Chicago Reader print issue of November 25, 2021 (Vol. 51, No. 4)

Death doulas provide comfort in the face of the unknown

By ADAM M. RHODES 12

14 Reid | Invisible How are nonprofit boards dealing with cra ing a vision of social justice within their organizations?

THEATER

CHICAGO READER | NOVEMBER 25, 2021 | VOLUME 51, NUMBER 4

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

of pandemic delays, and Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart of Ohmme team up with theater artists Alex Grelle and Jesse Morgan Young for an over-the-top Kate Bush showcase.

CITY LIFE

04 Inkling Farewell to my lovely denim jumpsuit

NEWS & POLITICS

06 Garcia | Noticias en Español Una breve investigación sobre la desaparición de los buzones de periódicos

08 Joravsky | Politics The Rittenhouse verdict is part of MAGA’s effort to move America to the right.

NONPROFITS

10 Isaacs | Culture A COVID vaccine research report from the anti-mandate camp

18

12 Rhodes | Passages Death doulas provide comfort in the face of the unknown.

ARTS & CULTURE

22 Lit Chicago author Lori RaderDay rediscovers the Blitz with Death at Greenway

23 Book Review A new book on John Prine explores the musician’s roots.

26 Graphic Novels Most of Lane Milburn’s Lure takes place in space, but it feels deeply rooted in Chicago sensibilities.

28 Dance Paradise Square calls for community amid conflict.

29 Greene | Native Daughter Tyla Abercrumbie on calling The Chi home

31 Plays of Note Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins is a charming holiday treat, Love Actually gets an (unauthorized!) musical, and Hundred Days is heartbreakingly beautiful.

FILM

32 Review The Power of the Dog, Jane Campion’s first film in 12 years, is among the year’s best.

34 Movies of Note King Richard is buoyed by a career-defining turn from Will Smith, C’mon C’mon is li ed by the chemistry of the cast, and Mckenna Grace carries Ghostbusters: A erlife

MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE

36 Chicagoans of Note David Weathersby, documentary filmmaker

40 Early Warnings Rescheduled concerts and other updated listings

40 Gossip Wolf Round Trip Records opens its brick-andmortar shop a er almost two years

42 Shows and Records of Note Previews of concerts by Kirby Grip, Olivia Block, Mzz Reese & Reese’s Pieces, and others, plus reviews of releases by Femdot, Narrow Head, and Robert Görl & DAF

OPINION

48 Pandemic Why I’m not rushing to get my six-year-old the COVID-19 vaccine

Savage Love Dan Savage tells readers to get out of the house, do shit, go places, and meet people.

CLASSIFIEDS

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REPORTER’S NOTE

AT A RECENT community meeting about the media coverage of Little Village at St. Agnes of Bohemia School, residents raised concerns about lack of access to digital news. “Why should people pay for a digital subscription if coverage is not in their main language?” one person asked. It echoes the point of a 2020 Nieman Lab report that immigrants are at the bottom of the news chain due to language barriers and lack of critical reporting from their perspective.

KELLY GARCIA, STAFF WRITER

Read about Kelly’s search for news boxes, translated into Spanish, on page six. The English version, excerpted above from “If you’re reading this it’s not too late,” is on chicagoreader.com.

DIRECTORS ALISON CUDDY, VANESSA FERNANDEZ, KIM L. HUNT, JACKIE KAPLAN-PERKINS, DOROTHY R. LEAVELL, SLADJANA VUCKOVIC

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Ingenuity Edgar Miller’s handmade homes have become wellsprings of inspiration for local artists.

Dill Pickle and Mercato: A partnership based on shared values

The whole idea behind local food cooperatives (“co-ops”) is to operate on principles, rather than just doing what’s cheapest, easiest, or most convenient. Why give money to corporations when you can directly support neighborhood vendors and have a real say in how you shop and consume?

The Dill Pickle Food Co-op serves as a stellar example of a co-op with strong values, not only in how they operate day-to-day, but also in who they do business with.

This holiday season, Dill Pickle will partner with Mercato for delivery, making it easier than ever to equitably shop for food from home—while helping others along the way. For both Dill Pickle and Mercato, every meal counts. More than 18 million children in the U.S. are food insecure, which means that it’s more important than ever to be thoughtful about where your food comes from. Every coop order you place through Mercato also helps a hungry family in need. Plus, you’ll get $75 of free groceries when you sign up.

Learn more about the history and importance of co-ops at chicagoreader.com/reader-partners/theco-op-wars/.

This sponsored content is paid for by The Dill Pickle Food Co-op.

Open 7 AM - 10 PM daily | 2746 N Milwaukee Ave Chicago, IL 60647 | (773) 252-2667 | dillpickle.coop

Farewell, my lovely jumpsuit

By MEGAN KIRBY

Every time I opened my closet, I saw the jumpsuit. Thick denim, dark blue, with a wide 70s-style lapel—beautiful, even on the hanger. Whenever I spotted it, my heart sank. Because it used to fit me, and now it didn’t.

I know all bodies change, but I feel betrayed when mine does. Over 18 months of weathering the pandemic, my body shifted, but my wardrobe stayed the same: gorgeous plus-sized vintage clothes I could no longer pull up over my thighs or button over my chest. I’d sift through the hangers with a certain wistful toxicity: Maybe one day I’ll be that skinny again. It didn’t feel good to constantly compare my current self to my past self, but it also felt involuntary, as mindless as checking my Twitter notifications.

In my heart, I knew it was time to be merciless. I needed to get rid of all of the clothes that didn’t fit me anymore, no exceptions. Turns out, cleaning out my closet was a minefield of emotional turmoil.

I am fat. I have always been fat. I spent most of my teens and 20s hating my body, hiding it behind oversized hoodies and control top tights, living on tuna packets and Crystal Light and avoiding looking in the mirror when I got out of the shower. And yes, I was affected by gross dudes who berated me on the Red Line, or the urgent care doctor who prescribed diet pills for an ear infection. But as I got older, I realized that most often, the call was coming from inside the house. My own brain was crueler than anyone else could ever be.

So I instituted a new rule: No negative selftalk. I strove towards body neutrality—and once I got better at silencing my inner bully, I found that sometimes, I could actually love my fat body. I loved my body on long walks, my legs strong and my brain buzzing. I loved my body dancing alone in my apartment to Charli XCX. And I loved my body in the outfits I carefully curated from hours at thrift stores—the way the clothes made me feel

fashionable and desirable and visible in a way I used to fear.

Finding cool clothes is tough when you’re fat. I felt bitter. How brutally unfair, to spend years of time and money to build up a beloved wardrobe, only to outgrow my favorite pieces. When you’re above a size 12, replacing a piece isn’t as simple as running to the mall. I find my best clothes at thrift stores and vintage shops, which ties me to a long line of chubby babes who came before. That gave my closet purge an extra layer of sentimentality.

I eulogized each item before tossing it into the donation pile. The severe green linen dress I wore to a Chicago Zine Fest kick-off party: Farewell, my darling. The matching shirt and pants printed with cartoon cocktails that made me feel like Post Malone: I’ll never forget you.

It’s not just that the clothes didn’t serve me anymore; clinging to them was causing me harm. I loved these clothes, but the only future in which I could imagine wearing them again was full of crash diets. And I had to remember: I wasn’t happier or hotter or healthier in the past. I was just skinnier. And I was ready to let that go. But the jumpsuit, oh the jumpsuit. I wore it to a zine release party I threw with a best friend. The night was full of whiskey cocktails and white candles and art and poems projected on the walls. All my favorite people in Chicago, toasting and laughing. And me at the center, in red lipstick and a denim jumpsuit, just sparkling. It felt like letting go of the jumpsuit meant letting go of that girl. But that’s not really how things work. I’ll always have that night. And there are more magic

nights and incredible outfits in the future, spread out through the whole of my life.

Now that I’m vaccinated, I can hit the Village Discount Outlet, the chaotic center of the Chicago thrifting universe. I’m on the hunt for “new” clothes that fit and make me feel good. I can tell I have a deeper understanding of my body and style, and that fi lls the search with a fresh joy. When my arms strain with options, I claim a spot in front of the coveted store mirror to try everything on, and I think, “Damn, I look good.”

In a perfect world, my discarded clothes deserved a Viking funeral. I wanted to douse them in lighter fluid and push them out on Lake Michigan on a pool floatie, carbon footprint be damned. In reality, I just threw the bag in my sister’s trunk and asked if we could run to the donation bin.

Catch and release, baby: Return to the sea from whence you came. It’s better this way. Because maybe one day I’ll go to a party full of soft light and conversation, and I’ll see a fat babe wearing a familiar, incredible jumpsuit. And I’ll walk across the room and say, “Hey, you look so, so cool.” v

@megankirb

The clothes didn’t serve me anymore. MEGAN KIRBY

MEGAN KIRBY

Now you can have Grandma’s cookies every day.

AARP advocates for multigenerational housing in your community.

Chicago’s new Additional Dwelling Unit ordinances give aging adults more choices on how and where they live. They allow people to convert attics, basements, and backyards into additional living spaces so people can live with their family as they get older. We support multigenerational housing and are proud that these options are available to five zones in Chicago hopefully more soon. As your wise friend and fierce defender, AARP is always in your corner working to help you keep your family together as loved ones grow older. Find out how to update your home at makeroomforfamily.org

Si está leyendo esto, no es muy tarde

Una breve investigación sobre la desaparición de los buzones de periódicos

Por KELLY GARCÍA

Semanas atrás, yo reporté sobre cómo el hermano del concejal del Distrito 12, George Cardenas, se benefició de rentar un estacionamiento de una escuela primaria durante el Riot Fest. Fue un breve artículo en la edición del 14 de octubre de South Side Weekly, uno que reveló una familia que ganó dinero a través de conexiones con políticos locales. En otras palabras, negocio como lo de siempre en Chicago.

El distrito 12 en el lado suroeste de la ciudad incluye partes de McKinley Park, La Villita y Brighton Park, donde al menos el 50 por ciento de la población habla español. El artículo fue publicado en inglés y en español. Quería tener en mis manos algunas copias del periódico para distribuirlas a los residentes del barrio, incluyendo los que entrevisté.

La mañana que salió el periódico, usé la mapa de distribución de South Side Weekly para encontrar el buzón de periódicos más cercano. La esquina de la 22 y Damen es una

de las zonas más residenciales de Pilsen, con mínimo tráfico peatonal y una parada de autobús. No encontré ningún buzón. Caminé un par de cuadras al norte y al sur de Damen, pero no había nada. Pensé que habían quitado el buzón por alguna buena razón.

Entonces continué hacia el oeste desde Damen a Marshall Boulevard en La Villita. Era una caminada de 30 minutos—o diez minutos por autobús—hacia el siguiente buzón, al menos según el mapa. Tomé la Cermak, una calle de doble carriles muy transitada y llena de carnicerías, restaurantes y talleres. Pensé que iba a encontrar un buzón de periódicos en algún lugar del camino.

Pero de nuevo, no encontré nada. Llegué a Marshall boulevard, cerca de Douglass Park, donde normalmente hay familias recogiendo a sus hijos de la escuela. No pude encontrar un buzón de periódicos por ningún lado. No eran solamente los buzones de South Side Weekly, tampoco no pude encontrar buzones

del Reader, New City, o de las RedEye. Era un desierto de periódicos, sin medios de comunicación y poca cobertura.

Ahora sé lo que estás pensando: ¿quién todavía toma el periódico de los buzones? Los periódicos, como nos han dicho, son una cosa del pasado.

En el 2020, el New York Times reportó una adición récord de 2.3 millones de suscripciones digitales. Mientras tanto, las publicaciones físicas solamente agregaron 833,000 suscripciones. Al principio de este año, el Tampa Bay Times redujo la publicación de sus periódicos por cinco días. Unos meses después, cerraron la planta de impresa y lo vendieron. Incluso el Reader, el periódico semanal alternativo que está leyendo en este momento, cambió su tiempo de publicación a cada dos semanas.

Los resultados de Google también sirven para recordarnos de nuestro futuro: “Los periódicos están desapareciendo más rápido de lo que crees”. “Los periódicos están muertos. Que viva el periódico”. “La lenta y triste muerte del periódico”.

Los periódicos han estado en rebaje durante décadas. Pero, como una empleada recientemente contratada para uno de los periódicos gratuitos de Chicago, puedo decirle que el periódico sigue vivo. Muchos periódicos más chicos, como nosotros, todavía dependen de los periódicos físicos. Cuándo algo nos impide distribuir el periódico, como la falta de buzones, el impacto le duele más a nuestra audiencia, especialmente a las personas que no reciben nuestras noticias de otra manera.

En una reciente reunión comunitaria sobre la cobertura de los medios de La Villita en la escuela St. Agnes de Bohemia, los residentes expresaron su preocupación por la falta de acceso a las noticias digitales. Preguntaban, ¿“Por qué deberíamos pagar una suscripción digital si las noticias no están en nuestra idioma principal”? Era similar al punto de un reporte de Nieman Lab que los immigrantes están en la parte inferior de la cadena de noticias debido a las dificultades del idioma y la falta de noticias desde su punto de vista.

Por esa razón fue traducido ese artículo sobre el trato del estacionamiento en South Side Weekly. ¿De qué otra manera se enterarían algunos residentes de La Villita?

Caminé hacia el sur desde Cermak a la academia escolar de Maria Saucedo. Las altas columnas que saludan a los visitantes en la entrada enseñan el legado enorme del edificio de la escuela. En alguna vez fue conocido como la Harrison Technical High School; ahora contiene dos escuelas primarias, la escuela Telpochcalli y Maria Saucedo. Durante las tardes, los padres esperan afuera por sus hijos mientras los vendedores callejeros preparan chicharrones y raspados.

El estacionamiento al lado de la escuela, el sitio donde ocurrió el trato, no es más pequeño que la escuela. Estuve allí apenas una semana anterior hablando con los residentes del vecindario, aquellos que estaban ansiosos por leer sobre un intento de “vender su vecindario” en el periódico. No pude encontrar un buzón por ningún lado.

Caminé al sur otros diez minutos hacia la cárcel del condado de Cook. El único otro lugar para encontrar un buzón de periódicos en La Villita, según el mapa, fue en la 26 y California. De hecho, allí estaba. Me lleve unas copias, las distribuí a los vendedores callejeros y metí algunas más en los buzones de correo.

Me tomó una hora para encontrar el periódico de South Side Weekly. Jason Schumer, el gerente director de South Side Weekly, sabía exactamente cómo me sentía.

Hace unos años, Schumer notó que faltaban media docena de cajas en las paradas de tren y autobús de CTA. Un representante del Departamento de Transporte de Chicago (CDOT) le dijo que la ciudad normalmente elimina las cajas para aclarar las veredas. Schumer notó que sucedería frecuentemente durante los maratones. “Estaba frustrado porque desde nuestro punto de vista, al ser un periódico más pequeño, es un gran problema perder seis buzones”, me dijo. “Es inconveniente para nosotros porque no podemos comprar nuevos, confi amos en reusar los que ya tenemos”.

Los buzones de periódicos cuestan entre $200 y $250. Sustituirlos es un costo enorme para South Side Weekly, que sólo tiene al máximo 240 ubicaciones de distribución, incluyendo 45 buzones y una circulación de 8,000 periódicos. También dependen de los negocios y bibliotecas locales para distribuir los periódicos.

“No creo que la gente a veces pase por las cajas y tomen un periódico”, dijo Clemente Nicado, fundador de Hoy, el periódico en español del Chicago Tribune que fue discontinuado. Ahora Nicado es el jefe de

El “cementerio de los periódicos” fotografi ado en el 2018. JASON SCHUMER

NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL

Nicado Publishing Company, la organización coordinadora de Negocios Now y El Chicago Hispano, que publican totalmente en español. Ellos no usan los buzones para distribuir sus periódicos.

“Yo pienso que hay que distribuir [los periódicos] donde la gente va más como las lavanderías y los mercados”, me dijo. Unos días después de mi búsqueda, encontré una pila de la última edición de El Chicago Hispano dentro del Cafecito Jumping Bean en Pilsen debajo de la parada de train de Damen mientras esperaba mi bebida.

El periódico contenía artículos sobre los casos de COVID-19 en las comunidades Latinx y una campaña para vacunar a más personas. Era un lugar conveniente para atraer más personas, distinto a los buzones justo afuera.

Entonces, ¿dónde van los buzones de periódicos cuando la ciudad los elimina? En el 2018, después de intentar obtener respuestas de la ciudad, Schumer se fue buscando por los buzones. No encontró los buzones

Bucktown debajo de la carretera I-90. Los buzones abandonados con nombres de papeles desconocidos estaban tirados en la tierra y grava esperando el fi n del mundo.

Schumer me dijo que era como un cementerio de periódicos.

Recientemente fui a buscar esos buzones en el mismo lugar debajo de la carretera, pero no los pude encontrar. En cambio, encontré basureros y letreros de la calle. También había un campamento para personas sin hogar. El Departamento de Transporte de Chicago no respondió a nuestras preguntas antes de la publicación de este artículo.

La búsqueda de los buzones no se trata solamente de esa edición de South Side Weekly. Cuando los periódicos ya no están disponibles, se crean desiertos de noticias como la de La Villita, donde los residentes que sólo pueden leer el periódico físico ya no pueden hacerlo, incluso sobre temas que los afectan directamente. Las noticias, ya sea en periódico o digital, también deben estar disponibles en el idioma principal de las comunidades

Cuándo hablamos del cambio a las noticias digitales, ¿cómo nos aseguramos de que la accesibilidad permanezca la prioridad para las personas que no hablan inglés?

En el Reader, por ejemplo, soy parte de nuestro nuevo Centro de Informes de Justicia Racial y Sala de Escritores, que se trata de transformar la forma en que cubrimos la raza (-ismo) y el activismo en una manera significativa. Como escribió recientemente nuestra jefa Karen Hawkins, es parte de un esfuerzo para “ser realmente una publicación para todo Chicago”.

Una parte igual de eso es asegurarnos de que realmente nos estamos comunicando con usted, el lector. En este momento tenemos una circulación de 60,000 periódicos y cerca de 1,200 ubicaciones de distribución. Eso no es suficiente. Me gustaría ver un mapa de distribución del Reader que incluye más buzones en Gage Park, Back of the Yards, y West Englewood, igual como hay en Lakeview, Andersonville, y River North.

También nos conviene traducir nuestros artículos en español para que también este-

mos conectados con las comunidades Latinx de Chicago, que ahora representan un tercio de la población de la ciudad.

“Siempre podemos hacer más”, dijo Tracy Baim, también jefa del Reader, a quien interrogué sobre el modelo de distribución del periódico, tal vez algo que no debería hacer en mi primera semana de trabajo. Me dijo que acaba de ordenar buzones para muchas calles con tráfico en el lado sur y suroeste. “Creo que los periódicos son un gran equilibrador, especialmente los periódicos gratuitos, y por eso creo que aguantaremos ese modo de distribución lo más largo posible”.

¿Necesita más buzones de periódicos en su vecindario? ¿Usted es parte de un negocio local interesado en ayudar a distribuir nuestro periódico? Contáctenos. También me gustaría escuchar de usted sobre cómo formar nuestro nuevo enfoque para cubrir la injusticia racial en Chicago. Puede enviarme un correo electrónico a kgarcia@chicagoreader.com. v

@_kellygarcia__

POLITICS

Pushing back

The Rittenhouse verdict is part of MAGA’s effort to move America to the right.

By BEN JORAVSKY

It took a while, but at last something reassuring emerged in the aftermath of the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse for murder by a mostly white jury in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

That would be Dahleen Glanton’s insightful column in Sunday’s Sun-Times —one of the few sympathetic appraisals in the mainstream press of Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber, and Gaige Grosskreutz, the three men who Rittenhouse shot.

He killed Huber and Rosenbaum, and wounded Grosskreutz.

Until Glanton’s column, Rosenbaum, Huber, and Grosskreutz were, at worst, commie agitators who deserved what they got. Or, at best, weird abstractions, not even victims.

Can’t call them victims by ruling of Judge Bruce Schroeder, who said the point of the trial was to determine whether they brought it on themselves. How that’s not the case of a right-wing judge canceling the culture of the prosecutor, I do not know.

But then Glanton weighed in—not just mentioning Rosenbaum, Huber, and Grosskreutz by name, but reminding us of why they were in

Kenosha in the first place.

And here I’m going to quote at length from Glanton’s column . . .

“From the moment Rittenhouse was charged with killing two men and injuring another with his semi-automatic rifle during a protest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, this case has been about sending a message.

“This time, it was from the far-right wing to young white people who support the Black Lives Matter movement.

“‘Don’t get involved with social justice reform. Don’t protest senseless police killings. Just sit back and enjoy your white privilege. If you take to the streets with the Black Lives Matter crowd, you might end up dead. And we’re going to do everything possible to make sure your killer walks free.’

“In other words, young white people, if you believe that Black lives matter, your life means nothing.”

She went on . . .

“We don’t know why Rosenbaum was there that night. He suffered from mental illness.

But Huber was among those who took to the streets of Kenosha because they believed a white police officer had wrongly shot Blake, 29, seven times in the back in front of his children. Blake was left partially paralyzed.

“Gaige Grosskreutz, 27, whom Rittenhouse shot and injured, testified he was a trained EMT and paramedic and was on the scene to o er medical assistance.

“It is likely these young men, like many of us, had heard so many stories of unjust police shootings that they were no longer shocked by them. It is possible they felt they had to get o the sidelines and take a stand.

“The right’s disdain for the Black Lives Matter movement is no secret. No one needs to be reminded of its campaign to paint the social justice group as a terrorist organization and label everyone who attends a protest as a looter or rioter. We’re used to that.

“But when Rittenhouse, a young white man, shot three other young white men during the protest, the right wing saw a unique opportunity to turn the shooter into a hero, without the baggage that would normally come if the victims were Black.

“This was a rare opportunity to send a warning to white sons and daughters all over the country—that associating with Black Lives Matter is dangerous and deadly.”

Well said, Dahleen Glanton, well said. And absolutely true.

I suppose I’m sympathetic to young protestors like Huber, Rosenbaum, and Grosskreutz because I’ve seen people like them at demonstrations here in Chicago. Like the protests against closing schools and mental health clinics.

They remind me of the young radicals back in the 70s who showed up at Klan rallies to confront the Klansmen. Way too dangerous for a middle-of-the-road guy like me.

On November 3, 1979, the Klansmen counterattacked in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Members of the Communist Workers Party were holding a demonstration for workers’ rights. And a bunch of Klansmen and Nazis drove up, hopped out of their cars, pulled out guns, and started shooting.

They killed five of the demonstrators: three

white, two Black, and one Hispanic.

Just like in Kenosha with Rittenhouse, the local prosecutors charged the Klansmen with murder. And just like in Kenosha with Rittenhouse, the Klansmen won acquittal with an argument of self-defense.

The Greensboro massacre occurred on the eve of the Reagan Revolution, when conservative Republicans took over the White House and Senate and attempted, often successfully, to undo most of the New Deal initiatives that had existed since the 1930s.

Lord knows what political catastrophes await us in next year’s midterm elections.

So it’s hard not to position the Greensboro shootings in the political context of the Reagan era. Just as it’s hard not to position Rittenhouse’s acquittal with what’s happening in our country right now. To do so is like slapping blinders on your eyes so you don’t see what’s going on.

Just to give you a sample . . .

In the aftermath of the acquittal, Republican congressman Paul Gosar offered Rittenhouse an internship. And Republican senator Tom Cotton demanded that President Biden apologize to Rittenhouse. Because candidate Biden had included a photo of Rittenhouse in a commercial he aired slamming Trump for not denouncing white supremacy.

Sometimes you have to laugh at the shameless gall of MAGA.

Gosar is the congressman who issued a tweet showing him killing Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Only two Republicans joined Democratic congressmen to censure him. Afterward, outraged Republicans called it cancel culture and said Democrats were stifling Gosar’s right to expression.

So Gosar has a free-expression right to threaten to kill AOC. And Rittenhouse can kill two people and demand an apology from Biden for hurting his feelings? These guys really do believe they are above the law.

They keep trying to push our country to the right. Thank you, Dahleen Glanton, for pushing back. v

Few in the mainstream press have offered sympathetic appraisals of the three men shot by Kyle Rittenhouse, including Anthony Huber. LIGHTBURST VIA CREATIVE COMMONS

Ben Joravsky’s Greatest Hits is a collection of profiles and features hand-picked by Ben from his 40 years of writing for the Reader. Each article offers a distinctive portrait of an activist, politician, writer, or sports personality who has left an indelible imprint on Chicago.

‘Misinformation in listicle format’

A COVID vaccine research report from the anti-mandate camp

By DEANNA ISAACS

Iwas spending a day in bed with a laptop when I got an e-mail from a reader linking to an article titled “20 Essential Studies that Raise Grave Doubts about COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates.”

It got my attention.

After a Moderna booster the day before and a restless night, I’d awakened that morning woozy and fatigued. It felt like a hangover and caught me by surprise. I’d had no problem after the original two vaccine injections.

Twenty-four hours later, it was gone; nothing like the weeks in intensive care and continuing aftere ects su ered by a friend who got COVID itself.

A small enough price to pay for protection.

But while I was still in bed and bleary-eyed, the headline claiming that “20 Essential Studies” were raising “Grave Doubts” about “COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates” was a grabber.

“Mandates” might have been the ostensible issue, but what jumped out was “Grave Doubts about COVID-19 Vaccine.”

As it turned out, no accident: that was the

argument being made.

Here’s how the article opened:

“The following research papers and studies raise doubts that Covid vaccine mandates are backed by science and good public-health practice . . . They demonstrate that these mandates provide no overall health benefit to the community and can even be harmful.”

The list of studies that followed featured a single quotation or brief paraphrase from each. Skim them, and you had a horror story: vaccine e ectiveness waned, breakthrough infections occurred and were transmitted, PPE and masks were essentially ine ective.

Wow, really?

Stuck in bed that day, I did what most readers wouldn’t have time for: clicked on the links and began reading the sources. It quickly became clear that in many of these studies, the thrust of the paper had been distorted by the isolated quote. The researchers weren’t suggesting that vaccines are ineffective or that protective mandates are poor policy. On the contrary, in the face of the then-newly

arrived Delta variant, the studies repeatedly emphasized the importance of vaccines along with continued use of mitigating social practices.

Here’s the quote from the study that was fi rst on the list:

“Found no significant difference in cycle threshold values between vaccinated and unvaccinated, asymptomatic and symptomatic groups infected with SARS-CoV-2 Delta.”

What’s the quick take on that? Nothing matters?

And here’s a quote that could have been presented from that study: “While vaccination remains the best protection against becoming infected and severe disease . . . neither vaccine status nor the presence or absence of symptoms should influence the recommendation and implementation of good public health practices, including mask wearing, testing, social distancing, and other measures designated to mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2.”

The point: Vaccines are hugely important (“the best protection”), but, with new variants circulating, don’t get complacent about your behavior.

In other words, it’s an argument for more stringent protective practices, not less.

The article, which continues to be massaged and expanded, was written by Paul Elias Alexander. If that name sounds familiar, it’s likely because he was senior science advisor to Michael Caputo, the former Trump campaign aide appointed to the job of assistant secretary for public a airs in the Department of Health and Human Services during the Trump administration. Alexander—who wanted to let the virus run rampant through most of the population in an attempt to reach “natural” herd immunity—left HHS in September 2020 after, among other issues, it was reported that he and Caputo attempted to interfere with CDC COVID messaging.

Alexander’s publisher, the Brownstone Institute for Social and Economic Research, is a new nonprofit founded in May as “the spiritual child of the Great Barrington Declaration,” a public letter issued October 4, 2020, protesting lockdowns. Its founder, economics writer and cryptocurrency promoter Je rey Tucker, has had a career on the conservative, right-wing side of libertarianism, from Ron Paul’s staff (in the 1980s) to the American

Institute for Economic Research, the libertarian think tank that issued the Barrington Declaration.

According to its website, Brownstone’s mission is to prevent future lockdowns and “take on the technocratic disease managers, or anyone else who believes rights and liberties can be violated, at the discretion of political leaders.” Their roster of articles includes titles like “Why I Will Not Take the Second Dose”; and “New Book Exposes Fauci’s Mythological Scientific Acumen.”

What would the researchers say about cherry-picking their work?

“The propagandists are now doing their misinformation in listicle format,” is what professor David O’Connor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine told me.

“This is unfortunate, but a continuation of what’s been going on throughout the pandemic. They selectively excerpt and selectively edit from scientific studies, to try to support preconceived conclusions,” O’Connor said.

A Chicago-area native, O’Connor is a coauthor of two papers listed in a recent version of the Alexander article. His group found that when vaccinated people got breakthrough infections of the Delta variant, they could conceivably transmit it to others. But when that finding was lifted out of context, two fundamental points were lost, O’Connor said: fi rst, “You’re still much less likely to become infected if you’ve been vaccinated, and if you’re not infected you’re not going to spread the virus to anyone else.” And second: “Because the vaccine means you have immune responses that can mop up the virus, it also means that the window in which you’re contagious might be much shorter.”

“What we were doing was sounding an early alarm bell that just because you’ve been vaccinated, it doesn’t mean you can go to a concert or go other places without worrying about giving COVID to others. But if people just focus on that one point, and don’t contextualize it around the idea that the vaccines minimize your likelihood of getting infected in the fi rst place, and minimize that infectious window, you miss the forest for the trees.”

According to the CDC, in September 2021, unvaccinated people in the U.S. were 14 times more likely to have a COVID-associated death than those who’d been fully vaccinated. v

@DeannaIsaacs

What Greta said ...

DIAGRAM

By Natasha Mijares

I fear the way the body will react to its new geometry. We attach our significance to distant words. Words like paramour and discreet. When the body accumulates too many words, it cleanses itself of grammar. Research is like hide and seek. Two friends listen to each other cook on the phone. The words of a liation are buoyant like noonclouds. We rest at the inhales of others. Here I come. The words that cover us in their gender, their affect. The words we apologize for. Ready or not, they

baila baila baila many many many slip slip slip slip to me

Natasha Mijares is an artist, writer, curator, and educator. Her debut collection of poetry, violent wave, is forthcoming from PANK Books. She received her MFA in Writing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has exhibited at various international and national galleries. Her work has appeared in Gravity of the Thing, Hypertext Review, Calamity, Vinyl Poetry, and more.

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

FREE online programming from the Poetry Foundation

Reading for Young People: Janet Wong

A reading for young people with the winner of the 2021 NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children

Saturday, December 11, 2021, 11:00 AM

Open Door Reading Series: Lillian Gardner, Saleem Hue Penny, Precious Musa & Hayley Kolding

Highlighting outstanding Midwest writers and poetic partnerships

Tuesday, December 14, 2021, 7:00 PM

Learn more about resources and opportunities at PoetryFoundation.org

passages

Comfort in the face of the unknown

By ADAM M. RHODES

The numbers boggle the mind. More deaths than AIDS in 40 years, the most recent epidemic in recent memory. More deaths than the 1918 influenza pandemic, previously the deadliest disease event in American history. More deaths than the U.S. Civil War, the deadliest conflict in our nation’s history. More deaths. More. More. More.

The COVID-19 pandemic has uprooted every aspect of American life. From how we work, to how we socialize, to how, when, and what we eat. How we have sex. How we spend money. Where we spend money. If we go to the doctor. Throughout this nearly two years of upheaval, our grim companion has been the ever-climbing death toll of those killed by the virus.

Death too has been marred by the pandemic. Families weep goodbyes behind protective screens or over FaceTime. Virtual funerals replace vibrant celebrations of life. People are left to grieve alone, or at the very least isolated from those they may need most.

When I contemplate the toll, the hundreds of thousands lost, and those reverberating effects, it can feel like I’m drowning. That there’s a crushing weight that’s inescapable. I felt that weight at its heaviest when a relative—admittedly a distant relative, but a man whom I’d always seen as a warm, happy presence—died of COVID a few weeks before Christmas.

Every family, every culture, every person grieves and feels loss di erently. Some grieve silently and somberly, some grieve with celebration and family. Some just try to move forward to the next minute or second. But just as some believe our souls must be ferried through death, there are many who believe the living must be ferried as well.

Enter: a death doula.

The name is rather self-explanatory. Death doulas (who also call themselves death midwives or end-of-life doulas/midwives) guide a person through the process of death, from contemplating one’s own end, to putting together photo albums with family or friends, or helping to create advance directives, wills, and other important legal documents.

The work of a death doula can begin months or even years before someone dies. Marlisha Marie Martinez, a Skokie-based doula, says she usually has between six months to a matter of weeks with a client and their family before the actual passing.

Martinez previously spent more than two decades as a birthing doula and sees her current work as an extension of that. She also sees herself and her work as distinctly separate from a profit-driven funerary industry.

Martinez spoke at length in a phone interview about how expensive funerals, optional embalming, transportation, and other endof-life steps are for a family, but says she provides a more holistic and less profit-driven approach. She says she’s famous for throwing death parties, which she says are like birthday parties but for death.

“I get everybody together and we party and play all kinds of music,” she says. “It doesn’t matter. It can be beautiful, tranquil music or it can be trap music.”

But much as doulas can be an emotional support during the birth process, Martinez says people like her have a particularly important role in protecting someone’s end-oflife wishes.

Martinez says she focuses on working with LGBTQ+ clients to ensure their lives and identities are respected in death. Her master’s degree in grief therapy is a particularly strong tool in her belt.

She recalled one client, a transgender woman, among many who have hired her for exactly this reason.

“She hired me to make sure I kick everybody’s butt in her family and demand that she was put in her outfit, her dress, her full makeup,” Martinez says. She says it’s not uncommon, even in 2021, for families to reject lovers of queer decedents, or to dress the deceased in clothes that don’t match their gender identity to placate a transphobic family.

“I fight for the rights of people who really, really need my help,” Martinez says.

As a Black woman, Martinez says she also has to work to dispel misconceptions in her own community about death, particularly that talking about it or preparing for it welcomes death into a home.

“I’m trying to teach people that death is [as much] a beautiful process as a birth,” she says.

And as shepherds to the afterlife, or whatever comes next, death doulas aren’t immune to loss themselves. Martinez herself has a daughter with a terminal illness. And many doulas told the Reader their own experiences with loss, particularly in the age of COVID-19,

have bolstered or at least significantly impacted their work.

Kirsten Onsgard, a queer, Chicago-based yoga instructor who recently completed endof-life doula training, says their experience losing their mom during the pandemic was one of the reasons they decided to became a doula. They say that seeing their mother in intensive care in the hospital pushed them to think of ways to give back to their community.

Onsgard says the training they went through also helped them contemplate and reckon with the idea of their own death, and gave them a lot of comfort in the face of so much unknown.

“As a kid I was terrified of death, and going through [doula training] made me more comfortable with the idea of death,” Onsgard says.

Alejandro Salinas hosts what he calls “death cafes”: discussions where participants are free to seek answers about death and dying. Before the pandemic, Salinas held the cafes at the Inner Sense Healing Arts Collective in Avondale.

Like Onsgard, Salinas lost a parent during the pandemic. He tells the Reader his father died of COVID-19 in May. And like Onsgard, he says his work in the realm of death helped him cope with his own loss.

“I’m really grateful for all those conversations and the tools that I’ve been able to have,” Salinas says. “I think when people aren’t grieving, it’s a lot harder for them to process or accept even the reality that we’re in. I think grief allows us to embrace the depth, the literal gravity, of a situation.”

Salinas’s death cafes are currently on hold, but he is confident they will return.

I asked everyone I interviewed for their advice about coping with what feels like an endless amount of death and sickness around us these days. Everyone said grief itself is not something to shy away from, but to move through and to experience as it comes

“I can’t stress enough the importance of literally just making the time and the space to grieve,” Salinas says.

“Some people are being rushed to grieve. Don’t ever rush to grieve, because you’ll never be healed,” Martinez says. “Take your time.” v

Death doulas assist Chicagoans and their families facing the end.

NONPROFIT

The invisible board

By KERRY REID

Build Back Better as a concept isn’t limited to federal legislation. As nonprofit performing arts organizations reopen after the COVID-19 shutdown, they’re facing not only budgetary constraints from lack of earned income at the box o ce, but renewed and heightened calls to address deep-rooted systemic issues of racial injustice, sexual harassment and abuse, and other issues of unsafe and underpaid working conditions. (Some of those issues have been centered by We See You White American Theater and Not in Our House.)

One thing I’ve noticed, particularly when controversies over the leadership and practices at arts organizations become publicized on social media, is that the role of the board of directors or trustees often seems invisible, even as artists ask other artists to divest themselves of working at institutions

deemed problematic.

And yet, the board is literally where the buck (and everything else related to the running of a nonprofit) stops and starts. As the National Council of Nonprofits states, “Board members are the fiduciaries who steer the organization towards a sustainable future by adopting sound, ethical, and legal governance and financial management policies, as well as by making sure the nonprofit has adequate resources to advance its mission.”

In practical terms, though, how are boards preparing themselves to deal with the onslaught of new realities, both fiduciary and in terms of crafting a broader vision of social justice within their organizations that supports every aspect of the work? Obviously, this isn’t just an academic question for us at the Reader as we move into nonprofit status with a new mission to create and curate “po-

litical and cultural coverage by and for Chicago, including highlighting underrepresented communities and stories.”

I talked to a few people who have experience being on boards, as well as creating training and advocacy programs for board and staff at nonprofits, about what’s happening now to help board members become more conversant with the language of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion); to better understand their responsibilities in all areas pertaining to HR (and DEI is of course not separable from HR issues); and to build more support as organizations reexamine their practices and mission.

Teresa Eyring has been executive director for Theatre Communications Group, the national service organization for nonprofit theaters in the United States and the publisher of American Theatre magazine, since 2007. Prior to joining TCG, Eyring spent decades working with nonprofit theaters across the U.S.

“TCG has been working on equity, diversity, and inclusion matters for a number of years, and it was in 2012 that the board literally made it a strategic priority,” says Eyring. “We could see that the theater field was replicating some of the weaknesses of the larger society that exists in every other sector around structural racism, around sexism, homophobia, transphobia. And we said, ‘Our theater sector needs to model a pathway forward that is safe and inclusive for everyone.’”

Eyring points to a collaboration that TCG formed in 2013, the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Institute, with arts activist Carmen Morgan. (In 2015, Morgan founded artEquity, a training organization for arts nonprofits moving toward a social change model; she currently serves as its executive director and the organization’s work has been favorably cited by several people I’ve talked to over the years.)

“The idea was that we would have cohorts of theaters that would participate in a threeyear program in which they would receive racial equity training, but also develop tools and resources and action plans for their or-

ganization. That was mostly focused on theater sta , but there were some trustees who participated,” says Eyring. Since then, TCG has o ered regular forums on governance for trustees and senior sta , as well as regular Zoom calls as part of a “trustee exchange” for sharing ideas and strategies.

But Eyring also notes that walking the walk requires an investment of money as well as time for nonprofit boards. “If it’s determined every board meeting has to have some kind of training or facilitated discussion, make sure you’re budgeting for that. If there’s going to be a program, don’t say, ‘We’ll do this when we get funding.’”

Josh and Sheri Flanders are freelance contributors to the Reader, but they also run Flanders Consulting, which works with nonprofits on DEI, board development, and other issues. When I reached out to them for their insights for this article, Sheri Flanders sent me some initial observations and cautions via e-mail. One of them was: “Training is expensive and time consuming, and companies won’t usually sign up for the recommended length/time commitment. ”

In a phone conversation with Sheri and Josh, the latter (who has over 20 years of experience working in nonprofits) points out that most boards (indeed, many nonprofits, period) don’t have anyone who is well-versed in human resources to deal with personnel crises when they arise.

“Usually as consultants we’re often brought in when there’s a fire,” says Josh Flanders. “And we’re not always told what the fi re is,” adds Sheri. (In her e-mail, Sheri noted, “Executive sta tends to gatekeep for the board, so often the board isn’t aware of the details and nuances of their problems and don’t hear about them until they are on social media and in the press.”)

“We have to make an assessment,” Josh continues. “Number one, do we want to take this client? Can we help? Is it too late? And is this an organization willing to do the work? Because as you know, diversity, equity, and inclusion needs to not only exist at every level of the organization—within the board, within the sta , and within the constituents that they serve. There needs to be an environment where those discussions and those diverse candidates are welcome and can thrive.”

He adds, “Everything starts with the board. The board sets the tone for the organization. They assess the executive director’s e cacy. Hopefully they do an annual review of the executive director—not always. So

Sheri Flanders conducts a workshop. COURTESY FLANDERS CONSULTING

WHERE THE BUCK STOPS

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the board needs to be able to have the ability to self-evaluate where they’re at and what their goals are and what work needs to be done.”

Sheri notes that sometimes DEI training (or other training, such as that targeted toward issues of sexual abuse and harassment) may not actually be where boards and organizations need to start, particularly if that training is being applied after a personnel issue has caused a major problem. “We might actually say, ‘Hey, we have some strategic changes that you should make within the organization fi rst, then move on to very targeted DEI work.’”

But as she noted in her e-mail, “Boards tend to be way more conservative than the staff and they won’t always allow their trainings to be more in-depth. They sometimes aren’t ready to be challenged. We once were hired to do DEI for an org and when the board realized the training was going to push them outside of their comfort zone, they reassigned us to sta only. But true change must start at the top.”

Theatre Advocacy Project wants to quantify the HR problem, as well as provide solutions, for board members and sta . Founded by four theater artists and administrators with the mission to “create safe and equitable working conditions for all theatre professionals,” TAP released a report in August, based on interviews with 130 theater leaders across the country. The report found that 85 percent of the leaders did not have a formal HR reporting process in place. In a survey of 81 theater workers, 70 percent reported workplace abuse, and 94 percent didn’t have a place to report that abuse within the organization.

TAP cofounders Colette Gregory and Caylin Waller both experienced sexual harassment at theaters where they were working and found that there were no satisfactory ways to report or address the problem.

Gregory, who is chief learning officer for TAP, says, “The boards at theaters are usually the fi nal line to go to when harassment takes place. Reporting structures have the board of trustees as the fi nal deciding factor. So it’s so important that they have a good understanding around issues of diversity and inclusion and oppression and harassment. What we found in our work is that a lot of boards have received training, but the training that they have received has not been theater-specific and has not been specific on bystander

intervention.”

Bystander intervention, Gregory explains, means that “when you are a witness to an incident of harm, calling out or calling in the behavior. What we use is the five Ds of bystander intervention.” Those five Ds: direct (“directly talking to the person who is doing the harassment”); delegate (“find someone else who works in the theater, maybe in a leadership role, to help you in that situation”); delay (“if you can’t act in that moment, what are some things you can do afterwards to support the person who’s being harmed?”); distract (“standing in between them and the person who is doing the harassment”); and document—the latter once again echoing the problem of who receives that documentation in the absence of HR, and what they do with it.

“What I’m trying to get out of the boards is to lead by example,” says Gregory. “I think from the organizations, they are looking for more buy-in on the diversity and inclusion, and anti-harassment and anti-oppression work that they’re doing, so that they can encourage them to put more line items in the budget towards that type of training. The understanding that the board really needs to lead is where I want to get them at.”

Waller (who is the CEO for TAP), notes, “We’re thinking about not just the people who are in positions of power, but how we can actually redefi ne and provide tools to everyone, and give everyone the competencies in creating safer and more equitable workplace culture.”

Working on transforming that culture, within the board and the larger organization, is easier when it’s not being done in reaction to a crisis. Jess Hutchinson, a longtime Chi-

cago theater director, is also the engagement director for the National New Play Network, an alliance of theaters across the country focused, as the name implies, on new works. The company’s initial structure allowed each member theater to have board representation. But as the NNPN grew in size (there are now 37 core members, including local companies 16th Street, Prop, and Silk Road Rising), that became unwieldy. It was time to make changes.

Hutchinson notes that NNPN made the commitment to a new strategic plan in concert with anti-racism training from Keryl McCord (a former executive director for the League of Chicago Theatres and nonprofit consultant). “We were looking around that room, especially after having this opportunity to get some language and some history around the fact of systemic racism and institutionalized racism, and we realized, ‘Oh my God, we are an overwhelmingly white room right now.’”

Ultimately, what NNPN decided, says Hutchinson, was to “decouple” board service from membership in order to foster more diverse representation. “We had a group of leaders who are super invested in the organization and who have had significant power for a really long time and we said, ‘Hey, you know how we keep talking about one of the ways toward equity is to cede power? This is what it looks like. We have the opportunity to blow up this old structure in order to create one that is more equitable.’ And so that’s what we did.” Board members now come not just from the leadership of member NNPN theaters, but from a field comprising what Hutchinson enumerates as “core member theaters, associate member theaters, a liated artists who

are the alumni of our programs, and then ambassadors—industry leaders and people that we love and former staff members of other organizations.”

Hutchinson believes that the fact that NNPN approached their restructuring with intentionality and from a place of being proactive, rather than reactive to a crisis, made a big di erence.

“There was no panic. There was uncertainty, and a lot of curiosity, and a lot of really exciting visioning conversations, once we acknowledged that the possibilities of how we could actually structure this organization are endless.”

She adds, “We’re theater people. We just had a conference all day yesterday about creating accountability and embracing change. And one of the themes that I heard over and over and over again in all of our sessions was, we practice imagination all the time, right? Like we make people fly, we make magic happen.”

But to keep that magic happening without harm, nonprofit boards will need to make an increasing commitment to understanding how harmful conditions arise, and how to address them when they do.

And if not every board member is, well, on board with that? Eyring says, “If a board names anti-racism and building a more equitable, inclusive, accessible organization as a priority and there are board members who are fi ghting that in some way, like, ‘We talk about this too much,’ or ‘Why are we talking about this?’—that can’t be a negotiation. You’re there because you’re on board with that direction or you’re not there.” v

@kerryreid

Caylin Waller and Colette Gregory of Theatre Advocacy Project COURTESY THEATRE ADVOCACY PROJECT

Edgar Miller’s handmade homes have become wellsprings of inspiration for local artists

By SHANNON NICO SHREIBAK

Like a scarlet pane of firelight shining from a brick-and-mortar facade, a red door on the 1700 block of North Wells announces the presence of a little piece of magic in the Old Town neighborhood.

“You just walk beyond that barrier and you leave your life behind—a calm washes over you and you’re in this little village that Edgar Miller created,” says psych-folk singersongwriter Ty Maxon. “Being surrounded by

that creativity woke something up inside of me.”

Maxon is recalling his time as an artist in residence at the Glasner Studio in June 2018. The residency was arranged by local nonprofit Edgar Miller Legacy, which facilitates an exchange between the public and the works left behind by polymathic artist and designer Edgar Miller—they include paintings, stained glass, wood carvings, murals, and “handmade homes” such as the Glasner (which can include

all of the above). The future of these artist residencies is in doubt, in no small part due to the pandemic, but they began in 2017: several times per year, the owner of a home that Miller designed has granted a local experimental artist access to it as a workspace. Each residency has concluded with a performance or exhibition of the work conceived in the home.

Born in Idaho in 1899, Edgar Miller moved to Chicago at age 17 to study at the School of the Art Institute and jump-start his career as

an artist and designer. On a 1923 poster advertising an arts event called the Cubist Ball, Miller was described as “the blond boy Michelangelo,” and he rapidly made a name for himself with his multidisciplinary approach to art and design. During the 1920s and ’30s, he helped build a handful of live-work spaces for artists on the north side of Chicago, including the Carl Street Studios and the Kogen-Miller Studios, of which the Glasner is a part—he arranged salvaged tiles in folksy mosaics, carved ornate figures into wooden joists, and painstakingly arranged pieces of found glass into geometric marvels.

To “Edgarize” these homes, Miller drew from a toolbox of influences that included Native American totems, Mexican modernism, art deco, and French impressionism. Though he was a master of confluence, his work remains largely overlooked by the fine-art world because of his uncategorizable style. Without Edgar Miller Legacy, it might have faded into obscurity after he died in 1993.

Spurred by the untimely 2013 death of his uncle Mark Mamolen, a fierce Miller preservationist, Zac Bleicher partnered with like-

Young nonprofit Edgar Miller Legacy has created a residency program inside the polymathic artist and designer’s own beautifully detailed creations.

Lakshmi Ramgopal (right) and violinist Johanna Brock during the performance that capped Ramgopal’s 2019 residency at the Glasner Studio COURTESY OF EML

minded art fans and family members to found Edgar Miller Legacy in 2014. This organization not only works to preserve Miller’s creations but also helps make them available as an educational resource for academic institutions.

Edgar Miller Legacy’s artist-in-residence program has pushed this outreach a step further, allowing current artists to take direct inspiration from Miller’s work by creating in one of his live-work spaces. The program began with a residency by cornetist and composer Ben LaMar Gay, and since then it’s welcomed around 15 artists, including ambient musician Deidre Huckabay, composer and sculptor Elliot Bergman (of Wild Belle and Nomo), singer-songwriter Loona Dae, and illustrator Hannah Dykstra.

Artists for the residency are either invited by Edgar Miller Legacy or chosen from a pool of applicants who’ve completed an online proposal. In keeping with Miller’s eclectic approach, submissions are welcome in music, performance art, dance, writing, and visual and material arts. Once an artist is selected, a protracted matchmaking process ensues: the artist plots an ideal schedule, and Edgar Miller

Legacy coordinates with the owners of Millerdesigned spaces. Most often, residencies have ended up in the Glasner Studio, owned by Bleicher and his family. Artists are free to use their time—which can last from a few weeks to a few months, depending on their needs—to rehearse, record, draw, or simply sit and bask in the grandeur of the space.

Miller’s handmade homes capture an essential quality of Chicago’s arts community: they combine exacting craftsmanship with a scrappiness that manifests itself in their use of found, rejected, or broken materials. These spaces are architectural wonders in their own right, but Miller’s ultimate goal was to build creative enclaves that would endure beyond his own lifetime.

Cellist and improviser Lia Kohl is one third of experimental trio ZRL, who began a residency at the Glasner Studio in late 2019. “Entering the space with the intention of making art there, I really felt like I was being given a gift, that the space is designed to be inspiring and open,” she says. “There’s such a unique combination of light, airiness, and cozy corners—it’s

like being inside the mind of a very creative person and getting to wander around.”

Miller-designed spaces are scattered around the Gold Coast, Old Town, and Lincoln Park, and they’ve led many lives in their near-century of existence: they’ve doubled as speakeasies during Prohibition, they’ve been long-running artistic salons, and in the 1960s the Glasner Studio served as a refuge for members of the Black Panther Party. Edgar Miller Legacy attempts to cultivate what it describes as “overlooked artistic genius,” not only through its residencies but also with awards to community members who champion Miller’s work or reflect his versatility, work ethic, and lifelong curiosity. Before COVID, the organization also hosted workshops, lectures, and tours open to the public at various Miller-related spaces around Chicago, as well as at partner sites such as the DePaul Art Museum and Art on Sedgwick.

“Oftentimes, we find that Miller’s story is a prism into many other narratives from that period of time, particularly the 1920s and ’30s in Chicago, which is considered the Chicago artistic renaissance,” says Bleicher, executive

director of Edgar Miller Legacy. “The great thing about Miller’s oeuvre is that it grabs you, pulls you in, and it continues to o er more and more. Being able to go into someone’s catalog and see how vast and surprising and rich it all is without any kind of encumbrance or gatekeepers is what makes this [artist-inresidence] program special.”

Many traditional residencies require artists to immerse themselves full-time in the space, but the Edgar Miller Legacy program offers more flexibility. Participating artists don’t have to relocate or leave their day jobs—they choose when to visit the Miller-designed space and for how long, and they get to decide how to use it. “We think that we’re a distillation of Edgar Miller’s legacy—that artists get to be part of an experience in a way that’s almost like a class or seminar,” Bleicher says.

Ben LaMar Gay used the program’s inaugural residency to create a suite of musical and spoken-word pieces called The Manipulation of Lines & Breff in summer 2017. He spent his time in the Glasner Studio, inspired by the comfort of the three-level townhome and its interplay between light and color to channel

Loona Dae at the Glasner Studio, where she did a residency in fall 2018 COURTESY OF EML

NONPROFIT

childhood memories of “pure earth,” secret gardens, and smiles and sassafras.

“Edgar Miller is a part of this performance,” Gay says in a video that EML created to detail his residency. “We don’t know each other, but somehow our lines have crossed.”

Miller’s spiritual presence connects many of the artistic products of the residence program. Other owners of his handmade homes have also contributed to the power the spaces can exert upon the imaginations of the artists who work in them. In 1969, the Glasner Studio was owned by Lucy Hassell Montgomery, a wealthy white woman who used her money and influence to support civil rights activism. During the worst of the FBI’s COINTELPRO campaign against Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton, less than two months before his assassination by police, she invited him to stay at the townhome. Footage survives of an interview with Hampton recorded in the space by a guerrilla video operation.

Singer-songwriter Loona Dae did her residency at the Glasner Studio in fall 2018. “I feel like the energy in the space was really strong, and I tried to tap into that knowing the history of the space and how it was a compound for

the Black Panther Party,” she says. “As a Black woman, I felt really empowered knowing that there were always individuals strong in character and talent frequenting that space.”

Edgar Miller Legacy is acutely aware of the connection that Black artists can feel to the Glasner Studio, and the organization’s artist-recruitment philosophy prioritizes inclusion and equity. “We are definitely looking for artists who are part of marginalized communities, because these opportunities haven’t been o ered enough to women, people of color, or LGBTQ+ artists,” Bleicher says. “That’s how we feel is an important way to use this program that has such limited capacity, to make sure we focus on those groups.”

Multidisciplinary artist and performer Lakshmi Ramgopal, who also performs as Lykanthea, spent several weeks at the Glasner Studio as part of an EML residency in summer 2019. “Our approach resembled Edgar Miller’s in the bringing together of disparate influences into a cohesive whole,” she says. Ramgopal worked with dancer Asha Rowland, violinist Johanna Brock, and cellist Erica Miller on a music-and-movement piece called Some Viscera, an exploration of birth and death inspired by birdsong and lullabies. She hopes to

release it in album form next year.

Ramgopal has staged site-specific shows in nontraditional venues, including Lincoln Park Conservatory and the park outside Garfield Park Conservatory, and she wanted to use the entirety of the Glasner Studio in her performance. “Our work is motivated by the idea of memory and sharing memories,” she says. “I think about houses as being repositories of memories—good and bad.”

Treating the Glasner Studio as an instrument unto itself, Ramgopal enlisted the chiseled banisters, the earthen tiles, and the dazzling colored light from the stained-glass windows as supporting characters. Even the creaking wooden floors became part of the performance, as the audience followed the ensemble from one room to the next.

“One of the things that’s really beautiful about the Glasner Studio is that staircase that runs from the first floor up to the third, which resembles the trunk of a tree,” Ramgopal says. “I had us positioned at di erent points along the staircase, so the audience would see us as birds perched on a tree and move with us through the house. It was a really interesting creative challenge, and it was one of our best shows.”

The Glasner Studio inspires artists in the EML residency program in other ways too. Many describe it as a sanctuary where the pressures of the outside world seem to be shouldered instead by its many carved animals and stained-glass characters.

“Throughout the course of our residency, we would discover ‘Easter eggs’ that Edgar left for visitors,” says Zachary Good, who plays clarinets and recorders in ZRL. “A tiny painting of a squirrel on a tile, an iron railing shaped like a snake, stained glass that changes dramatically with the light.”

These Easter eggs inspired ZRL to honor the whimsical details in Miller’s work in the music they developed at Glasner, released this summer on the album Our Savings by Chicago label American Dreams. “The space informed a lot of what we did before and during ZRL’s residency,” Good continues. “We recorded Our Savings with the intention of making an album of improvised music. This meant we didn’t really plan anything until we got to the space. The top floor of Edgar Miller’s Glasner Studio was exciting for us because it provided an ideal environment to record, rehearse, hang, drink seltzers, and dream big.”

Maxon says his song “Daggers” is a tribute to the stained glass encircling that topmost room at the Glasner, nicknamed the “Garden of Paradise” room. “I saw the Garden of Eden, crossing the River Styx, and the land of the dead in those windows,” he says. “There’s a story going on in the stained glass, and it started bleeding into the songs a little bit.”

An encounter with Edgar Miller’s many and varied works—tempera grassa on canvas, glass panels painted with intricate details, meticulous mosaics, hand-drawn wallpaper— makes it clear that his creative life had no end. His influence continues to evolve as his art finds new people to appreciate it today. “You get a sense that more is possible when you see his work,” says Bleicher, surrounded by jeweltoned light in the Garden of Paradise room.

The artists who have created in the presence of Edgar Miller’s legacy have demonstrated that Bleicher is understating the case. It’s not so much that you get the sense that more is possible—you get the sense that anything is. v

Ty Maxon wrote a song in tribute to the Glasner Studio’s stained glass during his 2018 residency. RACHEL WINSLOW

The fire burned for three days, killing hundreds, and leaving a thriving city in ruins. Risen from the ashes, Chicago rebuilt as an economic and architectural marvel. But just who benefited from reconstruction efforts?

in part by the Elizabeth Morse Charitable Trust and the Elizabeth Morse Genius Charitable Trust, the Exhibition Innovation Fund has provided additional funding for City on Fire: Chicago

ARTS & CULTURE

BOOKS

A mystery on the home front

Chicago

By ELISA SHOENBERGER

How do we contribute to making history every day? When we learn history, there’s often a huge emphasis on the leaders who make things happen, whether they are presidents, businessmen, or heads of social and political movements. But what about the people who make these movements happen: the ones who campaign for the presidents or labor movements, the ones who fight the wars, the people who get things done at the ground level. Each of us in our own way contributes to making history, even if it isn’t always apparent. As Studs Terkel wisely said in a 2007 interview, “Ordinary people are capable of doing extraordinary things, and that’s what it’s all about. They must count!”

That’s at the core of Lori Rader-Day’s latest mystery Death at Greenway . Set in England during World War II, a young, disgraced would-be nurse, nicknamed Bridey, takes a job as a nanny to help care for ten evacuated children in the countryside during the height of the Blitz. She along with another nurse bring the children to Greenway House in Dartmouth, England, which turns out to be the private residence of the “queen of crime” Agatha Christie. Christie is more of a specter, a hovering presence over the characters of the story, than a character in her own right. That draws

the focus on Bridey and her fellow characters. Their stories are the ones that matter here.

Bridey’s fellow nurse, Gigi, seems ill-suited for the job and her story does not line up. But Bridey just wants to keep her head down, get a good reference, and put the accidental death of a man in her care behind her. When a young man is found dead nearby, Bridey fears that her past mistakes will be revealed. Can she take care of the children and uncover the truth without her horrible past coming out? The narration is written with eight shifting points of view, mostly focused on Bridey, but also showing us the perspectives of one of the evacuee children as well as some of the servants.

What I loved about the novel was the picture it painted of the home front. As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said during one of his WWII-era fireside chats, “There is one front and one battle where everyone in the United States—every man, woman, and child—is in action, and will be privileged to remain in action throughout this war. That front is right here at home, in our daily lives, and in our daily tasks.”

In Death at Greenway, the nurses may not be on the battlefields, but they are quietly making a di erence caring for the small chil-

dren, including two infants. The townspeople are playing their role by keeping watch for enemy planes or spies and caring for one another, especially when their neighbors’ sons (and daughters) are killed in battle.

We can see that these are quiet but important contributions that support the war e ort. But for the people within the story, their role in the larger theater of war is not clear. There’s a lot of guilt and grief for being at home and not on the front lines. (Even the idea of the

years.

But after five years of the idea rattling around in her brain, Rader-Day mentioned it to her editor and the book was sold in 2018. The book ticked o too many of Rader-Day’s interests. She has been a big Christie fan since she was 11. In a phone interview this month, Rader-Day told me that Christie’s work “is very tied up in my reading history and the kind of reader I always was, the kind of writer I became.”

She found it fascinating how Christie’s mythical home that she loved became intertwined with this evacuation story. She still has fond memories of the Disney film Bedknobs and Broomsticks that features two children evacuated to Angela Lansbury’s house during the Blitz. She drew upon her interest in evacuation stories as well as her love of Agatha Christie to create Death at Greenway.

Of course, Rader-Day notes that there is nothing necessarily new about the evacuation story. She said, “A lot of Americans have an evacuation story deep in their heart, but they don’t even think of it that way,” citing The Chronicles of Narnia —the children find the infamous wardrobe when they are evacuated from London.

LORI

RADER-DAY IN CONVERSATION WITH SUSANNA CALKINS

Fri 12/ 10, 7 PM at Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore, 7419 Madison, Forest Park loriraderday.com

front line is tenuous—the war comes to them when enemy planes fly over and bomb parts of England.)

Rader-Day’s work itself is a historical act. A lifelong fan of Christie’s, she had come across the story that children had been evacuated to Greenway, an actual home that can be visited, and really wanted to read a book about it. But no one had written about it. She was initially unsure if she should write it, in part because she was not a historical writer nor British. In fact, she’s been a Chicago resident for 20

It took Rader-Day three years to conduct the research for the book, including an overnight stay at Greenway itself, describing the experience as “one of the best things that has ever happened to me through my writing!” She had to gather together snippets of information, sometimes a half sentence here and a nugget of information there.

While she was worried about how daunting the research would be, she was able to piece together facts that had been lost to time. “I found them. I confirmed that they were the real people who worked for Agatha Christie, and were left in the house to help care for this group, or the chaperones that brought the kids down. That was just really fun. Now we know this. We know it’s 100 percent forever,

Lori Rader-Day JUSTIN BARBIN

author Lori Rader-Day rediscovers the Blitz with Death At Greenway.

ARTS & CULTURE

and hopefully, it’ll never be lost again.” She connected with Doreen, one of the children who had been evacuated to Greenway when she was two.

There’s some disputed information about the nurses. Christie had written that they were hospital nurses in her autobiography, but other sources suggest they were the daughters of the chaperones. Rader-Day used the nurses, especially Bridey, to move the story along.

Granted, there were no reported murders at the time either. But given that it was Christie’s home, Rader-Day felt “it seemed appropriate to try to sneak a murder mystery into this real episode in history.” But she set it outside of the house and property, feeling nervous about introducing the fiction into the story.

Even though she took a few liberties with the story, Rader-Day has played her own role in making history—bringing life to a piece of forgotten history.

While Death at Greenway is Rader-Day’s first foray into historical mystery, it’s her sixth crime book. She’s the former national president of Sisters in Crime, a professional organization for crime writers, as well as the co-chair of Murder and Mayhem, a mystery readers’ conference here in Chicago. She said she found the Chicago and midwest mystery communities to be very supportive in her career. She cites Chicago crime writers Sara Paretsky, Clare O’Donohue, and Tracy Clark amongst her favorite crime writers, along with Agatha Christie, of course.

Born in Indiana, Rader-Day came to Chicago with her husband, for work. She had a fondness for the city, coming here on vacations and school trips. She remembers driving around for errands and being astounded that they live here with the skyscrapers, which tie into pivotal moments in her marriage. Rader-Day related how she won a contest so that she and her husband could get married at the top of the Empire State Building in New York City; a year later, they celebrated their one year anni-

versary on the 95th floor of the John Hancock Center.

While her latest book takes place in England, Rader-Day has two books set in the Chicagoland area. She drew inspiration for her first book, The Black Hour (published in 2014), when she worked in Evanston at Northwestern University. Details get changed, of course, but the characters visit notable Chicago landmarks and experience Chicago culture. But she admits, “Chicago’s always kind of sneaked in, but I haven’t always felt prepared to write about Chicago, since I’m not from here.”

Eventually, she set her fifth book, The Lucky One, in Chicago and Milwaukee since she felt she had been here long enough to do the city justice.

While she may have turned her sights on England for her most recent book, she wants people to take some new perspective of social issues from her work, starting with her first book through the newest one. For Death at Greenway, she said, “It is a story about refugee children in wartime. I think that’s the sort of thing that, sadly, is still relevant to us . . . You can give a dose of a lot of serious stu if you’re also entertaining people.”

With Death at Greenway , she reminds us that each of us plays our part in these larger historical narratives. Sometimes we fight on the physical front lines but sometimes we are in the back, taking care of one another.  v

Death At Greenway was published by William Morrow (HarperCollins). COURTESY

THE TRAGEDY OF THE MOOR OF VENICE OTHELLO

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

DIRECTED BY CHARLES NEWELL AND GABRIELLE RANDLE-BENT FEATURING KELVIN ROSTON, JR.

ARTS & CULTURE

BOOK REVIEW

The ‘singing mailman’ with a unique

gift

A new book on John Prine explores the musician’s roots.

By ANNIE HOWARD

To write about John Prine, whose death from COVID-19 related complications in April 2020 devastated fans around the world, is an inherently intimate act. Prine’s music has always felt like a treasured good, sacred and familial. I felt that as a kid, hearing stories from my dad, who lived near Chicago in the 1970s and saw the “singing mailman” perform countless times. When we saw Prine play at the Chicago Theatre in 2018 (performing his final album The Tree of Forgiveness), I knew something special was at hand. Though Prine’s death was a tragedy, even one night in his musical company crystallized decades of love and devotion handed down like a family heirloom.

In that sense, Erin Osmon’s new book on John Prine , his eponymous 1971 debut, is a gift for fans of the plainspoken singer and this career-making album. The book, part of Bloomsbury Publishing’s popular 33 ⅓ series, reaffirms Prine’s unmistakable midwestern sensibility, one that Osmon, herself an Indiana native and previously a 15-year Chicago resident (she is now based in LA), captures with ease. “I’ve always understood Prine through the lens of our middle American provenance, and admired his singular ability to convey our commonplace happenings to universal e ect,” Osmon writes in the preface. It’s an understanding that she gracefully unfolds in the story of Prine’s Kentucky roots, his childhood in suburban Maywood, time served in the military and as a mail carrier, and the improbable

events that launched a 25-year-old Prine into near-overnight success.

Prine was born in Maywood on October 10, 1946, an integrated suburb just west of Chicago, where he overlapped at the same high school as Black Panther Party Illinois Chairman Fred Hampton. As Osmon shows, Prine was as much a product of the modest, working-class suburb as he was of his family’s roots in Kentucky. “Where you’re from and where you grew up are often separate places,” Osmon notes, an understanding that Prine’s parents Bill and Verna instilled in Prine and his three brothers at a young age.

The family’s roots were in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, a rural idyll where “paradise” wasn’t merely a hopeful word, but the name of the village where Bill and Verna first met. “Paradise,” Prine’s withering account of the strip mining that left its rolling hills scarred and unrecognizable, is tinged with a generations-long rootedness, and the agony of watching your ancestral home torn to pieces. Osmon, who also has deep family ties throughout Kentucky, conveys Prine’s reverence for his ancestors, and the ways in which the landscape itself would shape his spare, spacious musical compositions. It’s an understanding that also appears on Prine’s empathetic masterpiece, “Hello In There,” sung both to the oft-forgotten elderly people who populated Prine’s youth and the home that was destroyed in front of his family’s eyes. His lyrics tell us,

“You know that old trees just grow stronger / And old rivers grow wilder every day / Old people just grow lonesome / Waiting for someone to say, ‘Hello in there, hello.’”

Beyond his family stories, Osmon establishes the no-nonsense musical world that skyrocketed Prine from uncertain open-mike performer to major-label sensation. From a mythic debut performance that left his audience speechless, to the first review penned by Roger Ebert the day before Prine’s 24th birthday, Chicagoans caught on fast to the singer’s unique gift. Still, Prine wouldn’t have found his voice without the emergence of the Old Town School of Folk Music, a nonhierarchical, informal musical community founded in 1957, or the Earl of Old Town, an unpretentious nightclub that sustained the folk music revival in Chicago and gave Prine many of his earliest gigs. This honest, dedicated musical community is as much a part of the story as Prine’s thoughtful storytelling, and Osmon places its influence center stage in the making of Prine’s early career.

In that sense, Osmon’s greatest gift is her ability to reflect Chicago’s unpretentious curiosity, its openness to a young, uncertain singer who soon won the city over. “Prine performed songs that would comprise his self-titled debut to a cross section of Chicago nightcrawlers: blue-collar laborers, hip young artists, fellow musicians, curious suburbanites, roving mafia, cops, and the journalists who covered the scene, all of whom recognized the star in their midst, none of them fools,” she writes, placing us back in the fast-gentrifying Old Town neighborhood that first took the future honorary Illinois Poet Laureate seriously. Prine’s sturdy songwriting won over the unsuspecting for a reason: “When things get fancy, Chicagoans get suspicious,” Osmon writes.

Prine’s legacy is inextricably bound up in the city that was lucky enough to hear his clarion voice first. Osmon’s John Prine is a celebration of the ways that the singer emerged from the firmament of his Kentuckian legacy, and the city that will always claim him as one of our own. A half-century after the album sounded the opening notes of an illustrious career, Prine fans still cherish his music as if it belongs only to them, a gift to be shared with care and steady attention.  v

JOHN PRINE’S JOHN PRINE (33 1/3) Erin Osmon (Bloomsbury, 2021)

John Prine performing at a festival in 2009 ERIC FROMMER VIA FLICKR (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Photo by Michael Brosilow.

ARTS & CULTURE

GRAPHIC NOVELS

The scene report from space

Lane Milburn creates an alternate reality Chicago for his new graphic novel.

By MEGAN KIRBY

Elaborate hologram displays. A satellite planet. A mysterious deity. On the surface, Lane Milburn’s rollicking sci-fi graphic novel Lure (Fantagraphics) doesn’t have much to do with Chicago. But Milburn drew inspiration from his old neighborhood, his punk band, his friends, and his near-decade living in the city.

Lure takes place on an alternate earth, orbited by an ocean planet named Lure, where one-percenters build resorts and vacation homes. When Chicago-based painter Jo takes a corporate gig creating hologram advertisements, the job brings her to Lure. But something sinister hides behind the tiki drinks and

seaside views.

Most of Lure takes place in space, but it feels deeply rooted in Chicago sensibilities. Milburn talked with us about sci-fi influences, Chicago’s comics and punk scenes, and the yearslong process behind the book. He’ll be reading an excerpt of Lure at the comics reading series Zine Not Dead on December 4.

Megan Kirby: It’s never explicitly said, but is the beginning of the book based in Chicago?

Lane Milburn: In my mind, it’s kind of an alternate reality version of Chicago. The whole

ZINE NOT DEAD XVI

Milburn will read along with writers Andy Douglas Day, Margot Ferrick, Nell McKeon, Dena Springer, and Cooper Whittlesey. Sat 12/4, 3 PM and 9 PM, Grace Church of Logan Square, 3325 W. Wrightwood, $10, all-ages.

book is set in an alternate reality. I’ve been a Chicago resident now for about eight, nine years. So, there are things in the book that gesture at Chicago, even though I’ve eliminated all of the recognizable landmarks and buildings and everything from the downtown scenes. There’s some obscure references that I think Chicagoans will pick up on. The look of the neighborhood they’re living in is very much modeled on Little Village where I used to live for many years.

What made you decide to base Jo in Chicago?

This book contains a lot of autobiographical material. I was pulling a lot of material from my life as a working person. This book is new for me in the way that it draws directly upon my own experience. I’ve found that pulling from the familiar and the nearby is a good way to flesh out a story world, to ground it, to give it specificity. I have two large, competing impulses in my work. One is towards world building. And another one, that has kind of taken shape on this project, is pulling from the familiar and the real. I’ve been trying to fuse those two impulses. This book is really my first time trying to do that.

Can you give me a little behind-the-scenes look at your process?

It’s all very, very improvisational. I didn’t do any thumbnails. I didn’t write a complete script for this book. I have this kind of grid on my wall. It’s like pushpins with binder clips hanging from them that I use to hang up pages that are in process. A three-by-four grid, so that I can have 12 pages hanging up on the wall at one time. My work process gets pretty diffuse, where I’ll be working on multiple pages at once. I like to have the space to hang them all up at once and look at them. It’s something with how my brain works, where I’ll work on one page a little bit and then set it aside and work on another and set it aside. I start with the penciling and the writing, and then I do the inking. Then I’ll scan the pages and color them in Photoshop, which is probably the most time-consuming step of the process, because I get kind of fussy with the color.

The book took you fi ve years to complete. Did the story change over time?

It started as a strip on VICE, way back in 2014. I actually worked on it for a year, and then

didn’t like the material I had produced. So in that way, it’s been a six-year project. When I threw out that version of the book, I switched from this comedic, old-school, pulp adventure, sci-fi mode into a realistic, sci-fi-tinged mode. It was not fully formed when I started—it changed a lot. I had no idea where it was going for a long time. This was a very long and very messy project. I think that a lot of my process is about fighting through indecision, and that can cause things to be drawn out for a long time. Having a close friend of mine look at this book, and having my partner, the cartoonist Anya Davidson, look at this book, was really important in shaping it together. Even discovering the themes, and shaping the plot together, and kind of forming an arc. It was a very slow and messy process.

You dedicated the book to Anya. Can you talk about how you guys influence each other?

We’ve never really collaborated on any comics, but we both are always very busy with our own projects. We always look at each other’s work and give each other feedback. Anya’s always the first person I think of in terms of sharing my work with people. So, we look at each other’s work really regularly and give really honest feedback. It’s a pretty central part of both of our writing and cartooning processes.

What draws you towards writing sci-fi?

I think that I always gravitate towards a lot of sci-fi imagery and themes. Cartooning, for me, accesses a space of childhood creativity, which is often really wrapped up in creating worlds. That’s something that I still want to do in my work. I’ve thought about going in a more contemporary, realistic direction, but I just really gravitate towards sci-fi energy and world building.

You play in a band, too?

Anya and I play in a punk band called Spirit Trap. I think that kind of brings me back around to the book itself—some of the character development is centered around Rachel, one of the main characters, who is a musician in addition to being a visual artist. Jo also talks about being at a music show. That sense of Chicago is also palpable in the book—the overlap between the art and music scenes.  v

@megankirb

Lure brings its characters to a futuristic ocean planet. COURTESY FANTAGRAPHICS

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-$116. 50.

on the Underground).

Both have suffered, both are determined, and both are dependent on the safety of Paradise Square. And by the way, both can dance like there’s a fire on the floor—Owen with the sprightly, high-stepping patterns of the Irish, Washington Henry with the grounded stomp, slap, and roll of African American juba.

To make a long story short and to give us what we’ve been waiting for, the center of Paradise Square is a feis: a dance battle—where one winner will take home a bounty of $300: the price of freedom for one man (women can compete, too). But who will it be? Will it be Owen, whose bonny spirit sours in the face of imminent death in a war he has not chosen?

Or will it be Washington Henry, who has spent a life downtrodden and never had a breath of liberty yet? Will the angry white men shouting in the streets succeed in inciting a riot in advance of the invention of social media? And who is that drunkard at the piano appropriating songs and stories from the oppressed?

DANCE BATTLES

Paradise Square calls for community amid conflict

The footwork tells the story best in this new Broadway-bound musical.

By IRENE HSIAO

After its 2019 premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Paradise Square, a musical conceived by Larry Kirwan, inspired by the music of Stephen Foster, directed by Moisés Kaufman, and choreographed by Bill T. Jones, has roared into Chicago for a monthlong run at the Nederlander Theatre before it heads to Broadway in 2022.

The year is 1863, the place Five Points (“the first slum in America”), a neighborhood in lower Manhattan where Black folks and Irish immigrants lived and worked. As the Civil War rages in the southern states, in Paradise Square, a saloon owned by fierce freeborn Black woman Nelly Freeman (Joaquina Kalukango) and co-operated with her feisty Irish sister-in-law Annie Lewis (Chilina Kennedy), life is loud and times are rough, yet humans are mostly peaceful in a place where Black and Irish mingle, dance, and intermarry. (Nelly’s husband is an Irish immigrant captain in the

Union army, Annie’s husband a Black protestant reverend—shorthand for the probability that all the sloshes swarming the saloon are somehow someone’s cousin.)

The trouble is the war, or rather, the pressures the leaders of any war place on those who do the fighting: the poor and underprivileged. Here, the Civil War combines issues that remain unresolved a century and a half later: citizenship, race, economic inequality, belonging, the pursuit of happiness, and who exactly has the right to engage in that pursuit. A draft announces that Irish immigrants—who aren’t yet citizens—must enlist. However, Black men who want to fight (and prove their citizenship, which they also don’t yet have) aren’t permitted to join. And anyone who has $300—or a year’s pay for the working class—can buy their way out. Thanks to the unfortunate combination of slimy politicians and frustrated, underemployed working-class

white men—embodied primarily in the figure of irate Irish immigrant veteran “Lucky” Mike Quinlan (Kevin Dennis), who has lost an arm in the war and now can’t find work—the working classes are made to squabble with each other instead of seeing the wealthy and powerful pulling the strings.

These unjust elements find their story in the characters of fresh-o -the-boat Irish lad Owen Duignan (A. J. Shively) and runaway slave Washington Henry (Sidney DuPont). Owen has come to stay with his aunts Annie and Nelly to escape the Great Famine and make his American fortune. Washington Henry has traveled the Underground Railroad to escape a plantation and create a life of freedom and self-sufficiency with his wife (who is conveniently separated from Washington for most of the journey to keep the foils clean—though there’s a sweet subplot with some singing Black lesbians on a utopian farm/way station

It would all be a bit pedantic if the performances weren’t so spectacular and the reenactments of historic tragedies so painfully contemporary. And yet the singing is blockbuster, the dancing is dazzling, and the reckoning that anyone sitting through this fable must undergo is as sobering as it ought to be. Kalukango is a forceful presence with a powerhouse voice as Nelly, and the rapport with Kennedy as Annie, who can blitz right from a belt to a head voice, is on point, all supported by an ensemble that sometimes splits into factions but ultimately coalesces into a community.

A note on the dancing: Five Points has sometimes been called the birthplace of tap dance, and Bill T. Jones is not exactly known for choreographing in that genre (Garrett Coleman, Jason Oremus, Gelan Lambert, and Chloe Davis are also named as choreographers). But Jones, who has won Tony Awards for Fela! and Spring Awakening, is known for a company and works that illustrate the beautiful possibility of dwelling in harmonious difference—even in the name of the company he cofounded with his deceased (white) partner

Arnie Zane. Though the premise of Paradise Square includes competition, the glory of it is in complement, in the delightful joy of seeing dancers and humans juxtaposed in conversation and collaboration. v

R PARADISE SQUARE Through 12/5 : Tue 7: 30 PM, Wed 2 and 7: 30 PM, Thu-Fri 7: 30 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PM; also Fri 11/26, 2 and 7: 30 PM; no show Thu 11/25, James M. Nederlander Theatre, 234 W. Randolph, broadwayinchicago.com, $ 60

Paradise Square KEVIN BERNE

From the west side to the west coast and back

Tyla Abercrumbie on calling The Chi home

By JANAYA GREENE

Playwright, actor, director, and artist Tyla Abercrumbie remembers when she was called to theater as clear as day. Blue lights beamed from a ceiling as Alvin Ailey dancers weaved and flowed with silk fabrics, making grade school Tyla feel like she was swimming in an ocean as the company of

dancers performed their “Wade in the Water” number.

“It was so fantastic. Even to this day it gives me goosebumps, because I saw these beautiful dancers doing this magic,” she says. “I had never seen anything created like that before my eyes. I never forgot that. I wanted to create

magic like that on stage.”

Since then, Abercrumbie has written a number of plays that have premiered in Chicago and across the region.

As a young girl growing up in Austin, close to the border of Oak Park, in the late 70s and 80s, Abercrumbie thought that Chicago was a

place to leave, enduring an uncomfortable but all-too-familiar cold every winter and navigating a neighborhood without many resources. She primarily grew up with her mother and two older sisters, describing her family as “rich in mind, body, and spirit, we just didn’t have money.”

Sometimes joining her eldest sister at work at Alternatives community center on the north side, Abercrumbie began to experience more of Chicago that helped her imagine the possibilities of a fuller life here.

She was often watched by one of her older sisters, who encouraged the budding performer to read the books she read in high school when Abercrumbie was a bit younger. She began to read plays like Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (which she would later codirect for TimeLine Theatre in 2013) and report back on all that she’d learned.

“She made me give her a book report, or act it out. So I started this whole storytelling [thing] so that I could tell her what it was about and let her know that I read it. She introduced me to the stories of Langston Hughes,” Abercrumbie explains. “I knew about Langston Hughes as a poet, because we read them in grade school, but she was reading his books, like [stories about] Jesse B. Semple. So I always credited her for giving me permission to be creative and to read these stories that were so adventurous.”

As she became clearer on her purpose as a playwright and actress, Abercrumbie developed a plan: to graduate high school, move to the north side, then leave Chicago for UCLA or to be a foreign exchange student in Paris. At first, the plan had more to do with being in a place where she felt less vulnerable, as she was constantly trying to avoid street harassers in her neighborhood. But as she became a working actress, she realized industrial and commercial work was where the money was in acting in Chicago, and it would become her focus before pursuing television and film roles.

But before that, she needed to get training in college. So she moved out to live on her own at 18 years old and enrolled at Roosevelt University. Dissatisfied with the program, she subsequently enrolled at Columbia

Tyla Abercrumbie TYLA ABERCRUMBIE

NATIVE DAUGHTER

THEATER

continued from 29

College where she saw a clearer path to the stage. After a brief stint with accounting, she remained in the theater department while working full-time. She worked at hotels and retail stores downtown, and eventually landed at ETA Creative Arts in Grand Crossing, where she had her first production.

“That gave me the courage to realize as much as I love ETA, I needed to make more money. I asked myself, ‘How do you make more money at this?’ So I got an agent,” she explains. “That agent allowed me to do commercial work and print work. I realized I could make money and do theater out of passion as I gradually kept building more on my resume. And the more I did, the more I realized, I can do this.”

Still, during the ups and downs of the beginning of her career, Abercrumbie worked as an executive assistant in corporate America, until she was laid off and came to the conclusion that corporate America was not for her; she was meant to be an artist. So in 2000, she took the leap as a full-time actress, and since then has had television roles in The Tracy Morgan Show , Shrink , and more. In 2003, she finally completed the next part of her plan: to move to Los Angeles.

“I was doing all right. I mean, I had a manager. I was booking here and there and working in a retail store. And I just remember feeling like, ‘Is this what I want? Do I want to act or do I want to sell clothes?’ I was being o ered some theater jobs in Chicago, but I was in LA. I was doing too much retail,” she said. “So I asked myself, ‘What’s the goal? To act or to be famous?’ The goal was to act. I came back to Chicago visiting, and it turned into booking something and staying.”

After those five years in LA, she realized that Chicago was home and it was a home where she could also live out her dreams.

Today, you can find Abercrumbie in one of her most well-known recurring roles, as Nina in Showtime’s The Chi . Nina is mom to two kids, Kevin and Keisha, who are navigating being young people and finding themselves. Nina, her two children, and her wife Dre live on the south side and show a type of family that absolutely exists in Chicago, but that we rarely ever see on screen.

“This is the first time I’ve seen this on television. These are regular women just trying to raise their kids. That made me very excited and it still does make me very excited to have that kind of presence, where you’re talking about people who you don’t see in the

community because nobody’s walking around pointing them out. They’re just people,” she says. “Normally when you see a gay couple on TV, there’s the Black wife and the white wife, and the brown child and they live in this very affluent way. They’ve got excellent jobs and everybody’s wearing designer clothes. This is the non-one-percenters I’m representing, which is great.”

When I spoke to Abercrumbie, she was in Los Angeles working on the west coast premiere of Paradise Blue by Dominique Morisseau, playing a character named Silver—a role she previously played at TimeLine in 2017. When the run ends, she’ll be back in Chicago preparing for the premiere of her play Relentless at TimeLine (opening in previews January 19), which was originally slated to open in May 2020, before COVID-19 intervened.

“It takes place in 1919. It’s about the Black Victorian. It grapples with a family coming together to realize how history has formed them. These two sisters examine their history through their mother’s experience and in addition, they’re dealing with everything that’s going on in 1919,” she says in a video for TimeLine. “It was a pivotal time in history because you had the [first world] war ending in 1918, the unrest of 1919, and then of course Prohibition is coming in 1920, and of course you have the su ragette movement.”

When looking back at her multifaceted career, Abercrumbie remains optimistic about what’s to come. She hopes to earn acting roles in voiceover animation and layered roles in films, and she never sees herself putting her pen down.

Despite former agents who hadn’t taken her work as seriously, working in a theater community that at points failed to provide diverse roles, and being from an under-resourced community, Abercrumbie has persisted and created the life of her dreams here in Chicago. As more television shows begin to film in the city and the prospect of new film studios here grows, it’s clear that the world is only now catching up to what Tyla Abercrumbie already knew.

“I love the city. I love the groundedness of the people, especially being in the industry I’m in in particular. When you’re in certain places, it’s always about the business. The collective in Chicago, we’re just not that way,” said Abercrumbie. “It’s something grounded about the artistic world in the midwest. That means a lot to me. This is what I do, not who I am. I’m so much more than being an artist, but I am still very much an artist.”

OPENING

The girl who got away Scrooge’s sweetie gets her own story.

When the Ghost of Christmas Past visits decrepit miser Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, one painful memory the ghost has him swoop back over concerns a delightful young girl named Belle, who Scrooge was supposed to marry until greed eclipsed tenderness in his heart and she broke off the engagement. Adjusting the perspective largely over to Belle’s side, filling in blanks about their courtship, and daring to ask his crystal ball what it was like to date Scrooge, or “Eb,” playwright Ryan Stevens has devised a credible and charming stretch of backstory for holiday playgoers here, which runs with Theatre Above the Law at Jarvis Square Theater through mid-December. Audiences are liable to find Eb’s (Travis Shanahan) flinty junior accountant shtick as endearing as Belle (Brittany Vogel) does, before incessant profit margin talk—and visitations of her own from a string of ghosts—raise corrosive doubts for her about the long-named cutie and his ledger book.

A good deal of Stevens’s faux-Victorian dialogue suffers from indistinct old-timeyness, which makes even very good period costume dramas feel like they’re happening inside of snow globes. Michael Dalberg, doubling as Marley and the “Spirit of Love to Come” who visits Belle last, meets the archaism of his lines with just the right voice and physicality to purge the dust out of them. Others fare more unevenly. Still, Christmas shows are for the inner fuddy-duddy in us all, and judging from my night, I can easily see Eb & Belle becoming an annual tradition. Tony Lawry directs. —MAX MALLER EB & BELLE Through 12/19: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Mon 11/29, 7:30 PM, Jarvis Square Theater, 1439 W. Jarvis, theatreatl.org, $15-$23.

R Hanukkah hijinks

Strawdog’s seasonal family show returns.

Grab your dreidel and the whole mishpocha and head over to Strawdog Theatre Company’s annual hit show Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins. A festive and charming holiday treat in a cozy, black-box theater with blankets for kids to sit on the floor, Hershel immediately engages and warms up youth (and adults) with pre-show schmoozing, music, juggling, tap, and tumbling. The cast, energetic and playful, sings, dances, and plays Yiddish-influenced klezmer-style songs in this magical hour-long production centered around a traveling troupe of actors who come across a town not celebrating Hanukkah.

They share the story of Hershel of Ostropol who, like the troupe, save Hanukkah through performance— only Hershel has to outsmart a band of goblins who haunt the old synagogue. Based on Eric Kimmel’s Caldecott Honor-winning book and adapted by Michael Dailey, with music and lyrics by Jacob Combs, and directed by Hannah Todd, this must-see family show for everyone who loves Hanukkah delights with outlandish and amazing puppetry, solid Jewish humor, a play-within-a-play on a stage-within-a-stage, and entertaining audience participation. Morgan Lavenstein is charming and melodious as Hershel, Christopher Thomas Pow is playful as Sammy and rocks the viola and guitar, Rebecca Marowitz is a joy as Max, LaKecia Harris is exuberant as Sara on tambourine, Amy Gorelow shines as Al and

Through 12/12: Sat-Sun 1 and 4 PM; understudy performance Fri 12/10, 7:30 PM, Rivendell Theatre, 5779 N. Ridge, strawdog.org, free.

R Quirky true love songs

Hundred Days is heartbreakingly beautiful.

There are shows that break a writer’s heart, and brain. This is one of those shows—openhearted, genre-defying, utterly overwhelming, glorious to watch but confounding to write about. (My hard drive is littered with dra s of this short review.) Structured as a live concert, with bits of storytelling woven in (the songs are by Abigail Nessen-Bengson and Shaun Bengson, who write and perform under the name The Bengsons, and the book by the Bengsons and playwright Sarah Gancher), Hundred Days recounts the tumultuous first three weeks in the relationship of Abigail and Shaun, a relationship that includes both collaboration—they wrote their first song the first day they met—and a quirky romance/marriage. Remarkably, the Bengsons and Gancher manage, in their high-octane show, to be by turns sweet and cynical, tender and tough, jaded and jejune, not to mention in-your-face aggressive and achingly vulnerable.

The Bengsons starred in the original iterations of this show, which premiered in San Francisco in 2014 and later moved to New York. In this iteration, directed by Lucky Stiff, the Bengsons are played by Emilie Modaff (Abigail) and Royen Kent and Alec Phan, who alternate as Shaun (Phan played Shaun the night I saw the show),

and their performances are heartbreakingly beautiful. Step by step, we watch these two damaged but worthy souls move from tentative first meetings (at one point in a soulful soliloquy, Shaun sings, “How can you bear to let someone, let someone love you?”) through the first floods of full-throated ecstasy (“I am a universe / I’m your man”) to the so ly spoken acceptance that this will not be just a hundred-day thing. —JACK HELBIG HUNDRED DAYS Through 1/9: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 5 PM, Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division, kokandyproductions.com, $38, $30 students/seniors, limited $15 tickets students/artists each show.

R Parody actually

A seasonal rom-com gets an (unauthorized!) musical version.

Goethe’s 1774 romantic classic Die Leiden des jungen Werthers convinced many ill-starred suitors to off themselves in the pain of unrequited love, and Richard Curtis’s 2003 romantic comedy Love Actually has surely convinced just as many yearning paramours to commit ill-advised confessions of infatuation towards their best friends’ spouses, their officemates, and their employees in the holy name of Christmas. This practice has become so ingrained in our culture that some review these acts of self-humiliation and sexual harassment annually as part of the holiday fetes. Critics have found Love Actually incoherent and overwrought, misogynistic, “a little like a gourmet meal that turns into a hot-dog eating contest,” “the least romantic film of all time,” and “the worst Christmas movie ever.” And now this cherished holiday picture is also (unofficially) a musical!

A Christmas wreath tacked inches away from an air vent on an otherwise bare wall sets the tone as one ascends the stairs to the Apollo Theater. Love Actually?

The Unauthorized Musical Parody, with book and lyrics by Bob and Tobly McSmith and music and orchestrations by Basil Winterbottom, is bare bones, directed by Tim Drucker with six actors embodying nine love stories in 85 minutes on a stage set consisting of wrapping paper and a few doors (designed by Joshua Warner). Yet this economy—which includes actors setting and clearing furniture and swapping wigs, costumes, and characters with agility—is to be admired. Packed with zingers and disparaging of the grand gestures “love” inspires towards people who are actually strangers, the result is absurd in premise and triumphant in achievement, self-aware, sassy, and sung brilliantly by a cast that flings their talents into the crowd with abandon, like so many Mardi Gras beads. Those who love Love Actually will have fun—those who hate it will have even more.

—IRENE HSIAO LOVE ACTUALLY? THE UNAUTHORIZED MUSICAL PARODY Through 1/2/22: Wed-Fri 7 PM, Sat 2 and 7 PM, Sun 2 and 5 PM (see website for holiday schedule); Apollo Theater Chicago, 2550 N. Lincoln, 773-935-6100, apollochicago.com, $29-$59.

R Coercive utopia

A radio drama about Jonestown is uncannily contemporary.

While its drama focuses on 20th-century events, the New Coordinates’s (the company formerly known as the New Colony) Love in the Time of Jonestown is uncannily contemporary—which is exactly how historical fiction should feel.

Production-wise, Jonestown richly reflects our time and place. Written by Omer Abbas Salem, it’s a radio play in three parts that handily realizes the theatrical possibilities of audio. In the before times, podcasting was already fertile soil for storytellers and saw plenty of crossover with television. But as “dark days” became truly dark months, theater kids began to intuitively harness the medium for themselves on a large scale. These sound projects are now everywhere, but Jonestown is my first encounter with one such production from a storefront. Given the city’s history as a radio and theater hub, I can see shows like this becoming a bright and enduring thread in our cultural fiber. Why weren’t we already doing more of this?

The nonlinear story itself is both gripping and tender. Through Rassoul, the protagonist played by Salem, we’re shown how desperation can lead people to erase their identities in the name of belonging, how easily love becomes shorthand for abuse in these situations. And, though true crime podcasts might have you think that it’s the only version of this story, Salem’s harrowing piece, directed by Sophiyaa Nayar, isn’t about a white mother trying to save her white daughter from a bunch of deadly hippies. Instead, Jonestown smartly examines dogma that goes so far to the le that it’s actually on the far right, building out a coercive utopia where all identities—especially those Black, Brown, and queer—are erased in the name of “peace.” —KT HAWBAKER LOVE IN THE TIME OF JONESTOWN Streaming through 12/12 at thenewcoordinates.org, $15. v

thumps bass, and understudy Elizabeth McAnulty Quilter (in for Charlie Baker) as Leor pops with energy and delights with juggling, guitar, and washboard. What’s not to like!? —JOSH FLANDERS HERSHEL AND THE HANUKKAH GOBLINS

Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins JENN UDONI FRANCO IMAGES

The Power of Jane Campion

By KATHLEEN SACHS

The 12-year period between Jane Campion’s last feature—her 2009 masterpiece Bright Star (a staggering achievement that itself should have resulted in the sky opening and money raining down upon the New Zealand-born, Australia-and-London-based writer-director)—and her latest, a searing adaptation of Thomas Savage’s eponymous 1967 novel, is one of the great travesties of contemporary cinema. In between these theatrical features, she cowrote and codirected two seasons of Top of the Lake; in spite of the limited television series’s myriad virtues, it felt like a consolation prize for those of us who had been desperate for more of Campion’s cinematic mastery.

But more we’ve finally gotten. And, thankfully, The Power of the Dog—among the year’s best films, if not its very best—has been given a theatrical run before premiering on Netflix in December. I mention this only because it’s crucial that the film be seen on a big screen, in

the utmost dark and surrounded by strangers, all of whom have entered into agreement that this brief period of time belongs to Campion, and we are but humble witnesses to her alchemy. She’s compromised nothing in partnering with the streaming behemoth, having made a film that embraces the majesty of cinema and, more importantly, moviegoing, from its provocative cast to the striking cinematography (done by Ari Wegner, whose recent credits include Zola , Lady Macbeth , and several episodes of The Girlfriend Experience) to Jonny Greenwood’s likewise delicate and menacing score, all of which become larger than life in the moving image’s hallowed halls.

Brothers Phil and George Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons, respectively) are well-to-do cattle ranchers in 1925 Montana. The beginning of the film finds Phil foxily celebrating the quarter of a century they’ve spent working together on their immense ranch. Despite his churlish behavior and a predilection for calling his brother

“Fatso,” Phil seems the more invested one in their unusually close relationship. George, on the other hand, emanates dissatisfaction with the current state of a airs, reluctant to dwell on the past as Phil does. When Phil regales their crew with tales of Bronco Henry—the brothers’ former mentor, a long-dead, near-mythical Western eidolon who comes to haunt the story as a specter of desolation and repression—George seems not to recall those alleged halcyon days. Plemons’s understated, almost blasé, propriety is a perfect foil for Cumberbatch’s arrogant blustering, the strain in their relationship evident via the carefully constructed dynamic between the actors. The tension lingers like the ominous twangs of Greenwood’s soundtrack.

The brothers herd their cattle to a nearby town, where they and their crew stay at an inn owned by the widow Rose (Kirsten Dunst), who operates it with her teenage son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). George takes a liking to Rose, and Phil watches these developments

OF

ssss Dir. Jane Campion, 126 min. Coming to Netflix 12/1, now playing at Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport, $11, and in other select theaters.

unfold with dismay after having harassed her son for serving the ranchers with a white cloth draped over his arm. Tall, gangly, and awkward, Peter is clearly targeted for characteristics that suggest sensitivity, weakness, and (though never explicitly articulated) queerness.

Smit-McPhee’s performance is a Campionesque rendering if there ever was one; this auspicious young actor embodies the idea of queerness, not as it pertains to the character’s undisclosed sexuality, but to an overall state of being set apart, inherently at odds with the world around you. Peter is another figure in a pantheon of characters—including the titular Sweetie from Campion’s debut feature (1989); Holly Hunter’s Ada from The Piano (1993); and Meg Ryan’s Frannie from the woefully underrated In the Cut (2003)—who seem to be as enigmatic to Campion as they are to us.

George and Rose marry, and she and Peter move to the cowboy brothers’ large, foreboding house, set against a mountainous panorama (though it was filmed in New Zealand, Campion’s facility with the setting obscures any doubts surrounding the geographic anachronism). Peter goes o to school, while Rose struggles to adjust not only to her new home, but to her new lot in life. She’s uncomfortable being waited on by the house staff and being expected to perform on the piano for the visiting governor (who, when he shows up, is played by Keith Carradine). Meanwhile Phil wages a sly psychological war on Rose, withholding any sort of familial a ection and looming near her, over her, in the dark, country house. She’s driven to drink by his malevolent behavior, taking to bed in fits of despair.

Peter returns home and experiences the same dissonance as a continued object of disdain for Phil and the ranch hands. But he responds to it differently than his mother and gains leverage over Phil after happening upon his secret hideaway in the woods. It feels almost reductive to discuss the discovery in question, magazines of half-nude men exercising, as well as a revelation to which only the audience is privy, a scene of Phil pleasuring himself with a seemingly beloved, well-worn handkerchief (which he pulls directly from

Benedict Cumberbatch in The Power of the Dog NETFLIX

WESTERN MASTERPIECE

The Power of the Dog, Campion’s newest film in 12 years, is among the year’s best.

THE POWER

THE DOG

his pants), embroidered with the initials “BH.’” Bronco Henry. An inferable but no less provocative development, the psychosexual always flirts with the nebulousness of being in Campion’s films.

This exhibition sets into motion a chain of events that, for lack of a more suitable phrase, will keep viewers on the edge of their seats. These happenings have inspired critics to invoke such phrases as “revisionist Western” and “toxic masculinity” when describing The Power of the Dog ; the qualifiers may be applicable to this oft-inscrutable masterpiece, but they feel unsuitable nonetheless. The film seems, rather, like a menagerie of oblique character studies, each of the adult leads an animal in his or her own cage. For all his saltof-the-earth machismo, Phil actually has more in common with Peter than he lets on, having been classically educated and thus apparently quite intelligent. Peter aspires to be a doctor like his late father, but, unlike Phil, he opts for the rigor of study to the hardscrabbles of manual labor. Both may or may not share a certain inborn quality that at the time and in

that place was decidedly taboo.

As Rose, Dunst exhibits the subtle vulnerability that accounts for her superb talent and the heretofore underappreciation of it. The film’s focus is ostensibly on its male characters, but, as in keeping with Campion’s films, the central female figure emerges as an equally complicated figure, if not more so. Smit-McPhee likewise balances conflicting postures, oscillating gracefully between shy, put-upon misfit and baleful protector of his remaining parent’s sanity. It helps that SmitMcPhee’s unusual beauty complements this aim, though his striking physical presence never overpowers the delicate nuance.

Much is being made of Cumberbatch’s performance, but it’s my opinion that he’s the weakest of the four leads (Plemons is excellent as always, disappearing into the role as needed; his on-screen chemistry with real-life partner Dunst is further additive). Adhering to Campion’s typical demand for method acting from her performers, Cumberbatch spent much time in the American west and even learned to castrate a bull, lending believability

to the film’s most gruesome (but thankfully simulated) scene. He’s too much at times, but perhaps that’s intentional—he’s set apart from the other actors, and this enhances the effectiveness of their subtlety as well as his strangeness. Cumberbatch plays Phil aware of what Phil isn’t aware of himself: that there are others who know, or at least suspect, who he truly is.

The film’s title hints at an imperceptible shape in the craggy Montana hillscape, a mystery obscured by the perilous terrain. Campion’s use of setting here is evocative of those great masters John Ford and Anthony Mann. Shots of Phil and Peter in a barn, backlit against the clear-blue sky and lightgreen mountains, recall a famous shot from Ford’s The Searchers, while Campion’s use of landscape as a psychological overbear evokes Mann’s best Westerns (The Furies, Bend of the River, The Far Country). A film’s score is often considered in such complementary terms, and Greenwood’s prickly rejoinder suggests a voyeur-like presence. This is the second soundtrack he’s composed this year, after

Pablo Larraín’s Spencer . He’s fast becoming his generation’s Philip Glass, his portentous accompaniments an apt barometer of the respective auteur’s impulses.

The Power of the Dog is already being tapped for the upcoming awards season, with some predicting nominations for Campion and the lead cast members. Normally I don’t care about the likelihood of a director potentially to win awards, but I can’t help but to be excited by this prospect for Campion and her long-awaited masterpiece, not least because it might mean that she’s able to direct yet more features. Driven to make this film adaptation of it after reading Savage’s novel (a feat previously considered by none other than Paul Newman), she’s once again burrowed into that dark crevice amid sinisterness and beauty, darkness and light. The mystifying interiors of her finely drawn characters coalesce elegantly with the idiosyncrasies of her aesthetic vision, but often to disquieting effect. Out of this comes yet another sublime ode to the intricacies of humanity, after which there’ll hopefully be others to come. v

NOW PLAYING

R Bruised

When Halle Berry initially read the script for Bruised, the washed-up, traumatized former mixed martial arts champion at its center was a white, twentysomething Irish woman. The Netflix movie—starring Berry, who also makes her directorial debut—now centers on a middle-aged Black woman, Jackie Justice. Both Jackie’s age and skin color heighten the stakes immeasurably. From 1931’s The Champ to Girlfight and beyond, the redemption arc of fighting-phoenix-from-the-ashes plots aren’t hard to predict. But screenwriter Michelle Rosenfarb renders a story unlike its predecessors in crucial aspects. The end is fairly predictable. The way it gets there is decidedly not. In addition to brutal training montages (Rocky could never), Bruised takes on Jackie’s fight to become a mother to her six-year-old son, who she le as a baby and is back on her doorstep just as she’s re-entering the ring. There’s a scene where Jackie’s buying less than $25 of groceries so she can feed the kid she wasn’t expecting to see again. She only has $20, but the stone-faced bodega cashier won’t give her a break. Jackie puts back a box of tampons. It’s a tiny moment, but it says a lot about a country where insurance will cover erectile dysfunction but not the most fundamental health-care items women need. It reveals as much about Jackie as the bone-crunching fight scenes (watch for UFC flyweight champion Valentina “Bullet” Shevchenko as Lady Killer). Featuring Sheila Atim as Buddhakan, Jackie’s lead trainer and a luminous, fully-developed woman in her own right, Bruised is, yes, a knockout. —CATEY SULLIVAN R, 129 min. Netflix, select theaters

R Clerk.

Clerk. made me cry. Maybe it will do the same for you. The Kevin Smith documentary offers an immersive and inspiring behind-the-scenes look at Smith that makes the multihyphenate’s o en obscured influence clear. Directed by documentarian Malcolm Ingram, the film hones in on the community Smith fostered through the View Askewniverse, the fictional universe that sprung from his critically acclaimed debut Clerks. In that respect, it calls to mind one of Ingram’s first documentaries, the phenomenal Small Town Gay Bar. But it also spotlights the outer edges of that world,

beyond Jay and Silent Bob and the like, to further highlight Smith’s work as, to put it plainly, a champion of people. From executive producing Good Will Hunting to deciding in 2017 to donate all future royalties from his Harvey Weinstein-made movies to the nonprofit Women in Film, it proves time and again that Smith’s career is one worth considering, celebrating, and continuing to follow. —BECCA JAMES 115 min. VOD

R C’mon C’mon

The fourth feature from indie director Mike Mills, C’mon C’mon tells the story of radio journalist Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) who, a er a family emergency, is le in charge of his precocious nephew Jesse (Woody Norman). As the pair travel across the country Johnny conducts a series of interviews with young people, investigating their thoughts and feelings about what the future holds for them.

Mills’s film is broad yet personal, touching on a range of relationships as the single and childless Johnny attempts to navigate his nuanced relationship with both his nephew and his sister Viv (Gaby Hoffmann), which has largely been severed due to differing opinions in the past of how to care for their mother, who is suffering from dementia. For her part Viv is struggling to balance her own estranged relationship with Jesse’s father Paul (Scoot McNairy), who recently moved to a new city and struggles with his mental state, and her young son, who has a growing understanding of his family’s fragile state.

While the complex range of emotional strain in C’mon C’mon could overwhelm a less adept filmmaker, the chemistry of Mills’s cast is so compelling that it carries the film above the weight of its more navel-gazing moments. Phoenix and Norman share much of the screen time and share an especially mesmerizing bond. And for their part, acting as a separate film within a film, the vérité interviews make for an engaging documentary as the musings of kids from across the spectrum of American life provide a thoughtful companion to Jesse’s own coming-of-age story. —ADAM MULLINS-KHATIB R, 108 min. AMC Theatres, Landmark Theatres

R Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Thirty-seven years a er the original etched its way into our psyche and made Ray Parker Jr. a radio star, Ghostbusters: A erlife, directed by Jason Reitman

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

and produced by dad and original director Ivan Reitman, relaunches the franchise with a mostly funny and solid offering. Hearkening to the great movies of the 80s, this film follows a group of very capable and hilarious kids who save the world from destruction. Callie (Carrie Coon), a single mom, and her kids Trevor (Finn Wolfhard), the requisite horny teen, and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), a brilliant, nerdy young scientist-to-be, inherit a big, scary old house in the middle of nowhere from Callie’s recently deceased father, Egon Spengler. Yes, that Egon Spengler. The first two-thirds of the film are fresh, creative, and o en hilarious, with solid writing and delightful Easter eggs for all the lifelong Ghostbusters fans. Logan Kim as Podcast, a fellow outcast kid who joins the fray, is drop-dead hilarious, and Paul Rudd provides his usual charm and humor. But it’s Grace’s preternaturally capable lead character who carries the film, picking locks, deciphering clues, and assembling all the ghost-busting gear we know and love to fight the baddies. The other female characters, sadly, are one-dimensional, including mom Callie and Lucky (Celeste O’Connor), the target of Trevor’s horndoggedness. Sadly, the last third of the film follows the exact plot, more or less, of the original film (Gozer, Keymaster, Gatekeeper), ending with a scene that, to avoid spoilers, will likely run chills up audiences’ spines for all the wrong reasons. —JOSH FLANDERS PG-13, 124 min. Wide release

The Humans

Writer/director Stephen Karam’s close-quarters Thanksgiving horror-comedy is adapted from his 2014 one-act play of the same name, which premiered at Chicago’s now-defunct American Theater Company before opening off-Broadway, where it won the Tony Award for best play. The Blake family is trying to have a nice time at Thanksgiving, but the long hallways of daughter Brigid (Beanie Feldstein) and well-meaning musician boyfriend Richard’s (Steven Yeun) still-unfurnished Manhattan duplex resound with tough love that keeps crossing the line, walking itself back, then crossing it again. In a career-best performance, Amy Schumer plays the depressed family empath, Aimee, opposite bitter and ferocious parents Deirdre (Jayne Houdyshell) and Erik (Richard Jenkins). The girls’ grandmother, Momo (June Squibb), whose round-the-clock care has strained their parents’ marriage to a breaking point, eats her meal from a wheelchair and can hardly speak.

With several fleeting exceptions—an opening montage shot up at blue skies from the inner courtyard, a glimpse at the Manhattan skyline late in the night, and some hectic chase sequences down to the boiler room and up toward the roo op in between—the film sustains a single-set, real-time mise-en-scène for its entire one hour and 48 minutes, probing virtually every surface of the duplex until its walls, floors, fixtures, and paint bubbles acquire the texture of a live body. At times, unexplained booming noises from upstairs, burned-out

lights, and the claustrophobia of it all shade the ambience into horror movie territory. Chekhov by electric lamplight, A24 style, for the holidays. —MAX MALLER R, 108 min. Showtime

R King Richard

Good biopics are hard to come by. Most are hit or miss; it’s either Malcolm X or Jobs. But King Richard knocks it out of the park. Will Smith plays the titular Richard Williams, as he raises two future tennis champions: Venus and Serena. This is perhaps one of the best performances of Smith’s career with Aunjanue Ellis going toe-to-toe with him as the Williams matriarch. Here Smith gets to tap into his comedic timing in a way we haven’t seen in years and delivers monologue a er gut-wrenching monologue that just knocks the wind out of you. It’s a testament to his acting chops, which have sometimes been neglected in his later career choices. The film’s pacing is near-perfect, avoiding another classic biopic mistake of showing too much or too little by capturing the early years of Venus and Serena’s career. We follow the girls from prodigies practicing on a rundown tennis court in Compton, California, to Venus’s stirring 1994 loss to 14-time grand-slam winner Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario, depicting the racism and classism they faced along the way in a world unkind to young Black girls. The camerawork stands out here too, with shot sequences throughout the matches following game play in a way that makes it feel like watching a live game. And the film doesn’t gloss over the flaws in its eponymous protagonist, giving him a realistic but still root-worthy story arc. It’s a welcome addition to the biopic genre, buoyed by a career-defining performance from Will Smith. —NOËLLE D. LILLEY PG-13, 144 min. HBO Max and wide release

R Tick, Tick . . . Boom!

Everything has a cost, and the cost of being an artist is not cheap. In Lin-Manuel Miranda-directed Tick, Tick . . . Boom!, Andrew Garfield stars as the late playwright and composer Jonathan Larson before the premiere of Rent made him famous posthumously. Based on Larson’s autobiographical musical of the same title, the movie follows a confused Larson in 1990 as he works on a futuristic-like play with as much passion as ever while his friends begin to pursue careers outside of the arts due to the exhaustion of overworking to pay the bills in New York City. As time ticks on, Larson realizes he will soon turn 30 years old without much to show for it. Balancing waiting tables, being present for his loved ones, and finishing a song for his upcoming show’s workshop proves to be a challenge that Larson cannot meet. Juxtapositions of the same-titled play narrated by Garfield and the scenes playing out provide an exciting yet devastating backstory to Larson’s childhood, his friends in NYC, and his journey to later finishing Rent despite the bare struggles to sufficiently take care of himself as an artist. —JANAYA GREENE PG-13, 115 min. Netflix v

Halle Berry in Bruised NETFLIX

David Weathersby, documentary filmmaker

DAVID WEATHERSBY

David Weathersby is a filmmaker and founder of video production company City Vanguard, which focuses on documentaries about underrepresented communities of color. In 2018, he received a Black Excellence Award for The Color of Art from the African American Arts Alliance of Chicago, and in 2019, his documentary Thee Debauchery Ball won the audience award for best feature film at the Black Harvest Film Festival and was named best film by the Chicago South Side Film Festival. His latest film, It’s Di erent in Chicago, explores the local histories and cultural impacts of house music and hip-hop as well as the relationship between those two scenes. The doc-

umentary premiered at the Gene Siskel Film Center on November 21 as part of the Black Harvest Film Festival, and it will be streamable online via the Siskel Center website from November 24 through December 2. More info at siskelfilmcenter.org/its-different-chicago.

Ihear a lot of complaints that there’s no industry in Chicago. I don’t want to speak for musicians—I know they’d prefer to have industry—but I think that’s one of the benefits of living here. Usually when there’s industry, they kind of dictate things, even an independent scene. But in Chicago you have a lot of people who are just creating, not to impress a

certain person or to necessarily get signed— they’re just creating.

In It’s Different in Chicago, one of the lines that really got to me was from one of the hiphop artists [Phenom]. He says, “We weren’t trying to be famous; we were trying to be felt.” I find that just really sums up a lot of Chicago artists. There’s a lot of people who are just trying to be felt; they’re creating art to create art, and they’re not bogged down by certain arbitrary rules or expectations. There’s a lot of honesty and creativity in that, and it really needs to be documented. A lot of times, unfortunately, because there’s not a name connected to it that everyone knows, those artists get ignored. But I feel like their stories are just as or even more important because they’re from the grass roots. They’re the day-to-day engine of music and culture.

What’s still true about house music and hiphop today is the commitment. Here in Chicago, they are very committed to the culture, and they’re very committed to the preservation of not just the music but the culture around the community. And that’s very important.

A lot of people might see that as insular and kind of tribal, but it’s also a defense. Both forums have been exploited in the past and kind of have been used. And the people who were the true pioneers didn’t get credit, because the music got commercialized and the narrative got changed along the way. I think that commitment to the culture is still there and is still necessary. There needs to be a balance between reaching out to a new audience and preserving why a new audience would want to come in and experience that music.

One thing that’s di erent now is that technology and access has really changed a lot of stuff. On the one hand, it’s removed a lot of quote-unquote gatekeepers, but on the other side it’s allowed people to remove the steps of the growth that were necessary, like payingyour-dues kind of stu . Back then, they actually developed the artists.

Sometimes it’s not so much the best artists [who get famous], it’s the artist who fits a par-

ticular narrative. Some of the best musicians in Chicago that I know of don’t have record deals. That’s not a shot at anybody who does get signed; it’s just my experience. In the last few years I’ve found myself listening to more Soundcloud in my basement than to actual radio, because there’s that kind of purity and creativity that might not fit a narrative.

I moved to the Chicagoland area a little over 20 years ago from the Seattle area. In other places I’ve lived or experienced, it’s basically hip-hop and then everything else when it comes to parties and dance music. Techno, house, electronica, dubstep—they’ll call it “house,” but you noticed it’s kind of mislabeled.

I grew up on hip-hop, and that’s what I knew. So when I got to Chicago and I heard people talking about house music and I started listening to it, I’m like, “This is totally di erent.” I thought it was a unique story that in Chicago—especially in the Black community—house was the more dominant and the more prevalent of the two styles. House is everywhere. One of the biggest festivals right now, the Chosen Few, pulls in about 20,000 to 40,000 people a year for house music. In most places, that size crowd would be for a hiphop thing. The Silver Room Block Party pulls in 10,000 people. All these different events where house is dominant—that’s so unique compared to other places in the country where house is secondary.

So I wanted to chronicle what makes Chicago di erent. What makes this one little oasis in the middle of the country where house is what everybody knows? That’s not to say that hiphop doesn’t have its place here. I thought that was fascinating, and I thought it represented not just people who are fans of the music but a cultural thing. And it had a totally di erent narrative around it than hip-hop. To this day, there’s no drama or fights around it. The whole air is community. I found it kind of odd but not really surprising that house was basically ignored by mainstream media.

When a community creates something great and people want to be a part of it, it’s very important that the people who created it get the credit. If they’re not credited, they’re not the ones who benefit. If the credit is going somewhere else because of a mainstream media narrative, the people who actually worked and built this don’t get called for the tour, they’re not called for the concert. It’s more than being like, “Oh, we want to be credited.” These people who bled and sweat for this culture should be getting what they deserve. We’ve seen

MUSIC

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di erent people come in and say they’re the “pioneers of house.” That’s more than being o ensive—it can economically a ect the people who actually did it.

So the people who pioneered it should have their say in the narrative. If nothing else, then to time-stamp the moment. When an inaccurate narrative gets out there and you try to tell the truth, you now have to go through that bad narrative, and it’s very hard to break through. To me, it’s very important to document the people who were here and what really happened before memories get fuzzy.

I knew house and hip-hop were sometimes complementary and sometimes confrontational. But I was surprised to find a generational split, because both styles are roughly the same age. Early hip-hop was built on disco beats. I talked to a lot of youth rappers who were very positive about house, but it was always with the caveat “that’s what my mom listened to.” So exploring that generational split was very interesting.

The kids I talked to at the beginning of the film, they’re all in their teens or early 20s. Their whole life is hip-hop, and they don’t really see house as their music. They saw it as a different generation, even though hiphop and house are the same age. And that’s because of the two di erent paths they went through. Hip-hop kept re-creating itself, and house—a lot of it due to what happened to it in the disco era, and how it was exploited and then thrown away—became very protected, and it created a much older crowd. But they’re the same age, and they have the same roots.

Another documentary I did on house, Thee Debauchery Ball , the founder of that [event, Khari B.,] said, “Funk and disco had two babies. One went to New York, one went to Chicago.” Basically saying that’s the di erence between house and hip-hop. They’re basically siblings. And I think that’s the best way to describe the two musics.

I think a lot of what happened had to do with the impact the backlash toward disco (like the Disco Demolition) had on house. I think it also had to do with New York being a much bigger media market, so when something breaks, it’s right there. Plus, in my opinion, the house culture wasn’t too focused on [commercial success]. As one person in the film said, “We were too busy having a good time.”

Although that peacefulness is a godsend for the Black community, other people don’t see it as marketable. Black people being at peace with each other is not seen as marketable. It’s

a shame, because it creates a lopsided narrative. If all you are showing is negative, people don’t get to create a balanced view of things. House has always been inclusive. It had to be—it was basically started by gay Black men in the South Shore who couldn’t really venture out for safety reasons. They had to create this kind of music and environment that was underground, and I think the heterosexual Black community said, “We need that kind of peace too.” And that’s why they gravitated toward it. Everyone needed that kind of peace and release.

Lopsided narratives can keep people away from the Black community because all they’ve seen is the negative. That’s not to sugarcoat any of the negativity, but the positive is just as real as the negative, and people have the right to see both before they make a decision. Not just what gets the most clicks.

I always use the example, “Think of any kind of sports team. Now what happens if they only broadcast at the games that they lost? What would be your view of that team?” And that’s what I feel like mainstream media is doing [to Chicago’s Black communities]—they’re only showing the losses, and people are creating their narrative through that. And it’s not fair.

With this documentary, I wanted to show the behind-the-scenes, show the music and the culture, and show all of these people in the park [at the Chosen Few], like, “Look at all these people in the park. Look at these young kids being completely peaceful at the cypher [at the Platform at Collaboraction Theatre Company], where they have these ceremonies of growth around hip-hop.” These people might live right next to you.

I want people to not just see the di erence in the musics but also see the differences in culture. And see this isn’t just a story about different musical genres that complement each other and also bump heads, but what it’s like to be in two cultures and coexist. It’s a story of coexisting and respect. Without homogenizing, without appropriating. How do we just respect each other?

I wanted to look at how, although these two cultures are very different, they were similar in their desires. How passionate the house people were about their music. How passionate hip-hop people were about getting—as someone said, “We wanted a piece of that dance floor.” If you can’t relate to someone music-wise, you can relate to their passion. v

EARLY WARNINGS

Maxwell, Anthony Hamilton, Joe 4/9/2022, 8 PM, Wintrust Arena b

Maxx McGathey 12/16 and 12/23, 9 PM, Tack Room F

Arlo McKinley, Justin Wells 12/4, 8 PM, Sleeping Village Melkbelly, Stuck, Bruised 12/3, 8 PM, Sleeping Village

b ALL AGES F

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GOSSIP WOLF

NEW

Anaiet Soul, Semiratruth 12/14, 9:30 PM, Hideout

Ateez 1/18/2022, 7:30 PM, Wintrust Arena b

An Ayler Xmas featuring Mars Williams, Josh Berman, Jim Baker, Brian Sandstrom, Steve Hunt, Kent Kessler, and Peter Maunu 12/17, 9 PM, Hungry Brain

Boy Harsher, Kontravoid, Club Music 12/30, 9:30 PM, Empty Bottle

The Bridge 12/12, 9 PM, Hungry Brain

Anthony Bruno, Zoofunkyou 12/10, 8:30 PM, Hideout

Josh Caterer Trio, Sunshine Boys 12/16, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Sarah Coco 12/9, 9 PM, Tack Room F

Cordoba, Yomi, Je’raf 12/13, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle F

Courtesy, Smut, Fetter 12/10, 10 PM, Empty Bottle

Covers for Cover Benefit featuring Turnup the Volume Dance Party, Shelley Miller, Carey Anne Farrell, Andrea Bunch, Lillian Pollack, Elton Jane, New Rhythm Arts

Djembe Ensemble, 25 Bees, and more 12/11, 6:30 PM, Lincoln Hall

DaBaby 2/17/2022, 7 PM, Aragon Ballroom b Daley 12/18, 7 PM, the Promontory b

Erika de Casier 3/22/2022, 8 PM, Schubas, 18+

Donny Benét 3/11/2022, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+

Dzö-nga, Laang, Dismalimerence 5/19/2022, 7 PM, Reggies Music Joint

Eccentric Disco dance party featuring Makamena, St. Stephen 12/10, 9 PM, Thalia Hall F

Kevan E ekhari 12/11 and 12/18, 9 PM, Tack Room F

Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas featuring Eiren Caffall, Lawrence Peters, Matt Gandurski, Seth Vanek, Kip Rainey, and Charlie Malave 12/11-12/12, 3 and 7 PM, Hideout b

Emo Night Brooklyn 12/10, 9:30 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Falling in Reverse, Wage War 1/25/2022, 5:20 PM, Aragon Ballroom, 17+

Fireboy DML 2/9/2022, 8 PM, the Vic b

Flat Five 1/21/2022, 8:30 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn Flat Four 12/15, 7:30 PM, SPACE, Evanston b

Floozies, Wreckno, Cofresi, Trash Angel 1/28/2022, 8 PM, the Vic, 18+

Friko, Sick Day 12/17, 8 PM, GMan Tavern Ezra Furman 6/1/2022, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+

G. Love & the Juice 1/15/2022, 8 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Geographer, Meija 3/29/2022, 10 PM, Empty Bottle

Glaive, Aldn, Midwxst 2/26/2022, 7 PM, Bottom Lounge b

Hide, Cloud Rat, Spirit Trap 1/6/2022, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle

Hovvdy, Molly Parden 5/5/2022, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+

Miki Howard, Park N Ride 1/8/2022, 7 PM, Park West HTRK 5/8/2022, 8 PM, Subterranean, 17+

Hunna, Charming Liars, Kelsy Karter 12/9, 7:30 PM, Schubas b

I Fight Dragons, Schaffer the Darklord, Fantastic Mammals 12/18, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+

Iamnotshane 2/8/2022, 8 PM, Chop Shop, 18+

Janis Ian 5/14/2022, 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b

Chris Isaak 12/11, 7:30 PM, Genesee Theatre, Waukegan b Emily King 2/11/2022, 7:30 PM, Park West, 18+ Kool Keith 12/11, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle

La Posada featuring Jose Alfredo 12/18, 9 PM, Metro

Lawrence Arms, Direct Hit!, Evil Empire 12/9, 7 PM, Chop Shop, 18+

Lawrence Arms, Broadway Calls, Catbite 12/10, 7 PM, Chop Shop, 18+

Lawrence Arms, Elway, Muslims 12/11, 7 PM, Chop Shop, 18+

Leprous, the Ocean 4/2/2022, 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+

Les Sangliers, Five People 12/9, 8:30 PM, Constellation

Lightning Bolt, Problems 3/21/2022, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+

Liquid Stranger 1/21/2022, 9 PM, Aragon Ballroom, 18+

Local H 12/29-12/30, 8 PM; 12/31, 10 PM, Beat Kitchen

Los Pericos 3/13/2022, 6 PM, Concord Music Hall b

Low 2/16/2022, 8 PM, Metro, 18+

Lowdown Brass Band, Justice Hill 12/17, 8 PM, Chop Shop, 18+

Magic City Hippies 1/28/2022, 9 PM, Park West, 18+

Marc E. Bassy 2/16/2022, 7 PM, House of Blues b Mariachi Herencia de México 12/17, 8 PM; 12/18, 5 and 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b

Masters of Hawaiian Music featuring George Kahumoku Jr., Ledward Kaapana, Herb Ohta Jr. 1/14/2022, 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b

Million Dollaz Worth of Game live show featuring Gillie da King and Wallo267 12/10, 8 PM, the Vic b Modern English 7/2/2022, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Motherfolk, Texas King 2/5/2022, 8 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Mustard Plug, Kill Lincoln, Malafacha 12/18, 8 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Nefesh Mountain 12/9, 8 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Night Moves 12/17-12/18, 9 PM, Schubas, 18+ Obscura, Abysmal Dawn, Vale of Pnath, Interloper 3/9/2022, 6:30 PM, Reggies Rock Club, 17+ Palace 5/14/2022, 7:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Charlie Parr 4/22/2022, 9 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn Poi Dog Pondering 12/27-12/31, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Katie Pruitt 12/9, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Richie Ramone, Public Nature, Reaganomics 4/8/2022, 7:30 PM, Reggies Music Joint RP Boo, DJ Clent, Cuenique, DJ E Moe 12/10, 10 PM, Smart Bar

Scruffpuppie 2/28/2022, 7:30 PM, Schubas b Senses Fail, We Came as Romans, Counterparts, Seeyouspacecowboy 4/12/2022, 6 PM, Concord Music Hall, 17+ Sheila E. & the E-Train 2/5/2022, 5 and 8:30 PM; 2/6/2022, 8 PM, City Winery b

Shiner, Spotlights 12/10, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+

Six Organs of Admittance 4/25/2022, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Sixteen Candles 2/12/2022, 9 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Songs of Good Cheer holiday party hosted by Mary Schmich and Eric Zorn and featuring Old Town School musicians 12/10, 7:30 PM; 12/11, 3 and 7:30 PM; 12/12, 4 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Soul Message Band 12/11, 9 PM, Hungry Brain Sounds of the Street Festival featuring Casualties, Unseen, Cheap Sex, Virus, Corrupted Youth, Fiends, Gen Why, Stickups, Stolen Wheelchairs, and more 2/11/2022, 3 PM; 2/12/2022, 1 PM, Reggies Rock Club b

Southern Culture on the Skids 10/12/2022, 8 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn Spanks, Loona Dae 12/9, 9:30 PM, Hideout Spread Joy, Lipschitz, CB Radio Gorgeous 12/2, 8 PM, Sleeping Village Erthe St. James 12/3, 8 PM, City Winery b Stick Men 4/19/2022, 8 PM, Reggies Rock Club, 17+ Sueves 12/17, 10 PM, Empty Bottle

Surfaces, Mills 12/10, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre b Tchami, AC Slater, Habstrakt, Marten Horger 1/28/2022, 9 PM, Aragon Ballroom, 18+ Tears for Fears, Garbage 6/16/2022, 7:30 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park b Tipling Rock, Olen 12/10, 7 PM, Schubas, 18+ Torch the Hive, Sweetie, Anything Is Everything 12/9, 8 PM, Reggies Music Joint Vieux Farka Touré 5/19/2022, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Nicholas Tremulis & the Prodigals 1/21/2022, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Thaddeus Tukes & the Chicago Freedom Ensemble, Micah Collier’s AlecTet 12/17, 7 PM, the Promontory b Steve Vai 3/15/2022, 7:30 PM, Copernicus Center b Wale 1/31/2022, 9 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Keller Williams 12/2, 8 PM, City Winery b Windy City Soul Club 12/31, 9:30 PM, Logan Square Auditorium, 18+ Jamila Woods, theMind, Matt Muse 12/17, 8:30 PM, Metro, 18+

Wooli, William Black, Ace Aura 1/21/2022, 9 PM, Concord Music Hall, 18+ Yotto, Spencer Brown, RJ Pickens & Hummingbird 12/31, 8 PM, City Hall

UPDATED

Darren Criss 12/9, 7:30 PM, Chicago Theatre, canceled Diplo, Solardo, Vnssa, Anden 12/11, 9 PM, Aragon Ballroom, canceled Okilly Dokilly, Steaksauce Mustache 4/30/2022, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, rescheduled Shakey Graves, SG Goodman 12/28-12/29, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, opener added, 17+ v

A furry ear to the ground of the local music scene

CHICAGO HAS a brand-new record store: Round Trip Records in North Park! Co-owner Paul Nixon says the shop has been in the works since November 2019, when he left his longtime gig at Laurie’s Planet of Sound. Shortly he and Round Trip co-owner David Baker started selling records online and at the Chicagoland Record & CD Collectors Show in Hillside.

“We were looking for an office, and we found this retail space,” Nixon says. “We decided that it would be a fun thing to be involved with the community.” In January 2020 they signed a lease on a 500-squarefoot storefront at 3455 W. Foster, but the pandemic changed their plans—they finally opened the shop on November 20. Round Trip’s inventory is mostly 12-inch vinyl, but it also sells books, VHS tapes, CDs, and seven-inches. Nixon and Baker stock jazz, avant-garde music, 60s and 70s psych, 80s and 90s alternative, and more, and future selections will reflect what their customers turn out to prefer. When it isn’t Thanksgiving, Round Trip is open Thursdays through Saturdays from noon to 8 PM and Sundays from noon to 6 PM. Macie Stewart and Sima Cunningham of Ohmme have honed their ability to leap between spiky guitar dissonance and baroque pop eloquence; theater artists Alex Grelle (Grelley Duvall) and Jesse Morgan Young (Baathhaus) have paid tribute to David Bowie’s sound and vision with Floor Show . Perhaps predictably, all four of them love pop chameleon Kate Bush , but it’s a pleasant surprise that they’re teaming up for a multimedia showcase of her music called Full Bush . Ohmme will perform with a six-piece lineup, and the organizers say fans can expect “elaborate, over-the-top costumes and performances with frenetic choreography and transfi xing projections.” The show runs at Constellation from December 2 to December 5, then at Co-Prosperity Sphere from December 10 to December 12. Tickets are available at localuniverse.net/fullbush.

—J.R. NELSON AND LEOR GALIL

Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or e-mail gossipwolf@chicagoreader.com.

Cordoba AYETHAW TUN

Recommended and notable shows and releases with critics’ insights for the week

PICK OF THE WEEK

Chicago rockers Kirby Grip explore low earth orbit on Portrait of Bliss

CONCERT PREVIEWS SATURDAY27

Mzz Reese & Reese’s Pieces See also Sun 12/5. Bobby Rush headlines. 9 PM, Buddy Guy’s Legends, 700 S. Wabash, $30. 21+

Singer Mzz Reese has become a Chicagoland favorite for her burnished alto voice, expansive blues and soul-blues repertoire, and playfully fl irtatious, warm-hearted stage presence. But what really sets her apart is the professionalism of her show. Reese and her band—waggishly christened Reese’s Pieces—charge through a tightly constructed set consisting of well-known standards and tooo en-neglected soul and R&B classics, which o en culminates in her trademark number, “Cookies,” a swaggering demand for conjugal satisfaction that she obviously wrote in the spirit of one of her heroes, the late Denise LaSalle.

The Pieces are more than up to the task: Guitarist Joe B, whose Shotgun Band is a long-standing west-side club favorite, is best known as a straightahead bluesman, but at Reese’s prodding he’s proved himself equally adept with chordal, melodic, and rhythmic ideas borrowed from soul, pop, and funk. Keyboardist John Walls played with guitarist Vance Kelly for decades, in the process developing one of the most expansive repertoires of any blues sideman working in Chicago. In that respect, though, he’s met his match in bassist Avery “Abraham” Brady Jr., who currently holds down the bottom for trombonist Big James Montgomery in the funk-driven Chicago Playboys (and whose resumé includes a stint with Bobby Rush, who headlines the show on Saturday, November 27). Brady’s musical knowledge can seem bottomless: on those rare occasions when a bandleader calls a song he’s never played, his ears are astute enough (and his fingers quick enough) that he can lay down a groove so flawless that you’d think he knew the chart by heart.

Drummer James Carter began his musical journey at the old Delta Fish Market at Jackson and Kedzie, playing behind such legendary figures as Sunnyland Slim, Eddie Taylor, and James Cotton. Since then he’s worked with artists as varied as Joanna Connor, Otis Clay, and Artie “Blues Boy” White; he’s got the chops and the versatility to go anywhere Reese (or anyone else) might suggest, while never losing his unerring accuracy and trademark propulsiveness.

KIRBY GRIP, MUSH, MISTER GOBLIN

Tue 11/30, 8 PM, Sleeping Village, 3734 W. Belmont, $13, $10 in advance. 21+

CHICAGO ROCKERS KIRBY GRIP debuted in 2019 with American Cheese, an upbeat EP that animated its clean power-pop hooks with excitable emo propulsion. American Cheese standout “Chopped Party,” though, adopted a space-rock sound paired with stargazing lyrics, hinting at a direction Kirby Grip are now exploring in earnest on the new self-released full-length Portrait of Bliss. Kirby Grip pile on the cosmic e ects pedals till their guitars sound capable of transporting you to microgravity, while their heavy ri ng reminds you of the constant tug of our planet—their songs balance those forces as though they’re gliding in low earth orbit. From the sound of Portrait of Bliss, particularly the fireside warmth of the graceful “Velvia Cellar” and the massive galactic swirls of “Armstrong,” rubbing elbows with the International Space Station ain’t a bad way to spend your time.

—LEOR GALIL

Put all these folks on one stage, and the result is the kind of show that remains the sine qua non along what’s le of the old southern “chitlin’ circuit” of clubs and show lounges, but that too seldom makes its way to Chicago anymore: tightly wound, impeccably timed, and buoyed by ace musicianship.

Rush, of course, is another master at this kind of thing, which means that the audience at the show he headlines will be treated to a bracing combined dose of contemporary blues and soul-blues music and stagecra at their finest. —DAVID WHITEIS

TUESDAY30

Olivia Block Jon Mueller and Matchess open. 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $10. 21+

RYAN NOLEN

MUSIC

Local sound artist Olivia Block has created most of her albums with years of painstaking work in her home studio, so you might not expect that lockdown life would bring about profound changes in her music. But Innocent Passage in the Territorial Sea, released this month by Room40, is unlike anything else in her discography. A er the pandemic sank her touring schedule in 2020, Block retreated to a circumscribed existence that included remote teaching, reading books about ecological disaster, practicing her keyboard technique, and contemplating the fl ora in her backyard. She also stepped up her consumption of magic mushrooms. The resulting psychedelic experiences heightened her feelings of empathy toward and connection with the many beings who spent the year fighting for life, as well as allowing her to cultivate her consciousness of sound as a physical force. Many of Block’s past works are composites of found sounds, fragmented ensemble passages, and electronic processing that draw attention to their own abstraction. But inspired by her experiences on mushrooms, she began playing bass-heavy, repetitive fi gures on her Korg organ. Some of the pieces on Innocent Passage in the Territorial Sea unfold with eerie patience, while others achieve a monomaniacal drive reminiscent of the band Suicide. Several more are wreathed with synthesizer tones as bright and fragile as frost on a windowpane; others are threaded by the queasy voice of a brokendown mellotron, which heightens the music’s sense of foreboding. The album plays out like the soundtrack to a dystopian sci-fi film. Its first tracks are named in memory of animals abused or killed in cold war research, while others invoke the human and environmental dimensions of a period in the planet’s history that was already feeling pretty tragic before the virus showed up. To present the album in full, Block will lead a trio with Paige Alice Naylor on synthesizer and voice and Adam Sonderberg on additional synthesizers. Also on the bill are Matchess, the project of local multi-instrumentalist and composer Whitney Johnson, who will perform a new piece of slowly morphing sine waves and cassette loops, and Jon Mueller, who has pivoted from his recent percussion compositions to improvisational music that uses his drum kit to respond to a room’s acoustic properties.

—BILL MEYER

WEDNESDAY1

Baroness 8 PM, Cobra Lounge, 235 N. Ashland, sold out. 17+

Savannah metal band Baroness have named all their albums after colors, which before you even press play can evoke a sort of psychedelic synaesthesia and prepare your mind for what it’s about to receive. Led by guitarist and vocalist John Dyer Baizley, who’s also unquestionably one of the greatest album-cover and poster artists of his generation, the band have undergone a few lineup changes since experiencing a devastating tour-bus accident in 2012—nothing Baroness do is won easily, and Baizley needed extensive physical therapy before he could play guitar again. In 2019 the band’s current incarnation, in which Baizley is joined by guitarist Gina Gleason, bassist Nick Jost, and drummer Sebastian Thomson, released Gold & Grey , a complex, challenging record that incorporates prog, space rock, and psychedelia into an elaborate wave of energy. Lovely spiraling riffs give heft to lyrics about love and doomed hope on songs such as “Broken Halo,” while trippy so intros set up flawless hardrock anthems like “Tourniquet.” Baroness pay close attention to pacing, which enhances the album’s many great moments: for every fast- fi ngered run (on “Throw Me an Anchor,” for instance) there are several quiet and intricate stretches. Moody and experimental, Gold & Grey rewards listeners who have the patience to appreciate delayed gratifications such as the subtle beauty of “Emmett—Radiating Light.” In a special thank-you to their fans, Baroness have invited ticketholders to vote on the set lists for their first tour since the start of the pandemic, which they have dubbed Your Baroness (every attendee will also receive a signed poster, and each city on the itinerary gets its own unique design). So you can expect this show at Cobra Lounge to feature an individualized mix of

Kirby Grip See Pick of the Week at le . Mush and Mister Goblin open. 8 PM, Sleeping Village, 3734 W. Belmont, $13, $10 in advance. 21+

Olivia Block PATRICK MONAHAN

Find more music listings at chicagoreader.com/musicreviews

1/14/2022

1/14/2022 Skerryvore

2/5/2022

greatest hits and deep cuts from throughout their career. To help tide fans over while concerts were sidelined by the pandemic, in November 2020 the band released a limited-edition vinyl version of Live at Maida Vale—Vol. II , which consists of live versions of five Gold & Grey tunes from a BBC session. If you think Baroness are about due to put out another album of new material, you’re right; according to an interview with MetalSucks last year, they’ve stockpiled more than enough songs. Maybe they’ll sneak one of them into this show.

—MONICA KENDRICK

FRIDAY3

Easter Nervous Passenger and the Beloved DJs open. 10 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $10. 21+

The south suburbs loom large in the recent history of Chicagoland indie rock, and not just because they gave the city two of its best recent exports, Nnamdï and Ratboys. Oak Forest native Kyle Lang, for example, got into the local scene by playing house shows in the south suburbs with his band Easter, where he was o en backed by some of the same people who made that scene indispensable. Easter was basically Lang and whoever he could enlist that month, and as he told Better Yet podcast host (and Reader contributor) Tim Crisp in a 2016 interview, for his first couple shows under that name he was backed by Ratboys’ Dave Sagan, Nervous Passenger’s Brendan Smyth, and Nnamdï. Lang encouraged his friends to be part of the band, and in the early 2010s he was often joined onstage in Easter by six other musicians. The project began, though, with Lang recording at home by himself. Easter’s debut, the 2011 EP Demonstration , hums with indie-rock coziness. Lang’s plaintive vocals glide atop comforting, understated guitars and plucky rhythms; occasionally the music crescendos into a blurry racket, but the loud bits sparkle with the same homemade sweetness as the restrained parts. Initially Lang self-released Demonstration on CD-R, but for its tenth anniver-

sary this summer, new Chicago label Beloved reissued it on vinyl with a 40-page booklet detailing the band’s history. ( Demonstration also came out on cassette a few years ago, courtesy Rat King Records in Champaign.) Lang put Easter to bed in the mid-2010s, a er recovering from brain cancer, and these days he leads a more refi ned indie project called Special Death. To commemorate the tin anniversary of Demonstration , though, he’s bringing Easter back to the stage for one show. —LEOR GALIL

SATURDAY4

Desert Liminal Orisun, Kiwicha, and DJ Slinkie open. 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $10. 21+

The lead single from Desert Liminal’s latest album bursts with a gut punch of a line: “I don’t need no southbound highway sign to tell me hell is real.” Glass Fate , the Chicago experimental pop band’s second full-length, overflows with similarly oblique and poetic imagery—lilac tides and blood moons and sunlit roads line a journey toward recovery and renewal. Over the course of nine tracks, singer Sarah Jane Quillin autopsies several strains of loss: the death of a parent, the end of a relationship doomed by deceit, the dissolution of her band Heavy Dreams. But instead of mirroring the heaviness of the subject matter, the tone of Glass Fate is celestial. Gossamer vocals, lulling synth loops, and reverberant violin bring a welcome lightness to Quillin’s meditations on dissociation and dashed hopes. On dreamy album opener “Watercolor,” Quillin’s alienation grows into desperation: “If you can swallow the madness / Be apart, a part of some / Wore your shoes to bed in case / The Christ would care to come.” And she nails an emotional heel turn at the record’s end with “Rainbow Sherbert Sky,” an empowering aria that scoffs at the fakery and performance of a past relationship.

Desert Liminal’s releases prior to Glass Fate are delightfully nebulous; they tend to breeze through tracks and pay little mind to structure. The new album challenges that approach, and

leading the charge is drummer Rob Logan, whose polyrhythms provide a backbone for the foggy 12- minute “Disco Spring” and whose jaunty tambourine adds mysticism to “New Tongue” (which also features one of Quillin’s most enthralling vocal performances). Since the 2018 EP Comb for Gold , Desert Liminal have expanded from a duo into a trio, and new member Mallory Lineham—who performs string-powered noise as Chelsea Bridge and has collaborated with Whitney and Ohmme—has bolstered the band’s sonic explorations with her warm, swirling violin and coiling tape loops. Album highlight “Fire Escape’’ tangles Quillin’s vocals in a thicket of popping snare drum and humming keyboard, but the song’s haunting refrain can still be parsed amid the frenzy: “Given the choice I’d fade this like a well-worn radio / Given the chance I chased you like a childhood untied dog.” By sculpting the liminal space between heartbreak and healing, Glass Fate becomes all the more compelling.

—SHANNON NICO SHREIBAK

SUNDAY5

Mzz Reese & Reese’s Pieces See Sat 11/27. 9 PM, Buddy Guy’s Legends, 700 S. Wabash, $15. 21+

ALBUM REVIEWS

Femdot,

Not for Sale

Delacreme Music Group femdot.ffm.to/notforsale

On September 7, Chicago rapper Femi Adigun (aka Femdot, often styled femdot.) tweeted a loosie called “happyseptember.” that he’d recorded on a recent late night. “A lot of times I record to get words I can’t get out any other way,” he wrote in his post. “Wrote this cause it helped me. But maybe it can help you too.” His somber voice cuts through the unstable samples of the instrumental track, and his lucid depictions of grief as a constant presence in his life demonstrate the realworld effects of tragedies that often announce themselves in social-media notifications. The song hit me in the gut even before it was over, and Adigun has moved me as consistently as any other great Chicago rapper—I say “other great” because he’d established himself as belonging among them even before this year. If you need convincing, his new eight-song release, Not for Sale (Delacreme Music Group), can do the heavy li ing. Adigun usually favors material that emphasizes the speed of his delivery, but Not for Sale does more than give him opportunities to rap like the Road Runner tearing up the desert—it also accentuates the swing and melody in his performances. On “Mueen / Pray Pt 2.,” he rattles off a series of snapshots from his life, each in the form of a question, inviting listeners to identify with his moments of joy or selfdoubt. The whole series builds up to a grand rhetorical question Adigun asks himself: A er persevering as an independent rapper, why would he switch horses midstream? By that point in Not for Sale, he’s already proved he’s made the best choices for himself. —LEOR GALIL

When I heard there would be a new DAF LP by the end of the year, I gasped. In the 1980s, the German duo of Gabriel “Gabi” Delgado and Robert Görl produced some of the most exhilarating and fiercely danceable electro-punk that ever made fans of a bunch of dudes in black leather, but the two musicians famously had a love-hate relationship. Delgado died of a heart attack in March 2020, and I was apprehensive about the prospect of a new solo incarnation of the band. But when I heard the bleeps and pulsing drum machine that open Nur noch Einer (“Down to One”), my fears were quelled: Görl had gone through his and Delgado’s archives and unearthed unreleased vintage tracks and instrumental sequences.

DAF (Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft) formed as an improvisational five-piece in 1978, then gradually cut down their ranks. Görl says Nur noch Einar’s lead track, “Erste DAF Probe” (“First DAF Sample”), dates back to the group’s first rehearsal as a duo, where Delgado rocked a stylophone, a primitive early synthesizer famously used on David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” Delgado was a tough-asnails singer (listen to his barked ravings over the classic antifascist club groover “Der Mussolini”), and I was concerned that his absence from that role would hurt DAF’s sound. In the press materials for the album, Görl says he spent a long time thinking about how to continue DAF following Delgado’s death. He felt that replacing his collaborator wasn’t an option, so he stepped in to take over lead vocals for the first time in his career. “Barely anyone knows Gabi as well as I do, so I wrote and recorded the lyrics,” he explains. “Sometimes it was like he was with me in those moments. I effectively sensed him. I never set out to copy him, but some of the lyrics turned out like Gabi would have done them, but always with a heavy dose of me to them.” Görl’s heavily reverbed incantations sound a bit like Suicide’s Alan Vega on Deutsche Quaaludes, which fi ts the spirit of vintage DAF evoked by Nur noch Einer cuts such as “Im Schatten” and “Das Pur Pur Rot” (which easily could’ve been a coldwave hit in the early 80s). “Wir Sind Wild” and “Gedanken

MUSIC

Lesen” also have the propulsive, proto-industrial throb of the group’s classic material. With this LP, Görl set out to immortalize and bid farewell to his partner as well as to commemorate 40 years of the band. That’s a tricky line to toe, but with Nur noch Einer he’s succeeded—and charted a welcome new course for DAF. —STEVE KRAKOW

Narrow Head, Satisfaction Run for Cover narrowheadtx.bandcamp.com/album/satisfaction

In the years since Nicky Palermo of Philadephia hardcore band Horror Show released a demo tape under the name Nothing in 2011, it’s become a sort of running joke in the scene that hardcore kids grow up and turn shoegaze. It’s a logical progression: hardcore’s raw, heavy sounds are built to express loss, pain, or trauma. Shoegaze explores heaviness in a less primal but still emotionally stirring way; it’s pretty and introspective, and deals with sadness and despair via crushing wall-of-sound dynamics. Of all the hardcore-cum-shoegaze projects out there, Houston’s Narrow Head are among those whose music speaks to me the most. Their members are veterans of Texas hardcore acts such as Dress Code, Skourge, and Wild Thing, and they tip their hat strongly toward the mid-90s alt-metal brand of shoegaze. Their sound pays homage to the likes of Hum, Deftones, and Failure, and on their newest record, this year’s 12th House Rock, they even nod to Smashing Pumpkins. My favorite Narrow Head release is their 2016 debut LP, Satisfaction , which has big, gloomy hooks, noisy spaced-out guitars, sad-as-hell vocal melodies, and a massively crunchy sound. The band’s hardcore roots still showed in those days, and they deliver these dreamy, yearning tracks with a punchy aggression and bite that at times makes them sound like massive space-rock epics. Long out of print and pretty much impossible to find, Satisfaction will get a much-deserved reissue (on purple vinyl) on November 26 via Run for Cover. Narrow Head are also touring heavily, and they’ve played Chicago twice in the past two months, with Quicksand in October and with RFC labelmate Young Guv in November. Narrow Head have been around for years, but it feels like their moment is just arriving. —LUCA CIMARUSTI v

Narrow Head NA’STACIA ELLIS

Robert Görl & DAF, Nur noch Einer Grönland groenland.com/en/product/robert-goerl-daf-nurnoch-einer-cd

Vaxxing our kids

Why I’m not rushing to get my six-year-old the COVID-19 vaccine

By LEONARD C. GOODMAN

Leonard C. Goodman is a Chicago criminal defense attorney and co-owner of the for-profit arm of the Reader.

As a father of a young child, I am pressured to get my daughter vaccinated for COVID-19. And like many Americans, I have concerns about giving my six-year-old a new vaccine that was not tested on humans until last year, and that has been approved only for “emergency use” in kids. The feverish hype by government officials, mainstream media outlets, and Big Pharma, and the systematic demonization and censorship of public figures who raise questions about the campaign, provide further cause for concern.

This year, Pfizer has banked on selling 115 million pediatric doses to the U.S. government and expects to earn $36 billion in vaccine revenue. Congress is so in the pocket of Big Pharma that it’s against the law for our government to negotiate bulk pricing for drugs, meaning taxpayers must pay retail. Corporate news and entertainment programs are routinely sponsored by Pfizer, which spent $55 million on social media advertising in 2020. Even late night comedians like Jimmy Kimmel, who has called for denying ICU beds to unvaccinated people, have been paid by Big Pharma to promote the COVID-19 vaccine.

It is thus not surprising that most of the information reported in the press about vaccine safety and e cacy appears to come directly from Pfizer press releases. This recent headline from NBC News is typical: “Pfizer says its Covid vaccine is safe and e ective for children ages 5 to 11.” Moreover, by not advertising their vaccines by name, Pfizer-BioNTech and other drugmakers are not obliged, under current FDA regulations, to list the risks and side e ects of the vaccine. Most Americans are vaguely aware that COVID vaccines carry some potential risks, such as heart infl ammation, known as myocarditis, seen most often in young males. But no actual data from the vaccine trials has been provided to the public. After promising

“full transparency” with regard to COVID-19 vaccines, the FDA recently went to court to resist a FOIA request seeking the data it relied on to license the Pfi zer COVID-19 vaccine, declaring that it would not release the data in full until the year 2076—not exactly a confidence-building measure.

Also troubling is a recent report in the British Medical Journal , a peer-reviewed medical publication, which found that the research company used by Pfi zer falsified data, unblinded patients, employed inadequately trained vaccinators, and was slow to follow up on adverse events reported in Pfi zer’s pivotal phase III trial. The whistleblower, Brook Jackson, repeatedly notified her bosses of these problems, then e-mailed a complaint to the FDA and was fi red that same day. If this scandal was ever mentioned in the corporate press, it was with a headline like this from CBS News: “Report questioning Pfizer trial shouldn’t undermine confidence in vaccines.”

On the other hand, the initial rollout of the vaccine appeared to be a home run. Reported numbers of new infections went down, and oppressive lockdown rules were lifted. Our bars, restaurants, and gyms opened up. Plus, my own experience getting the vaccine was positive, as I wrote about in an earlier column for the Reader. Is it possible that this time, the corporate media and government got it right? Is the mass vaccination of everyone, including kids, really the solution to our long COVID nightmare? I have tried my best to look objectively at the available evidence in order to make the best decision for my daughter. In this column, I share my fi ndings.

The fi rst thing I discovered is that the risk of COVID to healthy kids is extremely low. Or as the New York Times ’s David Leonhardt recently put it, unless your child has preexisting conditions or a compromised immune system, the danger of severe COVID is “so low as to be di cult to quantify.” This raises the question: If the risk for kids is so low, what is the emergency that justifies mass vaccination of children without waiting for proper testing trials of the vaccine?

The argument made most often is that we must vaccinate our kids to protect others. However, while most adults perceive children as little germ factories, the data suggests that kids are at low risk to spread COVID. Reports from Sweden, where schools and preschools were kept open, and kids and teachers went unmasked without social distancing, show a very low incidence of severe COVID-19 among schoolchildren or their teachers during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

I was also surprised to learn that there are reputable scientists opposed to mass vaccination, such as Dr. Robert Malone, an original inventor of the mRNA vaccine technology behind the COVID vaccines. As Malone explains, the mRNA vaccine contains a spike protein, similar to the virus, that stimulates your immune system to produce antibodies to fi ght COVID. He describes the vaccine as “leaky,” meaning it is only about 50 percent e ective in preventing infection and spread.

Malone warns that overuse of a leaky vaccine during an outbreak risks generating mutant viruses that will overwhelm the vaccine, making it less e ective for those who really need it. “The more people you vaccinate, the more vaccine-resistant mutations you get, and in the vaccine ‘arms race,’ the more need for ever more potent boosters.” Thus, Malone recommends vaccinating only the most vulnerable—primarily the elderly and individuals with significant comorbidities such as lung and heart disease or diabetes—and not healthy children.

If these views sound unfamiliar, it’s likely because Malone and other critics of mass vaccination have faced heavy suppression on social media and vicious attacks from corporate media outlets.

A recent Harvard study provides further evidence that while vaccines protect us against serious COVID illness and deaths, they alone are not very good at stopping the spread of the disease. The study looked at COVID numbers in 68 countries and 2,947 counties in the United States during late August and early September. It found that the countries and counties with the highest vaccination rates had higher rates of new COVID19 cases per one million people. And suggested other measures, like mask wearing and social distancing, in addition to vaccination.

In place of mass vaccination, Malone recommends early intervention with therapeutics shown to be e ective against COVID, including ivermectin. In contrast, the corporate press has shamelessly attacked early

Have a strong opinion or perspective you’d like to share? We invite you to send ideas to pitches@chicagoreader.com

treatments, and especially ivermectin, which it calls a veterinary drug, in reference to the fact that it is used to treat both animals and humans, along with many other drugs, including antibiotics and pain pills.

In October, popular podcaster Joe Rogan announced on his program that he had contracted the virus and took ivermectin, prescribed by a doctor, along with other therapeutics including monoclonal antibodies, and that he only had “one bad day” with the virus. CNN ridiculed Rogan for taking “horse dewormer.” On his show, Rogan grilled CNN medical expert Sanjay Gupta. “Why would they lie [at your network] and say that’s horse dewormer? I can afford people medicine.” Rogan pointed out that the developers of ivermectin won the Nobel Prize in 2015 for the drug’s use in human beings.

Why indeed is CNN and much of the mainstream press lying about ivermectin, a drug that has been used by literally billions of people to treat tropical diseases, and has been shown to be safe and e ective in treating COVID in countries such as Mexico, India, Japan, and Peru? First, in order for there to be an emergency use authorization for the vaccines, there has to be no treatment for a disease. Thus, any potential treatments must be disparaged. That is, of course, until Pfi zer releases its antiviral drug, PF-07321332.

Second, ivermectin is o patent, meaning Big Pharma can’t make a profit on it. It has been made available to poor people around the world at pennies a dose. In contrast, Pfi zer’s COVID pill will be priced at more than $500 per course.

At this point, you can guess the end of the story. The fi nal straw for me is the apparent lack of durability of the COVID vaccines. Recent data indicates that the limited protection from the vaccine lasts only four to six months. Since COVID is not going away, is it Pfi zer’s plan to artificially boost my daughter’s immune system every four to six months for the rest of her life?

We have been kept in the dark about vaccine safety and efficacy by our government and its partners in Big Pharma, who tell us they have looked at the science and it supports vaccinating our children against a virus that presents them with only the most miniscule risk of serious illness. As a parent, I will demand more answers before simply taking their word. v

OPINION

SAVAGE LOVE

He deserves a toaster and a Fleshlight

Reasons to get out

By DAN SAVAGE

Q : I have a friend who is a trans man. Recently he just got out of a shitty relationship. His ex suddenly lost interest in him and wouldn’t work with him on fixing it. He’s heartbroken. He told me women o en reject him once they find out he is trans and he’s tired of endless rejections. We met in the college town where he still lives, but our entire friend circle (including me) has moved away. Even without the trans part, it’s not easy to be a 30-something single man in a liberal college town. He’s convinced he’s doomed to be alone. I don’t want to be dismissive about his experience as a trans person (I’m a cis woman), but I keep trying to walk the fine line of encouraging my friend to reach out, meet people through community events, volunteering, etc.

He also mentioned to me that people our age are more transphobic than younger people, but he doesn’t want to be the kind of 30-something perv who dates people in their 20s. My heart aches for my friend. Do you have any advice for him to make more friends and/or find a new romantic partner? —FRIEND REALLY IN EXTREME DISTRESS

A : The only thing worse than being dumped by someone who refuses to “work with you on fixing it” is being dumped by someone who already made up their mind to dump you—meaning the relationship was already dead—but then wasted months or years of your life pretending to work on it. So, if your friend’s ex knew it was over, FRIED, they did your friend a favor by refusing to go through the motions of

“working

on it.”

That would come as cold comfort to your friend, of course, so don’t pass it on to him. But continue to give him the advice you’ve been giving him, which is both standard and excellent. Get out of the house, do shit, go places, meet people—that’s the same advice I would’ve given him and it’s the same advice every other advice columnist on the planet would’ve given him. And, almost without a doubt, it’s the same advice your friend would’ve given or already has given to a friend of his own after a breakup. That your friend hasn’t taken your advice yet—that he’s still wallowing in his grief— doesn’t mean your advice was bad, FRIED, only that he’s not ready to take it.

As for dating while trans, I’ve visited a lot of liberal college towns and they tend to be more welcoming and

accepting places for trans people than, say, your average Alaskan fishing village. And most women—cis or trans—aren’t going to wanna fuck or date your friend. (And he is open to dating trans women, right?) I’m gay and most men—cis or trans—don’t wanna sleep with me. Now, men who find me attractive don’t reject me once they realize I’m gay, but being rejected by a woman who initially found him attractive after he discloses that he’s trans? That rejection is gonna sting more. But your friend can avoid that kind of rejection by disclosing right away. My friends with HIV who don’t wanna deal with the drama of having to disclose and being rejected for it put it out there right away. Since your friend is eventually going to have to come out to the women he dates, putting the fact that he’s trans on his dating profiles tells women who might have a problem with it to keep moving. In other words, FRIED, your friend has the power to flip the rejection script by essentially saying, “I’m trans and if you’re not open to dating a trans man, please show yourself out.”

If grown-ass adults in their 20s want to date him, your friend should date them. Refusing to date someone due to something they can’t control or change about themselves—their age—seems discriminatory (ageist!), patronizing (people in their 20s are adults!), and in your friend’s case, hypocritical (he doesn’t enjoy being rejected over something he can’t control or change). But my hunch is that your friend is just making excuses. Give him a little more time to wallow, FRIED, keep urging him to do the obvious (get out, go places, do shit, meet people), and

in a few months your friend will be introducing you to his new partner—and it’s probably going to be someone in their 20s he met at a community event who later saw his profile on Tinder and swiped right on his openly trans ass.

Q : I’m a 30-year-old straight, cis woman and I’ve been in a serious relationship with my boyfriend for a year. I love him and the sex is mind-blowing when it happens—which is about twice a week when I’m not spotting. We can only have sex when he initiates, but there’s more. I’m on the pill and I o en spot a little from the second week to the moment my period comes, a side effect with which I am OK. However, if any blood is present, nothing can happen since he’s disgusted by it. He won’t have anal sex because he’s disgusted by feces. He won’t play with me and a toy when there’s blood present, even a drop, and he won’t go down on me at all, as he doesn’t like it. He also doesn’t want me touching myself when I go down on him, as he finds it distracting. Opening the relationship is not an option for him. It seems to me that anything that does not revolve around his penis penetrating something and coming out perfectly clean is a turnoff for him. While I feel hurt, I also wonder if I’m being abusive by asking him to do things that he doesn’t like to do. When I bring up the topic he insists this is my problem, not his. Is there a way forward? —FRUSTRATED ABOUT INTIMATE LIFE UNDER RESTRICTIVE EDICTS

P.S. Is he a product of the patriarchy or am I insane?

A : There’s no way forward, FAILURE, there’s only a way out: DTMFA. If you’d like to present your soon-to-be ex-boyfriend with a lovely parting gi , FAILURE, I suggest getting him a toaster

and a Fleshlight. Duct tape them together, leave them on your side of the bed, take your shit, and go. Because it’s a warm, silent hole your boyfriend wants for a partner, FAILURE, not a woman with a fully functioning suite of female reproductive organs, to say nothing of a woman with needs, wants, or desires of her own. I strongly suspect your ex-boyfriend won’t miss you or your vagina that bleeds or your ass that poops or your mouth that opens and asks for perfectly reasonable things, FAILURE, and I’m confident that even if you miss him at first, you won’t miss him for long. Because within a week you’ll realize being alone is better than being with a selfish piece of tyrannical shit.

Yeah, yeah: You love him You’d pretty much have to love him—or you’d have to convince yourself you loved him—to put up with his shit for a week, much less a year. But the longer you stay in this relationship, FAILURE, the greater your frustration and resentment will grow, and a day will inevitably come when you’re no longer in love with him and what’s left of your self-esteem, self-confidence, and sense of sexual agency will have been destroyed. Don’t wait until the love is gone and the damage is permanent to leave this asshole. Leave him now

P.S. I don’t know if the patriarchy made your boyfriend the asshole he is, FAILURE, but it’s definitely the patriarchy that has you doubting your own sanity.

P.P.S. Please don’t “work on fixing it” before you dump this asshole—and you aren’t required to get him a parting gift, lovely or otherwise. Get yourself a powerful vibrator instead. v

Send letters to mail@ savagelove.net. Download the Savage Lovecast at savagelovecast.com. @fakedansavage

JOE NEWTON

CLASSIFIEDS

JOBS

Northwestern Memorial Healthcare seeks Manager Information Services, Cyber Security for Chicago, IL location. Responsible for all IT security operations, including oversight of the Security Operations Center. Bachelor’s in Comp Sci/Engineering, Management Info Systems/Info Security +8yrs of exp req’d. Exp must include: Advising top executives on improving cyber security program; Project management with Cyber Security; global threat landscape, attack vectors and threat intelligence; negotiating and managing security vendors, including: budget, contracts and licensing; managing IS team; security frameworks: NIST, HIPAA, PCI; managed deployment and operation of: SIEM, Network Intrusion Prevention System, Firewall, Email security gateway, Endpoint protection (Antivirus, Endpoint Detection and Response), Web Application Firewall, Vulnerability assessment tools. Requires regional travel to host sites. Apply online: https://jobs. smartrecruiters.com/ NorthwesternMedicine /743999784083550-manager-information-service-cyber-security Requisition ID: REF26962R EOE

Northwestern Memorial Healthcare seeks Medical Physicists for Warrenville, IL to be responsible for general medical physics related to operating a radio therapy clinic. Master’s in Medical Phy/ CAMPEP accredited MS program req’d. Req’d Skills: Must have exp w/clinical proton therapy; RayStation TPS; Eclipse TPS; MOSAIQ RV; motion management techniques for proton treatments; IBA Zebra, Sphinx, Lynx for proton machine QA; treatment machine commissioning. Must be registered or eligible within 1yr of hire for registration w/IEMA as a TRP req’d. ABR Board Certified +2yrs of post graduate clinical exp OR completion of a CAMPEP MP residency & board eligible. Willingness to or e e hour re Background check & drug test req’d. Apply online: https://smrtr. io/75hyx Requisition ID: REF27079D EOE

Ann & Robert H. Lurie

Children’s Hospital of Chicago seeks App Analysts for Chicago, IL to provide app implementation support. Bachelor’s in Info Tech/Electronics

n re te e r exp req’d. Req’d skills: 2yrs w/each: EPIC impleent t on on ur t on & testing; EPIC: Cadence, Grand Central, Prelude; post-production build support; gather requirements from end-users to un er t n or o develop system support. Certification in EPIC Cadence, Grand Central, Prelude required. Background & health screen req’d. Apply at http:// www.luriechildrens.org/ careers Tracking code: 2019- 10703

Cashier/Stocker/ Personal Shopper, Big Apple Finer Foods 2345 N. Clark St. Family-owned and operated grocery store looking for energetic, hardworking and punctual individuals ready to work! Full and part time positions available. Come in and apply today! Open 8-10 daily. Please email resumes/ questions to merry. bischak@gmail.com

Marketing Analyst in Chicago, IL. Must have Master Degree in Bussiness Admin. or Market Analysis. Exp. w/ Excel w/ Mega stat. Collect data on competitors prices, sales no., & market conditions. Conducting research to analyze market trends, historical sales, & preparing reports by collecting, analyzing, & summarizing data. r n t n t n n into infographics, graphs, and data visualizations. Report forecast of industry marketing/sales trend to supervisor. Duties will be performed following detailed instructions ro en or t ff e ort to Marketing & Sales Manager. Send resume to: RDI Inc., 4101 W 42nd Pl, Chicago, IL 60632

Mount Sinai Hospital Medical Center of Chicago seeks SharePoint Developer to design, build, maintain & expand intranet systems to access various medical & business information databases securely. Reqs. bachelor’s & 3 yrs of exp. in SharePoint development & prior exp. w/. designing, planning, & implementing in SharePoint portal & SharePoint Services 2010/2013; using SharePoint Designer, InfoPath, Visual Studio, Team Site setup & conur t on h o r Web Parts; using web development technologies such as ASP.NET, C#, AJAX, JQuery, HTML5, CSS or SQL Server. Mail resume to Susan Rayner, S r e e Suite K133, Chicago, IL 60608.

Personal Executive Assistant Needed We’re currently recruiting to fill the position of VIRTUAL PERSONAL ASSISTANT on a part time basis. The hours are flexible thus it will not interfere with your current job. Seeking a go-to person to keep the magic behind the scenes running smoothly, both professionally and personally. The applicant will assist in everyday to-do’s as well as organize dayto-day items for lending business. Preferred u t on S nter er on oo communication skills, oth r tten n er Current technology skills (such as using multiple platforms, google drive, email, sky- Organized record-keeping Open to alternative forms of education Work Schedule: Parttime ( days a week) with hours varying throughout the year. To Apply: Applicants must submit their application via an email with your resume to chuckhoveyachts. recruiter@gmail.com

Groupon, Inc. is seeking a Software Development Engineer in Test in Chicago, IL w/ the following responsibilities: Dev automation solutions to test Groupon’s web application. Apply at www.grouponcareers. com by searching keyword R25851.

Financial Analyst in Chicago IL. Must have Master Degree in Finance or BA. Must have at least 1 course related to futures or equiv. knowledge related to futures from exp. Analyze metals related derivative trading data & historical pricing data to predict trend of gold & coppers prices using regression modeling.

u te r t n n risks impacting metals recycling industry & how those risks may impact co. Develops tools to optimize & streamline purchase pricing scenario development & decision-making process based on forecasted future metals prices. n e ro t o t & other key reports for related metals derivative, & benchmark performance. Work on generating pricing strategies using historical market data for purchasing electronic equipment & related materials. Devise & conduct metals related derivative trading strategies by taking discretionary action to adjust models in real time based on market knowledge. Other n n n t

assigned. Send resume to: RDI Inc., 4101 W 42nd Pl, Chicago, IL 60632.

(Lincolnshire, IL) Nexus Pharmaceuticals Inc. seeks Technology Transfer Associate w/ BS in Chem, Chem Eng, Pharmaceutics, Pharm Sci or rltd tech fld & 2 r e n o offere or pharm com contract. Also acceptable MS in Chem, Chem Eng, Pharmaceutics, Pharm Sci or r t te h th e in job offered or pharm com contract. Must have 2 yrs exp wrkng in pharm lab in formul or analy chem. Apply to HR, 400 Knightsbridge Pkwy, Lincolnshire, IL 60069

(Oak Brook, IL) Streamline Healthcare Solutions LLC seeks Business Intelligence Engineer w/Bach or for deg equiv in CS, Info Sys, Bus Mgmt, Math or r t r e n o offere or n n r exp in prog lang (SQL & or .NET); Windows ntwrk sec, ASP.Net apps & trbleshooting techniques; & bus funct areas, data analysis & data mining & suptg or wkg w/Bus Intel/Data WHSing environ. Occas trvl req. Apply to: HR, 1301 W 22nd St, Ste 305, Oak Brook, IL 60523

Relativity (Chicago, IL) seeks Sr Performance Engineer to identify & communicate performance baseline expectat on ro e or o & tuning recommendations for appl. across Relativity’s core products & infrastructure. Option to work remotely. Submit resumes to Recruiting@ relativity.com, to be considered, reference Job ID: 21-9014 in the subject line.

TransUnion, LLC seeks Consultants for Chicago, IL location to design & dev solutions to automate building up infrastructure on cloud & on-premise for Springboot Microservice based docker containers & monolithic java based apps. Master’s in Comp Sci/Mgmnt Info Sys/ re te e r e or Bachelor’s in Comp Sci/ Mgmnt Info Sys/related field +5yrs progressive exp req’d. Req’d Skills: Java, Springboot, Jenkins, Spinnaker, Kubernetes, Docker, Cloud infrastructure, Azure, GIT, Confluence, Bamboo, Artifactory, Chef, Azure DevOps, Apache Tomcat, Wildfly, Maven, Python, Linux, Batch Scripting, ANT, PowerShell, MSBuild, Bash, HDFS, Hive, Flume, Spark, Scala. Send resume to: A. Goodpasture, REF: VKY, 555 W Adams St, Chicago, IL 60661.

The Northern Trust Company seeks a Specialist, Solution Architect to ensure that application and system products and projects meet defined quality standards. Conduct systems programming and carry out complex initiatives involving multiple disciplines. Improve IT infrastructure, optimize business operations, and set the direction and approach for integrating information applications and programs. Catalog, develop, coordinate, communicate, maintain, and enforce overall architecture models, representations, initiatives, capabilities, and components. Create architecture o e to re e t the organizations strategies and implement business v isions. Evaluate systems engineering for vulnerabilities and provide systems processing guidance. Position requires a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related STEM field, and 7 years of progressively responsible experience with Asp.Net, C#, J2EE, JavaScript, JDBC, Oracle, PHP, SQL, WebLogic, and XML. Experience must include a minimum of: 5 years of experience defining Cloud Architecture for hybrid and non-hybrid cloud solutions; 5 years of experience in content management-based solution implementation; 5 years of experience in data architecture, including building, optimizing, and maintaining conceptual and logical database models; 5 years of experience in modeling and graphic representations; 5 years of experience in data analytics, including collecting, analyzing, and delivering data; and 5 years of experience with database implementation project management. Job location: Chicago, IL. To apply, please visit https://careers.northerntrust.com and enter job requisition number 21112 when prompted. Alternatively, please send your resume, cover letter, and a copy of the ad to: K. Clemens, 50 S. LaSalle St., Chicago, IL 60603.

The Northern Trust Company seeks a Consultant, Applications to design, build, and test software applications and solutions. Define technical system requirements for complex data processing and software development projects. Collaborate with cross-functional users to analyze business needs, create prototypes, and develop user-friendly software applications. Test and maintain computer programs, including

designing, coding, and debugging. Conduct feasibility studies and design system requirements for complex data processing projects. Perform strategic planning and long-range direction for technology usage and enhancements across the business units. Position requires a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or re te S e n 3 years of experience with software design, development, testing, and implementation. Experience must include a minimum of: 3 years of experience with coding and debugging software applications; 3 years of experience with analyzing functional and business requirements; 3 years of experience designing, configuring, and developing Peoplesoft custom interfaces, reports, and or o e r o eperience performing test plan preparation and unit system testing; 3 years of experience executing troubleshooting and code migration; 3 years of experience with PeopleTools 8.55.xx or Higher and PeopleSoft HCM 9.2; 3 years of experience with Application Engine, Fluid page development, HTML, Integration Broker, Java Script, object oriented software design and development, Oracle, PeopleCode, SQR, STAT, Unit Testing, and XML; and 3 years of experience in at least 2 of the following PeopleSoft modules: Core HCM, North America Payroll with Tax Update, Performance Management, or Time and Labor. Job location: Chicago, IL. To apply, please visit https://careers.northerntrust.com and enter job requisition number 21113 when prompted. Alternatively, please send your resume, cover letter, and a copy of the ad to: K. Clemens, 50 South LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL 60603.

The Northern Trust Company seeks a Senior Consultant, Applications to design, build, and test software applications and solutions.

Define technical system requirements for complex data processing and software development projects. Collaborate with cross-functional users to analyze business needs, create prototypes, and develop user-friendly software applications.

Test and maintain computer programs, including designing, coding, and debugging. Conduct feasibility studies and design system requirements for complex data processing projects. Perform strategic planning and long-range direction for

technology usage and enhancements across the business units. Position requires a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related STEM field, followed by 5 years of progressively responsible experience with software design, development, testing, and implementation. Experience must include a minimum of: 5 years of experience with coding and debugging software applications; 5 years of experience with capturing business requirements and transforming requirements into technical specifications in the financial services industry; 5 year of experience with conducting feasibility studies for complex data processing projects and preparing project phase reports; 5 years of experience with AngularJS, Ajax, CSS, CVS, DB2, Git, HTML, Integration Testing, Java, JavaScript, Jboss, Jenkins/Bamboo, J2EE, Jquery, JSP, object oriented software design and development, Oracle, ReactJs, SDLC, Spring, Unit Testing, Websphere, and XML; and 3 years of experience working on a cloud based microservices architecture with an emphasis on test driven development, continuous integration, continuous delivery, automation, and DevOps. Job location: Chicago, IL. To apply, please visit https://careers.northerntrust.com and enter job requisition number 21114 when prompted. Alternatively, please send your resume, cover letter, and a copy of the ad to: K. Clemens, 50 South LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL 60603.

The Northern Trust Company seeks a Lead, Software Support to develop, maintain, and enhance software applications for non-legacy/ non-mainframe systems. Develop and maintain computer programs, including designing, coding, testing, debugging, and installation. Conduct preliminary analysis for software development projects. Troubleshoot production issues, including job failure, and o e u te and make recommendation on techniques, practices, or technologies that would enhance business needs. Act as the technical or business consultant on project development/production health, new techniques, and the implementation of new processes. Act as a subject area expert, providing in-depth consulting and leadership at a high technical level.

Position requires a Bachelor’s degree in Comput-

er Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related STEM field, followed by 5 years of progressively responsible experience with software design, development, testing, and implementation. Experience must include a minimum of: 5 years of experience leading maintenance for custom software applications and performing root cause analysis and problem management; 5 years of experience with coding and debugging software applications; 5 years of experience working closely with product owner, business users, and other IT teams to elicit requirements; 5 years of experience performing code and unit testing; and 5 years of experience with Java, Mainframe, SQL, Unix, Windows, and XLS. Job location: Chicago, IL. To apply, please visit https:// careers.northerntrust. com and enter job requisition number 21115 prompted. Alternatively, please send your resume, cover letter, and a copy of the ad to: K. Clemens, 50 S. LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL 60603.

The Northern Trust Company seeks a Senior Consultant, Applications to design, build, and test software applications and solutions. Define technical system requirements for complex data processing and software development projects. Collaborate with cross-functional users to analyze business needs, create prototypes, and develop user-friendly software applications. Test and maintain computer programs, including designing, coding, and debugging. Conduct feasibility studies and design system requirements for complex data processing projects. Perform strategic planning and long-range direction for technology usage and enhancements across the business units. Position requires a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related STEM field, followed by 5 years of progressively responsible experience with software design, development, testing, and implementation. Experience must include a minimum of: 5 years of experience with coding and debugging software applications; 5 years of experience with capturing business requirements and trans-

forming requirements into technical specifications in the financial services industry; 5 year of experience with conducting feasibility studies for complex data processing projects and preparing project phase reports; 5 years of experience with AngularJS, Ajax, CSS, CVS, DB2, Git, HTML, Integration Testing, Java, JavaScript, JBoss, Jenkins/Bamboo, J2EE, JQuery, JSP, object oriented software design and development, Oracle, ReactJs, SDLC, Spring, Unit Testing, Websphere, and XML; and 3 years of experience working on a cloud based microservices architecture with an emphasis on test driven development, continuous integration, continuous delivery, automation, and DevOps. Job location: Chicago, IL. To apply, please visit https://careers.northerntrust.com and enter job requisition number 21116 when prompted. Alternatively, please send your resume, cover letter, and a copy of the ad to K. Clemens, 50 S. LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL 60603.

The Northern Trust Company seeks an Associate Specialist, Solutions Architecture to design and develop application and infrastructure architectures across multiple technologies and programming languages. Create security patterns, frameworks, and libraries for new and existing software applications. Design, develop, and implement key software application security projects. Develop application plans and directions to ensure the integration of corporate business area requirements. Provide extensive in-depth technical guidance to clients, partners, and IT Management. Position requires a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related STEM field, followed by 5 years of progressively responsible software design, development, testing, and implementation experience.

Experience must include a minimum of: 5 years of experience with information system architecture methodologies; 5 years of experience working with business users to understand requirements and translate requirements into technical solutions; 5 years of experience developing test automation frameworks; 5

years of experience with IT project management; and 5 years of experience with AJAX, Apache Tomcat, Assembler, J2EE, JavaScript, JDBC, jQuery, Log4j, Maven, Oracle Database, object oriented design, PL/ SQL, SOA, SOAP, Spring Framework, Spring Security, Web Services, WebSphere, and XML. Job location: Chicago, IL. To apply, please visit https://careers.northerntrust.com and enter job requisition number 21117 when prompted. Alternatively, please send your resume, cover letter, and a copy of the ad to: K. Clemens, 50 South LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL 60603.

PROFESSIONALS & 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 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

RESEARCH

Have you had an unwanted sexual experience since age 18? Did you tell someone in your life about it who is also willing to participate?

Women ages 18+ who have someone else in their life they told about their experience also willing to participate will be paid to complete a confidential online research survey for the Women’s Dyadic Support Study.

Contact Dr. Sarah Ullman of the University of Illinois at Chicago, Criminology, Law, & Justice Department at ForWomen@ uic.edu, 312-996-5508. Protocol #2021-0019.

RENTALS & REAL ESTATE

One bedroom loft apt in Loop on South Jefferson near Union Station with balcony and pkg included. $1550.00, nice appliances. Mark 312513-8343 tenant pays utilities.

ADULT SERVICES

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2021

A joint project of ChicagoReader Executive Service Corps

This issue launches the Chicago Reader Nonprofit Guide in print and online. The print guide will run annually, and the accompanying online guide will be updated several times a year, with more information and eventually a searchable database.

For the past several months, the Reader has held an open call for Chicago-area nonprofits and fiscally sponsored organizations and projects to submit their information to be included in this guide. In addition, we partnered with Executive Service Corps to include many of the more than 1,000 nonprofits in their database.

This guide includes 501(c)(3) nonprofits, fiscally sponsored grassroots, arts, media, and other organizations, and some social enterprises. There are many thousands of these in this area, so this guide is meant to be a starting point in the exploration of this vibrant part of our region. Don’t see your organization here? Go to this survey link: chicagoreader.com/nonprofitsurvey. We will be adding more online in the coming months.

Use this guide to show your support through donations of time, money, or other resources. Help amplify their work, attend their shows or programs, or express appreciation in any way you can. To see this guide online, go to chicagoreader.com/nonprofitguide.

2021

ON THE COVER

David Flores performs at Collaboraction’s Peacebook Festival.

JOEL MAISONET

Open Books.

COURTESY OF OPEN BOOKS

Howard Brown Health.

COURTESY OF HOWARD BROWN HEALTH

A joint project of the ChicagoReader and Executive Service Corps

ARTS & CULTURE

16th Street Theater • www.16thstreettheater.org

3Arts (Three Arts) • http://www.3arts.org

6D Networktainment (Six D Networktainment) • http://www.6dnetworktainment.org

773 Dance Project • http://www.773danceproject.org

A Periodic Chicago (a·pe·ri·od·ic) • http://www.aperiodicchicago.com

A Theatre in the Dark • https://www.theatreinthedark.com/

About Face Theatre • https://aboutfacetheatre.com/

Access Contemporary Music • https://www.acmusic.org/

Accidental Shakespeare Theatre Company • https://accidentalshakespeare.org/ Actors Gymnasium, The • http://www.actorsgymnasium.com

Adler Planetarium • http://www.adlerplanetarium.org

Adventure Stage Chicago • www.adventurestage.org

Aguijon Theater Company • www.aguijontheater.org

Akvavit Theatre • www.chicagonordic.org

Albany Park Theater Project • http://www.aptpchicago.org

American Blues Theater • www.americanbluestheater.com

American Writers Museum • http://www.americanwritersmuseum.org

Anima Singers – Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus • https://www.animasingers.org/

Annoyance Theatre • www.theannoyance.com

Apollo Chorus of Chicago • https://www.apollochorus.org

Apollo Theater • www.apollochicago.com

Art Encounter • https://www.artencounter.org

Art Helps Heal • http://www.arthelpsheal.org

Art Institute of Chicago • https://www.artic.edu/

Art on Sedgwick • http://www.artonsedgwick.org

Art Works Projects • http://www.artworksprojects.org/

Artemis Singers • https://artemissingers.org/

Artemisia Theatre • https://artemisiatheatre.org

Artistic Home, The • http://www.theartistichome.org/ Artists Breaking Limits and Expectations (ABLE) • http://www.ableensemble.com

Arts Capacity • http://artscapacity.org

Arts of Life, The • http://www.artsoflife.org

Asian Improv Arts Midwest • https://www.airmw.org

Assyrian Cultural Foundation • https://auaf.us/ AstonRep Theatre Company • www.astonrep.com

Athenaeum Theatre • https://www.athenaeumtheatre.org

Auditorium Theatre • https://www.auditoriumtheatre.org

Aurora Historical Society • https://www.aurorahistoricalsociety.org

Avalanche Theatre • http://www.avalanchetheatre.com

Babes With Blades Theatre • http://www.babeswithblades.org

Bach Week Festival • https://www.bachweek.org

Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture • http://www.balzekasmuseum.org/

Belmont Theater District • www.BTDChicago.com

Beverly Arts Center, The • https://www.beverlyartcenter.org

Beverly Theater Guild • www.beverlytheatreguild.org

Bienen School of Music • concertsatbienen.org

Black Button Eyes Productions • www.blackbuttoneyes.com

Black Ensemble Theater • http://www.blackensemble.org

Blank Theatre • www.blanktheatrecompany.org

Bluebird Arts • www.bluebirdarts.org

BoHo Theatre • http://www.bohotheatre.com

Brazilian Cultural Center of Chicago • https://www.bcc-chicago.org

Brickton Art Center • https://www.bricktonartcenter.org

BrightSide Theatre • www.brightsidetheatre.com

Broken Nose Theatre • http://www.brokennosetheatre.com

Bronzeville Children’s Museum • http://www.bronzevillechildrensmuseum.com

Bronzeville Historical Society • http://bronzevillehistoricalsociety.wordpress.com/

Bu alo Theatre Ensemble • btechicago.com/ Casa Michoacán • http://www.fedecmiusa.com/

Catherine Edelman Gallery • https://www.edelmangallery.com

A joint project with

See this guide online: chicagoreader.com/nonprofitguide

Add your organization: chicagoreader.com/nonprofitsurvey

Caxton Club • https://www.caxtonclub.org

Cedille Chicago • http://www.cedillerecords.org/ Center for Native Futures • https://www.centerfornativefutures.org/ Changing Worlds • https://www.changingworlds.org

Chicago A Cappella • http://www.chicagoacappella.org

Chicago Academy for the Arts • https://www.chicagoacademyforthearts.org/ Chicago Architecture Center • https://www.architecture.org Chicago Artistic Alliance • http://www.chicagoartisticalliance.org Chicago Artists Coalition • https://www.chicagoartistscoalition.org Chicago Ballet Arts • https://www.chicagoballetarts.org/ Chicago Ballet Center • https://www.chicagoballetcenter.org Chicago Botanic Garden • https://www.chicagobotanic.org Chicago Cabaret Professionals • https://www.chicagocabaret.org Chicago Chamber Musicians • http://www.chicagochambermusic.org Chicago Children’s Choir • https://www.ccchoir.org Chicago Children’s Museum • http://www.ChicagoChildrensMuseum.org Chicago Children’s Theatre • https://chicagochildrenstheatre.org/ Chicago Chorale • https://www.chicagochorale.org Chicago Composers Orchestra • http://www.chicagocomposersorchestra.org Chicago Cultural Accessibility Consortium (CCAC) • https://chicagoculturalaccess.org/ Chicago Cultural Alliance • https://www.chicagoculturalalliance.org Chicago Dance Crash • https://chicagodancecrash.com/ Chicago Dance History Project • http://www.chicagodancehistory.org Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble • https://www.danztheatre.org/index.html Chicago Dramatists • https://www.chicagodramatists.org Chicago Ensemble, The • http://www.thechicagoensemble.org Chicago Fashion Incubator at Macy’s • https://www.chicagofashionincubator.org/ Chicago Film Archives • http://www.chicagofilmarchives.org Chicago Film Society • http://www.chicagofilmsociety.org

Chicago Filmmakers • http://www.chicagofilmmakers.org

Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus • http://www.cgmc.org

Chicago Heights Drama Group • www.dramagroup.org

Chicago History Museum • https://www.chicagohistory.org

Chicago Human Rhythm Project • https://www.chicagotap.org

Chicago Humanities Festival • https://www.chicagohumanities.org

Chicago International Film Festival • https://www.chicagofilmfestival.com

Chicago Japanese American Historical Society • http://www.cjahs.org/ Chicago Jazz Philharmonic • https://www.chicagojazzphilharmonic.org

Chicago Latino Theater Alliance • https://www.clata.org

Chicago Mosaic School • https://chicagomosaicschool.org/

Chicago Multicultural Dance Center (CMDC) • http://www.cmdcschool.org

Chicago Opera Theater • https://www.chicagooperatheater.org

Chicago Poetry Center • http://www.poetrycenter.org

Chicago Public Art Group • http://www.chicagopublicartgroup.org/ Chicago Shakespeare Theater • https://www.chicagoshakes.com

Chicago Sinfonietta • https://www.chicagosinfonietta.org

Chicago Sunday Evening Club • https://www.csec.org

Chicago Symphony Orchestra • cso.org

Chicago Tap Theatre • http://www.chicagotaptheatre.com

Chicago Veterans • http://www.otherworldtheatre.org

Chicago Women’s History Center • https://www.chicagowomenshistory.org

Chicago Youth Shakespeare • https://www.chicagoyouthshakespeare.org

Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras • https://www.cyso.org

Child’s Play Touring Theatre • https://www.cptt.org

Children’s Theatre of Winnetka • www.childrenstheatrewinnetka.com/ Chimera Ensemble • www.chimeraensemble.com/

Chinese American Museum of Chicago • https://ccamuseum.org

Chinese Fine Arts Society • https://www.chinesefinearts.org/ Chopin Theatre • www.chopintheatre.com

CircEsteem • https://www.circesteem.org

Citadel Theatre Company • www.Citadeltheatre.org

City Lit Theater Company • www.citylit.org

Classical Kids Music Education • https://www.classicalkidsnfp.org/ Cli Dwellers, The • https://www.cli -chicago.org/

Collaboraction Theater Company • https://www.collaboraction.org

Compass Creative Dramatics • www.ccdramatics.com

Compass Theatre • https://www.compasstheatre.org/

Congo Square Theater Company • https://www.congosquaretheatre.org/ Connective Theatre Company • www.connectivetheatrecompany.com/ Conspirators, The • www.conspirewithus.org

Corn Productions • www.cornservatory.org

Court Theatre • https://www.courttheatre.org

Courtroom 600 • https://courtroom600.org/

CPA Theatricals • https://www.greenhousetheater.org/

Crossing Borders Music • http://crossingbordersmusic.org/ Dance Data Project • http://www.dancedataproject.com

Dance for Life - Chicago Dancers United • https://chicagodancersunited.org/dance-for-life

Deeply Rooted Dance Theater • https://www.deeplyrooteddancetheater.org

Definition Theatre • www.definitiontheatre.org/ Den Theatre, The • https://thedentheatre.com/ Descendants Media Group • http://www.descendantsmediagroup.org

Design Museum of Chicago • http://www.designchicago.org

Dragonfly Theatre Company • www.dragonflytheatrecompany.org/

Dreamstreet Theatre • https://dreamstreettheatre.org/ Driehaus Museum • https://driehausmuseum.org

DuPage Children’s Museum • https://www.dupagechildrensmuseum.org

DuPage Graue Mill and Museum • http://www.grauemill.org/

DuSable Museum of African American History • https://www.dusablemuseum.org

Eclipse Theatre Company • www.eclipsetheatre.com

Edgewater Historical Society and Museum • http://www.edgewaterhistory.org

Eighth Blackbird Performing Arts Association • http://www.eighthblackbird.org

Elmhurst Art Museum • http://www.elmhurstartmuseum.org

Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra • http://www.elmhurstsymphony.org

Ensemble Espanol Spanish Dance Theater • http://www.ensembleespanol.org

Evanston History Center • https://www.evanstonhistorycenter.org

Exit 63 Theatre • www.exit63theatre.com

Facets Multi-media • www.facets.org

Facility Theatre • www.facilitytheatre.org

Factory Theater • http://www.thefactorytheater.com

Field Museum • http://www.fieldmuseum.org/

Filament Theatre • www.filamenttheatre.org/

Fine Arts Building • www.studebakertheater.com/

Firebrand Theater: Musical Theatre and Feminism • https://firebrandtheatre.org/

First Floor Theater • http://www.firstfloortheater.com/

First Folio Theatre • http://www.firstfolio.org/

Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre • http://www. theatre.com/

Forward Momentum Chicago • https://www.ForwardMomentumChicago.org

Frank Lloyd Wright Trust • https://www.flwright.org

Free Street Theater • https://www.freestreet.org

Fremont Street Theater Company • http://www.fremontstreettheater.com/

Friends of the Edgewater Library • http://www.foelchicago.org

Fulcrum Point New Music Project • https://www.fulcrumpoint.org

Gene Siskel Film Center • https://www.siskelfilmcenter.org

Geneva Cultural Arts Commission • http://www.geneva.il.us

Geneva History Museum • https://genevahistorymuseum.org

Ghostlight Ensemble Theatre Company • http://www.ghostlightensemble.com/ Gift Theatre, The • http://www.thegifttheatre.org/

Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company • https://www.gilbertandsullivanoperacompany.org/ Gilloury Institute • http://www.silkroadrising.org

Glass Apple Theatre • http://www.glassappletheatre.com/ Glessner House • https://www.glessnerhouse.org

Golden Ticket Productions • http://www.goldenticketproductions.org/ Goodman Theatre • https://www.goodmantheatre.org Gracia Inc, NFP • http://www.graciainc.org

Green Star Movement • http://www.greenstarmovement.org

Greenhouse Theater Center • http://www.greenhousetheater.org/ Gri n Theatre • https://www.gri ntheatre.com

Guild Literary Complex • https://guildcomplex.org

Haitian American Museum of Chicago • http://www.hamoc.org/ Halcyon Theatre • http://www.halcyontheatre.org/ Harris Theater for Music and Dance • https://www.harristheaterchicago.org Haven Chicago • https://havenchi.org/ Haymarket Books • http://www.haymarketbooks.org

Hell in a Handbag Productions • http://www.handbagproductions.org/ Her Story Theater • http://www.herstorytheater.org/ Hibernian Media • https://www.hiberniantransmedia.org/ High Concept Labs • http://highconceptlaboratories.org/ Highland Park Historical Society • https://www.highlandparkhistory.com House Theatre of Chicago, The • https://www.thehousetheatre.com Hubbard Street Dance Chicago • https://www.hubbardstreetdance.com

Hyde Park Art Center • http://www.hydeparkart.org

Hyde Park Suzuki Institute • https://www.hydeparksuzuki.com

Idle Muse Theatre Company • http://www.idlemuse.org/ Ignition Community Glass • http://www.icg-chicago.org

Illinois Council of Orchestras • https://www.ilcouncilorchestras.org Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center • http://www.ilholocaustmuseum.org Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66 • http://www.roadtorock.org Imagination Theater • http://www.imaginationtheater.org

Inner Sense Healing Arts Collective • https://www.innersensehealingarts.org/ Institute For Arts Entrepreneurship • https://iaeou.me/beta/ Institute of Cultural A airs • http://www.ica-usa.org

International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago • https://www.latinoculturalcenter.org International Voices Project • http://www.ivpchicago.org/ Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art • http://www.art.org Invictus Theatre Company • https://www.invictustheatreco.com/ Irish American Heritage Center • http://irish-american.org/ Jackalope Theatre Company • http://www.jackalopetheatre.org/ Jane Addams Hull-House Museum • https://www.hullhousemuseum.org

Japan America Society of Chicago • https://jaschicago.org

Jazz Education Network • http://jazzednet.org/ Jazz Institute of Chicago • https://www.jazzinchicago.org

Joel Hall Dancers & Center • http://www.joelhall.org

Jo rey Ballet • http://www.jo rey.org

John G. Shedd Aquarium • https://www.sheddaquarium.org

KidsWork Children’s Museum • http://kidsworkchildrensmuseum.org/ Know Your Chicago • http://www.knowyourchicago.org

Korean Cultural Center of Chicago • www.kccoc.org

Lake Forest and Lake Blu History Center • https://www.lflbhistory.org

Lake Forest Symphony • http://lakeforestsymphony.org

Lakeside Pride Music Ensembles • https://lakesidepride.org

Latvian Folk Art Museum

• https://www.facebook.com/people/Latvian-Folk-Art-Museum/100057623230639/

League of Chicago Theatres • https://www.chicagoplays.com

Leather Archives & Museum • https://leatherarchives.org

Lifeline Theatre • http://www.lifelinetheatre.com

Lincoln Park Zoo • http://www.lpzoo.org

Links Hall • https://linkshall.org

Lira Ensemble • https://liraensemble.org/

Little Black Pearl Workshop • https://www.blackpearl.org

Lookingglass Theatre • http://www.lookingglasstheatre.org

Lyric Opera of Chicago • https://www.lyricopera.org

Madison Street Theater • https://www.mstoakpark.com/ Magura Cultural Center • http://www.magurabcs.com

MAKE Literary Productions • http://www.makemag.org

Making a Di erence Dancing Rhythms Organization (M.A.D.D. Rhythms) • https://maddrhythms.com

Mandala Arts • http://www.mandalaarts.org

MCA Stage • http://www.mcachicago.org/ McAninch Arts Center • http://www.atthemac.org/ Metropolis Performing Arts Centre • https://www.metropolisarts.com

Midsommer Flight • https://midsommerflight.com/ Miracle Center, The • https://themiraclecenter.com/ Mitchell Museum of the American Indian • http://www.mitchellmuseum.org/ Mordine and Company Dance Theatre • https://www.mordine.org

Morton Arboretum, The • https://mortonarb.org

Mudlark Theater Company • http://www.mudlarktheater.org/ Muntu Dance Theatre • https://www.muntu.com

Museum of Broadcast Communications • https://www.museum.tv

Museum of Contemporary Art • http://www.mcachicago.org

Museum of Contemporary Photography • http://www.mocp.org

Museum of Science and Industry • https://www.msichicago.org

MUSIC Inc. (Music in Urban Schools Inspiring Change) • http://www.musicincchicago.org

Music Theater Works • https://www.musictheaterworks.com/

NAJWA Dance Corps • https://www.facebook.com/najwadancecorpsorg/

Naperville Art League • http://www.napervilleartleague.com/

National Cambodian Heritage Museum and Killing Fields Memorial • https://www.cambodianmuseum.org

National Hellenic Museum • https://www.nationalhellenicmuseum.org

National Indo-American Museum • http://iahmuseum.org/

National Museum of Gospel Music • http://www.nationalmuseumofgospelmusic.org

National Museum of Mexican Art • http://nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org

National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts & Culture • http://nmprac.org/

National Public Housing Museum • https://www.nphm.org/

National Veterans Art Museum • http://www.nvam.org

Navy Pier • https://navypier.org

Neo-Futurists, The • https://neofuturists.org/ New Coordinates, The • http://thenewcoordinates.org/ New Moon Chicago • http://www.newmoonchicago.com

Newberry Library, The • https://www.newberry.org

Norris Cultural Arts Center, The • https://www.norrisculturalarts.com

North Riverside Players • http://www.nrplayers.com/ Northlight Theatre • https://northlight.org

Nothing Without a Company • http://www.nothingwithoutacompany.org/

Oak Park Festival Theatre • http://oakparkfestival.com/ Oil Lamp Theater • http://www.oillamptheater.org/ Old Town School of Folk Music • https://www.oldtownschool.org

OPEN Center for the Arts • http://www.opencenterforthearts.org/

Open Studio Project • https://www.openstudioproject.org

Organic Theater Company • http://www.organictheater.org/ Paramount Theatre • https://paramountaurora.com/

Passage Theatre Company • http://thepassagetheatre.com

Pegasus Theatre Chicago • https://pegasustheatrechicago.org/

Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum • http://www.naturemuseum.org

Perceptual Motion Dance Company • https://www.perceptualmotiondance.com

Petite Opera Productions • http://www.petiteopera.org/ Physical Theater Festival • https://www.physicalfestival.com/about Pivot Arts • https://pivotarts.org/

A joint project with

See this guide online: chicagoreader.com/nonprofitguide

Add your organization: chicagoreader.com/nonprofitsurvey

Plagiarists, The • http://www.theplagiarists.org/ PlayMakers Laboratory • https://www.playmakerslab.org/ Poetry Foundation • https://www.poetryfoundation.org Polish Museum of America • http://www.polishmuseumofamerica.org/ Porchlight Music Theatre • https://porchlightmusictheatre.org Preservation Partners of the Fox Valley • http://www.ppfv.org Pride Arts • https://pridearts.org/ Pritzker Military Museum & Library • https://www.pritzkermilitary.org

OAK PARK-RIVERFOREST CommunityFoundation

We envision a racially just and equitable society as the full inclusion of all people into a society in which everyone can participate, thrive and prosper. In an equitable society, everyone, regardless of the circumstance of birth or upbringing, is treated justly and fairly by its institutions and systems.

We ask for your support to make this vision a reality.

Project Onward • http://projectonward.org

Project& • https://projectand.org

Promethean Theatre Ensemble • http://www.prometheantheatre.org/ Prop Thtr • https://www.propthtr.org/

Public Media Institute • http://www.publicmediainstitute.com

Puerto Rican Arts Alliance • http://www.praachicago.org

Pullman Porter Museum • https://aprpullmanportermuseum.org

Railroad Tracks Music Academy • http://www.railroadtracksmusicacademy.org

Raven Theatre Company • http://www.raventheatre.com

Red Clay Dance • https://www.redclaydance.com

Red Orchid Theatre • http://www.aredorchidtheatre.org

Red Tape Theatre Company • http://www.redtapetheatre.org/

Red Theater Chicago • http://www.redtheater.org/

Redtwist Theatre • https://www.redtwisttheatre.org/

Rembrandt Chamber Musicians • www.rembrandtchambermusicians.org

Remy Bumppo Theatre Company • https://www.remybumppo.org

Repertorio Latino Theater Company • www.repertoriolatino.org

Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts

• https://arts.uchicago.edu/explore/reva-and-david-logan-center-arts

Rising Stars Theatre Co., The • http://www.risingstarschicago.com/

Rivendell Theatre Ensemble • https://rivendelltheatre.org/

River North Dance Chicago • http://rivno.sandboxstaging.net

Rush Hour Concerts • http://www.rushhour.org

Saint Sebastian Players • http://saintsebastianplayers.org/ Salt Creek Ballet • https://www.saltcreekballet.org

Saltbox Theatre Collective • http://www.saltboxtheatre.org/ Sarah Siddons Society • http://sarahsiddonssociety.org/ SciTech Museum • https://www.scitechmuseum.org/ Season of Concern • https://seasonofconcern.org

Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center • http://www.srbcc.org/ Seldoms, The • http://www.theseldoms.org

Shattered Globe Theatre • https://sgtheatre.org/ Sideshow Theatre Company • http://www.stage773.com/ Silent Theatre Company • http://www.silenttheatre.com/ Silk Road Rising • https://www.silkroadrising.org

Simple Good, The • https://thesimplegood.org/ Sisters in Cinema • https://sistersincinema.com

Sixteenth Street Theater • https://www.16thstreettheater.org

SkyART • http://www.skyart.org

Snow City Arts • http://www.snowcityarts.org

Society of Architectural Historians • http://www.sah.org

South Shore Arts • https://www.southshoreartsonline.org

South Side Community Art Center • http://www.sscartcenter.org

South Side Jazz Coalition • http://www.southsidejazzcoalition.org

Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies • https://www.spertus.edu

Spotlight Arts Collective • https://spotlightac.com/

Spudnik Press Cooperative • https://www.spudnikpress.org

St. Charles Singers • https://www.stcharlessingers.com

Stage 773 • http://www.sideshowtheatre.org/

Stage Left Theatre • https://www.stagelefttheatre.com

Steep Theatre Company • https://steeptheatre.com/

Steppenwolf Theatre Company • https://www.steppenwolf.org

Stepping Stone Theater • steppingstonechicago.com

Stillwell Institute for Contemporary Black Art • http://www.thestillwellinstitute.org

Stockyards Theatre Project • http://www.stockyardstheatreproject.org/ Story Theatre, The • http://thestorytheatre.org/

Storycatchers Theatre • http://www.storycatcherstheatre.org

Strawdog Theatre Company • https://www.strawdog.org

Subtext Theatre Company • http://www.subtextnfp.org/ Swahili Institute of Chicago • http://swahiliinstitute.org/

Swedish American Museum • http://swedishamericanmuseum.org T. Daniel Productions • http://www.tdanielproductions.org/ Teatro Vista • https://www.teatrovista.org Teatro ZinZanni • https://zinzanni.com/chicago/ Teen Arts Pass • https://teenartspass.urbangateways.org/ Territory NFP • https://www.territorychicago.org Theater Oobleck • https://theateroobleck.com/home/ Theater Wit • www.theaterwit.org Theatre Above the Law • www.theatreatl.org/ Theatre of Western Springs • https://www.theatrewesternsprings.com Theatre Seven Chicago • https://www.theatreseven.org Theatre Y • http://www.theatre-y.com/ Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre • http://www.theoubique.com/ Three Brothers Theatre • http://www.threebrotherstheatre.com/ Threewalls • http://www.three-walls.org

TimeLine Theatre Company • https://www.timelinetheatre.com Transcendence Global Media Peace On Earth • https://www.peaceonearthfilmfestival.org Trap Door Theatre • http://www.trapdoortheatre.com/ Trickster Cultural Center • https://www.tricksterculturalcenter.org/ Turkish American Cultural Alliance • http://www.tacaonline.org/ Turning the Page Chicago • http://www.turningthepage.org Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art • http://uima-chicago.org/ Ukrainian National Museum • http://www.ukrainiannationalmuseum.org/ Underscore Theatre Company • http://www.underscoretheatre.org/ United States Artists Inc. • http://www.unitedstatesartists.org

Urban Gateways • https://www.urbangateways.org

UrbanTheater Company • http://urbantheaterchicago.org/ Valiant Theatre • http://www.valianttheatre.org/ Vaudeville Chicago • http://www.vaudevillechicago.org

Victory Gardens Theater • http://www.victorygardens.org Vision Latino Theatre Company • https://www.visionlatino.com/ Walkabout Theater • http://www.walkabouttheater.org/ Water People Theater • http://www.waterpeople.org/ West Point School of Music • http://www.westpointsom.org

WildClaw Theatre • http://www.wildclawtheatre.com/ Williams Street Repertory • http://www.wsrep.org/ Wilmette Arts Guild • https://www.wilmetteartsguild.org

Windy City Performing Arts • https://windycitysings.org

Windy City Playhouse • http://www.windycityplayhouse.com/ Woman Made Gallery (WMG) • http://www.womanmade.org Wrightwood 659 • https://wrightwood659.org Writers Theatre • https://www.writerstheatre.org

YEPP: Youth Empowerment Performance Project • https://www.wesayyepp.com Young Chicago Authors • https://www.youngchicagoauthors.org

Zhou B Art Center: the Home of Artists • https://www.zhoubrothers.com

Associations & Clubs

Academy of General Dentistry • https://www.agd.org Actors Fund • http://www.actorsfund.org

Advanced Design Sketching • https://advdes.org/ African American Arts Alliance of Chicago • http://www.aaaachicago.org Alianza Americas • https://www.alianzaamericas.org

Alliance of Illinois Judges • https://www.theaij.com/ Alliance of Local Service Organizations (ALSO) • http://also-chicago.org/ AllianceChicago • https://alliancechicago.org

Alternative Schools Network • http://www.asnchicago.org

Alzheimer’s Association - Greater Illinois Chapter • https://www.alz.org/illinois American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry • https://www.aapd.org/ American Academy of Pediatrics • https://www.aap.org/ American Bar Association • http://www.americanbar.org

American Brain Tumor Association • http://www.abta.org

American Camp Association of Illinois • http://www.acail.org/

American Dental Association (ADA) • https://www.ada.org/en

American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) Education Foundation • http://www.aisc.org/

American Library Association • https://www.ala.org/

American Marketing Association • http://www.ama.org

American Medical Association • https://www.ama-assn.org/

American Ornithological Society • http://www.americanornithology.org

American Osteopathic Association (AOA) • https://osteopathic.org/

American Osteopathic Foundation • https://aof.org/

American Planning Association - Illinois Chapter • http://www.ilapa.org

American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children • https://www.apsac.org

American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy • http://www.astct.org

American Society of Home Inspectors • https://www.homeinspector.org

American Society of Plastic Surgeons • https://www.plasticsurgery.org

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Association • http://www.alsachicago.org

Arts and Business Council of Chicago • https://www.artsbiz-chicago.org

Arts Club of Chicago • https://www.artsclubchicago.org/

Associated Colleges of the Midwest • http://www.acm.edu

Association for Psychological Type International • https://www.aptinternational.org

Association House of Chicago • http://www.associationhouse.org

Association of Industrial Real Estate Brokers (AIRE) • https://www.aire-brokers.org/

Association of Professional Chaplains • https://www.professionalchaplains.org

Association of Women Surgeons (AWS) Foundation

• https://www.womensurgeons.org/page/SupportAWSFoundation

B.I.G. Baseball Academy • http://www.bigbaseballacademy.net

Backbones • http://backbonesonline.com/ Black Girl BeYOUtiful • https://www.instagram.com/blackgirlbeyoutiful/ Blind Service Association • http://www.blindserviceassociation.org

Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater Chicago • https://bwla.org/ Cambodian Association of Illinois • https://cambodianassociation.org

Canal Corridor Association • https://www.canalcor.org

CHAOS Brew Club • https://www.chaosbrewclub.net/

Chatham Business Association • http://www.cbaworks.org

Chi Chapter • http://www.chi-chapter.org/

Chicago Area Runners Association (CARA) • http://www.cararuns.org

Chicago Association of Realtors • https://chicagorealtor.com/

Chicago Dental Society • http://www.cds.org

Chicago Interactive Marketing Association (CIMA) • http://www.chicagoima.org

Chicago National Association of Dance Masters • https://www.cnadm.com

Chicago Philatelic Society • https://www.chicagopex.org/

Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association • http://cso.org

Child Care Association of Illinois • https://www.cca-il.org

Children’s Place Association • https://www.childrens-place.org

Chinese Mutual Aid Association • https://www.chinesemutualaid.org

Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community • http://www.cbcacchicago.org

Code Platoon • http://www.codeplatoon.org

Construction Specifications Institute, Chicago Chapter • https://www.csiresources.org

Council of International Programs in Chicago • http://www.cipchicago.org

Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, The • http://ciogc.org/ Dominican-American Midwest Association • http://www.damamidwest.org/

Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago • http://www.ecachicago.org

Evanston Environmental Association • https://www.evanstonenvironment.org

Evanston Youth Hockey Association • https://evanstonhockey.com/

Field of Dreams Visionary Center • https://fieldofdreamsvisionarycenter.com/

Fortnightly of Chicago, The • https://fortnightlychicago.org

Fox Valley Special Recreation Association • https://www.fvsra.org

Franciscan Outreach Association • https://www.franoutreach.org

Greater River North Business Association • https://greaterrnba.com/ Hephzibah Children’s Association • https://www.hephzibahhome.org

Higher Learning Commission • https://www.hlcommission.org/

Hip Circle Empowerment Center • http://hipcircle.org

Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois • https://www.hlai.org

Hungarian Club of Chicago • https://www.hungarianclubofchicago.com/

A joint project with

See this guide online: chicagoreader.com/nonprofitguide

Add your organization: chicagoreader.com/nonprofitsurvey

Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education • https://www.iicle.com/ Illinois Library Association (ILA) • https://www.ila.org

Illinois Primary Health Care Association • https://www.iphca.org Illinois Science and Technology Coalition • https://www.istcoalition.org/ Illinois Women in Cannabis • https://ilwomenincannabis.org

Infant Welfare Society of Chicago • https://infantwelfaresociety.org International Contemporary Ensemble • https://www.iceorg.org

International Society of Transport Aircraft Traders (ISTAT) • https://www.istat.org/ Japanese American Service Committee • http://www.jasc-chicago.org

Juvenile Protective Association • http://www.jpachicago.org/ Kau err Resource Center • http://www.kau errcenterchicago.com

LAGBAC, Chicago’s LGBTQ+ Bar Association • https://lagbac.org/ Langdon Club • https://www.thelangdonclub.org/

Latin United Community Housing Association (LUCHA) • http://www.lucha.org

Lily Cache Special Recreation Association • http://www.bolingbrookparks.org/en/lcsra/ Lincolnway Special Recreation Association • https://lwsra.org/

Logan Square Neighborhood Association • http://www.lsna.net

Medical Cannabis Alliance of Illinois • https://ilcannabismd.com

Mental Health Association of Greater Chicago (MHAGC) • http://www.mhagcusa.org

National Spasmodic Dysphonia Association • https://www.dysphonia.org

Nineteenth Century Charitable Association • https://www.nineteenthcentury.org North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO) • http://www.nasco.coop

Northeast DuPage County Special Recreation Association • https://www.nedsra.org

Northeastern Illinois Special Recreation Association (NISRA) • https://www.nisra.org

Northern Suburban Special Recreation Association (NSSRA) • https://www.nssra.org OCA Greater Chicago (Organization of Chinese-Americans of Greater Chicago) • http://www.ocachicago.org

Polish American Association (PAA) • https://www.polish.org

Ray Graham Association for People with Disabilities • https://www.raygraham.org

Residential Real Estate Council • https://www.crs.com

Rotary Club of Chicago • https://rotaryone.org/ SEIU Healthcare • https://seiuhcilin.org/ Society of Women Engineers • http://www.swe.org

South East Association for Special Parks and Recreation • https://www.seaspar.org/ Structural Engineers Association of Illinois • https://www.seaoi.org

Technology and Manufacturing Association • https://www.tmaillinois.org

Toastmasters International - Chicagoland • http://www.toastmasters.org

Underground Contractors Association • https://www.uca.org

Union League Club of Chicago • https://www.ulcc.org

Urban Libraries Council • https://www.urbanlibraries.org

Vietnamese Association of Illinois • https://www.hnvi.org

Volunteer Center • http://www.volunteercenterhelps.org

Woman’s Athletic Club of Chicago • http://www.wacchicago.com

Woman’s Club of Evanston • https://www.wcofe.org/ Woman’s Educational Aid Association

• https://findingaids.library.northwestern.edu/agents/corporate_entities/1426 Women’s Bar Association of Illinois • https://wbaillinois.org/ Xilin Association • https://xilin.org/

Civic & Community Development

A Journey 2 Manhood • http://www.ajourney2manhood.org

Access Living • https://www.accessliving.org

Active Transportation Alliance • https://www.activetrans.org

Adelante Center for Entrepreneurship • http://www.adelantecenter.org/

ADOPT Pet Shelter (Animals Deserving of Proper Treatment) • https://www.adoptpetshelter.org

A nity Community Services • https://www.a nity95.org/

Aitz Hayim Congregation • https://www.AitzHayim.org

Albany Park Community Center • https://www.apccchgo.org

All Chicago • https://www.allchicago.org

AllenForce • https://allenforce.org

Alliance for Immigrant Neighbors • https://www.allianceforimmigrants.org

Alliance for the Great Lakes • http://www.greatlakes.org

Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment (AFIRE) • http://www.afirechicago.org

Almost Home • http://www.almosthomefoundation.org

Alt Space Chicago (alt_space) • https://www.altspacechicago.com

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois • http://www.aclu-il.org

American Indian Association of Illinois • http://chicago-american-indian-edu.org

American Indian Center of Chicago • https://aicchicago.org/

American Institute of Architects Chicago (AIA Chicago) • http://www.aiachicago.org

American Library Association • http://www.ala.org

American Veterans for Equal Rights-Chicago • https://www.averchicago.org

And Rise (&Rise) • http://www.womenrisechicago.org

Anderson Animal Shelter • https://www.andersonanimalshelter.org

Andersonville Chamber of Commerce • http://www.andersonville.org/ Angelic Organics Learning Center • https://www.learngrowconnect.org

Animal Care League • http://www.animalcareleague.org

Anti-Cruelty Society • https://www.anticruelty.org

Apna Ghar • http://www.apnaghar.org

Arab American Action Network • https://aaan.org/ Archi-Treasures • http://www.architreasures.org

Argentium Care • https://www.cmsschicago.org/what-we-do/home-care/ Arts Alliance Illinois • http://www.artsalliance.org

Arts Work Fund for Organizational Development • http://www.artsworkfund.org

Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Chicago • https://www.advancingjustice-chicago.org/ Aspiritech • https://www.aspiritech.org

Assata’s Daughters • https://www.assatasdaughters.org/ Asset Funders Network • http://assetfunders.org

Association of Latina/os Motivating Action • https://www.almachicago.org

Austin Chamber of Commerce • https://chicagoaustinchamber.com/ BAARK Dog Rescue • https://www.baarkdogrescue.org/ Believers Bail Out • http://www.believersbailout.org

Beloved Community Family Wellness Center • https://www.bcfwc.org

Bethel New Life, Inc. • https://www.bethelnewlife.org

Black Lives Matter Chicago • https://www.blacklivesmatterchicago.com

Blocks Together • http://www.btchicago.org

Bosnian and Herzegovinian American Community Center • https://www.bhaccchicago.org

Bottomless Closet Chicago • https://www.bottomlesscloset.org

Brave Space Alliance • https://www.bravespacealliance.org/

Breakthrough • https://www.breakthrough.org

Bright Endeavors • https://www.brightendeavors.org

Brighton Park Neighborhood Council • https://www.bpncchicago.org

Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods • http://www.brushwoodcenter.org

BUILD (Broader Urban Involvement & Leadership Development)

• https://www.buildchicago.org/

BYP100 • https://www.byp100.org/

Cabrini Retreat Center • https://www.cabrinicenter.org

CAIR-Chicago • http://www.cairchicago.org

Canine Therapy Corps • https://www.caninetherapycorps.org

CARA Collective • https://caracollective.org/ Career Resource Center • https://www.careerresourcecenter.org

Career Transition Center of Chicago • https://www.ctcchicago.org

CASA of Cook County (Court Appointed Special Advocates) • https://www.casacookcounty.org Cat Guardians • http://www.catguardians.org Catcade • https://www.thecatcade.org/ Catnap From the Heart • http://www.catnapfromtheheart.org CCIM Foundation • http://www.ccimef.org/

Center for Advancing Domestic Peace • http://www.advancingdomesticpeace.org Center for Conflict Resolution • https://www.ccrchicago.org

Center for Disability and Elder Law • https://www.CDELaw.org

Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) • https://www.cnt.org

Central States SER • http://www.centralstatesser.org/ Central States SER Aurora WIOA Youth Program • http://centralstatesser.org/ Centro Comunitario Juan Diego (CCJD) • http://www.ccjuandiego.org/ Chambers360 • https://www.chamber630.com/ Change Illinois • http://www.changeil.org Chapin Hall • https://www.chapinhall.org/ Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation (CAASE) • http://www.caase.org Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness • http://www.thechicagoalliance.org Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts • https://www.chicagoappleseed.org Chicago Black Gay Men’s Caucus • https://chicagoblackgaymenscaucus.org/ Chicago Canine Rescue • http://www.chicagocaninerescue.org

Chicago Chinatown Chamber of Commerce • https://www.chicagochinatown.org/ Chicago Coalition for the Homeless • https://www.chicagohomeless.org

Chicago Committee on Minorities in Large Law Firms • https://chicagocommittee.org/?src Chicago Community Bond Fund • https://chicagobond.org Chicago Community Loan Fund • https://www.cclfchicago.org Chicago Council on Science and Technology • https://www.c2st.org Chicago Fair Trade • http://www.chicagofairtrade.org

Chicago French Bulldog Rescue • http://www.frenchieporvous.org/ Chicago Furniture Bank • https://www.chicagofurniturebank.org

Chicago Jobs Council • https://www.cjc.net

Chicago Justice Project • https://www.chicagojustice.org Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights • http://www.clccrul.org Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning • https://www.cmap.illinois.gov/ Chicago Minority Supplier Development Council • https://www.chicagomsdc.org/ Chicago Network, The • https://www.thechicagonetwork.org Chicago Rabbinical Council • https://www.crcweb.org Chicago Run • http://www.chicagorun.org Chicago Tool Library • http://www.chicagotoollibrary.org Chicago Torture Justice Center • https://www.chicagotorturejustice.org/ Chicago Urban League • https://chiul.org/ Chicago Urban Pride • https://www.facebook.com/ChicagoUrbanPride/ Chicago Votes • https://chicagovotes.com/ Chicago Women in Trades • https://www.chicagowomenintrades.org

Chicago Women Take Action • https://www.chicagowomentakeaction.org Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce • https://www.chicagolandchamber.org/ ChiGivesBack • https://www.chigivesback.com

Child Care Resource and Referral • https://childcarehelp.com/ Children’s Legal Center • http://www.ChildrensLegalCenterChicago.org Chinese Mutual Aid Association • https://www.chinesemutualaid.org

Choose Chicago • http://www.choosechicago.com/ Christian Outreach for Africa • http://africaoutreach.org

Citizen Advocacy Center (CAC) • http://www.citizenadvocacycenter.org

Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE) • https://www.cureepilepsy.org City Club of Chicago • https://www.cityclub-chicago.org/ City Incite • http://www.cityincite.org

Civic Federation • http://www.civicfed.org

CivicLab • http://www.civiclab.us Claretian Associates • https://www.claretianassociates.org

Clean Up - Give Back .Org • http://www.cleanupgiveback.org

Clearbrook • http://www.clearbrook.org

Climate Vault • http://www.climatevault.org

Coalicion Latinos Unidos of Lake County (Latino Coalition of Lake County) • http://www.clulc.org

Code for Chicago • https://codeforchicago.org

Community Investment Corporation • https://www.cicchicago.com

Community Organizing and Family Issues • http://www.cofionline.org

Community Renewal Society • https://www.communityrenewalsociety.org

Community Service Options • https://www.cso1.org

Community Shares of Illinois • https://www.communitysharesillinois.org

Companions Journeying Together • https://www.cjtinc.org

ConTextos • https://contextos.org/chicago/

Corporate Responsibility Group of Greater Chicago • http://www.crgroup.org

Corporation for Supportive Housing • https://www.csh.org

Council of Great Lakes Governors • http://www.gsgp.org

Creating Healthier Communities • https://chcimpact.org/ Creative Partners • https://www.luckyplush.com/creativepartners

Crusher’s Club • https://www.crushersclub.org/

DANK Haus German American Cultural Center • http://www.dankhaus.com/ Debtless NFP • http://www.debtlessnfp.org

DePaul Legal Clinic

• https://law.depaul.edu/academics/experiential-learning/legal-clinics/Pages/default.aspx

Designs for Dignity • https://www.designs4dignity.org/

Developing Communities Project (DCP Chicago) • http://www.dcpchicago.org

Disability Lead • http://www.disabilitylead.org

Donka, Inc. • https://www.donkainc.org

Downtown Oak Park • https://www.downtownoakpark.net

Dreamcatcher Foundation • https://thedreamcatcherfoundation.org/ DuPage P.A.D.S. • http://www.dupagepads.org

Economic Strategies Development Corporation • https://esdcchicago.org/

Edgewater Development Corporation • https://www.edgewaterdev.org

Edgewater Village Chicago • http://www.evchicago.org

Educating Voices • http://www.educatingvoices.org

Elawa Farm Commissions • https://www.elawafarm.org

Elevate • https://www.elevatenp.org/

Elmhurst Chamber of Commerce • http://www.elmhurstchamber.org

Enlace Chicago • https://www.enlacechicago.org

Environment Illinois Research and Education Center • http://www.environmentillinoiscenter.org

Environmental Law and Policy Center of the Midwest • http://www.elpc.org

Equality Illinois • https://www.equalityillinois.us

Executives’ Club of Chicago • https://www.executivesclub.org

Ezio Community Development Services • http://www.eziocdsinc.org

Ezra Habonim Niles Township Jewish Congregation • https://www.ehnt.org

Family Justice Resource Center • https://www.famjustice.org/

Far South Community Development Corporation • http://farsouthcdc.org

Felines & Canines • https://www.felinescanines.org

A joint project with

See this guide online: chicagoreader.com/nonprofitguide

Add your organization: chicagoreader.com/nonprofitsurvey

Felines of Chicago • https://www.felinesofchicago.org

Fellowship Housing Corp • https://www. cmoms.org

Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago • https://fanhschicago.wordpress.com/ Financial Health Network • http://www.finhealthnetwork.org

First Tee of Greater Chicago, The • https://www.thefirstteegreaterchicago.org

Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT) • http://www.foodanimalconcernstrust.org

Friedman Place • https://www.friedmanplace.org

Friends of Downtown • https://www.friendsofdowntown.org

Friends of the Chicago River • http://www.chicagoriver.org

Friends of the Parks • https://www.fotp.org

Full Circle Communities • https://www.fccommunities.org/ Fuller Park Community Development • https://www.fullerpark.com

Gardeneers • https://gardeneers.org/

Genesis Housing Development Corporation • http://www.genesishdc.org

Geographic Society of Chicago • https://www.geographicsociety.org

Gerber/Hart Library and Archives • https://www.gerberhart.org

Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana • https://www.girlscoutsgcnwi.org

Girls in the Game • https://www.girlsinthegame.org

Glenkirk • https://www.glenkirk.org

Good News Partners • https://www.goodnewspartners.org

GoodKidsMadCity • https://www.gkmcenglewood.com

Greater Chicago Legal Clinic • https://www.gclclaw.org

Greater Englewood Chamber of Commerce • https://www.gechamber.com/ Greater Northwest Chicago Development Corporation • https://www.gncdc.org

Green City Market • https://www.greencitymarket.org

Growing Home • http://growinghomeinc.org

Hamilton Wings • https://www.hamiltonwings.com/ HANA Center • https://hanacenter.org/

Hands of Peace • http://www.handsofpeace.org

Hands On Suburban Chicago • https://www.handsonsuburbanchicago.org

Hanul Family Alliance (Korean American Senior Center) • http://www.hanulusa.org

Have Dreams • https://www.havedreams.org

Heart of Illinois United Way • http://www.hoiunitedway.org

Heartland Animal Shelter • http://www.heartlandanimalshelter.org

Helix Education • http://www.helixeducation.org

Hinsdale Humane Society • https://www.hinsdalehumanesociety.org

Hispanic Alliance for Career Enhancement • https://www.haceonline.org

Hispanic American Construction Industry Association (HACIA) • https://www.haciaworks.org

Hispanic Housing Development Corporation • https://www.hispanichousingdevelopment.com

Holy Family Parish • https://www.holyfamilyparish.org

Home Dupage • https://www.homedupage.org

Homewood Flossmoor Soccer Club • http://www.hfsoccerclub.org

Honeycomb Project, The • http://www.thehoneycombproject.org

Honor Flight Chicago • https://www.honorflightchicago.org

Hooved Animal Rescue and Protection Society (HARPS) • http://www.harpsonline.org

Hopeful Tails Animal Rescue • http://www.hopefultailsanimalrescue.org/

Housing Action Illinois • http://www.housingactionil.org

Housing Choice Partners of Illinois • https://www.hcp-chicago.org

Housing Forward • https://www.housingforward.org

Housing Opportunities and Maintenance for Elderly (HOME) • https://www.homeseniors.org

Housing Opportunity Development Corporation • https://www.hodc.org

I Grow Chicago • https://www.igrowchicago.org

Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights • https://www.icirr.org

Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence (ICAHV)

• https://concealedcarryandme.com/illinois-council-against-handgun-violence/

Illinois Council on Problem Gambling • https://www.icpg.info

Illinois Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children • http://www.illinoiscasa.org

Illinois Doberman Rescue Plus • https://www.ILDobeRescue.com

Illinois Environmental Council • https://www.ilenviro.org

Illinois Environmental Council Education Fund • http://www.iecef.org

Illinois Families for Public Schools • http://www.ilfps.org

Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce • https://www.ihccbusiness.net

Illinois Housing Council • http://www.ilhousing.org

Illinois Joining Forces • https://www.illinoisjoiningforces.org

Illinois Legal Aid Online • http://www.illinoislegalaid.org

Illinois Poor People’s Campaign • https://illinoisppc.org

Illinois Prison Project • https://www.illinoisprisonproject.org/

Illinois Stewardship Alliance • https://www.ilstewards.org

Imagine Englewood If • https://www.imagineenglewoodif.org/

Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago • https://www.industrialcouncil.com/

Inner City Muslim Action Network (IMAN) • https://www.imancentral.org

Interfaith Action of Evanston • http://www.interfaithactionofevanston.org

Interfaith Worker Justice • https://www.iwj.org

International Fellowship of Christians and Jews • https://www.ifcj.org

Jack’s Fund • https://www.jacksfund.org

Jane Addams Resource Corporation • https://www.jane-addams.org

Jane Addams Senior Caucus • https://www.seniorcaucus.org/

Jewish Vocational Service (JVS) - A program of JCFS Chicago • https://www.jcfs.org/jvs

JOURNEYS • https://www.journeystheroadhome.org/

Juvenile Justice Initiative • http://www.jjustice.org

Kaleidoscope • https://www.kaleidoscope4kids.org

KAN-WIN • http://www.kanwin.org

Kenwood Oakland Community Organization • https://kocoonline.org

Kids Rank • http://www.kidsrank.org

Korean American Community Services • https://www.kacschicago.org

La Casa Norte • https://www.lacasanorte.org

La Leche League International (LLLI) • https://www.lalecheleague.org

Ladder Up • https://www.goladderup.org/

Lake County Coalition for the Homeless • https://www.lakecountyhomeless.org

Lakeside Community Development Corporation

• https://www.facebook.com/Lakesidecdc.Chicago/

Lambda Legal • https://www.lambdalegal.org/states-regions/illinois

Lambs Farm • https://www.lambsfarm.org

Landmarks Illinois • http://www.landmarks.org

Latino Policy Forum • https://www.latinopolicyforum.org

Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing • https://www.lcbh.org

League of Women Voters of Chicago • https://my.lwv.org/illinois/chicago Legacy Project, The • https://legacyprojectchicago.org

Legal Aid Chicago • http://www.legalaidchicago.org

LGBT Chamber of Commerce of Illinois • https://lgbtcc.com

Lincoln Park Boat Club • https://www.lpboatclub.org

Lincoln Park Chamber of Commerce • https://www.lincolnparkchamber.com Lincoln Park Conservancy • http://www.lincolnparkconservancy.org

Little Village Chamber of Commerce • https://littlevillagechamber.org/ Local Initiatives Support Corporation Chicago • https://www.lisc.org/ Logan Square Neighborhood Association (LSNA) • https://www.lsna.net/ Lost Boyz, Inc. • http://www.lostboyzinc.org

Love Everything About Dogs Rescue (LEAD) • http://www.leadrescue.org

Lugenia Burns Hope Center • https://www.lbhopecenter.com

Lumity • https://www.lumity.org

Lupus Society of Illinois • https://www.lupusil.org

LVEJO (Little Village Environmental Justice Organization) • http://www.lvejo.org Meals on Wheels - Northeastern Illinois • https://www.mealsonwheelsnei.org

Medical Organization for Latino Advancement (MOLA) • https://www.chicagomola.com

Mental Health America of the North Shore • https://www.mhans.org/ Metro Squash (METROSquash) • https://www.metrosquash.org

Metropolitan Family Services • https://www.metrofamily.org

Metropolitan Planning Council • http://www.metroplanning.org

Mid Central Community Action • https://www.mccainc.org

Midwest Access Project (MAP) • https://midwestaccessproject.org

Midwest Energy E ciency Alliance • https://www.mwalliance.org

Midwest Shelter for Homeless Veterans • http://www.helpaveteran.org

Military Outreach USA • http://www.militaryoutreachusa.org

Muslim American Leadership Alliance • https://www.malanational.org/ Muslim Women’s Alliance • http://www.mwachicago.org

My Block, My Hood, My City • https://www.formyblock.org

NAACP-Chicago • https://www.naaapchicago.org

Naperville Humane Society • https://www.napervillehumanesociety.org

National ABLE Network • https://www.nationalable.org

National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) • http://www.napawf.org

National Council of Jewish Women Chicago North Shore • https://www.ncjwcns.org

National Immigrant Justice Center • https://immigrantjustice.org

National Partnership for New Americans • http://www.partnershipfornewamericans.org

National Women Veterans United • http://nwvu.org/ Near North Development Corporation • https://www.near-north.org

Neighborhood Housing Services • http://www.nhschicago.org Neurofibromatosis, Inc. • https://www.nfnetwork.org/ New Covenant Community Development Corporation • http://www.new-covenantcdc.org Newberger Hillel Center at University of Chicago • https://www.uchicagohillel.org

North Lawndale Employment Network • http://www.nlen.org

North River Commission • https://northrivercommission.org/ North Side Housing and Supportive Services • http://www.northsidehousing.org

Northcenter Chamber of Commerce • http://www.northcenterchamber.com Northwest Center Against Sexual Assault • http://www.nwcasa.org/ Northwest Side Housing Center • https://www.nwshc.org

Nurture Your Family • https://nurtureyourfamily.org

OAI, Inc. • https://www.oaiinc.org

Oak Park Area Lesbian & Gay Association (OPALGA+) • https://opalga.org/about/ Oak Park Regional Housing Center • https://oprhc.org/

ONE Northside • http://onenorthside.org

One Tail At A Time • https://www.onetail.org

Open Book • http://www.openbookprogram.org/ Open Books • https://www.open-books.org

Open Lands Project • https://www.openlands.org

Opportunity International • https://www.opportunity.org

Opportunity Knocks • https://www.opportunityknocksnow.org/ Options for Youth • http://options4youth.org

Organ Transplant Support • https://www.organtransplantsupport.org

Organization for Positive Action and Leadership, The (OPAL) • http://www.opalevanston.com

Organized Communities Against Deportations • https://www.organizedcommunities.org/about Out Our Front Door Organization • https://www.oofd.org/

Overshadowed Theatrical Productions • http://www.overshadowed.org

PADS Lake County • https://www.padslakecounty.org

Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE) • http://pureparents.org/

Parliament of the World’s Religions • https://www.parliamentofreligions.org

Partners for Our Communities (POC) • http://www.poc.news

PAWS Chicago • http://www.pawschicago.org

PFLAG (LGBTQ+ and allies) • https://pflag.org/chapter/pflag-chicago-metro Plant, The • http://www.plantchicago.com

Plum Landing Retirement Community • https://www.plumlanding.org

Preston Bradley Center • https://www.prestonbradley.org

Prevention First, Inc. • https://www.prevention.org

Pride Action Tank • https://prideactiontank.org

Public Image Partnership • https://www.facebook.com/publicimagepartnership/

Puerto Rican Cultural Center • https://prcc-chgo.org

Pui Tak Center • https://www.puitak.org

Quad Communities Development Corporation (QCDC) • http://www.qcdc.org

Rainbow PUSH Coalition • https://www.rainbowpush.org

Real Men Charities, Inc. • https://realmencharitiesinc.org/

Rebuild the Hood • http://www.rebuildthehood.org

Rebuilding Exchange • https://www.rebuildingexchange.org

Reconciling Ministries Network • https://www.rmnetwork.org

Reform for Illinois • https://www.reformforillinois.org/

Renaissance Collaborative • http://www.trcwabash.org

Renaissance Social Services • https://www.rssichicago.org

Renew Moline • http://www.renewmoline.com

Resident Association of Greater Englewood (RAGE) • http://ragenglewood.org

Resilience (formerly Rape Victim Advocates) • https://www.ourresilience.org

Resolution System Institute • https://www.aboutrsi.org

Resource Center • https://theresourcecenterchicago.org/

Resurrection Project • https://www.resurrectionproject.org

River City Community Development Center (RCCDC) • http://rcitycdc.org

Rogers Park Business Alliance • https://www.rpba.org

Safe Now Animal Rescue and Foster • https://www.safenowrescue.com/

Save Abandoned Babies Foundation • http://www.saveabandonedbabies.org

SCORE • https://chicago.score.org

Season of Concern • http://www.seasonofconcern.org

Second City Canine Rescue • http://www.sccrescue.org/

SERCO - Southwest Suburban Cook County American Job Center • http://centralstatesser.org/ Shore Community Services • https://shoreservices.org

Shorewood Area Chamber of Commerce and Industry • https://www.shorewoodchamber.com

Shriver Center On Poverty Law • http://www.povertylaw.org

Sierra Club - Illinois Chapter • https://www.sierraclub.org/illinois

Simply Virtuous • https://simplyvirtuous.org/ Sinapis • http://www.sinapis.org

Skyline Village Chicago • https://skyline.clubexpress.com/ Small Business Advocacy Council • http://www.smallbusinessadvocacycouncil.org

Soroptimist International Midwestern Region • https://www.simwr.org/

Southeast Chicago Chamber of Commerce • http://southeastchgochamber.org

Southside Together Organizing for Power • http://www.stopchicago.org

Southwest Organizing Project • http://www.swopchicago.org

Sow Community Development Corporation • http://www.new.sowcdc.org

Spanish Coalition for Housing • http://sc4housing.org

Spark Ventures • http://www.sparkventures.org

St. Edmund’s Redevelopment Corporation • http://www.stedmundsrc.org

St. Sophia’s Forgotten Felines

• https://www.petfinder.com/member/us/il/wheaton/st-sophias-forgotten-felines-il692/

Stevenson Center on Democracy • https://www.stevensoncenterondemocracy.org

Streeterville Organization for Active Residents • https://www.soarchicago.org

StreetWise • http://www.streetwise.org

Supportive Housing Providers Association • https://www.shpa-il.org

A joint project with

See this guide online: chicagoreader.com/nonprofitguide

Add your organization: chicagoreader.com/nonprofitsurvey

Surge for Water Inc. • http://www.surgeforwater.org Syrian Community Network • http://www.syriancommunitynetwork.org Tails Humane Society • http://www.TailsHumaneSociety.org The Gotham • https://thegotham.org/ Thousand Waves • https://thousandwaves.org Top Box Foods • https://www.topboxfoods.com Tree House Animal Foundation, Inc. • https://www.treehouseanimals.org U.N.I.O.N. Impact Center • http://www.unionimpactcenter.org/

Give the gift of hope to children this holiday season.

Since 2001, we’ve helped 45,000 children get back to growing, dreaming and thriving after experiencing sexual abuse and other serious trauma.

Learn about our work and consider a donation at www.chicagocac.org

Ultimate Chicago • https://www.ultimatechicago.org

United African Organization • http://www.uniteafricans.org

United Cerebral Palsy Seguin of Greater Chicago • https://ucpseguin.org/

United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) • http://www.unochicago.org/

United Way of Metro Chicago • https://www.uw-mc.org

Unlocking Communities • https://unlockingcommunities.org

Uptown People’s Law Center • http://www.uplcchicago.org

Urban CPE Consortium • http://www.urbancpe.org

USO of Illinois • https://illinois.uso.org

Village Chicago, The • https://www.thevillagechicago.org

Voices for Creative Nonviolence • http://vcnv.org/

Voices of Variety • https://vov.world/welcome/ We Care 2 Agency • https://wecare2agency.com/

West Humboldt Park Development Council • https://www.whpdevelopmentcouncil.net

West Loop Gate Community Organization • https://www.westloop.org

West Suburban Chamber of Commerce and Industry • https://www.westsuburbanchamber.org

West Suburban Humane Society • https://www.wshs-dg.org

West Town Bikes • http://westtownbikes.org/

Westside Media Project • https://www.westsideforward.org/

Westwood Community Development Corporation • https://www.westwoodcdc.com

Wheel Gymnastics Organizing Committee • http://www.usawheelgymnastics.com

Whispering Oaks Girl Scout Council • https://www.girlscoutsgcnwi.org

Winnetka-Northfield Chamber of Commerce • https://winnetkanorthfieldchamber.com

Women Employed • http://www.womenemployed.org

Women’s Business Development Center • http://www.wbdc.org

Woodlawn Diversity In Action • https://woodlawndiversityinaction.com/

Woodlawn Restorative Justice Hub • https://www.woodlawnrj.org

Woodstock Institute • https://www.woodstockinst.org

Workers Circle, The • https://www.circle.org/

World Relief Chicago • https://worldreliefchicago.org

WorldChicago • www.worldchicago.org

YMCA of Metro Chicago • https://www.ymcachicago.org

Young Nonprofit Professionals Network (YNPN) • https://www.ynpnchicago.org

Youth Conservation Corps • https://www.youthconservationcorps.org

Youth Guidance • http://www.youth-guidance.org

YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago • https://ywcachicago.org

Zonta International • http://www.zonta.org

Education & Youth

826CHI • https://www.826chi.org/

Accept The Challenge • http://www.atchallenge.org

Advice Beyond the Classroom • https://advicebeyondtheclassroom.org/

After School All Stars • https://afterschoolallstars.org/asas_chapter/chicago/

After School Matters • http://www.afterschoolmatters.org

Almost Home Kids • http://www.almosthomekids.org

Alpha Kappa Alpha • https://www.aka1908.com

Alternatives, Inc. • http://www.alternativesyouth.org

America SCORES Chicago • https://www.chicagoscores.org/

American Committee for KEEP, Inc. • https://www.theack.org/

ARCS Foundation Illinois Chapter • http://www.illinois.arcsfoundation.org

AROSE Foundation • http://www.arosefoundation.org

Artist Life • http://www.ArtistLifenfp.org

Arts Alliance Illinois • http://www.artsalliance.org

Associated Colleges of Illinois • https://www.acifund.org

Avodah • https://avodah.net/

BandWith Chicago • https://www.bandwithchicago.net

Be the Miracle • https://www.bethe-miracle.org/

Benjamin E. Mays Elementary Academy • https://www.maysacademy.com/

Bernie’s Book Bank • https://www.berniesbookbank.org/ Bestow Foundation • http://www.TheBestowFoundation.org Beyond Sports Foundation • https://www.beyondsports.org Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Chicago • https://bbbschgo.org/ Big Shoulders Fund • http://www.bigshouldersfund.org Black Star Project • https://www.blackstarproject.org/ Board of Jewish Education • https://www.bjechicago.org Box United • https://www.boxunited.org/ Boys and Girls Club of Elgin • http://www.bgcelgin.org/ Boys Hope Girls Hope of Illinois • https://www.chicagobhgh.org Braven, Chicago • http://www.bebraven.org Broadway Youth Center • https://howardbrown.org/service/broadway-youth-center/ BUILD • https://www.buildchicago.org/ Building Fund, The • http://www.thebuildingfund.org Cabrini Connections • https://cabriniconnections.org/ Camp Kids Are Kids Chicago • http://www.campkidsarekids.org Camp of Dreams • https://www.facebook.com/campofdreams/ Carlson Community Services • https://www.carlsoncommunityservices.org Carole Robertson Center for Learning • https://www.crcl.com Center for Companies That Care • https://www.companies-that-care.org Center for Independence through Conductive Education • https://www.cfimove.org/ Center for Religion and Psychotherapy • http://crpchicago.org/ Center for Tax and Budget Accountability (CTBA) • https://www.ctbaonline.org Centro Romero • https://www.centroromero.org CG Jung Institute of Chicago • http://www.jungchicago.org Charles A. Hayes Family Investment Center • https://www.chafic.org/ Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education • capechicago.org Chicago Center for Arts and Technology (CHI CAT) • http://www.chicat.org Chicago Child Care Society • https://www.cccsociety.org

Chicago Children’s Advocacy Center • https://www.chicagocac.org Chicago Communities in Schools, Inc. • https://www.chicagocis.org Chicago Debates • http://www.chicagodebates.org Chicago Education Advocacy Cooperative (CHIEAC) • http://www.chieac.org Chicago HOPES for Kids • https://www.chicagohopesforkids.org Chicago Learning Exchange • https://chicagolx.org Chicago Lights • http://www.chicagolights.org Chicago Metamorphosis Orchestra Project, The • https://www.chimop.org Chicago Metropolitan Association for the Education of Young Children (Chicago Metro AEYC) • https://www.chicagometroaeyc.org Chicago Scholars • http://www.chicagoscholars.org Chicago Training Center • https://www.chicagotrainingcenter.org Chicago United for Equity (CUE) • https://www.chicagounitedforequity.org Chicago Urban League • https://www.thechicagourbanleague.org Chicago Youth Centers • https://www.chicagoyouthcenters.org Chicago Youth Programs (CYP) • https://www.chicagoyouthprograms.org Chiditarod Foundation • http://chiditarod.org

Childcare Network of Evanston • https://www.childcarenetworkofevanston.org

Children’s Research Triangle • https://www.childstudy.org

ChildrenUP • http://www.childrenup.org

ChildServ • https://www.childserv.org

Christopher House • https://www.christopherhouse.org

Cluster Tutoring • https://www.clustertutoring.org

Code Your Dreams • https://www.codeyourdreams.org

Collaboration for Early Childhood • http://www.collab4kids.org

College Bound Opportunities • https://cbo4success.org/ College Possible • http://www.collegepossible.org

Columbia College - After School Program

• https://www.colum.edu/academics/initiatives/community-schools

Communities In Schools of Chicago • http://www.cisofchicago.org

Communities United • http://www.communitiesunited.org

Community Action Partnership of Lake County • https://www.caplakecounty.org/ Community Makery • http://www.communitymakery.org

Consortium for Educational Change • http://cecweb.org

Cool Classics Chicago • https://coolclassicschicago.org/

Corazon a Corazon • https://www.corazon-a-corazon.org

Council for Adult and Experiential Learning • http://www.cael.org

Debate it Forward • https://www.debateitforward.org

Designers for Learning • http://designersforlearning.org/ Designs for Change • https://www.designsforchange.org

Disrupthr Chicago • https://disrupthr.co/city/chicago/

Dream Big Performing Arts Workshop • https://www.dreambigperformingarts.org

Dream On Education • https://www.dreamoneducation.org

Dreams for Kids • http://www.dreamsforkids.org

Driehaus Design Initiative • https://www.driehausdesign.org/ Educate. Radiate. Elevate. • https://www.educateradiateelevate.org/ El Hogar del Niño • https://www.elhogardelnino.org

Englewood Tech. Prep. Academy • https://www.teamenglewood.org

Facing History and Ourselves • http://www.facinghistory.org

Family Centered Educational Agency (FCEA) • http://www.familycentered.org

Family Matters • https://www.familymatterschicago.org

First Five Years Fund • https://www. yf.org

Florence Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning • https://meltonschool.org/

Focus Fairies Mentoring • http://www.focusfairiesmentoring.com

Forte Community Music Project • http://www.fortecmp.org

FOUS Youth Development Services • http://www.4usyouthdevelopment.org/

Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust • http://cal.flwright.org/tours/homeandstudio

Frida K. Kahlo Community Organization • https://www.fridacommunity.org

Future Ties, NFP • http://www.futureties.org

Galileo Scholastic Academy of Math and Science • https://galileoscholasticacademy.org/

Garden of Prayer Youth Center • https://www.gopyouthcenter.org

Gary Comer Youth Center • http://www.comereducationcampus.org

Gateway To Learning • https://www.gtlchicago.com

Geek Therapy • https://geektherapy.org

Gerber/Hart Library and Archives • https://www.gerberhart.org

Gigi’s Playhouse • https://gigisplayhouse.org

GirlForward (Girl Forward) • https://www.girlforward.org/ Girls of Grace • https://girlsofgraceyouthcenter.org

Girls on the Run • https://www.gotrchicago.org

Girls Play Sports • https://www.teamgps.org/

Glencoe Historical Society • https://www.glencoehistoricalsociety.org

Goethe-Institut Chicago • https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/sta/chi.html

Gray Matter Experience • http://www.graymatterexperience.com

Greater West Town Training Partnership • https://www.gwtp.org

Greenhouse Scholars • https://greenhousescholars.org/

Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing • https://www.csu.edu/gwendolynbrooks/

HANA Center • https://www.hanacenter.org

Harbour, The • http://www.theharbour.org

Harkness Outreach Center • http://www.winnetkachapel.com/hoc

Healthy Schools Campaign • http://www.healthyschoolscampaign.org

Heph Foundation • https://www.hephfoundation.org/

HFS Chicago Scholars • https://www.hfschicagoscholars.com

High Jump Chicago • http://www.highjumpchicago.org

Highsight • http://highsight.org/

Hinsdale Adventist Academy • https://www.haa.org

Humanity Rising • https://www.humanityrising.org

Ida Crown Jewish Academy • https://www.icja.org

IES Abroad (Institute for the International Education of Students ) • http://www.iesabroad.org

Illinois Fatherhood Initiative • http://www.4fathers.org/ Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) • https://www.iit.edu

Illinois MENTOR • https://www.il-mentor.com/

Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, The • http://www.illinoissafeschools.org

Illinois Science Council • https://www.IllinoisScience.org

Illinois Writing Project • http://www.illinoiswritingproject.com

Indo-American Center • http://www.indoamerican.org

Infant Welfare Society of Evanston • https://www.iwse.org/

Ingenuity • http://www.ingenuity-inc.org Institute for Clinical Social Work • https://www.icsw.edu Instituto del Progreso Latino • http://www.institutochicago.org Interface Child Family Services • https://www.icfs.org

International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN) • https://www.ispcan.org Intonation Music • http://www.intonationmusic.org

It Takes A Village Family of Schools • https://itavschools.org James B. Moran Center for Youth Advocacy • https://moran-center.org

Jane Goodall Institute • http://www.janegoodall.org

Jewish Education Team (JET) • http://www.jetcampus.com Joint Review Committee on Education in Radiologic Technology (JRCERT) • https://www.jrcert.org

Junior Achievement of Chicago • https://chicago.ja.org/ Just The Beginning • http://www.jtb.org

KEEN Chicago • http://www.keenchicago.org

Kehillah Jewish Education Fund • https://www.kehillahfund.org/ Kendall College Trust • https://kendallcollegetrust.org Kids First Chicago • http://kidsfirstchicago.org Kingdom Avenue • http://www.kingdomavenue.org

Kingswood Academy • https://kingswoodacademy.org/

KV265 • http://kv265.org/

L.E.A.D. (Linking E orts Against Drugs) • https://www.leadweb.org

La Casa Norte • https://www.lacasanorte.org/

Ladies of Virtue • https://www.lovchicago.org/

LaTanya and The Youth of Englewood • https://www.latanyaandtheyouthofenglewood.org/

Latinos Progresando • http://www.latinospro.org

Lead Education Group • http://www.leadeducationgroup.com

Learning Bridge • https://lbeec.org

Leave No Veteran Behind • https://www.leavenoveteranbehind.org

Leif Ericson Scholastic Academy • https://www.leifericsonelementary.org/

Link Unlimited • https://www.linkunlimited.org

Literacy Chicago • http://www.literacychicago.org

Literacy DuPage • https://www.literacydupage.org/

Literacy Volunteers of Illinois • http://www.lvillinois.org/home.aspx

Literature for All of Us • http://literatureforallofus.org/

LYTE Collective • http://www.lytecollective.org

Manage Emotions Avoid Negativity Girls Empowerment (MEAN Girls Empowerment)

• http://www.meangirlsempowerment.org

MAPSCorps • https://www.mapscorps.org

Marwen • http://www.marwen.org

Mary Crane Center • https://www.marycrane.org

Math Circles of Chicago • http://mathcirclesofchicago.org

MayaWorks • https://www.mayaworks.org

Midwest Academy for Gifted Education • http://www.mage.education

Mikva Challenge • https://mikvachallenge.org/

National Center for Teacher Residencies (NCTR) • http://www.nctresidencies.org

National Runaway Safeline (1-800-RUNAWAY) • http://www.1800RUNAWAY.org

National Safety Council • https://www.nsc.org

Neighbor To Neighbor Literacy Project • https://neighborliteracy.org

New Foundation of Hope • http://www.newfoundationo ope.org/ NewRoot • https://newroot.org/

Night Ministry, The • https://www.thenightministry.org/ Nora Project, The • https://www.thenoraproject.ngo

North American Spine Society • https://www.spine.org

Olive Tree Arts Network • http://olivetreeartsnetwork.org

OMNIA Institute for Contextual Leadership • https://omnialeadership.org

One Solution Foundation • http://www.onesolutionglobal.org/

OneGoal • http://www.onegoalgraduation.org

Open Books • https://www.open-books.org/ Operation G.R.A.D. • http://www.operationgradnfp.org

Orr Community Academy • https://www.orracademy.org

Our Voice Alliance • http://www.ourvoicealliance.org

PanHellenic Scholarship Foundation • https://www.panhellenicsf.org/ Paradigm Project • http://www.jparadigm.org

Partnerships in Education & Service • https://www.partnershipsineducation.org

Pat Tillman Foundation • http://www.pattillmanfoundation.org

Peace School • http://peaceschool.org/

PEAK (Partnership to Educate and Advance Kids) • https://www.peakchicago.org

Peer Health Exchange • http://www.peerhealthexchange.org

Pilot Light • http://www.pilotlightchefs.org

Plano Child Development Center • https://www.planovision.org

Play for Peace • http://www.playforpeace.org

Playworks Illinois • http://www.playworks.org

Powered By Action • http://www.poweredbyaction.org

Prevent Blindness • https://www.preventblindness.org

Prevention Force Family Center • http://p c.blogspot.com/ Project Exploration • https://www.projectexploration.org

Project: VISION • https://www.projectvisionchicago.org/ Rad Remedy • https://radremedy.nationbuilder.com/

Reach Out and Read Illinois • https://reachoutandreadil.org/ Reach the World • http://www.reachtheworld.org

Reading In Motion • https://www.readinginmotion.org

Reading Power • http://www.readingpowerinc.org

Reading with Pictures • https://www.readingwithpictures.org/ Reba Early Learning Center • https://www.rebaearlylearningcenter.com RefugeeOne • https://www.refugeeone.org

Renaissance Knights Chess Foundation • http://rknights.org RIF Chicago - Chicago Kids Read • https://twitter.com/rifchicago Rogers Park and West Ridge Historical Society • https://rpwrhs.org/ Safe Families for Children • http://www.safe-families.org Sankofa Safe Child Initiative • http://sankofasafechildinitiative.org Senior Home Sharing • https://www.seniorhomesharing.org Shift Englewood Youth Orchestra • http://www.shiftyouth.org Shorefront Collective • https://www.shorefrontlegacy.org Sit Stay Read (SitStayRead) • https://www.sitstayread.org

SocialWorks • https://www.socialworkschi.org

Something Good in Englewood • https://www.somethinggoodinenglewood.com/ South Chicago Dance Theatre • http://www.southchicagodancetheatre.com Spark • http://www.sparkprogram.org

Sports Shed, The • http://www.thesportsshed.org Stage Right CPS • http://www.stagerightcps.org Starfish Learning Center • https://www.starfishchicago.com Strategic Learning Initiatives • https://thefundchicago.org/portfolio/strategic-learning-initiatives/ Student-Led Ed • https://www.studentleded.org Super 7 Girls • http://www.super7girls.org Supplies for Dreams • https://www.SuppliesForDreams.org Surge Institute • https://www.surgeinstitute.org/ Taaluma • http://www.taaluma.net

Taylor Services Youth Organization • http://www.taylorservicesyouthorganization.org TCS Education System • https://www.tcsedsystem.edu/ Teach for America Chicago and Northwest Indiana • https://www.teachforamerica.org/where-we-work/chicago-northwest-indiana Teach Them How • http://www.teachthemhow.org

Teachers Supporting Teachers • http://www.tstnfp.org

Telpochcalli Community Education Project • https://www.tcepchicago.org/ Triple Threat Mentoring • https://triplethreat.org/ True Star • http://www.truestar.life

Tutoring Chicago • http://www.tutoringchicago.org

Union League Boys and Girls Clubs • https://www.ulbgc.org

United Palatine Coalition • http://www.upcoalition.org

Universidad Popular • http://www.universidadpopular.us

Urban Therapeutic Solutions • http://www.urbantherapeuticsolutions.org/ Voice of Reason • https://www.vor.net

Waukegan to College • http://www.waukegantocollege.org

Welcome 2 the Queendom • http://www.welcome2thequeendom.org

West Cook County Youth Club • https://www.wccyouthclub.org

Whole Child Arts • http://www.wholechildarts.org

Working in the Schools (WITS) • http://www.witschicago.org

World Future Society • https://www.worldfuture.org

Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights • http://www.theyoungcenter.org

Young Men’s Educational Network • https://www.ymenchicago.com/ Youth Communication Chicago • http://www.youthcommunicationchicago.org/ Youth Crossroads • https://youthcrossroads.org/ Youth Outlook • http://www.youth-outlook.org

Youth Service Project • https://www.facebook.com/YouthServiceProyect/ Youth Technology Corps • https://www.youthtechnologycorps.org/ YWCA - La Voz Latina Program • http://www.ywcanwil.org/la-voz-latina

Foundations & Capacity Building

626 Landmark Foundation • http://www.626landmark.org/

ABMS Research and Education Foundation (American Board of Medical Specialties)

• https://www.abms.org/about-abms/research-and-education-foundation/

A ordable Recovery Foundation • https://www.a ordablerecovery.org

African American Christian Foundation • https://www.aacfworks.org/ Allstate Foundation • https://allstatefoundation.org/

Alpha Phi Foundation • http://www.alphaphifoundation.org

Alphawood Foundation • http://www.alphawoodfoundation.org/

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Illinois Chapter • http://www.afspil.org

American Foundation for Surgery of the Hand • https://www.afsh.org/s/ American Hearing Research Foundation • https://www.american-hearing.org

American Medical Association Foundation • https://amafoundation.org/ American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI) Foundation • https://www.homeinspector.org/About/ASHI-Foundation

American Veterinary Medical Association • https://www.avma.org/

American Veterinary Medical Foundation • https://www.avmf.org

Ancient Oaks Foundation • https://www.ancientoaksfoundation.org/ Apparel Industry Foundation • http://www.aibi.com/aifi

Associated Equipment Distributors Foundation • http://www.aednet.org

Awesome Foundation Chicago Chapter • https://www.awesomefoundation.org/en/chapters/chicago

Bear Necessities Pediatric Cancer Foundation, Inc. • https://www.bearnecessities.org

Big Hearts Fund, The • http://bigheartsfund.harmonyapp.com/

Bobby Jones CSF (Chiari and Syringomyelia Foundation) • http://bobbyjonescsf.org

Brian Research Foundation • http://www.thebrf.org

Central Honduras Education Fund • http://www.chefund.org/ Chicago Association of Realtors Education Foundation • https://chicagorealtor.com/foundation/ Chicago Cares • https://www.chicagocares.org

Chicago Chess Foundation • http://chicagolandchess.org

Chicago Community Trust • https://www.cct.org

Chicago Dental Society Foundation • https://www.cds.org/smile/cds-foundation

Chicago Foundation for Education (CFE) • https://www.cfegrants.org

Chicago Foundation for Women • https://www.cfw.org

Chicago Public Education Fund • http://thefundchicago.org/ Chicago State Foundation • https://www.csu.edu/foundation/ Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce Foundation • https://www.chicagolandchamber.org/foundation/

Children First Fund: Chicago Public Schools Foundation • https://childrenfirstfund.org

City Colleges of Chicago Foundation • http://www.ccc.edu

CityArts • https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dca/culgrants/programs/city-arts.html

Civic Leadership Foundation • http://www.civicleadershipfoundation.org

Climb for A Cause • https://www.climbforacause.org

Coleman Foundation • https://www.colemanfoundation.org/ Community Foundation for McHenry County • https://www.mccfdn.org

Community Foundation of Will County • https://willcountycf.org

Conquer Myasthenia Gravis • https://www.myastheniagravis.org

Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago • https://www.crf-usa.org/ Crossroads Fund • https://www.crossroadsfund.org

Daniel Murphy Scholarship Foundation • https://www.dmsf.org

Decatur Parks Foundation • https://www.decatur-parks.org/decatur-parks-foundation/

DIME Child Foundation • https://www.dimechildfoundation.org/

DuPage Community Foundation • https://www.dcfdn.org

Dystonia Medical Research Foundation (DMRF) • http://www.dystonia-foundation.org

Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation • https://www.pedaids.org

Elizabeth Morse Charitable Trust • https://morsetrust.org/

Evanston Community Foundation • https://www.evanstonforever.org

Executive Service Corps • http://www.execservicecorps.org

Face the Future Foundation • http://www.facethefuturefoundation.org

Farm Foundation • http://www.farmfoundation.org

Fetching Tails • http://www.fetchingtailsfoundation.org

Field Foundation of Illinois, The • https://fieldfoundation.org/

A joint project with

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Forefront • https://www.myforefront.org

Foundation for Education and Musculoskeletal Research • https://www.facebook.com/FEMR1/ Freedom Road Foundation • http://www.thefreadomroadfoundation.org

Gastro-Intestinal Research Foundation • http://www.girf.org

Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation • https://gddf.org/ Geneva Foundation for the Arts • http://www.genevafoundationforthearts.org/ George M. Pullman Education Foundation • https://www.pullmanfoundation.org/ Girl’s Best Friend Foundation • https://www.girlsbestfriend.org

Giving Rocks Foundation • https://givingrocksfoundation.org/ Golden Apple Foundation • https://www.goldenapple.org

Grand Victoria Foundation • https://www.grandvictoriafdn.org Great Books Foundation • http://www.greatbooks.org

Harper Court Arts Council • http://www.harpercourt.com/ Healthy Communities Foundation • https://hcfdn.org/ Helen and Joe Foundation • http://www.helenjoe.org

Home Sweet Home Foundation • http://www.sweet-home.org Hudson Academy Foundation • https://www.hudsonacademy.org

Illinois Children’s Healthcare Foundation • https://www.ilchf.org Illinois Conservation Foundation • https://ilconservation.org/

Illinois CPA Society and Foundation • https://www.icpas.org

Illinois Humanities • https://www.ilhumanities.org

Illinois Manufacturing Foundation • https://www.im obtraining.org

Illinois Nurses Foundation • http://www.ana-illinois.org

Illinois Restaurant Association Educational Foundation • https://www.illinoisrestaurants.org

International Music Foundation • http://www.imfchicago.org

Invest for Kids • https://investforkidschicago.org/

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation • https://www.macfound.org

John Walt Foundation • http://www.johnwaltfoundation.org

Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation

• https://fconline.foundationcenter.org/fdo-grantmaker-profile?key=FEIN003

Joyce Foundation, The • https://www.joycefdn.org/

Lake County Community Foundation, The • https://www.lakecountycf.org

Lake Forest Preservation Foundation • https://www.lfpf.org

Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago (LAF) • https://www.lafchicago.org

Les Turner ALS Foundation (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) • http://www.lesturnerals.org

Leukemia Research Foundation • http://www.allbloodcancers.org

Levy Senior Center Foundation • https://www.levyseniorcenterfoundation.org

Life Quilt Foundation • https://www.lifequilt.org

Lighthouse Foundation • https://www.lightfoundchi.org/ Little City Foundation • https://www.littlecity.org

Lupus Foundation of America, IL Chapter • https://www.lupus.org/illinois

Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Foundation • http://www.lynnsage.org

Maine Community Youth Assistance Foundation • http://www.mcyaf.com/

Mayer and Morris Kaplan Family Foundation • https://www.kapfam.com

Midtown Educational Foundation • https://www.midtown-metro.org

Midwest Academy, Inc. • www.midwestacademy.com

Mobile Care Chicago • https://mobilecarechicago.org/

Morrison-Shearer Foundation • http://www.morrisonshearer.org

Naomi Ruth Cohen Charitable Foundation • https://www.naomicohenfoundation.org

NAPFA Consumer Education Foundation (NCEF), The • http://www.napfafoundation.org

National Headache Foundation (NHF) • http://www.headaches.org/

Nikolas Ritschel Foundation • https://www.nikolasritschelfoundation.org/ Northwestern University Dance Marathon • https://nudm.org/ Oak Park-River Forest Community Foundation • http://www.oprfcf.org

Obama Foundation • https://www.obama.org

On Your Feet Foundation • http://www.oy .org

Pathways Awareness Foundation • https://www.pathways.org

PianoForte Foundation • https://pianofortechicago.com/about/#foundation

Pierce Family Foundation • https://www.piercefamilyfoundation.org

Pleasant Home Foundation • https://www.pleasanthome.org

Polk Bros. Foundation • https://www.polkbrosfdn.org

Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation • http://www.pulmonaryfibrosis.org

Ragdale Foundation • https://www.ragdale.org

Realtors Relief Foundation

• https://www.nar.realtor/about-nar/grants-and-funding/realtors-relief-foundation

Reva & David Logan Foundation, The • https://www.loganfdn.org/

Richard H. Driehaus Foundation • http://www.driehausfoundation.org

Robert R. McCormick Foundation • http://www.mccormickfoundation.org

Rotary International Foundation • https://www.rotary.org

Round Lake Area Schools Education Foundation • https://www.rlasfoundation.org/

RRF Foundation for Aging • https://www.rrf.org/

Sadanah Foundation • https://www.sadanah.org/

Saints, The • https://www.saintschicago.org

Scleroderma Foundation of Greater Chicago • http://www.scleroderma.org/chicago

Serve Illinois Foundation

• https://www2.illinois.gov/sites/serve/Serve%20Illinois%20Foundation/Pages/default.aspx

Siragusa Foundation • https://www.siragusa.org

Spence Farm Foundation • http://spencefarmfoundation.org

Springboard Foundation • https://www.springboardfoundation.org

Sunshine Through Golf Foundation • https://cdgafoundation.org/programs/ Taproot Foundation Chicago • https://www.taprootfoundation.org Terra Foundation for American Art • https://www.terraamericanart.org/ Thoracic Surgery Foundation • https://thoracicsurgeryfoundation.org/ Trout and Salmon Foundation • http://www.troutandsalmonfoundation.org

Turkish American Womens Scholarship Fund • https://tawsf.com/ United Way of Metro Chicago • https://liveunitedchicago.org Washington Square Health Foundation • https://wshf.org/ Waubonsee Community College Foundation • https://www.waubonsee.edu Wieboldt Foundation, The • http://www.wieboldt.org Wood Family Foundation • https://www.w pitchin.org/ Woods Fund • https://www.woodsfund.org/aboutfoundation

Health & Human Services

100 Club of Illinois • https://www.100clubil.org/ 360 Youth Services • https://360youthservices.org/ A New Direction • https://www.anewdirectionbmp.org A Safe Haven Foundation (ASHF) • http://www.asafehaven.org A Safe Place - Lake County • https://www.asafeplaceforhelp.org AARP - Illinois • https://www.aarp.org/states/il/ Above and Beyond Family Recovery Center • https://www.anb.today Action for Healthy Kids • https://www.actionforhealthykids.org Ada S. McKinley Community Services • http://www.adasmckinley.org Admiral at the Lake • https://admiral.kendal.org Adoption Center of Illinois • https://adoptioncenterofillinois.org Adult and Child Therapy Services • https://www.adultchildtherapy.org Agape Ministries • https://agapemissionsnfp.org/ AIDS Foundation of Chicago • http://www.aidschicago.org Alive Rescue • http://www.aliverescue.org/ Alivio Medical Center • https://www.aliviomedicalcenter.org/ All Chicago Making Homelessness History • http://www.allchicago.org Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists (AAIM) • https://www.aaim1.org Allies for Community Business • http://www.a4cb.org American College of Surgeons • https://www.facs.org American Indian Health Service of Chicago • http://www.aihschgo.org American Red Cross of Chicago and Northern Illinois • https://www.redcross.org/local/illinois/about-us/locations/greater-chicago.html American Society of Acupuncturists • https://www.asacu.org/ AMITA Health Center for Mental Health • https://www.amitahealth.org/location/ amita-health-center-for-mental-health

AMITA Health’s Alexian Brothers Housing and Health Alliance • https://www.amitahealth.org/alexian-brothers-housing/ Anew: Building Beyond Violence and Abuse • http://www.anewdv.org Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago • https://www.luriechildrens.org/ Anti-Defamation League - Midwest • https://chicago.adl.org

Apna Ghar • https://www.apnaghar.org

Arab American Family Services • http://www.aafsil.org/ Arcus Behavioral Health and Wellness • http://www.arcusbehavioralhealth.com

Arden Shore Child and Family Services • https://ardenshore.com

Arise Chicago • http://www.arisechicago.org

ARK, The • https://www.arkchicago.org

Ascend Justice • https://www.ascendjustice.org/ Asian Health Coalition • https://www.asianhealth.org

Asian Human Services Inc. • https://www.ahschicago.org/ Aspire Chicago • https://www.aspirechicago.com

Aunt Martha’s • https://www.auntmarthas.org/ Austin Childcare Providers Network (ACPN) • https://austinchildcare.org/ Autism Hero Project • http://www.autismheroproject.org

Barrington Area Council on Aging • https://www.bacoa.org

Barrington Youth and Family Services • https://www.barringtonbyfs.org/ Beacon Place • http://www.beacon-place.org

Between Friends • https://www.betweenfriendschicago.org

Boulevard, The • http://www.blvd.org

Bounce Children’s Foundation • http://www.bouncechildrensfoundation.org

Boys and Girls Club of Little Village • https://bgcc.org/little-village-club/

Bright Hope International • https://www.brighthope.org

Cabrini Green Legal Aid Clinic • https://www.cgla.net

Campaign Zero • https://www.TheCarePartnerProject.org

Cancer Support Team • http://www.cancersupportteam.net

Candor Health Education • https://candorhealthed.org/

Care for Real • http://www.careforreal.org

Casa Central • http://www.casacentral.org

Casa Esperanza Project • https://www.casaesperanzaproject.org/

Catholic Charities of Lake County • https://www.catholiccharities.net

Center for Changing Lives • http://www.cclconnect.org

Center for Enriched Living • https://www.centerforenrichedliving.org

Center for Healthcare Innovation • http://www.chisite.org/

Center for International Rehabilitation • https://www.cirnetwork.org

Center of Concern • https://www.centerofconcern.org

Center on Halsted • https://www.centeronhalsted.org

Centers for New Horizons • http://www.cnh.org

Centro de Informacion y Progreso • https://www.centrodeinformacion.org

Centro San Bonifacio • https://www.sanbonifacio.org

Chappy and Friends • https://chappyandfriends.org

Chicago Abortion Fund • https://www.chicagoabortionfund.org/

Chicago Area Project • https://www.chicagoareaproject.org

Chicago Bilingual Nurse Consortium • https://www.chicagobilingualnurse.org

Chicago Chesed Fund • https://www.chicagochesedfund.org

Chicago Children’s Advocacy Center (ChicagoCAC) • https://www.chicagocac.org

Chicago Commons • https://www.chicagocommons.org

Chicago Dancers United • http://chicagodancersunited.org

Chicago House • http://www.chicagohouse.org

Chicago Literacy Alliance • https://www.chicagoliteracyalliance.org/

Chicago Lying-In Hospital Board of Directors • https://chicagolyinginboard.uchicago.edu/ Chicago Methodist Senior Services • https://www.cmsschicago.org/what-we-do/west-suburban-senior-services/ Chicago NORML • https://www.chicagonorml.org

Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute • https://chicagoanalysis.org/ Chicago Survivors • https://www.chicagosurvivors.org

Chicago Therapy Collective • https://chicagotherapycollective.org/ Chicago Women’s AIDS Project • http://cwapchicago.org/ Chicago Women’s Health Center • https://www.chicagowomenshealthcenter.org

A joint project with

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Chicagoland Grows • http://www.chicagolandgrows.org/

Children’s Home and Aid • http://www.childrenshomeandaid.org

Chinese American Service League • https://www.caslservice.org

Cicero Family Services • http://www.cicerofs.org

CJE SeniorLife (Council for Jewish Elderly) • https://www.cje.net

Community Adult Day Care • http://www.communityadultdaycenter.org

Community Counseling Centers of Chicago (C4) • https://www.c4chicago.org

Community Crisis Center • https://www.crisiscenter.org

Community Health Partnership of Illinois • https://www.chpofil.org

Community House • https://www.thecommunityhouse.org

Community House Winnetka • https://www.mycommunityhouse.org Community Support Services • https://www.communitysupportservices.org CommunityHealth • http://www.communityhealth.org

Compass To Care • https://www.compasstocare.org

Connections for Abused Women and their Children (CAWC) • https://www.cawc.org Conquer Myasthenia Gravis • www.myastheniagravis.org

Cornerstone Community Development Corporation • https://www.cornerstone-cdc.org Counseling Center of the North Shore • http://www.ccns.org Covenant House • http://www.covenanthouseil.org Covenant Initiatives for Care • https://www.covcare.org Cradle, The • https://www.cradle.org/ Crisis Center for South Suburbia (Neat Repeats Resale) • https://www.crisisctr.org Cure SMA (Spinal Muscular Atrophy) • https://www.curesma.org Cures Within Reach • http://www.cureswithinreach.org Deborah’s Place • https://www.deborahsplace.org Defy Ventures • www.defyventures.org Delta Institute • https://delta-institute.org Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) • http://www.dbsalliance.org Devices 4 the Disabled (D4D) • http://www.devices4thedisabled.org

DiabetesSisters • http://www.diabetessisters.org

Diamond in the Ru Children’s Society • https://www.diamondsintheru .info

Dickson Hall Senior Center

• https://www.cityoflakeforest.com/community/dickinson_hall/index.php

Do Over Me (do-over.me) • http://www.do-over.me

Douglas Center, The • https://www.thedouglascenter.com

DuPage Senior Citizens Council • https://www.dupageseniorcouncil.org

E&ES (Employment & Employer Services) • www.eesforjobs.com

Easterseals • https://www.easterseals.com/chicago/

El Valor Corporation • https://www.elvalor.org

Elderday Center • https://www.elderdaycenter.org

Elite Houses for Sober Living • http://www.elitehousesofsoberliving.com/

Emmaus Ministries • https://www.streets.org

Empower Illinois • http://www.empowerillinois.org

Envision Unlimited • http://www.envisionunlimited.org

Equal Hope • http://www.equalhope.org

Equity and Transformation • http://www.eatchicago.org

Erasing the Distance • http://www.erasingthedistance.org

Erie Family Health Center • https://www.eriefamilyhealth.org

Erie Neighborhood House • https://www.eriehouse.org

Erikson Institute • http://www.erikson.edu

Esperanza Community Services • http://www.esperanzacommunity.org

Esperanza Health Centers • http://www.esperanzachicago.org

Evanston CASE • http://www.evanstoncase.org

EverThrive Illinois • http://www.everthriveil.org

EveryMom Chicago • http://www.everymomchicago.org

Facing Forward to End Homelessness • https://www. chicago.org

Family Christian Health Center • https://familychc.com/

Family Counseling Service • https://aurorafcs.org/

Family Focus • https://www.family-focus.org

Family Rescue • http://www.familyrescueinc.org

Family Service of Glencoe • https://www.familyserviceofglencoe.org

Family Service of Lake County • https://www.famservice.org

Famous Fido Rescue and Adoption Alliance • http://www.famousfidorescue.org

Featherfist • http://www.featherfist.org

Federation of State Physician Health Programs • https://www.fsphp.org/ Find Your Anchor • http://www.findyouranchor.us

Foresight • http://www.foresightdesign.org

Forma • https://www.formafgc.org/

Fox Valley Food for Health • https://fv .org/

Fox Valley Hands of Hope • https://www.fvhh.net/ Friendship Center, The • http://www.friendshipcenterchicago.org

Frisbie Senior Center • https://www.frisbieseniorcenter.org

Gads Hill Center • http://www.gadshillcenter.org

Gilda’s Club Chicago • https://www.gildasclubchicago.org

Glen Ellyn Children’s Resource Center • http://www.gecrc.org

GlobeMed, NFP • https://www.globemed.org/

Goldie’s Place • http://www.goldiesplace.org

Good Shepherd Manor • https://www.goodshepherdmanor.org/

Goodwill Industries of Metropolitan Chicago • https://www.goodwillsew.com

Great Lakes Pigeon Rescue • https://greatlakespigeonrescue.org/

Greater Chicago Food Depository • https://www.chicagosfoodbank.org

Greenlight Family Services • https://greenlightfamilyservices.org/services/counseling/

Grief Compass • “https://thegriefcompass.com/ • “

Growing Healthy Veterans • http://growinghealthyveterans.org

Habilitative Systems, Inc. (HSI) • http://www.habilitative.org

Harmony, Hope, and Healing • http://www.harmonyhopeandhealing.org

Hatzalah Chicago • http://www.hatzalahchicago.org

Haymarket Center • https://www.hcenter.org

HCS Family Services • http://www.hcsfamilyservices.org

Health Leads • https://www.healthleadsusa.org

Healthcare Alternative Systems • https://www.hascares.org HealthConnect One • http://www.healthconnectone.org

HealthReach Clinic • https://www.healthreachcares.org

Healthy Families Chicago

• https://www.metrofamily.org/programs-and-services/education/healthy-families/ Heartland Alliance • http://www.heartlandalliance.org

Heartland Health Centers • https://www.heartlandhealthcenters.org

Heartland Housing • http://www.heartlandalliance.org/housing Home of the Sparrow • https://www.hosparrow.org

Hope For The Day • http://www.hftd.org

Housing Opportunities for Women (HOW) • http://www.how-inc.org

Howard Area Community Center • https://www.howardarea.org

Howard Brown Health • http://howardbrown.org

HSHS Holy Family Hospital • https://www.hshs.org/holyfamily Hyde Park Neighborhood Club • http://www.hpnclub.org

ICNA (Islamic Circle of North America) Relief Chicago • https://icnarelief.org/chicago-illinois/ Ignite • https://ignitechi.org

Illinois Action for Children • https://www.actforchildren.org/home Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health • https://www.icah.org

Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence • https://www.ilcadv.org

Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights • http://www.icirr.org

Illinois Facilities Fund (IFF) • https://www.i .org

IMD (Illinois Medical District) Guest House • http://www.imdguesthouse.org

Impact Behavioral Health Partners • https://www.impactbehavioral.org

IMPACT Family Center • https://www.impactfamilycenter.org

Inner Voice • https://www.ivchi.org

Institute of Medicine of Chicago • http://www.iomc.org

Interfaith Community Partners • http://www.interfaithcommunitypartners.org

International Women Associates (IWA) • https://www.iwachicago.org

Irish Community Services (ICS) • https://www.irishchicago.org

JCFS Chicago (Jewish Child and Family Services of Chicago) • http://www.jcfs.org

Jewish Council for Youth Services (JCYS) • http://www.jcys.org

Jewish Council on Urban A airs • https://www.jcua.org

Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago • https://www.juf.org

Jones Memorial Community Center (Harold Colbert Jones Memorial Community Center) • http://www.jonescenter.org

Josselyn Center • https://www.josselyn.org

Journey Forward, The (Workforce and Human Development Services) • http://www.thejourney-forward.org JourneyCare • https://journeycare.org/ K9 4 Keeps • http://www.k94keeps.org

K9s for Veterans • http://www.k9sforveteransnfp.org

Kenneth Young Center • http://www.kennethyoung.org

Keshet • https://www.keshet.org

Kids O The Block • https://kidso theblock.us Kids’ Chance of Illinois • https://www.kidschanceofillinois.com King-Bruwaert House • http://www.kingbruwaert.com

Kovler Diabetes Center • https://www.kovlerdiabetescenter.org/ Lake County Center for Independent Living (LCCIL) • https://www.lccil.org

Lakeview Pantry • https://www.lakeviewpantry.org

Lawrence Hall • https://www.lawrencehall.org

Lazarus House • https://www.lazarushouse.net/ Life is Work Inc • https://lifeisworks.org/ Lilac Tree • http://www.thelilactree.org

Lincoln Park Community Services • http://www.lpcsonline.org

Little Brothers, Friends of the Elderly • https://www.littlebrotherschicago.org

Little Sisters of the Poor - St. Mary’s Home • https://www.littlesistersofthepoorchicago.org/ Live Like Roo Foundation • http://www.livelikeroo.org

Lombard and Villa Park Food Pantry • https://www.facebook.com/LombardVillaParkFoodPantry/ Lutheran Child and Family Services of Illinois • http://www.lcfs.org

Magnolia Memory Care • https://www.magnoliamemorycare.org/ Mano a Mano Family Resource Center • https://mamfrc.org

Maot Chitim • https://www.maotchitim.org

Margaret’s Village • https://www.margaretsvillage.org

Marillac St. Vincent Family Services • http://www.marillacstvincent.org

Mather • https://www.mather.com/

Matthew House • https://www.mhchicago.org/

McHenry Township Fire Protection District • https://www.mtfpd.org/

Meals on Wheels Chicago • http://www.mealsonwheelschicago.org/

Merit School of Music • https://www.meritmusic.org

Metropolitan Tenants Organization • http://www.tenants-rights.org

mHUB • http://www.mhubchicago.com

Midwest Brain Injury Clubhouse • http://www.mbiclubhouse.org

Midwest Veterans Closet • http://www.midwestveteranscloset.org

MIRA Chicago (Middle Eastern Immigrant and Refugee Alliance) • https://www.mirachicago.org/

Most Blessed Trinity Parish - Father Gary Graf Center • http://www.mostblessedtrinityparish.org

Mother and Child Alliance • www.motherandchildalliance.org

Mother and Child Alliance (MACA) • http://www.motherandchildalliance.org

Mujeres Latinas En Accion • http://www.mujereslatinasenaccion.org

Muslim Resource Center • “http://muslimresourcecenter.org/ Mutual Ground • http://www.mutualground.org

My Joyful Heart • https://www.myjoyfulheart.org

MYSI • https://www.myschicago.org

NAMI of Cook County North Suburban (National Alliance on Mental Illness) • https://www.namiccns.org

NAMI of DuPage County (National Alliance on Mental Illness) • http://www.namidupage.org

National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners (NBOME) • https://www.nbome.org

Near North Health Service Corporation • https://www.nearnorthhealth.org Network, The (Advocating Against Domestic Violence) • https://www.batteredwomensnetwork.org

New Age Services Corporation • https://www.newageservices.org

New Moms • https://www.newmomsinc.org

New Star • https://www.newstarservices.org/ Next Steps NFP • https://nextstepsnfp.org/wordpress/ NICASA • https://www.nicasa.org

Nicasa Behavioral Health Services • https://nicasa.org/ Night Ministry, The • http://www.thenightministry.org

North West Housing Partnership • http://www.nwhp.net

Northcenter Chamber of Commerce’s Farmers’ Market • http://www.northcenterchamber.com

Northside Latin Progress • www.latinprogress.org

Northwestern Medicine • https://www.nm.org/ Northwestern Settlement • http://northwesternsettlement.org/

Northwestern University - Health Disparities and Public Policy Program • https://www.psychiatry.northwestern.edu/research/health-disparities.html

Norwood Crossing • https://www.norwoodcrossing.org/

Norwood Park Senior Center • http://www.npseniorcenter.org

Nursing Heart Inc. • http://www.nursingheart.org

Oak/Leyden Developmental Services, Inc. • https://www.oak-leyden.org/

Old Irving Park Community Clinic • http://www.oipcc.org

Olive Branch Mission • https://www.obmission.org

One Hope United • http://www.onehopeunited.org

Onward Neighborhood House • https://www.onwardhouse.org

Open Arms Ministry • https://www.openarmsministry.org/

Open Arms Mission • https://www.openarmsmission.org/

Open Communities • https://www.open-communities.org

Open Heart Magic • http://www.openheartmagic.com

Oral Health America • https://www.oralhealthamerica.org

Orchard Village • https://www.orchardvillage.org

Ordinary People International • http://www.ordinarypeopleintl.org

Orphans of the Storm • http://www.orphansofthestorm.org

Our Children’s Homestead • https://www.ochkids.org/

Our Place of New Trier Township • https://www.ourplaceofnewtrier.org

Outreach Chicago • https://outreachchicago.us/index.html

Pam’s Promise • http://www.pamspromise.org/ Parenting 4 Non-Violence • http://parenting4nonviolence.org

Parents Anonymous of Chicago • https://parentsanonymous.org/ Partnership for Cures • http://www.cureswithinreach.org PAV YMCA • https://www.pavymca.org

PEER Services • http://www.peerservices.org People’s Resource Center • http://www.peoplesrc.org

Pfei er Medical Center • http://www.hriptc.org/hriptc/index.html

Pillars Community Services • https://www.pillarscommunity.org

Planned Parenthood of Illinois • http://www.ppil.org

Poverty Alleviation Charities • https://www.unconditionalgiving.org/ Primo Center • https://www.primocenter.org

Progress Center for Independent Living • http://progresscil.org Project Hood Communities • http://www.projecthood.org Project Vida • http://www.projectvida.org

Rainbow Animal Assisted Therapy • http://www.rainbowaat.org Random Acts of Flowers • https://www.randomactso owers.org/ Re:Work Training • http://www.reworktraining.org

Rebuilding Together Metro Chicago • http://www.rebuildingtogether-chi.com/ Recovery Centers of America • https://recoverycentersofamerica.com/ Recovery International • https://recoveryinternational.org Resilience • https://www.ourresilience.org/ Respiratory Health Association • https://www.resphealth.org Respond Now • https://www.respondnow.org/ Restoration61 • http://www.restoration61.org

ReVive Center for Housing and Healing • http://www.revivecenter.org

Roberti Community House • https://www.roberticommunityhouse.org Rover Rescue • http://www.roverrescue.org

Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center

• https://www.rushu.rush.edu/research/departmental-research/rush-alzheimers-disease-center

Rush NeuroBehavioral Center • http://www.rnbc.org

Rush University Medical Center • https://www.rush.edu/

Saints Care Mission • https://saintscaremission.org/ Salute, Inc • https://www.saluteinc.org

SamaraCare Counseling • https://samaracarecounseling.org/

Sarah’s Circle • https://www.sarahs-circle.org

Saving Another female Enlistee • http://www.safeenlistee.org

Second Sense • http://www.second-sense.org

Senior Connections • https://www.cmsschicago.org/what-we-do/senior-connections/ Senior Services Associates • https://seniorservicesassoc.org/

Sertoma Speech and Hearing Center • http://www.sertomacenter.org

SGA Youth and Family Services - ElevArte Community Studio Program • http://www.sga-youth.org

SHALVA • https://www.shalvaonline.org

Share Our Spare • https://www.shareourspare.org

Share Your Soles • https://www.shareyoursoles.org

Sharing Connections • https://www.sharingconnections.org

Shirley Ryan AbilityLab • https://www.sralab.org/

Shriners Hospital - Chicago • https://www.shrinershospitalsforchildren.org/chicago

Sinai Chicago • https://www.sinaichicago.org/

Sisterhouse • https://www.sisterhousechicago.org/

Sisters and Brothers Helping Each Other • https://www.facebook.com/SistersAndBrothersHelpingEachOther/ Smith Village • http://www.smithvillage.org

SOAR Again • http://soaragainnfp.com

SOS Children’s Village • https://www.sosillinois.org

South Side Help Center • http://www.southsidehelp.org

South Suburban Family Shelter • http://www.ssfs1.org

South Suburban Humane Society • http://www.southsuburbanhumane.org

South Suburban PADS (SSPADS) • https://www.sspads.org

South-East Asia Center • http://www.se-asiacenter.org

Southside Center of Hope • http://www.smdp-hoh.org

Southwest Chicago Homeless Services • http://www.homelessservices.org

Spanish Community Center • https://www.spanishcenter.org/ Special Spectators • http://www.specialspectators.org

St. Anthony Hospital • http://www.sahchicago.org

St. Leonard’s Ministries • https://slministries.org/

St. Paul’s House and Health Care • https://paulhousehc.com/

Sudden Infant Death Services of Illinois • https://www.sidsillinois.org

TaskForce Prevention & Community Services • https://www.taskforcechicago.org

Teen Parent Connection • http://www.teenparentconnection.org

The Village Chicago • https://thevillagechicago.org/

Theraplay Institute • https://www.theraplay.org/

Thresholds • http://www.thresholds.org

Together We Cope • https://www.togetherwecope.org

TotalLink2 Community • https://www.totallink2.org

TPAN (Test Positive Aware Network) • https://www.tpan.com

Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities (TASC) • https://www.tasc-il.org

Trees that Feed • https://treesthatfeed.org

TriCity Family Services • https://www.tricityfamilyservices.org

Trilogy Behavioral Healthcare • http://www.trilogyinc.org

Trinity Services • https://www.trinityservices.org

Turning Point (Behavioral Health Care Center) • https://www.tpoint.org

Turpin Cares • http://www.turpincares.org

UCAN • https://www.ucanchicago.org

UCAN Academy • https://www.ucanchicago.org/our-programs/educating-empowering-youth/

United Cerebral Palsy-Center for Disability Services (UCP-CDS) • http://www.ucp-cds.org

United Way of Illinois, Inc. • https://www.unitedwayillinois.org

United Way of Lake County • https://www.liveunitedlakecounty.org

United Way of McHenry • https://uwmchenry.org/

United Way of Metro Chicago • https://liveunitedchicago.org

Unity Parenting and Counseling Center • https://unityparenting.org

University of Chicago Medical Center • https://www.uchospitals.edu

University of Chicago Medicine Comer Children’s Hospital • https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/comer Urban Autism Solutions • http://www.urbanautismsolutions.com Victories • http://www.victoriesformen.org/ Village Treasure House • https://www.villagetreasurehouse.org

Voices and Faces Project, The • http://www.voicesandfaces.org

Voices for Illinois Children • http://www.voices4kids.org Way Back Inn, The • http://www.thewaybackinn.org Westside Health Authority • http://healthauthority.org White Crane Wellness Center • https://www.whitecranewellness.org Willow House • http://www.willowhouse.org

Women Liberating Women • https://womenliberatingwomen.org/ Women’s Treatment Center • https://www.facebook.com/TWTC.Chicago/ YMCA of Metro Chicago • https://www.ymcachicago.org

Youth and Family Counseling • https://www.counselingforall.org/ Youth and Opportunity United, Inc. (Y.O.U.) • https://youthopportunity.org Youth Outreach Services (YOS) • https://www.yos.org Youth Services of Glenview/Northbrook • https://www.ysgn.org YWCA Evanston/North Shore • https://www.ywca-ens.org YWCA Metropolitan Chicago • https://www.ywcachicago.org YWCA of Elgin • https://www.ywcaelgin.org/ YWCA of Lake County • http://www.ywcalakecounty.org ZCenter (Zacharias Sexual Abuse Center) • https://zcenter.org/

Media & Journalism

AirGo Radio • https://airgoradio.com/ Another Chicago Magazine • http://www.anotherchicagomagazine.net Better Government Association • https://www.bettergov.org Block Club Chicago • https://blockclubchicago.org/ Borderless Magazine NFP • https://borderlessmag.org Bronzeville Life • http://bronzevillelife.com/ Chalkbeat Chicago • https://chicago.chalkbeat.org/ Chicago Independent Media Alliance • https://chicagoreader.com/cima Chicago Independent Radio Project (CHIRP Radio) • https://www.chirpradio.org Chicago Public Media (WBEZ) • https://www.wbez.org/ Chicago Reader (Reader Institute for Community Journalism) • https://chicagoreader.com Cicero Independiente • https://www.ciceroindependiente.com City Bureau • https://www.citybureau.org/ Community TV Network • https://www.ctvnetwork.org/ Contratiempo • https://contratiempo.net/ Evanston Roundtable • https://evanstonroundtable.com/ Free Spirit Media • https://www.freespiritmedia.org Growing Community Media (Austin Weekly News, Wednesday Journal, Riverside-Brookflield Landmark, Forest Park Review) • https://www.growingcommunitymedia.org/ injustice Watch • https://www.injusticewatch.org/ Invisible Institute • http://www.invisibleinstitute.com Kartemquin Films • https://kartemquin.com/ Light Quarterly • https://lightpoetrymagazine.com/ Lumpen Radio • https://lumpenradio.com/ Media Burn Archive • https://mediaburn.org/ North Lawndale Community Newspaper • https://www.nlcn.org/cms/north-lawndale-community-news/ the-north-lawndale-community-news/ Open TV • https://www.weareo.tv/ Paseo Podcast • https://www.paseomedia.org/ Pigment International • https://www.pigmentintl.com/

ProPublica Illinois • https://www.propublica.org/about/illinois

Public Narrative • https://publicnarrative.org/

Rebellious Magazine for Women • https://rebelliousmagazine.com/ Sixty Inches from Center • https://sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/

Soapbox Productions and Organizing • https://www.soapboxpo.com/ South Side Weekly • https://southsideweekly.com

Street Level • https://street-level.urbangateways.org

The Chicago Reporter • https://www.chicagoreporter.com/ Urban Gateways - Mild Sauce • https://urbangateways.org/ WFMT • http://www.wfmt.org WTTW • https://www.wttw.com

Social Enterprise, NPO Business, & Coop Business

57th Street Books Co-op • https://57th.semcoop.com

Art For Action Corporation • http://www.artforactioncorp.org

Blue Sky Bakery and Cafe • https://blue-sky-bakery.org/ ClaySpace Ceramic Arts Center • https://www.clayspace.net/

Color Me Africa Fine Arts • https://www.colormeafricafinearts.com/ Dill Pickle Food Co-op • https://dillpickle.coop/

Enterprising Kitchen • https://www.theenterprisingkitchen.org

Farmyard • https://lambsfarm.org/business-attractions/farmyard/ Firebird Community Arts • https://www.firebirdcommunityarts.org/

Inspiration Kitchens • http://www.inspirationcorp.org

Lillstreet Art Center • https://guildcomplex.org

Marketplace: Handwork of India Social Enterprise • https://www.marketplaceindia.com/ Monarch Thrift Shop • https://www.monarchthriftshop.com/ North Shore Exchange • https://www.northshoreexchange.org

Seminary Co-op Bookstore • https://www.semcoop.com/

Ten Thousand Villages Evanston • https://www.tenthousandvillages.com/evanston

Ten Thousand Villages Glen Ellyn • https://www.tenthousandvillages.com/glenellyn

Ten Thousand Villages Oak Park • https://www.tenthousandvillages.com/oakpark

Chicago Community Loan Fund

By Stephan Palmié

Gentle Reader,

By now there ought to be no need any more to introduce the Chicago Foodcultura Clarion, but for those of you who have fished it out of their neighborhood Reader box for the first time, here’s a brief recap: the twelve page insert you just pulled from the latest issue of the Chicago Reader is the fruit of a collaboration between the Barcelona/Miami-based multidisciplinary artist Antoni Miralda, the University of Chicago anthropologist Stephan Palmié, and our tireless co-editors: the artist and chef Eric May, the indefatigable South Side food sleuth Peter Engler, and our new managing editor Evan Williams (bye bye to Paige Resnick our former spiritus rector! And thanks for all, Paige! We airheads couldn’t have done without your many gentle nudges towards sanity).

The result of a generous Mellon Foundation grant awarded to Miralda and Palmié by the University of Chicago’s Gray Center for Art and Inquiry, the Clarion was born in dark pandemic times. Miralda, Palmié, and their students in an experimental course on “The Art and Anthropology of Food and Cuisine” at the University of Chicago had originally planned to hold a symposium at the Chicago Cultural Center. But as in so many other areas of all of our lives, Covid-19 made hash of the best laid plans of mice and men. Enter The Chicago Foodcultura Clarion, a whimsical newspaper published as an insert in three thousand copies of the venerable Chicago Reader a few times a year. Our Mellon funds were just about enough to cover three issues, and so Clarion #3 which we published in the spring of 2021 might have been the last – had it not been for the enthusiasm and generosity of Palmié’s colleagues in the University of Chicago’s department of anthropology who took the Clarion under their wings, and helped us finance this fourth and now likely final issue. But who knows. The phoenix has been known to rise from the ashes! At any rate, for now special thanks go to Joe Masco, the current chair of the department, and to Sue Gal, the head of the department’s Lichtstern committee.

As always, we have prepared a rich feast for you, dear reader. This time the menu includes contributions about the history of South Asian and African American culinary interchanges, Ebony Magazine’s longstanding

food editor Frida DeKnight, the lost glory of Richard Koppe’s Gesamtkunstwerk Well of the Sea, a how-to guide for ordering classic Chicago sandwiches, Alberto Aguilar’s 50 ingredient mole project, and chef David Nikolaos Schneider’s quest for Aegean food beyond gyros, béchamel, and that great, spectacular, and utterly Chicagoan Greek Town-fakery, saganaki.

But before we’ll ask you to the table, dear reader, let me once more serve you an aperitif in the form of a story. It concerns a largely unsung hero of a bygone era of Chicago’s world of gourmet foods whom the otherwise excellent Chicago Food Encyclopedia utterly fails to mention. Ever heard of Max H. Ries? I bet you haven’t. Neither had I, until I revisited the University of Wisconsin entomologist Gene de Foliart’s wonderful Food Insects Newsletter (published between 1988 and 2000) in search for materials on entomophagy for my course The Anthropology of Food and Cuisine. There, in the second issue of 1988, I came across a note entitled “Query: Are processed insect products still commercially available in the United States?” mentioning that, as of 1975, Reese Finer Foods, Inc. had counted among the largest purveyor of imported canned insects, but had since discontinued these products. My next step was to google the

brand – which brought me to the website of World Finer Foods, Inc. (https://worldfiner.com/history) which had bought Reese’s Finer Foods in 1994. There we are told that in 1939 “Max H. Ries, a German immigrant who operated a textile firm in his native Munich, left Germany and intended to develop another textile firm in Chicago. When he arrived in the U.S., he believed he could make a greater impact importing foods and sharing the flavors and ingredients of the world with U.S. consumers.”

Under the heading “1947 – Unheard of Delicacies” the website states that that in this year “Max founded Reese Finer Foods along with its signature “Reese” brand of specialty products. He began importing delicacies such as Pâté de Fois Gras, Kangaroo Steak, Japanese Fried Butterflies, Chocolate Covered South American Ants, Canned Hornets and Fried Baby Bees.” Needless to say, I was hooked. I next wrote to World Finer Foods, and a Consumer Relations Representative named Julie Brown kindly pointed me to Max’s long-time sidekick Morrie Kushner’s book Morris H. Kushner on Specialty Foods (1996). She also sent me archival photos of classic Reese canned products such as Reese’s Fried Grasshoppers, French

Helix Snails, or Dominique’s Snapper Turtle Soup. Kushner, it turns out, appeared on none other than Groucho Marx TV show in 1960, talking about, guess what? Reese’s specialty foods. His book is a great read, exploring as it does, the psychology and economics of gourmet food marketing. But it features very little information on Max Ries himself.

For a time, I was stumped. Peter Engler sent me more photos of Reese products. Food critic Mike Sula threw up his hands in despair. Online I found Max’s 1984 Chicago Tribune obituary, his lifetime award from the National Association for the Specialty Foods Trade, and honors that he received from Chicago’s Temple Ezra Jewish community in 1966 (locusts are kosher, after all! Besides: successful textile manufacturer that he once was, Max hadn’t left Nazi Germany just on a whim to set up a cheese shop on Randolph Ave.). But even though Julie Brown had told me that Max must have been quite a character, and that there were many great anecdotes, my research failed to progress. Until, that is, I hit upon New Yorker staff writer Dana Goodyear’s book Anything that Moves: Renegade Chefs, Fearless Eaters, and the Making of a New American Food Culture (2013). Goodyear doesn’t give her sources, but it seems like she was able to interview Max’s son and great-nephew, and what follow is greatly indebted to her work.

The picture that Goodyear paints is very plausible. Obviously, the early pioneers of what came to be known as specialty foods around the 1940s would have been immigrants exploiting their fellow émigrés’ yen for products from the “old country”. But different from other legendary immigrant figures in the specialty food trade like the Italian Mario Foah and the Dutchman Ted Koryn, visionary that he was, Max early on set his eyes on Asia and Latin America. He was the first to market teriyaki sauce, water chestnuts and baby corn in the U.S.. But given his –astonishingly anthropological –insight that “eating habits are in the mind” (as he proclaimed at a mid-1950s “Fashion Show of Foods” in Milwaukee), he “took great food that nobody knew they wanted and got them to buy it” as Max’s great-nephew Stewart

ments/

Those were the days! Then, Reese’s insect products could still be found on the shelves of Marshall Fields, Bloomingdale, Macy, even Safeway and, I suspect, Dominick’s and Jewell. Now, you can count yourself lucky if you find Reese’s water chestnuts or baby corn in your local supermarket. Of course, there are Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but not only do they not contain any bugs; rather, being a Hershey product, they have nothing to do with Max Ries. And as for the entomophagists among you, dear readers, times have become tough here in Chicago. While only a few years ago, larvae could be found on the menu of Spoon Thai in Lincoln Square, the only restaurant I know where you can satisfy a craving for a chitinous crunch these days is the Oaxacan Kie Gol Lanie in Uptown which serves crispy fried chapulines, but only when they are in season (when is grasshopper season?). This is not to say that the Chicago Health Department doesn’t shut down a bunch of restaurants each year whose kitchens are crawling with bugs. But, of course, those aren’t on the menu!

Time now to ask you to the table, gentle reader. We hope you will enjoy the bill of fare. Time will tell if there may be second helpings in the future. But for now the Clarion’s kitchen is closed.

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Reich recalled. Soon, the product range of Reese’s Finer Foods came to include Japanese tinned sparrows, fried grasshoppers and whale meat, ants shipped from Bogota and covered with chocolate by an Illinois candy maker, but also canned Canadian muskrat, and reindeer steaks from Lapland. As Goodyear tells the story, from there on, Max’s entrepreneurial antics took on on a fantastic, even surreal cast: He began to contact zoos to furnish him with lists of creatures that needed to be put down. He bought them, had their meat frozen and shipped to canning facilities. Whence his product line of canned lion, tiger and elephant meat. All this, of course, came crashing down with Congress’s passing of the Endangered Species Act in 1973. But while it lasted, it was a whopping success, thanks, not the least, to Max’s knack for showmanship: when the movie Jaws came out in 1975, he ran an advertisement for shark meat paté featuring himself in a scuba diving suit and the headline “This is your chance to bite back”. Perhaps his wildest stunt was to reduce an overstock of his “Spooky Foods” gift set (chocolate-covered ants, bees, grasshoppers, and caterpillars) by hiring the ageing Bela Lugosi in full Dracula gear to advertise the product – which promptly sold out (Lugosi, by then, was a veteran in product placement: he also appeared in various beer, soda and cigarette ads https://beladraculalugosi.wordpress.com/ bela-lugosi-product-endorse ments/).

By Maya Osman-Krinsky

It’s rare to call eating fieldwork. Unless you’re approaching a plate with the intention, intimacy, and keen eye of a cook or critic, it’s likely that mealtime is defined by necessity, pleasure, and/or connection rather than investigation.

FOODCULTURA departed from the method of building knowledge characterized by interview transcripts and dusty stacks of books. Antoni Miralda and Stephan Palmié’s interdisciplinary course encouraged us to go out and taste the city of Chicago as researchers rather than as students; we built a base of knowledge about how anthropology and art have dealt with human foodways, how to reconcile the over-determination and aestheticization of one of the most natural human acts, and how to deepen our understanding of Chicago’s unique gustatory worlds.

We settled on exploring fried chicken. How did fried chicken come to be embedded in the city’s landscape? How has its preparation shifted with the changing makeup of Chicago’s immigrant populations? What would a “Chicago fried chicken” look like if it paid homage to all of the city’s diversity?

To answer these questions, we visited several of Chicago’s best-known fried chicken spots: Harold’s, Mini Hut, Chicken Pollo Shack, Split-Rail, Honey Butter Fried Chicken, and Crisp. We ate and took notes

at each with the intention of creating a palimpsest of fried chicken experiences, including everything from the menus to the grease.

Having recently celebrated seventy years as one of the city’s oldest Black-owned restaurants, Harold’s Chicken Shack specializes in uniquely-prepared fried chicken and sauces. The menu is sparse and varies slightly by location but because loyal customers know what they’re there for, they can order without much confusion. Mini Hut and Chicken Pollo Shack

function similarly, on implied knowledge and certain rootedness in their neighborhoods. Crisp is a Korean fried chicken restaurant, with a menu highlighting gochujang and kimchi as accompaniments to the dish born from US imperialism. Split-Rail, in contrast, is

toward the city’s distinct cultural pockets, all in one bite. We buttermilk-brined a locally-sourced chicken and created a Southern-style rub. We double-fried the chicken parts in beef tallow, methods borrowed from Korean and Harold’s style chicken, and served it with rye

The annotated greasy palimpsest of menus accompanied process photos as our final product, the refuse of our foray into a complex culinary tangle. As students of Chicago’s gastronomic landscape and researchers hoping to contribute something of our own, we

learned that a dish can only do so much storytelling work: the rest has to come from asking questions about what is on our plates and why.

a white-owned upscale-casual restaurant, with a price point that reflects its self-perception as an “updated” comfort food spot. We struggled with claims of authenticity as markers of what makes a “good” fried chicken experience and examined how the owners and operators of these different restaurants approached the conversation about appropriation and gentrification of soul food.

With bellies full of research, we attempted to blend these disparate dishes into one that reached

bread (a nod to Polish and Jewish immigrants), white rolls, and a flight of sauces: ramp pesto (a nod to the Miami-Illinois word shikaakwa , meaning an allium that grows along the Chicago River), honey butter, gochujang sauce, Chicago mild sauce, and Nashville hot sauce. The completed dish was nestled in a newspaper basket with the menus of all of the restaurants we visited as well as imitations of the menus that we created based on our own iteration of the Chicago fried chicken.

By Sam Winikow, Noah Goodman, Maya Osman-Krinsky, Molly Donahue, Isabelle Sohn

Chicago Style Hot Dog

by Jim Behymer

As an Internationally Recognized Sandwich Expert™, I am often asked, “What is your favorite sandwich?” My standard answer is “The one in front of me,” which often gets a chuckle and ends the line of questioning.

Some folks persist, though. “But how do you decide what sandwich to put in front of you?”

Observation. What are other people ordering? Does this place serve only one or two things? Does the restaurant have a signature dish in its name? Sandwich shops and fast food joints on the South Side of Chicago tend to organize themselves into certain phyla, and each major family of restaurant has certain specialties that patrons seek it out for.

Am I on the Southwest Side of Chicago? Can I see a gyros cone in the kitchen or a prominently displayed Kronos poster in the dining room? Do I smell hamburgers?

If you answered yes to these questions, you may be at a Nicky’s. Or maybe it’s a Mickey’s. These loosely or not-at-all-affiliated—Greek-owned fast food joints dot the Southwest Side and suburbs, and are among the more reliable fast food options in the area. Your best bet here is a Big Baby, though it might sometimes be called a Big Mickey. This is a double cheeseburger built in a very specific way, with cheese between two small fast foodstyle patties, served with ketchup, mustard, pickle and grilled onions on a sesame-seed bun. Nicky’s also tends to have good Gyros and decent Italian Beef sandwiches if you aren’t in the mood for a burger.

Am I near UIC? Can I hear cars roaring by on the highway? Are there yellow signs everywhere I look? Is the smell of cooking onions heavy in the air?

You must be on Union Ave. just south of Roosevelt. This is the only place to get a Maxwell Street Polish Sausage—and I do mean the only place, as you should ignore the words Maxwell Street Polish anywhere else you see them. A true Maxwell Street Polish is a thick section of kielbasa, its casing griddled to a crisp snap, dressed simply with yellow mustard, grilled onions, and sport peppers. Don’t like sausage? Try the bone-in Pork Chop Sandwich instead just find the bone with your fingers and eat your way around it. You can get a hot dog or a burger as well, but if you want anything other than mustard, grilled onions, and sport peppers on your sandwich, you may be out of luck.

Am I in a South Side or South Suburban deli with an Italian name, like Soluri’s, Gio’s, Frangella, Rubino’s etc? Am I at a pizza place located in the Bridgeport neighborhood?

You have stumbled onto an embarrassment of riches, friend. See if they have a Freddy on the menu. This is a hot grinder made with an Italian sausage patty, marinara sauce, cheese, and sweet peppers. Eat one whenever you have an opportunity and spread the gospel; these sandwiches are a dying breed.

You may also want to ask about a Breaded Steak Sandwich

This sandwich features a very thin piece of breadcrumb-coated beefsteak, fried crisp, rolled up into a French roll and served with red sauce and melted cheese. A few years ago, Ted Berg wrote in the USA Today sports section that the breaded steak sandwich from Ricobene’s was the best sandwich in the world, but there are a half-dozen other places in Bridgeport doing it at least as well.

If neither of those appeal, an Italian Sub or an Italian Beef will probably be a safe bet as well.

Am I on the far South Side at an extremely busy and well-loved locally-owned sandwich shop? Do I smell a mixture of something like barbecue sauce and vinegar? Are the only things on the menu either some kind of hoagy or a steak sandwich?

The South Side’s hoagy houses are among the great treasures of Chicago’s fast food scene. The Hoagy will be a long roll with a combination of deli meat slices served with tomato, onion, pickle, pepperoncini, and “hoagy juice,” a kind of vinaigrette. It’s good if you’re in the mood for a cold sub, but do check out the Sweet Steak. This is a local variant on the cheesesteak, combining griddled shaved steak with a sweet barbecue-style sauce, melted American cheese, sweet peppers, and tomatoes. It is a mess, it is not photogenic at all, but it is one of the best, most unique sandwiches Chicago has to offer.

Is this a sub shop? Are the walls covered with hand-written signs and specials? Is the menu massive?Am I ordering my sandwich through bulletproof glass? Do the sandwiches come with fries and “can pop?”

I’m excited and a little scared for you. The experience you are about to have could be either amazing or terrible. Order a Jim Shoe. a sub sandwich containing roast beef, corned beef, and gyros meat; cheese and mustard; lettuce, tomato, and onion; “gyro sauce,” which may be tzatziki or mayonnaise or ranch dressing or some unholy combination of the three; and giardiniera, if you choose to add that greatest of condiments. When all those flavors combine just right, a Jim Shoe can be glorious. Be sure to get mild sauce on those fries, too.

Are there red and yellow signs everywhere? Red and yellow paint, red and yellow trim, red and yellow umbrellas over the tables outside, and the Vienna Beef logo plastered on everything in sight?

When in Rome, order a hot dog. If you want ketchup on it, you may need to put it on yourself—there’s a strong bias against ketchup on a hot dog in Chicago and change is a slow process— but for the places that identify this strongly with the Vienna Beef brand, it doesn’t matter whether they serve the old-school Depression Dog (featuring mustard, relish, diced onions, and hot peppers, rolled into wax paper with steaming hot fresh-cut French fries on top) or the classic salad-in-a-bun presentation that everyone thinks of when they hear Chicago-style Dog Both are great.

Every rule has its exceptions though, and one of the most legendary hot dog spots on the South Side doesn’t have a Vienna Beef sign in sight. Fat Johnnie’s on S. Western uses David Berg brand dogs, and is also one of the premiere spots to order a Mother-in-Law. This tamale-in-a-bun comes covered in chili and often dragged through the garden like a Chicago-style dog. At Fat Johnnie’s you can gild the lily and order a Mighty Dog instead, which has both a tamale and a hot dog hidden under all those toppings.

Wait, none of these descriptions match the place I’m at. It’s some weird one-off that has a menu unlike anything you’ve mentioned! I’m confused and scared! What do I do?

In that case, pick the wildest, most uni ue thing you can find on the menu and order that. Take a chance on something with a name like the Hossa, Crispy Cheesesteak, Smoke Bomb, Corleone, Gunslinger, or Wild Bill. It might be good, it might be bad, but it should at least be memorable. Make sure you send me a photo too—I want to hear all about it!

Chicago Signage

Sweet Steak Sandwich

The Smoke Bomb

The Hossa

The Big Baby

Breaded

Maxwell Street Polish

by Margaret Carney

By the time you are my age, and if you are the type of person that Benjamin Franklin would have deplored when he famously said one should “eat to live, not live to eat,” you have enjoyed many fine dining experiences. As a child, my parents would take the train from Iowa City into Chicago several times a year, with me and maybe a sibling. There was always a dining destination interwoven with a trip. Without fail, we stayed at the Palmer House. And I remember dining with my sister Kay on chateaubriand for two at Trader Vic’s which was located in the Palmer House.

Fast forward forty-five years to 2012, and I have established the International Museum of Dinnerware Design in Ann Arbor, Michigan. As its director and curator, I am exploring the topic of restaurant ware, and I stumble upon images of dishes with fantastic abstract designs of fish, fish hooks and lures manufactured by Shenango China for use in the Well of Sea Restaurant. It takes me back to 1967, when, as an awkward teenager, I dined sans siblings with my parents at the Well of the Sea. I must have bragged to dozens of complete strangers over the years how I had eaten at this strange restaurant. Did I tell them about the marvelous seafood cuisine or the plates with abstract fish designs? No, because I do not actually remember what I ate or what the dishes looked like. What I vividly recollect is the ambiance of the restaurant, lit solely with black lights, which, along with the accompanying abstract murals and sculpture gave the impression that one was dining under the sea. The little white flowers and ricrac on my 60s frock that my sister Kay had sewn, glowed in the dark under the ultraviolet lights. An uncredited photograph from 1952 shows a waiter appearing to use a flashlight to illuminate a menu for diners. In retrospect I believe that I was not as impressed by the abstract designs on the murals and dinnerware because in the late 1960s, these designs were not as unusual and provocative as they would have been in 1948 when the restaurant opened.

The Well of the Sea opened to much fanfare. A press release photograph dated 12/28/48 announced the arrival of fresh seafood at the restaurant. Live turtles, lobsters, fish nets, and a large fish are draped over an airline stewardess, a mermaid, and the assistant to the president of the Sherman, in street clothes. The restaurant was no ordinary restaurant. It was designed by artists, interior designers, and architects to evoke the experience of dining under the sea. Rather than a literal interpretation, this was accomplished through the use of abstract murals and dramatically lit sculptures of fish, lures, and bait. Culinary historians may be captivated by the menu—bouillabaisse, rijsttafel of seafood, café diable, and flaming rum punch; Mid-Century Modern art connoisseurs have fixated on the abstract undersea murals designed by Richard Koppe; dinnerware collectors cannot own too many

place settings of the sturdy Shenango China restaurant quality dishes with the abstract fish motifs, adapted from Koppe’s murals by Shenango China’s noted designer Paul W. Cook. There is the novel restaurant concept, the architectural/interior design, the murals, the dinnerware, the cuisine. As a result, there are restaurant reviewers, art historians, interior designers, china collectors, and gourmands who remain captivated by the story of the Well of the Sea. At the time there was even a doctor who seemed obsessed with the effects of ultraviolet light on animals and the wait staff alike.

The restaurant closed in 1972, and the hotel closed the next year. The building was torn down in 1980. Perhaps because of the use of ultraviolet

We dined in the Cape Cod Room at the Drake Hotel. We ate under the multi-storied Christmas tree in the Walnut Room at Marshall Fields, memorable for the long line waiting to get a table under the tree. My sister Kay fainting in the line quickly propelled us to its front. Merry Christmas! That year was 1961. That same year, when Kay and I were safely on the train back to Iowa City, our parents dined at the renowned seafood restaurant Well of the Sea, located in the basement of the Hotel Sherman.

lighting in the dining area, there are few photographs of people dining in the restaurant interior, with most vintage images aimed at capturing the murals and sculpture in situ.

Lucky for us and my poor, underdeveloped teenage visual memory, the restaurant was documented in illustrated art and architecture journals in 1949. There one can see the fantastic abstract murals, albeit in mostly black and white, one by one. Not everything seems to have been finalized by December 1948, in time for the grand opening. The restaurant china with the abstract fish motifs first appeared in use in the restaurant around 1953-1954. Fortunately, the manufacturer used backstamps which can reliably indicate production dates. By the mid-1960s, the original menus, which reproduced one memorable segment of one of Koppe’s five painted undersea murals, were replaced by newly designed menus that glowed under ultraviolet light and could be seen in the darkness that was the Well of the Sea.

The menus actually describe all the tempting cuisine at the restaurant, including such delicious wordsmithing as “Bahama Conch Chowder with Barbados Rum, said to be a favorite soup of Ernest Hemingway, believed by the natives of the Bahama Islands to promote virility and longevity.”

All that for only 75 cents in the 1950s! The advertisements of the

The abstract fish, bait, and lure designs on the restaurant china.

time went even further, with a 1967 ad boasting “flagrantly provocative piscatorial viands (fish).”

The more one learns about the Well of the Sea, the more one craves the food described on their menus.

Unfortunately, there are few recipes that were published. One popular item on the menu, “Crabmeat in Skillet,” was published in the 1950 edition of the combined restaurant guide and recipe book, The Ford Treasury of Famous Recipes from Famous Eating Places. A menu describes this item as “Ernest Byfield’s Favorite crabmeat dish, prepared with butter, tarragon wine, vinegar and chives.” It sold for $3.10 back around 1950. The adult me wishes I could go back in time and revisit the restaurant, take in the abstract murals and sculptural elements, wear an awesome vintage outfit that would be enhanced by the ultraviolet lighting, and order “Old Mr. Flood’s Black Clam Chowder.”

Alternatively, who wants to come to my house to try “Crabmeat in Skillet” with me?

Margaret Carney is a ceramic historian with a Ph.D. in Asian art history. She likes to write books about esoteric ceramic topics such as lithophanes, tiles manufactured in Flint, Michigan, and the “father of American studio ceramics.” She established the International Museum of Dinnerware Design in 2012. She is obsessed about everything to do with the Well of the Sea restaurant in Chicago. She also loves marzipan.

The cover of an original Well of the Sea menu, dated 1950.

Detail from menu showing fish eating fish.

From the Chicago Tribune, 1967.

A selection of Well of the Sea dinnerware from the collection of the International Museum of Dinnerware Design.

by Hazal Corak

Growing up as a committed eater in the Aegean coast of Turkey, one of my favorite street bites was kokoreç, lamb intestines fairly cleaned, wrapped around offal, grilled on a horizontal skewer, and seasoned with salt, oregano, and cumin before getting stuck in a half loaf of bread which sucks up all the fat. I may have already lost you with this daring recipe, my precious reader, but I was hardly the only lover of this dish. I always found it astonishing how kokoreç was the first and last thing that the Kurdish side of my family had to eat when they came from Diyarbakir to visit us in Izmir (Smýrni in Greek). Ultimately, these Kurds were proud meat eaters. Especially those from Diyarbakir liked to impress you by boasting about how they eat lamb liver for breakfast while people from Izmir, my hometown, were rather taking pride in their culinary know-how with the Aegean herbs and greens. How could this hardcore meat sandwich be native to my allegedly herbivorous land and delightfully exotic to my carnivorous cousins from Kurdistan?! Well, I didn’t think much. I kept on biting… It took me years—and watching the Athens episode of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern—to realize that my kokoreç was endemic to my region because it was Greek; it was called kokoretsi in their language and it was not a street food for them but an Easter specialty! Suddenly, thanks to this crazy American, all the pieces started to fit together.

Now, if you are still with me and wondering where you can eat this majestic bowel look no further, my precious reader. Kindly proceed to Chicago’s Wicker Park and grab a seat at Taxim Restaurant on Milwaukee Avenue. And if you are reading this because kokoretsi sounded intriguingly repellent, that’s also fine. Chef David Nikolaos Schneider and his team should have something in the pot for you since their extensive menu covers several regions in Europe and Asia Minor that Greeks once called home.

Chef Schneider is a food anthropologist of sorts. He has been to very many places and their household kitchens with a singular aim: learning to cook like a Greek! In his visits to the Greek mainland, Aegean islands, Cyprus, Turkey, and Syria he collected cooking techniques, recipes, and flavors which are very much alive in these regions’ culinary repertoire, but are not featured in mainstream representations of the Greek cuisine since its standardization with a Western influence in the 1930s. Our chef’s itinerant spirit is why, my precious reader, you may have your chance to get a taste of Cypriot pork sausage (Seftalies) with halloumi, Cretan pastries, and a variety of Politiki (Istanbul style) dishes from wood-fire roasted eggplants to artichoke stew, and beer-battered fried mussels with sesame garlic sauce, all in one place. In fact, the restaurant’s name, Taxim, comes from Istanbul’s famous square, located in the cosmopolitan Pera district which was once home to the Greek inhabitants of the city—including Chef Schneider’s uncle—and a bustling taverna culture that brought together all sorts of city characters, not unlike today’s Wicker Park. But one doesn’t always need to go beyond the Ocean to get at the roots of Greek cooking, especially if they are

in Chicago, a city which has attracted many Greek migrants since the 1880s. These migrants, who were running away from the Ottoman atrocities more often than not, brought their culinary wisdom to this side of the Atlantic long before the 20th century standardization of Greek cuisine. Chef Schneider learned how to make the Anatolian style satz (saj) bread from one of their contemporary descendants on a propane gas tank in a Chicago kitchen. This delicious flatbread is now a main ingredient of Duck Gyro, a specialty of Taxim, rubbed with pastourma spices and served with yoghurt sauce and a pomegranate reduction.

Chef Schneider does not strike me as an eclectic cook who draws on fusion. Duck Gyro is perhaps the most untraditional dish on the menu. Rather, he is a man of culinary convention with a passionate commitment to explore that convention’s hidden paths. When I ask him about his favorite ingredients, he proudly answers: “our home-made yoghurt!” If my kokoretsi story sounded appealing to you, here you go… At Taxim it is served with Chef Schneider’s home-made yoghurt. When I ask him what ingredients he certainly avoids, he is again quick to answer: anything that Greeks have not made use of historically. So, my precious reader, no kale, avocado, or quinoa for you at Taxim. No béchamel sauce (as in moussaka) either, an ingredient that became the staple of the Greek restaurant experience in America since its introduction to Greek cooking in the 1930s by Chef Schneider’s Sifnos-born, but Vienna-bred namesake, Nikolaos Tselementes.

Taxim is an Athenian, Cretan, Smyrnaean, Politiki, Cypriot, Cappadocian, and Pontic restaurant all at once, but it is equally Chicagoan. Chef Schneider raves about how he can find greens that are specific to Crete in Chicago thanks to our town’s mild summers, high-quality soil, and visionary farmers. This, of course, does not stop him from stuffing his backpack with bitter almonds while flying back from Greece and turning them to tear-inducingly (I told you, they are bitter!) delicious kourabiedes (cookies) covered with powdered sugar.

Well, my precious reader, now we hit the last lines of my piece and the Clarion is getting ready to bid you farewell until an unforeseeable future. I dipped my pita bread in a considerable amount of labneh and olive oil, made a ceviche of sorts with Aegean lavraki (seabass), and even watched Andrew Zimmern eat Iraqi pache in Chicago while writing this. There would only be too much color and food stain on this page if I used actual pen and paper instead of a word document. It has been a mouthwatering journey to get to know and talk food with the unapologetically gluttonous Clarion crew, Chef Schneider, and now you. Hayde, opa, cheers… to many more appetizing Chicagoan adventures!

Hazal Corak is an anthropologist at the University Chicago. She enjoys thinking and writing about metallurgy, poetics, cinema, and environmental justice. She secretly believes that the pink neon sign of the Music Box Theater is actually the heart of Chicago.

Vintage image of the bar, capturing the experience of being amongst the hull of a sunken ship, as pictured in Art in Modern Architecture, p. 44, 1952.

An interior view of the Well of the Sea, illustrated in Town Folk magazine, 1955. Note the fish-eating -fish hanging sculpture designed by Richard Koppe.

The experience of the Well of the Sea diner circa 1952.

Chef David Nikolaos Schneider

Easter lamb and kokoretzi roasting.

Recipe from Ford Treasury of Famous Recipes from Famous Eating Places, 1955.

Well of the Sea.

EM: Alright, I’m spending an excellent afternoon with Alberto Aguilar, eating up a storm across the greater River Forest region. We’ve had excellent home style Filipino food from Lola Tining’s, a toasted pasta pizza thing from Gaetano’s and are now sitting over duck fat fries and beers.

AA: It’s Forest Park, not River Forest, people always get it mixed up.

EM: Tell me about the 40 ingredient molé.

AA: It’s actually a 50 ingredient molé. The one I did recently with (Nicholas) Jirasek was 40.

I like the origins of molé – that it comes from anything that was at hand. Being resourceful, improvising with what you have. The story of molé has its origin in a convent, in the colonial times, in Mexico, where there was an archbishop coming to visit the nuns and they didn’t have anything to eat so they took whatever was in the cupboards and they killed the old turkey that was in the courtyard, and that was the birth of molé. Every part of Mexico has different versions of molé with different ingredients. I researched all the different possible molé dishes throughout Mexico and compiled a list of all the ingredients and I thought it would be interesting to make a molé that was just over the top with an excessive amount of ingredients and mix the different regions.

I started making this molé as part of this dinner project that I did and I think that it kind of acted as a metaphor for bringing together people that didn’t belong, because that was part of this dinner series,

bringing strangers into my home. I also made a drawing of that sauce which is actually owned by the National Museum of Mexican Art.

EM: Is it the list of ingredients?

AA: It’s the list in order of the size of the word so it’s like a pyramid of words. On that list there’s some kind of funny ingredients, I think the funniest one is the animal crackers. That was 2011, in my home. But I also did it at other sites, I was invited to do it at other places. One of the things that I started to do was I would go into people’s homes and I would make a molé out of whatever they had. So I never wanted them to buy any special products – my claim was that I could make a molé with whatever you had in your cupboards.

EM: What if they had no chiles?

AA: They always have some form of chiles. Even if it’s the red pepper flakes from pizza restaurants or Tabasco sauce. Sometimes if I was lucky they’d have a can of chipotle in their cupboard. So I would use whatever was at hand – chocolate Quik, peanut butter. Worcestershire sauce. A1 sauce is another thing, it actually has tamarind in it, so A1 sauce would work in a molé. It’s just about getting the emphasis on the right ingredients to make it as molé-like as possible.

A while back I stopped making the molé.

EM: Did you retire it purposefully?

AA: I think time just happened and it fell to the back. But I’m actually going to make

one for a dinner at the Franklin. I’m finally bringing it back. I’m going to smoke chicken legs and tofu, I’m going to make a vegan version also. Did you want to talk about the thing I recently did with Jirasek?

EM: The molé dog. I’ve always seen the relationship between molé and chili.

AA: You knew that the Coney Island dog was a famous thing in Detroit? Jirasek told us a little bit about those origins. What do you know about that?

EM: They were Greek and Macedonian owned

dog seller at the Cub’s park – he did that for years, that was a big part of his life. Anyway, when we were out at the bonfire, I was telling Jirasek about my molé

AA: There were several things. But actually he collaborated with several artists who were visiting. He did a Korean dish with Cecilia Kim. She made tteokbokkii the previous night and Jirasek mixed that in. And then there was another artist, Bel Falleriros, who is from Brazil and they made feijoada. That got mixed into it, also. And Alex and I, for the end of our program, we created a carnival at Ox-Bow in the open meadow. And we thought that we should serve these hotdogs as a performance at this carnival. But that got put off so we actually passed them out during the dance party at the end of our session.

EM: So was it good, Jirasek’s mole?

AA: It was really good. It was a really fast moment – it’s a hotdog and it was at a dance party. It’s not like you could sit down and savor the flavors. But it really was a good combo. He used turkey dogs, because I told him about turkey in molé.

EM: Do the molés turn out different? Do they taste dramatically different every time?

hotdog parlors, so the meat sauce has a touch of cinnamon. Some molés have cinnamon, right, canela.

AA: It all happened really naturally. Alex Bradley Cohen and I were teaching a class at Ox-Bow this past summer. And we met Jirasek and I guess we both talked to him separately. Alex was telling him that he was a hot-

project and he had the idea to combine both of our interests to create a molé hotdog, like a chili dog, like a Coney Island chili dog. With molé instead of the chili. He gave me the list of his ingredients and I made a drawing of it on top of the Oxbow map.

EM: I saw that on Instagram. Did it have some Filipino ingredients?

After returning home, I wanted to commemorate that moment and that hotdog that we made, collaboratively, with Jirasek so I thought it would be interesting to ask Southwest Signs to make a sign that I then gave as a gift to Jirasek.

AA: You know what, I feel like they always taste the same. It goes hand in hand with the metaphor of things coming together that don’t belong. It works, that’s more of the point, that it seems like it’s not going to work out, but in the end it does. Maybe that’s the metaphor, right, that it’s a dish, for me, that welcomes everything, everybody, different cultures. The indigenous population, the Spanish population, and everything in between.

Eric May in conversation with Alberto Aguilar

Molé Hot Dog

The original 50 Ingredient Molé Oxbow Dog

Alberto serving food at this recent molé event Molé Dog

The Feeling Shapey Carnival at Ox-Bow

Alberto Aguilar is an interdisciplinary artist based in Chicago. In 2009 he started a Personal Dinner Invitation, where he invited strangers into his home using a popular social media site. At these dinners he began making and serving a 50 ingredient Mole which he has now made countless times. He teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work is currently on display at The Franklin Gallery in the Garfield Park neighborhood of Chicago.

By Colleen Taylor Sen

We don’t know exactly when the first Indians came to Chicago. (South Asians is a more appropriate term, since South Asia covers present-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka but since before 1947 these countries were part of British India, I’ve used the term “Indian” in this article.) The 1870 Census lists eight people from India in Chicago, but they could have been Europeans since India was part of the British Empire and residents could enter the U.S. with a British passport..Their number rose very gradually to reach 176 in 1930. After this Indians were included in the Asian category until the 1970 Census.

These early residents were mostly students, mainly at the University of Chicago. A 1920 article in the Chicago Tribune notes that the Indian students here, many from Madras, had formed a cricket team. For a time in the 1920s the University of Chicago had what must have been the university’s first and only polo team, headed by a dashing young man from Ceylon named Chandra Gooneratne

While Mr. Gooneratne likely came from an affluent background because of his polo-playing ability, most of the students were on scholarship and on tight rations. In a 1908 article in the Calcutta Review, an Indian journalist who spent time in Chicago writes that one student’s daily diet consisted of graham bread, fruits, nuts, breakfast foods, and eggs. Another subsisted on a few slices of bread, a banana or two, a small handful of peanuts or dried fruit, and eggs in the evening. A third lived exclusively on bread and beans and added different sauces to the beans.

The same journalist also described the difficulties Indians faced in entering restaurants and finding lodgings because of the color barrier. Starting in the 19th century, communities of Indians who had jumped ship or worked as wandering peddlers settled in New Orleans and New York. Some joined the Great Migration of African Americans that began during World War I and came north to find work in factories and steel mills. Boarding houses and restaurants in the African American communities of Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, Baltimore, and other Northern cities served them, and they must have sprung up on Chicago’s South Side as well -- a topic that deserves further study. In 1917, the Chicago Tribune reported that several Indians who worked in a steel mill in Gary, Indiana, were arrested by Chicago and Federal police in connection with a plot in Chicago “to inflame Indians with revolt against British rule.”

A 1924 Federal law effectively banned immigration from Asia, excluding The Philippines. John Drury’s 1931 Dining in Chicago notes the presence of Filipino restaurants but no Indian ones. In 1946 U.S. immigration laws were relaxed somewhat to allow one hundred Indians a year to enter and to permit those who were here to be naturalized.

In 1963 Chicago’s first Indian restaurant opened, House of India, first at 2048 N. Lincoln and later at 1746 N. Wells. The owner Colonel Abdullah was a great showman who claimed to have been an officer in the Indian army and to hold a PhD degree in psychology from Oxford University. However, one of the waiters, a University of Chicago student, told me then that he was an African American

from Tallahassee

Its menu featured various curries and condiments that typified the food of the British Raj. A menu celebrating Indian Independence Day in 1968 described by the Tribune featured rice pulao, lamb korma with pineapple, a vegetarian curry, a sirloin of beef curry, a hot spiced dish which the reporter noted was called pork vindaloo, and pappadums “prepared only for special parties.” The waiters were Indian students dressed in turbans and achkans (jackets that became popularly known as Nehru jackets).The restaurant became a museum cum gift shop and then closed in 1973. Also in the 1960s, Colonel Abdullah opened another restaurant cum jazz club called the Taj Mahal at 1321 S. Michigan featuring Bombay martinis and “curries of India” served by a “costumed East Indian staff.” It was open from 5.30 pm to 4.am and one of the performers was Ahmad Jamal who once owned an earlier incarnation of the club.

In 1965 a major reform of U.S. immigration laws replaced the old quota system that favored ‘white’ countries by one that gave preference to professionals and relatives of citizens and by 1970, there were just over 3000 people of Indian origin in Chicago.

Chicago’s first Indian grocery store was opened by Sarjit Singh Sikand in 1967 at 2911 N. Broadway. Until then the only source of South Asian spices and lentils was Conte da Savoia on Roosevelt Road. Sikand began by selling imported items, especially lentils, to the owner. When business exceeded his expectations, he opened Indian Gifts and Food at Belmont and Sheffield. In 1973 he opened a restaurant at the same location, which initially served kabobs and other tandoori items and later some South Indian dishes. Most of his customers were Americans, many of whom were tasting Indian food for the first time.

The next restaurant was Brothers, a modest storefront on Belmont Avenue that opened in the late 1960s. The owners were Brahm Dixit and his wife, who was the cook. The restaurant served home style North Indian dishes. Soon a public relations man named Mohan Chablani hired the Dixits and in 1969 opened his own restaurant, Bengal Lancers. It was a small fine dining restaurant in an old mansion in the 2200 block of N. Clark, above a French restaurant called L’Auberge. The restaurant was decorated with hunting scenes from the British Raj, and the menu featured such items as Colonel Skinner’s curry chicken and Pimm’s Cup. To a possible charge that his restaurant was not ‘authentic,’ Chablani claimed in an April 9, 1979 article in the Chicago Tribune, “An authentic Indian restaurant would have… two cows, people would sit on the floor eating with their hands, and I would have to find 16 flies.” It too didn’t last long. A third restaurant, also called Taj Mahal was opened at 10 E. Walton Place in 1972 by Behram Irani, a journalism student turned restaurateur.

The same year saw the opening of Gaylords at 678 N. Clark, then a rather seedy area. It was the first North American branch of a well-known Indian chain. (The present-day restaurant at 100 E. Walton has no connection with the chain). India did not have

Their menus featured the hearty dishes of this region, such as sag paneer (spinach with cheese), rice pulao, dal makhani (a rich thick creamy lentil stew), stuffed paratha (flat bread), kebabs, and tandoori chicken. These dishes became staples of other restaurants in Chicago. By 1977 there were at least ten Indian restaurants in Chicago, including the upscale Khyber India at 30 E. Walton and Bukhara at 2 E. Ontario, both now closed.

In the 1970s Devon Avenue on the far North Side became a point of entry for Indian immigrants, replacing what had been a largely Jewish area. In 1974 Mafat and Tulsi Patel opened their first store at 2034 Devon near Damen, followed by a larger flagship store at 2610 W. Devon which recently underwent a major renovation. Today Patel Brothers are the largest Indian grocery chain in the U.S. with 57 stores in 19 states and their own line of ethnic products. Other stores followed, including butcher shops serving halal meat for Muslims, sweet shops, Bengali fish shops and grocery stores. By 1990 there were more than 150 Indian owned stores between California and Western Avenues.

Devon Avenue became a shopping mecca for the entire Midwest. Shoppers needed places to eat, and the first Indian restaurant on the street was Standard India opened by the Kamboj family in 1983. It later moved to Belmont Avenue but closed in 2014 following the death of the owner. Many more restaurants opened serving both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. The various elements of the city’s South Asian communities are reflected in its honorary street names: sections are named after Sheikh Mujib, after the founder of Bangladesh Mohammed Ali Jinnah Way, after the founder of Pakistan, and Gandhi Marg after the great Indian Independence leader

However, in recent years business has dropped off as more South Asians have moved outside the city and Indian grocery stores can now be found in these surrounding suburbs.

A category of restaurants popularly called dhabas can be found throughout Chicago – small establishments are popular among taxi drivers from the Subcontinent and Africa as well as students. The menus, featuring kebabs and other meat dishes, are posted on whiteboards. Many of the owners and clientele are Muslim and some dhabas have prayer areas or small mosques. Meanwhile, restaurants serving what is called “progressive Indian cuisine”, such as Rooh, 735 W.Randolph, are introducing Chicago diners to new dimensions of South Asian food.

Colleen Taylor Sen is a Chicago-based author and culinary historian focusing on the food of the Indian Subcontinent. One of her seven books, Feasts and Fasts: A History of Food in India was selected as one of the best food books of the year by Vogue and The Smithsonian Magazine and called one of the essential books on Indian food by Madhur Jaffrey. She is currently working on The Companion of Indian Food.

Chandra Gooneratne

who served in the American army in Calcutta during World War II. House of India‘s menu and décor were aimed at a Western audience.

a deep-rooted restaurant culture until after gaining Independence in 1947, and the first restaurants were opened by refugees from the state of Punjab when it was divided between India and Pakistan.

By Donna Battle Pierce

When her ADate With A Dish cookbook was first published, Freda DeKnight proudly referred to the carefully curated recipes as “By Us and For Us.” This strong declaration began in 1948 during the Jim Crow era, more than fourdecades before FUBU co-founders, Carl Brown and Daymond John, applied the “For Us By Us” acronym to their FUBU sportswear line.

DeKnight was born during my grandmother’s time. Now, two generations later, as I’ve earned the status of one of my family’s elders, the 426page classic book has also earned a special place of honor in my small condo kitchen, reminding me of the importance nuance plays when it comes to DeKnight’s cultural perception, testing and tasting of the traditional passed-down cultural recipes such as my family’s favorite

I only rave about the 1948 edition because it is the only edition with DeKnight’s copyright and the only edition which includes the very personal chapter identifying and quoting a national collection of Black cooks with storytelling and memories that other cultural cooks, culinary historians, students and myself find inspirational and deeply meaningful.

In 1962 and 1973 when Ebony published a revised version of DeKnight’s book with The Ebony Cookbook by Freda DeKnight added to the cover and Johnson Publishing Company listed as the copyright holder, they “removed much of the personal narratives that makes the first book such a pleasure to read,” Doris Witt wrote in her From Fiction to Foodways: Working at the Intersections of African AmericanLiterary and Culinary Studies, included inthe collection of essays published bythe University of Illinois Press and edited by Anne L. Bower.

“In a fashion parallel to what Susan Leonardi has demonstrated happened to The Joy of Cooking over the years…

My heart remains with de Knight,” Witt added, comparing the A Date With A Dish series of editions with the seven editions of Joy of Cooking

And yes, based on Witt’s “de Knight” surname style plus Freda’s use of a separate De Knight in her 1948 copyrighted book; Freda DeKnight appearing with Ebony’s subsequent book copyrights and magazine columns and Freda De Knight appearing under her photo on a Carnation brochure describing her as a home economist, a cook and a writer and what the sports writers would call a triple threat, the question arises:

How should we capitalize and space her surname?

For my part, following much personal deliberation based on the fact—no secret among friends and colleagues— that the first printing only, not the other two, finishes first as my all-time favorite cookbook. Still, I chose not to follow the first edition’s author style in my writing, instead choosing to capitalize and space DeKnight’s last name the way I discovered her handwritten signature in a first edition copy following this note: “May each ‘Dish’ be a ‘Date’ you’ll be proud of.” This is also the capitalization and spacing used by husband and pianist,

banana bread and a gumbo recipe made with tomatoes that only comes in second place to Granny’s version.

“Freda DeKnight was one of the first who brought international attention to AfricanAmerican food. ... She was a trailblazer,” author and educator Jessica Harris stated several years ago after she offered advice about overcoming research progress with my DeKnight bio plan. “It takes a trailblazer to know one,” I answered back quickly before asking her opinion about an historic topic that puzzled me from her High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America. The author of a dozen books which focus on our cultural foodways answered back just as quickly, repeating encouraging words about my own project.

white employers borrow or steal. This sentence appeared in the preface of all three editions:

“It is a fallacy, long disproved, that Negro cooks, chefs, caterers and home makers can adapt themselves only to the standard Southern dishes….

Like other Americans living in various sections of the country, they have naturally shown a desire to become versatile in the preparation of any dish.”

Sherrie A. Inness (1965-2014) a white Wellesley graduate who received a BA, MA and Ph.D from the University of California, San Diego before her death from Huntington’s disease in 2014, offered this respectful observation about the unfair and cruel racial practices DeKnight quietly challenged with her gracefully precise “By Us For Us” stance against negative racial stereotypes:

Transcending these stereotypes was quite the lofty goal in 1948; Ebonyhad existed only three years, and while it gave African-Americans a place to take pride in their culture, the country was still ensconced in both the institutionalized racism of Jim Crow laws in the South and tacit discrimination all over the country.

1948 saw President Truman submit a civil rights plan to Congress, but public schools would not be desegregated until seven years later. Yet DeKnight’s efforts helped people across the country…. In addition by writing cookbooks specifically addressed to other Blacks and aimed at preserving African and African-American food traditions, authors show that Black women cook because they want to nurture Blacks not whites…

Rene DeKnight (1913 – 2004) who became an arranger/conductor for the 5th Dimension following Freda DeKnight’s 1963 death from cancer.

When I began pitching stories about DeKnight’s incredible cultural culinary contributions in 2012, most national publications replied with “not enough readership interest,” which I understood translated to “not enough white readership interest.” After moving from national to regional pitches, the first acceptance came from the vibrant Ann Arbor Culinary Historians for their Spring 2013 issue of Repast.

Four years later, New York editor and writer Dan Piepenbring, writing in the February 27, 2017 Daily Paris Review, linked to my recently posted NPR article before chastising the “culture for failing to canonize DeKnight for her amazing contributions.” Piepenbring wrote:

Freda DeKnight, a prominent black editor, writer, and cook whose midcentury fame has now completely evaporated.

Donna Battle Pierce explains, “Born in 1909, DeKnight spent much of her fifty-four years collecting, protecting and celebrating African-American culture and traditions in the years after World War II up to the civil rights movement. Yet her name has been all but forgotten—she doesn’t even have that most basic of 21st century acknowledgements, a Wikipedia page … As the first food editor forEbony magazine, DeKnight wrote a photo-driven monthly column that offered her home economist’s tips, as well as regional recipes from the “Negro community” of home cooks, professional chefs, caterers, restaurateurs and celebrities … DeKnight presented a more nuanced and often glamorous image of African-American cooking and culture—not just to African-American readers, but to the broader world.”

Both of my elegant grandmothers, Leana Peters Battle and Juanita Davis Williams (Gran and Granny), who were frequently described as “Gulf Coast clubwomen” during the mid-20th century, did not favor cookbooks. Gran employed a daily cook in her Mobile, Alabama, Cedar Avenue home. But both grandmothers knew DeKnight and considered her well-written recipe collection with culturally representative dishes and respectful stories about family cooks from the “Talented Tenth” very worthwhile, referring to the references made by W.E.B. DuBois

about leadership coming from the educated and talented ten percent of our race in America.

My grandmothers described me as being very polite when they introduced me in person to DeKnight following a late1950s Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs meeting. This compliment didn’t refresh my memory…but no problem. I met Freda DeKnight through reading Ebony, the first edition of A Date With a Dish and newspaper stories, where in photos Mom and I clipped, the beautiful food editor and fashion contributor who staged the first Ebony Fashion Fair, is pictured with presidents, including Nixon and Kennedy.

And then, when I studied the details about DeKnight’s Midwestern youth spent in Kansas, South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota, her age didn’t matter; I identified completely with how my mother used to refer to me: “a child of integration.” One reference identifies DeKnight’s birth year as 1909, the same year my Mobile, Alabama grandmother was born. But her date of birth varies among listings, which I understand completely. I also grew up during the Jim Crow era, and I recall my mother’s stern reminder that as I grew into a talented Black woman overcoming obstacles, “your age as a means of denying one more step up, is no one’s business.”

And as a “daughter of integration” DeKnight included this observation, encouraging giving credit when sharing cultural culinary features instead of letting

As a Baby Boomer, my life changed after my 1970s college instructor, poet Mari Evans, began rigorously introducing me to the Black history facts that had been left out of my white textbooks in classrooms I integrated before challenging me to learn about amazing people, deeds and literature from my own culture.

It was an awakening and a beginning. And so were the rutabagas Evans brought from home to eat for lunch in her classroom, describing them as “yellow turnips,” for which two recipes—steamed and mashed—appear in all three editions of the book.

Freda’s legacy reminds us to keep dishing cultural traditions: By Us For Us.

Stephan

native Bavarian with a Huguenot (French Calvinist) name and a German accent that he can’t seem to shake, but likes to think of as close to what the German-born founder of American Anthropology, Franz Boas, might have sounded like. He is the Norman and Edna Freehling Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, works on Afro-Cuban ritual traditions, is the author and editor of a bunch of books, and likes to think with food, preferably stews.

Evan Williams is a poet and essayist from the cornfields of the Midwest, studying at the University of Chicago. His writing focuses on, among other things, environmental literature, forms of autobiography, and food. He’s delighted and honored to have shared in the Clarion’s journey.

All of the lettering in the Chicago FoodCultura

This

Clarion Issue 4 has been hand-painted by Chuck Willmarth of Southwest Signs.

issue of the Clarion was made possible by a generous Lichtstern subvention from the University of Chicago’s Anthropology Department. Our thanks go to it’s present chair Joe Masco and Sue Gal, the chair of the Lichtstern Committee in 2020-21.