10122018

OCTOBER 12, 2018

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892

VOL. 130, ISSUE 5

Panelists Treasure Island Sinks, Employees Left Without a Line Talk Van Dyke Verdict

By DEEPTI SAILAPPAN news editor

In the wake of Friday’s guilty verdict for Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, panelists convened at the University’s School of Social Administration (SSA) on Tuesday evening to debrief on the trial’s monumental significance.

“This is historic, no doubt about it,” said Law School professor Craig Futterman, who took legal action that prompted a judge to order the release of dash cam footage of Van Dyke fatally shooting Laquan McDonald, a 17-year-old Black teenager. The footage became public in November 2015, thirteen months after the shooting, and Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder.

Last Friday, a jury convicted Van Dyke of second-degree murder and sixteen counts of aggravated battery with a firearm—one count for each shot fired.

“This is the first time ever— ever—that an on-duty Chicago police officer was held accountable for killing a Black man, woman, or child,” Futterman continued, adding that 75 percent of Chicagoans shot by police are Black.

Moderated by communications strategist and WBEZ journalist Sylvia Ewing, Tuesday’s discussion spanned a range of topics. These included possible sentences for Van continued on pg.

2

Treasure Island closed after 10 years in business, laying off dozens of its employees and leaving residents with fewer grocery options. jeremy lindenfield

By KATIE AKIN & CAROLINE KUBZANSKY It was the go-to for grape leaves, lime juice, and Velveeta in Hyde Park.

Treasure Island, a Chicago-based grocery chain that allegedly earned Julia Child’s designation as “America’s Most European Su-

permarket” closed on Monday, October 7, after 55 years of operation.

The store carved out a niche in its wide selection of specialty and imported foods in a pre-Whole Foods (much less Amazon) era.

The brand’s closure came as a surprise to almost everyone. The University, which owns the shopping plaza where Treasure Island was located, found out it had gone out of business on the evening of September 28, just over one week

before the store closed.

Today, the store sits empty and locked. A replacement vendor has not been signed, and the 450 Treasure Island employees are without work. What comes next for a neighborhood institution, closed before we had time to grieve?

A Brief History of Treasure Island Christ Kamberos founded Treasure Island Foods in 1963 with a focus on specialty imported foods, filling a

niche in Chicago’s “intensely competitive” grocery store scene.

“This is a fashion show in food,” Kamberos told the Chicago Tribune in 1982. “What we do is exciting.

This business is about romance. We bring the whole world to your feet— that’s romance.”

Treasure Island arrived Hyde Park in 2008 as the newest chapter in a larger Chicago story of struggling grocery stores. continued on pg.

8

University Announces Campus Partial Opening in Hong Kong

By YUEZHEN LI news reporter

The University announced a partial opening for the University of Chicago Francis and Rose Yuen Campus in Hong Kong on September 26, which will begin operating at full capacity in November.

Located on the historic Mount Davis, the campus has roots in the University’s Executive MBA (EMBA) degree program in Hong Kong, offered by the Booth School of Business.

The Hong Kong campus joins existing University centers in Delhi, Beijing, and Paris, as well as a Booth School site in London. Once fully functioning, it will support UChicago undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty pursuing research in Hong Kong and Asia, and facilitate the University’s collaborations with academic, corporate, and gov-

ernmental partners in that region.

The campus is named after Francis Yuen, a University trustee, and Rose Yuen. They are also the namesakes of a house in Campus North Residential Commons.

The partial opening followed the completion of the campus’s main academic building, known as Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) University of Chicago Academic Complex. Its facilities include two-tiered lecture halls, multiple group study rooms, a student lounge, a reading room, and a multi-function hall.

The campus will be home to the continuing EMBA program and support the new Program on Social Innovation, which will foster NGO and social entrepreneurship work in Hong Kong. Both are operated by the Booth School.

“The campus will be a base for our world-renowned faculty and our students to work and study in Hong

Kong as well as serve as a gathering space for alumni throughout Asia and an intellectual resource for the region,” Madhav Rajan, dean of the Booth School, said in a University press release.

The Hong Kong campus will also serve as a hub for study abroad programs, including the existing quarter-long Colonizations program that fulfills the Civilization Studies requirement for the Core.

Additionally, it will work with Career Advancement and UChicago Grad to facilitate undergraduate and graduate internship programs, including the Metcalf Internship program.

With further construction awaiting completion, the campus will host a series of official Opening Celebration events between November 30 and December 2. President Robert J. Zimmer will visit the campus in November.

“The new Hong Kong campus… is operating on a limited basis until the full opening scheduled for November 2018,” the University press release said.

Still under development is the Heritage Campus, which will preserve Mount Davis’s historic buildings dating from the colonial period

and update them for contemporary use. Once complete, the Heritage Campus will include a courtyard, hiking trails, and an interpretation center that will host public exhibits introducing the site’s history. It will be open to the public in the coming December.

A 2016 rendering depicts the Hong Kong center. courtesy of bing thom architects

The Demise of a Hyde Park Treasure

Students Spent a Night at the Museum

By SAM JOYCE

By ADRIAN MANDEVILLE

Like our Facebook page at facebook.com/chicagomaroon and follow @chicagomaroon on Instagram and Twitter to get the latest updates on campus news.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 12, 2018

2

Events 10/12–10/15

Former Sanders Campaign Manager Talks New Book

Saturday South Side History Bike Tour with Dean Boyer Regenstein Library, 10 a.m.–4:00 p.m.

Dean John Boyer and professor Mark Hansen will be leading their annual bike tour this Saturday. Starting in front of Regenstein Library, students will have the chance to explore Bronzeville, Bridgeport, and more.

Yarn/Wire Logan Center, Performance Hall, 7:30 p.m.

Presented by the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition and University of Chicago Presents, the percussion and piano quartet will be performing Misato Mochizuki’s Les Monde des Rondes et des Carrés and Feld, a recent work

by Enno Poppe.

Sunday Open House at Rockefeller Chapel with the Chicago Architecture Center Rockefeller Chapel, 9 a.m.

The Chicago Architecture Center will be featuring Rockefeller Chapel in its great architectural treasures tour. Participants will visit hidden spaces not normally accessible to the public, photograph the Chapel from new vantage points, and pick up a newly reprinted visitor’s guide.

The Time is Now! Art Worlds of Chicago’s South Side, 1960–1980 Smart Museum, until December 30, 2018 The Smart Museum of Art’s new exhibit showcases the cultural legacy of the ‘60s and ‘70s South Side Chicago. Featuring figures of and peripheral to the Black Arts Movement, the exhibit features about 100 pieces gathered from various public and private collections, including the Smart’s own collection.

Monday Art, Politics, and Society: The Role and Responsibility of Artists to Right-wing Nationalism and Social/Religious Conflict International House, 12:15 p.m.

Presented by the International House and the Global Voices Program, TM Krishna — scholar, activist, and Carnatic vocalist — will present a lecture on the role of artists in affecting institutional change in the current political climate.

Bernard Harcourt - The Counterrevolution Seminary Co-Op Bookstore, 6 p.m.

Joined by John Mearsheimer and Tom Durkin, Bernard Harcourt will discuss his new book, The Counterrevolution: How Our Government Went to War Against Its Own Citizens.

Support Our Advertisers Page Three: Nella Pizza and Pasta is located on 55th Street, in the same building as Campus North. The Becker Friedman Institute is hosting an event, “China’s Role in the Global Economy,” starting on November 1.

Page Four: Shop at Target on 53rd Street.

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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Jeff Weaver spoke about the future of the Democratic Party. COURTESY OF THE INSTITUTE OF POLITICS

By KEVIN HASSETT news reporter

Jeff Weaver, the campaign manager for Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential bid, discussed his new book How Bernie Won at Ida Noyes Hall on Wednesday.

The discussion was moderated by Paul Tewes, a current fellow at the Institute of Politics and director of Barack Obama’s historic Iowa Caucus campaign.

Fourth-year Sam Roth, political director of the UC Democrats, introduced Weaver. He noted that despite Sanders’s unsuccessful presidential bid, his campaign garnered over 13 million votes and won primaries in 22 states with Weaver at the helm.

Tewes began by asking Weaver about the beginning of his career in politics. Weaver explained that, as a student attending Boston University (BU) in the 1980s, he got involved in the anti-apartheid movement, and was ultimately thrown out of BU for “trying to build a shanty town in front of a student union building.”

Weaver said he then moved back to Vermont, where he met with an old friend who was involved in Bernie Sanders’s unsuccessful 1986 gubernatorial campaign, and found that he was “suddenly the county coordinator after five minutes of conversation, with no political experience.”

At one point Weaver read aloud an excerpt from his book, which contained an excerpt from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1944 State of the Union address. Roosevelt’s speech was given via radio with an ideology that, Weaver said, should sound familiar to anyone who has heard Sanders’s 2016 stump speech.

Weaver equated Sanders’s 2016 campaign to a campaign for a fifth term for Roosevelt, in that it intended to carry out the unfinished business of the New Deal, which Weaver said was abandoned in the 1990s by Bill Clinton and neoliberalism.

Regarding the future of progressivism in the Democratic Party and the future of American politics, Weaver repeatedly stressed the need to organize. He added that progressivism does not have to be strictly coastal and that it can win over voters in more rural states if progressives put in the work. “People in Kansas aren’t your enemy,” he said.

Weaver said he does not believe the Democratic Party will splinter, because a tug-of-war between progressivism and centrism has always existed in the party. He stressed, however, that Democrats need to inspire people.

Millennials have the capacity to leave Republicans effectively “extinct in two election cycles,” Weaver said, which is crucial because “Trump is bad, but there’s worse than Trump….

If he gets reelected, what comes after him might be unrecognizable to us.”

“Defense for Van Dyke took control of the narrative.” continued from front

Dyke, the media circus surrounding the trial, mental health in Black communities, and ongoing civil rights reforms in the Chicago Police Department (CPD).

The event featured four panelists who spoke at SSA’s pre-verdict discussion last Wednesday: Futterman; SSA assistant professor Reuben Miller; 99-year-old civil rights leader Timuel Black (A.M. ’54), who brought Martin Luther King, Jr. to campus for King’s first Chicago address; and activist Janae Bonsu (A.M. ’15), a chair of the Black Youth Project 100 and current social work doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Chicago. New to the group was Marion Malcolme, a clinician and SSA doctoral student.

Futterman said that Van Dyke would likely serve 60 years in prison. Futterman explained that this is because Illinois law mandates consecutive prison sentences of six to 30 years for Class X felonies, a category that includes aggravated battery. An exception to the Class X sentencing rule states, however, that felons cannot serve more than twice the maximum sentence for any of their convictions. As a result, although a sentence of the minimum six years for each of Van Dyke’s 16 counts of aggravated battery would add up to 96 years, his total sentence would be limited to 60 years.

However, Futterman cautioned that this sentence is not set in stone: there are “lots of legal moves” Van Dyke’s team could make ahead of his sentencing.

The panelists stressed repeatedly that Van Dyke’s conviction barely scratches the surface of systemic racism across Chicago.

In particular, Miller said, media coverage of the trial exposed people’s willingness to empathize with Van Dyke and other police officers.

“Defense for Van Dyke took control of the narrative,” he said. “What the media did—talking to him, talking to his wife—was humanizing him.”

Bonsu agreed, noting that the trial focused heavily on how the trauma police officers experience can influence their actions while on duty.

She pointed out that communities affected by police brutality also face trauma.

A mug shot of Jason Van Dyke after his guilty verdict.

The panelists also argued that the media excessively highlighted the possibility of citywide protests and CPD dispatches of officers to counter protesters.

“The way in which the media played up the potential of violence of Black and Brown folks incites anxiety, incites fear,” Malcolme said.

She added that the anxieties created by this kind of coverage have likely lingered in Black communities even after the trial. “That whole narrative, I think, really has an impact on people’s mental health. [The media] are just assuming that we’re basically going to act animals if we’re rightly, and justly, angry if it’s a not guilty verdict.”

At times, the conversation turned emotional. Bonsu talked about sobbing at length when she heard the verdict. Miller described his childhood as a ward of the state, as McDonald was. “I didn’t run into my murderer when I was a kid making mistakes,” he said.

Twice during the panel, Futterman referenced the Donald Trump administration’s avowed opposition to a consent decree for CPD. If approved, the consent decree, filed in federal court by the State of Illinois, would require a federal judge to mandate sprawling civil rights reforms for Chicago police. Among these re-

COURTESY PHOTO

forms is a rule permitting CPD officers to shoot only as a last resort, and then only when necessary to prevent imminent danger.

The consent decree would also require Chicago police officers to notify dispatchers every time they point a gun at someone, even if they do not fire a shot.

Earlier on Tuesday afternoon, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he planned to file a statement in federal court opposing such oversight.

“Two hours ago, your president—sorry, he’s not my president—your president announced that the United States of America will oppose any consent decree in Chicago to address ongoing civil rights violations by the Chicago Police Department,” Futterman said.

He urged audience members to write to federal judge Robert Dow, who will rule on the decree.

Like last week’s pre-verdict discussion, the panel was broadcast to the University community via live stream. Other campus events following the verdict included a closed discussion on Friday evening moderated by Center for Identity and Inclusion staff, for students to reflect on their reactions to the trial.

THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 12, 2018

3

GSU Talks UChicago Wall Street Ties

By BRAD SUBRAMANIAM senior news reporter

Members of Graduate Students United (GSU) accused UChicago of inappropriately using endowment funds and maintaining excessive ties to Wall Street financial markets at a public panel on Monday titled “Where Funds Go to Dine.”

The panelists supported redirecting funds towards reduced tuition, better pay for instructors, and improved health insurance services.

They argued that UChicago, with an endowment of more than $7 billion in 2017, has the means to improve working conditions and pay for its employees. They suggested that UChicago has instead chosen to compete with other universities for higher endowments rather than provide such benefits.

Saqib Bhatti, co–executive director of the nonprofit Action Center on Race and the Economy, an organization working on the intersection of racial issues and Wall Street, claimed that universities have placed too much focus on prestige and financial success rather than the educational opportunities they provide to students. He added that the trend of university investment in financial markets has also failed to create wealth which benefits communities and students.

“In the financialized economy, Wall Street makes money by moving other money around out of thin air,” Bhatti said. “The financialized economy is really about wealth extraction.”

Elizabeth Parisian of the Hedge Clippers Campaign, an anti–hedge fund organization, added that UChicago is part of a growing number of universities building closer ties to Wall Street banks.

“Now more than half of leadership positions

in research universities come from the finance sector,” Parisian said, referring to financial investors assuming university board positions.

“Just as they’ve taken over key decision-making positions in our government, they’re also doing so in our universities.”

Parisian argued that UChicago’s investment in hedge funds and private equity firms indicates just such a Wall Street takeover of universities. She added that administrators might face potential conflicts of interest when allocating UChicago’s endowment funds because of their involvement in the finance industry.

“I estimated that UChicago paid $69 million in fees to hedge funds and private equity firms alone,” Parisian said.

Claudio Gonzáles, a fourth-year mathematics graduate student and GSU representative, spoke on UChicago’s failure to boost innovation and improve educational infrastructure, while focusing on its rankings and reputation instead.

Gonzales added that larger class sizes, curriculum compression, and the loss of advisory roles for graduate students can be attributed to such a shift in focus.

Though Gonzáles recognized that UChicago has the ability to positively influence its educators, students, and the overall Chicago community, he claimed that the University has fallen short here in its disproportionate focus on wealth development.

“UChicago is infamous as this unaccountable ivory tower—this bastion of ever-growing inequality,” Gonzáles said.

The GSU panel was in light of the organization’s push to gain recognition as a union and raise graduate student wages. GSU may consider work stoppage in case its demands for recognition fail during fall quarter.

GSU members organize outside of Levi Hall at a demonstration in 2017. ALEXANDRA NISENOFF

THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 12, 2018

4

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

THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 12, 2018

5

VIEWPOINTS The Demise of a Hyde Park Treasure A Grocery Store, a Meeting Ground, and a Neighborhood Institution All in One, Treasure Island Was Rightfully Beloved. It Will Be Missed.

BY SAM JOYCE VIEWPOINTS COLUMNIST

The Maroon’s O-Issue this year called Treasure Island “the place to go” for groceries in Hyde Park. One week later, the go-to was gone: on September 29, the Chicago-based chain announced that it planned to shutter all its stores.

While it might have been pricier than the average supermarket, there is plenty of reason to mourn Treasure Island’s closure. “America’s Most European Supermarket” played a key role in the Hyde Park grocery scene as the place to go for things you couldn’t find any where else. Hyde Park Produce, Open Produce, and Valley of Jordan serve their own roles, but none of them boast anywhere near the variety that Treasure Island did.

As a Floridian, I’ve always turned to key lime pie to stave off the gloom of Chicago winters.

Whole Foods sells lime juice, and Hyde Park Produce occasionally offers key limes, but I could only count on Treasure Island to stock bottles of key lime juice: Nellie & Joe’s, pink letters boasting “Famous Key West Lime Juice” over the pastel cottages featured on every label. A fter hearing the store was closing, I carried home five bottles of the stuff. In another Florida parallel, the checkout line that day stretched almost

the length of the store—an atmosphere I’d only previously experienced in the frenzied preparations two days out from a major hurricane. TI’s closure might not be quite that catastrophic, but the urgency of the community was understandable.

That’s because TI was always more than just a grocery store—it was a neighborhood institution.

Books from the Hyde Park Used Book Sale were always displayed in boxes outside the store to then be carted home in Treasure Island’s iconic paper bags. The store also generously provided meeting space to community groups, with everyone from the Hyde Park Historical Society to the Lakeside Quilting Guild gathering in the basement.

Sure, TI was a little more expensive than Aldi or Jewel, but its commitment to the community made it beloved all the same.

In her Chicago Tribune column, Marilyn Katz highlighted some of the benefits of locally owned businesses like Treasure Island: They hire locally, build community wealth, and can be held accountable by locals.

For muc h of t he s t or e ’s lifespan, Katz’s praise seems well-founded. Treasure Island’s CEO Maria Kamberos was rightf ully commended for quick ly opening a new store following the closure of the Hyde Park Co-Op in 2008. Not only did the company

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ensure that Hyde Park residents did not have to wait long for a new full-service grocer, TI also took the step of hiring many former Co-Op employees, saving jobs at the height of the recession.

For many, TI’s closure seems to fit a familiar mold, with yet another local, family-owned store caving beneath the pressure of the big bad big-boxes. The most obvious culprit in this narrative is a familiar one: Amazon, specifically the new Whole Foods on Lake Park Avenue. While Jeff Bezos deserves no praise for his record on labor rights, the information that has trickled out from Treasure Island has made Kamberos seem a little like a small-scale Bezos herself. Somewhere along the way, it seems that TI’s famed community consciousness was lost.

While federal law requires a 60-day advance notice of mass layoffs, Treasure Island employees were only notified in late September that the chain would close October 12 and have so far received no severance pay. A letter in the Hyde Park Herald revealed

that the company informed employees that it would not be providing their health insurance in October. The letter also claimed that management was refusing to respond to calls from rightfully disgruntled employees. With effectively zero warning from the chain, TI’s workers were left stranded.

For many employees, the potential alternatives are bleak. Lorenzo Escamilla, a produce clerk at the Hyde Park location, said at a recent rally that other chains like Mariano’s and Pete’s only hire part-time. Escamilla had been working full-time and receiving benefits at Treasure Island, but now faces an uncertain future.

Treasure Island’s top brass has not only left Hyde Park residents and community groups without an essential community institution—it has thrown the lives of hundreds of people into chaos.

Fortunately, UChicago has the power to right this situation, at least for employees at the Hyde Park location. The University owns the plaza at 55th and Lake

Park and is currently seeking a new grocery store to fill the space.

In its role as landlord, it would be fairly simple for the University to require that any new store reinstate the former Treasure Island employees, with the same pay and benefits, the same way TI hired former employees of the Hyde Park Co-Op. In its search for a new tenant, the University must not only consider the needs of local shoppers, but the future of Treasure Island’s workers. Perhaps most importantly, whichever grocery store fills that space ought to serve not just as a place to buy lime juice, but as an anchor of the Hyde Park community, just as TI did for the last decade.

Sam Joyce is a third-year in the College.

THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 12, 2018

6

ARTS

Theater [24]’s Jovial—and Bizarre—Humor

By OLENKA WELLISZ maroon contributor

Theater [24] began not with a bang, but with a horrifying conglomeration of noises that played separately, inspiring the writers of the five short plays to be performed that evening. To my horror, this announcement inspired the remnants of my pretentious middle-school self to creep from my sweatshirt. I am delighted to say that Theater [24] was hilarious, and maybe even more of a national treasure than the giant ball of lint which served as the backdrop of the evening’s first play, Tuba Practice.

The dra ma opened w ith a husba nd (first-year Imogen Sands) and wife (firstyear Anahita Gogia) trying to get their two children to appreciate something they have traveled many miles to see. Both are unresponsive, however—especially young Jonatha n (f irst-yea r Jonatha n W hite), whose tuba is the only force that can rouse him to display even the faintest signs of life. An apocalypse soon puts an end to familial disputes, and now all are forced

to face a far more important matter: the demon who has appeared to demand a sacrifice. Johnny stands apart as his family weeps; that soul which has lain dormant for so long f l it s—now st r ug g les—now bursts forth! Shakespeare himself could not provide the level of pathos with which Johnny offers his beloved tuba to Satan in order to save his family from death. As he toots one last song, one cannot help but realize that the final notes of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” are also the final remnants of his former self which, like his music, are forever lost to the gentle winds of time as a result of his sacrifice.

The next play, BSE-I-E-I-O is no less tragic, and, as far as I can tell, like the universe in the movie Cars—only w ith cows instead of cars and a great peppering of puns. The play opens with an aged Angus Sirloin (first-year Grey Moszkowski), looking back to his encounter with Mad Cow Disease, abbreviated BSE: Bovine something or other (even he cannot recall). The play returns to his youth in which Woodstock, Angus, and Ferdinand the Bull find that one of their friends has

gone stark-raving-General-Jack-D.-Ripper-level insane with BSE. Alas, the other cows fall prey to the highly contagious malady as well, and Angus, left defenseless, has no choice, it seems, but to…burn them alive in the barn to prevent the disease from spreading? Holy shit.

But fear not: The sweet hand of The Box soon reaches out to help erase all this pain. This is also coincidentally what the play’s titular box does for Topher Glenn (first-year Justin Saint-Loubert-Bie), Janice Carson (first-year Rosa Glen-Rayner), and Kelsey Frasier (first-year Sasha Diaz), the UPS workers who are transporting it.

Instead of reeling from cow death, however, these characters are struggling with different feelings of loneliness and failure.

They come away from their separate encounters with the box stronger than before, and Topher finds himself ensconced in the most beautiful box-human friendship ever depicted.

The same, alas, cannot be said about This Is W hat You Paid For. Actors in a play within a play, the characters forget their lines, their cues, their pants, and

occasionally that they are onstage. This is all to the great distress of the director, who looks every moment as though he is about to collapse in on himself with the force of suppressed rage. It ’s like Clue but better, because the names are so superior: Bethany Bosom (first-year Louise Gagnon), Dr. Pepper (beverage professor) (first-year Cole Meldorf ), Amelia Squillard (first-year Dasha Shifrina), and Obadiah F. Morgan (an egg salesman) (fourthyear Will Shore) gather at a stately home and—gasp—find that there is a murderer among them, and the guests will be slowly killed until they kill the murderer. There is some sort of egg scrambling punchline, but this soon goes the way of the lint ball, and we are left with my favorite line of the evening: “Quick, we have to kill each other so that we don’t get murdered!” Classic.

In short, Theater [24] is a festival of a ll things bizarre and lighthear ted on the stage. More than that, it is extremely joyful, as there are few things better than being in a room where everyone—on the stage and in the audience—is having an enormous amount of fun.

First Man Doesn’t Stick the Landing

By NOAH LEVINE maroon contributor

W h o w ou ld h a v e g u e s s e d t h at a ft er m a k i ng b ot h h i s h a r r ow i ng pa r able W hiplash and momentar y Best Picture winner La La Land, we would find Damien Chazelle here, staring into the empty vastness of space unaccompanied by even a lick of jazz? His upcoming project, First Man, based on the biography

by Ja mes R . Ha nsen, traces Neil A r mstrong ’s elliptica l path onto the luna r sur face and into the anna ls of histor y.

Since his last feature reanimated a genre that died with Busby Berkeley, I had hope that Chazelle would be able to break the listless gravity of that other Holly wood staple, the biopic. Unfortunately, First Man can be neatly shelved among those other recent pictures in that genre (Darkest Hour, The Imitation Game, etc.) that lack not competence, but sophistication.

W hile ostensibly biographical, First Man begins with A rmstrong ( played by Ryan Gosling ) as a NASA test pilot and swiftly transitions to the Apollo missions, paring down the story such as to remove anything that would place this arc within t he w ider contex t of h is li fe. A f ter his young daughter’s death from cancer at the onset of the f ilm, A r mstrong is quick ly ma rsha lled into NA SA’s f ledgling astronaut program and conscripted into their mad plan to beat the Soviets to the moon. His ever-supportive, yet justi-

fiably concerned wife (played by Claire Foy) is always at his side even through the mounting funerals for his peers that never made it off the ground.

Ryan Gosling’s Neil Armstrong is a laconic archetype of masculinity, his psyche as impenetrable as the Earth’s upper atmosphere. From the beginning, it is clear that he has the right stuff—he responds to every voiced doubt with a quick rejoinder a nd throws himself at ever y task w ith suicida l daring and self-conf idence. He k nows he is prepa r ing for a mission from which he may never return but never hints at why. Is it for his deceased daughter? His living wife and children? Because it’s there? Armstrong comes across a s less hu ma n t ha n t he android Gosling played in Blade Runner 2049 last year.

Ryan Gosling stars as Neil Armstrong in what is ostensibly a biopic. courtesy of variety mag True to its genre, First Man is a film obsessed with the importance of the sto- “style.” It is this claustrophobia, rather on the achievement itself rather than a ry it is telling. Even considering its flight than any dramatic tension, that makes dry profile of its most famous participant. sequences, most of the feature’s 138-min- the scenes of spacef light always vertig- As we have it, the film’s greatest moment ute r u nt i me is d ia log ue: t he weig ht y, inous and sometimes thrilling. may be just after this: an excerpt from supposedly powerful dialogue in which Yet for all of First Man’s self-impor- President Ken nedy ’s speech in wh ich these historical dramas specialize. NASA tance, it nearly misses its opportunity to he dared us, as a nation and as a species, bureaucrats heatedly discuss the fate of dwell on the significance of its conclu- to reach the Moon by that decade’s end. their mission. Armstrong’s wife mourns sion—the landing itself. Armstrong am- Here the film confronts the profoundly his recklessness. The camera hangs on bles out of the Eagle and onto the Sea of mythic quality of the Apollo 11 mission— each line, punctuating these moments Tranquility, delivering those words that its role as the telos of the age of reason in w it h t he ac tor s ’ deter m i ned si lences will be repeated for as long as there are which we find ourselves living. The only and unnerving stares. Almost the entire men to speak them. He moves purpose- thing that extraordinary about First Man film is told in close-up, composed with a fully, at a loss for the first time in this is how it is able to strip such a feat of just shocking amount of camera shake which f i lm. Watch ing th is clima x , I saw the that quality. must be Chazelle’s intended stand-in for movie as it could have been: a meditation

A Star Actor and Singer are Born

By JOHN PARRY maroon contributor

Poig na nt a nd honest, Brad ley Cooper’s A Star Is Born embraces the messy complexities of life and love. W hile the f ilm revolves a round the development of the relationship bet ween A lly (Lady G a g a ), a n a s p i r i n g s i n g e r, a n d Ja c k ( Brad ley Cooper), a vetera n musicia n, it doesn’t fit the mold of the ty pical ro-

ma ntic d ra ma . W hat ma kes A Star Is Born unique is that the primary conf lict is not derived from the relationship that seems to take center stage. Ally and Jack are arguably perfect for each other and appear to share a deep understanding of one another that not even the audience can fully understand. At the same time, their relationship is not without discord.

But the tension is not brought about by a clash between the two characters’ per-

sonalities. Rather, it emerges from the addiction. Ally attempts to advance her over whel m i ng sel f- doubt a nd my r iad career, but is repeatedly held back by her insecurities that each experiences indi- attachment to Jack, despite his failure vidually. to adequately suppor t her in her ambiA S ta r Is B or n i s not a “ fe el go o d ” tions. W hile Jack ’s periods of sobriety movie. It highlights the cyclical nature are heart warming at times, they begin of human failings and is unrelenting in to lose their magic as the film progresses. its juxtaposition of happiness and misery. The audience begins to feel that lasting Jack attempts to achieve sobriety again change is impossible. and again, each time falling back into the The contrast of pa in a nd optimism comfortable arms of alcoholism and drug continued on pg. 7

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“A Star Is Born is not a “feel good” movie...[it] is unrelenting in its juxtaposition of happiness and misery” continued from pg.

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portrayed by Lady Gaga as A lly is truly a m a r vel , show i ng r e si l ienc e a nd de termination in the face of unrelenting hardship. Cooper’s performance as Jack tragica lly depicts the other end of the spectrum. Jack is desperate to do right by the people he cares about most, but constantly falls short. Both deliver performances that are nothing short of remarkable, especially considering Lady Gaga’s limited acting experience and Cooper’s heretofore hidden musical talent.

Even if some viewers might not find the story and characters fully engaging, most will agree that the concert scenes a nd mu sic a l p er for m a nc e s a r e t r u ly spectacular. Even without the powerful vo c a l s of L ady Ga ga a nd (su r pr i si ngly) Cooper, the overall cinematography ( particularly for the musical scenes) is stunning. The use of lighting creates a sense of cinematic depth that transports the audience into the arena, as though you’re watch ing the concer t f rom the

stage itself. Such scenes help to break up the slow-moving plot and reenergize the audience as the tone of the movie grows heavier.

Grounded in its solid performances, the film finds its major issues in a few careless editing choices. With a runtime of approximately two hours and 15 minutes, this mov ie is long by Holly wood standards. However, certain scenes suggest that there may have been a longer, more complete version of this movie that was pared down, ultimately to the film’s detriment. At one point, towards the end of the film, we meet George (Dave Chappelle), for whom the audience is given little to no backstory, despite his role in a crucial scene. There is some suggestion that he’s known Jack for a long time, but his presence in the film feels jarring. Additionally, several other scenes feel like they were cut off before their intended conclusion. These decisions may have been part of the original script or ref lective of the director’s vision, but the rest of the film’s coherency suggests other-

The third remake of the iconic musical drama exposes the hidden talents of its main actors.

courte-

sy of ign

wise. Nonetheless, when set against the overall power of this film, these issues seem trivial in comparison seem trivial in comparison.

Lady Gaga’s compel li ng t heatr ica l performance and Cooper’s extraordinary musical performance are among the most pleasant surprises of this film. By not re-

lying too heavily upon tragic extremes, the film manages to achieve a universal relatability that highlights the struggle against one’s own f laws and desire to be understood.

Students Spent a Night at the Museum for a Year’s Worth of Art

By ADRIAN MANDEVILLE maroon contributor

October 7 ma rked the second a nniversa r y of the Sma r t Museum’s A r t to Live With program since its revival from 1980s. Starting the night before, students living in campus housing lined up to collect 150 works of art–double the amount offered last year–at absolutely no cost.

Follow ing tradition, many camped out in front of the museum overnight to get first dibs on the selection.

The first person to show up was Hayton Oei, a third-year economics and English double major with his eyes set on a Picasso. He got there on October 6 at 11:50 a.m., a lmost 18 hours before the program opened its doors. He said that other people started coming around 2 in the afternoon. People brought homework, books, and board games to pass the time.

Third-year Hayton Oei was the first student to arrive, almost 18 hours before the event, and snagged a Picasso that he had his eye on.

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In Final Days, TI Struggled to Stay Afloat continued from front

The Hyde Park Co-op had already vacated the site, for which the University forgave more than a million dollars in unpaid rent so that Treasure Island could take over the lease.

Outside of informing employees that TI would be going out of business, the Kamberos family has not commented publicly on the closure. Following Christ Kamberos’s death in 2009, the Kamberos family made news with an internal lawsuit in which Christ Kamberos’s daughter, Christi Matthews, accused her stepmother, Maria Kamberos, of alienating her from Christ Kamberos and deliberately decreasing Matthews’s inheritance.

Financial Symptoms From the Hyde Park store, things looked fine. According to employees, it was the most successful of Treasure Island’s six branches.

Hyde Park residents and University students would mill about, grabbing bread and boxed wine, respectively.

Recently though, the Hyde Park store’s shelves were sparse. The store director told the Hyde Park Herald that there were “delivery issues with vendors.” The store had also not been keeping its temperature logs for freezers and display cases for some time Kevin Jackson had worked at Treasure prior to the closing announcement, according Island for over nine years. He says that he to employees. arrived to work at 6 a.m. that morning. At Employees also said that deliveries from about 9:30 a.m., Jackson received the letter. suppliers like Pepsi, Frito-Lay, and American He said his goodbyes and left soon after: Wholesale Grocers had been inconsistent for “That was my last day of work. The letter about two months before the announcement, stated, ‘You can stay and work your complete and that there had been no deliveries in the work day, but after today, we have no more preceding three weeks. use for you, simply put.’”

The issue? Treasure Island wasn’t paying Angela Graves-Saverson had a similar its bills. story. She had heard rumors that the stores Anthony Marano Co., a produce whole- were going out of business, and those fears saler, is suing the company for nearly half a came true when she received her letter. Her million dollars in unpaid deliveries. husband said that Angela called him “almost According to Myonna Jackson, a former in tears” on her lunch break after finding out. bakery manager, the company had been Myonna Jackson worked in the Clyimposing budget cuts for nearly two years. bourne store before it closed. She said that Some weeks, she said, the bakery could hard- she returned from a vacation, only to find ly make anything. out the next day that the store was closing.

“They kept telling me, ‘Don’t order noth- Jackson was transferred to the store in Old ing this week.’” Jackson said. “My budget Town, just two weeks before the company would usually be about $2,500 a week; I had announced all of its branches would be closto shut that down to anywhere between $800 ing. to $1000. What can you buy with that?”

“For you to not give us any type of notice, “We didn’t even have enough money to it’s telling us you don’t care,” Jackson said. buy supplies,” fellow bakery employee Ariel “All this patronizing about being a family and Williams added. “So, if we’re making cup- everything? You don’t treat your family like cakes, right, now we don’t have the contain- this.” ers to put the cupcakes in. Our budget for supplies was $100.”

Legal Action Before announcing all the stores would According to federal labor laws, employees close, Treasure Island quietly began closing were supposed to receive a 60-day notice of locations. the stores’ closing, called a Worker AdjustIn late August, the Kamberos family sold ment and Retraining Notification (WARN). the parking garage next to the Boystown Attorney Karen Engelhardt is filing a class location for $6 million. The next week, the action lawsuit against Treasure Island on becompany closed their store in Lincoln Park. half of the employees from all six branches A statement called the closure a “relocation” of the store. and promised that the new store would be Engelhardt is also suing the company announced “in the coming months.” over unpaid personal time off that many emMost employees from the Lincoln Park ployees had accrued. store were transferred to the other branches, “I haven’t heard not one call, nothing which closed mere weeks later. [from the Kamberos family]. No one contactSince informing employees and credi- ed me,” she said at a Hyde Park community tors that the brand was shutting down, the meeting earlier this week. “So it looks like we Kamberos family has refused to speak pub- will probably have to go the way of litigation, licly. High Ridge Partners, a financial distress and we’re prepared to do that.” management group, has taken control of TI’s The United Food & Commercial Workassets and is searching for buyers. ers International Union also filed a lawsuit against the company for violating the 60-day Employees WARN rule.

Treasure Island employees received a letter Some employees have organized with on the morning of September 29, a Saturday. Arise Chicago, a faith-based workers’ rights The note explained that it would be “impos- activist group. Together, they organized a sible for [the store] to continue to operate rally outside the Lakeview store earlier this without losing money.” Treasure Island CEO week.

Maria Kamberos, who signed the letter, offered “heartfelt gratitude” to the employees, The Almighty Landlord and wished them luck in future employment “I hope the University is doing its utmost to searches. find a replacement for Treasure Island. That

jeremy lindenfeld

physical location is central to Hyde Park,” one resident said at the community meeting, which was attended by both University administrators and representatives from Fifth Ward Alderman Leslie Hairston’s office.

“We are,” Derek Douglas, vice president of the Office for Civic Affairs, replied. “We got you.”

The University is currently seeking a new grocery provider to rent the space. According to Douglas, the University found out Treasure Island was closing “late in the evening” on September 28, the night before employees were notified.

Because the University was “blindsided” by the announcement, they do not have another vendor lined up yet.

Angie Marks, Associate Vice President of Real Estate Operations, is responsible for choosing a replacement vendor.

She said the University will “cast a wide net” to find interested parties, but declined to provide any specific businesses they are interested in. She said that the University has already received many suggestions from residents and the Alderman’s office, and they are in the process of reaching out and identifying which might fit best with the community’s needs.

Marks did not offer any predictions for how long it would take for a new store to move in and open. “We’re going to be working aggressively every day to get it done,” she said. “We will continue to provide regular updates as we have them.”

As for the employees themselves, Hairston suggested at the forum that, when a new grocery store opens in the location, former employees should be considered for new posi-

tions. Douglas replied that many new restaurants in the area had hired employees from the establishments they replaced.

Chicago Grocery Stories Along with Treasure Island’s space, the University is the landlord for much of 53rd Street, including the neighborhood’s other independent grocery store, Hyde Park Produce (HPP). HPP is one of 43 independent grocery stores currently operating in Chicago, according to a study on urban grocery stores

by Mid-America Real Estate.

The study, which ran from 2015-2017, emphasized the growing prominence of “major players” like Whole Foods/Amazon, as well as the spread of “food deserts”—places where finding fresh produce and other nutritious essentials is challenging or impossible— in urban Chicago.

The study’s two-year period saw about 544,500 square feet of operating grocery store space evaporate due to closures or consolidations, and noted that the average size of opening grocery stores is only 25,000 square feet. The average size of closing stores was 38,000 square feet. Treasure Island was 50,000 square feet.

Jewel-Osco is currently the biggest player in Chicago’s grocery store scene, with 51 stores, and Aldi runs close behind at 49 locations. The closure of Treasure Island’s six locations in Old Town, Gold Coast, Hyde Park, Boystown, Streeterville, and Wilmette represents a significant blow to the presence of smaller groceries in Chicago.