OCTOBER 5, 2018
THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892
VOL. 130, ISSUE 3
Microsoft CEO Joins Board of Trustees University By JASON LALLJEE deputy news editor
This past Monday, the University announced that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (M.B.A. ’97) was elected to the Board of Trustees. His five-year term on the board began last month. Nadella is from Hyderabad, India, and earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at Mangalore University. In the U.S, he earned his master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and his M.B.A. at the Booth School of Business.
Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO. courtesy of brian smale and microsoft.
Before being named CEO of Microsoft in 2014, Nadella worked as executive vice president of the company’s Cloud and Enterprise group. He also served as vice president of the Microsoft Business Division and as a member of the technology staff at Sun Microsystems, a now defunct company that produced computer hardware and software. Nadella additionally serves on the board of directors at Starbucks as well as the board of trustees at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
Law Profs O-Week: Six Trips to ER Due Oppose to Excessive Drinking Kavanaugh By SPENCER DEMBNER news editor
Twelve University of Chicago law professors have signed a letter opposing the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The letter argues that his response during a September 27 hearing to sexual assault allegations against him demonstrated a “lack of judicial temperament.” The signatories from UChicago are Albert W. Alschuler, Mary Anne Case, Herschella G. Conyers, Claudia M. Flores, Mark J. Heyrman, Aziz Huq, Alison L. LaCroix, Randal C. Picker, Julie A. Roin, Randall D. Schmidt, Geoffrey R. Stone and Laura Weinrib, all of whom are Law School faculty. They join over 2,400 other law faculty in signing the letter, which was presented to the Senate on Thursday. The letter claims Kavanaugh’s response to allegations of sexual assault leveled against him by psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford is disqualifying. “Instead of being open to the necessary search for accuracy, Judge Kavanaugh was repeatedly aggressive with questioners,” the letter reads. “Judge Kavanaugh responded in an intemperate, inflammatory and partial manner, as he interrupted and, at times, was discourteous to senators.” A final vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation was postponed last weekend when Republican Senators called for an investigation into Ford’s allegations. That investiga-
The number of students taken to the emergency room during O-Week due to alchool was down from 2017. However, it still far exceeded figures for recent O-Weeks, during which an average of 0.8 students were transported. grace hauck
By SPENCER DEMBNER news editor
Six underage students were brought to the emergency room after consuming alcoholic beverages during O-Week, according to University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) incident reports. Four students were transported from the Max Palevsky Residential Commons, the only residence hall with students needing medical attention, to the emergency room.
Hairy Who? The Art Institute Has the Answer By PERRI WILSON
Of the two other students, one was transported from the corner of 57th Street and University and the other from a UChicaGO shuttle bus. Although a decrease from last year, when eight students had to be transported during O-Week, the figure remains historically high. During 2016’s O-Week, only three underage students were transported. From 2010 to 2017, the average was just 0.8. In a statement, the University said none of the students ultimately had to be admitted to the hospital
Denby: Second Chance Society
and claimed that their drinking did not occur in dormitories. “Underage drinking is prohibited not only in the Residence Halls, but on the entire UChicago campus,” said Marielle Sainvilus, a University spokesperson. “While many of the calls came from College Housing, it appears that in most cases the actual consumption of alcohol occurred elsewhere.” Asked for evidence that the drinking occurred outside of dormitories, the University did not respond.
Illinois Voter Registration Deadline: October 9th. Print form on Pg. 3.
Like our Facebook page at facebook.com/chicagomaroon and follow @chicagomaroon on Instagram and Twitter to get the latest updates on campus news.
Will Merge Health Services
camelia malkami
By MAROON STAFF A new wellness center will open at the University of Chicago in 2021, bringing together the Student Health Service, Student Counseling Service (SCS), and Health Promotion and Wellness in one location, the University announced Thursday morning. The announcement represents an expansion of health and counseling resources for students, Provost Daniel Diermeier and Dean of Students Michele Rasmussen said in an e-mail. “The new space – which is slated to open in 2021 – will bring together the Student Health Service, Student Counseling Service, and Health Promotion and Wellness in one location, enabling us to provide integrated care in a welcoming and student-centered environment with more medical and mental health providers on staff,” the e-mail reads. In addition, the e-mail announced a series of other recent enhancements. One is the appointment of a full-time case manager, whose role will be to work with students that have been referred to off-campus providers for mental health treatment. Another change is the addition of an “online mental-health simulation” called At-Risk for College Students. The simulation will take approximately 30 minutes and will be required for incoming students along with the existing Haven and AlcoholEdu trainings. Finally, the email announced the launch of a new Student Health and Counseling Services website. The new site is intended to be more mobile-friendly, and will include a directory of providers and services.
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THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 5, 2018
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Events 10/5–10/11
Saturday UChicago Arts: Dialogo Dialogo The Dialogo Virginio Ferrari sculpture, 5828 South University Avenue, 2 - 3 p.m. Premiere performance of Dialogo Dialogo, a new improvisatory dance installation choreographed by Irene Hsiao and set to a carillon composition by Joey Brink. Hsiao explores the relationship between the bronze Virginio Ferrari sculpture Dialogo and the nearby Rockefeller Chapel’s bronze carillon bells. The event is free.
SSA Hosts Panel on Laquan McDonald
By BRAD SUBRAMANIAM senior reporter
Sunday Art Match Smart Museum of Art, 8 a.m. - 12 p.m. UChicago students—line up and select a work from the Art to Live With collection to hang in your dorm room for the entire academic year! Select a single work of art to enjoy in your room for the entire academic year. Available to UChicago students living in residence halls. Firstcome, first-served. Tuesday Humans vs Zombies Reynolds Club, 8:15 p.m. Humans vs Zombies is having a fall game, but for real this time! Get ready for some high-quality human-eating and zombie-evading action! It begins with registration on Tuesday, October 9, and continues until extraction on Tuesday, October 16. Registration: $3; Nerf gun rental: $3 + $7 refundable deposit. Thursday UCISTEM 5th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium Gordon Center for Integrative Sciences, 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. Don’t miss this opportunity to support your fellow students and learn about the great research they have conducted both at UChicago and around the world! Before and after the Keynote Lecture (RSVP required to attend the lecture), there will be two poster sessions, offering undergraduate students the opportunity to present their summer research endeavors to the campus community.
Correction In a September 21 article, The Maroon reported on the collapse of a building in Washington Park. Due to an editing error, the building was misidentified as a former CTA station. In fact, the building that collapsed was adjacent to the station.
Support Our Advertisers Page Five: Shop at Target on 53rd Street. Page Six: The Lumen Christi Institute is hosting a number of fall events. Page Seven: The Hyde Park Used Book Sale occurs on Columbus Day Weekend. Page Seven: Get a free coffee at Nella if you mention The Maroon. If you want to place an ad in The Maroon, please e-mail ads@chicagomaroon. com or visit chicagomaroon.com/pages/ advertise.
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Bannon is Back on?
Several presenters, including Law School professor Craig Futterman and historian Timuel Black, discussed the shooting of Laquan McDonald in a panel hosted by SSA at Logan. brad subramanian
By BRAD SUBRAMANIAM senior reporter
The School of Social Service Administration hosted a panel at the Logan Center for the Arts last Wednesday addressing the 2014 shooting of Laquan McDonald. The panelists, experts in racial studies and civil rights, spoke about issues such as systemic racism, police relations, and the criminal justice system. The panel, moderated by WBEZ anchor and host of the 16 Shots podcast Jenn White, discussed McDonald’s death as a result of an inadequate criminal justice system and the continued presence of systemic racism in Chicago since the early 20th century. McDonald, 17, was fatally shot multiple times by Chicago Police Department (CPD) officer Jason Van Dyke, who claimed that McDonald charged him with a knife. The police dashcam video released 13 months after the shooting contradicted Van Dyke’s account, revealing that McDonald was walking away from the officer when he was shot. Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder in November 2015 and is expected to receive a verdict within the next
few days. UChicago Law School professor Craig Futterman, whose successful Illinois Freedom of Information Act request was instrumental in the CPD’s release of the dashcam footage, opened the panel by detailing his initial reaction to the shooting. “My eyes glazed,” he said. “Stories like this appear in the media in Chicago several times a month, and the basic elements are always the same: Black man shot by the police, police say the shooting was justified, city says it’s investigating, and then silence.” Historian and civ il rights activ ist Timuel Black then explained the historical context which led to violence and police brutality in certain areas of Chicago. He stated that the Great Migration, in which hundreds of thousands of Black Americans moved to Northern cities from the South, created racial tensions in Chicago in the 20th century. “There was a social difference, and the police that had protected the people with fairness in the first Great Migration also began to move, and then the color of the police officers changed drastically,” Black said.
Steve Bannon, former advisor to President Donald Trump, plans to speak at the University of Chicago in the “near future,” according to Bannon spokesperson Alexandra Preate. Preate said in an e-mail to Crain’s Chicago Business that Bannon “looks forward to speaking at the University of Chicago in the near future,” but has to schedule around promotion for his new movie, Trump @ War, and ongoing trips to Europe. Booth School of Business professor Luigi Zingales invited Bannon to the University in January to debate Austan Goolsbee, although Zingales said that he has not been able to get Bannon to agree to a specific date. “We are still waiting for an answer,” Zingales told Crain’s. “I’m not holding my breath.” Goolsbee has called Bannon a “snowflake” on Twitter for not debating him.
Black says that a sharp rise in single-parent families and a lack of economic opportunity within the inner city led to a rise in violence often met with police brutality. These events led to the current prevalence of police violence in the Chicago area. Reuben Miller, an assistant professor at the School of Social Service Administration, continued by emphasizing that white officers are not the only ones responsible for police violence. Janaé Bonsu, codirector of Black Youth Project 100 and Ph.D. student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, stated, “Sure, an individual officer can be prejudiced. What is racist is when the criminal legal system, police policies and procedures, [and] FOP union contracts…legitimize officers’ actions or lack thereof.” Referring to the McDonald shooting, Bonsu added, “If Jason Van Dyke gets an acquittal, then it signals to everyone— whether you are a black person, brown person, officer or not—that it doesn’t matter what you do. You can literally get away with shooting someone 16 times, and the system that you work for will sanction it and legitimize it. That is racism.”
Treasure Island To Close Next Week By KATIE AKIN managing editor
All six remaining locations of Treasure Island, including its Hyde Park location, will close later this month on October 12. The Lincoln Park location closed in September. The grocery store has been a Hyde Park staple for years, offering fresh food and a 10 percent student discount. Everything in the store is on sale in preparation for its closing. The University owns the store’s lot on 55th Street and Lake Park Avenue, but has not yet found a replacement for it, according to a September 29 e-mail to a Hyde Park resident. The e-mail said the University plans to work alongside the Alderman’s office to find a new vendor for the space. “We just got notice last night that the company is going out of business,” Derek Douglas, Vice President for Civic Engagement and External Affairs, wrote in the e-mail. A manager at Treasure Island declined to give comment, deferring to the corporate office.
Treasure Island’s six remaining locations, including in Hyde Park, will close next week. katie akin
Natalie Denby
I once heard a classmate claim that we all want to live in a “second chance society.” The phrase made an impression because I initially thought it might be a joke (it wasn’t). But what struck me more was how wholeheartedly everyone seemed to endorse this forgiveness ethos. And indeed, there’s a whole slew of hot button issues that would push most of us to endorse expanded second chances. We put a premium on the idea that the worst of a person’s history shouldn’t necessarily be a ceiling on the best of their future—at least, not in the policy arena, when it comes to incarcerating people, accessing their criminal records, handling drug usage, and reaching out to those with mental health issues. But what gave me pause when I heard this second chance claim is how inconsistent it is with ordinary people’s behaviors, particularly online. We may endorse the idea of second chances for criminal of-
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fenses, but in practice, we won’t forgive comparably minor online offenses. On the contrary, we get a righteous kick out of donning our investigative troll hats. And while the deluge of digital rage is often justified (we’re often reacting to comments that are truly abhorrent), we’re getting in the habit of demanding pristine records—to an extent that can be unrealistic and damaging. To understand how prolific we’ve become at this high stakes trolling, look at the countless times in the past few years when an unearthed tweet or blog post prompted a resignation, a firing, or a series of effusive apologies. James Gunn was fired from the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise over unfunny, old tweets— uncovered by alt-right figures targeting outspoken liberals. Trevor Noah was also engulfed in controversy for old jokes, as was Joy Reid for bizarre and frequently homophobic blog posts from years before. While much of the rage fixates on the famous, targets can be considerably less prominent—consider the comedian Gilbert Gottfried, fired for offensive
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Second Chance Society
Many of Us, Even Those Otherwise Committed to Forgiveness, Are Cruel to Those Who Make Mistakes Online n
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THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 5, 2018 3
THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 5, 2018
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This half-page is intentionally left blank due to voter registration form requirements.
“The funny thing is that a generation more attached to forgiveness than its predecessors appears less able to dispense it.” continued from page
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comments about the 2011 Japanese tsunami, or Quinn Norton, fired within hours of being hired by The New York Times after her past tweets resurfaced. In many of these cases, the offenses are blown out of proportion, or are part of baseless smear campaigns—but the repercussions are still extreme. The alt-right’s efforts to take down various liberal figures, including James Gunn, used their distasteful jokes about pedophilia to accuse them of actually being pedophiles in coordinated Twitter campaigns. Conser vatives denigrated Sarah Jeong, now a member of the New York Times editorial board, as an anti-white racist over old tweets; Jeong’s posts may have been questionable, but hardly merited the response they received. Then there are people like Wanna Thompson, a writer who was fired and subjected to a deluge of cruel messages (including pictures of her young daughter and messages telling her to kill herself ) simply for her critique of Nicki Minaj’s
music. That’s really no infraction at all. T he le s s on f r om Wa n n a Thompson and Sarah Jeong is that relatively minor transgressions by ordinary people can be used as weapons against them, in some cases after many years. And whether a person recovers from the damage may have more to do with the persistence of their attackers and the patience of their employers than with the nature of their offense. That’s a scary thought, because decent people often don’t have unimpeachable records. The idea that their futures should be left in part to the discretion of a faceless digital mob is itself offensive. Unmitigated rage is obv iously the easy way to deal with finding blemishes in a stranger’s past. Who wants to deal with nuance and restraint? But if that’s the position we’re going to take, we’re arguably ill-equipped to handle leaving digital tracks at all. The funny thing is that a generation more attached to forgiveness than its predecessors ap-
pears less able to dispense it. We have unprecedented access to information about our peers’ pasts, including those we’ve never met and will never have to face. And then there’s the nature of being a troll online; you can weaponize a person’s history without having to risk your own skin in the process. The critics’ anonymity and the criticized’s visibility create a potent mix. Combine it with our apparently medieval view of online transgressions, and you’ll find we’ve made a much less forgiving environment. This ca n, a nd should, be cha nged. We just need to remember that digital misdemeanors are often taken out of context. And while uninformed judgment is easily passed, it can rarely be fully withdrawn. Sometimes it’s worth waiting for an explanation or apology before unleashing a torrent of online rage. Natalie Denby is a fourth-year in the College majoring in public policy studies.
Euirim Choi, Editor-in-Chief Pete Grieve, Editor-in-Chief Katie Akin, Managing Editor Kay Yang, Managing Editor The Maroon Editorial Board consists of the editors-in-chief and editors of The Maroon.
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THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 5, 2018
Non-stop study sesh? Aced. From Monster Energy to Archer Farms coffee, save and shop close to campus.
Hyde Park Target E 53rd St & S Kenwood Ave
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THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 5, 2018
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ARTS
Hairy Who? The Art Institute Has the Answer By PERRI WILSON associate arts editor
As the Art Institute’s summer exhibit of Sargent’s Gilded Age masterpieces comes to a close, their new fall exhibit, Hairy Who? 1966–1969, pounds impatiently at the door. Hairy Who is the name of a collective of six artists whose bizarre and endlessly entertaining artworks have taken over much of the museum’s temporary exhibition space. The group was first formed for strategic purposes. The recent graduates from the School of the Art Institute—Jim Falconer, Art Green, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Suellen Rocca, and Karl Wirsum—realized the benefits of jointly displaying work. In 1964, they approached Don Baum of the Hyde Park Arts Center and were granted space for a joint show. From there, Hairy Who went on to put together two more Hyde Park exhibitions, along with some in San Francisco, New York, and Washington, D.C. The A rt Institute’s sur vey of Hair y Who’s work is especially conscious of their history. The pieces are organized not by artist, nor by medium, nor subject. Rather, the curators have done their best to recreate each of the group’s six shows, providing the historical context of their success (or, in some cases, failure). This unorthodox decision makes sense in the context of the group’s work because Hairy Who’s exhibitions were artworks unto themselves. Rather than have a joint collection of individual works, they combined forces to create a complete publicity scheme for each of their
exhibits. On view on the first floor of the Art Institute, visitors can see comic books and posters, each as amusing and original as the artworks themselves. One lithograph poster mocks traditional advertisements, satirically declaring that “Hairy Who makes you Smell Good.” Upon entering the first gallery, displaying the works from the 1966 Hyde Park exhibit, visitors are immediately bombarded with unnatural colors and discomforting graphic designs. But perhaps the most disconcerting characteristic of the works is the amount of exposed paper. Especially following the lush canvases of the nearby Sargent show, the works in Hairy Who? 1966–1969 seem unfinished. Falconer’s doodle-like watercolors on wrinkled paper and Nutt’s nearby characters sketched on plexiglass are so focused on the unearthly figures in the foreground that they neglect any background. Even while the young artists enjoyed flaunting their irreverence for formal art, with self-deprecating titles like Falconer’s “Morbid Sunshine by a Minor Artist,” Hairy Who’s talent and thoroughness is evident. Even with Nutt’s absurd plexiglass images of grotesque figures, his works seem clearly premeditated. In fact, the plexiglass medium used was labor-intensive, requiring careful planning and preliminary sketches of the reversed image. Nilsson’s pieces reveal an equal mastery over her materials. Whimsical and funny, “Duck Patrol” shows abstracted ducks in uniform, complete with continued on pg.
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A work by Suellen Rocca, a member of Hairy Who art institute of chicago
The Lumen Christi Institute for Catholic Thought Fall Quarter Campus Events Faith, Crisis, Christ
a weekly non-credit course taught by Paul Mankowski, SJ (Lumen Christi Scholar-in-Residence)
Vatican I: Loss and Gain with Papal Governance of the Catholic Church a symposium featuring
Tuesdays October 9 - November 20 6pm dinner | 6:30 lecture & discussion Gavin House (1220 E 58th St.)
Russell Hittinger (University of Tulsa) Joseph Mueller, SJ (Marquette University) John W. O’Malley, SJ (Georgetown University)
Syllabus includes CS Lewis, GK Chesterton, JRR Tolkien, and Ronald Knox
Saturday, October 13 | 1:30-3:30pm Swift Hall Third Floor Lecture
Open to current students and faculty
reception to follow
Councils and Popes: Who’s In Charge?
The Catholic Curch Between Universalism and Establishment
an afternoon master class led by John W. O’Malley, SJ (Georgetown University)
Friday, October 12 | 2-5pm Gavin House (1220 E. 58th St.) Open to current students and faculty A wine and cheese reception will follow PDFs of assigned readings will be provided
a lecture by Hans Joas (University of Chicago/Humboldt University)
Wednesday, October 24 | 4:30pm Swift Hall Third Floor Lecture reception to follow Registration is free and open to the public
For more information on these events and to register visit www.lumenchristi.org
THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 5, 2018
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BoJack Horseman Balances Humor With Biting Self-criticism By MICHAEL SHERMAN arts staff
W hen it prem iered on Net f li x just over four yea rs ago, BoJack Horseman seemed to offer few compelling reasons to exist in the already overcrowded landscape of adult cartoon shows. In BoJack Horseman’s first ha lf season, the show had yet to find its footing. The premise of a washed up ’90s sitcom star, attempting to return to the public eye with a ghostw r it ten biog raphy, wa s made sl ig htly more off-putting to some by its anthropomor ph ic a n ima l cha racters. Not to mention, the stor y seemed rather predictable—BoJack (voiced by Will Arnett), the eponymous former sitcom star, would fall in love with his bookish ghostwriter, Diane. In a traditional sitcom structure, BoJack might have instead befriended his former sitcom rival, Mr. Peanutbutter, encouraged his roommate, Todd, to pursue his dream of ma k ing a rock opera, and developed a more professional relationship with his agent/ex-girlfriend, Princess Caroly n. Yet, we soon realize BoJack Horseman does not function like a traditional sitcom. In the series’ first season, BoJack emotionally tortures every important person in his life. Not only is BoJack not dating Diane, he is forced to watch Mr. Pea nutbutter propose to her on reality television. Not only does BoJack not help Todd develop his career, he ac t ively dest roys it to ensu re t hat Todd stays in his life. Not only is there no improvement in BoJack’s relationship w ith Princess Caroly n, he emotionally manipulates her to keep him on as a client. This has yet to scratch the surface
of the deep emotional pain that exists in the final four episodes of the season, in which BoJack Horseman fully commits it sel f to a sk ing whet her a person ca n still be “good” after w ronging so many people. In choosing to tell this story, BoJack Horseman has gone from middling reviews to being considered one of the best shows on television—even drawing comparisons to Mad Men. Now in its fifth season, the show continues to focus on its protagonist’s morality, but with an added self-awareness to its profound and subtle power to comment on societal norms. Previous seasons shied away from feminism narratives via B-stories, but BoJack Horseman’s writers now finally embrace the media narrative that has been driving what feels like ever y nationa l a nd inter nationa l news sca nda l: t he #MeToo movement . By using fem in ism a s a n inter na l f ra mework to this sea son, the show creates a meta-critique of BoJack Horseman’s own potential societal inf luence in norma lizing the behav ior of toxic men. Viewers are forced into a more nuanced moral qualification of BoJack ’s morality (or lack thereof ).W hile the meta-critique of its role in the society and continued examination of morality might sound serious, BoJack Horseman is, after all, a comedy—and quite a funny one at that. As the show picks up this season, BoJack has just started filming his new show Philbert, a prestige cop drama per fectly satirizing True Detective. With Rami Malek impeccably cast as the self-proclaimed genius showrunner Flip McVicker (parodying real-life showrunner Nic Pizzolat to), the show delivers its most hilarious content through the
destruction of absurd cinematographic a nd w riting tropes of modern dra mas. Yet Philbert also serves as the vehicle for BoJack Horseman’s critique of itself. In the show within the show, BoJack plays the eponymous detective who is being investigated by internal affairs for having potentially murdered his wife. Lampooning nebulous scripts, confusing timelines, and unreliable narrators, Philbert eventually comes to embody a depressing reality: Men in society rarely, if ever, have to accept responsibility for the pain they inf lict upon women. A s v iewers watch BoJack harm strangers, acquaintances, close f r iends, a nd fa mily w ithout a ny tangible consequences for himself, the show posits whether or not his actions normalize toxic behavior. As the reality of Philbert and the reality of his own life blur together, BoJack continues to follow the cycle of highs and lows as established i n prev ious sea sons. A major t u r n i ng point in this cycle comes in “Free Churro” (episode six), which consists entirely of BoJack’s eulogy speech for his mother, Beatrice. The excruciatingly painful episode is balanced by humorous callbacks to prev ious episodes a nd a n intensely vulnerable description of Beatrice’s final minutes of life. Commanding laughs and tears, “Free Churro” is likely the year’s best television episode, and one that will certainly draw Emmy voters’ attention to Will A r net t ’s per for ma nce. Sea son
five might offer the most developed takes on each character so far. As is consistent with most of the series, Diane and Princess Caroly n face nuanced stor ylines— Diane faces an identity crisis while Princess Carolyn, in the process of adopting a child, grapples with balancing motherhood and her career. Formerly, one of the larger complaints from fans and critics had been the lack of depth given to Mr. Peanutbutter and Todd’s narrative arcs. However, these complaints prove invalid in the fifth season, where the characters’ former arcs continue to unravel. Mr. Peanutbutter must examine why his previous three marriages fell apart, through which BoJack Horseman interrogates the Holly wood actor’s compulsion to marry younger women. Todd continues to wrestle with his asexuality, as the show asks us to consider a modern social dilemma: Given an incredibly limited dating pool, should asexuals choose loneliness or incompatible relationships? All in all, this season of BoJack Horseman helps solidify its status as one of today ’s most consistently great T V shows. Perhaps season five is not the show ’s funniest, nor the show ’s happiest—may be not even t he show’s best. But it surely gives us BoJack Horseman at its most self-critical.
CSO Season Opens With a Cautionary Tale from Russian Composers By RENA SLAVIN arts staff
T he Ch ic ago Sy mphony Orchest ra (CSO), conducted by Riccardo Muti, opened the 2018–2019 season on Saturday night with a program of Russian music. The evening began with the CSO’s debut performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s Sinfonietta Op. 5/48, first written in 1909 and later revised in 1914–15 and 1929. Foreshadowing the composer’s first symphony, often referred to as the Classical Symphony, this five-movement work is written in the style of Haydn and Mozart. It breaks from classical style with unexpected harmonies in true Prokofiev fashion. CSO’s performance was light and colorful, and the Sinfonietta served as an intriguing, if unorthodox, prologue. Following intermission, the orchestra was joined by the men of the Chicago Symphony Chorus and bass soloist Alexey Tikhomirov for a superb performance of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13, Op. 113 (Babi Yar). Written in 1962, this five-movement work was set to texts by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, a young, rather vocal Russian poet, but was attacked by Soviet censorship, forcing Yevtushenko to edit parts of his poems. In 1961, Yevtushenko published what was to become one of his most famous works, Babi Yar, following a visit to a seemingly ordinary hilltop in northern Kiev called Babi Yar. The site marks the location of the massacre of nearly 34,000 Jews on September 29–30, 1941, by Nazi forces and their collaborators. In the months that followed, tens of thousands of Jews, Russians, Ukrainians, and other individuals targeted by the Nazi regime were murdered at Babi Yar, bringing the estimated total to 100,000–150,000. At the time of Yevtushenko’s visit, the grand memorial that stands at Babi Yar today was nowhere to be seen, a fact which opens the poem: “There is no memorial above Babi Yar, / The steep ravine
is like a crude tombstone.” The CSO began the first movement, titled and set to Babi Yar, with a chilling and ominous orchestral introduction marked by the tolling of a bell. The choir and soloist entered, aptly presenting Yevtushenko’s narrative of Jewish suffering with allusions to the Dreyfus affair, the Belostok pogrom, and the fate of Anne Frank. Shostakovich’s dark orchestral writing and clear, rhetorically driven vocal lines create a movement that is unbelievably touching. The anti-Semitic episodes that Yevtushenko describes do not quite feel sad, and his definition of the “true Russian” as one who opposes anti-Semitism is not quite patriotic. Instead, Shostakovich evokes a bleak and desolate tone that Muti conveyed with each brooding interlude and raging climax, making the room feel bitterly cold. The suitably playful second movement, Humor, satirically depicts comedy as an instrument of dissent with which to undermine “tsars, kings, emperors, / rulers of the world.” In the Store draws attention to hard-working and undervalued Soviet women; Fears, nearly as controversial as Babi Yar, paints life under the constraints of Soviet surveillance; and A Career, the slightly lighter finale, praises those who— like Galileo, Pasteur, and Tolstoy—have not been coerced into conformity. Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13 denounces the Holocaust, Soviet anti-Semitism, and other morally reprehensible practices of the totalitarian dictatorship under which it was composed. Though the Soviet Union has fallen, this Symphony stands as a denunciation of the religious persecution, prejudice, and tyranny that continue to plague humankind today. The CSO accomplished much more than a memorable season opener last weekend: Muti successfully reaffirmed the relevance of classical music for all who question it with a work whose cautionary message ought not to be forgotten.
THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 5, 2018
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Cassette Day Makes Retro Modern Again By DAVID NORTH arts staff
Cassette Store Day (CSD), an annual celebration of the compact cassette audio format and its long-lasting importance, takes place on Saturday, October 13 with four participating Chicago stores: Bric-a-Brac Records, Bucket O’Blood Books & Records, Curbside Books & Records, and Shuga Records. CSD began back in the United Kingdom in 2013 before making its way to the U.S. in 2016. The event invites artists to sell exclusive releases on the decades-old music format in the hope of supporting local music stores that still stock analog media. In past years, musical acts like The Flaming Lips, Julian Casablancas + The Voidz, A lex G, a nd others have participated in the limited production runs that make these tapes so valuable. This year features tapes by small record labels like Burger Records (who releases music exclu-
sively on cassette) with Harnessed to Flesh by Tomorrow’s Tulips or 1980s Collection by Groovie Ghoulies as well as reissues of J Dilla’s posthumous Dillatronic and additions from ascendant artists like Frankie Cosmos and her landmark Zentrophy. A full list can be found on CSD’s website, but a few more highlights include: Sun Ra’s THE HELIOCENTRIC WORLDS OF SUN RA, VOL. 2, MED, BLUE & MADLIB’s BAD NEIGHBOR, and Promweather’s For the Birds on Hermit’s Hill. CSD borrows a lot from its analog cousin, Record Store Day, whose vinyl format has grow n over 1,000 percent over the last 10 years, with 14 million LPs sold in 2017. Despite this rapid growth, vinyl still cannot match cassette tape’s 136 percent increase in sales over the last year thanks to new releases from Taylor Swift, Jay-Z, and the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack. Cassette falls short of vinyl’s (and CD’s) raw sales numbers but is still enjoying a revival that is picking up steam
and looking to get even bigger with this year’s celebration. CSD has its critics though, with many calling it a temporary fad based solely on nostalgia, with some going as far as comparing the revival of cassettes to Brexit, Donald Trump’s presidency, and the rise of nativism. To many, the format is dead and it’s better it stays that way, with many rehashing tired arguments about tape’s inability to skip tracks, limited storage, clunky design, poor audio quality, and the silver bullet: horror stories about players eating tape. W hat most people don’t realize is that cassette tape never actually died. It has quietly been one of the most important data formats since its creation in 1967. With Chicago as one of the early adopters, the pre-recorded cassette industry has been partially sustained by prison populations. Inmates in most states are allowed to own clear, screwless cassettes, but not CDs or vinyl. Over the years, several duplica-
tors and distributors have popped up, such as It’s All Love Cassettes & Necessities and Pack Central, with the purpose of selling new releases on cassette to prisoners when Universal agreed to allow reproduction of prison tapes if the distributor bought 250 copies of the album. Not only this, but the older brother to the cassette, magnetic reel tape (of which cassettes are just a miniature form factor), stores a majority of the data collected in the world, ranging from movies, to scientific data, to national archives, with single tape libraries that can hold 278 petabytes of data. That’s over a thousand times as much as the average laptop’s one terabyte hard drive can hold. Tape has, and continues to be, the preferred medium for data storage because of its efficient energy consumption, reliability, security, and above all, its price. The cheap cost of tape makes it a favorite for independent musicians who can’t afford a vinyl
pressi ng but wa nt somet h i ng more “official-looking” than a CD for their analog-listening crowd. Blank tapes are still being made by companies like Maxwell, which can be purchased for around three dollars, easily recorded duplicated by old studio equipment, and sold for around five dollars. Even larger labels, like Sub Pop, whose artists include Beach House, Clipping., Shabazz Palaces, and more, have made cassette releases a staple of their business; Nearly every album having a cassette release as well as anniversary reissues that populate their online store. Never has there been a better time to get into collecting and listening to cassette tapes, an audio format that has stood the test of time and continues to question mainstream assumptions about its irrelevancy. CSD is a chance to celebrate the ongoing revival of cassette tape from its temporary underground status and an opportunity to snag some exclusive releases from your favorite artists.
“The young artists enjoyed flaunting their irreverence for formal art” continued from pg.
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flags and trumpets. Her watercolors are also impressively planned compositions; each is a full patchwork of colorful shapes worthy for its visual impact as much as for its subject matter. W hile walking through the dizzying rooms of the Art Institute’s exhibition, one sees the six characters of Hairy Who dip in and out of relevance, change slowly and abruptly, and play off one another. Nilsson, for instance, experimented with painting on plexiglass like her husband, Jim Nutt, had done in previous years, but to a much more spontaneous and impressive effect. Rocca’s gigantic canvases were unfocused and hard to look at in the earlier rooms, but her bubbly line-designs in later rooms were some of
my favorite pieces. Green’s political symbols, meanwhile, were beginning to grow old until he took a sudden turn with a set of beautiful, antique-looking ballpoint drawings. Much like a TV show, the exhibition takes on complex social issues which are often lost in the sexier drama of its surrealist-pop style. And while some pieces, with titles such as Green’s “Consider the Options, Examine the Facts, Apply the Logic” or “Fat City Phenomena,” are overtly political, I struggled to see much else beyond the bold and entertaining designs of each work. The most obvious examination of social issues is found in the anatomical and sexual references present in so many of Hairy Who’s works and their challenge of conventional physical
beauty and sexuality. Yet even the initially shocking bodily forms become monotonous after a certain point, and quickly began to lose their thought-provoking edge. In the last room, a series of painted chairs done by Nutt make crude jokes—one simply depicts dripping boxers with the words “I’m Wet.” A nd yet, one can’t help but childishly giggle at works such as these. They are undeniably dizzying, and at times tiring, but there’s something addictive about the six artists’ whimsical imaginations. The Art Institute’s recreation of Hairy Who’s 1960s exhibitions is an experience, to say the least— an experience that brings one straight to the groundbreaking rooms of the 1960s Hyde Park Arts Center.
art institute of chicago
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