102021

COFFEE SHOPS PLAN TO REOPEN SIXTH WEEK

OCTOBER 20, 2021 FOURTH WEEK VOL. 134 ISSUE 4

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Remembering Marcus Goodman

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Marcus on his first house trip to Promontory Point for a cold lake swim.

“There are no happy endings. Endings are the saddest part. Just give me a happy middle and a very happy start.” —Shel Silverstein.

Marcus and Adrianna on a study date outside North.

Marcus and his family (left to right: Jeff, Sofia, Marcus, Rebeca) at Machu Picchu, Christmas 2017.

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF ADRIANNA LAYNE

SPORTS: Women's tennis takes home silver in the ITA Cup.

ARTS: Why we're talking about Squid Game.

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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 20, 2021

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230 Students Participate in Memorial 5K Run to Honor Max Solomon Lewis on Sunday

By ERIC FANG | News Reporter Last Sunday’s Max Solomon Lewis Memorial 5K race was marked by perfect weather—clear blue skies overhead and warm afternoon sunlight illuminating the Midway ice rink. Jointly organized by Promontory Investment Research, Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi), and Lewis’s close friends, the event was held

to honor the late Lewis’s memory.

Before the race began, Lewis’s friends Zach Cogan, Dylan Zvi, and Joyce Liu gave speeches describing their memories of him.

Cogan, the first speaker and principal organizer of the run, was Lewis’s best friend and AEPi brother. He ex-

5K runners crossing the finish line. COURTESY OF ERIC FANG

plained that the inspiration for the 5K stemmed from Max’s passion for taking daily runs or walks around campus.

“Today we run or walk in honor of the most avid runner and walker I have ever known,” Cogan said during his speech.

“Max was the kind of person to walk 30 minutes from 61st Street to Whole Foods for a box of LaCroix in the morning and return again in the afternoon at the same ridiculous speed. This comes despite the fact that Max lived two minutes away from a Jewel-Osco that carries plenty of seltzer.”

Cogan encouraged attendees to try not to be somber during the memorial. Instead, he urged them to enjoy the food and music and to celebrate Max’s memory.

“Today takes us one step closer to a true angel,” Cogan said. “When we cross

that finish line, I promise you Max will be there with us crossing it too. Today is about having fun and celebrating Max. The fact that over 150 college students are out running on a Sunday morning speaks volumes about how special Max was and how strong of a legacy he has left behind.” There were 230 runners participating in the event.

Zvi, another AEPi brother, spoke after Cogan. He praised Lewis’s ability to uplift the spirits of others and his constant willingness to help others with no expectation of getting anything in return.

“If you are down, Max would do everything he could to make you feel better,” Zvi said. “I’m sure that this grief I am feeling would be much easier to get through if Max were here to help me CONTINUED ON PG. 3

Runners gathering before the start of the 5K. COURTESY OF ERIC FANG

THE CHICAGO MAROON — OCTOBER 20, 2021

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“The fact that over 150 college students are out running on a Sunday morning speaks volumes about how special Max was and how strong of a legacy he has left behind.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 2

through it.”

“It warms my heart to see everyone out here supporting him today, keeping his memory alive. Whether you knew him or not, I’d like for all of you to

continue keeping his memory alive by spreading good wherever you can.”

Lastly, Liu told the audience of both her academic relationship working alongside Lewis in Promontory Investment Research and their personal rela-

After the run, there was live music and food. COURTESY OF ERIC FANG

tionship as friends.

“Through my interactions with him in Promontory, I immediately picked up on and was inspired by his genuine intellectual curiosity and desire to learn,” Liu said. “Whenever we had a club presentation or speaker, you could always rely on him to ask an interesting and thoughtful question.”

After the speeches, the 230 runners took their starting positions just north of the ice rink on Midway Plaisance. The route took runners on a lap of the Midway Plaisance, bounded on the east by South Dorchester Avenue and the west

by South Cottage Grove Avenue.

In an interview with The Maroon following the event, organizer Eddie Fitzpatrick, a close friend of Lewis’s and his AEPi brother, was overjoyed by the event’s success.

“Our initial goal was about 200 runners,” Fitzpatrick said. “We ended up with 230 sign-ups at the end of the day, which was absolutely fantastic.”

Upon completion of the course, runners and spectators enjoyed live music and catered food and drinks. Cogan encouraged attendees to donate to the Max Solomon Lewis Memorial Fund through

an online GoFundMe fundraiser.

All proceeds from the run, including those from the fundraiser, will go toward a variety of charitable causes.

These causes include Hillel, Chabad, gun violence prevention organizations, victims of Chicago gun violence, and the Rivkin Center, which Lewis’s family founded 25 years ago in honor of his grandmother who passed away from cancer.

“Everything came together really well,” Fitzpatrick said regarding the organization of the run. “There were no major hiccups. The reception and the live music [were] great, and it was really awesome to see everything come to fruition. It could not have been a better day.”

“The event was beautifully orchestrated,” said runner and AEPi brother Gavriel Karsch after the 5K. “Zach Cogan took it upon himself to organize this whole thing, and he worked very hard, night and day, to make sure it went smoothly. This is an awesome way to show support for a brother, and the fundraiser has raised a lot of money to prevent things like this from happening again, and that’s why I came.”

Student-Run Coffee Shops Aim to Reopen by Sixth Week

By RUBY RORTY | Editor-in-Chief Harper Café, Hallowed Grounds, Cobb Café, and Ex Libris plan to reopen during sixth week, according to Parker McWatters, UChicago’s program manager for student retail.

Plans are in place to have at least one of the four shops back in business by October 25 and the other three operating

by November 1. Until student-run shops reopen, students can visit several other cafés on campus, including the Starbucks in Saieh Hall, Plein Air Café, and Pret a Manger in Hutchinson Commons.

McWatters said the program is prioritizing reopening Ex Libris first due to its status as the largest and most trafficked shop, but the order of the reopenings

will ultimately depend on which shops’ equipment is deemed functional following an inspection.

After being shuttered for over a year and a half, the coffee shops need to inspect their facilities and equipment and hire and train new staff. Additionally, some suppliers of student coffee shops went out of business during the pandemic or stopped delivery, meaning that the shops have been searching for new vendors for ingredients and supplies.

The program is looking to hire 70 staff members across the four stores.

Harper Café alone received 130 applications, according to third-year Aleeza CONTINUED ON PG. 4

Students may see new events and menu items at Harper Cafe.

COURESY OF ANGELINA TORRE

THE CHICAGO MAROON — OCTOBER 20, 2021

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“We have a year coming up of great teamwork and great coffee.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 3

Hassan, the general manager of Harper Café. Interviews are being conducted this week, and training will begin during fourth week. Hassan expects Harper’s training to take between one and a half and two weeks, putting the cafe on track to open along the timeline McWatters presented.

Hassan said that this year’s training will be extended in order to teach new hires how to work in a coffee shop safely.

“Our new training is going to take into account how to make amazing drinks, but also how to take care of COVID-19 safety.”

To minimize the risk of spreading COVID-19, employees will be required to check their symptoms at the start of every shift, wear a mask and gloves while working, and adhere to the latest guidelines set out by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration. “We want to make sure

we are compliant, and more than compliant, safe. With the delta variant, some CDC guidelines are behind what they should be,” McWatters said.

In addition to COVID-19 safety protocol, students may see new events and menu items this quarter. Hassan said Harper is trying to host open mic nights with comedy RSO Life of the Mic and the spoken-word poetry RSO Catcher in the Rhyme. Harper may also offer new drinks, including a cardamom rose latte

and traditional 12-spice chai.

Hassan acknowledged that the relationship between student-run coffee shops has been tense at times in the past, but she said general managers are hoping for more cross-shop collaboration this year. “Everyone is short on staff and we’ll all need extra help—all the cafés are amazing in their own way and are a part of the University community, and we have a year coming up of great teamwork and great coffee.”

University Reports 15 Positive Cases, New Downtown Testing Location Available

By YIWEN LU | News Editor A UChicago Forward update sent on Friday reported 15 new cases for COVID-19, down from 17 during last week. As of Friday, the total number of positive cases is 107, leading to an overall positivity rate of 0.21 percent.

This week’s new cases had 195 close contacts. Less than five students are iso-

lating on campus. Among off-campus students, eight are in isolation. To date, 64 students have been released from isolation.

For fully vaccinated individuals who will participate in the University’s voluntary testing programs, weekly testing will start this month.

Students and staff who have enrolled in the University’s mandatory or voluntary COVID-19 testing program can choose to receive their test at Chicago Booth’s downtown Gleacher Center location. The location became available on October 19, and it will be open twice a week on Tuesday and Friday from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Friday marked the deadline for satis-

fying the University’s employee vaccination requirement. Employees are asked either to upload their proof of vaccination or anticipated dates of vaccination if they are not fully vaccinated or apply for medical or religious exemptions. According to the email, more than 91 percent of University employees have been vaccinated, with the goal being to achieve as close to a 100 percent vaccination rate as possible.

College Council Representatives Elected for the Classes of 2023 and 2025

By MICHAEL MCCLURE | Senior News Reporter With 104 votes, Miriam Sills was elected as the fifth College Council (CC) representative for the Class of 2023 in a special election. The five elected CC representatives for the Class of 2025 were also announced after voting concluded last Tuesday, October 12.

Sills fills the position vacated by Parv Golwelkar before the beginning of the 2021–22 academic year. In a post on the University’s Class of 2023 Facebook group, Sills cited her membership on the Committee on Marginalized Student Affairs and her identity as a low-income college student as factors driving her candidacy.

“I am confident that I can bring my

experiences as a low-income student to expand academic and professional resources, improve access to critical mental health resources, and continue sexual assault prevention and awareness,” Sills wrote in the post.

The other candidates for the position were Simon Jordan (90 votes), who ran on a platform of honoring the life of his late classmate Max Lewis, and Daniel Gendy (25 votes). There were also 10 abstentions and six votes for write-in candidates.

Of the 18 candidates on the ballot for the Class of 2025, Devin Johnson was the top vote-getter with 217 votes. Jordyn Flaherty (203 votes), Ariana Ukaonu (172 votes), Chelsea Wu (150 votes), and Kate

Wehle (139 votes) will be the other Class of 2025 representatives. A total of 2100 votes were cast, including 17 abstentions and 171 write-ins.

According to fourth-year Allen Abbott, Student Government’s executive vice president for internal affairs, about 15 percent of the Class of 2023 and 28 percent of the Class of 2025 cast ballots.

The results come three weeks after fourth-year Marla Anderson was chosen as CC chair. Anderson replaced Murphy DePompei, who was initially elected to the position of vice president for administration but became CC chair in June once Student Government’s split went into effect. DePompei resigned from her role in July.

The complete roster for the 2021– 22 CC is: College Council Chair: Marla Anderson Class of 2022 Representatives: Isabel O’Malley-Krohn, John Fuentes, Alexander Vinarov, Harry Gardner, Justin Smith Class of 2023 Representatives: Tyler Okeke, Bianca Simons, Summer Long, Ángel Rosales, Miriam Sills Class of 2024 Representatives: Connor Lee, Ash Arian, Jefferson Lind, Evelyn Li, Darya Foroohar Class of 2025 Representatives: Devin Johnson, Jordyn Flaherty, Ariana Ukaonu, Chelsea Wu, Kate Wehle

THE CHICAGO MAROON — OCTOBER 20, 2021

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ARTS What’s Left to Say About Squid Game?

Talking about Squid Game isn’t nearly as interesting as talking about talking about Squid Game.

By VERONICA CHANG | Arts Reporter This review contains spoilers for Squid Game, which is not about squids. Or even really about games. You’ve been warned.

I wasn’t going to write a review of Squid Game. While addicting enough to binge in one night, I found the show uninspired, bogged down by predictable side plots that meandered far too much and a main character that I didn’t want to root for but knew would survive to the end. Squid Game had nothing new to say.

But then everyone started watching it. Everyone had a meme to laugh over or

an opinion to share. The show has now become Netflix’s biggest hit, overtaking Bridgerton and Lupin. Suddenly, Squid Game—or more accurately, people’s reactions to Squid Game—was something I could write a review about.

Squid Game follows 456 contestants through a series of deadly games modeled after common Korean childhood pastimes: Red Light, Green Light; Tugof-War; the titular “Squid Game,” etc.

The contestants compete for 45.6 billion Korean won, their ticket out of crippling

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loans they cannot pay back. Through its nine episodes, Squid Game uses its games to test the contestants’, and by proxy humanity’s, capacity for goodness. It’s a simple premise, emulating the psychological tensions of Japanese manga like Liar Game and Kaiji as well as the shock horror of iconic action-thriller Battle Royale. Take a group of people and isolate them: When they are in an environment beyond their control in which there are clear stakes, winners, and losers, their true natures will reveal themselves.

Of course, in Squid Game, these natures are all too easy to predict. Perhaps due to its massive cast and breathless pacing, the show resorts to shallow archetypes that allow little room for development. The Gangster (Heo Sung-tae as Jang Deok-su) is covered in tattoos, so he is evil, and he does things like push around The Young Girl. The Young Girl (Jung Ho-yeon as Kang Sae-byeok) is mysterious and a loner, so she gets a tragic backstory (North Korean defector looking to reunite with her family) to make us feel even more sympathy for her tragic death at the hands of The BestFriend-Turned-Traitor (Park Hae-soo as Cho Sang-woo), a death which is then used to motivate The Main Character (Lee Jung-jae as Seong Gi-hun) before the final game. The Main Character is an everyman who both befriends weaker contestants and, when desperate for his life, tricks them: He shows how even the “nicest” among us often fall short of true goodness—and yet we should still be empathetic because it’s the Rich Beneficiaries of Capitalism that put him in this position. It’s difficult to sustain empathy without development, though.

Gi-hun starts Squid Game as a terrible father and son, and he ends Squid Game as a terrible father and son. Squid Game's characters are elevated by great acting performances (Lee, Park, and Jung are a

standout trio), but most of them are little more than tropes.

The games themselves are exciting but unspectacular—contestants win through a combination of luck, prior knowledge, and physical strength (we’ll get to the marbles game and Anupam Tripathi’s brilliant portrayal of Ali later). Where Squid Game departs from tropes and transforms into something worth talking about is in the context of its games. As a critique of Korea’s hyper-capitalistic society, Squid Game never lets its viewers forget why exactly the contestants are so desperate. Episode two, aptly titled “Hell,” sees the players vote to end the game and go home—only to realize the hell of their lives outside the game and opt back in at the next possible opportunity. Squid Game suggests that the game’s organizers (the rich elite) control the contestants’ every move regardless of any “choices” given. It’s a clever analogy for the illusion of free will in a capitalistic society, which deludes the people at the top from seeing the havoc they have wrought on the people they have abandoned at the bottom.

Hyper-capitalism pervades even the meta of Squid Game. The show was shopped around for over ten years, with writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk even selling his laptop at one point for sorely needed cash. It’s only due to Netflix’s massive investment in Korean media (around 550 billion won, or 500 million dollars, this year alone) that Squid Game was picked up (its more graphic scenes would have warned away most Korean broadcasters, which adhere to strict standards for what can be aired on Korean TV). It’s doubly ironic, then, that an investment from an American company led to a show critiquing capitalism in a society with a market structure defined by post-war American forces. EspecialCONTINUED ON PG. 6

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“While "Squid Game" has succeeded...it is at its best when it allows those nuances to work within the dramatic structure of a game.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 5

ly when the popularity of said show has drawn in a large American audience that has been eager to criticize Korea’s capitalism without considering America’s continuing role in it and for which the show’s nuances and cultural inspirations have at times been ignored or deliberately misunderstood.

I should digress here to say that I’m not Korean, and I don’t speak or read the language. The Netflix subtitles for Squid Game are supposedly inaccurate (unsurprising, given the number of times they’ve botched other international media), but I don’t know enough to write about that. Even acknowledging the effects of incorrect contextual information, I’ve been disheartened by the amount of takes I’ve read on Squid Game that attempt to force it under a distinctly Western lens. There’s “Squid Game is like The Hunger Games because it follows a battle royale format and also like this little-known Japanese movie Battle Royale” for people who don’t like East Asia, the “Squid Game is like Parasite because they both talk about capitalism and also because they’re both Korean” for people who watched the 2020 Oscars and don’t like East Asia, and the “western viewpoint when analyzing honorifics as a survival mechanism [in East Asia]” for linguistics university professors who can’t be bothered to do basic research and don’t like East Asia. It could be due to the default prevalence of Western media on a global scale, but there’s a strange and depressing tendency to categorize East Asian media along Western morality and cultural lines—as with Vox’s Aja Romano consistently fetishizing Chinese historical fantasy epic The Untamed as a "queer romance novel.”

Still, while Squid Game has succeeded regardless of any cultural or contextual familiarity, it is at its best when it allows those nuances to work within the dramatic structure of a game. This can be seen in episode six, “Gganbu” (“trusted friend” in English), arguably the emotional climax of the show. Throughout Squid Game, the tainting of familiar childhood games with death acts as a

metaphor for the destruction of innocence within society—a metaphor taken to the extreme in “Gganbu,” where the contestants are instructed to pair up and then take their partners’ marbles without resorting to violence. Contestants who are willing to trick their partners survive, betraying any lingering internal goodness and destroying the trust built up from previous games’ partnerships.

And in the case of Sang-woo and Ali, betrayal is a stark reminder of the societal structures that exist even among those abandoned by society.

Squid Game’s Ali is an unfortunate and necessary examination of Korea’s treatment of migrant workers, who frequently face substandard housing, withheld pay, violent abuse and more. His use of honorifics and a deferential tone when speaking reflect his vulnerable position in Korea’s homogeneous society, so when Sang-woo indicates that Ali can address him as “hyeong” rather than “sajang-nim,” he replaces (but does not eliminate) their difference in status with friendliness. Ali repays this friendliness by trusting Sang-woo, ironically making him more vulnerable to the latter.

Sang-woo knows he can take advantage of this vulnerability, but Ali does not: He dies because he believed he was winning their game—because he put his faith in the goodness of someone above him in the social hierarchy.

And that’s what society demands for goodness: It demands that we trust, again and again. It’s the central conflict of economic problems like the prisoner’s dilemma and manga like Liar Game. Yet in Liar Game, the innocent and “good” characters are allowed to survive because their goodness is protected by others—their trust is never betrayed when it matters most. Its focus is on the psychological twists unveiled within its games, protected by a narrative vacuum.

In Squid Game, only Oh Il-nam (O Yeong-su) is protected.

I’ll admit, I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about the last-minute reveal of Il-nam as the evil mastermind. On the one hand, it reshapes his earlier kindness in a more insidious light (he was

Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) in Netflix's Squid Game. Or, my expression when I realized this article was over 1500 words. COURTESY OF NETFLIX nice because he could afford to be nice) and drives home Squid Game’s point that games cannot exist within vacuums, as no playing stage is ever truly fair. On the other hand, it destroys Gi-hun’s only real source of character development: Not only does it ruin a relationship of mutual respect the writers had worked hard to build, but the plot twist also excuses Gi-hun’s malicious deception of Il-nam in “Gganbu” since Gi-hun was the one being fooled instead. So, while the message is there, the twist does feel a little too much like a twist for the sake of a twist since Ilnam says his speech and then dies right after, leaving Gi-hun and the viewers with no opportunity to develop.

Squid Game’s side plots feel similarly pointless, existing only to fill screen time and set up a future season (assuming police officer Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Hajoon) follows the classic K-drama rule of not being dead unless a body is shown and maybe not even then). Actually, the reveal of Jun-ho’s brother (Lee Byunghun) as one of the game’s front men is so predictable that without having watched a single episode, my mom guessed it after being told “the side plot is the police officer looking for his missing brother.”

Meanwhile, the foreign VIPs are disgusting, but in that ridiculous way where they’re disgusting just to be disgusting and jar the viewer out of the show whenever they’re on screen, and the organ trafficking…happens.

Squid Game’s weaknesses—that the games are predictable and that everything outside of them feels contrived and boring—are ultimately what make discussing the show so fascinating. The show asks its viewers, over and over, to consider how our definition of “good” can transform, yet coverage forcibly separates Squid Game reviews from articles on the show’s contextual history. So I find myself wondering the same thing of Squid Game: Do its questions about “goodness” change with how people have interpreted them?

I began this review by saying Squid Game had nothing new to say. It’s also accurate to say I have nothing new to say about Squid Game. But Squid Game tells us that games cannot be divorced from their environment and that events cannot be isolated from their contexts, so let’s talk about Squid Game—and let’s talk about why we’re talking about Squid Game.

THE CHICAGO MAROON — OCTOBER 20, 2021

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Pitchfork Lives On

By ZEFF WORLEY | Arts Reporter For the first time in two years, Pitchfork Music Festival came roaring back to Chicago’s Union Park.

Boasting an impressive lineup featuring some of the biggest names in indie music today—Angel Olson, St. Vincent, Waxahatchee, and the ubiquitous Phoebe Bridgers—alongside perennial favorites—Kim Gordon, Animal Collective, Caroline Polachek, Erykah Badu—the festival, run by the magazine of the same name, prophesied a dramatic, monumental return to a post-COVID Windy City large-scale scene. Like Lollapalooza a month earlier, Pitchfork Fest drew a crowd desperate for entertainment after a year all but devoid of it. At every turn they were willing to put up with the trials and travails that naturally accompany 40 different acts and 20,000 attendees, braving dust storms, the occasional technical misfiring, and roaming bands of forty-something men entirely too old to pull off a skeleton onesie.

Local Chicago outfit Dehd helped kick the festival off with vocalist and bassist Emily Kempf commanding the stage as the group swept through an array of songs running the gamut from surfy lo-fi to post-punk yelps. Dehd, whose most recent album Flower of Devotion came out last summer, has steadily increased in popularity since their formation in 2015. They are now one of the most promising independent rock acts in the city today.

Further Sunday highlights included Hop Along, whose brand of folk-tinged rock drew a sizable midday audience, as well as the similarly-inclined Big Thief.

Animal Collective, unfortunately, was a noticeable disappointment. The Baltimore group lacked not only energy but also the sheer volume to reach all the blanket-lounging concertgoers stretched out before the stage, delivering what was ultimately a collection of forgettable, if commendably soporific, downtempo electronic tunes.

However, the winner of the day—if not the festival—was either Black Midi or Phoebe Bridgers, both of whom reveled in their craft as few others did.

Black Midi, a pseudo-jazz four-piece band and one of the myriad U.K. ex-

perimental post-punk groups to break onto the scene in the past couple years, slipped and sped out to the Merrie Melodies theme song, hefting a green (your humble narrator suspects Wayfair) sofa between them, and almost immediately burst into the sort of technical, orgiastic playing which has defined their sound since 2019’s Schlagenheim.

Los Angeles’s Phoebe Bridgers, her band members all outfitted in the same skeleton jumpsuit that adorned the cover of last year’s indie darling Punisher, ripped through a succession of old and new tracks, alternately illumined by reds and purples, oranges and yellows, grays and white. Wasting no time, she immediately burst into the hit single “Motion Sickness,” soon followed by the similarly upbeat “Kyoto”; she capped off the set with a rollicking performance of “I Know the End,” leading the crowd in jumping exultations—and just as immediately stalking off the stage.

Almost as entertaining as the music was the people-watching. To catalogue the ranks of disaffected kicked-around hipsters, art school slack-offs, beat poet rejects, steamy-eyed Goose Island advents, and those humble and beautiful souls who wanted nothing more than to document the Faye Webster Better Distractions Peach Lager would be a Sisyphean task, one left unaccounted for by this photographer. In light of the pandemic, every outing becomes a chance to newly prove yourself or to remake yourself entirely, whichever you feel so inclined to on the day.

Other notable acts throughout the weekend included Faye Webster, who delivered a characteristically laid-back, pleasant, and warm show, albeit one mixed entirely too quietly, and Flying Lotus, who played quite possibly the loudest set in the entire festival to an ever-changing backdrop of psychedelic vortices. Chicago locals Divino Niño flexed their considerable chops in a wildly entertaining display of bilingual lyr-

ics, ultra-danceable beats, and dreamy guitar noodling.

Unexpected guests also made an appearance—dream pop rocker Angel Olsen brought out her friend and collaborator, Sharon Van Etten, to perform their duet, “Like I Used To.” Olsen in particular drew a large and vibrant crowd, one which understandably lost its mind when she played “Shut Up Kiss Me,” the poltergeist of Spotify playlists.

The neo-soul talent Erykah Badu headlined Sunday—the only sold-out day of the festival—with an exuberant display of costumes, lights, and chrome showpieces nostalgic for the imagined futures of yesteryear.

All in all, Pitchfork Fest provided a lot of hope for the future of post-COVID concert-going. It’s not perfect, and many of the rules seem to be made up as you go along, but it’s the best you can get given the present circumstances—and as we all learned again over the weekend, there’s nothing else like live music.

"Pitchfork Fest drew a crowd desperate for entertainment after a year all but devoid of it." COURTESY OF ZEFF WORLEY

THE CHICAGO MAROON — OCTOBER 20, 2021

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Marcus Goodman, A Kind-Hearted Person Who Loved It All Goodman’s girlfriend, Adrianna Layne, remembers the people and things he loved most.

By ADRIANNA LAYNE | Grey City Contributor Editor’s note: The following memorial to Marcus Goodman was written by his girlfriend, Adrianna Layne, in consultation with Goodman’s parents, Rebeca Arbona and Jeff Goodman.

This content contains mention of suicide.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health or suicidal ideation, please see the resources provided at the bottom of this article.

When asked to describe Marcus Goodman, a UChicago third-year who passed away on September 27, many people talk about the same things: he was a good person, kind and tenderhearted, and he always had a smile on his face. He never failed to be the silliest person in the room or to be there when people needed him.

As a former housemate in Shorey House, Afsanneh Amleshi, a fourth-year, put it, “He was one of those rare people who said thank you every time at the end of class to the professor. Marcus and all his warmth, fun, and kindness is really missed.” Marcus was the kind of person who waved to strangers, who always dropped by the International House front desk to ask how the staff’s day was going, and who would walk across campus to deliver a Pret chocolate croissant and a hug if he knew someone was sad.

But one thing few people mention, something only his mom and I, his girlfriend, have the heart to say is that Marcus Jacob Goodman had bad taste. During his mother Rebeca’s speech at his funeral, we pieced together that he was bad at picking things out because he saw value in everything and everyone. To him everything was pretty, and everything had value, and he didn’t discern against people or things because he loved it all. Marcus Goodman

loved just about everything that wasn’t a tomato, pineapple, or eggplant.

So this memorial is a journey through some of the things he loved most.

Marcus loved his family. He was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, but his family comes from all over. His mother is Puerto Rican, so his family is split between there, New York, and many other places.

In order to stay connected, they had two weekly Zoom calls (on Wednesdays and Sundays) that he always made sure to build time in his busy course schedule to attend. There, he’d try to help his Aba with her laptop while also frequently forgetting to take his own computer off mute.

In these calls he’d catch up with his parents and grandparents and his older sister, Sofia, and they’d talk about anything and everything: social events, his decision to drop the chemistry major for computer science, how he missed his cats but was having a good time in class.

Marcus and his older sister, Sofia, are four years apart: The week he graduated high school, she graduated college. They were always close, and before he returned to school for the 2021 autumn quarter, he visited her in Texas, where they went rock climbing, dealt with broken-down cars, and went on multiple adventures to try to find somewhere to swim. He loved every minute of their time together, and he loved her and the rest of his family a lot.

Marcus was fondly called the cat whisperer by those who knew him best.

His family’s three cats, Kala, Mako, and Reggie, were a highlight of visits home. As his mom put it, “Marcus never met a cat he didn’t like. He loved every cat he ever met, and his own cat Kala times 1000.”

At the beginning of September, we stayed CONTINUED ON PG. 9

Marcus and his sister Sofia the week of their graduations. He was graduating from high school and she from college. COURTESY OF ADRIANNA LAYNE

Marcus in early September 2021, out for giant milkshakes. COURTESY OF ADRIANNA LAYNE

THE CHICAGO MAROON — OCTOBER 20, 2021

9

“[Marcus] was bad at picking things out because he saw value in everything and everyone...he loved it all.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 8

in an Airbnb in Virginia where we found three kittens living under the porch. For a week, he nurtured them, because Marcus never met a cat that he didn’t instantly fall in love with.

It feels silly to say he loved food because everyone loves food, but Marcus’s relationship to food was special. He would mix together a bunch of random ingredients he liked and call it a meal, even if the combination would turn anyone else’s stomach.

His dad is the chef of the household, and Marcus had recently started learning how to cook. His favorite food of all time was sushi, but when he was in Hyde Park, he loved to eat at Strings Ramen and Seoul Taco. He had one or the other at least once a week. He could almost always be found snacking on wasabi peas or seaweed and he was Shorey House’s unofficial seaweed dealer. He loved to try new things: He grew up with a family saying that trying something new adds a day to your life. He was always getting people to try new foods and activities because he loved to share the things he was passionate about.

Marcus also loved music. He had a playlist that he used for everything that he titled “Would Listen To Again.” His best friend, third-year Christian Dixon, told me that he’s been listening to the playlist a lot lately: “It’s nice to imagine him jamming out to it while listening. Marcus couldn’t dance and he couldn’t carry a tune, even though he played trumpet in high school, but he loved to dance and sang anyway. He was goofy and happy, and his dancing put a smile on his and everyone else’s faces.”

Marcus loved being outdoors. In high school, he ran cross country and played frisbee, and he continued going on regular runs while at UChicago. He spent a lot of time in the Garden of the Phoenix in Jackson Park, especially in warm weather. He always found time just to be outdoors or do his homework outside when the weather was right. He didn’t like the cold, though, and could be spotted travelling with a fuzzy black blanket year-round.

One of the things he loved most was his house at UChicago, Shorey. That’s where we met, and also where he met his

best friend, Christian, as well as his family away from home. His Resident Head Natasha said, “He was part of the house.

Even during the Zoom year, everyone knew him because he was at every meeting and always around, if he wasn’t there it felt weird. This year I decorated the lounge with pictures of house events to show people what the house was like before Zoom, and he’s in every picture.” He participated in every house activity, from karaoke to field trips, and even ran house movie nights. His housemate Elizabeth Singer said, “everyone in the house loved him because he was generous, sweet, kind, wise, compassionate, understanding, and affectionate. [Marcus was] a really beloved person that made every event or evening in the lounge brighter.”

On September 25, we went to the MSI and wandered around the Marvel exhibit for what would turn out to be our last date. I always brought him out to things I wanted to see, because he didn’t care what we were doing. He just wanted to spend time with those he cared about. In turn, Marcus reminded me that it’s important to relax, and take breaks, and be kind to myself.

On September 26, Marcus spent the day meeting new people in Shorey, having lunch and helping them fix the projector for another house movie, and he had a great day. Shorey House was a source of so much joy for Marcus at UChicago. It’s where he played Just Dance in the lounge into the late hours of the night and where he drank too much coffee to stay up and do homework. It’s where he and Christian binge-watched television every week. We had our first kiss in the I-House study rooms, and a few days later he finally got the courage to ask me out, with a little push from everyone else in the house. At Shorey and in I-House, Marcus built a home of people he loved.

On Monday, September 27, Marcus Jacob Goodman took his own life. The people I’ve spoken with who loved Marcus saw no signs that he was suicidal. To me, Marcus’s death was a reminder that everyone faces their own struggles. I want to tell readers that it’s important to reach out when you need help.

Marcus rock climbing in Texas before returning to Chicago for the Autumn 2021 quarter.

COURTESY OF ADRIANNA LAYNE

Marcus (far right) at Promontory Point his first year with friends from Shorey House.

COURTESY OF ADRIANNA LAYNE

On Thursday, September 30, the University held a reception at International House. Marcus’s teachers and classmates came, alongside Shoreyites across years and people who had met him once but on whom he made an impression. He would have loved it. There was a ton of food, and some friends even brought wasabi peas.

On Sunday, October 3, at his funeral, more than 400 people came to show him and his family love and support, with many more joining online.

Because while Marcus Goodman did love everything, he was also really loved

in return.

For more stories about Marcus, visit the tribute wall on his obituary: https:// www.weilkahnfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Marcus-Goodman/#!/TributeWall The University’s Student Counseling Services are located at 840 East 59th Street. Students may schedule appointments by calling (773) 834–WELL or visiting the Student Wellness Website. The 24/7 Therapist-on-call can be reached at (773) 702–3625. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached at (800) 273–8255.

THE CHICAGO MAROON — OCTOBER 20, 2021

10

SPORTS Soccer Celebrates Senior Day Twelve women’s players and six men’s players were honored as both teams beat NYU

Counterclockwise from top left: Head coach Amy Reifert, Sara Salvino, Austen Dellinger, Christina Pirrotta, Adriana Shutler, Emma Smith, Miranda Malone, Maddie DeVoe, assistant coach Linnea Kremer, assistant coach Marlon McKenzie, Peyton Jefferson, Anna Kenig-Ziegler, Tabitha Bishop, Nicole Kaspi, and Nicole Willing. COURTESY OF STEPHAN BATES, WCS PHOTOGRAPHY

Peyton Lane (#9), Vicente Mateus (#10), Sahil Modi (#8), Ben Brandt (#6), Kyle Ruark (#7), and Calvin Walters (1) posed with thier families pre-game.

COURTESY OF STEPHAN BATES, WCS PHOTOGRAPHY

THE CHICAGO MAROON — OCTOBER 20, 2021

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Maroons Secure Silver at the ITA Cup Three members of the women’s tennis team competed in the ITA Cup, taking a runner-up finish back to Hyde Park

By FINN HARTNETT | Sports Editor Three members of the University of Chicago women’s tennis team flew to Georgia last week to compete in the 2021 Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Cup. The four-day event would be a memorable one for all players involved; first-years Sylwia Mikos and Shianna Guo impressed with a second-place finish in doubles play, and Mikos and fellow first-year Miranda Yuan registered solid singles performances.

The ITA Cup is held annually in Rome, Georgia, a city of about 37,000 people. The tournament features the winners and runners-up from various NCAA Division II, III, NAIA, and Junior College tournaments across America, where each division has its own separate singles and doubles brackets in the cup.

The ITA is a large institution; it handles tournaments and activities that involve over 1,200 schools and 19,500 student athletes. The cup itself featured 103 different schools and 283 student-athletes.

The tournament began on Thursday, October 14, with the University of Chicago players getting off to a rough start.

In the Division III singles bracket, Yuan dropped her first two matches, losing 7— 5, 6—2 to Gabi Moss of Washington & Lee University and 6—3, 6—2 to Crystal Zhou of Carnegie Mellon University. Mikos, who had been ranked as the No. 4 seed in the bracket, also lost her first match to Angie Zhou of Pomona-Pitzer, 6—3, 6—2, but rebounded in the consolation bracket to beat third-year Sabrina Tang of Grinnell College, 6—0, 6—3.

That same day, Mikos and Shianna Guo competed together in the doubles tournament. The pair dispatched the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) team in straight sets, 6—4, 6—1, to advance to the next round.

Head Coach Jay Tee said at the end of the day that he was especially happy with this last match. “It was great to get a doubles win against CMS to end the day because it gives everyone confidence

heading into the second day and allows us to relax a bit,” he said during the Athletics Department’s press conference.

“We had a tough start to the day—which was somewhat expected with a group playing in their first national event—but once they found their footing and started to believe they belonged, they played much better.”

The next day, Yuan won her consolation match against Jamilah Karah of Bowdoin College, and Mikos lost a hard-fought game with Kristal Dule of North Carolina Wesleyan College. Again, though, the real story came from UChicago’s doubles play: Mikos and Guo won two matches in the space of six hours to advance to the cup finals. The pair saw off the Pomona-Pitzer team easily, winning 6—1, 6—3, but their semifinal opponents from Wesleyan University proved a lot tougher; the Maroons dropped their first set and saw the next two go to tiebreaker rounds. Cast into a critical moment, Mikos and Guo delivered, winning both tiebreakers to take home a famous 4—6, 7—6, 10—7 victory.

The final was played in sunny, chilly weather midday on Saturday. Mikos and Guo’s competition was an NYU team also made up of two first-years: New York native Dakota Fordham and Estonian Carol Plakk. It was a hard-fought match; again two of the sets were decided by tiebreaker rounds. In the end, NYU edged them, 7—5, 6—7, 6—3. “They were definitely a good team,” Guo said of NYU after the match. “I feel like the mix of the people we played…and how we were feeling during the match made it tougher. There was a lot of nervousness.”

Though the Maroons settled for silver, the three of them can hold their heads high. They held their own against competition from all over the country and went home with two medals to show for it. “I feel like every tournament we go to, we’re learning more about each other and growing as a team,” Mikos said.

Shianna Guo (left) and Sylwia Mikos (right) with their trophies. COURTESY OF UCHICAGO

The three Maroons pose at the ITA playing site in Georgia. COURTESY OF UCHICAGO

THE CHICAGO MAROON — OCTOBER 20, 2021

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State of the Union: Da Bears

By DHEERAJ DEVARAJAN | Sports Reporter A diehard Bears fan returns from a trip to the moon on which he embarked in 2019. They do not have telecom towers on the moon, so our friend—let’s call him George the Astronaut—has no clue what’s happened with the Bears. George returns home to Chicago on a Sunday afternoon, walks into his bachelor pad, and turns the television on, eager to watch his beloved Bears and their stud young quarterback Mitchell Trubisky light up the Detroit Lions. He turns the television on and sees “Fields” on the back of the jersey of the guy throwing the ball. “Where’s Mitch?” he thinks to himself, so he takes a trip online to figure out what the hell has gone on with the Bears in the last two years. He is utterly bewildered by what he reads.

No Super Bowl? No playoff wins? Everybody hates Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy?

Mitch is a backup on the Bills? Andy Dalton? Every moment of confusion, sadness, shock, and pure anger that every Bears fan has felt in the past two years hits him all at once. George is every Bears fan, and for the last couple of years, it seems like this fanbase, one of the most loyal, rowdy, passionate groups of people in the world, has been toyed with by Bears management. Will that change? Let’s take a look at what’s going on in Halas Hall right now.

Finally, FINALLY, the Andy Dalton charade has come to an end. Nagy announced this past week, after months of indefensible decision-making, that Justin Fields would be the permanent starter on this Bears team. Fields has started

two games thus far. Game one was disastrous, primarily due to a pathetic offensive game plan by Matt Nagy which involved practically no use of read option, bootlegs, or basic play-action plays. As a result, the Bears’ offensive line, which is by no means stout, gave up eleven sacks to the Cleveland Browns’ defensive line.

No NFL coach’s seat was quite as hot as Matt Nagy’s in the days that followed that game, and he made the decision to give up play-calling duties to Bill Lazor against the Detroit Lions. There doesn’t seem to be a better team to play than Detroit when coming off a bad game; nevertheless, things looked different for the Bears as they rolled to a 24–14 win.

Star running back David Montgomery was heavily involved in the game plan— as he should always be—and Fields had more time to throw the ball downfield than he did in the Browns game. Lazor’s play-calling and sequencing involved more playaction usage and allowed the Bears’s receivers to take advantage of the Lions’s less than stellar defensive backs. While Fields’s statline wasn’t great (he completed 11 out of 17 passes, accumulated 209 yards, and threw for zero touchdowns and one interception), his talent was on full display; he made a couple of eye-popping deep throws to Darnell Mooney and Allen Robinson.

Positive signs for sure. Now that Fields has been confirmed as the long-term starter, next week’s Raiders game will likely be a much better test and a better indication of what things will look like for the rest of the season.

So what do the Bears need to do this season to ensure Fields’s progression?

For me, the one thing they must do without fail is leave him in there. He loses a couple of games? No problem! Let the kid play! You’re not contending for a Super Bowl or a deep playoff run this year, so even if on a losing streak, let Fields learn about NFL defenses, how to deal with a locker room as its unquestioned leader, and the scrutiny that comes with being the quarterback in a media market as big as Chicago’s. Lazor and Nagy must tailor their game plans to suit Fields’s greatest strengths: his strong arm and his speed. The consistency and accuracy might not quite be there yet, but it will come with time. For now, give him the opportunity to play outside of the pocket, use him in the designed run game, and get guys open using an offensive plan as opposed to relying on individual talent alone. The Bears’s best offensive player, David Montgomery, will miss the next few weeks of the season, so things might get tough. It doesn’t matter. Let the kid play.

To conclude, let’s talk about this Bears team as a whole. The defense has been pretty good so far this season, and, through Week 5, in spite of their lackluster secondary, they have held their four opponents (including three 3–1 teams) to an average of under 23 points a game. This is largely due to their defensive front generating pressure on the quarterback; they lead the league in sacks with 15 in just four games. Robert Quinn and Khalil Mack have both had great starts to their bounceback seasons, with 5.5 and 6 sacks respectively.

Additionally, Jaylon Johnson has been consistently playing above expectations; Pro Football Focus ranks him as the second-best corner in the league thus far. In terms of their offensive weapons, there is a lot left to be desired. Jimmy Graham and Allen Robinson are likely out after this season, the offensive line needs to be remodeled with second-round left tackle Teven Jenkins leading the way whenever he returns from injury, and the Bears need to prioritize Darnell Mooney and David Montgomery, who look like the team’s top wide receiver and running back respectively for the foreseeable future barring major injury.

There’s a lot of work to be done in the offseason if this team wants to contend in the future, but for now, let’s focus on the 2021 NFL season. After catching up on the two years of Bears football he missed out on, George the Astronaut, albeit flabbergasted, sees some light at the end of the tunnel. If Nagy and Pace play their cards right, this team could be set up to dominate the division for the next decade and a half. The Minnesota Vikings seemsto be stuck in a gray area between contending and rebuilding with no way out for the next couple of years, the Lions are likely retooling for the long haul, and up in Green Bay, it may be the last season on the Packers for the big bad wolf who wears number 12. Bears fans, there is hope. As Ted Lasso would say, “Believe.” Nagy and Pace, on the other hand, face a hot seat and the pressure to give Fields what he needs and help him develop. Otherwise, change is on the horizon. Your move.

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