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THIS WEEK

04 Sula | Food gi guide A senior staﬀ writer’s recommendations for holiday shopping 04 Reader Bites Nutella souﬄe pancakes at Hanabusa Cafe

& POLITICS

06 Schools Chicago’s ﬁrst school board election brought diverse perspectives to the table.

COMMENTARY

08 Isaacs | On Culture The Mitchell Museum changes its name to Gichigamiin Indigenous Nations Museum.

09 Opinion The seeds of the MAGA movement sown across Chicago

10 The 2024 Reader Gi Guide Skip the holiday shopping stress with handpicked local gi ideas from the Reader staﬀ. ARTS & CULTURE

14 Cra Work Meet leather artisan Amir Badri.

16 Books A bold, bawdy debut from local author Vera Blossom

THEATER

18 Plays of Note A Christmas Carol at the Goodman and Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! at Young People’s Theatre of Chicago

19 Caporale | Feature The enduring truths of “My Weekend as a 28-year-old in Chicago”

20 Moviegoer Crime and punishment

21 Movies of Note Hulu’s new series Interior Chinatown takes an ambitious approach to satirizing racism and police procedurals; Spellbound tries to Disney-fy painful family drama with limited success.

MUSIC

& NIGHTLIFE

22 City of Win East-side rapper Asha Omega wants to remind you of your power.

24 Shows of Note Previews of concerts including Blood Incantation, Billy Woods & Kenny Segal, Abby Sage, and Robert Glasper

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Reader Letters m

Re: “Closed Sessions celebrates underground rap and itself,” written by Mark Braboy and published in our November 21 issue (volume 54, number eight)

Dope article. Wasn’t familiar with Closed Sessions as a label but I have deﬁnitely been up on their artists/collaborators for some time now. Watched every video available on YouTube last night a er reading this and now I’m salty that I missed the set in Avondale last month. —Olympos Mons, via Facebook

Re: “Renter’s rights,” written by Layla Brown-Clark and published in our November 21 issue

Thanks for sharing! The only thing I didn’t see listed was the date that landlords are required to turn the heat on in their buildings. —Alexandria Granados, via LinkedIn

The Reader replies: Thanks for reading! In the City of Chicago, the heat ordinance applies from September 15 until June 1. See the Department of Buildings page at chicago.gov for more information. —Salem Collo-Julin

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The Chicago Reader accepts comments and letters to the editor of less than 400 words for publication consideration. m letters@chicagoreader.com

IEDITOR’S NOTE

t’s beginning to look a lot like the holidaze, and while we still have a few weeks of work left to close out 2024, our hearts and minds are looking toward social gatherings, cozy nights in, and an avalanche of kindness and gratitude—which plays out, for many of us, in the form of gift giving.

Our staff has compiled a list of favorites for this year’s Reader Gift Guide, where you’ll ﬁnd a bit of everything: locally designed lapel pins, a list of Chicago-related books, . . . a compost club? Yes, it’s the kind of list you will probably only ﬁ nd at the Reader , where we prefer the local over the mass-produced, and the slightly askew rather than the expected.

If you’re trying to give to the clutter-phobic, our guide also includes recommendations for experiences (bring them to a tattoo studio or a tarot reading) and, for the altruistic and those who want to give more, there’s a list of worthy charities that need your dollars and time this year. The guide starts on page ten, please enjoy!

We also bring you an update on the ongoing school board saga, a commentary on the roots

of MAGA in Chicago’s suburbs, and (thankfully) theater, visual art, books, ﬁlm, and music coverage. There’s also a special guide for the foodies among us from writer Mike Sula, culture writing from Deanna Isaacs, and more. For every moment of uncertainty blasting out to you from cable news these days, please take time to learn about Judd Crud, Asha Omega, and the rest of Chicago’s culture makers who keep on keeping on.

This time of year can be smarmy, trite, ridiculous, or just plain depressing depending on where you stand, but we at the Reader are energized by the good work that Chicagoans continue to collaborate on despite whatever grinches might be looming on the horizon. We cherish our city, and we’re excited that you, our readers, love it too. Let’s continue to reach out our hands to each other and lift up those who need it; sometimes we’re all we have, and, sometimes, we’re all we need. v

—Salem Collo-Julin, editor in chief m scollojulin@chicagoreader.com

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FOOD & DRINK

MGifts for foodlums

By MIKE SULA

ost of the time, the default organizing principle of my kitchen can be compared to the aftermath of a condiment cyclone.

Counters, drawers, shelves, the refrigerator-freezer, and the second fridge (the back porch) spill over with brightly labeled jars, bottles, and tins—the idiosyncratic, shelf-stable output of local cottage industrialists.

But it’s usually at its peak disorder right about now, when makers are pushing their guerilla consumer packaged goods ahead of the holidays.

I sent a few of these things over to the Reader ’s general holiday gift guide (see p. 10), but my cupboards so runneth over that it only made sense to carry on here in the food section with many of the delightful, edible, potable, and educational wares I wouldn’t mind receiving myself, if they weren’t already blocking my path to the milk and cereal. First, to whet the munchies: no one disputes the healing properties of J.P. Graziano giardiniera, but add to it a healthy dose of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and you have a

curative condiment for the stoned age. The venerable Italian grocer joined forces with nuEra dispensaries to infuse two-ounce jars of the classic hot giard with around 25 mg of pure THC concentrate, which by my reckoning is enough to medicate two Mr. Gs. You can’t get it on Randolph Street (or at Fixin’ Franks), but only at nuEra and selected other Illinois dispensaries. $14, nueracannabis.com

Don’t come at me, but I think it’d play nicely with the kua mee from Laos to Your House Chicago’s only Lao restaurant (and a Foodball pop-up favorite) has fully pivoted to packaged Lao meals, shippable nationwide, like those caramelized rice noodles; or sai oua sausage; or thom khem, braised pork belly stew; and ten

Find more one-of-a-kind Chicago food and drink content at

other classic Lao dishes, each at around $14 apiece. laostoyourhouse.com

Crust Fund Pizza boss John Carruthers is out with his second spiral-bound volume of community pizzaology, Super Pizza World, featuring recipes by the likes of Mike Satinover, Dennis Lee, Josh Kulp, and Derrick Tung. Proﬁts beneﬁt a range of charities like the Friendship Center; My Block, My Hood, My City; Dignity Diner; and Billy Zureikat’s ongoing Muscular Dystrophy Association campaign. It’s on sale now at Buddy in the Chicago Cultural Center. $40, hi-buddy.org

Dissident baker Jim Franks has penned Existential Bread, an anti-cookbook based on the principle that you don’t need books to learn how to bake. Written in free verse, it’s endearing

and axiomatic, sensible and radical. You can preorder a copy from Drag City. $21, dragcity. com

I was perusing pickles from Vargo Brother Ferments when I learned that Taylor Hanna and Sebastian Vargo also have a publishing arm, most recently putting out the short zine A Quick Guide to Canning and Fermentation . It’s free. vargobrotherferments.com

Speaking of dank ferments, condiments, and sauces, you can ﬁnd tons of locally made foodstu s from folks like Vargo, Co-op Sauce, and Pink Salt at Here Here Market, which also bundles themed gift packages like the Hatchery Greatest Hits, composed of products born and brought to market at the Garfield Park’s not-for-profit food incubator, like Carolyn’s Cheddar Krisps, lemon mint sencha tea from Steepers Only, and a Blue Sunday alcohol infusion kit from Aged & Infused. $85, hereheremarket.com

Evanston’s El Molcajete Sauces makes an array of sauces based on the seven great moles of Oaxaca, including mole verde, mole rojo, and the rare and elusive mole blanco. A

L: J.P. Graziano and nuEra’s GiardinuEra R: Good Trouble bourbon

PAGE & PLATE/GOOD TROUBLE

GIFT GUIDE

A senior staﬀ writer’s recommendations for holiday shopping

JASJYOT SINGH HANS FOR THE CHICAGO READER

FOOD & DRINK

The last time I had Nutella souffle pancakes, I was in the middle of London during my junior year of undergrad. I taste tested them at Westfield Stratford’s Fuwa Fuwa Dessert Cafe with a few of my visiting Eastern European friends.

I found out two years later that I could have this same experience at Hanabusa Cafe in Chicago, one of the few gems in the city that sells the popular Japanese sou e pancake.

came up with a recipe for these pancakes that ended up becoming a big trend in Japan. And, as in London, I found myself ordering their take on Nutella sou e pancakes at Hanabusa Cafe.

Garnished in powdered sugar, drenched in a large amount of Nutella and whipped cream, and topped with nuts, the pancakes achieve the perfect balance between the chocolatey and sugary sweetness of the toppings and the savory and airy texture of the pancakes. They’re as close as you could get to eating a cloud. For me, the pancakes not only bring back good memories of friends in London, but they’re also the perfect way to satisfy my sweet tooth. —LAYLA BROWNCLARK HANABUSA CAFE

Originally a Hawai’ian dish that struck popularity after arriving on Japanese soil, these pancakes were created in a restaurant in Waikīkī. Chef Nathan Tran, who was not a fan of pancakes but was a fan of sou es,

set of ﬁve goes for $65. elmolcajetesauces.com

Meanwhile, Rick Bayless is pushing a mole rojo dinner kit with a live online cooking class on February 1 for $149.95 goldbelly.com

Wulong baron Annie Xiang of Volition Tea has reprised her collaboration with chocolatier Sugoi Sweets, resulting in a quartet of chá-infused chocolate bars like Big Red Robe wulong dark chocolate and chamomile and cocoa butter. $11, volitiontea.com

Former Denver restaurateur Kendra Anderson brought her love of ﬁne ﬁsh eggs to Chicago and launched Caviar Dream with the aim of making these luxe aquatic ova accessible to all. Seven varieties, from Hackleback to Imperial Osetra, start at $55 for a one-ounce tin to $135, respectively. caviardream.co

In last year’s gift guide, I wrote about the exquisite bottled Hoste Cocktails from former Violet Hour head bartender Robby Haynes. It would be malpractice not to recommend the new 2024 Gold Fashioned, batched with nine-year Kentucky “Hazmat Bourbon,” aged in Oloroso sherry casks; ten-

and six-year Indiana rye; sa ron bitters, with an orange zest atomizer for the ﬁnish. $300, hostecocktails.com

Meanwhile, entrepreneur Dee M. Robinson has joined the growing number of local Black craft distillers with the limited release of four-year-old, 92-proof Good Trouble bourbon. Unpopular opinion: I find most new craft whiskey brands disappointing. Not this one. It’s extraordinarily smooth and multilayered, with waves of caramel, honey, and baking spice washing over the palate. Twenty-five cents from each $73 bottle benefits the Shine Your Light Foundation. goodtroublebourbon.com

Already well established among those ranks is Uduimoh Umolu, whose Jon Basíl blanco and reposado tequilas are widely distributed on liquor store shelves. Now comes his 18month oak-aged añejo, which leaps from the glass with a big vanilla nose and sticks around with a long, lingering caramel ﬁnish. $59.9964.99, jonbasiltequila.com v

29 E. Madison, Suite 180, $16, 312-584-0455, hanabusacafechicago.com v

Reader Bites celebrates dishes, drinks, and atmospheres from the Chicagoland food scene. Have you had a recent food or drink experience that you can’t stop thinking about? Share it with us at fooddrink@ chicagoreader.com.

Super Pizza World cookbook JOHN CARRUTHERS

Nutella souﬄe pancakes at Hanabusa Cafe

NEWS & POLITICS

SCHOOLS

Not bad for a ﬁrst try

Chicago’s ﬁrst school board election brings high turnout and diverse perspectives.

By MAUREEN KELLEHER

Aparent, parent leader, and community representative on Back of the Yards College Prep’s Local School Council, Consuelo Martinez de Ferrer knows a lot about Chicago’s public schools. Like many others who closely watched the city’s recent school board elections, she sees the results as a mixed bag. Speaking in Spanish, she described the results as “un poco bien,” or kind of good, citing high turnout and voters’ persistence through the ballot.

But she and many others are disappointed that the first-ever election didn’t bring ordinary parents like her into board seats. Although four parents of current students won seats, three of them were supported by moneyed interest groups and one is a former Chicago Public Schools (CPS) principal.

“As the mother of a girl with a disability, I would like there to be seats for parents who know how the day-to-day is in the schools and what the system should do to improve children’s classroom experiences,” she said.

Candidate Adam Parrott-Sheffer, who lost his bid for the District 10 seat, agrees that this election didn’t deliver true grassroots governance. “If the goal of this was to have the folks closest to our schools have greater voice . . . there’s work to do.”

For ordinary parents wanting to run for school board, this inaugural election involved some big obstacles. First came the 1,000- signature requirement to get on the ballot. (For comparison, someone running for City Council only needs to gather 473 signatures.) Then those signatures had to survive the arcane challenge process, which experienced Illinois politicos have long used to ice out rivals. Finally, running a successful campaign proved to be expensive. A recent analysis by Kids First Chicago, a parent advocacy group, showed that the school board election winners spent at least $50,000 on their campaigns.

These realities, plus campaign mudslinging and misinformation, suggest that disillusioned voters could have chosen to skip voting

appointments to join the elected members to be seated in January.

Although December 16 is the deadline to announce those appointments, the mayor’s o ce has already told WBEZ that he would like the six remaining members of the current interim board to stay on. Based on the election results, they could. Five of the six live on opposite sides of the district from elected members, which allows them to be appointed under the state law that created the transition process to a fully elected board. The sixth current board member, vice president Mary Russell Gardner, could stay on if Mayor Johnson appoints her to the board presidency, since the board president can live anywhere in the city.

Speculation about who the remaining five appointments might be has centered on three CTU-backed candidates who lost their races, but Kids First Chicago and allied community groups are asking the mayor to appoint more parents and more people from racial and ethnic groups representative of the CPS student body.

“We should have more Latino parents on the board, more Black parents, at least one Asian parent,” observed Martinez de Ferrer, who also serves on the Kids First Elected School Board Task Force.

in these races. Remarkably, they didn’t. An impressive number of Chicagoans voted in the school board election: about 78 percent of those who cast ballots on November 5 chose a candidate in school board races, more than the share who voted in all but one of the judicial races. Also, the results did not produce a clear victory for any one interest group. The winners included four Chicago Teachers Union–endorsed candidates, three school-choice supporters backed by groups opposed to the CTU, and three independent candidates.

INTERIM SCHOOL BOARD STUMBLES, YET THEY MAY STAY ON

Meanwhile, Mayor Johnson’s interim board, appointed on October 24, has struggled to find its footing. Board President Mitchell L. Ikenna Johnson resigned at the end of his first week in o ce after o ensive social media posts of his resurfaced. So far his seat has yet to be filled. It seems unlikely Mayor Johnson will fill the vacancy until he announces his full slate of

Regardless of who Johnson chooses, his 11 appointees plus the four CTU-backed elected board members theoretically equal a supermajority on the incoming board for the mayor and his close union ally. But in practice, matters may be more complicated. “Even if there is a majority interest, it’s going to be harder to get there than anybody can assume at this point,” District 2 winner Ebony DeBerry, who was endorsed by the teachers union, told WBEZ’s Reset.

Meanwhile, the interim board has yet to move on two closely watched mayoral priorities: approving a $300 million short-term loan to help plug this year’s budget deﬁcit and removing CPS CEO Pedro Martinez from his position. Both proposals are politically unpopular with both the City Council and many ordinary Chicagoans, including CPS parents like Martinez de Ferrer.

While talk of taking out the $300 million loan has receded due to political pushback, the e ort to ﬁre Martinez may still be underway. The board called a special meeting on November 14 that included a long closed session to discuss personnel matters. Four days later, union president Stacy Davis Gates sent Mayor Johnson a letter accusing Martinez of “slow-walking” negotiations and urging the mayor to “direct” the board to take “bold

A Brentano Math & Science Academy student reads the graphic novel All Is Nat Lost on November 20, 2024. COURTESY CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

action” to settle the contract. The board is not scheduled to meet again until December 4, when it will set the agenda for its regular meeting on December 12. But it could call a special meeting any time, as it has already done.

All this comes on top of the appointment of a neutral fact ﬁnder who will evaluate the district’s ﬁnances and analyze how they would be a ected by the contract proposals now in talks. This is one step toward a teacher strike, but the process to approve a strike would take until February at the soonest.

COULD BETTER TRAINING AND A NEW VISION FOR GOVERNANCE

HELP? MAYBE.

How successfully the incoming mix of elected and appointed school board members could navigate these choppy waters come January depends in part on the quality of training they receive. Angel Gutierrez, newly elected board member for District 8, wants to see the board focus on big-picture governance and a carefully chosen set of priorities. “We need to be doing strategy,” he said. “I want us to focus on ﬁve big things,” and rattled o four on his mind already: finances, academics, special education, and facilities.

District 3 board member Carlos Rivas got a taste of what high-quality board training could look like by participating in the ﬁrst Academy for Local Leadership (ALL) cohort at National Louis University, a new program created to help ordinary Chicagoans prepare to serve as education leaders, including as school board members. Rivas was among the first ALL fellows to win a school board seat. “It wasn’t focused so much on the politics of running but much more on the politics of governing.”

“I learned it’s really about how to build consensus among the 21 members,” Rivas said. “For the school board, it’s thinking about what’s good for the whole district, not just for the schools I represent.” This is especially important because CPS families send their children to schools all over the city, especially when they reach high school.

Bridget Lee, who leads the ALL program, expressed cautious optimism about the elected members and the future of the fledgling board. “I have a good feeling about the people going in,” she said. “I’m just hopeful they’re able to focus on their responsibilities, not on rhetoric that happens when you’re campaigning but doesn’t need to be carried over into governing.”

She’s also hopeful that the new board can shift its work away from a traditional scope of approving staff decisions and managing for legal compliance toward a more strategic vision for school improvement. “Historically, the board spent most of its time talking about how things are being managed. There was not a lot of time for talking about young people and their experiences,” she noted. “But this board can change that.”

IMPROVING THE CAMPAIGN PROCESS

While the political and financial drama surrounding the school district continues to unfold, grassroots parents and community leaders are already analyzing how to improve the campaign and electoral processes to give ordinary people, especially parents, greater representation.

The biggest challenge on the table—as it is for all U.S. elections—is how to reduce the inﬂuence of money in the school board races and ensure less-resourced candidates have a fair shot at becoming known to the public. In

the Citizens United case makes it impossible to limit the spending of independent groups, or “super PACs,” which accounted for about $4 million of the money spent to inﬂuence voters’ support of school board candidates.

On November 23, the progressive organizing group the People’s Lobby hosted a town hall on reforming Chicago’s municipal elections by creating a public fund to match small-dollar contributions to grassroots candidates. Already, 26 cities and 14 states have adopted variations of this idea. “Some kind of public finance match would be helpful in leveling the playing field,” said Grace Chan McKibben, executive director of the Coalition for a Better Chinese Community and former communications director with Common Cause Illinois, a leader in the fight for fair elections. “I know that it’s going to be an uphill battle. We’re already not balancing the [city] budget. Asking for something like a campaign finance fund would be di cult, but we think it’s important.”

It is possible that two other problems—the petition signature challenge process and incorrect ballots handed out in precincts split between school board districts—combined to deny

mid-November, Chalkbeat Chicago reported that more than $9 million was spent on the school board races, including independent expenditures by interest groups that did not coordinate directly with candidates’ campaigns.

At a late October press conference, northwest-side state senator Robert Martwick and other state lawmakers pledged to limit future campaign spending, but exactly how that would happen remains to be worked out. Kids First Chicago has advocated for strict spending limits, but the Supreme Court’s decision in

Then, on Election Day, a number of voters in District 10 were given ballots listing school board candidates for the adjacent Districts 9 and 6—not for 10. This happened most frequently in precincts that were split between school board districts. Norington-Reaves and her lawyer are continuing to investigate what happened.

“I find all this so disheartening. Somebody who should not have been on the ballot won,” said Norington-Reaves. “It’s a hot mess, and you can’t rectify this except by a special election, which I know they won’t do. The most important thing is that these things get remedied so this doesn’t happen again.” The final election results, which were to be certified by the Chicago Board of Elections as this article went to press, showed Smith winning the fourway race with 25,922 votes, or 32.21 percent, and Norington-Reaves coming in second, with 23,543 votes, or 29.25 percent.

In an interview, fellow District 10 candidate Parrott-Sheffer suggested technology could be used to verify signatures and eliminate the challenge process. Norington-Reaves suggested color-coding ballots in precincts where more than one school board race is in play.

LOCAL SCHOOLS NEED YOU NOW MORE THAN EVER

Just because the school board election is over doesn’t mean it’s time for Chicagoans to take a step back from their local schools. The national election results could have implications for CPS, even though the federal role in education is quite small. For example, president-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promise to deport millions of undocumented immigrants nationally could potentially a ect thousands of CPS students and families. “When the world is going to shit, the most important things to do are the most local,” said Parrott-She er.

candidate Karin Norington-Reaves a victory in District 10. In mid-August, candidates Robert Jones and Che “Rhymefest” Smith dropped their petition signature challenges against each other. Norington-Reaves said the mutual agreement to drop the challenges occurred when both Jones and Smith were found to have slightly less than 1,000 valid signatures. With the challenges dropped, both could stay on the ballot despite failing to meet the valid signature requirement. Norington-Reaves said her signatures were also challenged, but she successfully defended them.

That could mean ﬁlling a vacancy on a Local School Council. “I think it’s always a good time to get involved with your Local School Council,” said Bridget Lee. “People being more invested in democracy and more civic-minded could be a way to prepare ourselves to organize and build coalitions” to defend against federal e orts to undermine Chicago.

“The interests of the students must be protected,” said Martinez de Ferrer. “And who better [to do that] than parents and teachers who have been close to classrooms and know what students really need.” v m

A participant at a March 9, 2024 town hall organized by Kids First Chicago COURTESY KIDS FIRST CHICAGO

COMMENTARY

ON CULTURE

Goodbye Mitchell, hello Gichigamiin

A museum rebrand signals deeper change.

By DEANNA ISAACS

As we gather for yet another holiday putting a mythical glow on the land grab— er, origins—of America, it’s encouraging to know that sometimes, in however minor a way, things can actually get better. Case in point: Evanston’s small but worthy Mitchell Museum has a new name.

According to exhibit wall text, it was the middle school graduation gift of a Native American rug that launched a non–Native American—longtime Evanston resident and real estate executive John M. Mitchell—on a collecting path that led to the founding of the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian in 1977.

The wall text doesn’t mention that, as the Chicago Tribune hasreported, the graduation gift included a tomahawk.

Mitchell’s collection was initially donated to and housed at Kendall College, then on Orrington Avenue in Evanston. In 1997, the museum moved into the former home of the Terra Museum of American Art on Central Street, and in 2006 it split from the college and became an independent nonproﬁt organization.

John Mitchell died in 1985, but his name remained on the museum until last week, when a rebranding was announced. Outside signage might not have caught up yet, but, as of November 21, the Mitchell is to be known as the Gichigamiin Indigenous Nations Museum.

Museum director Kim Vigue says the new name reflects a shift in focus. Gichigamiin (pronounced Gi-che-gah-mean) is “Great Lakes” in the Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe) language. Going forward, the museum’s permanent exhibits will be more speciﬁcally focused than they have been on the Indigenous people of Chicago and the Great Lakes region.

“It doesn’t mean we won’t cover all of the tribes,” Vigue says. “We have a really diverse community here in Chicago, so they’ll still be represented. It’ll just look different than it does now, highlighting the local and regional

community.” Part of what drove that decision, which involved a lot of community input, she says, is that “Native communities in the Great Lakes are often overlooked, and that people who come to the museum, especially teachers, want information about this region.”

Vigue, who grew up in Wisconsin and spent a couple decades working on tribal a airs in Washington, D.C., is Menominee and Oneida. She says the name change also reflects the fact that, since 2022, for the first time in its history, the museum has a majority-Native American sta and board. She arrived in the fall of 2021 and is its first “permanent” Native American director.

The Great Lakes region is home to one of the largest Native populations in the country. “Native Americans are usually undercounted, so it’s hard to say exactly how many are here,” Vigue says, but “a number I’ve seen for the greater Chicago area is about 65,000. And the Chicago community is really diverse—there are about 150 tribes represented.”

GICHIGAMIIN INDIGENOUS NATIONS MUSEUM

Mon-Sat 10 AM- 5 PM (closed Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day); 3001 Central, Evanston, 847- 475 - 0911, gichigamiin-museum.org, $ 8 adults ( 18 - 59), $ 6 seniors (60 and up), youth (3-17 ), and students/teachers/professors with ID, free for tribal citizens and children under 3.

She says that the first time she visited the museum, years before she joined the sta , “I didn’t see a single face of a living Native person on the walls or in the exhibits. Everything was in the past tense—all the artifacts and objects. That really bothered me. So when I took the job here one of the first things I said was, ‘We need to flip this.’”

“It’s been a long process, and we’re nowhere near where we want to be, but we want to make sure that whoever comes here knows that Native people still exist and contribute to society.” Many Native Americans are thriving, Vigue says, but erasure and invisibility are major issues: “Kids will say—‘Oh, all Native

people are dead,’ or ‘They’re extinct.’ We still hear that on a regular basis.”

Last week a congressional committee held a hearing on the worst kind of invisibility: the disproportionate number of missing and murdered Indigenous women and the lack of ocial response to their disappearance. Among the statistics cited: the murder rate for Native women and girls is more than ten times higher than the national average.

The upper ﬂoor of the Gichigamiin Museum currently hosts a traveling exhibit on this subject—“No Rest: The Epidemic of Stolen Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2Spirits.” Featuring 35 original works by a dozen Indigenous

artists and part of a grassroots movement (MMIWG2S), its primary image is a bloody hand, often across a mouth. It’s there through December 30.

On a happier note, Gichigamiin will host an artists’ market on Saturday, November 30, o ering free admission to the museum and a chance to purchase goods by Native American artists and entrepreneurs. And, in what Vigue calls a “full-circle” event, the Terra Foundation is funding an exhibit of contemporary Native American art that will open January 27 for a yearlong run in the upper-level galleries. v m disaacs@chicagoreader.com

Resilience: Honoring Those Lost, Those Murdered, and Those Who Still Search by Dante Biss-Grayson, included in “No Rest: The Epidemic of Stolen Indigenous Women, Girls, & 2Spirits,” curated by the Institute for American Indian Studies and now at Gichigamiin Indigenous Nations Museum in Evanston

Chicago’s right-wing roots

Even in one of the country’s bluest metro areas, the potent seeds of Trump’s MAGA movement are scattered about.

By JOHN WILMES

You may have heard of Nick Fuentes recently. A longtime character in the extended Manoverse of the Internet, he is especially shrill, sanctimonious, and vile in his approach to the purported problem of what ails the modern man. On election night, as the majority of votes went Donald Trump’s way, Fuentes introduced himself to his largest audience yet by tweeting: “Your body, my choice. Forever.” He was subsequently doxxed and revealed to be a resident of the near west Chicago suburb of Berwyn. In the following week, angry visitors went to his home, and one of them was met by Fuentes with a bottle of pepper spray in hand.

There is much to chew on here, but when looking at the viral photo of this encounter, you may have an especially local thought: “Damn, that is a very Chicago doorway.” A brown brick three-flat with a wooden entry, built before most readers were born, it is the kind of home that Al Capone would’ve been familiar with during his Cicero years. Much of this cluster of suburbia looks this way: so midcentury provincial that one wonders how much of the area has even digested the political developments of the 1960s. Maybe that understanding could have occurred if the country had taken a more bountiful, inclusive turn over the past half-century, but instead, deindustrialization, deregulation, and hyperﬁnancialization have alienated society from itself.

If you’ve grown up in broader Chicagoland, like myself or Fuentes (who’s from nearby La Grange and graduated from the same high school as my father), it shouldn’t be terribly surprising that potent seeds of the MAGA movement are scattered about—even in one of the country’s bluest metro areas. Throughout the western suburbs, which stretch from Cook County into DuPage, there is a vision of suburban idyll often found in digital “trad” culture. Here, you can easily imagine suffering housewives managing the largesse of their two-faced husbands, who wine and dine downtown before feigning nobility back at home—standard Mad Men stu .

To be sure, the architecture and civic planning of Chicago’s western suburbs are beautiful and not by accident. In the 1950s, the U.S. was riding high after the defeat of European fascism and the conquest of international business, and visionaries around the nation were still emboldened by the vast creative subsidies of Roosevelt’s New Deal. Hang around the area where Fuentes grew up and you’ll be struck by the fruits of this 20th-century moment. Riverside, one of the first ever planned suburbs, imagined by Frederick Law Olmsted in the 1860s after he sculpted New York City’s Central Park, completed its development process during the baby boom of the 1950s and remains one of the country’s most exquisitely quaint villages.

Another Chicagoland right-wing inﬂuencer, Charlie Kirk, is more savvy about the powerful arbitrage he enacts. Kirk is from Prospect Heights, a northwest hamlet for the city’s swollest late-capitalist players with its country clubs and golf courses. When I was part of a wedding party at one of these bourgeois event halls a decade ago, a group of wealthy men told us that the groom was about to ruin his life. They cackled with menace as they o ered this unsolicited nonwisdom. Their perspective would be welcome in the comment section of any video made by Kirk—who, after hacking his way into the busted U.S. media system as a high schooler by alleging liberal bias in public classrooms, went on to drop out of college to focus on his successful think tank, Turning Point USA.

only place in Chicagoland—or the country—where things used to be made but no longer are, where forgotten glories lose more of their luster daily. Even here, where the end of big U.S. manufacturing has not hit quite as hard as in other midwestern cities, there is decay in plain sight and little reason to believe that renewal is on the way. Some large part of Trump’s appeal is in recognizing these diminutions, somewhere in the savage miasma of his relentless and unedited speech. Trump promises chaos as the antidote to this bleak nihilism, a final epicurean blast after everything that once made us proud is over.

Rather than beginning the hard work of solving the country’s deep fractures and inequalities, the U.S. has chosen a man who

But Fuentes and other young men have not in their lifetime seen the construction of a positive myth; only the expiration of that past one. This is hardly an excuse for their reactionary worldview, which mourns the loss of the wrong things—violently lopsided gender dynamics, harsher discrimination, narrower cultural expression.

Grieving the fading of these gross advantages is the habit of the losers to which Donald Trump’s GOP speaks. They are shut out by history and capital from a warmer and lovelier sense of community and see only the old bones of it. The new affluence for them is chillier and more exclusive: glass and steel high-rises, Cybertrucks, and imaginary Internet money. Trump won’t bring the ghosts that haunt Fuentes back to life—the president-elect will only further enable the austerity and predation that push the inventive prosperity of postwar America further into the dustbin of time.

Squaring the roots of both of these ascendant propaganda clowns is Russian-funded podcaster Tim Pool. Evidenced by his international investment, Pool is an itinerant hustler who grew up near Midway Airport. He left his Catholic high school before graduating and started his career in media by getting involved in Occupy Wall Street protests that he either didn’t understand or didn’t care to understand. Over time, his gimmicky video activism on the front line of rowdy scenes turned into bog-standard Republican talking points. From a chunk of Chicago where industry comes and goes freely and rapidly—currently home to perma-clogged corridors of Amazon trucks from nearby fulfillment centers—Pool is no stranger to shifting what he does to meet the money where it’s going. Should his ideology change in the coming years, we won’t have to wonder why.

Pool’s corner of the city is far from the

capitalizes on these deﬁcits, who speaks best at the pulpit deep within the chasms between us—and between us and the better past. He’s not the only one: Fuentes, Kirk, and Pool have all gotten rich by looking at the dissatisfaction in their sectors of Chicagoland and forging that yearning into a broadcasted ideology. Like most political figures, nationally and right here, they lack a persuasive pitch for the future, so they strip the wreckage of the past and stasis of the present for rhetorical parts to sell.

It makes sense that these spiteful junkers are homegrown. In a 21st-century political world that still hasn’t sorted through the previous century, the story of Chicago—where the national dream has thrived, died, and recovered too insufficiently—is one worth studying. v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

A central Illinois business sports a Donald Trump sign in October 2020. GERRY DINCHER, CC BY-SA 2.0 / FLICKR

GIFT GUIDE

Shop local this holiday season. Whether you’re searching for the perfect present for someone else or treating yourself a er a long year, the Reader staﬀ has you covered with handpicked gi ideas from Chicago artists, nonproﬁts, and small businesses.

Ink from the Backroomz .The vibes at this Pilsen tattoo studio hark back to the outlaw days of the art form before shops occupied storefronts and body art was a mark of living outside normative society. —MICCO CAPORALE

1860 S. Blue Island, instagram. com/th3backr00mz, prices vary

Chicago for Chicagoans offers pay-what-you-can public history education led by locals, for locals. Walking tours are available in 40 neighborhoods from May through October; wintertime brings online and in-person lectures on topics like “How Bronzeville Invented the Lottery.” —KATIE PROUT chicagoforchicagoans.org, pay what you can

Innana Rose is an Indigenous healer and sexologist who’s grounded in Afro-Brazilian magick traditions and draws from multiple spiritual systems, including Suﬁsm, Tantra, Kemetic Reiki, and Ayurveda. Her strong intuition combined with her diverse expertise make for insightful readings.

—MICCO CAPORALE hausofwhiteserpents.com, $33–$170

Support the aspiring DJs in your life. They can put their Miyagi Records gift card toward a beatmaking class or toward accumulating more records if they’re not quite ready for the turntablist life. —SALEM COLLO-JULIN

307 E. Garﬁeld, miyagirecords.com, $25 and up

COURTESY THE BACKROOMZ

COURTESY CHICAGO FOR CHICAGOANS

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ILLUSTRATIONS BY JASJYOT SINGH HANS

So many of us are searching for third spaces, hobbies, and new friends. Give the gift of creative community by contributing to or covering the cost of a workshop or class at Lillstreet Art Center

—TARYN MCFADDEN

4401 N. Ravenswood, lillstreet.com, pay what you can

—JAMIE LUDWIG

127 N. Peoria, scratchgoods.com, $65 and up

StoryStudio Chicago o ers creative writing classes for adults online and at their Ravenswood home base. Writers of all levels are welcome to explore a variety of forms including memoir, ﬁction, poetry, and more in single-session or multisession workshops. —JAMIE LUDWIG

4043 N. Ravenswood #222, storystudiochicago.org, $65–$365

Local Palestinian artist Saja Bilansan , cocreator of Chicago’s Artists Against Apartheid art markets, makes gorgeously designed stickers, magnets, and tote bags honoring her heritage; some of the proceeds aid Palestinians and “communities a ected by imperialism.” — KERRY CARDOZA etsy.com/shop/FalasteenFavorites, $3–$25

Give the gift of glowing skin with a gift card to Scratch Goods’s Mask Bar This woman-founded West Loop company o ers interactive workshops, where guests are guided through self-care practices such as mask application, hydration, gua sha, and more.

—SALEM COLLO-JULIN laselvashop.com, $5–$10

Back of the Yards’s shop La Selva (“the jungle”) was named in reference to Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel, The Jungle , which describes the plight of immigrants working in the Chicago Union Stock Yards. Honor those workers and the neighborhood’s diversity with a Back of the Yards lapel pin designed by owner Rolando Santoyo.

Roseroot Textiles o ers vibrant homeware and commercial goods made with as little waste as possible. “If there’s one thing I can bring to the textile industry, it’s to show people color isn’t something to fear in their home,” says founder Mollie Levy-Roseroot. —KATIE PROUT roseroot-textiles.com, prices vary

Book Nook

Love Chicago? Love to read? Check out these noteworthy 2024 releases that were written by local authors or explore the city’s arts, culture, and history.

What It Is by Lynda Barry The latest book from this former Chicagoan and god- tier cartoonist is part memoir, part workbook. It’s a guide to the creative process that’s sure to delight any aspiring artist on your list.

—KERRY CARDOZA Drawn & Quarterly, $24.95

The Murmuring Grief of the Americas by Daniel Borzutzky This beautiful, haunting collection by Chicago poet and translator Daniel Borzutzky explores modern humanity while laying bare the interweaving complexities and harsh realities that underpin life in the Western Hemisphere. —JAMIE LUDWIG Coﬀee House Press, $17.95

Chicago House Music: Culture and Community by Marguerite L. Harrold

The Chicago-born writer explores how house music rose out of the city’s 70s and 80s Black, gay underground scene to become a global phenomenon that flourishes to this day. —JAMIE LUDWIG Arcadia Publishing, $24

We Are The Culture: Black Chicago’s Influence on Everything by Arionne Nettles The debut book from this homegrown journalist (and Reader contributor) documents how Black Chicagoans have shaped pop culture through a historical look at music, daytime TV, the NBA, and more.

—KERRY CARDOZA Chicago Review Press, $28.99

Christina Ramberg: A Retrospective edited by Thea Liberty Nichols and Mark Pascale If you didn’t catch the Christina Ramberg retrospective exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago this year, here’s the next best thing. This collection of sketches and inspiration photos provide wonderful insight into the contemporary painter’s singular style. —JAMES HOSKING The Art Institute of Chicago, $50

The Shop: Where Culture Shapes Up by Ernest Wilkins I can’t imagine Chicago culture the past decade-plus without the insight of culture writer Ernest Wilkins. The former RedEye sta er (who now lives in Detroit) announced his behind-the-scenes look at LeBron James’s HBO show, The Shop, earlier this year, and it’s been on my radar ever since. —LEOR GALIL Simon & Schuster, $50 v

COURTESY LILLSTREET ART CENTER

COURTESY SCRATCH GOODS

DAN FINNEN

COURTESY THE ARTIST

COURTESY LA SELVA

COURTESY ROSEROOT TEXTILES

Michelle Starbuck is a Chicago jewelry maker who blends new and vintage materials— brass, glass beads, lockets, and more—to make unique, gorgeous pieces that will have strangers stopping you to ask “Where did you get that?”

—KATIE PROUT michellestarbuckdesigns.com, $8–$144

David “The Rock” Nelson Collection: Volume 1. Des Plaines DIY ﬁlmmaker David “the Rock” Nelson is still selling DVDs of his homemade monster movies. This lovingly packaged Blu-ray is the best starter pack on the market.

—LEOR GALIL vinegarsyndrome.com, $27.99

Pin Save the Planet makes pins and stickers and donates 100 percent of the proﬁts to organizations engaged in work addressing climate justice, which owners Ryan Thompson and Charlie Roderick feel is the defining issue of our time.

—SALEM COLLO-JULIN pinsavetheclimate.com, $3.95–16.95

Emilio and Santiago Guerrero of preColonial Mexican pop-up Piñatta are devoted scratch fermentation nerds. Their Habanero and Scorpion Pineapple hot sauces bring the funk with their own lacto-activated kojirice, as does the housemade tamari in their nutty pepita Salsa Macha —MIKE SULA pinattachicago.com, $10–$15

COURTESY PIÑATTA

Randolph Street sausage garden Kaiser Tiger’s rooftop honeybees have produced a subtly minty, pleasantly bitter first harvest feeding primarily on westside linden tree blooms. It’s the taste of spring in the West Loop, captured in eight-ounce jars. —MIKE SULA 1415 W. Randolph, kaisertiger.com, $8

A gift card for Creative Chicago Reuse exchange. You’ll never know what you’ll ﬁnd at CCRx’s Auburn Gresham warehouse, but that’s part of the fun. Their overstock and discarded materials can be reimagined into art projects and other creations. —SALEM COLLO-JULIN 2124 W. 82nd Pl., by appointment only, creativechirx.org, prices vary

The new Sweet & Sour Mango and Jalapeño Green Chutneys from Droosh ought to join the Indian spice blender’s national proﬁle. Musky fenugreek and tangy green mango powder are key to their deep flavor profiles, while a slight restraint in chile heat makes them appropriate for both wanton drizzling and liberal spiking of foods in preparation. —MIKE SULA shopdroosh.com, $9.99–$20

Peripatetic pop-up and farmers market staple Tasting India’s regional spice blends are each markedly different, and yet can ﬂex far beyond traditional dishes into snack mixes, popcorn, baked goods, and preserves. —MIKE SULA

shoptastingindia.com $11.99–$19.99

COURTESY THE ARTIST

COURTESY PIN SAVE THE PLANET

COURTESY CCRX

COURTESY TASTING INDIA

Edited by former Reader contributor

Nance Klehm, the latest issue of ecology-focused journal Land. Place. Belonging. features contributions on wild willow basketry, deep listening to plants, and more. —KERRY CARDOZA halﬂetterpress.com/land-placebelonging-2, $22

Damon Locks’s 3D Sonic Adventure

This vinyl-only solo album from the Black Monument Ensemble bandleader was pressed in an edition of 250 and is available at several local retailers, including Reckless and Bric-a-Brac. —LEOR GALIL damonlocks.black, $20

Consider adopting an older PEt from Paws Chicago or another local shelter. Older pets are often already socialized and housetrained, and in need of a second chapter because their caretakers have passed or experienced ﬁnancial struggles. —MICCO CAPORALE 1997 N. Clybourn, pawschicago.org, $50–$500

Gifts That Give Back

The best presents aren’t always wrapped in a box. Honor a friend or loved one by making a donation in their name in support of a local charity or nonproﬁt organization working for the betterment of our community.

We Blame Chicago celebrates the music and legacy of uncompromising local indie rockers 90 day men. This 5LP box set from Numero Group includes remastered albums, previously unreleased material (including a 2001 John Peel Session), and a comprehensive oral history curated by Tim Kinsella. — JAMIE LUDWIG numerogroup.com/products/ we-blame-chicago, $110

URban Canopy is a nonprofit trying to reshape Chicago’s food system. Their Compost Club subscriptions provide regular compost pick ups across the city, helping to reduce waste, improve soil health, and fight climate change. Bonus: Composters can earn rewards redeemable at local restaurants, farmer’s markets, and more. —MICCO CAPORALE theurbancanopy.org/residential-composting, $20–$40 per month

Treats de Cuisine is a Chicago “barkery” that makes pets happy while reducing farm waste. Their healthy, human-grade treats for dogs and cats are made in-house using sustainable, locally sourced ingredients and contain zero fillers, seasonings, or preservatives. —JAMIE LUDWIG

1341 N Damen, treatsdecuisine.com

$7 and up

Chicago Abortion Fund This long-running organization provides ﬁnancial, logistical, and emotional support to people seeking abortion services in Illinois and other Midwestern states while advocating for reproductive freedom. —JAMIE LUDWIG chicagoabortionfund.org

Chicago Crossroads Fund Since 1981, this public foundation has taken a community-driven grantmaking approach to strengthening grassroots organizations focused on racial, economic, and social justice through resource sharing, leadership training, network building, and more. —JAMIE LUDWIG crossroadsfund.org

Chicago Palestine Film Festival

Ensure that Palestinian stories continue to be documented and shared by donating to the longest-running Palestinian film festival in the world. —TARYN MCFADDEN palestineﬁlmfest.com

Greater Chicago Food Depository

This local organization works with a vast network of partners to reduce hunger and poverty by providing food, health programs, job training, and more to individuals and families experiencing food insecurity. —JAMIE LUDWIG chicagosfoodbank.org

The Night Ministry This local organization provides healthcare and harm reduction services, housing support, winter wear, survival supplies, and human connection to vulnerable community members experiencing homelessness or poverty. —JAMIE LUDWIG thenightministry.org

Plant Chicago Fight food insecurity in Chicagoland while supporting local farmers and food businesses. A $25 donation provides a low-income family with a week’s supply of locally grown food. —JAMIE LUDWIG plantchicago.org v

L-R DREW HARRIS, EMMA SPENCER

COURTESY PAWS CHICAGO

COURTESY TREATS DE CUISINE

ARTS & CULTURE

Amir Badri makes ﬂawless leather goods

The native Chicagoan talks custom jobs and his love of repairs.

By BIANCA BOVA

“Working freelance, it can be feast or famine,” Amir Badri tells me. Badri, a native Chicagoan, makes his living as a leather artisan. “You got to go out and hustle, shuck and jive, make cold calls, but I’ve been working the craft for long enough that word of mouth can pretty well sustain me. Someone needs something made, they ask around and someone tells them, ‘Go see Amir!’”

Badri was drawn towards artisanship from a young age.

“I’ve always known I was a hands-on person, since I was a kid,” he says. “My mom’s from Wisconsin, and my dad’s from Iran. My grandfather on my mom’s side was a woodworker, and from the very beginning, I was always in awe of his woodshop.”

Nevertheless, Badri pursued a degree in video game design—following in the footsteps of his older brother, a successful game designer—at the behest of their father, who felt a career in a tech-based industry o ered greater ﬁnancial stability. After graduating and going to work for a game studio, Badri took up leatherworking, at ﬁrst treating it as a hobby. He was especially mindful of how he invested in materials.

“Leather is a luxury good, so it’s expensive.

When you’re learning a craft you don’t want to blow good money on material when you know you’re gonna do a sloppy job with it,” he says. “I quickly ﬁgured out that in Uptown, where I was living at the time, at the beginning or end of the month, there were couches aplenty in the alleys. I would ride around on my bicycle with a box cutter, and I would salvage leather o the couches. The cushions are usually shot, sometimes the arms, but the back panel that’s always pushed up against the wall is pristine. ‘Skinning wild cows,’ I call it. A tip for when you’re at it: It’s an odd sight, and so it’s best you smile and wave at anyone walking by. Just don’t wave with the hand holding the box cutter.”

As his skill and interest grew, Badri decided to leave his job and enrolled in the Chicago School of Shoemaking and Leather Arts (CSOS).

crash course in leather and tannages working at Ashland Leather Company. I really cut my teeth on sewing, edge ﬁnishing, sanding, beveling, polishing, all of it. It was a luxury company, so everything had to come out of there looking mint; it was almost like being a plastic surgeon.”

He stayed with the company for two years, then considered striking out on his own.

“While I was working there I started listening to audiobooks—while the hands are busy, the ears are free. I’m dyslexic, and because of that, growing up I wasn’t assigned the same

amirbadri.com instagram.com/_amirbadri

is also a sculptor and collage artist of note—he can be found honing new designs to meet the needs of his clients, making everything from custom book covers to watch bands and slipcases for lighters. There’s only one thing he enjoys more than custom work.

“I really love repair. Making repairs is the most fulﬁllment I get as a craftsman,” he says. “I have a philosophy about tiers of repair. The top of the tier is factory fresh. Complete restoration to original condition. Some things, however, can’t be repaired to that point, like when Notre Dame burned—now that’s a classic car

“I learned so much there, and it’s when I became sentient of the idea that you really do get out what you put in. I’d spend as much time there as I could. When my teachers had projects they were working on, I would volunteer to help them to have the extra opportunity to learn from them,” Badri says.

After completing the CSOS program, Badri found a position at Chicago luxury menswear brand Ashland Leather Company. The owners of Ashland Leather Company, Dan Cordova and Phil Kalas, are both veterans of the Horween Leather Company. Founded in 1905, Horween is the oldest continually operational tannery in Chicago. Ashland Leather Company uses Horween materials exclusively in the production of their products, allowing Badri to work with unique materials.

“They make a very rare type of leather called shell cordovan,” Badri says. “It takes 128 unique steps to make it. So I got a real

books as my peers in school,” he says. He set out to catch up, picking up Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. “I think it was the fact that it took place in Chicago that got to me. In the book, Jurgis Rudkus is killing the cows, and then the cows get processed, and some of those hides probably got sent to Horween and ended up right on the same workbench I was now sitting at, making wallets. It was galvanizing. It made me realize I wanted to be building something for myself and my family, not just working for somebody else.”

Now Badri maintains an independent workshop in his home in Mayfair, replete with a laser cutter and a 1943 cast-iron Singer sewing machine (the same model that the Navy used to repair flight suits—“a real heavy-duty thing”). When he’s not working on restoring his two vintage Volvos or making art—Badri

that you can’t source the parts for. That glass was made by artisans that left bubbles and inclusions—there’s going to be some elements that are very di cult, if not impossible to replicate perfectly. Below factory fresh, you have the ship of Theseus—can you repair it well enough that nobody knows, no one can spot the repairs, even if they aren’t an exact restoration? Then under the ship of Theseus, you’ve got the Frankenstein. That’s when the original components aren’t available, but you can make do. And in a way, it’s my favorite. It’s where you get to exercise your skill, where the problem solving comes in. . . . I like to tell my clients, the work that I make for them has a lifetime warranty—but it’s my lifetime. As long as I’m here, if I made it, then I’ll repair it.” v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

Custom lighter sheaths JOHN FERRANTE

Amir Badri

JOHN FERRANTE

as a black man

By Demetrius Amparan

As a black man, I wonder what happens beneath our skin

Worried that our blood boils too thick as patience wears thin

Our greatest heroes couldn’t feel the chronic dormancies lying within and I think about lifetimes we endure before we ever get to live

Our ﬁres burn too fast and ash without ritual.

I wonder which traits are man made and which are ancestrally residual. I often think about the walls we run into chasing dreams that aren’t ours. Another man’s broken promise that won’t get us very far.

As a black man, we rarely give ourselves space to choose. Constantly living in fear of what we might lose.

Success is our biggest deterrent and most complacent desire. We spend our good days decoding the bad ones Making antidotes that numb the sad ones. Our stoned faces warding oﬀ fears

They found out and made novacaine from our tears.

As a black man, I was tired of feeling so bad, so today I choose joy.

Today I choose the wind within the skin of my braids

To breathe without haste

I loosened the frown within my brows and waved to the distance

My heart beating at peace and my veins standing at witness I granted myself space to feel complete no longer an imposter in my own happiness.

Today I chose to be delicate with myself

To remember that I cannot break

Today I can see colors like a blue bottle butterﬂy And I’m choosing the most expensive wish

Fall Hours

Wednesday, Friday, Saturday: 11:00 AM–5:00 PM Thursday: 11:00 AM–6:00 PM

More Light! Exhibition

Chicago design duo Luftwerk’s immersive interpretation of Aram Saroyan’s poem “lighght” transforms the Poetry Foundation gallery into a dynamic lightbox.

Open through January 11, 2025

blk: Blues Funeral for James Baldwin

Join us for an evening of music, poetry, dialogue, memory-weaving, and community gathering to honor the James Baldwin Centennial.

December 5, 2024 at 6 PM

Learn more at PoetryFoundation.org

Play!

Demetrius Amparan is a music artist and poet from the south side of Chicago. He is a nonproﬁt leader and father to daughters Ella and Addison. His latest work, Hold Me Down, released August 2024.

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

ARTS & CULTURE

BOOKS

How to Fuck Like a Girl is for everyone

book is zine culture meeting visceral storytelling.

By S. NICOLE LANE

“The truth is you’re a god, a miracle. People daydream of a big woman, a strong woman. They daydream of someone with a deep voice and a loud laugh,” writes Vera Blossom in “Remember You’re a God,” the opening piece of her debut book How to Fuck Like a Girl. Blossom’s writing about raunchy bathroom sex, Craigslist meetups, and yearning for more, more, more keeps you ﬂipping the pages of the memoir-style book, out December 3 from Dopamine, a new Los Angeles press, in collaboration with Semiotext(e).

It’s unique for writing to make you gasp, tear up, and laugh all in one paragraph. But Blossom does just that. Throughout, Blossom, a trans femme Filipina, weaves in her connection to witchcraft, her thoughts on capitalism, and her desire to get slammed like in an episode of Bridgerton

R VERA BLOSSOM IN CONVERSATION WITH JESSICA HOPPER

Wed 12/4, 7 PM, Women & Children First, 5233 N. Clark, womenandchildrenfirst.com/ event/person-how-fuck-girl-vera-blossom, free, registration required

act as an opening prayer “or a spell that cracks open the narrative on trans people and on girlhood.” She was tired of seeing solely palatable trans women in the media and wanted to invoke “the sort of radical, slightly scary, tone of a zine that I love.” She yearned for a book that said, “It’s not tragic to be transgender. It’s fucking great, it’s fucking sexy, and you’re a god in charge of your own destiny—even when it feels like you’re not.”

fast and openly (exposed, sometimes sad, but conﬁdent) is on display. She writes, “I’m a girl 24/7. I live my life as a trans woman, feeling all the complicated feelings of being a woman who wants to fuck people and being a sensitive tranny with an ego that has the fortitude of a house of cards.”

“It’s not tragic to be transgender. It’s fucking great.”

Anything seems possible for Blossom in many of these essays, just like the grand dreams of those arriving on the Vegas strip with money in hand, sex on their minds, and dollar signs ﬂoating in their pupils.

Although the reader doesn’t know Blossom, these little fragments of her life, documented as short essays, lead us to believe we do. And in that there’s comfort. We see her deliberate

The book is inspired by queer zine culture, displayed in a type of writing that is similar to stream of consciousness and includes experimental formatting (like examples of Craigslist ads). Named after her newsletter and blog, How to Fuck Like a Girl is all original writing but is inspired by her rambling style portrayed online.

The introduction paints an image of a hulking, mystical anthem of strength—almost like a call to battle, an anthem for change. Blossom says the ﬁrst piece was meant to

Blossom grew up in Las Vegas, among its glitz and glam, but she considers herself a small-town girl. She explains that transplants come and go in Vegas, leaving the streets of Sin City empty and dried up. “I had to leave Vegas before Vegas drained me of everything, and I disappeared like a mirage,” she says.

The writer landed in Chicago in 2022. “Chicago just seemed like this big, fun city with a long history, and I was drawn to that,” she says—though Vegas will always be a part of her. “It’s hard for me to disentangle my personality from Las Vegas.” In a place full of optimism, money, and sex, Blossom says it’s where your greatest delusions can actually come true. “I think almost everything about my personality was forged in a place like that.”

In her book, her ferocious desire to live

documents in her prose. “The act of looking around at the room in the party, of talking with friends, walking down the lakeshore can all become acts of writing if your mind is active,” she says.

She jots down notes in her notebook and builds on the ideas later. She also tries to write in her diary every day, ﬂexing her writing muscles late at night or early in the morning.

through her own ideas, emotions, and opinions. Is it money she’s craving? Is Zoey from the visual arts department a friendship worth having? Is monogamy the answer, or does she miss being a self-proclaimed slut?

Blossom works through it in her writing. As readers, we ride along with her, knowing she might not always discover the answer.

“I believe that the only way you can make it as a writer is if you’re completely obsessed with it,” Blossom says. She is an active observer, which is evident in the details she

Longhand is her preference, though. She says it puts her in a trance state where ideas and words flow and tumble onto the page. From there, she builds on her loose thoughts and works them into something coherent.

Blossom says she wrote How to Fuck Like a Girl like this. So much so that when she edited it, she felt like she was reading someone else’s writing.

She hopes that How to Fuck Like a Girl helps anyone who doesn’t feel like they “ﬁt neatly into this life.” She wants her words to connect to “trans women who don’t feel like they’re woman enough, girls of all kinds who feel like they have a monster inside them, gay boys who feel ostracized from other gay boys, with lesbians who yearn, with cis guys who in some way feel restrained by the world. How to Fuck Like a Girl is for everyone.”

We see references to diaryesque writing where Blossom allows her thoughts to fuse into day-to-day memories and make them into a larger, poetic theme. We see her make jokes, like calling herself a “6’4” gay behemoth” that “owned her shit” and describing sexual encounters like we’re a friend sitting across from her in a co ee shop. We hang on to every word. Her writing is conversational, jarring, raw, and honest.

“I hope that it calls on the reader to imagine a weirder, less binary, less partitioned, less imperial life with more sex, more friendship, and more magic,” Blossom says. v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

Vera Blossom’s debut

Author Vera Blossom MALIK DANIELS

THEATER

OPENING

R New Scrooge, same spirit

Christopher Donahue steps into the miser’s shoes at the Goodman.

Jessica Thebus’s staging of the Goodman’s A Christmas Carol this year includes several changes—not least of which is Christopher Donahue as Scrooge, filling the role played for 16 years by Larry Yando (now onstage as Severus Snape in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child). Donahue’s Scrooge is less waspish and more choleric than his predecessor, but the transformation from bitter miser to openhearted man is no less moving. The show’s opening now finds narrator Kate Fry (the first woman in that role that I remember seeing) holding a baby and crooning a lullaby in the Cratchit home, which centers that family’s love and compassion for each other in a wholly suitable way. Throughout, Fry’s narrator feels more fully integrated into the proceedings than in past productions (she literally conducts the onstage musicians at one point), which addresses one of the issues I’ve had in the past with Tom Creamer’s otherwise sturdy adaptation.

12/25; ASL interpretation Fri 12/13, touch tour and audio description Sat 12/7 2 PM (touch tour 12:30 PM), open captions Sun 12/15 2 PM, Spanish subtitles Sun 12/15 7 PM, sensory-friendly performance Sun 12/29 2 PM; Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn, 312-443-3800, goodmantheatre.org, $25-$159

RAvian hijinks

Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! returns.

Other strong touches include William Dick as Marley’s ghost, equal parts fearsome and pathetic as he appears tethered like a demonic puppet by chains—he pulls a similar chain out of the back of Scrooge’s dressing gown to illustrate what his partner has been forging for himself in his cruel and parsimonious life. Deaf actor Robert Schleifer as Mr. Fezziwig signs and embodies the spirit of the holiday without voicing a word (Mark Bedard as son Max Fezziwig delivers the lines vocally; the entire ensemble signs and sings the traditional “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” at curtain call as well, which is a lovely touch). A man at the Fezziwig party is introduced as the “particular friend” of another man— another welcome nod to inclusivity.

Anthony Irons as Bob Cratchit, Susaan Jamshidi as Mrs. Cratchit, and Dee Dee Batteast as Frida, Scrooge’s loving niece, provide temporal emotional ballast for the otherworldly ghosts played by Lucky Stiﬀ (Christmas Past), Bri Sudia (Christmas Present), and Amira Danan (Christmas Future, who looks like a ghastly Victorian sphinx, surrounded by black butterﬂies in Jillian Gryzlak and Rachel Anne Healy’s puppet design). When Sudia’s Present returns near the end of her time with Want and Ignorance, it hits particularly hard this year. “Most of all beware Ignorance, for on their brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”

A er the election, one hopes it isn’t too late, and I’m certainly not holding my breath waiting for ghosts to change the tenor of the incoming administration. But in the meantime, Goodman’s annual chestnut reminds us that our time here is short, and we should be taking better care of “our fellow passengers to the grave.”

KERRY REID A CHRISTMAS CAROL Through 12/30: Tue–Thu 7 PM, Fri 7:30 PM; Sat 2 and 7:30 PM, Sun 2 and 7 PM; also Fri 11/29 2 PM, Wed 12/18 2 PM, Mon 12/23 2 and 7 PM, Tue 12/24 2 PM only; no show Wed

Young folks will love Young People’s Theatre of Chicago’s fast-paced and colorful adaptation of Mo Willems’s book Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (script by Willems and Mr. Warburton, lyrics by Willems, and music by Deborah Wicks La Puma, and directed by Randy White, returning a er 2023’s sold-out run), which is marked by both a high-octane cast and masterful puppetry (designed by Rick Lyon) bringing the titular pigeon and some of his animal friends in a city park to life.

A few wisecracks aimed at adults means this is an outing that the entire family will enjoy and, let’s face it, one of the play’s central messages—you can’t always get what you want (pardon the Rolling Stones reference)—is a message both kids and adults could stand to hear more o en these days.

Brade Bradshaw brings much humor and energy while performing the Pigeon, who’s lately been overcome by ennui in his humdrum existence in Oz Park. Even as we see him operating the Pigeon’s puppet, he exudes warmth and vivaciousness as the character interacts at several points one-on-one with audience members.

A brand-new bus route through the park brings some much needed excitement to the Pigeon’s life when he becomes captivated not just by the bus, but the bus driver (Karla Serrato) and its passengers (Marquis Bundy, Jake Elkins, Jamie Dillon Grossman) as well. Serrato is really fun as perhaps the world’s most passionate and committed bus driver. Grossman deserves special credit, as she stepped into the role as the understudy at the performance I saw and sparkled as an older bus rider who just happens to be carrying a lot of birdseed around. —MATT SIMONETTE DON’T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS! Through 12/22: Sat 11 AM and 1 PM, Sun 1 PM; Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln, 773-404-7336, yptchi.org, $28.50 (under 12 $19.50) v

A Christmas Carol LIZ LAUREN

RThe enduring truths of “My Weekend as a 28-year-old in Chicago”

Judd Crud’s viral parody video has long outlived the trend that inspired it.

By MICCO CAPORALE

This is Judd Crud’s weekend as a 28-yearold living in Chicago: He started his day o with a Guru energy drink and making his bed. It was mental awareness day at work, so he went to brunch with Lizzie and had a few drinks. Then he and Devlin kayaked the Chicago River. (It was actually pretty dope!) Priscilla had never been to the Field Museum, so they had to check it out, then get some scrumptious tacos, vibes, and margarita towers at El Paraíso. Got a new transmission for his 4Runner, then chilled a little. Saw Bill Maher at the Chicago Theatre (bro crushed it!), then met up with Lindsey Jacobellis and her sister, Malmo, for tequila shots and . . . another marg tower. Then they went to Rind for stu ed pineapple and snow crab and—

Make it deep enough into Crud’s weekend, and a dog will float. He’ll introduce a girlfriend, wife, and husband in rapid succession. There are more marg towers than buildings, and Pilsen has a Trader Joe’s.

When Crud made the video in the summer of 2022, people across the country were deep into making up for time lost in lockdown—and showcasing it online via “My Weekend in [Location]” videos. One of the ﬁrst to go viral was by Codey James, a Manhattan-based inﬂuencer who starts his weekend getting the day o from Reddit (“for mental health”), followed by three days of drinking, clubbing, shopping, getting tattooed, and name-dropping, which he describes with a sleepy nonchalance that evokes the perfect veneer of self-satisfied humility. That video hit in May, and within weeks, there were legions more parodying his excess and feigned modesty. For Chicagoans, Crud’s parody, “My Weekend as a 28-year-old in Chicago,” has endured well past the trend. When the clip first blew up, Crud had

only been living in the city for four months, and he hadn’t made many videos for social media. Crud grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin,

and studied at the University of WisconsinMadison before taking a job at a stem cell research facility in Denver. Lab life was lonely, so he got into the sketch comedy scene to make friends. He ended up cofounding a troupe called Phantasmagoria, which trafficked in bizarre-o comedy with elements of horror. The troupe would, for example, put on a “normal” performance interrupted by a cult that held everyone hostage, or appear on TikTok as tumorous Teletubbies called Gabbagooblins. In spring of 2022, he moved to Chicago with two of his Phantasmagoria buddies and renamed the troupe Crud. He started making comedy videos to entertain his friends in Denver, never hoping for or expecting anything to come of it, but two years on, his phone becomes unusable every few months from notifications announcing “My Weekend” is having another viral moment.

Lots of Chicagoans made parodies that summer, including videographer and Logan Square resident Jake Karlson. He describes his day—smoking blunts, playing video games, hanging with his girlfriend—with the same delighted monotone of the original, but instead of rolling past bespoke storefronts, a walk through his neighborhood includes just an errant glove and broken glass. “The vibes are immaculate,” he says while entering a sterile co ee shop where everything is beige and concrete except for a guy with a mullet making lattes. Karlson is an avid appreciator of documentaries and enjoys the plasticity of self-documenting that social media engenders. People can present their lives as “real” as reality TV. When James’s New York weekend surfaced in his Instagram reels, Karlson thought, “This is a beautiful work of art.” “People consume influencer culture even

continued from p. 19 doesn’t capture anything about Chicago so much as the go-go-go pace of city life, which she misses.

as we know it’s a stupid, fake, unsustainable lifestyle,” he says. He’s fascinated by how people learn to present themselves online in ways that can seem aspirational and inspire inadequacy, so his parody laughs at the hyperconsumptive narcissism of the original while celebrating his own life’s banality. Crud’s leans into the hyperconsumptive narcissism so hard that it often takes people a second to get the joke. (The first time I saw it, I turned it o after about 30 seconds because it was everything I hate about social media, but so many people were laughing about it on Twitter, I went back and watched through the end.) Only about 20 percent of his video—which clocks in at just over two minutes—is original footage. The rest is an amalgam of others’ TikToks and video scraps hiding on Crud’s phone, which he pieced together to create a weekend that gradually unravels into several plots, each with its own cast of characters, amounting to more than a week’s worth of activities that increasingly defy space, time, and logic. (Did I mention the ﬂoating dog?)

“The dog is a very Lynchian omen that strange things are afoot in the video,” explains artist and North Center resident Carmilla Morrell. “And should you continue on past this sighting, you’ll come to understand the sort of nightmarish world of friends and marg towers that this guy lives in on a day-to-day basis. Like, does he ever truly get rest?”

The video is quirky and funny, but it’s outlived the posting trend that sparked it because of its truths and artistry. It represents someone who “seems” to have a very full life but is spending so much time finding and documenting photogenic or provocative experiences—“content”—that they can never actually live it. They’re just appearing to live. Crud ﬂoods viewers with so many names—people, places, activities—that they wash together to become more like tones than unique pieces of information. At the same time, Morrell notes, “My Weekend” is like a social media version of Ferris Bueller’s Day O (1986). In Chicago, time and access can become alluringly ﬂexible for certain privileged, charming white guys. About two months ago, Morrell exalted the video’s layers of cinematic wisdom by creating a fake Letterboxd entry for it. The meme also went viral.

Writer Grace Robins-Somerville lived in Chicago last summer on a brief stint between her native New York and grad school in smalltown North Carolina. To her, the video

“I was actually in Chicago, like, two weeks ago for my friend’s wedding,” she says. “We were running around all weekend, and that was the joke: Everyone was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m feeling very “My-Weekend-as-a-28-yearold-in-Chicago.”’ And we would just randomly be like, ‘Then I had another marg tower.’ ‘Then I just chilled for a bit.’ ‘It was actually pretty dope!’ It’s never not applicable.”

Marg towers might be the crown jewel of Crud’s video. They’re the influencer’s champagne tower: visual signifiers of a certain opulence and leisure denied to most. Interestingly, a new world record for the largest champagne tower was set just six months before Crud’s video dropped, almost like a harbinger for conspicuous consumption as the American wealth gap continues growing. But unlike his character in “My Weekend,” the real Crud has never had a marg tower—he doesn’t even like margaritas.

“I saw them pop up on the grid and thought, ‘This is so extravagant and stupid and beautiful,’” Crud explains. He admits “My Weekend” is making fun of American lifestyle culture, but he’s also making fun of himself.

“When I ﬁrst moved here in 2022 . . . after a couple years of not eating at restaurants or being at bars, I found myself more aware that that is a large part of what I do, especially since moving to Chicago. In Denver, there were a lot more activities to do outside, but here I just felt like me and my friends were constantly going to restaurants and concerts and just cramming as much into a night as humanly possible. . . . Maybe we’ve just lost a lot of our old forms of community, so we’ve become more concerned with communal experience.”

Being familiar with and able to relate to or appreciate the same video as thousands of others online can be a communal experience, too. In the first months after “My Weekend” took o , Crud tried to replicate its success, but he quickly found it self-defeating. He was trying too hard, wanting it too much. “My Weekend” was a throwaway video designed to make his friends laugh, and that’s what he’s sticking to now: making things he knows his friends will find funny. If others find them funny, too? Great! But that’s not the goal. Crud’s not living for a digital audience. He’s just a 30-year-old living day by day in Chicago. v

m mcaporale@chicagoreader.com

My mom was in town for a few days and among the many fun things we did was see Clint Eastwood’s new Juror #2 —my husband and I for the second time—at the AMC River East. I was pleasantly surprised that it had a substantial crowd, and for a daytime screening nonetheless; word of mouth for this sleeper “hit” is working, apparently. (It’s technically not a hit by the insane monetary standards by which we judge ﬁlms like Wicked and Gladiator II to be hits, but for us cinephiles, it’s proof that one of our most venerated auteurs still has legs.)

I often pick what to watch on the Criterion Channel based on what’s leaving at the end of the month and, coincidentally (as Juror #2 has a lot of similarities to the classic text), both Sidney Lumet and William Friedkin’s versions of 12 Angry Men (1957 and 1997, respectively) are on the list right now. I gravitated toward the latter as I hadn’t yet seen it; Friedkin’s version was made for TV (Showtime), but it’s no less compelling for that. If anything, there’s a certain rhyme with the current situation around Eastwood’s ﬁlm, as the original plan was for it only to stream on Max. Plenty of great directors’ made-for-TV films have been lost to time, as they’re not as frequently revived as the theatrical films, and the direct-to-streaming model is another, even farther removed iteration of that phenomenon. The cast is excellent (Jack Lemmon, George C. Scott, Ossie Davis, James Gandolfini, and Tony Danza, to name a few), and the material is surprisingly ﬁtting for Friedkin. I’m thinking of Sorcerer (1977), which might be one of the most stressful films ever made. As the jurors sit in the locked room without air conditioning, many of them dead set on going home as soon as possible, the tension rises to the point where

it feels like an explosion may occur. Of course, it’d be an emotional explosion rather than the more literal one that attacks the nerves in Sorcerer, but Friedkin proves adept at navigating both, highlighting the inanity of our ﬂawed justice system and capital punishment in the process.

Also on the Criterion Channel, Wanda Tuchock and George Nicholls Jr.’s Finishing School was randomly in my weekend viewing. The 1934 pre-Code film is about a young girl (Frances Dee) who attends the titular institution, making friends (one of whom is played by Ginger Rogers) and expanding her worldview in the process. It is immensely watchable, and I was of course intrigued by it having been directed by a woman, Tuchock, a screenwriter and advertising copywriter who retained “a singular role in ﬁlm history as one of the few women who began her career in the silent era and was able to maintain her career in Hollywood during the early sound years,” per the Women Film Pioneers Project. She and Dorothy Arzner are the only women to have a directing credit on a Hollywood ﬁlm in the 1930s.

I rounded out the week with the last of the Elaine May screenings at the Music Box: Ishtar (1987), her much-maligned Middle East road movie that was disastrous for her career but is enjoying a surge in contemporary appreciation. I already miss the series. Sure, I could watch most of them at home whenever I want, but there’s just something about watching a great comedy in a movie palace full of other people. Until next time, moviegoers. —KAT SACHS v

The Moviegoer is the diary of a local ﬁlm bu , collecting the best of what Chicago’s independent and underground ﬁlm scene has to o er.

Juror #2

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

FILM

Spellbound

NOW PLAYING

RInterior Chinatown

If we’re all the heroes of our own stories, that’s generally as it should be. Such a belief is o en what motivates us to shape our lives and ﬁnd meaning in them. How someone might think otherwise and how it can be corrected is the primary concern of Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown

Based on Yu’s book of the same name, it doesn’t so much rewrite a tired premise as attempt to dissect how such premises came to be, and how they sometimes keep people from stepping out of their designated places. If the show isn’t quite a scathing indictment of assimilation and the racist expectations therein, it at least makes its emphasis on the comedic murder mystery a fun, intriguing ride, as waiter and aspiring actor Willis Wu (Jimmy O. Yang) struggles to step into the spotlight of his own life.

In the proud tradition of “careful what you wish for,” Willis proclaims his desire to become something besides the background character in someone else’s story just in time to witness an abduction, and he’s quickly pulled into a police procedural that has ties to Chinatown crime lords and his brother’s mysterious disappearance 12 years ago, complete with Law & Order-esque ﬂourishes. There’s a whole lot to dissect in how someone like Willis is seen—or more o en, not seen—in your stereotypical crime drama.

Produced by Taika Waititi, Interior Chinatown has much of his signature tongue-in-cheek ﬂourishes, as it also satirizes cop shows and the roles Asian Americans typically occupy in pop culture. Its ambitions don’t quite live up to what Yu accomplished in the source material, which had the beneﬁt of not only exploring the interiority of its setting, but the spaces its characters were restricted to with a delicately savage touch. It’s a tough transition, taking that approach to an onscreen space, but Yu (who is also the showrunner) makes it riveting. —ANDREA THOMPSON TV-MA, ten 35–45-min episodes, Hulu

An animated musical princess fantasy adventure about caring for parents with dementia doesn’t exactly sound like a propitious high concept. And sure enough, Vicky Jenson’s Spellbound struggles to connect its somber emotional material with its whimsical and formulaic genre approach.

Ellian (Rachel Zegler) is a 15-year-old princess in a magical kingdom with (among other wonders) trained, giant, winged cat steeds. But she also has a painful secret: the preceding year, her parents, Queen Ellsmere (Nicole Kidman) and King Solon (Javier Bardem), were transformed into monsters who growl and fight and wreck the castle. Ellian has had to take care of all the kingdom’s business herself. In a last ditch effort to save her parents and her childhood, she sets off on a quest with the two of them to find a magic light in the forests of eternal darkness to bring them back to themselves.

The reversal of caregiving roles—the child having to look a er the parents—is painful and poignant. So is Ellian’s desperate determination to prove that her parents still remember her and care about her, despite all the evidence to the contrary. There’s not a lot of time to live with that diﬃcult material though, amidst all of the (indiﬀerent) musical numbers and the (predictable) adventuring. And when you do have time to think about it, the handling of the theme raises some uncomfortable questions. Like, is it a good idea to tell kids that they can reverse serious mental illness in their caregivers if they are courageous and go on a fun quest?

Eventually, it becomes clear that the metaphor is more about divorce and parental separation than mental decline. But the late gearshi feels clumsy and disorienting, and in any case, begs some of the same questions, especially when the film suggests that Ellian’s understandable anger and resentment have to be fought off, lest they corrupt her. The ambition in Spellbound is admirable, but what Jenson wants to say just doesn’t fit well into the Disney-esque box she’s trying to shove it into. Given the garbled messages and the lackluster presentation, it’s difficult to recommend this for children of any age. —NOAH BERLATSKY PG, 109 min. Netflix, limited release in theaters v

Spellbound SKYDANCE ANIMATION/NETFLIX

MUSIC

City of Win is a series curated by Isiah “ThoughtPoet” Veney and written by Joshua Eferighe that uses prose and photography to create portraits of Chicago musicians and cultural innovators working to create positive change in their communities.

Asha Omega releases her debut studio album, The Star , on Wednesday, November 27. A follow-up to her ﬁrst major project, the 2023 EP Alkhemy, it cements her place as a key new ﬁgure in the Chicago hiphop scene.

Though her rap career is young, the 26-yearold doesn’t move like a rookie. The 13 tracks on The Star are produced by pillars of the Chicago hip-hop scene, among them DJ Hustlenomics, who was instrumental to Chief Keef’s rise in the early 2010s, and OnGaud, who contributed to Mick Jenkins’s breakout 2014 mixtape, The Water[s]. Asha hasn’t just started to venture into music. She’s reclaiming a path she chose

Asha Omega wants to remind you of your power

The east-side rapper’s long-gestating debut album, The Star, speaks to the importance of self-knowledge and healing.

By JOSHUA EFERIGHE

Chicago Park District’s inaugural Teens in the Park Fest, curated by Chance the Rapper.

What followed for Asha, though, was withdrawal from the public eye. She’d been depressed, she says, for most of her life—she just didn’t recognize it for what it was until she left Clark Atlanta University midway through her second year and moved back to Chicago in December 2017.

“I was very distracted. I was in a terrible fucking relationship—like, the worst,” Asha laments. “If I would have went to jail and told the story, they’d be like, ‘I understand you, sister.’”

on my mama, the next week, I uploaded the project.”

The process was cathartic for Asha, she says, because as a kid she didn’t have the space to express herself this way. “I was writing from—especially Alkhemy, even on this new shit—what I needed to hear. Because if I’m feeling this way, I know damn sure I’m not the only person feeling this way.”

years ago—a decision validated as early as 2018, when veteran Chicago rapper Phenom handpicked her to be one of seven students in an all-woman class at his Emcee Skool—a six-month curriculum he’d just introduced to teach aspiring MCs.

Asha created the momentum she has today through a long period of self-healing, and her music reflects the answers she found along the way—answers she wants to share with the world. The years between her studies with the Ladies of Emcee Skool (as Phenom called them) and the release of Alkhemy tested her strength and endurance. “My depression was in hell,” she says.

Learning with Phenom could’ve kick-started Asha’s rap career. He focuses on education now, but he’s one of the city’s most respected MCs, with deep roots in battle rap. In 2000, he placed second in the Source magazine Unsigned Hype MC battle, bested in a nationwide ﬁeld only by Detroit legend Proof (a bandmate of Eminem’s in D12). In 2015, he cohosted the

Asha Omega, an eastside resident, was born Jordan Asha Smiley in Harvey, Illinois, and spent the first several years of her life in Chicago Heights. She says that growing up she “always felt alone,” in part because her mother had her at 35 and constantly had to be away for work. “So I just had a lot of emotions that sat to myself for a very long time about everything: Life, my dad being gone. I’ve been assaulted. Shit like that skewed my vision of myself and my worth and the meaning of life,” she says. “Realizing it now, I was depressed as a child.”

Asha says it wasn’t until she implemented the healing practices she’d learned in college that she began transforming into the person and the rapper she’d always wanted to be.

“I think I learned a lot of that my freshman year at Clark, even just reading [Paulo Coelho’s novel] The Alchemist—that shifted my mind,” she says. “When I got back here, I had to relearn it again.”

What came from that relearning was the vulnerability of her writing on Alkhemy. “I left that relationship, and on my mama, the next week, I did the photo shoot,” she says. “And

The Star represents a culmination of the lessons Asha has learned and a demonstration of the potential others have long seen in her. Asha was born in January, under the sign of Aquarius, and the album speaks to what she feels that means about her. Even its title is a play on the zodiac, the tarot, and more. “Of course, the Star is a tarot card that represents the Aquarius, but it also represents self- consciousness—being conscious of yourself, being spiritually aware, and having a lot of faith in what comes next,” she says. “On top of that, there’s a deck of cards. We’ve all been handed a deck of cards in this life, but I’m choosing to use them as alchemy. If I didn’t drop Alkhemy, we wouldn’t have this. If I didn’t go through the shit, it wouldn’t be none of this. All these connections are important. So I’m just using the deck of hard cards that I have at hand to get the most books in this level.”

Asha also used her listening event for The Star, held at Miyagi Records on Saturday, November 23, to help people enduring their own dark times. Admission was free, but she asked that everyone bring a donation of toiletries, kitchen supplies, or cleaning products for Deborah’s Place, a nonprofit supporting Chicago women experiencing homelessness.

For Asha, the purpose of The Star is to help people see in themselves what’s already there. “I feel like my calling is to be a mirror,” she says. “I am naturally inclined to be a reminder that your light deserves to take up space. We are worthy of the discipline to make our dreams come true.” v

m letters@chicagoreader.com

Photos by ThoughtPoet of Unsocial Aesthetics (UAES), a digital creative studio and resource collective designed to elevate communitydriven storytelling and social activism in Chicago and beyond

CITY OF WIN

MUSIC

PICK OF THE WEEK

Recommended and notable shows with critics’ insights for the week of November 28 b

Blood Incantation’s death-metal masterpiece Absolute Elsewhere exceeds the hype

BLOOD INCANTATION, MIDWIFE

Tue 12/3, 8 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, $28, $25 in advance. 18+

BLOOD INCANTATION’S FOURTH ALBUM, Absolute Elsewhere (Century Media), has been getting a ton of attention since it was released in October, and with good reason: it’s equally awe-inspiring and groundbreaking. The Denver-based band had already generated some crossover buzz with their second record, 2019’s Hidden History of the Human Race, which blended classic, pummeling, American-style death metal and far-out psychedelic rock with freaky arrangements and spaced-out sitar. In 2022 they threw their fans a curveball with their follow-up, Timewave Zero , which stepped away from metal into Krautrock and ambient synths.

Absolute Elsewhere takes all of Blood Incantation’s previous feats and blends them together. Mind-bending blastbeats and death-metal ri s take left turns into traditional Middle Eastern scales, space-organ

drone a la Pink Floyd, epic chord progressions that could make Genesis proud, and genuine kosmische synth breaks provided by Thorsten Quaeschning of Tangerine Dream. On paper, it shouldn’t work: Why doesn’t a hard-stop transition from grindcore guitar into mellow, meditative vocals sound like one of Mr. Bungle’s gooﬁest moments?

I’ll admit, here and there the experimentation does startle me, coming across as clumsy genre smashing, but overall Blood Incantation have put this record together expertly—I can’t help but be impressed by the respect, care, and love they display for the roots of the styles they explore. Absolute Elsewhere more than lives up to the hype; it’s a work of brutal and beautiful grandeur by a band at the height of their powers. If you’ve been sleeping on it, you need to change that now—and head to this Metro show to witness the band pull it o live. —LUCA CIMARUSTI

SATURDAY30

Cloud Nothings See also Sun 12/1. Armlock and Farmers Wife open. 9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, sold out. 21+

Cloud Nothings formed in Cleveland and leveled up in Chicago. The trio, which evolved from a solo project of songwriter and guitarist Dylan Baldi, traded the sprightly power pop of their 2011 self-titled debut for serrated postgrunge skronk on 2012’s Attack on Memory , recorded with engineer Steve Albini at his Chicago studio Electrical Audio. Cloud Nothings brought a similar rawness to their John Congleton–produced 2014 album, Here and Nowhere Else , where Jayson Gerycz’s relentless drumming supports Baldi’s ragged vocals and squalling guitar. The band play with so much exertion that they sound near exhaustion, like a car careening ahead on an empty gas tank. In the ensuing years, Cloud Nothings have cycled through personnel and styles of indie rock, but songs from Here and Nowhere Else have remained staples of their set lists. On “I’m Not Part of Me,” Baldi’s straightforward lyrics and joyfully repeated lines embrace the thrill and terror of independence. It’s one of the best rock songs of the past decade. These two Empty Bottle shows conclude Cloud Nothings’ fall tour, which celebrates the tenth anniversary of Here and Nowhere Else—a milestone Baldi recently admitted in a press statement he wasn’t sure they’d ever reach. “It feels good to be here in 2024 still playing music and making records,” he said. —JACK RIEDY

SUNDAY1

Cloud Nothings See Sat 11/30. Armlock and Farmers Wife open. 9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $25. 21+

MONDAY2

Robert Glasper See also Tue 12/3 and Wed 12/4. Glasper continues this run of shows on Thu 12/5 and Fri 12/6. 6 PM and 9:30 PM, City Winery, 1200 W. Randolph, $55–$78. b

Robert Glasper has seemingly endless creativity and drive. The pianist, producer, and arranger has released nearly 20 albums; he’s written or produced music for the likes of Herbie Hancock, Common, and Brittany Howard; and he’s scored several ﬁlms, including the 2019 documentary The Apollo about the famed Harlem theater. Though Glasper is rooted in jazz, he can shi between styles, sounds, and collaborative settings with the fluidity of molten metal.

Glasper demonstrates his versatility and ambition in the four albums he’s released in 2024. In June, he leaned into his relaxed, meditative side with Let Go, which invites you to unwind and reset. Two months later, he explored a crucial ancestral through line in Black American music with Code Derivation jazz helped pave the way for hip-hop with its cool, urbane sounds and boundary-defying experimenta-

JULIAN WEIGAND

tions, and the two styles continue to respond to and shape each other. To unpack that relationship, the record includes two versions of most of its songs—a live studio cut featuring Glasper and his band, followed by a remix (guest producers include Black Milk, Hi-Tek, and Glasper’s son, Riley). October’s Keys to the City: Volume One captures Glasper’s energy and magnetism by compiling performances from several years of his annual Robtober residency at New York’s famous Blue Note club (for the 2024 edition, he played 49 shows in 25 nights spread over ﬁve weeks). And the brand-new In December mixes twinkling holiday classics such as the “Joy to the World” (with vocals from R&B singer Alex Isley, daughter of Ernie Isley) and original songs that address the holiday through a modern lens that scuffs up the usual sentimentality and nostalgia. On “Memories With Mama,” guest singer Tarriona “Tank” Ball honors Black mothers who work overtime and max out credit cards to put a smile on their kids’ faces at Christmas. —JAMIE LUDWIG

TUESDAY3

Blood Incantation See Pick of the Week on page 24. Midwife open. 8 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, $28, $25 in advance. 18+

Robert GLasper See Mon 12/2. Glasper continues this run of shows Wed 12/4 through Fri 12/6. 6 PM and 9:30 PM, City Winery, 1200 W. Randolph, $55–$78. b

Prize Horse Greet Death headline; Prize Horse and Low Animal open. 8 PM, Subterranean, 2011 W. North, $17 plus applicable fees. 17+

Minneapolis trio Prize Horse play pensive, moody posthardcore whose burnished surfaces and carefully structured negative spaces give it remarkable depth. On their ﬁ rst full-length album, February’s Under Sound (on Chicago-based label New Morality Zine), they telegraph their affection for shoegaze with thunderhead-size riﬀs that can blot out the sky. Prize Horse also sound like big fans of fourth-wave emo outfit Title Fight—specifically their brawny, sullen 2012 album, Floral Green , which provides a frame of reference for Under Sound . Prize Horse aren’t just following an earlier band’s blueprint, though, and they assert their identity in the details of their music: Jon Brenner dials back his snappy, athletic drumming to play a sparse and muted intro for “Dark Options,” for instance; bassist Olivia Johnson adds bottom-heavy heft and unexpected harmonic complexity to the chord progressions; and guitarist Jake Beitel sings with a gentle, sighing lilt no matter how noisy and turbulent the music gets. When all three members pull together just right, the calm moments of Under Sound land with the same force as its ferocious climaxes—a sure sign that Prize Horse have the chops to make good on the promise of this debut. —LEOR GALIL

MUSIC

WEDNESDAY4

Robert Glasper See Mon 12/2. Glasper continues this run of shows Thu 12/5 and Fri 12/6. 6 PM and 9:30 PM, City Winery, 1200 W. Randolph, $55–$78. b

Abby Sage 8 PM, Subterranean, 2011 W. North, $18. 17+

Abby Sage makes gauzy folk-pop that evokes a romantic sense of decay, like a pink-wigged Marie Antoinette raking her finger through the frosting of a cake encrusted with maggots. Sage’s debut album, The Rot (Nettwerk), dropped in March, on the heels of one of last year’s biggest TikTok trends: bed rotting, which refers to staying in bed all day and doing as little as possible. The idea is that, if le to such inactivity indefinitely, you could decompose from it. Just the right amount, though, can be restorative. On The Rot , Sage moves through the emotional complexities of coming-of-age and its accompanying loneliness, change, and sexual awakening as if she’s slowly rotating a kaleidoscope: “Milk” sounds breezy and sweet despite its defiantly sour lyrics (“I wanna drink my milk in my own filth”); “Hunger” captures the tenderly rabid appetite of first sexual encounters; and “The Rot” advises you to “lean into the rot” and “fester like the fruit” as a form of rebirth. Her visceral, aching vocal delivery bestows upon her lines a magical potency that makes

Cloud Nothings ERRICK EASTERDAY

Prize Horse ADAM UDENBERG

Robert Glasper TODD COOPER

Abby Sage NOAH KENTIS

MUSIC

continued from p. 25

Find more music listings at chicagoreader.com/musicreviews

HOLIDAYS OF JOY

silent film Nosferatu, where you can also hear him playing programmed rhythms and distorted electric guitar. Van Wissem is returning to Chicago for the first time in five years to perform that soundtrack live at the Music Box Theatre during a screening of Murnau’s film, which precedes by three weeks the debut of Robert Eggers’s new version of Nosferatu —BILL MEYER

Billy Woods & Kenny Segal 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport, $25. 17+

decomposing feel as transformative as it is ugly. Though Sage is still growing into her sound, the visual aesthetics she uses to contextualize it are mature. She distinguishes her videos with the use of meticulously cra ed papier-mâché elements, which sometimes make cameos at her concerts. Inspired by the fantastical world-building of Talking Heads circa Stop Making Sense and Florence & the Machine, Sage uses subdued color palettes and quiet settings, such as spacious rooms and open pastures, so that the elegant subtleties of her masks, puppets, props, and gestures really pop. Though her arty, earthy, feminine minimalism seems like it would appeal to would-be tradwives (and maybe it does), she’s hardly one to relinquish her voice to conform with tradition—or with anything else. In March, she withdrew from South by Southwest in support of a free Palestine, joining more than 80 artists protesting the festival’s ties to the U.S. armed forces and defense contractors who’ve been propping up Israel’s military. Sage is a musician with many faces, and she lives for beauty even through pain. —MICCO CAPORALE

Jozef van Wissem Van Wissem provides a live score for F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent ﬁlm Nosferatu. 7 PM, Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport, $15–$18. b

Rapper Billy Woods and producer Kenny Segal are one of hip-hop’s best duos, and this year they’ve joined forces again to celebrate the fifth anniversary of their 2019 album Hiding Places . A modern classic by most hip-hop metrics, the collaboration received plenty of acclaim and appeared on many best-of-year lists upon its release. Five years later, the album’s musical beauty, unﬂinching lyrics, and growling beats feel even more apropos of the moment.

Segal grew up playing cello and got his start as a drum ’n’ bass producer before turning his focus to hip-hop. A stalwart of the Los Angeles beat scene, he developed a genre-bending production style that’s ductile, tasteful, and respectful of the almighty knock. He’s worked with the best of the le -of-center MCs, including Danny Brown, Quelle Chris, and Earl Sweatshirt, and Woods sounds right at home inside Segal’s beats, dropping powerful verses that are simultaneously amusing and alarming.

“The Lute is Eternal,” proclaims the text that concludes the ten-minute video to Jozef van Wissem’s 2023 single “The Call of the Deathbird.” The Dutch composer’s gruﬀ vocals appear throughout the short film, shot in the vast Soviet mausoleum outside Warsaw, but his singing (and the relatively angelic voice of Hillary Woods) directs the listener back to the intricate, meditative sounds of his main ax. The strings of his Renaissance-vintage instrument stand in for the silenced voices of all the people who died in the city during World War II, as well as the more than 20,000 World War II soldiers buried in the mausoleum. Van Wissem lived in Warsaw during COVID lockdown, and it’s easy to connect the empty spaces depicted in the video to the eerie quiet of the pandemic’s early days.

The production on Hiding Places shrinks and grows in equally interesting blips: “Checkpoints” ticks and blurps along until it’s hit with a lightning bolt of rock guitar, bass drum, and crash cymbal. The instrumental track is nimble enough to respond to Woods’s winding vocals, yet sturdy enough to hold together. Another personal favorite is “Speak Gently”—that guitar line is just nasty.

When I contacted Segal via email about the duo’s upcoming show at Thalia Hall, he told me that a great number of songs on their set list “are not performed regularly, if at all.” They’ll also have new Hiding Places anniversary merch in tow, which is sure to be highly coveted, so you’ll want to buy a ticket now and get in line for the merch table early. Woods and Segal’s honest, timeless hip-hop is only getting better—and their legions of die-hard fans are here for it.

The deathbirds to which van Wissem refers are actually extinct birds, whose voices he sampled from a record and electronically modiﬁed. He ﬁrst used them on his 2022 soundtrack for F.W. Murnau’s

—CRISTALLE BOWEN v

JOBS

DePaul University seeks Data Analysts for Chicago, IL location to develop & maintain dashboards & reports for internal & external audiences to support decision-making. Bachelor’s in Comp Sci/ Eng or info Systems/ related field +3yrs exp req’d. Skills Req’d: Exp in higher ed environment w/Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, Postgres Databases; querying data warehouse & creating reports; Tableau to create dashboards; performing stat analysis, computing descriptive stats, & creating data visualizations; automation programming using Python, VB script; programming & scripting w/Excel (dynamic & pivot tables); Slate; Peoplesoft (student admin, academic advising modules, PS tools), Peoplesoft reporting tools. Some telecommuting permitted. Apply online: https://offices.depaul. edu/human-resources/ careers, REQ ID: 1614 https://offices.depaul. edu/human-resources/ careers

Royal Cyber Inc. in Naperville, IL. has openings for Data Scientist (Design, Develop &Maintain Data Models); Salary range $116,334.00/Year to $118,000.00/Year. Req. Master’s or foreign equiv. in CS, Applied Data Science, CIS, MIS, Engg. (Any) or rel. Travel & reloc. req’d. Mail resumes to HR Manager, Royal Cyber, Inc.,55 Shuman Blvd, Suite 275, Naperville, IL 60563 or Email: hr.us@royalcyber.com

Transportation Operations Manager: Direct, coord activities of employees & operations. Plan, dev business policies, goals. Coord activities. Comm w/clients, employees, mgnt. Review financials, sales. Direct admin activities related to services of transportation industry. Prep staﬀ work schedules, assign duties. Process payroll. Business expansion. HS. 2 yrs of exp. Res: Swan Trucking, Inc. 18 Augusta Dr, Streamwood IL 60107 Swan Trucking, Inc. 18 Augusta Dr, Streamwood IL 60107

Vertex Consulting Services, Inc. in Schaumburg, IL is seek’g Sr GIS Java Developer(s) to anlyz user needs &dvlp sftwr sol’ns. No trvl. WFH benefits allowed. Email resumes to: smk@thevertexgroup. com &ref job title.

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CLASSIFIEDS JOBS

HOUSING

SEX AND RELATIONSHIPS

Turkey run

Sex toy advice and showing up in protest

By DAN SAVAGE

D an is oﬀ for Thanksgiving. Please enjoy this excerpt from a column that appeared just before Thanksgiving in 2016.

Q: Any advice for a ﬁrsttime sex toy buyer? I’m looking into vibrators, but I don’t want to spend a bunch of money on something that doesn’t do it for me. —VERY INTO

BUYING ELECTRONICS

a: “VIBE should go to a sex shop in person so she can physically pick up and turn on the models she’s considering buying,” said Erika Moen. “If possible, go to a shop that advertises itself with any of the following: feminist, queer, LGBTQ+, sex-positive, woman-friendly, transfriendly, or inclusive, as these places tend to be staﬀed by people who are passionate and invested in helping folks

of all walks of life.”

Moen and her partner, Matthew Nolan, have been making the Oh Joy Sex Toy comic for three years, which combines reviews of sex toys with awesome, hilarious, and inclusive sex ed. And Moen, who has personally tested hundreds of sex toys, wants you to rub one out before you go shopping.

“VIBE should pay attention to the kind of action that feels good or gets her off,” said Moen. “Does your clit like super-direct focus? The smaller the head of the vibrator, the more laser-like the precision. Do you like lots of overall, engulfing stimulation that covers a lot of ground? The larger the head, the more surface area it’ll cover, and the vibrations will be more generally distributed across the entire vulva, from outer labia to clit.”

Wand (formerly known as the Hitachi Magic Wand). Best of luck to you!”

Q: A friend and I want to go to the inauguration in January with the intention of standing with our backs to the ceremony as a peaceful protest statement. A handful of people doing this won’t say much, but if hundreds or thousands of people did this, it could send a message to the world that the majority of us did not vote for him and are not supporting his hate. Do you feel this would be a worthwhile action to try to organize (along with giving money and time to organizations that support social justice), and if so, would you give voice to this idea to your readers and listeners? —PEACEFUL PROTESTER

a: On one hand, we need to stand against Trump. Like his campaign, his nomination, and his election, his impending inauguration is an outrage. On the other hand, flying is expensive and lodging in D.C. isn’t cheap. Our money could be better spent. Going to D.C. to turn your back on Trump as he’s being sworn in doesn’t preclude making a donation to the International Refugee Assistance Project, of course, and symbolic acts of resistance often inspire people to engage in additional and more practical acts of resistance (donating money, urging local elected officials to not cooperate with anti-immigrant campaigns). If heading to D.C. to protest feels right and necessary, you have my full support—so long as that’s not the last or only thing you do. And me? I’m going to spend the day making donations, baking cakes, and sucking cocks. v

For best results, Moen recommends buying two toys, VIBE, if you can swing the expense.“Get a generic bullet vibe first,” she said. “They’re about $15 to $20. It’s a model that has a control box you hold in one hand and a cord that connects to a simple vibrating egg shape that you hold in your masturbating hand. Try it out at home, and then, based on how you did or did not enjoy it, purchase a more expensive, high-quality model ($60 to $120) based on the kind of vibrational stimulation you learned you want from that first cheaply made model. I recommend the Minna Limon and Vibratex’s Mystic Wand for smaller-sized, decently powered vibrators. And then the big guns that’ll blast you to the moon and back are the Doxy and Vibratex’s Magic

Full column at the url savage.love m mailbox@savage.love

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