle Bins, Dumpsters, Driveways, Sidewalks, Siding, Graffiti & More!

Mobile Unit - We come to you.

• High-pressure, high-heat power washing to clean & sanitize • Commercial & residential pressure washing • Eco-friendly cleaning • One-time, monthly or quarterly cleanings

A collection of profiles and features hand-picked by Ben from his 40 years of writing for the Reader.

SHOP LOCAL

To advertise, e-mail ads@chicagoreader.com NOVEMBER 2, 2023 - CHICAGO READER 43

WRIGHTWOOD

CHICAGO

TECHNOLOGY BRINGS US TOGETHER...

WHY DO WE FEEL SO ALONE? 17 ARTISTS EXPLORE THE PROMISE & DANGER OF OUR DIGITAL WORLD IN THIS AWARD-WINNING EXHIBITION

THIS EXHIBITION IS PRESENTED BY ALPHAWOOD EXHIBITIONS AT WRIGHTWOOD 659.

DIFFERENCE MACHINES: TECHNOLOGY AND IDENTITY IN CONTEMPORARY ART IS ORGANIZED

BY THE BUFFALO AKG ART MUSEUM.

OCT/13 - DEC/16 | wrightwood659.org